Baby, baby, baby OOHHH!

Bet you sang that in your head, didn't you?

This has been a hell of a year. To hell with a recap though - I don't believe in that shit; even if I did, I certainly can't remember enough for an accurate recap of 2011. Suffice it to say, the year was kind of crap and hopefully next year will be a bit better.

James has applied for a promotion with ADT, and is interviewing on Monday. I'm not sure if the position is actually management or just the highest level of customer service, but either way it's an improvement over his current position (higher pay too, woo, hope he gets it!).

Sarah's been doing everything available for her school's Theatre program. 2 plays (they're currently rehearsing the 2nd, actually), drama club, Performance class, and she's applying for the Thespian society. I think I know what she's going to be when she grows up! LOL

Joseph just turned 2, and since his birthday his vocabulary has absolutely exploded. I was worried about him, he wasn't really saying much, but now he repeats just about everything. Which.... may be a bad thing, come to think of it. O_O We'll have to keep an eye on our language for awhile!

We had to ask Lori to move out. It's not fair, and I feel bad having to do it, but what it came down to was considering a combination of our finances and Sarah's emotional state (she's been having some problems lately), and we decided it was best if she left. We're giving her a month so she has some time to try to make arrangements, and I hope that she can. I feel bad enough as it is.

So, James convinced me to try SW:TOR. I played a bit on his account this morning, and will probably play more while Joseph is napping, just so I can get off of Korriban and really get the story going (I'm playing a Sith Inquisitor) and will decide how well I like it once I'm off-world. So far it's not too bad, honestly, and while it will never EVER replace WoW for me, I'm giving it a fair shot. :) The only problem I foresee is that should I actually end up enjoying it, there's no way we can afford for both James and myself to pay the monthly fee. Which is why I stopped playing WoW in the first place.

In other news, I want WoW back. Good lord do I want it back. I miss it so much, and with all the new content I want it even more. *sob*

Magus has been up here playing Skyward Sword a couple nights a week for the past couple weeks. It looks... just... outstanding. The controller is a little buggy sometimes and has to be re-centered often, and it doesn't always move the way you want it to, but all in all the concept is so sound that the minor bugs can be overlooked. The puzzles are great, true Zelda form, and the story so far, while... minor, relatively speaking, is on par with the other games. Bravo, Nintendo, you've done it again!

Uhh. I don't really have anything else to say. Lame update, I know; lot of words but nothing of substance was said. There shall be more in the future, never fear! The blog shall rise again! Or... something. Whatever.

Hope everyone had good (decent?) holidays. 2012 is just around the corner! EVERYBODY PANIC!

:P

Current Status: Alive

(but just barely)

Where do I begin? I know, I'll start with the bad stuff, that way this post can end on an awesome note.

My left knee is failing in the worst way. I've got 2 tendons that don't want to work anymore (and possibly some ligaments), and every time I step wrong, turn wrong, move wrong, LOOK at it wrong, it hurts and then goes out. I was playing with Joseph earlier today, bouncing him on my legs, and suddenly PAIN goes flaring through my knee. I think I was making a horrible face, because Lori told me I shouldn't do that anymore. I did it anyway. Hah.

Sarah's just getting over a horrible cold, that both James and Joseph caught. James is absolutely miserable, and yesterday slept for almost 12 hours. That, of course, meant he couldn't sleep today, and just went to bed an hour ago. Poor guy. :( Joseph, on the other hand, was sick for ONE DAY. Yesterday he had a really runny nose, didn't eat anything and took a 3 hour nap, and today he's mostly better. Kid's got a killer immune system. BUUUUUT, he's teething, and has been for the last week. He's like a demon. A cranky, hungry, tired, indecisive demon who's always chewing on his hands. *sighs*

Fortunately I'm not sick yet, and neither is Lori; hopefully it stays that way. I can't afford to get sick right now, not with as much as I have to do.

We got our "new" couch (read: James' parents used to own it, and gave it to us to replace the couch that literally fell apart) recently, and it's HUUUUUUUGE. I'm pretty sure it was designed for a room shaped like an egg. That or the biggest living room known to man. It's not an L couch, but it's not a straight couch either. It's curved like 3 sides of an octagon, which means it's really obnoxiously placed, and it has a giant ottoman that fits with the curve perfectly. The ottoman opens for storage, which is cool, but my god, there's no space left in my living room at all. It's like someone came in, took a look around, and decided that oh no, all this space isn't necessary at all, let's just fill it up with useless random crap until your (my) head bursts!!!!! But it's huge and comfy and I guess that's what really matters right now. XD

Our car is fixed, to the tune of over $500. Ouch. Hopefully it won't fall apart again anytime soon.

James has pre-ordered SW:TOR online so will probably be playing officially by the 15th of December, and he's also picking up Skyrim soon. No Yule gifts for him! Bah-humbug. I still don't have any of the games I want, nor will I be able to get any until after the first of the year. No pre-orders or anything. I have too many gifts to buy. I still need to buy for the kids, and Lori and Magus, and James' family, and my family, and oh my god there's still so much to dooooooooooo!

There's a squirrel outside foraging for nuts in the leaves, right behind me next to the open window, and it's very distracting. I've seen some *very* fat squirrels this year. I saw one that was the size of a cat, holy crap! I've never seen one that big! O_O

I'm about to clean my dining room, finally. As soon as Joseph is asleep (assuming he naps at all today) I'm going to start tearing everything apart in there, organizing and tossing and putting away and generally making it awesome. I hope. There's not really a lot in there, but it's all BIG stuff, and covered in spiderwebs next to the back wall/door/window area. Ew. I wish I had a giant extendable Swiffer thing. That'd be much nicer than the broom.

I just read a book called 2012: The War for Souls, by Whitley Strieber. It was a bit squicky, and a bit typical, but not bad all in all. The beginning annoyed me because it confused the hell out of me, but I soldiered on and discovered that all in all, it wasn't too bad. It's about aliens, parallel worlds, souls, and the connection between worlds that saves everyone. Except the aliens. It's... it's a weird book. I recommend it, if you're not opposed to a bit of gore here and there, and overdone concepts and the supernatural don't bug you out.

That's about it, I guess. Nothing exciting going on here.

Life Take Two

Since I haven't written anything here in quite awhile, I figure I'll go ahead and make an extended post about what's been going on here.

Nothing.

The end.

No, ok seriously, there's very little to actually say. Sarah's doing well in school except for a couple of teacher-student misunderstandings, and got a D in one of her classes thanks to that (damnit), but that's forgivable. I don't expect her to be perfect. Hopefully, though, she'll remember to do her damn homework, ALL of it, from now on.

Joseph has been growing and learning and learning and growing. His vocabulary has hit about 30 words, but a lot of them see very irregular use. I can't wait until he's older and can decipher his speech a little better. To where "fffvvvvvit" is actually "vitamin" and "beep" is actually "truck" (he doesn't say beep for cars? i don't know why), and "nums" is NOT synonymous with both food *and* drink. But for now, it's all good.

James is getting on well at work. Still not getting paid enough, but who the hell is these days? As soon as we start getting his bonuses again, we'll be good to go. Uh... James works, yay? LOL nothing really to say here, it's work. He sits, answers calls, and comes home. Woo.

Lori's finally got a job, at a local mall. She recruits people to take surveys. Haha, she's like a telemarketer that stares at you rather than calls you. But hey, it's work, it's better than she's been able to find for the past 2 years (which is nothing, hah).

Me, well.... I've been okay. Saw my sistah Lindsey the other day for the first time in like, a year, and am really happy about that. Love you, Lindsey! I've been really irritable lately though, because I'm getting tired of having a house so utterly full of people. For such a tiny house, a lot of people live here. Sometimes it's not so bad, but frankly, most of the time it kind of makes me want to tear my hair out. It's a little better now that Lori's got a job, and I've been trying to make the best of it, but it's getting harder and harder the more time goes on, especially with how much the girl talks. Fortunately Magus is *very* out of the way and takes care of his own space, and he helps us out with financial stuffs when we need it (like when the car broke and cost $500 to fix, thanks for the help sweetheart), so having him here is easy-peasy.

I've been taking care of a bunch of housework in preparation for getting a new couch, and managed to fuck up my knee somehow. I don't even know how, just suddenly felt the urge to pop my knee and when it wouldn't pop the pain got progressively worse until I could barely walk yesterday. Today's a little better, but it keeps having these pain flare-ups and going out so I lose my balance. Even so, it's very satisfying to have done all the work I have. Although you can't even really tell anymore; it's amazing how quickly this house goes from mostly clean to FUCKING TRASHED. *growls*

Uh. Not doing much gaming right now, I've been too distracted by life. A little sad, but hopefully things will slow down soon. O_O

I guess this wasn't really that extended, huh? More when I have more to say, I guess.

