Susan Cooper ~ The Dark Is Rising
(The Dark is Rising Sequence ~ Book 2)
All Available Now On Kindle!

• Midwinter’s Eve •

“Too many!” James shouted, and slammed the door behind him.
“What?” said Will.
“Too many kids in this family, that’s what. Just too many.” James stood fuming on the landing like a small angry locomotive, then stumped across to the window-seat and stared out at the garden. Will put aside his book and pulled up his legs to make room. “I could hear all the yelling,” he said, chin on knees.
“Wasn’t anything,” James said. “Just stupid Barbara again. Bossing. Pick up this, don’t touch that. And Mary joining in, twitter twitter twitter. You’d think this house was big enough, but there’s always people.”
They both looked out of the window. The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawsons’ Farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.
“Four days to Christmas,” Will said. “I wish it would snow properly.”
“And your birthday tomorrow.”
“Mmm.” He had been going to say that too, but it would have been too much like a remind-er. And the gift he most wished for on his birthday was something nobody could give him: it was snow, beautiful, deep, blanketing snow, and it never came. At least this year there was the grey sprinkle, better than nothing.

He said, remembering a duty: “I haven’t fed the rabbits yet. Want to come?”
Booted and muffled, they clumped out through the sprawling kitchen. A full symphony or- chestra was swelling out of the radio; their eldest sister Gwen was slicing onions and singing; their mother was bent broad-beamed and red-faced over an oven. “Rabbits!” she shouted, when she caught sight of them. “And some more hay from the farm!”
“We’re going!” Will shouted back. The radio let out a sudden hideous crackle of static as he passed the table. He jumped. Mrs Stanton shrieked, “Turn that thing DOWN.”

Outdoors, it was suddenly very quiet. Will dipped out a pail of pellets from the bin in the farm-smelling barn, which was not really a barn at all, but a long, low building with a tiled roof, once a stable. They tramped through the thin snow to the row of heavy wooden hutches, leav-ing dark footmarks on the hard frozen ground.
Opening doors to fill the feed-boxes, Will paused, frowning. Normally the rabbits would be huddled sleepily in corners, only the greedy ones coming twitch-nosed forward to eat. Today they seemed restless and uneasy, rustling to and fro, banging against their wooden walls; one or two even leapt back in alarm when he opened their doors. He came to his favourite rabbit, named Chelsea, and reached in as usual to rub him affectionately behind the ears, but the animal scuffled back away from him and cringed into a corner, the pink-rimmed eyes staring up blank and terrified.
“Hey!” Will said, disturbed. “Hey James, look at that. What’s the matter with him? And all of them?”
“They seem all right to me.”
“Well, they don’t to me. They’re all jumpy. Even Chelsea. Hey, come on, boy —” But it was no good.
“Funny,” James said with mild interest, watching. “I dare say your hands smell wrong. You must have touched something they don’t like. Same as dogs and aniseed, but the other way round.”
“I haven’t touched anything. Matter of fact, I’d just washed my hands when I saw you.”
“There you are then,” James said promptly. “That’s the trouble. They’ve never smelt you clean before. Probably all die of shock.”
“Ha very ha.” Will attacked him, and they scuffled together, grinning, while the empty pail toppled rattling on the hard ground. But when he glanced back as they left, the animals were still moving distractedly, not eating yet, staring after him with those strange frightened wide eyes.
“There might be a fox about again, I suppose,” James said. “Remind me to tell Mum.” No fox could get at the rabbits, in their sturdy row, but the chickens were more vulnerable; a fam-ily of foxes had broken into one of the henhouses the previous winter and carried off six nicely-fattened birds just before marketing time. Mrs Stanton, who relied on the chick- en-money each year to help pay for eleven Christmas presents, had been so furious she had kept watch afterwards in the cold barn two nights running, but the villains had not come back. Will thought that if he were a fox he would have kept clear too; his mother might be married to a jeweller, but with generations of Buckinghamshire farmers behind her, she was no joke when the old instincts were roused.

