Finished Elex II. Here's my review:

https://www.gamespot.com/elex-ii/user-reviews/2200-12863278/

Things looked grim when the current gen of 6000 and 3000 series of GPUs from AMD and Nvidia hit the shelves and became scarce in a matter of seconds.

Last year, between my mom and younger brother, they gifted me $600 for new PC hardware. I was stoked! A few extra bucks from my end and a RX 6800 or RTX 3070 could easily be mine. I anxiously waited for the GPUs to drop.

The RTX 3070 released at the end of October 2020, just a short while after my birthday and the RX 6800 debuted a couple weeks later in November. I had my cash in my pocket and two GPUs that would ideally fit my needs releasing soon.

When I upgrade to a new GPU I upgrade to something that provides 2x the performance of my current GPU(s). I started upgrading that way because it made sense. I originally started with 7600 GT in SLI. They worked great and my next step from there was moving to two 8800 GTS 512MB. These two cards were fast! It was amazing. Playing Oblivion (even though I had come to find the game was pretty bland) was simply and then came along Crysis. By this time I moved to a single GTX 280 (which is roughly twice the speed of the 2 - 8800GTS 512 cards in SLI) and a short while later added a second GTX 280 for SLI. I moved to a single GTX 570 when they released, which was roughly twice the speed of 2 - GTX 280s cards in SLI. See the pattern here?

I ran the GTX 570s in SLI for almost 5 years. I passed up the 600 and 700 series, though I was tempted to get 780Ti cards for SLI, but I held off since the 570s, paired with my i5-4670k @ 4.4GHz ran all my games maxed (or near max) out at 1080p. As time went on though, the 1.25GB of VRAM on the card was the main limitation for me. Running 5760x1080 setup for a lot of games, the 570s just couldn't keep up anymore without dropping settings to medium or lower. So I finally pulled the trigger and got a new GPU. I grabbed a GTX 980Ti AMP! Omega and that thing absolutely crushed the 570s without breaking a sweat. The 980Ti was amazing and she stayed that way for 6 years for me.

But, as we all know the stock situation of GPUs when the RTX 3000 and RX 6000 series launched. So, here I was with $600 and nothing to find to put it towards for a new GPU. Cards that were being bought were being scalped at nearly 3x their MSRP value, which put a new GPU out of the price range for me. So, I shifted my goal of the money and put it towards other things. I moved to a 2560x1440p monitor and dropped the 3 - 1920x1080p monitors I was using and the other half of the money I put towards a new iPad for the wife since the one she had was pretty shitty.

Along the way I signed up for the EVGA queue for RTX 3070 cards and even the 3080 models. As months rolled by the queues were barely moving and more months went by, still nothing. The RTX 3060 and 3060Ti came along. I put my name on the queue lists for those cards as well and months went by. All during the past 12-16 months time, my 980Ti was experiencing random fan spin ups. They'd happen randomly, maybe a few times a day when the fans were spinning and sometimes they wouldn't happen at all. I was in fear that my 980Ti would fail on me and I'd be left with a GT 730 that I have just for testing purposes just in case. I wasn't hoping for a RTX 3060, but I'd be willing to get one if the opportunity came about.

I had also been putting my name into Newegg Shuffles, but for the GPU only options that came up. Sometimes I wouldn't see any at a reasonable price or even along and not bundled with other crap I don't need. So my entries to the Newegg Shuffle was here and there. I kept eyeballing the EVGA queues at the same time and I kept my eyes on Best Buy and AMD store websites, hoping I might get lucky.

It's been about 4 months since the RTX 3060 launched and that's about the time the RTX 3060 XC model started moving a bit here and there. I had 24 hours on my queue time before my turn to purchase one came up. I was eager to even get my hands on a 3060 just because of the current status of my 980Ti. Days, turned to weeks, crept by. I was growing very impatient. Even my couple of early bird visits to my local Micro Center didn't land me any new GPU and I was never getting picked by Newegg. I stopped checking EVGA queue for about a week and when I checked it again I was only 38 seconds away from my timestamp getting approved to allow me to purchase a 3060. The next morning I get an email from EVGA that I've been approved to purchase a RTX 3060 XC for the retail price of $399. I snatched it up!

Stoked! I was stoked! I could finally retire my 980Ti that held me over for so many years. However, I wasn't content. It wasn't my normal upgrade path. A 3060 is only, on average about 35% faster than a 6 year old 980Ti. 6 year old GPU!

I kept on looking for a 3070 range card or a 6800 range card, but ones I found were very overpriced or sold out before I could even get to Micro Center.

A month after I acquired the 3060 I almost missed an opportunity for a much improved card. I've been putting my name into the Newegg Shuffle on GPU only purchases and surprisingly I was finally picked for an EVGA RTX 3060Ti XC, priced at $470 (only $70 more than a 3060 and the performance is almost 3070 level and it even has the same power draw as a 3060....score!

But, as I said, I almost missed my chance to buy it. I go in streaks of horrible amount of spam text messages and I had been getting a lot for the past 3-4 weeks. So when my phone chimed at me while I was checking the weather and a little blurb of the incoming text message read, "Holy Shift Key! You were...." I blew the message off as more spam. I happened to be going some place at the time so I didn't do my usually and open the text app to delete the message and then block the phone number it came from. I locked my phone, she went in my pocket and I went about what I was doing. I had forgotten about the text message and when I got home I checked my email - at this point it's been 2.5 hours since I was notified I had been picked to purchase this 3060Ti from Newegg. I open my emails and I started to panic that I missed the window after I saw the win notification from Newegg. I logged on quick and was relived to see I could still make the purchase. A week later my 3060Ti was at my home and installed! Fricking sweet!

