But I got where I needed to go, and I had a great time staying with the family and relaxing and getting a whole lot of nothing accomplished. We messed around at Harrison Lake - the weather was so freakishly cold that the lagoon had completely frozen over. Although we probably could have walked straight across it, we were a bit more cautious. Didn't stop us from slipping and sliding and examining patterns in the ice a few meters from "shore". On the outside of the lagoon where the lake hits the rock was spectacular. The wind coming of the water was bitterly cold, but all the rocks had been frozen over by the waves. Who knew there could be a winter wonderland in our own backyard?
On Christmas Eve were were supposed to go visit my sister/brother in law's place, but the snow was so thick that we could barely see beyond the car in front of us, and our wipers were collecting ice faster than discarding it. We had to turn back for home while there was still light out, the usual 30-minute drive lasting closer to an hour. By the time we got back it was indeed dark anyways, but we went sledding in the parking lot. We brought two sleds and rope and tied it to the back of the car while our Dad whipped us around the powdered parking stalls. Good times - 20km/h seems infinitely faster when you're holding onto a plastic sled for your life before tumbling into a snow drift. The powder was so thick that you totally got blinded going through it, and just had to hope for the best. Good times.
Alas, it's nice to be back. But it sucks to have had to leave.
The Christmas haul didn't include anything over-the-edge spectacular. I got a comic, a few interesting books, some new music, old movies on DVDs, and two games (one of which is GTA4, more on that later). Oh, and $80 too, but I have no idea what to spend it on. Steam has a massive crazy-go-nuts awesome sale, so I may spend ~$25 and pick up a few odds and ends.
I'm super stuffed-up right now. I think it was being around the cats at home that did it, but I cannot breathe through either nostril at the moment. They're dammed up real good, ain't nothing getting in or out. I've been blowing and wiping so much that I suspect my face will soon take after the Sphinx. Between that and the traveling around, I'm not really in tip-top shape at the moment.
On the good side I get Thursday and Friday off this week, so I'll have four straight days of get-stuff-done goodness. I have to work on a commissioned (!!) poster for the library in my home town, which needs to be done rather quickly. It's not really as impressive as it sounds, but it's a few extra bucks and something fun to do.
The rest of the long weekend I will likely spend a large portion of time playing GTA4. Let me try to keep this short, because I know it's something that can get me really riled up and long-winded.
Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC is the very definition of what's wrong with PC gaming. I had to download and install three separate updates, two of which had nothing to do with the game itself. There is something wrong when you need to create two separate logins for two separate programs so that you can play and just save a single player game. Games for Windows Live is a clunky, poorly implemented and useless tool that does nothing but bog the experience down. There is absolutely no need for the Rockstar Social Club. The CD key had one too many sets of digits, the game took WAY too long to install, it's optimized very poorly (40FPS @ 1280x960 with low settings on a duo core 3.33GHz, 4GB RAM, 9600GT. SERIOUSLY?) Okay, there's a lot more to be said here, but I need to move onto other things tonight. Suffice it to say that if I could I would have Steam's babies - this whole debacle makes me clearly see how incredibly superior it is in every way.
In appreciation for Rockstar and Microsoft's efforts, here is something I'd like to plant squarely in the middle of their collective face.
You may notice that that image number is 363. I've since done 364 and 365. One remains. Stay tuned for a special New Year's Eve edition.
-Cril
Silence of an airborne night
Push high above the roof
Daughters of the Red lights blind
The icy works of art
The city lights and restless nights
Go once upon the Lord
You and I will lie beside the fire sparked from boards
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
3 comments:
It's kinda funny, I was thinking the same thing. We're gonna do the comic, of course, but I can't stop drawing little things on post it notes or pieces of paper lying around. Thanks for being there so I didn't slack off. I don't know that I would've stuck with this as long as I did without someone to be worried about disappointing.
Here's to the new year, sir.
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