My Saturday

Today I spent an hour at Garys Hobby Center and then ate a sub from Lee’s Deli. All in all a great experience!

The Door’s Almost Shut

We’re approaching zero hour on 2009 and I couldn’t shrug my shoulders harder if I goddamn tried.  Work is busy and I’m attempting to purchase trinkets for everyone I know by next week.  Me and spacebee and belly and wwhazz ate at Pedros-Pedros-may-keen-mayx-ee-can the other night after a night of shopping.  It was a grand ol’ time, especially that deep-fried Snickers bar for dessert.

Not much goings-on elsewhere so I’d like to frankly discuss the 1964 classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Thusly: it’s not entirely clear to me just what drugs the creators were using, but I salute them and their efforts.  In a story ostensibly about the titular reindeer the spotlight instead falls upon (a) an elf desperately seeking a career in dentistry and (b) a north woodsman with a revolver hanging from his belt that clearly has mental problems.  It seems to me that the writers wanted to craft a different story entirely but were forced by the General Electric corporation to adapt their lunacy into a framework descended primarily from a one minute Christmas tune.  I don’t know whether the coercion took the form of ducats or whippings– the result is the same.  Also: everyone really hated that fucking Rudolph.  They just shit on him and shit on him until he saved the goddamn day.  He should have pooped in Santa’s mouth.

For those not on the spacebook, my concise review of How the Grinch Stole Christmas:

Zachery Moneypenny feels that the grinch was right to hate those whos- did you see the lunatic instruments they endlessly played?! How bout this: I’ll buy your downstairs neighbor a musical abomination consisting of a bowling ball, a huge metal pipe, and CHIMES and we’ll see if a steampunk xray machine detects any heart shrinkage on YOU.

I have nothing else to say about that shit.  Let’s all get together some Thursday night and watch star trek dvds.  I have one season on dvd (five, I think?) and can provide whiskey.

Everyone else out there: HAVE A GODDAMNED MERRY XMAS!

SNOW!!!1!WATCHOUT

Yo ho hello there go to San Ho and do a show there.  I picked an excellent week to fly hither and yon around the country as Wisconsin is currently experiencing some heavy snowfall and all-around miserable weather.  I’m sitting high and mighty in the comforts of the Palo Alto Crowne Plaza, sipping Crown & Cokes and watching Sportscenter on the ridiculously lavish 25″ old-timey, non-flatscreen tee vee. I feel BAD for my betrothed; she’s shivering in the cold while I’m chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool.

Madd:  Saturday? I haven’t heard from you yet.  We could galavant into San Francisco and take Cal hostage on the N-Judah.  Stick your finger in his back and whisper menacingly “I’ve got a knife” and then march him down to McTeague’s Steam Beer Saloon and fill him full of spirits.  Flossie can come too.

Old Posts, New Friends.

BREAKING BREAKING BREAKING MUST CREDIT WM.COM

Exciting news!  I’ve been officially added to another Enemies List! More details as they become available…

Cal is a Weenis

My dude is on the left

So you don’t like my post titles, eh Cal?  Then become one, wretch!

Yeah, it’s been awhile– lots of great games came out over the last month, plus I’ve been sick since last Tuesday.  Thanksgiving was tony-the-tiger grrreat but would have been way better had I not been sick.  Say lah vee.  My whole family came into town and we aprtied at our place.  Highlight: dinner at The Old Fashioned with my parents.

So as I said the games have been a flowin’. Last week I beat Assassin’s Creed II and then mopped up the last few items I needed to find to unlock secret endings and all that jazz.  AC2 was an awesome game and I’ll still go back to play it just to run around the rooftops of Venice.

I also laid the final beatdown on Borderlands two weeks ago, so now I’m max level with two playthroughs and a shotgun that deals in hot death.  I bought the first DLC that came out last week and my review: a solid meh.  The problem with it is that I’m max level, so it doesn’t progress my dude much.  The only thing left is MOAR LOOTZ and even a few hours into it I haven’t found a single usable drop from an enemy yet.  The problem with a game that has 17.5 million different guns is that it’s extraordinarily difficult to find one you want.  Once you get a really good weapon (like my 257×9 shotgun) it’s almost impossible to find anything better.  The story is ok, with some humorous parts and a good flow so far, but it’s not holding my attention very well.

Which leads us to Dragon Age.  I got my new computer hooked up so I can finally play it (and it looks goddamned beautiful), but it kinda sat there for awhile.  I went through the opening tutorial/get-the-story-kickstarted part and immediately got fucking murdered by a ton of really hard enemies.  I played that part (and wiped) five times and then I just set the difficulty to Easy mode and got on with my life.  The story is REALLY great and absorbing, but my biggest problem is that you will spend upwards of 15-20 minutes having dialog wars with other characters.  My biggest peeve is that you have to sit through 60 seconds of cinematic dialog just to talk to a damn shopkeeper to buy some health potions.  A lot of reviews have ranted and raved that they’ve been playing for 25+ hours and are still addicted; it’s easy to see why when you’re still in the tutorial stage at hour five.  I do understand what they’re saying, though, since even as I complain I want to hop back in and keep moving the story forward.

