Category: Uncategorized

After the flood of complaints I have received about my lack of posts, I bring you Alex’s Week at a Glance. Imagine a man going to work and being really pissed off. Now imagine a man sleeping. Anything not listed below can be assumed to be one of the above.

M – TW 2003 and BSG. We all know Tiger Woods is grand fun, but most of us are sadly unaware that Battlestar Galactica defies all sensibility and is good. Like good good. Get off your high horse and give it a watch. We know you liked Next Generation, try as you might to hide it.

T – AVP. Good? No. Awesome? Yes. Now, the debate has certainly earned the title “age-old” by this point, but I’ll rehash it once again. The Predator would beat the Aliens. It would beat a single alien, it would beat a hive of aliens, it would beat the queen alien. It would beat a face-hugger. The aliens are only nasty because they hide in the dark all the time. The Predator can see in the dark. Conversation over.

W – Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. This movie set out to recreate the style of old adventure serials. It did a great, great job at this. The problem is, old adventure serials suck.

H – Go out drinking.

F – Work event, at which I further alienate myself from my coworkers. There was a limbo contest, in which I did not participate.

And there you have it.

Where I be at indeed.

Since it appears to have been far, far too long since last I posted, here’s something untimely ripped from webshite to tide you over:

Had some lads by to play some Halo 2. Played Oddball. Liked Oddball. Frustrated the hell out of my compatriots with the following strategy: when you’re about to die with the ball, jump off a cliff. He who chases you must then go all the way back to the ball’s spawn point. I suggest throwing the ball back towards them as you fall to your doom, just to mess with ’em. If ever there was justification for building a “give the finger” command in to a game, this is it. Imagine the joy of taking the ball into the bottomless chasm, leaving your enemy staring down at the bird.

Snow and cold means no leaving the house. And that means the History Channel. Every US President from Rutherford B Hayes to George W Bush. The French Revolution. The war of 1812. My field of vision now has a little “H” burned into its lower right corner.

Went to install an old favorite, Homeworld: Cataclysm, on the new machine yesterday. It didn’t work. I swore loudly. Downloaded a patch. It worked.

If you never played any of the HW series and are a fan of spaceships, you must give this game or any of the others in the series a try. First game to have 3D space strategy. The controls are surprisingly easy, the design is cool, and I do love the downtempo music. So go check out the demo, at the very least.

HW2 Downloads Page

HW:C Demo Page

God damn cold out there. Our plans of running various errands have been thwarted by one Mister John Frost. So now we sit inside, waiting for nothing to happen. This is one of those days where having two computers looks better and better.

I tell you a tale of a young man, a man in his prime, and an idiot. Once, I took a class on Greek language. The professor was wise and friendly, but had little patience for dimwittedness. I enjoyed this class quite a bit, and ended up taking many of his courses throughout my college career.

Years later, I was approached by a friend who had only just recently graduated. He told me that one day, the said same professor was giving a lecture, came to a certain point and asked the class some questions about it. After not receiving the answers he was hoping for, he stated “Don’t worry about it. In all my years of teaching this course, only one student ever really understood this concept.” The person, my friend claimed, was me. He then went on to tell me that he told the professor he knew me, to which I replied “So? What was it?!?!”.

“Oh, I don’t remember.”

Much screaming ensued. Now, this guy may very well have been pulling my leg, but I must know. Now, years later yet again, I have made a contact through work who may give me a reason to get back in touch with the prof and see what’s up. I’ll keep you posted.

One year left on the lease. I drive this. ($19K) I’ve been considering this, (low $20K’s) but we’ll see how it looks in real life come October. The other day, Her Worshipfulness saw a commercial which offered a low price, and thought we should get this ($17 K). My boss seems to think he pays me enough to suggest I look at this ($30K), but he clearly hasn’t looked at a budget report recently. So, anyone got any recommendations?

I got to play with the robot today. They had an open house for the thing and they let employees give it a go — not bad for the new bazillion dollar surgical tool. I gave it a whirl, sticking my face in the camera hole, reaching tentatively towards the controls. They had what I assume were custom training materials set up for demo purposes, and I spent a few minutes moving tiny rubber bands around through a series of colorful rubber polyps the surgeon affectionately referred to as “Whoville”. I was well-prepared for the inevitable, that my vast experience in the world of videogaming would give me apparently preternatural skills with the thing and the doctors would all crowd around in awe of the rookie’s mad robot skills. Fortunately for their egos, they were occupied with something else and did not see my magnificent display.

Watched a whole football game yesterday. Went to a friend’s house with the intent of watching a football game, watched said football game, enjoyed the aforementioned football game.

My friend became embarrassed several times after screaming at the television quite loudly. I told him not to worry about it, that he had no reason to be embarrassed, that it’s his place after all, etc.

Still he felt shame, until this commercial for the highly-anticipated Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2 came on, at which I point I began screaming at the television. A look of surprise and barely-concealed bemusement came over his face as he politely asked about the upcoming title.

After that, the TV began to whimper in anticipation of the no-holds-barred tongue-lashing it was going to receive for the next three quarters. The TV was last seen rocking itself to sleep in a corner, telling itself everything would be alright.

Watched a whole football game yesterday. Went to a friend’s house with the intent of watching a football game, watched said football game, enjoyed the aforementioned football game.

My friend became embarrassed several times after screaming at the television quite loudly. I told him not to worry about it, that he had no reason to be embarrassed, that it’s his place after all, etc.

Still he felt shame, until this commercial for the highly-anticipated Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2 came on, at which I point I began screaming at the television. A look of surprise and barely-concealed bemusement came over his face as he politely asked about the upcoming title.

After that, the TV began to whimper in anticipation of the no-holds-barred tongue-lashing it was going to receive for the next three quarters. The TV was last seen rocking itself to sleep in a corner, telling itself everything would be alright.

A clutch of my amigos (all of whom write for webshite, I believe) have

been sucked into a black vortex known as World of Warcraft. I do not

play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games for a variety of

reasons, nor do I have any interest in high fantasy games, or mayhaps

I might have joined them. Fortunately for my sanity and carpal

tunnel, I did not.

I tried to explain MMORPG’s to Her Worship the other day. It went

along these lines:

A: So, it’s a videogame, but it’s not linear or plot-driven. You walk

around and do whatever.

HW: And you can do whatever you want?

A: Just about. If you do anything too nuts, an admin shows up as a

god and smacks you around a bit.

HW: Yeah, yeah. But you can just wander around in the world?

A: If you want. Usually there’s some kind of over-arching plot, but you can…

HW: Like Pern?

At this point, our hero starts to get grandiose ideas of getting Her

Worshipfullness into MMORPGs, of needing to buy a gaming rig to handle

the games, one of those hot Alienware PCs, and we’d spend nights

together in the gameroom, me on the Xbox, her on the ALX. And it

would be joyous.

A: Sure. So you would be a merchant or a dragonrider or whatever you

want. Just existing in the Pern universe.

HW: Can you imagine the time it must have taken to program all that?

Every person in every town?

A: Well, the people are other players.

HW: What?

A: Yeah, you know. People from all over, just like you, playing the game.

HW: Well, fuck that.