Month: March 2014

Miracle of Normality

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Visiting Grandma

So today you are getting a bonus post out of me.  Sometimes I post out of a sense of duty, other times I post because I need to get something out of my head.  This is going to be one of the later, and as a result it is going to be deeply personal.  Gratz… you guys get to go inside my head for a bit.  If you only care about the gaming side of my blog then today’s post is likely not for you.  Yesterday afternoon we made the trip up to my hometown, because after not going for a few days… we felt like we needed to.  My mother has not been dealing with this terribly well, and honestly I feel like I haven’t even really started dealing myself.

The big event that has transpired since last up there, was that Grandma was ready for viewing at the local funeral home.  I am not a big fan of funerals, and not a huge fan of viewing the body.  People talk about how the body “looks just like them”, or how good of a job the funeral home did.  I have to say objectively… that the funeral home did do a good job.  They made my grandmother look pretty, but the problem is…  my grandmother is not laying there in that casket.  What remained laying there was a carefully decorated husk left behind when the person they were, died.

I am not a deeply religious person, in fact after my catholic upbringing I have pretty much avoided allegiance to any religious doctrine.  I tend to believe the things that I can directly observe, but I do believe in the soul.  I think we just lack the technology yet to observe the fundamental spark that makes each of us a unique person.  I have been there as someone died, and watched the light leave their body.  Moments before they were the person I knew and loved, and then almost like a balloon deflating whatever magical stuff made them the person… was just gone.  So that is why I say that no matter how pretty they attempt to make the husk… it never “looks just like them”.  When I die I want to be cremated… I want to dispel all illusions that what remains when I am gone, is anything but my remnants.

Miracle of Normality

Once we finished viewing the body, we went out to my grandmothers house to see my mother.  My mother and uncle have more or less been holding vigil at grandmas house trying to contact the family and figure out what all they needed to do before the funeral this coming Tuesday.  The more time I spend there around her siblings and my cousins… the more amazed I am that I made it out of the environment relatively unscathed.  That is not to say I don’t have my own deep furrows and scars… but I fared far better than most.  My mom and dad for whatever failings they had somehow managed to provide me a relatively normal upbringing, my cousins did not end up so lucky.

It seems like the only real way to be okay, is to escape the gravity of this small town.  My cousin didn’t make it out, and now he is a drug infused mess.  He managed to marry a woman who was even more messed up than himself, and together they brought into this world a lovely and intelligent little girl.  The problem is… the longer she is caught in the gravity well of the two of them… the worse off she will be.  He claims that he is no longer using, but the signs betray him.  He is severely fried, doing all the telltale signs that my friends did in high school when they were “flying high”.  So either he is using, or his wife is using enough to give him a permanent contact high.

He has pretty much burned all of his bridges with local employers, who give the assessment that “he is a hard worker, when he shows up for work and is sober”.  Essentially what he needs to do is take his daughter and go somewhere far far away from the influence of his “friends”.  Because he is basically destroying her life as well.  Right now he is making money by scavenging for metals to sell for what will ultimately end up as drug money.  He was talking about how good his daughter had gotten as spotting copper.  How she ends up dragging home extension cords, and various other things that have copper in them.  I fully expect that this is going to end up in tragedy.

At this point… I am wondering what exactly I can do.  He at least cares for her and tries really hard to be a good father.  If I turn them into DHS, she is old enough and far enough gone that she will bounce from foster home to foster home and likely end up more messed up than she already is.  Her best hope right now is for him to essentially give her to his sister to raise.  His sister escaped the gravity well and moved far far away.  So much so that when my mom called to tell her about grandma, she didn’t answer the phone and had to call back after listening to the message.  She said that she no longer answered phone calls from our area code, because she refused to let her family be torn apart by her brother.

