Shadowgate Kicks So Much Ass

Remember that game? I was in 10th grade the first time I played it. Although it'd been out for awhile at that point, my parents finally got me that NES that I'd wanted since 6th grade for Christmas when I was in high school. By that time SNES was already out, so "a day late and a dollar short, Mom and Dad!" But it was all I had, and I was thankful, dammit!

Scott and I were extremely bored the other day, so we strolled on down the CD and Game Exchange down the street and for $50 we picked up Shadowgate (for the Gameboy; luckily the GBA is backwards-compatible), Banjo Kazooie, Paper Mario and Jet Force Gemini for the N64 and another copy of Eternal Darkness for the Cube. I've played them all many times over, but seeing as Scott has always primarily been a PC/PS guy, he hadn't ever really dicked around with the cool N64 games that Rare made in their glory days, and had only fiddled with Eternal Darkness once when we rented it before we moved in together. He has clearly been missing out, and thank goodness we can still find all that shit for 5 or 10 bucks each.

Anyway, I forgot how complex Shadowgate was. The puzzles and adventure aspects of the game are still light years beyond what's coming out these days, despite that fact that the "adventure" takes place within a text box that is your DM's wet dream. I don't miss the shiny at all. It's just so much fun to fuck around with something so delightfully old school and not be able to use my years of adventure/puzzle gaming experience to fly through it. It's nice to revisit something and still get the same enjoyment out of it as I did when I was a kid, and it's even nicer to know that I haven't become jaded by the ocular masturbation that is modern gaming.

Now if I can just figure out what the fuck I'm s'post to do in that room after the gargoyles...

Rejected!

The intarweb community is not my friend. The admins at f13 (except schild, he's okay) are power-hungry little cockmunches who den (or delete) my threads whenever I disagree with them about the humor of any given subject (e.g., Napoleon Dynamite). And those PC fucks at urbandictionary.com chose not to publish my definition of "finnuh", which I list below for your reading pleasure.

finnuh (future tense verb, ebonic): "fixing to" or "going to"
"I finnuh kick yo ass."
"You ain't finnuh put me on no house arrest."

This is exactly how I submitted my definition, but evidently the editors haven't seen Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Hell, I haven't either, but how could they have missed the trailer?

Speaking of movies that won't be winning any accolades, I really wanna see Roll Bounce, the admission of which was met by a "you're joking, right?" look from my betrothed. Sometimes it's hard to have a lover with such a refined cinematic palate. But seriously, honey, how can you resist a 1978 rollerskating battle flick starring Lil' Bow Wow? How, I ask?

Fwumpus

I feel like crap today. Yesterday I used my certificate for a free session with a personal trainer at the martial arts studio where I take kickboxing and pilates. I allowed the trainer to stack more weight than I really should've (i.e., I ended up leg pressing 280lbs), and did all those insane one-legged squats and bench presses and reclining/hanging pull-ups (like an upside-down push-up). I did this for an hour and a half, after a ten-minute warmup on the treadmill. I can't remember the last time I was in this much pain. Everything except my abs are excrutiated. That is precisely why I, with a Marine-like tenacity, decided I should suck it up and go to pilates this morning. Well, yep, now my abs are sore too. Good job, Heather. I popped three extra strength tylenol and tried to sleep it off, but woke up when I stretched my legs out and felt like burning knives were piercing my quads. To make matters worse, I have somehow managed to put on three more pounds, despite working out for four hours a week for the past month and a half. I skipped lunch today in an attempt to burn something off, but I just feel grumpy and my head is killing me. I'm halfway through my second non-fat latte of the day, which is oddly not helping. I just want to eat a big bowl of pho and pass out. I hope Scott didn't have Vietnamese for lunch today. There's leftover buffalo and chantrelle shepherd's pie, but I feel too fwumpy to have gravy again for dinner.

Watched "Our Song" on IFC today. It felt like a failed attempt to do Mi Vida Loca in the style of Spike Lee, and fell far short of being what it really could've. Kerry Washington is a compelling young actress, though, and made it somewhat bearable.

Yay, new OC tonight.

Bittersweetness

So I'm engaged. I've never been happier, as this coming year is my preparation for the biggest adventure of my life, as well as my opportunity to throw the biggest party Scott and I'll ever undertake. I've been struggling with bouts of insomnia, visions of brown orchids, oakmoss, wild boar and expensive French lace running through my head like so many proverbial sugarplums.

But it's not all squee and breathlessness. As I read through the numerous bridal guides, planners and magazines, I have a recurring reminder that something very important will be missing from this occasion: my mother. She died suddenly of cancer in April, only 11 days after having been diagnosed.

Truth be told, if she were here, I'd very likely be shooting down her every idea and suggestion, insisting that this will be done my way, ignoring her raised eyebrows at such notions that praying mantises will be featured on our invitations. Much eye-rolling would ensue. But I miss her. And for the first time since she passed, I actually realize that I no longer have a mother.

I relate this story to anonymously comfort a dear friend of mine, who has been in a long process of bidding farewell to an ailing parent. I want to say this to him: It's okay to not feel like you're mourning, and it's okay to feel relieved that you won't have to deal with it anymore. There will be little moments throughout life when his absence is felt, and you may not respond in those moments by feeling a profound sense of loss. We don't have to feel guilty to be okay with the departure of our parents. You're in my thoughts and in my heart (and I selfishly hope I get to see you soon).

I'm engaged, bitches!

I said yes! Check the bling - and the stone's old so no dead Africans. Yay!