Live Long and Jello.

I have no idea....

God, what am I doing? I have no idea what's going on these days. I've been so damn busy my days are sort of running together. Today is my daughter's 13th birthday and I'm very, very scared because ... well, because she's a TEENAGER now! *le gasp* I've managed to keep her alive into her teenage years. Well, now that the easy part's over... hahaha.

We're about to get a new couch. This one is completely broken down, to the point where I can barely even climb out of it when I want to stand up. Tuesday, woo!

Got back in touch with an old friend, went to see her last night. Felt good. I missed you, babe! Sorry I've been so busy!

There are a ton of games coming out and a ton more I've just discovered are coming out that I want to play, but can't afford *any* of them. Worst - with a 1 year WoW subscription you get DIII free, but I can't afford the stupid monthly charge (which is why I haven't played in... 8 months or so). Rawr!

Um... my son's almost 2, and sometimes he acts like a 4 year old and others he acts his age. It's a little disconcerting to have a baby who I have to keep reminding myself is only a year old so I shouldn't expect so much of him. Sarah was the same way, though. Geez it's hard having smarty-pants kids. o_O

James has had several days off (yay for PTO) and has been working on the kitchen for me. He's done a BUNCH of dishes and cleaned off the stove, which was CAKED with stuff from I don't even know how long ago, and is going to clean the counters. I still have to do the floor though, haha. Thanks James! *MuAh*

So I just saw this thing on cultural diversity and stereotyping for Halloween and I'm just blown away by the ignorance of some people. The whole debate is whether or not some costumes are racially insensitive (geisha, arab terrorist, etc) and my opinion is this - IF IT'S NOT YOU THEN WHY DO YOU CARE WHAT STEREOTYPE SOMEONE IS MAKING FUN OF FOR HALLOWEEN? I mean, does anyone REALLY think that anyone who dresses as a stereotype for halloween honestly believes that it's the way ALL people of that particular culture are? No. Fuck off. Grow some balls. A spine. SOMETHING, but quit getting all fucking crybaby because you're Japanese and someone's a samurai, or ninja, or geisha, or what-fucking-ever.

The end!

Ooh, the Excitement!

It's been awhile since I've blogged, I know. This one is going to be short, though. Just a few things I'm excited about, and a mini-rant.

First, James really, REALLY wants me to play TOR. It's still in the beta and should be released by Christmas (even though there's no official release date yet, bah) and, having been invited to the beta and getting to play some, thinks I'll really enjoy it. I don't know any more than that, cause y'know, it's BETA and you'll get in trouble for sharing, but the problem is, I don't want to play. I don't want to experiment, I don't want to make a 'toon and try it, I'm just simply not interested. It's sci-fi first off, and sci-fi isn't a genre I'm particularly interested in, save a few select instances. Second, there are two other MMOs I'm waiting for, and really excited to play, and I don't want to fill up ALL of my free time with MMOs and nothing else. I just wish he would leave me alone about it. He says, "I really want to play this with you! Toward the end of WoW that's the only reason I didn't find it a chore!" I say, "Well James, if you really want to play with me, get GW2 or D3 when they come out! Because I'M NOT INTERESTED IN TOR!" He says, *cry*. Hehe.

So, my excitement. There are several games coming out that I can't wait to get my grubby little pseudo-gamer fingers on. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is at the top of the list. If I can get together the money I'm ordering the bundle so I won't have to buy the Wiimote Plus (which I think is $40 or $50 on its own). It's beautifully rendered and with close to 100 hours of gameplay and lots of cutscenes, I think it's definitely worth the release price.

Another game I'm really looking forward to is Guild Wars 2. I only know a limited amount of information about it, but from what I know and have seen, it's right up my alley, especially since I've stopped playing WoW. One of the things that makes GW2 great is that events are interactive and available to anyone in the region (which will be especially awesome if events repeat so you don't constantly miss things).

And the third of the ones I really just can't wait for is Diablo 3. I... do I really need to explain why? It's fucking Diablo. A Diablo MMO. Really.

There are a couple others coming out I'm looking forward to, but those three are the main. Cause... MMO, BABY!

MTV VMAs, What a Joke.

I remember MTV when it was still new and shiny, and played, oh, I don't know, MUSIC VIDEOS. MTV is no longer about the music, it's about television ratings. MTV stopped airing videos, and so they created M2, which was cool for awhile, but then they did the SAME THING.

For the past many years, I haven't watched the MTV video music awards. Last time I saw the VMAs, it was all about the artists, the videos, the cinematography, the direction. That was better than 10 years ago. Now it's just about who they can showcase. I made the mistake of watching being horrified at the VMAs tonight, and... wow. WOW. Fucking ripoff. They only actually showed a few categories, and everything inbetween was performances ridiculous behaviour. There was ONE good performance tonight, and that was Adele. God she's beautiful. Anyway, all the nominee categories weren't even close to presented, and the few that were were so poorly presented and so short that I had no idea who the hell was even nominated most of the time.

MTV, I knew there was a reason I started hating you with the fiery passion of a thousand hot taco and curry eaters with severe irritable bowel syndrome.

Tattoos part 2 - Games

Yesterday (the day before?) I wrote a blog about music tattoos. Today's blog is going to be about gaming tattoos - specifically, why I have 2 already (even though one desperately needs fixed, because the guy who did it wasn't very good) and why I'm getting at least one more.

My very first tattoo, gotten 2 days after my 18th birthday, is the Vampire: The Masquerade ankh. Very small, purple (black outline), and on my left breast (BAD idea if you're still an adolescent, by the way... never get a tattoo on a fatty area before you're done developing!!!!). At the time, V:TM LARP was a VERY important part of my life - it bonded my husband and I, and introduced me to people who I could relate to at that time. I was a veritable social butterfly in the gaming world when I LARPed, and even though my first LARP was actually Werewolf: The Apocalypse, V:TM brought me an active, fun-filled, charmed and charming life, and fulfilled a sense of belonging I needed at that time, that I'll forever appreciate, even if it was considerably temporary.

My second gaming tattoo (but by no means my 2nd tattoo, I actually have 5 right now) is the Nobody symbol from the Kingdom Hearts series of video games; it's on my right leg just above my ankle, and is the one I need fixed. For those unfamiliar, Kingdom Hearts is a Disney and Square Enix collaborative effort begun in 2002, and revolves around a boy who has to save his friends, and all the worlds (including Disney worlds), from an organization of beings called Nobodies. There is, of course a LOT more to it than that, and the series of games spans many years and many lives, but the gist is the same nonetheless. The Kingdom Hearts story is one of the most involved I've ever seen in a videogame (or anywhere really, there are very few storylines as epic as the one presented with KH, even in book series), and a good many of the characters are ones you can relate to. The character development and growth is stunningly presented. The reason I have a Nobody symbol (as opposed to other symbols of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, such as the heart, crown, or heartless symbol) is because once you look past the surface of Organization XIII's motives (OrgXIII are the main antagonists in the primary KH story), they only want what everyone wants. To be whole. To feel complete, instead of the empty shells they are. (Not to mention, two of my favourite fictional characters ever are both Nobodies, and the progression of one of them from Nobody to Somebody was astounding.)

Now, for the last one, the one I don't have but I want very badly. Yes, this labels me as a huge dork or geek or possibly nerd in the eyes of some, but I don't care. I want the Horde symbol from World of Warcraft tattooed on my back. I played World of Warcraft for a few years, and even though it's been awhile since I've been able to play due to lack of funds, I still have an active interest in it. One of the few things I'm actively interested in these days, actually. But as a member of the Horde faction, I joined a guild, the same one James was in when he convinced me to start playing, and in that guild I found a level of camaraderie and cooperation that I've never seen in my adult life before or since. I fully believe that were it not for WoW I wouldn't have become as close with Magus as I am, and that Gary and I wouldn't have become actual friends (as opposed to acquaintances), and I wouldn't have made several other friends that I have today. Being a member of the Horde, and of the guild, brought the same sense of belonging as an adult that I felt I needed as a teenager, and for that I will be forever grateful.

I'm sure in the future there will be others, something geeky or music related, something non-spiritual (the other tattoos I want are primarily spiritual symbols), but for now I'm content to make myself a walking advertisement for the things I love and have a deep appreciation for.

Music+Tattoos

I fucking love music. No, really, it's second only to my family in my life. I love listening to it, and I love singing. During those times when I lose my voice due to some illness or another, I'm absolutely miserable. I try to sing, and sound like a dying llama. But at least my ears still work. If/when my hearing finally goes completely, the only thing I'll have left is Dubstep (haha).

