The Professional Gamer - January 2, 2016

Hello and Happy New Year to my fellow geeks! I hope that you have all had a good holiday break and are ready to head back to work, school, or just continuing to laze about the house. I'm heading back to work tomorrow, but that still gives me some precious time in order to play a few more games, read more comics, or watch more anime. What have I been doing for the past few weeks? Lots!

First up, reading! I got some great comics for Christmas, but am putting off reading them until I get through the more serious books. These include a book about sour beers and one about hiking in my local area. My goal is to read through these, as well as my library books, before I move onto the comics. The hiking book (60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Denver and Boulder--Including Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Rocky Mountain National Park, Kim Lipker) provides some basic info about how to prepare for a hike and then provides details about numerous hikes available in the Denver Metro area. The trail descriptions are detailed enough to help the reader with selecting a hike that meets their desires including level of difficulty, scenery, and location. Lipker also provides details such as UTM and Lat/Long coordinates to trailheads and which topographic maps cover the hiking area. If you live in the Denver area, this book could be a great companion to your next adventure.

Next, video games! I've had some additional free time in order to continue my work as a space trucker in Elite: Dangerous. However, most of my trading days will be behind me now. I've purchased a Diamondback Explorer and am preparing myself to fly out into the black. I've practiced a little bit with an SRV, but I think I might spend a little bit more time to make sure that I am more familiar with it before heading away from civilization. In other news, my family gave me a copy of Splatoon. I've played through the tutorial, plus a few 1v1 games with Crystal; but I have not yet challenged other players. I'm sure that the learning curve will hit me pretty hard with my first few rounds of online play, but I'm looking forward to it!

Last, TV and anime! I watched the final episode of Yuri!! on Ice a few days after it aired. I was fortunately able to avoid spoilers, and I won't report on any of them here. In brief, the finale was a great ending the season (I understand that a second season has been greenlit at this point). Also, YOI was voted the best anime of 2016 by viewers at Anime News Network. So congratulations to the production team, and I look forward to seeing more from you soon! Crystal received latest season of The Venture Bros. on DVD, and so we have been watching that in between the holidays. This season feels significantly shorter than the earlier seasons; however, it is crammed full with the great combination of comedy and drama that we have come to expect from Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick. As I write this, I have only two episodes left to watch before I will again be longing for new content.

I also went to see Rogue One today, but I would prefer to allow my thoughts and feelings about it to come together a bit more before I dedicate myself to writing a review of it. Look for that to come in the next few weeks. Happy New Year to you and game on!