everything will be alright

It's been a nice weekend so far, pretty laid back. There's been a fair bit of LOTRO; Friday night we raided but did an old school one that we've not done in ages. It was fun and a nice change of pace, and we had Saturday slated for an all-day attempt at the newest raid, so it made sense to mix things up and do something easier instead. Plus, one bonus to doing the older content was completing it gives you a token that can be used to give your raid a benefit for 3 hours that actually helped us with the new content, so win-win. After LOTRO I headed for bed and read a little more D&D stuff before passing out.

Saturday was more of the same, pretty much. I got up, watched the Boston/Buffalo game, and eventually got in game for the raid. We had everyone who wanted to play sign up with their times of availability, since this we knew it was going to take a LOT of chance to even have a shot of winning, and we wanted to take as many kicks at the can as possible to at least learn more about the raid / formulate some strategies and whatnot.

( Cut for in-depth LOTRO-y stuff! :) )

Anyway! Sorry about that detailed explanation for those of you not into LOTRO, oops. XD Actually, I think I'll add a cut. *does so!* Suffice it to say it was a long day but a positive one, and we're going to try it again much later tonight, though I've work in the morning so I'll only be able to commit a few hours to the cause.

For today I'm hoping to get a little console time in before the hockey starts up again. I've got way too many games that I haven't played at all or much, and that's a shame. I even picked up Final Fantasy XIII while in the US, and I am kinda wanting to delve into that, but I know if I will then that'll be all I do for awhile, haha, so holding off on that for the moment until I know I can devote a huge chunk of time to it, maybe next weekend, we'll see. I can play more Dragon Age: Origins, the gift believeitup gave me last Christmas, or Fallout 3, which she gave me the Christmas before. >.> Or any number of games I could list off to you here, there's a stack by the console itself that I can see if I just turn my head to the left, before even looking to the shelf behind me, oops. >.> So, yes, gonna go do that, maybe read more of the Player's Handbook too, we'll see, the day is still young!

Hope everyone had a good weekend and that you have a nice Sunday too! :)

Boy, it wasn't yesterday that I wrote in here. It's been almost two months actually, yikes. Things have been pretty crazy in the last several weeks that've kept me from getting to it I think, but hopefully that'll change from hereon out.

It all started when one person was leaving our office at work, which we had been told in advance and had started to prepare for, bringing us from four support staff to three. But the weekend after she left (her last day was a Thursday) my own assistant called me on that Sunday afternoon and quit out of the blue, which meant all of a sudden we were down to 50% of the staff we usually had, and have been that way ever since the beginning of the month. It's been really bad and since then I've been in the office on more weeknights / weekends than I've ever been in the previous three + years I've been at this I think. The good news is we finally got some ads out there and had resumes come in and interviews start on Monday for filling those positions, phew. We really need two more people but even getting just one now would be great to stop the bleeding.

Other than that, things have been ok I suppose. I've been playing my Xbox 360 a lot more since it came back all brand new and whatnot, including renting games to play. I rented Guitar Hero III and The Simpsons Game the last few weeks, both which were really fun, and last night I picked up Eternal Sonata which is so very beautiful, holy crap. It's an RPG based on a dream world of Frederic Chopin's making while on his deathbed, which sounds pretty weird but it's awesome. I had a demo of it ages ago so I knew it would be good, but the full thing is just fantastic. I also picked up Assassin's Creed which I had put $10 down towards ages ago and that's pretty good too, though I'm content with saving that for later at this point.

I've also been cleaning up a little, going through a ton of boxes and plastic tubs that were stored downstairs for aaaaages. Mom helped with me today, doing most of the sorting actually, and unearthed so many awesome things after just a few boxes (there are 10+ for sure). She found an old high school journal I had to do in Grade 8 or 9 or something, which is hilarious, and maybe I'll put some of that up here just for a laugh hehe. Also some of my old Nintendo games in their original boxes with manuals and all, includin Mega Man one and two, Super Mario Bros. 3, Final Fantasy, etc. There's also these TMNT comics I drew years ago, haha, which is just so funny, and tons of other stuff. I have two tubs in front of me now, one packed with Choose Your Own Adventure books Ineed to sort out (including Time Machine and some kind of D&D variation of those type of books) and another with my old X-Men and Teen Titans comics that I was looking for forever. And yes, I am such a pack rat that it's crazy.

So that's where things stand right now. I've got a lot to clean up and sort out, and a lot of other things with which to occupy my free time, which I should hopefully get more of soon after these upcoming interviews. So yes, I should go off and do that now while I can. Yay for the weekend!

Today I finally verified that my Xbox 360 is in fact broken. The good news to that though is that just last month Microsoft announced that it's expanding the machine's warranty from a one year to a three year one, at least with respect to the issue I have with mine (a.k.a. the three flashing red lights, which reminds me of the three seashells from Demolition Man but I'm still a reforming Sandra Bullock fan, heh). This means that the shipping to and from wherever it needs to be sent for repairs and the repairs themselves will be free of charge. A courier will be by sometime this week to drop off a pre-paid package to send it off in, and it'll be 3-4 weeks later that I'll get it back, hopefully.

