Each year my husband and I each get our own gifts, but we also decide on one large combined gift that we share.  Either something we want for the house, an activity we’d like to try or something we really need that both of us will use and enjoy.  This year we have been undecided and Christmas passed us by without anything being settled.  Strange for us as we always seem to have something we want.

Recently I asked friends on Facebook whether they preferred the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3 because my father wanted a good, realistic console for racing and flight simulation games.  I passed on the info and he ended up buying himself the PS3, and appears to be enjoying it.

My husband and I have often tossed around the idea of getting a console, but the same thing happens every time.  Lack of knowledge turns into information overload when we ask people, and we can’t decide and give up.  It’s a lot of money for us to spend on something we don’t know a lot about or are not sure we’ll enjoy.  I think it goes back to the day when we bought a Nintendo Game Cube on a whim.  We enjoyed it for a short while, and then it collected dust in a drawer until I sold it on Marktplaats.   It was a lesson learned in not doing our research before buying a console.

When you ask people who are into gaming about these consoles, you often get quite heavy opinions which are based on their own personal experience and what they enjoy rather than them taking themselves out of it and helping to advise based on what we are looking for.

So I’m here to try and get that from you, dear readers!   I know that a lot of the people who read this blog are gamers, as that’s probably how we met.  I also know many of you play games on each of these consoles or have friends, children or spouses who do.  So please weigh in!

Here is what we are interested in and are looking for in a console, our choices are the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii:

1. FUN!  We are both gamers, having played various MMORPG’s in the past.  More myself than Xander, but I’ve played World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online, Dark Age of Camelot… all the way back to the good old days of Ultima Online.   We enjoy games and although we have gotten away from playing MMORPG’s seriously due to their addictive nature and demand on personal time, we do still want to have fun games to play.

2. The ability to play together.  As geeks we spend our fair share of time doing our own thing behind our separate computers.  While we will probably still play on our own from time to time, the main goal for getting a console is to spend time together playing the games and having fun.  We don’t want it to be a situation where one sits playing games loads while the other sits in frustration, bored and alone.  Multi player games is a must, and I’m not sure if one console is better than the others in regards to this.

3. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t people who were impressed by graphics.  If I was interested in just game play rather than how a game looks, I’d still be playing Ultima Online over any of the newer more impressive looking MMORPG’s.  It is not a deal breaker though.  I know the Wii lacks seriously in this department in comparison with the other two, but if the Wii fits more of our other criteria, we are willing to overlook the graphics issue.

4. Availability of games.  I know games are expensive, and we won’t be out buying every new game that comes out.  While we would never buy a console second hand, we probably would buy used games, just to save a bit of money on them.  I don’t know what console, if any, have more games out there that are available second hand here in the Netherlands, but if one has far more out there than another, perhaps that would make a slight difference.

5. Wireless.  One thing that drove me absolutely bananas with the Game Cube was all the wires.  When you have 2 dogs and a cat roaming and running around the house, it always ends in disaster when you have lines crossing the livingroom.  I’ve not done a lot of research into the different consoles and their controllers but if one has wireless controllers and the others don’t, this would be another big point in their favor.

6. Online stuff.  Yeah I know, very technical!  I know some of the games can be played online with other people, or that it’s possible to connect to the internet with some of the gaming consoles, but beyond that I don’t know exactly how it all works.  It would be fun to at least compare with other players or be able to join some sort of community with them.   I don’t need to sit with a headset on playing some FPS while screaming how I just PWNED some loser, if we want that we can play WoW.

7. Entertainment value.  If we have friends over I’d like to have something that we can get out and enjoy with them.  Not games that are so incredibly complicated that it would take me so long to explain that by the time we pressed play they’d have to go home in 10 minutes.  Something with games that are easy and fun to play with friends and family of all ages.

8. Price.  While this isn’t a dealbreaker either, if they are all relatively even in regards to our other requirements but one is outrageously more expensive than the other, then we’d probably count that one out, or on the other hand if they were all stacking up the same and one was quite a lot cheaper… perhaps we’d consider that as well.  Obviously, the less you spend on the console itself the more you have to get the extra bits and bobs… and we love our bits and bobs!!

9. The best future.  That stupid Game Cube seemed like a great idea when we bought it, little did we know that before long Nintendo would go “oh screw that” and scrap it.  We hardly had time to enjoy it before it became a thing of the past, without a future.  I want something that if we get it, we can add to and use for a long time without it sort of being deemed too crap to bother doing anything more with.

