Redwolf's Journal (continued)

What to say? Life feels pretty steady and even. The company is driving ahead at breakneck speed, but seems to be doing okay financially, so I suppose I can't argue too much. I'm taking Friday off for no special reason, but coming in early tomorrow. Whee.Weather's weird - the concentration of cold and snow in the Northeast making it actually pretty dry and mild here. I had a discussion last night about the Marionette fight in GW2 . My opinion boils down much like the new Tequatl fight - I like the mechanics, but the specific requirements of open world implementation and the scaling of it ultimately makes the encounter boring to me. Why? Because it ends up feeling like it has nothing to do with skill or any individual performance, instead being a simple matter of "do we have enough people?" In turn, that means you have to be in a main server instance during peak hours to have a reasonable shot at victory. It sounds slightly more forgiving than Teq as far as perfor

Well, I made early comments here and most of that still stands. The game, as a game, suffers from Vita limitations, missions having to be broken up a lot smaller than I'd like and areas being more simple than in AC4 (and probably AC3, which it's more closely tied to, but I didn't play that one). The HD version looks pretty good, all told, but not up to AC4 standards. The shipping minigame is mildly amusing and a way to make money, though not nearly so fleshed out as the fleet version in AC4. The three costuming guises are "enforced" in the game more as limits of play, but their presence at all adds a really neat element for interacting with the world - tons of potential, only some of which is actually reached. And the story... Ah... I want to absolutely love the story, but it's not quite there . The interlacing of slavery and the Assassin/Templar conflict is good. The character of Aveline is awesome. It's just the follow-through that's lacking. Avel

Four days of taking medication like this is far too early to make any sweeping conclusions. It's difficult enough to sort through subtle (key word for the most part) changes in emotions and biological processes asking "is this real or imagined?" and then figuring out "has this actually changed?" I'm skeptical by nature, so I'm really wary of stating any claims as truth without more evidence. But keeps asking me how I'm feeling, and I've been dancing around that a bit due to all of the above. So here's a bit more of an answer at this early stage. This seems promising and I'm cautiously optimistic. On the "side effect" end of things, I did have some random, mild headaches the first day. Hunger feels a little different, perhaps muted, but that hasn't seriously impacted my eating habits. It seems a little bit harder to get to sleep and stay asleep than before. On the up side, I feel a bit more energetic, having gone for

Well, got in my almost-annual doctor appointment this morning. I'm still alive, that's a good start. Getting allergy tested last year has helped in a few areas. Still a tendency toward dry skin. Could use more exercise. Could probably eat healthier, though I still try to mitigate my intake of junk. The main thing on my mind was sitting down and saying the St. John's Wort doesn't seem to be making any measurable long-term difference in my periods of depression. It still hasn't been bad enough to keep me from going to work or sparked any real suicidal thoughts (feelings of worthlessness of life, sure, but not actually thinking of ending it). It does, however, continue to hang over me in general, making it hard to motivate toward improvement or to really enjoy much. That's been about the size of things for the last... I don't know. Five to ten years maybe? So we talked about that a bit. He pointed out that exercise and such can help - not news to me after

I'm not exactly a huge Assassin's Creed series fan. I'm aware of it, certain. I played AC 1 and AC 4. My general feelings from the sidelines are 2 might have been worthwhile, but I didn't really miss anything by sitting out 3 (though I did end up watching some of that in video walkthrough form). 4 was pretty darn good, though the real highlight of the game was playing pirate, and that isn't a series feature. But in the middle of all that, there came to be Assassin's Creed: Liberation. When I saw it, I thought it looked interesting enough I might want to pick that one up and play. Story-wise, it involves some race/class/gender issues that look like they might actually elevate the story. And a female lead? Interesting, and in no way a deterrent. Yep, male player who has no qualms about playing a story featuring a female character - suck on that, marketing execs! The problem? It was published on the PS Vita only. Well, that's no longer the case. It was jus

Last seen in Lesser Evils , 'tis another tale of tiefling twins and their family and friends (and not-so friends). This time out, we get more of almost the entire cast of the last two books. The only exceptions I can think of are Tam (who has a part, but sits out the main adventure) and his daughter who was in book two. I enjoyed the story, and still love the characters. It gets a little confusing at times, and there are constant deals, tensions, conflicts, and bonds left and right. Skipping ahead over seven years (a horrible way to "time travel") is interesting, and shakes up some of the dynamics. Technically, I have a few issues. Each chapter gets a little a little scene that... appears to take place in a very specific period in the book, and the prologue also takes place later than where the story picks up in the first chapter - which drops an interesting scene right on the reader, but seems to miss the point of a prologue. You can also see some elements that are p

Ten years ago, I would have said it was difficult for me to cry. I had to be pretty damn upset and overwrought to shed tears over anything. I distinctly remember that, and wondering if I was just more emotionally distant than the average person. These days, while I don't really break down and weep with any more regularity, tears are easy. I find myself hitting a sentimental passage in a book, or a scene in a movie, and I tear right up. The moment when the heroes are on the ropes and fighting back to victory seems to get me every time - and that's pretty much standard fare in the action/sci-fi/fantasy movies I see on the big screen these days. As predictable and cliche as those scenes are, I just can't avoid it. So I watch/read through bleary eyes, wiping tears from my cheeks. And when this happens, I can't help but feel a little bit broken inside somehow. No matter what I may tell myself, I feel like this is not how (or at least how strongly) I should be reacting...

"One moment of perfect beauty," explains Kosh to Sheridan in an episode of Babylon 5 . I have experienced times like that. I have had moments when I looked out at the mountains and everything just clicked. For perhaps the span of a few seconds, there was nothing but one distilled concept or emotion. Beauty. Joy. It doesn't happen often and it doesn't last long. I recall perhaps fewer than half a dozen such experiences. Last night, it was emptiness . I put my reading on hold, closed up my tablet cover, and was prepared to move on to something else. Then, for just a fleeting moment... utter and abject emptiness: echoes of silence, shades of loneliness, certainty in a lack of meaning - so many different little things that coalesced together into one feeling, one concept. In that instant, I "grokked" oblivion. Then it passed, leaving me somewhat shaken and shading my evening. In retrospect, it was somewhat fascinating. And frightening. On the whole, I thin

Dreams last night about family and meals and insecurity, though I can't really recall specifics. Caught the Bourne Identity on TV last night, not for the first time. Somehow, this time I started seeing and feeling (the parallels in tone) similarities to how I envisioned my quasi-cyberpunk Fool's Moon variant of Mika. Movie release? 2002. Hmm. Logs with the character go back to 2001 and possibly earlier. Amusing. Work's been scrambling and chaos, trying to fulfill poorly thought out requests in frustratingly short times amid email server problems that put us down in that regard for about an hour and a half this morning. Plus phones, new users... argh.

Oh, how I wish I could remember more of this dream, because I acknowledged it as awesome even while in progress. I was in some sort of Warcraft-based LARP with a bunch of people I've RP'd with over the years, and a number of strangers. I get the feeling it was a multi-day event, and being run in a mall after hours, with lots of space and multiple wings on two levels, and anachronistic shops all around. I spent most of my time traveling with one old friend, but saw others around all the time. The overall goal seems to be to destroy Frostmourne while it was vulnerable, as it had somehow been stripped from Arthas' hands. I forget a lot of the middle, though I know there was more there. There was a second runeblade involved for a while. I remember talking with several people in a store that was open, and passing friends back and forth over the course of the event. What really struck me was the end. Coming down to the wire, Arthas got his sword back. With the Lich King whole