Achievement Unlocked: You Won!

So today I've beaten not one, but two games. The first is the bonus maps included in Portal: Still Alive, as downloaded off of XBox Live Arcade. I downloaded the game thinking it's a sequel to the copy I already own with the Orange Box after reading someone's blog post. Not so. It's the same game again, but with new Achievements and 14 bonus levels, which are rather weak compared to the game proper. The graphics level has been reduced as well, although it's not so noticeable. You see right away that your portal gun looks different, but that's about it. So I'm feeling rather ripped off. I wouldn't recommend anyone buying it. I would recommend they buy the Orange Box, however, since it's only $15 more than the downloadable stand-alone Portal game, and includes not one, not two, not three, not four, buy five games total including Portal itself, although Half-Life two and it's sequels really only count as one game, and there's no one ever online to play Team Fortress 2 with, since they've long ago moved on to bigger and better online multiplayer shooters. So really, it's only two games. They're good games, though. Well, Portal only takes about an hour-and-a-half to get through, so it's kind of just a mini-game. So really, it's only one game, but it's still a bargain. Portal: Still Alive takes even less time to get through once you realize: Hey, this is the same damn game. If you subscribe to Steam on your PC (fuck yo' Mac!) you can even download the bonus levels for free, making your XBox Live Arcade Purchase rather silly. I wish I had known that. They really need to stick some kind of description to these games in the Arcade section. They all have the demos available for free, and you can honestly get a sense of what you're purchasing, but I was thinking even after I ran through the game proper once more that I was getting the old game and a new game sequel that would be accessed after winning. Oh well. I killed some time.

Speaking of killing time, I also beat GTA IV about four months after every other person on the planet has beaten it. Why so long? Because I only bought the damn thing a few weeks ago, foo'! I was having some trouble with the final mission and a few associated with it. I was either dying or the guy I was chasing got away. There was a levy involved in which I had to run a motorcycle off of, and for about five runs I was like, "Where the fuck is the levy?" so I kept having to go back through the whole scenario. Not to give much away, but in terms of endings, this would make one of the worst Hollywood movies in a long time. I know someone out there is wanting to make a GTA movie. If I saw this ending, I'd walk out. It's like Michael Bay took possession of the game in it's final moments.

*SPOILER ALERT* You drive a motorcycle onto a helicopter; then it blows up. If they could put that in a bottle and sell it as a perfume, it'd be called: Essence by Michael Bay.

Having beaten the game, I've unlocked a section on the Rockstar Social Club website that shows you the completed times of the top players in the world. In the 360 version of the game there's an Achievement you can unlock if you beat the game in 30 hours. The top score: 9 hours. Someone kept playing and playing and playing until they had their time down to 9 hours. They won by mere milliseconds, so he's not alone in this endeavour. I myself have only a few thousand dollar to go until I unlock the Millionaire's Club section of the Rockstar Social Club. I'm at around 978,000 or so. I'm assuming once I get in it's going to show me the richest people in the game's world, and it'll be some insurmountable amount. It's like going to be comparing me with Bill Gates.It might even be Bill Gates. He probably has a whole warehouse full of Chinese kids he pays to play video games for him just to get high scores. Which, now that I think about it: Bill Gates probably does have a XBox Live Account, seeing as how he owns the company. Which means: someone, at some time, has fragged Bill Gates. That's awesome.

In review: the writing in GTA IV is good, but the story is bad. The plot rambles, but it goes into extreme depths with it's main character. You learn everything you could possibly want to know about him, even facts about his early childhood, and his relationship to his mother.

One of the most interesting things about the game is the choices you can make, which change the outcome. This is nothing new, but it's good to see it in there. You have to choose which characters live and die, so you get to pick who sticks around.

Also: is there any point to reviewing a game once it's out? People are in such a mad rush to buy games nowadays that unless you're an industry reviewer with an advanced copy, there's no way you could release a review on time to satisfy the public. The same thing goes for movies. Television is still up for grabs, but games are dead. I'm writing this like six months after the release, which was the most successful release of any game, movie, album, or other entertainment product ever, in the history of mankind. Ergo: everyone already knows everything about the game, and with greater insight than myself. So I give up.

