I think over the last few months I’ve accepted the fact that I really have become a terrible hypochondriac. To clarify for those that aren’t 100% sure of what the word means, it refers to someone that has extreme paranoia, anxiety, and worry over his/her health. A person that mistakes that slightest of symptoms as a serious illness. While the realization of this has been somewhat helpful, trying to “correct” my hypochondriasis has proven much easier said than done.

The whole thing is a bit ironic too. While I was growing up I had my mother who was a very paranoid woman. She wasn’t too much of a hypochondriac, but she was the biggest worry wart about literally everything else. She would take a scenario, like going to the movies with my friends, and spell out every terrible thing (including the most bizarre extreme examples too!) that could go wrong and how I had to be super careful. I hated this, and grew up as a very care free guy claiming I would never be paranoid...

So as many of you know, I’ve been struggling with pretty bad stress/anxiety (might as well say depression too) for the last couple years trying to pursue my full-time job, only to continually get knocked back despite my immense efforts. Things have only seemed to worsen as I get a bit older and my priorities are quickly shifting to things like settling down with my girlfriend, buying a home, starting a family, etc etc. I still want to work, I absolutely want a career, but the instability of the game industry, especially the freelancing I’ve been doing, has not sat well with me. I’m in a shaky industry that is all about taking risks and believing everything will work out, when in reality I am not a risk taker at all, prefer schedule and stability, and don’t like the unknowns.

To not ramble on about my whole life story.... the last two years have been when the stress/depression really started rolling in on me with my work situation, and just in the last couple months my stress...

I have the most terrible time trying to pick something new to play after finishing a game. Usually I’ll look at my massive backlog and not even know where to start. The worst part is that I don’t even ever really have much of a preference of what I want to play, making the choice of what I’ll be playing over the next week to months a terribly difficult one. To make things even MORE worse... I tend to be pretty indecisive about small decisions D:

It doesn’t help either that I often have a hard time getting into most games I play. There are few games I play these days where the first hour of gameplay really grips me. Even in shorter games (like FPS or action games), I find it takes me a good 2-3 hours to really get into and invested in the game (basically the point where I am like “Yeah, this is awesome and I can’t wait to see what happens next”) For RPGs, it’s not uncommon for it take take me 6-8 hours to get really into the game. In the end, this basically means that...

I guess I’ve always been a bit bad with this when I first started using the internet. FYI, I didn’t get my first computer till I was 14, and really wasn’t on the internet much till I was about 17. Anyway, even when I first started using the net, I really liked the technology, and would find myself constantly checking different websites/email/AIM for updates. My first few forums I was a part of, if I wasn’t busy with work, school, or something else and had internet access, I was checking my different forums for new posts. Things have only escalated in the last couple of years, especially since I am always deeply hoping I’ll find a job opportunity waiting in my inbox.

So yea, today I’m pretty compulsive about checking the internet almost constantly. When at my computer, I probably check my email at least 4 times an hour, and cycle through my different forums, Facebook, and other websites about every 20 minutes. I often laugh that somehow I always end up with 3 or 4 Facebook...

Twitter. It feels like the Myspace of my twenties. When I was a teen and Myspace came out, I was one of the few to never get onboard with the service. I thought it was extremely overrated, and somewhat dumb. Now we have Twitter, and my feelings about it are pretty much the same. Pointless, dumb, and “why is everyone I know using Twitter?!” Unlike Myspace however, Twitter is more than just a quick and easy social network. It has evolved into a professional networking tool.

Twitter is now a place professionals can follow and connect with other professionals, while also promoting their own careers. Twitter has become a fantastic networking tool, and over the last couple years I’ve been hearing countless stories of people finding work somehow related to Twitter. Twitter has become a hidden job market in itself. It’s not just the “OMG EATING LUNCH NOW!” type of social community, it’s become a “We are looking for an Environment Artist, anyone know a good candidate?”...

So last week I wrote about something really scary that happened to me. To describe it as briefly as possible, I truly believed I was having a heart attack and was going to die. It’s been a little over 3 weeks, and my tending to be a hypochondriac about things has had me very unsettled the last few weeks. My girlfriend suggested my problem actually might have been a panic attack, as she was familiar with them and thought my experience was very similar to how her attacks would occur and feel like. (She used to suffer from them before we met, just had some really shitty stuff going on in her life) It’s been no doubt I’ve been depressed (mostly due to my job) and my stress and anxiety has been through the roof. The panic attack theory was strong. Either way, I went to the doctor yesterday to follow up on my blood work and talk about the panic attack idea.

The good news, all 5 of my blood tests came back very good. My blood pressure and oxygen rate were also excellent....

Are times really that bad? I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend lately with companies asking their employees or prospective employees to pay out of pocket for their own travel expenses. “Well at least you can write it off for your taxes!” they say arrogantly. Have times changed that much? Is the job market and economy that bad? Maybe it’s wrong for me to think this but I feel like it’s very wrong for a company to ask an employee or possible job candidate to pay for their travel expenses, and especially more so for the former. Just this year my company wanted me to go out on-site for two weeks to work with them. (I work remote currently from home) I was fine with that but they said, you pay the travel! I pushed and shoved for nearly 3 months before the company said “Ok, you’re right, we will pay travel”. I’ve heard similar stories from other companies at well.

