I feel like these little soot sprites. Slaving away...can it be the weekend yet?!

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A nifty map of all the catchable Pokémon in X & Y. I have the official guide but this is definitely cool nonetheless!

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I absolutely love this new album. I love AFI. I'll definitely be listening to this for weeks to come.

1. The Sinking Night
2. I Hope You Suffer
3. A Deep Slow Panic
4. No Resurrection
5. 17 Crimes
6. The Conductor
7. Heart Stops
8. Rewind
9. The Embrace
10. Wild
11. Greater Than 84
12. Anxious
13. The Face Beneath The Waves

Alright, ready for another huge book on my life updates? Awesome!

I've completed the beta version rollout for MyVideoGameList.com and I've been busy these last few days working on squishing any bugs that come up. I've also been busy working on theming the forums which has turned out to be not as horrible as I thought it would be. In fact I'm actually having a bit of fun working on it. So far everything is really looking awesome on the new site, and I'm really really happy with how it turned out. There's a lot more work to be done, but it's a lot of fun.

At work, I've been busy working on our internal site and have developed at least 2-3 new modules which have come out really well. Today also happens to be our companies birthday. Happy Birthday!

I'm still working on Pokémon X as much as I can whenever I have some free time. Savannah and I are also trying to get a session of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in each night. We're at the Lanayru Ship part. I think we're both really enjoying this game, I know I definitely am. I'm really excited to see what Zelda game(s) come out for Wii U (which I've barely played due to the lack of games). I think the next game I play once that is complete will be Dead Space 3 on Xbox 360.

I believe that's about all the new news I have right now.

I did my very first Wonder Trade in Pokémon X this past weekend. I was quite wary going into the trade because of this article I had recently read on Kotaku which mainly complained about people putting in low level "junk" Pokémon if you may while you had put in a rare Pokémon or one you had worked on for a while in hopes of getting something equally as good back.

However...

I managed to get a level 30 Onyx out of the trade! Woohoo!

It's definitely been quite some time since I've actually written anything useful in (not to say this post is useful) here, or anything at all. I've just been so incredibly busy with work and working on the new version of MyVideoGameList.com. It's Sunday evening, a rainy day in Texas, so I figured I could spend a few minutes spewing out what else I've been busy with.

The two biggest things consuming my life as mentioned above are working on the new MyVideoGameList.com and working. I've been getting as much code time in as I can between work and sleep. I've made a huge amount of progress and I'd say 95% of the functionality from the current site has made it's way into the new site. There's a few left I have to port over, the forums being one of the bigger ones.

Insert 5 day period between now and what I typed up there...

If that's not evidence that I've been busy, I don't know what is. I can barely find the time to even write out a new blog post.

This week I've been swamped with work and trying to get a usable version of MyVideoGameList ready so I can roll it out this weekend. I got a massive amount of work done on it and I think by tomorrow afternoon (fingers crossed), I can roll it out. There's several things, the biggest one being the forums that aren't ready for version 2.0, so I have to figure out how I am going to handle that.

At work I've been working on an intranet portal for our Linux System Administrators as well as pushing new administrator through our Linux Admin training program. I find that every time I do a training class I end up working on my quiz script and training materials (and then once the class ends I stop working on them). It ends up being a non-ending project since I usually end up working on my training materials only during training times which is 2-3 times a year. I really just need to buckle down and finish it soon instead of two or three times a year. I've also been working on two client registration/sign-up tools for some of our partners. It's a lot of fun, I do enjoy a little development work to break things up.

In really important news, my girlfriend and I hit up the midnight Pokémon X/Y release. It was enjoyable. I haven't been to a midnight release since the Nintendo Wii release. I do enjoy "nerding" it up once in a while. We even got some cool posters and a Pokémon timeline! We're both really enjoying the game. I don't think I've been this excited for Pokémon since Red and Blue. I love the music in the game and the graphics. They look really wonderful on my 3DSXL screen. I also managed to snag the guide last night on my way home from work, so I'll likely spend a good chunk of this weekend getting some more hours in. I've only made it up to the city where you get the first badge (which I now proudly have). I've managed to snag a Pikachu, Pigeotto, Zigzagoon, and a Bunnelby. I chose Fennekin as my starter. It seems to be a good choice since the first gym has trainers and a gym leader with bug type Pokémon. Overall I'm definitely very happy with the game and quite impressed by it.

