The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I got some pretty bad news the other day.

It seems that all mental heath issues are all one illness, even when they aren’t. This is fantastic news. It basically means I’m totally screwed. My insurance won’t continue to pay for my therapy, and I can’t really afford to go every week without it. I’ve been dipping into my savings constantly to cover these costs as is. On top of that, Kohl’s has been having wonderful budgeting issues, which means I haven’t been working enough and earning enough money, either. I can’t afford to keep going and seeing my doctor about my gender identity disorder. I need better health insurance, but I don’t have anywhere to get it from. I feel completely fucked.

Needless to say this upset me greatly. There were tears. It was really frustrating. I’m getting so fucking close. I really am, and then this. Really, really frustrating.

I have plans and schemes. I should be able to afford it better if I go every other week, instead of every week. Hopefully that won’t slow me down… at least not too much. At least then I can keep going. Once school starts up again, and I’m getting paid more, things will go a little better too. I’m also, as I’m writing this, about to leave to go see the doctor, so hopefully she’ll have some ideas as to what I can do to make this work out.

I’m not going to give up. But fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I am tired of this bullshit. I just want to be me.

Mom and Dad had all these plans for Father’s day. They had all kinds of stuff they were supposed to do that Dad would like. It was going to be great, and I was probably going to be home, rewarming food for most of the day. I was okay with this.

Then those plans fell through, and Mom was like, “Think of something for us to do.”

My mind, of course, went to the tons of board games I’d like to play with them. Maybe something there? But then it hit me. This is Father’s Day. I’ve got to put an angle on it that he’d enjoy. Then I felt the inspiration, and I went out, spent too much money, and returned with a copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 for the Wii, and a Motion Plus. (And Wii Sports Resort which had the Motion Plus with it.) I figured with the Motion Plus, it would feel good, like real Golf, and that Dad would enjoy playing as some of his favorite golfers and looking at all the courses. It even had this thing called “TrueView,” where it didn’t show a character on screen or anything like a game. Everything was shown as if you were standing on the course. Surely he’d like that?

And he totally did. We played that for several hours, and then we put in Wii Sports Resort and played that for several hours more. Jonathan, Mom, and Dad all played, and it was, honestly, a pretty good time. I was having fun. Dad seemed like he was having fun.

But the real confirmation came later, while I was at work. Mom texted me telling me I did a great job, and that Dad was bragging about playing the game to Grandma and Grandpa. That made me feel amazing. It really did.

It’s so damn awesome when my interests and my parents can overlap so well. I love it.

Hey.

Here’s a Let’s Play.

I got pointed to this dude from Spoony, since he loaned Spoony some video footage, but the guy is pretty funny in and of himself. I’m very much in the middle of enjoying his playthrough of Titantic: Adventure out of Time, a game I had heard a lot about, but hadn’t really ever LEARNED anything about. So it’s pretty fascinating.

Yeah, so watch that. I’m too busy doing fatherly-day-y things to write more. Apologies. Better ramblings tomorrow!

It’s the day of fathers.

I love mine.

Dad, I doubt you’re ever going to read stuff like this, and that’s okay. You don’t have to. You keep doing your thing. Because your thing has always been wonderful. You’ve always had me in mind, you’ve always wanted to help me and make sure I was safe, comfortable, and enjoying life. You’ve always worked so hard to make that happen.

I see you using all your free time to help Jonathan get his house in order. I see you putting in so much work to help him out, every damn day. It’s amazing. You and Mom do so much. I know you’d do the same for me if I asked. I know you have in the past. I’m lucky.

Things are crazy in my life right now, and I know I’m doing things that are hard for you to accept. I really need to you to trust me, and I understand why you’re having problems with that. In the end though, I do want you to know that I love you. A lot. I’m glad you’re my dad. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me that’s brought me to this point, and I hope I make that clear to you. Thank you for everything.

Thank you.

Everyone was all like, “Man, I hope Kevin Butler shows up at the Sony Press Conference!”

And then he did. And as his little segment went on, and on, and on, and on, everyone realized he’s really only funny in small doses.

And then there was a few more video montages.

That was basically the Sony press conference.

The moment I saw Nintendo’s press conference, I knew Sony was so completely fucked. I simply couldn’t imagine anything they could drop that would beat what Nintendo brought to the table. Even something like a PSP2 just wasn’t going to generate enough excitement. Move certainly wasn’t. I was correct on all accounts.

