Game completed: Fallout: New Vegas + DLCs

Today I completed New Vegas and it's been quite the ride! From the first go it worked a lot better than Fallout 3, there were a few times when the game froze, but that can happen to the best of them and in this case it was nothing game-breaking.

This game was weird. There was so much crazy involved I sort of started to wonder what the devs were on while making this game :P

So for the main quest I was shot in the head, patched up again, and then chased after the guy who shot me all the way to New Vegas where I paid my way through the front gates. I found the guy, Benny, and making use of my perk Black Widow I seduced him into sleeping with me and then I killed him in his sleep :P And then I started working with Yes Man.

Choosing which side to ultimately side with was hard. On my way to New Vegas I initially helped the NCR, but when I got to New Vegas I thought Yes Man was adorable. I killed House and got the Platinum Chip back and then I was tasked to go find Caesar's Legion. Talking to them, what they wanted to do kind of made sense, although the rest of the Mojave area were making them out as the ultimate bad guys, so for a while there I was inclined to help the Legion. But after running around making sure to complete every side quest and every unmarked quest available I soon was left with very bad rep with the Legion. And in the end I liked the idea of running the show myself more than I liked the idea of the NCR taking over. So I forced the Legion to leave and threw the NCR general from a tower and then I ruled the Mojave and New Vegas alongside Yes Man.

Out of all the random NPCs I liked the female supermutants the most. I loved Tabitha and Lily. And although I ran out of time to help Lily, since I picked her up late and couldn't bring her with me for the DLCs I did love how the end turned out for Tabitha. Out of all the side quests my favourites were partly the one to help the ghouls get on a rocket and find their home somewhere beyond the stars, and also the one where I helped the Boomers lift an old fighter plane from the bottom of a lake and made their collective dream to fly a reality.

One of my least favourite side quests was the one in the Thorn where I had to go pick up eggs from different creatures so that they had creatures to raise for their gladiator games. One of the eggs I had to pick up were Deathclaw ones. I chose to do that at the quarry, but I soon realised that I was sort of under-leveled for that quest. But I pushed on and I found a spot on top of the digging machines where the Deathclaws couldn't reach me because they were too big and from the top of the digging machine I used my grenade launcher to slowly bomb them to death. It took a while, but it was fun to watch their health bars slowly decrease. When I got all the different eggs to the quest giver she rewarded me with sex xD

And then there were the DLCs. Usually with Bethesda the DLCs are way more epic than the main game. That was not the case this time. Separately the DLCs felt very meh. But when I had completed all of them I realised that a bigger story was unravelled and that they all fit together. Somehow it all started with the old leader of the Brotherhood of Steel, Elijah. He found himself at Big Mountain, at the Big Empty. There he heard of the Sierra Madre casino and all the riches supposedly hidden within. He went there and then lured others into helping him crack into the casino's vault. (That DLC was seriously annoying; a killing cloud, ghost people that you can't kill unless you chop them to pieces, and you're wearing a bomb collar that blows your head off if you're standing too close to a radio or a speaker.) I'm not sure of the chronology of the other courier. He was at the Big Empty at the same time as Elijah, but he was also in Zion, and then he lured my char into the Divide for the ultimate showdown. The DLCs were all connected in a way that I found beautiful. Finding the urban legend of the Legion, The Burned Man, alive in Zion was also pretty cool. I helped him in the end to create a genocide for the White Legs, so that the other two tribes could stay in Zion, rather than to force evacuate them. I felt the other tribes would be better off staying where they were. All in all the DLCs were not as impressive as in Fallout 3. My favourite DLC was Old World Blues in the Big Empty, because the whole DLC was tripping balls xD

Something I missed in New Vegas compared to 3 was all the crazy Vaults. In 3 all the Vaults had pretty much gone bad and you never knew what you'd find once you entered. In New Vegas there was really only one such Vault, number 22 where spores from the plants they were experimented on infected all the inhabitants and transformed them into spore carriers. The place was also full of carnivorous plants. This vault, however, showed up referenced in two of the DLCs: the origin of the spore plants was the biological research institute at the Big Empty, and it also showed up in Zion where you find an exploration party murdered by one spore carrier and the area infested with several carnivorous plants.

This game was summed up on Tumblr better than I ever could. So if you're wondering if the level of weirdness is as hilarious as I hint toward, then just read these to get confirmation:

I can definitely see myself replaying this game several times, if not only to see what the ending will be like if I choose to side with Mr. House, the Legion or the NCR.

