Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Life w/ JH - Vacation Edition

It's been a while that I have written about my life with my boyfriend, JH. This post is going to sum up the previous 2 trips we have taken during the 10/11 year and 1 upcoming trip.

In October 2010, my cousin Kevin was getting married. His wedding took place in Miami Beach, FL. This would our first official trip in a relationship. We flew and rented a car to drive around. I assigned the driving to him. At this wedding, he was going to meet a great deal of my father's side of my family. All of my dad's siblings were there and a lot of my cousins. He was well received. We didn't really get to hang around the area too much. We made it to beach but couldn't partake of it. We at least got to wet our feet. We got to see the Miami Ink tattoo parlor. We of course ate at JH's favorite place at the time, Five Guys Burgers. All in all, it was a fun time.

Just recently we took an 11 day vacation to Florida. The plan was to spend half of the time in Daytona and the rest time in Clearwater at the beach. My mom ended up giving us her banked time at Westgate Resort in Orlando. We ended making Orlando our homebase since it's only a 2 hour drive to Daytona or Clearwater from there. If we got too tired we would stay over night at a motel. Since we stayed in Orlando we also took in some attractions. We did Magic Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach and Medieval Times. We also got to the mall. We never made it to Daytona Beach. We did go to Clearwater beach, twice. We had a great time. We did spend some time with my mother. We also met up with JH's friend Aerin (not real name) in Gainesville. They had the most adorable 3 month old baby. Didn't want to leave vacation at all. Had a great time. By the end, I got 2 shades darker and JH got burned unfortunately.

We have a new trip planned at end of the month. This is more work than pleasure. We are going to Vegas with my brother to help my father move to a new place. JH's parents are also coming. This will be our parents first meeting. This will be very fun. Hopefully we get time for some pleasure. JH is looking forward to going to Max Brenner's in Caesar's Palace. He has the worst sweet tooth. I am also looking forward to seeing JH's parents again. I like them a lot.

JH is great to travel with. He's a joy to be around. But then again, I'm a bit biased. Only thing, make sure the GPS works, lol.

Until the next post. It may be for our anniversary for relationship and living together.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Hip Hop Abs After 1 Day

So we all know we gave up on P90 exercise routine because it became too repetitive and boring. I griped about it in every one of my posts. I should've done the P90X with JH. That is another story I'm going into. I hate pull ups and that's all over that program.

I had JH get Hip Hop Abs. I love dancing. So I may keep up on this. The operative is "may". If I get bored I'll give it up too. Hopefully I won't. There are only like a handful of routines. There repetiitive at times. I am not giving such a optimistic view because I know myself. I get bored and then I move to the next exciting thing. One thing I have learned about myself is that I don't have an addictive personality. I may like something a lot but within a couple weeks I am no longer interested. i don't think I'd make a good drug or alcohol addict, lol.

So let me tell you about my first routine yesterday. It went not as I expected. It is called Fat Burning Cardio. It is cardio with dancing steps. At first it was easy and fun. Then all of sudden I'm drenched. I turned on the ac in middle. I normally get cold right away in ac, but not yesterday. I was still hot and sweaty. The whole thing is like learning a dance routine. The half hour went by really quick. I still wanted more.

The presenter is completely weird. I get the gay vibe then I get a Tyler Perry vibe off of him. His body is sick tho. Tim Horton of P90 series has a sick body too, but it's not the same. I believe if all the routines are as fun and high energy, it will keep my attention.

Let's hope this routine will become a stable. It does make my dancing genes happy.

Next post in a week.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Hotel Dash


Well since I love Diner Dash, I decided to try another Playfirst title that stars Flo: Hotel Dash.
HD 1
Hotel Dash and all the Dash games has Flo doing different businesses. This woman is a billionaire or she has cloned herself. She has so many businesses. I digressed a bit.
HD 2
Hotel Dash you have a lot to do, more so than Diner Dash. You have to check in guests, be their bellgirl, feed them, give them towels, give them extra pillows, mop up spills, take down laundry and check the guests out.
I have made it to level 18 of the 2nd hotel. Just like Diner Dash, each different site has 10 levels and couple in app purchases for other sites.
HD 3 HD 4
I have seen some interesting guests so far:
- teenager: standard guest, but always spills something
- business women: standard, loves to swim so you give lots of towels and get back a lot of laundry, very impatient
- bearded man: he is the greedy one, orders twice to three times
- honeymoon couple: they spend longer time of course and always requests extra pillows
- clowns: they spill and break vases. they are a hassle
- arabs (well they look like them): sleep walk so you have to get them back to their rooms
HD 5 HD 6 The game is really hard to manage at times. You can't satisfy everyone all the time and you will lose the game because of it. I have repeated levels multiple times.
HD 7
I am still stuck on level 18 (the 8th level in my 2nd hotel). No matter how I change strategies, I still loose a guest or I'm not doing a very good job :(.
Along with playing the levels, you have to prepare a honeymoon spot for special guests that I guests will arrive later in the game. You have to get special star points to get he special items for the room. You get these stars during regular leveling. Let me tell you, I've only gotten 2 items in all 18 levels. The honeymoon room will not be completed on time. I will have to redo some levels at a later point.
Overall, this game is fun. You have to have great patience and fast fingers. Preferably small tiny fingers. There are way too many areas to touch that will cost you in game play.
HD 8
Hotel Dash can be found in the iTunes App Store for $2.99.

