It's True

On St. Patty's Day, everyone is a little bit Irish.

The Ides of March

It just occurred to me that I forgot to herald the Ides.

Instead I will say, "Beware St. Patty's Day".  May drunken louts not ruin your day as they are sure to ruin ours.

Happy H1 Day, everyone.

I Have Not...

 ...But try MC.

I am loving my virtual tour of Gorillaz' Plastic Beach thus far (although I have not gotten to 2D yet) as well as the album.  It could be that I am currently obsessed a little by Damon Albarn's voice.

Observation(s): The Forgotten Posts

There were a few posts I forgot to blog in recent times, so here they are:

Christmas Madness 1:

I do not think I have spoken about our little family at work before.  We collected a variety of toys (mostly from Madagascar) and set them up on Alex's desk.

Last Christmas, they celebrated the season complete with hats and a "Christmas Tree".

If one member of the clan looks suspiciously like a member of the clan... remember, he's just a penguin.

Christmas Madness 2:

Harry Potter goes wrong?

A cookie snitch? Hmm.  Well, at least the wings look okay...

I'm not sure that was the correct track for Hogwarts.  

Wonder where this will lead?

On The Train:

 You will sometimes meet the weirdest characters on the train.

 And they will not leave you alone...

Your Friends Are Jerkfaces:

H1 did me a kindness by buying vitamins for me. 

I don't know if I ever told anyone this story but when I was a kid, I choked on a grape sweet/hard candy.  I managed to swallow it down and be okay but ever since then I have developed a mental block against taking tablets.  You would think I would have developed a fear of eating hard candies (well, honestly, I am beginning to develop a fear of that these days as well as bones) but no, the idea of having to swallow something without it being chewed makes me clam up. 

It's absolutely ridiculous, I know but now you know why H1 bought me gummy chews for vitamins.

The point of this story is that I realised today that I am finally running low.  I am supposed to eat 2 a day and discovered I was down to my last 5.

Huh?

5?

How did that happen? I mean, it's certainly possible there could have been a miscount when packaging of the product.

Or it could very well be that your Jerkface friend Beetchie came along one day and ate 3 instead of the 2 she was supposed to ingest.

That girl is trying to mess with with my health!

 Thanks, Jerkface Beetchie.

Blatant Lies:

This is today's observation.

Wait, wait, wait.  

No one told me the iPad was a pig! 

Magical and revolutionary?! Man, get me like 10 of these pigs!

A Follow Up and a Call to All

It may very well be that we established that the blog is racist a few weeks ago.

There has been a slight turn of events.  It may be that the blog has now seen the errors of its ways and is trying to make amends.

I suspect the word verification prompts have been actually giving X 'cool' phrases.

This can only mean time for a new word verification poll.

Please comment and let me know what word you were prompted with for entry.

Let us really see if the blog has corrected its awful behaviour.

Observation(s) of the Day

Observation I:

You know what's hard?

Working without listening to music.

I do it daily at work for the most part.

When you can't actually listen to your music because you're currently working on organizing your music files...that's just adding insult to injury.

Observation II:

Signs that you might be having a bored spell at work?

You start using your uneaten sour patch kid to scrape out the previously eaten sour patch kid remnants that got stuck in your teeth.

What can I say? Candy gets stuck on your teeth.

A Night Out with The HOchieS, Part II: It Said MSG but We Ended Up in Canada?

It's very rare I find myself down in the 30s, which may explain why I have not had an amazing Korean food experience yet in K-Town.

Chances are if you find me in the K'Hood, it's due to the fact that I'm off dragging a poor soul to Madison Square Garden.

Friday Night's Victim was H1 (as previously posted) and Friday Night's Instrument of Torture?

A Night Out with The HOchieS, Part I: For Your Dietary Benefit

It should have been the perfect time for The HOchieS but instead what we got was some serious shade.

H1 and I ran off to K-Town for some eats and I almost took her for the noodles with black beans that Beetchie introduced me to.  However, having no leeway for a mess up as we were hungry and on a schedule, I decided that we should just go to the regular, safe eatery where we could guarantee some meat.

It turns out, that even your safe bet can be anything but.

After the taro, I had the worst meal I have ever had!

Before the details of that mess though, let us discuss the appetizers.

That Was Probably It

With Spring's official start in about 2 weeks or so, I'm guessing my luck for snow days is over until perhaps the end of the year.

While I am pleased that I escaped this winter without having to use lots of personal days from work, sometimes you just need a good snow day.

Sometimes, it's even better when your office closes for an entire day due to snow.

Ah, those days are few and wait...that day never happened before February 26th! It turns out that miracles do happen.

How best to spend a snow day than taking pictures with which to bombard others with?

It's only unfortunate that the snow was so blinding that I couldn't see what I was doing.  I think camera eye would have definitely failed.

