John Zeitler

I’m enjoying listening to the audiobook of A Game of Thrones on my travels to and fro, but there are some very odd parallels I’m drawing from it to my current life situation. Just to take an example, you have no idea how many eunuchs just happen to live in the city of Pittsburgh.

I’m actually very glad to be “done” with Skylanders for the time being; at the moment, I probably could brute-force my way through the last four achievements if I really wanted to (or, more likely, enlist the help of another player to use a subtle exploit that may or may not work), but I’m pretty happy with leaving it as-is for now. Honestly, the game is too addictive for its own good, and outside of the figure-swapping gimmick there’s not a whole hell of a lot to it. Plus, the final boss is brutally hard solo, which is why I’d consider asking that certain other player for help– the “last” achievement (aside from the “get all others” one) requires a no-death run against the final boss, and I think it would be remarkably easier using the characters that can both attack foes and heal allies with the same action.

And yeah, I did do it this morning mostly to get to the next gamerscore milestone. It is an ultimately meaningless pursuit, but I like tracking it, and with the purchasing restriction this year it’ll be interesting to see how my percentages increase. They may actually go down, in point of fact– I have a few games on the shelf that haven’t even been put into the system yet, and as a result when they’re added to the aggregate totals I might lose some ground. Still, I’m making better progress to the 2012 clear goal than I really expected, and I imagine that I’m probably going to fire up an older RPG when I get back home tonight.

Speaking of that, I’d better get moving if I want to be on time– going to meet some friends and roll the ol’ plastic polyhedra. Ciao, folks.

Submitted without comment.

I picked up the 4th Edition Draconomicon: Metallic book today and read over the gist of it while eating dinner. Let’s just say that when I do get around to getting the campaign going again, my players are going to be up to their eyeballs in dragons. I mean, come on, it’s half of the game’s name right there.

This is Bad. Eurogamer discovered some stuff about the upcoming Michael Jackson game that they just couldn’t keep In The Closet, and because they had to Say Say Say it, I’m finding the game looks better than The Man in the Mirror could have ever thought. Specifically the DS version, which looks to borrow some of its gameplay elements from Ouendan or Elite Beat Agents. On reading this, though, I cried, “Eurogamer, The Way You Make Me Feel about this game leaves me Speechless.” Honestly, Diana (I assume the author’s name was Diana), you obviously Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ by comparing this game, which might not be appropriate given that MJ’s Gone Too Soon, to the Dangerous duo of EBA and Ouendan. You make me feel Dirty, Diana, ’cause I Remember The Time Ubisoft did Raving Rabbids for the Wii and how buggy it was. They Don’t Care About Us, Diana, and that makes me wanna Scream.

Then again, it’s Human Nature to assume the worst, and if you don’t view the world as Black or White, there’s still the possibility that this game could be a P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing). Really, since we are talking about some of the greatest pop music of the twentieth century (despite MJ’s weirdness prompting his calls to “Leave Me Alone!”), I’m willing to give Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt This Time Around. I’ll likely be at the store at the Break of Dawn to pick it up, Jam it in my portable, and– hopefully– be the first person I know to Beat It.

Sha’mon.

One of the projects I’m working on currently– the not-quite-so-but-still-kinda-”Super Secret” one– has me discussing with friends some rather… risky topics. I suppose it should go without saying that when I talk about, say, how to break into a store and clean out the register without leaving a trace behind, I’m only speaking hypothetically. Anyone who knows me, knows this; that I wouldn’t ever consider such a course of action in reality. Funny thing is, though, sitting at my computer on Skype and discussing this topic with friends, alone, in my basement apartment, I kinda felt like maybe I should have at least said “hi” to whoever was listening in on our silly inane discussion.

Then again, I’m reminded of a witticism that’s all too true: “Paranoia is a comforting thing. It means you think someone else thinks you’re important.”

In the colloquial sense, this ain’t my first time to the Poke-rodeo. It’s not even my fourth… maybe you could say seventh, if you don’t count failed runs on Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, or any of the countless side-games. Therefore, I feel totally justified in having sent a few leveling tools from my Diamond card into my current trip through SoulSilver, so that the grinding that I’ve discovered I both need to do and enjoy doing on the bus (but still want to have done sooner to get to interesting battles) will go a little faster. Nothing too exotic, just the Exp. Share and a Lucky Egg.

The fact that the critters I used to get those tools into the game early are ridiculously rare and potentially overpowered for this point in the game is completely beside the point.

A few years back, when I was in between jobs, I would spend my days literally camped out in front of the computer all day, getting up for soda and snacks, and when it became dark out (which was made longer by the fact that I was doing this in the summer), I would look up at the time, realize I’d lost an entire day, and curse myself for not accomplishing anything.

Today, I did stuff. Not a lot of stuff, but stuff nonetheless. Painted some models; brought one project to a pretty good pausing-point until an external event gets lined up; did some number-crunching in advance of some news that’s going to be on here next week; and, since I still have some time here before I want to go to bed, I’m probably going to try marathonning a disc of a TV series (likely a short-runner).

However, I still “feel unproductive” because I also spent about five hours playing an online game, when the stack of unplayed games is still ridiculously high. I suppose I can justify it by saying that I needed to relax, but in all honesty, I don’t even particularly care for the game I was playing… it just is scratching an itch I guess I never really knew I had. Ah well, hopefully tomorrow I can move on to something that gives me the “having done something” feeling I’m missing.