Well, I didn't get the blog posts up last night, but they're up now! I didn't get everything done I needed to, not by far, because apparently I was far more tired than I thought and a mere 2 am was wearing me down.

They're all up now, though, so you get to enjoy reading about my experiences on vacation. Anyway, you might be curious what I DID do in the three or so hours between my final blog post last night and calling it quits on activities.

...What else? Games. I logged some serious time in Heroes of the Realm. Realizing I left my heroes with two L5 gems (earth and wind), I set out to upgrade them. I bought some reasonably-cheap top-level (21) gear for Edith, expecting to gem her...

...Only to, much to my surprise, find out that both items were fully gemed with L5 gems. She's seriously buffed up, now, considering that's the second time I've loaded her with gems. The only thing she could use now is the level 20 upgrade to the Guide of Life she's currently wearing, an armor for mages of the same quality with the same stats only level 20 instead of level 10.

Small problem, those items seem to average anywhere from 100,000 at the absolute cheapest, to well over a million at the most expensive. Still, though, she got upgraded, and quite a lot. I still had those spare gems, though. Zocia's fully upgraded as far as I'm concerned, and Kathera I'm looking for better armor than what she's got. So I decided that if I'm not going to give the gems to L18-or-below equipment, they'd find homes in a hero with L21 equipment. First on that list was Brina, who I've built to have some seriously souped-up luck stats.

Now, that might not be the best build for her, but I don't care. It's the build I chose for her, so it's the build that she got. So she got both those L5 gems.

Speaking of which, there's an event going on with double-XP and reduced army costs and whatnot which means my heroes are yet again active on the field, burning as much energy as I have to give them. All of this together means that my army's gotten rather a bit of an upgrade, and the last day of a Masters League I'm in might be in for one heck of a surprise. (I've been averaging fifth place it seems in my absence.) Depends on how much those upgrades were worth. I spent only half my treasury on them, too, so I'm learning! (Okay. So I had 100,000, and ended up with 30,000 at first. But by the time I was finished for the night, I'd gone back up to 50,000!)

The next thing I have to report on is Clicker Heroes. Turns out I didn't make nearly as much as I was hoping to make, but I upgraded Terra quite a lot, bumping him up to L151. My other heroes were quick to follow, though, so Terra ended up being only 50% of my DPS and dropping, meaning I easily advanced 5 levels, and am well on my way to advancing 5 more. At this stage, it pretty much looks like I'm going "slow and steady". I'll probably be going that five levels every day or two. So not great, but fairly good. My heroes are becoming rather powerful. All the way through Broyle Lindeoven (and maybe one or two below him; I forget) I'm well into the 2,000s. Atlas, the previously-strongest hero before Terra, is creeping up towards the 1,000s, which the Dark Knight before him has already reached.

All-in-all, not great, but good. Of course, I also took the time to catch up on the majority of the webcomics I follow, Rain (which is finally back!), Sandra & Woo, and Gaia. (With plans set aside for The Dragon Doctors soon, and also Vampire Cheerleaders, along with Magic Chicks and Eerie Cuties.)

Soyeah, that was yesterday, and today's mainly going to be me, just chilling. As new year's eve, the rest of my family has plans. I do not, so I'll have the house to myself. What am I going to do with that time? Well, I can think of no greater place to spend my last day of 2014 than among friends, so that's what I'll be doing once I get everything up and running.

               11:00 AM
Tensions are high today as lots of accusational words are being thrown out. Quite a number of them thrown at me, in large part because I took my time eating breakfast. Rather a LOT of time eating breakfast, while stubbornly insisting that I'm ready to go. (Mostly.) And then, others complaining about my stuff. But as I illustrated yesterday, I had a plan, which has now been executed (more or less).

Anyway, aside from the book I'm writing this in, I'm ready to go. So while there may be some interesting factoids (like me telling my family I lack a sweet tooth for most candy--I don't know why, but I just don't ever have the urge to eat it, thus, it goes to waste more often than not), I should probably pack 'em up, since there's technically a few items (I listed them yesterday) dependent on my pencil and notebook going in first.

Soyeah, this is the last you'll hear of me before I return.

               11:15 PM

Well, I'm home. I don't really have that much to say about the return trip, surprisingly enough. I slept most of the way. It took us three hours to get over the snow-covered, icy pass, there was a slight delay with Dairy Queen since the town we stop in lost their McDonald's, and that meant we ran afoul of rush hour traffic at the border. At our next stop, thanks to faulty directions, we briefly backtracked for 8 minutes total, heading south to the nearest exit before we turned back around to pass where we were and continue north. Why's that so noteworthy?

Well, see my family has a tradition of doing ETA guesses, upon departure. Mine, to my brother's place, was 9:15/9:25. (The latter's what I wanted, the former's what I initially blurted out.) My younger sister's was 9:30. My older sister, 9:35. (My brother was 10:00, and my mom was 8:30.)

...We got there at 9:31. Do your math. Minus eight minutes, I would have won.

...Mind you, I did get my revenge: on the next prediction, I wanted 10:20 but did 10:25 because my younger sister did 10:30 and older sister, 10:35. (My brother had been driving, from the last stop to his place. My dad's a slower driver, they reckoned, so extra time'd be required.) We arrived at 10:20.

...Ah, siblings. Chances are, if you're in a family of my size, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Anyway, now that I'm home, I've got a TON of work to do. Like potentially see if there was a work SNAFU that might mean trouble. And get my computer stuff up and running. And rather importantly, getting this blog typed up, and slightly edited with the minor corrections I noted but didn't make on the spot. (Not nearly as much as you'd think. I could have edited the blogs, but 95% of it is true to the original, meaning I've done an extremely faithful adaption of them.)

