Life with electricity Hour +1

So we got slammed here in Maryland with 30" of snow.  This means my street won't be plowed until Tuesday.  I have food, beer, and video games.  One problem, my powers been out since 2am Saturday morning...and it's cold!

Being cut off from civilization, frontier rules start to apply.  My neighbor made a ill-concieved attempt to get out (when the snow was still only 2 feet).  The main reason-- no coffee.  Well, I have a gas stove top, so two cups of instant coffee later, no charge for deliver, and his daughter is bring over fire wood.  So utilizing the barter system, I just got a modicum of heat for the house (basically everything within 6 ft of the fireplace).

Another fun fact:  Fios phone service only works for about 8 hours w/o electricity...2 hrs after I woke up, the phone systems battery backup died.  So reliance was on my cell and the car charger.

Luckily after 34 hours, and an average house temperature of 48 degrees F, Pepco restored power.  Hey, I might actually see Saints game tonight!

Recently there's been an influx of good games in my realm of influence.  Some of the biigest games of the year were released in the days leading up to the holidays, and I was forced into having to make some cuts from my wishlist.  Dragon Age: Origins, Forza and MW2 had to wait until after Christmas as I ended up getting L4D2.   Just a month prior I picked up Lego:Rock Band, which I never quite finished.  So with my limited xbox time, I've been trying to get in some zombie killing, rock out with the Legos and of course, commit some evil acts in the name of Fallout 3. 

The next thing I know, I'm picking up some old games from gohastings.com-  Bionic Commando, Robotech: Battle Cry, and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.  Well, Bionic Commando has got me back into the XBL DLC Bionic Commando:Rearmed--another time killer.  Well, a mix up on LoTR: RoK (it got stolen from it's packing envelope) had me reordering it and while I'm awaiting it's arrival, I remember an old mod for a PC game, Mount & Blade.  M&B for the uninitiated is a medieval knight simulator and quite good at that!  So now I'm playing a LotR mod for M&B, trying to kill zombies, commado-ing bionically, rocking out with the Legos, keeping Fallout 3 out of my 360, and still combing the interweb for deals on Dragon Age, when Mass Effect 2 comes out!  Having never gotten the first one (got it mixed up with Lost Planet and thought it'd be too time consuming anyways), I'm jonesin' for a cheap Platinum edition ME1.  Is it just me, or am I about to go into gaming overload?  There's just too many games, not enough time, and very few ways of justifying my expenses when I can't find the time to even play the games I've got.  Strange days indeed.

I logged off a XBF not to long ago and to my surprise, I was the featured member.  To think, little old me, the "poster child" of XBF!  I started planning out who to thank in my acceptance speech.  Should I change my profile pic to something more provocative?  How should I use my new found celebrity status?  I then logged off and noted that I'd been replace by Katie.  Well, I guess my 15 minutes were up.  It was a good run though.

After wasting some solid hours making new friends in Bethesda and Wheaton (alarmingly in real life those are my stomping grounds) I set off to complete my goal of nuking the peaceful settlement of Megaton out of existence.  I found that there were still a couple of locked doors and safes to crack.  As luck would have it, my adventures had ramped up my lock picking skills to 95 percent, and with the right outfit, no lock was too great for the Lord Humungus.  I decided that there was no point in leaving Jericho behind when the bomb went off, so I recruited him for good measure and off we went to Megaton's Armory.  Deputy Steel, a Mr. Gutsy was a heap of scrap metal before I even saw a computer terminal that would have shut him down.  It was a nice little raid, as the 2 Chinese Assault rifles completed my collection of 30 to give to Pronto up in Paradise Falls.  Unfortunately, someone must have seen us break the door down, as the whole town was filled with angry red blips on my Pipboy's radar.  Well, let me tell you, that spur of the moment recruiting of Jericho sure came in handy.  He began running around and blasting the citizens of Megaton with impunity.  I capped Lucas Simms and took his duster and hat as souvenirs.  Moira was still in her shop to sell off my loot.  I pick pocketed her and planted some leather armor on her to change her look.  One load screen later and she was decked out like a Road Warrior. 

So after the little rampage in Megaton, I planted the bomb and left for Tenpenny Tower.  I waited around until dawn and was pleased to find that Mr. Burke was waiting for me at Alistairs suite.  A short conversation and a press of a button and Megaton's fate was sealed.  The mushroom cloud was spectacular in the dawn's early light, and my metamorphasis to evil was complete.   I returned to the crater that was once Megaton and bumped into none other than Moira.  She had survived the blast, but had become a ghoul.  She was still wearing the leather armor, but I doubt she'll live long out in the wastes.  Well, with that bad deed done, I'll have to plan my next evil outing.  I'm thinking the Pitt may be calling my name.

