On Drawing

That went well.  When's the last time I kept a promise I made for myself?  I wouldn't know.  I've been through this cycle so many times.


Predictably, I didn't follow through with what I planned to do.  It's become a bit of a huge mental block at this point so I occupied myself with other things in the same boat.  That is, drawing.


Back at the start of this year when I cut my playing time and picked up programming I also sought out drawing as a sort of life skill.  Nothing transient like focusing on scoring for games, right?  I started out lost and focused on a random book.  I'm drawing a huge blank as I try to create a list of what was on it without looking at it, but I remember doing a daily exercise on creating dots on a sheet then trying to copy it over on another sheet to improve your ability at estimating space.  I remember feeling discouraged over being off by a few millimeters most of the time, but if I kept doing this then a few months down the road I'd be able to judge whether or not I was improving.  Of course, that didn't happen because I didn't keep up with that practice.

I moved on to "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards shortly after.  The tone of the book was much more personable which I guess works better for someone like me who's intimidated by the entire craft.  I read it from page to page and performed the exercises when they showed up, and all the while there's the doubt that always lingers in the back of the mind.  Perhaps I'm not actualy learning what the book is trying to teach me?  What length time that's estimated for one activity would take me twice as long to accomplish, being slow and deliberate and not what I believe to be in a good way.  The feeling of being engrossed in the work and feeling refreshed afterwards doesn't come to me (well maybe the first one applies a little).  I just feel stressed during the ordeal and exhausted afterwards.  It's a book that could be covered in a five day seminar and I was drawing it out over a few weeks.

Starting from the first book to this one I kept up the practice of drawing for only a month.  After finishing one more exercised I just stopped.  It's not like I wasn't a little impressed with what I created, but I never really believed in what I did.  I was just copying stuff.  Which was the whole point of the book, anyway, drawing what you see.  I can look back and say I should have stayed with it; there was no reason not to.  I simply failed to make a habit of it before I gave up.

For something I wanted to be a hobby I wasn't enjoying myself just yet, and I think I do get hung up too much on the future.  I could use a few pointers from the games I've played so much.  When I started playing the Touhou series was I worried over what I might accomplish or when I'll be able to clear the highest difficulties?  Nope, I just took it easy and slowly ramped up the challenge...maybe too slowly.  I do steer clear of a lot of the hard stuff, but what I do play I stick around with and slowly improve on.  Hell, I even left this as a replay comment back in the beginning of 2009:

"...it scares me very much when I try to accomplish a feat I know I cannot consistently achieve (especially stages 4 and 6) with my level of playing, but I still do it anyways with the silly thought that I can leave it behind me when I make it to this point, that I don't have to worry about improving because I'm really not getting better. But it's getting there, there has definitely been change for the better but I'm still looking at the negatives of my performance. "

But I've apparently forgotten about my mindset back then and I'm back to stressing over how terrible my drawing abilities are and how I have to make up for all the years I never drew anything.  It's all in the past; it's no good to run through the what-ifs.

I did pretty much nothing in the drawing department for the next seven months, then in the middle of September I started up again.  I'd say I'm even less dedicated than I was back then. Now I can't seem to sit still for more than 20 minutes, and there's still some days when I don't draw anything.  My mind wanders so much.  It's...disconcerting to think about.  Something is still better than nothing, and there's no secret to it.  The more you want out of it the more you'll have to put in.  I just want to slowly try to enjoy myself and not end up dropping everything again.

I debated whether or not I should share pictures while I'm doing this or wait until I deemed them suitable for public viewing.  I had a similar situation with the Touhou series where I knew about this forum for a few months and its scoreboards, but I didn't show my face until I could 1CC my first game on Lunatic.  But, well, your levels of self-criticism scale with you and waiting on drawing skills to advance to the point where things "turn out right" would be something for a few years in the future.  So yeah, whatever!  I'll insert them at the end of posts or something.  No expectations; just a guy who posts whatever he wants on his personal blog.


          

Portrait of Igor Stravinsky

16th century drawing.

Starting off are some upside-down drawing exercises.  Not the exercise the book throws at you first, and I'll probably share the scary drawings that came from that later.  For now I'll cheat and make myself look better than I really am by showing these copies of someone else's drawing.  I forgot the path I took for the first picture, but you can see how the right arm looks horribly distorted.  The book did warn against outlining then filling in the blanks or something along those lines.  Small errors will add up and culminate somewhere.  I guess the head was one of the last parts I did since I wasn't mindful of my proportions and it went straight off the edge of the paper.

