An old skit on MadTV and also a good subtitle for many Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy XII included.

I played for about two hours on Tuesday, and formed some initial opinions. The new combat system is going to take some getting used to. It reminds me vaguely of Secret of Mana, a spectacular game, with the combat. I haven't explored the "gambit" system for "programming" my teammates just yet. Curiously, Secret of Mana had a very, very basic way to control the behavior of allies, forming another weak connection. Regardless of how tenuous that link is, I am enjoying Final Fantasy XII so far. I'm still at that typical point in Final Fantasy games where the plot hasn't started itself and I'm spending more time being taught game mechanics than I am crushing evil empires.

Yesterday, contractors stopped by our house to address the issues we had reported on our warranty/service request. This was the second of two service visits, and the warranty is coming to a close, so it's time to start the structural modifications! Woohoo, bring on the escalator and the fire pole!

On that note, I've realized that my projects backlog has become like my finally under control game backlog. I have projects that are in limbo because they were preempted by other projects. I need to go back and finish some of the smaller ones before I continue with the newer ones. I also need to stop doing things like throwing a project aside because I accidentally lost a 2-3kB JSP file that took about an hour to write. It would be trivial to recreate, but hey, it's even more trivial to throw a temper tantrum.

Is it time to retire yet?