I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

 

The first time I got married in Skyrim, I was an awkward, blundering warrior-mage looking for a place to rest my head and store my gear in Whiterun. I met Uthgerd the Unbroken in The Bannered Mare throwing bank a tankard of Black-Briar Mead and hankering for a brawl. She insulted me, challenged me to a fist fight, and when I bested her, she noticed my Amulet of Mara and offered her hand (and house!) in marriage. I accepted. We were wed at the Temple of Mara in Riften within the week.

Things were fine at first. We traveled the land raiding bandit camps and defeating dungeons full of Draugr. But pretty soon I had enough gold to buy my own house in Whiterun. Uthgerd moved in with me, of course, but so did my housecarl Lydia. And that's when things got dicey. Lydia was constantly in my bedroom. When I woke up, there she was. When I returned from battle, there she was. When I unloaded my loot into my treasure chest, there she was. "Honored to see you, my thane!" "Long life to you, my thane!"

Pretty soon I decided to take Lydia questing and let Uthgerd have a break. For one thing, Lydia's sycophantic blabber in my house was making me nuts. Out on the open road, she was a sarcastic, impatient warrior who sighed and huffed when I stopped to buy supplies, and when I'd ask her to hold onto some of our loot, she'd go, "I am sworn to carry your burdens." And for another thing, she'd happily wear the fancy armor I smithed for her, unlike Uthgerd, who seemed determined to get burnt to a crisp by dragon fire in that pedestrian steel outfit.

But things got sour on the road with Lydia after a couple of days. I was a master of sneak, you see, wielding my bow and arrows in the shadows for double damage, but at the first sign of trouble, Lydia would go barrelling into forts and caves and ancient ruins shouting, "I'LL KILL YOU IF I HAVE TO!" So of course I had to follow after her or risk hitting her in the head with one of my glass arrows from afar. But once I got into actual combat, I had to spend the whole time chasing Lydia around casting healing spells at her because she was constantly almost dying.

Last week, in real life, I got myself some strep throat AND a peptic ulcer, which meant I was confined to my bed to be miserable and chew on bread occasionally. I decided to while away the time by starting a new game of Skyrim and not get married until I was good and ready. After like 20 hours, I settled on Mjoll the Lioness as my constant companion, because: a) She has her own high-level weapons, b) She'll wear whatever armor you smith/enchant for her, and c) She has the most unique dialogue options in the game, so when you're out on the road, she doesn't just huff and puff; she talks about how her mom trained her in swordsmanship and how she's been wiping out bad guys her whole life and stuff. She's a little insufferable — "I've NEVER been a sellsword!" — but then, so am I (IRL and on PS3), so we're a pretty great match.

EXCEPT! When we got married, her roommate followed her into my house! All he does is talk about how he rescued Mjoll this one time and she's done nothing but make his life the greatest life in all of Tamriel and how he wants to move away with her and blah blah blah. He's always there! Day and night! Following Mjoll around! I've pickpocketed him, punched him in the head, taken away his house key, but still he keeps coming back! And then! Last night! When I came home from ending Skyrim's Civil War, after weeks and weeks on the road, he was standing in my bedroom watching my wife sleep! It was the creepiest thing I have ever seen in my life!

Also, this asshole keeps perving on me when I'm in my own damn house changing armor!

I can't bring myself to kill him with a sword, but I'm seriously thinking of replacing the Nord Mead in his backpack with some paralysis poison.

Actually, my favorite part of my whole hatred is how I Googled "What the fuck, Aerin? Skyrim." And found these AMAZING forum posts:

I followed Aerin out of the city, took out my bow and an iron arrow -- he's not good enough for anything better -- then I put an arrow through his knee. I dragged his body over a fire and left him.

*

Eventually, Aerin will walk out the door. (If he does not, exit/re-enter the house.) When he leaves, follow him out of Whiterun until nobody can see you and kill him. You should get no bounty and Mjoll will not know this way.

