So, ddrpolaris got me Skyrim for Christmas, as those of you following along on Twitter already know. All hatemail/rending of flesh and hair at my complete disappearance from the planet can be directed his way.

Anyway, I got the game on Sunday, but I didn't start playing until late Sunday night--I'd stayed up till almost 5am Christmas Eve so that I could finish Dragon Age: Origins (I'm really bad at finishing video games, it's true) and by the time we woke up and ddrpolaris arrive to open presents, we were already prepping for Christmas dinner and guests, and so playing my shiny new game would have to wait. As of the writing of this post, I think I've had the game for something like...seventy-two hours, total.

I'm not going to admit out loud how many of those seventy-two have been devoted to playing my game, but guessing in the mid- to high sixties might not be amiss. >.>

Most of that time has been spent picking flowers, chasing butterflies, and cooking meals. And, wow, did that previous sentence come out as over-the-top girly. I assure you, though, the first two activities are directly related to my desire to make ALL THE POISONS. I love experimenting with the alchemy stuff; both the discovering what each of the ingredients can do and then combining them to make awesome potions.

I also spend an inordinate amount of time stealing things from people (YOUR CABBAGES WILL NEVER BE SAFE FROM ME!), organizing all of my stolen books, and inventory management, so I don't have to drop a single stolen wheel of cheese or hide gauntlet before I have a chance to sell it.

My love of cooking in game comes from a different drive, though I suppose it's at least slightly related to the same enjoyment I get from stealing (all the ingredients), and experimenting. From the time I started playing and loooong before I knew there was an in-game mechanic for cooking, I was collecting foodstuffs and plotting what I would "make" with it. Yes, I'm that kind of crazy person who collects a bunch of seemingly useless stuff just so that in her head, she can pretend that her character is making stew out in the wilderness. I had a plate, a bowl, a tankard, some bread, and a kettle all before leaving the first area of the game. Because it wouldn't make sense for my character to eat soup without the proper accouterments to prepare it and eat it from.

I'd feel weirder about admitting this, but I know most of you. Crazy's a prereq for friendship with the majority of my f-list.

Anyway, one thing I realized tonight is that I'm rather dissatisfied with the number of food recipes the game offers. There are very few available, compared to the amount of stealable obtainable components, and many of the foods available for purchase in game cannot be made by the PC--stuff like apple pie, baked potatoes, grilled leeks, and stuff like that. On top of that realization came another--I would so buy DLC that was nothing more than addition food recipes (though if they wanted to add more alchemical components, I wouldn't argue.) I'd also love it if Bethesda were taking recipe ideas from players.

And so, being the giant nerd I am, I decided to compile a list of recipes that I came up with, using (for the most part anyway) only foodstuffs already found in game. Feel free to suggest your own!

( Skyrim RecipesCollapse )

Interestingly, there are no pigs in Skyrim, so no bacon. Boo. And there are sheep, but no mutton.

[Moving over to Dreamwidth. Catch me over there as . This entry cross-posted to both sites. Feel free to comment here or there.]

*Nearly murdered my cat this morning. Went to bed reeeeeally late (Chocobo breeding & linkdrops are time-consuming, okay?) and Captain decided that this was also the perfect time to wander around, yowling, and pouncing on his sister. This wouldn't have been quite so awful, except we also had a stranded k1ttycat that we didn't want him to wake up at five o'clock in the morning because he felt like being a pain in the ass.

This afternoon found him curled up and sleeping peacefully on the foot of our bed. So I might have sat down next to him and made loud, annoying noises to bother him for awhile. Yeah, I'm petty. Also, overtired.

*My legs hurt. Lots of fun dancing at the wedding, and then a walk home from the mechanic's yesteday. I hate stairs.

*Third load of dishes in the dishwasher. Still feel really excited about that.

*I mostly want to nap and keep trying to breed a green female Chocobo in FFVII. Which I'm replaying for the nth time. Maybe I'll actually finish this replay. No promises yet, I'm only on Disc 2. shogunhb thinks I'm playing it wrong.

*The Emerald WEAPON stomped on me. I hardly think that's sporting.

*Hopefully having game tonight. But we'll be breaking early because people are still dying of the death. Still, short game > no game. We're almost done!

*[This space for rent]

*Saw Thor. Loki is my hero, until he takes the mandatory stupid pill for plot purposes. Thinking about apping Thor for next semester--only because I want his personal journey to consist of more than two breakfasts and a bar. Also, maybe a shot at a real romance, one with something akin to connection, chemistry, and a personality. Just saying.

First of all, I'm feeling much better from yesterday. I greatly appreciated all the words of support and understanding from you guys. Seriously, thank you.

This is another ranty post (though slightly less ranty), partially because one of the ways I cope with feeling like that is to focus on one thing that's frustrating me. I feel much less floaty and overwhelmed when there's one thing I can point to and say, "ARGH! YOU ARE A SOURCE OF AGGRAVATION TO ME, DAMMIT!"

The thing that's aggravating me today is Sony's Playstation Network that's currently down for unknown and unspecified reasons. Normally, I wouldn't care, as I barely ever play my PS3 games online, but yesterday, shogunhb got our old PS3 from the repair shop where it's been languishing since October, so we could finally get out copyrighted games off the system. We paid $50 to get a Playstation Plus account which would give us access to the Cloud, where we can save our games--including the copyrighted ones--and then download them onto a different system.

After 24 hours have passed, but whatever.

Anyway, the problem comes in when we discovered that we can't save more than one version of a game to the Cloud. Thus, after shogunhb saved his Dragon Age and Rock Band 2 saves to the Cloud and he went to go save mine--they wouldn't. So, for me to be able to access my saves, I need to get my own account--for another $50 a year. (Yes, you can buy it in several month increments, but if I want to be able to save my games to the Cloud at diverse points in the year to make sure I am never stuck without a game a again, it's $50 a year.) We agree that it's worth at least a little outlay of cash to get me my own Cloud account just so I can get my games back and try to sign me up last night.

Except we can't. Because PSN is down. So instead of getting to play my games at 11pm tonight after they've been on the Cloud for 24 hours, I have to wait until the network comes back up in order to even sign up for the account.

SONY. STOP MAKING IT SO HARD TO GIVE YOU MONEY!

Umm...yeah, okay. That's my rant for the day. I know. My life, so hard. But hating on PSN is much easier than stressing about everything else.

So, Dragon Age: Origins. It has some kind of major archplot with, like, demons and stuff. Hell if I know. I am so totally playing this for the romance plots and the snarky dialogue. I looooove this game.

Also, if you're a guy and you seduce Zevran, do you get a sex montage the way you do as a female Gray Warder and Alastair? Cause that'd be awesome.

But, really. All the replay value right now comes from a desire to play out all the romance possibilities. I'm looking forward to the foursome myself.

Also, I like that there's a musical theme for kissing.