The Point of Dreaming

Lately, I've been having incredibly strange and very vivid dreams. Now, for most people this would be weird, I suppose, as anyone I've ever asked always admits to having bland dreams, if they dream at all.

I admit, I have browsed through books with titles like "The Meaning of Dreams," which list items or circumstances you could dream about and what they really mean. I even have one on my shelf. Whether they are true or not, I have received criticism for reading these books, much less owning them. I have been told that it isn't "Christian" to read these books, and that they are like perusing the horoscope section. I can see where that idea could spring from, and I suppose there are better things I could be reading, but at the same time I wonder why, in the Bible, it says that people have dreams in which God speaks to them. Or they dream about things that tell them where to go or what to do next.

What changed between the times when the Bible was written and now? I would say that it is okay to interpret your dreams if you do it under the direction of the Holy Spirit, but how do you know when it is God and not your own ideas? I have even heard that some people, for example the Muslims, come to Christ through dreams, instead of through missionaries or other more "conventional" ways - these are people who have never heard of Christianity. That, to me, is a pretty powerful indication that dreams are useful for something - that they mean something, at least some of them do.

But how do I know which ones are blazing signs and which ones are nothing but my brain firing off randomly? Or are they all important? Anyone out there have any ideas? Or is there anyone out there at all?

Thoughts pertaining to the misadventures of Desmond Miles, or why I am (possibly) leaving Assassin's Creed 1 unfinished.

Okay. I admit it. I am a noob. A total, idiotic, inept noob.

Whew. Good to get that off my chest.

Seriously though. I need to finish this game. I've been playing for what, two years??? And now the second one's out, and we all love Italy. I want to go to Italy. I'm tired of Acre. Jerusalem is pretty, but there are too many guards. Damascus is too hot looking. I want the cool air of a different part of the Mediterranean on my pixeled, mannified face.

Why haven't I finished this thing yet? Oh yeah.

I got tired of doing the same thing over and over again for each target. "Talk to this guy, follow this guy, steal this map, etc." NINE TIMES. That got really old. Yeah, good thing I was only doing the bare three per target for the last three missions. Skip those informer ones. Ugh. "Hurry, I dropped these flags. Go pick them up. Oh, and while you're at it, these people were chasing me. Kill them too." Hmph.

I was tired of hunting down those stupid flags too. I know they weren't necessary to finish the game or anything, but hey, on the 360 they give you these lovely little things called achievements, and those have points, and that makes you cooler when you have points. And we all want to be cooler. Except when it has you running around the middle east looking for about five hundred little pieces of cloth hidden in nooks and crannies. That's not cool at all. Oh look, there's one on the top of that cathedral. Hrm. Nah. I'll go this way instead.

*drowning* Okay. It is apparently against the laws of nature to be able to exist in water in this game. Must I die every time I come near a seawall or dock or boat? Even fountains manage to kill me if I fall in them. Turns out those warning labels depicting people drowning in buckets aren't so far-fetched.

*two hours later, after attempting the same fight for the seventy-third time (yes I counted)* I am not very good at combat in general (come to think of it, this sad fact spans across almost the entirety of my gaming experience) and when I am not running for my life I am dying. Usually outnumbered and surrounded by about twenty guards. This particular battle is extraordinarily difficult. To me.

The thought that millions of people managed to finish the battle, and finish the game keeps nagging at the back of my mind. Cody finished the game. If he can do it, I can, right?

Actually, no. There are lots of things Cody can do that I can't. Finishing this game, obviously, being one of them. For the first time in my life, I found myself crying over a game. How hard should this be? I mean, come on. It's just a game. There has to be a way.

Restart. Block. Dodge. Counter. Dodge. Cou-oops. Apparently there are some strikes that cannot be countered. Ouch. There are some that can't be blocked either. And now six of them are hitting me at once. Yay.

Oh look. I'm dead again.

Sorry, Robert de Salle. I won't be killing you today. In fact, I don't think I will ever be killing you.

