I really need to go back and play with this Blog again. So many things have come around that needed mentioning, and I haven't posted anything in MONTHS.

I think the first thing I might review is the new template editor for Blogger. Looks pretty awesome. I was content with plain ol' HTML, but this puppy looks powerful.

Stay tuned for things to be posted.

I've sort of completely ignored this for the last 2 years.

And I get back here to let you all know this:

52%

Why don't you find out your own likeliness?

Bought My First Fake 6-String...

I just picked up a copy of Guitar Hero for PS2. What a game. If you play guitar, you'll jump into the game quickly -- it feels quite natural. Because the game comes with a GUITAR CONTROLLER!

The guitar controller has 5 frets with buttons on them, a little flicky area that serves as a strum zone, and even a working whammy bar. It's quite wild.

The game plays as a sort of guitar karaoke. The top of your TV screen shows the concert (digitally rendered with comic-looking characters - very stylized), while the bottom is a fretboard drifting toards you. On that fretboard, frets are marked to represent the notes you are supposed to play. In this way you sort of fake your way through playing a rock song. There is a HUGE range of songs and bands to play along with -- The Ramones, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queen, ZZ Top, Edgar Winter, Cream, Stevie Ray Vaugh, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Religion, Queens of the Stone Age, Sum41, The Donnas, Franz Ferdinand.... and an uncountable number of underground bands that you can unlock.

The easy levels are totally do-able, and VERY replayable. It's fun every time.

If you DO play guitar, it can only help with your finger dexterity and speed. As the levels get harder, it is a real challenge to play the notes and chords in time with the music.

This is one of the most refreshing and different games I've played since Katamari Damacy. And it's the closest I'll ever get to playing with David Bowie or Joan Jett or Audioslave. It's really wild to hear what your 'playing' fit in with the rest of the band.

I played for about 3 hours last night. My hand still hurts.

Three months. More than three months, and I haven't been here in Blogger.

I am so ashamed.

I need to get back into it!

In order to give me an excuse, and give you things to look at, I have decoded to post some of the backgrounds I have made for my PSP. (Yes, the geek meter is running pretty high right now.)

If you've downloaded the Version 2.0 or higher update for PSP, you can make/set your own wallpaper.

Here's some music related ones...

Gorillaz is a wonderful band...


Especially Murdoc...


But there are other bands out there, that I'm sure most people have never heard of.
The Ben Gunn Society sings about pirates, monkeys and cheese. They are awesome.


My favorite band is most likely Too Much Joy...


But Ookla the Mok is amazing, too. Their concept album "Smell No Evil" is simply brilliant...




Ah. There. I posted something. That's better.

I can't stop playing this game...



It's for the PSP, and it's quite nifty.

If you like First Person Shooters, go buy this game.

Let's discuss...

Gameplay: Shooting! Lots of shooting! It has a slim story of you being stuck in a military simulation game, but the story is just for framing the gameplay. It's much more of an arcade-style FPS. Especially since the levels are randomly generated. I was a little worried that that would mean the levels were badly designed, but, for the most part, they come out great -- a good blend of scary, tight corridors, and huge, open, multilevel warehouses. Each section starts with tiny levels, slowly growing as you proceed to make some intricate mazes.



Graphics: Tremendous. Every pixel is fabulous -- it really highlights the power of the PSP. The details of the backgrounds are only outdone by the textures of your enemies.



Sound: Immersive. The music is often eerie, with weird sound effects coming from any direction. When you are approaching enemies, the dramatic tunes fade in -- adrenaline rush!



Load times: The shortest on the PSP. The graphics, in my opinion, are better than Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition, whose load times are inexcusable (sometimes the load time is longer than the race itself!). I don't know how they did it.

If you would like to try out some of the weapons, feel free to shoot me. Seriously. You KNOW you want to! Do it. [This link doesn't always work, for some reason. Hope it works for you... AND you DON'T have to install the Japanese language support if you don't want to.]