Still Dealing

So anytime I try and break down over missing my grandmother, I just find that I can’t.  I live such a charmed life in comparison to the rest of my family.  I feel like in some way I don’t deserve to break down.  I realize at some point I will have to “deal” and it won’t exactly be pretty.  Thankfully I have a very supportive wife, and a vast support structure of friends that will be there to catch me when I fall.  In the meantime I am going to keep soldiering forward towards Tuesday, and the funeral.  There were so many times I had to bite my tongue yesterday, and I was very proud of my wife in that she was able to as well.  There was a constant flurry of texting between the two of us, but through that we were able to keep “stable”.

Grandma would not want there to be fighting, and there is a very tentative peace currently between the siblings… and they don’t need me straining it.  Right now everything of grandmas entered a trust, where the four brothers and sisters… and my cousin who represents the fifth now have to work together to make decisions.  This is not going to end cleanly, and I imagine shortly after the funeral a war will erupt between the siblings.  I can already see people cracking up, and my mother is not exactly helping this by being extremely overbearing.  I realize they are all hurting, they are just dealing with that hurt in some bad ways.  In the midst of all of this… my internal conflict and suffering really doesn’t matter much.  So I will do my damnedest to keep a stoic face until everything is finished.

Assassin’s Creed II

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Steampowered Sunday #10

I have had a really lousy week, and if you have followed my blog you know why.  However that said, I did not want to break the Steampowered Sunday tradition.  This week we had a tie between Assassin’s Creed II and Evoland, and in order to settle the tie I essentially flipped a coin.  As a result I played roughly and hour and a half of Assassin’s Creed II.  At face value this seems like a game I would not like very much, considering in general I do not like stealth titles.  However so many friends of mine have been so into this game series that I felt like I had to give it a try.  I feel like I am somehow losing gamer cred by admitting that I have never played ANY of the Assassin’s Creed games before today.


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All of my friends have said that the essential title that I needed to start with was Assassin’s Creed II, so as a result that is the title I have placed in the running for a few weeks.  Initially the title suffers from many of the console game tropes that I hate.  Namely the “long introduction” and the forced “stealth” to get to an area where the game opens up.  Then when you finally get into the action, there is yet another trope that I cannot stand…  “the un-skippable mini-game” namely in the form of the rooftop race with your brother.  So early on… things were not looking really good for this title.  Within the first 15 minutes it had committed three cardinal sins.  That said I kept playing and eventually got a grasp on why exactly this game is fun.

AssassinsCreedIIGame 2014-03-23 11-16-19-93

Where this game shines is the open world exploration aspect.  While they only give you a small area at a time to roam around, for the most part you are allowed to get to your objective in whatever fashion you like.  Additionally the “stealth” aspect of the game is extremely forgiving.  If you are “feeling your wheaties” you can beat the shit out of your pursuers, or if you don’t feel like fighting you can simply run away and in a grand theft auto style wait for the coast to be clear again.  Your enemies show up as very clear red dots on the map, and in many times you can simply blend into the crowd to avoid them.  The only time they seem to notice you is if you are extremely close or doing something like running about or doing something to draw attention to yourself.

AssassinsCreedIIGame 2014-03-23 11-22-55-66 I realize at an hour and a half into the game I have barely scratched the surface.  So far it seems like the game progresses in a very GTA style, where you are presented a series of small quests.  Some of them involve going and fetching something, others beating up a person, and others still following around NPCs and helping them with some task.  All of this is pretty boring, but the fact that you can accomplish these missions by wandering around the rooftops of the city make it far more enjoyable.  I can see why people are into this title, and I think I would like it even more if it were more open and free.  I can only imagine how great this title would be if it were presented in a more “fallout” type sandbox manner.  Right now you are given pretty clear direction in what the quests do and which ones you should take.

