Skyrim - Or Why I Spend Every Five Minutes Saving My Game

So "Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls V" sequel, came out on November 11th, which ended up being a kind of crazy day as Marty and I were going to see Cirque de Soleil: Totem which was after about two weeks of basically not speaking to each other and me sleeping in my room on the floor. Which was thusly followed by two weeks of both of us being very nastily sick. So it was a bit of time before I got to settle into the game and check it out.

First, I gotta say I've been playing the "Elder Scrolls" series since "Arena". I remember being creeped out by the dungeons, no matter how repetitive they were or looked. And back then, it had those awesome low-brow graphics, that almost 2-D quality of the old Doom or Castle Wolfenstein. And shit would pop out at me and I'd squeal. Although I've been "gaming" for as long as I can remember, I think this might have been my first "real" RPG and I got introduced to it in the Navy; some guy burned something like six 3.5 diskettes for me. Remember those?

And of course, I was hooked. Then it was off to tons of "Daggerfall", only a little bit of "Battlespire" and "Redguard". Then I tried to play Morrowind (along with its expansions) on my shiny new Xbox, new to consoles at that point. Well, I DO remember Atari and Nintendo and all the really, really old consoles. But I'd seen nothing like the shit you could play on the Xbox from a console. PC games, sure. They were all built for the desktop. And since I loved the series, I really wanted Morrowind to work out but the travel system SUCKED balls and became so frustrating I had to put it down with great reluctance.

But lo, behold "Oblivion" and all its attending expansions on Xbox 360, on which I logged many hours running around and hacking away and collecting shit and exploring. And I was still playing "Oblivion" when "Skyrim" came out. I haven't even finished the storyline. In fact, it's kind of my MO to not finish games. I love playing them. But maybe there's something about them ending that I don't like. But then of course, the sequel comes out, usually bigger and better and prettier and all that, and why go back to the old? So they don't get finished.

But what does bring me back to play this series, no matter what comes out next is Bethesda's (the game studio behind the series) open sandbox games (including the Fallout series). And I mean, REALLY open. These games are so vast and open with so many choices. You can follow the main quest line or completely ignore it and tromp off-roads and do tons of side quests. In fact, this is often why I don't complete the Elder Scrolls series; I'm off romping about in the wilds. You can swing and flail about with your chosen hunk of metal of doom and slash and hack to your heart's content. Well, it was more motion on PC with the mouse, since you got to move the mouse in time with the slashes. Consoles don't really have that quality. Controllers are pretty much button pushing (more like mad mashing) and finger triggering (like wild). Takes a little bit out of it, but still such awesome games.

And let me tell you about the absolute sinker of time for me in these games is the mass collecting of STUFF. These games are a pack-rat's absolute dream. I mean, absolute. Total. Lots of my focus goes into leveling strength and stamina or whatever stat is needed for increasing carrying capacity. And my chosen house is jammed full of crap that I end up really never using. At least I sort appropriately into different bins and don't leave it all laying about the floor.

And "Skyrim" is no less any of these things. In fact, I think it might be the biggest map, with tons of dungeons and things to do, than any other of the Elder Scrolls game. Within a couple of hours of playing I was already hip deep in main quests and tons of miscellaneous quests to do.

But damn, it sure is buggy. I've lost many horses due to sudden alien abduction (rising up and away into the sky on its own), falling off cliffs and not having had saved in a while, losing them to various dragons and what not because the stupid things keep rushing off to try and save me and get killed for their troubles, suddenly just wandering off on their own while I'm inspecting a dungeon door. In regards of horses, I appear somewhat cursed. But they're so purty!!!

I also am constantly falling off cliffs or getting totally raped by dragons while I'm just trying to mind my own business. As a low level character, I was constantly mauled. This probably isn't helped by my play style which is rather, ahem, shall I say, scream and rush in, wildly swinging some weapon and hurling fireballs. It almost seemed as though any time I showed up to some eventual quest spot for a dungeon, lo, there was a dragon circling or trying land and eat my horse. With me on it.

So, I learned to obsessively save every five minutes. Because otherwise, I'd be utterly frustrated rather than wonderfully awed.

Yeah, So... Okay

Yeah, so... okay, I didn't keep up with the "every day" crap, obviously.

And I'd rather write the longer and deeper posts like I wrote prior 2011, occasionally than dumb little posts every day.

Work has settled down quite a bit and I feel less irritable about it. Well, for the most part. Bureaucracy is still a dumb ass bitch. We're full now, both clients and staffing. The two staff positions open were hard; carrying three clients along with groups and the other craziness that usually occurs is hard. Of course, I used to carry more than that at Eucalyptus House but the work load just didn't seem the same, well, until COC. I generally like the team we have now. Admin is always admin, not much to be done around that and I'm kind of tired of trying to "train" my admin. They are just going to do what they do. Although doing some meds might assist that.

