Dream of Waking

Thanksgiving went well. I basically ate a whole tofurkey by myself in the span of 24 hours except for one or two slices Katie got. Everyone loved the cupcakes I made and Katie decorated. Got some housewarming money from the grandparents which will help immensely.

On Black Friday Katie and I set out to get a 32″ LCD HDTV from Staples. We woke up a little late at 4:30am but there were only about twenty people ahead of us in line and by the time the doors opened about a hundred more behind us. Essentially we got there after the hardcore who had been waiting there basically all night and before the lazy and the leftovers from the stores that opened at 5am. I got in, grabbed the TV, and got out before the end of the line had finished getting into the store. I was the first one on a register and out the door and we got home before traffic got super destructive.

I got the TV setup yesterday when we got home from Springfield and everything looked pretty good. It’s huge. But it’s a HDTV and we had nothing to show for it so tonight I got some component cables for my Xbox and now it looks like Jesus licked all my Xbox games. None of my PS2 or Gamecube games support HD and only about half of my Xbox games support it but the ones that do look incredible. We hooked up Katie’s stereo to the audio-outs to drown out the crappy speakers that the TV has and now our little home theater setup isn’t so bad.

After finishing an excellent game like F.E.A.R. I can’t go back to a shitty game like Chaser. I’m dying for some fresh FPS action but I still have standards and I can’t simply go from a visceral action packed game like F.E.A.R. to a dog turd like Chaser overnight. I need to be eased into a dog turd like Chaser through judicious application of time and a steady decrease in games I will still play.

So I guess I’ll just keep replaying F.E.A.R. on hard. Which apparently gives me a ton more ammo and a couple more bad guys to chew up.

Well there went F.E.A.R. It was awesome from beginning to end even if you basically fight the same assortment of five enemies throughout the entire game with little deviation in very similar environment. The game is almost in thirds with the first third taking place at a water treatment plant, the second third taking place in an office complex, and the last third taking place in an industrial zone and they all kind of blend together. That’s the price of making a game that’s pretty close to realistic. There’s no aliens, no dragons or knights, no cowboys or ninjas or pirates. Just a ton of soldiers, some security guards, and the occasional robot with some more high-tech weaponry towards the end like a particle beam rifle and a hand held rocket launcher. The most far out it gets is the telepathic stuff and the cloning. It’s a serious action game with a dose of horror and just a hint of humor in the form of one Norton Mapes. I’ll probably get the expansion as soon as I can afford to spend a little money on myself again.

I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I spent a couple of days depressed and stressed out and nothing really has been going on. Chris was awesome helping us move and I had a good weekend and then this week started out pretty shitty and now the roller coaster is tapering off.

Since we moved I’m off the laptop and back on good ol’ Xerxes2. I missed Xerxes2 because he’s got a speedy 64 bit processor, even if he needs a new video card to really be competitive. I had this insane urge to play F.E.A.R. right before we moved and luckily my boxes of stuff from Iraq arrived right around the same time. The game didn’t run so well on the laptop because I had too much of the pretty stuff cranked up but I turned that crap down and the game still looks amazing and runs smooth as butter. The action is so insane in this game it’s unreal yet it takes a lot of tactics to get through some areas because you die easy. The story is much more coherent too when you’re not playing in the minuscule amounts of free time I had when I was in Iraq.

I’m setting up a shrine to console of times passed but it looks all ghetto because I’m using plastic storage bins to elevate the systems and not shelves.

I’m moving tomorrow. No internet till Monday. I hate moving.

In not sucking fun news! I’ve beaten Guitar Hero on medium. I went insane in the last three days and have spent nearly all my free time playing it. I’d come home for lunch and spend the whole hour playing Guitar Hero. I can’t wait for this house buying garbage to be over so I can get Guitar Hero 2 and then Katie and I can do co-op mode. Right now “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” is kicking my ass on hard. I can get halfway through the song before it just goes berserk and I lose. Stupid Judas Priest.

I’m working full days now. It sucks. It makes me tired as soon as I get home so I don’t want to do anything and all I want to do is sleep.

Today’s the end of the first real day I’ve been able to do anything. Let’s go over how I enjoyed my laser-beamed eyeballs.

Day 1. This one was easy. Get my eyes zapped, I’m feeling fine, I can see enough, go to sleep.

Day 2. Oh god. Where did I go wrong? Yesterday I could see and everything was okay and today my eyeballs are falling out of their sockets and I’m blind again. Where’d I put those damned painkillers? Fuck it, I’m sleeping through day 2.

Day 3. Okay guys, I get it. I got involved with sciences I don’t understand and now I’m bed-ridden and blind. Can I sleep through day 3 too? Yes I can.

Day 4. This day wasn’t so bad. I had my first followup appointment and the optometrist said that I could technically see enough to drive and that I was healing quick. My eyes are still itching and that sucks but I don’t feel like I want to die and that’s an improvement.

Today I woke up and holy shit I can see stuff. Not everything but I can read and I’m not struggling to make out things at a distance. My vision is far from perfect but this is only day 5 and they said things would be up and down till about day 8. So I’ll keep taking my eye meds and everything should be a-okay.