Did the knight a little later as an extra.  I mean, the book does encourage doing the exercises more than just once, but yeah.  I guess I didn't date the first one when I took the picture but it was 2012-01-30, and then the knight was 2012-02-01 as it says right there.

Yeah, I posted a little early then edited the rest in so I wouldn't have gone through October posting nothing.  Also, the thing I didn't do would be the next exercise in the book.  I have the paper toned and everything since two months ago and never went through with it. 

On Running Away from Situations

I didn't plan to post until a week after the last one, and it was probably going to be about that something I wanted to get done.  Where did I get the idea for writing up a post once every four days?  A few memories came up the other day and I decided to look back on them.

My "solution" to many problems is to look the other way.  If I'm not dealing with it then there's no cause for contention.  A rather poor one-sided fix because the world is always moving on, but that's my selfish force of habit for feeling secure.

Does not playing with the neighborhood kids count?  This one was easy because my mother would always answer the door, never asking me to do the same.  I can't say I feel regretful over what could have been; the life I know right now is the only one I'm certain of.  But...between interacting with people and no interactions at all I'd say the former is the better overall choice.  This is also the same way I cut off interactions with my last friend when I was 14.  I showed up months later for his birthday when he asked (through my mother), and we talked like normal.  It didn't feel right for me to be around after all this time, however, and I excused myself before they served the cake and pizza.  He moved away shortly after.

I took an Oral Communication class in 7th grade for reasons I don't recall.  The first impression was pretty bad because there's half an hour in the beginning of the period to read a book you brought, but I didn't have one the first (or second) day.  Took a zero right there and sat at my desk with nothing else to do but mull over my failure.  I remember being fixated with one of the many posters on the wall.  It was a sort of ladder chart from 0 - 100% with a message between every rung.  The messages read starting from the top: I did (100%), I will (90%), I can (80%), I think I can (70%), I might (60%), I think I might (50%). . . I can't (10%), I won't (0%).  The ones in between were something like "I don't know how" or "Where do I start?"  Overly moping at that age already, huh?  I've just reminded myself of it.

This is when I stumbled upon the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and boy did I love them.  Was it more for the tragic scenes than the redemption in the end?  We weren't bringing our own books for the sake of it; we'd have to choose a selection and read for three to five minutes, right there in front of the class.  I choked up during my first time and the teacher brought me out of the room.  A kindhearted lady, by the way.  She had a talk with one of the students who spoke up while I was frozen in speech ("Is he crying?") and he apologized to me in person some other time out of class.  I didn't mind what he said because I was already moved to tears so it's not like his question served as a catalyst.  A brilliant if outspoken and cynical student, too.  I held a lot of respect for him but I don't think I ever expressed it entirely.

Things became a lot easier when the classroom and its students felt more familiar.  That and when you realize they really don't pay attention to you.  I can care a lot less about running into someone's eyes when looking up and just make eye contact with the teacher.  The stories were interesting so I had no issues with keeping my eyes glued to the page for too long.

Fast forward to 8th grade and I take the second part of the course as my elective, same teacher.  I'm one of her favorites now and I'm still reading from Chicken Soup for the Soul books for my speeches.  At the end of the school year there was a speaking event.  Naturally, I signed up for it after hearing about it from the teacher (because I keep my head down otherwise and miss everything going on outside of class).  Great, a speaking event.  In the auditorium, in front of a panel of judges whom the teacher was a part of and a bunch of other adults.  And 6th and 7th grade classes.

I'm all dressed up and my mother drops me off before she goes searching for parking.  I approach the auditorium and take a look inside from one of the side doors.  I see one of the students already speaking.  I look to the left and see the audience, and that was it.  I didn't go in.  I head over to the nearby bathroom and stand there in a closed stall.  Thinking, passing the time.  Was it for 45 minutes?  Up to two hours, maybe?  The lengths I'll go to for such things...

I eventually leave and call my mother after it's over.  When we meet up I give some poor reason as to why I wasn't there for my presentation.  I remember her sounding a little disappointed, and it didn't go any further than that.  Not like I earned a poor grade in class, right?  I just failed to show up for an extracurricular activity and let my teacher and mother down.  I never met up with my teacher again.


