Keyrock

Aaaaand 2nd half collapse in progress, as usual.

We didn't score a single TD in the first half and Dak, uncharacteristically, threw 2 picks, yet we go into the half up by 2. I'll happily take that, though I'm far from celebrating, as I've seen far too many 2nd half collapses.

We had our team building event for the company I work for (my full-time job) today. We went up to Gopro Motorplex in Mooresville and raced go karts. Good time had by all. Ryan, the branch manager, had the best lap time of the day, as usual, but at least I had the second best lap time and the best of anyone in the warehouse. My lap times were garbage in the first race as I was getting a feel for the track and the handling characteristics of the karts. In the second race I scored my best lap time of the day once I had the course well memorized and got a feel for how hard I could push the karts through the corners. I probably could have beaten my lap time in the last race since I pushed a couple corners even further to the limit than before, but I was pushing too hard and lost time by overdriving a few of the other corners. I know I left at least a second out there on the track but am overall happy with my performance.

Going full villain is just another day at the office at EA.

What has happened to the Chiefs? They looked so good at the start of the season. It's like they fell off the edge of a cliff.

They started reactivating the elusive targets in HITMAN, starting with the very first one they put out. Naturally, I took out the target with Silent Assassin rating. I'm not sure if it's because this was the first elusive target they did when episode 1 first came out, or if I've just gotten good at the game, but this wasn't much of a challenge. Once I figured out where he was, it was pretty easy to isolate him and take him out. I even made myself leave through one of the more difficult exits, the speedboat, just so that there would be some challenge.

For once I got out of my part-time job at Papa Johns early enough to get a Jersey Shore Favorite (Mike's Way, of course) at Jersey Mike's. I am actually giddy with excitement. You don't know how many times I have finished up my shift and thought "Boy, I could really go for some Jersey Mike's" but it was already too late because they close at 9 PM.

It's a long game, I have a lot of grinding to do to unlock the great deals. Sure, I could shill out $4.99 to purchase a lootbox which gives me a chance to get a good deal, but I'd probably have to buy a bunch more lootboxes so that I could get enough good deals to craft them into a 5 star great deal...

I beat Chapter 1 of Looking For a Sweet Black Friday/Cyber Monday Deal on a PS4 Pro. This gave me the GameStop is going to have it for $349 achievement. There's also a $50 gift card, but the game made it unclear whether you get that with only the regular 1TB PS4 or also with the PS4 Pro. I think it's just the regular PS4. Onward to Chapter 2: The search For Steeper Discounts. https://bestblackfriday.com/store/gamestop

14 in a row for the Celtics. It's early in the year, so it's not necessarily a preview of what we will see in the playoffs, but it;s impressive nonetheless. The gruesome Gordon Hayward injury could wind up being a blessing in disguise if he manages to come back this year. Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum have had to play a lot more minutes because of this and they have impressed, especially Jaylen Brown. I really like what I see from him. Imagine if Hayward comes back in March, just in time to shake the rust off and gel with the team for the playoffs. The Celtics could be a really scary team to play come April and May. If nothing else, Brad Stevens is a terrific coach. He may be the best coach not named Gregg Popovich right now.

SteamWorld Dig 2

Apropos of nothing, Autotune might be the worst thing to ever happen to humans. Worse than the Holocaust, worse than Stalin systematically executing millions of his own people, worse than the Bubonic Plague, worse even than reality television... maybe. I might have crossed the line on that last one.

Probably or

I'm playing Looking For a Sweet Black Friday/Cyber Monday Deal on a PS4 Pro. So far I'm seeing tons of great deals on PS4 Slim and XBox One S but nothing on PS4 Pro. There's plenty of time, though and I'll be damned if I don't find a sweet deal.

How does one improve at anything? Practice.

I like the Valve model of monetizing competitive multiplayer games (DotA2, TF2, CS:GO). The games are free and you get every hero, weapon, and ability right out of the gate; you literally cannot buy anything that can give you any competitive advantage. And yet Valve makes money hand over fist from these games. How? Hats! Everything Valve sells is purely cosmetic, and they're making a fortune doing it.

The issue is that when you introduce pay to win elements, especially in a multiplayer competitive game, you have to wonder if the game is designed around pushing the player toward making purchases, which you damn well know it is. Heck, large corporations have entire departments dedicated toward figuring out just how far they can push their customers to get the maximum amount out of them. This is exacerbated by the addictiveness of gambling, and make no mistake, loot boxes are gambling. Sure, it's not really egregious yet, emphasis on yet, they will ramp this up slpwly. You only have to look as far as f2p mobile games to see where the road leads to. This is why we need to push back now and hard.

It's because Arkham Asylum created, or at least popularized, that type of combat system where you just hit a button and your character magically parries or floats over to another combatant, regardless of what they were doing previously or where they were, which, while nonsensical, looks pretty from a cinematic standpoint and was really fresh and novel at the time.

Despite losing Kyrie for a game or two, due to a facial fracture, the Celtics won their 12th straight game and continue to look super strong.

Well, we got run over by a truck. The Falcons did to us what we did to teams last year, control the clock. We basically never had the ball in the second half until the score was so silly it was over. Season's not over yet, but the game against the Eagles next week is that much more critical now (a must win for us).

Huh? Are you saying PS4 slim doesn't work with surround sound setups? Exactly. They removed the optic sound out (spdif) in order to "save space". It was a very poor choice on Sony's behalf. For reference:

This is why I don't play fantasy football any more. I found myself rooting against the Boys or for division rivals because I had players on my fantasy team and I felt so dirty doing it. I wanted to go back to simply rooting for the Boys and hating the Giants, Eagles, and Skins, so I gave up fantasy.

Our offense did a bunch of nothing in the first half, outside of the TD we got off the Matty Ice interception. We should feel lucky to head into the half down only 3.

^ That's quite the diverse pallette. I would shy away from feeding a cat candy. It's not good for humans, it ain't good for animals either.

If I can find a good deal on a PS4 Pro during Cyber Monday, I might pull the trigger.