Not dead yet

Just making a minor update to inform anyone who might actually care that I am in fact not dead. I've just had zero inspiration for writing here. I'm even mostly drawking blanks from Starcraft.

I'm a decent way into the Terran Missions now in Brood war, and being the sort of person I am I just had to beat The Emperor's Fall twice. Once against nukes and a second time against cruisers. I managed to use a shitload fewer resources the second time through because I used nukes against nukes and cruisers against cruisers (for the most part anyhow, I dropped a few nukes the second time through, but had a cruiser or two the first time). Turns out building about eight to ten crusiers is a shitload cheaper than dropping somewhere in the range of 100 nukes from 5 or so different silos, each with their own command center.

Then again I was just having fun with the nukes. Using them to take out the most minor shit imaginable. Two marines and a goliath? Drop a fucking nuke! A factory and a barracks need blowing up? Better drop three or four just in case! End game in each of the two missions was fairly similar. I fought them down to nothing then the first time through I dropped seven nukes on the emperor's center and the second time through I fired eight yamato cannons at his command center. I named the save filed I made before ending it Meganuked and Yamat0wned. Made me chuckle.

Well. I should be going to bed soon. Catch you later interbutts.

Check out this tasty sumbitch

Jesus fucking christ I love the volcano taco. I usually don't go for hard shell tacos, but with the volcano taco it's not so bad because by the time I get to where ever I'm going to actually eat the thing the volcano sauce has softened the shell just enough to make it perfect. The only problem I have with the volcano taco is that now I don't eat as many double downs or grilled stuft burritos because those are tasty too, but this volcano motherfucker is just so much tastier. I had two of them, a KFC snacker, a chicken burrito and a caramel apple empanada for lunch today and I want another several of them right the fuck now.

So, does anyone else love the volcano taco or is there something out there that *gasp* you think is better?

Top Gear U.S. edition

So I just finished watching the new Top Gear on the History channel. The show definitely has some potential. I don't know is Adam Ferrara was the right choice as one of the hosts, but he does seem to like his cars, so I'll give him a shot. As for the other two, Rutland (or however it's spelled) is a goofy name, but he seems like a pretty cool guy. The third guy, whose name I can't seem to remember at the moment also seemed like he could be interesting.

The first challenge was somewhat original. It was a race around town in a Viper while trying to keep away from an AH Cobra attack chopper. The chopper's objective was to get a missile lock on the Viper and kill it three times. Obviously no real missile were used, but it was pretty funny watching how flustered the guys in the car were when the third light lit up telling them they were toast.

The renamed the star in a reasonably priced car to "Big star, small car". I mean sure, it's descriptive, but if you're going to keep the weird challenges from the original, three goofy guys as host, The Allman Brothers' Jessica as the theme song and even get your own Stig why not keep the name of the celebrity segment the same? Eh, whatever. They had Buzz Aldrin on. Astronauts are just plain cool, so I was happy with that.

So I guess what I'm saying is that this show has some definite potential and I hope it sticks around. And I have no doubt it will. Does the History channel ever cancel anything?

So it turns out I got the wrong Palin

So I made a post a little while back about the possibility of Sarah Palin being a MILF. Generally speaking I don't much care for the term MILF (I mean, wouldn't the last thing you'd want to think about be who else has been in this hole, but on the way out, as you nail some chick?), but hey it sort of fits For this post. Turns out I was talking about the wrong Palin though.

Dem thighs!

So as it turns out that Bristol is the real MILF of the Palin family. I don't know about you, but I can forgive her for that goofy name as long as she struts around in these revealing clothes more. This hot piece of Alaskan ass has been in the news a bit lately due to her turn on Dancing With The Stars so I decided to check out a few of the videos of her dancing that can be found on the youtubes. She's actually a pretty decent dancer if I do say so, but when strikes me the most is the portion of her that resides between her belly button and her knees.

MOAR PLZ!

Yes, I am in fact, referring to DAT ASS!. Say what you will about her mom and how you'd totally not hit that, but there's no denying anyone would want a piece of Bristol's booty. Maybe if we're lucky she'll take her success with DWTS and see how far she can go with the whole non politics/teen motherhood related fame thing she's got going on right now. I sure as hell wouldn't mind seeing more of this little Eskimo honey and less of that Jersey shore bitch Snooki for instance.

And if all of this isn't enough this guy went ahead and shot his TV because he couldn't deal with how amazing Palin's fine tush was.

(On a somewhat related note, I realized like a day or two after posting it that the one pic of Palin I thought I had posted down below was ALSO Tina Fey. I guess that's why she looked pretty fine in that pic.)

J-E-S-T!!

Ok, so I'm pretty pissed about the New York Jest winning (at least the Gnats went down in flames), but I wanted to share this thought with you anyway. I hope that some day soon the Jest are playing in a downpour and Mark Sanchez gets sacked about four times and his uniform gets downright filthy. And if this happens and one of the commentators doesn't take the chance to say something like "Wow, it sure is muddy down there, just look how dirty Sanchez is." then I lose all faith in humanity.

(BTW, sorry about not updating lately, I wanted to post this yesterday, but my interbutts were down.)

Adun Turtlewax

Yeah, it's been a little while since I posted, sorry I was slacking. Anyhow, I beat original Starcraft and I'm on to Brood War now. In case you're wondering, the subject line is what I swear Dark Templar say when they come out of the gateway. All I can say right now about starcraft is that damn that Zeratul is a badass.

I'm going to try to come up with another humor post some time soon, but I've been totally drawing a blank as far as the funny goes. There's nothing good I can think of to write about.

Well, I'll catch you guys later.

An important point.

Ok so I feel there is something I should point out here about women and the ones guys would consider penising.

Sarah Palin, generally not one a guy thinks much about handing the pants kebab to on a regular basis although I must admit this is probably one of the hottest pics there is of her out there. So generally speaking she's in the DO NOT WANT camp, but occasionally I suppose yeah.

Tina Fey. Ok, now we're getting somewhere. She's got a damn fine set of legs and even has personality on top of good looks, so yes, DO WANT, but I must admit that it could certainly get better than Tina here.

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Damned if I know why, but I would so totally wreck her shit all weekend long if she'd do the Palin thing. In the DO WANT vs DO NOT WANT this is definitely a DO WANT. In fact if given the opportunity I'd be saying "you betcha" I'd like a piece of that.

Silly rhyme

Roses are red
Violets are blue
In Soviet Russia
Poem writes you

Random music silliness.

In the song Pepper by the Butthole Surfers there is mention of a football player rapist. This brings up several questions in my mind. First off are they referring to a football player who rapes people or a person who only rapes football players? If it's the later why choose to only rape football players? There are easier targets, many of them. Is this some guy who wants to show how badass he is by only raping football players? In the song it calls this person the ever present football player rapist, which makes me wonder how he'd have the chance to be alone with his victims if he's always around. I assume he'd have more company too. Did he just wait till it was dark so all the people around couldn't see who was doing all the raping? Ok, I think I've gone off on that one enough.

And now, concerning the song Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. How the hell did Robert Plant convince the rest of the band to do a song about his penis? I could just picture Jimmy Page reading the lyrics and coming up the part where he talks about giving "every inch of his love" and he'd just stop reading, look Robert Plant square in the eyes and say "Is this thing all about your penis, eh?" and Robert Plant getting all defensive.

RP: NO!
JP: Well, then, what is it about then?
RP: Well, it's just another song about a hot chick, we do plenty of those. It just so happens that this hot chick has my penis in her.
JP: I still don't want to do a song about your penis.
RP: Next album we can do one about your penis.
JP: I don't want a song about my penis.
RP: We could do a song about your spleen then.
JP: Now that sounds better.
(And that's where Stairway to Heaven came from. It's actually all about Jimmy Page's spleen.)

