G'day whats up? 
 
I cannot believe it's been over a month since I threw up a blog. The time does seem to have a habit of getting away from me that way. So what's happened since the last blog? A fair bit I guess. I finally beat Persona 3, it was sad and rewarding at the same to finally put that behind me and move onto something new. Since then I have also beat X-men Origins: Wolverine which was suprisingly pretty good and Shadow Complex which was good also. I have sooo many games to beat now as I haven't slowed my purchase rate despite the lack of games beaten. But I think I am finally going to start playing Batman Arkham Asylum tonight after having it sitting on my shelf for a few weeks now.  
 

Happy birthday to me

Today I turned 26 which officially makes me closer to turning 30 and still living at home :-/ so I went out and bought myself Dead Space Extraction for a birthday present as I will do again tomorrow when I go get the new Professor Layton game which I am hyping for (I spoil myself lol). The rest of my family are on the Gold Coast until tomorrow at a resort visiting theme parks etc and then going down to New South Wales to visit family so I am at home alone with the dog.
 

Music

EDIT: I don't know what happened to this paragraph in the posting of the blog but it was basically some praise for Alice Cooper for the excellent show he put on in the recent Theatre of Death tour.

Work

Work has be en going along beautifully as well. The guy who I spoke about last time went for his group interview for the assistant managers that I had been training him up for on Tue sday so hopefully that works out. I have also been used in the last fortnight and the fortnight coming to run a few sites while the respective bosses are on leave after a successful stint of being left to run our own site in August and having an idea of mine implement across all sites in the West Australian market which was extremely gratifying. 
 
Anyway it's good to be into the swing of blogging which as usual I will try to do with greater regularity but I won't make any promises given my track record in these things. But I'll be sure to be back with my thoughts on B:AA and the up coming Megadeth/Slayer concert when I finally get there. 
 
Brendon.

G'day guys. Its been a while since I threw up a blog and that is mainly because I have been trying to spend every bit of spare time I can away from work to continue on my sacred mission of immersing myself in the world of JRPG's. My sojourn into the universe of Persona 3 continues and I have hit the 40 mark. Last time I looked I had hit a nice 45hrs 45min in play time and my character level for Merry Weather was 41. S-Linking is going along nicely (in game, not IRL unfortunately.) I have maxed out the on line social link for the Hermit Arcana in every sense of the word XD. Right now I am maining (to coin a phrase from the fighting genre) Raganda and and alternating with Sati when I require a little Media action. But for right now I'll get a little into other things that I have been doing: 
 

Feeding on the Husk

Unfortunately very recently I found out that my most favorite of independant game stores was closing it's doors. Boo. And as such all stock was pretty much walking out the door for the princely sum of minimum 50% off regardless of the item. So I picked up a couple of good bargains. Nothing stellar because most of the choice loot was gone. But there were a few handy acquisitions for this years Decemeber challange and the not quite worth full price type of games. Initially I just picked up Little King Story (Wii), Archives: Resident Evil (Wii), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (X360) and Afro Samurai (PS3). 
 
I went back again a couple of days later with my brother to get a game each for my brother and sister whom I had recently given my old 60GB 360 and they got Mercenaries 2 (X360) and Naruto: Broken Bonds (X360). Naturally I couldn't resist a bargain and went back and picked up a couple more games this time snagging Call of Jaurez: Bound in Blood (X360), 50Cent: Blood on the Sand (X360) and The Bourne Conspiracy (X360). Sadly I knew it would be the very last time I visited because by that point that had absolutely nothing worth buying I didn't already have even at that those crazy prices. I think in total all those games cost me approximately $450 AUD. 

Music

I unfortunately spent way too much money on concert tickets over the last month to month-and-a-half. You may recall that I out layed about $330 to secure a AC/DC ticket at auction. Well now I also have tickets to see Alice Cooper at Challange Stadium September 1, Megadeth and Slayer at Challange Stadium October 10 and Pearl Jam some time in November at Members Equity Stadium. The following three shows added up to a bill approximating $390. 
 
At some point over the last fortnight I also dicided to pick up The Black Box which is a today little all Ozzy's albums encompassing collectors edition of Black Sabbath Albums which comes in a nice box with a weird velvet(?) book about the band and a bonus DVD. On top of which I nabbed a couple of awesome Rage Against the Machine, Rob Zombie and Poison CD's at bargain prices. 
 

Work

Of course. Would it not be a c1337us blog with the obligatory snipe about working too much? I think not. Actually work has been pretty sweet lately. Got some extra curricular training going on to develop some new skills for myself as well as helping out some work mates learn new things so they can advanced within the company which has been really rewarding. I have also learned that I will be left run the show (read as: rot in hell lol) while the boss jets it to Melbourne for the week. Which is nice for him and a challange for me which is want I like. 
 
Brendon. 

So G'day guys.

I have been putting of this blog for a couple of days because I have been pretty busy with work. Whats new with me right? Well gaming wise I haven't been playing too much but its all been Persona 3 so my journey into the world of JRPG's continues. I have done about 32 hours of gameplay now and I am chugging along nicely. Its sometime July and I have gotten as high as floor 80 odd in Tartarus. At some point I realised I hadn't been levelling my character enough (think I am 31 now) so I started doing some extra forays into Tartarus for grinding purposes.

I have even take it another step further by going to the shops and getting some other games for the 360. Eternal Sonata (360 version) was the first which I actually got for $20 marked half price which is an awesome price. And then I got Lost Oddyssey. So these games are on my radar. I am thinking that when I beat P3 I'll probably take a break from the Persona universe and move onto something else before starting P4.