That’s pretty much it, we aren’t totally fussy but these things are important to us.  We’re really interested in hearing people’s opinions but based on these things, not just some hardcore gamer telling us how much better some console is because of how it all all the things HE wants.  That’s not a lot of help to us, as great as it is for them.

So, what do you think?  Do you have experience with the different consoles and think one is better for us than the other?  If so, why?  We are new to these things and the more info we have in regards to what their advantages are for us, the better.  We can read up online all we want but nothing is better than hearing from people who have experience themselves and can take what will be fun for us into consideration.

Thanks and I’m looking forward to hearing what you all have to say!

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I may very well be the last gamer on the planet to hear about these people, but I feel the need to share… just in case there’s someone more out of the loop than I am.

The Guild are a group of gamers who came together to make their own web-based show about five people who belong to a guild in a MMORPG.  As a gamer, I find it hilarious but I am pretty sure that a lot of the humor would be lost on people who have never played.

I don’t play much anymore.  I still have a World of Warcraft account that I play here and there but not as often as I did in my psychotically addicted gaming history.   There was a time where I’d actually cancel plans with friends because I had to be at a raid in game, or would not answer the door because I would die in game if I walked away.  Yeah, nuts.   Now I play when I am bored and have the time when it won’t interfere with anything else, feels much more enjoyable and healthy.

During my time gaming I think I’ve known someone who fits every personality in this guild… the sweetiepie girl who is completely neurotic, the bitchy chick, horrible mom, dirty minded teenager, the desperate dude who falls in love with every chick who speaks to him and the guildmasters who live for the game. 

I think that’s what makes the show so funny, because anyone who has ever gamed has experienced these personalities as well.

Check out the first episode…

If you are interested you can view the rest here.  Enjoy!

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I went to a party last weekend that had a lot of crying snot covered little kids in a small area.  Having not purchased myself a plastic bubble yet, I got ANOTHER COLD.  Yeah, you heard me right… and yes I know I just had one last month.  Believe me, I know.

That trip to the dentist for a checkup I was forced into after going with Xander?   TWO CAVATIES!  I had them both filled but they did a rotten job on one of them because the tooth that didn’t hurt before does now.  It’s my very back tooth on the opposite side of the one I had pulled last year so you can bet your ass if they plan a lot of screwing around to fix it I’m having them yank that sucker instead.   No more messing around!

This cold is really interfering with Deco-Weekend.  Monday is Dec 1st which means that I am officially allowed to start decorating for x-mas this weekend rather than next, because it’s closer.   I have boxes and deco scattered all over the place and a tree that is 1/2 put together in my living room.   This is not the time to be sick, dammit.

Not only do I have a cold, and a sore tooth which I can’t get fixed until I’m able to breathe through my nose again, but I also have HELL WEEK happening at the moment (that means my period).   So I have sore head, nose, throat, tooth, belly and feel like a total dirtbag.

I crave meat (like I do every month) but can’t be arsed to cook any.

I feel like even with the cold I could gobble my way through McDonalds or Burger King like Packman on drugs.

I’ve been a mouth breather all week which has made my lips totally dry and cracky, which makes them sting whenever I eat anything.

I’m tired but I don’t want to nap because then I won’t sleep at night, so instead I’m awake and whiney.

It’s Deco-Weekend!  I’m supposed to be playing x-mas music and bopping around decorating my house.   Instead I’m whining on my blog and playing World of Warcraft (yeah, we were weak… we went back, but only to play for fun now not all crazy like before).

On a good note, at least his will all be out of my system before I go to Germany. Until then I must:

1. Take Vitamins EVERY DAY.
2. Avoid children like the plague, little germ bags.
3. Get my tooth sorted.

Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. *sneeze*

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This is my messy living room during our (yay!) four day weekend!   It’s a panoramic photo that I took which basically blends together 3 photos.  It’s a really cool feature of MY NEW PHONE.  Obviously I lined it up all wonky.  My laptop doesn’t curve at the top and there are only three of those tall shelves with the DVD’s, not four.. It was just a test shot though so whatever.   I wish my proper camera could do that.   Although I suppose I could take 3 pics and merge them together in photoshop.

Right, so about the new phone…

It’s a T-Mobile MDA Vario III which is just T-Mobile’s way of renaming the HTC Tytn II, which they also remodeled on the outside (boo!, I think the Tytn looks much cooler).    It’s a smartphone, which means it basically has everything in it, which is exactly what I need.   I had a mobile phone, a crappy MP3 player and a PDA that kept losing all my data every time I forgot to charge it (which was pretty much… every time).   This has all of those things, PLUS mobile Internet, in one handy package.   It takes up less room in my bag and is just one thing to have to remember, rather than three.

