A Year Without Gaming

Image by Donna Cymek via Flickr

Looks like this new year brought a new look!
I know I haven’t been loyal to the site. My promise was to post at least once (or twice?), but It still doesn’t change the fact that I am learning TONS from this little experiment. One of the biggest things is that I am no longer looking for substitutes to replace my old addiction hobby. The way things turned out are just perfect and I am learning about many things. Heck… I’m even learning how to cook.

I have to admit, I was tempted to play the other day while I was at wal-mart but couldn’t because this little guy was hogging the console (bless his heart!). So I just stood there wishing it was me.

I can’t believe it’s been a week since my last post. Who knew I would end up being so busy that I would neglect one of my most favorite things?
Please accept this picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head to make up for my absence:On a happier note, I just got a new usb keyboard that goes really well with my laptop. I haven’t had enough time to play with it yet, but I will soon enough.
Have a listen to this for now, I hope it’ll make up for the lack of updates (as if the bunny wasn’t enough):

Most Beautiful

My life has been a real mess lately, not just because of the blog, school (finals start in two weeks) and work, but also because I’m starting to feel really tired. Now don’t get me wrong. I love this feeling. For once in a really long time it feels like progress is being made. However, I do need to sort out some things that are no longer necessary and to leave more time for fun.
Photo by lusi

I tried to start with time management and I know you’re probably expecting me to say everything went great, but it didn’t. I’m simply not planning on doing that any longer because it just doesn’t work for me. The idea that you have to plan every single hour of your week seems crazy now that I’ve realized that life doesn’t follow those rules.

I am currently working on making myself a priority based system to manage my projects and de-clutter my life. I’d do it in excel, but mine blew up last week when I tried the beta of Office 2010 so I will probably have to try something web based like Google Docs.

I’ll leave you with an mp3 of the new an improved BooBass file I worked on last week:

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So I just finished watching the “Feel the beat with FL Studio” series over at butterscotch and I can finally say that I’m getting the hang of the interface. I know where everything is and have a basic understanding of how it works. However, learning to fully use it will take some time, because it is highly extensible.
Photo by SteveFE

I tried to make a background beat from scratch and I can’t say I’m pleased with the result, but I’ll post it anyway:

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Trying to imitate the “Feel Good Inc” background beat.

A complete failure compared to a mix I made last week, which actually sounded pretty good. I’m not going to post it here because I made it using a sound template and it feels like its not completely mine at all.

Wahoo! Friday is here, and I just finished installing the new countdown timer. I stated on one of my previous posts that I wanted to explore new things. I will however, do it carefully and start with one thing at a time. One of the things I wanted to learn about happens to be Music, not just finding new music and exploring new genres but also making some (with FL Studio to be more precise).

I would be lying if I said I’ve never used it before, but I am really a complete novice when it comes to FL Studio. I’ve toyed with it (and its shiny buttons) in the past, but not enough to get the hang of it. I plan to post some samples of what I come up with (even if they suck) just to track my progress. For those that don’t know, FL Studio is a ‘digital audio workstation’ which basically just means that it lets you create beats and it is highly customizable. Look it up on YouTube if you would like to hear what it is capable of.

I want to do many other things, but for now I am just going to focus on FL Studio just because I don’t want to suffer from an information overload and end up going nuts like last…
Ahem… so anyways, yes. I’ll post some samples.

Today is the last day I get to play any games whatsoever, and yet I sit here wondering whether I should play or not. You’d think that as a gamer, it would be an easy choice. I haven’t played many games in these past four weeks so I fear that if I play now I will be tempted to just drop it all and go back to gaming.
Photo by coderkind

On the other hand I do feel kind of calm and relaxed. It’s probably because of all the rain we’ve been getting around here lately.

One thing that I’ve noticed since I stopped playing is that the gaming world just keeps going on, as if nothing had happened. New games come out, and I feel left out and clueless. I’m sure it’ll be exciting to see where the gaming industry will be a year from now, just thinking about it makes me feel as if I just ate a bag of butterflies..

On another note… My router is dying. It keeps disconnecting when I need it most, but the little guy has had a good run (2~3 years). Time to get a new one I guess

It seems redundant to have rules for such a simple thing, but you’d be surprised at how many things could go wrong with something like this. I’d rather set some guidelines to make this easier to follow.

Photo by Robert Whitehead

• First things first, this whole thing is going to last 365 days. No more, no less.
• Arcades and other social events are fine in my book. Sure I run a blog, but I don’t want to ruin anyone else’s fun.
• If at any point I fall into temptation and play, either for fun or boredom, I’ll blog about it and move on… It happens.
• This just a fun project, my expectations for this are to have fun and learn new things.
• I’ll update the blog at least once a week.

That’s about it, I may add more in the near future but I’m good to go for now.

On a lighter note, I wanted to leave you with a link to one of my favorite web comics of all time, Cyanide & Happiness(it’s related to the title, have a look).

I’m literally waiting, not just for next Friday (which is, the day I start the countdown), but for something to come to mind. I don’t want to try too hard because of what happened last time (three weeks of writer’s block) so I’m just going to sit here and drink some of this Egyptian Mint by Novus.

Hmm… I admit it, I’m a tea fanatic.

I seriously have to find a way to get ‘in state’. It just feels as if something takes over me, and I submerge myself into what I’m doing. Time really feels non-existent when I’m in that state. Creepy eh?

I’ve been trying to write the intro for this thing for about three weeks now, and its killing me. An introduction shouldn’t take that long (I mean… getting the blog set up only took me about two days) so I’ll just do this live. uncut. un-edited.

Photo by Mr. McGladdery

You might be wondering what this blog is about, or why I am doing this. Most of that can easily be summarized into this: I want to take a break from gaming. I don’t want to prove anything… I just feel like I’ve been getting to attached to it. I want to find other things, explore other options, and most of all… learn new things.

I want to put it here, on the net because I can always go back and see my improvement over the years. You know… like the moments that make you go : “Wow, I made that?!”. I love them.

So just to set some things straight:

• I haven’t started on this yet.
• The countdown will start next Friday, November 13th (I’m such a daredevil).
• There will be rules and exceptions.
• I’m making this as I go along don’t expect anything fancy.
• And last but not least…. a smiley face to set a playful tone :
  
  (Yes, they’re very important.).