*kicks Ike in the junk*


:evil:

or how I time-traveled 12 hours into the future in a matter of seconds

12 Hours. TWELVE. That is a half day to lose myself in a game... and not just lost, I mean I could probably have been declared a missing person by hour 7. I wasn't even taking bathroom breaks. What game could do this to me?

Spore.

It is an odd combination of minor letdowns, and exceeding my expectations all at once. This game really kicked me back to those days of old where you just sit there and time passes in the blink of an eye.

"Hello gaming addiction, it's been awhile."

I was immediately put off by the fact that the cell is pre-designed. I had been expected to be given nothing but a little paramecium blob that could do nothing but consume and reproduce. So instead of starting completely from scratch as I had anticipated, I was given basically what amounts to 'someone else's' critter for which I had to choose a 'herbivore' or 'carnivore' diet, and I could then from that point on develop as I pleased.

That initial hurdle passed, I began swimming about in the water. Clicking about, pecking at things trying to find what's edible, and what sees me as edible. (Turns out a lot of things found me to be tasty, several times.) I noticed as I moved through the levels and as my cell evolved, there were a lot of subtle things going on. Little stuff, environmental effects, dynamic music, and even my cell went from being a transparent cell to more and more solid until eventually it was a 'creature.' I didn't actually notice that until towards the end. I actually wanted to stick around in the tide pool phase, to find the last of 6 parts, but apparently you are limited to collecting 100 'DNA Points' and then you are more or less forced onto land. I could have kept swimming around all day, but since I hit the DNA cap, it didn't seem like there was much point. So I clicked the button and slapped on some legs.

Slightly bummed about the premature landfall, but excited to see the creature stage, I moved on. This is where I really got sucked in. I was a carnivorous... giant... ant-looking... thing. I renamed him from Wigglius Wormus to Whatant. I had all these preconceived notions about what I wanted to evolve my creature into, which went right out the window as soon as I got a good look at my Whatant for the first time. I had always pictured myself evolving this 6 legged beast with 4 hands, 1 eye and a silly hat. I still could or could have done that probably if I kept at it. However, the really cool thing about this part of the game is that you find your own creativity becomes, in a word, unpredictable. You can only evolve the parts you find, so you have to appropriately adapt accordingly. My Whatant ceased to be a... whatever it was, and became something more like a very small Tyrannosaurus with a shark head, and tiny insect wings, that inexplicably gave him a very limited flight ability - which I called 'Archeosaur.' I tried to keep in the middle, making friends with some animals, and just eating the whole population of another. I ended up eating more than friending though. My Archeosaur was a vicious predator and wanted to kill everything in sight. By the end of the creature phase, he stood high on two legs, and looked more like a giant owl/human hybrid with big feathered wings, and angry eyes. As I looked at the final incarnation of my creature I thought to myself "how the hell did I get there?" I named him 'Arch Angel' (given his devilish, evil disposition, I figured I may as well make a pun where I can)

The tribal phase was brought on by a great little video of my creature beating a rock with a stick and deciding it was a good idea. (It's a throwback to an older movie - but I'll let you guys figure it out for yourselves) Again, I'm met with a disappointment of not being able to design my own hut, but it was quickly forgotten, the big thing here is other tribes. I designed the outfits for my creatures, which for some reason I couldn't figure out how to color without changing the color scheme of my creature himself. Which I did NOT want to do, I'm sure I just missed something. I hope. I set a few of them to fish, and took the others hunting. I even domesticated a few of the local wild life, which as far as I could tell did nothing except get me a badge. I put down a few of the available buildings, which made it possible to equip my tribe with axes or diggery doo's. At that point another tribe established itself not far from my own. I then gave everyone an instrument, and went to try to make allies. Once I figured out the mini game, it was simple as could be. I made friends, and all was well. They even brought me food every now and then, which is always nice. My tribe upgraded, I got a bigger hut, and I was on my way. Then 3 or 4 more tribes popped up, and I made every effort to be friendly, but that just didn't happen. They were all bastards and were consequently destroyed.