But what I really want to talk about is paying your own travel expenses to go for a job interview. Is...

So about two weeks ago, I had something really scary happen to me. I’ve been reluctant to blog about it yet, as I’ll be going for a followup to the doctor this Wednesday, but to say the least it scared the shit out of me.

Before I begin this, let me say that I’ve been pretty unhealthy the last 2 years. I even made a blog on here back in October how I had finally rejoined the gym after nearly 2 years of not going and was going to get back in shape. It went well for awhile, till Thanksgiving came... The holidays came and so did the good food, and I started eating more and exercising less. I was back to where I had been before even joining the gym.

How unhealthy? Well it’s funny. I used to actually be in really good shape. I weighed 190 and would get to the gym about 4 times a week and not really eat bad. Then I hurt my shoulder badly lifting one day, and it stopped me from working out. By the time my shoulder was healed (about 6 months), I was just laid...

About two years ago when I went through my terrible “unemployed for 6 months and not able to find a job for crap” thing, it changed me. I used to be a very care-free, optimistic, happy go lucky type of guy. I didn’t really stress about stuff, it was hard to upset me, anger was something unknown to me, and I had patience to the max. Now, I find myself getting stressed way too easily. I get frustrated, angry, and my patience is thin. Things that normally would never peeve me get me upset now. It can be something as simple as having to wait really long in line at a store, breaking a glass at home, internet not working, or stubbing my toe. The things that probably should have gotten me upset, worried, or angry when I was that care free guy now bother me terribly!

Is this feeling of stress just a part of growing up or something? I remember as a teenager my parents always complaining about their stress, saying how it was the most terrible feeling in the world and it would...

So both me and my girlfriend knew we wanted to move away from Illinois for awhile now. I honestly never liked it here much, and only moved here originally for an internship. If you would have asked where I wanted to live when I was in school yet, Illinois was way on the bottom of the list.

Considering I am working from home for the time being, I figure now is a better time to move than any, especially before we get stuck here any longer. It’s even hard to believe I’ve been here 3 years already, but with rent leases, jobs, buying furniture, etc. it’s easy to just stay somewhere without much opportunity to move easily.

So Austin has been on my wishlist for awhile. I’ve never actually been there before, but what I’ve heard about the city/state has all been very positive. In some ways, I might even be late to the bandwagon as I’ve come across some articles saying how Austin is the #1 fastest growing city in the country right now. Guess we better get a move...

I kind of touched upon this in one of my earlier blogs, but I’ve definitely fallen out of the loop of keeping up with new game releases. When I was younger, I was current with all the new game releases, usually always knowing exactly what games were coming out each week, both console and digital releases. I could even tell you what all those games were about and what the gameplay was like. Today, I couldn’t even tell you when the last few big games hit the shelves, much less how they played.

A big part of the problem is that now I just mostly buy older games that are either used or discounted in sales. My backlog has gotten so big, I find it unnecessary to buy games at launch, unless it is a known sequel I’m very excited for. Usually on average, I’ve only been buying about 3 full price games a year. The problem is, that every once in awhile I realize how many new games have come out that I have no idea about, many being recommended by friends/reviews. Usually always...

So about a month ago, I had mentioned I was taking a 11 day business trip out to San Francisco. I really haven’t had an opportunity to blog about it since I’ve been back, so I’ll mesh my thoughts on the trip with the topic of this blog.

To foreword this, I always had this certain immense fascination with California for a long time growing up. Something about the state always just really interested me, and I always felt like I would absolutely love to live there. Maybe it was the large amount of game development in the state. Maybe it was the warm and mild weather. Maybe it was because California was a state thriving on technology. In short, California seemed to hit all of my interests, I figured I would love living there.

Not so much anymore...

I’ve only been to California twice, once to Los Angeles and just recently to San Francisco, all my trips being business related. The high and glorious expectations I had turned out to be way more...

So in my last blog on taxes, I had begun to use Turbo Tax to try to get an idea of where I was standing on this year’s return. I had used Turbo Tax the previous year for my simpler return, but I was extremely unhappy with their service. Considering my tax return this year was much more complicated, I figured I would probably end up going somewhere to get my taxes done, but I wasn’t sure where yet. Regardless, I kind of just wanted to get an idea of where I stood using Turbo Tax (since it’s free till you file), and my results were a huge surprise to me.

Turbo Tax was saying I owed $3300. WHAT... That just didn’t add up to me. It made sense if it only was accounting my untaxed income into the equation, but what about my other three jobs I had this year where my income was taxed with 0 exemptions? Surely I would have thought that those earnings would have offset what I would owe almost entirely, maybe only owing $500 at best. Not $3300. That was a big gap, and a big...

