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Post-Graduation Boredom.

Seriously, I thought this whole, “WOOO NOT HAVING TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL EVAAARRRR” thing would be fun.  It’s not.  It’s boring and lame.  Also still looking for a real job.  Freelance writing isn’t really cutting it right now.  The economy does seem to be improving, so that’s a plus.  However, I doubt I’ll be able to move up to Northern Virginia as I wanted to, at least until I can afford it.  Housing up there is fucking expensive.  So I’m thinking of going back to Fred Vegas, because it’s a bit cheaper and at least it’s closer to NoVA than I am here.  Again though, a job is needed.  FFFFFFUUUUU adulthood is lame.

My Bachelor of Arts is pretty awesome though.  I mean, it’s just sitting in a box right now, but some day I’ll display it or something.  Even if a history degree is borderline worthless.

I went on this quest to listen to every song in my iTunes library and I sort of hate myself for being such a music nerd now.  Seriously, I have over 12,000 songs.  On the other hand, I previously had 14,000 and this exercise is helping me to clean out my iTunes.  I had a lot of shit that people gave me, I listened to once, and then promptly forgot about it.  Honestly, if it doesn’t hold my attention enough for me to listen to it at least a few times or even simply remembering what the hell it is, there’s really no point in me keeping it.  I’m like a music hoarder, damn.

I really need to get back into playing guitar, because I sort of miss it.  As of right now XBox and job hunting are sort of ruling my life.  However there was something really pleasing about playing random Radiohead songs and the Super Mario Bros. theme.  Yeah, definitely need to pick one of my 3 guitars that are just sitting there back up.  Seriously even just typing that makes me sad.

Anyway.  Time to go back to doing…nothing.

Red Dead Redemption (Single Player) Review: Holy Shit, I Feel Like John Wayne

It’s no secret to anyone around me that I was stoked about Red Dead Redemption for months.  My friends and I had a posse formed a solid month before it came out.  I’m happy to say that the game lived up to my expectations.

You play as John Marsden, a reformed outlaw who is now trying to live a quiet life as a rancher with his wife Abigail and his son Jack.  However, he hasn’t quite been able to escape his criminal past, and now is on a mission to hunt down his former partners-in-crime.  Basically, it’s a typical Western genre storyline.  It could have gotten boring, but because it’s Rockstar Games making a sandbox game set at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, it’s pretty impossible that this game wouldn’t be at least somewhat enjoyable.

There is plenty to do around the large map.  You can hunt wild animals, search for treasure, capture outlaws, kill innocents, help out random strangers, play poker, blackjack, or horseshoes; patrol towns and ranches for crimes, duel at high noon, and clear out gang hideouts.  Oh yeah, and you can do the storyline missions as well.  Seriously, there is so much you can do in this game that it’s almost overwhelming, but it’s good for someone like me who gets ADD after about 20 minutes of gaming.  Any game that can hold my attention for 6 hours in a row like RDR has is a good game in my book.

The game itself is also very, very well designed.  The graphics are absolutely gorgeous, even on the XBox 360.  I once rode my horse Dusty Butt off a cliff because I was staring at how fantastically rendered a mountain was in the background.  There were only a few moments where the frame rate dropped, which is astounding due to the sheer amount of shit happening in the open world.  I never experienced some of the weird glitches that some people did, such as humans accidentally being coded as animals (flying people and cougar dudes).  The two glitches I experienced were close to the end and at the very, very end of the game, and I’m not even entirely sure whether one of those was a legit glitch or it was supposed to be like that.  I’d explain it more, but I’d spoil the end of the game if I tried to.  Graphics aside, voice acting was also pretty good.  There wasn’t any dialogue where I was like “LOLWUT,” but then again I often space out during cutscenes so it’s entirely possible, even probable, that I missed something.

I kind of have to pull at straws to find any negatives in RDR.  A few of the missions were a bit confusing as to what I was supposed to be doing.  In the game’s defense however, as I previously stated I often don’t watch cutscenes and I’m also a bit of a dumbass.  It was never anything that took me more than a couple of tries to figure out, however, so it’s not a major issue.  There were also a lot of scenes of nothing but riding a horse or driving a wagon and chatting with an NPC.  They are basically there simply for the sake of the plot, but at times they were a bit tedious and too fucking long.  Some of these you could skip, but that’s only if you were the passenger on a wagon.  Again, I’m really grasping at straws here to find negatives.

