It shows how often I really look at my journal, the fact that my so-called “blogroll” sported several defunct links and lacked a few sites I read almost daily.
I’ve remedied that problem, though I wouldn’t be surprised if I still have managed to miss one or two important sites. Hmm.
In attempting to make a positive-minded effort toward combating the general atmosphere of malaise I’ve suffered for most of the last couple of years, I’ve been taking stock and rethinking some aspects of my life. Some parts of my life I simply can’t change, and I find myself reciting the so-called Serenity Prayer on occasion. I find this amusing because, one, I don’t pray anymore and, two, every time it comes to mind I think back on the bad old days of youth when Mom was in and out of 12-step rehab programs.
But I digress. I enjoy digression, mind you.
On the personal front, Kyla and I have agreed to take another shot at the “relationship thing.” Over the last couple of months we’ve had some of the most open and effective communication out of our entire time together, and I think we might be able to function as a healthy pairing once again. Time will tell, of course, but the last couple of weeks have been consistently positive in that regard.
On another personal front, Lil’ and I continue our struggle against the vagaries of work schedules and other conflicts to maintain something resembling a healthy, ongoing relationship. Text messaging is our friend, for good or ill. Yesterday she received the welcome news that starting in mid-December she’ll be working a nice, normal Monday-to-Friday daytime shift. The gods rejoice! This won’t solve all of our scheduling problems, but it certainly won’t hurt.
On the family side of things, my kids are awesome. Not that this is really news, but it bears mentioning when both of ’em come home with excellent report cards and are getting high praise from their teachers. Erica, particularly, has shown incredible improvement in attitude and effort this year. Neither of them are “straight A” students, but they’re pulling down better grades than I ever did at their age and they’re on track to become decent adult human beings as well (which is more important). I’m intensely proud of them both.
One of the areas in which I’ve found myself lacking this year is in my writing, here and elsewhere. I run an anime forum and barely write there. I host this journal and barely note the highlights of my existence in it. I belong to several online communities in which I fail to participate. I have story ideas that never make it outside the confines of my skull. My schedule (and all the distractions surrounding it) precludes much in the way of extracurricular activities, but at least one of these complaints can be addressed if I simply start using my journal again more like the way I used to. Well, I might not post so many damned memes. I’ll spare you that much.
In my search for ways to make journal writing a regular event again, I looked into offline editors like BlogJet, BlogDesk and Windows Live Writer. They’re all decent products, even the Microsoft product, but none of them support WordPress 2.3’s tags yet so that idea’s right out for the time being. Instead I’m going to go back to a simple idea that might just work: I’m going to set my browser start page back to this journal. I don’t remember when I got away from that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the day I changed that setting (first to Yahoo’s then to Google’s portal page) coincides with the major decline in posting here. We’ll find out over the next few weeks if my crazy idea pans out, won’t we?
My plan, such as it was, involved coming home and stuffing my face and hopping into City of Villains (sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t) to run some missions with my new Corruptor, Ragnaroq. I did, indeed, run enough ‘paper missions to open up the Steel Canyon mayhem mission (hello, “summon teammates” temporary power) and somewhere along the way I received a costume piece recipe.
For the uninitiated, let me explain. (I’m resisting the urge to go all Inigo Montoya on y’all right now. Who loves ya?)
City of Heroes and City of Villains could be thought of as “World of Warcraft but with superheroes.” It’s true after a fashion, but fashion is exactly what the City Of franchise has going for it over almost all other competing online worlds. One of its biggest draws is the ability to customize the look of your hero or villain. You can spend an hour just puttering around in the costume shop, and that’s before you start getting any of the “bonus” items!
Earlier this year, the game’s creators introduced the “invention” system, a sort of crude and silly economy designed to give those with too much money something to spend it on. The idea is that as you go around performing your acts of derring-do (or dastardliness) you’re picking up bits of “salvage” and, occasionally, a “recipe” which allows you to combine specific bits of salvage into new power enhancements, new temporary powers and… new costume pieces. You use the salvage and recipes that you want, and sell the ones you don’t at whatever rate the market will bear.
So. To make a long story somewhat shorter, my icy and dark little villain has dark and icy little wings on her back But that’s not where I wasted most of my in-game time tonight. Oh, no. Adding a single costume piece to an existing look doesn’t take very much time at all. No, my big mistake was in deciding to tidy up the base. (more…)
I’ve not yet left the United States to see foreign parts, but my music collection has gone far and wide. In a bit less than an hour you can visit the Congo, Amlapura, Kashmir, Beirut, London, Leipzig, Moscow, Bangkok, swing through California (domestic and yet alien), and end up in a couple of very cold places like the mountain K2 and the continent of Antarctica.
Have you packed your bags, or at least your headphones? Okay then, enjoy your trip!
David Morgan-Mar is an awfully clever fellow, the man responsible for the inaccurately named “Irregular Webcomic.” Today’s entry is amusing on its own merits, but what broke through my general posting malaise is the commentary he wrote to go along with the comic. To wit:
Nothing anyone does can invalidate the pleasure you got out of enjoying some work of fiction or art in the past. You enjoyed it – you can’t un-enjoy it.
This is why, even though the last few years’ worth of (for instance) Anne McCaffrey’s writing output disappointed me on various levels, I can still go back and read the books I love without the experience being “tainted” by what comes later. I don’t grok the notion of being “betrayed” by an author or musician or filmmaker.
Anyway, go read Mr. Morgan-Mar’s commentary on “betraying the fans,” a good piece of writing that I wholly agree with.
I’ve always had a few knacks, among them a knack for being proven wrong almost immediately after making a definitive statement. This time the knack which has bitten me in the backside is that which gives me the utmost in perfectly ironic timing. If I do something, there’s a good chance that if I’d simply waited a day or two I’d have known not to do that something.
On Sunday I purchased the license code for the City of Heroes/City of Villains “Good Versus Evil” edition for the kids’ account so they could get some extra character slots per server and go into supergroup bases and such like that. So, guess what yesterday’s press release from NCSoft had to say?
Today we announced the acquisition of City of Heroes from Cryptic Studiosâ„¢ and the formation of our new Northern California studio which we are informally calling NCsoft® NorCal […]. Nearly the entire City of Heroes team from Cryptic Studios has joined the NCsoft team and together we have formed the core of our new studio.
Okay, so far so good. What’s the catch?
All players with City of Heroes retail accounts will now have access to City of Villains, and all City of Villains retail accounts will now have access to City of Heroes. Players that didn’t previously have access to “the other side” will find that they do now.
Oh. Well… I suppose that’s a good thing… for people who didn’t plunk $30 down for said “access to City of Villains” a mere 48 hours beforehand! Dagnabbit.
(It bears mentioning, footnote-style, that the “GvE” edition provides a few in-game perks that probably won’t be given away with this “access to” bonus from NCSoft. Still, I could’ve bought the code for said perks alone and spent twenty dollars less. Such is my life, eh? And the kids get the benefit now instead of having to wait ’til NCSoft blesses everyone. So. There’s that, at least.)