Today’s age is such a technical one that I think we sometimes take for granted truly how powerful and omnipresent the internet has become. I know I certainly am not sure what I would ever do if the internet disappeared, and most people, including myself, incorporate the internet into their way of life. Some people only stay in contact by IM, email, or video chats online. Some people make their living by working online. The internet has opened up tons of possibilities to people that you would never have had before. The ability to see new things, learn new things, and have access to new opportunities. It is incredibly exciting to me. Of course there is the thing of using the internet for as much bad as you can use it for good, but I’ll just ignore that for now. Really, that comes down to more of a personal moral level of the user anyway. It’s the person behind the object after all that determines whether it is used for good or bad. Moving on...

I think what really...

I’m at a point in my career where I feel it would be very beneficial to add some secondary set of skills to my repertoire. Heck, it’s almost becoming a necessity in today’s job market, where unemployment rates and job competition are higher than ever. Long gone are the days where someone can just be skilled in one area and be widely wanted for work. Now companies are only hiring those that have multiple skill suites, but even beyond that, they say these individuals expanded skill-set shows that are intelligent people capable of learning new things.

I can agree with the sentiment, and think it’s probably due time to make myself more attractive to employers. I think back over the last 3 years I’ve been job applying, and how easy it probably would have been to land jobs that I was passed up for if only I had additional skill sets. My current skills are very focused specifically on audio/music, and while it’s more than enough to do what my ideal position calls for, I feel...

There's things in life that I consider myself not very good at wrapping my head around. Perhaps it's more of a laziness issue of only preferring to know what I want to know, but regardless, taxes are one of those things.

Tax time is always a bit exciting for me, just because of the large refund I usually get back from Uncle Sam. Usually this time of year has always meant a nice big purchase I've been waiting to buy, like new furniture, a new computer, or other large purchase. Even if I have nothing in mind, just being to throw the money towards my school loans or into a savings is definitely nice.

I have only been doing my taxes on my own now for 2 years, this will be the third. My first year I went to an H+R block to get them done, and despite my simple return, they wanted to charge me $300 dollars. I said you got to be kidding me and somehow got my price lowered to the $120 I was used to and what my dad normally has always paid to get his taxes done....

I hate going to get my haircut. Other than about a 2 year period where I grew my hair out longer (almost shoulder length, I gave up and couldn’t stand the bad hair days), I like to wear my hair short. Usually a buzz cut around the sides and back, then trimmed to blend on top. To maintain a haircut like this, one should probably go get their haircut every 6 weeks. I dread going to the hair stylist so much I usually go every 3-4 months. I just got a haircut today, and my last one was an unusually long 6 months ago.

Some people dread going to the dentist, to the doctor... nope, I dread going to get my haircut... Why you ask? Let’s just say that despite my simple haircut, I have had it screwed up badly many times. I NEVER know what I’m going to get when walking into the hair saloon. Whether or not I’ll walk out with an amazing haircut, or one that has me wearing a baseball cap in shame for weeks....It's an enigma. When I was a kid and teenager, I even only just got...

So after months of my company I am a contractor for mentioning they want me to go out there to work on-site for a week or two, just now they finally booked solid travel plans for me. At one point I was pretty excited to go out there, but that was back in the summer yet. They were located in the much quieter San Mateo at the time, but have thus relocated to the SOMA area (whatever SOMA even means...), which in my regards in an extremely busy and intimidating looking place.

I originally was hoping to go from Monday to Friday, because they want me there a minimum of 5 business days, but due to some company schedule complications, I find myself having to stay the weekend, working 3 days on week and 2 the next before coming back. Meh...

That being said, I'll be in the city for 7 days, with two of them being completely empty. Thinking I'll die of boredom in my two weekend days, I was hoping to get some insight on what to expect of the city, and what would be good...

I originally wrote this as a huge response to tylerh1701’s blog on cooking at home and what to eat. Because of the length, I decided to re-purpose and refine it into a blog response instead of a huge scrawling comment. Here it is.

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I’ve always enjoyed cooking, and have only continued to get more and more into it as the years go by. (I honestly like it enough where I would even consider a culinary career, my only fear being eating too much on the job!) Anyway, I have been cooking on my own since I was 8 or 9 yet. By the time I was in my teens, I was cooking full meals, even if that meant having to go grocery shopping for the ingredients. I have an especially strong penchant for baking as well (desert baking, bread, pizza, etc) All and all, my mom was usually just getting fast food takeouts all the time. She could cook, but she got to a point where she never really did it anymore. I didn't like it at all, so I cooked my own meals. I also come from...

Because of the length of this entire blog (8503 words!), I decided to break it up into 5 parts. You can click the links below to view the other parts.

Part 1: Intro, January, February, March.
Part 2: April, May, June.
Part 3: July, August, September.
Part 4: October, November, December.
Part 5: My Hopes for 2013.

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My Hopes and Goals for 2013:

So 2012 was a pretty crappy year for me. What are my goals and plans for 2013 to change things for the better and make it a year worth remembering for the good? Well, for starters, I will be visiting my company out in California finally to work with them on-site for a week. I had asked about a full-time position previously, but they said we would talk about it when I was going to visit them. So if things go well, maybe I will end up getting a full-time position with them out in California.

I also was planning on coughing up the money...