Not much time devoted to my Fallout 3 addictionlately, but I'm still progressing with my evil character.  I had a lapse in my evil ways and helped out the folks of Big Town with the Super Mutant problem, but really it worked out when Red got killed (saving me the heartache of her getting skilled enroute to Paradise Falls when I got around to enslaving her) and I got my Strictly Business achievement.  I'll have to come back and raze the village and enslave the survivors in my spare time.  Now, I'm working my way back to Megaton to arm the bomb and watch the mushroom cloud from the magnificent view offered by the Tenpenny Tower.  Of course, I'm going to sell these folks out to the ghouls later, but that'll be another chapter.  In the meantime, I used the Mesmetron to pacify some notorious Raider hangouts.  I figured my character as "Lord of the Wastes" needed some followers of a sort.  The trick is to Mezz em, attach the slave collar, and then remove it from your quarry to recruit a lifelong friend.  In places where they respawn, even if they die, they'll come back as an ally.  The Wheaton Armory is now a Raider stronghold that I can walk freely about.  It cuts into my looting, but I guess I could always plant a frag on one and see if we're still friends after the 72 hour respawn.   I'm going to do this to Evergreen Mills and make it my base of operations but I guess I should go nuke Megaton first.

In our last episode, our young evil wannabe was having trouble doing the wrong thing.  After reckognizing my gamer tendency to "do right", I've redoubled my efforts to become "The Scourge of the Wasteland".  And here's what I've found:  Slavery!

The Lord Humungus, after biding his time in Megaton, picking up some experience from running some nearby quests, decided to set out into the wastes.  My first stop was the beggar outside of Megaton.  After refusing him water, I proceeded to beat this sorry excuse for a survivor to death with a baseball bat.  Curiously enough, Deputy Weld, the robotic peace keeper did nothing to stop me.  Feeling vindicated that I might have an evil vein in my body I ventured north, dispatching dogs, mole rats, and the odd Raider or two.  Eventually I came upon the settlement of Paradise Falls.  As my earlier attempts at villainy were dissuaded by gamer bias, I had slightly good karma (not enough stealing and murder I guess).  This settlement is run by Slavers and they sensed my do-good-iness and refused to let me enter without paying or bringing them a slave...hmmm...I think I may have found my sure bet highway to hell. 

After procuring a mesmetron and slave collar I set off for the Minefield where, noted squatter/sniper Arkansas snipes away.  I paid him a little visit at night.  He got some good licks on me before I could get close enough, but a few placed shots from my trusty 10mm and he dropped his rifle and ran.  I waited in the darkness for him to come back for his weapon, and ZAP!  He was Mezzed.  I slipped the collar on and fast traveled back to Paradise Falls.  Scored 250 caps and free entry into the town.  The Slavers kept scoffing at me since my karma still in the neutral range wasn't evil enough, but my career as a Bad Guy had commenced.  I had a list of 3 other VIP targets to get, and from past experience, I knew that these 3 were connected to other quests, items, and other positive interactions that would not be available if enslaved.  Do I care?  Short answer: No.  They'll be slaves soon enough, and who cares about those possible rewards. 

Next stop, Megaton to crush the dreams of one would be author.  Then I'll set about capturing a merchant in Rivet City named Flak.

     So spending many hours, days, and weeks playing my usual do-gooder in Fallout 3, I decided it was time to create a character that just oozed evil.  So, I fired up my faithful copy of FO3 and promptly created Lord Humungus to become the ultimate scourge of the wastes...the Ayatolla of Rock n' Rolla if you will.   So I did the usual mundane tasks of growing up in the Vault trying to pick what would be the cruelest or most violent responses in conversations.  Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot to do early on to be wicked.  SPOILER ALERT:  Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know some minor spoilage.  Then came the Escape! quest where all goes to hell in the Vault.  I proceeded to kill the first Security officer and then encountered Butch.  I gave him a bunch of lip when he asked me to save his mom, but yet, I caved and saved her.  I kept thinking, well, if I save her, there's an option later in the game to get Butch as a follower.  Even if I'm evil, the Humungus from the movie "The Road Warrior" had a whole entourage of minions, so I might as well keep my options open.  I did managed to kill the Overseer on my way out for good measure, so all's not lost on my road to damanation.

     I make it out to the DC Wasteland and go through the usual intro quests at Megaton.  I'm planning on blowing the place up, but there's some useful stuff to do early on that requires the city to be intact.  So, I start the Wasteland Survival Guide quest....and being the goody-two-shoes I always am, I start trying to do the quest the right way.  I start realizing, that I'm just playing this game the way I always play...helping others and trying to get the best rewards for my work.  An evil character should have no qualms missing out on minor rewards in favor of mass casualties, pain and suffering.  I suspect that I'm just a failure at being evil.  What I should be doing is walking into town and killing the Sheriff.  Instead, I find myself looking for what my best options are.  I think my problem is knowing that there's a way to maximize your stats and equipment and it usually involves doing "the right thing".   I guess I need to just fire that game back up and execute the first person in Megaton I see.  I'll probably have to run like hell, but usually after a couple of days of game time, the inhabitants forget your trespasses.  So here's to wreaking havoc!