I usually don't like FPS style games, and I always stink at them. I do stink at this game, but Coded Arms is way too much fun for even me to put down.

the daily dancer
      honest, raw, pure, visceral
            find your own rhythm

I NEVER Blog about other Blogs -- I will happily link to another Blog I like, but it never made sense to write a whole entry dedicated to someone else's Blog.

Until now.


I was randomly flipping through Blogs, and stumbled over one which began:
"I am Daily Dancer, a software developer who loves to dance!"

And there he was. Minute long videos of just a regular guy dancing in his apartment. From Queen to the Spice Girls... from the Macarena to the Chicken Dance.

Remarkable.

C'mon, you all dance when you're listening to music at home. You just don't have the guts to videotape it and post it for the world to see. The Daily Dancer does. Unrehearsed, untrained and unashamed.

It's a sort of kinetic folk art.

(unauthorized collage of Daily Dancer)

It's a brutally honest peek into the most personal and private moments of someone's life.

Check him out. You won't be sorry. You won't be able to look away.

You can even support his site by sporting some DD gear! I'm off to do some shopping...

I proudly link to his blog.

Daily Dancer

beautiful pearl white
      fuzzy body, fuzzy legs
            odd faced-shaped markings

Wow, I had a lot of people creeped out over the spider. Hopefully the bug I saw last night is a bit less creepy.

I pulled the cover off the hot tub, and under it was a bright white moth... He was quite fuzzy, and, I thought, appeared friendly. I told him to sit still so that I could go get my camera. He obliged.



He stretched out his legs and wings, and then settled down. That's when I noticed a grouchy face on the back of his head. I tried to get a good picture of it, but it was the middle of the night, and my digital camera is not too thrilled about night time pictures. It does have a nighttime setting, but it has to be held quite still, and I didn't have a good place to prop it up. But here is the best pic to come out:



The fuzz around it made it look like he had crazy white hair. It was sort of Andy Warhol looking...

eight legs, gold and green
      hairy, shiny, six red eyes
            making my butt clench

The other day, I was helping my landlord fix his shed. In a tangential note, he almost put me in the hospital -- He was drilling a screw to affix a a shelf into the side of his shed, and had the screw tilted a little too far. I was propping up the side of the shed, when I felt a burning sensation in my arm. The screw had come trough the wall, and ran down the side of my arm. It was slanted enough that it didn't pierce the skin -- just my shirt, undershirt, and burned along the side of my arm.

But that is NOT what this post is about.

As I was walking along side the shed, I walked through one of the thickest spider webs in the history of spider webbing.

I turned my head, and about a foot away from me was one of the freakiest looking spiders ever. I did shriek in a higher pitched tone than I thought I was able. Normally, I'm not too skittish around spidery things, but this one struck me as super-freaky.

After detangling myself, I did go get my camera to record the beast.



Shudder.

I'm not dead!!

OK, I haven't been blogging in a very, very long time.

I miss it.

I will do more.

New Year's Resolution: Blog more. Go back to the way I used to be; blogging nearly every day.

I'm sure I have stuff to tell.

I'm off to think about what that might be! And then.... hopefully write about it.

If you use Yahoo's calendar, do not put quotations marks in the NOTES section of an appointment. It freaks it out, big time. Trust me. Crazy. I was bugging out people. Bugging out, I tell you.

I'm better now.

I have just discovered a nifty little Playstation 2 game:
Katamari Damacy.

sticky spinning fun
katamari damacy
replacing the stars

Katamari Damacy

In short, it is wonderful. Simply wonderful.

Let me try to break it down for you...

First impressions: When you pop in this game, you will see a minute-long theme-song animation. There are not enough drugs in the world to make this cartoon seem normal. (See for yourself.) A chorus of ducks sing from the sides of the screen, accompanied by giraffes, elephants, shamrocks, and a plethora of mushrooms. The song is super-catchy, and will certainly stir you on to playing the game.

