judyonthenet

If you’ve noticed that our Xbox 360 is actively on for 15 hours straight everyday, rest assured that I am not playing it for 15 hours every day. Though, I am unfortunately playing a rather significant chunk of it. Kelvin and I have been taking turns playing Fallout 3 in 3 to 5 hour chunks. Oftentimes, we’re also watching each other play, so I’ve probably been on the couch, staring at the TV, staring at Fallout 3 for like 8-10 hours everyday? My brain is melting.

My favorite game of all time is probably the first Fallout, and Bethesda did a really good job maintaining Fallout’s feel in a completely different game engine. There are so many things to do, so many ways to do them, and a vast open wasteland to explore. The open world is a great improvement from the original games’ dotted-line-on-a-map deal. It’s got its downsides tho; I think I spend hours wandering around, 70% of the time completely lost. I finally get how the map works, but I still have trouble, especially in underground or indoor settings. Using Washington DC is also a cool change of pace from boring California. The detail in recreating all the major monuments (and how history has twisted each of them) makes for fun exploring. I’m mixed on the new turn-based system, where it’s combined with general FPS action (minus a quick-button melee, bleh). I do dig the cinematic action in turn-based mode though; I have yet to get sick of watching someone’s head explode in slow motion. While they’re kind of a waste of time, I also love the minigames for lockpicking and hacking. I can’t stop doing either.

Anyway, I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that Kelvin is just as hooked as I am on the game. I mean, it’s good I’m not playing it nonstop for days on end, but it also means we’re both totally incapable of doing anything aside from playing, watching, or talking about Fallout. I haven’t visited my mom, hung out with people (thankfully, a couple friends have visited us in our apartment the last couple days, forcing us to take breaks… to play Rock Band or Left 4 Dead :P), done my errands, blogged, or started my freaking thank-you cards for the wedding (I KNOW, I AM ASHAMED). At least I managed to get up before noon today and head straight to the computer instead of the living room couch to make this blog post. *sigh* I guess there goes my winter break.

New thing I learned today: Button Gwinnett is one of the signatories on the Declaration of Independence as a representative of Georgia. Also, signatory means someone who’s signed a document.

I know I haven’t been the nicest girl this year, particularly in regards to Christmas presents. Even so, please don’t give me a lump of coal for Christmas, Santa.

I know for our family Secret Santa thing (where we randomly draw one relative’s name and buy them $200 of stuff instead of buying everybody smaller gifts, which saves money and time) I asked for Rock Band 2 for 360. I know that a week or two later, I ended up buying it myself because of TRU’s crazy Rock Band 2 sale. Because of this, I had to change my wishlist less than two weeks before Christmas, no doubt causing major hassle to my Secret Santa.

I know it was wrong of me to open a piece of Kelvin’s mail (which is most likely a federal offense). I was too curious; the envelope had a handwritten return address from TechShop, and you could tell from picking it up that there was a card inside. And the envelope wasn’t sealed well, so it was already mostly open anyway, so I figured a peek wouldn’t hurt. I didn’t expect to find a one-month membership gift card with my name on it. I even stared at it for several minutes, wondering how come the card had my name on it and not Kelvin’s. Was it a mistake or… Oh. I felt really bad for what I did, so I called him immediately and confessed my crime. What’s worse is that, with all this wedding/honeymoon expenses we had, I didn’t even think we were getting each other anything. My husband is apparently a lot nicer than I am… *sigh*

So Santa, please don’t give me a lump of coal. I know “I couldn’t help myself” isn’t exactly the best reasoning… okay, maybe I do deserve a lump of coal. But you really should switch to propane; it’s much more eco-friendly!

New thing I learned: The USPS has their own forensics lab.

I still haven’t had the chance to write any sort of organized post about either the wedding or the honeymoon, but thankfully, Kelvin’s managed to put a few videos up on his Youtube channel already. These are just clips we took on our digital cameras, including Kelvin’s Canon SD870IS for which we bought an underwater case for. (Costs as much as freakin’ camera! At least we didn’t have to pay for it… many thanks to the folks who gave us the Amazon credit to get it!) He put up video he had viewed completely and felt didn’t need editing.