Civilization was then established; I built my first 'city hall' - a rather hideous first attempt at a building and up popped my first city. I did horribly at this section - by the time I figured out what was going on I had just taken over my first city (by military means, naturally) and I was pretty much bankrupt. Meanwhile, one of the other civilizations had taken over EVERYTHING else, and there was just no way I was going to be able to build a big enough army. So I started trading with them, hoping to get enough money to at least make an attempt. Then the city I was trading with came up for sale, and I bought it. Economic takeover st_yle! Then they offered an alliance, which I took, and then I magically had control of everything. "Of course!" I exclaimed to myself. "That was my strategy all along. It's all part of the master plan you fools! You fell right into my trap!" :roll: I then realized I had completely forgotten about building air vehicles of any type, for which I was awarded the 'Fear of Flying' badge for completing the stage with no air units. Like I said... all part of the master plan.

So it was time to launch my first space ship... which again was absolutely hideous.. It looked like an old shoe that a dog got a hold of. (I upgraded it later to look better)

From there, it's all about upgrading the ship, establishing trade routes, alliances, and taking over EVERYTHING. I'm not too far right now... establishing colonies and getting planets up to a certain point so they can maintain ecosystems is time consuming (and expensive) but I'm getting the hang of it. My creatures aren't starting wars left and right anymore, so it's mostly just about trying to expand..... for now. I haven't really even scratched the surface of the space phase yet, and I could probably play for a month straight and not cover everything just in my own little part of the galaxy. Plus I had to go to the bathroom, and I realized it was almost 2am.

All in all, despite some minor flaws and disappointments, this is still an overall great game - and I have no doubt it will keep me occupied for quite some time to come. By the way, I picked up the Galactic edition, and it comes in a pretty sweet hard case, a nice art book, a 'making of' documentary, and another evolution documentary by NatGeo that apparently features Spore. I also picked up Prima's Limited edition guide, which comes with a really nice hardbound art book that chronicles the literal 'evolution' of the game itself, written by the developers - complete with what stages were before they got to their final incarnation, what got cut, and what never was... as well as a long introduction by Will Wright which is an interesting read. (I didn't finish reading it, because the install completed) :D

Anyways, I have to get back to work and stop thinking about Spore. :cry:

This blog has nothing to do with spam, I just couldn't think of a title.



Okay, since Gamespot's NEW blog list is ridiculously short, it's harder to keep track of all my friends 'still current/active' blogs. I know you can click and see them all, but I usually forget to do that. So..... sorry guys.

Anyways, I said this in my last blog, but since it's likely I was on your list for all of 20 seconds (THANKS GAMESPOT)I'll say it again: I'm back to Gold on XBL - so add me! :D

I'll try to have a real topic next time.

There is no italicized subtitle for this one.

Another birthday come and gone. This year I really did have a good time - and oddly enough, I managed to incorporate my family into my stupidity... normally those two things are kept very, VERY separate. However I suppose as I get older, it becomes silly to hide how much of an idiot I really am.

I had originally anticipated this year to be similar to last year, wherein I take myself out to dinner, sing "happy birthday to me" go home, get drunk, and try to take advantage of myself after slipping myself a mickey.

This time people actually called me!! My mom and her boyfriend took me out to a really nice sushi place where I started hitting the crown and cokes like Rocky on the speed bag. We must have spent a good 3 hours there, our waitress was awesome - and she even came and sat with us a bit when her shift was over. (What can I say? I'm just a lot of fun) :P

Anyways, after we got back to my place, my aunt came by and my friends were starting to give me the obligatory calls, and then EVERYONE ended up invited to my place. Thus were the beginnings of a totally spur of the moment party - which was also a great suprise. My friends know better than to get me anything, but they always bring me a bottle of Jack or Crown for my b-day. It's some weird tradition that got started somehow like 5 years ago. I don't know who's idea it was originally, but it makes for a really full liquor cabinet! :D