Out of habit I have continued to put my name on Newegg Shuffles for GPU only purchases, pretty much on anything that's 3060Ti and up to 3080, as long as it's under $1000.

A week ago (2-3 months after I got my 3060Ti) I got a text message that woke me from a nap that I had a chance from Newegg to purchase a RTX 3080 for $950! I jumped on it. I would be a birthday present to myself.

Two days ago the new RTX 3080 showed up and after I move here in a week I'll be installing the RTX 3080! I'll probably be looking to sell the 3060 or maybe the 3060Ti card, I haven't decided which one yet. I've got 3060 currently in my HTPC, yeah, it's kind of a waste, but it's nice to have a decent backup should something happen to the 3060Ti (soon to be 3080) that I'm using!

I'll continue to keep entering into the Newegg Shuffles. If I can buy a card and flip it for an easy $300+, I think I just might do that.

Lots of large retailers are shifting their position to requiring masks to enter their buildings. Sure, they're considered a "private" business and they can set their rules, but this whole thing drags us in another direction. As long as you have your cell phone on your person, regardless if your data is active or wifi is active, your phone is still tracked. Large retailers that require masks means if you set foot in a retailer with your phone and they require a mask, someone is taking note of it. They can see who is willing to follow the rules and give away their freedom of choice.

Much like the introduction of social media - why try to secretly obtain people's personal info when most people will simply give it away for free on social media. As people are willing to still use these retail stores, you're freely passing along that you're okay with obeying commands given.

Telling people to "social distance" (which is an oxymoron, by the way) to help deter the spread was just a stepping stone. You can't be social at a distance, being social means you're you're willing to live in communities and join gatherings/companionship. You can't do that at a distance, being distant is not social. It's simply just interacting. So, step 1 - get people to follow a basic rule and see what other things you can do that people will follow.

Allowing the government to close down the economy, get countless people fired, watch small companies tank while big corporations continue to expand and see how many and who will simply allow the government to pay them for unemployment....now there's an extensive list of companies and people that are "put out" due to the economy closing. Make these companies and people reliant on the government to support them and see how reliant they become on asking for more from the government. So, step 2 - break the people and then help kind of sort of prop them back up with some financial help and see who comes back for more abuse.

Now take into consideration that companies started to be fearful of repercussions of ways of contamination because info provided by doctors/CDC/government bodies contradict each other....so businesses thought the idea of stopping the use of physical cash was best and only allow digital payments. Now there is a "national change shortage" and stores are telling people if they can't pay with exact cash, they can't use it. Some banks are even offering a 10% return for any coins given to them to entice people to put coins into the bank system. Eliminate physical cash and move people closer to digitizing money. So, step 3 - piggyback on the fears of covid to help steer the direction of physical money to being removed from economy to help push to digitize currencies.

Telling people a "vaccine" is in the works and once it is ready people will flock to get it. Once people start getting vaccinated then a detailed list is available to see who and how many people are willing to simply obey what they're told. Now look at the all the people that would blindly follow and get vaccinated (due to fear mongering by media/social media/government/CDC/etc) and it'll help reinforce the idea of chipping - I mean, it would simplify the process of linking a person to their digital fingerprint for money and make it easier to track people. Step 4 - you already have a detailed list of people willing to follow suit of wearing a mask because it's been mandated by majority of companies and now state officials, you know majority of people will do what you tell them and they'll line up for a vaccine.

If people are already willing to simply follow every command given from wearing masks, to keeping distance ("social distancing") from others, to allowing the economy to be closed for 3+ months, to not using physical cash, to getting a vaccine (that by any means, won't as effective as people will be lead to believe, but as long as people get their false sense of security fulfilled they will continue to blindly follow)....just means people will be willing to do just about anything the governments want them to do. Step 5, getting chipped....they're already blindly following like sheep; wearing masks, stop using physical money, allow the government to dictate how you run your business and tell us who is "essential", then rely on the government to bail out everyone else that is "not essential", allow the government to vaccinate you and by then....you've shown just how far you're willing to go to be controlled.

Something is seriously fucking wrong with these online companies when they can't properly ship merchandise to their customers.

2 times I had Amazon pack a HDD inside a thin, plastic bubble envelope. HDD just gets tossed around and it's damaged.

First one comes in and clicks as it spins. I asked for replacement. Second one comes packed just like the first - doesn't even work. I asked for a refund after that since even after complaining to the customer support about how the first one was packed, the second was sent to me in the exact same packaging.

2 times now with Newegg - HDD comes in a box at least, but there is so little protective packing inside of it that the HDD just bounces around freely. First HDD just clicked as it spun and I'm not even going to bother testing the one that just came in now....oversized box with 5 bubble packs that don't even fill the box completely. HDD just bouncing around freely again. I'm complaining to newegg again and I'll try a third time, maybe 3 times the charm?!?

What a fucking waste of time. If I could find an 8TB WD Red HDD at my local MicroCenter - I'd be thrilled. I'd drive there just to spend a little more money to physically pick it up myself. They don't carry anything larger than 6TB and that's not enough storage.

I don't utilize Facebook/Snapchat or any of that social media crap. This is about as close as I get to social media.

I've been preaching to the kids (daughter is almost 12, son is almost 7) since they were both young, "Don't throw food away just because you're full."

They don't fucking listen. Neither of them. It's like they think the food is just *poof* there! It doesn't matter what they may make if they want something....Mac & Cheese, sandwich, beagle w/ cream cheese...whatever. Once they get full, they just up and throw the rest of the food away.

Oh, only had about half the mac & cheese? They don't save the other half - they just fucking throw it out.

Son ate half his bagel tonight and went and threw the full half away that he didn't eat.....

