( Two days... )

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Listening to: Leonard Cohen

Daniel "Chip" Henley, 48, died suddenly on May 6, 2009. Funeral Mass is in St. Aloysius Church, Caldwell, on Monday at 11 a.m. Visiting is in Farmer Funeral Home, 45 Roseland Ave. (at Eagle Rock Avenue), Roseland, on Saturday evening from 5 to 8 p.m. Interment is in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Caldwell. Chip was born in Montclair and was a lifelong resident of Caldwell. He received a B.S. degree in biology from Cook College-Rutgers University, New Brunswick, in 1983. Chip was a self-employed jewelry designer and maker. He was the son of Jane Blessing Henley and the late Daniel John Henley; brother of Jane Puleo (husband Nick) and Katherine Henley (husband Dan Martindale), and uncle of Lauren Puleo, and Caroline and Thomas Martindale. In lieu of flowers, donations to West Essex First Aid Squad, P.O. Box 662, West Caldwell, N.J. 07006 or American Heart Assn., 1 Union St., Suite 301, Robbinsville, N.J. 08691 would be appreciated.

Years ago, when I was in grade school, my mother became involved with a man named Dan Henley. A tall and large man, often grinning and prepared to offer a giant bear hug to friends and family. As my brother cessna182 noted almost a year ago, he really took care of us and easily accepted us as if we were his blood. A bigger heart you would not have been able to find.

Much of who I am today, I can trace back to that period of my life. I was closer to him than my natural father in many ways, and closer to him than my second stepfather (the latter due to my own hangups and perceiving of him as "getting rid" of Dan unfairly). Dan was in many ways a professor of life, encouraging me to think and learn at all times. Instead of teaching me how to play catch, Dan took it upon himself to teach me algebra. Instead of learning about the Yankees current lineup, he encouraged me to learn about history. Dan was a Renaissance man*, familiar with a wide variety of topics enough to encourage a young mind to look further into whatever topic caught my attention. Any question I had, he encouraged me to find the answer to it, and helped me do so. Puzzling through problems and obstacles using reasoning, logic, intuition, and other intellectual tools was his greatest gift to me.

*: yes, a flaw that I came to see what problems it caused him later in life

He and my mother quillter introduced me to a myriad of things at a young age, from Shakespeare to sushi. Playing Dungeons and Dragons from the age of eight or so, the two wrote pencil and paper role playing game modules for Iron Crown Enterprises. Rusak? The name of my World of Warcraft character? Came from a god of destruction they named after me (says a lot about their view of me as an adolescent, eh?) They encouraged me to game master as well as play, fostering my story telling skills, creativity, and imagination.

This year, as I'm getting conned back into taking part in the New Jersey Renaissance Kingdom, I remember going to ren faires with them as a young child. 21 years ago, I was at the first NJRK - and the next few. I won the costume contest at a New York faire as a child, and went to many other faires with family and friends. Every faire we went to, I watched Dan wheel and deal and bargain with the shopkeepers.

Dan's high school and college friends were wonderful, like a family to me, and really instilled in me a desire to surround myself with good friends to make my life richer. Frank the doctor and DC Comics fan, Geoff, the other Dan, Bill, etc. Bill lived with us for a while, and was probably one of the most influential people in my life - Bill got me into computers. Without Bill teaching me to learn how to program on his Apple ][e, and him encouraging me how to creatively circumvent primitive copy protection schemes on my 8088, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. Bill gave me a hunger for computer games, a desire to understand how computers tick, and the fundamentals of how to learn that. CyberSphere? WoW? My present career? All trace back to Bill. My brother and I both owe a lot to Bill.

Every year his friends would go to one of the NY faires with him, engaging in a friendly wager where the men competed at all of the games throughout the day. Bill would win at knife throwing, Dan would win at the test of might, etc. I believe the winner bought drinks for the rest. Some of my fondest childhood memories come from trips with them to the ren faires, or playing D&D with them. And they weren't the only RPG companions my parents had, the local comic book store's manager hosted an evening that they frequently GMed at, and I met Scott - one of my closest friends through the chaotic and tumultuous period of high school - through that. He met me as a nine year old child to his fifteen years, and when I was fifteen and suddenly in a new town without any friends, that twenty-one year old helped me find friends and learn a lot about love and life.

