Jennifer's 365 Project

I'm on a Middle Earth kick if you haven't noticed. So it was only a matter of time before I logged into Lord of the Rings Online. It's been over a year since I've played the game. After playing so many console games and then Guild Wars 2, Lord of the Rings Online certainly shows its age.

But it's still a pretty game and coming back to it is like riding a bike. It took a few moments and then was almost like I never left. That is, if you ignore the occasional button pushes work in Guild Wars 2 but not Lord of the Rings Online and leave me temporarily confused.

So today was a good day. One in which I get to run around as a hobbit. And today, as you can see, I was a hobbit ridding a goat through the halls of Moria. That's not bad, as far as I'm concerned.

It's been a while since I've had a chance to login and play and video games. Ok, maybe chance isn't quite the right word. It's just been awhile since I've choose playing video games over devouring books and comic books between wedding discussions.

So tonight I logged in and ran around a bit, enjoying the last little bit of the spring festival until it ends next week. Lots of beer runs, horse racing, and playing in a virtual hedge maze.

I spent a chunk of the evening running around in Lord of the Rings Online working on this week's photo comparison post and stumbled across this scene. I'm not sure how I missed this coffin creator, toiling away for years in the heart of Bree.

Odd.

It's been pretty nice weather the last few days, including today. The sun was shining and the sky was pretty blue this morning. It's nice to have the sun shining and some of the snow melted (making it easier to walk around in work shoes downtown).

Oh, and the Casual Stroll to Mordor article I was working on for playing Lord of the Rings Online with Kinect is up. So check it out. There's even a video!

I spent a big chunk of the evening playing around with the Kinect and getting it working with Lord of the Rings Online. More specifically, capturing video of the two screens for a brief introduction and tutorial over at A Casual Stroll to Mordor.

So here's just a screenshot (because it's hard to take a photo of yourself) of about 15 minutes of video I captured that I now need to edit down.

Hooray for progress!

Update (2/16/2011): Please check out my post on using a Kinect & LOTRO at A Casual Stroll to Mordor for a detailed introduction and video.

So part of the evening I worked on getting the Kinect and Lord of the Rings Online to work together. I didn't take and photos but I did take a screenshot for keybinding reference.

It was mostly a much less successful attempt than World of Warcraft. I managed to kill a boar, but then launched the LOTRO store about a gazillion times. Still not sure how I did that since I didn't have a key bound for the LOTRO store....

More work this week. Hope to have a post up on Casual Stroll to Mordor in the next week or so after I get some kinks worked out.

I spent my lunch break at the library, which is becoming a daily occurrence on these chilly winter days.  The library is more full these days than the late fall, but that's to be expected now that it's much colder out.

I also worked a bit in the evening on my photo comparison post for the LOTRO blog I contribute too.  Massively listed A Casual Stroll to Mordor as #1 in MMO blogs for 2010, which is pretty awesome.  The creators definitely do a ton of work and I'm happy to have the opportunity to write my comparison posts and share them with such an fun and friendly audience.

Today has been just a random assortment of things. We did some running around for a few hours to different local Meijer stores, searching for some cheap action figures (since they're on sale this week).  I stumbled across a plethora of Webkinz, including an opossum. I looked for a ferret but no such luck.

I played some Lord of the Rings Online just doing miscellaneous quests I'd had sitting in my log for awhile. I figure with Cataclysm coming out in a few days I'll likely be absorbed with that, so best to spend some time in Middle Earth now.

Dinah got to spend a much larger chunk of the day in her away cage while Chris hung out in the living room. Leki left her alone for the most part so she was able to relax a bit more.

I did make some cookies (chocolate chip) and still have some dough in the fridge chilling.  I'll attempt gingerbread cookies tomorrow night I think.

Awhile back there was a gift certificate option where if you spent $25 you'd get $50 coupon at GAP.  At the time I needed work clothes so it seemed like a good idea. I should have looked in their store prior to doing that. Everything is expensive there.

So I've had the coupon for several months and finally I was able to spend it. I snagged a shirt on sale and a belt. And I still ended up spending $20 bucks.  I hate shopping for clothes. That belt better last a decade at least.

I also picked up some cheap boots to use walking in the winter downtown.  The only winter boots I currently have are not exactly work appropriate.

In the evening I played around in Lord of the Rings Online.  It had been well over a week since I'd had a chance to play and the time to get all the fall festival quests is slowly slipping away.

I finally upgraded to a deluxe house, which has a lot more storage and places to put house decorations.

