Dominica and I slept in until Liesl made us get up this morning. It was great to get some real rest and we did not have to stay up late changing the bed linens either.
We sat around this morning trying to figure out what we were going to do for breakfast when I realized that today was the day that Tuscan Villas was having breakfast catered by the Flat Iron Grill down in the coffee shop. So we got ready as quickly as we could and got down there at twenty till eleven. We ended up being the next to last people to make it through the omelette service before they were done for the day. So our timing was perfect.
Breakfast was delicious and a nice change of pace. We did end up meeting someone from the complex (which is the idea of the breakfast thing) that is about our age and has a daughter several months younger than Liesl.
After breakfast we came back up to the apartment and I got to work on my homework for RIT that is due today. I did not have a chance to do any of it early since I was working on my paper yesterday and this entire week has been just entirely crazy with work or projects or meetings.
By the time we had finished breakfast it was noon and by the time that my homework was done it was about two thirty. By that time Liesl fell asleep. So Dominica and I got a little while to relax without anything pressing while we waiting for Liesl to wake up before loading up the car and driving down to Arlington to visit with Dominica’s family for the evening.
It was around four when Liesl finally woke up and we were able to get moving. We stopped by at La Madeleine and picked up some dessert. While Dominica and Liesl got dessert I stopped by at Jamba Juice and got fruit smoothies. I have been focused on getting a lot of fruit lately given how sick I have been feeling.
After getting our food supplies we were on the road and down to Arlington by five-ish. Dominica’s cousin is in town from Shreeveport, Louisiana and we have not seen her in over a year. She has not gotten to meet Liesl yet.
Oreo and Sneakers, a two year old 32lbs Boston Terrier got to play all evening and Oreo just loved it. In no time Oreo was acting like a little puppy again. He needs more dog interaction with dogs more like himself.
We had a really nice time this evening. Liesl especially had fun playing with Andrew and we got some hilarious videos of her playing with him. He would pick her up by her feet and hold her so that she could walk on her hands. She would then work herself backwards on her hands and knees (like moon walking but crawling) back to him and then stick a foot up in the air indicating that she wanted him to pick her back up by her ankles again. She did this again and again. It was so cute and funny.
We got back to the apartment around ten. I really wanted to work on some projects tonight but just could not bring myself to do it. I did not even have the energy to really play a game either. Liesl was asleep almost the moment that we got back. After Liesl went to sleep I plopped down in the new chair with my laptop and got to work updated SGL as I am several days behind and Dominica put in Dragon Age: Origins on the PS3 (that Joe and Britt got for me for Christmas) and started playing. She is playing a dwarven noble.
So far Dragon Age: Origins is looking really good. I am going to play it myself soon as well, maybe even tomorrow. I will play a completely different character, though, so that it will be a minor deal that we are both playing the same game. So far the game is pretty impressive. I am not sure that I would put it on par with Oblivion or not, it is too early to tell, but it definitely does not feel like it is on par with Fable II. The graphics are great except that they are not tuned well enough for the PS3 so the PS3 has to run the game turned down to a measly 720p which does not look good on 1080p displays and even so the framerate is a disaster with the game constantly jittering and sometimes stopping for a second or more. It gets hard to watch at times. I’m not sure if it is a matter of the software not being up to snuff or if the game is just too much for the PS3 hardware. I can see why people say that the non-console version is so much better. The computer version will run at the full resolution of the TV with a much faster framerate if you have decent hardware. These days it is pretty cheap and easy to best a PS3 in rendering power. Even my business desktop is more powerful for games and it isn’t designed for that at all.
The strong point of DAO is in its storytelling which, thus far, is pretty good. So far the game feels pretty linear but we are just getting started so we will see. The game is supposed to be very replayable and should take fifty to one hundred hours to play through so we have a lot of game to explore in different ways.
Dominica played DAO for about five hours tonight which got her pretty far into the game. Five hours is a drop in the bucket of a one hundred hour adventure but it tends to get you past the initial story setup bits and into the early meat of the game, generally speaking.
At two thirty I decided that it was late enough and that it was time to wrap up for the night, walk Oreo one last time (we can’t afford to wait for him to tell us when he is ready to go out) and hit the sack. I am working as usual tomorrow and we are planning on going up to Allen to hang out with some friends in the late afternoon / early evening.