The ol' double-standard

Here's the thing.

The co-worker that wrote "GEEKFEST" on the calendar over GenCon in a deliberate act of mockery? Turns out he's off on a 4 day weekend. Driving to Iowa. To participate in a fantasy football draft.

Look. At this point, the difference between his creation of an imaginary team of sportsters and me rolling dice to kill a dragon on a tabletop is negligible.

Hi, pot? This is the kettle. You're black.

(FYI: Epic GenCon wrapup blog is coming. Soonish.)

What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse

So.

I had good intentions. I was going to talk about houses. Or maybe clothesline-stealing squirrels. But I'm really trying to put forth some positive effort re: home ownership, so I have nothing to say on that at the moment.

So.

Let me tell you about Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Why I bought it. Why I played it. Why I'll never play it again.

Don't get me wrong. I love me some Castlevania. Symphony of the Night is my favorite game of all time. Despite never finishing many of the early games, I own all 3 original NES games, GBA games, and all 3 DS games. The games have gotten easier over the years. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia "fixes" that.

Trust me when I say the game is gorgeous. Beautiful, even. Great music. Evocative enemies. But it's hard. How hard? SO HARD. I bought it last fall, set it aside after a few weeks (yes, that's right, weeks) and just picked it up again this week after some malaise with my stand-by DS titles.

I play DS at work (lunches and breaks, represent!), so lately it's been crosswords and turn-based strategy. Seeking something different, I turned to my DS pile of shame (more in the future) and remembered never finishing C:OoE.

I'm finished now.

I have been on the same boss for 2 solid days. That's approximately 2 1/2 hours of the Same. Boss. Fight. I have searched FAQs online. I have tried any number of options. I even have the pattern mostly figured out. But it's just too freakin' hard.

Why, my character has 548 hit points. That sounds like a lot. It might as well be the 3 hearts of 1986 NES games, because I'm dead within 3 hits. Seriously. Screw up on the pattern once, and you're toast.

I'm too old for this. I don't have the patience for this anymore. The internal game clock has me logged at 8 hours, 56 minutes. In real life? Double it. Easily. 3 days spent on the 2nd boss, but I wasn't ready to quit that early on. 70% unlocked at this point. That's enough.

Back to the shelf. The pile of shame. It will sit there and mock me as an example of my gaming failures. But y'know what? That's OK. The frustration saved by not playing - and the money saved by not throwing my DS against a wall - that'll do. Because I'm a homeowner now, and I can't afford to replace that DS until we get a dining room table.

Off the Grid

Heads up to all of you out there in internet-land: We're going offline for a few days. I know, with this schedule of postings, how could you tell?

Here's the thing: cable switches from the apartment to the house today. Most of our furniture won't be joining the cable until this weekend. That means:

1) No internet

2) No Twitter

3) No Xbox Live

4) No Netflix Instant Queue

Basically, I don't know what I'm going to do for entertainment. There just might be a breakdown and shuffling of CPU's to the house. Just don't expect to see anything until this weekend.

There's a zombie on your lawn

Catchy tunes + adorable undead = I need to play this game.



UPDATE: Downloaded the demo. Won't start because we own a Power PC Mac, not an Intel Mac. Boo!

Sentience

The apartment has become self-aware, and it hates us.

Is it jealousy? It must be, because ever since we signed the paperwork for the mortgage application (re: that house you might have heard about), things at the apartment haven't been quite right.

1) Toilet tank is no longer filling.

2) Drains are running slow or getting air bubbles back-flowing from neighborly garbage disposal use.

3) Medicine cabinet lost its latch - the stickum just up and quit.

4) Light switch no longer works. It's not a case of bulb burnout. It's a physical disturbance that won't let us lift the switch into the on position. Something behind the walls is angry...

Hopefully, we can get out of here before it learns how to turn on the oven or figures out where we keep the knives.

Say it ain't so, Lorne

Back to Pylea.

Caritas.

tweet

Hypocrite! Sheep!

Yep. I've succumbed. Even after publicly posting about my active disdain for the service, I figured "Well, I really want to nab a certain username before someone else gets it". (Embracing the gamertag for most online communiques has its perks.) Without a cell phone who knows if the info will be truly up to date, but yes, I have a Twitter account. Look to the left - I've integrated it into the blog here for your convenience.

I'll try to keep the blog for the bigger, chunkier topics, but short bursts may just end up in the Twitter sidebar. I can see the addictive nature of this beast already. Follow Neil Gaiman? Yes please.

$10

I found ten bucks on the ground at work today. I see it as the universe saying "Thanks for getting out of bed this week. Go buy something you don't need!"

This guy in Missouri thinks I'm a pedophile

" "There is no reason an adult should have this game," says Andy Anderson, Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force."

Linky.

Funny, I thought that these things were meant to stop this type of uninformed hysteria. I mean, have you tried getting together on the Wii with friend codes? It's a super-hassle. Not like Xbox LIVE or PSN or, y'know, the internet.

On Resident Evil 5

I had the demo of RE5 downloaded about 3 weeks before last Friday's release of the full game. Didn't actually play it until last Tuesday. Thought process while playing:

1) Chris Redfield sure runs slow.

2) Man, it is an awfully pretty game.

3) OK, now I'm surrounded by zombies - where's my melee attack?

4) Where'd that big executioner guy come from? And why is he decapitating my partner?

5) Hmm. Game over. Y'know, I think I'd rather play Left 4 Dead.

So I deleted the demo. Total time spent downloading > total time spent playing. Like every Resident Evil game before it, it's just not for me.

Bad timing

So, why am I typing at twenty after 8 in the AM? Shouldn't I be at work? Well, I would, but there's this little situation about a car door that won't stay shut. Seems to be frozen - the lock was resisting opening, the handle did the same, and now I'm sitting here at the computer desperately googling for door-closing tips while the car sits parked in the sun, door slightly ajar, slowly draining the battery.

It's stupid. Car trouble is supposed to be engines not starting in sub-zero temps and flat tires and shattered windshields. Not that I'm not thankful that this is a (hopefully) minor problem - it's just hard to sell your boss on "I'm late because I couldn't close this door."

So I passed out at a brewery this weekend

I just thought you should know.

Dear Joss...

Dear Joss,

We've been through a lot, you and I. Really, things started back in 1997 with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then there was Angel, Titan AE, Alien Resurrection, Firefly, Serenity, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog... the list goes on and on. That's just the watchable media. Even your "Merry Marvel Midlife Crisis" and Buffyverse comic spinoffs found their way into my hands.

So now, now that I see you're back on TV - with Eliza Dushku and Amy Acker, no less - I had reason to be excited. I'm happy for you, really, I am. But I'm just letting you know. Dollhouse? I won't be watching it.

No, it's not you. No, it's not Eliza either. (I'm actually a fan. Not to the extent of seeing everything she's in, especially movies, but I suffered through watched Tru Calling for a full half-season on the strength of her star power alone. Bring It On? I could watch that movie every day for the rest of my life.) It's me. It's not like I won't see it eventually - catch the DVD's, sure, but it's won't be a first-run viewing for me. Why? Simple. FOX.

I know you had to do it if you wanted to work with Eliza again, so I understand why. It's just that after what happened with Firefly, I'm leery. Not just Firefly - Arrested Development (even if it lasted 2 seasons longer than I expected). Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Wonderfalls - that one hurt the most. After all this, I just can't trust FOX anymore. I can't have my heart broken again. I can't get invested in another show to have it killed of in 6 weeks.

I don't care about the pilot reshoot or the minor set shutdown, although they don't especially help with the confidence factor. I hope the show is good. I hope it does well - pairing Dollhouse with The Sarah Connor Chronicles is one of the smartest things they could have done. But I also hope that you wrap up the storyline in all the episodes shot, because I have a sinking feeling that I'll be able to pick up Dollhouse: The Complete Series (with 5 never-before seen episodes) come August.

It says "Watch out for zombies"

Seriously.  It might be all the Left 4 Dead I've been playing, it might be a reaction to reading The Walking Dead, but this is the best news story I've seen all year.

The only past that irks me is at the end, when the anchor is all "Public safety! Whole websites dedicated to this sort of behavior!" It's the internet. What do you expect?

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in

Michael Corleone had it right. But despite the fresh "new-blog" smell, this isn't about blogging, no, not at all. It's about a gift. 

Some dear friends were kind enough to get us a Wii game for Christmas - a Wii game that, quite honestly, I wasn't planning on picking up. I'd done this game twice before, and felt no need to play the (almost) exact same game a third time. But they bought it, and it arrived, and I put it in, and next thing you know I'm an indentured servant to a greedy raccoon.

Animal Crossing.

This will be the end of me.

In the week since Animal Crossing: City Folk made its way from Amazon to our doorstep, I've logged more than a full-time workday gathering fruit, designing outfits, shaking trees, selling fish, mailing letters, chatting up animals, and paying off my mortgage. All things I did 6 years ago, almost to the day. All things I thought I had moved past.

I was wrong. So help me, I was so wrong. I'm not mining guides to complete my museum or maximize my song requests (yet...), and I haven't even managed an in-game meet-up with our benevolent gifters (also yet...) but this will absorb both myself and the wife for weeks, if not months, to come.

Pertinent linkage:

Working for Nook is a pain

The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing (NSFW)