A Look Back at April 2017

This has been a crazy month, but a look back at April 2017 shows that I was a busy person.  While I feel like I didn’t meet many of my goals, I actually did get a bunch done and on the whole had a good month.

Nioh

I Nioh, I didn’t get very far but I did get outta the Tower of London. I actually was right about the fact that the London portion at the start is just a prelude to the real story. I was not gaining experience other than learning how to fight and how to get the basics down. I wasn’t even able to use the various stances available until after I got outta the tower and into Kyushu. I ventured forth a bit after the tutorial in Kyushu, but not too far. I’m taking this game cautiously since I keep dying.

Destiny

I finished off the Moon missions and headed off to Venus. That’s as far as I got, but then again, that was my goal.

Comics

The big news for April was missing out on Preview Night tickets. I showed up on time and did everything I needed to do but the RNG gods didn’t look upon me favorably. I also lost out on the parking lottery so I’ll have to wait till June to see if I can get in on the open parking sale. One the positive side, I did read through both graphic novels for my book club – Archie and Afterlife with Archie and I enjoyed them both. Neither was really my cup of tea but I did get a kick outta some of the humor in the Archie issues and loved seeing the original stories that were included in each of the issues. It was just a bit too much reminiscent of high school for me, which I think is the point of the series. The Afterlife story was pretty good – kinda like a Walking Dead thing with high schoolers. I also read more in the Complete Marvel Reading Order and am almost done with 1962, I think May could be the month I finally move on to 1963, but we’ll see.

Books

I think I read quite a bit this month. My usual target is 4 books a month – roughly one a week, and I was able to do pretty well this month. I finished off Lindbergh (B+ rating) by A. Scott Berg and it turned out to be a fun read. I was kinda surprised since it’s been a long time since I’ve read a biography. I’m pretty sure the exciting life that Charles Lindbergh lived and the fact that I love flying contributed to how much I enjoyed the read. Someday I hope to be able to pilot myself, but I lived vicariously through this book for now. The other books I read this month included A Head Full of Ghosts (B rating) which I talked about the other day; Robots of Dawn (B+ rating) – the 3rd (or 4th depending on if you count I, Robot) robot story from Isaac Asimov; Foreigner (B+ rating) by C. J. Cherryh which kicks off a series of about 15 books that I may just keep reading since this was interesting; and The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran which I haven’t rated yet since I am trying to implement what he suggests before I come to any conclusions. So, 5 books for April and I started a 6th that won’t get read fully till May but I’m looking forward to learning. It’s starting off the month with another non-fiction book called Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS – it won the Pulitzer Prize so I figure it should be informative.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Sadly, this game didn’t get any attention this month. I’m still pretty psyched about it and will start playing it soon, but I just had too many other things going on. April was a busy month, so much so, I passed on this game and I didn’t even buy Mass Effect: Andromeda yet though I want to give that a spin as well.

LOTRO

This is gonna be my MMO for the time being. I just started up a new Hobbit Minstrel, I’m enjoying her and am dedicated to reaching MAX level finally. I’ve had many different characters in this game over the years, but none that have made it above level 30. Most were Lore Masters or Rune Keepers but I figured a Minstrel would be nice to try – particularly since I enjoy healers quite a bit. So far I’me enjoying her kit as I’m learning. The complexity of using ballads, anthems, and codas is interesting and a bit difficult at first, but I’m learning. Actually, I’m still pretty young so I haven’t been challenged by anything that could really cause me issues yet.

MLB: The Show

I picked this up going into the baseball season to see what it was all about. From what I’d heard, it’s a pretty good simulation and from my gameplay, I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve won a game and played around a bit, but haven’t spent much time with it so far. There’s a couple of dynasty type modes that look real good so I look forward to playing it a bit more.

Fantasy Baseball

The first month of the baseball season was a hit or miss for my fantasy teams – I have 4.

1. My Mendoza team, Ramblin’ Redshirts is currently sitting in 3rd place in their division with a mediocre 12–11 record. I really need to spend some more time babysitting that team since I think it’s the most likely to improve with attention. The league format is pretty complex though and I am still relatively new to it. I’m just so happy it’s a long season.
2. The Rally Monkeys, my Root league Scoresheet team is not doing so well. They’re sitting in last place in their division with a 7–12 record. I’m so glad it’s a long season, but with a 4.16 ERA and 3.9 Runs Scored average per start, things need to get better. It doesn’t help that I’ve got a bunch of guys on the DL. I’m just so happy it’s a long season.
3. The Redshirts Scoresheet team isn’t doing any better. At 8–11, they’re at least in 2nd to last in their 5 team division. They’re sporting a 3.75 ERA but only 3.3 runs scored – somehow I seem to draft these types of team even when I think I’m grabbing decent pitching. Well, perhaps a shuffle of my lineup might help these guys out, who knows at this point. I’m just so happy it’s a long season.
4. Hrm…well, my Hybrid Head-to-Head/Roto league was doing well but now I am getting a service unavailable response to the URL…not good, I guess I’ll wait till it gets fixed to see who well I did this week. In any case, I was in first place, having won the first 2 weeks pretty handily but I slipped a bit during week 3. Hopefully this past week will be another good one and from what I recall, I was on top of 10 of my 14 match ups so I should do well again this week. I’m just so happy it’s a long season though being in 1st place kinda makes me hope things continue this way.

In the big leagues, my favorite Angel team came out pretty even, at least not counting today which hasn’t occurred yet. They’re either gonna have a winning record for April or losing since they’re at .500 right now with today’s game the deciding factor. They’ve played better than expected but I worry about injuries. I’m just so happy it’s a long season.

Other Games I Played

This month, I got really into SMITE on both the PC and PS4. I’ve been really enjoying it, but for some reason, this weekend, I can’t seem to win a game. I’ve made it to level 18 overall on the PC and went ahead and picked up the god pack that unlocks ALL gods now and in the future. It’s pretty cool having so many options but I’ve tended to settle on a few that seem to be decent – Ra, Medusa, and Zeus, but I’ve also taken a liking to Athena as a Guardian/Support. I’m certainly not the best player, not anywhere close to a decent one, but I do my best to stay alive and contribute to my team.