The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I am a fool.
It is amazing to me how much enjoyment I am getting out of my Gamefly subscription, and so ridiculous that it took me this long to try it.

I mean, I’m a gamer. I enjoy playing the various vidjeo gamez that are out there in the world. But most of all, I want to be involved in the video game conversation. I want to have opinions about games, and be able to talk about them with some level of authority. This means I want to play most games that come out, even if only for a few minutes, just so I can have that experience.

Before, a game came out that I wanted to try, I would either buy it day one, which is really a waste of money, especially with a game I just want to try and not, you know, know for a fact I want to play through and beat, or sit there and wait to waste 20-30 on it some other time. Either way, chances are I would get that game, play it for a day or two, and then something else would distract the shit out of me and it would just sit there.
Compare this to Gamefly, where I can hear about any game I’m even vaguely interested in, put it in my Queue, and get it, play it for half a day, hate it, and immediately send it back without feeling badly at all. I get to try so many things at the fraction of the cost. And if a game really does catch me? I can buy it at a reduced price, or I can just keep it and play all the way through it. It works so well, and it should work so well, and it kind of blows my mind that it took me this long to try it.

Of course, there are downsides. I’ve always rather liked the fact that I have what basically amounts to a huge lending library of games that people can come over and borrow. I like being able to provide that service.
But man, the money. The money I am going to save. Just think of the money. I’ve already started holding myself back on some games. I mean, some are inevitable. But I’m pruning down what games are must-buys. It feels so good.

Oddly enough, it feels so good.

I woke up the other morning with a familiar sensation. My ankle was hurting like hell. I couldn’t put any pressure on it.

So I hopped on one foot, basically, to the bathroom and whatnot. By the time I walked downstairs to pay some attention to the dog, who was very excited that she got me up early, it had reduced itself to a limp, and I could go on with my day.

But shit, that happened with me wearing my ankle brace all day.

What the hell? Why did it work so well in the beginning, but now is working so little? Am I suddenly wearing it wrong now? Am I building up an immunity to being braced or something?

Fuck, I don’t want to have to go see a doctor about my stupid ankle. Though I suppose I do have my own insurance to do such things now…

Hello, girl! How’s my puppy, hm? How are you, huh?

Listen, we have to talk.

The fact that you like me? That is so totally cool. I love the fact that you’ll drop what you’re doing to come and see me. I love that you follow me around the house, and that you bring me toys to try to convince me to play with you. I love how you greet me with your happy jumps and you playful nips.

But seriously, little girl, you are trying my patience.

I am a creature of the night. I know you used to be, so I’m sure you can relate a little, right? That means I rarely get to bed early. I’d rather not get to bed at all some nights. And that means that now that my schedule involves being up early, I’m having a harder and harder time getting enough sleep.

The very, very last thing I need is you waking me up at 5 in the morning wanting to say hi, ESPECIALLY when you leave immediately after.

Seriously, little girl, I can’t nap all day with Mom like you can! I got stuff to do. Work to do. I can’t handle this. It’s got to stop.

So, you know, whenever you read this blog (I guess I am assuming that dogs will get blog-reading capabilities within your lifetime) please cut it out? Thanks.

I need to learn to be social with people outside my safe, and completely awesome, social group that I’ve had forever, mostly due to things and other things. So when my fellow TA’s invited me to a party they all were holding to kind of get to know each other, and I had nothing going on? Well, I decided to actually go.

Now, I knew a lot of things about this party weren’t going to necessarily be things I was down with. Namely, the fact that everyone would be drinking but me. I am a Teetotaler, and honestly, that’s not going to change. But I mean, it’s a bunch of English majors, getting together to relax. There’s going to be alcohol. So I was worried it wouldn’t be my thing.

Luckily, my worry was unfounded. Yes, there was a ton of drinking, but I still had a wonderful time. It really helps that quite a large number of the TA’s this year are incredibly witty and funny individuals, enough so that, even with a few drinks in them, they’re still able to keep things rolling with the jokes and whatnot and barely miss a beat. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I had a great time, much like the fun goofing off we’ve been doing in class so far.

The big first of the night, though, was that I drank a shot of whiskey. Why? Fuck if I know. Peer pressure or something? I didn’t want to ruin the game everyone was playing. In any case, it was as disgusting as I figured it would be and I will never do it again! Drinking is just not my thing, man. I mean, I don’t know. I guess something is wrong with me. I think about the cost of everything that was drank that night, and it just makes me shake my head. That’s just so much money I can spend on better things, just like smoking and whatnot. Better things like pointlessly large amounts of caffeine!

So, yeah. I went to a party.
Yeah.

So it seems pretty obvious to me that I made a good choice joining up with the Teaching Assistantship program.

