KJToo

Fantastic Four (Xbox)

The new Fantastic Four Xbox game had two things going for it that the recently-released Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction game did not:

1. It has a cooperative multiplayer mode.
2. Blockbuster had it in stock last night.

Miscellaneous G™ and I played for about two hours last night and it appears to be a decent game. There are some silly camera angle problems that developers (of any video game, really) should have been able to eliminate by now, and we ran into a couple of areas where characters became unexpectedly stuck or unable to move without falling to their death. Oh, and the voice acting is consistently dreadful throughout. Sometimes having the cast of the movie upon which your video game is based doing the voices for their characters isn’t necessarily a good thing, I guess. Still, the execution of the various powers works well and the game is about as entertaining as most other multiplayer co-op beat-’em-ups I’ve played. Whether the single player game will be up to par remains to be seen.

On a mostly unrelated topic, it turns out that my wife is still a nerd. I know that there are one or two people on the planet who don’t frequent the forums at KJToo.com, so I’ll share her haiku triad here:

Kris has hit the mark:
His spawn is in my belly.
(Pass the ginger ale.)

What chance does it have?
With our genes, (s)he’ll doubtless be
Blind, blond(e), and nerdy.

O, how life will change!
Soon, no more sleeping til noon…
And no more Xbox.

Her dire predictions of an Xbox-less existence will not come to pass. They cannot come to pass! I’m going to buy one of those mini controllers for Baby Johnson. S/he’ll be playing Soul Caliber II before s/he’s off the teat!

Posted August 31, 2005 Comments(6)

Busy, busy weekend.

On Friday we had a “team event” at work. My team consists of five peons and one overlord, and we decided a month or so ago that we’d all like to see the Bodyworlds 2 exhibit at the Great Lakes Science Center. Most of us1 piled into the MVoD at noon and within moment escaped the gravitational well of the office. We had lunch at ¿Que Tal? and then it was off to the Science Center.

The exhibit was fascinating. That Gunther Gebel-Williams von Hagen is either a straight-up old school mad scientist or a stone-cold serial killer. Either way, he put together an impressive array of human cadavers that provides unprecedented insight into human anatomy. I came away amazed that the world doesn’t break us into tiny pieces on a daily basis.

After the exhibit2 we proceeded to the New York Spaghetti House for dinner. We all split the mozzarella marinara appetizer and I enjoyed a raspberry martini, house salad (excellent dressing), lasagna and tiramisu. It was all excellent.

Saturday morning I was supposed to go cycling with Bob, but it rained,3 so we opted to forgo the cycling in favor of breakfast at IHOP. To make up for not doing 10+ miles on the bike, I practiced my power-eating on four pancake-wrapped sausage links and a large orange juice. I’m pretty sure that qualifies as aerobic exercise.

After breakfast, the Xbox LAN party commenced4. There was much playing of HALO 2 and Project Gotham Racing 2, which lasted until at least one wee hour of the morning. I got home at about a quarter of two on Sunday morning and was just as surprised as Laura to find me still in bed when she got home from church at one in the afternoon.

Laura and I had lunch at Red Robin, did a little shopping, then went home so I could get the printer connected to her newly-moved PC. I played a little Tetris Worlds while Laura napped, then I mowed the lawn. It was just the sort of hectic, fast-paced, action-packed day that separates our thrill-a-minute lifestyle from the mundane, humdrum existence of “normal” folks.

Apart from learning that Laura is eighteen weeks pregnant, that pretty much sums up our weekend.

1. All but one, who opted to drive his motorcycle and wound up having to leave before dinner. [back]
2. We also saw Mystery of the Nile at the OMNIMAX theater. It’s the story of the first expedition to ever successfully navigate the Nile from its source to the Mediterranean Sea. It was breath-takingly beautiful and the music was excellent. I’m hoping there’s a soundtrack CD available online. [back]
3. Well, it threatened to rain. We argued that the precipitation factor was simply too unpredictable to chance. We’ve both got caliper brakes on our bicycles, and they don’t work all that well when wet. [back]
4. While I was getting my game on, Laura and her mother spent the day shopping for porn corn. I’m told that they actually bought some sweet, juicy porn corn, too, but I won’t get to experience it until this evening. [back]

Posted August 29, 2005 Comments(5)

KJToo²

Watch this space for details.

Posted August 26, 2005 Comments(4)

Due to Laura and I switching offices, I’ve got some technical hurdles to overcome regarding Intarweb access. Our ability to check e-mail, forums, update blogs, etc. from home is likely to be a little on the spotty side over the next few days.

Posted August 25, 2005 Comments(7)

There are at least seven areas in my neighborhood where the sidewalk is torn up, one of which looks to be about twenty-five feet in length and another that spans the entire width of someone’s driveway. This morning there were manly-man types with a cement truck readying to fill in the holes at the Oak Ridge/Euclid intersection.

Still no explanation of why the holes are there. I should have stopped to ask the guys, but their truck created a nice bottleneck at Oak Ridge and there was another car waiting to turn in as I was leaving, so I opted not to dawdle and called the construction company once I got to work.

The construction company is doing work for the city, replacing the sidewalk according to their contract. The nice lady advised me that I should have gone down to the courthouse to sign an estimate for the replacement. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered doing that. She advised me to call the city Service Department.

So I did. Seems the construction company is way behind1 on their contract with the city. There’s a possibility that the previous owner of our house was required to pay for the replacement of the sidewalk prior to selling it. I guess you only really need to have that kind of work done if you’re selling the house. Which we’re not. We’re blowing it up and erecting a 100-foot tall marble obelisk in its place, but not until 2012.

The city is going to check their records and get back to me regarding who authorized (and more importantly, paid for) the work. Let’s just hope that my intermittent somnambulism isn’t so severe that I’m driving to the courthouse and authorizing sidewalk repairs in my sleep.

EDIT: 11:50AM - Laura just got off the phone with the city. We have no financial responsibility for the replacement of the sidewalk. It was apparently a “point of sale” obligation for a previous owner.

1. Three years or more behind. Seriously. [back]

Posted August 24, 2005 Comments(12)