Category: Uncategorized

2015 Gaming Backlog

I’m not going to replace anything since I’m still working on the last one. I will be adding to it though!

  • Pokemon Omega Ruby (Complete 2016-01-01)
  • Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (Complete 2016-01-01)
  • Wasteland 2
  • World of WarCraft – 10th Anniversary Achievements (Complete 2015-01-02)
  • Marvel Heroes – Prestige back to 60 & 3 Geared Characters (Complete 2015-01-31)
  • Xenoblade
  • Mario Kart 8
  • New Super Luigi U
  • New Super Mario Bros U
  • LEGO Batman 3
  • LEGO Marvel Superheroes
  • Defense Grid 2 (complete 2015-03-09)
  • Shadowrun Returns
  • Civilization: Beyond Earth – Complete Achievements (complete 2015-02-20)
  • Planetary Annihilation
  • Space Run (completed in 2015)
  • Magika Expansions (completed in 2015)
  • Transistor

Comics Pull List in 2014

Remapping my comics pull list after catching up on most stories. May switch to digital for some of them, but I prefer supporting my local comic book shop as it were.

There’s a chance I’ll be dropping Justice League, but the Lex/Batman dynamic is entertaining for now. The only confirmed so far from the big two are Detective, The Flash, New Warriors, and X-Force; Daredevil, Batman, and Captain Midnight will probably make the list. All Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are on the list already, too.

I’m still not sure how I feel about Spider-Man; even with Peter coming back I’m not sure if it will stay in my pull list. I will probably give it the first 6 issues again to see if I like it enough to stick with it. Same with Ms. Marvel and Red Hood.

Aside form the pull list there’s a few I get as trades: Hawkeye, Gambit, and World’s Finest.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Ending

DS9 is probably my favorite Star Trek show; I really wish they had done at least one movie with that crew. I recently re-watched the ending and, I know this will cause some to declare heretic, it’s probably the best done ending of all the shows. The next closest is TNG, and that’s something to think about for another article, but it only wrapped up one story line I feel while DS9 wrapped up pretty much every major story line or left them in a place that made sense- except Jake, but they seemed to abandon that character early on early. Back to the ending, the villains introduced in the beginning are swiftly and completely dealt with, there’s no ambiguity as to their fates at this point. O’Brian starts a new chapter, Worf has a real send off, Ezri and Julian are left together, and Quark is the last real Ferengi in the Alpha Quadrant- just the way that things had been building up. Odo and Kira finish their relationship in the best way it could have ended, and the Station keeps spinning- alone and yet surrounded.

In normal tradition there’s so many other things to go over but I’m stopping it there. Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end, and this one was good on both counts.

heroku, nginx, Python, Gunicorn, and Django

I just had to do this for a project at work and realized there wasn’t a lot of good direction out there for how to do it; here’s a minimal approach to getting you working with nginx in front of django requests via gunicorn. Most of the work is really done by ryandotsmith, this is just for Python instead of Ruby.

Buildpack directions

heroku config:set BUILDPACK_URL=https://github.com/ddollar/heroku-buildpack-multi.git
echo 'https://github.com/ryandotsmith/nginx-buildpack.git' >> .buildpacks
echo 'https://codon-buildpacks.s3.amazonaws.com/buildpacks/heroku/python.tgz' >> .buildpacks
git add .buildpacks
git commit -m 'Added multi-buildpack nginx and python'

gunicorn.conf

import multiprocessing

def pre_fork(server, worker):
    f = '/tmp/app-initialized'
    open(f, 'w').close()

bind = 'unix:///tmp/nginx.socket'
workers = multiprocessing.cpu_count() * 2 + 1

Since New Relic has a free tier, and it’s so easy to use, I’m adding it here, too.

Procfile

web: bin/start-nginx newrelic-admin run-program gunicorn -c gunicorn.conf AppName.wsgi:application

I’m not dead yet…

Not dead yet, just debating on what I want to write on and/or do; plus a really busy work schedule.

I am coming up on one year of trying to get in better shape spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. So far I feel partially successful at all of them, but not really high on any of them or really low (which may be the bigger accomplishment!), Maybe I will find some time between overtime and performances to catch up on the backlog of blog ideas that I have; especially the ones based on notes from re:Invent and programming things I’ve been thinking about recently.

Magic: The (First) Tournament

We’re technically way overdo on finishing out work tournament at this point and I officially can’t lock in first place now; but I can finish as high as second now- though fourth is now the most likely scenario. I’ve gone 2-0, 2-1, 0-2, and 2-0 so far in our games. With only one game left, against probably the strongest overall deck, I will most likely go 0-2.

There’s two people that have the potential to tie, splitting first. The prevailing theory is that the strong deck could finish 10-0 putting me to where I will most likely finish 4th; though the despairity between fourth and third is going to be rather entertaining- the bottom two may end up with 0 wins each.
All in all its been a good way to follow up our work team even by letting people take some time to get to know each other over something a bit different than what most companies do.

The Gathering to Magic

As a team outing we went to Frank and Sons stopping at Korean BBQ first. Food was good, not as good as near my place but still good stuff. As for the show floor…it was pretty much the same as the last time I was there. Smelled the same sadly.

The Korean BBQ place was somewhere I’ve never been; and one I’ll probably not go back to. I don’t even remember the name of it anymore that’s how awesome it was. The K-Pop was entertaining and all, but the food wasn’t good enough to go back.
Once we got to Frank and Sons I went to the usual game/toy aisle that I frequented as a kid. Sadly, there wasn’t much there that was enticing this time around. Then I went to the comic aisle- this is when I learned my local comic shop really is more amazing as they carry more comics that I’d want at better prices. So with all of my cash still in hand I met up with everyone else and we discussed what to do as a group to buy Magic: The Gathering boxes to get back in to it.
In the end we ended up with seven people joining in for three boxes of cards: two Dragon Maze and Return box. All in all it should be a good set of cards to get started.