RDR is probably my second favorite game of the year so far, after Mass Effect 2.  The only reason it’s not my absolute favorite is because I’m a Mass Effect fangirl.  It definitely has the feel of GTA, from the save system to the map.  If you like GTA, westerns, sandbox games, or shooters, I can’t imagine you not getting at least some enjoyment out of RDR.

9.7/10

Good News, Bad News

Good News: I graduate in about a month.

Bad News: WTF am I going to do after that?  I have to go out and be a real person now.  I’m not sure I can handle that.

Good News: Finished my thesis.

Bad News: My advisor hates it.  My meeting with him on Friday may end in tears for me.  Dread central.

Good News: Things with Potential Love Interest appear to be moving in the right direction.

Bad News: Suddenly everyone else has a crush on me, too.  Dammit you guys, why do you wait until there’s someone I’m interested in?  Seriously.

Good News/Bad News: Donovan McNabb was traded to my beloved Redskins.  Seriously, WTF.  I spent years hating this guy, and now I’ll be rooting for him.  I was pissed for a while, but after watching McNabb’s press conference yesterday, I feel much better about the situation.  I think we may start looking like a team instead of perplexed five-year-olds.  Who knows though; the Redskins never fail at being the Offseason Champions, so we’ll have to see what happens in the fall.

Good News: Summer seems to have arrived.  It’s 90 degrees outside.  It’s also April 7.  WHAT.

Bad News: I’ve had a fever yesterday and part of today, so I haven’t even been able to enjoy it.

Good News: Have weened myself off of caffeine, so I can actually function without coffee or Pepsi.

Bad News: I am now addicted to Gatorade, which probably isn’t much better.

Good News: REC 2 is out somewhere.  I need to hunt it down and watch it.  The first REC is easily one of my favorite horror movies ever.

Bad News: Watched Paranormal Activity.  Did people really find it that scary?  All I got out of it was a lot of time watching people sleeping, listening to a woman drop f-bombs on her dumbass boyfriend who keeps saying “dude,” listening to random banging that was probably supposed to make me jump, and failing to feel any sympathy for the absolutely stupid and arrogant assholes who were the main characters.  TL;DR Very underwhelming for all the hype that surrounded it.

Good News: Started getting frighteningly good at Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer.  Like, my kill-death ratio was actually going positive.  Once I had the most kills on my team.  WHAT.

Bad News: Now all I want to do is play MW2.

Good News: I’ll probably be keeping the rats after graduation.  SWEET.

Bad News: It would be sweeter if I had a job and a place to live.

Good News: Looking into freelance writing and blogging as a career option.  It sounds like something I would absolutely love doing.

Bad News: I have to look at options like that because there’s absolutely nothing out there for history majors.  Worst major ever.  I should’ve stuck to something practical instead of something I just “liked.”

Good News: I’ve made some new friends.

Bad News: One of said “friends” is my ex’s new girlfriend.  I’m pretty sure she’s trying to validate that she is the better option for him.  She’s probably also threatened because he still talks to me and IMs me a lot.  I always try to blow him off, because A) half the shit he says is ridiculous conspiracy theory bullshit, and B) I stopped caring about him quite a while ago.  She should be concerned with him, not me.  Potential Love Interest >>>> Conspiracy Theorist Ex.

So yeah, that’s my life in a nutshell right now.  Pretty average, yet aggravating.  Growing up sucks, I’m going back to 3rd grade.

OKCupid.com: An Experiment in Hilarity

Why oh why do I listen to dares?  This time it has landed me into OKCupid.com, one of those online dating sites.  While I have met one guy who seems somewhat cool (I’m not going to say anything about him, though, because 1. he’s a cool kid, 2. he has since deleted his OKC profile and we talk on AIM now so he doesn’t count anymore, and 3. there’s nothing to make fun of about him), the vast majority of dudes I’ve run into have been a bit weird.

