Month: December 2015

Broken leg for Christmas

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, HealthLeave a comment

I used to say that all I wanted for Christmas was my 2 front teeth, but what I really want is mobility.

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So I was riding my bike to the gym as I always do, but on December 8, 2015, the city was grinding up the street at Hughes Lane, which is the street I ride to get to the gym. At first I was riding in the gutter before I noticed that I was coming up on the ground up street. I usually stay in the gutter to keep my distance from the cars where there isn’t a bike lane. I was actually doing pretty good in the gutter for quite awhile, until my bike decided to go into the street. That’s when it all went wrong. I was doing okay for a little bit until my front wheel hit the gutter, which was a little higher than the street. I lost control when my front wheel hit the gutter and fell onto the sidewalk. A car pulled over and asked if there was anything she could do, but I wasn’t sure what damage I did, so I just asked her to hand my phone to me to call home. My partner put the bike in the car then tried helping me up, but I knew I broke something, so he called 911 to have an ambulance take me to Mercy hospital.

The emergency room doctor at Mercy hospital ordered x-rays and told me it was broken in 2 places. They actually sent me home in a brace with a referral to an orthopedic clinic. That was Tuesday night and they were closed when my partner called them from the hospital. He had to call them back on Wednesday morning. They called back on Thursday night to tell us that they are rejecting my case. I don’t know why, but I’m thinking they don’t take Medicare and Medi-Cal. They told us to go to Kern Medical Center, so we actually got in the car and drove to the KMC emergency room. They told us that the orthopedic clinic is closed and they would be closed on Friday too, so our best bet would be to come back on Monday morning at 6:30am. They only help the first 20 people, so be sure you’re here before then.

I’m sure there are better places than KMC, but it literally was the only place, so we waited. We arrived at 5:30am and there were at least 8 people ahead of us, and more came after us. They looked at the x-rays from Mercy hospital and told me I would need surgery to put a plate in my leg. That was Monday the 14th. They scheduled my pre-op for Wednesday the 16th and surgery for Friday the 18th. They called us when we came home asking if I was still there, and of course we were home, but they wanted me to come back on Tuesday the next day for pre-med because they rescheduled my surgery for Wednesday instead. That was extremely fast, but it’s best to get it over with. This is the brace they sent me home with after surgery. It’s supposed to help with my rehab when the stitches come out.

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I can’t really get around too well because it’s too painful. My partner doesn’t really want me moving around too much anyway because I’ve already fallen twice. The first time was the first night when I broke my leg on the 8th. I got up to go pee and I did fine getting to the bathroom and coming back to my room, it was trying to get back into bed where it all went wrong and I fell backwards. The second time was when my partner helped me back into my bed after my appointment at KMC. I fell forward onto my bed. Ever since then he doesn’t want to to get out of bed for anything. He gave me a bottle to pee in and he bought a portable toilet for $100 at Walgreen’s to do the TMI thing lol.

They told us to change the dressing, and when we did, we noticed that they stitched me up with staples. Ouch! What am I, paper?

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I wanted to be able to go to the living room for Christmas to be able to look at the tree, but I’m set up nicely in my room, and I really didn’t feel like having to lie on a couch in an awkward position, so we just nixed the idea and I spent Christmas day in my room enjoying my new PS Vita and my new lava lamp.

We go back to KMC in a couple of days for a follow up, and I’m hoping they will remove the stitches because it looks healed up. The staples hurt, a lot!

So what’s going to be my future gym goals? Well, when I’m able to walk again, I’m sure they’ll send me to a clinic to rehab my leg or to teach me how to exercise my leg to get it back to bending again. I’d also like to go to the gym that I’m actually paying for whether I go or not. I’m sure I can walk on the treadmill at 0.5mph just to get my leg bending, but I’m not sure what they will allow me to do. My partner won’t let me ride my bike again. We’re going to give it to a neighbor. He wants to buy me a tricycle, but that’s months down the road, and he’s going to drive me to the gym from now on. He could use the exercise too. We’ll see what happens next.

PS Vita for Christmas

On By Michel McDonaldIn Christmas, Gadgets, Games, Minecraft, MMORPG, Products I Like, PS Vita, PSPLeave a comment

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Most normal people exchange Christmas gifts on or before Christmas day. We’re not normal lol.

My partner bought me a brand new PlayStation Vita Borderlands 2 bundle at GameStop last week, and it arrived yesterday. It arrived at the house at 1:43pm, but there was nothing on the doorstep. I thought he got it, but hid it from me to give to me on Christmas, so later that night when Dominos rang the doorbell, I asked if it was UPS and he said it wasn’t. Long story short, our driver hid the package from us and it took calling them to file a stolen package report for them to reveal to us the location of the box. They’ve never done that before. Grrr! The note on the tracking said it was left on the front door, but it was behind our hose.
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So back to the PS Vita. I thought it would be much smaller from what I’ve seen in videos, but it seems to be thicker and it feels heavier than my PSP Slim. It does feel good in my hands, but I find myself punching characters out and accidentally tossing grenades when I don’t mean to because of the back of the device. I like that it gives you more options, but it’s too sensitive.

Games that are meant for the PSVita play great with the front and back touch screens as well as the 2 analog sticks. I actually like that I’m touching the correct tool or block on the front screen in Minecraft even though I can use the directional buttons. It just seems faster to touch the screen.

Some of my older PSP games don’t access these newer features. Like you can only use the left analog stick to move your character around. I think using 2 analog sticks is easier. My old PSP is temperamental though, so I’ll be running to the right, and my character is either running to the left or in circles. That’s why I love having 2 analog sticks because the one on the left is propelling you forward or backward, and the one on the right is allowing you to run in many directions. I also love that they made the R button your trigger as opposed to the X button to allow you to continue running while shooting.