OK, so I'm not the biggest fan of XBL.  I hate paying extra to access content that should be free.  I get it, servers cost money, but MS is making money hand over fist off of their proprietary xbox accessories, games designed mainly for a multiplayer experience (at the expense of the single player experience), and then they turn around and ding you with a monthly subscription fee.  If MS really thinks it can't provide a free online experience like Sony, then they should reduce their cut of the profit on software (i.e. 360 games should be cheaper since the multiplayer content costs extra).  Why should I pay full price for a game that's only half functional out of the box?  Of course, they probably don't make that much money in game sales vs. console sales, but it's the principle that bothers me.

Well, this free gold weekend to market the new features may have sucked me in.  The facebook and zune stuff (I think there may have been a twitter add-on also, but I'm old and ignore things I don't understand) seemed like garbage.  Not real sure that anyone would get much use out of it, but I guess there must be a market.  But then I tried out that Last.FM feature.  What a pleasant surprise that was!  Never saw much use for it on the PC (I actually use Pandora occasionally), but on my 55" TV with 5.1 surround, this thing was, well, Solid Gold!  I spent several hours messing with this feature.  The music selections were nice, and sounded great on my system.  The little slideshow presentations on the artists were a nice touch.  I could see myself throwing this one on during a party.

Since the weekend was free, I threw in my GH5 for a little music action.  I knocked out some unlockables and achievements not attainable in single player mode and had a nice time playing with some random folks.  It was a lot better of an experience than I recall from that first free month when I bought the system.  Wish I had some better FPS to try out but I don't buy them normally because of the limted single player experience.

So, maybe I need to rethink my position on XBL Gold.  I hate pissing away money but I can afford the the $40ish a year.  Now, my gaming skills are probably so lacking having done nothing but play the weak A.I. that is tossed into games these days to justify a single player campaign, that I'll probably get pwned every step of the way, but, maybe I'll find that multiplayer experience that everyone swears by.

OK, after several weeks of complaining about this HDD thing, I performed the transfer operation.  It looks like a total success, but I guess I'll have to load each game I have save files for to make sure I didn't lose something.  When all's said and done, it looks like I have 90GB free to load up with RB songs.  Maybe I'll get that Forza 3 and install that 2nd disc of cars?

OK, so I guess that guy over in India didn't lie.  It took almost 3 weeks for that transfer kit to arrive.  Of course, it showed up on a night I had plans, so I haven't been able to do the transfer yet.  Here's to hoping the thing doesn't corrupt my game saves.

Still waiting for that HDD transfer kit.  I think they must have to hand craft these babies and then send it by row boat.  The rep told me about 3 weeks.  I just don't get this company at all.

OK, so I'm still in the process of upgrading my meager 20GB hard drive to the elite 120GB.  I decided against the Chinese knock-off on ebay and got a never been used, stripped out of someone's Elite for $75.  So, take that over priced product!  But, I'm still stuck with the data transfer problem (that the additional $75 would have solved). There seems to be no way of getting the data migration kit for cheap so I shelled out $13 to Microsoft.  Turns out, it takes 3-5 weeks to ship these things out!  So, I'll be sitting around admiring my new HDD while I await my transfer kit.  This deal is definitely teaching me a lesson in humility.

OK, so I'm taking the plunge as my 20 Gig HDD has finally filled up.  I balked at spending another $140 on Microsoft proprietary rip-off 120GB HDD.  So after perusing eBay for U.S. sellers (just don't trust anyything being sold from Hong Kong) selling the HDD I decided to go with a $65 special.  Hey the feedback was positive, so I figured I'd save myself $86 after taxes.  I'm awaiting my order but started to fixate on the transfer process.  Apparently you need a data migration kit which I'm guessing will not be included in my order.  So now, do I shell out the $13 that M$ charges for these things or search ebay again and hope I find the right cable?  I guess with my $86 in savings I might as well let M$ rip me off the priviledge to keep the data that is mine.  I tell ya, if I really knew how much of a hassle dealing with M$ products was going to be, I would have spent the extra $200 on the PS3 and never thought twice about it.

Funny how I always get sucked into these social sites, yet am pretty much a loner.  I like to reach out to folks like me and interact, but I usually end up just logging on every couple weeks just to say I did.  I'm just one of those types that needs to feel included but never has the time to devote to being worthy of being included.  Well, maybe the goal of collecting points for the much coveted Gamestop gift card will help inspire me.  We'll see what happens.