Got my alarm-clock radio on already. Just need to settle down and get things running. Got quite a lot of catching up to do.

Well, we're leaving tomorrow. You know what that means:
Today was very largely filled with chores to finish before we leave. As a result, we didn't do much during the first half of the day. I ended up flipping a coin on what to do, determined that heads would be my novel, and tails would be Starcraft. It was heads, so I actually did work on the novel, and even managed to finish the chapter! (I also organized my Discover and Download files, the stuff I've been gathering from The End, and gave it a listen-through.)

I know repetitions here and there (not to mention, potential inconsistencies) mean I'll need to give it a rewrite...but I was very happy with my writing. (I even think I managed to maintain a lot of neutrality, in spite of the descriptors I used, while keeping it interesting.) The small details that fill the world, the subtle implications I want the reader to pick up on, and especially the characters and how they interact (all while keeping it ambiguous how you're supposed to feel about them, while probably still making you feel the way I want you to about them), it's all there.

...Now, mind you. I had to get out the old, ancient dictionary, and lug it across the house and fit it awkwardly next to me. If you were to measure it cover to cover, I'd estimate somewhere between half a foot at absolute minimum to maybe up to a foot in depth. (I don't think it's quite that long, but...well, it's about the biggest book you'll ever see. Think combined thickness of all three LOTR books put together, or maybe three of the earlier Harry Potter books. THICK!) This, in addition to its book dimensions. (Slightly shorter and thinner than 8.5"x11" printer paper, but in that range.)

It weighs a ton. Big, freakin' huge doorstopping treekiller of a book. That type of unabridged 50-year-old dictionary. It was needed to break up the monotony, but it was such a huge pain to deal with. Google's so much easier. But it got the job done! I'm extraordinarily-pleased with the results.

There was that, and then we played some more Gauntlet. We beat the trees, again, but decided not to take on the Queen, given our strength. (Rather, lack thereof.) We fell a bit short on both the golden feathers and yellow crystals, so played the second sky level, which I was hoping would fill our needs. It did.

So off we went to the desert realm...and on the first level, found ourselves overwhelmed. (Hey, remember how we were outclassed against the trees? Gee, we sure didn't! So we took on enemies that are even harder!) Attacks from all directions, and the level 40-45 (somewhere in that range) mage and jester were taking 2-3 hits to take out ankle-biters and the lowest-leveled grunts. (For reference, lowest-grunts should take one, second-level grunts two, and third-level grunts three. If they take less, you're above level for that area. More, and...yeah. You should grind more.)

2-3 hits. For anklebiters. And grunts. Then there's archers, bombers, level 2 grunts, level 3 grunts that shoot at us, and a near-constant stream of Generals and Golems, far, far in excess of the norm, not to mention, the extreme overabundance of traps. (Mind you, traps are annoying enough with one player. With 4, uncoordinated, screen-stretching, greedy players, they're the main source of health depletion...and this level was choked FULL of them, everywhere.)

Certainly didn't help that most of the treasures were worthless, most of the food poisoned, barrels and chests had deaths and bombs a plenty, potions rare as they were kept getting shot, keys were not being provided as often as needed, and other such various misfortunes. (Including an unfamiliarity with the level.)

...We lived, but we lost so much health, and therefore gold as we replenish it in the shop, that we deemed it impossible to continue. Not after the beating we took. We got the runestone of the level, but could manage no more than that. The level had a ton of unclaimed treasures we missed, which we could tell from the switches we occasionally tripped and the hints and the fact that enemies kept shooting at us even at the exit portal. It's just that when we found it, we decided to go, "screw it, not worth the trouble!" and just exited.

So, realizing we were underpowered and short on gold, we began farming bosses. First the Liche, then the Dragon, who we determined to be the best for our purposes, thanks to discovering block's effectiveness, the dragon's relative ease, and also, relatively high payout in consistent terms. (All silver, and silver's worth an even 1,000 god if I recall correctly.)

We did it twice, but before we could save the second, the power was disrupted (we have a poor system set up; that was a frequent complaint of my sisters), and that killed our mood for it. So next up was an Age of Empires game. After quite a lot of discussing (and determined to break the every-other pattern), we selected Mediterranean, 4v1v1v2, on Hard I believe, and surprisingly?

I won. My brother was the MVP of our team, and the gap not too huge between him and me, but I actually won! I had the high score of the game, and beat him in every field except military. (Albeit not in every subfield, though in many I was right up there with him and him not always right up there with me.) I got it by having an absolute powerhouse of an economy. Conveniently protected on both sides again (a common trend between Starcraft and Age of Empires games; for some reason, my allies always seem to be in more direct contact with them by sheer chance),  my main concern was a naval attack which never came. I did, however, retain a respectable military when building said powerhouse economy, enough to give some measly help to my brother when he was attacked and to defend myself when a couple of rogue enemies killed some of my villagers.

Ultimately, thanks to capturing a relic, building nine castles (the next-highest I believe was 5; the average was two castles per person), having dozens of trading carts and cogs, and hundreds of villagers working resources (no, literally; my villager high was 111), I had a dominance over the game. My older sister did take some heat from the top-computer because they wanted to go through her to get to me, but not for long, since I built my forces up rather rapidly. 

My military wasn't as impressive as normal, but was large all the same: 20 crossbowmen (for garrisoning purposes in my most forefront Castle, since again, I love leapfrogging), about a dozen longswordsmen (my initial defense force, and ultimately, bodyguards for the villagers building the latest castle), 30 paladins, half a dozen elite tarkins, and replacement forces I never used. Add in half a dozen Galleons and ten bombard Galleons, and I did quite a lot of damage, albeit not as much as I could have done.

