That’s all I have left. I had 3 weeks in May too but they seemed so short. I’m heading to San Antonio and Austin later this week to hang out with the family and to a friend’s BBQ so should be nice and relaxing. Lots of Rock Band, eating, possibly movie watching going on. I may try to read all of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood or watch it on youtube maybe. My remaining to do list is as follows:

• Upgrade computer
  • Add 300GB Velociraptor hard drive
  • Move to Windows 7 64 bit edition
• Beat Borderlands
• Beat Super Mario Galaxy 1
• Beat Dragon Quest 9
• Get all the Starcraft 2 single player achievements
• Catch up on various movies (Toy Story 3 perhaps)
• Clean apartment

The computer upgrading is going to be a huge pain as I’m moving from 32 bit Vista to 64 bit Win7. This means a full format and reinstalling all my junk. My actual main concern is iTunes as my library is scattered across 2 drives so in order to be sneaky I have to preserve some of the file structure so when it opens the library file it’ll still see everything in the same spot. I also just downloaded and installed 30GB of Steam games so it will suck to re-download all of that. I’m hoping to cheat by just moving the Steam folder and seeing if I can still launch games.

My secondary concern is that I should probably be using the velociraptor as my primary drive but due to how the upgrade process will probably play out, I will probably be stuck using my current drive as the windows drive and I’ll install all my games onto the raptor.

It will be so confusing in the end. I’m currently setup on a 2 drive system. One 300GB internal with all programs installed, one 750GB external where data files are kept. The future plan is going to be a 3 drive system where the slow 300GB drive will house Windows/regular apps, the fast 300GB drive will house games, and the external will still just be the data/backup. I actually have another external I use to backup the external drive as well. It seems kind of crazy how much storage I have for practically nothing important.

Borderlands I’m somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 way through. It’s pretty fun and great so far but on PC it does feel like a port of the console version. The menus are a little clunky to work with the mouse. The game does this rollercoaster in difficulty at times where you’re breezing through because you have such awesome guns, then you hit a new area and it’s outrageous because now everyone has like 9x the health. I played a little single player and the difficulty is laughable at best. Coop is the way to go with this one.

Super Mario Galaxy I’m about 2/3 of the way through and I’m just not motivated to play the rest. It’s fun, but because I’m playing in very erratic spurts I’m not drawn to it. Lack of achievements also makes me want to get the minimum number of stars and call it a day. It’s strange, I want to play SMG2 so bad because of it’s incredible reviews, but SMG1 likewise had incredible reviews. So maybe I’m just building it all up too much.

Dragon Quest 9 I only just started. I’m determined to like it. Billions of people love this series and I don’t know why I can’t get into it. I always give these games 2-3 hours then stop playing. I really liked Dragon Quest 8, got stuck, then quit. Again I only gave it about 3 hours or so. I started 9 and it seems enjoyable but very classic turn based RPG. My recent experiences with Mass Effect have really shown me the differences in Eastern/Western RPG implementation. With ME2 being so cutting edge, it’s strange to feel like I’m sliding backwards when I play Dragon Quest 9. Again though, the game has exceptional reviews and I have to find out why.

I haven’t talked about it much but I do love Starcraft 2. It really is the game I’ve been waiting for for 12 years. You can check my profile here: Shockwave.759. I’m drawn to achievements for some reason. Maybe it’s that feeling that when I was finally able to kill Emerald and Ruby weapon in Final Fantasy 7 all I could do was talk about it. Who knows if people believe me. With achievements now you have this record of permanence. Some games do horrible things with achievements but I find that Starcraft 2 hits just the right note with them. I’ve finished over 75% of the single player campaign achievements and I’m determined to get all of them. I’m almost NEVER inclined to replay a game, especially if it lacks new game + features, but I’ll gladly replay SC2 to knock out some of the more elaborate achievements. My first run through I chose options/tech upgrades on my needs, but the next runs will be more achievement focused.

I have a backlog of movies I need to churn through in addition to TV shows and anime to watch. I lost my DVR due to my cable company moving to all digital broadcast which cut out my computer’s TV tuner, which really sucks because the tuner has a digital tuner but Windows Media Center doesn’t pick up the lineup. I’m hoping that the upgrade to Win7 will fix this but who knows. I would like to see Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me but I’m guessing I’ll only catch those when they hit DVD.

Rex and Mattie will be 9 (I think?) on Saturday and I won’t even be here. Hopefully they don’t have a big party while I’m out. This is most assuredly the longest I’ve ever had cats. Mostly because as a kid we had indoor/outdoor cats and they would eventually end up roadkill somewhere along the line. I never let my cats out for fear of instant car death scenarios. However since I’m graduating soon and plan on moving I feel like my time with them is soon coming to an end. I’m pretty sure I’ll be giving them to my parents but I’m not really sure if that’s for the best. I feel like I should give them to someone locally but the likelihood that I’ll ever see them again drops off substantially. The situation I’m trying to avoid is having to have another roommate that will deal with my cats, but if I can live alone then I’ll probably keep them.

I actually have so many more things I’d like to do but I doubt I’ll even have the time to get to half of this list. My fall semester is loaded with more classes than I’ve ever taken and they all range from moderate to hard with maybe only 1 class of busy work. I am however looking forward to it for some reason. I think by the time May rolls around I’ll finally be able to put it all behind me and take my next steps feeling like a new person.