My thoughts on DLC pt.2

As often happens I started getting long in the tooth, anyway yes DLC is here, it's here to stay(as are micro transactions, different post entirely), and some of us accept it others hate it to their very cores. DLC has it's benefits, many of which I myself make use of but if the game sucked there is very little DLC can do to fix it(unless you completely revamp the game). So back to it..

I have talked about in previous blogs either on here or wordpress games I have played, the experiences I have had with said games. I think I ranted once about Magic Duels breaking the damn game with one of their updates(that was definitely on wordpress) because not all updates are good updates. Even if a company doesn't mean to all updates aren't created equal, I used to enjoy playing magic duels but do I really want to go back and remake EVERY deck because some how they glitched them all out? Nope but back to whether or not all downloaded content Paid DLC

My thoughts on DLC

Right around the middle of the last console generation(Ps3 and Xbox 360) there was the advent of a NEW process/product DownLoadable Content. At first what it meant was that if there was a bug found in a game since most systems were online not only compatible but connected that the publisher would kick out a small patch to fix whatever was going wrong in the game. Then, as a way of increasing replay value, companies started pushing out new maps and skins FIRST for free and then for a small fee. In the beginning it was a "meh, whatever I'll see what it is and deal with it later" type of experience. Depending on what type of gamer you were once you beat the game you beat the game, or if you are like me once you got used to the games mechanics it was all about the online play so you weren't worried about some new level.

As micro transactions started to take hold there was a NEW "Invention" the season pass. Now what pray tell is a season pass, well for a fee of anywhere from 10.99(I think that's what the first set of season passes I ever saw cost) to then 29.99 and now 39.99 or 49.99 depending on the game you can get constant software updates. Not patches but new areas, maps, weapons, skins, missions, characters, vehicles, and almost a whole new game. Depending on who you ask you are either buying an unfinished game at full price and are then paying them to finish it with a loan of anywhere from half to 3/4's of the games initial price or else you are paying constant new ip added to your favorite game going forward. This is not to say that you can ONLY get these new accessories by buying the season pass, no you can purchase them a la carte later but then it gets a lot more expensive. I remember when I bought Call of Duty: Ghosts and didn't purchase the season pass(didn't know how much I was gonna be playing it going forward) I could buy the maps for like 10 bucks(if I just wanted the maps) and the guns/dogs for like 5 later on. So yes I paid full price for the initial game, then when I saw what maps were out, I decided if I wanted them and if I wanted the accessories that came out with them or just the maps and paid the 10.99 or 14.99.

Please pick one:a dictionary, Thesaurus and YOU(Dec of 2011)

Yo some of yall need to stop abusing language. Every word is not a catch all:
Desperation is not the same as thirst, on top of that THIRST is not a bad thing. Thirst is a warning that lets your body know it needs to hydrate. Desperation is an act when you FEEL you are at the end of your rope, are about to run out of opportunities or about to miss the greatest. And somebody who is a better wordsmith when they compose their compliments or someone getting more compliments than you is neither THIRSTY nor DESPERATE. Posting a pic when you are feeling yourself is not thirst trapping. And some of this language abuse is so transparent, so much a dance of banner waving, soap box transference and attention whoring

I decided to do a little reorganizing

If you noticed I put some tabs up top, unfortunately I am now going to have to edit everything so that first the tabs fit better, and second I am going to have to go back through a whole lot of posts and figure out what I want to call everything. I do some housekeeping every once in a while anyway but I think this little bit of navigational reorganization will help folks find what they are looking for when they come by. Yes those tabs used to be on the side, but since I was adding so many of them I decided to move it up top like pretty much everyone else.

Mainly because they look better up there. You want to put two or three things on the side fine but once you get above 3 drag it to the top boyo. I'm not guaranteeing that the current names will always be the names, some of them are already making me feel some kind of way but the tabs WILL be up there for the foreseeable future. some of you are probably cheering I don't know why I didn't do this before but now yeah I want to go ahead and add these sections. The funny thing is I already had labels on MOST of the posts(the editing will be to go back and add them to the posts that will help to organize them where I think they belong), just not all. Sometimes I do a post and forget to add the labels, not maliciously(though it does feel like it when I have to go back through a few hundred posts to clean up after myself) just because at the time I might not have known WHAT I wanted to add as a label yet.

