It's ma birfday, happy birfday

Swap that Jack with the 5 of Hearts, and you got 28!
You'd understand if you played Cribbage.

It was this time last year that I'd began working at Cloudland as a Glassy.  I was feeble and green, making mistakes with whether a table was done with a bottle, or if a customer had abandoned their drink.  It was a new learning experience and I needed it after such a long time in my last job.

Only a couple of months beforehand Jenny and I had put in for my deportat- sorry, Immigration to the USA so that after four long and hard years, we could finally be together.  We were consulted by wonderful friends of ours who had been through similar ordeals, and also a wonderful Lawyer who alleviated the majority of our concerns and prepared us for the trials that lay ahead.  Mostly.

But we persevered...  Up until around about Jennys Birthday.  We were going stark, raving mad.  So I concocted a plan!  I would visit for Xmas!  And we would be able to calm ourselves down by being together while we wait for the VISA to process.

So since the internet at home had capped, slowing it down to a snails pace, I went up to my sisters place and organised a new ticket.  $2k it cost mum's visa card for a return trip, and that was about what I was expecting for a return trip around Xmas time.

But about a month later, that plan came to a grinding halt.  We were basically told that while I was going through the VISA process, if I tried to enter the country I would be given a complete service and sent back to Aus.  THEN, the process would get cancelled and we would have wasted our money and time.

Didn't I feel like a right fuck knuckle.

So I got credit back on my plane tickets and kept the receipt for when I do actually go over there.  At least I wouldn't have to buy another ticket, right?

Time was making things... difficult.  We just wanted to be together and there was much despair from both of us and we were just absolutely sick to death of waiting.  We felt like the most patient people in the world finally reaching breaking point.

Come November, we got word.  Homeland Security said "Guess what, your only crime in America is being Australian."  And I assume that's fine because they haven't stamped a "Return To Sender" mark on my forehead and put me in the post since I got here.

My instructions were straightforward.  Get your stuff together.  Get a Medical Check done.  Get a Police Certificate.  Send it down to Sydney.  Then come down for your interview.  Fair cop.

Police Certificate was easy.  Go in, give details, and bam, it'll be in the mail.

On the same day, I went for my Medical.  Now, there's a shortlist of doctors that you can attend that qualify for their standards, and luckily it was just near the train station.  It began with a urine sample.  Sadly, they didn't have their own toilets.  So I had to go upstairs to the hotel and use their publicly available bathrooms.  That was awkward, just because... well why go somewhere and use their facilities without buying something?

* - May not have ACTUALLY
been Dick Van Dyke.
** - True Story

So I went back down and handed it in with a form I had to fill out, and waited.  That was when Dick Van Dyke* came out and invited me in to the doctors office.

He was a lovely fella, telling me interesting things about his family and how he has more grandkids coming, between asking me about my medical history.

Then he had to do the physical stuff.  He asked me to strip down to my undies and then stand against the wall for my height.  Then he told me to take a seat, and he tested my respiration and prodded me here and there to test my reactions.

Then he laid me down and asked me to pull down my underwear.  He then proceeded to fondle my testicles.  I'm sure that's a test of testicular cancer, or any deformities that I may not have known about, but I still lay there, staring at the ceiling, thinking "Dick Van Dyke is fondling my plums.  Don't get an erection.  Don't get an erection.  Don't get an erection.**"  We concluded and I walked home, starstruck, and continuing the mantra until I got home and spoke to my soon-to-be wife and said I loved her and kept her spirits high until I told her what had happened.

Which only raised her spirits so high that she fell off the bed laughing.

Time went and we waited longer and longer, our patience as thin as possible as it could have gone without doing a loud snap that would wake up every sleeping person in and against the Pacific Ocean.  We had gotten a taste of victory and needed more like a crack addict in a... crack house.

*ahem*  I'll just let that run away on me.

But we had waited a little too long waiting for my Police Certificate, so I sent in a request for an extension, a one time effect, and surprisingly we found that they approved it!  Relieved as we were, we had to find out where the Police Certificate was.

