Holidays and Surprises

This Christmas holiday was amazing! I have loved the chaos and crazy late nights! I have been going to bed around 6am and waking around 2pm. Not to worry though, everyone in my house has been doing it! As if that makes it better eh.

I’ve played a couple good games of Risk and won the first one (with my girlie cousin). We dominated the other 3 boys and watched them try to create treaties and back stab each other. You definitely need the right group of people (and amount of beer) to sit through a few hours of strategic planning and pure luck of the dice! I couldn’t have asked for a better group! The second game had 7 people although Risk was developed for 6. We took a set of “coloured pieces” from the 2-player Risk game that I own and established a value system.

On Christmas morning, I was surprised to find out that I have a new family member. When I was 10 years old I was given a picture of a small boy, who was incidentally known as my little brother. We had the same biological father. So, sure enough, I was commenting some “merry Christmas” love to my cousins and I saw a post after mine wishing “cousins” a merry Christmas. Hmmm… could it be? It’s been more than 15 years since I’ve considered this small boy. I never  anticipated meeting him, seeing him, or talking to him as an adult. I sent a private message to my cousin asking if he was my brother. This was what she said (edited for privacy):

Huh, that’s indeed an unexpected question! He is, in fact, your brother. He lives with his mom. He doesn’t see the biological father either, as far as I know. I haven’t seen him in years, I think he was probably 5 or 6 when I saw him last, but my mom and his mom were kind of friends much in the same way that my mom considers your mom a friend. I think that your aunt may have seen him more recently than the rest of us but not consistently.

I hope this helps, and if I can think of anything else, or if you have any other questions, I would love to talk about it. I enjoy talking about our crazy family

…so I have found my little brother. I got another brother for Christmas! I sent him a message on facebook and added him as a friend. He accepted the friend request and didn’t say anything in response. But not to my surprise, he is a gamer! LOL of course… his status’s have to be about gaming!

It was very weird and I felt awkward about telling other family members, especially after everything that we’ve been though this year. But it seems to have come across as ok, and I haven’t talked to the new brother yet. Hopefully we can meet up on xbox and kill some stuff together!

Guess that’s about it! My Christmas holidays have been filled with family, friends, food, and beer!

Happy holidays everyone!!

An Amazing Band: The Tea Party

Tea Party

I’ve decided that I would make it my personal mission to spread the word about how GREAT The Tea Party is!!

I was talking with lll KiRa lll about The Tea Party and he said that only Canadians and a couple Aussies like them. That is so sad. They are an amazing band! I was listening to them about 15 years ago and my heart melts when I hear their music! It’s so passionate and … well… awesome! I asked my good friend Lowieee what she thought of their music, but she had never heard of them!

I would love it if Rock Band would include some of The Tea Party in the DLC or RBN songs! Check out the following videos to see if you like them, and if you do… then start requesting in on the Rock Band forums!! Or you could just comment here about how amazing they are

Gaming & Giving Back Challenge: Day 23

Buy a new game, play it for at least an hour and review the overall gameplay (sound, graphics, characters, story) Sims 3: I was debating purchasing this game. I bought it for the PC and spent endless hours building families … Continue reading →

Gaming & Giving Back Challenge: Day 22

Offer an evening of free childcare to someone who needs to get out

I thought of this one well in advance because Christmas is coming up, and I know a couple parents who don’t have enough time to spend a few hours together on a date. It is so important for couples (especially after they have children) to remember to date!! Dating is what keeps passion in the relationship and keeps it fun. I know that the daily ins-and-outs are wonderful and they build stability

and commitment, but passion comes from alone time!

Childcare in the evenings is rather expensive. I have been paid 80-140 for a few hours of work. I hate accepting the money, but I know that I am agreeing to get paid when I am asked to work for them. I know that people consider it their night out and they budget for a babysitter. That’s why this is a part of the Giving Back challenge. Parents often avoid going out as much on dates because they can’t afford the outing plus childcare. That bothers me. I want people to be as happy in their relationships after children, as they are before. It’s so important to spend as much time with your partner as much as possible.

