The Game That Changed My Life (TGTCML)

This is post 6 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Aywren, one of the Blaugust participants, posed an impromptu writing prompt on her blog asking:

Do you have a game you feel changed your life? Blaugust about it!

Contrary to how I view gaming now, gaming was not a big part of my life growing up--I classified myself more as a geek and nerd than anything (and I still do, don't get me wrong). But it's not like I didn't game, either.

As I've mentioned before, it's not like gaming wasn't a part of my life growing up. I played Berenstain Bears on 8-inch floppy while in pre-school. I was one of the first kids with a computer in school. But while gaming was something I did, it wasn't as big a defining part of my life.

I loved to game--I played Pokemon on my gameboy; I played Mario Kart on our N64; I purchased a PS2 to try out various games... but they weren't the only thing I did.

What girl growing up being born in the 80s didn't want to marry Jareth?

As a kid, I mostly read. And if I wasn't reading, I was watching a fantasy or sci-fi movie (that wasn't too scary). And when I wasn't watching a movie, I was out in our back yard, pretending to be in the fantasy world--whether it be near the trees or in the pool. I mostly saved video games for when I was out with my parents and bored, or when we had friends over. Sometimes my brother and I were allowed to play the N64 together, but it wasn't very often. Looking back on it, my parents were pretty strict with monitoring our play time as kids (not that it bothered us much as we had other outlets).

As a teen, while I played more games on the PS2, and kept playing on the N64/Gameboy video gaming was not a defining factor of my life. Again, I was a big reader. I was also very involved in my high school--I was in musicals, and plays, and band, and choir. I even wrote for the school newspaper for two years. I was in lots of clubs, and was involved in community theatre during the summer, as well as working various summer jobs.

My favorite Sailor Moon villain.

While I spent a lot of time online, it was mainly writing fan fiction (primarily song-fics), or working on a Sailor Moon Villains website (I was kind of obsessed--and I still am!), or creating dolls (you remember those--they were pixel models without hair or clothes or sometimes eyes, and you had to digitally add everything), or designing websites for fun, or lots and lots of chatroom RP.

It wasn't until I hit college in 2005 that I really started to get into gaming. I joined some clubs and started using my PS2 more. I started playing more games with my (now) best friend, and we would have girl-nights where we'd play games, watch movies or anime, and binge on pizza. Despite this, no one game caught my interest as something that would keep me gaming consistently. When we gamed, it was mainly multi-player games, and if they weren't multi-player, we'd take turns when one of us died. While I remember having fun with all of them, none of them quite left an impression on me.

When I transferred to a different college in 2007, I discovered World of Warcraft. And that is a story of it's own. So look for Part 2 later!

Hero's Journey

Independence Day-Weekend

This weekend was a lot of packing, and a little bit of gaming. Thursday we didn't game any, as we had dinner out with some friends. Friday we didn't really video game either, as we hung out with a friend in the morning, argued with our apartment complex in the afternoon about our notice to leave (I won't get into details, but it's aggravating beyond measure, and we're being taken advantage of, but that's better than trying to deal with anything legal and drawing it out plus costing us even more money), and Friday evening/night we hung out with some friends and played a bunch of tabletop games. In particular, we played a few rounds of Five Tribes, which was a lot of fun, but not something I think I'll master any time soon.

Saturday was chores, and a bunch of packing, though I did get onto WildStar for a bit to run some normals with some folks (then went back to packing), and then about five or six Vet Dungeons to hit my Elder Gem cap for the week, as I hadn't really done anything to get any. Sunday was raid night, so I spent some time working on perfecting my Frenzy/DPS rotation, which helped me out some. We got Experiment X-89 down lower than last week, however, we did lose quite a few people towards the end of the raid. I'm sure it didn't help that we set it up for a Sunday night over a Saturday night. Positive is still trying to pin down the days that work best for the most people, so we may have some more nights that differ until it's settled (for a while, at least).

