Dustin Barton
Coming soon…
Coming soon…
Mar 13th
First off, this is a tag-heavy post. Roughly 23 tags and I’m sure I’ll add more before this post is over. It’s been almost a month since my last update, somy apologies (to those who actually read this). Work is going well, though I really want to find a full-time, Monday-Friday job sometime soon, that would be nice. In all honesty, I want to wear a shirt and tie to work everyday…I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I started working towards my Bachelors in Business back in 2005. Unfortunately, my degree has not helped me what-so-ever here in Massena, NY. Callan recently obtained a great paying job (for the area) so relocating isn’t really in the cards right now and I’d prefer to stay close-ish to family. So the hunt continues. If anyone in the Massena area is looking for a hard-working, level-headed go-getter, feel free to contact me.
Moving on, Chicago was fun, Utada was amazing, and next up is Anime North in Toronto in May. Definitely looking forward to it this year, especially since our hotel is literally right next to the Toronto Congress Centre (well, a short, short walk away). No cosplaying this year. A combination of not finding the material/parts and lack of inspiration did us in again…maybe next year?
Aside from work and anime, I’ve been building up my Blu-ray collection. If you check the tags (which is up to 33 now), you’ll see quite a few movies there. All are Blu-ray and all are mine now
My most recent purchase was Firefly which was part of Amazon’s lightning deal yesterday. $27.xx shipped for the Blu-ray version, amazing deal if you ask me, and with Prime shipping it should be here Tuesday. I wont list off every movie, nor will I comment on every one as well, but I’m looking forward to watching Band of Brothers, That arrived earlier this week but I haven’t had a chance to watch any of it yet. Heard it was amazing though. Ponyo on the other hand was awesome. 2D, hand-drawn animation has never looked so good, seriously. Miyazaki never fails to impress you with his creations. Here’s hoping his other works (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) are released on Blu-ray soon. I also (finally) got Blade Runner: The Final Cut…never seen this movie before, though everyone tells me I should. I’ll get around to watching it sometime soon I’m sure. 5 discs though, including the workprint, pretty impressive, and I only paid $13.98 for it at DeepDiscount.com.
Gaming-wise, I’ve been playing a lot of Modern Warfare 2 lately, as well as some Final Fantasy XIII which was released on Tuesday. I’m about 8 hours into FFXIII and so far it’s good. I’ve been wanting a good RPG to play lately and the fast-paced battle system + strategies required to win = fun. Well worth it and the Collector’s Guide (I got No. 8,.783/210,000) was well worth the price so far. I’m hoping to hook up the Xbox 360 back in the living room sometime soon (perhaps after I finish FFXIII) so I can finally play some Mass Effect 2. The Collector’s Edition has been sitting on my entertainment center for a few weeks (months?) now.
Looking at the clock, I should probably get ready for work. I’m working on a few projects right; one – to finish up GuiStyle for Trillian Astra and, two – get my other site up and running…I’ll talk more about that later
P.S. the tag count is 47 48..holy shit!
Feb 18th
Aside from Guitar Hero 2 and Rock Band 1, I’ve never spent over $100 for a video game…well, that changed yesterday as I picked up my pre-order for Rebellion’s/SEGA’s new game Aliens vs. Predator. I got the ‘Hunter Edition’, which includes the game in a fancy steelbook case (I ♥ these), a patch, a mini-hardback comic book, a 3D lenticular, 4 exclusive multiplayer maps, AND…last, but certainly not least, a replica facehugger
All for the very low price of $99.99 (plus tax).
I don’t really feel the need to justify the purchase because most ‘Collectors Editions’ go for $69.99 ($10 more than regular editions) and are in a steelbook case…so I paid $30 more for the replica facehugger, and all the other goodies. Can’t really beat that. Anyway, I’ll try to post a review (full or short, we’ll see) in the next few days. You can see what the Hunter Edition looks like here (excuse the cheesiness):
Feb 4th
The concert was awesome. Utada was amazing. The guitarist was freaking sweet. Really enjoyed it overall. Would have liked to of had a better view but at least we could see her without being crushed. Aside from her having a great voice, her guitarist almost stole the show. He has some serious talent. Some of the songs were rock-ish and he solos just powered through the entire building, it was great. REALLY hoping she released a DVD of her “In the Flesh” concert at one of the House of Blues.
We checked out the Navy Pier and the Water Tower in Chicago. The Navy Pier was cool, we saw Avatar in 3D at the IMAX, it was fucking awesome. It was also my first IMAX/3D (polarized 3D) experience so not a bad way to pop my cherry (so to speak). The Water Tower on the other hand was really disappointing. Shitty, overpriced stores…no pop up shops in the middle of the floors, a waste of time really. Overall we had a blast. We tried some Lou Malnati’s “famous Chicago-style pizza”. The sauce was amazing, the crust…eh, not so much, still good, but not great. I’ll take my cheesy, thinner-crusted New York-style pizza any day
I’ll try and get the pictures up sometime this weekend, some of them turned out, some didn’t.
EDIT: uploaded some pictures, will upload the rest later. You can view them here: http://twitpic.com/photos/SynGamer