Stand back! ... ... CLEAR!

[This post was originally supposed to be made at the beginning of the month. Dunno why it didn't get published]

Greetings to my small (And, according to the traffic stats, comprised of a single russian using google chrome) audience.
So, it's been quite a while, eh? Have a seat by the campfire, and let me tell you what's been going on with ol' Jeff. Since my last post, 3 months or so ago, I've started attending school at a small technology university. The atmosphere here is great, and I've met a lot of like-minded individuals, at least some of whom I will work with in the future to create magic. I've also been stuffing my face at the all-you-can-eat buffet provided by my residence meal plan.
Oh, and before I forget, I've started another blog on wordpress, this time for school. I figured I should use a different service, so I don't get confused and post personal stuff on there, or school assignments here. That sounds like something I would do.
Aside from that, I've been trying to find some time to work on the Hazard Course in what little free time I have. For some reason, the team hasn't gotten fed up with my new absenteeism and fired me yet. I guess I must be valuable to them or something, despite the level designers being the biggest part of the team, and thus making me more expendable.
All is, of course, quiet on the romantic front, (I have a blog, so that's probably not hard to guess.) and I think that's how I like it. More manageable than the alternative, which in my experience consists of a single action; feeling like crap. Of course, neither of these scenarios actually has any romance involved, but, the chances of taking a third option have always been pretty slim, no?
And that's been the monthly quota of joking self-deprecation filled. Which means I won't have to do any on my birthday, which is coming up in the near future. And by near future I mean before November.

In news that's more relevant to the actual focus of this blog, I've been playing a bit of the Battlefield 4 beta. Now, having never played any of the other games in the Battlefield franchise, this means I'm really very crap at it. But I manage to kill between 2 and 6 people every 800-ticket match, as well as assist in a lot of point captures, so I'm not totally useless. I'm still on the fence about buying the full game when it comes out, partially because the Battlefield franchise, like just about every other modern military-themed FPS out there, isn't exactly known for its strong singleplayer, and I am primarily singleplayer focused. The other main reason is Origin, EA's craptastic steam alternative. Now, to play the beta, I had to sign up for it, so my soul has already been sold. But something about keeping it on my hard drive just doesn't sit well with me. It's mostly because the interface is just so much bloat. It starts off on the store page, rather than your games library (I suspect as a not-so-subtle hint that EA wants more money from you) and when launching the Battlefield 4 beta (the only thing I have on Origin at the moment) it simply launches the battlelog site in your favorite browser. The site acts as your character options menu and a server list. What, EA, too cheap to integrate server browsing into Origin? Don't even want to let Dice put one in their game? What is this? It also makes me question whether or not I'll be able to play my hypothetically-bought copy of Battlefield 4 offline if, say, EA goes under, or I, god forbid, go out into the country (where my parents live, for instance) for a bit. Origin does appear to have an offline mode, but will it work with Battlefield 4? Hell if I know.

Anyway, I'll try to get my time management in order, keep abreast of any developments in the industry (or my personal life), and keep the updates a little more frequent than every 16 months. Until th