you know you're getting old when you have tickets to see one of your favorite bands in concert, and you would rather stay home playing Wii.

***

That said... I went anyway... and saw Wilco tonight. Neil got us some badass seats in the eighth row... naturally, there was one empty seat next to us until the SECOND Wilco hit the stage, and then it was occupied by a grossly overweight, drunk, piece of shit, who yelled and did that two-in-the-stink whistling thing FIVE TIMES A SONG... until the 12th song or so, then he only did it twice a song. thank heaven for little girls.

the setlist...

Hummingbird
Ashes of American Flags
Sunken Treasure
Remember the Mountain Bed
Company in My Back
You are My Face
Pot Kettle Black
Handshake Drugs
War on War
A Shot in the Arm
Side With the Seeds
Jesus, Etc.
Impossible Germany
Wishful Thinking
California Stars
Walken
I'm the Man Who Loves You

___Encore Break____
Hate It Here
ELT
Heavy Metal Drummer
Kingpin

____Second Encore Break___
The Late Greats
Red-Eyed and Blue
I Got You (At the End of the Century)
Casino Queen
Hoodoo Voodoo
Outtasite (Outta Mind)


That's right... 27 songs... sheeeeesh...

My hetero-man-crush Glenn Kotche needs a haircut. He looks like a Silverchair second stringer.

Overall, they played a lot more of the songs of theirs that I don't much like than the last show I saw. (that setlist can be found here) The highlights were easily 'Impossible Germany' (still one of my favorite solos ever), 'Company in my Back' and 'Casino Queen'. I was SHOCKED that they played even one song from 'A.M.'. I was hoping to hear 'Theologians', as that was the song they did last time that finally got me into 'A Ghost is Born', but no dice. Either way, they were great, as usual, and they seemed to be having a lot of fun up there.

and yes, i had to google the lyrics to about 5 of those because i wasnt sure of the exact song titles... and that woody guthrie crap never really won me over.

It was nice to see Neil and Micah again. I hardly ever see them anymore. We had a good dinner at Saggios, ran into some BIG NAME CELEBRITIES (Dick Knifing anyone? Larry Barker much?), and I got to breathe garlic breath into Neils face all night. That was nice.

I made a post-show dash to the merch table... bad move. They should have a line for just people who know what they want and are paying with cash. Instead, they have a mob of people who need to see every shirt in every size and are paying with a credit card, or trying to borrow money from their friend, who is standing with their back to the table just out side of earshot. I stood there with my exact change for what felt like ages.

***

Also... I played the Austin Powers pinball table in the SUB game room. It was going well, I earned a free game, but then my second ball got stuck in the toilet (literally). So i went to the attendant to see if he could reset it, but he said it did the same thing yesterday and gave me my money back. Oh well. The backglass was so bright it made a huge glare on the upper playfield anyway.

Color me shocked... the 'Kung Fu Panda' game is actually pretty good! I mean, its still really easy, it's a kids game after all, but for what it is, its great. The combat and action works well, the graphics are really pretty as is the animation.

When I booted up the demo, I was hit with the 'Luxoflux' logo... creators of one of my favorite games, Vigilante 8... an admitted 'Twisted Metal' rip-off, but they actually did everything right and it was a great combat driving game.

They haven't released anything that great since then, but it's nice to see they're still around.

If you have kids, or like simple games and collecting coins, give 'Kung Fu Panda' a look... i don't know if i can say the same for the movie... that looks pretty bad.

***

hung out with matt and tamara last night and pretty much just talked tv and movies for a couple hours. it was fun and we never got around to playing any games or anything.

***

I also gave the 'Sega Superstars Tennis' demo a look on the 360. I hated the PS3 demo, but when I found out it was made by the same group that did Virtua Tennis, I decided to give it another look. It works much better on the 360, much easier to control, oddly enough. I figured they should be about identical. It's still a bit too simple, even for a tennis game. they have you push XA or AX to do lob shots or whatever. you dont use Y or B at all. why not put lob on Y like every other tennis game? it's frustrating. And when you charge up for a special shot, you only get to keep it for one point. its not timed, I guess it would be useful if you're only up by one, but its awkward to initiate as well. the ball has to be in play for you to use the charge, so you cant do it on a serve.... frustrating.

***
cd

Nerf Herder - IV

So our trip was fun, but busy... blah blah... everyone writes this kind of stuff, so I'm just going to nail down some highlights before I forget them.