Story: (Ready for this? It's a doozy...) You play the son of the King of All cosmos. He's a quirky giant, and apparently last night he was cruising the galaxy after partying hard. He doesn't quite remember the whole night, but it's obvious that this lumbering drunk was out of control: he managed to destroy all the stars in the sky. As the tiny prince, you must make new stars. (As an astronomer, I obviously NEEDED to have this game!) Your father provided you with something called a Katamari (the best research I could do seems to indicate that this means 'clump', which makes sense), which is a sticky ball. A super sticky ball. This thing apparently the universal adhesive -- because EVERYTHING sticks to the ball. And that's the point -- use the sticky ball to collect things and make the ball big enough to be a star.

Gameplay: Rolling, rolling, rolling. The prince must roll the ball around and stick things to it to make it bigger. Each level starts with a ball at a certain size -- you have a goal size and a time limit to make it that large. I'm fairly certain that it's the only game I've played that actually uses NO BUTTONS. It just uses the two analog joysticks. Think of it sort of like driving a tank (remember Battlezone?) -- push both joysticks forward to go forward, one forward and one back turns you... there are a variety of combinations of the joysticks to maneuver different ways. It's a little tricky to get the hang of it, but once you do, it's a lot of fun, and quite fluid. The physics are just right. It's kind of funny when you pick up an odd-shaped item like a pencil or a shovel, you ball sort of rolls with a limp.

Graphics: Simple, but clear. The graphics are almost retro-style simple. The objects that move look foolishly simple. The animals that move look like plastic toys. The cut scene graphics look like low-budget, two-frame animations. But somehow, it works. In fact, it lends a kitchiness that makes you laugh that much harder at some of the objects and events. I don't know how they it was done, but the graphics are awful and amazing at the same time.

Sound: This is the true kicker. The soundtrack is TREMENDOUS. It's almost too good. I didn't want to finish some levels because the music was so good. Perfect, catchy Tokyopop. (Here's some clips.) They have made a soundtrack, but it costs more than the game itself.

Final thoughts: The game retails brand new at $20. This will be money well-spent. The levels are huge, and VERY replayable -- the open style of zipping around and picking up things whichever way you want, is amazing. It's a simple game -- there's no shooting or flying or racing or role-playing elements -- but it's so clever, quaint and odd that you have to like it. I can't imagine ever getting rid of this game.

Buy it now. Love it forever.

This crazy geezer was driving this car on Route 80 in New jersey! It was a chilly day, too, as likely indicated by his attire.

I just accidentally had my camera with me, and had to snap his picture.

I swear, I had a dream about this last night. I had to make it real now that I have awoken. I have embellished a couple things, but 96.2% of it appeared in my sleep! My brain is an odd place.

---

Welcome to the Pretentious Kids Toy Store! We've been serving the needs of the rich and spoiled since the Regean era.

We are well known for thinking out of the box to truly satisfy the spoiled rich kids of the world, and we are so excited to present our newest gift idea -- President of the United States!

We know it sounds impossible, but rest assured it is not. The Pretentious Kids Toy Store will promise you the position of President of the United States. No matter what.

• Don't have the mental acumen to be President? No problem!
  
• Have you financially destroyed four (4) oil companies which were gifts to you? What does that have to do with running a country with the highest GDP in the world?
  
• Have a history of drugs and drinking? Not an issue at all!
  
• You have 2 daughters who have only appeared in public sober once, and that was in court to defend an underage drinking charge? GREAT! It just increases your appeal to the younger binge drinking set!
  
• You're actually a traitor to your country for signing up to serve, and instead of reporting for duty, you deciding partying is a bit more important? Don't worry! We can make that a non-issue!
  
• Have financial ties to regimes that train terrosists exclusively for killing Americans? Great! It'll just confuse the ignorant!
  

So what do you get as President? You get to give all of your friends powerful positions. You get to instill fear in 300 million Americans, and truly terrorize billions of people world wide -- a great outlet for the bully in you. AND, you get to be on vacation FORTY PERCENT OF THE TIME!

How much would you pay to be the most powerful leader of the free world? $100 trillion? $300 trillion?

The Pretentious Kids Toy Store is offering all of this for the low, low price of $12 trillion dollars. [***] NOTE: THIS ITEM IS CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK. MORE ARE EXPECTED TO SHIP IN 2008.

It sounds like a lot, but we have a wonderful payment plan, where you can borrow money from the working people of America, and never have to pay it back.