The guy at Game Stop told us the 8gb memory card that comes with the bundle will be completely used by the game that comes with the PSVITA. Borderlands 2 comes with 6 add-ons and yes it does use most of your card, but you’ll still have a few gigs to add more games.

Anyway, I did buy a 32gb card on Amazon that night when we came home. It’s actually a pain in the ass to have to completely shut the PSVita down when I want to switch from the 8gb card to the 32gb card or vice versa. Why can’t they just give you more than 8gb knowing it will use most of the card? Or why not just sell the hard copy of the game instead of a download?

I was watching someone play the Vita version of Minecraft on YouTube, and there were moments when the game seemed to lag. I haven’t had that issue, but there was a moment when the game froze and I had to close it and I lost all my progress.

One of the reasons I wanted a PSVita was because of the remote play feature. I have a PS4 in my bedroom, but I spend a huge chunk of the morning and afternoon in the living room. I was looking for ways to play Destiny and Star Wars Battlefront in the living room. That feature is only available on Sony phones and PSVita. That was the huge selling point for me. I mentioned earlier that you accidentally throw grenades, I was referring to Star Wars Battlefront. No one said anything, but I kept doing it and I quit playing because of it. I don’t have an issue with Destiny. In fact, I actually love playing Destiny using remote play.

I think if you have a PSP and you bought this as an upgrade for the new games, go ahead and keep your old PSP and the old games. Don’t install your old games on the new system. Just switch back and forth I guess.

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I took 2 pictures of my PSP Slim with the new PSVita, and you can see that they are pretty much the same size, and I looked and they seem to be about the same thickness. The PSP Slim screen is much smaller at 480×272 pixels and 3.8 inch screen, and the PSVita has 960×544 pixels and a 5 inch screen.

The PSN membership gives you 2 free games every month. 2 free PSVita games, 2 PS3 and 2 PS4 games. So if you have all 3 consoles, congratulations, because you get 6 free games. Some of the games work on all 3 consoles. In fact, some of the games I bought for my PS4 have PSVita games, which is how I managed to get these on the Vita. I’m really enjoying the PSVita version of Minecraft and Terraria. This is an awesome gift and thank you to my partner for buying it for me, and thank you even more because I’m able to play with it during my broken leg downtime.
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PS Vita Borderlands 2 Bundle

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS Vita, PS4, PSPLeave a comment

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My partner didn’t know what to get me for Christmas, and I was dropping hints so big, I’m really shocked he didn’t get it lol. He finally did when I just blurted it out. A bit tacky, but whatever.

So he called Best Buy to find out if they had the PS Vita, and they said yes, so we got in the car to go and I told him that if truth be told, I honestly don’t want just the console, I’d rather have a bundle because it’s the same price, and you get a game AND a memory card. Best Buy only had the console, not the bundle. I looked on the Game Stop app and I thought they had the bundle, so we went to the mall and they said they didn’t have the bundle.

They said they just had the blue PS Vita, so we were just going to buy it on Amazon later, but I decided that I didn’t care about the bundle, I just want it, so we went back. They explained that I needed a memory card since the 1GB on board is used for the Vita OS, and it was too much for my partner, so we ordered the bundle to be shipped, and after shipping and the warranty, it came out to the same price lol. Oh well.

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The guy at Game Stop said Borderlands 2 will consume the 8GB memory card that comes in the bundle, so when we came home I bought a 32GB memory card for $62 and change, plus tax, plus shipping, and it will be here on Wednesday. The PS Vita will be here on Friday.

Today I went on the PlayStation app on my phone to see what games I already own that are compatible with the PS Vita, and it turns out I have quite a bit of games that will work. I listed them. I bought 2 extra games that I have many add-ons for that will work with the
PS Vita, so I figured I might as well have those games too. A lot of these games are on my PSP, but some of these games are only available for the PS Vita. I already own them, so now I can actually play them, and some of them I’ve played on my PSP, so I can play them again, but with an extra stick since my PSP only has the one stick on the left, and the PS Vita has the stick on the left and right.

PS Vita game list

I used to make PSP gameplay videos and post them on YouTube, and I was quite proud of them, but I stopped doing it because so many people made fun of the fact that my hands shake (I was born with a tremor in both hands, actually my entire body shakes). One or two people commented on how I was playing a game wrong since I wasn’t properly killing the monsters the way they would have killed the monsters. Talk about picking your battles. Dude, we all play games our own way, you play your way, I play mine. No one plays wrong. One person actually called me a pedophile. As if only children are allowed to play video games, give me a break. That was my deciding factor in quitting.

I discovered a device that you can plug your PSP into that will record your gameplay, which cuts out the need for a camcorder pointing at the screen, so no hands in the way, but I don’t know if it works with the PS Vita. If I can find out what other people use to record gameplay with the Vita, then I may consider doing that because I’d really love to record some videos again. I had so much fun doing that, and I love watching other people playing video games, so I want to do that again. If I need a device then I will buy one, but if you can do it directly from the Vita without the need for extra hardware, then I will do that instead.

So the 32GB memory card comes on Wednesday and the PS Vita comes on Friday. I wanted it so when I am in the living room, I will be able to play Destiny and Star Wars Battlefront using remote play, but I really want to play the other games like Borderlands 2 and some of these games I’ve listed. I will post again when it comes and after I’ve played around with it. Catch you on the flip side!