The wife and I talk to them about it. Remind them what they can do if they don't finish their food so they can keep it for their next snack/meal. We've yelled at them for doing it over and over and over again. We've punished them - to bed early, extra chores, removal of electronics,not allowing them to go out and play with friends.....nothing seems to sink in.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kids these days are so absentminded, I feel like there needs to be a stupid fucking app created that simply say "Don't waste food" and then they'd remember because they can always remember a stupid ass game or app they've used, but nothing sticks when you try to talk with them. Talk to a kid these days and their eyes glaze over, they nod and clearly don't comprehend what is being said to them because they're not holding a screen in front of their face with flashing lights and they have no buttons to press.....they don't give two shits about anything.

Fucking waste of space MS is with updates on Windows 10. I had a complete Windows failure when they pushed out 1709 (Falls Creator) and now this issue.

I didn't know MS released their newest craptastic update. I picked this morning to backup my plex server.

I started the backup process on the second hard drive. I see the backup will take 3-4 hours to complete (over 2TB of movies, takes a while to backup) and I see Windows 10 has a popup saying update to the next greatest thing, or pick a date to update or snooze.

I didn't want to update since I was backing up, so I picked "pick a date". I wasn't prompted with any date option to pick from. No popups/notifications came up. I didn't think anything else of it. I come back to the server a short while later and I see Windows at the "update in progress" screen.

Fucking-a.....I wait for it to finish. Usually once the computer restarts a couple of times it will reboot into Windows 10. It never restarted. I left the computer to sit for a few hours when I could get back to it. I powered it on and it comes to the Windows 10 repair screen. I check the drive through the command prompt and the drive is empty....fucking empty!

I try the backup drive - empty!

Fuckyou MS and your worthless fucking updates. I've got thousands and thousands of hours of video and pictures lost. I'll see if I can recover the backup drive, but I don't think that'll be possible since the backup I was running never finished. Over 2.5TB of DVDs and Blu-Rays and recorded TV shows and pictures (thankfully I have multiple other backups of pictures) are gone. I'm going to have to spend hundreds of hours to once again rip all my DVDs and Blu-Rays.

So, here's a big fucking-thank-you to MS and their broke ass fucking software.

I'm still hard at it - as much as I can be - to whittle down my list of backlog games. I completed another one this evening and moved it to my beat game list at the bottom. I know no one reads this, but I keep it updated as much as possible when I remember. I get through a handful every year. Slow going, but I keep at it.

8/20/21 - still tons of games to play. Lots of them on my list. I get through a couple on here a year and then add a couple more that I may or may not beat....a never shrinking list of games. Thankfully I do have a new GPU to play them off of, got my hands on a RTX 3060 through EVGA and about 5 weeks later I got picked for a newegg shuffle for a 3060Ti that was only $460. I picked that up and now I'm gaming off it and I put the 3060 into my other computer. I officially retired my 6 year old 980Ti AMP! Omega cards.

1/14/22 - About 2 months back I acquired a RTX 3080. I handed off my 3060Ti to my brother, he's going to replace his 5700XT and sell it off on ebay while they're still going for $900+. I've been recording all the games I've completed since I started keeping track - I don't usually update the "not beat" games list, so I'm sure there are more to add to it - but as I looked back through the games I completed I can't believe I've been updating this blog since 2011. I honestly don't play games like I used to. I dabble in a game here and there and usually 20-30 hours of game time is dragged out over a few months. Take the game "We Happy Few" - took me 6 weeks to play through it. Officially 34 hours for me to beat the game. I found it engaging, not overly challenging, but the story was better than I thought it would be. I'm not sure what's next off my list - perhaps Wasteland 3 or perhaps Blades of Time. I'm going to keep at it and hopefully, one day, I'll whittle down this list and actually make a dent.

10/29/22 - When EVGA announced they were stopping with GPU production I found myself picking up a 3080Ti from the local Micro Center for around $750 after tax. I figured if EVGA was done with GPUs, then I was going out with a bang this gen. I've got my 3080Ti in my gaming rig and a backup 3080 should something happen to this card. With how prices are going and power requirements as well, for GPUs (and CPUs), this 5900X & 3080Ti might be my last gaming rig. At least I have a system that can handle games just fine for some years to come. Not to mention all the backlog of games that I have, I have enough to keep me busy for a decade or two should I stop ever purchasing any new games that release.

11/25/22 - Got a cold. No fever, just kind of bleh feeling with a slight cough, it should be gone within a couple days like they normally are. So, I've spent the last couple of days playing Starlink: Battle for Atlas. The game okay. Kept me busy for the past 18 hours or so of time while I get to hide from everyone. Honestly, I don't even know where I got a copy of the game, it was just on my Ubisoft Connect account. Maybe it was a free giveaway at some point in the past because I know I didn't pay for it since I haven't purchased anything from Ubisoft for quite some time. Anyway, the game was decent enough for a single play through and kept me occupied.

8/27/23 - Still gaming. Mostly been spending time playing coop type games such as Valheim, 7 Days to Die and replaying games I really enjoy like Grim Dawn and Dying Light (not Dying Light 2, that game is a piece of shit). I haven't put much progress, if any, into my backlog. Usually I knock out a handful of games a year from it, oh well, I'll just keep gaming with what I enjoy and maybe I'll get to more backlog games soon.

11/7/23 - Working on my Retro Review idea. Going back through older games that I own and have played to completion, played but not completed and haven't even opened yet. While I'm not doing that I'm working on Baldur's Gate 3 with my brother in co-op. Amazing game, just as fun and well put together as the Divinity Original Sin games.