Musically, Dan was a massive influence. Dan was a connoisseur of classic rock, and was willing to discuss it for hours at the drop of a hat. From Led Zeppelin to Lynyrd Skynyrd and everything in between, Dan introduced me to lots of music I would have been otherwise without. While cessna182 gave me the gift of heavy metal, Dan taught me all about rock and roll.

Dan held a wide variety of jobs through the time I knew him, and was often running a few things on the side. Making and selling jewelery, working to create a network of non-profit organizations, whatever project he had brewing up there, he was pushing. Dan was a master salesman, and amazing barterer. One Red Paperclip reminded me of him, particularly of the day Dan caught and brought a fly on a string to a faire, trading it and trading it to see what he could work his way up to.

Not to speak ill of the dead, but Dan was not perfect. He was not the perfect man, husband, or father. In retrospect, hindsight being 20/20 and whatnot, I've seen the flaws and understood things better now than I did in the moment. But I loved him, and during the second divorce I argued with all parties (my mother, my father, and Dan) that I most wanted to live with Dan. This didn't happen, and he slipped out of my life. He kept in contact with my mother's family, but being young and Dan not sticking with a permanent address or online address often, he was oft hard to get a hold of.

We saw Under Siege together one night, as a sort of visitation. We went to Bill's wedding together, which I was honored to have been able to attend. A few times I visited New Hope, I'd run into him. One time he was selling books and candelabras by the river with a partner, another time he was selling sports memorabilia, another time he was selling art while also bouncing. Everyone in the tight-knit local artists community knew him, and every store I walked into for the rest of the day I was recognized as "Dan's son". But I stopped going to New Hope for a while, and a few times I returned I didn't see him. Instead of immediately running into him at the second or third store, I had to ask around for him and still couldn't find him. The last couple of times I went to ren faires with my mother's family and Dan's friends, he wasn't with us, and we discussed how hard it was to track him down.

Last fall, I was with jedimentat, at a faire in Pennsylvania, when she commented how surprising it was that we hadn't run into him. As we walked down the path, I saw a jeweler with grey hair, a full beard, and jewelery in tackle boxes... Certainly it couldn't be. We hung out by his stall for a while, trying to get his name, to see if it was him, if he would recognize me, anything. He left the stall in the hands of a couple who didn't know his last name, much to our furthered frustration. Finally he made a comment about Montclair or Caldwell, which was enough of a sign to me. Tearfully, I gave him my full name. "I'm your stepson." We both burst into tears, we hugged, and jedimentat cried as well. We chatted and caught up for the rest of the day, I found out how all of his friends were, and updated him with all of my friends and family that he knew. I watched him wheel and deal with customers, and old memories flooded back over me like a river. Yes, this was Dan. The smile, the hugs, the sharp mind, the humor, everything was there. We exchanged contact information.

Unfortunately, we didn't contact each other. jedimentat later told me about how she had recognized him from her years of involvement with local faires, and told me sad stories of him wandering around faire sites drunk, which broke my heart. He had made comments about living out of his car while I saw him, and hoped the best for him. I told cessna182 about my encounter, and about all that jedimentat said. Horribly, I never passed along his contact information to my brother either.

Three weeks ago, jedimentat and I were back in New Hope, reliving our second date together. Near the end of the evening, I saw him from a distance. He called out to us, trying to sell us jewelery, not recognizing us between the darkness and his failing eyes and his glasses that didn't look up to prescription being held together by tape and hope. It being late and me feeling shame at having not contacted him and me wishing he had recognized me, we walked on. Three weeks later, I woke up to an email informing me of his death three days ago. I regret not stopping and talking with him again with every ounce of my soul, and feel an incredible amount of guilt.

Dan was one of the most important figures in my life. Whatever he might have done, whatever he might have become, he helped make me who I am today - and some of the things I love the most about myself I can trace to him, directly or indirectly.

When Dan's father died at a young age, a comment was made that stuck with me. His father was incredibly inquisitive, studying computers and learning everything he could about the early Macs he had in his study, which was filled with books about a cornucopia of topics. "Now he finally understands how it all works."

I can only hope for such a thing for Dan.