I also think one reason I managed so well is that I hid my tell. Atheism was the last thing I researched, meaning that by the time I was asked "What are you doing?" (the immediate response upon the completion of my research), I had done all I could and was ready to end the game. I also can attribute some of the success to branching out. I made additional town centers, and surrounded them with farms. I had my loggers make lumber camps nearer to wood, and made sure that they always had forests to cut down. I mined my area dry, and was looking into mining my dead enemies when the game ended. It's a trick the NPCs seem to have mastered, and I think I was actually playing a lot like one. My brother I've noticed has done some of the same, so in a sense I was also copying him, but doing it better.


There's a final noteworthy, and perhaps even hopeful, thing to report from today: we took a look at the drawing book we gave our grandmother as a Christmas gift (she's who we're visiting, alongside our grandfather. She's had a couple of major strokes, half a dozen minor ones, and apparently was already showing symptoms of senior dementia before then according to my parents), and the results were surprising.

In it, we found a coherent drawing of a butterfly on a flower (more or less), and if that was her rather than her caretaker, then that level of motor control is incredible. (I don't know her exact age, but my grandfather is 90 years old, so she can't be that much younger than that. My understanding is that she was a bit of an artist when younger, so it apparently runs in the family, as both my sisters draw and I, of course, also do it.)

She also, several times, wrote in coherent cursive. The words she put down aren't as encouraging, given that it was hypothesized they're her writing down her direct thoughts as they happen (she can sometimes speak, but does so very weakly and basically using monosyllables). One said, "And confusion and confusion again", and there's plenty referring to washings, presumably referring to the baths she's given by her caretaker. My father, her son, doesn't think it means anything. My mother (as well as myself, though I didn't say so) does. I'd know, too. It's what I'm doing now, just in a more basic, primitive level. As her caretaker (and sometimes, my grandfather) says...I now hold hope that there's more alive of her than we'd previously assumed. Just...weakly.

Anyway, as the night before departure, I should be staying up all night, but there's not much I'm in the mood to do. So, instead, I'll make a to-do list:
-Get my phone back in the shoebag. (My makeshift purse.)
-Retrieve Starcraft material and pack it.
-Retrieve new games, Tae Kwon Do bag, and other Christmas gifts.
-Make sure I get my headphones, mouse, and pencil packed.
-...After I make an entry tomorrow morning.
-Pack my laptop.
-Pack my pills, along with my comb, toothbrush, and whatnot.
-Double-check that I have all my clothes: pants and jackets in particular are a priority.
-Also, once home, finish Guardians of the Galaxy on TVTropes. (...One of these things is not like the others.)

There's probably more, but that should be everything. I end up with 5-6 things I carry on person (backpack, suitcase, pillow+blanket, shoebag, personal former-clothesbag, and maaaaaaybe but hopefully not actual usually-packed-by-mom clothesbag), so it's generally not too hard for me to remember stuff. Doesn't take too terribly long, either. It's mostly ready already. Just a matter of quickly throwing it all together.

Today, I woke up to a very specific dream. Oddly enough, in spite of having a few oddities, it made perfect sense in my mind at the time, and almost still does. In fact, it actually felt pretty realistic, though by the end, it had my conscious imaginationesque vibe to it.
"The what?"

Imagination. Mine. As in, the overreactive imagination (yes, overreactive, not merely overactive, as every possible stimulus and even a fair amount of impossible ones trigger it) that is my greatest talent and worst curse. The thing that allows me to write out an entire ramble in my head. The thing that allows me to make a speech that I'll verbally utterly fail to deliver. The thing that allows me to have imaginary conversations with people, saying specific things and them responding certain ways and me having answers for each way they'd respond. (This is what the dream is closest to. Dialogs that I prepare in advance, especially when I want something. I'll create an introduction, drawing them in, then deliver my point, and have in mind options for each response they're likely to give me.) The thing which triggers my response to everything, once having made me paranoid every itch on my body was a bug. (Long story, that.) The thing that allows me to create amazing visuals in my mind that I struggle to bring out on paper, but can semi-coherently use in my novels. The thing which makes me such a dangerous mafioso, yet also is the source of such significant insecurities and self-doubt that it drives me crazy.

I do all of these things, and so, SO much more, on a constant basis. They're all the imagination creating things that could be but aren't, could be but won't (most of these rather painfully, mind you--imagine having the ability to in crystal clarity envision a future where I've transitioned, have at least a friend, my family's there with me, I'm stable, I might have a family of my own, and knowing all of this is never to be), could be and am actively aiming for (say, being a successful writer), could be yet I want to avoid (say, being a hobo), and even plenty that can't be and never could. (Say, me suddenly discovering that I have access to magical powers and that all my suffering before then was them having been latent in a world where they supposedly don't exist.
...Did I mention I have at least three stories that more or less begin that way? Probably could find a dozen that use the concept at least loosely, too, if I dug.)

I do it in the shower (that's one of the main reasons my showers take an hour and a half in fact), I do it while working, I do it while I'm eating (that's one of the main reasons I can take an hour to eat my breakfast, in fact), but primarily I do it when I'm pacing back and forth. (It's always there. But it's most active during these periods.) Running and being in the car are also places they dominate. Think daydreaming, but awake and active, rather than passive. My mind multitasks with the fictional overcoming the reality in focus, the reality being a passive task and the fictional my active mind.

It's something you either know, or don't know, and I'm not sure there's any way to convey it. You just sort-of have to feel it. But anyway, this is all a bit of a massive tangent. The point I wanted to get across is that the dream was a bit like that in feelings as the dialogs weren't quite concrete. The exact words weren't set in stone. (Even in my dreams, I paraphrase!) They were, however, set to specific set actions. Meaning that while the dialog shifted a bit, the sequence of events did not.

