The Best Time
So I have been staying in the states with my girlfriend for almost a month now, and I am really sad to say that soon I will have to go back to the Netherlands. If there was only one thing I could wish for in this life, it would be to stay here with her and the kids. But things aren't that simple, and if I want this to have a happy ending in the long run, I will have to do this according to the rules. Of course we could take the risk, and do this the quick and easy way, but from my experience that never ends well. I am very much open to suggestions, though, so feel free to chime in. Regardless of how disappointed I am that my time here is coming to an end soon, I enjoyed every day that I have spent with her. This wasn't the first time I visited her, but it was the best without a doubt. Sure there were some minor things, but what relationship doesn't have those? The simple truth is that I have never felt as much at home as I do here, with her and the kids.
There isn't much to do in Cleveland, Tennessee, but we've still done quite a few things together. We went to the movies a couple of times, where we saw Avatar in 3D, Twilight: New Moon (which sucked), and Sherlock Holmes. I also celebrated New Year here, and got to meet some more of her family and other people that she knows. During that night I also learned to play pool, taught to me by none other than my oldest step-son. And yes, he beat me more than once, but I had a lot of fun getting my ass handed to me. From what I understood from Angie (my gf), there is usually a band playing, and a lot more people come to the New Year party. But due to something very unfortunate--which I won't mention here--the band was unable to play this time around. But still, I had a good time, and ushering in 2010 together with her was the absolute best way to do it.
Speaking of which, I was actually supposed to celebrate Christmas with her as well, but I missed my final connecting flight and ended up having to stay the night in a hotel in Charlotte, NC. It was quite a letdown, but like she said, at least I arrived in one piece which is what really matters. I'm just glad I wasn't on the plane that had the terrorist in it.
All put together, my time here has been absolutely fantastic.
Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon Age Diaries
This time around I brought my Xbox along and I've spent quite a bit of time playing with the kids. Sometimes I probably spent a bit too much time playing games, but being able to do things with the kids was great. 
And yes, I do enjoy playing this game. It's probably the best multiplayer game I've ever played. I just wish it wouldn't lag so much. There seem to be lag issues with MW2 far more frequently than there was with the first game, which is strange since I recall Infinity Ward saying that they improved their network code. And before anyone mentions it, this has nothing to do with the dedicated servers since I own the game on the 360. Despite those issues, however, I do consider this a better multiplayer game than the first one. Pretty much everything about it is improved in my opinion, and it's a lot easier to create classes that fit to a person's specific play style.
Modern Warfare 2 would honestly have been a lot better off if they had just left the campaign out altogether.
Since we are on the subject of confessions, I would like to apolagize for still not having posted the next entry in my Dragon Age Diaries project. I know I promised to post Day 2, but my attention has simply been elsewhere. I could try promising that I will post it soon, but I know that it's very unlikely that I will stick to that promise. Luckily for me, I do have a reasonably good excuse, which is that I was unable to get the game to work on this PC. The computer can run the game, but I wasn't able to get my save games to work no matter what I tried. So until I go back to the Netherlands I won't be able to continue on with this game. But I promise that this project is not dead, and that I will continue with it as soon as I can.
Vroom!
I have done a lot of that over the weekend with Forza Motorsport 3. And man, I am completely hooked on this game. Thanks to Angie's mom I was able to get my hands on a copy of this game for the weekend. Originally I'd picked Army of Two: The 40th Day for rental, but the store didn't have that in stock anymore. And I have to say that I am actually glad that they didn't because I liked playing Forza 3 so much more. It's actually thanks to the quick look that I got really interested in this game. Before that I had no real interest in playing any kind of simulation racing game. The only racing games that I've ever owned were the Burnout ones. But after playing Forza 3 I really wish I'd given the simulation games a chance sooner. I have enjoyed everything about this game, and I am absolutely going to buy it when I am able to.
I wasn't alone in liking this game. As a matter of fact, most of the time playing it was done together with my oldest step-son Zach. We spent a lot of time swapping the controller between races, as well as doing an endurance race together. We didn't always agree on everything, especially when it concerned the auction house, but we did have a great time together. And hey, he was able to get me some pretty damn good cars from the auction house, including a Bugatti Veyron for less than 300,000.
The one thing I enjoy the most about Forza 3 are the endurance races. So far I've done only two of them, but they are, without a doubt, my favorite events to participate in. In fact, I'm really hoping that I will unlock longer endurance races as I level up because while the current ones are lengthy races, they don't really feel like a challenge in terms of endurance. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I drive a lot for a living, but after reading some forum posts on various sites I believe that I'm not the only one who wishes these endurance events were longer.
Either way, despite that annoyance, this is going to be a game that I will be playing a lot more of. I foresee myself sinking a lot of time into completing it, and I will most likely spend a lot of time racing online as well. And I'm actually pretty confident that I will do reasonably well online, something which I rarely say about multiplayer in any game. If you have any interest in this game, but, like me, are intimidated by the realism aspect of it, I urge you to at least give it a rental if you can. I think you will be pleasantly surprised in how accessible it is, and how quickly you can actually get the hang of it.
To end this rather large wall of text, here is a cool drifting video:
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