janegodzilla: (roll ze dice)
I should really be doing my epidemiology homework right now, but instead I seem to be doing this. Suck it, homework!

So. Earlier tonight, my boyfriend told me that he'd been thinking about things for a while now, like really thinking about them, but he'd finally come to a decision: he wants to run a 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

The sound I made over the phone was the vocal equivalent of this face: :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D!!!!!

See, I've been wanting to play D&D again for ages, but...I don't know a lot of people who play? I played a little with Nate's old gaming group, but he hasn't seen those guys in ages and also they made me feel twelve kinds of awkward. They weren't mean or anything; actually, they were really awesome, especially considering I'd never played before. But they were all older than I was and they were also MEGA GEEKS -- we're talking Ur Geeks here, the Geeks That Define All Geeks -- and although I'd been an awkward little lit-nerd since I was wee, I'd only really begun to embrace my geekdom in the past several years or so. Some of them, on the other hand? Had been playing D&D since before I was in the double-digits. You have to admit, that's kind of intimidating.

I'm really psyched about the idea of Nate running a campaign, though, especially since some of the other people at the table will be about my level experience-wise. I just recently discovered that one of my school friends has been hiding his total geekdom from everyone (he finally decided to level with me on the basis that I (a) knew what the uncanny valley was and got all excited when someone else mentioned it; (b) knew who Terry Pratchett was and got all excited when someone else mentioned him; and (c) wear t-shirts that reference Futurama and Portal and quantum physics and Cthulhu and things). It turns out that he runs a Legend of the Five Rings game and when I got all excited about that (sue me, I'm easily excited!), he invited me to join. This means I may have TWO tabletop RPGs in my future.

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

And, just to round out the sheer, unabashed dorkiness of this post, I am SO putting in a pre-order for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning at GameStop tomorrow. I played the demo yesterday and fell utterly in love with it, to the point where I played it twice. It's just so shiny!
janegodzilla: (emo sparkly john mayer)
I've got just a few days left at work, which is pretty fucking awesome, although I never realized how exhausting it could be to train a replacement. I trained new file clerks at the law firm when I was bumped up to project assistant, but there was something fundamentally different about that whole experience: namely, that I would be around if Newbie had questions or needed help with anything. My current Newbie, on the other hand, will be completely on her own once I leave. I'll probably check my OHSU email once a day to make sure I'm not missing anything related to school, but that will be the extent of it. I'm not going to be an asshole about it -- I'll set up an out-of-office notice to let people know what's going on and I'll manually forward anything that needs forwarding -- but I'm not going to be involved.

So...yeah. Poor Newbie's getting all of six days to feel comfortable on her own in a job I've had for almost three years. I'm so sorry, Newbie. I'm so very sorry.

(Not sorry enough to stay, of course, but still)

I've been playing a lot of L.A. Noire lately and it's incredibly fun, although it hasn't quite captured my VERY SOUL the way Bully, Red Dead Redemption, or the Portal games have. I think it's mostly because I can't connect with Cole Phelps they way I connected with Jimmy Hopkins or John Marston. With those two, I knew what they were about from the get-go; Cole is much harder to read. I started off liking him, sure, and I wanted to know more about his past and why he was so ambitious, but I haven't become invested in him the way I felt invested in the other two. I mean. For fuck's sake, the ending of RDR reduced me to a blotchy, sobbing wreck because of spoilers, obviously, ) and I don't care about Cole the same way. He's too closed off. There are things he says and does that I'm at a loss to explain, and it makes it incredibly hard to empathize with him sometimes. This narrative distance is intriguing sometimes -- I'm a fan of the slow reveal and it's making for an interesting gameplay experience, but I'm finding that I care more about the cases than the overarching story or the characters involved. I want to be invested in my protagonist. It's a little frustrating that I'm getting close to the end of the game and yet I still don't have a good feel for why Cole does some of the things he does. The reveal of MAJOR STORY SPOILERS! )

The gameplay itself is phenomenal, though, and I'm having so much fun playing through the cases. I've seen a few reviews complain about how linear the game is, but I'm fresh off Portal 2 and so L.A. Noire's forward momentum is both comforting and exhilarating. I usually sink ridiculous amounts of time in sandbox/free roam modes when it comes to games like these, because I like to explore and collect things, but damn if solving cases isn't so enjoyable that I keep putting off my usually obsessive roaming. I love procedurals. LOVE THEM. And I love feeling like a Real Live Detective as I wander around gathering evidence and interviewing people. It's the same general process each time, but there are enough surprises and upsets along the way that solving crimes end up being a rewarding and often tense experience. Some story spoilers ahead for the Homicide cases )

Anyway. It's entirely possible I'll beat the main storyline tonight, and then I'll probably shift over to free roam mode so I can get my collecting on. Awwww yeeeeeeee.

