(Pathetic) Adventures = FAIL?

So, it’s been about 3 weeks since I updated the whole (Pathetic) Adventures “saga”. And, using hindsight, it seems like a bad excursion to begin with.

It takes a lot of effort to write one of those. I have to play a whole round of Munchkin Quest (by myself), writing notes about what happens. Then I get to actually write the post, which is just fleshing out the notes (poorly). Then I get to spend an hour updating all the pages for it. It is not exactly enjoyable writing. Whatever fun I can extract from writing about a guy fighting a gazebo is sucked out by the constraints of dice pre-determining who wins and my laziness (I’m not writing 500 words about much of anything unless the subject requires it).

So, is there any demand for me to keep it up? I’ll finish the story if you (the few readers I have) want, but I can just as easily chalk it up to experience and chunk the idea. My roommate will appreciate having the whole kitchen card table back to fill up with various papers, if not using it to figuratively eat off of.

In other non-linking-to-other-people’s-articles-news, remember to vote in my “Let’s Kill Robin” poll. It’s on the sidebar for only 2 more weeks (have to write episodes 23 and 24 before the answer matters); then the bloodshed will begin.

If you were interested in the final results of the old poll, most of you like using microwaves in hilariously cruel ways. And I only had one Obama-bot participating (assuming that vote was not sarcastic).

So, do I finish (Pathetic) Adventures or what? Comment to let me know.

Of Cultus Personalitae and Car Dealerships…

Couple of reading suggestions…

Cultus Personalitae

Car Dealerships

UPDATE:

One more: An Alternative to War

Video Killed the Radio(active) Star

Looking for the Onion’s YouTube version of this video, I saw this. I thought I would share.

Tip of the Hat: Moe Lane’s Trackbacks for this post

25 Things to Do While I am Still 25

So, my 25th birthday was yesterday. And my life is not exactly where I pictured it to be even when I was 20. Some expectations have been surpassed (I figured I would have committed suicide by police by now as a kid); some have been stamped “epic fail” (decent career and whatnot).

I have not exactly completed the goals I have already set for myself since starting this blog either. But, then again, I might have been thinking too big.

So, I have come up with 25 things I think I can do to improve my lot by the time my 26th birthday rolls around. Some are inane, some are practical, all are obtainable (as far as I know). This will be getting tjhe Operation treatment soon enough. So, God willing, I want to get the following done while I am still 25:

Financial Goals

1. Have my student loans paid off
2. Start a retirement fund
3. Start a medical savings account
4. Get career started
5. Get off parents auto insurance

Romantic Goals

1. Complete Operation: Yearly Rejection 2009
2. Complete Operation: Yearly Rejection 2010 (assuming it is necessary)
3. Try Speed Dating at least once
4. Have a First Date

Non-Romantic Social Goals

1. Get good enough on the banjo to play with the church band
2. Restart going to a church homegroup
3. Get elected to be a delegate to the State Republican Convention
4. Get involved in a political/service organization
5. Join a gun club so I do not have to pay ridiculous range fees to go shoot.
6. Visit parents in Sunray, Texas.

Miscellaneous Goals:

1. Lose that 50 pounds the Army told me to
2. Get an actual bed (instead of the mattress on the floor I currently use)
3. Get some kind of meat-grilling device
4. Get a couch
5. Get a Nintendo controller belt buckle
6. Get proficient with my pistol
7. Get a conceal-carry license
8. Go camping at Enchanted Rock
9. Go to a Dallas Desperados game
10. Get my Master’s Degree diploma (I earned my Master’s, but I never got the piece of paper)

Speaking of the Candle Industry…

…they wish they had a monopoly.

“Goode Family” goode?

I was withholding excitement about the “Goode Family” until I got to watch the premiere. And I still am withholding excitement.

I hate that whole family. Except maybe the grandfather. And Che. Kinda creepy giving praise to something named “Che”. But he bucks the vegan trend by eating other pets. That makes me happy.

It is going to take the show getting into a groove for me to be sure that Mike Judge is making fun of eco-cultism instead of giving it subtle praise (like he did to the Texas state of mind in “King of the Hill”). The replacement of garbage can with a recycling bin in the “King of the Hill” opening sequence makes me wary.

