Get a (Half-)Life!

Author's note: Sorry that this is a bit late in getting posted today. I had some last-minute additions that needed to be reviewed before I could post. Thanks for your patience.

You might be wondering why it is that I haven't been as regular with articles lately. Well, there are a variety of reasons: We've been busy at home lately, and with our Christmas vacation, there was a lot of catching up to be done around the house. I had been lax in getting the checkbook up-to-date, and there's the fact that I'm historically lazy. However, a large part of the reason is that I've found myself sucked back into the world of Half-Life. Now, I have a designated time during the week which I set aside for playing video games. However, that time is spent with Frederick III and his brother-in-law playing Diablo 2. We're currently running characters in the 60's in case you were wondering. I have a paladin. Trust me, someone out there finds this interesting. However, there are various times throughout the week in which I can maybe squeeze in some time for myself. Nap time on Saturday and Sunday for instance. It is within these time periods that I would normally try to get some writing in. Lately, though, I've found myself getting back in to Half-Life. Half-Life can make a good argument for being called the greatest game of all time. Engrossing story-line, high tension followed by frantically running for a safe place, and never taking the player out of the game for a cut scene make for a game that gets the player emotionally involved. Everything that happens occurs within the context of the game engine to help the player feel as though they are in the game and it's all happening in real-time. To a certain extent, they could have named the main character Jack Bauer instead of Gordan Freeman, but that's neither here nor there. The sequel picks up where the first one left off but has the added bonus of fantastic graphics and an amazing physics engine. Again, someone finds this interesting. Even being a game that is approaching ten years old, it maintains its re-playability. I'm currently in the process of going through the sequel again at a slightly higher difficulty rating than the first time through. It's just as fun as the first time that I played it.

I'm the type of person that will read a book that I've read many times previously if I enjoyed it the first time. I've read through Tolkein's Lord of the Rings and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series several times each and will probably pick up Lord of the Rings again here soon. I'm the same way with my video games. If I liked it the first time through, I'm very likely to go back and play it again. After all, I'm regularly playing Diablo 2 which came out in 2000 and another game which had its origins in the 90's. Then again, I mainly listen to music that came out when I was in high school. Maybe I just need to get a life. Or play less Half-Life. Nah. Couldn't be that.

Anyway, that's my word of explanation of what I've been up to. As you can see, it really can be traced to the fact that I'm pretty lazy and tend to avoid doing much of anything. I promise that I'll try and be a little more regular with articles. In fact, I have a couple of articles already stubbed-out. It just becomes a matter of finding the time to do it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some Half-Life to play. I hate those Overwatch guys. Especially when they throw grenades. That's just mean.