Disparate Elements

Moving! Again

2010-08-09T10:17:00.001-05:00

So I'm moving, again. Not that I think anyone is still around here due to my crappy posting schedule. It has been six months after all. I wouldn't be here either if I were you.

I'm now going to be posting over at Todd and Bill's site, The Nut and the Feisty Weasel. That title has to do with college football, or something. I don't know. I want no part of that title so I do not balk at not being represented on the masthead.

One of the things about running your own site, at least for me, is that when I don't write regularly I feel bad for not doing so, like I'm letting down my readers (both of you) and that everyone has left, which then makes me feel that posting isn't necessary because there's no one here. The problem is that I still want to write. Posting with Bill and Todd solves that problem in part because I'm sharing the load with two other folks and entering into a built in audience, even if that audience is for posts of a type I'm not going to make.

It makes sense in my head. Trust me.

So, for the time being, I'll be posting over there and, quite possibly, more than I do here now that the pressure of being solely responsible for content is lifted. At least that's what I'm telling myself now. Next week I'm sure will be a completely different story.

Please come visit me in my new digs that is if you're still visiting these old ones and as always, thank you for taking the time to listen to me blather on.

-Brandon

Podcasting Made (Mostly) Easy

2010-02-01T15:09:00.002-05:00

The GameShark podcasting crew cut their teeth on our very first episode Thursday night and boy howdy is it a doozy. Where else can you hear me defend the portrayal of the pope as an incestuous murderer? Probably no where else as I'm sure to be fired by the end of the week.

There were plenty of technical issues including Skype issues, microphone issues and windy Boston weather blowing Danielle's internet out of her house but we managed to persevere through it all and come up with something worth listening to. At least we think so. Hopefully you agree. Take a listen and if you like it, why not subscribe to our handy RSS feed? You can also come here and listen to them via the gadget on the sidebar over there. So many ways do you have to hear myself and others blather on about games that I can see how you might confuse this day with Christmas or whatever deity approved day of gift giving you currently subscribe too.

I enjoyed making the podcast very, very much however they are a great deal of work and I'm saying this without bearing even a tenth of the total workload. That burden fell squarely on Todd's shoulders and he handled it with aplomb taking the mess of audio files we sent to him and turning it into something that somehow, magically, made us all sound halfway competent. Once that alchemy was performed it was nothing but getting it hosted, tagged, linked and posted on iTunes. That last part is proving tricky as iTunes appears to be broken on the podcasting accepting front. Hopefully that resolve itself soon so that our episodes can be dashed against the rocks of Apple's unforgiving coastline. At this point, I'll be happy if we get to 100 downloads. We're more than halfway there already so hopes are high.

Certainly as podcasters we have a lot to learn and you can tell in our first episode that this is the case but the first episode also shows that we enjoy each other's company and are comfortable enough with each other to talk smack. If I'm going to repeatedly stick my foot in my mouth and insult the leader of major religions, I can't think of a better group to do it with.

Sprinkles, Son of Sprinkles

2010-01-21T14:38:00.003-05:00

So the new laptop has been ordered, for some time now actually and I'm anxiously awaiting its arrival. Here are the details of this mean machine:

Studio 17 Laptop
Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Quad Core Processor @ 1.6GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
17.3” HD+ (900p) Bright LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera
1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650
500GB SATA HDD (7200rpm)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
Dell Wireless 1520 802.11n Half Mini-card
Microsoft® Works 9
McAfee Security Center with VirusScan, Firewall, Spyware Removal, 15-Months
85 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)

I tried to future proof as much as one can in these crazy, technologically advanced times without breaking the bank. I went for something a little more gaming focused as I frequently have to turn down PC reviews and previews because I don't have anything capable of running software released in the past three years. All in all, I think it's a good machine and the 9 cell battery will be a nice change from the thirty minutes of battery power we're currently enjoying. Dell seems to think that the machine won't arrive until February which is a bit of a bummer but at the same time, short of going to Best Buy and paying more money for less of a machine, I don't see what choice I have.

I'm not at all looking forward to the migration of personal data and programs that will take place once the new machine arrives. Short of my Firefox bookmarks, I was able to avoid this entirely when I bought my personal laptop as that's just used for web surfing while playing games as well as my go-to travel machine. I use Google Docs for everything so I won't have much written material to transfer over, but all of the old emails and contact information as well as my entire iTunes library and other things will all have to move. Maybe this will finally get me to clean out our Outlook Inbox. Doubtful, but if anything will get me to do it, a move to a new PC will.

Usually I'm all excited when a new machine is coming as it means I can play new games on it, however I've become so insulated from PC gaming, I have no idea what I'd play in the first place. I hear Torchlight is good, so I may try that one out. Not that I need more games to play when watching TV but I love a good Diablo clone as much as the next guy and it would be nice to have a pet that actually serves a purpose other than taking up the bed and farting. Finally, I won't be limited to only games sold by Big Fish Games. Not that they don't make good games, but when the most your PC can handle is Fairway Solitaire, well, your options are fairly limited.

Nothing to do now but wait, figure out what files and software needs to be moved over and get the other PC's ready for their various moves. One will be moving down to the basement, one will be moving to the recycling center. It's like the circle of life only with more deadly Mercury and less Elton John singing.

On The Buying of Laptops

2010-01-12T13:54:00.003-05:00

We're closing in on five years in Georgia which also means that we've had our laptop, Mr. Sprinkles for almost five years. Unfortunately Mr. Sprinkles is starting to show his age and it's time for us to get a new laptop.

It started about six months ago when things would grind to a halt any time the virus updates downloaded or any time Linda attempted to start IE up. Firefox was faster to launch, but not by much. Now part of this is due to all of the various spyware, adware and other blank-ware programs installed to keep my PC clean as I plunder various torrent sites for new movies. Most of this is from having a PC that's almost 5 years old.

The other problem, which is also the biggest one, is that the battery can only hold a charge for about half an hour. Now as I've grown in years I've found that, depending on the time of day, I can only go about half an hour before having to to go the bathroom so I can certainly relate to Mr. Sprinkles, but whereas I can't get new bladder, I can get a new laptop. Sure I could get a new battery and some more memory and a larger internal hard drive, and upgrade to Windows 7 but really, isn't it just easier to get a new laptop?

So I'm looking for a new laptop and man, what a difference five years makes. First of all these things are incredibly cheap now. Like the one I'm looking for is less than half of what I paid for five years ago and I'm not slouching on parts here. Dell has also started selling pretty much everything with your PC. They've always given you tons of options for things like processors and RAM but now they've seriously expanded all of the stuff that goes with the PC. Want 1000 songs for a nickel? Here you go! How about twenty movies for $150! Take two, they're small! The strangest thing by far though is that once you get through picking what's in the laptop they bring you to the first accessory to buy which is, oddly enough, another laptop. Yes, that's right, the first accessory Dell recommends for your laptop is another laptop.

Now it's a mini, whatever the hell that is, but still, if you're buying a laptop, why do you need another laptop? When I first saw this I thought of Dharma and Greg where Dharma had a dog and her dog had a dog. The mini is supposed to be your laptop's laptop. What does that say about technology and our throw away culture that we consider a laptop to be an accessory for a laptop? Five years from now when you're picking up your new minivan the salesman will tell you "Hey we washed it, gassed it up and threw a golfcart in the back for you." Hell I'd buy another minivan if that was the deal.

So yeah, a laptop is incoming and with it all of the fun of seeing which one of the old programs work with it and which ones don't. I'm sure I'll do what I do with every new piece of technology that enters our home, namely be excited upon it's arrival, then pissed that things don't work than finally accepting of how the thing works once I figure out that it does what it's supposed to do, not necessarily what I want it to do. It's a beautiful cycle, much like a catepillar turning into a butterfly. An angry, bitter butterfly, but a butterfly nonetheless.

Resolutions

2010-01-04T14:45:00.003-05:00

Usually I don't make resolutions for the new year, or any time really as when you're as perfect as I am, there's simply no need to. Lately though my perfection has dimmed a bit, and this slight imperfection warrants addressing. With this in mind I resolve to do the following this year:

1. Shut the hell up - I tend to talk longer than I need to when making a point. I do it mostly with my kids, however in my defense their attention tends to come in and out so you have to talk a bunch to ensure they hear the whole sentiment. Still though, I do go on too long and I've started doing it at work too. So, I resolve to make my point and then stop. Like now for example.

2. Swear less - As a result of my casual work place and my level of comfort there I tend to swear more at work than any semi-professional should. I don't think that anyone cares but even so, it's probably not the best thing to have a potty mouth at the work place. I've already started this one and man it's tough. I'll probably spend the entire ride home swearing to get it all out of my system before I interact with my kids.

3. Watch more movies - This is kind of a stupid one, but we've gotten away from watching movies at home and we need to get back to it. I used to watch movies all of the time when working out but have stopped in favor of gaming. I tend to have better workouts when I watch a movie as I don't have to slow down to handle a tricky section of the game, so there's a practical benefit there too. Mostly it's so that I don't feel like an idiot every time I walk past my extensive collection of DVD's that I don't watch. As a corollary to this I have to watch new movies and not the same movies over and over again. Ditto for Linda and I. We watched a bunch of movies over the break and it was nice. Turns out that big screen is good for more than just gaming.

The usual assortment of dieting and exercising resolutions don't apply to me as I already work out five days a week and I like food too much to go all bat shit crazy and give up the good stuff. In fact, I resolved today to learn how to make skillet fried chicken and that doesn't jive well with dieting. Besides, if I'm dieting I'm cranky and if I'm cranky I'm swearing so it's essential that I eat badly so that I can have success in the other parts of my life. No one wants to hear a hungry potty mouth drone on about how all he wants is to eat one fucking piece of goddamned fried motherfucking chicken.

Oh, I guess I should probably write here more too. Fine.

4. Write here more too - Look at me, I'm resolving!

Here We Go A' Caroling

2009-12-16T15:05:00.003-05:00

With Christmas almost upon us we're listening to Christmas Carols at the house 24 hours a day and unlike in previous years when we'd rotate through the various Christmas cd's we have we're relying mostly on the radio for our Christmas Carol fix. This has, in retrospect, been a bad idea. Gone are the alt-Christmas nuggets of The O.C.'s Christmakkah mixes, gone are the awesome covers such as Jimmy Eat World's brilliant take on "Last Christmas", gone is Wyclef Jean freestyling over Stevie Wonder piano licks as they perform at the White House. No, they have all been replaced with the banal, lifeless Christmas carols emanating from B95.5, Atlanta's soft rock juggernaut of shitty music.

This is mostly an exercise of convenience as the kids are, shall we say, impatient when the cd ends and we do have some cd's with some very odd choices including a "Very Special Christmas" mix that ends with a Patti Smith rendition of "We Three Kings" that sounds like she's trying to give her musical interpretation of the apocalypse. Keeping the radio on ensures an uninterrupted string of Christmas glee and makes sure that nothing strange gets in. Unfortunately it also means that we're confronted with some truly horrible Christmas music.

When I was but a young lad we had a four album set of Christmas music. I can remember it well because every record was in a different color sleeve and each sleeve had different ornaments on it. My sister and I would sit around the record player and look at the sleeves while the music played. Now there were four records but we only played one of them as one record had all of the good songs such as "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "Frosty the Snowman". When you're six, you want to hear about presents and mythical snow beasts, the coming of Our Lord and Saviour is far less important. Plus those songs were probably performed by the Lawrence Welk singers or some shit and as such were boring as hell. As a result of restricting myself to a childhood of snappier, faster Christmas songs I have zero tolerance for slower, drawn out holiday tunes.

Unfortunately, slower and drawn out seems to be the mark of a good Christmas song these days as I have heard some absolutely awful renditions of songs that are so slow and labored that they make "Jingle Bells" sounds like "Kashmir". Part of this is just shitty tempo choices, but part of this is the artist wanting to add their own "spin" to songs by adding words. A perfect example, James Taylor's rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". Not only is it dragged on forever by adding his own lyrics, as if the song wasn't quite good enough on its own, James feels that the song isn't quite specific enough as to when you should have a merry little Christmas, opting to add the word "right" to the line "have yourself a merry little Christmas now". Seriously James? Does the the word "now" not convey immediacy enough for you? Or are you concerned that people will be thinking on a glacial or galactic time scale and think that "now" means sometime this epoch and you want it "right now" as in this very instant? I'm willing to give Yolanda Adams a pass on this one because her version kicks ass and girlfriend can sing.

Of course, this is to say nothing of the rampant oversinging that every artist seems to think is their birthright. Maybe they think that their voice is a gift from Jesus and by dragging a note over an eight octave range is their way of thanking JC for his gifts, but whatever it is, it needs to stop. You can sing, we get it, now please wrap it up, I've got presents to buy. Christina Aguilera is by far the worst at this, which isn't surprising as she's not very good at non-Christmas music either.

Finally, some Christmas songs just need to go away and never come back. Over the course of a normal holiday season I'd hear "A Wonderful Christmas Time" three, maybe four times. I think I've heard it at least seven hundred times since Thanksgivingl. I am now convinced that Paul McCartney is Satan's agent on Earth sent to drive us all insane to the point where we murder each other.

Now don't get me wrong, I still love Christmas songs. Give me a good Johnny Mathis song or a Burl Ives tune, or better yet, Run-DMC's live version of "Christmas in Hollis" and I'm happier than a pig in shit. I just need to reclaim our Christmas from the greedy clutches of soft rock.

In the interest of that, enjoy one of the greatest Christmas songs ever made, courtesy of The Vandals. Oi to the world everyone!

PS3 Early Impressions

2009-10-30T13:19:00.003-05:00

I've only had the PS3 a couple of days and things still aren't working properly on all fronts, but I've spent enough time with it to have formed some impressions. Overall I'm pleased with my purchase although like most of my consumer electronic purchases of late, I'd like some things to be different. Sony seems to give and take away with equal measure which is annoying, but no more so than most gadgets I've been dealing with lately.

First let's talk appearances. The PS3 slim is a very good looking piece of hardware. The matte finish makes it look elegantly understated. It's much, much smaller than I figured it would be as I had envisioned something akin to obelisk in 2001.

It's a pretty sparse rig with only an eject button and a power button up front to let you know that you can actually do stuff with it. It doesn't even have a disc tray option instead for a "suck it in and spit it out" thingamabob like what you might find on a car stereo disc changer. There's two USB ports up front and some A/V connections in the back. Like I said, pretty sparse, but it still looks damn nice. This is where Sony's years as a hardware company come into play unlike Microsoft who couldn't make a good looking piece of hardware if their life depended on it.

Getting the PS3 set up was fairly easy, until I turned it on. As my receiver is four years old, it doesn't have HDMI switching so I'm relying on an external switch to go between the 360 and the PS3. The 360 initially had problems with the switch however once I started giving the projector time to warm up a bit before talking to the 360 everything worked fine. Not so with the PS3. It simply did not like the switch to the point where the whole console would lock up. I can only assume that this has something to do with the PS3 being a Blu-ray player and maybe there's some HDCP shenanigans involved. I don't know. All I know is that the 360 doesn't give a shit what it's connected to as long as the end result is that the signal gets sent to a device via HDMI. The PS3 only works (now) if it is connected directly to the projector. The switch only cost me 17 bucks, so it's no big loss. I have a slightly more expensive powered switch on the way from Monoprice so hopefully this one will work.

On the audio side, I have everything connected via optical cable which is where my most recent slew of problems started. While checking out my spiffy new copy of Transformers 2 on Blu-ray I noticed that my back surrounds weren't firing. Ditto for when playing Uncharted. My receiver can matrix 5.1 to 6.1 if need be as well as do native 6.1 ala DTS so I knew it wasn't a receiver problem. I've been rocking the 6.1 setup for almost half a decade now with nary a problem. I searched on various PS3 and AV forums for advice which was a monumental effort in and of itself as a lot of the information was from a couple of years ago.

I found a couple of things to work with, namely a setting that tells the PS3 to send audio for Blu-ray as Bitstream rather than PCM. According to some folks, PCM can't be matrixed by receivers so if the mix is laid down natively as 5.1 and sent over as PCM, well that's how your receiver will deal with it. I have no idea if this is true or not, but it sure sounded good. Armed with this knowledge I set out to make things right.

I changed some settings in the PS3 and then fired up Uncharted. After pressing some buttons on my receiver I was able to get the receiver the matrix the signal to the back surrounds. Oddly enough the audio in Uncharted is DTS which my receiver should matrix natively so I wasn't sure why I had to tell it to do so. Armed with this minor success I fired up TF2. Everything was going great, sounds from the back speakers, sounds from the ceiling surrounds but the mix was very heavily weighted towards the right. I mean, like the aural equivalent of having the whole room tip. I went up to the left, front speaker and put my ear right up to it. Nothing. Oh no. Please don't tell me I blew a speaker. I ran the test tones through it, still nothing. Double oh no.

I pulled the cabinet out and looked around back of the receiver and there was the problem, a pulled out speaker wire. At one point I must have been fiddling around back there and I knocked a wire loose. I put it back, put the movie back on and everything was great.

Not content to rest on my laurels I threw in my DVD of Bruce Springsteen live in Barcelona. Now it's been a while since I watched this one downstairs and it is mixed to sound like a concert with a decent amount of crowd noise, but this seemed overly noisy in the crowd department. Usually I can hear Max's drum hits very distinctly but this time they were drowned out. Not sure if my piddly speakers in the family room where I last watched it weren't able to handle the background stuff as well so I wasn't remembering how it sounds correctly, but it seemed off. Next up was Behind Enemy Lines, my choice for best surround sound test disc. The scene at the beginning where Owen Wilson and his pilot are trying to evade the SAM will give any home theatre set up a serious work out. In this case everything was great, both sound and audio.

Finally I threw Uncharted back in and this time the back surrounds had sound coming from them without me having to tell my receiver anything. I wonder if having that speaker disconnected caused problems with the receiver. I don't know. All I know is that things are sounding the way they should be and I'm happy.

Now while I'm thrilled that everything works great, it does bug me that I'm not getting the full audio experience due to my connection type. Oh sure you can connect via optical, but you don't get the Dolby TruHD or whatever the hell it's called unless you send audio over HDMI. Plus, the PS3 seems to limit the bandwidth going over optical which I probably wouldn't notice any way, but now that I know it, it bugs me. Not enough to spend more money on a new receiver, but it bugs me nonetheless.

On an interface side, there is tremendous amount of shit going on in the PS3 interface. I'm used to it due to the PSP but holy Christ, if you were new to gaming you'd probably crap your pants. I much prefer the 360 dashboard, however there's a great deal of familarity there, so that may have something to do with it. I also like how the 360 has your friends and your gaming experiences as a whole more integrated into the interface. Given that the PS3 wants to be a total media hub, I can see why it isn't so focused on gaming but the overall impression is that it's kind of sterile and slightly unfriendly. The 360 dashboard on the other hand is a little homier but generally more comfortable to be around. Think Pam from "The Office" compared to early Caprica 6 from "Battlestar Galactica". Sure, I'd sleep with either, but I'd rather hang out with Pam. For the record, I don't want to have sex with any of my consoles. Ok, maybe with the DSi just a little.

On the gaming front the PS3 has yet to disappoint. I'm only playing Uncharted but so far I'm very impressed. The game looks great, and while I don't like the shooting parts, it is, hands down, the best written, voice acted and mo-capped game I've ever played. I'm also thrilled with how Elena looks like a real woman and not someone trying to smuggle watermelons in her chest. I'm still getting used to the PS3 controller, mostly the lightness of it all. The 360 controller is a beast and with the chatpad attached, as mine is, it's pretty heavy. Moving to a much lighter and slightly smaller controller is something to get used to. On a related note, I love that I can charge up the controller by connecting it to the PS3 however the power needing to be on to do so sucks. Luckily I can charge it off of the laptop that I always have riding shotgun. Sony giveth and Sony taketh away.

Finally, I'm not too happy with the notion of needing yet another remote control but trying to watch movies with a controller is a) unwieldy and b) embarassing. This ain't a dorm room. We're all adults here. I have a universal remote, but the PS3 uses Bluetooth, so my Logitech goes right out the window. Sure I could buy the adapter but I'm not spending 50 bucks for the adapter when I could get the PS3 remote for under 20. So now I have the universal remote, the projector remote for when the projector isn't listening to the universal remote and the PS3 remote. The truth is that I need to map some of the projector buttons to the universal remote and make my life easier but that requires effort whereas complaining is pretty easy. That being said, the PS3 remote is pretty nice and very responsive. As remotes go, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

So far I'm enjoying the PS3. I have a bunch of games to play for it (the aforementioned Uncharted, Uncharted 2 and Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time) as well as the first PS3 R&C game coming for Xmas. All of this on top of Borderlands which I'm still loving the hell out of, Dragon Age: Origins which comes out next week, Lego Rock Band and Left 4 Dead 2 which come out in November. Oh and I just bought Bill's review copy of DJ Hero complete with turntable controller. Not sure when I'll play all this stuff but I can tell you that I won't be watching any movies while working out for a while. I'll just have to figure out how to scratch a record while riding the exercise bike.

Wikki-wikki-wikki!

The Waiting

2009-10-23T14:30:00.002-05:00

The waiting truly is the hardest part.

So, with the recent release of the slimline PS3 at 300 bucks and the recent release of Transformers 2 on Blu-Ray, I got to thinking that maybe it was time to finally board the PS3 train. Actually, what really did it was the release of Uncharted 2 and the wave of praise that has been heaped upon the game. Still though, 300 bucks for a console seemed a lot, especially on a console that won't be the primary console.

So at the middle of last week I see that the Sony Style store had the old 80 GB models for $249 and that included an extra controller and free shipping. Plus, if you applied for the Sony Style Visa card you got a 50 buck statement credit. At that point I started seriously considering it. Now, the thing about me is that when I get to the point where I'm seriously considering something, that thing is as good as purchased but for some reason I continue to consider and consider and usually consider it to death and miss out which is exactly what happened here.

So by the time I decide to get off my ass and order the fucking thing, they're sold out. Oh well. A perusal of the Cheap Ass Gamer forums showed that not only were they sold out, but people who had ordered the bundle earlier in the week had their orders canceled by Sony. Oh well, guess I didn't miss out on too much.

On Sunday, on a lark I check out Sony Style again and this time I see the 160 GB Uncharted bundle for 300 bucks. Yeah, it wasn't the newer system, but the hard drive was bigger and it came with a game that I was going to play any way? Sold! I applied for the Sony card, got approval and ordered my console. Nice!

On Monday I check my order and it's still processing. Ok, well, I ordered it on Sunday night at around 9PM, so that made sense. What didn't make sense was that I was charged for shipping but a call to Sony Style fixed that.

Monday afternoon, still processing. Monday night, still processing. Tuesday still processing. At this point, I began thinking that this was the 80 GB bundle sell out situation all over again. So on Wednesday, when it was still showing as processing, I called Sony Style back and talked to a rep who forwarded the question about my order on to "management". Now, at this point, the 160 GB bundle was removed from the PS3 section of the site, which is why I figured I wasn't going to get it.

Sure enough, about an hour later I get an email from the Sony Concierge that said that due to the popularity of the model, they didn't know when they'd be getting them. Now, I know that the e-commerce system isn't a perfect one, but come on. If you can't hook up your inventory system to your ordering system with a degree of competency, then you really shouldn't be selling shit online.

So here I was without a console, but with a Visa card that I had applied for. I have never been a big fan of Sony, mostly because of the dickheaded comments by Sony management and the feelings of entitlement they seemed to have in regards to their consumers. I was seriously considering buying a used PS3 and just saying "fuck Sony" but the more I thought of it, the less I liked the idea. For one, there's no guarantee that the used system I'd be buying would actually work and didn't have a tuna fish sandwich shoved in it somewhere. Second, I did have that 50 buck statement credit just sitting on the table and it'd be stupid to waste it. Third of all, I used to work for a company that was run by a very brash, very public young guy who often said things that made him sound like an incredible egomaniac (which he was). At the time, when people found out that I worked there, they always responded to me as if I said those stupid things and it always bugged me because I had nothing to do with the guy. I hated being lumped in with that guy and here I was doing the same thing.

The simple fact is that my PSP has never done anything but do what it was supposed to. I may have issues with the design of the thing, but the fact is that it has never broken on me. Ditto for my Sony receiver and the slew of other Sony products I've had since I started buying Sony as a wee lad. On the other hand, my original 360 which I've had nothing but love for had to be fixed. Petey's 360 had to be fixed. Petey's brother's 360 had to be fixed. Hodge's 360 is on its way back from being fixed. Bones had to have like five of the fucking things fixed. That's not to say that the PS3 is bulletproof, but it's silly to pass up a good deal on what is, statistically, a much sturdier piece of hardware just because someone in upper management is a douchebag.

So on Wednesday I ordered the slim 120 GB for 300 bucks, and made sure to get the statement credit and now I await its arrival. I went for years without wanting a PS3 but now that I ordered it, I want it like now. NOW! It won't get here until Wednesday which is fine because that's when my HDMI switcher, HDMI cables, Blu-Ray PS3 remote and copy of Transformers 2 on Blu-Ray arrives, but still, I want it now. I have no way of getting it hooked up to my projector and nothing to play/watch on it once I do, but that doesn't matter. I want it now.

The funny thing is that had I just ordered the slim model last week when I began seriously considering the purchase I'd have the damn thing by now. Indecision is a harsh mistress.

A Party in the USA

2009-10-20T14:10:00.002-05:00

Yeah I've been gone. Now I'm back. At least I think I am. Is anyone still here? Hopefully. Time will tell.

So yeah, I love pop music. Not enough to buy it, mind you as the joy of pop music is how ephemeral it is which usually means that in a year you'll listen to it and think "why in God's name did I ever like that?" Still a good pop song is enough to slightly lift my spirits before they sink back into the morass of hatred that they're usually mired in. We listen to a lot of pop music in the house as for young kids The Beatles may be a more musically educational choice, but pop music is much more fun. I'm sorry, it just is. And while I know that one's musical diet can't all be pop rocks and Cherry Coke, it can't all be bran muffins and broccoli either. Hence the pop music.

One song that I have heard about a bazillion times in the past month is "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus. It's an odd song, it is and for my much lauded return from self-imposed exile, I have chosen to bring my critical eye to bear on it. This comes mostly from the fact that not only can I not get this song out of my head, but whenever I hear the song, I ask myself these questions leading to the song and my stupid questions being stuck in my head. So now I'm giving both to you. Lucky you.

Before we get started though, I have to ask, is she auto-tuned on this song or is she naturally that nasally? Neither seems all that great, but one should always strive to be natural, so I guess I'd choose the latter over the former. Not that she's looking for my approval mind you, but I have an opinion and this is the internet so by gum I'm going to share it.

Ok, here we go. Lyrics in text, commentary in italics.

I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan
Welcome to the land of fame, excess, whoa am I gotta fit in?

Ok, why she feels the need to tell us that she has a sweater with her is beyond me. She must get cold on planes like my wife does. I find it interesting that she's worried about "fitting in" in LA. Fitting in in LA means doing lines of blow in the ladies room before going down on some third rate casting agent in hopes of scoring an uncredited walk-on part in "Crank 3: The Crankiest" so this seems like an odd thing to be concerned about.

Jumped in the cab, here I am for the first time

Look to my right, and I see the Hollywood sign

You'd need to either a) have unnaturally (for LA) clear skies, b) hover about 100 feet off of the ground or c) be able to see through solid objects to see the Hollywood sign from LAX. Most likely she saw a sign for Hollywood Taxi Service or Hollywood Dry Cleaning and isn't smart enough to know that it's not the real Hollywood sign. Either that or she's Hawkwoman.

This is all so crazy, everybody seems so famous

People at LAX do not seem famous, they seem frustrated and upset because LAX is a fucking pit and it's damn near impossible to get around the fucking place. Plus, I can assure you that famous people are not getting around LAX the same way little miss Nashville hayseed in the song would. No doubt Miley is used to being paraded around with her entourage and just assumes that this is how the common folk travel.

My tummy's turnin' and I'm feelin' kinda homesick
Too much pressure and I'm nervous
That's when the taxi man turned on the radio

No one can explain to me what she's feeling nervous about or feeling pressured about. She doesn't do anything in the song. No audition, no try outs, nothing. She basically got off of a plane and hailed a cab. What the hell is there to be nervous about? And taxi man? When have you ever heard a cab driver called a taxi man. It's almost as if she's never been in a taxi in her life and as such, has no idea what to call the driver.

