(no subject)
Yep. Still alive. (Dammit, now I've got that song stuck in my head again...)
The holiday weekend was an entertaining exercise in wasting time. There were really only three notables:
1. Read Brandon Sanderson's Elantris. It was his debut novel and had some issues with predictability, but overall was worth the read. I think this made about #45 or 46 on my list for the year, though I've lost count. I hadn't really been keeping track for the "50 books in 2009" thing since 50 is a slow year...
2. Purchased Overlord II. Conveniently, this happened right about the same time as Faydra got chicken pox! So I had the perfect excuse to stay home and play video games for several days. The changes from the original were interesting... it was a little more linear, much more violent, and they did some nice things to expand the gameplay. The original had a "good" mode where you strove to only kill monsters and bad people, generally helped the loyal peasants supporting your empire and might be considered a decent person to hang out with, if a bit amoral. The "evil" side let you oppress the peasants or even kill them off. This one? "Good" isn't an option and "evil" has become the new good. The duality this time is between Enslaver or Destroyer. The "good" route you just dominate everyone using your dark magics and put them to work in your mines. The "evil" route skips to the end and just kills them all and burns their villages to the ground. Both are pretty great for letting out some of those anti-social tendencies...
3. Had a BBQ with the fam. The 4th and New Year's are the two times a year my Dad regularly throws a dinner. Even my Mom and Stepdad usually show. The food is always great and it gets a lot of those family visit obligations out of the way for another few months. This year was no exception, with some of the best damn sirloin... He'd purchased a cow a 6 weeks before, had it corn fed for a month, slaughtered, and then aged for two weeks before butchering. Mmmmm... it was good.
I also took my Chaos out for a spin the weekend prior. Had one of the most amazingly bad days for dice rolls. One game-clinching result was literally a one in a thousand (1 in 1296 to be exact.) Ended up with a win, a loss and a draw. The loss, sadly was to Artimese. This was the first time in 15 years of gaming that he's ever actually beaten me, much less soundly. Hah. Ah well. The list wasn't inherently bad. It just relied on Reserves rolls too much. Had those gone a little better... Meh. I'm totally taking mech Eldar to Ard Boyz this weekend to make up for it.
The holiday weekend was an entertaining exercise in wasting time. There were really only three notables:
1. Read Brandon Sanderson's Elantris. It was his debut novel and had some issues with predictability, but overall was worth the read. I think this made about #45 or 46 on my list for the year, though I've lost count. I hadn't really been keeping track for the "50 books in 2009" thing since 50 is a slow year...
2. Purchased Overlord II. Conveniently, this happened right about the same time as Faydra got chicken pox! So I had the perfect excuse to stay home and play video games for several days. The changes from the original were interesting... it was a little more linear, much more violent, and they did some nice things to expand the gameplay. The original had a "good" mode where you strove to only kill monsters and bad people, generally helped the loyal peasants supporting your empire and might be considered a decent person to hang out with, if a bit amoral. The "evil" side let you oppress the peasants or even kill them off. This one? "Good" isn't an option and "evil" has become the new good. The duality this time is between Enslaver or Destroyer. The "good" route you just dominate everyone using your dark magics and put them to work in your mines. The "evil" route skips to the end and just kills them all and burns their villages to the ground. Both are pretty great for letting out some of those anti-social tendencies...
3. Had a BBQ with the fam. The 4th and New Year's are the two times a year my Dad regularly throws a dinner. Even my Mom and Stepdad usually show. The food is always great and it gets a lot of those family visit obligations out of the way for another few months. This year was no exception, with some of the best damn sirloin... He'd purchased a cow a 6 weeks before, had it corn fed for a month, slaughtered, and then aged for two weeks before butchering. Mmmmm... it was good.
I also took my Chaos out for a spin the weekend prior. Had one of the most amazingly bad days for dice rolls. One game-clinching result was literally a one in a thousand (1 in 1296 to be exact.) Ended up with a win, a loss and a draw. The loss, sadly was to Artimese. This was the first time in 15 years of gaming that he's ever actually beaten me, much less soundly. Hah. Ah well. The list wasn't inherently bad. It just relied on Reserves rolls too much. Had those gone a little better... Meh. I'm totally taking mech Eldar to Ard Boyz this weekend to make up for it.