portal, xmen, check

Played Portal last night and made my way around a tricky puzzle. But, wait! It's a trap! I slip past the trap and I'm in a new area, outside the bounds of the games standard testing environment. Working my way through this cool and somewhat grimy looking place - I get to a new challenge and just as I'm starting to figure out how to get through - the game crashes. Hard.

So, I fire up the game again and get a little further before it crashes again. Ummm... Microsoft? Any chance you're going to get your operating system fixed any time soon? Thanks.


Frustrated with that, I fire up the playstation Marvel Ultimate Alliance and move my team through Arcade's MurderWorld. We're making fairly good progress, though Iceman got killed by a doom-bot. I reach a carnival area and have Thor pick up a big hammer laying on the ground. It's kinda fun, but Thor already has a big hammer and I drop that weapon and move on. At the end of the area is a gate controlled by one of those strong-man mallet+pole+bell at the top things.

Which Thor's regular hammer can't handle.

So, I head back to where I dropped the hammer and it's not there. Nor has another one re-spawned in the game. I back out of the area and enter again - still no hammer. The only option - reload and start the level over. So, I'm pissed, but I do that. And I'm more careful when I pick up the hammer and how I use it. I make it through the level after rescuing Blade the Vampire hunter from a toy/crane game and then shooting Thor out of a cannon to trick a giant robot to hit himself in the head. Next up, I think we're headed to hell to fight some demons and rescue Ghost Rider.

Yesterday, I got a message from the Accounts Payable office about a check for my meals when I last traveled. They were calling to verify my address - and it was way wrong. Turns out they track us as "vendors" when they issue checks - instead of tying it into payroll and using my updated address. Annoying, but at least they called. I'm headed over there this afternoon to pick it up and update my address.

That's about it for now - time to get back to work...