SSSSSSlllllloooooowwwww month... not much happening, so I'll just brush over some of the basics. Besides, I feel a need to write, and I'm not quite ready for another editorial at the moment (which will likely be a comparison of the MPAA and ESRB, as one of the commenters on my last fire bomb suggested).

Headcrabs:

About a month and a half ago, one of our children's teachers (who's also a family friend, and absolutely adores our two younger children) gave her a very unusual birthday gift:

(That's not a picture of the actual one, by the way...)

Her name is Ariel. She's about 3 inches long, and eats coconut and drinks sea water. She's not very cuddly (I've already been pinched several times), prefers a warm humid environment, and likes to change shells every few days.

I've been teasing the kids by calling them "headcrabs," by the way... the reaction is too funny to describe. :lol:

Kidding aside: easiest pet ever. So easy, we got another one to keep Ariel company. :D

Guild Wars

I've beaten 3 of the campaigns now (Prophecies and Factions with my ranger, Nightfall with my paragon) and am working on Eye of the North off and on. One of the biggest reasons it has taken this long is because I've been trying to help several people through stickier parts of the campaigns (which has thrown off any time-table I may have had) and because my natural instinct to tinker has compelled me to fill 5 of my 8 character slots with experiments (so far, I've deleted an assassin and necromancer: one because can rein myself in during combat, the other because it's too creepy...).

Rating the ****s by how comfortable I am with them, I get:

1. Ranger (20+ years of playing them in D&D and other games... of course I'm comfortable! :lol: )
2. Paragon (As close to a ranger as you get without being one)
3. Warrior (Turn off brain, swing sword...)
4. Ritualist (Spirit artillery for the win)
5. Elementalist (Who doesn't like a big "boom" now and then?)
6. Dervish (Would be better if micro-managing enchantments wasn't so annoying)
7. Monk (Being blamed for letting the assassin die is never fun)
8. Necromancer (I've watched Dawn of the Dead too many times for this to be fun to play)
9. Mesmer (...okay, I haven't played one yet... but the ****doesn't appeal to me)
10. Assassin (Too many Naruto clones have just ruined the **** "more glass than cannon" as one of my guild mates put it)

I'd also like to give a shout-out to the Eagle Talons guild for being extremely helpful to a newcomer. I may have joined by accident, but it was a happy accident. :D

The new avatar is my warrior. His name is Miyamoto Yakamo (Five Rings references there), and no... he's not pretty. He's functional, though. :)

Musically Inclined

I picked up the newest Iced Earth CD (awesome!!! 4 stars!!!), the newest DragonForce CD (jury's still out, but it doesn't sound much different from Inhuman Rampage), and the Megadeth boxed set (by happy accident, I bought it on a day when used CDs were selling for 40% off, meaning I got it for a very steep discount :D ).

I also found a cheap copy of Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80's, and I'm very glad I didn't pay full price on release: it's the worst of the bunch for several reasons:

Poor covers: The guitar solo for "Metal Health" was totally deleted, for example;

Incorrectly-credited covers: "Radar Love" was not made famous by White Lion {???} and "Ballroom Blitz" was not made famous by Krokus;

And the difficulty assignments for songs is baffling: Winger's "Seventeen" more difficult than Dio's "Holy Diver???" (Winger's inclusion makes the whole collection suspect, to be honest.)

When there's only 2 songs you want to play over again (Extreme's "Play With Me" and Anthrax's "Caught in a Mosh") $50 seems like a complete rip-off. Hell, the $10 I paid seems pretty steep at the moment.

News that "Peace Sells" will be on Rock Band 2 has put it on my radar, by the way. It also makes the list of games Megadeth has appeared on or been associated with truly impressive...

Duke Nukem, Guitar Hero 1 & 2, one of the NHL games, Gears of War, True Crime: Streets of LA,GTA Vice City (I think)... a few others I've probably missed...

SO...

I'm going to start researching the next Soapbox now (with increased scrutiny, I need to increase my standards... *sigh*... :lol: ). Take care of yourselves, and hope that October is a little more lively than September was. :D