Lavapotamus

I think mine's still broken. Your present should show up in the Steam tab of your inventory, right? My total in that tab says five, but I've only got the three games I bought a while ago that I still need to gift to people. Obviously it's an error, but if it's eventually fixed is this where the gift would end up?

I don't really have anything to contribute to a conversation, but I love you for writing the sorts of blogs you write and am genuinely interested in reading through everyone's thoughts. Whenever you're inspired to do so, please keep going.

@TentPole said:

Centipedes. This one in particular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CL2hetqpfg

Wasn't creeped out by those until I watched this, thanks. :[ House centipedes are also my worst enemy.

Beyond that, things that swarm bother me. I'm fine with a couple, but a nest or any amount that has the potential to swarm usually means I'll stay far away from it.

@Mordukai said:

@Lavapotamus said:

We just got our first substantial snowfall in Whitewater, Wisconsin on Friday. And by substantial, I mean enough to actually cover the ground. Can't be more than an inch.

Green Bay here and there was some snow yesterday but it wasn't cold enough for it to actually stay. WTF last year we already went through a Blizzard.

I know! I was trying to find numbers for our annual snowfall to help underline how ridiculous having an inch of snow this far into the year is, but I came up empty handed. I don't know if this just means January and February will be frozen crusades or if I'm just going to see a lot of dead grass until March.

Gaming goals

• Start a "This Year In Gaming" binder. I love GotY discussions and would love to contribute to them, but I either a) forget what I've played during the year or b) play a lot of games a little while after they've come out, so I get confused as to what is actually current. I hope to start a binder with two or so notebooks keeping track of what I buy/complete and when they came out.
• Complete more of the games that I buy. I no longer subscribe to the masochistic viewpoint of "I bought x, I must finish x even though I hate it". However, I still buy plenty of games I enjoy. For one reason or another, I get sidetracked and never finish them. It's time to end that habit.
• Get more involved with gaming communities. I like vidya games, a lot of other people seem to, too. Problem is, none of those people seem to be my friends. I suppose I should expand this towards a local effort, as well; it'd just be nice to have gaming discussions once in a while without feeling like I'm sentencing a person to listening to it.

Rest-of-life goals

• Stick to a schedule for guitar/piano practice
• Stay off Reddit. Seriously.
• Don't miss a single class (unless I'm bed-ridden).
• Learn how to use photoshop competently
• Learn HTML5

Well, you could always argue that certain players just don't pay enough attention to the included story. Sometimes its supplied, albiet poorly, and it could argued as the player's fault for not taking the time to read through mission explanations. Of course, if the explanations themselves are dry or uninteresting, then it could be the fault of the writers for not properly capturing their audience...

I don't know. I have this problem fairly often with RPGs and especially MMOs. Side quests in most games usually feel like additional challenges to either offer more playtime or to set up a challenge before the player can receive an optional reward. The execution of these is pretty transparent at times, but if they're handled properly I can forget all about that and get pretty interested in the story. I really can't say that too often with MMOs, though; they're not exclusively at fault, but their quests always feel really mundane to me unless I force myself to read the entirety of the mission's text. Even then, I'm not guaranteed to be entertained. I usually have to just focus on being entertained through my own character's progression rather than the world these types of games are set in.

We just got our first substantial snowfall in Whitewater, Wisconsin on Friday. And by substantial, I mean enough to actually cover the ground. Can't be more than an inch.

I already owned all the games I cared about in this bundle. Then they included the soundtracks...yeah, I caved. I'm glad I finally own the title music from Bit.Trip Runner though!

Quickplay on Rock Band 3. The career mode usually infuriates me (can't get a really good band together and I don't want to be the guy that tells everyone to play on normal so we can ace everything), but I seemingly cannot get tired of pretending to play music. Probably helps that RB's audio engineers/designers/team was pretty fantastic.

If I'm hungry during video games, I'll stop to eat a meal. I don't buy snack foods beyond stuff to eat when I'm drunk and I hate getting my controllers greasy anyway. I will definitely drink a ton of water while playing, though.