i just got a recipe for cocktail flavored cupcakes!!  i'll be making the pina colada & probably the chocolate martini cupcakes next week!  will take pics!! 
 

i reserved my excitement when i went to my friend's to play dragon age last night, although driving 15 minutes at 2am was probably pretty telling. i rubbed my hands together & got ready to have the world of fantasy impress me - imagine that, i'm still not jaded even after all these years!  but 3 fights & 3 HOURS later... DA had pretty much beat my hopes into the ground. 
 
sadly i found dragon age UTTERLY slow to the point of unplayable.  final fantasy tactics original is about as slow as i can plod through a game without going insane & quitting.  maybe it's my "generation" & the need for immediate satisfaction from any activity... maybe fast-paced games have brainwashed me... but watching & participating in this game was a painful crawl over razor-sharp seconds & soul-sucking minutes.   
 
if i could stay interested, there's a possibility that even i could play a slow game such as this, but unfortunately DA flounced on that delivery as well.  granted i missed the intro, so i don't have any emotional attachment to the [creepily rendered] character my friend made, but the filler between the nicely cg-ed cinemas tasted like a bunch of rehashed, stale fantasy.  i found myself exclaiming "oh, so now we have to go to ANOTHER castle?.... what a surprise!"  elves, dwarves, vaguely-described minions of darkness ["there's always an archdemon!"- me], it's all here... the same old shit that's in every fantasy story book, film or rpg.  & pretty much everything is BROWN [go figure].  but hey, if you can't get enough of redundancy, then DA is your game.  
 
i didn't play any of the combat personally, i mostly engaged conversation with other characters... sigh.  it's standardized [for this day/age] to have multiple dialog trees available to your character, but there was just something flat-out boring about pretty much every choice DA offered.  i guess i'm just used to extremes, where you have a hilariously puss option or satisfyingly dick option, & of course the casually sarcastic neutral answer.  i felt like DA was running around in CIRCLES with their half-assed responses [even though there is tons of voice acting.. quality not quantity, people!].  i really wish more games would start including the "slap the bitch" option [thank you mass effect!].  i find it off-putting that dialog would be structured to force the player to divine what the game makers want them to do... i just don't see the point of having options if there is only one right answer, or have dialog trees become multiple choice tests to see if i was paying attention?  

i only gave the game 3 hours trial, but those are three hours of my life i can never get back.... if you enjoy dying slowly, dragon age was made for you!  but me, well... DA helped me realize that FANTASY IS A DEAD GENRE.     
 
~gb♥g

4/5  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥   
 
a platformer that really stuck out the formula & brought rich graphics to addicting gameplay, this game is surely a part of the exciting movement to bring back retro style gaming!!
 
being a huge lover of castlevania SOTN [like 'having a crush on alucard' huge] i really enjoyed this game from start to finish.  at first blush the game was almost disorienting because although my character only functions on a linear 2D plane, the environment is almost a seamless 3D image.. kind of confusing when you're used to being able to go anywhere in modern games.  i thought the graphics were spectacular, but of course all i could think was 'konami needs to remake castlavaniaSOTN' n_n; i did find the lack of soundtrack a bit disappointing, especially since the very few BG tracks littered SPARSLEY throughout the game aren't really that great...  it was too short also, but that's just because i would have enjoyed playing it more!  the story left a little to be desired as well, because [& i'm certailnly not the only one] i figured out the plot twist RIGHT at the beginning of the game, & the voice acting was... well, it was definitetly video game calibur acting, let's just say that.  i really got a kick out of shooting guys & making them scream, & the game almost doubled in fun-factor when i got the ability to super punch people - their reactions were priceless!  or maybe they were worth 15 dollars.  is that even what i paid for this game?  maybe it was 25... but it was definitely well spent because i got a solid game.  i really don't like DLC though... that's right, i said it!!  i can't stand the thought of losing games i paid for, or not having a physical collection of games... [altough i do have a few roms & MAME]
 
best item: hookshot BY far.  if this item had not been in the game, i would have lost my damn mind
best moment: the ending scene.  right as it started, the fusion helmet glitched & left my character with patchy, plastic-looking white & royal purple hair!  & it stayed that way through the whole sequence.  i kept having to laugh at it - if there was supposed to be anything mysterious, cliff-hangy or climactic happening i missed it, it was IMPOSSIBLE to take the game seriously in any way. awesome.
most annoying thing: knowing there was something in the room i couldn't get to because i didn't have the right item yet >___<

This is something that matters more depending on location... I live in Florida, we have thunderstorms.  Nasty ones.  I love them!  Electronics do not....

Even though I make it a point to unplug appliances before sleep (so they don't waste power - but here's also why), between by bf & I staying up late one night the main device area was left plugged in... I awoke to the horrible explosion of extremely close lightning.  I asked if everything had been unplugged.  No.        ; o ;

All told we lost...
-modded xbox 1
-xbox 360 arcade [jasper motherboard]
-my roomate's xbox 360 elite
-first gen 60 gig ps3 HDMI out
-65in 1080p dlp tv HDMI in
-asus motherboard powering the home theatre pc
-modem
-3 routers
-phones
-dimming light switches

All my equipment in my home-office was safe cuz I unplugged them myself!

At first we thought the PS3 was dead [which made me cry... i'm such a baby!!] but it gave out sound - we bought component cables to see if maybe just the HDMI out was broken.  LUCKILY this was the case so it wasn't SO BAD..... thank god now I can finish my Little Big Planet level instead of just thinking about it!  it's only 1080i now tho, no longer 1080p.  it's not terribly noticeable.... & trust me i'll get over it!

But seriously people save yourself the hassle & money - unplug shit if you live in a storm-prone area! ♥

you don't really need to read this article, but i link it just in case you want to yell at this fucktard as well.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10257956-1.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

this guy rambles about how his girlfriend is so clueless that she thinks leaving a ps3 in standby is somehow a waste.  he then becomes extremely annoying & actually tests a ps3's standby wattage to prove her wrong.

i almost puked.

i researched some numbers & wrote him this letter because the broken website wouldn't allow me to comment.  just as well, i would have embarassed him pretty bad....

"according to vgchartz.com there have been 8,648,821 ps3's sold in america from 2007-2009.  you said $1.53 per year per console of standby.  imagine if everyone took your misguided advice!!!!  that could be up to $13,232,696.13 per year WASTED ON STANDBY.  & that energy isn't made out of air yet.... don't you realize the total loss for your laziness is combined with the laziness of other people... & that loss is huge.  & all for nothing.  unless you are terminally ill, missing some limbs or so fat that you can't move, you have no excuse to be so lazy - you are selfish & myopic.  your girlfriend was right.  i think you should apologize to her.  if you were my boyfriend, every time i saw you not using the ps3 i would completely unhook every cable from it until you started turning it off. "

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PEOPLE WTF DX