Give thanks to cute kitties, Episode 1.

I'm back from my Thanksgiving excursion to Wisconsin. I'll probably post the trip day by day or something to make it less of a huge chunk of boring.

Now it will just be several smaller, bite-sized chunks of boring.

So we left Tuesday after work and got into Madison late. My parents waited up and we hung out for a while but eventually they went to bed. Not too exciting.

Lindsay had some work to do so she worked until about 3 AM, while I fired up Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 2. I bought it a while ago, but I had been saving it specifically for this trip since I knew there would be some down time.

I played it on and off all weekend. It's good. It's pretty much exactly like Episode 1, which I liked a lot.

That's pretty much it.

Give thanks to cute kitties, Episode 2.

On Wednesday morning Lindsay left for Milwaukee. I walked around downtown Stoughton with my mom, and she took me to all the galleries and shops she'd been wanting to show me for a while. I met all the owners and people involved. It was interesting. Stoughton is a weird place, from an outsiders perspective.

It seems like it's got an overabundance of art galleries / boutiques and antiques. And the percentage of good artwork is fairly low, but there is some good stuff to be found. But the whole vibe is friendly and proud, but also not particularly confident over explanatory.

Anyway, everyone was nice and I had a pretty good time.

When we got back, I did some Computer troubleshooting for my mom, and email troubleshooting for my dad. This became a reoccurring theme for the trip. Like always.

That night my sister and her husband got into town, and we met up with my brother and his wife and went out to a restaurant just outside of town. I guess the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving is not a popular time to go out, because we were the only people there the entire time. We got plenty of attention from the staff, and even got a lounge-singing woman to croon at the table for a while. Awkward.

After we left, I took my brother back to his place in Madison, and we hung out for a while. His dog is hilarious and crazy. It looks like a Muppet Alligator.

Give thanks to cute kitties, Episode 3.

On Thursday Lindsay came back for Thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's farm. It was a good time. We ate and hung out all day. There was lots of people to talk to and lots of food to eat. I also had to do some troubleshooting for my cousin's new iPod touch and email.

Later in the day, we made a trip to the barn to see the horses, and came back with a brand new cat. Huzzah! Or, maybe, Oops!

Even though I don't think we need anymore pets, you can't argue with a tiny, doe-eyed kitten and a tiny, doe-eyed girlfriend.

We drove to Lindsay's parents house in Mequon straight from my Aunt and Uncle's house, new kitten in hand. We stopped at Walgreens to get some litter and food. We arrived just in time for Thanksgiving #2. Yum.

It was just Lindsay's brother and parents, so it was much smaller and quiter than the previous Thanksgiving celebration, and that's a good thing. Because by that point, I was totally, crushingly exhausted.

Give thanks to cute kitties, Episode 4.

Friday through Saturday was spent eating turkey, working on art, playing computer games, and helping Lindsay's parents with computer / printer / stereo troubleshooting. Of course.

It all blurs together a bit, but on Saturday we went to a super-lame Craft show. It was cool, though, because I spent the whole time drawing, which is fun. Sometimes it's nice to not have anything else to do except draw, because even if you get frustrated and want to quit, there's nothing else to do, so eventually it gets good again...

We followed up the craft fair with an amazing trip to the bead store.

We drove back to Madison Saturday night, I read ready to go all the back to Minneapolis, though I think I had enough of family fun time.

We got in late and we played WoW for way too long once everyone else went to bed. The next morning we did a big breakfast and were out by Noon. The drive back was slow. Traffic was terrible and we took several hours longer than usual.

But it felt good to be home. We spent the night getting the new kitten settled in, and introducing her to the other animals, just a little.

Chris C had been watching out pets and house, so we met up with him. he came to see the cat and stayed for a few rounds of Street Fighter before heading home to play some Left 4 Dead with Adam and myself. I should have just gone straight to bed.

To recap, here's a picture of the new cat.

808 Democracy.

After work on Tuesday, I spent most of the night on the road. I picked up Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreak and Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy before I left.

808s goes in a totally different direction, and I think the results are mixed. There's a couple tracks I keep going back to, namely Heartless, Amazing and See you in my Nightmares. But there's a handful of others that I can't even remember.