So that other post where I mentioned abandoning World of Warcraft?  Yeah, totally dropped everything at once.  Although, is there really any other way of stopping something this than to quit cold turkey?  I mean, yeah, there definitely is, but still.  Maybe a formal farewell would suffice, but I didn't even do that.  Just quit logging in, leaving my post as a guild tank and inconveniencing (maybe too light a word) everyone in the guild.  Such an extremely irresponsible act.  I'll talk about those days later (how much have I put off by now?).     

Totally bought myself another week to work on that other thing.

Blog direction and a personal trait (and small promise).

First meta blog post too, hm?

Hit that point where I couldn't decide on what to write about next.  There's plenty of fillers...dreams, past events, but there should be a balance between that and what goes on right now.  I shouldn't say there's plenty; I'll run out of them before I know it.  If I stuck to a post every four days it would probably last me only four or five months.  Recent things have happened, yeah, but I wouldn't rank it as something worth talking about just yet.  Or maybe that's exactly the sort of thing I should bring up.

Before starting the blog I read up on reasons for blogging, and that led into discussions about expanding and maintaining viewership for generating profit which I wanted no part of.  "I know, I'll place this little disclaimer at the top saying I only blog for my own health!  Then I won't carry the burden of attempting to generate good content to serve the readers."  That's not true, though.  If I didn't care I wouldn't be worrying over the frequency of my posts or what I choose to post about, or using Twitter to announce posts.  It's like a diary I never had, and I read out each entry in front of a wall in an alleyway.  Public, but not that wide out in the open.

I think I also saw blogging as a practice in dedication, a trait I'm very much lacking in.  The hours invested in World of Warcraft and the Touhou series almost all stemmed from a lack of self-control, and it surfaced again recently.  Wanting to outdo someone's run, various challenges...they're not bad things, but if I'm feeling guilty in the back of my mind over how I impulsively spend my time, whether or not I succeeded, then perhaps I should be holding back.  Worse yet is when I play while not really wanting to because I felt bored, despite having other things I could be focusing on.

For the last several days I've been streaming whenever I do play, ranging from 40 minutes to two hours.  Two hours in one sitting is usually the upper limit for me anyway, but I keep it to that single session for the day rather than returning to it for more.  There's also those common experiences I hear about in general when it comes to good runs appearing early, and then it's a lot of restarts until a slightly better one crops up way later, maybe.  After the first day or two of streaming I stayed focused on what I'd be playing for.  I made a mistake once after that by following someone's request to play PCB Lunatic (I don't remember if I was asking for suggestions) which I regretted because there was really nothing to gain from it after being away for so long.  Nah, perhaps it sounds selfish because there's the audience to think about, but really...not worth it at this stage.

Most recent undertaking is a silly no-miss/bomb/border break/focus PCB Normal/Reimu-B (plus scoring) run.  Mental note to talk about the learning process in general in a future post.

So, yeah, I thought I had more to say about dedication, but not at this time it seems.  To reinforce the idea I'm planning to do something I should (but don't) want to do and I should have a post for it...let's say two posts from now, given a post every four days schedule.  Something like that.  It remains to be seen if I can hold myself accountable and continue to do so.

Dream Log (2011/12/18 - 21): School Locker Room

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 2011/12/18 - 21 (one of those nights)

Located in a middle or high school which had this prestigious feeling about it.  I was in a locker room with other students and we were preparing for an event in the gymnasium. Both boys and girls were in the room, but it was really huge so you'd have to walk a bit and go around a corner before seeing the others. I guess they were almost all 11-13 with a few boys slightly older than that. I was about the same age as the older boys, maybe older.

I walked to the entrance to the gymnasium which went through the girl's section of the locker room. A female supervisor was there. No exchange of words or anything; I just took notice of her presence. Aside from that I kept my head down but glanced up once. The girls were around a bench wearing white shirts and jeans. As I exited I stood near the end of the hall before it completely opened up to the gym floor. The low ceiling was also gone near the end. People were already performing out there.

There must have been some confusion...three girls from the locker room walk by me naked but stop before they're really out in the open.  I see them by accident but quickly avert my gaze to stare off in the distance like I'm contemplating something else, like I didn't care. Mainly to put on a show to the people out on the floor and maybe in the bleachers, the ones who could see me. It felt nice to be (act like) a modest, upstanding person. I head back inside and glance over every now and then. No one seems to be clothed anymore, or partially at the very least (but it still left some parts completely exposed).

Dream ended shortly after.

---

There's that feeling you get when you see someone. It really touches or warms your heart to see that person.  I had that feeling when I saw those three girls (I think they all looked the same) even though I can't really visualize them, and maybe I'll never be able to. It's an ideal.

