As resolutions go, I'm as good as the best of them when it comes to failing to follow through. That is, I'm like most people. Day-to-day promises to myself start out positive around 6:45 in the morning, and once I'm out of the shower my enthusiasm for changing my life in some remarkable way cools off by the time I'm hanging up the towel. Weekends are a black hole entirely; I rarely shower on Saturdays and on Sundays I'm doing so to wash off the depression of being 2-days dirty--there's no place for "today's the day" pep thoughts. New Year's resolutions are the personal commitment equivalent of landing on the moon.

Something I've always told myself I'd do is keep a blog of video game exploits, a dear diary I could use to archive my hobby while scratching that creative writing itch I always seem to have but never scrape. I like Giant Bomb, I enjoy what they do here and think that as video game sites go, you couldn't ask for a more passionate group of people who enjoy writing and talking about video gaming. I hate clicking on my user profile to see an empty blog, so flying in the face of all likelihood, I'm going to commit to putting something down in this space that Giant Bomb provides that I can look back on and say, man, what was I thinking then.

I tend to reach level 20 or 30 in an MMO and quit. The moment of reckoning comes sooner or later, where a single-sitting's time to get anything significant done increases exponentially, along with new and backlogged games vying for my attention. I've always envied those who reach the level 60s and 70s, the range where your character glows with one or more colors, and you're usually strutting around town with some exotic pet / familiar in tow that's only attainable in the most exclusive of end-game content. I know this is going to be the case with Star Wars: The Old Republic, but I play it anyway, enjoying the low level content with my buddy Joe. He's the best person you could group with, a veritable sage of MMO practices and efficiency. I barely pay attention to which way we run, I'm like the troll from Warcraft who's basic response is "Whoyouwanmekill?"

The story is what separates SWTOR from WoW. Not just in that there's a story, but that your group mates are forced to wait for you to digest it. Quests in WoW irritated me to no end because there wasn't this arbitary period to allow you to read the stories behind what you were doing. Instead you have to either read on your own time or wait for someone to state they were going AFK for a pee break. Groups can skip story scenes provided everyone presses their space bar, otherwise that one guy who's new to the quest enjoys the usually excellent voice acting while the others that have run it several times for loot or on alts stare at "Waiting on other players" or some such notice. It's something I really appreciate as for me, RPGs are just as much about their stories they tell as they are grinding or loot hunting.

Alternatively, Forza 4 soaks up much of my game time. It's annoying that since I don't have Xbox Live, I can't accept any of the "gifts" that appear in my inbox. I have to pay a $50 tax to download supposedly free content from the developer. Otherwise it's been fun, gradually disabling handicap features such as assisted steering, braking line, and even turning off all HUD features. Trying to race a clean race in those conditions is a lot of fun for me, and where I'm at in the tours is a place where the AI becomes more and more unpredictable, aggressive. I'm terrible at painting cars, too. People have filled my head with the notion that I'm at least a semi-professional artist, and god help me if I'm judged by my Forza portfolio.