We watched BSG Razor the other night. I liked it. I hate those damned Pegasusians (of which Jon probably loves... to spite me). I wish I had watched it months ago before season 3 though. I didn't notice ANY Season 3 spoilers, and the story definitely fits better between 2 and 3. anyway... not bad. i wish every episode was that revealing and grand on the action scale.

We watched 'The Amazing Screw-On Head' tonight. It was pretty great. I wish it were more than a pilot, but as mignolia said, thats all he wanted to do and probably couldnt top it... so i'll just be happy with what i've seen.

been watching Venture Bros season two again... great.

Fotini's family came over for lunch today. Her papu is in town. Andrew KICKED 'Space Ship's ASSSSSS. He got like 7 million points or something. holy smokes. Then later tonight Fotini straight up boned the ass out of Whirlwind. Over 10 million... w.... t.... f....

i blame my vicodin for my pisspoor showing.

also, puma and ramey got in a sick ass dogfight. puma has never fought back before, so usually i just pull ramey off of her and she runs off and the problem is diffused. today however... i grabbed rameys collar and it snapped off. so she went nuts on puma, and puma went nuts right back. well... my left arm got in the way of pumas mouth and she bit the hell out of it. its still as swollen and hurts.

puma got the worst of it though. ramey bit her neck drawing blood. she bit her front paw drawing blood on the top and bottom of the paw. she bit the PISS out of her back foot... drawing blood all over the joint.

so puma is JACKED. when she stands up, she falls right back down. its opposite front and back paws that hurt, so she cant stand. its pretty sad. i hope its ok. if its not kosher in a day or so, i'll take her in. she doesnt cry when she does have to step on it, or when we touch it, so i dont think its broken, just hurt. poor kid.

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.

Imagine my surprise... the new Nintendo Channel is actually pretty neat! It ranks a lot of games and gives geeky stats about them, you can download DS demos and it has videos of most wii, ds and most importantly, virtual console games. now i dont have to guess what the hell crazy japanese VC games are... i can watch a video of them.

very cool... although the download is MASSIVE.

***

i didnt remember her until recently, but as a kid, i had the hots for the female Pinbot.

***

we watched 'Teeth' tonight. its everything you'd expect a movie about vagina dentada to be. that is to say... pretty decent.

so i officially tore the piss out of my back. i pulled it again today lifting a case of chocolate covered raisins. i went to urgent care because i thought it was just something i did... but the doc said it was workers comp... a case of overused muscles or something. so then i had to go to my works doctor... that took all gotdamned day. i took a vicodin, 800mg of ibuprofen got a shot in my ass and went to physical therapy.

naturally my work doctor cleared me to work... so i'll be back in the saddle tomorrow. it hurts when i think. but i was jacked up on enough drugs today that it was ok for the bulk of the day.

***

i played A LOT of Williams Pinball Hall of Fame for the Wii. A lot. i love that game. i can't quit you WPHOF!

So we saw 'Expelled' tonight. But I'm not going to talk about it, you'll just have to listen to the next episode of the SuperCandid Podcast for details! Not that anyone gives a sh!t.

***

Also, I sold Brawl. They gave me $30. That's about $8 more than I expected.

***

GTAFTW!!!!

The look on Jason Priestleys face makes me want to play MarioKart Wii RIGHT NOW. He looks so full of joy. It's like he's thinking 'HOLY SMOKES! I've never in my entire life had this much fun ever!'

If it had come out a month ago, or maybe in a month, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But as is, on the dawn of the most exciting moment of my entire life, no dice.

Poll #1155900
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Round Two

I must admit that I am SHOCKED in regards to the status of Round One. I figured the votes would be much more even... You guys are going by overall attraction right? Not just musical preference? If it were a music competition, Karen O would win hands down...

***

Picked up a bunch of $10 Wii games today...  And by a bunch, I mean three.

Had fun playing some Spiderman with Matt.  Didn't have as much fun watching 'Into the Wild'.  It would have been more enjoyable if it were 7 hours shorter.

