I need to start writing things down. At least once a day, I'll have some idea and think "Hey, that'd be a good thing to blog about." By the time I actually get around to blogging I've completely forgotten every idea I had in the last week. In some strange way, it's kinda sad, as if those ideas have died and there's no one to remember them. How totally emo.
Too much video games lately. I played the hell out of Guitar Hero II today. Vicki was nice enough to pick it up for me at Walmart after midnight last night, so lucky me (in so many ways). It's as much of a blast as I expected, but hard as hell. I could beat almost every song on the original Guitar Hero on Expert, but on GHII I'm failing some of the earlier ones on expert. Some of the songs on Hard seem as hard, if not harder, than the hardest songs on the original's song list. It's good though -- I wouldn't want to just tear through the game the whole game the first time through, anyway.
Been spending a lot of time with Final Fantasy XII as well. It's pretty awesome, I don't think I've been able to dive into a Final Fantasy game like this for years... then again, I haven't not had a job in years, so that may have something to do with it. Still, the game has gotten away from the high-fantasy "Save the world from ultimate apocalypse wrought by super-mysterious, indescribably evil bad person." The story is much more human -- although there's a lot of high magic and what-have-you running around, the villians and the heroes are just humans, with real personalities and codes. It adds a lot of weight to a story when you're fighting against a villain who actually stands for something and isn't just a generic evil incarnate type.
FFXII is also much harder than the previous games, which works to its credit. In most FF games, I rarely have to restart the game unless I've missed something and just need to go back. In this game, I've had to try most of the boss fights at least three times before I could handle them. Similarly, in old FF games I always had more money than I knew what to do with, and I never bought consumables because I simply didn't need them -- not so in XII, I'm strapped for cash at every turn, and I've been forced to use several consumable items in almost every boss fight. It makes for some really intense battles and tough decision making... very refreshing from a console RPG. The game as whole reminds me in some ways of an MMO -- which makes sense, as some of its design is likely borrowed from FFXI, which was the series foray into the massively-multiplayer world.
Planning on going to New Jersey with Tim soon for the Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix there this weekend. I've been playing Magic quite a while, but this will be my first really big event. I don't hold out much chance of winning -- it's a long event and there'll be no shortage of pros there. Not to mention that I've not practiced the format at all. Then again, I managed to squeeze into the Top 8 at a recent 30-something person tournament without practicing, so I guess there's some hope. Big difference between 30 random people and 1,000 randoms plus a bunch of pros, of course. I believe they give out amateur prizes as well, even if you don't place in the Top 8, so I might have a shot at that. In any case, I'll never get anywhere doubting myself. Wish me (and Tim, too) good luck.
Keeping with the day's theme of invisible segues, I've been working through a big review of the entire first set of the World of Warcraft TCG. It's quite an undertaking -- at least 6 articles, roughly 5,000 words apiece. That'll be 30,000 words all told... long enough to qualify as a novella. I'm hoping to have it finished within the course of a month. It's certainly a lot of work, but not so much that I won't be able to finish it. It seems easy enough, perhaps I ought to try my hand an actual novella? No idea what I'd write it about, though. I don't know that I have the focus to see it through. With these articles I have a set number of different topics. While they're generally unified, they're different enough that they just naturally don't get stale. Having to develop a single idea over that many words seems daunting by comparison.
I was talking to NB when I was last in Geneseo, and he's got a talent I envy. He was telling me about this daydream that he'd had, and explaining this whole story that he'd worked up around this daydream. He explained the whole thing to me, and it was incredibly detailed... just on a whim, he'd practically written this entire story in his head. It was impressive, something I wish that I could do.
I think part of my problem is that I'm obsessed with purpose. Whenever I write something serious, I want it to have meaning, but then half the time I scrap it because I feel like I'm being preachy or heavy-handed. The rest of the time, I scrap it because I feel like I'm being too obtuse and pretentious. I can never find a tone I'm perfectly comfortable with. It's kinda sad, so many ideas I've abandoned, like they had never been born. How tragic.
