Tuesday, October 30, 2007

I r derilict.


Snap, looks like I fell into that old habit of neglecting my online journals. Well, for those of you who still pop in here periodically, I do have a couple of articles in mind that I have every intention of writing. They do require a bit of planning, which is probably the reason I've yet to put it down on paper. Not to mention there has been an eff ton of games that I ravenously consumed. It was rather quick however, and I believe I am again hungry for more entertainment.

In other news, those fuckers at Viore finally came through and fulfilled their warranty for my boned TV almost four months later. It was a great relief to finally rid myself of that thousand dollar paperweight.
Couple of days later I went and picked up my new, glorious piece of equipment, to Little Bitty's delight (I secretly know that she only loves me for my giant and powerful television). I was a bit leary of going LCD, despite them being in the middle of the pretty, yet nub, plasmas and the gigantic expensive DLPs, but that all melted away to some love at first sight action. Seriously, if my TV was a wallet, it would say "Bad Motherfucker".

By the way, for us Blu-ray and HD-DVD challenged folks, if you want a nice litmus test of how badass your TV is, pop in this Bowie DVD. I'm not much of a technophile when it comes to film, but something about the way they filmed that DVD makes it look amazing even on your cheapass supermarket DVD players or TVs. Not only that, it rocks balls. Like switcheroo. Switcheroo rocks balls.

I am fighting the urge to buy an effin Wii. Toys'R'Us had a buy 2 get 1 free sale on all games in the store, and my nub ass went and bought some. I picked up Warioware: Smooth Moves, the new Zelda, and Mario Party 8. I gave the Zelda game to my bro for his birthday, but that Smooth Moves calls me from the closet to bring it home a nice Wii to penetrate. It calls me Tyrone.

NEwAYz! A brutals blog guitar tv specials pay per view should be around the corner, hopefully. Stay tuned in any case, because u luvs me ITB.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Why I Don't Like Hillary


If you have taken the time to talk politics with me recently, you will find out that I have some weird ire against poor Hillary. I really haven't sat down and thought about why, but since some people have asked, I'll try to put it down in writing.

Let's talk issues. But let me put out a disclaimer of sorts. I am an optimist, and idealist, and I'm pretty sure that I am naive to a large degree. That said, let's continue.

First thing that comes to my mind is health care. Okay, we've all seen the Michael Moore movie, but all that did was add some potent fuel to the fire of the debate. As Lonk will tellya, I'm a commie pinko lefty, and what Sicko pointed out to me was that you can entrust certain spheres of society to a socialist type system. Moore used the example of our education system as evidence of this notion. Granted, we aren't doing too hot on that front as a country, but I attribute that to bad policy based on little or no research. WTG high stakes testing. I could go on about education, but the subject would become a post in itself. I am in favour of some state run healthcare, so naturally I would get behind a candidate that is looking to toss our current 3rd party healthcare system. Sadly, out of my favourite candidates, only Kucinich seems to be all about removing them from the equation. By the way, I do like how the fear mongers are equating the word "universal" with "socialist". They are not necessarily one in the same. All that "universal" implies is that everyone gets healthcare, no matter what the system. Anyway, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary. From her site:
Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums send people into bankruptcy, the plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage of their income for health care.

WTF. Nothing is said about fixing our current problems with insurance companies. Such a plan would pretty much let a 3rd party, a profit driven enterprise, continue to have a say in YOUR healthcare. And this is from the former champion of healthcare reform. Ugh.

The Iraq such as and. I really can't say much about it. As far as this issue goes, what's done is done, and while I'd like nothing more than to get our boys out of there, I realize that this is a case of "we've made our bed, now lay in it". By the way, and this may be misinformed naivety talking again, but it seems to me that the place is heading towards a partition. Anyway, I agree that talk about immediate pull out is not only a bad idea, it is unjust. I've heard of Iraqis prefering a US presence over a pull out on account of them holding back sectarian violence against them. At least she is not making unrealistic promises. Note, she voted for the Iraq War Resolution. Of the top 3 candidates, only Obama voted against it. Minus 10 points for putting politics before common sense, because, c'mon, she's a smart lady, she had to have seen the forest for the trees.

I could carry on about the issues, but really, it comes down to one thing. While talking to ALX, I saw the source of my negativity. What it comes down to, is that I am so utterly DISAPPOINTED at Hillary's "selling out". Sometime between her days as First Lady, where she caved to the insurance companies, and now, she became a corporate Democrat. And as a commie pinko, you can imagine how much I LOVE corporations. She sat in the Senate Armed Services Committee, lot of good she did there. In ALX's words, she thinks inside the box.

Little Bitty was disappointed about my ire for Hillary, and you know what, I'm disappointed too. She could have been such an awesome progressive candidate, and it makes me angry that such potential has been squandered. Does that make sense?

Sort of off topic.
WHY IS EDWARDS 3RD!? Fix it thx.

Metal + Wii = Fun

We had a pretty good weekend, the lady and I. Thanks to Mike for having us and ALX over for some Wii and Metalocalypse.

Our visit is pushing me further towards a decision to buy a Wii. Lack of room be damned, playing even a stale game like Wii Sports has been fun everytime. That Wii remote is just too cool. Again, anything that gets Little Bitty (as I have taken to calling her recently) playing video games is bomb diggety, son.

