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I have to admit that with all the negative press it has been getting I was very skeptical of Too Human. Despite the fact that it was developed by the always impressive Silicon Knights, I was buying into the negative buzz from the review machine. Now, I usually take reviews with a grain of salt, but when the places all agree… well, usually there’s something to it.

However, this time around I can’t figure out what they’re all bitching about. I played for longer than I even intended to yesterday because I was having such a blast. I chose a Berserker as I usually like the ‘in-your-face’ style of gameplay when it comes to the hack’n’slash world. So, I loaded him up and ran through part of the first dungeon. I was having a good time, but a bit non-committal. So I created one each of the other classes. After playing them I realized that I really really needed to continue on as a Berserker. So I did. Hacking and slashing and jumping and shooting.

I’m glad I picked it up. I’m having an absolute blast with it.

My mother got me a new audio book for the car. The Last Lacture by Randy Pausch. It’s amazing how something can make you think. The real, introspective sort of life changing thinking that only comes once in a while and usually at great personal cost. But, not cost in the way where you’re giving things up, but the sort of cost that is measured in sweat and (sometimes) tears that really makes you assess everything in your life.

At the beginning of this year, I created a goal list. It was my bullet-point notion of what I wanted to accomplish this year. I tried to make them realistic goals, but at the same time I set myself up for failure on some of them because I made them too vague. One of those goals was to get a better paying job. Mission accomplished on that front. But this book made me really think about those goals, and what it takes to see those goals through to the end. He speaks a lot about Childhood Dreams. And part of the reason many of us never realize those dreams, in my opinion, is because nobody helps us to really figure out what it takes to get there.

So, I’m planning on sitting down with that goal list (yes, I still have it tacked to my wall) and coming up with intermediate steps, parts and pieces, and all the good things that are required to make a goal reality. I’m going to keep this updated with some of these things to help keep myself motivated. This blog will be my feedback loop. And I plan to have actual results to post rather than simply speculation and idle thoughts.

Well, I’m signed up for the Ride For Your Life event. It is a bicycling fundraiser to benefit benefit the Western New York Wellness program which provides free physical activity opportunities for cancer survivors and their families structured around bicycling. I went in to RV&E yesterday (where I bought my bike in the first place) to have them put a child seat on the back of the bike. While I was there, I saw the handout for the fundraiser, so I decided to give it a shot. I signed up for the 25 mile version of the ride as I think I’m beyond the 10 mile, but there’s no way I can do 50 miles in a single day.

So, time to get out there and get riding! Part of the reason I had the child seat attached was so Jen and I could ride together. Since there’s no way that Mya is going to be bike-ready anytime soon, the seat should help a lot. Also, it will be able to hold AJ in it when we go to the park since he’s not able to keep up at the moment on his little bike with training wheels. He’s working on it though. He made a whole lap around the neighborhood last Saturday. But he was too slow and had a tough time with the whole “braking while going downhill” thing and I nearly had a heart attack watching him almost fall over.

If you would like to make a pledge for the ride, go to the pledge page on their website and choose my name from the drop-down. I’m hoping that I can be among the top fundraisers if everyone puts in just a few dollars.

So, I was checking out my Facebook page this morning to see if the achievements I got in Bioshock appeared in the news feed like they were supposed to and they did not. So, I dumped the ridiculous and over-complicated application and got something much more simple. It just displays the basic information and the last few games played and their associated score. Update is manual, but good enough. At least it works.

I also have this application that displays my World of Warcraft characters fed off of the Armory. Apparently, my Warlock is no longer in a guild and to make it even stranger, most of the other officers and the guild leader are as well. Not sure what happened with that. I was in-game yesterday making a note in officer profile stating that I’d be away from the game until Wednesday and now the guild is basically empty. Quite bizarre.

Had this kids this weekend, always makes for an exciting time. Unfortunately, the weather decided that it didn’t want to cooperate, so we were stuck indoors most of the time. We got to do a bike ride on Saturday afternoon just before dinner, but other than that it was mostly in-house activities. Which usually amounts to reading, coloring and Nintendo Wii for the kids.

Larry was up from Indianapolis for the weekend, so we got to hang out on Sunday for a while. Caught up on a few things including some touch-up on the wedding. November just seems to come faster and faster. I cannot believe that it is August already. So much for the lazy days of summer, I can hardly remember any summer at all.

