Myst V sits here unplayed, never thought I'd see the day...

I picked up EoA yesterday, but I decided to wait until Monday to start it, because this weekend I'm going to the Nintendo World Store in New York with my friends to meet Shigeru Miyamoto!! Will Atrus the corgi meet Shiggy's dog Pik?? Maybe!

And speaking of gaming icons, there's a ray of hope for my favorite developers! Good luck Rand and Cyan Worlds!

I WANT TEH GAEM

EB says my Myst V LE is coming tomorrow. I'm keeping myself busy by playing Eternal Darkness and getting creeped out by the insanity effects. That "deleting all files on your memory card" one always gives me a heart attack...

Ow my face

Heavens to Betsy, Myst V is coming to stores in only 6 days! Unless you preordered it in Europe, then you most likely aready have it, you lucky ducks.

Actually, I am glad that the US release date is still set for the 20th, because I have several things to do before I will allow myself to play the last Myst game:

1. Clean my room. I'd wait and have this be part of my ritual of cleanliness on the actual day of release, but this project is going to take at least 2 days in itself.

2. Restart my Revelation Journal. I had started it when I got it, but then Adam visited my dorm that weekend and we tackled the game together--meaning I didn't write my thoughts because I was like a woman possessed trying to finish it.

3. Find a copy of Uru Complete Chronicles to add to my Myst collection. I also got around to buying Revelation for the Xbox--every little bit helps, right?

4. Go to the dentist and find out why the left side of my jaw has been throbbing in altering pain for the past few days. I'm guessing it's my wisdom teeth, but the pain has been coming and going. I'd figure if it was wisdom teeth, I'd be in a lot more pain and have it be constant. But then again, I'm not a dentist.

Needless to say, I'm not playing Myst V until the teeth situation is sorted out. No need for my End of Ages experience to be clouded by pain!

"Frustration" doesn't even cover this

Well, if you're a Myst fan, then you've probably heard the horrible news: Cyan Worlds had to lay everyone off except for Rand Miller and Tony Fryman. A part of me feels hopeful in the fact that two employees are still there, another part wants to fight this despair and support Cyan any way that I can, and yet another part is afraid that I'm being naive for still having hope.

I want to take my frustration out on someone, but with the Cyan situation, no one is really to blame. I'm certainly not angry at Rand or Tony, for I know it broke their hearts to do this. I'm frustrated at Ubi for not taking risks by fully supporting Cyan, but I know that flaming them will not solve the problem, and that the best thing to do is participate in positive support efforts: http://www.mystembassy.net/supportcyan.html

Honestly, what's really getting me angry now is the failed relief efforts concerning Hurricane Katrina. The government in general, FEMA, the National Guard--they have completely underestimated this disaster. Before the official actual help trickled in on Friday afternoon, both FEMA and the Guard bailed out of New Orleans. Some of the NOPD have quit, some have looted stores themselves. Even now, there are still thousands stuck in damaged regions, and I'm not just talking about the Superdome, Astrodome and Cajundome. There are thousands still on rooftops, waiting for the floodwaters to overtake them. Many more have died in the Superdome lines waiting to be evacuated. There's still fire, flooding, looting, murder, rape, and sniper fire in the streets. So many of these organizations have failed in their duties in this case, and none of them are acknowledging this or taking responsibility.

But strangely, what has sent me to the fucking deep end with all this is Paypal. Yes, Paypal. The story is this: The website Something Awful wanted to do their part and donate. As an incentive, the webmaster's plan was to give free merchandise to those who donated over $10. Seeing as the SA servers are located in New Orleans, they obviously have lost them. So he figured the best way to carry out his plan and give the donations via online to the Red Cross was through Paypal.

Unfortunately, while being popular, SA can be a vicious humor site that has made its share of inept enemies. One of these disgusting wastes of flesh must have decided to report the donation as a fraud, and as a result Paypal has frozen the donation account, and Paypal as a rule keeps all proceeds of frozen accounts. They just shut it down, not giving the webmaster any warning or customer assistance, and does not respond to any customer complaints.

THAT'S RIGHT, PAYPAL HAS OFFICIALLY STOLEN OVER $20,000 FROM THE RED CROSS.

And don't get me started on relief organizations turning away help. There are many who want to do more than give money or canned goods. There was a group of deputy sherrifs in Virginia that wanted to go to New Orleans and assist (this was before Friday). They contacted FEMA, saying they wanted to send food, water, and themselves. They were completely self-sufficient, meaning that they didn't have to rely on FEMA for shelter or operations. They were turned away. Many other gestures of atypical assistance have been denied as well. Look FEMA, they know about the violence that is still happening, and they still want to help. They're just trying to do your job, seeing as how you suck at it.

A good blog to read about all this as it happens is http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/. He's the man who had kept the SA servers running as long as they could, and has been mentioned on MSNBC and CNN Headline News.

I GOT TEH DEMO

Yep, I got the Myst V demo a few days ago. Including breaks for settings testing, lunch, dinner, and a phone conversation, it took me NINE hours to complete it. I was testing all sorts of theories and bahro numeral/glyph connections: opening and closing certain windows in the Noloben rock, thinking at one point it was like the Kadish puzzle to open the vault (process of elimination)--eventually I made the necessary mental connection, but I ended up using brute-force and trial-and-error. Turns out my counting was off by one! Blarg! And of course, I could have just used the slate all along! :)

Regarding Esher--wow. He moves very fluidly (at least in Noloben), and I can't get enough of David Ogden Stiers' accent! And while I know we don't have the whole story concerning Esher's motives, I'm getting bad vibes from him. Then again, I'm only one out of maybe three people who don't think Yeesha is or turning into a female Gehn. I suspect, like in Myst, that there might be a third choice apart from Esher and Yeesha. I really hope that there are a few alternate endings!

What else...oh yeah, the official website went online, along with lots of new screenshots, Age Nodes, and videos. The game will come out soon, thank goodness!


P.S. You don't know what you got 'til it's gone--the servers for SA must've finally died, and it's driving me nuts that I can't access the forums. Just our luck to have the servers in New Orleans, right in the path of Katrina.