When this season's tax return comes in (6 months, boohoo) I'm keeping money back for tattoos. Band tattoos, specifically. Oh, there are plenty more besides bands that I want, but I'm getting my 3 most influential bands' logos permanently marked on my body to remind me of what music has helped me get through. (That'd be a LOT, if you hadn't guessed already). It's my fucking lifeline.

First and foremost is 30 Seconds to Mars. I've been a fan since the beginning (hell, I was a fan of Jared and Shannon Leto before they released any music), and the music has only gotten deeper and more soulful with every new album (of which there have been 3). Their profundity has forced me, on more than one occasion, to sit back and think.

Secondly is Coheed & Cambria. Not only have I been a fan since close to the beginning of their careers, but I love the fact that their albums are all stories that correspond with their comics/graphic novels. I loved The Amory Wars, and the music is so utterly meaningful. It helps that Claudio Sanchez has one of the most unique voices I've ever heard sing.

Last but certainly not least is Breaking Benjamin. I've loved them for years, and although their music changed to suit the current trends, they never lost who they were. Their music has gotten me through some pretty rough times in my life. I know most of it's not terribly deep or profound (some is, so shush), but the sound of Benjamin Burnley's voice lulls me to calm.

There's one band I've left off of my list of favourites that I just adore, but they uh, they don't have a logo I can get tattooed yet. Haha, I know that's ridiculous, but I don't plan on having many words tattooed on me, and the only thing available from them is words. Marianas Trench; they're a Canadian pop-punk band with a truly unique sound (think Beach Boys meets Queen meets FallOut Boy minus the emo). They're fairly new on the music scene; I can't wait to find out what more is in store from these guys.

In closing, let me just say that music is the 2nd best thing to ever happen to me, and the first thing I ever discovered that made my life worth living for. Oh sure, I loved Guns 'n' Roses, Faith no More, Metallica, Megadeth, Sepultura, Ozzy Ozbourne, etc, and they all helped me get through my adolescence (and god, yes, even New Kids on the Block, they were big when I was pubescent), but the bands above helped me get through my adult years, when troubles were a little clearer, a little deeper and a little more profound than they were when I was a kid.

I'm so bored, looking at the wall....

Before I start this post, let me just get something off my chest -- being a woman having a uterus SUCKS. I'm done having kids, I want this thing yanked.

Okay, I feel better. On to the real post.

I'm so tired of seeing the same shows on Sprout replayed over and over and over. By the time Joseph can talk, he'll be able to recite all 3 episodes of Calliou he's ever seen by heart. FUCK OLD MCDONALD, I'LL EAT HIS PIGS FOR BREAKFAST AND HIS COWS FOR DINNER!

Gary picked up El Shaddai when it was released, and offered to bring it over on uhh... Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember, to watch him play. It's one of the new games I REALLY want, so I was tempted to say yes, but I was in so much pain I had to decline. Hopefully it's not too late, or maybe I could beg him to let me borrow it for awhile when he's done playing. I don't think it's terribly long and involved, just really artsy with an interesting story (and damn good gameplay - the realtime battle system is fucking awesome, and the puzzles are intriguing without being impossible). Gawd I can't wait to get a copy for myself.

I've actually started doing something in Minecraft. I know, Le gasp. So long as it doesn't make me dizzy, I'll keep working on my structure of awesome, and pretty soon I'll probably be helping Magus level an entire area and laying a flat surface. Across a 240+ square block area. OH GOD, THE HORROR. That's ok, at least it'll give me something to do where I won't have to think much. Thinking hasn't really been one of my strong points lately.

Speaking of thinking, my thought processes have been getting slower and slower. It's been increasingly difficult to come up with words, whole sentences even, to describe what I'm thinking. My brain and mouth just aren't making much of a connection anymore. It's a little annoying and a lot disconcerting. It's not terribly easy to blog, either. The ability to communicate in general is deteriorating. Can't wait for insurance, woo.

Sarah's having a great time in school. As it turns out, her fears were for nothing; she's already making new friends, and I don't think she shares any classes at all with the bullies from her elementary school. She sees one of them in the hallways between classes, but that's the most of the interaction. She's already learned the layout of the school and where all her classes are, and she's having less trouble with her locker than she did the first couple of days. Yay for Sarah. I knew she'd be fine, despite all her hesitation.

I ACCIDENTALLY THE WHOLE THING.

Prototypes, The Ramones, and OMG BANANAS!

This morning Sprout (the preschool TV network) has Sean, the only male host, on the "Sunny Side Up Show", the network's weekday morning show. Well, Sean was playing a "lullaby" for a baby chick, turned on the radio, and THE RAMONES starts blasting from the radio. Blitzkrieg Bop, to be precise. Total holy shit moment here, folks. The motherfucking Ramones were on SPROUT. AHAHAHAHAHA. It only lasted for about 5 or 10 seconds, but that was enough to make me love this channel forever. That's better than when Kelly (another host) got stuck in Chica's (squeaky bird puppet) nest. Muahahahahaha.

Joseph followed me into the kitchen while I got my 2nd cup of coffee, and demanded a banana. He brought me the entire bunch, and yelled NUMMY NUMMY at me. So I give him a banana, peel it, and he starts breaking off the peel as he's eating it, so the living room becomes full of banana peel bits that I have to get Joseph to bring to me so the dogs don't decide peel = tasty. Hahaha. (Now, I'm not entirely sure why I felt Joseph asking for bananas was noteworthy enough to blog about.... I just did.)

Sarah's first day of school was yesterday (second being, uh, today, duh) and she's very excited about her schedule. She's got creative writing, performance, and communications as her electives and couldn't be happier. Combine that with Advanced English and she's about as happy as a mouse in a cheese factory. I'm really excited for her. Looks like the year's not going to be as bad as she thought. Hehe.

I've started working on my building on Magus' sister's Minecraft server. I made a prototype on our home server (which I'm not done with yet), but making it on the big server's going to take about 4x as long, since there's no flying there, but our home server allows flying. Gonna have to be extra, extra careful, and /superjump is going to be my best friend for awhile. Magus is making MUCH more progress with his Nobody castle; good god it's like half done already. It's both impressive and terrifying. In comparison, my 'house' is more like a hovel, and my epic structure is going to be sort of... lame. Toothpicks next to the Eiffel Tower. Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Still trying to find time and energy to play a plethora of other games (mostly console) I want to play. and I'm seriously considering picking WoW back up for at least a month, to check out all the new content. There's quite a bit of it, from what I understand. Still up for debate, though, as I don't know if I'll want it for longer than a month, and I don't know if we'd be able to even afford it for longer if I decide I want to keep playing. So we'll see, I suppose.

Again, boring blog is boring.

Everybody Wiggle!

Joseph is sitting calmly on the floor watching The Wiggles. Shocking - he hasn't been calm for two days. He usually has to be in motion... constant, neverending, annoyingly hyper motion. It's nice to have a little bit of a break while he's still awake.

Sarah's in her room doing... I don't even know what. Probably sleeping, she had a long night and morning. Won't go into it here, but suffice it to say, she got into some pretty big trouble and is lucky the neighbours didn't call the cops. O_O Oh, and tomorrow is the first day of school. Exciting!

Life here has been pretty sedate other than that. Absolutely nothing of note has been happening. Dogs are dogs, kids are kids, people are people. God it's boring here. Thank heaven. Boring is good.

I haven't been gaming at ALL lately. Joseph and Sarah leave me exhausted by the end of the day, and I usually don't feel like putting forth the mental effort to game at that point. I think I'm finally going to start working on my Minecraft build tonight, though. I'm going to start plotting some things on graph paper and working on it in the game. I still have to finish my 'zomg it's gigantic' wall around the base of the cliff face my house is perched on. I think I'm going to start building houses dwellings in all the cliffs around the lagoon (epic lagoon is epic). And the walkways, OH the walkways, there will be MANY of them, and they will all be GLASS!

Uh... I might also play some SB3 tonight. I really miss that game. It's more fun to play it with other people, but I still enjoy being the crap out of 'the enemy' by myself. Haah.

Boring post is boring.

Pajamas!

So yesterday was my birthday, and now I'm 32. Not a big deal, 32's not exactly a far cry from 31. It was a mostly good day - A round of "happy birthday" from people. James let me sleep in for... as long as I wanted, actually. I didn't get up until I had to pee. Sarah came home, and I was very excited to see her (and she even brought me some very comfy pjs for my birthday, woohoo). Joseph was really well behaved. Lori cooked a most excellent dinner. James... well, James decided he had to rearrange the living room, right now. It was odd, sitting here on the couch while he's doing a bunch of work, cleaning stuff, moving stuff, etc, so he could get his desk where he wanted it. I thought he was going to die. Haha. (More is going to be rearranged this evening, as it's not done yet. Whee.) There were a couple of snags in the evening unfortunately, but nothing I didn't get over pretty quick. In this house, you kind of have to be resilient in order to survive.

