Man, this is gonna suck. Oh well, I'm all for jumping on a fad at the height of its popularity in order to seem relevant, so here goes.

1) I've Been Here For A While Now

It's been ages since my last Cblog post, and I rarely ever pop up in the comments section of anything these days, so I felt that I should clarify that just because my name might not be familiar to some (or most) of you guys, I have been here for a good while. I believe I've been here for about four and a half years now, actually. Granted, I haven't done much of worth while here (save for one thing, which we'll get to later), but I have been around for a bit.




2) I Have A Drunken Alter Ego

This is old news to anyone that follows me on Twitter or knows me in Skypetoid, but I drink. A lot. I'd be willing to bet that I could probably beat Hamza in a drinking contest, or at the least tie up with him, but that's not what this fact is about. What it is about, however, is who I become when I get some drinks in me. The man is infamous. An endless torrent of entertainment for the people that know his name. He makes The Most Interesting Man In The World look like that nerd in the 2nd grade that always picked his nose. He...is Swagathy. And he is coming soon to a Twitter feed near you. For now though, here's Swagathy, dressed up as Muscles Glasses from Epic Meal Time, posing with a guy dressed as Mr. T.






3) I Do Web Streams, But I Suck At Promoting Them

This is kinda recent, but I've began to pick up on the hobby of streaming my vidjagaem/drinking habits to the wide world of the internet. I'm not popular like the big boys, and I don't have the greatest variety in my stream just yet (working on it!), but I try my best to entertain. Plus, it's a rare occasion to see the slow transformation of Apathy to Swagathy in real time, on camera! Also, I have a 200 dollar HD card and a lot of people like to tell me that my stream is super high quality or something, so there is that.




4) I Have A Barely Internet Famous Tattoo

About a month or so ago, I got a tattoo that I've wanted for about a year, on my left forearm. It's all five of the Rock Band 3 instrument logos, in a row. I posted it on Twitter after getting it, with the phrase "Starting today, I wear my love for @RockBand on my sleeve". Harmonix, the makers of Rock Band, saw this and reportedly flipped their shit. They spread it about the interweb and suddenly it was the only thing I was really known for, aside from being Swagathy and all. The fact that I got the attention of my favorite developers ever was more than enough for me though.




5) There Was Once A Thing Called Stereotoid, I Was A Part Of It

You guys like music at all? Of course you fucking do, who doesn't. Well, turns out, there was a group of Dtoiders that liked music a lot more than most. We called ourselves Stereotoid, and we were the best and sexiest group of music reviewers/talkerabouters ever. We did it all: album reviews, podcasts, Rock Band DLC reviews, specialty posts, and even Dtoid Community spotlights on awesome people like Murnau and Alphadeus. It is hands down the coolest thing I've ever been a part of on the internet, period. And it may be getting a second wind pretty soon so stay tuned......




6) I Play A Lot Of Rhythm Games

And I mean A LOT. That's probably obvious from my tattoo, but I felt it was worth mentioning. I own every Rock Band game. Every Guitar Hero game (Except for Van Halen because I fucking hate that shameless piece of shit, but I digress). Both Dance Central titles. Hell, I even own Rock Revolution (ugh) and Power Gig (UUUUUUUUGH). I've gone through more plastic instruments than I can count. My Rock Band drum set is beaten to the point where my red pad is now nothing more than a duck-taped X holding what little bit of the padding remains to the center. I have 1,509 songs in Rock Band 3 currently, and can play every instrument on Expert (Though I'm best at guitar and bass). I DO play other games, but that's definitely my specialty genre.

Oh, and ask CrimeMinister how he feels about my leaderboard scores some time.




7) I Also Play A Lot Of Fighting Games

I'm nowhere near as good at them as I am at Rock Band, but I'm definitely not bad. I own practically every modern fighter available on the 360, but I seem to play Street Fighter x Tekken and Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 the most. I will occasionally throw down in some 3rd Strike or Arcade Edition from time to time though, or even hop on my PC to play some Melty Blood, but don't expect any EVO-caliber performances in any of those games. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy the hell out of 'em though!