My life for hire

Well, I'm sure you guys know where I am in game now thanks to today's subject. I beat the last Zerg mission yesterday (or the day before maybe) not too long after I did I my blog post for the day. I'm already four or five missions in and I must say that the Protoss aren't as strong as I remember them being. Maybe it's just because I haven't gotten all of the awesome units yet or the upgrade tree is too sparse at this point to be very powerful I don't know. All I do know is that I could swear they kicked a lot more ass than this.

One thing hasn't changed though. The Protoss are still STUPID expensive to play. I nearly ran out of money in one of the missions because I kept buying scarabs for the reavers which then just went and fired three at a whack at zerglings instead of at the sunken colonies I was aiming at in the first place. If I click on the sunken colonies you KILL THE FUCKING SUNKEN COLONIES alright? I guess not actually, but I wish that was the case. Well, thanks for wasting 45 minerals per zergling killed you stupid reavers. And then there was that other thing I remember about the Protoss. Needing so damned much space to build your base because nearly every single upgrade for a unit requires another building.

This picture prettymuch sums up my feeling on pylons and the amount of additional ones required to do ANYTHING.

Since you're here and still reading this. Wait, are you still reading this? I sure hope so, anyhow... I'd like to make an informal poll of sorts here. For those of you who have AdSense, how high is your Page eCPM and where in your page do you put ads? I noticed that my eCPM dropped like crazy recently so I did some digging around to find out what might've caused that and I think it was the fact that I changed my ad layout recently. I thought adding the links at the top would have done something good, but apparently not so I went to a banner instead. Hopefully that'll help. I left most of the rest of the page the same though. So, just drop that in the reply box if you'd be so kind. Thanks.

Adventures in two wheel drive

So I finally went down to pick up my tires for my car today. I borrowed my nephew's pickup truck to do it and I almost wish I hadn't. It was a downright scary experience if I do say so. I had quite a drive to make. It was right around 80 miles to central Connecticut. Connecticut, by the way, is in a perpetual state of construction. Just letting you know in case you ever need to go there.

The first thing I noticed about driving the truck was that the light half bed he has on it doesn't do much for traction and for the first time in quite a while I experienced wheel spin. For the past two years I've been bouncing back and forth between my AWD car and a motorcycle with a 70cc engine, so the very idea of wheel spin is just right out. Not so with this truck. Even though it has very little in the balls department it's got no problem whatsoever in jumping sideways around a corner or sitting there going nowhere as the revs go up (and as the speedo says so are the Ms per H) but I can swear that tree over there on the side of the road isn't getting any farther away. I make a note of this and try taking it easier on takeoff.

His truck also has this funny thing I call shit for brakes. He didn't warn me of this, but I guess I should have guessed from the fact that th brake light was on. They've got this really weird habit of doing nothing then nothing them more nothing as you press the pedal down. Gradually the brakes will start to work a bit. After a while though you hit a magical point at which the brakes seeming just lock right up. I didn't really know about that magical point though till I was on the highway doing about 65-70 when all of a sudden BOOM traffic jam. I start to hit the bakes with some urgency and ohh boy all of a sudden I'm slipping all over the lane, but luckily I managed to get the truck back under control before rear ending the guy in front of me. Not by much mind you, but I did it.

The traffic jam I hit was caused by either the fact that I84 was shut down for a few exits worth of road or a crash, I'm not really sure which. I passed by a car wreck as I jumped to the right hand lane to get the fuck off of the highway, but there was still traffic beyond the crash so I'm pretty sure that wasn't the cause. So here I was off the highway because the signs said I84 closed for however the fuck many exits it was closed for seek alternate route. Well damn, if I hadn't gotten my directions off of mapquest maybe I'd know how the hell to get around this. I actually did surprisingly well in finding that alternate route though. After cruising through Plainfield (or was it Plainville? I don't know) and Bristol (Hey look ESPN headquarters, I should drop in and tell them to stfu about Favre) I managed to hop back onto the highway beyond the part that is under such heavy construction that they shut it down. Naturally a few miles down the road I hit another traffic jam. 1 hour and 34 minute trip my ass.

Not too long after I finally get off all of the highways and as I approach my destination (after making a few wrong turns of course) I come to the realization that there are indeed some farms in CT. I always just assumed the whole state was just a suburb of NYC the same way that everyone else assumes that the rest of New England is a suburb of Boston. In no time at all I get to where I'm going. Success! The guy isn't there, but in the email he said the tires were in the driveway so I assume he meant to just grab them and go. I load up my tires and head back toward Mass with much fewer incidents of missing highway or possible death due to traffic jam/brake suckage mishaps. I did though see a person who might just be the unluckiest person on the highway that day. He was driving a nice blue-greenish two door car. It looked like a Honda maybe. But the driver side door was red. Clearly he had been in a collision recently and just hadn't gotten around to repainting his new door. That's probably a good thing though, because the place I saw said car was on the side of the road. And that shiny red door? Ohh it was crushed right the hell in. That poor bastard probably just got that door a week ago and already he's got to buy another one.

I was planning on getting the tires mounted today, but I got to the tire shop and the guy there tells me that their air compressor shit the bed and that after they get it fixed they were going to be playing catch up for the rest of the day and they can get to my tires on Monday. Eh, whatever. I'm in no major rush.

My mission complete I did what anyone in my position would do. I grabbed some Taco Bell and returned the truck to my nephew (along with a Nachos Bellgrande). Volcano tacos rule!

Thoughts on history.

We have the ancient Egyptians, they're definitely best known for the pyramids. They did other stuff too and a lot of people can name other stuff they did. They've got their Sphinx (which really isn't that much different in that it's a stone structure, but whatever), mummies, hieroglyphics and enslaving whole peoples to get this shit done.

Then maybe thoughts go to the Greeks. They were pretty big on making weirdassed myths with Zeus fucking all sorts of relatives after slaying his father. They were also pretty huge on architectural advancement. We all love their columns and decorative ways. Philosophy was pretty popular there and we still teach Plato and Socrates in schools.

Moving on we had the Romans. These guys were the original Empire, conquering most of the known world and the places they didn't conquer were still regarded as trading partners. They were pretty big on robbery, too. Stealing and renaming Greek gods. Taking their architecture (and adding the arch, wooo, arch).  Then they went and gave that up and took Christianity. I don't really know about that being a step up, but that's a different topic all together.

Then we've got the Venetians. Known world wide for giving us the Venetian blind. And... ummm. Well, nothing. These people were around for a damned millennium (apparently, I had to look that up) and all we can associate them with are little thingies that you twist around to keep the sun out. Which just goes to prove my point. Ask anyone to name anything the Venetians did besides making their popular window dressing and no one will be able to. Did they sail the seas? I dunno, maybe. Did they make any great strides in astronomy? It's possible. For all I know they could have been the first people to develop cold fusion (yeah, maybe not). But one thing's for sure. These guys knew their shit when it came to windows!

Taking this time to laugh

Go ahead folks, laugh with me at all the people who dropped $50-200 for one of these a month ago. Also, I'd like to wish Randy luck with the Titans, mainly because we're not going to be playing them so it couldn't really hurt us if they do well. I hope he has some really good games against Miami and the Clots, err, I mean Colts.

Yet another stupid thought.

So a new idea popped into my head recently. What if Microsoft had been run by the open source development guys right around 1990 or so? They already had their DOS operating system and it was rather successful so they decided to stick on a Graphical User Interface. Being open source type guys they would naturally have very little imagination when it came time to name their product so now way in hell would they have called it windows. They would have been like, "Well, it's just DOS with a GUI. We'll call it GUIDOS."

And GUIDOS would have been released to much criticism as any microsoft product is so they'd have given it add ons to make people want to buy it. They'd deck Clippy out in a wife beater, track pants and a few pounds of gold chain. Instead of the trash can you'd have Tony's waste management and the search box would have you click a button saying "find this shit, eh?" When the computer throws up a blue screen or other error, instead of actually telling you what went wrong or giving any info at all it'd just say "It's a Jersey thing". And of course the start up and shut down sounds would be club music samples.

