KJToo

Laura tells me that they’re putting an IHOP at the corner of Euclid Avenue and SOM Center Road.

This changes everything.

Posted August 17, 2005 Comments(7)

My arms are sore from the video game playing.

That’s right, playing video games has left me with sore arms. How is this possible? Well, Miscellaneous G™ brought his PlayStation 2 over last night, along with his Taiko drum and (more importantly) EyeToy.

After Taiko Drum Master taught me that I am devoid of rhythm, we connected the EyeToy and started fighting ninjas, popping ghosts, spinning plates, washing windows, smacking ratmen and disco dancing. This went on for no less than two hours as we went through all twelve games included on the EyeToy disc.

Clever, clever Sony, disguising exercise as a video game. By the time the last ninja flew off-screen, I was so worn out that I didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt over not riding my bike after work (which I will do tonight, mark my words). It’s a pity that both the EyeToy and the Taiko drum are exclusive to the PS2, as the games were enough fun that I’d grab Xbox versions in a heartbeat.

Posted August 16, 2005 Comments(0)

I didn’t ride my bike at all this weekend. Because I suck.

Actually, I woke up with an upset stomach on Saturday morning and the idea of stopping at the side of the bike trail to allow my breakfast an encore appearance didn’t appeal to me at all. So, I called Bob and wimped out on him.

Later in the afternoon, when the sun was high and hot, I was feeling much better, so I decided to punish myself with some yardwork. I spent two hours and change edging, mowing and cleaning up the lawn. This was the first appearance of the edger this summer,1 and it performed its task admirably. The lawn had so encroached on the sidewalk and driveway that I feared the edge could not be found with anything less than a backhoe. Not so. My little Black & Decker EdgeHog tore through grass, weeds and dirt with ease. Or what I thought was ease. My arms later informed me that it wasn’t quite so easy as it seemed.

Sunday afternoon my in-laws had a house-warming party. My mother-in-law, expecting between thirty-five and fifty guests, prepared food for two hundred. She bought two huge meat and cheese trays and at the end of the party the second one was still in the refrigerator, unopened.

In addition to meat trays, there were pasta dishes (Laura made some excellent ground beef and Italian sausage sauce in the crock pot), pizza, breads and dips (including BLT and white pizza dips, both delicious), chips, beans and more. And desserts. Eleven thousand desserts. Blueberry crumble, chocolate cake, cookies, eclairs, cream puffs and lemon bar.

I grazed almost non-stop from 12:45 until 9:00. The food was incredible, the amount I consumed insane.

After Laura and I got home, I waddled went upstairs and installed Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption on my PC. I bought the game immediately after its release but (you guessed it) never finished it. In the twelfth century the noble Crusader, Christof Romauld, is wounded in battle and left in the care of the nuns at a Convent in Prague. Regaining his strength, Christof descends into the silver mine and destroys Ahzra, unholy mistress of the horrors lurking deep within the mine. On returning to Prague, Christof is hailed as a hero, but his travails are far from ended.

Christof finds that he is smitten with Anezka, the lovely nun who nursed him back to health when all others had abandoned hope. Alas, the Archbishop Geza—who clearly lusts after Anezka himself—declares that Christof’s feelings are an affront to the Lord and will damn both him and the young nun. Geza orders Christof to go out and patrol the streets of Prague after dark, an order that is tantamount to a death sentence. After sunset, the streets of Prague are plagued by undead beasts, including vampire servants known as Revenants. None are a match for the powerful Christof, until he meets a vampire more powerful than he imagined possible. By the time I turned off my monitor at 2:30 this morning, Christof had been “embraced” by Ecaterina, leader of the Brujah clan in Prague. Now Christof, who so valiantly battled godless heathens and monstrous creatures in the name of Christianity, is himself an unholy abomination, doomed to walk in darkness for all eternity, feeding on human blood to survive.

So he’s got that going for him.

1. As an edger, anyway. I used it as a trencher in the spring, when I was trying to define the boundary between lawn and flower bed in the front of the house. [back]

Posted August 15, 2005 Comments(17)

Well, it’s time to return Destroy All Humans to Blockbuster. I’ve apparently completed 22% of the game, which is interesting. Why? Well, because I’ve visited three towns in various parts of the United States of America. Nothing even approaching a major metropolitan area, and I haven’t actually destroyed all the humans in any of those towns (yet).

Last I heard, the United States was populated by right around 270 million people, give or take. Suppose that there are 6 billion humans on the planet Earth (that’s probably low-balling it a bit, but I don’t have time to do a full count right now). Even if we inflate the U.S. population to 300 million, wiping out every last human between Canada and Mexico (plus a handful in Alaska and Hawaii and, hell, throw in Puerto Rico, too), that’s still only 5% of the entire planetary populace.

So how can I be 22% of the way through Destroy All Humans? Something doesn’t add up here. Am I meant to destroy every last human1 or not?

Y’know what? I bet the answer has to do with exponents. I’ll just bet.

1. Those pesky Kulku only needed to “process” eight million humans to fulfill their quota. Amateurs. [back]

Posted August 13, 2005 Comments(8)

Every time I’m passing a tractor-trailer, dump truck or other ponderous vehicle going up a hill (usually on SOM Center Road between Euclid Avenue and I-90), I think to myself, “He can’t beat me on the grade. You can’t beat me on the grade!”

Posted August 12, 2005 Comments(7)