How'd You Get Here

I have nothing exciting to talk about today. While discussing this with Linda she suggested that I write about how my daughter manages to get massive stains on every piece of clothing she wears, that way when people Google "how to remove stains from my daughter's shirt" this site would come up. While that seems like an extremely exciting topic, instead I've decided to talk a little about how people end up finding this little corner of the IntraWeb.

If you've ever scrolled down to the bottom of this site, you'll see a hit counter from Bravenet. Part of the free service they offer is that I get to see the referrals to this site at any point in time. Unfortunately I don't have access to historical referral data as I'm a cheap bastard and won't pay for it, but I do check my referrals daily and I've noticed a pattern. Here, in no particular order, are the most common ways people get here.

Friends' Sites
I get a bunch of referrals from Bones and Greg's sites. I'm assuming this is them reading the site and just getting here from their own linkage. Given that most of my visitors are first time visitors, as opposed to returning visitors, regular readers make up a small percentage of my readership. I'm trying to figure out how to swing this the other way, but short of just being a more interesting writer, I'm not sure how to do that. I don't see myself being more interesting any time soon. Lately I got a nice uptick in traffic from Bill over at Dubious Quality, and occasionally someone will get here from me commenting at Scalzi's site, but those rarely end up in increased repeat readers. Again with me not being interesting.

Toddlers with Various Ailments
Some time ago, I wrote a post making fun of the fact that when toddlers are sick they can't tell you what's wrong with them. Making fun of those that haven't developed communication skills sufficient enough to express the extent of their bodily discomfort is what makes me Father of the Year. In the post, I mention a number of possible ways a kid could be hurt, and mention a time my son claimed that a spider bit him. As a result, I get a bunch of referrals of people genuinely trying to figure out what's wrong with their sick kid. Some of them are normal requests like "Toddler ear pain" and "toddler stomach ache" but I've had some real oddball ones like "Toddler spider bite", "Toddler sleeps all the time" and "Toddler can't walk". Why the parents of a child who obviously has Polio is taking the time to Google it, rather than call a doctor, I have no idea, but I feel a little bad that these distraught parents get to my snarky site instead of someplace that can actually help them.

Various Science Questions
Despite not having written a science post in quite some time, I still get an occasional visitor wanting to know why leaves are green or why their pipes are expanding and making squeaking noises. I'd like to think I'm helping to educate the world one visitor every other week at a time.

Fun With Oblivion
At least half of my referrals come from people searching on "Fun with Oblivion" or "fun in Oblivion" or some sort of phrase with the words "Oblivion" and "fun" in it. Sometimes it's people looking for certain items or quests in Oblivion, but mostly it's people looking for some good, old fashioned fun. I have no idea why this phrase is so common for searching, but it drives at least half of my traffic, so I guess I'm just happy it is. The post people get to, also happens to be the post with the most comments, a whopping 9. Wahey! So remember kids, if you want fun in Oblivion, this is the place for you.

Ego Surfing
So one day as I'm checking my referrals, I see that someone got to my site by surfing my wife's name. I say to her "Hey, someone was searching for you" and she gets this sheepish look on her face. Yes, that's right, my wife was doing some ego surfing, found a story here she wanted to read and went ahead and read it. The funniest thing was her getting defensive and saying that I shouldn't be able to see how people get to the site. She's so cute when she's embarrassed.

Based on these findings, I've devised a new phrase that will do nothing but send my traffic to the stratosphere. It is:

Linda Cackowski-Schnell diagnoses sick toddlers while having fun in Oblivion.

Open the floodgates boys! They're coming!

Guitar Hero 2 Initial Impressions

Once again, my wrists throb, inflamed with the healing fires of rock.

Guitar Hero 2 for the 360 has landed and while I haven't had enough time to really get into it, I can provide some initial impressions.

First of all, let's talk about the controller. It's nice and sturdy like the last one, however the whammy bar doesn't have the same back and forth action as the controller for the PS2. I prefer to play with the whammy bar pointing away from the strum bar, as I find it uncomfortable to strum and hit the bar at the same time. With the last controller, I could just reach down away from the strum bar when I wanted some hot whammy action. Now, I either have to have the bar pointing to the strum bar, and figure out how to strum around it, or I have to reach down, pull it around and then use it. This cuts down on my whammying severely. Thankfully you don't need to use the whammy bar to "beat" the song, but it is essential for building up your boost bar and getting those high scores.

I don't really care that the controller isn't wireless, as I like the idea of a cord coming off of a guitar, but at the same time, I don't feel like having all of the usual 360 controller shenanigans gives you anything. Part of the illusion of Guitar Hero is the fact that the controller is a guitar, and as such, doesn't look like a controller. If your guitar has things on it, like a guide button, so that it looks more like a controller, that, in my opinion, is a bad thing. The gods demand sacrifice, and if giving up your precious guide button when you worship at the Altar of Rock is the sacrifice you have to make, then you got off easy.

The game is basically Guitar Hero, just with an incredible amount of shine and polish. This is a very, very good thing. Part of what made Guitar Hero so charming was the ascetic of the game. I'm glad to see they haven't changed anything in this regard. The usual rock posters for the in game menus are still there and look better than ever.

The character animations and rock backdrops are all improved and look amazing. I've missed a bunch of notes already paying attention to the band on stage instead of the song. Judy Nails is, quite possibly, the hottest video game female I've ever seen. The little touches like flaming amps and shots of the crowd, complete with lighters, when your band is really laying it down, help to let you know just how well you're rocking.

The song list is good. On the plus side, the "master tracks" they added to this version sound much, much better than the covers. On the minus side, the track list seems a little less eclectic than the previous game. At the same time, having such axe classics as Free Bird and Sweet Child O' Mine make the game feel like the tribute to Rock that it is. Rocking out to Pearl Jam is the amazing experience I thought it would be. The songs seem a bit easier this time around, but maybe I'm just not as rusty as I thought it would be.

I haven't touched practice mode yet, but based on how shitty I did when trying to play "Life Wasted" on Medium, I know I'll put it to good use.

The addition of achievements makes this game so much more fun than the original. It's one thing to tell people that you've mastered all the songs on Hard or Expert but to have something that the whole world can see makes it all the sweeter. Getting 100,000 points in a song, getting a 100 note streak, nailing 100% of the notes are all great moments in the game, but the achievements make them so much better. The Live Leaderboards aren't quite as exciting, as high scores don't tell me how well someone completed a song like a note streak tallies or notes hit percentages do, but it's nice to see your friends tearing it up with you. Hopefully multiplayer over Live will be released in a subsequent patch.

All things considered, everything about the original is here, just better. I'm sure I'll get frustrated as I venture into 5 starring all the songs on Medium, but even then, I'll be having so much fun it'll all be worth it. Truly, tonight I'm gonna rock you tonight.

Devastator and Ravage

I think it's written somewhere, in the Tome of Awesome the hierarchy of awesome things. It goes something like this:

I. Awesome
Robots that come together to form other robots.
II. Way Awesome
Robots that turn into vehicles
III. Super Awesome
Robots that turn into vehicles and form other robots.
Robots that turn into dinosaurs.
Robots that turn into zombies.
IV. Too Awesome For Words
Zombie dinosaur robots that turn into vehicles and form a ginormous zombie dinosaur robot monster truck.

As you can see, this puts Voltron below Transformers, and your garden variety Transformers slightly below Dinobots and Devastator. The next entries are part of what I can only call wishes on my part for a new Transformers line. You can have that one for free Takara. You and Hasbro both.

By the way, at the time of this writing, my wrist is inflamed with Rock. It's a small price to pay to get back into the good graces of the Gods of Rock and I pay it willingly.

So, yeah, Devastator. This Classics version only has 5 robots, as opposed to the original six as he's based on the Cybertron Constructicon Maximus mold. Mixmaster must have left to go DJ for the Beastie Boys or something, because he's MIA. Bonecrusher and Decepticon Scrapper are the same payloader model, just with different paint jobs. Long Haul and Hightower are the same crane thingy, again with different paint jobs. Scavenger is his own model, some kind of backhoe thing. I was disappointed to see this was the case as I was unfamiliar with Constructicon Maximus, but once they all come together to form Devastator, he looks pretty damn cool.

The different paint jobs do make the same models look better, a lot more so that the repaints of Optimus and Starscream they used for Ultra Magnus and Skywarp, so in the end, I don't mind so much. The individual Constructicons all transform pretty easily, except for Scavenger who's vehicle form seems loose and jangly, if that makes any sense at all. They all make for cool, sturdy little robots. As always, scale is a big issue here as in their vechicle forms, they're all smaller than Mirage. Last I checked, construction vehicles are bigger than Formula One racers.

