2017 Reflection/2018 Plans

Saw a bunch of pals writing these so I thought I'd throw one together too.  It's gonna be long, so bear with me. Skip to the speedrunning part much further below if you don't care for IRL happenings.

IRL Stuff:

2017 started off with a trip to AGDQ and one of the best weeks in recent memory.  I got to meet so many people from the Spyro/Crash/Jak/Ratchet communities and got to do a run on stream to top it all off.  I also managed to get WR in Pac in the casual room, and it would stand for way longer than expected lol.  With AGDQ rapidly approaching again, I'm excited to see some speedpals again and to meet even more I didn't get to see last year.

After AGDQ I got back to uni to finish up my 3rd year, and it was one of the busiest semesters I've had in my time there.  I worked as a teaching assistant for a Calculus II class on top of my course load, which is especially heavy since I'm pursuing two degrees at once (chemical engineering, mathematics).  Furthermore, I spent a lot of time searching for a potential summer internship and finally managed to land one (more details later).  As a result of all this work, I essentially took multiple months off of running/training and got horribly out of shape, a situation I haven't been in since around 2009.  Despite this, I managed to get off my butt just enough to train for a half-marathon just after the semester ended, which I ran with my dad.  He had lost an enormous amount of weight in his training leading up to the race - 70+ pounds - and I'm really happy that he managed to beat his goal time (1:56) and that he finished not too far behind me (1:45).  He's planning on doing the full marathon this upcoming May, so I've gotta start piling on the miles so he doesn't beat me, otherwise I will never hear the end of it.

After the big race, I started my internship at a local chemical company that ran through the summer.  While there, I got to see really how the industry operates as well as work on some large-scale problems that the plant needed some work on.  The results of my small-scale tests on some potential solutions eventually blossomed into a full-scale implementation, and I'm glad all those noxious fumes I inhaled in the lab paid off.  Although I won't be working at this company again after I graduate, I'm glad I got to meet so many cool people and learn so much that simply cannot be taught in a classroom.

Once the end of August rolled around, it was back to uni to start my 4th and final year with yet another incredibly busy schedule.  Once again I worked as a TA, this time for Calc III, and this coupled with the 6 other courses I was taking was a lot to handle, but something I was able to deal with.  There were a number of late nights, including a group project that wasn't completed until 7 AM on its due date and at least 8 other group projects throughout the semester.  While all of this was going on, I also was attending job fairs and applying for dozens of full-time positions for after I graduate.  I managed to land a very nice entry-level position at a very large chemical company called Praxair, and I am very excited to start working there after I graduate this spring.

After the semester ended a few weeks ago, I took a trip with my family to Disney and we had a phenomenal time.  Since it very well could be the last time all 4 of us go on a trip anywhere together, we wanted to make sure to do everything we could, and we most certainly did.  Every day was jam-packed with stuff and overall it was a fantastic experience.

And finally, it would be criminal not to mention the events of New Years' Eve and the end of the football season.  For those who don't know, I'm from Buffalo, born and raised, and have been a Bills fan my entire life.  This town lives and breathes football, and the last time our team made the postseason was 1999.  Yes, 1999.  I was 3 years old.  It was the longest postseason drought not just in football, but among all 4 major North American sports (football, baseball, basketball, and hockey).  The last time they won a postseason game was 1995, over a year before I was born.  Every Sunday at 1 PM, this whole area stops and stares at their TV to cheer on the Bills, even though it's been 18 years of nothing but pain and misery.  This Sunday was no different, as the Bills needed a win along with some help from some other teams to sneak into the playoffs.  They got their win, albeit a little closer than any of us wanted, and then the waiting began.  Thanks to a miraculous play at the end of another game, the Bills got the help they needed and finally broke their curse, qualifying for the playoffs and giving this area at least one more game for the first time this millenium.  Our house is always loud on Sunday - usually from screaming at the TV due to idiotic playcalling and stupid mistakes - but last night, it was as loud as I have ever seen.  I don't think I've ever seen my dad curse with so much joy in my entire life, and it was an experience I'll never forget.  The Bills are off to take on the Jaguars, whose coach is the same coach who quit on the Bills just 3 years ago, and what poetic justice it would be for the Bills to go on the road and hand it to their old coach.  I'll be watching closely (while at AGDQ), as will the rest of this town.  GO BILLS!