What was that dream? Well, it's actually quite a short one. I was me as I physically am (not as who I hope to be), at square dancing. Just like any other dance day, at first. Me, pretending to be something I'm not, for the sake of others and also for the safety of myself.

...Then, out of the blue, a specific club member's mom (said club member is technically the president, I believe, given that board meetings are at her house, but rarely does she come and no longer does she compete even though I think she's young enough to, and yet her mother's there nearly every week, always reminding us to sign in, and her father's the only true male dancer aside from the caller, though obviously they're under the impression a square with me isn't an all-girls square) asks of me a rather blunt (and frankly, embarrassing) question.

I'm not sure what wording was there originally, but it more or less was asking me, "So what's it like, being a transwoman?"

I literally shrank and huddled under the table, partially out of fear, shock, and stress, but mainly out of embarrassment. (And, yes. Me being under the table and hiding is something that seemed perfectly in-place. You'd be surprised. I used to do that all the time as a shy little kid. Since facing my transwoman side of me makes me feel like one again, I suppose it's appropriate, both as my visual self and metaphorical self, since as a transwoman I am still young, not matured.) I forget how I respond exactly, but I know that I ended my response with a, "Who told you that?" of some sort.

Her answer? "Why, your mom of course." (Along those lines, anyway.) And--in spite of her not being directly involved with my club for years--sure enough, there was my mom, at the dance. She had found one of my notes, tipping her off, and a rather awkward mother-newdaughter conversation ensued, in which she basically didn't understand, but was accepting all the same of the situation with me.

...Good dream. That final outcome is probably the best I could ever hope for: an awkward acceptance, where it's confusing and embarrassing, but still supportive all the same.

As for how today went, it started with a hike up the big hill, with my dad and siblings. I found it easier than last year; it took about an hour and a half to go up. The view from there is absolutely breathtaking (almost literally, given the height), and it's a quite nice place. The sun was particularly nice when standing on the log we do, because the log's shielded from the ice-cold wind, allowing for us to bask in the warmth of the sun for a while.

Sadly, the landmark rocks with what the elevation's supposed to be had that as blank. All the other information, from the year to the circumstances behind the expedition and whatnot, was there. It even gave the "Elevation: " etching, yet that field where it was supposed to be filled in was blank, not a single indicator one was ever given. Ah, well. (From my understanding, it's officially around 5100 feet, with our house down there being GPS-confirmed to be 4200 feet, so 900 feet gained.)

On the way down, we not once but TWICE overshot our destination, taking the roads down further than we had taken them the way up, though it ultimately wasn't much of a detour, and we finished the hike down in an hour. One thing of note, my mother insisted I wear a coat to go above my jacket, but I insisted that the hike two days ago was fine, so I would be this time, too.

Turns out I was mostly right. Wind chill was absolutely brutal, but the sun was (as mentioned) pretty nice, lasting most of the hike. (Clouds covered it near the end.) Though I occasionally got cold, I developed counters. Hair over ears to keep them from freezing? Worked so well that I occasionally pulled my hair back to let the air in. (I prefer my hair behind my ears, and draped behind my back, rather than in front. Just feels, I dunno, more feminine for some reason.) Arms crossed? Kept my heat in so well that I could break stance whenever I felt like it.

It was a bit difficult before I developed my techniques above, but I was plenty-warm once I did. (The cold only got bad on the way down, anyway; most of the way up, the wind wasn't as bad.) The hands got cold before being shoved to my armpits' excessive heat, and the arms/pecs ended up slightly chilled, yet I was fine.

Upon returning, in fact, I didn't even feel like I was burning up. (A common sensation from going into a warm house when basically a human popsicle.) Instead, I felt as if I was in a normal house, rather than a slightly-too-warm (the default feeling I have here) one.

After that, we (that is, my siblings and I) spent a couple hours on Age of Empires II. The game we played was decently easy, in spite of being on Hard, thanks to the setup: four of us versus three unaligned computers. I came in second again. (My brother always beats me, much to my bewilderment, though I just learned one of the potential reasons why--a poker tell, of sorts.) Locked teams, of course, so I mean we massacred them, and my score was the second-highest overall.

Then, it being close to dinnertime, my brother and I watched my younger sister get massacred in a game she had started before. We helped he make a seriously-valiant effort, though! We came in to the end of her first stand, witnessed (and began assisting) her second stand, helped her make her true last stand (militaristically-wise), and when that failed, did a grand circle around I'd estimate a good 60% of the map, making lumber camps and chopping wood until spotted--and barely having 100, running to a new location. This continued many times--at least five--before she got caught. Ultimately, she made it one and a half times around the map, but when hunted by a methodical samurai, cavalry archers, catapults, and trebuchet, forced to strategically sacrifice one villager at a time to ensure the others' survival, it could only have ended one way: her death.

(Somewhere in this zone or after supper, we watched the replay. When the "spies have infiltrated your nation" message came up, it was discussed that my message about researching Atheism, my special tech as my preferred civilization the Huns, shows up to the computer as well. And then, my siblings revealed that it shows up to them, too, and my brother said that whenever he gets that message, he knows I'm wasting money.)

Then came supper. After it was finished, we tried the bar method of determining what we'd do. My brother asked me and my younger sister, "Okay, if Age of Empires is *hand at default height* here, where is *activity*?" When we had that, my younger sister did it for him...and between the three of us...there was literally no overlap at all. Our three metrics were so incompatible that no clear comparison could be made. So we asked our older sister...who was also unhelpful.

What did we do then? Well, I decided to form a system where on the count of three, we'd all shout out a random idea. I shouted Gauntlet; my brother, Age of Empires. My sister said cards, so for a split-second, it seemed like a deadlock...until my older sister revealed she had also participated, saying cards.

