Finding Myself

I visited San Francisco over the weekend. It's hard to believe I was hundreds of miles away from home a mere couple days ago. I remember sitting on the couch of my hotel room thinking, "I'm really far away right now."

But California is California. It doesn't feel like I strayed too far from my comfort zone. Despite its uniqueness, San Francisco lies under the same sun I've been living with all my life. Visit any major U.S. city and they're all fundamentally similar.

If I ever visit SF again, it won't be for the city, but for the people. I went hardcore tourist mode, checking out the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, Golden Gate Park, the Japanese Tea Garden, Fisherman's Wharf, Twin Peaks, the financial district, and Chinatown.

You gotta take the bad with the good. The layout of the city is crazy interesting but inconvenient to navigate. Walking the street is the best way to experience the town up close and personal, but you get first hand exposure to bums, noisy construction on every block, and that nasty smell of exhaust and pollution. It doesn't help when I visit on a weekend in the middle of summer during the height of tourist season. I haven't heard this much foreign language since Vegas.

I don't think I can ever live in a metropolitan area. It's just not my style. Everything's too cramped and crowded. I'm all about the suburb. Give me open space, a minimum of two lanes for every street, and plenty of sky.

Constant Denial

The Street Fighter V beta hates me and everyone else. It's hard to recall a bigger disaster in terms of a beta. Just when I think I might get in, boom! Denial message. I suppose these things are tested for a reason. A beta that runs flawlessly isn't a typical beta. It just goes to show that Bungie are masters of network coding. For all its faults, networking is the least of Destiny's issues.

Since SFV was kaput for the entire weekend, I invested a lot more time into BF4. I don't know why but I've been feeling it lately. Just when I think the game is stale, my friend brings up a gun recommendation that changes things up. I've invested 330 hours so far. That's almost enough to pay off my purchase of the PS4. Almost. Only 190 more hours to go (price of PS4+BF4+Premium). I've got more than my money's worth, but it's nice to go for that one dollar per hour value.

Even though I've put a freeze on Tales of Xillia 2 until I complete Love Sick, I made no moves to update the story. Thanks to many late nights, I napped instead of writing during my lunch break. It doesn't help when I have to work harder these last two weeks to hit our goals.

I'd like to go for a 5k word minimum but I've only got 1k so far. Chances are, I won't be updating today. I'll be traveling to San Francisco next weekend so I'm between a rock and a hard place. I may not be able to update on my story's anniversary. Time to put my head down and focus.