The Raising Writing Spirit

Wolverine and the bunch of women dressed like men.

2009-11-08T06:25:47Z

(At work this week I attended a class about writing directly and in plain language. I did not care for it, but I will try to apply the lessons from the class to this entry. See if you notice.)

This past Saturday was Halloween, and I would call the long-awaited Wolverine costume a success. In the end it cost me a little under $200, but if I had to do it all over again, I would try to find a cheaper alternative to the jacket. I suppose China doesn't have vanity sizing like America do because the jacket is a bit tight for day-to-day use, which is a shame because the it cost a hundred dollars. I have no absolutely regrets about the claws, as people enjoyed them everywhere I went this year. I also purchased a blue and yellow t-shirt patterned like Wolverine's Astonishing X-Men costume and custom made dog tags with the number from X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

So where did a crazy man dressed like Wolverine go this year? First, I went with Will to a party hosted by some of his friends. I only knew about half of the attendees yet it was a nice, if a bit uneventful, affair. The one thing that concerns me about Will's friends that their respective friends are getting increasingly younger as they're getting older to the point where they're becoming "The cool old guy who buys kids beer". Despite telling myself that I wasn't going to do it this year, the Thursday night before Halloween I had the nerve to shave my chin and mustache and go to work in a slightly modified version of the costume, with a red plaid shirt over a white t-shirt instead of the blue and yellow and no claws. Since he unfortunately wasn't going to be able to make it on Saturday, I wore my costume to Matt's house Friday night and had a mini-Halloween which involved us going to Taco Bell for dinner followed by Target to buy candy where we discovered some outrageously delicious dark chocolate Reese's mini peanut butter cups.

Saturday I went to the Tom's River Halloween Parade with Will, Niki, and crew. For a relatively small affair, the parade was awesome although my personal highlight was all the attention I was getting. For instance, Angie got excited that two people recognized her incredibly reverent Michael Jackson costume so it became a competition of sorts. I started waving to the kids in the parade with my claws out and they loved it.

Final score:

Wolverine

12

Michael Jackson

7

Now my hair is short again, and I kind of miss it. I have more to write about Halloween this year, but I wanted to get the facts out first. I'm finding that I have increasingly less energy to write blog entries and it frightens me.

Oh hey Livejournal. Yeeeeeah...

2009-10-14T19:23:01Z

I've been feeling weird that I haven't had anything to write about so I decided to do what I do best and smash somebody else's effort through no merit of my own!

I've been on a health kick again because I don't want to find out in November that some loser took a picture of me in costume and was making wacky captions like "Hahaha, look at Fat Wolverine!" although I'll admit it would hilarious if Football-neto had a picture of me on his blog. With that in mind, I bought Wii Fit Plus. As somebody who already owns the preceding Nintendo peripherals the Wii Fit Board from the original Wii Fit and the Motion Plus Controllers from Wii Sports Resort, this was only $20 as I only needed to purchase the disc.

"So what's new in this version?" you ask. Well, we added a little bit to everything. There are three new yoga positions and three new strength training exercises, and those are well and good but not really a deal maker by themselves. The player will probably first take note of the new games that incorporate the Motion Plus, but these are a mixed bag. The Kung Fu mini game feels a lot like an update to the boxing game from the original; it's fun enough, but like the boxing game, you can't shake the feeling that you spend too much time waiting for the cues and not enough time doing the moves. The snowball fight is fun and somewhat reminiscent of a kids' version of Time Crisis, but I never feel like the games that are first and foremost about balance are giving me a workout. Oddly there's a game that gives you a good workout where you wave your arms like a bird and fly your avatar (in a chicken suit no less) from one platform landing to the next. The big find here overall is the Obstacle Course. It's a lot of stop-and-go running, yet it strikes a chord of working you just hard enough that it feels like you're making progress without it being a chore while giving you the thrill of pretending to be Mario.

Also they finally added programs. After playing other fitness based games for the Wii, I have to admit that this was long overdue. Maybe of the yoga stances in particular can be very short, so spending 15 seconds in a menu between each 45 second exercise was starting to kill the flow of the workout. Unfortunately, the problem is that as far as I can tell you can't change the workouts. This means that I can't add my regular 30 Jacknifes to the routine because the game will only allow me to do the default 10 at that time. Fortunately, each yoga exercise only comes in one size and if you mix and match strength training routines it's rigorous enough.

Also my Wolverine jacket sent today!

The time Chris developed a nervous breakdown over a Halloween costume.

2009-09-28T15:54:46Z

The votes are in... and after tallying all the votes, the winner... by a two to one margin... is...

Wolverine! Seacrest out.

Yes, after halfassing it with a blue and yellow hoodie once or twice in high school, I've decided to make a serious effort to make a good Wolverine costume this year. Had it not been on a Saturday and had we not been going somewhere public, I probably wouldn't have put this much money and effort into it, but so far approximately $150 dollars have gone into this. The majority has gone into the jacket, which I ordered online from I site called Hellocosplay. This means I have an account with a site called Hellocosplay. The only thing is that the site has a warning that items take longer during the Halloween rush, 7-25 workdays to be exact. I ordered it this weekend so 25 workdays would be the day before Halloween. Throw in delivery time and it might not make it here in time despite ordering it in September. I guess if it isn't here by Halloween I have another jacket, but it's not going to be the same.

I also went all out on the claws, buying some kids toys that actually come in and out rather than the more static (and less matching) blue gloves from the Halloween store. They look pretty cool, but we'll see I have room for them and my arm together in either jacket. At least one factor isn't chock full of issues as I'm putting a personal twist on it but wearing the blue and yellow comics style shirt rather than the white tank under red flannel.

The two details I still need to purchase are the dogtags and a fairly ostentatious belt buckle. I believe I saw Will make dogtags cheap at the pet store for both Riza and Brody, as well as another incident that I'm pretty sure has been forever burned into the memories of kiraya, captainkarsh, and myself. I learned from the House costume last year and will be fixing my facial hair the day before.

I realize I'm going a bit overboard with all this, but this is the first time I've felt genuine excitement over something in months plus I realized that I might never have as big an opportunity to do this again. Next year Halloween will be on a Sunday so it'll probably be a more subdued affair and then Halloween is going to be workdays for a good long while. Given the exciting working culture of totally-not-HR, those days are as good as shot and who knows after that so this might be it. And well, let's face it, this is one of the few things I have left to do right without Baby Boomers of one stripe or another tearing it down and replacing it with their halfcocked, typically emasculated version.

45825243 t78 a

The madness sets in.

2009-09-22T03:17:37Z

So I've been playing Scribblenauts, one of the most unique experiences on the Nintendo DS. Basically it's a puzzle game where you have the power to conjure things by writing them. The controls and overall gameplay are a bit faulty, but the game has a library of over 60,000 words and has room to allow the player's creative to really shine. Except when they fall back on the same tricks like the Pegasus, or in my case, using large air vents to move everything where I want it to be. For example, I was recently given a mission to reunite the king and queen with their baby.

