Married

Well, here we are, I have officially been married for just over a week now and I am still getting used to typing with this ring on. The wedding could not have gone smoother, though there were times that I got slightly concerned. Below is a recount of the events leading up to and including the aftermath of marrying my sweetheart.

The evening of the 21st of January, we found ourselves still struggling to complete everything that needed doing. We had just finished decorating the hall (thanks to help from family and friends, you guys rock!) and were well on our way to finishing the rehearsal. Just about everyone involved was late, thanks to crazy Saskatchewan snow storms and other such calamities. Once everyone arrived, the rehearsal began.

The rehearsal ended up being far more in depth than me or Dianne were prepared for. It included us even reciting out our full vows! That ended up being quite an emotional shock that we were not entirely prepared for. Tears were shed. Smiles were had. And if you can believe this or not, the priest actually tripped coming down the stairs towards us and shattered one of our borrowed flower pillars. Thankfully he was alright, but the pillar was beyond repair. Might as well add another finishing touch to the next morning...

The morning of the wedding was nothing short of insane. Me and Dianne got up at 6am to begin our respective preparations. Dianne was off with the girls to get their make-up and hair done while I was off to pick up the boys and booze. Me and Dianne were not supposed to see each other until the ceremony so we ended up spending the morning running around getting things prepped for the ladies. Us guys scrambled to find a pillar to replaced the freshly shattered one, picked up our photographer, got the ladies breakfast and hurriedly changed into our tuxes. We ended up having about ten minutes to spare for the latter and even had enough time to slug back a glass of champagne.

The ceremony is as you expect it might be. Dianne looked so beautiful she took my breath away. The limo bringing them there was late. The priest nearly tripped again. We both signed in the wrong place on the certificate. Overall it went by so fast and turned out so well that it seems almost a blur in my mind. I could not have asked for a more perfect ceremony.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch as well. The bridal party drove around in our spacious limo, pretty much at our whim. We brought along plenty of booze and had a great party on our own. When it was finally time to make our way to the reception, we were sufficiently ready to party.

The speeches went perfectly, with highlights going to a beautiful slide show prepared by our friend Erin and very moving verses coming from Dianne's sister, my brother and parents and our bridal party. I had a great time visiting with the family and friends, some of which we rarely see. Everyone seemed to have a good time and most people took cabs home (a sign of a good party!).

The honeymoon was exactly what we needed. It was completely devoid of stress and though we both ended up getting sick with a cold (run down from the wedding no doubt), we had an amazing time. We spent a good load of time in the hot tub, we ate out almost every day and did some superb site seeing all around Banff. The temperature was on the plus side the entire time which is amazing for Banff, allowing us one of the most perfect times we could have imagined.

Overall, a wonderful experience. I will post some pictures when I get them all back (there are well over 500 pics...), thanks for all the well-wishing and congratulations, they mean a lot to us. And of course thanks to all our family and friends, we couldn't have done it without you!

My Very Own Nintendo DS!

In other news, as promised, I picked up my Nintendo DS pretty much the day after we got back from our honeymoon. My initial impression is that this thing is sweet. The GBA's front-lit screen has nothing on this bad boy. The screen is perfectly clear and looks good no matter what the lighting condition.

The touch screen is actually much cooler than I had first anticipated. When you first fire it up, you have to enter the date and such. I never thought such a thing could be so pleasurable. I was practically giggling at the sheer brilliance involved with using the stylus. A feature I originally sort of passed on as a gimmick has managed to endear me within seconds of use.

The game selection is rather shabby at this point, but when GBA games look this fantastic on the DS, who cares? I finished off Zelda - The Minish Cap while on my honeymoon (more on that later), but I will soon be picking up Final Fantasy 1 + 2 so my DS will definitely be getting some play. I also cannot wait for Animal Crossing DS as the Gamecube version addicted me as only a fishing/weeding/costume design/interior decorating sim can.

The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cap

I finished playing through the Minish Cap almost right after I began it. This game is sweet in a way that I had thought lost in the Super NES glory days. From start to finish, this game had me begging for more. It excels in pretty much every conceivable way and is a welcome addition to any gamer's collection.

I have indeed finished my review for this masterpiece (it's highly flattering, were you getting that gist?) but this post is already crazy long, so I will post it in a day or two.

Xenosaga 2 - The Return of the Hour Long Cut-Scene

Is anyone else as excited for this game as I am? Xenogears was, and still is, my favorite game of all time so despite Xenosaga's shortfallings, I still enjoyed it to no end. Xenosaga 2 has seemingly snuck up on me from out of nowhere. With all of the great games that passed me by last year and with the wedding consuming every waking hour I had, February has arrived without warning!

Many things have me highly anticipating the next game in this series. While some people do not enjoy watching cut-scenes, I play RPGs for the plot and so I love them. I have no problem sitting through an hour long plot moment if it is riveting. The first game kept me glued to my set and I am interested to see where all of the cliffhangers from the ending are going to go.

Combine to all of this a free 5 hour DVD summing up the events of the first game for those who pre-order and I am going to be making a trip to Electronics Boutique today despite the bills piling up on my desk...

Comments (0) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 2.2.2005

Divided

Strangely enough I find myself in the most entertaining of all gamer conundrums. I am divided between two truly excellent games that I am enjoying immensely.

My initial reaction to Phantom Brave was that it was just too damn hard. No matter how much I leveled up my ethereal warriors, they still managed to suck the proverbial ass. And so it was that I continued to attempt to hack my way through the game, making it all the way until around chapter 8 when I could proceed no further.

This is when my Phantom Brave epiphany occurred. I had not waded through a random dungeon yet up until this point and so I gave it a try. Strangely enough, it was not the random dungeons themselves that caused the epiphany, but rather what I could do with them afterwards.

After completing a dungeon I was finally awarded my first "title". Now, I knew titles existed, but I had no idea how to generate them, or of what importance they might be. I applied my newly won title to a random character, who just happened to be a "Crappy" (the title) character. Wow. I then realized that all my warriors were burdened down with titles that reduced their stats by up to 70 or even 80%!!! No wonder I was being slaughtered.

It has been all uphill from there. Now that I know how to use titles, I began aquiring amazing titles and applying them to all my characters and weapons. Not only do the titles change the color of those they affect (very cool), they increase the hell out of their stats. Suddenly, my rag-tag band of losers rips through every level with the ferocity of a fat man ripping through an all you can eat buffet.

Since I had been leveling to compensate, my now super-powered warriors are shredding through the rest of the game like nothing and I am finally beginning to enjoy it.

I find it amusing that I wasted 20 some hours hacking away at a game simply because I didn't understand one of its concepts. I wonder if there is more for me to discover with Phantom Brave!

In any case, PB is sharing time with my newly aquired Zelda game, "The Minish Cap". The Minish Cap truly seems to be a redo of the Zeldas of old. I am enjoying it immensely and find myself pulling out the old GBA whenever I have even 5 minutes of free time. My initial impression is that it rocks, but more on that later.

And so I am divided. How is a man supposed to keep sane when he has two games (and a fiance) whispering sweet nothings into his ear. I have no idea, but I will go for the ride and enjoy it while it lasts.

Comments (3) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 1.14.2005

Game of the Day - The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

So the current must have game that is making me salivate while awaiting my reviewable copy of Final Fantasy - Dawn of Souls from RPGFan, is The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. This puppy has been garnering nothing but spectacular reviews, further flexing my drool glands to obscene proportions.

The Minish Cap seems to finally be the "Link to the Past" successor I have been waiting for since the original was released. Don't get me wrong, I love the new 3-D excursions (I played the heck out of Wind Waker), but I am in need of some sprite filled goodness.

And some beautiful sprite filled screens I will have! One look at the screenshots below show that Capcom has lovingly crafted a Zelda game that will eclipse the SNES game at least visually, and as per most review reports, audibly as well.

While I wait for the next Gamecube incarnation of Zelda, The Minish Cap looks as though it might tide me over and more! Set to be released today, I have been told by every vendor I harassed talked to that it merely "ships" today and will arrive for sale tomorrow. *Sigh*, tomorrow cannot come soon enough...

Screens (Courtesy of 1up)

Comments (0) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 1.12.2005

Page: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47]