And the Jay-Z song was on
And the Jay-Z song was on
And the Jay-Z song was on

This is the musical equivalent of "some of my best friends are black". Note that it's not a Jay-Z song, but the Jay-Z song. I don' t know what the definitive Jay-Z song would be, but my vote goes for "Jigga That Nigga" which is not exactly something you'd play in a cab if looking for a good tip. Besides, most cabbies in LA are going to be playing Armenian folk tunes or Al-Jazeera Radio or some shit.

So I put my hands up, they're playin' my song
The butterflies fly away

Again, why is she nervous? And really, you're going to raise the roof in a cab?

I'm noddin' my head like "Yeah!"
Movin' my hips like "Yeah!"

If she's moving her hips in a cab I can only assume that she has accepted the inevitability of the situation and has started turning tricks in the back seat.

Got my hands up, they're playin' my song
And now I'm gonna be okay
Yeah! It's a party in the USA!
Yeah! It's a party in the USA!

Being from a country music family, Miley realizes that the best way to get airtime is to lace your song with as much jingoistic bullshit as humanly possible which is why she feels the need to explain to the listener that Los Angeles is actually part of the United States and while she doesn't agree with 99% of the commie pinko bastards that live in California, she is still in the USA. At a party. A party in the USA. If she doesn't mention the US it's a good chance that Toby Keith will show up and punch her in the ovaries.

Get to the club in my taxi cab
Everybody's lookin' at me now
Like "Who's that chick that's rockin' kicks
She's gotta be from out of town"

Christ, where to begin. Ok, so first thing she does when arriving in LA is go to a club? What the hell is she here for again? Second of all, Los Angeles is home to some of the premiere sneaker boutiques in the world. I'm pretty sure no one is going to think twice about someone wearing sneakers. Third, "rocking kicks"? Who the fuck calls sneakers "kicks"? My dad, that's who and he thinks everything is neat. Or is this one of those cases where a term is so old and stupid that it's come back around to being cool again? Neat!

So hard with my girls not around me
It's definitely not a Nashville party

That would be because you aren't in Nashville. Try and keep up.

'Cause all I see are stilettos
I guess I never got the memo

On the one hand, this line ties into the usual teen angst comprised mostly of self centered feelings of persecution. I'm the only one who can't do this or go here or whatever. Poor Miley is the only person who didn't know to wear stilettos to the club. On the other hand, she did just fly in from Nashville so if there was a memo about LA club footware, there is a pretty good chance that she didn't get it. Might I suggest the LA Club Footware Google Group?

My tummy's turnin' and I'm feelin' kinda homesick
Too much pressure and I'm nervous
That's when the DJ dropped my favorite tune

And the Britney song was on
And the Britney song was on
And the Britney song was on

This is the most interesting part of the song. Britney is one of the more "first name only" recognizeable stars, so it makes sense to name drop her, but at the same time, there are parallels between Miley and Britney. Both are from the south, both got their starts on Disney shows, both have questionable vocal talent steeped in an overly nasal delivery. Is this a sign that Miley sees her charted course not much different than Ms. Spears' and will soon marry a back-up dancer, get pregnant like nine times and then go on a crotch flashing spree across Los Angeles or does she just really like "Womanizer"? Let's hope it's the latter.

So I put my hands up, they're playin' my song
The butterflies fly away
I'm noddin' my head like "Yeah!"
Movin' my hips like "Yeah!"

Got my hands up, they're playin' my song
And now I'm gonna be okay
Yeah! It's a party in the USA!
Yeah! It's a party in the USA!

Stay thy hand Toby Keith!

Feel like hoppin' on a flight, on a flight
Back to my hometown tonight, town tonight

Jesus Christ kid, you just got here. No one likes a quitter.

Something stops me every time, every time
The DJ plays my song and I feel alright

Now I can certainly attest to having emotional upswings tied to particularly good music, but if you're tying your major life decisions to the whims of the DJ, especially in the face of today's shitty corporate radio landscape, well you may be in for a tough time. On the other hand, if her favorite song is "I've Got A Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas there's a pretty good chance that she'll be dead of natural causes before it drops out of rotation.

Yes, yes, we know. Hips, hands, party, USA. Toby Keith is pleased. You can keep on living. For now.

As much as I rag on the song, I really do enjoy it. I can only hope that it replaces "Born in the USA" in the various GOP functions for while I always chuckled to hear an incredibly scathing comdemnation of the US used for Republican shin-digs, I'll laugh harder watching Newt Gingrich move his hips like "yeah". Then I'll probably throw up.

Practical Piracy

2009-09-16T13:27:00.003-05:00

So I was browsing the torrents for illicit reasons the other day and what appeared on the front page of the torrent site du jour, but a link to Pearl Jam's upcoming album "Backspacer". Now, before I proceed, allow me to state that I don't download music that I haven't paid for. That's not a value judgment or anything, I just don't do it. The simple fact is that I still prefer CD's over digital downloads due to my lack of an mp3 player in my car and if usually you can get a cd the week of release for about ten bucks. Ten bucks is not an exorbitant amount of money and seeing how I'd have to do some work to get mp3's on to my PC and then on to a disc, well I'll gladly pay the money to save myself the effort. Now, that's not to say that I haven't stolen music in the past. I mean, I'm not a monk. I went full-on, batshit, Napster crazy like everyone else did back in the day and I'm not against accepting cd copies of an album if someone wants me to hear something. For the most part though, if I hear something and like it, I'll buy it. I figure that if it's not worth buying, it's not worth cluttering up my iPod with it as I have plenty of albums on there I don't listen to. No sense putting another one on there if I don't think it's worth buying and if it is worth buying, I probably should.

For the record, I do download movies however if I like the movie I then go out and buy it. Not exactly 100% honest, I know as I'm still stiffing the studio on the rental revenues but at the same time, most of the movies I download I wouldn't pay to rent. Midnight Meat Train anyone?

Ok, right, back to Pearl Jam. So when I saw the link to the album I immediately got all excited, but not because I'd be able to listen to their album over a week before it came out, but more importantly, because this meant that I'd be able to hear the songs before I started singing them in Rock Band. See, "Backspacer" is going to be released for Rock Band on the same day that the album comes out and I'm not a big fan of singing songs that I'm not familiar with. I'll do it, but I always have a better time with the songs if I know them. So I downloaded it.

I'm not sure exactly how high on the geek spectrum it puts me but I'm thinking that stealing an album for the express purpose of being able to practice singing it in a video game makes you a rather huge geek. Ditto for using the word "rather" when you're not even remotely British.

I have every intention of buying the album when it comes out, and I plan on picking it up at Target so that I can score the download code for the Rock Band tracks. Simply put, it's a fucking awesome record. At a hair under 37 minutes I wouldn't call it short, I'd call it lean. It's just a really focused effort with some interesting sounds going on and one of the most uplifting yet dismally depressing ending songs in recent memory. It's an interesting reversal from the heavy, political tone of "Pearl Jam" which makes sense given the change in political climate since that record. I dare say it's almost a fun album which is not an adjective I'd use to describe most PJ records. If I had to pick a previous album that it's closest too, I'd have to go with "Yield". I loved the fuck out of that album, but I know that many don't, so don't let my comparisons turn you off of "Backspacer" if you're thinking of getting it. It really is a nice, tight album from a band that never ceases to amaze me. By the way, Matt Cameron is just great on this record. It's amazing how much better this band got when he joined.

Will the songs be fun to sing? Yeah, I think so. I mean, Eddie's vocals have always been impossible for me to replicate as he's just all over the place, but in a good way. He can go from growling to lilting in the space between the verse and chorus and I just can't do that. I mean, he's an actual singer and I'm a dude playing souped up Karoke in his basement, so that's to be expected, but hot damn if I don't wish that for just once I could break it off like Edward. I find that for some songs I have to try and imitate the singer in order to hit the pitch right. For the life of me, I don't know why that's true, but it is and while I'm sure it's not the greatest thing to listen to, it puts points on the board and I'm enjoying myself, so that's all that matters. Maybe that's what I have to do here. Try and do an Eddie impression and see where that takes me. Probably nowhere good, but it's worth a try.

So yeah, pick up "Backspacer" next week, legitimately, of course. I don't think you'll be disappointed unless you just don't like good music, in which case, piss off. With that said, enjoy "The Fixer" cause it's fucking awesome.

Layton Review

2009-09-11T12:11:00.003-05:00

Here's my review for Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. When I sent off the review, I specifically asked that the last two lines not be cut as they were money. They were cut, and not only cut, but, in my opinion, the cutting makes the last paragraph seem rushed. While I mind when shit gets edited, I recognize that it's my editor's decision to do so. Still, I really don't like it when shit gets edited to the detriment of the piece as I don't get a chance to make a change that makes it read better and then it just comes off that I don't know what I'm doing. Oh well. Perhaps I don't know what I'm doing. That's always a possibility too.

Oh, here's my Muramasa review if you're interested.

I dunno. Game reviewing just ain't the exciting, fun-filled trip it was before. I do like the money though, so I just gotta work through this funk, suck it up and get the job done.

The Burden of Quality Headphones

2009-09-04T12:01:00.004-05:00

Hey! How are you? Great.

Feel like reading a review of Fossil Fighters for the DS? Well, here it is any way. Jerk.

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. One more week of Abby in the feeding program and me on bus and hound the child to do his homework duty and then I'm back to my usual slacking, long lunch taking ways. How has Abby progressed you ask? Shitty! Well, maybe not shitty but I can tell you we're no where near where we'd thought we be which is a shame because, last I checked, we're still out two months of Linda's salary. Oy! Oh well, they tell us that after a few months of outpatient Abby will be eating like normal but they also told us that she'd only have to do the feeding program for four weeks. At this point, if they told me that the sun would rise tomorrow I would seriously, seriously doubt it.

But you don't want to hear about that do you? Of course not! You want to hear about my new headphones! Yes you do. Yes. You. Do.

So, several years ago, let's say like six, or maybe five, Linda bought me a fabulous pair of Sennheiser HD 270 headphones. They were, in a word, glorious. In fact, I would put them second on my list of all time best gifts that she has ever given me, with first place occupied by a two-way tie between my grill and my smoker. Any way, after years of shitty, ten buck headphones that lasted all of a month before crapping out in one ear, these things were a revelation. I heard parts of the music that I had never heard before. Plus, even though they weren't a proper pair of noise cancelling headphones, their closed design helped to block a lot of stuff out, which is essential in these difficult, cubicle dwelling times.

Unfortunately even high quality headphones have a finite lifespan and a few weeks ago mine crapped out in one ear. The higher end Sennheisers have the ability to swap out the cord that you use to plug them into their audio source, so I was hopeful that a cable replacement was all that was necessary, but alas, this was not the case. I took the blasted things apart to try and suss out the breakage but as I am not an engineer of any capacity, all I could do is stare at them meaningfully and try to will them back into proper working order. It did not work.

And so began the Great Headphone Hunt of '09. One would think that buying new headphones would be a simple process, but one would be wrong. For one thing, stores don't carry lots of headphones and your choices are even more limited when you're so called "electronics" stores are limited to Fry's and Best Buy. Oh sure, there are plenty of heaphones available online, but if you want to actually try them on, a key aspect of the headphone buying process, you're pretty much screwed.

My first pair was another pair of Sennheissers, this time the Sennheiser HD 202's. I figured that they should be ok, as the manufacturer was the same and they were cheapest on Amazon so this was a slam dunk. Not so much. I had read the reviews on Amazon, many of which mentioned how tiny the cans were, but I figured that these people must just be complaining as internet reviewers are so fond of doing. Yeah, not so much. These fucking things hurt. Sennheisers are, for the most part, built in Ireland and I can only imagine that these cans were meant for the faerie folk as they laid upon my ears, pressing them back into my head in a manner that was, shall we say, less than comfortable? Fuck it, the blasted things hurt. So, back they went, with my out the five bucks to ship them.

Next up were a pair of Panasonics that I bought from Fry's for 30 bucks. They certainly looked big enough, and they were, but by golly they sounded like deep fried shit. Flat and lifeless, these are the headphones of the damned, the aural equivalent of flavorless gelatin. I mean, I guess I shouldn't have expected much for thirty bucks, but where I come from, thirty bucks is still a decent chunk of change. They are currently boxed up with the receipt taped to it, awaiting their eventual return to Fry's where they can live out the rest of their dull days on the peg.

Third up was a pair of Sony extra bass headphones. I listened to these in Best Buy and they were comfortable enough, however the music that the display model used were bass heavy, which is to be expected, so they played to the strengths of the headphones but, unfortunately it also masked their problems, namely the inability to deal with non-bass heavy music. Unfortunately you don't know this until you get them home and plug them into your own music collection which is when I figured it out. To their credit, as I mentioned before, they are quite comfy. It's like wearing a leather couch on both ears. As most of my music is not bass heavy though, they did not fulfill their primary function, namely reproducing my music in a faithful manner, unless all of these years I just didn't notice the incessant buzzing. They were returned to Best Buy the next day.

So, finally I settled on a pair of Sennheiser HD 485's. I had no problem with the sound of the Sennheisers that I had returned and all of the reviews for these cans pointed out that they fit over the ear rather than smush your ear into your head so I was confident they'd fit properly. Even with the right cans picked out there was some ordering drama as Amazon had them in stock but felt they'd just hold on to them for like two weeks while Homer tooled around the warehouse on his magic forklift. Fuck that. Buy.com had them in stock, shipped them in a day and did it with 2-day shipping for a total price of a buck less than what Amazon would ship it free. Thankfully the fourth time was the charm as these are some mighty nice headphones. They're comfortable and they sound great. There's a little more sound leakage than my last pair, which I'm not entirely thrilled about, but with my crappy hearing it's probably best that I keep them at a lower volume any way. I still think that my original Sennheisers sound better, but from what I understand they also cost quite a bit more, so that's to be expected. I did not want to pay that much as unless it's Transformers or video game accessories, I'm one incredibly cheap bastard so for what I did pay, I got my money's worth.

So there you have it kids. If you listen to your music with some crappy 15 buck Radio Shack headphones, or God help you, the iPod earbuds and are thinking of upgrading to some really nice headphones, don't. Once you have nice headphones, it's hard to go back and picking a new pair is a serious pain in the ass. Trust me.

Absence

2009-08-21T14:52:00.004-05:00

Man, has it really been two weeks since I wrote something? Damn.

Well, truth is my schedule has kind of morphed into something that makes it difficult to find the time to pound out an update. My daughter started going to an all day feeding program in Atlanta which means that Linda is off work and on FMLA. With my son now in school that means I'm on afternoon bus duty. Basically I leave work at 2:15, go to the bus stop, pick my son up, get home, get him set up with Spongebob and a snack and then work at home for the last hour of the day. With this schedule my lunch hour, when I used to write, is now spent getting home in time for the bus. Plus, with my employer being so generous with how I work, I don't want to abuse it by spending time at work writing.

At home I've had a good amount of reviewing to do but not just reviews, but guides which means that in my gaming time, I'm gaming for guides. First was Mothership Zeta and now I'm working on the Red Faction Guerrilla DLC. I've also started doing videos for GameShark which not only takes up a fair amount of time when I usually game, but takes even more time afterwards when watching tv. It doesn't help that I don't really know what I'm doing so I keep making mistakes thereby extending the process.

So basically I don't have a lunch hour, my gaming time is spent on review material and then when I come back upstairs to watch tv I have to either edit videos or play something on the handheld for reviews.

It's a shame too because I have such tales to tell of shooting ranges, concerts and other general tomfoolery. I'm going to make a concerted effort in the next few weeks to make time to write, especially at night so that I don't have such a backlog of topics. Along with keeping in touch with my various fans, both of them, it will also keep my writing juices flowing. I find that when I'm not writing regularly, when the time comes for me to write for GameShark, not only do I not want to do it, but I find it fairly difficult. Makes sense I guess.

In the meantime, behold the fruits of my video labors:

Red Faction Guerrilla DLC Pro Times

GameShark Extra Time with the Fallout 3 DLC

GameShark Extra Time with Wii Sports Resort

Oh yeah, as Todd would say, I got a face only radio would love.

Reviews

2009-08-05T10:20:00.002-05:00

I have just the thing for those of you that can't stand to be away from my gloriousness for these extended absences: reviews!

Here's one for Infernal: Hell's Vengeance a not very good game and here's one for Wii Sports Resort, a very good game. I'll give you three guesses as to which company made good on their promise to send me a review copy. Here's a hint: it didn't help the score much.

Oh no, did I say too much? Whatever.

A Man's Cave Is His Castle

2009-07-26T17:17:00.020-05:00

What's up party people? Been a while since I rapped atcha but here I am, back in full effect. Well, maybe not full effect. Maybe partial effect. I dunno, 1/8 effect?

Any way, so I got home from work on Friday and what was awaiting me on my doorstep but yet another badass Batman sketch from my main man Bonesy. I immediately squirreled it away to the movie room where I could give it the proper place of prominence among my various geek chic treasures. I then took a picture of its placement so that I could show Bones that I revere his sketches. It's important to keep these things coming. Then I thought, what the hell, I haven't posted in a bit and my sister, mom and wife did a hella nice job putting up all of the pictures, so why not show it all off? Why not indeed. Sit back kids, you're about to get your minds blown.

Ok, so here's the movie screen, where all of the big screen gaming takes place. It's a 92 inch Dalite Cinema something or other screen. It is, in short, the shit. Below it is my Salamandar AV cabinet which houses all of my goodies. On top of the speakers are Lego Ultimate Collector's Edition replicas of an X-Wing and a Tie Interceptor. On top of the cabinet are various figures from the first live action Transformers movie. It's hard to see, but there's also an Alternators Ravage which combines the awesomeness of everyone's favorite Decepticon jaguar with the ability to transform into an actual Jaguar motor vehicle. If you look hard enough at the back corner you can spot my Fallout 3 lunch box and bobblehead. Best parts of that game if you ask me.

Here's the new DVD cabinet. Oddly enough, due to a shipping error, I have this exact same cabinet in the unfinished area of my basement awaiting assembly. Not sure where we're going to put it as we didn't order it, but I'm sure we'll find someplace for it. Atop the DVD cabinet are some Legends class figures from the first live action Transformers movie as well as some framed Superman cards I've had for forever now.

So this is, essentially, the back wall of the movie room. If you're looking at this, the screen is to your left, projector to your right. On my big ol' subwoofer is a Lego Ultimate Collector's Edition AT-ST. Next to the cube is my various Rock Band instruments including my badass Hot Rod Red wireless bass. On top of the shelf is the rest of the figures from the first live action Transformers movie. That white mess on the chair is the univeral remote, the projector remote and the spreadsheets I use for boosting Red Faction: Guerrilla multiplayer achievements. Oh yeah, we all organized up in this bitch.

Ok, so on the left is my first back wall speaker. Under it is a reprint of what is probably my favorite Achewood strip, the Ray Smuckles Decision Making Flow Chart. When I ordered a print of the strip I could have had Ray's name replaced with my own, however I have never turned this, or any other mother out. Any relative for that matter. Plus, the joy of the strip is how well it encapsulates Ray's character and Raymond Q. Smuckles is one of my favorite comic strip characters so to take away his thunder seemed wrong. Next to the strip is the shadow box I made with goodies from E3 including my badge, a postcard of some concept art from "The Conduit", a picture of all of the GameShark writers and the copy of Drum King I won when we all crashed a PR event. Good times.

Ok, so here we have the Bugs Bunny - Charlie Chaplin drawing done by my good friend Dennis. I'm not sure how it is that I keep becoming friends with people of advanced artistic abilities but I'm glad that I do as it keeps me in quality wall hangings. Next to this is my Earth X poster signed by the man himself, Alex Ross. The series ended up being just ok, but when one can get a signed Alex Ross, even if it's just a print, well one does it.

On the left is a poster from the MC Frontalot, MC Lars, YT Cracker triple bill from December of '08. A careful examination of the poster shows that it was signed by the Front himself. Lars and YT Cracker both signed shirts which are hard to put on the wall, especially considering that I wear both shirts regularly. Next to this poster is a poster for "The Magnificent Seven" one of the greatest westerns of all time, if only because in it, Charles Bronson whips a little kid's ass for being ungrateful. The world would be a much better place if children lived in constant fear that a young Charle Bronson could show up and spank them at any moment for being ungrateful.

Following the excellent trend of classic movie posters and webcomic art here we have a poster for "The Great Escape" featuring an oh-so-dreamy Steve McQueen. Next to it is the original artwork from this strip of Shortpacked in which Batman tells the "no fatalities" rule to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe to go screw itself. Finally we have a poster from the original "Ocean's 11". I'm pretty sure it's a law that if you have classic movie posters in your basement, at least one of them has to have Frank Sinatra on it.

Ok so something like a half dozen pictures into this post we get to why I took pictures in the first place. Top middle is the new Batman sketch that Bones did for me, bottom middle is one he had done for me before. Marvel at their awesomeness! The sketches are sandwiched in between the superhero stamps the Post Office commissioned a couple of years ago.

This is above the counter by the bar. It's the four prequel comics done for the "Superman Returns" movie. My mom got them for me and they're all signed by the creators and bagged and authenticated and shit. Not only do I love them because I love Superman, but I love the fact that my mom took the time to find a gift that combined so many things that I love. Go mom. You're the best.

Eat and get gas! Get it! You can eat, and fill up your car with petroleum! Ha! Love it! I don't know why I loved the dog one so much but I do. Silly doggies.

So this is above the sink that's by the bar and it's these coffee print, thingies. They're quite shiny as you can tell from the flash. Trust me though, they're about coffee and look, a coffee maker, so it all works out.

Finally, here's my framed print from the cover of the Pearl Jam live set of various performances done at the Gorge in Washington. Next to it is a giant panel door that goes to the furnace. Nice! There was no good way to take this picture by the way. I'm not so bad a photographer that I think you want to see some shitty panel door.

So here's the view as you're coming into the movie room. The majority of the pictures would be on your right. Yes that's the exercise bike. It kind of ruins the look of the room, but seeing how I watch movies and play games while I work out, and I won't work out if I can't watch movies or play games, it's a necessary evil. Well, only necessary if I don't want to weigh 200 pounds.

And here's the view from the back corner of the movie room. That horrid pink towel is around the base of the exercise bike because only my wife seems to be capable of not smacking her toes on it and I'm convinced that with her it was only a matter of time. Once I smack my toe on something so hard that I'm pretty sure I broke my toe, I wrap it up in a towel. I'm crazy like that.

This is my computer desk in the room outside of the movie room, soon to be The Man Lounge. I didn't take a picture of the whole room as it's not looking its best right now. This cabinet has a wealth of crap on it including my Gears of War figures, my Scully picture and action figure, a Willow action figure from the Buffyverse, a plush Pikachu, Blammo the dog, Mooby the cow, some Star Wars Legos and the Pets.com puppet. Truly it is a mish-mash of pop culture crap. Oh, and there are also a ton of badass Batman Legos on the small file cabinet. Yeah, that's the Batcave and it is awesome.

Finally we have my bookcases in the Man Lounge. Righ now they mostly hold comics as all of my proper books have been moved upstairs to make room for even more toys. There are Star Wars Legos, Indiana Jones legos, Batman Legos, vintage Star Wars figures, Dark Knight figures and other assorted pieces of my past. Looking at these shelves gives you a fairly good idea of who I am. I'll leave it to you to draw your own opinions as I know I'm fucking awesome.

Macaroni and Cheese

2009-07-15T12:12:00.002-05:00

Time for another food post. My apologies to anyone trying to diet cause I'm about to wreck your shit.

Ok, so I make a pretty badass macaroni and cheese. It's my mom's recipe however I have tinkered with it over the years and I think I've come up with a version that kicks nine different types of ass. My family loves it and I have brought it into work and been told on multiple occasions that is the the best macaroni and cheese that the person eating it has ever had. Now, I'm sure there's some polite exaggeration going on there, but I can be pretty critical about my own food, more than anyone else, and I'm here to tell you that this stuff is the shit. Given that I have nothing else to write about, I have decided to share this awesome recipe with you. You are truly blessed.

Before we get started, I want to point out that you are, of course, free to make this recipe however you choose, however if you decide to use fat free cheese or low carb multigrain pasta, please don't tell people that you got your recipe from me because I don't want my name associated with your nasty ass cardboad glop. This recipe has a lot of fat and a lot of carbs and it tastes fucking awesome. If you're on a diet, just eat less of it. Share it with your coworkers, freeze it for later, do whatever you need to so that you don't consume half of the batch in one sitting, but don't go messing with the ingredients. This ain't Cooking Light.

Secondly, this recipe uses Velveeta which I'm sure will cause griping among the more high falutin' of my readers, but the truth is that Velveeta melts up smooth as silk and when you're making macaroni and cheese, the last thing you want is some messy combination of half melted cheese and cheddar oil. I know because I've made just that. So bite the bullet, buy the Velveeta and try not to ask too many questions about what the hell is in it.

Finally, this recipe doesn't have an exact amount for some ingredients so you're just going to have to experiment. Honestly, this is how I got mine to be as tasty as it is, so don't sweat the small details too much. As long as you follow the basic template you'll end up with something that will smack the taste from your mouth and have every person you've ever desired longing for a one way trip to your tingly, naughty regions.

Ingredients
Cooking spray
2 cups uncooked macaroni
1 16oz block of Velveeta (remember, no hatin')
1 8 oz bag shredded Colby and Monterey Jack blend
1 8 oz bag finely shredded Mozzarella (if you want to go with an Italian cheese blend here, that would work too, I'll switch between the two depending on mood)
Butter (about half a stick, and notice I said butter and not margarine)
Black pepper
Flour
Milk

1. Cook the macaroni according to package directions, draining well once done. You want them to be just a hair shy of done so that they're nice and firm when the cook among the cheeses. Do not, I repeat, do not let them get overcooked as the resulting loss of texture makes for a bit of a mess in the final product. It still tastes ok, but it's more of a macroni and cheese pudding at that point.

2. Preheat the oven to 375. If your oven has heating elements at the top and bottom, arrange the rack so that the dish will be lower in the oven. More on that later.

3. Coat a 2 qt (mine is a 2.5 L) casserole dish with cooking spray. Whoever does the dishes will thank you later. Mine is round, not sure if that makes a difference.

4. Divide the Velveeta into three equal sections and then slice the sections up into eight or ten equally sized pieces. I usually slice crosswise and then slice that slice lengthwise.

5. You're going to be layering everything in the casserole dish, making three layers total so when you start sprinkling the shredded cheese and putting down noodles, keep in mind that you'll have three layers of it. It's not absolutely crucial as you will stir the whole thing up half way through the cooking time, but still. Ok, so the basic layering strategy is to do the following:

Layer of noodles
Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of flour all over the noodles.
Sprinkle a generous amount of pepper on the flour
Dot the noodles with chunks of butter (about 1 - 2 TBL divided up into five or six total pieces)
Put the chunks of Velveeta on top of the noodles whereever there isn't butter. You want things to be relatively even so if you find that you don't have enough pieces, just break up what you have with your fingers and do your thing
Sprinkle one type of shredded cheese on top
Sprinkle another type of shredded cheese on top
Repeat for the next two layers

When you're done you should have a casserole dish that weighs about eighteen pounds.

6. Pour milk into the casserole dish so that it comes up about 1/4 the height of the dish. I usually slide a knife down the inside edge of the dish and push the mixture away from the dish to see how far the milk has come up. The milk will take a second to settle, so if you don't see it immediately, don't go pouring a ton of milk in there. Take it slow as too much milk will turn this thing into soup.

7. Put the dish in the oven for 30 minutes.

8. Once 30 minutes is up, stir the whole thing. If you have heating elements at the top of your oven, move the rack so that your dish is higher up in the oven. This allows the crust to brown up and get nice and crunchy.

9. Put the dish back in oven for 30 more minutes.

10. If your oven only has top heating elements that turn on when the broiler is on, feel free to put the thing under the broiler for a few minutes to brown up the top but it isn't necessary.

11. Take out and let it sit for five minutes while your stomach does backflips over the glorious mounds of pasta and cheese you're about to deposit in it.

