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November 27, 2007

Resident Evil

Playing this game at 2am last night I realized why I got out of offline videogames: press reset (or the 2 button, as the case may be) and you get yet another shot at getting to the next typewriter wasting one less bullet. If I had save points like that in real life, I'd still be trying to ace tests in high school. Or topping "jerk store" comebacks. The true resident evil, if not the rice weevils I only just discovered I had been cooking up in my kitchen all these years, must be my tendency to be virtually anal. Rhyme, too. 
You only get one hit, that's the beauty of it,
What's the good in crying?
It's always been that way, at the end of the day,
You gotta keep on trying.
Life's a one take movie and I don't care what it means,
I'm saving up my tears for the crying scene.
—Aztec Camera

Posted by me at 11:04 AM |

November 21, 2007

Kindle

Last year I thought the Sony Reader might make a perfectly good addition to my collection of junk, but some sense got in the way. Here comes Amazon.com's Kindle, which I'd just as soon add to the fireplace like Homer's library (what was it, Bill Cosby's Fatherhood, The Lottery, Canine Surgery and Fahrenheit 451), but c'mon, wireless access to Wikipedia has got to be as close to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as we've ever gotten. I immediately closed the tab when I saw Michelle Malkin's name.

Posted by me at 11:58 AM |

November 19, 2007

Animal Crossing

Making the rounds on this side of the Internet's gaming community earlier tonight was this two-year-old story, which reminds me of those McDonald's-sponsored shorts before the news (especially when repackaged with the music). I recall some time with the original myself, having received an evaluation copy somehow, and being charmed by the "life lite" aspect of it, a mortgage that's paid off by fishing, correspondence with virtual characters who actually write back, all sorts of furniture and accessories to collect and arrange to my heart's content …until Final Fantasy took over. With yet another expansion due out tomorrow, I'm still fighting a backslide.

Posted by me at 10:58 PM |

Bye Bye BlackBerry, Part II

Had the Verizon store—which, BTW, left me wondering whether the team of jerks behind the counter all resembling that clown in the live-action show on Adult Swim Sunday nights and the chicas on the floor was their corporate employment profile or some Orange County evolutionary pattern—honored the mail-in rebate for a non-plan purchase Saturday at the Spectrum while we waited on the 10 o'clock Beowulf show, I just might've paid for my own 8130 Pearl to replace this Pocket PC, but my boat-rocking must have been too much for these staid waters and prompted the HR & IT coalition to re-evaluate their stock in this piece of shit, because they've since gone back on allowing me to supply my own equipment. Just as well, I suppose, as I wasn't about to pay a monthly fee (yes, another ten bucks) to use GPS that's already built-in to the device. It's the network, alright. Save me, T-Mobile.

Posted by me at 02:02 PM |

November 18, 2007

Freedom of Choice

My 10+year-old idea for a website that tells you where to go for lunch isn't too far off from this "smart closet", for clothes, but while I like having a computer help me with these fucking time-consuming daily decisions, I'd rather not have to turn one on before I even get dressed in the morning.

Posted by me at 10:34 PM |

November 16, 2007

MMOG Pong

Ah, Slashdot. A review of Lord British's latest work netted this response in a thread about MMO game ideas (of which I seriously have so many, I should be working in Korea, too). I LOL at the concept of Warlords so massive that all you see on the screen is the castle, net or whatever you're guarding, and you could wait all night before someone else actually takes a shot at it.

Posted by me at 03:27 PM |

November 15, 2007

Left Turn-Lane Blockers

Last year I classified this subset of drivers I always seem to leave 5 seconds too late and let get ahead of me. [And two months ago I started this entry—which would explain some of the dates on others like it—with ambitious plans to include a representation of the typical left-turn blocking situation parodying the DMV manual, but got frustrated searching for source material. Then I had an even wilder idea of making a YouTube with a similar traffic intersection in Vice City, and how I'd really like to deal with the people who create it. Maybe use San Andreas instead and splice in footage of the guy pumping up in the gym, so the pummeling looks that much worse. I so need to get locked in a vault like Burgess Meredith.] Last night I realized it's not just from behind they can get me: I was trying to exit from a parking lot across three fairly sparse lanes when a row of cars, mostly minivans and women on cellphones, filled up the one furthest to the left. And blocking my clear path past it to make my turn at the light. For the life of me I can't conceive of why they would prefer that side over the others when it'd put them closer up front. Just lazy fucks who can't be bothered from their meaningless conversations or self-absorbed trains of thought to fill up the street more evenly, I guess. So thanks to them, my right turn became more of an "S" around this line so I could access the left-turn lane.

