Focus on what you can control; Have something to look forward to


My friend recently gave the title of this post as sound advice during a Thanksgiving party. Focus not on the craziness of life, because bad things happen and you can’t always stop bad things from happening. You definitely cannot control the past, you can’t control other people, and you can’t control every circumstance you fall in.
Focus instead on what you can control. The future, yourself, and your actions to put yourself into better circumstances.

I’m not sure my friend realizes this, but he gave me this advice before, a long time ago when I was getting divorced.

He told me to make a list, set small goals. Life was spiraling out of control, then, and I did what he suggested. I went to the FedEx store and bought 3 white chocolate KitKat Bars and moving boxes. My goal was to pack. That was my only goal. Packing was what I could control that day, and so I did that.

My life is MUCH better now, haha. I’m at a new point in which I want to push myself in new directions, but I am in control.

So the rest of this post is about the second half of his advice: Have something to look forward to. I’ve made a list of fun things for me to look forward to in the next year. Many are things I did this past year, which I want to do again, others are fun events like movies and video games releasing on the dates.

And my list does make me feel hopeful. There’s a lot of fun upcoming!

Things to look forward to in 2017 (updated as more comes):


Holidays and Days Off
Video Games
Movies and TV
Cool Events
L

January

12        Switch Direct 
13        Snow Day
16        MLK Day
21        Women's March on Washington

February

5          Superbowl
20        Presidents’ Day
28        Horizon: Zero Dawn


March

3          Nintendo Switch
6          Pulaski Day
21        Mass Effect: Andromeda 
28        Fantastic Beasts Bluray

April

7          PRIME 24/Hour New Play Festival
9          Wizard World Comic Con
8          Spring Break
11        Yooka-Laylee


May

29        Memorial Day
            Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales


June

2          SOHO Music Festival
13-15   E3 Expo
25        Game of Thrones Returns


July    

4          Independence Day


August

5 & 6   Pixelpop Game Festival
12        Missouri Games Con
20        Opening of Halloween Stores


September

Renaissance Festival
Strange Folk Festival
4          Labor Day
8          It Remake
22        Autumn
            Red Dead Redemption 2 (sometime in autumn)
25        My Birthday
29        Archon – sci fi con


October

31        Halloween


November

11        Veteran’s Day
16        Fantastic Beasts 2
23        Thanksgiving
            Macy’s Parade


December

6          St. Nick’s Day
15        Star Wars Episode 8
24        Christmas Eve
25        Christmas Day
31        New Year’s Eve


Without known dates:

secret thing
Snow Days
ending this post with a pic of me (from the other day) next to something I'm NOT looking forward to


2016 Game of the Year


So, this list isn’t a list of my favorite games that released in 2016… this is a list of my favorite games I played this year. Some are old games that I just finally got around to, some are new games.


Want to know who won in other years? Here’s the 2018201720152014, and 2013 lists.

2016 is THE YEAR OF DOWNLOADABLES!

Every single game on my list this year is one I downloaded. I suppose this will be pretty much the same, going forward, but it’s still crazy. I love buying physical copies of games, but some, notably ones with collectables, I usually want on my system without any disk or cartridge to worry about. 

 

So, without further ado, my 2016 list of favorite plays (in no particular order):


Fallout 4: Nuka World
I love Bethesda. When I wrote this list of DLC improvements I wanted for Fallout 4, I was surprised how many of them I actually got. Build-your-own robots, concrete and glass workshop parts, ways to initiate attacks on your settlements, more pets, mannequins, and even a new radio station… and so much more that I wanted!

But Nuka World was way more than that. It was everything I could have ever dreamed. It is 100% the best DLC ever in a Fallout game, and in fact in almost any game ever. This was probably my number 2 GOTY. Nuka World surprised me with working roller coasters, fun Mickey Mouse inspired characters, functioning games, and a million other happy-go-lucky things draped in Fallout’s sense of something’s wrong-style.


