Monthly Archives: January 2015

That “How to Get over your Ex” Article You were Just Reading is Dumb. This One is Better

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So she dumped you.  Stop being a pansy and MAN-UP! Now, I recognize you haven’t done that yet which is why you’re reading this article so I’ve got three great ways to get even with your ex for breaking your heart.

#1 Mail her Glitter

Chances are she likes glitter anyway so you’re actually doing something really sweet! It’s just that the glitter will be wrapped in paper left to wander about where it will. She’ll be cleaning it out of her apartment for weeks! Hehehehehehe.

#2 Print out her picture and…

make a dart board out of it.  Blast Hall and Oates: “She’s Gone” on full volume for best effect. Tears may be a side effect for less manly men. Ignore them and keep flinging darts. Acknowledge feelings? Pffft that’s for wusses.

#3 Become Super Ripped

Remember all the times she gave those subtle jabs about your gut? You pretended not to care, but you were silently crying inside? Well, get the ultimate revenge and get super jacked so you can strut your stuff on the beach. Then you can imagine how she’ll be all lusting after you when you post you’re jacked abs on Instagram and Facebook, then she’ll DM you and she’ll be all like “I’m so sorry, I was wrong blah, blah, blah” …THEN you can be like “I’m sorry I’ve moved on” HA!

All of the above is the advice you should take, but there are some of you who will probably think this is a ridiculous list – taken from a man with the emotional age of a 5 year old. Well, to you sir I say “that’s what you are, but what am I?” However, because I’m a nice guy, I’ve prepared a list for the less manly among you so that you can have something too. Besides, I have to look out for all my peeps.

Alternate Top 3

#1 Fun activities

Don’t hang in the house all day. Hang out with your boys, or even some lady friends. It will help you to talk through some of the emotional baggage you may be hanging on to. If you’re not manly enough to stuff your emotions away the right way, then you may as well express them to people who pretend to care.

#2 Self Reflection

This one is dangerous so proceed with caution. Thinking through your past actions may have harmful results like remorse, and may in some serious cases cause you to empathize with others. Yes, even your ex. You may even want to, dare I say it…apologize for past jerk-like behavior. Again, this is the route for suckers who can’t be a man and stay the course.

#3 Respect Her Choice

Now if you had been doing this in the first place, you probably wouldn’t be here reading this article now. That said, you’ve got to recognize that the choice to move on without you is hers and hers alone. You’ve got to accept this like a man. It’ll sting for a little bit, but if it makes you feel better, just remember – she’s making a terrible mistake. You’re right and she’s wrong and you’re the best man she’ll ever have even if she disagrees. Now doesn’t that feel better?

Top 5 Games I Need to Play in 2015

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#5 – Tom Clancy’s: The Division

I can’t wait to play this game because of how social it looks. I don’t really play a ton of games with other people, but this looks like one that will be super fun. The realism looks crazy! The Ubisoft team has done a great job with the physics for in-game items like the way glass shatters and how your cover deteriorates over time. You can play with a team of friends and can customize your weapons load out which is awesome. I love how open world it is. They give you a ginormous map, and it’s totally up to you to go wherever you want to go next. You level up your gear by winning skirmishes which introduce you to stronger opponents. Release date is still TBD, but it should be coming out sometime this year.

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#4   – Batman: Arkham Knight

I’m not ashamed to say that Batman is on my top three superhero list. I’ve always been a fan and the Rocksteady game studio has done a fantastic job of making players feel like the Dark Knight. I love the hand to hand combat set up in the game, and I love all the wonderful gadgets. Playing the game makes me feel like the ultimate predator. Arkham Knight seems to be following that formula, but instead of allowing the franchise to get stale, they spruced it up with an all new design for the Batman Suite as well as a mysterious new, awesome looking villain. Also, you can drive the Batmobile. The vehicle is also reimagined and it’s a fearsome looking cross between a tank and a super car. Need I say more? The release date is set to be June 2nd 2015.