Did I mention we watched 3:10 to Yuma?  for posteritys sake, i need to make sure to make a note of that.

GOODNIGHT.

we finished off 'Oz' Season One today... which ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. luckily, it was first run in 1997, so no ones talking about it anymore.

we also watched 'Sicko' finally. it was typical michael moore, which is to say, entertaining and one-sided... but damn... it does make norway look like heaven.

***

fotini said 'no more heroes' 'sucked', and left the room. i killed another assassin, so i'm the Rank 9 guy right now. guess i'll be playing that when shes at work, and PixelJunk Monsters and Mass Effect when she's home.

***

'I am the messenger' by markus zusak came in the mail today... as did 'killing yourself to live'. the latter was a gift... again. jon gave it to me a couple years ago for my birthday, but mick didnt know that... anyone want a copy? its not bad if you like Klosterman.

weird that i got two books in the mail today. i read about one book a month, yeah... not a big reader really.

***

check out the time! i'm up late! thank you day off tomorrow! want to hang out?

***

EDIT

also... today we listened to the 90s station on XM at work all morning. holy hell. the 90's SUCKED as far as pop music went. i'll take 'take on me' over 'step by step' any day. it was nice to hear Digital Underground again though. something about doing a chick in a burger king mop closet...

also... look at these lyrics:

Step one
We can have lots of fun
Step two
Theres so much we can do
Step three
Its just you and me
Step four
I can give you more
Step five
Dont you know the time has arrived

can you listen to that and somehow keep yourself from blowing the nearest guy available? i switched sides in a heartbeat.


Also... i think i figured it out. i always though MeatLoaf was talking about anal when he said he would do anything for love, but he wouldn't do 'that'. now, i think he's talking about breaking her heart. makes sense. still horrible lyrics and a horrible song, but yeah, gotcha meat.

we finished Deadwood Season One yesterday i think... i like the show, but i'm glad its over. i dont like it THAT much.

we started in on Oz Season One today... i'm already really loving it. but then, i have a very soft (and brown) spot for prison films.

***

Tomorrow i will hopefully be picking up 'No More Heroes'. I can't believe its already coming out! i have been hoarding hastings giftcards from other trade-ins, i'm going to get rid of Assassin's Creed, and NMH is definitely the type of game i want to pay full price for. or rather, the type of game i really want to support. it tanked in Japan... odds are, it'll tank here too. i'll let you know what i think. hastings said they were only getting 3 copies in... so i'm hoping to luck out and snag one.

***

its about damn time Nada Surf released a new record.

***

also... amazon is having a big 50% off sale on sci-fi dvds... some good deals to be had, but odds are most sci-fi fans own their favorites already.

***

EDIT

oh yeah... the whole reason i came to the computer to post...

The Club demo is really fun!  who knew adding in some scoring to a pretty standard shooter would be so much fun?  you just run around shooting people, but they threw in a combo scoring system... so you're constantly pushing yourself for better scores.  simple and fun.  the game looks good, the controls work really well, its got a nice gritty feel to it, and some beautiful explosions.  wish i had more friends to play this kind of stuff with!

Poll #1116656
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Random 80's battle...

I found a pretty hot photo of Annie Potts today... but I want the ladies in the 80's to battle it out. Also, I would love to see another scenario with Diane Franklin on top of Annie Potts... whew...



BTW... Karen FTW.

***

I talked a guy at Circuit City into buying Ratchet and Clank for the PS3. he came up to us and asked if we knew anything about games, and what would be a good ps3 game for a 10 year old girl.

i also scored some decent sale games... chocobo tales, rocket slime, 24:The Game, superman returns for the 360 as well as xmen for the 360... all for $8.96 each, metal slug anthology for $16.96, and mario party ds.

***

I want CoD!!! NOWS!

***

EDIT... my first tip for goldenfiddle was published! that's what you get for beating up a woman.

Wow... The Pam/Karen debate is neck and neck.

Who knew people would have such strong opinions?

I still haven't voted.

***

I bought a CD today... the first in quite a while...