Tugging the handcart, a home-made contraption with a bar joining its shafts, he and James made their way down the curve of the overgrown drive and out along the road to Dawsons’ Farm. Quickly past the churchyard, its great dark yew trees leaning out over the crumbling wall; more slowly by Rooks’ Wood, on the corner of Church Lane. The tall spinney of horse-chestnut trees, raucous with the calling of the rooks and rubbish-roofed with the clut-ter of their sprawling nests, was one of their familiar places.
“Hark at the rooks! Something’s disturbed them.” The harsh irregular chorus was deafen- ing, and when Will looked up at the treetops he saw the sky dark with wheeling birds. They flapped and drifted to and fro; there were no flurries of sudden movement, only this clamorous interweaving throng of rooks.
“An owl?” “They’re not chasing anything. Come on, Will, it’ll be getting dark soon.”
“That’s why it’s so odd for the rooks to be in a fuss. They all ought to be roosting by now.”
Will turned his head reluctantly down again, but then jumped and clutched his brother’s arm, his eye caught by a movement in the darkening lane that led away from the road where they stood. Church Lane: it ran between Rooks’ Wood and the churchyard to the tiny local church, and then on to the River Thames.

Like an old friend handing you a cozy cup of hot tea late on a cold winter’s night.

This may be the second book in the series but it is in my opinion the first book to really matter as in a Classic Paranormal YA worth reading kinda way. Susan Cooper started this series going for a more “children’s” style which is dominant in the first and third books of this series. Which may be why I find them less appealing

On the other hand I think that the books that focus on Will Stanton as he faces the changes of becoming an “Old One” are where the real magic is at. She found something with that character they made her better as a writer. Some magic connection.

That means I highly recommend this second book first… The Dark Is Rising, and then the fourth book The Grey King and finally the big finish with the fifth book Silver On The Tree. I leave the first and third, all these books are wonderfully standalone anyway, for those who come to enjoy the magic of this series and want to read a bit more but I just think they do not represent her best stuff.

So if you want Christmas Classic Paranormal YA here is the best on my shelf. Grade A+

About that tragic movie version of this timeless classic… Listen, the director David L. Cunningham is this “Holy Roller” bigoted greedy materialistic piece of trash who “had problems” with the pagan stuff described in the writing. So instead of dropping out for “personal reasons” like any honest professional person would do he decided to sabotage the entire project with his “Christianized version” of the story and totally bizarre script writer (The guy from Trainspotting? For this?) and casting choices. He did a great job of tanking the film.

DO NOT BUY THAT CRAP MOVIE! I hope no one ever hires that dishonest SOB director again.

Avalon (2001)

Avalon is like this poor orphaned red headed step child of Mamoru Oshii who is the renowned Japanese director of the Anime classic Ghost In The Shell (Netflix Streaming). Man I really hate how this movie gets treated here in the states. It sucks!

It has all the stuffs we adore about Ghost In The Shell. The “manufactured reality” versus “what we consider to be reality” of the Matrix and the whole man versus intelligent machine of Blade Runner all nicely done up in a thick almost mythological soup of cross referenced sci-fi idioms and concepts. Video games and video game players (In this case a strong kick ass woman!) and getting caught up in the manufactured reality of a game while the real world sucks and how far would you go to win etc etc etc. Just like all our favorite Anime films, all of them!

I think it must be the whole live action part with dubbing and/or subtitles that is probably what turns people off. I just think Poland was so freaking appropriate and looks so much like a manufactured programmed wasteland it so works for a movie like this.

Anyhow, I am biting a big one here for a Christmas Stocking Stuffer and finally getting the Blu-Ray from Yes Asia. Pricey is a word that could be used for doing this and stupid might be a better choice. The fact is this Blu-Ray will probably never see a release here in America so what do you do? Close your eyes and imagine it is an exotic boxset from the far east with a gold leaf case with angels dancing on the head of a pin.

This film needs Blu-Ray though. Mamoru Oshii did not so much film this movie as he stuck a rough draft in Photoshop and painted the movie frame by frame digitally. So every centimeter of texture and detail counts and every lighting effect and shadow and angle could have meaning.

If you want to see Anime become real or what a well known and well loved Anime film director would do with real live actors you can go cheap and get the DVD from Walmart for about 10 bucks while the dwindling supplies last. I know for a fact the price at Amazon was jacked up to three times that much recently.

