excited
jenniever today), and all the trappings of life... my plate's pretty full. Many things, including this, have fallen to the wayside. I've been too busy living to be journaling, as I've repeated as my excuse. Quite a few of you have teased or pestered me about my lack of updates.When I started this thing years ago, I was trying to fully catalog my life. Sure, I'd do other random shit, but I'd attempt to faithfully record the major events of my time on this rock. In that mission, I've been failing royally. I mean, fuck, I still have to post about these things:
But I haven't, and I haven't even bothered to post captions for those photographs. Or comment on this party or that party. I'm a bum. A slacker. With enough skills and family friends, maybe I'll be a professional party guest.
Anyway, yeah, life's been busy. I haven't been around. Many of you have commented on this online or off, and I'm still here. Really. And I even have a couple of massive updates mostly written. I guess I just need an illness or injury to find the time to get them up.
Hoboken is getting a new resident. As you might have read,
jenniever's moving to 
the_boke. Right around the corner, in fact. That's pretty wonderful. She's been living with petemagyar and I for the past couple of weeks, which has been nice, though cramped at times. It's a two bedroom apartment with a pair of night owl bachelors who have their routine, and while she's gone to extreme lengths to make things easier for us both and has been a totally wonderful roomie/guest, it's a small place. I feel like I'll actually see her more, with regards to quality time, when she moves in to her own place - though I know I'll miss the constant contact on some level.So that's a new apartment in
the_boke, a faculty position at columbia_u, and all in the space of a month or so. That's pretty amazing. I expect her to cure cancer by the end of the year.Fable is (as asked by
graye fun. Fable is wonderful. But Gabe's harsh commentary on it fails to lie. Yes, the world's small. You don't really get to explore each of the small areas, and end up teleporting around to save time. Yes, the game's kind of linear and the world fails to evolve around you. So over the course of a couple of days my character ages by decades, yet his wife stays just as young and firm as ever. Well, it is a fantasy game. But seriously, you really don't get to change the world as advertised. You go on your little quests, you become evil or good, and pick up some fame along the way. At first people snicker out ``chicken chaser'', by the end they're cheering for ``avatar'' and swooning at your feet.My character's a good spellwarrior nicknamed avatar (Ultima fanboys unite), who spent most of his time evil and will return to that path. By exploiting a source of endless experience points, he's an ancient sixty-five year old bald dude with beard and mustache. Tattoos cover half of his face and most of his body, but he's often wearing armor. Bright magical robes when he wants to impress people, dark spikey evil plate when he wants to take names. Over the course of a weekend, still going out and doing other things, I managed to beat most of the game. At this point I'm just taking care of side quests, buying up towns Ed Bloom style, and so forth. One day I'll sit down and beat it. The main quest is probably around twenty hours of gameplay if you don't race through it, nowhere near the depth of Fallout 2 or some other classics, and gameplay itself is on the easy side of things.
Is it worth buying? It's worth renting. Everyone should own an Xbox already, of course, so pick up the game for a few days. Odds are, you'll beat it, and know whether or not you want to bother buying it and playing it after that. Peter Molyneux has already apologized for the game, but I still think it's a fun diversion if you ignore the hype or get over the disappointment.
Sims 2, on the other hand, exceeded my expectations. Having spent a fortune on the original, I demanded a pretty good reason to spend yet more money.
- $50.00 on game itself
- $30.00 on Livin' Large
- $30.00 on House Party
- $30.00 on Hot Date
- $30.00 on Vacation
- $30.00 on Unleashed
- $30.00 on Superstar
But Maxis delivered. Making a town from Sim City 4, community lots and other essentials added to the original in expansions already included, aging, aspirations, and a great new engine all helped to win me over. Today
jenniever and I were laughing as a little baby toddled away from a busy parent to the bathroom, and started splashing in the toilet. I've already enjoyed watching my single father's daughter have a successful birthday party, turning into a teenager before my eyes.Maybe it's a growth thing, like how I couldn't resist Pokémon after getting my first Pokémon to evolve into another form. Josh warned me that after that I would be hooked, maybe it's some sort of parental instinct acting here, hooking me to the game.
Sure, I miss things from many of the expansions. I wish I could have pets and train them, I wish I had the large amount of cool textures and such from House Party, and I wish my Sims could go on vacation. I'm sure Maxis will let me pay for the privilege of doing that all over again, but like a sucker, I'll be happy doing it.
Next week is Siguccs down in Baltimore, where a crapload of us will be presenting. Heading down from
drewuniversity will be windexcowboy, blackbytes, johnstevensaul, oidhche, and our hero kingfox. The five of us will be presenting a total of five papers. While my co-workers in CNS have presented before, this is my first time. windexcowboy and I will be presenting a paper on eXtreme Deployment.It's also my first work-related conference since getting hired by
drewuniversity. Our friends at Hornbill will be there, and quite a few of the presentations look interesting. Good times.Mexico is where I'll be early November as you might have read. Unlike last time, I mean it. We're going down for the big ¡Circus Mexicus! that Roger Clyne throws annually. Jick and Mr. Skullhead from KoL fame will be there as well, which will be cool. It's going to be an insane weekend. Flying down to Arizona, sleeping, driving to Mexico, attending the concert, sleeping, and flying back up to Arizona for a flight back in time for work the next morning.
Later that month is
cessna182's wedding. Just reserved my tux earlier today. They're both amazing people, her family's great, the location is quite something, it should be wonderful. I'm very excited for it.Though I am nervous about one thing: seeing my father for the first time in five years.
It'll be good to see my mother
quillter under better circumstances.So yeah, how are all you doing?