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: sad

Last year, jedimentat got me this shirt for Cinco de Mayo. She's awesome that way.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: loved

Gizmodo used a picture of me from palingyuan and oidhche's Halloween party, when jedimentat and I dressed up as tourists for whymercy/darkhand's Gilligan's Island themed party later on in the evening. They shopped Larry the Cable Guy over runstaverun, which would have given the party a different feeling if that had really happened.

And here I thought this would be the most viewed picture from the set.

mrfantasy (1:15:05 PM): http://i.gizmodo.com/5220269/exposing-your-junk-to-the-comcast-guy-will-not-get-you-free-cable-only-jail-time
mrfantasy (1:15:06 PM): ?
kingfox (1:15:24 PM): HOLY COW
mrfantasy (1:15:51 PM): I wasn't sure if it was really you
mrfantasy (1:16:00 PM): where the hell'd they get the picture?
kingfox (1:16:15 PM): Read the page.
kingfox (1:16:21 PM): It says image via Flickr, and links back to my picture.
mrfantasy (1:16:51 PM): I don't think they used your license correctly, as this is a derivative work
kingfox (1:18:08 PM): I guess they just looked for the tag "flasher"
mrfantasy (1:18:11 PM): I just feel bad for runstaverun, really

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: pleased

It's awesome that there's things like ping.fm to notify all my friends on all my networks what I'm doing, or things like FriendFeed to act as a reverse of that, like Natuba did back before it re-invented itself to absolutely blow.

But I want a ping.fm for location based things, like Dodgeball (rip), brightkite, and foursquare. Something that, tied into Google Latitude, lets me check in to all those things without having to sit with my BlackBerry for a minute or two at each new venue.

I've got my flying car, where's my location based multi-network service?!?

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: okay

Yesterday Blizzard announced two new flavors of Mountain Dew. Yes, Blizzard. World of Warcraft themed Mountain Dew! Halo Game Fuel was such a success, so the world's largest game is giving it a go. Even though I quit drinking it over a year ago, I know I'm going to end up giving these two new flavors a try. Yes, even Alliance Blue.

( Pictures of both bottles under the cut. )

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: thirsty

Just tried Miracle fruit tabs from ThinkGeek. Holy cow are they amazing. Fantastic. Need to do them again, with people. Need people to come over, with a variety of things to try. LFG 4 flavor party, PST.

Food	Taste
Lime	The most amazingly sweet and flavorful limeade you could ever imagine. Yeah, I love limes. My favorite fruit after mangoes. But holy cow, it was like a sweet lime explosion in my mouth.
Lemon	Similar to limes. Amazing sweet awesome lemonade. Next time I'll have to mix the two and produce an all-natural Sprite.
Soda bread	Tasted like... plain old soda bread. Oh well. I mostly purchased it to soak up all the acid I knew I was going to be eating, to avoid the upset stomach that many had reported from ODing on citrus while under miraculin's effects.
Gherkins	Nothing different. Oh well.
Guinness	Imagine a root beer float, made of awesome. I still maintain that Guinness floats taste awesome (I know that's an insulting sacrilege to some people), but this tasted like that - despite the lack of ice cream. Wow.
Irish whiskey	Pretty flavorful, took a little of the earthiness off from it, leaving some of the more subtle flavorings.
Ciclón	I'm normally a sucker for Ciclón, but it tasted even sweeter and smooth. The lime and agave were really heavily accented. Next time I need to try pure rum and pure tequila to see how they're accented by the miraculin.
Orange	Woah. Sweet orange juice. Orange juice with sugar. Sliced that puppy up and devoured it in seconds. Not as amazingly different as lime and lemon, being a naturally sweet fruit already, but still an even more intense flavor than usual.
Grapefruit	This was the main event. People had told me that grapefruit would be the most amazing ambrosia with miraculin, and they weren't kidding. Fantastic. Blissful. All I could ever want from a fruit, and then some. I was expecting grapefruit with sugar, but it was so much more than that. A sweet rich fruity explosion of tangy nirvana. Woah.

I've got plenty of ideas for the next tasting, and for a future flavor tasting party. Well worth trying, if you ever get a chance.

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: ecstatic
Listening to: Stern show

agent179 is a regular at Drip, a local coffee establishment in downtown Madison. He's friendly with all of the employees there, and has even gotten windexcowboy to make it part of his morning ritual as well.

