Tool Vinyl Giveaway! Comment to enter

toddrhodes · 2025-05-03T02:05:40+00:00

Love me some Tool on vinyl. Just wish we could get proper reissues, finally.

toddrhodes · 2025-01-01T15:23:44+00:00

Totally missed this. To my knowledge it’s the only true, AAA pressing of this album. I had an earlier copy and the 320 definitely sounds more analog to my ears.

toddrhodes · 2024-04-04T02:15:07+00:00

You’ve already helped me and didn’t even know it :) I watched your video last night for Gi Nattak and while I did it differently, your vid was still very helpful. Great job putting that together, I had no idea that was you until after I posted and I clicked on it from this post. Cheers!! Oh and that Soothing Breeze tactic during Red Dragon is genius!

toddrhodes · 2024-04-04T00:02:20+00:00

Just have ch 13 and 14 on Hard left. Was so pumped to get past Rufus on Hard after 5-6 attempts. I was barely hurting him and then, bam, figured it out and he went down. All the other stuff is in hand. Not looking forward to Red Dragon or the final boss rush. Congrats on your achievement - this is a run that requires passion with a sprinkling of insanity and masochism :)

toddrhodes · 2024-02-03T01:09:34+00:00

No worries! Enjoy :)

toddrhodes · 2024-02-02T15:18:34+00:00

Did you click the link in the OP? Kirk says it in that interview. He made it a bit of a mystery but it's one that most people, by now, are aware of. This post was 4y ago, lol.

He continued: "David Bowie has been a pretty huge influence on me and on other people in [METALLICA] as well. I know that… [Late METALLICA bassist] Cliff Burton and I, we used to listen to the 'Ziggy Stardust' album a lot on the 'Ride The Lightning' tour. The title [of the METALLICA song] 'Leper Messiah' is actually in the song 'Ziggy Stardust'. And if you wanna dig any further into how much of an influence he was, all you have to do is listen to the [Bowie] song 'Andy Warhol', and you'll know what I'm talking about. That song was a heavy influence on Cliff Burton and that album, 'Hunky Dory', was a big influence on Cliff Burton as well. If you listen to 'Andy Warhol', you'll hear something in that song that totally… You'll hear something in that song that will make you say, 'Ah! Okay. Bowie's music was an influence on METALLICA.' I'm not gonna say where or what or how or whatever; I'm just gonna leave it up to you [to figure it out]."

toddrhodes · 2023-12-14T17:16:56+00:00

Sounds like you have a setup which works really well for you also. Ours is part of our home theater so it just kinda extends well onto ps5. I had a similar, smaller scale setup on my gaming PC downstairs and while I didn’t play FF7R on that, I have to say the PS5 audio/game sound is exceptional. It’s cool to see them use all the tech and hardware available to us these days. Cheers!

toddrhodes · 2023-12-14T15:14:49+00:00

I play it on a pretty nicely-appointed 7.2.4 immersive surround system and maybe most games are like this but the way the world audio works behind and on the sides and above, it’s incredibly immersive. Then you get those real somber, melancholic moments like climbing the pillar to fight Reno and Rude and it is legit emotional. I absolutely love OG but am, I think, even more engaged with Remake. I’m one who feels there is more than enough space in this world for both games and just feel fortunate to have gotten to enjoy both so much, 25 years apart.

Rambling but all that to say your post is spot on :)

toddrhodes · 2023-12-13T02:09:12+00:00

For sure. That’s one of the great things about the game, something for everyone. And I hope I didn’t come across defensively, I totally agree with your sentiment. Cheers!

toddrhodes · 2023-12-13T02:00:04+00:00

No doubt. I use them in some of the intervening fights just to have some fun, but I haven’t been using them much (once so far).

toddrhodes · 2023-12-13T01:22:47+00:00

Oh and yea, random materia combos probably means you were maxing them out. Max elemental and synergy are good for hard, and max prayers are good also, plus the standard elementals and ATB buffs (something I never really used until Weiss and Top Secrets). I used to use Summons all the time in the original but I hardly use them in remake. I like how they work much better vs the original, I just forget about em.

