Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Grateful For Video Games

Tags

Cards, Chess, Dungeons & Dragons, Far Cry 4, Games, Nintendo, Playstation, Pong, Scrabble, Video Games, Xbox

If you’ve never played a video game, this post probably won’t have much meaning for you. I have loved playing games my whole life. It started with board games like Monopoly, Life, and Stratigo. My grandfather got me started with checkers and chess. Later, mom and my grandmother got me started with Scrabble.

As I matured, I ran across Dungeons and Dragons. Boy, that was a game. During my early years, we didn’t have cellphones or computers. We had games like Dungeons and Dragons, which captured our imaginations as we created characters and worked our way through various adventures created by one of our friends.

Later in life, came the Arcades. These new types of games were awesome. I got good enough at a few that I rarely spent any money to play them for hours. Other games never ended, and I got tired of those. From here, we moved to computer games. The first console I owned was an Atari, and we played basic games like Pong and many others. The first types of games I liked to play were the very basic games available at the time. Then came the Nintendo system with all of its Mario games, Zelda, and others.

From here I moved over to the Sony Playstation and finally ended up on the Xbox. The game I’m playing currently is called Far Cry 4 and boy, is it a fun one. The basic story is you are returning to the country of your birth, called Kyrat. You are there to spread your mother’s ashes in Lakshmana. Once you arrive, you are accosted by the country’s dictator. You escape his palace and become involved with a resistance group called the Golden Path. In this game, you can hunt, you can drive vehicles, fly a “buzzer” or a one-manned helicopter, you can grapple and climb mountains, and even use a wingsuit to fly from the top of a mountain to get around, the mountainous terrain.

What’s nice about a video game is the length of time you can play a game for such a minimal price. Yeah, 30, 40, or 50 dollars may seem steep for a “game”, but when you consider that the first time I played through Far Cry 4 it took 53 hours to beat it, the money is well worth it.

So today, I am grateful for the many games I have played that have given me so much pleasure throughout my years on this Earth. The board games I played with my family, Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, and now the Xbox, which allows me to play Co-op games with my Brother who is over 3,000 miles away.

Have a great Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Phoenix – Final Day

Tags

family, Friends, Games, Good Food, Happiness, Joy, Movies, Phoenix Trip

I’m writing this early because I’ll be busy cleaning up my brother’s house and getting packed up for my flight on Thursday the 13th. This trip was a terrific time. It started with my niece’s wedding. It was a wonderful ceremony and went off without a hitch.

Then it was a full week of reconnecting with friends, good food, and lots of laughs. It was also a great time to hang out with my brother, play some games, and binge watch some shows on Amazon and Netflix. I also got in some writing, reading, and some much-needed quite time to think about things and reflect.

I like my reflection time. I think about all kinds of things, like what my life would be like if I did this or that in my past or what I could change today and what effect that would have on my future. I like thinking about my family, my friends, books I have read. I even like to think about thinking sometimes.

I hope all of you enjoyed my Phoenix trip! I did. Friday, I’ll be back to my posting schedule. I really appreciate all of the new followers and the time you took to investigate and learn about my blog.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – The Weekend!!

Tags

Endorphins, Energy Boost, Enjoyment, Free time, Fun, Games, Party, Weekends

It’s Friday and the weekend is ahead. Even though I am recently retired, I still have great feelings on Friday, thinking about all of the things I will do this weekend for fun. My weekends are normally comprised of some reading, watching a show, playing a few games online, doing my laundry, organizing my room, and preparing for the upcoming week, not necessarily in that order. The biggest thing for me is the lack of structure during the weekend. It balances out my strict schedule during the week.

As I write this posting it is still raining outside. In Michigan, like most of the Midwest, we are getting rained on daily, with more coming tomorrow and tomorrow night. It is really a huge change of pace compared to my living in Arizona, where rain is sparse, but high temperatures are frequent (my brother said they hit 100 this last week). That is one thing I will not miss about AZ—the high temperatures of summer.

Anyways, as I stare out the window and notice the squirrels dancing about in the trees in our front yard, I enjoy the release of the weekend and the sudden boost of energy we feel when we know we are going to have fun. Isn’t that the weirdest thing? When we’re at work, we tend to feel tired and lethargic toward the end of a long week. As soon as we exit the workplace, get in our car, and pull out of the parking garage, we get hit with a huge amount of energy. Where does this come from?

Some of it I think is just the mental dump that occurs when we realize we don’t have to think about work until Monday. Some of it may even be a little bit of a psychological boost from endorphins from the expectation of our upcoming free time. Whatever it is, Friday afternoons are still great, even as a retired guy.

I hope each of my readers has a terrific weekend! I’ll continue to post my quotes and any workouts I get in over the weekend, but hope all of you have a terrific time with your loved ones, significant others, and friends and have a great adventure this weekend. I plan on hitting one of my favorite coffee joints for a nice cup and hitting the library for a few hours. I may go to the gym if I feel like it, but Saturday and Sunday are off days on my current workout routine. Who knows? That’s the beauty of the weekend.

Until next time…