On lunch I headed over to Cascade Township Park, where the sun was shining and all kinds of people were out enjoying the picnic weather.  I listened to some podcasts, worked out some of the presentation for class tonight in my head, and got a few miles of exercise in.

I hung out a bit in the lobby of school to meet up with one of the partners in my class to go over our presentation.  Finally got the presentation out of the way, and then I was off home for the evening.

Chris and I finally did the 2010 census tonight.  Better late than never, right?

Tonight Wealthy Theatre is playing a great movie - Star Trek II.  So Chris and I headed down to the theatre, slightly earlier than the last few times to ensure decent seating and not having to wait in line too long.  Still, it's great to see more people coming to the theatre, enjoying the atmosphere and great movies.

The theatre was in a very Star Trek mood, playing music from the movie prior to it playing and using a Spock stamp for hand-stamping.

Apparently, they were even serving Romulan Ale.

In the morning I dropped Chris off at work - so here's a shot of sky while I was on my way to work.

The camera on my cell phone doesn't really do justice to the colors.  I also miss my opportunity to snap a shot of a very Terry Gilliam-looking scene that was not unlike the Quest For The Holy Grail sky, sans a cheeky diety.

Originally Chris and I were going to ride bikes after I got out of class.  When he mentioned it, all I could mutter was "it's too cold." A part of me wanted nothing more than to play another block of Dragon Age for hours and start working on side quests.  But, I knew I needed to get my butt out and about doing something besides video games all afternoon again.

So I suggested John Ball Zoo, and that is exactly where we went. And yes, I realize that if it was too cold to bike it should be too cold to walk around outside.

In the off season (which is until May) the Zoo has several sections closed off - so it's smaller than normal.  We arrived around 2pm and were done around 4pm (in the off season the zoo is only open 10am-4pm).

Despite there being some closed exhibits and sectioned off areas, there was still plenty to see, including the animals you see to the left here.



For a full catalog of the photos I uploaded, you can find them here. And here's a shot Chris took of me in the aquarium.

Also, here's a video compilation by Chris.

About a week or so ago Chris ordered a Rovio online.  It's basically a hybrid between a remote control car, spybot, and kitty harasser!  You control the vehicle through wifi and the web-browser.

It has a camera on the front end with an adjustable top portion so you can look straight ahead, slightly up, or way up above of the machine. Plus, it has a speaker so if you have a mic on your computer you can talk into it. All in all you can drive it around, take photos, take video, and talk through it. It will be an interesting device to use during game night with Adam and Comfort in Flint controlling and talking through it to everyone.

In the evening after the Rovio had charged, I shot some video of Chris driving it around and Leki trying to figure out wtf it was.

This is how the Rovio sees the world, by the way (and how the controls interface looks). 

Work was quiet, as Friday's are quickly becoming.  So the day seemed longer than it felt it should have been.  That, and the cold weather on lunch lead me to stop off at gamestop and pickup one of the games I've been meaning to get that is now on sale during their Game Day Sales.  So I snagged Disgaea 3 for $20 bucks, even though I still have FFXIII and Dragon Age Origins and Awakenings to work on.  This is definetly more of a back-burner game that I will get to when I'm through with the rest.

I picked up pizza for dinner, because the phrase "game night" now triggers a pavlovian response - a desire for pizza.

The evening was pretty quiet, but awesome.  Got to spend some time with Chris and made significant headway in Dragon Age. Not bad for a Friday night.

On lunch, in spite of the wind and chilly weather, I took another walk over at Cascade Township Park, enjoying Robins, watching some people play disc golf, and other things.

After work Chris and I took another walk on Kent Trails and wrapped up the evening with some Little Big Planet.  You play as sack people and can swap out different accessories, material types, etc.  You can also collect various items and materials to build your own levels and publish them online for other people to play (and online is free - no subscription is required).  It's a pretty cute game and enjoyable to play with another person.  I'm looking forward to playing more with Chris this weekend.

Like the all the Wednesday's for the last 11 weeks, tonight I had class.  As the days lengthen the view from the 3rd floor of the law school building is still bright and cheery midway through class.