Sony’s big bombs were a new Twisted Metal and, finally, a release date for Gran Turismo 5. Frankly, I can’t see who would even give a shit about GT5 at this point, it’s been delayed for so long. Just play some Forza already! (She says as if everyone who wants to play car porn games has a 360.) Twisted Metal… I guess that’s cool? But it has such a stupid aesthetic and I certainly have absolutely no love for the franchise, and the demo they gave didn’t really give me any reason to care about it. I guess it made some people happy, but it didn’t really feel like a bomb to me.

About the only new game they showed off that I was like “Hmm, I’d like to play that,” was Sorcery. This is the most generic game ever, using Move, where you’re a wizard and you use your wand controller to cast spells in an active way. That seemed like a ton of fun, at least in short doses. Of course, being a Move title, I don’t know if I’ll ever play it. They announced Move pricing, but it’s just too expensive. Move is accurate, sure, but it just doesn’t bring anything I haven’t seen before to the table, and I don’t trust Sony to bring the kind of games I have to have to it, just I do Nintendo, for example.

Other than that, the press conference had weird missteps. There was a sizzle montage like… every 5 minutes, and they promoted their advertising several times. “Here’s an ad we’re going to be running.” “And we’ll have ads on Coke bottles! Sony Rules!” It was just kind of weird.

I’m sure they’ll continue to have some games on Playstation 3 and PSP that I have to play, but Sony brought nothing to this conference to change the fact that they’re really bottom-tier in both their races at this point. I could do without them if I had to. Of course, I don’t have to, because I’m a crazy gamer and have everything forever, but they simply aren’t a requirement. It’d be nice if Sony would get that changed. Maybe at some point they’ll figure that out.

And that’s all I’m going to say about E3. Aren’t you glad I’m done? Whew.

They announced a new Kirby game.

I mean, I guess they did other stuff too, but damn, THEY ANNOUNCED A NEW KIRBY GAME.
I love Kirby. I am so excited about Kirby’s Epic Yarn. I want to buy four right now. The art style looks fantastic, and I completely trust them to create a Kirby game that’s easy, but fun as fuck. I cannot wait. But I have to. Damn.

But yeah, Nintendo basically knocked it out of the fucking park. They won E3, press-conference-wise. It was a non-stop showing of very strong announcement for the core gamer, as well as some games designed to “convert” casuals to core gaming which could really make it happen. It was good all around.

It was especially impressive to see a sort of return to 2D up on stage. It was probably due to the huge success of New Super Mario Brothers Wii, but between Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country Returns, it’s clear Nintendo is pushing 2D in a huge way. What’s more, these games look pretty damn solid! As mentioned, Kirby looks fun, and DKC Returns looks like a challenging platformer. That’s totally neat.

As a fan of Mario Sports games, I’m kind of displeased with Mario Sports Mix. I mean, I’m sure it’ll be fun, and it certainly is designed to do what they claimed it would, which is convert casuals to more hardcore games. I just need, need a new, fleshed-out Mario Golf. I need it badly.

Also, does anyone actually want a new Goldeneye? That’s right, nobody does. Some people might think they do, but they’re wrong.

Anyway, the most important thing they announced was, of course, the 3DS, which looks AMAZING. That thing has some serious graphical power under the hood, and an analog nub that people are saying is much less shitty than the one on the PSP. What’s more, this is Nintendo, and they’re not going to launch this thing at a high price point. I am all over this, I really am. There is no doubt this is a day one purchase. Even without any real software to back it up yet (They showed a video of a Kid Icarus game, and there’s a bunch of tech demos on the show floor) I want this thing, and they have at least a year to get some games ready to roll for launch, so I’m sure they can make it happen.
Oh, and I guess it does 3D. I don’t care about that? But if it’s as unobtrusive as everyone says, sure, throw it on there. Why not?

Anyway, Nintendo put plenty of things on display to get excited about. But what about Sony? I guess you’ll just have to wait for more ramblings to find out! Dun dun dun!

Because there isn’t enough of them on the internet, here comes my impressions of the big three press conferences at E3.

In Chronological Order, of course. So let’s start with Microsoft.