Grade A for an unloved, forgotten, but intelligent and wonderfully made sci-fi film about an ass kicking shoot em up Polish woman video game player and how far would you go to win the game. A movie I can watch again and again. That I am seriously paying way too much for the (All Region) Japanese Blu-Ray.

Helvetica (2007)

We all know words have power. Did you know that fonts can have that same ability?

If you have Netflix Streaming click on the craziest most informative documentary on fonts I have ever seen or ever wanted to see to be honest. I was bored and it was there I tell you! Who knew the secret movers and shakers of the “font world” would be so moving or shaking? These guys are really into their lettering. Boris stole that S curve from me I know he did!

You have got to see this thing!

Maybe Tom Cruise can play the part of Helvetica for the dramatic remake. He’s a method actor you know.

Grade A for being so unexpectedly interesting in a Netflix Streaming random way.

Skyrim

Bethesda just patched Skyrim to version 1.02 on the PS3 and fucked it up really really bad.

It used to be I would start experiencing “lag” issues so I would have to save before it totally froze up on me but I could still save and then turn the PS3 off and restart it back up. NOW… You are going along and want to go into a shop or something so you hit the door and BAM! During the transition the whole thing freezes up bad. It can also freeze up like this when it goes to Autosave randomly.

To make matters worse with the latest OS update from dear old Sony they decided to include a couple of nag screens now about the PS3 not being shut down correctly so you have to say OK to the first nag screen and then it wants to check the disk and files so you have to say OK to the second nag screen.

Oh Sony PS3 Programmer, pookie bear I did not shut the machine down the game froze honey buns. So I tapped the little button on the front of the PS3 like the manual says to do and it shut itself down.

I have and have had for ages now no control over how this dang machine shuts itself down so why blame me for it? Plus Sony PS3 Programmer sweetie dearest if the power goes out thus shutting the machine down the wrong way AGAIN I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THAT! Sweetie darling!

So please take the stupid nag screens out and if the damn machine needs to check files and disks then do not ask me for an OK. I don’t care really! Just do it! It’s not like I would say “no way” to something like that and you really do not give me any choices to say “no” anyway.

So why have any nag screens in the first place? Please please please please take the annoying cloying nag screens out pookie kins.

I won Skyrim by the way. Once you get to the part where you have to capture the dragon in Whiterun at Dragonsreach you better have the best armor in the game and the best weapon before you catch him because he’s gonna offer you a ride to the big guy and it’s all end game from there on out.

Remember I told you guys about Stacking… Pretty early on game time I made full on Dragonplate (Legendary) Armor at 138 and have a Glass War Axe (Legendary) at 146 all fully enchanted with various soul trap and absorb health spells and fortify magic and fortify health spells using that dual enchantment perk. All the stuff I learned and used with my focus on Smithing and Enchantment but also using a special fortify smithing ring I made that jacks my smithing ability up by 28% and I also use a ton of Blacksmith’s Elixer up 50% and Enchanter’s Elixer up 20% I horde away for when I want to make my own stuffs.

Anyway, FUN GAME!

Literally Skyrim was the best game I played all year and I am not the world’s biggest fan of the Fantasy RPG’s. Let’s hope they do this same thing to the Fallout series just one more time in house like none of those outsourced jobs anymore please and give us a huge Post Apocalyptic Sci-fi gun toting fun fest.

Still I say the best way to enjoy this game is not to play the main quest in fact ignore it. I only found two things I was looking for at the very end. The last mask for that group posed Dragon Priest statue. If you found any of these masks and the wooden mask you know what I mean. Also the last and final 20th Shout was learned after you defeated the last dragon. But that was all I found at the ending there I might have missed something I can go check later.

But really, do all the side mission stuff. Enjoy all the exploration and all the hidden fun to be found. Go ride a horse or just wander the gorgeous countryside picking flowers and digging for gold and get lost in the caves and valleys and mountain tops of this fantasy land of adventure because that journey was the best part not the final game ending battle with the big mean dragon. In fact waving my sword around hacking at yet another dragon was sorta boring no matter how much bigger it was.

