Super N00b Check-in, December 2009

It’s been a great year for time sinking, er, gaming. I finished Gears of War 2, Bioshock, Resident Evil 5, Arkham Asylum. I sold Mass Effect, Prototype, Borderlands, Unreal Tournament III, and Fallout 3 GOTY Edition without even getting ¼ through them. (That was my second go round with Fallout…) It’s final: RPGs are not for me.

So, now spinning:

Xbox 360: Call of Duty MW2 (Spec Ops), FIFA 10, NHL 10, GTA IV, Midnight Club LA (surprisingly addictive), Dead Space (still), Forza Motorsport 3, Halo ODST, Left 4 Dead, (GTA IV) The Lost and The Damned, and (GTA IV) The Ballad of Gay Tony. The latter includes some rather racy cut scenes I wasn't aware of, much to my embarrassment and my wife's horror. (Sorry, hon.) My 19 month old son will be chomping at the bit for Forza Motorsport 13, when the time comes.

PS3: InFamous (Will likely sell Killzone 2 – barely touched. Yawn.), Dante’s Inferno (demo)

PC: World in Conflict (still), Crysis, Crysis Warhead (dormant)

iPhone: Too many to mention. But EA, SHAME ON YOU for the iPhone port of FIFA 2010. I’m embarrassed for you.

Games in 2010 I am really looking forward to (in order of release date):

Aliens vs Predator (Xbox): The trailers say this will be even better than the PC original released 10 years ago. This is the game that really planted the gaming seed in my head.

Bioshock 2 (Xbox): The first was a stunningly detailed production, featuring an underwater art deco world populated by genetically enhanced lunatics. The next version looks to be more fantastic eye candy with some new characters AND you play as a Big Daddy.

Dante’s Inferno (Xbox): Sure. It’s basically God of War with more literary cred. So what's not to like?

God of War III (PS3): Though I never finished the original on PS2, Chains of Olympus on PSP was the first game on ANY platform I ever beat. So I have a soft spot for this franchise.

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox): I guess if games set in the Renaissance, the Middle Ages and the Crusades can be hits, why not the Wild West? Besides, it IS a Rockstar game and it looks AMAZING:

Split Second (Xbox): Not just another racing game. But one that let’s you blow things up and knock LARGE things down to slow down/defeat your opponents. Whoda thunk someone so vehemently anti-NASCAR like yours truly would be such a racing game fanatic?

Summer of '86

I'm sure that like me, many football (soccer) fanatics can call up and/or cross reference life memories based on what major football event was taking place at the same time. For me, the Summer of 1986 comes rushing in like a flood. A random collection of memories in no particular order:
- I lived in a college flop house near the Syracuse University campus with my best friend Jeff, but rarely saw him as most of my time was spent in the "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" town of Tully to the south (where my girlfriend lived).
- In a stunning display of irresponsibility, I walked out the back door of my dead end dish washing job at a rib joint one day. Not long after that, I blew off an interview at McDonald's.
- I learned to really swim in a small pond for the first time.
- I watched the England-Argentina match on the SU campus in a room full of Argentinians. I hate the little bastard (Diego Maradona) for the first goal, but can't deny him the second-one of the greatest ever. (They should have dropped him! That was the pre-professional foul era. The worst that would have happened would have been a yellow card.)
- I watched the France-Brazil quarter-final with Jeff on a small 13" black and white TV in the aforementioned flop house.
- I can't remember which match we watched at Jim Gorant's place (another flop). But all his roommates and their friends were huge (American) football players and/or fans. They kept parroting "DA WORLD CUP!" in mockery of the beautiful game. No malice intended. They just didn't get it.
- My girlfriend's father gave me odd jobs, with no chiding whatsoever on quitting the one I had.
- Jeff and I had a huge, unfortunate misunderstanding with our Nigerian roommate, who may have been plotting to kill us all after what our other roommates were doing to him (spoiled rich kids with no tact). My most heartfelt, profuse apologies were repelled (thrice!).
- Perhaps in solidarity, Jeff quit the co-op he was working too.
- I bought many (vinyl) albums from the Record Theater off Marshall Street, despite having almost no money.
- The intellectual metal dude I worked with at the rib place played the same classic rock station whenever he was on shift. I may have heard "Kashmir" about 20 times in my 4-6 weeks there. Also in heavy rotation that summer:
Secret Separation by The Fixx
In Your Wildest Dreams by The Moody Blues
When the Heart Rules the Mind by GTR (Reviewed by one crtitic in a single acronym: "SHT". Poor Steve Howe...)
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel
- The Monkees were on a reunion tour. And our roomie Bob had a facial structure such that, when asked, he could contort his face into a dead ringer for Micky Dolenz (Monkees drummer).
- We had a "communal cat" (Bob's actually) named Lord Byron. (I think Bob was an English major.) he was the coolest feline ever.
- I got my lifetime fill of Benny Mardones.
- After a weekend trip back home where I retrieved much of my vinyl collection, I stumbled with a full crate of LPs, tripped, fell, and ruptured a vein at my arm bend. Said vein blew up like a grape and fuelled my hypochondria. (I had no health insurance at the time.) It did go down and morph into a rainbow-colored bruise.