I provided child care for two children (18 months and 4 years old). I adore these children! …plus their parents are pretty sweet too! They insisted that I needed to be paid, but I made it very clear this was a challenge of mine. So instead of paying me, they donated $90 to the teen parent family that I am sponsoring this Christmas.

Fable 3 Villager

Upon my return to Bowerstone Market, I found my villager that I created online!

I chatted, danced, played “pat-a-cake”, hugged, kissed, and then proposed marriage to my villager! Oh fun!

After which I had to find a suitable house to live in and decide what type of wedding. I bought a house in Brighwall Village. Each city had their own type of wedding ceremony. In Brightwall, the best wedding you can have is an “Academy Wedding”. Hmm… I would rather something outside!

The most expensive wedding is a “Canal Wedding” in Bowerstone Industrial. It’s a rather dire city, so I’d rather not get married there. I found a “Lake Wedding” in Millfields. Perhaps I shall marry my villager there! It will be a gorgeous, luxury ceremony in the gazebo that stands on Bower Lake. Sounds divine!

This is my first marriage in the game. I’m pretty sure that you can be married to multiple people at the same time. I am wondering… Who in their right mind would want to do that!? An upkeep and maintenance fee for all those lonely house wives/husbands (depending on who you marry of course)! Nah, one is plenty for me thanks!

The ceremonial music was lovely! Wait… what! It’s over! That’s it! $5000 and I get a 10 second marriage. Yea, I guess it’s pretty close to reality eh!

Uhh my wife wants to have sex now! She wants to procreate. I would like to know how she is going to do what with my female character!

…back to my game! I am really enjoying Fable 3. It’s a fantastic game!

Gaming & Giving Back Challenge: Day 21

What is your favourite video game to play? Give a detailed description of the Pros & Cons

My favourite game to play on the Xbox is Rockband. I have been playing since the first game came out. I was never a huge fan of Guitar Hero because I enjoy singing. Rockband offers that, in addition to the guitar, bass, and drums! I transferred all the Rockband 1 songs into Rockband 2 (when it was released), and just recently I transferred everything into Rockband 3. The release date was October 26^th, 2010. It is by far my favourite game! I love singing.

Pros:

The game play is similar to Rock Band 2. The tour is new and broken into different travelling sections. Similar to the later Guitar Hero games.

A huge pro is that the game accepts all (or most) of the songs from the other Rockband games (Lego and AC/DC included).

“Pro Mode” for guitar, drums, and keyboards seems to be successful! I haven’t played in “Pro Mode” because they don’t have it for vocals. I don’t know why! There is the option to turn your pitch correction “off” so why isn’t that “Pro” mode? What defines a Pro-vocalist? In Rockband, it is suppose to be the ability to keep the right pitch and octave. Oh well, another thing that they can look at for Rockband 4

Cons:

The thing I miss the most in Rockband 3 is the vocal duals. I want to challenge friends in real-time. There is the element of beating them in quickplay and seeing your overall score, but there’s something about playing with the person at the same time… I miss that.

I don’t like the controls in quickplay for leaving a band. I will “drop out” but then I am stuck in the song selection menu for a few minutes until the game either crashes or it finally goes to the main menu.

When joining a career, you never know if you will be playing your own career or someone else. I think that they should have had similar options to Rockband 2, where you could “join” another band OR invite players to your band.

I suppose the harmonies would be fantastic if I had someone to sing with. Oh wait… it’s an online game right? Perhaps I could find someone else who wants to sing! …Nope, not with the harmonies. You have to be playing on the same console. I think the reason that Rockband gave for this was because there could be lag. I don’t see how that would matter though. It doesn’t matter what the other instruments connection is. Wouldn’t it just run the same? I am not a game designer or programmer but I’m pretty sure the same coding could have worked.

Another feature that isn’t implemented in online play is the 7 person band! I know that the roadways would be small if there was 7 people playing, but if you can have 4 I don’t know why you can’t have 7. Rockband was talking about how cool it would be to play with up to 7 people. This feature is only available to people playing on the same console. I am not planning on squishing 7 people into my room any time soon! Although it would have been cool to play with online friends.