Dark Times

I was bored, dropped into a Best Buy, and there are some dark times ahead in my future. I've played some time sink, and time heavy games, but with my most recent purchase, I'm pretty sure I'm set for all of 2014 with the rest of my bookshelf that I haven't touched.

Joining my bookshelf of awesome is-

And

Now for those that don't know, Mass Effect has been argued as one of the best, if not the best, game for ps3 in existence. It's one of those games that if you haven't played it, you can't quite be quite of the gamer community. The play time isn't what you would expect out of an RPG, where other ones like Skyrim take 80+ hours, but it's still respectable as an RPG with a great space opera story, that people love.

Then there is Disgaea D2.

This is essentially Disgaea 1, part two.

For those who have never had to worry about Disgaea, it's awesome, but it will suck your life away for as long as you let it. Disgaea 4 is part of the reason that I have a bookshelf that needs to be played through, as I dumped easily over 200 hours into it. It has no end. Even the 'end' of story, is obviously only the real beggining of the fun that can be had with the battle system.It expects you to dump 100+ hours into it. It expects you to break the battle system, do millions of billions of points of damage, and then challenges you to do more.

Let's just do it this way in explaining it. Every item can also be a dungeon. The further you get in the dungeon, the stronger the item gets. EVERY ITEM. Every potion, every shield, every food, everything that you can pick up and put in your inventory, can also double as a dungeon. Not to mention the level cap is 9,999, and once you hit that cap, you can rebirth and do it all over again as a different class. That means your fire mage can transform into a axe weilding, gunslinger, fire mage hybrid, just because you felt like it, and have 9,999 levels in each of those, picking up all of the skills and benifits of each class.

It's icky, and it gets icky fast.

Happy 2014?

Found it!

I was looking for this a while ago, but I want to put it here in case I ever need it again.

http://i.imgur.com/z0PZm2H.jpg

Angels

While working on DA, I keep thinking about the angels story, and I want to work on it, but even in my subliminal thinking about it, trying to figure out exactly what would happen, I still can't make it that interesting.

I like the story, I like the idea, I just need to make it interesting enough that other people would want to read past the first few pages. I just need to figure out a hook besides fighting against the man, and the semi- bro-mance that the two characters have.

With that in mind, if I ever start rambling on about the angel story, just know that I'm officially not working on it, but it's the one that I'm trying to figure out the most which makes it most likely for the next story that I work on because I REALLY, REALLY like the angel story.

Poop and Vomit

Ahhhhhh, finally home. This is going to be a long one.

It's a great feeling to be back home. Being able to use my computer. Having dedicated internet, without having to try to hack through some password that no one remembers (ours is quite a memorable one if you ever want to steal ours, it made the internet customer support lady make me spell it four times just to make sure that it wasn't something else).

We got home, realized that our house sitter does nothing to actually take care of our cat (poop still on the couch, no water or food in his bowls, dreadfully full box) but were happy to be back in our apartment with our stuff. The only down side to this is that Addison is not feeling it. Apparently she hates the car ride just as much as we do. She came home, got fussy, and then did her projectile vomit again. It was just like what she did our first night in Vegas, so I don't know if she's feeling better (like I thought), she's back where she started, or it's 6 hours in a car seat and a few thousand feet in elevation being changed that makes her want to vomit.

I'm really hopping that she's just as disgusted with the trip as we are.

Other fun thing from tonight (since I'm really up after the vomit attack) is a thing from Facebook. I don't do Facebook often, but when I do, I have lots of fun.

First- a friend of mine from gs.c (Icy) linked me as a person in a glowsticking video of his. I'm not in the video, but my mother in law was really confused as to why my name was tagged in the video, but I wasn't there, and had nothing to do with the video. Lawls to that one.

Second- Icy again, posted something about #QWERKOUT. At first I was really worried that it was something about Miley again being stupid, but then I was pleasantly supprised that it was something put together by Gammer, and is a really good set.

"This is some obligatory hype talking that all sets seem to have. Wabbly wabbly woo! Okay, now back to some hardcore" 13:00 mark for anyone who is lucky enough to stumble their way over to http://www.djgammer.com and get the set for themselves.

