Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@NintendoByNature Ah, I see. Glad I missed that, then. Still catching up to last week and so on...

It seems that office life has once again taken over all of my time, meaning I feel like I have a bit, or rather: considerably less energy left to dedicate to surfing the interwebs and keeping up with all the chatter...

@ThanosReXXX that's good tho. Glad you're back at it.

@NintendoByNature Me too, although I'm still a bit conflicted about it. Part of the whole move from being an independent contractor to becoming an employee once again was my personal situation, and the final push was the pandemic, so I kinda had to do it, but if I would have had the choice, then it wouldn't have happened like this, so I'm still of two minds, so to speak.

And not being able to divide my own time anymore, having to spend at least two hours a day to travel to and from the office is also eating up energy. Normally, I'd be working from home, most of the time, meaning I wouldn't have to get up at 7am, and I wouldn't be home as late as 6pm at the earliest.

And of course, being used to that independent rhythm also means that I'm still going to bed too late, because I haven't been able to revert to normal hours yet, even though I do have to stick to the early mornings, obviously. But the work is okay, I suppose, and the co-workers are nice, so I suppose I'll hang around for a while.

However, I haven't decided on what to do, once the COVID-19 situation has settled down, but I'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

In case you were wondering, I enjoyed today’s Direct. It was wonderful.

@ThanosReXXX i can totally understand all of that. At least you have something in your pocket right now, that doesn't need to be permanent. Just a hold over until the dust settles from covid. Just hang tight and continue to put feelers out there with other places or, don't if the guys are good to work for and with.

The travel does ruin the day though, I know that first hand. Today was a sales call day. Left the house at 730 and got home around 5, and all my calls were 3 hours away. So alot of windshield time for only a few stops. Long day even though I know did like 2-3 hours of work.

I'm barely getting orders these days, so any little chance where I can work my magic, I jump on it, no matter how far away it is.

@NintendoByNature Haha, yeah, I know all about that as well. I also used to do conventions, although these are actually really beneficial to sales, since everyone coming and meeting up there is already of a different mind set/state of mind, what with the buzz of the convention and the whole "what's on offer" vibe.

Nowadays, it's mostly telesales that I'm doing, so no ridiculous amounts of travel time in between potential clients and so on. But yeah, we still jump on every opportunity we get, as any good sales professional should...

I didn’t think it was wonderful, but far better then the last couple ones. Wasn’t bad by any means. I feel like people hate on it for the sole purpose to gain attention.

Watched/listened to the shadow-dropped Partner Direct Mini. There's nothing there that I'm really interested in barring those first three SaGa games from the GB, and I can't say I'm dying to have them either lol. I commented where I felt comments were due, but I didn't read through a lot of the comment sections. My guess is there are a LOT of complainers.

@Eel The one I visited every now and again only had a discount shelf, no bins unfortunately. Another thing I liked about it is that they had a light blue GBA SP on display for ages (even towards the end of the DS's life cycle) that you could play Metroid Fusion on. I still wonder what happened to that game and unit.

@Apportal I think they assumed it was bad because it was a Partner Showcase and so hated it without watching. I liked it. I’m excited for FUSER and both Just Dance 2021 and PuyoPuyo 2 look interesting. A YouTuber I watch did a reaction video and criticized FUSER. So offended.

@BabyYoshi12
I choose Dance Evolution by Konami on Xbox 360 / Arcade over than Just Dance.
Konami have their talented artist who can deliver very great songs than typical mainstream Western artist. The songs from Naoki Maeda (former DDR sound director) were really great on every Konami rhythm games. He was the Maestro of Konami rhythm game before he left from Konami on year 2013 with his partner Jun Karashima as they have collaboration with under name TERRA.

Also, songs from Para Para Paradise (another rhythm game from Konami) on Dance Evolution were far better than any lame Western songs on Just Dance.

@Anti-Matter I watched a DDR gameplay video this morning. It’s not too fun to watch, but I think I would have fun playing it. I don’t think I have a system with a DDR, so I can’t play it. ):

I think the partner direct hate is a mix of it not being a real direct when everyone is starved for one, and the fact that it was shadow dropped, which is asinine. I'm not sure when "this is a thing that happened"started counting as a communications strategy.

Though Nintendo's silence doesn't seem so bad while we have 2 console vendors launching consoles in, what, 10 weeks? And they are just as silent as Nintendo!