***

I finished two books:

Preacher Collection 1 (if that counts)
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

and I started the first Constantine collection.
Also, we listened to the audiobook for 'The Ruins'... There were no ruins actually visited in the book... SPOILAR~!!!

Preacher is badass and I can't wait to read more.

***

We went to Amoeba Records twice. I felt a lot of emotions while there. at first, i was pissed because i was (again) incredibly overwhelmed. then i started coming into my own, finding albums, having fun, etc. then i got pissed again because i was finding too much stuff and i had still just barely scratched the surface. i decided to stick mainly to the used and clearance sections just because if its still there and new, i can probably still find it somewhere else.

I passed on a damaged copy of 'Meat Bob' by Bobcat Goldthwait... although i really wanted it and nearly paid the $15 for it.

the haul was small... but also dirt cheap. i think i bought 5 sealed cds, and two of those were EPs... most of the stuff i got are things i've been wanting to hear, but didnt feel like paying full price for, or were so cheap i just wanted to try them. clearly, i hit the comedy section pretty hard as comedy records are hard to come by in ABQ.

here's the rundown.

Sarah Shannon - City Morning Song
Starlight Mints - Drowaton
Interpol - Live EP
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
IllLit - Insound tour EP
ELYK Records Comp
Judd and Maggie - Subjects
Greg Behrendt is Uncool
Love Arcade
Athlete - Beyond the Neighborhood
James Kochalka Superstar - Spread your Evil Wings and Fly
Chromeo - Fancy Footwork
Mark Gross - Meet Mark Gross
Neil Hamburger - Raw Hamburger
Robert Kelly - Just the Tip
Kate Nash - Made of Bricks
Luaka Bop - The Sound of Sound Comp
We Are Standard - 3.000V - 40.000W
Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers
+/- - Let's Build a Fire
+/- - +/-
The Guggenheim Grotto - ... Waltzing Alone
K-Os - Joyful Rebellion
K-Os - Collected
Fun Lovin' Criminals - Livin' in the City
Duran Duran - Thank You (Import)
Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone - Blowin' Up
The Subways - Young for Eternity
Everclear - Welcome to the Drama Club
The Maccabees - Colour It In
The Naked Trucker and T-Bones - Live at the Troubadour
Fountains of Wayne - Out of State Plates
Suburban Kids with Biblical Names - #3
Creeper Lagoon - Take Back the Universe and Give Me Yesterday
Hovercraft - Experiment Below
Isobel Campbell - Milkwhite Sheets
Spoon - Don't You Evah EP
REM - New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Special Edition)

I thought that last one was a collection of 7" es... but its the cd with a cool box and a giant book.

I think that's about it... besides stuff that Fotini wanted. Kate Nash is hers as well as some Chieftans stuff. I also got a couple copies of Surrogate and some other gifts. All that for about $200 i guess. so... around $4-5 each?

Last time I seemed to favor Astralwerks records... this time Minty Fresh was the repeat offender.

***

We spent a lot of time with Ted, his wife Becca, and their daughter Riley... and their friends a bit too.

Here's a photo of Ted's house:


The Mickey toilet paper was a little unsettling, i mean... wiping with a pillar of your childhood is unusual (insert NKOTB joke here).

Still, we had a good time... lots of Catan and they gave us a ton of information about Disneyland. So much so that I actually ate TWO meals in the Disney park where I didn't feel totally ripped off. The other meals were ripoffs though, and Cafe Uva was so much of a ripoff that it neglects any perceived savings from the two reasonably priced meals.

I saw the Cafe Uva menu posted and fries were $6, a cheesesteak was $9, and after days of having insane prices drilled into my brains, these actually seemed like a 'good deal'. what we received was FIVE french fries. thats right... FIVE. they were like steak fries, but still. FIVE. and the cheesesteak. take an Olive Garden Breadstick, cut it in half and throw one onion slice and a slice of roast beef on it. there's your $9. I AM NO EXAGGERATING. It was literally the size of an OG breadstick.

***

we went to church with the Ted's as well. They go to church in a punkrawk venue. it was black as night and the only lights were christmas lights strung across the ceiling. during the service they turned on some chinese lamps. it was very hip. i'm surprised i didnt fall asleep. it was the perfect setting for an indie show. the church was cool though, and the people nice. the pastor wore jeans and welcomed us. word.

***

we did two days in Disneyland. open to close.

I wore a hole in my insoles. we both need wheelchairs now because our legs dont work. but it was great. a real disney animator taught us how to draw Tigger.

