How Not to Recycle

In the process of creating the Man Lounge this weekend, I unearthed a number of old items, one of which was my old Creative Zen Jukebox mp3 player. Not sure why I was keeping this thing around, but there it was, thick as a brick and half as sexy. Being the green minded fellow that I am, rather than chucking it in the garbage with all of my other crap (including, but not limited to a yo-yo, a harmonica and two cigar cutters), I figured I'd recycle the thing. I have no idea just what is in a MP3 player that makes it any worse for the environment than all of other crap we consume day to day that can't be recycled, but I also don't know how to put a fucking watch on, so clearly I'm not in a position to judge.

So, with my environmental ignorance in mind, I decided to make use of Best Buy's chain-wide recycling program and send my MP3 player back to the Earth, or at least to some third world company where they'll no doubt sell it as top of the line technology. My brief, although not brief enough trip to the joy that is the Best Buy recycling program has allowed me to come up with a brief tutorial on how not to recycle electronics. Read it. Live it. Love it.

Signs People
Upon walking into the Best Buy, there is absolutely nothing there telling you a) where the recycling drop-off is or b) that they even have one. The only reason I knew that they had a program is because I researched it online and found the information there. Oh sure you can drop off used cell phones, ink cartridges and rechargeable batteries once you walk into the store, but for anything other than that, you'll be wandering aimlessly, doomed to perish of thirst amongst the vacuum cleaners before you find where you should go. I ended up asking the guy right at the door, thus preventing my untimely demise. When is a demise timely? Has anyone ever died and other said "well, he was about due for it"? These are the things that keep me awake at night. Moving on.

Don't Make People Wait In Line
The average person will do only that which is absolutely necessary to live their daily lives. Most people wouldn't get dressed in the morning if they didn't have to. I have seen people walking around in pajamas at three in the afternoon, a clear sign that they are doing the bare minimum needed to be considered clothed. Recycling something which can be very easily thrown away is asking a lot to people, especially considering that without the benefit of some seriously jacked up technology, those same people will be long dead before their non-recycling ways catches up with them. At Best Buy, or at least this Best Buy, if you are recycling something, you have to wait in line at the Customer Service Counter. Yes, that's right, if you're trying to do the right thing, ecologically speaking, you have to wait with all of the people looking to cheat the store out of a five dollar pair of headphones.

In this case, there were two people in front of me, one of which appeared to be on drugs. This woman could not stand still. She'd adjust her headphones, then pick her nose, then play with the cattle mover stand, then look at me, then look at the return policy sign, then look at me, then pick her nose, then play with the pole, then look at me. Not wanting to be shot by a junkie as I waited in line to recycle a five year old MP3 player, I stood firmly rooted to the spot, staring straight ahead as if a drill sergeant were screaming at me and threatening to stab me with a bayonet and leave me to the swamp critters. Either this woman was completely hopped up on something or she was looking to pull off the mother of all Best Buy swindles. Eventually she calmed the fuck down, moved forward and returned whatever she decided she didn't need any more so that she had more money for crank.

Remember Why You're Recycling
Once I got to the counter, and presented my item for recycling, the woman, rather child as she was all of about 12, picked it up and said "What is this?" Now, the thing says right on it "MP3 Player" but I'm assuming that her mind couldn't reconcile the fact that an MP3 player could be more than six ounces and not made by Apple. I couldn't have gotten a more befuddled look if I brought in an 8-track player as her hipster, douchebag boyfriend probably has an 8-track player so that he can be cool and retro.

I told her what it was and she then proceeded to start scanning unseen barcodes. Then, inexplicably, she handed me a receipt. A receipt! A receipt for recycling! Do you know what the receipt said? It said "Recycling receipt - $0.00" followed by a yard of information on Best Buy's return policy and how I can take a survey and possibly win a gift card. This receipt was as useless a piece of paper as I've ever seen. There was absolutely no information on it that I could use to get back my MP3 player should I change my mind and decide to fuck over the environment. In fact, there was nothing on the receipt to even indicate what I had brought in for recyling in the first place. All it stated was that at some point today, I brought in something to be recycled, and that no money changed hands as a result of it.

