jdotmi | A real update, and really long

Happy belated birthday to

badbob! Yeah yeah, I'm never on time for anything lately. :-p

This update is going to be long... Very long. Especially seeing as how I want to catch up for not doing any regular posting in, what, one or two months now? My posts on my main page (of which there are 15) stretch back to November for crying out loud!

Let's start with New Year's Day and all that jazz. 2004 is officially gone. Thank fucking god. 2004 sucked. 2004 needed to be tied to a tree and beaten with a rusty spork until it bled from any and every orifice imaginable. Okay, I am exaggerating a little bit. Not a lot, though. Just a little bit.

Gaming with friends has been a definite plus to the year. Meeting

carebear_flare has been a definite plus, even if we yell at him frequently. :-p There have been a few games that have come out that have entertained me, and I discovered Dead Like Me. That's pretty much all I can focus on or think about with 2004 that has been new and good. Old and good? Kitties seem happy and healthy, even if they tear out their claws and bleed out of their mouths.

What's new and bad this year? Unemployment. Not mine, mind you. Keith's. It's definitely made it pretty much impossible for me to not be in a state of pseudo-panic (not really panic, but not really relaxing) since it happened. Most of that is my own paranoia, I'm sure, but there is a big healthy dose of "he has no job how the fuck am I going to pay for all of this shit?" in there too. He was getting actual unemployment checks for a while, but that's over now, and the temp agencies don't seem to have the plethora of job opportunities they tried to make it sound like they did. Things are looking up in that front. He's had job interviews, he's got one coming up this week even. Even if it's a two week assignment I'll be happier. That's more money I won't have to worry about, after all. Needless to say (not that it's stopping me) my stress level has been through the roof lately. It's to the point where I basically do whatever I can to distract myself because when I actually have a free moment when I'm not doing or thinking of something else I start to panic.

Let's see, what else. Keith's grandmother passed away, and that was bad on an epic scale. She was old and had problems, so it's not like it was entirely unexpected. It's the crap that resulted from it that was entirely unnecessary. I will just say that some of his relatives are seriously fucked up in the head and leave it at that.

Shrub got re-elected and ten states decided they wanted to enact laws that go directly against the spirit (but sadly not the letter) of our nation's Constitution and founder's ideals. That sucked. Coming after the previous two "new and sucky" things was definitely the icing on the cake for the year.

Purely shallow things that pissed me off with 2004. Fox and The WB proved to be monumental retards yet again and canceled Angel on us. Fox didn't have a good start since it had canned Wonderfalls in the same programming year with only three episodes ever having aired. Showtime annoyed the fuck out of me by canceling Dead Like Me seemingly out of left field. There may yet be hope for that show, but I really can't imagine what it would be like with no swearing in it.

So, yeah. 2004 is over. Thank fucking god.

Now for some gaming stuff. Well, gaming of the console and computer variety. City of Heroes has been a definite mainstay for this past year and looks to be going for a while longer yet. I'm still having fun, even if I'm not playing it nearly as much as I used to. Sims 2 ate my brain, then gave it back. Although, they did release a patch, people have finally hacked through the objects to start offering recolors, and I discovered the joys of Debug Mode cheats. I mean, what can be better than a Tombstone of Life and Death that lets you do a gazillion different things (such as "Make Me Friendly With All Here")? You can even make Aliens with Debug mode running! Albeit, only in Create a Family, but still.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords also ate my brain. It has still kept part of it. I've already beaten it twice and am on my third playthrough. This isn't such a horrible thing. I do enjoy it, but the glitches and disabled content annoy me. I hope they finish the quests that are partially there but not done for the PC version at least. It would be extra nice if the XBOX version was Live compatible to get them as a download, but, alas, it is not.

And now for tabletop gaming! Shadowrun is still going. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Need to get Karma to spend, though. :-p Need to improve my character after all! I've sorta kinda started to run a D&D game. It's set in my Eclazha world, but I'm still working out the specifics as I go. :-p Of course, I ran a quick set up game and now they want me to actually be prepared to run more. :-p I don't do "winging it" very well. :-p I have plenty of ideas for the next game (which could go multiple ways, but hey), I just need to sit down and get some writing time in for it.

I want to get the revised rulebooks for the Star Wars D20 roleplaying game. See above re: my KOTOR2 addiction. :-p I don't know that I would want to run it, necessarily. But I want the books. Also, see above re: my complete lack of funds.

Keith bought me Season 7 of Buffy as a pseudo-Christmas present this year. After generally pseudo-freaking over the expenditure of money we may or may not have actually had to spend, I got over it and was very happy to have it. It took me a while to sit down and watch all of it, though. I liked Season 7, but I was never really able to get into Season 7 when it aired. Joss had said all along that he was making it to be seen on DVD. It works SO MUCH BETTER on DVD with no commercials and no real need to stop between episodes other than for real world things such as food and sleep and changing the catheter. Okay so I was joking on that last part. :-p The episodes blend together very well. Even the stand alone episodes. Yeah, they are easily able to be watched without watching the rest of the season, but they don't seem like a sudden pause in the story when they do happen. Actually, Him is kinda thrown in from out of nowhere (actually, it's right from Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, but one should never accuse the Mutant Enemy crew of blatantly ripping themselves off for an episode, especially if they directly reference said episode with a quick flashback scene during the episode that is ripping it off). Although, seeing the finale out of context with what happened on Angel that same year (since I don't yet have Season 4 of Angel on DVD) is a bit jarring. I suppose it doesn't help that David Boreanaz actually looks his age by the time Season 7 ended. It's kinda creepy, really. Put the Angel from End of Days and Chosen next to the one from Welcome to the Hellmouth and it's like looking at Luke Skywalker from Episode IV standing next to himself from Episode V. And the Xander eye-gouge and the Anya slice in half are both far far too graphic and icky for me. x_x Plus, ya know, poor Anya! :(

Well, I think that about covers it for me. Two hours to write an update. Imagine that!

A real update, and really long

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