12/9/23 - I've been doing what I call Retro Reviews for PC games. I'm going through playing my older physical PC games. I create .iso files for them and get them to run without a disc so I don't have to worry about swapping discs around. I just played through CoD2 and a few other games I've played years ago or I have owned, but I never even got around to playing them. I'm having fun seeing how the games look and feel when compared to what is available by today's standards. Surprisingly I've been having more fun playing older games than newer ones.

9/22/24 - Going through older games for my Retro Reviews has allowed me to actually move a few titles from my list of not completed games to my completed list. Awesome.

Games Listed Below - not beat:

1. Age of Empires III
2. Alpha Protocol
3. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
4. Arma II & Operation Arrowhead
5. Baldur's Gate 3
6. Banner Saga
7. Battle Chasers: Nightwar
8. Battlefield Hardline
9. BioShock 2
10. BioShock Infinity
11. Blades of Time
12. Boiling Point: Road to Hell
13. Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
14. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
15. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
16. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (single player)
17. Call of Duty: World at War (single player)
18. Company of Heroes 2
19. Contract J.A.C.K.
20. Crysis 2
21. Crysis 3
22. DarkStar One
23. Dawn of War II
24. Dead Rising 2
25. Deponia: The Complete Journey
26. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
27. Drakensang: The River of Time
28. Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition
29. Ember
30. Enclave
31. Exodus from the Earth
32. Everspace
33. Evochron Mercenary
34. F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate
35. Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel
36. Far Cry 2
37. Far Cry 4 (I may have beat this....I put 15 hours into, but I don't actually remember if I beat this boring game or not)
38. Galactic Civilizations III
39. Gods: Lands of Infinity (couldn't get this to run on Vista when I purchased the game, never tried it on Win 7 or Win 10)
40. Gothic 3 (got far, but got kind of bored)
41. Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods
42. Grand Ages: Rome
43. Grand Theft Auto V (this game sucks....thankfully I didn't pay for it, it was gifted)
44. Grim Dawn - Elite
45. Grim Dawn - Ultimate
46. Hand of Fate
47. Hard Reset
48. Heroes of Might and Magic V
49. Heroes of Might and Magic V: Hammers of Fate
50. Heroes of Might and Magic V: Tribes of the East
51. Inversion
52. Jotun: Valhalla Edition
53. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
54. King's Bounty: Armored Princess
55. Kingdom Come: Deliverance
56. Legendary
57. Lichdom: Battlemage
58. Lords of the Fallen
59. Mafia II
60. Mars: War Logs
61. Max Payne 2
62. Max Payne 3
63. Medal of Honor Allied Assault
64. Might & Magic VI
65. Might & Magic 10
66. Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of The Betrayer
67. Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
68. Omikron: The Nomad Soul
69. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
70. Painkiller Hell & Damnation
71. Pillars of Eternity
72. Orcs Must Die!
73. Orcs Must Die 2!
74. Rambo - The Video Game
75. Rebel Galaxy
76. Red Faction: Guerrilla
77. Resident Evil 5
78. Risen (almost beat - I should really finish this)
79. Risen 2 - Dark Waters
80. Risen 3 - Titan Lords
81. Sacred Gold
82. Saints Row IV
83. Scribblenauts Unlimited
84. Serious Sam 3
85. Shadow Ops: Red Mercury
86. Shadowrun Returns
87. Shadow Tactics
88. Space Hack
89. Space Trader - Merchant Marine
90. SpellForce 2: Dragon Storm
91. SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars
92. SpellForce: Shadow of the Phoenix
93. SpellForce: The Breath of Winter
94. Starpoint Gemini 2
95. Star Wars: Empire at War
96. Star Wolves 3: Civil War
97. Singularity
98. Stronghold
99. Stronghold 2
100. Stronghold 3
101. System Shock 2
102. The Bureau - Xcom Declassified
103. The Dark Eye: Drakensang
104. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
105. The Last Remnant
106. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North
107. The Scourge Project: Episodes 1 and 2
108. The Settlers: Rise of an Empire
109. The Walking Dead (season 1)
110. The Witcher 2
111. The Witness
112. Thief 2
113. Thief: Deadly Shadows
114. TimeShift
115. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2
116. Total War: SHOGUN 2
117. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
118. Trine 2
119. Two Worlds: Epic Edition (this game is awful, it just flat out sucks. I'll probably never beat it nor play it again)
120. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
121. Vin Diesel: Wheelman
122. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault
123. Wizardry 8 (love the game, but play in spurts - then I forget what I'm doing and I've restarted a dozen times)
124. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
125. Ys Origin
126. Ys: The Oath in Felghana

Games from my list that I beat:

