Category: Manhood

It’s a man world

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The Closer I get to You – Unforgiving and Brutal

I condensed my usual pace of gameplay over 3 weeks into 3 days of The Division because of the Global Event.  I didn’t come across many players who hadn’t played the game before and It’s clear that The Division 2 will break sales records with millions of players jumping around DC for loot and kills.

Enough is enough already, so I fell back to my cut-off strategy of removing the disk and deleting the game to simply stop playing it.  I haven’t even looked at others title for the past few weeks.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – knowing when to quit playing

August gameplay

This month’s line up looks great with Mafia III (single player) and Dead by Daylight (PvP) free for PS Plus folk.  I nearly bought Mafia III a few months ago when it went on sale but figured it would be free at some point for this 2-year-old title.  Dead by Daylights format of 4 verses 1 has not been as popular as the all-out 100 player format or 4 versus 4 formats.

Anyhow for me, August is a PvP free month but I’ll certainly view my favourite streamers escapades and will be missing the past few days ShotGun onslaught up close and personal.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – Be back in September folks
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Re-inventing yourself

The serious business of Gaming has not gone unnoticed by the global powerhouses like Microsoft.  Gaming is one of the six massive investment areas that the tech giant is focusing on and it makes me laugh when individuals jab at my lifelong indulgence on this “not so niche” area of computing.

Source: Microsoft

In the meantime, this weekend I took some time to level up my 3rd character in readiness for the next Global Event in The Division. It’s always fun starting from scratch and it gives me a good excuse to opt-out of real life.  I was joined by a few friends along the way and avoided toxic or youth gamers.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – Ready for the Global Event

In a way, I guess we re-invent ourselves in real life to suit the situation and our personal goals all the time.

 

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Getting to know you…Getting to know all about you

iOS 12’s new features are perfect for self-analysis. The built-in Screen time feature is just the sort of transparency an users now need.  A pure non-technical approach to analytics give you granular control over your downtime, App time limits and content restricts.

My screen time is 77% down from last week and it’s very fitting as I was using social networking frequently with a Loved one.

Here’s some interest stats about me from ScreenTime

I picked up my phone 30 times a day
Once every 35 minutes after 14:00
I get around 13 notification a day

The most obvious use of this new resource is parent control, although I deliberately changed by device usage behaviour based on these stats.

Many of us won’t want to know these statistics.  The truth about our device dependency is confirmed and proved.

Ignorance is not always bliss.

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How to keep calm in Austria

In a few months, it will be a full decade since I first ventured into Austria and I must say that it’s been mostly good.  I’ve learned to navigate what is by far the most hostile environment I’ve lived in. Austrian are in the category of “Rude people” so I development anti-social strategies to avoid them in their own country.

Creative and aggressive use of technology helps me avoid the need to ask questions, this is key as do not speak German.  Uber and Amazon and occasionally FaceBook have provided excellent faceless services helping me get the exact things I want and need.

Cash is King

Money literally talks and avoids misunderstanding or aggression.  I also tend to pre-paid my stays at hotels and pay for taxis in advance, no arguments. I paid you, now shut the fuck up.

Plug-in Zone Out

I tend to use headphones triggering the natural human response of not trying to engage in any German conversations with me.

Of course, this forced isolation has it downside but I do love the Austrian countryside.

Beauty Austrian countryside, really rude people.

A decade of Stealth

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Privately flaccid

Do we act differently when we are aware someone is watching? Probably yes, but eventually we ignore it to take advantage of “free” services.

The next chapter in the Life is Strange Universe was touted as “a free game” but today it seems it’s just a free demo that leads into Life is Strange 2 ($39.99).  Fine, I can accept that but more and more the privacy notices have become so upfront that I swear it has an impact on my experience.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
After accepting the privacy notice and actual choice, 
I proceeded to the game wondered around my character’s 
bedroom then kitchen, interacted with a few items 
wondered outside the house in the snow and then 
deleted the game.

It would be curious as to the analytics the publishers get from my underwhelmed one-time gaming experience.