All I want is your blood

Selene, Death Dealer former member of a vampire coven and amongst their elite. She is also a lover, to Micheal Corvin a hybrid heir to Corvinus blood line which spawned both Vampire and Werewolf. She is a mother, though robbed of much of the journey of Motherhood due to a werewolf faction actions in Underworld Awakening, to Eve the FIRST pure blood Hybrid ever born. Her life has always been war, from the time her family was killed by Lycans(or so she thought). To her time as a Death Dealer, to trying to protect her love Micheal, and saving her daughter Eve.

Hunter

Hunted

Traitor

Survivor

But like all warriors, even immortal ones, the constant state of battle is wearing on her. Her lover Micheal is missing, after the events of Underworld Awakening while she has found her daughter, she lost her love. And because of the seductiveness of Hybrid blood, especially PURE HYBRID blood it is too dangers for mother to be near or with her child so even her child that she barely knows is lost to her. All she has, is running and for a predator running is no way to live.

Trailers for Underworld: Blood Wars

Welp I made it to the movies on time, huzzah as such my movie was of course underworld review to come in 2 days. I got 5 trailers with Blood Wars a decent smattering of genre's and I also got to see that SOMEBODY forgot when springtime started because Sleepless is out in theaters now but the trailers all said spring(unless somehow someway the MIDDLE of January became Springtime).

As for this set of trailers 3 could count as sci fi, one counts as a Video Game movie, 2 count as monster movies, 3 can count as Horror movies, and 2 are newbies I never heard of before with interesting looking casts. I know some of yall are doing the math saying, "he said 5 trailers, how he get so many of each type?" Mainly because a lot of these movies are cross genre and as such you could go see them as a few different types of fan. But without further adieu the first trailer after the jump

Out for blood

So I decided to head on out to the movies solo, Eikichi isn't in the mood to see my first choice  (blood wars), and of course why waste time hoping for the second choice. He sucks but I understand, movie starts at 7:30 if  I make it in time, otherwise back ups will be Sleepless and Triple X 3:return of Xander Cage.

I'd prefer my first choice because I want to know how the series ends, at least I think this is the end. Two 3 plus years hiatuses I think everyone is tired of doing this franchise.

Welp I made it to the theater, let's pay my 11 bucks and get it on.

Slowly sneaking up on 500 posts

In the 8 year journey that has been the creation, maintenance and writing of Primal's Ponderings I don't know if I ever expected to reach this point. I mean 8 years is a long time and this isn't my first nor my only blog. I have had blogs on Yahoo360(now gone), Multiply(also gone), of course Wordpress is still around, and this one, I have a presence on G+(though not the one attached to this page, IJS), and of course if you have read any of my gaming posts here or on the press know that I have a PSN and an XBL name as well. I don't own a wii or wiiu(the wii I had is with the ex), so no I am not on whatever Nintendo calls it's online gaming network(if they even have one) who knows if I will get a Switch(later blog) but this has been a long and interesting ride.

I have written essays, movie reviews, books reviews, rants(lots and lots of rants), and I have had quite a bit of fun with it, yes I would love a little more interaction but I am willing to wait and work for it. I always have, because if I am going to have a conversation I want it to be organic, I want you to really be engaged and care about whatever the subject matter is. Counting this one I will be at 460, there are also some throwbacks scheduled so I should be somewhere near 470 by the time Friday rolls around which gives me a good 30 blogs to get to the big 500. That's a nice milestone no where near one a day, not even one a day for the lifetime on the blog but for one person writing by themselves and trying to stay inspired I think it's pretty good, I'm sure others are like lazy, hey do what you do, I'll do what I do.

Primal's rules to writing

Save on this blog I have absolutely none, and the only one on this blog is "Dear Primal do not curse in a post," if I so chose I could curse in the commentary but I have yet to actually have anyone come through who deserves said ire. I mean it's not like I have never had disagreeable people come through before(well technically not on this blog), unfortunately for me unless it's a really poignant(I swear I always want to add an extra N to that word, I guess I could have used Topical or Insightful) I probably pay you no mind. I write for the most part as I speak, so yes I really am this random, I do tend to bring up movies, TV, or music a lot, and you may have to go back and reread because you may find that the scenic route I took you was the actual route I was trying to take to the subject.

The route was colorful, sometimes comical or sharp, and always exactly how I meant to say it, if I said it at all. It's kind of the reason why any throwback post you see isn't edited though commentary may be added later. Writing is a process even for me, and just like on social media, "if you see what I deleted because I either thought it was too much or else didn't think it efficiently got the point across you might be scared of exactly how much I thought about said subject." I don't like to be misunderstood, which is why I probably say way too much, typos/misspellings/my issue with homonyms I can get around. Being misunderstood though, it's damn near a nervous tick I don't just like being heard, I like for the person/people who hear me to actually understand where I am coming from.