For the most part, life is going on pretty good. I'm still working on my ecology classes. Slowly. Always have to wait for classes to roll around to night and not all teachers teach at night. So it goes. Just slowly. Potentially considering going back to full time, maybe try for Berkeley with one of their College of Natural Resources degrees. We'll see. Don't feel so desperate about work these days, although I still don't want to be in the field. I want to be IN the field.

Marty and I are going along. Our usual crazy ups and downs. But overall, more ground is gained than not, so overall, a good thing.

Today, just in a slump. Too much coffee maybe? I only drank maybe 2/3 of a regular sized mug, with milk and sugar, my usual. Although it was the horrible brewed coffee at work which I could have potentially made too strong because I suck at making coffee in those machines. Never know the ratios. And for some reason, that kind of coffee makes me a little crazy. Three shots makes me crazy. Two shots of espresso usually are fine but well, not working so well any more. So more coffee. But more crazy. A quandary, no?

Unpaid Day Off

Well, I thought my TB test was next month but David comes in and says "You can't be working, you're test is not up to date."

I'm like, oh crap. I hate getting those things. So I go to Joe Healy in order to get a test placed.

I always react badly. But get positive reads one year, negative next. Always leaves a dark mark on my arm for months.

But this time turned out to be positive again with a worse reaction than usual and had to go get a chest x-ray so I could work. I think I just missed one day of work but still.

So I go and get the blood test because I'm sick of this back and forth shit only to find out that the QuantiFeron test for TB says I'm positive. And it's the more accurate test.

So at some point I was exposed to TB although I have never been active. That makes me a latent... carrier? Don't know exactly how I qualify.

Interestingly enough I can still donate blood with a positive test, just not active symptoms. That makes no sense to me. I have the anti-bodies, but not the disease? Or my body thought I had the disease at some point but I didn't but it still responded like I did? I don't really understand what the whole thing means. I do know I will not be taking the 9 month long INH crap with liver tests, thank you very fucking much.

Rango Is Spirit and Spirit Is Rango!

Yeah, I totally don't know what I meant by that. But cute movie.

Center for World Spirituality

It rocked.

Possibly the first community I want to invest time in?

All excited an' shit. Which means, "watch this carefully that you do not burn it out suddenly."

The Rain

It's still raining.

And I'm still getting rained on riding my scooter.

There was the "threat of snow" and everyone was atwitter at work. And I don't mean Tweeting.

I highly doubt it'll snow. Not that we haven't had snow here.... I think once about 10 years ago...

It hails. Nice, perfectly round chunks. But snow... nope. And highly unlikely.

But if it does, it's not like I'm going to get off of school (read work).

Tih-erd

Tired.

Just feeling a bit weary. Probably need a vacation but really, I'm not so good at vacations especially with Marty. We don't play well together.

A Rainy Day

Raining all day.

I hate rain.

Had enough on Diego Garcia to last an entire lifetime.

I Am Number Four

Your usual teenage, alien lover, journey type movie fare.

A Day At the Races

Horse racing. Marty took me to the races. It was fun, got to sit up in the restaurant and eat and watch some races. We even bet $5 on a horse. Not big gamblers, us.

It was kind of fun to get into the excitement of the races even though these were horses that only had a few races under their belts. Saddles?

Pleasure In a Cafe

And I don't mean having sex on one of the little tables either...

Just sitting in my cafe, waiting for class, playing around with my battery hogging iPhone, which I had to turn off to preserve battery to get it home so I could make sure the new info I put in would synch. I remember the old days when you lost battery power, you also lost the new information on the phone... but I guess these days if the battery really did run out, it'd be okay.

In any case, listening to some nice old blues, drinking my mocha chai, poking around my netbook and suddenly overcome with a sense of satisfaction. Like Dr. Marc was saying yesterday, an evolved being can derive pleasure from anything.

I often feel like an amoeba but looking out the window at that gorgeous orangey-pink light as the sun begins to set, listening to the some good blues, the very sweet chirping of the canaries around the cafe, tasty mocha chai, suddenly a sense of pleasure, of deep appreciation for the moment, a fabulous relaxed feeling, like after some really good sex on a little table... I joke (partly), but really, a real contentment for my life overall in that small moment.

Not so amoeba-like, I tell you.

Pleasure, Pain and an iPhone

Had a session with Dr. Marc. Was feeling kind of depressed but it turned out to be a rather interesting session about pleasure and pain.

On the pleasure side... our iPhones were here when I got home and that really fucking rocked. So, mostly all good.

Just Another Sunday

It's like the "Just Another Monday" song.... but with Sunday, get it?

Another Coma

Slept all day.