Ravage, as you may remember, is one of Soundwave's micro cassettes. When he's not lounging around in Soundwave's chest, he's a lean, mean, black jaguar. He was recently reinterpreted for the Alternator's line as, get this, a Jaguar XK. Yes, that's right, he's a Jaguar that turns into a jaguar.

Unlike Jazz and Rollbar, the other Alternators I have, Ravage's robot mode is pretty damn cool and pretty damn sturdy. Jazz can't hold his own damn weapon and his hood keeps flying off, even when he's just standing there. Rollbar is sturdier, but in vehicle form he has some seriously bowlegged tires. Not Ravage though. His vehicle mode is badass and his robot form is so cool, I'll probably never transform him back to car mode.

His tail is articulated, as his massive, snake-like jaw and he comes complete with sidemounted rocket launchers that, unlike with his original form, don't have to be manually attached. Out of the box, he's ready to rain destruction down on unsuspecting Autobots. He's so cool that I have him out in my home theater room permanently, keeping watch over us from the top of one of my tower speakers. Right now he's sitting next to Linda, keeping her safe from the beasties on Season one of Supernatural. For an evil, humanity hating robot, he's quite a softie. I apologize for the crappy Ravage pictures, but my hands were seriously shaking from so much rocking out.

They also made an Alternator version of Rumble, he too of Soundwave's micro cassettes and he and Ravage will effectively end the Alternators line. I have no intention of getting Rumble as I found him quite annoying as a child and I'm not particularly fond of Honda Civics. If you choose to add him to your collection, he's a Wal Mart exclusive, as is Ravage and Devastator. That's Wallyworld for us, keeping prices and employee benefits down and the number of super badass Transformers up. Thanks Wal Mart!

A Healthy Glow

Lots to talk about today. So much, in fact, that we're going to do an unprecedented double post, partly to make up for not writing anything yesterday and partly because the two topics at the forefront of my brain don't go together. As is to be expected, one of the posts regards some robots who may or may not be in disguise. That post require pictures, so it will have to wait until tonight. I will give you a coming attraction though...

Devastator.

Aw yeah.

Guitar Hero 2 for the 360 comes out today. I'll have some impressions tomorrow as well as some insight into my world of console guilt. Thrilling stuff.

Now that it's spring and the temperatures are starting to rise, I find myself faced with the age old problem of being a disgusting sweaty bastard.

Some background first. I wasn't always like this. Much like my weight gain, I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point, I started to get a little wet around the edges when the temperature got even slightly elevated. Lucky for me, this isn't limited to simply being outside as I can manage to break out in a sweat in the middle of winter if the heat is running just a wee bit too much. Fall and early spring are hell for me as I have to wear a coat outside, but in the car I'm so hot that you'd think I just ran a marathon.

Like ear hair and enlarged noses, the problem appears to be getting worse as I get older. I now sweat while bowling, which is probably the most telling remark I can make in regards to my physical shape. I don't feel like I'm exerting myself, and I doubt my heart rate would reflect it, but I appear to be so out of shape that I sweat while playing a sport that has a professional tour sponsored by Denny's. When you're tired out by a sport sponsored by the makers of the Lumberjack Slam, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

And so I have. I'm pretty sure that my increased moisture level is directly correlated to my increased size, and while I haven't gotten so large as to require new clothing, I have gotten large enough so that I can't hide beneath my existing clothing. Here's a weight loss tip from me to you: wear baggy clothes. I've also gotten large enough to where I appear to be sweating more rather than less. Fat and wet is enough to shatter even my own rock hard self-image so something has to change.

Yesterday I went out and tried on rollerblades to help me usher in a new era of fitness. As I was taking the skates off and chatting up the friendly female clerk, I started sweating. Yes, I took a few laps in the store to ensure a good fit, but it wasn't the physical exertion of skating that caused it, it was the act of removing the skate. When you get sweaty taking off exercise equipment that's a sign that you shouldn't leave the store without purchasing said equipment. It also helped to remind me how very, very little game I have. It's not like the clerk was the spitting image of Kristen Bell and I was nervous by being in the presence of her beauty. I was simply sweating for no other reason than to sweat. Now, I know I'm no feast for the eyes but I like to think my personality makes up for it, as long as I don't talk about any of the things I find remotely interesting. Sweating profusely while trying to have a normal conversation probably negates any personality bonuses unless I'm talking to someone who likes sweaty men, in which case, ew. On the plus side, I appear to have very healthy sweat glands, a turn on if ever there was one.

Thankfully, the gym in my building will be opening soon thereby making it as convenient as it can possibly be to work out and removing all barriers save my colussal laziness in one fell swoop. It will literally be 50 yards from my office so I really have no reason to not go and get on a treadmill 3 times a week. The fact that our building will also have a shower will help as now I can take advantage of the miles and miles of trails that run behind my office building and beyond and not smell like a rendering plant upon my return. Clearly something needs to be done before the temps regularly dip into the 90's around here and I look like I took my lunch break in the dunk tank. If I can also lose enough weight to successfully stop exercising and hide beneath big t-shirts, all the better, however at this point I'd be happy with just being able to continue to eat a bunch of crap and not get any bigger. Being fat and sweaty may not do wonders for my self image, but a caramel apple pie sure helps to take the pain away. Mmmmm, unhealhy eating.

I'll try and keep you posted on my progress, but to be honest, I find exercise so boring that I can barely bring myself to do it much less write about it. I doubt I'll end up being one of those people who get so into it they get high off of it as I have worked out, at length, in the past, and the most exciting thing about it was my ability to keep dipping my fries in mayo. Mayo dipped fries, on the other hand, is a subject I could write about at length. Well, at girth anyways.

New MC Frontalot Album

MC Frontalot's new album "Secrets From the Future" drops on April 6th and woe to those that don't pick it up. It is available for preordering for those of you as superfresh, or possibly superfresher, as I. Here's a quick test to determine if you're fly enough to preorder this album:

1) Do you like mad rhymes about nerd heavy stuff like encryption?
2.) Do you have the $15.95 needed to swing both the cost of the disc and the S&H?
3.) Do you have access to Teh Intraweb?

Answering yes to those three puts you in a category of megadopeness necessary to preorder this compliation of what will no doubt be unrelentingly thick rhymes.

The Front is also going on tour, however just like last year, he is visiting the ATL on a day when I will be away on vacation. I like to think that this is the universe's way of keeping two people of such incredible funkosity out of range of one another lest a quantum groovularity open and the world be sucked into a Black Hole of Soul. It could also just be an unfortunate coincidence.

For those that are not in danger of rending the world asunder by being near the Front, please attend one of his shows and report back. I am interested at the level of raptacularness that is achieved. I expect it to be staggering.

Some Advice

If, as you go about your day's events, you come across a huge tub filled with bubble solution and half a dozen bubble wands, take some time and make some really big bubbles. You'll feel better that you did.

Please Easter, Don't Be Late

I am currently gripped with what can only be described as gross impatience as the day of Easter draws nigh.

I shall explain, as one usually is not so overjoyed with that particular holiday as to be on pins and needles awaiting its arrival.

I am not a huge fan of candy. Oh sure, I enjoy an occasional Big Kat or Skor bar and I have been known to get Nutrageous from time to time, but if candy were to up and ship out for parts unknown I wouldn't mourn its passing. Linda, on the other hand, would track down wherever candy ended up making its home and gorge herself. Because her love of candy is so strong, I have made it a point to provide her with a selection of sweets on Easter that would cripple lesser mortals. As a result, her Easter "gift" ends up being upwards of 50 lbs of peanut butter eggs and my "gift" is usually a book or movie or handheld game.

It probably comes as no surprise that Linda and I exchange gifts on Easter as I think I have displayed, on a number of occasions, that if a holiday doesn't involve me getting something, it's not worth celebrating. Sucks to be you Arbor Day, but until I start getting gifts, ironically wrapped in the pulped and flattened versions of your botanical brethren, I don't care. I realize this makes me both spiritually bereft and incredibly materialistic and I'm OK with that.

This year, to help Linda out of a gift giving bind, I told her that I would like Puzzle Quest DS for Easter. I have been told that I am difficult to shop for when it comes to games. It certainly doesn't help that Linda's attention span, when it comes to my gaming, is so short that she wouldn't be able to keep herself focused long enough for me to answer the question of which game I'd like. In fact, as I write this, her eyes are probably reflexively glazing over. For those not in the know, imaging a role playing game with character progression, the ability to build and manage castles, capture beasts, ride mounts and craft spells. Now, imagine the same RPG where instead of madly hacking and slashing at your enemy, or firing off bolts of arcane magiks you battle each other playing a tricked out version of Bejeweled and you have Puzzle Quest. Yes, it is exactly as good as it sounds.