Attempt 1: My first thought was that storks deliver babies so I created a stork. For the record, this is a game where I regularly summon a reindeer when I need a flying animal so being that abstract isn't completely insane. Unfortunately, the stork appeared to have no interest in said baby. Then I remembered there being this "A Dingo took my baby" thing. And then as I saw it moving towards the baby with the turkey leg symbol over its head informing me that it intended to eat the baby, I remembered that it goes "A Dingo ate my baby". Not giving it a great deal of thought, I summoned a gun and killed the dingo. Finally, I sat there thinking about baby words and came up with manger. The baby went in the manger, and the manger was carried to parents because items you create are much easier to maneuver. Victory!

Attempt 2: Trying to recreate my success from last time, I summoned a crib to contain the baby, but it wasn't holding the baby the same way the manger did. Continuing my theme of baby words, I created some candy in order to lure the baby towards its parents. No dice. Next I made a rattle and waved it in front of the baby, impressed that the game recognized it as an instrument and made the right sound. Once again the baby didn't respond. Instead I decided to lure the parents to the baby so I generate a steak to lure them. However instead of walking up to them, thanks to the game's faulty controls I threw the steak at the queen. This caused the king to get mad and chase after me. I ran in the baby's direction, which technically united the two so... victory!

Attempt 3: Possessing a cynical view of the royalty and having learned to lure them instead, I generated a gold bar and affixed it to a fishing pole. Naturally they gave chase. Victory.

It's fun to stay at the... T-i-3-W-P-K?

The All-Chris All-the-Time Halloween Special!

2009-09-17T17:58:17Z

This year, some friends want to go to a Halloween festival in Toms River. I thought the House costume was good for last year, but this year I want to do something more because given my age, the fact that it falls on a Saturday, and the [dull] culture of my department at work I don't know how many good Halloweens I have left. Working in a middle school, my mom has the belief that the pinnacle of a good costume is a humanized prop for under $20 whereas my insecure manchild self usually shoots for what I think is cool at the time. With that in mind, let's see some random ideas I had.

Wolverine (comics) Pro: Available in stores. With some clever shaving I'd be able to personalize it by taking off the hood. Unlike the picture, I don't regularly strike the most awkward pose in human history. Con: Yellow spandex.	Wolverine (movie) Pro: Not yellow spandex. Con: Acqiring jacket. Too mundane? Not cool enough for a leather jacket.
Shunsui Pro: Already have two-thirds of the outfit. Adds more to my samurai costume than just "Oh hey I'm a samurai again." Con: Obscure. Pink coat. After last chapter so mixed about this character but that merits its own post.	Guan Yu Pro: Actual body of costume open to some interpretation so long as beard, face coloring, and possibly eyebrows work. Con: Obscure. After feeling really awkward when somebody pointd out the "Bollywood Star" costume in the store to me, questioning if white boy as Chinese general is offensive or not.
Iron Fist (Orson Randall) Pro: Already have green t-shirt. Closer to body type than Danny Rand. Con: Slightly obscure. T-shirt not all that great; frankly the green is too dark for a black dragon pattern (thanks Dave & Barry's!). Would probably omit guns. May die from asphyxiation from Best Buy bag on head.	A hunter from Monster Hunter Pro: My holy grail. Has room for interpretation and would be visually awesome if I could pull it off. Con: Pretty much every single factor relating to practicality.

300 Perimeter Park Drive
Morrisville, NJ

wolviepris @ 2009-09-14T08:24:00

2009-09-14T19:32:40Z

Last night I watched the VMAs on MTV and had some hilarious repartee with Matt. This is usually how many of our best posts begin [see: Chris and Matt singhandedly save Livejournal, anything having to do with Who Wants to be a Superhero]. However, none of the material was saved, so what I'm trying to say is that you could have seen something cool but it happened offscreen instead and you don't get to know about it. Kind of like watching Heroes.

Tomorrow is the best gaming release day I've had in a long time because Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Scribblenauts are both coming out. I've got my preorder at Gamestop so I got my bonus character the Juggernaut. I really wish I had been writing alongside my experiences in Oblivion. I haven't been an outright villain the way I was in Fable II, but my experiences have had a hilariously amoral streak when you compile them. For instance, with the same character I completed the storylines for both the largely pacifistic thieves' guild and the assassins now. I'm working my way through the main story and enjoying the fact that the presentation of the main quest is superior. However, I can't shake the fact that the game wanted me to do the main story first and then explore Tamriel ever since the game and my brain had the following exchange:

Plot character: For assisting us, I have some chainmail to help you get started in the chest over there.
Me: *blink blink* I'm the most esteemed thief in Tamriel the Gray Fox as well as arena champion the Black Arrow. If you weren't a plot character I could literally kill you with zero impunity. How is this 'helping me' again?

Also, I kind of want to go all out for Halloween this year, seeing as it's on a Saturday and with my work culture being kind of boring that way, I don't know how many grand opportunities I have left.

Aaaaaaaaaand I think that's it for now.

The Fall of Lugh

2009-09-10T03:37:51Z

I feel like every so often I go through what I call "Invisible Man" phases online where I seem to be putting out a lot of messages and information but being largely ignored in return. To start this off, my mom of all people has been on my case to join Match.com because that's where all the teachers at her school met their husbands/husbands-to-be. With no intention to start paying for Match to get the nothing I can get for free, I joined a service on Facebook. The thing is that whenever I try these things I can't get responses if my life depended on it to the point where it's getting comically ridiculous. For instance, I've contacted three people who use the service regularly. Three people put up their AIM, and I introduced myself in a polite manner explaining that I discovered them on the service. Two flat out didn't respond, complete with changing away messages, logging off and coming back on, etc. The last one and I had one pleasant if run-of-the-mill conversation, and after that I got the constant ignore. Despite having nothing to actually judge this by, I somehow get the impression that they're indignant about somebody approaching them who isn't a physically "perfect" looking man with Vegeta hair whose picture involves flexing his abs while puckering his lips in a mirror regardless of whether or not he can spell which would make sense if I just reached out across Facebook, but joining a dating site kind of means you're expecting that.

In a similar vein, I'm also beginning to realize that my graduate school "network" is shrinking fast. My network is boiling down to spica and... well... you know. One of my former classmates was the first person to add me on Livejournal in at least a year and has since "cut" me because I don't talk about the Jonas Brothers enough because you can only say so much about how Gary Jonas (the oldest by two years) is so dreamy. Another person I considered a friend doesn't have the time to respond to our previously ongoing Facebook message conversation despite having time to write back and forth with friends on her wall. I know I shouldn't but I take all these cuts a bit personally because you never know where you'll encounter people again. And let's face it: the wolviepris show is dying. Ironically, at the same time there are a handful of people I don't want to hear from so I guess I deserve what I get.