Saves the Day - Under the Boards

I wasn't feeling the last record, I like my STD poppy (a la 'In Reverie'), but something snapped in me today and I bought it. It's looks promising.

***

We finished 'Superbad'. It wasn't bad, but I'm still more of a '40-Year-Old' Virgin' kinda guy.

Right now, we're digging into 'Ratatouille'. So far, so good. Also, the Disney Blu-Ray logo is freaking rad. It's the typical castle, but first you're showered in fireworks... really, pretty simple but cool.

***

Jon and Nicole forgot 'Big Brain Academy' for the Wii at our house... So I might sneak a spin a bit later today...

Poll #1115169
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Pick a side! The food under the gravy is irrelevant.

I thought about providing a third option for 'that weird clear/gray gravy that Fotini makes that I choose not to eat whenever she makes it', but I don't like gag answers skewing up polls like that.

So there you go. I have a strange feeling about this one.

***

I came this close " to buying Geometry Wars for the Wii yesterday, then decided against it. Now, to watch Extras and try to fall asleep.

I'm kinda mad at Joystiq... they were talking about picking less obvious titles for their top 10, which doesn't seem like the point, but I get what they were saying, and they went and picked one of my favorites! Which is fine... just unexpected.

( My favorite games of 2007: )

So...

Which celebrity is going to die tomorrow/tonight/this week? We lost James Brown, Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein this time last year...

***

Going to church soon, then maybe a luminaria drive with some folks from Chicago... we'll see. I'd be down for some CoD4.

My mom gave me 'Zack and Wiki' for the Wii last night... it's pretty fun. A point-and-click puzzler with a lot of charm. It's already getting hard and I'm only on like the 8th level or so.

***

The futurama movie is good.

***

This song is for Jon, who says I'm not listening to enough Christmas music.

Poll #1110172
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Conan O'Brien

***

and before I forget...

two nights ago I had a dream about work, but at the end of the dream, I was hunting a golden cowboy. It was a black man, wrapped in gold foil that was shaped like a cowboyish outfit, and smeared with gold paint all over his skin. By the time I found him, I realized that a silver cowboy had been hunting me. The three of us had a standoff. The silver cowboy was also wearing a foil suit and had silver paint smeared on his body. It was really cool... the only thing cooler would have been a gay black man in a wheelchair with AIDS golden cowboy.

***

last night we were able to go to Jon and Nicole's for some Wii, a filthy game of Blokus, and some hanging out time. Nice to see everyone again, its like we just had hung out a few days ago, as opposed to a few months ago.

***

Sonic and Mario Do Bejing 2008 actually has a lot of potential. Wouldn't mind trying it again.

Traded in 'Uncharted' tonight... did i mention that i finished it this morning? My life is a freaking blur anymore. we havent hung out with anyone in over two weeks. i mean, we kinda did for an hour on friday night, but no one has set foot in our house for a long time. no wait, jason and kelly did after church last week.

i dont know anymore.

***

so i get thursday off, but that meeting is mandatory. no big deal i figure. i'll just shoot in and out and go home.

well, its a four hour meeting on the other side of town. so scratch that.

at least its 4 more hours of OT.

came in early today... going in tomorrow at 5am. those 20 pallets of books showed up today! and damn if thats not a lot of books... it was like half the floor in the dock area. sheesh.

***

The Wii Zapper came today. the thing is pretty uncomfortable, but Links Crossbow Training is really fun. for $20, i can't complain. my hands are just too big to hang with the zapper. the trigger should be on the back grip, not the front.

***

yeah, anyway... when i traded in Uncharted, i rented Call of Duty 4... for the ps3 (gotdamn i miss the 360!). so far, not so impressed. i feel like a little bitch just tagging along with a giant squad of soldiers. being an assassinated president was kinda cool.

the story and levels seem neat, but the controls are nothing special. i dont understand why everyone is jizzing all over themselves for the game. Rainbow Six Vegas nailed what tactical shooters should feel like. even Gears did a great job. this just feels... off. but i'm only 2 missions in.

better get to bed... i'm 36 minutes late.