I have been playing the PC demo incessantly since downloading it last week, going so far as to start 4 different games so that I can experience the joys of the different character classes. There are subtle differences, like with the Druid who, by all accounts, is completely useless that are best experience in the demo so that you can make all the important RPG decisions before you go too far down the road of puzzle questing. In an odd move, the demo is available for the PC, despite the retail game itself being available for only the PSP and the DS. This is an odd, but strangely satisfying method. There is nothing out on the DS today that would tax modern PC's, and with no means of playing demos, short of hanging around your local GameStop for hours on end hogging the demo kiosk, it lets people try before they buy.

The problem becomes that, on the PC, this is an absolutely gorgeous game, well served by the PC's ample screen real estate. When I move a leering skull to be nearer to his malevolent neighbors, I can feel the grievous injury I am about to inflict upon my adversary. The various mana gems sparkle merrily as if to say, "Horde me so that I may help you smite your foes." Experience gems are a glorious purple, as if to display their regal roots. Gold is, well, gold and looks perfectly gold like. My concern is that the reduced real estate on the DS will make the visuals less striking, possibly reducing the skulls to smaller, infinitely more cute versions of themselves who don't so much inflict pain and suffering but accidentally sit on the remote and change the channel. I have read reports that this is not the case, but alas, once you play it on a PC, you are somewhat spoiled.

At the same time, my children are all too happy to try and press random keys while I'm on the laptop, but seem strangely uninterested in my DS. Perhaps it's because, of late, I'm playing things like Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk, populated by spiky haired lawyers and playable A-Ha videos who aren't compelling to those 4 years old and younger. Perhaps they see my lips turn into a snarl of defense when they move towards my DS and know that should they attempt to touch my console, I am not above snapping it closed and feeding their fingertips to it's slavering maw.

The problem is that Easter is so very far away and I am about to a) finish Hotel Dusk and b) get to the level cap in the Puzzle Quest demo. This is unacceptable. Oh Easter, why must you torture me so by being a week and a half away? Why? I guess I can wait. What choice do I have? Jesus waited three whole days in some sort of netherworld between life and death prior to Easter so I guess I can wait 10 or so days to get a new game for my handheld console. What did He do while He was dead anyways? I would have napped. He had had quite a busy few days.

Anyways, between Puzzle Quest and the upcoming Pokemon Diamond and/or Pearl, my DS will be the console of choice for quite some time. Yesterday, when playing Hotel Dusk in front of my daughter, I told her, unbidden, that the DS is my favorite console evar. I too was shocked by the emotion behind that statement as it was tantamount to telling your significant other that you love them for the first time. As was the case with my wife when I told her I loved her, my DS responded with stony silence, however, as was the case with Linda, I knew the sentiment was returned, the bearer just had no way of expressing it at the moment. At least that's what I'm attributing to my DS. It may have just impassively served up pixels, hoping that it's ignoring of me would quell the obvious discomfort it was experiencing. Hell, Linda might have been doing the same thing, however if so, our subsequent marriage was a strange choice of action. At any point, I stand by the statement as the DS's combination of portability and ever expanding software library, filled with titles such as Hotel Dusk and Puzzle Quest ensure that the gameplay experiences it offers are found nowhere else. No longer need we search for the answer to the eternal question: Nintendo DS Lite, great console or greatest console? The answer is clear.

Behold! Self-sufficiency Is Nigh!

The first step on the road to self sufficiency has been taken. No longer shall I bow to the yoke of my grocery store oppressors! I have started growing my own plants, nay crops, and soon I shall harvest them all the way to the um, food storing place.

Witness my greenery first hand!

From left to right are jalapeno peppers, basil, oregano and cherry tomatoes. I should give Linda some credit as she bought them, brought them home and planted them, but I'm the one who told her what I wanted when she called me. That wasn't easy. I mean, she was only taking care of our sick daughter while I was going coming back from getting coffee.

This is beside the point though. The point is that no longer shall I live under the thumb of Irwin Kroger and John Q. Publix. Independence shall be mine! Soon nature's bounty will be open to me and I shall have everything I need from my deck as long as I plan on living on a diet of jalapeno peppers, basil, oregano and cherry tomatoes.

Actually, this last crop is the one I'm most excited about. If it takes off like I hope it does, then we'll be living like kings.


Kings I tell you! Kings!

Welcome

Greetings! I thought I'd pop in for the benefit of any new readers who might have been sent here from Dubious Quality. We stick to kind of an odd schedule here, so I figured it would be beneficial to lay out what you can expect from day to day.

Monday
Think about posting. Don't.

Tuesday
Think about posting. Feel somewhat guilty about not having posted on Monday. Plan on posting at lunch but instead go to Target and look at Nerf sniper rifles.

Wednesday
Read something funny on Penny Arcade. Plan out post. Play on my DS all through lunch and then go get a big soda. Think about posting at night. Don't.

Thursday
Spend the day trying to remember what it is I was going to post about on Wednesday.

Friday
Realize I haven't posted in a week. Snap some poorly lit pictures of Transformers with my Treo's camera, post them with some witty comments and call it a day. Go bowling.

Saturday and Sunday
Par-tay.

As you can tell, our work ethic here is beyond reproach! We look forward to not entertaining you in the future.

Battle Royale!

I was successful in smuggling these photos out. Bear witness to the robotic brutality!

Battle Royale!

The Soul Seethes

There are times in our lives when the Gods deem fit to remind us that we are but mere mortals, undeserving of the praise and accolades we have heaped upon ourselves, that truly, we are deserving of only the dust we shall eventually return to. I have recently had one of these reminders and I am filled with equal parts rage and shame.

It has been quite some time since I have bowed before the Gods of Rock and made an offer at the altar of Guitar Hero. I will not make excuses as the Gods are not interested in my petty mewlings, but instead will just say that I have been lax in my supplications. With the arrival of Guitar Hero 2 for the 360 on the horizon, I have, naturally, been excited to pick up the axe once again. I have played a song or two on the PS2 version on Medium and found it to be relatively Easy. Oh how the Gods must have laughed at my foolish pride!

Recently, Linda and I had a minor disagreement over who sang "Cherry Pie". I put forth, correctly might I add, that it was Warrant. I know this because, if I could erase one song from the collective memory of the universe, this would be a top contender, so deep does my hatred for this song run. A quick search on Google proved me correct and the matter was dropped. Yesterday, while in Best Buy to purchase oh-so-packed-with-extras new Re-Animator DVD, what appeared before my eyes, but a new Xbox 360 kiosk, complete with Guitar Hero 2. Ye Gods! I thought it an incredible coincidence that "Cherry Pie" was also queued up, however now I recognize the hand of Divine Providence.

I picked up the guitar, which, is a little small for my tastes. I know that the controllers, in general, aren't sized to scale however this one seems smaller than the PS2 controller. I'm also not a big fan of the Guide button on the 360 guitar as it takes away from the illusion of your controller being a real guitar. Finally, I'm a Fender guy and lean towards your Stratocasters and your Telecasters, with an exception for the Gibson Les Paul, of course, so this Gibson Explorer model brings to mind too many hair bands of the 80's for me to be completely comfortable with it. But I digress. I picked up the guitar, selected "Cherry Pie" on Medium difficulty and proceeded to descend into an inky black pit of despair.

From the opening lick, I knew something was wrong. It was as if my hands had aged decades before me and no longer could be relied upon to do something as simple as work a calculator, much less do chord changes, hammer-ons and pull-offs. My timing was off, my finger work was miserable and I saw my rock meter plummeting down to earth like the pride feuled Icarus I must have resembled. Embarassed, I ended the song early, looking around me to ensure that my shame was limited to only myself and Linda. Clearly the Gods were sending me a message and that message was this: Rock, lest the Rock be taken from you. I have heard your message, Oh Gods, and will obey. I have but a few more tasks in Crackdown to accomplish and once these are completed, I shall take up the axe again and prepare myself for Guitar Hero 2. Once more your servant shall venture out into the land, bringing Rock to those who can not, or will not, Rock themselves. No longer shall I hide my Rock under a bushel! I thank you, oh Gods of Rock, for showing me where my true priorities lie. For those about to Rock, I salute you!

Speaking of Rock, I recently purchased the new Fall Out Boy album and boy howdy is it a good one. To be honest, I'm not really sure what problems people have with Fall Out Boy. I mean, sure, sometimes the lyrics and song titles are a bit too cutesy and/or self aware, but the songs are pretty tight with good hooks. They never fail to get the windows down and the volume up when riding around in Vanstar One which is pretty much all I'm looking for in an album these days anyways. They seem to be a band that people just love to hate. Whatever. If you do hate the band, I doubt there's anything on this new album to change your mind, but if you're looking for a good, catchy pop-rock album you'd be well served to pick it up.