The Lost day pt. 2

I am sure that there are plenty of folks who are going to see this as someone being a sore loser, that is absolutely possible. I can be looking at my 35 years of CONSCIOUS observation of the world all wrong, I do wear glasses(glasses that need to be replaced, they are old and broken), and I can absolutely read a situation wrong. I may like to read comic books but I possess none of the clairvoyance that appear in their pages, nor that on the movie screen, I don't know the ancient art of scrying, am in  possession of no magics besides that of imagination, and have no skill whatsoever in divination. I observe people, situations, and I play the odds accordingly.

This is also not a "money is the root of all evil" kick, I honestly think evil needs no help it just needs opportunity. The previous post and this one are looking at how we have changed, and what those changes especially socially have caused to develop and fester in us. People with money are still people, their motivations are similar to ours sometimes the consequences just differ. Again I am not saying rich people are inherently evil, whether they scratched fought, and clawed their way to the top or else by luck of DNA were born into. Not even if by luck of DNA, Networking, and circumstance you MARRIED in to it honestly congratulations.

The Lost day

Let's just get it over with, Yes Donald Trump is being sworn in as president of the United States today. That means people will be unfollowing Potus on Twitter, as well as Flotus, that we go from Crazy uncle Joe to condescending Santa as Vice President and that pain is about to rain down from D.C. because finally the Foxes run the hen house, the wolves are in the sheep's pen, and the thieves have found your spare key. In case you can't guess no I didn't vote for Trump, in good conscience I couldn't allow myself too. Then again I pride myself on being a decent human being not a vulture or wolf, I may not like being begged but if I see that you need help I don't mind offering.

There has been a trend over the last 20 years that ADMITTING you need help, don't know or understand a situation, or acknowledging/respecting/and allowing someone else's experience whether it be positive or painful to stand without having to buttress or play understudy to our own. I know I wrote my "Brewster's Millions Theory" way back in the heyday of 09, and that a lot has changed since then(economically) unfortunately not socially. Well, let me rephrase that it has changed just not for the better we really really don't like each other.

Wild and wacky day(1/27/11)

I began my day with an early service call and a customers site where basically it appeared that his computer had died, I take that back it wasn't appeared the computer refused to boot up at all, it ignored his hard drive, his cd rom drive any attempt to use that PC was met with a system reboot. I removed the cover, and the extra airflow allowed me to boot to the CD-rom but not boot to the hard drive, so I did a visual inspection saw some bulging capacitors and gave the customer the bad news. I tried to reboot it again in front of him no dice.

Now like many of my customers this man was a muslim(he says devout, I'm just restating what he said I'm not judging the depth of his faith), he pulled out his prayer beads, told me that with the current economy he could not afford a new system, or even a refurbished one, and that if there was anything that could get him an extra 2 months of this system working he would gladly spend the money it took to get a new system in 2-3 months.  He had said that before with empty hands, but now that he said it(as well as a vow to his deity) with the prayer beads in his hands I rebooted it one more time because he asked me to, I even removed my boot disk as not to stress the system any, and

We saw the welcome screen(had seen that before and it crashed and rebooted)
He walked away
I saw his desktop and heard the windows chime
I saw his camera system come up
And I saw it start recording like it hadn't just ignored 35 minutes of me attempting everything I knew to get it to work.

So when he walks back in the door I tell him he has the luck of the irish, and that in 2 months he better buy a new computer. I don't believe in coincidence, he asked the universe for 2 more months to be able to gather up the funds he needed for a new system, with the beads of his faith in his hands. His system started working, I don't know about you, but thats a deal I'm not going to try and renegotiate. I collected my fee, freed him up some hard drive space, told him DO NOT MESS WITH IT(I'm just saying when you go from total devastation to "OMG it's working" don't tempt fate) and suggested on St. Patty's day he get a green milk shake(he's muslim I don't know how valid the line was but in 13th warrior Antonio Banderas said "no fermentation of fruit or grain shall touch my lips" and he was playing a muslim, so the green beer was out) and I walked out the door.

I get to my next site a similar situation, dudes system is dead I move his card over, I get it working in a new computer there are some issues with a few cameras being out, and if we touch the cable or the external hard drive it shuts off. So I give them the same don't touch it warning, or the option to buy a new drive(internal or external) which is going to cost roughly 200 for a 2 TB drive. Time to collect waiting around for dude who is going to pay me, can get my Boss(my father) on the phone pretty much the whole time, finally somebody who is authorized to have the cash doled out to me shows up, I give him a slight discount, he asks for a deeper discount(cash in hand is better than me standing around, and it was close enough to my don't take any less price I am always given so I was about to accept it), money is in the guys hand, it's counted out, and right before it gets handed to me, my Dad calls so I hand the phone off and the guy doubles his discount by talking to the boss. I laugh my behind off because at any other time I'd have to wait 20 30 minutes for my Dad to call me, and this time he calls and costs himself money. We both chuckle and I head off to my next stop.