I’m about a week into my training, and while it was a fairly exhausting week, both physically (as I had to get used to waking up so fucking early) and emotionally (it’s all new stuff, and I’ve had little time to just sit down and let myself recover) it just really feels like it’s going to be all worth it.

Today, I got the keys to my office. My office. (Okay, I share it with one other guy, but still, my office.) I didn’t expect that to be a point of pride or anything. Of course I’d have an office, you know? And yet… it makes me feel like I’ve got my feet on the ground more than I really ever have before. Well, not quite that… it makes me feel like I am successful. Having a place at work which is my place makes me feel like I am going to have more of an impact in my work. I’ve jumped up a notch from having to borrow the training room as my office at Kohl’s. I’m important enough to have the keys to a building, and to have my own space. That makes me feel good.

But while that’s good, that’s not what makes me so optimistic. It’s the fact that we’re sitting down in class, learning what we’re doing, and we’re joking, we’re laughing, we’re having a good time… and we’re discussing the exact things I care about, and the exact things I would want to teach somebody. We are discussing things I am interested in, and these are the things I am in charge of teaching. That makes me feel like I’m in the right place.

I mean, there are still hurdles to overcome. I still have to figure out how to balance all my work and whatnot. (I am thinking of adopting a strong “my work stays at work” policy, now that I have my own office to work in and keep my work in, and making sure I’m up there often, for example) I still have completely un-work related things to deal with and figure out. But at least, hopefully this stuff, this teaching, will be nothing but positive for me. I hope that’s the case. I want it to be. I feel like it’s going to be.

In a week, I’m going to be a teacher. I think that’s pretty cool.

Fact: I play too many broswer RPGs.

Fact: This is because there are more and more completely entertaining broswer RPGs coming out every day.

Fact: Improbable Island is a broswer RPG, and I am really enjoying it.

I stumbled upon this game from a banner ad on MS Paint Adventures. It was an ad that was basically a big blob of text, but it was very well-written text, and I had no idea what it was talking about. Kittybikes? Huh? So I clicked on it.
Then I was suddenly in the middle of the game. Or so it seemed.

I always think that kind of thing is risky. You know, when the main page is playing the game, and you actually sign up a little later? But man, it worked so well this time. I read the humorous text, clicked through, and answered the questions. When it asked my name, I didn’t even put in poetfox, because I was roleplaying and I figured it would ask me explicitly if it wanted a screen name, so I just put in Alexis. Shockingly, I now have the account name Alexis. But man, it really drew me into the game.

Once you get into the game, though, what you find is a very humorously written lewtfest. Basically, this game is what Legends of Zork should be. It has a similar quick-paced, mostly hands-off combat system, though you can affect it by throwing grenades or using powers based on your improbable implants. But every combat is filled with all kinds of humorous pre-battle text, and you have plenty of non-combats that are well-written as well. All the while, you’re balancing risk/reward. It costs to heal yourself, but the more you heal, the less it costs. So it costs significantly more to heal 10 HP twice than to heal 20 HP once. So you’re constantly deciding if you should push yourself for one more combat, or cash out and heal up. It’s the main thing that drew me into Zork, that interface, and it’s so much better done here.

Apparently the game is based on an open source engine for a game called “Legend of the Green Dragon.” Apparently this is a really old game that’s been around a long while, and if you’re familiar with it, from what I’ve heard, you’re going to know exactly how to run the strategy in this game. It’s mostly just a cosmetic re-working, but it’s a very entertaining one. Plus, since I’ve never even heard of the first game, every bit of it is new to me, and I’m having a blast.

I’m happy to report that the game even has a fairly robust “ascension” mechanic in place. Every time you get a “drive kill” you start over, improbably losing some of your gear and stuff. But based on how many kills you have, you have a wide variety of new races to choose from. Tired of being a Human? Then try the game as a Kittymorph, Zombie, or Robot. Or hell, I think there’s a few more, too. They all play different, to make the experience different as you come back for more.

So yeah, give this game a try, if you give a shit about these browser games. I promise you’ll laugh at the text. I’m really close to my first Drive Kill, myself, and I’ve enjoyed every bit of the game. It’s worth your time.

So the other day, Val and I were talking about all the stuffs that be going on in KoL, what with the floaty sand and the Rock Monsters and whatnot. And then, as we’re talking, she’s like “You should be farming sands!” and I’m like “Yeah, I should be.” But I haven’t been.

See, a long time ago, I decided that KoL, and all these Browser RPGs, were a game, and that games exist to make me have fun, and thus I didn’t need to play them every day due to some sort of compulsion that just takes the fun out of them by making them mandatory. So I stopped worrying about wasting turns, and I had a lot more fun for it.

But these wasted turns were basically turning into an incredible expense if I ever wanted a Rock Lobster. I needed to be trying to farm me up some floaty sands.

So I tried something I’ve never tried before: KoL Mafia.