Grade A for a most excellent journey and the awe inspiring magic of being able to do just about anything I wanted to do.

Blue Velvet (1986)

It’s a sunny, woodsy day in Lumberton, so get those chainsaws out. This is the mighty W.O.O.D., the musical voice of Lumberton. At the sound of the falling tree, it’s 9:30. There’s a whole lotta wood waitin’ out there, so let’s get goin’.

Almost every shot in this movie was filmed right down the street from my little old house.

So is actually living in Wilmington, North Carolina like living in a David Lynch film? Well mostly, I mean people can be truly strange here and seemingly disconnected from reality on every level. What do you expect? It’s a Republican run “good old boy” club house that still thinks drinking and homosexuality and “being colored” is a sin and that the EPA steals your soul and that gas guzzling mericun cars are actually something to be proud of and that sky daddy will save them from the fucked up idiotic mess they have created here with all their churchgoing narrow minded greed and selfish ignorance. I have to say there is a certain youth and innocence about David Lynch and especially in this particular movie since it was done right before Twin Peaks that I find missing in real life picturesque Wilmington, North Carolina though. I tend to feel more like Francine Fishpaw in Polyester.

This version of Blue Velvet is now as gor-jesus as this place really can be. No more pan and scan bullshit. Oh it still is presented in letter box but dang the colors pop and the image is pristine. If you have a PS3 you have just got to see this movie in all it’s twisted glory. If you have seen David Lynch’s later films and were turned off I still say try this one out. There is a hard to describe “more cohesive” flowing story presented here than in later David Lynch films even though there is also a ton of the usual symbolism and film technique only for the sake of symbolism and film technique.

Isabella Rossellini is supreme as the self destructive femme fatale and then there is Dennis Hopper the pervy villain chewing up more scenery than a weed whacker set on mulch.

Grade A

MIMA ~ Wild Within (Bonded Fantasy 1)
From: Liquid Silver Books

Yet it had been two days now and she had not been able to get a coherent word out of Rylan since. She was terrified, furious, that it was too late. Now she sat in this winter cold room that was Rylan’s latest shak, a poor one as he struggled between sicknesses.Her eyes drifted over the cracked walls, the gaps and the chips, the rough clay floor. It is empty of more than the belongings I’ve sold for fresh water and food, she thought. This life of ours is dead, and this key is going to pick the lock of the Beast caves.

She wrestled Rylan into a pair of thick pants, a tunic, and a sweater she’d been using as his pillow. She was rough, glad when she shook him awake. She was panting as she finished wrapping his belt on and tying his warclub to it. She stuffed his feet into boots and stood glaring down at him.

“I’m leaving. If you want to live, get up and follow me.”

Her words fell hard and cold, but she knew he would heed them. He could not delay any longer. The final chance to decide in favor of life over death was here, and she was confident of his choice, despite how his fear for her had made him wait until his body was at its weakest.

She turned and walked out into the harsh white sun.

She waited outside, leaning against the house. The sun was bright, but not warm enough to heat the adobe. As she waited for him to summon the will to follow her, her mind raced. Free of the burden to convince him to go, she thought again of her weak plan on how she was going to get there. Her only supplies were an oilskin wrapped around her waist with a coil of rope, and sharp throwing stones currently tied around a smaller rope’s ends like a bolo. She had no food, as her stomach growled around the dry heels she’d forced down. But she wouldn’t have gotten this far in life without being able to think on an empty stomach. When Rylan staggered, wheezing, into the doorway, she ducked under his arm to drape it around her shoulders, and they were off, heading due south. South out of the City, and south to find the Beasts.

KarRa and Rylan have been friends since they were children living and thieving together in the slums of a great city. Rylan you see is not human though, he is a Trux, and when he starts getting sick KarRa in desperation decides they must journey to the caves of the beasts where he might be taken in and cured. This will mean that KarRa must go with him and face the dangers of the unknown.