So here's a shot of what things look like from the 3rd floor window, facing Commerce St.

Exciting, isn't it? ;)

There is a park close to my work that I've decided I am going to start trying to visit more often.  They've got a walking path, some disc golf, and play structures.  Really I'm interested in taking a walk on lunch and getting out of the office.  With the sun shining and the weather getting warmer it is increasingly harder and harder to concentrate - even if my back is to the windows at my desk.

So I took a stroll, shot a video playing around on my phone, and listened to some podcasts. Good lunch. Looking forward to making it a regular thing.  I will probably start using my SLR as well.

Anyway it's Tuesday which means there is the distinct possibility of going to East Grand Rapids and watching a movie at Wealthy Theatre!  As you can see, that is precisely what we did.

Previously Girl's Night was scheduled for tonight. I didn't quite make it though. I've been alternating between feeling fine and feeling crappy from a headache and sinus pressure so I thought it best not to sit in bar for the evening.

Instead Chris and I took a walk on Kent Trails which seemed to clear up my sinuses a bit and I felt better. As you can see, along the trail we ran into some ducks. Chris even has a very Duck-Hunt feeling video. Just missing the snickering dog.

The rest of the evening was pretty lazy. After snapping a shot of Leki being bad I pretty much hung out and relaxed, playing a little Dragon Age and enjoying a peaceful evening.

After class, Chris and I headed out to Celebration North to see Repo Men with Amanda.  Amanda first introduced me to Repo! The Genetic Opera. (stole the pic to the left from Chris because I was lazy and didn't take any pics at the theater).

What Chris says about the movie is true: it's dark.  And honestly - it feels a little jumbled together.  Like it was trying to take itself seriously with a message, but then not.  I don't know.  At least Repo! was designed to be amusing.  Some of the things were over the top, but I'll admit the ending was satisfying.

After that Chris and I headed home where I laid around for several hours doing nothing because of a headache.  He made me food, and I listened to The Daily Show and then we watched some C-SPAN and the healthcare debate.

Despite the headache and how sick I felt, being able to listen to interesting stuff sure beats sitting in the dark doing nothing just focusing on the pain.

On the first day of Spring the view from the apartment was what you see on the left - snow.

Now this isn't completely out of the ordinary - but it is a little depressing after having several days in a row of sunny, warm weather.  At least we were able to take advantage of the warmer weather and do some walking along Kent Trails.

The day was filled with errands - more or less prompted by me.  Still, grocery shopping and other things were done, including picking up the latest expansion for Dragon Age, and running across an awesome looking rabbit at the local Pet Supplies Plus (Grandville) available for adoption.


Nice day, despite the cold weather.

Working from home can sometimes be a challenge with Leki, and yesterday was no different.  He took over most of my desk, so I put my work laptop to the side on a stool to work.

The day was warm (60's) so I took a brief break on lunch to walk with Chris down to the credit union.

Leki had a great day being a foot terrorist and guarding his castle.

After work we headed out to Peppino's for a going away party for one of the managers I used to work with. 

Last night I finally decided to run WebOS Dr and set the phone back to factory settings.  Earlier in the week through a series of trials and errors I'd messed up some patch files that were preventing me from running some homebrew patches and I wanted them back.

This was far less painful than I would have imagined.  Palm has a backup for your profile that runs nightly (or you can manually back it up if you like).  So that meant all of my email settings, etc were downloaded back after I went through the initial setup process.  Palm also remembers every application you've ever downloaded from their app catalog, and where they were sitting in the menu.  So the phone spent a bit downloading all the applications again, installing them where they sat on the launcher page previously.

In addition, all of my photos, videos, and download files were still on the media partition of the phone.

Bonus!

This post marks the completion of one year on the 365 project.  So really, this should be a celebration, or reflection, or SOMETHING epic to acknowledge this, right?

Yeah, well, honestly I didn't give it much thought.  So here's some mini-reflection and then onto the regular-ness of this photo thingie.

In a year I've:
~ had two different jobs (both temporary)
~ been unemployed twice for a few months
Met someone awesome
fallen in love
moved in with the man I love
~ and a whole bunch more...