UPDATE: And Bob Sagat’s sitcom has way too little ”shooting things at an indoor gun range” action, considering the promos they were playing during the “Goode Family”.

Read a Game?: Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2

So, this is by far the worst reviewed game I am going to throw my two cents in so far (Metacritic Average: 49, with only 1 of the 25 reviewers giving it a passing grade). A 50% score typically means the game is fundamentally broken, with so many glitches and crashes that you smash the disc in disgust (and it is not). The excuse for such near universal hatred from the critics? “Repetition”.

A quite aside to defend the ol’ beat-’em-up genre. The beat-’em-up genre gets criticized every time a new on comes out with the old “you just hit the X button the entire time” line. When it comes down to it, are not all video games an exercise in repetition? Racing games: “Hold down the right trigger”. First Person Shooters: “Hit the right trigger”. Real time strategy: “Point and click”. I could go on. Can we not judge a game based on it’s merits instead of on preconceived biases towards the genre? I mean, I am not the biggest fan of the FPS games; it would be dishonest of me to act like my dislike of them had no effect on a review I wrote up about one.

So, back to the actual review. I did not play the original DW: Gundam, so any changes over the Koei (the company that developed this game and all the other “Warriors” games) formula I note is based more on my experiences with the X-Box game “Samurai Warriors”. I am also not quite finished with the game yet, though my 80+ hours with it has given me sufficient time to form an opinion.

Gameplay wise, this is pretty classic Koei beat-’em-up genre with a couple of twists. You are a one of 40 playable warriors (in this case, a Gundam pilot) wailing on hoards of grunts, with the occasional other pilot showing some competence. The appeal here is the feeling of elation taking on an army alone and winning. You hack. You slash. You hack some more. You have a weak standard ranged attack. There is a basic combo system, plus 3 different “Special” attacks that usually allows for some faster hoard clearing and/or major damage to enemy competents.

The good twists are: the addition of a dash function (and dash attacks) and the ability to perform an aerial special. The biggest problem with my experiences with “Samurai Warriors” was the timed events: you had to get to a certain location within a certain amount of time or you would lose. Unless you either had a horse convenient (which was rare), or have already lost a couple of times due to that timed event, you would lose; you would not be close enough when the event would start to complete it. With the dash function, you can easily cut clear across the map to complete one of those timed events. Another problem with the old game was, if your character had a lame “Musou attack” (their term for the “Special” attack), you were stuck with it; the aerial attacks for the mechs are usually pretty decent if the standard one is bad.

The bad twist is the introduction of giant boss baddies (mobile armors). They are arbitrarily harsh, being essentially invincible when they do not have the strange “look how vulnerable I am” ring surrounding them, which show up during or after certain attacks by the boss. Sure, you can induce one with a smash attack, but they do not stick around long enough to do much good. Hitting the armor with a smash attack or “Special” while the ring is up with knock them down, allowing you to wail on them. You need your pilot to be at least level 10, plus a complete set of good parts for your mech to have a chance of winning.

The storyline is a thin soup of characters from the various series mish-mashed together, with the “Official Mode”, having a smidge more depth.

The graphics are technically amazing, with a ridiculous number of grunts on screen, even if it is not exactly up to the standard of current gen resolution. Text-based cut scenes abound, but typically are either optional or skippable. The CG cut scenes are pretty cool, though. As far as I can tell, the sound effects are spot-on, but the voice work is pretty bad. Why could they not get the original voice actors from the various shows? It’s painful to my nerdy ears to hear the relative high-pitched whine of Heero Yuy (from Gundam Wing), though people not familiar with the series would not be offended.

The interface works, with no noticable button problems and the typical Koei menu system.

Replay-wise, it is a long game (with some randomness thrown in). 40 playable characters in “Mission Mode”, plus 32 missions in “Official Mode” (which you probably need to play first). There is a lot of content to play through. I find beat-’em-up games to be good stress relievers. Killing hundreds of enemies with little effort helps relieve a bad day.