Pokémon Y
When Pokémon Go first came out, I was without a phone (well, a phone powerful enough to play any games—I had an older iPhone model). So, I missed out on the craze as it unfolded… so I bought Y for 3DS and played through it. Pokémon is fun, at its core. I’ve missed out on so many generations, simply because I became disinterested, but this one hit the spot for me during the Go phenomena. I enjoyed it.




Fallout Shelter
When I finally got a phone, this was the first game I downloaded. I love Fallout. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT, and so this was a no brainer. My vault, 444, is at about 150 dwellers currently, and I still play every day. I’m hoping that there’s more DLC soon, and I blogged about my ideas for new high-level rooms they could add. This game feels like the original Fallout in some ways, especially during missions. I could see them expanding Shelter into a full out AAA game if they wanted. Allow for the building of settlements, etc. Better missions.


Witcher 3 DLC
Two huge DLC expansions came out and I played the heck out of them. The first one, Heart of Stone, was possibly the best mission in all of Witcher 3. The second one, Blood and Wine, I like less but it’s still great. I have yet to beat the second one, but I’m taking my time because I want to get all the trophies and end up with 100% on my list for the game.


Journey
What a weird game. I won’t spoil anything, but it’s very much worth playing. I replayed a few levels, but I don’t think it really needs much replaying. The game sticks with you. There’s something very special about it. I got it for free on PS+, which was awesome. Great game!


Honorable mentions: (still just games I played in 2015, not necessarily released)
No Man’s Sky – There is a lot to enjoy about this game, even if they did not deliver everything they promised. It’s like the Alpha build of Minecraft… if they had marketed it as such this game would be crazy popular. TIPS
Pokémon Go – I like catching Pokémon at the mall. This game is a fun toy, and ‘member berries make the nostalgia come out while catching the first 150.
Minecraft – I kicked up my server early this year and had fun with the old Otherside gang. Although my server is down again, you never know when it will come back for another round…
Super Mario Maker – Building levels was fun, but I wish they would have had better DLC. Costumes are stupid.
Batman: Arkham Knight’s DLC – I platinum’d this game, and I don’t want to say how long it took to unlock the Brutality 101 trophy. Review here!
LittleBIGPlanet 3 – I picked up and played through ¼ of this game when I got bored. It’s fun, but lacks the charm of the original.
Tuber Simulator – this game has that mobile-addition quality. It was fun during Halloween to get the seasonal stuff.
Simpsons: Tapped Out – What a sweet little gem. I still play this every day, and seeing the huge cast of the Simpsons and rebuilding my own Springfield is a great time.
Plants Vs. Zombies/PvZ Heroes – With my new phone, I had to play PvZ games. I replayed the original on my PS3 this year, and then the new games on my phone. Heroes surprised me with a fun card game.




The Oxyborb Blog Game Of The Year for 2016

Rocket League


I first played this game on a Gamestop demo unit, and I knew right there I would go home and buy this. The gameplay core is SOOO fun. It’s car soccer, and you get jetboosters to fly around and make crazy jumps. I’m now a veteran in rank, and I have to say that I’m pretty friggin good at RL.

I picked this as my GOTY because through every other game I’ve played this year, every month that went by, I always came back to play around round of Rocket League. Finished with Witcher 3 DLC? Play some RL. Beat Nuka World? Play some RL. Have a crappy day at work and need to get it off my mind? Play RL. Rocket League is always the right game. Always fun.

I have to give the developer credit:  They’ve been adding paid and FREE DLC like crazy all year. They even think to change up the music in the title screen to make you feel energized. Rocket League is an awesome game and it is by far my favorite game of 2016.  More thoughts about RL from me can be found here!

 

So, I guess that’s it for 2016. Thanks for a great year on my blog! Let me know what you think in the comments, in fact, tell me what your personal GOTY was!


Thanks for stopping by my blog!
UNRAVELSPACE UNRAVELTIME

Sketching with Harrison: Round 2

  So, I like to sketch. As you might have already seen, I like to take an art pen and doodle. Most people pluck out theirs phones and check their notifications when they have a moment of free time; I draw. I don't usually know what I'm drawing until it's out on the page, so that's what was happening here. (I'm not a professional artist, or even a wannabe, I just enjoy it)

So, here are a few of those sketches. (Round 1)


this is a creature from my novel, The Unraveler. It is called a Kudanite.











