Pokémon! I Choose You... Again!

You would think that, by now, I wouldn't get excited about things like Pokémon game remakes, but MAN am I excited!

The day before yesterday, it was announced that remakes of the third generation games, Pokémon Ruby Version and Pokémon Sapphire Version will be updated and released this November as Pokémon Omega Ruby, and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire. These will be released using the same engine as the current Pokémon X and Y games, which means a significant update to graphics and game mechanics, much like past remakes in earlier generations.

While no real details have been released, The Pokémon Company is promising a rich new world and brand new adventures. What this means, we'll have to wait and see. Along with the announcement, the game packaging was also unveiled, featuring images of Groudon and Kyogre looking powered up and intimidating. It was mentioned that there is a significance to their souped up looks, so we'll have to wait and see if this means new forms, or perhaps Mega Evolutions for these legendary pokémon. I'm also curious what that will mean for the third member of the generation III legendaries, Rayquaza.

If there are, in fact, new forms to these legendaries, how will they incorporate that into the story of the game? Will they follow the story of the originals? Or take it a brand new direction? Will we be seeing Team Aqua and Team Magma up to their old shenanigans again? Will mega evolution be possible in Hoenn? Will we finally see mega evolutions for the Treecko and Mudkip lines? So many questions! But with this only being the initial announcement, there's plenty of time before the November release period for them to slowly feed us details.

And one more thing... In X/Y they introduced the blue pentagon symbol that represents that a pokémon was caught in the Kalos region... Will they have a new symbol for Hoenn? And will it be immediately compatible with Pokémon Bank so we can bring back our favourites from the original Ruby and Sapphire games for this new adventure? So much to think about!

So that's what I'll be looking forward to for the next six months. Perhaps it's time to get X and Y out again and get back to shiny hunting... Anyway, that's all I've got to say for today!

I Love Long Weekends

Last I blogged, I mentioned that I'd have another post coming within about a week. At the time, I must have had something in mind... But I forgot what it was and haven't had anything interesting to talk about. Until now! It was Family Day here in BC, and that meant a long weekend, and an extra day of fun.

Friday night, as is often the case, meant a trip to one of my favourite places in Vancouver, La Fontana Caffe, for Nerd HQ! Hanging with Andrea and the nerds is always a good time, and this weekend was a particularly calm version of the usual happenings. BUT! I was playing Pokémon Y, and I finally managed to complete the National Pokédex! I haven't finished the Pokédex since Pokémon Diamond, so it was quite the feat. 718 pokémon to collect and train is not an easy thing to do.

Now, the biggest highlight of the weekend was Saturday morning. For months, Andrea and I have been watching our emails, twitter feeds, and checking in on the Comic-Con website waiting for news of SDCC 2014 preregistration. And finally, last week, the announcement was made! So Saturday morning, Andrea and I got on our computers, signed into the new and improved EPIC waiting room, and waited for 9am to roll around.

In previous years, the race to get badges was all about hitting the button at the exact right time and hoping you make it into the virtual line. This year, they came up with the idea that you sign into a virtual waiting room anytime up to two hours before sales begin, and when the time comes, everyone in the waiting room gets randomly sorted into line to get their badges. It was interesting watchingb the little yellow info bar updating with news and tips. "It is VERY important that you do not refresh your browser when sorting has begun." But when sorting did happen and they began letting people in, I realized that they didn't tell you where in line you were. In previous years you would see what number in line you were, and it would update every two minutes to let you know how much closer to the front of the line you were. But this year they left it a complete mystery. I was just starting to worry that I'd be sitting there all morning just wondering, but then...

I GOT IN! At first I was confused. I thought I was just moved to the actual waiting room instead of the sorting room. But it said to put in my member ID and last name. So I excitedly texted Andrea to tell her, "I GOT IN!!!!" and went to work frantically putting in our info. Somehow I lucked out and got in SO FAST so I was able to secure both Andrea and I our four day plus preview night badges once again! We're set for our fourth round at San Diego Comic-Con and we couldn't be happier!

So that excitement has been carrying through this whole weekend, so the many times she and I have talked and/or seen eac other has erupted into excitement yet again. We also had brunch with our friends Anne and Peter, which was a pretty great time. And we were planning on seeing The Lego Movie today, but then the realization that today is Family Day meant that that idea should have been planned a little further ahead: tickets were sold out.

But we did get to hang out and watch Teen Wolf tonight! I gotta say, Teen Wolf is one of my new favourite shows. I started watching it a few weeks ago and have been hooked ever since. It's got all kinda of awesome going for it. Supernatural monsters and meyhem. Comedy, teen drama, action. And lots of very attractive guys who have a problem with keeping their shirts on. What's not to love? And the show just keeps getting more and more intense! Andrea and I were hanging out on her couch drinking tea and freaking out over everything that's going on. I can't even.

