Posts by: leafeator

May 052016 Tagged with ,

Spring 16 TV Roundup + DarkSouls III + I got a job?

Suddenly this is just a place for me to post my TV musings and nothing else. Lets see if I can’t remedy that with a little bit of non TV blogging here.

Dark Souls III – A game I fucking loved. I never played any of the other games from FromSoftware before this, even tho I have been recommended to play all of them. I watched some people play DS1 and thought to myself that I had to play three just to see what it is about. A lot of people complain that its too hard or frustrating. I experienced that at first. However the growth process of getting better at a thing was so rewarding for me. Its hard to find a challenging game, and I was not into dark souls for the challenge. The challenge accompanied the story, it accompanied and parallel personal growth. I think the mechanic was a beautiful explanation of why this game is such a cult hit with people. I wish I had the time to play it over again, but really I am not the person to play a game twice, I don’t have the time for that. Maybe I’ll go back and play DS1 now.

Work?!? – So I officially signed up with Attack Media this week. We are doing 2 shows with LionsGate and CCHQ which allowed us to move out studios and really expand the project I love, The Attack, a 3 time a week live Twitch verity show in the style of Attack of the Show. Moreso in just name, because I am working under Kevin Periera now, which is still just a mind blowing thing that I don’t think 13 year old me could properly comprehend. I love the people I work with and I can see so much room for personal growth through learning things from them all. Being in the new studio and getting my hands on everything is just great, I am becoming better at some many things and the positive affirmation is still throwing me for a loop. I am going to work hard to push forth things that I want to create on the network, while growing what we already have to be some of the most groundbreaking content in Twitch history. I could not be more hyped. At all.

BUT JOEY I JUST WANNA HEAR THE TV STUFF. Fine. Here’s what I watched:

House of Cards – Yeah it’s still fun and has some solid writing. However I can’t help but be less interested now. The Robin Wright character still makes me so angry, and I just liked the story pre-president as opposed to post. It’s still a must watch thing, but moreso because I feel involved and want to see it through than I do because I care so much about it.

Suits – More “Welp I just need to finish this shit” territory. On no Mikes in jail whatever will we do. Who cares.

Mythbusters – Now this is something I have seen every episode for, and I am just sad to see it go. When it ended for the last time I kinda got a little choked up. It is one of the few constants in my life over the last 10 years, so to just have it yanked away is a change that I am not comfortable with. The format for the last two seasons I liked, even if they did cut the secondary build team out. I feel like they did teach me a lot about science and critical thinking, as corny and passe as that is.

Shameless – I love Emmy Rossum. I’ll keep watching the show for her. I don’t know if I love the writers for making me hate Debbie now, or hate them for it. More Frank is a good thing, and Lips downfall is interesting. I’m attached to the show and feel like this season was stronger than the two before it.

Billions – I don’t know why I did not have the balls to just stop watching the show. Maybe I thought it was going to get better. I didn’t really enjoy it from week 1, and it did not get much better for me from there. I think I can safely say that I can drop this, and it is just another poor attempt from Showtime. What happened Sho I used to love everything ya did.

Girls – Best season in a few. Don’t know how I feel about the ending still, but I got to see evolution from everyone and feel like the interplay and growing up of the gals were just really on point. One of my favorite shows for a reason, and the Japan episodes were so yummy.

Better Call Saul – Season 2 was a letdown for me. Season 1 I was so excited for every Monday night to roll around to watch a new episode. Season 2 I went days before actually tuning in to see what was going on. Maybe as we see Jimmy slip a little more next season I will have elevated interests, but season 2 just spun a lot of wheels for me. Disappointing for sure.

Dice – Funny and easily digestible. What more could I really ask for? AYYYYY I recommend.

Animals – My favorite thing by far this season. Animated, non linear characters, no mouth animation and low budget but who cares! The writing is some of the funniest I have seen since Rick and Morty and I was just so happy for all of it. I don’t want to spoil, but if there is one thing that I would recommend it would be this show.

What I’m watching now:

W – Modern Family
R – Archer
F – Banshee / Orphan Black
Sun – Bobs Burgers / Silicon Valley

Grace and Frankie + Catastrophe on demand.