Finally, on a random note, every once in a while I used to try to Internet stalk an old grade school crush who never made a Facebook or Myspace account. Call it an exercise if you will. About two months ago I discovered her Twitter, but she only used it to receive feeds and never wrote anything herself which makes me think she had abandoned it shortly after making it. Out of the blue she added me yesterday. I discovered that she's still gorgeous, a bartender, and trying to work her way through accounting school. Oh, and happily engaged. The kicker is that the fiancee is, frankly, ugly. To paraphrase a friend, he looks like Tom Green if he were pockmarked and suddenly put on weight... so the Summoner from the Canterbury Tales as played by Tom Green? There's your classy intellectual joke for the night kids! I'd post a link to a picture but that would be cruel. Then again, how many people would read this far so... Ta-da!

The feeling is weird. It's not hurt or sad or anything; it's more like finishing one of those side puzzles in Professor Layton. Sure I met my objective, but I'm going to miss playing with the parts and assembling that robot dog. At least that provided some mental stimulation; now robo-doggie just sniffs out hint coins and I've already got too many of those.

Random video game references aside, I'm at a weird place right now. The brighter side of me wants to look at this like the time Angel got saved by a miracle snow storm as my darkly (hilariously) cynical brain sees that picture as a miracle shouldn't be, part of me can't help but notice all the happy endings I walk past not unlike the world's laziest Boddhisattva, and part of me wants to see it like a darker version of the Coming of Lugh. No, I am not the ugliest, or the most boring, or the coldest, but in the end, I am all these things.

Rascally anti-heroism.

2009-09-02T03:36:48Z

Poor Livejournal. Just like I predicted a few months ago, you really aren't getting enough love. It seems that Twitter is where people go now. I really have become a fan of the concept of Trending Topics, but the whole 140 letter thing still feels pretty empty sometimes. Sure, the opening page of Twitter says that's like having ESP, but you're still only hearing the unimportant surface thoughts.

So what have I been up to? Well for one, staying up late and not sleeping enough, which is one of the primary reason I don't have the energy to write longwinded entries. It took me a little while, but I've finally really gotten into Oblivion. It's not quite the masterpiece that Fallout 3 was, but awkward NPC to NPC conversations aside, it's still a fantastic immersive trip. Just like in Morrowind, I'm primarily a sneaky thief/assassin type with a few odd buffs and a weapon of choice to bring the violence, but with the way everything levels (and sometimes overlevels) with you, I never got that feeling of being a physical god that I had in Morrowind. Then again, my sneak skill is over 90 whereas my next three skills are somewhere between 50 and 60, which when combined with my 40% chameleon from magic items has allowed me to do ridiculous things like walk right past someone in low light, stab them in the back, and then stab them in the back again without them figuring out where the hell I am. My personal favorite of these stories involved firing an arrow from the darkness, watching the target run into said darkness to find me only to run past me altogether, and then get merrily stabbing him in the back after I give a look of "Seriously?". It also helps that I have a pair of magic helmets that allow me to switch between blue tinted nightvision or the ability to detect creatures through walls out to 80 feet to really make me feel like the Predator. As if my habits weren't bad enough, I picked up the latest Professor Layton game.

My other weird story of late involved not joining a gym. So my mom entered my name into a sweepstakes at the mall because she said I should meet the girl who was running the contest as she was from our new town and 22. Well, as it turns out I won a free month at the gym should I join for x amount of months. Despite being out of the way from my house and work, I went and actually had a decent time being lead around around by said girl. Unfortunately, they handed me over to a man at the end who had to try the whole persuasion spiel just a little too hard after I kept saying no. My favorite part was trying to convince me that they look for the right kind of person and I had the choice to be that kind of person, and I'm sitting there going "No, I'm pretty sure judging by my motivations I'm about as wrong a person as you're ever going to find."

Also, I think it's almost time to break out the impact font again!

There are rules and there are strictures.

2009-08-21T11:57:05Z

Wow, two weeks without an update. That's kind of sad actually, considering I've been up and doing things for a change. For instance, last week I finally took a day off from work to go see Shrek the Musical. We took the Northeastern corridor from Hamilton to Penn Station which was pretty easy. Before the show we ate at a great place called Tony's DiNapoli where I had the daily special ravioli with ricotta, prosciutto, and spinach. Everything we had there was insanely good, and as much as everything is more expensive in the city, frankly we've paid more for dinner at the local Ruby Tuesday's before so it was great al around.

The show was a lot of fun. I had read a lot of lukewarm reviews so the show had defied my expectations going in. The main three characters Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey were good, and the story plays up their backgrounds in a way the film didn't which makes all of them, particularly Fiona, more sympathetic. However, I have to say that the guy who plays Lord Farquaad kind of steals show. He performs most of the show on his knees with his legs wrapped in black cloth and two puppet legs dangling where his character's legs would be. He generally looks like he's walking when he should be and has a few points in the show where he has fun with the prosthetic legs. For instance, there's a scene where he's "walking on" the shoulders of his dancers which he performs by standing up and moving the puppet legs as he walks "over" kneeling subjects, but the one odd thing about his performance is that he talks more like Dr. Evil than Jon Lithgow. Also they add a subplot about him and his parentage which wasn't in the movie. Pinocchio was played by John Tartaglia, one of the masterminds behind Avenue Q, who also controlled the amazing Dragon puppet.

Being Broadway, Pinocchio and the other fairy tale creatures laid on the gay metaphor a bit thick. At first I thought I was looking at the story too abstractly, as the Let Your Freak Flag Fly song about accepting people for being different could be interpreted other ways. Then Pinocchio ends it with the line "I'm wood. I'm good. Get used to it." so I felt vindicated again. Also, the Youtube video above has Humpty Dumpty, whereas the show I saw had this green person that we couldn't decide if she was Jiminy Cricket or a plant person.

After the show I went and looked at random famous buildings in New York like the Fuse building, the MTV building, Times Square, the Late Show theater, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and 30 Rock where I went in the NBC Experience store and bought some Psych goodies including a sweet pineapple keychain.

I was supposed to go to the beach on Thursday and see Luke but that fell through due to bad weather. Thankfully Matt's been home this week, so I've been going over there a lot and got to see Larissa one day, mini golfed (which went well), and bowled (which did not). Although an old lady tried giving me bowling advice before she said something randomly politically incorrect and I felt kind of uncomfortable.

The One with the Engagement Party

2009-08-07T04:03:52Z

Sunday was Will's engagement party, and it was perfectly fantastic. I have nothing to write sarcastic comic material about.

...So all in all I really had a very nice day at Will's engagement party. I got to see people I don't see a whole lot of like Niki, Laura, Lauren, Jen, Angie, Kelly for starters. Also I had some good food including a fruit sangria, "Angelic eggs" which were basically deviled eggs with something slightly sweeter mixed in, and Josh and Spock baked a cake that I will probably remember for the rest of my life. First of all, in keeping of the theme from the invitation, we had an engagement cake with a dragon and a unicorn around a castle tower. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't Cake Wrecks caliber and to be honest it was tasty so if I ever have twins, one boy and one girl, and they have a 10th birthday party, I guess I know who to call.