This Sex is On Fire!

LiveJournal Tags: Deep Thoughts,PSA

There are a number of reasons a person should immediately stop having sex. I believe the most common is when there's a kid crying in the next room, or else someone walks in on your bare, pimply ass. Other reasons may include:  limp-dick syndrome; "speedbumps;" your Doc Johnson goes in the wrong hole; you hear, "Honey, I'm home!" coming from downstairs; her water breaks; carpal tunnel syndrome; or your "partner" wakes up. None are as urgent as your sex being on fire. At no point should your sex be on fire. If this happens to you, consult a physician immediately. If your sex is on fire, you shouldn't even take the time to say, "This sex is on fire," let alone sing it.

Girls, girls, girls!

So I'm standing in line at the Capri in downtown Vancouver, knowing I'm not going to get in. I've got my hair cut, I've put on a new shirt and my dress shoes and I'm still not going to get into this place, because it's packed. I'm behind about fifty people in line and the line's not moving. It's like the place is fucking Disneyland. The line is backed up to another line across the street to another club, with all the less attractive people in it. I'm standing outside a bar, which looks much more inviting than the club I'm trying to get into. I, of course, suggest we just head into the bar, so I can drink and be drunk, and thus be happy, but alas no one listens to me.
So as we're standing there all these crackheads walk by, because it's Vancouver and it's mandatory, just like having the person in front of you smoke skunk weed on the street as you're walking to a shop. One of them just bursts out with the line, "Girls, girls, girls!" from Motley Crue's hit song. He does this about twice. It's creepy, yet awesome all at the same time, like watching someone blow a puff of smoke out of their empty eye-socket for money.
We can't get in, so we decide after half-an-hour to hit up another club, which is a few blocks away, but we can't walk there because we'll get stabbed, and the girls are wearing heels. So we try and arrange rides. I contribute nothing to this endeavour, because all I want to do is drink, and be drunk, and I can do that in the hotel by myself. We try to get a taxi, but that doesn't pan out. The road to our hotel is blocked off, making it nearly impossible to get to. So it takes us about two hours to get there, and by that time we're pretty much done. On the way back, however, we pass a corner near the hotel with three of the hottest looking prositutes ever. Now: prostitutes aren't supposed to look good. Ever. It doesn't work that way. People like to imagine hot looking prostitutes because they equate them with sex, and they equate sex with teh hotness. Yet, what they get is fifty-year-old crack whores with all their teeth missing. I see them all down by liquor store by my house. I even saw some fat dude dropping one off, and I thought, "Dude, why? WHY? Why did you do that to your penis. It deserves better, like a rotting Halloween pumpkin with a dead racoon in it, covered in instant-mix gravy." These whores were hot, though, so I assumed they were cops. Hot cops, which makes them even hotter. We had to make a U-Turn down a back alley, and of course some shit's going down in there. Drugs and guns were probably involved. I kept my eyes averted. People on the street always try to stare you down, (you're on the fucking street. Of course people are going to look at you, you fucking paranoid freaks!) and I don't need to get in a confrontation with gangs or crackheads. I can do that at home.
There was a pizza place across the street from the hotel, with about a hundred drunk people hanging around outside it. I'm not exaggerating those numbers. We went in for a slice, so we have to duck around all these drunks starting fights. On the way back, one guy on the curb's having a standoff with a guy in the street. He throws down his cigarette like it's fucking go-time. As in: let's go be fags who watch to much UFC. As I squeeze past them, they give me a look that might be fear.
Back at the hotel, someone's smashed a bottle of wine on the ground in let's-start-a-fight fashion (I hate Pink. So much.). After that, it's bath and a bed, where I listen to sirens and screaming. It sounds like home.