I present to you, blinding snow pictures that I suffered to take.  View them and be blinded as well!

Or not...

I'm going to hide them behind a cut.  Click away, if you fancy.

Obsession(s) for the Week(s): 2/09/2010 - 02/21/2010

Disgaea DS

I told myself I wouldn't go through the headache of playing another strategy rpg. I don't particularly enjoy the genre due to the fact that I'm pretty terrible at them. However, I figured if I could handle FFT then I could handle Disgaea in spite of the warning signs. Oh, how I should have paid attention and not underestimated this game. While a light story, a wonderf main character in Laharl for me to like this game just plain kicks my ass. I was just getting into it and decided I already needed a breather.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

It's hard not loving Travis Touchdown. On the one hand, as I have been progressing through the ranks (I'm now at No. 7 and gunning for YOU, H1) I have found myself saying (again) "I love this stupid game". It's still got that edge and there's certainly no other thing like it that I've played. But it might be becoming a tad serious. Perhaps a little bit too serious while trying to maintain that balance of undeniable quirkiness that I have come to cherish. Well, I know it won't disappoint and as an overall experience, it really has not done that but I could see this game if the series continues, being carried on to something more in depth. If that happens, I might have to stop playing it. Heck, if there's no more Travis then I may as well boycott now!

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Slow to start, after 4 hours of play I can finally say I am feeling a twinge of anxiety playing this. It did not take that long for the game to get interesting but it did take that long for me to really feel as though I could possibly screw something up to get a "Game Over". The story's a little bit predictable and this game might be a reminder of why I don't like to read books. I know, I know. I'm an ignoramus. But really, this isn't so bad. I am really liking Kyle Hyde with his rudeness, good looks and smack talk. Graphically, the game is unique and maybe I can tolerate a point and click adventure after all.

Hey Diddle, Diddle

The Cat and his Nemesis

Does anyone think it cruel of me to use this monster to scare the Pumps off the desk?

It worked initially but my scare tactic has since been losing its effectiveness but you know, if I were Pumpkin I would pay heed as to what happened to that yellow dog of a cowardly cat, Sylvester...

Nobody Told Me

Alas, I probably should have reserved the blog title for a The Killers related post if ever I needed to pull one of those out. 

Really this post is just to complain that no one informed me that it was so close to March 9th.  I think I was supposed to be doing a whole lot of stuff before then yet here I am feeling like I've done nothing but work almost 12 hours today.

Is that what it is?

I have not really had the time to do anything due to work getting in the way?

That's right...let us ignore the fact that I had a snow day on Friday.

What's it to you, anyway?

Another One?

I'm sure out there in great blue ocean, all deep within the earth and whatever unpopulated areas of the world are left - there are earthquakes.

But this is a little bit ridic now.

Yet another one? Now in Taiwan?

I hope all is as well as it can be over there i.e. no death toll and tsunami. 

Also, that whole earth spinning off its axis shortening our days by a tiny fraction of a millisecond or what have you, is really taking it's toll on me.

There's so much to do in a day and now it's shorter?

How am I supposed to get anything done?

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. Hare, Hare, Hare.

March, be better for all!

FFXIII Update

Really, Square Enix? A pre-order bonus of FFXIII comes with an excerpt from a full strategy guide?

Well don't I feel special and awesome.

I am disgusted.

Mega Tsunami

As I said a few weeks ago, this is the start of Armageddon. 

For years I have been convinced on how the world's going to go.  Unfortunately, my rants are coming true and the numerous earthquakes we have been having are to me, a sign of things to come.  Yesterday it was Japan's off the coast of Okinawa quake and today, word of an 8.8 on the Southern Chilean coastline. 

Earthquakes are terrifying enough and the intense magnitudes make them even scarier. 

My other fear?

Mega Tsunami.

Ever since I saw that program on Discovery many, many years ago about a "Mega Tsunami", I have been obsessed.

The earth's trying to kill us!

Poor Chile and all affected by this.

Happy Birthday, MC!

I tried very hard to find a way to conveniently forget but alas, I remembered clear as day.  We both did, so I guess for once you get a true and proper birthday greeting on the blog!

Ah, well there's always next year I guess for some forgetting.  Ha.

Hope you had a great day!
We were sad to hear that you had a Wendy's lunch though.  =(  We at least hope it was good.

Happy Birthday!

Birthday wishes go out to Alex today!

Sorry we kinda forgot what day today was.  Heh.

S8: 24 HC 12 AM to 1 AM

12 AM to 1 AM:


I missed the entire bit where Anil's brother ended up with these new people. What happened to the Russian traitor? Is he ded? I only counted 2 for the HC and I think I might be wrong.