Seriously people, why the fuck would I need a receipt for this? What possible reason could there be for me to have a receipt other than the fact that Best Buy secretly hates the fact that they have to now recycle electronics and has decided to retaliate by killing trees and polluting our fair planet with register tape ink. I can't think of any other reason. At the very least, ask if the person wants a receipt before you hand them the stupid thing. Then they could make the decision to continue defiling the land for their own stupid need to obsessively keep a record of every meaningless transaction they participate in. I am not one of those people. The receipt was wasted on me.

Here's how you run a recycling program. You put a bin out in the middle of the floor that says "Recycle Used Electronics Here". You then put up a sign saying that if people put in things like hard drives with personal information on it, Best Buy reserves the right to steal your identity and sell your children. On a related note, why is it that they won't let you recycle hard drives because of personal information concerns, but you can drop off a cell phone with not only your personal information but the phone numbers of every person you know? Chew on that one for a while. If you want to get really crazy you can have someone manning the bin that tells people that their tv is too large to recycle, although realistically, anyone who can find the strength to pick up the 800 lb tube tv from 1973 probably isn't going to be hauling it into the Best Buy any time soon. I have a 36 inch Toshiba in the bedroom that is so heavy, we'll never replace it. If it dies, I'll buy a flat panel tv and just rest it on top of the broken one. I'll be dead and in the ground before that fucking TV makes it outside of the house.

From now on, I think I'm going to save myself the hassle and just follow my own, foolproof recycling process. It goes a little something like this:

Step 1: Bring your stuff out to your lawn.
Step 2: Print out a sign that reads "$20".
Step 3: Affix sign to stuff.
Step 4: Go to bed.

By morning it will all be stolen and now be somebody else's problem. Now that's what I call recycling!

Time Is On My Side

Earlier this week, Hodge sent me a listing for a deal he found on Slickdeals.net for an incredibly cheap Citizen Eco-Drive watch, the glorious timepiece pictured to the right. Hodge knows that I love watches and he probably also knows that as much as I love watches, I have neither the means, nor the inclination to drop a tremendous amount of money on them. Hodge is married, with children, so he is well aware of the economics of the happy household. Any way, the deal was for a site called ChronoShark which basically has a different deal on either watches or jewelry every day. The current day's deal was for the pictured watch for $119 bucks. Given that the watch retails for about 500 bucks, it was a pretty good deal.

As soon as I saw the damn thing I fell in love with it, however I felt the need to do some basic research and the general consensus was that it was a good watch. Apparently it's last year's model, hence the price discount, but seeing how the cheapest I could find it for online was just south of 300, at less than 120, it was an incredible deal. Me being the saving maven that I am, I found a coupon for two dollars off, meaning that I got the watch for $117. Shipping was five bucks, bringing the entire total to $122. Not too shabby.

The watch arrived today and hot damn, it is absolutely gorgeous. Gorgeous! My time with it has not been without problems though, which is to be expected given that this is me.

First of all, I couldn't put the damn thing on. Unbeknownst to me, even though the watch has a leather band, it has the same clasp that you would find on a metal band. It took me about 20 minutes of fucking with the thing to figure out how it works. Chances are, if you can't put your watch on, you have no business wearing, or using it, but I persevered.

Second, this thing is loaded with all sorts of wacky features, but to get them working you had to set all of the hands to some sort of reference point and that wasn't working correctly, so I had to do that from scratch all while listening to the kids to make sure they weren't killing each other. Eventually I got it working, and man, this watch has some serious skills.

First off it can tell time, obviously. It has a dedicated second hand, the small dial on the lower right. It also keeps track of the day of the month via the large second hand and can even tell you the month and year via the small hands on the lower left. It does this via some sort of perpetual calendar where it keeps track of the year relative to when the last leap year is. Granted, this means that in order to know what year you're in, you have to know what year the last leap year was, but if you can't remember that, chances are this watch is far beyond your meager time telling skills. It also has an AM/PM meter, that orange and black pie wedge thingy, to tell you if the time is in the AM or PM. The hand also moves through the two stages relative to the time, so not only do you know if you're in the morning or the afternoon, but how far into each. Awesome, right?

