Tuesday, August 31, 2010
-Hello blogoshpere! It has been precisely a month since my last update. Summer has flew buy, and I swear this has got to be one of the warmest summers our town has ever had. It was probably one of the most laid back summers for me, and it is too bad I never got around to playing any outdoor sports yet this summer. I used to have some friends I would play a lot of basketball and football with each summer, but they all have moved in recent years. For awhile I was playing tennis with a coworker, but have not this year either. I have been on plenty of walks however, which is par for the course for me.
-So I ended up getting shunned by a complete stranger at K-Mart. I went there with my buddy Matt, a huge figure collector, for an exclusive new WWE line of figures launch he got an email about. While we were waiting for the toys to be displayed, I perused the other WWE toys and thought I would finally pick up the foam ECW Silver Belt for the next N64 No Mercy tournament at MGC next year. As I was walking around with it, this random gal I never met before in my life walked by us and asked me, "You like wrestling?" I nodded in approval, to which she retorted "That stuff is all fake y'know," and proceeded to walk away. I was so taken aback by this stranger's open diss at me in public that I had no comeback, before Matt told me a couple minutes later I should have said "Your face is fake!" Should say I was shocked for this to happen, but it is unfortunately somewhat common as a wrestling fan to get crude insults from anybody due to the stigma it has attached to it for being entertainment, and all the ugly baggage it has with steroids, rampant wrestler deaths, etc.
-Anyone remember the card game Whist? It is my mom's all-time favorite card game and she has been dying to play it with my siblings and I forever. She tried to teach us once last year, but it did not go so well. My niece Nicole was visiting a couple days ago, and my mom practically forced all of us to play and learn it again. At first it was hell, but after awhile we were starting to get the hang of it much to her chagrin. Whist is essentially a 2-on-2 version of Presidents and Assholes. After digging up some info on Wikipedia, it was popular for a couple centuries until the 1800s when Bridge usurped it in popularity. I need to remember how to play King's Corner one of these days, that was an old childhood favorite.
-I was on a bit of a streak catching movies at the theater every week this summer. Went and saw The Switch with the family a couple days ago and it proved to be a hit with the entire family. Piranha 3D was campy slasher goodness, and marked the third 3D film I have seen. Dinner for Shmucks was all right, but Carrell and Rudd felt limited with a PG-13 rating. The Expendables was everything I wanted it to be with a cast of action stars I grew up with. Being a fan of the books, I ate up Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The Other Guys was surprisingly funny for PG-13 rated Will Ferrell flick, it did not feel as restrained as Dinner With Shmucks.
-I have been watching a lot of television DVDs lately. I am still catching up on all the Psych DVDs Joey borrowed me. I finally finished season two a few days ago and am now into season three. Psych is amazing, it is like CSI meets Scrubs, but Psych is actually tolerable and entertaining. After abandoning my progress a few months ago I finally resumed watching season one of Veronica Mars and am getting close to finishing the season. I watched one episode of volume two of the excellent early 90s X-Men animated series.
Finally, WCG Ultimate Gamer has started season two on SyFy and I have been watching those at Matt's lately right after RAW. I tried to get Matt into season one and showed him an episode, but he was not too impressed, but he is giving season two a shot. For those not in the know, it is kind of like The Tester reality show on PSN earlier this year, except each show is an hour and in addition to the real life challenge there is a videogame challenge to go along with it each week and determine who gets ousted each week. I am digging the show, with the exception of the reality show drama and baggage that is attached with every reality show. All of season one is available on Hulu streaming, as is the two episodes that aired so far of season two.
-I have been podcasting quite a bit lately, in one week I recorded three On Taps and a Cheap Pop. After nearly a year and a half Matt and I picked up where we left off on the comic book videogame retrospective, talking all about comic book games on PS1, Saturn, N64 and Dreamast. check it out. We also did a huge Scott Pilgrim blowout, dedicating a show to the movie, game and books. give it a listen.
We currently plan on recording part four of the comic book videogame special in a week or so where we cover PS2/GameCube/Xbox comic book games. Matt has almost all of them I have owned or played about a dozen of them or so, and have been playing catchup on my backlog trying to throw some in to get reacquainted with them. Right now I have been playing a ton of Spider-Man 2 and plan on checking out Rogue Trooper and Ultimate Spider-Man later this week.
-I hope by the time I do my next blog that I will be finally finished with The Book of Basketball. I only have a little over 100 pages left of the 700 page monster by Bill Simmons, and I have so many other books in my backlog. I am debating what I start next. Perhaps The Fall of Reach since Halo Reach is just a couple weeks out? Or the pair of Gears of War novels I have with Gears 3 approaching next year? I could start Bret Hart's autobiography one of these days, but it is near the same length as Simmons' book.