That was good enough for me! So cards it was. First came Golf, which I believe I won. Then came Hearts, which started off badly: I got the queen, and some hearts. My older sister deliberately sabotaged any chance of me shooting the moon, but my hand was so bad that I got most of the hearts aside from her deliberate attempt, meaning I very well could have if not for her.

Next round, I was a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit bitter, so I decided to spite my brother (who gave my older sister her shooting-the-moon-breaking heart) and older sister: my younger sister was close to shooting the moon. I did nothing to stop her, refusing to take the hit when already in last. My sister, unlike the previous round, had nothing to stop it with, and according to my brother, neither did he. So it was an "If I can't win, I'm dragging you two down with me!"

...I did. My younger sister shot (ha) into first place with a mere one point, with a steady lead compared to my 44. The third round gave further revenge: dumping the queen on my older sister and all 13 hearts on my brother. This happened surprisingly often. (My older sister got the queen a disproportionately high number of times.) Final score?

Older sister: 104. Brother: 100. Me: 90. And my younger sister (once again) won with an insurmountable lead...at 18 points. So, yes. I lost, because she won by a landslide...but that second-place of mine was well-fought. Ultimately, I ended up doing exactly what I promised: I couldn't win, but I took them both down, 'winning' with a respectable margin compared to them.

Ah, siblings...

You know, I really didn't do that much today.
I had a round of Crazy 8s (for those who don't know the game, even though I believe most of us are familiar with it, think similar to Uno but with standard cards and the 8 being a wildcard), coming in third. (My brother got out on round 7, having a perfect game; my older sister, after a seriously-prolonged battle, got second, and third was determined by cards left thanks to game length concerns.) Then, I watched them flail blindly trying to do a puzzle game, called Quadrillions, I believe.

First and foremost, though, today was another Starcraft day. I beat 8 and 9 rather easily for the Terran levels, but 10's too hard for me to manage with my skill. (And, yes. I did use the strategy guide. I'm that incompetent. Most levels, I don't need the strategy guide. My own strategy is efficient enough to do the same task as what they recommend, without the help. This time, I predicted it being hard...so I immediately tried to use it. And failed. Why not just do my own thing? Well, that's the problem. My own thing and what the strategy guide recommends doing are the same thing. The strategy guide often differs from my own default strategy, even though both get the job done. In this case, though, my own strategy was identical to the strategy guide's, and I was failing. Alpha Squad launched a battlecruiser, a few wraiths, some goliaths, marines, ghosts, siege tanks, and firebats at me. In other words, the whole works of Terran units. To counter that, I should have had an equal balance. All I had was the marines in my bunkers, quickly-destroyed missile turrets, and too-quickly-targeted-and-killed SVPs. I tried to keep him out of the firing line, but Jim Raynor was drawn into combat because they were advancing on my main base, and......yeah.)

I decided that since I know basically the whole storyline of Starcraft, and assumed that whatever information I'd get by winning the level couldn't be that important, to just go straight into the zerg; I'm currently on Mission 4. (Kerrigan has awoken.) I suppose I technically could have cheated, but I played fairly for nine missions; I wasn't about to go cheat just to win the tenth! (Though that might have been the smart thing to do so that I could view whatever was there, such as any hypothetical cinematic, as long as I made note of it to come back and play through fairly some other time.)

I'm not having difficulty (yet), but I knew it was getting late when I began the mission, and didn't want to infringe on my younger sister sleeping. (See, my computer's set up on the couch she uses as a bed while we're here. My brother has his own couch next to hers, and my older sister sleeps on a reclining chair somehow. I get my own room, with my own couch, where I am writing this, which is convenient, since that's also where the computer with dial-up is.)

...Speaking of which, it's nearly 4 AM as I write this thanks to TVTropes again. (I got most of the side-links for Guardians of the Galaxy knocked out, though!) Sleepytime.

                       11:45 AM
I just saw my sister using a music program--muse score, I think--to compose. It holds promise, so I'm making note of it here. (Long-term followers of this blog and/or archive bingers will see I have some musicality within me, just not brought out. That program MAY be my key to unlocking some of it, at least!)

I'm trying an experiment with multiple text fields in the same entry, to represent different writing times. Normally, I'd do multiple entries instead, but given how many entries I'm already making, this seemed simpler. On that note...
                       4:38 PM
So my siblings and I went on a climb today, up the small hill. (See, we're vacationing in hilly terrain near Klamath Falls. The difference from home is that it's drier, colder, and much, much higher.) Took about half an hour up, then we came down. Lacking anything specific to do, we did our first PvP of vacation, this time being Ratchet&Clank: Up Your Arsenal's competitive play. It was my brother, my younger sister, and me, while my older sister did her own thing. ("Anti-social" activities like writing, drawing, and music, incidentally enough, with a side of reading.)

Though my brother won a few matches--the one with sniper rifles only at the palace fragged at five comes to mind--I actually won a fair number of these matches. My favorite was the palace with mines only. I developed a strategy of using the turret, surrounded by mines. With a combined assault (in spite of officially being enemies), my brother with help from my sister eventually pierced through, killing me and usurping me, even though the damage was done. Meaning I needed a new strategy. His defenses were too good (I'd know, considering I made them)...so after a little experimentation (by which, I mean pain of ow-death), I kamikazed twice on my sister. See, I didn't need to live through the attacks, which given that she protected both sides of herself with mines I really didn't. I just needed two kills to get the frag limit of ten. And it worked. She got a kill on me (which she needed several of to win), but I got both of mine. My brother stayed on the turret, helpless to do anything to stop it. He certainly tried, using the turret to shoot at me, but charge boots are awesome at outrunning bullets, so without him abandoning his tactically-superior position, he was left unable to win. (This was actually my fear when I held the high ground: I feared him chasing after my sister and killing her, time and time again, while I just sat there and helplessly waited for his victory. Muah ha ha ha ha ha... *evilface*)

I've found that I'm surprisingly good at finding good terrain and mounting a credible offense, as both the last match in Metropolis and the team match (me and my sister against my brother) where we found a point with health and weapons, both show. I'm even good at hunting, though as my defeat to my brother in our first game--the sewers--shows, not good enough.