I wasn't sad over the dream finishing off like that, but it did leave me feeling sad in a different way.  You know, because I should expect it to never happen (meeting someone like that).  And I put on the same appearance in that dream as I would in life.  Never trying to interact.  It's just reinforcing what I've always thought.

It left me longing after waking up, but that's over soon enough. Until something similar happens next time, whenever, in a dream or outside.


Oh, I forgot I was looking for an image.

It was the best one I could find after a few minutes of searching.  That's pretty much what it looked like where I stood, but indoors.  And a smaller field and laminated flooring.

First Experiences with Programming (Part 3)

I'm always forgetting to mention things that should go with previous posts, like during the second part where the GUI project deadline was extended two weeks or something equally ridiculous.  Collective will, that.  Can't draw a conclusion from one occurrence, though.  It could mostly fall on the professor.  And then I'm sounding mean and elitist when I'm only looking at the smaller picture, and I'm only a trivial person.  Just cease those thoughts and keep learning.

"Find something to drive you along while you learn something".  I'm pulling that quote from nowhere in particular, but it sounds like a common piece of advice.  A goal, simply enough.  The chapters in the book were ordered so you'd be learning about classes following methods and receive a basic intro to GUI following classes.  I had just about finished reading chapter five on methods when the professor skips that and the next few to get into arrays in chapter eight.  Okay, learning about arrays now...and then something clicked.  I want to say I went crazy for the notion at the time.  I wanted to try and create an RPG.

(So unique.)

Creating games wasn't some lifelong dream I held.  I'd hear about it every now and then when I was younger ("Hey, you like playing games.  Why don't you get a job making them when you're all grown up?"), and in return I'd mentally roll my eyes.  They made it sound like I was capable of being a one-man team (playing only the larger titles in my younger days I wouldn't be aware such people existed until later).  It's not like I was brimming with ideas.  I don't have any plans for this to be anything more than a hobby; I'll have to wait and see what happens when I develop more skills.  Oh, but I'm always waiting and not doing.  Such a bad thing to practice.

So back to the arrays, I was having my little epiphany.  "With this power I could store stats for a character!"  And so I built it up from that, asking myself what functions one would expect to see and making use of my accumulated knowledge to accomplish the task.  As I went further in the book I'd look for ways to apply new concepts to the game.  Man, look at that synergy!

After concentrating on it at full force for a short while I'd run into some road bumps soon enough.  Like...oh, I don't know, the creative aspect of the project.  I felt compelled to engage in creative writing at two instances in my life.  One when I was six or eight, creating a book about the kiwi bird, complete with illustrations.  Another when I was 14, stopping after 20 or so typed pages for reasons I don't remember, and they're probably gone (I wish they weren't).  I might share the kiwi story later, just because.   

I have several ideas floating around to see through the general progression of the story, and right now it would be a matter of jumping into the writing and making changes as seen fit.  Initiating the writing, simple as that.  Shouldn't it be?  But here I am facing a number of untouched plans.  Habits.  Need to learn new habits.

More on the side project (and a few others) will be set aside until a post arises to be dedicated to them.

Classes started this Monday.  I planned on finishing the rest of the programming book before then (what a great use of money for the course), but my work ethic isn't up to par yet and I'm left with four chapters to go.  All fired up since I'm around students again.  There's no telling yet what skill level they're at; I'll have to try my best to leave a good impression on the assignments so I'm not crushed under my sense of worthlessness.  Out there in the world I wanted to be no one so badly, but not here in this class.  I'm not going to be just an invisible student this time.  Not if I can help it.

Small-time problems for small-time people.  Downplay everything.

I guess this will be the last part.  Left out some interactions but they can go under a different title.

Oh right, and the professor from the previous class gave me an award certificate thing.  I think it was more of the "feel-good" type of achievement rather than something special, though.  Even though I was the only one in the entire course section to receive it (and two others who took the course above me) there was this huge list of a few dozen people for some math course when I looked at the pamphlet at the party.  What's the mantra?  Downplay everything (no seriously, I'm pretty sure it's valid this time).     

Dream Log (2012/05/08): Touhou Scoring Replay

 A little introduction first.

