The Professional Gamer - November 14, 2016

Hi everyone. I tend not to discuss news or politics on my blog (that's what twitter is for :P) but with the recent results of the U.S. Presidential elections, I do want to take a few moments to discuss more serious matters. I'm deeply troubled by the election of Donald Trump, a man who is uniquely unsuitable to lead a parade of bath toys, let alone a modern nation. To top it off, we have unequivocal proof that a significant portion of the United States would rather side with a racist, homophobic, misogynistic lump of orange play-doh, rather than a somewhat flawed career politician who happens to be a woman. A large portion of the country has said that hating the other is perfectly acceptable. Most of my friends belong to a marginalized group, and their fear is palpable.

If you find this distressing like I do, please make a commitment to leverage whatever degree of privilege that you have to help them. Watch out for threatening behavior in public spaces, volunteer or donate to charities that serve these communities, make art, write articles, or simply let your friends know that you care about them and that you value you them. If we are going to get through the next 2 to 4 years, we need to stand together and support each other.

I think I'll leave that subject there. Shall we talk about video games and anime instead? I think we should. I'm still pushing forward in Elite: Dangerous and getting closer to buying the top tier ship. I did manage to kill a pirate in my Type 9, which mostly came down to a war of attrition. It's amazing what you can do with three beam lasers.

Yuri!! On Ice is still amazing and a pleasure that I look forward to every week. I have to say that the subject matter was especially refreshing.

And that's all that I have for now. Have a great week, stay strong, and game on!

The Professional Gamer - October 31, 2016

Happy Halloween, everyone! I had a week away from home, which gave me little time to play video games or watch anime, but I did end up reading the majority of an interesting book. Many of you may be happy enough to live with one or more cats. If you find yourself in such a situation, I recommend The Trainable Cat by John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis. They've collected some of their experiences with animal behavior and training to some very practical methods to train your cat to cope better with modern living. I'm going to be working with my cat, Calcifer, to help him do better at car trips and taking his medicine.

That's pretty much all that I have this week. I've watched another episode of Yuri!! on Ice and played a little more Elite: Dangerous. I'm also taking advantage of the Pokemon Go! Halloween event and getting as much candy as possible. Have a great week, and game on!

The Professional Gamer - October 10, 2016

Hi Everyone! I don't have a lot to report on this week. With the change in recent change in weather, I ended up wanting to spend a large portion of my time with a bit of a comfort movie. In this case, The Lord of the Rings. For those who have been following me for awhile, you may be aware that I tend to read the books once a year. I'm currently reading The Two Towers and decided that watching the movies would be a good way to spend my evenings.

Also, I found a new anime series to watch for the fall season: Yuri!!! on Ice. The series is about Yuri Katsuki, a 23 year old figure skater. At the the beginning of the series he suffers a major defeat, coming in last at a Grand Prix competition. He moves back home to do some soul searching and decide whether to continue with his skating career. At the end of the episode he finds a new coach who wants to help him. The animation in the show is fluid and provides an great sense of grounding for the characters. The style for the opening is also really cool.

That's all I have for this week. See you next time and game on!

The Professional Gamer - October 3, 2016

Hello readers! I've very much had a anime more than anything else; so, let's start with the one thing that isn't anime. In Elite: Dangerous, I'm continuing my work towards a Type 9 Transport. This work has generally consisted of booting up the game and looking for a good trading route; finding that the nearest good route is about 100 light years away; traveling to the target systems while trading and exploring; and finally, running out of time to play and going to bed. All of this means that I'm not making progress very quickly. However, I love cruising through new systems to pick up data about all the little planets and icy rocks.

First up on the anime docket: Food Wars! I watched the last episode on Saturday. The final episode offered a good conclusion to the series; giving some resolution to the main plot line, but leaving lots of room for the audience to imagine the future adventures of all the characters. In the end, I recommend the show for its over-the-top humor and delicious food ideas.

Next, I spent much of the weekend binge watching Sweetness and Lightning (Amaama to Inazuma). The series is not quite what I was expecting and had me periodically tearing up from the first episode. Sweetness and Lightning is a heartwarming, slice-of-life story about Kohei Inuzuka and his daughter Tsumugi. Kohei is a recent widower, and is worried about the relationship between himself and his young daughter. He therefore decides that he should start cooking for her so that they can eat dinner together. Kohei makes some more friends along the way and, in a way, forms a new family. The series is very lovely and emotional. And the acting (both voice and character animation) of Tsumugi is remarkably believable as a child. 

