Rant/Rave.
Things are okay. Not fantastic, not great, but okay.
I'm starting soon at a new Panera Bread location here in Venice. The pay sucks, and I'll probably need to begin a new part-time job soon to swing the grand a month that I'll need to live with a modicum of comfort. I've been assigned to learn how to make their flatbread pizzas. Hurray. I get to stand around a hot oven and shovel pizzas in and out for several hours every day. I shouldn't complain, though. I'm glad to have a full-time job.
This Friday I begin moving out of the house, into a spare room being rented to me by an acquaintance from the Venice Little Theatre. Finally, out of the house and mostly on my own.
Speaking of the VLT, our production of "The Rocky Horror Show" was such a success that we're being brought back for an extended run next year. Huzzah.
I'm back into the dating scene. I've been on two dates with a girl from the "Rocky" cast. Her name is D'ariel. She's very nice, very cute, and tremendously smart, but I'm not sure that I feel any sparks. Sure, we need more than two dates to figure out if things are going to become interesting or not, but it isn't at all like when Alisa and I first met. It was flirtatious and intimate almost from the beginning. I'm just not sure what it will take to push this new venture forward.
Finally, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords could be retitled Puzzle Crack: Addiction of the Druglords and still accurately represent its effect on me. If you're unfamiliar with the game, I shall illuminate the subject for you:
It is the classic puzzle game Bejewled + RPG elements. You choose from four character classes (Druid, Knight, Warrior, and Wizard), each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses and gains its own spells. (I like the Knight.) You take turns with an opponent clearing items from the board. Matching gems earns you mana of the same color (red/fire, blue/water, yellow/air, and green/earth), which you use to cast spells. Matching skulls does damage to your opponent, gold earns you money, and purple stars net you extra experience. As you gain levels, you put points into Elemental Mastery (of which there are four kinds, one for each element), Battle (which increases your skull damage), Cunning (which earns you extra gold, experience, and determines combat order), and Morale (which increases your hit points and experience bonus). Items, spells, and Morale can give you percentile resistances to elements, which harms your opponents' abilities to cast spells that use a particular element. You can take your character into Quest mode, in which you battle your way through a rather stale but pleasantly uncomplicated plot, earning awards, gaining companions, and building up an empire if you so wish. You can also avoid Quest mode entirely and manually or automatically choose opponents. Your experience and equipment carries between both modes.
The game has plenty of flaws (bland plot, too many unskippable battles when walking around the map, uninteresting/unnecessary spell/item creation modes), but the concept is so original and the flaws so rarely a deficit to the main quest that I haven't been able to put the game down. When I close my eyes I see a field of gems, stars, skulls, and gold. It is available for the Nintendo DS and the PSP. I have the DS edition. I can't imagine playing it without the stylus, at least not easily.
I'm starting soon at a new Panera Bread location here in Venice. The pay sucks, and I'll probably need to begin a new part-time job soon to swing the grand a month that I'll need to live with a modicum of comfort. I've been assigned to learn how to make their flatbread pizzas. Hurray. I get to stand around a hot oven and shovel pizzas in and out for several hours every day. I shouldn't complain, though. I'm glad to have a full-time job.
This Friday I begin moving out of the house, into a spare room being rented to me by an acquaintance from the Venice Little Theatre. Finally, out of the house and mostly on my own.
Speaking of the VLT, our production of "The Rocky Horror Show" was such a success that we're being brought back for an extended run next year. Huzzah.
I'm back into the dating scene. I've been on two dates with a girl from the "Rocky" cast. Her name is D'ariel. She's very nice, very cute, and tremendously smart, but I'm not sure that I feel any sparks. Sure, we need more than two dates to figure out if things are going to become interesting or not, but it isn't at all like when Alisa and I first met. It was flirtatious and intimate almost from the beginning. I'm just not sure what it will take to push this new venture forward.
Finally, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords could be retitled Puzzle Crack: Addiction of the Druglords and still accurately represent its effect on me. If you're unfamiliar with the game, I shall illuminate the subject for you:
It is the classic puzzle game Bejewled + RPG elements. You choose from four character classes (Druid, Knight, Warrior, and Wizard), each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses and gains its own spells. (I like the Knight.) You take turns with an opponent clearing items from the board. Matching gems earns you mana of the same color (red/fire, blue/water, yellow/air, and green/earth), which you use to cast spells. Matching skulls does damage to your opponent, gold earns you money, and purple stars net you extra experience. As you gain levels, you put points into Elemental Mastery (of which there are four kinds, one for each element), Battle (which increases your skull damage), Cunning (which earns you extra gold, experience, and determines combat order), and Morale (which increases your hit points and experience bonus). Items, spells, and Morale can give you percentile resistances to elements, which harms your opponents' abilities to cast spells that use a particular element. You can take your character into Quest mode, in which you battle your way through a rather stale but pleasantly uncomplicated plot, earning awards, gaining companions, and building up an empire if you so wish. You can also avoid Quest mode entirely and manually or automatically choose opponents. Your experience and equipment carries between both modes.
The game has plenty of flaws (bland plot, too many unskippable battles when walking around the map, uninteresting/unnecessary spell/item creation modes), but the concept is so original and the flaws so rarely a deficit to the main quest that I haven't been able to put the game down. When I close my eyes I see a field of gems, stars, skulls, and gold. It is available for the Nintendo DS and the PSP. I have the DS edition. I can't imagine playing it without the stylus, at least not easily.