The Bugs Life 3D show thingy is just about the best thing in both parks. i loved the hell out of it. even though they did spray RAID all over us in the audience.

The Muppet 3D thing SUCKED. The preshow was 10 times better than the actual show. You know how the Muppets are famous and have lots of big characters. Kermit, Piggy, Fonzie, etc? well, they decided that all those beloved characters are bullsh!t and instead most of the show revolves around 'The Spirit of 3D'... an annoying CGI bug thing that flies around. it looks like something Pixar would have made 25 years ago as a tech demo. its not even made of FELT. nice.

I've never seen Bugs Life or Monsters Inc... or a ton of other films apparently... but the Monsters Inc ride is pretty great too.

The Jungle Adventure ride thing is still the best thing in the Disneyland park.

The Enchanted Tiki Room was the only 'neglected' attraction we went too. everything in disneyland is PERFECT. clean and trimmed and everything.... really amazingly perfect... except the Tiki Room. damn near everything in there is dusty as hell. half the robots have broken parts. its a room full of birds and singing flowers and stuff. even the walls sing. everything sings. its really great and a big time capsule for what disneyland started as. there are more robots in that one room than on most of the other rides period. that said... many of the birds had half broken beaks, or one eye worked and the other was lazy. its a shame... but i'd imagine its not that big of a draw anymore anyway.

next time, we're paying for a tour guide. no contest. its $50 or something, but you get lunch so thats like a $300 savings right there.

the freaking submarines were always broken or buried under lines.

the longest wait we had was probably about 25 minutes... and it was for the lamest ride ever.... Storybook Land. you sit in a boat and look at miniatures for 3 minutes. i thought it was another robot ride. the second longest wait was for the Casey Jr train... 20 minutes. its identical to the Storybook Land ride except its on land and not sea... i wish i had known they were identical.

The Snow White ride.... WTF? its like... here's all the bad stuff that went down... snow white is done-skis, the dwarves are boned, prince charming is AWOL... RIDE'S OVER KIDS! HOP OUT! it doesnt even wrap up... it was funny how bad that ride was.

Pirates was excellent. i was never a huge fan, it was always ok, but its really good. i mean, you've got ships shooting over your head, and water splashing everywhere... it was awesome.

i'm not going to describe everything... but we loved our time in the magic kingdom. if you go, check the galleries out... we saw a Jane Seymour original!

we also watched a ton of movies. we did pretty much every attraction in both parks that wasnt a crazyass roller coaster. thats a ton. no matter how boring it looked, we did it. and nothing was really THAT bad.

I'll post photos soon.

***

mick bought a freaking '08 BMW... gotdamn man! its nice. his new place is pretty nice too... he's still the same old mick... and dani is the same old dani. we stayed there for 2 days but our schedules were pretty opposite.

***

we saw a big ass dead seal on the beach. its face was all bashed in, but the rest looked ok. must have it a boat blade. weird seeing something that big, that close, that dead.

hung out with my uncle and met his girlfriend. shes 60 and very nice. also checked out the maritime museum... they have the second largest collection of bone ship models. that is to say, models of ships made out of bones. prisoners in the 1700's made them out of their food leftovers. they were REALLY nice too. we saw some maps that Whistler did. before he did his mom. he got fired for drawing on the maps. very cool. my uncle has at least 5 models in that museum... they were really nice.

***

everyone knows how much i hate my Kia, and some of you will remember that the last time i tried to drive to LA my gotdamned KIA broke down two hours outside of ABQ on my way there and i spent my two week vacation in my room with my gamecube feeling sorry for myself.

our rental car was a Kia Sephia.

it got amazing gas milage. i mean... in the 40mpg range. i'm very pleased.

***

i saw Tommy Lee in California Adventure with an incredibly hot blonde girl. it was him though. tats and bad haircut and all.

we didnt go to the free Flight of the Conchords concert, but i did see them driving by Amoeba as we walked in.

as previously mentioned, we saw Norm MacDonald doing standup and he was wonderful. it was a great surprise. we met my friend Jason and he said there was a good comedy club near our hotel in Tempe. he called to see who was performing and we just lucked out! we sat in the balcony, front center. great seats.

there were two hecklers in the crowd... and no joke, they were literally sitting right next to us on both sides. the comics reamed them though and they pretty much shut up after the first comic.