                       11:55 PM

So the next activity we did today, between Ratchet&Clank and dinner, was cards, since in their shopping trip today, my parents bought a couple decks of playing cards. We did ten rounds of the game Golf: six cards are dealt out to each player face-down, in a 3x2 column:row formation. The players get to flip two cards. Identical cards (10 and 10, for instance) in the same column can cancel but it must be exact; Kings are 10s, too, but no King+10 = cancel.

Jokers = -1 point, Jacks 0, Kings and Queens 10, Aces 1, and goal's to get the score as low as possible since once a player flips their last card, everyone else gets one last turn. There's more to the game than that (I'm only describing some of the basics), but if you're unfamiliar with the game, you should at least have a general idea of it. The more specifics aren't really needed for this blog post, since I'm not sure I'd even be able to list them all. (With luck, we play a standardized game without house rules. I wouldn't know, since I learned it from my older sister.)

Anyway, I got a Dark Horse victory in the 10th round (fairly sure I did, anyway), so that was nice. After supper, we resumed playing cards, this time, playing Hearts. Golf the card game may require description, but just about every person with Windows knows the rules for Hearts, since it's a standard game to come with the software. (Thus, I'm not going to describe the rules. If you don't know them, it's easy enough to look up; I'm pretty dang positive we don't use any house rules.) That one, I got second in, again quite impressive considering that my younger sister had earned an insurmountable lead.

Finishing today (the day after Christmas was busier than Christmas itself! Who'd'a'thought?), we got to watch Guardians of the Galaxy for the movie of the night.

...How?

Well, one of the main reasons my parents went into town in the first place is because they wanted to buy a dirt-cheap Blu-ray, so they...well, did. (The cards were just a bonus.) Meaning we got to overcome our original issue. The majority of the family didn't like it, but I did. (I hold a bit of a bias to liking Rocket, given that I read Sandra & Woo.) It wasn't perfect--I didn't particularly think the pacing was great, and the greatest cliche moments (and oh, boy, does this movie have plenty of cliches to the point of being rather extraordinarily predictable) made me cringe so much I had to look away. But it was definitely a good movie to see.

Anyway, that's my day.

Note to self, though: read the TVTropes page for Guardians of the Galaxy. I was gonna do it, but the link to OutclassedAssassin caught my eye as a rare unfamiliar trope to me, and one thing led to another......

Present day. I'll start with the activities that made up the afternoon before going to what we got. It started with us playing some Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (as we wanted to do previously but didn't). We had the second-last sky level unlocked where we left off. I am a blue Jester, my brother a red wizard, my older sister a blue Valkyrie, and my younger sister a green archer. (Nobody likes the aesthetic of the yellow characters, you see, and this being four-players, none of us are stupid enough to be the two raw-power classes available. Trust us, our choices are appropriate; I like to be fast to grab things, my brother likes how strong the mage is at reigning death from various different situations, my younger sister likes the speed of the archer to keep up with us rushing in, and my older sister can use the extra protection.)

My brother and I are always about two levels apart. Originally, me above him, but last time we played (a year or two ago), he ended up surpassing me. (I used to have an obsession with Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, thus had the experience and familiarity to help me. But I got rusty and I remember earlier levels better than later ones, allowing for his natural ability to eventually overtake my learned skills.) So now, he's two levels above me. My younger sister's about 5 levels below me, because she's not nearly as skilled nor as experienced. (Though I mainly played Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, it should be noted my brother extensively played the original Gauntlet Legends with my older sister. I ultimately think I logged more hours than him there, too, but he has that experience, and did also play Gauntlet: Dark Legacy albeit never as extensively as myself.) My older sister originally joined after we were already a few levels in. She's also a weaker player, perhaps even weaker than my younger sister (in spite of being more experienced), so she's at least ten levels behind.

Anyway, we played through the last sky level, beat the Plague Fiend and then went back to beat the Chimera, and then...discovered we were short on the crystals needed to enter the forest realm. No easy feat, mind you! Normally, there's such an overabundance (especially if you occasionally replay a level for a warm-up as we often do; we started out with the first mountain level to get familiarized with the game again) that you've gotten enough to advance well before the last level was over--sometimes, even before you've begun it! Only an act (or several) of sheer incompetence would allow such a distinguished accomplishment to be possible, and yet, there we were! We needed to replay a random level, and after a funny bit of division where all four of us chose different levels, ultimately we decided to replay level 2.

My brother said he might cry (or kill himself or similar expression; you get the idea, it was that type of declaration) if it turned out we were one platform's worth of crystals away from having enough.
...Sure enough, we were the first platform's worth of crystals short of the forest realm, so we spent the rest of that level rushing through. (Mind you, it was probably a bad idea.)

...Which took us into the forest levels. We cruised through them a little bit recklessly, likely as a holdover of our previous dealings. (Our warmup was just that, so we sped through it without caution, and the second sky level was because of our failings, so once we had what we needed, we sped through the level, meaning that...we sort-of continued the trend.) Then, we got to the last forest level, with the tree grunts, and to our surprise...found ourselves under-leveled. (In hindsight, I remember being 10-20 levels higher when I solo-played through there.) I started the level as 39 (my brother, 41) and finished at 40, so it was a bit jarring to see how many hits it took to bring the wooden grunts down.

