Blinded by the Lite

Well, despite my best efforts to secure a DS Lite from those Targets that broke the street date, I am still left waiting for mine to arrive on the 11th. Releasing a new console on a Sunday seems odd to me, however I can only assume that Nintendo wants the DS Lite to spring from the Sunday circulars and lure us to the stores like the good little zombie consumers that we are.

I feel that I should purchase a game with my DS Lite but that would break my carrying case rule, which is that I can never have more DS games that can fit in a combination of the unit itself and the carrying case. This keeps me from buying games, playing them for 10 minutes and then buying new ones just because I'm attracted to the shiny, jangliness of it all. I have a terrible habit of never finishing handheld games, so this keeps my purchasing impulses in check. Truth be told, there really isn't anything out there for the DS that I feel the need to purchase, although Big Brain Academy is interesting. I love me some puzzle games, and this seems like it'd be right up the ol' alley. I'm still working on Brain Training, however I've gotten to the point in my Soduku career where I can't just plow through a puzzle, assigning numbers all willy-nilly and expecting it to work out in the end. The last puzzle I did was going swimmingly until I had a row with 4 9's, the letter Q and what appeared to be a crude drawing of a cat. I was watching "An Evening with Kevin Smith" and he was telling the Prince documentary story, and Prince was stealing godless women or something, so my attention wasn't all there, but still. Our local paper has mega soduku puzzles that have numbers and letters which always struck me as odd, because last I checked, numbers go up past 9, so why not just use double digit numbers? Next they'll be using basic shapes, or punctuation symbols or colored squares and you'll need a box of crayons do to the damn things.

But I digress. My future plans for the current DS are up in the air. Trading it in seems the quickest route, however there's nothing I need to put the credit towards and lately when I trade things in their salivations at the notion that I may preorder something leave me unsettled and slightly damp. I could sell it on eBay, but that would involve things like typing, packing and movement in the direction of the post office. Any one of those actions are enough to make me want to collapse in an exhausted heap, but all of them, two of them possibly in the same day, are more than I think I can handle. Plus, my screen does have some very minor scratching which is probably all that it takes for the seller to start screaming "fraud" and raise a ruckus. No, I can't describe the ruckus as it hasn't taken place yet, but I'm sure it would fall in line with your garden variety ruckuses. I'm sure I'll figure something out. Perhaps a perusal of the upcoming release schedule will unearth some pixellated nuggets that I can preorder.

I haven't been playing much lately as I've been watching back episodes of Deadwood to prepare myself for the upcoming beginning of Season 3. I don't know if I'll get through all of them in time, but I can tell you that I'm having a better time watching this show than I am navigating Kratos through the current shitty puzzle in God of War. I'm liking the game, in terms of the story, production values and combat, but these puzzles are absolutely craptastic. Nothing pulls me out of a game more than fighting your way through some temple's hallways so that I can balance on a rafter and try to jump spinning blade thingies, or do some logrolling exercise on a big spiked drum. Maybe I just get irritated too easily with these things, but when I think of picking the game up again, I don't want to, because I know of the puzzle mayhem that awaits me. I haven't even gotten to the point in the game that caused my friend Dennis to punch the couch in frustration and break his hand. Last I checked, when you have to put down the controller, you should be looking forward to the next time you can pick it up, not thinking that you have to "just get through this" to get to the good stuff.

Guitar Hero is still a lot of fun, and last week I nailed a song with a 5 star performance on the first try, despite never having heard the song before. Yes, it's on easy mode, but I still think that's an impressive feat. I should be playing that game more, but it requires standing, and my children have been sucking the life out of me lately which leaves me in more of a sitting place. Rocking out takes a fair amount of energy, and my audience deserves that I give them 110% which is about 109% more than what I'm currently operating with. On the other hand, sitting back and hearing the word "cocksucker" eleventy-seven times in a 50 minute period requires around 0.5%. Plus, Kristen Bell comes to the camp as a foul mouthed little grifter in the next episode and that's just too fine a television event to miss so that I can navigate some terminally pissed off bald guy over spinning saw blades and bubbling lava pits. Sorry Kratos, kill Ares on your own time, this cocksucker is busy.

Next week I'll update you on my DS Lite impressions, so mark the date on your calendar because it's going to be a tremendously uplifting time for all of us. That is, unless the apocalypse doesn't come tomorrow and suck us all into Hell. Fingers crossed!