He's even Facebook friends with the employees there, which leads to a modern web 2.0 version of the daily specials from the local restaurant being faxed to your office (I'm amazed a lot of places still do that). They just wrote the daily specials on his wall a few minutes ago.

Seb Jones wrote at 11:13am
todays soup is mediterranean chicken the sandwhiches are a roast pork with cabbage slaw on foccacia, we alsohave an olive cream cheese cucumber red pepper fennel and sunflower seeds on whole grain

Now that's service. If only local Hoboken eateries offered the same. Now that Rue de Jardin is no more, petemagyar and I are reduced to coffee from Empire, which doesn't even offer the best crepes in town, let alone fantastic goat cheese sandwiches which make you believe in a supreme being.

I approve of this sustainable "green" lunch menu dissemination. Twitter, Facebook wall write, Dodgeball shout-out, whatever.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: good

Thank you so much, towelboy, for posting these. petemagyar and I have been cracking up at them tonight.


Fabulous Confabulations - S1E02 - APATHY AT DREW from on Vimeo.


Fabulous Confabulations - S1E04 - SGA from on Vimeo.

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: nostalgic
Listening to: Life of Agony

Yeah. It comes in determined or happy.

Yeah. Don't forget the coffee, the heroin, and the racist cookie.

---

MANU!

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: full

The CNN live feed with Facebook is pretty awesome, I have to say.

Sure, I've experienced similar major events on a MOO, using IRC, or in an IM chat room. But this is pretty awesome. Particularly the explosion as he was sworn in. My Facebook and Twitter Firefox plugins caused a flurry of toaster style notifications, all at the same time. That was pretty cool.

---

EDIT: Hey runstaverun, there's a perfect LJ community for you that might just save your life: can_i_eat_this.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: hopeful
Listening to: Obama

My 31^st trip around the sun. Thanks for the IMs, emails, calls, Facebook wall writings, etc. I feel the love.

Now all I want for my birthday is:

• To have Malaysian yet again today.
• To get some more T7.5, finish off exalted with Sons of Hodir, and get the last 1.8k gold I need for the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth
• To get an engineering teleporter to K3, and where are my wormholes?
• To get a replacement for Dodgeball. WTF, Google? Now I'll have to actually call mingtm when I'm in the city, and email runstaverun to harass him when we're out drinking together.
• A perfect margarita

Time to get started on some of those.

---

Last night jedimentat called me shortly after midnight, staying up late to wish me a happy birthday despite having to get up before the sun for work. As I was on the phone with her, graye mentioned to my guild that it was my birthday. They joked about singing, people gave me cupcakes and the like, and so forth. After getting off the phone a call or two after jedimentat (who was first, if you don't count people on Facebook who didn't wait for midnight and bizarre companies who emailed me before midnight as if based out of Europe or Newfoundland), they asked that I answer future calls with my mic open, so they could laugh at 'em. But no more came, so they lived without it.

---

Plans for this year's annual party (a joint affair for petemagyar and I) are made. If you're not on Facebook and didn't get contacted by me, harass me, and notice my face burning with shame. I'll hook you up with the details. jedimentat's throwing me a smaller romp through the city this Saturday night, and there will be events for her birthday (a week from today) as well.

---

Insert usual excuse about not updating more often here.

And I leave you with a picture of my nephew. My nephew's cuter than your nephew/niece/little cousin/child/young friend/whatever.

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: loved
Listening to: Stern

It's not surprising, as the former was eighty and the later was eighty-eight, but Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montalban both passed away today. Many hours spent watching the television work of both. Damn.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Listening to: agent179 saying, "There's gold!"

2007 in photographs can be found back here.

In chronological order, 2008 in pictures, under the cut. When no one is left using dial-up, what will be the snotty comment about large pages hurting the bandwidth challenged? Anyway, here was 2008:

( Lots and lots and lots of pictures: )

Seeing Iron Maiden a few times, Maine, graduating college, my surprise graduation party, both of our birthday parties, both of our cars hitting 100k, the election, it was a busy year! Lots of good times were had.

Have a happy new year, folks!

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: optimistic

Like last year, the year before, and the year before that, first line from the first post of each month.