I got this eBook from All Romance eBooks last April in one of their giveaways and fell in love with MIMA’s writing. Here is a fantasy world lush with detail and the deadly Trux warriors with their rituals and culture are strange and mysterious. This is mainly a Straight Romance series but there are several gay scenes that you come across and it looks like the latest book is a flat out Ménage Romance… anyway I really liked this first book so much I went and bought a few more and I just noticed this week there are like 8 books in the series now and I really need to catch up on my reading. In other words MIMA slow down please.

The great thing is that MIMA is a smart writer and has kept each of the books in the series a stand alone story and let’s face the fact that out of nine books it is pretty much a sure thing that you will run into some that will not work for you. So with this series you can start from the beginning and work your way forward or you can just pick and choose the ones that look like something you might enjoy reading and just go for it.

Thank you MIMA for being not only a talented writer but an intelligent one. I wish more writers made more of an effort to write series books as stand alone so the reader does not get bogged down having to slog through a book they would rather not read just to get to one they do.

This first book gets a Grade A for getting me hooked on the series. The whole series in fact is an auto buy for me presently and I will wait till it is through before grading it but so far things are pretty damn awesome.

Will Fellows ~ Farm Boys: Lives Of Gay Men From The Rural Midwest
From: The University of Wisconsin Press

Now On Adobe Digital Editions & Google eBookstore!

Tough boys, running the streets, come a little closer
Rough toys, under the sheets, nobody knows her
Rough boys, don’t walk away, I very nearly missed you
Tough boys, come over here, I wanna bite and kiss you
Pete Townshend ~ Rough Boys

Today’s off the wall topic… fetishizing “Straight boy sexual encounters” mixed with Gay porn and calling into question Gay men and their sexual images. Anyone who has seen my past comments on this probably has picked up that I find the whole topic to be old hat and actually sorta, (How shall I say this nicely?) … Much to do about loathing.

It’s one of those problems I find with describing Brokeback Mountain as the first mainstream “Gay Romance” movie. “Gay Romance”? I did not think so when I saw the film or read the damn book. First “Tragic Bisexual Affair” perhaps, because let’s face it… They never got past the sex to actually have the boring part of any “real” relationship that entails living together and waking up to each other every single fucking day and weathering out the tossing and turning of simply being together as men and dealing with the big issues of commitment, communication and compromise and change and… You know the whole living the whole Gay lifestyle thing.

You get the picture?

It was tragic because it was probably a “realistic depiction” of a relationship in denial of what it was and the disappointments we all face in life maybe. OK? Another example… I once worked on a loading dock in East San Jose. While working there I was a known queer boy who was also the bosses son, my dad got me the job just outta High School *que bump and grind music*. Anyway, there was this burly biker guy who worked there… let’s see if I can describe him appropriately. Vietnam Vet type with scraggly long dirty blond hair and full beard with a Harley and an ever present scrawny blonde chick in a tube top riding “bitch”. I think that gives the appropriate picture I am going for here.

Anywho, we became sorta friends and used to come over to each others stations and chat every so often. Then one day we decided to go for drinks at the local truck drivers bar and proceeded to get trashed. While walking back to our cars behind the bar in the dark gravel strewn back lot he pulled me into a corner and proceeded to deep throat me like no tomorrow.

Let’s review, Straight Hell’s Angel type, messy kisser, big burly bear, bad boy rough biker guy, and this was back in the Castro Clone years no less… Well, one thing lead to another and back at my place we rolled around on the living room carpet because we were so hot we could not even wait to go upstairs to the bedroom and pull each others clothes off in a drunken brawl of hard dicks and sweaty male lust.

He then threw his legs up in the air and in the most dissappointing moment in my entire sex life he grunted “fuck me”. *sigh*

That is “real”

That my friends is just… “real”

The fact is real life tends to be like that and using fantasies like porn or overly dramatic movies to provide a foundation for social commentary is tricky at best. Most adults understand the difference between fantasy, even sexual fantasy, and reality and have the experiences to discern these things. I can only hope.

If you are looking for good examples of what hardships Gay Men face in life on the farm I’d stick with real stories like those found in this book Will Fellows ~ Farm Boys: Lives Of Gay Men From The Rural Midwest. It’s not always totally depressing but with true story after true story, about 30 or so individuals give full accounts of their lives and well, it comes pretty damn close. Showing you everything from child abuse to ex-gay Christian ministry victims and so on and so on. Hey, there’s even a story by some guy who REALLY loved his barnyard animals, oh yeah, cringe inducing material is to be had here baby.