8) I Once Had A Phone Conversation With Harley From Epic Meal Time

It was awesome. Like, there are no words. I think we were both drunk at the time. He was talking about Tim and Eric and then said he was gonna send me five t-shirts, which he totally did. And it was awesome.




9) I Have A Lot Of Useless Things That I Sort Of Collect

If any of you ever came into my room, you would see an absolute mess. Statues, posters, old marketing material from my job (which I won't mention by name here, but it rhymes with shameflop), and even plushies. Oh yeah, subfact, I actually like plushies. Hell, here's one of them:






10) I'm Not Interesting Enough For 10 Things, So Here's A Dog

So, much like Gareth, I too have a bit of a game collection issue going on here. Thanks to financial stability, I've been slowly building myself up to the point where I can actually say I have a game collection...of course, the big problem with that is I probably haven't beaten many of them. Luckily, I have the internet for that, because I sure as hell don't know how to decide things for myself. Therefore, in a move that is TOTALLY NOT A RIPOFF OF GARETH IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, I ask ye, oh Destructoid community: What should I play next?




Of course, I should probably mention what games in my collection I haven't played/beaten, so here goes.

Shadow of the Colossus: Before you say it, I know. I'm a terrible person for owning this game and never playing it. I blame the fact that my brain sucks at wanting to play a PS2 game. And since the Shadow of the Colossus/Ico collection is coming soon, as well as me intending to purchase a PS3 this holiday, should I really go ahead and play it now or should I wait for the 'superior' version to arrive?

Darksiders: I bought this game almost entirely because Occams has been making amazing Darksiders 2 jokes on Twitter ever since the game was announced. I've yet to even pop it into my system though, despite all the praise I hear about it. Is it worth it, or should I skip over Zelda of War for now in favor of something else?

Nier: I have played a decent chunk of this game, probably at least a third of it. I'm in love with the story, the voice acting's nice, the music is wonderful...but the gameplay itself is SO DULL. I'd love to try to get over that glaring fault in order to finish the story, but it's a tough pill to swallow.

Deadly Premonition: I haven't even opened the game up yet. It's still sitting there, sealed, begging me to discover the FK in the coffee. Is it really as good as everyone says it is?

Fallout New Vegas: I've played a decent amount of this as well, and was really really into it at one point to the point where I was writing "Wasteland Journals" of my daily experience for no reason other than fun. And then I just fell out of it and stopped playing. No idea why. Should I boot it back up and finish the game?

Devil May Cry 2: I only got this because it's the only Devil May Cry game I haven't beat. And it's the only Devil May Cry game I haven't played. Thanks to all the stories I hear about how bad it is compared to the other three though, I'm starting to wonder if I even should play it though...

Metal Arms: I saw this game being sold for three bucks used at work. After remembering a fascinating article Jim Sterling wrote about the game, I decided to pick it up only to...yup, you guessed it! Never touch it. I'm sure I should change that eventually.

Samurai Legend Musashi: Now I HAVE played this game, about five years ago or so. I remember it being AWESOME, with the ability to steal enemy's abilities and the general style of the game being so fun. I don't have the memory card I had back then though, which would mean I'd have to restart the game...which tends to always make me hesitant to pop in a game.

Skate 3: I don't even care if it's a sports game, it's damn fun and I was loving the game when I checked it out from work...but then I actually bought the game and I haven't touched it since. I should pick it up and finish it some day I suppose.


And that's about it for now. I'm sure that in about two months or so I'll have even more games to worry about (Thanks holidays!), but for now I get to keep it relatively simple. So try to help me out guys! Leave me a comment, suggest which game I should tackle and try to give me some nice reasons so I know where you're coming from. I await the Dtoid community's responses, and remember:

So here I am on a Friday, sitting around, being bored. Life is dull. The Xbox is at the repair center, the only games I have on the Wii are Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, and Just Dance...so...ya know, fuck that noise. Netflix is currently my only salvation. So as I'm browsing for some kind of thing to watch, I hear a ring ring of the doorbell...could it be? Is it my Xbox!? I rush to the door, eagerly hoping for the good news. Turns out it's not the Xbox, but...something possibly greater...


