Fables

Yes or no?

Aaron and I bought Fable 3 and have been glued to it all day. One of the first things we did was have a baby, but the nanny the game stuck us with was hideous and questionable at best for a child care provider. His traits included kinky, aggressive, and bisexual -- meaning neither our son or daughter would be safe. So we fired him before he had a chance to molest our virtual babies, only it didn't end well.

What we expected was that we'd fire him and a new nanny would show up. Problem solved. What happened was we fired him and social services took away our baby. I guess social services thought our baby was better left to an aggressive, kinky bisexual than with two heroes of the realm. We spent the better part of an hour trying to find her in the orphanage to no avail. Tragic, I know. Had we found her, perhaps we would not have become such murderous tyrants. Your fault, Fable. Your fault.

The game mechanic has changed significantly from Fable II, though it's not all bad. Simply... different.

You can now only access your inventory at your home base, where items are divided by type and separated by room. This isn't necessarily so much bad as it is needlessly time consuming. I can understand if they were working from an immersion perspective, where you wouldn't be able to carry all that shit with you, but considering you can instantly teleport to home base from anywhere in the world, well, so much for immersion.

I'm not sure how to give gifts to anyone outside of other players you invite to your game. You unlock emotes as you go, so perhaps it's just something we haven't unlocked yet? But it would seem odd I could gift to players but not NPCs by this point in the game.

Shops have changed too. You no longer speak to the NPC running the shop to open a shop menu where you select what to buy. Now all shops have their wares on display. To purchase something you approach the display and buy it there. There is sadly no "buy all" option so if you want to buy a lot of something, you'll have to hit A a lot. This gets old fast.

One thing I found odd is that you can only have a maximum of two spells equipped at once. One in each hand, and once you unlock the ability to cast two different spells your only option is to cast both simultaneously. You can't just cast one or the other. Not that it matters really, as your mana pool is infinite. It just seems like a peculiar change to me.

On that note, your progression (leveling up of skills, magic, and jobs) takes place in some other dimension by purchasing chests with guild seals instead of an in-game menu where you spend the appropriately colored orbs on the corresponding colored skill. This isn't necessarily a worse method of progression, just far less intuitive.

Then there's your emotes. Unfortunately you have little control over your interactions with others. If you want to dance with someone, for example, you may have to whistle, hug, and pose for them first (multiple times over) before the option becomes available to you. You can't just hit the d-pad as in Fable 2 until you find the one you want and then execute it. This can also get old fast. Particularly if you need to complete a task where a specific emote is required of you.

Lastly, they integrated the xbox Live store into the game, which seems unnecessary altogether but a keen idea in the regard that readily available content inevitably leads to more sales.

Co-op has definitely taken a huge step forward from Fable 2, which had such lousy co-op it was unplayable. The camera is the biggest set back, as only player 1 has any control over it and if they change it during movement it doesn't detect the change accurately for player 2 which sends them running off in some random direction -- causing them to get stuck in terrain or lost. This makes navigating narrow spaces and doorways a bit of a nightmare, but it can be done. Granted it's frustrating. Teleporting to player 1 is always an option if you get stuck, but there is a delay. The time it takes you to teleport to the other player, you probably could've ran around whatever obstacle was in your way. So really it just saves you some frustration, not time.

I realize some of that sounds really bad, but when you compare it to Fable 2's co-op, you realize it's all actually an improvement.

Unfortunately your dog is mentally handicapped in Fable 3. He will often bark to notify you of treasure, or a dig site, or danger, only to then just walk in circles confused. It takes considerable patience and a lot of wiggling around in one direction or the other to make your dog actually go to whatever he's barking at. Even with advanced treasure hunting. This is really my only true complaint as the game goes on this glaring retardation only seems to get worse and worse to the point where your dog loses all functionality and you are more or less guiding yourself to buried treasure.

The only game-breaking fault lies in a certain area of the game where the map does not actually correlate to the zone you're in. With the map being 100% inaccurate, you're effectively lost, wandering around in the snow blindly. Probably for aggravating hours. This situation is impacted by there being several caves in the zone -- and you only need to be in one of them. But you have no idea where they all are or which ones you may've already visited because everything looks the gd same.