• January: Wednesday I returned to work, but yesterday was my first work lunch with a number of people who took the first day back off.
• February: Last night was the first time I'd seen LOST "live", the first time I'd had to deal with commercials, and obviously the first time I didn't have to avoid LJ or the like.
• March: "I tried to piss all the gross stuff of the seat for you."
• April: BSG, Scrubs, The Office, and LOST spoilers - beware!
• May: As you know if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I'm graduating from Drew in eight days.
• June: I am wearing a Batman Band-Aid® on my hand.
• July: jedimentat is so dorky, she used play Greyhawk.
• August: Most amazing thing I've ever seen.
• September: What do you do when your name matches someone in the news?
• October: For a while now, I've done LJ polls soliciting anonymous comments before taking a flight.
• November: Last minute costume after getting the Survival Edition of Fallout 3 - Vault-Tec jumpsuit!
• December: Last night, while the technology employee post office was being migrated from Netware to Linux, I was joking about RMS with agent179.

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: relaxed
Listening to: jedimentat giggling at the Kazakhstan anthem

I suck at updating. As usual for the past year or so, just read jedimentat's LJ (post one and post two) or view my recent uploads on Flickr. Lately I've just been really out of it. Two illnesses, spending lots of time with the girlfriend's family, raiding new content, games I've been waiting years for, transitioning into a new position at work, family in town, and Felicia Day to drool over all suck up a lot of time. So view the photos, and make up your own story to connect them all together.

( Or if your imagination sucks, here's a few photographic highlights... )

And that's that!

Current Location: Hoboken, NJ
Feeling: happy
Listening to: jedimentat whistling

Last night, while the technology employee post office was being migrated from Netware to Linux, I was joking about RMS with agent179. While trying to find pictures of him playing the recorder, I came across a classic shot of him... and his shirt looked a bit too familiar.




Compare that shirt to this one.

Poll #1312265
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: Friends

Do RMS and I have the same shirt?

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Listening to: utini2 whining

Hey redvector, two people are already in line. This could have been us.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: working

Voted this morning. Went to work. Watched everyone freak out about it all day long. Heard from friends elsewhere that jack shit was getting done in their offices as everyone sat on their hands. Heard the theories, the confident, and the nervous.

Headed off to the city for some mouth-kickin' sweat-inducing Chinese with dasubergeek. After dinner we walked to Rockefeller Center, and watched the results come in with thousands of patiently waiting tourists and New Yorkers. When he crept past 270, the crowd exploded. Chanting, cheering, and celebration filled the crowd.

We fought our way past the crowd to get a drink at a nearby bar, where dasubergeek looked up California proposition results and shared them with two fellow Californians. We parted ways, and I headed down into Times Square. Thousands of people filled Star Junction, cheering and chanting and going nuts. A fire truck played "Yes we can" on its horn. Cops hugged each other. People formed conga lines. It was fucking nutty.

Took a lot of pictures and videos, and now I'm on my way home. The PATH station is full of celebrations. In writing this I was asked for a bottle opener and offered a couple of drinks.

Now, to try and not wake up a sleeping jedimentat.

Current Location: NY, NY

My Pip-Boy 3000 didn't adjust for DST! If Black Isle Studios had done it, clearly it would have.

This day? The day of more sleep? The best day of the year. Better than my birthday, Halloween, New Year's Eve, Christmas, and all the rest.

Current Location: Pittstown, NJ
Feeling: jubilant
Listening to: The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant

Last minute costume after getting the Survival Edition of Fallout 3 - Vault-Tec jumpsuit!

Called graye to confirm which number should go on the back. 13, 69, or 101? He insisted I go with 13, which I did.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Listening to: caniswolfie mocking utini2

Discussed the game with the two students working the helpdesk while nabbing a donut. One joked that he'd ask where I was, but it being an open ended game, that wouldn't matter. But despite it being an open ended game, we realized we were all on the same exact side quest, and on the same step of the same side quest.

