Day 97: Day Off (1 of 3)

My job is making everyone take five days off this quarter. That might sound like a good way to cut down on costs when things are slow, and it is in general. The problem I have with it is that I worked almost 60 hours last week and will probably be working more next week. So being forced to take time off to save on payroll costs makes a lot less sense when everyone is working 50-60% overtime, especially considering we probably wouldn't be working so much overtime if everyone wasn't taking time off. Whatever. It's not my job to point out the stupid shit my company comes up with. I intend to enjoy my days off anyway.

And by "enjoy my days off" I mean I'm going to sit on the couch and play Dragon Age II from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. So far I'm doing pretty well. I played the "Mark of the Assassin" DLC featuring Felicia Day's character. It was a lot of fun and pretty substantial I think. The writing is excellent and the voice acting is great. Felicia Day's character Tallis has some great banter and in case you're wondering, yes, you can romance her. Nothing serious since she's only in this small DLC mission set, but if you side with her and help her out you can make out with her at the end. I thought this would be funny to see, but let me assure you, it was mostly just awkward.

I'll be upfront with you about this. I am not the kind of nerd that gets excited for virtual boobs. While I appreciate games like this adding romance options for the sake of trying to recreate a wider scope of emotional attachments in the story it's really not something I get excited about, especially not in that way. Dragon Age: Origins tried to handle the whole romance/sex thing too seriously, I think, and the cut scenes were just weird and unnatural. It's the whole "uncanny valley" thing. Dragon Age II is better about it for sure, but kissing still looks weird. Basically it's two pixelated faces kinda smashing into each other. Anyway, the whole thing with Tallis was still funny but as I tweeted later it was also weird and I felt like I had crossed a line that can't be uncrossed. I should probably take my virtual romances more seriously in the future.