Real Life

Not About Gaming.. This Time

For once, I did not spend the evening gaming. I know, I almost thought hell froze over too. Instead I spent it lost in DAZ Studio – a 3D rendering program that I’ve been (slowly) trying to teach to myself. Tonight was the first night I actually felt like I ‘completed’ an image, instead of just worked on portions trying to learn the program. I know, there are lots of issues, the floor especially.

The image was rendered in DAZ Studio, and then post work was done in Photoshop CS2, no doubt I’ll be linking my DeviantART gallery here some to show off random bits. I realize it’s not the greatest, but hey everyone needs a hobby (or two or three).

A few Levels, and a Lot of Pictures

As much as I’d like to say that I took full advantage of the 20% bonus experience this weekend, and accomplished all sorts of things – I really didn’t, so my post today may be quite short (depends on whether or not I start rambling, though I suppose this counts). I did get level 37 on the alchemist with no vitality (I used a potion, I know how bad is that at such a low level) and the guild did manage to ding level 25. That means we have another five to go by the end of the month. I’m hoping we can do it.

I probably would have tried to get a few more alchemy levels but rough opalines (the common) for T4, are going for a whole 20s each right now. I’m not sure why there was a sudden increase in price, but it hurts. I bought 100 of them just to finish up my level and left it at that.

I did some questing in Kunzar Jungle with Stargrace, who has been inching her way through level 77 for the past few months. It seems to be a hump for me. You’d think that getting to 80 would be motivation to quest, but after completing the same quests on various other characters I’m just not inspired to do it any more. I joined up with Kasul, Bloodpact, Kattareena, and Lanerian for the quests, then started sneezing and couldn’t stop so I spent most of the evening on the couch.

Early in the morning however, I headed to Gatineau Hills for some pictures – bright and early before the crowds got there. Below are two of the pictures I took – if you’d like to see them all you can check out my DeviantART site, here.

Pink Lake – named after a family who settled there and discovered it. The water is actually dark green, and it was very beautiful. There’s basically no sounds except for a random car driving up heading to the hills, and there’s a very nice walking trail that goes all the way around the lake. On the right hand side you can see one of the little lookout areas.

Champlain Lookout is one of the most amazing views from Gatineau, and yesterday was a crystal clear day with not a single cloud in the sky. I’ll be headed back up to the hills in late September early October in order to get shots of the leaves changing colours. Hey, I think I can see my house!

I love areas like this. The best part, is it’s not even 30 minutes away from my house, and I live in the city. Good for when I need my tree fix.

WAR?

For those of you who have asked, or are curious about my thoughts on WAR (Warhammer, of course) and whether or not I’ll be playing – I honestly haven’t decided yet. I’m not oblivious to the huge amount of information out there, or the sites dedicated to the game, nor have I lived under a rock these past few months and indeed years while hype for the game has built up.

I write about what I’m playing (for the most part) and my own personal experiences within whatever game – which at this moment is not WAR.

I’m happy with EverQuestII right now. Very happy in fact. I have things to do on multiple characters, guildhalls are coming out and I’m working hard towards that. I’ve never really been much for PvP or RvR or whatever they’re calling it, so that’s not a pull to any game for me personally. I’ve heard good and bad – everyone has their own thoughts and opinions. I’m not taking any sides, I just listen to it all and when – if – I decide to play, I’ll form my own conclusions.

With the EQII expansion coming out in November, and my current satisfication with how things are going, it seems pretty slim that I’ll be headed over to the WAR table quite yet. One never knows though – I said the same thing about EQ2 when it released, from my blog about EQ1. We’ll just have to wait and see. I never tried AoC (nor do I intend to it just didn’t appeal to me personally) and maybe this’ll just be another one of those games I live vicariously through someone else’ writing.

Nom Nom

A post that’s not about gaming for once, what’s gone wrong? Well, nothing. I’ve been having fun leveling my baby dirge up in EQ2 (yes, that’s right I’ve gone over to the evil side. Tired of betraying the troubador back and forth I decided to start up a counter part much like I have with the illusionist and coercer). She’s level 32 right now, and I need to make gear for her and some spell upgrades. I also played Guild Wars last night, and blogged about it because I was just too dang excited, which left me with nothing to write about this morning.

Tonight Nostalgia meets up in EQ1, and we’re off to the Plane of Hate. For those truly old school, you’ll remember it as a raid zone. It’s got some raid encounters left in it still, but it’s now a group zone. You can access it by buying a stone from an npc in Neriak and turning it in to the plane of Tranquility off of PoK. Who, I forget. How much it costs, I also forget. It should be a blast though. You can also hand the stone in to your resident guild hall gnome, and he’ll set the guild portal to hate for you. How kind.

I do all of my groceries (weekly) at a place here in Ottawa called Farm Boy. I don’t own a microwave (I know how horrible eh) and I don’t buy anything frozen. I do love cooking, and I love the new foods that are out there and experimenting. So when I saw the above two items at the market, I decided to pick them up. Now, the amusing thing about the small box that contains a ready to eat tuna salad – is that it’s from Thailand. No big deal, but on the back of the can it says that the Tuna is from British Columbia. Thank you for selling us our tuna back! The meal is actually delicious, it’s almost like a tuna version of vegetable soup, minus the soup portion.

The sweet and sour noodles were VERY spicy, and amazing. I added broccoli and chicken to the dish, and it made way too much of course. The rice noodles didn’t exactly turn out as I would have liked. I’ve never cooked them before and it said to soak them for 3 minutes in boiling water which was not nearly enough time and they ended up weird and chewy.

Tonight? Good ‘ol BBQ chicken legs with rice.

I promise I’ll post something about gaming either later tonight, or tomorrow..

2008 Summer Olympic Opening Ceremony

I’m not huge on sports, aside from hockey which is a given, but I do love the Olympics. This year is the 29th summer Olympics, and I watched (and am still watching) the opening ceremonies right now. Our Canadian athletes made their way across the stadium floor and it’s hard not to burst into cheers from my living room.

We qualified for 25/28 of the events, missing out on Volleyball, Handball, and Basketball. I was sad to hear about the basketball bit, though there are reasons behind it (like our main athlete not wanting to partake this year because he’s been so many times before, and is just so busy).

I loved the beauty of the ceremony. I loved what was done with the ‘footprint’ fireworks leading up to the building, it was great to watch and I got chills. All of the cultural aspects were well done as well.

It’s not the winter Olympics.. but for now it will do. Vancouver in 2010, see you there!