But I'm all for creativity and new directions. I'd rather have new and different things than the same old, same old. I always have the old albums when I feel listening to them, anyway. So bring on the new. And over all, I think the album is pretty good

I was actually expecting the worst from Chinese Democracy. Despite Appetite for Destruction being one of the best albums ever, I didn't really see how this could be very good. It seemed destined to be terrible, actually.

But it's not terrible. In fact, it's good. Although I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet. I listened to it 1 1/2 times in a car with crappy speakers, so I've definitely got some most listening to do. But I was most impressed that the album sounded... fresh?

I had expected it to be one of two things: a weak retread trying to recapture the glory days, or an embarrassing attempt at sounding "current."

But it sounds like Guns N' Roses. Whatever that means. It doesn't sound like classic GnR, and it doesn't sound like late GnR, but there's no denying that it sounds uniquely Guns N' Roses.

And for the most part, it's pretty damn good. And that's more than I could have hoped for, at this point.

blood is hard to wash off a floor.

Last night we noticed blood on the floor. We followed the trail, and found lots and lots of blood. Atari broke one of his claws when he was on a walk, and it was bleeding a lot.

We had to preform mini-surgery last night, and today he's going to the vet to see if there's a more permanent fix than gauze and tape. We're leaving for Thanksgiving, and I'd hate for our friend who's watching the dogs to come in and find blood everywhere and freak out...

Ah, well. And speaking of Thanksgiving, I have a lot of driving to do in the next couple days. Sucks for me, I'm not looking forward to it at all.

Things are crazy at work right now. I keep thinking about writing about it, but there's a lot of good stuff and bad stuff and complicated stuff, so I don't even know where to start. So I won't.

please pass the ballpoint pen.

My friend Ryan lent me Resistance 2, and last night played the campaign mode until 2 am, even though I had to work today. And I don't even know why.

It's ok, but I think I might be done with it. At least, done with the single player.

I made it through most of the Twin Falls, Idaho level, which seems to be roughly 1/2 way through the game (it's chapter 4 of 9). When I turned the game off, I wasn't sure I really enjoyed any of it...

I guess the whole thing was pleasant and serviceable, but nothing about it really grabbed me.

It looked pretty good, but was sterile and didn't come close to the density and scope of Gears 2. The weapons were cool, but I felt somewhat detached and prefer the solid, tactile feeling of something like Halo. There were big, frantic, lost in the shit firefights, but they didn't share the intensity of Call of Duty 4. It had rushing waves of zombies, but it paled in comparison to Left 4 Dead.

It was a very standard first person shooter, and totally competent in pretty much every regard. I don't hate it, but I don't really like it either. Which kind of makes me feel bad, because it didn't do anything WRONG, it just didn't do anything extraordinarily right...

I did have fun with the multiplayer co-op in the beta though, so I'm still excited to play that a little more. I think I'm just giving up on the single player, though.

On a side note, I lent my copy of Socom: Confrontation to Ryan. He's enjoying it. I totally dig it, too, obviously.

But some people don't. Here's a quote from X-Play's review: "anyone who isn't a die-hard Socom fan will rather shove ballpoint pens into their urethra than continue playing after ten minutes..."

Enough said, I guess. I am obviously a diehard fan, because I am playing and loving the new Socom.

Even though I totally recognize it has many, many faults. I can see how a lot of people just wouldn't like it. And I respect that. But they can suck my dick.

Honey, I'm Home.

Yesterday I got up and went out to buy a bunch of frames.

Then I spent all day at home printing and framing 9 pieces for an art show. Lindsay went to the Tea Garden with Becky, and stayed there pretty much all day.

When she came home she was in a really bad mood. But we had Chris C come over, and he brought some BBQ with him. We had a lot, so Ryan, Adam and Sara followed along, and we had a BBQ party.

I had received an invite to Playstation Home. Ryan had a lot of fun griefing a bunch of people and acting like an idiot. My face literally hurt from laughing. But I hope I didn't get kicked from beta, either.

We played some games and all sat really close to each other on our couches. It was a pretty good time.

Today we went straight to the Tea Garden to hang "the Tiny Art Show." It's a collection of small art that is cheap, for holiday gifting purposes. We had about 8 people contribute, and we hung about 30 pieces. It was just Lindsay and myself hanging it, though, so it took a few hours.

Adam showed up when we were finishing up, and we all went out to eat.

We finally got home at around 7, and I thought i could do something fun to contradict the pain of hanging a show (I hate hanging, but I guess it's a necessary evil). But Lindsay recruited me to do some freelance revisions, so that was that.