Last night was more packing, as well as hitting the gym. I also spent a fair amount of time playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on my DS. I forgot how much fun it is! I bought it ages ago, and my mother brought it with her when she came to visit in May. I had apparently left it at their house when I moved, so it was nice to have it back! Chaide also bought me Pokémon Pearl over the weekend, but I had to go switch it out yesterday, as whomever turned that particular copy in just took a Spyro game and slapped the Pokémon label on it. Probably for more money on the return. Jerks.

Hero's Journey (#GSHerosJourney)

While tracking my food this morning on LoseIt, I decided to check on how I was doing on my "Walking to Mordor" challenge (I'm... not doing so well, haha) and stumbled upon a challenge focused on the Hero's Journey program over at Darebee. I decided that the challenge looked neat, so I joined (it starts today--wish me luck!)!

I tweeted about how neat the challenge looked, and Nephsys piped up that she'd love to try it out, and we should offer it as a challenge for the Greysky Armada FC folks! So, after some interest, we've decided that we're going to do just that, and I'll be heading it up!

So, what is it? It's a 60 day exercise program that has RPG elements to it. You choose weapons and companions that give you bonuses, and can choose to take bonus quests, etc. The weapon you choose determines extra exercises you do, and you earn points based on the intensity of your workouts. Some days have you choosing which actions to take, and based on your actions, you do specific exercises. And some days, depending on what path you choose, you get Karma Points (scroll to the bottom of the linked page, but don't look until you hit that particular day!). It's a really neat concept overall!

While I will be starting today to coincide with my LoseIt challenge, we will be starting up for the FC on Monday, July 13 (unless folks are inclined to begin early, or you stumble upon the challenge late--in which case you're welcome to join!). This is also open to folks that are not in the FC, per se, but know folks from the FC that would like to participate in the challenge as well.

I have a Google Spreadsheet going for those that would like to participate, and I will get the link to you either via Twitter or Email to add your progress--just hit me up on Twitter, or leave a message here! I feel like the Spreadsheet is set up fairly self-explanatory, but here's a quick screencap and details:

Twitter Handle: Your Twitter handle. If you don't have one, feel free to fill it out as: N/A
Adventurer's Name: The name you're going by!
Are you wearing Body Armor?: Within the challenge, you can add wrist and leg weights to increase the intensity of your workouts, and earning a bonus for points. Let us know with a Yes, No, or Sometimes
Weapon of Choice: There are six weapons to choose from for the challenge, and they all give you extra exercises to do throughout the sixty days. They include: Heavy Sword, Hammer, Bow and Arrow, Lasso, Red Ribbon, and Magic Ring. They focus on specific areas and/or equipment, so choose what's appropriate for you and what you have access to! (EDIT) You can also choose to forgo without a weapon after Day 3's initial Weapon Practice.
Level 1, 2, or 3?: Based on your prior exercise experience (or current routines), you can choose which level you'd like to participate at. You will maintain this level throughout. (EDIT) You can change this at any point, and add your points accordingly. If you do change levels, please note in the Day with what level you changed to!
Day 1, Day 2, etc.: This is where you will track the points you earn based on the points chart. Based on when you start this challenge, people may be ahead or behind you. Don't worry about what day other folks are on--just focus on your sixty days!

So, what do you get for completing it? I'm going to make up a snazzy badge for your blog/social media page! It'd be awesome if you chat about your progress on your platform-of-choice (Twitter, blog, etc.) as well. It could be a daily quick-post, or it could be a weekly post talking about the challenges you ran into for the week, the Karma points you got, etc.

So, why are we tracking the points? Because it's part of the program, and who doesn't like to know their Score at the end of the game?! But there won't be anything for it--because all of us will be winners as we gain better healthy habits!

To better track those participating, please use the #GSHerosJourney tag when you share your updates/blog posts on Twitter! That way we can offer support and encouragement (and a little bit of competition!) to one another as we progress!

Will you be joining us on this Hero's Journey?