So after a few rounds of boozing, we all decide it's time to break out the 'Scene It' - which for those of you who haven't played this game with a bunch of friends on your 360, I highly recommend you do so. It's a blast, and it really helps loosen up the ones who might not be having a lot of fun. (Note: For the ones who are already having fun, there is a good chance they'll increase their personal volumes to reflect the increase in fun. Mute them with a straw in a glass of straight vodka or whiskey. i.e. alchy-bottle)

Saturday started out kind of rough, but considering how much I actually drank, it wasn't bad! The day began again, and although my birthday was over, I still had to go see the rest of my family. This time I went to my grandmothers house, where eventually everyone else gathered. Including a very slow moving mom and Chris (her boyfriend) which was hilarious to me for some reason. We ordered from this Italian place not to far from here, and had a great meal. After we disbursed, I ended up back here at home, where I was eventually kidnapped by a friend and taken downtown to a place called 'Pub Fiction' - for those of you who want to know what kind of bar it is, pubfiction.com should sum it up for you. (Just click on photos.. that should pretty much do it) I don't remember a lot of that night.... but Sunday absolutely SUCKED.


Lucky me though - I took Monday through Wednesday off from work. Yesterday was more along the lines of 'pain in the a$$' than vacation though. As some of you may know, my computer committed suicide a few weeks ago by setting fire to itself. I was holding out for a new laptop... but I'm only so strong. I broke down and headed WAY out to Fry's Electronics, where I picked up a new case, mobo, and cpu. I pulled the case out of the box, and immediately noted that the thing was about 1 and a half times bigger than my previous incarnation. A definite step backwards for me, as I had built the last one with the express intention of NOT having a gargantuan computer taking up a whole room ala HAL or H-VAC. Whatever it was called. None the less, I moved foward, desperate to rejoin the internet world. I had the case in pieces, the motherboard was out of it's box and set firmly in place within the case... the cpu went in, and the cables were meticulously attached to the proper places on the motherboard.

Ram.

I forgot the ******* RAM. Naturally my old mobo doesn't use this new-fangled gadgetry, so it was useless, as is my AGP nvidia card, and BOTH of my hard drives. New board has ONE, that is 1 as in not two but ONE ide slot. Which is automatically relegated to the dvd drive. The hard drives have to be connected via SATA. Which, of course, mine are (once again) too old to have such fancy-schmancy-ness.

So away to Best Buy I go. Once inside I start looking at hard drives. 1TB sata drive is about 200 bucks... not bad I guess... so I grabbed it. Gritting my teeth as my mind works to justify this nonsense. I then go for ram. Theres a sale for a 2mb stick for about 50 bucks. So I grab one of those. Oh right the video card... a decent one is going to run me another 200 bucks, so I grab that. My arms are loaded. I get the idea that I should grab a USB jump drive... Theres a 16gb one for about 35 bucks. I'm thinking this will assist me in transferring anything on my other two drives worth saving to the new sata drive. As I began to make my slow painful walk to the check out counter, I stop in the laptop section. I looked at them. Then looked at all the crap in my arms. 450 bucks on a case, mobo and cpu... another 500+ in my arms. Good LORD. Why don't I just get a damn laptop!? My mind spun the angles... it's what I've been wanting, it's not *much* more expensive than building a new one with similar specs, and although it wouldn't be the ultimate beast I wanted - it would still blow my old system out of the water no matter what I got. So I put all that crap back on the shelves and took off. I boxed up everything and drove BACK to Fry's to return this junk. The case they took back no problem. The motherboard? Missing a cable, and apparently a 'pin' was slightly bent. No go. So I drove ALL THE WAY back home, found the stupid cable and threw it in the box, I found the pin they were oh so picky about, and manuevered it back into a shape similar to the ones around it...

This morning I, once again, drove all the way the hell out to Fry's, racking up probably a good 100 miles in roundtrips to this place, and about 9 bucks on the tollway fares. Returned the mobo and cpu with no problems. (imagine that!) and made my escape from desktop land.

I now write this to you in the comfort of my living room from a brand new laptop. Which must now be restarted as it is finished updating itself. For you spec monkeys, it's a Gateway P-7811FX should you care to know.

I know I love it. :D

_________
Update (2) :


I have delved once again into the land of XBL Gold Membership so I can partake in the reindeer games of old. Add me if you haven't already. (Valek1394 for those of you who don't see the gamertag glaring at you from the shadows)

because thats exactly what this is.


Today is my 27th birthday.

Dudes, line up to my right for handshakes and highfives.

Ladies, to my left for hugs and makeouts

That is all. :D

The countdown to drunken debauchery begins....

"Not enough mana"

I don't know how I got myself into this... well - yes I do. I'm a gamer, and it's my nature. I was sitting in my office Friday, getting ready to head out of town for the weekend to our bay house in Galveston. I knew the weather was not going to be conducive to boating, or chilling out on the deck, but my cousin was in from New York, my aunt was in from Austin, and an uncle was in from New Mexico - and I only get to see them roughly twice a year I wasn't about to sit it out when I could be getting free meals.

Anyhoo - I pondered about games to take with me for the inevitable waking hours where it's just me and my grandfather quietly sitting around reading the paper or watching tv waiting for everyone else to get up. Then I realize: I have NO games going that aren't so epic in scale I would have to devote significant parts of my trip to my handheld. (points if you managed to not read that last sentence and not make a dirty joke..... especially if you're GME or Steel :evil: )

So I go to gamestop and browsed the DS games. I thought about getting the New SMB or Mario 64 DS, but then I saw Phoenix Wright. I had forgotten I wanted that game back when it came out - I snagged it for 20 bucks and off I went. I didn't actually get to start playing it until yesterday afternoon, but I tell you I couldn't put it down. It's exceedingly simple in play, but getting all the little clues and putting the pieces together is addictive fun, and best of all - it's short. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to actually COMPLETE games. My backlog stands as testament. While its number isn't quite as high as some others around here, my collection is also on the small side. I have nearly a 1:1 ratio of owned to incompletes on games I've purchased in the last 3 or 4 years. Sure I've beaten a few, but I've got so many going right now, and most of them are RPGs, it's like, EVERYWHERE I look, I have to go on a side quest, or some fetch quest, or level grind until my eyes bleed. All of which I LOVE mind you. HOWEVER, the reason I skip around in games a lot is because I just don't have the time to devote to these games I love so much... it's almost easier to just start a new game than try to remember what the hell I was trying to accomplish the last time I picked up another one. Lost Odyssey is a good example. I hadn't touched it in like 3 or 4 months until last week. I couldn't for the LIFE of me remember who was where, why, or what I was doing with any of them. I WAS quickly reminded of how much I hate token children in video games though.... which of course leads to my preternatural hatred of ACTUAL children as well.

Disclaimer: Now, for you breeders and baby worshippers out there in minivan land, (by the way... kid worship... not healthy, get help. Quick. Think of the children.) I'm not saying that won't one day change for me, so put away your killing sticks, and spare me the "that'll change when you have your own precious snowflake" speeches.

Moving right along......

I've commented in passing on other blogs about this topic, but I'll go ahead and touch ground on it while it's rolling around in my head: Glitchspot v. 2.0.1

It's still unforgiving with its errors, and vanishing comments, and it seems that it loads and reloads some pages 2 or 3 times depending on what you're clicking on. My #1 gripe though is the tracked blogs, and by proxy, this 'feed' section. I say get rid of it and let my friends blogs take up that whole column. Other than that, I really do like the overall look. It's much cleaner, and makes better use of modern screens... which I appreciate given that most of my internetting is spent here. So kudos to the design team on everything except the tracked blogs, for which I award no points, and may god have mercy on their souls.


