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Alex Kennedy

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Blog Entries posted by Alex Kennedy

  1. Alex Kennedy
    Well, I've been away from this blog for a while. Sorry about that, but it's hard for me to come up with things to write sometimes. But now, I feel I've found something that merits writing about, and it is this: I have a new puppy. On it's own, this is big news for me, but I don't really have a whole lot to write about it. However, I started this blog talking about the death of my dog, and I feel like this is sort of a continuation, or perhaps a resolution, of that.
     
    The sadness I felt when I lost my dog was crushing, but it's now balanced by the joy that this new dog has brought me. It's times like these when I reflect on all that circle of life stuff, and how, as I once rather pretentiously said, life begets death, and death begets life. I guess you could say my last dog had to die for this one to take it's place. Of course, no dog could ever really replace him, and he'll always have a special place in my heart, but the empty spot in our family has been filled again now, and that's something.
     
    On the subject of things coming full circle, today marks a full year on this site for me. I owe a lot to this place, and I'm thankful for all the wonderful people I've met. If it weren't for this site, I never would have met my beloved Ichirin no Hana, my girlfriend who I'm deeply in love with. Not to mention the other close friends I've made here, and all the great times I've had. So... thanks everybody. It's been wonderful, and I look forward to another great year.
     
    I'll try to write another entry before too long. Maybe even in the next day or two. But we'll have to see how it goes.
  2. Alex Kennedy

    I Need A Direction

    By Alex Kennedy,

    As I sit here, wanting to write an entry but not knowing what to write, it occurs to me that there's a fundamental problem with this blog. When I started it, I didn't know what I was really going to write about, but I thought it would be easy to figure out once I got started. I thought wrong. So, I feel the best course of action is to ask the very small number of people who care (so basically my girlfriend and anyone who happens to stumble across this) for ideas. If I'm going to take my time writing something, it might as well be something people want to read. Not that I really expect anyone to read it anyway, but at least this way I can delude myself into thinking it's not a complete waste of my time.
     
    So... what do you think I should write about?
  3. Alex Kennedy
    I kind of promised my entries would become more lighthearted after the first one, didn't I? Well, um... do anger and whiny ranting count as lighthearted? Because that's all I've got at the moment. Anyway, on to our scheduled programming.
     
    First of all, I don't mean religious monks, I mean crazy martial arts monks. That should probably be obvious by the fact that I labeled this as a gaming rant, but I want to make sure I've got all my bases covered. Actually, not even just monks, really; generally all characters in gaming who punch things rather than using a weapon (with some exceptions, obviously). I could probably go on forever if I talk about everything though, so I'm going to focus primarily on the monk class from D&D, which I feel exemplifies pretty much all the problems I have with this type of character.
     
    Alright so, problem the first: these characters never seem to sustain any damage to their hands (or any other body parts they might be attacking with) from relentlessly beating on things. Looking at the monk class, their fists are essentially unbreakable, more so even than other weapons. Ordinarily when an attempt is made to bash down a door or attack some sort of structure, the weapon typically sustains damage in the process. Since unarmed strikes don't have a hardness rating or a hitpoint total, they can't sustain damage, and can't break. You also can't make a sunder attempt to damage or destroy them, nor can you disarm a monk using an unarmed strike. The problem being that, no matter how strong you are, you can only punch solid steel so much before your hand starts to hurt. Going to a completely different example, look at Snow, from Final Fantasy XIII (who, by the way, is never actually mentioned as knowing any martial arts but just punches things anyway). Not only can he punch robots so hard they appear to disintegrate, but he can do this constantly without his fists being injured. Even a professional boxer, whose job it is to punch things repeatedly, needs padded gloves and knuckle wrap to hit flesh, much less metal, without messing up their hands. This problem is one that I would be willing to let slide by on suspension of disbelief, but it's just one issue, and hardly the most frustrating one.
     