Another creature from my novel, but instead of sketching it for what it looks like, I put a quote from my novel inside of it

sometimes I don't know why I draw something. This picture doesn't know which way is up

can weirdness think of something weirder? I guess that's what this is. I'm not sure why there are lips behind the thought-monster, though

I sketched this for a short story I wrote! I used pen for the blue


24/hour New Play Festival – The Transmigration Show


I directed a play the first weekend of November for a 24/hour new play festival, and it was awesome!

If you’ve never heard of a 24/h NPF, here’s a quick explanation: 6 directors, 6 writers, 6 teams (of 2-4) actors come together at a meeting at 8pm on Friday night. They are randomly divided up and assigned to each other. The writers stay up all night and write a 10-minute play. Then, the director and actors meet up early in the morning and begin to memorize and rehearse the plays. At 8pm Saturday, 6 ten-minute plays are performed together. 


So, it’s new plays written, rehearsed, and performed within 24 hours. 
 

I’m sort of a vet of these. I did them once or twice a year with a (now gone) group called Immediacy Theatre Project (ITP). When that company died out, I moved to Seattle for a few years, and many of them moved in different directions on the map as well. Others wanted to pursue other interests.

 
my play (mega-talented actresses! Fantastic!)
After a few years without ITP, a few of the old members began feeling the urge to get back into the game, and so a new theatre company, called PRIME, was born.

Their first show was the one I’m writing about, called The Transmigration Show. Transmigration basically means reincarnation, and our theme of the show was various karmic cycles.

I was a director, which means I was in charge of quite a few things: keeping us on schedule, making lists of needed props, firing up the actors when they get stressed, being the one to say “one more time” when we’d all rather not, knowing when to back off and let the actors clear their heads, interpreting the script and helping the actors understand their characters, run lines as needed, ready any technical needs, block out where the actors move on stage, enforce breaks as actual “breaks” rather than more script-reading or stress building, and being chief contact between stage management and actors during the day.

I’ve done acting and writing for these plays before, but I’ve found directing to be the most fun. I’m not the best memorizer of lines and I’m not a late-night person, so there’s that. Beyond that, I love getting to add artistic input from the director’s POV. 


Directing is like being the one in charge of molding the diorama. You can challenge the actors to think differently about the characters. You can block [move characters] out how actions in the play occur. You’re in charge of nonverbals. Basically, the writer, the script, dictates what the actors say, but the director molds the intensity of the words, the movement of the bodies, the props and set pieces the actors interact with, and all the things the words don’t show.




If a line is said a certain way, it can change everything.

There was a moment during my play where one character says, “Hold my hand.”



During our first read, she said the line childishly, as if she’s just a little girl wanting love. But, as a director, I molded the play into a battle between two characters for the compliance of the third, and so “Hold my hand” became “Hold my hand,” the my being said competitively, jealously, as a command, in spite of the rival hand holder.

I loved working with my team of writers, actors, show runners, and crew. They were sooooooo talented and wonderful. I had such a great time. We also had artists paint/photo/etc. and display their pieces. I think, as an aspiring author, nothing beats being surrounded by talented and passionate artists, all collaboratively creating great art.



Reminds me of this awesome quote:

"Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. 

Make good art. I'm serious. 

Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? Make good art. 

Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art."

- Neil Gaiman

Brand New Cell Phone




I have finally gotten a new cell phone. I haven’t had one since leaving Seattle, mostly because I hate phones. But, I have one now, and I wanted to write a bit about that. I bought a Galaxy 7 Edge. It’s got this cool case that protects the screen and also can be used as a touchscreen through the hard case. It uses NFC for a cool “closed case” screen. 
 
touch-shell closed
BTW, after years without, I’m pretty out of the loop about what good apps and phone games there are. I’m playing Pokémon Go, of course, but if you have recommendations please let me know!

One of the first things I did with my phone was prank my friends. With a brand-new number, not a single person would know who I was, so I used that to send text message pranks.

