OK, well, the first thing I have to say in my first Holidailies post for the year is a link. Most of you have probably seen it by now but if you haven't, go read it, it's funny and it's not very long. There are 9 entries, currently, and I'm linking to the first one. (Warning: cat-related. If you hate cats you will possibly not be amused.)
LOUIS VS RICK
(Also, if you're like me, and you've seen people saying, "CAPS LOCK IS HOW I FEEL INSIDE" all week, this is evidently where it came from.)

I'm not doing an introductory-update thing, at least not today. We'll be doing good for me to get any entry at all up right now, even if it's links and stuff about games. I suppose I could post the link and the paragraph above it and call it an entry, but I'm not going to. Instead I'll keep writing whatever it is that comes into my head next, which tends to be my M.O. in any case. (This is probably not any surprise to most of the Holidailies regulars by now.)

I am pleased that the new guys* managed to get Holidailies up and running in the old format. Reddit just did not cut it for me. Actually the current front page format is still missing my main motivator: the list of who's "above the line" (i.e., actually posting an entry a day) and who's not. If you look back over the years, I am right under the line, if not above it, pretty consistently. I don't know why that works to get me to post, but it does. But anyway, I missed the regular format last year and I'm glad to see it back. So thanks, Richard and Jennifer!! (And thanks to Jette and Chip, too, for finding somebody to hand it over to! as well as for running it all these years.)

* "New guys" who I've known in an online way for years and even sent cards to and such, but still, they're new in this role. Not to mention that one of them is a girl.

...so, games. Let's talk about games. We are currently in sort of a transition between games, that's the thing. We are waiting for SWTOR (that's Star Wars: The Old Republic) to start - I started to write about that the other day (here: http://mellificent.livejournal.com/334777.html) and I got to talking about Star Wars the movies and never really got around to talking about the game, much. columbina and I are both still sort of playing Rift, and sort of playing Glitch, but we aren't synching up very well with either of those. Occasionally we do sync up in Rift, and once in a while we chat while we both play Glitch, but that's it. We probably are managing sort of 2 nights a week in Rift, for a couple of hours, and once in a while on the weekend. He plays some on the weekends without me and I play some late at night without him. This is probably not going to particularly improve when we start playing SWTOR (which possibly will be as soon as Tuesday, although more likely it will be later in the week).

The schedule problem is because I am neither (a) working 8-5 M-F like I used to nor (b) unemployed, like I was more recently. Nowadays I work two out of three weekends and unless something happens to change that, the game scheduling is going to continue to be an issue. I don't like that part but quite honestly, I don't miss the aforesaid days of working 8-5 M-F, either. I miss the money and it'd be nice to have the bennies back, but really, unless something happens to force my hand, that's not about to happen. So that's that.

Columbine bought SWTOR months ago. I bought it - or so I thought - around Halloween, and then figured out only this past week (I wasn't paying near enough attention, obviously) that the transaction didn't go through the first time and so I repurchased it again. (EA/Origin has it set up really stupidly - you put in your credit card and hit submit, and it gives you a confirmation number, but after that there's a box you have to check and it's down at the bottom of the screen where you can't see it unless you scroll down, and apparently it's not REALLY confirmed until you check the box and hit submit again. So that appears to be what I failed to do the first time.)

We played in the SWTOR beta Thanksgiving weekend, thanks to Col, and then we both got invited to the last, smaller beta last weekend - we figured that was a thank-you present for giving lots of feedback. Col filed lots of bug reports and I did fill out all the surveys and stuff, but I also did a lot of complaining about lag, which presumably they also like to know about, and then I wrote another long note when I figured out how to fix the lag problem, telling them what I changed - and it was much improved last weekend and the graphics choices had been changed, too, so I like to think I helped a tiny bit with that! We both played several different characters and classes at one time or another, including playing on both sides - Republic and Empire. Playing the "dark side" is very entertaining, but it turned out that we both liked playing the classes that use a blaster more than the lightsaber ones - those classes are called trooper and smuggler on the Republic side, and Bounty Hunter and Stormtrooper, I guess, on the Imperial side. With lightsabers you are of course a Jedi or a Sith, and there are a couple of classes for them also - something like a "knight" (of the light or dark persuasion, respectively) and a mage for each side. They have obviously put a lot of thought into the quests and the respective storylines, and also you get Light or Dark points for various choices you make, and that affects what choices you are offered later on, although we didn't really get far enough to see too much of that. So anyway, we liked it and we are looking forward to more, that's what it comes down to. If MMOs and Star Wars are your kind of thing, then this one comes highly recommended.