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January 11, 2010

I am no longer a gamer

Filed under: Gaming — Tyler @ 10:08 pm
What is a gamer

What is a gamer?

I am no longer a gamer. I used to define myself by either computer or video games. I used to think about video games all the time. I used to want to collect video games and computer games and peripherals and joysticks. Now, at 29 years old, I finally have come to the realization that I am no longer a gamer. Why? It’s not because I don’t like games anymore, or I don’t think they’re cool. The reason why I am no longer a gamer is because I keep getting my butt kicked in Heroes of Newerth and other games like Starcraft and Warcraft 3 and quite frankly games take too much time nowadays. Who has 80 hours to pound out an RPG anymore? That’s a donkey-load worth of time to grind out on a game. I don’t even want to think about how much time I spent playing Diablo 2 back in the day. If I had a nickel for every time I pked someone in hardcore mode I would probably be the “Nickel King.” Or maybe my clan leader would be the Nickel King and I would be the Nickel Knave or something.

I remember playing hours of Nintendo (NES) when I was a kid. I used to sit in my brothers room and play ZANAC and Strider for hours. When I got to the last stage in ZANAC these brains were there and I couldn’t figure out how to beat them. They were too strong. I decided that I wasn’t old enough to beat that game and so I shelved it for literally 13 years. I was like that with other games too. There was Alien Syndrome in the arcade and the game was really nasty gory alien imagery. I remember teenagers playing it when I was still in grade school. I was like, “I’m no way old enough to play that game.” I was almost self-censoring, there was a lot of organic semi-sexual imagery of guts and worms and orifices that was really intense for a 10 year old.

Playing games in the arcade with my brother was so great. I felt like I had a handful of coins and I could be entertained for hours. My brother would always come back and take some of my coins because I would be still playing Street Fighter II and others. I remember he said once, “You know you really shouldn’t beat the older people with the same move over and over again. They might get mad.” I took no heed. I thought I was the master. But now games have changed. There is this online/multiplayer fun factor that is tapped into for modern gaming. It does bring a level of excitement, but the overall gaming experience is just time consuming. I find myself feeling guilty after playing hours of Heroes of Newerth and thinking about how many blog articles I could have written in that time. Or how I could have typed up my book. It’s almost like challenge in games has been replaced by learning curve, specialization and time consumption. I miss the days of old Nintendo games where the game had relatively simple gameplay  but the actual experience was intense and hard as diamond.

I guess it’s all a part of growing up. Some hobbies and lifestyles don’t survive into adulthood. It’s kind of like outgrowing old toys and finally not caring about any toys anymore. This may seem hypocritical but someone just messaged me on Facebook and he wants to play HoN and I said I’d play with him. Isn’t that funny? The difference between how I would play the game before this article and afterward is that now I won’t play the dumb game ’till my neck hurts! I saw this video about a girl who is angry about her boyfriend who played PS3 too much. Check it out!

-Tyler

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Animals know it when you love them

Filed under: Tyler's Mind — Tyler @ 7:55 pm

Animals know it when you love them. My parents have this cute yellow lab and she is very loving. Tonight after my parents and I ate dinner I told her to sit. Then after she sat I whispered in her ear, “I love you.” Do you think she understood that? I do. Why? because she licked me in the arm and on the face after I told her that I love her. She is a very good dog and she is very kind but she is lazy. I am supposed to take her for walks at around 10PM and she is usually asleep in her bed or on her mat. When I bring the collar and tell her to wake up she just stays there and ignores me. Then I lift her head up and say, “Ok harvest! It’s time to go for your walk.” And I put the collar on. And instead of getting up she just plops her head back down with the collar on. Then I try and pull on her to get her up but she uses dead-man passive resistance like she’s from a 60’s civil rights campus movement. So I can’t get her to get up so instead I use gravity against her. What I do is, if she is in her bed I tilt the back of the bed so she gets dumped out like it’s a dump truck. Then she gets on her feet, but if I don’t get her moving fast she will just lay back down again. What a lazy dog!