Super Mario Galaxy is pretty great so far! except for the WACKY ASS camera angles and crappy story. The gameplay is choice, and I like that Fotini can play in a support role.

Day Three at SMart: Let the bitching commence!

First, a non work bitch. TRU has been sold out of gotdamned Super Mario Galaxy all week. I'm kinda sad about it because I didn't even know they had a preorder AND Fotini had a chance to preorder it on Monday, but didn't because who the hell knows why.

Ok, now back to work. So all day we've been working with this douchebag. Pretty much everyone is cool. Our team kept dwindling. Most teams are 8 people. we started with 6, then 4 yesterday, then 3 this morning and one of those three it was his first day. so this guy from one of the other teams, left their team because he was tired of building stuff (he told me this). his old team was pissed that he ditched them. so he just starts helping us. he's worked there for over a year, so he 'knows what hes doing'. so he pretty much does the opposite of whatever the managers say to do. they're trying to give us good habits upfront, meanwhile hes developed pisspoor habits over time. so he keeps effing stuff up, then we have to fix it. so we all told our manager that it was bullshit, and we all stopped helping him. so he was by himself.

then he hid four pallet jacks in the freezer at night. we got a call on the radio that the main manager wanted all the jacks in the back room. i was waiting for him to, you know, GO GET THE JACKS, or say something. he just stood there during this whole thing, then walked off. so shit, so i go start moving the jacks. i got a guy from another team to help me, and i helped him move all the rest of the jacks (that was his job).

SO... everyone has left by then. everyone. its just me and the guy who was helping me, and a couple stragglers. i look at my clock and it says 628, so i write that on my time card... what had the rest of my team written on their clock-out time? 630. well hell. i work an extra 5 minutes or so, and everyone else gets paid for it.

i'm not really mad or anything... i just dont know if this is stuff that they take lightly or what. they've already fired some people, and we just started 3 days ago. one strike, you're out.

and wtf is with people? at EVERY JOB I"VE HAD, people eff up their timecards. IT'S CALLED FRAUD. my last job, people come in late, they all put that they were in on time. no one cares. some days EVERY SINGLE PERSON but me was at least 2 minutes late, and they all have 930 or whatever on their timecards. so thats 2+ minutes they stole, no big deal right? well, most of them are late every single day, and do it every day. so lets be nice and say 2 minutes x 5 days = 10 min a week, then just do 4 weeks a month. thats 40 minutes stolen a month... times 12... that equals EIGHT HOURS OF TIMECARD FRAUD they've committed each year. thats a whole day of work. so did i ever get a whole day of paid vacation for being on time every single day? oh hell no.

we've got douchebag at the new job giving a big eff you to the management and doing whatever he wants, at my last job... same deal. wearing tshirts and flipflops to work. what a bunch of shit. what the hell are people thinking about? am i the only one who cares about 'the rules'? and a work ethic? you can see how far it's gotten me... starting at the bottom... again...

OK... on the plus side. SMart seems VERY set on rewarding hard workers. they really notice that stuff (far as i can tell so far anyway)... for example. the manager of the goods, second in command of the whole store, pulled me aside and said he liked my work and he put me in charge of.... books. haha... he said 'you used to work at a bookstore right? well you seem to be getting this really quickly and i want to put you in charge of the books. we've got 20 pallets of books coming in this week. i'll give you my old book manager to show you the ropes.' right on. i dont know know jack about books (i was the music buyer at the bookstore), but i'll learn!

as mode7overworld pointed out... i was playing 'Cars' today on the 360. yes, the Disney game. Coletron 3000 lent it to me the other day, so i thought i'd give it a shot. i noticed that he didnt have ANY achievements for it, but he's only six. well, after a couple hours, i had 2 of the twelve achievements. and that second one was HARD! any game with 12 achievements is going to make you work for it. and i think thats good. 'Sonic the Hedgehog' as some long ass, boring achievements. ie. collect all the Chaos Emeralds or something. now THAT'S an achievement. none of this 'fell 30 feet' Dead Rising crap. (though in all fairness, Dead Rising also has some of the hardest achievements of ANY 360 game. *cough*Frank the Pimp*cough*)

***

so i threw my back out brushing my teeth this morning. luckily it was my upper back. when the lower back goes, the whole day sucks. today it only hurt if i was moving around... SO... it was a great day to lay on the heating pad, stuff myself full of tylenol and play some video games. the best kind of sick day possible!