Finally- in talking to Alicia we were trying to figure out where we are going to be moving. Neither of us want to be in Vegas, I don't want to be in Utah, and she doesn't want to be in California. This leaves very little room for us to live that's still in the 500 mile circle around Las Vegas so we can be close enough to her mom. However, while talking to her, I brought up Arizona.

She thought it was a lot further away than it actually is, and that none of the towns were really that big. (I wanted a bigger town so that we could have something to do besides sit at home, and also alternate job options in case we didn't get the job that we were looking for at first glance).

Phoenix seems to be a winner, and is now a serious canidadte for a place that we could be moving to if we get jobs there. It has a bunch of colleges, universities, and techincal schools. The pay for Alicia teaching at the middle or high school level is MORE (that's right, MORE) than what she's making right now at New Haven. This is a big one considering that New Haven is paying her significantly more than what teachers here in Utah make, so this is a double plus. What makes it even one step further is that the pay that she was reading about is for first year, underqualified, teachers. She'll be walking into this with a level two license which makes her all flavors of fancy, and she'll possibly get paid more. Not only is the pay great for her, but the universites that she was looking into have great pay as well for me, AND there is also the benifit that there are nearby treatment facilities if Alicia wants to work in treatment still.

So yeah. . . Phoenix is on the list now. Now all I have to do is learn how to spell Phoenix because I keep spelling it Pheonix and getting a red squiggly line.

A bit short

Over the holidays I've been a bit short, and not so picture intensive with what I've been putting up here. A lot of that has to do with the lack of internet at both grandparents houses. Apparently it's near impossible to remember your wireless password for your son/son-in-law. I don't know why it's that hard, I just know that for old people, remembering what they put as their password so that other people can use it, just seems impossible.

For those five of you that are reading this, sorry it hasn't been more exciting. Work is going to get going soon, which means that I'll be getting bored more often, which means much longer and better posts.

So Odd

Christmas is one of those things that I know is difficult to buy for me. I know these things, and I know that if I can think up a present before the holiday season, I'm going to tell you about it so that you can't tell me in December just how hard it is to shop for me.

I had a great Christmas, it was nice, nothing too crazy to talk about, but it's one of those things that I put in requests for months earlier, and nothing. Not complaining, just odd.

As for school coming up, I don't want this vacation to end because that would mean that I have to get back to school. I know that I'll be able to do it, I know that I'll pass, but it's just scary with it getting close to the end.

Today I went clothes shopping, and I was looking for things that I could wear to an interview or potentially to a teaching job. I was talking to the store clerk, because they were asking about my pant size, and I said I was looking for pants for a teaching job I was looking for. She asked what grade I was going to be teaching, and I responded the university level.

For me I can say that and it doesn't freak me out. I want to be a professor. I want to teach people that have made it through puberty and can stand on their own feet without mom and dad. I want to be able to teach something other than teenagers. I have the biggest respect for teachers that can teach at that level, but it's not for me. As for the clerk, I said I was looking for university level clothing, and she sort of did this stutter step back/ double check and looked at me like I was crazy.

Given, I was wearing a shirt that had Addison snot on it, and wasn't exactly in the most professorly of clothes, but it was just funny to see her reaction. New goal- try to find this outfit- because we all know that this is what true professors wear.

Oh I Just Can't Wait. . .

To be king?

Not quite.

I can't wait to be back home, working a normal schedule again (or at least as normal as it can be). This holiday season has been chalk full of bleh.

As much as I love Addison, she's been a fusser the entire trip, thanks to being sick and starting out the entire thing with some good ol' fashion projectile vomit.

Alicia, has been great, but at the same time, she's been in a semi-rut thanks to her mom and the holiday family drama that has happened with grandma buying way more than Addison could ever use, and Alicia commenting that it was a lot, and then grandma taking it personally.

My family has been significantly bleh as well. My dad is getting over being sick so he's even less social than normal, and my mom is trying to be as happy as possible, but even she is sort of out of the whack of the holidays.

It's just sort of been a bleh day for the holidays.