Third Sub

Gym Battle

The long weekend was pretty nice. I have found that when I have more time to spend with Chaide, the less likely I am to take the time to blog. Which is great, because I love spending time with him, but I don't take the time to do something else I love, and won't take all that much time away from hanging out with him. Ah, the dilemma.

Anyway, this weekend I decided that I really needed to join a gym. Working out at home has turned into not working out at home. And my back is paying for it. To the point where I was considering seeing a chiropractor (which freaks me the hell out for various reasons we shall not get into). So I did some research of gyms in the area, and found one that's 24 hours, just opened a new branch in the area, and will have classes soon. So we tried it out.

And I found that I really liked going to the gym. I do think it helps that it's (1) a smaller gym with front-desk folks that already know our names after two visits, and (2) one of the front-desk folks has been a personal trainer and musculoskeletal therapist for thirty years, so he's been teaching me exercises and stretches.

Two days after working with him (for free, mind) my back feels a million times better. So much better, in fact, that I feel like my walking posture is different. So yeah, my back was pretty tight... I didn't go last night, as I had to go back to get my hair undercolor re-dyed (we Gingers do not take well to dying, so she had to up the volumizer... again.) but I plan on going tonight when Chaide gets off work. It also helps having a gym buddy to keep me accountable. Even if I don't go every day. I'm really blessed to have a husband that supports me trying to better myself like he does. Like, really really lucky.

DSi

Monday, Chaide purchased a used DSi for me from one of his friends from his courses at school. I have the original DS in all its bulky glory, but I've been using it mainly to play the few GBA games I still own (mainly Monster Rancher, though I have a copy of Pokemon Emerald I have yet to play). So now on top of the four DS games I currently own (Brain Age, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Rhapsody (which is totally a blast from the past type thing, because I played that on a friend's Playstation!), and Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All), I have four new ones (Animal Crossing: Wild World, Animal Doctor, Super ScribbleNauts, and Nintendogs: Lab & Friends)!

Granted, I may trade in some of the ones I got to get something else, but I have more games to play. In which case, I may have a DS small enough to fit into my purse and be carried around for lunch break purposes (did I mention the original is kind of unwieldy?). Though I may alternate between reading one day and gaming the next.

Anybody have a DSi? Any games you'd recommend that would play well on it? In fact, what Game Boy Advance games would you suggest? I'm bummed I sold my Game Boy Color way back when, but at least I can download an emulator...

Doctor Who

We've been catching up on Doctor Who, as well. We had finished Season 7 and were kind of like, "Meh". Smith took forever to grown on us, and the season just felt lackluster compared to prior seasons (though we like Clara a tad bit better than Amy, but Rory is still the best Companion in the 11th reign). We hadn't watched any Doctor Who since watching the last of Season 7 months ago, as we don't have cable.

So over the past few days we watched the 50th Anniversary episode, the final Matt Smith Christmas episode and the first episode of Season 8. For the record, we haven't seen any spoilers on any of this, so it's all new to us. How did we avoid spoilers, you ask? Well, for one, our friends who watch are also (mostly) the binge-watch types, or we don't see them often enough to hear about it weekly. Secondly, we just kind of avoided social media for the big episodes.

The 50th Anniversary was amazing. I thought it was very well written, and tied up a lot of questions I had, and even some I didn't. I loved the cameo, as well. The Christmas episode, however, was terrible. What the heck was I even watching? I just... it started off with so much promise! And then POOF! It was terrible. The only bit I did like from the episode was when they confirmed that the tenth doctor technically regenerated twice. It gave me great pleasure to hear that because I've been arguing that with some friends IRL for ages, and they've been poo-pooing me.

As I've only seen one episode with Capaldi doctor, I'm not too sure how I'll like him. So far, I think he's a good cast, and I'm looking forward to the second episode of Season 8 because it's a space episode, and we haven't had one of those good space-horror episodes since Donna, really.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Jhi'salith the Chiss Imperial Agent

On the gaming front... well... we picked up SWTOR. Yep. And I really tried to play it F2P. I did. I truly did. And... it sucked. It sucked so bad. So, we subbed. However, even being a sub account, I feel  completely nickled-and-dimed on everything but the story. So whether I will stay subbed or not, we shall see. I will at least do so to level to max level.