Now I'm done, though. I think I'm going to try out Resistance 2, which I Ryan left behind for me. I lent him Socom in return. That was tough. I love me some Socom...

And for my thoughts on Playstation Home: Lame. It's boring, there's nothing to do. Avatars might not be inspired, but the Home characters are just boring and reek of just being the wrong idea. It's like Second Life without any of the deviant sex acts or the ability to fly. Which are the only redeeming aspects of Second Life.

I can't blame Ryan for inventing his own fun, the application really doesn't give you anything to do.

I'd say they can patch in the fun, but I think the realistic direction they took was really detrimental. It's not cool, it's like a marketers idea of cool.

Xbox's Avatars seemed lame when first revealed, but once I made mine and saw my friends, I warmed up a little bit. They may not be the most original idea I've ever seen, but they have enough personality to be entertaining. But the Home characters are just boring.

For instance, there's one nose. You can pull sliders to make it wider or longer, but it's still the same nose. Same goes for the mouth, eyes and ears.

And for clothing options; there are 6 shirts. 6. And they are variations on a theme. Nothing special, just long sleeve, short sleeve, collar, wife beater. No color options, nothing.

So a bunch of same-y people stand around in a barren world with nothing to do. One "visit" to home and you've seen everything there is in the world. It's almost embarrassing.

Party all the time, party all the time.

Thursday there was a party after work. It actually started at 3:30, so that was cool.

After that party, there was a group that continued the party at the King and I Thai. And after that party, we went to see The Horse, the Bird, the Monkey and the Dancer. It's a play performed by the Sandbox Theatere. It was good.

But after all that, it was 10:30 or 11:00. So by the time I got home there wasn't a lot of time for much.

Friday was an odd day. It was a lot of people's last day at the office. It wasn't a party, but no one could really get any work done. There were lots of goodbyes, hugs and tears. Not from me, necessarily. By the end of the day I was totally wiped and just wanted to go to bed.

But I still had to go to a restaurant called Yum! and meet up with Sara, Adam, Becky and Chris C. I was totally not hungry and in a funk, so I didn't eat. Although it looked good.

We all went to the MCAD Art Sale and perused. I don't think anyone had any intentions of buying anything, we just wanted to see what's up. Once again, it was a sea of people (we had free tickets, but it costs normal people 35 bucks to get in) and there was no shortage of good art. Or crappy art.

We went our separate ways, but Chris C, Sara, Adam and myself reconvened in Left 4 Dead a little later. It was a zombie-bustin' blast.

Tiny me.

Last night Lindsay was hosting an opening for her class. So I raced to the gym after work, then raced home, showered and changed, and raced out again to the opening. We were there until around 10. By the time I got home, I was pretty tired, but I had to play around with the new Xbox 360 interface.

It's pretty slick, in a couple ways. I'm a sucker for making avatars (in general, not just Microsoft branded "Avatars") so that was fun.


me


lindsay

Even thought the options are very limited, all of my friends have been able to make pretty good representations of themselves.

I poked around into every menu and option in the dashboard. I tried out the new Arcade game, A Kingdom for Keflings, which I didn't really "get," but it was kind of relaxing and kind of cool to have my avatar walking around as the giant ruler.

Then I linked up my Netflix account. It was already close to 1 am, so I wasn't about to watch a whole movie, but I just wanted to see how it worked. And it worked really, really well.

I started up Ratatouille, and within a minute I was watching full-screen, high quality video. It seemed on par with DVD quality from what I could tell. I stopped it and started up The Host, which also looked great and loaded fast.

I have no idea how it works so well, but it seems to be an amazing feature. Probably the best feature, actually. If you have Netflix. Which I do.

I'm totally excited. I have a problem getting the three discs I had on my que, but not being in the mood for any of them. So I don't watch any for a month, until finally I either watch it or send it back. So this is an awesome addition for me personally.

So far, I'm impressed. The only bad part is I basically spent all night dinking around on my 360 and I didn't really play any games.

I should look at a clock more often.

Last night I left work tired and went to Uptown to meet some friends. I got there early, so I pulled out my sketchbook and drew for a while. Once everyone showed up, we went to a funeral. It wasn't a super somber and mournful place, it seemed like everyone was comfortable.