***

we listened to several podcasts, Random X, Penny Arcade, CAG Foreplay, Leo LaPorte, Hijinks Ensue, SModcast... and about 6 hours of the Stern show... most of which involved Arties departure and comeback. nothing like bear porn and ejaculate eating for sustenance talk to start a vacation right.


***

We also watched 'Juno' today.

I was torn because part of me wanted to really like it because everyone does and everyone told me that I would love it. For those same reasons, I wanted to hate it. I wasn't interested in watching it before because it looked like a pretentious hipster movie. I think I liked it better when it was called 'Ghost World' like 10 years ago.... but it was ok. It's the kind of movie that people who haven't seen 'Ghost World' or the like would probably find hip. It was kind of like a Wes Anderson movie, but without the heart. It probably sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. It was just... there. and exactly what i thought it would be. a movie that thinks its more clever than it actually is, but it had some zingers in it as well. JK Simmons and Michael Cera were excellent. Her stepmom was really good too.

I think its funny that someone who calls themselves 'Diablo Cody' and names their lead 'Juno MacGuff' takes the time to make fun of the name 'Madison' in the script.

Also. no one says 'Swear to Blog' or whatever the hell. no one. really. except the 13 year old girls who saw Juno and say it now.

a lot of people said i would like it because i talk just like the characters in the film. apparently i'm a bigger asshole/douchebag/tard than i thought.

i didnt think i needed to say it, but when i write things like 'SPOILARZ!' and 'omg lollerz! and the like... thats not ME, thats me making fun of people who say those words. i'm fueling the fire i guess, and for that i'm sorry. its like if i were 19 and wearing a phil collins t-shirt. word?

(i do say 'word' and 'dig' sans irony however.)

anyway... if you havent seen it... rent 'Rushmore'.

***

Poll #1169336
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Round Three

***

had dinner with aaron campbell and his wifey tonight. good time. pretty low key and quiet... just right. meredith made some black eyed pea soup that was pretty choice with some great corn bread. aaron made fotini some crazy ass coffee cappuchino thing, that i took one sip of and it tasted really good... but i'm kinda wired now. doesnt take much?

i need some south park.

You Have to Burn the Rope

Go. Burn rope. Now.

***

Yesterday I watched 'Wristcutters: A Love Story'. it reminded me A LOT of 'Dead Like Me'. good movie... did i already mention all this?

I'm still trying to figure out what genre both WALS and DLM belong to... supernatural? it's not really sci-fi, not really horror or romance or comedy... all of them?

Today I watched 'Shakes the Clown'. It had like 50 famous people in it, before they were famous. It's the only starring role I've seen Tom Kenny in (unless Spongebob counts), it also had Adam Sandler, Kathy Griffin and that fat Paul comedian guy who i can never remember his name. I actually wish it had more Bobcat Goldthwait.

***

Did the podcast with Jon today, got lunch, played some Rock Band and Sonic and the Stupid Rings (that theme music DOES SUCKS HARDZ_), went to dinner with my old man, and now i'm BEAT and have work in like 8 hours. Time for bed! I'll upload the podcast tomorrow.

cd update!

The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
Let Go

WOO!

***

we went to 'I Scream for Ice Cream' tonight... this little ice cream place in town... its awesome! its all packed with kids stuff and the owner is really nice and funny. great place. jon and nicole were trying to convince David to go see 'Teeth' with them tonight. he didnt know anything about it, and that was the best part. ultimately, he decided against it, so i called him and spoiled the plot on the way home. (its about a chick with teeth in her vajay... its a horror movie... should she get raped on purpose to take out rapists? or not? i dunno!)

the main character is a christian girl, so david said we should do a podcast about it. he said we could get a dentist to come on, and get Justin to talk about the moral decisions in the film... at this point i thought he said 'molars in the film' and i thought that was really funny... moral makes more sense... but molars makes sense too! So justin, if you want to rap about vaginal molars, hit me up.

***

i played a whole lot of 'FlatOut' today on the 360. GREAT GAME. after falling in love with the trailers for the first game several years ago, and then falling out of love with it once i played the demo (floating cars much?), I'm thrilled to see that they finally nailed it and made a really fun game. with great gaming comes great difficulty though... this game is HARD. especially the ragdoll minigames. you have to find zen just to get a bronze medal in any event. i kick ass at the destruction derbys, but thats about it. i cant get the last few bomb runs, or the time trial-ish events down. its getting TOUGH. but its very addictive. the last time i was this in love with a driving game was Burnout 3.

it's been a while. usually i get tired of drifting around, but this game just keeps pushing you...