12. Serve and enjoy.

That's it. Pretty simple, right? If you want to spread things out over two nights you can either make the whole thing up the night before and then put it in the oven or you can make the noodles up the night before and then assemble and bake the next day. If you make the whole thing up the day before and refrigerate the uncooked dish, you will have to adjust your cooking time to account for the fact that everything is cold. Nothing to do there but just experiment and be flexible with your dinner time. Drinking helps.

When you stir the dish at the halfway mark you'll notice that a lot of the velveeta chunks won't have melted. That's ok. Stirring is very important as otherwise you run the risk of having too much cheese in one layer, and not enough in the other. Also, don't worry if it looks really soupy at this point. Even if you put too much milk in, it will thicken up a bunch as it cooks for the next half an hour. It will also thicken up some as it cools. For those that like a crumb topping, and I don't know why you would, but it's not my place to say, put the topping on after you stir it as you don't want crumbs mixed in with the whole thing, nor do you want them to burn.

Give it a try, let me know how it turns out. Feel free to share it with others. Go forth my cheese loving minions and enjoy!

On Pies and Potter

2009-07-13T13:57:00.005-05:00

I made a pie on Saturday and with it, the flames of baking have rekindled in my breast.

For Christmas last year Linda got me a dessert cookbook and I got her a pie cookbook proving yet again, that if ever there were two people meant to be together, they are she and I. Now, the pie cookbook was not for her to bake from, but for her to choose from so that I might make pies. After a year in the cake baking trenches, I felt like I could handle pretty much any cake thrown my way, provided that I had enough time and the right materials. With the addition of my Father's Day gifts, a cake bow and this giant spatula thingy used to move cakes, my arsenal was complete.

Pies on the other hand have always scared me. First of all, I don't know how to make a pie crust, something I was loathe to try this time around. They seem so thin and fragile, capable of tearing and ruining your dessert at a moment's notice. Second, the notion of making a fruit pie seemed fraught with peril. What if you don't buy enough fruit? What if they end up being too soft or too hard or filled with unsightly bruises. What if you pick the wrong type of fruit? Some apples are great for baking, some aren't? Good Lord people, I was raised on the mean streets, not some fucking peach grove, how the hell am I supposed to pick a good peach? I can barely dress myself in the morning.

The simple fact is that I take food, particularly baking very, very seriously. There is nothing so depressing as a failed dessert. Dessert is entirely optional. It exists solely to give joy. A failed dessert is then the absence of joy. Taking on the monumental responsibility of providing dessert, knowing full well that my failure to do so means no dessert, is a scary idea, made even scarier when the attempted dessert is a pie. Oh sure, I've made apple pies before, but nothing other than that. Seeing how this was summer, I felt that apple was too heavy, so, for the first time with real intent, we consulted the pie cookbook.

Now, Linda and I agree on a lot of things, but usually not dessert. She loves lemon meringue pies, I love key lime. I love cheesecake, she does not. I veer towards towering, monumental peanut butter and chocolate constructions, she likes a simple cake from a box. For two people who love dessert, we find ourselves at odds frequently, and don't get me started on her not liking pecan or sweet potato pies. The nerve of that woman.

After narrowing down the choices we eventually agreed on a strawberry rhubarb pie. I had never had such a pie, certainly never made such a pie and was fairly certain that I had never seen rhubarb before. I decided to make things easier on myself and go with a store bought crust as I tend to get upset when things don't go well in the kitchen and I needed this pie to go well. After getting home with all of the ingredients I got to chopping and mixing and rolling the pie crust into the appropriate pie dish.

I was a bit skeptical of the rhubarb what with the cookbook saying that loads of sugar is needed to make it palatable. It seems odd that you would put something in a pie that needs additional flavorings. Plus, it looks like a giant red celery stalk and the notion of putting celery in a pie that didn't have chicken and carrots in it seemed odd. Still, not being an expert, or even a novice about these kinds of things, I pressed onward, mixed everything together, including the crumb topping, and heaved it all into the oven.

After an hour of baking, at which point the juices bubbled out of the edges, thick as jam, I took the pie out of the oven and let it cool. As you can see, it ain't pretty, but sometimes the best baking ain't pretty.

The Pie

A couple of hours later we cut into the thing and had the first slices. I have to say, for a pie with giant, red celery stalks in it, it's pretty fucking good. The strawberries and rhubarb play off of each other, with hints of lemon and sugar mixed in there. I'm not a huge fan of the crumb topping as I'm not a fan of the cornmeal that's in it, but that's easily remedied with using other crumb topping recipes I've amassed since taking on cakes. As first pies go, this one was a hell of a way to start.

The unfortunate thing is now I want to make all of the pies I've seen in the book: the peaches and cream pie, the peanut pie, the peaches and lemonade pie and yes, even the grape and fig pie. I want to make a pumpkin pie and I don't even like pumpkin pie. For two people who are constantly trying to make sure they don't gain any more weight, me learning to make pies is a very bad idea.

My only change to the pie would be that I would bake it, let it cool, refrigerate it and then cut into it the next day. This is a very soft pie and after taking two slices out of it when it was still a little warm, an unfortunate pie collapse took place leading to some very unappetizing pieces on Sunday night. It still tasted great, but the pie would have kept it's shape better had it been first cut into when a little colder.

Last night we enjoyed our pie while watching "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". We're watching all of the movies again in preparation of "Half Blood Prince" this weekend. "Azkaban" is my favorite Potter movie and was the movie that turned me from someone who would watch them if invited to someone who had to see them the weekend they opened. The movie is on such a higher level than the previous two, and set the bar for all of the ones that followed. I've seen it a number of times now and I still love it. I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a Sunday evening than eating strawberry pie and watching Harry Potter.

Reviews and Family Visits

2009-07-02T11:55:00.002-05:00

First of all, my brilliance continues unabated as I bring to you the real truth about video games. The truth is that I love Tiger Woods for the Wii and I love The Conduit. Man, my Wii has been getting a lot of play lately. Insert sexual jokes here.

In other news, we had family visiting this week, barely a week after the last group of family left. I love my family, but man, I am really looking forward to having an empty house. I want to be able to watch what I want to watch and play some games and not have to scream everything because someone's hearing aid broke. It certainly didn't help that the roofers came and put on a new roof while family was here so not only was there screaming due to the aforementioned hearing loss but there was also banging and hammering and sounds you would attribute to your house coming down around you.

Then the air conditioning broke. Again.

So yeah, it's been a tough week, but everyone has been shuffled off to the airport, all of the roofing supplied have been picked up and as far as I know both air conditioners are working. All of this is just in time for the holiday weekend when, undoubtedly, my kids will come down with some form of strep that makes them bleed out of their eyeballs. As long as I can still game and watch Burn Notice on DVD, I honestly don't care. We have plenty of tissues and antibiotics.

The Best Pillows Are Behind Us

2009-06-25T08:45:00.002-05:00

The other day my oldest dog threw his back out humping a pillow.

Well, we think this is what happened any way. He has had a rough time getting around the house of late, which we attribute to his age what with his 14th birthday looming on the horizon. Going up and down stairs takes him a bit longer, partially because he's slower and partially because he'll perch at the top of them and stare for a few seconds as if it takes an act of will to traverse them. Sometimes he'll walk funny, sometimes he won't. Sometimes he'll jump down from the bed or the couch without a problem, sometimes he doesn't so much jump as he'll fall in a semi-controlled manner and land with a resounding thud.

Through this all though, he has continued to hump the pillows.

My dog is an inveterate pillow humper and has been ever since we had him neutered a scant six weeks or so after coming home. In his youth you could chart the path of his day by following the trail of fucked pillows as they lay strewn about the home. He would start his day in the living room, then move to the family room, then the spare bedrooms before finally coming to rest on our bed, usually saving his most furious bout of copulation with my bed pillow. The dog and I have shared a mutual, long simmering disdain for each other for years now, which I attribute to my wife. Simply put, the dogs were her babies before we had babies and while my second dog has always tirelessly worked for my affection, stealing a pat on the head or a sit in my lap when I'm willing to give it, and being thankful for it, my first dog sees me as nothing more than competition for my wife. Oh sure, he's happy when I pet him, but he's also snapped at me more than anyone else in the family, and he has never snapped at my wife. We get along, choosing to avoid each other and for the most part, it works out. Except for the pillows.

It's hard not to read human intention into animal behaviour, especially animals that you live with so when I get home to see my pillow humped to hell, I take it as an insult. After all, the pillow has to smell like me, so if the dog is choosing to hump it, it has to be his way of exerting a meager amount of control over me, or at the very least, flipping me the doggy finger. Whether or not he meant it to be an insult or it was simply a manner of my pillow being more humpable, the end result was the same, the pillow would be on the floor, one corner stiff from where he held it in his mouth, the side of the pillow dented due to his fervent thrusting.

The most amazing, if that adjective can be used in such a situation, aspect of his humping was how quickly he would get down to business. On many occasions, he wouldn't even wait for us to get down the driveway. If I forgot my wallet, or needed something else from the house and came back in, there he would be, fucking the living room pillow with abandon not thirty seconds after we had left. I consider myself a normal, red blooded male and even in my horniest, most sex obsessed teenage days I don't think I could go from zero to fucking in such a short span of time. Certainly not now when those days are a good twenty years behind me.

As he got older, the amount of humping lessened, but it still remained. The daily ritual upon coming home from work, or from a day of running errands would be to get put the various pillows back on the couch, both those left for him, the "house" pillows if you will, and those deemed to nice to be violated by him, the "guest" pillows. Earlier this week, Linda noticed that in the morning, the dog was walking well, spry and full of pep and she returned home from an errand, picked up a pillow and noticed the dog walking oddly, as if in pain. Shortly afterwards she sent me a message informing me that our dog threw his back out humping the pillow.

It's an odd feeling to see something you love, or at least begrudgingly tolerate, get older to the point where their normal behaviour becomes less and less of a certainty. I'm not the most adventurous sexual partner, but I have, on occasion tweaked this thing or that thing while engaging in activities, and it has given me pause, but not so that I'd consider not engaging any more. To see my dog, who has humped pillows for over ten years now, leaving a trial of violated bed accessories in his wake, get to the point where this activity may have to stop due to his old age is sobering. Turns out time waits for no man, or dog as the case may be.

I have joked for years that the easiest thing would be to just put the dogs down and move on with our lives, having removed two of the four obstacles that lay between us and the ability to live unfettered. The cruel joy of pets is that they are expendable and when they are gone, they are well and truly gone, unlike children who may leave your home, but you will always worry about and fret over, even if you do so at a rare 5:00 movie, or a dinner date taken right from work. Not so with pets. Pets don't move out, they move on.

So when I see that my dog, our first shared biological responsibility is getting old enough to not go about his day, even a reduced version of it, it saddens me because as much as the old bastard annoys me, he has been a part of our lives for quite a while now and as much as it might be easier to not have him around, I can't say with certainty that easier equals better. Plus, the fact remains that as he got older, I did too and if he is getting to the point where he can't do the things he loves due to the advances of age, that day will eventually come for me as well, provided I don't die beforehand. When I do get to that point, will my children joke about putting me down? Will I be seen as an obstacle for their ability to go about their lives unfettered? Will I have warts and a penchant for fucking inanimate objects? I sure hope not.

The wife and I have said that the dog needs to go to the vet, but neither of us are taking the steps to do so, which, I'll admit, is cruel to the dog, but I know that for me, it's not necessarily because I want to avoid the expense, because I do, but more because I don't want to be told that the dog is getting to the point where the right choice is the final one. I do not want to take him on that final car ride. I do not want to have that talk with my children. I do not want to get mad at my other dog because she won't stop searching the house for her brother. Most of all though, I do not want to come home to a house of unhumped pillows.

All Of Your Brink Questions Answered

2009-06-22T10:55:00.001-05:00

Well, probably not all of them. Certainly not all of them, actually. Come to think of it, this probably represents but a fraction of a fraction of your Brink questions. There would have been more had I been even halfway competent and had Todd been sober. Still, it's a decent read. How's that for promotion?

A New, Boring Hope

2009-06-19T12:46:00.002-05:00

So my son and I finally sat down to watch Star Wars about a month ago and ever since he has been peppering me with Star Wars questions. Oh, awesome, you're thinking, he wants to know about Jedi and Sith and speederbikes and shit! Ha, yeah, no. That would be cool. Those questions I could get into. No, what he wants to know about is where people get their clothing, whether or not there's gum in Star Wars and if Darth Vader ever shoplifted as a child.

Now, I'm sure that there are a number of people thinking "well, there's no such thing as a stupid question" and I can assure you that you are completely wrong. There are many, many stupid questions, most of which are asked by very young children. Oh sure, the first time my daughter asks "is it sunny outside" as she squints to look at me and has to cover her eyes from the sun's blinding rays I will consider that what she's really asking is "would you use the word sunny to describe today" and she just can't suss out the right way to say it, but come the ninth time that very same question is asked, well, that's when you start worrying that she'll never be able to live on her own.

In fact, just this week my son came up to me and asked "In Star Wars, was there a broken bridge and Luke Skywalker held on to Princess Leia and they swung across it?" That is exactly what happened in the movie, the movie that he watched with his very own eyes. I mean, come on! I have no recourse but to use sarcasm in that situation. "Well, did you see that happen in the Star Wars movie?" I asked. "Yeah" he said. "Then, I think that means that it happened" I said. I asked him more questions around his question to see if there was something else he was getting at, but nope, his question was to verify that what he saw with his own eyes actually took place. I guess it was all so thrilling that he thought it was some sort of wonderful dream.

To fully explain the types of questions he's been asking, here's a little conversation I dreamt up. Imagine George Lucas has told the people at 20th Century Fox that he's looking to revisit Star Wars. The script has been dropped off, and read and now it's time to go over it. Take it away George and oh, I don't know, let's call him Marty.

George! Come on in, great to see you, great to see you.

Nice to see you too Marty.

George, let's get right down to it. You know, when you told us here at Fox that you were interested in revisiting Star Wars, well, we just about died and went to Heaven. I mean, obviously we've been huge fans of your work and have been honored that you've let us all take everyone's positive memories of Star Wars and shit all over them.

I've enjoyed it too.

But...with this new draft of your plan on revisiting Star Wars, well, I'm not sure how to say this so I'm going to just come out and say it. George, this has to be, hands down, the most boring fucking script I've ever read.

How so?

How so? How so he asks. Ok, well, let's start off when Han Solo and Luke Skywalker first leave the Millenium Falcon after being captured by the Death Star. You spend ten minutes going over how the doors to the Millenium Falcon work.

People like doors.

No, people like The Doors, and then it's only the pretentious assholes. Ok, fine, so how about later on when instead of going to rescue Princess Leia they go looking for a pool.

I like pools.

I like pools too, but I don't want to see a movie about them. Jesus George, you have a ten minute scene where all you do is show various Stormtroopers and TIE Fighter pilots eating.

And chewing gum.

Oh, right, can't forget the gum. Honestly though, the worst part is when you have the Crimson Guard-

Emperor Guard

Fine, the "Emperor Guard" dress and undress himself over and over again. Never mind that the Emperor Guard aren't on the Death Star in the first movie, who the hell wants to watch someone put on clothes for like fifteen minutes?

It's a very complicated outfit.

It's a shawl and a red bucket! They can't even see out the damn thing!

I still don't see what the problem is. These are very valid insights into the world of Star Wars.

No, they're not. They're very boring insights into the world of Star Wars. George, I know you're not a very good filmmaker, but no one, and I mean no one wants to see how people get dressed. I mean, they assume that characters put on their clothes the same way that everyone else does. Ditto for going through doors. You have every bit of daily minutae in this film short of watching a storm trooper take a dump.

(George stands up and drops a script on the desk.) Empire revisited bitches!

Lord that was awful. Any way you get the point. I'm almost afraid to have him watch Empire, not because I'm afraid of explaining how Darth Vader can be Luke's father, cause he won't notice that, but because I won't be able to adequately explain where Lando buys his boots.

A Kingdom of Puzzles

2009-06-17T09:56:00.001-05:00

Here it is, my long awaited Puzzle Kingdoms review! I know, I know, you've been anxiously awaiting this one for weeks. Weeks! Well, wait no longer.

More E3 Madness

2009-06-12T20:29:00.000-05:00

It's the E3 Games We Promise Won't Suck. Whee!

I liked this one because after days of writing previews which had very little of my personality and thank you emails to PR, which, in the interest of maintaining relationships had almost none of my personality, it was nice to be myself when writing this one. I'm certainly not the best writer of our merry crew, and it shows, but I don't care. I got to be me on this one, and Bill let me, so I'm happy. Now, I'm fairly certain that I'm going to be arrested for mentioning orgasms and Zelda in the same paragraph so I should probably go and call my lawyer.

Let's Talk About Toys, Baby

2009-06-12T13:37:00.007-05:00

I've been spending a fair amount of time with the new Transformers for the upcoming movie and the underlying theme can be summed up in one word: complicated. I don't know if they toy designers felt that the original movie toys didn't have enough going on, or they just want to punish parents by putting "ages 5+" on a toy that requires an engineering degree to transform, but whatever the case, these toys have a lot going on. Now, the plus side of this is that the robot modes all end up being a lot more detailed and varied than the toys from the first movie but the flip side is that some of the transformations are damn near impossible. Part of this has to do with the fact that the transformation instructions haven't gotten any better yet the toys are even more complicated leading you to a situation much like getting an air conditioner installation manual consisting of one step that reads "Step 1: Install air conditioner."

I mean, there is no way in hell that a five year old could transform these things and I'm not talking about a lazy-ass five year old like my kid, although I should be honest in pointing out that my kid is a lazy-ass six year old. I'm talking about a kid who is willing to spend time with a toy trying to figure it out. Most likely the damn thing will come apart before it gets transformed and either Timmy will just throw it out or Timmy's dad will then have to spend time figuring out how to put the blasted thing back together and then how to transform it. I'm lucky in that my kid doesn't like Transformers, no doubt because he won't take the time to learn how to transform them, even the easy ones, and I'm not one to repeat myself a dozen times, however I like Transformers and these things are starting to irritate me.

Granted, this didn't stop me from dragging my family out on the Friday before they came out so that I could buy a bunch of toys at a Walmart in Florida, many of which I have since returned because Toys R Us had them on sale and Walmart wouldn't price match them. Luckily my family is used to following me around looking for toys and at that point in the vacation, the impending afternoon rainstorm was putting a damper on most plans, so it's not like it was all that big of a deal. Well, the credit card company denying my charge because they thought someone had stolen my card and driven to Florida was a big deal, as were my misbehaving children, but those aren't my fault. I'm just the one that brought us all there. Ok, shutting up now.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really like these new toys, I just may need to hire someone with smaller, more nimble fingers to transform them. The other big difference between these toys and the last go around is the penchant for more strange robot modes. Someone at Hasbro, or someone who worked on the new movie, really has a fetish for unicycles as several of the new toys have a robot mode that involve balancing on one wheel while another one sticks up in the air. For example, take Chromia and Demolisher:

Chromia

Demolisher

Now, in Demolisher's defense, he can stand on his own, as long as he balances on his hands, like a gorilla. Chromia has no defense. If she's not standing on the weapon rack thingy, she falls right over. Also, Chromia, despite her seemingly simple design, was impossible to transform using the supplied instructions. I ended up putting them aside and using the picture of her robot mode on the card to transform her. Maybe I got it wrong and when transformed correctly she balance on one wheel perfectly but I sort of doubt it. The upcoming Arcee figure, also a motorcycle, also has a unicycle robot mode as does some unnamed upcoming female robot. The fan community thinks that all three robots will be able to combine in some fashion no doubt into some huge robot that also can't stand on it's own. Perhaps all three will just stack one on top of the other into some giant collapsing tower of Cyberton.

Now, I can't say that were I to visit another planet and be given the ability to take a shape that I wouldn't choose to roll around on wheels, but at the same time, I can't think of any real practical purpose to it, especially given that they can't stand up by themselves. And come on, if it's such a good idea, woudln't our ever-present intelligent designer have designed us with one giant wheel instead of legs while it was also making complicated bacteria motors? Come on people. Legs are good enough for us and good enough for your loving G-O-D so they should also be good enough for sentient, transformable robots. Plus, they make posing so much easier. At this rate, the next movie is going to feature robots that balance on a giant pin when in robot mode necessitating me to pose them in a display I'll call "Please Don't Disturb the Sleeping Transformers".

I still don't have all of the toys yet, nor have I transformed the Leader class ones, which, in the past were hella complicated, so it's possible that this first wave was just overly complicated and that the engineers layed off of the crystal and designed the later toys to be something a child could actually play with. More likely they realized that their target audience is grown men so they said "fuck it" and decided to give us value in the form of a toy that takes the better part of a half hour to transform, not counting the fifteen minutes needed to liberate it from its plastic coffin. Who the hell am I kidding? I'll buy 'em either way. Such is life when you're a slave to the plastic.

E3 A-Z

2009-06-10T11:07:00.003-05:00

The GameShark E3 A-Z is live, penned by yours truly and the five other writers that attended E3. I think it turned out really well, however you'll have to disregard the comments about my skills at playing Left 4 Dead 2. My cohorts on the team were a disheveled lot of scoundrels and layabouts, men not fit to spend any appreciable amount of time with. I was the only gentleman among them, and as a result, I let them hog all of the glory. I see now that was the wrong way to go.

Any way, if you're not entirely burned out on E3 coverage, give it a look. Exciting stuff.

And We're Back

2009-06-08T13:26:00.002-05:00

Oh yes, back in full effect, whatever that means.

E3 was a hoot as well as being supremely weird. During E3 I did the following:

Crashed a fashion show/PR party
Got manhandled by Mickey Rourke's bodyguard
Fawned excessively over Mark Sheppard (Romo Lampkin from BSG)
Fawned excessively over Tom Chick (nicest guy ever)
Stopped N'Gai Croal and Brian Crecente in the hall so that I could fawn over them (both are very nice and accommodating)
Saw Joe Madureira from afar but he was busy so I couldn't fawn over him locally
Rode in an elevator full of four foot tall, hysterically laughing Latinos
Heard a bunch of PR bullshit
Played a bunch of games

I also got to hang out with Bill and Todd, both of whom are much fun to hang out with even if Todd thinks that Dollhouse is better than Buffy season 1, an assertion that is as wrong as the day is long. The other writers I went with were cool as well, but only Todd excelled at being wrong. He elevated it to an art form.

Once I got home a ton of stuff to write about, which I completed. Now all I have to do is transcribe an interview and then get to all of the emails to PR folks to thank them for showing us around and then beg them for games. Oh the life of the games reviewer. Truly, I have no shame.

Oh, and the people working at High Voltage Software and Harmonix are quite possible the nicest people to ever walk the planet.

I have more to write about involving Transformers and new projectors, but I'll do that later. Don't want to go crazy on the first day back.

There and Back Again

2009-06-01T12:26:00.003-05:00

So last week I was gone all week because Linda and I took the kids and her in-laws to Disney World for the week. Now that I'm back, I'm getting on a plane this afternoon to LA so that I can cover E3 for GameShark.com.

At the time that I booked my E3 stuff, I was all excited and stuff but now I'm just tired. Tired, tired, tired. A vacation with two young children will do that to you. All in all, the trip went well, although Linda and I went on far fewer rides than I thought we would. As it turns out, any ride that's enclosed and has a hint of darkness and the possibility of peril sends my daughter into uncontrollable fits of terror.

Bummer.

My son wasn't scared of things, but then again, he didn't want to go on much, so it's hard to tell. Prior to the trip, Linda and I discussed pushing him a bit on this trip to have him do stuff he wasn't 100% comfortable with, but after seeing how his sister was, and having to deal with it, pushing the boy just didn't seem worth it. So, as a result, Linda's parents spent a lot of time with Abby, taking her on the Small World ride something like a dozen times while Linda and I took Ben on rides he wanted to go on. The kids had a good time, but that type of set up doesn't make it easy for mom and dad to go on anything. Luckily on the one night we took to hit the parks, when we went out it had just stopped raining, so we hightailed it to Hollywood Studios and got on Tower of Terror with basically no waiting. Seeing how that was the one ride we both wanted to make sure we got on, the trip was a success.

Everyone had a good time, including Linda's parents. They had always wanted to do Disney with the kids, so I'm glad they got a chance to do it. A vacation with young kids is just do damn tiring though. They went pretty much non-stop every day from the minute they woke up around 6 AM to the minute they went to bed around 7:30. Keeping them up later did nothing for the wake-up time. Let me tell you, when you're parenting a 6 and a 4 year old for close to 14 hours straight, with the only time for a break when you take a shower or use the bathroom, it makes for a very tiring day. In the end though, everyone had a good time, I just wish there was more time for me to catch up on sleep before I head to LA and share a room with two complete strangers. And no I don't mean hookers. Besides, I've known your mom for a while now. Zing!

Yeah, so E3. Well, I've always been very candid and up front about the fact that this whole games writing thing is just a side gig for me. Nothing about that has changed, so E3 should be interesting in that it's a big networking event and I could give a shit about networking. Oh sure, it will be nice to have PR contacts so that I can contact them directly for review copies and I have certainly enjoyed my continued relationship with THQ (Red Faction copy FTW!) but at the same time, I'm not all that interested in networking. I am interested in being professional and earning my money though, so I'll do the meet and greet thing and be sure to turn my critical eye on everything placed in front of me.

Oddly enough, in spite of my disdain for Guitar Hero, I am really looking forward to DJ Hero. I have to say that the Scratch: The Ultimate DJ controller looks more usable, but the fact that Jay-Z and Eminem will be providing music for DJ Hero, and the fact that the game supports other plastic instruments makes DJ Hero a slightly more attractive option right now. I'm not up on upcoming games, so I don't have a lot I'm really looking forward to seeing, but I need to get my hands on these DJ controllers. They both look like way too much fun.

Oh, and the PSP Go? Yeah, no thanks. There aren't enough games to support the PSP I have, so I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a third Sony portable. Plus, splitting the market between UMD and downloadable doesn't sound like a very smart thing to do. Unless a downloadable game half of, or less than half that of a physical copy, I'll always choose a physical copy.

In other, totally unrelated news, the new Transformer movie toys dropped and so far I'm pretty impressed. I bought a metric ton of them but haven't had a chance to play with most of them, but the ones that I have messed around with are pretty damn cool. Ransack is my favorite as he's a skeletal Decepticon that transforms into a biplane. A biplane! It makes absolutely no sense, which is why it's so awesome. That and for such a spindly robot he makes a very solid plane with a hella cool transformation. If I get a chance I'll resurrect my lightbox project and take proper pictures, but it won't be for a while.

It's funny. I was so thrilled to be hunting again that the finding and the purchasing of the items was what got me most excited. Opening them and playing with them was less of a thrill. Not sure what that says about me. Any way, now that a DVD cabinet for the basement is on the way, the old movie toys will come from work to home with the new movie toys going to work. The Animated and Universe line continue to share top billing in the Man Lounge, they just need proper shelving to be displayed in the manner they are accustomed to. Yet another project to undertake.

So, that's it, for now. I'll be back soon with tales of E3. Speaking of which, they just announced Crackdown 2. So, yeah, show's over folks. Nothing can beat that.

Guides and Absences

2009-05-15T14:13:00.001-05:00

Summer time and the living is easy. The writing here, however, is pretty much nonexistent. It's been a busy week with Linda traveling and me having tons to do at work as well as for GameShark. Well rejoice as you can experience the fruits of my labors! Links to my Broken Steel walkthrough as well as my GTA: Chinatown Wars guide are here for your perusal. Make with the perusing!

Time to Reflect

2009-05-10T09:39:00.002-05:00

With today I celebrate 37 glorious years on this fine planet, or should I say, the planet celebrates 37 glorious years of having me around? I'm loathe to post about my birthday as it could seem like I'm just fishing for birthday wishes which is not the case. What I'm fishing for is presents, so pay up you fucking deadbeats.

Ahem. Any way, birthdays are a great time to reflect on all that you've accomplished and all that still remains to be accomplished, so here's a list of things I'm surprised that I have at 37, and things I'm surprised that I don't. Consider it my birthday gift to you.

Things I'm Surprised I Have at 37
1.) A House In Georgia
Seriously, Georgia? When I was growing up, I knew nothing about Atlanta other than it was hot, and it was a city. Actually, I'm not even sure that I knew it was a city. The fact is, I never, in a million years, considered that one day I'd be living here and that I'd actually enjoy it. Life sure takes you interesting places at times. Except for Paramus. If you're life has taken you there, your life blows.

2.) Four Tattoos
When I was a kid, you only got a tattoo if you were in a biker gang or on shore leave. Tattoo parlors were seedy joints filled with people who would just as soon kill you as ink you. It's amazing how perceptions have changed of tattoos now, including my own. It is absolutely true that once you get one, it's hard to stop, and I'm currently planning on my fifth, which, by all accounts will probably be Dr. Monkey. I'm well aware that this means I have switched over from "tattoos should mean something to you" to "get whatever the hell you want". Then again, Dr. Monkey does mean a lot to me. He knows what you did, and he is not pleased with it, much like myself.

3.) Multiple Game Consoles.
Growing up, I knew nothing about video games. I mean nothing. I didn't have an NES or Sega or whatever. It wasn't because we couldn't afford it or anything, I simply didn't know about them. After my parents got divorced, my dad got an Atari, and I remember playing games on it, but I also remember thinking that it looked like shit and if that big block shooting a little block was supposed to be a tank, well, they got it completely wrong. Given how much I game, and that I'm paid to give my opinion on games, I consider myself somewhat less of a gamer because I didn't spend hours on Mario Brothers, or Mega Man. Oh well, I'm sure as hell making up for it now, and last time I checked, I'm not getting paid any less for my ignorance.

4.) Basic Cake Baking Skills
Baking has always been the bane of my existence. In retrospect, I'm not sure why, as baking more suits my nature as you have to be very precise with the instructions, lest everything fall apart, and I excel at following directions. It's when you have to improvise that my failures as a cook show through. I spent a year ago making cakes all year and now I think I've amassed enough skill to make a pretty decent cakes. I said I'd spend this year doing the same thing but with pies, as I fear the home made pie crust, but so far, I've done dick. Oh well. My waistline certainly is happier for it.

Things I'm Surprised That I Don't Have at 37
1.) A Pig
When I was a kid, I wanted a pig as a pet, and this was before the pot-bellied pig craze that left as soon as it arrived. Pigs have always been my favorite animal, and when I was a kid, I wanted a pig. Oh the fun we would have, my pig and me. We'd go for walks, and play in the yard and sleep in the same bed. My pig would be my very best friend. Then I would eat him. It's hard to argue the merits of a pet you can eat.

2.) Super Powers
Seriously, what the fuck? For a kid who used to look out the window during car trips and imagine himself webslinging alongside the car, a lack of super powers is particularly galling. You have no idea how many found sticks I used to tap on the ground, waiting for that strike of lightning that would transform me into Thor, god of thunder. I'm still waiting, and still tapping. At this point, I'd take anything, claws, mind control, eye beams, wings, superhuman senses, anything. Some would say that I just have to reconcile myself with living a normal human life, but to them I say, when I get eye beams, your ass is getting vaporized first.

3.) A Career As a Criminal Psychologist
I always wanted to be the dude that would do the profiling, the guy they'd bring in to get into the mind of the killer. My mom even bought me a subscription to Psychology Today. I'm not sure what changed my mind but it was either seeing how much work is involved in such a thing, or seeing too many movies where the guy brought in to get into the killer's head goes insane and ends up killing people himself. It's hard to say. Probably that first one though as the notion of going on an insane killing spree is nothing compared to obtaining a doctorate.

4.) A Kid Who Likes Transformer
What's not to like about Transformers? They're robots that turn into cars! Sometimes they turn into gorillas or planets! I mean, who wouldn't like that? My son, that's who. I mean, he seems to enjoy Legos and Star Wars which is a small comfort, but come on! It's Optimus Fucking Prime! Oh well. It certainly makes toy hunting easier as he doesn't ask for anything because he knows he doesn't like them. There's still hope for my daughter, but at the same time, I don't think I can afford to support two habits, and she doesn't exactly take no for an answer well, so I'll just cultivate in her a love of dirt. Or air. Or anything else that I don't have to pay for.

All in all, I think the haves way outweigh the have nots and I can't say for one minute that I'm at all disappointed in my life. Far from it. I am, however disappointed in you people for your distinct lack of gifts. You still have time though. I hear that Target has mind control powers on sale this week.

The Yellow Scourge

2009-04-27T12:37:00.002-05:00

My friends, I am here to discuss with you a matter of grave importance.

For many of us here in the US, the weather is turning warmer. The sun is shining, the mercury is rising and soon our long pants will be traded in for shorts, allowing us to revel in the playfulness of summer.

But there is a hidden cost to our mirth, and I am asking for your help to end it.

Men, picture this story, or better yet, cast your memory back to when it last happened to you, for if I know you well, and I think I do, it wasn't long ago. You are out enjoying summer's warmth, the sun's rays tanning your bare legs. You feel the tug of a full bladder and retire to the nearest restroom to gain relief. You approach the urinal, make the necessary preparations and begin the act of relieving yourself. Then you feel it, first a few drops, then an all too powerful wave of your own fluids, painting your legs with a foul brew of human waste.

Yes, I speak of that classic summertime affliction, Piss Legs. Whether you call it The Pee's Knees, the Yellow Scourge or simply "Jesus Christ, I just pissed all over my fucking legs!" the danger is undeniable, the shame, irrevocable.

So what is Piss Legs, exactly? Well, simply put, the Yellow Scourge comes about when your stream of wee-wee strikes the back of the urinal and then disperses back towards you, coating your legs in an unfortunate car wash of lemonade. In colder months, our pants bear the brunt of this awful assault and our minds fade of showers gone by, to the point where we consider the problem solved. But solved it is not. No, it is nearly put aside until warmer times come. Warmer, and wetter times.

So, people of this great nation, I ask for you to come together so that we may come up with solutions to this most unfortunate of problems lest an entire gender be drowned in it's own juices.

What can I do to help, you ask? What we need is a mass replacement of urinals every where. To the landfills with the tall, strictly vertical models. These are the worst perpetrators of the Yellow Scourge, reflecting back nearly 90% of everything thrown at it. I have seen grown men cut off at the knees when using these horrendous devices after too many Pabst Blue Ribbons at ye old ball game. No, what men need is urinals with a pool at the bottom, a pool that can be safely peed in with minimal reflection. Oh sure, some may splash out and land on your feet, but that's what shoes are for. If you're wearing flip-flops, well that's what you get for wearing shoes for girls and 8 year olds. Put on some real shoes, and for God's sake, cut your toenails you frat boy reject.

But you say, can't you just use the stalls and pee sitting down? Why sure we could. Should we also wear dresses and bake up a bunch of cookies and prance around in our Easter bonnets? We're men, goddammit and peeing while standing is our birthright. Take away that and you take away the very essence of being a man, namely the complete and total disregard of what's socially proper when fulfilling one's bodily obligations. When a young boy first learns that he doesn't have to wait to find a toilet, that the whole world is his toilet, well, you can see his first steps towards manhood unfold as he takes his first, gleefully liberating outdoor wee-wee.

Ok, you say, then don't sit down, but stand up and use the stall. And deny a stall to those for which they are sorest in need? Let me ask you something. Say you decided to take advantage of the Two For One Taco Special at the Taco Hut and two hours later you're feeling them rocketing out of your digestive tract at alarming speeds. When that time comes and you rush into the bathroom, do you want to see that all stalls are full simply because someone doesn't want a little pee on their leg hairs? Hell no! You want, nay need and empty stall. Men know the rules and the rules state that the stalls are for two things and two things only: reading and surfing porn on your phone. Rules are the only thing that keep us from anarchy, people.

Sure, there are other options to keep you safe and dry. You can try the stand back approach where you hope that your bladder pressure is strong enough to allow you to stand back far enough to clear the offending backsplash, but that's not for everyone and no one wants to find that they aren't as young as they used to be and end up pissing all over the floor. You can also try aiming for the urinal next to you, however that can also be awkward to manage, especially if the other urinal is already taken.

No, my friends, the only thing that can save us from the Yellow Scourge is a systematic dismantling and replacement of the nation's entire urinal system. It will be expensive, and time consuming, but think of the cost if we do nothing. Pee soaked legs drying in the summer sun, a nation of men stinking like hobos and wino's. Picnics ruined as a trip to the little boy's room results in a shower of your own filth. To act is expensive, to not act, disastrous.

When we band together, we can do great things America. Let us come together now, in our collective hour of need and end the Yellow Scourge forever. The men in your lives, and their legs, will thank you for it.

Fable 2 and Gender Empathy

2009-04-24T14:34:00.001-05:00

I spit a little more about my time as a woman in Albion. Peep the Lungfish!

GI Joe: Resolute

2009-04-24T09:05:00.003-05:00

For those who wish to go into their new, adult oriented GI Joe cartoon experience unspoiled, turn away now.

Yeah, so Warren Ellis of hella comic book fame penned a new "series" of five minute long GI Joe episodes for Adult Swim. You can watch them all online, and I also think they're going to run them on the Cartoon Network. However you choose to watch them, know this: they are incredibly, incredibly stupid.

But, but, but you say, this is GI Joe. GI Joe was always stupid. To which I reply, yes, yes it was. Do you know why it was stupid? It was stupid because it was for eight year old boys who don't know a good show from a kick in the still undeveloped testicles. The show, like all good cartoons of the 80's, existed solely to separate young boys from their money. To that end it succeeded admirably, as I can personally attest to as I had a metric ton of GI Joes growing up.

The new series is supposed to take more from the comics than the cartoon series, and I know very little about the comics. I can distinctly remember the issue where they explain Snake Eyes' back story, but it was either a multi-part issue and I only got one part of it, or I had some sort of head trauma as a child as I only remember the part where his whole family dies on their way to the airport to pick up Snake Eyes. Seeing how that doesn't explain why the dude doesn't talk, is all scarred up, and is a bad-ass ninja, that's one hell of a disappointing origin story.

Any way, so yeah, maybe the comics were edgier and darker and more in line with the new show, but the GI Joe I remember was like an animated version of the A-Team. There was a lot of shooting, but no one got shot, or really hurt for that matter. Things blew up but people always got out in time before the rockets hit. Basically, it was violent but in a very tame and stupid way. I can only imagine that they made the guns shoot lasers instead of bullets, including the planes which I always thought was odd, so that they could make the claim that they weren't teaching kids that guns didn't hurt. They were teaching kids that laser guns ddidn't hurt which, to this day, has yet to be refuted.

Ok, so back to the new show. Well, the new show is "edgy" in that they actually kill people and not just random people, but members of Joe and Cobra alike. The problem is that they upped the ante on edginess, but did nothing to rectigy how fucking stupid the show is.

Case in point, at the beginning of the series, GI Joe is all based out of the USS Flagg, a super carrier sailing in the ocean in a classified location, something the stupid ticker won't let us forget. Boom! Pow! Shazam! go the bombs, destrying a whole bunch of armaments and vehicles. Oh noes! Duke is pissed, as well he should be and he wants Bazooka front and center to know how someone could have blown up all of that shit right under the nose of the ship's security detail. Well, Bazooka is dead. Double oh noes! Turns out Storm Shadow killed him to a) fuck up Joe's shit and b) call out Snake Eyes.

At this point, everyone mobilizes to deal with the latest Cobra threat which includes killing ten million people in Moscow, no doubt in an act to make up for all of the non-deaths that happened on the original show. Now, obviously there's a global threat that needs to be dealth with, but if I may ask a question, why is no one at all concerned with the fact that a terrorist agent could a) find out what the USS Flagg's classified location was, b) get to the ship, c) get on the ship, d) plant explosives and then e) get off of the ship and no one fucking notices? I mean, wouldn't there need to be a traitor, or at least a massive security breach somewhere within GI Joe just to find the Flagg in the first place?

Well, Bazooka isn't the only tragedy in the show, both in terms of body count and narrative stupidity. Eventually Snake Eyes meets up with Storm Shadow and we see, via flashback that their feud started because they both had the same ninja master, Storm Shadow's uncle, and said master wouldn't teach his super secret ninja death move to Storm Shadow, thereby denying him the ability to continue teaching the clan upon the uncle's death. Now, in the comic, the fued was based on Storm Shadow not being chosen as the new head of the clan, so the motivations are pretty much the same, except that in the new series, all Storm Shadow does is whine about not being taught the super secret ninja moves. I mean, he's like a broken fucking record with this thing. In the comic, his rage comes off as the ravings of someone who wants power, but is denied it. In the new series he sounds like a petulant child who can't have any candy. Not exactly fearsome coming from the world's second greatest ninja. In the end, Storm Shadow is all like "Well, Unca Ninja didn't teach me the 7th super secret move, but he didn't teach you the sixth so eat my fist biatch!" and Snake Eyes is all like "Oh no you din't! Super secret 7th move in the house motherfucker!" Then he punches Storm Shadow in the head and kills him.

Seriously.

After that, it pretty much went downhill. You only saw Cobra Commander for like one episode. Destro and Baroness's entire part in the series is to babysit some scientist hostages until Roadblock and Gung-Ho take them out with a disco grenade. Oh and Duke shoots Zartan, possibly killing him. Maybe not. Really, who the fuck cares? By the end, Duke is all like "we're going to kill Cobra Commander" and by that point I figured the only way that the show could have gotten any dumber is if Serpenter showed up in a chariot being pulled by the naked pair of Tomax and Xamot. Did I tell you about the space balloon? No? Well, then thank me.

From what I can tell, people are pretty jazzed with the series, so I guess I'm just overly critical, or the current state of GI Joe is in such disarray that fans of the show are willing to go ape-shit over anything that has members of Cobra being shot in the face. One side effect of the show is that I am now more jazzed for the movie as the movie certainly can't be any worse, and if it is, it will probably cross over into "so bad it's good" territory. Hopes are high either way.

Now, I'm not opposed to taking older properties and reinvinting them. Personally, I love the Transformers Animated cartoon, even if it is more kid focused. I think that Batman: The Animated Series was a fantastic way to take an older property and turn it into something a little edgier but still true to the roots of the character. The fact is, that with GI Joe, and this includes Resolute, you have a guy dressed as a sailor running around with a fucking parrot on his shoulder. You either have to accept the stupidity of the situation and play within it, or you have to change a lot more than whether or not your bullets kill people. The movie seems to know this, Resolute does not. Whether or not the movie succeeds where Resolute so glaringly failed remains to be seen.

Whatever the case, I can only hope that Warren Ellis stays away from Thundercats, or other beloved properties of my past. I don't think I can stand to see an episode of Bionic 6: Unfaltering where Sport-1 caves in Chopper's skull with a baseball bat and then rapes Madame-O to death.

The Mixed CD's

2009-04-22T14:40:00.003-05:00

So I finally got through my Pearl Jam selection issues and have finally come up with the final mix for my son's first mixed cd's. I say "cd's" because there were too many songs to fit on one disc and I just couldn't bring myself to cut any deeper. Plus, if he'd like one, he'd probably like two right?

Now, there's a lot of music that I love that didn't make it on these discs simply because I don't think it would be loved by a 6 year old, so when you get on me for not including Led Zeppelin, let's remember the context. Ditto for 2Pac, but I did try. Oh how I tried. Any way, let's get to it, but I'll warn you. This is a long one.

CD 1
1. "In This City" - Iglu and Hartly
Iglu and Hartly is a pretty damn good band with a really infectious, upbeat sound. I chose this song because it's awesome, but also because of the first few lines, "You came into my life. You can not separate yourself." Well, that's having kids, in a nutshell. Once they're there, you can't imagine your life without them for better or for worse. The song also has the line "I have nothing to fear, in this city" which is a pretty good message. When Linda and I got married we moved to Seattle without knowing anyone or really, anything about the place, but we knew that there was nothing to be afraid of. Not a bad sentiment to pass on to your kid. There's a big world out there, no reason to be afraid of exploring it.

2. "Sweetness" - Jimmy Eat World
Like a lot of people, I first heard about Jimmy Eat World from "The Middle". However, once I heard this song, well, that was it. This is, hands down, my favorite song from a band that has quickly become my second favorite band (behind Pearl Jam of course). It's also a blast to sing in Rock Band 2.

3. "World Wide Suicide" - Pearl Jam
Picking the right PJ song was very difficult. Way too many choices there. I finally went with this one as it embodies Pearl Jam to me. It's musically very impressive, socially conscious and it fucking rocks. I chose a live version because Pearl Jam is such an amazing live band that I prefer to listen to the live versions of their songs due to how much better they always are. Kind of a heavy message to drop on a 6 year old, but hey, he's gotta start somewhere.

4. "Brother Lee" - Citizen Cope
Such a great song. I remember listening to it as I drove down 400 on my way to see Citizen Cope live. Citizen Cope was the first band I chose to see on my own when I moved here, which has led to many awesome concert experiences.

5. "Go Your Own Way" - Fleetwood Mac
You can't have a mixed cd of my creation without Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey Buckingham is such an amazing guitarist that I could listen to him play all day. Easily one of the greatest bands to ever live.

6. "Cold Beer and Remote Control" - Indigo Girls
Also a tough choice to make, as I love me some Indigo Girls. Such an amazingly talented duo. I went with this song because it's musically, very beautiful, and like most of their songs, has a strong social message. Not that I expect my son to pick up on it, but one never knows. Kids will amaze you with what they notice.

7. "I'm Goin' Down" - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
I loved the "Born in the USA" record because of all of the different sounds on display. This one starts with a mandolin and some acoustic guitars and then has Bruce singing in a real low, almost monotone. I thought that the voice and the "I'm goin' down, down, down, down" chorus would appeal to a kid who enjoys repeating himself. A lot. Then, by the end of the song, when you're feeling bad for Bruce, he starts be-bop-a-loo-lah-ing all over the place to the point where you think "hey, this guy is actually enjoying himself". It's strange, but it works.

8. "Body Movin'" - Beastie Boys
A fun song by a great group. It don't get much more complicated than that, although this song does have one of my favorite Beastie lines: Like a bottle of Chateau Neuf Du Pap, I'm fine like wine when I start to rap. Love it.

9. "How Far We've Come" - Matchbox Twenty
This one is more for Linda. I mean, I like the song, and the band, but she and the kids absolutely love this song, so on it went.

10. "When You Were Young" - The Killers
The Killers is a maddeningly uneven band. The thing about them, is that they're constantly reaching, sometimes way overreaching. When it fails, like that stupid "Humans" song, it sucks, but when it works, like in this song, hot damn it fucking flies. There is a lot of bombast in rock, and The Killers are filled to the brim with bombast. Also a great song to sing in Rock Band.

11. "Be Yourself" - Audioslave
For a song that start off so slowly, this one builds to an absolutely incredible maelstrom of blistering rock. Plus, the lyrics are very inspirational: Don't lose any sleep tonight, I'm sure everything will end up alright, you may win or lose, but to be yourself is all that you can do. I always get a little choked up when I hear that line, especially the way that Chris Cornell sings it Plus Tom Morello actually plays his guitar rather than making odd streaky sounds.

12. "By the Way" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
My favorite RHCP song. I don't know what it is about it, but I love it. Yeah, it makes no sense, but I don't care. It rocks. That also happens to be my favorite RHCP album too.

13. "Crystal Village" - Pete Yorn
This one is from his "Live in New Jersey" set. It's a great song, but the live version has some really great moments and seems to stop, but then kicks right back up. It's a good song on the studio record, but a fantastic song live.

14. "The Last Song" - All-American Rejects
As album closers go, this one is a keeper. I'm a big fan of pop-rock, and these guys put out some really slick pop-rock. The fact that it's a good way to end a cd certainly doesn't hurt.

CD 2
1. "Call to Arms" - Angels and Airwaves
This song opens their second record, so I used it to open my second disc. It's a great song if you have to get pumped up about something, not that a 6 year old needs much inspiration to get pumped up. Also a great band to see live. Their drummer has like nine arms.

2. "Hysteria" - Muse
I picked the live version from "H.A.A.R.P" for this one. It's a fucking wall of rock, I mean a 50 foot, 5 foot wide wall of rock. Sometimes rock should knock you on your fucking ass, and that's exactly what this song does. It's amazing to me that so much sound can come from three people.

3. "Mama Said Knock You Out" - LL Cool J
This is one of my most prized digital possessions, a recording of LL's performance on MTV Unplugged. I remember watching this as a teenager and being blown away. I love modern hip-hop, but the old school, braggadocio rap has a very special place in my heart, and in my mind, LL did it better than anyone else. I love how the crowd start going ape-shit about 3/4 through this song as the live band really turns it on. Great stuff.

4. "Anna Molly" - Incubus
Another one of my favorite bands and this song is perfectly done. Just a fast paced, hard rocking track. What every growing 6 year old needs.

5. "What If I Came Knocking" - John Mellencamp
For me, there is no better John Mellencamp record than "Human Wheels" and this song and the title track are the two best songs on the album. I just love how the song builds to the line "What if I came crying, after just a few weeks, and said I misread my heart, this is not really meant to be". Not a line you usually hear in a song about coming to someone's window with romantic intent.

6. "R3wind" - Better Than Ezra
Another one of my favorite bands, and a song about making a mix tape no less. Well, the song is more about how music can take you back to certain points in your life, something I can totally relate to. I listened to this album constantly when it came out as I was working at Boeing in Seattle and didn't have a lot to do, so listening to music helped pass the time. This record is still one of my favorite BTE albums, if not one of my favorite albums period.

7. "Making Pies" - Patty Griffin
Patty Griffin has one of the most beautiful voices in music. I love this song because of the subject, an elderly woman who doesn't have much of a family of her own, but has a life and a job making pies. The imagery in the song is stunning, but so is one of the underlying sentiments, namely that sometimes life really sucks and the best you can do is trudge on, but that's enough. I have a great life, no doubt about it, but sometimes, life ain't all that great. In fact, in the immortal words of Al Swearengen, "Many times, that's what the fuck life is... one vile fucking task after another." During these times, as the song says, you could cry, or die, or just make pies all day. Sometimes, that's enough.

8. "The '59 Sound" - Gaslight Anthem
Great song, great band, and it combines those two rock staples, namely death and teenagers.

9. "Angels of the Silences" - Counting Crows
Another album I listened to a ton when in Seattle. This album was the follow up to "August and Everything After" and while that first record was really mellow, this album was a bit faster paced. People didn't buy it nearly to the same extent, no doubt due to the lack of a catchy "Me and Mr. Jones" single, but in my mind, this is their best record and this song just rips. I know I was surprised when I heard it. Plus, it gets in, gets the job done and then gets out without overstaying its welcome, something Adam Duritz isn't exactly known for.

10. "Freak of the Week" - Marvelous 3
How does one show their love for power pop and their love for Butch Walker? Easy, put on one of the best songs from the absolutely rocking power-pop band that Walker fronted. I can only hope that this song serves as a gateway drug to the glory and splendor that is Butch Walker.

11. "It's Tricky" - Run-D.M.C.
Old school rap at its finest. I mean, seriously, if you don't have a copy of "Raising Hell" in your collection then you have a serious problem, one that needs to be rectified immediately. This song was also chosen because Linda and I used to play SSX Tricky on the GameCube and this song played over the opening credits.

12. "Misery Business" - Paramore
I feel like Paramore is part of a joke with the punchline "Hot Topic" but at the same time, I love this band. Musically, I think that "That's What You Get" is a better song, but this one is a lot more fun. Sometimes fun wins.

13. "American Idiot" - Green Day
Probably one of the most important albums of the past ten years. I love this song for having the balls to talk back to all of the bullshit that went down during the past eight years. I wish I could have put the live version on, but there were too many F-bombs for young ears.

14. "Famous Last Words" - My Chemical Romance
A final song from a concept album about a guy dying from cancer is an odd choice for a 6 year old's first mix cd, but sometimes I think rock should scare you a little, and this song is a little scary before it gets all uplifting. I picked the live version from Mexico City, because there's so much emotion in it. I am not afraid to keep on living indeed.

So there they are. Thanks for sticking around for all of them. Let the criticism commence!

Linktastic

2009-04-17T13:42:00.003-05:00

My Chronicles of Riddick review is up. Watched Pitch Black today to further revel in how much a badass Richard B. Riddick is. While his badassery is on display in the game, it's still an uneven experience. Oh well.

Also, at lungfishopolis I talk about my time as a woman in Fable 2. Gender studies and kicking chickens has never been so exciting.

Should you switch to the DSi?

2009-04-15T10:52:00.001-05:00

Well, I'll tell you.

Ice Breaking

2009-04-15T05:59:00.003-05:00

So my wife has to travel in May for a team meeting. Her team is all over the US and her manager figured it would be a good idea to have everyone together for a meeting, an odd choice given that the team is being restructured away from her. Good to see that in these troubled economic times companies still can find a way to waste massive amounts of both money and their employees' time.

To prepare for the meeting, they sent out a series of "Icebreaker" questions that will be used to do what, I don't know. I mean, knowing what some of these people consider to be their favorite movie won't address the various issues facing the team and unless your first car was a unicorn or equipped with a flux capacitor, I don't see how the answer to that question is going to spark any meaningful interactions. If anything, it'd go like this:

"What was your first car?"
"Chevy Impala. You?"
"Plymouth Duster."
"Nice."
"Yeah."

Insert awkward silence.

Linda hates these stupid exercises as much as I do, so she sent me the questions in the hope that I could help her come up with wise-ass answers. Truly she is playing to my strengths. So, for your enjoyment, I now present my answers to the ice breaker questions.

My first car was a (make and model)
As we were poor and couldn't afford most modern conveniences, my first car was a gray mare named Pebbles. Oh the fun Pebbles and I would have riding across the countryside. That is, until school started. Children can be cruel and soon their harsh words rang out as they derided me for not having a car. Oh how they would laugh and laugh, that is until All Hallow's Eve when Pebbles and I trampled them to death in Potter's Field. Who's laughing now, children? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!

My favorite restaurant is
I don't eat out. Do you know how much rat shit is in most restaurant food these days? I mean, it's disgusting. Like that salad you're eating right now? It's probably bathed in, fucking festooned with rat shit. The rats probably had an orgy in the lettuce bin. Hey, you gonna eat those croutons?

The magazines I subscribe to are
Juggs, Man Heat, Anal Escapades, Hot Dirty Hamsters, Putting It Where It Don't Belong, Barely Legal, Cock Breath and Country Living

My favorite movie(s) is/are
As long as the theatre is dark enough so that no one can see me take my pants off, I really don't care what the movie is.

My favorite book(s) is/are
That's a toss up between the Bible and the US Tax code. I think now would be a perfect time to speak to you about both at length. Have you been saved and/or itemized your deductions?

The book that is currently on my nightstand is
Used as a prop to hide my Glock. Motherfuckers best be ready to get tore up if they be fittin' to step to my house.

If I had time off to do anything I wanted I would
I would travel to the far reaches of this planet, catalouging all of the world's many species. I would be tireless in my quest to show the people of this planet all of the world's beautiful forms of life. Every bird, every insect, every mammal big and small would be found in my tireless quest. Then I would kill them and eat them, preferably all at once.

My favorite candy bar or candy is
My father was a dentist, so candy was strictly forbidden. To this day I can't see a Snickers and not relive the horrible beatings I had at his hand. Easter of '83 was particularly brutal. Still, I wouldn't turn down a Payday.

If I could be any cartoon character I would be
Remember that episode of GI Joe where that big blob creature escaped and was destroying the city and members of GI Joe remembered that apple seeds contain a tiny amount of poison so they flew over the creature and dropped apples on it until it was dead? Well, I'd want to be that blob creature because it combines my love of apples and wanton destruction.

My favorite beverage is
Sweet, sweet liquor

One of my favorite childhood memories is
Losing my virginity to your mom.

I bet you would never guess that I
Watch you sleep at night.

If I won an unlimited shopping spree to any store I would pick
Walgreen's. With the amount of meth I cook, I go through a lot of cold medicine. Hoo-boy!

One of my most embarrassing moments was when
I wore white after Labor Day to a work picnic. Luckily I had the shotgun in the car. Those fuckers will never criticize my pantsuit again.

The thing that I never seem to be able to throw away is
My victims' fingernails.

My last meal would be
The warden's jugular.

If you want to make me angry, just
Keep on talking.

The Pitt Walkthrough

2009-04-10T14:35:00.001-05:00

The second of my Fallout 3 DLC walkthroughs went live today, this time teaching you how to navigate The Pitt. Ooooooh, very scary.