... and yes I realize that is not the WHOLE quote, but it doesn't quite fit the context here in it's entirety. :p

I plead insanity

Okay, so my computer. It's dead.

Similar to my 360 fiasco, for those of you that remember when it became possessed by Linda Blaire and tried to kill me - my computer exploded. Again, while I was in another room - it never fails, I leave electronics alone for a few seconds and they blow up. What is the deal here?

So after checking my email, I decide to update my ipod, which of course is nowhere near me, but in the depths of my briefcase in another room. As I'm fishing my nano out, I hear a loud pop.... Or maybe crack would be a better word. I thought for a moment maybe someone had thrown a rock at my window, but it bounced off instead of breaking it. I ran to the back room, everything appears normal at first glance, then I notice my screen is blank.

I mused for a moment that my screensaver was probably on... but I had a feeling that was just not going to be the case....... Especially after I realized I turned my screensaver off earlier because it kept coming on while I was trying to read through various articles.

I moved the mouse.... Nothing.

I hit a few keys on the keyboard..... Nothing.

I danced naked in the streets to Clay Aiken..... I got a few restraining orders... but alas, my computer remained..... 'dead in the water'. This phrase bears foreshadowing. Re read with lightening in the background and more slowly for the intended dramatic effect.

I cracked open the case, nothing seemed to be out of order, I noticed the inside base looked darker than usual, but I assumed it was a healthy covering of dust since it's been literally 3 years since I opened the thing up. I then proceeded to check all the cables pushing at everything with my screwdriver, tried pushing at the cards to make sure they were secure, etc. - all this in various combinations and trying to get the screen to come up. I still got nothing. Bad video card, that has to be it!

No.

I pulled out an old card that I KNEW worked fine, plugged everything in and ........ nothing.

"**** you!" I say aloud to my computer, knowing full well it's messing with my head.

At that point I decided to just let it sit there and think about what it did, while I go amuse myself watching TV.

Two random made-for-TV movies later, I returned to the room to see if it has learned its lesson. Naturally it hadn't, but I was too tired to care, I had Tuesday off because my company was shutting down due to "inclement weather." Plenty of time to fix it tomorrow.

So I lay down, and in the silence, I hear dripping. Like those old cartoons where the leaky faucet drives the character to ridiculous measures to stop it, and ultimately to insanity. I got up, thinking the air conditioning was leaking - no. It was fine... I checked the bathroom, and even the kitchen, which I can't hear the sink if it's on full blast from my room, why I'd check is beyond me... the only reason I can come up with is desperation.

The same for the upstairs bathroom and my reason for wandering around outside looking at drain pipes and hoses.

I returned to my room, listening to the dripping. I could feel my eyes pulsing in sync with my heart beat and that incessant drip drip drip dripping. "Where the HELL is that coming from!?"

Then my eyes fell on the PC.

No. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I turned on all the lights, grabbed my flash light and shined as much into the case as I could. It was the reservoir for my liquid cooling system, the intake hose had come loose, Worse, I followed the trail of coolant, and found it had been using the IDE cables as it's own personal autobahn straight to my motherboard... it had apparently been leaking for a day or two judging by the saturation, and the small, green puddle accumulating at the bottom of the case. How did I miss it earlier you might ask... I didn't. It was the "darker than usual color" I had originally chalked up to a bunch of dust.

