Parts is Parts

I realized the other day that part of the reason I'm not posting as regularly these days is that I wait until I feel I have enough to post about. This seems to be antithetical to the idea of blogging what with it's offerings of instantaneous publishing. I could be posting all the time, as things popped into my head, but that seems silly to me. It would appear that I don't "get" blogging. I tend to think of this place as more of a collection of columns, rather than just a place to record my various thoughts, which, on the one hand, leads to what I think are more entertaining pieces, but on the other hand, they come less frequently. Honestly, I don't see that changing any time soon, however I'm going to try to pop in more frequently with smaller bits if anything just to keep the hoards clamoring for content in between bigger pieces. Keep clamoring hordes!

That being said, today's post is a collection of these aforementioned small bits. I have a mind to parcel them out over the next few days in some sort of advent calendar of useless content but that serves no one well. Plus, this new Blogger keeps forgetting who I am and the sign in process is unnecessarily shitty, so I'll just stick to the one trip down Blogger lane for today.

Recently, when Linda and I were out and about, we saw a sign for a restaurant's breakfast offerings. The sign said "The best parts of breakfast." For some reason, this struck both of us as very unsettling, as if breakfast at this place was just an assortment of cooked animal parts, a plate of limbs and wings and other appendages all akimbo. Perhaps they were swimming in a sassy sauce, perhaps not. Eggs and hash browns may also be present, however it's not guaranteed. We're not sure if they meant to say that their breakfast was the best part of a morning, in an attempt to wrestle the title from Folgers, or they meant to say that their meals were the best part of breakfast, unlike toast which is just lazy and brings nothing to the table. At any rate, the misplaced "s" ended up screwing up everything and instead of visions of a hearty morning meal, we had visions of dismembered farm animals. Think The Shining meets Animal Farm. Not pretty.

Thanks to some diligent searching on my part, Ramjet has now joined the Transformers party. He's a pretty cool model in both robot and vehicle form, despite his robot form looking like a mechanical Conehead. This helps bring the Decepticons to within one of an even playing field. I guess I could buy Astrotrain, but come on, it's Astrotrain. How evil can a supply vehicle possibly be? Thankfully my reissue of the classic Soundwave is on it's way and the Decepticons will once again be on equal footing with the Autobots. Plus they'll have tunes. Linda scoffed at my notion that Soundwave needs to be a tape player and not some lame ass stealth bomber, but at least tape players don't have that DRM bullshit. I bet if I showed some youngster how I could take a tape and play it in any tape player ever built he'd shit his knickers. Try doing that with your fancy iTunes songs. The best part of getting Soundwave is that I didn't have to go anywhere. Toys R Us emailed me (it's a TRU exclusive) and I made with the clickage. I realize that the hunt is half the fun, but I don't have time to flit from store to store. I'll gladly pay the shipping.

Target has an exclusive Ultra Magnus vs Skywarp set for the low, low price of 20 bucks. It's tempting except for the fact that Ultra Magnus is just Optimus painted light blue and white and Skywarp is Starscream painted black and purple. I'm ok with that last one, as the Decpticon air corps members all pretty much looked alike, but I remember Ultra Magnus looking decidedly different from Optimus. Still, 30 bucks worth of toys for 20 is a pretty good deal. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to have the conversation with my coworkers about Ultra Magnus not being just a repainted version of Optimus when he is totally just a repainted version of Optimus. I've seen the classics version of Cliffjumper out there too, but he appears to be just a red version of Bumblebee which means he's just a different shade of lame.

The other weekend I smoked another meat loaf and while it turned out well, it wasn't as spicy as I had intended. I'm mulling around in my head a recipe for a meat loaf so hot, so spicy, so decidedly caliente that I've decided to call it Heat Loaf. We're still in the planning stages but at some point I'll be going into prototyping. The problem is that I want to balance good taste with heat which is often difficult to do. Also, a lot of hot sauces have a vinegary flavor to them which doesn't jive well with what I think a good meat loaf should be. One thing I did think of was crushing up some wasabi peas into the bread crumbs but I'm not sure wasabi is the right flavor. We'll see. I like the idea of a very hot meat loaf as it's a nice surprising juxtaposition of comfort food and searing pain. It's as if your mom called you over for a hug and instead she poked you in the eye. This also got me thinking of different flavored meat loafs such as an Italian meat loaf with parmesan and mozzarella cheese, green peppers and pancetta and sauced with a spicy tomato sauce; a buffalo wing meat loaf made with celery, carrots, blue cheese and sauced with a spicy wing sauce; a bacon cheeseburger meat loaf with chipotle peppers, smoked mozzarella and bacon bits, "sauced" with slices of provolone cheese and the aforementioned Heat Loaf. I think we may have the beginnings of a good restaurant here. Think Zaxby's, but with meat loaf. Inquire inside about exciting franchising opportunities.

I have some gaming to speak of too, however I feel this is better left to Friday's post when the weekend lays before you and perhaps you can take a moment from the toil and drudgery of your every day life and engage in some digital shenanigans. Oh the times we'll have!

The Book of Dad

Greetings. Sorry for the long time between posts. Much like Stella, I am working on getting my groove back. It is a work in progress.

Anyone with small children knows that parenting is 50% common sense and 50% saying 5 or 6 phrases over and over and over again. Most of the time, I think that a cardboard cutout of me and a tape recorder could do the same job I'm doing while at the same time freeing me up to play Ratchet and Clank. I'm assuming that when your kids are older you have to listen to them and deal with their problems, or at least feign interest, but for the toddler/young child set, it's basically just telling them for the 15th time to stop playing on the goddamn furniture.

This morning for some reason, I delivered one of my pearls of wisdom to my daughter as if it were from the Bible. I don't know why. Last night I rapped "Mama Said Knock You Out" while I gave her a bath. I'm a strange cat. Anyways, while I don't think the message got through any better than when I just say it like it is, it was fun for me and the momentary look of confusion on both kids' faces was worth it. If you haven't confused or upset your kid at some point in the day, you're not doing your job as a parent correctly. I prefaced my statement with "A reading from the Book of Dad" which gave it the gravitas I felt my words deserved. For your enjoyment I have compiled these nuggets of wisdom so that you may use them with your own children, starting with the one I delivered this morning. Enjoy.

"For lo, a hunger did fall upon the land, and this hunger was called morning. The children who ate their dinner the night before were happy, while those that were banished from the table for misbehaviour had empty stomachs, and their mouth did taste like ash."

"Dirty hands shall touch no dinner. Crying mouths shall taste no snack."

"Why dost thou not use thy words? Were thou not raised as a man? Does a man not speak? A child who speaks in tears and wailing will not receive help, for their parents can not understand them. Rejoice, for thou have been given the gift of speech! Use this gift and all shall be delivered unto you."

"The child who raises his hands in anger shall be banished to his room. And his sole companion shall be hunger."

"And the child did play on the furniture and a fall was taken. The child, seeking sympathy for his injury met only with rebuke for he had been told that the furniture was forbidden. And lo, his tears dried as tracks of shame upon his face."

"Thy pants are not a napkin, nor is thy sleeve nor thy hand nor the furniture nor the dog."

"Pick not thy nose, lest a booger be delivered unto you."

"And the child did ask 'Father, why can we not listen to our music in the car?' And the Father replied, 'Child, one day you shall have a job and with that job you shall have money and with that money you shall have a car. On that day, you may listen to whatever music you like. Today you have no job so you have no money so you have no car so we shall listen to My Chemical Romance.' And they did. And it was good."

"And the child who asked nicely was rewarded while the child who did not was given only shame."

"The magic word is please and please is the magic word."

"Listen to thy parents for thy parents hold the keys to the kingdom. When thy parents give thee a task, do not make them ask you again and again, for your only reward shall be righteous anger."

"Do not take toys from thy siblings or thy toys will be taken from thee and thou shall have only shame to play with."

"And the child did cry for no reason. And soon, a reason was delivered unto them."

I particularly like that last one. I think it'd make a good shirt. You know you've made it when one of your phrases makes it on the chests of aging hipsters and emo kids everywhere.

2006: The Year in Music

As music goes, this was a pretty good year. After all, any year that has a Pearl Jam album in it is right up there with the best of them. I should warn you that I am a piss poor music reviewer, so prepare for lots of "I liked it, but not as much as the last one" something like 15 times. As with the games and the movies, I'm limiting this list to music that came out this year.

Super 400 - Live 05
Super 400 is a tremendously talented power trio from my home town of Albany, NY. They bring the rock in copious amounts and their love of Led Zeppelin is palpable. Plus, they have one of the hottest women in rock on bass, the lovely Ms. Lori Friday. Check them out at Super400.com.

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
One of the best albums this year. An amazing mix of Green Day punk, Queen bombast and dark, death emo imagery. Plus, it's got a cameo by Liza Minelli which fits the album to a "t". The opening 5 songs are genius and if you can listen to "Dead" and not rock the fuck out, something is totally wrong with you. My daughter loves it and she's only 2. She's off to a great start.

Angels and Airwaves - We Don't Need To Whisper
Yes the lyrics can be a little too uplifting, but this band has some serious talent and the hooks are undeniable. Great music to play Uno on the 360 by too.

Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
Good hooks, plenty of emo angst. A fun little record. I give it an 8.

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Sometimes the lyrics can be a little too strange, but the beats kick ass, and if you like songs about fucking dead people, this is the album for you

Matisyahu - Youth
I'm not a fan of reggae, so I'm not sure how reggaeish this album actually is, but this dude has a great flow and his songs always pick me up.