Personally, I liked Operation Anchorage better, but to each their own. Whether I like the game or not, the check don't change.

Meet Your Shaving Ovelord

2009-04-09T13:44:00.005-05:00

This came via UPS yesterday, ushering in a new era of personal shaving.

It's a Braun Series 7, the 760cc to be exact. It has a bevy of features including a base that serves as both a recharger and a cleaner, and some crazy ass vibrating head that uses micro-oscillations to help slice the hairs off of your face. It is both more expensive and more complicated than any razor, sorry, shaver, I have ever had, but I feel it's worth it, given how gorgeous I am.

If you follow my Twitter feed, you know that a week or so ago I was shaving and my Norelco broke apart on my face. I had broken the housing that contains one of the blades a week or so prior, but up until that time, the breakage was contained to when I was cleaning the thing and not actually using it. See, when they advertise these "washable" shavers, they always show someone running it under water, but what they don't show is all of the wet hair that stays in the blade housings gunking the damn thing up, and they really don't show what all of that gunk looks like in a week. To clean it, you actually have to get in there and scrub the damn thing out, so I was giving my shaver head a fervent tapping to clean it out and apparently I tapped too hard.

On a couple of occasions the blasted thing flew apart, with parts of it landing on the bathroom floor. As I am tasked with cleaning the bathrooms and I tackle said task with the same attention to detail that I apply to the rest of my life, on any given day the bathroom floor is somewhere between slightly dirty and downright repulsive. So now, not only am I smearing wet bits of cut hair on my face when I shave, but also whatever horrible virus that the shaver part picked up from the bathroom floor. Oh sure, I could clean the floors better, but that wasn't going to happen. Time for a new shaver.

On a side note, what the Norelco people also don't tell you is that if your shaver head does come apart, you have to put the spinny blade things back in the exact same position they were in when they popped out or you'll carve such deep grooves in your flesh that your children will run from you in terror and men will hunt you down and wipe you from the face of the earth. I don't know why you have to be so specific with the blade placement, no doubt to save Norelco from lawsuits brought on by people who ripped chunks of their faces off, but the instruction manual is very specific about making sure that you don't misplace the blades. I guess this means that you also can't shave with the shaver upside down as that will totally fuck things up and you'll be picking pieces of your chin up out of the sink.

When I did my shaver research, the Braun came out on top every time. The usual caveats applied though, that you won't get as close a shave as with a blade, leading me to believe that these people use some mythical Vorpal Razor or some shit. I have never, ever gotten a clean shave with a razor blade. I don't know if I'm just not using the right blades or I'm not using enough of them. I understand there's a razor with nine blades, vibration and possibly a ham sandwich to eat whilt shaving so maybe I'm just not forward thinking enough with my three blades and lack of lunch meat. The point is that whenever I use a razor, I always get a crappy shave and end up bleeding. No doubt the error exists between razor and floor and I'm ok with that.

Really the main complaint people had about the shaver was that it was expensive and at about 200 bucks, it is expensive. I groused at the price until my wife pointed out that I have no problem dropping almost that amount on a DSi when I have a perfectly good DS and this was something that I'd be using it every day to make myself look as presentable as someone that looks like me can. She had a point. The unfortunate truth is that I have to shave every day as the combination of white hairs on my face and purple bags under my eyes from being perenially under served in the sleep department means that a day of growth pushes me right over the edge into "sickly" territory. I can't pull off the grizzled, cool, tough guy look that some people can when they don't shave for a day or two. I look like I have Typhus or some cough that died off in the 1800's. So, if I'm going to be shaving every day, I might as well do it right.

So far the shaver has performed admirably. It charged up quickly enough, gave a pretty damn good shave and then cleaned itself. Course it sounds like a jet engine when it's cleaning itself and I have no idea if the blades are actually clean or if I just paid 200 bucks for a thirty dollar razor that puts on a nice light and sound show, but I have to assume that the good people at Braun wouldn't pull one over on me. Plus, because I bought it at Amazon, and the cleaning solution is flammable, I can't send it back to them. Apparently Amazon has a special fire retardant spray that they use when mailing flammable items and it wears off the moment the package hits your doorstep.

I can only hope that this is the last shaver I have to buy for some time. I would much rather spend my money on something cool like a DSi. Oh wait. I did. Never mind.

Chinatown Wars Review

2009-04-06T17:10:00.001-05:00

My GTA: Chinatown Wars review is up.

The swingset is about half way finished. It looks pretty dang good, but good Lord, I'm tired.

The DSi is frickin' sweet. More on that later, much later, like when I can use my hands for more than five minutes at a time.

Tweeting

2009-04-02T09:51:00.001-05:00

I am now on Twitter, with all of the stupid, banal updates one would come to expect from the service. Not sure how long I'll use it, but go ahead and follow me if you want to experience my life in all of its glory and splendor.

Spring Breakage

2009-04-02T09:40:00.006-05:00

Spring break is soon upon us, and with it, the task of putting together this behemoth.

If you're thinking "Jesus Christ, that looks like a goddamned house", you wouldn't be that far off of the mark. It does look like a house, it is as heavy and as sturdy as a house and it is as complicated to put together as a house. It also requires a second mortgage, and can double as a home should we lose our jobs and be forced out on the streets. I'm hoping that the new residents don't mind us living in their backyard and bathing in their stream.

Our current swingset, which I put together something like three years ago, is starting to rot and not in an innocuous place but where the beams meet the ground. I tried to pass it off as not being a big deal but my wife is uncomfortable with the notion of our children spending time on a structure that could collapse around them. Smart woman she is.

This new one seems a hell of a lot sturdier, at least the one on display at Costco is, because most of it isn't sheathed in plastic, like the rotting timber of our current set, we can apply whatever chemicals we need to to retard the natural course of, well nature. Granted, I'm looking forward to yearly sealings of the swingset as much as I'm looking forward to putting it together but I'm not about to put all the time and money into building the damn thing just to watch it crumble into dust. Not again any way. Once was enough.

So, with that in mind, we'll undertake putting it together this week while the kids are home, because nothing helps productivity like having two kids, aged 6 and 4 underfoot while you're trying to build a fucking subdivision. The instructions are complicated, but detailed, so I have no doubts that we'll get it done, the real question is how many of the children will survice the process to actually play on it. Only time will tell. If they don't, I'll add some drywall to the fort, run some power and will move the Man Lounge out there. Nothing says fun like video gaming and swings.

How Not to Recycle

2009-03-31T12:19:00.002-05:00

In the process of creating the Man Lounge this weekend, I unearthed a number of old items, one of which was my old Creative Zen Jukebox mp3 player. Not sure why I was keeping this thing around, but there it was, thick as a brick and half as sexy. Being the green minded fellow that I am, rather than chucking it in the garbage with all of my other crap (including, but not limited to a yo-yo, a harmonica and two cigar cutters), I figured I'd recycle the thing. I have no idea just what is in a MP3 player that makes it any worse for the environment than all of other crap we consume day to day that can't be recycled, but I also don't know how to put a fucking watch on, so clearly I'm not in a position to judge.

So, with my environmental ignorance in mind, I decided to make use of Best Buy's chain-wide recycling program and send my MP3 player back to the Earth, or at least to some third world company where they'll no doubt sell it as top of the line technology. My brief, although not brief enough trip to the joy that is the Best Buy recycling program has allowed me to come up with a brief tutorial on how not to recycle electronics. Read it. Live it. Love it.

Signs People
Upon walking into the Best Buy, there is absolutely nothing there telling you a) where the recycling drop-off is or b) that they even have one. The only reason I knew that they had a program is because I researched it online and found the information there. Oh sure you can drop off used cell phones, ink cartridges and rechargeable batteries once you walk into the store, but for anything other than that, you'll be wandering aimlessly, doomed to perish of thirst amongst the vacuum cleaners before you find where you should go. I ended up asking the guy right at the door, thus preventing my untimely demise. When is a demise timely? Has anyone ever died and other said "well, he was about due for it"? These are the things that keep me awake at night. Moving on.

Don't Make People Wait In Line
The average person will do only that which is absolutely necessary to live their daily lives. Most people wouldn't get dressed in the morning if they didn't have to. I have seen people walking around in pajamas at three in the afternoon, a clear sign that they are doing the bare minimum needed to be considered clothed. Recycling something which can be very easily thrown away is asking a lot to people, especially considering that without the benefit of some seriously jacked up technology, those same people will be long dead before their non-recycling ways catches up with them. At Best Buy, or at least this Best Buy, if you are recycling something, you have to wait in line at the Customer Service Counter. Yes, that's right, if you're trying to do the right thing, ecologically speaking, you have to wait with all of the people looking to cheat the store out of a five dollar pair of headphones.

In this case, there were two people in front of me, one of which appeared to be on drugs. This woman could not stand still. She'd adjust her headphones, then pick her nose, then play with the cattle mover stand, then look at me, then look at the return policy sign, then look at me, then pick her nose, then play with the pole, then look at me. Not wanting to be shot by a junkie as I waited in line to recycle a five year old MP3 player, I stood firmly rooted to the spot, staring straight ahead as if a drill sergeant were screaming at me and threatening to stab me with a bayonet and leave me to the swamp critters. Either this woman was completely hopped up on something or she was looking to pull off the mother of all Best Buy swindles. Eventually she calmed the fuck down, moved forward and returned whatever she decided she didn't need any more so that she had more money for crank.

Remember Why You're Recycling
Once I got to the counter, and presented my item for recycling, the woman, rather child as she was all of about 12, picked it up and said "What is this?" Now, the thing says right on it "MP3 Player" but I'm assuming that her mind couldn't reconcile the fact that an MP3 player could be more than six ounces and not made by Apple. I couldn't have gotten a more befuddled look if I brought in an 8-track player as her hipster, douchebag boyfriend probably has an 8-track player so that he can be cool and retro.

I told her what it was and she then proceeded to start scanning unseen barcodes. Then, inexplicably, she handed me a receipt. A receipt! A receipt for recycling! Do you know what the receipt said? It said "Recycling receipt - $0.00" followed by a yard of information on Best Buy's return policy and how I can take a survey and possibly win a gift card. This receipt was as useless a piece of paper as I've ever seen. There was absolutely no information on it that I could use to get back my MP3 player should I change my mind and decide to fuck over the environment. In fact, there was nothing on the receipt to even indicate what I had brought in for recyling in the first place. All it stated was that at some point today, I brought in something to be recycled, and that no money changed hands as a result of it.

Seriously people, why the fuck would I need a receipt for this? What possible reason could there be for me to have a receipt other than the fact that Best Buy secretly hates the fact that they have to now recycle electronics and has decided to retaliate by killing trees and polluting our fair planet with register tape ink. I can't think of any other reason. At the very least, ask if the person wants a receipt before you hand them the stupid thing. Then they could make the decision to continue defiling the land for their own stupid need to obsessively keep a record of every meaningless transaction they participate in. I am not one of those people. The receipt was wasted on me.

Here's how you run a recycling program. You put a bin out in the middle of the floor that says "Recycle Used Electronics Here". You then put up a sign saying that if people put in things like hard drives with personal information on it, Best Buy reserves the right to steal your identity and sell your children. On a related note, why is it that they won't let you recycle hard drives because of personal information concerns, but you can drop off a cell phone with not only your personal information but the phone numbers of every person you know? Chew on that one for a while. If you want to get really crazy you can have someone manning the bin that tells people that their tv is too large to recycle, although realistically, anyone who can find the strength to pick up the 800 lb tube tv from 1973 probably isn't going to be hauling it into the Best Buy any time soon. I have a 36 inch Toshiba in the bedroom that is so heavy, we'll never replace it. If it dies, I'll buy a flat panel tv and just rest it on top of the broken one. I'll be dead and in the ground before that fucking TV makes it outside of the house.

From now on, I think I'm going to save myself the hassle and just follow my own, foolproof recycling process. It goes a little something like this:

Step 1: Bring your stuff out to your lawn.
Step 2: Print out a sign that reads "$20".
Step 3: Affix sign to stuff.
Step 4: Go to bed.

By morning it will all be stolen and now be somebody else's problem. Now that's what I call recycling!

Time Is On My Side

2009-03-27T17:51:00.005-05:00

Earlier this week, Hodge sent me a listing for a deal he found on Slickdeals.net for an incredibly cheap Citizen Eco-Drive watch, the glorious timepiece pictured to the right. Hodge knows that I love watches and he probably also knows that as much as I love watches, I have neither the means, nor the inclination to drop a tremendous amount of money on them. Hodge is married, with children, so he is well aware of the economics of the happy household. Any way, the deal was for a site called ChronoShark which basically has a different deal on either watches or jewelry every day. The current day's deal was for the pictured watch for $119 bucks. Given that the watch retails for about 500 bucks, it was a pretty good deal.

As soon as I saw the damn thing I fell in love with it, however I felt the need to do some basic research and the general consensus was that it was a good watch. Apparently it's last year's model, hence the price discount, but seeing how the cheapest I could find it for online was just south of 300, at less than 120, it was an incredible deal. Me being the saving maven that I am, I found a coupon for two dollars off, meaning that I got the watch for $117. Shipping was five bucks, bringing the entire total to $122. Not too shabby.

The watch arrived today and hot damn, it is absolutely gorgeous. Gorgeous! My time with it has not been without problems though, which is to be expected given that this is me.

First of all, I couldn't put the damn thing on. Unbeknownst to me, even though the watch has a leather band, it has the same clasp that you would find on a metal band. It took me about 20 minutes of fucking with the thing to figure out how it works. Chances are, if you can't put your watch on, you have no business wearing, or using it, but I persevered.

Second, this thing is loaded with all sorts of wacky features, but to get them working you had to set all of the hands to some sort of reference point and that wasn't working correctly, so I had to do that from scratch all while listening to the kids to make sure they weren't killing each other. Eventually I got it working, and man, this watch has some serious skills.

First off it can tell time, obviously. It has a dedicated second hand, the small dial on the lower right. It also keeps track of the day of the month via the large second hand and can even tell you the month and year via the small hands on the lower left. It does this via some sort of perpetual calendar where it keeps track of the year relative to when the last leap year is. Granted, this means that in order to know what year you're in, you have to know what year the last leap year was, but if you can't remember that, chances are this watch is far beyond your meager time telling skills. It also has an AM/PM meter, that orange and black pie wedge thingy, to tell you if the time is in the AM or PM. The hand also moves through the two stages relative to the time, so not only do you know if you're in the morning or the afternoon, but how far into each. Awesome, right?

It also has an alarm, which I haven't set yet, as well as the ability to keep time in another time zone. It does this by picking the new time based on how many 30 minute intervals the local time is off of your "normal" time. Complicated? Sure! Awesome? Undoubtedly! It can also keep an alarm for the local time. Lord knows how you set that. Probably with chickens.

Finally, and most awesomely, you can press a button and the watch will play a series of tones to tell you the time. First high pitched tones count off the hour, then a combination of high and low tell you how many 15 minute intervals have gone by since the top of the hour, finally low pitched tones tell you how many minutes since the last 15 minute interval. Not sure why you would need this, perhaps in cases of temporary blindness, but it is cool.

As the watch is an Eco-Drive, it recharges via sunlight, and when fully charged can run for nine months without ever needing a charge. You can fully charge the thing by giving it 10 hours of outside sunlight or give it a full day's worth of juice by toiling in an office for four hours. Given that I rotate through my watches regularly, I'll have to make sure I give this thing plenty of sun so that it's always at the ready, just how I used to shake my grandfather's Bulova every day that I didn't wear it so that it kept the time. Speaking of that watch, I need to get it fixed, provided it can be fixed. That's a story for another time though.

In the meantime, I'm really digging this new watch and can't wait to wear it out where I'll undoubtedly scratch it all to hell. As long as the tones keep working, I'll still be able to tell the time though, even if the face gets all scratched up. Score one for the tones baby!

On Pool Tables and the Dismantling Thereof

2009-03-25T19:38:00.001-05:00

As much as I have been ignoring this space, I have been ignoring Lungfishopolis far, far more. With that in mind, I'm going to point you over there to a piece I just wrote about my taking apart of our family pool table.

Thanks for the memories pool table. They were great ones.

I R A Superhero

2009-03-24T07:32:00.003-05:00

Look ma, I'm a superhero!

I decided to go with the monocle because monocles are awesome. The shirt and tie and axe is a nod to the episode of Cheers where Norman is tasked to be his company's hatchet man and he spent his days firing people. Honestly, had I been able to choose my own name, I would have chosen Hatchetman. What can I say, a little gallows humor in these days of economic turmoil seems to suit me nicely. I don't know why I added the cape but once I did, he didn't seem complete without it.

Thanks to Bones who pointed out the oh so awesome Hero Factory. Now get over there and make one for yourself! The Merciful Sharpened Barbarian commands it!

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix review

2009-03-20T15:23:00.002-05:00

From hell's gate I stab at thee. Well, not hell, Florida, but it is warm here.

Any way, enjoy my Puzzle Quest: Galactrix review in which I call out people for being whiny bitches. That, my friends, is journalistic professionalism at its finest.

MadWorld

2009-03-18T09:50:00.002-05:00

More later, but for now you can read my MadWorld review. I thought that this game was great, as indicated in the review, but not because of how over the top and bloody the game was, but because of how surprisingly deep it was. When you're playing a game that allows you to kill enemies with a swirly, you don't expect to think much, especially once the game is over, but I can't get the final scenes of this game out of my head. I feel like this game is one giant goof on the player, and I'm OK with that.

I Also Read About Kelly Clarkson

2009-03-17T11:31:00.005-05:00

First things first, my 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand achievement guide is live and it's hella awesome. Ok, so it's not that awesome, but I did work pretty hard to try and make the simple achievements witty and such. Clearly my efforts were not appreciated by my erstwhile editor as he wants me to ditch such simple achievements in the future due to the fact that the CMS application he uses sucks and it would make his life easier. Personally, I'm all for being thorough and fully believe that any work saved now by not including the simple achievements will only be spent later on answering the feedback emails stating that we didn't include the story achievements. I'm just saying. I kind of felt guilty taking money for this guide as it was pretty easy to write, then again, I did play the game three times, and some levels even more than that, so I put my work in. Besides, if they're going to pay me, there's no reason to feel guilty about it.

In other news, at some recent point, I managed to get myself subscribed to both US Weekly and Blender magazine. US Weekly has been coming to the house for a couple of weeks for reasons I can not fathom. I absolutely despise the culture of celebrity stalking that has risen up in recent years and this magazine is pretty much nothing but gossip stories and shots of celebrities trying to spend time at the grocery store, or at the park with their children. How I got subscribed to it I have no idea and if it weren't for the fact that Linda enjoys flipping through it, I'd call and cancel. You can rest assued that when the invoice for this rag arrives, I will not be replying in the affirmative.

I had no idea I was also subscribed to Blender until my first issue arrived yesterday. It's an interesting magazine, seemingly written for the attention deficit addled younger generation who can't stand to read anything longer than Twitter's 140 character limit. I think in the first 10 pages there were roughly thirteen hundred stories. They had an indepth story on Pink that was just the letter "P" repeated six times. Ok, so it isn't that bad, but if you ever thought that Rolling Stone was too lenghty and full of itself, and honestly, who hasn't, then Blender is for you. In their lists of the bestest songs out there, they did have both Kelly Clarkson and Kings of Leon so at least the writers have some semblance of taste there.

Now, the most important thing about my becoming a new subscriber of Blender is that my inaugural issue had my favorite and yours, Kelly Clarkson on the cover. Hot damn she is so cute. They had an interesting interview/article with her as well. She seems fairly normal, well, as normal as someone who can just grab her girlfriends and jaunt off to Europe on a moment's notice. To be so young, so wealthy and so talented probably isn't normal at all, so one has to take my impressions with a large grain of salt. Personally I found the whole magazine very funny as I have had nothing but disparaging comments sent my way for sharing my love of Kelly Clarkson and rainbows and I felt that this was the universe's way of rewarding my candidness. Either that or someone has stolen my credit card number and is just subscribing me to every magazine sold by Amazon.

At any rate, far be it from me to stop the Kelly Clarkson train, now that it has gained momentum that can only be described as Kellyrific. For your listening pleasure, enjoy two of my favorite Kelly Clarkson songs. The first, "Gone" is from Breakaway. It got some radio play, but honestly every freaking song on that record got record play. It's upbeat, has displays some fine vocal chops and isn't played on the radio every 30 seconds.

Gone - Kelly Clarkson

Second up is "Sober" from My December. I have mentioned before that I love this song and that it's one of my favorites by her. This one is all acoustic like. Awesome!

Sober (Star Lounge acoustic) - Kelly Clarkson

This whole embedding music thing is the shit. I think we may need to to 30 Days of Kelly or something. Kelly and rainbows. That would be so awesome. Epic even.

I Am Not A Woman

2009-03-13T10:30:00.003-05:00

Christ. You make one post about loving Kelly Clarkson and wanting to see more rainbows in games and all you do is get made fun of and have anonymous internet algorithms think you're a female blogger. What the hell!

I'm glad that I left out the part about me cooking and being very good about flower arrangement although that last part, when combined with the love of rainbows and Kelly Clarkson probably would have shifted me from "woman" to "gay". Not to say that all gay men love rainbows and Kelly Clarkson and have a penchant for flower arrangement, I'm just predicting what algorithim that picks a blogger's gender based on posts would say.

I guess the algorith missed the part where I said that I wanted more rainbows in the game where you play a rapper murdering hundreds of people for a crystal skull. Context internet algorithm! It's all about the context.

Did I mention that I also like the unicorn in Peggle? Crap. Probably shouldn't have. Now the algorithm will think I'm a ten year old girl.

I'll tell you what internet algorithm, I'm hella manly. I mean, when I look around my cube, I have robots that turn into cars and planes, I have a Hellboy statue, I have a calendar of kittens wearing silly hats. Oh, look at May! He's so cute and widdle!

Dammit!

I should probably stop posting now and make a note to do manly things this weekend like shoot animals and um, er, I don't know what else. What the hell do guys do these days? Craft something out of wood? Crush beer cans? Hell if I know. I'll stick to the rainbows.

And for all of the folks who derided me for loving Kelly Clarkson, well this one's for you:

My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson

One More Thing

2009-03-11T14:23:00.003-05:00

"My December" kicked ass. "Sober" is one of the best songs she's ever done. We ain't abidin' no haters up in this joint.

I Love Kelly Clarkson

2009-03-11T14:10:00.003-05:00

I do, and I don't care who knows. I. Love. Kelly. Clarkson.

I never watched American Idol when she was on it, or since, but hot damn do I love her music. Here new cd is Teh Awesome and the playlist I made of all of her stuff is currently playing on my new iPod and it is, as Michael Steele would say, off the hook. She be da man. Or something.

I have an affinity for good pop music, emphasis on the "good" part, and this fits the bill nicely. The songs are catchy and girlfriend got some pipes, which benefits the material nicely. So yeah, sue me. I love Kelly Clarkson. Pffffft!

I finally got my hands on Peggle for the DS today and after years of successfully fending off this paragon of casual gaming on the PC, I have already played a match and I can feel the steely tendrils of addiction worming their way into my brain. It hurts, oh God how it hurts, but only for a moment. Then it's nothing but sublime pleasure.

I mean, come on. When I booted up the cart for the first time the game said that it was preparing the rainbows. I wish more games that I played prepared rainbows for me. For as much as I loved the 50 Cent game, if every time he threw a grenade he yelled "Preparing the rainbows motherfucker!" the game would be that much better. I have many the wonderful experience when gaming, but very few of them have rainbows. Not Peggle. In the one stage I played, those fucking things were exploding all over the place, like some kind of Carebear money shot. I also got treated to a slow motion shot of my almost failing a match as if to say, "Hey dumbass, we show you the path of your ball and you still fail? Nice!" Snark and rainbows? Dude, that is right where I live.

So yeah, Kelly Clarkson and rainbows. Love 'em both. Love 'em!

Check My Mad Questioning Skills

2009-03-09T09:52:00.002-05:00

My Q&A with Tigon Studios for the upcoming Riddick game is up and live. For an email Q&A, I think it went really well. Ian Stevens answered my questions and took the time to give well thought out responses to all of them. One can't ask for more than that.

Mmmmm, Riddick.

I Am Not Dead

2009-03-06T11:11:00.002-05:00

I am not dead, nor injured nor trapped under something heavy. I've just been busy with a bunch of writing for GameShark, or playing games so that I can write about them for GameShark. Work has also been busy, which means no midday updating. Well, other than this one, which is being done at the expense of writing test cases, something I'm already behind on.

Whoopsie!

Oddly enough, I'm thinking of doing the Twitter thing, so that I can become even more behind on my missives. I probably won't do it though as I'm also very lazy, and my understanding is that you have to set things up. Possibly register even. The horrors!

Ok, back to it. Until we meet again.

Early

2009-02-26T11:03:00.001-05:00

Well, what do you know, Fiddy came early. Here's my take on the game that I can't stop playing, complete with new, official GameShark.com photo. This picture was taken on Tuesday, which was only a day after the Great Digestive Revolt of '09, which explains why I'm covering half of my face. See, the casual observer thinks that I'm just trying to be cool and show some DS love at the same time, however in reality I'm trying to hide the fact that I looked like shit on toast.

Ah photography, is there nothing you can't do?

Happy Galactrix Day!

2009-02-25T21:38:00.002-05:00

Oh happy day! Puzzle Quest: Galactrix has been unleashed on an unsuspecting universe and our free time will never be the same again!

I would have posted earlier to wish everyone a happy Galactrix Day but first I had to go to two stores to get the game, and then I was playing it.

It's awesome.

It has some problems, namely a herky-jerky animation style when gems are moving off of the board and I see the "Accessing Data" screen a whole hell of a lot more than I would like to, but hot damn if this game doesn't have it's hooks in me but good. I only hope I can reign in the rampant fanboyism before I have to write the official review. One has to be objective, you know.

In other news, I'm enjoying the hell out of the 50 Cent game. What the fuck is this world coming to? My official review will be up Friday, but I'll give you a hint: the grade lies between A and C. You're a smart bunch. I think you can figure it out.

Sick

2009-02-23T14:52:00.001-05:00

Nothing like starting your week off by having your entire digestive system revolt against everything you've put in it over the past 24 hours.

Mondays suck.

Spider-rific

2009-02-19T11:12:00.001-05:00

Woo-hoo! A new review! For you!

Ok, enough rhyming. Check it as I make with the bug motions in Deadly Creatures.

The Apple of My Ire

2009-02-17T12:57:00.002-05:00

We have hit a snag in the CD making process, I'm sad to report. Over the weekend I compiled a list of candidate songs. Given that there were quite a few, including several Pearl Jam songs, all of which have live versions that must be considered, my plan was to make a playlist out of all of the songs and then listen to the playlist while at work. This would allow me to narrow down the list as well as see how the songs all worked off of one another. This was a good idea, key word being "idea", however in practice, things have failed miserably all thanks to my iPod.

I have had a love/hate relationship with my iPod ever since I got it. Linda gave it to me as a Christmas gift, which I love, and it was a 10GB upgrade over the capacity of my Creative player which I also loved. What I hated was the fact that at the time I got it, way back in 2003, connecting an iPod to your computer via USB was a nightmare. If it worked, it barely worked, necessitating an upgrade to Ye Olde Home PC in the form of a Firewire card. Back in 2003, Macs all had Firewire while PC's all had USB. Nowadays, fucking everything has Firewire, but we'll get to that in a minute. So I wasn't too keen on having to buy a new card for the PC, but I did it. I also wasn't keen on using iTunes but I did that too but only for managing my music. For transferring music to my iPod, I use Red Chair Software's excellent Anapod Explorer. For one it integrates into Windows Explorer so that I can drag and drop and second, it allows me to transfer music from any PC I want. Fuck you Apple. It's my iPod and I'll hook it up wherever I damn well please you pretentious, turtleneck wearing fucktards. Oh, and while we're on the subject, two mouse buttons? Not that fucking hard?

