tekHedd – the blog

What a strange day I’m having.

So, a few minutes ago I got an IM from someone I don’t know, saying “hi, are you there”. I was like, “yup”. Well, the next IM quotes my GC signature (which I don’t use anywhere else), and welcomes me to wowaimcom, where I can buy gold.

Great. Just what I need. Some gold spammer is farming GC accounts. No big deal, it’s the internet. I’m a big boy.

And then I log in to GC, where I have +200 fame for the signup of… wowaimcom. Huh? I referred a gold spammer? When did I do that? How did I do that? I must have been very, very drunk, or something. (Hah, right. I’d never be that drunk.) Now I feel dirty.

Speaking of the Holidays, let’s talk about the holidays. My holiday was characterized by three things: visiting with family, driving in winter conditions, and Final Fantasy 3 for DS.

This may be a blog, but that’s no excuse for inflicting my family conflicts on you. For completeness, however, these two things sum up the experience nicely: 1) being told to go to church to meet a nice girl, and 2) being made to wear a blazer and slacks to church. Did I mention that I’m not Christian? :( But hey, it’s mom–I didn’t drive a thousand miles to get in a fight.

And it’s still nice to see the family. More important, I managed to put in over 20 hours of Final Fantasy 3 on the DS. Hooray, time alone with FF3!

It’s refreshing to play an old school console RPG again. None of that linear path mollycoddling like in the new games. You talk to some people, they tell you their current dilemma, and you have to figure out where in the world you should go to get the things you need to un-dilemma-ize them. Granted, the plot itself is still quite linear, but you’re left on your own to explore the world and find the dungeon entrances. And with random encounters, exploring is the grind. When I was younger I wasn’t aware of this, but it does take some of the pain out of endlessly fighting the same four creatures.

So, yes, it’s a bit dull and repetitive, but it’s not a bad grind. Plus, the FF kids are so cute in their different job outfits. I suppose it was inevitable they’d eventually make a game where the outfits are the only point of the game. (Guess which FF I’m referring to!) And then on the way home, they closed the roads. So, after a brief experiment with driving a front-drive car in white-out conditions, during which I found myself chanting “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die”, I ended up sharing the only available room with “Steve” at a hotel in the middle of nowhere (or Nebraska) …playing more FF3. What would I do without the DS? (What do you mean, “read”?)

Here in Colorado it is snowing! It has finally snowed enough that it’s worth driving in the dreadful traffic up into the mountains. I went up last friday, for the first time in, oh, eight or nine years. The snow was good, packed powder with a continuous flurry of fresh all day. Very fast. I was afraid I’d forgotten how to stay on top of a snowboard, but I guess it’s like riding a bicycle: you have to roll up your right pants leg or else you get grease on it.

What a rush! Snowboarding beats the hell out of every computer game I’ve ever played. Even with surround sound. Even with the buttkicker. Games can’t compare. Nothing gets the adrenalin going like the threat of broken bones.  The one advantage of computer games is that your fingers don’t get cold.