So most people consider FFVI to be the ‘golden boy’ of all the early Final Fantasy games.  Bollocks!  I never liked it as much as 4, and I will go on record right now and say it is a worse game than VIII.  Yeah, I said it.

I’m only about 6 hours in, and admittedly every one of the Final Fantasy games takes some “getting into”.  But I can think of three immediate reasons why I don’t like it.

1)  It’s just gloomy.  The main city of Narshe is a cold, empty place.  Other towns you visit early on are equally devoid of anything charming.  Then you start hitting places like Zozo and the Vector… all just dismal places.  The music doesn’t help – the melodies in VI are pretty dour as well.  There’s no uplifting songs like in the last couple of games.  Maybe it’s the ‘technology’ theme they went for, but they went for rusty hand-crank drills and not sleek pneumatic awesomeness.

2) It’s a succession of “oh this my least favorite part in the game”.  Literally, like five in a row.  I can’t stand doing the Death Train, I can’t stand doing stupid Narshe battle (I ended up just making one super-party and kicking everyone’s ass with it), I can’t stand Zozo at all, I think the opera sequence is very silly to have in an RPG (it belongs in FFX-2 if anything)…

3) I know the earlier games lacked back-story for many of the characters, and that was considered a fault.  4 saw tiny back-stories for each, 5 expanded a bit and gave two or three of the characters significant back-stories.  In 6, EVERYONE and their mother has a back story.  Seriously, do I need to know that the assassin is afraid of bats!?  C’mon!

My two saving graces – I get to name all the characters in this game, and so far Dr. Tom (for Gau) and Hugles (for Shadow) happen to be my two favorites.  And FFVI DOES contain the best character in ANY FF game.  Yes, it’s the YETI, who’s special attack is that he hurles YOUR OWN PARTY MEMBERS at the enemy for extensive damage.  Simply awesome.

Ash’s latest suggestion, after another long bout of not settling on a boy’s name.  So we turn back to you:

Any more suggestions for the baby-naming contest?  Doesn’t have to be boy-centric, but that might now help.  I still have all the old suggestions and will pick a winner before the baby is born, and you will receive an awesome gift.

Note: please disregard my tense-switching.

I suppose if nothing else, this weekend is getting me prepared for having every single plan I ever make go horribly horrbly awry.  The plan was: gather the west-coast people together to celebrate Mitch and my 30th birthday (a little late).  We were to go to the beach, then play some disc golf, then play some Dash, then do the casino circuit.  Nearly everyone invited could make it, which should have signaled that I should have expected shenanigans, and not necessarily in the good way.

Mitch, Marsha, Kristen, Corey & boyfriend Matt, Cyrus, and Scott all made it. Friday, we’re playing some games, hanging out at the apartment when Ash gets sick – MORNING SICKNESS HAS RETURNED!  She had a rough Friday night, and from the looks of it, she might be out of commission on Saturday.  We’d have to see.

Saturday morning (later than expected) comes and Ash is out of comission indeed.  She is still throwing up pretty badly.  At this point, she is unsure if it is morning sickness, a bug, or food poisoning.  Either way, she tells me to go and she’s going to get some sleep.  Not great, but that’s the new plan.  Of course, in Tahoe it is 55 degrees at this point.  We manage to play a full round of disc golf, though the trip to the lake itself is reduced to eating at a mediocre place on the shore and running out afterwards to dip fingers into Lake Tahoe.  We head back so I can check on Ash, and hopefully she can join us for ‘Dash.

No such luck.  Ash is doing worse, excessive vomiting, and not peeing anymore.  As any pregnant woman knows, any time you stop peeing for more than 11 minutes, something isn’t right.  She suggests everyone gets a hotel for the night in case she is contagious, which nobody anticipated doing.  After one is booked, I say we can’t wait for her doctor to call back and we should go to the ER.  Which we do around 6pm.  So I bid everyone goodbye, hoping that I’ll see them later, but really, hoping Ash (and Smacky) are okay.  We were worried about Ash, of course (after all, a stomach bug SUCKS, but isn’t life-threatening usually), but more about Smacky.  Dehydration = very bad for babies.