Plus! I finally finished reading The House of Hades yesterday! I started that book in October. Ridiculous. But this weekend I finally picked it up and read the second half in two days. I seriously don't know why it took so long. It was a fantastic book, and I really enjoyed it. I guess I just haven't felt much like reading for a while. I hope that's fixed now.

Anyway, those were some of the highlights of the weekend. Comic-Con. Pokémon. Teen Wolf. Heroes of Olympus. Friends. Nerds. Plus all the regular life stuff in between. Now back to the real world tomorrow.

Adventures in Transit

I'm really not keeping up with this blog business. I would have made a resolution to do better keeping up with it, but how many people ACTUALLY keep up with their resolutions? Not very many.

Anyway... Today I had a weird adventure on Vancouver transit. Every day I take the Canada Line to get to work. It's always pretty much uneventful. A few weeks ago there was some guy rapping along loudly to some shitty hip hop song he was playing on his phone, but that's about as exciting as it gets in general.

So today, as the train arrived at the Yaletown station (two stops away from where I get off at Waterfront), the intercom came on to say that the train currently at the station (the train I am currently on) would be going back to Richmond due to some malfunction. So I got off the train along with most, but not all, of the other passengers, and waited for further instruction. The train took off back the direction it came (with some confused people aboard) and everyone on the platform stood around looking amused and confused.

I decided to text my boss to let her know that there was something weird going on with transit, and while I'm doing so, another train goes zipping by in the wrong direction. It was the weirdest thing. At that point I was starting to wonder if I should just walk the rest of the way to work, or find a bus to get me the rest of the way. Pretty much whatever I decided to do, I was going to be late for work, so I decided to grab a coffee and regroup.

I checked Translink's twitter page and it turns out there was some malfunction with the switch at Waterfront station, so trains were only going as far as Yaletown and getting turned around. They got a train going back and forth between Yaletown and Waterfront shuttling people the rest of the way, so I EVENTUALLY made it to work. I was about fifteen minutes late, but it was an adventure! My first major transit issue since I moved to the big city. It was more amusing than anything else.

So yeah, random adventures in transit! I'll try to get a schedule going with the blog again. Hopefully shouldn't be more than a week before I've got something else to post on here, so see you then!

Video Games vs. Real Life

So... The other day I had a weird thought while walking home from the train station after work. There was this guy just standing there half a block away from a bus stop, just... waiting. And my immediate thought was, "What the heck is he doing there? Should I ask him what he's up to? It's none of my business, but he's weirding me out." That just seems to be where my mind goes. He must be up to something.

But then I started wondering why I have that reaction... The world is such an untrusting place nowadays. What happened to the old days of smiling and saying hi to random strangers? I'm a friendly person, but I think I'm afraid to talk to strangers for fear of what they might say or do back.

It's funny, though, 'cause it got me started thinking about video games. I'll preface this by saying I've been playing a lot (A LOT) of Pokémon Y since it came out a week and a half ago. In all of the Pokémon games, and most role playing games in general, in order to progress through the game, you need to speak to all of the NPCs (non-playable characters) to get information. Sometimes they even have special items for you. So there's motivation to talk to everyone you run into.

So if talking to everyone you meet is encouraged in video games, why not real life? Maybe I should just walk around and talk to every person I meet. Maybe they'll have something interesting to tell me. Who knows? Maybe I'd learn some valuable life skills and knowledge!

Then there's the other side of that... Can you imagine if I just started going around to everyone I meet like, "Hi! What do you have to tell me?" Or better yet, "Hey! Do you have anything for me??" I think I'd start to get some really strange looks and reactions. But I almost wanna try it out, just to see what people would do.

Anyway, this was just a random string of thoughts that went through my head. Hopefully it won't be so long before I blog again. No promises.

Long Overdue, And Pre-SDCC

Okay. I know this is long overdue. I'm sorry guys! It's been a busy few weeks! Sorta. But sitting in the airport waiting for our now-delayed flight is as good a time as any to catch up!

So, what's been going on? Well, I moved. Away from my little hometown of PG to the big city of Vancouver. What an adventure that's been! Also: an emotional roller coaster. The week before the move was nuts. Too many teary-eyed goodbyes. Lots of fun. Rob came up to help the move go smoothly. And also to drive the U-haul for me. AND to meet everyone before he steals me away. It was a great week and a terrible week all at once. It's great to be on this new adventure, but it's really hard leaving everyone back home.

The drive down was scorching hot. Rob and I had coffee with my mom on the Sunday morning and then hopped into the truck and hit the road. We left early and the heat was already up there. It got as hot as 36 degrees through the canyon and it was above 30 the whole way. It was beautiful and such a great drive. It was kind of surreal, driving through there for the first time in a few years, this time with Rob taking me to my new home. I don't really know how to describe how it felt.