$20 at best buy... if you own a 360, you could do A LOT worse. even Forza 2 wasnt this much fun.

Poll #1158958
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Round Seven

we're going slightly more indie today... but some banner names are soon to come.

***

went to dinner with everyone for tamara's birthday. it was fun. ate some good food. i missed robert and ree/rea being there... well, ree/rea anyway... and i didnt get to talk to most of the table, but it was still a nice time. then my bowels died and i also realized i was half asleep, so we came home and i hit the head for a while, now i'm on for a second to get my itunes running a new program and then off to bed.

i copied the folder that was locked, and then unlocked the copy. but now i have to upload the folder to my external drive, and once thats done i can upload THAT folder to itunes and then hopefully delete the locked folder.

good thing it happened now. i have the same file on the drive and its nearly 100gigs... on a 250 drive. any longer and that drive wouldnt have been able to hold both versions on its own.

***

and jon sent me a picture of some guys ass, so i guess that means he made it to vegas in one piece.

***

I say it every year... Happy pagan celebration day! You go Astoreth.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMARARARA!

You're old.

***
going to breakfast with my mom today. its been like... 5 years since we had a meal together just the two of us. or did anything just the two of us. weird.

***

Phil Keaggy's "The Master and the Musician - 30th Anniversary Edition" is one of the nicest reissues I've ever seen. The second disc has commentary on every song, outtakes, interviews, rare and unreleased tracks and different mixes of a few songs with both front and rear mixes on different tracks. If an album as obscure as that can have all this content, why not "Doolittle" or "Fear of a Black Planet" or something...? sweeeeet.

***

man... this dang mac is giving me all kinds of headaches. so it locked me out of my itunes music folder. its permissions are listed as 'you can only read'. and its locked, but wont let me unlock it. wtf? so i cant add or subtract from that folder. so i had to create a new music folder... just wtf!!!?

and it keeps changing the status window to the freaking equalizer... why?

***
shorty i could take you dare... AHHHH SHOOT ME!!!!

Dear Kanye West,

The words 'sh!t' and sh!t' do not rhyme. Nor to the words 'tonight' and 'tonight' or the words 'now' and 'now'. they don't rhyme because they are the same words. when making rhymes, stop using the same words over and over. busta rhymes did it like 15 years ago in one song and it was funny at the time, but now its just sad. and to do it in the same song on top of that? please stop recording and allow some real emcees to step into the spotlight for the attention of 55 year old music executives and 12 year old girls.

thanks,
don

***

and while we're at it. Sean Kingston. Taking your girlfriend to the slums where killers get hung does not a romantic evening make. i know you COULD technically take her there, but just DON'T. why even offer? is it a threat or something? 'look baby, if you act right we're going to 'sip pina coladas', if not, we're headed to the hood. its cool, because 'i'm known in the ghetto, just stay by my side'. the guy was like what 16 when he recorded that? don't you think if his ass was really running from gunshots all day he would have dropped a couple pounds? the guy looks like Biggy as a baby.


***

Last night david came over and we worked on some SSBBrawl for a while. he let me know what different things meant and what not. we watched a bunch of Spike Jonez videos. it was fun, but i got tired and cranky pretty early... and i suck at Brawl. we did do pretty well on the homerun derby after a while though.

***

last night i had a couple things go down in my dream... the first is that i dreamed my jaw was really hurting... and thats because it was. i had moved my jaw to the side, you know, like right now, move your jaw to the right as far as you can... then i pressed my fist up into the bottom of it. like a mentally retarded version of 'The Thinker'. so i was essentially punching myself in the face all night.

then at the time i was dreaming about the new Animal Crossing game on the Wii. in my dream, it worked like i think that AudioRider game works, you travel along a windy road collecting crap with your character. the characters in the game were actually from some Sony game.... that one with the white cat with the pointy ears and the X's for eyes when he laughs.... i forget the name. anyway, i thought to myself 'why did they even bother releasing this under the AC name when it's totally different. its fun i guess, but wtf?'

We went and saw 'Vantage Point' with Robert and Ree/Rea tonight after dinner. I had never heard of the film until this week, and even then i only read the one sentence summary of it on yahoo after Robert mentioned it.

Its about an assassination plot on the President, told from 8 different 'vantage points'.

