Next Monday, August 1st, is a holiday. This is when I make faces at the folks in Quebec, the only province along with Yukon that does not "celebrate" this Civic Holiday.
(To be fair, they did the same thing on June 24th when Quebec was the only province with the day off. Not even Yukon celebrates that one.)
Hooray for the long weekend!
I had a great time with my friend Sandra on our road trip to Summerland. We stopped in Revelstoke for our first night and decided to go up Mount Revelstoke in the morning. It was quite the hike... but quite a beautiful view! We then went to Summerland to Sandra's parents' house. What a great family! I had a great time! We went to the beach a few times: the water was good and the scenery just beautiful! I love the beach!!!
We also went to see the town of Osooyos and on our way we saw what I call the Alien Lakes but that are called, I think, paint pots. We also treated ourselves to a massage for Sandra and her mom and a pedicure for me. I have beautiful blue toes!
After all these great moments, it was time to return to Calgary. We came back home through the Kooteneys and the scenery is incredibly beautiful!
Thanks Sandra for the great trip! Thank you Rose-Marie and Joe for everything! I really had a great time!
Growing up with French and learning English later on, you get to miss out on a lot of common expressions. TGIF is one of them for me. It took me years to understand that the acronym stands for "Thank God It's Friday". That, and lyrics from songs that were popular back then only now make sense (any FFL -- French as a First Language -- out there will nod in agreement with Bon Jovi's "Shapoonahah", such an important part of my generation's culture).
TGIF is appropriate today because, gosh darn it, TGIF. Working for five days is a row is so much effort, isn't it? I need to change my life focus and find a way to get into the high levels of government so as to change the official work week to four days. No more Mondays. Well, no more working on Mondays; Mondays shall now and forever be a day of rest from your weekend. Anybody knows where the secret governments holds their weekly meetings?
Growing up with French has this side effect too: I write this blog in both languages. You can switch to the other language using the drop-down box on the right. It's right there, between the categories and the links. A little lower... no, you passed it. There, that's it. It's only two languages now but hey! that could change, right? I would have added Japanese to the list, but that would have only one entry. Title: "Kole wa nan desu ka?"; body: "Boshi". That's all I remember: "What is this?" and "hat". Don't ask.
Speaking of writing in other languages, check out today's post from Véronique (whom I often, lovingly, refer to as "the wife"). She is thoroughly enjoying her vacation, as you can tell from the amount of exclamation points, and generally making me jealous that I'm alone in my house playing video games and watching movies all day and night. I'm such a geek.
TGIF, but Friday is still a work day. I say we eliminate Mondays because, admit it, who really works on Fridays anyway? No work on Mondays, lots of slacking off on Fridays, that makes for three day weeks. I can live with that. Oh! and with the same pay, of course. Friday is why we have instant messaging systems: it's about time I told Mr. Electrifying how much he really sucks (because we all know he sucks more than I).
Peace.
Last night I rented two movies: Constantine and Assault on Precinct 13.
Not a great movie night, lemme tell ya!
Constantine isn't a very good movie. The subject matter is very interesting, but it's not very well presented and Master Keanu Reeves doesn't help. I like movies that take a different or uncommon view of heaven and hell, and this one falls in that category. It got me disserting on the philosophy of religion afterwards, which is always fun. Definitely not a movie for the whole family, but I think the rating shows that. I expected something scarier, and perhaps it was on big screen, but the only scary moments are when they surprise you with big lights and sound out of the blue and not from the demons themselves -- I hate it when they do that, it feels like a cheap attempt that fright because they couldn't convey it any other way. My biggest beef is with Reaves who decided that acting like Neo from The Matrix is where the money's at. In his defense, he can't really act but it still wasn't very good. Oh! and someone PLEASE show him what is the proper and cool way to light a zippo, darn it!
Speaking of Neo and The Matrix, did y'all know that Will Smith actually turned down that role (sixth trivia from the bottom)?