I did, however, miss out on gaming yet again. This is getting irritating. I really need to get my shit together. Tonight it's not going to happen due to more rearranging, plus I need to start plotting my Minecraft build on graph paper after Joseph goes to bed. I haven't even been on the server in days. It's a little depressing, actually. BUT, on the bright(?) side, James no longer needs the PS2 slim (it has a monitor even, woohoo), so I can keep it on the table next to me and use it for KH and DMC and maybe some FF while the TV is occupied with other things. (Assuming I can read the screen, anyway, as it's really tiny.) I'd even be able to play while Joseph is awake, since I'd be able to pause and put it down pretty much whenever. 'Course, I wouldn't actually get much done that way, but at least it would be entertainment other than gouging my eyeballs out with a spork Sprout TV.

Sorry, I'm boring today.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot to mention - it's fucking 75 degrees today. Tomorrow it's going to be 85, yesterday it was 85, but today it's holy shit windows are open and no air conditioner I think I'm going to die in the fresh air day. Awesome.

Fuggit... away with ye, anonymity!

Hey look, another rhyme in my title.

Since I've published this blog on Facebook, I've decided to do away with the 'initials and non-specific indicators' thing I had going on. You all already know it's me, and you already know how much I talk about my family, so... Hell with it.

In other news, I'm very excited to play D2 tonight. Didn't play last night because of early bed, for something that ended up not even happening thanks to... unfortunate circumstances. I feel bad, though, because I'm sure Gary and Magus probably view me to be as unreliable as I view the people the circumstances are based around. What? Gaming? YES! ... Wait, no, sorry. *sadface* But tonight... Aah tonight, yes, I will be gaming, and I will be having fun, and damnit I will be staying up late and sleeping in tomorrow. James can take care of Joseph. Moooooohahahaha. (Hey look, I'm a cow.)

Sarah's staying with her granny for a little while longer. I thought she was coming back today, but it turns out only her friend is coming back, and she's staying for a few more days. As long as she's back by... Oh, I don't know, by Friday, it should be fine. I still need to get her school ID picture and her gym uniform and planner. Oh the joys of middle school.

I... I actually don't really have anything more to say here that wouldn't be flat-out venting and bitching, so I'll let this go at short and simple.

Robots In Disguise!

My son has a little Transformers backpack, toddler-sized, that he just LOVES. The picture on the front is holographic, so it looks pretty awesome when he's wearing it and running around. At first he was scared of it, because, y'know... toddler... never worn a backpack. But once he got used to it he LOVED it. He's sitting on the floor playing with the zipper, getting used to having a bag of his own to carry around toys and diapers and a snack in.

My daughter has an oldschool metal Transformers lunchbox that she's using as a keepsake box. We found it at one of those restaurants-that-sells-everything, and for $10 I couldn't say no. She used it for school a couple of times and gasp got made fun of for it, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. TRANSFORMERS. IS. AWESOME.

My hubby is jealous - his 2 year old and 13 year old have more awesome stuff than he does. Hahaha. He tried to get adolescent girl to give up her lunchbox so he could use it, but she adamantly refused. Not that I blame her at all. I haven't been able to find another like it since. If I manage to find another, hubby will probably be positively ecstatic and jump for joy and shit.

So, Diablo II fell through last night. Yesterday was a pretty stressful day (toddler was acting up all evening), and by the time I was done de-stressing I fell asleep. I felt bad, cause G and M had the host up and were waiting for me, and I totally flaked. Today, I think, is going to be better - toddler's not throwing fits so far today - and hopefully DII won't be a problem tonight. Seeing as how it's the only multiplayer/co-op/mmo I can play right now. I really miss gaming. (Though, speaking of which, now that L has found her graph paper I need to start graphing my design for Minecraft; doing it cold is just tooooooooo hard.)

CHEESE POPCORN FTW!

The AMAZING Buttfloss!!

Why? Why the hell were thong underwear ever invented? Whoever decided we needed something embedded in our asshole for an entire day was a true sadist and needs to be hung. A lot.

Anyway - Smoking in the house has become irregular at worst and nonexistent at best. I'm trying to quit, my lungs just can't handle any more harsh chemical inhalants, so I've been asking hubby to not bring smokes into the house anymore. Sometimes he forgets and brings them home, at which point I will smoke them because I have no willpower, but in all he's usually pretty good about leaving them at work, where he's allowed to have all the cigarettes he wants... on break. :D There was one point not too awful long ago where there was an entire month with no cigarettes except the occasional clove, and I felt really great. My lung capacity was improving again, I wasn't coughing every day, and my singing voice was finally improving. Then, shitstorm things got kind of hectic for awhile and hubby brought cigarettes home. Well, things are finally calming down again, so smoking is becoming less prevalent here again. Whee.

My son has been a total butt lately. He's entering his "I Hate Everything!!!" phase, so multiple times a day there are fits for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Oh, you can't get to a toy in your toybox? Fit. Your blocks didn't stack right? Fit. Want to do something you're not supposed to do? Double Fit. Good grief, it's like God took every toddler attitude problem ever and put them into my son. All at once. The only time he's ever calm is when he's in his highchair having just been served food throwing his food on the floor. It's times like this I'm glad we have dogs, otherwise things would get nasty QUICK. Food squashed in carpet is disgusting.

I really miss my daughter, and hope she's doing ok. Before she left she was having some extreme jaw pain due to teeth (12 year molars? Wisdom teeth? I'm not entirely sure...) erupting, and was able to eat pretty much nothing. I think chocolate milk was her best friend for awhile, actually. But now she's with granny, and I haven't heard from her since she left on Thursday morning, so I assume she's not dead. Update: I just called, and she's fine. Woot.

I played some D2 last night, with M and G. We were on vent (having finally gotten my stupid computer to cooperate, after being remotely accessed and fixed by M, who was at work), and hilariously M and I went AFK mostly at the same time, only I announced I was back and he never did... so I'm alt-tabbed out of D2, fucking around online, and all of a sudden I hear G say, "S, are you still awake?" ... Yes G, I'm just waiting for M to get back. "He's been back for awhile. We've blah blah blah." Nobody said anything! Augh! Anyway, we get going, and after some minor glitches we get some quests done before I pass out. Unfortunately, this is just another instance where I'm following people around who know what they're doing. I'm sure I could figure it out on my own (after all, I am a WoW player), but since I'm playing with people who've already been there done that, I'm wandering around behind them and picking at leftovers, it seems like. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be playing with friends, it just seems like it's going to get frustrating never having any idea what's going on until there's a town portal and the quest is over. (Speaking of town portals, I need to get myself a new wand, now that I've got more than a couple hundred gold, and I also need to get that scepter I found to G, who could definitely use it.) I think I may play on my own for awhile, get used to questing and figuring out where stuff is; then maybe I'll take the lead and be like, "Hey M, G! Over heeeeeeeeeere, ya slowpoke losers!" Haha, okay not really, I wouldn't call them slowpokes, they both really like to run. *snicker* (Love ya, guys, haha.)

TEETH!

That is all.

Human Revolution

After enjoying watching, but not playing, Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible Wars, I'm very much looking forward to actually playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Human Revolution has been in development since 2006 (announced in May 2007), and is finally, FINALLY being released by Square Enix in August.


The graphics are absolutely fucking incredible, in my opinion, but I'm not fond of the art style. It's got a terrific cyberpunk feel to it, with hints of steampunk here and there. The only thing I could wish would be the use of less sepia and more.... not sepia. I think the art director for this game went a little crazy on the "historical picture" aspect. The gameplay looks outstanding, with transitioning between the 4 different pillars exceptional. Also... being a prequel means I won't have missed out by not having played the other 2 games. I also am ecstatic that they're using a regenerative health model, rather than forcing you to halt all activity until you manage to scrounge together enough food or medpacks. Your health won't regenerate quickly enough that there's no challenge, however, so getting through the game isn't going to be a breeze. Thankfully.

Oh, let's not forget the music. The Music, man. The music is fucking outstanding. Reminiscent of Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy soundtrack, the music is one of the things I'm looking forward to most about the game.

Unfortunately, because it's a prequel, the weapons system isn't quite the same. Deus Ex and Invisible Wars both used a single depleting ammo source, whereas Human Revolution will have different types of ammo/weapons, to be upgraded as necessary. Having ammo that could potentially run out during boss fights is going to be annoying, but it will be pretty realistic... for as far as the Deus Ex games are realistic, anyway.

