Last week Paul and I saw a commercial advertising tickets to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and a special program they would be performance of video game music. We were both interested in buying tickets, and this is probably the only way I’d ever be able to get Paul to go to the symphony. Unfortunately, the DSO is only performing the show for two nights, and we already have plans in place. Such is life.

It is my dream that everyone I care about move to within an hour radius of where I live. Up until now I’ve been trying to hint to my parents and to Lara that they should move nearby. All to no avail. However, I do retain hope and it comes from a direction I had not yet put much effort into. Mostly because there was a youngling involved and I had little reason to believe my efforts would be acknowledged.

Salvation has a name and it is Amanda!

That’s right. Amanda, her wonderful husband, and her beautiful daughter will be making their way to Addison by the end of summer to experience all new crazy adventures. This is wonderful news.

Good news Everyone! There’s a brand new feature available for your viewing pleasure. In the left column beneath the links, you now have the ability to choose between a small selection of color schemes. Once you’ve made your choice the site should remember your preference and always show that color. Currently the choices available are all previous color schemes I’ve experimented with. I plan on adding more at some future date. At the moment, I have just enough in place that you can have a different color for each day of the week.

Anyway, Paul deserves a big round of applause for implementing the new feature for me. Hooray for Paul! I’m thinking of having him help me with a few other site design changes I have in mind.

And now, time for something completely different. I noticed that The Golden Compass book one of His Dark Materials has been turned into a movie and will be in theaters later this year. I suppose if it does well, they’ll be making the other two books into films. I’ve also noticed that casting has begun for The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, and The City of Ember by Jean DuPrau, which it seems are also being made into films. I applaud directors/studios/filmmakers for seeing the possibility in books and having the desire to bring them to life. I do realize that books don’t always make the transition to film very well, but it is nice to see someone making the effort to exercise a little imagination. I’m getting tired of all the sequels and trilogies and remakes that seem to flood the theaters. Do we really need a sequel to horror films like Hostel? And what about Ocean’s 13? It’s nothing more than a sequel to a sequel of a remake.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to gripe about Hollywood. I just wanted to point out that even though the film industry lacks vision most of the time, it’s nice to see novels intended for children and young adults being made into films.

I’ve talked to my mom on the phone, so today’s update on my progress is just going to cover what I’ve accomplished in the game since our last conversation.

First off, I managed to complete two more dungeons. The first of which I seriously hated. It was the ice temple. Apparently water in both its liquid and solid states is just not my element. The lovely new weapon/tool I acquired and needed to use to defeat the boss is a ridiculously huge mace, or ball and chain. Link looks like he’s going to collapse under the weight of it or at least develop an unpleasant hernia whenever he uses it.

The worst part of the snowy region, other than the fact that some of the enemies are total pains, is the need to snowboard in order to actually get to the location of the dungeon. You know my trouble of running in a straight line? Well, snowboarding multiplies my coordination deficiencies by about ten. I didn’t bother to even try counting the number of times I went sailing of the edge of a cliff, which I might add, is a lot more difficult to do than you might think since there aren’t just a ton of cliffs to fall off of. There is a short cut on the snowboard course, I just can’t seem to find the way to actually get on it. It might help if I stopped running into things and getting knocked off while looking for it. To add a cherry to the top of all the craziness, I’m positive I can get another heart piece by racing and winning against two yetis. Unfortunately at the rate I go, this may never happen since it took me half an hour of attempts yesterday to actually finish the course and beat the first yeti. I have a feeling I may need to find and successfully navigate the shortcut if I want to beat the other yeti.

The second dungeon I completed was in that sacred grove of trees. I had to follow that same kid and fight off his weird tree-dwelling puppet friends again to get there. However, I did manage to find the female snail which completed my set and snagged me an even larger wallet.

The tool I received this time is called the Dominion Rod. It’s basically a magic wand that glows green when activated and allows me to play “follow the leader” with statues. I’m the leader of course. I did have a little trouble in the dungeon. Partially because I had to save and quit after I was more than halfway through. Which meant that when I sat down to play again, all the enemies I had killed were back again and the statue I had been moving around went back to its original position. Having to do everything over again did not put me in the best of moods. And then twice I yelled for Paul to come in and lend me his eyes. The first time it turned out was unnecessary because when I went to demonstrate something that didn’t work, it suddenly worked beautifully. The second time I was getting tired and the solution was so simple, I just couldn’t see it.

Anyway, I’m on my way to another dungeon to collect the final piece of mirror. I finally have my own cannon. Although I don’t get to use it to blow things up, instead I get to pretend to be the Amazing Flying Gonzo. Also I have 55 of the 60 poes. I’ve learned all the hidden skills. I finally acquired a way to call my horse without having to look for that stupid grass, even though it’s a little late in the game to give me something that would have been a major convenience much earlier on. It’s fairly unnecessary now since I can pretty much warp anywhere. I now have 16 heart containers. I’m pretty sure there are 20 altogether in the game, but if I can’t win that stupid race then I may just have to settle for 19.

My mother flew down for two weeks to help me paint the exterior of my house. I’ve done lots of interior painting, but I figured I could use help and guidance when it came to doing the trim work and siding outside. Then, for whatever reason, the weather gods decided to punish me and it rained every single day except for two while she was here. Needless to say, no painting was done.

Anyway, we had to find something to do, so after my mother breezed through all the books I own that she had not yet read, she watched me play a little over 30 hours of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. She watched as I fought my way through three dungeons. She quickly discovered that I am incapable of running in a straight line, and thus became incredibly nervous whenever I had to make (what she perceived as) a dangerous jump. She even felt the need to leave the room a few times when things got a little too intense for her. Most of her departure involved places where there was lava present. She also proved helpful a few times when I was stumped or, not actually paying attention to the room around me. And I have to say it was nice to have someone cheering for me. Usually I’m the one doing the cheering, and I almost never play with an audience.

Anyway, my mom has become pretty invested in my gameplay and I told her I’d keep her updated on my progress. So mom, the rest of this post is for you:

After you left I managed to complete another heart container. This means I now have 10. I’m close to 12, but I need one more heart piece and to complete the dungeon I’m in to make that happen. I have also found myself another bomb bag. That makes three. I have all the golden bugs except the female snail. Although technically there are no male and female snails since they are asexual, but this is a game and hardly uses reality as much of touchstone.

I found a simpler way to kill off those spotted armadillo-pigs. I can clawshot them to steal their armor, and then just swing the sword at them. They can still hurt me by charging at me, but I no longer have to get to their exposed rear to do damage. I can also ride on the backs of those awful saddled warthogs that the goblins use as steeds. They aren’t the easiest things to control, and they aren’t terribly bright. For instance, they are too stupid to jump when the occasion calls for it and if they run headfirst into anything they knock themselves temporarily unconscious.

Malo Mart is now open in the city. It’s extremely annoying, filled with music, garish colors, and irritating salespeople. But I did purchase some magic armor. I haven’t had the opportunity to try it out yet though.

I’m currently in the desert, in another dungeon. There are things in the desert that remind me of the movie Tremors … smaller versions of graboids or whatever they named them. I had fun sending a bug bomb out across the sand in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. I don’t think it killed any of them, but they did follow it until it exploded.

I’ve finally come across this game’s version of redeads. I’m pretty sure I’ve told you about them before. The ones in this game aren’t as terrifying as the ones in previous games. They can still paralyze me with a scream, but I’ve found the best way to deal with them is from a distance, preferably with bomb arrows. I get 20 rupees every time I defeat one.

And finally, my poe count is up to 33, soon to be 35. Since there are at least two more in the dungeon I’m in.