So I made call after call, asking straight forward questions to no avail.  It wasn't until I looked through the White Pages that I called a number to the Police HQ and found that the Certificate had already been sent down to the Embassy.

I chucked quite the spack attack as I hulked out after I hung up the phone.  I didn't know it was going straight there!  And it had apparently been there for weeks!  So all I had to do was send down the rest of my stuff and organise the fuggin interview.

All quickly organised, I got my date: 18th February.  Flights were organised as was accommodation with my fantastic cousin, Trent, and his wonderful wife, Michelle (Who cooks a cracker of a dinner), and directions were also gathered to actually get me to the MLC Centre.

I faffed about on the train, carrying my little bag, enjoying the scenery and thinking about all the interesting stuff that Jenny would splooge over, namely the buildings that are all a bit different to what she's used to.  Jennys a big fan of architecture, so much that she even dreams about it.

So I take note of some interesting sights that Jenny would enjoy on the train from Flemington Station, and meander my way down to the MLC Centre for my interview, waiting in a rather arbitrary waiting room with a television tuned to an American channel, noting the stars and stripes adorning the nearest wall, and wondering what the security will do with my stuff down on level 10 now that I was on level 47.

But sooner than later, the lovely lady who was to interview me called me over and asked a few questions about our history.  "Where did you two meet", "How long have you been together", "How often have you two visited each other", "Can you pull that pen out of your nose".

Nerves, you know?

But I was left with one bit of advice.  By midnight that night, I had to sign up to an Embassy Website so that I was able to get my stuff back.  Which included my Passport.  Which I had to leave there with them.

I wasn't going to leave the country any time soon.

But in the mean time I had the city of Sydney to faff about in.  I wandered about, taking a couple of photos for Jenny before my phone died, such as the park right near the train station, and wandering down to near the river to stop at a pub for a couple of lonely pints of cider until my flight home was due.

Funny enough, the wedding ring is on the left.
... I went big early.

The last leg laid ahead of us.  All we had to do wait for the final word to say "You have our good graces, please enjoy the trip."

A little while later, we had word.  And I began figuring out what I was going to take, and how I was going to take it.  I packed up all the essentials, Clothes, my Xbox, a few books, my PSP, my IKRPG core rulebook, then minimize what Warmachine models I wanted to leave with and fill the rest of that bag with the goodies I had to take for Jenny.  There were so many Tim Tams, I tell ya.

Then there was work. I attended every shift available and had a five day stretch right up until my flight on March 10, a Monday morning.  It was a good plan. I would naturally be super exhausted as soon as I step onto that 14 hour flight to LAX, on an aisle seat too so I would just nod off as soon as I stake my seat.

And that's pretty much what happened.  And I suffered for that, because for a better part of the month after I arrived, I was quite dehydrated.  I would be drinking water half a dozen bottles at a time, mostly because the tap water looks far too suspicious when it is full of sedentary and it slowly, and I mean slowly, floats up to the top.

But I was there... Or here, as the case may be.  My partner of four fucking years was finally standing in front of me.  And there would be no time limit to being together.

Well, so long as we got married, of course.

We were well prepared, some clothes were needed for me, but otherwise everything was prepared. The only problem?  It was still very evidently Winter.

St Paddys day.  On the beach at South Haven.  Where the wind was so lazy that it didn't bother going around you, it just went straight through you and chilled you to the bone.

But that didn't stop us.  We declared our love and made a stand by throwing a rock each into the sea. Mine got stuck in the ice.  But Crikey we were happy to finally get into Jenny's parents car with the heat blasting.  I've never been so happy to get into heat.

The next plan was to get me a job, but that was after adding a few amenities, such as adding me to Jenny's bank account, to which we discovered that I need a social security number.  We were under the assumption that I would walk right off the plane into a job.  We were wrong.

Since then, it's been more waiting for the Government to send me the approval so I can finally get some income.

In the mean time, I have a small dog that I have to take care of, and a wife to feed, and an apartment to maintain.  Things could be much worse.  I could still be in Australia and not finally living with my partner of 4 and a half years.

Grand Theft Avatar Online

Dakka dakka dakka!