Technorati Tags: life

Nailin' Palin

Why is Tina Fey's impersonation of Sarah Palin garnering so much attention, aside from the fact that we live in an age where people care more about how comedians approach a candidate rather than the candidate their self? The media is reacting like this is the first political impersonation ever performed on SNL (formerly known as Saturday Night Live {known in Japan as "Joe Piscopo Super-Funtime Special Go!l"}).
SNL has been on since the air 70's. They've squeezed in at least one hastily written a political satire sketch in nearly every show. From Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford to Will Ferrel's George W. Bush (I don't count anything appearing after Jimmy Falon joined the show), they've mocked every President and Presidential Candidate for the last eight or nine elections. Still, in nearly every newspaper or webpage I see, there's someone talking about Tina Fey's Palin. "OMFG! She looks so much like Palin!" (quoted from the New Yorker). Probably because she and Palin are both white bitches with soccer-mom hairdos and dorky glasses. It really doesn't take that much effort. No one's still talking about Dana Carvey's George Bush (Sr)'s impersonation anymore, even though he's still doing it because he hasn't bothered to update his act since his Wayne's World Days. What happens to Tina's Palin a few weeks now when (if: Americans are still idiots, remember) the Republicans lose the election? People will be watching Summer rerun SNL episodes and wondering to themselves: "Who the fuck is Palin? For that matter: who the fuck is Tina Fey? Huh? 30 Rock? Never heard of it. Huh? Baby Momma? Never heard of it. Hey, who am I talking to?" 

Seriously?

Okay, so Seth MacFarlane, not having made enough millions off of Family Guy and American Dad, signed a multi-million dollar deal to create cartoon webisodes for the interwebs called Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy (TM!!!!!). What are they like? Think of something random made for Family Guy, but not funny enough to make it onto Family Guy. That's what it's like. In fact, I think Seth literally scooped up whatever was on the cutting-room floor and taped it together for his Burger King (TM!!!!!!) sponsored nonsense. As an incentive to watch his crap and eat crap at BK, there's a "Buy Seth Dinner" (TM!!!!!!) sweepstakes where you can buy Seth dinner at BK. This involved taking one of his Cavalcade cartoons and dubbing over it on youtube.com (TM!!!!!) with your own audio. I tried it out, but I had problems with my mic, so there was no audio. It wouldn't let me delete it either, so I received this message:
"Sorry, but your Cavalcade dub has been pulled from the BURGER KING® YouTube channel. Looks like our moderators felt there was a problem. Be sure to avoid celebrity references, profanity, or any other questionable content. Take another look, get it to a PG rating, and try again.
The World is waiting, get your dub out there.
You are receiving this email because you created a dub video on www.youtube.com/bk. For information about the BURGER KING® Corporation Privacy Policy, please click here."
There are two things wrong with this. Can you spot what they are?
That's right: No celebrity references. No profanity.
Seth MacFarlane has made his CAREER out of celebrity references and profanity. That's all Family Guy is. That's all the Cavalcade is. It's a bunch of jokes about random celebrities and pop-culture references peppered with profanity. Now he's got the corporate-sponsored audacity to turn around and tell you you can't do the same to the tune of $100,000.000 BK/Google/youtube.com dollars (which sounds about right). He's called dibs. You can't copy him, or his style, even though he's copying about a thousand other people. BK paid good money for one of the edgiest cartoonists (by network TV standards), so how dare you try to push the envelope doing the exact same thing he's done. The Burger King will come down on you like the wrath of God.
I exaggerate, of course, but not really.
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy

WTFacebook?

