Hmmm…

Adventures in Skyrim

Played a little more Skyrim, sneaking a few hours in here and there.

Here are some of my bravest and most heroic moments so far.

I thought you might like to see me at my very best:

November – Busy as Balls

A quick update, in this busiest of times.

I’m comfortably installed in my new office, which was “one of the spare rooms”, then “Steve’s room”, then “the Admiral’s Chamber” and is now just “My Office”. Katie’s family are helping with (by which I mean: doing all of) the repainting in the rooms and halls we’re redecorating. I feel these ululating waves of guilt-pulse spasms as I hear the roll of paint thingies smearing over walls, but I’m currently churning out more word count per day than I’ve ever done since, oh, roundabout the time Blood Reaver was equally late last year.

In short, the house is ascending from its pre-Fuchsia form to its post-Fuchsia incarnation, and apart from the fact I’ve still got a wardrobe to build, it’s really starting to feel more like Home, rather than A Nice House In The Countryside That We Rent From Katie’s Parents.

On the downside, Skyrim was out last week. That should be an upside, but I’m not getting to play it all that much. I keep getting screenies from my friends of their characters at godly levels of competence, while I’m stealing a few hours here and there and sacrificing sleep to thieve a few more.

Several people have asked me what I think of it so far. Well, considering I was hugely disappointed with Oblivion (I’m being polite; I almost loathed it), I’ve tried not to be psyched since I first saw the FUS-ROH-DAH trailer back at the start of 2011.

My opinion on Skyrim runs thusly: it’s the best game I’ve ever played. At least, it’s everything I want in a game, and I love it.

But bear in mind I like some really dubious games that a lot of people think are shit (one of my fave games is Star Wars: Republic Commando, f’rex), so take that however you will. I found Space Marine an amusing distraction for a few hours, but felt no drive to even finish the campaign, and the multiplayer holds zero appeal. Not that it’s bad, it’s just not my sort of game. Conversely, Skyrim – a game I’d been too scared to admit I was feverishly looking forward to – is almost life-changingly, ball-achingly awesome. It eclipses the previous Top Spot holder, Placescape: Torment, only because PS:T is so bloody old now that I’m starting to look like an asshole for still championing it.

Here’s Tyrgarde, a Nord whose domineering overlord is spending all his points in Magicka (hence the robes):

When not freezing, burning, or burnfreezing his foes, our protagonist enjoys staring pensively off into the middle distance.

But no time, no time. All systems go.

My friend John had his baby (Henry David French) a few days ago, with all hands on deck and no problems to report, el capitan. He and his wife Liz are kind of our trailblazers, as they’re almost dead-on 1 trimester ahead of us. As for Fuchsia herself, less than an hour ago I was stood in the midwife’s room, listening to the baby’s heartbeat at our own 25-Week checkup. I’d thought this one was going to be boring (well, a talky one, compared to the awesome scanny ones), as Katie’s weight, iron levels, baby size, etc. were all recorded by this smiley Irish lady.

Incidentally, I think this is the same smiley Irish lady that delivered Katie’s little brother Nathan, almost two decades ago. Close-knit communities are weird but sweet things.

We finally heard her heartbeat (after seeing it twice before getting to hear it, funnily enough) and in a raw slice of 2011 Aaron-style parenting, my first thought was “That totally sounds like my horse running in Skyrim.”

My forum cold turkey is going… okay, actually. I’ve cut it down by about 90% of my previous levels, and just zipping in, reading cool stuff, posting a bit, then zipping back out. I’m managing it much better than I’d feared. For those of you interested in a little “how canon works” debate (if this article didn’t entirely settle it for you) then here’s a link to a tiny bit more. Just a little bit, for clarity – starts at the top of page two, where the link leads, and goes on for a bit below.

I’ll finally finish Void Stalker next week. That deserves a pleased sigh in and of itself, but I have to bolt out some word count, take Katie to work, and start building this fucking wardrobe.

It’s not that my life is hard. It’s not. It’s really not. It’s just that so much of it makes such little sense to me.

Some people say this is the Human Condition. But some of those people like Lee Evans and think he’s funny, so their opinions are therefore meaningless to me.