Having A Bad Day?

Just sing this song and maybe it'll relieve some stress. Props if you've heard about it already.

Blargh Blargh Honk Honk

Yes, that's an RvB reference. I'm so topical and "in" with current trends. I should hold a parade for some random and yet undisclosed reason! Then again it'd just be me walking down the street with some stick such as a ladle pretending it's a baton.

Anyways, today I shall regale you with this week's summary of random thought bubbles I've had. Maybe this time I'll be funny. Maybe. Let's get started.

Cars are an interesting thing. During a sunny day in traffic it's possible to see that guy in the car behind you via the rear mirror. I wonder if people do anything random with the intent of confusing the person watching through said mirror. Maybe they would be headbanging/rocking out while in actuality listening to NPR. I would probably do such a thing.

Another thing about drivers. You know those folks that crank their rap music (it seems to always be rap) so loud that the car vibrates with the beat? Just once I want to see a guy driving that vibrating car to some classical music like Bach or Beethoven. That's would make my day.

Kidz Bop is odd. Why do they have an entire franchise with commercials about little kids not even into puberty singing songs about heartbreaking romantic entanglements, getting booty, and hitting the party hard? Better question, who's buying the albums to keep the franchise running?

I want to see Bill Cosby in something like Smackdown. I can see it now: "I may not have the muscles, Hulkster, but this 70 year old's still spry enough to make you need to eat your Jell-O through a tube.".

I passed one of those religious soapbox types on the sidewalk an hour or so ago. He had chalk messages on the ground promoting tolerance and whatnot. What got me was the zealot yelling at a guy who shared the religion, but disagreed on some finer points by calling him a "wanna-be" and such despite the chalk writing. I don't think I'll entirely understand these people.

I've come to the conclusion that a blog is essentially a public diary. Why have I not capitalized on this? "Dear Blogger, today I met a new boy. He's so cute. After making out under the bleachers during homeroom he said he'll never leave me. Sure all my past boyfriends said the same thing, but this time it'll work out! A guy nicknamed "Shiv" with a pierced tongue and partial face tattoos would never do me wrong! Never! He's clearly a realer man than anyone I've met before."

Art Day

At this point you should be dancing for joy or something. It's art day after all.

Anyways, I made mention a while back that I'm drawing and whatnot. It only makes a logical step that I should actually post some of that stuff I've drawn on the internet for all the world to criticize. I love this great series of tubes we swim through.










So there they are. You might need to squint to read some of my little captions next to the skelly doodles. In the meantime I'll amuse myself with the Phoenix Wright skelly I drew. I should play that game again.

More sketches in the future should this get some semblance of a positive response.

If You haven't Already.....

Go read this. Just go. It's some of the best DnD webcomicry around. Sure I've never played the game, but if game sessions are anything like that I might give it a try.

Yar, I Like Large Booty And I'm Compulsorily Truthful...

You other mateys can't deny.

I'll be good now.

I've been watching some gameplay of the Pirates game Disney came out with a few months back. Why not be curious? The only thing better than playing a game about pirates might one on ninjas or cowboys. I could go for that cowboy one actually. You don't see that genre very often in the MMO scene.

Enough rambling, back to the pirate game.

Pirates is another free to play MMO with an optional subscription that would give you cooler things to do. You're obviously a pirate, but you also get your own boat and have ocean battles as well as typical mano e mano swordplay you would expect from a pirate themed game. Overall it's pretty user friendly for a free game. I'm pretty sure a giant sunbeam shining down on where you need to go to next counts as idiotproof directions. Then again someone's bound to prove me wrong.

Personally I'm rather amused by some of the content in the game. For starters, you can play poker for money. I'm all for kids learning the valuable lesson on good ways to lose money but I'm rather surprised at this addition from something with the family friendly Disney tag on it. Maybe we're seeing a changing of the times here.

The other amusing kick I see in this game is the difference in fighting a zombie pirate and a live one. In both scenarios you can fight with swordplay to win. What is interesting is the fact that it is only zombies you can fight with a pistol. You are unable to fight a fellow living pirate due to the "Pirate's Code". I'm guessing this was to discourage kids from using guns in real life.