Other than that, nothing too exciting has been going on. Relatives are still around and I've spent time visiting them at various times this week. My reading time has gone significantly downhill; I think reading Harry Potter as fast as I did had something to do with that. I even read through the second and third Harry Dresden books before that, even starting the fourth just before I got Deathly Hallows, but I've made little to no progress on it since finishing the latter. Perhaps that's how I'll spend tomorrow afternoon, catching up on that. Or maybe even get a chapter in now before I sleep. I think I shall go and try that. :D

Gone to the city tonight and won't be back until tomorrow night sometime. Hope everyone has a good weekend! :D

Also, randomly, this game looks extremely awesome, given the premise and the way it's set up. An RPG based on Chopin's music? I'm there!

What a long day today turned out to be. It wasn't that bad in the end, really, but busy. The weather turned to crap too and is still pretty ugly, I just hope it clears up so I can drive to St. John's tomorrow for court without much of a hassle.

I found out today that even though I got back from the US without being mugged or robbed, I didn't escape completely unscathed. A quick check of my credit card statement online revealed that someone in Washington, allllllll the way across the country where I never even got close to for the record, had charged a payment of nearly $300 CDN to my account through a T-Mobile bill payment or something like that. I called up the company's number listed on the statement and then my bank to cancel the card, get a new one issued and get an affidavit mailed out to me that I'll need to complete and send back for reimbursement. The bank was extremely helpful, and so was the lady at T-Mobile actually, and it looks like things will be cleared up soon. I was pretty panicked there for a bit though, as there's a lot of room left on that card and it could've been much, much worse. The only thing I can figure is that someone at one of the stores I used the card in used the info for their own nefarious means, since I never actually lost or misplaced it. I was pretty pissed at first but it seems like it's been successfully dealt with for now. Lesson learned; next time I'll just use a lot more cash I suppose, or a debit card. Or traveller's cheques, or something.

In the good news column, I picked up Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 today and oh boy is it ever fun. I've played it before on the PS2 as my sister's boyfriend got it for Christmas so it's not a surprise that it's so good, really, but it's nice to actually own it. Plus you get a (in my humble opinion) cooler guitar for the Xbox version, plus 10 more songs and the ability to download new ones from Xbox Live eventually (albeit for a fee, of course). Good times!

Alright, since I actually do have work in the morning and court to get to, I should be off to sleep. And here I go!

I haven't posted here in awhile but there hasn't been all that much happening lately, really. Work was busy as I had three or four things in court last week in St. John's, which means a lot of driving back and forth on top of the regular preparation and court time itself. It all went relatively well and one of the files is now closed, which is a good thing. I've got more coming up this week but thankfully it's a short week, with the office being closed on Good Friday and Easter Monday. Super long weekend for the win!

Guitar Hero II comes out for the 360 on Tuesday as well, which I'm hoping will be out at our local Wal-Mart as I want to pick it up. I've got two travel claim cheques coming to me from last week, plus I won $20 in scratch tickets this weekend so that should about cover it. My sister's boyfriend has the PS2 version and it rocks, I can't wait to actually get to play it on my system. There's a bunch of new songs for the Xbox 360 version too, plus you can eventually download tracks for it and whatnot, so that should only make it better.

I've also been playing LotR:Online again too, now that the open beta is active. That's been my biggest time killer this weekend and I'm sure a good bit of tomorrow will be devoted to it as well. Speaking of which, it's going for 5am so I'd better hit the hay!

Cheers to the Xbox 360 announcing today that you can now download movies and HD episodes of tv shows from Xbox Live, including the two CW shows I love but can't see on tv here (Supernatural and Veronica Mars).

Boo to them apparently not offering it outside of the US. >.< At least not yet, I hope they do soon.

Also, hope everyone south of the border has a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! Uh, and those not in the lower 48 as well, though I think I only have one such person on my flist. XD

Ugh. I had this weird, tingly-like ache in my left arm tonight which set off all kinds of alarms with the hypochondriac in me. I popped a couple of Aspirin just in case (yay anticoagulants!) and feel better now... I also took a break from typing, and even typing now it's back again, a little. I'm willing to bet it's from being on the computer so much here and at work. I never was as much at work before, because my computer sucked, but now I have a good one, and the desk is awkwardly positioned, so yes, let's assume it's that instead of some cardiovacular disease that means I'll drop dead soon or something. >.>

On a happier note, after talking to herozero I went out to Wal-Mart and found a device that allows me to hook up my Xbox 360 to my old TV. I've been downloading demos all night and will leave it on all night to finish them, heh. And I now have an Xbox Live friend, woo! :D

Ok, off to bed it is. I was so tired today and I was only up until 1:30. Before leaving Marystown my bedtime was around 2-2:30. This is actually a good thing, getting more sleep, but it's still taking a bit of getting used to, heh. So here I go!

Geez, how'd it get so late? It really feels like I've done nothing all day. Possibly because I haven't, but shh. I did get the newest Maxim magazine with Kristen Bell on the cover, and earlier tonight I wrestled with the whole LJ layout stuff, coming up with this. Still might tweak it a bit, but it's not too bad, I guess. Most of the night was spent oscillating from Xbox 360 time to hopping online, though more of the latter really. Other than that, I really don't know where the time went. Oh, wait, I did finish disc 2 of season 4 of Seinfeld, so there's that.

Anyway, off to bed it is. Maybe I'll squeeze in a few more su doku puzzles as well, I've done 20-odd in this book that has 240 so far. They're all labelled as easy though, and get harder, so we'll see how that goes.

Note to self: try to call another place to get a haircut tomorrow, seeing as the usual spot wasn't open today, which is weird. But still, you need one badly. ._.