    The biggest issue, at least for me, is the amount of damage these characters can do. In many games, the monk or unarmed character has one of the highest damage outputs of any party member. Again looking at D&D, the monk class has, by higher levels anyway, the highest base damage of any weapon type with their unarmed strike. One might argue that the monk is just that strong, but this is damage before applying strength. Simply the base damage roll for the weapon type is higher significantly higher than any other weapon. Meaning a level twenty monk can do more damage with his unarmed strike than a fighter of the same level, and with the same amount of strength, could do with a greatsword. In fact, it's about twice as much damage. For no reason other than the monk is just that good at martial arts. Granted, fighters can get feats to increase the amount of damage they do with a given weapon type, but not nearly to the extent that monks increase the damage of unarmed strikes. And while I'm at it, if it's possible to reach a level where you can do roughly twice as much damage with your bare hands as you can with any weapon, why does anyone bother with weapons at all? Or, for that matter, why is it only possible to reach that point with your bare hands, and not with any weapon? Isn't the whole point of weapons that they allow you to hit harder than you could barehanded? I get the feeling that I'm not explaining this all that well, but hopefully you can understand what I'm trying to say.
     
    I could probably go on, but this entry is getting to be pretty damn long, and I doubt anyone really cares that much anyway. Besides, I wanted to have this entry finished a long time ago, so I think it's time to finally put it behind me. Oh, and don't expect this to be the last of my pointless gaming rants. There will almost certainly be more of them to come in the future, perhaps as soon as my next entry. But for now, I've said my piece. Farewell until next time.
  4. Alex Kennedy
    I can't really think of much to write about, but I feel like rating something, so I figured it might be a good idea to share a bit about myself. Of course, if you're reading this it's probably because you already know me, so maybe I'm just wasting time. But at least I can say I wrote something.
     
    Anyway, I honestly have half a mind to just screw it and say to go read my "about me" page, but that would rather defeat the purpose of this whole entry, wouldn't it? So instead I'm going to try and focus on things that aren't really mentioned there, and I suppose if you're really curious you could always look at my page for more info. Anyway, without further ado, here goes.
     
    So the basics: I'm 19, I go to a local community college, I live at my parent's house, and Alex Kennedy is indeed my real name, in case any of you were wondering. It's sort of a weird quirk of mine to not bother coming up with anything else as a username. Well, actually it's only sort of my real name. Alex is my middle name, technically. I have two sisters who both like to act like they're my mom. I have a dog, and until a few hours before the inaugural post of this blog I had two. I love dogs, and cats, and pretty much just pets in general. It mostly just seems weird to me to think of living without them. Then there's my parents, who I've always thought are pretty ordinary as parents go and I don't really have a whole lot to say about them.
     
    Now that I've told you a bunch of things you didn't need to know at all, I guess I might as well move on to things that might matter for the purposes of this blog and any other online interaction for that matter. I spend more of my time playing League of Legends than anything else these days, and if I'm online, I'm probably going back and forth between here, whatever anime I'm currently watching (which is Bleach right now), and League. When I'm not doing that I'm probably either in my basement playing videogames, going to class, doing something stupid with my friends, or going into downtown Chicago for therapy (yeah, therapy- but that's a story for another time, methinks).
     
    I have a girlfriend who I'm deeply in love with and even though we don't even live in the same country, we talk as much as we possibly can, and I can't wait until I go to visit her at the end of the semester. She's also a member on here (PDS.avi), and I imagine she'll show up in the comments, so I expect you all to treat her real nice and respectful-like.
     
    You know, I had a feeling I'd come up with more to say as I went along, but nope, I'm out of things worth saying for now. Comments are appreciated as always, as are any suggestions for what I should write about in the future.
  5. Alex Kennedy
    At the request of someone very dear to me, I am indeed going to continue this blog. Admittedly, I don't really know what I'll end up writing, but I guess we'll just see where it goes. Anyway, I figure I might as well explain how I'm going to go about this.
     
    First of all, as I mentioned in my first entry, I don't really read blogs. So I can't guarantee that I really know how to write one properly either, but then, I never really did things the same way as everyone else.
     
