A long and painful end...

Since yesterday I started and finished Secret Files, I thought about finishing up with some other games that I've started a while ago, too.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary is one of them. I started playing that a couple of days after christmas 07 and I only finished today.
I have played from time to time and always enjoyed it but then my focus scattered and I played other things instead. It happens.
This morning I thought to myself, "I only have two and a half levels left, I'll quickly finish them up." - WRONG!
There is nothing quick with Lara Croft. Even with the help of a wonderfully detailed walkthrough I wasn't proceeding as fast as I would've wanted to. But it's a Saturday, so it didn't matter.

The second to last boss battle was a slight appetizer of what was going to come in the end. My fingers started to feel a little uneasy but I thought I was almost done, why stop now.

In the end I had to play a couple of hours more, because I just couldn't beat the last enemy. It's not that I constantly died and had to restart - no, I just needed the 90 minutes (it felt like 4 hrs) to finally kill the enemy. If my fingers felt a little weak after the second to last boss, imagine how they feel right now (Not complaining, just saying).
I have no idea why it took me so long because the concept wasn't that difficult: enrage, get a clear shot, damage - repeat until dead. But somehow my fingers were too tired already and any slug could've outrun my usually fast reaction. But patience was rewarded and I killed the damn thing and saved the world again :)

PS: watch the trailer for the new Lara Croft adventure - I love it!


I'll be back tomorrow with news which game rendered my fingers immobile this time...

Excess Friday - how I saved the world in 7 hrs

I got myself (not saying how) the new Deep Silver game, Secret Files Puritas Cordis. It's the sequel to Secret Files Tunguska and it's a point and click adventure where you have to solve riddles. And no, it's not that easy.
Last time, I had thought that I had played excessively by playing it through in a couple of days with doing other things in between, but still being through quite fast. I blamed it on the full walkthrough I had at hand...

So this time around I played 7.3 hrs - yes, you guessed right - nonstop. I only stopped to eat and pee. Don't get me wrong it's not that great a game, I just couldn't stop. I wanted to solve that riddle and then the next and then it was a change of scenery and of course I have to know what happens. I only consulted the walkthrough 3 times and I'm quite proud of myself for that...
Spoler Alert: In the end the world was saved and the heroine and her ex/again bf are alive and well.

I wish you guys a great weekend. Spend your time wisely!

randomness # 3593: update

The Olympics are over and Austria didn't win that many medals but did well generally. I already miss watching sports on TV - sports that are not soccer, formula 1 and skiing, that is.
But I also realised how productive I am when I'm not at home watching sports or out thinking about what I'm missing out on...
I've got this REALLY long lost of what I wanted to do the next few days and I had most of it done by noon - I like days like this. Efficient, productive and very active...

Dr. Horrible v Cpt. Hammer

I love myself some Buffy and Angel and I've always liked Firefly way too much and basically everything else Joss Whedon ever touched.
I might not be as bad as my gf, who by the way was introduced to Joss Whedon by ME!

Now there's Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog and act I is online and free to watch. Acts II and III will follow in the next few days and everything will be online until July 20th, so please be quick to watch it - it's fantastic.

Google it or click on the banner above and spend 13 minutes in the Whedonverse...

Hiatus intermission #1

I just wandered about in what must be the most remote part of this town (if you're without a car, like me). It's beautiful though, green and a lot of good wine growing (sadly it wasn't grape stealing season).

Why i even went there? Well, i hunted a snake board a while ago and now i went to pick it up from the previous owner.

I used to own one in my mid-teen years and was doing ok but because there is no place to skate in the whole of austria i gave my board away. With the reemergence of skateboards i kind of started to miss my old board.

I promise to keep you up to date on all the fun and pain ahead!
Too bad i still have to finish the last term paper ever (which i hate because the topic is boring me to death.

the invisible internet

We received our new modem/router today and I can't tell you how happy I am.
Now, the gf can't knock over glasses with the internet-cable anymore. Chances of that happening are now down 50 % and depend on the space between a glass and the power cable.
I'm seriously freaking out with happiness. We're probably the last ones to get wireless but better late than never...

And the coolest thing...we have a landline now. We can phone over the internet using an actual phone...and it forwards my faxes to my mail account and if I miss a call I get an e-mail with the actual voice message included and. and. and. isn't life great? we don't have a phone yet, but I already called our number and left messages on our voice mail which I then received via e-mail and forwarded to the gf using my cell phone...wow, I gotta go churn butter now before I overdoes on Future or something...

Finatella Portace beat the game!

against better knowledge I simple couldn't stop and I so agree with xkcd:

I defeated jojo's fashion show. a lethal yahoo game that will make you stop working, eating, drinking, and peeing until you've either laughed your ass off or finished the game. In the case of jojo's it's especially funny because neither McC nor I are exceptional fashionistas with fabulous sense of style. Well, I at least can distinguish between black and blue ;)

that kinda always happens to me. I download the trial version of something (or gf does) and then we try to get ourselves the full version (I'm not elaborating on how we obtain it) and end up playing until our heads fall off...

side info: I spotted two computer games in the sales corner of Libro and of course I bought them only to have them lying around on the table, mocking me.

only half-dead...

I'm not in the same state gf is in...but I certainly feel like chewed, swallowed and spit out again.
I am finished with my paper though and will hand it in tomorrow. That is also when I'll be starting to study for the exam I have on Friday, yeah.

oh and by the way, I am the chief of a little gaulic village surrounded by Roman villages...

Here's my little village over at Travian.at (sorry, for German speakers only)...

the socialists' lament - a rant

gf and I went to a concert today. we're in vienna, in one of the most prestigious and pretentious buildings the city has to offer. The Musikverein. gf's mom is playing in this orchestra and they played Grieg and Carmina Burana. I like the Scandinavians, so Grieg wasn't a problem. Carmina Burana is ok in the beginning and in the end, but I'd be ok with cutting out the middle part. Carmina Burana in 15 min - my ideal.
We sometimes go see gf's mom, and we're both not the biggest fans of classical music but today's music was ok.

I have a "problem" with the audience and the environment usually. First off, they had a fence on the edge of the stage. I wasn't sure if it was to keep the musicians from falling down or to make it clear to the audience that they are "just down there". After all, the musicians sit; unless one of them has a seizure they CAN'T fall off the stage!
The room is all golden and really pretentious, but only for people without legs, because I have the shortest legs, and my knees would hurt from crashing with the front seat...

So, apart from listening to ok music in a building I find ugly I really don't get the people there.
None, and I mean NONE of these people there smiled at one point. They didn't have fun at all in there. Why do they go? because it is so beautiful. Serious music. "we don't listen to music to be entertained". bottom line: they don't have fun.
during the middle part of carmina burana - the one that I found so boring - I could see people shift in their seats, keeping straight faces to appear as if they were taking serious what happens down there. they all have sticks up their ass and the nerve to suit up on sunday morning. I don't get them.

why do people like the pathos of all this? why do people like to listen to the same thing over and over again for centuries and not change a single thing? why can rock bands incorporate a bach sonata but a symphony orchestra hardly ever play korn?
why is there no real variation? no wonder they were all bored to death.
I hate their arrogance, their elitist thinking.
the musicians thinking they are better than the rest because they are up on that pedestal and ALL these people came to see them. and the audience thinking how good they are being there listening to all this great music and really being a part of the upper crust.

I'm gonna stop this rant now. I think you get my point.
Sorry to come back from hiatus with a rant, but I felt like it.
btw, I met the deadline and my paper was handed in just in time to be accepted for grading. YAY!

early x-mas

I'm not a big fan of christmas. I'm not the greates fan of my boss BUT if you combine both it's sorta like math. (-x) + (-x) = +(2x)
so, that's why christmas is bearable with my boss...
I got my present today and it's € 200,- of cash. isn't that nice? it just occurred to him that this might be a good gift and he had the money in his pocket...so why not.

a good day

when I first came to work this morning, my monstrous piles of paper were gone. No, I don't know either, they just disappeared. Cheerio! So, I've done some net surfing and catching up with the world until it started to snow again. it still does and the view from my office (ground floor, grr) is very white. But I'm confident that it'll go away within a couple of hours. and even if it stays...it's a good day.

gf mailed me one of my unfinished papers for university to work on, while I had nothing to do at work. boss is not here either and doesn't call every five minutes for a change, so I had time to work on that paper and...wait for it...finish it!! It's now printed and in an envelope and sealed and I'll go to the post-office today and snail mail it to my professor. I feel as good as I thought I would when finished with the paper.

I still have one more to do with a lot more pages and a lot more reading and a lot more quality...but let's deal with that tomorrow or saturday...

I wish the feeling wouldn't go away...

maybe the display doesn't work

yesterday, again the Milchschnitten-debacle.

But this time I had the same amout of calories in less time...maybe somethings working. or I just had a good day.