Travelling: Germany 2016 day 6

The breakfast buffet at the hotel in Walsrode started at 6.30am and we went there five minutes later, which meant getting up even earlier than usual. They didn't have honeydew melon, but I could have salmon on my sandwich, which totally made up for it! After breakfast we repacked our bags, checked out and continued drivning north on the autobahn.  I fell asleep after a while.

The time was a little over 10am when we arrived at Fleggaard outside of Puttgarden for a bit of cheap shopping. Alcohol shopping. Alcohol is cheaper abroad than in Sweden, but candy is more expensive abroad than in Sweden. The candy thing is due to the EU having implemented a sugar tax, which Sweden could get out of.

When our shopping was done we got on the ferry from Puttgarden in Germany to Rødby in Denmark. It's a short ride: only 50 minutes. They are talking about building another bridge there but with all the border trouble nowadays that will probably be postponed. It was almost 11am when we got on the ferry and so we decided to get an early lunch.

When we left the boat we happened upon an ID control on the border, but we were let through without having to show. Either it was the Swedish car or we just didn't look like refugees. Probably the last.

It was only 2 hours left to Sweden and I spent most of the time on Facebook. Thanks to having Telia it costs the same in the Nordic and in the Baltics as in Sweden :)

I always enjoy crossing the bridge between Sweden and Denmark. It feels symbolic somehow, seeing my home rise out of the distance. It's like a transition. We arrived in my home town of Svedala outside of Malmö about 1.30pm. We unpacked the car and went to pick up the dog from the neighbour. He's been babysitting her during the day when we were in Germany and my mum at work. She was very happy to see us, and almost immediately my black clothes were covered in her white hairs xD

I'm staying at my parents place tonight and then I take the train home tomorrow. It's been fun, but I'm looking forward to coming home. Boyfriend, own bed, computer... In that order.

Tonight my dad is meeting with an Estonian guy who buys from him and then sells in the Baltics and Russia. So work is not entirely over, the way I see it.

And for some reason my laptop can't find my parents' new wi-fi. I had it on on my phone so I knew it worked, but my laptop couldn't find it, so I had to buy my train ticket via my phone (which is a hustle but I've done it before so it's alright), and now I'm doing this post on my phone. I've never liked blogging via my phone, though I've had the app forever. I think it's mostly due to the fact that a computer's keyboard is a lot more comfortable to type long things on than any phone's.

Now I'll return to my books. Hopefully I'll finish one of them by the time I'm home tomorrow :)

Travelling: Germany 2016 day 5

Honeydew melon was back for breakfast today! :D After breakfast we took all our things and brought them with us to the fair venue. There we deposited our things in the car and then went to work.

Yesterday I had managed to convince my dad to consider Japanese products so we went to visit the big company that would hardly even acknowledge me when I was there alone. But now we pretended that Dad, although he was the CEO, was very bad at English so I did all the talking :) We were met by a woman who politely listened to me and then when she thought it seemed interesting she brought two more representatives. By the end of our talks where I provided all the information about our company and Dad only asked questions in Swedish and I translated, we were given a big bag of samples to try along with a promise to keep in touch and find out more about cross-continent trading and requirements. The company is a really big conglomerate and has an office in many Southeast asian countries, so none of the representatives we talked with were Japanese so no Japanese for me :/ Afterwards we also went to take a look at the smaller company I talked with yesterday. There was another girl there now and we spoke English, although she was Japanese. My dad was allowed to try their nori snacks and their matcha sweets, and while he didn't really enjoy the nori ones (which I liked) he really liked the matcha ones (which I don't). By the end we got a few samples from that company as well. My dad seems really keen on the idea. In the beginning of the fair, last week, I had pitched the idea for him to go and look at the American companies, but he didn't seem that interested in them when he returned. It seems to be the total opposite with the Japanese companies, and that makes me very happy! :)

The fair itself was really slow today, not many visitors until just after lunch, about 2pm, when they let the ordinary people in and they grabbed just about every piece of confectionary that was not nailed down. I understand why they're called "the locusts" xD Those of us working in the Swedish area did manage to grab some things from each other before the locusts took everything, so now I have a nice bag filled with sweets :3 Now I don't have to buy anything for the train ride home on Friday xD

Although the official ending time was 6pm, we called it quits at 3.30pm. The halls were mostly empty except for workers and we saw no reason to hang around any longer. So we said goodbye to our friends (they were also leaving) and went to the car.