Speed Stuff:

As mentioned earlier, I started off 2017 by getting a new WR in Pac Any%, a 30:25.  Unfortunately, I wasn't recording it, as I got it on complete accident while practicing for my AGDQ run, which went way worse than that (39:11 lol).  Shortly after AGDQ, the community decided to ban a method for performing certain skips that involved opening/closing the disc tray on the PS2, which made a number of skips more difficult and less consistent, meaning that beating this 30:25 would take a lot of time.  Several months of runs later, I had not broken through yet and needed to take a bit of a break from the category.  After getting Japanese gear, I managed to push the records for the other categories down much lower - 52:49 in All Levels and 1:19:39 in 100%.

Another Pac game I spent a lot of 2017 working on was Arrangement, a game which I ended up holding the record in multiple times before being bopped by n1nj4ofshr3d.  After some new strats were found, I managed to reclaim the WR with a 9:42.567, but ninja claimed it back just as quickly and pushed the time down to a 9:36.  This is a quick and fun game, which makes me hope more people will pick it up.

While not working on Pac stuff, I spent a lot of time learning Crash Twinsanity 100%, a run that I have wanted to learn for quite some time but never got around to putting in the necessary time.   I spent a number of weeks learning as many strats as I could and finally managed to finish a few runs and get a 1:41:33.  This game is incredibly demanding and nearly everything can cause the game to softlock or crash, so finishing a run is difficult but incredibly rewarding.

In other games, I did a few meme runs of The Weakest Link because why not, as well as some runs of the N64 version of Ms. Pac-Man: Maze Madness, which was one of the worst experiences of my life.  Do not play that version under any circumstances.  Trust me, it's for your own good.  Towards the end of this year, I started relearning Spyro 3 117% for the upcoming relay race at AGDQ, and as of now I've managed to push my time down to a 4:08:01.

The big speed accomplishment of the year, however, was finally breaking the Pac Any% curse.  In the same stream, I managed to tie my recorded WR of 30:43 and then improve it to a 30:33.  A few days later, I managed to get a 30:22, which finally beat the unrecorded WR nearly a whole year later.  Despite technically only improving by 3 seconds after a whole year, this is my proudest run of 2017, as this is the run I've put the most time into and really wish others would learn.

2018 Plans:

In terms of IRL stuff, my plans for this year are pretty straightforward.  I have 1 semester of uni left, and I already have a full-time position secured after I graduate, so I am all set on that front.  Next week, though, is AGDQ again, and I can't wait to see some familiar faces, meet some new friends, and show everyone the way of the Pac.  After AGDQ and outside school, my main focus is going to be on training for the marathon in May and hopefully beating my terrible PB of 3:50:55 I ran back in 2015 (and not losing to my old man, of course).

For speedstuff, in games I already have learned, these are some times I'd like to hit in 2018:

Pac Any%: 29:xx
Pac All Levels: 51:xx
Arrangement: 9:29/WR
Twins 100%: 1:1x:xx

Some other games/categories I'd like to learn this year, in no particular order, are:

Crash 2 100%
Twins Any%
Dog's Life Any%
Billy Hatcher Any%
Ape 1 Any%
Jak 1 Any% No LTS

It's likely I won't reach all these goals or get to learning all these games, but they are my highest priorities for the time being, and I hope to knock them all out soon™.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading all of this.  I normally consider myself a fairly boring person but I guess I had more to say than anticipated lol.  Here's to a 2018 full of lots of fun, speed, excitement, happiness, and, of course, a whole lot of PacAttack spam.

-Joe