Bright End of Nowhere

I had an exercise in...frustration today that at one point left me wanting to murder EA, burn down their HQ, and salt the earth on which it stood.

( It started innocently enough. )

Look, I am not a Steam apologist. I like the platform. I like it because it works and is the best currently out there that I've used. I would like it just as much if Steam had an actual competitor. (Things were great when AMD and Intel were hugely competitive.) But they don't, not really. And Origin is almost 10 years late to the party, does it worse than Steam, and acts like it's going to win this fight. I'm just not impressed by it. I wouldn't use it if I had a choice.

At least I have the game now.

I got distracted from DA:O a few weeks ago and am now attempting to get back into it. It's surprisingly difficult, mostly because I shed the all-consuming "MUST PLAY NOW" feeling, and am probably on a more normal play schedule. Just mildly frustrating since I'm near the end of the game and should just really dedicate a weekend to finishing the damn thing in a single go. Then I need to get through Awakening, because my pile of games to play is growing larger. Portal 2 is already pre-purchased, and I know THAT's going to eat my life. Possibly want to replay Portal beforehand.

I also downloaded the Dragon Age II demo. Haven't yet decided if I'm buying it at release or if I'll wait a bit for the DLC packs. I've also been eying Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, since I've heard it might be the best KH game yet, and I guess I'm willing to give Square-Enix a chance to redeem themselves. (I still have my friend's copy of FFXIII sitting unplayed on a shelf) But I need to finish P3P first.

Got my 3-day pass to PAX East this past weekend (along with the rest of my house). I'm a little grumpy that they changed from the Hynes, but that's just because it was stupid-easy to get to. Looking forward to playing Steel Battalion again and seeing what indie games are around this year. Also hoping to try out the 3DS, if it's there, because I want to know if I'll need to actually buy one or if I'll be happy with my DS for awhile yet (please note: my DS is a first-generation. Yes, the one before the Lite. It's a solid little beast). I figure I'll be visiting the GAMBIT booth a bit, though.

And I bit the bullet and finally bought Bahamut another 2GB of RAM today, bringing the final total to 8GB. I noticed DA:O starting to hang a little during play with Firefox and LyX running in the background (probably more Firefox than anything else) after being on for a long while. Honestly, Bahamut probably just needed a reboot (it might have last been rebooted sometime last year...), but it really shouldn't be doing that. And for some stupid reason, I started looking at graphics cards on Newegg. Can't afford a new one yet, and I don't exactly need one since Bahamut plays all the current games just fine with all the parameters turned all the way up, but it's good to keep an eye out since I'm about 3 generations behind (Bahamut's running with an NVidia GeForce 9800 GTX+). Of course, finding one that'll fit the motherboard is the tricky part. Or buy a new processor, because 2 cores isn't enough (it totally is right now, but that's because it's got the tail-end of the Intel Core2 Duos at 3.0GHz. Which is still respectable these days, even with the existence of Quad Core and I7)? Yeah, would be an expensive proposition, and I'm pretty sure Bahamut's got quite a bit more life in itself yet, as it's only 2 years old.

This is why I like building my own computer. I know exactly what's in it, how long it'll last, and how to replace things piecewise. It's awesome and budget-saving.

1) It's that time of year again. I spent a portion of last week watching LoadingReadyRun do their annual internet telethon OF PAIN, FOR THE CHILDREN. That being, of course, Desert Bus for Hope, where they play the most godawful boring game ever, Desert Bus, for as long as people on the internet donate money. This year, they had to play for 5 days, 21 hours, and raised probably over $200,000US (after the e-checks clear), all for Child's Play. Child's Play is probably my favorite charity, ever since they started in 2003. The goal of the charity is to provide childrens' hospitals all over North America and the world (it started in Seattle; now, there are hospital options in Egypt and they want to add more) toys, games, books, and movies for sick kids.

If you're interested in giving to a charity, but not sure which, I encourage you to check this one out. They've been doing fantastic work, and there's nothing quite like the feeling that you might have made some hospital-bound sick kid's holiday's a little brighter.

2) I took advantage of Steam's one-day deals this weekend and picked up two of their indie games packs. I'm becoming more and more of a fan of indie games, as they do some pretty interesting stuff. So far, out of the 9 new games from the packs, Beat Hazard (shmup that uses your music to generate levels), BIT.TRIP BEAT (chiptune Pong on speed and acid; you can tell your life by the audio fidelity), and Shatter (Breakout on acid) are the big winners. The Polynomial is cool, but screws with my spatial sense something fierce. ("There are the instructions in front of me! There are the instructions behind me! Oh god, there's a dude who's going to EAAAAT MEEEE! WHAT AM I DOOOOOOIIIING?")

3) Friend and I managed to secure ourselves copies of the super-rare Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzanoha vs. King Abbadon, complete with Jack Frost dolls dressed up as Raidou. They're super cute. I'll get around to playing it after I finish Mass Effect 1, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Assassins' Creed 2, and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 1: Raidou Kuzanoha vs. the Soulless Army. (You would think I was making those titles up. I'm totally not.)

Also, I suddenly want to cosplay as Raidou. I don't even cosplay! What is this I don't even

4) I have spent the last 4 days being incredibly sleepy. I have no idea why.

5) I should go write things! Or something. Thing is, I have about 4 things I want to write, but can't decide, so end up reading fanfic or playing indie games instead. <-- My First World Problems, let me show you them.

Remember how I said I didn't do software?

Yeah, apparently, I lied. A little.

I can't take the boredom anymore, so decided to attempt to teach myself Python. I have a project and everything. (I am ridiculously excited when the tiniest things work, too.) Although I fear the project is actually a giant exercise in dictionaries, lookup functions, and pickling. Oh file I/O, you are, in fact, the bane of my existence. Let's not even think about when I have to make this Do Things with GameTeX.

Once I finish this, I'll go on to something even crazier, like tabletop writing. Again. Oh, and write that fic for 36_stratagems, that little ficathon I'm supposedly running.

Right then.