It also has an alarm, which I haven't set yet, as well as the ability to keep time in another time zone. It does this by picking the new time based on how many 30 minute intervals the local time is off of your "normal" time. Complicated? Sure! Awesome? Undoubtedly! It can also keep an alarm for the local time. Lord knows how you set that. Probably with chickens.

Finally, and most awesomely, you can press a button and the watch will play a series of tones to tell you the time. First high pitched tones count off the hour, then a combination of high and low tell you how many 15 minute intervals have gone by since the top of the hour, finally low pitched tones tell you how many minutes since the last 15 minute interval. Not sure why you would need this, perhaps in cases of temporary blindness, but it is cool.

As the watch is an Eco-Drive, it recharges via sunlight, and when fully charged can run for nine months without ever needing a charge. You can fully charge the thing by giving it 10 hours of outside sunlight or give it a full day's worth of juice by toiling in an office for four hours. Given that I rotate through my watches regularly, I'll have to make sure I give this thing plenty of sun so that it's always at the ready, just how I used to shake my grandfather's Bulova every day that I didn't wear it so that it kept the time. Speaking of that watch, I need to get it fixed, provided it can be fixed. That's a story for another time though.

In the meantime, I'm really digging this new watch and can't wait to wear it out where I'll undoubtedly scratch it all to hell. As long as the tones keep working, I'll still be able to tell the time though, even if the face gets all scratched up. Score one for the tones baby!

On Pool Tables and the Dismantling Thereof

As much as I have been ignoring this space, I have been ignoring Lungfishopolis far, far more. With that in mind, I'm going to point you over there to a piece I just wrote about my taking apart of our family pool table.

Thanks for the memories pool table. They were great ones.

I R A Superhero

Look ma, I'm a superhero!


I decided to go with the monocle because monocles are awesome. The shirt and tie and axe is a nod to the episode of Cheers where Norman is tasked to be his company's hatchet man and he spent his days firing people. Honestly, had I been able to choose my own name, I would have chosen Hatchetman. What can I say, a little gallows humor in these days of economic turmoil seems to suit me nicely. I don't know why I added the cape but once I did, he didn't seem complete without it.

Thanks to Bones who pointed out the oh so awesome Hero Factory. Now get over there and make one for yourself! The Merciful Sharpened Barbarian commands it!

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix review

From hell's gate I stab at thee.  Well, not hell, Florida, but it is warm here.

Any way, enjoy my Puzzle Quest: Galactrix review in which I call out people for being whiny bitches.  That, my friends, is journalistic professionalism at its finest.

MadWorld

More later, but for now you can read my MadWorld review. I thought that this game was great, as indicated in the review, but not because of how over the top and bloody the game was, but because of how surprisingly deep it was. When you're playing a game that allows you to kill enemies with a swirly, you don't expect to think much, especially once the game is over, but I can't get the final scenes of this game out of my head. I feel like this game is one giant goof on the player, and I'm OK with that.

I Also Read About Kelly Clarkson

First things first, my 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand achievement guide is live and it's hella awesome. Ok, so it's not that awesome, but I did work pretty hard to try and make the simple achievements witty and such. Clearly my efforts were not appreciated by my erstwhile editor as he wants me to ditch such simple achievements in the future due to the fact that the CMS application he uses sucks and it would make his life easier. Personally, I'm all for being thorough and fully believe that any work saved now by not including the simple achievements will only be spent later on answering the feedback emails stating that we didn't include the story achievements. I'm just saying. I kind of felt guilty taking money for this guide as it was pretty easy to write, then again, I did play the game three times, and some levels even more than that, so I put my work in. Besides, if they're going to pay me, there's no reason to feel guilty about it.

In other news, at some recent point, I managed to get myself subscribed to both US Weekly and Blender magazine. US Weekly has been coming to the house for a couple of weeks for reasons I can not fathom. I absolutely despise the culture of celebrity stalking that has risen up in recent years and this magazine is pretty much nothing but gossip stories and shots of celebrities trying to spend time at the grocery store, or at the park with their children. How I got subscribed to it I have no idea and if it weren't for the fact that Linda enjoys flipping through it, I'd call and cancel. You can rest assued that when the invoice for this rag arrives, I will not be replying in the affirmative.

