This was filmed by someone here in town on Monday, which was a rather icy day. I just stayed home and didn't even bother with this stuff.

( Woman Slain After Refusal to Cook Hamburger, Police Say )

This is one of those 'what the hell is happening to the world' stories.  I can't process this one. Seriously... what in the hell.

Thanks to kabakun for depressing the hell out of me with this.
edit - man lj formatting sucks ass today

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=bostock

I guess this is a sports story... sorta...

I have a few other posts that I need to make but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Work has been insane and I've actually been working for once. That's what happens when you inherit 3 or 4 other peoples' jobs.

I went back to the dentist for the first time in a while, I'm having 2 wisdom teeth pulled in a few weeks. They prescribed a nice sedative for me for the visit and vicodin for afterwards. I can has unconscious? Yes please. It's nice though, filling the vicodin prescription before the procedure is a lot nicer then having to do it afterwards.

I picked up Spore last weekend. It's a great game so far. I can understand the criticism about depth but Maxis usually tailors games to the casual audience anyway. The release was intriguing to watch as there was a bit of controversy surrounding the game's anti-piracy software. Amazon is currently showing a 1 star rating with over 2,000 people giving it just one star. The funny thing is 99% of those people haven't bought or played the game. I can understand the motivation and I hope the gaming industry takes a serious look at adjusting DRM in the future, but at the same time, I don't like the fact there seems to be no quality control at Amazon. They need to work harder to filter reviews for people that haven't bought the product. This goes both ways though, as there were a few 5-star reviews written 2 years before release.

FFXI still takes up the bulk of my time. 2 really good friends came back this last week and a few more are on the way. Now if I could just get a certain taru to switch servers for the eighth time, I'd have a pretty solid posse going. I'll post in more detail on FFXI later, but I really like where the devs are taking the game.

Other games taking up my time:

PC:
Spore
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One

PS3:
Madden 09
GTA IV

DS:
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker

It looks like Hotel Dusk is next up in the Gamefly Queue. I'm mostly finished with the Orange Box for now, so I'm sending it back next week. Eden may play it a bit, she seemed interested when I played. If anything, we'll just buy it later as it's definitely worth the used price I'm finding for it. Besides, I'm going to hold off on buying new games for now as I have plenty to play and am trying to save up for a new tv.

One last note, it looks like FIOs is finally coming. Verizon is doing prep work in the complex next week. I'm hoping they're doing both the internet and tv service, as it will save us a ton of money.

That's it for now. I'll do a PAX post soon when I get the pictures uploaded.

PAX post and FFXI post coming soon... really...

Heading to Seattle for the weekend. Have fun in all your various endeavours. Not seeing utada after all since she'll be in Portland.  >.>

I'll check this thread tonight and tomorrow night if anyone wants me to check out anything in particular for them.

www.pennyarcadeexpo.com/

I've been rather slow in adopting the current generation of gaming hardware. This was due to a few reasons, most of which involve money and our typical lack thereof. We ended up purchasing a Wii back in February with part of our refund and I love the thing. It's easily one of my favorite consoles ever. However, recently my pull towards one of the heavy hitters has grown stronger. As much as I love some of the 360 lineup, the PS3 ended up being my choice. So I started packing in some extra hours so I could save up.

So fast forward to my recent payday. I have enough set aside that I decided to take a risk. I bought a used PS3 with no HD off of eBay. By all accounts, the drive is easily replaced or upgraded and the fact it was considered 'broken' because it didn't have one, made the unit a worthwhile investment in my eyes. The only risk was making sure it would work with a new drive. Along with that, I wasn't sure of the model, so I didn't no if it was backwards compatible with my PS1 and PS2 games. BC isn't a necessity, but it's nice to have, especially since we still play a lot of FFXI. Regardless, the risk was worth the savings so I made the purchase and the payment and set out to find a nice cheap drive. I got one at Fry's for a good price.

On my way out, I decided to see if I could figure out why my brakes had been squeaking and turned the front tires out as far as they would go. Well, I couldn't see anything wrong with the suspension or brakes, but the front tires were shot. I was down to the steel on the inside of both of them. I bit the bullet and took it in, they recommended new brakes as well. All told it rang up to around $400. Luckily, mom had set aside some money for me from my grandmother's estate, so we got it taken care of.

Anyway, the PS3 showed up today and beyond a small glitch (they kept the drive tray when they removed the drive), everything seemed to check out ok. I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that it was originally a 60gb unit, so I have BC after all. All in all I have a 160gb PS3 with BC for less then half of what I would have paid new for an 80gb unit. The only game I have so far is Madden, but I'll grab GTA and MGS4 in the next couple months.