I'd say last October/November was the last time I sat down and concentrated on producing a series of scores in general.  Most of it was in October with the final PCB Extra run with Reimu-B finishing up November 7th (wait no, I went back and updated Reimu-A and Marisa-A again a few days later).  About a week after that I felt shooting for two billion in PCB Normal which had been on my mind for a while, but I've been barely motivated for a long time already (I wouldn't have refreshed my Extra scores if not for HS参謀 introducing a new route for Reimu-A).  So I'm playing a little each day with Marisa-A, improving...right up until I get a good run where I take notice that I failed to set up Flowery Soul to graze inside the explosion (because I didn't practice properly), and when I finish the run I end up with 1.997B.  I don't think that run was the cause, but for one reason or another I didn't feel like playing anymore.  Also, I think 2B with Reimu-B would be easier (I'm more comfortable playing with her anyway), but I always do this thing where I cycle through all the other shot types so my experience culminates at the Reimu-B run and I can make it extra good.  Playing with Marisa-A was nice, though.  Always good to try something new.

Way later starting on May 5th this year I feel like going for 2B again.  I play for an hour to two hours each day and feel bad when I die to silly things.  The pressure (and delayed gratification) starts mounting.  I hear dreams tend to be about stuff you've thought about recently so I guess the subject matter of this one was inevitable.  And they seem to be more prevalent at a time you don't normally sleep.

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2012/05/08, before 19:10 (evening nap)

Watching the PCB Normal/Marisa-A record set by HS参謀.  Something happens after Yuyuko’s third spell or fourth noncard where it ends as though it timed out.  The bullets disappear and nothing happens for a few seconds, then the battle resumes as usual.

As he’s finishing up with Resurrection Butterfly I look at his score and notice there’s still over 300M to go to match up with the record (so it's in the 1.7B range).  After the endgame bonus is tallied the score is only 1.79B.  While I’m sitting there confused at the score the game hasn’t ended yet, running for about 20-30 seconds.  And then the announcement for Resurrection Butterfly starts again and I immediately realize that he picks up the remainder of the score from bugging out Yuyuko.  I was a little disappointed because the old score I made was 7M over his (except it was really 1.997B, not 1.797B) without ever bugging the fight and I heard the question echo in my head, “Did I really surpass his run at some point?  At least in stage four I’m still behind.”  No items spawned during Resurrection Butterfly, and after capturing it his score was 1.815B.  In my mind I’m thinking that there’s still two spells to go before he reaches 2.137B.

Next up is Deadly Dance, and he doesn’t employ the usual circling tactic.  I’m thinking it’s because the pattern is now backwards (but that means you should still be able to do it, but you know how dreams are).  The pattern he employed was making long slightly curved sweeps across the screen, shooting the entire time and slowly being pushed down.  I knew there were more bullets but my focus was only on two parts for each sweep which served as markers for me.  One of them is simply passing by a wave of five arrowhead bullets lined up, and the second involved some sort of squeeze between another wave like that and a lone arrowhead bullet.  Like you’re supposed to push through them before going in the other direction.  I thought it was taking a while for the spell to end even if he’s not shooting Yuyuko directly all the time.  I look at the spell bonus and see it at 26M and counting.  Still a bit of a way to go before the sweeps reach the bottom of the screen.  Dream ended there.

---

I had another dream of this type that would crop up in the middle of a playing streak, back in 2010.  I'll get to it some other time.

I still remember how this version of Deadly Dance looks, but I'm still too lazy to do a sketch of it.  I'll put that off for later as well.

On May 11th I reach the target and feel another amazing high I didn't think would surface from a goal like this.  Jumping, fist pumping, all that stuff I don't normally do.  I guess the creeping nervousness helped with that, performing less confidently during the final battle and suffering a few close calls.

Of course in retrospect you'll realize how bad the run really is, but at least it doesn't take away from the initial moment.  Like this fatal mistake in the beginning of stage five where I die and the entire first half of the heavy point-carrying fairies get away.  All because I didn't practice the move, and that's unbelievable.  Oh, I guess I got to that stage once the other day and pulled off the trick so I expected to wing it, but not this time.  I can't believe it never crossed my mind to practice that.

The climb to 2B this time was mostly a matter of catching up to the level of execution I held in the 1.997B run.  The only thing I chased after was the status on stage four before the boss fight since most of the deviations will appear at that checkpoint.  573M, 877 point items (wait, I didn't include the CherryMax?).  After that I could catch up with better milking on a few spells.  The situation with the score transition from stage four to five is interesting because of that stupid mistake in the 2B run, but I did get a higher score from Youmu's midboss spell (still not as good as previous runs and a little close to the edge), and I forgot that I died to her final spell in the old run.  The cherry value penalty was felt during the stage six item spam and both scores evened up after that.