The weird part about this was that a lot of the grandparents were talking to me about my writing. It's weird talking to family about writing. I can talk to perfect strangers and co-workers about it, but it just seems weird for family members who traditionally have never paid some/any attention to my writing, and have considered it trivial, and non-existent, as something serious. It's a very odd, difficult, bizarre, transition from my parents thinking that it was just something weird that I was  doing, to something that they can openly talk to me about as a serious option.

It hasn't been a horrible trip, but it hasn't been a great one either. It's just been entirely- bleh.

Prodigal Son

Today I had a 'prodigal son' type moment.

There's a person in my life, who was an idiot. They wrote me letters telling me that I was brainwashed and that the church wasn't right, and all of this other stuff, and we went our separate ways. We used to be good friends, and then he went bonkers, and so I didn't contact him and sort of let him be bonkers without me.

Today I ran into him at church.

I know that I should have been happy.
I know that I should have welcomed him back with open arms.
I know that I should have been super excited to have him back and have him realize that he was being a bit crazy.

I couldn't do it.

Super Healing Powers

Addison was sick last night, and was running a super duper temperature. She was hot, and not feeling great, so I sat with her the majority of the night. This leads to one and only one reason that she is healthy now.

She didn't get healthy from sleeping 20 out of 24 hours.
She didn't get healthy from drinking lots of fluids.
She didn't get healthy from the excessive use of Tylonol.
She didn't get healthy from all of our attempts to break her temperature with baths.

With scientific accuracy, I can calmly say that it was the 6 hour marathon of playing FFX while cuddling with me that cured her.

Sixth Sense

Addison has a sixth sense, and it's not being able to see dead people.

Without fail, Addison will wake up and start crying whenever we finally fall asleep, or whenever you're awake, waiting for her to start fussing, and you finally decide that it's been long enough, and she's been asleep long enough, that you can start watching/reading/playing.

For example I had just barely loaded up HoN, deciding that a quick game would be great. I haven't played in months, and after continually watching it at work, I decided that I'd give it one more shot. I got to this point where I was waiting for a game-

- my waited time was just about where the 'average' wait time is, and then knowing that I was about to get in a game, Addison woke up screaming.

I calmed her down, got her back to sleep, and booted up FFX, because I knew that Ni No Kuni wold mean that she'd wake up by the time I loaded into it and walked two steps. I went into 'waste time' mode and started a game of blitzball. I wasn't expecting to get past the tip off, knowing that Addison would wake up and I wouldn't have to worry about it, but I started playing wasting time.

Three games later, I realize that Addison isn't going to wake up, so I close out and start to work on DA. I get a paragraph in, and she starts crying. I go and calm her down, go back to my computer, type another sentence, and she wakes up again.

Once putting her down, I went back to FFX, and screwing around in the game doing nothing of value. Every time I would get sleepy, thinking I'd head back to bed, she'd start to cry. Every time I'd try to write, to do something productive, cry. Every time I'd screw around and do nothing, perfect silence.

Overtime

I look forward to the day that I have a job that requires me to work overtime. I am going to eat it up for everything that it is. As much as I like my job, it's a push over. In the scale of how serious my job is, it scales slightly above a clown on a unicycle.

When do I come in? Whenever I can.
When do I clock out? Whenever I need to.
How many breaks do I get? How many breaks do I want?

All things considering, my job is happy to have a warm body that will do the job, and they're not that picky after that point. It's a great thing to have, but at the same time, I feel like I'm getting slightly taken advantage of at the same time.

This is my third time that I wrote this rant, and seeing as no matter which way I write it, it starts to get picky and things get messy, I'm not going to go into it so I can save myself from unneeded arguments in the near future. Let's just say that I look forward to being able to work a full work day, if not a few extra hours at the end of the day. I think it will be a very interesting day when I call home and say that I won't be home for an extra hour or two because work has kept me and I have to finish something because someone just wanted to talk to me. 

Let it Soak

There is a minor problem with a certain someone's cleaning tactics. If you can't clean it, or if it looks dirty, just let it soak.

Now, this is a good tactic if you come back to it and clean it.

