Do-you-think-he-saurus Rex

So, I'm not sure what's going on, but I seem to have a bit of a dinosaur obsession right now. Specifically with Jurassic Park. I've always really liked dinosaurs. Not enough to study them or know the difference between a brontosaurus and a brachiosaurus. But enough that I love the Jurassic Park movies, and I was devastated by the cancellation of Terra Nova.

For years now I've had the habit of occasionally doing a google search for Jurassic Park 4. And for years there have been little bits of news here and there that its coming, but never anything concrete. Just that there's a producer attached, and a writer is working on it, and then a new writer has taken over, and various bits of useless information.

But the wait is over! Sorta. There is finally a release date, and things are happening! June 13, 2014 is the date to remember. It's a ways off yet, and there's no director yet, but it's gonna happen! I'm seriously excited for this! I want to know what direction they'll take with it, which characters they'll bring back (if any), what dinosaurs will show up, where it'll take place, all that stuff!

I've also gotten somewhat obsessed with the Jurassic Park Builder app on the iPhone/iPad. It's one of those freemium games, where the app is free, and you don't HAVE to pay any money to use it, but to speed up building times and all that, you need to use you cash, which you can earn in game or buy for real money. Anyway! I've gotten obsessed with it. I keep expanding my park, and getting new dinosaurs, evolving them, levelling them up, and completing quests set forth by the characters from the movies. It's a very simple game, but it's a little bit addictive. I now split my time pretty evenly between that and DragonVale, my other favourite iOS app.

My other new obsession is Jurassic Park: The Game for Xbox 360. My friend Sylvie bought it for me the other day as my birthday present, and I've already played through most of it, but you know me! I'll have to play through again to try to unlock all of the achievements. It's a relatively simple game. You mostly just follow along the story, but it gives you options for dialogue and let's you search for what you have to do. And when action sequences come up you've got to hit various times commands to make it through the scene. Quite often these are dinosaur encounters, and I've already lost count on how many times I've missed commands and ended up dead. I'm starting to feel guilty at how many times I've had to listen to the characters cry over each other's deaths.

The game is pretty fun, and it gives a lot more backstory on the island, plus it follows up on the lost barbasol can with the dinosaur embryos hidden in it. None of the movie characters really appear, but there are plenty of references to the movie, and early on you come across a lot of familiar locations where the movie characters have clearly JUST vacated the scene.

So that's it, the past, present, and future of Jurassic Park (not necessarily in that order). I'm thinking after work today is going to involve some more escaping from dinosaurs. Oh! Last I played I had just gotten to a part with a giant underwater dinosaur! Gotta see what happens with that! Until then... work...

Lego Everywhere!

So, I'm sitting in my room at home attempting to come up with a blog idea. I am not in my usual blogging environment, so we'll see if I can still come up with something if I'm not sitting in Starbucks.

Have you ever played a Lego video game? Like, Lego Batman, Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter? They are some of my favourite games. It's ridiculous, 'cause they have been made to appeal to children, but the games are just so fun! And addictive!

I think I've mentioned before that I have a thing about collecting things, and these games definitely play to that part of me. I've been playing Lego Batman for a long time now. I've beaten the main story to the game already, but every level has a bunch of things to collect, and I have to get all of them. There are pieces of special mini-models I every level, plus a person needs to be rescued from bad guys, and there's a special red brick that can be found, bought, and when activated give you special abilities in the game. There are also a ton of characters to be unlocked as you go that you can then use in levels afterwards.

This is the basic premise in all of the Lego games. Plus, the fact that its on the Xbox means there are achievements to be unlocked, which is another huge pile of things to unlock/collect. So far I've only managed to beat two games to 100% completion. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, and Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7. Both I have gotten all of the stuff in game, as well as all of the achievements. I'm nearly there with Lego Batman. But then I've got Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Star Wars, and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean to beat, plus Lego Lord of the Rings just came out, and Lego Marvel Super Heroes comes out this fall, so I've got my work cut out for me.

And that's just the Lego series of games! I've also got all of the Assassin's Creed games, Dragon Age II, Bioshock 2, Fable II and III, Skyrim, and so many other games to get through, PLUS all of the games I've got for other systems. I could probably take a year off from work and do nothing but play video games, and STILL not get through them all. Oh well. There are worse addictions.

New Year, New You?

Alright! It's 2013! First blog post of the New Year! Woohoo! ...Yeah, it's not really that exciting. Sorry. I'm tired, and apparently excitable in my writing.

So! It's a new year, which is when most people make a bunch of silly resolutions to do things that they break within a week or two. I don't believe in resolutions, but I do believe it's good to set goals for the new year. Nothing too crazy, nothing necessarily finite, but general goals about lifestyle.

For example, last year, I set a few goals. I knew I needed to make some sort of decision in my relationship status, and that happened. I also decided I needed to be more active. And while I didn't turn into an Olympic level athlete, I did greatly improve my activity level. Started going to the gym and took up running.

This year I'd like to build on that goal of being more active and be more consistent with my activity levels. I need to get back to the gym, and try to push through this wintery lethargy. I had a sudden burst of energy the other night and did a bunch of push-ups and abs exercises. I was feeling pretty frustrated at the time which is always a good motivator for me, but I've been longing for the snow to disappear so I can go for a run outside again. Find a playground and do some pull-ups. I really just need to go to the gym. That's what the facilities are for.

Anyway. A lot more important of a goal for me this year is to try to be a better friend. I hadn't really realized it was happening, but I've drifted away from many of my friends, including some of the most important people to me. I hope it's not too late to fix things, but I've never been good with confrontation, so I'm not sure how to go about approaching the problem. I guess the best way is to just talk, and hope she'll listen. I probably shouldn't talk about it here anymore, but it's on my mind and I really can't stop thinking about her.

Uuuh... So where was I? Goals? There's a few other goals I have. Be better with my money. Visit family more. Be more productive. All vague things with no finite measurable levels of success. Also, I want to figure out exactly what I want to do with this blog. Right now it's basically just my little outlet of nerdiness, but I want it to be more than that. I'm not exactly sure how to make that happen. But I guess I'll just keep plugging away and I'll figure it out eventually!