I pulled everything out, cleaned it all off, and drained the cooling system. Upon further inspection of the motherboard, it turns out that the crack I had heard was it splitting from behind the IDE plugs where most of the liquid had accumulated, and there were several burn marks leading up the right side of it towards the RAM slots, either from extreme heat or there had been a tiny fire in like 4 places. :roll:

So now I am torn between building a new system - or going ahead with my desire for a top of the line laptop. On the one hand I save a lot of money, and I have the flexibility to upgrade over time, but I'm once again stuck with a desktop, which I really don't want anymore. On the other hand, I spend a LOT more money, but I get pretty much what I've been wanting for a few years now, and I'll be able to carry it with me whenever I leave town, which is a HUGE plus for me. Decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, I may have to slap together a cheap computer anyways to try and salvage my media hard drive... it's the one with all my music and pictures on it, that'd I'd really hate to lose. Unless any of you know a way to get an internal HDD to hook up to a laptop temporarily for a quick data transfer??


:cry:

Not 100% evil.... yet.

Okay, so to change things up and show that not EVERY aspect of my personality is embittered and jaded by life and women, a few quick updates:

1) If you have a 360, have access to XBL Marketplace, and have an hour to kill - Download the 'Too Human' demo.

I played this the other night, and it was a blast! The level of customization with items and equipment is impressive, and the skill leveling system is pretty cool as well. I'm not sure how the full game will change this, if at all, but you have your skill tree with two branches (though technically it's three) You have your guns/ranged skills, swords/melee and off of that you have what essentially is magic, but it's not straight up "fire spell" "wind spell" or whatever, it just gives you the ability to infuse your existing melee attacks with a specific element, where the melee tree gives you more physical attacks, and the ranged tree develops into better accuracy, rapid fire attacks, etc. I didn't really mess with the ranged portion to be honest.

The armor and weapons in your equipment menu are pretty intuitive once you get used to it. I admit, I was confused as hell when I first got into it - but about 15 minutes in, after I started getting a lot of loot packed away and trading out old pieces of armor for better ones, and switching to stronger weapons, making new pieces, attaching runes for different effects - before I knew it, I was staring at the screen thinking "man, I am AWESOME."

2) I picked up a new DS lite yesterday, and along with it, I grabbed Final Fantasy III - I used to have a pretty good assortment of DS games when I had my other DS lite, of course - that was a few years ago, I was young, stupid, and my girlfriend at the time turned out to be a thief.

ANYWAYS - This game has got a lot of that old school charm I had been wanting a dose of lately. This game certainly delivers in spades on that front - but it is a tricky devil. Maybe I'm just out of practice, but the difficulty level is certainly up there, which isn't a bad thing, but it's kicking my @$$ pretty good at the moment. I've had to restart the whole game twice now because of my forgetting to save. :cry:

The only other game for the DS that has my attention at the moment is Final Fantasy IV, which I believe was II for the rest of us. I replayed that game a few years ago on a borrowed SNES, and loved it. I've beaten that game probably 5 times, and I come back to it every 3 or 4 years for another round. It's up there in my all time favorites. I would have gotten it yesterday, but since I've NEVER played FFIII, I opted for the story I didn't know.

Good times.

kicking and screaming, because sometimes you just have to.

Have you ever just had like a two or three week period where, at the beginning, you find yourself only mildly annoyed - yet by, lets call it Tuesday - July 22, 2008 - You are so completely irritated at everything around you that you find it's probably better to just shut up and keep your head down before you say something you'll regret?

I obviously am not heeding my own advice, but I'll try to keep the rage under control. You know, for the ******* kids.

Gaming : I don't know what it is, I've complained and whined about all this before - but I'm in a serious funk. All this "E3" nonsense is not even remotely interesting to me anymore. I watched all of a combined 18 seconds of the coverage and was bored in less than that. Flipping through my latest issue of GameInformer, every story I see is yet another article on how great some upcoming FPS will be, and consequently I shuffle the pages saying out loud to myself as I pass each FPS rundown "boring, boring, boring, boring, boring" That's really what it comes down to I guess. BORING.

