Monday, November 24, 2014

MUSIC MON! THANK YOU. GRACIAS. どうもありがとうございます。(2013-2014)


What am I especially thankful for this year?

Let me count of the things that have made my life especially good.

First, of course, I am thankful for my family. Most people are surprised by how well me and my sister get along; we work at the same place, we drive to and from work together, and we live with our parents. We don't really have serious disagreements that often and we try to watch out for each other at work and home. My parents are so supportive: my mother volunteers her time to the base but still makes time to listen to my problems and my father works hard to provide for our family but also helps ensure the upkeep of our property. I also can't forget to be thankful for my grandparents who have helped me and my sister with our college loans. Together, we all volunteer our time, support, and love to each other. And for that, I am thankful.

Then, there are my friends. While the rest of my week can be somewhat monotonous, I always can look forward to any time spent with my friends. Every Sunday we meet up to play video and tabletop games as members of the Action Society and the rest of the week we try to play video games together as the NuFu clan. Throughout the week, I usually meet up at least once with my best friend Zach. I am glad we can all share our interests (anime, role-playing games, video games, science fiction, etc.). I am also glad for their girlfriends, fiances, and wives that allow us to spend time together and are fun to spend time with; after all, some of my favorite memories of this year have been going to see movies together and I hope we can continue that trend next year. All in all, I hope we can continue to spend as much time together next year as we did last year because I am very thankful for it.

And now that we got the important stuff out of the way, let's move onto the other stuff.

Nintendo has dominated my hangout experience this year since I got a Wii-U last December. Between Nintendo Land, Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, various Mario Parties, Mario Kart 8, Hyrule Warriors and the just released Super Smash Bros for 3DS & Wii-U. The amount of fun we've managed to get out of Mario Kart and the new Smash might just be my Game of the Year. Nintendo provides a shared screen experience that you simply can't experience on the other consoles and, for that, I am very thankful.

I'm also thankful for my other nerd hobbies but want to pay a special tribute to anime and figures. I felt like I used to be a big otaku, but other hobbies have taken precedence over me watching dubbed anime or read manga. This year I decided to revisit the hobby and even started buying some figures from my current anime obsession, Kill La Kill (expect a very special review of my newest Ryuko figure soon). I got into buying figures to decorate my desk starting last July and have slowly accrued a small collection that, with the help of Loot Crate, Amiibos, and my own new compulsion will grow larger and create new opportunities in the coming year.

I wanna finish by thanking you guys for reading as Dumbledore Shot First always aims forward and upward and into the exciting world of tomorrow. In the next year you can expect the blog to continue and evolve as I further tune the format and take advantage of new opportunities. So, here is to another year of nerding it up.