Assault on Precinct 13 was far worse, as it turned out. Heck, after Assault, Constantine seemed like a pretty decent movie. Assault is very predictable (except for the one time where the girl gets shot, that was so refreshingly unexpected that it got me laughing and cheering) and not very convincing. Before seeing it, I was under the impression that Ethan Hawke is a decently good looking guy; I don't know what he did (or didn't do) for this movie, but man was it wrong. The characters aren't very personable and the story isn't particularly well written (in the end I was left wondering that the heck was the name of the doctor, a somewhat important role in the movie... I think her name comes out only once, and she isn't credited credited as "Doctor Whatever"; thank you IMDB). I was expecting to turn my brain off and be entertained by gun fire and explosions, but that was deceiving. The action sequences are quite realistic, but we've learned that realistic action isn't the spectacular, eye-popping stuff we are now used to.
So all and all, I somewhat recommend renting Constantine, but not Assault on Precinct 13. Actually, I recommend renting both and watching Assault first so that Constantine seems that much better by comparison.
So I got a bunch of hours under the belt playing Guild Wars. I got a level 8 Ranger / Mesmer that just got post-Searing.
Warning: if any of that didn't make sense, stop reading. It just won't be worth it and it will get more and more confusing.
I got a couple of things to say about this game. First, the good stuff: the story is interesting, the graphics are very nice and man do I ever love the pricing scheme.
But having introduced this as a rant, you know some bad stuff is the meat of the text.
My problem is entirely about the GUI. Maybe it's my intensive training with World of Warcraft that got me expecting something from a MMORPG (I love writing those letters together, even though I think it's BS), maybe I'm just thick, it might even be "the forest for the trees" like Mr. Electrifying tells me. I don't know. But it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. No, wait, that's the unsalted nachos. The guy that decided to remove the salt from the nacho making process needs an anal probe. But the game, to stick to the subject at hand, is leaving me with a feeling of... what's the opposite of "man I can't wait to play it again"?
It's funny how little things make such a big difference...
So first off I figured I would play the game and why waste valuable trees on printing a manual anyway? That's what I always do. After a couple of hours of being thoroughly confused, I decided to RTFM before somebody tells me to do it.
It contains lots of stories written by folks that really wanted to be writers instead of programmers, but very little actual knowledge. The stories are fun, pretty well written actually, but doesn't tell you a whole lot about playing the game. In fact, most of it is set post-Searing, oddly enough. But it's a pretty quick read and I'm happy I went through it.
Then I went back to the game with basically no better understanding of what's going on. GUI-wise, that is.
Lemme go through my bad experiences, in no real order.
I found some items marked "unidentified". Oh, I think to myself, this might be good. So after reading the manual and still having no idea how to identify the thing (and I read the manual after trying to equip the item, looking around for an NPC to identify it, etc), I just happen to luckily spot an "identification kit" on a merchant. Many will argue that you will spend so much time at merchants that you are bound to notice it, but still I say: why not write that down in the manual? Isn't that what a manual is for?
I really noticed it because I read on Martin's GW blog about his adventures salvaging components and I already knew about the salvage kit.
Then I spent a lot of time, and it became worse when I started grouping, trying to figure out what the heck is that foe out there. You can mouse over stuff and see its name, in tiny little characters, underneath it. But if there's a bunch of them together, the names get piled up. So who is what? who knows. But what really gets me is that you only see the name of it, not its level or class. So I'm walking around and I see something and the only way for me to know how tough it is is to target it. The best way to target something is to click on it, but clicking means attacking it. A warrior would start running for the creature, so you can easily stop, but a ranger starts chucking arrows. So before I know what it is, I'm attacking it. Hitting the TAB key rotates through the available targets, without attacking, but getting the one in front of you turns out to be hit or miss.
That became a problem twice so far. Once, I saw a dragon hanging out there and I though "what is that?" and before I knew it, very shortly after I clicked on it, my level 3 ranger was fighting with a level 5 dragon. Next was at the "arena" thing where you transition through the searing. My teammate says "healers first" and I spent the next three minutes chucking arrows at someone, while trying to figure out who the heck was a healer anyway.
I really miss the WoW little window at the bottom-right that, when you mouse over something, shows the name, guild, level, class, pvp flag and whether he's wearing underwear.
Ah! can't forget my pet. Apparently, my pet has abilities. It has to, because my pet healing spell says that its abilities are reduced when I resurrect it. But what are those abilities, I ask you? I haven't got a clue. I couldn't find anything that listed them or explained them. So far, it's a cat and it attacks anything I attack first.
