As it happens, I have a few things I want to talk about, but as it also happens, I'm having a good long talk with certain viral invaders of my body. Neither one of us seems to be taking it all that well, so we could be here for a while.

"...godless infidel damnded red communist liberal heathen pagan heretic Genghis Khan and his bastard horde."

Beat the O course today. Three times. Including the wall. Gome.

About the first time ever I outlasted Laurent, too. :P

*ducks*

I sure am tired now.

So it turns out that almost nobody has seen me since about Monday or so, and if they have seen me, the conversation hasn't been worth a lot, as I have been firmly focused on one thing, and that one thing has been KOTOR II. Because, well, holy shit.

Those of you who remember me talking about the original KOTOR, be it the first or second times I played through, will remember me saying much the same thing, namely that this game is awesome and to sacrifice sleep and friendships for it is a small price to pay to bask in such glory.

It's not a hard game, really, not in the way the first game could be frequently deadly to your person, and maybe that has something to do with my leet character building skillz, but I don't think so. On the other hand, the plot, the character interaction, everything else surpasses the first game in ways that make the very proficient first KOTOR look like something out of the Triassic. Which is to say that while the first KOTOR's plot was awesome, and while in one spot it utterly, completely blew my mind, the second KOTOR's plot is if not superior to the first definitely supplements it in such a way that the two become absolutely inseperable parts of a whole. Too, it is the first game in quite some time where, although I guessed some of what was going on, the true magnitude of the thing escaped me, and in at least three seperate spots I was forced to pause to clean up the grey ooze from my utterly and completely blown mind.

They've left it all neatly open for KOTOR III, and I can't wait. Bring it on.

This was actually supposed to go in the comment section of Regina's blog, in response to this post here, but it sort of outgrew that, so here we are. Since most of the people involved in the discussion read us both, this shouldn't be an issue. Those of you who don't read this one, don't worry. The evil-looking, lightsaber-wielding small forest animals are kind, friendly, evil-looking, lightsaber-wielding small forest animals.

(We'll talk about the vampirism and the squirrel aliens some other time)

So, let's talk about friendships and things. But first, a word from our sponsors reminding you that Valentine's Day can only be a cool holiday IF you're not single. If you are, it's decidedly the opposite. Yeah, I like getting candy from Mom too, but.

Also, no HTML commenting. Small forest animals are sad.

Anyway.

Going waaaaaaaaay back to the beginning, Simfish was talking about his 790 Chem SAT II score, which although he attempts to be modest about it, is pretty damn good. Self teaching your way to the better portion of it is even more good. And I don't think that more good would've gotten me very far on my own SAT, but I've got a degree now. I'm allowed. Points being these: First, the guy with the history degree practically taught himself all his history until university, so I know exactly how hard that can be; second, there is a point at which perfectionism is counterproductive, and you've recognized that point. Remember folks: If the test problem is hard, do the rest first, then come back.

I guess there's also a second and a half point that notes that, in the end, the point is not "Did I do well on this test?" so much as "Do I know this subject?" There is a decided difference, and the second option is much better than the first. I've taken tests and aced them and can't explain the subject these days, and I've taken tests and bombed them, and it's a subject I know much about.

But I think we were talking about the utlity of friendships, here, so maybe I ought to talk about that for a bit.

There are very few, if any, true loners in the world, who don't need companionship of some sort. Which isn't to say that for whatever reason a lot of your great scientists and great leaders and such tend to not have a lot of friends, but while they might do great things, many of them tend not to be the types of people you'd like to hang out with.

In my case, it works like this. My chosen profession, such as it is, is history. Interestingly enough, I don't and never really have talked shop with most of my friends. Regina and I will do so from time to time, and Marechal and I do so on a fairly regular basis, but really he's the only one I share a profession with. In reality, a good chunk of my friends are engineers and computer science types (spread fairly evenly between RL and online, interestingly), and our professions are mutually unintelligable to each other.

As it happens, in fact, I can only think of one HS friend I made through class (math, as it happens), and the assorted grade school friends one generally picks up just by being in the same class for a few years. The rest come from a variety of sources, mostly gaming. MUDs for one, Tonto Clan for another, Realms Beyond Civilization, and of course friends of friends.