Any way. After some time using the iPod, my two biggest grips surfaced. One was that there's no ability to manage your music on the fly. My Creative player allowed you to construct entire playlists on the player as well as, more importantly, delete songs on the fly. Given that I listen to a lot of rap music, and the albums often have stupid skits, being able to delete songs as you come across them is very helpful. The iPods don't let you do this, still to this day. Well, fine. I got over it. The second issue was much larger and not as easy to get over. Basically, the battery in my current iPod is pretty much useless. If I use the player, the battery runs down quickly. If I don't use the player, it runs down quickly. And when I say "runs down", I mean to the point where I can't even get the damn thing to turn on. When it gets like this, it has so little juice that it needs to charge some before it will stay on long enough to realize that it's being charged via the USB connection. What this means is that if I want to load some new songs onto it, but I haven't used it in a while, I have to charge it up some before I can even turn it on to load the damn thing up. As a result, I end up just toting around CD's in my work bag so that I have something to listen to at work.

Now yes, I could just keep reminding myself to charge the thing up, but shoudn't it just work if I haven't been using it? The same thing happens with my PSP and it drives me crazy. If I don't use it, the battery runs out completely. If I don't use my DS, it sits there charged and at the ready until I pick it back up. The end result of all of this is that I never use my iPod because in order to use it, I have to charge it, and I never think to charge it when I'm not using it.

Which brings us to where we are now. Knowing that I was going to use it for my CD test playlist, I charged it up, ripped some new CD's and made my playlist. This was all on a Sunday night. Monday I get to work, turn the iPod up, start the playlist and watch as the iPod skips past every song in the playlist until it gets to the end of the list at which point it kicked me back to the menu. After some messing around with the buttons, I found that if I was really fast in hitting the play/pause button, I could get the song to play, but once the song was over and the iPod moved to the next song in the list, we were back to Skipsville. This happened with the new playlist as well as with an old playlist and today I tried it out with an album and, gee, what do ya know, it happens there too.

So, basically, I can't listen to music on my iPod. Great.

Even though I recently had gotten away from listening to music at work, due to all of the battery issues, I still really enjoy listening to music at work, so I want something to replace the player with, and despite my problems with this player, it looks like Apple has it's hooks into me deep enough to where I'll be buying a 120GB Classic iPod. You still can't delete items on the fly, but the battery, oh the battery, now has a life of over 30 hours. That would be a huge improvement over what I've got now. The ability to watch tv shows and play games is nice too, but honestly, I don't see myself doing that. If I wanted to watch TV shows on a portable device, I have a PSP for that, and I never do it due to the time needed to convert videos. I'm not about to buy TV shows from iTunes when I have a backlog of stuff on DVD I've never watched.

Yes, there are other players I could choose, but the 120GB of storage is real attractive. Yeah, the Zune has a 120GB model, but I really don't want to be tied to Microsoft's software and as Linda mentioned last night, the iPods are going to be around for a while. If I stick with an iPod, I'm covered with my current software setup.

Where I'm not covered is with the fucking accessories, and this is where I get really pissed off. As I mentioned before, back when I got my iPod, it was Firewire or nothing. Yeah, well, guess what? None of the current Classic iPod's work with any of the Firewire accessories because they all do everything over USB now. So that means my dock won't work and my AC adapter won't work. Why in the hell would Apple stop supporting Firewire accessories for the iPod when those very same accessories were the only way to get music on the fucking things when they first came out? I mean, come on. I guess I can take small comfort in the fact that so many PC owners bought the damn things that Apple figured it was easier to just have USB the way to go, but that's probably not the case and it still doesn't change the fact that I may have to replace the accessories. I say "may" as I'm still going to test the new iPod with the old stuff, but I don't have high hopes.

Luckily, the iPod comes with a USB cable, and I can charge it and move music to it with just that cable, which means that I won't have to buy the accessories right away, but it's the principle that bugs me. Plus, as you can tell, Apple just annoys me in general and I hate to think that I'm giving them more money on account of being so unsatisfied with their original product. Oh well. At least I can get the player for 30 bucks less by buying it through Amazon. Gotta take comfort somewhere.

The Mixed CD

2009-02-10T09:37:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I told my son that I'd make him a mixed CD and I have been paralyzed with fear ever since.

This is a crucial juncture in his upbringing, when his soft and malleable musical mind can be put on the right course towards blistering, life affirming rock, but what music best charts that righteous course? The mind reels.

Right now he has a radio in his room, which he listens to, but it's tuned into the local Top 40 station. Technically it would be the Top 5 station as they don't play more than a handful of songs. He also has the soundtrack to High School Musical 3, a cd I find painful on a number of levels. He has never shown a real interest in music before, so I've approached his musical development lightly, but now that he's becoming more interested, my hand must be firm, my direction pointed. I can not falter, for his very musical soul depends on it.

Recently I changed how my music was arranged, separating my cd's into music that Linda and the kids would like, and everything else, so that Linda can just grab a disc at random and be safe in the knowledge that she's not about to drop The Marshall Mathers LP on an unsuspecting household. This has allowed for some musical variety to be brought into the household, but even with this, Matchbox 20 still gets plenty of playtime. For the record, I quite enjoy Matchbox 20, however they're not a band you want to build a musical foundation upon.

So where do I start? I don't want to overload the kid with multiple CD's. Better to start off slow and build an interest than bury him in an avalanche of music he can never dig out of. Do I stick to certain bands or stick to kinds of music? Marvelous 3 hasn't been around for over a decade but "Freak of the Week" is a masterful pop-rock song, and leads us to Butch Walker, who, along with making some of the best music out there today, is an absolute blast to see live, especially when he comes to Atlanta.

Surely Pearl Jam needs to be there, but which song? "Worldwide Suicide" encapsulates all of the band's raw power perfectly, but it's not exactly right, content wise, for a six year old. "Wish List" is a beautiful song, but it's not exactly typical for the band. I'm leaning towards, "Corduroy" as it is one of my favorite songs by them, and has one of my favorite lines: "everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed". Then again, I like the line because it outlines a rather stark viewpoint of one's existence. Should I be saddling him with such negativity? One a PJ song is chosen, do we go with the studio version or a live version? If a live version, which one? Is it better to provide the studio version so that he can appreciate the song, and then hit him with live versions so that he can see how songs continue to grow once released, or give him both barrels of rock right up front?

Jimmy Eat World also needs to be there, but from where in the band's storied history? If you do earlier tracks, will he not appreciate the new stuff? If he hears new material, will he be turned off by the leaner, more raw earlier work?

And what of bands that have yet to prove their long term ability to produce, but still are putting out great music? "The '59 Sound" by Gaslight Anthem is an excellent song off of one of the best albums I've heard in some time, but will the band be there in the months ahead? In this case, is it better to highlight songs that are indicative of the types of music I like, even if the band may not stand the test of time?

You can see why I'm having difficulties here. Now I know that neither he nor I are going anywhere, but I can't help but feel that if I screw up this CD, he'll dismiss my tastes out of hand, and will be lost to me. With so much great music out there, it's important that I get this right. Music has been a part of my life for so long, that I want to make sure I make it a part of his life too. Besides, soon I'll need to start dragging him to concerts so that I'm not the creepy old dude rocking out all by his lonesome and I'd prefer to bring him to a show he'll actually enjoy.

Whatever I end up with, I'll post the final track list here so that you can see the full depths of my musical depravity. Until then, the catalog looms. Time to start climbing.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

2009-02-06T20:35:00.002-05:00

Yeah, so when I said that there was only one more toy to be on the lookout for, I totally forgot about Ratchet and Hot Shot. Ratchet is a repaint of Ironhide, which was a bit of a letdown, and Hot Shot is one extremely, um, colorful toy, so I'm not entirely sold on each of them. Who am I kidding? I'll probably end up getting both of them, but I feel that I should put up at least a token bit of resistance.

There's more GameShark goodness to tell you about. First up is my super awesome Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage walkthrough. This one was pretty easy to write based on how linear the missions were so I'll gladly take all of that hot guide money and sock it away for a rainy day. The next DLC releases for Fallout 3 don't look to be as linear, so they'll take more time, provided I have an opportunity to write guides for them.

Which brings me to my next piece, the very last Mr. Binky you'll probably ever read. Unfortunately, this recession is hitting everywhere, including GameShark.com and there just isn't the money in the budget for columns. All of the columns save for one very popular boardgaming column were cancelled and while it sucks to not have a column any more, I'm not all that upset. The column didn't always run when it was scheduled to, and the site's crappy design makes it all but impossible to find past columns which all combined to make it pretty hard to build an audience. These things happen. When there are so many people out there losing their jobs and homes, it's silly to lament the loss of 50 bucks a month and an opportunity to make fun of games. My editor tells me that I shouldn't feel bad because even the great Tom Chick had his column canceled, which makes that the only time Tom Chick and I will ever share characteristics other than both of us being oxygen breathing, carbon based life forms.

To all of the people who did go to the site and read my column, thank you from the bottom of my black, withered heart. I appreciate the page hits, the support, and all of the letters to my editor. Mitch, that last one's for you.

Maybe I'll move the column over to Lungfishopolis, maybe for now I'll just take a break from teh funny. We'll see. I think that a small break might be good for me so that I can recharge my batteries. Being a hack is hard work.

And Then There Was One

2009-02-04T21:15:00.002-05:00

Today I found Wreck-Gar and Atomic Lugnut, much to my intense excitement. Given that both the Universe line and the Animated line are coming to an end (hopefully for just the time being), to give stores time to clear shelf space for the movie toys in May, I am almost at an end to my toy hunting for a few months.

I say almost, for a number of reasons. For one, Toy Fair is right around the corner so who knows what kinds of announcements it will bring to fill the void between now and May. Second, the new wave of Marvel Crossover toys are out there somewhere and while I won't devote special trips just for finding them, I will take strolls through the toy aisle when I find myself in a Walmart. Finally, the Target exclusive Shockwave repaint has yet to be released and I must have that toy so that I can have both a G1 reminiscent purple Shockwave transformed in robot mode and the original Shockwave toy transformed into the Longarm robot mode. I'll pretend that instead of Longarm being Shockwave's treacherous spy mode, instead he was somehow separated from Shockwave and now is a loyal Autobot. I can't abide no spies in my house.

Now, that's not to say that I have all of the toys in hand needed to be considered complete, but they are either in hand, or on order. Leo Prime and Overload should ship any day now and Samurai Prowl and Waspinator will ship at the beginning of March. Then I'll be complete. Well, maybe.

Honestly, the holiday toy hunt was such a pain in the ass, I'm glad to have a bit of a break, as are my friends and family, no doubt. Both Linda and Hodge were enlisted to purchase toys for me and they performed admirably with Linda even using a supplied coupon. How awesome is she? I took care of all of the others, either through online ordering, or by driving up and down GA 400, visiting Targets, Walmarts and Toys 'R Us's until I was seeing retail outlets in my sleep.

Space has also become a consideration as I have run out of room in my office, necessitating a move to a larger space in the basement. Unfortunately a pool table currently occupies the new space, so I'll have to take it down, store it, move all of the furniture from the office into that room and then put up copious amounts of shelving. Mind you, this is all after we finish the garden are, put stones down under the deck, finish removing the demolished wall in the basement bathroom and repair the ginormous holes in the bathroom left over from the removal of the aforementioned wall. As you can see, moving toys is not real high on the to-do list, so having three months before lots of new toys come in will do wonders. Not to mention that the fucking things are now even more expensive than before. Stupid economy.

Yes, for now, I'm happy to take a break from hunting. Now I just need something to do at lunch time. What's that you say? Puzzle Quest: Galactrix comes out at the end of this month? Why yes. I think that will do. That will do quite nicely.

The Bacon Explosion

2009-02-02T20:50:00.009-05:00

So I'm working at home last week and my co-worker David sends me an email with a link to a story at the NY Times, and the line "How about you make one of these the next time you smoke up some meat loaf" or something to that effect. Everyone in development knows that I love to rock the smoked meat loaf, and many of them have benefited directly from that love as I always bring in some tasty slices for my coworkers.

The story that David sent me about a glorious dish called The Bacon Explosion. Basically two guys at BBQAddicts.com came up with the dish and then set about spreading the joy of their discovery all throughout the internet. Here's the NY Times story if you're interested and here's the original recipe.

Not being one to shy away from an explosion of pork products, I set about to make one of my very own, choosing to do so on Super Bowl Sunday, the unofficial Day of Gluttony in this fine country. I followed the BBQAddicts recipe, not the amended one on the NY Times, and here, for all to see, is the result of my endeavors.

To make a Bacon Explosion of your own you'll need the following:

2lb thick cut bacon
2lb pork sausage, casings removed
BBQ rub of your choosing
BBQ sauce of your choosing

For the bacon, buy whatever brand you want, but make sure that you get ten slices per one pound package. You'll see why in just a bit. You want an equal amount of bacon outside and inside the explosion and if you have more than 10 slices per pound, you'll have more inside than outside. For the sausage, you can use whatever you want, but I used Jimmy Dean plain sausage. I'm intrigued as how Italian sausage would work with the explosion, but that will have to wait for another time.

On to the cooking!

Step 1
Place five bacon slices side by side, parallel to each other. Then, take five more bacon slices side by side and perpendicular to the original five, weaving them in and out so that you have a bacon pot holder. Make sure that all of the bacon slices are tightly packed against each other. When done, it should look like this:

You'll notice that my weave had some thickness problems. That's because in one of my packages, two of the slices were way too thin to be used. No problem, as I had another whole package to use. Well, I didn't check that package closely enough and all of the slices in that packages had a uniform width for about 3/4 the length of the slice, tapering off into a pig tail of sorts. The tail was way too narrow to use, so I took it off and just used shorted slices.

Step 2
Once you have your weave, sprinkle it with whatever BBQ rub you want. I used Steven Raichlen's Java BBQ rub. Given how much I love coffee, and that this rub has coffee in it, I thought it was appropriate. Plus, it was lying around.

Step 3
Spread the sausage over the weave so that the sausage doesn't go quite to the edge of the weave. Try and make the sausage patty as uniformly thick as possible. Here's how mine looked:

Step 4
Cook up the remaining bacon however you like it, crisp, soggy, burnt, whatever. Once the bacon is done, crumble it on up and sprinkle it on the sausage patty.

Step 5
Drizzle your BBQ sauce of choice over the crumbled bacon and sausage patty. I used a combination of Famous Dave's Devil Spit and some Pecan BBQ sauce we picked up in Texas. Here's how it all looked:

Step 6
Very carefully, roll the sausage up away from you, being sure to pull it away from the weave as you go. Once the sausage is all rolled up, pinch the ends together. It should look like this:

Step 7
Now roll the sausage towards you, this time pressing the weave into the roll. Be sure to keep the bacon slices up against each other. It seems difficult, but it's really quite simple. Once rolled, sprinkle some more rub on the pork log. Here's the finished, rolled product:

Step 8
Cook the damn thing. The recipe calls for cooking the explosion in a 225 degree oven, or a smoker at the same temperature. I used my smoker, with hickory chunks, but as I stopped worrying about temperatures a long time ago when smoking, my smoker started somewhere in the 360 range and eventually got down to about 250. Given that my smoker wasn't at the prescribed temperature, I can't tell you how long it will take to cook, but mine took about an hour and a half. Cook the log until the internal temperature reaches 165. I went to 170 as sometimes ground meat can be dodgy with bacteria and with all of that fat in there, chances are it wouldn't dry out. Here it is cooked:

At this point, you could sauce it some more if you wanted, but of late, I've been digging the taste of just the meat and the smoke, so I chose not to sauce it. I was rewarded for my restraint. The end piece was gloriously juicy with fantastic mix of sweet bacon and flavorful sausage, all wrapped up in a smokey kiss. Here's a shot of the inside, when sliced. Dig that crazy smoke ring.

I had the end piece you see on the right immediately after slicing it, and then another slice later on as a sandwich with a little BBQ sauce. Fantastic! I gave a slice to my son and he wolfed it down like he hadn't eaten all day. That's my boy. Given the artery clogging nature of the Bacon Explosion, I don't see it as something I make frequently, but I certainly will make it again. Hot damn is it good. To thank David for turning me on to the Bacon Explosion, I gave him half of what was left after Ben and I ate a couple of slices. Nothing says thanks like a pound of smoked pork products.

Caught Up

2009-01-30T12:58:00.002-05:00

Haven't written in a while. Things at home are busy/stressful and that takes all of the snark right out of me. I haven't written a lot at GameShark either, but there are a few items there penned by yours truly.

There's a review of Moon that I did recently and there's a piece on 2008's Dubious Achievement Awards. That last one is a little less timely now then when it was originally slated to run, but things don't always work out the way we want them to.

The End of Daycare

2009-01-22T15:23:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow marks a very important day at HyphenRidge, namely the last day of daycare for our brood. While Ben has been out of daycare since he started Kindergarten in August, Abby stops tomorrow as it has been determined that she needs to attend the Special Education pre-school program that the county offers.

I am of two minds about this. The one mind isn't too thrilled that my 4 year old needs to be in a Special Education class, nor do we know what we'll do with her during the summer when school is closed, especially if "normal" daycare isn't an option.

The other, much larger mind, is absolutely thrilled as this represents an additional 900 bucks a month in the bank. Oh sure, I'm also glad that Abby will be getting the help that she needs, as it would appear that this environment will be much better for her in preparing her for Kindergarten, and I certainly won't miss having to drop her off in the morning, but having that extra cash ain't too shabby.

Honestly, daycare was never one of my favorite things. I always found daycare to be annoying, preferable to a single income as it may have been. The thing to keep in mind about daycare is that while individual teachers may care about your kid, the daycare as a whole is only interested in their bottom line and if, at any point, the best interests of your kid and the best interests of their bottom line conflict, well, guess which one will lose. To me that always seemed backwards, no doubt because it was my kids that came out on the losing end, be it something as trivial as a kid with a fever that has to come home only to have the fever mysteriously gone the minute he toddles through the door, to a kid asked to not come back to school because no one is willing to work with her and her unique needs.

I'm sure this all sounds like I wanted the daycare to raise my kids, which isn't the case, however Linda and I have always been at odds with the various places our kids were in due to the fact that their idea of discipline and our idea of discipline were so completely different. Step out of line at our house and things will go poorly for you. That's just a fact and I don't care how cute you are. At daycare, minimizing conflict seemed to be the rule of the day as it worked towards making the place appear cheery and happy for prospective customers. When you have a kid like Abby, there is a lot of conflict, and a firm hand is needed to work through it. You may find a lot of things at daycare, but a firm hand ain't one of them. Obviously, I'm working from my own experience here and your results may vary, but if it's a big "chain" place you're dealing with, I doubt that you'll find things to be much different. I'm not asking the daycare to smack my kid, but perhaps making her sit by herself when she freaks out because she doesn't want to follow directions would be a better idea then letting her go and sit in the Director's office and eat waffle fries from Chik-Fil-A. And no, I am not kidding about this. I mean, come on, I'd drown kittens daily if it meant I got a steady stream of waffle fries and I'm 36. How the hell is a 4 year old supposed to learn proper behaviour in this situation?

So yeah, not having an option for the summer right now sucks, as does the extra burden on Linda to have both kids home a little later in the morning and a little earlier in the afternoon, but if it means that my kid will get the help she needs and I get almost a thousand buck staying in my pocket, where it belongs, I'll take the hassle of figuring out the summer. To daycare I say so long, and thanks for all the waffle fries.

Tales of a Driveway Gourmand

2009-01-11T07:54:00.004-05:00

As you all know, I like to eat. A lot. I'll eat pretty much anything, unless it's fish, because fish are nasty. Seriously. Despite living in water, which is an excellent solvent, fish are filthy creatures, cursed with a lack of limbs because God hated them so. It's totally true. Look it up. Did you know that fish pee and poop in that water, as well as make nasty fish love in there? Also true. Also verifiable in books. I don't care how healthy a salmon is, that thing is a rancid beast, capable of doing nothing more than infecting you with all manner of plagues and pestilence, when it isn't violently thrashing its way upstream to take place in some debased fish orgy.

I do enjoy a good plate of calamari though.

Where was I? Oh right, food. For some unknown reason, those cagey advertisers have started to put samples of food in with my Sunday paper. For some other unknown reason, I am compelled to eat these samples, despite the fact that they are found in puddles of the various forms of lawn based detritus that exist at the base of my driveway. I honestly don't know why I feel the need to eat whatever comes in the newspaper bag as I have never once been compelled to eat the actual newspaper. There must be some primal part of my brain that sees the food just laying there, and feels that eating that food will be the difference between survival and slow, wasting death.

With that in mind, I give you the first in an occasional series of articles I'm calling "Tales of a Driveway Gourmand" in which I review the food found at the base of my driveway, usually attached to a newspaper. I'm sure you're thrilled. A week away from posting and he comes back with a story of eating essentially garbage? Oy vey!

Item #1: Kellogg's™ All-Bran™ Fiber Drink Mix Pink Lemonade
Everyone knows that print is dead and that the only people reading the Sunday paper are old geezers and people like me who really enjoy reading the funnies. Kellogg's also knows this and figures that if old people can be counted on one thing, it's irregularity. I guess that's not a condemnation of old people, more of a comment on our general society as moving to the fast food nation we've become has made us nigh allergic to vegetables. Kellogg's only has your health, and the health of your colon at heart hence the All-Bran Fiber Drink mix, a powder you mix into water to give you a tall, refreshing glass of digestive aid. As drink mixes go, it's OK. It's got a vaguely chemical taste to it that causes you to have to really choke down those last few gulps, however if it's this or spending the weekend on the toilet trying to pass those Angry Whoppers you spent the week eating, I'd say go with this one. Looking at the list of ingredients, I have no idea what the hell is in this stuff that can give you 40% of your daily fiber needs, but I do know that you're not going to want to mistake this for the pink lemonade at your next garden party. Well, not without stocking up on toilet paper first. 2 Magic Driveways out of 5.

Item #2: Fiber One Chewy Bars Oats and Chocolate
Fiber One apparently has access to the same demographic information that Kellogg's has and has also chosen your perusal of Saturday's sports results as a means of injecting more fiber into your lifestyle. In the interest of all honesty, I should point out that I have a huge box of these very same bars in my pantry as we speak. It's a well known fact that as you get older your metabolism slows down, but what people aren't so quick to point out is that your ability to eat nothing but raw meat and then crap out a dumpster lessens as well. Plus, if you're looking to lower your cholesterol, taking in enough fiber is a good way to do it, or so my doctor told me many moons ago when my cholesterol was a wee bit too high. These bars are a good way to eat like crap on the weekend, when I'm forgoing my usual fiber rich cereal, and still maintain some semblance of digestive health. The tagline of the bars is "Cardboard, no. Delicious, yes." and while these bars certainly don't taste like cardboard, they require as much chewing as one would need were they to eat an entire cardboard box. Oats may be lots of things, but "melt in your mouth" smooth ain't one of them. That being said, they're not bad. There's enough chocolate there to make things interesting and they're pretty filling so not only do you get your fiber but you're probably less inclined to go eat something else. In the end, we all win. Well, except for those that have to share a bathroom with you. They certainly lose. 4 Magic Driveways out of 5.

Item #3: MultiGrain Cheerios
Isn't it odd how Cheerios can really stink up a pantry? I mean, have you ever opened up a box of Cheerios and taken a big whiff? Not pleasant. Yet, despite the odor, we give these things to kids like they're the last food on the planet. Supposedly it's because toddlers can pick them up easily and eat them, which could be said for rabbit droppings as well, with the only difference being that the droppings would probably smell better. I stopped eating Cheerios once I became responsible for my own cereal choices and decided that I could cut out the middle step of ladling on four cups of sugar to make the fucking things remotely palatable and just buy the real life equivalent of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. The fine folks at Cheerios decided to mix things up by throwing in all sorts of multiple grains and the barest hint of sugar. The cereal was OK, but nothing I'd buy for myself. My daughter seems to like them, so I guess they're a big hit with kids who can't take less than half an hour to chew a noodle, but your results may vary. Hey, Cheerios people, perhaps the feeding aversion demographic is an untapped market for you. I can see the slogan now, "It's us or the feeding tube. MultiGrain Cheerios." You can attach your samples to the copies of Highlights delivered to the Gastroenterologist's office. 1.5 Magic Driveways out of 5.

Item #4: Gillette Men's Shampoo
Yeah, I know this isn't a food product, but that didn't stop me from almost eating it. Hey, when it's early and you haven't had your coffee and you're used to having food stuck to your paper, opening the bag up to find shampoo and what looks like pomade is enough to throw anyone for a loop. Personally, I always thought it was silly that women had so many different types of shampoo, but at the same time, my wife does a hell of a lot more to her hair every morning than I do. The fine folks at Gillette, not satisfied to be making Mach 19 razors that you can strap to your back and ride to work once you're done shaving with them, decided that men needed to have multiple shampoo options as well and came up with their own line of products designed to be no better than the hand soap you find in the rest stop bathroom. These kinds of products are wasted on me as I try to keep my hair barely longer than the hair on my face, and if it gets blown dry it's because I walked under a heat register while the furnace was going. I'm on to you Gillette. Save your fancy hair care products for all those Metrosexuals in New York City. Here in horse country, I wash my hair the old fashioned way with mud and pig's blood. The gravel is a wonderful exfoliate. I'll save the shampoo for the next time I'm traveling so that I don't get arrested by Homeland Security for carrying too much soap, but the pomade I threw right out. I'm sure I'll regret that decision should I get warped back to 1959 and have to ask my mom to the spring formal, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. 0 Magic Driveways out of 5.

That's it for now. Tune in next time for when I review the dead squirrel that wasn't a sample, but just happened to get hit by a car and land on my paper. Tangy, with a slight hint of vulcanized rubber.

On Mastering Noodles

2009-01-07T13:43:00.002-05:00

Yesterday my daughter mastered noodles.

As I'm sure that makes no sense to any one, it means that yesterday, my four year old managed to consistently eat a third of an egg noodle, chewing and swallowing it in under 30 seconds.

We're so proud.

That last part was supposed to be sarcastic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that we're making progress, a happiness that was dimmed right after the aforementioned noodle mastery when she promptly gagged on a corn kernel. That would be one, singular piece of corn.

I guess I'm just bitter. We've been working on this for so long, bouncing from doctor to doctor, trying all sorts of things and all we have to show for it is mastery of eating noodles, which, by the way, will probably promptly fly right out of the window once we start doing it at home. I know that these things take time, but seriously, we're going to be doing this for ever. For. Ever.

At least we have the positive side effect benefit of her bringing older foods back into her repertoire, which is nice. She ate a sandwich on Sunday, and I can't tell you the last time that happened. Still, back to me being bitter, the progress isn't exactly progress as she's eating things that she used to eat. I know that I should be thrilled, but I'm basically tired and grumpy about the whole thing.

You know, the usual.

I'm sure that my mood will lighten once she starts adding more and more things. I know that there will come a day when I can just put a plate of food in front of her and she'll eat it without any drama but that day is so far removed from my ability to imagine it, that it might as well end with me donning my jetpack and flying off to the space monkey farm.

That being said, I'm very much looking forward to that day because hey, space monkeys.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T15:01:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year fellow Earthlings! For those of you beaming in from Zelbarg, Happy Day of Ultimate Exfoliation! That's a loose translation. The Zelbargians don't have a proper skin, so it's kind of hard to come up with a direct parallel in our Earth Speech. Regardless, those Zelbargians will be getting down with some pretty hot and heavy mitosis tonight, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

*Sigh*

Seriously though, I hope that your holiday season was a good one and that you did whatever you wanted to, or got whatever you wanted or generally was pleased with the outcome of whatever holiday shenanigans you take part in. Hopefully that's vague enough to cast a net over all possible positive outcomes from the past two weeks. Bonus if you got laid. Extra bonus if it was with someone that you wanted to get laid with. Get laid on? What the hell is the right preposition for that proposition?

Ok, I'm rambling.

2008 was a pretty good year from me. I lost 20 pounds and kept both of my jobs as well as my spouse. Any one who has spent an appreciable amount of time with me would understand just how much of a chore it can be to persist in my presence, so the fact that both my place of employment and my wife decided to stick with me for another year are big, big wins. GameShark is similarly enthused with my work, despite my pathological need to separate every other word with a comma, and a complete and utter refusal to learn the rules for "it's" and "its". It's not that I don't know the rules. I just feel that rules are for lesser writers.

