Personally I love the entire time of year from Halloween to Christmas.  Chilly weather (IN THEORY, it's still been 85 + degrees most of the time in this part of the world :( ) and fun holidays.

Speaking of Christmas, I had some extra money (for once) so I decided to gift myself a few things through the wonders of the internet and cheap stuff:  Lord of the Rings trilogy on blu-ray - fifteen disc edition with all the behind the scenes crap that I love; Ghostbusters on Blu-Ray; Devil Survivor: Overclocked; and Red Dead Redemption Game of the Year.  Tis a happy, happy time of year.... :D

EDIT:  Add Star Ocean: First Departure to that list as a result of the discussion in this thread.  I should be faux-bitchy about that, but I can't complain too much about being prompted to spend eight bucks.

Playing Etrian Odyssey 3 now.  I made it to floor 2 and nearly got my ass handed to me by a giant duck (or rather, a string of them).  I'll just say that I was very, very glad that I randomly decided to add lightning to my alchemist's fire repertoire.  I'll be exploring the second floor again soon but will be listening to the advice from the guy in the bar to try to avoid the second floor during the day.  At least until my party gets more grinding in.  I'm not even attempting any of the F.O.E.'s until I've done some serious grinding.  Speaking of grinding, I <3 the auto-pilot system.  Use it to set your team up on a continuous loop and use auto-battle and you seriously reduced the tedium that goes along with grinding.  It feels like the designers said "Well, we're going to make this game difficult and require you to grind, so we're going to help make it easier."  I really appreciate it.

By the way, I picked this game up used a while back (along with the pre-order art book <3) and when I first started playing a few days ago I decided to load up the existing save file just for the hell of it.  I discovered that I was a member of the Balls Guild with a team posssessing names like Farts1 and Farts2.  Damn if THAT didn't bring back memories of renting video games back in the day....

I remember picking up that game for X-Box but don't remember why I picked it up.  May have been on a whim because it was cheap.  Either way I'm glad to have it.

Thread duty:

DAY ONE.  Also, that will push me to finish Demon's Souls and start Dark Souls. >.>


Not to mention, based on what I've seen around the internet Dark Souls actually picked up some decent recognition that extended far beyond what Demon's Souls ever knew.  I can't blame them for sticking a name that people know.

You're welcome, but I'm just calling it as I see it. :)  Many tattoos I see seem to come more from a 'comic book' angle -- think Spawn or something else with heavily stylized, 'intense' drawing.  The only problem I have with those is that they tend to have a style that screams of being intense for the sake of being intense the end result can look trashy.  I don't know what the scene is like up there but here in Texas that kind of tattoo is the norm and deviations are the exception.  I'm sure you know the kind I'm talking about -- flaming skull outline done entirely in dark green ink, that sort of thing.  Your style is as you noted more 'painterly.'

So, moved on from Batman: Arkham Asylum back to the Jak & Daxter collection and polished off Jak 1 (well, mostly) and started on Jak 2.  Interesting game and a lot of fun so far, though, I'll give it that.  There's definitely some GTA3 influence here, what with the new open world-city, GTA-styled map, hovercraft-jacking and new, darker-personality Jak (who is no longer silent).  Unfortunately the hover-craft missions are still in place.  I wouldn't mind except that the actions expected of you require far too much precision for the loose controls.

I'm also continuing to work on Etrian Odyssey III which has been pretty awesome.  It's one of the few RPGs that makes me want to start slow and easy and between that and the map making it has actually been pretty relaxing up to this point.  It really makes you employ some strategy since you only get one point per level, though.  I'm still in B1 grinding about for items and cash, but I've explored every part of B1 that I can from the one entrance currently available to me, so I expect that I will hit B2 soon enough.

I know your pain.  My Figma Samus was canceled, likely for the same reason as your Figma Link figure.

Perhaps he's thinking of big-name WRPGs.  I have noticed a tendency for some WRPG developers to ignore the existence of JPRGs and small projects from the west.