Today I played:

- Cars
- Uno
- Yaris
- Puzzle Fighter
- skate.
- Halo 3
- The Orange Box
- Catan (i think... or was that last night...)
- MySims

either way, it was great. i was stiff as hell, so it wasnt terribly comfortable, but again... at least it wasnt my lower back. i threw that out about 2-3 years ago REALLY BADLY and i was crippled on the floor crying. right after we got married... every year i throw it out so to speak, but it usually only hurts for a couple days. i havent messed up my upper back in ages... its feeling better. i hope i wake up flexible.

***

Orange Box is FANTASTIC. Portal is a serious mind eff... in the best way possible. Half-Life 2 is still my favorite FPS EVER. I'm playing through Episode One since I never finished it on the PC. Team Fortress 2 is really fun, but its only multiplayer! i couldnt even just explore maps, or dick around. i have to join a live game. the first game was fun, scooby gave me lots of tips since he was the only veteran of the series. then i had about 6 matches where the host dropped out... SUCKED. i really want to get a good group together to play.

IF YOU HAVE ORANGE BOX and want to play TF2 on the 360, hit me up. Gamertag: Callmesteam

I'm probably going to spam around LJ to get a group up.

EDIT

oh yeah... it has 99 ACHIEVEMENTS. Spread over five games... freaking nuts...

***

Yaris is a lot like the Burger King games. crappy, ad based gaming. but its free. the achievements are too tedious to bother with. on that note, i did pass the 8,000 mark today... not that it means anything.

you people hate, but when you have a 360 game in your player, the achievements often give you new ways to play the game or offer challenges... they're pretty neat, not just bragging rights. i like the way Metroid 3 handles them. you do very 'achievement unlocked' type things in the game and you're rewarded with coins that you can trade in for bonus content. very cool. i hope that makes it to more 360 games.

***

Time for bed.

Everyone get their free Radiohead record today? As someone who makes their living off of SELLING music, I will say that I paid for the record. I paid what it would cost if it were released in stores on opening week. Seven cents...?

***

Ok... crazy ass dream last night...I was riding an electric death train and Jim from The Mermen was driving. Literally. I was on some sort of maybe a subway train, and Jim from the Mermen was the engineer. He was going off on his guitar, and I was messing with the power causing all sorts of bizarre feedback and whatnot. It was great, but scary as hell.

THEN, Matt and Robert and Josh and I met in the Sunflower parking lot and Matt drove my old Dion's van down to the river. It had flooded, and we were trying to cross it. For some reason Renee Archunde was there and I helped her across some of the deep spots. I was able to jump like 8 feet from a dead stop to a dry bank. It was very cool, but even in the dream I was thinking 'wtf? where did this come from?'

***

MySims. Not bad! I checked the gamerankings on it and it scored fairly high... in the 8's mostly. It got 8's and 9's from magazines I trust. Anyway, its pretty much a HUGE architecture sim with some Animal Crossing-ish side quest stuff. Someone wants a chair, you build it however you want. They want a podium, you go to town. Fotini spent like an hour building our house. LITERALLY. We played for 2.5 hours, and it felt like 10 minutes.

***

I love leaving work early! I left around 445 last night, came home, we had dinner and watched the new episode of Dexter on the Wii and it was over by 7pm! So great to have more time together.

***

CD from the past couple weeks... I've been picking up a few more records... Though still not as many as I used to burn through.

Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
Michael Ian Black - I'm a Wonderful Man
Joe Rogan - Shiny Happy Jihad
Silverchair - Young Modern