For the sake of this post feeling complete I'll put in links to the replay files.

PCB Normal/Marisa-A 1.997B

PCB Normal/Marisa-A 2.002B

And then I'm still perturbed by the bad Yuyuko fights.  Obviously, practice mode is where it's at.  This is what a stage six run should look like:

PCB Normal/Reimu-B Practice Stage Six 475M 
(I sort of run around with different handles)

I think it could at least go for 484M.  T (who motivated me through competition) did a better job with Flowery Soul, pulling off extra explosion grazing in the middle of the spell.  I only squeezed ahead because of Resurrection Butterfly.  I also forgot to pull off his redirection method for Yuyuko's opener to make it more graze-friendly.  Then there's other little minor things that add up, and some missing tactics. 

Dungeon Siege II Underway

First time not posting at 3:00 or 5:00 in the morning.

Act 1 was just as difficult if not worse than I remember.  Sure you could work towards whatever specialization you'd like with anyone, but I think I wanted to stick to their initial preferences back then.  Which means I'm running around with two melee characters, the main one wanting to be a tank (by my own preference) but lacking the feats and gear to last more than a few seconds in a group of mobs.  I eventually give him a bow to kite everything and finish burning down the rest of the towers.  As I leave town for the next quest I run into the next party member who defaults as a ranger, and I have to wonder if she was there the first time.

I ran into some difficulties with group management after picking up the healer.  I don't remember what I did last time, but I thought the rampage formation worked pretty well.  Now some of them (like the main character) will move back to the group as soon as I issue the command and stand there, maybe taking a few hits before retaliating.  In the end I went with the mirror formation and controlled the ranger most of the time.  Otherwise, if I were moving back with the melee characters and started attacking again it would drag the healer to the middle of the battle since the active spell was a healing one, and the autocast healing spell wouldn't override the initial command to move to that spot.  After picking up the mage I controlled her more often due to the shorter range of her spells putting her near the heart of the battle and pulling enemies.

The game really picked up near the end of Act 1.  By then the tank was a real tank and I wouldn't have to run back so much.  Shortly into Act 2 after picking up the mage I had my old group composition back, but during Act 1 I considered discarding the tank role and turning him into another ranger.  I think I would have soon grown weary of all the kiting, though, and there would be competition for drops.  Maybe not that much competition; I wouldn't mind equipping more defensive items among all the members.  Still, one character who ridiculously outranges everything is enough for me.  And I like the traditional composition.

Get the ranger to engage then continue watching the Olympics.

The other members just happened to be female, really!  The order is like male warrior -> female ranger (bow/x-bow) -> female healer -> male ranger (throwing, shorter range) -> male warrior -> female mage -> female warrior...and I think a male ranger with bows shows up later.  Then I used him when I had an extra slot while playing a little bit of the next difficulty, but I could buy another right now since I'm trying the beta 4s hotfix mod.  Act 2 is nearing completion.  One more to go.

The question is why am I even conscious about gender preference / balance unless I had something to hide.  Heck, what about this name I'm using (not the guy in the game; I called him Isaac)?

Tried out Skyrim for a few hours the other day.  One freeze a minute into the beginning but no other issues so far.  A little bummed out over the lack of attributes and the clunky interface.  It'll just have to be fixed up with mods as usual.  I tried out SkyUI and it's an improvement, but I'd like to see if there's anything else out there.  When I think about Morrowind's inventory system it might supposedly be worse because you aren't presented with the names upfront, so I can't tell if it's nostalgia that's preventing me from really believing it.  I miss the item icons, and the ones in Oblivion look too simple.  Oh, I guess Skyrim has a model for you to look at but you need to have the item selected.  The interface in Morrowind just felt more homey.  Just right click and bam!  Numbers and stats and stuff to look at everywhere.

I don't have any saved games in this one again so I picked it up from Google Images, and then I saw that the site it came from had a rant about the very thing I'm talking about.

Still, what I'm looking for hasn't gone anywhere.  It's right there in Morrowind, and with a better computer I can take advantage of the graphical overhauls (always played without mods, save once) out there as well as explore new areas, including ones I haven't seen that have been there since the game was shipped out.  Just a matter of time before I rotate back to it.

Also took a walk the other day and enjoyed the nice, cloudy skies.  Quite humid still.