1. Neverwinter Nights 2 (7/1/11)
2. Madballs in Babo: Invasion (7/5/11)
3. Fallout: New Vegas (7/14/11)
4. Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale (7/20/11)
5. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (7/30/11)
6. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (7/31/11)
7. Assassins's Creed: Brotherhood (9/14/11)
8. Avencast: Rise of the Mage (10/3/11)
9. Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim (10/18/11)
10. Alpha Prime (10/19/11)
11. Just Cause 2 (10/28/11)
12. Back to the Future: The Game Episodes 1-5 (11/7/11)
13. Deus Ex: Human Revolution (3/1/12)
14. Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link (3/4/12)
15. Dead Island (3/17/12)
16. Batman Arkham Asylum (4/21/12)
17. Dragon Age: Origins (7/31/12)
18. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2/1/13)
19. Saints Row: The Third (2/5/13)
20. Bastion (2/5/13)
21. Torch Light II (2/7/13)
22. Mass Effect 3 (3/20/13)
23. Borderlands 2 (4/24/13)
24. Kingdoms of Almalur Reckoning (9/12/13)
25. Dishonored (11/25/13)
26. Assassin's Creed III (12/26/13)
27. Deadlight (12/27/13)
28. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (1/30/14)
29. Sleeping Dogs (2/6/14)
30. Metro: Last Light (3/5/14)
31. State of Decay (3/19/14)
32. Batman: Arkham Origins (4/22/14)
33. Of Orcs and Men (7/13/14)
34. South Park: The Stick of Truth (12/15/14)
35. Dead Island Riptide (3/27/15)
36. Far Cry 3 (4/10/15)
37. Sniper Elite 3 (6/27/15)
38. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (8/15/15)
39. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (11/30/15)
40. Black Mesa (2/3/2016)
41. Thief (2/28/16)
42. Grim Dawn - Veteran (3/21/2016)
43. Rage (4/23/16)
44. Mad Max (8/30/16)
45. Dying Light & The Following on Nightmare (9/3/16)
46. DOOM - 2016 (12/26/16)
47. Mirror's Edge (6/20/17)
48. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (7/15/17)
49. F.E.A.R. Extraction Point (9/13/17)
50. Assassin's Creed: Rogue (4/14/18)
51. Remember Me (7/15/18)
52. Elex (11/4/18)
53. Fallout 4 (1/12/19)
54. Tomb Raider 2013 (1/21/19)
55. Limbo (2/6/19)
56. Ryse: Son of Rome (4/22/19)
57. Middle Earth: Shadow of War (11/10/19)
58. State of Decay: Lifeline (3/28/2020)
59. Shadow Warrior (9/13/2020)
60. Shadow Warrior 2 (11/2/2020)
61. Wasteland 2 DC (12/29/2020)
62. Dishonored 2 (01/17/2021)
63. Divinity: Original Sin (sometime back in 2019)
64. Far Cry 5 (Sometime early 2020)
65. Divinity: Original Sin 2 (December 2020)
66. Horizon Zero Dawn (05/03/21)
67. Control (5/30/21)
68. Greedfall (7/31/21)
69. Metro Exodus (11/28/21)
70. We Happy Few (1/14/2022)
71. Crysis (I beat this game some years ago, but figured I'd give it another go through on the hardest difficulty) (3/2/22)
72. Crysis: Warhead (never played this one, finally put some hours into it) (3/20/22)
73. Wasteland 3 (4/10/22)
74. Biomutant (9/30/22)
75. Inside (10/29/22)
76. Divinity: Original Sin 2 (solo paly through, lonewolf) (11/18/22)
77. Starlink: Battle for Atlas (11/25/22)
78. Outriders (8/27/23)
79. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (9/17/23)
80. Elex II (10/7/23)
81. Advent Rising (11/7/23) - this is probably the 6th or 7th time I've played through the game
82. The Saboteur (11/25/23) - amazing game, 2nd time playing through it and still fun as hell
83. Call of Duty 2 (12/9/23) - back when CoD games were fun and not rehashed trash.
84. Soldier of Fortune (12/20/23)
85. Diablo II (1/28/24)
86. Fable: The Lost Chapters (3/9/24)
87. Titan Quest Immortal Throne (4/4/24)
88. Medal of Honor - Airborne (4/7/24)
89. No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way (6/1/24)
90. Prey (2006, the good Prey) (6/4/24)
91. SpellForce: The Order of Dawn
92. BlackSite: Area 51 (7/14/24)
93. Dungeon Siege (7/30/24)
94. Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna (8/5/24)
95. Far Cry (8/17/24) - Yes, the original, the good one.
96. Dungeon Siege 2 (9/14/24)
97. Dungeon Siege 2: Broken World (9/21/24)
98. You Are Empty (9/24/24)
99. Pariah (10/4/24)
100. STALKER 2 (12/21/24)

I did a good bit of working out late last summer, but with all the running and even after dropping 10 pounds, I got a bad case of runner's knee and the son of a bitch hurt for almost 6 months.

I think I got lazier over the past winter, but with my knee hurting (sharp pain right behind the kneecap) and making it difficult to walk up stairs or get in and out of my car probably helped assist with me wanting to take it easy. Winter came and went and spring came around. About half way through spring my knee didn't hurt anymore, but I couldn't get myself to get back into working out - especially running. Finally though, mid summer - the week before the 4th - I finally started to do something about my laziness.

I cringed as I got out out the scale and found I weighed 236.8 pounds. Fattest I've ever been. It stops now.

It may be in the mid 80s to low 90s most days and in my garage where I have the door insulated (helps keep the garage warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer) it was still high 70s to low 80s in there. But that's where my heavy bag hangs. I haven't really used it for 6-7 years aside from some odd workout I'd do about once a year on it.

I threw on some ratty clothes, moved my car out, stretched and went at it. Now, just hitting the bag can be a workout, but not one you can easily sustain over a decent period of time without over exerting yourself or fatiguing yourself too fast. I had to incorporate other things into the work out so it went like such on my first 2 weeks of getting back into the swing of things.

Heavy bag:

• 10 jabs left hand first, then right hand
• 10 jabs with 10 crosses, right hand first, then left
• 10 jabs, 10 crosses, 10 jabs.....
• 10 jabs, crosses, jabs, crosses....
• This comes out to 200 punches thrown

Push-ups!

Everyone loves a good push up.....okay, not really. But they're good at working chest, shoulders, back and core muscles. I had troubles doing 5 basic push ups, so that was my starting number. 5 push ups.

High Knees:

I wanted to do some stomach exercises such as situps or crunches, but I didn't think I'd be able to do much considering I could barely do 5 push ups. As dumb as it sounds, the high knees adds to the constant cardio while also working the lower abs a bit and helps stretch out the buttocks. I put my hands behind my head and alternate left elbow to right knee as I bring my right knee up as high as I can and then I go right elbow to left knee. I did this 10 times.

