Busy, busy, busy... Work, work, work

It's amazing how time flies. Lately, there's been way less "game" in the "grim" but a whole lot of work instead. Still, it's hard to leave the life behind so some games continue to shine.

I know it's old news but, out of Steam, there's Team Fortress 2. And slightly newer is Left 4 Dead. I'm a huge fan of cooperative games and both of these fit the bill. TF2 in a beer and pretzels way and L4D in a serious way. Primarily, L4D is the only game I've got time for. It's about feature-length movie per session which makes it almost perfect. It just needs more episodes!

Of all of my other games, the only one I still fancy is Civilization 4. I haven't even bought the expansions for it and it remains a solid time-waster. I wish I could like Sins of a Solar Empire but, the last time I checked, the AI was too weak to have a good solo game and I can't section off the time to have a good multiplayer game. I play it like an epic empire builder when it's actually a strategically-paced (meaning slow) RTS.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

February 12, 2007 :: Wow, it's been a long time!

You know, a really long time ago I bought this web hosting and promised myself I'd play around with it. Write myself stuff. Review things. But then I got wrapped up in playing World of Warcraft. And the forum has really served the entire purpose the site was supposed to.

Speaking of WoW, as the November 29, 2004 entry says, the Coastal Knights (who weren't CK back then) joined House Daenyr on Deathwing. HD merged with a couple of other guilds to form Thoradin's Legacy, a raiding guild. For about a year, Laserfish and I raided pretty hardcore with TL. Eventually, it splintered. Now we're officially a guild ourselves. And that, my friends, in the last two years of gaming in a nutshell!

Anyway, as I was saying, the forum meets the original purpose of this website. I can look back at it and see what I thought about something years ago. A living, breathing time capsule of past reasoning. Anyway, I wanted to scribble a little something on this page. And put in a plug for the Textbox (my forum). Drop by and say hi. In the meantime, we'll see if I feel any sudden urges to do something with this webspace.

November 29, 2004 :: No Updates for a While

World of Warcraft has been released and I've been allocating my free time to it. It's great fun. You can find me on the Deathwing server (MST) playing Alliance-side most nights of the week. I've gotten active in House Daenyr again and they've got resident webmistress Calistah working some Web-based magic to redesign their site.

Not going to write up full reviews but I'll sum up the movies I've seen recently: The Incredibles was exceptionally good, Shawn of the Dead was laugh-out-loud funny, The Day After Tomorrow was pretty bad, Ed Wood was even funnier than I remember, and Dawn of the Dead is more entertaining than it was in the theater (but the surprises don't last once you've seen it).

Still reading the Wars of Light and Shadow (which got its series name changed after the first "trilogy" to the Alliance of Light - pfah!) and will review it when I steal the time from playing World of Warcraft.

Speaking of stealing time... I'll warn anyone who values their life to avoid getting fooled into EverQuest 2. Although the combat's not bad, every other mechanic is designed around planned obsolescence, massive time investment, and wringing the life from gaming one obtuse detail at a time. I'll also suggest that anyone looking to convince EverQuest players otherwise might as well go preach evolution in a creationist state. You'll get the same response! Say a prayer for the lost... there is no escape from the black hole which has consumed them.

October 19, 2004 :: Watching Movies

Got back from my vacation with a very special souvenir! Yes, a nice little cold came home with me though I didn't go to a Renaissance Faire as originally planned. Well, a nasty cough that laughs at my paltry elixirs and lozenges is to blame for tonight's obscenely late update. First up is the long-delayed review of Dead Leaves I promised. But that's not all! I also got to watch the compiled micro-series, Clone Wars, and have posted a review of it as well. Enjoy!

Assuming I wake up tomorrow (which is really just later today), maybe I'll try to work in that book review. Or maybe I'll just curl up into a miserable ball and hack up that lung that's trying so desperately to fly away. Yuck.

October 13, 2004 :: Intended to Update...

Well, the original plan almost every day of the past week has been "going to update my site today" but cosmic forces have aligned against me yet again. So, since I'm about to take a little trip, I figured I'd say a short word about all the things I wanted to put up and will surely get around to when I get back. Vacations... bothersome things.

Plan one is to post a finalized review of the (short) anime, Dead Leaves. I also want to get a review of the "original" cut of Donnie Darko up before I see the theatrical re-release. I finished Janny Wurts' "Curse of the Mistwraith" and will post a review of it soon. I've also been playing Fable on Laserfish's XBox (part of the delay, I might add). There's also another chapter of Tyrian's ongoing adventures in Norrath due for posting... he'll be learning the ins and outs of grouping as he lives the adventure. I also figure I'll have plenty of rant - er - ramble material once I return from this vacation thing. At least I've got the "Ships of Merior" to tide me over.