I'm playing an Imperial Agent (Marksman), and I'm enjoying her. I did have fun with the story, and completed the first flashpoint. I do remember some of the things we did when we first played in beta/release, and they have made changes to make it a tad easier. There are things, however, I've found in WildStar and FFXIV that I miss not having in TOR. But I think that's kind of run of the mill when you play multiple MMOs.

I was also extremely upset to find out that same-sex-romancing hadn't yet been implemented (that I could find), because I can totally see my character's personality (or how I play her) jiving with Kaliyo. However, a WildStar guildie did say they think it comes into play later on in the game (possibly the expansion) so we shall see. I was also a bit miffed with all the Light Points I kept getting with my choices, when I completely didn't see them as being a Light Side choice. It feels like you either kill something to get Dark Points or do something manipulative (and possibly darker intentions than killing someone) to get Light Points. What if I'm just being strategic because I'm a damned Agent?!

Like, in my story arc, you could flirt with someone or kill them, so I decided to flirt with them to make them go away. But I got Light side points. Uh, what? Manipulating someone like that is just as dirty as killing them. And then saving the Cyborg in the flashpoint to interrogate him seems much more evil and sinister than killing him outright. In fact, killing him seems merciful in the situation. So, really, BioWare, what the hell constitutes a light or dark situation in your algorithm?

Annoyances aside, I do think I'll enjoy the story, and there will be a bunch more screenshots on the blog. In fact, here's a bunch! (Also, is it possible to hide the UI during cut-scenes?)

Drop 5 Shenanigans

So this past week in WildStar has been a lot of fun! Why, you ask? Drop 5 happened Tuesday!!

Tuesday

What was the first thing I did when Drop 5 happened?

Well, went through my bags, bank, costumes, etc., but then just kind of putzed around Thayd. I'm one of those folks taht doesn't like to do everything new the first day because (1) it's a little overwhelming to try to absob all the changes at once and (2) there's usually bugs no matter how thoroughly things are tested on a PTR. It's the same with pretty much any game.

I finally found the Cheese while working on challenges in Thayd!! I now (finally) have the title "Tha Big Cheez". It took long enough. Only almost a whole year since the game was released!

Thursday

I had to skip out on gaming on Wednesday because I had things to do for work. It was a bit of a long week with trying to finish projects before my vacation next week, so it was a tad stressful. Thursday, though, I made sure to stay online to complete the entirety of the Lightspire event in Defile. It's the first time I've ever finished it!

Possible spoilers ahead for the starts of wrap-up for the first Big-Bad of the game, even though it's just a bunch of screenshots.

Friday

We had our normals night on Friday and ran a bunch of normal dungeons for folks. It's always lots of fun to be able to help guildies through at-level content. I think I ran about four normals, and another group or two got about four in as well.

We also unlocked some more buffs (and some flasks!) through our influence gain (we had full influence for the first time ever!). I'm excited to unlock the remainder of everything, as we initially focused on just unlocking five bank tabs. Which we are also making great use of.

So, technically, I haven't done much with Drop 5 stuff except working on some Contracts, which is a lot of fun! I can't wait to unlock all the rewards!!

Little Big Planet 3

Chaide bought us Little Big Planet 3, and I've been having some fun with it. I haven't gotten very far into the game, but it's a lot of fun so far! I'll need to attach my PSN account to Raptr to track my achievements. I also discovered that you can stream straight from your Playstation 4... so I might look into putzing around with my Twitch account and possibly streaming some Little Big Planet 3 as Chaide and I play co-op or something.

Real Life

My mother arrived in town yesterday and we spent a good chunk of time unpacking her car (full of things she brought down that was still in my old room), and then we took a walk around the square after getting her some lunch. There's a new Bubble Tea place in the square, which I am hooked on already.