Jump rope:

Seriously, how hard will this actually be. Doing 50 jumps. Piece of cake! Right? No, not a piece of cake for some one that's out of shape and over weight. 50 jumps was excruciating. I thought I was going to pass out and the burning in my calves.....

This was my routine. I fought through it for 3 full sets. I was dead tired when I was done and just drenched in sweat. I hurt all over the next couple of days. Once I wasn't sore anymore, I did the workout again. Same thing. After a couple of weeks I had it down easy and wasn't feeling overworked anymore. But now I wanted to build on what I was doing and really start to workout harder.

2 weeks back (start of July) I was 236.8 pounds. I'm now around 230 pounds.

Around the third week of working out, I decided I was going to add 1 push up per set and take it from doing 5 each set to 6. I also added 5 more jumps on the jump rope per set. I went from 50 jumps to 55 jumps. I also added in 15 crunches to each set. Then, to top it all off, I added a complete 4th set to the workout.

I was now doing a total of:

• 800 bag punches
• 24 push ups
• 40 high knees
• 60 crunches
• 220 jumps on the jump rope

Each week I add 1 more push up and 5 more jumps. I've also increased and changed up the type of crunches and high knees and added more bag work. My current workout that I do every other day currently consists of:

• 880 bag punches
• 74 push ups
• 60 high knees
• 75 crunches, 75 bicycle crunches, 25 leg lifts with 10 second holds at 12" and 24"
• 400 jumps on the jump rope

I also started running a mile after each workout. I spend around 25-30 minutes in the garage and then go for a 7-8 minute mile run. After pulling a muscle in my back a few weeks back, it kept me out of working out for about 2 weeks so I'm a little behind of where I want to be. Once I hit the 20 push ups per set, then I'm adding a 5th set to my workout and it should looks like such:

• 1000 bag punches
• 100 push ups
• 75 high knees
• 100 crunches, 100 bicycle crunches 25 leg lifts with holds
• 500 jumps on the jump rope

As of yesterday (9/12/17) when I weighed myself I was at 216.6 pounds. I'm down 20 pounds after about 2.5 months of working out. I should be able to hit 210 by the end of the month and then by the time my birthday rolls around at the end of October, I want to be at 205 or less. I think it's a very achievable goal in the next 6-7 weeks. I don't like being over weight and if I get under 200, I'll be very close to the weight I was when the wife and I got married in 2004. I'll post my status (if I remember) in the coming weeks to see how I'm close I am to my goal.

**UPDATE** 9/15/17

I worked out 9/11, 9/12 and 9/14 this week. On the scale last night I weighed in at 215.6 pounds. It should be very possible for me to hit 210 by 9/30/17. I'm feeling pretty good so I'll probably get another workout in tonight. I will admit that it is nice that size 34 waist clothes fit now without having to suck in my gut is nice. My 36 waist pants, they've become very loose on me and won't stay up without a belt. I've retired these pants to be "work" pants for when I'm doing things such as painting or working on the cars. My goal is being 214 by the start of next week and to 212 by the start of week 9/25/17 and in that 210 range right at the end of the month. I'm pumped!

**UPDATE** 9/28/17

Schedule has been a bit busy and I was tied up last weekend so I've only worked out 4 times sine my last update. I was on the scale last night, even after having a heavy food day, I came in at 215.0 pounds. I worked out last night and two nights before. I'm taking a break tonight to catch up on sleep and I'll work out tomorrow and see if I can find time to workout Saturday (9/30/17), too. I'm still psyched to see weight coming off and I don't see why I can't be down under 214 by the start of next week. That'll leave me almost 4 weeks to burn through (hopefully) another 6-8 pounds and bring me close to my goal weight of 205 by my birthday.

**UPDATE** 2/25/19

I never did update my status after my last entry back in September 2017. It was 10/17/17, I was at 213 pounds (I had missed a good 10 days from working out since my 9/28 entry; work and such things, just too busy). I had 8 full days before my birthday and I wanted to be at 210 or less, which should be easily doable since I was taking 2-3 pounds off a week.

Day went normal, like all others. I walked the dogs and then did my workout. I took my young husky out for a run like I've been doing after every workout and we were about 2/3 of way through the run when she thought she saw something and stopped running right in front of me. I hollered at her to keep moving and she started running....for about 3 steps and instead of staying off on my left side like she normally did, she stepped to the right and stopped in front of me. I was moving at a good clip - maybe 9-10mph and I didn't have time to stop so I stepped high over her with my right foot so I didn't step on her, my left leg I tried to bring up over her, but being off balance I caught my toes on her hindquarter and started stumbling....stumbling....stumbling. I knew I was going down and I dislocated my right shoulder years ago trying to catch myself in a fall and after learning how to tumble and fall better from my aggressive inline skating days I instinctively knew what to do. My hands pulled up to my chest and I tucked my head as I started to fall down and my forward momentum with me tucking my head and arms in basically forced a mid-air somersault about 5 ft off the ground. I ended up landing with all my weight on my right shoulder blade and rolled forward and stopped on my knees in the grass next to the sidewalk. The initial fall didn't really hurt and I didn't get the wind knocked out of me. I sat there for about 60 seconds replaying the incident in my head a few times before I finally got up. I finished the last 1/3 of my run, got home, felt a bit stiff and figured I'd be extra sore the next few days. After trying to peel out of my sweat soaked shirt, once my arms got over my head and my shirt coming off I heard and felt a pop from my shoulder blade. It didn't hurt, but the pop was clear as day, like snapping your fingers. I showered, iced and went to bed. My shoulder blade hurt so bad when I woke up I couldn't lift myself out of bed. I had to grit my teeth, hold my breath and roll off the side of the bed to get my legs on the ground so I could stand up. I checked in the mirror and the wife confirmed that I didn't have a bruise from the fall, but I did end up fracturing my shoulder blade (one of the harder bones to break in your body). It took almost 4 months to get to a point where it didn't hurt to breath deep or slightly be able to push myself out of bed. By then it was February and I hadn't been able to work out at all.