The first real awkward moment came later in the form of interpretive dance. The DJ from Prospector's announced that Michael Jackson was here, despite the obvious, and Cricket and Kim's (male) dance instructor friend comes out and starts dancing like him. Okay, maybe we let him rock out to Billie Jean, do Thriller for the crowd, say thanks, and call it that. Hahaha, no! Instead, he pretty much did a whole album that was missing a lot of the more well known songs like Black or White and Thriller. Fortunately, he did Dirty Diana, so Angie was able to join him, seeing as she's been training her whole life for this moment like Rocky or that Phil Collins song with the drums. The real comedy gold was watching all the people in the crowd who looked like they just wanted to die but were front and center and couldn't run. There was square dancing, but that was less awkward as the most famous square dance caller in America didn't die a month ago. I'll get to the weirdness of that soon though.

I don't want you to think I didn't contribute my own piece to the awkward puzzle. I found out that I was making a toast about two minutes in advance. Basically the audience got a quick gag about how we weren't continuing our theme of dead celebrities by following the Michael Jackson portion of the show with a Billy Mays segment, and then I floundered about, ultimately giving a generically nice toast. In an ironic gender role-slash-sense of humor reversal, Kim tried to be the joker but came off as bitchy. She started with "I know these two and they're insane" and ended with "You're not perfect but you're perfect together". While I was getting dessert plenty of people were quick to inform me that "at least your's was kind". So Will, if there's a picture of you and Cricket going "Bwuh?!", Kim with her shit eating grin, and me going "What the hell was that?", could you send me a copy? I'm due for a new Facebook pic.

Dramatic recreation

I would say that everybody stopped being fickle idiots, but then I would have to imply that was about the time dragons and unicorns showed up. Unfortunately, they did so that means that you're more like to see dragons and unicorns than the Pseudofriends not being idiots. Jim was in painfully rare form too. He was his usually goofy self, but it was painfully awkward in a Freudian sort of way when he jumped into the groom-to-be's chair when he went to the bathroom. Later on he got really moody out of nowhere. Will thinks it's because Kim and their aunt both asked him to square dance. Also the girls were sure to start gossiping about Tersha after her inexplicable flip out. Then again, that's like saying there was air in the room. Also I coined the phrase Psuedofriends so you'll be expected to recognize it when I use it in LJ posts. Unfortunately that's where I'm feeling guilty writing this post; I feel like I'm around so many nutjobs who frankly don't like each other enough to really be friends and some days I feel like it's beginning to poison my soul because it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to feel a sense of loyalty rather than "Oooooh the Internet's gonna want to hear about this one" which is especially jarring when people I actually like are there. Also Angie, who was all up in my grill yo, and who some Lewises apparently think should be dating MJ. My first question: "He likes girls!?"

Between Michael Jackson and square dancing, if I learned anything today it's that I don't force my beliefs on others enough, especially in a long musical format that takes time to develop so everybody feels guilty that they just want me to stop, and that I don't pick random enough times and reasons to be angry. With that in mind, Jim and I are forming a Black Eyed Peas cover band. I figure we should be ready to perform My Humps by the wedding. =D

This entry is in memory of famous square dance caller Stan Winchester, a man who has touched all of our lives.
Stanley White Winchester
May 5, 1926 - September 15, 1997

Chris and Matt singlehandedly save Livejournal.

2009-07-27T23:08:51Z

Chris: We should put this on LJ or something

Matt: Spiderman kills this and she's not hot, but i gotta give her credit for being domino
Chris: I thought she was Black Widow when the heroes were on to her. BAZING!

Matt: HAVOK!
Chris: HAVOK!!
Matt: HAVOK!!!

Matt: Baskethead became one with the force!
Chris: No event is complete without a Furry Jedi.

Matt: Words can't describe how awesome this is
Chris: I know!
Matt: I can't even make a joke
Chris: I want him to come to my birthday party

Matt: I didnt know you were allowed to wear that little outside
Chris: Is cameltoekinesis a superpower?

Matt: Bite my shiny meta--....wait, his ass is blue jeans....

Matt: Can i cosplay EVERYWHERE as a Spy masked as something else?
Chris: Yes!

Matt: CREEPIEST. COSPLAY. EVAR
Chris: Firestorm watches you poo
Matt: I dont remember firestorm EVER looking so creepy.
Chris: Which is bad, considering he's on fire at all times
Matt: What the fuck does this one do? scare small children by hiding in their closet
Chris: Do you know how many pillows the man has lost over the years?

Matt: Again, no joke, just love that somoene wore the cassandra cain batgirl outfit complete with face cover.
Chris: Yeah really

Matt: This is why will can't come to comic-con when we eventually go.
Chris: That's okay, I'm pretty sure he's stuck being Dumbledore for the rest of his life.

Matt: HEY EVERYONE! LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!
Chris: Okay this seems like a bad idea. I would run up behind her and go BOO and see if she falls out.
Matt: Maybe send creepy firestorm to go BOO at her.
Chris: I said pop out, not die of a heart attack.

Chris: Party time in Nuadatown!

Matt: Who is this and why do i know her? King of fighters?
Chris: Asian Lady Gaga.

Matt: WIN
Chris: Yeah seriously.

Matt: I ACCUSE YOU.....of being too old to be doing this shit anymore!
[Note: This character is called Ronan the Accuser.]

Matt: Words can't describe how hard im lauhging at magneto
Chris: Me too!
Matt: football-neto?
Chris: It's a shame because Thor is great, and yet I can't stop looking as Mags
Matt: It's like he went "Well, i tried out for football and failed, so i have this football helmet and pads.....and i bought this red duster coat to be alucard.....and my red cape for being dracula.....WHAT could i do?"

Matt: .....I think I wanna have sex with a pokemon....
Chris: That's disguspropriate

Chris: ...Why aren't you Storm?

Matt: It's like Sulu had a baby with Kirk and got all the cheesiness

Matt: Master Chief - Now endorsing starbucks!
Chris: Put the helmet back on!

Matt: Working with what daddy gave ya
Chris: Depending on your beliefs, wouldn't that be "everything"?

Matt: Indy forgot to shave today
Chris: Manboobs aside, I like the Iron Man shirt in the back
Matt: Yeah, same here

Matt: World's laziest Watchmen
Chris: That's the less popular Rorsteve. Also you know dad didn't want to go. He's like "Fucking mom saying the fucking kids are too fucking young to go themselves..." The man just wants to watch the game.

Matt: Can we go to comic con now? i wanna do this live and in person.

Random observation

2009-07-26T03:33:36Z

Is it just me or is that "Make a Cartoon You" advertisement suddenly inhabiting every corner of the online universe? I can't get away from it. You know before you even click it that the advertisements have to be deceiving you because it's never the same art style twice: sometime's it's just a Photoshop filter, sometimes it's a caricature, and sometimes it's an altogether different picture that no typical piece of freeware should be able to produce. In case you're wondering I did click on it once, and it's those damn Zwinkys or something. It was a very stock avatar creator that did not resemable anything from the advertisements at all.