I love that it has windows on it, but it’s in Dutch, which is a bit of a bummer.    I guess it’s a sign that I am fully integrated when my mobile is in Dutch too.   I can’t say I’ve figured everything out yet though as I did manage to phone my friend Penny a few times by mistake yesterday.  Now I know what those buttons mean!  I’m totally digging the qwerty keyboard too, and I wonder how many of those little stylus thingies I’ll manage to lose.

Did you notice something else in that pic?

My new Acer Aspire 9920G latop!  I’ve had it now for a few weeks and have meant to blog about it but am always so tired after work I can’t be arsed.   I absolutely LOVE IT!  As you can see in the pic, the screen is HUGE (20 inches)!   I actually had to push it a few feet away to take the pic because when I sit with it in front of me on the sofa, I can’t really see much else.

It’s fantastic for watching my downloaded TV shows and Movies and I love that I can have so many things open on my screen at once and still see them.   I loved my little Vaio but it was really small and while that is good for some things, I prefer more of a mobile desktop type of laptop.  Granted, at 7.8 kilos, I won’t be carting this around with me everywhere like I did with the Vaio.

Here are the specs if you are interested.

It’s powerful enough for gaming as well, and while I’ve been tempted to play WoW on it I’ve resisted the urge and tried out a few other games like Fable, Oblivion and The Sims.   I didn’t play any of them very much but I just liked seeing that they could all run smoothly.  Whether WoW would remains to be seen but I want to go there again.  The idea of starting up a little newbie somewhere to play, away from everyone I’ve known on there, is appealing though.  That gamer in me just won’t let go…

Don’t worry, I haven’t been hogging all this new financial freedom to myself.  My husband has been buying tons of electronics and robotics stuff.  Not that I understand what any of it is but he’s enjoying it.   He’ll have to get off his lazy arse and start updating his blog and discuss those things himself!

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I haven’t been feeling so well lately, and I visited the doctor yesterday after being up since 3:30am.   He sent me for bloodwork to test my sugar and stuff, but said he suspects I might have Vertigo, lovely.  I had to come home and Google it to find out what exactly it was.    On top of that, I have (TMI TIME) some serious female crap going on, which the doctor is also helping me sort out.   Needless to say, I’m not a happy camper… especially since this is causing me to take time off work.   I’m feeling like shit and not sleeping well at all, which doesn’t bode well when you work in a job where concentration and attention to detail is a must.  Especially if you are new and already worry enough that you are missing things or making mistakes.    I hate that I am taking time off so soon after starting there but hopefully they will be cool about it.

Anyhow, getting back to the gamer thing.   I was up at ridiculous o’clock again today, like 4am or something… so what is there to do when you are awake in the middle of the night?   I decided to play this battleship type game on Facebook to pass some time and get my mind off what was ailing me.   That’s when I met this genius...

Alberto: hey
Tammy: Hi
Alberto: you’re dead
Tammy: Ok :)
Alberto: i’m gonna eat you up
Tammy: alrighty
Alberto: you suck
Tammy: are you here to play or chat?
Alberto: both naby
Tammy: then find something a little more interesting to say
Alberto: like how preety you are
Tammy: no not that either
Alberto: why not
Tammy: because I don’t find it any more interesting than the other things you said
Alberto: can i put my hands down your pants
Tammy: sure, I’ll mail you a pair
Alberto: i want you in it
Tammy: I’ll put a picture of me in the pocket

Apparently the male ego demands smacktalk even on the lamest of gaming platforms.  I probably should have taken a moment to tell Alberto about World of Warcraft, which is like the Mecca of gamer egos, where he could find more of his people…. but just a moment after that conversation I sunk a buttload of his ships, he surrendered and ran off with his tail between his legs before I could school him.

PWNED!! BREIGH FTW!

It did work though, for that entire time I totally forgot how crappy I feel.

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Honestly, it’s like a day in the life of the Soldaats right there…

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The place they are housesitting is like a mansion.  Well, a Dutch city version of one anyway.  It has 5 floors and really huge rooms, two massive kitchens, beautiful bathrooms and all the cool techy shit you could want… including the new Nintendo Wii.

Xander will never be a tennis pro.

Neither of the boys were really that into it either.

I only played Zelda and didn’t quite get the point.  You don’t even have to stand up, that’s not very Wii-like.   I thought you’d have to jump and swing and be all fighty as if you WERE the little Zelda dude but it was like playing it on any other game console.  Meh.

The game looked nice but it reminded me a lot of Fable.  Not really worth spending all that money on a Wii.  At least not in my opinion anyway.