 

To one, I said, “Hey Jeffrey (his name’s not Jeff) can we talk?”


He replied – “Wrong number.”


I said, “Stop playing, Jeff. I want to tell you about the ghost I saw in the attic. The white lady appeared again.”


 

I went on to tell a ghost story, leading up to the ghost saying the actual name of my friend, then me revealing the prank. I pranked another friend by telling him he was subscribed to premium updates from a fake organization, leading into the organization knowing things that he keeps in his apartment and where he was traveling to next, haha. People that know me irl know I’m mischievous like that, and my friends are quick to figure me out. 


I love Halloween
After posting my actual number to my friends on social media, someone [unknown] texted me asking me to play 20 Questions to try and figure out who they are. We had fun, but I didn’t get it right. It was someone from my college years who I lived next to in my dorms. Very cool person!

Something else I’ve been doing is toying with the voice command. When you say “OK Google” the phone listens to you and tries to do what you tell it. But sometimes it outsmarts me. 

 

Me - OK Google, sing to me.


Google - OK! *procedes to play Justin Beiber music*

Me - *frantically lowering the volume and closing apps, trying to kill it*

Google - *music is still playing* "As long as you love me, love me, love me..."

Me - *No apps open, no browsers open... song is still playing when the volume goes up* "OK GOOGLE STAHP!"

Google - OK! [lol] *music stops*

Me - laughing crazily at being outsmarted by a phone



...
...
PART 2

Me - Driving home thinking about how weird it is to give voice commands to a phone. Nothing works like using a keyboard and mouse, imo

Google - [try me]

Me - "OK Google, what are Voldemort's seven horcruxes, then?"

Google - "According to the Harry Potter wiki, there is the Tom Riddle diary, Tom Riddle's father's ring, Slytherin's necklace, the RavenClaw diadem, the Hufflepuff cup, the snake and finally Harry himself. Notice that nothing of Griffendor's was ever used."

Me - ...




That’s all for now, but why not follow me on Twitter and then check out this blog post about a phone game I recently played [Fallout Shelter]?

Fallout Shelter: Ideas For New Rooms


I recently bought a phone, after a few years stretch of being without one. So, I’m playing catch up with all the games you’ve been playing for years. One of those is Fallout Shelter.

As of this writing, I have about 120 dwellers. After 100, there are no new rooms to unlock and the game seems to be thinning out in the scope of future accomplishments. So, I started thinking up ideas for new content that would expand the game’s life.

Library

A new room could be a library. The purpose? To collect comic books and other magazines, also to store bobbleheads. Basically, once built, you will begin to find books and bobbleheads and other collectibles on your adventures into the wasteland. I imagine being able to do a “top 5 display” of each collectable type in the library, which would give you perks based on which comics you display. Like, “Grognac the Barbarian” might give you a “faster strength training” perk. Upgrade the room for more “display” slots.

Automatron

A robotics room would be another great addition. For every “block” of this room, you can build 1 robot (or turret that you can place somewhere, such as the vault doors). The robots would be security, fire-safety, joke-tellers, mission-goers, or simple workers. They could have stats based on the parts you collect out in the wasteland or craft from junk. Upgrade the room to craft “rare” and “legendary” parts.

Chem Lab

Weird how we have a Fallout game without chems! This can be corrected with a new room. Chems would obviously give your dwellers a boost in the heat of battle. Also, the chem room is a great place to build grenades and other traps (more on this later)! Upgrade the room for “rare” and “legendary” chems to craft.

Traders/Merchants/Storefront

A new friendly group to enter your vault could be traveling caravans. Build the new storefront room, and merchants will autopopulate the room every once and a while. Sell off junk/weapons/armor to them for better (or worse) prices. Buy specific junk or weapons or design documents from them for high prices. Upgrade the room for better prices and better merchant inventories. 

Security Room

A room designed to fight off incoming swarms of baddies. Basically, this room would provide your dwellers with a boost to defense. Also, dwellers in the room “collect” attract tokens like radio rooms attract new dwellers, and when used, attract tokens initiate specific types of attacks from raiders, ghouls, or monsters. Upgrade the room for better defense and more token storage.