So here's for hoping this next year is just as good as last year (and since I'm going to continue this project you will be able to review about happenings if you choose).

Now, onto Wednesday!
You might be noticing tasty cupcakes off to the left there, and you'd be right.  On lunch a co-worker and I headed out to do some treat shopping for a going away party we're having on Friday night.  We finally decided on cupcakes vs cake to save on cake cutting hassle and what not. So we snagged these colorful confections at Meijer, as they were much more reasonably priced than Costco.

Since it's St. Patrick's day, there's a party downtown.  My boss let everyone out an hour early to celebrate and since I had class I just headed downtown an hour early to work on homework and tweak my phone.  There were tons of people walking around in green and the bars were celebrating.  I could even hear the live band playing at the bar behind Cooley from inside the school.

After class I headed home to and watched the guys enjoy Game Night.  They watched some movies, enjoyed some Heroclix, and tasty creepy Shrekheads.

I would totally play games with the guys if I didn't have class on the Wednesday's the get together.  And it looks like next semester I'll have Tuesday and Wednesday classes so just the tail end of Game Night geekery for me.

Still, its good to see the guys and hear their awesome MST3K-style quips at whatever movie or show they've got playing in the background.

The day started off alright.  I had a bunch of little projects at work that got completed (which is always satisfying) and nothing too crazy happened to throw the day off kilter.  I was feeling better in the morning, the sun was shining.  It was shaping up to be a good day.

After work the day only got better.  The weather was so nice Chris and I took a nice stroll down the Kent Trails, enjoying the little bits of green spotting the trail and a few random orange flyers that referenced the Lorax, attached to trees.

When we were done walking, we headed out to get tasty subs and then finally home to enjoy the last few hours of the evening.

I watched a bunch of random videos I had emailed myself from Google Reader, including one poking fun at the recording industry, referencing the Hope Taping is Killing Music slogan from the 80's.

When those videos were all said and done, we settled in to watch some Daily Show and news.  Great end to the day.  I'm certainly looking forward to more sunny days.

Starting Friday and over the weekend my throat has gotten more and more irritated.  It's been sore, my nose has been runny, and it's just been annoying.

So I asked Chris on the way home today if we had any soup.  If not I had intended to swing by and get some.  Instead he decides to swing by and pick up provisions necessary to feed a sick person, since he passes grocery stores on the way home anyway.

So next thing I know he comes in the door with multiple choices on soups, tasty juice, delicious Meijer bakery bread, and of course, crackers!

Needless to say, dinner was tasty.

After that mail was opened and the Dragon Age t-shirt Chris had ordered for me on Saturday (in the middle of the day, no less) arrived in the mail, via standard shipping, from Tennessee (that's fast shipping).  As a bonus it came with an in-game item (which I quickly redeemed online). :)

I mostly just laid around in the evening.  The news made reference to Peter Graves dying, and they showed a clip from TV shows and movies he'd been in.  Apparently one of them had been Airplane! which I'd never watched.

The movie was funny, but I obviously missed several references to 70's/80's occurrences (ex. a coffee commercial reference), which Chris was kind enough to point out.  So having some of those things explained helped enjoy the movie even more.

Taking a class in the morning on a Sunday really seems to suck up a chunk of your day - even if you wouldn't normally be up and moving until after the class ends.  Although on a certain level being forced to get up and moving so early can help get you in the mood and motivated to be productive all day long.

That didn't happen today.

Instead I came home, ate some lunch, took a walk down Kent Trails with Chris, and dinked around on the computer for awhile off and on trying to clear up duplicate MP3s on the hard drive I use for the sync system.

While working on that intermittently on that (more like barely at all until the evening) I knocked out a few chapters in Final Fantasy XIII (on chapter 7 now...) and played around with a new racing game in beta for the Xbox 360 - Blur.

I got the beta code from CrushFragDestroy and set to downloading the game onto the console as soon as I got home from class.  I tried to do it in the morning but since the codes were generated minutes before I tried to use them, Chris correctly pointed out that the codes might need some time to register with the system before they were valid.