The half a point thus far is: All work and no play makes Jack (or Simfish or Dwip) a dull boy (or fish or rabbit).

That having been said, the people you stay friends with, you can relate to on more than one level. Using people on this blog for an example, Regina and I never to my knowledge played a game of Age of Kings though we were in the same clan, but can talk these days about a variety of topics ranging from books to music to history/current affairs. Whir and I got started on Crystal Shard MUD way back in the day, and yeah, we still play a lot of games, but we also have similar taste in music and such, amongst other things. One of the RBCiv folks turned out to live near me, and now I'm friends with both her and her husband, playing in a couple weekly games of non-Civ stuff.

Ultimate point being, focusing entirely on one thing, say your profession, will stunt you as a person and make you unable to relate to the greater portion of the human race. Directed specifically at Simfish, I'm trying to say that you spend way way way too much time worrying about school. Relax. Take up some totally unrelated hobbies. Become a well-rounded person, as they say.

On a different tangent, about this online/offline friend thing.

In my mind, 99% of the time online friends are just the same as RL friends for all intents and purposes, because for the most part we hang out and BS anyway. With the online crowd we're more likely to suplement with some sort of computer game, with the RL crowd we do movies, D&D, and that sort of thing. The difference comes in sometimes needing to see real, live PEOPLE and interact with them, which is a large reason why I leave my house. I tried not doing this a few time during college, and it really really sucked, so I stopped.

And a final note to Regina that for one, nobody ever fits in in HS. Everyone always worries about fitting into some mythical happy thing that doesn't actually exist. I worried about it a lot myself at the time, and complained about not having many friends once to my mother, who promptly pointed out that actually I did, and qualitywise I was way better off than most. Once I stopped worrying about it and relaxed, it wasn't a big deal. Too, you're not going to have many if any classes with your good friends in college anyway, so it's not worth worrying about. But we can talk about that if you want.

Ok. I'm done now.

As I come to the end of Call of Duty, I realize that I've been playing an atrocious number of first person shooters lately. I blame this on Battlefield Vietnam, though why I picked it up in the first place is beyond me. Having almost nothing to play but Half-Life while I was overseas didn't really help me not playing them any, and then the month Whir and I spent blowing the crap out of each other in BFV when I got to MI made me realize that, for whatever reason I didn't like FPS games before, this attitude was stupid and wrong, because really, sniping pixelized NVA dudes is fun.

Or, if you're Whir, you'd note that watching me crash a jeep into a wall and go flying 50 feet in the air is more fun.

So I guess it's natural that I'd then pick up Battlefield 1942 and the xpacks. These weren't really as much fun as BFV for a whole host of reason's I've talked about before, but fortunately there is Battlegroup 42, and it is good.

We are sad that we cannot play these things at the moment.

But what I really want to do right now is to compare the various singleplayer FPS games I've played, because I never really talked a lot about any of them, and they're a lot of the reason why I've dropped off the planet since December.

So. I got Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault for my birthday. And it was real, real fun. Zoom aiming essentially didn't work, and there was a very annoying part where I had to use a craptastic AA gun to shoot down some planes, but for the most part it was sheer me-and-my-squad-hunting-Japanese-soldiers-on-jungle-islands goodness. To top it off, it was like playing a movie, if that makes sense. The level of immersion was just that good. Your squad yells stuff, there's morale, and the main menu screen has this radio thing that plays news reports and stuff that's very very cool.

Then I got Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and it's xpack Breakthrough for Xmas. What I expected out of AA was along the lines of what I got from PA, just with worse graphics. To put it shortly, no. You're alone most of the time, doing screwy secret agent missions by yourself. While we miss out on the AA gun level, we pick up a couple of sniper levels that are the height of ludicrousness. I don't understand why anybody thought that roaming around a town full of camoflauged snipers who kill you in one shot and probably see you before you see them is going to be fun. Yes, I realize things like this actually went on. No, I don't really want to play through it with useless squadmates.