Mom is in town! At the square with some bubble tea! #TinyBubblesTeaTime pic.twitter.com/5JjumPm8ix

— Chestnut Stonebough (@ggchestnut) May 9, 2015

This week I won't be doing much gaming with my mother in town. I will, however, be posting more photographs than anything in shorter blog posts about the shenanigans we get into.

Guess Who’s Back: Life In Retrospect

Oh, I love how I keep saying “I’ll blog more,” but then never get around to it. I’ll get better about it eventually. Life, overall, has had quite a few ups and downs. And very little time for gaming.

Life 

Feel free to skip this. I don’t normally bemoan or mention real life much online, as I feel they should be as separate as they can be. However, life has been such a rollercoaster since November, that I felt it was best to get it all out and be done with brooding in my head. Please, feel free to skip this section.

In November I lost an okay job in what I thought I wanted to be my career. It wasn’t the best, they weren’t that great with having work for me to do, but it was still income that I was helping to support the Elephant and myself with. I picked up a job in childcare a few weeks later, and it was, again, an okay place. Long story short, the environment amongst the teachers was horrid—nobody wanted to be there, and it was extremely catty.

It’s okay, though, because they laid me off in January after being out two days with a bilateral ear infection (which is terribly painful, I might add) with a doctor’s note. Then I found a great home at a childcare facility that made me question what I wanted to do with my life as a career. When I started college as an undergrad, I wanted to teach Elementary school. Then after a not-so-great experience, I questioned it, decided to just finish out my degree because I was so close, skip my student teaching and teaching certification and fly right to graduate school. In graduate school I wanted to work in the Training and Development world. So I searched for jobs in that field while still working at the childcare center. I found on the end of April that I thought was going to be a great fit. Three weeks later, it turned out not to be so when they let me go with the only reason being, that I “wasn’t a good fit”. So now, I am back to the job hunt. All I need is to find a job in childcare again and I am okay. The problem is that everyone is off from school so numbers are down and they have part-time summer staffers that will go back to school in the fall.

Despite all this, some positive has happened and come of it. In February the Elephant and I were engaged!

We plan to be married in July of 2013, but we are currently holding on planning any more due to our current situation. I’ve also finally realized what I want to do with my career at this point in time. It may have taken quite a bit of time after graduating, but I have finally figured it out. I do want to be in Elementary school, teaching. I am currently looking into a program in my state that will allow me to work for a year while being paid as a specific type of teacher where I essentially finish my student teaching and other courses I may need in that time. Employment isn’t guaranteed, as most school systems that partner with the program will hire certified teachers over those trying to become certified, but I know something good will come of it. It’s one of those rare moments of clarity one has in their life.

See? Positive note.

The Blog 

It’s obviously been somewhat dead. “Somewhat” being an understatement. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things, but I am not going to hold my breath.

I do want to update the layout but I am without a copy of Photoshop, and am desperately searching for even an old copy, if someone has one they are getting rid of, or what have you.

The pages definitely need an update considering my gaming as of late. The blogroll still needs to be created, let alone “updated”. So it’s on the to-do list.

The Computer 

Last time I wrote, my computer was having issues playing the SW:TOR beta. Now, it’s just having an overheating problem in general. But I can’t get it fixed, so I cut gaming short after about four hours or my computer will go kablooey for another few hours. Just let it cool down for a half hour and then back to it. We can’t figure out what fan it is with the problem, but we know it’s a heating issue.

Gaming 

Console and Computer
The Elephant and I have said “goodbye” to WoW. It was a bittersweet departure, but it was necessary with life. After we moved in October and I started a job in January, our time was too caught up in other things. We weren’t prepared for raids like we should have been according to our own guild’s rules, and we felt like a detriment to the raid in general. Besides, who needs a Bear and a Tree when you can have a Death Knight and a Priest?