I also managed to finish off Grand Theft Auto V. I really enjoyed the game and I'd love to keep working on it even if it's only to mess around in the game.

Insert another 5 day period between now and what I typed up there...

Gosh, darn I'm busy! I think I'll create another new post instead of making you read even more in this post!

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I'm definitely getting really excited!!!

I just pre-ordered a copy of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for Savannah and I. I am definitely excited about this however I should probably finish The Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword! At least I have a few months to do so! :video_game:

I've been working hard on putting together MyVideoGameList.com v2 this weekend. Currently we have a new theme and we've got a really awesome looking admin dashboard which is going to be MUCH better then the current one we have. For now feel free to enjoy some screenshots. A lot of code and time still needs to be put into this, but I have a feeling you're all really going to like this project and site when it's complete and working. We've got a few new features planned and hopefully a lot of fixes to issues we've been having.

Now that I'm all moved into our new house I finally have some more time to dedicated to this project! I am hoping to have it in a usable state within the next 2-3 weeks so I can invite people in to try it out and allow people to beta test and report issues back.

I've decided to start a new private World of Warcraft server. It'll be running up to Wrath of the Lich King and open to all. Hopefully within the next 2 weeks I'll have it all running!

This definitely looks like an awesome game. I think the next game I am going to play through will be Final Fantasy XII on Playstation 2. I just never got around to working on it, but I think Final Fantasy definitely needs some attention! As for the above video there's been some controversy over what's being said at the ~1:50 mark. I personally clearly here 'fuzzball', however other people claim to here something else, something a bit more explicit.

I'd also love to play through Final Fantasy X and X-2 as well. I finished Final Fantasy X a long time ago, and got some ways into X-2 but didn't pick it back up after setting it aside for probably 10 years...

This past weekend my girlfriend and I picked up a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield. Since I got my CHL permit about a year ago, I haven't actually had anything to carry. I do have 2 other handguns, a Springfield Armory XDM 9mm and a Smith & Wesson M&P45. I love both, but unfortunately they're not as easy to conceal as something like the Shield. My research into what to get for my carrying piece began about 6 months ago. Being in Texas and the Texas State Guard I certainly had more then enough resources to go through aside from the Internet. My buddy was also doing some research and was let me in on all the information he had gathered. I was between the Kahr PM9 and the Smith & Wesson Shield. I found some decent reviews of both guns on YouTube (this guy actually has a ton of reviews of for many different guns.

So after gathering all my notes and research and comments from other people I headed over to my local Gander Mountain (which now stocks 5-6 variants of the .50cal rifle and various Desert Eagles - I want one!) and proceeded to get my hands on not only the Shield, but the PM9, the BodyGuard from Smith & Wesson as well as the XDS and a few models from Sig Saur. I was definitely sold on the Shield though, I enjoyed the size, the form factor and how it looked.

We haven't taken them to the range yet, but this coming weekend we definitely plan on doing so this coming weekend. I feel a lot better having something that I can actually carry around daily. My next task is to find a holster that I like.

Savannah and I picked up Plants vs. Zombies 2 this weekend. So far I am impressed and excited to be playing the next PvZ. The graphics have been updated, new plants and zombies have been added as well as some parts of how the game work have changed. Mind you I've only played the first 2 levels after the tutorial so I've only experienced very little of what the new game has to offer. One new thing though is now along with sun dropping, you can also collect plant food. This plant food when fed to your plants allows them to convert into machine gunners. At least that's how it works when you feed it to a normal single shooter plant. I haven't had the chance to try it on any other plants yet.

The graphics I must say look really great. My iPhone 4S doesn't seem to have any issues running the game, however I am definitely looking forward to playing it on my iPad mini which also should have no issues.

It seems this game is based more on micro-transactions as there's many more options to use real money to purchase, coins, and plants. For me, I just can't really justify spending $2-$3 on a single plant unless if I find it really necessary. The game however should be built where one doesn't need to spend a single cent in order to enjoy the game. The game itself was free in fact, and I believe their business model is to create income from these micro-transactions.

For now, I think I'll just continue to play and enjoy this new Plants vs. Zombies. I'll certainly follow up on this post or create a new one should anything change.

Apparently I have earworms because I cannot for the life of me get "This Is Halloween" and "Making Christmas" songs from the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas out of my head!!! I've already played through both songs a dozen times and watched the movie...I'm going to go crazy! Either that or my girlfriend will, for having to listen to me humming and singing them for days on end.

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