I don't understand the advertising on facebook.com. They've collected all this personal information on me and try to directly attack me with related advertisement. Only: it doesn't work. I see ads for 6' tall men's jeans (I have like 30" legs, so that's not for me), and ads for books called, "A Life Work Living," a self-help guide. My life is most definitely not worth living. I've made this clear. My life's made this clear as well. There's also ads for Arrested Development T-shirts. I like Arrested Development, sure, and I like shirts, but not necessarily the two of them together.
The worst was an ad entitled something along the lines of, "X-Men vs. G-Unit. Who would win?" What? What the fuck? You're wondering who would win in a fight between borderline retarded gangsta rappers and fictional comic book super hero mutants? I've often wondered who would win in a fight between Captain Crunch and Count Chocula, but that's just fucking ridiculous. Fuck you. The X-Men would win. I'm talking about an actual comic book, not even the fictional characters. Just roll up the comic and throw it at them. It'll kill one of those dumb fucks and the rest will make and album about it.

wtf?Pod

The most recent, "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC," commercial involved "the Mac" accusing "the PC" of spending too much money on advertising and not enough on their product. Let me explain why that's fucked up: it's a commercial by Apple Computers complaining about how much money Windows spends on their commercials. Have you even seen a Windows commercial on your TV? You haven't. They don't need to. Bill Gates is fucking rich enough. It's all Apple Macs, Apple iPods and Apple iPhones. They're out there advertising the next iPod Nano Mini Touch, which is smaller, has a shorter battery life, and less memory for more money, and they've put hundreds of millions of dollars into advertising. In fact, the very next commercial break, there was a commercial for the iPhone, showing you how easy it is for someone to bid $800 on eBay between phone calls. Really? If I  buy an iPhone for $400-$600, I'm not going to have money left over for eBay. Who are these people buying this crap and spending this money? Honestly, I want their names and addresses so I can rob the fuck out of them.
Apple iPhone 4 Black Smartphone 32GB (AT&T)

Get Spore

So Wil Wright hasn't even bothered to hammer out the kinks in Spore, and EA is already releasing the first of fifty expansion packs (if Sims 2 is any indication), giving you new parts for your creatures. Okay: so if you've played Spore, after the second level your creatures become little more than ants. After the fourth, they become inconsequential. So why would you need more parts to doll them up? You don't even fucking see them. Ever. Fuck.
Get Spore#creepycute?sourceid=ea2409

Masturbate!

Quite a number of songs on my iPod are about masturbating. It makes a kind of sense considering how many songs are written about love. What if you love yourself, though? Well, you write a song about masturbating. Here's a list of a few of them:
The most obvious is:
"Masturbate," by the Dave Brockie Experience. There's no subtleties in this song. The chorus goes, "Masturbate! Masturbate! Masturbate!" A highlight of the song is, "I'm going to think about my mom. Think about my mom. Think about my mom!" Great job, guys!\
The least obvious is:
"Turning Japanese," by the Vapors. On the surface, it seems like an innocent enough song about a man with the yellow fever. Yet, if you listen to it closely enough, he's not singing the song about the Japanese woman herself, but her picture. Other lyrics indicate he might be a prison inmate, or a member of some other institution, and his only outlet is this picture. The phrase, "Turning Japanese," refers to the squinty eyes he gets when he whacks it.
"Shake Hands With Beef," by Primus. Again, an obvious one, assuming you understand the vernacular. Lyrics go, "When I was young, I traveled 'round, every nook and cranny, of our little town." The town being his genitals. Great job.
"Mental Masturbation," by Jackyl from the Beavis and Butt-head Experience. This song includes a skit by Beavis and Butt-head discussing the topic of mental masturbation. Quote Butt-head, "I think that's like when you're thinking about a chick when you're, y'know, getting the job done." As we all know, however, Beavis likes to listen to, "Push you little daisies you make you come up," when he jacks it, sometimes in the back of Anthrax's tour bus.
"Give Yourself a Hand," the album by Crash Test Dummies. The Crash Test Dummies looked like they were going to go the way of Barenaked Ladies and make it big in the States, but then they released this album where every song (or nearly every song) is about masturbating, such as the song, "Aching to Sneeze." Quote, "I'm done on my knees, begging, ''Please baby, please,' but I can't get the thing to come out." The album is just terrible in general.

Vote for Pedro

Honestly, you'd be better off voting for Pedro, because in the Canadian electoral system, even with three to five potential candidates, none of your dreams will come true. None of these candidates are particularly inspiring. Plus, even if they win, there's still the possibility of a minority government. meaning that even if they aren't completely incompetent, they'll still be completely ineffectual. That's why more Canadian are interested in the results of the American two-party election. At least with them there's the possibility that the winner might set off a nuke.