I had no idea I was also subscribed to Blender until my first issue arrived yesterday. It's an interesting magazine, seemingly written for the attention deficit addled younger generation who can't stand to read anything longer than Twitter's 140 character limit. I think in the first 10 pages there were roughly thirteen hundred stories. They had an indepth story on Pink that was just the letter "P" repeated six times. Ok, so it isn't that bad, but if you ever thought that Rolling Stone was too lenghty and full of itself, and honestly, who hasn't, then Blender is for you. In their lists of the bestest songs out there, they did have both Kelly Clarkson and Kings of Leon so at least the writers have some semblance of taste there.

Now, the most important thing about my becoming a new subscriber of Blender is that my inaugural issue had my favorite and yours, Kelly Clarkson on the cover. Hot damn she is so cute. They had an interesting interview/article with her as well. She seems fairly normal, well, as normal as someone who can just grab her girlfriends and jaunt off to Europe on a moment's notice. To be so young, so wealthy and so talented probably isn't normal at all, so one has to take my impressions with a large grain of salt. Personally I found the whole magazine very funny as I have had nothing but disparaging comments sent my way for sharing my love of Kelly Clarkson and rainbows and I felt that this was the universe's way of rewarding my candidness. Either that or someone has stolen my credit card number and is just subscribing me to every magazine sold by Amazon.

At any rate, far be it from me to stop the Kelly Clarkson train, now that it has gained momentum that can only be described as Kellyrific. For your listening pleasure, enjoy two of my favorite Kelly Clarkson songs. The first, "Gone" is from Breakaway. It got some radio play, but honestly every freaking song on that record got record play. It's upbeat, has displays some fine vocal chops and isn't played on the radio every 30 seconds.

Gone - Kelly Clarkson

Second up is "Sober" from My December. I have mentioned before that I love this song and that it's one of my favorites by her. This one is all acoustic like. Awesome!

Sober (Star Lounge acoustic) - Kelly Clarkson

This whole embedding music thing is the shit. I think we may need to to 30 Days of Kelly or something. Kelly and rainbows. That would be so awesome. Epic even.

I Am Not A Woman

Christ. You make one post about loving Kelly Clarkson and wanting to see more rainbows in games and all you do is get made fun of and have anonymous internet algorithms think you're a female blogger. What the hell!

I'm glad that I left out the part about me cooking and being very good about flower arrangement although that last part, when combined with the love of rainbows and Kelly Clarkson probably would have shifted me from "woman" to "gay". Not to say that all gay men love rainbows and Kelly Clarkson and have a penchant for flower arrangement, I'm just predicting what algorithim that picks a blogger's gender based on posts would say.

I guess the algorith missed the part where I said that I wanted more rainbows in the game where you play a rapper murdering hundreds of people for a crystal skull. Context internet algorithm! It's all about the context.

Did I mention that I also like the unicorn in Peggle? Crap. Probably shouldn't have. Now the algorithm will think I'm a ten year old girl.

I'll tell you what internet algorithm, I'm hella manly. I mean, when I look around my cube, I have robots that turn into cars and planes, I have a Hellboy statue, I have a calendar of kittens wearing silly hats. Oh, look at May! He's so cute and widdle!

Dammit!

I should probably stop posting now and make a note to do manly things this weekend like shoot animals and um, er, I don't know what else. What the hell do guys do these days? Craft something out of wood? Crush beer cans? Hell if I know. I'll stick to the rainbows.

And for all of the folks who derided me for loving Kelly Clarkson, well this one's for you:


My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson

One More Thing

"My December" kicked ass. "Sober" is one of the best songs she's ever done. We ain't abidin' no haters up in this joint.

I Love Kelly Clarkson

I do, and I don't care who knows. I. Love. Kelly. Clarkson.

I never watched American Idol when she was on it, or since, but hot damn do I love her music. Here new cd is Teh Awesome and the playlist I made of all of her stuff is currently playing on my new iPod and it is, as Michael Steele would say, off the hook. She be da man. Or something.

I have an affinity for good pop music, emphasis on the "good" part, and this fits the bill nicely. The songs are catchy and girlfriend got some pipes, which benefits the material nicely. So yeah, sue me. I love Kelly Clarkson. Pffffft!