This one is just a courier run, I pick up a monitor, talk to my cousins girlfriend's cousin, and drop the monitor off on the other side of town. I talk to a good friend on the phone for a few minutes, because it seems insanity is running rampant on social networking sites, and I head of to a customer who is having a network issue. Well I don't DIRECTLY head off I stop at subway for a footlong oven roasted chicken(what it's been a while since I had one and I was hungry) I pump my old school funk/soul music while I eat in my car, finish off my cookies and drive off to the customers site. Okay somehow his computer has crashed again and he has reloaded it. Thats fine, he even reloaded the camera software(looks like he loaded the wrong camera software the first time but I digress) but for some odd strange reason he can't get the internet to work. Hey I don't mind hard times you do what you gotta do, but somehow it seems it's more than just the software that was reloaded, because I try to change some settings in his router because they are off. Oh well I fight with it for about 45 minutes to an hour decide that I have somewhere else to be and make arrangements to either return later on tonight(as I am typing this now from the house that ain happen) or come back tomorrow at 2.

Pick up my uncle(since I was using his car), meet my coworker to get our other vehicle, ride back to the house and here I sit laughing about a weird day gone by.  My take

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This post probably got lost to whatever the rest of that day entailed. Even as I'm reading it back I'm lmao, because now I wonder, "damn did he hit us up in 3 months for that new system?" Life imitates art, which imitates life, which is as random as it can be on both sides and this day was proof of that. Life has some many ups and downs and weird turns, I wish I had finished this post out that day I can't remember how it ended almost 6 years ago now(crazy huh, that's why I like putting the dates on these maybe it was forever ago maybe it was just a few short months. Most likely though they were interesting to me at least interesting enough for me to start writing about them...

My thoughts on "Great Americans" Day

Yesterday was the day we officially honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy as a leader of the civil rights movement. In most places we just call it "The King Holiday" not King as in Ruler, or as in Holy Savior but King as in the man's surname as well as the Hopes and Aspirations that he did not get to see come to fruition, also the ones that have yet to come to pass. In what can only be considered a cosmic coincidence the Confederate General Robert E. Lee was also born in the third week of January, Dr. King on the 15 (roughly 60 years after the Confederates death) and General Lee on the 19th. Not that it is hard to understand people are born every day, people who will make marks on history are no different, and it can not be denied that BOTH of these men made marks on history with similarities in the adversary even if not so much in the desired outcome of their causes.

I am going to be honest, yes I am black, yes I have particular feelings on the Confederacy and how I view it, it was a traitorous act and they lost, period. I don't really care about Lincoln's part in this(he has his own birthday celebration), or Grant's(who of course in honored in Presidents day) because I don't have to like someone you feel is a hero or did something who was heroic. Can I respect that a man fought for what he believed in even if I do not agree with what he believes in, yes. And as such I am going to examine the PROBLEM with calling it Great American's day.

Finally bought an external drive for my Xbox

It's one of this and the last gaming cycles biggest controversies: Xbox will let you download, store, play and TRANSPORT your games on an external drive and PlayStation won't. Now to be fair, it wasn't too big a deal before all these digital day one downloads started popping up. I mean yes you might download a new map pack, or a few updates, a couple of arcade games but until ALL the games started downloading onto your actual system hard drive space took a long time to use up. But if you ask your friends with a PS4 or an Xbox one, they will tell you even if you own the disk the game still downloads onto the hard drive taking up prime hard drive space. 30-50 GB doesn't seem like much until you have downloaded 10 games onto your system and THEN it's like well damn I'm almost out of space.

Microsoft to the rescue, go buy you a nice 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6 TB external drive and boom you now have more gaming space and what do you know you can also transport those games like you used to with the old little memory cards back in the PlayStation one and Dreamcast days. So you don't have to take all your disks with you. as long as you keep your hands on it you can take you digital library anywhere you go. I got the MY Passport X from WD, I could have got the one from Seagate(and I might in the future if I decide to buy that external hard drive enclosure that gives you 3 extra usb ports) but while I usually like green MEH, I like black too. The set up is pretty basic, unpack the drive attach the usb 3 cord, plug it into your xbox, boot it up, FORMAT IT....