All real and valid stories from the heartland. It also shows men surviving the loneliness and isolation and becoming more accepting of themselves and their lives and even enjoying their rural existence and that is the few good parts I found. Give it a spin so you can have a reference when looking at Brokeback Mountain and doing so in an honest way.

Brokeback Mountain is damn good writing, but in being a damn good work of fiction it had to have drama and conflict and the writer created what she created and hey, a movie deal is proof it worked.

But… If you are looking for “The Desert of The Real” I suggest reading this here extremely rare non-fiction visit to the Gay Midwest for that.

Grade A

George Chauncey ~ Gay New York
From: BASIC

Now On Kindle!

Have you seen the well-to-do up and down Park Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare with their noses in the air
High hats and Arrow collars white spats and lots of dollars
Spending every dime for a wonderful time
Taco ~ Puttin On The Ritz

Oh wow! One of my favorite resource books on early Gay Society in the US. This thing really gives a great idea how Gay Men lived before the Second World War when Gay Culture really starts shipping out west since basically that’s where the Navy and Marines shipped the folks who got kicked out on Dishonorable Discharges… San Francisco and LA. How do you think the San Francisco Gay Ghetto really got it’s start on Polk Street?

Not from the travel brochures I can tell you.

If you are interested in the type of references I use for my own understanding of early Gay Culture definitely pick this eBook up maybe along with Justin Spring: Secret Historian which dovetails it nicely I think.

Grade A

Armistead Maupin ~ Tales Of The City (1978)
From: HarperCollins Publishers

Now On Kindle!

“Hi! I’m Nancy Drew! You must be the Hardy Boys!”

It’s hard not to love this book for so many reasons. There is no subtle self hating intellectually overbearing homosexual expose of debauchery going on here as with so much of Gay Lit written around the time this book got published. It’s not trying too hard to take itself seriously or trying to impress you too hard with any weighty tragic matters. It’s basically a rambling humorous tale out of the mind of a Gay newspaper columnist who wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle for ages having a bit of fun weaving “real events” and “real local nut jobs” and some of the “local legends” all with the typical San Francisco knack for being sordid but also hilariously out there at the same time and turning it all into his great novel.

God bless Armistead Maupin for opening up a small window at the right time and place and letting people laugh at the whack job “straight folks” while also giving readers a strong sense of the growing Gay culture of seventies San Francisco making it all the more magical at a time that it pretty much had become the center of the Gay universe no matter how much New York hates that fact.

Grade A for some Classic Gay Lit even.

Fallout 3 ~ Game Of The Year Edition

Are you OCD? Do you happen to find it relaxing collecting all of something and sticking that something into a nice neat pile. Not that I am accusing you of being a clean freak or anything like that in fact your house is probably a mess most likely but you still like to eat jellybeans by sorting them all into separate colors and only eating one kind at a time.

Yeah, I know you.

Boy, have I got the game for you! I originally gave Fallout 3 a pass because I had tried to play the original version of the game and well it has a real dragged out boring first part. After playing Fallout: New Vegas and realizing how utterly buggy it was I had to go back and revisit this game because I figured if after seeing the meat of the new game there had to be some juicy steak I missed in the first one.

I am glad I did… Fallout 3 is a huge game and I swear I have still not visited every part or seen every side quest or done it all. I just got through playing it for a week and a half too. So if exploring and collecting are some of your favorite parts of a dungeon style quest game grab Fallout 3 and especially this Game Of The Year Edition with all the DLC and add-ons and complete patches.

All for a really really cheap $30.

Now the game play is so not perfect because as I said the first part with the character generation is so boring and it still freezes up occasionally and you still should make sure you save constantly but unlike Fallout: New Vegas none of that gets too annoying or “in the way” of you enjoying the story that is unfolding. None of the glitches I experienced playing Fallout 3 kept me from completing any major parts of the game ever unlike Fallout: New Vegas.