*

I went out and did the Azura's Shrine quest to get the refillable black soul gem. Then I went out and bought the Soul Trap spell. I waited around in the Whiterun house until his sorry hide showed up. He went about his business watching Mjoll and being creepy, I waited, spell at the ready. When he finally left, I followed him. Once we were safely outside the city, I snuck up and cast soul trap, then SLOW MO DECAPITATED HIS ASS!! Now I'm going to get my smithing/enchanting to 100, and create one heck of a helmet or something with his soul. Because we were safely outside the city and such, there was no bounty and Mjoll isn't ticked off at me in the least. Everything is business as usual.

This week's topic is: What creeps you out? And my original answer was: Aerin from Skyrim. But now that I've written this whole post, the answer is: Me.

If Laughter is the Best Medicine, Why Does Jennie Have a Cold?

[Obviously the responsible thing to do when you haven't posted in a billion years is to get someone else to do it for you (in this case: Joe, because he is my go to guest-poster) and have him write something about how awesome you are. I only asked him to post for me, though, (on account of how my brain is muddled with cold medicine) I didn't ask him to say nice things about me. Anyway. Here is his post.]


Laughing is awesome. I think there are studies and stuff about how laughing is good for you. Seriously, look it up. It’s on the Internet somewhere, and if it’s on the Internet somewhere, it’s true. There is no denying that I have what can kindly be called a boisterous laugh. A few weeks ago there was a comic convention in town, and from across the crowded room a guy I know knew that I was there because he heard me laugh. I’ve been told that my laugh is great, and that it’s annoying. If I could change my laugh to be more appealing to those people, I wouldn’t, because screw them, but also I don’t think it’s even possible to change your laugh. That’s probably something else you could look up on the Internet, but I don’t feel like doing that right now. The most recent person to comment on the volume of my laughter is Jennie, and she should know because I laugh constantly when I’m with her. This will not come as a shock to any of you, but my wife is hilarious. Her non-sequiturs are legendary, usually involving replacing words in songs with ‘poop’ or making fart noises (which have always had a direct line to my funny bone), and the resultant laughter is usually a mixture of amusement and WTFness. I cannot even begin to imagine what goes on in her brain sometimes, but if I had the chance to experience it myself, I most definitely would want to go to there. I go to Jennie when I need a laugh, and even if I haven’t specifically gone looking for one, she always delivers. And if Jennie’s not available, I watch this video.



Or this one.

   

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooow.

What's brown and sticky?

Mine was not a laughing family. If humor is genetic both branches of the old tree were bereft, not a single shimmering leaf to be found glinting in the jolly sun. And yet despite this lack of natural propensity I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of humor. There are few people in the world, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of humor than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. Indeed, I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in humor is to be acquired, without constant practice.

Sadly, no one taught me, no one attended me. Without a governess I was neglected. My mother should have taken me to town every spring for the benefit of the masters, but I suppose she had no opportunity. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. So, though I am not yet four and thirty, I seek out humor where I may find it. And without fail, I find it in Camilla and the Chickens.

Two Things That Always Make Me Laugh

1. This blog post. It gives a little perspective into life suckingness and working at Chuck E. Cheese.




2. This blog post that I wrote drunk. There used to be a lot of amazing comments, too, before we lost all our old comments. Someone had edited the pic above by adding "i wanted some little diebbie oatleaml cream pies but riete aid didnt hae tehm." LOLcat style. It was epic. And accurate of almost all my sentiments all the time.

Condoms, Rose! Condoms! Condoms! Condoms!

 
I think the number one rule of blogging is that you're not supposed to apologize when you take a hiatus from blogging because it comes off as even more narcissistic than the actual act of blogging. Like, "I'm so sorry I've been away; it must have felt like the winter of deepest despair without your daily dose of my own personal opinions!" But I really do want to apologize for our hiatus. Not because of your despair, but because everyone else at Collective HQ is awesome at Managing Their Shit, except for me. My inability to properly organize my time/say no/write a recap for my job in less than ten thousand hours is a real nuisance. I've missed you guys an awful lot, is what I am saying.

ANYWAY.

This week's topic is: When you need a laugh, who/what do you turn to?

Mostly I turn to the longest, most stable relationship in my life. The one with my TV. Most sitcoms are funny in a single-viewing kind of way, but these four make me laugh and laugh no matter how many times I've seen the episodes and heard the jokes.

1) Community



2) Arrested Development



3) Golden Girls



4) Friends



Honorable mention for Parks and Rec after season one and The Office through season three.