Literally 30 minutes after I signed up, some guy IMed me.  He was quite odd.  He seemed cool at first, he lives in Fred Vegas, Redskins fan, personal trainer…but after a while the constant “watre u doing” got really annoying and creepy.  I wish I were joking.  I am glad he seemed to get the hint I was no longer interested and stopped contacting me the next day.

Next guy has family in Greece.  I should mention that on my profile I talk about how ancient Greece is my focus in my history degree.  For some reason, people with Greek heritage think I will throw myself at them because of that simple fact.  No.  Also, that was pretty much the only thing I had in common with this kid.  Plus he started getting creepy.  That was the end of that.

Next Greek guy was actually from Greece.  I saved his message for future giggles.  The subject line is, “DiD YOU EVER COME GREECE?”  Instant lulz.  The actual message reads, “HELLO,I AM [deleted] FROM ATHENS.DO YOU EVER VISIT GREECE?”  This guy is also 46. I didn’t even reply.

After that comes Strange Broken Hearted Guy.  This is his message: “Hello.. I hope I'm not bothering u at this time.. My name is [deleted] and after looking at your profile.. It would be an honor to chat with you sometime.. I'm 22 and I'm an aspiring artist. I like games (board, card, video, and sports of course lol) I've had much bad experiences with women and I think I deserve someone sensible. So I hope you consider this note and reply as soon as you can. Take care :)”  Honestly, this doesn’t seem like a bad kid but you shouldn’t just come right out and mention your past relationship issues.  Or maybe that’s just something that bothers me.  Anyway.

Facepalm Guy 1: “I had to actually google your religious view lol "Agnosticism" very interesting but I totally get it.
What are the qualifications for being a nerd ?”  First of all, this has to be the only person I’ve ever met in my life that didn’t at least know the basic idea of agnosticism, and I’m including a couple of 12 year olds in that pool.  Secondly, if you have to ask about nerd qualifications, you are not one, sorry.

HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK Guy: I saw that this guy had viewed my profile one day, but I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on in his profile picture.  So I looked at his profile, and lo and behold, it’s a 45 year old guy wearing a banana hammock, a collar and a leash.  Then he imed me.  I panicked and not only closed Firefox, but shut down my entire computer.  Just……no.

Facepalm Guy 2: (Sidenote: I mention my hydrophobia somewhere on my profile just for lulz) “are you seriously afraid of water? Out of everything there is you are afraid of water? or is it just large bodies of water...”  After I stopped laughing, I had to reply to this guy.  As with my religious beliefs or lack thereof, I usually don’t have to explain it to people; it’s pretty obvious what I mean by it.  I love chugging water and soaking in bath tubs, I’m not going to run screaming in the other direction because someone’s holding a bottle of Aquafina.  I mean, honestly, guy.

Those are all the funny ones so far.  I have learned some shit about myself in the process, which I guess makes this a worthwhile experiment.  Firstly, I have some ridiculously high standards.  I mean, goddamn.  I seriously need to chill out.  It is next to impossible that I will find a guy who is like Thom Yorke, Joel Hodgson, and Eli Manning all wrapped up into one person.  Secondly, I have a severe aversion to replying to people unless I really have something to talk about with them.  I’m fine in real life, which is strange because you’d think talking over the Interwebs would be easier.  Not for this weirdo, apparently.  I suck.  Also, I should be less self-deprecating.  Actually, fuck that, it’s fun and I will never, ever be accused of having a huge ego.

So anyway.  I was totally going to delete this shit after a month or so but I’m receiving so much entertainment from it that I’ll hang around a little longer.  There doesn’t seem to be too many creepers on there, and the matching system seems pretty decent, so why the hell not?  Though I’m not really concerned about relationships at this point (especially because I’m preoccupied with graduating college and actually becoming an adult and shit) I figure what the hell, it’s there.  Hopefully I’ll get some more funny shit soon.

An Open Letter to Justin Bieber Fans

Dear Bielebers or whatever you kids call yourselves,

You know, one day I was just like you guys.  Except back in my day, we had *NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, BBMak and O-Town. 