When I am out front and I am switching from my sneakers to my boots Harvest will lick my face as I’m tying my shoes. What a funny dog, always sneaking in the smooches whenever I get on her level. Then when we leave the house and start the walk we go about 5 paces and Harvest will stand dead in her tracks and refuse to walk forward. She won’t budge even if I start pulling her leash. So what I have to do is either one of two things: 1-I remember to bring a small dog bone treat in my pocket and when she stops moving I let her smell the treat and coax her into walking with me. Then after we walk for about a block and I think she’s not going to stop anymore I give her the treat. 2-I don’t have a treat. (Maybe I forgot to bring one) And I have to actually walk around the dog and push her from behind in order to get her to start moving. Once she starts walking for a few feet she keeps the momentum up and we can proceed on our walk.

There’s something special about animals. There is this cat by an exercise personal trainer shop in Corona del Mar. She is so nice. If you ask her a question like, “How’s it going?” She will meow at you like she knows what you’re talking about. When I pet her she rolls over like a dog.

-Tyler

Heroes of Newerth makes my Neck Hurt

Filed under: Gaming — Tyler @ 7:19 am

Heroes of Newerth makes my Neck Hurt! This game is addictive! I don’t know why I play this game so much. The game itself is setup as some kind of twisted mix between Warcraft 3 and football…NO JOKE. You pick a hero and play on a team and then go back and forth trying to score a “Touch Down” by getting to the opposing team’s Great Tree or Sacrificial Shrine. You also get “First Downs” by destroying enemy towers. The game takes about 30- 55 minutes every time you play a match and that doesn’t usually count the time you spend in the lobby and pre-match screen waiting for the game to start and character selection. I think the reason why this game makes my neck hurt is because you have to be in a constant state of attention in order to play and not get served by the enemy team. One misplaced right click on the screen can cost your hero to get killed and can put your team at a disadvantage for an entire game. Basically, this game is an hour of stress every time you play it.

But is it fun? I’d say it is pretty fun. Here’s an article that I wrote about Heroes of Newerth and how I wanted to start waking up early. How did it go for waking up early? Well I woke up early today, but I surely didn’t play Heroes of Newerth last night. That game drains my brain. But why does it hurt my neck. Well, the problem is that when you play the game, you don’t usually play just one round, you usually are playing with friends and talking with them via Ventrilo and after you win or lose you want to play again…and again. After a while you need to go to the bathroom while your character is dead and respawning and you are trying to hurry and take a leak at the same time and that experience is bad times, and when you come back your base is being attacked and your friends are like, “Where are you! Get over here and spider this scout!”

After playing one game of Heroes of Newerth I feel like I’m in a small fog. My eyes are kind of squinty and you feel an overwhelming desire to drink San Peligrino and eat Ritz crackers. After two games I begin to feel like I’m being sucked into my laptop and there is a tingling sensation and the base of my nerve stem. After the third game my neck starts to hurt and feel sore. It almost like that episode of Star Trek Voyager, where Janeway has aliens that are invisible that are sticking needles in her head causing pressure. Well in my case it’s like I’m sitting in a movie theater with crappy seats because I came too late to see Avatar or something and the angle is crunching my neck.

Is Heroes of Newerth going to cause you neck pain? I don’t know. Maybe. I suggest taking breaks every hour or so. Because pounding the game out over and over again not only is dumb because there are better things to do, but you will be giving yourself stress and disguising it as fun even tho it’s just an excuse for seeing some death animations of enemy heroes. The most fun part of the game is when people bicker and yell at each other anyway. Here’s a video where two people are yelling at each other on Heroes of Newerth.

-Tyler

PS: If you want to check out my Blood Hunter Guide then click here! It’s a little outdated but it still shows the basics.

Good Investments for 2010

Filed under: Reviews — Tyler @ 12:15 am
Bank

bank

Good Investments for 2010 = Your Savings Account

Why invest in your savings account? There is almost no interest to be made. Also savings accounts aren’t cool. If you walk into a cocktail party and people are talking investments and you say, “I like to invest in my Wells Fargo Standard Savings Account.” People will look at you like you have a walrus growing out of your head. NO JOKE. But the reality is, liquid money is KING in today’s terrible economy, and if you have the power to use your money and withdrawal it quickly then you will have an advantage over other people who have locked their money away into CD’s and 401k’s etc. Basically, savings accounts are unglamorous ways of storing your money, they provide minimal return on investment and there is usually a lag time if you want to withdrawal or transfer money. But the reason why I think savings accounts are the best thing under the sun right now, is because all other investments have dumb risks involved. Why risk your money in the stock market or by trying to buy/sell silver if you know you are basically gambling your money away? CD’s are great but they require that you put your money away from anything from 3 months to 5 years. Can’t you figure out what to do with your money in order to increase your wealth? Why rely on someone else in order to invest your money?