I haven't invested this much time into a game for a while. This has forced me to start looking at games that I have bought and yet to play to get pushed into my Twelve Games of Christmas challenge that I do every December. Honestly I can't see me getting time to get back to playing X Blades, Siren Blood Curse, Bionic Commando and LEGO Batman on the PS3 neither am I confident of getting to play Silent Hill: Home Coming or Fracture on the 360. Oh and Splinter Cell from aaages ago. So yeh I am getting a good line up of unstarted games already.

I guess thats about it. Oh oh oh yeeeh, I totally pre-purchased the Prestige edition of Modern Warfare 2 from EB games for $200 (price subject to change) so it's Night vision goggles son. 'Nuff said.

Brendon

So I am about 10 hr 07 min of game time into Persona 3 now. I played a fair bit on my Saturday off so I am quite pleased with my progress. I took the day off yesterday and today after work to take a break and just chill out and watch some Dragonball Z. But this afternoon I also managed to find a copy of Persona 4 which I will get into more in a minute. Anyway like I said I am really digging P3, I named my guy Merry Weather which seems to fit the dude well. I have got him to reach level 5 and I have 4 personas to play with but I have only just reached like floor 5 of Tartarus where you reach the first of the gadgets that effectively allows you to track your progress up the tower with out restarting every floor again. Its taking me so long cause my party members keep bitching out and saying they cant go on and I only have Junpei and Yukihara to make my party up with. My whole social link thing could be working better, I have a good one rocking with Kenji at the moment but everything else is sort of faultering. But for my first major foray in a JRPG I think I am going alright.


Anyway as far as the story about getting P4. After toying with the idea of importing a copy of P4 I found out it was no good because even though my PS3 is fully backwards compatible its still region locked for the old games. So I resorted to having a look on EBs website to see if it actually was out now in Australia or had a local release date. To my suprise I found that the website now can tell you which specific stores have copies of the games you search. 2 stores were listed as having  copies, on wasnt too far from were I worked so I went there staright after work finished but there are 2 EB stores within 200-300 metres of each other and I wasnt sure which was which. I went in and asked the register attendant about it and she gave me a dumb ass look and was going on about how super rare it was and how she had only ever seen 2 copies in here life blah blah. I told her that a store had listed it available and she was all like well were a heaps better store and launched into how not having a game made them better because they were more prepared and always had there stock up ready to sell and there was no way they actually had a copy of the game it was all lies. I felt like questioning her about how not having popular games made them better then their competitors instead I decided it must be the other sotre that had it. Indeed it was and just asking the guy had me the game in just a couple of minutes from the store room. I could have went home, but I couldnt resist walking back to the first store on the way to the car and waving the game at the chick as a walked past mouthing Oh Yeh!! behind some old guys back she was now serving.

Brendon.

Hey guys, whats'up?

Nothing too much going around here. Last day of my weekend and I am having a lazy Saturday laying in bed at home.  Its been a long and uninteresting stretch since my last blog but the last few days have some cool things going on so I thought I would share and do a much needed gaming update.

Wednesday night was the last show for the RAW tour of Australia. I bought my brother tickets what must have been nearly a year ago now as an early birthday present. So I took him to that and we both had a pretty good time. I took him to the Smackdown! one last time they came out and bought pretty awesome tickets that cost me a fortune and a sore back because he couldnt see shit so he spent a lot of time watching from my shoulders (sorry to the people behind us that night). So this time a spent a lot less money getting some slightly elevated tickets that were further back but we were right at the ring entrance so we got a great look at everything. We were sitting with these two guys and one of them had basically memorised every bit of commentary from Smackdown! Vs Raw 2009 and was commentating the matches which was pretty funny. We were sitting just to the right of were this picture was taken. It was an attendance record as well and we met Mickie James which my brother found supremely entertaining.

The new financial year has come and gone in Australia and since Wednesday I got my group certificate from work and I made an appointment with my accountant and got my tax return done. I was very suprised and very please with what I got back so when my cheque comes I will be able to afford to buy those much needed new glasses that has been about 2 years overdue since I last made an opointment with the optician. The rest will be split between my car loan and my currently empty saving account. I figured I should do the responsible thing this year cause last year I bought the lap top. Although I will probably indulge in one thing: replacing my bloody 360 again.

Finally. Since playing inFamous last blog I moved onto Ghostbusters which I enjoyed mostly but I got tired of it by the end and I stopped playing it at what must have been the very end of the game (working my way towards a big light energy in the cemetary of Central Park). I had got a bit bored of it. Since then I have been playing a game which must not only be a massive suprise to me, but to anyone who knows me even partly well. And that game is Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3. Yes a Japanese RPG a game that works on turn based combat. History lesson: I am the guy stopped playing Final Fantasy VII after the second random encounter of the game and refused to buy or play another JRPG ever since. Now I am not completely stubborn when FFX came out I tried it out on a demo setup at Harvey Norman but got to the first encounter and walked away. And only who has seen any of my posts regarding the P4 Endurance Runs etc would know that I have always said I will not touch these games or something to that effect. I wont go into how I came about getting the game but I am actually 3 hours into the game! And enjoying it thus far!! lol. I know its basically the beginning of the game and its probably still holding my hand thorugh every encounter in Tartarus so far.

I know somewhere down the track my hatred and frustration with turn base might kick in and I want finish the game. Thats very likely. But if it doesnt and I actually finish the game Wow that could mean a lot. Where might I go to from there with my new found lease on turn based gaming life? I know its not down the classic route, I wont be trying to go back and live past glories but maybe all those game like Eternal Sonata and Valkyrie Chronicles etc that I like the look of but never give myself a chance to play may now be able to come into consideration. I dont know but stay tuned for further updates into my foray into P3.

Brendon.