My favorite trailers of 2016

2016 was an interesting year for movies, we had a lot of blockbuster I believe 2016 was a record breaking year for the movie industry(I know Disney made it to 1 billion faster than anyone else, granted they did have Zootopia and Civil War to start out the year with), it also saw some monumental flops, as well as the first flop that technically made money, but disappointed almost everyone who watched it. As such you know what interests some people in a movie: A mean trailer, like if you can sell your movie in a trailer that might lead you to a decent opening weekend. My favorite trailers technically weren't in 2016, they were the Deadpool trailers and 90% of those were dropped in 2015. We also had an interesting trailer war going on between Marvel and DC, I think Marvel won the MOVIE war this year, I definitely know Disney did, Civil War, Finding Dory, Zootopia, Rogue One and I am sure I missed a few(Since everybody has under studios that count towards their year) but I think DC had a few good trailers too, especially for Suicide Squad.

Now to do this list I am not just going to talk about every trailer I saw, that would be too easy. I am going to go through the trailers that I saw in theater of course you are going to wonder, "how is he going to remember all of those movies?" Well for those who have been reading this blog for a while you will remember my method for doing the trailer blog before the reviews I text myself the trailers for each movie I see during the year. So I am going to go through each movie text, rewatch the trailers and then decide which were my fav's for the year. And yes I will do them just like I usually do the trailer blog by linking you to said trailer. Now it may or may not be the first trailer but I will try and give you the one that really got me hyped for the movie.

Does X-men:Apocalypse spell the end for X-men movies for Singer(throwback from 8/10/16)

It's been 3 weeks, and while people love to blame underperforming comic book movies on Super Hero fatigue I think if we are honest we know it isn't fatigue it's crappy movies. When you make a crappy movie, it doesn't perform.

Deadpool a fan favorite, niche, parody of another comic book character pretty much quadrupled it's production budget.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice a mash up of quite a few Fan favorite stories, that had a ROCKY delivery(if I am being generous) barely made it's money back and is seen as a flop domestically.

Captain America: Civil War has already surpassed BOTH Deadpool(the runaway success) and Batman v Superman(a movie that was pushed up a WHOLE MONTH so they didn't have to directly compete) by crossing the 400 million mark. Deadpool fell just short at like 373 million, Batman v Superman needs a hail mary to even get close before they drop the DVD in 2 months at 336 million.

So what about X-men:Apocalypse, it is coming up on the one month mark, how much has it made 146 million. All 3 movies previously mentioned had crossed the 200 million threshold within 2 weeks. Come this Friday it will have been 4 weeks since Apocalypse was released. I already gave my opinion of this movie, it's the Distinguished mutant. The names you know without the cohesiveness you love, this movie is a shell of itself and what it should have been. Hell Days of Future Past got way closer to the mark and was a hit, and was one of the reasons so many people were hyped for Apocalypse. The problem is most of the initial media released for the movie started to douse said hype, we appreciate the costumes but we also need the powers.

My movies of 2016 pt. 2

As you can see the first half of my list had up and downs it was almost like if I watched a good movie the next one was crap. Now I didn't plan it that way(because NO ONE plans it that way, who wants to waste money on crappy movies), in the second half of the year though I had much better picks granted I didn't hit every movie I planned to hit but I got 3 good ones and one decent one. It was much better than the movie that culminated the last list but it wasn't the high point of the second half of 2016.

2016 also see me hit the drive in again for this first time in years, which redeems the drive in because if I'm not mistake my last drive in movies was The Hulk(yeah yeah get your HOOOOEMYGAWDS out of the way). It was a nice date night with an old friend and while the slush machine was a little bitter we enjoyed the movie, which was

My movies of 2016

I initially tried to write this on Wordpress but it became my "everything I did in 2016" blog, so we gone try this again, over here, with no cursing, EEEEEEVEN though I am gonna be discussing some straight up GARBAGE movies. but lets give it a go shall we. As you know I tend to go to the movies a fair amount, some years and months more than others. I think I hit 10 last year, not all the ones I wanted to or THOUGHT I would see, I hit most of the majors but not all of them. And it was a mixed bag, seriously a mixed bag because there were some good movies, some bad movies, some nice attempts and then some I have no clue what the director was thinking.

When I did this on word press I meant to, actually I'm not sure what I meant to do so now I am gonna to give you a few paragraphs about each movie I watched and if I feel it's getting wordy I will break it up into extra posts. Now personally I feel that my movie watching year started out pretty damn well, as only it could with what we were given the one and only