Yes, back 13 years ago, when many of you were still but a wee infant, or even a fetus or a zygote, I was a squealing fan girl.  I had t-shirts, posters, CDs, the fucking *NSYNC marionettes and fruit snacks (oh yeah, they existed, my friends), everything.  I fought tooth and nail with bitches who dared to make fun of them.  Shit got real more than once, let me tell you.  Sure, I enjoyed some Radiohead or Incubus, but at that age I was far too young to fully appreciate their musicianship and it was usually placed in the “things I’ll put in my 3-CD stereo whilst I sleep” category.  Besides, did Thom Yorke or Brandon Boyd ever bust out some slick dance moves?  Well, Thom does some crazy ass dancing but that is beside my point.

I even had an *NSYNC fan site!  Friends, I’m telling you, it was fucking LEGIT.  Number 8 on a fan site listing on Geocities.  I was on like 5 webrings (do those even exist anymore?).  I learned guitar so I could learn to play these boy band songs and tabbed them out to put onto my website.  INTENSITY.  I breathed, ate, pissed, spat, cried boy bands, *NSYNC in particular.

Now you may ask, “But what did you do about the jerks on the Internet who were mean to them?”  Oh, I flamed.  I ranted.  I unleashed the fury of caps lock.  I compared them to the great men of decades and centuries past.  If I had known about my senior thesis topic back then, I would have compared them to Leonidas and his 300 Spartans without hesitation.

Then, something strange happened.  Radiohead and Incubus and others started to sound more appealing to me.  Perhaps I was turning into an emo kid (read: I was) or my music lessons were allowing me to hear the more intricate aspects of musicians who played actual instruments (not to diss people who don’t, because I listen to plenty who use primarily computer generated music).  I started listening to less and less boy band music until one day it appealed to me no more.  The marionettes were packed away into a box, the shirts were jammed into a far corner of my closet, posters were taken down, Geocities account was deleted (BTW, RIP Geocities, you were a great friend).

Looking back, it was strange to recall myself arguing that I would love *NSYNC “4EVA” and that I’d never stop liking their music.  I remembered talking about how they were the greatest people ever and how talented they were, and was a bit surprised that I had changed.  Now I was one of those people making fun of them, rolling my eyes at my past exploits or pretending that it had never happened at all.

So what does this have to do with Justin Bieber and you?  Well, I’m telling you all this because it will  happen to you.  Believe it or not, 97% of you will cease to care about Justin in 5 years.  I say this as someone who has been there.  All of these attempts to keep Justin on Twitter’s trending topics, to flame anyone who insults him, to declare yourself as his #1 fan will all be completely forgotten.

Am I saying you should stop being Justin Bieber fans?  Hell no, go and have your fun, be young and enjoy whatever you enjoy, and don’t let people take that away from you.  However, if you can, learn to not take everything so seriously.  Honestly, life is much more fun when you can poke fun at yourself and the things you enjoy.  I mean, I told my friend Em we should have a Radiohead party since we’re both big fans.  She replied, “Yeah!  We’ll sit in opposite corners of the room, and avoid making eye contact while Thom Yorke moans about how unloved he is.”  That’s fucking brilliant, my friends, brilliant.  I laughed so hard my ribs ached.  Poking fun at everyone and everything, particularly yourself and things that pertain to yourself, is so much less stressful than fighting everyone.  If you like it, fuck what everyone else thinks.

Hell, I still have my boy band albums on my iPod.  I still listen to it occasionally, mostly to reminisce and to laugh.  BBMak’s CD is still really good, in my opinion.  I mean, you can’t devote a good chunk of your adolescence to something and not still have a soft spot for it later on in life.  But understand that these pop star phenomena happen seemingly every 10 years.  Before *NSYNC and BSB, it was New Kids on the Block.  Before them, it was New Edition.  Before them, Jackson 5.  Before them, The Beatles.  Anyone who was an intense fan girl over these pop stars can probably attest to most of what I write in this post. 

However, don’t become like the Claymates or Glamberts (Clay Aiken and Adam Lambert fans, respectively).  These groups harm the object of their affection far more than they help.  The difference between them and you guys is that you guys are mostly young girls, and therefore it’s much more acceptable for you to lose your shit over a pop star.  No offense, but at the age most of you are it’s not like you have a hell of a lot of other stuff you have to think about and take care of.  You can afford to spend your time on it.  However, if you’re over 30 and dressing up like your favorite star, making t-shirts, arguing over the Internet about them, etc., that’s when it becomes very troublesome.  Please don’t become Frau fans.

