Gaming

Life after marriage

- Sheylara 2 Comments

Of course, I didn’t expect anything to change after marrying Piers. We’d already lived together as well as endured a long-distance relationship, over a period of two and a half years, and we’d established routines, both in England and in Singapore.

Nothing’s changed.

Five days after we were married, he went back to England and we were back to spending every possible moment on FaceTime.

 

Long distance marriage

 

Well, we do have slightly different things to bicker about now.

For example:

 

Piers: We should buy a three-bedroom house so we can have a gaming room.

Sheylara: Great idea! Then you can invite Jamie over often for gaming!

(Jamie’s his best friend and they play Xbox games together.)

Piers: Yes!

Sheylara: I can play MMORPGs on my PC while you two play Xbox!

Piers: No!!!!!

Sheylara: What?

Piers: No MMORPGs!! I’ll lose you forever!

(I’m an incorrigible MMORPG addict once I get started, so he’s understandably worried.)

Sheylara: Erm… I’ll be sensible this time! I’ve, uh, grown up since!

Piers: NO!

Sheylara: HMMMPH!!

 

Actually, even that isn’t very much different from our usual bickering.

Yep, nothing’s changed. I haven’t changed. He hasn’t changed.

We’re still counting down the minutes till we can see each other again.

He still gets jealous when he sees me on web cam eating something tasty that he can’t get in England.

He still hates grocery shopping so I have to shop for him online. From 6,820 miles (10,976 km) away.

He still hangs his neckties on the key rack.

 

Male logic

 

I’m still a compulsive iPad (because I’m not allowed MMORPGs) gamer.

And still a bit tardy at blogging.

And we still have stupid conversations like this:

 

The scene
Our web cams are on. He’s having dinner while watching TV. I’m (supposedly) playing on my iPad. He suddenly notices me watching him.

 

Piers: Stop watching me eat! Go play your game!

Sheylara: Why can’t I watch my husband? (Ick! Word!)

Piers: Ah… husband! Haha. Oh yeah. Hmm… I don’t feel like a husband! So weird.

Sheylara: (lol)

 

Nothing’s changed. He’s still a big goofy bear.

 

Big goofy bear

 

Although nothing’s changed, life is definitely moving in an exciting new direction. We’re definitely going to get a much bigger place. Then we can have a gaming room! I can buy a piano and take lessons! Maybe drums! (We’ll probably have to bicker over that first.)

Since I’ll be living in the UK permanently, I will have a new occupation. Won’t talk about that now because I’m not fully decided yet. (Still trying to talk Piers into letting me be a stay-at-home gamer.)

Children will probably come next. That will turn our entire lives upside down so I’m really looking forward to it. Yes.

 

Little ones

 

But, other than those big changes, everything is still the same.

And I’m guessing that’s standard for most marriages.

So, nothing wrong, life is grand, all we need now is my UK visa and Bob’s our uncle.

While you’re busy, zombies eat your brains

- Sheylara 6 Comments

My head is swimming.

My snack cupboard is empty.

I’ve forgotten what my boyfriend looks like. (Joking.)

I’m HUNGRY.

That’s what happens when you’ve spent the last two weeks staring at your computer screen 10 hours a day, moving pixels around like crazy, hoping that a kick-ass new blog design will magically manifest itself.

 

Blogabracadabra!

 

But it’s done.

With my last sane breath, I have coughed out a design worthy of a million monkeys frantically banging out words on a million typewriters.

Okay, maybe a little less epic than that. But I can’t wait to show it off. I think you’ll like it a lot better than this garish pinktrosity staring at you right now. 

Unfortunately, you can’t see it yet because it’s been sent off to be coded and that will take weeks.

In the meantime, while I still have a lot of work to do (such as rewrite my About page and draw lots of comics), Plants vs. Zombies 2 decided to throw a noodle in my plans (I just made up that idiom) by being released today.

 

Zombies are coming!

 

I suppose I can take a mini break.

On the subject of breaks, my Mallorca holiday is coming up in about three weeks and I have prepared a summer reading list for it.

 

Summer reading list

 

I need more recommendations for good books to read. Can you fill in the last empty space?

Actually, that’s part of the ongoing Nuffnang UK Blogger Competition I’m participating in and I have cleverly disguised it in a random post!

Anyway, that’s the last challenge. If you could think of a book and give me the title via Twitter or Instagram, I’d be very grateful.

If you’re tweeting, remember to add #tellNuffnang and @sheylara in your tweet!

Thank you so much!

 

Cupcake for you!

 

I only have one problem now. I haven’t actually bought those books on my reading list, lol. Just need to think of a way to persuade Piers to buy them for me! :P

Okay, gotta run now. Have to go baby- and dog-sitting in 20 minutes! Bye!

Feeling nostalgic in Ludlow Castle

- Sheylara 10 Comments

The reason I chose to stop at Ludlow on our way to Wales was because I remember the name of the town from an MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) called Dark Age of Camelot, which I played 12 years ago.

A lifetime ago!

It’s a strange and beautiful feeling to read a fantasy book or play a fantasy game based on locations in England and then years or decades later visit the very same places for real.

Of course, the real town looks very different from the game town since the game is set in the 6th Century where 90% of the world is basically vegetation and dirt paths.

Today, Ludlow is a smallish market town with a large number of Tudor-style buildings nestled among more modern buildings, lining the sides of gravel roads.

 

Ludlow

 

Here, I found a screenshot of the Ludlow in the game (from this website) so you can make a comparison!

 

Ludlow

 

Tudor houses!

Gosh, the nostalgia. Some people think I’ve wasted my entire life being addicted to computer games and it’s true I could have done a lot of useful things in the time I was playing games but I don’t regret it one bit. My most treasured memories are of my gaming adventures. The worlds may be virtual but you’re interacting with very real people who make you laugh and cry, and I have made many, many good friends through gaming.

Okay, back to the present.

Because we were on our way to Wales, all we had time for was a quick zip through the streets, heading straight for Ludlow Castle since that seemed to be the most obvious landmark, then 30 minutes to look inside (at £5 a pop).

Fortunately, the castle wasn’t very big, and most of it was in ruins anyway, so 30 minutes was quite enough. Photos now!

 

 

A panoramic view of the courtyard, taken from the top of a tower. The round building on the left was the chapel:

Ludlow Castle

 

 

The entrance to the castle. Doesn’t look so grand with the crumbly bits!

Ludlow Castle

 

 

Steps leading to the main wing of the castle:

Ludlow Castle

 

 

Some mouldy castle walls. Piers was controlling my camera through his phone via Wifi but it was a mess and the camera kept snapping when it wasn’t supposed to:

Ludlow Castle

 

 

A view of the top of the castle walls and some scenery beyond:

Ludlow Castle

 

 

More scenery beyond:

Ludlow Castle

 

 

Me feeling a bit stressed because our 30 minutes were nearly up and we were on metered parking:

Ludlow Castle

 

Sorry the photos are quite small but I can’t help it since my blog has a fixed width of 500 pixels to make reading text easier. But hope you like them anyway.

Well, I don’t know if all gamers have the same kind of great memories as I do or whether they feel as strongly about them. If you do, let me know!

“It will f*** up your mind.”

- Sheylara 6 Comments

I wasn’t going to blog today, the reason being that I bought an Xbox arcade game last night and subsequently planned to be very busy for the rest of the week.

But then I reconsidered.

Gaming is a poor reason for not blogging, I thought. I cannot let my readers down, my poor deluded mind said, for they patiently await the next installment of What Did Sheylara Eat/Do/See/Drop on the Floor This Time? and would be very disappointed if they didn’t get to read about how I had a tasty ham sandwich for lunch.

Mind you, my decision to blog has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I feel rather dizzy after two hours of playing Space Channel 5: Part 2, and need to look at something else for a moment.

Yes. Updating my blog today was a purely altruistic decision. That’s the kind of person I am.

 

Space Channel 5: Part 2

 

The game is about 11 years old so I am not going to do a review. I first played Part 1 on the Dreamcast in 2001, shortly after which I broke up with the boyfriend who owned the Dreamcast. And then shortly after that, Dreamcast went kaput so I thought that was the end of the game for me, pity, cos I really enjoyed it.

It’s a music and rhythm game, involving jitterbugging space aliens who go, “Chu, chu, chu, hey, chu!”