So Blur is sort of like Midnight Club hooked up with Mario Kart and had a love child.  Admittedly I reference Midnight Club because it has honestly been since about 2000 since I've played a racing game that wasn't Mario Kart.  Anyway, the beta I have is only multi-player across Xbox Live, which means I should have registered it with Chris's account instead of mine (I thought the beta was access to offline and online for some foolish reason).  I have another 30-something hours of free gold access to check out the game a bit more. Interestingly you can have the game tied to your twitter account and it will tweet achievements (I have yet to try this).

I also finally settled into chapter 1 of Fable II.  I had tried the first installment about two years ago on my xbox and got annoyed quickly with the level of hand holding and restrictions that I dropped it quickly.  After playing the latest Final Fantasy installment - I'm not sure what I was complaining about exactly.  :/ *

In the evening Chris settled in with my SLR to take some shots of his latest action figures.  You can head over to his blog and check out the shots here.  He's also been toying around with new format (picture slider GO) and ideas (including audio/video posts with transcript) for his blog.

All in all the weekend was awesome.  But as usual, it was way too short.

*As you can see, I'm very much back into the swing of console gaming.  For several years I did most of the gaming online with World of WarcraftWarhammer OnlineLord of the Rings OnlineGuild WarsFinal Fantasy XI, or any other host of free trials that were available.  I have very much missed my console gaming (although when Cataclysm or Final Fantasy XIV come out I'm sure I'll be back on the computer).

Saturday started off on an early note.  I was awake before 6 (no doubt partially due to falling asleep by (9:30 the night before).  So that shifted the entire day off slightly.

I played some FFXIII early in the AM until the music lulled me back to sleep.  Chris woke me up around 10:30 so we could get up and moving.  We had things to do!

The first order of business was swinging by the post office.  Chris picked up a pen tablet that was waiting there.  After that it was off to the mall (Rivertown Crossing). 

We poked around a bit there.  Chris was dead set on getting this Dragon Age t-shirt for me.  Tis an awesome shirt - but then I am partial to both the game and dragons in general.  The store didn't have any in my size, so while having lunch at Olga's Kitchen, he quickly ordered one from his palm pre (that phone is pretty damn awesome).

After that we wandered around in the stores, looking for a spring jacket.  Instead we found a lot of 80's fashion going on.  I'm officially scared to look at clothes now.  Good thing I rarely buy clothes.  I loathe clothes shopping.  Hell, I have t-shirts from high school still (though admittedly they mostly have holes *cry*) that I will wear.

Later some grocery shopping was done, and then it was back home.  Worked on FFXIII for a few more hours (really, I'm thinking I *might* be close to where it opens up...maybe? Story is keeping me engaged in some otherwise annoying parts).

A mini-keyboard/mouse combo I ordered awhile back from Chinavision arrived later in the afternoon.  So we played with that quite a bit and we can now retire the wireless mouse and full size wireless keyboard from the living room.  The mini-keyboard/mouse is only a little larger than a tv remote and works very well with the mac mini (once we figured out the device turned off after 3 minutes of no use).  It was relatively cheap (40ish bucks) as compared to a wireless mouse and keyboard set, so I'm pretty happy that it works so well.

Later in the evening we settled into catch up on Caprica, as well as a The Daily Show and Colbert Report from last week.

The work week is officially over.  And to kick off the start I binged quit a bit on Final Fantasy XIII.  The game is supposed to really pick up soon (*crossing fingers*).  At the very least the tutorials should be over soon....I hope.

Here's a shot of me loading up the save, about to enjoy a tasty fudgesicle, and being stared down by a crazy cat.

Not exactly, but for some reason (probably because I'm on a heavy video game kick lately) the fog this morning triggered that in my head.

I used to play Empire Earth II solo and via mini-LAN parties back in the day.  And like so many RTS (real-time strategy) games, there was of course the Fog of War on much of the battlefield.

Of course in Empire Earth II if you built one of the Wonders (Library of Alexandria I think) you would be able to see your enemies fully completed buildings.

Grand Rapids kinda needed a beefy library this AM.