For the record, yes, I did just watch the South Park episode in which Jersey takes over most of the US.

Monopoly silliness

So, McDonald's is (or was, I'm not really sure) doing their Monopoly promotion right now and it just reminded me of all the silly names we came up with for stuff in Monopoly. Hope you get a kick out of these:

Orimental
Vermin
Saint Chuckie's or Saint Chaz
Vagina (obv)
Saint Jimmy's
Tuna Sea
New Yak
Kenducky or Kenfucky
Body Odor railroad
Water Wanks
Mahvin Gahdins (done with a really overly bad Bostonian accent)
Shit Line
Badwick (I don't really know why we pronounced it that way, but we did.)

I could swear we had something for Pennsylvania too, but I don't remember it. Maybe it was Pennsylmania? No clue.

Life

Life has been silly lately.

I had to work today which sucks because I really wanted to see the rest of the Pats game. I missed the part where they floored Favre. The pics in the paper were funny though.

So work, right... I get to work and go to the locker room to change to my work clothes and I notice that my brown lowball glass full of pennies that I really only use as a place to put my car keys is gone. Some jackass swiped about a dollar worth of pennies from my locker and the glass it was kept in. Who the fuck even does that? Swiping pennies! And the real kicker is that they missed the two quarters that were right there. I don't give much of a damn about the change, the only thing I ever do with the pennies is toss them on the floor and chuckle when a coworker of mine picks them up and treats them like a discovered treasure motherload. I am however rather upset that the place I used to stick my keys is gone. It was their home! You took my keys' home you dickface!

The other thing that happened at work was that I finally got my review and a raise. My boss even said he felt my work over the past year was "excellent", something I don't think he's ever said. I didn't get the 3% because my boss prettymuch said that a raise of 3% of my wage would be a joke so I got more than that. Of course that more is also sort of a joke considering it's the first raise I've seen in like two years. *grumble grumble* fucking economy.

In other news I beat the Terran missions and am on the fourth zerg mission. That third mission is annoying if you ask me. They've got siege tanks with siege mode and the best I get are hydras and mutas? Lick my balls. And on top of that I actually came sort of close to needing the extra minerals that are near the enemy base towards the end of the map.

Well, that's about all for now. Catch you later interbutts.

Stupid and/or annoying people

Ok, so I've already made up a list of people I can do without. This one here is something similar. It's a collection of people who are stupid or annoying. Not necessarily people the world should do away with, but still wastes of skin nonetheless.

First up on the chopping block are people who think the moon landing was faked. Why do they find it so hard to believe that we've been to the moon yet they don't think twice about using their GPS enabled phone to help them find the nearest gas station using handy satellite photos or watch a show beamed down to them from space? Is it because this shit took place in the 60s? I bet that's it. They think no one in the 60s could do anything but get stoned and sing about things that turn turn turn (that being everything, I guess). Well, if we've got the technology now why don't you think we've done it? Yeah, it's because we already did. Ohh and we're about to do it again in the next decade or so. Will they still argue when they're watching live feeds from the moon on the news? Then again something tells me these people won't be watching the news at all.

And I'd like to point out one of the most alarming and ironic facts about these people is that the majority of them seem to be Americans. We're the ones who actually did it and yet we're the last to believe it? Whatever.

Next up: people who think Mount Rushmore is a natural occurrence. Where do I even start with this one? First off there are actual documentaries about this shown regularly on TV. I've seen one on the History channel at least once or twice. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though. Maybe they don't watch anything that could be remotely educational. Even if that's the case lets talk about statistics here. If by some miracle four faces of naturally sprout from a mountain what are the chances that all four of them be popular American presidents? Why the hell not slip in Millard Filmore Or James Buchanan? Or going outside of American politics why not slip in Hitler or a freakin' pope or two? How about just some ordinary guy like Jim in accounting?

And speaking of Jim in accounting, what a douchebag he is! Actually I don't even know anyone named Jim in accounting, but I think that tacking "in accounting" onto the end of anyone's name will make them a pain in the ass or at the very least less liked.

Lastly we have sports news casters and writers who suck Brett Favre's dick. You guys are idiots. There are literally hundreds of other players in the NFL, many of them much more deserving of your attention. Why do you insist on shoving Favre down our throats as far as you have his schlong shoved down yours? No one gives a fuck about his personal life (although I admit it's nice to see that Jets babe's titties in the news every now and then) and the only time we'll care about his streak is when it finally ends. Quit taking about him till he breaks several bones and we KNOW he won't start the next game. Hopefully that'll happen this weekend. Go Pats!

I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

There is a 45 oz. tub of fake butter in my fridge. You know the stuff. The best known brand is Shedd's Spread Country Crock, but I've got the cheap stuff in my fridge. Hy-Top brand Premium Quality Spread, it's called. Yup, it's not butter and they damn well know it. At least I did have a tub of the cheap stuff in my fridge. Right now there's just scrapings left in the bottom of the pail and soon enough that will be gone.

Have you any idea how depressing it is to open up that bucket up what is essentially fat and oil, seeing that the bucket is empty and knowing that you've eaten the whole thing? It doesn't matter if it took you three months or three years to do it, you still stare at that bucket and think about how disgusting that very fact is. I feel slightly better about it this time because my brother helped me put away a lot of it, probably more than I ate, but the fact remains that the bucket is nearly empty and a good bit of it is inside me. The last time this happened though I did eat the whole thing. My roommate at the time didn't eat that stuff, so it was all me. It's a rather revolting thought.

In other news of the moronic today I cut the middle finger of my right hand at work today...

..while holding the knife in my right hand.

That post about cover bands

Well, sorry my post here is late. I was freakin dead tired last night so I went to bed pretty early.

So, cover bands. What the hell is going on here? If I want to see "The ultimate Metallica experience" or whatever am I going to grab myself some tickets for a band called The Harvesters of Sorrow or am I gonna find myself some tickets to, ohh I don't know, a Metallica show? Something tells me that the ultimate Metallica experience isn't going to take place on a ten foot wide stage at the local dive bar, so I'll go with the actual band. The only way a band who's not the original can really claim to be the ultimate experience of any band is if said original band no longer exists. And even then I still think there should be a disclaimer of some sort. Ohh and I guess cover bands for bands that still exist could use disclaimers, too. The ultimate Metallica experience for under $15 sounds more likely than the actual ultimate experience.

I suppose there are some good points to cover bands though. If it weren't for cover bands Ripper Owens may have never gotten to front Judas Priest for the time he did. How cool must that have been for him? Going from a cover band of Judas Priest to fronting the real thing and touring the world. Then there's the one cover band CD I actually own. I was wandering the aisles of Best Buy one day and a funny looking version of Metallica's black album caught my eye. I looked at it closer and saw that instead of a snake coiled on the cover it was a banjo. And the CD was called Fade To Bluegrass. How could I not buy that? As it turns out it was actually pretty cool and the band covered songs from all over Metallica's timeline.. I didn't like the song Unforgiven, but the version by Iron Horse (that's the band that made Fade To Bluegrass) was actually pretty good. It was upbeat sounding with a faster tempo.

So, final word. Sure some good things can happen with cover bands, but for every time it does you'll get ten bands that are mediocre, outright suck or just shouldn't exist and another that REALLY sucks. That's why for the most part cover bands should go suck a dick. Except for The Iron Maidens (an all girl Iron Maiden cover band, who by the way are pretty decent). They should suck MY dick. Especially the bassist!

Light Bulb

So I said I was going to post about cover bands today, but I don't want to go into that just yet. I want to go to bed or something. I don't want to leave you guys with nothing though, so have some light bulb jokes.

How many sex addicts/nymphomaniacs does it take to screw in a light bulb?
At least two, but it has to be a very big light bulb.

