Fair warning, just a few casual post-midnight ramblings.....

I finished my first play-through of Jeanne D'Arc, and I was rather pleased with it. I love tactical RPG's, and this was a dang good one, I'm telling you now. It also marks the first game I've completed on my PSP (yes, poor deprived little old me, took me this long to get one). I'll probably tinker with a second round of Jeanne, then next up will be Manhunt 2. . . a genre I'm pretty klutzy at but good golly I love it, anyway. My review for D'Arc is up - if you are so inclined take a gander at it, feedback is always appreciated. This is probably the first time I promoted one of my reviews on a blog, but the 'Spouse pointed out to me a while back that I probably need to mention them as I do them. I feel sort of silly doing it (Hey! Looky me! I be reviewin'!) but it would be nice to have some recommendations on them. Considering I rely more on the reviews YOU guys put out more so than 'official' ones, I guess I should help spread the word if a game's worthwhile or not. I need to put in a few for some of the older titles I have, too. I do like writing them, regardless of whether or not anybody else enjoys them - it's just good to be writing sometimes. Sort of therapeutic for me, y'know? Okay, that sounded kind of oxymoronic - I'd like feedback and recommendations, but I don't care if you like it? Yeah, yeah, you understood what I meant, didn't you?......

Speaking of 'official', some of you probably don't know kellymae. Why is she noteworthy? Well, she's the first friend I've known to successfully get back on GameSpot from a ban. Yep, ohhnoesssss banned. You Are Dead banned. Everyone on here has seen their fair share of moderations and bans that seemed pretty unfair, and kelly is a pretty terrific chick that got hit with an undeserved moderation. Fortunately JodyR. went to bat for her along with several other mods, and happily the ban was overturned. It's nice to see the forces of Justice and Righteousness kick in once in a while, so maybe there is a bit of good in every evil. It gave me a slight boost in my Faith In GS percentage. There's still a lot of unfairness, sure, but it's refreshing to know that when it's a genuine mistake GameSpot does come through. Thanks to everybody that helped kelly out, it meant a lot to a lot of people.

I'm looking forward to the week after the 4th of July when my entire family goes to the beach. This year, the family rented a HUMONGOUS house instead of the usual condo, which is a plus. My oldest niece and nephew inevitably show up with significant others and a passel of college buddies in tow, which usually results in a mass camp-out throughout the place. This house is three stories (with an elevator), seven bedrooms, a playroom (complete with PS2, but I think our Wii will make the trip with us) and its own pool. It's a street over from the beach, but there's a golf cart if we want to haul over any coolers, chairs or whatnot. We also celebrate the birthdays of two of my nephews and my very own SpookSpawn, who turns 7 on July 3rd (little snot missed being a 4th of July bably by about 45 minutes, too). It works out well, we combine three parties in one and the kids love having mass quantities of presents all at one time. SpookSpawn is getting Guitar Hero On Tour for her DS from us, and one of my siblings (SpookSister?) got her Dance Dance Revolution for the PS2 with the mat. YES! BURN OFF ENERGY! WEAR THAT LITTLE SPAWN OUT! Don't know where she got all that hyperkinetic energy from, not from MY side of the family! (You reading this, SpookSpouse? IT'S YOUR FAULT!!!) I still have yet to pick up the games for the boys; and thanks to all of you for the recommendations. I figured it was going to be a no-go on the Western RPG thing, but you never know until you ask. I do know someone picked up Orcs And Elves for him, so maybe that will do the trick.

My workout regime continues apace, finally started dropping some pounds. It's weird, every now & then I look down at my hands when I'm typing and I think, damn, my wrists look kind of skinny..... I have a stocky build anyway, so I didn't have any expectations of being nice and streamlined, but pairing skinny with any part of me is pretty peculiar. But the workout isn't about how I look, it's about feeling better and being healthier, anyway. I've noticed a lot of small improvements, like the fact I'm much less headachy than usual (used to be, having a headache was sort of my ground state of being). Also I'm less tired at work, a definite plus when one works nights. Not that I'm getting any more sleep during the week - four or five hours, and when the weekend rolls around I'll sleep through the whole thing! I really, REALLY need to work on that, but it's hard to get a schedule going when I'm fielding emergency calls from work (been a LOT of that lately), helping my Mom out and trying to spend time with the Spawn. Not to mention fitting in some gametime for myself! Maybe I could get myself cloned? Could the world handle two of me? Heck, could I handle another me?

Eh, I'm really starting to get stupefied, time to catch up on some more of that mysterious sleep stuff...

*hugs* Neko