Concerning the Norn:
They were straight-faced vikings who felt superior to humans and who took honor to the extreme in Eye of the North. Now they’re the goofball drunkards who take honor to the extreme in Guild Wars 2? …So they’re dwarves, basically, but 9 ft tall.
-user izari (GW2 Guru)
Marble Madness
Hells yeah!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k154KxQ2Sw8]
That is all.
08.18.10Ghosts of Ascalon – review
I finished my new book last night. It’s based on the Guild Wars universe and really sets the stage for Guild Wars 2 to come out in a several months. Some places are familiar if you’ve played the game, and the book offers a little deeper perspective on the magnitude of certain events that took place in Guild Wars the game. But you certainly wouldn’t have to have played the game, to understand the book.
In most ways I thought it was a great book. Not a masterpiece, but a nice read and well worth the $7.99 asking price. It’s of decent length, but also a fairly light read, so the pages go by pretty fast. The book does a great job of painting the new landscape, 250 years after the end of the first game. But it also illustrates the relationship between the races and the respect, or lack there of had for each other. The biggest complaint I have about the book is there’s a lot of times information feels a bit forced. “What? You haven’t heard about the Foefire? Well legend says…” There’s times were there’s some obvious lines or settings thrown in to appeal to the existing Guild Wars fanbase. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, I guess I just prefer those moments to be a bit more subtle, than “You’re standing on X, where Y happened Z years ago.” Okay, so it’s not THAT blatant.
All in all, if you’re a Guild Wars fan, I’d call this a “must read”. It’s far and away better written than a common “Fan Fiction”, but it does feel written with a very deliberate purpose. To fill in a bit of the Lore gap between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. That’s a lot of information to cover in one novel, and at times, it shows. All things considered, I’d give it an 8/10.
08.18.10Playing Fantasy Football Again
Well after taking a few years off, we started a small Family and Friends League. Andrea is the Commish. She drew for the Draft Order tonight!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHmylcuXlQ]
Camping at Kanopolis
Took the weekend to go camping for the first time this year. It was just Daisy and me. Andrea was down in Wichita doing some much needed wardrobe shopping. It was nice to get away for a while. It’s nice to be away from the world once in a while and alone in my thoughts. While I’m not a very social person, there’s times when you’re out camping by yourself and about three hours go by and you realized you haven’t said a single word out loud, you feel the need to just start talking, just to say something. I ended up recording a few videos into the camera for no reason. I read a lot of my book, and otherwise just did a lot of thinkin’.
Kanopolis seems like a nice enough lake. I didn’t really stay near the water, I didn’t have a fishing license anyway. But I sure could have. There weren’t that many people camping there at all. Pretty much had my run of the place. And best of all. It was quiet and peaceful! Here’s a few pics of the outing.
My campsite, got a compliment on the car on the way into the campground!
Storms looked to be rolling in most of the evening, but never saw a drop of rain!
Saturday was just too hot for Daisy. She was much more lively on Sunday.
The storms all around made for some cool weather pictures.
The last Blazer post
Well we sold the Blazer. Took about 24 hours after Andrea advertised it at CPI. Asked for $900, got $900. Guess I should have asked for more!
We got it running and took it for a spin. And when we got back in the driveway, I looked at Andrea and said. “I think we should sell it.” She thought about it for a second, and agreed. It was simply a trust issue. We wanted to be able to head to the lake, or hit the road in it to go somewhere, and there was always going to be that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it could leave me stranded at any time. In reality, we could say that about anybody’s car, but I just didn’t trust the Blazer.
We were honest when we sold it. Said that it had a host of electrical issues when we got it, but we fixed what we think is all of it. A ton of new parts. I really hope it treats the guy well. Said he’s going to use it for a huntin’ wagon. Should be perfect!
It did feel a little weird for a while after it was gone. I get too attached to vehicles. But now that it’s been a day or so, I’m just thinking about the next big thing! Haha. El Camino again?
08.8.10The Blazer has a name!
“Lazarus.” It’s almost even spelled like Blazer. So after a hot day under the car port and with Andrea’s help, we got the Blazer going again. The fuel pump we sent back as bad, probably wasn’t bad after all. I ordered a new sending unit that comes with new wiring for the pump inside the tank. So after dropping the gas tank for the 4th time, and swapping out the units… vroom! Fired right up! Runs just like it did for the two weeks before it died last time. It’s a relieving feeling.
Andrea doing some of the grunt work.
So after all this… I think we’re selling it. No way will we ever get for it what we have put into it financially, I’m prepared for that. But after fighting us every step of the way, I’ll be honest, I really don’t even like it any more. It’s like somebody who you just get off on the wrong foot with, and after that first impression, it’s just too hard to give them a second chance. I mean, heck. The ENTIRE fuel system is brand new now on this thing, but I just don’t trust it. For somebody else, it could go another 100,000 miles, I dunno. And we originally settled on Lazarus because it was cheap and available. We really wanted a pickup truck in the first place anyway.
So I think I’m going to ask $900 and see what we get. We’ll lose some money on the deal, but we learned a lot. I’d never dropped a gas tank before. Fairly good at it now. Never tore this deep into an engine before, and will be a little less timid to do it in the future. So it’s not a total loss. Or maybe that’s just what I’m telling myself. Haha!