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime: II
A complete and total fucking waste of money. Not only is this a shitty record, but it manages to taint the original in the process which is a shame. Ronnie James Dio sings like ass too. They should have never recorded this piece of shit.

Sarah Harmer - I'm A Mountain
Not a bad album, but I like her earlier stuff a lot better. At the same time, if you like bluegrass, you may get a kick out of this one.

Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
The most fun album I've heard in quite some time. The level of talent on this album is amazing and all of the songs are kid friendly, perfect for getting your rock on while you make dinner. "Erie Canal" is a work of genius.

Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
Hands down, the best album of the year. Now, I'll agree that I'm biased towards The Jam, but objectively speaking, this album kicks ass. Filled with amazing melodies, blistering rock riffs and their usual penchant for stellar lyrics, this is not only one of Pearl Jam's best albums, but one of the best rock albums to come out in some time. Plus, it brought Pearl Jam back in the spotlight where they so rightfully deserve to be. The kids of today need rock. They need Pearl Jam.

Angie Aparo - El Primero Del Tres
A fun EP from one of the best independent musicians out there. Translated literally, it means "The First of Three". I look forward to the next two. If you get a chance to see him live, do so. "Stairway to Freebird" is well worth the price of admission.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
Usually, I'm of the opinion that a double album should be cut of the filler and made into a stellar single album, but two discs of the Chili Peppers is always better than one. Maybe there's half a disc of filler, but that's OK with me, because the rest is kick ass funk rock.

Guster - Ganging Up On the Sun
These guys get more and more talented with every record. A great band to see in concert too, should you get a chance.

Keane - Under the Iron Sea
Some good songs, some OK songs. In totality, it's nothing you'll keep coming back to, but when you do, you won't have wasted your time. It's reviews like this that explain why I don't work for Rolling Stone.

Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonights - The Rise and Fall of...
Butch Walker makes the most fun records in rock today. This one is his best yet. If you can score a copy of Live at Budokan on DVD, do so, if only for the acoustic performance.

Tom Petty - Highway Companion
Tom Petty makes amazing records. This is a Tom Petty record. Ergo, this is an amazing record. Seriously, why aren't you out buying this now?

Outkast - Idlewild
The first time I listened to this album, I was like "There are some good songs in here." The second time I couldn't bring myself to listen through the shit to find them. Oh well.

Pete Yorn - Nightcrawler
An uneven effort. Pick up "Live in New Jersey" instead if you're down for some Yorn-age.

Citizen Cope - Every Waking Moment
A good follow up to his last effort. It improves with every listen too, which is always a good thing. "Brother Lee" is spectacular. He puts on a good show too.

Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked Ladies Are Me
Should have been titled "Barenaked Ladies Are Boring". Not sure where the fun band of "Stunt" and "Maroon" went, but hopefully they'll come back soon.

John Mayer - Continuum
This dude has talent. Plus, he's willing to do skits with Dave Chappelle which puts him at the top of my list of rock-pop guitarists.

The Killers - Sam's Town
Brandon Flowers seems like a bit of a dick, and sullies my good name in the process. This is a fun record, but nothing that will go down in the history of rock. I did find it interesting that prior to the release, everyone was all like "The Killers! The Killers! They're trying to sound like Springsteen circa Born to Run!", but once the album came out, people knocked them for trying to sound like Born to Run and failing. Well, duh. No one can sound like Bruce did on that album, not even Bruce any more, and certainly not a band that spent its first album trying to revive the 80's.

Lindsey Buckingham - Under the Skin
Pop's most underrated guitarist. This album has some songs that are a little hard to get into, but all of them are technically impressive and most of them have some damn good hooks. This dude is a genius.

Incubus - Light Grenades
A nice way to end the year, with a kick ass rock record from one of my favorite bands. If you have any Xmas money left over, this would be a good thing to spend it on.

2006: The Year in Games

Jeez, what a year for gaming 2006 was. I'm not going to get into a big recap as anyone who is interested in this post already knows all of the gory details. Two consoles launched (3 if you consider the DS Lite), Sony stumbled, Nintendo soared, Microsoft stayed the course and a whole bunch of really, really good games were released.

As with the Year in Movies post, here's a list of every 2006 release I played. Well, bought and played is more like it, I'm not counting demos. Huzzah!

Xbox 360
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Put your best foot forward, I say, so this game is the first one listed as it was, hands down, the best game I played all year. How it did not get Game of the Year over Gears is beyond me, but I'm not a big, fancy pants game site editor. Oblivion is one of the finest RPG's I've ever played with a scope and level of character customization unparalleled in console gaming. Once you taste the joyous freedom this game gives you, you'll find it impossible to go back to a traditional game's linear structure. Sure there were some framerate issues, particularly when on horseback, and I had my game lock up once or twice, but the issues were worth it. I have 90 hours logged and I haven't even completed everything that shipped with the game, not to mention all of the extra content I've downloaded. It also kept me playing my 360 for the boring summer months of zero good content on the console, so Microsoft better make sure that Bethesda gets a nice "thanks for keeping our console relevant" bonus.

Gears of War - While it didn't seem possible for Gears of War to live up to the hype, it did with lots of action, gore and sky high production values to spare. If Oblivion is the reason for RPG fiends to buy a 360, Gears is the reason for shooter fans to do so. The game is amazingly beautiful, packs a powerful audio punch and keeps the adrenaline fueled pace up througout. Multiplayer is a blast, and co-op is tons of fun. I'd like to see a more flexible multiplayer experience, or a way to save your co-op progress for those of us who are Dom-curious, but these are minor quibbles in an otherwise spectacular shooter experience.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter - Multiplayer was a hoot, especially the co-op maps. I got one level into the single player before Oblivion came and I never went back. I hear it's good. I'll never know as I traded it in months ago. It sure is pretty though.

Burnout Revenge - It's the same game that came out in 2005 for the other consoles, just with better explosions and a better crash junction mode, which is like saying it's like sex, only with better orgasms. The online mode had some problems, which is to be expected with an EA game, but once you got racing, it was a blast. Literally. Saying I'm excited for Burnout 5 is an understatement of mythical proportions.

Dead Rising - Great concept, great variety of weapons, great zombie mashing sounds, shitty, shitty, shitty save/mission system. Oblivion ruined this game for me which is a shame, but I'm a stickler for flexible save systems, so it's not all Oblivions's fault.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - An excellent action-RPG with tons of cool Marvel heroes. The individual simulator missions helps to extend the game, and the cutscenes were some of the finest CGI productions I've seen in some time. I thoroughly enjoyed this game from start to finish.

Uno - The sleeper hit of the year! Easy to pick up and impossible to put down, Uno remains my go to game when I want to play something for only 5 minutes. Granted it never lasts only 5 minutes, but that's OK. It has also started Linda and I playing the real life version when we watch TV which is great except for the fact that I lose pretty much every game.

Texas Hold 'Em - It was free, which is pretty much all it has going for it. The Hold 'Em game I have on my phone is better, and I can play it at red lights.

Sneak King - As stealth action games go, it's pretty medicore, as a sign that the apocalypse is upon us in the form of a corporate mascot hiding in a garbage can, waiting to force hash brown nuggets down an innocent passerby's gullet, it's top notch.

Pocketbike Racer - A fun little Mario Kart-esque racer. Where else can you race as the Subservient Chicken? Where else would you want to?

Nintendo DS
Elite Beat Agents - This game really has to be played to be fully understood. As rhythm games go, it's a blast, and quickly ramps up in difficulty. It also has an incredible sense of humor and style. It's one of the few games I can think of that would be just as much fun to watch being played as playing it yourself. Agents are go!

Tetris DS - It's Tetris, in many, many forms, all with a unique Nintendo feel. If you like Tetris, you'll love it. If you don't like Tetris, what the hell is wrong with you? A great game to show off the DS's new screens too, as the colors in this game are delightful.

Metroid Prime: Hunters - A great Metroid game and a great shooter and it's the first and only Metroid game to have online multiplayer. The mission and save structure don't fit with the pick up and play for 10 minutes style of a handheld, but if you can get past that, you're in for a real treat. It also helps fill the Metroid void (hey I rhymed!) until Metroid Prime: Corruption.

Clubhouse Games - By far, the best gaming value out there. 42 card, board and "other" games all with different difficulty levels and game specific missions. If you wanted one game to keep in your DS so that you'd never be bored, this is the game. Where else can you play darts, then go bowling then play a game of Rummy?

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day - Lots of fun for the various puzzles, but entirely worth the 20 buck price tag just for the Soduku. The handwriting recognition can be a bit dodgy, but that may be a result of my crippled chicken scratch.

Star Fox Command - A dissappointing mix of 3-d space shooting and turn based strategy. I wish they had just stuck with the flying as it was fun, what little of it there was. The game is incredibly short, despite the multiple endings, as it wasn't fun enough to go back and play for the various outcomes. I've heard the multiplayer is fun, but I can't attest to it.

Big Brain Academy - The puzzles in this game were more fun, and more colorful than in Brain Age, but there's no Soduku, so ultimately it's a wash.

Uno / Skip-Bo / Uno Freefall - The reign of Uno continues! I have no idea what those other modes are, as I haven't played any of them, but I've played a ton of Uno and it's just as good on the DS as it is on other platforms. And hey, I can actually win a game or two, unlike when playing Linda.