October 4, 2004 :: More Pirates and Ig Nobels

I've had several chances to play more Pirates of the Spanish Main. It's caused me to amend my original thoughts a little, prompting a deeper look. In other news, my favorite award program of the year just awarded their prizes. Which reminds me, my favorite Ig Nobel award winner of all time is the Psychology project from 2000... read all about it!

September 28, 2004 :: Open Fire!

This evening I got a taste of the mariner's life through the entertaining "constructible strategy game", Pirates of the Spanish Main. It's the least expensive CCG-style game I've purchased into... ever... with its innovative "one Game Pack is all you need to start" claim that's more-or-less true. My review reflects two solid rounds of ship-to-ship action as well as several hypothetical scenarios performed with the help of the experimental game guru, Laserfish. Enjoy!

September 26, 2004 :: Little Formatting Change

While I'm watching the wind and rain drive its way into the walls and windows of my home and wondering why (but not questioning too hard) I'm still powered and online, I figured I'd do a little site format modification. From now on, links to all of the recent articles (that's all of them at the moment) will be available to the right. I've also achieved stretchiness in the content area. It should conform to most 1024x768 resolutions (and edge a little off of 800x600) so I think, for the moment, I'm happy with it.

September 25, 2004 :: Hurricane's A'Coming

Looks like another exciting weekend for the southeast US The lovely Jeanne will be gracing our coast this weekend. I'm reminded of the scene in Spirited Away where the bath house tries valiantly to ward off the stink spirit plodding its way towards their doors.

I just posted a pair of guest reviews covering LucasArts' latest release, Star Wars: Battlefront. Submitted by two friends whose game opinions are both similar and vastly different (you'll understand when you read the reviews... I hope!), you can find both listed in the Game Reviews section.

In other... umm... news, I saw a sneak peek of the Forgotten (now in theaters). You can read my review here. Oh yeah, if the TeamSpeak server goes down then you can blame the hurricane.

September 21, 2004 :: A Review and a Ramble

I merged my reviews of the World of Warcraft Stress Test Beta into one somewhat cohesive bundle and posted it in the Game Reviews section. In addition, I added my first ramble... about why I got a website instead of a blog. Possible future developments may include guest reviews and a collection of my Shadowbane Lore-based fiction.

I've found the site I will try to be like when I grow up. If you haven't been to the CSS Zen Garden, check it out. I'll be loitering around there when I'm feeling all experimental.. I really like their styles.

September 20, 2004 :: Hooray for PHPBB2

The forum is up and running. There's nothing there except for a single general discussion forum but I'll drop some extra bits in there once I figure out a reason to. Maybe topical areas for my audience of one. You'll find the link in the navigation to your left. Thank you for flying the Gamer Grim.

September 19, 2004 :: Sky Captains and Tier'Dal

Saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow this afternoon. Here's a link to my review of it. I've also started setting up a forum here. It's part of the service so, why not? Once I've got it configured and such, I'll put a link to it (probably replacing my pathetically pleading-sounding "email me" links) in obvious places. As I mentioned before, House Vallenti has been transferred to its new home here at Gamer Grim. It's not new content (no, not by a longshot) but it's content.

September 18, 2004 :: No More Content, Lots More Pages

Nothing says, "GROWTH" quite like extra, empty pages! I've added a navigation pane on the left with pointers to the not-quite living subsections of this site. As a hobby, I think content generation could end up a job in and of itself! Among the projects I've laid ahead for myself are reviews of "Curse of the Mistwraith," Resident Evil (both movies, anyway), and the World of Warcraft Stress Test Beta. I also plan on migrating my past website attempts to subdomains of this one. The only one currently viewable is House Vallenti from the latter part of my EverQuest days. I'm always welcoming feedback so if you've got something to say, go ahead and say it!

September 16, 2004 :: Welcome to the Gamer Grim

In an effort to stave off boredom, I've taken the plunge and bought myself a domain and website hosting. So far, it's harder than I remember so this quick (relatively - it's taken hours and at least a dozen failed designs to get to this one... which is only quick because it's only taken about 30 minutes to lay out and prep) design will have to do for a while.

That said, I apologize to all of you Internet Explorer users... this site is not designed for you just yet. Let me be among the first to suggest you switch browsers. I prefer Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer (and Thunderbird to replace Outlook). Do yourself a favor and download them for a safer browsing experience with a very short learning curve.

There's no content to amuse you with at the moment but I'm sure I'll be able to find something eventually. Trying to think like an artist makes my head hurt.

Look for refinements on this design and some content before I try to be designer-y again. You are welcome to email me by clicking this convenient link: keeper@gamergrim.com.