-No onto my game progress. I will try to breeze through this as fast as possible. Maybe.
-Let's dedicate this paragraph to games I have beaten since my last entry. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe will start it off, after picking away a few chapters at a time every few weeks I have finally completed both DC and MK story arcs. I also finally beat all the individual game challenges for Retro Game Challenge. I do want to go back one day and beat Guardia Quest. I rented and plowed through Kane & Lynch 2's campaign in a little over four hours, and while it super short it is fun while it lasts, but the online makes up for it with the return of the awesome Fragile Alliance mode. I am also adding Williams Pinball Hall of Fame to the games beaten list this year since I finally beat the Williams Challenge where I had to beat a preset score on each table with only three continues, and it took me many tries to finally accomplish this.
-I have been putting a lot more time into Red Dead Redemption again. I am several missions into the Mexico portion of the campaign and still loving every moment of it so far. I have been getting back into Halo 3 online multiplayer this past week since Reach is coming out soon and I want to get as much out of Halo 3 while I can. Had a fun time checking out a lot of the different playlists that I have never tried before. On the DS side of things I am still putting about an hour a week into Dragon Quest IX on DS. I finally just got past the Hexigonal Dungeon. I also finally started Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations. I hope to beat this one within 3 months instead of the usual year of off and on play it takes me to beat a Phoenix Wright game.
-After putting it off for so long I got around to finally putting some time into Smackdown vs. RAW 2010 and am determined to beat the Road to Wrestlemania chapters in time for the 2011 game. Still playing a ton of Zen Pinball, and each week lately I usually manage to beat at least one or two of my old high scores. Other downloadable games I have include Family Feud on PSN and Risk Factions on XBLA, with a little Deathspank of XBLA on the side.
-As I stated above I have started playing Spider-Man 2 for research into the next podcast installment of the comic book videogame retrospective. Just a couple hours in, but I am liking what I am seeing so far. For a 2004 last gen game, it surprisingly holds up gameplay wise and I am having a bit of fun with it. I also rented and only got about four hours into Batman: Arkham Asylum. I only played the demo last year and for some reason was not all that impressed. After spending four hours with it however I can now say I stand corrected. That game has five star production values usually seen in console blockbuster exclusives like Uncharted or Halo. I will definitely have to pick up this game now.
-Ok, this wraps up another crazy long blog. Later!
-So I ended up getting shunned by a complete stranger at K-Mart. I went there with my buddy Matt, a huge figure collector, for an exclusive new WWE line of figures launch he got an email about. While we were waiting for the toys to be displayed, I perused the other WWE toys and thought I would finally pick up the foam ECW Silver Belt for the next N64 No Mercy tournament at MGC next year. As I was walking around with it, this random gal I never met before in my life walked by us and asked me, "You like wrestling?" I nodded in approval, to which she retorted "That stuff is all fake y'know," and proceeded to walk away. I was so taken aback by this stranger's open diss at me in public that I had no comeback, before Matt told me a couple minutes later I should have said "Your face is fake!" Should say I was shocked for this to happen, but it is unfortunately somewhat common as a wrestling fan to get crude insults from anybody due to the stigma it has attached to it for being entertainment, and all the ugly baggage it has with steroids, rampant wrestler deaths, etc.
-Anyone remember the card game Whist? It is my mom's all-time favorite card game and she has been dying to play it with my siblings and I forever. She tried to teach us once last year, but it did not go so well. My niece Nicole was visiting a couple days ago, and my mom practically forced all of us to play and learn it again. At first it was hell, but after awhile we were starting to get the hang of it much to her chagrin. Whist is essentially a 2-on-2 version of Presidents and Assholes. After digging up some info on Wikipedia, it was popular for a couple centuries until the 1800s when Bridge usurped it in popularity. I need to remember how to play King's Corner one of these days, that was an old childhood favorite.
-I was on a bit of a streak catching movies at the theater every week this summer. Went and saw The Switch with the family a couple days ago and it proved to be a hit with the entire family. Piranha 3D was campy slasher goodness, and marked the third 3D film I have seen. Dinner for Shmucks was all right, but Carrell and Rudd felt limited with a PG-13 rating. The Expendables was everything I wanted it to be with a cast of action stars I grew up with. Being a fan of the books, I ate up Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The Other Guys was surprisingly funny for PG-13 rated Will Ferrell flick, it did not feel as restrained as Dinner With Shmucks.