I finally got my hands on Peggle for the DS today and after years of successfully fending off this paragon of casual gaming on the PC, I have already played a match and I can feel the steely tendrils of addiction worming their way into my brain. It hurts, oh God how it hurts, but only for a moment. Then it's nothing but sublime pleasure.

I mean, come on. When I booted up the cart for the first time the game said that it was preparing the rainbows. I wish more games that I played prepared rainbows for me. For as much as I loved the 50 Cent game, if every time he threw a grenade he yelled "Preparing the rainbows motherfucker!" the game would be that much better. I have many the wonderful experience when gaming, but very few of them have rainbows. Not Peggle. In the one stage I played, those fucking things were exploding all over the place, like some kind of Carebear money shot. I also got treated to a slow motion shot of my almost failing a match as if to say, "Hey dumbass, we show you the path of your ball and you still fail? Nice!" Snark and rainbows? Dude, that is right where I live.

So yeah, Kelly Clarkson and rainbows. Love 'em both. Love 'em!

Check My Mad Questioning Skills

My Q&A with Tigon Studios for the upcoming Riddick game is up and live. For an email Q&A, I think it went really well. Ian Stevens answered my questions and took the time to give well thought out responses to all of them. One can't ask for more than that.

Mmmmm, Riddick.

I Am Not Dead

I am not dead, nor injured nor trapped under something heavy. I've just been busy with a bunch of writing for GameShark, or playing games so that I can write about them for GameShark. Work has also been busy, which means no midday updating. Well, other than this one, which is being done at the expense of writing test cases, something I'm already behind on.

Whoopsie!

Oddly enough, I'm thinking of doing the Twitter thing, so that I can become even more behind on my missives. I probably won't do it though as I'm also very lazy, and my understanding is that you have to set things up. Possibly register even. The horrors!

Ok, back to it. Until we meet again.

Early

Well, what do you know, Fiddy came early. Here's my take on the game that I can't stop playing, complete with new, official GameShark.com photo. This picture was taken on Tuesday, which was only a day after the Great Digestive Revolt of '09, which explains why I'm covering half of my face. See, the casual observer thinks that I'm just trying to be cool and show some DS love at the same time, however in reality I'm trying to hide the fact that I looked like shit on toast.

Ah photography, is there nothing you can't do?

Happy Galactrix Day!

Oh happy day! Puzzle Quest: Galactrix has been unleashed on an unsuspecting universe and our free time will never be the same again!

I would have posted earlier to wish everyone a happy Galactrix Day but first I had to go to two stores to get the game, and then I was playing it.

It's awesome.

It has some problems, namely a herky-jerky animation style when gems are moving off of the board and I see the "Accessing Data" screen a whole hell of a lot more than I would like to, but hot damn if this game doesn't have it's hooks in me but good. I only hope I can reign in the rampant fanboyism before I have to write the official review. One has to be objective, you know.

In other news, I'm enjoying the hell out of the 50 Cent game. What the fuck is this world coming to? My official review will be up Friday, but I'll give you a hint: the grade lies between A and C. You're a smart bunch. I think you can figure it out.

Sick

Nothing like starting your week off by having your entire digestive system revolt against everything you've put in it over the past 24 hours.

Mondays suck.

Spider-rific

Woo-hoo! A new review! For you!

Ok, enough rhyming. Check it as I make with the bug motions in Deadly Creatures.

The Apple of My Ire

We have hit a snag in the CD making process, I'm sad to report. Over the weekend I compiled a list of candidate songs. Given that there were quite a few, including several Pearl Jam songs, all of which have live versions that must be considered, my plan was to make a playlist out of all of the songs and then listen to the playlist while at work. This would allow me to narrow down the list as well as see how the songs all worked off of one another. This was a good idea, key word being "idea", however in practice, things have failed miserably all thanks to my iPod.