Piers was very, very disturbed by the game. He said it was a crazy, crazy game. But he could be forgiven for thinking that because he only watched two minutes of it and those two minutes just happened to occur at a stage where my avatar was captured by a space alien monster flower with tentacles, one of which seemed all too ready to probe me for secrets.

And I had to try to shoot at the monster and dodge deadly flying petals while bound spreadeagle by tentacles.

And while all that was happening, the alien was going, “Left, right, left, right, chu, chu, chu!”

 

Space Channel 5: Part 2

 

Sure, I can see how that might have looked slightly oddball to someone who hadn’t seen the beginning of the game and understood how important it was to save the planet from aliens, not all of whom had tentacles, it was just that flower monster, mind you.

Earlier this afternoon, Piers thought it prudent to dispense some more boyfriendly wisdom. We were chatting on MSN when he said, “Your stupid new game finished yet?”

I said, “What are you talking about? I just bought it last night. And it’s not stupid!”

“It will f*** up your mind,” he said.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“You fight strange creatures,” was his conclusion.

That was very fine for him to say. I didn’t say a word when, two years ago, he was obssessed with catapulting funny-shaped birds at hapless green pigs.

 

Om Nom Angry Birds

 

Anyway, I discovered last night that Space Channel 5: Part 2 was available on Xbox LIVE Arcade so I bought it immediately. While I was playing my new game on his Xbox, Piers was busy playing a fighter jet simulation game on my PC so he wasn’t free to look at my game.

Nevertheless, I said to him, “Hey, we can play co-op on this game. Would you like to play with me?”

His eyes still glued on the PC screen, he said, “Okay, honey, in a minute.” (Meaning: Okay, right after I’m done with pretending to be a fighter pilot, which could be any time between four hours and four years.)

But he did say okay, didn’t he?

Still, his first experience of my game was the tentacles, so I’m suspecting that he has maybe changed his mind since. I can’t imagine why, though. Most guys I know get excited when they see tentacles. I didn’t get a chance to persuade him anymore last night to play my game because we had to watch South Park.

We’ll have to see, tonight. And, for the record, my mind is still very sane and intact, thank you.

Don’t believe everything Facebook tells you

- Sheylara 6 Comments

Piers pointed out to me today something funny that he saw on his Facebook feed.

There were my status updates where I was stressing about my essay, groaning about not having much time left to finish it. And then, on the same page, it also showed that I had been watching Prison Break on Netflix.

 

Irony

 

Now, this is a complete lie because, while I was toiling away at my essay, Piers was the one who was watching Prison Break on my Netflix account. Because my Netflix is linked to my Facebook, it auto-updated.

Stupid Facebook.

But it’s all good. I enjoy linking all my apps to Facebook so that everyone knows whenever I watch a movie, listen to a song, play a game or toast some bread.

Today, we live in the happy delusion that people actually care about every breath we take and every fart we make. If it keeps us happy and raises our self-esteem, why not, huh?

Indeed, why not.

But just remember not to believe everything you see in Facebook because someone could pretend to have watched an intellectual film just to appear intellectual, or another person could use someone else’s Netflix account to watch Prison Break while said someone else is supposed to be working hard on an essay.

But, still, all is good. I have scanned through Netflix quickly and not found any overly embarrassing films or TV programmes in there so Piers is welcome to knock himself out watching all the shows he possibly can because Netflix is like a TV buffet.

Anyway, the worst of my chicken pox is over now. I don’t even want to talk about it because it is the worst singular experience I’ve had in my life.

I am now trying my darnedest to catch up with my school work because I had to miss an entire week of classes, during which I was sick and miserable at home, at times fantasizing about rushing outside in the middle of the night to provoke random drunk students so that they would be inspired to stab me dead.

In the meantime, I have been honing my drawing skills on the new social game, Draw Something, which you can play on Apple and Android devices, and which you should because it’s fun. Download it and add me via Facebook or e-mail so we can play together and I can traumatise you with my crappy drawings.

Can’t stay to chat now. I have just finished writing a 5,000-word essay but I have one more to write, the contents of which were taught when I was absent from school.

Hoorah.

Have a good March and be as mad as a March hare!