You know, for the most part, I couldn't give a damn about Valentine's Day. For years, friends and I celebrated it as Singles Day where we would dress in black and send each other flowers and go out and it the most fattening things we could find. The way we saw it was it was a made up holiday to make guys feel bad about not being that Hollywood hero and force them to spend a bunch of money all in the name of "love". Honestly, it's very unfair to guys. They're expected to pretty much take the heat on this one because, boys, if you forget Valentine's you might as well have told her she had a fat ass and her place was in the kitchen. There will be fury and hell will be impressed.
The same goes for the damned engagement ring. DeBeers has created a made up tradition to sell diamonds that only take two to three months of a guy's salary...Personally, I would have killed my husband had he spent that much on a ring. Do you know what kind of theater room we could build with that money? Besides, diamonds are overrated. He got me a lab-grown emerald, and it's prettier than any overpriced emasculating sparkly. Guys if she wants you to spend two-months salary on an piece of jewelry, run far, far away!
Wait. Where was I? Okay, back on track.
If it's not a guilt fest for the guys, it's a day that's supposed to make up for an entire year of a couple treating each other like crap. Either way, Valentine's is ultimately a pain in the ass.
Unfortunately, though, when you become part of a couple, you feel this weird urge to celebrate it in some way. I don't know if it's that ingrained in our culture now, or if we're just that brainwashed. No matter how you try to avoid it, you feel like crap if you don't do something on Valentine's. (It's like the Borg Collective covered in hearts and fluffy bows.)
Neither Todd nor I were really into Valentine's Day as a holiday, but ignoring it didn't make it go away. So, how does a geek couple celebrate a holiday they don't care about but yet give in to their conditioning without losing cred for being the free-thinking individuals that they are?
Well, our first Valentine's, he bought me a rubber chicken.
Best. Valentine's. Ever.
The year he gave me a DS and I bought him a "White and Nerdy" hoody was one to remember.
This year, I haven't a clue what I'm going to get him. I'm thinking cubicle arsenal, but we'll see. For me, he's actually thinking about doing something that is about as romantic two geeks can get: he's thinking of purchasing my own domains for my blogs. How full of awesome is that?
What it comes down to is Hallmark can keep the teddy bears and chocolates and singing greeting cards covered in obnoxious pink. Our day is more of an appreciation of our geekiness, which is one of the many reasons we got together in the first place. There is no pressure. There are no guilt trips. (Hell, I don't think we did anything last year.) It's just an excuse to say, "Dude, I love that you're so geek!"
Non-geeks have it rough, the poor saps.
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Well, they don't have to keep the chocolates. That they can promote all they want. Chocolate is melt-in-your-mouth heaven. No need to be stingy with the chocolate.
January 2009 Archives
Okay, this motion sickness thing is fucking ridiculous.
I'm sitting in the chair watching my husband play "Half-Life 2" for the first time. Yes, I know we lose gaming geek cred for having not played them, but he, up until the 360, was more of a PC MMORPG player, and I, as previously griped about, get motion sickness even watching first person shooters.
Now, having never played the Half-Life games, I wasn't aware how utterly awesome they are. I mean, I knew Valve had it together when I played "Portal" (which is gaming perfection, if you ask me), but damn, they make seriously good FPS games.
I couldn't stop watching him play it. Even as my head started pounding and my eyes wanted to cross, I couldn't stop watching. If nothing else, the game is funny as hell. It starts with the dialog and goes right into "exactly how many saw blades does it take to get to the center of that zombie horde?"
But, alas, there was only so much I could take. I took some Dramamine to battle it, but it was too late. I ended up having to lumber upstairs to lie down.
You know when you feel horribly nauseous and suddenly you realize you feel a small burp coming on and you're afraid that if it comes out it won't be alone? Yeah, it was like that.
As I laid there waiting for the room to stop spinning and try to nap while the Dramamine kicked in, there was much cackling from the hubby downstairs admist much gunfire and the odd explosion or two. I haven't seen him have this much fun with a game since "Overlord". (We still run around the house saying in whiney voices, "For the master!")
An hour and a half later, I wake up. There is not only gunfire still pounding through the house, but he hadn't even gotten up to turn on the lights once the sun went down.
That's a damn good game.
It's good enough that I realized I have had enough of this motion sickness crap keeping me away from the violence and mayhem that I deserve. I missed out on so much not being able to play FPSs. From now on, if there is a Saturday that we're home and I'm not working on a project, I'm going to wake up, dose up on Dramamine, and catch up with the rest of the gaming world. The chaos will be mine. Oh, yes, it will be mine.