If Nintendo really launches a new upgraded switch on winter and it's holding back the games for that, though, that's a double EffU to WiiU owners.

Any direct that doesn’t satisfy my very specific expectations is absolute trash.

And those expectations include a new Viva Piñata game, so...

@BabyYoshi12 Yeah, plus I've looked into DDR and all the more recent games are exclusive to arcades. They never made it to Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Steam, or even Wii U. I've played DDR before, but that was years ago. I do remember thinking it was fun, but I only played the easy songs. XD

@BabyYoshi12
DDR were available on PS1, PS2, Wii, OG Xbox, Xbox 360.

@MarioLover92
Harrrr...!
I can play DDR on Challenge level 18 on certain songs. 😛
Well, don't ask the grade i got... 😅
It was so lucky if i could pass the song with very decent score (65 - 80%)
This is my favorite level 18 DDR song on Challenge difficulty. (gameplay video from other DDR player)

@Anti-Matter I'm not surprised, you're a big DDR guy after all. Not sure if my feet can keep up with those fast-moving arrows though! Long ago I've seen a guy play Pump It Up and he was crazy good at it. It's amazing to see these players keep up with those hard songs.

At least I'm pretty good at games such as Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario Kart, and Tetris (just some examples). That's gotta mean something, right? lol

@Eel
yeah james was first, you know whats weird, i was trying to find one of tbds video on here last night myself, i was gonna post it here but couldnt find it. i miss dez

@ogo79 if you're interested, you can revisit the entire thread by searching "ask theblackdragon" on the forums.

As a general tip for anyone interested in these old threads: please do not revive them.

@Octane Really? It's very common in America to hire a company to come and trim trees or mow your lawn and such. My father used to spend hours and hours every week taking care of our yard when I was a kid. And he still had to hire someone to come and apply fertilizer and safe weed killer a couple times a year. And we had a relatively average size yard. I knew people in town with a lot larger yards.

@NEStalgia that is one thing I can say is very much not the case. As I mentioned, I've been walking all over the neighborhood lately (actually to the point that I blistered my foot and had to stay home today) and I haven't seen a single plate from the North East. Some California, Nevada and New Mexico plates but the vast majority are AZ plates. I do think most people in this community have money, but I've started to get the impression that a sizable number of households here are similar to my current situation, with several generations, or an extended family living together. There does seem to be a good number of kids, and there is even an elementary school right in the neighborhood (not that it's in use currently). On my walks, I have seen a good number of people of a wide range of ages. Mostly white and black though, I haven't noticed any people of Hispanic or Asian descent. Of course that could just be coincidence. Age wise this area really doesn't have the feel of a retirement community at all.

As for nature, well, here, nature is either manufactured, or it's dead dry soil with the occasional scorpion. In Japan I loved the nature, and I got it on my walks. That's a paradox of Japan for sure. Tokyo in American media is always talked about being super high population density with hyper urbanization. But there's trees, plants, flowers, ferns, shrubs etc etc all over. Some huge buildings in Japan convert their entire roof into a garden. There was a one huge 14 story store complex I visited and both the roof and half of another floor were just public gardens open to anyone. And in Shiga, I could walk to the lake in about an hour and a half at a leisurely pace playing Pokemon Go. Or I could go a different route into the mountains which, unlike Arizona's dry, dead, hellscape, Japanese mountains are lush forests full of life.

I grew up in Michigan, so I know full well the need to be able to drive through snow. I've driven through 8 inches of snow in a 1997 Ford Tauros (Much smaller than the current car of the same name). It's doable. Like I mentioned elsewhere, I get that people like them as a hobby or status symbol I suppose, but it still strikes me as ridiculous. I can't relate. But it doesn't directly affect me. It's just another major difference I need to adjust to. Another aspect of this totally different lifestyle I need to learn to live with...

Speaking of buying game consoles and cost, yes, exactly that. Occasionally I do feel a tad selfish and guilty at the amount of money I've spent on gaming. Then I remember that if I had saved every dime I've ever spent on gaming it wouldn't buy me one new Mustang GT or F-150, (forget the more advanced models of those) not by a long shot. So I don't feel quite as bad. Plenty of hobbies are WAY more expensive than gaming.

Ah, rivers. I've been here 2 weeks and I already desperately miss water that wasn't pumped in from another state. Why does this town exist?