A Tale of Two Games

I got a bevy of games for my birthday, including Grand Theft Auto IV, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Okami on the Wii, and my new personal favorite, Boom Blox. I've been spending most of my time with GTA IV and Boom Blox and I'm here to chat a little about both.

They kind or represent both ends of the gaming spectrum right now, both in terms of the types of experiences that they provide, and the systems that they're on. On the one hand you have which has an absolutely huge, seamless world in it, filled with emotional characters, plenty of chaos causing fun and requires an absolute beast of a machine to run. On the other hand you have Boom Blox, which is a very simple concept, requires no real emotional investment and could only be done on the Wii. Both are incredibly different and speak to different user bases, but both are a lot of fun to play.

I played GTA III and got to a point where I just didn't care about the main character any more. Wreaking mayhem was fun, but eventually got boring and the various control issues meant that I couldn't progress. It didn't help that there was so much to do, that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to spend my time doing. In GTA IV, you care about Niko Bellic from the beginning. He's just a guy who comes to Liberty City based on the boasts of his cousins, only to find out that his cousin is full of shit. Niko just wants to leave his old life behind and make a new one, only to find out that his new life is just as bad as the old one. You feel for the guy, and while his missions usually involve some sort of criminal undertaking, it doesn't feel like the wanton blood letting of previous installments. The game also has a much better learning curve this time, slowly bringing you into the thick of things before stuff gets too hairy.

The dating and various friends you can build relationships have the potential to get annoying, but at the same time, it's nice to take time in between missions and just tool around with a pretty girl on your arm. My time spent getting achievements have reined in my OCD somewhat so that I can focus on the various collection and racing and assassination missions all at one time, rather than get sidetracked by the various activities open to me. The driving is still annoying, however I've already learned how to weave through the streets without causing too much damage which helps when I need to make a fast exit. The GPS is genius, and makes a huge difference, as does the new wanted system. I don't know if the game is worth 10 out of 10, but so far I'm enjoying myself and when my phone rings, I look forward to whatever act of villainy I get to partake in.

Boom Blox is a casual gamer's dream. It's brightly lit, with lots of cute, domino shaped characters and has a very simple mechanic. Each stage starts with a tower or some other structure. There may be point blox or bomb blox, or chemical blox that blow up when they touch another chemical blox. By using the Wiimote to place the targeting reticle on a block and swinging the remote you launch a ball at the blox and try and knock down the tower. Some stages may require simply finding the weakest point and throwing with all of your might, while others may require a softer touch to knock some blox out of the way while not disturbing blox that take points away. Later stages have a Jenga feel to it where you use the Wiimote to pull blox out of the structure, or even more fun, pick a block up and swing it around as if it's connected to a rubber band, wrecking everything in sight.

Each stage has Bronze, Silver and Gold medals and they're usually based on either getting a certain point score with the limited number of balls you have to throw, or knocking down the entire structure with as few throws as possible. Holding down the B button allows you to move the camera around so that you can see the structure from all angles, however the lack of a zoom button can make it harder than it needs to be. For the most part though, it works really well.

Throwing the balls is a blast, and the game is pretty damn responsive when you have to change up your throwing speed to simply nudge a block, rather than knock it out of the park. My only complaint is that the physics can be a bit of a crap shoot some times. When you knock a tower down, you may have point blox or gem blox that fall onto the rubble, rather than the ground and don't get counted towards your score, so even though you may have knocked the whole thing down with one shot, you don't get the gold. Even when this happens, it's still fun to knock it down again, or tweak your initial strategy so that it blasts the whole thing to hell, so it's not that big of a deal.

Boom Blox is a game that you can pick up and play for 15 minutes and have a great time, but at the same time, the puzzles suck you in so that you can easily lose more time than that. GTA IV requires a much more substantial time sink unless you just want to drive around running people over, which gets boring pretty quickly. I don't know if you could play Boom Blox for hours at a time, like you could GTA IV, but who cares if you can't? Pick it up for 30 minutes, drop some towers, throw some bowling balls at rectangular sheep and call it a day. Then switch over to GTA IV, go out on a date, beat up some loansharks, do some stunt jumps and then watch some tv back at your apartment. Between the two of them, you'll have plenty of fun, and lots of different types of fun gaming moments. It's hard to go wrong with either one.

The Cold, Hard Truth

So I've been dieting this week as I need to lose almost 20 pounds and I've come to the realization that I absolutely hate dieting. I'm not sure anyone loves dieting, but to not be able to eat what I want sucks. Hard. Up until this week, I thought that dieting was my only option as I hate exercising too, however what this week has taught me is that my hatred for exercise is nothing compared to my hatred for watching what I eat.

As a result, it's time to put my exercise plan into motion. As we all know, I hate exercising because it's boring and with the limited free time I have, I don't want to spend it out playing the few sports I do enjoy like tennis or racquetball. Given that I like spending my free time playing video games, what if there were a way for me to exercise while playing games and not just Wii Fit? Enter the recumbent exercise bike.

I have room in my basement to put a recumbent bike in so that I can ride it while playing video games. Given that it's in the basement, it'll be out of the way so that I don't have to move it around unless Linda and I want to watch a movie. With a heart rate monitor to make sure I'm spending as much time pedaling as I do playing, there's no reason I can't bike for 45 minutes or so every evening. Looking up things on the laptop while playing will be a problem, but with the proper planning, I'm sure I can even mitigate those issues to a certain degree. I've already tested my plan out on various exercise bikes, and they all have wide enough seats to be able to sit, pedal and play without fear of falling out and injuring yourself.

Now, I'm not saying that with this plan I'll be able to eat what I want, as I've gotten into plenty of bad eating habits of late that have to stop, but hopefully spending more time exercising will mean less time counting calories. The only problem will be when I'm playing or have to review Wii games, as if there are any motion controls, I'll probably wipe out and break something. I'll have to figure something out for those times as I plan on playing Okami at some point and I don't want to explain to the emergency room doctor why I was waggling and driving at the same time.

I'll do my best to keep you up to date on my fitness progress, unless a) I don't stick with it or b) I exercise my ass off and don't lose weight. Then I'll just hide in shame.

New Top Ten List

It's been two weeks since GameShark's latest Top Ten list, and this time it's my turn. I return to fine form with the Top Ten Non-Shooter Shooters. Flame on!

Buying my Childhood Ten Dollars at a Time

The new Indiana Jones toys are out and while I hadn't planned on getting any of them, once I saw the set where Indy is trying to steal the idol from the beginning of Raiders, I couldn't resist.

While not canonical in that removing the idol didn't cause a bear trip to spear Indy's genitals, it is still a fun little toy. Pulling out the idol causes the "jaws" to spring shut, unless the bottom portion of the pedestal is rotated until it makes a clicking noise. If only Indy knew about this ahead of time, he could have saved himself a bunch of time and all that rock dodging.

The other toy in the line I'm interested is the Adventure Heroes set containing Belloq and a ghost from the Arc of the Covenant.

I find it hilarious that Belloq is so happy, what with the cheery ghost next to him is about to make his head explode. I guess if you haven't seen the movie, you'll think that they're about to shake their massive hands together and then go get a cream soda. Of course, if I buy it and then explain to people why I have it, I'll get more of the strange looks I've grown so accustomed to, so perhaps I'll skip it and just giggle in the toy aisle.

The World Ends With You

My review of The World Ends With You is up an this is a game that really has to be played for you to appreciate just how fantastic it is. If you read Penny Arcade, you'll know that Tycho is as in love with it as I am, and his posts go a long way towards explaining all the fun little quirks, more so than I could do in a review. You can check his take on it here and here.

On the one hand, I probably wouldn't have played it if I didn't have to review it, so I'm glad for the review, but on the other hand, having to rush through a game like this really does it a disservice. It should be explored and savored to really be enjoyed. Thankfully I still have tons of pins to evolve and items to buy and Noise to take out, so there's still a lot of enjoyment to be had.

Just to give you an idea of how much this game has seeped into my every day existence, today I read about how Nintendo just released a new channel for the Wii that will allow you to download game demos to your DS. As one of the ways to level up pins in TWEWY is to put the game in Mingle Mode and find another, any other, DS wireless signal, my immediate thought what that I can use my Wii to level up my pins. Demos? Fuck demos. I'm all about the pins baby.

All about the pins.

I'm on a roll, so I might as well just wrap up today's post now so that I have more time to play the mediocre slice of blasé pie that is Iron Man for the PSP. Yesterday my toy hunting was rewarded with both a Salvage and a Stealth Bumblebee. Stealth Bumblebee is a glorious toy. It's the new Camaro version, so it's a very stylish mold, and not so danged foot heavy as the beater Camaro version. The stealth version is yellow on black though, and with the translucent blue windows and the electric blue paint apps and the new head sculpt, it is one extremely pretty toy. He rocks he box with First Strike Optimus on the speaker in my home theatre room. Peep the gallery at Seibertron.com until I can get some pics up.

Salvage is interesting not only because he's a very nice repaint of Dropkick, one of my favorite new toys, but because of his character biography. Basically, he was a salvage truck until he was brought to life by the Allspark and now even though he's an Autobot and he's all for good and shit, he really just wants to go back to being a truck. I find that very interesting and very depressing at the same time. Assuming that he wasn't a sentient truck before being turned into a Transformer, he had no life at all, and then, once given life, he's immediately drawn into this conflict. That made me wonder if there is a class war of some sort between the Transformers from Cybertron that were Transformers pretty much from the start and the ones newly created on Earth. I mean, if my coffee table suddenly became sentient, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't give it equal say in various family matters. That got me thinking to how the new Transformers would pick sides once they became Transformers. On the face of things, the Decepticons turn into much more powerful vehicles, so they'd seem to have the advantage. And if you were, say a Ford Escort your whole life, and your owner treated you like shit, maybe you'd be pretty pissed and wouldn't want to save them from a life of enslavement. On the other hand, maybe you just like humans? That seems like the weaker of the two arguments. I don't know. All I do know is that if the 200 word character biography on the back of a toy can get me thinking that much, it's worth a purchase. I also know that I need to get out more and that I need to do some maintenance on my push mower because I've neglected that thing so much that if it comes alive it'll be looking to mulch my face off.

5th Adoption Day

Today marks the 5th anniversary of us adopting our son Ben. As per the usual, we went out for Orange Chicken at Panda Express and then got ice cream. What can I say? The boy loves his Orange Chicken.

Five years ago we went to court in Russia and told the judge that we were so concerned about the dry skin on my son's cheek that it warranted immediate medical attention. Yeah. Some situations call for exaggeration and this was one of them. It was either that or spend two weeks in Russia waiting for all of the paperwork to go through. You'd be surprised at what you'll say in court when facing the threat of spending another two weeks eating nothing but granola bars and rationing the bottled water for teeth brushing so that you don't get dysentery.

After we went to court, we were supposed to go back to the hotel, get some sleep and then pick Ben up the next day and go back to Moscow but instead they decided that we'd pick him right up and drive back to Moscow. Just to set the stage for this trip, driving in rural Russia is one of the scariest driving situations you'll be in. The roads are atrocious, and thin. Everyone drives about a billion miles an hour, and if there's a large truck on the road, your driver has no problem swinging out into the opposing lane, even if another truck in said lane is about to paste your ass. Driving in these conditions when it's just you is one thing, but driving in these conditions holding on to your new, seven month old son is something else entirely. I thought we were all going to die, and worse, that I just spent a boatload of money adopting a kid that was going to die with us. At one point I went in the back of the van to mix up Ben's bottle, our driver hit a pothole at Mach 5 and the formula literally exploded all over me. Nice. It's a good thing our driver couldn't speak English as he would have learned a new English word, that word being "fuckstick".

Once we got back to the hotel they dropped us off and left. Linda and I had discussed this in the past, and I had said that there was no way they would take two people who have never had a kid, give them an infant and just leave. Not only would they do that, but they did just that. While in the room, everyone was all smiles, including Ben but once we said goodbye to our coordinator and that door shut, Ben erupted. E-rupted. It didn't help that we forgot one of the basic ideas of feeding a baby, namely that cold formula doesn't cut it. Unfortunately we didn't rectify that little mental error until the next morning, so we were stuck trying to pacify a baby who had been perfect up until that point. Somehow we managed to get him calmed down, get him fed and cleaned up his incredibly stanky person.

Then we rode in an elevator with a prostitute.

I'm not kidding about that last part. All of the adoption books we read about adopting from Russia mentioned that the hotel we were staying at had lots and lots of prostitutes that hung out in the hotel lounge in the evening. True enough, this place was packed with hookers. We decided to take Ben for a walk down in the lobby, forgetting this fact, and rode down with a hooker and her john. I'm assuming he was a john, because if he wasn't, girlfriend had a fetish for the dentally impaired. While we're going down in the elevator, the hooker kept talking to Ben in Russian. It was all very odd. I'm sure she was a very nice person, but I'd just as soon not have a hooker be one of the first people our son hangs out with upon being adopted. I'm kind of old fashioned that way.

There are other stories to tell, but those can wait for another time. For now, I'm happy he joined our family and glad that I never have to go back to Russia. Four times was enough, thank you very much. As far as I know, I've never ridden in an elevator with another prostitute, however I'm not in the habit of asking that of those I'm riding with. I may not know a lot, but I know that much.

One Year of Binky

Hard to believe that I've been working for GameShark for over a year now, but it's true. To commemorate this glorious anniversary, today's Mr. Binky column makes fun of everything about being a game reviewer. Enjoy.

What I Learned on Summer Vacation

As I mentioned before, I was planning on writing this multi-day post talking all about our trip when I mentioned it to Linda and her response was to ask me if anyone cared that much. I'm thinking probably not, as if my own wife, who was there, doesn't care, then you probably won't either. Instead, I'll summarize our trip in today's post, bullet point style. Shazam! So, without further ado, here's what I learned on my summer vacation.

• The Texas landscape is like nothing I've ever seen. You'll be driving along and it's all flat, but it's not farm land, it's just grass, with occasional lines of trees. There's land every where that appears to not being used for anything. Maybe cows graze there, but there aren't any crops. Then you get to Austin and suddenly there are huge hills with houses built into them. What the hell? Where the hills came from, I have no idea. Suddenly they were just there.
• Texas highways are similarly weird. You'll have a long stretch of interstate with nothing on both sides but the aforementioned crazy land. Then one or two lanes will appear, as if from nowhere, on both sides of the interstate, running parallel to the highway, populated with strip malls, restaurants and various big box stores. Then, just as quickly as they arrived, the lanes are gone. Most highways I've driven on, you can see the stores from the highway, but you still have to pull off of the highway and drive a little to get there. Not so in Texas.
• The County Line, of Austin BBQ fame, has good brisket, but my brisket is better. I'm not saying, I'm just saying. Their smoked sausage, on the other hand, single handedly provides a reason for pigs to live. It was the best smoked sausage I've ever had. Their pecan pie is a work of genius as well. It's a deep dish pie with just the right amount of sweetness to it and a crust so light and buttery you'd think it was made from buttered photons. Were I able to go back in time, I'd get the smoked sausage platter and two slices of pie.
• Texas pecans are wonderful. I couldn't eat enough of them. Texas pecans combined with caramel until they're the size of a baby's fist and then covered in chocolate cures all that ails you, unless what ails you is an allergy to chocolate and nuts, at which point they'll probably kill you.
• The Hyatt Lost Pines Resort and Spa is a fantastic place to stay with beautiful grounds and impeccable service. Every person you come across at this place is super nice and very cheerful. Plus, the place has an adult only pool, so after spending some time lazily drifting down the "river" that cuts through the pools you can retire to the adult pool and get away from the kids that no doubt, annoyed the crap out of you while you were drifting. Plus, they have s'mores every night from 7 - 9 so after a day of walking around the trails and avoiding snakes and poison ivy, you can gorge yourself on more chocolate.
• San Antonio is kind of gross. The River Walk is nice, but once you've done it, there's no reason to stick around. Well, there wasn't any reason for us. Frankly, I was a little scared.
• Austin is nicer than San Antonio, but it seems that Austin is a better city at night, what with all of the clubs. The green space along the river is nice, but there's a lot of construction going on at the moment, so it kind of ruins the mood. The state capitol is nice, until you get to the huge statue celebrating those that died fighting for the Confederacy, I'm sorry for "state's rights". I'm all for state's rights, until it's the right to own another human being as a piece of property. Then I think you can shove your statue up your ass.
• There is an Irish pub in Austin called Fadó, which, unbeknownst to us, is a chain restaurant. Whatever. They poured a perfect Guinness and my fish and chips was off the chain. After walking in the hot Austin sun for a couple of hours, the Guinness went down smooth as silk.
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall is way funny.
• Central time is somewhat offputting. I don't know how people in that time zone watched TV prior to VCR's or DVR's. Getting everything done by 7 so that you can watch prime time is a bit of a pain in the ass. When do they play video games?
• If you eat so much over your trip so that you're never hungry, you tend to not appreciate your meals as much, however you appreciate your snacks more. Odd.
• If you've been driving with a GPS for the past year, you lose all ability to read a map. At this point, paying 50 bucks to get a GPS in the rental is better than continually getting lost, possibly leading to fights with your spouse. Just buck up, admit that you have no idea where you're going, and rent the damn GPS.
  

That's all I can remember at the moment. I'll cover the Atlanta part of the trip as well as the Springsteen concert later on this week. All in all, we had a great time. It was very relaxing and wonderful to eat when we wanted to, not be back at any special time and generally just relax. It was tough to come home, but I think I'm all adjusted by now. If I could just get more of those pecans, I'd be perfect.

I Almost Forgot

It's the first of May. We all know what that means.

The Things That Carried Him

Esquire magazine has an excellent piece up called "The Things That Carried Him" about a fallen soldier's final trip home from Iraq.

It is a very well reported and well written piece however it is also gut wrenching to read and I came to tears several times while reading it. It has stuck with me all day today and at times, I well up just thinking about it. That being said, it absolutely deserves your attention. Regardless of your position on the war, the fact remains that there are plenty of people responsible for ensuring that our fallen military members make it home with dignity and respect, and the burden that these people take on, willingly in many cases, to try and lessen the grief of others is commendable. Obviously, I'd love for every one of those people to not have these kind of jobs to do, but sadly, they have plenty of work, and I'm sure that every family member left behind appreciates their efforts. I know that I do.

It's easy, as you go about your day and the coffee machine is on the fritz, or you have some bullshit meeting to attend, to be up in arms about your situation. We all have off days, Lord knows I've had more than my fair share, however when I read something like this it helps put things in perspective. I mean, we're all allowed to have crappy days, but my crappy day would be nothing compared to what some of these people see on an hourly basis. Similarly, it's hard to not feel anything but grief for the family left behind by the soldier at the focus of the article. Sure, my kids bug the crap out of me at time, but I still have them, can still hug them and love them and be bugged by them. To imagine that loss is harrowing.

Any way, it's a tough piece to read, but it's well worth it, if only to get an understanding of the many men and women who are there for the members of our military, and their families, should a soldier fall.

Sloth > Neglect

I swear I'm not avoiding your or ignoring you on purpose. Getting back into the swing of things from my vacation is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Getting my vacation stories into a set of coherent thoughts is also taking longer. I go back and forth between doing it all in one post, or doing a week of posts to follow the week of vacation. I'm leaning towards the latter as then I can be creative. Perhaps I'll start on Saturday. I also have photos to share, but that would mean that I have to upload them and that requires actual effort. It doesn't help that I have a ton of game writing to do as well and including a Mr. Binky column for which I currently don't have an idea.

On that note, Mr. Binky has been reduced to a monthly schedule due to less than stellar traffic, so if you read it and you enjoy it, pass the links on to others, or at least travel around town and read the column from many different computers.

Before leaving for my vacation I ordered the deluxe, remastered version of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American. Usually I'm not down with these types of reissues, but I absolutely love this album and the notion of an entire disc of live tracks and b-sides really appealed to me. It was delivered to me this past Saturday and did not disappoint.

First of all, they brought back the original title, which is a good thing. The album was released after 9-11 so they changed it from Bleed American to Jimmy Eat World. Given that the former is also a track on the record, and a damn good one at that, it makes sense that the original title be brought back. Plus, the band is a lot more popular now, so a self titled album isn't as necessary. The songs all sound great, as you'd expect and while I can't speak to the remasteredness of it all, I'm sure the engineers did a wonderful job.

This album holds a special place in my heart because it's the album that allowed me to discover the band, and I hold Jimmy Eat World as one of my absolute favorites. I tend to relate more to the songs on Futures but for balls to the wall, rocking out, it's hard to go wrong with Bleed American. Plus, these songs sound great live, so listening them brings me back to when I saw the band in Atlanta. The live tracks included as extras sound great, as do the b-sides, including their fantastic cover of Wham!'s "Last Christmas". Usually I can only listen to that song during the month of December due to our strict policy of Christmas music only at Christmas, however with this set, I can listen to it whenever I want to and Linda won't know. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Bottom line is that it's a fantastic reissue of a seminal album from one of the best bands working today. The extras are well worth it, so for 24 bucks, it's hard to go wrong. What a dizzy dance indeed.

Mind Still on Vacation

The body has returned from vacation, but the mind is still languishing at the lovely Hyatt Lost Pines Resort and Spa. My spirit cries for release from the toil and drudgery of my normal life, which is all the more depressing, seeing how I won't be taking a vacation any time soon.

*sigh*

At least I have The World Ends With You to play on the DS. This game has gripped me like no game since Puzzle Quest which says a tremendous amount about the game and about how much my wife would like to break my DS into a million little pieces. I bring my DS with me everywhere now, not so that I can eke out a few minutes of pin driven psychic combat on the go, but because I fear for its safety while I'm at work. Had you seen the looks I got while playing God of War for the PSP, the staccato of button presses the ever present soundtrack to our evenings, you'd understand what I'm talking about.

At any rate, I have a lot to talk about including, but not limited to:

• The World Ends With You
• The recent two cd reissue of Bleed American
• My vacation

I want to make sure I give all of these topics the time they deserve, so I have to make sure I gather my thoughts correctly, while at the same time, not spend so much time gathering them that I forget what I did on vacation and then try and tell you that I spent a week riding humongous, mutant armadillos in the war against the Mole Men of Shak Al'Dur. I can assure you that my vacation was nowhere near that interesting. I also have to balance the need for posting with the need to play The World Ends With You as I am playing this game in an official, reviewing capacity as well as for fun and that means that I have a deadline.

Perhaps a leather bound organizer is in order or at the very least, a Trapper Keeper.

At any rate, I'd say that it's good to be back, but I find that lying to my readers causes trust issues. Instead I'll say that I don't hate being back as much as I'd hate being punched in the kidneys.

On Skiing and Vacations

First things first. This is the last guaranteed post for at least a week as Saturday I am officially on vacation. I may post while on vacation, but don't make waiting for a post an integral part of your day as you will indubitably be let down. Come to think of it, that's not much different from any other day of the week. I will regale you of tales from the middle of our great nation upon my return. Right now the plan is to eat a lot and sleep a lot while on vacation, and not do much else, so I can't say that my vacation stories will be all that exciting. Again, not much different from any other day of the week.

Yesterday when speaking of Wii Fit, I mentioned that I don't ski and that there was a story there for another time. Well, lucky for you, that time is now.

When Linda and I were both in graduate school, we both worked in the university's health center. This was the doctor's offices that the students could go to when they had the flu, or needed to be tested for the venereal disease du jour. We worked there with Linda's mom, as well as some other students, including a guy named Brian. Brian was the quintessential all-American guy. He was good looking, could wear cowboy boots without looking like an idiot and had a slight drawl to his voice that made the ladies swoon. All of the women, and I mean all of the women, at the health center absolutely loved him, and on top of it all he was actually a very nice guy, so it was hard to not like him, even when every ounce of attention went his way once you entered the room with him. Brian gave Linda the nickname "Linda-Lou" which I use to this day.

Along with Brian, I had also struck up a friendship with one of the administrators at the health center and one day she offered to take Linda, Brian and I skiing along with her and her kids. I was a little hesitant, as I was the only person going who didn't know how to ski, having never been. Despite growing up in upstate NY, with several mountains within a couple of hours of me, skiing was something I never got into. For one, I wasn't one of the Ski Club kids in high school. I wasn't cool, as they all were, I didn't have the money to pay for the trips, and invariably I worked on Friday nights, so Ski Club wasn't really an option. As no one in my family skied either, save my sister who used the Ski Club trips as an opportunity to socialize so she really didn't count, the activity was one I was able to safely ignore up until my early 20's. Linda and Brian both had ski experience though, and they promised me that it would be easy to learn and that I'd have a great time.

Either they underestimated the difficulty of learning to ski or they overestimated my ability to coordinate myself with two boards strapped to my feet, but skiing was a far cry from being easy to learn. Simple movement was an issue, and even on the slightest of runs, I was unable to go more than five feet before my toes would point inwards and I'd tumble over, or simply stop with no way to get back going. Linda tried to teach me and between our mutual frustration with each other, things didn't go all that well. Eventually Brian stepped in and for whatever reason, be it him just explaining things differently, or me just finally learning how to coordinate my unresponsive muscles, I started to get the hang of things.

By "get the hang of things" I mean that I could go to the top of the run, ski down without hitting anything, and manage to turn myself so that I could stop. Usually before I slammed into the equipment rack, but not all of the time. Given how long it had taken me to get to this point, simply making it down the run at all, much less without serious injury, was enough to keep me happy, but Linda and Brian were no doubt tired of the same boring, beginner level skiing and wanted a chance to tackle something lengthier and more challenging.

Now, if ever I were to tell you this story while in the company of my wife, this is where the story would diverge. I would tell you Linda and Brian wanted to go on a longer run and told me that it wouldn't be hard for me to do, so I should come with them. Linda would tell you that it was my idea to take the longer run, which, given how the story has gone up to this point paints me as either incredibly adventurous or completely out of my mind. I am, and was, neither. I don't know why my wife remembers this story so incorrectly, no doubt an effort by her subconscious to assuage her guilt in instilling in me a life long fear of snow sports, but nevertheless, her memory of the events are wrong.

The first thing that tipped me off to the fact that this new, longer run would not be the piece of cake it was promised to be, was the fact that we had to ride the ski lift up to the beginning of the run. About half way up the mountain, I looked ahead of me and could not see more than ten chairs ahead of me, so tall was the mountain, so thick was the fog. I looked behind me and couldn't see more than ten chairs behind me. This was the second thing that led me to believe that things were not going to go well.

The top of the mountain was chaos. The snow machines were running at full tilt, and made a horrible, wailing dirge. Snow was blowing everywhere and between the snow, and the fog, it was hard to see much. I quickly got off of the chair, no doubt falling on my face in the process, and we moved away from the machine so that you didn't have to scream at the top of your lungs to be understood. Linda and Brian brought me over to the top of the run, and pointed down to where we'd be skiing.

I don't scare easily. I'm not particularly brave, I just don't scare easy, no doubt because I'm not smart enough to contemplate the level of danger ahead of me, but when I looked down this run, I got scared. Fellow skiers where streaking down the mountain so not only would I have to contend with my own lack of skills, but I'd also have to hope that they didn't run into me, or I into them, no doubt causing severe bodily harm to both of us.

Not having any other way to get down the mountain, I pushed off and was on my way. Immediately I headed sideways, towards the edge of the trail, rather than down the mountain. I don't know if it was the setting, or just my fear magnified or what, but the stopping I was able to do earlier in the day eluded me, and as I headed to the edge of the trail, I had no recourse but to hurl myself into the snow and hope for the best. I landed, stopped, and peered over the edge to see an almost sheer drop down into snow, trees and certain death. That, as they say, was that.

Even if had wanted to get back up and ski, my body simply would not listen to my brain. It knew better even if I didn't, and wanted nothing to do with continuing this farce. Linda and Brian came over to encourage me to get back up and I told them, probably rather impolitely, that I would have no further part in this hell spawned sport. I crab walked down the entire mountain, skiis on my feet. It was only when I realized that I had reached the entrance to the beginner's run I had skied on earlier that I got back up and skied down to the bottom. Upon reaching the end of the line, I promptly removed my skis, removed my boots, and went into the lodge, never to ski, never even wanting to ski again.

It might not seem like much, and I'm sure that I'm not retelling it in a way that conveys the full extent of noise, fear and confusion that was present when I pushed off of that larger run, but I can tell you, unequivocally, that in my 35 years on this planet, I have never been so scared, so utterly terrified as I was when I looked over that edge and realized that I could have plummeted over it. It's entirely possible that the totality of the experience magnifies in my memory just how big the drop was, and if I were to go see it now, I'd laugh at being scared over such a thing, but regardless, you'll never get me back up on a ski run. Not for nothing. I'd be happy to go in the lodge, sip warm beverages and play whatever handheld I bring with me, possibly both, as others carve and jump all the live long day, but these feet have worn their last pair of ski boots, and these hands have held their last pair of poles. From here on out, it's all SSX and balance boards.

It's odd to have something that I'm this afraid of, and even stranger that the thing is "skiing" and not "bears"or "death by immolation" but regardless, I'm afraid of skiing, and I don't see it changing any time soon. The very fact that I live in the south makes it that much more difficult, yet not impossible, for me to go skiing, and there's no interest on either of our parts to expose the kids to it, so I think I can safely tuck this phobia away, never to have to face it again. Should you be the type of person who enjoys skiing, and enjoys bringing new skiers with you, be sure to let them ski at their own pace, or at least get them good and drunk before taking them on the longer runs. Too, watch out for the flaming bears. Those fuckers can be terrifying.

Wii Fit

I preordered Wii Fit today, partially because I'm reviewing it, and partially because I am physically incapable of letting a Nintendo peripheral enter the market without buying it. It is a sickness and I readily admit it.

I was originally interested when Wii Fit was first announced as the various mini games sounded like they could be fun, but mostly because I want to try my hand at yoga (don't laugh). My pathetic attempts at trying at home are always met with "am I doing this correct, because it sure doesn't feel that way". Now, I could go take a class some place, but that would require that I actually leave the house and that ain't gonna happen. That's not to say that the yoga I'll be doing with Wii Fit is anything like real yoga, but it's exercise, of which I am currently doing none. For the ten days after I get it, I'm guaranteed to do it every night, no doubt making my fat ass Mii very happy, but it's anyone's guess how much I'll do it after that. I'm going to try and do it at least every other day, if only for 30 minutes or so, but we'll see how it goes.

I don't exercise because I don't enjoy it, and because I enjoy doing other things more. If Wii Fit is fun there's a better chance I'll stick with it. Bottom line is that I need to lose weight as I've collected a fair amount around my middle section and various, recent medical studies have shown that belly fat is responsible for pretty much every bad thing in the world, from bad breath to impoverished nations and I'll be damned if my gut kills another kitten.

I'm more excited for We Ski the upcoming skiing game used with the balance board. It's only 30 bucks, and it has something like 70 runs and over 200 pieces of equipment you can get for your Mii. I am deathly afraid of skiing, a story for another time, so this game will allow me to hit the slopes, and get a little exercise out of it. That combination of gaming and activity is exactly what I need to try and get a little more exercise under my ever lengthening belt. If the upcoming Don King boxing game ends up using the balance board well, I'd consider it too despite the game sharing a name with one of the most odious men in professional sports.

I have a feeling that this thing is going to sell through the roof, which means that everyone and their mother will start getting fit, or there will be a whole slew of nice, white monitor stands out there. I hope to use mine to better effect and maybe lose a pound or ten. Granted, it's going to take more than just a fancy balance board and some games. I have to make a commitment as well, but knowing the type of lazy person that I am, anything that can blend exercise and gaming has a better change of holding my interest than just straight up exercise. Soon I'll be a svelte, sexy, gaming beast and then I can go back to my slothful ways. Baconators for all!

Pocket Twos

Here it is, the long awaited poker tale. It's not that exciting, so try not to get too, well, excited.

So I play cards at a coworkers house on a semi-regular (roughly every month) basis. I am by no means a good card player and I consider any night where I make it to the buy back cut off without having to buy back in, a whopping success. I know just enough about cards to know when I'm not making a good move, yet be powerless to stop myself.

The last time I played, it was just myself, my host and another coworker as his other invitees decided to do something else with their time. Usually I'd balk at the idea of playing with just two other people, but I had taken the time to drive to his house, so why not do it? Plus, it's only ten bucks to buy in, so it's not like I stood to lose copious amounts of cash.

Now, here's the thing about me and cards. I have a tendency to only bet when I have good cards, because I'm afraid of losing my chips. I know that this is a bad thing, because anyone who plays with me knows that if I'm betting, I probably have something good. I decided this night to change things up and to spend a little in the hopes that a) I'd catch something on the board and b) not making myself so predictable. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of hands where I'd lay down without making a bet because I had utter shit, but it was a lot less than I usually do.

So the night progresses and I'm doing ok. I had caught some good cards, won some stacks, lost some stacks, the usual. All in all, I was doing about even. My looser style of play seemed to be doing well as I was having more fun because I was in more hands, and I hadn't lost in a big way that might scare me off, or cause me to be real conservative out of betting necessity. Still though, I didn't feel like I was in a position to win. I was playing to not lose, and eventually, I thought that wouldn't work.

As I was thinking about this, the next hand is dealt and I look at my cards, and staring back in my face is pocket twos. A pair of deuces. The worst hand you can have and still technically have a working combination of cards. I don't know why, but for some reason, I said to myself, "We are staying in this hand. No, fuck that. We are winning this hand with pocket twos." Not sure why I chose to listen to myself, but I did.

So the pre-flop betting commences, and there's nothing all that big being thrown about and I match whatever is out there. The flop comes and it's something like 7-J-9. After the flop, there was a little betting movement, but nothing substantial.

The turn comes and it's another 9. Now at this point, even with pocket twos, I could still be beaten very easily as every other card showing would beat my two pair, which said nothing if my opponents were holding on to one of the other 9's. I don't remember when my one co-worker folded, but I believe at this point it was just me and the host and he starts putting stacks into the pot. He's a big bluffer, so I wasn't sure if he was bluffing or not, but given the earlier conversation with myself, I knew that folding was not an option.

So I call, and the next card comes and son of a bitch, ain't it another two. At this point, I could have crapped myself. My opponent starts throwing more money into the pot, and I start calling him, despite his objection. He had this mind game thing he was doing where he'd say shit like "are you sure you want to do that" when you called him. Very annoying. So he's feeling all smug and shit when I dump my chip into the pot and he turns over his cards, revealing a pair of Jacks. Not bad, especially given what was on the board. I took one look at him, turned over my cards and exclaimed "Pocket two's bitches!" As exultations go, it was lame, I know, but I was pretty freaking happy.

I went on to win the entire match on pocket 8's, but that's another story for another time. After I won, my other co-workers said that the pocket two's was the turning point in the game for me, and I had to agree with him. At the end of the evening, I was 40 bucks richer and had drank two shots of my host's Patron, so all in all, not a bad night.

As I drove home, I started thinking about how stupid a play it was, but at the same time, sometimes you have to go with the stupid plays and just hope that you catch that last card. At the risk of turning this into a stupid "how life imitates cards" bullshit story, at the same time, I was thinking about how Linda and I started off together.

About three or four months before we got married, we decided to move to Seattle, WA. I had visited there on business and absolutely loved the place. Neither one of us were doing anything that was region specific and because of my business trip and the university I was working for, I had some contacts at Boeing that I could try and leverage for a job.

Now you have to remember that this was back in 1996. The internet wasn't as freely available as it is now, so planning something like this was a pretty big task, especially with no jobs and no idea of how to get a job. Nevertheless, we flew out to Seattle, found an apartment and I interviewed with Boeing. They told me at the interview that they'd like to offer me a job right there and that was that. Now, we had planned on moving anyway, and just assuming we could find a job, and truth be told, being told that someone would like to offer you a job, and actually getting a job offer are two entirely different things, so for us to quit our current jobs and move 3000 miles across the country on something not much more than a whim, was kind of silly.

There are about a hundred things that could have gone wrong there, the biggest being that we would be moving about two months after being married and that neither one of us had lived very far from our parents before. Oh sure, we didn't live at home during college, but when your mom is 15 minutes away, or you can stop at your parents' house on the weekend and grab dinner, it's a very different situation from living across the country from them.

In the end, everything worked out great and making the move, and having the first few years of our marriage being about nothing other than just being together, and learning about a new place as just the two of us, was probably the best thing we could have done. We bet the house on pocket twos, and came up big.

Now that we're older with kids and much better jobs and just a larger set of responsibilities in general, doing something like that again would be much, much harder. Not impossible, but a hell of a lot more effort than I'd be willing to spend at the moment. Thankfully, I don't have to, as I'm very happy where we are, as is Linda, but at the same time, it was such an exciting, exhilarating time that I do miss it. Not the moving, or the starting from scratch, but the ability to do so, the freedom that comes with you just being responsible for yourself and one other person. That being said, I wouldn't give up what I have now for anything, but I am glad that we were stupid enough to bet our hand so highly, confident in the fact that we'd catch just what we needed to win.

For now though, I'll stick to cards, and ten dollar card nights at that. As I've gotten older, winning 40 bucks in one night is probably all the excitement I can handle.

You Know the Drill

Another Tuesday, another Mr. Binky. Blah, blah, blah. It seemed funnier when I wrote it, however after reading it again, I'm pretty sure it sucks. Oh well.

The Rhythm Did, In Fact, Get Me

I apologize for the terse post this evening but alas, the siren song
of live music beckoned and I answered her willowy call. Tonight I am
taking in the gothic, folk wonder that is "Iron & Wine". Notice I
said "gothic" as in old, southern mansions and not "goth" as in boys
with eyeliner wearing black, entirely too tight jeans.

It seems like just a few weeks ago I was in this very place seeing
Jonathan Coulton. Oh wait, I was. Tonight should be a much different
affair with less comedy and fewer references to zombies but just as
much raw talent. The zombie thing is an assumption on my part. I&W's
earlier work may be entirerly based on the undead. I'll let you know
if that ends up being the case.

List-a-rific

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday, but I was sunburned and tired and didn't want to do anything involving thinking.

Today you can peruse my Top Ten list at GameShark.com. It's all about tough achievements, or something. I don't know. I just write what they pay me to.

In other news, Wingblade is en route to my house as we speak. Oh the times we'll have!

Yard Report, Day 1

The first day of our working vacation was a smashing success.

Linda and I cleared out various sections of the backyard of leaves and weeds and put down landscape fabric and pine straw. The pine straw is so that things look nice, the lansdcape fabric is so that the weeds realize that their place is underground, where they can't pervert the sun's rays for their foul purposes. We got a lot more done than I expected so tomorrow is nothing but pine straw spreading fun, with just a smidge more fabric installation.

Exciting stuff.

I was also able to make a most tasty brisket while we worked. When I first started smoking, I was pretty dang anal about making sure that the temperature of the smoker didn't get outside of a particular range. Since then I've learned to be far less anal as the taste ends up being the same, there's just a lot less work. Oh sure, if the smoker gets up to 300 degrees, you'll probably want to do something about it, as I had to today (the water pan was running dry) but other than that, I'm all for just letting it do it's thing and just make minor adjustments if things are getting too hot or too cold. The brisket is much spicier than I imagined so the kids won't want any part of it, but other than that, it's pretty damn tasty. Makes me long for the joy that is pulled pork. I just don't think I'm up for an overnight cook any time soon. Them shoulders take a hell of a long time to cook.

Soon Linda and I will be deep in the heart of Texas on our vacation and I can have some authentic Texas brisket. At that point, my joy will be unbridled.

Mini-Vacation

Tomorrow we start our vacation before our vacation. This is a working vacation though as our yard has fallen into a horrible state of disrepair and trying to get any appreciable amount of yard work done while in the company of a three year old and a five year old is like trying to teach a dog to fold clothes. I have high hopes that we'll be able to get a lot accomplished, and if we don't, I'm making a brisket while we work, so if the yard still ends up looking like shit, at least we'll have smoked meat to feast upon.

So far the only snag is that we were supposed to order pine straw to be spread upon our landscape beds and we kind of, well, forgot. Hopefully we can finagle some sort of same day delivery, or I'll be driving around in a van that reeks of the forest primeval. Thankfully there's plenty of work to do even without spreading the pine straw. Thank heavens for small miracles, and neglectful home owners.

Various Bits of Media

I've had a story called "Pocket Twos" rattling around in my head since last week when I went to a coworkers house and won the night's poker match. Perhaps one day I'll actually write it. It's not all that interesting, and certainly the last thing this world needs is another cards as real life story, but I'll still probably subject you to it in due time anyway. You don't need to plan your schedule around it or anything, but know that soon you will be accosted with yet another bout of poor writing by yours truly.

If you've spent any appreciable amount of time at this site, you well know how much I love the rock. Not Dwayne Johnson, although he does seem like a fine fellow, but instead the raw, blistering, healing power of the rock and the roll. Folks, if you love rock as much as I do, then you really need to buy the new Muse live CD/DVD set, HAARP. I had heard Muse a bunch on XM and "Knights of Cydonia" is pretty much the only reason to buy Guitar Hero III so when I saw that they had a live CD/DVD set coming out, I was mildly interested. I'm a sucker for a good live show, even if it's from a band who's discography I own nothing from, and a quick perusal of the band's MySpace page further stoked my interest. I bought the set this weekend, and folks, I'm here to tell you that these dudes can kick some shit out. The concert is a total blast, and a real feast for the eyes and ears. These guys can fucking play, the crowd was totally into it, and the camera work is top notch. If you are finding yourself dangerously low on rock, get thee to a record store and pick this one up. You won't be disappointed.

On the movie side, I recently watched the French horror movie Frontière(s) and all I can say is "meh". Imagine that someone watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hostel and The Descent and then sat down to write a movie and this is what they'd come up with. Some thieves flee Paris after some elections, why this is important I have no idea, but they made a huge deal about it, only to come across a family of cannibalistic neo-Nazis. Poor decision making abounds, people die and the main character, Yasmin, becomes the "wife" of the family's new patriarch. Unfortunately, she took all of her acting cues from Saw and displayed some of the worst over acting I've ever seen. Granted, I can't begin to imagine what someone in her shoes would act like, but mute shaking probably isn't it. At least not shaking, while mute and staggering around bow legged and arms outstretched. If you came in on the film while watching her stumble around, you would think it was a zombie movie, and a bad one at that. I don't consider it a complete waste of time, as it gave me something to write about tonight, but at the same time, if you see it on your shelf, or in your online video store of choice, just know that you're not getting anything terribly imaginative. If you're ok with that and really just want to see some neo-Nazis chow down on some annoying twenty-somethings, I guess there's worse movies you could see. I can't imagine that many movies fit that particular description, but I am hopelessly out of touch with modern horror movies, so perhaps there are plenty.

Battlestar Galactica started back up and all I can say is "wheeeeee!" Now all I hope is that we get the final season as one nice package, and not spread out over several years as SciFi tries to figure out how to make another good show. Here's a hint, it doesn't have a Mansquito in it.

In rock gaming related news, I am continuing to enjoy the hell out of Rock Band. I'm about a third of the way through the vocals tour on Hard, and this is when the rubber hits the road people and you find that you're not nearly as good as you thought you were. Better here than on Expert where nothing but bitter shame and embarrassment await. I'd like to know how it is that I can get three stars on "Black Hole Sun", and just barely at that, and then drop five stars on "Dani California" without even thinking about it, as "Dani" seems to me to be the harder of the songs, but what do I know. I was also able to rock "Don't Look Back in Anger" to the tune of five stars on my very first try, so clearly I have no idea what's going on. "Dirty Little Secret" is also nothing but a thing as I can do five stars on it, to the tune of about 95% complete on Expert. There are many things I would consider myself, but possible front man of an All-American Rejects tribute band is not one of them. This game clearly thinks otherwise. I still say that for the money, no game gets me as pumped up and just overjoyed at being a part of gaming like this game. Kicking out a five star performance on any instrument, but particularly vocals is hugely satisfying. Add to this the face that they actually know how to support the game and offer new songs and you have a game that you could conceivably, play until the Gods of Rock call us home. All they needs are downloadable albums to make the experience complete and I'll be a happy man. That is until Rock Band 2, which better have the Band World Tour mode over Live or I'm going to smack someone. Possibly you. It's nothing personal.

That's it for today kiddies. Be good.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

So I'm playing Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for GameShark and I'm about half way into it. Having never played a Ninja Gaiden game before, I wasn't sure what to expect. The only thing I knew about these games before playing this one was that the one on the Xbox was horrendously difficult. Thankfully, the difficulty is ramped way down for this one.

The stylus only control is nice, however it's not as elegant as it was in Phantom Hourglass. That being said, it is cool as hell to make Ryu jump in the air and then just by drawing a few strokes, slash the crap out of your enemies. It's not as precise as I'd like it to be, and too many times, a sword stroke will be translated as a movement, causing me to leave a room I didn't want to leave. It's not that I don't want to be rude to whatever monsters were throwing me a tea party, more that if you leave before killing everyone and then reenter the room, you have to fight them all over again. Bummer.

Honestly, it kind of feels like a poor man's God of War: Chains of Olympus. Maybe it's because God of War looked so good and controlled so well to then play something that doesn't look as good (although admittedly, it looks pretty good for the DS) and doesn't control nearly as well, it's a bit of a let down. If I hadn't played God of War, my opinion might be different, but maybe not. With God of War, I didn't want to put the PSP down, with this game, I'm good for about an hour, and then I'm ready to do something else. We'll see if my opinions change as I progress. I need to be done with it by middle of next week, so you won't have to wait that long to find out. Try and find something to do to pass the time.

Auction Results

The auction for Child's Play ended today and I'm glad to report that the winning bid came in at a whopping 100 bucks. That is well over what I hoped it would bring in, so I'm super thrilled that it was as successful as it was.

True to form, once I received payment, I made a payment of 100 dollars to Child's Play. Hopefully they can use the cash to get some kids some cool ass toys.

This whole charity auction thing is a bunch of fun and I'm already thinking of what I can do for the next one. Depending on who comes to DragonCon, I may be able to score some good autographed stuff to put on sale. Don't worry, I also have non-DragonCon related ideas, I just need to get my ass in gear and get to work.

I wanted to give a big thanks to the following people for helping with the auction:

• Thanks to everyone on my XBLF gaming message board for getting the bidding started and for ensuring that at the minimum, I'd bring in 25 bucks.
• Thanks to CheapyD at CheapAssGamers.com for posting about the auction and for bidding on it.
• Thanks to Bry at the JonathanCoulton.com forums for being so supportive and for keeping the auction on everyone's minds.
• Thanks to Bill Harris and Bill Abner for posting about the auction on their personal sites.
• Thanks to Hodge who stood in line and bought JoCo merchandise for us while I got the coveted autograph.
• Finally, thanks to Jonathan Coulton for being so supportive and for taking the time to chat and provide the autograph.

If you took time out of your day to check out and bid on the auction, thanks to you too. If you didn't, go to hell.

Kidding!

Mr. Bleh-nky

A new Mr. Binky is available today. It's by no means my best work. In fact, saying "best" connotes that it's any good at all, which I don't think it is. It seemed like a good idea in my head, but once I got started, it didn't quite work out. When these things happen, you can either scrap the idea and try something new or keep working in the hopes that everything works out. I tried the latter and should have done the former. I apologize dear reader, and will work to do better in the future.

The Glory of the Tubes

As I have grown older, I have acquired a fondness for t-shirts that is bordering on the insane. My favorite place for shirts is TopatoCo.com which originally started as the place for all your fine WIGU and Overcompensating t-shirts, but has since morphed into a free for all bonanza of excellent clothing bits. My two favorite shirts, "The Monkey Represents Sharing" and "Dr. Monkey Knows What You Did" are from TopatoCo.

Because I love these shirts so much, and because they represent a certain geek cachet, I usually wear them to my various geek gatherings, such as the Frontalot show and more recently, the Jonathan Coulton concert.

Imagine my surprise, when looking through the referrer logs for the site, I found that my picture of me and JoCo had been added to the TopatoCo photostream on Flikr. It's kind of odd to see yourself represented on the internet in a manner that you didn't expect, but at the same time, once shit is out there for all to see, it's out there. That being said, I don't care, and if it shows people that wearing TopatoCo merchandise means you get to hang out with cool-ass musicians, then I'm all for it. Now I just have to figure out a way to submit my picture with Frontalot and we'll be all set.

Knife Skills, Or the Lack Thereof

While making dinner tonight I learned yet again that years of constantly cutting the tip of my left thumb off has left said thumb essentially pain and blood free. You think I'm kidding, but I was chopping up bacon for my bacon cheeseburgers and I got a bit too close to my thumb. Whoopsie, there went the tip with a chunk of nail to go with it. No pain, no blood, just me pulling a big chunk of my DNA out of tonight's dinner. I've done it plenty of times before, particularly when peeling vegetables, but this was bigger than usual. I was kind of surprised to see that I didn't have to throw the bacon out due to added, unwanted plasma. Either I have to work on my knife skills, or eventually I'll lose all feeling in my fingers, thereby removing the need for better knife skills. Either way I win. My guests may lose as they pull random finger bits out of their cooking, but a free meal is a free meal. Luckily for them I wash my hands frequently while cooking.

Not being one to just gross you out and run, here's the recipe for the bacon cheeseburgers I was making, taken from Steven Raichlen's Indoor! Grilling.

1.5 lbs of ground beef
4 strips of thick cut bacon or 6 - 8 strips of thin cut (about 4 oz)
6 oz of smoked cheddar, shredded, about 1.5 cups
1 garlic clove, minced

1. Cook the bacon until crisp. Crumble or chop the cooked bacon.
2. In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients together. You can use a wooden spoon, but I just get in there with my hands.
3. Form the resulting mixture into four equal patties about 3/4 inches thick and place the patties in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. This will keep them from falling apart on the grill.
4. Grill over direct medium heat for 8 minutes a side for well done. Due to the cheese in these burgers, they will flare up like a son of a bitch so you have to keep your eye on them and move them off the heat if necessary. The cheese also makes them super moist, so you can make them well done without risk of them drying out.

When finished, put 'em on a bun and top 'em with whatever pleases ye. We usually make a chipotle mayo which goes something like this, from the same recipe in Raichlen's book:

1/2 cup mayo
1 or 2 chipotle peppers + 1 Tbsp adobo sauce
1/2 tsp sweet paprika (you can use hot if you want, but I find that the resulting flavor is better with the sweet)

1. Mince the chipotle peppers.
2. Stir all ingredients together and let sit in the fridge for 20 minutes or so before slathering it on your burger or whatever you feel needs something slathered on it.

Enjoy!

On Children and Sore Throats

So, about a month or so ago my son was sidelined for a couple of days with a virus that gave him a sore throat. Since then, he has tried to get out going to school on almost a daily basis by claiming that his throat hurts. It doesn't help that he actually had a sore throat and a fever last week and was out of school for a day. It also doesn't help that it's been in the 30's at night, making the heat run and the upstairs furnace doesn't have a humidifier on it so when we get up in the morning, we all have a slight sore throat from breathing in dry air all night.

Unfortunately on top of the faking we have what can only be called an absolutely dismal performance on Ben's part. If you're going to go through the trouble of lying about being sick, at least try and sell it. Yesterday morning, Linda saw Ben happily frolicking in the hall and when he saw her, he quickly ran back into his room and then reemerged a moment later, shuffling and downtrodden, complaining that his throat hurts. I mean, come on. Once you've been seen acting like a puppy in a meadow of chew toys, you can't then try and pull a fast one. You've been busted punk.

This morning he was a little tired as well, so he got upset that we could see through his ruse and actually started crying. The lack of a fever and the lack of any redness or swelling let us know that he was basically just being pissy about having to go to school, which is when I showed off the parenting skills that will undoubtedly win me Parent of the Year and I told him that I didn't want to hear about his sore throat unless it was preventing him from functioning like a normal human being. I have no idea what that means, honestly. You deal with this bullshit every morning for a month and see how coherent you are. Now, the bad thing is that we will no doubt, send him to school one day when he is legitimately sick because we'll just assume he's faking, but hey, that's what happens to children who cry wolf. They throw up during circle time. Check the fable, it's in there.

BSG Season 3

Battlestar Galactica season 3 came out last week and Linda and I have started watching it so that we can be ready for the fourth season come April 4th.

I had forgotten how uncomfortable this show can make you, particularly during the first five episodes. There are some things shown in the third season that you just don't see on mainstream television. On the one hand, it's a shame that more people don't watch the show, but on the other hand, if they did, I doubt you'd see the things that went down on New Caprica. I'm just glad that the low ratings didn't turn into cancellation and that we'll be able to see the show end the way that the creators want it to.

That being said, I could do without all of the wonky stuff that took place on the Cylon base star. A lot of that was just silly.

Onward to Earth!

The Concert

In a word, Jonathan Coulton was awesome. Absolutely, unequivocally, 100 per cent awesome. It was fucking, deep fried awesome covered in awesome sauce.

First of all, I haven't laughed that hard at a comedy movie or show, much less a concert, in some time. Paul and Storm was funny, as was JoCo, however the combination of the three of them were too much for our tender sides to handle. The ease with which they interacted with each other and the crowd was amazing to watch. It was effortless. You could tell that they all really liked each other, as well as really enjoyed performing. On Jonathan's site today he apologized for the energy being a little off, no doubt because he was still jetlagged from London, but if that show was one with off kilter energy, his normal shows must blow the roof off.

He did a really great selection of songs, including all the favorites such as "Code Monkey", "Mandelbrot Set", "Skullcrusher Mountain" and "Still Alive" however my favorite by far was "Shop Vac". I wasn't familiar with the song and never has the soul crushing ennui of suburbia been captured in such an upbeat song. It was a really good set, with a very good variety of songs and it showed off his range as a songwriter well. I liked the set so much that I bought the "Thing a Week" boxed set after the show, complete with autographed shiny tin. Hodge bought one as well, so impressed was he.

After the show I got an opportunity to chat with JoCo a bit, although in retrospect I used most of that time to get his autograph for the auction and to blather on like an idiot as I am wont to do when in the presence of musical genius. Along with the Portal shirt, I also got my Skullcrusher Mountain shirt autographed and believe me when I say that I may never wash it.

Here's a picture of the guys all on stage. Jonathan is in the middle. I took it with my phone's camera, hence the crappy picture.

Here's a picture of Jonathan and I. Look how cool he is! I continue my tradition of rocking monkey based Overcompensating.com t-shirts while hobnobbing with musicians. I hope Frontalot isn't jealous. He'll always be my first.

In other news, the auction is off to a rousing success with the shirt already up to $76 bucks. I had hoped for 50, so I'm absolutely thrilled to death. I emailed a bunch of gaming sites, none of which posted anything about it save for Cheapy D at Cheapassgamer.com. Cheapy D, you are a gentleman and a scholar. You folks at Joystiq, Kotaku, Destructoid and Wired's Game | Life blog still have time to raise yourself up to the same super awesome level as Cheapy D, but you better get cracking. JoCo eclipses you all though as not only did he sign the shirt, but posted about it on his site. Rock on Johnny C. Rock on.

For those of you who think that 76 bucks is too much for a shirt, it is for charity, so get bidding!

Jonathan Coulton Autographed Portal t-shirt

More on the concert later, but for now, I'm selling a Penny Arcade Portal t-shirt, autographed by none other than Jonathan Coulton himself. All proceeds from the auction go to Child's Play. Wowzers!

Head on over and start bidding!

Nothing to Say

As hard as I may try, I find myself with absolutely nothing to say today. Truthfully, there's not a lot going on, which is a good thing. Tomorrow night Hodge and I will travel to the Variety Playhouse to take in Jonathan Coulton but other than that, there's not a lot going on. I'm looking forward to the show, despite not really knowing any of his songs. The stuff I have listened to I enjoy immensely, it's more an opportunity to go and hang out with my fellow geeks. Two weeks after that I'm going to see Iron and Wine and two weeks after that will be Bruce Springsteen. Clearly in Atlanta, springtime makes a young man's heart turn to music.

Next week the first toys from the Transformers Animated line come out and I intend to buy them all, even if it means that the Hasbro Toy Shop ships them to me well after I could get them in the store. I just went on an epic multi-store toy hunt for Grindcore, employing others in my cause as well, so I'm a little tired of the retail extravaganza that is hunting down Transformers. I'm sure once I know that the toys are out there, I'll still go to the stores so that I might fondle the packaging, but I'll do my best to keep my purchasing impulses in check.

Guess that's it. Have a good weekend. If all goes well at the concert on Saturday, I'll have an opportunity for you to help out a good charity as well as score some sweet autographed merchandise in one fell swoop. Words can not describe how fell this swoop will be.

Beware the Madness of March

March Madness is upon us and I think that means basketball. It is basketball, right? I could care less about college basketball, but as I do every year I fill out a bracket in hopes of claiming victory. Right now I'm 34th out of 40, or possibly 42. Luckily none of the first round picks that I lost were picked to go any farther than the first round, so it's not like I just lost out on picking one of the Final Four. I expect that to come later. Honestly, I could care less about winning, I just like picking, and I like the guys at the Sports Gamer Blog (they're putting it on) and if I do win, I get to pick out any game I want as long as it's sixty bucks or under. Right now I think I'd go with Condemned 2: Bloodshot because nothing helps to celebrate the joy of winning your college basketball bracket like beating down a crazed hobo with a bowling pin.

Wish me luck. And go Kansas!

The PA Trip

As I mentioned before, our trip to Pennsylvania was a successful one. We went because my grandmother, my dad's mom, turned 90. As it's not every day that a family member turns 90, we felt we should be there. Well, that and it was presented by my dad as something we really didn't have a choice about.

I must admit that I wasn't exactly looking forward to the trip. Yes, the children weathered the trip to NY at Thanksgiving, however in that case, we all had our own rooms and in this case, we were all sharing a room at the Econolodge. A room, that, in the end, had several HBO channels, but nothing other than two shelves upon which to place our clothing. The lodgings ended up being the nightmare I thought it would be with the kids not getting to sleep until around 10 every night (a good two to two and a half hours past their normal bedtime) and because they're incapable of sharing a bed without bugging each other, Linda and I had to share a bed with a child. Not sure if you've ever watched a kid sleep, but they're all over the place. Just as I was nodding off on Friday night, my son kicked me in the spine, and he was facing away from me. It was not fun. Then, because they weren't getting to bed until late, and the paper thin walls made them not sleep so well, and then they got up early, neither one of them were in the best of moods. Luckily, they reserved this bad mood for us and us alone and were very, very good around family.

This is a good thing because we were around family quite a bit. This was the first time in a long time since all of the grandkids were together, and the first time ever that all of the great-grandkids were together. It was nice to see my aunts and uncles and all of my cousins, but mostly, it was nice to see my grandmother so happy. It really meant a lot to her that we were all able to be there and if it meant spending the weekend with two tired, cranky children, it was a price well worth paying.

Some highlights of the trip included:

A trip to Primanti Bros.
I first heard of this place on the excellent PBS show "Sandwiches That You Will Like". The thing about a Primanti Bros. sandwich is the layer of fries they put on it. In retrospect, I should have gotten something other than corned beef as the spicy sausage was speaking to me, and in these situations, when the sausage speaks to me, I really should listen. As it turned out, the coleslaw and fries had less flavor than I thought they would have, and corned beef is rather mild. The spice of some sausage would have been just the thing. It was still a good sandwich, and quite filling, and I'm glad I was able to knock 1/23rd of the likable sandwiches off the list.

Steve and Barry's everything for under $8.98 sale
Steve and Barry's is a clothing store that, from what I can gather, has these sales where everything in the store is $8.98 or less. Not sure how much things are regularly, but when I say everything was under nine bucks, I mean everything. T-shirts, dress shirts, pants, coats, kids' clothes, outerware, you name it, it's nine bucks. It's a nice store too, with a clothing line from Sarah Jessica Parker, Venus Williams and Stephan Marbury to name a few. They also have a very nice collection of pop culture and superhero t-shirts. I bought two ringer t-shirts and Ben and I bought matching Captain America t-shirts. As I understand it, the plan is for us to wear them on Friday. Oh joy!

My grandmother beating up my daughter with balloons
I know this sounds strange and believe me, it was strange to watch. So it's the end of my grandmother's birthday party and the kids are all running around with the balloons used to decorate the place. I'm talking to my cousin about what I don't remember, when I hear all this laughing and my cousin points behind me and says "Look what your grandmother is doing with your daughter." I turn around to find that they've gotten in a balloon fight with one another and my grandmother is beating the crap out of my kid with balloons. She's just wailing my daughter in the head with them while Abby laughs hysterically and tries frantically to overcome the height differential. It seems strange, but seeing that really made the trip worth it. My grandmother was having such a good time, as was my kid and everyone else watching it, and dammit, if you can manage to get yourself to 90, you should be able to do just about anything you want to at your party, even if that includes wailing on a three year old with balloons.

Getting home
Technically you wouldn't consider that part of the trip, but with this crew, any trip you come home alive from is a good one.

Leveraging Existing Synergies

In an orgy of business speak, GameShark brings you not only my Super Smash Bros. Brawl review, but my Mr. Binky column is all about, you guessed it, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Despite my inability to see more than five minutes into the future, I actually worked my ass off to get my review done so that it could run the same day as the Binkster. You're welcome.

Back from PA

We've returned from the frozen North intact and anxious to no longer be in Pennsylvania. Nothing against the state, but western PA in March is pretty dreary, especially when the sun doesn't come out.

I'll post more about the trip later, complete with pictures. I know you can't wait.

Despite tornadoes ripping through Atlanta, our homestead emerged unscathed, so great is the power of Hyphenridge. The dogs appeared to react to the weather with their usual stalwart blend of hiding and vomitus, necessitating a quick bout of carpet cleaning, but it's nothing we're not used to. I'm sure they were glad to see us until the children started chasing them around. Then I'm sure they would have preferred the tornadoes. After a weekend with my children, the idea of being ripped apart by gale force winds seemed like sweet, sweet release.

In other news, I finished my Super Smash Bros. Brawl review. All I can say is "whew". Nothing left now but to um...well, play Super Smash Bros. Brawl to unlock everything. Fun!

On Vacation

I'm taking a few days off as the family and I head to the wilds of Pennsylvania to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday. I'll try and do some posts from the road, but who knows if cellular technology has reached deep in to PA's mountainous heart? Enjoy your weekend.