How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two. One to screw it almost all the way in and another to give it a twist at the end.

How many bodybuilders does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two. One to screw it in and the other to stand next to him and chant "You're lookin' huge man, you're lookin' HUGE!" while he does it.

How many armies does it take to change a light bulb ?
At least five. The Germans to start it, the French to give up really easily after only trying for a little while, the Italians to make a start, get nowhere, and then try again from the other side, the Americans to turn up late and finish it off and take all the credit, and the Swiss to pretend nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

How many pro-lifers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two, one to do it and one to insist that the bulb was lit when the screwing was done.

One.
How many psychics does it take to change a light bulb ?

How many Dragon Ball Z characters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Just one, but it takes him four episodes to do it.

How many male chauvinists does it take to screw in a kitchen light bulb?
None. Let the bitch cook in the dark.

Post about music they said (also, sweet, I found it)

(So, I found it, yay.)

Ok, maybe "they" was an overstatement, but one of you guys yesterday said I should post about music, so here it is.

This isn't your typical post about OMG I love such and such a band or such and such a singer, this is about a particular subject in music. The cover song. Pros, cons and the reason(s) to do it of cover songs include: attempting to be as close to the original as possible, (occasionally difficult, but nice when successful) trying to give your own spin on a song (can be good, can be bad) trying to get your name out there (cheap) and trying to fix a possible flaw you see in a song (noble, but probably futile). I'll give a rundown here and an example or two of each.

Attempting to mimic the original is probably the most often done sort of cover song and is probably also the most commonly failed variety. The problem of course with this sort of cover is that if you're trying to be the original song so badly why even bother? That's why we have THE ORIGINAL SONG. Shinedown's version of Simple Man is an excellent example of a colossal failure of a cover song attempting to be the original. The instrumentals aren't too bad, but they lack the third guitarist, so it'll never be perfect and the singer tries WAYYYY too hard. You guys aren't southern rock boys, don't try to be. As for some successes in this genre I give you Trivium's version of Master of puppets and Therion's version of Iron Maiden's Children of the Damned. Both songs stay true to the source without either overdoing it or being too bland. It's very hard to find a singer who can possibly do what Bruce Dickinson does, but Therion manages it. And as for Trivium, they've just got the timing and tone of Master of Puppets down to perfection.

The putting your own spin on a song style of cover is where you're going to find your worst covers without a doubt. No one is going to listen to a Zydeco Swing Disco version of Stairway to Heaven, but you can bet your ass someone will write (or possibly already has written) one. A good example of this type of song though, oddly enough, is Frank Zappa's Stairway to Heaven. I'm not a Led Zeppelin fan by any stretch, but I'll admit that Stairway is a decent song and Zappa turns it on its head while still making the song perfectly listenable and enjoyable. As Zappa is wont to do he doesn't so much sing the song as he talks it, but with his style and perfection on guitar it works well. He does something similar with his Purple Haze cover (going so far as to actually say "Excuse me while I kiss this guy") The fact that he even breaks out the brass section towards the end and actually does start to sing is pretty nice, too. Another good (in my opinion anyway, my nephew hated it) cover that strays from the original is the cover of Run to the Hills by Sign on the Kerrang compilation Maiden Heaven. The original song has a somewhat frantic pace to it as if the events are still happening and you can almost feel the panic in the natives' hearts as the song goes on. The version by Sign is played at about half tempo and the way it sounds it's almost as if they natives have already accepted their inevitable defeat and have already given up the fight, but they go on running just to attempt survival for however long they can. It's almost haunting.

Ahh yes, trying to get your name out there. The least noble of all the cover songs. Kelly Osbourne tried this tactic with Madonna's Papa Don't Preach. Why she felt she needed to is beyond me. She's already got THE metal god for a father and at the time it was released she was still on TV with The Osbournes. Maybe she knew more than I did though, because even with an already well known song as her first single and already mentioned advantages her music career went nowhere. A second example of this song is Alien Ant Farm's Smooth Criminal cover which I didn't even know at the time was a Michael Jackson song. They may have ridden this song to their one (already) hit wonder status, but you could see from the way they made their video that they really did this song out of respect for MJ as a musician. For this I forgive them of the attempting to ride another artist to fame deal.

I don't really know why I even included the trying to fix a flaw in a song category. There's only one song I can thing of that would fit it and I don't even know if that was part of their original motivation or not. The song I am thinking of it The Kovenant's cover of Metallica's The Memory Remains. The Memory Remains was in my opinion a song that just didn't belong in the Load/Reload era because it was too good. I think Metallica knew this too, so they went and fucked it up by sticking in an old bag whining towards the end. It's like they were listening to it during final mix down and were like "WhoawhoaWHOA! This song's... good. We gotta do something about it. Ohh, I know, let's stick a moaning old bag in at the end. that'll ruin it. YEAH!" Then a few months later when they were shooting a video for it they ran into the same problem. They were like, "Hey, people might like this video! What should we do? I got it, we'll call up that old bag and stick her in there. And and AND... we'll give her a fucking parasol!" There's nothing quite as UNmetal as an old bag with a parasol. And those fuckers damn well knew it.

ANYway, about the song. The Kovenant take that whining old bag part and they replace it with what sounds like a chorus of female opera singers and it improves the overall song by leaps and bounds. They've also got a really cool synthy sound to their guitar distortion that I think helps bring the song up to date.

Ohh, I just realized I forgot a type of cover song. The Genre hop. Both Children of Bodom and Dweezil Zappa cover Britney Spears's Baby One More Time, both to hilarious effect. check em out. Oddly (and sadly) though you never seem to see the genre hop go in the other direction. Wouldn't you love to see Miley Cyrus cover Symphony of Destruction? I know I would. I mean, there's Richard Cheese's lounge versions of EVERYTHING, but that's really it.

Well, that covers (ha) my bit on cover songs, but I can't end this without mentioning a few more simply awesome cover songs:

Machine Head do the most amazing cover of Iron Maiden's Hallowed Be Thy Name.
Sepultura's Symptom of the Universe is pretty incredible as well.
Acid Bath have nice covers of Inna Gadda Da Vida and Lord of This World
Speaking of Lord of This World, Corrosion of Conformity do that song some justice.
Primus show the Charlie Daniels Band some love with a cool cover of Devil Went Down to Georgia. If you look around on YouTube or some such you might find their computer animated music video of it.
And if you like metal covers of Gary Numan songs look no further than Fear Factory's cover of Cars.

I've run out of desire to type about it and I feel this post is going on too long so tomorrow I'll post a little rant about cover bands.

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Jesus MOTHERFUCKING Christ!

I just spent about a half an hour typing up a huge ass post about cover song and lost the whole damned thing when my browser crashed! I can't seem to find a way to get to the drafts that this thing always tells me it saves every few seconds. If anyone can tell me where the hell they are (if they are) please do so. I knew my about my browser's sudden habit of crashing (which I think will figure itself out next reboot, but I'm always doing stuff) but I thought this thing was saving my work for me.

Well, it happened again

And this time it's all my fault. I had a wonderful idea for a blog post and I was even here sitting at my PC at the time and I said to myself "Yes, I will blog about that later. And surely I won't forget what it is I was going to blog about." But then I did just that. All I had to do was click that little button down there to show the desktop, open up my little .txt that sits on my desktop that I try to keep blog ideas in and type out a sentence and I'd have it.

I didn't do that though, so instead you're getting what amounts to a rerun. It's that I had something to post about and I didn't episode all over again. Feel free to switch channels. I probably would if I were you.

Wait, what, you're still here? Well, ok then. Umm, so I want to kill my DVR. It's got this funny habit of switching off for no reason and because of that it only recorded 18 minutes of that new show American Restoration which I was looking forward to watching. No big deal, it's the history channel. It'll be on again soon. Unfortunately the earliest I've managed to find it is Saturday, so unless it pops up in on demand that's when I'll be watching it.