Seriously, friends, enjoy it while it lasts.  Just don’t go overboard with it.

 

Yours,

Tinnerz

Mass Effect 2 Review: I Wish to Marry this Game

Anyone who knows me well knows I’m a total Mass Effect fangirl.  Like, seriously hardcore.  I own the soundtrack(s).  And actually listen to them.  I have serious issues.

My game arrived last Friday, just in time for a gaming weekend since both of my roomies were gone.  I finished it Tuesday.  About 36 hours of playtime, over 5 days.  When I realized this I cried a little bit, but wiped away my tears and vowed not to turn on my XBox until this weekend’s Snowpocalypse (seriously, we’re getting 2-4 inches of ice in addition to 20 inches of snow.  Virginia suddenly became Minnesota or something).

I don’t want to say Mass Effect 2 is better than the first, but I’m thinking it might be.  It’s definitely (and understandably) darker than the first, but I also found it much more humorous. The story feels a bit weaker than the first, but it’s sort of understandable because the player already knows about the goings on in the Milky Way, granted they played the first one.  There’s less to flesh out, so the story is more driven by the characters themselves. The characters are once again well developed and I found myself getting rather attached to my team.  It gives you more impetus to complete everything before your “suicide mission” in order to ensure everyone’s survival.

Upgrading is definitely different this time around.  You don’t have to worry about an inventory limit because you don’t have an inventory.  Instead, upgrades are received by doing missions, scanning planets for minerals and using said minerals to research new technologies.  I liked this system much better, if only because I spent an awful amount of time in ME1 sorting through my inventory.

Weapons are pretty badass.  My infiltrator owned with heavy weapons, but even the pistols aren’t too shabby.  Because I’m me, however, I mostly stuck to the Sniper and assault rifles.  I fucking love sniping, and the sniper upgrade is absolute love.  I do have one warning: for heavy weapons, be careful with the M-920 Cain.  Make sure you aim at enemies who are far, far away from you.  First time I tried it out I killed everyone, myself and my team included.

I really didn’t mind scanning planets for resources or side missions, but I know many people who absolutely despise it. The annoyance factor of planet exploration really depends on the player; instead of the Mako you scan planets, which I personally like because the Mako makes me so angry it’s not even funny.  The cursor is rather slow at first, but there is an upgrade that makes it faster.

The romance scene remains awkward and creepy.  My (male) Shepard hooked up with Tali.  It was bizarre.  It wasn’t explicit at all, even less so than the creeptastic romance scene in the first one, but there’s something really, really strange about it.  That’s all I’m going to say about it.

There were some graphical issues, but no game busting ones that I found.  Sometimes teammates would climb over an obstruction and suddenly be 20 feet above me.  Also, for some reason husks kept falling through the floor when they died and ended up just sticking out of the ground like daisies.  It was confusing, but my room mates and I lol’d pretty hard.  Otherwise the graphics definitely looked better than ME1, and it’s still an absolutely gorgeous game to look at.

Basically, I love this game.  I enjoyed every minute I played it, and my room mates enjoyed watching me play it (seriously, they gathered around like it was Project Runway). BioWare has never failed me yet, and I hope they never will.  I do recommend playing ME1 first, though, if only for the starting bonuses and to get a feel for the Mass Effect universe.  I definitely, definitely give this game an A.

I love bullet points.

