Drama-mama.

Some shit hit the fan these week. Some close friends are no longer friends (of each other. they're still my friends), so there's been a lot of drama and stuff. I do my best to avoid things like that, but Lindsay seems to do a good job of ending up in the center. In a good way, kind of like a mother hen or something...

Still, it kind of sucks. But when can you do. I'm no ones mother so I'm not going to tell them how to behave. And to be honest no one is exactly the clear good guy in the whole situation. Le sigh.

Between giving pep-talks and listening to everyone's problems, Lindsay finally got Darklands up and running on our new laptop. Darklands is an ancient PC game that has been forgotten by time.

I know a lot of the classic western PC RPGs, if only by name, and Darklands is totally unfamiliar. A google search shows that there's not much of a community or record of this game. It's actually shocking how little info there is. But Lindsay loved it growing up, and was determined to get it to work. We've been trying every now and then for years, but finally we did it. She was pretty happy.

I've been spending a lot of time playing Modern Warfare 2. There's almost always someone online playing it, so it's hard to resist a game or two. And like Lays Potato Chips, it's impossible to just have one. One game leads to 2, which leads to 5. Which leads to many. It's damn good.

But I've also been getting super into Dragon Age. I can't devote the absurd time to it like some people can (like all the people who have beaten it already, which is crazy) so it took some time to really appreciate. But I think last night it finally 'clicked' for me and went from being good to being great.

I think my characters are finally getting diverse enough abilities to really make combat versatile and engaging. And I also realized that I don't have to focus on my main character. In fact, I never control my main character. He's a warrior and has pretty basic attacks. He's mainly a tank who absorbs and deals damage, so I let him hack it out while I finesse and micromanage my Mage and Rouge.

That simple shift in thinking has made me way more effective in battle, and made the combat vastly more interesting. I've won battles that upon first blush seemed impossible. But just managing my party and going in with some tactics in mind made all the difference.

Tomorrow I pick up my new car. I'm really excited. I should go join a Tokyo Drift gang or something.