Last, I've started watching Himouto! Umaru-chan. This series is a few years old at this point, but I've just finally had the time to watch it. Umaru appears to be a perfect high school student: good grades, athletic, and pretty. But once she gets home, she transforms into a lazy, chibi gamer. The show is rather full some rather sterotypical tropes, but still ends up being a lot of fun. I'm about halfway through currently, but I doubt that my opinions about the series are likely to change much as I finish. It's worth a watch if you need a break from something with a high degree of emotional investment (like Sweetness and Lighting), or just generally want something that's a little silly.

That's all that I have for now. Have a great week and game on!

Anime Southwest - A Quick Review

Last weekend Anime Southwest had it's (technically) first event. Due to some personal circumstances I was not able to go near as long as I wanted, but I was able to get a decent handle on the event. 

To start the event was short handed due to a number of staff bowing at the week before the convention happened. The rumors (and that is all I can call them at this time) is that staff from a different con was supposed to assist, but opted not to at the last moment. Despite this problem the staff that were there all friendly. When I met with the press head he took the time to give me a tour of the convention showing me where the panel rooms, VG Room, Main Event, and Dealer room were. It was a much appreciated tour. I also spoke to a few guests and they were appreciative to what the staff were doing for them. One group had a technical issue that was handled in short order while another was able to get an impromptu Digimon panel setup. I hope that in future years they can keep up this level of dedication.

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As for the venue, it was definitely not the location they had wanted, but they were able to make it work. The center of the convention featured Artist Alley.  To get to any of the other rooms you had to go past the artists. They also had the small restaurant with, what I assume, were free snacks to keep the attendees going strong. While I don't see this happening in the future, or at least for all future cons, it was a nice gesture. 

Do I plan to attend next year? Yes, I do. Hopefully I won't have the same personal problems next year to keep me from attending all weekend, so I can truly enjoy Anime Southwest. And for those that want to see the photos I did manage to take, they can be found here.

The Professional Gamer - April 18, 2016

This has been the week where I had something scheduled to do every evening.  In spite of that, I managed to play a lot of video games this week.  However, I only managed to watch a very small amount of anime.  Anyway, read on to find out what I've been doing for the past week.

Let's start off with the shortest discussion.  I'm down to the final episode of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash.  At this point, I'm expected the series to end one of two ways: either everybody lives or everybody dies.  I'll probably find out next week.  I also ended up showing Golden Boy to some friends.  I'd forgotten exactly how lewd this series was.  It's so bad; but it's also a lot of fun.  And the friends enjoyed it too!

While I was waiting at some of my meeting commitments, I played some Fantasy Life.  Once I finished Ocarina of Time last week, I needed to find something else to play.  And so, I've spent a bunch of effort on increasing some of my crafting and gathering professions.  To some degree, its a lot of work, but I'm having fun with it.

Finally, I've continued working towards a new ship in Elite: Dangerous, but don't feel like I've made a huge amount of progress this week.  To be honest, 2 million credits is nothing to sneeze at, but I've still got another 9 million to go.

That's all I've got for this week.  See you next time and game on!

Anime Southwest is Coming

Good news (I hope) anime fans! Denver is getting a forth anime convention. Anime Southwest is being held April 29 - May 1st at the Ramada Plaza at I-25 and 120th Ave. This convention is being put on by the group known as Sukoshi Con who have done other anime conventions across the country, so they do bring some experience with them. To some this group may sound familiar, and yes they have worked with Animeland Wasabi, possibly the most controversial convention in town on whether one should go or not. Well while they have worked with them they are a separate group and deserve the benefit of the doubt. So why should you got to Anime Southwest? Well that is always the question.

The panels / events of Anime Southwest include the standard array of costume contest and a dance. For Utena fans there will also be a Rose Ball where you can "Dance the evening away in a rose filled wonderland". The guests will also be holding their own panels. Samantha Inoue-Harte, whom has worked in over 33 anime titles and video games, will have panels about Auditioning for Video Game Voice Acting, Old School Anime Fandom, and what it is like Inside the Japanese Anime Studio. Then we have Blake Shepard who has been working in anime for over 10 years by lending his voice to shows such and Angel Beats, Sacred Blacksmith, One Piece, Air Gear, Elfen Lied and more. He is also a animator and will be doing an Animation 101 panel over the weekend. Kazha is also attending as a musical guest so we can expect to see a concert on the schedule. Lastly we will see two cosplay guests, DugFinn Cosplay and Umbra Cosplay. 

Hopefully we will see more events as the convention closes in. If you want to pre-registers you can do so here for $45.00 for all three days. Look forward to seeing you there.