It is a mixed bag, morally. Yes, you are killing people (with robot parts falling off). I do remember cussing, some (albeit negative) references to pedophilia, a cross-dressing androgynous guy, and creepy exclamations of a character wanting to take baths with other characters. On the positive end, the game does criticize pedophilia, highlights some positive attributes like loyalty and care for one’s family, and has some cool statements about how intellectuals hurt the planet (usually with eco-cultism).

Numerical breakdown:

Gameplay: 3/5

Presentation: 3/5

Interface: 4/5

Replay: 5/5

Morality: 3/5

Average: 3.6/5

And hopefully my complaints are more substantive than “you hit the X button too much”.

Stick of Butter Causes Spasms of Joy

This, my friends, is the best interview I have read in quite a while. Nice to see that the interviewee agrees so readily to my suggested weight gain method.

Tip of the Hat: Moe Lane

Life of LEM: BOaHCoD Recap

The 25th “episode” of Barack Obama and His Cabinet of Doom is rapidly approaching. And, as any comic book nerd can tell you, milestone issues mean someone has to die. This upcoming “arc” is going to culminate with the results of a “Let’s Kill Robin” poll where, you, the few readers that I have yet to alienate, get to decide which of Obama’s secret cabinet members is going to get the axe. Literally. It should be up by the time you read this. Check the sidebar.

While I make sure and stick in a hyperlink to the previous episode somewhere in text, I know it can be annoying to read things backwards in an effort to catch up. To help out those relatively new to my (quite possibly inane) political fan fiction, below is a hyperlink list of every episode so far, organized by “arc”:

Prologue (1 episode):

• Prologue

Intro Arc (6 episodes):

• Inauguration Day
• The Hollywood Shambler
• Red Mobster
• Femi-Nazi
• Yew Man
• And the rest…

Gitmo Arc (2 episodes):

• To Cuba
• The Colonel of Truth

Socialized Medicine  (1 episode):

• Drug Rationing for Fun and Profit

Gun Control Arc (4 episodes):

• Sullying Blair Holt’s Name
• Before the Committee
• Behind the Chain-Link Fence
• Robo-Heston

Gaffe Arc (2 episodes):

• The Man, The Teleprompter, The Gaffe-Machine
• Cumin Fiend

Passion Week Special (1 episode)

• Spring Equinox Egg Rolls

Drug Cartel Arc (5 episodes)

• Nuclear Gangs
• To Texas
• To New Mexico
• To Arizona
• To California

Happy Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day today. Be sure to take (at least) a moment to remember the sacrifices others paid for our liberty. As the Team America song went: “Freedom isn’t free”. But do not let the song fool you. It cost considerably more than “a buck o five”, though. It costs a copious amount of blood, sweat, tears, limbs, eyes, lungs, hearts, livers, kidneys, brains, bowels, steel, lead, fossil fuels, time, and vigilance (and I am sure I am missing something).

I had at least 3 grand-relations serve in WWII, at least one of which did not get to come back. I have at least 3 cousins that have served in various capacities (one of which is currently teaching nuclear reactor operation for the Navy). I have another cousin raising her child at home while her husband serves as an armor division officer in Iraq. That’s time they could have spent being with their families and other “normal” things can never get back.

And that is just the sacrifices my extended family has made that I know of. I am sure there is more. I got at least 2 friends serving right now (both in Army Intelligence, I think; I have not heard from one of them since he went into Basic Training, but Army Intelligence was his intention).

And even that does not accurately reflect the true cost of freedom. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers (and the various domestic versions of them: police, firemen, EMTs, FBI, CIA, et cetera) have spilt their lifeblood for it; countless more maimed, which is arguably a greater price.

Freedom is costly. Do not try to cheapen it by dismissing the sacrifices they have given though derision, insults, apathy, or dismantling the uniquely American institutions of liberty they have fought to protect. Or using a day set aside to specifically remember their sacrifices just as an excuse to get wasted. Take the time to acknowledge the price paid so that you can have that stereotypical cookout without fear of Lobsterback taxation, Soviet-style food lines, or a number of other ills that would have befallen us if nobody stepped up to pay.