I dream of Knitting

It seems like I haven't really knit in a long time. No active projects on hand. Everything that are on needles are side projects. I still surf Ravelry, Knitty and all the usual sources for inspiration but time is too precious now. My sister is getting married in about two weeks and a week Saturday I will be on the way to Southeast Asia to visit relatives then to Bali where her small and intimate ceremony will be!

Months back I had thought of knitting her something but I really didn't know what and had I decided what to make, there wouldn't have been time. I am stuck wondering how to spend the money I allotted for her wedding gift...I am terrible. It will be a last minute gift or just a chunk of cash. Maybe I will knit her a closed pouch, with the cash in it. That way it will last forever AND it's sentimental! Just like she wanted!

Anyways. I love the videogame series of Katamari Damacy. Doesn't this look like a Katamari?

Review: Northern Digital Expo (NDEX 2007)

I heard about this event on the radio last Thursday on the way home from work and I became so excited. The instant I walked in the door, I started looking up information about it. The website made it sound awesome, possibly better than the World Series of Video Games that happened a few months ago. I never had a chance to go to that either but I thought the NDEX would make up for it. Boy, were we sorely disappointed...

The website said admission is $12.50. I must've failed to read the fine print because it is actually $15. After being soured by the slightly higher cost than expected, I had hope to be sweetened once I walked through the front doors to see all the glory of video-gaming & larger-than-life demos. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that you can take in the entire expo area in one sweep of the eyes and the collective heart of me, roommate & bf just sank. I'm not saying it was just 10 guys, 10 booths in a 50' X 50' room. There were some good-looking displays, flashing lights, a main stage, game demos, etc. BUT...Of the big 3 consoles out there right now, only 2 were represented: Wii & Xbox 360. There's something wrong with that!

There was a lot of "coverage" for Guitar Hero 3 & Halo 3 as they are the higher profile games right now. Halo & Gears of War were the featured games for the MLG Pro competitions. The MLG stadium (which was pretty nice) & tournament areas took up a good half of the show floor. The Nintendo booth had 6 Wiis on demo but all the games were at least 2 months old, nothing I haven't seen. I like video games but I'm not so avid a gamer that I know everything that's coming out in the next 6 months. For me to have seen and even played all the games on demo? Wow! LAAAAME! They had a few DS's on demo too, I didn't even bother with those. That booth's saving grace was the fact that they were handing out free iron-on Nintendo character t-shirts or customized Mii t-shirts. But even that, the iron-ons were kind of ugly because the clear parts were not pre-trimmed so you end up with this dirty-white misshapen rectangle with a colorful character in the middle on an office-A4-paper-white tee . Whatever, it was free.

A large part of the expo floor was taken up by 2 Ford cars on display. Ford is the title sponsor so sure, give them their space but it was pretty unrelated to video games. One of the cars had a video system built in so guys were always sitting in there playing racing games but that is so 2002, we need a bit more innovation than that. The cooler looking car, a retro-racing blue white & orange painted Ford GT was locked, so you couldn't even sit in it or anything. I would say the 360 booth was the most appealing. It took up almost a sixth of the entire expo floor. They had a mini-stage built, 2 consoles for GH3, 2 more arcade-style consoles in front of those for more GH3. Then off to one side they had about 20-25 arcade demo consoles for various games, new & old. Zellers had a stupid mini store set up with cheap MLG shirts, console accessories, batteries? and others . It was the ugliest thing I've ever seen next to an actual Zellers store. It was a shameful display, truly. What else was there now?

Oh I know...NOT MUCH! I agree that the delay in us heading down to the CNE resulting in us missing the latter rounds of the GH3 competition and the slight detour we ended up taking when trying to look for parking added to this negative review. Bf was so bitter & disappointed, he was just in a mood to blame me for wasting our money and for dragging us down to this "thing". It made me kind of annoyed but I kept my mouth shut and we ended up not participating much. I missed the open free play on the main stage for GH3 because of us dicking around NOT playing any demos so they set up the stage for a live band performance. I ended up just playing with roommate at the 360 stage, but we didn't even "go on stage". That would've been a good rush, to play a stranger and totally rock them or both of us killing the song!

So all in all NDEX 2007 was a waste of time & money. When we left, we snuck into the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair next door as they were shutting down for the night. For the 20 minutes that we roamed about, things were actually way more interesting. There were giant mutant vegetables and cattle of all shapes & sizes: fuzzy ones, lean ones, tall ones, you name it! We missed the Eukanuba Superdogs show but saw a lot of nice doggies as they were heading home. Even though the entire place stank of cow shit it was refreshing! (The sights, not the shit.)

Next year, I am definitely going to Fan Expo & WSVG instead of this. OR, if they were smarter, MLG would just amalgamate with WSVG. We don't need 2 different circuits for video gaming, yet. Maybe in another 10 years.

The Goings On

After finishing the yoga bag, I have been kind of feeling blah about knitting. Up until the final stitches, I was all excited about finishing because I have 3 more projects in my head that needs to be done. Well, technically 4. I have yet to make the shoulder/book bag pattern from the Garns Studio for myself. I should line the Learn-to-Crochet bag. The next 2 projects are would-be gifts for bf and roommate. Bf is gonna get an earflap hat using the Swell pattern on Knitty. For roommate I am doing a custom headband with my first attempt at stranded colorwork and knitting elastic to create a logo of some sort on a solid background. The idea was to pick a simple 8 bit video game character for the logo but because I haven't picked this yet and because I planned on buying the new extremely cheap ($1.99 US!!! Duuude!) sport weight peruvian highland wool on Knitpicks, I have no new yarn to work with.

I was thinking 8-bit Link would be pretty cool, he would match roommate's snowboard jacket in brown & white. On second thought, after going off on a tangeant and looking up more classic video game sprites, Link probably isn't the best. Here're a bunch that could be interesting but with a simple enough color scheme on a solid dark brown or blue background. Gotta decide tonight so I can order the yarn.



So the reason I felt blah was because I had to go back to my In-betweeny Afghan for a bit to tide me over. Except it just kind of bored me so I decided to start working out again instead which is good but now I haven't knit in like 4 days and it doesn't feel right. I have to knit tonight. I MUST!

Knitting for Priest

Just have not been knitting. Been getting second sock syndrome and I guess I've been a little bit busy in my spare time (playing Guitar Hero 80's edition). I honestly think my SSS is justified though since the first one turned out pretty crappy. Plus, I have to go back and count the rows and decreases because I free-formed the other one. Anyways, I should have some free time tonight aside from the daily cooking, cleaning and definitely some exercising today. Although I should be moving the random junk upstairs into the basement to prepare for some of bf's relatives coming into town in about 10 days. Bah, why is there never enough free time in the day?!

Now on that twangy Guitar Hero note, there is a song in the 80's edition called Electric Eye by Judas Priest. It has made a convert of me and I've been obsessing for several days now over the greatness and perfection that is Judas Priest. I watched some of the concert footage included in the Metalogy box set from their 1982 Memphis show and was absolutely baffled, awed by their level of skill, showmanship and rock-your-socks-off-dom. They justly deserve the title of Metal Gods. I bow down to them in their skin tight leather and big poodle hair, whips, studs and motorcycle flair... They rocked so hard, it didn't matter that they weren't the hunkiest bunch of any era. The sheer bad-ass-ness of their music just kicks you in the face and screams "Come get some!"

Catering to Evil

There is a new game out by Codemasters called Overlord. I have yet to actually play it but from the looks of reviews, screenshots and in-game videos, it's right up my alley. Not being a video game junkie or avid follower of gaming news, I first knew of the game after seeing a TV commercial for it. Instantly, the announcer's description reminded me of previous games I loved and played obsessively like Dungeon Keeper & Black & White. After further research, I learned that it is compared to these games very often.

Going by what I have seen so far, I would liken it to playing WOW as a warlord or hunter except you command a legion of pets instead of one. Each class of pet has its own abilities and weaknesses and they do your bidding like Dungeon Keeper creatures minus the building aspect. It's like Black & White in that your minions will gather materials and treasure for you and you have the ability to sacrifice them for whatever purpose. The rest appears to be story driven with the main purpose of wreaking havoc upon citizens and NPC's in the game world. There isn't much written about the multiplayer aspect of the game but when my computer is upgraded with a new motherboard and chip to specs, I'll let you know. We can probably classify it as a third person RTS RPG.

If you're like me and like to control minions who'll fight your battles, be greedy and gather treasure all day long, sacrifice your own creatures just for laughs, smote your enemies with powerful spells and swarm them with your gruesome army, then you might want to check this one out.

Life with World of Warcraft

Since I have been working a regular 9-5 job, my day after work is scheduled flexibly in neat packets of time for chores, cooking and leisure. After adjusting to this new way of regulated life a few months ago, I needed a hobby. Something enjoyable to fill up my leisure time. For the first 2 months, I joined in on the wildly popular MMORPG adventures of Blizzard's World of Warcraft with my boyfriend and roommate. I enjoyed the gameplay and the entire concept of the game very much but the addictive nature of it kept messing up my schedule.

This is especially problematic since my work schedule is off-sync with the people I lived with because they work afternoons to nights. When they come home at 11pm, they would play for hours non-stop until the early morn, levelling, gaining XP. My progression in the game was always a few levels behind, which would make my character weaker and less effective when I played with them. They tried to close the gap for me by playing my character while I was at work but that only frustrated me because new skills and spells were learned without me actually experiencing the change. In short, I could not fulfill the potentials of my character.

So they continued on without me and at first I solo'd my quests but alas, the game is designed to be played with other players to enhance the gaming experience. It was simply too difficult in many cases to go it alone, especially on PVP servers. After that my WOW life just stopped. My character, forever frozen at level 29 or 30, who can remember. Since I quit, my boyfriend and roommate have gone to to a different server with their guild, started fresh at zero. In approximately 3 months, they are in their 60's. There's never a night when WOW is not running on a computer at home. The soundtrack to my homelife are the clashing sounds of epic weapons, the sound of spell effects and the muffled cursing and yelling over Teamspeak, all overlaying the looping BG music of the World of Warcraft.

I wonder what the total # of subscriptions of active WOW accounts there are in the world. Since the inception of the game, how many waking hours have these players dedicated to playing the game? How much time to they spend looking up information about the game, such as tips, secrets, strategies, etc.? What percentage of their leisure time is strictly for WOW? What percentage of players joined and quit? After how long? How many returned to the game after quitting? I think it would be a very interesting study on gamers' behavior with many implications.