January 2017 – skylerbartels

Just Some Info

I don’t generally have a ton of stuff to say at any given moment, these days. Just thought I’d share some stuff going on in my life, though:

-Going to California next week. Spending time in San Francisco and Fresno, seeing some people here and there, eating well and getting warm. Gonna be a great time.

-New Goldfrapp album coming out soon, as well as Gorillaz and Depeche Mode. Gonna be a good, solid year for music if you ask me.

-Working on a new LEGO building. Assembly Square.

We’re a little over halfway done and its been a hoot. Over 4000 individual pieces, so it is taking a long, long time.

– Saw the movie, “Split” and I don’t want to spoil anything, but go see it if and when you can. On the flipside, also saw “Silence” and – well – don’t bother with that one.

-Started Final Fantasy XV and it is thus far interesting and beautiful, but the same things were said about FFXIII, so, that’s not saying that much in the end, really. Cindy is excessive as hell.

-Finally, getting close to being done Archiving and Updating old HentaiMcToonboob posts, about halfway with Facebook notes. I will then have DevientArt and I think some of my Drake blog left. After that I don’t know that I’ll do much more. I don’t know what else I COULD do. We’ll see. This has been a fun process and a treat and its nice to know that I’ll have access to this content in one place for the first time ever.

Anyhow, much love to all of you and have a great week.

-Skyler

New Version of this Thing – New Answers in Italics

*TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF – The Survey*
Name:	Skyler Bartels
Birthday:	oh oh oh July 5, 1985
Birthplace:	AR-AR-RAH Nebraska
Current Location:	Care Initiatives Office, West Des Moines
Eye Color:	blue-green? i don’t know i never look
Hair Color:	blonde/brown light-brown brown-brown dan brown
Height:	six foot one i always says
Right Handed or Left Handed:	right
Your Heritage:	billionaires! i mean, mostly german, some irish
The Shoes You Wore Today:	These gray Chrome brand shoes
Your Weakness:	A LEGO set
Your Fears:	i’ll die without having published a book
Your Perfect Pizza:	Extra sauce with black olives and peperoni. Maybe sausage, too
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	build some book shelves
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	I don’t use these services any longer
Thoughts First Waking Up:	Today? “uuuuggh noooo….”
Your Best Physical Feature:	wiener
Your Bedtime:	10:30PM-ish
Your Most Missed Memory:	i can’t remember. dur, MISSED memory
Pepsi or Coke:	Coke
MacDonalds or Burger King:	burger king
Single or Group Dates:	single
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	lipton
Chocolate or Vanilla:	chocolate
Cappuccino or Coffee:	Coffee
Do you Smoke:	nope
Do you Swear:	fuck yeah i swear
Do you Sing:	have been known to
Do you Shower Daily:	i try to
Have you Been in Love:	Routinely but consistently with one person for half a decade, now
Do you want to go to College:	not again, no
Do you want to get Married:	eventually maybe
Do you belive in yourself:	i have been known to, from time to time
Do you get Motion Sickness:	nope
Do you think you are Attractive:	enough
Are you a Health Freak:	hahahahahahahahahahah, no
Do you get along with your Parents:	hit or miss
Do you like Thunderstorms:	don’t mind ’em
Do you play an Instrument:	a few (drums, guitar, bass, piano, sing)
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	Absolutely, yes
In the past month have you Smoked:	uh, no
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	just my meds
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	sure
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	i think so
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	an entire box? no
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	The old answer was “no” and this is still true, but I want to rectify this soon
In the past month have you been on Stage:	uh, no
In the past month have you been Dumped:	nope
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	no
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	no
Ever been Drunk:	Last night, a bit, even
Ever been called a Tease:	100%
Ever been Beaten up:	in a few different ways, yeah
Ever Shoplifted:	Yes. This was a lie, before.
How do you want to Die:	after saying “hey guys, watch this!”
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	i have to grow up?!
What country would you most like to Visit:	egypt
*In a Boy/Girl..*
Favourite Eye Color:	i don’t know. it just has to fit “them”
Favourite Hair Color:	again, it just has to fit “them”
Short or Long Hair:	longer. not super “down-to-yer-ass” long, but longer
Height:	shorter than me, but not, like… 2 foot four
Weight:	thats not really a major concern
Best Clothing Style:	on
Number of Drugs I have taken:	Three kinds, once or twice each
Number of CDs I own:	oh, many. 100ish
Number of Piercings:	none
Number of Tattoos:	zip, zero, zilch
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	turn an 8 on its side, yo
CREATE YOUR OWN! – or – GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

