I have returned!

So, things have been busy, to say the least. Mike and I started talking again in August and got back together at the end of that month, culminating in him spontaneously - as in, that morning on the train taking me to the airport - coming with me to PAX and having the most incredible weekend of our lives. Things have been wonderful since, and I have never been happier!

Life has been crazy:

Writing!

I've been doing a lot of it. I'm still doing the Senior Editor gig at Gaming Target, and I've been busy doing a lot of writing and editing there, as well as continuing my column at Press 1 and writing for Geekadelphia. It's been awesome. My latest piece at GT, a review of Medal of Honor, has garnered a lot of attention around the internet. The next day, I was quoted in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about a game called Hipster City Cycle made by a local game developer. And later that week, Valerie Fox gave me a copy of her new book, and I'm in the acknowledgements for helping her edit. I also discovered that a quote from my review of 3D Dot Game Heroes is on the buy.com product page. All in all, a pretty rad week. This week, I've got a nice piece up at Geekadelphia on Space Whale Studios, with another piece set to go up hopefully this week. And I have another column up at Press 1 - this one's about E3.

Gaming!

Also been gaming a lot. Mike and I have been playing a ton together - he just helped me beat Final Fantasy V (I didn't even know the PS1 version supported co-op) and we're also playing Diablo 2 and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. I'm playing Valkyria Chronicles II on the PSP for Gaming Target (love it!) and I just got the first Modern Warfare which I've been playing whenever I have spare time. There's also Pokemon Soulsilver, which I'm playing with Mike - we restarted our games when we got back together. (It's much more fun this time around. :D)

I'm also still meeting with those game developers, and I went to my first IGDA meeting and hope to make that a regular occurrence. We've got some awesome things in the works.

Reading

I'm taking another Library and Information Sciences master class this term after taking two terms off, so I haven't been doing much leisure reading, unfortunately. I read Never Let Me Go, which depressed me, and Hyperion, which I LOVED. I want to re-read Johannes Cabal: the Necromancer now that the second book came out, and I've been reading the Sherlock Holmes books on my Droid (with the handy Kindle app that I adore). I also inhaled all the Scott Pilgrim books over the summer, which were absolutely amazing. I'm trying to finish up the Monster Island/Nation/Planet books, and catch up on webcomics, but I haven't had the time. I've got a pile of books I got from Amazon and another pile from the library that are all collecting dust.

Movies

This is another disappointing area. Though I did get Netflix again, I've had the same movie sitting on my tv from them for over a month now, and there's no hope that I'm going to watch it anytime soon. It's Kickass, which I've really wanted to see, too. Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend. The last four times I've been to the theater I've seen Inception every time. I regret nothing. I do wish I'd had the time to see Scott Pilgrim, and I am hoping to catch Never Let Me Go if it's still at the Ritz.

Miscellaneous

My health has been sort of crazy - the rapid heart rate issue is still there, so I had to wear a heart monitor for a few days. And the doctors gave me Prilosec for the acid reflux, which was working but for some reason yesterday I was sick again, so it's been back to bland food today. Also, the pup had another seizure, so he's been on meds the last month as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It dawned on me that I've been knitting on and off for almost 9 years. I really want to get back into it. I have Ideas.

I'm loving steampunk - from books to anime to video games to fashion, I'm falling for it harder than before. There are some cool local events I'd really like to get into if we have the time and the money.

I've been cooking and baking a lot more these days. Cooking has been fun, and I'm really getting into the bento thing - right now I'm just waiting on some supplies to do another round of practicing. It's very fun! And I got a mini cupcake machine, which makes 7 cupcakes in 5 minutes. I love filling my kitchen with tiny cupcakes!

I've always loved stockings and socks, and with the discovery of an amazing website, my passion has resurfaced. Pictures and details to come when my second package arrives, for certain.

Mike and I went to Maido this weekend to stock up on Japanese goodies, from sushi rice to Ramune (delicious and fun Japanese soda) to snacks and bags of gyoza and shumai. Eating okonomiyaki at the counter really made me want to get back into Japanese again - I really miss my classes and my teachers! And Japan, of course. :) I finished Gurren Lagann a few weeks ago. So wonderful! I really want to play the DS game but without more practice, I'd never last!

We have some trips planned in the next few months - I'm very excited. We're going to MAGfest and PAX East so far, with a few more ideas slowly starting to bloom. Mostly we're just having an awesome time together, even when we just sit around all weekend and do nothing but play games. It's been truly magical. I'm working on a piece right now about PAX Prime and how perfect it was.

That's all for now! It's very late; I just finished up my midterm and wanted to start writing in here again because too many exciting things have been happening. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it every night again :) with pictures as well, because I have many to share!

Oyasumi-nasai!