I've been playing a Lot of Grand Theft Auto V lately, because it is an impressive cinematic game.  Three characters fighting together to get their ways in life without having to get screwed over by some other asshole.  Its fantastic, it's emotional, and it is more entertaining than a bag full of cats.

But it doesn't stop there.  GTAV also has an online mode which is, for want of a better description, an MMO set in Los Santos (The setting of GTAV).

In this Online mode you can do any number of things, from Holding up a convenience store, to joining a Death Match against a bunch of strangers, to racing your friends around the city, to organising heists for either the sake of hilarity or to actually attain a profit (Though those are yet to be properly implemented).

My only worry, and it's admittedly a silly worry, is that players would get bored of the city of Los Santos.  There's thousands of square miles of environment you can explore, I'm still discovering/rediscovering regions, but eventually one does run out of things to do.

So what can you do?  Why not add another city?  The setting has several environments as it is all set within San Andreas, all of which have their inconsistencies between 2D, 3D and HD universes, but that's Rockstar's problem.  That's the potential of a GTAV/GTAOnline Expansion, either reinventing old cities, or inventing new ones.  The potential is all up to the developers.

The System is what's fun though.  A very well designed Third Person game with Role Play Elements, along with a very good Vehicular system (covering anything from a push bike to a personal jet).

It's a tried and true method for a good number of years, and it makes for a really fun setup for GTA Online.

But as my train of thought moved on, it careened over to the Xbox All-stars MMO I rambled on about a few months back.

This would be a perfect setup for exactly that.  To have different regions that mimic exclusive Xbox games (or games they can get the rights to) which your player, represented by your Xbox Avatar, can roam about causing havoc or performing feats they get from whatever they have equipped, around areas that would appear in a demo levels of respective games.

I would love to jump out of a Borderlands Bandit Technical, wearing my Crysis Nanosuit, holding a Gears of War Lancer and killing a Halo Elite in a Doom Facility.  Just as an example.

Likely, Licensing and such won't allow Xbox to get that, but it's still an idea they can run with just to get some cool milage out of those charming little Mini-Me's.

---

Yes, it was that big.

The more I think about it, the more I wish it were true that my little Avatar would have a professionally made world available to him to roam, and shoot, and interact.  I say professionally because there are a number of Indie games that use Avatars, and they all seem very... Low budget.

I continue to play GTA Online, driving about in whatever spiffy car I've sexed up, finishing missions, or jacking Armoured Trucks, or being chased down by the Los Santos Rozzers, and I keep wondering other things that would make an Avatar GTA interesting.

Like all the weapons would be based on NERF guns, just so that kiddies would be able to join in on the fun without being subjected to the gore of a spurting headshot.  And with that you can customise them, from an extended clip or an underslung grenade launcher, to something like an elemental effect added to your ammunition.  Or get random drops and just improve on them from there.  It'll depend on how you go about it, and whether the character you develop matches your play style.

Skill trees could be massive, just starting off with a handful of straightforward options, and expanding out more and more making characters that much more unique for each persons playstyle.

Enemies could be based off of Xbox exclusives, throwing things like Halo Elites and Gears of War Locust into the mix.  Or have mock characters of other company personifications, like the Wiis "Mii"s and have them attack in droves against environments, turning them into their own versions of said exclusives and turning them against the avatars.  Better yet, have a Zomb-ii mission such as being placed in the Xbox HQ and have to make defences in there to stop the hordes of zomb-ii's.

Then take the piss out of themselves and fly up to a mothership designed on the original xbox, maybe fly around in fighters that are based on the original controllers.  Or do a mothership dungeon crawl and fight a raid boss.

The ideas are pretty endless.

Bubble and Hearth, the breakfast of Paladins

Im opposed to getting myself involved in collectible card games.  Its not that I don't like the games, or that I consider them a massive waste of time, it's that I don't want to get addicted in searching hundreds of cards for a real game changer and suddenly find that it's obsolete the next year I play, while I will also have stack after stack of cards that will do nothing but either create a different deck, which I'm not opposed to, but will create replicas of decks whcih i can't fob off for whatever reason.