I’ll be in California next week, and fuddruckus suggested a re-edit of Cinnabar/Bee an’ Jeezy.  Maybe the night of the 12th? I don’t fly out until 7pm the next day. HOLLLLLLLAR!

Tromboneulous

I have nothing to say, more or less. Got switched to a new group at work, and the year (and decade) is coming to a close. Poo poo pachu. This weekend I’ll be at the Wisconsin/Northwestern game down in Illinois, and next week is Whazzgiving.

The soup club is on: I delivered a white chicken chili and chemical burned my hands for, like, the millionth goddamn time.  Here’s what to get me for xmas: plastic gloves and a sign that says “USE THESE WHEN CUTTING CHILI PEPPERS YOU FUCK.”

In video game news, I finished up Borderlands this week (though the first DLC drops on 24th and I’ll be getting that) just in time to grab Assassin’s Creed II.  I’m a couple of hours into AC2 and so far it’s fucking great.  Also, my new gaming compy is coming on Monday and then I’ll be able to start Dragon Age. Woo!

That whole Golden Tee thing is a bummer, but I have faith that we’ll get a replacement eventually; and hopefully when we do we’ll have somewhere to put it.

Union. Reunion.

Rain Check

Attended Spacebee’s 10 year high school reunion last night down in Illinois.  It was a pretty fun time; I met a lot of her old ‘pals’ and had some Jameson.  Mandy’s awesome pa bought us a round of drinks via the token system at a local bar afterwards.

To follow up on the previous post, I beat Borderlands last week and started the second playthrough to try to get to level 50.  I started Dragon Age: Origins on my Macbook but it crashed every time I shut it down so I decided to wait on really diving in until I get a new gaming rig that can handle the game in all its glory.

Finally, a heads-up to wwhazz that this looks like a good solution for the project we were talking about.  I checked on costs and depending on how long it ends up being, we’d be looking at no more than $300 to publish plus $15-$20 per copy to purchase.  That’s incredibly doable– let’s get it started.

Favre: Meteorite Target

Sadness

Last night pretty much sucked for any Packers fan. Blarrgle, blurgh, o-line. ^%$&%(&)(^&SACKS$%@!# This nightmare seems as if it will never end.

I drowned my sorrows in scotch: dry, tasty scotch, and then I played Borderlands until I was almost certain to be tormented by dreams of millions of white, green, blue, purple, and orange guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers.  I’ve been loving the shit out of Borderlands lately, so if anyone out there has it for Sexbox 360 I want to play co-op with you.

I need to finish the shit out of Borderlands soon, though, because Dragon Age comes out tomorrow.  I preordered it on Steam (more on that in a second) so I should be able to play it immediately.  It’s your standard go-out-and-kill-the-marauding-hordes-with-a-sword type of thing.  Kind of excited; I really liked Neverwinter Nights back in the day and this is by the same dudes.  GRIMGAW, TO ME!

Anyways, Steam is pretty nice.  I gotta preface by saying that I’m a fan of online stores.  The iTunes Store, XBOX Live, these are things that allow me to near instantly acquire things I want without bullshit (also good since I don’t have a car to get to places like Best Buy).  Steam is a client you install on your PC that allows you to purchase new and old games, and to pre-order games that will be released in the future.  The games are delivered by download, and it’s kinda cool since it acts as a dashboard where you can launch all the games on your computer.  For old times’ sake, I bought Zuma Adventures and Bookworm Adventures.  Goddammit I love Bookworm, where you defeat your enemies with the power of words (the longer, the better).  One time I one-shotted an enemy by spelling the word “prosthetic” from a pool of 16 jumbled letters and felt like a god.  Wwhazz, it may be up your alley in a Bananagrams-ish way.

Good to be Back

Kangaroo Lake

We had a really fun time up in Door County this weekend.  Check, check Teh Flickr for some great pics from Peninsula State Park and Kangaroo Lake.

There was a lot of wine, booze, and food had by all, and we had to work it off eventually– my personal favorite was the two hour bike ride through Peninsula in the rain and cold.  Mercifully, at the the end of the ride we climbed to the top of Eagle Tower.  Long story short: ride uphill seven miles, then climb a giant tower.  Fun…

It looks like the Bay Bridge fell apart yesterday– wow, great repair job fellas.  I can only assume mass chaos in the Yay Area today so good luck on everyone’s commute!

Not much else to report. Er, what’re y’all dressing as for Halloween?

Looong Weekend

Door County Barn

We’re heading up to Door County for a long weekend to kick it with both Spacebee’s and my parents.  Everyone’s gathering for a nice fall weekend in the North Woods; if all goes well the rain will be kept to a minimum and we’ll get to… I dunno, go on a hayride or some shit.  I wouldn’t mind heading up to Warshington Island to hit the hotel for a coffee and some wine.

So all the rest of y’all have a good time yourselves this weekend– we won’t be back until Wednesday.  I say Cla and Madd call an uneasy truce and meet for tea and crumpets on Treasure Island.  Then maybe play some Battlebots or some shit; I dunno.