A combo personal and brief update on adventures in EVE...

If I have been - or if I continue to - maintaining radio silence for the next few days or weeks I'm okay, I'm addicted to EVE.  I know that LA Noire came out yesterday and I've been waiting five years for it to come out and I'm still a Rockstar whore but it comes down to a financial decision.  Plus I know that LA Noire will plummet in price soon enough, even if it's not a GOTY edition (I'm still waiting for the Fallout Vegas edition with all the DLC).  Summer will be pretty slim with disposable income, as it will be for a lot of folks, and air conditioning is vital in Texas but you pay through the nose for it.  Bastards.

In personal news I received my grades for the semester: 2 A's, 1 B, 1 D.  I think D stands for "Didn't care." or "Didn't put any effort." into English class.  Apparently analyzing poems and literature isn't my forte (nor do I give a fuck), though I did okay with drama.  Throughout my entire life, if I don't care then I won't be bothered.  History and Ethnobiology were the A's.  Boo-yah.  Besides I'm not going to grad school to analyze fucking Joyce.  Not that there's anything wrong with that...

School news, whatever, whatever, EVE Online.  I wish I had started playing this instead of WoW.  I'm plugging along in the free demo, got through the roster of tutorials (there were about six or seven), have a good basic set of skills - still have yet to decide which direction I want to take - still leaning towards explorer/recovery/salvage/looter/courier/pirate hunter that I usually play.  Yes I know it sounds like "Firefly" but I was playing this class before I saw it thank you.  Pure Han "shot first" Solo scoundrel...this time I think I'm going for Lando as the ultimate goal.  I've had a massive amount of fun so far playing EVE but I've also developed an appreciation for the pure monotony of space travel, especially in high security zones where you don't have to worry about pirates or PvP waiting for suckers to warp out of gates (I haven't encountered this yet thank god but I've been sticking to high security zones).  I've managed to get a freighter that is pretty quick and cuts travel time by a third but still...whew.  Fortunately even during warp travel there's a huge amount of stuff to do.  Granted most of this stuff to do is logistical, doing business, mapping routes, planning what cool stuff to buy, etc., etc.  so it's not like you're sitting there staring slacked jawed at a loading screen. 

Now paperwork and shuttling gear back and forth isn't riveting stuff so where's the fun?

• Are you the kind of person who will merrily spend hours building a ship a  la Chromehounds?  Do you like tweaking power levels, weight/speed ratios, weapon ranges, and more and more?  Does the concept of creating the ultimate fitting for your bad ass ship, with off-market mods under the hood make you tingly in your bathing suit area?  Oh yeah.  I might not be a gear head, grease monkey in RL but in game?  Fuck yeah.  I usually spend about a hour at the beginning of each play session: checking my settings, doing a systems check, and seeing what new equipment might fit onto my ship of choosing.
• A very, very important and humorous saying in chat that I've seen repeated - usually in response to a player lamenting the loss of their ship - "Never fly more than you're willing to lose" (or willing to insure).  In EVE you will have your ship(s) destroyed (whether or not you get "podded" aka having your escape pod blown up is another issue).  Most players keep a stable of craft for a variety of uses and often (if possible) more than one of the same craft.  My current total of ships lost are - two rookie n00b ships, the freighter Miss Ska Tonic, and the freighter The Yellow Rose of Texas.  So far I haven't been podded but I bought a back-up clone just in case.  I also took out platinum full coverage insurance for my current boat named The Pork Chop Express which is a destroyer kitted out for survey, salvage, and mining.  I'm working on tricking out a freighter for speed but will probably save my pennies for a rainy day.
• The reason I have kept my losses low is because I haven't ventured into lowsec aka Low Security regions yet and chances are I won't for quite some time.  Additionally since my previous losses I have become a lot more cautious warping into unknown space (I taught myself a trick to quick warp in and out of an area - hopefully I won't get caught with my pants down by rats with warp drive scramblers). 
• Deep space scanning EVE does it right.  As many of you folks may know - I game for exploration and by proxy loot.  One of the primary ways to do this is to find anomalies, hidden jump gates, gas clouds, deadspace, derelict space stations, space hulks and the like.  You find those through a process of sending probes into space (right now I have basic probes) and through a combination of luck, skill, tri/quadrangulation, and profanity.  Of course as you gain skills and better gear the process gets easier.  There a certain amount of patience and delicacy involved as well as I had to trick myself in thinking (spatially) in three dimensions on the computer.
• I also am learning how to target multiple bogeys at the same time.  There's got to be an easier way because right now it's like trying to roller skate in a buffalo herd.  I might have to map a controller for combat.
• Amusing - tracking down a UFO in space.  For some reason the idea just hit my absurdity button.

Hope you all are well.  More news to follow soon.  I promise I'll do some movie reviews ASAP.  Promise.