101 Ways to Waste Time

Let’s see… what have I been playing lately?

Well, there’s been a lot of World of Warcraft.  As much fun as it’s always been for me, it’s even more fun playing with Misty, which I’ve been doing pretty often.  We have two characters each – Tauren and Human.  The game plays a whole lot differently in a group – even a group of two.  She really enjoys it, too.

City of Villains and City of Heroes (really two sides of the same game) are fun, too, although I play them less.  I’ve made a few more heroes and villains to sate my altitis.  Recently, one of our friends suggested we put together a sentai super group called The Royal Bombardiers.  I’m the Black Bombardier.  Pictures will be available soon.

I reinstalled Diablo II recently.  I really love that game.  I’ve beaten it (and its sequel) once, and I want to play through it with a different character.  So, I started an Amazon, and I’m going to go through focusing on passive skills, spears, and javelins.  I’ve done this before, but never took it very far.  That combination is pretty tricky to play right, but I think I’ll have a lot of fun with it.

I signed up for the beta of Auto Assault, which is a Mad Max-style post-apocolyptic MMORPG.  The game seems to focus on your vehicle and the weapons it wields, and the concept seems really original, so I wanted to give it a try.  I’ve only played through the introductory stages, so I’ll have to get back to it soon.

Just the other day, I took a big stack of console games down to Gamestop to get Star Wars: Empire at War.  I haven’t had an RTS for a long time, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about the game.  So, I get there, hand in my games and go to find Empire at War.  It turns out that they don’t have any that aren’t reserved for somebody.  Figures.  So, I left with Age of Empires III.  I had a lot of fun playing Age of Empires II in college, and I’d read great reviews on the new instalment.  I also buckled and picked up a couple of of Game Boy DS games: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrows and Meteos.  Both of those are a lot of fun.  Most of the games I have are long, drawn-out affairs, so it’s nice to have something I can just pick up for a while.

… Where do I find all this time for video games?!

“Thank you, but our princess is in another castle.”
-- Toad

Crunch

It’s crunch time at work again.  I’ve been told I’m expected to work 7 days a week until the end of February.  I’ve had to cancel to Dungeons and Dragons games I’d planned on running in that time.  It also means I’ll probably working well into the evening on most weekdays.  I can take it, though.  I just recently went through a few weeks of nine-to-five after a few weeks of  similar crunch time, so I’m a little spoiled.  Still, I’m trying to keep a positive outlook.  I still need to improve my work ethic, and this is helping.  I need more experience, and I need more practice programming – this extra work is certainly helping with that.  I’ve been on this project for over 2 years… It’ll be a relief to see it out the door.

Misty and I have been getting to spend a lot of time together lately.  We play World of Warcraft together at every opportunity, and that’s a lot of fun, but that’s not just it.  I’ve been trying to put time aside to hang out with her and give her the attention she deserves, and I think I’ve been doing pretty well in that regard.  This stretch of extra work time will hurt that, but she understands and is being very supportive.  Nub, nub.

There are at least three weddings for me to attend this year, as far as I know.  My sister is supposed to get married soon (Hi, Heather!).  My good friend Kevin is getting married in two weeks.  Another couple of friends are getting hitched soon, too, although I think they’re just going to have a reception after getting married by a Justice of the Peace.  (Misty wanted to do that.  It was not to be, alas.)  I hope each of these couples end up as happy as me and Misty are.

That’s all for now.  Next time, I’ll probably talk about games.  Stay tuned.

The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is yet willing to learn more.
-- Ed Parker