The funny part about this is that somehow shooting a small metal ball at a zombie with no nervous system or overall weak points (aside from maybe the joints) that would grant you victory. If anything shooting a live guy would be far more realistic. While on the subject of realism we'll keep in mind that we're talking colonial time firearms. That's a one shot gun that will need a complicated reload for another round. I somehow doubt some kid would want to simulate a realistic pirate's gun when the reload time is worse that a typical Nerf toy.

At least they can still gamble their way to riches in attempts to find a sword on Ebay from the colonial times. Maybe Civil War era if they're not that choosy. While they're waiting for the auction to close they can play pretend with the kitchen's silverware. So long as they aren't guns. Nope, guns bad, sharp blades and Vegas good. I love Disney.

I Love Cartoons

So during Spring Break I catch some cartoon show my brother's watching. Suffice to say it may be the corniest thing I've seen yet. I never caught it's name, but I'll explain the 15-odd minutes of what I was watching.

The show centers around the stereotypical kid's show where little children with dangerous weapons go around fighting the bad people, typically adults. From what I can tell the weapons in question are summoned by the kids with "the power of imagination" or some other ridiculous notion. I particularly liked the rail-gun sword that shot out........wait for it.........swords.

If you think this is silly now, just wait until I tell you about the villain of the episode. True to form, he was an adult. Just as I would have guessed he also had a silly outfit and was for some strange reason only wearing a hat-cloak and a kilt. Maybe this is a subliminal message to kids, half naked men are up to no good. At any rate, I was making a good attempt at taking this show somewhat seriously (despite the fact the hero's shirt had a butterfly on it and his sidekick is a pink monkey) until they gave the bad guy a name.

Melmond

Serioulsy, Melmond.

With a name like Melmond I couldn't believe this was a villain. Villains are supposed to have names that strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. If anything all the other names were taken and this poor kid was doomed to the bottom of the name barrel. Of course at this point I could stop laughing at the absurdity of this character. For starters, he looked just like another fellow I knew. Let's look at them together.










Are they long lost brothers or what? Now this gets even better when they move down to a body shot of Melmond. We get to see his awesome abs.









This is just too good. Not everybody can get 3-pack abs. Even better, silver rupee abs. This dude's packing 600 Hyrulian dollars on his torso. Clearly this man is one bad mother hubbard.

Of course at this point I'm stuck with Zelda on the brain and I notice yet another nod to Nintendo's gaming empire. Twins.










One of these days I'm going to volunteer at a children's center or whatnot just to see what their impressions are when they see silly stuff like this. Sure half of them won't know about Ocarina of Time, but that just means they'll have some other wacky thing to refer to. I would love to find out what that is.

Quack Quack

One of these days I just know this will happen. Sunspots in combination with the earth's ozone affected by global warming will give off a specific amount of heat radiation to give life to certain kinds of plastic. In this case, rubber duckies will turn into our supreme overlords.

How would this happen? Simple. Thanks to Sesame Street's pro duck campaign (Codenamed "Ernie") we now have several generations of rubber duck owners It's no surprise that the world's leaders also have their own duckies. Because of this error the duck offensive had men on the inside during the guerrilla offensive. After the leaders had been subdued it was easy for the ducks to rule from the shadows using a puppet government system. Most of the populace would hardly notice such a change.

All hail Lord Reginald Quackington the First!

Devil May Cry 4: The Angst

Yes, the game has been out for a while. Yes, I'm behind the times for talking about such a game. It's my blog, so I'll be writing what I will. Before I go into depth here, I'm going to point out that I do not own either a Xbox360 or a PS3. How do I know what I'm talking about? Spoilers Mr. Frodo, in it's entirety. Go ahead, watch it in full. I'll wait.

All done? Terrific.

Reviewers and whatnot seem to think that this is a good game. I for one would put this just one notch above DMC2. You would probably be best off renting it. The reason? Nero.

For those who don't know Nero is essentially the main protagonist in this game. His arm is demonic and from what I can tell has joined a devil worshiping cult for one reason, a chick. We all have our priorities, and I can respect that. What I don't like about him are several things.


His story makes no sense
According to the game he was born with a normal human arm but got the new appendage somewhere down the line. It is never explained how. Furthermore, the opening scene depicts him hiding said arm in a sling. We would have to assume that this arm change would have had to be somewhat recent for the sling excuse to hold water.