The rest of the day was pretty normal and without much mention.  Work was work, and the evening was a little frustrating because I couldn't definitively solve a problem.  I've accidentally deleted the PDF Viewer on the Palm Pre, and since its pre-loaded software, that apparently means it is not an application for download in the Palm Application catalog (why I can delete the PDF viewer and not the stupid NFL/NASCAR/Amazon applications from the phone is a frustration all its own).

Chris and I poked around quite a bit on precentral.net and finally found a copy of the application.  The catch is, when the phone reboots it disappears and needs to be reloaded.  Lucky for me, Chris was clever enough to toss the file up online where I can download and install it on the fly.  So a lovely workaround until I find a permanent fix.

I've been on a pretty heavy kick lately with video games.  It's been awhile since there have been so many games I've been interested in released so closely together.

There was Dragon Age that I received late last year, then Star Ocean came out (though I've not picked it up yet), then Heavy Rain (which sold me on the demo - I had misgivings before that from all the previews I'd read) and of course Final Fantasy XIII.

So needless to say my latest ventures have more or less involved PS3 games and not much else.

So, as if I'd not gotten enough in the way of video games the day before, I booted up the PS3 when I got home and played some Heavy Rain.  I'd made considerable mistakes but knew I was near the end and wanted to see where that would take me.

All I can say is "...oops."  The ending was not what I had hoped for, but through all the mistakes I'd made it was what I expected.  That's not to say it was disappointing.  Not in the least.  And I will definitely play the game through again (there are multiple endings).

Interactive drama is an appropriate categorization of Heavy Rain.  And it's a very impressive game.

When the first Final Fantasy landed on the NES in 1990, I didn't own it.  In fact, a neighbor who was several years older than me was playing it one day and introduced me to the genre of RPGs. Up until that point I'd been trying (and failing) to play Mega Man/Mario.

So when the SNES rolled around I snagged FFII (or, as it's been re-labeled, FFIV as it's technically the IV in the series but only II to reach the United States at that point).  I loved it (though admittedly as a kid I was confused as to why the Red Wings were named after a hockey team).  I loved FFIII (re-labeled FFVI) even more and is my favorite in the series.  I'd argue it has the best developed story of all of them.

Then the series migrated to the Playstation, and my love grew as I played FFVII (hello sexy cut-scenes).  That, to me, was the end of the super awesome Final Fantasy games.

From there came FFVIII - which I was more or less indifferent to.  FFIX was interesting but failed to deliver to the majority of players that had been picked up by VII & VIII.  I loathed X (though the first game with audio dialog was AMAZING, even if the voice acting was terrible), but still bought X-2 (lovingly dubbed the dress-up game) which was the first direct sequel of any of the games.  Both X and X-2 are incredibly popular with a lot of the player base that's been picked up since the series jumped to the Playstation. 

To date I've bought and started XI (an MMO) three different times.  But by the time I started to really give it a chance my cousin had long since put it down and there wasn't much appeal since I'd been exposed to World of Warcraft which was much more solo-friendly in the higher levels (because you cant always find a group to play with!).

XII is still sitting alone, in its collectors edition box collecting dust.  Lovely game, but I loathe the main character and feel like the focus should have been kept elsewhere.  You tell that the story had a dramatic shift in focus 1/2 way through development and it's just...disappointing.  I doubt I will ever finish that game, which is a shame because I suffered through both X and X-2.

So that brings us to Final Fantasy XIII.  So far I'm less disappointed with this game than the last several.  Part of that has to do with all the reviews I've read that have basically told me what I'm NOT going to see (no towns, for instance).  And part of that has to do with I now have Dragon Age to fill the void that honestly, a Final Fantasy game SHOULD fill. 

Thus far the game feels like a mashup between several elements in Final Fantasy VII and X.  That's not bad per se, but it's not groundbreaking either. But then the series has been anything but that since it's gone mainstream.

Nonetheless I took the day off from work to enjoy the game (and Leki is enjoying his people being home).  Back in the day I used to do that every Final Fantasy launch day so that I could knock out several hours of gameplay before getting back to work and school.  This year is apparently no different, despite the fact that four years have passed since the last game.