After about 3 hours on the autobahn we arrived at a small place called Walsrode. I haven't seen much since it's dark outside, but it seems to be in the middle of the woods. There is a hotel here that we're staying at for tonight. My dad stayed here when going home from Cologne last year. They hardly speak any English here, though, which makes it all very interesting. Faster wi-fi here, though! :D

Tomorrow afternoon we'll be back in Sweden.

The beginning of "the locusts"

Travelling: Germany 2016 day 4

Got up at 7am as per usual and went to have breakfast at the buffet. They were out of honeydew melon so I had to improvise :P

Work was kind of slow today, but because of that I did find the time to go visit the three Japanese companies that were there. The first one I went to was a small one and it was the first time they were there. The woman who approached me when I showed interest in their wares was very relived and excited when I knew Japanese, and we talked for a while about Japan and my studies and differences in candy in Japan and Europe. It was a lot of fun :) After that I went to look for the second small company, but they only sold cakes and nothing I found really interesting so I didn't stop there. Then I went to look up the big one. Turned out I already knew them when I went there, I recognised most of their products. But they were a big company with a big corner and had a no BS kind of attitude so I didn't get to talk with them. However, I did talk my dad into considering Japanese candy so we are going to go there together tomorrow and talk to them, and see if we can find something interesting that may work in Sweden. I'm excited! :D

After work we went quickly back to the hotel and changed clothes and freshened up and then we met up with some people at the Dominikaner, before going to a dinner we were invited to by another set of people. It was a fancy Italian restaurant, and while most of the other picked some sort of fish, I went with octopus and it was delicious :3 After dinner we went to Haxenhaus and ordered 1 metre of beer. When that was done, we did another metre. Then we went to Papa Joe's again for one more beer. I love Papa Joe's :3

Now it's time for packing and then sleeping, but first some pictures from the day!

Sign at Papa Joe's: "Every day without beer is a health risk"

1 metre of beer, anyone?

My dinner at the Italian place! Octopus!

This cathedral is friggin epic!

Travelling: Germany 2016 day 3

Today has been busy. Got up at 7am for hotel breakfast buffet and then went a little extra early to the fair venue. We were there around 8.30am. Both dad and the boss had several meetings planned from 9am to lunch time, so I was mostly left to my own devices at the counter. It went mostly well. The boss had his meetings in our corner so he was within asking distance if a customer had a question I couldn't answer. One of the people I talked to today was French. The first thing he asked was if I knew French and I said a little. He stated his business in French and I completeled blanked out and had no idea what he said. He noticed and we continued our conversation in English. I added some French words when I remembered them and I understood everything he translated into French to his two associates. Of course, after they had left I remembered how to say everything I had needed to say in French. Maybe I'll get another chance tomorrow.

From 10am to 4pm we had an almost steady stream of potential clients and so I didn't have time to realise how tired my muscles got after standing up for so long. Keeping busy to avoid feeling weary is always good, the problem is when you stop being busy and feel everything at the same time. At 5pm my dad left for a mingle party in the other end of the fair venue (the size of this thing is like 22 football (soccer) fields, I've been told), and just before 6pm the boss went too. They both said they wouldn't be long and probably would be back shortly after the fair closed at 6pm. At 6.15pm I called my dad and asked if they were on their way. They weren't and Dad told me to get over there. I left our stuff by our coats in the storage room of the Swedish area, and went down to their mingle party. We stayed there for about 30 minutes. I didn't mingle much. I didn't have much to contribute to their talks of B2B, shipments, weights, pallets, etc.

When we left it turned out we'd get an early night tonight. The people we had been out with yesterday and had planned on going out with again tonight were still tired after last night and cancelled our plans. Just as well, getting some more hours of sleep is sorely needed. So after a quick and cheap dinner at KFC we went back to our hotel. I took a long, relaxing shower (great for my weary muscles) and then read some in my French book. I understand everything I read and hear, I just have problems finding the words when I'm supposed to construct the sentences.

Now it's sleepy time anyway.