Portal 2

Apr. 24th, 2011 05:44 pm
janegodzilla: (EEEEEEEEEEEE!)
♥ ♥ ♥ ~ * ~ PORTAL 2 ~ * ~ ♥ ♥ ♥
♥ ♥ ♥ ~ * ~ PORTAL 2 ~ * ~ ♥ ♥ ♥
♥ ♥ ♥ ~ * ~ PORTAL 2 ~ * ~ ♥ ♥ ♥
♥ ♥ ♥ ~ * ~ PORTAL 2 ~ * ~ ♥ ♥ ♥
janegodzilla: (wheeeeee!)
I got my tax refund over the weekend, and while I plan to put most of it to practical use (i.e. going halves on a new bed with Nate and getting rid of the remaining tuition on my credit card), I decided I needed to blow some of it on something fun. To that end, I ordered Phoenix Wright, Okamiden, and Pokemon White, which will serve as my introduction to the wide world of pokemon (SO EXCITED!). I would normally just hit up a Gamestop for all this stuff, but PW is old enough that none of the local places carry it and Okamiden doesn't come out until tomorrow. Since I was already ordering PW, I figured I might as well add a few other games to the order so I could get the free shipping.

This means I can't play until next week, of course, but given that my statistics final is this Saturday and the prof assigned us a metric ton of homework to go along with the studying, I think that's probably a good thing. Plus, now I have something to look forward to post-finals! Yay!

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out which version of Pokemon Black and White I wanted, though. I went with White because it seemed like a better one for beginners and people who want to do a lot of collecting, so...I guess? Also, the electric black dragon guy seems, uh, pretty cool. :I I have no idea what I'm doing. I even googled comparison guides and such, because I had to be sure I was getting the right one. I don't know what it is with me and relatively trivial decisions. I do the same exact thing when it comes to, I don't know, buying eggs or picking a restaurant for dinner. I'm so terrified of making the wrong choice that I end up utterly paralyzed by indecision, and then I can't choose a damn thing.

What's even more ridiculous is that I don't usually get this way over BIG things. Like, stuff involving lots of money or my career or people's lives or whatever? I weigh the choices, I make a decision, and 99/100 times I'm confident that my decision is the correct and/or most reasonable one for the situation. But GOD FORBID I pick the wrong restaurant for dinner! My brain can't even handle how horrible that would be. I mean, someone might be slightly unhappy with their meal choices. MY GOD. Just get in the car, everyone, we're going home.

In other words, I can drop $600 on my half of a fancy TV and be perfectly confident in the awesomeness of our choice, and yet I spent my entire lunch hour researching a $34 Pokemon game and I'm still worried I chose wrong. I just.

Neurotic: It's How I Roll.
janegodzilla: (jesus on a dino your argument is invalid)
I stumbled over the Papo dinosaur figurines whilst rambling 'round the internets, and...holy shit, do I want them. I want them so very much. The allosaurus and stegosaurus especially, because they are gorgeous (and because the stegosaurus is my favorite saurian herbivore), but I also want the tyrannosaurus and the velociraptor. The latter lacks feathers and looks more like a deinonychus than a velociraptor, but that's okay! It's still pretty!

(Seriously, that stegosaurus is like my childhood dreams made reality. I NEED ONE. A real one, preferably life-size, that I can ride to work and park in the Canyon Garage because I'm on a fucking dinosaur and I'll do what I want.)

Speaking of unrepentant spending, I am giddy beyond belief because I found a used copy of the original Jet Set Radio Future (i.e. the one with the cleanest backwards compatibility on the Xbox 360) online for less than $100. I used to love that game, and I've been haphazardly searching for a decent copy of the original for the past few years. It was never super popular in the States, though, so they've always been a) rare, and b) expensive. I ended up shelling out more than I normally would on a video game, but...fuck it. JSRF is made of ZAZZ and AWESOME, and I'm really excited to play it again.

I'm also excited to play Beyond Good and Evil HD, which I downloaded the other day. It's another one of those games I loved when I played it on the last generation of consoles, and from what I've read it's apparently a pretty good port. The story and voice-acting and music were all fab and the camera mechanic was hella cool, so I'm really psyched that I get to play it again.

And then Nate downloaded Torchlight yesterday, so I'm up to my ears in awesome video games all demanding my attention (especially seeing as I still have to finish Brutal Legend and Undead Nightmare...). Why haven't they invented a game system that I can just plug into my skull already? I mean. COME ON.

In other news, I have looked at the word "calendar" so many times today that it has ceased to look like an actual word. :B

yay math?

Dec. 19th, 2010 07:11 pm
janegodzilla: (emo sparkly john mayer)
One of the things that cracks me up about Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is how nonchalant everyone is about the Four Horses of the Apocalypse. It makes sense, kinda -- as Nate pointed out, when the undead are roaming the land in great numbers and things like zombie bears exist, people aren't going to get too het up about a creepy horse that weeps blood. But I still think it's hilarious that no one says stuff like, "So...I noticed your horse was on fire," or, "Not to be rude, but are you aware that your horse is swarming with locusts?" Hee.