Besides, "Left 4 Dead" is a zombie shooter. A zombie shooter! That couldn't get more made for me if it was a custom fit bra with retractable blades.
It just means I get to invest in one of those industrial-sized bottles of Dramamine.
That, or I keep a puke bucket by the couch.
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Hey, everyone has their glass ceiling to break through. Mine is first person shooters. It just means I get to use a machine gun to shatter the barrier.
Okay, am I the only one that's thoroughly pissed that Heath Ledger got a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nom?
The hubby said, "Well, he wasn't the star."
I beg to differ. I hate to break it to the studio, but we went to this movie because it was Batman and in it was the best portrayal of the Joker ever committed to film. I'm sorry, in my not-so-humble opinion, he was a co-star. This was in no way shape or form a supporting role. Two Face was more of a supporting role. The movie could have rolled on without him. But, without either Batman or the Joker, it would have just been strange little cop show better suited for TV. This movie doesn't exist without the Joker.
And, let's not forget that this role is pretty much what killed Heath Ledger. The man dies from all the trauma inflicted upon him from just pretending to be this crazed madman, and they give him "Best Supporting Actor"? Apparently, in order to get "best actor" you have to be either Tom Hanks or top dying from a role by maybe rising from the dead and healing the sick and bringing peace, joy, and bunnies to the world. And, I'm not so sure about the latter idea. That Oscar Committee is harsh and obviously populated by morons.
Yeah, I knew there was a reason I stopped watching the Oscars after overblown, teeny-bopper giggle-fest known as "Titanic" swept up. Idiots.
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Go ahead. Flame me for the Titanic remark. It wasn't that good of a movie, folks. The fact it beat out "Good Will Hunting" and "L.A. Confidential" was absolutely criminal.
You know, I ask for so little in life. I want to be able to say my job is successful. I want our budget to work so we can buy a house. I want us to weather the economy at least well enough. I want the CPSIA to be seen for the stupidity it is and scrapped as a national embarrassment. I want makers of gaming consoles to at least put an effort into making sure the system doesn't brick if we look at it cross-eyed so that we don't have to live in paranoia every time we hit the power button!
Okay, so maybe I do ask a lot, and all of those I am working on heavily and we can only wait and see. The last one, though, I don't think is asking too much, and honestly, I think each head of the corporations who create the consoles should be forced to have a very large man with no hair or sense of humor following them around, and every time they are told of consoles bricking, that humorless man is obligated to beat the snot out of them with a rubber hose until they promise to never let it happen again.
Of course, that's just personal opinion.
So, yeah, if you haven't guessed, our 360 Elite finally bricked the other night. We pretty much figured it was coming since a) we had it since it debuted without trouble which only means it was on its way and b) we were starting to get single red rings and had at least two triple rings that Todd managed to chase away with determination and a can of air. (Seeprevious post about it.)
Now, I admit, having it for a couple of years without trouble is definitely better than all those other people who have turned their 360s in several times for being nothing but a glorified doorstop. However, it doesn't excuse the paranoia we lived under waiting for the thing to brick because, well, It's What They Do. And, I'm sorry, no one should have to expect a system to brick. Every time there was a major update, like the recent Fall Update, we would refuse to turn it on until we checked all the major gaming sites to see if it was bricking systems. That's kind of ridiculous.
I was pretty resistant to getting a 360 in the first place because I was a diehard Sony Girl. Unfortunately, when the PS3s came out with that amazing price tag and Sony started crippling the backwards compatibility, losing their major exclusives, and being all around assholes, I was willing to give the 360 a chance. I hate to admit that it's a good system, but they've got the online gaming thing down, there are a lot of good games out for it, and it's a pretty nifty media center. I like it. A lot.
So, when it finally did brick, I was emotionally torn between a sense of relief that it finally happened and a definite urge to find someone to maim.
We had an extended warranty to it from Best Buy because we aren't stupid, so it was just a matter of exchanging it for a new one...after Todd had to stand there and wait for them to figure out why the hell someone put our warranty under a PS3. (Which worked out because we got a new 360, another extended warranty because they had to take it as a return, and a few extra bucks because the Elites have come down in price, so my rage was calmed some.) But, we shouldn't even have to be going through that. I mean, my PS1 never had a problem. Ever. I bought a second generation, and until I bought the PS2, it chugged along happily without any issues. Before that, we had a Genesis and a Super Nintendo, both of which were tanks that would not quit even after my brother broke the front of the SNES by kicking it. (Also, had a Sega CD and later a Saturn, but you know, we forget those dark days.) What happened to systems you could count on?