However as a digital version, it makes me more interested.  Mixing it in with an IP that I enjoy, that makes me keen.  Lo and Behold, Hearthstone: The Warcraft Collectible Card Game.

Immediately, I knew that I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my World of Warcraft career: Warrior.  So I jumped on the opportunity taking the role of 'Garrosh Hellscream', Mr Ivory Shoulders himself.

Since then... i haven't had much success.  But I knock that down to not much experience in deckbuilding.  On practice matches, I just haven't beaten anyone else, and I find that a little embarrassing.  But they're tricky, ya know?  Full of tricks and surprises, they are!  And not to mention the organisation between utility and bloody minions that do X, Y and Z.

The problem with it is that it makes me want to play World of Warcraft.  I had a modicum of love for it, even though I couldn't play it for more than about a month at a time because I found it rather tedious and cold.  It is still one of my favourite fantasy themes out there.

But i can't play it because it's too expensive, and it's a complaint I've had for years.  Ever since it was first announced in fact.  And while I could happily go back to play Warcraft III, I've had my fun with that.  The game has decided to take on a new style of RPG, and I have said several times that I would enjoy them continue with that... with a not so profitable method.

Thats my problem with MMO games.  While I can appreciate that having a subscription means you're supporting the developers to furthur expand said universe, that's not what I see a game as.  It's not a business method, it's an experience.

That was why I was ecstatic when I came across the Business Model page (http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/game/features/business-model/) of Wildstar, which shows a detailed and easy to explain Free-to-play method.

Which quite simply translated means you pay your subscription using IN GAME MONEY.

To be fair, that can potentially be quite a drain on such characters. The potential for players to extort those who want to depend on C.R.E.D.D. (Sounds like it should have a helmet and multi-purpose pistol) will be ridiculous, but I'm sure there is a method in the madness therein.  You also need to find people who are happy to trade real money for in-game benefit, and funny enough it's substantially more expensive than it is to pay for a subscription.

Actually, I'm starting to get a bit disillusioned by it all now.

One day I want to get into Wildstar.  Seriously, it looks like World of Warcraft had wild monkey sex with Ratchet and Clank.  And those are two games that I really like!  Dodgerolling, strafing, attacking, combo-ing, etc etc etc...  I could be a Bilby Gunmage!  That's just awesome!  I can continue to do the Aussie thing in game!

What was I talking about?  Oh yeah, Hearthstone is pretty fun for a Digital CCG that you can either flog money at to get good cards, or just do quests which give you Gold which you can use for gametypes or for more card packs.  And whatever card bloat you have, you can disenchant them into Arcane Dust and make other cards for a cost.  That's pretty nifty.  Too bad you can't do that with Magic the Gathering.  You just make paper mâché houses for tabletop games.

Gaming Over Time

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about how I have been playing Cow Clicker games over the past year on Tablets, and I've continued to do so playing different games in that time, amongst other time consuming games like Jetpack Joyride and Sudoku 2. (It's no different to Sudoku 1 except that it looks spiffier)

What's interesting is how I've continued to play them.  Since I've been here, I've loaded up the tablet with Clash of Clans, Samurai Siege, and Boom Beach and continued to level up and maintain my bases, continuing to build upon and learn strategies to take on various bases while treating my own like a Lamb Roast, letting it sit in the oven, hours at a time, and basting it occasionally.  That's how these games work.

Same goes with Skylanders Lost Islands and Tiny Village, though they lack the fun of competing against people and their ingenious bases.  You just go ahead and check on it and come back every few hours, possibly more, to collect and repeat.

Jetpack Joyride does the same now, a bonus every day where you ride S.A.M. (the Strong Arm Machine) and you collect money more frequently while batting off Rockets that trick you into missing, and in the main menu a countdown is shown so you know that at 8pm, S.A.M. is ready to ride again.

It just threw me for a loop the amount of hours I've spent waiting on these games over the past couple of months.  I would wager that once I've upgraded and collected everything, i would have spent more time waiting on it than I've played Borderlands 2, which is over 600 hours as it is.

And that's just madness.