I have had a love/hate relationship with my iPod ever since I got it. Linda gave it to me as a Christmas gift, which I love, and it was a 10GB upgrade over the capacity of my Creative player which I also loved. What I hated was the fact that at the time I got it, way back in 2003, connecting an iPod to your computer via USB was a nightmare. If it worked, it barely worked, necessitating an upgrade to Ye Olde Home PC in the form of a Firewire card. Back in 2003, Macs all had Firewire while PC's all had USB. Nowadays, fucking everything has Firewire, but we'll get to that in a minute. So I wasn't too keen on having to buy a new card for the PC, but I did it. I also wasn't keen on using iTunes but I did that too but only for managing my music. For transferring music to my iPod, I use Red Chair Software's excellent Anapod Explorer. For one it integrates into Windows Explorer so that I can drag and drop and second, it allows me to transfer music from any PC I want. Fuck you Apple. It's my iPod and I'll hook it up wherever I damn well please you pretentious, turtleneck wearing fucktards. Oh, and while we're on the subject, two mouse buttons? Not that fucking hard?

Any way. After some time using the iPod, my two biggest grips surfaced. One was that there's no ability to manage your music on the fly. My Creative player allowed you to construct entire playlists on the player as well as, more importantly, delete songs on the fly. Given that I listen to a lot of rap music, and the albums often have stupid skits, being able to delete songs as you come across them is very helpful. The iPods don't let you do this, still to this day. Well, fine. I got over it. The second issue was much larger and not as easy to get over. Basically, the battery in my current iPod is pretty much useless. If I use the player, the battery runs down quickly. If I don't use the player, it runs down quickly. And when I say "runs down", I mean to the point where I can't even get the damn thing to turn on. When it gets like this, it has so little juice that it needs to charge some before it will stay on long enough to realize that it's being charged via the USB connection. What this means is that if I want to load some new songs onto it, but I haven't used it in a while, I have to charge it up some before I can even turn it on to load the damn thing up. As a result, I end up just toting around CD's in my work bag so that I have something to listen to at work.

Now yes, I could just keep reminding myself to charge the thing up, but shoudn't it just work if I haven't been using it? The same thing happens with my PSP and it drives me crazy. If I don't use it, the battery runs out completely. If I don't use my DS, it sits there charged and at the ready until I pick it back up. The end result of all of this is that I never use my iPod because in order to use it, I have to charge it, and I never think to charge it when I'm not using it.

Which brings us to where we are now. Knowing that I was going to use it for my CD test playlist, I charged it up, ripped some new CD's and made my playlist. This was all on a Sunday night. Monday I get to work, turn the iPod up, start the playlist and watch as the iPod skips past every song in the playlist until it gets to the end of the list at which point it kicked me back to the menu. After some messing around with the buttons, I found that if I was really fast in hitting the play/pause button, I could get the song to play, but once the song was over and the iPod moved to the next song in the list, we were back to Skipsville. This happened with the new playlist as well as with an old playlist and today I tried it out with an album and, gee, what do ya know, it happens there too.

So, basically, I can't listen to music on my iPod. Great.

Even though I recently had gotten away from listening to music at work, due to all of the battery issues, I still really enjoy listening to music at work, so I want something to replace the player with, and despite my problems with this player, it looks like Apple has it's hooks into me deep enough to where I'll be buying a 120GB Classic iPod. You still can't delete items on the fly, but the battery, oh the battery, now has a life of over 30 hours. That would be a huge improvement over what I've got now. The ability to watch tv shows and play games is nice too, but honestly, I don't see myself doing that. If I wanted to watch TV shows on a portable device, I have a PSP for that, and I never do it due to the time needed to convert videos. I'm not about to buy TV shows from iTunes when I have a backlog of stuff on DVD I've never watched.

Yes, there are other players I could choose, but the 120GB of storage is real attractive. Yeah, the Zune has a 120GB model, but I really don't want to be tied to Microsoft's software and as Linda mentioned last night, the iPods are going to be around for a while. If I stick with an iPod, I'm covered with my current software setup.

Where I'm not covered is with the fucking accessories, and this is where I get really pissed off. As I mentioned before, back when I got my iPod, it was Firewire or nothing. Yeah, well, guess what? None of the current Classic iPod's work with any of the Firewire accessories because they all do everything over USB now. So that means my dock won't work and my AC adapter won't work. Why in the hell would Apple stop supporting Firewire accessories for the iPod when those very same accessories were the only way to get music on the fucking things when they first came out? I mean, come on. I guess I can take small comfort in the fact that so many PC owners bought the damn things that Apple figured it was easier to just have USB the way to go, but that's probably not the case and it still doesn't change the fact that I may have to replace the accessories. I say "may" as I'm still going to test the new iPod with the old stuff, but I don't have high hopes.