<3

Jan 132016

2016

I feel like the mere fact that I am writing this 12 days into the year is part of the problem why I want to be writing this in the first place. I need to collect my thoughts onto how to really improve myself for not just the short, but the long term. For some reason making this public instead or private feels somewhat encouraging for me, which I realize is odd to most. Im sitting here stating at my todo list, one that has had so many things not crossed off for a long time. A list that has been controlling my life because I just cant sit down and find the means to be productive as I used to be. It’s borderline depressing to not be able to break out of this high stress cycle and instead drown out the things that I need to be doing with less important things like reddit and youtube. I somehow feel that by creating content in these arenas it is an escape from what I need to be doing in terms of excelling at school and finding a path to being an employed human being when I get out.

I think a lot of the stress comes from spreading myself too thin. I feel like it is a chore to keep up the level of relationships that I do, while trying to get A’s and make friends at school and be involved with clubs and play games. Shit it feels like playing games is even a chore at this point, looking at my list right now (which for those of you who are visual is a 8.5 x 11 piece of printer paper with a bunch of black ink scribbles on it, and some occasional pink highlighter) I have “Play Legacy of the Void” written on it. I have to seemingly schedule when to play games, or play games to practice for competitive collegiate gaming. When did games because a chore? In addition to that I really feel the level of inadequate coming to UCLA as a transfer and not making enough friends here. I feel that while I grow my online presence in the dota community, I am not growing my presence on campus. There are no girls that I want to ask out, there are no friends who I want to get to know better. There is just me walking around from point A to B with the Howard Stern show to drown out the background noise.

Wanting to be accepted is universal. At least I feel that it is. But I really feel the need to bend over backwards to help people. Some of my friends tell me to stop but it just feels like second nature. I don’t know where I was going with this point, maybe I’ll just leave it at that.

With grandpa dying I feel a real pain in my heart that’s just adding this external layer of stress onto me as I find myself the family therapist for everyone attempting to smooth over relations. Maybe I missed my calling as a mediator or therapist and really went to school for the wrong reasons. Today I spent three hours on the phone with my grandmother, who is my favorite person on earth, just sitting there talking trying to make her feel better. I think I did a damn good job at that, but having to prioritize family first means that school and other professional activities are just falling further behind. I feel selfish thinking that I would rather be working non stop in a bubble to further myself.

So, what do I do different in 2016 that makes a change for myself? I wrote down some goals that I want to accomplish, and I think that I can do all of them. The real question is if I can break out of this slump that I have been in for entirely too long now and actually get results. I think that this blog is a step in the correct direction in terms of this. On my list of things that I want to do, in no particular order this year:

Communicate via text message more clearly with my friends.
Be the one to make plans with people regardless of existing friendship status
Admit being the one at fault more often
Stream all the games I play
5k MMR
10k YouTube Subs
Not eat lunch alone so much
Stick to my diet and gym plan (how basic)
Write a nightly little recap of events for myself
Build a self evaluation loop

See look at how much shit that is. To me it feels like nothing and like I will accomplish it all, but because I am not necessary doing things in easy to handle bite sized chunks it just creates this overwhelming mass of stress.

I feel good about things to come. I know that if I stay organized I can knock things out and not get back into this semi-depressed slump. I’ll be fine, but I hope that I haven’t already lost too much time.

Jan 132016

Winter 15 TV

Another season of TV passed by and I really like the idea of keeping consistent and writing a little bit about what I watched season to season on TV. If nothing else but to keep a personal log and my sanity. This time it’s going to be real quick and such. No one is reading anyways, right?

Transparent:
The flagship show in Amazon’s latest attempt to be Netflix. I really liked season one for the character development and seeing the transition of how the family reacts to dad becoming trans. Season 2 focuses less on that transition, pardon the pun, and more on what feels like B plots. I can see why they want to keep this train moving, the writing is still sharp and I still am very interested in the characters, but the original story is just not anywhere near as gripping, and season two feels much less intriguing to me.

Master of None:
A metacritic darling and something that a lot of friends recommended to me, but I ended up only watching half of it, painfully, and stopping. I simply didn’t find it funny, as the humor really did not hit home with me. I feel biased against it since the start since I was never a big Aziz fan, but I figured to give it the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately it didn’t do anything special for me.

Fargo:
The single best show of 2015, hands down, no questions asked. Even with my extreme loathing for the ending, I still put it as a piece of work on while as the best show from last year. If nothing else the cinematography is beautiful, and the characters are multi denominational. If I could I wish that the last episode never happened. Please watch Fargo.

Homeland:
As a long time homeland fan I could rant for five blogs worth of words about my feelings on this season. While there were things that I liked, I just cant believe what Quinn was relegated to, how stupid stupid STUPID Dar Adal and Saul were, and how the characters seemed to just jump out of character all the time. There were some high points, but it just feels like the show is spinning its wheels with characters I dont care about, and characters who are no longer themselves. I’ll still come back tho to see that Carrie lip quiver.

Narcos:
Boy oh boy did I ever binge on Narcos. I think I watched all 10 episodes in less than 20 hours. I though that I wasnt going to be a huge fan of the source material, but I was quite dragged in with the based-on-a-true-story-story. I think I was demonic because I was rooting for Pablo, like I was one of those lower class who he ended up helping.

The Affair:
I said I was not going to watch season two because I loathed season one. Guess what, I watched season 2. The addition of the new perspectives made it somewhat more interesting, and I did enjoy the character arc more seeing things from additional angles. However I still hate Noah and I cant really empathize or feel attached to any of the characters.

So what am I watching for the winter 16 season?
Modern Family, Bobs Burgers, Shameless, Mythbusters (RIP), Billions, Suits, Animals, Vinyl, Better Call Saul, Girls, and Togetherness.

Nov 302015 Tagged with

Fall TV 15

Yo so this is what I think about the TV I watched from last season, and what I’m watching now. Ya ready for these dank opinions?

Rick and Morty
Best animated show ever on television? Maybe. Top 3 for sure. I still have a fondness in my heart for things like Home Movies and Bojack. Regardless Rick makes me think like no other show truly does, which is saying a lot because *burp* it still is an animated piece. Season 2 was better than 1 in my book. Fingers crossed that this trend continues for as long as possible. I’m hooked forever. Dat cliffhanger tho.

-

Nov 182015 Tagged with

So Good They Can’t Ignore Me + Slumpin’

It’s been a weird last few months.

Normally I don’t write too much personal stuff here. But really no one reads this shit unless I link to a big eSports article, so I feel relatively safe to talk about my life with a small veil of privacy still.

I like to think of myself as a hyper productive person. I am great at organizing tasks, doing them quickly and correctly, and working well with others in a team. I get my energy being with others as a pretty strong extrovert, and I am seldom overwhelmed. None of this feels true tho since school has started this year. While classes are not hard in the slightest, i have been having a serious issue sitting down and focusing on what to do. I don’t keep a consistent schedule, I am contently blowing off things like the gym. My to-do list is just growing and growing and I am feeling overwhelmed with this mountain of shit on top of me. I don’t even want to start to do it because it just seems to large.

I would find ways to start to sabotage myself. Excuses because plentiful where I would go into town for dinner or aimlessly do unimportant tasks as to push off the necessity in my head to do the more important things that were causing me this strife.

After playing fallout for over 10 hours a day for 5 days, I reached a breaking point. I cant keep doing this shit to myself, I need to get back on track and stop being a sad sack of shit. I started to talk about how I wasn’t feeling myself to some friends. One in particular responded with “You’re just dealing with what us normal people call STRESS Joey.” I don’t know if I agree with this or not. I feel stress all the time, but this beast was something else. I dare say depression, that feels exponentially too sever because of the stigma attached to that word.

Im taking measures now to get things back on track. Fingers crossed by the weekend and by slowly tackling this mountain I get things done. I know even today, removing myself from school and going home, I found excuse to not work. Shit maybe this blog post is even an excuse to avoid doing things. I think I need to target specific things like watching and betting on eSports, to clear that obnoxious amount of time up to solve these problems.

The best thing that happened while I was on this shitty bender was that I found the time to read a book that comes highly recommended to me by a few people I highly respect: So Good They Can’t Ignore You! A lot of the messages in the book rang true to me, and I feel like the guidance ir provides in terms of seeking a deep career or job is so poignant. I need to keep these mindsets of doing little projects and building career capitol. The dream job hypothesis does seem like such a fake elixir which is impossible to truly obtain. I could not recommend the book more highly for those who are in school and will be getting out soon looking to do a thing they want while making money, I am very happy I read it and will pass my copy along.

Here’s to getting back on track.

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