One of my Favorite Modeling Photos

I went to Charlotte, North Carolina on December 20th, 2013, to hang out with a friend one last time before she moved to California. We were at the SouthPark mall doing some clothes shopping when I saw this at the Gap:

 The man on the left is Waris Ahluwalia, an actor and designer. The woman on the right is Quentin Jones, who describes herself as an "animator, director, illustrator... with a boy's name." on her Twitter profile. The photo is for Gap's "Make Love" campaign.

I rarely go to malls and hadn't read about the controversy that popped up around the photo back in November, but it immediately caught my attention and I took the above picture with my phone. The full version is below:

Favorite Concept Art of 2013

 DmC: Devil May Cry

Fluffiest Booty of 2013

White Fluffy Kitty

What White Fluffy Kitty looks like when she becomes too fluffy.

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Fluffiest Booty of 2012

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Best 2012 Game of 2013

Winner

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Runners-up

Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why’d you steal our garbage?!!

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

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Criteria:

1. It had to come out in 2012.
2. I had to beat it in 2013.

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Best Unlockable Achievement of 2013

 Winner

"Click on door 430 five times."
The Stanley Parable

 

 Runner-up

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 Gunpoint

2013: In Memoriam

Ryan Thomas Davis
(June 4, 1979 - July 3, 2013)

 

Kitty Ratliff
(XXXX - December 17, 2013)

Xbox One Acquired: Setting it up for the very first time (Day One Edition)

Exactly one week had passed since the launch of the PlayStation 4, and once again I was at my local UPS Customer Center to pick up my Xbox One, a trick I had learned on reddit that would net me the console several hours earlier than if I waited for delivery to my home. I had just dropped off Kitty and White Fluffy Kitty at the vet for boarding, as my brother and I were leaving the next day to visit my mom in Kansas for her birthday and Thanksgiving, returning on November 30th. Eight years ago to the day - November 22nd, 2005 - I was picking up my Xbox 360 from GameStop on my way to Indiana to visit with family and wouldn't get the chance to properly play the console until I got back home and hooked it up to my very first HDTV. Perhaps the next time Microsoft releases a console I'll actually be home to play it!

I did manage to capture myself messing around with the user interface a bit before having to get ready for our flight, along with strapping a GoPro to my forehead beforehand as I drove to UPS and unboxed the console. I wanted to release this on the 22nd but didn't have enough time before leaving for Kansas, though I had managed to livestream my first Xbox Fitness workout. I had ten people watching me exercise. Weird!

Now we're back and I finally play some games!

Here's the video I made, along with relevant timestamps:

2:22 - Unboxing the Xbox One

12:37 - Turning it on for the first time

14:00 - Initial setup

24:18 - After the update

24:38 - Kinect setup

28:45 - Setup Complete. Intro video.

30:00 - Home screen

30:30 - "Let us show you around". Xbox One tour.

33:11 - Speech Tutorial

42:19 - Friends

43:07 - Gamerpics

44:37 - Posing for Gamerpic with Avatar

45:58 - Friends continued

47:22 - Jeff Gerstmann's "KI Dance" Game Clip

49:03 - Achievements

53:20 - Brad Shoemaker's "Ryse: Son of Rome" Game Clip

56:28 - Internet Explorer

58:10 - Watching a YouTube video via Internet Explorer

1:01:24 - Totally topical Charlie Sheen jokes by the Xbox One tutorial narrator. Who thought that was a good idea?

1:07:21 - Privacy settings

1:08:16 - Settings

1:16:20 - Customizing Avatar

1:21:00 - "Xbox, Bing Killer Instinct"

1:23:15 - "Xbox, Use a Code" - Scanning Day One Achievement

1:24:06 - Xbox Music

1:28:09 - Xbox Movies & TV

1:29:22 - My appearance as a strip club patron in the We're the Millers trailer

1:32:27 - My games & apps

1:33:27 - Apps

1:36:30 - "Xbox, Snap"

1:39:12 - Twitch

1:40:55 - Trying to Snap Netflix while watching Twitch

1:41:44 - Netflix

1:43:45 - Xbox Fitness

1:49:25 - Snapping Twitch while using Xbox Fitness

1:51:48 - Hulu Plus

Happy December

Here's a snowcat my mom made when she was 13 years old. My brother and I returned yesterday from visiting her in Kansas for her 57th birthday and Thanksgiving. I purchased an Epson Perfection V600 Color Scanner and had it delivered to her house so it would be there when we arrived on November 23rd, for the purpose of scanning old photos. I scanned 144 while I was there, mostly focusing on game-related ones for my "Games I've Beaten" series. I plan to digitize all of our family photos eventually.

In Kansas Until November 30th

My brother and I flew to Kansas yesterday to visit my mom for her birthday/Thanksgiving and I won't be making any substantial updates until December 1st. I will still be playing video games, however, as on the 22nd I had my Wii U shipped to her house so we could all play this:

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Thanks, Hastings! (I'll buy it when I'm back home sometime.)

Last December we all played through New Super Mario Bros. U. Sounds like a good tradition to me!

PlayStation 4 Acquired: Setting it up for the very first time

I picked up my PlayStation 4 from the closest UPS Customer Center (about a 40-minute drive) right before 9 AM hit on November 15th, 2013. Thanks to an informative post on reddit, I didn't have to wait until 4 or 5 PM like I usually have to do with UPS packages.

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My local UPS Customer Center.

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Making sure my PlayStation 4 shipped OK before leaving the parking lot.

On my way back home I stopped off at Walmart to pick up Killzone: Shadow Fall, but, along with a few other games and the console itself, they were completely sold out. Luckily there's a GameStop right by it, so I managed to get the game there.

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In my kitchen.

I strapped a GoPro to my head and unboxed the console and accessories, transitioning into a direct capture (in beautiful 1080p) of the PlayStation 4 user interface as I set up and personalized my console. The only parts I cut are where you can see me inputting my passwords. Other than that, the intention of the video is show what the experience is like for a person first turning on their PlayStation 4. The load times have improved since recording.

Jump to the 11:37 mark to go straight to the direct capture of the UI.

27:10 - Settings

33:55 - Trophies

37:28 - Friends

39:22 - PlayStation Store

50:03 - Library

50:29 - Live from PlayStation (viewing livestreams). I am very impressed with how well they pulled this off.

1:01:00 - Putting in the Killzone: Shadow Fall disc.