Posted by me at 10:08 PM |

November 12, 2007

David Byrne

I could be friends with this guy, from his idea for a videogame set in IKEA. (Right, then I'd tell him how as a teenager I attended his "Stop Making Sense" concert.) Set in, not so much based on shopping there. I liked where he was going with the tags, signs leading you around and the whole mystery that must be behind the place. Like who upgraded all those prop computer monitors from CRT's to fake flat panels, and where were they recycled? Maybe it'll suffice just to make it into a FPS map, or for a GTA mission.

Posted by me at 04:34 PM |

Star Trek

Lately I've been trying to come up with a money-making scheme to tap into the unfathomable reserve of workplace 아줌마 but the kink I've yet to work out in every scenario is that anything they can copy or have copied, they will, so I'll write about Star Trek instead. The franchise has hit rock-bottom, or at least it felt like it killing time at Quark's Bar in Vegas a couple of months backs with drinks called "Pattern Buffer" and "Warp Core Breach" and not bothering to move to empty stools for a better view of the Insurrection movie on the TV. And so what if the J.J. Abram's go at it turns out to be a T2 rehash (and nothing like my proposals), as long as it's done rightwell.

Posted by me at 04:33 PM |

Bye Bye BlackBerry

I spent ten bucks on shipping a replacement because the "known issue" with the battery cover is the clasp on the unit itself. Don't ask me why I did, as the SIM is in my old RAZR and it happily in the possession of 順子's actively mobile grandmother, and I'll most likely not start another T-mobile contract, even with their tempting $9.95/month plan for unlimited e-mail. The new Pearl v1.0 came loaded with firmware that somehow left out the BBKorean font I used to display Asian characters on my original one, and the same amount for a monthly subscription for software (totalling close to an iPhone) is out of the question. It does feel so much better, in my hand and for my peace of mind knowing that it'll last past noon without a recharge, than this piece-of-shit Pocket PC, but looks like there's no keeping it from junk status. No reason why, however, it can't go in working order.

Posted by me at 09:56 AM |

November 09, 2007

Dreams

Driving's always a challenge in them; either the car has a mind of its own or the roads become unnavigable to a fault. And for some other deep-rooted reason I often find myself back on the streets in Providence's East Side, which I recreate as a tight grid of old houses on an incline from Hope to hump and descend to Benefit below. When I'm not saving the world, carnal impulses will have me stalking from one to another in desperate search of prey, but earlier this evening I'd watched myself on video (played back on my shitty PocketPC, no less) with former MILF-now-pariah Karen King—I had to, because I couldn't remember? One turn and as Johnny Yune went from landlocked downtown Houston to a boat pier in They Still Call Me Bruce, I was by the water, then in it. Seemed shallow enough, but when I put the XTerra into 4WD to reach shore, I was virtually submerged. Someone in control then drained it all, and wouldn't you know it, the "lake" was a room.

Posted by me at 11:43 AM |

November 08, 2007

Time Warner

I changed my "complimentary" digital tier from Choice to Variety last weekend after watching an episode of BBCAmerica's Torchwood and decided it couldn't possibly be better than the dramas on AZN. And even if other installments were to prove me wrong (after all, it took a second viewing before warming to The Office), I thought, I'd catch up via the free BBC on Demand channel. No such luck, as it seems I've been locked out of downloads from unsubscribed sources. Given the service there's not much ground to argue, but it's only one more incentive to pirate satellite.

Posted by me at 04:38 PM |

Dried Mangoes

Seems like forever since I "reviewed" food, at least not without failing to stick to the subject beyond the first sentence or two. Lucky for you, I have nowhere to go with these things. We got a bag from Sheil one day and I can't stop eating them. So what if they're "preserved with sulphur dioxide", that's only for their appearance, and all the sugar is probably just masking what's not fruit but in fact scraps from the Nike factory next door? Might explain why they're not having the effect on me they did for George Costanza. Except for the fat part. Oh well.

Posted by me at 11:22 AM |

November 07, 2007

Kittens

Holy-shit moments always make for good writing. Or in my case lately, any. This morning after swinging over to exit at Carmenita and somehow still at the high rate of speed required to do so, I noticed a small tabby cat between two lanes in the middle of the freeway. Its body contorted when a car went by, but failed to deliver the gruesome memory I was expecting to take away and, as I kept watch in the rearview mirror (what I certainly don't remember at all is continuing to drive), bounded to the side safely.

Posted by me at 01:09 PM |

November 05, 2007

PoP!

Things like meaningful relationships and the creative process are supposed to take time, aren't they, but in a way I'm glad they gloss over them in Drew Barrymore movies and opt instead to show Hugh Grant's entire 80's video (twice, no less), during which I couldn't help but think of this song, itself in turn always reminding me of the Prisoner's cryptic alternate ending:

Posted by me at 08:12 PM |


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