Nintendo Wii
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - One of the best games I've ever played, and probably the best Zelda games ever, but I'd like to wait until I finish it before making that decision. As with all of the Zelda games, it's an absolute joy to play and the production values and art direction is top notch. The Wii control scheme makes the shooting much, much easier, and shaking the nunchuk to perform a spin move is tremendously fun.

Rayman Raving Rabbids - Lack of progressive scan is dissappointing because the Rabbids are so much fun to watch, you want to make sure you can see every detail. The sense of humor in this game is fantastic, and the mini games swing from extremely easy to extremely frustrating with plenty of middle ground. Highly recommended.

Wii Sports - The smartest thing Nintendo did with this launch is packing this game in with every system. I now use it as a workout disc of sorts for my Wii Sports Weight Loss plan and these minigames have gotten Linda back into gaming at a level not seen since the halcyon days of Super Monkey Ball and Tiger Woods.

Elebits - The game looks and plays great. The voice acting makes you long for the eternal silence of death. Thankfully you only have to endure it in the cut scenes. I haven't played it too long, so I can't speak to the fun factor over a long period of time, but any game built on the concept of enslaving sentient beings for our power needs is OK in my book.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz - Controlling the single player game with the Wiimote is intuitive and lots of fun. Sadly, the same can't be said for all of the minigames. With 50+ minigames, some were sure to be stinkers, but so far we're averaging about half which is a bummer. Oh well, the half that are good, are a lot of fun, however I don't see Linda and I returning to this game with the same fervor as the original Super Monkey Ball.

Red Steel - Amazing only in it's medicority, this game shows that the Wii can be a viable platform for the FPS genre, as long as it's a competent team making the game. I'm still not sure why I put down the very powerful shotgun when someone comes at me with a sword, but I'm sure it has something to do with honor or some shit. Whatever. I'll keep playing it to see what happens, but I can't really recommend it. Not at 50 bucks anyways. At 20, sure but not at 50.

PS2
Okami - I haven't played this one yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. A Zelda-esque action adventure game steeped in Japanese lore? Yes please!

Black - For 50 bucks, this game was supposed to be a dissappointment. For 15 it looks like just the thing when I want to get my violence on. Yay for Costco.

For the PS2 I also have to finish Guitar Hero and Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando as well as start Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Kingdom Hearts and Transformers. I also have Killer 7 and Eternal Darkness for the Cube/Wii. Verily, lots of good gaming await me, and it's not even 2007, the year of Mass Effect, Bioshock, Too Human, Phoenix Wright: And Justice for All, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy, Alan Wake, Burnout 5 and Guitar Hero 2 for the 360.

On that last one, allow me to take this time to thank the Gods of Rock and their human conduits over at Red Octane for including not only Pearl Jam but My Chemical Romance at launch for GH2 on the 360. My prayers have been answered and I look forward to continuing to pray at the altar of rock in March. God of Rock be praised!

2006: The Year in Movies

Welcome to what is the first of three "The Year in..." posts. This one focuses on movies while subsequent posts will focus on games and music. As I'm a selfcentered son-of-a-B, I am of course referring to movies that I've seen and not some general here's how the movie industry did as a whole in 2006. Not only am I not smart enough to make the critical observations necessary for that kind of post, I also don't care. I've decided to limit this post to movies I saw this year that actually came out this year, as trying to remember all of the movies I watched this year would be an exercise in futility.

One thing I should point out before giving my little mini-reviews is that, of late, whenever Linda and I watch a movie in the basement I end up sleeping through part of it. As a result, I may be giving a movie somewhat of a bad review because it didn't make any sense, a direct result of my narcoleptic tendencies. Thankfully I seem to remember that most of the movies I didn't like, Linda didn't like either, so you can rest assured that the movie was probably still bad, just not for the reasons I'm listing. On with the show!

Hostel - I rented this one to see what the hubbub was about. By hubbub, I mean that I heard there were some pretty hot topless chicks in it and there were . It is not lost on me that the lustful urges used to lure the young men to their dooms in the movie were the same urges used to get me to watch the movie. I'm OK with that. After all, my achilles tendons remained intact. The movie was OK. Certainly entertaining but nothing to get all jazzed up about. It's not for teh squeamish though as some of the violence is pretty brutal.

Glory Road - Linda and I rented this over the summer. Think Miracle but with basketball instead of hockey and with boredom instead of emotional resonance and national pride. Total waste of Emily Deschanel too.

Underworld: Evolution - For the life of me, I still can't fathom how it is I can watch these Underworld movies and not understand a goddam second of them. I've seen the first one like 3 times and I still have no idea what happened. Oh well. Kate Beckinsale is smoking hot in her leather catsuit thingy and Bill Nighy is always a hoot. It was a little on the long side and I'm pretty sure I slept through part of it.

Final Destination 3- Not as good as the first two, however if you're a Final Destination fan, you'll still be entertained. The DVD has an interesting cut and paste feature that allows you to put together how the different folks die. At least I heard that it does as I could never get it to work.

Running Scared - Suprisingly enough, this hyper violent "fairy tale" was one of my favorite movies of the year. Paul Walker did an excellent job as a low level mob flunky who finds his life turning to shit when the gun he was supposed to get rid of, due to it's use in a shootout with some corrupt cops, gets stolen by the neighbor's kid and used for an attempted patricide. It's dark, funny, extremely violent at times and filled with a bunch of really memorable characters. This movie will put your sound system to the test too, particularly in the opening shootout. Plus, it's got Chazz Palminteri who is always worth the price of admission.

16 Blocks - You'd think that a movie with Mos Def and Bruce Willis would be pretty good. You'd be wrong. Mos had this really annoying nasal voice througout the whole thing and the bad guy was the blonde dude from St. Elsewhere. Ooooh, very scary. I slept through a big chunk of this one, so maybe it was better, but if it was better I probably wouldn't have fallen asleep.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party - An excellent concert film if you're into hip-hop and such greats as The Roots, Kanye West, Erykah Badu and Black Star. A not so great concert film if you're into Dave Chappelle as he does very little, if any standup. It's still funny at times, especially when he walks the streets of his home town giving out golden tickets, but those expecting a laugh out loud movie will be dissappointed.

V For Vendetta - A pretty accurate rendition of the seminal comic mini-series, especially for an Alan Moore joint, which usually end up getting raped over a barrel when made into movies ("League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", I'm looking at you). Natalie Portman was hot as usual, and Hugo Weaving did an excellent job emoting behind a plastic mask for 2 hours. I was glad to see that they kept V's identity a secret througout the film, as they did in the comics. All in all, a very entertaining action movie.

Inside Man - Spike Lee - good. Clive Owen - good. Denzel Washington - good. Need I say more?

Slither - A hilarious horror-comedy movie about space slugs that come to Earth and prey on the populace of an unsuspecting town. Nathan Fillion is in it, which makes it a must watch in my book. It's a shame this movie didn't do better as it's quite good and Fillion deserves to have some serious leading man money pushed his way so that he can show how he can hang with the best of them. Bill Pardy fans unite!

Lucky Number Slevin - An interesting little crime noir movie with Josh Hartnett, Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis, among others. The movie's got style and keeps you guessing throughout. Plus, for once I didn't find Lucy Liu annoying. Worth a rent if you see it on the shelf.

The Sentinel - Utter shit. The movie made no sense, and it had Eva Longoria, who is one of the most annoying people working in Hollywood today. Avoid at all costs.

Mission: Impossible III - Once you get past the fact that Tom Cruise is in it, you'll be treated to the best Mission Impossible movie of the three and a damn good action movie in it's own right. Turn up the speakers for the bridge scene and rattle the neighbor's house. Ving Rhames is his usual badass self, Maggie Q is fucking gorgeous and the brief appearance of Keri Russell made me remember why I loved "Felicity" so.

Over The Hedge - Absolutely hilarious animated movie based on the comic strip of the same name. The voice talent is amazing, the animation is top notch and it's damned funny. Buy it for the kids, watch it for yourself, or hell, screw the kids. They probably don't deserve it anyways.

X-Men: The Last Stand - Well, Colussus looked cool and it had the Fastball Special. On the one hand, I'd hate for the franchise to go out on this particular note, but on the other hand, the potential is there for them to go out on a far worse note. Let's hope the Wolverine spin-off is better.

The Break-Up - Jennifer Aniston seems to get hotter and hotter in every movie, while jon Favreau gets bigger and bigger. Vince Vaugh was his least outlandish and created a character that was very realistic while still being Vince Vaughn funny. The fights were actual arguments you would expect normal couples to get in which made the movie painful to watch at times, but ultimately entertaining.

Cars - The animation is great, but at 2 hours, it's just too damned long for a kids' movie. My son got up to do other stuff at one point, which he never does when watching a movie. Warning, after watching this, your children may want you to smash into other cars when driving. If you already do that, good for you.

Superman Returns - The best movie of the year and one of the best comic book movies ever made. It pains my soul to see that the aforementioned X-Men piece of crap made more than this movie. I still react with incredulity when I hear that people didn't like this movie, but I also don't understand why people like bananas. No accounting for taste, I guess. This movie will be on permanent rotation in our house for a long time to come.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Good, with amazing special effects but ultimately too long and too meandering. Hopefully the third one will be a little tighter and act as a good bookend with the first one. Not enough Keira Knightley in a bodice either.

The Descent - Best horror movie of the year. I was scared out of my mind before they even came across the beasties, so well did the film the claustraphobia of spelunking. Carniverous cave dwellers aside, you couldn't pay me enough money to crawl around in some tunnel under the ground. Neil Marshall now lives atop my must watch list for directors.