Otherwise the game plays in much the same way. X attacks with a melee weapon, Y attacks with a ranged weapon, B casts magic, A sprints when moving, you've got a dog, and so on and so forth. The quests are good, your hero is voice acted, and the music makes you feel immersed in the world. If it weren't for the fact that the game's presentation seems so rushed and incomplete, this would be a definite buy. While I foresee much time spent exploring Albion in our days ahead, I can really only recommend you rent this game.

My New Friend

The Garden Snail population in Northern California is quite robust. You can find the little guys all over the place after the sun sets. Dining on the shrubbery, bathing in the water from sprinklers, scaling the sides of buildings, even crawling right down the sidewalk. It's delightful.

I found this little one while Aaron was at class last week. I used to keep land snails as pets as a child, and enjoyed it very much. We had a nice jar all cleaned out and just waiting to be put to some sort of use, so I decided to put the snail in there with a collection of fresh leaf clippings until Aaron got home. Then I'd introduce them to each other and decide whether or not the snail would become a permanent resident.

He didn't seem opposed to the idea, as we watched our new friend crawl around in its new home, nibbling on fresh cut grass. For the sake of ease, we'll refer to the snail as a she, since Garden Snails are capable of altering their gender to reproduce a-sexually. Since then she's been living on my desk beside the window, where she gets morning light, but not enough to bake her.

She primarily eats the greenery I collect from outside, so she won't grow bored of just one thing (apparently snails get bored easily), but I treat her to a bit of whatever fruit I've eaten recently too. I think I'll also begin planting the seeds from our apples and pears and feeding her the seedlings every once in a while. This morning I gave her a bean sprout from the Vietnamese restaurant we ate at last night. She seemed to really like that, nomming down almost half of it in one go.

I knew a lot about snails from my time keeping them as a child, however I decided a little research would be keen since my methods back then consisted of, "provide it the most natural habitat possible!" No matter the cost. Which translated to a terrarium full of mud and sticks. Great for the snail, but an eyesore for my poor mother, I'm sure.

I discovered that loam is a cleaner solution to substrate than dirt, and the snails like it just fine. Also that you can put an earthworm into the terrarium to help it keep clean between actual cleanings as worms will more than happily consume the waist left behind by snails. So I hopped onto the good ol' internet and ordered a small terrarium, since she can't live in a jar forever, and a few blocks of loam. A grand total of $10.00 spent.

Now she just needs a name...

A Month's Worth

Things you've missed (a.k.a. things I forgot to tell you about):

In mid January Aaron and I went up into the mountains with a bunch of pals for Josh's birthday. Emil's family cabin. While I haven't seen snow all winter out here, there was of course snow on the mountain. The guys had shoveled it before we arrived but it was still slippery, which made carrying our things inside tricky. I forgot how difficult walking in snow was when you cannot feel your feet.

Inside the cabin it was warm and cozy despite the sole source of heat being the small hearth along the far wall. Everyone who had gotten there ahead of us was seated around the central table eating, drinking, and being social. We were guided to the back balcony, overlooking a scenic river we could not see in the dark, where Emil and Josh had shoveled the snow into shelves which held and served as cooling for all the weekend beverages -- from beer to soda.

Introductions were made where necessary and good times were had.
However, that night the fire went out while everyone slept. This made staying asleep difficult and waking up in the morning bone-chilling. It was re-lit soon enough and coffee was served to help warm and wake us all. Josh wasn't feeling well, but it didn't dampen the mood any. He was a champ about it. We created characters for a Deadlands campaign and sipped Mimosas. Outside the sun shone off the river, casting light at the snowy banks from all angles. It was beautiful. I spotted a giant pine cone off beside the cabin a ways and Aaron made it his mission to wade through thigh-deep snow to retrieve it for me. Seriously, it's like the size of a human head. I've never seen pine cones of that size living back east.

At noon Aaron, Sean, and Josh headed down the mountain to the market to pick up ingredients for dinner. The rest of us played video games and hung out. When they returned, we started the campaign while Aaron began working his magic in the kitchen. Josh was feeling worse, but sat through a few rounds anyway before going to lay down. By dinner time he'd gotten so bad that we had to drive him home, fearing his sudden illness may be Altitude Sickness.

We did our best to continue to have a good time, knowing Josh wouldn't want to be the reason everyone's week was spoiled. It was sad, however, that Josh would be so sick on his birthday and miss out on the dinner made just for him at the cabin. Aaron's famous The Meat. We immediately decided to save him a generous portion, and bring it down the mountain to him when we left.

