What a world, what a world...

To ring in the new year, Ohio had a 4.0 earthquake, Japan had a 6.8 earthquake, thousands more blackbirds died in Arkansas, and there was a huge fireball visible across 3 states (not in that order, of course). 2012 is the end, man, so everybody get down, put your head between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye!

Or not.

The new year here hasn't been nearly as eventful. James worked, Magus worked, Joseph slept, Lori passed out and was sad she didn't get any champagne, and I decided to buy TOR. Well no, that's a lie. I decided I liked it enough that I might buy it were the option available to me, and James informed me I don't have a choice - he's using his Christmas money to buy me TOR AND Skyward Sword. It's very sweet, and very rare that he uses his money on anyone but himself, so I'm feeling a bit honoured right now. :) Of course, this does mean that I'll have to get a subscription which costs the same as WoW, and I have no hope of ever playing WoW again, but... Oh well, sacrifices, you know?

A little about my TOR 'toon, because I can: Her name is Shi'luun and she's a Sith Sorceror, level... almost 11. Haha. She's going to be Lightning spec'd, mostly because I'm not interested in heals and I'd have no idea how to play the Madness spec. Plus, DPS FTW! And my companion makes it pretty easy for me to solo group areas and quests. Of course, I'm still only level 10 so it's hard to say whether or not that will continue to be true, but groups are pretty easy to find either way. There's always someone lfg, and it's great that the people who play TOR are, so far, very nice. General chat isn't full of bullshit, spam, and insults. Woo!

I'm going to be playing with James, so uh, my current toon will soon be no more since it's currently on HIS account, BUT, the new toon will probably only have a *slightly* different name; the rest will be pretty much exactly the same. Wish I hadn't used my good name on James' account! LOL.

Ok, this post was going to be longer, but alas, I have to go to the market. I am in dire need of diapers and apples.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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.