It's got some holes... and it piles on a LOT of information, but it's interesting enough. The one thing it's really missing is a point. I mean, villains always have the pot of gold or one hundred million dollars to keep them motivated, well... in this film, i guess we never really see their motivation, so it's hard to sympathize with them at all. sounds weird, but i think maybe we need to 'feel' the bad guys to get where they're coming from. Forrest Whittaker over-emotes as usual, and I actually really dug Dennis Quaid as a shaky-ass old secret service guy. He's not all hard and steely... he's just survived a bullet from a previous assassination attempt, and this is his first day back at work... he looks like he's still not in 'work' mode yet, and it works for the film.

when i watch movies, i try not to think ahead. if that makes sense. i let the movie tell me whatever it wants me to know, and i dont try to guess who the killer is, or where the treasure was hidden all along. its more fun for me that way. well, this movie has you reliving the same 23 minutes OVER AND OVER AND OVER. its like cliffhanger after cliffhanger for an hour and a half. and it sorta works, but its also a bit tiresome.

if you like Tom Clancy movies, you'll love it. if you like thrillers, you could do worse. if you're looking for something fresh and new... uh... rent 'Rashomon'?

zing?

nice hanging out though....

my ability to create filthy Mad Libs was hampered by a public place and a day of CoD4. we left Boston's after a couple roaches showed up to say hi to ree/rea. won't be going back anytime soon, though my salad was pretty good.

i have been missing the old days though... the old group days. where we spent every weekend together hanging out, playing games.... everyone got married and got busy and got other friends and its not the same anymore... its nice to see good friends more often.

yesterday went by FAST. we pretty much just did chores all morning. i ran the Roomba a couple times, and did four loads of laundry. Fotini went out to breakfast, so i studied up on the podcast, which was hard because my internet went down, and it took me a while to figure out the problem. then i played some Ace Combat 6 and No More Heroes.... I'm on a hard boss battle right now on NMH.

we went to my parents house to look for some stuff in the shed... and ended up cleaning it up a bit. i still have a lot to plow through. its mostly toys out there.... threw out a lot though. we did that until 130 or so, then went to jon and nicoles for podcast recording and dinner. the podcast went ok... i had not seen the movie in so long that it was hard for me to add much... we just kind of did the film out of necessity of time. after dinner (which was great... some crazy spanish foods and tacos) we watched Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure. it holds up as a time capsule film, of the so-cal slackers of the 80's. i still get a kick out of it, but i've seen it 50 times, so its no frills at this point. it was fun though.

saturday is my day off, so its also my fiber-eating day. i downed a box of Raisin Bran that morning, so i was in Jon's john many many times that evening.

today we dont have a lot going on... greet at church... maybe see my parents or boardgame it or something. we borrowed 3 movies from jon and nicole, so we might dent those...

boring post. yes.

How much weight to you put in online reviews of products before you purchase them?

Do you shrug off the One-Star ratings? Shrug off the Five-Star ratings?

We bought a dishwasher today, and the bulk of the reviews online are poor... mostly One-Star, but a few Five-Stars as well... No ratings in-between though. This... from several different sites. I always check stuff like this online, but today I said 'eff it' and just went with what we liked the most.

***

went to dinner to Kythyryns birthday... had a good, if confusing, time. Lots of conversation bouncing all over the place, but it was fun. Justin hand wove a bangin' cake. And it's waaay past my bedtime.

Yesterday I played quite a bit of Stranglehold and Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles. And it was good.

we had lunch at Salsa's for the first time in MONTHS.

we cleaned the heck out of the house.

we also played Catan. Two of the fastest six-player games ever played ever of all time. I also think its maybe the second time Matt hasn't wiped the floor in the history of his Catan playing. I finished both games with two victory points in my hand... very odd. There was a massive landgrab for longest road. like a 3-4 way tie for longest at all times. the map is massive in the six player game, but still... that many people with that large of a road (7-8 pieces) is odd.

fotinis chicken crap didnt taste bad. maybe its just distance that made it better.

church, inlaws, best buy, costco, peiwei, bedtime today.

Whoa! I just saw this in 'Soylent Green' the other day, and the very same week is the arcade flyer on Kotaku... weird... LOOK AT THAT LADIES FOOT.

***

Today we watched 'King of Kong' and 'Blade Runner'. I also unlocked level 5 on Rez HD.

Then I got my ass kicked at 'Ticket to Ride', though Justin did not 'snap his dong off in my ass' for a second time, and for that I'm thankful.

Some other stuff went down... we need prayer. As does everyone we know.

