Starwars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KCGvmCmhG8 Great theme.

Been playing a bit of the Sims 3 again, which is one of those games I tend to play whenever I have spare time but don't have any other game that I *really* want to get into so to speak. It's pretty "trashy" entertainment, but it can be kinda fun to fiddle around with stuff. Of course, somehow I always end up try to make as dysfunctional families as possible.

Jawa theme from Star Wars, heeeell yeah:

So, care to enlighten us instead of posting meaningless one-sentence comments perhaps?

I can't really speak to using medicines on people under 18 years, but it's a double-edged sword for the people I tend to see at work. The bad side is that, once again, it's very dependant on the doctors involved. Some people are more open to abusing meds than others, and it's hard to judge how much any one person should get. I tend to be on the conservative side myself, I don't like to take medicince personally. That said, I don't exactly envy the psychiatrists either who are under a *lot* of pressure to produce *results* and quickly! While psychiatry is now health-care, how we tackle mental illness is *vastly* different from person to person. I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to diagnose people at times, and decide on medicinces and so forth. It's still such a young field, comparatively speaking, yet expectations are really high. It sounds like a cliché but many people really expect to be "fixed" by the health-care system. No matter how many therapy sessions you attend, how many different medicinces you take, in the end it is you who have to really bite the bullet and try to take responsibility. Whether this is being strict with yourself and taking your anti-psychotic medicines because your situation just won't work otherwise, or in other cases try and take charge of your life and turning it towards something better. Always, always, always you have to struggle with it yourself. The brighter side about the meds is that I personally feel that they are actually getting quite a lot better. We rely a lot on meds in the ward where I work, and I thank god each time we have people who get violent when they're ill, or people who are prone to embarass themselves and/or hurt themselves, that we have the meds to rely on. There is a certain attitude at times that people feel that meds "take away" people's fun personalities or whatever. We have a woman in the hospital right now for example who I figure a lot of people would regard as "fun" so to speak, but she *really* regrets what she does when is in her manic state (she's bipolar). She completely loses judgement and all inhibition, and while people tend to laugh at stories where someone runs naked through town or does something outrageous like that, it is certainly not a fun episode for the person in question to remember afterwards. Especially not with the way certain guys tend to react to things like that, or with the skepticism people sometimes view mental illness. And that is even if they *realize* that we're talking about an illness, and not just shrugging it off like "oh that girl she's got no morals and is just CRAAAZY!" But yeah, while I feel the meds themselves are slowly getting better, more effective and with less side-effects, the execution is as always the key. Not too much, not too little, the right meds for the right person, not drugging them up etc etc. I imagine it's quite the jungle.

I work in an emergency psychiatric ward here in Sweden and I feel that mental disorders are definitely something that should be taken seriously. At the same time, with research plunging forward and the way the western civilization is developing, there are so many young people who, in my opinion, are getting diagnosed with all kinds of unnecessary things and then you have the therapies and meetings and blablabla... The health-care system is often responsible for hollowing these people out and transforming their identity into that of a patient. I think it will become a huge problem eventually (it already is to an extent), the combination of increased research and more types of diagnosis' with the easy access to internet and such. Young people feeling different or down on their luck, reading up on the internet, thinking "hey, I think I have that", and then pushing for it. Then you have weak-willed or burnt out health-care personnel who will give the diagnosis in a weak moment and then you have the whole carousel going. There are so many patients we get who are only constantly looking for reinforcement in their illness or state of mind, and once you get to that point, it's very hard to escape that spiral. And of course, most often we can't help them at all in an emergency ward. That said, there are many people who come in who really are in a very bad state and who really needs the help. Whether it be heavy depressions (to the point of them being catatonic), to bipolar people in a manic state, to people experiencing psychosis for a number of reasons. It's a difficult thing because the various doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists are as different human beings as anyone else is, and you will definitely see differences in how they perceive various illnesses and react to various types of people. There are guidelines to follow for diagnosing the illnesses but often they are A) not enough or B) the doctors won't care too much. It's a real mess altogether.

Have spent the weekend getting all the Christmas stuff together. Bought some fancy chocolate for a woman I'm starting to like rather a lot. It's been a long time since I really fell for someone, forgot what an emotional rollercoaster you get placed on. Especially when circumstances demand that you have to be patient. Restringed the good ol' guitar, so now it sounds all sparkly and nice again.

Happy Holidays!

Been re-reading a compilation book of HP Lovecraft stories. It's funny with Lovecraft, there are so many passages in his stories where I just sort of roll my eyes at times at how... not subtle it is. Still, there is something there that just makes me like his stuff. The Shadow Out of Time is probably my favorite.

Thanks Meshugger!

Very nice!

^--- That's a good one. I like the whistled intro that movie also. Check out my latest song!

Thank you thank you thank you for the news about a more solid-feeling interface. I hate the trend to have very minimalist or "clean-looking" interfaces. The minimalist approach works well for some games but for a RPG, I want it to *feel* solid and meaty so to speak. I really disliked how the Skyrim interface looked for example (and I don't just mean the horrible functionality side of things). Although the option to rotate items and look at them was a cool thing for that game. The inventory management alsos ounds intriguing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGzjvzy65Nc The best Disney song there ever was and ever will be.

It's the ultimate in "let's go on an adventure" music.

You can listen to me play, and slightly fumble, the Morrowind main theme here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEywXBa05w I'm not normally a fan of the "epic fantasy" tracks but I gotta say, this theme gets me everytime... And I'm not even that big a fan of Morrowind and TES. Here's the original version which is amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2qDap4hnmk

I rewatched Mars Attacks for the first time since I saw it in theaters when it came out. Funny stuff. Gotta say that the animators did a really excellent job with the Martians, they are really funny.

On the whole, I vastly prefer Skyrim to Oblivion but I must say that I generally found the DB and TG questlines a lot more enjoyable in Oblivion. Especially the TG one.

Hope they can live up to the other games. Good news!

Personally I didn't like it because... you don't need to be Thief-like in the least to play through it. Plus, it's not hard to see the "plot-twist" in the actual story of it, and of course, you are powerless to act upon it in any way until the story decides it's time to do so.

Loved the opening bit with Cartman beating Bilbo up, that was the best part, haha.

You're asking for originality yet objecting to it having a new setting? This game will be thematically tied to Torment, but have a whole new setting and characters. Seems pretty original to me! Hell, the whole idea of having a franchise like Torment be a thematic one rather than one defined by setting or a single story is pretty novel. I can see why one would object to it, but I hardly think it's a despicable idea, or "cash in". This isn't PS:T:EE, haha. I don't find it despicable. Hell, if they manage to show writing promise with WL2 I might even be interested in it. But it's boring, and it's useless and it's again, an obvious and not-subtle way to generate the interest. What on earth would thematically tied mean in this case? What is there to salvage from something like 'Torment' as a license, if we discount the setting and the writer who did the absolute main bulk of the work on it (I would even argue that the parts of Torment where Avellone was more hands-off are a distinct step down in overall quality). I guess we will have philosophical discussions in it? Have a tormented main character? Come on, just throw away the license completely and do something new... They're oh-so-close anyways, just take the step for crying out loud.

Uuuugh... Is it really necessary to dig up these old licenses? PS:T was a great game, it stood alone and works fine. Making a "Torment spiritual sequel" without the Planescape setting, and Chris' involvement, is just... why bother?! For the love of god, can't we get something new without having to attach old licenses to it? What's the point? Just make a new goddamn game without resorting to using an old name to get some quick cash in. I'll be the first one to admit that I'm fairly nostalgia-driven regarding a lot of older games but please... Let us move forward. Create something new. I completely understand why the devs feel safer in doing the name-dropping thing, even for new IPs such as Project Eternity with its IE connections, it's a safer bet to get some money. But it's so tiring to see these projects constantly having to make throw-backs to old fan favorites. It's the same kind of annoyance I have with the rest of the industry with its sequels and half-sequels... Just that some of the kickstarter projects just go back a few more years for the games they want to create sequels for. Thank god that there are actually a few companies who want to create new things, without having to constantly name-drop and connect their games to older ones like some... I don't know. Insecure, teenaged kid developer.

X-Com is my pick. Not without its faults but a very good game overall I'd say. Was the Civ V expansion released this year? If so, that is also up there. Yay for Firaxis I guess. There are however two that I haven't played yet, but that I have an interest in. Dishonored and The Walking Dead first season.

I'm back with some self-advertising, check it out if you will please and hope you enjoy.