A Bad Time to be a Redneck

After eight years with a big, dumb, baseball-lovin', oil drillin' Texan in office, American rednecks are going to the polls this month to decide between a black man as President, or a female as Vice-President. That's like asking them which nut they want cut off, and good riddance I say! Perhaps this will mark the final decline of redneck culture that's been so prevalent since... well, the Civil War (the American, not Marvel). There's been moments when people thought it might die, like after the North won the Civil War, (but then Lincoln was assassinated by a Borat look-alike), or after the Jim Crow laws were abolished (but then they kept on lynching black folks), or that period in the late 70's to early 80's leading up to Garth Brooks's, "Low Places," when every country song being played on the radio was 20 years old. Yes, as the saying goes, "The South shall rise again." So being a racist prick is like a soufle. No amount of hygenic products or education can wipe away stupid. Here, in the year 2008 (the FUTURE!) people will still get up in arms (literally) about a black man wanting to be president, or a lady (and I use that term loosely) becoming V.P..
Well too fucking bad. It's a two party system. You have to pick one or the other, and odds are, the hicks will pick McCain, 'cause he's whiter and looser with the gun control laws. He's also fucking ancient, which means he might not make it through his whole term, despite being very-well preserved. That means Palin might actually become President, and she looks like the kind of bitch that: when she rides the red pony, she rides it hard. So there could be a pissed-off Alaskan separatist in charge of the free-world (and I use that term loosely).
In either event, rednecks are going to have a hard four years. Obviously, they're already polishing their Wal-Mart bought rifles and etching Obama's name (they'd spell it, "Osama," if they knew how to spell) on their bullets. That's why Obama should have elected Hillary as his V.P., because no one would assassinate him knowing she would be taking his place. On the other hand, he'd have a power-mad Hillary trying to assassinate him in the Oval Office.

Stupid Hicks

Why?
That's the only question I can ask at this point, "Why?" The answer doesn't particularly interest me, because I can only assume that such a response will overfill the pits of my rage and the demons inside of me will crawl out through my gaping maw to tear this world asunder.
I hate the town I live in, but instead of it trying to make amends it continues to find new ways to enrage me to the point where my only hope for release is to scream inside my car at the top of my lungs.
Today, my rage came from a street lined with anti-abortion protestors. They stretched from the Sihk temple (Coincidence?) to Wendy's, a distance equal to four city blocks. Their signs read, "Abortion kills children," because, as we all know: they scoop out the fetuses with the freshly hewn femur of a five-year-old. There's more people involved in this protest than a cancer run. Imagine: if all these people got together and tried to accomplish something non-abortion related: like building a homeless shelter, or helping with an anti-drug program, but no: they want to attack imaginary foes killing imaginary babies. It's not like it's an issue at the forefront of the news. It's not like last night, someone went on abortion rampage at a lamaze class. ("Yesterday in Dayton, Ohio, a madman wielding a coat hanger broke into Rock-a-Hello Baby Lamaze Class and immediately began shoving it into the twats of several very-pregnant women..." -excerpt from the Associated Press) It may not be news, but it's all they can think about. They lay awake at night thinking about how horrible it is for fifteen-year-old girls who've been raped by their step-fathers to get abortions. They stare at the ceiling with tears running down their faces, clutching a Bible to their chests for protection. Of course, there's nothing in the Bible about abortions. There's no decree in the Bible saying, "And God did sayst: 'Thou shalt not scoopeth out thine kin with a coat hanger,'" but there's no use arguing with them. They follow a higher power: crazy bullshit. Yes, they've completely lost their fucking minds. When you're standing on a street corner with a professionally made sign reading, "Abortion is murder," that's when you know you've lost your fucking mind. Seeing your fellow parishoner across the street holding the same sign with the same glazed-over look in their eyes should help clue you in to the fact that you, yourself, are crazy. You should look at this person and say, "Man, that guy's fucking crazy," then look down at the sign you're holding and add, "Shit, I'm crazy!" Then you should drop your sign and drown your sorrows in pancakes over at I.H.O.P..
With all those people standing out there, I knew that somewhere: there was an empty church. I wanted to find it and burn it to the ground. I wanted them to see me standing in the flames with my hands raised triumphantly at my final, "Fuck you!" to them all.
Why? Why do they have to act like such ignorant, Bible-thumping stereotypes? Damn it!