Luckily, the iPod comes with a USB cable, and I can charge it and move music to it with just that cable, which means that I won't have to buy the accessories right away, but it's the principle that bugs me. Plus, as you can tell, Apple just annoys me in general and I hate to think that I'm giving them more money on account of being so unsatisfied with their original product. Oh well. At least I can get the player for 30 bucks less by buying it through Amazon. Gotta take comfort somewhere.

The Mixed CD

A couple of weeks ago I told my son that I'd make him a mixed CD and I have been paralyzed with fear ever since.

This is a crucial juncture in his upbringing, when his soft and malleable musical mind can be put on the right course towards blistering, life affirming rock, but what music best charts that righteous course? The mind reels.

Right now he has a radio in his room, which he listens to, but it's tuned into the local Top 40 station. Technically it would be the Top 5 station as they don't play more than a handful of songs. He also has the soundtrack to High School Musical 3, a cd I find painful on a number of levels. He has never shown a real interest in music before, so I've approached his musical development lightly, but now that he's becoming more interested, my hand must be firm, my direction pointed. I can not falter, for his very musical soul depends on it.

Recently I changed how my music was arranged, separating my cd's into music that Linda and the kids would like, and everything else, so that Linda can just grab a disc at random and be safe in the knowledge that she's not about to drop The Marshall Mathers LP on an unsuspecting household. This has allowed for some musical variety to be brought into the household, but even with this, Matchbox 20 still gets plenty of playtime. For the record, I quite enjoy Matchbox 20, however they're not a band you want to build a musical foundation upon.

So where do I start? I don't want to overload the kid with multiple CD's. Better to start off slow and build an interest than bury him in an avalanche of music he can never dig out of. Do I stick to certain bands or stick to kinds of music? Marvelous 3 hasn't been around for over a decade but "Freak of the Week" is a masterful pop-rock song, and leads us to Butch Walker, who, along with making some of the best music out there today, is an absolute blast to see live, especially when he comes to Atlanta.

Surely Pearl Jam needs to be there, but which song? "Worldwide Suicide" encapsulates all of the band's raw power perfectly, but it's not exactly right, content wise, for a six year old. "Wish List" is a beautiful song, but it's not exactly typical for the band. I'm leaning towards, "Corduroy" as it is one of my favorite songs by them, and has one of my favorite lines: "everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed". Then again, I like the line because it outlines a rather stark viewpoint of one's existence. Should I be saddling him with such negativity? One a PJ song is chosen, do we go with the studio version or a live version? If a live version, which one? Is it better to provide the studio version so that he can appreciate the song, and then hit him with live versions so that he can see how songs continue to grow once released, or give him both barrels of rock right up front?

Jimmy Eat World also needs to be there, but from where in the band's storied history? If you do earlier tracks, will he not appreciate the new stuff? If he hears new material, will he be turned off by the leaner, more raw earlier work?

And what of bands that have yet to prove their long term ability to produce, but still are putting out great music? "The '59 Sound" by Gaslight Anthem is an excellent song off of one of the best albums I've heard in some time, but will the band be there in the months ahead? In this case, is it better to highlight songs that are indicative of the types of music I like, even if the band may not stand the test of time?

You can see why I'm having difficulties here. Now I know that neither he nor I are going anywhere, but I can't help but feel that if I screw up this CD, he'll dismiss my tastes out of hand, and will be lost to me. With so much great music out there, it's important that I get this right. Music has been a part of my life for so long, that I want to make sure I make it a part of his life too. Besides, soon I'll need to start dragging him to concerts so that I'm not the creepy old dude rocking out all by his lonesome and I'd prefer to bring him to a show he'll actually enjoy.

Whatever I end up with, I'll post the final track list here so that you can see the full depths of my musical depravity. Until then, the catalog looms. Time to start climbing.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

Yeah, so when I said that there was only one more toy to be on the lookout for, I totally forgot about Ratchet and Hot Shot. Ratchet is a repaint of Ironhide, which was a bit of a letdown, and Hot Shot is one extremely, um, colorful toy, so I'm not entirely sold on each of them. Who am I kidding? I'll probably end up getting both of them, but I feel that I should put up at least a token bit of resistance.