Then all summer of 2018 it was so hot and humid that I swear I damn near got heatstroke a couple of days trying to workout - it really hindered how much I could work out. I kept my weight around 220.

Winter 2018 to 2019 - cold, wet, unable to workout in the garage and go for runs. I've crept up in weight and I'm pushing close to 230 again.

Here's hoping spring 2019 is good and summer isn't so nasty hot/humid like it was in 2018. I still want to get under 210 and back around 200. I'm getting cabin fever with all the fucking snow and cold these past 2 months that I can't wait to start getting good enough weather to start working out.

Wife's CX-7 kept throwing P0126 code. Same as my car did last winter, so I replaced the thermostat in my car (took about 1.5 hours, not terribly difficult).

Wife picked up a new thermostat for her car ($30) instead of taking it to the dealership where they wanted around $450 to replace it.

The damn belt tensioner on her car is located behind the front right wheel, in the wheel well. Okay, not a big deal. Jack the front end up, remove the wheel and sure enough, I can see the tensioner - sweet! Wait....what the hell? The tensioner says "Lift" on it with an arrow pointing up towards the left. I have to force the tensioner up to the left to release tension on the belt. This is not a one person job anymore.

I talk with my step-dad (used to be a mechanic and he's got a ton of fun tools, he just lacks an in floor car lift. We agree on a day to do the work.

I got to his place two nights ago and we get to work on the car around 5:45pm. The tensioner is almost butted up to part of the frame so we can't get a breaker bar on it and you cannot get any kind of socket wrench on it either. We were left with using a 14mm wrench and then we had to take the 15mm wrench and hook it on the back end of the 14mm to create an arm for leverage to left that tensioner pulley up....huge pain in the ass. Even with pushing the tensioner up we couldn't get it pushed high enough due to lack of room and it took 15 minutes to pull the belt off. After screwing around trying to get the tensioner and then getting the belt off, it was now 6:30.

The engine was still too hot to do work so we had to set up two machine shop fans and let them blow air across the car, under the hood for about 30 minutes. 7pm comes around and now we have to remove the power steering pump - should be simple enough. On the left side of the pump is a pulley for the belt we just took off and behind it on the bottom is bolt #3 that holds the pump in place - this was a bitch to get to. 25 minutes later the pump is off and now I can see the thermostat. It has two hoses on it and just below it is the alternator.

Now that I have access to the thermostat, I drain the radiator (10 minutes later she's done pissing). I take a couple of rags and stuff them under the hoses on the thermostat since it sits directly above the alternator and I don't want any coolant getting on it. I fight with the hose clamps and get them off after about a 15 minute battle.

3 bolts on the alternator, two on top are easily removed. The third one on the bottom right you can't see and it sits back behind another hose that runs up next to the headers. I had to fight for enough space to cram my big mitt, a 1/4" socket wrench with a 4" extension and 8mm socket back there....only took me about 20 minutes to get the thermostat off.

It's now almost 8:15 when everything is finally off! Nice! Time to put it back together with the new thermostat.

The new thermostat goes on very quickly, 5 minutes all bolts are in and she's tightened. Now it's time to fight with the damn hoses and clamps that attach to it. My hand slipped and I got met with a piece of metal that slid under my thumb nail about 1/8" of an inch and hurt like hell and started bleeding, so I took a break. My step dad fought with the hoses and clamps for about 15 minutes and go them on. He came and got me, told me the hoses were back on, but he had to take a call.

I reattach the power steering pump. I put the plug back into the radiator. The time is now almost 9pm. Here comes the really fun part of putting the belt back on.

Using the handy dandy diagram of how the belt runs across all the pulleys, we get it back on to a point. Now it's time to fight with the stupid ass tensioner again. We spent around 30 minutes trying to get the belt on and we were having zero luck. We took a 10 minute break, went back and assessed the situation after finding a couple videos online about replacing the belt. I had to remove the plastic covers in the wheel well so we could get to the bottom right pulley. We reconnected our makeshift lever on the tensioner and we must have got it hooked up at just the right angle because we were able to move that tensioner another 1-2 inches further than we could before and we were able to slip the belt over the pulley! Success!

Time is now 10pm and everything is back on in the wheel well and the tire is on and the car is back on the ground from the floor jacks. In goes the coolant (50/50 mix) and it takes about 20 minutes to fill the radiator, let her run and about 1.5 gallons of coolant to get the radiator and coolant reservoir filled. I reset the ECU and go home. The check engine light doesn't come back on, but the car's fan on the radiator is making a high pitched wail that it didn't make, especially when the AC is running.

The car wasn't over heating so I didn't bother with the new noise and would look into tomorrow. I got home, parked in the garage and turned the car off, removed the key from the ignition and the cooling fan came on and ran for about 10 minutes....all while making the high pitched wail (like the fan was running faster than it should have been). It eventually stopped and I went in, cleaned up more and got to bed around 12:15am.

Wife drives the car, tells me that fan noise is very audible while she's driving down the highway when the AC is on. I started looking online for possible issues that come up with the thermostat change on a CX-7, but nothing.

She gets home after work and I let the car sit for a long while to cool off. I start looking over it all again to see if maybe something was loose that would contribute to the noise and I didn't find anything. I was about to call it quits on my search when I decided to jam my hand/arm down behind the radiator to make sure the thermostat hoses are still on and no leaks when I felt something soft that shouldn't belong there.....