• I totally won State of the Union bingo last night.  It excites me because I rarely win anything/do anything right.  A “close up of John McCain” sealed my victory.  Totally hung that shit up on my wall.
• Tomorrow afternoon/evening I am going to go help my friends remove a virus/malware from their computer.  This is how we nerds spend our Fridays.  It’s apparently the Malware Defense one, which seems pretty nasty.  We may lose the battle, but fuck we’re going to throw everything at it.
• I really hate myself for not telling Amazon to ship my Mass Effect 2 on release day.  Right now I’m dying over it.  I WANT IT SO BAD.  I hope I get it tomorrow, because then I can spend all weekend playing that shit.  I am such a total Mass Effect fan girl it’s not even funny.  I squeal and flail every time I see an ad for it.  I realize that I need help, and lots of it.
• My thesis advisor ended his email to me about my paper proposal with, “Charge on!”  I am rather inspired now, and also filled with mirth.  He’s probably one of my favorite people in the history department.
• Some friends and I are doing a fun social experiment with OKCupid.  I’ll probably dedicate an entire post to it soon, because there is some serious hilarity.
• Pretty much everyone hates my room mate’s boyfriend.  This is the same one from my last entry.  That entry was on a Friday; he was at our apartment from Thursday to Tuesday.  It would be less obnoxious if she was the one that had her own room, but they sleep out in the middle of the living room on an air mattress.  Meaning, a huge chunk of our gathering space is gone.  So we were rather annoyed by that.
  
  Then this week, he fucking comes back again.  She said, “He’ll only be here one night.”  He stayed for three.  Now I would have less of a problem if a) she had asked us first, and b) he wasn’t a fucking douchebag creeper. 
  
  Need examples?  No problem.  Firstly, he barely acknowledges anyone.  If you’re in our apartment for five straight days, I would expect to at least have some meaningful exchange of dialogue once.  Secondly, there was a commercial for Yaz (the birth control pill) on TV and he openly said to my roomie, “Should we try that one?”  Holy fuck, keep that shit under wraps.  Third, he’s supposedly going down to NC to live with his grandfather who has cancer.  It sounds honorable at first, but it gets weird when you take into account the fact that my roomie doesn’t know what type of cancer it is.  As someone whose dad had a cancerous colonic tumor removed (and luckily it was caught before it spread – btw this happened when I was in 4th grade and back then my mom told me it was just a simple removal, but I found out this summer that it was fucking serious and I seriously almost lost my father – but I digress), and my other roomie’s mom is a breast cancer survivor, I know that when you say “cancer” it’s almost always specified due to the sheer amount of types there are.  Fourth, I noticed the infantile, speaking-down-to that my other roomie noticed before.  And it is seriously disgusting.  I mean, I’m far from an ultra feminist (my main goal in life is to be a stay/work at home mom, for fuck’s sake), but seriously, this guy isn’t even going to college and is basically just bumming around.  He’s the last person that should be talking down to her. 
  
  Seriously, I think all of her friends hate him.  Even our friend Anthony, who likes everyone regardless, despises him.  I usually get along well with people and can become friends with practically anyone, but this guy totally turned me off.  Not to mention she gets totally weird when he’s around.  Also, I share a room with her and if they’re both back here, I can’t sit back here in my Awesome Space (tm).  I usually have to bring my laptop out there and just wait until they get bored or whatever the fuck.  I’ve had many offers to come over and stay at other friends’ apartments, and if this trend of him appearing randomly for days on end continues I may have to take them up on him.
• Our rats continue to provide some awesome entertainment.  I was talking to my dad on the phone, and Bella climbed up onto my shoulder and started nibbling my hand and my phone.  They really don’t like it if you don’t pay enough attention to them, hahaha. 
  
  As if that weren’t enough, when I finally got Bella to stop messing around, my troublemaker Chryseis jumped up my leg and climbed up to my arm and then clicked a lot at me, which means she’s happy from what I’ve read.  Well that’s nice and all, but goddamn I’m on the phone! 
  
  Later that same evening, the last one, the runt of the litter Buffy who has finally realized that our hands do not mean insta-doom for her, followed me all the way down the hall to my room.  I usually don’t like to let them in our room because one of them (probably Bella) decided to chew through one of my power cords.  However, Buffy was too cute and she was looking at me with those little eyes and I gave in and let her in.  I was about to take a shower, so I picked up Buffy and put her back into the living room.  Lo and behold, she ran after me again and followed me into the bathroom with her little nose conveying “HI WHAT’S GOIN ON IN HERE?”  It took several minutes and a piece of a tortilla chip for me to get her out.  I’m flattered she likes me so much, but shit.  It’s like having mini dogs.
• Anyway.  I want to read ahead for one of my classes, then I have to watch Project Runway with my roomie.  IT IS ESSENTIAL.  I am seriously losing a lot of my tomboyishness and I’m actually not that sad.  Fuck yeah, estrogen!