Microsoft… did okay? Their presentation was very split. They were trying very hard to push Kinect seriously while not making a Nintendo sort of mistake and missing appealing to their core. However, none of it really connected together well. It was almost like two different conferences. Most of their “hardcore” gamer stuff was mostly sequels I knew about and didn’t interest me much. Black Ops? Halo: Reach? Gears 3? I will play these things, but they don’t get me excited. They are known quantities. MGS: Rising was interesting, but I’m also not a rabid MGS fangirl, so I couldn’t get too worked up from that. Was there anything else hardcore? I think that was it? Anything hardcore from Microsoft I’m going to be excited about just wasn’t shown off here.
To their credit, though, I think Kinect could be appealing to the right audience. Game after game that they showed, I went, “Man, my mom would probably really get a kick out of that,” which is what they were trying for. For me, I was especially interested in Dance Central. I trust Harmonix with everything music-related, and I think that game could be obscenely fun. If it’ll be worth the cost of Kinect, though, I have no idea, seeing as they didn’t even announce a price. What the hell? That sort of thing doesn’t bode well for it being affordable enough to have a chance to take off. The problem is that people get the Wii, and people like my parents feel like they “get” the Xbox, and that it isn’t for them. Sometimes I prove them wrong with trivia games, but that’s basically it. The people who bought the Wii probably won’t care about Kinect. It’s going to be a horrible battle to make that work. Not as much of a battle as Sony, but a battle nonetheless.

Then, at the end, there was an Oprah pulled. “Everyone in the room gets a new, redesigned Xbox!” Well, whoop-de-fuck. That was kind of stupid, because everyone at home, including me, just went “What the hell? How is this supposed to get me excited?” Still, at the same time, I realized why they did it hours later when the internet was flooded with unboxings and hands-on impressions of the new system. There was a reason for it. It was just kind of silly. The redesign looks nice, and thank god, they finally built wifi in, but it’s nothing that someone would replace their current system for, unless they simply really, really, really, really, really hate drive noise, and installing games just isn’t enough for them.

In any case, I have no worries about Microsoft. I think they’re still going to continue to win the “hardcore” vote. They simply have the best controller, and the best multiplayer, and even though I don’t give a shit about Black Ops map packs, having those exclusively for awhile is going to net them tons of money and support. They’re doing fine, and I will continue to use their system over the Playstation 3, mostly because of Nerdpoints, but also because that’s where all my friends are. And that will be back.

Stay tuned for more of me boring you with old news about E3 the next two days! Maybe even three, if I think of stuff not press conference related to say! Won’t you be thrilled?

Cara asked me, due to a casual mention in a video I was showing her, “What’s a furry?”

I didn’t really have a good answer.

I mean, I don’t know, I asked Brer and he’s like, “Eh, I just like the art and porn and such,” and that’s a perfectly fine explanation. But that doesn’t really do it for me. That doesn’t sum up what it is. At the same time, it’s not like I’m an otherkin or anything. It’s not a completely spiritual sort of thing that I find in being a furry either. It’s kind of something in the middle.

Basically, I’ve spent years not looking in the mirror and attempting to come to terms with who I am versus “who I am.” The whole time I’ve been doing this, though, I’ve been a furry, and I’ve been online doing these things. When I was online, when I was “poetfox,” I was me. No holdups, no anything. I could just be myself. As such, I find myself thinking of myself in those terms often. I read a story once about how your soul associates and resonates with a “true name,” the name you answer to the most, and that it doesn’t have to be your given name. I think my soul would probably resonate with poetfox more than any other name. I really do.

So that’s part of what furry is to me. It’s putting up a level of abstraction to remove inhibitions and let you be yourself, no matter how weird that person is. The other part is a culture of acceptance. Furries have their inter-group arguments, just like any group, but on a whole, the furry fandom is obscenely inclusive. You can say you’re into really weird shit, and people won’t bat an eye, probably because they’re into weirder shit, and that’s wonderful. Whatever you want is there, and some assholes may judge you, but fuck those guys, you’re cool. You could, say, enjoy playing a CCG about controlling a harem fucking each other. Hell, you could MAKE such a game and succeed enough to make an expansion. And it’s cool. It’s all cool. It’s crazy, it’s awesome. It’s cool.

It’s that culture, real or imagined on my part, and that connection that makes me a furry, unashamedly. Granted, I’m not going to force it on you or rub it in your face, but it’s something I am. It’s part of the description of me. I guess that’s what it is to me. Like any mostly undefined group of people, though, I’m sure it means any number of other things to other people. But that’s what I wanted to attempt to explain to Cara.

And I didn’t, of course. I ended up pointing to my current background and saying, “Oh, that’s a furry.” Which, you know, isn’t completely off, I guess.

It’s just… complicated! Apparently.

I am so good at fucking up rules.