I spent a couple of nights this week watching Pan's Labyrinth on DVD. Yes, I know it's not out yet. I can't tell you how I got it, other than to say that my source's generosity is matched only by his raw animal magnetism and unchecked virility. Yes, that's right, George Clooney has secretly been supplying me with bootleg DVD's. I kid. Seriously though, the movie is a fantastic one and I can't wait for it to come out on a perfectly legal DVD so that I can buy it and listen to the commentaries. Guillermo del Toro is one hysterical dude and I bet his commentary for this movie will be top notch. See, gaffer dude, people who watch bootleg DVD's also buy the full versions too! Oh, and while we're on the subject of illegal DVD PSA's, I would so totally steal a car if I could get away with it. In my wildest dreams it would be a car filled with bootleg DVD's that then ended up being Tracks who transforms, gives me an important life lesson and then helps me distribute all of my stolen movies. We'd probably get a sundae too.

Now that I've watched Pan's Labyrinth, I feel the need for a week long del Toro fest, including Blade 2 and Hellboy. I should probably also pick up The Devil's Backbone and Cronos too, if I can find them. I should also figure out a way to make 8 hours of movie time magically appear while I'm at it.

Finally, there is a battle of mythical proportions currently underway at my desk. The veneer of civilty has been removed and replaced with open hostility and bloodlust. I guess in this case it'd be Energonlust as I am naturally speaking of my Transformers. I don't know what caused things to break down, but the battle has been joined, in earnest, by all members of our once happy little family. Like the war-torn journalists who braved the battlefields of so many conflicts, I too have returned from the fighting with pictures stark in their depiction of robot on robot brutality and naked aggression. I shall be posting them soon, to an Intraweb site of my choosing, however in the meantime, to sate your curioisity and own need for violence, I offer this:

The rest of the pictures will be available tonight, or early tomorrow, depending on when I can smuggle them to the outside world. I have arranged to cross the border tonight under cover of darkness, hiding in a farmer's pig truck. I can only hope the Decepticons aren't watching all of the back roads. Wish me luck!

A Momentary Diversion

When I was driving home yesterday afternoon, window down, I was marveling at how nice it is to have springtime in Atlanta. Here it is the middle of March and the skies are blue, the temperatures are in the 70's and the trees are starting to bloom. Then I passed one of those trees and my sinuses exploded with a force that could destroy baby stars. I'm back to thinking that spring is overrated.

I usually don't use this space to comment on things that are happening in the gaming world, as I'm not sure the audience of this site, both of you, are at all interested. Sure, I'm happy to talk about games I'm playing, but I leave the commentaries on current gaming events to other, more informed people. This time, however, I feel the need to comment.

EGM (that's Electronic Games Monthly or something) and it's sister site 1Up.com have a podcast and in their most recent podcast they invited a one Denis Dyack to join them. Denis is the man in charge of Silicon Knights, the development house extraordinaire who gave us Eternal Darkness and the Metal Gear Solid remake for the GameCube. Currently their working on a game called Too Human for the 360 which, from what I gather, has something to do with people being half machine and named after Norse gods. This is what I meant by others being more informed. Anyway, last year, Silicon Knights invited someone from EGM to go up to Canada and see what was going on with Too Human. The EGM writer thought the game was the bomb, came back saying such and wrote up a cover story preview thingy.

Fast forward to E3 where Silicon Knights brings a demo that leaves everyone, including Silicon Knights, extremely disappointed. Frame rate issues, camera issues, ugly textures the whole shebang. The EGM folks on hand who were writing up their impressions of each game for the magazine pretty much tore the demo apart and said, I'm paraphrasing here, that it shouldn't have been shown at a high school science fair, much less the premier gaming event of the year.

Was this demoralizing for the Too Human team? Yeah, it probably was. I've worked in software development long enough to know what it feels like to have a build you feel really good about, only to see it all go to shit a build or two later. It's frustrating, maddening, disheartening, you name it, to feel as if all of your progress has gone out the window. To take this step backwards and then show your product publicly, knowing full well that it was much, much better just a build or two ago would absolutely suck.

Despite the fact that E3 was 10 months ago, Denis Dyack is still pretty pissed off. He joined the EGM guys, including the writer who first ventured up to the cold North to see Too Human, and the dude who wrote about it from E3, for their podcast, and basically went off on them for an hour. Now, I understand completely how it would have felt right after E3 to see the press tear apart your epic, 10 year in the making project. I also can understand Dyack's befuddlement over getting such a harsh preview from a magazine that devoted an entire cover story to how great your game was looking. At the same time, E3 was 10 months ago. 10! By now, shouldn't he have moved on? I mean, the rest of the gaming world pretty much had.

Now, some points that Dyack made, I completely agree with, and some were so off base as to be in a sport that doesn't even have bases like curling, or archery. His assessment that gaming journalists can't effectively pass judgement on preview builds of games is pretty on the mark however, I don't think that means that previews themselves have to go away entirely.

Here's what I think in regards to previews. Previews, as they are now, are usually bloated, PR fest pieces of shit used by magazines and gaming sites to garner good feelings from publishers so they, the magazines and gaming sites, continue to get exclusive previews and early review copies and such. See, the average gamer can get reviews of games the day said games comes out, from pretty much any site out there. As a result, where the sites distinguish themselves is by getting the early scoop on new upcoming games. That and a complete and total aversion to editing, a la IGN. In order to get these early scoops, and trips to studios to see games in progress, blah, blah, blah, the sites/magazines have to write pretty glowing previews, and at the same time, take for granted that the big, glaring bugs they do see will be fixed by the time that the games ship.

All too often, these bugs aren't fixed, or others pop up, or the game changes entirely so that the game that makes it to retail is but a quality-less husk of a game compared to the game that was previewed. The gamers that read said preview are now, at best, left wondering why the final game is so shitty compared to the preview and at worst, left having purchased a copy of the shitty game and have no recourse to get their money back. The development houses say "Hey, we don't control what the magazines write." The magazines/sites say "Hey, they said they'd fix these bugs, and it was only a preview." The consumer is left trusting no one, which is a pretty shitty place for a consumer to be, especially when you're asking said consumer to shell out 60 bucks a game and upwards of 600 bucks for something to play the game on.

Does this mean that previews should be done away with entirely? I don't think so. I do think that the gaming sites need something to differentiate themselves from each other, and previews can still be that thing, just not as they are now. In short, we need more previews like the E3 "preview" of Too Human and fewer of the cover story preview. Well, maybe not as harsh as the E3 report, but certainly not as glowing as the cover story. Previews should stick to the facts, and leave the embellishment to the reader. The game has these features, this kind of story, this kind of gameplay, supports these multiplayer modes, et cetera. It should also point out the fair criticisms of the game, including issues that the developers are planning on fixing. In other words, give the reader honest impressions of the game, rather than some fluff piece.

Oddly enough Dyack seemed to agree with this, and stated that gaming journalists should be "more critical" of games despite the fact that EGM being critical of the E3 demo is what got him all in a lather in the first place. I say "seemed to agree" because honestly, this dude was all over the map.

Dyack also said that magazines and sites shouldn't look at games until the games are "in the can" and that the marketing effort shouldn't begin then either, and the way a marketing push can be built for a game is to hold on to the finished game for 6 to 12 months and then release it. With the rising costs of game development, I'm not sure how studios could spend millions of dollars on a game to then hold on to it for a year. Where would they get the money to work on their next project? This is especially true for the smaller development houses. Silicon Knights has an impressive pedigree, and now with Microsoft behind them, I'm sure they could easily work on another project while Too Human was in the can, but not every studio can do that. Not every publisher is going to agree to fund another development effort without seeing some return on their investment on the game they just paid for. I agree that it'd be great to hear of a game first on Monday, have it ship on Tuesday, read a review on Wednesday and play it on Thursday, but I don't see that as being a viable business model.

These comments didn't really bug me that much, as I just don't agree with them. The comments of Dyack's that bugged me were that he felt sorry for the guy who wrote the E3 write-up because when Too Human is released, the E3 writer is going to have to stand by what he wrote about the game's E3 build. Mind you, he's basing this on the fact that people "in the industry" have seen Too Human and they all say it's super awesome, so we should just all automatically believe him. After all, every god in the Norse pantheon is represented! I guess that's a good thing because Lord knows we wouldn't want Freya to get pissed.

