I've changed my profile avatar and banner in anticipation of what should prove to be the greatest game ever:
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.
Now excuse me while I hurriedly do my homework (
) to free up some time to play.
I've decided to update you all on my recent exploits. 
July was a month in which my calendar was full of plans for what seemed like each and every single day. With a graduation party to attend every Saturday and Sunday (literally), my two-day orientation program at Rutgers, my brother's 21st birthday, and my family's week-long vacation (that got extended by a week), I had very little time away from friends and family ...
... not that I'm complaining! 
I certainly got my fill of my church friends, family friends, and close relatives in what was an action-packed month. However, all of this partying and celebrating came with a sacrifice, which turned out to be my weight-watching / weight-loss routine.
Party food every weekend and a two-week all-inclusive buffet-style vacation have caused a major set-back for my expectations. I'm surprised that I'm still at a net weight loss to be honest. 
I had managed to lose about 6-7 pounds before vacation, but I put on about 4-5 pounds during the vacation. So, overall, it's a net weight loss of about 2-3 pounds, which actually isn't horrible considering the circumstances.
Now that we've started the annual 2-week fast for Saint Mary, I'm going to have to try even harder to lose weight. In case you forgot, it's actually more difficult for me to lose weight during a fast because of the instability of my eating patterns and overall diet.
The Vacation
Anyway, I can't complain because the vacation was certainly one of, if not, the best vacation of my life. My family, along with the families of my two uncles on my mom's side, went to the revered Riu Palace (a 5-star all-inclusive hotel/resort) in Playa del Carmen located in Playacar, Mexico. 
This was my 4th or 5th vacation in Mexico (I lost count lol) and my 3rd or 4th vacation with this group of people.
Being that I'm now 18, this also marked the first time I'd get to drink alcoholic beverages since the drinking age is only 18 in Mexico. Although we had a fair amount of encounters with some heavy drinkers, I'm not one to get carried away. The hardest drink I had was an apple martini (because JD always drinks appletinis on Scrubs 
) and Bacardi & Coke, which are laughable to any experienced drinker. Whether or not alcohol is involved, I chose my drinks based on taste, and I dislike most strong alcoholic beverages, so I see no point in drinking for the hell of it. It's stupid. 
Back to the actual vacation. We pretty much did the normal vacation stuff like swimming in the pool and beach, kayaking, pedal-boating, enjoying drinks and nachos in the pool, playing beach soccer and beach volleyball, eating, and playing cards every day. The best activity, wave-running, was saved for the last day, and I got to drive around, full-throttle, for 30 minutes with my cousin essentially strapped to my back. It was badass!! 
We almost fell off or tipped over every few minutes and we got faces full of ocean water with every wave, but I didn't care. I showed that machine and that ocean who was boss! My biggest air time was where the Waver Runner was so high in the air that I heard the motor emerge from the water and rev in the air for a full 2-3 seconds. It was awesome!!! 
We only stayed at the Riu for a week, but the reason I say the vacation got extended was because my cousins who live in Canada stayed with us back in Jersey for an extra week, which has never happened before. They stayed at my other cousin's house (the one who lives 2 minutes away) and I basically lived there during that time as well.
During that week, we got our fill of gaming, including taking turns playing through Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, which has become somewhat of a tradition thanks to me. After I introduced the Kingdom Hearts series to them, they've all been obsessed with it, quite like me. Since they've left this past Friday, I've been pretty much just chillin' at home and catching up on all of my lost sleep.
Gaming News
In the past few days, I've run a few errands including some college stuff, some cleaning up around the house, and some gaming stuff too. I made the annoying 30 minute drive to GameCrazy to replace the corrupted Assassin's Creed disc I got there last fall on my buying spree, and I went to Blockbuster to use my $10 gift card before it expired.
I found The Club used there for $10 and thought why not? I don't normally ever shop at Blockbuster since I'm not one to rent games or movies, so I just went with the first good deal I saw. I've wanted to get The Club since I played the demo a while back, and $10 was definitely a sweet price, but I essentially got it for free.
I haven't played it yet because I just picked it up yesterday and I wanted to make sure Assassin's Creed was working. It is, and I played it for a little while. I also finally got my first platinum medal in inFamous, and once I complete Uncharted on Crushing difficulty, I'll officially close the book on my second platinum medal.
However, it's my second playthrough of the Crushing difficulty, and my fifth playthrough of Uncharted overall, so my patience is starting to get thinner since I'm not enjoying the game like I once did, which means that I can't play more than a chapter at a time without losing my sanity and I'm in the middle of chapter 5. So yeah, it's gonna take a while.
I'm fine with this though since it gives me time to play other games during breaks of Uncharted. I've learned the hard way with the MGS series that I can burn myself out if I play games that require my full concentration and focus for too long. After playing MGS1 and MGS2 consecutively, I haven't touched MGS since. I need some nonsense games in between so I can avoid getting sick of the more-demanding games.
Until next time ...
Hopefully, I'll find it in me to post up another blog before school starts because I'm definitely not gonna be blogging during any semesters, which last for 15 weeks at a time.
But if I don't, I wish you all a great summer and a successful start to the new school year (if you're [unfortunately] still in school ).
Until next time, thanks for reading my blog.
- Patrick
While I do acknowledge his immense contributions to pop music, dance, and culture, I don't consider any perverts or accused child molesters to be great people. He's a legend, yes, but I'm not a big fan of his music, so it's a sad truth that I'll remember him more for being mentally ill than for his musical and cultural legacy. This is just my opinion regarding the person who is universally referred to as the king of pop, and I won't be discussing this subject further.As the title suggests, this blog is not about Michael Jackson, so moving on...
Where has the time gone?
It's been a little more than 4 months since my last blog, the first 2 of which were spent focusing on my spirituality and my academics. The latter 2 were spent finishing up high school for good (graduated this past Tuesday - hooray for me!! ) and just enjoying the company of my friends and family.
I've thought a lot about "coming back" to Gamespot in terms of my level of activity and blogging and I've been torn on this. During the Great Lent, I "left" Gamespot in order to focus more on my spirituality and scholastics, and even after all the extra time I spent on those two things, I still had some free time left. I began spending that time entertaining myself with things other than Gamespot, such as my friends at school and church, and I very much enjoyed that time.
After Easter came and passed, I no longer had the same desire for Gamespot that I used to, last summer for example. I just preferred to spend more time with my friends in our senior year. I also started working weekends to fund my entertainment outside my house, new games, and gas for my new car, (2007 Civic LX - hooray for me!! ). This job took away the time that I would've likely spent blogging or being on Gamespot, and I didn't want to sacrifice anymore of my time to make room for GS ... so I waited.
That's not to say I had been completely absent as I still did make an effort to post on the forum every now and again, update my PS3 FAQ Thread as needed, and yes, I did keep up with most of my friends' blogs, even though I only commented on a scarce few. I was here for E3 and heard all of the big news, from MGS: Rising (360/PS3) and MGS: Peace Walker (PSP), to the PSP Go (which was leaked), to Project Natal, to FFXIV. I'm looking forward to Uncharted 2, God of War III, the new Metal Gears, and Assassin's Creed 2.
Now that high school is officially over, this past week marked the beginning of what should be the best summer of my life so far. And the best part is ... no ****ing schoolwork during summer ... EVER AGAIN!!! Hooray for me!!
What's changed?
Like I noted earlier, I now have my own car and I've officially graduated high school. Also, in an effort to further better my life, I've started taking my weight and my health seriously. At 5 foot 4 inches tall and 205 pounds, I believe I'm a 35 on the BMI chart, placing me well into the scope of obesity. I've accumulated all this weight after years of literally eating whatever I wanted without worrying about the consequences. I never worried too much about my body image and happily accepted the fat jokes from everyone I knew and even pitched in sometimes. I have a laid back attitude towards such jokes and I've never had any emotional issues regarding my body image.
Although I've always loved playing basketball and football with my friends, the rest of my life****was very inactive as my hobbies besides playing ball included watching TV, playing videogames, surfing the web / GS, and hanging out at a friend's house, all of which are rather sedentary activities. Working at Dunkin' Donuts the past two summers hasn't helped either. Now, I'm on a diet - it's not any specific plan - I'm just watching and limiting what I eat and making an effort to exercise more and be more active.
That's part of the reason why I probably won't ever be as active as I once was on GS, as I'm making a conscience effort to choose more active hobbies and make exercise a part of my day-to-day life. Helping me do this is my new 16GB iPod Touch and a Griffin case with armband that I now use when I run on the treadmill. My goal is to reach my target weight of about 150 pounds by summer's end. Hooray for me!!
Gaming News
In gaming related changes, I broke my promise to myself (which was that I wouldn't make any new game purchases until I completed all of my games at least once) and preordered inFamous in order to secure a copy of the Uncharted 2 MP Beta, and also get the Gigawatt blades. As most of you on my PSN friends list already, I love inFamous and have been playing it exclusively since the day I bought it. I completed the hero campaign after about 40 hours, and upon successful completion of the infamous campaign, I will have my first ever Platinum Trophy!!
Not that I'm some trophy enthusiast all-of-a-sudden, but after tracking down all 350 blast shards on my own, I think there's cause for celebration. Hooray for me!! Also, the fact that I'm usually a completionist when it comes to games, a Platinum Trophy really means I'm actually 100% done. I'm thinking of revisiting Uncharted for a Platinum Trophy in anticipation of Uncharted 2, and as insane as it sounds, I'm also gonna try for an R2 Platinum.
While it sounds like I've completely ignored the Uncharted 2 Beta, I have played it on one occasion. I played a few short rounds of cooperative play and immediately fell in love, as it's quite genius in its execution and its call for teamwork. The rest of my time with it was obviously spent in competitive play, and while it was of high quality, let me just say that I personally didn't enjoy it very much. It was far from bad or broken, but just not my styIe. I won't divulge any further information as I know quite a bit of you purposefully passed on this beta in order to wait until the full game to experience it.
I'm back ... sort of
I'm hesitant to say "I'm back" because I know I will never again be as active as I once was, but I am back in the sense that you should expect to see me: on the forums from time to time, commenting on your blogs every now and again, and posting blogs more often than once every few months. I've also wanted to make some more game reviews for the games that I love and I've even been mulling over an idea on how and when to do my own "Top 10 Games" blog series.
But hey, let me try not to get ahead of myself here and focus on being a little more active first.
Until next time, (which is hopefully shorter than 4 months ), have a great summer.
- Patrick
