Open Bar: ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

[minuspace]

"you shall have no strange gods before me" serves them right, good riddance

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Sorry to hear it Alty.

Best of luck, best wishes, and honestly and truly have a happy new year.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So, for my Christmas, I went over to Villager's for Christmas Eve, we exchanged gifts. I got her what I think are amethyst and silver earrings (with dorky Starfleet earrings as a post-when-I-get-more-money-again-and-delivery-goes-back-to-normal gift). She got me boxer shorts, all blue plaid, and a printer (both practical and needed, just like I requested ). Then we spent quality time together.

Christmas Day, she went to her family's for the morning, which was iffy because she's been avoiding them due to her mother's immaturity, but that went off without a hitch. I suspect her deliberate avoiding of them sent the appropriate message. I puttered around her place meanwhile (her brother and I hate each other), and then she came back a little later than expected.

This put a bit of a kink in our plans because my own family are being particularly difficult with each other and we were going to go to my mom's place at 1 pm, and my aunts at 2. Villager got back at quarter of 2. Not that I was particularly banged up about that for reasons I won't get into.

So, we head to my Aunt Kathy's place, and the way it is, is that if someone's home, the side door is always open, and that lead to the kitchen, well, we get to the kitchen and Aunt Marie is rushing in looking for the phone, sees us, and shouts "Kathy's having a heart attack! Where's the real phone?!"

So we go into the living room, Crazy Uncle Bob is already on his phone with 911, and simultaneously getting her to respond, which is apparently a gradual return to consciousness and ability to communicate.

Paramedics come, Marie jumps in the ambulance with them, they go to the hospital, C.U.B. and I get the news out, and then it's just... the three of us. With Christmas dinner.

We made the best of it, but C.U.B. being C.U.B., started getting agitated that his siblings weren't updating him, but were updating me (his phone was getting crap reception). This, however, let me get a few lighthearted digs in, such as he's obviously the youngest sibling and what not. And also because of being C.U.B., he had at least one crazy thing to say. Well two, but the funnier, less run of the mill one was that the Army (he's in the reserves) injected him with megalodon DNA and as a result he's immune to leukemia and is able to heal quickly from broken bones.

Marie eventually gave us the ok that we could stop watching the house, wrap up the food, and lock up, so Villager and I went to the tiki bar, then went back to her place to watch Doctor Who.

Marie bought me the US Constitution cum collected works of the Founders (she's a Democrat, so it wasn't a crazy gift).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Whoa, so how's Kathy?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Whoa, so how's Kathy?

She's seemingly ok. It apparently wasn't a heart attack, but rather vasovagal reaction. She was discharged today. I was going to visit her because she was up the street from where I work, but she was getting out earlier than I was. i'm going to give her a call tomorrow.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

My mom and another aunt are both nurses though, and they're like, get a second opinion. Mom's side has a history of heart disease.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Based on what I observed, and looked up about vasovagal, it fits, but like I said, history. Uncle Jim died of a heart attack, Uncle Bill probably died of a heart attack (he lived on a boat and was found in the water), Aunt Terri had a heart attack, Kathy has had a heart attack before, Aunt Marie is all healthy living and had a heart attack.....


Twid,
Hopes he's more dad than mom

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hearts are dumb.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Hearts are dumb.

Hearts are great as long as they work properly. I'm hoping it was just what the doctors said. Kathy lives alone, so, you know. Sudden life threatening things are double no bueno.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hearts are dumb.

Hearts are great as long as they work properly. I'm hoping it was just what the doctors said. Kathy lives alone, so, you know. Sudden life threatening things are double no bueno.

Oh. Can I get a new one, then?

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Hearts are dumb.

Hearts are great as long as they work properly. I'm hoping it was just what the doctors said. Kathy lives alone, so, you know. Sudden life threatening things are double no bueno.

Oh. Can I get a new one, then?

Put me down for a working properly one, if we're taking orders. I hear shipping is easier if you buy in bulk.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Well, I am thinking of going into biotech so maybe I can clone up a few.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hearts are dumb.

Hearts are great as long as they work properly. I'm hoping it was just what the doctors said. Kathy lives alone, so, you know. Sudden life threatening things are double no bueno.

Oh. Can I get a new one, then?

Put me down for a working properly one, if we're taking orders. I hear shipping is easier if you buy in bulk.

Certainly we can get this shit cheaper in a bulk buy.

[Cain]

I would just like to report that Blood Dragon is both ridiculous and funny.  Saving nerds, throwing my D20 around, being attacked by flesh-eating cassowaries, ripping hearts out of the bodies of Omega Force scrubs, going Full Rambo (archery only) on the first liberated base....ah, good times.

Dishonored is significantly less funny...it's a good game, so far, but I know to get the best ending, I have to actively avoid killing people, which is really, really hard.  I may have to turn the difficulty back down to Normal, just to get used to the stealth system a bit more.  I, uh, kinda slaughtered everyone in the prison escape, which is the first mission of the game.

Modded Skyrim to boost the combat difficulty and, well, I'm impressed.  Bandits actually use tactics.  They don't see someone get shot in the head by an arrow, look around for five seconds and then say "Oh, must've been my imagination" and go back to jacking off to lusty Argonian maids or whatever.  Instead, they send someone to confront you head on, another to flank and with the combat tweaks, flanking attacks hurt a lot.  Being hit while crouching hurts a lot.  Blocking can mitigate a lot of damage, but it takes large amounts of stamina and great timing, because if you get it wrong, enemy attacks stagger you and then the enemy goes to town on you.

And that's just the normal enemy AI boost.  I haven't even encountered a dragon yet...which I'm looking forward to.  The mod I've installed makes them unpredictable as hell...they don't get grounded consistently, or staggered consistently, or use their abilities consistently.  They also focus on you as the main target, can call for backup and abilities that were cut from the final game were put back in.  The mod maker also restored the original Civil War storyline, before Bethesda cut it.  Apparently, they planned a huge campaign for the civil war, with the real possibility of failure, hold-by-hold battles, multiple quests for each hold etc which was cut because, uh, the Bethesda dev responsible for it was abducted by aliens one day, or something.  It's all still in the code, pretty much, but for whatever reason, they decided not to implement it.

[Sita]

This blasted cold has robbed me of my voice. Not that I talk that much anyway, but it's a bit annoying when you need to yell for your son to come in and all you can get out is a squeak
Got in on the free Left 4 Dead 2 thing on Steam. Gonna see if i can coax my computer to play it today (my specs aren't even what they have for minimal, but sometimes I can work around that with settings)