Okay... I had more I was going to say, but it's taken me 3 hours to write this much. I give. There may be more later.

Angel Tears (or not)

RAIN. SWEET, SWEET BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL WET COOL REFRESHING RAIN, OH HOW I'VE MISSED THEE IN THIS HEAT.

Oh, so... it's finally raining here. Temp cooled down a bit, heat wave broke, and there are storms rolling through. I'm so thankful, it's been nearly too hot to function, and so dry that everything died. It's very sad. But with the rain, my rose of sharon are coming back to life, and maybe the grass will turn green again for a minute.

I fucking hate Barney. I really really REALLY hate Barney. And you know, with all the people I've seen that claim to hate it, I have to wonder why the hell it's still on the air after all this time.

I got expensive chinese food last night, and just ate the eggdrop soup that my hubby didn't eat because it wasn't very "flavourful". I thought it was delicious. A little thick for my tastes (gelatinous, even), but the flavour made up for it.

I'm feeling very ADD right now. Can't really concentrate on any one thing, and if I do manage to focus, it's not for very long. I've been getting distracted by the TV, internet, hubby, baby, dogs, etc. I mean... AUGH WHY CAN'T I THINK????

It really sucks being broke. I really wanted to go get some candy last night (was craving something ultra-sweet) but it was a no-go because I spent my birthday money on chinese food and beer (hahahahahah) and didn't have any leftover for sweets. I ended up having some birthday cake ice cream, which was too cold.

My oldest isn't here, she's with her granny a couple hours away. I miss her already, but hope she's having fun out there.

I know someone on the TOR Beta, and all I have to say is this - An Englishman should not have a FuManChu mustache. Not ever.

I have no idea what the hell I'm doing right now. I think this is a sort of stream of consciousness experiment, but gone horribly awry, as my consciousness never streams anything long enough for me to get it down on paper (uh.... monitor?). Most things that go through my head are extremely fleeting.

I think I want to play KH or DMC, but it would probably make my son cry because I'd change the channel while he's sitting in his high chair (if he wasn't in his high chair, I wouldn't care). I really don't feel like upsetting him right now, he was a royal pain in the ass last night and I do not want a repeat performance.

I've run out of boring things to say.

Movie movie movie niiiiiiight!

Not too awful long ago, M and I decided we would start having a movie night at the house. Movie night is where he, the kiddo and I, and sometimes L, will sit around and eat take out and fruit and watch some epic movie or another. It all started with Lord of the Rings. We tried to watch it for WEEKS, but I kept falling asleep because we'd start so late. Solution? Start earlier. Yes. Well, that worked.

It began with a simple desire to watch LotR, and morphed into a weekly ritual of decision making, gluttony, and next-day exhaustion. We've been doing this for weeks now. Hmm.... This would be the 9th week. Going through movies, series, deciding which would be best for movie nights, most exciting, most likely to keep S (me) from falling asleep. This is our progression --

LotR1
LotR2
LotR3
Pirates1
Pirates2
Pirates3
Batman Begins (Pirates 4 isn't out in DVD yet)
Dark Knight
X-Men
(TBC)

The way it used to be was we would get everything we'd need on Tuesday and start the movie laaaaate. Then it became, get everything we'd need on Tuesday except the takeout, hang out on Tuesday, and get takeout and watch the movie Wednesday evening after the little one went to bed. Now it's changed again... Tuesday M hangs out with G, so we do things independently on Tuesday and then Wednesday we do take out and movie. It's, uh.... It's weird, not having Tuesdays as well - to sit and fuck around, or hang out with G here, game, whatever. Odd.

Oh, and hubby's schedule changed too, so he'll now be off on Monday and Tuesday, which is another odd thing about Tuesday. O_O Maybe I can get him to game with me. That'd be kind of awesome. But he's.... quiet. He's a quiet gamer. I don't like quiet during games that should be fun. Le sigh.

SO...... Tuesday night gaming, anyone?

New Versus Old (ish)

A friend of mine posted a blog today about the Sony Vita versus the Wii U.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Sony Vita is Sony's new handheld console that, much like the PSP, can connect/interact with the PS3. In the case of the Vita, as opposed to the PSP, it can send information not only to but also receive from the PS3, can be used in place of a television (good for those single-television homes) when playing on the PS3, is a stand-alone handheld console, has a touch screen, motion sensors, and WiFi/G3 access for on-the-go gaming.

The Wii U is Nintendo's newest handheld console that connects directly to the Wii, can be used in place of a television, has motion censors, a touch screen, and you can play Wii games on directly (the thing is huge). It is not an independent handheld console; it's more like a portable Wii than anything else.

Sony is attempting to dominate the console market, which is fine, I mean, that's the purpose of industry competition, right? But there are some cons along with the pros for the Vita, just like there are some cons for the U.

The biggest con I can see for the Sony Vita is the price tag. Current set price is $250-$300, which may not seem overly expensive for a console, even a handheld, but when you consider the speed at which the gaming industry is developing new platforms, the fact that it's so similar to the PSP is working against it. While it's true that the PSP isn't "backward compatable" (i.e. you can only play PSP games on it, and sync them with the PS3 so they're visible on the television as opposed to the handheld screen) and the Vita is (you can run games on the PS3 and connect to play on the Vita), I can see fewer instances where it would be necessary to play a PS3 game on the Vita. Also, the WiFi/G3 feature will be all but pointless so long as there are no other Vita owners to connect to. The most you're going to get out of it is downloading games, and to store them, the Vita has no internal memory. Yep, you have to buy a flash card for it, which only adds to the cost (because let's face it, are you really going to want a tiny, cheap flash card to store your games *and* saves, or are you going to go for a higher capacity, better constructed, and more expensive card?). All in all, I think the Vita will be a great handheld for those who can afford it and are interested in the potential titles associated with it, but maybe not for the average gamer who finds the PSP and PS3 combo sufficient.

The Wii U is... HUGE. It makes for an awkward controller at best, and based on the way Wii games are designed, with the motion sensor in mind, a hair pulling trial of patience at worst. In order to prevent the motion sensor from going crazy you have to hold it at a specific angle (which is more or less directly in front of your face, parallel to the wall), and it involves full body motion to direct. Nope, no flick of the wrist control as with the basic Wii controllers, if you want to keep control of your game your entire body gets a workout, thanks to the large and unwieldy design. This one's price tag is also brought into question - it's been stated it will likely be more expensive than the Wii, which was $250 at launch. That means the U will be at least $300, if not more, considering it's more or less a high definition motion censored tablet. With the U you'd be able to play Wii on the go (it does come with accessory ports, so no worries there), but I'm not sure it gets any more exciting than that.

And, after the baby demanding I feed him RIGHT NOW, I've lost my train of thought for the rest of this entry. How very uninformative of me.

Router, YOU FAIL

My router is going out. In a BAAAAAAD way. The guys here connected directly by cat5 don't have it nearly as badly as those of us who are wireless. It's a fucking shocker I can ever get anything done online with as often as the router simply refuses to transmit. At first I thought it was my NIC, on my old laptop, but when other people began expressing they were having the same problem, I came to understand swiftly that my NIC was just fiiiiiiiine. Then we thought it was the modem, since my hubby was "directly connected to the modem" (which I believed, and went with), but the cable company said they'd been monitoring the connection for awhile solid and there were no problems. Then the tech told me the modem only has a single ethernet port, so I went to check... lo' and behold, the cat5 from my hubby's computer went where? Directly to ----- THE ROUTER! Yes, his "direct connection" was to the failing router, NOT the modem! So I've been watching the modem for awhile, and sure, it's still sending and receiving like a boss. It's all the router.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO GAME ONLINE WITH AN INTERMITTENT CONNECTION??!! DO YOU???? We had a problem with our connection with Time Warner, because of the lines to the house. Made playing WoW a real bitch and a half. Groups are not supposed to have to stop every room to wait for a member, especially an important one (DoTs ftw!), while in a dungeon. So, we switched companies. The new company is pretty good; no real problems except the occasional download flag. Ugh, but what can you do, worth it for an underground fiberoptic connection. Things have been great until the router started going out. Now I simply can't do ANYTHING. Connection lost. Connection lost. CONNECTION LOST. Connection. Lost. Connection timed out. Retry. Those words make every fibre of my being vibrate with frustration.

Know what's worst? It'll be at least a month before we can get a new damn router. That pretty much eliminates anything important or entertaining I want to do online. It's a heap of bullshit until then. Google. Webcomics. Fucking Facebook.

Shoot me now.

Nerdgasm

I love Jimmy Kimmel. And Harrison Ford.