Feast - Linda and I watched the making of this movie on Project Greenlight, so I felt obligated to buy it and help John Gulager out. It's actually a really good movie, with lots of gore, humor and hot chicks. I know that IMDB lists this as a 2005 release, but I'm not counting film festivals. I'm talking wide release or DVD release.

So there you have it. 2007 looks to be a stellar year with 300, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man 3, Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix among others. I may actually see one or two of these in the theater. How exciting!

A Merry Illness to All

Greetings. Welcome to the new year. I hope it is a good one for you and your's. I also hope that your holiday was a good one as mine was conjured from the blackest pits of hell. What, pray tell, could cause such problems over this, the gloriousest of holiday vacations? Why, a sick child, that's what. And not just a sick child, but a SICK child. Come with me as I spin a tale of woe, but be warned for here there be monsters.

Before we get started, I should point out some things, things that every parent knows but are loathe to admit. The reason for me doing this is that Greg, a blogger whose work I have come to enjoy, and his tastefully named wife Linda, are expecting their first child in summer of this year. This being the case, I feel it my responsibility to lift the curtain from their eyes so that they can see the truth of what they can expect from the years ahead. No longer will I live in this code of silence perpetuated by fellow parents with the hopes of ensnaring other child free couples into our web of shared misery! No longer!

First, and this really shouldn't come as any surprise, but children have a tendency to ruin everything. OK, not necessarily everything, but most things, and certainly the important things. It's not really their fault, most of the time, it just happens. It happened when you were a kid, and it will happen with your own kids, or has already happened. I remember putting my arm through our front door's window the day before we were going on vacation and requiring 15 stitches on two cuts. This required us to have to find a doctor in Cape Cod who could remove the stitches, causing my mom to almost pass out in said doctor's office in the process. While we could still go on vacation, I dare say it was pretty damn close to being ruined. If you have an event, or a vacation, or you just want to go out with the family for a change of pace and have a nice dinner, invariably, someone will get sick, or fall off of the roof or just act like crazed monkey children in the restaurant and get you slapped with a restraining order. It's the universe's way of testing the boundaries of your love for your children. It also helps keep all of those boarding schools open as parents give up in fits of exhaustion and pack their kids off to be raised by strangers. Good luck Timmy, see you in June.

The reason that parents are so insistent on their kids having kids is because they know what's coming, and they want revenge for having all of their activities ruined for 18+ years. No one really wants grandkids, they just want to hear about how their grandchild ruined their son's/daughter's vacation/holiday/ski trip. I know I can't wait to hear about how little Abby junior threw up all over Thanksgiving dinner, a dinner I missed because Linda and I were vacationing in New Zealand. Similarly, people with kids naturally want others to share in their misery, so they want their child free friends to have kids too. I say nuts to that. The world doesn't need more people, and I like to think that someone is having a holiday not tinged with unhappiness.

The other thing is that the simple act of you commenting on how well things are going is enough to cause it to all come crashing down around you. Maybe this is just something with our family, but if either Linda or I notice some positive aspect of the children's behaviour, and we comment on it to each other, sure as the sun rises in the morning, that behaviour will change. Case in point, we had a good couple of weeks where Abby was sleeping fine and not getting up in the night. Linda says "it's nice that Abby sleeps through the night now" and that night she was up like every half hour and we haven't had a stretch of more than two good sleeping nights in a row since. I have tried to tell her that our words have power so we shouldn't abuse that but does she listen? Noooooooo! After all, what do I know? She says that she likes to say nice things about the kids. My response is that you can say nice things, you just have to be careful. You can say that they're nice kids, good kids, good looking kids, smart kids, creative kids, whatever. You just can't say something like "I'm glad none of the kids have held up any liquor stores" because if you do, our 4 year old will be picked up that night for trying to knock off the Beverage Mart.

Which brings us to our story. Abby has a long, proud history of getting sick every time family comes to visit (see everything, ruining of). Usually she gets sick a few days before they arrive so that she's well into it by the time they get here. This time, as of Thursday night, she hadn't, which led Linda to utter the fateful words "It's good Abby didn't get sick for your mom and sister's visit." At that point, I knew we were doomed. "Why would you say that?", I said. She brushed off my concerns, but I knew that the die had been cast and we would come up big losers.

Sure enough, Friday morning, not only is Abby miserable but she has an elevated temperature. Linda kept her home for a little bit to make sure she was OK. Once Abby was behaving like her normal self, Linda brought her to school. We went to the airport, got my mom and sister, had lunch and all was well until daycare called at 3:30 saying Abby had a temperature of 103. Yikes. It was on, 'til the crack of dawn.

Over the next few days Abby's temperature would range from a normal temp in the 98's up to a high somewhere in the 102's. Sometimes she was irritable, sometimes she was fine. Every night she was up screaming around 10PM and then later on around 1 or 2 in the morning. Fun!

On Tuesday, a day in which Linda and I had planned on bringing the kids to daycare so that we could enjoy a day of shopping and eating out with my mom and sister, we brought Abby to the doctor instead as, at this point, she had had a fever for going on 5 days now. There she was diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease and we were told that she should be over it in no time as that particular virus only lasts for 5 days max. Also, she was showing signs of the blisters that come with the disease which means it was on the outs.

On Wednesday her fever was worse than before, and then her eardrum exploded. Yes, you read that right. One moment she was fine, the next she was screaming and a bloody discharge was coming out of her ear. We thought that maybe she had a blister in her ear and it broke, but when Linda brought her to the doctor and the doctor took a look, the ear drum was perforated. Apparently, sometimes kids will get really fast, aggressive ear infections and the ear drum blows from all of the pressure. Ooookay. The doctor also noticed a rash on Abby that's usually indicative of sepsis so she had to get a whole mess of blood work done, and get two big antibiotic shots, one in each leg.

On Thursday, her fever was gone, and she was fine, but a little irritable until one point in the morning when she collapsed screaming for like 20 minutes straight and was completely unconsolable. As this was a symptom of further trouble to look for, Linda brought her back to the doctor. The doctor called the Center for Infectious Diseases to make sure Abby didn't have some strange jungle virus (she doesn't) and Abby got more antibiotic shots. The rash was still there, but hadn't spread, which pretty much ruled out sepsis, and the CID said that sometimes when kids get the flu, or other viruses, they can get the rash. The doctor said that it's possible she got the flu, plus the hand foot thingy, plus an ear infection, plus some other unknown infection. When this kid gets sick, she gets sick.

On Friday she was somewhat irritable but no fever, no exploding parts and she was eating more.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday found her more irritable than usual and with a slightly elevated temperature which we attribute to the fact that she's cutting her last tooth. Not the most convenient time for this tooth to make an appearance as the elevated temperature made us think she was having a relapse, but given that she's a) still on antibiotics, b) in a much better mood, c) eating normally and d) showing the signs of the tooth protruding from the gum, we're taking it as business as usual for a teething child. This is a good thing as neither one of us could take any more of her being sick, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want to be sick any more either.

It's dissappointing that all of my holiday vacation was taken up by a sick child, and that Linda's holiday vacation was taken up by getting ready for Christmas and then a sick child, but it has taught me a valuable lesson, which is to never, ever, ever save up all of your vacation until the end of the year. It's better to spread it out over the calendar year so that your kids can get sick once per season. In fact, it's probably better to never take any time off at all. While it means you'll never take a vacation, it also means that your kids will never get sick. Once the kids are in school, rather than daycare, I think we'll be able to take time off as long as it corresponds to their breaks, as kids rarely get sick and wreck their own shit.

All in all, I'm glad that Abby is feeling better and glad that the break is over. I'm hesitant to say that now we can all just be normal for fear that the bubonic plague is just waiting to come back in one of my children. Instead I'll say that I'm glad the Earth is still orbiting the sun. That way, if that changes as a result of these words, at least I'll take all of you down with me.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

To all of you who take time out of your day to come and read about my silly corner of the world, I wish you the happiest of holidays and the merriest of Christmases. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for spending the past year with me and look forward to entertaining you next year. Yes, I'm going to actually try and entertain you.

May your holiday be a safe and happy one.

-Brandon (SuburbanJoe)

Couch Surfing

 Posted from the Wii's brand new Internet Channel. Huzzah!

Microphone Check

I apologize for my absence. I'm working on our annual end of the year DVD to send to all of the relatives and editing it's been a bit of a bitch. I get a little anal about these things so it's important I get things right, lest I'm up all night worrying over whether or not I've picked the right title or the right transition or what have you. As it is, I'm concerned the audio levels aren't correct as Premiere Elements doesn't have a way of picking all of the audio in the project and equalizing it out. At least version 2.0 doesn't. The little it I watched on Sunday morning, after burning a rough cut caused my laptops speakers to explode at one point, so I'm thinking some reworking will be in order.

In other news, rather than continuing to brave the barren wasteland of Christmas shopping traffic in search of additional Transformers, I took my business online and scored a Classics Deluxe Grimlock and Mirage from KBToys.com. Apparently in the rush to shop at all the cool online places like Amazon and Toys R Us online, folks have completely forgotten all about good old KB Toys. Not me though, and because of this, I have reaped the rewards. The completest in me is clamoring to pick up the Classics Deluxe version of Bumblebee and Astrotrain as well, but the rest of me knows how unbelievably lame both of those Transformers are and is repeatedly giving said completest wedgies until it shuts the hell up.

