What I am thankful for . . .

There doesn't seem like much to be thankful for, game related, this year. Having someone break into my house and steal all my video games and systems just sucks. But I've been thinking, and there are some things I'm thankful for. Like:

1) killafoola
He's the first person that let me follow him around in Star Wars Battlefront and really learn how to play the game when I was a noobie. I sucked, but he didn't mind. I learned a lot from him. Tactics I still use today.

2) Evil Ric
He's the first person to ever talk to me during a video game that wasn't related to me. I think he's also the first person to send me a friend request instead of me sending one to them. And believe it or not we're still friends and we talk almost every night. I guess if he can stand me after 5+ years maybe there's something lovable about me after all. (Of course he might tend to disagree with that.)

3) MasvHdWndHarry
During a rather troublesome Gears of War public match (on Escalation) some of the other members of our team (not friends of either of us) started barking at me and what a horrible player I was. Masv stood up to them and let them have it. I've always remember that and I can't tell you how much his chivalry has meant to me. Then and now.

4) El Sand Dog
When I play with him I always feel good about how I play . . . even if I suck. He just has a way to make even your most embarrassing, or game losing mishaps, nonstressful and totally hilarious. He's the only one I played Wingman with that asked my opinion about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. He never strayed far from me either. We were a team. And I got an achievement for that. Besides, all he has to say to me is "How you doing?" and I get all tingling inside.

5) Hell Weasell
I love his sense of humor. He disarms you with his quiet, calm nature, but man he lets off some zingers. He's cracked me up on more than one occasions and sometimes during a bad night of gaming his comebacks might be the only reason why I stick around. And even though I'm a girl and I'm not suppose to be reading his "Bro Code" entries on his profile, I just have to say I love them. I hope he's saved them.

And my list could go on and on, but there's one more I'm thankful for that might seem a little strange.

6) c5ride
c5 gets a little excited and intense when he plays games. And when I do something stupid, which is not hard to do for me, it's not uncommon to hear "Pengwenn, what were you thinking?" or "Pengwenn, where were you?" or even "Pengwenn, for the love of all that's holy why didn't you kill that guy?". You would think I wouldn't be thankful for getting yelled out, but I am in a way. Thankful that he hasn't removed me from his friend's list because of my stupid game play. There might come a time in the future when he does, but for right now I take that fact that I'm still on his friends list to mean that I'm not a complete ass when I play.

It's not much to be thankful for when it comes to playing video games, but when all your stuff gets stolen you take what you can get. And for those of you not specifically mentioned I'm thankful for you too. If I listed everyone on my friends list and what they mean to me I might overload blogspot's servers and crash the site. I am thankful for you all. And I mean that. "Truly. Madly. Deeply." And if you can guess what movie that last part is from I'll be even more grateful to you. And I mean that too.

So what are you thankful for?

No more snip, snip?

If you haven't figured it out yet I'm a huge fan of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. The cartoonist also has a blog and I thought today's entry was hilarious. And after the day I had today I needed something to laugh at. (And I don't mean my co-workers.)

Your comic for the day

Based on some recent conversations with friends, I thought today's strip from Pearls Before Swine was hilarious. But then again, maybe it's just me. See for yourself.

If you got my message...

If you got my message respond here.

Poll Results - Befriending based on gamer pic/avatar

Better late than never, right? Here's the latest poll results and (what you've all been waiting for) my opinion.

Have you ever befriended someone based on their gamer picture or avatar?

Yes, their gamer picture was hot = 0 votes
Yes, their avatar was hot = 0 votes
Yes, their gamer picture AND avatar were hot = 0 votes
No, I don't like making friends = 8 votes

With my system crapping out around the time of this poll I can't remember if I voted or not. If I did I would have/did vote for "No, I don't like making friends". And based on how everyone else voted it's kind of amazing that any of us have people on our friends list.

Here's how the poll started.

I was messing around with my avatar trying to find something I liked. I went into the game based extras that you can get to trick out your avatar. Nothing really excited me (except for the lightsaber, but I'm too cheap). I had a small odd amount of points to use so I bought a corset from Fable II. Then I started building an outfit and an avatar around that. I wasn't happy with the results but I left things alone for a couple of days to think about it.

In those couple of days you wouldn't believe the number of friends request I got from total strangers. It seemed that every match I played (no matter what game) someone would send me a message about my avatar or send a friend request. Some I deleted right out. Some I gave a chance too. And some have since been deleted. But it got me thinking.

I remember when our friends list was limited to, I think, 99 people. I had a friend who I have played with since the old Star Wars Battlefront days that didn't have room on his list to add me once I got my 360. He had to delete someone to make room. In the original Xbox, and prior to Party chat on the Xbox 360, you would be stuck in a room listening to everyone who was playing on your team. Sometimes that was good. Some times that was down right horrible. But despite that, I picked up a few friends along the way.

Not having the ability to restrict who I talked to like we can in a Party Chat I got to know MadMax, c5ride, Fbody, cyberWRAT, and a number of other people who are now on my friends list. Since we started to have the ability to use Party Chat I haven't been able to listen, talk to, or get to know anyone I'm playing with outside of my chat circle. Since then my friends list has remained pretty much static. Until I changed my avatar.

Thus the idea for my poll was born.

If we're not talking and getting to know someone via their game play, how else are we making friends? Maybe it's their gamertag (see the "hot chick" posts I did awhile ago). Maybe it's their gamer picture. Maybe it's their avatar. Apparently, based on this poll, nobody likes to make friends.

It's not that I'm not happy with the friends I've already got. You all keep me very entertained on a nightly basis. But sometimes a girl would like a friend who will finish an old game (like Gears of War) on insane mode because she can't do it alone. But, NOOOOOO, that friend is going to trade that game in to get Modern Warfare 2. Come on! My friendship can't be traded in for the latest game out there.

Or maybe a girl just wants a friend to kick back with and play a little arcade game every now and then. Gauntlet is sooooo much better when played with friends. And there's so many arcade games to choose from. I'm just saying.

But if any of you are wondering if your avatar is hot enough to get someone's attention, my dog, Zoe, really likes to jump up to the screen and stare at cyberWRAT, Genghis Khan, MasvHdWndHarry, and Zenra Nukenin's avatars. She hasn't seen Zenra's Halloween wolf yet so maybe she'd change her vote if she did.