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#3 – Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The Metal Gear series has often been a love-hate relationship with many players and fans. Some people argue that the game mechanics are too formulaic and not fluid enough, while others argue that the games aren’t open world enough. One thing that people don’t argue though is that the series makes for some great story telling! It’s one of those game where you can be content watching someone else play it for hours without needing to play it yourself. You can literally get engrossed in the story line. This is why I’m actually rooting for a live action movie of the game. But I digress. The Phantom Pain looks to be the darkest installment in the series yet based on the trailers. Kojima is still a jokester and there will still be the usual “sexy lady” distractions for enemies and lots of inside jokes to lighten the mood. They’ve also added a huge free-roaming world which was a big complaint about the series earlier. I’m honestly glad to hear that and I’m looking forward to playing this new installment to this iconic espionage series.

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#2 – Kingdom Come : Deliverance

If you asked me to create a game from scratch while I was in high school, I would probably have come up with a game very similar to this one. I’m not a fan of too much magic and sorcery and dragons and other mythical creatures. Just not my style, but I love medieval games. So it’s been really tough for me because most games set in medieval times are all about dragons and magic etc… FINALLY, Kingdom Come seems to be the answer to my prayers. I’ve made due with games like Total War and other Real Time Strategy games, but to play a medieval game in first person, slashing folks with a claymore or basking skulls with a mace…music to my ears. This game is the vision of Damiel Vavra who saw things the way I saw it. It’s going to be super accurate to the period of time it’s set in, and it will offer not only swordplay with baddies, but it will offer large scale combat and a free-roaming environment as well presumably for lots of side quests. What’s great about a game like this is that it was fully funded on Kickstarter which means there were enough people like me who wanted a game like this. Most major gaming studios won’t take the chance on a game that challenges norms so it’s not that often you get something this unique. It will be out on PC, but also on consoles as well which is super cool! Release date is sometime this year.

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#1 – Star Citizen

Star Citizen is my #1 choice for games I can’t wait to play in 2015 because if you asked me to create a game in middle school (not high school as in my #2 choice) I would have thought of some space game like this. Except Chris Roberts took that boy hood dream and super charged it! Honestly speaking, this looks like it could be the biggest game in history if done right. I’m not joking. It’s got everything.  Most sci fi space games are either FPSs or are space racing, or dog fighting or discovery and research etc. This game will have all of those in one! The game seems to center around the user and his or her aircraft. You’ll be able to purchase more than one of course and house them in your hanger.  You’re hanger will be a real place where you can park your vehicles and plan strategies with your buddies etc. Depending on your aircraft you can have space for different friends who will – get this – man their separate and unique stations! You can potential have a comm’s officer who will hail other players in the game or who can potentially hack the communications of enemies. You will have someone manning the shields and energy consumption and the like. You can also land on worlds and have firefights with enemies just like you would in any space FPS. The universe is open and persistent and will have its own unique currency. Users will be able to make money in different ways and make a name for themselves in this galaxy. This game is so big it’s hard to wrap my head around it so check out many of the cool videos people are posting about the game. Star Citizen was also crowd funded (The game has currently raised almost 70 million dollars!) and you can purchase a ship right now if you want to support the game, however, if you just want to wait until it comes out you will be able to get these ships for free. It’s your choice. No word on actual release date, but it may be sometime in 2016 unfortunately. Another sad point for me – a primarily console gamer – is that the game will most likely be a PC game. It makes sense though as the game is so huge that it will be rumored to make even the most top of the line computers squeal in pain. But the level of detail is first class based on all the images and videos I’ve seen so far. I hope they get this one right as I’ll have to upgrade my computer so I can get in on the action!

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HTC Desire EYE Review

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HTC Desire EYE

We got a chance to play with HTC’s new Desire EYE. Is it the next phone you should buy? Does it live up to all the hype? Let’s find out shall we?