Another annoyance to his story is the comment made by the main villain in this scene. Nero "carriies the blood of Sparda"? How? Unless Sparda had a mistress on the side, Dante/Vergil were big into blood transfusions, or Sparda took the phrase "Give me a hand." in the literal sense there's nothing going on here.

Suffice to say, there's an inconsistency in the storyline. Frankly speaking if they devoted as much time to ironing out the characters as they did to the excessive "jiggle physics" of most of the female cast then this would have been a much better game. I'm not saying that sort of thing should be eliminated if you're into that, but when a developer has to "sex up" a game (compare Lady's outfit from 3 and 4) I feel like I'm being given a red herring.


He is an angsty teenager
Seriously, he is. Everything about him screams teen angst. Take his combat moveset. Look at this movie's first fight, no more than a minute into the video. See the scene where he's bashing the enemy on the ground repeatedly with his sword? All I'm seeing is an angry little kid having a temper tantrum. You even see this in a later scene where after his chick gets kidnapped (again) he starts to cry and has another tantrum by smashing the ground over and over with his fist. Hell, his voice cracks in some of the scenes. Has he even hit puberty yet?

It's when I read that last paragraph again that I come to an epiphany. I've met Nero before. You could replace him with Daniel Radcliffe in the next Harry Potter movie and most people wouldn't tell the difference. That's it. I'm going back to reading the Dune series and trying to figure out what half the chapters are talking about. At least that makes more sense.

There's Something Wrong With You When....

....you attempt to point to the telephone by the monitor by attempting to move the mouse cursor over it.

....your first instinct when someone tells you to go fetch a group of people and refers to them as a "posse" is to ride your pretend pony and sing the Lone Ranger theme.

...you ask your math teacher if the final exam gives points for creativity.

...your response to the test instructions "True or False (Circle Answer)" is to draw a circle around the word "answer".

...you feel the urge to explain circuit theory with interpretive dance.

...you see a chalkboard/dry-erase board and try to play hangman........during a lecture/presentation.

...you delight in social awkwardness when a stranger asks you to run somewhere and you pretend to be a paraplegic.

...you have an entire website dedicated to the random things that pop into your head.

The Bait That Got You Hooked

Every gamer didn't start out a gamer. They got hooked to gaming by finding that game that put them on the road to digital bliss. It's the games that hooked us that we treat with the most nostalgia and feel like a kid again just by watching the intro sequence.

In a semi chronological / random order here's my top 10 game influences.

1.
King's Quest (PC) - KQ started it for me as a wee little lad no older than 10. There you are looking at this little pixelated chap wearing a Robin Hood cap waiting to do your every whim. Admittedly the best draw to a kid under ten for a game like King's Quest would be the chat command. You could spend all afternoon on that thing trying to insult your siblings or giggling when you type any command related to boogers. The other draw would naturally be the one part in the game (KQ 2 maybe?) where you throw the horse bridal on the snake and it turns into a bloody pegasus. That's mind blowing for a kid.

2.
Jill of the Jungle (PC) - Most people wouldn't know this one if I mentioned it. It was a shareware game that I played a few years after KQ. This is essentially my platforming equivalent to Mario Bros. It had three games of varying difficulty and had some pretty good puzzles in it as well. Plus of course you had flying knives, rebounding throwing stars, and the ability to turn into a phoenix. I loved every minute of it.

3.
Duke Nukem 3D (PC) - This was really my first serious introduction to FPS and PvP. I played it over LAN with the local kids on my street. In the beginning of course I stuck with the default weapon (pistol) because that's what worked in solo play. Suffice to say I didn't do well against people who knew what an RPG was. Over time we had some fun rounds of Hide-N-Seek and Try-To-Gun-Down-The-Dingus-With-The-Jetpack. We played many rounds of the latter. Some of my best gaming memories stem from moments in this game such as using the Shrink Ray to stomp the other player or trying to have jousting sessions with each other.

4.
Tie Fighter (PC) - Tie Fighter to me is quite possibly the best aviation simulator I have ever played. Not only do you fulfill your lifelong dream of being a pilot for The Empire but you get the coolest training missions. A tube filled with all sorts of obstacles to shoot and dodge while still trying to beat the clock? It's heaven. Of course the nifty thing about dogfighting in space is the lack of ground to smash into. In your face, physics.