That night, with periodic attention, the fire stayed alive and we weren't left shivering beneath our blankets. Sunday morning Aaron made everyone breakfast, after hearing horror stories about the other guy who cooked breakfast last time serving everyone raw French Toast. We then had some more geeky fun before having to head out at noon. While everyone else was staying the duration of the week, Aaron, Sean, and I had to be back after the weekend for school and work, respectively.

Once down the mountain we stopped to deliver some of the previously mentioned meal to Josh, who it was specially prepared for. He was still sick, but seemed in better spirits about it. Especially when we showed up regardless of his plague to make sure he got some of his own birthday dinner. We stayed and kept him company for just a bit, then we decided to go for lunch at The Black Bear Diner. There, Aaron noticed I had spots on my tongue and I admitted to having a little scratch in my throat, but it seemed like nothing.

Or so we thought.

By that evening, I was sick too. By Monday morning, so was everyone else. Ten people went up that mountain. On Day one, Josh got sick. On day two, I got sick. On day three, everyone else. Given that none of us had any previous contact beforehand, that meant it was some crazy infection that gestated for less than twenty-four hours. To make matters worse, it kept everyone sick for over two weeks. Everything was involved. Stomach upset, sore throat, runny nose, stuffy nose, fever, cough, and headache. As if every illness we've all ever had had combined into some super mutant virus hell bent on murdering us all slowly.

We were sick for so long, I forgot what it felt like to not be sick. Once I had finally reached that point, the virus released its death grip on my body and I recovered.

Aaron's mom, Eileen, came to visit us after we finally got better. She hadn't seen our new place yet and wanted to bring me a possible wedding dress which had been passed down to her. Of course I can't say for sure whether I'll wear it or not, because Aaron isn't allowed to know. Tradition and all.

Eileen is always a joy to be around. She and I get along famously, which is nice. We took her out to dinner at The Elephant Bar. The next day we took a trip to Old Town, down by the river. We ate lunch at Fat City, the place we discovered last time we were in Old Town with my aunt and uncle. Good food, good atmosphere. Later on, after returning home, we watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and stuffed ourselves with gourmet candy. It was delightfully entertaining. Before she headed out the next afternoon, Aaron made us pancakes with maple syrup and sweet Sumatra coffee. Saying goodbye to her is hard, like saying goodbye to my own mother. Though I guess that makes sense, since she'll soon be my mother-in-law.

Valentine's Day was spectacular. Aaron made fillet Mignon with mashed potatoes, caramelized onions, and served it all with a bottle of port. For dessert we had chocolate fondue which is both fun and delicious. I've never had a good steak, but this was so tender and moist I think I could have eaten it forever. Every day for the rest of time.

Though it took him an age to find a florist who had them, he also brought me a bouquet of tulips! I imagine most florists carry carnations and roses for Valentine's Day, since those are the generic picks guys get for their girls -- but I prefer tulips and he knows that. Which is sweet.

For him, I got a pound and a half of toffee in a gold tin, because he really enjoys a good piece of toffee. Half is traditional English toffee and the other half is toffee smothered in milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate. I had it imported all the way from the family who makes it out east. Which sounds weird to me, because I've always lived in the east.

Since my mother's husband is rather bad at gift-giving (e.g. he gave her a chocolate fish), we bought her a little barrel cactus and had it shipped out her way. Her favorite color is green. Cacti are green and grow all over California. So I figured buying her something green that could also remind her of me would be nice. It caught her totally by surprise and made her day. Exactly what we were hoping it'd do.

Lately we've been having gatherings every other weekend in our apartment, where all of our friends who live nearby come and hang out for food, drinks, company and gaming. It's funtastic. Aaron prepares all the meals, though everyone chips in monetarily for supplies. Friday night we usually drink and play video games or board games. Saturday afternoon we run a Gothic campaign. Saturday evening we either play more video games or watch Netflix. Our long distance friends are naturally invited to these gatherings as well, just for future reference! Even if you don't like tabletop games, board games, and/or video games, you'd probably still have a great time. However if you're our friend, chances are you enjoy at least one of the many activities we partake in.

And now I do believe you're all caught up!

RE: Letters to Inanimate Objects

From time to time, especially when bored, I write letters to inanimate objects around the house. I've decided to start typing these letters up and putting them in my blog to fill in gaps where I incidentally have nothing else to write about. Sure I could tell you all about whatever typical daily activities I've been up to, but you can only hear me talk about video games and books so much before it just gets repetitive.