My response to this was the same response that the E3 writer had, which was basically to ask why it would be a problem for him to stand by what he wrote about the E3 build? By Dyack's own admission, the E3 build was a mess, so why would the brilliance of the final product make the author of the comments about an 18 month old build look silly? At no point during the E3 write up did the writer say that no one should buy Too Human. In fact, the overwhelming response to the E3 build by most of the gaming press wasn't that Too Human was going to suck, but that the demo should never have been shown in the first place. I understand the logistics of showing a demo are such that you can't pull a demo last minute just because things aren't working as you expected them to, but at the same time, if the build that the first EGM guy was so good, why not show that build, rather than the one you brought to E3, especially if you knew that the E3 build was a mess? I find it very hard to believe that they don't have the ability to roll back to earlier builds. Maybe that would have meant that it was no longer playable by the press but just watchable, but that still would have been a better way to go.

Of course, debating what should or should not have been shown at E3 isn't really the point. The point here is that Dyack seemed to want it both ways. He said that he didn't like the E3 write up because he didn't want people to discount Too Human based on what they read about the E3 demo. He also felt that because EGM had seen an earlier, better build of the game, they should have given them the benefit of the doubt and not been harsh about the E3 demo. Well, which is it? You can't say that you don't want people to have a bad impression of your game based on a demo that's at least 12 months out from the finished product but you do want people to have a good impression of your game based on a demo that's even more than 12 months out from the finished product. You either take the position that your demo, good or bad, isn't indicative of the final product, or you say that this demo is pretty damn close to what we're going to be showing, so it better be fucking aces.

I can see his point about people getting the wrong impression, especially at E3 where there's like 5000 games being shown and you have a very limited amount of time to make a good impression. This is especially true now that there are 3 consoles, 2 handhelds, PC's and a gazillion PDA/cellphone platforms out there are all competing for gamers' time and money. At the same time, most gamers know that E3, and the things shown at E3 are, for the most part, illusions. Taking anything that originates from that marketing cesspool even remotely seriously is an exercise in folly. Despite what Dyack's condescending tone seemed to imply, we're not all idiots. We know that sometimes builds go bad. You decided to still show it. OK, bad move, but whatever. Just fucking man up and move on. If your game ends up being Teh Sh1t, then people will play it. Hell, look at Crackdown. Most folks believed that it was a throwaway, GTA ripoff that was using the Halo 3 beta to move copies. Now that it's been out for a while, most people seem to love it. I know of at least 3 folks who were incredibly harsh in their comments about it who are now running from rooftop to rooftop with glee. Gamers are a lot of things, but holders of long attention spans isn't one of them.

There was more to his comments that made me feel like he thinks we're all idiots, or that the EGM E3 writer was an idiot, but I think I've written enough here. Don't get me started on his failed Okami argument as that's another post entirely. If you'd like to hear it for yourself, please do so. The first 45 minutes or so is where the real meat of the discussion is. The second hour is just Dyack going on and on and on about how great Too Human is and all the fantastic things that Silicon Knights did before anyone else did, like creating fire and inventing language. In the end, I was left thinking that he should have just stayed up in Canada and worked on making his game as good as it could be, rather than taking a page from the Book of Harrison and opening his mouth and looking like an asshole. As Mark Twain once said, "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

Crackdown

Before I get too much into talking about Crackdown, I want to talk about something that Bones told me about today, namely that Marvel comics is planning on killing of Captain America in an upcoming issue. Now, maybe this isn't true or maybe Cap won't really die similar to when he "died" back during WWII, but my gut feels me that it is true. If so, this is very, very disappointing. Cap has always been an amazing character and given the United State's position in the world today, I find it very hard to believe that there isn't someone out there that can't write a decent story for the spirit of America made flesh. If a character becomes irrelevant, it's usually the fault of the writers, not the fault of the character. It would seem to me that the solution to this would be to get better writers, not blow Cap's fucking head off. Whatever. DC's last big crossover was Infinity Crisis, which followed on the heels of Identity Crisis, two amazing pieces of work that examined what it meant to be a superhero in modern times. Marvel's was Civil War which had Spider-Man unmasking himself for no good goddamn reason and other pointless "wow" moments. Cap's death will just be one more example of them trying to gain readers by having "big" moments that do nothing but damage their properties. On the plus side, this seals the deal on my next tattoo. I had been toying with the idea of getting Cap's shield on my left forearm, to compliment Spidey on my right. If Marvel isn't going to care about Cap, I will.

So, Crackdown. I've been playing it for a couple of weeks now, and I've been having an absolute blast. This game kind of snuck up on me. I had read about it before, and seen screen shots but didn't get interested until watching a gameplay video. When I played the demo, I was completely sold though. This is a game that really has to be played to be fully appreciated. Screen shots of the game are kind of "eh". The videos give you a better idea of what the explosions and game mechanics are like, but until you take your agent running from rooftop to rooftop, targeting a gang member in midair and cutting him down with a rain of bullets, you really won't "get it". And by "it" I mean a near obsessive desire, nay need, to pick up a dumpster and throw it a hooligan.

In the past few days I have done the following in game:

1. Jumped from a rooftop and taken out 6 gang members with a rocket launcher, while in midair.
2. Killed a gang member by kicking a vehicle on to him after pulling him out of said vehicle.
3. Killed a bunch of gang members by chucking a 2 ton metal globe at them.
4. Kicked a gang general off of a rooftop.
5. Run down gang members in a semi cab.
6. Performed various barrel rolls in a tricked out SUV.
7. Gotten killed numerous times trying a frontal assault on a steroided out gang general holed up in a quarry cave filled with explosive barrels and missles. Found a back door by leaping into the air off of a billboard and hanging on to a rock ledge and eventually making my way to a tunnel that allowed me secret access to the gang general. Threw in enough grenades to take out a small office complex, detonating all of the explosive materials in the process and taking out the holed up general. Picked up the general's corpse, targeted a gang member on the highway below the caves, hurled the general's corpse and killed the gang member.
8. Ran from rooftop to rooftop collecting agility orbs.

As you can see, there's a fair amount to do in the game, and this isn't counting all of the rooftop races, road races, stunt rings and various other combinations of shooting, blowing up and straight up brawling at your disposal to help take back the city. All of these events work together to rob you of your in game productivity. Oh sure, you start out with every intention of taking out a gang general but the next thing you know, you've spent an hour building a tower out of cars all so you can see how high the top one goes when you blow them all up.

It's not all perfect though. The camera, which is usually done very, very well, sometimes moves into your agent's body when you get too close to a wall. This isn't a problem most of the time, but when you're trying to make a certain jump to try and get to the top of the ferris wheel and complete the rooftop race you've been working on for the past 45 minutes.

The driving is probably my biggest complaint in the game. When you start out, you can't drive for shit, however the main way to get better at driving is to complete races, perform stunts or kill gang members by driving. All of these are next to impossible with your crap-ass driving skills. Add to this the fact that all cars other than Agency cars handle like shit, and Agency cars can only be obtained if you kill yourself and go back to the Agency Keep. Thankfully, if you find enough hidden orbs you'll raise all of your stats a little bit, including driving, and finding enough hidden orbs will raise your driving skill enough for you to start having fun behind the wheel. It seems to me that if you want people to drive in the game, you should make it easier from the start. That's just me though.

The other skills work remarkably well, and the ability to equip yourself with machine guns, rocket launchers and grenades all at the same time means that a group of gang members milling on a rooftop aren't so much a potential threat as an opportunity to increase three skills, possible at once. Yes, if you shoot a gang member in the legs by locking on and targeting their kneecaps, then chucking in a grenade to liven up the party and ending the evening by stomping them to death, you'll get skill points in firearms, explosives and strength. It's truly time management at its finest.

It seems like the game is doing fairly well, no doubt helped by the Halo 3 beta invite packaged with it, which is a good thing, because I think they've got a really strong foundation to build from. The funny thing about this game is that there are so many people I've talked to that had no interest in it, thinking it was a GTA ripoff, only to find themselves having an absolute blast once they play it for some time and give it a chance. Given that this is the case, putting the Halo 3 beta invite in with the game was genius as it allows people who may have written it off as a GTA clone the opportunity to play it and fall in love with it. Hopefully the good word of mouth and strong sales will warrant a sequel as this game is just too much fun for only one outing.

Show and Hell

Somehow, through no fault of my own, Thursday night has become Arts and Crafts night at our house. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago when Thursday night was 2AM Denny's night because you didn't have any classes on Friday, or Thursday night was lie on the couch and watch "Friends" night and try and get through to the weekend when you can sleep all day. Those days are over. Now, Thursday nights are spent gluing and drawing and trying to explain what "nervous" means to a 4 year old.