Ok, I've wasted entirely too much time updating this blog and not playing the new video game in the next room.  I must maximize my day off (and yes, I've been outside to see the lovely weather)

Monday after work Chris and I took a stroll down Kent Trails near the apartment. Since the weather has been getting nicer and nicer we've been doing this quite a bit. 

As you can see the snow is slowly staring to melt, but there is still a sheet of ice on the trail. 

As the days warm up the ice will slowly melt away, but for now the frozen water is protected from the sun and continues to linger on.

Sunday started out kinda stressful.  I'd mis-read the syllabus for my Criminal Law course and thought we were on week 10 instead of week 9.  So that meant that I had done the wrong homework assignment.

Normally that's not that big of a deal, but considering I'd still not been called on in class, I'd not done the right homework, and I'd used my pass last week - the odds were against me about being called on.

So I spent the first 1/2 of class trying to read the cases I'd not done while she was lecturing.  Then during the 20 minute break I tried to hammer out the rest.  Of course with 70+ pages I didn't get through much.

I had a basic knowledge of the case I got called on about.  And when I say basic, I mean super basic.  Like - I knew the facts.  I didn't remember much else...but suttering and umming my way through it I managed to look only mildly retarded to my classmates and save myself from having to recite every case for the next class period (the penalty for not being prepared).

After class was over I came home to a cleaning Chris.  So while he was busy cleaning all sorts of things in the apartment I played some more Heavy Rain (really trying to see how far I can get before Tuesday which is the FFXIII release date).

Later in the afternoon we took a nice walk, I made a tasty pizza from scratch (with a smidge too much sauce and smidge too little cheese) and some brownies.  I'm getting weirder and weirder with the brownies.  This time I added chocolate chips, walnuts, and marshmallows.  I thought about carmel too but thought maybe that was a bit much. Ha.  Next time I may try blending in some peanut butter or something.

Saturday was semi-busy.  Chris and I headed out late morning to snag a bite to eat and watch Alice in Wonderland (a disappointment).

After that we walked the mall a bit, picked up some groceries in the spring/easter festive store, and then back home to squeeze in some Heavy Rain and head to Mojo's to celebrate Angel's birthday.

Mojo's is a dueling piano bar.  Its an interesting experience and not bad to do once in awhile.  So Chris and I hung out, chatted with some of Angel and Dan's friends and neighbors and in general had a good time.

So a few weeks ago the Xbox 360 Chris I had ordered arrived and was DOA.  It had the classic red ring of death. So off to Microsoft it went.

So when it arrived (with free 30day subscription to XBL gold) today I was sure to hook it up, make sure it worked, and see what sort of shiny things it had under its hood.

The 360 is different than the PS3 with its menu system.  In some ways the PS3 is markedly better, in others, not so much.  I'm not overly fond of the 360's tiered Xbox live (silver is free, gold you have to pay 50/year) vs the PS3's free PSN (though there has been talk about them making it subscription based).

Most of the games I want are out for both platforms (Final Fantasy XIII, Dragon Age, etc) or PS3 specific (Heavy Rain).  There are very few games that are on the Xbox 360 that *I* want and honestly if I have a choice between the PS3 or the Xbox for the same game - I'll almost always get the PS3 version as the graphics are superior.

I do get the feel that the 360 is better with an online community type feel vs the PS3 is mostly standalone and the Wii as a in-person group system.  So they each have their strength and weaknesses.

On Friday I did win a contest for Red Faction:Guerrilla from CrushFragDestroy and I did opt for the 360 version since it has multiplayer and there is a slim chance one of Chris's friends who do have a 360 might have the game.  Plus, since I only have an old xbox game this is the first official 360 game! Exciting.

Another bonus on Friday was the sexy Blood Elf/Night Elf mousepad one of Chris's co-workers gave to him.

So it being Friday with a whole weekend ahead of Chris and I, the mousepad, the Xbox, the contest, and the massive amount of Heavy Rain I got in all night made for a fantastic Friday.  Totally wish I could hit repeat.

