Within the Madness of Jbizzo49

Deja Vu?

2012-01-25T18:07:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, this is Jbizzo49.

Currently in class where we have been given time to work on an example database design, and since I'm already finished with it for the most part (having a whole course in database management doesn't hurt), I figured I'd do a quick post.

Yesterday I finished recording Super Luigi Galaxy, and the plan was to upload all the remaining videos today, but I only got Parts 32-34 uploaded since I was kind of lazy and couldn't get the rest before I had to leave for class. That playthrough should be finished tomorrow with Parts 35 and 36 and one bonus video.

So Super Bowl XLVI (46 for the Roman numerically challenged) is gong to be a rematch of Super Bowl XLII (42) between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. And the similarities on how both teams got there is almost uncanny. Both Super Bowls are in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The Giants got into the playoffs by being on a hot streak in December and January, and similarly NOBODY wants to face the Giants. The Giants also won the NFC Championship game both times by a game-winning field goal in overtime. The Patriots are once again the top seed in the AFC, which is still the weaker conference in all honesty. This is, of course, not the same feared Patriots team it was 4 years ago on the verge of the perfect season. They've been able to put together 14 wins in the regular season despite having one of the worst defenses in the league. Their offense this year is not compensating as much for their bad defense this year as they were 4 years ago. The Patriots, surprisingly, are the 3 point favorites according to Vegas. They're the favorites, and we're asking what CAN they do, against the Giants, who are suddenly like what CAN'T they do? That makes no sense.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get some more things recorded this weekend but I haven't decided what. So, see ya.

Back to School

2012-01-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

I haven't done one of these in a while and thought it was time I did.

I shall have you know that in addition to these written blogs, PrometheusMFD and I do blogs that I post on YouTube, and we have another one of those coming, although I don't know when.

Today is my first day of classes for the semester. Rarely do you see something that is eye-opening on the first day of classes, let alone the first class in a student's given semester, but that's what happened today. I'm taking Intercultural Communication and watched part of the 1993 documentary "The Color of Fear" which was about preconceptions of people of all different races and cultures. If I were you, I'd check it out if you can find it and have a couple of hours to kill.

As far as my class schedule is concerned, if there's any day in the week you can expect a bunch of stuff to be uploaded from me, it's Wednesday because I have a break in classes from 2-6PM (CST) and that will be the prime time I'm in the library or something doing homework, and since most of that is done electronically, I can upload videos at the same time, and the internet connection is really fast, so the most likely day of the week for floods of uploads this semester is Wednesday.

I'm gonna head to my last class of the day, and then probably record a whole bunch of stuff since Prometheus probably won't want to do the blog today. I'm hoping to get Super Luigi Galaxy finished and make some progress on Kirby's Return to Dream Land.

Speaking of my last class of the day, it's starting about 20 minutes from when I post this, so I'll end things here, so until then, see ya.

The Most Politics You'll Likely Ever Hear From Me

2012-01-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

A belated new year to you all, this is Jbizzo49.

I started uploading the first parts of my Kirby's Return to Dream Land playthrough. Incidentally, Part 1 is right here, should you wish to check it out. And I'm writing this a little bit before my second recording session of it. I'll tell you right now that this playthrough is not going to be as short as everyone thinks it's going to be because of what I plan to do with it. On the other hand, I shouldn't have to much trouble with it, so hopefully I won't get lazy with this playthough and still finish it fairly quickly.

PrometheusMFD was over at my place a few days ago and I got the chance to play some Rock Band 3 and he got to see Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Skyward Sword. We also recorded my 1000 Video Special. 3 things I'll say about it: you'll like it, it's a little over an hour in length, and it will probably be a month before it gets released considering at the time I'm writing this post, I'm uploading video #939.

