God of W...hat the fuck?!

If you thought that the Star Wars Kid was retarded, you ain't seen nothin' yet...

YO SOY KRATOS!!!!!!!!

I was going to make a clever soccer-related headline here...

...but then I thought, "You know what? Fuck soccer!"

How did soccer become hip all of the sudden? That's all I ever hear about anymore. Blah blah, "Brazil this" and "red card that." I mean everywhere! From friends who NEVER, EVER talk about sports down to goddamn video game sites, it's been buzzing around in the background for the past 3 weeks or so now. Did I miss something? I mean, we are talking about the same old soccer that I used to play on rec-league when I was a kid, right? They don't allow kung-fu or guns or chainsaw-equipped-robot-tanks out on the field, right? It's still just a bunch of assholes with high socks trying to kick a ball into a net, right?

I just don't get it. Maybe FIFA finally got around to changing their ad campaign to something with a little more kick (Edit: oh dear god, no pun intended) than their previous outings: "Soccer! If Argentina thinks it's cool, then it must be cool!" or "Soccer! The only sport more boring than Baseball." Either way, I ain't buyin it...

Aw, now thith thucks...

I burned my tongue on my coffee this morning and now it's gonna feel weird all day. I tell you this because, as an artist, I think you'll understand...

Urgh.

This is an update simply for update's sake. I am not feeling too hot today and would really just like to go back to bed for a little while but it looks like that's not going to happen any time soon. Grr.

The other thing is, I'm going to try and check out "Spaced" tonight (the new Simon "Shaun of the Dead" Pegg sitcom,) if I can figure out how to DVR it. I suggest you do the same, if you get BBC America. It's on at 8:00 tonight and I think they're showing the first 2 episodes back-to-back. I'm not entirely sure what it's about (I think there's some sort of Three's Company premise behind it) but I'm almost entirely sure that it'll be funny.

Ok, I'm gonna go die now...

Current Obsession Countdown: #3

3. Preacher (Vertigo Comics):



An ass-kickin' Texan preacher possessing the Word of God along with his on-again-off-again gunslinger girlfriend and an alcoholic Irish vampire, travels the world searching for the Lord. That, coupled with the promise of unbelievable amounts of violence, profanity, nudity, blasphemy, etc. makes this hands-down one of the best comics ever. I can't remember the last time I read through these (my first college girlfriend got me into them back in '96 or so) but they're just as good, if not better, the second and third time around. I can only hope that if they make a TV series of this, they can do the books justice. But at a scant 70 or so issue run, they'll hopefully have plenty of time to nail down the appropriate tone. It's not gonna be easy, but if they include the right people in the creative process, it could end up being one of the most amazing things ever produced for the small screen. Of course, that's only if they can get Sam Elliott to play the Saint of Killers. A man can dream, can't he?


P.S. Look at this crazy-ass picture of some dude made up as Arseface I stumbled across. It was on some Italian site but I'm pretty sure it was a makeup test for the movie they were talking about shooting a little while back. If that doesn't get me droolin' for the idea of a TV series...well, actually, i guess the drool is probably just the power of suggestion, it being "Uhhfehh" and all...

Obsession countdown: #4

The Starlight Mints - Drowaton:



I can't remember the last time I went to a show. Two months ago? Three? A lot of bands I like have come through here recently...so many, in fact, that I can't even remember who they were. This is kind of unbelievable to me since, for as long as I've known, I've tried to see pretty much every show I could stomach but I guess, as a lot of people do, I've mellowed out in my old age (that's a nice, cliched way of saying I'm now officially fucking boring. Great.) So when I found out these guys were playing in Baltimore, I decided that I was going to prove to myself that I don't 100% suck by making sure I was there. Unfortunately, that no-suck policy only covered me since I ended up having to fly solo, after everyone either straight out bailed on me or just didn't bother to call me back. Thankfully, I got there late enough that I only had to spend the 15 minute or so set change standing around by myself looking like the loser scene grandpa that I am. But whatever, once the Rhino Stomp kicked in, all my apprehension and self-consciousness took off down the fire escape (whatever the fuck that means) and were replaced by the reverence of sheer indie rock awesomeness. Hell, I'm grinnin' just thinking about it 5 days later.

Oh, right, I got sidetracked. Anyway, I guess the whole point of this was that you should go out and buy Drowaton like, right now. I mean it. As good as this band was before (that first song of of The Dream that Stuff is Made Of, is just about as fun as album openers get,) this is the one that should make them huge. I mean, the volume of applause for the new songs vs. the old songs was like 2:1. And rightfully so. This is a fantastic piece of head-noddin', hip-shakin', sing-along rock right here, and if you don't run out and buy this album right away, then the terrorists have already won. Now if only it was out on vinyl...

So this counts as irony, right?

New rule: Baltimore City busses should not be allowed to have those "250 poisons in every breath" ads on them detailing the dangers of second-hand smoke until they're fixed to the point where they aren't spewing pitch-black deathclouds of exhaust. That's only fair, right?