Perhaps some backstory is in order. My son is 4, which puts him in Preschool II at his daycare, or what I like to call the Pre-Harvard Program. For some reason, his school does everything a year ahead, so the PS II kids are doing what you'd normally do in Pre-Kindergarten and the Pre-K kids are doing what you'd do in Kindergarten. Not sure what the private Kindergarten kids do, probably work Pi out to 8 billion digits, and we'll never know because I'll be damned if I'm going to pay property taxes for full day school and then pay for private full day schooling on top of it. Actually, I know why they do everything a year ahead, it's to satisfy a generation of parents who think that if Timmy can't conjugate Spanish verbs by age 5 he's going to end up homeless and living in a refrigerator box.

When my son first joined this class, the kids were allowed to bring in whatever they wanted for Show and Tell. Being that they're all small kids, they brought in toys. Linda and I were pretty restrictive as to what toys he could bring as we tried to put ourselves in the teacher's shoes. Basically, nothing too big and nothing that made noise. Other parents apparently didn't feel the same way, shocking I know, and Show and Tell day descended into a cacophony of toy sounds, screaming children and a lack of attention to the day's activities. For this reason, Show and Tell in its toy free for all form came to an end.

In it's place, Ben's teacher put "projects" for the children (parents) to do to help relate to the week's lesson. Now, I'm all for activities that get kids and parents working together, and I'm all for projects that reinforce the week's learnings for the children, but some of these projects are not designed with 4 year olds in mind. To me, the project should be something that the kid can at least come up with the ideas for, and just require parental assistance with the implementation. Not create an internal combustion engine from twigs and leaves.

The first sign of trouble was in October, when the project for Show and Tell was to have your kid draw a cornucopia and put in it pictures of all of their favorite foods from magazines. OK, most adults I know don't know what a cornucopia is much less a kid who, when asked what he does on the weekend, tells his teacher "We go to the jungle." Plus, the magazines I read are Game Informer, Playboy and Cooking Light, none of which have pictures of Yogables and Cheezits, his favorite foods. If the cornucopia needed pictures of Master Chief, an Easy Ravioli Bake and Ms. April's boobs, we'd be all set. We settled for me drawing a corcucopia with drawings of Ben's favorite foods as told by Ben and him coloring everything in. That seemed to work fine.

The next big project was to create a 3-d cat, owl or some other animal. Ben chose a cat. It took me some time to come up with a design that didn't involve papier mache or some kind of elaborate scaffolding. I also tried to avoid the craft store as much as possible, but ended up relenting as we, strangely enough, don't keep a readily available supply of pipe cleaners at home. Should you be of the mind to search out some hot, 60+ action and they won't let you loiter around the nursing homes, might I recommend the craft store at lunch time. The combines age of the shoppers in that store exceeded the age of our galaxy.

The cat ended up being a smashing success. You may remember it.

We had a small respite over the holidays when Show and Tell involved nothing more complicated than wearing a particular color on a particular day. At one point, Ben had to bring in something that could go in the water and something that couldn't. I suggested he bring in a boat and a cat tied to a brick. Linda didn't appreciate this suggestion so he brought in a Matchbox boat (ok in water) and a Matchbox car (not ok in water).

Then came the Tome of Feelings. The week's lesson was feelings, which is probably a good idea considering that these kids are volatile powder kegs of emotion just waiting to explode in fury. Ok, so maybe that's just my kid. Anyways, the project was to create a book of feelings. Not too bad as you'd expect that for a 4 year old, they'd cover the old standbys, your happy, your sad, your mad. Oh no, not this class. The five feelings were happy, sad, nervous, scared and excited. Nervous? How the frak do you explain nervous to a 4 year old? When the hell are 4 year olds ever nervous anyways? I don't think the emotional spectrum of kids this age is finely tuned enough to register nervous. Scared? Sure. Happy? Sure. Nervous? I don't think so. Rather than give him examples of things that could cause him to be nervous, and risk making him nervous about things that used to never bother him, I simply made the book, drew a smiley face on each page for the associated feelings and had him draw whatever he associated with the feelings. For the record, green ladders make him both nervous and excited.

This past one was the toughest one of all. I got a week's break when the Show and Tell item was a family photo on a piece of paper. I let Linda hande that one as she's our resident photographer. In retrospect, this was a bad idea as the picture was poorly placed and didn't allow for writing and/or drawing all around the picture. Strictly amateur hour but understandable given her self imposed distance from the crafting process. Apparently I posess craft chops where she does not which is how I got roped into this whole thing in the first place.

But I digress. This past week's lesson was life cycles as in eggs -> tadpole -> frog or catepillar -> cocoon -> butterfly or 80's hair band star -> washed up drug addict -> "Surreal Life" cast member -> washed up drug addict. The exact assignment was: "This week I would like for the children to Pick one out of the three and make the life cycle using a variety of things: Frogs, flowers, or a butterfly. Example: {frog} I would collect a leaf from outside and make it my lily pad then I would draw an oval and color it green and add glitter, and the frog can be made from toilet paper roll." OK, I can handle the leaf thing, and I know what glitter is but how the hell do you make a frog out of toilet paper rolls?

As it's "his" project, I asked Ben which life cycle he wanted to do. I was pushing for the flower. I figured some construction paper, some glue, an unpopped popcorn kernel and a daffodil culled from the front yard and we'd be done. Of course, Ben wanted to do the most complicated one and tackle the frog. Behold the finished product!

The eggs are cotton balls marked with a Sharpie. The tadpole is a construction paper creation, illustrated by yours truly. The frog is construction paper glued together by Ben and myself with eyes of Ben's creation. He went for two different colors for the eyes. A bold choice to be sure. The lily pad is an actual leaf. I cribbed from the teacher on that one. In retrospect I should have made the frog's body more elongated, but I was working from a design that used a paper plate to make the frog, and once I got locked on a folder circle for the body, I didn't think of anything else. I have no idea what's going on with his legs. I think he's jumping but now that I look at it, it looks like he's been run over by a semi. I wanted to make more eggs to use as googly eyes but Linda thought it'd be unsettling to have a frog with eggs for eyes. She's got a valid point there. Ben also helped with the spelling of the words as I felt that having him write "tadpole" would take us well into the next millennium so I took care of that for him.

I think it turned out OK, and it's certainly better than my original idea of gluing a toy frog to a foam plate, but it's not as good as it could be. There's certainly room for improvement. Ben seemed satisfied which is the important thing as it's his project. Actually, he seemed fairly oblivious and this morning wouldn't have even remembered it had I not pointed out where it was. Ah the joys of youth and short memories.

Show Off

I think Downshift will fit in here just fine.

Go Rampage, It's Your Birthday

Oh the feelings of excitement that Soundwave must have felt when he got the call from Megatron to return to his rightful place at Megatron's side. As it turns out, Megatron wasn't in need of Soundwave's highly specialized listening skills. No, they just needed some tunes.

Even Rampage is getting his groove on, although it is a wee bit hard to make out from this picture. Now that I've called a ceasefire, our disguised, robotic friends have no way to work off all of their extra energy. Perhaps they have learned to settle their differences through the universal language of dance. Perhaps they know that Jetfire is coming and they want to get down with their bad selves before the party gets crashed by the resident scientist. Who needs a wet blanket Poindexter ruining all the fun anyways?

In other news, I saw Downshift when I was out and about today and couldn't resist. Between his very badass pseudo-muscle car mode, his rocket launchers, and his vaguely ninja-like appearance, I felt he'd make a good addition to the other toys. Plus, he has this claw thing that pops out of the front of him. Good times. Now that I have another Autobot, I need another Decepticon to bring balance. I think I'll go with the version of Skywarp that comes from the same toy line as it doesn't require me to buy Ultra Magnus with him and he's not just a repaint of a toy I already have. Now I just have to find him, which is kind of funny as I've seen him everywhere during my searches for Jetfire, so now I'm sure I won't ever see him again.

I have completed my first three bowling lessons and I think they're starting to pay off. Today I bowled in the 150's, in the 120's and in the 130's. Before my lessons, the low score in a day's outing would be in the 20's, not the 120's, so clearly we're turning a corner. There's still a lot of work to do, as picking up spares isn't exactly my strong suit, but I feel like I'm getting somewhere. I'm sure I'll descend back into the depths of mediocrity come our league game tomorrow, but for one brief shining moment, I looked like someone who kind of knew what they were doing. At this point, I'm not asking for much more. Reach for the stars, I always say.

Be sure to come back Friday when I spin the tale of one man's journey through the wilds of the craft universe with only some construction paper, some glue and a 4 year old at his side. Stay tuned!

Gametastic

It's been a while since I've rapped about games to ye, well, rapped about anything in fact, but that's besides the point. Today it's all about the gaming.