...But we managed, all the same. We beat the level, bought our health at the store...ready to save our game like we do after every level...and right then and there, the console crashed. Given I was 39 before and had gone up to 40, this was a little bit heartbreaking, especially since we were getting vaguely close to dinnertime. (Christmas supper is nearly identical to Thanksgiving for us. I have mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, creamstyle corn, and peas, all as a sort-of dip for my meat, which is a mix of both Dark and White when I can. Yep, you know how it goes: mashed potatoes on the bottom, pre-salted and buttered. Stuffing added on, then gravy, and so on, with me ramming the pieces of meat into it and scooping it up to eat. Delicious.)

...However, it did give me JUST enough time to play Starcraft, and beat the mission I couldn't manage last year. (Terran's 7th mission, The Trump Card.) And I do mean just enough--I almost didn't get it. (I take a loooooooooooong time to win my missions. Mainly because I like to take the longest possible route to victory, admittedly.) I set up my defenses well enough. I even reclaimed the southern area you initially lose, while low on resources no less! (I had basically zero crystals, and knew there were enemies lurking in that zone. So every loss hurt me, very badly. But I did it.) All while defending the northern staging area.

Just one small problem: once I had fortified my defenses and built up my little strike team, I couldn't punch through their defenses. Both of us out of resources to gather, we were locked in a bit of a stalemate. All their attacks would fail, but any attack by me would also fail miserably. Not having confidence in my ability to leapfrog on such limited resources (leapfrogging is my favorite tactic, both in Starcraft and Age of Empires), nor having the confidence I'd win on atrophy, and certainly not having the confidence that I'd win on my battle tactics (in Age of Empires, there's a pause button that allows me to coordinate forces effectively. In Starcraft, no such function exists as far as I know, so it's all in real-time, and while I can set units to commands, I'm kinda slow to react), I carefully planned an 'assault' which used all three: inflict lethal casualties on them while only taking damage on my own units, while controlling a couple of their key routes with singular badly-defended bunkers (with 4x marines moved up) and missile silos, effectively little more than guard towers since they were so vulnerable that they needed wraith support (and SVP repairs) each time they were attacked.

It got me much closer, though. Because this done, I save-scummed a few times to memorize their fighting force. (It's one thing to see it with scans, an ability I heavily used. Quite another to actually experience it first-hand.) Finally, I figured out a plan that didn't destroy their entire base...but got rid of all their visible forces in the area and crippled their infrastructure. This allowed me to move Kerrigan and the beacon in, since I had the remnants of my strike force guarding the area. It was still very close, though. I only wiped out their visible forces, crippling yet not destroying their infrastructure, at the cost of all five Goliaths I had and well over half my wraiths. Brutal, inefficient, but ultimately, a successful battle.

I then had time only to get a feeling for the next level (I sent my units to die, essentially, scouting the map to feel where the enemies were), though I'd begin the level properly after supper. Now, though, first thing's first, I can never adequately explain our family's Christmases enough. They're so layered with traditions of our own familial culture (and in-jokes and whatnot), I wouldn't even know where to begin. I can go over some items, though. I got an MP3 player--with radio (its main draw)--from my brother.

...I got a portable radio from my dad. This was not even close to the only duplicate gift, because they think so much alike. (Another was getting a Thermometer for my younger sister, since her apartment has none, and the electric company said the average temperature in her house last month was 41. Average. As in, when asked if her breath showed inside, she was very evasive about it and weaseled it as being 'maybe once'.) My brother also gave me a battery-powered alarm clock (a hopefully-reliable one) so that I wouldn't need my parents to wake me up. From my parents, I got a new Tae Kwon Do bag, one which should fit everything I need. (My current bag is too small and old--thus, has been falling apart for quite some time.) They additionally gave me new clothing: underarmor-leggings, which I had a shortage of compared to shirts.

My underreaction to that eventually, down the line when my brother had done most of his and my dad was beginning his, sparked a comment of,
"I guess it's a guy thing" to not view clothes as presents. I couldn't say my full feelings (which I've documented in my blog already) on the subject, for obvious reasons (well, obvious if you've read the relevant blog posts to know my family's history a bit), but I didn't let the comment go. I couldn't. It took me only a little while to come up with a response, to break my association with the image as a guy. So ultimately, I said,
"It's not that. It's that...well, girl clothes are pretty. Guy clothes aren't."
Which is technically true. Girl clothes are all adorned and fancy, whereas guy clothes are simple and plain.

...They had no clue the true implications of my words, though, because that was me in a roundabout way basically once again flat-out stating that given the choice, yes, I'd want girl clothes. I am, however, fine with the interpretation they did end up inferring:
"So, if we bought you a tunic, you'd wear it?" And I said yes. Because tunics can be awesome, genders be damned. (Pardon the language, but that's how the expression goes.)

...Preeeeetty sure I'm gonna get one as a present next year. Birthday, Christmas, doesn't matter; my family has this weird way of having good memories when it comes to really random stuff. (That's one reason our traditions are so hard to describe. I have no reference pool of what people think versus what we do.) And that's okay, albeit not as much as I'd like, saaaaaaaaaaaay, a dress. Because, yes. They are pretty, and some day, I will wear one. Until I do, though...a tunic would be more than acceptable. When presenting as something I'm not, might as well present something stylish.

Additional notes in humor go into the video games I got. I got Skyrim and I believe Dragon Age II. (I'd have to look at its title. It's not Dragon Age: Origins, but I think it's the game after that. I don't know how many Dragon Age games there are, though. I'm just kinda assuming Origins is the first, and that game-after-Origins is the second, but I could be entirely wrong on that.) The former was from my parents, since when it came up in some conversation a long time ago, I talked about what I knew of it, and that I'd enjoy it since it's (basically from my understanding) essentially like an almost-FPS version of Fable. (Not the best of comparisons, I'm sure, but it's a convenient point of reference; I've played Fable to its fullest, played Fable2 to almost its fullest, and am halfway through my first Fable3 playthrough, and I have seen many descriptions of Skyrim's content, I've seen it shown on the TV, I've looked up stuff on the elder scrolls wiki for research purposes, and so on.) In this case, it's the PS3 version. 