5.
Starcraft (PC) - The same people I played in Duke Nukem I also played against in Starcraft. We would play for hours trying to whoop each other. The larger scaled fights were even better. Naturally like the goobers we were most fights ended up with people making bunker lines 3-4 bunkers thick in a manner of turtling to victory. Eventually I got a little tired of this inaction and decided to take matters into my own hands. I set up my three bases to crank out as many Mutalisks as I could possibly afford. I got about 3-4 groups (36-48 units) and sent them into battle. The sight of a Mutalisk swarm big enough to blot out your screen resulted in the most girlish scream from a boy I had ever heard. Of course after they wised up to my Mutalisk swarm they overcompensated air defense in the next match while I swarmed them with Ultralisks and Zerglings. Good times.

6.
Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) - If you have followed my history up to now you will notice a trend. Every game up to now was for the PC. It was Zelda and Final Fantasy 7 that got me into console gaming. At this point I'm around 13 years of age with absolutely no critical thinking skills (I am edumacated good). The result of said judgment was struggling for three hours in the Great Deku Tree (first and easiest dungeon) wondering how the hell to get past the spider web on the floor so I could gain access to the basement levels. The idea of jumping from a high ledge to cut said web or bringing out a stick to set fire to said web was a completely foreign concept. This of course also hallmarks the dependency on gaming guides from the local bookstore. Later on I received redemption after beating Master Quest (OOC hard mode) and Twilight Princess with no dungeon guide aid. Sure I may have needed it outside the dungeons but give me a break, Skulltula and Poe hunting sucked.

On another note, I spent many months avoiding progressing in the game because the Shadow Temple scared me stiff. What? Dry-humping zombies, giant grab hands, skinless octopus handed things trying to eat you, and blood soaked walls are scary for a 13 year old right? Shut up, I got scared watching Jurassic Park, but I'm okay with that now.

7.
Chrono Cross (PS1) - I fell in love with Chrono Cross from the get go. The music from starting up the game was the wonderful thing I had heard in a video game. As for the game itself, I loved it for several reasons. (1) There were tons of people to put in my group. I like having such a large diversity of characters that could also have synergy (2 man special moves based on characters). (2) I loved the humor in it. A walking voodoo doll? Inept guards? Social awkwardness? It was great. (3) There was no level. In a typical RPG you will have your characters gain levels via experience bars and whatnot. In this game there were no experience bars. People simply gained stats. I loved that aspect. (4) The art was simply beautiful. The watercolored zones were a treat to play.

8.
Half-Life/Counterstrike (PC) - Round up the kiddies, it's time to go to town. I got to play this with a bunch of schoolmates during the high school years. The multiplayer matches were great. There was this one fellow who could top the charts using nothing but shotgun headshots. Even better was when he did nothing but fight with the crowbar. I myself go to have a little fun playing sniper and regular meat-shield. In one team match I was the only one standing on my side. Sure I lost, but I took a few down with me.

9.
Devil May Cry (PS2) - DMC got me into the newer age of platformers. It had good style and some pretty fun levels. It had a lava spider of course. You really can't go wrong with a game that lets you fight a lava spider. Now if you recall from earlier in the Zelda section I mentioned that I was easily spooked. DMC brought that back into the mix. From that first twitching puppet monster to the dark hallways there was plenty of opportunity to get spooked. The underwater levels were pretty good in the scare department as well. Over time I got to like the spookings and even got a kick out of the third installment of the series. Against my better judgment I replayed DMC2 several times over, but let's pretend that never happened.

10.
World of Warcraft (PC) - What can I say? Any game that got me to play for 3-odd years has got to be of some importance. WoW showed me some interesting tidbits of the human psyche and gave me a better scope of how large scale a multiplayer game could be. I led guilds and followed them. I saw and did a great many things that is similar, yet different from another player who played. I like how each player's gameplay is somewhat unique to themselves due to the open-ended style of the game. For me of course I became interested in the game's official forums. They rather remind me of a car wreck that you just can't take your eyes off of. I pity to poor soul who gets trapped in it's alluring web.

Good WTF Moment

I was driving yesterday and came across the strangest thing at an intersection. This SUV had a wriggling fish on it's hitch. It took me a moment to take it in, but I have to admit that it's the cleverest thing I have ever seen.