My PSN ID is eticket109 if anyone wants to add me

In other news, I have a doctors appointment tomorrow. I haven't been to anything but a 24 hour clinic in a few years, so it will me nice to have my own physician again. Hopefully I can get some of the little things that have been bothering me taken care of. On the annoying side, it's a fasting appointment so I won't be able to eat again for another 12 hours. I'm hungry but I'm just going to bed in a few minutes anyway. Not having any caffeine in the morning is what's going to kill me.

I need a favor from someone who's going to be there.

I'm still planning on making a huge movie post about all the movies we've seen lately.

In the meantime...

The Dark Knight was fucking amazing... and I am very... very tired.

pixiehawk = 0044 3451 0230
my code is  = 1891 1553 3125

( The adventure behind the purchase... )

As a sports fan, today is far too important of a day for me to fuck around with the likes of you. The NFL draft is a sports nerd paradise and you will not take it away from me.

If you insist on this course of action, a few things will happen.

I will fight like hell.

I will fight dirty.

I will win.

Get the hell out of my head and go away.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/ral/603028751.html


I have 'real' stuff to post about but I never seem to sit down and do it.  lol

We had to put mom's cat to sleep. I guess he was as much Eden's as he was hers, but he was really mom's. She loved that cat like her third child. I guess that makes sense, since the only people he ever really seemed to get close to were mom and I.

Zinny was a good cat, he was just misunderstood. I remember being told by pixiehawk when we first started going out about 5 years ago how 'evil' Zinny was. When I met him the first time he growled at me and swiped at me. I just laughed at him and scratched the top of his head. We were pretty much buddies after that. I just knew not to force the issue on him and I didn't back down from him or show any fear when he tried to 'attack'. After a while he'd come around for pets instead of coming around to growl at me.

I can't say I blamed him for being crotchety either. He was the king of the house for a long time. Then all of a sudden he had another cat living with him. Then without warning there were two more. If that weren't bad enough, he soon had five little kittens crawling around too. If all that happened to me at 13, I'd be pretty pissed at the world too. Regardless, he got mean from time to time but he respected the other cats and gave them their space.

This is going to be pretty rough on me too I think, even though I didn't know him nearly as long. Zinny had a weird quirk about water. He would drink out of the bowl if he had to but he loved to drink straight from a faucet. I remember being surprised the first time I went to take a shower and he ran into the shower with me, yowling at me to turn the water on. I let it drip for a bit and he drank some and splashed around for a little while and went on his way again. I'll probably think about him whenever I take a shower for a while.

I knew something was wrong. The last few days he just wasn't himself. He'd been sleeping in the kitchen on the mat and just didn't seem too active. Then his meow last night just seemed 'off' somehow. Then when mom picked him up and started crying I just knew it was bad. I probably should have gotten the clue when he started trying to get out again the last couple weeks. Then again, he never liked being trapped inside here. I'm glad I was able to take him out for a little while and let him roll around in the grass a few weeks back.

I didn't know him quite as long, but I think I'm really going to miss that mean old bastard.

It'll be tough buddy, but I'll take care of mom and Eden for you. Here's hoping you have all the running water to play in that you could ever want. I'll keep Toby in line so he doesn't start strutting around like he owns the place. See you on the other side old man. Love ya.

This is a pretty powerful read. The sad thing is, there are thousands of stories just like this one. Why are we over there again? Hopefully this shit will end for a little while come January. Then again, it's only a matter of time before we have to show the rest of the world how giant our cock is again. Maybe next time it will be for something a little more worthwhile.

On a semi-related note, I was flipping through channels and came across a movie called TV Junkie. It was late and I needed to go to bed, but I couldn't stop watching. It's a documentary, just about 75 minutes long altogether. It's about a man named Rick Kirkham. Rick started taping himself at about the age of 14 and continued to throughout his life. He would record video diaries on a regular basis along with any significant event that was happening around him. He got into news and became a major correspondent on Inside Edition. Along the way, he got married and had two sons. He also became addicted to crack cocaine. The documentary is almost entirely his footage edited together, detailing his addiction and the impact it had on his job, his family and himself. In a way it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The authenticity and just the raw realness of the film made it one of the most powerful I have seen in a long time. If you happen to have HBO, look for it. The trailer is online as well.

On a much lighter and more comedic note, everybody kills Hitler on their first trip.