You can’t be all listening to the podcasts and fairly involved in KoL without hearing about Mafia. It is basically a separate program that acts as an interface to streamline KoL playing. This includes setting up a bot in order to run your turns in a particular way. Just click and go. It’s a godsend to people dedicated to playing many multis or who do a lot of farming, because instead of wasting a lot of time, you can just set up a good bot script and click one button every day, then rake in the profits. It’s exactly the kind of thing I needed to farm some floaty sands without the time investment.

The first thing you’ll notice when you boot up Mafia is that this is totally a program made for huge nerds (a term I use in the most endearing way possible) by huge nerds with no real accessibility in mind. It is a daunting program to look at, and I can only imagine how scary it would be for someone newer to the game who heard about it and wanted to try it. I mean, I can’t fault them. It’s a free program, and it’s not like every open source thing has to have the ease of use of OpenOffice or Ubuntu. But still. Man.

It kind of made me sad then that, when I looked at this thing, it seemed like most of the botting stuff required you to actual write code in their little code type. This is not something beyond me, but this was a path wrought with frustration that would make me very angry to figure out. Not something I needed.
So I turned to the more basic combat scripting, deciding that I didn’t need to program the bot to switch areas and all kinds of crazy stuff, just to adventure and not die. Setting up a combat scenario was significantly easier, and in no time I had the thing running, collecting floaty sands. Soon all my turns were burned effectively.

My favorite part, though, was the “Purchase Buffs” button. With a couple clicks, I could buy any buff from any buffbot without having to look at any annoying tables or anything. It made the buffbots so much more usable. I could get used to that. Maybe there’s a Greasemonkey script that does something similar…

Still, it really does kind of take the fun out of the game. I mean, I get why people use it. There is some really strong utility in there if you can figure the thing out. But man, I’m not going to make it a normal thing. I’ll use my Greasemonkied browser, thanks. It’s slower, but then at least I get to read the text, and have a little more fun.

So, this is a blog post. A post on my blog. Blog post. Yep.

There is shit going down in my head right now. There are worries about. Worries about school, about finding a therapist and how I’m going to deal with that at home, about questionable purchases that may be arriving soon or not, about my body, about so many stupid things.

So many stupid things!
So many.

I mean, on one hand, I feel like I’m doing pretty okay. Things are going pretty sweet in my life. I am moderately successful. I am not having panic attacks.
And yet, I don’t know… my mumbling has come back, the mumbling where I constantly belittle myself and tell myself I’m stupid and whatnot. It hasn’t really been around for awhile, and I really don’t think it bodes well. I’ve got to be stressed.

And the semester hasn’t even started. Man.
How my thoughts change a lot in a day, huh?
Well, not really change… just the other side of things. The other one. Yeah.

School has started.

Okay, so, not really. The pre-school seminar on how to teach EN100 has started, as of today.

But it’s really the same kind of feeling.

I would have popped you in the lip for suggesting I would be back in school again at this time last year. I just really can’t escape this stuff, I really can’t. It is a whirlpool that is constantly pulling me in. Ugh! Ack!

But this is still an exciting time. I get to teach a class! I get to write more short stories in the graduate version of the short story class I already took! I get to get more hands on job experience at the press! I, uh, have Medical Insurance! It’s exciting.
And scary.

But exciting!

Anyway, wish me luck. And especially wish me sleep. I honestly have no idea when that’s going to happen this semester. BUT SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK!
THE WEAK!
Weak.

One of the things that’s sometimes kind of nice about how I listen to music is the fact that I can “discover” something I’ve had around for like… years. Since I listen to one to two tracks on an album endlessly, forgetting all the others, I can sometimes stumble on a “new” track that I’ve had all along, but never actually gave much time to.

This happened recently, and I was pleased. Back on Election Day, when Rock Band put out it’s Presidents of the United States of America pack, I was like “Hmm, these songs are pretty good. I wonder what else they have.” And then I very quickly became a huge fan of the band. I devoured their work, eventually lingering on their last album, These Are The Good Times People, and mostly listening to that. But so much of their stuff was worth my time. It was exciting. It was entertaining. I was entertained.

The other day, I was preparing for my trip to the City Museum, which I told you about already. But, at the time, I was unsure whether or not I’d be driving up alone or not. So I felt it time to stockpile some podcasts, and that meant not playing podcasts while I played my games. So I dove into my library to try to find some music to listen to, and stumbled upon the POTUS (as hip fans call them, I guess) album, II. I had never really given this one a chance, so I put it on.

By the time the second track came on, I was in love with the band again. Man, they are just so good! They’re just the right mix of pop and odd and clever and rock for me, and I just love the crap out of them. I’ve been listening to that track constantly, but Volcano, Mach 5… the whole album is solid. It’s just wonderful stuff.

So huzzah for discovering music I already have, I guess! Huzzah!