I went home alone, Lindsay had to teach. I was hoping to do a minute of freelance, and then jump into Fallout 3 or Socom or something for a bit. But before I knew it, it was 11:15 or so. It sucks working all day, and then coming home and working until midnight.

Not because of the work, really, but just the sobering realization that you have to get up and do it again the next day. So I begrudgingly played Fallout 3 until I decided it would be irresponsible to stay up any later. Which was late.

Things are getting back to normal at work. We'll, as normal as things can get after a massive layoff. It's getting down the the skeleton crew, but it means I'm getting to do some pretty fun concepting and drawing. Fun and tiring, I guess.

Maybe I'm just tired overall.

Fight in the Street.

The 1up Show is talking up some Super Street Fighter 2 HD. It keeps nearly convincing me that I want it...

I used to be totally on board for the HD remake of Street Fighter. Back when they first announced it. In 2000-whatever.

But now, I'm not so sure. If they would have released it soon after the announcement, I would have happily picked it up. But they waited, and waited, and waited. Then they announced Street Fighter 4. Then they waited some more.

And now that Street Fighter 4 looms on the horizon, I'm not so sure the HD remake is essential, or even novel, enough to make me want to buy it... After all, I already have a lot of Street Fighter.

I already have Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting on XBL Arcade (although the 360 controller sucks for 2D fighting games). Plus I have the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, which has all the Street Fighter Alphas, culminating with my personal favorite of the "old school" Street Fighter games, Street Fighter Alpha 3. And then I have the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection which has all the versions of Street Fighter 2, as well as having my all-time favorite Street Fighter game, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.

So do I need one more remake of an old Street Fighter game with nicer art? No, I don't. But do I still want it? Yes. Kind of.

But I think I can hold out until the February release of Street Fighter 4. It's been at the top of my Must Play list for a while now.

Is it just me?

It's kind of been a weekend of bad news again. A sad face emoticon seems fitting.

On Friday, my friend's sick father died. He seems to be doing fine, however, as we saw him a few times this weekend and he was in a pretty positive mood.

Friday night we went out with a friend who's been going though a long, non-mutual break-up. I don't think he really thought that anything was wrong in the first place, so it was kind of a shock. Plus, there's factors involved that don't allow for a clean break. So he was down in the dumps and we spent a few hours at Sakura talking it over.

He came over afterwards and we played Gears of War 2's Horde mode for several hours. It is pretty spectacular. Horde Mode pits you and up to four other friends against wave after wave of increasingly difficult bad dudes on any of the multiplayer maps. Once things get really though, it results in some on-the-fly desperate strategy and lots of panic. It's a blast, I love it.

Saturday we met a friend at Longfellow Grill, which is awesome food, but very, very busy on Saturday nights. Go figure. After dinner went home and traded off playing rounds in Socom for a while, then we played a butt-ton of Horde mode in Gears 2.

I was about 15 minutes from the ending of Gears 2, as well, so we just went ahead and beat it.

All in all, Gears of War 2 was totally awesome. But I'm not done yet. I'm going to be going back to the Horde and straight up Multiplayer modes for a long time, I'm sure. Plus I'd like to give the story mode another shot on a harder difficulty mode, and with a friend.

Being in the mood to beat some games, we popped in Little Big Planet and finished the story mode on that, as well.

Again, I was a mere 20 minutes or so front the end. I have been for weeks. But I don't like playing without friends, so I didn't bother trying to finish it alone. But now I have. And it was cool. Not mind-blowingly so, but very cool and fun and creative.

Of course, with LBP, the story mode almost a secondary feature, and the creating and sharing of community levels is what it's all about, so I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of the game in the months and years to come. The levels already are sometimes totally amazing. Too bad Sony is deleting a bunch of them for copyright infringement.

Funny. I could see that coming from a mile away.

The Arabian Prince is the Jam.

Yesterday we were listening to the jams in the car. Specifically, we were listening to Arabian Prince.

But I can't help listening to Arabian Prince without thinking about this James Pants video:



I'd run to an AP show, too, just to shake my money-maker.

Fat, silly cats make everything better.

Yesterday I was working at the Tea Garden and I just felt out of it. A friend came to keep us company, but as soon as he left, I put my head down and fell asleep for a few minutes.

We went out to eat with Chris C, and we both took a solemn oath to go directly home, download the Left 4 Dead demo of Xbox Live Marketplace, and play the crap out of it.



