City of Heroes released a new update yesterday, Issue 11. New powersets, a new type of quest allowing characters to go back in time and replay previous missions and arcs they may have missed, and new costume bits including hairstyles and the biggie for a lot of folks: weapon customization. Even though I usually get tired of the CoH repetitive grind, same missions over and over and a lack of change in the game world in general, I gave it a shot. I even tried a scrapper with the new powerset of Dual Blades, and I have to say that I am hooked. I didn’t play this much on test, so I wasn’t aware of how the new powerset worked.

So I’m choosing my starting powers and I see, “this power is required for the Weaken combo…” What? Combo?! I’m more intrigued now. I get out on the streets and after a few levels see that as I complete one successful attack, another is highlighted, then another. If I use the attacks as indicated, the 3rd one hits and delivers a buff (bonus) to me or a debuff to my opponents. That was it, I was hooked. This is mainly due to my old school gaming, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, the expansion set that introduced me to the Assassin class. My first experience with fast dual-weapons, charge-ups and finishing moves — I called her my little Bionic Cuisinart, so much fun!

I’m not sure the City of Heroes experience will be quite the same, but I managed to get 8 levels in a few hours last night and haven’t ever had fun like this with a scrapper before now. Close quarters combat in these games usually isn’t my forté, I prefer devastating or weird attacks at range, but I gleefully dove into mobs 1 or 2 levels above me and started slicing with dual sais. Much more fun than I had expected.

If you’re out there on Infinity, look for i X i (i11, get it?) — chat handle @urban bohemian.

I have no idea what this is an ad or announcement for. Possibly a band, but hey what a name!

It’s been a pretty quite and easygoing day, I had a late night last night so planned on playing hooky today. While I usually use days off to be “productive” I realized that a lot of my usual chores are done, laundry’s good, still plenty of shirts laundered, the grocery stores didn’t really have any of my usual staple on sale, so I ended up staying around the house, catching up on tv, tidying up a little bit and succumbing to plenty of naps!

I did run into Jhim when I headed out to pick up some food for lunch, it’s probably the first time I’ve been walking along Mt. Pleasant and was stopped by someone I actually know. Even though he’s just living right up the street, it’s easy to forget he’s nearby when our schedules don’t mesh.

I watched the first season of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! It’s hard to say exactly why the show is so funny. It’s very surreal, not at all like Tom Goes to the Mayor, but includes some of the live-action stuff seen on screens in the show.

Another in a long line of crazy condo board decisions is going into effect tomorrow. They’re closing the trash rooms on each floor and in the basement. This is in an effort to get the pest and rodent infestation under control. We haven’t really had any word on whether the other efforts have borne fruit, but we’re still without a storage area and it’s been more than a few months. Now taking out trash and recyclables will mean a trip down to the trash cans behind the building. Generally when I do chore/tidy days, a lot of that is bagging up trash and clutter and tossing it out, so it’s nice to have it right across the hall. Now it’s just going to be a pain.

The best part is the last part of the letter advising all that they understand it will be an inconvenience for some, but a hardship for others. Namely our elderly or otherwise incapacitated residents, who I would imagine are not pleased about this at all. Add to all of this that we’re still down to one elevator. The second elevator keeps appearing to be repaired, but not. Tuesday afternoon, a neighbor and I got on the car and pressed the buttons for our floors and the door closed and the elevator just sat there. Took us a moment to realize that it wasn’t moving, but at least the door open button was working so we weren’t trapped. That wouldn’t have made for a fun evening at all.

I’m ready for the weekend now, please!

No, no… this doesn’t sound familiar to me at all! Of course that could be why I’m participating in NaBloPoMo and not NaNoWriMo.

I’ve had to give up most of my webcomic daily reads, so I’m glad Pearls Before Swine is in the express so I can catch it on my commute each morning.

I spotted this on a trip to the other pantry yesterday. Apparently the one on my side of the floor had so many coffee makers in it drawing power that the microwave kept blowing its fuse every time someone tried to use it. So I’m going over to warm up my muffin and I saw this sitting on a desk. There was no snarky note, no apparent explanation, just a faux computer on the desk.

I can’t tell if this is a sign that someone around here has finally snapped, or is just enjoying themselves far too much. We were recently asked our thoughts on morale around here. If we were able to have fun like this every now and then, I’m sure morale wouldn’t be that much of a concern.

Just a quickie here. TuneCore is giving away 34 free songs. From what I can tell after a quick trip around their site, they help artists distribute their music in both physical and virtual stores. But in a way that’s more beneficial to the artist than trying to go with a “big label”.

Visit the site to generate an iTunes store code, expires 30 Sep 2008. It will download 34 pre-selected tunes by TuneCore customers, it isn’t 34 free “u-pick-em” songs. But some of them are quite good and others may be tossed after a listen.

If not for this offer, I would have never owned “Let Me Borrow That Top” by Kelly. I didn’t even know she (he?) had an album out for purchase!