The second one also has a story behind it. Remember my blog about my sisters and me shopping? Well, we took a shot in the dark and bought my brother that one game (its name slips me as of this writing, but I'll edit it in when I see it), over 180 awards I think, positive reviews everywhere, nothing but good things by word-of-mouth, but I know absolutely nothing about it. (I believe it's a Bungee game, since my brother commented in surprise that they'd make a PS4 game.) That should give you enough information to figure out what we got him. (With luck, it was a good purchase.)

...But before that, though, I looked at the Dragon Age game and told them, completely innocently as an offhanded remark, "I mean, I'm pretty sure that I'd like it, but while he and I have some similar tastes, they're not identical, and I'm not entirely sure he would." (More or less, anyway. You might find that I absolutely suck at remembering exact words, so I paraphrase a LOT.) They took that comment to heart and bought it, and it was a pleasant surprise to see. (Also a PS3 game, by the way.)

...Aaaanywaaaay, a gift we as a family got ourselves was Guardians of the Galaxy. We planned to watch it, too--only to discover it's a Blu-ray, which my Grandpa apparently doesn't have a player for. (I coulda sworn he did, but apparently not!) Not a problem, right? Just use the PS3 we brought!

...Eeexcept the encryption key is out of date (meaning that the one on Guardians is too new for our PS3 to decode), requiring a software upgrade...which, mind you, is something that must be done...yep...online. And, as you know, that would be a tad bit difficult on dial-up.

No movie for us! Not tonight, anyway. Instead, my brother, younger sister, and I did Age of Empires tonight. Maintaining our every-other routine, 3v4 on medium was a massacre...with us as the sacrifices. Mercifully, we died by wonder in King of the Hill (something we decided to experiment with), rather than total annihilation, but we were well on our way to being wiped out anyway. So. much. deeeeeeeeeeeath......
(Yeah, we suck.)

I also confirmed today that dial-up can't handle Kongregate. True shame. Ah, well. Gave me time to write this!

Okay, so technically as I write this, it's Christmas, but as far as I'm concerned, almost 3 am is still the 24th.
...Aanywaaaay, not much to report. On days like this, we really don't do that much. We (that is, my brother, my younger sister, and I) had a couple of rounds in Starcraft, on the same map (bridge too near), working as a team. Terransx2 + Protoss (my sister and I were the Terrans, since that's the only civilization we had experience with) vs Zerg, then Zergx3 vs. Terrans. (Was quite interesting being thrown into the Zerg without knowing a thing about them.) Quite fun.

Then, we (that is, my brother and I, since it's our job) brought the tree up, as we always do. Different positioning this year due to circumstances I may or may not end up explaining* (a common trend, you'll find, of this blog), but otherwise normal. Then, my brother and I played Resistance3. I'm not good at FPSes, but it was fun all the same. That's literally all I did today, though.

Another common trend you'll find on vacation is that I have an overabundance of free time...which is all more or less squandered as I just sit with my siblings, interacting with them rather than, say, writing. (Anti-social activities, as my family would call them.)

...I'm fine with it, though. It's something to be cherished, relished while it lasts. (Particularly since, in all likelihood, this is our last vacation down here, given my grandmother's failing health*.) Still kinda sucks I don't get much done, though. Ah, well.

...And on that note, sleep.


*Edited note: No, in fact I never did go into the circumstances behind it, but as you can see by the linked asterisks, the events are in fact tied together. My grandmother is basically in a state worse than most zombies (for the most part; follow one of my later blog posts for more details). She now has to be on a hospital bed during the day, and that hospital bed is where we used to put the tree. So instead, we put the tree on the coffee table, with the coffee table slid right up to the couch where she used to sit when she still had some amount of mobility. (She now has to be lifted in a machine to go to her bed; she can't walk.)

Uhg. The trip, as always, was exhausting. I slept most of the way, and I was still tired.

I suppose I should talk about the trip a little. We left at 7:20, picking my brother up at 8:10--only ten minutes late! The van was overloaded, notably dipping in the back, and with stuff piled so high, the rear windows were blocked...all this in spite of everyone swearing this is the normal amount of stuff they bring. (It was noted that next year, we should consider attaching the carrier from our old 1988-89 suburban, the original vehicle we used to make the trip until the seats got mold in them, onto the van. Same weight, sure, but distributed more evenly and also leaving us more room.)

The trip was uneventful, other than the view my camera utterly failed to capture, rivers, sky, lake, sunset, you name it. We did, however, have an extra passenger: our older cat, who we feared wouldn't survive a week alone. (She has special needs.)

Anyway, my siblings and I went over the things we forgot. I forgot my laptop's stand, we forgot playing cards (one of our primary forms of entertainment), and my younger sister may not have properly readied the PS3 equipment. Namely, we decided to play Gauntlet: Dark Legacy...and found all four of our controllers dead. (In her defense, two of those controllers were my brother's.) We got two working chargers, so with luck, they'll fully charge, the other two we'll get when needed, and we'll be good.

...Still, though, we needed a plan C: computer games. In this case, Age of Empires II. (Conquerors Expansion, of course.) My older sister chose not to play, but the rest of us did. Had a nice two-hour game. There were moments it looked like we could lose, but we passed them, ultimately winning.

Drained the fire from me, though. I halfheartedly did my posting for today, this blog post included, and am now ready for bed.

Well, time to go.

See you in a week!