IF

Now the problem about this tactic, is that if you don't come back to it, you just get a fermented pile of soap and grime when you come back a few days later. Moral of the story, don't let something just sit there and say that it's soaking, if you don't go back to it.

Maybe it's just me. . .

. . . but has anyone noticed the not so subtle Ni No Kuni psychology lesson?

It could just be that I got done with a theory course and I'm just seeing things that were never meant to be seen, but according to Freudian theory, things start going weird our minds create fantastical elements to cope with them. This is his explanation to ghosts, god, and a few other things. The idea is that if things aren't right with us, then we go out of our way to try to explain those things, even if it means tapping into the extraordinary to make those explanations.

This idea that of fantasy and mental troubles being related can also be seriously shown in great games like Silent Hill 2. Kill your wife, live in a spooky fantasy of hospitals and nurses with an ever growing threat of knowing that you were the one who killed her via Pyramid head. It's Freud in a horror game.

But as I play Ni No Kuni, Freudian theory starts popping up all over the place. Son having a complex about his mom, loving her more than anything. Something happens to his mom, so instead of focusing on reality he retreats to a fictional fantasy to try to solve the problem. Even as part of his fantasy he connects the two together saying that reality can affect the fictional world, and the fictional world can affect the reality of it all. That people and things can be similar between the two, but a lazy cat in one can actually be a lazy cat king in the other.

It's an interesting story, and I'll keep playing just to see where it goes, but it really makes me wonder if this is an E for everyone type game that gives you added bonus points for understanding it at the philosophical, psychological, literary theory level.

Fixed It

I changed a bit of the layout because I wasn't exactly thrilled with how things were laid out before. It's not perfect, but I thought that it'd be better than what we were dealing with before where you'd have to click on each post if you weren't reading the most recent one. That was annoying to me, so I got rid of it.

Whenever I'm working on this blog I'm either super bored or super sleepy, so I'm trying to figure out a way to modify it a bit more, like putting di.fm as part of it somewhere, but I'm not sure how to do that, so I'm just playing with stuff as I go figuring it all out.

If the blog ever goes down, it most likely means that I'm screwing around with it and broke it somehow, just give it a day and it should be back up.

Finally Figured It Out

One of the problems that I was runnign into with DA was that with Omel, I didn't know what exactly he was doing. With not knowing what the villian of two story lines was doing, sort of meant that I didn't know where to point my heroes.

Luckily yesterday I managed to figure out what he was going to be doing. The first thing that I decided was that the middle dream is going to be in the 50's.

Because, let's be honest, it's going to be hilarious for Pia to have to be a 1950's housewife. That's just going to be fun, also it gives people a bit more freedom and liberty to do certain things. 20's versus the 50's, I'm going with the 50's.

As for what Omel is going to be doing. In the 50's he's going to be stealing random things, as well as parts for a few fertalizer bombs. Seeing as they weren't exactly a 'big' thing back in the 50's, he's using modern tech in an old dream.

He'll get off a few of those, and then start stealing and putting together his grand finale, with a dirty bomb. They'll catch him before the dirty bomb goes off, but that's at least his story in the 50's.

In castle, he's working on a revolution/rebellion against the current king. This is also how the 4 of them are involved because Britney finds out, tells Pia. Pia then goes to David and Kendel to try to get their help, and thus we have the 4 people that are trying to stop the duke from doing what he's planning. This will also make for some great fun in the middle when Pia's life is on the line because people are trying to stage a rebellion against her dad. Yay for finally figuring out what the story is actually about!

Cold in C

Thanks to living in Sweden, cold in my mind is always related to Sweden. It's the first place that I really dealt with the really cold, and had to do so way more often than I wanted. That means that cold in my mind, is always understood in C not in F.

This means that when people are talking to me about how cold it is outside and they say that it's -4 or something like that, I don't get impressed. -4 really isn't that bad. Now if you were to tell me that it was -20 outside, I'd agree with you and tell you to bundle up because -20 is chilly.

So, if you're ever talking to me about weather, and want me to react properly, keep in mind the simple rule. 