What is the alternative to having someone else invest in your money? Well, you can always constantly increase the amount of liquid funds in your checking and savings account and then when you are comfortable invest in something directly yourself or with business partners. This may sound risky, and you will probably fail the first few times you start a business, but let’s face it, do you want to work for someone else for the rest of your life? If you don’t try to become an entrepreneur sooner or later in life you will be serving someone else’s interests until the day you either retire…or die.

People invest in themselves all the time. Some people put away part of their paychecks every month in a savings account and eventually start a business or else create a nest egg to pay for education or time off from work altogether. Think about it. If you saved $500 every 2 week paycheck for 1 year you will have saved $12,000. That’s not bad, but you can’t exactly retire on that kind of money either. But if you save $500 every 2 week paycheck for 3 years you will have saved $36,000. That’s a pretty good chunk of change. You can use that money to pay off your $30,000 car and have money to spare. Or what about finding some friends that you trust that did the same thing you did and three friends besides you saved up the same kind of money. That means together with your three friends if you all saved $500 per 2 week paychecks for 3 years you would have collectively saved $144,000! Now if you and your friends pool that money and become business partners you can start a small business where you are actually in control of the investment directly. This may seem scary at first, because you run the risk of loosing all your money if the business fails, but you can loose your money in the stock market too. Besides, that was just 3 years of saving $500 per paycheck. Big deal. You probably spend more than that at Starbucks getting Caramel Macchiato’s everyday.

We as Americans need to build up our savings and checking accounts. Savings and checking accounts are the meat and potatos of everyday financial life in America. They are a basic indicator for how you’re doing. If you can minimize or pay off your debt and then build your checking and savings accounts you will be in a healthy position to not have to work for someone else for the rest of your life. Imagine owning your own pizza parlor, or online clothing store, or selling dog food, computer parts distribution, whatever! If you actually have money in your savings account you won’t feel so poor all the time and will be able to make decisions about what you want to do with your money and life.

Other good investments for 2010 include paying off your house or car. That way you don’t have to make monthly payments on that anymore. Or what about paying off your credit cards, the interest on those puppies are brutal. Whatever you decide on, try to invest in something that you feel will give you more personal freedom rather than something that drains your accounts and makes you want to watch the stock market every 5 seconds. I know people who watch silver on the internet to watch the prices go up and down and they call their investor dudes every few hours and they act like they are having fun, but the reality is that they are just gambling and they seem super-stressed. No way am I falling for that trap. Remember, regardless of the reason why money was invented, you shouldn’t let it stress you out when you have lots of it! That’s just plain dumb! When you have money you should have easy access to it and be able to clearly see what you are doing with it and have good liquidity. All these financial advisers that tell you to diversify your portfolio into tons of stuff and then sit and watch the stock market are the same people that got everybody seriously served when the market crashed (which time am I talking about? You pick!).

There are no good get rich quick paths in the USA and frankly, do you want that anyway? You will probably feel a lot better about yourself if you make your money and then allocate part of it to savings and then invest that part in something that interests you. If you fail and loose your money, it shouldn’t break the bank because you only invested a small part of your paycheck. And if you don’t make enough money to save $500 per paycheck, then you need to focus on getting a better job! I don’t understand the people who get paychecks and they invest in 401k’s and company stock when they have no money in savings to begin with. SO WHAT if they say that they’ll match your money with stock. Are you really going to work for them for 30+ years? If so, why? What’s so good about the company that you work for that you really think you are going to enjoy working for them for 30 or more years? You will get bored. If you don’t get bored, then maybe this article isn’t for you. But deep down people stick with companies for 30+ years because they get used to it. They start a family and then get promoted and eventually they think they’re stuck. But you won’t be stuck if you save $500 or more per paycheck. If you have a high paying job and you can save $1,000 to $5,000 per paycheck then you are living fat city! You can pay off your home after a few years if you buy a modest house or condo. You can live debt free. Don’t get stuck in this stock market stress if you have the opportunity to control your money.

-Tyler

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