Breakthrough, thankfully, was a lot more fun, except for the part where I had to guard this dude for 30 seconds against the whole German army, and all I had was 2 M1 Garand shots, 2 clips of pistol ammo, and a grenade. Since there's a whole balcony of Nazis throwing grenades at you, this ends of working not so well. Also some of the "Hold off legions of Nazis!" levels got a bit old, but overall we were happy.

Call of Duty, lastly, is pretty much what Medal of Honor wanted to be, and for once I finally got what I was after - me and my squad roving around Europe shooting Nazis for fun and skimpy combat pay. The guns manage to work zoomed, and in fact are for the most part awesome, and the missions are way way fun, if perhaps too easy for some of them. If I have a complaint, it's that the game is actually too short, and that there's an extremely ludicrous mission wherein you have to shoot down a lot of Stukas with a really craptastic AA gun while lots of Nazis try to kill you on the ground and your squadmates do random ineffectual things.

Needless to say, if I ever design a MOH-style game, there will be no AA guns, and if there are the enemy will not attack you on the ground at the same time. There may or may not be a tank level, but probably not because I am an infantryman at heart in these things.

First, however, I desire to play KOTOR II. But I can't play KOTOR II because I can't get into town and get it yet. Darth Fuzzy is angered.

So we figure that, if bigger, neater blogs than this one can do the whole guest blogging thing, us demented rabbit types can do it too. Laurent's here to tell us all about my adventures on the obstacle course at OSU.

I'll have my own comments on this whole experience, but we'll do those in a post that's not this one.

Yes, small forest animals were harmed in the creation of this post. But only in one of the parts you might think.

===================================

Here comes the long awaited account of Erik’s great adventure through the “O-Course” (not the big “O” so get your mind out of the gutter.) In order for you to have an idea of who the narrator is you can take a look at the torture master here. I know, I know, I look like a goddamn hippie. I am both too cheap to get a weekly haircut (we are talking 7 bucks people!) and too lazy to shave everyday. A better excuse would be terrorism awareness. Truly I do not partake in the new national pastime of fearing invisible evil forces but most of my superiors would be stupid enough to believe me. It’s the Marine Corps remember. We work harder not smarter. Why use your brain when your brawn will do? That’s enough about me.

Let’s rewind a bit. Sometime around turkey day Dwip told me that he wanted to join the Army. I swear that I did everything I could to get that idea out of his thick skull. He persevered with it. After crucifixion day (thanks for all the ham Darla!) I started giving him a hand with his training. The first time I took him to the O-course Dwip hardly made it past the obstacles. He didn’t manage to clear any on the first try.

I have to admit that if I weighed 117 lbs I would be hard pressed to clear them myself. We trained together for a week. At times I was afraid he would jump on me and bite my throat off, or shoot me for tormenting him.

School started and so I left him to train in the woods of Monroe. I was wondering how he would do without his favorite Sergeant to “motivate” him to hurry the fuck up the hills and the such … he ended up doing quite all right.

Last week we met at the O-course again and he cleared all the obstacles on his first try. I was amazed. We can all be proud of Dwip. I sure was.

Unfortunately I didn’t snap any pictures. So I made him do it again. It wasn’t as good, but still he cleared everything but the wall. As you will soon find out Magnum hasn’t invited me to become a member yet. The first obstacle is a low hurdle. The second one is the single bar, where you can see Dwip trying to chicken wing it. This is NOT the way to get of the bar as he almost snapped his ankle landing. [And about ripped my kneecap off, too --Dwip] You can see the pain in this picture. He started laughing quickly, probably a sign that he is loosing brain-cells so as to adapt for the military.

Next is the slide (picture, picture, and picture), with a butt shot of Dwip about to hug the high hurdle.

The wall. Kicks his ass every time. I pulled muscles in my upper back trying to get him on top during winter break. Here is the place where Dwip’s head should appear. As you can see it is not exactly happening.

A few more hurdles:

First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh (Ouch!!!!)
Eighth (There went the little Dwips in storage.)

A few more Dwipekes got the boot here.

And exhausted but happy, here.

For informational purposes you can look at he RIGHT way to do it in the following pictures:

First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Eighth

[The editor would like to point out his mad skillz at avoiding damage to important bodily organs other than knees, and would also like to point out the inexplicable absence of the comedic flailing pic. --Dwip]