Ok, people, nothing to see here. I'll be back again tomorrow and hopefully by then I will have remembered what I was going to post about this time but forgot. I have a feeling it was either about gaming or music. Probably gaming.

Terran gonna Terr

So, I'm back to The Hammer Falls now. Sure, I should have beaten the Terran missions and probably be half or more of the way through the Zerg by now, but I've been slacking on it. I don't want to rip through the game too fast, so I'm going to make it last. Also, I tend not to play more than one or two missions in a day. I just finished up New Gettysburg the one where (ZOMG spoiler on a 12 year old game, still not gonna say it) happens.

As always I did that thing I love doing on this mission. I built up about 70 siege tanks, a shitload of bunkers full of Marines and a bunch of turrets and successfully repelled the Zerg onslaught at the end. I impressed myself this time, though. I didn't lose one single soldier in the Zerg's attack. I lost a couple of turrets and a bunker got blown up, but no one actually died. That was a new best for me. I always get such a chuckle out of seeing the mass of siege tanks that are set up. It was even funnier the way that every now and then while I was amassing my army they'd send out an ultralisk and the thing was dead before I'd even see it. That's what 40-50 siege tanks trained on the same spot will do I guess.

I'm really looking forward to playing this next mission though. I get to set my base up with turrets out towards the north east with siege tanks just behind them and wait for the enemy to attempt to drop nukes on that spot while I sit back with the scanner hotkeyed to number 5 so I can reveal the ghost and my tanks can kill him, wasting yet another pile of penis gas and minerals. The other side though tends to give me trouble and I hate them for it. Therefore that's always the way I send my attack first. I have yet to decide if I'll go with battle cruisers or siege tanks for my main rush. I may do what I think is the most fun and just drop as many nukes on them as possible. I laugh my ass off whenever I just nuke a base into oblivion and it is just plain silly to use only nukes on offense.

As for now though, I'm going to grab some junk food from the local store and catch up on the UFL game I have in another tab (and then the one I have DVR'd so I can make room for tomorrow's MNF game).

Any console game developers listening?

I sure hope you are listening if you're here, console game developers and/or promoters because I have a way (the only way for some) to draw first person shooter players away from the PC and onto whatever console you're pimping at the moment. And here it is. Everyone knows how much more superior mouse and keyboard is compared to a console controller when playing a shooter. So if you want your console game to be taken seriously in the eyes of real FPS players why the hell not bundle it with a mouse and keypad? That thing pictured on the left is a Nostromo n52 keypad produced by Belkin and I'm sure we already know what the thing on the right is. Sure you don't need to go crazy and bundle a $40 gaming device, but try something similar, eh? And as for the mouse, I'm sure you could simply bundle an adapter that would let you plug in any USB (or if you're feeling retro PS/2) mouse into the console (or better yet, have it plug into the cord that the n52 like device is on so you don't have to waste another controller port).

It really doesn't matter what game you bundle with this it WILL make PC FPS players take a second look at the console market. It'd sure help though, to bundle it with a good game or even a game from a well known franchise. I'm 100% positive that I'm not alone in the gaming community as a person who plays console FPS games pretty damned well, but get downright pissed off at the inaccuracy inherent in using an analog stick to control cross hair movement in a shooter. Sure, analog sticks are great, but they have their place. That place is 3D sandbox games like Mario 64 (or Galaxy, for you newfangled gamers) or what have you. FPS games demand mouse and keyboard. End of story.

Ok, so now that I've run my mouth on that would you guys mind either backing me up or telling me I'm an idiot. Would you want to use this sort of setup on a console game? If yes then would it make you consider console FPSes if you haven't played them for the same reason as me? If not then do tell why.

Top Gear UK^HSA

So I saw a promo for a new version of a US version of Top Gear. I don't really know how I feel about this. I never saw any of whatever the original US version was. In fact, I'm not even sure it got out of the meeting rooms and onto the air, but I have a memory in the back of my mind of hearing about it airing at least a few times and failing miserably. If that's the case, well, that's too bad. Still, it'd be nice if this version of it was any good. And if it is any good it'd be nice for it to hang around for a bit.

From what I can think of I can see some serious plus sides to a US version of Top Gear. The first being that I'd be able to actually understand what they're saying a much higher percentage of the time. I'm a huge fan of Top Gear's hosts, but sometimes I just plain can't make out WTF they're saying. It makes me really glad I have DVR so I can hit the "back up a few seconds and do that again" button. Another nice bonus would be that I'd probably know who these "celebrities" they have on the show are and that I'd get the pop culture references at a much higher rate.

I can think of some downsides, too though. I mean, Top Gear's hosts are just so perfect for the show. I like the way that Jeremy thinks anyone who owns a Camaro is a murderer, the way that both James and Jeremy pick on Richard for being short and the way that Richard and Jeremy poke fun at James for being "Captain Slow". I don't really know how long it took for the hosts to get into their respective places on Top Gear, but it might be painful to watch on the US version. And if that ends up being the case, well, US viewers might not stick it out through the early episodes. But hey, if US TV viewers can manage to watch two full seasons of Jersey Shore without killing themselves then they should be able to take the adjustment period of a car show. another problem I could see is that Americans just aren't the CAR people they used to be. Half of us (sadly) probably couldn't get a standard transmission car moving on even the slightest incline (hur dur, why's your car need two brake pedals?) let alone get one around a racetrack in decent time. And if they try to appeal to the greater public by reviewing SUVs and hybrids I may have to puke.

Either way though, I'm still looking forward to checking this show out and I hope it turns out being decent. Is anyone else going to watch it?

(P.S. Fuck you google toolbar spellcheck for trying to tell me Camaro should be spelled Camry.)

What kind of name is that?

Ok, I really don't have too much of a leg to stand on with this mini-rant considering the fact that I drive a 3000GT, but what ever happened to cars having actual names? It used to be that people drove around in their Firebirds and their Novas and if they were really lucky their Corvettes or their Vipers, but these days everyone owns a CTS or an A8 or maybe a 328i or an SLS AMG F1 (there's a fucking mouthful). Jesus fucking christ, are we getting cryptic enough with our car names yet? I'm not entirely sure BMW has ever produced a car with an actual name.

I mean sure the Dodge Omni is a pretty lame name as well as the Kia Sephia (or any name Kia has come up with, really), but at least when someone tells you they own an Omni you can sort of picture what sort of car it might be and/or what sort of attitude the car is supposed to project from the name alone. When someone tells you they just bought a brand new Mustang you know damned well that bitch is going to get driven hard. And if someone else were to tell you they just bought themselves a used Subaru Legacy you're going to be like, ok enjoy your mellow all wheel drive conveyance and don't let those snow drifts scare you, they're your bitch. But what sort of image do you conjure up when someone tells you they just bought an A6, or a 730 or an SL2? I'm sort of drawing a blank here and you probably are as well.

Now I'm not bashing these cars mind you. I'd love to own an Audi and the legendary AWD drive train that comes with it, but the name it just uninspiring. If I ever find myself in the position of CEO of Audi I'll be putting a quick stop to this shit I tell ya. People won't be driving around their A8 anymore, they'll be cruising around in their Bonerwagon and maybe I'll call the A6 the Sisterfister. Give it some much needed attitude ya know.

Well, hope you enjoyed the rant. I feel better now.

(P.S. I think this is the blog post I forgot about the other day. The thought seems familiar. So now I don't have to keep wondering what that idea was.)

Game idea

So why has no one made an MMOFPS yet? It might actually get someone like me to try out the whole MMO thing. You could start out as some sort of class of character, be it a straight soldier, a medic an engineer, a scout whatever. Start with a basic weapon and join groups who have to perform missions like raids on emplaced structures or blowing up a bridge or whatever. Over time you could earn experience which would improve your abilities sort of like they do in Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. As you go you could find more and better weapons. It could be a nice change of pace from the stale WoW and CoD clones every other company is cranking out these days.