WRRRRYYYYYYYYYY

So much to bitch about.

So my favoritist band in the world besides Radiohead, The Receiving End of Sirens, are reuniting, hopefully for good.  I was pumped and ready to go up to Mass. on May 8th, until I realized it’s my graduation day.  FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…I seriously hope they’re reforming for good, because goddamn.  Fucking love those bitches.  When they broke up/went on indefinite hiatus I was depressed for an entire week.

I have the virus from hell right now.  Kinda feel like my head is about to explode.  I spent all of yesterday evening, last night, and the better part of today in bed drifting in and out of consciousness.  I hate getting sick because when I do get sick it’s fucking bad.  My immune system is good until something actually gets in, then it just creates a giant clusterfuck with my antibodies and white blood cells and they’re all like “OH GOD WHAT IS THIS FALL BACK!”

Also, it’s weird how my sister and I both always get sick at the same time.  ALWAYS.  We don’t even see each other that often.  I saw something on her status about being ill this morning, and I was like, “WTF I’m sick too!”  She apparently has the full-blown flu, I just have some nondescript shit that has the possibility of turning into a sinus infection.  Still weird though.

My roommate’s boyfriend is spending the weekend here.  Because of my current condition I actually haven’t met him, but my other roomie was kind of turned off by him.  Apparently he kinda talks down to roomie #1, which if that’s true, I don’t feel comfortable with that.  I mean, I gave him my seal of approval because he likes the same type of music as I do and roomie #1 seems to be crazy about him.  And roomie #2 really isn’t one to make something like that up, or see something that isn’t there.  I dunno.  If I feel better tomorrow I’ll see if I can gauge him a little better.  I really have problems with guys who do that sort of thing.  Sure, roomie #1 is rather innocent and sheltered, but seriously, that talking down shit is not cool at all.

First week of my last semester of college actually went by well.  It shouldn’t be too bad, except for my big thesis that I have to do.  30+ pages about the battle of Thermopylae pass during the Greco-Persian wars.  I can do it easily, it’s just that it’s going to be a lot of work.  Will be starting on that probably this weekend.

Buffy, the rat that used to freak out whenever you tried to pick her up, has finally learned that doom will not befall her if a hand comes near.  She still sort of seizes up, and she let out a tiny squeak when I picked her up one day, but she no longer bites and is pretty calm as you hold her.  This is great, because she’s actually rather cuddly when she realizes she’ll be alright.  A couple of days ago she stole a wrapped piece of chocolate from one of my roommates and then scampered away.  I nearly died laughing.  Rats apparently do laugh, it’s just that it’s beyond the range of sound humans can hear.  I’m sure Buffy was giggling while running around trying to dodge my roommate.  Hilarity and a half.

Anyway, time to eat some vitamin c tablets, listen to Iron Maiden, and play Modern Warfare 2.  It was what one of my friends told me to do to get over this illness.  Might as well give it a shot!

Sims 3 - World Adventures EP

I broke down and bought the Sims 3 expansion pack, even I didn’t think it looked all that great and, as previously demonstrated, I’m not crazy about the base game.  However, I am the master of impulse buys and later deep regrets.  The deep regret of this purchase hasn’t quite hit, or at least not yet.

Basically, if you’ve played Sims 1 or 2 and know of Bon Voyage and Vacation/On Holiday, you know what to expect with World Adventures.  You can take your pixel dolls to China, France, or Egypt and immerse them into a very watered down version of the actual countries.  It would have been sweet if your sims had to learn the languages and were standing there holding a translation book mispronouncing everything with the sims who live there just stand there and laugh, but hey, I’m a history major, not a game designer.  Whilst there, the sims can go on these crazy adventures that lead them into tombs and such.  They can also steal precious artifacts so they won’t be taken care of properly and future generations will not understand past cultures and humans and therefore will be doomed to make similar mistakes or just being rock stupid in general.  /historymajor

I actually found these little quests quite fucking tedious.  Maybe I’m just lazy (80% possibility), but it’s not like Fallout 3 or Borderlands where you just point the analogue stick/mouse while holding down WASD to get through one area.  You have to click around each maze to keep the sims from killing themselves.