This is what I spent part of my day looking at today. As my company is a small one, it relies on employees to wear multiple hats. Today I wore the "voice talent for a marketing flash demo" hat. Yes, that's right, your humble host here has made his first tentative steps into the high flying world of Hollywood voice over work. Soon the world will know me by name, well, by voice anyways, and all of America will be in the thrall of the man who voiced random post closing dude in our company's flash overview thingy.

As I'm not one for the flash and pretentiousness of a limousine, I opted to drive myself and my costar to the studio where all of the magic happens. It's a pretty damn big place and they do all sorts of audio, video, post production, effects work and other A/V wizardry. Being that I'm a creative type, I can't be bogged down with all of that Poindexter mumbo jumbo. I just show up and shine.

And shine I did. When we arrived at the studio, I was dismayed to see that they had neither the Peruvian spring water I requested, nor the green almond M&M's, nor Kristen Bell's home phone number. In the future, I'll have my agent speak to these people ahead of time to ensure that my demands are met as I can't be bothered with worrying that I'll have neither adequate beverages nor snacks. Doing voice work is extremely difficult work, and if I have to be concerned where my water came from, well the performance just won't be genuine.

I managed to say my lines without completely screwing them up, and while I won't be winning any awards for my work, I think I did OK. I could tell that there's a pretty big difference between reading a line with the proper inflection to get a point across, which is what I did, and actually acting using only your voice, which is what people who do this for a living do. I mean, sure, I got across the feelings of loss and loneliness that comes with not having an integrated document management solution and the eventual triumph and exultation that comes with obtaining such a system, but really, anyone could have done that. I was hoping to provide a layered performance of vulnerability touched with strength and a hint of whimsy but that's kind of hard to convey in two lines. Lines about software no less.

One thing I learned is that if someone asks you to say a line with an emphasis on a certain word in the line, it is then impossible for you to not emphasize the same word in subsequent readings, even when asked to no longer emphasize the word. In my case, the last few words were something like "we even lost points at funding." Here's how it went down.

Me: ...we even lost points at funding.
Marketing guy: Ok, that's great, but let's put an emphasis on the word "lost".
Me: Ok...we even lost points at funding.
Marketing guy: Good, good, try it again.
Me: ...we even lost points at funding.
Marketing guy: Umm, let's go back to before. Don't emphasize "lost" any more.
Me: ...we even lost points at funding.
Marketing guy: Great, but let's not emphasize "lost".
Me: ...we even LOST points at funding.
Marketing guy: Again, let's not emphasize "lost" any more.
Me: LOST! LOST! LOST! L-O-S-T! LOSTLOSTLOSTLOSTLOSTLOSTLOST!!!!
Marketing guy: Alright, cut!

Try it yourself at home. It's impossible. I managed to nail the second line in 3 takes, so I felt pretty good about myself, despite me committing the recording faux pas of having my phone ring twice, during the recording session. Some people don't take the hint of being sent right to voice mail. Amateurs.

I don't expect to ever have to do anything like this again, but I would in a second as it was a ton of fun and certainly a nice change from the monotony of software testing. I've always admired people who do voice over work, as in games anyway, the difference between good voice work and shitty voice work makes a tremendous difference in the game playing experience. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be act with nothing but a script and a microphone while someone gives you directions like "your character is feeling ennui with a bit of prideful lust." Those people probably take years of specialized deemphasizing training. Years.

Unacceptable!

I'm not quite sure how the Autobots escaped from the certain peril of just a few days ago, but this is the site that greeted me upon returning to work this morning. Obviously I can't condone the execution style retribution killing of one's enemies, especially in the workplace, so after relieving Optimus of his armaments, I sat everyone down and we had a long chat. We talked about how we don't shoot our friends and that we should all use our words to work out our differences. Luckily Starscream's spark is indestructible so it only took a little flanagaling to get him back up and operational. Folks didn't seem especially open to my talks to end the hostilities so I forced them to all transform into their vehicle modes to at least reduce the number of guns. Granted, Megatron is one big gun, but without anything to wield him, he's pretty harmless. To be safe, I pointed him at the corner.

Kids these days. I swear.

Oh Noes!!!

Well, as you can see Optimus and Megatron have joined our little family and already tensions are on the rise. I'm not sure how Megatron got the jump on Optimus and Hot Rod, but hoo-boy, those two sure are in a pickle. Unlike in the cartoons, the figures don't seem to be able to change size at will, so Starscream can't wield Megatron's "vehicle" form. Nevertheless, he still manages to help out in his own way. I don't know how Optimus and Hot Rod will get themselves out of this one. Stay tuned!

Megatron has, by far, the coolest alternate form. The trigger doesn't have quite enough space for repeated pullings, so you better make that first shot count. Linda said that it's because these are made for children, which is just a ridiculous notion. I mean, since when does Timmy, the local 8 year old have the money for something like 18 Optimus Prime variants at 50 bucks a pop? Plus, it's not like Timmy can drive himself to Botcon. In robot form, Megatron isn't as imposing, what with the wings and everything, but he's a lot more poseable than the version I had as a kid, so I'm OK with it. Optimus is the badass we all know and love, and his truck form is solid. As an extra bonus, his hands fold out, rather than having to be added post transformation. I always thought that was odd as a kid. I mean, how can someone without hands have the dexterity to install their own hands? It boggles the mind. Like Megatron, Optimus is a lot more poseable than the one I had as a kid, so this makes up for the lack of a trailer. As they should be, both leaders are bigger than their subordinates.

I saw that in addition to the Classics figures I already have, there's a Classics Grimlock out there. Oh yes, he shall be mine. Him and Mirage, and then I'm done with the Classics line. Well, until they come out with more of them, that is. I'm still on the lookout for Wing Saber, yet at the same time, I'm not sure he'd fit in. I mean that quite literally. He's fucking huge. This also marks the end of my repeated ramblings on the subject, for now anyways. Oh sure, I'll still post pictures about their robotic shenanigans, but I'll try and keep the blatherings to a minimum.

In other news, I'm still playing Zelda and am still loving it. I just recently figured out a way to attack as a wolf and not look like an epileptic husky. And it only took me 11 hours of playing to do so! I'm not entirely convinced that Midna is on the up and up, but at this point, I'm held hostage to her twilightian mechanizations. I'll be sure to keep you informed of any treachery.

Oh, It Is So On

As you can see from the above picture, Hot Rod, wait, I'm sorry, Rodimus, has joined the party. I'm not sure what the point of renaming him is as these are supposed to be "classic" Transformers, and if that's the case, he's Hot Rod. Maybe he could be Rodimus Prime, but seeing how Optimus Prime is also around in this toy line, that would make for some very embarassing social situations. Optimus would be all like "we should go here and do this" and everyone would be following him and no one would be following Rodimus and eventually Rodimus would get all sullen and huffy and Optimus would have to put him in charge of something meaningless like getting take-out just to get him so shut up.

Yes I'm aware that there was an Energon Transformer named Rodimus-just-Rodimus, however he transformed into a big rig cab and this Rodimus transforms into a race car, hence me calling him Hot Rod.

But I digress. I'm sure him and Starscream are having some very interesting conversations what with one being a coward and the other being a brash, headstrong warrior. They're also mortal enemies, which probably helps to spice things up. I see the conversation going like this:

Starscream: So tell me, what was it like to be responsible for the death of your beloved leader?
Hot Rod: No worse than being disintegrated at your own coronation. How'd you manage to put all that together anyways? I thought Skywarp was the brains of the operation.
Starscream: That was a production run issue! My intelligence rating is higher!
Hot Rod: I'm sorry I can't hear you over all of the retreating.

Ha! Good stuff. I saw that the classic Optimus Prime and Megatron are on sale this week, so I'm tempted to purchase them as well but then the infighting is only going to get worse. I've been lambasted by my coworkers for not having Optimus around, but all the ones I've seen so far are like 50 bucksHa! Good stuff. I've seen classics Optimus and Megatron on sale and are 9 feet tall. the mix. I have issues with the scale of the various Transformers as it is without bringing a XXL Optimus Prime intoI'm ok with Megatron now being a raygun instead of a Walther P-38 handgun as despite my continued bias against children of any size and/or shape, I certainly don't want some kid being shot by a cop for assault with a deadly Decepticon. Megatron would complicate matters too, as he's the only one I'd want to keep around in "vehicle" form, due to it looking so badass, and such a good compliment to my Nerf weaponry. If they could somehow make a Megatron that was also a working Nerf pistol, well, I'd probably pass out from joy.

Finally, no that is not real coffee my daughter is drinking in today's earlier post. She does perfectly well not sleeping on her own without the benefit of stimulants, than you very much. When we went out to eat yesterday, they were out of kids' cups, so we got the kids water in coffee cups. The resulting photographical shenanigans were just too much to resist. Please don't call child services on us.

Naps? Who has time for naps?

Seriously, I don't have time for this nap bullshit. I have time for coffee and that's about it. I have some new words to learn, I'm trying to figure out what things are colored red and at some point today, I need to fill my pants. Maybe you have time for naps, but where I come from, it's either win or go home. I hate to drink and run, but these shapes aren't going to sort themselves.

Starscream says "Happy Friday!"

He also said to say, "Retreat!"

Playing With My Wii

Now that I've had more time to spend with the Wii, I'm prepared to offer some additional thoughts on the subject. Gather the children for lo I am about to speak!