This offer is a 4 year subscription; in order to renew the subscription for another 4 years, you may need to truly terrify the American people, and kill hundreds of thousands of foreigners of your choice.

Please note that the charge for this order will appear on your credit card statement as the following:

• "The Saudi Royal Family, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia"
  
• "Halliburton, Houston, TX, USA"
  
• "Diebold Incorporated, North Canton, Ohio, USA"
  
• "Election Systems & Software, Inc., Omaha, NE, USA"
  
• "Karl Rove, Austin, TX, USA"
  

THIS is the man we "elected". I hope everyone who voted for him is happy. He's a 7 year old moron, and he's leading the most powerful country in the world.

I'm going to go puke.

I just bought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.




I have always loved the Grand Theft Auto series of games. Even the first two editions, which were fairly simple graphically, but engaging and funny.

After an incredible amount of anticipation, finally the newest chapter has been released! Normally I wait for a new game to have been out for a while, and let the cost go down, and usually purchase it used.

But this time, I could NOT WAIT. So I bought it.

SO far -- I am NOT happy. It spends WAY too much time on teeny details -- your clothes, hair, car detail, muscle tone, hunger level, respect level -- and way too much time on the stuff that made the previous games GREAT. I should be out killing pimps, not seeing if I look better bald or with a big fro. And even some of those elements are insipid and unrealistic. Example: You can go to the barber and he can somehow GIVE YOU a beard.

I've played about 20 missions so far, and the last one that I could stand last night involved me dancing. I had to do a good dance (you have to mash buttons to the beat, Dance Dance Revolution style) to get in good with the DJ. I HAD TO DANCE!! Why?!? I had my AK -- how about just plugging the DJ in the gut, and stealing her equipment??

My right thumb is now the strongest muscle in my body after spending 25 minutes repeatedly pressing the "X" button on a treadmill in the gym. It's true, you can run a treadmill, ride a stationary bike, lift weights. Whee. What a thrill. (Sarcasm alert!)

It may get better, but so far it has removed everything I loved about the previous chapters and added in elements from rhythm games and game like The Sims to bog it down in minutia. It should be called Grand Theft Auto: Tamagatchi... your character is more of a virtual pet than a gangster. Worried about your hairdo... what were they THINKING?

By the way -- Graphics: OUTSTANDING. Environment: HUGE. Story: WENT AWAY (you supposedly came back because your mother was murdered and then you're framed for a murder... then all that goes away somehow). Dialog: My street lingo is a little out of date to understand much of what they're saying. It sounds like it's probably good - it's acted well - but I don't get a lot of it.

I'll try it for a little while more, but I am kicking myself for spending $50 on a game I assumed would be amazing. The first 20-some-odd missions sure aren't.

HEY! It's been weeks since I've posted anything. And the event described actually happened last week... but it's a story I've told a bunch of times, and want to remember, so I figured I'd give some folks something to read...

At about 4:15 am, I heard some pounding noises outside my bedroom window. It's kind of a scary thing to wake up to something like that. I realized what it was pretty quickly: some animal had noticed that I had thrown away half a pizza, and was trying to get to it. The thumping was pretty loud, I thought. But I KNEW I wouldn't sleep until I knew what it was. I was a little worried it was a bear, but I figured I'd just go outside, peek around the corner, shine my flashlight in the general direction of the garbage, and the animal's bearness would be swiftly apparently, and then I could just go back inside.

So I put on some pajama pants, and went out. I shined the light, and saw a little grey fur. A raccoon! Well, he'll be easy to chase away! So I walked over there, and there was actually 4 raccoons. Two were standing next to the garbage can, apparently on watch. The other Two were busy with the garbage can -- they couldn't get the lid off, but they managed to shift it off to the side a little bit. One guy had basically just his head in, but the other was in up to his hips.

The raccoons were not large -- maybe about the size of a small full-grown cat in length, with raccoon girth. They were so beautiful.

The two on watch just stared at me for a second, frozen. Then, guard number one gave up and quickly hobbled off, leaving just his buddy watching me. The other two were still busy with the pizza remnants.

