RPGs are Realistic

It's funny what you can come across on the Internet.


I picked up Dungeon Siege 3 for the PS3 and I really like it so far. It's not Baldurs Gate 2 for the PS2 but I still like it. I think I'm about half-way done. That's because I hopped online to find out. RPGs I don't cheat on, so I wasn't looking for codes. Anyways, there was one thing I was looking up in particular ("what's the Doom stat mean?") and I came across a webpage called RPGwatch.com because it had a review of Dungeon Siege. Going off on a tangent, I came across a review for a game called Arcainia.

I can't play it since it's for XBox, but what caught my eye was that the guy did two reviews, one for regular gamers and one for "Casual RPGers".

"What's a Casual RPGer?" you might ask: "Kamaal Anwar, Producer for Arcania, summed it up very clearly for RPGWatch -- "...The challenge studios face is to avoid chasing away potential fans with too many possibilities and too much freedom. Some gamers more accustomed to jumping into games in short bursts may find the lack of a clear direction daunting".

Too many possibilities and too much freedom? May find the lack of a clear direction daunting?

And immediately I thought, "Wow, that's just like people these days."

It's funny but it's not.

Pickups the Pace

Last week I thought I'd order some replacement pickups for my Goldtop. The Goldtop is an 89 and at that time Gibson were installing P-100 pickups.  A P-100, for all you fine folks, looks like a P-90 but is an actual humbucker instead of single-coil and different than a hum-reduced pickup.  I thought about swapping the pickups ever since I started getting into humbuckers because I noticed the Goldtop didn't have the gain that my guitars with humbuckers had. Then slowly, those guitars (Studio Plus, SG3) started being my main ones and I retired the Goldtop.

I'm not sure why I have to fix up the Goldtop now. Maybe I was getting sentimental last week. Anyways, I hunted for anyone who makes P-100s (I don't do eBay) and the only place I could find was AllParts for reasonably priced P-100s. Unfortunately UPS' pricing is shit. $75 because it's international. Or maybe because it doesn't get shipped straight to its destination. Have a look at the Shipping Log:

So it starts out by going to Mount Hope Ontario which is a place I can honestly say I've never heard of. I had to look it up. When I read Hamilton, it started making sense.

From there, it goes back to the States; must be out of convenience. Then back to "Canada". Then to the States and back to Mount Hope.

These pickups have traveled more than I have. Honestly, I'd pay $50 if it was shipped straight to the destination. It would probably shave a few days off delivery time and even save some gas.

My favourite Activity was "There is an inadequate description of the merchandise. More documentation required." It wouldn't surprise me if "guitar pickups; quantity 2" baffled and confused people over there at Mount Hope. It's not Secret Squirrel stuff. I bet if you surf long enough, you could probably find the schematics.  Mainly I'm wondering why if someone's waiting for "more documentation", why the hell would they ship it back over to the States instead of keeping it on this side of the border and wait for the "documentation"?

Also, I can't wait to see what inflated Duty I'll have to pay. I'm sure I'll Blog about it in a couple of days after they have to ship the pickups back to the States one more time, y'know, just for old time's sake.