Well, not quite. Despite weeks and weeks of searching, I have been unable to find Jetfire, despite various accounts of sightings from like minded toy hunters. As much as I enjoy spending my lunch time searching in an ever expanding circle of retail establishments, I have caved and ordered the toy online, from Wal-Mart of all places. I do not wish to disparage those that shop at Wal-Mart, however I will say that I'm a Target person and just leave it at that. This is clearly a situation where the toy must be served, and in order to do that, we must shop in places we find less than ideal. I mean, for chrissakes, they had him labeled as a Decepticon. Jeez. At any rate, I should have him soon, and when I do, we shall sing and dance all the live long day.

In a quest to obtain Crackdown solely through trades, we have been burning the midnight gaming oil at the homestead. I am now prepared to issue judgement on a number of titles. I apologize if I end up repeating things I've already written about, but I don't feel like going through old posts, and really, what else do you have to do?

Red Steel (Wii) - Somewhere out there is a game that shows how good the Wii will be with first person shooters. This game ain't it. The controls were ok, except for the part where you had to turn the volume of the Wiimote speaker all the way down lest your aiming reticle jump around like a seizure victim. The zooming in for sniping was absolutely awful as the Wii doesn't exactly excel at determining changes in the Wiimote's distance from the sensor bar, and you zoomed in by pushing the remote towards the screen. The sword fighting controls were somewhat unresponsive and the whole idea of gunning down rooms full of bad guys with your submachine gun just to then pull out your sword to fight someone with a baseball bat was silly. To top it off, I hit an issue in the game that gave me the choice of either starting the entire mission over, or calling it quits and trading it in. I chose the latter.

Elebits (Wii) - An interesting concept and nice, bright visuals however the game play was very repetitive and the voice acting was so horrible that it made small mammals bleed from the ears. I know others enjoyed this one, but there just wasn't enough to make me want to keep playing.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) - While not the best Zelda ever, that's still Ocarina for me, this is one of the best games I've played in a very long time. The art direction was particularly impressive and very easily bests all other entries in the series. Some of the horseback stuff got a little annoying, but the beast form mechanics were integrated nicely and the expanded repetoire of sword moves was a nice addition. Boss battles weren't too difficult, in fact the only time I ever died in the game was when I fell off a ledge or something, however what the final bosses lack in difficulty they make up for in length. You better pack a lunch when going up against these guys. Speaking of boss battles, your very last battle is a straight up sword fight against Ganon, which was a nice addition to the usual "use every item you found in the game" kind of fight we're used to. While the ending wasn't as dramatic as Wind Waker's ending, it was still immensely satisfying and left me with that familar mix of joy and sadness that I get when finishing a Zelda game. I can't recommend this game enough for veteran Zelda players and folks new to the series.

Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (PS2) - I always find it odd that when folks talk about the big, PS3 exclusive franchises, they consistently fail to mention the Ratchet and Clank series. These games are easily, some of the funniest, best written games you'll play on any console. The action is equally well done with massive guns, huge explosions, tough enemies and a nice mix of platforming and straight up destruction. When the next one comes out, I'll be horribly, horribly jealous that I won't be able to play it. Guess I'll just hold off on playing "Up Your Arsenal" and use that to soothe my jealous soul.

Transformers (PS2) - Not a bad title, I just didn't have it in me to "catch 'em all". I like Pokemon and I like the Transformers, but if they're going to be combined, I want it to be a situation where I throw a Pokeball and Metroplex comes out and stomps the shit out of Squirtle, not me playing as a Transformer on a quest to collect and subjugate other, lesser Transformers. Plus, the ending movie, with the fireworks display was dumb.

Gears of War (360) - Technically I haven't finished this game as Joel and I are still rocking the co-op on Insane, but I did play through it on hardcore and had a fantastic time. When all is said and done, this will be the first game that I a) played through co-op and b) played through multiple times at different difficulty levels. It's such a different game when played with another sentient being that it warrants an additional playthrough. The change in difficulty also forces you to use different weapons and different strategies, thereby making it a different game as well as developing skills that are beyond mad and safely exist in the realm of the furious.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: And Justice For All (DS) - I'm almost done with this one. Well, truth be told, I'm on the last case, which, like the first entry on the DS was as long as all of the other cases combined, so in actuality, I'm about half way done. If you like the Phoenix Wright games, you'll like this one and if you don't like 'em, there's nothing here to change your mind. I fall in the former camp, so I'm in judicial heaven right now. After this I plan on picking up Hotel Dusk so I can continue my DS adventuring in earnest.

As you can see, I've been quite busy and I don't see it letting up any time soon. Crackdown is proving to be as much fun as the demo, even more so as my destructive powers have surpassed the levels achieved in the demo. There is something immensely satisfying with standing your ground as a tow truck bears down on, only for it to then be turned aside with a kick of your incredibly strong, genetically modified leg. I usually follow up these actions with either dropping a grenade on the overturned vehicle, flambeeing the occupants in the process, or I bring the weight of my titanic kicks onto the fleeing gang members, disposing them in the process. Shooting is fun too, but right not I'm getting my kicks through kicks. Last night I tried to scale the Agency tower, however she is a harsh and unyielding mistress, and I was unsuccessful. I shall return and conquer her at a later date.

SSX Blur comes out tomorrow or Wednesday with Tiger Woods for the Wii shortly afterwards. I'm surprised and vaguely unsettled with all of the attention EA has focused on the Wii. For now, I'll take my titles and be happy with them, however I am prepared to combat what ever dark designs they have for my happy little, white box.

Finally, this past weekend Linda and I were paid a visit by Bones and his lovely wife Cathy. We had a fantastic time, which was nice as, up until that point, Bones existed only in the world of Teh Intraweb and could have been a homicidal maniac or a maurading android bent on world domination. He may still be, but at least now I can tell the police that he seemed like a nice guy. It is so easy, in these days of instant communication and virtual gatherings of like minded people to feel as if someone you are speaking with would be cool to hang out with, only to find out that they're so completely not, that you start to assume that the people you meet online are best left there. It's nice to be proven otherwise.

Behold, My Iron Clad Will!

The toy hunt continues in earnest. Thanks to my frantic checking of Gmail, I was able to read the notification from Toys R Us in regards to the reissue of the G1 Soundwave, and order one before they ran out. Actually, I ordered two and managed to snag my manager into my web of toy neurosis. A week or so later, Soundwave arrived and he's everything I remembered him to be, just...smaller. He is a reissue in every sense of the word, right down to the "1983" copyright date stamped in his battery area. He even came with the original decals so that you could make him even spiffier.

His transformation is pretty simple, not at all like the complex rituals of mechanical tomfoolery that come along with the new classics series. I mean, I'm a smart guy. I have a couple degrees and everything, yet I still can't transform Grimlock from memory. Soundwave is child's play by comparison except for his legs, which stick a bit and always make me think that I'm going to turn him into a double amputee every time I transform him into his oh-so imposing microcassette recorder. Speaking of which, I know that at a kid, I didn't think twice about him being a microcassette player, and not a full sized tape player, but now I find it kind of odd. I mean, I know that were he a full sized tape player, the tapes would transform into birds and jaguars bigger than Soundwave himself, further screwing the Transformers' already messed up sense of scale, however I find it hard to believe that there was a significant number of 10 year olds who were both robot fans and reporters in training.

I was also surprised to see that he had a belt clip. This made me laugh at the idea of some kid clipping Soundwave to his belt and strutting to school thinking that he was 100% Hot Shit, a real playa with his very own homicidal robot attached to his hip. Then I shuddered in horror as I considered the very possible idea that I was Johnny Hot Shit. I certainly don't remember skipping to school with a Decepticon on my belt, however it could be that the merciless mocking of my peers drove the memories deep into my subconscious. If that's the case, I'm oooookay with it. That's a memory that needs to stay buried.

I'm still hunting for Jetfire and despite reading of sightings in the general Atlanta area, my little corner of the world is still Jetfire free. I finally saw the Ultra Magnus - Skywarp two pack at Target today, which gives me hope that soon Jetfire will show up. The two pack is certainly cool, and getting both for 20 bucks saves you 10 big ones, but I just can't pay for them knowing that they're exactly the same as Optimus and Starscream just with different paint jobs. I guess this means that I haven't gone entirely around the toy bend yet. I expect whatever remaining willpower I have will evaporate completely when the Transformer movie toys drop as I've seen pictures and they're damn cool. All of the Autobots look like badasses, even Bumblebee and while I'm not a big fan of Megatron being some kind of jet/spaceship thing, Barricade looks awesome and Blackout is a massive helicopter, so you know, everybody wins. The movie toys drop June 2nd-ish, so if you see lines forming at Toys R Us, Target and/or Wal-Mart at that time, you now know why.