Plus, just think of all the valuable adspace those anti-smoking activists are stealing from HIV, Hep-C, Paternity Testing, and 48-hour detox clinics. Lord knows, we don't have enough of those ads around here...

A.K.A. iNdentured Servitude?

Oh great, now not only do I have to hear about whatever other bullshit reasoning you sickeningly sanctimonious cracker-ass turdburglars come up with about why you'd never ever buy an iPod, but now it sounds like I've actually got a legitimate reason to feel guilty about owning one (...or three, as the case may be.) It looks like these awesome little sons-of-bitches may not exactly be sweatshop safe. Apple is refuting these claims, saying that all manufacturers conform to a certain code of conduct, so I guess it's just a matter of time before this is all worked out. Until then, I suppose I'll just have to take my rock (and/or roll) with a teaspoon of humility...

Obsessions (a list in 5 parts)

5. Rockstar's Table Tennis (Xbox 360):





Not only is this the perfect way to deflect the general public's image of Rockstar Games (Publisher of Manhunt and the Grand Theft Auto series) as purveyors of smut and mindless violence, but as far as games go, it is just about perfect (not to mention a hell of a lot more fun to play than GTA.)

Since Launch, I wouldn't exactly call the amount of new 360 games "scant" but the fact that they don't come out at the rate of say, PS2 games do, 360 owners tend to pay attention to what's coming down the road. I've got to admit, when first I read about Table Tennis a few months ago, I thought it was one of the dumbest fucking ideas I'd ever heard. I mean, if even Mario and company hadn't been able to make me want to play video tennis, why in god's name would I ever want to play video ping pong? Let me just say, I was very, very wrong. Everything is so solid, from the graphics that are so realistic that you can actually see the players sweating when the game heats up, to the minute-to-learn-lifetime-to-master control scheme, to the ability to spectate on highly ranked matches over Live. No, this is not your father's Pong (or mine, for that matter,) and aside from being an intensely fun gaming experience it's also the perfect snapshot of just how far gaming has come in the last 30 years.


1975

2006

Notice any differences?

Inferior hardware indeed...

So aside from the multitude of ways it can help me to waste my life (something that it truly excels at) my Xbox 360 now has its own blog (thanks, in part, to some very intelligent nerds with far too much time on their hands.) Now, all I have to do is play and the damn thing will automatically write a daily update accordingly. I swear, we're truly living in the future and it's genuinely fucking awesome!



$50 says the Xbox updates its site more often than I do this one...

A brief diversion.

I've been asked to shoot a bunch of pictures for a slideshow at work showing diversity in our Systems department. While the idea of this is filling me with dread, it's not all that interesting to anyone else, I'm sure. It did, however, remind me of a small quarter-page ad in the back of an airline magazine that caught my eye recently. The bright yellow text at the top exclaimed "CELEBRATE DIVERSITY! in Birmingham, AL." and was accompanied by a photo of, I shit you not, a black family eating fried chicken at a cookout. So, yeah, aside from the fact that there was absolutely no diversity in that picture whatsoever, they chose just about the most stereotypically racist image possible to promote diversity in a city that is...well...not exactly historically known for their tolerance and brotherhood.

To me, the whole thing smacks of a half-assed community service requirement. It's like, "Ok, Birmingham, I want to hear an apology from you...and you'd better make it good!" And Birmingham's response was, "Fine! Y'all love n*****s so much, here's yer fuckin'n*****s! Y'all happy now?!" I guess we should all just be happy there weren't any burning crosses in the background or anything. Let's hear it for progress!

I wonder how long this'll last...

So it looks like it's been one month shy of a year since the last time I posted anything on here. Hell, it's probably been just as long since I've even considered logging into this site. I suppose I gave up on this Blogger site for 3 reasons:

1. I didn't have anything interesting to write about.
2. Far more people read (as in past tense) my Myspace blog than this one.
3. I'd have to kick my own ass for even thinking of using the word "blog."

Now that Myspace has made me want to turn the gun on myself once again (unlike a lot of people, I can't possibly bring myself to blame Rupert Murdoch for that, I mean we all know that Myspace sucked long before The Emperor sunk his greedy Aussie claws into it,) I suppose I've come crawling back to this toilet in an attempt to avoid verbally vomiting all over my self.

Yes Internet, we've got a lot of catching up to do, and I can't promise it's going to be fun (or even remotely interesting, for that matter) but dammit, I'm going to try and at least make it frequent! Now the last time I promised to try and keep to daily updates, I was met with a bunch of "Yeah, good luck with that" responses. If you were one of them, feel free to sit back and bask in the wonderful feeling of being right all the time. Then, when you're done that, go fuck yourself for being such a smug jerk.

Anway, this time I'm not promising daily updates (which clearly won't matter since the chances of anyone actually keeping up with this are roughly the same as me getting that Superchunk reunion I keep praying in vain for) but I think I can make a semi-weekly effort to get something up on here, even if it's just a brief rundown of what was in my pockets after I got home at the end of the day or some-such. So, here's to that.