Note 2: if you want good service at a hospital, be pregnant.  We get right into a room and they run some tests.  Ash is still sick (over 24 hours at this point).  They get an IV in her and she’s doing a little better.  I stay for about 4 hours.  She is just getting nutrients and things like that.  Alert but tired and back aching.  Her mom comes (good ole’ mom) and Ash tells me to go see my friends.  I make a quick stop back home to get her some pillows and her robe (she was going to stay with her parents), get a bite of dinner, and drop them off.  I make it to the Nugget after 11 to hang out for a bit.

The next morning, everyone (all 9 of us plus Ash’s family of another 6 or 7) head over to Ash’s parents, who prepared an AMAZING brunch for everyone. There was some inter-family mingling, and plenty of eats.  It was truly an awesome gesture.

Long story short, I still suck at gambling (in Reno), Matt and Corey are very lucky at Pai Gow, Ash’s family kicks patoot, it appears as though everyone had a good time, and nobody else got sick.

Most important: Ashley is now pretty much back to 100% – even as of Sunday morning she was markedly better.  And maybe even most important, Smacky is fine.  I don’t say that to diminish Ash’s illness, but in light of some recent unhappy news I received from some good friends, it became even more clear that Ash and I are extremely lucky to have a seemingly healthy and resilient baby.  That gets taken for granted way too often, and I’m certainly a culprit as much as anyone.

I didn’t get to see my friends as much as I wanted, play Dash, or make $1000 at the craps tables.  But Ash and I are happy, and Smacky is doing just fine.  I’m pretty damn lucky indeed.

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Ménage à Trois 2006 – Of course I purchased this relatively inexpensive wine as soon as I saw it, and almost specifically with the intent to drink it with two girls and then blog about it. Things don’t always happen like you plan, though, and this never came to fruition. But this wine had more in common with a sexual threesome than would originally have been thought.

Like any good ménage à trois’, the first thing you’ll notice is the strong aroma. It isn’t a flimsy red, that’s for sure. It is more of a burgundy (the color, not the wine) than a rose (again, the color). It continues to be like a ménage à trois by its taste, which is not overly sweet, vaguely bitter, and just feels comfortable in your mouth. Which makes sense – it says it is a blend of Zinfandel, Merlot and Cabernet, and that is the order I’d put them in. The strength and stubbornness of a zin, the aloofness of a merlot, and the just-thereness of a cab are all evident.

Because of the fighting of the three ingredients, though, it lacks the smoothness that I prefer an evening red to have. It’s like your tongue is caught in the midst of a war between three very dangerous and fruity nations. What ends up happening is that your tongue surrenders for a while until it just gets used to the feeling and ultimately tries to stave all three off.

And like many of the best ménage à trois’, it ended up on the floor and ultimately created quite the clean-up. Thankfully, there’s a fourth red which makes the perfect compliment to this concoction, and it’s called ‘Resolve’, in a convenient red spray-bottle. Fortunately, losing a quarter of the bottle made me appreciate the rest a little more, perhaps upping the score a half point. 6.5/10.

Interesting, we did another Dirty Dozen list and I uploaded it.  I am trying to link it on the main page (which I always to so people know what’s new with the site).  It looks like it’s linked, but it isn’t.  In fact, when I tried to link it on the admin page, everything worked fine, but then about 5 seconds later, the “link” window came back up.  I clicked “okay” again and it looked fine, but five second later, it happened again.

Hmmm…. I wish I knew anything about this sort of thing.  I suppose I could email Jay, but I’m sorta hoping he just reads this…

Anyway, here’s the Dirty Dozen List.

Anyone pick up Spore yet?  The ads are piquing our interest, and we think since Ash is gonna be home, despite being busy with the kid, there will be times when Smacky is sleeping and she’ll have some down time.  Is it worth it?

The reviews looks great.  Just wondering if anyone’s got it or played it…

Ash and I have noticed that nobody sells bookshelves anymore.  Bed Bath & Beyond?  The only thing they sold was a huge hutch type thing with glass covers for the shelves at a $1000 clip.  Very nice, sure, but not exactly in our budget.  We went to a small FURNITURE store – they only had very narrow ones or very short ones.