The slogan at the Swedish area

Travelling: Germany 2016 day 2

The day started at 7am when we went down for the hotel breakfast buffet. I could eat honeydew melon for life. Then we went to the fair venue and started work. It went well. I had no reason to worry about French and Japanese, no people with those languages as preference came around, but I did manage to make some contacts in English. This job is different from what I've done before. Before I've sold wares to customers who approached me, now it's my job to make them want to approach me. So I need to hand out sample bags and brochures and hope that they want to hand over their company card and make contact. It worked alright, but I'm told there will be more people tomorrow and on Tuesday. Still I had a blast. It was a lot of fun, the people are a big part of it. Everyone were so accomodating and friendly, most of them already knew my dad so I went along for the ride and got to know all of them.

After lunch I went with my dad to meet Vidal. They are his main distributor and very friendly. They are based in Spain and the contact we met today was also the contact that we went to dinner with when we were in Spain last spring. After the meeting we were invited for some tapas behind the scenes, and it was delicious. Afterwards we went around looking for new potential customers, and then we went back to our corner in the Swedish pavillion section of the European area. After a little while the fair closed and we went back to our hotel, before going out to have a beer at Haxenhaus and then dinner at Löwenbräu next door. After a delicious dinner we went across the street to Papa Joe's jazz club and had a blast. Now it's time for sleep, but first some pictures from the day.

Dawn. This is the view from my hotel window. Good morning, Colgone!

Going back to the hotel from the fair venue. This cathedral is immense! And so beautiful I can't stop looking at it whenever I walk past it - which is often.  

I've heard of hamburger and pizza candy, wanna try sushi candy?!

The inside of Papa Joe's :) Such a cosy atmosphere!

The live band at Papa Joe's!

January favourites 2016

January has felt like an eternity. Most of the time it's been cold as fuck. But here goes, some January favourites.

Books: I've read four books in January. The only reason I managed that many was because I decided I should read every day on the train to work, that's a total of 80 minutes reading a day, and it has worked surprisingly well. My favourite book, must be Himmelstrand by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Horror in the middle Swedish summer. It was fabulous.

Music: Too many favourites to choose from this month. So many days going to and from work ended up giving me a lot of tracks. But this is it, I think.
• Black Veil Brides - "Wretched and Divine"

• In This Moment - "Out of Hell"

• Lordi - "Something Wicked This Way Comes"

• Lovendor - "Ikujinashi"

• miwa - "Hikari e (English Version)"

• SPICA - "You Don't Love Me"

• Steam Powered Giraffe - Cellophane

• Street Drum Corps - Happy Christmas

• Morning Musume - "TIKI-BUN"


Games: It's been Fallout all month. First Fallout 3 and then Fallout: New Vegas. I did also start a new playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition one Monday when I wanted to play something but was too tired to play something that actually demanded my concentration. DAI worked well in that respect since I've played it so many times I know it by heart. But favourite game of this month has to be Fallout: New Vegas.

TV shows: This month I've watched Classic Doctor Who, New Who Xmas Sp, Call the Midwife, Heroes Reborn, The Big Bang Theory, Under the Dome, Da Vinci's Demons, and Rederiet. Favourite show from this month has to be Da Vinci's Demons. It was a little slow to get into, but by the latter half I couldn't stop watching!

Other things: Went to Germany for work!

Travelling: Germany 2016 day 1

At 8.30pm yesterday we checked in on our ferry from Malmö to Travemünde. We got on board shortly afterwards and entered our cabins. We left our stuff there and then went on to check out the dinner buffet. It was really nice. Salads, shrimps, chicken, beef, fish, pasta... Anything you could really want. We helped ourselves and then sat down, we met some people that my dad and the boss knew and talked with them for the rest of the evening. After dinner we had a beer each at the bar and then went to sleep. The ferry had departed at 10pm and we went to bed around 11.30pm.

I couldn't sleep. It was pretty rough seas this night, and I could feel it rolling beneath me. I had never slept on a ferry or boat before so it was a brand new experience. The engines were roaring, and at some points made my cabin door vibrate in its frame, which made it hard to sleep, and the bed itself was the hardest bed I've ever tried to sleep on (that includes the floor in a gym hall). I don't think I slept much, perhaps two hours in the whole night. At 5.30am my alarm went off, and just after 6am we went back to the buffet to have breakfast. Met up with the people from the day before. Breakfast buffets are always nice. I'm not big on breakfast, but breakfast buffets can make me eat a lot.