New High-End Storage Room

With all these new ideas for rooms, one thing is certain: We will need better storage. Half my vault feels like it’s filled with storage rooms. I want a new room, like the Super Reactor or Nuka Bottler, which holds waaaaay more than the lower-end rooms for a higher price. A super storage room would allow me to make room in my vault for a bunch of new high-end rooms and also give me more space to store bobbleheads, comics, automatron parts, chems, and any other future DLC that comes my way. It doesn’t even have to be a new room; it can just be several new levels of upgrades for my old storage rooms. 


Thanks for reading. Please follow me on twitter and hit the +1 button. It helps me out! Leave a comment telling me your own ideas for rooms.


Pixelpop 2016 in the STL


While at Archon, a local sci fi convention, I got a flyer about Pixelpop, which is a smaller video gaming convention. So, of course I went. It was held at the St. Louis Science Center. Although it was small, it was worth going to see, because it was fun. I sat in panels and played gaming demos. I want to highlight here a few of my favorites.


 

I’ll start with VR Funhouse from Nvidia.

This was my third VR experience ever, my first VR game. Before, I had only watched a dinosaur demo at an AT&T store using a cellphone VR and also I’ve experienced a roller coaster using Google Cardboard. They were… not extremely impressive, to be honest. OK. Not amazing, but cool enough.

Using an HTC Vive headset and controllers, I demoed two minigames within a carnival setting collectively called VR Funhouse. The first game was using swords to pop balloons. It was fun. Cool to have a real VR experience, too! But… let me tell you… the next one I tried did it for me…


Wall Walkers. Is. Awesome.

And dumb, but I was legitimately laughing out loud while playing it. Basically, the mini game consists of pressing a button, which drops down a slimy-stretchy octopus toy before you. Using the two controllers as hands, you can grab the octopus and fling it across the room at a target on the wall. It’s like those old stretchy hand toys you get from a quarter machine.

The physics are amazing and hilarious. When you pick one up, it slogs around as you’d expect a real one to. You can shake it like jello and then throw it. SLAP! It sticks where it hits. But you can also use two hands and stretch the rubbery toy out and even sling it like you might a rubber band. Let me tell you, it’s so funny in motion. There’s no way to describe it in text to do it justice, but man… try this one. I was laughing so hard. The mechanics of this stretchy octopus thing should be the center of its own game. I don’t know. Octo-man?


First-person text-based adventure

The other game I saw that wowed me was Text Quest (there’s a demo on the site!).

The look of this game feels very much like Minecraft. It’s first-person and the graphics are minimalist. 

However, instead of blocks, everything is literally text. Fire, for example, will be the word fire pointed upwards and pulsing like flames in orange and red font. Your sword is not a picture of a sword, it is the word sword, pointed out like a sword.
It’s really cool looking. Everything you walk up and touch can be interacted by bringing up your keyboard and typing what you want. So, to go through a door, you type “open door.”

The developer was taking notes on what I typed out while I played. I tried to push the limits and he seemed to enjoy the creative things I typed. Hopefully, when it comes out, the limits of your words will surprise you.

It’s somewhere between Scribblenauts and Minecraft in feel. If the developer releases player-creation tools then this game will be a goldmine, I swear. I would love to make my own adventures and send them to my friends.

Archon 2016 – Best and Worst of YA Lit Panel


October has been busy for me. Every weekend has been filled with conventions and festivals of some sort. But, this blog is about writing, and so I’d thought I’d post some of my notes I jotted down when I was sitting in panels/roundtables. The panel I’m going to write about in this post is from an awesome science fiction convention called Archon


YA trends

I went to a panel about the best and worst of YA literature. The panel included Cole Gibson, Sarah Jude, Rich Horton, Deborah Millitello, and Rachel Neumeier. Really cool, insightful people to listen to.

me and an awesome friend at Archon!
I learned that there’s a term for the “Fault in the Stars”-style of cancer-fighting-romance called “sicklit.” I sort of hate that term, because it makes light of very serious illness. The panel members were talking about trends in YA that they’d like to see end. Other bad-trends they decided were dystopian lit, vampires, chosen one archetypes, and stories where the main character has a special power.