Unfortunately, my internet connection must be roughly 3 time faster than his, because I got the demo and played through it twice before he was able to join.

Another friend joined us, a girl who doesn't play many first person shooters, if any. But the three of us plowed through the demo twice. It was a blast. Co-op anything is more fun. Furious zombie apocalypse is also fun. Together it's twice as nice. The game forces you to work together a little bit, but sometimes when your blasting zombies off a friend, there's bound to be some friendly fire, which led to a lot of bastardy.

Stealing supplies before someone who needs them more can grab them... Tossing a gas can near someone and shooting it just to scare them... "Accidentally" hitting someone in the back of the head with the butt of my gun... Yes, the game brought out the jerk in me. Good times were had by all.

I went to bed around 2 or 3 last night. By that time the ground was covered by snow. It was still there when we got up. Crap.

I went to the gym and worked at the Tea Garden. Not on anything very fun. I stopped by Target and found Space Invaders Extreme on the DS for 12 bucks, so I bought it. I had head good things, and you can't go wrong for 12 bucks.

I cracked it open and played about 15 seconds of it while I was waiting in the car, and it seemed cool enough.

I talked to a friend who's going through some hard times for a bit today. Things are looking bad, and that sucks. It seems like bitter times, lately. But this is something that could cheer anyone up.

On and Off.

I was in and out of the office last week. Many of the product lines were dropped completely but not all. Some were just moderately affected in one way or another. So right now, no work needs to be done on new product because no one's quite sure about what is going forward and what isn't. So I don't need to be there to design new product, but I do need to tie up some loose ends for the time being.

I was approached about being one of the designers to continue forward, so I will still be working once they get they're act together. Which is nice.

I helped Lindsay on a project on Wednesday, and on Thursday I went in to the office to do file management and archiving.

Friday I had the day off. I had made plans to meet the sick father of a friend, but unfortunately he wasn't in any shape to have visitors after all, so we had to cancel.

It was rainy and crappy and cold out. Instead we went to Best Buy. I wanted to pick up Gears of War 2. And I did. But I also picked up Valkyria Chronicles, which is a choice that kind of even surprised me.

I had the demo sitting on my PS3 for a couple weeks and finally got around to playing it the other day. And it's awesome. Totally awesome.

It's takes some of the best parts of strategy games, like Final Fantasy Tactics (one of my favorite games ever), and combines it with a 3rd person perspective for movement and shooting. It really adds a nice layer of attachment to the whole strategy genre and works amazingly well.

I feel like the game was made for me. Well, besides the story and characters...

The story is almost embarrassing to watch with anyone else in the room. I could and should skip it, but I can't bring myself to do it. What if all of a sudden it gets good? Or engaging? Even though it won't.

The graphics are nice, though, with a washed-out watercolor and pencil look. It's a little sparse and barren, but overall it's very pleasant. It'd be nice if the characters weren't so generically anime, but hey, I'm sure some people love it.

But the gameplay is super tight. And I love it. I was blown away by the demo, so I figured I should pick it up.

And I'm glad I did, because even with Fallout 3, Little Big Planet and Gears of War 2, I still find myself playing Valkyria Chronicles a whole lot...

I also feel really sick this weekend. I wonder if I'm coming down with something? Maybe.

Maybe it was raking leaves in the frigged air, it was too cold this weekend.

Oh yeah, I also drew up the Return of an old friend.

November the 4th.

Today I got up and went out to breakfast with Brian Kelly before dropping him off at the airport. So long, Sweet Prince.

After that, Lindsay and I got in a line and stood there for an hour and a half. Were we at an amusement park waiting to get on a rollercoaster? No. Were we buying tickets to an upcoming Heavy Metal Show? Nope.

We were voting. For the new King of America, among other things. I got my "I Voted" sticker and blew that Popsicle Stand.

Lindsay went to a meeting from there, and I pumped some iron. I listened to my freshly downloaded iTunes single of the week, Mr. Hurricane by Beast. It's free, if you grab it right now.

After grabbing some food, I played Fallout 3 for a couple hours while Lindsay napped. It's so awesome, and it keeps getting better. I also downloaded the Call of Duty: World At War multiplayer Beta. I didn't know it was being released publicly, but here it is. I played it for a couple rounds, and it seemed like Call of Duty 4 with lamer weapons and less realistic feeling levels.

