Words On Wednesday

When I say “rock music,” you say… Lorde? At least that’s what people said about “Royals” back in 2014 when it won the VMA for Best Rock Video . I understand that was 3 years ago, and people made plenty of jokes soon after, but it still stands as a shining example of how rock as a genre has had its lines blurred to the point that it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Even the other nominees for the rock category seem like a stretch. Imagine Dragons, Arctic Monkeys, and The Black Keys all fit into a weird area of… yeah, I guess I could maybe call it rock, but it’s more of like an indie sort of rock. The only nominee in 2014 that I would genuinely consider rock would have been Linkin Park, but I certainly wouldn’t have considered them the only rock band with a song in the running for “Best Rock Video” of that year. What is Rock Music? Suffice it to say, “rock music” doesn’t mean much anymore. I understand that with all the sub-genres and combinations within rock, it does encompass a rat...

I really wanted to write up some big post about Christmas, but… I’ll be honest. It’s not going to happen. This whole “Year of the Dates” initiative I took with Words On Wednesday was almost geared specifically toward Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday, and obviously the one that I would speak the most about. Unfortunately, I am just so spent, I can’t even be bothered to write up a discussion of why I like Christmas so much, or talk about our family traditions. So far, this term of school has been just the worst. I realize that it’s only my second term at SNHU, but the stark contrast between my first class and this one is just baffling. At this point, I’m just hanging on until the end of the term. As the adage goes, “C’s get degrees.” If I can pass, whatever. I’ll get my reimbursement check from work and continue onto the next class. Shopping is awful anyway, but the fact that we’ve had to do every bit of shopping for basically entire family for our kids is so frustrating. I don’...

I temporarily lost my credit card over the weekend, which resulted in a short but intense panic. However, even had I lost it for good, it occurred to me how much better it is to lose a credit or debit card than cash. Had I lost cash, it would probably have been gone for good. While there are kind souls out there who might try to return the money, how do you differentiate your bills from those that belong to other people? Other than knowing the individual serial numbers of every bill in your wallet (which, really, who would do that?), a $20 is a $20. I’ve heard of instances in which people were able to prove their loss by knowing the exact amount, but I’ll be honest, I have no idea how much cash is in my wallet at any given time. And that still depends on someone being exceptionally generous. I guarantee you there are more people who would just keep the money than those who would even attempt to return it. Similar to losing the money, what happens if you get mugged? That cash is gone. E...

Have you ever experienced nostalgia for something strange? Something like a bridge? Anyone in the Enoree area has probably driven over Ligon Bridge at some point. This rickety old bridge crossed the Enoree River on Beaverdam Church Road, behind James Davis’s service station. As the most direct route out toward the Gray Court and Fountain Inn areas, it was used quite regularly by locals. I say it “was” used because in 2015, Ligon Bridge was torn down and replaced with a new bridge. Admittedly, it was in terrible disrepair. Per Bridge Hunter, the inspection of Ligon Bridge in October of 2011 yielded some abysmal results. Deck condition was 5/9, superstructure condition was 5/9, substructure condition was 3/9, appraisal was “structurally deficient,” and the sufficiency rating was 13.9 out of 100. It was basically about to collapse. Replacing the bridge was a smart move for safety reasons. Still, I miss crossing the bridge. Every single time, it was a thrill to drive over. Would th...

It was only a matter of time. After a hiatus of a few months, I’m playing Runescape again. The last time I spoke of Runescape , I had recently started back and was contemplating paying for a membership again. Though the dates are a little fuzzy at this point, I seem to have started back sometime around Thanksgiving 2015. I made the blog post above on January 27, 2016. Though I’m not sure how gradual the process was, I eventually played for the last time on April 19, 2016. I’ll get to how I came up with that date in a moment. While I did stop actively playing the game for a period, I continued to keep up with it. I still followed the official Runescape facebook page, as well as periodically browsed the subreddit forums for Runescape 3 and Old School. As I’ve mentioned time and time again, I do miss the game when I’m not playing it. It’s occasionally nice to talk about it and reminisce about all the fun I’ve had with it through the years. Eventually, one of these channels menti...