The sofa has landed

I won't comment on the fight with gf yesterday because it's just too stupid.
Instead I have story about IKEA.
Usually IKEA is fun. Sometimes they entertain me to tears.
On saturday we bought ektorp, a white and very comfortable sofa that is also a bed, nice. It was ok to get it onto my dad's tiny trailer, also getting it out of there wasn't the greatest problem...
So the couch held by two people is standing on the street not quite on the sidewalk, two meters tall waiting to be carried into our living room, but noone can. We tried to heave it, but we couldn't. We had gotten it all the way from one end of the town to another but now we were gonna fail the last few meters. We were already calling up the traditionally stronger male friends we knew, who all had good reasons not to get out of the house and help us. With a bit of help from a neighbor we finally managed to get it into the second floor. Everything was fine again. but this is an old story that you maybe read in my last posting with less details due to exhaustion.
We are still talking about an IKEA product so of course something was missing. A small cover/cap thing that keeps the feet of the bed - that our sofa can be if needed - from scratching our wooden floor.
I decided to call IKEA today and have them send something like that over. haha.
I called and the nice lady on the receiver told me to bring back the ektorp for them to see that something is missing (even if I would bring it back, could I not just leave the "missing" part at home?) and not to forget the receit. so that's when I started to laugh. I had thought that this might happen, but I didn't really believe it until it did.
I kindly (or maybe not so kindly) asked her if she missed any of her marbles lately and if she could please just send such a cover/cap thingie over. She said that this wasn't policy (reeeaaallly?) and that I at least would need to bring the receit.
After telling her that she had the very same receit in her computer and she would just have to look it up I canceled the conversation and asked her to put me through to a person at storage. She managed to do that and the guy who talked to me then kindly asked if I had been so unlucky as to call the useless customer service girl. He told me he'd go up to the shop and get the thing off one of their sofas and have it sent to me in no time. I talked to the woman for about 10 minutes and I talked to the storage guy for about 2.
Now here's the prize question: Does IKEA work efficently?

Adieu Lazy.

After an all time low of one whole month I'm back to training. I thought of starting with a light work out again and stranded on that cross ramp for a whole hour...And do you know how many calories I burnt there...
the equivalent of one Milchschnitte. that's nothing!! Why did I even bother?
But then again it feels good to be moving again. Goodbye to Lazy.

hacker posse united

wow, had I know that I could make money with illegal but quite easy things like that, I would have started earlier!
it was quite thrilling as well and much more fun than usual investigation work...wow, I'm so cool now. oh, and I love the internet.

a new era

watching some aol sessions with tori amos, especially the Q&A I eventually figured out, why some poeple always get to answer the same questions over and over again.
They are not interesting. Tori gets asked about her opinion on stuff, politics and so on. She hardly ever comes to the point of having to draw a line for her privacy's sake.
Then watching Avril L.'s session I was just so bored. The ever same questions with the ever same answers. I know I'm talking pianos and guitars here but I needed that to enlighten me. yes, sometimes I'm slow.

aaanyway. tori did it again. this time not gf, she bewitched my friend d. who i tried to convince of tori's genius for quite some while. she went to a concert yesterday and was blown away. calling me afterwards almost tongue tied. and if you knew her, then you'd know that almost tongue tied with her is silent for a couple of years for somebody else.

I feel strangely approved (if that is the correct term), content in any way.

plus it's my last day of uni for summer. tomorrow we'll do some serious cleaning and then summer is officially here. I can start catching up on tv-shows, listen to music, commence my jodie-foster-summer-sessions, refurbish, read, play computer games, maybe take up on playing the guitar since i don't have a piano anymore...oh the possibilities!

GRRRRRRR

Sometimes I wish I was a cleaning lady or something. I know, I’d ruin my back and my lung with all the toxic cleaning smells but I won’t have to put up with these kinda guys…only because they run a newspaper or two, only because they are president of something…they all flock to me because their own assistants are crap. Then their assistants flock to be because they are incapable of everything but looking busy. Grr argh.

success makes people stupid

jordin wins and i get spoiled

i hate being spoiled.
all day long I innocently surfed the web and then some jerk in the row in front of me in the computer-room opens a website and I see it. jordin sparks is the new american idol.
who uses msn.com anyway?
aaarrrgghhh.
but it's a good thing she won.
early on in the competition gf and I started "voting" for her and we were right.

I'm relieved though. I really managed to not say anything to gf about who wins...

gamedom

since gf discovered the existence of x-men legends II pc game and acquired it we are both hooked on it.
we sit at our dining table, facing each other hoping to survive the combat part of the game and solving the quiz part of it.
it's probably fun to watch us, usually non-gamers, surprised by every turn the game takes and screaming at every enemy attack as if to scare it away.
we sleep and dream about the game, we walk through life thinking about when we have time to play on again...
we derived into cheap copies of 14 year olds who have their asses glued in front of the screen.
finn, out.

I found my pants!!

After a long search and many tries I finally found my fav pair of shorts.
And in case you were wondering, yes this is worth a post - even if it's short :)