Okay, the husband always brings up how much more complicated the systems are. He's got a point, but call me old fashioned, I still think that regardless of how complicated something is, they should at least guarantee the fucking thing will work!
The Wii is the only system we didn't even worry about. We still don't. Neither one of us have ever had a Nintendo anything that would just randomly go belly up. Unfortunately, as much as we love that comfort, the Wii doesn't have shit for games right now because the programmers can't figure the thing out. So, take the good with the bad, I guess.
Husband assures me that the new Elite will less likely go belly up because they have new motherboards that don't overheat as much. I hope he's right.
I'm not going to say that I still won't have paranoia in the back of my mind about the thing. My trust in the NextGen systems were compromised long ago, so it will take a lot for me to just accept that all is well.
At least, though, it's quieter.
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We won't talk about the husband forgetting to take the Rock Band 2 disk out of the drive before returning the 360 dooming him to play Guitar Hero 3 until he can afford to replace it. I don't play it, so I just think it's funny. Had it been Fallout 3 or Lost Odyssey there would have been serious domestic violence...possibly involving a large bald man and a rubber hose...
So, we're driving into the parking lot of our favorite gyro restaurant when I spied the Humane Society traveling adopt-a-pet van. The puppies and doggies were outside in kennels or on leashes. My first reaction was, expectantly:
"Puppies! Fluffies! Puppies!"
Todd: "Yes, the puppies are out. Poor puppies."
Me: "I know we can't afford another kid, and I sure as hell don't want to walk one in the freezing rain at five am. But, when we get a house... *sigh* Poor puppies."
Todd: "Just don't look at them."
Me: "I can't help it. My furry radar has been triggered. I can't help it now. I will be forced to see the furries."
Todd, after a pause: "You have a furry radar? You can't help but to see furries?"
Me, after a moment of following my husband's thought process with that reference: "EEEEEEEEEW! Ew! I'll never go to a con again!"
Todd: *lots of laughing*
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Hey, look, everyone has their limits. Furries and adult babies are mine. Especially adult babies. Ugh. To each his own, ya'll, but man, there is no way fiction is stranger than real life.
Samuel "Badass Motherfucker" Jackson doesn't know if he'll play Nick Fury.
Topless Robot says it better than I can:
"FUCK ME. Marvel, I haven't asked a lot of you, but MAKE THIS FUCKING HAPPEN. You're the guys who put in Jackson as Fury at the end of Iron Man, so you can't drop him now! PONY UP, YOU BASTARDS!"
Amen, man. Amen.
Okay, here's my beef with the recent Best Celebrity Blogger category for the 2008 Weblog Awards: when you call someone a "blogger", it kind of gives the impression that the person, you know, blogs, as in actually submits personally written content to a weblog.
Now, the fiercest battle in this poll was between Wil Wheaton and Britney Spears. Wil's blog happily won by a decent margin. This makes me very happy for two reasons: 1) Wil is it on a stick with a side of chips and 2) Wil actually blogs. Look, all the glassy-eyed, vapid Britney fans in the world can send me any amount of hate mail, but the woman, if you can call her that, doesn't fucking blog.
I mean, there is no doubt at all that it's Margaret Cho's voice on her blog, and damn, if we don't love her for it. Alyssa Milano has a whole thing about baseball, but she is actually the one writing about it, not her publicist. I went down the list of finalists posted, and even though I didn't know some of them, they all had one thing in common, they actually, in some way, maintained their blogs. (There was a question about Kanye West but it seemed like it's him if only every once in a while. Hard to tell with a bunch of pictures.) Britney does not. Her blog is about publicity and keeping her fans up-to-date on her goings on. (Well, at least the parts of her life that doesn't include insanity and a very kamikaze approach to hair care.)
I can't fault that it's a celebrity blog, but she herself is not the blogger. She doesn't belong anywhere near a poll that denotes that she does any writing. I mean, are we even sure she knows she has a blog? It's hard to tell with all the, "Hey, fans! Vote for Britney to be this!" and "Look! New pictures of Britney photoshopped to make her look like she did 10 years ago! Speaking of, it's the 10 year anniversary of her first album, go buy it again!" I'm sorry to break it to you guys, but Britney is a product, and her blog is all about selling that product. The people updating her blog? They're bloggers...of sorts anyway. Britney? While I'm happy to call her any number of things, I will not call her a blogger. When she takes her drunken ass over to the computer and actually makes a few entries, we'll see.