...For when I opened the door, the mailman handed me this-




Excited as hell, I immediately cut it open and emptied the contents out onto my bed. What lay before me was nothing less than a treasure trove of awesome!




LOOK AT IT ALL! Such a wonderful bunch of things. As my smile reached balding-pedophile proportions, I hastily sifted through everything and furiously snapped pictures. This act of generosity absolutely must be photographed, catalogued, and then blogged about so the world over can know just how amazing this mysterious bearded deity is.




The first thing to catch my eye was definitely this batch of cards. Look at that stuff! Marvel, Garbage Pail Kids, Apache helicopters, the whole nine yards. I haven't seen a garbage pail kid since I was one. They used to call me Burpy Murphy. That's my slave name though, just call me Apathy please. No, seriously. I will hurt you.




Next there was this amazing assortment of action figures. We've got a baller-tier axe-wielding skeleton, a crazy-legged soldier guy, a disembodied hand (Oh the fun I can have with you), a snake, a blue chicken, a gray sheep (Guess he was incapable of deciding what moral path he wanted to follow), and A FUCKING MINIATURE CTHULHU. Let that sink in a bit. Miniature. Cthulhu. Suddenly my pewter Transformers figurines that I got from a Monopoly set aren't even cool anymore.




Following that we had this sweet ass set of dice, which may or may not actually be authentic Vegas dice. I don't know for sure, but they do say "Fabulous Las Vegas" on them, and that's pretty sweet. They'll go super well with the Red Dead Redemption playing cards (Pictured, obviously), so maybe I can get some Liar's Dice going at the next drinking game! (Vodka in picture slightly related to conversation at hand)




STICKERS OMG!!!! Before this arrived, I never knew just how much I needed a Busta Rhymes sticker in my life. Or a Fischerspooner sticker. Or a Crystal Method sticker. I haven't yet found something to stick said stickers on, but when I do stick these stickers onto something they'll stick so hard that whatever I stick these stickers on will wish I didn't stick them on so hard.




Ah, reading material. I actually never knew The Partridge Family were so adept at solving mysteries. I also didn't know it was legal for cookbooks to leave the kitchen. I am gonna read that thing so hard that it'll wi-...wait, I made that joke already. Either way, I'm gonna take this cookbook and housewife the FUCK out of some recipes! (Disclaimer- I am not a mysoginist bastard)




How did he know I loved Def Jam: Fight For NY? Was it a guess? Intuition? Divine sorcery? And furthermore, how did he know that the biggest reason for me loving that game was the inclusion of Snoop Dogg? Or, more importantly, that you can throw Snoop Dogg through a second story window? Is this too many questions for one paragraph? Do I give a shit?




Ah, the all-important mixtape...err, mixcd. Actually, we're sticking with mixtape, more of a ring to it. So many good tracks featured on this CD! I swear, the minute Jamiroquai started playing I ran straight up to my room, found the funkiest hat I could, and started grooving like a madman. My pitbull now thinks I'm retarded because of this. Fuck her, she's just jealous that she has no rhythm.




Woah woah woah, Sonny Chiba movies!? Now, I've always heard about how much of an incomparable badass he is, but I have never once watched one of his films to find out. Thanks to the bearded deity, I can change that! Well, once the Xbox comes back at least. I tried spinning the disc really fast on my finger and using my laser vision, but that just resulted in bloody fingers.


I must mention though, that opening this package came with some side effects. After the initial convulsing and foaming at the mouth, I realized that I had somehow transformed. I developed super hearing and the ability to astral project myself into the bodies of small rodents. And on top of that, I somehow became a cool person and sunglasses sprouted out of my head. I can't take them off. Every picture that's taken of me now is blurry. And for some reason I can't stop making this pose:




Before I end this, I have one last thing to share. Possibly the most important part of this package, and the one that had the most profound effect on me. To some it may seem simple, but to me it meant all the world.




