Archived News starting from 04-25-2009 and earlier
BlogSomehow the square mile I reside in is prone to an immediate power outage when any reason to cause one is available. This time a coming storm plunged my house into the dark ages for a full 24 hours. Lisa and I immediately graced the
Kelleys with our presence, as our previously planned picnic was now cancelled due to thunderstorms. Our substitute Xbox picnic was almost as fun, with a
girl-gang battle in front of his house, and dinner by plasma screen light at the Redford Grille. I'm guessing other areas had a higher number of customers without power and DTE was focusing on them, since the truck that finally did come to repair our chewing gum and bailing wire grid was PCH Energy from Ohio. On the plus side, it was enough time to force unpacking and starting my
2400 watt generator, which powered my fridge, sump pump, Xbox/Projector and even a space heater without any sign of a struggle.
The new
Left 4 Dead Survival Pack launched last night creating a new game mode that turned out to be exceedingly difficult. Greeted with 20+ gas cans and propane tanks on a tiny map gave us a clue about what we'd be facing, but after exhausting all the explosives and lasting a maximum of 3 minutes it was a slaughter. The reason became clear after consulting the
spawn chart. Next up was versus mode on the two other campaigns which wasn't as exciting, but at least felt new. All in all not bad for a free download, and definitely something to get good at.
With the latest
Starcraft 2 Battle Report released, a zerg vs. terran battle is played out that's so far above my strategy level I have to just pretend to follow along.
Stavos then claimed to have a dream about playing the game which still does not even have a release date. Suspicious his dream was a fabrication, I asked for documentation and
received it. Proof of such a detailed dream can only mean he's a closet beta player, so cough up some Starcraft 2 beta copies for the rest of already.
This morning Michigan greeted me with 41 degrees, the warmest morning yet this year. I responded with multiple heavily choked ignition attempts, followed by a 10 minute warmup that still didn't fully convince my motorcycle it's warm enough to run. Fortunately, enough of the 36 horses available made the effort despite the cold and I was off to work with only 20% of my extremities lost to frostbite. I can only hope the hateful Michigan gods deliver the promised 63 degrees this afternoon for my first enjoyable ride of the year.
Tonight
Tigerbomb and I finally beat
Resident Evil 5. On the easiest setting. Once you get used to being rooted to the ground any time you aim a weapon (can't move at all when attacking) the game is usually fun. I say usually because more often than not you're out of ammo and have to attack with a melee weapon. The enemy moves away after you attack, meaning you have to put away your weapon, move forward a foot, then take it back out and attack. Not a big deal except the entire process takes 3-4 seconds and by that time you're being attacked again. Also, once you start chapter 6 (last 3 sections), unless you're close with the developers I suggest looking up the guide. You can only hit the boss characters in certain spots, and sometimes the hits don't even count until you trigger a cinematic, and the interactive cinematics require split second button pushes. Overall a good game, definitely frustrating at times, but as a wise gamer once said, you can't spell fun without frustration. Now on to
Outrun.
With no expectations or even a clear idea of the plot, Lisa and I watched "
Knowing" last night and were both pleasantly surprised. For the first time Nicholas Cage actually did an action thriller movie without attempting any corny humor. In fact, the refreshing thing about this movie was it contained absolutely no humor at all (that I can remember) and was intense 60% of the time without getting boring. Definitely a departure from his last few years of cheesy lines. It also had
the best plane crash scene of any movie hands down, the best part being it's completely unexpected. Hopefully that doesn't ruin it for you, as I now command everyone to go watch it. For the best effect, read nothing about it. Thanks to bad reviews you shouldn't have trouble finding a seat either.
After years of applying unsuccessfully to NASA via
USA Jobs , I finally got an over-the-phone interview last week. Nervous and scared, I decided to keep the interview quiet since I quite honestly didn't believe I had a chance in hell. Well today at 8:32am I received a call informing me that I am now a web developer for the
Office of Procurement as they convert from ASP to ASP.net. Needless to say I immediately soiled myself multiple times as the project manager gave me timelines and how to arrange for relocation reimbursement. That's right, not only do I get to work for NASA along with my very own @nasa.gov email address, they're actually PAYING ME TO DO IT! I've got 3 weeks to get everything in order before I finally escape Michigan and start my new job in Florida, so I plan to burn all 3 houses Lisa and I own and move in with Joseph. I'll definitely miss all my friends, and will be sure to have a guest room available for anyone who needs to escape the torture of Michigan temporarily. Now if you'll excuse me I need to run through my neighborhood screaming with joy!
My trip to California
last month ended with a $100 bill folded into the back seat of
Enoryms mustang, which I only alerted him to after I was boarding my plane home. The deception was necessary to combat his insistence that he pay for everything. Twice I was able to wrestle a meal bill out of his hands and pay for it, but my L.A. flight, transportation and all the other meals were gratis. Unable to accept the $100 (which probably didn't even cover the flight,) he took advantage of
Stavos recent trip (also all expenses paid) to sneak an envelope with the $100 into his luggage. I had to document
the note since I immediately missed him and his brand of comedy. The envelope was passed at Stavos' 30th birthday party, where our wives and us quickly became the most obnoxious members of the party, with Lisas signature laugh-seizure indicating the level of entertainment. Later that night, while playing Xbox with
Excelcier I realized how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many great friends, except for
Duane who never showed up for Resident Evil 5. So here's my sappy "thank you" to
everyone who makes my life so great (if you're reading this, that's you), and for helping me dupe Lisa into marrying me. Let it also be know the $100 will soon be returned to its rightful owner.
With my last entry most likely boring 2/3 people that read the crap I type, I decided to implement a rating system. I actually had some extra time and felt like gaying things up a bit, but we'll pretend my first reason is a valid one. Now you can tell what Stavos thought of a particular entry at a glance, since he's most likely the only one who will make it through the entire rant and assign a rating. A highly complicated formula called "division" determines an average rating and displays accordingly. Let's break this shiz down, yo:
- suxorz, do not read EVER, header turns bright red.
- only read if you're bored, header turns bright orange.
- it's a crapshoot, take your chances.
- high caliber crapper material, header turns limeilicious.
- quality material, header turns radioactive good green.
I've taken the liberty of rating all past entries as "OK" since they truely are a crapshoot, except for the last one which gets orangesuckle, and since my Cougar is totally awesome that one gets the green. Let the rating wars begin!
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