Here's a video of the accessory I'm talking about:

Elementary, Dear Watson

I have found a new game for me to play. Sleuth is an online game that lets you play as a private eye. Randomly generated cases certainly make things interesting. Personally my favorite draw to the game is not only how ridiculous the characters look but also the fact that you can edit your own player's background. Good times.

Here is me is all my glory:
That's probably why I also should not go into medicine. I would most likely actually do that......

"Yes Ma'am, you have a severe case of cooties."
"But my arm is broken!"
"That's why it's a severe case."

Edit: Apparently after a week of play you can't log in unless there's less than 70 people on. You need a subscription to play at any time. Fiendish way to get you hooked I'd say.

Confound It!

When you post something in Blogger it does not list the time it was posted. Instead it lists the time of original creation of the post. It's a pet peeve really, but apparently it annoys me enough to post about it. I just ran through my settings and got nothing to let me change this. Any ideas?

Gotta Love Multiplayer

As more people get into the online scene for gaming so does the number of griefers increase. It is with such griefers that abstract thought comes into play. Here's some fun examples of unusual thought patterns.

El Presidente

So I was thinking about the presidential elections and came to an odd conclusion. Should Hilary win we will be looking at an interesting pattern. Starting from Bush Sr. we would be looking at over 20 years (1989-2013) of only two families as commander in chief. When I think about this pattern, two possibilities come to mind: monarchy and mafia.

I say monarchy because that's indirectly what it could be. There would be a father-son and a husband-wife connection happening. It could be sheer coincidence that this pattern occurs but I am highly amused at the thought of an democratic monarchy in a country that rid itself of the British monarchy.

I say mafia because that's also what it sounds like. There are two "families" who have ruled the US recently. Personally having Bush Sr. talk like the Godfather makes me laugh a bit. Then I remember that Bush did Texas and Bill did Arkansas. It would almost be like a weird hillbilly mafia. Please tells me someone named Cletus will come onto the scene. That would be too perfect.

I Am A Freak

I'm part of the 2%.......

Oh yeah, click this for what I'm talking about.

I thought 12 and broccoli.

It's A Long Way To The Top

I present to you undeniable proof that I am either very bored or listen to way too much AC/DC.

(to the tune of a very awesome song)

Scrolling down the browser
Clicking on a thread
Reading all the drama
Hoping it's not dead
See the flames
See the hate
Read the girl
Cheating on her mate
Random jibes
From some alt
See the guilty
Try to shift the fault

It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll
It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll
You think it's easy to win a battle of wits
Try leaving that chat-room of twits
It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll

/rock out to bagpipes

Forum's getting lively
They're spamming ASCII art
You knew people who did better
But you're just a forum fart
Walls of text
Lolcat spammed
Random memes
Permabanned
Logic here
Humor there
I tell you folks
You got to have some flair

It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll
It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll
If you want to be the king of the rooks
I'll tell you now, just play it by the book

It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll
It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll
It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll
It's a long way to the top if you want to forum troll

/more rocking out to bagpipes

Link Day

I'm going to link a few sites that you may or may not be familiar with. If nothing else they're a good way to eat up an afternoon.

Cute With Chris
If you do Youtube regularly you might have heard about this one. It's a show about puppy dogs and kittens. What? I can't watch a show about puppy dogs and kittens?

Bash
This is a website devoted to amusing quotes from various chat-rooms. Suffice to say some of them are very good.

Coolsig
Can't think of anything to put in your forum sig? Here you go.

Ultimate Rock, Paper, Scissors
This time we're playing for keeps.

Stories That Won't Happen

This is pretty much standard fare what my brother and I talk about. That's right folks, it's not just me.

Nancy Drew and the Curse of the Monkey's Nipples

The startling revelation that inside the ark of Raiders of the Lost Ark was not actually evil souls and whatnot, but actually Indiana Jones' recording of his graduation recital from the "House of Ballet". Pink tutus melt faces.

My Little Ponies and Rasputin's Curse

Mickey Mouse Hits Puberty

Barbie Has an Inoperable Aneurysm

Pinocchio Travels Through Time and Eventually Learns the Time Warp (It's just a step to the right)