Turns out the ferry had become late and we docked at Travemünde at 7.30pm, half an hour later than planned. Our car was among the last ones to get off so the next part of the trip started late. I fell asleep pretty much as soon as we had left the harbour. Around 1pm I woke up, we were not very far from Cologne, our final destination, and we decided to make a pit stop for food and filling up the car on fuel. And then we continued on. After several wrong turns we found our hotel and checked in. We basically just dropped our stuff in our rooms, and then got back into the car to find our way to the fair hall. After a few wrong turns we found our way there. It's interesting that there were so many wrong turns seeing as dad and the boss had been going to the exact same place for the past five or six years.

In any case we got there and first off we said hello to every other Swedish company there. This trip is for work and not for fun, although there will be room for fun as well. It's Europe´s largest fair for confectionary companies and there were representatives from a lot of countries around the world. Our place is in the European section, of course, but I'm more interested in checking out the Asian part, and especially the three Japanese companies that are here. We'll see if I can find the time. After we had said hello we went to set up our corner, which didn't take long. Screwed a few shelves into the wall and put out some samples.

When we were done, and after talking some more, we took the train back to the hotel and left the car at the fair. It makes everything easier, I've been told. I quickly showered and unpacked and then we went to meet up with a few of the Swedes at a bar close-by called the Dominikaner. We had a beer each while we waited. We were supposed to have dinner with another company, but their representatives had problems with their lodgings and we decided to postpone our plans for another night. Instead, the three of us went alone to the intended restaurant, Maredo, and had some nice steaks for dinner. Then we went back to the hotel.

That's been the whole day. It's been fun, but also tiresome and stressful. I'm kind of nervous about tomorrow, because I'm not yet entirely sure how everything will work and what exactly I'm supposed to do. I think it's going to be sort of like my work at the tourist agency, where I answer questions about what we sell. I can handle English, but I was asked to come along because I know more languages than English, and I'm kind of nervous about using French and Japanese, especially French because I haven't talked French properly in maybe three years. Because of that I've brought books in French to read to get into it again, as well as my grammar book. The sort of answers I'm supposed to provide include words that are not in my vocabulary in either French or Japanese. But hopefully everything will work out fine! :)

Good night!

Game completed: Fallout 3 + DLCs

I mentioned in my weekly post from last week that I had major problems getting this game to work at all. When I finally managed to start the game I soon realised that I had maybe 20-40 minutes of uninterrupted playtime before the screen would freeze and I'd have to force-quit. To make the game work at all I also had to disable all autosaves and thus F5 became my best friend:

Killed an enemy?

Save.

Picked up loot?

Save.

Discovered a location?

Save.

Before entering a place?

Save.

After entering a place?

Save.

Before talking to someone?

Save.

After having talked to someone?

Save.

Walked 20 steps without any interference?

Save.

Got a new quest?

Save.

Completed quest?

Save.

Heal.

Save.

Level up?

Save.

Having no idea for how long I'd be able to play this time, and having all autosaves disabled made me slightly paranoid. Sometimes the game would work without a hitch for an hour, maybe two. Then sometimes I could barely play two minutes before the game would freeze. And because of the freezing and force-quitting I tried to squeeze as much playtime as possible into the minutes I had, which meant that I rushed through this game without proper exploration or getting a proper connection to any of the characters.

I gave this game a bad review on Steam, purely for the fact that despite all the amazing *sarcasm* guides about how to get this game to work on Windows 7 it still wouldn't frickin work until Toni provided a random solution (that wasn't mentioned anywhere whatsoever online that I could find) that at least got the game working, but didn't solve the freeze problem.

But despite all the negativity and the rushed way I had to play it, it still managed to grab my attention, and if it wasn't for the freeze thing I may very well have fallen in love with this game, which makes it even more frustrating that my computer specs wouldn't allow me to play it properly (my computer is too modern #firstworldproblems). But since it's Bethesda it was more the DLCs and the random locations and the side quests that caught my attention. It's the same with both Oblivion and Skyrim - all the fluff is better than the main story xD But it took a while so it wasn't until the last few days that the game really grew on me despite the frequent freeze-ups.

I really enjoyed the Point Lookout DLC, mostly because I thought it was cool with Desmond and the Brain. I killed the Brain in the end, because I ended up liking Desmond in some weird way. This DLC also provided my first shock as I approcahed Desmond's mansion and it was blown to pieces! Also getting high as fuck and having the weirdest game experience ever was cool, though it ended sadly by finding mom :( And finding out that it was the ferry man who had been seeling the cultists' pieces of brain! Ew.