Beware: Ninja Attack Imminent!

I have been on the internet for about 14 years now. That's quite a long time. Not the casual, "Just check my email once a week," internet denizen either. I'm more the, "On at least once a day every day," sort of person. I instant message people, I'm active on several forums, I game, I google any thought that crosses my mind, and I do a lot of downloading (Ahem. Of the legal kind -- I assure you). For 14 years! During all of that time I have never, ever had an anti-virus program installed. During all of that time, I have never, ever gotten a computer virus.

When I was in the PC sales & repair business I would boggle at the outrageous prices people were willing to pay for McAfee and Norton. Highway robbery. The fact that they were paying anything at all for virus protection boggled my mind. In 99.9% of all instances, you can avoid infection by simply not being an idiot. When random mysterious .exe files try to launch themselves, just click no. Never click on an url from untrustworthy sources. Just as you aren't supposed to accept candy from strangers -- don't accept downloads from them either. This is all common sense I thought... like not biting lepers or tonguing someone with tuberculosis.

But that isn't the case. At least half of the work I did on PCs was virus removal. To the point that it was ridiculous. The other half was typically people who were 100% certain they had a virus but it turned out they just hadn't performed any maintenance for as long as they've owned their computer. You should defrag at least bi-weekly and you should totally reformat every 6 months, amongst other things. No, the 2 inches of dust on your motherboard is not supposed to be there. No, the spiders living on your sound card aren't supposed to be there either. The fans inside should be spinning, yes.

To me, virus protection software is a big scam. A scare tactic used to frighten you into spending more money than necessary. "Beware the big spooky viruses! They will destroy the thousands of dollars you spent on your computer in an instant!" Like they're trying to convince you your computer will get e-AIDS if you don't invest in a virtual computer condom.

There is no reason to pay for something you more than likely will never need so long as you're not being careless. Even if you are careless, there are more than enough completely free anti-virus programs endorsed by Microsoft (read: not a Trojan in disguise) to cover your ass.

Today I was careless. I found a stow-away while downloading something otherwise benign. My very own computer virus! First one ever. At first I was a little annoyed, not by the virus but by my nonchalance. With a roll of my eyes I launched Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal tool because that's about the extent of effort most viruses take to be rid of. And if that doesn't do the trick, you can always just reformat. What a dull lesson in tedium, I thought.

Then something exciting happened. The virus scanned the program I was trying to launch, deemed it a threat to itself, and disabled it completely. Rendering it useless to me for anything other than a desktop icon. As a test I launched Windows Defender to see what would happen. Sure enough the virus scanned it and disabled it completely. This was now far more entertaining. Perhaps even a challenge.

Sure, I have encountered viruses that travel to escape deletion, but never one that actively takes out other programs it deems threatening.

I opened Windows Task Manager to see what the processes running were, identified the guilty ones, noted what directories they were occupying and made an attempt to end them for removal. The virus was fine with my perusal of Task Manager up until that point -- after which it immediately disabled Task Manager too.

Giggle. This was far more interesting than I had thought it would be. At this point I could've simply reformatted, it's about that time anyway, but now I was determined to triumph. To see how far this thing would go.

I went to Mr. Owl to ask him about my stow-away. The virus intercepts my search query and blocks all of the websites with any information useful to me. I manage to jump through some hoops and get to a page, from Microsoft's own, where I can download a third party task manager-like program with which I can kill the virus' processes and effectively download a new removal tool.

When I try to download the program from its actual website, the virus cancels the download and closes my browser. Not one to be thwarted, I go to a mirror site and download the program there. However when I install it, the virus recognizes the file name and disables it. Ha! Tricky devil. I'll have to be trickier. I download it again, from another mirror, and rename it. Rkill is now Bob. Innocent, totally nonthreatening Bob. I launch Bob and in a matter of minutes have killed my virus' processes.

Now is my chance to grab Malwarebytes and finish this. Which is essentially what I do, only I know that every time I run a new program, my stow-away awakens. I have to time it with Bob perfectly, or the virus will just disable MWB too. I manage this and after a restart, the whole ordeal is done with. Purgality!!!

