Buying Things Can Be Experiences

A friend of mine, an individual much more wise than myself, once stated that "It's much better to spend your money experiencing things than buying things." Or something along those lines. I remember the sentiment, not the quote.

But that has a few issues. I'm 15, I don't have a job, and I can't drive by myself. So how am I going to go do anything if I can't go do anything? I mean, I could save up, but do you know how hard it is to save up 500 dollars to go somewhere?

But what can I do? Well, you can also have good memories buying gifts for people. I love buying gifts for people. I am generally happy, and buying stuff for myself will make me happier, but if I buy things for other people, not only am I making them happier, but I'm also showing them that I care, which in turn makes me happier.

The biggest gift I ever bought anyone was in 2017 when my friend wanted a game console but wasn't allowed to get a 360, so I got him a Wii. I got 4 Wii games, 4 GameCube games, 3 Virtual Console games, and anything else you'd need. It costs me probably around 300 dollars that I saved up for 4 months to get. I spent hours a day thinking about how happy he would be to get it. In the end I threw in a DS because I had a spare, and I think that may have helped. I put everything together one night. It took me hours to put the box together. Luckily I consider myself to be pretty good at putting boxes together. I gave it to him on Friday so he had the weekend to play around with it. But we had play practice that night, so I got there and he was super stoked to ask me about it and he was like "Are you sure you want me to have it?" and I was like "Well what am I gonna do with it?" I had so much fun doing that.

But would it have been as special if I had told him about it beforehand? No, it wouldn't. It would just be like "Oh cool now I have a Wii." But the experience of opening a big gift from someone you're close to really brings out a feeling of gratitude that you never really feel. Imagine if someone said they were gonna buy me a bunch of records and then they did. Would I feel special? Nah. Now imagine I get a box on my front door and it's from a friend. I open it and it has all my favorite albums.

What a great gift!

I would really feel loved. I would feel like my friends appreciate me a lot. And that's a feeling I really want to spread to others. So giving people the happiness that comes from getting a good gift is an experience for me in making them feel good. See how it works?

I'm working on buying another big gift right now. I can't tell you what it is, but I can confirm it's bigger and better than a Wii.

Does 808s and Heartbreak need a sequel?

Credit: Glass Eyes on KanyeToThe.com

I personally think My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the most coherent, solid, and overall best album released by Kanye West. However, his release previous to MBDTF, titled 808s and Heartbreak, is the most unique of all his releases. It has no rapping from Kanye on it- only from Jeezy and Lil Dwayne. It has lots of autotune and smooth synthetic instrumentals. There are relatively few samples on the album, only 4 songs include samples as opposed to 10 out of MDBTF's 11 songs having samples. (All of the Lights is the exception.) There are no swear words on 808s. It is in no way similar to any of his other albums.

808s is also a very good album. From Welcome to Heartbreak's welcoming beat and great melody, to Coldest Winter's great setup, this album is really fun. Love Lockdown makes great use of autotune and vocal effects mixed with a down-to-earth piano riff. Not to mention Heartless, which is perfect in every way.


And last but not least, 808s is a short album. It only clocks in at 52 minutes. While this is a lot compared to Yeezus's 40 minutes and Ye (2018)'s 24 minutes, it's nothing compared to The Life of Pablo's 66 minutes or The College Dropout's 76 minutes. I'm sure I wouldn't be mad if the album were longer.

But does the world really need another 808s and Heartbreak?

Like I said earlier, all of Kanye's releases are different from each other. Ye and KIDS SEE GHOSTS may have been released just a week apart, but GHOSTS has a much more enthusiastic, happy vibe than Ye does, and it shows in the album art. College Dropout has a much more classic sound, Late Registration has a more jazzy sound, Graduation is an album of happy tunes and celebration, MBDTF is very heavy in its instrumentals, Yeezus is futuristic and scary, and Pablo is off the wall insanity that blends together nicely. 808s represents sadness, and it shows in its slower melodies and humble production.

TLDR, wouldn't another 808s release go against what Kanye does and what Kanye stands for?

808s was released at a very low point in Kanye's life. His fiancee broke up with him and his mother had just died. This depression fueled a lot of the content on 808s, like in the song Bad News for example.


Kanye isn't out of his troubles yet, but he's doing better now than he was before. He realizes that he has a family that loves him, and he knows they'll be with him through anything, even when he makes mistakes that could ruin them.



Without the energy surrounding 808s, it wouldn't be as good as it is. The emotions Kanye held back in 08 are very different from the emotions he holds now. An 808s sequel would be a very strange product, and I can't say I'd like it. I think it would be best to just leave 808s and Heartbreak's legacy alone.

TL;DR- 808's and Heartbreak does not need a sequel.

E3 Wishes 2018 - Recap

So EA's conference already aired, but I didn't watch it. I'll just pretend it didn't happen. What I really wanted from them were a new Simpsons console game, and ports of Battlefield V and PVZ Garden Warfare to the Switch. None of that happened, from what I've heard. I don't know. I haven't seen it yet.

Next up we have Microsoft's conference, which is later today as of the time I'm posting this. What I really want from them is some more OG Xbox compatibility with the Xbox One and a new game from Rare. Oh, and Halo 6.

After that, Bethesda has a conference. I want more info on Fallout 6, and I really want Elder Scrolls III on the Vita.

Square Enix owns Tomb Raider, so I want Shadow of the Tomb Raider on Switch. Oh, and a new Gex game, since they own Eidos and Crystal Dynamics.

From Ubisoft I want more Rayman stuff, a new Prince of Persia, and some more info on Starlink. I can't wait to play that game.

Sony needs to give us more Vita titles.

From Nintendo, I want Wii U Pro Controller support on the Switch, and I want Solid Snake to be in Smash 5. A physical Fast RMX or a new F-Zero wouldn't hurt.

With Sega and Atlus, I want a new Crazy Taxi, Saturn games on Switch (including Shin Megami Tensei), and a localization of Phantasy Star Online 2.

From Activision, I want Call of Duty WWII on Switch.

And finally, I want Capcom to stop putting only half the game on the cartridge for Switch games. I would really like a port of the first 4 Resident Evil games (including Code Veronica as a regular title).

I won't be around for the rest of E3, so I'll be able to look back on this when I come home and see what happened and what didn't. Spoilers for the rest of these E3 2018 posts, but I don't expect any of this to happen.

E3 Wishes and Predictions 2018 - Capcom

Capcom is a strange company. They can do so much good, but they can shoot themselves in the foot incredibly easily. We've seen this 3 times this year with the Switch releases of Resident Evil Revelations II, The Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, and the Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2. All 3 of these titles require additional downloads. It's slightly understandable with Revelations II, since it's a modern game with lots of data. However, the 2 Mega Man Legacy Titles have no excuse. Those games are not big enough to fill up a whole cartridge with data, so we should not need a download code.

But I really like Capcom. They have Mega Man, Resident Evil, and Monster Hunter. So here's what I want for E3 from them.