No real updates on my little Anastasia. I have a feeling the punchline is coming soon, whether its involving me sending personal info or money. We'll see. Either way it was a fun diversion.
So this week, what do we have? Ah yes, Saints Row 2. I remember the original not holding much interest for me back when it was in development. I recall seeing some screens from E3 05 or something and dismissing it out of hand. Then a funny thing happened...the demo became available. Within 5 minutes I was hooked, and when the game came out I found myself enjoying it more than I had even the GTA3 games. It seemed to fix all the problems that plagued the GTA series (although it had a few of its own), but in fairness Volition did have the benefit of learning from Rockstar's mistakes. Apparently this had been a game in development for the OldBox around the same time San Andreas was being developed, but it got pushed back to release on the 360.
So fast forward to this year, and like everyone else I was pumped for GTA4. I even went to the midnight sale at my local Gamestop (wound up drawing #1 in line, woot me!) to get some early time in with it before work the next morning. But as I popped in GTA4 and spent about an hour with it, I noticed something funny: I was bored. I figured I was just tired and needed sleep, things would be better when I played it after work the next night. But it didn't get better. I read all these reviews insisting the controls were much improved. They weren't. Did it look nice? Yep. But I also noticed the game incorporated things from Saints Row, things that reviews decided to overlook like the GPS system. Only thing was they weren't implemented as well as they were in Saints Row.
So after about 3 days and 12 hours play time, I had enough. I was bored with GTA4. I tried going on rampages, which is really the point of these games..right? Being able to just go off was one of my great pleasures in all the GTA games, reckless destruction and mayhem never got boring. Except in GTA4, for me it did. Real fast. Then I tried crossing a bridge to the other side of an island and was met with an army of police who wasted me for the heinous crime of...trying to get to an area I hadn't opened yet? Bleh. About a week later I went to a friend's place who had beaten the main story of the game. He let me mess around with the game with everything unlocked. Boring. So about 3 weeks after it released, I traded in my copy at Gamestop. Turns out I was far from the first person to do that there. I was left with the distinct impression that Saints Row, the original, was an overall better product than GTA4.
At one point, while I still had GTA4, I even popped in Saints Row to see if it was just me. Maybe it was, maybe I was just in a rut where nothing would be fun, or maybe the genre didn't hold any appeal for me. That wasn't the case, as I immediately got into the flow of things in SR and found myself having the good time GTA4 wasn't providing me with.
So now we have Saints Row 2, releasing today. The reviews are all positive (no 10s though, sorry Volition...next time budget some money to spray adverts all over the gaming sites and mags) though it strikes me funny that the bigger sites, who are the ones giving out the "low" scores in the 8s, are taking a highbrow approach to the juvenile humor found in SR2 compared to the grandiosity that is GTA4. Uh...its a sandbox videogame, Jeeves. The more sophomoric and juvenile, the better. Thats why we game, right?
Anyway, I've got half a vacation day scheduled (its 2am now) later in the day and will be home by 1pm with my copy in tow. I am going to be one of the lameasses who makes his guy look like the Joker (because I can), and I'm holding out hope I can make my gang dress up like clowns. If not, then ninjas will have to do!
So on the heels of that, coming this weekend, we have Max Payne hitting the theaters. One of my all-time favorite games largely because of the narrative it combined with non-stop action, I am daring to hope that this will be a good movie. Everything I've seen in the trailers and features leads me to believe that the director understood the source material. Let's hope thats the case. I remember the Silent Hill movie, when that was in production. All this talk about Christopher Gans being a huge SH fan, about how he was making this movie with the stories in the game in mind, etc. I was really excited...until I saw the movie poster. At that point I realized someone, somewhere, got involved who had no idea what the SH franchise was about. Turns out it was Gans himself, and while there were some fine set pieces and good moments, the movie was absolute crap. I don't get that feeling with Max Payne. Even the posters look like they "get it". Lets keep our fingers crossed for this one, I'm taking the kid to see it this weekend.
I've been working on parts of some of the originals I've been learning in my band. Playing root notes on bass to mirror the guitar has its place, but to me its boring if thats all you do. I've been working on some parts of some of the songs, trying to add a little personality where I can. I don't want to take attention away from the guitar bits (which are really good), but rather I want to compliment them with some nice work underneath. It was during one of these moments that I actually came up with what I consider to be a really cool riff of my own. I fiddled with it for awhile, and suddenly I had the framework for a song. Its the first bit of music I've created in over 15 years and I was really excited about it. I'm hoping the guys like it when I play it for them next time.
And...thats about it. Work is still stressful. I may have news on that long-awaited and seemingly mythical promotion I was promised an opportunity at 2 years ago, but that will have to wait 2 more weeks. We will see.
According to the blurb, Summer's Eve contains "a light, fresh fragrance that neutralises odour, rather than covering it up", coupled to "baking soda and corn starch to effectively absorb moisture". It might have added that applying it at 2,600psi ensures long-lasting freshness which is somewhat more than skin-deep. They breed 'em tough in Canada, and no messing. ®
For those of you with little onesL enjoy the poopy diapers, the throw-up in church, the teething, the temper tantrums, the years of going with never a full night's sleep, because you have ahead of you . . . . . . . .the TEEN years. My youngest daughter, soon to be 18, took me (and my checkbook) shopping this weekend for her homecoming dress.
(Oh, Man...just saw as ad for "Pure" ...didn't know it was an ATV racer...looks awesome)...oops, sorry...got distracted...