Is it wrong that I was hoping my persistence would awaken some latent AI in the thing and Skynet would be born? I mean, self preservation programmed or not is pretty cool. Not even all animals have that level of awareness.

Of Legal Age

I have a hard time doing things by myself. That is not to say I don't know how to do things and thus it is difficult for me to do them, but that I know how to do things but when I try to do them my progress is impeded in one way or another. More often than not, due to age restrictions. As you are well aware, I am old enough to go to the strip club and buy booze. So says my I.D. Yet whenever I am performing a task that requires you to be of legal age, I face difficulty.

For many women, this sort of thing would be flattering. A blessing even. For the most part I don't so much mind it. From time to time it even supplies great entertainment. It also however carries with it a stigma. That I'm some wily minor trying to circumvent the law, and I don't like being treated like a con.

For example, in 2009 I bruised my shoulder socket. To make sure that it wasn't broken or dislocated, the doctor ordered an x-ray. I was there by myself. I had no issue turning in the paperwork to see the doctor to the clerk at the front desk, and the jolliness of the doctor I assumed was just his kindly good nature. As it happens, he was being nice because he thought I was a kid. Later he would ask me if I needed an excuse to get out of gym. He must have thought the age on my chart was either a mistake or a lie.

When the nurse came to escort me to radiology she gave pause and asked me if my mother was in the waiting room. Incidentally, since she had been the one to drive me to the medical center, she was. The nurse then explains that they'll need her consent to give me an x-ray. I interject that I can consent for myself because I'm an adult and she gives me a sort of confused look, followed by a glance down at my chart. Embarrassed, she apologizes several times. I of course relieve her by saying she has no need to apologize, and have a laugh.

That was last year. Just the other day while Aaron and I were at the grocery store, we decided to buy a bottle of Sweet Vermouth. Aaron, on the phone, excused himself from the check-out line while I went ahead and wrapped up the transaction. As I'm standing there the woman behind the register rings up the Vermouth and asks me if my mom is in the store elsewhere. Momentarily, I am perplexed. Then I realize what's happening  and reply, "No."

In disbelief the woman states very assuredly, "Honey you're not a day over fifteen! I'm going to need to see some I.D." As if I were trying to pull wool over her eyes. I remove my I.D. and hand it to her. It takes her a few seconds to find my birth date, since my I.D. is still out-of-state. Once she's found it she exclaims in disbelief, "NUH-UH! No way!"

By this point the middle-aged man in line behind me is curious and inquires, "What? Is she 17?"

The cashier, with now-wide eyes replies, "No. You wouldn't believe it!" and confirms the transaction. She apologizes too, but I just laugh it off and tell her I'm used to it.

Another time, while at dinner with my grandfather in Illinois, I was forbidden from buying a drink at Chili's. Due to my appearance and out-of-state I.D., they thought I was underage and that my identification  may be fake. With the right to refuse service to anyone, there was no argument I could make on my own behalf to convince them otherwise. In order to get a drink, I had to remain at the table while my grandfather went to the bar for me. A similar event happened to me when I was in Florida, at a Fridays.

It was even worse several years ago, where whenever I would go to clubs the doormen always wanted to put X's on the backs of my hands so that the tender would know not to serve me alcoholic beverages due to being underage. To make aggravate matters, even after proving my age they would try to make me leave the venue with the rest of the minors at midnight.

While many women in their 40's would love to be mistaken as 20, being a woman in your 20's constantly mistaken for a teenager just isn't as beneficial. Mostly it just creates awkward (albeit funny)  moments and holds up lines.

The Shape of Things To Come

Now that I've decided this will be my primary medium for journal writing, this is a general, "WTF you can expect," post.

Things you can expect from me:

• Posts about nonsense.
• Posts about my past.
• Posts about my present.
• Posts about my future.
• Posts that are lighthearted.
• Posts that are srsly srs.
• Posts about your posts.
• Posts about inanimate objects.

These are things you should not expect from me:

• Posting in any sort of scheduled manner.
• Posts about politics.
• Posts about religion.
• Posts about sports.
• Posts that are concise.

You should also be forewarned that I view the world in a very 'outside the box' sort of way and often times that carries over to my writing. I may jump from one subject directly into the next with little or no transition, expecting you to follow along. And what starts as a short update about my day may turn into a rant about nothing in particular.

Without further ado...

P.S. Went ahead and transferred all of my old blog posts over to this blog. Going so far back as to the year 2006.