People might think I'm arguing semantics, but the fact that she was even in the polling is insulting to the other celebrity bloggers out there. Here are some people who actually go out of their way to spend time and energy to keep their blogs going - oftentimes, using it to connect with their fans personally - going up against a blog that is strictly a marketing ploy. Okay, while it could be argued that the are all marketing ploys in a way, at least the celebrities are doing it themselves and not hiring someone to do it for them.
Honestly, they should create a separate category for "Celebrity Blog" for those blogs that are about celebrities. (Who they are, where they are, what they're doing, how many drugs are they taking...) Keep the "Celebrity Blogger" category for those who can actually find their keyboards.
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And, the flames begin...now!
I say possible because it just may be possible our 360 died.
Okay, that sounds suspect, but let me explain.
We were watching our HD-DVD. (Yes, we're two of the losers.) It froze. Todd restarted it.
I was sitting on a chair doing my crochet thing while he was sitting on the floor fiddling with the 360.
This conversation ensues:
Me: Maybe it's the HD-DVD. The 360 has been fussing about something not responding here and there. (Single red ring.)
Todd: Could be.
A few minutes of fiddling and crochet pass.
Me: Well?
Todd: *after a very loaded pause* Could be the 360.
Me: What?
Todd: You really don't want to see what I'm seeing.
Me: *deep sigh and an incredible urge to tear my own hair our along with every employee of Microsoft* RRoD isn't it?
Todd: Well...it usually means overheating.
The very well-placed cover-up made me look, and yes, it was the Red Ring of Death.
My heart stopped. My anger rose. My intellect said, "Well, at least there's the warranty."
Me: We are still under warranty, yes?
Todd: Yes, but I want to try something.
He gets the magical spray can of air and blows dust out and cat hair and who-knows-what out of it. He plugs it in. He turns it on. It works.
Angels sing on high.
All is well. We restart our movie.
It freezes a few minutes later.
Todd decides it needs more cooling.
Spray. Spray. Spray.
My response: So, is this kind of like blowing into the Nintendo cartridge?
Todd: For this generation, yes.
He manages to get it going again. We finish the movie.
But, now, there is the ever looming horror of the RRoD. Which in this case wasn't so much "Death" as "Delay". Granted the Red Ring of Delay doesn't have as good a ring to it, but we don't have to make a trade yet either.
Still, it's annoying.
Todd tells me that there are new motherboards out for the next generation of 360s. They don't overheat as much.
This, of course, reminds me of the current CES Microsoft unveiling of Windows 7. When I asked the geek husband what that was about, he said it will fix all the current problems with the operating system.
"So," I remarked, "instead of actually fixing the bastard child of Satan known as Vista, they are releasing a new version of Windows which is minus all the things that need to be fixed on the bastard child of Satan known as Vista rather than actually, you know, fixing the current problems with the bastard child of Satan known as Vista."
Todd: Yeah, pretty much.
So, along those same lines, instead of fixing the current known problems with the 360, they release a newer version because, like Windows, they know their personal cash cows when they see them.
...
...
Oh, yes, it's always been true, but wow with the obvious soaking up of our money during a monster recession taking advantage of the fact that the gaming industry is pretty much recession proof because geeks will find ways, even if it means giving up their caffeine, to play games.
Can you say "considerate bastards"? I knew you could!
You know, the husband doesn't do birthdays much. I mean, he worries about mine, but could care less about his own.
But, I tell you, if I were to show up with this on his birthday, he would probably have an orgasm.
Which means, if I were to ever try something like that, it would be better done in private. Our friends love to record things for later amusement.
But, you know, anything of that caliber of skill rightly costs an arm, a leg, someone else's foot, and possibly a first born. If they don't charge that, they're stupid.
Maybe one day.
Of course, there are other possibilities for cakes that would inspire incredible awe or unbelievable nausea...
I won't go there. :-)
It sucks.
Really.
I mean, sucks like a vacuum.
I love First Person Shooters. Love. Them.
But, I can't play them.
I get severe motion sickness.
The only way I can play them is to take Dramamine and hope for the best.
Do you know what it's like to know there are other geek girls cackling at the flying body parts when I can't?
It's painful, I say!
I mean, I have Fallout 3, but it's not quite the same for some reason. The true FPSs do some serious raping to my equilibrium ensuring that I will be nauseated as all hell even while egging my husband on to kill as much as possible. (Why the hell does he rescue Little Sisters? Why? Damn Goody Two Shoes.)