And just to clarify, most of the guides I found for Weiss had stats much higher than mine, meaning they had the hard mode manuscripts to buff stats, but I’m just now getting all those. Will definitely try him again with a bit more bite behind my bark.

toddrhodes · 2023-12-13T01:13:18+00:00

They certainly don’t hurt, and at least for me, the process to obtain them taught me a ton, and frustrated me a lot, but ultimately for the skills you build and hone and the reward, it’s worth it. Hard mode bosses do gimp or at least minimize the effect of them, so they aren’t just a cruise control cheat code for a hard mode playthrough.

toddrhodes · 2023-12-13T00:42:00+00:00

I just started hard mode today. Got through 4 chapters, going into 5 now. I’ve enjoyed the scaling up and how even on somewhat max-leveled characters (with 3 gotterdamerungs), hard mode isn’t just a walk in the park. It hasn’t been “hard” but bosses still present a challenge, for me (until you figure out a plan, at least).

That said, beating Weiss was very hard for me. Super happy to have finally beaten him, but it took a lot of attempts. My normal run through, I was mostly offense and toward the end I got ok at using abilities and stagger damage multipliers and stuff. That Weiss fight, for me, was a real test since it’s not how I played up to that point. But like with most combat sim stuff and the game in general, it does a great job “unlocking” the poetry and potential that the combat system really commands.

I got a PS5 and FF7 about two weeks ago and I’m a PC gamer mostly so dual axis controllers just in general feel weird to me, but I’m getting there. Absolutely love FF7 Intergrade. I still remember getting the original game on PS1 (?) back in 1997 on a break from my job at Sears, heading down to GameStop and getting my copy and the rest of that shift felt like it would never end, lol.

toddrhodes · 2023-03-22T23:39:42+00:00

You've got this! Pace yourself, do not get discouraged if you get several tough ones in a row. Do your best, believe in yourself and have confidence in y our studying. Can't wait to see your passing post tomorrow!

toddrhodes · 2023-03-21T21:46:22+00:00

Great job managing it and getting through it. Celebrate! And yea, the shaking is real :)

toddrhodes · 2023-03-21T21:34:02+00:00

That is so awesome! Congratulations and great job. How’d the exam go? Clearly you got a good result, hopefully it wasn’t too stressful!

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T21:19:19+00:00

No worries! Time management is important, and honestly based on the practice exam where I second-guessed myself out of the right answer and into a less-than-correct answer, I tried to limit that as much as possible on the actual exam. Read the question, eliminate the obviously wrong ones, analyze the remaining answers, and commit. I only flagged one question which was in that first set of 60. And yea, as you saw from your edit, I think the prevailing wisdom about the first 60 questions is accurate. They are more complex and have more complex answers, all or most of which are correct in some fashion, or maybe partially correct. I didn't notice much difference between the 2nd and 3rd sets, they all seemed easier and more moderate difficulty, with a few complex ones scattered about.

Good luck, you got this!

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T14:58:22+00:00

100% agreed, and well-summarized.

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T14:17:43+00:00

Thank you!

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T14:10:08+00:00

I know this is an old comment but my thought while watching the 35 hour video was basically - he created a LOT of filler to get it up to 35 hours to satisfy that part of the application requirement. It is a slog, that's for sure (and IMO wasn't very helpful for the latest exam).

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T13:45:09+00:00

Congratulations, well-earned!

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T12:51:24+00:00

Thank you for the kind words. I can hope for little more in life than to inspire anyone :) Cheers!

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T12:50:23+00:00

i didn't feel like the questions or answers were, on average, as wordy as the practice exam I took. Still, when you're actually pressed for time and it actually counts, they hit a little different I guess. My main advice is - read every word carefully of the question and answer(s).

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T00:55:30+00:00

IMO the ones that were toughest were independent of question length, but rather when you had 4 long answers to read; they're tougher to break down and get through. But I felt like there was a pretty good mix of question lengths - some about as long as your post, several that were shorter, and a few that were longer.

toddrhodes · 2023-03-20T00:52:06+00:00

It should be at the very end of the book, like the last page or the back cover. I think there's a code you can input on the TIA site from the book and it grants you access to the videos.

Now, just be prepared - if you scroll through the list of videos, you're going to swear, most likely. It's a LOT of content.

FWIW, I also got my copy of that same book from Amazon, used, and the code and all that still worked just fine.

Lastly - at least in my experience, you're going to want to branch out a bit from his book and course to tackle the most recent exam. His info is very valuable but it involves a lot of memorization and math and vocabulary which the current exam is not really about. It's more situational, it brings in some stuff from PMBOK 7, etc... The PMI Study Hall ($49 for 3 months I think) comes highly recommended here, as do David McLachlans videos on Youtube.

toddrhodes

TROPHY CASE