Anyway, mind you, I have a degree in fashion design and worked for 12 years in NYC in the garment district, but as a MOM, I don't know ANYTHING about fit, color, design, or style. She is 4'11.5" and would look amazing in Jessica McClintock, but NoooOOOOooo, she wants the dress that Marilyn wore when she sang Happy Birthday to Jack. But I am not the mom who is going to tell my kid what she can or cannot wear to her Senior year parties, and I'm especially not the mom who wants to hear that the evening was a disaster because the dress I recommended was (pick one: ) laughed at, strap breaks, gives her a hives, makes her boyfriend break up with her, or ....and by far the worst.....has a twin at the same dance!) , so we get the Marilyn dress. And she even said, "Thanks Mom", and best of all....her dad gave me a check today for the price of the dress!
When I was younger and living on the streets, there was an expression whenever a gang fight was going to happen. It's on! (Read: Shit's on!)
Gangs, they were a part of my early life and I ran with some boys that caused a lot of trouble back in the day. Nothing really notorious, but we controlled a neighborhood and rival gangs got the shit kicked out of them when we found one on our turf. There was one night in particular in a supermarket parking lot where I witnessed one guy getting beaten with a car muffler. Ugh. I dropped out of the scene at 15 after spending a week in a cell with a murderer, but that's a blog for another time. Ha!
So what's that got to do with the here and now? Well, it's on. I've been away for a while and there's been a few things building up. I haven't had another outlet for all this so here it is. Ha! When I started this blogging thing a while back, the first 20 of them flew off the cuff pretty easily. Well, some time has passed and I'm about to drop another 20. If you bothered to check out the original line-up, you know I write essays. If you thought you were going to hear a quick note or two about how bad my day was, you better move on. If you're interested in what else is out there? We might have a conversation.
The first thing on my mind today was Columbus Day. Hate that bastard. If you're familiar with my earlier writings, you'll know that as a Native American I tend to be a militant SOB. For Native Americans in general, this is a non-holiday. We have no reason to celebrate his arrival in what he considered the New World. In fact, there are a few groups, including the National Congress of American Indians who are trying to get the federal government to change this to Native American Day. We'll piss off those boys down at the Italian-American dining hall, but hell, we've eaten that share of BS for 500 years. It's time to turn this around.
Here's one of the most recent opinions on this from Indianz.com: http://tinyurl.com/3v89xz
It's just the beginning. I think that in this modern day and age, it's time that the people of this country acknowledge that Columbus didn't discover shit. There were people here who had lived in the Americas for thousands of years before this white boy and his crew dropped anchor on what they thought was a back door to India. (I've since made friends with some guys from India and everytime they see me, I get all these questions about being "Indian" in America that they just can't seem to deal with.) Yeah, Columbus didn't know it, but when he got here, we had a name for ourselves. My tribe called ourselves Ong-we-ong-weh, but other tribes and Natives of this country all had tribal names that translated to the same thing: The People. Ask a Native you know and they'll all tell you the same thing, their tribal name for themselves translates to The People.
Being Non-Native you might think that odd, how almost 600 distinct Indian tribes in the U.S. alone (not to mention Canada, Central and South America), could come up with something that would identify ourselves as The People, but we were "the people" that lived here. It was a collective mindset that connects our people to this day. So when some guy from the Mediterranean stumbles upon someplace that has a few million people here, you can imagine how much a non-event Natives consider this.
It only it hadn't gone so badly after he got here.
But it's not about eminent domain or divine providence, whatever your opinion of what happened afterwards, it's about what do we do now. Wouldn't you agree that after 500 years it's time to recognize the fact that Columbus was wrong? That while he brought attention to what was here, that he wasn't the reason for it? That this nation (and the others of this continent) were RED from sea to shining sea before this bastard got lost?
I could go more into what Columbus tried to do after he got here and the activities that his priests recorded. You may recall Columbus as some glorius figure from third grade history class, but be assured, it was nothing of the sort. He bares the brunt of being the first to have his name recorded as being the one who brought plague and pestilence and war and holocaust to this country. There would have been others had he not gotten here when he did, but for all times, it's this guy.
And on a more pleasant note (Hahahahahaha!), Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian brethren. I'm originally from the Six Nations Reserve in Ohsweken, Ontario but I grew up in the U.S. I wish I could have gone home for this one. You never know what you're going to get for dinner when I go home, could be moose meat, venison, bear, who knows. You have no idea how much I miss the times when life was simple.
And yes, I was born 500 years too late and I don't know who to curse for that.
I FINALLY figured out how to post pics!!! Friggin...yay!
So. Here's a drunk COULOW. After winning a sexy hat in Las Vegas, sitting on her ass, resting the dawgs, trying to NOT see double. BTW, that's a 190 Octane with double shots. NUMBER 2 of the day. And no, mommy didn't win her Mercedes.
I have to fly back to Milwaukee this week to attend a funeral. It really sucks. I'm just in shock. One minute you are here and the next you are gone. No warning what so ever.
I still don't know who I am voting for. I agree with the federal policy, but my local guy is a douche bag. I won't say who I am voting for, cause then there is fighting, but I hope everyone can agree that voting is critical, and that we should all make informed choices. So, think about policy or whatever criteria you feel is important for the party you wish to vote for, whatever you do, think about it and vote!
Tomorrow is also clan night! w00t! I have't played with my clan in forever and a day: very excited! Prepare to get pwned! (she said to herself)
'Its important to remember that Gov. Sarah Palin opposed the listing of the polar bears because she felt the listing would interfere with the oil and gas industry's operations in Alaska. She also believes global warming is a myth."
at this point, all i'm interested in is NOT letting palin into the whitehouse. the bitch is crazy.
I got a job. w00t! I start tomorrow. Part time and the pay is crap, but I've been making less than crap for a while now..so that's better than nothing, lol...at least it's something, right?
