I have no acceptable excuse...

I maintain that the holidays have been hectic, however, still no excuse.

Things are a little slow right now so it's time for some catch up. Unfortunately I can't remember like 90% of what I wanted to mention... So I'll start rambling and hope I catch everything.

EQ2: Back to my pet subject with regards to this or any other game. Community. In this case guild dynamics.

Believe it or not, finding a good functional guild is a very important part of game longevity. Soloing my way through EQ2 would have had me packed up and leaving on a jet plane long ago. And I was on the verge just lately. I don't have a ton of time to play, and I'm a genius and made a cleric. Whilst, as an Inquisitor, I can solo quite effectively in most cases, it's still slow as ass.

And when one has a deadline to reach a certain level? Slow as ass soloing just doesn't cut it.

As much as I love my guild, it has it's faults. One of which is a propensity towards cliquishness. We have a lot of people who have more play time than others and spend a lot of time grouping and getting to the level cap before some of us with considerably less play time could hope to. Rather than help the rest of the guild, they go off together on their own and fill in their empty spots with folk from outside the guild.

I had some rather heated words for the GL about it... and unfortunately that's what it took for me to actually get invited on a guild group. * sigh * But things really didn't seem to matter to the GL until this person ran into the problem. Naturally a GL who can't get a guild group tends to get cranky.

The subsequent events led to my taking a week off from the game and doing other stuff. I couldn't really bring myself to log in I was so torqued off. Same GL who had just been complaining about cliquishness decided that they couldn't take two people of the same class to an instance cause that wasn't the optimal set up to win at the instance.

Which is completely counterproductive to building a cohesive guild. You can't have it both ways. I'm not exactly shy (shut up the lot of you) so I made my thoughts on the subject known. I'm still not really sure I feel like logging in at all... But I've got 15% to go until I get to level 75... So I'm sure I'll be in soloing a bit... Yeah it's back to that.

Book reviews: I can't remember what I've read lately... so once I've sifted through the stack of read vs need to read I'll fill this in.

Movie reviews: I went to a movie!!! In an actual movie theatre! How totally awesome is that! No, this doesn't really happen on a regular basis for several reasons, but mostly time... That and popcorn gets stuck between my teeth and I hate that... Blame my OCD.

I went to go see Sweeny Todd on Sunday. Now, I knew vaguely what the story was about, but I've never seen it before. It's just always been there on my to be seen list of Sondheim. So there I was with my soda and junior mints (after having driven home from the movie theatre 15 mins before the movie started because I thought I'd left my debit card at home and needed it to pick up my preordered tickets only to find that it was in fact in my purse the whole time).

I loved it. It was dark and kinda gothy. Helena Bonham Carter, who is not my favourite actress ever, was frankly amazing. She was lovely and voluptuous and goth and dark. Her comic timing was perfect and I was incredibly impressed. Johnny Depp, on whom I've had a crush since 21 Jump Street, was also just amazing. The fact that he'd never sung before just made his performance that much more impressive for me. I've read some reviews that say it fell flat... But I thought they did an incredible job with it.

It's so getting added to my dvd collection.

Christmas Dinner at my Mom's house: Didn't suck this year. Anyone who knows me well knows the sheer unadulterated suckitude of my family. My mom specifically. Like seriously, Margaret Cho's mom has NOTHING on my mom... My mom is a great gaping black-hole of suck. So naturally her house on any major holiday could literally destroy the world as we know it cause the gravitational pull of the suck would draw the sun into the earth and incinerate us all.

I hate my mom's house on any normal day... but holidays are worse.

There's a good 30 to 40 screaming Koreans. 90% of whom speak little to no English. So they're screaming at each other in Korean. Which is a major hairball language. And it sounds angry. Kinda like German. Both very angry sounding languages. Most of what is screamed in this loud angry hairball language is cracks at me for being fat and how I need to lose weight and what a disappointment I am to my poor mother. After mom gets done yelling at me though, most of the rest of the family is fairly nice.

So. There I am, all snug in my bed christmas morning, looking forward to a long day of doing nothing and playing EQ2... and my mom calls. Fortunately I didn't actually talk to her when she called cause I was still asleep. So I got a voicemail and I called back. Unfortunately, it was too early for me to have thought of a good reason that I couldn't go to her place later. DAMNIT.

I wasn't really looking forward to 10 screaming and poorly behaved monster children... So I did what any sane woman would do... I took guitar hero with me. I figured it would mesmerize the little brats and I'd be able to eat in peace and make a break for it at a reasonable hour.

I got to my mom's a little early (I have punctuality issues... blame the OCD). No screaming rug rats. No population of a small Korean village. I don't think there were more than 10 people there altogether.

SCORE!!!! I didn't even have to help cook this year... So I got to hang in the TV room and watch James Bond with my step-dad (who delivered a playful smack upon being told that I couldn't come up with a good excuse not to come by) and some other random family members.

Even better than no small screaming kids? My step-sister and two of my younger girl cousins were there. We played guitar hero. It was hysterical on every level. Ages: me=30, step sister=23, older girl cousin=20, younger girl cousin=17 (christmas baby! she was stuffed into a stocking at the hospital when they brought her out). Now, I've been playing gh pretty hard to try and not suck at it, so I'm pretty good. My step sister was just as bad as I was the first few times I played. My older cousin's boyfriend has the game so she didn't suck. My younger cousin smoked us all and had never picked up the damn game before.

There she was, kicked back on the couch and sleepy and she still kicked our asses. Her older sister was all kinds of into it and jumping around and screaming and doing the rock and roll finger thingie. I giggled.

Oh, but it gets better!! They're catholic, right? So their priest came by. HE tried to play. Little old Korean priest guy... hitting like every fourth or fifth note and making kung fu movie noises... He was awful and totally failed the songs he tried, but it was hilarious. My sister and I were both in tears and almost passed out cause we couldn't breathe we were laughing so hard.

So, cheers to the first ever holiday at my mom's that didn't suck. I'm fairly convinced that I have a terminal illness or that the end of the world is coming cause my mom was actually nice to me, too. For once instead of telling me how fat I was she told me I looked pretty... So maybe she's the one with the inoperable brain tumour... I've heard they change your personality...

New Year's Eve: Is actually gonna be spent out of the house this year. I know, right? I normally stay home and just chill out, but this year, the best friend and her boyfriend and I are all going out. No, we're not partying or anything. Just a really nice dinner. Which is good cause omg I looked at myself in the mirror after my shower last night and about puked. That has GOT to go. My happy butt is gonna be glued to the eliptical machine starting Jan 1st and isn't leaving til I can look at myself in the mirror without wanting to give myself home liposuction.

New Year's Resolutions: The aforementioned being able to look at myself nekkid in the mirror without having horror movie reactions. And I'm finally going to make the time to write a novel like I've always wanted to do. I can make excuses til judgement day, but the reality is... There is no excuse for me to not do this.

To one and all: Have a happy and safe New Year. May things be better for you in the coming year and may you accomplish at least half of what you set for yourself (since I know I usually don't make it to a full quarter of what I set ;) ).