I noticed you noticing me,

I bet we've all had those days where we feel like the world is staring at you. You feel ready to break out the tinfoil hat, creep under the table and wait for the day to pass. For no reason.

Yesterday was such a day.

Now, usually I am a pretty patient person. I'm observant, I like to keep track of people around me. I notice things and I like noticing things, details. I like to feel the pulse of the surrounding. So if I catch someone looking at me a little, I'll brush it off and consider them to be doing the exact same thing as I am. Observing, with no ill intent.

But usually when I catch several people at a short duration of time starting at me; I get nervous. Are they seeing something I am not? Is there something wrong with me?

On the way home to a woman was staring so intensly on me after having experienced so many glances earlier, that I was nearly convinced I had a axe stuck in my head and it must have hit some part of my brain which made me not notice, and now I'm bleeding all over the place and dying and they're all staring at me.

Of course that wasn't so.

But upon pondering about it later I realized that this, while being utterly ridiculous, is a good analogy for communication.

"Minister of Culture"

Ha Ha! That rocks!

Did you know Runic Games' (maker of Torchlight, which I by the way did a review for over at Pressfire) Community Manager have a bit of an unothorodox title... Namely "Minister of Culture".

I wonder if it would suit me?

- Hello, sir. Why yes, I am the Minister of Culture for Planet Calypso.

No? How about Head of Trolls? Treasurer of Cookies? Harvester of Hugs? Flame Bait?

Crazy Zelda Cosplay!

Rune Håkonsen shared this one on his Twitter: Crazy Cosplay of Zelda, Dark Link and Co! Really makes me go back to that wish about having the balls to cosplay..

Steam Holiday Sale Lootbag

I bet you guys have rolled your eyes plenty times when girls wiggle of glee over the sound of the word "Sale".
Like my little sister said when she visited me last summer here in Gothenburg; "Rea (sale) is the most beautiful Swedish word that is."

Now imagine that their glee over 50% off trousers, shirts, dresses, six-pences, pantaloons and what-not is somewhere close to what you felt, oh avid gamer, when you saw Steam's holiday sale. And I gotta admit, as much as I do love shoes and shiny things and colors you can actually wear and not just look at, it exited me more then any clothing sale could ever do.

Granted we didn't buy that much, I would have liked to buy a lot more.. The steam sale is just a too good opportunity to pass up on getting some of the games you'd thought about playing but never got around to. The Indie Packs were hilariously cheap though and almost made me feel bad about not spending more on all those great games.

Here's what I ended up with:

• Indie Brain Pack:

1. Zen Bound 2
2. Diamond Dan
3. Puzzle Bots
4. Windosill
5. Big Brain Wolf

• Indie Adventure Pack:

1. Mr Robot
2. Jolly Rover
3. Gish
4. Samorost 2
5. And Yet it Moves

• Indie Heavy Hitters:

1. Audiosurf
2. Braid
3. Osmos
4. Shattered Horizon
5. The Maw
6. Zero Clash
7. Trine (Had this already)
8. World of Goo (Had this already)

• The Ball
• Greed Corp
• Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes
  
  
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R pack:
  
  1. Shadow of Chernobyl
  2. Call of Pripyat

Happy New Year!

Bloody hell Im bad at this blogging thing, eh? I gotta remind myself to keep writing here.

So anyway, a funny story about me and Jerry's Christmas-presents.

For a long time now, we've thought about getting a Wii. Usually we play such "serious" games as strategy, RTS, MMO's and FPS, and the Wii would be good for 3 things:

• A different, more casual type of entrainment
  
• A good console for having friends over
• The Wii Fit.

So of course I figured it'd be a perfect gift this year, and called up to Hammerfest in November to reserve a 25th Anniversary Wii. My family owns a toyshop which happens to sell Nintendo so that was only a natural thing to do. When we got up to Hammerfest for the Christmas vacation, we browsed the shop and looked at the Wii's. Jerry said "The Red one is the nicer one, isn't it?" and I agreed, now happily having it confirmed that I had made the right choice over the Black or White Wii. I couldn't wait for him to unwrap it at Christmas eve.

Pretty!

Now it belongs to the story that my family lives on top of this toyshop. The shop is on level 1-2 while their apartment is on 3rd and 4th floor, which is also where we stayed during our visit.

So one day, I believe it was the 22nd December, I'm in my pyjamas, and Jerry goes out to the minibank to get money for some reason I cannot remember. Suddenly by stepdad comes running up to the apartment SCREAMING my name, and then says that Jerry is downstairs buying me a Wii for Christmas. The Red One.

God damn man stole my Christmas-present idea! Now I had to let my stepdad pretend like nothing, because I didn't want Jerry to know that I knew what his gift was - after all the greatest thing about gifts is giving them, and I didn't want to rob him of that feeling of getting a great gift... Even if he just stole mine.

Christmas Eve came and I'm not sure I've ever seen such a crazy amount of gifts underneath the tree, especially considering that the youngest in the house is 17 soon 18. In the midst of the unwrapping mayhem I was trying to keep track of some of my presents; some of them were not to be opened until later.
And then I got my present from Jerry, and I gave him his present from me. I brought out my poker-face; weighted the box, sized it up, made a comment that these shoes were heavier then I thought they would be. And I opened it up and I had a sincere smile of glee, not because Im good at faking it, but because the moment was so precious knowing what was coming. And then he unwrapped his present from me, which was Mario Kart and Metroid Prime Triology for the Wii.

I don't think I've ever seen a man that confused before. His face had an expression I did not know existed outside comic-books.

It was precious.

We ended up with the following Wii set-up at the end:

• 25th Anniversary Edt. Wii with New Super Mario Bros, original Donkey Kong and Wii Sports.
• Metroid Prime Triology
• Black Wiimote with Wii Motion Plus + Black Nunchuck
• Mario Kart + Wheel
• Wii Fit Plus (Board and game)
• Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

Now I really gotta find a couple of the games I've been dying to try out. The latest Raving Rabbids, Epic Mickey.. Ack!