Unloading and unpacking went pretty smoothly. And my first week was pretty fun. Spent a couple of nice evenings getting drunk in the back yard. Had a couple of interviews and found myself employed my very first week. That was a huge sigh of relief. And I don't start until after my trip! So it's been like an odd long vacation. That's actually exactly how it's felt so far since I've moved. Like I'm on some sort of weird long vacation. It's finally starting to sink in that I live there, but now I'm actually going on vacation.

It is that most wondrous time of year again. No, not Christmas. Comic-Con! I feel like I've used that joke before... Oh well. I'm going with it. Anyway! The airport and delayed flight I mentioned before are the start to our Comic-Con trip. Andrea and I are still sitting in YVR airport. We can see our plane out there. But apparently there's another hour to go.

In other news, we are SUPER EXCITED!! And also really tired due to lack of sleep. I think I slept 2-3 hours last night? It was pretty dumb. Anyway. I can't think of anything else to say right now. Stay tuned for updates throughout Comic-Con!

Not Yet a Tough Mudder

Alright. I have no idea what to blog about. I was up late last night and and up early this morning, so I'm currently sitting at Starbucks caffeinating myself. Still half asleep. Not a good way to start the day. Oops.

I guess I'll start with an update of my athletic accomplishments (read: failures). I have definitely NOT gotten back into the gym like I intended to. I actually went and cancelled my membership on Thursday. I am going to try to get back to it once I'm in Vancouver though. I've been trying to stay active, though. I have been walking a lot. I need to step it up to running, but over 13 km over the last two days isn't so bad. I've been using the Zombies, Run! app on my iPhone for a while, and it makes running/walking a lot more fun.

This weekend a bunch of people I know are down in Whistler doing Tough Mudder. Last year when the one group of friends went, I decided that I was gonna do it this year. That didn't happen, clearly, but I'm making myself a promise right here on the Internet for all to see. I am going to get myself into shape to do Tough Mudder next year. The training needs to start pretty much immediately.

It is about time I make myself do these things I want to do. No one else is going to do it for me, I've got to push myself to be better. It's something I care about, something I want to do, so I've got to get it done. Anyway, self-pep-talk over, I think I'm gonna end this for now. Like I said, I don't have much to blog about, so that's it. Have a great weekend!

So Much Nerd Love!

Okay, so it's been an exciting week. My little nerd heart has grown three sizes with all of this tech love announced.

At Apple's WWDC event, they made a bunch of cool announcements. There's a new Mac Pro in the works. There's new functionality with iCloud coming, mainly the ability to use iWork on the web. Mac OS X Mavericks was announced with improvements to Calendars, Safari, and Notifications, and the addition of the Maps and iBooks apps to Mac. There's probably a lot more cool stuff that was announced, but I was really just interested in one thing.

iOS 7 was announced, and I'm very excited about it. As you can tell from the above picture, there's been a major visual update. All of the app icons are updated with a flatter, more simplified look. They've greatly improved the visuals of all of the apps. They've added Control Center, which gives you access to some the important phone settings with a quick up-swipe. There's improvements all over, but it would take me too long to go over it right now, so I'll leave it for a later post.

I really want to talk about some of the cool stuff announced at E3 as well. As usual, my favourite part of E3 was Nintendo, but they didn't even do a press conference this year. Instead, they did a special Nintendo Direct featuring a bunch of new games. And they did not disappoint.

Super Mario 3D World is a new sequel to last year's 3D Land. This time they are throwing back to the old Super Mario Bros. 2 with the inclusion of Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Peach as playable characters. They've introduced the new Cat Mario suit, giving the characters cat-like abilities. It's also multiplayer, so that's a really cool addition. I'm definitely getting this game.

They also brought news on Pikmin 3, Pokémon X and Y, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. They brought the MAJOR announcement of the new Super Smash Bros games for Wii U and 3DS, including the new characters added: Mega Man, and the Villager from Animal Crossing.Bayonetta 2, Sonic Lost World, Mario Party 8, The Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. So many awesome games. I'm really gonna have to get a Wii U.

Otherwise, I haven't really been keeping up with all of the E3 news. I watched the Xbox One press conference, but nothing really stood out for me. I skipped the Sony press conference, but I'll probably watch it eventually. There's really only two other games I've followed. One was the re-announcement of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, now called Final Fantasy XV. The previous announcement that it would be PS3 only is now out the window as it's been announced instead for the PS4 AND Xbox One. Also announced, and I'm REALLY excited for this one: Kingdom Hearts 3! It's still early in development, but I can't wait.

So yeah, it's been an exciting week. I've already calculated that I'm gonna be very broke with all of the new games coming out over the next year and a half. At least iOS updates are free. Anyway, it's time for work. Enjoy your Saturday!