When I played my first game of Thunderstone, I read it as “Go to the Village, Go to the Dungeon, AND Rest every turn.” It’s really “Or.” That’s kind of a big deal.

Still, though, Thunderstone is as advertised, and I was pretty pleased with it.
How was it advertised?
Basically, as Dominion, but with a more clear theme and monster fighting. That’s basically how it works out, too. You’re building up a deck which you shuffle a lot, and you’re killing monsters to earn victory points, which go in your deck and clog it a bit, but you need it to win.

Still, I can see why people really dig Thunderstone over Dominion. It has a much cooler theme, and does seem more well-thought out. However, there are some issues, at least from a first playthrough. As expected, the cards aren’t very easy to read. There are a lot of symbols that aren’t very clear that you have to figure out, which is unfortunate. It’s not Race for the Galaxy bad, but it isn’t great, either. Dominion is much easier to pick up.
The “light” mechanic seems a bit weird, too. Basically, you have three depths of monster you can fight at any time, and there is a light penalty to attack them, which you have to get rid of with light sources. There’s no markers for this light penalty, which seemed to make it hard for people to grasp that it was there. Some sort of play mat to put the monsters on would probably make that clearer. It also just seems weird that it’s there at all. It’s like they were really desperate to make another type of card to buy.
Finally, people claim that the low number of heroes, which everyone needs, that is in every game is a problem. I haven’t played enough to say, but I can definitely say that there was a big shortage of them. I can see people getting annoyed at that. Such shortages aren’t much of a problem in Dominion, because once three piles run out, the game is over. However, in Thunderstone, if nobody is attacking monsters, many piles can run out and the game can still continue for awhile. It makes the shortages a little harder. I feel like this is a feature, and not a bug, but it’s weird.

The biggest problem with Thunderstone, though, is the box. What the fuck were these people thinking? They’ve obviously played Dominion. Why isn’t the box built like that? There’s no good way to sort the huge number of decks in the game in that box, and that is just annoying as fuck. It’s going to make setting up games last much longer than it should, and they should be ashamed for fucking up such an easy, obvious thing.

Still, I had a good time, and I want to play more. Additionally, unlike some claims I’ve read, I don’t think that Dominion is obsolete because of this game. Dominion is “pure,” it is the essence of an idea, and that’s always fun to get back to. It’s easier to pick up and play, and there’s plenty of strategy. Thunderstone, though, has a theme, and more deep mechanics. It’s pulling from the well of Dominion to a different purpose. That’s cool. But it’s a very different beast from Dominion. I think they’ll catch different groups, but I can enjoy both, certainly. Both are fun, but Dominion is lighter, with more variety in what happens, and Thunderstone is more involved and detailed. That’s totally cool.

Anyway, those are my thoughts after a game. We’ll see what I think after I’ve run through all the different cards and stuff after a few more playthroughs.

It’s not easy being a Bard/Rogue with a bow.

For one, sometimes a bunch of lizardpeople attack the town when you’re just trying to get a fucking drink, and you have to shoot them up with arrows. That’s something.

For another, you could be teamed up with a band of misfits who decided to name their adventuring company Balls, LLC.

Yeah, I played DnD again.

I was under the impression we were going to be a big more serious, so I tried to create a character and play it as such. However, Essner made a character who was just named his name, which was really kind of silly, and Spaeth was playing a Shardmind who couldn’t decide if he was British or not. Kenny was silly, but was actually roleplaying, I thought, so awesome. He even had a little voice for his Gnome.

Jonathan did a wonderful job as always. He’s a solid DM. The game itself moved a little slow, though. We were in a single combat for something like 2 hours. Granted, it was supposed to be a huge setpiece, with people of the town being attacked around us, but that long in one fight can grate sometimes, especially with Essner. I didn’t really mind too much. I really enjoyed my Bard Arrow powers. None of them hit hard, (Almost all of them did 1W+CHA) but most of them had really great buffs on them. I especially enjoyed Rewrite the Future, where I’d roll an extra D20 and could assign it to someone’s roll before my next turn.

Everyone was very “Let’s just go kick some ass,” which my character had to keep complaining against. I didn’t see her as a reckless person who took risks for no reason. I spent a lot of my RP time arguing with people at the table. I’m sure that’s probably a good thing, but man, I kept “Inspiring Competence” so that they’d see how stupid their strategy was. I’m unsure it worked.

Still, it was a fun time. Hopefully we can get more done next session, though who knows when that will be. Hopefully soon! I can hope for things!