I have all kinds of news. Exciting news, bad news, good news, shitty news…all kinds of flavors! Man, where do I even start…well, how about with…

Insert Genre X of the Year Series

Wikipedia SUCKS. No, really. It really…REALLY…fucking sucks. I did comment on this in the last RPG of the Year, but given I did so about a day or so after the final comment, I figure you guys may not have seen it. See, I noticed something strange while compiling the list for RPGofY2K9…I was finding literally less than 10 games according to Wikipedia. “Well, this can’t be right,” I thought.

Then it dawned on me. “Hey, did I ever figure out what year Persona 4 came out? I was pretty sure it came out before 2009…I should probably check.” And lo and behold, it did in fact come out before 2009. IT CAME OUT IN 2008. This is a big fucking deal for two reasons. One, you think I put a lot of time into Fallout 3? Well, ah…you’d be right, BUT I ALSO PUT A GODDAMN HOLY LOAD OF FUCK INTO PERSONA 4.

I was totally 100% serious when I said it nearly dethroned Final Fantasy 7 as my top RPG (and no I’m not going to bother getting into the semi-flame war between everyone and Jim regarding FF7 possibly being overrated, seeing as it should be obvious what I think anyway). Persona 4 wouldn’t just have made the top 5 list; it would have been a major contender for the #1 spot.

But you fine folks would never have known that (at least until now), thanks to Wikipedia being such a piece of shit. I found several other inaccuracies such as wrong release dates, missing release dates, and mismatched information. This leads me to believe either the list I was constantly referencing isn’t maintained well (or at all) or it would’ve been better to use multiple sources, despite it taking longer and probably dealing with the same issues, but at least being more accurate.

Up until this point, I’d always said to myself that it doesn’t really matter if I missed one or two games as there’s a good chance those one or two games wouldn’t have made the top five list anyway…and now this happens. So, at least for a while, the GotY series in general is being suspended until I figure out a better means of cataloging, verifying, etc.

Podcasts and Editing

So I’m currently managing two podcasts and contributing mildly to a third one. By managing, I mean I’m not only hosting the Skype conversations and recording, but also putting them altogether in Audacity complete with music and so on, then putting them up on archive.org for usage on their respective websites.

While these are very fun, the editing process is very time consuming and it’s hard for me to stay motivated enough in a given day to really make significant progress. It literally took almost a month for me to edit the last two episodes and I really need better time management or something so that doesn’t happen again, but it is something I truly enjoy doing, so I’m definitely going to keep it up.

Fitocracy, My Insane Workouts, and the Awesomeness of FitToid

Some people don’t know this, but I’m a bit of a gym rat. I’ll get into why I say “a bit” in a moment. When I go to the gym, I GO TO THE GYM. Just the other day I put in a 3 hour workout. This is normal for me. I will almost always put in an hour or greater’s worth of a workout because I feel anything less is inadequate unless you plan to do more later, but that’s just me. It could also be because I take my time, write shit down, and continuously study the form, different exercises and their benefits and weaknesses, and even myself to ensure I’m definitely improving.

Needless to say, when I found a site like Fitocracy, I was stoked. For those that don’t know, Fitocracy is a site where you log your workouts, get points, and level up. More than that, though, there are several groups, the ability to create your own group, quests and achievements, and just in general it’s fun to go and compare yourself, your workouts, and your results with other gym rats.

Even more awesome is the fact that Destructoid has its own group too: FitToid. My goal is to be #1 by the end of the year, but that might be juuuuuuust a bit tough, mostly because the #1 guy is pretty hardcore. Which also brings me to the “bit.” I have a very bad tendency to get completely wrapped up in something, then when anything, anything at all, disturbs “the cycle,” have a very hard time recovering my routine.

The last few days I haven’t worked out, but before that I was working out almost every day. Even if all I could do was squeeze in a little time in the morning before going to work and that’s it, I would totally do it. Now that I’ve missed a few days, I have no motivation. I’m hoping to get that back today as I really enjoyed the concept of “leveling up” and the achievements alone are lofty goals worth reaching (bench press your body weight, do 20 pull ups in a set, etc.) that will definitely keep me on track for beefing up and losing fat.

Backloggery, Me As a Gamer Lately, and The Goddamn’d 360 Situation

The DAY that L.A. Noire was released, my 360 decided to troll me hardcore and completely fucking died. The dude at the repair shop deemed it unfixable and with my current salary and budget, getting a new one might be a while out. Oh, but that’s not the best part. My desktop, a system I’m invested quite a bit of money in, decided not to boot properly anymore last month.

Geek Squad wants to charge a ridiculous amount to fix it, so fuuuuuuuuuuuuck that. I’ve already been to multiple tech forums about it and have a good idea what’s going on, but one way or the other, it’s going to cost money I don’t have. As a result, anything I’d previously been emulating or grinding for achievements on has been put aside until…well, I have no fucking idea.

The only bit of good news here is that means more time to concentrate on other things and try to knock out my PS2 library. Plus, most PS2 games are a little more systematic in the grinding process, meaning I can do my “level up ab crunch” program a little more effectively, where basically I do either pushups, ab crunches, jack knifes, or whatever anytime I level up and log it on Fitocracy, then update my progress on my backloggery, and continue the game, pausing every so often to do chores.

If it seems like I multitask quite a bit, it’s because if I don’t, I feel like I’m being incredibly lazy. That, and I have ADHD, so I often try to do as much as possible rather than just focusing on one thing at a time.

My Work

I’m currently doing customer service. It’s not really my end goal, but I’m not looking for another job right now for two reasons. One, I’m eternally grateful that at least I’m no longer unemployed, though it does mean more gas and I’m still down to one car. Two, I’m attempting to work my way into their advance technical support department, which pays about as much as I way making at my last job, which would improve my situation tenfold.

In the event it doesn’t seem like it’s going there (and it better with all the ass I’ve been busting ever since I started), then I will start looking into either temp work for programming/IT or something. But at least for now, this is secure. Of course, it does cause you to just about laugh whenever a customer is bitching…BITCHING…because their $200 bill was supposed to be $195 and they want a supervisor.

Yes, because in this economy, especially given my situation, you can afford to pay $195 on a LUXURY…but not that extra $5. You little shite-burger. Anyway, that’s about it for now. Thanks for reading! I will absolutely try to post more often.