If it's over 50 F, keep it in F. If it's under  50 F, transfer over to C because I don't know have any understanding just how cold 5 F is, but I do know quite well how cold -15 C is.

Sleep Police

I am the sleep police.

Apparently no one in this house is allowed to go to sleep unless I'm awake.

I was getting sleepy when Addison was going down for her night, and Alicia was wide awake. That meant from 9:00 until 11:00 Alicia was tossing and turning, saying just how tired she was but couldn't sleep, and keeping me awake.

At 11:00 Addison joined in on the fun because Alicia finally started to get sleepy and actually go to sleep, and woke up screaming. I mean, full fledged, someone was trying to hurt her, screaming. I've been with her for the past two and a half hours trying to get her to sleep.

Now it's 2:00, both of them are asleep, and I'm wide awake. I forced myself through the first wall with Alicia. The second wall got destroyed because of Addison, and now I'm wide awake, staring at my computer, not wanting to turn on the TV in fear of the noise.

Guess it's time for only one thing-

Don't Trust Myself

With work being so boring today, I started to edit old stuff that I wrote.

When I wrote it, I thought that it was good. I even thought that it was publishable and worthy of attention, but now that I'm reading it again, and combing through it trying to fix everything that is wrong with it, I'm starting to seriously second guess my goal in life to be published. Seriously? That's what I thought was worth mentioning?

It doesn't make sense. The story isn't that great and there is nothing keeping the people reading it attached to the character. He doesn't have anything that the audience can really connect with, and so I'm starting to second guess it all.

I'm hoping that it's just me being in a funk and that there really is some merit in what I'm writing, but as of right now I'm second guessing this whole thing and I just want to hit the delete button to some of the things that I'm writing so I don't have to worry about them ever again.

I won't, I've always promised myself that when I'm dealing with writing that if I've put ANY amount of effort into writing them, that I'm going to keep it. I keep everything so that if at some day I'm feeling super masochistic, I'll be able to come back and try to polish it up and see if it's something that I can work with.

After editing so much today, I'm having second guesses about my future as an author.

Final Fantasy, it alays comes back to you

One of my first games that I ever played on the PS1 was when I was working at a scout camp and a co-worker had a ps1 and TV that they smuggled in. I can also trace this back to my midnight playing habit. When people were asleep I would pop in FF VIII and start playing. I didn't make it that far, but it's constantly been on my list of games that I need to re-address and bring back into my life and finish.

The only problem with saying that I have to work through 8, is that I honestly need to bring some attention to 9 as well.

 If we're being honest the only FF games that I've put the time into and throughly beaten have been 7, 12, 13, 13-2. That means that I (as a person who loves completion and finishing series) should go back and do 1-6, 8-9, 10, 10-2, (NOT 11, that's an MMO, doesn't count) all before I try to touch 13-3.

It's a grand idea, but my desire to do that, and invest time and money into each of those, isn't worth it, so I'm going to sit happy in my ignorance, and when I finally get done with my shelved games, I might go back and reconsider doing 8 and 9. I'm not going to worry about pre-7 games. They're before my time, and not worth worrying about. 7 is where the series starts in my mind, so that's where I'm starting my list. Plus, 8 and 9 both fall into the category of games that I've started and really want to know what in the world happens by the end of the story. I just want to know what happens. I don't need to 100% them, or do anything too crazy, I just want to see the end of the story so I can finally know things like if Vivi is a clone or not, and also why in the world the garden in 8 had a dinosaur in it.

That isn't going to last

I went to sleep, I woke up, and then I realized that there isn't a chance in the world that I'll pass up a good JRPG like Ni No Kuni.

I thought that I might be able to bounce back and play some FPS's, but then I came to my senses, took a good long sleep (all five hours of it) and woke up this morning to realize that I was being stupid. I won't be able to stand a FPS right now, not after the fiasco that was MVC 3 from last night.

Now the only question is; do I want to play the RPG that I'm slightly cautious about (Dragon Age) or dive straight into the one that I'm actually really looking forward to (Ni No Kuni). After playing through 3 games (way more than that if you count every single one in the collection) I'm thinking I'm going to branch out and play it safe.