Which is my next problem with my pet: I can't tell it to attack anything without chucking an arrow at it first. So invariably, the mob runs to me. I would like a way to tell my pet to attack something while I do something else, like take in the sights. If there is a way, it's neither described in the game nor in the manual.
I'm about half way there... Don't pass out yet!
A little about buffs and debuffs now. Or buffs and hexes, as they are called. Well, hexes and whatever buffs are called. Anyway.
As a mesmer, I got a couple of neat hexes. I thought them particularly interesting since you can also find a bunch of items that have conditions based on hexes (like: "damage +10% on hexed foe"). Since the GUI comes with a quick and simple way to swap between weapon sets, I figured I would carry one of those "damage increased on hex" bow so I could swap them mid-fight or something. Ha! what a left-field idea that was.
So when your foe (or friend) gets a hex, ALL you see is a little arrow in it's health bar, pointing down. If you see one pointing up, it's a buff. But WHAT is it anyway? Your guess is as good as mine. Which is really useful when you consider the delay of hexes: I have one that lasts 2 second, another that lasts 10 seconds. Given that neat weapon from before, I could easily swap it in for my 10 second hex, but probably wouldn't have time to do it within 2 seconds. I guess it's ok when you're the one casting the hex, because you know what it is and how long it lasts, but what if someone else casts it? Heck, I don't even wanna know what monks, who I believe have skills to remove hexes, do with that information. You can see what hexes and buffs YOU have, but NOT AT ALL what ANYBODY else has. I, personally, cannot see myself typing away, in the middle of a heated fight, "I got a slow hex!" so that someone can remove it, only to see it disappear before I'm even done typing.
Speaking of skills, how about getting skills. Ah! gosh darn skills. That's where the manual writing about stuff post-Searing gets confusing. So I talk to my trainer and get my first skills. I talked to other trainers and got "temporary" skills, to try them out. I like the mesmer skills. Anyway. I read in the manual that you buy skills. I see in my "hero" window that I have X skill points. I can't find my trainer. Lots of looking around, nothing. Finally, Mr. Electrifying tells me to actually read what trainers tell me because they are sending me to the person that can give me more skills. Doh! Ok, so I find the "level 1" trainer (for lack of a better name). He gives me some skills. Yay! He then sends me to the "level 2" trainer who gives me a quest to get some skills. Yay again! Where's the next trainer? "Level 2" trainer tells me to talk to "level 1" trainer, and "level 1" trainer tells me to talk to "level 2" trainer (that's what we call an infinite loop). And WTF are skill points for anyway? Where is this imaginary skill trainer with whom I can invest my skill points? Well, Mr. Electrifying tells me, he's post-Searing. There's a tidbit of information worthy of a manual if I ever got one! But the best part: how did he know? A friend told him. How did he know? He saw it in the forums. Hooray for the manual.
So now I got skills, but it's still unclear. The trainer I know seems to have a limited amount, so I'm guessing that I'll be meeting new trainers in other towns. But that's a guess, because I didn't check the forum to confirm and the manual, surprisingly, doesn't say.
And lastly, guilds. I'm part of a guild with the other two guys I mentioned above. When I first got on at the same time as one of them, I got invited into the guild. So five minutes and a lot of chatting later (and I'm not even kidding about the delay) I finally figured out where the "accept invitation" button is. For your reference: it's in the guild screen, which was disabled until that very moment so you never saw it before.
So I'm in the guild with my friends. Where are my friends anyway? And would it be good to group with them? Well, you'd better ask them, because the guild screen doesn't tell you in what area your friends are nor what level / classes they are. It just gives you their names and whether they are "online" or "offline". That's it. I guess it promotes social interaction, but I would rather not have to go "so where are you SPECIFICALLY, anyway? and what level are you at now?" every time.
And that, my friends, is what we call a rant. You know it really is one when, after you spent TEN MINUTES reading the thing, all you want to do is write a rant about how I should SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY or at least make the next one shorter...
Specially when you learn that I'm venting but I will keep playing anyway!
Although I am happy (and busy) with my parents here and a little sad that they will be leaving soon, happy for Sandra who can finally go back home (we love having her around, but it's so much better to live in your own stuff), jealous that Vero will go and spend a week in the Okanagan -- regarded by many to be like paradise -- and kinda sad that I will be all by myself for all of next week (and with mixed feelings about having to work... ah, work... can't live with it, can't pay the mortgage without it) I find myself ecstatic at the prospect of doing me stuff for a full week.