Like Jimbob McGee here.  First time he was going through a tomb in China I was like, “Oh, he’s probably smart enough not to walk through fucking fire.”  When the Grim Reaper showed up to take away the now toasty Jimbob, I realized I was putting too much faith in the programming.  Sorry, Jimbob.  Again though, tons of clicking.  And if you want more than one person to go through a tomb, expect even more.
The visa system is an interesting new twist, though.  All sims start off with a level 1 visa for each location, and must acquire points through adventuring in order to gain a higher visa level.  On visa level 1, they can only spend three days on location before getting booted into a loading screen regardless of what they were previously doing.  Because I’ve been playing an epic amount of Red Faction:Guerrilla and I’m now back at school, I haven’t managed to get anyone past level 1 yet.  I’m also not trying very hard, so there’s that.

Sims can also enjoy the new hobbies photography and martial arts.  Martial arts is hilarious because they start off fighting with the sissiest half-hearted slapping you’ve ever seen.  Photography is sort of silly because the challenges are pretty weird.  One of them is to take a picture of a tissue box.  Yeah.

With every expansion, of course, there’s new shit to pimp your sims out with.  Such as this hairstyle, and this eyeliner that looks like an earthquake hit in the middle of the application process.

 
Seriously, what the fuck.

There isn’t a ton of new shit, which is understandable given that there are basically 3 more neighborhoods instead.  In general, it’s a few new Create-A-Sim shit like hair and clothing (men are once again largely overlooked unless you want like 12 new hats), as well as some nice Chinese, French, and Egyptian styled furniture and decor.  There’s also a totally bitching moped that made me giggle furiously.  Other than that, gameplay back in the normal neighborhood is pretty much untouched.

Of course, because this is EAxis we’re talking about, there’s some pretty gnarly bugs in this expansion.  The biggest one is the fact that the launcher refuses to install a bunch of custom content, even if it’s content from the Sims Store.  That’s right, if you were willing to pay money for some little pixel furniture, guess what?  You can’t even use it unless you use some insane fix that involves converting files or sacrificing to Odin or something ludicrous.  Great job, EAxis!  Further, I personally have had weird shit like sims not going to school or work and therefore performance slips to ridiculously bad levels, an issue that I’ve only been able to solve by using the Awesomemod’s “backtowork” command at 9 AM, 3 PM, and 8 PM.  That or just letting everyone fail and then sitting back and laughing, but usually I actually want to play the game as they meant for it to be played.  Another weird glitch is that sometimes inventory objects will just vanish.  Shit sucks if it’s an adventuring item that you need in order to get more visa points.  I never thought I would ever actually say “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU…” in real life, but I did that day.

Honestly I don’t understand EAxis’ bug fixing policy.  Some of the issues people have been having have been around since the base game.  Half the bugs EAxis doesn’t fix are fixed by fan-made mods like the Awesomemod.  I understand the economy sucks and they may not want to hire a whole bunch of testers, but if some regular guy can fix this shit for free and do it within a couple of days, what’s EAxis doing?
I feel like I rant about EAxis every time, but sweet Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever played a game this buggy that doesn’t get a patch within a few days.  Hell, wasn’t Modern Warfare 2 patched like the day after it was released because there were issues with multiplayer?  Infinity Ward, go help EAxis or something.  Damn.

Anyway.  It’s hard for me to recommend this expansion pack, but I feel like that’s probably because of who I am.  Currently I’m having a ton of fun beating dudes with a sledgehammer in Red Faction.  World Adventures, by comparison, is kinda boring.  If you enjoyed the other “journey to another land” expansion packs of Sims 1 and 2, you’ll probably enjoy this one.  It’s a good expansion, but I wouldn’t have used it as the first one.  I think they should’ve done something like Nightlife/Hot Date and mix up everyday gameplay a bit.  Again though, I study ancient Greece so my opinion is moot, really.

Final verdict: meh.  Hold your money until a patch is released.