Dream of Waking Ne Cede Malis

Jesus was a Crappy Carpenter

Kids in the Hall is the best thing out of Canadia EVER. Even better than Cube.

Ahhhh time to relax. I have the whole day in front of me! Paychecks billowing in, left AND right, I need to go reserve stuff at Gamestop. Hellsing V2, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, and Collector's Edition Robotech: Battlecry for my Gamecube. And then I have to get home and bid on something goofy for Katie.

It's great having a whole lot of nothing to do. Gives me plenty of time to sit around and play Crimson Land. And I think I'm going to watch The Thing again. Because it's a great movie!

This entry is just dragging on now so I'll finish it. Stinky might be transferring into one of my classes and that would kick ass because then I'd have someone to talk to in it.

I’M NOT WORKING!

HA HA! I'm sitting here! And I even took a nap and almost missed picking Katie up! I so don't want to do a lot tonight. I'm going to give my dad a call and see if he'll be home for me to come pick up some books for school and that's it. I'm going to sit here and play games and watch movies and not do anything!

"Anti-Brian, you better keep in touch or I'll kill you (with love)."

Stef loves me. OH HEY! If I go to Jacksonville tonight, I should call her! Holy crap, I should get on that!

With 10 Minutes to Spare

School + Target + Gamestop and there goes my free time. I didn't get to go to the All show Monday. No one could work for me at Target because they don't have like ANY employees and if I called in, I'd be out of a job and while yes, it was All we're speaking of here, I really couldn't afford to lose my job. And I won't be at the I.O.A. show tonight either for the same reason. And that really sucks. Tell them how much they kick ass for me tonight so maybe they'll play another show.

Today I go from school at 8 till I get out to go to Gamestop till 5:30 where I'll sit for 10 minutes before leaving for Target till close. An 8 - 11 day. But then I'm done, I don't work at Target again this week and I don't work at Gamestop till 10am on Saturday so maybe I'll be alive enough to sit online tomorrow night.

I had so much more to discuss in the shower, I swear. It's where I do all my best thinking.

ALL in SPRINGFIELD!

Okay, ANYONE in Springfield who reads this MUST be a Rise... tonight because ALL will be there! And no, not some copyright infringing band, this is the REAL All! And it's only $2, you have NO EXCUSES! You WILL be there!

I'm about to explode. All in Springfield. I have to go now to pimp this show to everyone I know and whore it out on people's guestbooks too. ASDFJKL:!

ALL in SPRINGFIELD: Rise... (3100 S. Macarthur Blvd)
ALL
Wretch Like Me
Someday I
Armstrong (members of GWAR!)

$2 @ 6PM!

Stuck in a Dream

I was late for my first class today. I was still asleep until 7:40 when my mom woke me up. I was only 5 minutes late anyway. I set my alarm last night but I guess it couldn't wake me up. I was having a dream, a good dream.

For whatever reason, my mom, my sister, and I had moved back to Fallingbrook, the condominium division we used to live in. But instead of having one condo, my mom owned two, one next to the other, but was only living in one. And when I tried to tell Katie we could live in the empty one for free, she said no. So I walked down to the pool and walked around it a few times and then I was woken up.

But Fallingbrook wasn't any dream world. Everything was the same. The same neighborhood, the same houses, I think I even recognized some of the people. And I never dream, let alone remember the dreams I have when I do. It's weird that I would oversleep for my first day of class because I was busy dreaming.

How to Enjoy Linux…

Without Needlessly Formatting Your Computer.

1. Download Knoppix 3.1
2. Follow ISO burning instructions at LinuxISO to burn the Knoppix 3.1 ISO to a CD
3. Set BIOS to boot off of CD-ROM
4. Insert Knoppix 3.1 CD
5. Reboot
6. Enjoy!

It took some work but this is really fucking cool and completely painless if you get the burning right. Yes, the ISO is fucking huge but if you're willing to spend a buck or two, you can order the CD to be shipped to you. Now if I could just get to work with the network connection...

I’m Up, I’m Up

Yeah, okay I'm awake. It's about a quarter till 7am, I have to be at work at 8. What the fuck does Target have me doing at 8am on a Sunday? I have no idea.

Anyway, I was tired as hell last night. All I did was my laundry and watched Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust again. What a great fucking movie. The night before I stayed up way too late playing Gothic. I joined the new camp on accident, almost. If you want to join a camp you need to do a bunch of stuff for them and I did a lot of easy stuff for the old camp even though I had every intention on joining the Brotherhood but then I found the new camp and they told me I could join them if I did a little running around so I did! Now people respect me for the badass that I am!

School starts tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'm excited or terrified.

Places No One Has Seen

Holy shit have I been busy this week. It's Matt's last week in town (today being the last day) so we've been running around all over the place. Last night we went to see Episode 2 at the cheap seats and it was pretty good. The acting and romance were complete trash but the last half hour really is the best part and it's really good.

And then I got asked to fill in a few hours today at Gamestop so I worked from 1 - 9:30. That was actually a lot better than I was expecting because it wasn't 8 hours at Target and I came home with free stuff that kicks ass like a Grand Theft Auto 3 t-shirt and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story on DVD! I think the best part about the GTA3 shirt (besides the fact that they're impossible to find and from a VERY popular game, making it worth a load of money) is the type on the back, "Welcome to Liberty City, Where the Only Dirty Word is Hope". It makes me want GTA3.

