A... Dragon Quest!?
Ah, has it been more than a week since I last updated again? I guess there's no real reason, since it's not like I haven't had some free time, but I suppose I've either had very little to say or been otherwise engaged. Such is life; rarely 'tis so that one had exactly the time one needs and wants, but no more. But an entry is necessary, I suppose, since I still have time to write it, which might become a scarce commodity once classes commence next week.
I have nothing much to say about last year, in retrospect, aside of that I'm now in a better position in basically every way than last year now, which I imagine would be a given, since I have the full use of my legs now, among other things. Last year, it must be said, was far more wintery, though - it's only now that snow has come since the late October storms, and I'm having doubts whether it'll stay, as the temperatures still aren't freezing. It scares me to think that this might be the extent of winter this year - it can be that I won't get to slay snowmen this year at all! ;_; This, all around, is not a great sacrifice, however, as I'm quite pleased by the notion that I can probably continue biking to my university classes now, making my life that much simpler.
And what of these last few weeks? I think I've finally actually commenced one of my writing projects, but that aside, there's nothing really new to tell about; still spent lot of time playing games and figuring out that guitar. From amongst my New Year's tins, the other was quite inscrutable, except that from one direction it had the impeccable profile of a dragon's head (I guess I... tend to see that a lot in my Near Year's tins) - nonetheless, 'tis an omen that has already come to fruitition, as I will come to explain. The other, quite remarkably, was in the shape of a trollish head, the highlight being the mouth, where in fact was a see-through hole in the unique shape of a Jack'o'Lantern grin. I can't wait to find out what that represents.
On the gaming front I finished Tomb Raider: Legends, which was a very fine game; very fun to play, nice amount of secrets without being overbearing, excellent control, good visuals, effortlessly cinematic battle sequences, deliciously horrible Hollywood cheese soundtrack, endless amounts of smartass oneliners - "the evil coathanger empire" *snerk* - in general, a perfectly replicated Hollywood action movie sensation, perhaps even more so than Resident Evil 4. And this while the game still accomplishes a reasonably clever plot that works in the context of its predecessors. Best of all, though, the game is exactly as long as it stayed fun, and no longer. It doesn't have the class of the first Tomb Raider, but otherwise it's virtually a flawless game. I wish more developers would make games like this, that go to such great effort to please to the point of having all boring, pointless parts cut off.
The other significant thing about the last few weeks, I imagine, is that last week I spent two days babysitting my cousins, which was fun, although quite exhausting. My cousins seem to have developed a fair fondness for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies to go along with their liking of Star Wars, so the days were mostly spent in running around the house having swashbucklin' lightsaber duels, hiding treasure, looking for treasure, examining treasure maps to aid in search of said treasure, having more swashbucklin' lightsaber duels to gain posession of the maps, and mutinying against... me, generally speaking. (My ability to quench said mutinies was compromised by the notion that apparently, skeleton zombie pirates can regenerate lightsaber damage.)
Well, I'll see them again in a few days, for the youngest one's birthday is this week-end. Thus a couple of days ago, I embarked on an epic quest with my mother to find him a present! I guess... toys really haven't changed all that much in most ways in these years; someone's just put "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the side of the boxes, it seems to me. It's funny, even the plastic swords we looked through still have basically the same model as the ones I used to play with ten years back. But one thing stood out, however - for as Fortune would have it, from a great pile of plastic toys my eyes found a great dragon! I took it and examined it, and lo, the elder beast had a wingspan of two feet! The cool thing is how you can bend around really easily, and the wings and the arms have some kind of wire in them that allows them to stay in the shape you put them to. Aww, I never had one like this! I guess when it comes down to it, a big part about buying presents for young children is looking for all this stuff that you would have liked to have. =D
Incidentally, on that very same trip, I ran into the girl from my archaeology classes as I was making my entry into one of the geek-oriented book stores in town, whereupon we proceeded to descend into another nice hour-long chat before she had to leave for the exam she was in town for in the first place. Coincidence or fate? =3
I have nothing much to say about last year, in retrospect, aside of that I'm now in a better position in basically every way than last year now, which I imagine would be a given, since I have the full use of my legs now, among other things. Last year, it must be said, was far more wintery, though - it's only now that snow has come since the late October storms, and I'm having doubts whether it'll stay, as the temperatures still aren't freezing. It scares me to think that this might be the extent of winter this year - it can be that I won't get to slay snowmen this year at all! ;_; This, all around, is not a great sacrifice, however, as I'm quite pleased by the notion that I can probably continue biking to my university classes now, making my life that much simpler.
And what of these last few weeks? I think I've finally actually commenced one of my writing projects, but that aside, there's nothing really new to tell about; still spent lot of time playing games and figuring out that guitar. From amongst my New Year's tins, the other was quite inscrutable, except that from one direction it had the impeccable profile of a dragon's head (I guess I... tend to see that a lot in my Near Year's tins) - nonetheless, 'tis an omen that has already come to fruitition, as I will come to explain. The other, quite remarkably, was in the shape of a trollish head, the highlight being the mouth, where in fact was a see-through hole in the unique shape of a Jack'o'Lantern grin. I can't wait to find out what that represents.
On the gaming front I finished Tomb Raider: Legends, which was a very fine game; very fun to play, nice amount of secrets without being overbearing, excellent control, good visuals, effortlessly cinematic battle sequences, deliciously horrible Hollywood cheese soundtrack, endless amounts of smartass oneliners - "the evil coathanger empire" *snerk* - in general, a perfectly replicated Hollywood action movie sensation, perhaps even more so than Resident Evil 4. And this while the game still accomplishes a reasonably clever plot that works in the context of its predecessors. Best of all, though, the game is exactly as long as it stayed fun, and no longer. It doesn't have the class of the first Tomb Raider, but otherwise it's virtually a flawless game. I wish more developers would make games like this, that go to such great effort to please to the point of having all boring, pointless parts cut off.
The other significant thing about the last few weeks, I imagine, is that last week I spent two days babysitting my cousins, which was fun, although quite exhausting. My cousins seem to have developed a fair fondness for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies to go along with their liking of Star Wars, so the days were mostly spent in running around the house having swashbucklin' lightsaber duels, hiding treasure, looking for treasure, examining treasure maps to aid in search of said treasure, having more swashbucklin' lightsaber duels to gain posession of the maps, and mutinying against... me, generally speaking. (My ability to quench said mutinies was compromised by the notion that apparently, skeleton zombie pirates can regenerate lightsaber damage.)
Well, I'll see them again in a few days, for the youngest one's birthday is this week-end. Thus a couple of days ago, I embarked on an epic quest with my mother to find him a present! I guess... toys really haven't changed all that much in most ways in these years; someone's just put "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the side of the boxes, it seems to me. It's funny, even the plastic swords we looked through still have basically the same model as the ones I used to play with ten years back. But one thing stood out, however - for as Fortune would have it, from a great pile of plastic toys my eyes found a great dragon! I took it and examined it, and lo, the elder beast had a wingspan of two feet! The cool thing is how you can bend around really easily, and the wings and the arms have some kind of wire in them that allows them to stay in the shape you put them to. Aww, I never had one like this! I guess when it comes down to it, a big part about buying presents for young children is looking for all this stuff that you would have liked to have. =D
Incidentally, on that very same trip, I ran into the girl from my archaeology classes as I was making my entry into one of the geek-oriented book stores in town, whereupon we proceeded to descend into another nice hour-long chat before she had to leave for the exam she was in town for in the first place. Coincidence or fate? =3