Things I wish I had known before starting this epic game…

FIRST! With all the DLCs installed you need to know something before starting the game.

There is a Level 30 perk called Almost Perfect that has been added. This severely changes how you might go about playing the game especially if you are more about tooling around and not necessarily doing the main quests.

If you plan on taking the Almost Perfect perk then do not pickup any Bobbleheads when you find them in the game until you hit Level 30 where you take the Almost Perfect perk and ONLY THEN run around collecting all the Bobbleheads like a fool because you know where they all are and spent so much time not picking them up like you wanted to. This will make your character literally game perfect and mega powerful no matter how bad the choices you made when you started out the game. So that means you have to “not do certain things” you would usually do in the game. DO NOT start the main quest Finding the Garden of Eden or the side quest Trouble on the Homefront. Since Garden of Eden dumps you into the only chance to get the Energy Weapons Bobblehead which you cannot go back to again and Home Front gives you the very last chance to get the Medicine Bobblehead from dad’s desk.

A big thing to take into consideration according to how you want to play the game and if you want to try for playing a perfect character.

In the game one of the first BIG decisions you have to make is if you should destroy Magaton a town you run into. I say do not destroy it because it has some big bonuses for you using it as your home base. Walter’s Scrap Metal being the best one. Walter will give you not only good money for any scrap metal you find but experience points with it remember we are going for level 30 here so every point counts. He is the only guy who does this for scrap metal in the entire game so always use him to sell your scrap metal.

Objects to never sell but stash them for selling for good money and experience points like this…

• Brotherhood of Steel Holotags
• Scrap Metal
• Pre-War Books
• Teddy Bears

So do what the game is asking you to do and start stashing stuff at your house in the various lockers they give you and keep an on hand inventory of crap that will be needed later on. I am just telling you about the stuff that turned out to be of HUGE BENEFIT to have kept a hold of and not sold off ever to the numerous random vendors in the game.

Each of these items has a person in the game who will give you both good money and experience points which will be critical for a nice long game and your survival in it. Check out the Fallout 3 wiki under “repeatable quests” for more information. In fact that whole site is the best one to scrounge for necessary information on the many many hidden aspects of this game.

Other objects I suggest you keep are bottlecaps which have no weight and you can carry as much as you want and gun ammo of the physical variety… You know, bullet like ammo labeled 10mm or .308 the numbered stuff not the energy weapon stuff. The reason to keep all this ammo you are not using is it has no weight but also when you complete The Pitt DLC because you are running around doing all the side quests racking up to level 30 you can turn any ammo you happen to have into any other ammo you happen to use as long as it is bullet like not energy weapons.

Here are other items to collect and sell “to a specific person” you will find in the game for good money…

• Nuka-Cola Quantum
• Sugar Bombs
• Blood Packs

Lastly I never really ate any of that food or drink playing the game because most of it is radioactive. So the ONLY things I ever bought from vendors were Stimpaks and Ammo and any of those highly collectible objects for the other characters in the game who pay you huge money and sometimes experience points for them. Learn to get some sleep (You only need to do it for 1 hour to get all the benefits out of it.) because that is the best health restoration when not eating or drinking any of that radioactive crap.

What I am hinting at is the very best weapons or armor worth getting is the stuff you pickup from dead bodies or get in various quests and repair yourself so the best skills in the game to have are Repair, Speech, Lockpick. So you can always get access to things you want and fix them when you need. When using “Repair” remember to select the item you want to repair and NOT to repair the item you don’t want with an item you want to keep. That was a bad mistake I learned that unique items can be used to repair common ones and then you lose that unique item forever. Also remember weapons that depend on blowing up… will blow your ass up as well. I don’t tend to play without arms or legs so sell them and get good money for selling them before you hurt yourself.

The best thing to buy for your house from Craterside Supply in Megaton is My First Infirmary so all your medical needs are taken care of by a quick trip home from then on out.

Grade A for Fallout 3: Game Of The Year Edition but only if you are an OCD gaming fiend from hell and like to wander around a post apocalyptic earth looking for junk to buy and sell and fix. Well, there is that main quest to save the world blah blah blah but who cares about that since every game does that.