Tomorrow is January 3rd which means that the Republican caucus in Iowa will finally happen. This is good, because anyone living in Iowa is well aware of the political ads on TV that run about once every 5 milliseconds. You either get active into politics, or, like PrometheusMFD, get jaded to the whole thing. But with the caucus tomorrow, we get a relief from these ads for about 3 microseconds. Seriously, this whole "Iowa having the first say" when it comes to this stuff is not all it's cracked up to be. My example up there is only a very slight exaggeration on the number of political ads here, you just get bombarded with them. You see so many of them so many times that you start to pick up on how HATEFUL the large majority of them are. This is a problem that seems to have grown at least tenfold every Presidential Election since the invention of the television. When I'm thinking who I should vote for, you should tell me why I should vote for you. This kind of ad has dissipated further and further each Presidential Election I remember. They've turned more towards "why you shouldn't vote for the other guy". And I swear about 90% of the ads this political season have been from that perspective. Another thing to note is the amount of political calls, especially if you're a registered Independent. This is an absolute joke. We live in the year 2012 and these idiots are unaware of the value of our privacy. You know, having the whole family sit down at the dinner table has become a rarer and rarer thing. So when it actually does happen, rarely does something bring a sour mood to the table than a call that interrupts family time when everyone is otherwise busy on the computer, at work, or something like that, it's absolutely frustrating. And you follow the campaigns enough, you'll soon start to realize that marketing on other products largely have the same feel. Tell me why I should buy your product, don't tell me why I shouldn't buy the other guy's product. It's the same frustrating situation both as a citizen and as a consumer, both in the ridiculous amount of both the information and negativity.

Man, that was a long-winded tirade against current situations. Just thinking about it has worn me out, so I think that will do for now, so until next time, see ya.

New Kirby and Zelda First Impressions

2011-12-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, this is Jbizzo49.

Yesterday I got 2 new games: Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Return to Dream Land is a fun, ahem, return to form. It had been 11 years since a traditional Kirby platformer was released on a home console (and I think 5 years since a new traditional Kirby platformer, period.) I've collected 25% of the MacGuffins (30 out of 120 Energy Spheres). Some powerups have special upgraded versions which you need to use in order to access secret areas to get some of these Energy Spheres. It's an overall fun platformer, though I have not had the opportunity to do multiplayer just yet.

I actually have a lot more to say about Skyward Sword, but I have to be careful of spoilers, so this section of this post may be a little weird in terms of generic word usage. To start things off, Skyward Sword comes with a Bonus CD with 8 tracks performed by the Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony, which is awesome. The game itself, and I'm only 4 hours into it so I have a long way to go, visually it's like the perfect blend of the cel-shading from Wind Waker and the more gritty realistic look of Twilight Princess. The soundtrack, shocker of shockers, is brilliant, up to the point I'm at, it rivals Wind Waker. Now that's saying something. If you wanna know how much of a long haul you're in for, it took me about an hour and a half just to set the plot in motion. Speaking of the plot, that's where things get interesting. Trailers and pre-release interviews have stated that there is more of an emphasis on the relationship between Link and Zelda in this game. And from what I have played, I don't think I've seen a stronger Zelda/Link OTP in a game than in Skyward Sword. I think that's all I can say without spoilers.

And that's been my Christmas. I got some other things, but those were the two big ones. I probably won't have another post until 2012, but you never know. So until next time, see ya.

The Holidays Are Here

2011-12-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, this is Jbizzo49.

You know, it's been 4 days since my last post and I STILL haven't recorded anything, been watching some YouTube videos and such. I also worked today. For those that don't know (which would be approximately 99.9% of you reading this post the first time) I work on-campus athletics event staff, and that basically means I go to various athletic events and do various things to help the events run smoothly. I like it because part of my job is actually watching the game, and that's an especially good thing if your team is winning. Clean-up kinda sucks, but they do have people come in specifically to do that so it's not just the core 8 having different positions on clean-up, by the end of the game and we get ready to do that we have about a dozen people trying to work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

So as I'm writing this the Maaco Bowl is going on and Boise State is trouncing Arizona State as they should, they're the #7 team in the country. How messed up is this? Boise State is #7 in the final BCS Standings this year and they're playing their bowl game before Christmas, that's a tragedy.

My friend PrometheusMFD is back in town and will be for about another week and a half. If you're unaware we've actually known each other since high school. But anyway, we are plotting a recording of "Jbizzo49 1000 Video Special Spectaularmathonamajigthing" featuring PrometheusMFD. We've been throwing a few ideas around, but I have a feeling I won't be able to contact him until at least Christmas, so, without spoiling it, I think I may have decided just what we're going to do.