As soon as I run through the Jak & Daxter collection I'll be starting on the Ratchet & Clank collection.  I'm excited about it since I've never played more than the intro level to the first game in the series.

In other news, I have to admit to being impressed with Radiant Historia's length:  Keeping in mind a couple of hours lost on one particularly stubborn piece of firewood, completing several sidequests, and some grinding my playthrough clocked in at just under 45 hours.  That's a pretty nice sweet spot, not too long and not too short.  I've started Etrian Odyssey 3 and I'm liking it up to this point.  I've just made a couple of forays into the labyrinth and mapped out B1 so I'm now a 'true' adventurer according to the officials.  The map drawing element is interesting and I'm really appreciating the attempt at some pretty landscapes given that my last first-person dungeon crawler (my first, too, actually!) was Strange Journey.  I loved that game but after about fifty hours it got pretty depressing.

Finally completed Radiant Historia.  Took a few days because end of game grinding is tedious, but I followed my standard procedure when I run into a tough dungeon and upped my team ten levels - Stocke/Raynie/Marco from 50 to 60.  Now I can start Etrian Odyssey 3. :)

Agreed with all of this, in particular the Ico/Shadow collection but I'd also add the Sly and Jak collections to round out the list of great platformers.  For that matter, I think the Journey collection would appeal to him due to the beauty of the games (Journey in particular).

I'll have to toss my hat in the ring and agree with all the previous comments on that tattoo.  That tattoo destroys the notion of video game tattoos being inherently trashy and the details and clean lines show that you have both the skill and vision that is generally attributed to a more 'traditional' artist. (i.e. someone painting with a brush on canvas.)

Watching a Rescue the Princes podcast.  [Referring to competitive gaming] "It's like speed chess...but on crack."  Speed chess on crack sounds redundant to me...

In other news Amazon took the liberty of withholding shipment preparations for my Black Friday order until the day that a credit card payment hit.  I had to figure out how to keep them from canceling the order over the weekend but it's worked out now and Fallout 3 will be on its way to me soon.  The God of War saga will take a few weeks but for $15 I don't care. :)

I also gave in and finally ordered an 8 gig card for my PSP.  Something of a necessity given the thing is an RPG beast.  And given that it was $8 for shipping but had the free super saver shipping option available I decided the sensible choice was to pay $10 for an Unforgiven blu-ray instead of $8 shipping.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has been pretty impressive.  I've completed the story mode and will probably do a few challenges before moving onto other things.  I'm looking forward to Arkham City when I pick it up.  Meanwhile, I've been plowing through Radiant Historia and I'm nearly done.  Fuck that final dungeon, though.  I hate massive difficulty spikes that require you to grind for several levels to get through the average goons haunting a dungeon when boss battles didn't give you any trouble prior to that.  (Exceptions will be made for post-game stuff once the story is over, of course.)  I'm giving up tonight and will hopefully finish tomorrow.

Fair enough, they can be prescribed too easily when other options are available and you're right that even your average clinic can prescribe something (albeit, generally short term) without someone who can look more seriously into the issue.  That said, the studies done on the subject by academic neurologists and psychologists (i.e. those who have no vested interest in starting and keeping people on meds) do indicate that a combination of therapy and meds tends to most consistently produce positive results.  You are, of course, right though that sending them to therapy* first to see if that could help their problems without medicine would be a better first option in most non-emergency situations in particular if supplemented with taking a vitamin D supplement, exercise, or change in diet.

*The one caveat I have here is that people trying that route should be going to a real, trained therapist which unfortunately doesn't always happen.  Therapy attempted by a non-professional can either leave a person suffering for years without any real progress or even make things worse.  It always saddens me when people take that route due to a generalized fear of doctors.  (Please note that I'm making a general observation here and not saying that you would suggest people go hit up their psychic or priest instead of seeing a trained therapist.)