All the videos, like typical vacation footage, are fairly mundane. They haven’t gotten many hits on Youtube, not surprisingly; most have only gotten under 30 views since he posted it. However, there is a video of me snorkeling that’s already gotten *143* views. I imagine it probably has something to do with the fact my rear end in bikini bottoms is a predominant portion of the video snapshot.

I’m pretty sure most of those 143 people were very disappointed upon click (as shown by one person rating the video 2 stars, lol). Anyway, I’ll eventually go through the honeymoon in greater detail. For now, I hope these clips can satiate you guys for the moment. And in case you haven’t talked to me or Kelvin recently, the honeymoon was indeed quite awesome.

New thing I learned today: Billy Idol’s song “White Wedding” was inspired by his sister’s wedding. Also, two music groups have had #1 singles named “Float On”: Modest Mouse (2004) and The Floaters (1977).

Thank you Rock Band 2 for more useless information :P

In case you haven’t heard already from your favorite deals site, Rock Band 2 Special Edition (the one with all the instruments) for 360/PS3 (plus a $25 gift card!) is on sale this week at Toys’R'Us for $109.99. This deal is awesome because 1) it retails for $189.99, 2) it just came out in September, 3) the first Rock Band (which came out November ‘07) is still $129.99 after the release of Rock Band 2, 4) it’s not a price mistake and is a legit deal, and 5) the Toys’R'Us price includes a $25 gift card, so if you were intending on buying stuff at Toys’R'Us anyway, that’s like getting the game for $84.99 (plus extra tax). That’s a steal.

It’s in the Sunday ad, so in theory it should be active all week. The tricky part is getting there when there’s stock. I randomly checked CheapAssGamer at 11:50PM Saturday night and saw the deal, drove my butt over to the closest 24-hour TRU (some stores have 24 hour store hours on the weekend for the holidays), and got my own copy of Rock Band 2 Special Edition for 360 around 12:10. It’s probably hit or miss on stock at this point at your local TRU. In theory, they should restock at some point, so you might want to check/call your local TRU for stock, or you can attempt a price match with an ad at Walmart, Best Buy, or a non-shutting-down Circuit City.

So yeah, all Sunday was pretty much spent playing Rock Band 2. I’m working on my singing and medium-level guitar playing (I’ve got a majorly weak left pinky), while Kelvin’s working on drumming and expert-level guitar. With this, Left 4 Dead, Chrono Trigger, and Fallout 3 should be coming in the mail today… too many games!

New thing I learned today: Due to licensing/Guitar Hero exclusivity, three songs from the first Rock Band cannot be played in the US version of Rock Band 2.

Okay, so I haven’t been posting. I can’t help it; I haven’t played games in months. Since I’ve gotten back, I’ve played Chrono Trigger almost every night before going to bed (plus all day the last weekend). I also rather impulsively bought Left 4 Dead for 360, which I’ve enjoyed playing the last couple evenings. (Someone finish the campaigns with me on Live! Kelvin’s too busy getting nauseous and playing TF2 :P ) I was also coerced by 360 advertising to try NetFlix again, even though it’s only a 2-week trial. So I’ve also been making use of the streaming and Blu-Ray rentals and watching a bunch of movies. And we’ve been ever-so-slowly cleaning up our apartment, and we’ve been cooking more, enjoying many of the new toys we got from the wedding.

So yeah, that’s the lame reason I’m not blogging anything remotely interesting. I’ll try to get crackin’ this weekend. Promise!

New thing I learned today: Some old arcade games have what’s called a “kill screen“, a screen that ends gameplay because the player played up to a level or score that’s too high from what the software can handle and breaks the game.

I learned this tidbit from The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters. Yay for streaming NetFlix.

We survived our two week journey through Fiji and New Zealand and got back home Monday evening. We’re organizing our pictures and video so we can thoroughly bore you guys to death, so check back in a couple days.

New thing I learned today: In addition to the fruit, the word “kiwi” can refer to the bird, a New Zealander, or the New Zealand dollar. In New Zealand, the fruit is primarily called “kiwifruit” instead of “kiwi”.