 1). Mom in the drug-infused vision. 2). Desmond's mansion blown up. 3). The Brain! 4). The ferryman's jars of brain pieces

But the creepiest part of this DLC was when I got to Blackhall Manor. I entered and was approached by an old man who eventually asked me to recover an old book, an heirloom, that had been stolen from him. I accept and leave the house. Outside I encounter a woman who claims that the book is evil and that he wants to use the rituals inside it to control the native swampfolk, and maybe worse. I go to pick up the book and then I decide to destroy it. To do that I had to go to the Dunwich Building in the Wasteland (rather than in Point Lookout). The evil book was the first clue. The name Dunwich was the second. When I got to the end, a cavern at the end of the tunnels below the building, I found an obelisk. A whispering obelisk that wouldn't shut up. I activated the obelisk and chose to destroy the book. When I activated it again I got a message saying that everyone with the knowledge to investigate this obelisk further either didn't have the means or were dead... Dead investigators. Lovecraft.

 1 & 2). The obelisk. 3). The old man from Blackhall Manor praying at his basement altar. 4). The woman who told us about the book was murdered.

I also loved some parts of Mothership Zeta DLC. Getting abducted by aliens, Sally who's still a little girl but who's been on the ship for 200 years, the random Japanese samurai who only spoke Japanese (this was hilarious because I understood perfectly), the space walk was cool, and the space invader fight in the end was awesome.

 1). Getting abducted. 2). Getting probed. 3). SAMURAI! :D 4). Samurai snuck off alone and this is how I found him.

In the main game one of the most memorable side quests was Oasis, where I found a tree-man named Harold. I liked him, but instead of killing him like he asked I made him grow faster. He approved of that afterwards. All the vaults were of course memorable. No 101 where my char came from, no 112 where I found Dad after a creepy afternoon in Tranquility Lane, no 87 where the Super Mutants originate, no 106 where everyone went crazy after a gas experiment gone awry, no 92 where I picked up Agatha's violin, and no 108 where all survivors are clones of a man named Gary and all they can say is Gary (that was seriously creepy). I also enjoyed the quest in Arefu involving vampires, the quest in Andale involving cannibals, and the quest in Canterbury Commons involving a superhero and a super-villain. The quest in Rivet City with an android who'd run away, changed his face, and wiped his memory was really intersting. And I enjoyed playing the quest called Those! that was so obviously an easter egg in and of itself and a reference to the very old movie Them! that I like.

 1). Harold. 2). Harold's heart in the tunnels underneath the oasis. 3). The super-villain. 4) The superhero.

I didn't like Broken Steel at all tbh, and preferred the ending the way it was, I didn't need the add-on. The Enclave broke up after their base was destroyed and their leader gone. Organisations tend to do that when they don't have a clear leader. Has happened before, will happen again. Why did that require some extra ratification? I felt that Broken Steel was completely unnecessary, but a part of it comes from the fact that I wasn't even allowed to finish it. After the final building has exploded I'm supposed to board a stolen Enclave plane and get back to the Citadel, but every time I activate the plane the game freezes. So I can't finish the quest. I can't use the console to finish the quest, because the DLC is on a different map and so I can't fast-travel from there back to the Wasteland. I'm effectively stuck because of the freezing, and so I haven't finished the absolute last five minutes of the post-game DLC.

There's so much to like about this game, but the constant freezing destroyed so much of the experience.

My last 5 books: Mass Effect, Dragon Age, BioShock, and Gaiman

In the order I read them - oldest first.

1. BioShock: Rapture, by John Shirley.

The prequel to the game BioShock. While I love the game and always try my best to pick up every single audio log in-game it's hard to get much sense out of the jumbled up audio logs. They aren't found in the right order and the dates keep getting mixed up. So in that sense this book helped a lot to show how things really went down before the game starts up. That said I wasn't extremely fond of this book. It was slow. So slow. And if I hadn't been a fan of the game series and had an intitial interest to find out how things happened, I probably wouldn't have finished it. 

2. Dragon Age: The World of Thedas vol. 1

Game lore galore! Thedas is immensly detailed and I keep finding out things I didn't know before, despite having played Origins 5 times, DA2 3 times and Inquisition another 5 times, there are still things I don't know. This book was amazing!