Exciting upcoming trends (although they said that trends are almost always unpredictable) include gritty/grounded lit, non-western culture, paranormal, cult books, and a hopeful venture into space operas.

They ended that segment by saying that if you try to write to follow a current trend, you will likely be 2-4 years late by the time your work is published. 


random etc

1. Just some other random tidbits from the panel. Someone said that diversity is code for race when it comes to publishers.

2. They brought up some literary drama between authors. They said that this author, Tommy Wallach, is known for writing flat/boring non-white characters. They mentioned an article by VE Schwab that tries to pinpoint some of the issues of how a man can think he’s above other people.

3. “I used to have a baby sister” is a great story opener one of them had read before.

4. Novels they suggested we should read include The Accident Season, Ms. Peregrin’s series, Archivist Wasp, and one called something like “Bow Gap” which I don’t think I wrote down correctly. 


sum up

Overall it was an excellent panel and really recharged me as a writer-wannabe. I will be writing more about other panels I went to in the future. Thanks for reading!

You can follow me @oxyborb on twitter!



Coffee-spiced Pumpkin


The Oatmeal posted the above on Twitter, and so I drew in the rest of the panels for funsies. What do you think?





My Pixar Rankings


Toy Story is still the best Pixar movie ever made, and not just because I grew up with it. It’s every kid’s fantasy. The toys are really alive and have personalities. Wall-E is just a beautiful movie, and the message of protecting our planet is important. Finding Nemo is beautiful and has wondrous music. Monsters U is legit funny, and the perfect way that they could go back to having monsters be scary. TS3 is sad and fun. Inside Out has Bingbong.

1. Toy Story
2. WALL-E
3. Finding Nemo
4. The Incredibles
5. Monsters University
6. Toy Story 3
7. Inside Out
8. Monsters Inc
9. Toy Story 2
10. Ratatouille
11. A Bug’s Life
12. Up
13. The Good Dinosaur
14. Cars
15. Brave

I haven’t seen any of the other Pixar movies yet, but that’s my list. 


30

Today is my birthday.

I've left my 20s.

I'm 3 decades old.

Cool.

I have a philosophy about aging. Yeah, it'd be great to be a Lost Boy. To stay young and crazy forever.

But.

Growing older is better than dying.

I've reached 30. I'm lucky.

Some people are killed in car crashes. Some face diseases and depression and other terrible things. Just the other day, another people I knew from high school passed away from a heroine overdose. Yeah, this blog post got heavy real fast. Why am I thinking about this on my special day?

Because I'm lucky, and I need to remind myself.

I'm alive.

I could lose weight, but otherwise I'm seemingly healthy.

I'm not dealing with addiction.

I have a job. Friends. Family. A roof.

I have food to eat.

There are children far younger than I that will not be eating at all today, however someone bought me a cake today and I'll probably have a slice.

It hurts to think about it, but I'm lucky. I'm privileged.

Sometimes I think about what I want to do with my life, in full. The big picture.

I want to help people. I want to give clean drinking water to countries where there is no Oreo Cookie Ice Cream Cakes.

Sorry, not trying to be a downer. I am looking forward to eating some cake. I've been avoiding snacking much because of that weight thing. I haven't had McDonalds or Taco Bell since the new year began, my resolution is still going strong.

But, it is good to remember that growing older is better than not, because the only alternative is dying.

I want to be a writer more than anything else. That's my selfish desire. If I could sell a million books and strike a movie deal, I would put half my earnings into helping other people. I'm not saying that's what I want to do. I think we're all a little selfish inside. There's always another thing to buy.

But.

I think it's a duty to remember that there are other things outside our personal bubbles.

I'm 30. That's cool.

Makes me think of my legacy. What can I work on now that I can leave behind when my time is up? I'm hoping that is books to inspire literacy. Help that improves the global society. My first submission-worthy novel is nearly finished. I hope to be submitting it to agents by Christmas.