The only real problem I can think of with this is is that it'd be a real bitch on the servers. An MMO just has to deal with crunching numbers to calculate what happens. Did that guy just hit me? Well, let's do a check on my evade percentage score or whatever? Did I get a critical hit, well, 8% of the time I do so random number generator: nope, no critical hit. With an FPS though to see if that guy missed me the question is dependant on my position in 3D space at the time of his shot and as for whether I got a critical hit, well, did you hit the chest or head hitbox with your shot? There's a good bit more processing there. I'm sure it could be figured out at some point though, so maybe we'll start seeing these in the future. After all, the original MMOs had to wait till a server farm was capable of hosting thousands of players while still being reasonably profitable for the company running all of those servers.

Any thoughts on that one there, interwebs?

DVR and Pawn Stars

So hey, I bet a bunch of you guys out there have DVRs huh? I'm wondering how many of you use it like me and how many don't. I've got a bunch of shows on mine that I've saved and watch every now and then so they've been on there for a while. Do any of you do this too? I've got the SNL sports special and the last Christopher Walken hosted episode. The sports one I have because of the "That'll move the chains" sketch with the stupid kid working with the color commentators on a football game and for the NFL play60 with Peyton Manning sketch. Spend time with your children so Peyton Manning doesn't! I've also got a few Whitest Kids You Know eps saved and a few music videos too. Two of the things I have saved I've had for at least three or four years. It doesn't tell the year in my DVR so I'm guessing there. I've also got the last 5 episodes of Foster's Home which I swear I will watch one day!

I try to keep my DVR's drive somewhere around 50% full if I can, but lately it's been in the 70s. I need to catch up on everything. And it doesn't help that they've been showing Whitest Kids in like 4 hour blocks. Soon enough I will have seen most of the episodes though so I'll be able to delete them without worry, but for now I still have it set to record every and save every for ever. And I've got a pretty good number of other shows set to record every new episode such as House, Pawn Stars, CSI, CSI:NY, Venture Bros, Metalocalypse, Mythbusters and I know there are more, but I can't think of them.

Speaking of Pawn Stars. Does anyone else watch it? I watched Monday's episode Tuesday morning before I went to sleep. They're giving Rick Dale, the cool dude who restores EVERYTHING his own show. They're calling it American Restoration and the first ep looks like it's going to have him fixing up a classic golf cart for the pawn shop. I'm more excited than I should be for this show I think, but it looks like it could be really good. Rick Dale is just such an interesting person from what I can tell from Pawn Stars and even if the show turns out terrible, which is unlikely, it can't be any worse than Ice Road Truckers or Swamp Rednecks People.

Alrighty I'm off like a prom dress.

Did it

So I managed to kill all the Zerg I could find on that level. It took me either three or four tries depending on how you want to look at it. My first try I attempted a vulture rush and failed miserably. Sunken colonies rape the shit out of vultures. I wasted so much time working on killing the Zerg with vultures that I couldn't even hold off their last attack and would have lost the mission. I just hit quit instead though.

The second time I tried I managed to kill about 85% of them before running out of time. This time they had so few Zerg to rush at the end that killing them was no problem. I tried a third time and I was completely raping them because this time I decided to go ahead and build that second barracks to crank out marines and the occasional firebutt. Then I managed to hit some combination of keystrokes that quit me to menu without even realizing it. I don't even know what I hit. Pisser. Luckily I had saved only a few minutes before I did that so I reloaded it and raped them all the way to death. I was pissed off though because after killing them the screen at the end said I killed 172 Zerg, but they produced 174. I never saw the other two or I'd have killed them. I reloaded the previous spot again and after killing all the enemies I could find I saved it and used my four scanner charges to try to find burrowed enemies. I reloaded like eight times and never found any enemies so I just said fuck it and finished off the map again. That time it said I killed 176 and they produced 178. FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, Starcraft is still fun.

There's something bugging me though. While I was watching the game tonight I had a really good idea for a blog post, but then I forgot what the hell it was. I have no clue what the hell it was about, but at the time it seemed like the perfect plan. I hope the damned idea comes to me, but I have no clue if it will or not.

Just broke it

So, I passed 200 followers some time in the past couple of hours. Thanks guys, that's pretty sweet. I don't really have anything special planned for it, I just wanted to acknowledge that it happened, so here it is.

So, I reinstalled Starcraft (original, I don't have SC2 yet). I've been meaning to replay it for a while now. I've beaten it before, but the last time I played through it I got fed up with the last mission in Broodwar. I played the thing a good eight hours before just dropping it. I meant to get back to it and beat that fucker, but I never did. It's weird though. I remember the time before playing through I had more trouble with The Hammer Falls (last Terran mission) than the last Zerg mission. The Tarrasque always fucked me up. I figured out a good plan on taking it out though. I had a ghost on the ledge that's there before the Tarrasque shows up and he'd shoot the bastard so I knew he was on his way and then I had three battlecruisers parked near my two bunkers set to a hotkey. Once I knew the Tarrasque was on its way I'd hotkey the cruisers and get ready with the yamato cannon. Three of those and the Tarrasque was toast.

I always enjoyed playing Protoss though. Especially when I get dark templar. One of my favorite things to do with the last few Protoss missions was to get a few dark archons at the ready and mind control the rushing forces. Then I'd only use enemy forces to beat the opponents. I also got a kick out of mind controlling those flying creeps. Even after MCing them you couldn't actually control them, but it was a great way to explore the map because you could still see what they saw. And it's kind of funny seeing the enemy waste their time killing something that has no way to even attack them.

Yep, think I'll get back to Starcraft now. I'm on that Terran mission where you have to hold off the zerg for 30 minutes. I'm going to try my damnedest to not just hold off the zerg, but defeat them in the 30 mins. I'm not much of a rushing player though, so even though it's an early mission I still find doing that a little tough. I tried and failed earlier today with vultures so I'm going to try it with firebats and marines instead.

Catch ya later, bloggyville.

(P.S. fuck you spell check, Starcraft, Zerg and Terran are so words!)

Lotus Elise

So, there was a Lotus Elise parked near my apartment today. I took some pictures. Check em out.

It's a pretty short car. At least a few feet shorter than mine. I bet it corners like a bitch.

I like the louvered ducts on the hood. I don't really know how much of a point there is in them though since the engine is in the back.

The instrument cluster is pretty boss, too. And if you look closely yes, that's a manual shifter. I'd really hate to see such a sweet sports car being saddled with a dogomatic.

Rear end here. These ducts do have a bit of a point what with the hot engine being right there. I couldn't make out much about the engine though, but since it's a lotus I'd guess it's a turbocharged 4 or maybe a 6. I get a kick out of the plate. Not late indeed.

Better view of the rear louvers.

The front wheels are only 16s, but considering it's such a small car that makes some sense. Tires are 195/50/ZR16 It's hard to see here, but the calipers say Lotus right on them. The rears were 225/45/ZR17s.

And finally here's a shot of the passenger door area. The scalloped look brings back thoughts of a 50s Vette minus of course the two toned style they had. I like the gas cap, they even made that look sporty.

People I can do without

I present for your consideration a list of people I feel the world would be perfectly well off without.

1: Yankees fans
These guys are like the certificate of participation of the sports fan world. Ok, I'm here, where's my ring? surely the fact that I've managed to get to the stadium without being mugged, raped stabbed or just plain getting lost means I've won the series, right? And so damned many of them are just bandwagoners. I knew a guy who was a Yankees fan, a Cowboys fan and a Lakers fan. Gee, front running much? Well, not this year with the Cowgirls at least.

