So this year was my parents turn in the rotation. And instead of flying/driving we took the train. Over all it was a pretty good experience except that the train was 5 hours late pulling into New York and 5 hours late getting us back to Raleigh. We were served several tastely meals, and had a comfortable roomette. Roomettes acording to Amtrak are 2 person berths, that are about 6′x3.5 We had it converted into sleeping mode on the way back and Melissa and I were able to strech out, nap or read. The meals were served family seating style meaning we got to share our table with 2 other people. Which made for some interesting meal conversations. The time with the family was pretty good, either I am starting to get use to these large gatherings or it was less people.
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Ok so who to blame for this. My Friends in NM who told I had to start playing City of Heroes, or My wife for getting it for me as winter solstice present. (She got knitting stuff and she is making me a scarf)

Anyways played for long enough to create character and make it half way to level 3. Now to find the server my friends are on and join in the fray. Anways right now I am on the Liberty Server(at least I think that was the on I picked) and I am a red/white/blue scrapper.

FOR JUSTICE!!!

So we got up early this morning and completed all of our brick and mortar shopping. All we have left is place our few on-line orders and we are done. and no I am not going to say who got what even if you ask.

Afterwards I completed Vampire:bloodines. I should say that several of the endings go very badly for you. After a couple of tries I finally found one that did not end with my character blown up or indisposed for a really really long time.

That clears the plate for the next round of game what ever that may be. Although any new game I buy I will need to seriously look at the hardwar requirements as my gamming machine is starting to show a little age. Right now the only thing beside cash holding me back is I am waiting for amd64 and PCI-E to become a bit more common,

Well we got the rest of the lights up.(it only took 3 more sets of red netting and 2 more green ones) The lights acutally look pretty good, and not too tacky. I figured out the wireless timer/controller, Melissa got our tree bows on so the house just about ready for the holiday seaon, just need to get the wreath out of the attic.

And I finally found that silly sewer drain and completed the last of the side quests in Bloodlines. I think I am entering end game with only one quest left and then its time to decide what faction to side with, all have been angling for my attention so now I think its time to choose.

After that I might take a little break and then move on to City of Heroes. gasp yea I know a MMORPG.

Is it wrong that I classify solving video game puzzles as taking care of stuff.

So the other day Melissa sheepishly asks me if its ok to hang holiday lights on our house. I don’t know if it because we have been helping hang other lights or the fact that it seems like 80% of our neighborhood is also abask in holiday glow. Well we decide on a low key lighting scheme, a couple of sets of green net lights, and white line around our pavers. Well it turns out that we only succeeded in making a small bright spot. So tonight its another trip for more lights. We need more for the one bush we only partially covered. and maybe a couple of sets of red ones for the other bush.
The geek factor does come into play as I found a wireless transmitter which also has a photo sensor and timer to control when the display comes on.

The other thing we discovered is so far this huge holiday light display. It got a dune buggy, spongebob square pants, aliens, piped in music, the works.

maybe I will try and get photos of all this holiday cheer.

Ok so its not your typical looking superhero but thats about me in a nutshell

On the Bloodlines front I finally cleaned up most of the side quests. I still can’t find the entrence in the sewers to finish “even more fun with pestilence”

I moved on to Chinatown. So far to damn funny things both big geek jokes.(I won’t reveal them here. But I am finding myself laughing as much as making oohh ikcy faces and blasting stuff that comes anywhere near me. For those who compained about firearms in this game I say phooey. Granted I am currenty running around with a semi-auto/full auto shotgun and a 44 magnum.(The alt fire mode of fan rocks at close range) I would avoild the rifes I seem to be more acurate with the 44 than trying to snipe somthing. Currently I have my range skill at like 6 or 7, and I hit what I am aiming at and do about 30-50 points of damage depending on weapon/range and fire mode per shot.

I found one of our friends is playing this game, who is also a big fan of the pen and paper version. And We are in complete agreement, that the game rocks. Combat a little clunky but overall pretty dang cool. Although I just tried out my feral claws(gangrel discipline) and a human hunter wearing a g-string and a katana. I was not impressed by the damage I was inflicting. Maybe I need to up those combat stats some more.

I am looking forward to playing again more of a thinking vampire and see how the game play works.
The other thing is I tweaked the colors of the blog to follow our color palette for the rest of the site.

Oh and after lots of nagging from wife I am going to try spell checking these.