Drama : This crap has managed to creep it's way into every aspect of my life. Career, personal, online.. it's EVERYWHERE. I can't stand this soap opera of "I'm going to Giant Bomb because GS is t3h suxxorZ" That's fine, do what you want. Come back and say hi sometime, but all this constant "I'm leaving foreverz because of (whatever)" is getting real old, real fast. Meanwhile at work a superior is making my CO-WORKERS lives a living hell, not MINE - theirs, and yet - it is AFFECTING me there so much, that it stays with me ALL THE TIME NOW. At home, trying to get my mind off of the OTHER crap I'm dealing with, what pops in there? WORK. **** that.

Whoever the hell vandalized my car: **** you too.

The last few weeks have been a real rough ride, one of my good friends was killed by a drunk driver, that same week my car got broken into, and someone ripped the fuse box apart and destroyed my electrical system, so I didn't have a car for several days there, crap at work, crap at home, crap in my head. I've lost interest in my only real hobby, (I'll assume that's temporary) there's probably at least 10 other things I can add and.... and I just realized that I REALLY hate it when people endlessly smack their gum.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go remove someone's gum from their mouth. With a hammer.

another list of stuff I just flat out hate. I have to do these every now and then or I explode.

People who use the letters 'u' and 'r' in place of the words 'you' and 'are' - Is it really too much of a hassle to type out the whole ******* word? Seriously, it's three letters - and it's becoming and epidemic. This also goes for anyone who uses the contractions of those letters for yours, and you're. As in: "If ur that lazy then u should be SHOT." Or "Shall I kill u with my steak knife, or urs?

Anyone who pronounces "internet speak" ... I've said this in passing before, but please - allow me to elaborate a tiny bit. If I am say, walking through the mall - and I hear one of these kids say to one of their cleverly clothed pals as they exit the Hot Topic with their non conformist clothing, "We are so non-conformist. Society is about to get pwnt." I will not be held responsible for my actions.

Hypocrites, if this list were in any order - this would be at the top. Or just under liars... it's a tough call. These people have a double standard for everything, and this group encompasses a lot of others that I hate. You can NOT tell someone it is not okay for them to do or say something, then immediately turn around and do it yourself. Lead by example if you want to start telling people what to do. Otherwise, shut the **** up.

Carlos Mencia. Screw you Ned. This guy WAS mildly amusing to me several years ago. For roughly 12 and a half minutes... maybe less. Then he became "famous" - I use quotations here because he's not really. He thinks he is - but since his material never evolves, he's just another flash in the pan. Now he's this guy with a severe Napoleonic Complex, and a beer gut. He compares himself to George Carlin in how he's "fearless" to approach any topic. That right there makes me want to strap him to an Acme Rocket and fire him into the sun. Never mind his obnoxious dee-dee-dee'ing all over the place.

While I'm on the topic of un-funny people.... Will someone PLEASE do something about Larry the Cable Guy? The only thing 'Cable Guy' about him is the fact that he keeps showing up on Comedy Central, which of course, it on cable. If you do a youtube search for his OLD stuff, you will find that ol' Larry is really just a chump from Seattle or something. I don't know where he's from - but the redneck thing is an over the top act, which for some reason has actual rednecks thinking they're ALL hilarious, and thus talk way more than should be allowed.

I've already handled rednecks in a previous entry. However this includes them as well - Nascar... I can start with the traditional "it's stupid to sit and watch cars make left turns all day" - however, I have to point out it takes a very specific mind to be entertained by that. I'm not saying if you see it on TV and are momentarily mesmerized, that makes you an idiot. However, spending any amount of money to go and watch cars run around a basic track, and *hope* for a crash... do I really need to say anything else?