    So basically I'm just going to write whatever comes to mind that I feel is substantial and/or worthwhile enough to merit posting here. I can't say how frequently that's going to be. Sometimes there might be more than one a day, other times there might only be one or two a month. But given how much time I have on my hands, I'd bank on it being closer to the former. I also can't guarantee that all of it will be very interesting, so it may well be a hit or miss type of thing.
     
    As for the kind of thing I'm going to write about, honestly I don't know. I'll probably talk about Dungeons and Dragons at some point, as well as League of Legends, and probably just life in general, but that's all I can say with any certainty. Of course, if you have any questions for me, or there's something you want me to write about or elaborate on, go ahead and say something in the comments. I would really appreciate it, since it gives me an idea for something else to write about. Really, in general I would just appreciate any comments of any nature you have to offer.
     
    So I guess that's about it. Comment if you have anything to say or if you just want attention, I suppose. I promise the next post will actually contain legitimate content and not just me rambling. In fact, it'll probably come later today. If you have any suggestions for what it should be about, please feel free to share them.
  6. Alex Kennedy
    I'm not writing this because I want to be. In fact, it is- along with the surrounding circumstances- something I've been dreading for a little while now. But I promised myself I would do it, so here I am.
     
    I'm just going to be straightforward with this. This morning, my dog died. This wasn't really a shock, as we knew he had only a few days left, and we had already made an appointment to have him put down later that day.* Of course, the fact that I knew it was coming didn't make it any easier for me. Especially not when I was the one who went down to check on him, only to find his motionless body on the floor.
     
    I'm not asking for sympathy or anything, though; if I need that, I have my friends and family to comfort me, not to mention the best girlfriend a guy like me could ever ask for. No, I'm writing this because I told myself that when my dog died I would write something like this, because I needed to get this out of my system, and besides, I figure such a good dog deserves as much. Not quite an obituary, but at least something to recognize that he lived, that he was a great dog, and that now he's gone to return to the earth, but he'll be remembered with much love.
     
    So honestly, I guess that's about all I have to say. I could go into detail about how amazing he was, about his soft, beautiful fur, about how he was the smartest dog I've ever seen, and probably smarter than we even realized, about how he seemed to have a sense of humor the likes of which you don't normally see in animals, but I won't waste your time on such things. After all, everyone always thinks their dog is amazing, and I imagine if you could really put it to the test, mine wouldn't be any more extraordinary than most. What's important is that he brought me great happiness for many years, and I'll always remember him fondly and lovingly.
     
    To be honest, I'm not sure there will ever be another entry to this blog. I don't even really read blogs, and I never really thought it was my kind of thing. But who knows? Maybe I'll use this as a sort of dumping ground for all my random thoughts and ideas. Odds are I'll post at least a couple more times, and when I do, you can expect them to be more lighthearted, or at least not so sad. In fact, if there's anything you might like to see me blog about, go ahead and say so in the comments. Not that I expect anyone to care, but I thought I'd offer.
     
    *(For the record, I'm rather on the fence about whether or not putting pets down in such situations- or for any reason at all, really- is okay, but it wasn't my decision.)
  7. Alex Kennedy
    I think it's about time I randomly pop up again. Don't know if and when I'll be doing any more entries after this one, but we'll see.
     
    So anyway, I wanted to talk about the new Borderlands, because I'm assuming a lot of people don't have it yet (I pre-ordered as soon as it was available), and I figure on the off chance someone cares what I think, it might be nice to hear someone's opinion on the game. Or something. Mostly I just want to talk about it. So I will. That said, I'm not very far in, so I can only speak from what I've seen so far. I'd like to eventually make another entry when I've played all the way through, but who knows if I ever will or not.
     
    But from what I think so far, the game is pretty damn good. Borderlands 2 left some pretty big shoes to fill, and they didn't disappoint. The addition of laser weapons (essentially in place of E-tech) is pretty interesting, especially since they're counted as they're own weapon type with their own kind of ammo. I haven't seen much of the Cryo element yet, but it seems promising.
     