Other than continued health for all, the only thing I really want out of 2009 is progress towards Abby's laundry list of problems. 2008 was a very frustrating year as we bounced from doctor to doctor, all in the pursuit of getting her to eat and to stop biting other children. I know that these are seemingly at odds with each other, but we're not interested in raising a cannibal here. The end of the year appeared to bring major progress in that it appears that she can't be at a normal daycare center and instead needs to be enrolled in a special education class offered by the county, complete with door to door short bus service. This is good for a number of reasons, namely that we won't have to pay for private daycare any longer and I can make retard jokes with impunity. Tee-hee-hee. We're still not sure what's going on, nor do we have any idea what happens in the summer when schools are closed (her class would be part of the county school system) if "normal" daycare isn't an option, but hopefully we'll learn all of these things soon.

She has been eating more, which is good, especially given that we've been paying out of pocket for the therapy sessions. For the record, Cigna is still the shittiest health insurance company ever, and if you work for Cigna, even as a janitor, I hope your dick falls off. If you're a woman, I hope that you grow a dick and that it then falls off. Abby still hasn't added any new foods to her repertoire, but trust me, her adding old foods back in is significant progress. Maybe by the end of the year, she can chew and swallow half of an egg noodle in under 5 minute's time. This too would be progress. No bullshit.

For all of you, I hope that 2009 is the year that all of your dreams come true, or at least, the shattering of so many dreams that accompany us all as we grimly march towards death is kept to a minimum.

A pony would also work.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-24T20:31:00.001-05:00

We'll keep this short and to the point.

Merry Christmas, or happy holidays, or "insert appropriate holiday sentiment here".

Oh, and have a happy new year too.

On Unwanted Candy and the Consumption Thereof

2008-12-19T14:16:00.002-05:00

As it's holiday time, all of the various organizations we do business with have been sending packages of goodies all week long. I've eaten gourmet brownies, scads of truffles and pecan clusters the size of a man's fist.

One box though was not so beloved. This was the box filled with some of the lamest candy I have ever seen. Did you know that the Willy Wonka bar was a real candy bar? It is. It consists of chocolate and graham crackers. Seriously? Graham crackers? There were also Charms. Do you remember Charms? They're like square, hole-less Lifesavers. The package looked to be transported from 1953. Sugar babies were also there, rounding out the candy hall of shame. I remember Sugar Babies, chocolate covered caramel balls for those not familar, as looking and tasting waxy when they weren't getting stuck in your teeth. Not exactly an ideal candy situation.

Most prominently displayed though was the huge Bit O' Honey bar. I haven't seen Bit O' Honey in years, and figured that they just got rid of it on account that no one ate it. I even joked with a coworker about it. However as the week went on, and the candy supply diminished, that poor candy bar, resplendant with a happy bee, kept catching my eye in the break room. "Why won't anyone eat me?" it lamented. I must admit, I felt bad for it. So I ate it.

Here are some things that I've learned about the Bit O' Honey bar. For one, it is less than 2% honey. It says so right on the label, and the taste reflects this accordingly. This thing tastes nothing like honey. Technically, pouring a little honey in a carbeurator would mean that is has a bit 'o honey, and I wouldn't expect it to taste like honey, so I don't know why I was suckered into it this time. I blame the bee.

Second, Bit O' Honey bars are segmented with each segment individually wrapped in what looks like wax paper. The entire bar is also wrapped in some sort of paper. Peeling the paper off of a bar of what is essentially, pure sugar is not an easy, nor pleasurable task. As you progress farther and farther with the bar, and your fingers get sticker and sticker, it becomes even less easy and less pleasurable as now you're battling not only the candy for the paper, but your own fingertips. It is as if your own body has rebelled against you, no doubt because of what you're trying to force into it.

Finally, Bit 'O Honey bars simply aren't very good. They don't taste like honey. They taste like a vaguely chemicalized sugar mixed with some slightly off milk. There are moments where things taste sort of alright, and then it changes. Plus, due to the consistency of the bar, it's impossible to bite a segment in half, meaning that you have to put the whole goddamn thing in your mouth, and chew it to a more workable texture, hoping all the while that you don't a) choke or b) rip your teeth out from their sockets.

Why I would continue to eat such a candy bar when the total unpleasantness of the task became apparent after the first segment is a mystery to most, but not to me. See, simply put, I am powerless to resist bad food. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of bad food that I'll reject outright. Like liver, for example. That shit is disgusting. However if a food sounds interesting, or sounds so bad that it still has to be tried, I will try it, and, most likely, continue to eat it well past the time when every biological system under my command is blaring angry warnings of protestation. So went the Bit O' Honey experiment. After the first segment, I thought, man, I really shouldn't eat more of this. Then I did, until I had finished the whole thing. Now it sits in my stomach like a lump of malice. Where is my friendly bee now? Stinging my colon apparently.

Maybe some day I'll resist the urge to eat something that I know I should avoid. If I were a cave person, devoid of governmental agencies tasked with identifying poisons in the hopes of preventing their consumption, I would surely be dead by now, long passed from eating a flaming piece of tree bark, or a live wombat. Until such time as I grow an ounce of common sense, I can rest assured that soon the holidays will be over, and people will stop sending us boxes of third rate candy. In the mean time, I think there are still some candy necklaces left.

Prince of Persia: The Fallen King

2008-12-19T12:33:00.002-05:00

My take on Prince of Persia: the Fallen King is up. I know, I know, it's like Christmas has come early.

Free and Clear

2008-12-17T13:54:00.002-05:00

Today I finished writing my review of Syberia for the DS so I am now done with paid games writing until January. Whee! Nothing to do now but kick back and do what I want to do. Aw yeah.

Small problem with this idea though. I have no idea what I'm going to do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still playing 360 games, dutifully chipping away at Mercenaries 2 so that I can put that one to bed, but what to do while watching tv? That's the conundrum.

I don't have a lot of magazines at the moment and if I did, reading them tends to put me to sleep.

I do have some graphic novels, having recently picked up the Brian Azzarello Joker book and the next TPB in the Marvel Dark Tower series, but see point A about falling asleep.

I have some Lego sets, but no where to put them once I put them together. In fact, with yesterday's arrival of Shadow Blade Megatron, I'm also out of room for my Transformers. This poses a particularly large problem as I picked up Cyclonus today and have four more toys arriving between now and the end of January.

I could finish playing Chrono Trigger on the DS and while I think this will be fine in the long term, the fact that I just got done playing a bunch of games makes me less than enthusiastic about playing another game, even if it's one that I enjoy. Curse you game reviewing for ruining all of my fun!

I could write, either for my site, or for Lungfishopolis, however I'm somewhat burned out on writing too.

That leaves either sleeping, or actually watching the TV show that we have on. That first one doesn't go over well with the wife, so that leaves paying attention.

Crap.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

On Fronting

2008-12-15T20:18:00.008-05:00

Last week I bore witness to yet another amazing spectacle of Nerdcore Hip-Hop as I attended a show with not one, not two, but three stellar MC's, including the godfather of Nerdcore himself, MC Frontalot. Along for the ride was MC Lars and YT Cracker.

If raw, house bringing down rap power was the fuel that could run our lives, let's just say that after this show, the world would never need for energy again. It was an amazing powerhouse of raw MC skills and mad nerdcore flow.

I was somewhat familar with MC Lars, and not at all familar with YT Cracker, and man, can these guys lay it down. YT Cracker, along with being an accomplished rapper, is also a l33t hacker, having hacked the NASA front page years ago to bring attention to glaring security holes in various federal web sites. He also may or may not have been a spammer, as indicated in his many songs with his first nerdcore rap group, spamtec. Spamtec is, indeed, the greatest.

MC Lars and YT Cracker recently collaborated on the Original Digital Gangster lp so they did the majority of their sets together. They both have a tremendous amount of energy and really get the crowd into things, lowering the microphones so that everyone can rap along with the choruses. Lars likes to rock the dual projectors for his songs to bring the multimedia aspect to the show which makes for some hilarious visuals to go along with the songs. Both MC's brought their A game and the crowd was eating it up.

Once Lars and YT Cracker were done and various sound issues were worked out, Front took the stage and rocked it as well as he always does. Front's latest album "Final Boss" is a real aural extravaganza, and I was disappointed that he didn't perform more off of it, but while Lars and YT Cracker rap to a mish-mash of a live band and a backing track via iPod, Front rocks only with the live band, making some of his newer stuff harder to do. He still represented nerdcore to the fullest and did many of my favorite tracks from "Secrets From the Future", his last joint. Unfortunately, the sound issues persisted during his set and his microphone was often drowned out by the keyboards, but luckily the guy behind me knew all of the songs, and rapped them all right in my ear. Oh yes, luck was certainly with me.

As great as it was to hear the MC's bring it with full force, the best part of the show, as with previous nerdcore shows, was being able to chat with the rappers beforehand, buy some gear and generally thank them for dropping inconceivably thick rhymes. All three guys were super nice and very cool to hang out with. If I hadn't been there for five hours already, I would have stuck around longer and shot the shit some more, but as it was, it was late, and I was exhausted as well as partially deaf. Between spending time with these guys at this show, spending time with Front at his last show and being able to chat a bit with Jonathan Coulton at his show, I can tell you that these guys are just super great to their fans. I hope that one day their fame matches their levels of fan awesomeness as right now, they are all super, mega, rope-a-dope awesome to their fans.

And now, crappy cell phone pictures!

MC Lars and YT Cracker doing a sound check.

The original digital gangsters.

Lars with Black Lotus on guitar.

24/7 he fronts the most.

The nerdcore rapper in his natural habitat.

Guitar Rock Tour

2008-12-12T14:49:00.001-05:00

My review of Guitar Rock Tour is up. It's a Guitar Hero clone, but not a bad one, once you get past the bad covers. They can't all be masters, can they?

Sorry I haven't been around much this week. Been laid up with some medical stuff. Nothing serious, but nothing that lends itself to posting either. I'll be back on the regular schedule next week, which is no schedule at all.

Lies, All Lies!

2008-12-09T21:30:00.005-05:00

Remember when I said that there would be more later? Yeah, I lied.

What would bring someone to spin such falsehoods and half truths? What kind of man publicly proclaims that he will post more musings at a later time, only to not do so? What poor excuse for humanity would weave a tale of such obvious deception? It's hard to say, but clearly you're dealing with a monster, a man so twisted by perverted desire that he's but a bitter shell of humanity.

Clearly.

Hasbro appears to be putting out a last December push of toys before the holidays and I, for one, am thrilled all to pieces. I already picked up Animated Skywarp and Animated Shockwave and have heard that new Universe toys, namely Hound, Cheetor and Cyclonus are in the area. I managed to get Cheetor on the cheap (cheapor?) with a rare combination of free shipping and coupons at Hasbro's online store, with the only downside being that he won't ship until our stars burn to dust and our world is nothing but a lifeless husk. I sure hope UPS is still around.

Seriously though, I bought five toys including the oh so sexy Shadowblade Megatron (pictured) and while two of the toys ship at the end of this month, the rest won't ship until some time in January. It's a small price to pay for 25% off, especially considering that Target recently raised the price of the Universe Transformers, which are the main contents of my order.

So, Shockwave (pictured courtesy of Seibertron.com). Shockwave is cool for a number of reasons, namely that he's a quadruple changer. In the show, Shockwave is a secret agent who infiltrates the Autobots posing as Longarm. Seeing how he's undercover, he needs a vehicle form for both his fake Autobot persona and his true Decepticon persona. His vehicle modes aren't anything all that spectacular with the Autobot form being a crane and the Decepticon form being a tank. What's super cool is how his Autobot robot form transforms into his Decepticon form. The Decepticon form is particularly cool with the long limbs, sharp fingers and the quintessential single Shockwave eye. Even the head transforms between robot forms. Criminy!

Now, all is not perfect. His vehicle forms aren't all that much different, and a crane is pretty lame, especially seeing how you can't extend the crane arm at all. The biggest error though is that when Shockwave is in his Longarm Autobot robot form, there's a big, ol' honkin' Decepticon symbol right there between his legs, like some sort of Decepti-penis. Some spy he is, that he has his faction's symbol right there for all to see, on his robot junk no less.

Even with this glaring, very un-spy-like piece of robotic anatomy, he's a super fun toy, and even though he's sporting a seemingly drab color scheme, it works for him, serving to accentuate his single, malevolent eye quite well.

Skywarp is Skywarp. He's a repaint of Starscream, which works for me because a) I love the Starscream mold and b) he's purple and black. I looooooooove purple and black. It makes him look like a pimp. In the cartoon, he's the cowardly clone of Starscream, so I currently have him posed with his hands over his face like he's hiding. I'll have to get a picture at some point, along with all of the other toys, as I've amassed quite a few in the past months, so many that my desk has barely any room left on it, and additional shelving needs to be purchased. Such is the life of a toy collector. Nothing but cowardly poses and shelving purchases. That's why I gets all the ladies.

Holiday Mr. Binky

2008-12-09T13:42:00.003-05:00

I'll post more later, but for now, my latest Mr. Binky is up. It's not my best work, but one does what one can when gripped in a post-Thanksgiving stupor (I wrote it over the holiday weekend).

Sadly, this may be the last one as Mr. Binky isn't bringing in enough traffic to warrant a monthly column. The final sentence hasn't been passed yet, but it's not looking good. If it does get canceled, I'll be bringing it elsewhere, most likely lungfishopolis, so don't worry, Mr. Binky will continue to entertain all three of you.

On Movies and Keeping One's Mouth Shut

2008-12-04T20:27:00.002-05:00

Here's a piece of advice for all you movie aficionados out there. If you fancy yourself the type of person whose movie recommendations are asked for, or even coveted by friends and family, it is imperative that you keep the more, shall we say esoteric, movie choices to yourself.

Say, for example, you see a movie called The Midnight Meat Train and you think to yourself, "how can I not want to watch a movie called The Midnight Meat Train?" Well, watch it, certainly. Enjoy it, but do not, under any circumstances, tell others that you spent your time watching The Midnight Meat Train. If you do, not only will those that used to respect your movie tastes no longer do so, but you will lose all rights to complain about bad movies afterwards. In fact, forever onward from the point where you divulge your watching of The Midnight Meat Train, any complaint you make about a movie will be matched with "What do you care, you watched The Midnight Meat Train. "

Now, this same rule does not apply to horror movie fans, as their tastes appear to be much, much broader, hence The Midnight Meat Train, but maybe to them, saying that you enjoyed Sideways trashes your credibility. I have no idea. All I know is that I told my coworkers that I watched The Midnight Meat Train and the mocking hasn't stopped since.

To my credit, I didn't pay to watch this movie, other than time spent watching it, and I spent said time working out, so it's not like I put aside a special block of time to watch this movie. Plus, and I can't stress this enough, it's called The Midnight Meat Train. I can't see how that doesn't spark curiosity in even the most closed minded of individuals.

For the record, the movie was just ok. Shocking, I know. It was based on a Clive Barker story of the same name, which I read after the watching the movie. The story was ok, and at less than 30 pages, wasn't able to sustain a 90 minute movie. Instead, they decided to fill the movie with things that didn't make sense and were never addressed. Horror movies need to be either scary as hell, like The Descent or creepy as hell, like The Devil's Backbone. This movie was just weird and gory. It didn't help that the killer was played by Vinnie Jones, of Snatch and Eurotrip fame, and as soon as I saw him, I laughed and said "It's Bulletproof Tony!" Better luck next time, Midnight Meat Train.

As a correlary to our rule, the same people who mock you about watching The Midnight Meat Train will be more than happy to discuss Onechanbara once they know that it's about a woman in a bikini who fights zombies with a samurai sword. They may even want to watch it. Go figure.

My Pizza, Let Me Show You It

2008-12-03T21:22:00.002-05:00

Ok, ok, ok, here's the pepperoni pizza recipe. If it sucks, don't blame me. As a writer, I am given to hyperbole now and again.

Here's the ingredients that we use. Obviously you'll have to adjust things accordingly based on what you can get where you are.

Ingredients
1 pizza dough from Publix, thawed if previously frozen and taken out of the fridge for 2.5 hours
Classico tomato and basil pasta sauce
Kroger pizza cheese (This one is very important. Mozzarella isn't flavorful enough, so this cheese is a blend of five cheeses including mozzarella, parmesan, reggiano and other ones that I can't remember. Very important.)
Crushed red pepper
Boar's Head sliced pepperoni (This one is the second most important. For us, this pepperoni is over by the deli counter, not with the sausage and other pork products. Look for it and pay the extra. It's well worth it.)

1.) Preheat your oven to 450. Because we make two pizzas at a time, we have the racks positioned so one is a bit higher in the oven and one is lower. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we'd do the same thing for one pizza so that at the end you can put the top of the pizza closer to the top heat source, thereby browning it nicely. Obviously, your oven will be different so position things accordingly.
2.) Roll out your dough for a 16 inch pizza pan. If you have a pan with a slight lip, use it. This will make the crust's edge a bit thicker, and thereby tastier. You don't need something as deep as a deep dish pan, maybe a lip of like half an inch.
3.) Once the dough is rolled out, spray your pizza pan with cooking spray and place the dough on the pan.
4.) When the oven is ready, poke the dough all over with a fork. This will keep large air bubbles from forming when the crust is baking.
5.) If you're only using one oven rack position, bake the crust for 8 minutes. If using two, bake it on the bottom rack for 4 minutes, and then the top for another 4 minutes.
6.) Remove the crust from the oven after 8 minutes. Spoon the sauce on the crust one to two spoonfuls at a time. I use a soup spoon, as in a spoon for eating soup, not one for stirring or making soup. It's very important that you just get the sauce, no tomato chunks. Use the spoon to smooth the sauce all over the crust. You don't want to over do the sauce. A little goes a long way. When you're done, the crust should look like it was painted with a light coating of sauce, not completely covered with it. Obviously you can put on as much or as little sauce as you want, but this is the way I do it and it's been working pretty well. It ends up being about 3 - 4 spoonfuls of sauce. Spread the sauce so that it comes up to about an inch from the edge of the crust.
7.) Cover the entire crust with cheese. I use almost an entire 2 cup bag, however you can put on as much as you want. Make sure you evenly coat the crust.
8.) Sprinkle a liberal coating of crushed red pepper over the cheese. Spice that bitch up. Trust me.
9.) Put your pepperonin on the cheese so that the pepperoni doesn't overlap, but instead touches edge to edge. Working from the outer edge of the sauce inwards, you should be able to get 3 - 4 rings of pepperoni, depending on the size of the pan, with a slice in the middle.
10.) Take another handful of cheese and sprinkle it all over the pepperoni. This may not sound important but it is very important. As the pizza cooks, the pepperoni will lose some grease. The cheese will melt and mix with the grease, so that when you brown up the top, it makes a really tasty mini-crust.
11.) Throw the pizza back in the oven for 10 minutes. 5 on the bottom rack and 5 on the top if you're going the dual rack way.
12.) After ten minutes take a look at the pizza, you want the top to be bubbling slightly with a slightly brown color. You don't want the cheese to burn, but you don't want it whitish either. You should hear the pepperoni sizzling slightly. If you're going with one rack position, take the pizza out, raise the rack, and put the pizza back in with the oven light on so that you can watch the pizza until it's ready.
13.) Take the pizza out, slice it up and enjoy. Be sure to have plenty of beverages on hand because between the pepperoni and the pepper, you'll need something to drink.

So there you have it. Enjoy! Maybe later I'll share my spinach, bacon and monterey jack pizza recipe. That one isn't a bad little pie either.

Guide Train Kept A Rollin'

2008-12-03T11:23:00.002-05:00

Two guides today, both for Gears of War 2. The first is an achievement guide, the second is a collectible guide. Hopefully I won't have any guides for a bit as they're not the most fun thing in the world to write. Oh sure, I can inject some personality into them, but for the most part, it's pretty dry. They pay well though, so there is a strong impetus to do them. Plus, knowing how things go around here, they'll change their minds on them in another month and the gravy train will come to a stop. Milk it while it's worth it, I say.

In fact, other than the review I'm currently putting off writing and the upcoming Prince of Persia for the DS, December is in the books. I'm not killing myself this month and there's not a lot coming out, so once PoP is done, I'm taking the rest of the month off.

Most. Boring. Post. Ever.

2008-12-02T13:29:00.003-05:00

So, back before the holidays, Greg tagged me with an internet chain mail thingy that tasked me to describe, in detail, seven interesting things about myself that few, if any people knew about. I was then supposed to tag seven bloggers that I knew so that they could do the same thing.

There are two problems with this particular situation, namely that I don't know seven people who blog that I'm comfortable tagging and, more importantly, I can't think of seven interesting things about myself that no one knows about. The problem there is not the "that no one knows about" part but the "seven interesting things" part. I mean, I am, quite seriously, one of the most boring people on the planet. I don't think that's a bad thing, as I'm quite happy with my life, but it certainly doesn't lend itself to writing long, interesting posts about one's activities.

As boring as I am, I'm certainly not one to turn down an opportunity to have something to write about so I'm here to turn this tag on it's ear and instead write the seven most ponderously dull things about myself. Insomniacs of the world rejoice, you're about to get served up a gigantically dull serving of sleepy time helper.

Greg, I'm so sorry.

Boring Item #1: I don't like bananas.
Seriously. Bananas are gross. When Gwen Stefani said "that shit is bananas" she was right, as the two share equal footing as unappetizing food items in my mind. It's not the flavor, it's the texture. Bananas have a disgusting texture, the very thought of which makes me want to gag. For some reason, I equate the texture of bananas with that of human brains, which makes my eventual zombification a win-win as far as I'm concerned. Either my unyielding, ravenous hunger for tasty brain flesh proves the impetus to finally overcome such a crippling texture aversion, or I can't get past my issues and I become the world's least threatening, and by extension, most boring zombie. Why my status as one of the shambling undead should be any different than my status as one of the shambling living is beyond me, so I'm voting for option number two.

Boring Item #2: I eat the same thing for breakfast every day.
Well, every week day that is. Yep, the same thing. One cup of All-Bran with Strawberries and 80z of skim milk. Even my breakfast is boring. Granted, compared to like Shredded Wheat, this is the culinary equivalent of snowboarding naked with one's hair on fire, but compared to most breakfasts, it's pretty fucking tame. Tame, lame, take your pick. Despite my overwhelming love of food, I can very quickly, and happily get into a rut about certain meals. For most of my school going career, I ate the same lunch every day: one peanut butter sandwich, three chocolate chip cookies, a granola bar, an apple and a cran-apple juice box. The granola bar would change, but that's about it. As for breakfast, I like it, it's easy to make and it gives me all of the fiber an old coot like myself needs. Oh sure, I have dreams of getting other things for breakfast, but as I'm lazy and easily guiltable, along with boring, I usually don't. Technically my tales of boring ass breakfasts and school lunches counts as two boring items, but you're not getting off that easy. Oh, no. Not by a long shot.

Boring Item #3: Upon coming home, I don't take my shoes off until I get in my pajamas.
This particular item of soul crushing tedium bugs my wife to no end. I don't know why, but for some reason, I won't take my shoes off until I get into my pajamas, an event that doesn't take place until the kids are in bed, or about to be in bed. Well, I know why. For me, the kids going to bed means that my day is pretty much over. Nothing left but some quality time with the wife and some quality time with the gaming console of my choosing. By the time the kids go to bed, all of the heavy lifting has been done, and it's time to take the shoes off. Silly, I know, and incredibly boring, but hey, that's me in a nutshell.

Boring Item #4: Even my job is incredibly boring.
Now, I'm not saying that I have a bad job. I have a great job. I work at a fantastic company, with great people, many of which I have become good friends with, and I am compensated well for my work, however none of that changes the fact that my job is boring. I test software for the mortgage industry. On any given day, I'm tasked with making sure things like "attribute value sets" and "lookup list dependencies" are working as they're supposed to. You may not know what those things are, but they don't sound interesting, do they? There are plenty of jobs where you can dress up boring tasks with interesting sounding names. Not this one. It is as boring as it sounds. Are mortgages important? Oh, sure. Are they interesting? Not so much. In fact, the only thing remotely interesting about my job is the fact that because it's directly tied to the mortgage industry, I may not have it next year. When the most exciting thing about your job is the prospect of losing it, you've got problems.

Boring Item #5: I don't like leaving the country.
I have left this country on five occasions. The first was a cruise to the Caribbean and Mexico with Linda. Occasions two through five were to go to Russia for the purpose of adopting our two kids. In all cases, I hated leaving the country. Granted, the cruise was a work cruise, so there were a lot of incredibly boring meetings but still. Also, it's not like the areas of Russia we visited were the most gorgeous places on Earth, but again, we both hated pretty much every minute of it. I like America. I am comfortable in America. I know how it smells, how people will treat me, what they're saying and how things like ketchup and Coca-Cola will taste. I don't want to smell new people, or not drink new water or find out that in Prague, a pepperoni pizza tastes like roasted iguana. I just don't. That's not to say that I won't visit other parts of this world, far from it, but when I do, I'm pretty sure I'll prefer to be home where I don't have to worry about everything tasting like pepper.

Boring Item #6: I am incredibly rigid.
You wouldn't know it about me, but when it comes to lots of things in my life, I'm quite rigid. For example, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I get coffee in the morning at the QuikTrip. The day's don't change, the QT doesn't change and the coffee doesn't change. Five shots of cinnamon-hazelnut flavored creamer and the italian dark roast coffee, every day, a buck thirty-eight and I'm out of there. Every Tuesday and Thursday I make my own coffee to bring to work. Sure, I'll change up what coffee I make, but it's always Tuesday and Thursday. Saturday morning I always make the same kind of coffee, Sunday morning too. During the workday, I always have my morning snack at 10AM, lunch at noon and my afternoon snack and soda at 2. This is partly to keep the metabolism going all day, but also because it's my pattern. My soda is either a Vanilla Coke Zero or a Cherry Coke Zero. If it's 1:55 and I want a soda, I won't drink it. I'll wait. Sure, I can take some variation, but I like the schedule. I find it soothing. This is why games like GTA: San Andreas fill me with dread. The freedom is terrifying.

Boring Item #7: One of my greatest accomplishments is perfecting my pepperoni pizza recipe for Linda.
Every Friday night is pizza night at our home. I make one pizza that I split between Ben and myself and a pepperoni pizza for Linda. Over the months, I have perfected her pizza so that it is at the pinnacle of pepperoni pizza perfection. First I had to learn how to do the sauce just right so that there weren't chunks of tomatoes in it. Then I had to find the right cheese, a blend of cheeses, not just straight up mozzarella. Then I had to add crushed red pepper to the cheese before putting on the pepperoni. Finally, I learned that a sprinkle of cheese on top of the pepperoni allowed for a nice crust of melted cheese and pepperoni grease to form on top of the pizza. This is all without even mentioning how long to cook the crust, which rack, when to move, and so on and so on. The end result is one damn fine pepperoni pizza, and I'm not even a big fan of pepperoni pizza. I don't do a lot of interesting things, I don't do a lot of exciting things, so the fact that I can make a good pepperoni pizza for my wife is one of the best things I've been able to do. Boring as that might be, I'm completely ok with that.

I'm sure I could find more boring things to go on about, but that's seven and I'm not going to torture you any longer. I'm boring. That's pretty much it. I'm probably more boring than you, and that's just fine. Even if it wasn't, I don't see it changing, and the only thing I have in abundance more than unintersting qualities is abject apathy, so not only am I boring, but I really don't care. Maybe my next post can be the seven things I'm apathetic about. Oooh, exciting.

Call of Duty: World at War DS

2008-12-02T13:28:00.001-05:00

My review of Call of Duty: World at War for the DS is up if you're at all interested in portable WWII shooters. And really, who isn't. Oh wait. I'm not.

More Reviews, Less Food

2008-12-01T11:12:00.003-05:00

Ugh.

Man I ate too much these past few days, as I'm sure everyone did. I was very happy to work out this weekend and give my body something to do other than digest all of the food I shoved down my slavering maw.

Maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but it sure wasn't pretty. Hopefully I can work off the extra poundage this week as this time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is rife with extra work goodies.

And how was your holiday? Excellent.

In other news, my review of Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip is up. It's a very fun game, however only if you have the balance board that comes with Wii Fit. Strange that the controller would make that much of a difference but it does. I'm starting to think that I need to switch up my review style a bit as they get less and less entertaining to me as I write them. Maybe I'm just bored with the whole reviewing thing. I don't know. We have some new writers at the site now and they're really nailing these reviews, so whatever I do, whether it be a new style or tweaking my current style, I need to step my game up so that I keep getting the plum assignments. The check don't change whether it's a triple A title, or some piece of DS shovelware, but man can't live on shovelware alone.