Anyway, I finally took my math placement test the other night so that I could get into statistics, nutrition, and/or chemistry. I've been putting this off for two years, because I haven't taken math in, like, A DECADE and lord knows I'm not all that confident in my math abilities at the best of times. Perhaps this is why I waited until the last possible minute to get this shit figured out. Luckily, my week and a half of frantic cramming paid off and I qualified for statistics, and I'm feeling much better about the whole thing now that I'm finally registered for a class.

The guy at the testing center was hilarious, though. There are three or four different math tests you can take depending on what you're trying to get into, and for stats I had to take the test with advanced and college-level algebra with some trig thrown in there for...I don't know, variety, I guess. So I take my test and there are things on there that I totally didn't study, like factorials and imaginary numbers and bullshit like that, and afterwards the guy prints out my results and is like, "Yay, you qualify for statistics!"

I go, "SWEET!" and do a fist-pump, because I am a noble and dignified flower that way.

Then! THEN! Testing guy gets all sadface, and he says, "But you didn't qualify for calculus or trigonometry, though. You'd have to go through college algebra before you could take those."

Me: ...AHAHAHAHA, OH MY GOD.
Testing guy: What?
Me: Dude, all I care about is stats. I haven't done trigonometry since I was sixteen. Sixteen.
Testing guy: How old are you now?
Me: TWENTY-SEVEN.
Testing guy: OH. So...I guess that's okay, then?
Me: Yes, quite.

It was just...I don't know, it's like he was trying so hard to make me feel better about the fact that I didn't qualify for things that are ridiculously over my head anyway, and it was amusing. I'm still kind of a amazed I qualified for statistics in the first place, given that I outright guessed on three of the four factorial questions before I remembered what the fuck factorials were. I mean. Factorials?! What the fuck.

/cool story
janegodzilla: (bear is driving!)
Oh my god, weather. This is just...what the hell is UP with this year, anyway? I can't remember the last time I felt comfortable with the weather and temperature, because lately it's either been excruciatingly hot, or unseasonably cold. Currently, we're stuck on the hot end of the cycle. We haaaaaaaaaaatesssssssssssssss it, precious.

Work on the house is trucking along nicely, at least. The painting is entirely finished and Nate's got about half the floor done, so we're just about there. I brought over a few boxes on Saturday and will probably shuttle more over throughout the week, so...yeah. At some point we're going to rent a U-Haul so we can start moving furniture, and that will pretty much do it. We still need to get new baseboards and install those after the floor is done, but we can do that after we're moved in if we have to. We're both more than ready to be done with this whole process so we can finally settle in and fucking RELAX. The past two months have been nothing but "work on the house work on the house work on the house (and also study!!!!!)". I need a break, and I suspect Nate needs one too. :P

And in things not related to our house or my job or stress or whatever...I made it to Episode 3 of Alan Wake before abruptly switching gears to play more Red Dead Redemption, even though I beat the game, what, last month? I suspect it's because I have to think about what I'm doing when I play Alan Wake, whereas with RDR I can work on unlocking various outfits and achievements and I don't have to pay all that much attention to what I'm doing (unless there's a JESUS CHRIST IT'S A BEAR GET IN THE CAR moment, in which case I start paying attention very quickly). I was originally just playing the open sandbox bits past the end credits, but yesterday I loaded a new game and now I'm playing back through the whole storyline again. It's weirdly relaxing, kind of like rereading a book or watching tv shows in syndication. Now that I already know what's going to happen, I can take my time and futz around all proper-like.

Ugh. Too hot. Cannot think. This is as proper an ending as this entry is going to get, I'm afraid.
janegodzilla: (IT IS A CROWBAR)
Since my LJ's been kind of a giant downer-fest lately (reasonably so, I think, but still), I'm going to talk about stuff that's not even remotely connected to Ivan's cancer or my job or my stupid class that just ended, because all of those things make me sad and/or cranky, and I'm tired of feeling sad and cranky all the time.

There's some good stuff on the horizon, at least? Nate's potentially closing on the house this Friday, which is something we're both kind of desperate for at this point. We've got our fingers crossed that everything will finally work out, and then we can paint and re-floor and ~*move*~ and everything will be SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS AND AWESOMENESS THE END.

Also, ferrets. And possibly chickens. We're pretty keen on the idea of keeping chickens.

I've spent the last week playing the hell out of Red Dead Redemption, and sweet tapdancing christ, that there is an amazing game. AMAZING. It feels more like an interactive movie than a game to me, and it didn't take very long at all for me to get deeply invested in John Marston and his story. As with most Rockstar productions, you can make him a complete and utter bastard in the sandbox portions of the game, but I preferred to play him as a good guy and to my pleasant surprise the game allowed me to do so just about every step of the way. WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT, ESPECIALLY FOR THE END OF THE GAME. )

I actually have a lot more I want to say about the ending, but I think I'll save it for a different post. This one got way bigger than I intended, and I feel a pressing need to watch Deadwood for a bit.

Profile

janegodzilla: (Default)
TEAM DISCOVERY CHANNEL!

February 2012

S M T W T F S
   1234
567891011
12131415161718
192021222324 25
26272829   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags