Fun with Squash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

Carnival Games Mini Golf review

Holy crap, what a POS this game is. Crappy swing mechanics coupled with endless grinding and a main character that's mean and a bad sport. Fun!

You can witness the carnage here.

On Funerals and Saying Goodbye: Part 2

Part 1 is here.

Yeah, so this hasn't gone even remotely the way I had planned. As it turns out, I'm not a very good writer, or at least I'm not very good at writing in the style I was going for. I tried, and tried, and tried, writing the second part and then agonizing over it and then rewriting it. It's like having a vision in your head of a grand painting and when it comes time to paint, all you come up with is stick figured and happy little clouds. Unfortunately, you're the one who ends up looking at my crappy painting, but hey, at least I tried.

As we were driving up to the PA, my dad was keeping it together, but I could tell that he really didn't want to deal with his brother's death. Just the fact that he didn't go up earlier than he did spoke volumes, as this is a guy who never needed an excuse to drive a few hours and visit his family. Once we got closer to when we'd be meeting to have dinner and then go to the viewing, I could tell that he really didn't want to go. I totally understood. I mean, once you see your brother there in the casket, you can't deny his death any longer.

Unfortunately, eventually we did have to go to the viewing, and all of us had to confront the fact that Randy wasn't going to be with us any more. They had dressed him in one of his signature flannel shirts with a NASCAR t-shirt underneath, and had placed his riding jacket in the casket with him. I was glad to see that his kids didn't put him in a suit, as Randy would have hated that. As expected, my dad, aunt and grandmother didn't handle seeing Randy all that well. This was the thing I was most dreading. As a child, even when you're a grown adult, you still don't expect to find yourself in a position where you have to comfort your parents. They're the ones that are supposed to be comforting you. I'm not good with the comforting, and seeing my dad so broken up was hard to watch. I think it's normal to feel useless in these situations, which I did, but I did what I felt I could do, namely was there to provide support and hug whoever needed to be hugged and talk to whoever wanted to talk about Randy.

My cousins were similarly broken up, however as they had been dealing with things for days now, they were a little better about things. It's weird how much people seem to grow up in front of you when you know that their parent has died. Seeing my younger cousins get married or have a baby never made them seem older to me, but seeing them and knowing that their dad had passed suddenly made them seem older than me.

Everyone in the family was surprised to see how many people came to the viewing, and everyone who was more than happy to talk to you about how much they loved hanging out with Randy drinking a beer, or going for a ride or just shooting the shit. I think it made my cousins feel better to know that their dad had touched so many people, and that they weren't missing him all on their own.

The next day brought the service and the internment. Randy's friend did the eulogy and he really did a fantastic job. He's a pastor, so he had all of the right passages prepared, but because he was Randy's friend, he was genuinely grieved at Randy's passing, so he struck the right note between someone who understands that God has a plan, and someone who was upset that Randy's passing was part of it. Not being religious, I don't share the same views, but he still did a great job with the eulogy. After that, it was off to the cemetery with my cousin rising Randy's bike, followed by three other bikes to lead off the procession.

After the internment the family headed over to the Moose Lodge, where my uncle used to hang out, and we all got a chance to just catch up with each other as well as look at old photos of Randy and talk about how much we had all loved him. There was also a lot of food, something I'll still never get used to. Sorry for your loss, have you tried the cookies?

The funeral ended up being a good thing, as much as such a thing can be. I never really understood the purpose behind wakes and funerals as I tend to think more about celebrating someone's life once they're gone, rather than mourning their passage. I have a much better understanding of the purpose of these events now, after watching how my family changed between before the viewing and after the internment. For my cousins, they seemed tired, but much, much better at the end of the two days than at the beginning. Ditto for my dad. I still think the whole viewing thing is ghoulish, and maybe that's from a childhood steeped in horror fiction, but the events gave my family comfort and closure and that's the most important thing.

The toy motorcyle that I had spent to much time looking for ended up leaning up against Randy's jacket, and I'd like to think that wherever he is, he's riding it, or something much better than it, given my limited motorcycle knowledge. He was a good man, a great brother and a fantastic father and grandfather. We are all the better for having known him, and we'll all miss him.

Status Quo

Fuck all of this introspective bullshit. Back to the whoring!

My Rock Band 2 Gear Round Up is all sorts of live. Go read it and marvel at my ability to speak effortlessly on topics I know nothing about.

On Funerals and Saying Goodbye: Part 1

As I often do these days, four days after I heard of my uncle's death, I found myself in a toy store.

It was Sunday, and I was leaving for Baltimore the next day so that I could meet up with my sister and then the two of us would join my dad and my stepmother on the drive up to Harrisburg, PA to say goodbye to my Uncle Randy. Randy was my dad's younger brother, the youngest of the family, and four days earlier he had died in his kitchen of a massive stroke. He was 55.

Earlier in the day, as I was mowing the lawn, I got the idea that Randy should have a motorcycle to ride in the next life. Randy was a simple guy. He drove a truck for a living and enjoyed hanging out with his neighbors while they tapped a keg of Old Milwaukee. He also absolutely loved motorcycles. As my cousin would say, if it had two wheels and an engine, Randy would be happy to ride it. I remember Randy telling me stories of riding up the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the pouring rain, stopping under the overpasses when the rain got to be too bad, worrying my grandmother sick in the process because it was taking him much longer to get home than planned. When my sister was real young, my uncle took her for a ride on his bike, jumping some trash cans in the process. My mother was not pleased.

Why I decided that Randy needed a motorcycle, I have no idea. I don't have any firm beliefs about the afterlife, and truly, if Randy was in the Heaven he was raised to believe in, he was either riding the motorcycle of his dreams, or he was so danged happy that he didn't care what he was doing. Alternatively, if there is no ultimate resting place, or if Randy has already been deposited in his new life, a motorcycle was also of no use. On a practical side, getting a full sized motorcycle up to Pennsylvania, much less in a casket was not going to happen, which is why I ended up in the toy store.

This was not the first toy department of the day. As part of our errands we had stopped at a different Walmart, in which I completely forgot about the motorcycle as I helped my son pick out Power Rangers to buy with his birthday money. We also stopped at a Target and a Costco, all for nothing. Here's something I never would have figured, finding a toy motorcycle is much, much harder than you would imagine. The Hot Wheels and Matchbox lines seem to be completely devoid of motorcycles. If you want a station wagon from the 60's, both have you covered, but not so for the bikes.

I found a number of larger sport bikes, but those didn't seem like something that Randy would ride. I was hoping to find a Harley, as that was the bike he had when alive, and when you're looking for a Harley, finding a Honda sport bike, while still an impressive piece of machinery, doesn't quite cut it. Eventually I found a Yamaha and while it wasn't a Harley, it looked close enough to my untrained eye.
After I paid for the toy and got back into my car, I felt overwhelmingly stupid. Here my uncle had died, his children were grieving, as was my father, and I was spending my time looking for a toy to put in his coffin. I tried to chalk it up to just trying to do my part to remember my uncle properly, but I still felt like I wasn't doing the right thing, or enough of the right thing. Over the next two days, this would not be the last time I felt this way.

Sonic review

My review of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is up.

Lest you think I only post here to tell you about my reviews, I'm working on a piece about the funeral I just went to, however I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the whole experience. Hopefully I'll have something soon. Joy!

Saints Row 2 review

The long saga of my trip down the PR rabbit hole has ended and my review of Saints Row 2 is now live. Whee.

Books

Behold, the bounty of books being enjoyed at my household as we speak! Huzzah! Most are new, one is not, all shall be explained for your enjoyment and edification.

Starting at the top left we have "Your Hate Mail Will be Graded" by John Scalzi. Scalzi is one of my most favoritest authors, and the majority of his stuff that I've read has been over at his site. I've also read almost all of his books (more on that later) but seeing how I've been visiting his site daily for several years now, most of what I've read has been his internet musings. The best of these musings are compiled into this volume. Oh sure, I could go back and read his stuff on his site, but where's the fun in that? I don't always agree with him but I'm always entertained by him, so I'm very much looking forward to this one. On a related note, Subterranean Press, the publisher of this book, make some really nice books. Check them out when you feel the need to consume words.

Next up is "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian" by Robert E Howard. These are Howard's original Conan stories in the order that he wrote them and they are completely awesome. I've been reading the Dark Horse comics adaptations of these stories for a while now, but it's still good to read the original tales. The cool thing is how much they jump around. In one story Conan is a thief, then a king, then a pirate. I can see the interest in having the stories arranged chronologically to make things easier on the reader, but this way is so much more interesting. It's amazing how bloody and gory the stories are considering that they were written almost 80 years ago. All of Howard's stories, with all of his character have been assembled in similar volumes and I'll probably end up getting them all. Crom's bones!

After that is "Waiting for Athena" also by John Scalzi. This book/pamphlet thingy came with "Your Hate Mail..." and is a collection of writings done by Scalzi as he waited for the birth of his child. I honestly didn't remember that this would be coming with the book, so yay for free stuff. Having waited for two kids now, I'm sure I can find some stuff in common, however as Scalzi didn't fly halfway around the world for his kids, I doubt that our experiences will be all that similar. Still, I'm sure it'll be a good read.

On the bottom row, left side is "Zoe's Tale", also by John Scalzi. "Zoe's Tale" is the last book in Scalzi's Old Man War universe and is a retelling of "The Last Colony" from the point of view of Zoe, the protagonist's teenage daughter. I quite liked "Old Man War", the first book and absolutely loved "The Ghost Brigades", the second book, finding "The Last Colony" to be the weakest of the three. It was still good though, hence this purchase. The reviews that I've read have said that Scalzi nails the teenage girl thing, so at the very least, this will give me a glimpse of the future with my daughter, minus the roving band of space werewolves. Well, I hope so anyway.

Finally we have "The Great Outdoor Fight", a collection of strips from the absolutely hilarious online comic "Achewood". This book contains the entire "Great Outdoor Fight" story in which Ray Smuckles, one of the cats residing in Achewood finds out that his father was one of the greatest combatants to ever set foot in the Great Outdoor Fight. Ray and his ever present companion Roast Beef head to the Fight to show how a new generation of Smuckles fight. Not only is the book beautifully bound, but it has a lot of extras including a glossary of terms used in the Fight.

In the case of the Scalzi books and the Achewood book allow me to give something back to two incredibly creative and hilarious people whose work I've enjoyed free of charge for years now. I'm glad I can do it, and getting a bunch of good books out of it certainly doesn't hurt.

All Hail Saving Throw

This month's Mr. Binky is up, and with it, the story of my Rock Band 2 band, Saving Throw. The pictures in the article are shots of my band members courtesy of the fantastic picture maker thingy at Rockband.com.

I named my lead singer B. Ryan in a nod to my mom. My middle name is Ryan and my mom once told me that the reason she gave me that middle name was because she thought that when I was older, and successful, it would loook nice to have the name B. Ryan Schnell etched in glass on a door. Despite these wishes, no one in my family ever called me anything resembling that name. Course, I went and fucked it all up by hyphenating my last name and by not being remotely successful enough to have my name etched into anything. Why one would go through all of that trouble when picking out a middle name is beyond me, however I'm not one to talk as I designed my son's name so that it contained the name of Spider-Man's uncle. For Abby, no such designs were made, as there aren't any superheroes names Abigail. Of course, with her personality, finding a supervillain would have been more apt.

Blobtastic

Here's my review for de Blob. The game really is lots of fun and very well done. I highly recommend it.

On the Media Tip

Media purchases abound! For once, all of my money isn't going to Transformers. Not for long, though as Animated Ultra Magnus as well as the next wave of the Universe line has been spouted out and about. Unfortunately Atlanta's rampant gas shortage will put a dent in my toy hunting, but ultimately, I will prevail!

Tuesday brought a bevy of glorious media purchases that I must share. First up is the 2-disc Iron Man DVD. Iron Man was not only one of my favorite movies from the summer, but was one of the most surprising in that it totally kicked ass. Oh sure, I knew that Robert Downey Jr could be funny, as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is one of my favorite movies, but still, there were so many unknowns about the movie that I was unsure. Can't wait to let my subwoofer tear into this one. If the house is rockin', don't bother knockin'!

I also bought the 3 disc super special version of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Linda and I saw this movie when we were vacationing in Texas and we both really enjoyed it. Along with being very funny, the characters in the movie were all very well done allowing even the so called "bad" characters to be sympathetic and likeable. Plus, Kristen Bell in a bikini. Of late I've been eschewing the super special versions of DVD's as I haven't been watching the extras, but with this one, and Iron Man, the extras looked really interesting, plus, once I'm done with my current Mass Effect run as I work out, I'll be looking for something that can be wrapped up in one workout session and DVD extras fit the bill perfectly.

Finally, Tuesday saw the release of Ben Folds' latest CD, Way to Normal. Oddly enough, I had forgotten all about the cd being released and on Tuesday, as I headed to Best Buy, I heard a single from the record (the duet with Regina Spektor) on the radio. Hooray for XM! The album is the usual fare from Ben Folds with good lyrics, tight pop sensibilities, slammin' piano licks and swear words in song titles. I can only hope that he'll tour in support of it as I swear I've seen him perform the same songs in concert for the past nine tours. I've seen him in concert three times now, making him the Artist With Shows Most Attended by Me. Congratulations Ben! He must be so proud.

For the record, the artists I've seen multiple times are:

1.) Ben Folds - 3 times (opening for Counting Crows, on tour with Guster and Rufus Wainwright, opening for John Mayer)
2.) Guster - 2 times (the aforementioned Ben Folds/Rufus Wainwright tour, their own headlining tour)
3.) Pearl Jam - 2 times (headlining both times)
4.) Eric Clapton - 2 times (headlining both times)

Earlier in the week I was alerted by a one Mr. Greg Howley that MC Frontalot's new album Final Boss was available for preorder. Well, not only was it available for pre-order, but by joining up at Front's site, I was able to get a download of the album once I bought it. I've been listening to it pretty much non stop and it's damn good. It feels a lot different than his last album, a joint I loved immensely, so I was initially put off by it, but the more I listened to it, the more I enjoyed it. Jonathan Coulton dropping some insanely tight choruses certainly doesn't hurt, neither does a very funny skit with Wil Wheaton. I hope that Front tours soon so that I can add him to the above list and get yet another picture with him as I don the latest in monkey couture.

Finally, last week I bought my Flobots tickets for their November show. I'm very, very, very excited for this show. Live hip-hop with both a viola player and a dude on trumpet? Sign me up.

Bailout Blues

I'm of two minds about this whole bailout thing. On the one hand, I think that we should just sit back and let things burn. Honestly, I have a sick curiosity that makes me want to see just how bad it can get. The fact that many of these financial firms and banks are in trouble because of their unchecked greed doesn't make me any more sympathetic to their plights. On the other hand, if these firms go belly up, a lot of people who had nothing to do with this debacle will lose their jobs, possibly myself included. My company makes software for the mortgage industry and while things haven't been spectacular for us, if bunches of lenders start going belly up, things can get a whole hell of a lot worse.

Regardless of my unclear feelings on the bailout, it was interesting to see today's proposed bill fail, only because it was the first time in a long time where the members of Congress seemed to be voting based on their opinion of the bill and not just because they were falling into line with their party. Just think about how different the past eight years might have been had members of Congress and the Senate voted based on what they felt about the various pieces of legislature, or based on how things would impact their constituency, rather than voting simply to stick with party lines or to not appear weak on terror or some other nonsense. The mind reels at the concept of members of Congress and the Senate actually doing their job.

What Pelosi et al thought they were going to accomplish by calling on the House Republicans to get behind the President is beyond me. The President is a) on his way out and b) one of the least popular sitting Presidents ever. There is absolutely no one in Washington DC who feels like they have to do a damn thing for that man, or even remotely cares about how they appear in relation to him. Well, except for House Democrats whose lack of a backbone in the face of Presidential pressure is rivaled only by their sheer incompetence.

Now, I'm not so naive as to think that every person who voted against the bill did so because they opposed it, as opposed to opposing it because Pelosi was for it, nor do I believe that every person who voted for it did so because they were just falling behind their party, however I do think that there were more people than usual that voted their opinion than their party. Regardless of the outcome, whenever our elected officials vote based on the merits of the legislation and the needs of their constituency it promotes responsible government and governmental accountability, something that has been sorely lacking for years now on both sides of the aisle. It's a shame that it took a near total economic meltdown to bring about such responsible behaviour, however briefly it lasts.

AAAAAHHHHH!!!!

The Dow is plummeting, Congress can't corral themselves long enough to pass a useless bailout bill and we're all going to die in a fiery market crash! What's a person to do in these trying times? I know, read my splendid review of The Price is Right for the DS. It will take your mind off of your pressing need to start stockpiling gasoline and bullets.

Long Live Rock!

My Rock Band 2 review is up. Woot!

This game is really an amazing improvement on the original in every way. I wish I could be playing it right now.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 16

Technically, this is the 17th week of weigh-in's, however it's the 16th on of these I've written, so I'm going with week 16. It will also be my last.

Duh-duh-duh!

For two weeks now, my weight has been pegged at 172 even after returning from the feeding trough that was Vegas and getting back to my normal eating and exercising schedule. I'm thinking that my body has just gotten used to the caloric ins and outs of my daily life and I'm not going to lose weight unless I eat even less food or exercise in new and more strenuous ways. Neither of these things is going to happen. I don't relish the idea of getting used to a diet all over again, and I'm not about to join a gym or start lifting weights or do anything that doesn't involve my ass on that bike with either a movie or a video game in front of me.

In the end, 19.5 pounds isn't too bad, and given that it was two more pounds than my goal, I'm pretty happy. I would have liked to have lost another inch or two off of my midsection, but them's the breaks. If I really get tired of carrying the extra inch or so, I can make adjustments to lose it. I'm pretty sure that won't happen, unless the adjustments are "eat more pigs".

For now, I'll keep working out, keep eating how I've been eating while on the reduced plan and hope that things continue to stay the same. Of course, I'll be thrilled if I lose more, but realistically, I can't expect that to happen. Now that I'm at my target weight, I can afford myself the occasional Frosty or other dessert as long as I keep working out and don't go crazy. Yay me. The most important thing will be that I don't go back to my old eating habits, however now that it's been four months, I'm thinking they're a thing of the past. I'll have to stay vigilant though, lest I find myself gorging myself on leftovers right before I go to bad. Bad Brandon! No flank steak!

All in all, I'm very glad that I got fed up enough to lose the weight. I feel great, I think I look OK and I'm not the only person at work not to have lost weight. Talk about peer pressure! If I can keep it off, I'll feel even better. Here's hoping. Thanks for showing an interest in my weight loss travels when you weren't ignoring them completely. Now I need to come up with some other theme for Monday's post, or lack thereof. Back to the drawing board!

Saints Row 2 preview

My preview of Saints Row 2 is up for those that are interested. The interview isn't, but hopefully that will go up today. If you're interested in my account of the Vegas trip, head over to Lungfishopolis for all of the sordid details.

EDIT: Here's the interview.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 15

This week's weigh in was a) unofficial and b) way off base as it came on the end of a significant eating binge in beautiful Las Vegas. I think it was 173.5 but I honestly don't remember, so little weight did I give the number.

When I was in Vegas, all I did was eat and play Saints Row 2, a combination that didn't lend itself to losing weight, even if it was just for a couple of days. It didn't help that I got back Friday night and promptly ate half a pizza a scant 12 hours or so before my weigh in. You can see why I paid no mind to the number. This weekend I'll have no excuses as I'm back on track, no doubt with a glorious reward of increased slenderosity this weekend. Feel free to use that new word. It's awesome, I know.

I watched a bootleg copy of "The Strangers" this week while working out and man, what a bleak movie. If you like horror movies that are light on the gore but heavy on the dread and malice, this one is right up your alley. I'll have to keep my eye on the guy who wrote and directed it as this movie was pretty damn good for a first time effort. Not sure what I'm going to watch for the rest of the week, but I have plenty of options what with the big stack of discounted HD-DVD's I just bought, including Planet Earth. I'm also tempted to continue my third run of Mass Effect as I don't have the time to play it during normal gaming hours, and I'm looking at another 30 hours, minimum, to finish it up. Well, to finish up this run. I'll need even more to get my level 60 achievement as well as my remaining Biotic powers achievements. The life of an achievement whore is a tough and unyielding one. Besides, it saves me the effort of having to pick something out to watch. I am well aware of the irony of being so lazy that I don't want to pick out a movie for my physical exertion sessions. Lazy and unintentionally ironic is a compelling mix, believe you me.

Tiger Woods '09 review

If you like golf, and you have a Wii, then I implore you to check out Tiger Woods '09 for the Wii. It ain't perfect, but it is a ton of fun, as my review so eloquently explains.

Naruto review

I'm back from Vegas with some super fantastic Naruto PSP review action. Whee!

Lungfishopolis.com

Greg's hard work has finally paid off and Lungfishopolis.com is up and running. Greg has done a fantastic job, and continues to do so and I think the site is a really nice place to hang out. Hopefully all of you will as well. It's just a place where we talk about games, but not in the traditional review or news kind of way, although I'm sure some of that will show up there too.

Head on over, check it out, leave some comments and bookmark it so that you can always be just one click away from it.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 14

I'm making more and more progress in my efforts to waste away to nothing, crossing the all important 20 lbs threshold and now stand at a fit and trim 171 pounds. I have no lost 20.5 pounds, so go me.

My waistline still isn't getting smaller, but at the same time, I am eating worse than ever, so I'm sure it's going to take time. I'm still not eating as badly as I was before I started dieting, as going back to those habits won't be good for anyone save the fine folks at Wendy's, but it was worse than usual. This week I don't expect to see any movement as I'll be in Vegas for a good chunk of it, not working out and eating like a pig. Of course, this is the week I'll lose like five pounds and three inches because that's the way it seems to go. The weeks where I don't expect to lose anything, I lose the most. Following that logic, me pigging out in Vegas is a dietary aid. Yes, that's it.

I'm watching Robot Chicken Season 2 this week as it's a short workout week for me and I didn't want to have to pick something that had to be finished in two days. Plus, after the narrative mess that was Too Human, I wanted something that was intentionally stupid. It's a nice change.

Incredible Greaves of Unyielding Synergy

My review of Too Human is up, as is my column making fun of Too Human. Truly, it's not a good day for that game.

Grinding it Out

Now that the weekend is upon us, we come to crunch time. I have to finish playing Too Human, write the review and then write my Mr. Binky column. Given that I want my column to be about Too Human, both the review and the column will have to be done by the end of the evening on Sunday for that to happen. I think I can write most of the column now, but I don't want to fully make fun of the story without seeing how it ends.

Finishing up this game has turned into a supreme grind. It probably doesn't help that I've played it every evening this week, every morning while working out and have come home at lunch two days this week and played it. It's just not good enough to warrant this much attention, but alas, it's what the job requires. My review, technically, isn't due until Tuesday, however when the opportunity to run a column about a game I'm reviewing presents itself, I like to take it. Plus, I need to start Tiger Woods 09 for the Wii and I want to get some time in on Mercenaries 2 for at least one evening before I leave for Vegas. It's a lot of writing about Too Human in such a short amount of time, and honestly, the game doesn't deserve this much attention, but given how half of that attention will be spent making fun of it, I guess I'm ok with it. Also, I don't have any better ideas as to what to write my column about, so it's either this or some last ditch, Sunday night attempt. Those never go well.

My hope is that I can finish the game tonight so that I can be done with it, but that seems improbable. I can only hope this mediocre jaunt ends soon as I've been ready for this thing to be over with since yesterday. That's the sign of a quality game right there.

Employment Change

I was informed by my son today that my impressive skills as a "fixer" have awarded me the illustrious position of custodian at his Power Ranger Academy. I couldn't tell if the school is a school for the Power Rangers, or one where the children are taught by Power Rangers as the story changed with every passing second, but I can tell you that I'm now the man in charge of fixing things.

The fact that I was given the job after absentmindedly not drilling a small test hole first, thereby drilling a hole into the wood that was large enough for a drywall anchor but way too big for the screw goes to show you the incredible state of disrepair in store for the Power Ranger Academy. I can only hope that their problems are limited to busted light bulbs, clogged toilets and the occasional ceiling fan replacement. If one of the Power Rangers accidentally bowls a hole in the wall, I can fix that too, however it'll take me a few months to do so. Anything more than that and these poor folks are well and truly fucked.

I was also introduced to a sport taught at the Power Rangers academy whereby a super ball is rolled on the floor with one's hand. First it was called Floor Ball, then Floor Hand Ball, then Hand Floor Ball, then "One" and finally "Thirty Eight". I wish I was making this up. After hearing about the rigorous PE program at the Power Ranger Academy, complete with shifting names and made up games, I'm glad that my duties exist solely in the realm of fixing things. I'd hate to tell the kids that we're spending the period playing a rousing game of Fifty Seven when they're clearly dressed for a match of One Hundred and Seventy Nine. That would just be too embarrassing.

Vegas, baby, Vegas!

So next week I'll be heading to Las Vegas to spend the day playing the upcoming gangsta sandbox game, Saints Row 2. I didn't mention this before because I wanted to wait until all of the details were nailed down. They are, so now I can chat a little about it.

Basically, they're flying me to Vegas and putting me up at the Four Seasons. I'll spend six hours in my hotel room with a debug 360 unit and a copy of the game and will spend all of that time shooting up the city of Stilwater and engaging in various gang related shenanigans to prepare myself for the inevitable review. After that, I'll get a small break and then head to the penthouse and engage fellow games journalists in spirited co-op play. It should be a hoot. Once the co-op play is done we're free to do whatever we want, with the itinerary mentioning hitting Vegas with the folks from THQ. On the one hand, that sounds like fun, on the other hand, it seems like an invitation to get labeled as "that jackass who threw up the Elvis impersonator".

As many of you know, I'm not exactly the type of person who goes out clubbing or whatever they call it nowadays, so I'm not sure what I'll do once the controllers are down and all of the consoles are powered off. Honestly, the whole notion of a game publisher paying for a trip such as this speaks to the current problems with the gaming press so much that as a gamer, I should probably be a little appalled at the notion of such a trip, but at the same time, I know how to be objective when reviewing games, if I didn't do it someone else would, and honestly, the game does look like a lot of fun.

The idea of just sitting in my hotel room for six hours playing the game is kind of strange, but not much stranger than what I did a few weeks ago when Linda took the kids to Chattanooga for the weekend, namely sit in my basement for 5.5 hours and beat Half-Life: Episode 2. Luckily, the bevy of Las Vegas buffets will ensure that I get enough to eat prior to the dropping off of the debug unit so that I'm sufficiently sated until the drinks and dinner provided at the co-op event.

While I'm there, I'll definitely be gambling, but what I'll be playing is currently in debate. I know nothing about blackjack and enough about no limit Hold 'Em to get myself into a heap of trouble. Roulette is a waste of money, and I can't understand Craps, so that basically leaves slot machines and video poker. I guess I could play Keno, but only if the lighter I'd usually use to burn up my money in the hotel bathroom garbage can doesn't work, seeing how the results will probably be the same. I had planned on putting money down on the Redskins game, as I'll be in Vegas for the season opener, but after the way they played against Carolina this past Sunday, I think I'd be better off with Keno. Or the lighter. So, it looks like slots will be it. Me and the blue hairs will undoubtedly have a great time. If you never hear from me again after next Thursday, me and Doris hit the progressive jackpot and have retired to Boca.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 13

Man, I have been slacking off something fierce in the posting department. Damn. I don't know how you put up with me. Oh wait, you don't, or so the referral logs would appear. Yeah.

Any way, this week saw my triumphant return to the world of exercise as our bike was fixed. The guy who repaired it basically did a Six Million Dollar Man job on it and rebuilt pretty much every moving part on the thing from the ground up. Were it in his reach to weld a new frame he probably would have done so. As a result, the bike is quieter than it has ever been. There are times I'm not sure I'm even using it, so quiet it is, but then I realize that I'm about to keel over from a massive heart attack and I remember. As Monday he was still fixing the bike, I didn't start riding it until Tuesday. Even without a full week of exercise, the weight loss continued to astound and I'm down to an even keeled, 172 lbs. Whee!

I didn't exactly keep to the diet this week, so the fact that I lost more weight makes me one very happy camper. It's going to be hard to get back into the exercise swing of things, made all the more difficult by the remnants of tropical storm Fay causing night time thunderstorms that send my stupid dog into a panting frenzy. If last night's stellar four hours of sleep is any indication, it's going to be a rough exercise week. Last week I watched The Insider and really enjoyed it. This week I'm forgoing a movie as I was too lazy to pick something out, and am instead playing Too Human. Along with making it so that I don't have to make a movie watching decision, this also gives me more time to get my review finished. This morning I spent 40 minutes walking through various halls in the game. It was thrilling! And by thrilling I mean stiflingly boring. Better I do that in the morning than spend my only gaming time at night traversing the halls of Norse cybserspace. Don't ask.

Now that the bike is back, I'm hoping that I can get rid of the remnants of my gut quickly. I've dropped the Sunday morning work out as my kids were starting to drive me crazy. When I'm riding the bike I have a hard time refereeing the various fights they get into all of the time now, and it was just too much of a hassle. Once I lose the gut, I can decide how much I want to ease off of the diet. I kind of thought that by now I would have hit a plateau and am curious to see just how much weight I could lose before my body got used to everything, but then I see a Baconator and become curious as to how many I could eat in one sitting. I'll give you one guess as to which curiosity would win out.

Finally, and this isn't exercise related, but soon I'll be collaborating with the always excellent Greg Howley on a gaming site called Lungfishopolis. I'm quite excited about it and Greg has been doing a bang up job on the site. Between this site, Greg's site and my reviews, it means a lot of writing for me, but it's important to flex one's muscles when one has them. Of course, that would mean that I have to start writing more here, but these are details that can easily be dealt with. If I could teach my son to type, he could recount for you the thrilling Power Rangers tale I was subjected to, I mean treated to, over the weekend. I think it was called Red Power Ranger and the Tale of a Thousand Millenia. At least that's how long it felt.

Braid Review

My review of Braid is up. Yay for fantastic games!

A few items of note about the review. First, is that I gave the game an A+, but the final grade ended up being an A. Honestly, I don't know what qualifies a game as an A+ game over an A game, obviously, given my flagrant mis-grading. Is Braid perfect? No, but no game is perfect. Any way, don't let that lack of a "+" discourage you from playing the game because it is fantastic. EDIT: Apparently we don't grade higher than an A. Yes, I am an idiot.

Second, eagle eyed readers may notice that I dropped the nickname from my name in the review. I started doing that on a lark and it has become my thing, as I appear to be the only person who does it. Usually I use it as a means to pile on additional scorn, or just generally be snarky which befits my acerbic nature. That and I hate everything. For this review I couldn't come up with a nickname that didn't sound like I was making fun of the game, and I didn't want to make fun of this game. So, I dropped the name. Don't worry, when the great review engine cranks up again, I'll be sure to put the name back.

Finally, I wasn't kidding when I said that this review was hard to write. It's probably just my lack of skills as a writer, but I had a hell of a time explaining why this game was so good, and I think that it's because the game struck such an emotional note with me. That's a much harder thing to quantify. Now, even if there were no emotional beats in the story and Tim was just some wacky dude in a suit, the game mechanics and visuals would be enough to make the game a strong recommendation, but the story, particularly the ending, is where it all comes together. Obviously, your reaction to the story will be different, and I realize that my desire for a strong story causes me to rate games with great stories higher than their more technically impressive counterparts (witness my review for The Darkness), but I play games for the story, so if there's a game that absolutely nails a narrative, I'm going to rate it higher. Personally, I don't have a problem with people saying "oh, he only gave it a high rating because it tells a really good story", as if any one discusses my scores in the first place. We all play games for different reasons, and I play for the stories. Well, achievements and then the stories. The ability to ignore my children is up there too.

Now I'm just waiting for Too Human to arrive. I'm excited to see how the final version came out, what with all of the mixed reviews. I wasn't thrilled with the demo, but I'm not a big fan of unskippable cut scenes in any game, much less in a demo. If, five minutes into your demo, you're making me just sit there, I shut your demo off. I'm more than happy to give your game's story time to breathe in the full game experience, but in the demo, I ain't got the time for your jibber jabber. Besides, everyone in the cut scenes had dead eyes and it was kind of freaking me out. I don't see that changing in the retail release, but maybe it just won't bother me that much. I doubt it, but I'm trying to be impartial going in to this whole mess. Using the word "mess" certainly doesn't help. Whoopsie.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 12

Once again, the dieting sans exercise paid off with yet another pound of weight loss. I'm now down to 173.5 pounds, which means that I officially weigh less than when we first moved to Georgia. Granted, it's only half a pound, but I'll take it. I'm basing my move weight on my driver's license which means that I've been a filthy liar for something like two years now as it's been at least that long since I weighed the 174 on my license. For the record, I also now require corrective lenses, despite my license's insistence to the contrary. Well, one eye does any way. It's like my wallet is just one big lie.

I finished Braid over the weekend and absolutely loved it. On the other hand, Conan is trying my patience. I spent an hour and 45 minutes last night on one boss battle. One boss battle. It was the same boss broken into two stages, if that makes any difference, and it was a complete and total pain in the ass. I'm almost done with the game, and it would appear that I've missed two of the 60+ chests needed to get the achievement despite me following a guide to find all of the chests. This pisses me off to no end as part of what has made the game take a long time is taking the time to find all of the chests. I've read reports of people getting the achievement with two chests left, so maybe things are buggy and I'll get lucky. I don't think I'll be playing the game again, so I may just have to be happy with the chests that I have.

After Conan comes Too Human which, by early reviews, appears to be a big mess. I'm not exactly surprised as I wasn't very impressed with the demo. We'll see. Hopefully I'll have it for the weekend as nothing says weekend gaming like mediocre action games based in cyber Norse mythology.

Carnival Games DS review

My review of Carnival Games for the DS is up, notable because the tag line implies that this game will cost you a piece of your eternal soul. I have no real data to back up this claim as I'm still alive, so the final resting place of my soul has yet to be determined. Upon death, if communication with the living is still an option for me, I'll be sure to let you know what ends up where.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 11

You've heard of the expression "a day late and a dollar short"? Well, this week's weigh in found me a week early and half a pound short. Which means that I weighed in at a whopping 174.5 lbs, yeah that's right, half a pound down from my goal and one whole week under the wire. This was without exercising as the bike is still broken. The repair guy came out today to fix the bike, but alas, all of the parts that they sent were for fixing things that aren't wrong with our bike. Bummer. He offered to put it all back together so that we could ride it, but the speed sensor is broken and it still makes noise, so I couldn't see him doing all the work to put it together when a) it's still broken and b) he'd just have to take it all apart again. In the mean time, I'm getting dangerously used to sleeping in, even if it's only an extra 25 minutes or so.

Even though I hit my goal, I'm still not done with the dieting and exercising as I still want to drop a few more inches off of my waistline. Not sure how long that will take, but I'll keep reevaluating as I'm going along. At least now, I can have an occasional dessert or breakfast biscuit and not feel like I'm doing damage to my progress. I really want the bike to get fixed though as I'd like to watch Casino Royale again.

In gaming news, I'm playing Conan on the 360, and while the game does have its share of problems, at 20 bucks it's a pretty good value. If I wasn't going for achievements, I'd probably be close to finished by now, but as it is, I'm enjoying the grind, so there's no need to stop. I'm also playing Braid for review purposes and man, this is one amazing game. I can't wait to see how it all ends.

Top Spin 3 Review

My review of Top Spin 3 for the Wii is up, albeit in a completely hacked up form. I tried to do something a little different in this review, and apparently it wasn't appreciated as it was removed completely. How I'm supposed to grow as a writer when attempts at doing things differently are removed and any request for explanation falls on deaf ears is beyond me. All I know is that the money is the same whether I try to step things up or not, so there's not much point in doing anything other than what I've been doing. That appears to have been fine all this time, so it can continue to be so.

It Lives!

It's the Top Ten List several months in the making, GameShark's Top Ten Summer Game Releases. Hooray! Seriously though, this thing took forever. I wrote a top ten list that basically just had games of this decade, but then when Bill noticed that System Shock 2 was released in the summer, but summer of 1999, I foolishly mentioned that we could do an all time list. He asked me how, and I said I'd just sit down and do the research.

Yeah, it's not quite that easy. I mean, it is that easy, you just have to search multiple sources to find the North American release date, and then, the right one. Then, you have to take all of the choices, there were many, and boil them down, being sure to include ones that your editor specifically asked for, only to have him then drop it from the final column. I was a little sad to see MechWarrior 2 dropped for Tie Fighter, but when the man who doles out the work says it's so, then it's so. The original list had a lot more games that I had played personally, so I was a lot more invested in it, but this is a good list too, and it scratches the retro gaming itch that people seem to have. Doom 3 was released in August, so this list also allows me to continue to get hate mail from people about how I forgot Doom.

For those that may be interested, here's the original list, back when we weren't trying to include every game in recorded history:

10 - Metroid Prime: Corruption
9 - Dead Rising
8 - Soul Caliber 2
7 - Icewind Dale
6 - Eternal Darkness
5 - Max Payne
4 - Deus Ex
3 - Diablo 2
2 - BioShock
1 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Not a bad collection of games there.

The New X-Files Movie

So I had a chance to see the new X-Files movie recently and I'm telling you, this movie is much, much better than people are making it out to be. Now, I'm a die hard X-Phile so I may be a bit biased, but I thought it was pretty damn good. The story was straightforward, it had a nice creepy vibe to it, there were a ton of nods to fans of the show, but most importantly, Duchovny and Anderson just did fantastic jobs with their portrayals of Mulder and Scully.

Maybe I was just really happy to see them back on the screen again after so long away. I don't know. Back when Linda and I lived in upstate New York, watching The X-Files on Friday nights was a huge deal. We had another couple we were really good friends with and we'd switch off whose house we'd go to to have dinner, play some games and then watch the show. Those nights were some of the best nights I can remember. We always had a really, really good time. Henry was a puppy at the time and our friends had an older Lhasa mix and the dogs would always play together when everyone was at our house. When we went to their house, Yin and Yang, the two cats would usually spend the evening beating up on Henry while he tried to make friends with them. Once the show started, everyone would hush up and we'd all get scared together, or laugh together or say "what the fuck was that" together. If you could call a tv show a friend, or a companion, then in this case, on these evenings, The X-Files was just that.

Watching the movie brought a lot of that back, but my enjoyment was more than just from reminiscing. Mulder and Scully have moved on from their jobs in the FBI and the characters show that. The problems arise when Scully asks Mulder to get back involved, just to debunk a psychic, and in typical Mulder fashion, once he realizes that there's no debunking to be done, he's in with both feet. The conversations that ensue were so well done because if you've been in a relationship for some time, you know that you don't have a lot of fights, you just have the same fight over and over, and these characters have had this fight before. Scully doesn't want to get pulled in, but Mulder can't help it. He's already there. Furthermore, he's there because Scully asked him to be there. He can't understand why she doesn't want to come with him when it was her idea, and she can't make him understand that she wanted him to only go so far, not all the way. It's amazing to me that they could craft a conversation and a conflict like this, one that seems so grounded and realistic, and place it in a movie with missing FBI agents and shadowy medical experiments and not have it sound stupid or corny.

I'm sure that those who don't know the show, or weren't huge fans, won't find much to like here, and hell, I realize that I liked the show more than most, so I probably liked the movie more than most, but I don't care. I thought it was great and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD so that I can buy it, unlike the original movie which has been on my wish list, unpurchased, for years now. Now that we've moved away and had kids, Linda and don't have friends like we did when we watched the show, and in fact, haven't really kept up with couple we spent all of those Friday nights with. Seeing Mulder and Scully again, and seeing that there was hope for them, despite their problems, was like seeing old friends, if only for a night. I don't know what's going to happen to them, and I may never see them again, but I know they're ok. Somehow, that's enough.

Renaissance Man

Not only am I an accomplished humor writer and games reviewer (Ha!) but I'm also a Transformers news hound!

Check my front page (for now) submission about finding Universe Silverbolt out at retail.

Man. I need a life.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 10

Sorry for the late weekly weigh in post. Last night I got to playing the Eschelon demo from Greenhouse games and well, there went the evening.

If you like old school RPG's, Eschelon: Book 1 may scratch that particular itch for you.

Anywho, this week, despite only working out one day (the bike is still busted), I dropped another pound and a half and am down to 175.5 pounds. I find it very hard to believe that I lost that much weight only by dieting, but hey, all I can do is weigh myself three times and if the scale says the same thing each time, then it must be true. Who knows? Whatever the case, I'm only half a pound from my goal of 175 and I have until August 16th to do it. I bought the bike on 5/15, and started on 5/16, so three months would be 8/16. I don't expect to have lost any weight this week, and possibly to have gained some, what with me not believing the scale from this past weigh-in, so hopefully I can get the bike fixed so that my goal isn't in jeopardy.

I mean, I could always find another way to work out, but let's not get hasty.

Just because I've hit my target, I'm not going to stop as I want to lose the gut as much as I can, which means another couple of inches off the old stomach. Right now the diet is pretty much on auto-pilot, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep going. If I find that I'm dieting and exercising and not making any progress, I'll just be happy with how I look and call it a day. Once that happens, the exercise will continue, and for the most part, I'll stick to smaller portions, but if I want to eat a little more at dinner from time to time, or have a Frosty, then by God, I'll do it. Just watch me.

More Reviews

This time, it's a review for Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns. As it turns out, I don't like roguelike RPG's. Good to know.

Yeowch!

If you want to see me absolutely go to town on the frakked up mess that is the Hellboy PSP game, then tardy no longer! Head on over and check it out. I must have been in a bad mood that day because I was pretty cruel. Oh hell, who am I kidding? I'm in a bad mood every day.

100%

Last night marked the end of my GTA IV experience until the downloadable content drops as I killed my last pigeon, thereby earning the coveted Key to the City achievement for completing 100% of the game. So, what exactly did that entail? Well, you had to do the following:

All story missions (there were over 60 of them if I remember correctly)
All 10 courier missions
Win all nine street races
All ten car export missions
All thirty stolen car missions
All 30 most wanted missions
Twenty vigilante missions
All five helicopter tours
All nine assassination missions
Beat the computer at every game (bowling, darts, pool, QUB3D)
Take every friend out to every event
Fly under all 14 bridges with a helicopter
Meet all 21 random characters and do all of their missions
All 50 stunt jumps
All 200 pigeons killed

In addition to this, for achievement purposes I also won an additional 11 street races, rolled a car five times in one crash, did a 500 foot wheelie, scored with a woman, escaped a four star wanted level, survived a six star wanted level for five minutes, scored 180 points in darts, bowled a turkey in bowling, performed 10 melee counters in four minutes and blew up ten cars in ten seconds.

It took me about two months to do all of this, and this was with using a strategy guide. The guide certainly helped in some places, such as finding pigeons and finding the stunt jumps, but not so much in other places like actually completing the stunt jumps or for things like rolling your car or blowing up ten cars in ten seconds. For those, it was nothing but try, try and try some more.

I was pretty happy last night when my final achievement (the roll over one) popped, but sad at the same time as I've spent so much time playing this game that I'm bummed to see it go. Not since Mass Effect had I played a game that I looked forward to every night. Oh sure, I love me some Rock Band, but when it's not the same thing. When I wasn't playing GTA, I was thinking about it. I looked forward to sitting down with Niko every night. Not as much once it was just stunt jumps and pigeon hunting, but I still enjoyed it even then.

Now that GTA is done, and I have my achievement for completing the vocal tour on hard in Rock Band, I've started playing Condemned 2. So far I'm enjoying it, but I'm only about 45 minutes into it. I have three weeks until Too Human drops and I have to review it, so I'm not sure what I'll do once Condemned 2 is finished. I'm sure I'll think of something, but being in between games is so unsettling to me. It's like I'm lost, rudderless in a sea of inactivity. God forbid I do something constructive with my time.

On Loving and Golf

My We Love Golf review is up, and despite me describing the controls as the absolute worst video game golf controls ever when I first started playing it, I actually ended up like the game a fair amount. Ok, so when I derided the controls, it was because I wasn't using them correctly due to me being an idiot, but at least I didn't then include my initial impressions in the review. It's not that the controls are unintuitive, it's that I'm stupid and I attempted to play a motion assisted golf game while sitting on my fat ass. It did not go well. Once I stood up, things went much, much better.

A Typical Evening

Monday night I punched myself in the face while trying to fix my exercise bike. Anyone who knows me, knows that this is not atypical for me. After all, I am the man who bowled a hole in his basement wall. The face punching was not intentional, nor was the wall bowling for that matter, but it did happen. There was a very stubborn bolt, my very earnest effort, and a socket wrench that, when forced upon by my earnest effort, slipped off of the stubborn bolt and, clad in my hand, struck my right cheekbone.

It was both humbling and enraging at the same time. Mostly it was just unpleasant.

Why was I fixing my own exercise bike, despite it still being under warranty? Well, because when I called Kelley at Schwinn, to tell her of my squealing, banshee infested bike, she said that she'd send me some new bearings and then talk me through the installation over the phone. Troubleshooting, she called it. Fixing my own damn bike, I called it.

When the parts came, complete with a 12 pound box of 419 ball bearings that was supposed to go to an auto parts place in Marietta, I was surprised to see not just bearings, but a giant wheel, another wheel thingy, some more bolts, a lemur, seventeen midgets and a Grecian urn. It was a very large box.

In the 40 minutes that I was on hold before talking to Connie, I managed to get the entire exercise bike apart, cranks and all. I then spent something like five minutes trying to not say "crank" while on the phone with Connie, and instead managed to say "crank" something like thirteen hojillion times. I hope that Connie knew that I meant the bike cranks and that I wasn't spending the previous 40 minutes engaging in onanism. I was pretty pissed, which isn't usually the state of mind of someone who just spent almost an hour pleasuring himself, so I'm sure Connie knew what I meant.

After explaining to Connie that I couldn't get the crank shaft assembly bolts undone, the very bolts that caused my face punching, she then put me back on hold. I managed to get one bolt undone, then, when using the wrench to stabilize the big wheel that the crank shaft assembly was attached to, I managed to move the wheel which in turn made the wrench slip which then hit a wire, breaking it in the process.

Whoopsie.

At this point, I was pretty pissed, and I let Connie know this. I explained to her that I didn't understand why I was fixing the bike. She told me that if I had the parts, it's probably because I wanted to do the work myself, rather than wait for a technician. I told her that Kelley with an "e" never mentioned any fucking technician. Ok, I didn't swear. Well, not in that sentence anyway. Connie was very sorry after hearing this, and promptly put in an order for a technician and a new motor. Luckily, I don't have to pay for the motor, partially because it was broken during a repair process that was undertaken by myself when I hadn't been told that someone else could do it and partially because I didn't tell Connie that I was the one who broke said motor.

Again I say, whoopsie.

I'm not sure when the technician will be here, or when the motor will be here, but the bike is in pieces and wouldn't work even if I were to put it back together. Bottom line is that I have to figure out an exercise alternative for the near future. Tuesday morning I got up and walked the neighborhood. It was unpleasant what with all of the humidity and my near complete dislike of the outdoors. I could work out at work, but that's kind of a pain. I could also work out with Wii Fit but I'd spend most of my time in the menus. I don't know. I'm sure I'll think of something. Or I won't and instead will just gain weight. Either way, something will happen. Of that I'm certain.

Well, mostly certain.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 9

A week of little progress, but progress nonetheless as I stand at a svelte 177 lbs. No change in the waistline, however with only a pound of loss, there are certainly plenty of places for the fat to come from.

This week I watched American Gangster which was good, however it ended way too quickly. The movie was basically 2.5 hours of the rise of Frank Lucas and then like 10 minutes of his fall. Ok, so I'm sure the proportions are a bit off, but that's what it felt like. The other thing that bugged me was that there was a scene with Cuba Gooding Jr. where he gets confronted by Denzel Washington (as Frank Lucas) for taking Denzel's premium Heroin, cutting it and then selling it under the same brand name. Much yelling on the part of Cuba ensues and Frank leaves. I fully expected him to show up dead somewhere but he never did. In fact, you never see him again, at least I didn't. Maybe something happened in the brief span of time it takes for me to look down and see my heart rate. It's not entirely impossible. The movie was very well acted, so I didn't mind these small story problems but your mileage may vary.

As my exercise bike is somewhat busted and sounds like there's a banshee trapped inside of it, I then switched over to Hard Boiled figuring that if I'm going to be reading a movie any way (subtitles are a must over the din of the bike), I might as well read one of the greats. I hadn't seen this movie in quite some time, and having recently played Stranglehold, the video game sequel of sorts, it was cool to see all of the things in Hard Boiled that I had just seen in Stranglehold. That and things blew up real good.

The bike's repair kit arrived today, meaning that I'll be on the phone with Schwinn customer service tonight in an attempt to fix it, or as Schwinn would say "troubleshoot" it, so hopefully tomorrow morning I'll have a quieter ride and a movie that doesn't require subtitles. If I don't get around to fixing the bike, or if the kit doesn't fix it, I don't know what I'll watch. Truly these are the questions that weigh heavy on a man's soul.

Out Again

Once again, the call of live music has pulled me out of my hidey hole.
Tonight I'm taking in Mr. Butch Walker, one of my favorite artists.
As Butch is from nearby Cartersville, gigs in Atlanta tend to bring
out the best in him. Hopefully, tonight will be no exception. For
now though, it's all anticipation and people watching. Good times.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Disparate Elements
http://disparateelements.blogspot.com

Riddle Time!

Question: When is an E3 preview not an E3 preview?

Answer: When it's my preview of N+ for the PSP, conveniently posted today.

Simple, right? Ha. No. See, I played N+ and wrote the preview while E3 was going on, but I didn't do so at E3 on account of my E3 absence. The presentation of my preview at GameShark makes it look like I was at E3 which is kind of strange, but in the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I played the game, which I did. In fact, me not being at E3 probably means that I was able to spend more time with the game as they up and sent us a preview build, two copies to be exact, so I was able to spend as much time with it as I needed, rather than spend whatever time allotment they dole out at these conventions.

It being my first preview, I think I did alright. Nothing spectacular. I tried to stick to the "write what you see" mode of preview writing so as to not load the thing up with bullshit, and to that effect I think I succeeded. It's harder than it looks. For example, the game has co-op, but I only have one PSP, so I couldn't play the co-op mode, but I did see that they had several modes. In that situation, do you mention co-op? On the one hand, it has it, and you can see it, so you can mention it, on the other hand, it could be horribly broken in the retail release to the point where saying it has co-op is a lie because co-op doesn't work. In the end, I decided to elaborate on the things I witnessed with mine own eyes, and mention in passing everything else.

For the record, I did, in fact, download a custom map. A nice one too. It had rocket ships.

Not being able to inject my opinion made it a bit harder too. Again, sticking to the "write what you see" kind of mode, I tried to just give the facts and let the reader decide if the game was something they should be interested in. It's tough, I mean, it's not the final version, so everything could change completely, bad to good or vice versa. In subsequent previews, I'll try and do better to strike the right tone between honest commentary and cautious optimism. Given that I'm pessimistic about pretty much everything, even cautious optimism will be a stretch for me.

Grrr

Stupid hurricane.

I can only assume that Dolly is the reason that my broken 360 is currently sitting in some UPS depot some place. The tracking information says that my 360 can't proceed further due to inclement weather. I find this odd for a number of reasons. One, the tracking information states that my 360 is in Mesquite, Texas, which is where it's being delivered to. Two, today it was sunny and like a hundred degrees in Mesquite, so unless the inclement weather was extreme sunniness, I don't know what the problem is.

I can only assume that the information as to where my package actually is, is wrong and it's some place being affected by the hurricane. I hope not as I don't want my 360 being swept out to sea although I'm sure all of the marine life in the Gulf of Mexico would enjoy it. Perhaps they could make a nice coral mini-reef out of it.

Hopefully they'll be able to deliver it soon as Too Human drops in the middle of August and I need a working console to review it. Luckily, I have options for obtaining another console for review purposes, so my opinion will be heard by all on the matter of Too Human. This voice can not be stifled! Not by hurricanes! Not by extreme sunniness! Not by coral mini-reefs!

Weekly Weigh In: Week 8

This weekend saw the return of glorious progress in the quest to lose weight. I'm down to 178 and a 37 inch waist. Whee! I haven't seen a weight in the 170's for a couple of years now so I'm quite excited. I was also glad to see that my week of no progress wasn't repeated as I wasn't relishing the thought of trying to figure out ways to mix things up. I'm now three pounds from my weight goal of 175 however unless that loss of three pounds comes with a couple of inches off of the waistline, I will most likely continue dieting until my gut is a little smaller.

This was a high point in what can be described as a very uneven weekend. Friday night I set about seeing if playing bass in Rock Band on Hard is hard (it is) and all I got for my trouble was a busted Xbox. Luckily it wasn't the dreaded red rings of death, just a general hardware failure, but the end result was the same, namely I had to pack up the 360 and send it to Texas where it'll sit for two to three weeks. I have other systems on which to play games, which is good, however I was looking forward to putting the nail in GTA IV's coffin. Guess those stunt jumps and pigeons will have to wait a bit longer. In the mean time I'm playing God of War II which is OK and soon will have to start reviewing We Love Golf.

Saturday was the weigh in, so yay for that, but then Saturday night my daughter's high temperature from earlier in the week reared it's ugly head putting the plans of seeing The Dark Knight on Sunday in jeopardy. My reaction to this piece of bad news was to not sleep well for the rest of the night until 5:50 when the stupid carbon monoxide detector started chirping every 30 seconds to tell us that the battery was going. Shortly afterwards the dog decided to smear poop all over the carpeting necessitating an ass bath for him and a cleaning of the carpet, and this was all before the kids woke up. As callous as this sounds, I honestly can't wait for that fucking dog to die. He has ceased to bring anything to the table but shit stains and odd growths on his back. My wife still enjoys his company for some odd reason, but I guess it bodes well for my body's eventual slide into disrepair.

Luckily come Sunday morning my daughter was doing well so we headed out to buy Ben some school supplies and my insistence what we go to a different, rarely tread Walmart was rewarded with the Animated version of Jazz, the only figure I had yet to purchase. Double whee! He is much smaller in vehicle mode than I imagined and his transformation is very straightforward but he's Jazz and he comes with nunchuks, so I don't care.

Sunday night Linda and I went out to dinner and saw The Dark Knight and I have to say that every review I've read of it was spot on. I was concerned going into it that it wouldn't live up to the hype, or that I'd seen everything in the trailer, but this movie was so different from what I thought it was going to be, that it was like never seeing a frame of film before sitting down and watching it. Rather than rehash what I'm sure you've read elsewhere, I'll just say that it was brutal and harrowing and like being kicked in the stomach for three hours, but in a good way.

Today is similarly uneven as a trip to Target yielded a new Universe 2.0 Transformer, but our medical insurance company has denied the claim for Abby's therapy sessions because insurance companies were spawned in the pits of hell and are staffed by demons with shit spewing cocks for brains. Apparently they'd rather we stick a tube in her stomach and feed her that way than pay for some therapy sessions, because that makes perfect sense. I hope they all die. Did you get that, warrantless eavesdropping fuckwits?

Grrr.

Teh Absence

Oh, how the week flies by when you don't actually write anything!

Not sure why I didn't post this week. I just...didn't. Not that anyone cares, but hey, why should people stick around if I'm not here? Why indeed. I'm feeling a bunch of writing malaise of late including with my GameShark stuff. I managed to pound out reviews of Hellboy for the PSP and Carnival Games for the DS (both sucked) but now I'm facing the task of writing a preview of N+ for the PSP. I also need to get off of my ass and work on this top ten list I've been kicking around for like a month now. Me so lazy!

On to various bits.

I finally finished everything but shooting all of the pigeons and hitting all of the stunt jumps in GTA IV. I was quite satisfied with the ending of the game. The final mission was a bit of a pain, what with no ability to save mid-mission, but it had a nice balance. You drove, you shot, you ran, you biked, you flew a helicopter. It had thrills and chills. The story ended on a nice downer too which I felt appropriate. I mean, Niko Bellic is not a nice guy and while he may have done some things for good reasons, he was a violent killer all the same, so things shouldn't end on a happy, high note. You play with fire, you're going to get burned. Still, it was an odd choice, as at the end of the game, Niko basically states that none of what he did was worth it which usually isn't how you want people to feel after they've sunk dozens of hours into your game. Personally, I loved it as I think the world is shit, so I'm all for someone expressing those thoughts.

I know that some fans of earlier games lamented the lack of true, free roaming destruction that was present in earlier games, but for someone like myself who is paralyzed by so much choice, I felt that the structure was just what I needed to truly enjoy the game. Now all I need is to roll my car five times in one jump, kill all the pigeons and hit all of the stunt jumps and I'll be all done until the DLC comes out. Whee!

Linda and I watched Batman: Gotham Knight and while I loved the animation, I wasn't thrilled with using Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman. Conroy voiced Batman in the animated series back in the 90's as well as in the JLA cartoon and the Justice League Unlimited cartoon, so it certainly makes sense for him to be the voice, however these stories are set in the Batman Begins universe, so I found the mix of the old and the new somewhat jarring. Granted, that mixture is probably exactly what they were going for, but as a fan of the comics, I've learned to keep all of the various comic property universes separate and in this case, I don't want no animated chocolate in my big screen peanut butter.

In other Batman news, Linda and I are going to see The Dark Knight on Sunday. We are both very excited as we're also going to eat copious amounts of pizza and when we get home, the children will be snug in their beds. Babysitters rule.

Let's see, what else, what else. Oh, Psych season 2 came out on DVD and man if this still ain't one of the funniest shows out there. Those two kill me.

Finally, save for one figure, I have all of the Transformers: Animated figures that are currently out at retail and I love each and every one of them. They're all so clean and big jawed, unlike the spiky movie figures, and with the exception of Bumblebee, they're all very fun to transform and pose. Me likey. I picked up some of the new Classics figures too, and they're fun as well, but I'm really digging on the animated line right now.

Well, I think that's about as much boring minutia of my trivial and sleep inducing life that I think I can come up with. I'm sure you're looking forward to more regular posts of this stellar caliber. I know I am.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 7

Sorry for the lack of posts last week, but I swear that every day either I or Linda was bringing the dog to the vet for some multi-hundred dollar procedure to see what's wrong with him. After the ultrasound on Friday ($250), he's back to being like his old self, so apparently all that was required to fix his problem was about a thousand dollars of tests and medications. It was a stressful week, so I didn't feel like posting.

This week I didn't lose anything, which was to be expected after the four day eat-a-thon that was the 4th of July weekend. I also ate a metric ton of food on Friday as work paid for it, so that certainly didn't help the weigh-in on Saturday. The official number was 180.5, which represents an actual step backwards of half a pound. Oh well. This week I'm back to the diet and working out, so hopefully I'll see some weight loss on Saturday.

This past weekend I saw Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and it was quite the kick-ass movie. Very well done with lots of action, lots of humor and some incredibly creative creature design on display. Everything that was there to like in the first one was in this one, only more so. Three awesome comic book movies in one summer before The Dark Knight drops? Surely the apocalypse is upon is. Linda and I managed to get a babysitter for this weekend, so we'll be rocking The Dark Knight date night style. I'm super excited. That movie is going to kick ass.

Speaking of excited, the Rock Band 2 track list was released today and man, September can't get here fast enough. The Replacements, Jimmy Eat World, Fleetwood Mac, Silversun Pickups, Modest Mouse, Billy Idol, Duran Duran, the list goes on and on to the tune of 75 master tracks with 20 more downloadable once the game launches and the ability to import most of the songs from the original Rock Band disc. Guitar Hero IV on the other hand, gets the Eagles and Van Halen as exclusive bands. Wow. That's so, what's the word? Oh yes. Boring. There were other things released today at Microsoft's press conference like strange singing games about lips, and the ability to stream Netflix movies to your 360, and something about the next Final Fantasy game being on the 360 as well as the PS3, but I could give a shit about any of that stuff. Rock Band pretty much rules my world at the moment and that track list is the shit.

The. Shit.

Weekly Weigh In: Week 6

Not a lot of movement this week as I weighed in at a whopping 180 lbs, a whole half a pound less than last week. I did lose about half an inch off of the waistline though, so that's good and my body fat percentage is 20.5% which is a good 5% less than when I started. I weighed myself early this week and didn't do any Wii Fit all week so I'm sure all of those things accounted for less loss. That and it's just what my body decided to do this week.

I started watching This is Spinal Tap as I needed something that I could get through in two days as the final season of The Batman comes out on Tuesday and I want to start watching it on Wednesday. Spinal Tap is just as hilarious as I remembered it to be. The "mime is money" line always kills me.

Linda and I went and saw Wanted today and man, that was one kick ass action movie. I had read a review that said that if you had read the comic, the movie doesn't work, a statement I disagree with 100%. There's no way that the comic would have worked on screen without looking ridiculous. I mean, one of the characters is a guy made of shit. Come on. The movie reminded me of Running Scared, the Paul Walker movie, not the Billy Crystal movie, in that it was incredibly violent, and once the action started, it just kept going. Angelina Jolie looked amazing, which certainly didn't hurt. If you like action movies, with tons of kick ass stunts and bloody violence, it's not a bad way to spend two hours.

Happy 4th of July!

What a fantastically awesome 4th of July I've had!

First, based on some tips from people on the TFW2005.com boards, we headed to the Target in Buckhead to see if I could score some elusive Wave 3 Transformers: Animated deluxe figures. For our efforts I was rewarded with Oil Slick, Soundwave and Snarl. Alas, Jazz was AWOL, and despite the price scanner stating that there were more figures in the back, a call to the back room brought news that all of the figures were out. I find this hard to believe, but what choice did I have but to believe them?

After that, we headed to the nearby Walmart to look for a bed for Ben and while we didn't find a bed, I did find one of every Marvel Transformer! Score! I completely cleaned out the store, buying Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man and Venom for myself and a Spider-Man for Ben. As much as a callous bastard as I make myself out to be, when presented with the opportunity to teach my son about the joys of robot superheroes that turn into motorcycles, I don't back down.

After all of the retail excitement, we headed home and I grilled up some peppers, onions and spicy Italian sausage for dinner. The sandwiches, along with Linda's kick ass macaroni salad made for quite the tasty meal.

Now there's nothing left but to sit back and watch the dogs shit themselves in fear from the inevitable fireworks. Can't wait!

Here's hoping that your 4th of July is a good one. Enjoy the weekend.

My Afternoon Itinerary

Here's the schedule of my afternoon today, to give you an idea of how we roll at Hyphen Ridge.

3:30 - Get a call from Linda telling me that the dog shat all over the house.
3:35 - Get a call from Linda telling me that the dog also threw up all over the house.
3:40 - Get a call from Linda telling me that there's blood in the dog's shit.
3:41 - Call the vet and make a 5:00 appointment for the blood shitting dog.
3:45 - Head home to pick up the dog.
4:10 - Get home and greet the family.
4:25 - Get back in the car with the dog to head to the vet which just happens to be down the road from where I work.
4:45 - Get to the vet.
5:45 - Find out that the dog will need to get shots, fluids and have blood drawn because the dog shouldn't be shitting blood. Also find out that the dog won't be ready to be picked up until around 7:00.
5:46 - Get back in the car and head home.
6:05 - Get home and help finish up the kids' bath.
6:15 - Put Abby to bed.
6:20 - Get call from Vet that the dog is ready to come home.
6:21 - Find out what Linda wants for dinner.
6:22 - Get back in the car to go back to the vet.
6:40 - Get to vet and find out that the dog has pancreatitis, possibly caused by stress from the massive thunderstorms we had Saturday and Sunday night.
6:45 - Pay $350 vet bill.
6:46 - Get back in the car with dog and head home.
7:10 - Get dinner.
7:20 - Get home, hopefully for the night.

Sadly, this is the second time in about six months that Henry has had pancreatitis, so we're familiar with the drill and we had the medicated food left over from the last time, thereby saving us 25 bucks. Not that I want anything bad to happen to the dog, but seriously, he either needs to tell his pancreas to get with the program, or see about shuffling off his mortal coil. He has lived a good life, there's no shame in giving up the ghost now. I told Linda that when I get old, if I start shitting all over the house, she can take me in and have me put down and I won't think poorly of her.

Hopefully the dog won't have to go out every couple of hours tonight and we can actually get some sleep. Hopes are high.

All Binky, All the Time

GameShark is ruled by Mr. Binky today as my latest column is up as well as my review of Secret Agent Clank. The column is a Baldur's Gate 2 story I've had in my head for a couple of years now, I just never put it down on paper. I think it turned out pretty well, and it had all of the beats I intended, so I'm pretty pleased. Plus, I got paid for it, which is something that wouldn't have happened had I written it when it was originally conceived. The Secret Agent Clank review reads better than it did when I first wrote it, without any extra editing, so I'm pleasantly surprised at that one. Sometimes I like stuff when I write it, sometimes I don't. I don't edit my stuff, which can be a good or a bad thing, choosing to ruminate over the piece in my head well before I put it on paper, so when I don't like something, I kind of feel like I don't know what else to do with it, so I just submit it anyway. It's not like I think that the piece is crap, more like a meal that is perfectly edible, you just wish it tasted different, and slightly better.

In other news, Circuit City continued to provide an absolutely shitty retail experience today as I attempted to get rid of the gift card I've been toting around for two months now. I don't know what it is about this store that they feel the need to carry absolutely nothing but their bitter seeds will eventually bear the rancid fruit of bankruptcy and I will dance in the fucking streets when that happens. Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that my not using the gift card would mean money for nothing for them, I'd cut the damn thing up and throw it out. Of course, it would probably show back up in my wallet like some kind of cursed monkey paw, forever chained to my person, but at least the act of cutting it up would be cathartic. I've heard many people complain about Best Buy, but at least when I go there, they actually have things, to, you know, buy. I may not be well versed in a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure me going to a store and being able to buy things sums up the very heart of the retail experience. Anything on top of that is just gravy.