I can't say which company will end out on top when this latest generation's battle is over, however I can say that playing games on the Wii is probably the most fun I've had playing video games in some time. There's something joyous about doing simple movements and then seeing those movements replicated on screen that can't be experienced on the other consoles. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing Gears of War, and Uno and sneaking around as a corporate whore, both on and off of the 360, however playing Zelda on the Wii is just way more fun.

Now, it could be that it's because I'm playing Zelda and Zelda has always had a special place in my heart. Before we adopted my son, I bought Wind Waker for the Gamecube and told myself that if I could just play a little Zelda before I went on a continent spanning journey to obtain an heir, I'd be happy. At the time, I thought that once I came home with a child, all video game playing would cease, so even a little Zelda would be better than no Zelda at all. Foolish, I know, but you try preparing to go halfway around the world and become a parent at the same time and see how rational your thinking is. I remember playing Zelda downstairs while my wife and her parents waited upstairs for me to finish so that we could go to the airport. Something about riding in my little red boat, searching for sunken chests and the next island to explore gave me great calm before my own trip. Besides, if this little dude in a green tunic can rescue an entire world from evil, surely I can handle a 7 month old child. When we were in Russia, I spent the time in the Wan (not a typo) playing A Link to the Past on my GBA SP, and again, were it not for Zelda all I would have had were my thoughts of potential parental failures and a slight case of nausea brought on by the infernal smell of that place.

Based on this, I can recognize that I'm not entirely objective when it comes to Zelda, however at the same time, these games kick a tremendous amount of ass, regardless of the personal baggage you bring with you on your journey. The game's art direction is something to behold, with the Twilight portions being particularly impressive. When in the Twilight Lands, or whatever they're called, everything has a somewhat blurred, intangible look, with washed out colors and pieces of ash constantly floating up from the ground to the sky. Once you return the light to whatever area you're in, the colors are strong and vibrant and each person has a distinct personality that comes through in their character design. This is particularly important given that there's no voice acting to portray personality. Zelda games have always had somewhat goofy yet completely endearing character design for the various folks you meet along the way and this game is spot on in that regard.

The control scheme works very well. I took a short break from Zelda to play Gears of War the other night and was surprised to see how much I missed being able to control my character with a flick of the wrist, or a shake of the controller. I also missed the ability to use my controller as a pointer of sorts for shooting, as once you have the ability to do that with the Wii, you'll hate going back to the dual stick mode of aiming. Locking on to multiple targets with Link's boomerang is so much easier than it used to be with the Gamecube's klugy C-stick. It's unfortunate that the current crop of shooters for the Wii have been knocked for not having enough content (Call of Duty 3) or just being generally mediocre (Red Steel) because the limited time I've spend shooting things in Zelda has opened my eyes to how much a shooter would kick ass on this platform. I have high hopes for Metroid Prime Corruption as I seriously doubt that Nintendo would allow one of their premiere franchises fail on their shiny new console. That and Retro Studio's talents are such that they could coax life from the cold, unforgiving rock of a barren planet.

Everything isn't perfect with Zelda as I find that in wolf form, attacking is a somewhat haphazard affair filled with me spazzing out and barking like some sort of enraged rottweiler. The speaker on the Wiimote is not quite up to the task, so while it's cute to hear the various Zelda sounds that designate progress coming from your controller, the speaker makes it sound like your Wiimote is calling you from a third world payphone. These are minor problems and in no way reduce your enjoyment of the game but they are "growth points" for the next game in the series.

Wii Sports continues to mock my lack of fitness by giving me an ever increasing Fitness Age. At the rate I'm going, I'm afraid Nintendo is going to disable my Wii remotely for fear that my heart will explode under the stress of trying to hit multiple home runs. The wife and I played some Super Monkey Ball, but because of the shortage of controllers, we were limited to the mini games that had alternating play. The Hammer Throw mini game is an inspired piece of game design. Darts is a mockery of all that is good and pure in the world. With 50+ mini games some are going to be great, and some will be less that great. I'm dissappointed that Monkey Target is a simultaneous play game as the original Monkey Target from Super Monkey Ball was one of the greatest minigames of all time, and it was alternating. Why they had to mess with perfection is beyond me. The single player game is a great deal of fun, and the Wiimote works beautifully for controlling your monkey. The single player game now has boss battles, which seems out of place for a puzzle game. I've only encountered one of these bosses, and quickly dispatched him by using my monkey's protective shell to cave in the boss's skull. Rated E for everyone!

I'm hoping that Nintendo has arranged for a steady stream of titles for this console, as I'd hate to see it go the way of the 'Cube with it's thrice yearly releases. So far it appears that there's plenty on the horizon for it, but I would like to see some more meaty offerings to counter the minigame collections. Don't get me wrong, I love minigames, but sometimes I want a story to go along with my gameplay. I'm funny that way.

As I said before, I have no idea who will win this console war, but I'm having more fun than ever playing games, and when that happens, we all win. Well, at least I win, and really, that's all I'm concerned with.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the good old U S of A. For those in foreign countries, happy Thursday the 23rd of November!

Team Wiinky

Huzzah! The era of the Wii is upon us. As the title of this post suggests, I have named my Wii "Team Wiinky" to coincide with my Xbox gamertag "Team Binky". I find it important to have synergy across my gaming platforms. No doubt, you agree.

Boy, what a weekend this was. Two, count 'em two console launches in one weekend. I'm wondering how the folks at Sony feel. On the one hand, they sold every console they put in the retail channels and they got a whole bunch of press while doing so. On the other hand, most of the people who bought the console seemed to be doing so to sell it, and a lot of the press around the launch had to do with people being shot, stabbed and forced into lampposts at jaw shattering speeds. Granted, that last one was more a result of retail level stupidity, but given the abysmally small number of units available at launch, it's hard to be surprised that stores resulted in such shenanigans to ring in the event.

The Nintendo launch sold every unit put into retail, as long as every extra goddamn controller imaginable, and got a whole bunch of press while doing so. In contrast to the Sony launch, the press for the Nintendo launch seemed to be around how much fun the damn thing is. Granted, press is press, however if I had to choose between being known for being fun, and being known for people having violence befall them by associating with me, I'd choose the former. Sony appears to be in their own little world in regards to their console business, so who knows which they'd prefer.

Before we go any further with my impressions of the Wii, I need to share something with you. Today, I purchased a video game that might very well go down in history as one of the strangest games ever. It is "Sneak King", made by the fine folks at Burger King, and stars the Burger King as a stealthy purveyor of Burger King products. My reasons for purchasing the game were twofold. One, is that my sisters is freaked out by the Burger King as much as I am, and when she comes to visit at Christmas, she will undoubtedly find this game to be as hilarious as I do.

My other reason is that the game has undeniable charm. The back of the box outlines your mission, which is, as the Burger King to "unleash your hot sandwiches" upon the hungry citizens of your immediate vicinity. I find that phrase to be particularly compelling, in a number of literary situations, however erotic fiction is what first comes to mind. For example:

"Unleash your hot sandwiches" he murmured to her, breathless with passion.

She did so with a fleshy "Whump!". They were double whoppers.

See? Genius! Your job, as the Sneak King is to skulk around unsuspecting people and provide them with food before they collapse with hunger. The more burgers you deliver, unseen, in a row, the more points you get. If you do something particularly skillful like get very close to your victim, or hide in a trash can or other suitable container, or provide the food with a Flourish move suitable of your regal trappings, your score increases. Make no mistake, despite his cheerful grin and jaunty dance moves, the Burger King is every bit as lethal in his mission as Sam Fisher is in the Splinter Cell series. The only difference is Fisher strikes with lethal precision while the Burger King strikes with dance moves and heart disease. To be honest, I'm not sure what is more disturbing, the fact that you spend your time hiding in a refuse container with a food item, or how happy people are to see you spring out of a trash dump with an omelet sandwich.

But enough of that, on to the Wii. I'll be brief and just say that so far, I am having a tremendous amount of fun with it, and not just me, but Linda is also sharing in on the mirth. The unit is very small and sleek looking and was a breeze to set up. The sensor bar is much, much smaller than I expected it to be and is easily mounted with the provided double-stick tape. In fact, peeling the backing off of the tape was the hardest part of the whole set up. My fingernail still hurts!

Once we had the unit set up, I made the mistake of configuring the internet connections, which then caused TW to go out and obtain the necessary firmware upgrades to enable the Virtual Console and the Wii Shopping Channel. Given that everyone and their mother were doing the same thing, this took roughly nine hours. In fact, it took so long that we fired up the 360 and played some Uno while waiting. Luckily, the use of the Wiimote made it much easier to enter in my 8 hojillion character WEP key than doing so with the 360 controller, however what I made up in character entry time, I lost in sitting around and waiting time. Eventually we were all connected, could see the games to download and opted instead to play Wii Sports.

Wii Sports is a ton of fun, and while it may not be a game you keep on playing for months and months, it does a good job of getting non-gamers playing, and it shows what the console is capable of. Tennis is fun, as is bowling and the hitting part of Baseball. The pitching part isn't particularly challenging. Boxing seems unresponsive to me, however I may just need to spend more time with it. I haven't played golf yet but hope to soon. Controls are simple to use and are very accessible.

On the aforementioned bowling, it would appear that Linda is a natural, while I have carried over my real life bowling problems, only magnified about a billion times. While she was throwing straight ball after straight ball and closing out frames, I kept hooking to the left and missing completely. At one point, Linda turned to me and said "This must be frustrating for you. This is how you bowl in real life." Ouch. That's my wife ladies and gentlemen, put a controller in her hand and she gets in your head and starts destroying your will to compete. At the end of the game, she had bowled in the 130's, while I had bowled in the 30's. Since then, I have fixed some problems with my stroke and have managed to break 100, but only after some serious tinkering.