More Internet Lameness

In all seriousness, would this ad make you want to buy car insurance from this vendor? Or check their mortgage rates? It took me maybe five minutes to compose in a free 3D application called Daz 3D (which is a great little app, by the way). (Rendering took 10 minutes.) I am embarrassed for the marketing team(s). This is symbolic of the downside of Web 2.0 and the cult of the amateur run amok.

The Soundtrack of My Life

In my blissful 70s youth, I have fuzzy recollections of falling asleep to Dr Demento and offbeat hits like "They're Coming to take Me Away" by Napoleon XIV or "Hocus Pocus" by Focus. The outro/epilogue to the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin" used to scare me with its dramatic orchestral flourishes followed by the mysterious, "Breathe deep the gathering gloom..." sequence. It also will always evoke images from the original motion picture of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" , especially the Morlocks. (I think I first heard the song on late night radio right after watching the film on the Channel 7 Late Show. I have yet to see the 2002 version with Guy Pearce, as it got severely panned. But images I came across of the newer Morlock species definitely has my curiosity piqued.)
Other songs that, due to their original late night spins, always make me melancholy and sleepy:
"Dreamweaver" by Gary Wright
"I'm Not in Love" by 10CC
"Wildfire" by Walter Murphy
"Main Street" by Bob Seger
"Shannon" Henry Gross
"All By Myself" by Eric Carmen
"Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" by Eric Carmen
Thomas Dolby's Golden Age of Wireless LP always brings back memories of "The Hunger" . Images and ideas from the film stuck with me as I listened to tracks like "One of Our Submarines" and "Europa and the Pirate Twins". (It also reminds me of the horrific insomnia I had at the time, which stuck with me for some 15 years. In this stylish vampire flick, one theme was how sleep affects aging. Very depressing at the time: I was convinced I had about ten years more to live. I still don't know why this flick gets such a low rating. Me thinkey it be a masterpiece.)
The Housemartins' first 2 LPs will always remind me of the cute, pre-nose job Jennifer Grey doppelganger who worked at the Seneca Mall Cavage's. During one of the numerous trips in which I failed to strike up even a casual conversation with her, I heard her mention how much she loved said English band. I even followed her weekly to a local college bar for drink and drown night. My drink and drown partner in crime, Brian, actually knew her and attempted to facilitate an introduction. But one look from him in conversation with her evinced a wide-eyed, panicky shake of the head or, in one case, a hasty beeline for the door. Fear and social retardation at its finest. (We had a running joke about it. We referred to my specific fear of record store chicks as "genaphobia": Her name was Gena.)

Video Game Myths Debunked

Not that I would advocate exposing my son to such graphic images of violence before the age of, say 12. But this article I came across on the PBS website of all places pretty much sums up how I've felt about (mature) video games for a long time. I have spent many post-baby bedtime hours playing violent video games (GTA IV, Gears of War, Resident Evil 5, Killzone) and I guarantee you will never see my name in the headlines for some horrific violence. The same goes for millions of other middle-age gamers who are husbands, fathers, businessmen, politicians, doctors, etc. It's another classic case of people passing the buck and/or finding a scapegoat. If you aren't giving your kids your ear or even the time of day, don't expect their all-night Quake Wars Enemy Territory sessions to lead to anything positive.

I mean, I really enjoy Grand Theft Auto IV. But you're reading the words of a man who regularly escorts unwelcome spiders (even wasps if I can help it) out of his house with a catch and release policy. Researching clips on spiders, I got a little angry when I came across an open source video of a teenager killing one just to make a video. Lame.