Reviews and Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T20:21:00.002-05:00

My review of Theresia: Dear Emile is up if you're into horror adventure games on the DS, all, you know, one of them.

More importantly, I hope that you and yours have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for each and every one of you that come and spend time here and I hope that you continue to do so forever and ever and ever. Well, maybe not that long, but certainly through the end of the year. If that's ok with you that is.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Night of Rock

2008-11-24T20:20:00.007-05:00

Saturday night I hit the town to take in an evening of quality music. A four band bill was the concert of choice, consisting of The Hush Sound, The Spill Canvas, Augustana and One Republic.

I had never heard of The Hush Sound, and was going mostly to see The Spill Canvas, but every band put on a great show. Lots of personality, lots of good music and the lead singer for One Republic has one of the best singing voices I've ever heard. Seriously, that dude is amazing.

I had a small problem with a woman sitting behind me asking me to sit, even though I was in the back row, specifically so that I could stand, while she and her brood brought up folding chairs that they weren't supposed to be in but I got over it eventually. Still, here's a friendly reminder from me to you: if you want to be able to see the show, get there on time, not an hour and fifteen minutes into the fucking show. They don't print the time on the tickets just because it's visually appealing. If you can't get there on time, or choose not to, well you get the seat that you get, and you see what you can see and you shut your fucking piehole about it. If you feel that you must complain, please wait until the current song is over, because it might very well be one of the favorite songs of the poor person you're currently bothering. Bitch.

And now that the complaining portion of our show is over, it's time for crappy cell phone camera pictures! Yay!

The Hush Sound

The Spill Canvas

Augustana

One Republic (and a pillar)

I had a great time, and the timing of the show worked out beautifully. The show started at 7, and I was home and in bed by a little after 11:30. That's a schedule my old ass can get behind.

My next show is MC Frontalot on December 5th. Those wishing to bear witness to the glory and splendor that is the godfather of nerdcore hip-hop are welcome to join me. If past shows are any indication, this show will be a great one.

Crazy Week

2008-11-20T20:47:00.002-05:00

I know, I know, I hit you with like two weeks of almost constant posting, only to then be away for four days. I'm insane I tell you! Insane!

It's been a crazy week I tell ya. Don't feel bad though, as I'm ignoring all of my responsibilities, not just you. In fact, I should be writing a Gears of War 2 achievement guide right now, or a review of Call of Duty: World at War for the DS.

I long to get back to posting though as I have one of those email blog taggy thingamahoppers that Greg sent me. Seven interesting facts about myself or some such thing. Not sure I can come up with seven. I should probably get started as all of that lying is going to take some time.

Quantum of Solace

2008-11-17T15:20:00.003-05:00

The wife and I took some time to see Quantum of Solace this weekend and, for the most part, it was an enjoyable flick.

I say "for the most part" because the movie did try to do a bit too much, what with setting up a huge, evil organization for MI:6 to spar with in the future as well as a main bad guy for Bond to go after. Oh, and there was also another bad guy for Bond's female cohort to go after. See what I mean? The problem was that about half way through the movie I had to ask myself why Bond was going after the main bad guy in the first place. That's not a question that a filmmaker usually wants their audience asking of themselves. Luckily it wasn't too distracting what with all of the cool chase scenes and the continued excellence of Daniel Craig as 007. Upon further reflection, I was able to answer most of the questions for myself, but again, I would have preferred to have less of a story, provided it was more straightforward.

This movie retained the "realism" of Casino Royale but still made some small attempts to get back to the old Bond ways. For example, Bond meets a redhead in the movie who says that her name is Ms. Fields. When he presses her more on her name, she tells him that it's "just Fields". The credits show that her full name was Strawberry Fields. Oh the wit! Now, I liked the older Bond movies and I'm all for giving a nod to them, but let's remember that they decided to go into a new direction with Bond for a reason and cutesy names for the women in these movies is but one small step down a road that leads to Craig flying the helicopter that his phone turned into while he shoots missles out of his smoking jacket.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, I just don't think it was as good as Casino Royale, but that's ok. They can't all be knocked out of the park. Sometimes you have to settle for a triple and be ok with that.

Finally, we were lucky enough to see the new Star Trek trailer before the movie, and holy crap. If any of the tv shows had been even a fraction as exciting as that trailer, I probably would have watched them.

On Rock Band and Sales Numbers

2008-11-14T20:40:00.002-05:00

So the October NPD numbers came out, and the Guitar Hero: World Tour combined sales were double that of the Rock Band 2 combined sales. Granted, the previous month's sales of Rock Band 2 just for the 360 gives Rock Band a slight lead but still.

I've played both, although I haven't played GH nearly as much as I have Rock Band, and I simply can not understand why people would choose Guitar Hero: World Tour over Rock Band 2. Hell I don't know why they'd chose GH:WT over the original Rock Band. I know that a lot of the people who bought it are gamers who just genuinely prefer GH, but I'm sure that there are a fair amount of people buying it because they know of the Guitar Hero franchise and aren't the type of people who research the differences in the platforms.

On paper, in my opinion, between the differences in tour progression, the ability to save failing band members and all of the downloadable songs available for RB2, it sounds like the better platform. When you play it, things like having to take your eyes off of the note chart to see how much overdrive you have and the overall sterile presentation in GH:WT makes it the lesser platform. Some people like the GH drum kit better, some people like the RB kit better and I can understand those differences more as it's a matter of which feels more comfortable, but I simply do not understand how anyone who has played both platforms would chose Guitar Hero over Rock Band. I just do not get it.

Now, Rock Band has tons of DLC that people are still buying, so I'm sure that the disparity in the sales numbers won't cause the bottom to fall out at Harmonix, but at the same time, it bugs me that my favorite platform, and one of my favorite games ever, isn't winning the music battle. I can only hope that people who bought the GH:WT equipment will utilize the hardware compatibility, pick up a copy of Rock Band 2 and become life long Harmonix fans. The more rocking out, the better for everyone involved.

Me, I'm going to keep buying DLC as it comes out and do my best to support the platform. If that means that I have to buy some t-shirts with Saving Throw on it, or some band character statues, well, so be it. Somehow I'll suffer through.

Saints Row 2 Guide

2008-11-14T13:25:00.002-05:00

My Saints Row 2 guide is up and it's awesome. My editor says so.

Streakin'

2008-11-13T22:04:00.001-05:00

I have nothing to say, but I feel like I've been on a roll lately and it's a shame to stop now.

So, how are you? No really, how are you?

Ok. We're done. Carry on.

Time Waits for No Rocker

2008-11-12T15:20:00.002-05:00

Last night I did something I've never done before, and hopefully won't ever do again. I purposefully did not attend a show that I had bought a ticket for.

A month or so ago, when the Flobots show was announced, I was quite excited. Even though the show was on a Tuesday night, I figured I could swing it as I'm usually not all that tired in the beginning of the week. Alas, when the day of the show arrived, I woke up exhausted and it never got any better. The combination of my fatigue, the two opening bands before the Flobots, the standing room only venue and the 45 minute drive home all deep sixed my attendance.

I was disappointed, as I'm always tired, it comes with being a parent, but I'm not usually so tired as to not be able to go out and do stuff. Things have been a little stressful at home though, as we're trying to get Abby the help she needs and keep her from being bounced out of a second daycare. I'm sure that her having a feeding aversion appointment all the way the hell downtown, complete with a multi-hour absence from work didn't help, but it is what it is. Neither me, my family nor the Flobots are well served by me wrapping myself around a guardrail on the way home when I fall asleep at the wheel.

Luckily, while I was bummed that I couldn't go to the show, I don't feel like I wasted my money. The show was relatively inexpensive, something like 22 bucks once fees and such are factored in, and I know full well that bands like the Flobots get money from touring, not from cd sales. Hell, I bought their record for eight bucks, so there's no way they're making a mint off of sales from Best Buy. Live shows is what supports them, and given that I want them to continue making records, I'm ok with having paid for the ticket, even if I didn't get to see the show. Now, I'm not saying that I want to make it a point to bag out on shows in the future, but if an up and coming band that I enjoy is selling tickets to a show with a dubious time, I'd rather buy the ticket and hope I can make it, than not and know that I can't. With the latter no one wins, yet with the former, they can make some more music and hopefully I can attend. I'm not so hard up for cash that I can't kick a little their way. I don't want to make a habit out of it, and I do have an upper limit for what I'm willing to risk, but truth be told, that if a band hits my upper limit, they probably spend their days swimming in gilded pools filled with 50 dollar bills, so they won't miss my ticket sale very much.

I am bummed that I didn't get to buy a t-shirt, but it's not like I need any more of those. Hopefully the show went well, the fan response was exuberant and the Flobots will return in the near future. If they do, I'll be there.

Well, provided it's on a weekend.

Because Bones Demanded It

2008-11-11T09:18:00.003-05:00

Behold the new Lancer! This is a crappy cell phone picture because I haven't had time to take a crappy real camera picture, although they are coming. Don't you worry.

I'm trying to come up with a name for it and am starved for ideas. "Bessie" stands out in my mind, as does "Stephanie". I also like "Batman" if only so that I can imagine it saying "I'm Batman, and I can chainsaw Locusts."

A Fly on the Wall

2008-11-10T15:23:00.002-05:00

Man what I wouldn't have given to be a fly on the wall during the meeting between Obama and President Bush. I can only imagine the conversation that took place.

"So, I hear that you're looking at repealing a number of my Presidential edicts."

"Yes Mr. President, I am."

"Have you checked with Dick about that? Because I'm pretty sure you can't do that."

"Oh, I think I can. Vice President Cheney doesn't have to approve my actions once I'm President."

"Ok, I know that's not true. Believe me, I asked."

Oh the wit! Seriously though, I'm sure it was all very cordial and such. As much as I would like to think that Obama gave GW a stern talking to and said that under no circumstances was he to invade Iran or any other country without at least first checking with Obama, I'm pretty sure the conversation tended to be much more civil and of the "did you know that they'll make you any kind of sandwich whenever you want" type. Still, I can't imagine what kind of things they'd discuss as I honestly can't imagine the enormity of the task facing the person who in a few short months will be the President of the United States of America.

Me, I'd want to know three things:

1. Where are the space alien corpses?
2. Who shot Kennedy?
3. When you say any kind of sandwich, do you mean any kind, or like any kind from this limited menu?

I'd also want to know what it would take to make it a Federal crime to be a fan of the Eagles, Giants and/or Cowboys, but I think I'd need the help of Congress on that one.

In other news my Lancer has arrived. Oh sweet, sweet geekdom, how I love thee.

30 Days of Sacrilege

2008-11-07T13:15:00.002-05:00

I recently took advantage of various Halloween sales to pick up a copy of "30 Days of Night" the movie adaptation of the horror comic of the same name. The premise of the comic and the movie is that there's a town in Alaska called Barrow where, for thirty days in the winter, the sun never rises. Vampires find out about this town and head there to feast on the town in a month long orgy of eating.

The movie ended up being quite good, much better than it was reviewed if you ask me, but there were a few things I wasn't sure about in terms of deviation from the comic. So, in the spirit of research, and in an effort to reread a comic I had enjoyed so much, last night I read the original all over again.

Here's where Bones will probably reach through the screen and punch me, but I have to say that compared to the comic, the movie was much, much better. Spoilers abound, so you've been warned.

In the comic, Eben (the sheriff) and Stella (the deputy) are married and all sorts of in love. In the movie, they're estranged for reasons we never find out about, and she's a Fire Marshall. The change in employment serves no purpose other than giving her a reason to not be living in Barrow, but the tension between them not only gave the actors a lot to work with. At one point, after the vampires have arrived and the survivors are hiding out, Josh Hartnett, who plays Eben shoots Melissa George (Stella) a look after her "I guess it's good you didn't want kids" line that said more than ten pages of writing ever could.

At the end of the movie, Eben shoots himself up with vampire blood so that he can fight the remaining vamps and provide a distraction for Stella to escape. She's trapped hiding under a truck with a kid who somehow escaped, and is in danger of burning to death after the vampires start burning the town down. In the comic, Eben transforms himself so that he can fight the vamps and save the town, which is a noble goal, but in the movie it seemed so much more noble because he was willing to destroy himself to save one woman, and not just any woman, but the woman who had left him. I would expect him to go off and fight in the comic because he and Stella were so in love with each other. I didn't expect it here.

The movie also increased the dramatic tension of the entire experience. We see various townspeople being taken before the town square is attacked. The human familiar that wanders into town before the vamps is sufficiently creepy and does a lot to sow discord and confusion before things really start happening. In the comic, the pacing seemed really off and you never got the feelings of dread and isolation that the movie evokes.

The one area where I liked the comic better is in some of the drama that plays out among the vampires. The vampires invite a head vampire dude to come and revel in the slaughter and he basically shows up and starts smacking fools down, basically saying that the vampires have spent decades making themselves appear to be nothing more than myths, and here these dumbasses come and eat a whole town. The notion of a hidden vampire nation is always appealing to me, even with it having been done to death by now in countless books, tv shows and movies. It makes sense to do it in the comic, as the book is clearly the beginning of a larger tale, while the movie needs to stand on it's own, even though talks of a sequel are being held. I can see why they decided to not go that route in the movie, and if you didn't know about it being in the comic, I don't think you'd think "hey, this movie needs some secret vampire nation infighting", but still.

In both cases, I don't understand exactly what the vampires hoped to gain from this, given that once the town is dead, it's dead and most likely coming back, but I guess they're just really hungry and here's a chance to eat like kings. If there is a hidden vampire nation, the desire to go buck wild for a month and feed out in the open, even if the open is cold as hell certainly would have appeal, but they don't talk about that much in the comic, so I'm not sure that's the motivation. In the movie it's just "we like to eat people and here you all are".

The other thing that neither story explains very well is how for thirty days a bunch of townspeople can stay hidden from a pack of vampires. I mean, come on. The town isn't that large. Neither the movie nor the comic gives the impression that the townspeople move from house to house, so I don't understand why, in thirty days, a pack of vampires couldn't go from hosue and house and basically tear them all apart, uncovering all of the townspeople in the process. It's not like they had to sleep. Besides, gorged themselves pretty heavily when they first attacked, so at some point you'd think they'd get hungry for more blood and start looking. The comic mentions how the vampires' sense of smell is lessened in the cold, which would explain why the vamps couldn't sniff out the survivors, but I don't remember any mention of that in the movie. At the end of the movie, once the vamps were driven out, a bunch of townspeople who we hadn't seen before just come ambling out into the town square and I was like "where the fuck were you people?" It just didn't ring true, but again, that's in both versions.

Complaints aside, I really enjoyed the movie. The vampires weren't the pretty boy, "I just want to hold your hand" or the "I'm so emotional and conflicted" versions we've been seeing so much of lately, and not a one of them had any redeeming qualities whatsoever. They were just brutal, savage, inhumane killing machines. In a word, they were fucking scary. Guess that's two words. Sorry. Don't get me wrong, I like Angel and Spike and Blade and all of those tormented vampire dudes, but the horror fan in me likes vampires to scare your ass off, like they did when I read "Salem's Lot" so many, many years ago.

In the end, I still like the comic, but the small plot changes, increased tension and bucket and buckets of gore puts the movie version over the top in my head. Melissa George being plenty cute, even in a parka, certainly doesn't hurt.

I Should Hope So

2008-11-06T14:26:00.002-05:00

So we're all coming back from Wendy's last night, and when we stopped at a traffic light, I noticed that the car ahead of us had a ribbon magnet on it, only this one had what looked like Dalmatian spots. Personally, I think that this whole ribbon thing has gotten way out of hand to the point where I can't keep track of what the hell the different ribbons are supposed to mean. The yellow ribbon means that we want troops back home, but the pink one means we're supposed to fight breast cancer? Shouldn't it mean that we want breast cancer back home? And what's with the plaid one for Autism? One color isn't enough for them or could no one come to a consensus? Who makes these decisions any way? If I decide that I don't like Lupus, can I start selling green and white polka dot ribbons or will I get sued by the ACLU or some other group for ribbon infringement.

But I digress. Thinking that maybe this car wanted to remember their dog, or they lost their dog, or they want to fight dogs, I pulled up a little closer so that I could see what was on the ribbon. It read "I adopted my dog."

Really, hasn't every dog owner in the world adopted their dog or is there a rare genetic trait in some women that allows them to birth puppies? Maybe this is what this woman is calling attention to, the fact that cruel fate left her unable to give birth to dogs. I'm sure she meant that she didn't buy her dog, rather, she got it from a shelter, but whatever. In the end, the dog is a part of your family through non-biological means. In my book that's adoption.

I'm going to get a red and yellow ribbon for my van with the line "I purchased my children" or "I gave birth to my hamster" and really blow people's minds. Either that or a pink and yellow one signifying that I want the troops to come back home and fight breast cancer. They all sound good to me.

The Win Loss

2008-11-05T13:44:00.003-05:00

So, Obama.

Woot!

I was pretty damned worried about last night, as all of my coworkers and my spouse can attest to. Despite the fact that Obama was running a masterful campaign, I couldn't help but think that he's a Democrat, and as such, he's storied in the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Thankfully, Obama was a Democrat in party only and victory was his. Now comes the hard part. I have no reservations about the long, difficult road ahead of him, but if anyone in the past few years seems equipped to travel it with grace and competence, he's it. I am incredibly proud to be an American right now.

Unfortunately with a fantastic win comes some pretty shitty losses, namely the various anti-gay measures that passed across the country. California and Arkansas are particularly odious with the former potentially destroying 18,000 valid, legal marriages between committed couples and the latter banning unmarried couples from adopting children or being foster parents. To those in California who voted for Proposition 8, I would say that I hope it's just that you didn't understand the repurcussions of your vote, and not that you're so incredibly dense as to think that destroying thousands of marriages actually strengthens marriage. I would also ask you to think about how you would feel if a religious group were to feel very strongly about a reason why your particular marriage should end, and they lobbied to have your marriage dissolved just because their holy book said that you shouldn't be married to your spouse. I bet you'd be none too pleased about it. I'd also like to think about what might happen if your child grows up to be gay and the joyful conversation you can have with them about why they're not allowed to be married and share the same joy of life long commitment that you do. Then again, maybe you secretly hate marriage. If so, then well played, because you're certainly doing well to fuck it up for the rest of us.

To those in Arkansas, I would say, you're all fucking idiots. Pure and simple. I don't care who the fuck you are, if you voted for the ban, you're a fucking idiot. Seriously, in a country where so many children need good homes and are in foster care, you're going to limit who can adopt or be foster parents simply based on marital status? Do you seriously hate gays so much that you would deny them the joy of parenthood, or more importantly, deny a child the opportunity to be raised by loving parents? Way to live Jesus's words. I'm sure He's thrilled with you right now. As the father of an adopted child and the father of young children, to know that the possibility of them growing up gay means that they could neither get married nor be parents sickens me as it should sicken you.

It blows my mind that in the same day that we elect an African-American to the highest office in the land that we could also write so much hatred and bigotry, because yes it is bigotry, into state constitutions. It serves as a sobering wake up call to the fact that we may have come far, but we haven't come nearly far enough. There is still plenty of work to be done, and not just for gay rights, but for all who have been margianlized or maligned because they look different, practice different faiths, or love differently. Let us not forget that and grow complacent. Instead, let's take a small moment to reflect on what we've done so far and then get back to work.

The Loss Win

2008-11-04T14:59:00.004-05:00

Despite having excellent company to watch the game with, last night's complete and utter dismantling of my beloved Redskins at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers was a tough thing to watch. My only consolation is that the 'Skins loss at home, all but assures an Obama victory, due to the strange statistical phenomenon that states for the past 17 elections, if the Redskins win the home game prior to the election, the party that won the popular vote in the last election wins. If they lose, the party that lost the popular vote wins. Given that the Democrats lost the popular vote last time around, our 23 - 6 ass whipping means that Obama should win, and win big.

Even with the loss, the 'Skins are sitting at a respectable 6 -3, all the more amazing given that two of those wins were divisional road games, and we have a first year coach, and not a first year Redskins coach, but a dude in his first year as a head coach, so I'm not terribly upset. More importantly, the Redskins loss points heavily in favor of an Obama win, and honestly, if my choice was four years of McCain and a Redskins Super Bowl win, or Obama getting elected and the Redskins never win another game all season, I gotta go with Obama on this one. I'm sure that the Football Gods will understand that there are times when you have to take one for the team, and I'm taking one now.

If you haven't already voted, please go out and do so. Your vote counts, if only as a means to complain bitterly for the next four years over whoever gets elected. The ability to exercise one of the most cherished rights in democratic society is an added bonus, but really, it's all about the bitching. I voted via absentee ballot this year, as did Linda, so we could avoid the lines. I can only hope that the votes were actually counted and not discarded upon receipt, but pressing a button on a computer is as far removed from the vote counting process as filling out a bubble sheet and mailing it in, so we all have to trust that our votes are being counted. Make sure yours is too by actually going out and voting. Again, I'm going with the bitching.

Whoever wins, we will all be witness to a historic moment in America's history having elected either the first African-American President, or the first female Vice President. The fact that the latter is such an odious figure shouldn't take away from the historical impact, but hopefully, she and her ilk will lose and she'll go back to the wild north and we'll only remember her as "that woman that Tina Fey made fun of". I'm sure that there are an equal number of people out there that who wish the same for Obama, but I ain't one of them, so screw them.

As for my Redskins, they go into their bye week and can rest up and get healthy knowing that from here on out their victories are only football victories and that they did their part to secure a brighter future for tomorrow. Hail to the Redskins, hail victory, braves on the warpath, fight for old DC.

Best Binky Ever

2008-11-04T11:59:00.001-05:00

Or so my editor says. You be the judge.

Daylight Slavings

2008-11-03T15:09:00.002-05:00

Any parent of young children will tell you that the Summer Solstice is not the longest day of the year (or Winter Solstice for those of you in the southern hemisphere). The longest day of the year is that day in the fall when Daylight Savings ends and you have to move the clock back an hour.

Oh, you say, I love that day because I get an extra hour of sleep! Screw you I say. Screw you straight to hell. Daylight Savings time being a harbinger of more or less sleep ended the day I stepped off of that plane with a 7 month old baby under my arm.

The spring clock movement isn't that big of deal. Oh sure, you lose an hour of time during the day, but being that it's the weekend, it's not like there's a lot that has to be done. From a bed time perspective, you put them to bed, they grumble about not being tired because it's an hour early, you say tough noogies and then in the morning you have to pry them out with a crowbar.

Fall is when all of the trouble starts. For one, once you get up, you have to move all of the clocks back, provided that you didn't do it the night before. Either way sucks, because most likely, your kids will be up early as all hell, only with the clock movement, it's even earlier, and even more hellish. Then, you have to fight the urge to put them to bed an hour earlier, as they're probably going to be tired, and if they're like my kids in pissy moods, because if you don't, they'll be up all sorts of early the next day. Oh the horrors.

These are things that they don't tell you about when you're thinking about having kids. I've seen the kinds of things that they teach you in child rearing classes, and frankly, if you don't know which end of the bottle goes in which end of the baby, you shouldn't be having one, but knowing that every year in November Father Time is going to kick you in the balls is of utmost importance. Once my kids are older to where they can either manage themselves in the morning without my assistance, or they sleep later than I do, this won't be a problem, but for now, it makes for a long Sunday.

Luckily, this past Sunday the kids were well behaved, for the most part, not counting the usual sibling squabbles we're so used to refereeing. We did pick Sunday to do a boat load of yard work, on top of my time spent configuring a wireless print server and making the next night's dinner as if we had forgotten that daylight savings was upon us, or worse, we foolishly felt that we could use that extra hour to be productive. By the end of the evening I was exhausted and disoriented to the point that when I woke up in the morning, I spent ten minutes getting myself ready to get out of bed only to look at the clock and see that it was 3:30, a full hour before I had to get up.

Father Time strikes again.

Dude Huge

2008-11-03T12:33:00.001-05:00

My epic Rock Band 2 achievement guide is up for your perusal. Ten pages of nothing but the finest in assistance from a guy who can barely drum his way through "Everlong" on easy.

Oooooh, very scary

2008-10-31T08:49:00.002-05:00

My take on the scariest video game characters evar is up. This is some stone cold, scary shit. Read it at your own peril.

Fun with Squash

2008-10-29T19:52:00.007-05:00

Wednesday morning I get an IM from Linda that says "Ben want's a scary tiger face pumpkin, but it's supposed to be a surprise." My kid has an odd notion of what makes up a surprise. Birthday parties that you don't know about are surprises. Coming home to find your partner making out with your sibling is a surprise. Your choice of a pumpkin? Not a surprise.

More importantly, what the hell is a scary tiger face?

"I don't know how to do that" I replied, because I don't. "Don't worry, he only wants tiger teeth" she said. "Oh, I can do that." Or so I hoped.

When I got home, all of the tools for pumpkin carving were out on the table. Before going to get Abby, Linda told me that she figured that Ben could participate in the pumpkin carving with me. I said he could, but I knew what would happen. See, I'm the parenting version of the Midnighter. I had seen every scenario played out in my head before I even picked up the carving tools, and I knew how this was going to go down.

I removed the top of the pumpkin and Ben and I peered down into the orange cavern.

"That's disgusting" he said. Yep, right on target.

I told him that we needed to scoop all of the innards out and he looked at me like I asked him to scoop his own innards out. To his credit, he did put his hand about a centimeter into the pumpkin, right up until he brushed the goop.

"It's on my hand." Again, right on target.

"Well, wipe it off", I said "It won't kill you." Amazing how once you become a parent the entire world can be broken down into things that can kill you and everything else. He did, and then said that he didn't want to take the innards out.

"Well, you want to do pumpkins don't you?" I asked. He nodded. "This is part of doing pumpkins, so let's do it." Now, I'm not going to make him scoop the whole thing out himself, but he's supposed to participate and it's not like I can tell him to pick up a saw and start hacking the thing up. If he was going to participate, this was pretty much it.

In the end, he managed to pull out about five seeds before complaining so much that I had him wash his hands. As I scooped, I asked him what kind of design he wanted for his pumpkin. True to his word, he asked for a scary tiger face.

"I don't know how to do that" I said.

"You don't know how to or you don't want to?" he asked. When I first heard this, I thought, man, what kind of a dick does my kid think that I am that I wouldn't make him the pumpkin that he wanted simply because I didn't want to? Then I remembered. My daughter has a feeding aversion problem, which means that she won't eat. And when I say she won't eat, I mean that she won't eat anything. At one point, when she was in one kind of therapy, and we would work with her at home, when we gave her food, she would say that she couldn't eat it, and we would always say that she could eat it, she just didn't want to. At least that's what I'm hoping he meant, and not that he thinks I'm a massive dick.

"No, I want to do it for you, I just don't know how to" I said. "Why don't you look through the pattern book and see if there's anything else you want." Seemed reasonable to me. After all, we had like a dozen patterns in there. He was bound to find something that he wanted.

"Nope" he said. "I want a scary tiger face. Or any tiger face that you want. An awesome tiger face is ok too." Oh, well, now that awesome tiger faces are on the table, I can totally do this. Again I told him that I didn't know how to do it and he wandered off into the family room, no doubt to find a father capable of handling his most basic of childhood needs.

"It can have eyes like this pumpkin" I heard him say. Odd. I don't remember having a pumpkin in the family room. Wait! We have a fake pumpkin in the family room! I go in there, take a look at the pumpkin, and the weird thing was that once I saw the eyes, which gave me a place to start, the rest of it all came to me. I quickly sketched out what I was thinking of and showed it to him.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" That's his big thing now. "That's what I want. I didn't know you could do that." Me neither.

Once it was carved, I realized that it either needed more tiger stripes up top, or less down below, but I'll let you be the judge. For a freehand sketch, I don't think it ended up looking too bad.

See? Not too shabby. For Abby, she wanted a pattern called "Wink and Smile" which I originally renamed the Palin Pumpkin for obvious reasons, then changed the name to Governor Pumpkin, finally sticking with The Okie-Dokie. As Obama said, we're not going to let them run the okie-dokie on us, except for pumpkins. Here's Abby's effort. Well, my effort and her pattern.

For the sake of reference, here they are in the light. The little pumpkin is one Abby got at school, done up in marker by Linda. It's hard to tell from her effort, but there's a reason that I'm the one doing the carving.