This week has been a good mix of excitement and frustration. Exctration? Definitely exctration.
See, I got back into LotRO for the first time in forever only to notice that I haven’t been getting my monthly allotment of TP. As it turns out, there’s quite a few lifetimers also suffering from this problem. There’s probably more, too, but with no form of history to speak of a lot of people aren’t sure if they’ve been getting them or not. In my case, I’m two months out and 1,000 TP down. I’ve heard that there might be some confusion about dates in their system (creation vs billing), so who knows.
In any event, calling customer service, though hold-free, didn’t really offer any help. Apparently they’re going through a move and won’t have access to that information until the middle of next week. Turbine is usually excellent with their phone support, so I was disappointed, but I have a good $16 in points left \to last me until I hear back on the email ticket.
The excitement part of it is much more fun; I gave up on Angmar entirely. My attention span is far too short to spend my time drudging through zombie-hell-brown-texture, so I packed my bags and headed to Forochel. I’m still level 44, so I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough, but I’m glad I moved. Forochel is not only prettier, but it’s better laid out, there’s more to solo, and frankly, the whole place is just a lot more interesting than Angmar. Plus, with all this new stuff to do I should be set for at least another couple levels and by then Eregion will be a real option.
I hear at 45 I need to start looking into Legendary Items. As corny as it sounds, I’m really looking forward to having a special weapon that I get to name. I love naming things; it helps me get more attached to them. Take my Moria Goat, Ruin. I love that damn thing. I honestly felt a little bad packing him up to try out the nifty new horse I bought from the cash shop. Squire’s kind of a lame duck though, all bland and brown looking — yes, I named her Squire. I guess I have a thing for naming things of which they are not. I shall name my first L.I…. Pants. Syeric and Pants, Partners in Denim. It’s too bad you can’t name shields. That might be a better name for a buckler.
Speaking of horses, though, I don’t quite get what’s so cool about this skeletal horse everyone’s trying so hard to get. I firmly believe that the whole reason people think it’s cool is because the rest of the mounts in the game are so horribly generic. Big horse, small horse, spray-painted horse. And goat. I’ll take the whole other species thankyouverymuch.
But yeah, enough with LotRO.
The other blend of mixed emotions came from my new Kindle 3. Yours truly turned 24 this past Tuesday and was generously gifted with the funds to buy my new toy. I opted for the wifi version since the 3G I got last time was underwhelming. Apparently a lot of people shared my thought because every Target in New York was sold out (still are, I think). Thankfully, a Best Buy an hour away had them in stock. I made the drive.
Elation! Joy! Odious amounts of geekgasm fun! But wait, doesn’t this page turn button feel a little bit loose? Let’s see what the internet has to say about it. Sponginess? Early failure? Coping with it?!? And with that, and another hour drive, I exchanged it. The next one had the same problem (this is when I started to suspect I might be difficult to please). Really though, Kindle #2 was more than just loose feeling, it bordered on unresponsive. Thankfully I tested it in the parking lot before leaving.
Kindle #3 was perfect. Tight buttons, great response, everything you’d want in an e-reader. As it turns out, both the Kindle 3 and the Amazon branded covers have quirks that you have to work around. On the plus side, I am extremely impressed with this thing’s web browsing capabilities. It has enough memory and processing power to load non-mobile versions of every website I’ve tried — including Facebook and Google Reader. Google Reader is especially nice since built-in keyboard shortcuts let you read feeds just like an e-book.
The only real limitation, short of video, of course, is that the browser doesn’t support multiple windows or even tabs. That may not sound bad, until you need to click a link. I got the thing for reading, though, so I’ll deal. It’s also worth noting that the browser is leaps and bounds above every previous edition to date. For reference, my last one was a K2, which I returned due to price guilt, and the browser was so unwieldy it was almost worthless. This is a huge step above.
Oh, and a note: Splash “invisible” screen protectors are surprisingly glary and about impossible to remove. I mean, really, I had to super glue a rubber band to the thing just to pull it off. My wife’s finger nails failed and she’s got nails like a cat.
Anyways, that’s been my week. And New Vegas, which has both brought me joy and frustration. The game has a weird habit of reloading me right in front of the mobs who just killed me, right before they killed me, every time I die. I have to run away and hope to get far enough before dying again to live on the second reload. Bad design is bad.
Now, it’s time for some late night Polar Bear killing in Forochel. There are even babies, and you guys know how I feel about those.
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