God of War review

My take on God of War: Chains of Olympus is up. I'm the first person to complain about the length of a game, so if I give it an A despite being so short, that's saying something. Maybe it's because when I played the original, I got tired of it about 8 hours into it so 7 - 8 hours is my Kratos sweet spot. Dunno. Anyway, enjoy the review.

Single Minded

Not much to say today as I'm still knee deep in Smash Brothers and I'm getting tired of talking about it, so I can only assume you're ten times more tired of reading about it. I've been coming home every day at lunch to play it, bringing some coworkers with me today and we had an absolute blast. It's amazing how grown men can thump their chest about winning as a giant, spiked lizard as if they just knocked our Joe Frasier. Online continues to vex me, which, unfortunately, I'll have no choice but to knock the game for in the review, unless they can get their shit together in the next couple of days.

I said I wasn't going to talk about Smash, and looky there, I did. I'm a bad man.

We're currently watching season 2 of "Without a Trace" on DVD. What a great show this is. I'm not one for procedural dramas, as I like overarching stories, but this such a well done show, I'm ok with most things being wrapped up in an episode. Anthony LaPaglia is a damn fine actor. Now they just need to release the third season on up on DVD and we'll be all set.

Back to smashing. Bye!

Lost

Another day, another review. This time, Lost: Via Domus falls victim to my piercing gaze.

Smashtastic

Super Smash Brothers Brawl dropped yesterday and I have been playing it religiously ever since, such a good little reviewer am I. This is hot on the heels of me finishing God of War: Chains of Olympus in record time so that I could get that review in the can and start working on this one. It's not exactly the way I like to play these games, however there's so much content to Smash Brothers, that I can get enough done to write a coherent review and still have plenty of trophies, stickers and songs to unlock. Yeah, I said stickers.

While I give a lot of credit to Nintendo for offering so many control schemes between the Wiimote, Wiimote and nunchuck, classic controller and Gamecube controlller, there's really no reason to play this game with anything but the Gamecube controller. Seriously, the Wiimote only option? It's a mess, an unmitigated disaster. Luckily, adding a Nunchuck makes the control scheme open like a flower, ready to accept the sun's rays, or in this case, being punched by a large monkey. Or a small one, your choice. The classic controller, purchased just for this game, doesn't quite work, despite it's layout being similar to the Gamecube controller. I think it's because it's so small, or maybe it's the double shoulder button motif. Not really sure. The control sticks are fairly loose, which certainly doesn't help and I think with time I could learn to love the classic controller, however I have two Wavebirds ready and waiting for my nimble fingers to play them as instruments in my symphony of ass whipping, so I don't need to get used to anything. I kind of feel bad that people who don't have Gamecube controllers are missing out on the best control scheme, but the Wiimote and Nunchuck works so I guess it's not that bad.

The game is awesome, as was expected. It didn't take me long to get back into the swing of things however my entry back was marred by an absolutely horrible first match as my old buddy Pikachu. I was quite depressed afterwards, thinking that I had lost all of my mojo, but a short time later I was kicking ass and taking name. I can somewhat understand the various reviewers knocking the game for not being that much different than Melee, but at the same time, Melee is awesome, which means that at the absolute worse, Brawl is just as awesome. That's a hard problem to have.

We're traveling to the wilds of PA this weekend for my grandmother's 90th birthday, so I'm doing my best to have my review written before then so that when I get back I can just fuck around in the game. We'll see. Truth be told, I'd feel pretty comfortable writing the review now, but I haven't gotten in any online matches, save one against a very wily Fox McCloud who managed to put together a last minute Dragoon strike to seal my fate. I still need to play with 3 other folks locally as well as online before I can put my unique seal of approval on it. In the mean time, it's back to the Smash Brothers salt mines with me. Ike demands nothing less than perfection.

Brett Favre

While I'm not surprised that Brett Favre retired, I am disappointed. Whenever you see someone who is not only talented, but has so much fun doing their job, it's a joy to watch them. There are so many professional athletes who spend so much time whining about this slight or that slight, that when you do see someone who just genuinely enjoys playing the game, it's a nice change. Oh, I'm sure that Favre had his moments too and I just don't know about them, but when you watched him play, he just seemed to be having the time of his life.

From a more personal perspective, he took over for the Packers in the 92 season, which was only two years before I graduated from college. I didn't start following football again until after I had graduated, so for all of those years I was watching, Brett Favre was playing. To think that it's been 16 years is odd, because it means that I've been out of school for almost 16 years. Between this little reminder and the fact that in October, Linda and I will celebrate 17 years together the writing is on the wall that I am, in fact getting older. Not that I mind as my getting older means that the kids are getting older which means that Linda and I are that much closer to getting them the hell out of the house. It's just strange how you can blink your eye and 16 years have passed. Brett Favre has more NFL records than you can shake a stick at to show for his 16 years. Me, I have a kick ass Lego Batmobile in my bedroom. Oddly enough, I'm pretty happy with that.

Anyway, thanks for all of the good NFL moments, Mr. Favre. Enjoy the next chapter of your life, whatever you may do and wherever it may take you. If you ever find yourself back in Atlanta, you're welcome to stop by and check out the Lego sets. The Batmobile in the bedroom is particularly impressive.

Handhelds 3, Consoles 0

I started playing God of War: Chains of Olympus this evening and so far, I'm having a blast. It's God of War, just on a handheld, which is pretty much the best you can hope for. Unless things take a drastic turn for the worst, it'll get pretty high marks from me come review time. This game marks the third handheld game in a row that will end up with a review score in the A - B range from me, the other two being Apollo Justice and Professor Layton. I must admit that I'm not quite sure what to do. Reviewing crappy games is my shtick and without it, I don't know how to function.

Thankfully I have console games to fall back on as Lost: Via Domus is a ball of crap. Oh sure, the achievements come fast and furious, but at 60 bucks for the 360 version, it's as big a rip-off as you're going to find. This marks the second console game in a row that will be getting a low review score from me, the other one being Bomberman Land. Come to think of it, Bomberman Land makes Lost look like BioShock so I'm not sure how the scores will shake out. Thankfully Super Smash Brothers Brawl will be here on Sunday to stem the tide of crappy console games. Smash be praised! At least I hope it stems the tide. I'm not emotionally equipped to handle the possibility that the game sucks. Seriously, I think that would break my spirit and send me spiraling into despair so let's not think about it, and instead just continue to think that it's the greatest game ever, ever, ever.

Ever.

RIP Dungeon Master

Word came over the wire today that after a period of failing health, Gary Gygax, inventor of Dungeons and Dragons has passed away.

To say that Mr. Gygax had in impact on my childhood is an understatement. Dungeons and Dragons is woven into the very fiber of my being like no other game. While I never got into the huge, weekly matches that so many enjoyed, when I was a kid, Dungeons and Dragons was the first, and usually best way to identify that someone else was a fellow geek, before the internet served as a place to call home. I used to spend hours lying in bed reading the different monster manuals and just staring at all of the pictures. I'd dream that I was a paladin, or a dashing rogue going on some dungeon crawl in search of treasure. The Deities and Demigods book was of particular interest to me as I was huge into mythology at the time and I loved how the gods in the book matched up with what I had learned from other books. Besides, how else would an 8 year old learn about Babylonian gods and goddesses such as Tiamat?

My favorite video game of all time, Baldur's Gate 2 is based on Dungeons and Dragons and it was due to the incredible richness of the character classes that I grew to love it so much. Hell, my band in Rock Band is called "Saving Throw" and their first album is "We Roll Twenties". So while I may not have put in the time crouched around a table rolling to see if you can pick up the arm of the ogre you just dismembered and use it as a club (actually I have done that) Dungeons and Dragons has influenced so much of the gamer geek culture I hold dear, and so much of the gamer geek that I am incredibly proud to be, that this is a very said day. A said day indeed.

Thank you Mr. Gygax for everything you did. Safe journey and I hope there's nothing but platinum pieces, tankards of ale and elven maidens for you from here on out.

Mr. Binky Episode 12

Greetings. Snidely Whiplash returns in this week's latest Mr. Binky. I think I've really nailed Snidely's voice, which is sad because it means that a) I think a cartoon character has a "voice" and b) I've nailed it after writing two columns. I hadn't planned on pulling this particular prop out again, but it was convenient and I couldn't think of anything else. Personally, I think my original piece was stronger, but Mr. Abner felt changes were needed. As an artist, I am perpetually misunderstood and my genius trampled upon by the plebeian masses. Such is the burden I bear.

Happy Monday

Greetings, and welcome to a new week.

Lost: Via Domus arrived via GameFly today and I've started my quest to do whatever the hell I'm supposed to be doing in this game. So far I'm not impressed, but I did get 105 points in only about an hour and fifteen minutes of playing, so at least the points come fast and furiously. If I were Harold Perrineau (Michael) I'd be looking to find whoever was responsible for my character model so that I could deliver an ass whupping, personal style. The in-game Michael looks like he has some sort of problem where his eyes are in constant danger of exploding out of his head. It ain't pretty.

I bought some new Transformers, which should come as no surprise, but I haven't purchased them all yet, so I'll hold off on that post until they're all home safe and sound. Try and contain your excitement.