So we kind of ghosted off WoW. We miss our guild a lot, and we keep in touch with a few members. But most don’t use the site, and after we shut vent down because we couldn’t afford it, we haven’t really had a way to keep in touch aside from activating our accounts again. It works out, however, because we aren’t particularly interested in Mists of Pandaria. Our new game of focus is EVE, and we even just created alt-accounts. We are in a new corporation that focuses on mining, with some mission running and some incursions coming in June. We’re having a blast, and it’s a good distraction from life. The people are a riot, and we have fun. Like when we started playing WoW together.

We want to play some SW:TOR but neither of our computers can handle it, so we haven’t even really been keeping up with it. I am interested in eventually playing some STO, but it again, hasn’t been high on the priority list. We’re still working our way through Skyrim, but we’ve also been enjoying some LEGO: Star Wars. It’s a fairly difficult game despite its “kid” feel and marketing. I’ve kind of raged over it a few times, too. Yeah… go me! We really want Diablo III, but again, his graphics card can’t handle it, and my computer will crash with the overheating issue just starting it up. It also doesn’t help not being able to afford it. So we pine away as we watch everybody else play it. The Elephant did get a key from his best friend’s husband for Torchlight, and he is enjoying the shit out of it. I have been playing the Torchlight II beta for the past day, and can’t wait to purchase it when it comes out.

Tabletop
The Elephant recently decided to DM a 3.5E game, and we had our first game. Only one person could make it, sadly, so we’re holding another this weekend to get everyone up to par for the next full game. The world is pretty neat—sort of a clean slate thing going on after an “apocalypse” (The Wounding) which was essentially a World War kind of deal between Elves and Humans. Now they’re at it again and we’re in the middle of it. In the meantime we’re trying to find out why kids have been captured from a town and ran into some Undead. I’m pumped to play some more of my Gnome Bard—Pofty Xyratris Dragonflinger. Oh yeah. It’s going down.

Books 

I’ve not been reading very much due to a hectic life schedule, and I severely want to get back into it! I’m currently trying to finish up The Amber Spyglass so I can start on the humongous pile of books on my bedside table.

You didn't believe me, did you?

Wrap it Up 

I am sure that I will again disappear for a while. Once I am finally accepted into the practicum program, I will be working a second job so that the Elephant can finish up his degree sooner, and we can pay for our wedding. In the meantime, look for lots of posts on things I’m doing, both gaming and not. And expect some wedding-splosion at some point or another. Just sayin’.

The Week in Retrospect: SKYRIM!!!

So, to keep myself blogging at least once a week (hopefully more?), I plan on posting about what's happened during the week for me regarding gaming, and possibly real life if it isn't too personal or something. (There's only so much one can be willing to put on the Interwebs, right?)

The Blog
This week I spent some time updating the blog layout. More minor tweaks than anything. Changed some colors around so they weren't so ouchy on the eyes (which I discovered with a new monitor were quite ouchy) as well as elongating the banner and hosting it on a (really small) personal space I had during grad school. It was somehow pixelated when I uploaded it through Blogger, and I couldn't figure out why since it was a 100% quality JPG. But, it's all fixed now.

Next on the list is updating the Pages (especially the Games tab), and putting together my Blog Roll/Link Love. I have so many blogs that I follow that it's a somewhat daunting task, but I'm hoping to get it squared away tonight if I am not needed in the alt-Firelands.

The Blogosphere
I've recently hopped in on Angelya's IntPiPoMo challenge, and am excited to post more shots. There are none today because of this post (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it), but I'm readily uploading images to ScrnTAG (my new obsession) and have set up the order I want to post certain shots.

World of Warcraft
Not much has gone on in WoW, lately. We're now 6/7 Heroic modes, and have made a few attempts at Heroic Rag, but we're not going to push him like mad. For one, it's the Holidays, and for another, we don't feel the need to down him prior to 4.3. We're cool with trying to get him before 5.0, or maybe later. Who knows.