Well, I'll probably record something tomorrow. I've gotten to the point in my Super Luigi Galaxy playthrough where I need to actually grind for Star Bits offscreen. (Grinding in a platformer? Are you sure we're playing the right game here?) I ended Part 25 with 683 Star Bits, if I recall correctly. I'll probably be starting Part 26 with at least 2500 Star Bits. The reason I'm doing it like this is I wanna save the Trial Galaxies as the last thing I do before I take on Bowser for the 3rd time just because I think that's a cool way to do it. Go through the trials before the final battle. Not that it affects the plot, it's just good presentation, I guess. Well, in order for me to do the Trial Galaxies last, I have 2 Hungry Lumas to feed to do these other offshoot galaxies: one wants 1200, the other wants 1600, for a total of 2800 Star Bits I would need. The reason I set my goal at 2500 is because I still have 4 Stars on Melty Molten Galaxy, and 1 more on that last "?" block Galaxy to build up the remaining 300, and at that point, Star Bits become a non-issue. I could just build up the Star Bits by fighting Bowser the 3rd time, doing some of the Purple Coin stuff, then going to the Hungry Lumas, but I think that kind of breaks the flow of the Purple Coin stuff, plus I wanna do the Purple Coin stuff all in a row.

So those are the main things that have been going on in the last few days. Christmas Day is Sunday, y'all. And you know, I don't have to go anywhere Christmas Day, which is crazy. I have someone in my family coming home for a couple weeks off of his umpteenth tour on Afghanistan, but he doesn't get here until the 27th, so we decided to hold off on gatherings until after he gets here (I think we have formally decided on January 3rd, but I'm not 100% sure)

Anyways, this has been going on long enough. But that's what happens, I get on one subject and don't shut up about it.

Have a safe holiday, everyone.

It's A Start

2011-12-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, this is Jbizzo49 and I welcome one and all to a place where I write some random crap down for my own amusement, and it somehow amuses others as well, not sure how that works.

For those who are unaware, I'm one of those crazy people that play video games for entertainment for the Internet (or do "Let's Plays" or LPs). 2012 will be the beginning of my 4th year doing so on YouTube. I have my own little niche of the YouTube community with (as of this post) 267 subscribers, which is not a lot but is better than nothing, so it's not something to take for granted. I've uploaded over 900 videos to that channel which can be found here if you're curious. Some of the LPs I've done include all of the 3D console Super Mario games, Luigi's Mansion, Sonic Colors, Metroid Prime, among others. I'm writing this just before I'm doing my next recording session in which I'll continue Super Luigi Galaxy, my Super Mario Galaxy replay, and I'll also probably record some more Metroid Prime 2 in that session since I haven't done that in a while.

As far as this blog is concerned, I'll try my best to update this at least once per week, with topics ranging from LPs (some others I'm watching as well as what I'm doing) to my 2 cents on what's going on in the world to some random BS I just don't understand.

I do watch the NFL, and man, what a crazy season it has been. Just this week, two "perfect" seasons ended. The Packers' road to perfection was stopped by the CHIEFS?! Really? Well, at least that will stop the Packers' perfect season talks, because I was tired of hearing about it 8 weeks ago. My Lions, after looking like they were going backwards, beat the Raiders in dramatic fashion, and are all of a sudden 9-5, clinching Detroit's first winning season since 2000. It seems we finally have a confident QB in Matthew Stafford. And we've gone through a bunch of them: Joey Harrington, Jon Kitna, Dan Orlovsky, among others. Speaking of which, Orlovsky and the Manning-less Colts are also no longer winless as they beat the Titans 27-13. Good for them, believe me, I know what 0-16 feels like and I'm sure Orlovsky does as well since as starting QB he accounted for 7 of those losses in the Lions' 0-16 2008 season. I could go on forever about this sort of thing, but this is just a taste of what I follow in the NFL.

And that is a taste of how these blogs are going to be like. I'll probably have more LP-related stuff in this blog soon, especially since it's winter break, giving me the chance to record a whole bunch. So until next time, see ya!