[iOS]

Monday, June 6, 2011

Magic: The Gathering

I have been getting into trading card games lately. I have tried 2 so far: Pokemon and the game I'm going to discuss in this post; Magic: The Gathering. My boyfriend, [info]lordkaosu, has 2 starter decks for Magic. He has a dark deck and a white deck. We have probably played a good 10.5 games. So this review is based on a novice player. I'm sure there are ton of expert players out there that may be able to answer more in depth questions about gameplay. 
Here is how to play: 
You shuffle your deck and put 7 cards into your hand. Your hand is only to be seen by you. You place the rest of your deck face down to the right of your play space: called deck pile. 
Below the deck pile is called the discard pile. There may be another name for it, but this what I am calling it. 
Each player starts off with 20 life points. In this game you attack the player, not the card.
At the beginning of each player's turn they get to draw 1 card from the deck pile. 
At each turn you can place a "land" card down. This is your source of energy. The more land you put down, the more you can do. 
MG 2 
Once you have the land down you can use either of the following type of cards as long as you have enough energy out to play them. 
1. Item cards: gives you special items in game 
MG 6 MG 5 MG 4 
2. Creature card: this is your attack power. each creature has their own attack points and defense points. They may also have special properties to aid you. 
MG 1 
3. Artifact cards: this card are put to play in your active play area which is the top middle of your pile or your opponent's pile.This card give special conditions for you and against your opponent. MG 3 
When you want to bring a creature, item or artifact card out for play, you will have to tap your land cards; turn them sideways. 
MG 7MG 8
If you want to attack, you have to tap your creature card. Now the attack does nothing to your oponents card unless he/she tries to block. If blocking does not succeed, the opponent's creature card is discarded and your opponent loses life; a deduction of the life points. If block succeeds, your creature is discarded and opponent does not lose life. 
How you lose the game: 
1. use up all of your deck cards 
2. lose all of your life points 
Whichever comes first. Pretty simple, right? 
Personally, I am not fond of the game. It requires too much record keeping. It be a lot better if the attacks were creature vs creature instead. Magic has a strong following. It is the biggest of the 3 trading card games out there. To me this game and Yugio caters to those who like dark type of games. The artwork on the cards are spectacular though. The game doesn't feel festive to me. It's like I have to get gloomy in order to play; Magic more so than Yugio. I haven't played Yugio but I have seen it played. 
You can pick up cards at your local comic shop, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart and any store that sell trading card games.

[Trading Card]

Friday, June 3, 2011

Diner Dash

Diner Dash is the Grandmother of PlayFirst's Dash Games. After it's success you see a wave of different enterprises that Flo gets into; Salon, Spa, etc. Diner Dash was the 1st and my only interest in the Dash games. It was on sale one weekend for $0.99 and I snatched it up. 
DD 1 
The weekend I snatched it up, was the weekend I became a woman obsessed. It's such a fun game. The object is to serve as many guests at your restaurant. Yeah, a game about work. Just what a stressed out woman needs in her life. I like the game so much that I got the PC/Mac version of the game. I am mostly going to discuss the iPhone verion than the other 2. I have also tried the game on the Android. They are all the same however, iPhone's graphics are a lot better and you use a mouse/touchpad for other 2. Let's get down to the game. 
When you open the game, You can choose from Play Quest or Endless Shift. I normally play the quests. 
DD 2 
In Quest mode, you see a bunch of different restaurants you can play thru. There are some with padlocks on them. These restaurants are in-app purchases that are $0.99 each. Each restaurant has 10 levels and they increase in difficulty. 
DD 3 DD 4 DD 5 DD 6 DD 7 
What makes up the game are the different types of guests you encounter. You have regular guests and themed guests. Themed guests are from the special in-app purchased restaurants. 
Regular Guests: 
- Teenagers: pretty normal experience 
- Business Women: very impatient 
- Seniors: Patient but takes a long time to order and eat 
Themed Guests: 
- Vampire: impatient, but when happy, makes all guests happy 
- Teenage Werewolf: impatient, but when happy, makes all guests happy 
- Love Couples: takes way too long to eat. 
The main object is to seat, feed and bus tables making your goal without losing a table. Each table lost is 750 points taken towards your goal. At the end of the shift you get your tally on whether you make your goal or not. If you don't you cannot move to the next level. 
DD 8 DD 9 DD 10 DD 11 DD 12 DD 13 DD 14 
In the Endless Shift mode you get continuous guests until you lose the 5 hearts or when you end the game by closing it. There is no way to save an endless shift game. You have all restaurants, except for themed (in app purchased restaurants). You get to choose your difficulty level at least. You have Easy, Medium or Hard. Easy is pretty hard. I have not tried the other 2 difficulties yet. It may be a long time coming. 
DD 15 DD 16 DD 17 DD 18 DD 19 DD 20 DD 21 
Overall this game is very addicting. I am a fan that will continue to play this game until I get frustrated with a level. I have to take a time out and resume at later, calm time. I prefer the iPhone version of the game. The graphics are better on the iPhone and Android versus the PC or Mac. It's a very old game but they modernized the graphics for the new systems. iPhone has the best gameplay; Android the worst. The controls on Android are just awful and not easily done, but you may get used to it over time. 
You can find Diner Dash at the following:
- iTunes App Store $2.99 
- Android Marketplace $2.99 
- Amazon.com. minimum of $6.00 
- Amazon Appstore $2.99

[Andriod, iOS, Mac, PC]