Jimmy Kimmel Star Wars skit

(scroll to the end of the article for the actual video)

Caffeine and the art of insomnia

I slept mostly well last night, for once. It helped, I think, that I had the whole bed to throw myself across. It did not help, however, that my iPod and glasses were on the pillow next to me and kept falling off. I don't know why I never bothered to move them. But last night was probably the best night's sleep I've had in awhile, despite the constant waking up.

I never did play DII last night. Because... I fell asleep. Hah. But I think I got enough sleep that I can pull a late-nighter tonight, because I'm really looking forward to it. I feel really bad for M though, because I keep saying 'Yeah, I'll play, I'll play,' then it just doesn't happen. He's probably getting frustrated with me. SORRY, M!!!!! *HUG*

Thanks to being sick I've discovered that a whole lot of the games I play make me sick to my stomach. It's mostly the swift, dizzying camera angle changes. Makes me very sad, because I'm really beginning to miss playing. I hate how being sick affects my head. Le sigh.

The adolescent is leaving today, for a whole week. It... actually, it won't be much different than with her here, because she spends so much time either in her room or hanging out with M. I hardly ever see her anymore. I kinda miss her. I'll REALLY miss her while she's gone. I usually do. For the first couple days I'm grateful I don't have to listen to the whining or arguing, but after that I'm like, "WAAAHHHH I WANT MY BABY GIRL BAAAACK!!!" So I love my kids, sue me. Haha.

The baby has been obnoxious today. Took him to the store without a cart, and he decides to grab as much as he can (thank heavens he didn't break anything), and run to the automatic doors to open them while I'm trying to pay. Unfortunately it's going to keep happening for awhile because he's going to have to learn to stay with me while we're out, and the only way to do that is to let him walk on his own. It's going to be a bitch.

I hate getting distracted by the internet when I'm trying to blog. Bye.

No 'Poo, Diablo II, and other things that may or may not rhyme

L found, somehow, found information on the "no shampoo" movement that involves "washing" hair with baking soda and water, and "conditioning" with apple cider vinegar and water. There have been an awful lot of good things said about washing your hair with baking soda, including such things as it gets rid of dandruff and helps ease conditions that cause scalp flaking and sores. So, I'm giving it a go. You're only supposed to wash every few days, and either leave your hair dry or simply rinse with plain water in between, and that's not a problem for me since I don't wash my hair that often anyway. Yesterday was my first baking soda and vinegar wash, and I went into it with *really* greasy hair, because I hadn't washed it in probably 4 days or so. Well, by the time I got out of the shower I was displeased, my hair felt like absolute SHIT, and was far worse after I brushed it and it was plastered to my scalp. HOWEVER, it was VERY easy to brush. surprisingly so... I'd thought it would have been horrible, considering baking soda is drying and well, vinegar kind of is too. Not the case. So, after my hair dried, I was completely amazed to find it not at all greasy, and incredibly soft and smooth and had a lot of body and just... Wow. WOW. There are tons of recipes for baking soda wash, but this is what I used - 1 T soda to 1c warm water, mixed well to dissolve the soda, rubbed into the scalp and rinsed WELL. For the vinegar I used the same - 1 T vinegar to 1c water, just run through the hair (not the scalp) and rinsed. You don't use the vinegar all at once though, haha, you just use however much you need and keep the rest. Don't keep what you don't use of the soda water though, toss that and make it new every time.

Okay, now that *that* boring part's over, I'm about to start playing DII co-op. I've never played it before (I think I mentioned that previously), and I've got a character build in mind that looks pretty interesting. I'm starting with a bone necro, and hopefully that'll work out because necro's a fun class to play. However, if I end up full of fail, my next choice is a cold sorc. Frosty fun!

Been building in Minecraft on my friend M's sister's server lately, with lots and lots of glass, obsidian and stone. And ladders. I'm building in, on and around cliffs, so the only access points will be ladders. Ladders up and ladders down. I'm sure eventually there will be minecart rails, and based on the fact that I'm building very very close to M, we'll probably end up sharing a system and I'll build a hub between our build sites. I might post pictures soon - M's working on an epic build, and I'm just having fun.

It's been awhile since I've really blogged about my kids... The baby's doing really well, he's growing fast and learning faster. Still not talking much though, but that's not a terrible surprise; it tends to run on both sides of the family - kids don't talk until they're ready to talk in full sentences. He loves to "read" his books, and harass the dogs, and run around screaming, and talk on the phone. It's cute. HE'S cute. Now, the adolescent... She's kind of a handful. But what adolescent isn't, right? She's got her own phone now, which is awesome, and I just got her a state ID, which is also awesome; both of those things make me feel better about her being out and about. Her attitude is lessening, and she's getting brighter and generally awesome. She's getting headaches a lot, though. I need to take her in to get new glasses and that might help, but if it doesn't I'm going to have to take her back to the doc for it. Le sigh. But really, all in all, the kids are doing great, and life is generally good around here.

That is all.

PCs, headaches and inconsequential nonesense.

My "new" laptop is working out beautifully. Except for having a bit of a small HD (which I can deal with pretty easily) it runs close enough to the way I want it. It's a bit faster than my old one - faster processor, more memory, better graphics memory, etc. It's odd to have such an improvement but effectively be looking at the same computer (they're the exact same model). I've been using it for several days now, and so far, since I haven't done anything impressive on it yet, the biggest differences I've noticed have been in how fast applications load and graphics in some games. And they keyboard is fucking terrific. I've missed having a keyboard that works correctly 100% of the time. I do my best, but sometimes it's hard to keep things perfect around, y'know, babies. Hopefully I'll be able to maintain this one, though. :D

I slept on the couch last night ("slept" being a relative term, I suppose) for probably about 2, maybe MAYBE 2 and a half hours. The baby woke up SUPER early (5am) and hubby agreed to take care of him for a couple hours and let me sleep a little more in the bed. So, 2 hours, an hour of sleep, and a FUCKING POUNDING headache later, and I end up having to get up because hubby just can't stay awake anymore. Overnights, fine, I understand, but then he tells me how AWESOME he is at his job (woot) and because of that awesomeness he got um... Starburst. His HUGE AWESOME news of AWESOME DOOM was that he got *Starburst* for being good at his job. I was expecting some bonus or something the way he was going on, but no.... candy. I don't even know how to react to that. Especially since he gave me the candy. Hahahahaha! I guess all I can do is laugh, because... well, yeah.

I hate the unpredictability of online orders. Never know what money's going to come out when. Especially when what is ordered doesn't have a release date yet. Fucking TOR.

Okay. We desperately need a new router. DESPERATELY. This one is off more often than it's on these days. I hate the fact that I can't do *anything* right now, thanks to the fact that my internet connection is so damn iffy because the router is failing. It's not so bad for those who have direct connections via cat5 cables, but.... those of us with wireless connections are just screwed.

Time for me to go run errands.

Gaming, you say? Never!

Whelp, there's one week left until my hubby switches schedules at work. One week of "normal" Saturday game. One week until the schedule potentially goes back to hell, and there's no more D&D *again*. *le sighs*

Our friends have been.... unreliable, at best, about gaming. We're supposed to game every week, Saturday evenings, on a steady campaign that was fucking AWESOME, but then they randomly stopped showing up, so we abandoned the campaign. They vanished for an entire month, and suddenly want to game again, right before hubby's shift change. I guess we'll see whether or not this one works out.

It'd probably be easier if we could go to their house, but because our schedule is *vastly* different than theirs, our son is in bed 3-4 hours before theirs, which means he needs his crib. Oh the joys of having a baby, right? Anyway, because we can't head over to their place, it makes for an interesting time trying to get them here on even a semi-regular basis... and *early* enough.

That's been a problem is starting early enough. I mean, I kind of have a life outside of game, I can't stay up until 2-3am gaming anymore. I have to get up with a baby at 6:30am, I have errands to run, things to do during the day. I can't just wait around for something to happen.


In other news, hubby's change in schedule means no more Tuesday night gaming with M and G. M's going to be hanging out at G's most Tuesdays now, and y'know, good for him, but in the meantime, my schedule's completely fucked. I don't take to change well sometimes. Haah. I've asked M if maybe once in awhile we can cancel movie night for gaming with G, and he says it's cool. Awesome. That's a bit in the future though.


In the meantime, I'll keep trying to get better (being sick SUCKS BALLS), and keep trying to get the baby better (cause he's sick too), and hope nobody else in the house gets sick. O_O

Aw, Shucks

Whelp, so much for the possibility of gaming fun tomorrow evening. Yesterday my body decided to give me a big fat 'FUCK YOU!' and I'm getting incredibly sick. It's all hitting my chest right now, but in a day or two it will be in my chest *and* my head, and then a day or two after that it'll be in my face, for WEEKS. In the meantime I'm so exhausted I can barely sit upright. I've been in bed most of the day and L's been taking care of my youngest. This will probably happen tomorrow too, and then as soon as it moves up I'll start feeling better enough to take care of my kids myself.

