The Dead Zone

Well, here's a conundrum.

After months of hearing positive things about The Witcher, I broke down and bought it. I have enough access to games already -- games I've bought and not yet played, and the vast number of games available through my GameTap subscription, that I'm only willing to buy a game if it's clear it will hold special appeal. And when people keep discussing a game in podcasts months after it was released, especially when it's about the game being for adults and containing real and interesting decisions, and having a great story, eventually I cave in.

So I bought The Witcher, and I've been playing through it slowly and enjoying the heck out of it. I'm not far in (just got out of jail, through the sewers and into the city that comes after the starting region). Then while visiting Guy, he mentioned hearing about some special version of the game being released. Turns out he was referring to the extended edition that is in the works, which contains some major upgrades for the English/US market.

And this brings me to my conundrum...I'm only a few hours into the game. Do I wait until September or so to play the extended edition, or do I play through the gimped version now and play through again when released?

So far I like it enough, and there are enough ways to customize your character as you progress, that I don't see an issue with replaying it. But I will miss experiencing the best possible version of the story on the first time through.

Oh what, dear readers, should I do?

Many thanks to Gug for being an extremely gracious host* during a long weekend in Ohio (where "extremely gracious" == "picked up all the tabs").

We only had to fight off one Canadian Commando team -- they were hoping to get blood and DNA samples of a true patriot, to see if they could manage to create one in their own country. But being Canadian, they were defeated by us politely asking them to leave the premises.

Otherwise it was a weekend of drunken debauchery...or of playing board games and Xbox games and watching DVDs and buying too many used books and drinking Mojitos. One of those.

We BYONDers, we know how to party!

* One ungracious item: Gug rudely won every game we played. Hmph.

Tomorrow I go to visit a fellow BYONDer in the great state of Ohio.

I have checked, and it appears that not only is Ohio not on either coast, it is suspiciously near Communist Canada.

So I have but one request:

If for any reason I don't make it out, please ask the President to bomb Cleveland first and ask questions later.

Thank you very much, my fellow Americans.

Which we were, weren't we? Actually, this started as a reply in the comment thread to Mike's latest post, but since it provides some useful medical info that people should be aware of, I thought I'd give it the visibility of a post unto itself:

In case another person being in pain will make you [Mike] feel better, I was in the ER at 4:00 AM this morning due to pain in, um, the same sphere, so to speak.

I'd had a bit of pain throughout the week, kind of generalized and coming and going. Of course I had a few thoughts of "Uh oh" based on what you've experienced. Nonetheless I decided to wait it out a bit, especially given a busy time at work and not wanting to jump the gun (I once went into an ER for possible heart attack symptoms...I felt like I was being all adult and doing "the right thing", but the symptoms turned out to be nothing, and the result was putting a permanent big black mark on my medical history when it comes to insurance...)

Then yesterday it got persistently worse, and I did a bit of Googling...determined it wasn't a hernia (which I've been warned I'm at risk for) but also that it wasn't the Big C (which tends to be painless), so I thought maybe "torsion", which means things get twisted around and blood supply gets cut off. In that case you must see a doctor within hours, or stuff starts dying off.

So, of course, I went to bed.

But my body wasn't having any of that, and between increased pain and mental repetition of "Must see an experienced doctor within hours", I gave up at four in the morning and decided to go to the ER, which conveniently is a block from my house.

This turns out to be a good time to visit the ER...no other patients were in sight, and I was whisked in right away. And here I'd loaded up on DS games and a book for the inevitable wait.

After the inevitable poking and prodding and a high-resolution ultrasound and peeing in a cup, they confirmed that it's almost certainly an infection, and loaded me up with pain killers and antibiotics.

A few key points from this:

- Having Mike's experience in mind absolutely prompted me to pay more attention and possibly act sooner than I would have otherwise.

- Google is the best invention in the history of mankind.

- Living a block from a world class hospital comes in handy once in a while.

- Genetically modified antibiotics For The Win!

- If you do experience unprovoked pain in that area, get it looked at quickly...especially if it's persistent pain, it may be need to be addressed immediately if you want to keep all your marbles.

Spoilers are here if you haven't seen the movie, but then again, who cares since nothing about this movie is worth seeing?

So, behold something more enjoyable than the film itself, the abridged script...