AssassinsCreedIIGame 2014-03-23 11-18-25-82 So far the only real frustration is when I manage to get a “timed event” style quest.  I find movement in this world to be cludgy at best, especially after being used to the parkour of newer games like Titanfall.  There are many times where I do something like leap off of a building that I did not intend, but did so because I either didn’t wait long enough for my camera angle to readjust or waited too long.  If I can get used to the quirks of the movement I feel like my enjoyment will improve, however when you put me under a timer and the  movement does something screwball I feel like throwing the controller across the room.  I have to remind myself that this game was initially released in 2009, and since then game controls have become so much more responsive.  I am sure if I cracked open Assassin’s Creed IV many of these issues have been solved.

AssassinsCreedIIGame 2014-03-23 11-15-41-64 Overall I think this is going to be a title I play quite a bit more of.  In fact once I finish a few chores this morning, I will probably boot it back up and play some more.  I am hooked enough on what is there to make me want to play some more.  Right now I am also feeling deeply antisocial, so a single player title is a good option.  At this moment I am tentatively positive about the game and considering I got it as part of a massive package of other Assassin’s Creed titles, I can see maybe going back and playing the others as well.  My friends all told me to start with 2, because there were some serious controllability issues prior to that point.  If that is the case I am very glad I did, because I already feel like 2 is more than a little awkward, I would not have likely made it this far in a title where the controls were worse.

Comfort Gaming

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Classy Defined

This morning I got up like I do most weekend mornings, and threw on enough clothing to make myself presentable.  Generally speaking I don’t shower until later in the day, so generally this means I have to throw on a skull cap to tame my hair that is sticking straight up.  In the winter this makes sense… in the summer not so much.  Honestly in the morning anytime I see someone in a skull cap or baseball cap… I pretty much assume they are doing precisely what I am doing.  As always I went to QuikTrip to gather up sustenance, and walked away with chocolate donut holes for the Mrs. and a jalapeño sausage roll for me.

While there… I saw the definition of classy.  This woman walked in, who looked like she was already three sheets to the wind.  What was she buying you ask?  Well she planted an “Olde English” 40 oz malt liquor on the counter.  Granted this is 8 am in the morning, most of the people in the place are buying donuts or juice or something more breakfast appropriate.  In addition she had a package of twinkies and asked the guy at the counter if he sold single swisher sweets.  After some fumbling around he found her a three pack, and I guess that was “close enough”.  So yeah… I guess that is how some people roll.  I am guessing this is not breakfast but a “night cap” of sorts.  Just not something I normally see in the neighborhood QuikTrip.

Comfort Gaming

I think I grieve differently than most.  Since the news of my grandmother, all I have really wanted to do is “turtle”…  aka pull my head inside my shell and forget that the world exists.  One of my chosen ways of doing this is to go off and play games that have always made me happy.  One of the games I always cycle back to eventually is Everquest 2.  It is like an old friend that I have spent so much time with, that I don’t even need to talk anymore… and I know that it understands me.  Yeah I am sure it is odd that I personify a game like that, but really EQ2 was a thing I did for “me” and no one else.  All the while raiding in WoW I would steal private time by logging into Norrath and wandering around aimlessly on my army of alts.

Just as a coincidence, right now my absolutely favorite event is going on in EQ2.  Once a year Chronoportals open up allowing players to revisit areas from the original Everquest.  Some of them are rather funny, like the Ancient Cyclops event in Sinking Sands.  Back in the day there were all sorts of “theories” for how you get the ancient cyclops to spawn.  Some of these involved killing all the madmen, spiders or mummies… and none of them really worked.  It was a fairly random chance that you would get him to spawn.  Why did players care? Well the Ancient Cyclops dropped the item needed to start the Journeyman Boots quest line, which of course provided the player with their own personal way of casting “Spirit of the Wolf”.  SoW Plx!

Basically they are a really awesome way of getting account bound gear for your alts.  I am not sure when I will actually level an alt again, but sooner or later I always seem to, and having these weapons and gear makes a bit difference.  On my Shadow Knight I am still using the sword that comes from the Lower Guk chronoportal event.  It is precisely the kind of mindless nostalgia that I need right now.  The above video has me running through several of the events, or at least the ones I could remember off the top of my head.  However if you are looking for a full listing, the place to check is Zam as always the amazing Cyliena does a great job as always with updates.