After playing a good round of Wii sports, Mike hooked up yeh old PS2 for some THUNDA....HORSE, as it has been stuck in my head for days. We blew ass before a few warmups, but we got through it taking turns on lead, ending up on the green both times. Metal.

I have a little rant about the PS3. If not a rant, at least a comment. Now, no matter what Lonk says about how evil and shitty the PS3 is, I still maintain that the at-the-moment paperweight has some awesome potential. I hesitate to lobby any criticism, so as to cause Mike some undue buyer's remorse, but those motherfuckers at Sony have done PS3 owners wrong by not sending out the system with some games that are worth playing (I don't entirely disagree with Lonk). I'm SURE it is something that they could have helped. In the whole night, we only touched the box to play Metalocalypse. Pretty jacked if you ask me.
Granted, one could argue similarly against the Wii, but no, that's not gonna stick. The games are fun, at worst a little kitschy, and they appeal to a wider audience, negating the vitriol from the hardcore gamer. Cooking Mama is fun, dammet. GEWD JUBB!

So yeah, as you might have been able to tell from my little jukebox button up there, Dethklok has been ruling my brainwaves for a good week now (I like the contrast of my Pink page and its metal soundtrack). I was initially turned on to Thunderhorse by playing it on Guitar Hero 2. In my book, it's one of the top 5, maybe 3, tracks in the game, for the fact that it's one of those shredder tracks that just make you feel badass for pulling off. Turns out Dethklok is a fictional band from a show on Adult Swim, Metalocalypse, as I have previously mentioned. Mike picked up the DVD of the first season, and after we had burned some serius Wii calories, we sat down and watched some episodes. Granted, by this time I was on Corona # 6 or 7, but the show was pretty good. The songs are enjoyable in the context of the show, and it's bizzare to the point of being funny. I went home with the theme song in my head, which I will upload to the Stuck in My Head box shortly.
It also spawned a new "Your Face" joke: Your face looks like Murderface.

The only damper on the evening was Little Bitty being a jerk. I didn't hold it against her too much though, as everyone is entitled to some jerk time. ASS. In any case, she made up for it today. We had some good ass WANGS and watched a bad movie (Truth About Charlie), which in our relationship, is heavenly. Good times.

I have some skinny exam lootz this week, but I have some posts brewing in my head (why I hate Halo, why I don't like Hillary), so stay tuned on the off chance that I am not a lazy, Bioshock-playing bastard.

EDIT: Regarding my PS3 comments, I wake up the morning after and find this article on Kotaku.

DOODILY TIKKTOK TIKKTOK

Thursday, October 4, 2007

WTB New Game PST

In the recent months, me and lady have discovered something about me that was previously hidden while in the grips of the various lifesucking video games that I have tended to drift towards. It seems that when I am bored, my mood shifts from my usual cheery, perma-grin demeanor, to one more anxious and surly. You might call it "a case of the blahs". I become a sheer joy to converse with, as I'm sure she will attest to. Previously, there was usually some game that had me in its grips, be it Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, or whatever flavor of the month FPS that was out at the time, ultimately leading to a situation where I would absolutely never be bored.

These days I am in a sort of gaming limbo. Most recently, my crack was World of Warcraft, but a stale game coupled with conflicts between friends turned me off entirely from the game, and since then I have been game hopping, looking for a place for either me or my group of friends to land comfortably.

A recent big title (no, not Halo), was Bioshock, which I ended up picking up based on a very positive critical reception and recommendation from friends. Fortunately, the praise was merited. While it is not a particularly spectacular shooter in terms of how the game plays, the story is brilliant. The story is a sort of "what if" where the game takes place in a dystopian city where individualism is wholly embraced and free market capitalism in pure form is the rule. Heavy stuff that I hope raises the bar for future games and makes me feel good about video games as a medium.  HOWEVER, I still haven't beaten it weeks later, as I cannot bring myself to play it for more than a few hours in a week, and thus, it is not the answer to my boredome problem. By all means though, pick up the game if you havent (on PC and the 360). It is a must have.

I also tried out City of Heroes/Villains, and managed to bring my friends over with me. As I'm sure you guys have read before, the game was such a breath of casual fresh air after WoW, and those first couple of weeks with everyone there were great. Unfortunately, interest has waned, and at best we'll have 2 people from the group on at a time, often making it a single player experience. From MMORPG genre I have developed a taste for companionship and comradery in my games, especially in games that fall into said genre, and thus, I think CoV is on it's way out.

So where does that leave me? Well, there are games in the horizon. Crysis, Left4Dead, the Orange Box (Portal!). Tabula Rasa was a dud after trying it, but Age of Conan is still a possibility. I have noticed one thing. I've recently become very jaded about upcoming releases. Where I would usually don rose coloured glasses and have high hopes for games, these days I have a cynical attitude about them. I suppose it might be a good thing, as setting a low bar means you'll be dissapointed less often. I think Lonk is rubbing off on me.

Until those games are out already, what to do?

Tentative to-do list: Clean my dirty old Mostin-Nagant already. Go out. Not be a nerd. Read a book. Do homework. Join a gang and deal drugs (I am from the streets after all). If I had a working TV and some disposable cash, I'd consider getting a Wii.
Or I could just click my time away reading new sites and video game news sites. Good times.