So I'm hearing (reading, actually) rumors that Bioware is going to push Dragon Age 3 out to 2014 in order to put more resources into expanding Star Wars: The Old Republic. This makes me sad. While I understand Bioware's desire to build up their successful MMO, I think it's unfortunate that they are doing so at the expense of a terrific and original - not to mention highly popular - franchise.

(We pause here while your fearless blogger spends a few minutes aspirating on a small piece of shredded chicken.)

As I was saying, I dearly love Dragon Age. Great story, well developed characters, and just a hell of a lot of fun to play. I have been really looking forward to the third installment, and now I find out I will probably have to wait another year for it. Frankly, I'm disappointed. I'm sure SW:TOR is fun and all, but it holds absolutely no interest for me. No Star Wars game ever has. So I just wanted to share how bummed out I was.

I think I'll call him Spikes.

Oh, and here's a quick snapshot of what startled me enough to make me breathe chicken. He and various members of his family show up outside my office window virtually every day, but today him and his momma (not shown) made their appearance by running up to the window. I don't think they can see through the window from outside because this little guy was only about eight feet from my face.

You can even see a reflection of the IGN blog editor in the window. Cool.

Obviously, the gaming world is all aflutter about E3 coming up in a few days, just as it is every year. And there will be some cool stuff to show, and some entertaining gaffes, some new information, some booth babes to take pictures of. Just as there is every year. And I will skim through parts of the coverage that look relevant to my interests to see what's coming up, and to get some of those nuggets of new information, just as I do every year.

But I'm starting to genuinely wonder about all the fuss. When E3 was young, and the gaming world was shapeless and void, it was a pretty neat affair. Developers and manufacturers often dropped whole bombs of information on us rather than just a sprinkling of information hailstones, if you will. But over the last few years it kind of seems like E3 is really just more of a party where the game companies reiterate to us information we already have. Sure, there will be some new things they haven't already told us, but the great majority of information thrown out at E3 is already available.

So while I don't doubt that E3 will be great fun for those in attendance, I find it very difficult to get excited about it myself. Bring on the dog and pony show.

I am just having a hell of a time concentrating on work today. I've been almost totally unproductive since about 9:30 (it's now 1 pm), and I'm just sitting here staring at the clock wishing I could get back home and fire up the grill.

So.... work. I have an interesting job. Usually when I explain my job to people they say things like, "No one really has a job that boring, do they?" And there are times when my job can be excruciatingly dull (like today), but most of the time it's really interesting. For example, right now I'm developing a series of natural disaster scenarios that will be used for training the people who use our software. These scenarios take place on a made-up continent that has a mish-mash of countries based off of real world places. For example, one country on our fake continent bears a very strong resemblance to South Korea, both geographically and culturally. We've renamed all the cities and provinces, of course, and turned the map over so it's not exactly the same, but basically anyone will recognize it. Right now one of my interns is working on finalizing that list of new place names, which eventually he will have to plug into the software so that the new names actually show up on the map. Fun for him. My other intern is working on something more interesting. She's writing up mock incident reports for a series of wildfires that will represent one of the disaster scenarios taking place on this fake continent.

Meanwhile, I'm working on writing the actual training course where these scenarios will be used. That part of my job is boring. And to make matters worse, my computer is busy trying to copy 1.5 GB of files from a network share to my local drive, and it's taking for-ev-er. Argh!

So my mind is definitely wandering. Thinking about grilling steaks, watching whatever it was that we recorded on the DVR the other night, the game of Talisman we left in progress last night that's still set up on the dining room table, whether or not I should dive back into Skyrim since I haven't played that for a while and I'm starting to lose interest in ME3 multiplayer. Somehow all of these things are more interesting than work today.

One of the many peaceful locations in Skyrim where a gamer can escape the stresses of work

So here's the question: What do you do when you find yourself totally unable to concentrate at work?

Nintendo 3DS or Playstation Vita: which would be better for an eight year old girl, and why?

Never deal with a dragon, and never trust an elf.

I first played Shadowrun right after 2nd Edition came out back around... oh... 1992? I fell in love immediately and have been an ardent fan ever since. Sadly, there have never been any decent SR video games on the PC (that multiplayer FPS game from a few years back was a joke). So when I found out there was an effort going by the game's original creator Jordan Weisman (one of the blokes who also brought us MechWarrior) to make a new SR game for PCs and tablets, I was pretty excited.

The game has a Kickstarter project - mentioned in this IGN article a couple weeks ago - which has long since passed its original funding goal. As of this writing, they are at $1.1 million, which should be enough to make a pretty freaking good game. Granted, it's not going to be the next Bioshock, but for longtime fans like me who had long ago given up hope of ever seeing a new SR video game, this looks pretty promising.

If you haven't already checked it out, head on over to their Kickstarter page and have a look-see. And remember: geek the mage first.