Do you know where I did not go today? I did not go to work. Because pretty much everyone was laid off yesterday.

I wasn't laid off, because technically I'm freelance. I'm just plain-old out of a job.

Fallout 3 has a glitch. Imagine that.

I started playing Fallout 3 in earnest yesterday. I played for a minute before a friend came over once, but he arrived sooner than I had anticipated, so I didn't even get a taste.

We spent a few hours at the Tea Garden working last night. Becky and Brian showed up to keep us company. But after we left, it was Fallout Time.

It took a while to really get into. It's structure is very similar to Oblivion, you start out in a small, enclosed space (Oblivion, a jail cell. Fallout, a Bomb Shelter community, or Vault 101). The game takes you through the paces for a while, before finally opening up into the huge, intimidating world (Oblivion, a beautiful and lush Kingdom. Fallout, a harsh, depressing wasteland).

And much like Oblivion, Fallout's charm comes from exploring the environment and see all that's out there.

So once I got out into the world it grew on me fast. I now love Fallout 3. At least, as much as you can love a game after only playing for a few hours.

But, like Oblivion again, it's such a huge world they couldn't possibly QA all the glitches. And I already ran into one. A big one.

I was in Megaton, the shanty town built around an active, but unexploded, Atom Bomb. Also the first town you come to. I had spoken with everyone in town and
done a small quest or two.

But then I misjudged a jump, trying to take a shortcut across the rooftops of Megaton, and I fell to my death. The game automatically reloaded my previous save, no big whoop.

But I found that my right analog stick was useless. For those that don't know, that controls left, right, up and down movement. I could still move forward, backwards and to the sides, but I could only stare straight ahead.

And I could not figure out why. The first thing I did was try to go into a building that happened to be facing my way, thinking the loading screen would fix it. Nope. And now I was stuck inside, because I couldn't turn around to face the door.

I shut down the system. I tried multiple controllers. I ejected the disc, cleaned it. I did everything I could. Nothing. I'd reload the game and be stuck facing the same direction, unable to look anywhere but straight ahead.

Finally, I reloaded my only other save, which was immediately before I left Vault 101. And it worked.

But that meant I had to sacrifice all the progress I had made. Which was really annoying.

SoI ran around at a breakneck speed re-talking to everyone and getting my quests and adding locations to my map. I was pissed.

But, having said that, everything after that point just got better and better and totally won me over.

The lesson? Save often and use multiple save slots... or just don't be a loser wasting your life.

Don't let him lick your face, he eats cat poo.

Saturday was a little better than the previous day. Andy is still pretty questionable, but he walked a little bit. So that's something.

Lindsay spent all day teaching some little kids at the MIA. I spent most of that time doing laundry, going to the gym and playing Rocket Slime on the DS.

I bought it years ago, but haven't gotten the chance to play it until now (since I let Lindsay play through it first, then I just didn't have time). It's the perfect game for sitting on the floor watching over a sick pet. Cute, fun, and not very taxing at all.

Our friend visiting from Germany came over tonight. We hadn't really gotten to see him yet, so it was good to hang out all night. Another friend eventually joined us, and good times were had by all.

He didn't leave until around 3 am or so, but then I decided to start up Fallout 3 just to get a taste. I got out of the Vault and made it 100 feet to the city of Megaton. That's not very much, so I didn't get much of an impression yet.

I probably should have just went to bed. Luckily, daylight savings totally confused me this morning into getting up a little earlier than I might have otherwise.

Happy Halloween, suckers.

Despite last night being Halloween, it hasn't been a very good weekend. Last night we basically hid from kids and went to get some Spinach Dip and Dixie Wings... Which is fun, but there was a funk hanging over our heads.

Andy (the cat) is not getting better. He's back home, but we still have to give him blood tests several times a day to measure how much insulin we should be giving him, force feed him with a syringe, help him go to the bathroom, hook up an IV of fluids to keep him hydrated...

...and maybe some more stuff I'm forgetting. But it's exhausting, demoralizing and depressing. Plus we can't really leave him unmonitored, so we've been hanging around, even though our friend is in from Germany...

Le sigh. But at least it gave me the time to beat Fable 2. Overall, my review still stands. It's a damn fine game. With a lot of flaws. The game is greater than the sum of it's parts, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes lush fantasy worlds and a lot of gameplay ideas in their games.

Now, I finally get to crack open Fallout 3.