I pulled out a rag that was still stuck in there, in the passenger side's radiator fan. I pulled the rag out and started the car up, turned on the AC - no god awful fan whine! I drove the car around for a bit with the AC cranked and no unwanted sounds.

I don't mind working on cars, but never again will I work on this CX-7 if it requires the removal of the serpentine belt. Holy hell was it a pain in the ass. Nearly 5 hours to change out the thermostat on the car. I guess that beats spending almost $500 at the dealership to get it changed out, but I can see why it would cost so much based on the time I wasted doing it.

Computers - I love them. I love the hardware and what a computer can do. You make use of it more than you think you do for quick everyday things: research, social media (I feel sorry for those that melt their brains on this crap, but to each their own), business, email and so on.

Last Thursday night, I decided to do what I do at least once a year with my computer and give it a decent cleaning.

The family went to bed and around 9pm I power off the computer. I flip the power switch off on the PSU and unplug the power cable on it. After 30 seconds I unplug all the cables from I/O and I take my tower and set it on the table I'm going to work at. I removed the side panel and set it to side on a chair next to me.

I'm barefoot, in shorts and t-shirt while doing all this. I have a metal screwdriver in my hand, so I've grounded myself before I start pulling case fans out, the GPU out and fan filters. I didn't do anything with the 24/8 pin power cables for the MB and CPU. I didn't touch the CPU or H100i cooler or anything else - just removed the GPU and case fan and fan filters.

With a can of air I blew out the GPU. I then took a small brush and cleaned off the fins on the fan and on the heatsink as good as I could get to it with brush, through the fans. I didn't remove the GPU shroud at all. I then brushed off all the fans and I used canned air to blow out the PSU and any loose dust on the inside of the case. I know how to handle canned air, I didn't spare any condensed solution from the can on any part of the computer.

With things cleaned out I put everything back together. None of the case fans plug into the MB. The case has a built in fan controller for 3 fans, the other ones connect directly to a 4pin molex. I put the GPU back in, connected the power cables on it. I made sure nothing else got bumped and everything was plugged back in as should be. I then plugged everything back into the I/O panel on the MB, plugged the PSU power cable in, flipped the power switch on the PSU to "On" and pressed the power button on the tower....'click'....nothing powered up. Odd, so I did a quick look over everything again and seeing nothing out of place or unplugged I powered the PSU power switch to off, reseated the PSU power cable on the PSU and made sure it wasn't unplugged from my surge protector. I turned the PSU power switch to "On" and pressed the power button on the tower....'click'....no power.

Damn it, what the hell?

I take the tower back to the table and I check the jumpers on the motherboard for the power switch, reset switch, HDD LED and so on - nothing is unplugged. I checked all power cables again - nothing unplugged, all power cables are plugged in. I take the power cable for the PSU and plug it into a completely different out let and tried turning the computer on again....'click'....no power.

Well, guess I'm starting over with my computer. So I dissemble it. I grab a cardboard box. On the box I only have the MB, with the CPU installed, the H100i and 1 stick of RAM (no HDD, GPU or anything else connected). I verify the PSU has the 24/8 pin power cables plugged in. I plug the PSU into the wall outlet and try to power the computer using the onboard power button on the MB....no power.

Shit, maybe the PSU has failed. I disconnect the power cables on the MB and I dig around to find a paper clip. After about 5 minutes to find one (they're very uncommon in the house, we don't really ever use them) I test the PSU - she turns on. Okay, she powers, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. So I go grab my spare Seasonic 750W 80+ Gold and test the MB with it....no power. I did the paperclip test on the spare PSU. She powers up. It's starting to look like the issue is the MB. By now it's around 1:30 am so I call it a night.

I left work early on Friday so I could drive to MicroCenter (thankfully I have one fairly close to home). I look over all the motherboards for 1150 socket and I decide upon an improved version of ASRock board that I have at home that's not working. I get the Z97 Extreme4. I get home and get thing setup on the new MB. I have her on the box, just the PSU, 1 stick of RAM connected. I try to power her up using the onboard power button....no power. For ****'s sake.

Now I'm really irritated. I go get the spare PC the kids use. I remove the PSU from it because I know it works. I connect the known working PSU to the new MB....no power. Shit, DOA board.

I now have 2 computers pulled apart on the table and taking up a ton of space. I was hoping to have it all cleaned up before the wife got home with the kids, but the DOA board I just got put me in a bad spot. Family gets home, cook dinner, I walk the dogs and so on and around 7pm I drive back to MicroCenter. I swap the board for a ASUS model and get home around 8pm.

After the kids were put to bed around 8:30 and I took the dogs out again, I try my luck with the 2nd new motherboard.

Screw setting everything out on the box. I mounted the new MB in the case, installed the CPU, installed the H100i, installed 1 stick of RAM. I took the known working PSU from the spare computer, installed it in the case and plugged in the 24/8 pin power connectors. I connected the power and reset jumpers to the motherboard. I connected the computer to one of my monitors, powered on the PSU, pushed the power button on the tower....SHE POWERED UP! She POSTed!

I swapped PSU and she still powered up with my normal PSU. I then installed all RAM and the SSD. She posts, but won't load windows 7 (I figured as much). I'm okay with this since I backup my OS driver every night to my backup HDDs so I'm not missing any important info/pics and so on. I reformat the SSD, re-install Win7. I then connect my other HDDs and handle the cable management. I plug in the GPU and start the computer up - everything loads and runs as should be. I fell asleep during the Win 7 install around 1am.

I spent a good chunk of my Saturday morning installing Windows updates and all necessary programs I use. Thankfully my Steam games are all a storage HDD so I didn't have to download and re-install them all.

As irritating as the dead MB was and all the time and money I spent getting it back up. I enjoyed solving the puzzle it created and successfully getting the computer back up and running.