Of HALOs and Hobbits

Ever since we got the xbox at the beginning of summer, I have pretty much just played HALO 3 on it.  The kids and the wife are into the Lego games (we started with Indiana Jones, but Michele bought Harry Potter the other day), and Faith was all about Arkham Asylum (which I will probably have to try soon).

Anyways, yeah, HALO.  I have really gotten into the game.  And not just the solo game, but the matchmaking as well.  I figured something out.  When your skill level is relatively low, but your service rank is really high, it means you play a lot, but still suck.  Yep.  That's me.

I also decided to scratch the military sci-fi itch that playing has created by reading a HALO novel.  I read 'The Fall of Reach' and really enjoyed it a lot.  It's the story of how the Spartans, and in particular the Master Chief came to be.  Very hard sci-fi, and very well-written.  I have another one, 'Ghosts of Onyx', but I think I might take a break.

I've kind of been hankering for some High Fantasy.  Been looking around for my own stuff, but all of that seems to be in storage right now.  I have a couple of options, but can't really settle on anything right now.  I might re-read The Hobbit again.  On a whim I was browsing YouTube last night, and listened to the soundtrack for the animated movie.  Then I noticed that someone had uploaded the entire film, so I sat down with the kids and watched it all the way through.  Still love it.

In the meantime, I am still working on my S&P story.  Had an interesting breakthrough there the other day.  The story I have plotted out is a bit long for the anthology.  So, in trying to come up with an alternate story, I thought "Why not go back to the basics?  Back to the original tropes that Burroughs and his followers used?"  So, I think I might try to work up a story about a man from today, or maybe our recent past, who gets sucked back to the time of our setting.  I'm waffling between a soldier or a scholar.  If I go with a soldier, I will probably do a Vietnam soldier.

We're in the last couple of weeks of my school term.  I'm behind on the discussion posts, so I will be working on getting caught up there this week.  I got my grade back on my research paper.  I got 270 out of 300 points.  Not too shabby, I think.  And mostly the points taken off were for technical stuff like citations and things like that.    The bane of my academic existence.  Once this term ends, I will be off for a week or two, then I start the next class on October 1st.

And finally, big news hit this week.  City of Heroes is closing its doors for good.  I will probably do a whole blog post about that, since that game has impacted my life in a huge way.  But, suffice to say for now, I am saddened, and even though I haven't played regularly in several months, I will miss it being there.

Anyways, off to work once Michele gets home from Sydney's orientation in about an hour.