THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Friday, March 19, 2004

The lure of online gaming

Ok, I'll admit it, I have a new addiction. I am totally engrossed in Final Fantasy XI. For those of you who don't know, Final Fantasy is a string of games dating back to way before I ever played video games. They're role playing type games that have a plot, albeit a supernatural & sometimes really "out-there" plot. Basically you partner up with computer characters & have to fulfill some sort of quest that takes forever (the average amount of hours that it takes to complete one of these games is roughly 35-45). But this one is a little different. It's played online, and you create the character you want to play. Jeff & I are both doing this. He is a Warrior human & can beat up stuff really well. I am a little Tarutaru, this munchkin looking creature who toddles everywhere instead of actually walking. Jeff thinks it's funny that right now I do the same thing. And when she sits down, she sorts plops, and I'm pretty much doing the same thing at this point, so Jeff gets great humor out of the fact that I'm so similar to my character right now. I'm about 3 feet tall & my main strength is white magic, healing people. I do have this tiny little sword looking thing, but I have to be careful who I pick a fight with, otherwise I get slaughtered. My main job is to build up my magic skills & join a party with other real people and let them fight the bad guys while I sit back & heal them. It's a stressful & fun job, because while most of the time I'm never in harms way (unless the bad guy decides he's tired of fighting the other people & comes after me) I get the same experience they do & the same items that we find on the creatures we fight. But I've seen, watching Jeff play in groups of 6, that a white mage's job can be very stressful, trying to figure out who to heal first & also trying not to draw the attention of the bad guy. So, it's an addicting game. But it sometimes takes an hour or so to do the simplest of things, like find your way back from wherever you were last fighting. And when you're a small squishy white mage (Jeff's nickname for me), that can be devasting if you get attacked by something huge. But it's fun and entertaining. Emma thinks my little character is her friend Cece back in San Diego. Since it doesn't look anything like her, except for the fact that it's small, I'm not exactly sure how she got that idea. Maybe because Jeff's character looks somewhat like him, he's tall & blonde, she tried to figure out who my character looked most like & came up with Cece.
Jeff went to the doctor the other day, kicking & screaming. And I think it's a good thing he did, too. The doctor wants to run all sorts of tests on him, trying to figure out how the Navy screwed him up with all their experimental injections. He gets to have an EKG in a couple weeks & have blood drawn. I'm sure that'll be fun for him, considering how much he hates needles. I guess that can be a good thing, I can be guaranteed that he'll never be an intravenous drug user.
Emma has gotten into talking to the baby lately. She'll come up & start asking the baby questions, and answering for her. Like this morning, she told me that the baby had clothes, pj's & toys in my tummy. I told her, no wonder it feels so crowded in there. And then I have to talk to HER baby in her tummy. I'm glad that she's started to get a little more accepting of the idea of the baby. It's such an abstract concept for small children to understand. There's something in there, but you can't see it. But I think once we're able to put together the baby's room, it might be a little more concrete in her mind, that something's coming & it's going to sleep "here" and these are the clothes that she's going to wear, and all that stuff.
And since we're roughly 4 weeks away from having this baby, I guess now would be the best time to come to the realization that this baby is coming, regardless of whether or not we're "prepared" for it. We're as prepared as we can be. We got the changing table/dresser delivered this week, so Jeff & I (mostly Jeff, who am I kidding) are going to be putting it together this weekend. We also got my glider rocker, which is very comfortable. Emma keeps trying to commandeer it for herself, and she always wants to sit in my lap with a blanket when I'm sitting in it. I think she likes the motion it makes. And I think I'll be doing some baby laundry this weekend as well, to put into the dresser once it's assembled. Cleaning out closets & dusting everything will be next. Yay, what fun. I have the "nesting urge", but no "nesting urge energy". I need that to do the nesting. So, I will be using my husband's energy as a surrogate. I think my nesting instinct showed up a little late in this pregnancy. Isn't it supposed to happen at around 5 months? I don't know, I don't think I had it with Emma. I don't remember. But of course that could just be the "pregnancy brain" rearing it's ugly head again. So many things to blame my ineptitudes on, I'm going to miss that when I'm not pregnant anymore.

No comments: