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Just wanted to share this real quick before I get the urge to rip down anything Xmassy. I made a lot of decorations for Christmas and since this was our first Christmas together in our new home, I wanted to make one as a little gift for Jed. He used to work as a freelance 3D model maker for Day of Defeat (WWII Half-Life mod), and so I made this Christmas tree bauble with a DoD theme. It looks great in the tree and I’m looking forward to unpacking it and hanging it up for years to come!
I don’t know about everyone else, but I know that the closer we get to Christmas, the more I want to spend all my time gaming. You know: snugly, warm Christmas holiday spent gaming in monkey pj’s. Completely natural. Right now I’m back in Everquest 2 for the Xmas content and generally rocking my own guild hall, and playing my way through Halo Anniversary. Inspired by this, and by Xmas cheer, I’ve made a few gamer ornaments for our tree. Like this Halo Anniversary bauble:
Merry Christmas to all and every nerd! I got a buddy pack and now Boyfriend is trying it out. Mostly for my sake. This really is not the kind of game he usually plays. Me: “Hun, it’s getting sort of late, I’m going to bed”
As I go to bed I hear snippets of frustration: “Why won’t it…?!”
Being plopped down in reality after two weeks of total escapism is rather brutal; work is just as crazy as ever if not more, and right now I feel like I’m part of some sort of weird kerplunk experiment. I am trying to keep positive and do things in a steady pace and not get stressed out but cheez, sometimes I feel like it’s impossible to do a really good job. Sometimes I suspect my standards are too high, maybe it’s not healthy to care so much. Anyway, there’s a lot going on on the home front right now, I’ll try to write a bit more about that later. But, for one thing, I moved out my Xbox the other day… However, I’ve figured out that I’ll have some time left to try out Rift, so I’m picking up my copy today. I’m getting a buddy pack… You never know, I might get Jed to try it out. See you on Argent! This looks so awesome my heart is starting to pound a bit! *Squeeee!* I am looking forward to Portal 2 as a kid to x-mas. The thought of it makes me feel all bubbly and squee-ful, and I don’t want to go to sleep because I want to stay up late and ambush Santa Claus. In fact, the game was due for release before x-mas 2010, but Valve decided to postpone it until 2011. They promised that the world would not come to and end because of this (and they had good reason and that the game would be better). So meanwhile, I’ll just have to comfort myself with the mock-companion cube in Everquest2. *hugs* *seeks comfort* *shivers*  Dear Companion Cube
First Monday of the year. X-mas is over, guys, it’s time to clean out all the tinsel and glitter and crap. In Sweden there’s a tradition to do this on the 13th of January, but I always figure, why wait? The party is over. Bring out the new year. Mondays always sucks, this according to a treasured, worldwide tradition, and so the first Monday in a new year must suck more than usual, right? After (hopefully) having had a couple of days off, eating too much good food and drunk too much good wine, and slouching off with your lover man, you get back to work. The fridge is full of rotting food that the shift workers left behind after the holidays. You inbox is crammed with frickin’ emails from whiny people who can’t think or act for themselves. All your co-workers are equally pissed off that it’s the frickin’ first Monday of the new year. Well, now is the time to go to your happy place. If you don’t have a happy place, go zen on your own ass. There are situations and people that you can’t change, and that’s ok. It’s not the end of the world. You will not die. After work, go home, have a glass of wine and just don’t think about the idiots. I don’t have better any advice than that. When I walk into the icy wall that is the dark and arctic January of both bones and soul (gee…) what I do to get some peace of mind is to plan and organize. Even if I don’t follow through, I still like to have a plan, I make lists about everything. Photo projects I want to do, food I want to cook, games I want to play. I even plan how to level up my characters in Everquest2 (I wish I could plan my own career as efficiently). It’s sort of like making a hundred new year’s resolutions that you don’t intend to keep, but if you get one of them right that’s still something. I just like a bit of structure, even if I don’t follow it. So here’s a sort of mashed up Monday Madness update/plan: Game of the moment: Everquest 2 Music to my ears: Fuel for my misanthropic attitude: Reading right now: The Digital Photography Book (part 1) by Scott Kelby It is rather well known by now, and a little bit like Photography for dummies: easy and quick to read, simple language, simple explanations. Basically it’s a whole bunch of good tricks and techniques that professional photographers use. Some things feels very obvious but some of them have been quite helpful. What I like besides the good tips on composition and light, is the fact that he mentions (often expensive) equipment that could really help you out and why, but also brings up really affordable alternatives. Plus, he’s ironic and funny.
I constantly have moments when I think I am done with Oakmyst Forest, for good, but I never am. Oakmyst Forest is a low level adventure zone in Everquest 2, it’s adjacent to the burrow Castleview Hamlet in Qeynos (where almost all my characters have set up their first home), and it has always been one of the first places I’ve gone after one of my new alts have arrived in the big city. It is green, small and snug, with one or two trails you can follow around the zone. It has fairies and badgers and noisy blue frogs and evil dryads and bears and a waterfall. Sometimes a very pretty white unicorn spawns, which walks slowly around the forest being all alluring (you know it has good loots, but come on, who would kill a unicorn?!). Sometimes there’s a big ass bear that spawns and he always surprises you and rips you to shreds. There is a cave with a pretty impressive dried up tree creature that has killed a lot of brave, enthusiastic adventurers. You always go back to get revenge. Oakmyst Forest was one of the places where you picked your first roots and rocks to craft armor and pointy weapons. And it is absolutely bursting with shiny objects you find of the ground, little trinkets to collect and turn in for XP and loot. I remember the first year I played EQ2; I must have spent at least a third of my gaming time in that tiny forest. See, you could always make out a couple of sparkly pixels in the horizon, you knew there was another “shiny” to pick up, you just had to do one more lap, what if you missed a really rare collection item because you were lazy or sleepy or hungry? Just one more lap. So, now that I’ve been playing the game for six years one would think that that low-level newbie zone would be out of my system. How could I possibly need to go back there? I have two accounts with 13 characters in total, all of them well beyond that level in both adventuring and crafting. Also, Oakmyst is one of the original zones from when the game launched, a lot of things have happened since then, whole new continents have been discovered, a lot of new content has been added, including several more low-level zones in the same range. I have certainly spent to much time in that one zone already. Yet I always go back. I realize that one of my characters are missing a spotted butterfly for one of the collections, and that zone just happens to be the best one to find it in. Or maybe I decide to do the introduction quests for crafters on an old toon just for fun and Oakmyst is just so well placed next to Castleview, it’s so easy to run back and forth to the quest giver. And since I’m there, why not do some low level harvesting and sell what I find on the broker? And, I might have another character who’s missing a collectable, so I’ll just pick a few more shineys. And it’s nice and quiet there now, with everyone adventuring in the new zones. And, happy sigh, the old trail, my favourite way of running through this zone, so fast and efficient, it feels like yesterday. And there is always a shortage of ore on the broker, let’s pick some more. And OH, there is another shiny over there, it’s MINE! And… Just one more lap.
The night before me and Jed went on vacation he gave me a gift. A very special gift, with extra special on top. They’d just released it in Sweden, and it was the limited edition, and it ROCKS, and I have been waiting for it forever and hardly didn’t think I’d have a chance to get my hands on the game, really, for a while.So I tried to forget about it and not talk about it. So Jed surprised me and won the “Best Boyfriend of the Year” award But yesterday we cracked the seal. And it was epic. And I will play it for a long long time. Goodbye world.
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And then we went on our vacation, without my X-box or my flat screen TV. They just wouldn’t fit in the bags! Outrageous! And then we came home and I had to WORK and fix stuff at home!