We did spend Thursday night running through BWD heroics. We'd only downed two bosses at level in BWD before shit went down with members and the guild had a mini-implosion with the raiders, but we went in and spanked all of them except Nef and got lots of achievements in the process. We decided to forgo Nef this week and instead grab the achievement on him since we didn't have it.

We also did quite a few quick gearing/alt runs in BoT and ToFW in which we got a bunch of achievements for people once again. Even a few that some mains didn't have.

Tonight is night one of two of our gearing/alt Firelands run. I'm hoping to be able to sit out since Shaelee now has her 4-pc for Resto and let those that still need gear have a go. I'd like to maybe run some dungeons with guildies that still need them and finish putting together my Enchance set while the rest of the folks are in Firelands.

Or maybe level an alt. My newest one, Maagie the Forsaken Mage has recently dinged ten and I'm itching to play her some more. I just love Frost mages. I've been Frost my entire time playing Mages and won't play anything else--I just couldn't get into Fire or Arcane back in TBC. I also have tons of rested on my baby Warrior, my Sunwalker and my Hunter and Rogue. I should probably eat that up so I can get more...

Other Games
Last month the Elephant and I started playing EVE Online with a fellow guildmate. We're having a blast but haven't played much the past few weeks due to moving and work and such.

We also haven't played much because of... SKYRIM! Yes, we've both been bitten by the Skyrim bug. I think our entire guild has. Gamertags are being exchanged and Skyrim talk abounds in guild chat throughout the day.

Much as I dislike Elves, I am playing a Wood Elf (I wanted the Archery bonuses) that is a member of the Companions. I won't spoil anything but all I can say is, eventually do the Companions quest line--even if you roll another character or some such. The goal with my character is to play more of a "Thief" archetype with Archery, but still be effective in close combat situations. It's working well so far.

I've been watching the Elephant play a lot of the Mage quest lines related to the College, and they are freaking cool! The amount of work that went into this game is amazing. The Elephant is playing more of a Destruction focused Dark Elf Mage. All casting all the time. I don't know that I could do that. It doesn't have the balance I like. But it's still really cool to watch because he rocks at Console games. Well, he rocks at games in general.

Books
I haven't had much time to read while playing Skyrim, but I've recently started a new book: Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite. I've never gotten into Vampire books before. It just wasn't my thing. My thing is all Dragons all the time, or Fantasy with a bit of political intrigue and war thrown in the pot. I'm enjoying the book so far, and it's had a few twists I didn't expect.

The book took some time to get into. I didn't expect the writing to be nearly as decadent as it is. I plan on finishing the book because I love the characters and want to know what happens, but I don't know that I'd read any more Vampire literature. To me, it's like eating the stickiest, sweetest chocolate cake that never disappears. Y'know, maybe that's not the best way of putting it considering many people like Chocolate more than I do. But you catch my drift.

Wrap it Up
I honestly don't know how to end these. I'll have to work on that. So if you have ideas, let me know. But for now, it's off to the alt-raid to see if I am needed and then work on other things and get ready for tomorrow as it's an early day.

Xbox Addiction

The boyfriend (whom you shall come to know as the Elephant) has "moved in" his Xbox to my apartment. My PS2 lovingly bit the dust a few weeks ago, and the Xbox has since become a DVD player. On non-school and work nights he's over here anyway, so he's not missing out on it too much.

He also brought over all his games, and they're currently sharing shelf space with my DVDs. I was reluctant at first...but I gave in. Yes, I did. I gave in wholeheartedly. Gone are the days where WoW rules my existence (sort of). I have been playing Fallout 3 and Eternal Sonata to my little gaming heart's content.

Gears of War, Assassins Creed and Bioshock are all on the "To Play" list. And as I browse more GameStop games, the "To Buy" list keeps getting longer, and longer and...

Now I understand why my brother always argued with me about how the Xbox trumps Playstation. Also, a free month trial of Xbox Live Gold? Yeah, 'nuff said, foo'.

Though, I do still lust after a Wii--$36 and some change in GameStop credits towards it and counting. It's going to be a long ride.