I have also found out, thanks to this game, that my Fitness Age is 57. That seems about right. In fact, it's downright generous.

I haven't played much of Zelda, 28 minutes to be exact, thanks to my daily Wii message, but so far it's a lot of fun. The game looks good, not 360 good, but pretty damn impressive for the platform. The jaggies that come with progressive scan are a little annoying, but they're easy to overlook once you get into the game. The controllers seem to be a good fit, however I haven't done anything combat related yet, so my opinion may change. I doubt it, but stranger things have happened. Hopefully the soreness in my arms as a result of Wii Sports will fade once I have to start swinging the Master Sword. Otherwise, we're going to have some problems. Note, this is not a condemnation of the Wii's control scheme, but of me being an out of shape slob.

Super Monkey Ball has yet to be opened, but I think I need to spend more time with the controllers before I attempt to take Linda down in a fit of simian oneupmanship. I fear her Monkey Boxing.

Flying Solo

The wife is traveling on business, hence the title of this post. Invariably, when this happens, one of the children pees all over the bathroom floor. Not sure what it is about the absence of a mother figure that makes this happen, but it's happened the last two times now, so I'm thinking the events are connected. Last time was a result of Ben not making it to the bathroom in time. Easy enough to clean up, what with the tile floor and all. This time, Abby was running around naked, waiting for her bath to be ready and decided that the bathroom didn't have enough water in it. She seemed pretty proud of herself so it was hard to be mad, but having one more task added to the list wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Ah, children, they sure do know how to make more work for you, don't they?

The era of the Wii has officially begun at our house as today I picked up my first Wii game, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. Granted, I don't have anything to play it on, and won't for several days, but when Gamestop calls to tell you that your game is in, it is in your interests to go and pick it up. They had a drawer filled with Wii offerings including Red Steel, Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. To say that the drawer looked delectable would be an understatement. Before he could relinquish the title, the clerk had to call someone of authority to inquire as to which titles, 1st party or 3rd party he could sell. As Super Monkey Ball is 3rd party Nintendo was comfortable with letting the game out of it's steely grasp. Why this is an issue at all, given that the console, an integral part of the game playing experience, isn't out until Sunday is beyond me. I'm sure Nintendo is just looking out for our best interests and don't want us to mar the Zelda disc with copious amounts of drool.

I am happy to see that the initial Wii game reviews are, for the most part, positive, with folks saying that the control scheme works for both puzzle games such as the aforementioned Super Monkey Ball title, action games like Zelda and shooters like Call of Duty 3. The review I'm waiting for is Red Steel as I have more of an interest in the story of that game than I do reliving WWII yet again, however if COD3 is the only way I can get my shoot on until Metroid Prime 3, then so be it. I find it interesting that some reviews state that the controls are kind of wonky and then some say that the controls take some time getting used to and calibrating but once you do, it kicks ass and anyone who thinks that the controls are wonky haven't spent enough time with the game. I guess this is really going to be a case of personal preference, so I'll have to make sure I tread with caution as if I find I don't like the controls for a game, it's not like I can go and return it. Then again, there's always Costco.

I am currently watching "Hellboy: Sword of Storms" the latest Hellboy animated movie. It's quite good and is voiced by the actors and actresses from the movie, including Doug Jones who did Abe Sapien's body motions. Ron Perlman is his usual fantastic self and, at this point, any non-print Hellboy project without Perlman as Hellboy would be tantamount to blasphemy. The movie has a lot of cool Japanese imagery and mythology and, more importantly, big beasties getting the beatdown by Hellboy, something I felt the feature film lacked. They're currently in the midst of editing the next animated film "Hellboy: Blood and Iron" and Hellboy 2, the live action pic is a go, so fans of Big Red have a lot to look forward to.

Finally, without getting into too much detail, we found out today that our daughter does not have Cystic Fibrosis. As you can well imagine, this is a huge load off of our minds. Something still isn't right in the state of Denmark as she's not growing as much as she should be, but thankfully, the thing that's not making her grow enough isn't a disease that would cap her life span at 30. I am perfectly content to have my daughter grow up to be the world's smallest octogenarian, just as long as she grows up.

Honey, I Shaved the Dog

"And I bought clippers so I can shave the dogs!"

I'm standing in my kitchen, watching my wife's obvious excitement regarding her most recent purchase and thinking that perhaps coming home for lunch wasn't the best idea. A bowling trip at work had fallen through so I thought I'd come home and play a little Marvel Ultimate Alliance. When I called Linda to tell her, she told me that she was out getting her hair cut. Fair enough. Along with going to get her hair cut, she also stopped at Target and purchased the implements sher was so very, very excited about. I had no response.

"The clippers were only 25 bucks and we spend 100 dollars every time we go take them to the groomer. I mean, how hard can it be? And look, it came with a DVD! Besides, I think it'll be a funny story."

There aren't a lot of ways to respond to your wife when she comes home with clippers and every intention of shaving your dogs. You can try and offer token resistance to the idea, but doing so will only delay the inevitable. No sir, when your wife wants to shave the dogs, there's really nothing else to do but strap in and go for the ride.

Lunch was uneventful. We had Wendy's, I beat up some folks with Ghost Rider and then went back to work. About an hour later a message from Linda pops up:

"These clippers aren't working so well."

Before I can respond, the phone rings. It's Linda and she's laughing hysterically. Things have not been going well. I can't say I'm surprised. A brief background on my dogs. Due to her Pomeranian nature, Maggie has wiry hair that could be gathered, tied to a stick and used as a brush for cleaning grill grates. She's also on a hair trigger and is not the kind of dog that would react well to loud, whirring blades just inches from her person. Henry is the calm one, however he's covered in warts that are in various stages of scabbing over, has large deposits of fat roaming under his skin and has teeth that are held in his mouth by only plaque and whatever pieces of dog shit he just ate. Between his mouth and whatever seems to be eating him from the inside, his odor ranges from somewhat unpleasant to horrific bordering on assault. He's not a dog that you'd want to have panting around you due to being clipped, nor is he one you'd want to have to, you know, touch and certainly not clip lest you gouge a wart or a fat deposit. What I'm saying here, is that attempting to groom these dogs on one's own is the very definition of "not going well."

Linda proceeds to tell me that she started shaving Maggie but the clippers weren't doing a very good job with Maggie's hair. Then the clippers started making a weird noise. Then the clippers started heating up to the point that they burned Linda's hands. Then they started making even weirder popping noises. Wisely, she chose to unplug them at this point. She said that she was going to switch over to the clippers that I use to cut my hair, and just buy me new clippers. Why clippers that are used to cut human hair, hair that isn't used as the organism's sole protection against the elements would be better than clippers used to cut dog hair is beyond me, however I've used my clippers on a number of occasions and never once have I lost use of my hands as a result.

An hour or so later I got another message:

"Maggie half done. I'll finish her later."

Later? Later when? This did not bode well for the lack of involvement on my part, something which had been promised up and down, backwards and forwards. At this point, I got up from my chair, went over to my teammates and said "I bet I'll be shaving my dog tonight". A word of caution. This is a statement that, when said without prior qualification, will be greeted with stares of quiet befuddlement mixed with a fear that you might become violent at any moment. Once I described the situation, my team was in agreement that I'd be spending my evening as a canine hairstylist.

When I got home, I was greeted by a dog that was, in fact half shaved. Her head, shoulders and top half of her was shaved, the bottom was not. It looked like she was wearing some sort of hair skirt. It was not pretty. There were also random tufts of hair in places where her hair kind of grew together at weird angles. In short, it looked like the work of someone who had watched a DVD and then attacked their dog with a set of molten hot clippers.

Abby was in a mood that night, and it was my night to put her to bed. Afterwards I heard the sounds of the tv mingled with clippers coming from our bedroom. Ben was sitting in our bed watching TV while Linda was shaving the dog in the bathroom. The amount of hair on the floor and on the ottoman that Maggie was standing on looked like someone sprinkled a litter of puppies around the bathroom. Maggie was pretty calm, I'm assuming from grim resignation. Linda wasn't faring any better than earlier. It was at this point that the good husband in me took over and I told her to give Ben a bath while I finished shaving the dog.

Surprisingly enough, I am a particularly adept dog groomer. The key is to go with the hair, cutting it to one length and then shaving it down to the length you want. It's still not perfect as I don't know how to trim around the paws. I did not watch the DVD. Maggie also has rows in her fur that look like she's a piece of farmland, a casualty of whatever guard we used on my clippers. When I was done, I vacuumed up the dog hair, cleaned said hair out of the vacuum and threw it out. It was a relatively unsettling sight as it looked like a rabbit died and we were trying to dispose of the body.

Henry I refused to touch for the reasons I mentioned before so Linda is on her own with him. At present he's half way finished as well. Apparently my clippers weren't very useful on him as they just kind of pushed the hair around rather than cut it. As a result, his head and body are shaved, but his legs aren't which makes it look like he's walking on the legs of a dog twice his size. It's all very unsettling. All weekend long he had a tuft of hair sticking up between his eyes and three long hairs coming out of his chin. Thankfully Linda trimmed those up as they were starting to freak me out.

