: surreptitiously plots an Adventur!

Seriously, sounds like a good plan! My plan is sort of the antithesis - to have ONE month in which I do not travel out of my tri-county area. And I may possibly manage it in February, even though it has an extra day in it.

Your resolution sounds a bit like my occasion "I need to watch more television" realization. Though for me it's a mix of "what the fuck are other people talking about" and "I need to hem my pants/sew on buttons/go to the gym," because that's what I'm usually doing while watching TV.

I chuckled at "preventative maintenance".

So, a rockin' New Year's Resolution Plan!

And yay for being content. Who says you have to harass yourself every year, trying to outdo the year before. Let it happen naturally.

Okami kicks ass and takes names. The controls can take some getting used to... Practice, or you're never going to get demon fangs out of the stinkin' imps.

never going to get demon fangs out of the stinkin' imps.
For some reason, that took on a laundry connotation for me. I tend to get into video game zones, I'll play for three days, then won't touch it for three months.

The controls for the PS2 were so much more intuitive. Clover won me over entirely with that game.

(...only to break my heart when they ceased to exist...and the run it over again when they managed to reinvent themselves as Platinum Games but only made titles like Bayonetta.)

Yeah, when I was playing it I had trouble doing the drawing parts. But I shall persevere!

I approve of this idea. I am going to make a 2012 plan. :)

Haha very good resolution.

I feel I should play my Wii more also, I love it dearly, so why don't I ever think of it when I'm bored? In fact, I think it's time to crack out MarioKart right now!

OMG!! MarioKart=awesome. My siblings and I always challenge each other to races TO THE DEATH!!!

YEAH MARIOKART! Have fun!

SAM!!! There is Oregon Trail for the Wii. I got it for my siblings for X-mas and it's pretty fun. Just like the computer game with a few advancements in playing. Also, I recommend Mario & Sonic at the 2012 London games for the Wii. Also fun and loads of entertainment.

LOL, I wonder which Oregon Trail iteration it's like. The one I played was, I think, one of the first with an actual graphical interface. We were all SO IMPRESSED by the animated buffalo hunting game...

If you can tell us your preferences game-wise, I'm sure the cafe would love to help you game more.

Well, I don't know that I need to get more games, yet, but it's fun to talk about :D I love roleplay-adventure games like Twilight Princess and Okami, games with a really strong story but which don't have super-complicated controls or too much fighting. I also like puzzle games like Tetris, Dr. Mario, Bejeweled, etc. and games where there's not necessarily anything to "win", like Cooking Mama.

What genre would we call the Mario games these days? When I played on the 8-bit NES and the Sega Genesis we'd call them side-scrollers; games like the first three Super Marios, Sonic the Hedgehog, Kirby's Dreamland, that kind of thing. I know they're not really side-scrolling anymore (the new Mario I got for DS is almost bafflingly 3-D, I keep getting lost) but I like that kind.

One of the reasons I stopped gaming for a while -- aside from college and grad school getting in the way -- was that the games got too complicated for my side-scrolling brain :D

Is Cooking Mama like Diner Dash? For some reason I am hooked on those type of games. I play it and then realize that 3 hours has passed. What?!

Hahahahahaha, preventative maintenance! I like that.

If you play more wii, we should send our Miis to come visit.

If I can figure out how to do that....:D

So any chance of you sharing the actual nuts and bolts of your Adventur plan, because I am thinking I need to stop being such a fucking shut-in also.

And LOL "play MORE video games" may just be the best resolution evar.

Well, the thing is, I suspect the Adventur Programme would be different for everyone, because the key to doing it is finding something that will motivate you to actually follow through. Here's some broad strokes.

I have a file of bookmarks that are listings of events and interesting things in Chicago. I read this weekly, but if I see events two or three weeks out I still open them up and investigate. At the moment my Adventur calendar is full through the middle of February. Some of these bookmarks are calendars of specific museum events, some are newspapers listing local goings-on, some are specialty websites like Free Things To Do In Chicago.

My criteria for adventurs involves how likely I am to actually do them. I check Googlemaps to make sure I can get to the location and get home easily if I get tired. Initially I chose things where I was likely to be part of a crowd rather than have attention focused on me -- festivals instead of small gatherings, open areas instead of enclosed stores or restaurants. I also chose based on whether I could go there straight from work, because once I get home after work I'm much less likely to go out again. Some I scheduled for weekends because I knew I'd need all my energy.

The way I set it up is that I have a one-month calendar, and I write on the calendar what I'm doing each day. Then, for that particular Adventur, I make a Map Sheet -- into a word document I place all the vital data, and I add a map from Google maps so I won't get lost. For example, if I'm going to a restaurant, the Map Sheet has a map of how to get there, instructions for public transit ("Red line to Bemont, transfer to Brown line, Southport stop") and the hours the restaurant is open. If there's something in particular I want to try, I mark that down too. If I'm going to a museum, I print out a map of the museum and draw a route I'm going to take. If I'm just going to "see something cool" I'll include passages from the website about it so that I know what to look for. Information makes me comfortable, which makes me less likely to be afraid to go there.

The Map Sheets get printed and put into a file by date order. In the morning I check what Adventur I have scheduled, get out the map sheet, and make sure I pack it with me. If I decide, at the end of the day, that I'm too tired to go, I look at my calendar and immediately reschedule when I'm going, change the date on the Map Sheet, and re-file it. That way I haven't failed, I'm still going, just not that particular day.

I try not to buy movie/theatre/concert tickets in advance, so that if I don't go I haven't wasted the money. Some things I do buy in advance in order to force myself to go, though those are relatively rare and usually only if I know I REALLY WANT to go but might be indecisive on the day.

I hope this helps!

Helped me at least. :) Hopefully it helped the Anonymouse too.

And that's brilliant really. I think I need to enact at least part of an Adventur plan. If at least go somewhere once a month that's fun and/or interesting. I've been really anxious about doing new things lately (like oh finding a job >_<) and I think at least getting myself out of the house more often might help in dealing with it.

My brain may explode if I try to organize this much but every part of your description makes me more convinced that this is the way it would work for me. I, too, would need to plan shit two weeks in advance in order to do it, so I have two weeks to get used to the idea. I, too, would not go without a soothing security blanket made of INFORMATION.

Sam you may be a genius, and I am in awe of the self-knowledge and self-acceptance required to make this plan. Me, I'm still stuck in the mode where I try to shame myself into doing shit instead of finding things that work for me.. and I'm like 10 years older than you are. :P I could learn a thing or two from you, kid.

THANK YOU for responding! :)

I like the sound of the Adventur Programme. I think I might have to ride on those coat tails, as there are a great many things in NC that I haven't seen. I can no longer pull the 'I'm new here' card, so it's time to start gallivanting.

If you like Okami, may I suggest Okamiden for the DS? Super-cute little game. ^_^