ikea makes furniture that’s hard to pronounce. it is even harder to pronounce when your mouth is filled with extra teeth.

yes, i have another tooth coming in. that makes 34. if this keeps up, i’ll use them to make a necklace for my cleaning robot. (if you get that reference, i’ll buy you a beer*.)

but back to ikea. terri and i went furniture shopping yesterday and stopped by the ikea showroom here. that place is nuts and awesome at the same time. imagine a place as big as a walmart, 2 stories, and filled with weird furniture. they even have a restaraunt and a kids play area. the coolest part is all the pre-designed rooms they have set up.

for the longest time i’ve been anti-ikea (i blame fight club), but after seeing that stuff in person i have the urge to redo my entire apartment. i guess i like the “modern-european” style, no matter how trendy it is. it also helps that my den is pretty small, so that kind of furniture fits better.

so now i just need some inspiration. if you have a cool idea or picture of a way i can euro-out my place, post it!

* Offer only redeemable in Houston.

yeah so i realized awhile ago that apart from shredding in guitar hero and a random game of quake 4 here or there, i dont really play games at all anymore. its kinda depressing in a “i used to be too cool for school, but now i’m just old” kinda way. working all day every day makes me feel old, and playing games makes me feel young, so after staring at my desktop for a second i saw the oblivion icon calling to me. i could hear it: “remember how much fun morrowind was? come here and play!”

did any of ya’ll ever play this game?

i ask b/c i actually upgraded my computer for it about 6 months ago. and i remembered how much fun it WASN’T. i was really disappointed by the gameplay and just plain old lack of urgency unlike what morrowind gave you. (i stopped playing after a week or two b/c it got boring) but i remembered that both morrowind and oblivion were very moddable. so i went on the hunt to see what kind of mods were out there to up the fun-level. turns out its a shitload. i found some mods which pretty much change everything about the game, either trying to make it more morrowind-like, or just fixing the gameplay problems. so i downloaded at least 2 dozen of the ones that looked cool and decided to jump back in.

i’ve only played for a few hours, and haven’t even touched the main quest yet. so i’m not sure if this will work out, but i’m determined to have a good time. i know one thing for sure, the game is definitely alot harder now. since before everything was always your level (and therefore everything was always the same difficulty to you and dropped extremely predictable loot, aka lame) you never really had to worry about dying too much. but with the mods i’m using, i’m pretty sure enemies have been assigned static levels, and i guess since i’m still level one everything is hard for me. to make a long story short, i’ve already died a handful of times. and i think i like it! once i gain a few levels i’ll be able to see if the difficulty progresses as you’d think it would. (aka things getting easier rather than staying hard)

i’m really hoping the magic mod i’m using makes being a caster worthwhile. b/c normally magic was so weak compared to everything else that you’d get demolished if you were a pure caster. so i’m going the hybrid fighter/caster route to see if its more fun this time around.

the DMORPG

also, playing this again gave me an idea for a new multiplayer genre. the RPG turned into the MMORPG. (and even the MMORPGFPS) but what about the DMORPG? (Diminutively-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) this game world and engine is great for single player, but i know it would suck as an MMO. but if there were only, say, 10-15 other players (maybe even less) across the entire game world, i think that would create some interesting gameplay. rather than being bombarded with mindless-players all the time, you’d only run into another player every now and then. and along with some creative limitations on chatting (local chat only? haven’t really thought about it much) it could create a really immersive experience. each person would be playing the “single-player” game, but could either choose to work with, against, or ignore other characters.

hey ben, are you and devin still gonna make that game? i accept cash, personal check, and paypal. :]

but how can you say no to this?

i figured since i still eat chocolate, and drink strawberry koolaid, i might as well go the full nine yards. i’d rather get a dog, but i sure as hell wasn’t gonna walk the damn thing and pick up its crap. i’m higher up on the food chain, it should be picking up after me!

for names it came down to Vespa (daughter of Roland, King of the Druids!) Nola and Pepper. say hello to pepper the cat.