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Dec 252016 Tagged with ,

2016 wasn’t *that* bad

Yeah yeah yeah; Trump, Brexit, Bowie, and oodles of other people who I care less about than Bowie. But in terms of media, I feel like 2016 was pretty hot. TV still on an upswing, (non-AAA) games continuing to grow, good comics, great eSports, and on a personal front- my time working at The Attack. I could easily curtail this into a personal blog about how happy I have been this year working with the entire crew and creating everything we have, but I may save that for the off-line pen and paper blog. In short, it feels like I have a career now. I am a producer and I’m good at it. 18 months ago Joey would have never considered or realized this, and it still blows my mind to think about. I am so very indented to the boys there.

But to not stray too far away from what I wanted to do here, or what my little corner of the internet has devolved into, Fall 2016 TV wrap up and best of 2016 arbitrary lists.

One Mississippi – I like Tig, and I love how dry the show was. I feel like I need to be very particular who I recommend this to because it is definitely not a show for everyone, but for the right people I know that this could very well be love.
Fleabag - It seems like Amazon TV’s strategy is just “take good BBC shows” and really, I’m okay with getting the best of Channel 4 free online. Fleabag wasn’t my favorite thing I watched, but it was short and has a strong point and great character acting.
Transparent – Season 3 delivered. Show keeps continuing to be strong as the focus shifts over to the rest of the family. Easily Amazon’s best show, who knows why they keep pushing Man in the High Castle.
Easy - A Netflix anthology about relationships. Some of them are good, most of them are okay, some of them are just bad. Great to see the crazy diverse cast, but I could only recommend a few of these episodes to people.
Atlanta - When I started not liking Atlanta I sat down with myself and had to ask “Hey do I not like this because I’m just a racist?” No. No I am not, I really just could not get into the show.
High Maintenance – Painfully “meh” nothing to see here.
Black Mirror – Okay fam, I love black mirror. I always have, I probably always will. Even the episodes that people don’t enjoy as much, I still love. I want to share this show with everyone, but I have learned that it is indeed not for everyone. My mother’s reflection after Watching Nosedive was “Well, that sucks.” and San Junipero “Well, that’s sad.” If you like analyzing your media or you like sci fi or you like refreshing short sorties, and you haven’t seen this show, please.
Quarry - I wanted to like Quarry. Cinemax show, gritty, violent, influence from Banshee, new story about Vietnam PTSD. But I could not get into it. Characters and environment on whole fell a little flat. Story was sub par.
Better Things – I know nothing about being a single mom. I know nothing about being a teenage girl. I know nothing about an all female progressive household. I know that I really enjoyed this show. It’s my personal favorite of the “Louie” style of shows and I think FX hit it out of the park here.
Insecure - I cared about the characters. That’s more than I can say about most shows. Get your shit together Issa.
Queen Sugar – Together with Insecure is probably how I helped reconcile the fact that I didn’t just dislike Atlanta because I’m some kind of a bigot. Probably one of the best new IP’s of the year, and the fact that it’s on OWN, well, good for them.
Planet Earth – I watched this for the pretty things.
West World - Could likely do a whole tirade on WW. I hated it, then I loved it, and that love came with time. I don’t care about the park as much as I care about the people behind the park. The clues for the reveals were smart, and I’m happy I caught most of them and made the decision to not look at the subreddit during the show. They got me, and while I think a lot of people are just fake fans caught up in the hype and HBO’s marketing, I really do appropriate the show.
Rectify - Some people have said that the series finale season was the worst of the 4. I would have to disagree, as we really get to delve deeper into the psyche of these characters we have grown to love. One of the most touching dramas of the last 4-5 years, a show that is powerful and raw and will likely not be recreated anytime soon. It’s not a lot, so if you have missed it I would highly suggest putting it on your list.
Shameless - Having ZP be Neil is such a treat. Having Fiona winning is great. Everyone maturing at a crazy pace, and you almost have hope for the family. I know that I just love Emmy, but this show will always be a favorite of mine until the end.

Normally I recommend stuff I’m watching next season here. But I’m not quite sure what’s premiering in the next few months. We’re in a bit of a lull it seems. But how about instead best of 2016? That’s what all the cool kids do right? I’m cool? Right?

Comic: Hot Dog Taste Test
Movie: Zootopia
Tech: Google Pixel
Artist: Alessia Cara
Games: 3. Firewatch 2. Uncharted 4 1. Dark Souls 3
TV: 5. Westworld 4. Mr Robot 3. Black Mirror 2. Rectify 1. Bojack Horseman

Good shit. Here’s to a crazy 17.

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

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.

TI5 Photoblog
Aug 212015 Tagged with , , , , ,

TI5 Photoblog

I don’t want to read any of your stupid words and I just want to look at some pictures. So I am going to click this link and go about my day.

For those of you who do want to read my words…

Hey Now~

First and foremost a little apology for the time it took to finish this. Lots of re-writes happened. You’d thing that I was trying to publish a novel or something with the amount of red pen I took to this. But it took me a while because I feel as if I have a lot to say, and I didn’t want to write that novel. So here it is, in all of its glory. My photos and personal stories from my adventure to TI5:

When the GA tickets were released to the public for TI, I was hiding in the back room at work. I manage a Lazertag business, although it sometimes feels like reddit is a full time gig, and I vividly remember giving an unhappy customer like ten free missions because I really needed her to go away so I can run back to my cave and try to get tickets. I was on my phone, work computer, laptop, on skype with my friends, and really didn’t want them to slip away. Refresh, refresh, f5, refresh, f5 f5 f5 f5 f5. I got fucked. My other three friends got tickets, and this was a bit crushing. Valve previously denied press tickets for reddit when I sent them an email prior to the GA release. I knew even if I wasn’t going to be legitimately there as press, I was going to go as GA and work my tail off to do things for /r/DotA2. But more importantly it was going to be a vacation with three of my best friends, so I was kinda bummed.
Read More…

Feb 222015 Tagged with

YouTube Ambissions

So this week at school the YouTube partnership program came to campus. They set up shop in one of the many theaters on campus and gave a presentation about how we as students have so much potential to be great YouTube personalities. They went over success stories, and strategies for using the service. Spent a lot of time answering questions from professors, and all around just being there for us.

It was kinda eye opening. Being someone or doing some thing on YouTube has been a goal of mine for a while. It’s on my list aptly titled “someday maybe.”

I think its time to take this goal off of that list, and put it on the to-do list. Things are just aligning nicely for it. I have to do a diffusion project for my social networking class. I have time to spend on YouTube. I have the slightest bit of name recognition that I could leverage. Most importantly I have the drive. I am scared of piling on another project, but I think that this is something that I can do to really prove to myself that something good can come out of hard work. So lets do it.

To cap off the motivation we got invited as students to the YouTube space LA. Here is where they have so much YouTube swag its overwhelming. Its like a full blown production warehouse with support staff from YT and the Google overloads. It was hip and inviting and super cool to just be there. We got to see a QA panel from mylifeiseva a YouTuber with almost two million subs. Everything was on point and seemed to be a friendly welcoming environment. I want to be a part of that family.

SO what am I going to do? I don’t exactly know yet. I feel as if it will definitely be gaming related. But what do I do that’s different. Something that’s not just a rehash of Total Bisquick or anything close to that? Now this is what I’m still working on.

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