The Great Wipe

The end of Alpha is I believe next Wednesday morning, and the beginning of Closed Beta begins Wednesday afternoon/evening when the servers come back up.  What this means is everything we have created along the way… will be gone.  The only thing that will be kept are your characters, and the various entitlements like things that came from the trailblazer packs and things purchased from the store.  This means all of the claim data will be wiped.  I have a big mixed opinion about this.  I don’t mind the idea of losing the work I have done on my claim, but I really don’t like the idea of losing my claim in general.  I like my claim, I like where it is.  My frustration is that there will be a massive landrush Wednesday evening… which is going to suck.

My plan will be to try and get a spot similar to where I had it before on Liberation/Pingo, but if I cannot… who knows where I will end up.  Basically the acquisition of goods begins a new.  So that means we will have to go back to square one with only our extra special trailblazer axe to start and work our way through the gearing tiers again.  Here is hoping that with the addition of heartwood the grind for stuff is far less painful.  As a result I got in for a bit yesterday, but I didn’t really feel like doing much.  I made a few claims extension flags to see how well that worked, but really with everything going away, I don’t feel much like screwing with it.  I have a bit of my stuff templated, but really I found using super huge templates really awkward so I will probably build everything back from scratch.

The cool thing about closed beta is that each of us trailblazers are getting friend keys.  The notice from the other day says these are no longer going to be time limited keys… but instead permanent access to the beta from this point onwards.  I know a few people who wanted them, so I will be trying to hand mine out that way.  However there should be a lot of them up for grabs as I know a lot of people in the blogosphere who are Trailblazers.  My hope is that they pretty much limit the closed beta access to just the friend codes for a bit, at least until the great landrush is over.  My goal is to get another claim somewhere in a forested area and then start over from there.  I really liked being in the forest, especially since the later item grind ends up being wood, and not ore.

In Memorial

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Bad News

When last I wrote it seemed as things were looking up, and that my grandmother was improving.  So I got up yesterday morning thinking this, and as I went through training I kept expecting to get a text giving me a status update on how thing were going.  I had just finished eating lunch at Chipotle when I got a text from my father.  Now normally my dad is jovial at all times, but this one was rather somber saying only “call me as soon as you can”.  When I saw it, my heart sank because I was pretty sure what was going to say.  Sure enough when I went outside to call back he said “grandma is no longer with us.”

Things were in fact going as planned yesterday.  She was visibly improving, and they had taken the ventilator and feeding tube out.  She seemed to be breathing on her own just fine for a bit, but then apparently her blood pressure shot up rapidly and she suffered a heart attack.  Apparently there is only roughly an 11% chance that a young and healthy patient is going to make it back from going “code blue”.  However when it is someone who is either very sick or very old, it is almost futile.  My grandmother unfortunately was both sick and old, and even though they tried to revive her there just wasn’t really a chance.

A Normal Life

After she had passed the doctors said that she was never going to have a normal life again.  This had been a fact that apparently no one shared with us, or at least not the right people at the right time.  Apparently it was highly unlikely that she would have ever left the hospital and returned to normal life after what she had been though.  She would have been in some form of a medical assisted situation from that point on.  She had already been tied to an oxygen tank for several years, and as much as she hated that…  she would not have tolerated more very well.

I don’t believe they had fully roused her from sedation yet when it happened.  So I hope that means she went relatively peacefully.  She had been “under” since last Friday evening when they did so to try and force her to rest.  As a result the majority of this week she has been sleeping relatively peacefully.  I am very thankful that I spent the time with her Friday, holding her hand and letting her lean against me as she struggled to breathe.  While she shifted in and out of lucidity, I know there were moments that she knew very much that I was there.  I got to spend at least a few moments with my grandmother before they put her under.