I’ve been combing Craig’s List and they’re actually selling old stuff pretty cheap.

So the question – does anyone read actual books anymore?  Do they just store them in boxes?

I’ve noticed (probably ‘Ash has noticed’ is more approriate) that I’m not exactly jumping up and down about the baby yet.  I mean, I am excited, but you might not be able to tell that by looking at me.  Or listening to me.  Or having me around. She had me feel the baby kicking, and although I intellectually knew it was a baby, it felt like indigestion and I said “Cool”.  That was apparently it.

In reading my books, this is abolutely normal.  It’s even common.  But that doesn’t exactly make me feel better.  I want to just sit back and enjoy the baby but I’m too stressed about everything.  Finances primarily, but other things too – how good a father will I be if I’ve only held a kid below the age of 5 twice, and they were both in the last 3 months?  Why am I moving AGAIN (making the 7th move since 2001)?  Should I have really decided NOW to throw a birthday party, become involved with a massive Novel-On-CD project, compile the baby shower registry, plan a weddingish, and book myself another trip back east?

To top that off, my back got thrown out of wack this past weekend, my feet and chest got super sunburned, and my face problems have been acting up more this week than I can ever recall.

But mostly, it’s how the hell are we going to pay for everything?  It’s not as bad as it seems, I’m sure.  We’re better off than most young parents I have ever heard of, not to mention the countless single parents who have worse jobs than me, if they have a job at all.  And we still love each other, deeply.  More than before.  That’s pretty huge going into this.

But what bugs me out is to cope, I don’t go and play disc golf (it is 90 miles away, round trip), or go hiking (laziness I guess) or try to make new friends out here.  I play video games or read books.  Talk out retreating inwardly.

I try to assure Ash that she is kicking ass (and she really really is).  I try to assure myself this is normal, because apparently it is.  And possibly for the first time ever, I’m assuring all of you that I can whine on blogs too just like everyone else on Earth.

So another one in the can.  This one took much longer, not in terms of playing hours, per se, but in terms of overall time.  It’s because it takes FOREVER to get interesting.  It does, mind you, but it certainly takes its time.  I think this one out of all others is either just way too hokey or didn’t translate well.  Example: there’s a pirate character you meet early on and two of the guys in the party are confused why they think the pirate is hot (it is assumed the pirate is a man).  When the pirate reveals herself finally to be a woman, everyone is shocked.  WHY!? Either you have latent homosexual tendencies or YOU ARE BEING STUPID!

Anyway, this was the closest I’ve come to total completion.  I used a 100% item walkthrough (because there are a few items that are incredibly difficult to find).  I ended up somehow getting 98% of the items, and I think there was one temple where you have 10 minutes to get out, and I think I missed a chest or two there.  It blows up and you can’t go back.  But because I had stolen a rare thing along the way, I saved assuming i had gotten everything.  Oops.

But I leveled every job to full, leveled the Chicken Knife to full, got every blue magic spell except one (I got tired of hunting it down), and killed the two ‘bonus’ bosses.

Playing these again makes me amazed at how LITTLE these games advanced each time.  I mean, from 1-6, not much progress.  They reuse storylines, plot points, character types, and I swear to God if I see any other people nobly sacrifice themselves to save the world, I will put someone’s face into a juicer.

45 hours or so down here.  Anyway, onto six.  Never really liked this one much, but maybe I’ll have a newfound appreciation, playing them in order.

So I snapped a beautiful photo of Lake Tahoe today when we got there, sending it in my camera phone to Mitch and Susan.  It was truly beautiful.  I tossed the phone in the pocket of my board shorts.  LESS THAN TWO MINUTES LATER, I started swimming.  In Tahoe.  For about a half hour.  Needless to say, my phone doesn’t exactly look so hot.

I might be sans phone for a month or so, as my new term won’t be coming up until October or November.  I gotta look into that.  Either way, crap!