Somehow, I stumbled onto 'The Sneeze' a few weeks back and have spent a lot of time going through his old entries. It's just some guys blog or something, but its freaking hilarious. It's everything I wish my blog could be. I guess I have to have a child for it to work. I encourage you to click on some of the links under the 'Specials' sidebar, but for now... a link to his take on the new 'Mega' M&Ms... especially that 'mega dong' comment at the end had me rolling.

***

last night justin and kathryn BONED us at Catan Cities and Knights. Holy sweet gotdamn there are a lot of new rules. still, it was fun.

Justin snapped his wang off in my ass really early into the game, for no reason, and without any motive, and shut me down for nearly half the game. at the same time, he gave fotini a major upper hand. kathryn kept her mouth shut and stole the game from all of us.

i was in a position at about THREE HOURS into the game to keep it going longer, but i didnt realize what i had until it was too late, and i think that even if i had realized i could have kept kathryn from winning, at that point i probably would have just wanted her to win and finish it anyway. still, the competitor in me wishes i could have made that choice in real time. theres just SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT. jon would hate it. its got another massive rulebook, besides the already massive catan rulebook.

i want to play it again though. catan... i've played it so much, i just play without thinking. just like blokus. i can figure out the best possible move for me to make fairly quickly, so there just isnt much thinking time invested. it takes a bit of the fun out of it, as its a bit routine at this point. it makes me think that most wins in catan come from sheer luck of the dice, or waiting for something to do something stupid and then exploiting the hell out of it.

***

i think its time to wake fotini up by blasting the new Grand Buffet record. yes. yes it is.

also, puma... dont kick around your metal bowl for no reason on the concrete patio BEFORE THE SUN COMES UP. kthxbi.

Haha... don't f@ck with fanboys...

she really was pretty damn ignorant in that Mass Effect segment.

***

still loving Oz!

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no no more heroes today... hastings didnt get them in. but i had them hold a copy for me. allegedly. for tomorrow.

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went to the driving range with Kyle. i swear... my golf game is a mystery. i used to be great with my short irons, then awful with them, but great with my long irons, today i was using my woods and putter like a champ, but that was it. freaking weird. if i ever got all those parts to work at the same time, i'd damn near be tour material.

kyle was pretty consistent. he kept fading everything, so i mentioned that he might be too far back in his stance. he moved up and started nailing everything perfectly. jerk.

I'm actually kinda looking forward to Super Smash Bros Brawl. I was never into the other titles really, but this new one is just jam packed with content, and sounds pretty fun... way to go marketing!

***

hung out with Ryan and Alex for a bit yesterday... we were playing Rock Band and Alex pulled off a freaking hilarious fanboy nod during one of the 'improv' sections of 'Creep' by Radiohead...

he sang 'I wish I was special'... and then improvised 'wait until you hear THE BENDS!'. haha! so he was trying to cheer up Thom Yorke, while doing karaoke to his song. we all laughed our asses off.

they forced me to sing, so i did so, horribly. ryan and alex held their ground though, and ryan even tackled the white boy rap verses of 'Epic' by Faith No More... i was a bit shocked!

Ghost Squad has been proving itself as a crowd pleaser...

***

also, those assholes said my journal has turned to mainly a gaming blog (no argument there) and that it 'hasnt been funny in a long time'.

..................................

it's weird to hear that YOUR LIFE IS BORING i guess. i'm going to have to up the rants and dick jokes i guess. or maybe its that i upped the dick jokes and have been bitching less about work. hmmm... they didnt say exactly what's unfunny, but i dont really try to be funny anymore. not that i really tried before, i mostly just was pissed off and was trying to get all my emotions down on paper or whatever, really really quickly. i guess i'm funnier when i'm pissed a la Lewis Black or Richard Lewis or 50 million other people.

come to think of it. who isnt downright hilarious when they're pissed? unless they're pissed at you.

Ryan also called the reticule a 'little aiming thingy', and when i called him (an english major who studied at oxford or something) on it, he said he had already used reticule and was trying to vary his speech. he then used a word that i havent heard in ages, he'll have to fill me in... but it was a complex word, to combat his 'thingy' drop.

right.

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ok, back to gaming...

i finally got the themes on PS3 to work, so i downloaded a few. the ATHF one looked a lot better in the preview. the CAG on sucks (for what it is), so Okami it is!

