I recently read about a bummer of a situation that went down over at videogame internet hub, Gamespot dot com. One of the major videogame websites out there, Gamespot is like Wolf Man in the monster world. Not up there like Dracula (IGN.com), but pretty well known. A staple. The site sees thousands of visitors, has a billion annoying pop up ads, and every page takes about a minute to load on your average high speed connection because they throw so much bullshit in your face at every possible moment that it turns your computer into an 80 year old man in a sack race. I usually go there rather than IGN for game information, because IGN always felt very corporate, like trying to find an article that says "Stop it with the disco drums!" in Rolling Stone, pandering to the big players and high profiles. Sadly, that has changed.
Jeff Gerstmann was the Senior Editor at Gamespot, playing games and writing reviews, and considered a top player in the world of game media. As I said earlier, I would go to Gamespot for their game feedback because it was immediately apparent any time reading their material that these guys played the games, cared about them, wanted a good experience, and weren't shy about letting the consumer know which games were not worth their money. Jeff was no exception, and while I don't recall any of his reviews from previous visits, mainly because I don't really give a shit about the name of the dude putting the words down on the webpage, his review of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men by Eidos shows exactly how scrutinizing these guys can be in the face of flashy graphics, lots of violence, and an almost Reservoir Dogs style videogame that should make most gamers shudder in anticipation. So why do I suddenly care about the reviewers name? Because he gave it a 6 out of 10 and was fired the day after his review went live. Not only fired, locked out of his office and asked to leave the premises. That's some bullshit I expect to see in the President's cabinet on a fierce episode of 24, not to hear about from an internet game company. Working in games is supposed to be like being Tom Hanks in Big, and many of us try very hard to keep it that way.
(Kane and Lynch, respectively, I think.)
Apparently Eidos had spent more than a few hundred thousand dollars in advertisements for Kane and Lynch on Gamespot. When the review went live, they supposedly read it, and then pulled more hundreds of thousands of dollars reserved for future titles from the site. As Gamespot's revenue lies entirely in the sale of web ads, I can see how this could cause the bosses to run to the men's room and check their boxers. There's no official word from the Gamespot business crew on the issue, in the typical "no comment" backhanded deflection tactic popular amongst the corporate hounds when they shit on some guy, prompting one of us with morals to say, "Hey, you just shit on that guy." The only reasons given for the termination all seem to revolve around Jeff's "tone" rather than what he specifically wrote, and that he had been "talked to" about his "tone" on previous occasions. This, of course, is as vague as black matter. There's no such thing as "tone" in the written word. The "tone" is created in the reader's head, and regardless, it's not even worth an argument because it anyone can look at the situation and see with the utmost clarity that blaming "tone" is simply a lie. Yeah, a lie. His bad review lost Gamespot a lot of ad money, so they freaked out and fired him. When you read it like that it almost makes sense.
In addition to the finger pointing and vagueries from the corporate side of Gamespot, there has also been no official word on the situation from Jeff's peers at Gamespot, the other editors, who are the ones I really want to hear from and probably have a very biased yet true accounting of what went down. Their silence absolutley makes sense, because if they're now facing life on the chopping block then there's no reason to start coming to work in short shorts and cat-in-the-hat hats. I did track down an unofficial commentary from a supposed Gamespot editor, in which the mysterious blogster pretty much confirms the obvious. Notable quotes from the above link are as follows:
"Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up."
"I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were "multiple instances of tone" in the reviews that he hadn't been happy about, but that wasn't Jeff's problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that "AAA" titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site."
Okay. No need to keep going on this trajectory, other than to point out Josh Larson is a douche, but here's what I'm getting at: Where does this leave us, the confused and addled consumer when seeking advice on hot shit xtreme game titles? We are being assaulted constantly via TV, internet, magazines, billboards, soda pop cans, and whatever the fuck else with crazy ads for games. If the marketing department can differenciate from one's ass and one's elbow, they make the game look good. Real good, regardless of the actual experience therein. I'm in a commited relationship and have been for a long time, but at my core I am a bachelor in many ways. One of the manifestationsof said bachelorism is in my quest for desired information. I don't scroll down the list of citysearch reviews on a restaurant if I'm curious about the fare they offer, I go there and fucking eat it. If I want to see a movie, I go straight to the theatre listing of the closest cinema and find the next screening and then I go and watch it. When I want to find out if some crazy looking game I just saw an ad for is worth half a shit, I go to Gamespot and check the review. I can't do that anymore! I now know full well that whether or not the editors like it, their content is now in league with the media machine chomping at our wallets and their integrity as journalists is about as sound as particle board.
So the next logical step is finding a new source for authentic and honest reports on the regurgitated refuse disguised as cream soda coming from the game publishers. And that's truth, so so many games look like they're going to be fan-fucking-tastic and end up coming out like spoiled turds. Penny Arcade has always been the best source for game reviews, mainly because they don't actually review games for a living. As fans of videogames, they laud the games they are playing and enjoying, and they complain about the ones that are worth the time and effort of complaining about in a public forum such as teh interwebzzor. It's much more genuine than a guy who's job is to play shitty games all day and then try and politely convey that they'd rather eat a plate of hot garbage than spend another minute in the grips of whatever digital nightmare they've had to grapple with. Every time I've acted on a favorable PA recommendation it's been worth it. But, what makes their reviews so good is precisely what makes them unreliable at this particular service I need. You can't go to their site and get a quick run down of the new Conan game, because they didn't bother writing about it. This leaves us in the grip of blogs and less professional sites and publications for authentic game reviews. Will they be honest? Yes. Will they be untouched by the pressures of marketing and corporate hand shakes? Yes. Will they most likely be written by fan boys who are "above message boards" and just want to gorge on a feast of their own jaded views on whether or not cell shaded Link is cool? Fucking yes godammit. So while Gamespot was not the be all end all of game reviews, it served a very important service in my life and I'm sad that I have to put it on the Bullshit Shelf next to Jaws Unleashed and new Star Wars.
And really, this post is also about how horribly Jeff Gerstmann was treated for not giving to marketing pressure and being true to the fans that built gaming into the disc golem it is today. This shit happens all the time, and it's tragic. I put it in the same unjust category of unnecessary rent increases in cheap apartment buildings occupied by low income tenants, and charging $9.75 for an afternoon showing of Norbit. Highway robbery! I hope that he goes on to find employment at a place that values honesty and us old schoolers that are still scrounging and spending to be able to keep up with our favorite form of entertainment, or better yet that he starts his own site or magazine.
I do feel the need to interject on the subject of Kane and Lynch before I wrap up here. I was lucky enough to meet an employee of Eidos Germany while on tour in Europe, and he invited us to the office to hang out, see the digs, shoot the shit, and psyche him the fuck out bragging on my Halo skillz. While there he demo'd the first level of Kane and Lynch for us on the office PS3 and I have to say it looked pretty good. From an observers point of view, I could tell there was a bit of trickery with the aiming (an element that gets a lot of shrapnel in Gerstmann's review) and one thing that would bother me if I had control was the slow speed at which the characters move. I hate that in a game. But it looked fun, and isn't that what we're looking for in a game? The theatrical way in which the encounters unfolded were intriguing and downright progressive. I can't say too much because I didn't have any actual hands on experience with the game which is the only way to properly scrutinize, but I left the building with the game on my "to rent" list. One thing he does say that I sympathize with involved the inconsistency of attaching to cover: "...it seems like you're always snapping into cover behind something at the most inopportune times, making the game quite frustrating." This was a problem I had with Gears of War during frantic close quarters battles, and it is lost on me if anyone ever went on record saying this in a review for that game. If the proverbial 'they' didn't, the proverbial 'they' should have.
But, in reading Gerstmann's review one can see the wear and tear of a decade of game reviews under the belt, as he seems to slightly nit pick, favoring his editorial space for the crucifixion of the game's flaws and largely ignoring some of the more theatrical feats I witnessed at Eidos. I'm hardly standing up for the decision to fire him based on his review, I'm not even playing devil's advocate. It's just the inverse sharp edge of having honest, experienced reviewers that aren't fan boys or message board spammers. Their job is to play games and judge them on the behalf of the consumer. It's all they do, cast judgement. If you do any job (no matter how sweet it is) for a long time you get burnt out in little ways, it's unavoidable. The burn these men feel is the mediocrity of the sub par game that gets hyped beyond hype and fails to deliver on fundamental mechanics. They lash out and do their best to level the bar, and I respect that with all the floating skittles that comprise my soul, but sometimes I just want to pass by the angst.
All said and done, I think the "User Score" at the header of the review speaks the loudest on the issue. A score of 2.6 out of 10, averaged from 3,410 votes at the time of this writing. Utterly abysmal. Internet backlash from the Gerstmann debacle? Possibly. It also suggests that Gerstmann did indeed comply with his corporate superiors and score the game much higher than he had desired in the face of Eidos's deep pockets. Regardless, I salute Jeff and hope he comes out of this whole mess better off, both financially and spiritually.
Maria, the lovely and wise, did humanity a great service while I was gone and ordered a bonus cable package that will last us a meager six months. I've always been against cable TV, it's like inviting a black hole into your living room. A black hole that makes you stupid. But, invariably, I watch. I'm on my mandatory 100 day break from working at Microsoft... It's this horrible headlock they grapple you with should you choose to seek their employ. A huge percentage of the Microsoft work force is made up of contractors like myself, and to get around giving us things like good wages and benefits, we are forced to take a "vacation" every 9 to 12 months. While I relish my work at MS / Bungie, I also love not working. Either way I'm a winner and a loser. A woser?
So anyways, my days are filled with excrutiating trips to the gym, drinking brutally strong coffee, typing on the lappy toppy, playing guitar, watching TV, and lots of Halo 3. The coffee-Halo combination has been pretty fun as I can get pretty worked up. The other day I was drying off in the shower and noticed a fist sized bruise just over my right knee... a bruise made from punching myself in caffeine induced frenzies of anger after being Needler'd or losing the melee hit coin toss.
Daytime TV kind of blows a lot. But, for dudes like me there is a savior. A gistening golden messenger of health and prosperity, a cupid, a perfect package of entertainment. Her name is G4, and watching her is like eating pizza. Complete, rampant indulgence. For those who don't know, G4 is a channel made for nerds. Most programs revolve around gaming, others will show off the latest tech gadgets, movie previews, graphic novel reviews, and one show called Cinematech just feeds 30 minutes of game footage. No commentary, just games. I'm watching it right now. They just played a commercial where a unicorn vomits a PSP. I can say with absolution that I have never seen a unicorn vomit a gaming system anywhere else, and it is unlikely that I will ever go back on that statement.
However, if I can recommend anything to you few friends who read this, it is a program called Ninja Warrior. To sum it up, average Japanese dudes run through ridiculous obstacle courses to try and push a giant red button before the clock runs out. The obstacles vary from simple jumps over a water pit, to rope swinging like Tarzan (it's actually called the "Tarzan Ropes"), to trampolining over more water pits to grapple onto rope nets, to hanging onto a rolling log that spins and knocks the contestant into, yes, a water pit. The failures are nothing short of hillarious, awkward crashes into the muddy depths below, limbs completely splayed, rendering any and all athleticism moot. The victories are butt clenching. I actually flex and squirm watching the poor Ninja hopefuls grapple that last climb up the rope to the shiny red button, arms weak, straining, the clock ticking away the last ten seconds. The subtitled commentary is of course priceless, as can be expected from most Japanese game shows.
But truly the most enamoring element to the show are the contestants themselves. They are serious. Some dish it out with a garnish of humor, but many of them are motivated and passionate. About ninjas. Or I guess, about being a ninja. These people are entering the competition years and years in a row. They are training in their free time, building elaborate reconstructions of the challenges that thwarted their last attempt. I understand the drive to succeed, the passion needed to return to a potentially ruinous situation at the behest of ones pride, only to best yourself. But these people are running full kilter across foam rocks for the titlee of "ninja", largely useless in today's world of commerce and business. They are dressing like ninjas. They are dressing like superman and spiderman. They are dressing in their work outfits, their sports uniforms. It's like they are meelding their identity with the challenge. My favorite contestant so far owns a gas station. He has competed five years in a row and never gotten past the first challenge. He competes in his work uniform: red shirt with name tag, hat, dark slacks. The previous year he made it to the last rope climb, mere feet from the almighty button, and dislocated his shoulder in a freak twist. I just watched him fail again, timing out on the same rope climb that doomed his last attempt (I was flexing!), and I'm sure he'll be back next season.
I leave you with OCTOPUS as a teaser. The guy is 57.
Akimbo just got back from a three week tour in Europe. We hit the usual stops: Germany, France, Holland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. The tour was a success, I got a bit cranky at times, but there's nothing like unlimited beer to cure one of their particulars. I can sum it all up with this picture, taken at our sold out show in Berlin.
Look at my face. It's seriously the ugliest picture that's ever been taken of me. I can't stop laughing at this shit. Vanity, where art thou?
Maria and I went and saw the new Resident Evil movie tonight. I cast this blargery using the snide leer of a gamer, a nerdus extremus that not only examines the film for it's stand-alone merits as a moving picture, but also as homage to the game that inspired it. Spoilers lie beyond. You have been warned.
In griping about this movie, one must take into account that it falls under a very unique sub-sub-genre. It's not just a zombie movie, it's a zombie movie based on a video game. There's a huge difference, and that difference is that all movies based on video games suck. Straight up. It's science, as absolute as gravity. If I drop a rock, it falls down and hits the ground. If I make a movie based on a video game, it eats balls and pisses off nerds. However, what brings these movies above any other shit fest is that they havee the opportunity to stay loyal to the subject matter and therefore appease the fans that allowed it to exist in the first place. This is how I justify watching these deplorable hunks of ass meat, and ultimately what keeps me going back to the theatre and paying money. I know it's going to be bad by all "movie" standards, but I'm driven by an unholy force to see how well they adopt the artistic direction of the games, almost like I'm watching over Hollywood to make sure everything is ok and that our little social group isn't shit on too hard.
The Resident Evil movies have sucked since their inception, plain and simple. The first one has it's moments, and is a decent zombie movie, but Michelle Rodriguez is an automatic fail if you are trying to make a film with "quality" and "charisma". I cheered in real life when she got kicked off of Lost for that DUI in Hawaii. Stay away from my show you cudgel of an actress. Milla Jovovich is of course a babe, and her willingness, nay, quest to get naked in her movies is huge points for the RE films. I would say that the definining moment of the first movie is her slow motion ninja kick to the skinless zombie dogs. Yeah, it was in the preview. Twice. But sadly, blurry crotchal shots only go so far and I am not, nor ever will be a dude who's into Mr. Skin dot com. The second movie, Nemesis, had absolutely ZERO redeeming qualities and was a straight up slap in the face to all the geeks who spent all that money building the Resident Evil empire. At this time I'd like to say 'fuck you' to Capcom for allowing our baby to get raped that hard, for that long, on that big of a screen, for $9 a ticket. I was a huge fan of Resident Evil 3 (for you trogs out there who haven't played the games, the big puffy asshole in the rubber penis suit in Apocalypse was the central villain for the third game, and I bit my pillow and cried when I saw the movie for the first time) even though many gamers tout it as a weak entry to the series. In my harsh, jaded, bullish opinion, the Nemesis character was a step in the right direction for the continuity of the drama surrounding the Umbrella story, and every time he broke through a wall and made my life suck for 2 minutes as I mashed and smashed the controller trying to get away was a true experience in gaming life. Touche, Nemesis. We had a good run. After the second film was ruined, I threw my hands up in exasperation, once again cursing the powers that be for turning a robust gaming experience into pithy drabble, and expanding further on the sterotype that video games are only for slobbering nerds during masturbation breaks, inherently and forever lame...
Until I saw the preview for Resident Evil: Extinction. Like a kitty sniffing a freshly opened can of tuna I was pawing at the cinema screen watching Milla once again take to the air, slow motion ninja kicking zombies in the middle of the desert, dressed like The Road Warrior and wielding twin daggers. Seriously, shit looked like Mad Max working his way through the undead masses, only with hyper charged ninja skillz, short shorts, and boobies. I was pumped, but as I've proved many times before I am a prime sucker for a preview that promises graphic violence and reanimated corpses. So of course, the fuckers got my admission money. Again. And I'm left with merely a poorly attended blog site to reap my righteous revenge.
The movie begins after all the previous Resident Evil lore entered into the series through the movies and games, with the insatiable T-Virus turning planet earth into a wasted desert. That's right, the T-Virus kills water. Scientific botchery aside, I completely approve of apocalyptic settings for these kind of movies so I roll with it and sit tight. It immediately becomes apparent that zero effort was put into writing interesting dialogue, you know, like for a movie, with people that talk to eachother. I haven't seen worse dialogue since Path Finder. It was like watching a cut scene from Resident Evil 2, which had some of the most awkward cinematics in the PlayStation's career. While I respect Capcom as giants in the game industry, fathers of a myriad of classic and contemporary master pieces, they can't deliver semi believable voice acting to save their lives and this is the first consistent line one can draw from the game to the movie. Sad.
It takes a while for anything decent to happen, the first of two good scenes rolls in after about 20-30 minutes in and involves a bunch of pissed off crows that attack a convoy of protagonists. The body count is moderate and the special effects are pretty good, but all it is is The Birds on steroids. Flock of creepy birds, lots of swooping, eyes getting pecked out, squaking, etc. The humans fight back, yes, by shooting at the crows with pistols, and much to my shagrin the flying devils did not produce any hand gun ammunition or red gems once killed, which was one of my favorite little moments of obvious un-realism in Resident Evil 4. The environment is the most vivid and detailed out of any of the games, so real that you could even shoot and kill the cows, chickens, crows... and they drop a box of hand gun bullets for your trouble. Must've been nestled under the wing. W00t!
But this scene, while awesome and filled with people being eaten alive by zombie crows, introduces one of the lamest concepts from the movie into the mix. Telekinetic powers! Right as the dude manning the giant flamethrower on top of the school bus (why do they always have one of those in an apolcalyptic desert movie?) gets his face chewed by birds and sends the flamethrower in a deadly arc towards two of his allies, Alice (Jovovich) shows up and drops an energy bubble around them, bouncing the fire up at the birds to save the day. WHAT?!?!? Not once has telekinesis been marginally approached in the games or movies, unless you count Wesker's force punch in the Mercenaries mini game, or the occasional defiance of physics during a particularly nasty boss fight. Suddenly, Alice has "powers", and can do all kinds of unrealistic bullshit so that the special effects team can wank to their wanking heart's content and the writing team doesn't have to come up with feasible ways for her to get out of sticky situations. Fucking bullshit! How come when I was trapped in a mansion with a giant snake vomiting poison every which way I couldn't just summon an energy ball and blow a hole in through the door? Why did I run back and forth through Raccoon City to gather keys and figure out 7th grade picture puzzles when I could have just floated my way to the final encounter? Why the fuck did I spend all those spinnels and gems on weapon upgrades when I could have just given chainsaw-bag-head a seductive look and broken his neck with my brain? Think of all the outfits Leon could have bought.
The second good scene is the action sequence that goes down when the group reaches the sanded-over Las Vegas of the future. No time to hit the Bellagio, we've got to kick the balls off of crazy running zombies. Yes, even though the previews clearly show the standard "shuffling" zombies of yore, the primary zombie killing moments happen in an extended, violent, extreme sports commercial. While slow zombies dominate the game series, running zombies are not new to the RE world. You will recall the "red face" zombies from the RE1 remake for GameCube that would sit up upon you re-entry to their place of death and promptly haul ass to your vicinity and mop the floor with your skin. Shit was terrifying. Not so on film. The running zombies, with their matching one piece jump suits and shaved heads, looked like a rotting Blue Man Group charging out of a cloning device like pop corn. Regardless, they were shot, stabbed, sliced, and chopped, every bloody burst almost bringing me back onto team RE. The body count of friendlies during this scene should also be noted, and most of the sub-par actors floundering for screen time were snuffed with efficiency. My faith was not fully restored though, and unfortunately the boss fight was another telekinetic let down in the laser room.
The big bummer at the end was the obvious set up for a new RE movie, which I will avoid like buzzards perched on razor wire if the fruit does indeed ripen. They have some serious accounting to do if I pay full price for another Capcom infused feature. However, the previews for this film yielded an exciting look at 30 Days of Night, which looks awesome. Only father time will judge its true merit. The real excitement is that I know sometime in 2008 I'll get my hands on Resident Evil 5 for XBox 360. The game footage shown at E3 was absolutley mouth watering, even if it does prominently feature a white cop shooting black people in Africa. While Capcom's IPs stink like foot cheese when viewed through the standard de-awesomifying Hollywood goggles, I will unwaiveringly sport the RE flag when it involves the interactive experience that hooked us all in that first trounce through the mansion.
Many months have passed since I donned the angry jerk hat and unleashed a violent tornado of cynicism and mirth into the unholy void of teh interwebzz. My time has come, the stars have aligned, the prophets have spoken truth. We junket.
The main reason for my blog neglect has been my recent employment at Microsoft/Bungie, where I've been lucky enough to get a contract position working on a huge, big deal, more important than "the children" and remembering 9/11 combined, title for the Xbox 360 that is just about to come out. I'm not going to say much about it, as I'm under contract to keep my flappers tight until it ships, and I'm pretty sure Microsoft has all manner of goons and snipers out there to bring the hammer down on squealers. I can't imagine a more potent humiliation than getting my knees broken by that stupid fucking Windows butterfly mascot. I can just see the dark, underground lair, where Bill Gates sits on is throne of puppy skulls, the banners of NetScape, PlayStation, and other crushed enemies ruthlessly displayed about his court. A hunched messenger with a Windows NT logo branded into his filthy forehead hobbles in and bows. Lord Gates beckons him to rise and speak. Keeping his head to the floor, he produces a scroll of Microsoft contractors that have violated their NDAs and whispers "My Lord, the serfs have been talking. We fear spies in the ranks..." Lord Gates brings a jeweled hand to his chin and slumps to one side of his throne, keeping his unmoving eyes on his faithful, disgusting, wretch of a servant. He lifts one hand, twitches his fingers away and says "Be gone, you know what to do". The cripple rises silent, turns, and begins his limped exit out of the great hall.
The following day I am found dead in my apartment, my tongue is cut out and nailed to my chest, and my throat is slashed so wide that half my neck looks like pasta. There is no sign of struggle or entry to the building. The only evidence is a solitary button from a Microsoft keyboard bearing the windows logo, jammed into the socket that once housed my right eye.
So, while I can't divulge any details until the game is out, I can give a hint and say it involves the most disgusting beverage ever to be released on humanity since Cod Liver Oil. That's right, Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel. Holy shit. Stay far far away from that acid shit gasoline nightmare. We had a few complimentary cases delivered to the office a few weeks back, and when my preferred "I'm an adult with responsibilities and I don't like sweet things" Talking Rain beverages were out, I figured what the hell, they can't be too bad. Wrong. Wrong fucking dead wrong. You could call that shit the key to Pandora's box, because if you poured it out on the ground it would burrow a hole straight to hell, unleashing myriad demons upon the world to feast forever on our suffering, eating our groins and drinking our wails of anguish. I could feel my teeth dissolving the second it hit my mouth. Yes, I drank my own teeth. Garbage.
So I'm on tour as I write this. Not going to do the tour blog just yet since we're not quite done. We're hanging out in San Diego with a few days off, thanks to our gracious host and good friend Dan. Dan is vegan, and hence we've adopted his diet during our stay with him. While I eat meat and dairy, I love vegan food and have nothing against it. However, my guts are not in agreement with my pallet, and I've been farting and shitting like a broken locomotive for the last three days. I imagine a raging wolverine in my body, clawing through the veggies and soy protein ferociously looking for a morsel of flesh, hoping beyond hope that a bug fell into my soy-rizo taco. Sorry wolverine. I promise I'll deliver on some In n' Out as soon as the delicious opportunity presents itself. For now, we roll with it and give the large intestine some exercize, which I guess is a good thing.
Speaking of band life, we just released a new album called Navigating the Bronze. Alternative Tentacles put it out again. We're all pretty happy with it. If you want to hear it or order it click away. It's our 5th full length record, which is kind of weird. We've been a band for almost a decade. I can't think of many other things I've done for that long on purpose.
At home, Maria, Max and I moved into a new apartment on capitol hill, right next to a woman who has no shame in orgasming loudly into the summer night. "ATTENTION WORLD! I'M GETTING LAAAAAAAAAAID!!!!!" It's way smaller than our last place but we like it a lot more. We're closer to tons of bars and grocery stores, uber convenience. The best part is that we have hard wood floors and a nice new slick couch with really smooth material. This means that Max has absolutely no grip when he's running around the apartment going nuts. It never gets old, seeing his little feet scurry against the floor for half a second before he actually moves. The best is when he tries to ambush you while sitting on the couch. He jumps up to attack but can't get a solid grip on the material. You look over and instead of getting a vicious kitty paw to the face, you see him earnestly trying to hold on as he slowly falls back onto the floor, his claws leaving an ineffective trail along the couch arm as he looks at you in utter, crushing defeat. Kitteh = self pwned.
Ok, it's go time now. I'm going to try harder to update this thing more often. It's way cheaper than a psychiatrist. I've seen a slew of movies that must be torn to shreds, this tour will require a brief dissection, and I have chapters upon chapters of life working at Microsoft that sadly must wait until the world gets their own opportunity to 'finish the fight'.
