It's been over a week since I posted a proper entry. Usually unheard of, this proves once and for all the direct correlation between blogging and pressing academic work. That is to say, I have time on my hands these days, and it is slipping through my fingers at an alarming rate. Scratch that. If it was alarming, I would be doing something about it. As it stands, I am merely bemused in a detached way like an Omaha Beach lander holding his severed arm. That analogy comes courtesy of a scene witnessed yesterday in the Xbox demo of Conker: Live and Reloaded. It's a silly game I'd rather not talk about.

There were two new games in the house yesterday: Jade Empire, and Doom3. I thought the latter would suck when ported to the comparatively weak graphics hardware of the Xbox, but the developer (Vicarious Visions?) has done an incredible job, and the effect of sheer-pant-staining horror is effectively retained. Playing an FPS with a console controller is still a horror all its own, though. Jade Empire is very nice. We spent too much time customizing our hero. At first we wanted to have a sleek male pugilist named Long Wang, for obvious reasons. But the female models were too inviting, and we ended up with a balanced female warrior named Ai Longwang (loves long wang), which will go down in history as the most inappropriate Chinese name for a woman ever, for more than one reason. The gameplay itself is fun, typical Bioware RPG stuff. We decided she would be a queen bitch and belittled all her fellow students at the kungfu academy. We also prepared a healing mixture for a sparring partner that gave the illusion of restoring her health, although her wounds were still serious, and then used the opportunity to defeat her in a practice fight, causing crippling and life-threatening injury to the poor girl. Believe me, I had trouble doing it. It was just too nasty, even for a game. Stuart pressed the button, and I blame him.

When you're busy writing essays, there are a hundred things you'd rather be doing. Now that I'm able to with a clear conscience, I simply can't remember what any of them were. Either that, or they don't seem as interesting any more. The problem obviously resides within me. I need to find a constructive anytime/anywhere past-time that stays interesting. Absorbing information through books, film, and the internet can only take you so far, and then it's 3am, you're not sleepy, and there's fuck-all to do but make a sandwich.