This. This is one of the nicest things that anyone ever's done for me. I will forever cherish this note. Seriously, thank you so much Occams for being such an amazing and thoughtful person. You are easily one of the most giving, most caring, most awesome people on Dtoid, and I can't wait to meet you at PAX and give you a big 'ole hug. You are the perfect example of just what this community has always been to me- a collection of wonderful, caring human beings who over time become your surrogate internet family. You're the big brother of that family, pretty much. Don't ever change.

January 26, 2011. On this tragic day, my Xbox 360, born August 23, 2007, left this world.



Good night, sweet prince.


Now, unlike most people who this happens to, this wasn't a surprise to me. A little backstory is necessary here...


I got this 360 during the same week that the limited Halo 3 360s came out. My second Xbox had crapped out a week earlier, and when I heard news of this new version of the console I figured "Oh, well what perfect timing". So, I picked it up, but it being a 360 and what not, I was always ready to fear the worst. Except, it never really came. A year passed by, things were still great. Two years, still nothing, it ran good as new. A variety of games, dashboard updates, and Xbox Live antics followed, but around the year three mark things started to get a little unsettling. The box began to get louder, hotter, and would freeze up at random intervals. Initially I didn't think much of it, but it began to get more and more prevalent until, eventually, the worst thing possible happened- the dreaded Red Ring Of Death.



AKA that thing I have tattooed on my wrist as a reminder of how many times this has happened to me.


Of course, like any sane gamer would, I began to curse God's name and frantically seek some way to rectify the situation. I realized that I was currently a jobless bum at the time and had no way of replacing it, even if I wound up trading in every last game I owned. However, thanks to a bit of Craigslisting, I found a guy in my area who specialized in 360 repairs, including red rings. Despite hearing nothing but bad things about going down this route, I reluctantly decided it was the best and only way to do anything about it. So, I dropped it off and, to my surprise, within an hour he had it working beautifully. Of course, I went home and dropped hours into Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I was overjoyed, I still had video games in my life!


Fast forward a couple months, to about October. It was the same week as my birthday, ironically. Despite it being my birthday week, things weren't exactly going well. My car broke,I wasn't able to find a job STILL, my laptop broke, some jealous woman almost succeeded in causing my girlfriend of two years to break up with me (We're still together and better than ever thank God), and I got ridiculously drunk on the night of my birthday and wound up dropping my phone in a toilet while giving myself a concussion (Which ultimately led to me having a permanent scar on my forehead...I'm actually kinda proud of that part). It was during this week that my Xbox decided to stop reading disks. I, of course, panicked like I did before. Knowing there was no way I could ship it off thanks to the red ring repair I did over the Summer, and thanks to the fact that I'm STILL FREAKING BROKE (at the time), I decided to attempt fixing it myself. And, holy shit, I did it. I freaking fixed my own Xbox. I felt like a God...but of course, that was short-lived.


See, the thing I learned about disc drive failures is, there doesn't really seem to be a way to 'fix' it...not permanently at least. The only real way to do anything about it would be to just full-on replace the disk drive, or at least that's what the internet told me. Now, the fix that I performed on it, gave it about another month before I had to open it up again. And then a few weeks. And less, and less. Until Saturday, where I had to open it up yet again...this time, it only managed to last a couple days. Turns out, I think the thing is finally done. Gone. Fin. Dead.



Seems like only yesterday that I first bought him.


Now, the big question I've found myself asking is...what do I do about it? I just got laid off a couple weeks ago, so once again I'm in a jobless position. And as sad as it is for me to admit, I really rely on videogames to make my day less...well, shitty. And in the ultimate act of God hating me, it couldn't have come at a worse time. Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is finally about to arrive, I had rekindled my love of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 after a long absence, I've been getting more and more hooked on playing Xbox Live with Dtoiders, and finally decided to come out of my shell and start being a part of Friday Night Fights. But then, this happens.



It seems so empty without it...