Thanksgiving day is tomorrow, and despite Christmas music on the radio and decorations up all over the place, it is still a celebrated holiday. I understand that Christmas is a lot easier to get excited for than Thanksgiving. For one, it has tons and tons of music. I don’t have any sort of tentative figures on it, but I’m sure there are hundreds if not thousands of Christmas songs just in English. How many songs have you ever heard about Thanksgiving. In addition to the music, Christmas decorations are as prolific and varied as holidays get. There are trees and ribbons and lights and garland and even flying spaghetti monster tree toppers. With so many decorations available, you can doll up your house and yard however you want. The sky's the limit, often literally with the size of some Christmas trees I’ve seen. Let’s not forget presents. The holiday season brings people out of the woodwork to go shopping, and companies often hold off new releases until late in the year, just...

What does it mean to “complete” or “finish” a video game? What criteria are required to say that you beat a game? Obviously, this isn’t a simple question, and there are no definite right or wrong answers. Video games comprise a huge industry, and there is such an immense variety among them that what applies for one game or genre may not apply in the slightest to another. I might be able to “beat” a First-Person Shooter (FPS) in under 10 hours easily, but to say that you “beat” a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) typically implies hundreds if not thousands of hours of work, and frequently means continued play as developers release new content. Are there any hard and fast metrics you can judge this by? Main storyline is obviously a large component for completing a game. Can’t say you’ve beaten it if you’ve never seen the ending of the story. Usually that means you can see the credits, too. But what about games that have extra story content after the credits rol...

I recently learned of StepMania, and it has ignited an attempt in me to play dancing games in the comfort of my home once again. A few weeks ago, I was listening to my music on shuffle as I often do and a familiar song came on. “Beethoven Virus” was originally on Pump It Up, but it is the iconic song for dance video games in my opinion. There are numerous songs from dance games in my music library (don’t judge me), but this is one that just takes me back. It’s high tempo, catchy, and it embodies the nature of dance game songs. While that particular song was from Pump It Up, I was always a bigger fan of Dance Dance Revolution or DDR. The 4 buttons in up/down/left/right configuration always felt more natural to me than the 5 button configuration with diagonals and a center button used by Pump It Up. Not only that, but DDR was available both in arcades and on home consoles, so I could practice at home and then show off my skills in arcades. For whatever reason, Pump It Up has b...

The baby face that I have sported for the past few months is about to be engulfed by a big, burly beard of manliness. While I normally keep my facial hair to just a goatee, or occasionally shave it clean, November (and possibly into December or even January) comes the time when I grow it all out in support of testicular cancer awareness (or something like that). In all honesty, my beard isn’t really all that impressive. I grow facial hair ridiculously slow, so it takes a few weeks before anybody can even notice a difference. Day to day, that’s great because I can shave once or twice a week and never look all that scruffy. In November, though… Everybody else has a forest of beard while I still have what some would consider a five o’clock shadow. Last year, I kept growing it out until soon after Christmas. My intent was to get picture proof of my 2-ish month old beard with all the Christmas photos. No Shave November because Don’t Shave December, but fell short of Just Don’t Shave J...

I do not care about Halloween. There, I said it. Everybody I know seems to love Halloween. Tons of people consider it their favorite holiday of the year (as if something could dethrone Christmas). They go to spook trails and haunted houses nearly every weekend during October. They decorate their houses with elaborate graveyard scenes and the like. These people go all out for Halloween, and I just don’t get it. That isn’t to say that I *dislike* Halloween. Before I had kids, we used to go to a spook trail or two each year. If we could get reliable child care now, we probably still would. We take the kids trick or treating, but I feel like that’s a big fuss about nothing when we usually end up throwing away half or more of the candy anyway. Lots of adults I know throw parties for Halloween, but how does that differ from any other weekend during the year besides donning a costume? You want to have some friends over and get trashed, that’s called a normal Friday night for a lot of peo...

