TF2, part 1

A wild feeling of apathy appeared!
Aside from being swamped in by the many demands of school (Read: light homework and allures of Internet), this week finally deserved some TF2 attention. TF2 (or for the uninitiated, Team Fortress 2), has been my drug for the past few years. It's just that one game that I can always come back to if I'm feeling down - I just jump in a server (often with friends by my side), and I can expect to rise above the rest of the team and really feel awesome for slaughtering a portion of the enemy team by myself.
However, just like any video game, competition, and even recreational drug, TF2 tends to lead me to a state of rage. As easily as I can label myself as a harbinger of death and tiny little gibs, I forget to realize that I can be on the receiving side of such personalized tickets to the respawn screen.
Random critical hits, backstabs, sniper bullets, and my own overconfidence does me in every time. To add insult to injury, I find an arch-nemesis keeps halting my own little glorified sprees every time. And again, and again, and again.
Then, suddenly, I fall back into place, with my nemesis gone, I can finally cap the point / blow up the base / eat a victory sandvich for great justice.
Next round,  the feeling of rage is gone, my nemesis has caught onto whatever strategies I dance around with, and my friends usually move on to other acts of justice outside the game, leaving me weary with a feeling that, "I don't have to be here anymore". I like to imagine that the team never misses me and they do fine without me as I give them one last message to part with, "Joy quit*!"

*The best new alternative to Rage Quit!

Hunting trees

My high quality shot is here:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/651002589650339755/9688066D04D0F075676A88C1CD895C00F80A4804/

Trying something different tonight. I could comment on how jizz-gasm-worthy this game is every minute that I explore it's realm and just type with one hand about how great it is to run around killing skeletons and hunting dragons. But no, that would get old quick.

Rather, let's take the time to just admire the beauty of this screenshot that I took a few hours ago. This little enhanced night sky mod that I downloaded awhile ago is in full effect here, and half of the day I play. Casually walking through the swamp after failing to bring a dragon down just a few minute earlier (which I'm now regretting not catching in a screenshot).

Also, the way the mist just wisps around in the background, like one of those Muslim veils, really adds to this majestic shot. The one tree, barely surviving on its own little island in the muddy, frozen waters; this single tree could tell a tale all of it's own.

Finally, I'm in love with the pose that I'm in here. I never manually decided to put one foot on the rock like that, Skyrim created that dynamically. Any other game, I'd be floating a few feet off of the ground, barely centered over the small rock, or clipping through the rock as if I'm the Sword in the Stone.

Yo Quiero Mis Amigos

Online gaming without friends sucks.

It's not so much the game's fault, but more of my own. Having a friend to watch my back, while bouncing a joke off of in between kills has given me such a euphoria that silently playing with a team of strangers just cannot deliver. Just knowing that maybe sometime later in the week we'll bring up that one time where he narrowly assassinated my would be killer while being chased by his own certain doom for me to repay the favor by turning hunter into a mess of giblets while we both escape with a sliver of health between us both - this feeling defines the experience. Yet, I've had plenty of similar moments before (or at least, I think I have) with random kiddies online. At the moment, it might've been amazing, but I can't find a reason to remember these moments if I won't be able to discuss it with such understanding with my friends later. 

Maybe this 'fun v amount of friends' graph can explain it better:

Fully outfitted with the brothers at my side, a simple gaming ritual becomes the highlight of the week, if not, the month.

It's like trying to find people to play Farmville

Oh, the joys of running around campus without a care in the world. I've developed a peculiar ritual that most non-3DS owners will fail to comprehend - instead of heading home during my home period, I've started to take the long way around. Picture the image of me running across the school, trying to find the one other person with a 3DS active in the only way I know how, raising my device as high as I possibly can. In reality, this situation consists of me nose diving into crowds of kids with an optimistic hope that someone sends me a notification. Sadly, in these past few days, random strangers equipped with 3DS's have alluded me.
Either way, back to relying on my friends and leaving my 3DS out in the street in hopes of someone with a 3DS drives past to connect with me.

"There aren't any good usernames left!" #futurefirstworldproblems

I can envision the following conversation with the young-lings sometime in the next few decades or so:
"Grandpa, when can I finally have your username?!"
"In time, child. For now, be happy that 'Awesomename123agazzzzxdx' wasn't taken already."
"But Grandpa, you barely use the internets anymore, do you even still remember your passwords?"
"DOHOHOHOHO(Always gonna laugh like this when I'm older), of course. Soon, perhaps in my will - you will be able to inherit the infamous username 'Awesomename1'! The original, only for my favorite grandchild."

And then, most likely, a big feud would erupt (because good usernames will be as rare as social privacy) and I'd inevitably fall in the inter-family war, break my hip and die with the passwords in the aftermath. Sadly, future scientists never discovered how to cure fatal hip accidents.

A door into a medium

How quaint.

Simple beginnings indeed, but we all have to start the ball rolling eventually. The rapid push of a few dozen keys will eventually snowball into a stunning post. Until then, baby steps: one post after another. Just as long as that baby doesn't get caught up in the rampaging snowball, we'll manage.