I just played the worst game of Catan ever. Not the experience, necessarily, but my skill at the game was awful. First, I placed horribly, while knowing better, then i just did dumb stuff all night. putting my cities in the wrong places or whatever. easily the worst i've ever played (without doing it on purpose, ie. not trading or experimenting or whatever), meanwhile Matt played what has to be his best game ever. he technically finished with 11 points. i dont think i've ever seen that before. i've seen many where the next move would have provided 11 or 12 points, but not the winning turn at 11.

anyway... it was fun. i cant wait to get rid of this cold! the nice thing is that its limping away right now. my throat isnt awful, my sinuses are pretty bad, but not horrible. my head is hurting, but i'll live. i'm not as achy all over. i'm just kinda normal, but feeling bad. which is good.

***

also, i didnt play a single second of video games today. damn you '08!

i read through some old entries, and hated '06 as much as '07... though in hindsight, '07 was much worse.

'08, bring it! and by bring it I mean, don't bring it. just be boring and predictable all year.

you know another sad thing i've thought about a lot this week... this time last year we were sure it was going to be our last christmas without a child. after 10 months of trying, its discouraging man... everyone gets knocked up at the drop of a drip of sperm, and we've been WORKING at it (which is no fun, believe me) and no dice. hells bells.

Big. Ass. Chains.

Today, two of my livejournal friends who are going through divorces/possible divorces (or whatever) posted Ben Folds Five lyrics/references. Neither of them know each other, and they both rarely update their journals at all.

so as an experiment, i googled 'ben folds lyrics', clicked on the first link that came up, clicked on the first song listed, and copy/pasted the first verse of that first song. here it is, from 'Jackson Cannery':

Stop the bus
I wanna be lonely
When seconds pass slowly
And years go flying by
You gotta stop the bus
I'll get off here
Enough's enough
I'm leaving this factory

Ben Folds is sad bastard music. Who knew? When I think BF5, I think upbeat whiteboy, not razor to the vein.

Interesting is all...

***

holy CRAP I was tired last night. As Zero pointed out, i was tired at 4pm. come midnight, i was doneskis. My throat is the latest casualty in my little cold thingy. my sinuses are getting better though. i sound like a 12 year old boy, my voice is cracking so much.

we went to the shopes along with everyone else i ever met ever. there were at least 20 people there (by my count off the top of my head at 6am this morning). i spent midnight clutching my iPod, wondering why Carson Daly was spending the last 30 seconds of 2007 talking to some sports guy i've never heard of. i was really out of it by that point though. come 10pm on, i was a zombie, or asleep on the couch. all Fotini wanted in the world was a kiss at midnight, and i barely eeked up enough energy for it.

speaking of which, my favorite new years resolution "More couch couch, less walk walk." - some guy on funnyordie.com

anyway, it was pretty fun last night... i mostly played Guitar Hero with Jason, or watched Coletron and GavinDavin get six percent completion at it.

they had some card game called 'yell a lot and smack the table constantly' going on in the dining room, while others played Blockus and Risk. my head was so full of mucus I couldnt think straight enough to play a game, and could barely hear the music on guitar hero for that matter. still, it was pretty fun overall and it was nice to have 'the group' together. it made me miss the old days where no one on earth existed except those 7 other people.

2007 was a dick and i'm glad that asshole packed up and left.

AVPR. dumbest movie ever. ok... not THE dumbest, but it didnt even make sense as a freaking bad sci-fi movie. and why did the alien and predator franchises both go down the drain? they both started out so strong!!! its a gotdamned travesty.

i had like a ton to write about it, but hells bells i'm tired.

***

i'm still sick. my throat is starting to fail me now. sinuses are getting better, but i think thats due to the pills.

***

dont you hate when you have a lot to write. sit down to write it, and come up blank?

frustrating.

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ok kids, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE TONIGHT! or ride with your drunkass friends either. in fact, i'd recommend not even drinking at all, but i know some people just can't cope without some booze in their blood, so do what you must.

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EDIT

Ok, so Jon reminded me about the talking dog thing. Justin gave the best review of AVPR EVER. He said something like 'it's like having a talking dog, it not what the dog says, its that it said it.' something to that effect. it doesnt matter how crappy the movie was. it freaking has both aliens and predators in it. but it was funnier when he said it.

i wish i had jon's savant memory. my head is too congested to remember my usual amount of memory, nevertheless all the crap he remembers.

Also... if Fotini ever dies or divorces me, I'm going to immediately start stalking Chelsea Peretti in hopes of making her my wife. for that, she gets her own tag.