All in all between buying some clothes in real life and buying a new house in Lord of the Rings Online, I'd say it was a pretty expensive day.

The day was very busy at work. There's a two day training session going on and I have a few classes that I was bouncing in and out of all day.  And in the evening I headed out to a local bar briefly for an after work party. (There were a ton of things I could have taken photos of but honestly, I forgot.)

After all the festivities of the evening were over Chris and I logged into Lord of the Rings Online briefly to check out their fall festival.  Most MMOs have some sort of event around the halloween time, and LOTRO's is a newly added Haunted Burrow, which is essentially the basement of Bag End.

So here's the only photo I managed to take today - a screenshot of my character and Chris's right before we were done for the evening. We're sitting outside of Bag End.

This afternoon we headed out to run some errands around town.  Grocery shopping, pet provisions, and other such things.  The weather was nice outdoors, which was an added bonus.

 In the evening, we played a little bit of Lord of the Rings Online.  We managed to snag some horses for faster travel while questing across Middle Earth.

Yeah, that title is all over the place, I know.

Anyway, Chris's friend at work Jeff picked up a box of Green Lantern themed hostess snowballs, which means a whole box of coconut chocolaty goodness in the house.  As I'm a fan of all the ingredients in a snowball, I readily volunteered to scarf down the tasty snacks lest they rot, since Chris is not a fan of coconut.

In the evening we played a little bit of Lord of the Rings Online together.  Here's a shot of Chris hanging out in the fountain in Bree.

All in all a good Thursday!

After work we took a nice stroll around the apartment and down Kent Trails.  I spent most of the time distracted hunting for suitable birch trees to photograph.  I'm looking for something that resembles the birches in Lord of the Rings Online.  I post weekly photo comparison posts for a fan site called A Casual Stroll to Mordor.  Anyway, most of the trees were too tall and clustered to get a good picture of.

But the walk was good and this is a relatively decent shot of a lantern I might end up using.

After work we headed over to Palmer park for some tasty cheap pizza and a quick stroll in the area.  The weather has been relatively cool, which is a welcome change from the several weeks of scorching days in the weeks prior.

After that we settled in to enjoy a little bit of Lord of the Rings Online since today is the official day it went free-to-play.

On another note - I'd like to take a moment to wish my mom a very happy birthday.  I can't be there to see her in person so this is the next best thing (besides harassing phone calls).  Love you mom!

The day to day was mostly crap.  Work was busy and frustrating.  The only saving grace was a delightful lunch with Lori that recharged me enough to take on the afternoon.

The evening shaped up to be much better.  The noise cancelling headphones I'd ordered off of woot.com arrived today, so I played around with those a bit. Very nice.  I like them a lot.  I played some Lord of the Rings Online a bit and heard all kinds of things I never really noticed before, like walking through grass.  Mostly that's because I keep my computer sound down.  So these will be fun to use.

I also received a Taverncraft mug I'd ordered.  I'm a huge fan of dragons (if you can't tell from the above photo with two stuffed dragons in it) so when I heard they were making a Green Dragon Inn Stein AND that I could get a discount on it - I snagged one.  I've already been using it and have managed to chug down a lot of water. I can't even imagine what things would be like if I ever filled it with alcohol.

So the day ended on a good note.  And that's always a good thing.

It's been awhile since I've been able to log into Lord of the Rings Online and actually play the game.  More often than not I'm logged in but AFK.

So today I was finally able to log in and enjoy the Summer Festival, which ends later this month. Not terribly exciting for some - I know - but I love video games and the LOTRO community is absolutely AMAZING.  So if ever you're interested in playing - drop me a line!  Remember, it goes free to play this fall!

In the latter part of the afternoon we decided to take a walk to a place that serves Soft Serve on 28th street. We took Kent Trails for a large part of it and it was about 5 miles round trip.  I ordered a small flurry and this is apparently what their small is.  I couldn't finish it, it was so large.

Later in the evening I attended Weatherstock in Lord of the Rings Online. Chris had some things he needed to take care of so I took that opportunity to check out this yearly music event.

Since Lord of the Rings Online has an in-game music system which allows different races and classes to play different instruments (lute, harp, flute, etc) there are a lot of people who incorporate this into their role-playing.  Personally I'm not a big RPer, but it was interesting to listen to the different bands play music from the Beetles to Police and beyond. There were just under 300 players who attended, including myself who created a character on the server specifically to check this event out.

If you are a gamer who enjoys online games and have a special place in your heart for Tolkien, I'd encourage you to check out Lord of the Rings Online - which goes free to play in the fall.