Got a few more requirements worked out for the Guild Wars character database. I wish they had an XML feed like the World of Warcraft Armory. That way I could automate the whole thing rather than having people put in their numbers manually. But, it’s still something. I was working on the Skill Hunter title for Kira over the weekend. Got all of the Core Elites out of the way except for the Elementalist line. Should be able to get those tonight and then move on to capping the rest of the Prophecies skills.

The episode listing for the serial fiction The Stranger has been posted. From a concept originally developed in 2003 come film-noir style tales of the shadowy underworld of crime and power. Even though I had originally intended this is a one-off story, the character and the world was so compelling that we kept wanting to revisit it. So far there are six episodes, but we’re working at writing up some more.

Check it out here or by clicking on the tab at the top of the page.

So, I’ve added my XBox 360’s Blog to the links over on the left. It’s extremely pissed off at me apparently because it says I haven’t been playing. I have, it just hasn’t been attached to the internet because something is up with the wireless adapter on the system. I took it upstairs and plugged it directly into the router and it is fine. Strong signal, open NAT, 100% goodness. But for some reason, despite the fact that I haven’t changed anything, the wireless adapter can’t see the router for anything.

The XBox being up with the computer actually worked out better than I thought it would. I’m using my old flat-panel monitor as the display and the computer’s Line-in to project the sound. One of the cool things about it is that I can play with my headphones on, even when I’m playing one of the Guitar Hero games. And the computer chair is damned comfy for playing some games in when you can sit back in the plush with a controller in your hands.

I’m also planning to take a few screenshots tonight from Guild Wars and creating a few pages for my characters. For some reason I only seem to roll female characters in Guild Wars. I’m not really sure exactly why, but I just really don’t like the male character models. It’s kind of weird, because it’s the only game that I don’t roll male toons in. I’m also working on bringing up a new Ranger and putting together a team for some Underworld farming. We’ll see how it goes. I’m honestly more interested in the titles and completing the dungeons than really buying anything, but the crafted armor costs money, so we’ll have to see what we can do.

All right, another update coming soon for fiction.

Well, I always seem to have a hard time with these blogs because I’m never sure what to write because I want everything to be worthwhile and interesting. Well, if I sit around and wait for the ‘perfect’ posts to come up, then nothing will ever get posted here. You know, kind of like what is going on now. Anyway, it was an uneventful but busy weekend.

Went to see The Dark Knight. I’m feeling kind of bad about it too beacuse I think I should have enjoyed it more than I did. The script was great, the actors were great, you could actually see the fighting this time. Yet, for some reason it left me… flat. Usually I get out of a movie like that and I’m jazzed up. Thinking about stuff, talking with Jen about what happened and what things meant and “how cool was that thing they did” and “that was so awesome when”. But this time there wasn’t any of that afterward. It had the effect of being the cinematic equivalent of valium. I don’t know if there was just too much going on, or if I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind or what. It’s a great movie, I can’t figure out why I didn’t enjoy it more…

Anyway, from Dark Knights to Holy Knights, my Paladin is level 22. I’d post a link to the profile on the Armory, but for some reason he isn’t showing up at all. Characters that I’ve played less than him are there, but he is not. I’m wondering with the server restarts they’ve been doing for hotfixes if they haven’t had issues refreshing the armory. Either way, I’m sure he’ll show up in the next few days.

Adillian is close to having the full set of Shadoweave armor. Just one last piece to go. Requires three different components, of which I have two. If I can get the other guys to make the cloth I need (3.5 day cooldown!) then I should be able to make the boots tonight. I want to get some spellstrike gear put together for him too, but I have no idea what that is going to cost. Adding in those items will boost him up to raid quality, which will mean I can participate more in the things that are going on with the rest of the guild. My problem is that I want all this stuff but I don’t have the patience to farm for gold. Catch-22 I suppose.

Also mowed the lawn and cleaned the house this weekend. And Jen’s sister-in-law’s birthday party was yesterday. That was a good time. I ended up working on their computer while I was out there though. Never seen anything so slow. It’s an eMachine with a decent processor, but it’s got very little RAM and a ton of junk they need to get rid of. Also, has anyone ever seen 1.5GB of temp files? Not Temporary Internet Files just Temporary Files. I wanted to click on it to see what it was, but the thing was going so slow I didn’t want to mess with anything. The cleanup utility was still running when we left.

Anyway, that’s all for now. We’ll see how the day goes.