Archived News starting from 04-29-2009 and earlier
BlogLet's take a moment and look back at the last time we had a swine flu panic. It was
March 24th, 1976 and a single confirmed death prompted a mandatory government vaccination program. 30+ people died from side effects of the vaccination prompted by that single death. People die from all kinds of flu without proper medical care, this one just has a catchy panic name to it. How about go to the doctor when you feel crappy and don't say "swine flu." If this is my last update, however, you'll know irony struck me down and it's time to put on your gas masks.
After several rumors and a few confirmed sightings, I decided it was time to take a trip to
Commerce and confirm the construction of a new Sonic. I'm happy to report it's in an
advanced stage of construction and will most definitely open this summer. The trip only took 15 minutes from my house vs. the 30-45 minutes for the Southgate location. That means less than 10 minutes from work, enabling me to fatten up significantly faster than was previously possible.
After
3 years of my 1988 designed
2004 Ninja 250R, and a major redesign of the same model last year, I was fighting my urge to upgrade. My practicality failed me this weekend when I entered a dealer with my Back To The Future era motorcycle and left with a
brand new 2009 model. I'm still in the break-in period, so I'm not yet sure if the redesigned engine technology has helped squeeze any more power out of the 250cc block, but I can confidently say it looks and feels 3,000% better than the old model. After haggling the upgrade price down to $3,500 over 3 hours, I barely escaped the storm to the house of
Stavos who took the first and so far
best photo. The magic of the new Ninja quickly infected Lisa, a sucker for anything new and shiny. Despite her aversion to motorcycles, she
cautiously approached it for a short trip up and down the street. Realizing it did not burst in to flames, she demanded a
fully geared trip to Dairy Queen. The jealous stares of passers by who did not know the guy with the hot blonde on the back of his bike only had 250cc of power was more than worth the $3,500.
Somehow 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.
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