Absence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GI Joe: Resolute

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.