    As for playable characters, I can only really speak for Claptrap, as he's the only one I've played so far. And he's pretty much about as great as you'd expect playing Claptrap to be. His action skill is unpredictable and a lot of fun to mess around with, randomly selecting from a series of different "action packages" that give him various buffs or abilities, and in some cases summon a minion he calls Mini-Trap. His skill trees are pretty diverse, with him being viable either as a support/healer type in a group of players, or a more damage oriented character. A while ago, my friends were joking about having a three Claptrap party because we'd all want to play him, and honestly I think it would actually work pretty well if each went down a different skill tree. The tree I'm going down is based on a variety of "subroutines", one of which is randomly selected upon respawning, or when you run out of frag stacks (which serve no other purpose but that of a timer, although with later skills more stacks can be acquired to maintain a subroutine longer). There is always one (and only one) subroutine active at any given time, and each buffs a certain thing, at the cost of debuffing something else. For many of them, the debuff is general gun damage, which can be problematic, but there are also subroutines for each gun type that buff that type and debuff all others, as well as elemental subroutines that work the same way. Because of the combined buff/debuff, the player is forced to adjust their approach every few minutes to acommodate a new subroutine. Personally, I appreciate that it makes you switch things up and keeps things interesting, although having to keep one of every gun type on hand and rotate them around in my inventory is rather tiresome. Overall, I enjoy it, though some players who prefer a particular style of play may not.
     
    The story, I can't say too much about, really, but it's quite promising so far. It's interesting to get a different perspective on some of the characters, especially Handsome Jack. While he's essentially a good guy in this game, you clearly start to see how he ended up going down the slippery slope to being the asshole we all know and love, and you can also see where his constant belief he's the hero and his hatred of bandits come from. Some of the new characters are quite interesting as well, and of course the returning characters are as much fun as they've ever been. I don't know that it's as outright hilarious as Borderlands 2 was, but it's definitely still very, very good.
     
    As for visuals and whatnot, it's pretty much the same quality as Borderlands 2, although the landscape is different. Elpis is covered in giant cracks in the ground, which the player often has to jump over. and on the subject of jumping, the O2 kits and their boost mechanic are pretty cool. Slamming down on enemies is very statisfying, and being able to glide around and steer your jumps a little more can come in handy. Playing Claptrap I haven't had to deal with running out of Oxygen (robots don't breathe), but I can see how it might be frustrating. That said, there are no shortage of places to get your oxygen refilled, so it probably isn't too big of an issue unless you abuse the boost feature (which I do, because I don't need to breathe so I can get away with it).
     
    Overall, it's a pretty awesome game. I'd pick it up if possible. 9.5/10, I'd say. So there you have it. And now, farewell.
  8. Alex Kennedy
    In my last entry, I said that an explanation of my therapy would have to wait for another time. Well, it's another time now.
     
    So the reason I'm in therapy is that I have Social Anxiety Disorder. For those of you who aren't familiar, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. I can't really describe it very well, except that it basically feels like everyone is constantly watching and judging you, and that no matter how much you try to tell yourself you don't care what they think, you know that you really do. That explanation doesn't really do it justice, but it's the best I can come up with. As you can imagine, this makes social interaction extremely difficult. In fact, it was such a severe handicap that I would sometimes cut class in high school and spend the whole period hiding in the bathroom to avoid particularly anxiety provoking situations. Needless to say, I'm not exactly proud of that.
     
    My grades have always suffered because of it as well, and at one point it looked like I might not be able to graduate, despite my exceptionally high test scores and all my teachers saying how smart I was. It's because of these academic struggles that I started seeing a therapist. I do something called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which (in practice, at least) basically just means going out and forcing myself to interact with people so that I build up experience and get more used to it. I'd like to think I've been making progress, but sometimes it's hard to tell. It's often a day to day or even case by case thing.
     
    I'm not really sure what else there is to say about it, but I just thought I should establish that, since it's a pretty big part of my life.
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