That's my plan.

This next decade is about completing that objective and being successful at it. Also, establishing something more for myself, I guess. I should start saving for retirement, right? That's ridic to think about.

I'm rambling.

Reflecting, I suppose. A better way to put it.

I want to do something cool and creative. That's my goal.

No good way to end this post, so.

I'm blessed. I'm lucky. I'm thankful. Thankful for everyone in my life and everyone that supports me. Thankful for my situation and my luck and my positive nature. Thankful for cake and my willpower to not eat fast food for the last 10 months. Thankful for having the ability to write and be creative. Thankful for the Internet and blogs and such. I hope I can give back to the universe twice what it's given me.





Missouri Retro Games Convention

So, in August, I went to a retro gaming convention in Missouri. It was pretty cool!


me (on the right) about to get my butt whooped in the Smash Bros tourney


It was packed! The space you see is what they made for vendors... there was hardly standing room in the aisles
 more pics after the jump...

August Break

As a teacher, I get time off in August, right after summer school ends.

My break was mostly spent finishing my novel. I did that every single day for most of the day. I worked hard, and I'm nearly finished now. But, just for fun, I'm going to post something else from each day of August Break.

Each number is a day:




1 Messaged a friend (who thinks Batman is hilarious) that there is a town called Batman in Turkey. (I discovered this doing research for a novel).

2 I cooked 3 pizzas using hand-chopped ingredients and Pillsbury dough.

3 I watched The Giver movie (it was OK) and then I did some scrapbooking.

4 I beat a trophy challenge in Arkham Knight called Brutality 101.

5 I got stood up.

6 I went on a solo adventure to Twilight Comics and At Home.

7 Tried to fix a car (not mine) that was fried on the side of the street. It needed a new engine, no joke.

8 Went to the Alpine Shop and also bought pumpkin spiced coffee creamer.

9 Began playing a new game called No Man's Sky.

10 Saw my cousin and aunt.

11 Had a weird dream about Hillary and Donald fighting for control of the universe in space-warfare.

12 Heard rumors and gossip all over facebook.

13 Went to a retro gaming convention with my cousin.

14 Had breakfast with a close friend and then prepared to return to school.

No Man’s Sky Tips: How to land on a hostile planet and survive



 1. Make your first landing on a landing pad.

For your first landing on a new planet, I always suggest landing on a landing pad, either at a shelter or at a full-on trading post. Trading posts have the benefit of being on top of raised platforms, which are almost always out of the reach of hostile creatures and sentinels.

The second benefit is that landing pads give you a free re-launch. If your ship lifts off a landing pad, you will not have to charge your launch thrusters. So, if you’re on a planet where resources are limited or you cannot get near them, you’re golden. This gives you time to assess your situation, and whether or not you want to continue exploring the planet.

Landing pads also almost always mean that you’ll have access to that robot-eye looking vendor. That means you can quickly dump your old cargo and restock on things you need.


2. Have everything fully charged up before leaving, and bring some extra plutonium.

When leaving a planet, make your life easier and charge all your systems up before moving on. You never know how challenging your next planet will be, so reload your multitool and life support before heading out. Also, it helps to have a little plutonium to start, since that charges everything.


3. Purchase the shield upgrades.

There are upgrades that can give your exosuit resistance to cold, heat, radioactivity, toxicity, and even allow you to breathe underwater. The cheapest versions require very common minerals, so they’re good for using / deleting as you arrive and depart from planets.

The better versions require gravitino balls. Some planets have gravitino balls littering the ground, however, you should be weary as sentinels walkers are instantly deployed upon gathering them. However, I’ve found that you can park your ship near these rare substances, gather them, and jump in and fly off before being attacked quite easily.

4. Learn how to jetpack-run-melee jump.

I wrote a tip about this, here. However, I’ll just say if you run, do a melee attack, and then immediately jump into your jetpack, you will fly REALLY FAST across the terrain. This is an important thing to learn how to do, especially if you’re on a planet with storms and other extreme conditions. This will save you time and from getting damaged. Also, it allows you to run away from sentinels and hostile creatures.