In relation to:
https://skylerbartels.wordpress.com/2005/06/21/6399/ – Originally taken June 21, 2005

Karl Pilkington

“It would be spiteful to put a Jellyfish in a trifle.”
-Karl Pilkington

The Last Guardian

Ok, so I’m going to talk (to no one) about The Last Guardian on PS4.

The third game by Team Ico and visionary director Fumito Ueda, The Last Guardian borrows heavily from the previous two games, Ico (a platforming, lead-your-partner-through-abandoned-ruins puzzler), and Shadow of the Colossus (a climb-the-giant-monster-in-a-series-of-abandoned-ruins puzzler). It features the player taking the role of an unnamed boy with no combat skills and the lovable, completely heart-warming relationship he has with the giant Trico, a winged griffin beast that also has no name of its own.

What follows is a 15-to-16 hour thrill ride of jumps, falls, tumbles and rumbles through dilapidated old stone ruins as you and your new friend attempt to escape and make it out of this giant crater in the ground, avoiding ghostly armored warriors and another Trico with less than pleasant thoughts about the well-being of his two adversaries.

Let me get this out of the way in this (review) – The Last Guardian is by no means better than either Ico or Shadow of the Colossus (the latter being one of the greatest video games of all time, so I’m not going to fault it for paling in comparison). But at the same time, neither of those games worked for me as well as the core mechanic in this game did.

The bond you will (and you WILL build it, you can’t fight it) with the lovable Trico you call friend is so real and so immensely satisfying that you will have heartstrings tugged and you will laugh. Oh my how you will laugh. The number of times I found myself rolling on the floor because of his antics were neigh innumerable. Example: every time you take a leap of faith in the hopes that he will catch you, the sound vanishes and time slows. The only sound is the boy’s breathless gasps as he prays the beast will catch him.

The first few times I was like “AWESOME” but by the fifth time I’d had enough. I vocally, out loud, said “you’re not gonna get me with this trick, again) to the game. And then the Trico caught me in his mouth, as expected. But THEN! He dropped me. And my heart leapt out of my throat. Then WOOOSH! in comes his tail at the last second and the boy reaches out, grabs on, the music swells, and I’m crying and laughing and being in love with an AI creature.

I’m not going to spoil much else about the game because I really think it should be experienced – like all Team Ico’s titles – as raw and mysterious as you can make it. I pretty much blitzed this one in one sitting, just went to bed once in-between two longer sessions. By the end of the credits (and the post-credits sequence which, obviously, you need to stick around for) I was welling up and wishing there was more. Which is saying something because for all the praise I’ve given it, the game gives you the tools you will need to play the game fairly early and then never really changes them. You don’t get new weapons, you don’t learn new abilities. It is very, very repetitive.

But that speaks to the game design and the love the creators had for the world and the two main characters: even if you are doing variations of the same four things over and over again for 16 hours, the world is beautiful, the music is chillingly cool, and the splendor of the sunlight every time you step out of the caves or fortress walls is worth it all. And there are some set pieces that need to be seen to be believed. I’ve read on reddit where some people hated the cage puzzle with a passion, but I just kept laughing and not believing what I was seeing the entire time.

So get the game.

Uh, I’ll give it a 9.3/10.

Why .3? Because, that’s why!