Random blog:

When we bought our house, we noticed that the wood trim was rotting in many places. Well, as of today, our rotted wood has been replaced, and all of the wood has been covered in aluminum. It cost us an arm and a leg, but it'll help keep out the elements AND make bi-annual painting unnecessary. The guys that we got to do the work are awesome: not only have they come back to fix the minor mistakes that my anal-retentive wife and I noticed, but they also fixed a door frame that was not a part of our contract, AND they're coming back to re-caulk between the chimney and the siding (we were getting yellowjacket nests in there this past summer).

Poor Maura, I've been playing the **** out of Dragon Age: Origins. Being the spiritual successor to a game that I spent an entire summer vacation playing (Baldur's Gate and its sequel), this hardly surprises me. I have already purchased and completed the add-on DLC for an extra $5, I'm awaiting the second batch of DLC to get released, and I can't wait for the expansion pack coming out in March.

I have this Monday off, as its Martin Luther King Jr. Day. My school is 99% African-American, and so they are given this time off for celebration and reflection. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this extra time, but I'm sure it will involve playing with my girls and logging more time with Dragon Age: Origins.

I got into the Star Trek Online beta this week through subscribing to Fileplanet. I keep telling myself that I should cancel this subscription every year, but the entries into MMO betas keep me coming back all the time. Plus, the faster download speeds for mods and patches are really nice. Anyhow, I can't say much about the game yet, as I'm sure it's still under a NDA, but I'm really looking forward to trying out the ship-to-ship combat. I'm a little apprehensive though, as Cryptic studios doesn't have the greatest record for MMOs. Granted, City of Heroes/Villains was fantastic, but Champions Online really fell flat to me. Add on to that the fact that this game doesn't seem like it's been under development with Cryptic very long, and I'm worried that they're going to kill an absolutely gem of a potential IP, ala Turbine with Dungeons & Dragons Online.