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Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts

Monday, March 30, 2009

Agency Wars. M16 Agent #78930. Shaken, Not Stirred.


Stoker told me last week he'd gotten a little something for my birthday and asked me to not look at the bank account. I thought, Ok, he's gotten me a book, or a video game, or tickets to the soccer game. Because it was a little something.

So the little something he gave me last Friday turned out to be an Ipod Touch. Excellent present and I haven't been able to stop caressing it and downloading apps and playing games on it. We're Verizon users and will never switch to AT&T and thus the Iphone is useless to me. But the Touch works for us. Stoker has one as well.

I'm addicted to Agency Wars.

It's a role playing game where you pick an agency, CIA, M16, KGB or one from a variety of others that I'd never heard of until yesterday, and then you go on missions for the agency. You earn money and buy weapons and sell weapons to other real life players. If you have the Iphone, you can apparently go to real time locations for missions--I assume it's all legal and whatnot ha ha ha. I played it for too many hours yesterday and I'm embarrassed about it, and all I have to show for it is that I'm a level 13.

One of the first things I did was try to attack Jungmaster, a level twenty million or something. As you can probably imagine, there was really no contest. He had some outrageous gun and I think I only had a measly handgun or something (in the game guns are one-offs, like a WaltheN PPK). Jungmaster won the fight and then of course he had to turn around and teach me a lesson by actually KILLING me. And it did teach me a lesson. Thereafter I only attacked other agents who were a level or two below me. Unfair, but I need the money and experience in order to rise in the ranks (new goal, reach level 30 million and kill Jungmaster).

It's not personal, it's business.

Others have attacked me and some of them have won. But I add them to my hitlist and if I ever surpass them in weaponry or by leveling, I get my revenge. Oh yes, I get revenge, my friend.

The interface of the game resembles one of those blue screen type programs you always see in detective/FBI/24 type shows. I doubt the real-life databases look like that (who knows?), but it lends an air of sophistication to the game despite reality, and in some ridiculous, romantic part of your brain, you feel like you COULD be a government spy engaging in espionage and other James Bond tom-foolery without actually being in danger. So you get all the good part of the fantasy sans the threat of death or torture. In short, I feel that the game rocks.

Yes. All morning I've been devising a way to get to a free WiFi location so I can check on my status. It seems that while offline, others can attack your agent and steal your money (JERKS!). What comes around goes around. Anyone who messes with me will be dealt with, I assure you.

On a different note, my main criticism is that their server kicks me off quite often. I could forgive this if the game was free (like Guild Wars), but since the full game is not free, I can't forgive it. Another improvement would be to enhance the in-game selling feature. To sell to other players, you simply list your price then the item disappears from your inventory. If the item is ever sold, the amount appears in your account. But you never hear for sure, and since you're constantly making money, it's hard to be certain if you've ever sold the item.

Anyway, as you can see the game is quite enthralling. For me anyway.

Add me (other agents know what that means. If you're not already an agent, become one and add me)*.




*What it means is that in the game, to do certain harder missions, you have to have a number of contacts. It's hard to make contacts because for some ridiculous reason, you can only add them with the agent number (or some other intrusive way like with an email address). Basically you have to go online and advertise your agent number in some way. So get the game and add me. And then we can do joint missions. Cassi, this means you.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Belated Birthday Post

Last Thursday I turned thirty. I could go on and on about the woes of aging and how strange it feels to say, "I'm thirty," and all that, but what's the point? This isn't a Hallmark card, or Shoebox Greeting or whatever brand of greeting card it is out there perpetuating all the hilarious jokes about getting old. In fact, why am I even talking about it?

Birthdays are still great, even when you get old. Honestly, I'm not really SAD about aging, if for no other reason than that the older I get, the better the presents get. Okay, so not really every year, just this year, otherwise by the time I am thirty-five I should have a Hummer . . . or a tank (the kind with cannons on it, not the ones seen driving around American towns doubling as Cadillac Escalades or some other "family" vehicle). And what's with all the crap about the economy being bad? I'm still spending money. Loads of it.

Last year I got a Trek 4300 for my birthday. That's a mountain bike. This year I got a Scott S40, that's a road bike. A picture:



What's with the bikes, you might ask. Simple. I haven't ruled out nuclear holocaust and when the shit is coming down, how else am I going to get around quickly? The rest of you will be in wheelchairs. I'll be gliding along on all my bikes.

Really I just wanted to say "the shit's coming down." For my sensitive readers out there, I've given up on you. The only sensitive people I know stopped reading my blog long ago. I'm too crass, I guess.*

I almost got a Sledgehammer this year, but instead I just put pegs on my Trek.

Seriously, who knew Scott was out there making bikes? Ski poles, ski goggles . . . and bikes. I guess I'm WAY behind the times.



Special thanks to my lover for working all the long hours just to put bread on the table and a bike in my back pocket (it weighs so little, you see). And also thanks to all the relatives who kindly sent me money (even though I KNOW you don't read my blog [secretly YOU are the sensitive readers I was talking about]). This is where it went: the bike and bike accoutrements. Happy birthday.



*Understatement is funny because it's understated. No one in their right mind could presume to think that the word "shit" is offensive. Understatement is a form of exaggeration, and we all know exaggeration is funnier than hell.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

3 2 7

Yeah, it's my birthday! Whoo-hooo! I keep forgetting, actually.

I'm 29. And bald. Jk. But at least I'm not, you know, 29 and balding. I'm a girl, so it would be tough, short of medical or rebellious reasons, to be bald. I do have a great 80s look going on, though. I keep thinking, man, I'll grow it out. But as soon it gets a bit long, I go crazy and get it cut again. Then it's short again, too short, and I cry and cry for about a day because I look like a boy and I'm not used to the haircut. After about two days I'm ok. A week later, it's long again and I go through the entire identity crisis scenario again.

I don't know how I'm going to make it through an entire life with so many combative emotions. I really don't. If only I looked like Julie Christie in
Fahrenheit 451, the character Clarisse, with short hair. She's gorgeous. And if only I wore adorable, girlish outfits like Clarisse. And if only I had that sexy gap between my two front teeth like Clarisse. As it is, I had a spoiled upbringing and wore braces for four years. Oh yes, this million dollar smile wasn't free, you know.

What is a birthday celebration if not to salve the sorrow and fear of growing old? I'm sure other cultures have done it differently, like those cultures where age means wisdom and the elderly are revered. I'm past the point where a birthday was awesome because finally, you're getting some respect and maybe getting closer to being freed fom the iron fist of your communist parents. I'm to the point where every birthday (if not every day) brings me closer to the realization that my youth is gone. It's not the thought of death that scares me (because, you know, old age brings death), it's the thought of everything else that does: being overlooked, forgotten, no longer inherently beautiful just because I'm young, and so on. So, curse the bastard media and their youth-worshipping ways!

This year I wasn't forgotten. My good old friends remembered me, and my family did, and Stoker has been a doll. Bless you Stoker! Bless you old friends! Bless you family! (Sorry, that's so sappy. I'm usually sarcastic as hell, but today, for some reason, I don't feel like it.)

FYI -- don't click on the link to Hotbaugh's blog. There's nude pictures of me on it! Bwah ha ha ha.