Something for someone, everyone, and no one. Respectively.

2009-07-20T23:30:51Z

Another Friday, another D&D. The Friday night thing has been working out nicely so far. In summary, we didn't have the best night for roleplaying, but we were in a dungeon so we didn't really suffer for it. Frankly, this game can be summed up in one statement; we fought and fought well. Since it wasn't really plot-based, I think I'll go straight to...

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN4. Zakk
I love how last place is always the easiest spot to pick in these things. I know that you have everything I write committed to memory so when I say that Zakk had another incident of cell phone fever you should know what I'm talking about. Zakk kept playing songs on his Blackberry, and as if that wasn't bad enough, dragged over his laptop and started playing Youtube videos throughout the final two hours or so of gametime. We had one rules dispute which probably wouldn't have happened if he had been paying less attention to aforementioned phone and laptop, and he awkwardly ended the game by announcing that he's tired of his Drizz't clone after three gamess. However, Zakk's is changing jobs in real life so he expects the game to move to Sunday night with him. Incidentally, it won't. This does makes me wonder about our gaming future though: are we going to keep raising our standards and pushing people away until we're out of friends, futily chasing some impossible dream?

3. Jon
The guy has had a strong start for a newbie. However, he's still not grasping some basic concepts, like the fact that every combat power he has basically works the exact same way: roll a d20 and add a 6 to the result (4 for strength, 2 for the axe)! Right now it's still more awkward than annoying, but I can see it going there. His character also veered from dumb muscle towards something more childlike, but I doubt that's going to stick. Thankfully. However, the man did have arguably one of the most badass moments of the night involving jumping over a pit while using a power that pulls an enemy in to give himself a place to land.

1. (tie) Chris & Chris
Okay, I would gladly have yielded the number one spot to the other Chris for another week, but I think Rick Rolling a goblin off a cliff merits a tie. Neither of us kept up our characterizations from last week, but we were tactically sound. Chris is figuring out the intricacies of Storm Pillar so he's making good useful of his tools, although frankly I don't even know what his daily power is. This is directed almost entirely at baridmerlin, but if we end up losing a melee ranger and gaining a warlock, I may want to switch to the "other" kind of bard (who I can probably infuse with my own brand of awesome) so we have more than one front line character, but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

So in further news, Cricket told me she had some ground rules for Will's bachelor party, what with only 23 months until the wedding. I thought this was going to a list of things he wasn't allowed to do. Apparently they were more of a "Chris needs to live a little" list. Or something...

It's a Countdown after the Final Countdown!!

Chris must sit up front with Will at the strip club.
Chris must not say (warning: link NSFW) "Whoa... those are some nice shoes!" when he sees the stripper.
Chris must have a shot of Tequila.
Chris must dance at a club.
Chris must talk to a girl and get a kiss on a white shirt as proof.
Chris must enjoy himself.
1. Will claims that's what she said, but I'm pretty sure it was the much more easily interpreted "Chris must smile".

14 Life Stones
- 14 Clean Mummy Wrap Obtained
  - 42 Discarded Wrappings Obtained
- 70 Clay Vases Have 10
- 70 Dirty Water Obtained
13 Death Stones
- 26 Flaming Arrows - Obtained
  - 78 Crocodile Heads - Obtained
- 39 Dead Conjured Snakes - Have 1
- 39 Scarab Jam
14 Feathers of Truth
- 28 Calming Tea - Obtained
  - 84 (Actually 73) Calming Tea Leaves - Obtained
- 56 Olives - Have 20
- 56 Dates - Have 26

Clearing my queue

2009-07-17T11:52:50Z

So I told you all about how my Saints Row 2 character is based on Spike. Well, this week I realized that the big bads of the game, the Ultor Corporation, have a logo that looks vaguely like a buzzsaw, not unlike... Circle of the Black Thorn! It all makes sense now, except for the fact that their logos "point" in opposite directions.

Also, despite my ennui with Facebook and its regression into a mediocre Flash arcade, I want to collect one of the uber rare super special awesome item sets in Viking Pirates Ninjas. The list looks overwhelming, so I broke it down for myself. Go me.

14 Life Stones
- 14 Clean Mummy Wrap
  - 42 Discarded Wrapings
- 70 Clay Vases
- 70 Dirty Water
13 Death Stones
- 26 Flaming Arrows - Obtained
  - 78 Crocodile Heads - Obtained
- 39 Dead Conjured Snakes - Have 1
- 39 Scarab Jam
14 Feathers of Truth
- 28 Calming Tea - Obtained
  - 84 (Actually 73) Calming Tea Leaves - Obtained
- 56 Olives - Have 20
- 56 Dates

We hack the Internets? Which one? All of them!

2009-07-06T14:30:11Z

The Rutgers semester overlap is over! I'll never have to go to New Brunswick this much in one week again as I'm back to one class two nights a week this month and then one class one night a week during the fall semester. After that I should graduate!

So we're beginning to set up a schedule for the D&D games. We met again this Friday. Zakk's still a Drizz't clone, the other Chris is an Eladrin Wizard who looks for beauty in his art of blowing things up, Jon changed from a Dragonborn to a Goliath Warden, and I'm now a Gnome Bard chock full of leader-y goodness. Sean's supposed to join us as a warlock at some point, and maybe this will be where Andres makes his debut. Also there's probably a special hell for me for saying this, but in this circle having an all-male team works so much better. Also with my aunt more or less a permanent resident of Arizona, I spent the 4th of July at Will's. It was nice and all, but nothing for the books except for the fact that Liz made an absolutely brilliant desert/dessert. Then again though, I've had maybe one really good 4th of July this entire decade.

Zakk and I are developing our usual pattern again where things go well and then he wants to overdo it and I kind of retreat. After a game on Friday and seeing the same circle of people on Saturday he wanted to run a second game on Sunday and I was just like "...Yeah no."

The video game that has been eating up my free time is Saints Row 2 of all things. Matt gave me the idea to try it since I've turned other sandbox games like Fable 2 into exercises in disastrous hilarity. I have to admit that sometimes the whole gang thing is a little too monstrous for me, but it kind of works. Otherwise, you get an allegedly "sympathetic" protagonist complaining about something like how his brother has been killed and he wants revenge while the player is driving on the sidewalk mowing down law abiding citizens by the dozen to the sound of Ride of the Valkyries (true story). Also the voice cast is randomly amazing: Neil Patrick Harris as a DJ-slash-minor villain, Eliza Dushku as one of your three lieutenants, Michael Dorn (aka Worf) as a major villain, Daniel Dae Kim as your "number two", Jay Mohr as who I assume will be the big bad, and voiceover regulars like Yuri Lowenthal and Phil Lamarr. Plus, a little known voice actor named Steve Blum randomly shows up in "gritty" radio ads. Plus there's my character's Cockney accent. Gee Wikipedia, who does his voice?

Charles Shaughnessy!?!?!? The dude from The Nanny!?!?!?

"Miss FIIIIIIIINE, am I gonna have to choke a bitch?"
I'm not sure if this breaks the game's cool factor or brings it back around to awesome. Then again, the real pimp of that show was Niles.

Random, but the number of people I have to respond to today equals the number of people who should have @#$%ing gotten back to me. Gotta message Dean because it's his birthday and respond to something Rachel wrote on my wall like a week ago. On the other side of the coin, I'm not sure why Erin and that girl Valerie just dropped dead, especially considering how weirdly apologetic Valerie was for not seeing the last message and taking months to respond. Weird.

Random thought of the day: animal totems and people. I have some random thoughts but not enough to generate a post. I would end with one of those "And on the next episode!" notes, but those always turn out to be wrong.

Dusting off old LJ Tags

2009-06-28T17:30:11Z

Since I've acquired at least one new reader the since the last time I did this... umm... surprise! I randomly write in too much depth about Dungeons and Dragons. So yeah.

Will ran a "D&D 4e for newbies" game Friday night, and had things worked out, it would have been a nice group. Will DMed, Zakk and I were the "experienced" players, and then Will's former classmate Jonathan, my coworker Andres, Sean, and Laura were supposed to join us but alas things fell through and we only had Jonathan.

Anyway, I figured that I would fill a missing hole in the team, which at this time could be the party Leader. I built a brilliant-but-lazy Eladrin Warlord who in addition to winning the lack-of-subtlety award for being named Mycroft was skilled enough to aid the others yet passive enough to let them take center stage. I didn't have the personality down entirely (but who does on the first session?), but it was starting to grow into the kind of character that would be surprisingly nice in the long run because this guy has way too many viable feats in the heroic tier alone.

Truth be told, even with just three players it went quite well. Zakk really stepped up despite bringing his Drizz't clone, (...soooooo I guess I didn't win the lack-of-subtlety award) I found that I prefer complexity of a leader to the simplicity of a defender, and Jon appeared to have fun getting his feet wet. Jonathan was a Dragonborn Warden, basically a hulking mountain of muscle and dragon head who did a good job tanking. Ranger and Warlord is a potent combination, as my favorite at-will was the "Zak attack" where I made the Ranger take an additional potshot at his quarry. Will had a DMPC Invoker to serve as our controller accordingly had very little dialogue.

However, one thing I noticed was that the Warlord isn't the spectacular team player for PHB2 classes that he is for PHB1 classes. Take for instance Commander's Strike, an at-will maneuver where he basically gives up his own chance to swing in order to command a friend to make a basic swing in his place. If he coordinates with a rogue or ranger, this means that the party healer can be indirectly causing striker-level damage on his turn. Additionally, a Fighter marks his or her enemies by swinging at them, so giving him another swing means that he's able to keep the pressure on another foe and perform his job more effectively. By comparison, the Warden, the primal equivalent of the Fighter, marks all foes who are adjacent to him when he ends his turn but can only really make good on one of those marks, so the extra swing from Commander's Strike doesn't really benefit him, and the arcane strikers wouldn't benefit from making basic strikes. I haven't compared Monk and Avenger to Warlord yet though. My other at-will is Tactics of the Wolf, which lets a buddy shift which was good on occasions when we wanted to quickly set up a flank.

Another small complaint against 4e I noticed was that the group was painfully homogenous. Everybody's highest level of armor was hide armor which is the 'heaviest' of the light armors so if we had come across actual heavy armor, not even the tank could have used it. I know Will wants to have an all guy group again in the very near future, and since they'll probably all be killbash manly concepts, I'll probably have to go from Warlord to Bard in order to pick up the charisma, but that's another entry.

Totally not posting just to use my new icon.

2009-06-22T23:51:41Z

Don't ask me how they did it, but Rutger's summer semesters overlap. Fortunately my classes are on entirely different days, but it still means that I have four nights of class on top of work for the next two weeks. Sadly,

Using one of my new favorite Livejournaling methods of telling Matt a story and then later transcribing it, I can give my Facebook friends some insight as to why I was so happy to have a bag and a potato. My workplace had a "Brand Fair" which was an hourlong even where guests walk around and observe displays about our company's global locations and products. At each of these demonstrations there was a girl who gave you a sticker, and these stickers all went on a card. When you had all 8 stickers you could spin their wheel and try to win a prize. Despite not initially being invited, I got all eight stickers and ended up hitting the prize spot where I selected a new laptop bag from the table o' prizes. As for the potato, on days when people are inclined not to eat meat, namely Good Friday, we have a "Potato bar" as the lunch special. However, this year we closed early on Good Friday and people complained that they didn't get their potato so now we've had it one Friday a month for the past two months. I had a sweet potato for lunch that day and it was quite good. However, I don't know what goes on sweet potato as opposed to normal potato, which seems more topping friendly.

Also, Matt convinced me to buy some cheap games, including Saints Row 2. Yes, this means I own a GTA clone, but this is the GTA clone that Yahtzee preferred over GTA because of how cartoonish it is. I was originally going to crank the silliness to eleven and be an anorexic old man that looks kind of like Willie Nelson, but then as I continued to peruse the character customization options I realized how easy t would be to build Spike, especially considering that the three default voices are painfully stereotypical British, African-American, and Latino voices so being British was the least guilt inducing option. Right now, my pinnacles of being "gangsta" are sneaking up on people and throwing a bag of garbage at the back of their head and riding a motorcycle into the side of an overpass and subsequently ragdolling a couple hundred feet to my death.

Ironically despite posting about work, I've been fairly unproductive.

2009-06-17T14:57:42Z

I lent Andres my D&D 4E materials. He used to play and got the itch again after seeing stuff about 4E. After flirting with all the roles and nearly all the classes, I think he's finally decided that he wants to be a Shaman... named Shamandres. If he doesn't change his mind and go Avenger, that is. Also in D&D news, I heard Eberron came out and we have monks now. They're Psionic Strikers. No big surprise I guess. At least now that Psionics are being better merged into the game itself, I'll actually give things like Psions and Kalashtar the time of day.

So our new hobby at work is to find stupid blogs. I thought I should share some of our favorites:

Anybody know some other good ones? I know the Fail Blog and Texts from Last Night, but they weren't as big of hits.

Meanwhile in Punch-Out!!, I've been stuck on the Title Defense version of Soda Popinski for nearly a week now. I have the patterns down, but he's so fast that taking advantage of them is difficult. Then again most of my online boxing has been done in Golds' Gym Cardio Challenge rather than Punch-Out!!.

On the next episode: one of those running gags using Impact font!

Risin' up, back on the street.

2009-06-12T00:20:44Z

My Wii has turned into a mini gym. I've had Wii Fit for a few months now, but my mom was really interested in that EA Sports Active so I picked it up for us to try. However, she's expecting it as an end-of-the-school-year present, so it hasn't been opened yet. However, while I was there I saw Golds Gym Cardio Workout and remembered that Matt said that he read that it gives you arguably the most intense workout of all these. Plus, it was only $30.