You see, I have this thing called the strategy guide, and while it is pretty useless in telling me how to defeat you, it gives me the general gist in what happens if I theoretically manage to remove your evil deeds from the world.

Actually, it only sort of tells me. Apparently the folks at Prima believe in this thing called spoilers. Hrmph. Well I have the interwebs, and they will not lie to me.

Oh my.

Erm.

Yeah. Part of me wants to finish now. Just to see if this is all true.

But I can't.

Robert de Stupid and his armored goons won't let me.

Now for the big question - to let wounded, beaten, exhausted, stubborn dogs lie? Or to keep beating all those horses I killed plowing through roadside patrols?

Now I know why there is this huge pillar set up for girls who are actually GOOD at games to stand on and be worshiped by all basement-dwelling males. And also why there's that whole pile of charnel at the bottom where they throw the girls who aren't good at games in so they can laugh at them and use them as basis for stereotypes like .... like... ugh. I can't say it. You know what I mean.

I'm just going to go lie back down now and contribute to the idea that girls can't play games.

Death and such.

So I finally gave in and loaded Oblivion on my computer, even though I had promised myself repeatedly that I wasn't going to until I finished two of the games already on my computer. Oh well. So much for goals. I just couldn't stand looking at the box (well, three boxes, actually) on my desk day after day and wondering what sort of wonderful goodness they contained.
So I started off pretty well. I found a horse, some armor, and a sword, and then consulted my map. My goal was the town of Kvatch, roughly aheckofalongway to the southwest. Wouldn't have been a problem if the road actually ran to the town. Which it did, in a roundabout, sort of curving let's add an extra hundred miles in there just for the fun of it way. So I decided to ride my old nag (which is actually what it said if I selected the horse - that I had an old nag) straight across the country to save time.
On the way, I found an old ruin. In that ruin was a door. Beyond that door was a corridor. Beyond that corridor was a room full of riches. Yay riches! So I took the riches and began to trek back to the surface.
A floorplate I didn't see till I'd stepped on it released the score or so of ghosty things I was in no way prepared to deal with. So I ran, but the ethereal realm is not encumbered by such pesky things as gravity, friction, and say... walls and rocks and things. So the ghosties caught up to me and I died.
So I loaded my save game and decided to follow the road. Which went all well and good until I was mugged by a group of thieving thieves. So I died again.
For the third time I loaded my game and decided this time to use the quick travel feature to reach Kvatch. I got to the town in a matter of seconds, fully intact, and after speaking briefly to a couple of soldiers about why I was there, I marched straight through the yawning gate to hell that had decided to open up in the middle of town. Like I could do anything about it, lol.
I couldn't. The fiery minions of deathspawn ganged up on me and again I died, this time writhing in fiery agony.
I loaded again and things have been going a bit better. I decided to forgo the town of Kvatch for now (they can handle themselves, right?) and see what else this world has to offer. I headed west instead of south at first and found an old fort, I think it was Fort Sutch, which after dismounting and leaving my horse in easy reach of the exit, should I need to leave the fort in a hurry, I entered. I quietly and with no small amount of sneaking managed to defeat all the mercenaries hiding within. Too bad I couldn't take their armor and sell it. I was almost overburdened as it was. So availing myself of everything I could, I left the fort, only to find my horse was missing. Had someone stolen my horse? The nerve! I searched frantically, running an ever widening circle around the fort until I found her, the poor old nag, lying dead in the tall grass with an arrow in her eye. Some evil thing had shot my horse! Do you know how much horses cost? I am never going to be able to buy one.
So, downhearted, I trudged on foot the long weary miles south to the town of Anvil, too depressed to even think about going eastward to Kvatch. I defeated a gang of womenthieves wreaking havoc on the gullible menfolk of Anvil, and I gave my seven apples to a beggar. Then I found a curiously large chest in an abandoned farmhouse, and in an attempt to open it, I broke all my lockpicks. I am now wandering about, desperately searching for more lockpicks so that I might open the chest and behold the wonders it contains.