-I have been watching a lot of television DVDs lately. I am still catching up on all the Psych DVDs Joey borrowed me. I finally finished season two a few days ago and am now into season three. Psych is amazing, it is like CSI meets Scrubs, but Psych is actually tolerable and entertaining. After abandoning my progress a few months ago I finally resumed watching season one of Veronica Mars and am getting close to finishing the season. I watched one episode of volume two of the excellent early 90s X-Men animated series.
Finally, WCG Ultimate Gamer has started season two on SyFy and I have been watching those at Matt's lately right after RAW. I tried to get Matt into season one and showed him an episode, but he was not too impressed, but he is giving season two a shot. For those not in the know, it is kind of like The Tester reality show on PSN earlier this year, except each show is an hour and in addition to the real life challenge there is a videogame challenge to go along with it each week and determine who gets ousted each week. I am digging the show, with the exception of the reality show drama and baggage that is attached with every reality show. All of season one is available on Hulu streaming, as is the two episodes that aired so far of season two.
-I have been podcasting quite a bit lately, in one week I recorded three On Taps and a Cheap Pop. After nearly a year and a half Matt and I picked up where we left off on the comic book videogame retrospective, talking all about comic book games on PS1, Saturn, N64 and Dreamast. check it out. We also did a huge Scott Pilgrim blowout, dedicating a show to the movie, game and books. give it a listen.
We currently plan on recording part four of the comic book videogame special in a week or so where we cover PS2/GameCube/Xbox comic book games. Matt has almost all of them I have owned or played about a dozen of them or so, and have been playing catchup on my backlog trying to throw some in to get reacquainted with them. Right now I have been playing a ton of Spider-Man 2 and plan on checking out Rogue Trooper and Ultimate Spider-Man later this week.
-I hope by the time I do my next blog that I will be finally finished with The Book of Basketball. I only have a little over 100 pages left of the 700 page monster by Bill Simmons, and I have so many other books in my backlog. I am debating what I start next. Perhaps The Fall of Reach since Halo Reach is just a couple weeks out? Or the pair of Gears of War novels I have with Gears 3 approaching next year? I could start Bret Hart's autobiography one of these days, but it is near the same length as Simmons' book.
-No onto my game progress. I will try to breeze through this as fast as possible. Maybe.
-Let's dedicate this paragraph to games I have beaten since my last entry. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe will start it off, after picking away a few chapters at a time every few weeks I have finally completed both DC and MK story arcs. I also finally beat all the individual game challenges for Retro Game Challenge. I do want to go back one day and beat Guardia Quest. I rented and plowed through Kane & Lynch 2's campaign in a little over four hours, and while it super short it is fun while it lasts, but the online makes up for it with the return of the awesome Fragile Alliance mode. I am also adding Williams Pinball Hall of Fame to the games beaten list this year since I finally beat the Williams Challenge where I had to beat a preset score on each table with only three continues, and it took me many tries to finally accomplish this.
-I have been putting a lot more time into Red Dead Redemption again. I am several missions into the Mexico portion of the campaign and still loving every moment of it so far. I have been getting back into Halo 3 online multiplayer this past week since Reach is coming out soon and I want to get as much out of Halo 3 while I can. Had a fun time checking out a lot of the different playlists that I have never tried before. On the DS side of things I am still putting about an hour a week into Dragon Quest IX on DS. I finally just got past the Hexigonal Dungeon. I also finally started Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations. I hope to beat this one within 3 months instead of the usual year of off and on play it takes me to beat a Phoenix Wright game.
-After putting it off for so long I got around to finally putting some time into Smackdown vs. RAW 2010 and am determined to beat the Road to Wrestlemania chapters in time for the 2011 game. Still playing a ton of Zen Pinball, and each week lately I usually manage to beat at least one or two of my old high scores. Other downloadable games I have include Family Feud on PSN and Risk Factions on XBLA, with a little Deathspank of XBLA on the side.
-As I stated above I have started playing Spider-Man 2 for research into the next podcast installment of the comic book videogame retrospective. Just a couple hours in, but I am liking what I am seeing so far. For a 2004 last gen game, it surprisingly holds up gameplay wise and I am having a bit of fun with it. I also rented and only got about four hours into Batman: Arkham Asylum. I only played the demo last year and for some reason was not all that impressed. After spending four hours with it however I can now say I stand corrected. That game has five star production values usually seen in console blockbuster exclusives like Uncharted or Halo. I will definitely have to pick up this game now.
-Ok, this wraps up another crazy long blog. Later!
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