3. Adventures in the Dream Trade, by Neil Gaiman

I bought Gaiman's Humble Bundle back when. This was the first of the books in the bundle that I decided to read, and for the first time since getting into Gaiman's stuff, I'm not sure if I like it or not. There are some brilliant pieces in there, but they get muddled by all the pieces that aren't. This book is divided into sections. The first sections consist of Introductions, Afterwords and other similar things, and while they are all interesting to read they soon start to flow into each other and create an indecipherable mess. Next section consisted of a few poems. They were cute. They made me smile. I'm not a poetry person so I can't claim to know if they were good or not, but at least they seemed cute to me. The essays that came next were long and for the most part I can't even recall what they were about. The song lyrics section I mostly just skimmed through, because reading lyrics without the music is really weird to me, but I did enjoy the anecdote in the beginning of this section. And then there was the weblog from when American Gods were going to press and it was extremely interesting up until the point where it was mostly a tour journal, and it got repetitive (went there, signed this many, ate this, met people). At the end of this book there were a couple of short stories which were the highlight of the book. I love Gaiman's work, that's usually the rule of thumb. But this book was (hopefully) an odd exception. This book was more a chore than a joy. I'm sorry.

4. Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, by David Gaider

I read a lot about this book before I read this book. A lot of people claim to understand Loghain better in Origins after having read this book. I don't. I still feel he's a self-satisified idiot who thinks he knows more about the world than he actually does. What bothers me most is that all through this book he talks about the importance of giving someone their word. Eventually he swears an oath to Maric and thereby the Theirin bloodline. So why the hell does he get Cailan, his son, killed, and tries to have Alistair, his bastard, assassinated? The only thing I can think of is lust for power. Loghain has stood in the sidelines watching everyone close to him getting more than he did. Maric got Rowan and the kingdom. Loghain wanted Rowan. Loghain thinks he knows more about being king than Maric. Loghain is an idiot. Mostly this book made me sad. Severan, the bad guy, sends a bard to the rebels to infiltrate and destroy them. In the process this bard falls for Maric who also falls in love with her, which breaks Rowan's heart because she's in love with Maric and they are betrothed. So she goes to Loghain for comfort only to find out that he's in love with her. She dabbles with him once, which breaks Loghain's heart when she breaks it up after the bard dies. Maric's heart is broken by the bard's death and everyone is miserable. Even if they manage to get Ferelden back from the Orlesians by the end, it's a hollow victory because none of them gets to be happy having reached their goal, and it makes me sad.

5. Mass Effect: Revelation, by Drew Karpyshyn

Basically the story of why Anderson and Saren hate each other, why Anderson didn't get to be a Spectre and how Saren came across Sovereign. This book was exciting from page one and it was hard to put down and put out of my mind.

December favourites 2015

December went by so quickly I have to look things up to remember what actually happened this past month. But here's what I came up with:

Books: I read two books in December, but I completed four. Two of them were books I had started months earlier, but hadn't yet finished. I wanted a clean reading sheet for 2016 so I completed everything I had lying around. However, my favourite book from December was Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn. Out of the three game prequels I've read in 2015, this was the best one.

Music: A few favourite songs this month. Looking through my December playlist on iTunes these are the ones I've listened to the most and actually had in my head for days:
• Avril Lavigne - "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet"

• Disturbed - "The Sound of Silence"

• In This Moment - "Whore"

• Lindsey Stirling - "Roundtable Rival"

• miwa - "Faith"

• Steam Powered Giraffe - "Steamboat Shenanigans"


Games: This month I finished my latest playthrough of the Mass Effect series. I also completed Dragon Age 2 and I got halfway through the prologue of a new playthrough of Dragon Age Inquisition before I realised that I was so done with that game and went on to play Skyrim instead. Despite how much I love Dragon Age and Mass Effect, my favourite game this month has been Skyrim. I feel so at home there it's nuts, and with Steam Workshop and all the mods there I can add new quests as much as I want. I get the feeling I won't be done with Steam until I get an Elder Scrolls VI.

TV shows: This has been a sad month for TV shows. Both America's Next Top Model and Downton Abbey saw their last episodes ever. I've been watching ANTM for 10 years! Seeing it go was sad. I already feel like something will be missing next year when a new season of ANTM won't be available. But despite how much I've loved ANTM, the Downton Abbey Christmas Special was amazing and it steals the spot as favourite show of the month.

Other things: It was Christmas and it was beautiful! It was New Years and it was amazing! Despite a bad cold two weeks before Christmas, December has been a great month! :D