As I come up on the end of my first term at Southern New Hampshire University, I figured it's as good a time as any to give an update on my progress so far. First and foremost, I'm doing remarkably well in class. For IT-510 Advanced Information Technology, I have 386.9 of the 395 possible points so far, resulting in a 98%. For the first few weeks, I read the textbook like a good student should. Lately... I've just Googled things as I needed them. Concepts that I didn't understand, I look over the first few Google results and wing it. Clearly, it's worked well for me so far. The only points that I have lost through the entire term have been based on formatting, since I didn't adhere strictly to APA style. Did I mention that I hate formatting? On the other hand, I feel like the people that I'm in class with are surprisingly ignorant for a master's program. The spelling and grammar errors in discussion posts are prolific. I figured people that would pur...

A lot of video games allow players to create their own character, selecting gender, build, skin color, and facial features. Some people stick with the default character or one of a number of preset characters. Others like to create characters at random, with no real inspiration other than what their imagination comes up with. I, and players like me, try to create an avatar that resembles me as much as possible. If I’m going to be playing the game, and there isn’t a protagonist created specifically for the game, I want the main character to be an extension of myself. The Problem There are a number of problems with character creation systems when trying to make a character look a certain way. For one, the way people look can be very hard to describe. I could spend pages describing myself, or I could include a headshot and a full body shot in this post, and you’d have a near perfect idea of what I look like instantly. “A picture’s worth a thousand words” may actually be an understa...

There is a sensation that I occasionally experience that I frequently describe as “that high feeling.” I have no idea what causes it, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it happens, and nobody I’ve talked to about it has experienced anything similar. I’ve been having this sensation from time to time since I was about 20 years old. Calling it a “high feeling” may be a misnomer, as I’ve never actually been under the influence of illicit drugs to compare the two. I call it that because I have no better way to describe it at the moment. It doesn’t happen often, maybe once a month or less. Sometimes it will happen fairly regularly, other times I’ll go months without feeling it. The sensation itself comprises a number of different symptoms. The first that I notice is a sort of light headedness. Everything gets fuzzy, and I find it hard to focus. This facet of the sensation is very similar to what happens when I go without sleep for a long time. After I start to lose foc...

After 80 hours of playing and almost 7 months, I finally got the platinum trophy on Final Fantasy XV. I enjoyed FFXV enough that getting the platinum trophy was extremely likely, if not inevitable. Most PS4 games that I start playing, I at least look over the trophy list. If they all seem reasonably easy, I’ll go for platinum. Just a few hours into FFXV, I noticed that the platinum shouldn’t be too hard, and it honestly wasn’t. A little time consuming, sure, but not painfully difficult. The main campaign took me right at 50 hours, at which point I’d already hit most of the highlights. All I had left was to gather the rest of the royal arms, grind out the remaining character skills, and kill the Adamantoise, mostly. Collectively, a bit, but individually, none of them were very taxing. Getting Noctis’s fishing skill to level 10 was probably the most frustrating. Fishing, as a mechanic, is fairly well implemented in FFXV. It’s just not something I care to do, especially as much...

Some merchants allow customers to receive digital receipts via email. Why can’t everyone? The Benefits of Digital Receipts Toys R Us is a surprisingly tech-savvy store chain. They allow NFC tap and pay, and you can even have receipts sent to your inbox instead of getting a paper copy. For me, this is amazing. First and foremost, it gives me something that I’m far less likely to lose. If I get a paper receipt, I usually just throw it in the bag with my merchandise. For items that I may need to return, I’ll put the receipt in my wallet. Either way, it usually gets lost or thrown away within a day or two. By opting for an email, I have a semi-permanent record of my purchase that I can’t exactly lose, and I can even search my email for later. Unless I delete the email, which I rarely delete emails, I have records of basically any purchase I’ve made at Toys R Us within the past few years. In addition to giving me a digital record of my purchase that I can easily find later, email re...