Now the search is on for new clippers for the dogs. Most of the models we've seen cost around 100 bucks, but given that one trip to the groomer's costs that much, they'll probably be worth it. I'm assuming that for 100 bucks they'll actually cut hair and not singe your hands. I'm not sure which one of those is more important. Probably the latter as I can deal with long haired dogs but not with a wife with gnarled, blackened stumps for hands. We've already purchased new clippers for me, complete with a cape, something like 3 dozen guards and an apparatus for trimming my eyebrows. This last one is intriguing, yet scary at the same time.

The next day I told my team that I spent my evening shaving the dog. Again, the lack of a qualification before that statement caused them to look at me as if I could hurt them at any moment. This time I didn't explain as it's fun having them think I could snap at any moment. Maybe tomorrow I'll come in with some clipper hanging off my belt and really freak them out.

An Open Letter to the Democrats

Howdy. Please excuse my getting political today, but the recent elections were pretty dang important and I don't want them to pass without dishing my completely useless opinion on them. Don't worry, we'll be back to stupid posts about games on Friday. As a sneak peak, me likey Gears of War!

Ahem, yes, where was I? Right. Yay Democrats, you won! Or is that the Republicans lost? Hard to say, and as of right now, it really doesn't matter, however you can bet your sweet bippy those particulars will be pretty damn important 2 years from now when it comes time to pick a new president.

My personal opinion is that the traditional conservatives and Reagan era Republicans just put the Republican party on time out until the party can stop acting like assholes and play nice. Now, if the next presidential election were a reelection campaign, I wouldn't be too optimistic about the GOP changing up what it does, however it isn't, so rest assured that the Democratic nominee won't be the only person running an "I'm not Bush" campaign. If you don't think that a nominee would attempt to distance themselves from the previous president from the same party, allow me to introduct you to Mr. Gore. Mr. Gore, the Democrats. Democrats, Mr. Gore. This being the case, it is vitally important that you, as a party, start figuring out just who the hell you are and what the hell you stand for, independent of who is running against you.

Given that you have 2 years to do this, I wouldn't say that it's insurmountable, however you do need to stop being so goddamn afraid of how the Republicans portray you. Granted, now is probably the best time to be portrayed as the opposite of the GOP, however Americans have notoriously short memories, and it won't be long before people start buying into the same old GOP bullshit about Dems being soft on terror and anti-freedom and blah, blah, blah. You need to come up with a platform that addresses the salient criticisms of the Republicans, ignores the inflammatory bullshit ones, and more importantly, gives the average voter an understanding of what they're voting for when they vote Democrat. You've bloodied the bully's nose at this point, do those few things and you'll kick the living shit out of him.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty happy at what went down yesterday, and with the recent stepping down of Rumsfeld, I'm approaching gleeful, I just want to make sure that 2 years from now we're not where we were 2 years ago, which is to say watching from the sidelines as the country gets reamed. So, enjoy your victory, put the President on mute during his conference call with you so that you can all snigger and make faces, but when Congress reconvenes in January, don't take anything for granted and get to fucking work.

Kisses,

Brandon

Gears of Commerce

Greetings friends and neighbors and welcome to the first November post. This November is shaping up to be the cruelest month, in terms of cash outlay. In fact, this week alone has a barrage of retail offerings like none I have seen in recent memory. Between Gears of War, Tony Hawk's Project 8, Call of Duty 3, FEAR, Guitar Hero 2 and Elite Beat Agents, you're looking at a cash outlay of three hundred and twenty five American dollars. Granted, three of those games are niche games for those who long to skate, rock out and beat elitely, but even if you just like straight up shooting shenanigans you're looking at 180 bucks. More if you can't resist the super collector's editions with their art books and their shiny tins.

Next week brings the PS3 with it's $500 minimum price tag. The weekend after that is the Wii at $250 for the console and upwards of $180 to allow others to play with you. With the Wii, you could get away with just purchasing the console as long as you're content to bowl and play other sports until you can save up enough to buy some other games, but with the PS3, unless you're lucky enough to score a Blu-Ray copy of Talledega Nights in the box, you may want to purchase some games for your newfangled video game player.

By my estimation, the only way you could play everything that will be available by the end of this month would be to have the gift of foresight and seen these times in a vision, so that you started squirreling money away several years ago. For those of us who are not prophets, well, renting games is always an option, as is selling bodily fluids.

As for me, I'll most likely be picking up Gears of War. Guitar Hero 2 will have to wait until the 360 version is available, or until my steely resolve crumbles in the face of the game's barrage of rock. Call of Duty 3 and FEAR won't be gracing my disc tray any time soon but are viable Christmas options. My Wii is half paid off and Zelda is fully purchased, so have no fear on that account, however extra remotes are in no way definite purchases.

Speaking of Zelda, that sound you heard over the weekend was the sound of millions of gamers breathing a collective sigh of relief. Various gaming journalists were allowed an appreciable amount of time with the game last week in Redmond and they all came back with tales of gaming excellence and, most importantly, a control scheme that did not suck. This was my biggest fear, that the Wiimote control scheme would feel tacked on and well, silly. It would appear my fears were ungrounded. Halleluja. Hopefully other games are similarly well controlled as I don't think I can justify a $250 purchase for just Zelda, as much as it pains me to say it, and with a play time of roughly 70 hours, I can't purchase the console, play the game and then return the hardware. Tough decisions lay ahead should every game but Zelda suck the big one.

I have been spending an astonishing amount of time with Marvel Ultimate Alliance and I have some tips for you. First of all, make sure you want to play as all of the heroes in your team. Here's why. As you progress you'll be able to use Xtreme powers, which can only be triggered once you've built up enough momentum. You build up momentum by using non-special powered attacks. The AI is pretty durn smart about using special powers, so if left to their own devices, your teammates will always use special powers and never build up enough momentum to use their Xtreme powers. So, in order to use everyone's super special powers, you'll need to take control of each person on the team and beat the snot out of things. The added bonus to having everyone all supercharged is that if one person's powers trigger, all of the powers will trigger, causing a play of destruction in 4 acts.

My other tip to you is to not use any of the cheat codes save for the codes to unlock Daredevil or the Silver Surfer that you got when preordering. Allow me to tell you my tale of woe. As you progress through the game you can unlock various costumes for the heroes. These costumes can be upgraded by purchasing points. Unlike skill points for your powers, once you purchase these points, they can not be reassigned, so you need to make sure that the outfit you're powering up is the one you're going to stay with. Me being the idiot that I am, I put in the code to unlock all of the outfits so that I could make sure that the outfits my heroes were wearing were the ones I wanted to start upgrading. Little did I know, this bout of curiosity would cost me all of my future achievements should I continue down the path of whupping up on supervillains. Yes, that's right folks, using cheat codes disables achievements. Whoopsie.

Now, I can understand this, to a point, as some of the cheat codes allow you to make money at the drop of a hat or unlock all powers or be invincible or have the Touch of Death. Clearly, enabling these cheats would not make you worthy of the various achievements as you could simply cheat your way to victory. In my case, getting the new costumes don't actually do anything for you other than make the heroes look cool, so this cheat doesn't make the game any easier for me, just considerably more stylish. I guess if you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound, so all cheats have an amazing achievement disabling power. Oh well. I tried to go back and find a save game prior to my indiscretion, but alas, none existed. Had I just spent 30 seconds with Google I could have found screenshots of the alternate costumes and never used the code in the first place. Ironically enough, I didn't even use any of the costumes I unlocked. Yes, I am in fact an idiot. Let this be a lesson to you my gaming friends, that cheaters never prosper. And, if you have a friend who is playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance and their list of achievements for the game stops halfway through the list, they're either a quitter or a dirty cheat. Continue your association with this scoundrel at your own risk.

Finally, tomorrow is election day, so please be sure to get out and vote, several times if you have to. I don't care if you vote for the same party that I do, but I do care that you vote as it is the singularly most important thing you can do as a member of this glorious nation. For the record, I'll be voting mostly for the Democrats, however I think I'm leaning towards keeping our Republican governor, Sonny Perdue in office. I haven't been particularly impressed with his Democratic opponent, Mark Taylor, and I'm not unpleased with the way the state is being run. My main problem with the Taylor is that he seems to be running on a platform of not being Perdue and that's just not enough for me. I mean, if Perdue was running this state into the ground, then sure, I'd be happy to pick someone other than him, but from where I'm standing that isn't the case. I'm voting for the Democrat candidate for Lieutenant Governor, partly to balance things out, and partly because the Republican candidate's attack ad called the Democrat "alarmingly liberal". Here's a little secret for you, I'm a liberal. So, if I see that someone is alarmingly liberal, that's like saying something is alarmingly cheesy, which is to say, delightfully appealing. Also, the things that this guy did to be so damn liberal, banning prayer in school for example, I happen to be behind 1o0%. What a coincidence. I'll probably vote for Democrats for state legislative candidates too in the interest of keeping things balanced.

There are several constitutional amendments on the ballot, all of which I'll be voting against. I tend to hold constitutions in pretty high regard and am not a fan of fucking with them, especially for something like keeping alive the tradition of hunting. Surely there must be some other way to ensure that squirrels continue to fall to the canny hunters of the great state of Georgia without writing a fucking amendment. I'll leave it up to the newly elected state legislators to figure that one out, as it will be, you know, their job.

So there you go, that's how I'll be voting. Please take the time on Tuesday to go out and make your voice heard, even if it won't be tracked correctly by whatever voting machine your state has chosen to implement. Ain't democracy a beautiful thing!