I am a true geek girl, dammit. I have my limits, though. I can medicate through them (sometimes including tequila) but it's a real handicap to my geek girl cred.
Damn my inner ear. Damn it!
One of my best friends received an iPhone for Christmas.
I hate her.
But, I don't.
She was just showing off with her iPhone that she wanted but didn't really because it was an Apple product.
Damn her.
But, she's my friend.
I love her despite the fact she has one and I don't!
Argh! The inner turmoil!
Maybe I could just mug her for it.
Then again, that wouldn't be nice to an old friend.
Well, damn.
Curse you Apple and your cool, shiny, beepy products! Curse you!
...cuss at each other a whole lot and feel the urge to fling things at each other's heads.
Got my ass handed to me on Carcassonne on XBox Live Arcade by my 102 degree fever suffering husband.
Now, you know, that's kind of sad. The man is barely cognizant, and he still destroyed me.
That's okay. When he's better, I'm totally kicking his ass at Mario Kart.
The hubby says that the announcement at MacWorld was for the 17 inch MacBook Pro.
Woo.
Okay, yeah, it is cool, especially the long battery life. But, in my personal little world, I don't much like laptops.
Oh, stop sneering at me.
It's mostly because I hate laptop keyboards. They may be full-sized, but they are that dreaded straight shape. I am a proper typist who happens to have shoulders like a damn Amazon. Straight keyboards tear up my wrists and arms. So, yeah, it's personal.
So, okay, it wasn't a bad announcement.
What I was really hoping for was a 64 Gig iPod Touch.
No moving parts and plenty of space for all of my music and then some.
Now, that would have been an announcement.
Okay, so the blog layout is far from finished, but you know, in the spirit of resurrecting this poor blog, I figured I should post something legitimate.
At this time of year, everyone talks about the best or worst of 2008. I figured, as a geek girl, I should probably give my take on that.
Unfortunately, in this case, it's the worst.
I know you guys might not want to hear this (note the sarcasm) but Spore is a terrible game.
Ye gods, what a disappointment. Instead of the massively innovative world where every tweak, path, and action affects how our creatures evolve and what they evolve to, we get a series of mini-games where the only common element is the creature you've created by gluing random parts together.
Dude, this was not the demo they showed us.
This game was insultingly dumbed down to the point a toddler would be bored with it, and they wonder why we're pissed.
The only interesting thing about the game is the creature creator, but it makes no sense considering we were supposed to get a game where the kind of creature you got was determined by the actions it takes. What we get is just a character generator that has no real bearing on the game except for the bonuses some creature parts give you. And, guess what, those become moot with each new level. Hell, in the tribal stage it all depends on the clothes you wear. I got bored with this game about twenty minutes into the civilization level. My husband at least made it to space before he decided watching paint dry was more interesting. It's repetitive with very little replay value beyond making funky looking creatures to post on the net. It's been reduced to a random timewaster, and honestly, I haven't even used it for that since we bought it.
Look, I'm sorry, this is not the game we were promised. I don't know what out-of-touch-with-the-gaming-world suit decided to drag it down into the annals of online kiddie games, but we feel vastly betrayed.
And, what will hurt these people most is the fact that even in a terrible recession, entertainment, especially gaming, is largely recession-proof. Gamers will go to great lengths to get games even if living on a starving college student's budget. Because of that, they will happily ignore those who have burned them because well, it's not like they have the resources to burn on titles that don't live up to the hype.
Oh, yes, they will feel this one.
Small victory, I suppose, to the utter crap that is this game and the DRM that it was happily packaged with. Yeah, way to go on treating paying customers like total criminals and infecting their computers with DRM that just...won't...go...away...
Bastards.
I'm sorry, did I give the impression this was the most disappointing game of 2008? For me, in all actuality, it was the most disappointing title in the last five years. Seriously, I will never again trust a demo, and I will never again buy a game on release date. Screw the hype.
We've been lead along by the noses for a DragonQuest IX for the DS which keeps getting pushed back and pushed back. You know, a GameStop employee once responded to my query on its release date with, "I don't know but the world will explode when it happens."
It better. Anything less will disappoint me about as bad as Spore, in which case Sq'Enix will get nothing more out of me than a scowl and a flip of the bird.
But nearly so. Wow, it's been a long, long time. Well, long enough to warrant a revamping. The Kumquat may be a mess for a while, but it will be back and geekier than ever.