LiveJournal Tags: local news

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems, Eh?

I got my GST Rebate check (conveniently before the new election too. Hmm...) I was thinking of spending it on a diamond-studded gold chain reading, "G$T," to compliment my ghetto-fabulous Canadian lifestyle. I was also thinking of getting hydraulics put in on my Zambonie, and a pimp goblet for my maple syrup.

Holy Shit Kabobs!

Following closely on the heels of the Wall Street Stock Market Crash comes even darker news:
Bollywood goes dark as 100,000 actors and film crew members strike : CelebEdge : Sympatico / MSN
Yes, Bollywood is on strike. Remember those few shaky months when the Screen Writers Guild went on strike (because the writers of such stellar TV series like "Lost" deserve more money for their directionless dribble) it's going to be like that, only no one in the universe will notice. Sure, this affects tens of millions of Bollywood fans in India, but you could show a Western audience a Bollywood movie made twenty years ago and one made yesterday and they couldn't tell the difference. There will be:
1: Singing
2: Dancing
3: Forbidden Love
4: A disapproving father
5: Someone cries during a close-up
6: More singing and dancing
I've always had to wonder about musicals involving doomed lovers, even in Western cinema, like West Side Story. If your life's really so bad because you can't be together, maybe you should sing and dance less? Maybe then you'd find the time to solve your problems. I think the idea behind their singing and dancing is that they think if they find just the right song, then all the bad stuff will go away.
I'm here today to tell them that song is 1983 song "Jump," by Van Halen, and the dance is David Lee Roth's spandex wearing jumping high-kick (also known as: the "Squidely-Bop She-Bop"). If you go up to your lover's asshole for a father and do that, there's nothing he can do in response but surrender.

I Fell Down and Hurt My Stomach!

The thing about retro games is: games from the 70's and 80's were really, really hard. Up until the 90's, console video games were just knock-offs of arcade games, which were designed solely to drain adolescent boys of their quarters. It's like how the oil industry fucks over the average consumer, only with joysticks. "Video game violence," back in the day did not refer to pixelated gore, but rather people attacking arcade units in frustration. In order to beat these games, you had to be one of those geniuses with Downs Syndrome and video games were the only thing you were good at (see: "The Wizard"). If you were a zit-faced, gangly teenager getting shoved into lockers, and video games were your only outlet for your frustrations, you were still getting beat down by flying bats. It's like if you were masturbating and someone kicked down the door to the bathroom stall and kicked you in the balls.
Then came the 90's and the advent of 3-D games, and with them the ability to save your game at reasonable point. Lives no longer meant anything, as you could respawn at a moment of your own choosing.
Yet, as the years wore on, people began to yearn for yesteryear, having forgotten why they stopped playing their old games. Case in point: Megaman 9, a brand-new retro-based game with old-school graphics. Worse still is the difficulty level. You can die within five seconds of beginning the game. As you jump over the first gap, ala Super Mario Bros., a flying mine will shoot straight up your butt. Not only will it do this, it'll shoot bullets out it's side. Once you learn this, you can shoot it (as it shoots you), but as you try to jump across the pit after it blows up, a second one will shoot up, then a third, fourth and so on. While this is happening, bird are dropping boulders on you. Even if you shoot these birds and boulders, the debris from the boulders can still damage you. Also, a cannon is firing at you. This is just an example. You might want to just save some time and hit yourself in the balls with a hammer. At least some people get off on that.
The WizardMEGA MAN 9 [Online Game Code]