Happy Birthday to Me
As of today, I am 28 years old. I am neither rich nor famous. I am nowhere near where an 18 year-old me would have thought I would be ten years later, but I am very happy where I am. I have a wonderful and beautiful wife. I have a good set of friends. I have enough money to enjoy the things I like. (Of course, I could always have more money and more time to enjoy it, but I don't need it.) In a week, I'll be starting a new job and it will hopefully fix the one part of my life, I've not been happy with. Life is good.

Birthday Presents
Carla gave me my presents Saturday. She bought me an Nintendo 64 with Goldeneye, (I sold my N64 and games when we were scaping up the money to buy our house. Goldeneye, how I've missed thee.), Devil May Cry for the PS2 (I borrowed it from MR a while back and it's one of my favorite video games.) and the D20 Modern Rulebook (which I'm thinking of writing The Dreaming City up as a setting for. Really. It has rules for mixing modern day settings with magic and some really good modern fantasy art).

Quote of the Day
"Its strange. This castle is different then I remember it."
"This castle is a creature of chaos. It may take many incarnations."
-Maria and Alucard in "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night."


I love that quote because in C:SotN, they explain why the castle is so different in every Castlevania game. Please note that in Japan the Castlevania series is called "Demon Castle Dracula."

Originally I was going to give a Shakespeare quote after having a good time at the "Merchant of Venice" reading this weekend, but I picked up "Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow" this weekend and spent a lot of time exploring Dracula's castle, immersed in my Castlevania geekiness. The new game is a lot of fun so far. It's a bit too easy (for me), although there has been a few tough boss fights. (Currently, I'm having a tough time killing Death. He never dies easy.) However, it has something that most Castlevania games don't have: a really good story. Most Castlevania storylines are basically, "Drac's back. Go kill him." They throw in a little plot, but it's generally straight-forward. The more recent games have been getting better and better and with this one, you don't even know who the big enemy is. The game is set in 2039 (all the other games are set in the past) and you are told that Dracula was killed once and for all in 1999. Now, the Castle is back and several other people are in the castle with you. Presumably, one of them is trying to harness the dark powers of Dracula and another seems to Alucard (from Symphony, Castlevania 3 and Castlevania Legends), but it looks like there will be several twists before the game is over.