This really sucks, I was looking forward to some SB3 and maybe LBP2, and watching the guys play DKC. Aah well... can't be helped.

In the meantime, I'm going to drink my juice and go back to bed.

It's DnD!

Spent last night creating a character for a D&D game (3.5ed) one of my besties is running. My hubby was running a game (god I want to finish that campaign sooooo badly!) but he got burned out when our other players became totally unreliable for awhile. Anyway, made a character, completely out of my comfort zone. I typically play an elf or half-elf magic user. This character is a human fighter. Wooooah. I had no idea they had such a small skill set. Drives me nuts! I'm not sure how well I'll be able to handle being not much more than a beat-stick.

I have no idea what my friend has in mind for his campaign, but we're all starting with high stats but otherwise completely standard. 1st level, standard starting cash for our class, we have to buy all our own shit, including weapons and armour, with our starting gold, and that's about all I know. It's been awhile since I've played in a game where we've all started at 1st level. Of course, knowing him it's going to morph into some Lovecraftian horror game where we might as well have sanity instead of HP. Haah.

The Old Switcheroo

God, switching computers sucks. I do it every few years, and every time I forget what a damn hassle it is to get done! I'm on a new laptop (which is a hand-me-down and fortunately the previous owner, my friend and roommate M, left a few things on so I wouldnt' have to worry), and the HD is half the size of my old one. So there's not a lot I can do except store stuff on my external (which I am) until I either stick my external in here (hah, it's a laptop drive in a case, muahaha) or just get a new drive in general. It sucks having no space - my old laptop was a 250 gig, the new one is a 130 (130!!!!! How did my friend survive on 130 gig??!!), and my external is a 320. I'd really like at least a 500, so I've got room for not only my games (yeah, despite my last post, I *do* still own, and play, some PC games) but my music, pictures, videos, and at least a few movies so I don't have to stick them on my hubby's stupid-big 3tb (two 1.5tb really) drive.

Last night I was up until after 4am just messing with all my music, trying to get it into iTunes without all the damn duplicates (don't know why, but when I added my music it duplicated all 3,000 files, aaahhh!!!), deleting everything, re-adding everything, re-making my playlist, blargle blargle. I wish I could say 'fuckin iPod' but y'know, it would have taken more time with just my mp3's than with iTunes. Now I just have to do the rest! Whee!

Pretty graphics, though. That's one of the biggest reasons I switched out, even though this has a smaller HD, is because it's a faster processor with more memory and a better graphics card. All of this means it'll be so much easier to run my more graphics intensive games, like oh say WoW... Heeh.

Some time in the next year I'll probably be taking advantage of my hubby's work program, they have a partnership with Dell and for a 10% down payment you can finance a computer through the company instead of through Dell directly, and the payments are taken out of paychecks instead of your bank account. Awesome Alienware FTW. I Heart Alienware, and fully intend on getting one someday.

Uhmm.... I think I ran out of things to say. My son is being a whiny-butt and my daughter's playing the Xbox, my hubby's out doing yardwork and both roommates are sleeping. Rawr.

A Confession (of sorts)

I have something I need to get off my chest. A confession, if you will...

I am, contrary to popular belief, not a true gamer. I mean, I LOVE games, but I don't play them often, or many. I enjoy storylines, cutscenes, even some gameplay, but most games I'm interested in I'm only familiar with second- or third-hand.

For example - one of my favourite game series in the history of games is Kingdom Hearts. I love the story, the battle system, the puzzles, the leveling system, everything about it. How many of them have I played? One. I own all but one (in English, anyway), but I've only ever played the one (which happens to be 358/2 Days), and not even all the way through. But I know the entire series inside and out. Youtube and wiki are my best friends sometimes.

Another such example is Devil May Cry. Okay, so DMC4 I watched my husband play all the way through start to finish, but the others, I've never even picked up except to buy. I'm *going* to play them... someday. In the meantime, I'm content with knowing the story through other people and teh interwebs.

There are few games I actually play that I enjoy. World of Warcraft I used to play *avidly* (unfortunate financial circumstances have prevented me from playing of late, but as soon as I have the extra moolah, I'm right back on US Kargath, baby! FOR THE HORDE!), Sengoku Basara 3 I really enjoy, even though it's fairly simplistic in both storyline and gameplay (but geez is it immersive), and there are some FPS I've enjoyed over the years. Oh, and Minecraft. I don't know if that even counts as a "real" game, but I FUCKING LOVE MINECRAFT. And I'm GOOD at it. I mean, yeah, what's there really to be "good" at, anyway, right? well, let's see YOU build bridges and minecart railways and grand towers of awesome all over the map while zombies are trying to eat your face and creepers are blowing up your shit! Chea, not so easy now, is it? O_O

A good, good friend of mine is trying to get me involved in the Diablo series right now; as soon as I make the switch to my new laptop we're going to co-op DII. That was the condition for getting the pc - I had to play DII with him. Okay, not a big deal. I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensely; I liked the first well enough. I'm probably also going to try my hand at SC/SCII, even though, y'know, I'm awful at strategy games. I'm always the first army out in RISK... planning is definitely not my thing.

But for all that, y'know what? I'm one hell of a critic. Most of the games I love I know so well, inside and out, that I can tell you what's good and bad about each of them. I can tell you gameplay techniques and strategies, Boss fight how-to's, and the best build for the type of character you're going for. I can tell you why certain games suck and others are the bomb, and I'm *always* up for learning about a new release/future release.

Games are INTERESTING, especially the ones with immersive stories. Which is why, even though I'm not a true gamer, I still enjoy the hell out of a wide variety of games.

So, that's my confession. That is all.

You can call me... GRIMMJOW!

My daughter's been watching a lot of Bleach lately. She's not as far as Grimmjow yet (actually, she's only in season 3 I think, Aizen (Soul Society, pre Arrancar) just died). I dig it - I like Bleach, and it keeps my son occupied - you know, bright colours, loud, funny sounds. Haah.

Speaking of my son, the little butt hasn't been sleeping lately. He wakes up anywhere between midnight and 3am (his usual bedtime is between 7 and 8pm, depending on how long his daytime nap was), and staying awake for anywhere between one and 5 hours. Argh, this stage sucks. I'm thinking I may have to either make his bedtime later, or start going to bed with him so when he wakes up at ungodly:AM I can wake up with him and not be completely DEAD. Oh, and he's been refusing to eat certain foods, and throwing his food on the floor for the dogs, too. The foods he used to love? Floor. If he's not hungry? Floor. If he's feeling silly and wants to watch the dogs go nuts? Floor. RAWR!

I've been exhausted. I haven't been taking my anti-depressants because they knock me out, and I need to be able to be awake if my son wakes up. Usually his dad is pretty good about taking care of him when he's not at work, but on the occasions when he is, I don't want to be left screwed. Heh. So, I've been feeling pretty down lately. If I decide to start going to bed with him, I can start taking them again. Woo!

Minecraft. Is. The. Devil. I've been playing a LOT of it, and now I'm on a multiplayer server with some friends, and we're building everywhere on the map - home bases and Central City, which is going to be our cliffside town. All the home bases are connected to Central via minecart rails. It should be interesting seeing it all come to life. I'm building a castle on my home base, which is taking a really long time and a LOT of cobblestone and glass. It's ridiculous. The admin keeps giving me tools and mats because I run out so quickly. LOL.

My oldest has been really good about doing chores and helping around the house lately. Very few arguements and attitude. I'm very proud of her. She's doing so well. And she's so smart! If I haven't already said, she got straight A's her last quarter of school, and she made the President's Award for Educational Excellence for maintaining a 3.5GPA for 4th, 5th and 6th grades. She's AWESOME!

Hubby applied for a promotion at his job, but since he's been there for less than a year it's hard to say whether or not he'll get it. He's GOOD at his job, one of the best, but that timing thing, man... Hopefully he gets it though. O_O

That is all. I have nothing more to say right now.

Minecraft is balls.

I've been playing Minecraft for a week now, and it's one of the few PC games that I've been well and truly enjoying. I'm learning *very* quickly (I've already learned more about it than the person who introduced me to it, muahahaha), and it's fun to see all the terrain and figure what I could come up with to incorporate the natural landscape into homes and halls and etc. Unfortunately, in all this exploration, I hopelessly lost my spawn point, and can't just die and respawn because I'd lose *everything* I've been collecting... including sugar cane, which is really difficult to find. But Minecraft... STUPID minecraft... has been crashing on me today. A lot. I finally had to give it up for the morning and do other things.

My daughter has been giving us hell the past couple of days. Not sure what is going on with her, but she's been a royal brat; screaming at L, screaming at her dad, trying to "run away" at 5am, etc. It's gotten to the point where I'm tempted to lock her in her room for awhile. I think she genuinely felt bad about screaming at her dad though, which was yesterday morning, because yesterday evening while I was out with M, S took it upon herself to clean the rest of the house after she was done doing dishes. She took care of the living room floor, moved all the laundry in the hallway out of the way so I could get my gimpy ass through on crutches, and started working on her dad's corner. Had it mostly cleaned out by the time we got back from dinner.

L's been really helpful lately too. She's been doing nearly everything, and it sucks that I have to let her because I can't. Every time I try to do things for myself (or the kids), I end up hurting myself more. Hubby's no real help because he's either sleeping, working, or on his PC and generally ignoring the rest of us. It's doubly difficult for me now because I re-injured my foot this morning when I tripped and slammed it down on something hard, right at the injured point. Now I kind of have to start all over.

My youngest has been entertaining, and a pain in the butt, simultaneously. How does that even happen? He does things he's not supposed to do, he KNOWS he's not supposed to do them, and I find it hilarious sometimes. It's really hard not to laugh; sometimes I *do* laugh, then I get a stern look from someone-who's-not-me because laughing at him is only reenforcement of the thing he's not supposed to be doing in the first place. 'Sok though, really, because he's awfully good, regardless of the times he spends blatantly ignoring or disobeying us.

Hum. I think I'm done for now. I have some more personal stuff I want to write about, but I'm not sure if I want to write about it publically. O_O

Sproutalicious

Sprout has some of the weirdest people I've ever seen. God, kid shows are getting weird. (Then again... anybody remember You Can't Do That On Television? Hahahaha.)

So in avoiding putting pressure on my foot, I've managed to pull my left groin. It sucks, and hurts, but I guess it hurts less than walking on my foot, so I'd rather deal with this pain.

I think I'm too tired to blog right now, actually. More after my bloodstream is inundated with caffeine.

Really?

So I'm pretty sure L is insane. LOL. My darling housemate apparently feels it necessary to document a play-by-play of every hour in this (insanely busy) house. What is this I don't even...

Had to get together a bunch of pictures for my mom to take to my grandpa, who is currently in the hospital with pneumonia, and we're not sure how it's going to turn out; we wanted him to see pictures of the kids before anything happened to him. So, a frenzy of uploading and choosing and transferring to a flash drive.

My foot still fucking HURTS. Can't put any pressure on it, still, but at least it's reduced to a dull ache while it's up. Damn tendons, why do they even exist?! Our bodies should be held together by some magical, impenatrable force. O_O

Uh... I'm boring. Bye.

Purple Death

Let me preface this by saying: I HATE BARNEY. But, it's on Sprout, and it's only a half hour, and with my son watching Sprout and being occupied while I'm laid out, I don't feel like changing the channel. That would wreak a world of havoc I'd rather not have right now.

With that said... this morning has already been an active morning, and it's only 8:50. J woke up before 7, and was being really pissed off that he wasn't out of his crib immediately, so I was forced to drag my sorry ass out of bed and hop on one foot over to retrieve him. It was nearly an exercise in futility - I couldn't get close enough to the crib because the bedroom's messy, so my arms were super extended, and... man, my arms just aren't that strong. My upper body strength sucks! (Although, by the time I'm done with the crutches, I'll be able to bench press a damn bus. I'm not exactly a small girl.)

So, J gets up, gets set on the floor, and immediately begins his daily routine of terrorization. First thing he does is go straight to his sister's room, discover her door's open, and start messing with her art supplies. *RAWR!!!* So I'm yelling at him to put it down and come out, because I can't *get* to her room on crutches, and it wakes up L (who, conviently enough, sleeps on the couch). She comes to retrieve him and I go find S and yell at her how pissed off I am, and that I can't stop J from destroying her stuff so she needs to be more careful! Fortunately she understood and we still started out the morning fairly well.

S is ready for school and heads off (looking cuuuuuuuute, she looks so much older than her age sometimes), I clean last night's barbeque sauce out of the high chair and stick J in it, L gets his food, we put on Sprout, and aaaaaaaahhhhhhh, peace and quiet. Coffee, cigarettes, the internet, and a happy baby.

Life is simple, life is good.

Gamers Gaming

Gyoza, sushi and gaming. There couldn't possibly be a better 'relaxation with friends' night than that. Hung out with G, a friend of myself and M, for awhile before M got up; we went out to get the pre-game food, then M got up and we ate and played Sengoku Basara 3 for awhile. Well, it was mostly M and G playing because I just couldn't sit with my foot down long enough to play much, but I still had a blast.

I fucking love that game and I fucking love my friends. G has officially declared me a friend, which is awesome because I'm seriously lacking in the friend department lately. I just don't really have much in common with most of my old friends anymore, so we've drifted apart quite a bit. It's good to have more people around again.

L watched J while I went out with G, and I guess he was pretty good for the most part, but S was horrendous... I'll have to have a little chat with that child about showing the proper respect for authority figures. *shakes head* Oh the joys of adolescence!

Well... I've nothing more of substance to say, I s'pose. Just a good night. :)

The Gimp (part 2)

She calls me Captain Gimpy. It's not even my adolescent daughter calling me this... it's my housemate-caretaker L. WHAT THE FUCKETY FUCK?! Captain Gimpy? Really? LOL. Oh god, she's too much!

The Gimp

So today.... today I'm gimpy. A lame horse. I should be put down with a bullet to the brainpan.

To explain - yesterday, I tripped over a curb I didn't know was there. I went flying into a wall, but while I was trying to right myself (or at least not take a header into the concrete) too much strain was put on my left foot and I tore my plantar fascia. For those that don't know, it's the tendon that makes the arch of the foot - connected to the heel and ball respectively. I've been having problems with plantar fasciitis for awhile already, so it was already strained to begin with. Now it's torn. Not completely separated, thank goodness, but it's torn enough that I can't bear any weight on that foot, save a minute amount on the ball of my foot.

Thus, I am on crutches... crutches that M bought for me out of the extreme kindness of his huge, mushy heart of doom. I fucking love him.

L, not having a job at the moment, will be taking care of the kids and myself pretty much full time until I'm able to walk again. I fucking love her too.

Hubby will still be going to work full time since L is here to help out with J and S, which is good because we really can't afford for him to take the time off.

I hate being a useless lump. I despise not being able to do things for myself; not being able to take care of my kids myself is even worse. This is probably one of the most awful feelings in the world. I can't even get my own damn coffee, L had to make it for me. O_O

I hope this heals soon. Standard healing time is around a month, I think, and then begins the "physical therapy". Since I don't have insurance, I'll be doing it myself.

Aaaaaand, I just got news that my grandpa's in the hospital with pneumonia, so I'm done with this post.

From the Day You Were Born...

Everyday life. Me, my family, my friends (what few there are right now).

Y'know, there's so damn much I could say here. Hubby and I have 2 kids - adolescent daughter and toddler son, and 2 housemates - younger woman and same-age man. Holy shit, what a life, right?

Things get complicated with this many people in a 900 square foot, 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house. Like, who gets a shower first? Who gets to go to the bathroom first? Where will everyone sit? Sleep? (Fortunately the male housemate lives in his own space in the basement, so seating and sleeping aren't so much an issue for him.) We're also short a computer - one of the laptops fizzled out - so now there's the question of PC time as well. There's no privacy, for ANYONE except adolescent daughter (she's the only one with her own bedroom without people tromping through it at all hours).

It's not as bad as it sounds, really. It can get interesting, but it's kind of nice being surrounded by so many people. Of course, it's also irritating as all hell, but kind of nice nonetheless. Hubby works full time, man-housemate works full time and woman-housemate helps me take care of the kids (for the sake of easier typing, we'll call them M and L respectively).

We're all gamers, even adolescent daughter (we'll call her S). Toddler son (J) is getting there - he likes to sit on daddy's lap while he's gaming on the PC and hold onto the spare Xbox360 controller and "game" with him. It's pretty cute, I even got a video of it... at the time, I think daddy was playing a game that actually required a controller, even, so it worked out well. I mostly play D&D, but I thoroughly enjoy WoW and some console games. Not much for PC games, more of a PC reader. Hubby plays PC, console and tabletop all, M plays FUCKING EVERYTHING, and L is much more selective (pretty sure she only plays FFX, SIMS and Katamari, haha).

Hum. I guess I don't have anything of any real substance to say. I never do, really. Guess I'll write when I have something, but there's the basic rundown of my life. Busy house full of mirth and gaming.