No. Not outside.  In fact it was a lovely day.  So lovely Chris and I were able to take a longer than usual walk around the area, which was refreshing.  I'm excited for spring when there is no snow on Kent Trails and the trees are green!

I spent much of Thursday excited to get home and play Heavy Rain. I'd initially been annoyed with the controls in the demo but came to appreciate what the game was trying to do over time.

The is more or less an interactive movie where your actions affect things later down the story.  While games like Dragon Age and works by Bethesda do this as well, this game is much more laden with cutscenes and more mundane, everyday like tasks.  Honestly - that sounds horrible but it's not.

If you enjoyed Shenmue, you'd likely enjoy this game (in fact I'd have replayed that game several times if I wasn't missing disc 1 ><). There are some similarities but Heavy Rain does a lot more because in 11 years technology has grown.

So the game is designed for you to basically put you in an emotional connection with each of the main players (there are 4 people you can control I believe).  When you're at a tense scene the controls are designed to be tricky and the music intense so that you're on edge too.  When you're trying to climb up a slippery, muddy embankment you have to press a series of buttons and hold them as your character strugges up.  If you dont, they slip back down, now coated in mud, and waiting to attempt it again.  This is a departure from a lot of games that just require you to press "X" and everything is automated for you.

The beginning started out kind of dull.  But, I understand to tell a story about characters in which a tragedy occurs you have to kind show life before that.  That and the combination of using the beginning portion as a tutorial for the controls made it amusing to me and no doubt odd to Chris who was watching (at one point you have to shave your character's stubble off).

This game is designed for an older player - there is no doubt about that.  The pacing is slow (which will not appeal to most 13 year olds), and some concepts and themes would be lost on most younger players.

It is very much like having input in a movie, or akin to a choose-your-own-adventure book.  Some people will loathe it, and others love it.  It's received pretty high ratings (though honestly, the last several Final Fantasy games have as well, so those ratings are kind of a joke) for a game that plays much differently than a lot of ones out there.

I'm looking forward to playing more. :D

In the morning the skies were blue - which is refreshing from what they've been as of late (gloomy, dark, snowy).

On my lunch break and drove around to a few bookstores looking for a good copy of part one of The Divine Comedy (Inferno) by Dante Alighieri.  I'd been listening to reading of the book (which is very well done, complete with subtle sound effects) and quickly realized that listening was all well and good but I really needed to have the book and footnotes in front of me as well to get the full effect.

So while I was out and about looking for a copy of the book I ran into Sherry briefly, as our cars passed.  Was cool to see her (even if it was only for a few seconds) and I look forward to getting together with her again soon.

The day marched on into evening and I headed out to school for class for the last remaining hours of sunlight.

After that it was off to home to eat a tasty treat and find a slip from the post office that Heavy Rain was sitting, waiting to be picked up tomorrow.

Super excited for tomorrow evening.  There will be awesome PS3 game playing and quality time with Chris!

The Wealthy Theatre in East Grand Rapids is pretty awesome.  They play some pretty cool movies on Tuesday evenings and today was no different.

Tonight Spaceballs was playing, and if you've never seen it I'd recommend watching it.  It's a great parody film of late 70's/early 80's sci-fi films such as Alien and Star Wars.  I've always enjoyed the movie, though admittedly the ending part at the diner scared me to death as a kid, as I watched Spaceballs before ever seing Alien (of course that meant Alien wasn't all that scary anymore when I did :D).

The theatre was more packed (kind of hard to tell on the video) that I'd ever seen it before, and the audience more engaged with laughter.

I look forward to the next awesome Tuesday night movie!

The day started off pretty good. Chris had the day off and so he made me breakfast, so that was a healthy, balanced way to kick of the day.

Work was so so and I had spent a good chunk of the day daydreaming about Dragon Age. So when I read that the fat PS3's were having a problem and they didnt know when the issue was going to be resolved, I was bummed.

Luckily the fat PS3 issue seemed to be resolved later in the evening and I was able to check out the Dante's Inferno demo and play a little bit of Dragon Age before I passed out on the couch.