That being said, it's fun. Expected it to be a bit bigger, but I'm used to the scope of the past two four three. Combat's fun, not at all what I feared. The FPS-ish post-apocalyptic feel has me thinking I'm playing Half-Life 3 more often than Fallout 3, but that's just a mental association with theme and stylization. So far, having only played it for an evening, I dig.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: working

Want to know what graye's dressing up as for Halloween? MTV has the scoop!
Sorry, yeah, I know it's old. But it's MTV, so it's like sorta new and different but not really and I'm just gonna go ahead and shut up now.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: rejuvenated

I've got a long history as a gamer. Those of you who know me well, know that. Beyond early Pong/Atari/ColecoVision/Commodore memories, it was the Apple ][ that really got me into gaming. And while the submarine simulator that took half an hour to load and the Olympic games with their tinny rendition of the Soviet anthem were fun, it was role playing games that hit me hardest. Eternal Dagger, picked up on the way back from a family trip to upstate NY, really bit me in a major way. Once we got an 8088 IBM compatible PC the SSI "gold box" games wasted away many of my evenings. I still have vivid memories of clearing out certain sections of Phlan (particularly Sokol Keep) while listening to Metallica's …And Justice For All. The Ultima series, when I finally got into them through Ultima III for the NES, would end up becoming a major influence on my development.

But Wasteland was always my favorite.

It was a post-apocalyptic RPG, where you played a squad of desert rangers tasked with bringing order to the chaos and ultimately saving the world. Witty humor, beautifully written jokes and plot points, and vast improvements over the Bard's Tale engine that had already wasted so many of my evenings. Bard's Tale III was a wonderful game that kept me hooked from world to world, but Wasteland kept me hooked and replaying the same world over and over again. What originally hooked me on cybersphere were the Wasteland references.

My first play through was rather rocky. I wandered north into Darwin Village, way out of my league. Then I tried to actually assault the Citadel instead of get around it. Finally, I found challenges appropriate to my level, and ultimately fought through the Las Vegas sewers through a painful war of attrition. When all was said and done, I was proud to have beaten that game. One summer, I played Wasteland over and over and over again, resetting the game world and keeping my characters. I had it down pat, and could cut shortcuts to beat the final area in no time at all. By the time the summer was over, my characters were a group of grizzled veterans who could walk into Vegas and beat the Scorpitron apart with their bare hands.

Years later, I was excited to hear about Fallout, the spiritual successor to Wasteland. Sure, there had been the Wasteland sequel Fountain of Dreams, but we'd all like to forget that one. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 both came out during my initial time at drewuniversity as a student, and I played through the latter in my quadmate's room while he and his girlfriend watched television. From the epic intro, I was hooked. ( War never changes under the cut. ) Beautifully stylized, full of the irreverent Wasteland humor, and open-ended in the way only the best of Ultimas were. Slaughter bad guys across the field as a sniper, sneak in and turn their own guns against them, talk your way past them, go in guns blazing, send your faithful allies in, whatever. You got to explore, come up with solutions to problems that might have been different than your friend also playing the game, and experience consequences for your actions. The endgame movies, telling you what happened to the local area due to what you did, were freakin' awesome.

The two games came out in the late nineties, then we waited. A long time. The dumbed-down tactics came out, which I enjoyed playing just because it was Fallout. We had our moments of hope. After Van Buren died, the population became angry. Moreso because all they had to play was a dumbed-down advertisement-filled console adventure game that seemed an insult to everything Fallout was in their minds. Oh were they pissed. Impossible to placate, probably. We got a teaser, the tenth anniversary passed, and today Fallout 3 is released.

The fanboys won't be pleased. I've already read their rabid angry comments on sites such as NMA. Every time someone complains about hardware issues or DRM or their game crashing, the angry rabble yells a bit more. Even a seemingly loving tribute such as this one is picked apart for its factual errors and the narrator not sounding excited enough. Even if Fallout 3 was released with the ability to fix the economy, peak oil, and climate change? They would still be pissed that some plot element they thought was cool from Van Buren was left out (or included (because they're impossible to please)).

While rabid fanboy graye is probably shirking work to play his copy today, my Amazon exclusive collector's edition doesn't arrive until Halloween. And it's arriving a bit too close to WotLK. But I'll give it a chance, expecting no more than fun, yet secretly hoping for a game that at least tries to follow the theme of the originals. There's a shot that might happen, and Bethesda has proven their ability to do open-ended well. Worst case scenario, I've already played this. And just like watching Episode 1 after seeing the Star Wars Holiday Special, things just don't seem that bad once you've sunk that low. If things are that bad, I might just forgive Molyneux and give Fable 2 a shot.

Current Location: Drew University, Madison, NJ
Feeling: hopeful