I’m still having video driver problems, so while I’m trying to fix those, I’m going to talk about Myst Online stuff here. :) If you’re uninterested, please skip, but there is plenty of shiny ahead.

One of the first places that you can go into, whether you’ve got a free account or a paid account, is your neighborhood, or bevin. Inside of the story, they are places of gathering inside the cavern. As far as I can tell, there are 20 people to every bevin. When your bevin-mates, or neighbors, are online, you can see them in your KI.

Initially, the neighborhood can create community between the new people that are logging in, assuming that they’re logged in at the same time. Eventually, as the users progress and get involved in either politics, helping others out, exploring, or what-have-you, you can leave your neighborhood, and join others. Some neighborhoods have decided to claim that they are Guilds, following the old D’ni guild system. The validity of this is in question, but I haven’t heard of any direct challenges to this. I haven’t heard much from the DRC about it at all, actually.

That brings us to another point. The DRC, or D’ni Restoration Council, makes use of the Beginners Bevin’s amphitheater, pictured here. They hold regular tours, as well as question-and-answer sessions with Restoration Engineers. In case you were wondering, that’s the guy in the hard hat.

I’m the bald guy sitting in the first row. Just sayin’.

Not all of the neighborhoods are exactly the same. They contain a bit of variety when it comes to what books their linking rooms have. Some of them have such fanciness as Chinese lamps, beach balls, and other things. Being on primarily after midnight eastern time, I don’t run into a ton of people. But there are a ton of neighborhoods, and they’ve been getting more populated, even as late as I’m usually on.

If you end up going to try out the free account, I’ve got a challenge for you. It sounds cheesy, but it’s cool as hell. When you’re in a neighborhood, try to find the light switches for the lower level. I could spend fifteen minutes just playing with the lights… but then, I’m easily amused. :)

There is a good fail-safe step to keep me sane at work, and that’s to play music. We are in an office environment, so I can’t play it at the level that it deserves (read: very, very loud). I’m in a position that requires me to answer the phone when it rings, so I can’t use my headphones. So, the music is a good stopgap measure. I pause it when the phone rings, and if I’m lucky, I’ll remember to start it up again when the call is over.

I don’t always turn it back on, and my mood can suffer pretty dramatically when stress levels increase and music is not playing. I’ve gotten better at remembering, though.

Today, the music doesn’t seem to be enough. I’m bored, even though there is work to do, and I’m doing it. I need something to do between all of the other stuff. The work IRC server #offtopic and #burgerking channels are pretty good places for inane filler like this. Not today, though. Today, I’m writing here.

My allergies don’t get too bad unless I rub my eyes. The problem is that my tear ducts are constantly itching. Or burning. Or the whole of my eyes itch. Which really, really, really makes me want to rub my eyes. Once I’ve done that, then the nose starts running, the sneezing kicks in, and the coughing starts. It’s really a cornucopia of good times. Both medically prescribed and natural remedies are being ramped up at this juncture. Let’s hope they work.

This was the first image taken from my KI imager inside URU Live. As Wil Wheaton would say, click on it to embiggen. I’d just received my KI. It lets you take pics like this one, journal, move data around, communicate in the same age, as well as between them, and once the Great Zero Calibration is complete, it should allow more precise Age navigation.

I made my avatar a lot like me, in keeping with the U-R-U. They don’t handle portliness well, so I went for a bit less chub than I carry around in real life. :) I kept with the pale skin and the baldness, and the style in clothing. :) You receive your KI on an Age called Gahreesen, which you will return to later. The history behind the KI, like all of the history that I’m discovering, is far more layered than I anticipated.

Today has been a day of happiness.

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I have turned around the problem with work, and am paying attention to it with much diligence, so that it will not become a problem again. They have made the statistic in question transparent to us, so that we may monitor it directly, and that makes me happy. Easy access to monitoring my own statistics lets me put faith in the system in a way that wouldn’t exist if it were solely in the hands of the supervisors and managers.

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Myst 3: Exile came in, and I picked it up. It’s a little strange playing it on the PS2, but whoo boy! It’s not quite a full 3d environment yet. Instead of the still images with embedded quicktime video, it is a series of quicktime VR “images” that allow full 360-degree viewing, that shift as you move much like the images did in the first two Myst games. Holy cheese, the detail is amazing!

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I am bald again, thanks to the best barber shop in Lansing. :)

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I ate fast food on the way into work, and I can definitely tell that my body has gotten used to not having to deal with that crap. Note for future reference.

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Go go gadget auctions!

This is worthwhile watching material:

I am fat. I have been my whole life. You’d be surprised how many women dig a comfortable guy. ;)

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Do not forget – this Saturday, 7PM, our house, is holding a Pampered Chef party. Contact her for more details.

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I really, really need to catch up on my email replies. I think I’ll do some of that tonight, between packing things up for ebay, cooking, and catching the Daily Show.

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I’m really hoping that Plan B isn’t needed, and so I’ve emailed GameTap about the discrepancy between their advertised graphics card requirements on the Myst Online site and the video cards listed on their main GameTap site. Even if it turns out that I can just play Myst Online on the laptop, and not have access to the rest of the GameTap content, I’d be fine with that. Otherwise, they’re in some deep shit for this kind of bait-and-switch.

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I am accomplishing much, and feeling much better for it. I have to let myself acknowledge my accomplishments without minimizing them, no matter how trivial they may seem. I am getting things done.

So, I finished this:

and this:

yesterday. Holy crap, did Riven have a good ending. And The Book of Atrus added a ton to being immersed in the whole Myst universe, as well as the plot and attitude of the characters involved in Riven.

The actor that played Gehn was wonderful, though I thought that Catherine was described as darker-skinned in the novel than the actress that portrayed her in Riven. Either way, both were fantastic.

I should have waited until today to finish the game, though. 4AM is a wee bit late to go to sleep. Heh.

I’m sick of waiting for this:

So I’m going to go ahead and start this: