Review

Today is x-box game review day!

I just rented and played through Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. WHAT a disappointment. Everything I liked about the first one, everything that set it apart as a good game, they got rid of in the sequel! What sense does THAT make?!

In MUA1, you could choose from a number of characters, including Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, and Ghost Rider. Those are my 3 favorites, and I was SO excited to be able to play their characters. Are ANY of them in MUA2? No they are not. Just the same old F4, X-Men, and Ultimates. Bleh.

Secondly, there are 3-4 alternate costumes per character in MUA1, and there's only ONE per character in MUA2.

Thirdly, the locations were BORING. New York? HOW many video games take place in New York? 100? 200? More? Really guys, I'd have rather been in like, Podunk, Kansas, just for a change of scenery. They DID do a brief level in Washington, DC, which I WILL give them a tip of the hat for. Mostly cause the level is in the metro, and they made it look EXACTLY like the actual DC metro. Apart from soda machines on the platforms. It was cool though, being the Incredible Hulk and throwing marble benches hither and yon. Good times.

Fourthly, the cut scene movies were dull and political. In the first one the cut scene movies involved Nightcrawler taking down a horde of robots with a sword, and 2 guys defending the gates of Asgard against an army of giants. Awesome, right? MUA2 had cut scenes that either looked like the evening news, a computer tutorial, or 2 people having a conversation. Ridiculous.

I'm hoping the next game I rent will be decent. Not sure what I'm going to get yet, though. I am still playing with GTA4, which is SO fun. Definitely not for kids, but a good way to relieve stress after a bad day, especially when the stress is caused by other drivers. Any game where if someone cuts you off, you can get out and shoot their car with a bazooka is VERY therapeutic.

Lunchtime!

The Day After

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year. Wake up late, play video games in your pajamas, go eat a bunch of turkey and stuff, a little football...but the day after tragedy struck.

Causes are unknown, but theories point to either moderate to severe allergies to something in nature, exposed to whilst hiking in Amicolola, or a bad batch of McDonald's french fries as the cause/catalyst of the horribleness. Either way, there was an evening of paralyzing brain pain, chills, and vomitus maximus. Thankfully, I managed to keep Thanksgiving dinner down, but lost that morning's bowl of Fruity Pebbles (not quite so colorful and delicious during round two) as well as aforementioned french fries. Still, sleeping from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. will cure 99% of what ails you.

Temperature-taking was impossible, as the thermometer was broken. I'm SURE it was like, 107 degrees though.

Today things are much MUCH improved, but the stomach remains sensitive. I will be attempting Thanksgiving leftovers tonight, so we'll see how that goes. Breakfast has been sitting ok, and lunch seems to be following suit.

Christmas shopping is ALMOST done. I'm looking forward to having it out of the way. We'll be decorating the apartment next week, and that'll get me in the mood.

Here ends the lesson.

MORE Turkey Goodness

Thanksgiving again. Don't get me wrong, I love the food, the naps on the couch during football, the heckling of the family, especially the time off from work, but it DOES seem a bit much. Fortunately, this year, all our groceries are bought, and all our Christmas shopping is done (with the exception of my spooty youngest brother William, who has not given me ONE Christmas gift idea. Seriously. How hard is it) so that's nice.

I'm really tired today. Don't know why, except that I didn't sleep that well. Umm...looks like we'll be heading to the parents' house on the 22nd or so, and stay til the 26th, so yeah. That'll be fun. 33 consecutive family Christmases. All but 1 or 2 were in the ancestral Fliven family manse. The others would have been at the grandparents' house.

The big fun this year will be Dad's gift...I found him a jawbreaker of heroic proportions. Back story: growing up we always split any jawbreakers either of us got, and one time when Mom was out of town, we each had one of those tennis-ball sized jawbreakers to munch on and watched Ben Hur, which is a four hour Charlton Heston movie. Good times. The one I found last Saturday is bigger than a softball. Seriously, you could crush someone's skull with this thing. Or use it for shotput. Or both. THAT would be a fun game to watch...put-shot-in-skull.

That is all.

A Few Good Comics...

The past week or so has been slow here at work. I'm not sure why, but its kind-of irritating. I hope its not like this through the end of the year. We DO get a fair bit of work at the end of the year, though, with people wanting to get orders in for fresh forms for the new year, so it SHOULD pick up. But right now, yeah, dead.

Still, the time has not been wasted. I have been hunting for good webcomics to read. I've found about half a dozen that are entertaining. They are as follows:

Player Vs. Player - One of my favorites. Its about a group of people working at a video game magazine. So lots of nerdy references. And there's a blue troll.

Looking for Group - Really like the art on this one. A fantasy story about a group of adventurers with the undead necromancer being the comedy relief. Worth a read.

Questionable Content - Modern day, 'Friends' like scenario. If 'Friends' were more gothy and emo. And there's a psychotic little robot.

Goblins - A group of goblins who, instead of being fodder for low-level adventurers, become adventurers themselves. Neat premise, great art, an exciting storyline. I wish he'd put them up faster though...

Zap! - An outer space, sometimes cheesy, science-fictioney drama. Great art, interesting characters, story's pretty good. Needs more funny, but still quite readable.

Errant Story - An elfy-anime drama type of story. Very well written and drawn though.

Ummm...looking forward to Thanksgiving next week! I'm trying to be good (ok, less worse than usual, actually) this week, so that I do not feel like a big fat cow after next weekend. There will probably be some Facebook pictures and some turkey deep frying. And punkin pie. There MUST be punkin pie. And hopefully, we're going to have all of our Christmas shopping done before then, and can spend some of the weekend putting up Christmas decorations and wrapping stuff.

End transmission.