2: People who can't figure out how to drive stick
I'm gonna let you in on a secret here, pal, that thing you're doing in your car. That's not driving. Driving requires at the very least the higher brain function required to know when to go from second to third. All you're doing is pointing a large lumbering projectile as the rest of the world hopes you at least don't mow down too many little old ladies and children. And please, get the fuck off the cell phone while you do it. The only thing that should be in the hand not holding onto the wheel is a god damned gear shifter or maybe, MAYBE a bottle of soda.

3: Militant anti carnivore vegetarians/vegans
Ok, I get it, you don't eat meat, possibly for health reasons, possibly for environmental reasons or maybe for some other reason. It's wonderful that you don't eat meat because you're not going to be the guy who buys the last bucket of the Colonel's specialty at the Kentucky Fried Taco Hut just before I get to the front of the line. But if you're going to give me shit about it, well, take it elsewhere pal. Last I checked this was a freeish country. If a guy can't enjoy a steak without a rant from some holier than thou preacher well, that guy might just have to go postal on you.

(You non militants though, you're OK in my book.)

4: Obnoxious wide receivers who have their own reality shows
When the fuck did the wide receiver become the superstar of the football team? You're on a team damnit, it's a team effort just getting to the point where the ball is in the air in your general direction and you're going to tell me that without you nothing would ever happen? And on top of that you're going to dress like a retard and act like a jackass? And people are going to pay you assloads of money to do all of this in front of a camera for VH1? Well fuck, it looks like I'm not going to be watching VH1 any time soon. And can someone tell me what the fuck the day to day like of a guy who catches a damned football has to do with music? Why the fuck is this shit on VH1 yet no one is doing a show about, I dunno, a band touring the nation? That douche from Motley Crue does Rock of Love and there isn't a damned show following someone around when they're actually MAKING MUSIC? Man, this country is fucked.

Well alright I had a bit of fun there ranting, but rant mode off for now. I just wanted to say hey look, I;m getting close to 200 followers and that's pretty cool. I didn't even realize it when I hit 100, so I wanna make something of it when I do cross 200. Catch ya later bloggyville.

ChickachickaVROOOOMM

That title there... That's the sound my car makes again. It's always made the vroom sound mind you, ever since getting it back from the mechanic, but now it makes the chickachicka sound again. That's the sound of a working starter. Man, it sure is nice having one of those again. For the past three months or so I've been pop starting the car. It gets to be a royal pain in the ass I tell you. Luckily the parking lot at work is roomy and has a slight slope to it so starting it without help was usually pretty easy.

It sure is nice driving though. For a good bit of the past year I was relying on the bus to get to work and my bicycle to get home. On the bright side I have a short commute about 10 miles round trip. That made the whole biking home thing not so bad. It also make the paying for gas thing fairly easy. When you have the sort of car that puts out close to 400 horses it's helpful on the wallet to not have to drive too far just to get to work.

Man, I do like driving though. Which is why I'm looking forward to getting my new tires so I can drive this car the way it wants to be driven. I haven't been in triple digits for probably a year or so. BAAH that bites. I wanna drive fast!

Well, catch you later bloggyland I'm out. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Today is information day!

The maroon area could also have been labeled  Alexander DeLarge.

That's the way you do it.

This one is pretty self explanatory, so I won't elaborate.

PSA

We interrupt today's blog post to bring you this public service announcement.

Do you or someone you know like soccer?

You may be asking yourself "what can I do to stop this?"or "why did this happen to me?". Well, ask no longer. We are here to help.

Your first line of defense should be to suggest a better activity. If the person is dead set on the level of excitement that soccer provides you can suggest other things to do that are just as exciting. Perhaps check the comedy channel. If you're lucky Rita Rudner will be doing stand up. If someone who is actually interesting is on worry not. Check your local neighborhood area. If you're lucky there may be some paint drying that they could watch.

If said person is determined to watch sports you should attempt to make them watch something better, such as football. If they aren't happy with the level of strategy and thought that goes into a game of football you should suggest to them that they watch basketball instead. Sure, NBA isn't much better, but at least people score points in basketball.

They may complain to you that the court is too small. If this happens tell them to try watching some Aussie football. It's got a lot in common with soccer. It has a large field of play, the average player runs several miles in the course of the game and there are few breaks in the action. Take this opportunity to point out the advantages that the AFL has over soccer. These include, but are not limited to: games being stuck at a 0-0 tie for usually less than 3 minutes as opposed to 90 and overtime, people who attempt to flop and dive are laughed at and the game doesn't stop anyway, their uniforms aren't trying to sell you insurance cell phones or stereos.

Thank you for your time and we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

That was a popular list

Because that last list of underutilized insults was so damned popular I'm going to make up another list of them.

#1: Fag shagger (more useful if you're British)
#2: Sword swallower
#3: Ass rammer
#4: Choad muncher
#5: Rump ranger (They get a +2 to saving throws versus vagina)
#6: Doctor Cocklove
#7: Fanny bandit
#8: Eli Manning

Feel free to reply with your favorite underused insults and swear words.

Hi I'm Ian Manniong ev'rone says I'm the best quarterback, but ev'rone else says mah brother Peyton is

God damnit you Gnats. Quit this scoring touchdowns shit. I want you assbutts to lose.

Speaking of assbutts, I'd like to post my list of unused/underused insults now.

#1: Assbutt
#2: Knob washer
#3: Knob goblin
#4 Cock jockey
#5: Bitch face
#6: Fuck stick
#7: Dick monger
#8: Cock snot

That's the list. Hope you enjoyed it.

Test your might!

If you can't get 75% or more of these you fail.

http://www.sporcle.com/games/enough/controllers

Good luck.

Did your newspaper get a little better this week?

There's a decent chance that it did. Cathy finally ended after I don't know how many years. One of our papers used to carry it and since it's gone they stuck Stone Soup in its place. Stone Soup might not be a top tier comic, but it's still fairly consistently funny.

I don't understand how Cathy was able to stay around for as long as it did. Every comic was the same "joke". Ohh gee life sure is crazy (and oddly full of stereotypes) for a modern woman. Yup, that was every single joke. OMG how many shoes do I own? surely I need more. Oh noes! it's summer, I have to wear a bathing suit now *fret*. Gosh, this sales lady is everywhere. Does she work at every store in existence or just the ones I shop in?

I suppose that wasn't too fair. Garfield has been running on the same gag for 30 years as well. Oh my, what a fat cat this is. And it'd be a nice change of pace if Family Circus actually had a gag of any sort. I often wish that Calvin and Hobbes were still in the comics section, but hey, at least I have fond memories of them as opposed to wishing they had ended it in their prime or shortly thereafter. I'm still miffed about Foxtrot bailing on dailies though. There aren't enough nerdy comic in newspapers. I mean sure Jeremy from Zits does a lot of texting, but Jason from Foxtrot was an actual factual geek.

Ok, that's enough ranting for one night. I'll catch you guys tomorrow or so.

Everybody Edits

So hey, if any of you like to play highly addictive really fun web games you should give Everybody Edits a shot.

http://everybodyedits.com/

It's a simple platformer with a couple of twists. You're a smiley face and you can jump around collecting coins, hitting keys which either activate or deactivate blocks and exploring the different levels you join. The two twists I mentioned are firstly that each level can hold up to 45 people, all of whom can activate switches and whatnot, so it can be collaborative or in some cases competitive in nature and the second twist being that each level is constructed by users and you can edit levels as well. Not every level is open to edit, but every level has an edit code and some level makers (the dumb ones, really) make their codes available.

Well, enjoy the game and don't lose too much sleep or productivity over it.

Jesus fucking christ I hate Peggy Hill

Like the subject line says, I can't fucking stand Peggy Hill. everything about her pisses me off so damned much. As far as I'm concerned she's the most annoying cartoon character I can think of. Yes, even more annoying than Master Shake, Herbert that pedophile who wants Chris Griffin's ass and every single one of the characters from Squidbillies (except for Dan Halen, he's kinda cool).

Like I said I hate everything about her, but the thing I hate the most is her own sense of self worth. She's the sort of person who actually believes her shit doesn't stink. So you're ok at playing boggle, WTF does that even matter for? And if you only knew how horrible you were at speaking Spanish you'd kill yourself, so I really hope you find out how bad you are at speaking Spanish.

I'd say I wish she'd jump out of an airplane without a parachute, but she already did effectively the same thing and fucking lived. Bitch need to get blown the fuck up, that's for damn sure. Maybe someone could bludgeon her to death with one of her substitute teacher of the year awards.

Well that was weird

My AdSense money for yesterday was $0.00 even though I had clicks and views. I wonder what the heck happened. I'm at a whopping seven cents today. I don't get it. I mean sure my numbers aren't great, but they're pretty similar to other day's numbers and ctr rates. Eh, whatever, I didn't expect to get rich through blogging or anything, but seven cents a day is kinda crappy.

Anyhow, I guess I'll actually say something instead of bitching. I've got the Patriots/Phins pregame show going on in the background. It'll be nice to see Tommy boy and his troops Wes, Randy and Aaron whup up on some lolphins. My brother doesn't think they'll win, but I'm sure that as long as they show up for three or more quarters of play that they'll have it.

Ohh and even if they don't win the game I'll have a good time because I've got some motherfuckin' salsa. Shit yeah buddy. I love me some salsa and nachos.

And now that direct TV ad is on. That one with the Russian dude who loves himself some opulence. That dude's a fucking bro and I just love his pygmy giraffe. Speaking of ads. I wonder how many times bags will fly free tonight. I'm just glad they got rid of saved by zero. That ad pissed me right the fuck off.

Ok, that's enough yammering. Catch you guys later.

Impossible tires

Graaah! Why the hell can't I find a set of tires for my car? I don't want to blow $500-800 on a new set of tires, but no one ever seems to be selling 245 45 17s in sets of four. The last thing I want is to exchange unmatched tires for more unmatched tires. I've been searching the craigslist for the past three months or so and the only time I ever find a set they're already sold by the time I can send a message. I did find a set on ebay, so maybe I can get them. Wish me luck.

Poker

So, I'm off to play some poker tonight. Texas hold 'em style. This will be the last time I'll get to play for a while (stupid job schedule) so I hope I do well. The last time I played I sucked hardcore and lost $20 in no time flat. I did pretty well the time before that though, missing the money by one spot, but only buying in once for $5. That's not bad at all for a night of entertainment.

I'd like to draw at least one kickass hand though. Even if I don't get paid off too well by it I'd just like to see a full house, quads or a straight flush. A few years ago when I played with this group I hit a straight flush on the flop. That was pretty freakin boss.

Video Games

So, I have a gaming related poll now. Go ahead and tell me what you think.

As for me, I prefer a good first person shooter over prettymuch any other sort of game. Following that I'd go with RTS games, then it's a toss up between RPGs and platformers. Casual games bring up the rear because no one should ever play MMOs.

The Post cereal company is full of idiots.

It was some time in the mid 1980s when Post released what is probably the best cereal ever to have existed. I am of course talking about Smurfberry Crunch. I don't know what the hell was in it, all I know is that I wanted more of it. Then for some moronic reason they pulled it from shelves some time before the 90s. I can only assume they still have the recipe for it stored somewhere in their headquarters and yet they have yet to re brand it to some other cartoon and re release it. I don't care if they made it into Camp Lazlo cereal, as long as it tasted as awesome as they did in the 80s I'd hit the store several times a week for new boxes and pound that shit down like there's no tomorrow.

So, Post, if you're listening, bring that shit back!

Lamborghini Gallardo

So, here's a goofy thing I do. I like to think when I buy my bi weekly lottery tickets that I'll actually wind up winning the damned thing at some point. And like many people the first thing I plan to do is buy a kickass car. Most people however probably have a set car that they'll get and it prettymuch stays the same for years on end, only replacing the newest model year when they are released. Not me. I've got this odd little thing where every few weeks to a month or so a new car pops into my head as the car I will buy if I happen to hit the lottery right then. Currently that car is a Lamborghini Gallardo. I really don't know why other than that it's really fucking fast, but that's what I'll be buying if I happen to hit it big in the next couple of weeks. I won't be going for the orange paint job pictured though.

I've been doing this for a while and past cars include such things as Corvettes (Z06 and ZR1), a Ford GT, A Dodge Viper (Fuck you Dodge, it's a Viper not an SRT10), a Lotus Esprit an Ascari A10, a McLaren F1 and all sorts of other fun supercars and sports cars.

One notable exception though is that Bugatti Veyron. Sure I can respect it as a stupid fast car, but the thing is just too ugly to ever want to own one. If they could make it significantly less homely I'd reconsider, but as it stands now the Veyron is right out.

Not that it matters, I'll never have a spare $1.6 million or whatever it costs.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

So, it's Sunday and that means football.

I bet you didn't know that Thursday Friday and Saturday can also be for football though, did you? This past week it was Friday and Saturday. That's when the UFL had their games. The UFL is a different, but so far very good football league. they've only got five teams right now, but they're expanding to six next year. And considering that they expanded this year from four to five they might just have a decent number of teams in a few years.

Both of this week's games Hartford at Omaha and Florida at Sacramento came down to the wire and were won with touchdowns with about 30 seconds left. Both games featured so well played football, too, which is more than can be said for past leagues *cough* XFL *cough*.

So, if just one day and a Monday game aren't enough football for your liking I'd suggest checking this shit out.

ufl-football.com

Top Gear

There's a Top Gear marathon going on. I've seen most of them, but I have caught a couple of episodes that are new to me. This show is awesome. New Episodes are up on Monday. I have to be at work at that point, but that won't stop me from recording it.

Also, an update on TF2: Man do I suck at this game. Every server I join I get freakin schooled. WTF am I doing wrong? The lack of weapons is still a bit bothersome though. Ohh and being an engineer sucks. I do like Heavy and Pyro though.

TF2

So I finally got around to installing Team Fortress 2. I don't know what I think about it just yet. I mean it seems ok, but it's kinda slow if you ask me. And I'd really like a better selection of weapons. It is pleasantly silly though.

I've only played as a Heavy, Scout and sniper so far. The scatter gun is pretty boss, but I sure wish the minigun had better accuracy. Sniper rifle is a decent idea, but the map I was on sucked for it. The SMG sidearm is pretty sweet though.

I think I'm going to give medic a shot next time I play.

Fucked up sleeping pattern.

I don't know what the hell happened to my sleeping cycle, it's all fucked up. For the past two days I've fallen asleep at like 6-9PM. It's bizarre. I've aleady tried the stay up till tomorrow trick and it's still not right. The really bad part is that 6PM is when I usually WAKE UP to go to work. Not good. At least I'me on vacation for another few days so maybe I can fix it.

Also, I want to kill my fucking computer. For some reason it occasionally freezes my browser after I type any character that requires the shift key. What the hell kind of problem is that? How the fuck does it even happen? Is it a keyboard problem or an OS problem? I am so confuse.

Blah

Man, I hate cleaning.

I really have to though. If I don't have the place clean by Friday the landlord will kick my ass out.

Tough call though. I guess I'll clean it. I mean, if I don't I'll wind up cleaning it out as I leave anyway. So it's a no lose/lose situation. No win here at all. Guess I'll get moving, eh?

So a guy I don't really know too well died.

At work today I just happened to notice the obits page of the paper and I recognized someone. It was one of the local DJs. The guy was only 28. Man, I stil wonder what the fuck happened. Poor bastard. He seemed like an OK guy the few times I talked to him. He thought a bit highly of himself, but he did have the brains to back it up so I didn't hold it against him.

People who are younger than me should not be dying. Stop that.

And you, reader, if you're less than 32, don't go dying on me just yet mmm'kay?

First!

So, here's my first post. I don't have anything to say yet, but give me some time and I'll find something cool.

Bye for now.