Note the frustrated look on my face.  I was concentrating really hard trying to get these damn sheep into a barn, but it took me a min to realize I had to go to the guy first to get it to work so I spent about 15 minutes trying to herd them when there was no chance of it working.

On the way home we were behind this bus.  I burst out laughing because it looks like the kid is lifting up to let out a big fart.

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Will I end up playing it after the 7 day trial is over, it’s doubtful.   Maybe I’ll like it more after playing for a week but at the moment it doesn’t really seem like anything to rave about.

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Well I never thought I’d ever say this, but…  I miss WoW.  Argh.. shit!

This is the 2nd time over the past number of years that I’ve quit gaming.   The last time was after Star Wars Galaxies and before World of Warcraft.

I had quit gaming completely for about 10 months and then was lured back by a friend who was raving about how great WoW was.   I then played the game pretty much nonstop for almost a year, which worked well for me because I was totally in the dumps and appreciated the escape.   The problem was that I got way too into it though, getting too deeply involved in the social aspects of the game and constantly involved in drama and guild politics.  I also did far too much end game things like massive raiding and guild leadership, which sucked the life out of the game for me and made me lose all enjoyment with it.

It’s been almost 10 months again since I’ve quit gaming and I can definitely say it’s the best thing I’ve done.   I lost 30 lbs so far, I’ve managed to crawl out of my slump and get my head together, I’ve started working and socializing again.  So what is it about the 10th month that makes it so hard for me to stay ‘on the wagon’, so to speak?

There is a new expansion out for the game, new races, new worlds… all these exciting things to do that didn’t exist in the game when I was playing it before.  My husband is playing it and shows me all the cool new things that has come along and I feel that familiar urge again.   I want to play and see it all for myself.  I want to make a new little character and run around anonymously and have fun, without getting too involved… but that’s where I doubt myself because I’ve never been able to do that.

Gaming has always been a huge hobby of mine.  I’ve always enjoyed games of all kinds whether it was board games, console games or computer games.   It only became a problem when combined with my depression, which isn’t so much of an issue anymore.

Am I ready to go back to gaming and do it in moderation?   Is that even possible with this game?  I really have no idea.   I’m afraid to try because once it sucks you in it’s hard to get out.   I don’t want anything getting in the way of the progress I’ve made over the past few months, but I don’t want to not do something I enjoy either.

I know the smart thing to do would probably be to avoid it like the plague, but it sure would be nice if I could find a way to fit gaming back into my life in a more healthy way than I have in the past.  

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Being a former gamer myself it’s hard not to feel like I don’t have a lot of right to say anything about it, especially since I gamed for years before he ever started.   I had an excuse though, I was depressed, lonely and living in a foreign country.   It was my escape.

After all those years hearing men bitching about their ‘wife agro’, I have become exactly that.  I am a gamer’s wife and oh boy am I agro.

If I hear the following terms one more time I’m going to completely blow a gasket:

• One sec I’m fighting something
• Hang on I’m chatting with someone
• I can’t right now, I’m in a group
• Not right now!  I’m dying!

Oh and lets not forget my biggest favorite:

• I can’t right now, I’m in an instance!

Then there’s the look.  The one I get when I ask him to get off the computer to do something, usually something I’ve been asking for the last 2 weeks.  It sort of looks like what you’d get in response to walking up and asking someone for a kidney… or if you farted loudly in an elevator.

Annoyance… resentment… frustration.

Today I finally finished my tree skirt and couldn’t wait to get it under the tree and get some pics.   To do so, I needed him to hold the tree up while I put the skirt over the base as I didn’t make a slit, just a hole.

You’d swear I asked him to go to the forest and chop me down a tree with a butter knife, he was so displeased with having to walk away from his game for a few minutes.

It pisses me off more than usual because Christmas is a very hard time for me.   We have no close family in the country, his family lives in the south of France and all but one of them despise me and my own family are all an ocean away.   Plus, all our friends are expats so they are either going home or going away for the holidays, leaving just Xander and I.

I’ve really been trying to make the best of it this year.  To psych myself up to really believe this was going to be a wonderful x-mas.   I finished my tree skirt and was giddy and excited about decorating.

His foul mood alone didn’t piss me off, it was the fact that he couldn’t just set it aside for a few moments so not to spoil MINE, when it’s already teetering on the edge of holiday homesickness.

Now my tree is standing crooked and nothing on it but lights and I honestly can’t be arsed to do anything more with it tonight.  I’m sure I’ll feel differently tomorrow, but then I’ll also be home alone.

So, for ruining my self-made-so-I-can-cope holiday cheer, today… my husband can fuck off and die.

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