I started poking around a dating site again for shiggles. Unfortunately, the highlight of this experience was giggling at an entry that said, "I am a tall girl I am 6"." All the other lawn gnomes must be jealous.

Finally, I got an invite to a coworker's birthday party. Unfortunately, it falls at a really bad time, but I was highly amused by her boyfriend's name...

Rick, I can't go to the party. I'm a busy man, Rick, with lots of places to go. You understand, right Rick?

...Rick?

RICK!!?

Somehow, my first wedding related post is incredibly gay

2009-06-08T23:52:02Z

Despite never being anything in a wedding more significant than "guy who ate all the mini hotdogs", I'm moving all the way up to best man, nature's lancer. My reaction to this is positive, but I haven't been very good at presenting this to people. I mean, it took me at least 24 hours to share it with some people and about 48 hours for you Internetland which caused my mom to initially misread it as me considering it a bad thing at first. Of course this new role lead to me researching what exactly a best man actually does, but I have at least a year before anything happens.

So apparently they had a Who Wants to be a Superhero? in the UK. However, in England the contestants were children aged 9-13 as opposed to adults in the United States. More importantly though, our favorite faaaaaaaaabulous supervillain was a regular! Unfortunately, I can't find a good picture of Dr. Dark. Can he have a spinoff yet?

I think I like one of the summer interns at work. Then again, it might just be loneliness and that at this rate I could like anything. Well, maybe not dudes even if Neil Patrick Harris gave me a huge laugh with his closing number at the Tonys including this gem:

"This show could not be gayer, if Liza was named mayor and Elton John took flight!"

And seriously why the hell is my aunt trying to add me on Facebook?

Chris beats Fable II: a tragedy

2009-06-03T19:15:54Z

I beat Fable II. The story ends with the player having the power of the three heroes transferred into himself, or he would before-DUN DUN DUN-Lucien interfered. Lucien casts his damn sleep spell, and you're forced to play this filler scene where you're a kid again. At the end of it, you get a little montage of yourself "throughout the ages" as you receive that music box from the beginning of the game. The damn music box from your dream is somehow willed into reality, the same way I created Anne Hathaway and Amy Acker with my brain (maybe even at the same time), as you're holding it and it makes you immune to Lucien's damn sleep spell. Lucien kinda whimpers and your character draws his gun. I tried hitting the B button to ready a spell, as I would have much preferred incinerating Lucien to simply shooting him but the game wasn't having any of that. At least I had the satisfaction of sub-targeting, and according to GameFAQs, denying that little asshat Reaver the satisfaction of shooting him had I hesitated too long. However this resulted in an odd animation as a shotgun blast caused Lucien to pitch forward and strangely to his right before falling off a ledge to his doomy dooms of doom. Cue some talking and then the credits as I, the player, realized what a terrible ending this was.

For starters, why did I have to unite the three heroes in the land, one of which required spending ten years in a prison camp, in the first place when it all came down to shooting an old man in the ~~testicles~~ face? Sure he has the power to cast a damn sleep spell, but he would have been Heinz 57 varieties of dead before he could finish the spell if I didn't have to stand there and take in this pseudo cut-scene and the one that preceded my ten years of imprisonment.

Also Lucien is probably the worst RPG villain I've encountered in years. Admittedly, he has the respectable-by-villain-standards goal of trying to bring his wife and child back to life, but he went well out of his way to become enemies with the heroes who are to my knowledge effectively immortal, seeing as I CAN'T DIE no matter what I do. It briefly made me feel oddly sorry for him. I mean, the heroes themselves are a generally decent bunch even if they keep at least one complete monster like ~~myself~~ Reaver around. Still, he did almost nothing to further his own agenda. Okay okay okay, he was going to use the Spire to grant himself a wish to bring them back, but my last Fable post proved that I was able to ultimately do what he spent decades trying to accomplish with my foray into forbidden romance with a Frankenstein*. Instead of all this rigamarole, all he really had to do was befriend that weird necrophiliac guy living 2 miles away in the only other mansion in Bowerstone.

This leads me to wonder why all of this actually happened. All Garth got was a ticket back to Not!Africa, Reaver's going to follow Garth, and Hammer is going to travel north and study with the warrior monks of Not!Asia. Our mentor kept the Spire for herself, which makes me wonder if this whole plot was really her scheme all along and we just got played, which would make her the real villain of the story and, ultimately, the winner. I got a wish of my own: either sacrifice, love, or wealth and I chose... sacrifice. Yes, evil blue mariachi selected the "noblest" option, to which the game more or less went "Well, I guess with all the questionable things you've done you'd naturally take the mon--

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?"

So instead of getting a million gold or my loved ones back after the credits rolled, I resurrected all those who lost their lives in the creation of the spire and a letter of gratitude from the common people. Also I received a hefty bonus of "good" points, enough that after burning my almighty wish to save the lives of people I don't know, I'm only 80% evil now! Unfortunately, my dog apparently qualified as a "loved one" so now they expect me to run around Not!England dogless, which seriously hampers gameplay... MOTHERF--

FIN

*Not Twilight

Chris plays a villain in Fable: a Love Story

2009-06-01T01:15:37Z

Recently I've been playing Fable 2, the Art Garfunkel of XBox 360 role playing games. Fable prides itself on being the sort of game where your decisions affect the world around you as well as measuring your character on a number of levels including Good vs. Evil, Scary vs. Fun, Ugly vs. Attractive, and Pure vs. Corrupt which is like Law vs. Chaos in D&D. I decided that I wanted to to play a character who was evil yet pure: the sort of Machiavellian bastard who eats his vegetables, says no to prostitutes, and is generally loved by the majority while at the same time sacrificing spouses to his dark gods on a regular basis. I've been doing a damn good job of it too, what with the fact that I'm wearing the most "attractive" combination of clothing possible, even if it makes me look like Viggo Mortensen dyed blue and dressed like a mariachi.

Anyway, enough about the boy. Let's talk about the girl. Lady Grey was the evil mayor in Fable 1, but in the 500 years between sequels, witch hunters killed her and sent her parts far and wide. Some weirdo sent me on a quest to find her separated body parts so he can resurrect her Frankenstein-style and and use a love potion to marry her. The catch is that she falls for the player rather than the mad scientist, but the player has the option to leave the room and break the spell or wait it out and keep her for him (or her) self. Naturally I chose the latter. I figured I'd marry her because she's one of the few unique models in the game as opposed to generic peasant #235234324. Soon after, we're married and conceive a child on a cursed magical bed (another sidequest) who due to her half-human half-reanimated-corpse parentage I appropriately named Sin Against God.