Cops. I am TERRIFIED of these bastards. They're not ALL bad - but the majority of them seem to be, especially where I am. If they busted me for doing something truly awful, fine. Reap what I sow and all that. However, if I'm in a car accident, hurt badly, accused of "smelling like beer" (keep in mind I'm allergic to beer - and thus do not drink it) then proceed to have the ever living crap beat out of me after asking for a breathalyzer test... yeah, I'm going to get jumpy. Never mind getting pulled over for "speeding" then proceed to have the ever living crap beat out of me. Again... OH and walking down the sidewalk. That time I actually WAS drunk - but I was unaware it was illegal to walk drunk. I was thinking that rule was limited to operating vehicles. Silly me. That's a beatin'. The most twisted ***** in the city gravitate toward that job because it gives them 'authori-tah' and it's frightening. Especially when measured against how often they get away with it. I'm just one guy who happens to get beat up by cops. A lot. I know a few girls who have had much worse things happen and it's their word against the cops. Which means nothing will be done about it most likely. Imagine how THAT feels. ******* pigs... and people wonder why it's fun to blow them up in GTA.

Sports fanatics that can't understand my apathy towards sports in general... it's always the same thing. "You don't drink beer? You don't like sports? Are you gay No - I'm not gay I'm a huge fan of the ladies and I prefer alcohol that tastes good, plus the bonus effect of not throwing me into uncontrollable dry heaves as my body rejects it but can't because my throat is swollen shut. I like those two things so much in fact, I'd rather enjoy the company of my girlfriend and a nice scotch than watch a bunch of full grown men in tight clothing run after a ball and jump on each other. o.O

People who are impressed with their own financial standing so much that they must tell me about it. I refer to most of these types of people as 'new money' - but anyone who talks about money in terms of how much they have is a straight up jackass. It's rude to imply how wealthy you are. Suppose someone is going on and on about private jets and mansions, etc. The person they are talking to is scraping by at the poverty line. Guess who gets the a-hole award? If someone asks you how much you make, it is acceptable to just say "Not enough." Then shut the **** up about it.

This brings me to rappers. Some of it is actually clever. Most of it isn't. There is no winning on that level, because they're hypocrites. They rap about being poor, and how hard life is - then (most) go home to a huge house in a private limo. On the flipside, they rap about being rich and how much better they are - which makes them a straight up jackass. Either way they get paid a ridiculous amount of money which they will rap about on a later album. Therefore, the only solution is to allow rappers to make 3 albums, maximum and then they have to retire, never to be seen or heard from again. The first album is how it sucks to be poor and getting shot at... the second album is about how awesome it is to be rich, and it is during the second albums run that they are allowed to have endorsements and sponsors, and ONLY then. The third album, which must come no later than say, five years after the second (so they don't drag out those endorsements) is about how they look forward to retirement and it's nice to have money and insurance. Maybe they can work in some stock tips or something. They'll still be jackasses, but at least their time in the spotlight is limited. After that - P. Didley who? With luck this will have a bonus effect of getting rid of 'Cribs'. I'm not going to rant about Mtv, because everyone already knows it sucks.

Everyone on every reality tv show. Ever. The hatred I've had brewing for that genre of "entertainment" and the individuals who fill that festering cesspool is up there with my take on religion... and is definitely in the running to surpass it. I hate the premise of trying to find some washed up celebrity "love." They're not there to find a spouse. They are there because their career was over in 1989 and they're desperate for another 15 minutes. Why, why, WHY does the drama have to be filmed? I know the general answer to this is "just change the channel" but here's my problem - I don't HAVE to change the channel - I don't even TURN to that channel. However I must still HEAR about it from EVERYONE. Did you SEE what so and so said to this other person you've never heard of about (insert washed up celebrity here)!?" No. No I didn't - but you're about to force this information on me in a vicious rape of my ear hole, aren't you? So my problem is bigger than just the show. It's ALSO the people that watch and perpetuate these shows...American Idol needs to go away, Tyra Banks needs to fall off the planet, Flavor Flav needs to just die as punishment for bringing 'New York' onto my TV, and subsequently into every conversation I had with my ex girlfriend for a year. Now it's not just the washed up celebrities and pseudo-celeb's all of whom are desperate for attention. Now it seems ANYONE who is desperate enough for attention can have a show. Two words: Tila Tequila.

It's enough to make me fling myself off a cliff.