What I Did On My Summer Vacation, By Curtis.
Or something like that.
Indeed, as an adult (god, I’m old?) my definition of summer vacation isn’t as well-defined as the little ones’, marked by the deadline of summer-reading requirements and summer vacation reports, but I’m still young enough (damn it!) to have that feeling that summer is over around the same time theirs is. The sight of those yellow moving roadblocks transporting them to school instills a feeling of ending in me.
Fortunately before this feeling got a hold in my mind, I managed to have a blast. Although frequently busy, I’d be willing to say this was a wonderful summer. A Best Summer, even.
Fast forwarding though some drama at the beginning of summer Kiera and I started dating. But you knew that already; I’m sure I already gushed about it way too much and you’re tired of hearing it. "Yes, you’re happy, that’s nice" you say as you wish to stab me in the eye after hearing about it for the millionth time. Understandable and I’ll spare your ear.
However after said unsaid drama things started to improve, dramatically. Trips to the beach (I still burn easily and get a farmer’s tan without wearing a shirt, how the hell??) and nights of geekery occupied what time we had. Which wasn’t much, considering we were preparing for Otakon. We had decided to go as Death and Dream from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. We stole Mike to be Destiny too. We weren’t going to settle for half-arse costume though, which meant we spent most weekends for two months tracking down fabric and supplies for the costumes. She tacked most of the fabric-related work, and I tackled Destiny’s book, a task taking much more time than we ever imagined (I am a perfectionist after all). We got the costumes done the week of the convention (see, Katie, it can be done!) and they were a hit. We got stopped no less than twenty-five times at the convention, and we only wore the costumes for one day. Other than that Otakon was pretty standard — saw some cool costumes, watched some anime, generally dorked out with friends. A fun time was had by all.
After Otakon the shock came that I’d have my weekends and evenings free, no longer worrying about making kick-arse costumes. Diablo 2 came in to fill a good chunk of this time. I never played it back when it came out, and with Kiera being an old addict of it, I decided to pick up a legit copy off of Amazon and play online with her. It felt like playing World of Warcraft again, only in 2d top-down mode. A very odd feeling.
The end of August marked an event we had been waiting for since the beginning of summer — PAX. PAX is a gaming convention in Seattle Washington started by the creators of the Penny Arcade online comic. It has basically replaced E3 as the biggest gaming convention in the states (30,000 people). And boy, it didn’t disappoint. I got to play Metroid Prime 3 there (it didn’t come out until the Tuesday after), saw an exclusive demo of Assassin’s Creed (the reason I bought an Xbox 360 last year, even though the game comes out this November), got to hear Will Wheaton speak, and went to an excellent concert Saturday night. While we were there we even did some touristy things like the Seattle Underground tour and dining in the Space Needle. That vacation was just what I needed.
Other highlights include some good movies such as Stardust, a film by Neil Gaiman, and Bourne Ultimatum, a dare-I-say-perfect ending to the trilogy. Transformers was the highlight in the category of crap — it absolutely killed my childhood. Don’t see it, don’t even bother pirating it.
I finally got around to reading the Watchmen graphic novel. If you’re into graphic novels you’ve probably read it, but just incase you’re a loser like me here is a reminder.
I picked up Metroid Prime 3 on Tuesday. It’s everything I’ve hoped for. The controls just feel right. I was intending to pick up BioShock because of all the fuss people are making over it (the demo was fun) but I hesitate now that I’ve played Metroid. I just don’t want to use the dual analog control scheme ever again after this. It feels like I’m back on my computer using a keyboard/mouse, only now my computer is a Wii and my monitor is a nice TV. I can’t speak to its length yet but it says I have 25% of the map explored and I’ve been playing for maybe eight hours or so. Not the 40hrs+ I got out of Zelda, but still solid for what’s essentially an FPS. The plot is enough to hold it together, but it doesn’t seem to be anything epic — I’m pretty sure I know where it’s going. However I don’t feel insulted like I did with Gears of War, where I left the game thinking "plot, what plot?"
So yeah, wonderful summer.
I’m now with a truly amazing woman: Kiera. She’s everything I’ve dreamed about but thought I’d never find.
I’m happier than I ever remember being.
No silly little post can do this feeling justice.