And tomorrow being Friday, I get paid. With 2 jobs, I'll have enough money to be able to say "this paycheck is for bills, this paycheck is for fun" but picking which one is which is going to be difficult because neither of them are in large amounts since Target pays me weekly and Gamestop pays me bi-weekly. I'm not even sure I get more hours at Target than I do at Gamestop. I know my Gamestop paycheck is going to be abnormally large next week because of all the hours I've put in this week and last week and that my Target paycheck tomorrow will be pretty small, as will next weeks. So in theory I can pay any bills with Gamestop's paycheck next week and piss this weeks Target paycheck away on whatever I want. But Katie sure as hell won't be happy about that and I do need to save money for when we move but with my birthday arriving in less than 10 days, I can also (in theory) waste all my money and count on what I get for my birthday to move with. I guess this is where my balancing act begins. Spend some of this paycheck but not all of it, spend some or none of the next paycheck but not all of it, spend some birthday money or don't and save it all. And I can't tell if I'm going to love having a place of my own with Katie or I'll go nuts because I won't be able to impulsively snatch up whatever toy tickles my fancies.

And thinking about this got me to think about why I got a second part-time job in the first place. Looking at paystubs, I could live with Katie without the 2nd job. I'd just never have any money to spend on myself. I think I've done really well for myself this summer, keeping the number of games purchased to a single digit and having made only one big purchase this summer (my gamecube, and it was barely over $100). And now I know that I got a job at Target because not only do I want to live with Katie, I'm also tired of never having any spending money. Sure, it takes up my time and it's not a great job but I've had way too much free time this summer anyway and with Matt going back to school, it'd just be time spent sitting on this computer since Katie works all day. And I could've quit Gamestop and gotten a full-time job and scheduled myself for night classes and then I'd have money and school taken care of but I hate working full-time and I like taking my classes in the morning because I can sit there and think about how happy I am to be in school and not working. And quitting Gamestop is almost out of the question unless it's to get an IT position or similar job. I love working at Gamestop and I don't really care that it doesn't pay well because it's a really fun job. I think I've just completely gone off on a tangent and now I'm sitting here reaffirming to myself that I'm allowed to spend money because I've been working a lot and the only person in control of my life is me.

Just when I'm sitting here trying to decide what game to play, Matt reminds me of Gothic. So I killed more things and beat up more people and got another level. This game really is ridiculously good and terribly overlooked by the gaming industry. It's a good thing there's going to be a sequel, maybe it'll make people pay attention and play this one because it's better than more of the games I own.

Tomorrow will be an adventure. 10am there's a celebration at the mall for it's 25th anniversary and my store manager at Gamestop and I are showing up for it as representatives for Gamestop. It's a media event and I didn't really realize that until after I'd volunteered to go. I'm just going for the free cake. Mmm cake. Mmm media.

Beneath my Acid Blood Encrusted Boots

So I just finished AvP 2: Primal Hunt. Yes, finished. I sat here for an hour and polished off the corporate campaign and saw the final cutscene and credits. And now, my thoughts.

One of the things I enjoy about expansions are changes to the gameplay. Sometimes nothing's changed at all, sometimes it's a new gun to play with, and sometimes they rework the whole game but that's usually done and released as a standalone semi-sequel. I'd place Primal Hunt somewhere between nothing changed and new guns. The races are still played EXACTLY the same because they've gained little to nothing in the expansion.

The predalien got the least attention. New arm and headbite graphics and sounds, that's about it. It's stronger than the drone and harder to kill and that's about it.

The ancient Predator has a new gun, the energy flechette and it's fucking great but it sucks down energy like mad. They also altered the cloaking effect, which I assume to be related to the fact that the predator in Primal Hunt is 500 years older than the one in the main game. I think the new effect looks great but I've heard that in multiplayer, it makes the predator WAY too visible. The ancient predator also runs slower, which is rather inconvenient when you're trying to fight off a horde of aliens and makes me rely more of the predators tracking weapons like the disc and the plasmacaster than it's spear and claws and ability to dodge in an out of harm's way.

The corporate mercenary gets the most new stuff. Dual pistols, a sniper rifle, and a 360-degree motion scanner. These, however, have the least effect on the game. Dual pistols is quick but I'd never give up serious bugslayers like my pulse rifle for it, let alone my smartgun. The sniper rifle is damn near worthless, 90% of the game you never see the bugs till they're right on top of you. And the 360-degree motion tracker sounds great on paper but it has half of the range of the marine 180-degree motion tracker and due to this, you're always caught by surprise. Most of the game I had to rely on the dynamic soundtrack to prepare for a bug attack more than I relied on the motion tracker. And these all come at the cost of the hacking tool and the welding torch. Most of the fun of the marine campaign in the first place was the tools!

So unless I haven't made it obvious, the new additions didn't impress me in the least. So what's left? The maps and storyline. The main campaign had an excellent storyline that all three races participated heavily in. You could play through one race and then notice things in one of the other 2 that would have you think to yourself "So THAT'S why that happened". And Primal Hunt doesn't disappoint here, everything effects everything else and sometimes even to a greater degree than in the original storyline.

The maps are also great. There's 3 basic areas that each race fights through. There's plenty of detail, lots of surprises for the corporate and even the predator, and some real mindbending situations to get through in the early alien stages. The texturing is also great and doesn't stray far from the quality artwork in the main game which does a near-perfect job of mirroring the movies from which the game is based after.

This is in all forms and manners an expansion. It's more gameplay in the vein of the original. While it's weaponry additions are lackluster and disappointing, it's gameplay is still AvP2 and it's good for at least 4 - 6 more hours of fun. Worth $20? In a market where most expansions don't even deliver more fun at all at a price of $30, sure. It's well worth $20 if you liked the original. Just don't set your sights too high, it's not going to change your opinion of AvP2 if you didn't enjoy it in the first place.