So, sad as it is for me to say, I don't think I'll be playing much games for a while. You may see me logged onto Xbox Live, but unless it's an arcade game, don't expect me to be playing anything. It's weird...what does a gamer even do when he doesn't have a console? Can he call himself a gamer when he literally lacks the ability to play games? I guess there's no point in thinking about it right now...for now, I can look back on the better times. Here's hoping I can remedy the situation soon.



A toast to the fun that we used to have.


Requiescat in pace, old friend.

So, hey, guys...dunno if you got the memo but, the year is about to be over. Crazy right? Looking back on it now, I can't even imagine where the time went. So much has happened within a year it seems- I've got a job again (Gamestop, go figure. You think of some other place an ex-Game Crazy employee could go), made some friends, lost some friends, girlfriend is still sticking around after two years (Not bad for what was a chance meeting at a Rock Band setup playing Sex Type Thing by Stone Temple Pilots), and Stereotoid is now a thing that is happening...a really really awesome thing, that is. But, this isn't about that, because real life is boring...it's why we play so many video games. And last year, around this time, I made a blog about the resolutions I was hoping to accomplish before the year's end. You probably expected this but, I wanna do the same again this year. Before I do though...lets see just how well I did last year?


1) Start giving more love to non-rhythm games. Well, I'd say that was a rousing success. Take a look at my gamer card in that corner there. See how many of them are a rhythm game? Yeah, it's a good feeling. Now, do I still play the shit out of rhythm games? You bet. Outside of Power Gig, I've bought every rhythm game that came out this year for the 360. But I've also made sure to expand my horizons significantly, rediscovering my love of Battlefield with Bad Company 2 (And then re-rediscovering it thanks to the recently released Vietnam expansion), and just recently (AKA last night) discovered just how fun online Super Street Fighter IV with a lobby of Dtoiders could be. That's not even counting all the awesome single player experiences I had this year like going through the Mass Effect series, or enjoying a campaign in Halo for the first time ever. Needless to say, good times.

2) Get some classics under my belt. Yeah, umm...I don't have the best attention span in the world. I started playing Chrono Trigger, which led to me playing Super Metroid, which led to "Oh hey HeartGold/SoulSilver is out, those are technically classics", which led to "Man, I sure do miss playing Mischief Makers, where's my N64"...this could keep going. Suffice it to say, I didn't do too hot on that one.

3) Actually beat a Final Fantasy game. Totally didn't happen. XIII was a let down for me. A really, really pretty letdown, but a letdown nonetheless. I even tried cheating and targeted Dissidia, but after beating Squall and Zidane's stories I wasn't interested anymore. Not my cup of RPG tea, I suppose.

4) Give my Dreamcast some love. I rekindled my love of Jet Grind Radio and Project Justice, but I ultimately wound up donating my Dreamcast to a better home. It was all the love I could give.

5) Beat Okami. I don't even have a PS2 anymore...why did I say I'd do that?

6) FINALLY play the Shin Megami Tensei series. I have Persona 3 Portable and SMT: Devil Survivor. They're both two of my favorite games this year.




Alright, well now that that's done. Let's get on to the main topic, shall we?




1) Meet some of you people.

Around this time last year, I was still kinda shy. Despite this being a heavily community-focused group, I was still unsure as to whether or not I'd be shunned for attempting to join in on some of the shenanigans that go down around here seeing as how I was (and kinda still am, I think) a relative unknown. Fast forward to now though and I'm part of a weekly crew of music reviewers, I've been on a few podcasts, and at times made a drunken fool of myself over at Dtoid Live. But I've still yet to meet any of you fine people in the flesh. My avatar has, apparently, (I'm not sure if he has any pending rape charges after PAX East but direct all legal shit to him, not I), but I myself have not yet. So by the end of the year, be it PAX East, PAX Prime, a NARP, or something as absurd as a trip to California this Summer, I'm meeting somebody from the Dtoid community. I will shake his/her's hand, buy him/her a drink, and there will be merriment. Of some kind.

...Also, if I make it to Cali, I require Tactix to sing to me in person. Because every time I hear him sing my heart melts.





2) Do more C-blogging stuff.