Frass or MC, please fill me in.
I did laugh when Quasimodo asked Jack if he was "in" and Jack did a symbolic moving of his messenger bag strap over his shoulder. That showed that in all the running he would do in the future, that thing won't move unless moved by Jack. That, my friends, is how you know he's serious.

You know I had to go look up Freddie Prinze Jr. to see if he was born and raised Crooklyn, right? I knew it wasn't true because that was one bad tough guy accent.

Head Count: 2. Is Kevin really ded? Not sure but he sure should be.

Look of Death

Being sick is bad enough but then first thing in the morning, I have to get a shot of the evils from the cat:

Back at the Top

I finished No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle last night, which means I'm currently ranked at No. 1.

I'm not sure how I feel about this game after having really loved the first one.  I was incredibly happy at the end as the last boss fight was insane, and the end credits were just beautiful to watch and reminiscent of Kill Bill.

But herein lies the dilemma: Overall, the bosses mostly lacked personality, style and the technical oomph to beat.

The game's still pretty good though with the soundtrack amped up and much more bad-assed than before (read: A must-have, Bughie J.! Heh.), the 8-bit games were good times, Travis still has the best lines and I still found myself swooning over him and his twin Henry, dialogue was stellar as always but the story took too serious of a turn for me and the fact that Travis is not going to be in it anymore (eff you, Sylvia! Man, I hated her), I'm not sure what there is to look forward to.

Other than to ask H1 if she saw me coming for her rank, I am writing to report that I had a bit of nerd rush (and nervous scare) as the end credits rolled.

Takashi Miike.

Don't think I didn't see that!

I won't spoil it for Beetchie if she wants to play but talk about a.w.e.s.o.m.e - o.

Next up on the gaming list: Okami.

Hm, I can't remember the last time I burned through games like this (I finished Hotel Dusk: Room 251 yesterday as well).

All due to the fact that I had a pile sitting there and wanted to get as much done before FFXIII.  Though I have say, with Square Enix screwing 'me' over and the mixed reviews coming out, I'm not really feeling too excited to play this.

A Racist Blog?

It has come to my attention that in my attempt to deter spam comments, the blog may have shown its true colours by being racist.

X swears that on two occasions she has received a word verification prompt that singled her out for what she almost is - an Indian.

I would be inclined to say that my blog is not racist because if it were, it would single her out to be the Fake Indian that she is.

Regardless, I would like to take a poll from you guys.
Please take note of when next you feel the need to leave a comment and tell me what word it prompts you to input for the verification.

Let me know if you too get something ending with 'dahl' or 'ali' or whatever inappropriate 'appropriate' phrase happens upon thee.

Obsession(s) of the Week: 01/24/2010 - 02/08/2010

Lucky Star

After J-List decided to throw all things Lucky Star at me as part of my Lucky Bag, I decided that I should go ahead and watch the series. It's a slice of life themed anime but the content is so RANDOM. I really enjoy it though and look forward to finishing it. So far all the characters have something endearing about them.

Update: I stopped at episode 8.  Note to self to finish this, really.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

I haven't truly played much of this yet but so far, my first fight was amazingly gruesome and the arcade style side jobs are fresh even if they invoke your 8 bit gaming day memories.  Sometimes, it's all about the classics! Travis is pretty angry this time around being hell bent on revenge but um, he's still pretty stupid.  He's still a loveable otaku 2 years later (a loveable otaku? There's a concept! Ha). 
  
Final Fantasy Tactics

I began playing it in earnest i.e. not dying in the swamp. Now I'm being slaughtered all over the world map in Ivalice...great. In all seriousness, 12 years after the fact, this game remains a masterpiece. It's not without its flaws in camera-turning mechanics or the often frustrating job building career choices or who to tailor to be awesome but I cannot remember the last time a story was this deep and engaging and in a language I could follow without being a convoluted headache (FFXII, you failed me there). Also, graphically it's impressive and the actions of the sprites are shocking and full of heart. 

Update: I finished it and wow.  This just shot right up there in my top 10 games ever played.  I admit it I may have expected something 'more' at the end and was surprised when it just up and ended but what an amazing experience.  I'm really happy I finally played this series even if I was too late to snag some swag and will be hard-pressed to try to find a Ramza figure now.

White Collar

Two days ago I was wondering when it was I became a USA Network Junkie. I attribute that to my constant need to watch L&O: SVU, which used to always run marathons on that channel. Then came "Burn Notice" and now "White Collar". Last season was interesting enough for me to warrant picking it up again when it began three weeks ago. The continuation has been ramped up and the show has found its niche. It's smart and funny with interesting characters and the right amount of humour. My favourite character has to be Peter (even though he's straight-laced and that is unlike me) though I find Moz really coming into his own as a support. Fun stuff! Now, how do I convince the rest of you to watch?