Unfortunately, like in all good love stories* there is a plot twist. I needed one more sacrifice to get the legendary weapon from the temple of shadows. Not wanting to kill my fairly interesting and appropriate unique wife, I married a random hooker in a faraway town, sacrificed her, and got my legendary sword o' evil. When I go back to wife one, apparently I got a blackmail letter about my bigamy stating that I had four days to pay. However something went wrong because Lady Grey gives me this pissed off rant and starts leaving with Sin Against God. Maybe I didn't read the letter soon enough. Maybe it was a bug. As she's leaving, I'm chasing after her dancing and performing other actions used to impress people in this game. Eventually, I max out her love bar, but she's still intent on leaving. Well, the path she chooses comes across a random encounter with bandits where try as I did to save her, she accidentally got killed. A window comes up explaining in so many words that DIFYS took poor little Sin Against God, and I went and met my blackmailer with nothing left to lose so in my frustration I shot him in the crotch at point blank with The Enforcer.

*ie: Not Twilight.

Microblog killed the Livejournal star

2009-05-24T05:13:55Z

So for all of my mockery about how Facebook was afraid of Twitter knocking it off its social networking perch, I think that Livejournal looks like Twitter's most likely casualty. The Twitter community appears to be more vibrant because posting is quick and easy since with a 140 character limit there's no such thing as too short or lazy. Unfortunately, that's the problem for me as well: without room for context or explanation, it's decidedly lacking in substance. You quickly begin to realize that even the much touted celebrity accounts are usually as boring as you and I (I'm looking at you Grunberg!).

My birthday weekend was quite nice, but work has been trying to take over my life lately. The reason you didn't hear much from me last week was because I was working from both the office and home. I racked in at least 60 hours that week alone. For my efforts, I discovered this week that I'm getting a thousand dollar bonus. Then again, we had a celebration Tuesday where they thanked everybody and gave out checks or something. First they did full employees and then the total outsiders, but they didn't make any reference to the people who fall in the middle ground. This was especially awkward and kind of dick because that included two of the three biggest players on the physical side of the project.

I spent the majority of today alone, starting by exploring the part of Bordentown my parents discovered last weekend. It's kind of like a mini New Hope with more emphasis on restaurants than stores. There was a place called The Mystic Store, but it was a joke because all it had was a table for reading tarot cards, auras, etc. with a starting price of $25 and a jar of rocks, which is completely inferior to a jar of dirt. I thought about calling Zakk around lunchtime, but I changed my mind and went to Moorestown Mall where I ran into... Zakk waiting for Justin and ~~Frank~~ ~~GENERIC LAD~~ Kevin. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten about Kevin's religion essay on Myspace (which has since been deleted) or else I would've started poking holes in that. Instead I politely listened to them talk about Nintendo DS ROMs and eventually gave Justin a ride home because everybody else had to get back to work, which makes question what the hell they were going to do they not encountered me by chance.

Driving Justin back was probably the most interesting part of my day. We talked, and although it was mostly the classic "When you grow up you have less time for friends" talk, it was especially scary for me because it was coming from a guy I used to know for showing up at things dress like a denim biker who's now completely ~~castrated~~ housebroken. It just reminded me of how much the world scares me anymore because it feels like everybody in the world is either living like a supervised 15-year-old and just accepting a life where nothing ever changes, being the vapid sort of person who can talk about nothing but alcohol, or jumping into marriage-and-baby land which at this point in my life terrifies me the most. In fact that's probably my greatest fear; given how I've just eased into every part of my life after college and subsequently not been very happy with it, I'm scared that I'm going to just marry the next person who comes along because it's been three years and counting since my last relationship and who knows if it's not worth trying again should the next one fail, but this time there would be other people lives at risk. This is largely the reason why I chased someone who I deep down knew from the beginning was a train wreck.

I beat Aran Ryan, ~~Vodka Drunkinski~~ Soda Popisnki, and Bald Bull. Next is Super Macho Man, and then I find out who the silhouette in the middle is.

America's favorite womanizer speaks. Take that Colin Farrell

2009-05-09T02:48:56Z

Work is completely eating my life and will continue to do so until next weekend. Today I worked 7:00 - 4:15 and then came home to unsuccessfully try to log in to my account from home. And I have to stop into work for a few hours tomorrow. I just feel like I'm the only 23 year old who has to have all the responsibility of being a key player of a fairly large business initiative when I'm not doing other boring responsible thingslike being the first to leave social gatherings or failing to form long term bonds with others because they will most likely be leaving my life in the near future.

Having rolled my eyes enough at Facebook's attempts to become Twitter The Talented Mr. Ripley style, I cut the middle man and got my own Twitter account. Right now, I'm trying to give it the same "safe haven" feel that Livejournal has and Facebook lost somewhere between Sam and Karen. In case you're interested my name is Coacuatchoo which you may recognize from the movie--

*Peter David style page turn*

Wolverine. I don't think there's going to be a grand Yahtzee style review on Facebook, especially considering that for it to work it has to be up today or tomorrow because the moral is "Don't sweat it. It's the Hellboy to Star Trek's Batman." The people most curious about my opinion have heard them in one instant messenger or another so here's the outline view.

What worked:

Surprisingly, the cast. The Lagos mission in the beginning introduces us to a bunch of C-Listers, but it injects them with more personality than the X-Men. I much preferred new Sabretooth to old Sabretooth so long as he stays on two legs because his "animalistic" crawling reminded me more of the bad wire-fu from Twilight. Speaking of Twilight, Jackman has become the anti-Pattison because it's clear that he cares about the character of Wolverine.
Clearly between this and Watchmen, computer generated "Tunnel of Doom" effects are old hat and the new superhero movie opening of choice is to make the opening credits the most imaginative and clever scene in the entire film. In Wolverine, I'm referring to Wolverine and Sabretooth through the years.
It wasn't a good character drama, like we expect superhero movies of the '00s to be, but it was a decent action flick.

What didn't:

Frankly, the movie needed to be more violent. For a movie where violence is generally regarded as something negative, they pulled a lot of punches which in turn hindered their message.
Three Mile Island for so many reasons. Why are young versions of half the X-Men in this film? Is this now Heroes where everybody is connected through really contrived coincidences? Sure Wolverine is amnesiac, but you're going to tell me that nobody remembers the man with claws for hands who saved them from being imprisoned in cages? And THAT'S Deadpool? No, just no. It's like making Reed Richards Dr. Doom. And of course, where did he get HIS claws and eyelasers and how can he bend him arms when the swords aren't out!?

Also, the line of the week was totally when spica said she gets Shunsui being my favorite captain on Bleach because of the drinking and skirt chasing within about three feet of my father.

Maybe the cute girl from research will have to make copies again on Monday... dammit. Well at least I'm sober.

Kookoocachoo got screwed

2009-05-04T17:52:07Z

Quick update: I saw Wolverine on Monday and it wasn't the trainwreck I was expecting it to be. In the tradition of other superhero blockbusters, I'm already at work on a review for the Facebook flixster app. Unfortunately, I'm remembering why I stopped doing these, as I have a hard a lot of thoughts and it quickly becomes difficult to maintain a focus, kind of like Will and Zakk's friend Kevin, except that I'm not a bigoted prick.

In the meantime, have a throwaway gag:

Chris and Will, having had enough of each other's crap.