There's more GameShark goodness to tell you about. First up is my super awesome Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage walkthrough. This one was pretty easy to write based on how linear the missions were so I'll gladly take all of that hot guide money and sock it away for a rainy day. The next DLC releases for Fallout 3 don't look to be as linear, so they'll take more time, provided I have an opportunity to write guides for them.

Which brings me to my next piece, the very last Mr. Binky you'll probably ever read. Unfortunately, this recession is hitting everywhere, including GameShark.com and there just isn't the money in the budget for columns. All of the columns save for one very popular boardgaming column were cancelled and while it sucks to not have a column any more, I'm not all that upset. The column didn't always run when it was scheduled to, and the site's crappy design makes it all but impossible to find past columns which all combined to make it pretty hard to build an audience. These things happen. When there are so many people out there losing their jobs and homes, it's silly to lament the loss of 50 bucks a month and an opportunity to make fun of games. My editor tells me that I shouldn't feel bad because even the great Tom Chick had his column canceled, which makes that the only time Tom Chick and I will ever share characteristics other than both of us being oxygen breathing, carbon based life forms.

To all of the people who did go to the site and read my column, thank you from the bottom of my black, withered heart. I appreciate the page hits, the support, and all of the letters to my editor. Mitch, that last one's for you.

Maybe I'll move the column over to Lungfishopolis, maybe for now I'll just take a break from teh funny. We'll see. I think that a small break might be good for me so that I can recharge my batteries. Being a hack is hard work.

And Then There Was One

Today I found Wreck-Gar and Atomic Lugnut, much to my intense excitement. Given that both the Universe line and the Animated line are coming to an end (hopefully for just the time being), to give stores time to clear shelf space for the movie toys in May, I am almost at an end to my toy hunting for a few months.

I say almost, for a number of reasons. For one, Toy Fair is right around the corner so who knows what kinds of announcements it will bring to fill the void between now and May. Second, the new wave of Marvel Crossover toys are out there somewhere and while I won't devote special trips just for finding them, I will take strolls through the toy aisle when I find myself in a Walmart. Finally, the Target exclusive Shockwave repaint has yet to be released and I must have that toy so that I can have both a G1 reminiscent purple Shockwave transformed in robot mode and the original Shockwave toy transformed into the Longarm robot mode. I'll pretend that instead of Longarm being Shockwave's treacherous spy mode, instead he was somehow separated from Shockwave and now is a loyal Autobot. I can't abide no spies in my house.

Now, that's not to say that I have all of the toys in hand needed to be considered complete, but they are either in hand, or on order. Leo Prime and Overload should ship any day now and Samurai Prowl and Waspinator will ship at the beginning of March. Then I'll be complete. Well, maybe.

Honestly, the holiday toy hunt was such a pain in the ass, I'm glad to have a bit of a break, as are my friends and family, no doubt. Both Linda and Hodge were enlisted to purchase toys for me and they performed admirably with Linda even using a supplied coupon. How awesome is she? I took care of all of the others, either through online ordering, or by driving up and down GA 400, visiting Targets, Walmarts and Toys 'R Us's until I was seeing retail outlets in my sleep.

Space has also become a consideration as I have run out of room in my office, necessitating a move to a larger space in the basement. Unfortunately a pool table currently occupies the new space, so I'll have to take it down, store it, move all of the furniture from the office into that room and then put up copious amounts of shelving. Mind you, this is all after we finish the garden are, put stones down under the deck, finish removing the demolished wall in the basement bathroom and repair the ginormous holes in the bathroom left over from the removal of the aforementioned wall. As you can see, moving toys is not real high on the to-do list, so having three months before lots of new toys come in will do wonders. Not to mention that the fucking things are now even more expensive than before. Stupid economy.

Yes, for now, I'm happy to take a break from hunting. Now I just need something to do at lunch time. What's that you say? Puzzle Quest: Galactrix comes out at the end of this month? Why yes. I think that will do. That will do quite nicely.