I finished the Transformers game on the PS2, or, rather, I finished being interested in the Transformers game. It's not that it wasn't any good, there just wasn't enough there to keep my interest. Plus, every time your autobot got knocked to the ground, there was this really annoying animation that took forever, and by the time you recovered from it, every enemy robot in the area was all over your metallic ass. Instead of playing through the game, I busted out the cheat code to unlock all of the extras, some of which were PSA's from the original cartoon. Some of them were the usual PSA fare, things like don't run away from home and make sure you wear bright clothing when riding bikes at night. Then it got strange. First, some young lads were sailing and right after the "cool" kid went on about how he didn't need a lifejacket, the skipper of their vessel cheerily swung the sail around, clocked the kid on the head and knocked his ass into the water. The best part was how completely and utterly clueless the skipper was to the fact that he may have just killed one of his crew members. Thankfully Seaspray showed up in the nick of time, and despite his speech impediment, was able to convey how important it is to wear a life jacket.

After this PSA, we were entertained by the story of two youngsters out looking for a good time, who decided to supplement their night's activities with a little grand theft auto. The first car they tried to steal ended up being Tracks, but unfortunately our Autobot friend didn't deal with the two thieves by dispensing some Autobotian justice and instead gave them a lecture about not stealing cars. The best part was at the end, when the one kid says "Now I know!" as if to say that, up until this point, he was completely oblivious to the laws of the nation he'd been living in for the past 17 years and thought it was perfectly acceptable to steal cars. I wonder what the next PSA was. Perhaps Skids counsels some youths on why they shouldn't push old ladies in front of subway cars. Thanks Skids, now we know! Ah, the halcyon days of my youth, when the lessons of morality could all be summed up in a 30 second spot from huge, transforming robots or highly specialized, trained killers. Let's see the Backyardigans take out an APC with a rocket launcher.

School Daze

Last night I attended a registration seminar for my son's daycare to learn about the differences between the daycare's private Pre-K and Georgia funded public Pre-K offerings. As he's already in daycare there, we already knew which one we were going to go with, however they didn't give out the registration packets until after the hour long ordeal was over, so I ended up being subjected to their propaganda anyway. I felt the explanations of what each program offered was a little one sided, however that may be because I was hungry and tired and wanted go get home in time to play some Transformers on the PS2 before watching TV. Realizing this, I have typed up the comparison information they gave us in the interest of letting you read it and decide for yourselves. Oh how I love an elaborate setup.

Greetings and thank you for attending our Pre-K registration seminar. This packet of information will explain the differences between our private Pre-K offering and our Georgia funded Pre-K offering that, by law, we have to let anyone into. Both offerings will prepare your child for the rigors of Kindergarten and beyond so whichever program you choose, rest assured that your child is getting the best education possible. (Note: Some educations are more best than others.)

This packet is structured to explain the differences between the Pre-K offerings as they apply to the various aspects of your child's learning experiences. Please do not hesitate to ask questions should you have any, however please keep in mind that questions asked in regards to the public Pre-K offering may not be answered so that we have time to answer questions from the parents who actually give a damn about their child's education.

Class Structure and Syllabus
If your child is in our private offering, the teacher is provided with a detailed class syllabus on every theme possible, structured so that every waking moment of your child's day is spent having the week's theme hammered into them. These syllabi were developed by educators and scientists, all of whom are far, far smarter than you. With this syllabus the teachers are encouraged to develop their own materials as well, as long as it doesn't interfere with, or in any way impede in them teaching the materials we paid so very, very much for. Your child's day will be similarly regimented with set times for set learning activities so that they never have to step outside the warm, comforting bounds of a strict schedule.

In the public Pre-K offering, the teacher is left entirely to their own devices and are free to come up with whatever material they choose, provided it adheres to the Georgia state guidelines, which may or may not include reading this year. We're still checking. Your child's day will be "unstructured" and "free" and will allow your child to wander the classroom with their peers like a roving band of feral dogs.

Mathematics
Our private offering has workbooks and textbooks and special paper and helps to teach your child basic mathematical concepts like patterns, sorting, charting, linear algebra, n-space polynomials and Topological Hochschild homology of twisted group algebras. Your child's work will be available for you to review each week so that you can help reinforce concepts at home.

Our public offering offers a rich mathematics program with activities such as counting, counting some more and counting even more things. Your child's work may or may not be available for you to review, depending on whether or not the teacher had time to get it together, what with all of the lesson planning she needs to be doing.

Reading and Writing
The private offering has an award winning system of phonics and sound recognition that allows your child to not only see the sounds that letters make, but how those sounds combine to make words. Special paper is provided so that they can practice learning how to write letters and words. Our current class will be finished with Anna Karenina by March and are looking forward to ending the year with some Nabokov

In our public offering, left over pencils and discarded pieces of paper from our private class are made available so that they can scribble and "write" in an attempt to ape the efforts of the kids in the smart, er, private class. The reading exercises are pulled from mostly fast food menu boards to prepare your child for their career in French Fry Management.

Science and Technology
Science and Technology are very important for our private offering to prepare your child for living in the 21st century. Every child will have access to a laptop and will attend classes on software design, object oriented programming and successfully moving tech support jobs overseas. The rich tapestry of scientific discovery is also presented to them in experimentation activities, thesis defense and time spent in our very own linear accelerator.

In our public offering, we don't have any computers but we have a box we've painted blue to act as a monitor and a dead phone to help simulate the tech support experience. As for science, well, this is a Georgia funded program so we're not allowed to teach science. Hope you like Intelligent Design!

Foreign Languages
Our private program sees the importance of living in a global economy and recently introduced Spanish into the syllabus. When Arturo the Burro shows up, the children know it's time to speak in Español, por favor! Children learn to count in Spanish, learn their colors in Spanish, learn basic words in Spanish and learn how to say useful phrases like "How are you this morning?", "Where is the police station?" and "Don't cut the goddamn hydrangeas back so much!" in Spanish.

In our public offering, maybe your kid will learn Spanish, maybe they won't. Maybe your teacher will have the time to come up with a rich Spanish lesson plan or maybe she'll just let them watch Telemundo while she texts her boyfriend. Caliente!

Personal Development
Our private program emphasizes the need for children to not only develop as smart, forward thinking individuals, but as kind, caring, generous individuals as well. Different positive character traits such as honest, generosity and respect are taught as well as one can to beings who are so self centered that the rest of the universe is rendered effectively absent.

In our public program your child's teacher will do their best to ensure your kid doesn't grow up to be a total shitheel. If they do, 9 times out of 10 it's your fault anyways.

Academic Development
At various points in your child's time in our private program, your child will be tested and placed in groups to help your teacher tailor the learning environment to them as well as let the other kids know just how far behind your child is. By the end of the year, all children are in the "smart" group and no child is left behind.

In our public program, children with academic disadvantages are helped with a two prong approach of beatings and public shamings. Children deemed "dumb" are humiliated and stoned by the children deemed "smart". By the end of the year, all children are fully prepared to act out their preordained roles for the rest of their natural born lives.

Attendance and Holiday Schedule
Children in our private program can attend as much or as little as you want them to. You're paying full price either way, so we really don't care. Should you choose to spend no time with your children, we will happily dress them in their pajamas so that you can being them home and put them right to bed without spending any additional time with them. Ask about our weekend nanny rates!

As our public program is Georgia funded, your child will be expected to be in class and on time every day. Unexcused absences are not tolerated and may result in a visit from Knee Breaking Nicky our resident Attendance Counselor. Absences due to doctor's visits must be accompanied with an Excused Absence form filled out in triplicate, a sworn affidavit from your child's physician, a second opinion from a non-network physician and a character reference from your state's representative in the Senate and/or Congress. Your child's day will end at 2:15 and all children must be picked up promptly by 2:17 or a $50 per minute fee will be assessed. After school care is available at the rate of $975 a week. We also offer full day care for the 115 or so days off your child will have at the rate of 70 hojillion dollars a day. Special financing is available.

Graduation
Your child will graduate from our Pre-K program with all of the pomp and circumstance that should accompany a child leaving a program that isn't actually real school. This is but the first of many graduations, pageants, plays, recitals and other events you'll have to attend, all in an attempt to make your child think they're special before being thrust out in the real world where they'll find out they're exactly like everyone else.

Georgia doesn't care about graduation, and by extension, the self esteem of your child so graduation isn't funded. If you'd like, we can hum a jaunty tune as they walk down the hallway when leaving. Don't let the door hit them on the ass on the way out.

We hope that this information will help you make an informed choice in regards to your child's education. Obviously, by being attending this seminar you have an interest in providing your child with the finest learning experience possible. Don't fuck it up now.

Ramjet

Here are some shots of the newest addition to the Transformers party.

Dig that crazy cone head. Here he is with the others.