Guard number 2 then ELBOWED the raccoon with just his head in the can. I swear he did. He never stopped looking at me, and he tapped his buddy in a gesture of, "Dude. Dude. There's a dude here. We gotta go."

The guy with his head in the can backed out. He looked at me, and shook his head in disgust. He and his buddy ambled off.

So NOW it's just the guy half in the can. And he's pretty involved in his meal. So I started to yell at him -- "Hey." "Hey!" "HEY!" He didn't seem to care at all. So then I poked him in the butt with my flashlight.

STILL nothing! He was just munching away.

If you've ever checked my profile, you know that one of my Interests is "trying to pet wild animals". What a perfect time to do just that. So...


I pet him. I PET HIM!

He was pretty soft.

As soon as I pet him, he totally stiffened up, but he didn't back out. I was a little worried he was stuck. So I took advantage of the situation and pet him again. I scratched him a little.
Then he backed out. And sat down and looked at me. I told him to "Get outta here, silly." but he seemed content. I thought about trying to pet him again, but now he was teeth-first, so I was a bit reluctant.

I stomped a foot right in front of him, and he wandered under my car.
I righted the garbage can, and took the pizza out of it. I was bringing it back towards the house to put it in a plastic bag. I got near the back of my car, and the raccoon was just sitting there! He was looking at me. He was so cute. He seemed pretty unafraid. I told him how cute he was, and moved on towards the house. I looked over my shoulder, and he was following me! Like he was thinking, "Where are we going to eat that pizza?"

I went inside, and he was sitting right outside the screen door. I bid him goodnight, and went to the kitchen and bagged up the pizza.

As I walked back to bed, he was still sitting outside looking in.

Freaky old dude.

Am I the only one who is COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT by the old dude in the new Six Flags commercials?!?



I always thought he was kind of freaky for some reason, but he has apparently even crept into my subconscious. I had a dream last night that a bunch of friends and I were on that Six Flags bus that he drives in the commercials. I assume we got on it in order to go to Great Adventure -- We were riding up a narrow road against the side of a cliff, and he kept looking back at us with the freaky mouth-open crazy-eyed look he has. He kept glancing off the road and speeding up -- we were all yelling at him to slow down, and he just kept shaking his head and speeding up. As we got near the top of the hill he gleefully drove right off the road.

I did wake up before we all plunged to our fiery death, but I assume that was the conclusion.

I don't think I can go to Great Adventure any time soon.

300!

Hey. I just checked my profile for some unknown reason, and I noticed: I've made exactly 300 posts.

Well, this one is actually 301. But still...

Radio is the sound salvation.

MUSIC FROM SPACE!!

This weekend, I picked up a Sirius satellite radio system. It is the most awesome thing ever. I think it is tremendous.




New Jersey, at least where I am, has a dearth of radio stations. It's either pop or classic rock, and it just gets tired after a while. And there's not even any good talk radio (Air America on 1190 AM comes in sporadically).

NOW, I have more music than I can ever stand. It is amazing.

My favorite channels:
10: the bridge
18: the spectrum
21: alt nation
22: 1st wave
24: sirius disorder (this is probably my ABSOLUTE fave)
26: left of center
64: chill
146: cracked up comedy
147: raw dog

But I listen to lots of others, as well.

I haven't spent much time on the Classic Radio Show channel or the Discovery Channel but I'm sure I will.

They have 120 channels. If you like to listen, this thing is for you. I don't care what you like the listen to... it's here. I'm really blown away.

I got the car AND home kits, and I couldn't be happier.

The only negative: The other night, there was basically a monsoon going on around my house, and the signal got interrupted quite a bit. I went out and did some antenna adjusting, and it seemed to help, but during the worst of the rain, it was kind of choppy.

Go buy this thing. It rocks.

ACK.

The picture below shows exactly what you don't want to see in the wine glass as you finish the wine.

I was enjoying a nice glass of Merlot, and tossing back the last swig, and as I was tipping the empty glass back down, I saw, curled up against the side, a BIG HAIRY SPIDER.

He was HAIRY.

I still have the shivers. Yeeps.