 

Design:

The first thing I notice about the Desire EYE is that it seems more playful in it’s design than some of HTC’s previous phone designs. It ditches the sleek, but drab black and grey colors from the HTC One and replaces it with a slick colored strip around the side of the phone. It doesn’t have a curved back so the phone sits flat on the desk. If you’re not used to a large phone, this phone does look pretty big and really long coming in at 5.2 inches. You will most likely have to use two hands to operate it, but HTC made some good button location choices to accomodate. The power button is below the volume rocker on the right side so righties will be able to easily toggle the screen on and off. There is also a dedicated camera button below the power button on the bottom right corner. It’s got a sort of matt finish which makes it feel comfortable in the hand, but that still didn’t make me completely take away my fears of dropping the device.

Looking at the phone dead-on, you mainly see the very large front facing camera and the dual LED Flash. I definitely have more to say about this in the “Likes” section. I didn’t realize until later that they’ve kept the speakers on the front of the device as well, but you have to do a bit of searching to find them…which is a very good thing. This phone also comes with the ability to take a micro SD card for extended memory if you need it.

 

Functionality:

I really liked the Operating system, but to be honest I still like stock Android better. That said, HTC does a really good job of not overloading the look and feel of the OS and it comes off feeling very light and simple. Definitely not as gaudy as some of the other Android skins I’ve come across, but that is a matter of taste. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty here because if you’ve used an Android phone – there really isn’t too much more to note. Rather, I’d like to talk about the software that governs the impressive cameras. They’ve got a slew of things that you can do with the 13MP front and rear facing cameras that I’ll point out here. Some are really useful, while others are nothing to write home about, but this is where the Desire EYE stands out from other phones.

They’ve got Face Tracking which zooms in on your face while on a video chat session. Though a relatively small improvement, this can be hugely useful when video chatting with someone while doing something else or while walking around. I’ve been in those situations before and I find this a welcome addition. They’ve also added screen sharing support with skype which could prove useful in a business setting. However, I can’t really see myself using that feature too often, but it would be cool to show it off the one time it proves useful. Split Capture is something I’m still undecided on. It’s where you can take a selfie and a shot with the main camera at the same time. The software then merges the two pictures with your selfie on the left and the main image on the right. I think it’s really cool and is something I can imagine using on vacation or in group pictures where the person shooting can finally be involved. Voice Selfie is super useful for taking selfies with the main camera, but the front facing camera is so good I wonder if it’s necessary. I could totally use voice selfie with my current phone (Nexus 5) because the front facing camera is terrible and even worse in low light. But sometimes it’s hard to hit the shutter button from the back of the phone so just yelling out “Cheese” would be a welcome change. Either way, I think it’s a step in the right direction so I welcome that functionality.

 

Likes:

I really like the sound of the front facing speakers. It really is impressive for a mobile phone and the fact that they are pretty much hidden allows for more focus on the huge screen. When I’m playing games I can hear everything which is cool. currently, my palm muffles the sound since the speaker is at the bottom of my Nexus 5.

I also love the front facing camera with dual LED lights. It’s 13 MP! I mean c’mon. I love the move though because now video calls and selfies using the front camera are now totally worth it. Add to that the HTC EYE suite of camera functions and you’ve got a sweet deal.

 

Dislikes:

Honestly, I didn’t like how big the phone was. I’ve got smaller hands, and it’s really hard for me to do what I need to do with one hand. I’m a New Yorker and I multi-task constantly so I really would like my left hand free. I also didn’t like the message center that much, and I noticed it hung a few times. If you swipe all the way to the left you get to this center where it flags relevant news and updates. It’s not terrible and I may learn to like it if I bought this phone, but initially I was put off by it. I’d rather find an app of my choosing to do that sort of thing for me.

 

Summary:

All-in-all, the phone is a solid buy. I could recommend it without hesitation. Sure, there are some things that didn’t float my boat, but the HTC Desire EYE really shines when it comes to it’s cameras. Android phones haven’t had too leaders in the camera category, but I’d say that the Desire EYE is one such phone. If you’re into selfies and a really big screen, you should give this phone a try.