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Throughout the time that Eric and I have been together, I've experienced his love of video games (as well as Johns)..for the most part, I've stayed pretty mellow with it considering I used to be REALLY into them when I was younger. If you've hung around me, you might've noticed I have stumpy thumbs (they look like toes)...my Dad blames their size on my excessive video game usage when I was little. Hardy har har. Anyway, when I was going through college..I had to put the games down and focus on my grades. Fast forward a few years later, met Eric, fell in love..got back into the habit because you can't have a recovering crack head in a crack house and not expect them to stay clean. 

About a month and a half ago, Eric picked up a game called "Saint's Row: The Third"...and I'll be honest. It looked absolutely ridiculous. It's along the lines of "Grand Theft Auto" with a mixture of slap happy humor. A you progress through the game, you get more weaponry (like a baseball bat that's a massive dildo called "The Penetrator"), sniper rifles, flying hover crafts, a slew of cars that you've stolen, lots of clothes, the list goes on and on. In addition to that, there's been tons of DLC (down loadable content) so you can play a variety of "game show" missions as well as be an actor on a movie set. You can get VERY creative when it comes to designing your character, the clothes they wear and their mannerisms. 

Like I said, I thought it was a stupid game at first, but for some reason or another..I got super hooked on it. I mean BAD. It's pretty rare that I know more about a game than Eric since he reads all the gamer books, Xbox Live magazine in other little nerdy things to get additional information on cheats for a new game. Well, I know more about this game title than he does...it's a bit of a mind warp for him. 

After, ahem, many hours of playing.. I've FINALLY beat a game..COMPLETELY! Eric hasn't even done that! I'm sure there are people reading this and thinking, "You have way too much time on your hands if this gets you excited"...well, gimme a break. I don't really get into games all that much since I enjoy platform titles verses third person / shooters, which is all Eric and John really have an interest in. So when I finally find something I like, yeah, I'm gonna enjoy it! 

This is probably one of the more random posts I've ever done, but hell..I'm geeky happy about this! Now... I suppose I should go make a significant dent in "Skyrim".

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Thirty Minus Two

Remember when you were little and how excited you'd get when your birthday was comin up? Your parents would plan out a fun party with all your friends and family, lots of presents...all that good stuff? 

I guess that fades once you get older. 

My birthday was yesterday...and it didn't feel like it was all that special. In fact, it felt like any other day. I ran errands all day... from Belgium to Germany, back to Belgium. Then from Belgium to The Netherlands and back. Fun fun fun. At least I got a call at 5:30a from my Dad wishing me a Happy Birthday...BS'd for about an hour with him, then I was off for my long drive. Is it sad that my husband and son didn't say anything till almost an hour and a half after I was up to say, "Happy Birthday!", and that only happened because my Dad said really loud on the phone, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Kiddo!".  When it was my husbands birthday back in August, the second he woke up, we sang the birthday song for him and had breakfast was already ready for him. For me? I didn't even have a hot chocolate or nuthin'. Not even a card. Correction, John made a card for me off of the computer late last night. My bad.

After the whole day, I ended up buying myself a 360 Kinect:

Just in case you don't know what the Kinect is, it's a sensor that's added onto the Xbox unit. Sure, they have a little camera system you can use to chat with people, but, it kinda sucks: 

Hence why I upgraded to the Kinect. It's a sensor system that actually has face recognition, it doesn't need a remote to work (YOU are the remote). All in all, it's pretty awesome. Here's a video that'll explain it better than I can: 

Once I got home and settled in, we got it set up with the xbox and programmed it...I gotta say, it's pretty awesome! We tried out the Kinect Adventures game that came with the sensors (Johns inlove with it) and it's super entertaining. It even takes pictures while you're playing the game (I wish I could figure out how to import them to my computer!). 

Here's some other games I'm interested in getting, ya know, once they're available to buy (they're all workout type games):

Another thing I purchased was this cute little sign I found in the Shoppette at Schinnen: 

It's rather fitting for our house :) 

So, my birthday was rather mellow. Lots of traveling for the sake of being helpful and for being a friend, being considerate of my family and getting grocery shopping done for them... not really much of an "Erika Day".  Given, I received well over a hundred "Happy Birthday" wishes from various people on my Face Book wall (thank you, by the way). Then again, if the lovely social networking site hadn't reminded them, would they have known any better? 

So, yeah. Happy Birthday to me.

Sorry if I seem so pouty, but, I'm rather disappointed.

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Yet another thing to consume my time.....

Yes... The Beatles - Rock Band officially hit shelves today. I hopped onto Amazon.com and purchased it considering I'm not taking my chances with our "local" BX. When I say "local", I mean it's 45 minutes away... and half the time, they never have anything in stock. When they get New Release movies, they only get 5 copies. Once those copies are gone, they're GONE. No back stock. Lovely, hunh? SOOOO within another week or so, I should have my spiffy new video game that'll consume endless hours of my life, hordes of more Achievements for my XBL gamer tag.. yadda yadda yadda. It'll get to the point where I'll think, "Red, Yellow, Green, Green, Blue *hold*, Red, Red, Yellow" when I hear certain songs.

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