I haven't done much with my C-blog over the year. I guess that could be because most of the stuff I have written has wound up over on Stereotoid, but at the same time I've been a little downtrodden that my personal C-blog kinda just collects dust. What to do about that? Hmm...oh, I know, fix it! Right.

So hopefully, if I can retain a clear focus (And by clear focus I mean "Don't forget I said all this a week from now") I'd like to actually do more writing, about stuff that isn't just music. Sure, music is my first love as far as non-people things go, but gaming is a damn close second, with an absurdly fond love of bacon as a third. I'd like to actually share some of that love with you guys, hopefully in a way that isn't spectacularly bad.





3) Own all three systems again.

Man, it's glorious having every current-gen system available isn't it? The options available, the varied communities, the ability to pretty much play any game you desire...

...Yeah, I had that once. But then I got stupid.

See, at one point, I have owned all three systems. But due to me being a jobless, penniless bum, I pawned off my Wii and PS3 for a really crappy amount of money, just to get a few extra bucks. And while I do love my 360 very much, I can't lie and say there aren't a ton of games on the other systems I don't want to play. No More Heroes 2, Mario Galaxy 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, New Super Mario Bros., the Uncharted games, LittleBigPlanet 2, Killzone 3, I could list 'em off all day. Variety's the spice of life, and I'd hate for my meal to get a little dull tasting. Now if I could just stop trading things in so much, I wouldn't have this problem...





4) Stop trading things in so much.

Yeah, I should get out of that habit. Between replacing said consoles up above, the fact that I'm probably about to purchase my NINTH DS Lite due to Golden Sun and Pokemon Black/White, and the fact that my once-proud gaming collection is reduced to less than ten titles across all the systems I own (Not counting Steam games because that's cheating dammit), I simply should know better by now. So, no more quick buck and facing the consequences later. I need to just grit my teeth and deal with the fact that, oh no, I have to wait for my paycheck to get something. At least I have a paycheck now, I suppose.

Also, insert obligatory "YOU'RE HURTING THE INDUSTRY YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT GAMES" comment here.





5) Build a gaming PC.

Recently, my four year old gaming laptop officially bit the dust, leaving me to run on this barely-worth-a-shit tablet PC 'til I can replace it. It can't run 90% of my Steam games, it can't run Minecraft, it can barely run Youtube worth a damn. I hate this. I must fix this. I must return to the glorious PC master race (And to a lesser extent, the Team Fortress 2 community and those wacky Garry's Mod gametypes like Trouble In Terrorist Town) and get a PC gaming rig capable of my needs. Still debating on if I just want to build a PC or have a laptop I can take with me, but if I can afford it I might as well do both. Still, either way, I need to work on doing one, and fast. This lack of being able to throw Jarate is getting to me.






6) Send Xzyliac his damn package.

I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN!

...No, not mine. Mine is the 14th. SO CLOSE HRRRRRRNG...anyways.


Backstory! There was a Twitter conversation a few days ago, between my fellow Stereotoid bro Antwhan and someone else. She was mentioning it was her birthday soon. Me being the "Jump into everybody's Twitter conversations" guy that I am, totally had to comment on how close our birthdays were, Libras unite, yada yada. I also mentioned to her that she'd get a super-special birthday mention on Stereotoid. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware that we were going on vacation until New Destructoid launches, so that plan was foiled.


BUT I AM NOT A MAN TO GO BACK ON HIS WORD. So, everyone, ladies, gentlemen, other such folk, today's birthday belongs to...


BEVERLYNOELLE!!!!!


I think she's like 24 or something, I dunno. Either way, IT'S HER BIRTHDAY DAMMIT, EVERYONE GO SHOWER HER WITH BIRTHDAY WISHES AND SUCH!!!! She's a classy lass, she'd do the same for you.


So, yeah. I promised I'd throw a shout-out at ya, so even if Stereotoid isn't a go this week, I'm still throwin' a shoutout your way!


HAVE FUN, PARTY HARD, DRINK SOME DRINKS, AND ENJOY YOUR GOD DAMN BIRTHDAY!!! :D






I totally just failblogged for you Bev. It was worth it though, so happy birthday!