Bereavement Special

The thing is… I have been through so many deaths in the family at this point that I end up falling into funeral mode.  On the way up to my home town we stopped in at the grocery store to purchase what I jokingly refer to as the “bereavement special”.  People bring you all sorts of stuff when there has been a death in the family, but no one ever thinks to bring the most important thing… toilet paper.  So when there has been a death in my family or someone else’s I tend to bring a package of basics… because those are almost always the first things to go.  So last night I gathered up Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, Napkins, Disposable plates, cups and silverware and a huge box of trash bags.

The hardest thing about last night is realizing that this is likely going to be the last big family get together.   My grandmother was the glue on my mothers side of the family.  Her house as the focal point of the holidays.  When my grandmother on the other side passed away several years ago, we watched as slowly any semblance of a holiday fell apart.  While I realize that I will still have the holidays with my parents, gone will be the big gatherings.  My generation is really not as close knit as the older ones, and while I get along fine with my cousins… we all have our own lives and things to do.  We rarely make the time to get together in any fashion, even though the majority of us all live within an hour of each other.  So this funeral may be the last time I see some of them until the next funeral.

Haunting Malaise

In all honesty, it really has not hit me yet.  I am so amazingly thankful for my friends and the insane outpouring of support that I have received so far.  You guys are all amazing, and I love you all dearly.  Right now I think my body is in mental shock, and at some point I will absolutely lose my shit.  I am not sure if it will be before or after the funeral, but for my Grandmother on my dads side it started during the funeral and continued on for a few days.  Honestly that death was the beginning of a downward emotional spiral, and I am hoping that I can stave that off this time.  I was in a really bad place mentally after that death, and I am hoping I can go into this one knowing that is a possibility and keep it from happening.

In part that one was towards the end of this insane streak of deaths in the family, and I think I just couldn’t take any more.  There was a period of time where over the course of 5-6 years we lost 14-15 family members.  I think I have mostly recovered from that, and I handled the death of my Grandfather okayish, and that has been about two years ago.  I guess in a way I am thankful that I saw her last Saturday.  At that point they had put in the ventilator and fully sedated her, and she was just lying there peacefully hooked up to all these machines.  It was at that point that it entered my mind that it was possible she would never make it out of that bed.  I have had the better part of a week to chew on that image in the back of my head.  Right now I think I am in a better place to deal with her being gone than I would have on last Friday, when everything was immediate and fresh.

My Childhood

No matter how prepared I am, this is going to hurt a lot.  My earliest memories from childhood are from my Grandmothers house.  My mom went back to work pretty quickly after my birth, so from infant on I spent every single day with my grandma and grandpa.  There are so many stories of me as a child, and at this point I find it hard to sort out the ones I actually remember and the ones that have been recreated in my memory based on the stories of others.  I do however remember laying on the floor in front of the television watching Mr. Rogers, and doodling.  I remember running around her house with a towel safety pinned around my neck as a cape.  I remember my grandfather chasing me around the house with a cattle prod, and me hiding behind grandmas legs for protection.  It was years later that I found out that the cattle prod he was using was completely broken, and he was making the buzzing sound with his mouth.

So much of myself I owe to my grandmother.  I am pretty certain that my love of games in general comes from her.  Every single day, for hours on end she would sit at the table playing solitaire.  Sometimes she and I would play candy land together, or trouble… to the point where both boards were completely worn out.  She was my caretaker and my constant companion as a little boy.  Hell the fact that I don’t use a recipe when I cook is almost certainly directly tied to her.  She was one of those rocks that you can place your world on as stable and unchanging.  I miss her so much already, not having her around is going to be hell.  I’m getting emotional writing this, and I have to go to training yet today so I am going to cut it off here.  Thanks again for all the support, I greatly value each of you in my “internet family”.