Ooo-kay... Let me bullet point that last sentence:
I'm getting a whole week to play games (most notably GuildWar, for which I finally have an access key), watch the last episode of Wonderfall, rent violent, scary and bad movies, eat unhealthy amounts of Kernels popcorn, cruise town on the bike and generally miss out on way too much sleep. This is gonna be great!
Love ya 'hon, but a week of me stuff is gonna be the best ever.
Speaking of my honey, she convinced herself that writing on this here blog would be a good idea. She'll mostly write in French, rarely in English, but it's better than nothing I say!
I bought GuildWars.
Leave it to Martin to have just the right pearl with just the right flavor of wisdom. His MSN Messenger message today says:
Weekend is a state of mind.
So true.
That does it. I'm turning my brain off until Monday.
You don't really notice how much you need a vacation, stuck in the routine and all, until you finally allow yourself to sleep in.
Today is my fifth day of non-work. It seems I've been missing about a year's worth of sleep. How the heck am I gonna get up tomorrow morning?
Stay tuned for all the exciting details. I think I'll go back to sleep now...
Don't ask me how I got there, I don't think I want to relive the train of thought. The important part is that it took me back to a time where my big mouth (and my idiocy) made for quite the funny event. I decided to write it down for prosperity and to share the memory with the bunch of folks that were there.
Flashback to some years ago. Between six and one, not sure how many; but Vero was there (less than six) and we lived in Montreal (more than one).
There was a whole bunch of people at Steve's place. We played a game of DnD that day and a bunch more people came in after. Can't remember why. Anyway, we decided to go out to St-Hubert's next to Steve's.
I was examining the menu trying to figure out what would fill me up right. I really like the chicken breast with oriental sauce, which I order just about every time, but I felt hungrier than that. Just before I resigned myself to finding something else to eat, I noticed a small section that explains: order a second chicken breast for just X$! Just what I needed. The only weird thing was the title of that section: "Augment Your Pleasure!" (translated from "Augmentez votre plaisir!") I think that translation is fitting: it has both the odd underlying connotation and the feel of "nobody talks like that".
Not one to be outdone by a mere menu, I decided to act like the proper customer and read what the menu tells me. So when the waitress came over, I ordered my chicken and told the girl, without missing a beat, that I would like to augment my pleasure.
Poor girl. She didn't know if I was hitting on her, making fun of her or just acting out my perverse nature. The whole table laughed, of course; I had pointed out the oddness of the menu before and they didn't think I would actually go through with it. I quickly pointed out the section from the menu that I was quoting, but I think the damage was already done. I'm not sure she even looked at me the rest of the night...
Ah! good times.
I wonder if that was the same day my Barbarian Dwarf got drunk playing dwarven drinking games with Bruenor Battlehammer. I lost, but not before getting really drunk and falling off my chair (all of which I acted out, of course).
Good times...
Happy Canada Day!
Just in case someone in the audience doesn't know, July first is Canada Day. A national holiday (read: I'm not working) celebrated across Canada, except in Quebec. Well, they celebrate it too, but by having everyone move at the same time. That's a whole other story.
We don't own a Canada flag, so I couldn't take a picture of that. Instead, I'm putting on a picture of my personal flag: my red t-shirt with the words "I have issues" written on the front. It's red and white and I think it's fitting.
This morning, we jumped on the bike and headed to Canmore for breakfast. We do that sometimes: take a one hour ride to the mountain, grab some food, come back. It's a nice way to get away from it all, enjoy the mountains and, well, eat. Vero says it's like a little vacation every time. Man I love this town.
So in Canmore, just like in every other town throughout Canada, they are celebrating. There's a big parade today, some time around noon. At 9AM, people already had their chairs set up on the sidewalk to watch it. Can't fault their enthusiasm, that's for sure. We made a quick getaway before the whole place went into a parade frenzy...
Back home now, writing this, trying to remember the cool thing I thought I would write about while on the bike. Ain't happening. Today's the first day of Vero's summer vacation, first day of a long weekend (5 days for me), the day before my mom arrives. The sun is shining, the bugs are everywhere (yay for rain), we have a new tree in the front yard and we're about to install baseboards. And all we want to do is sleep.
What an exciting and fascinating life we lead...
