Month: December 2006

Post-Christmas

Posted on by Chewbode

This will most likely be my last blog entry for 2006. I feel that this year, overall, has been kind of a cruddy year. Of course, getting laid off was bad, but the loss of my father-in-law was, by far, the worst. I’ll be happy when this year is behind us and 2007 greets us with open arms. I really feel like 2007 will be a great year for me and Shauna. I think I’ve said that in the past, but I truly feel it this time. Anyway, enough of that…

I updated the comic book list on the site. I’ll be updating it again this weekend after I pick up the last couple weeks worth of books.

I got three new video games for Christmas: Big Brain Academy (DS), Age of Empires: The Age of Kings (DS), and Destroy All Humans! (Xbox). I’ve added the two DS games to the Digital Archive along with a DS game I bought several months ago, Zoo Tycoon DS. Destroy All Humans! Isn’t up there yet, as I’ve not had a chance to re-work the Xbox games. I’ve been hard at work re-building the PC games area, and that should be up and running in the next week or so.

I’ve also added a new entry to the Artwork section, which is the Suncoast Studios business cards I’ve recently designed. The entry details the process of all the variations I went through to get the cards looking like I wanted them to.

For those of you who’ve been watching my Xfire banner at the bottom of my homepage, you’ve noticed that I’ve been playing an enormous amount of Star Wars Galaxies lately. In about 40 hours time, I got Zev from level 17 to level 35, and joined the Entertainer’s Alliance, which is a guild in the game. Last night I attended my first guild meeting and was the only one besides the guild officers that showed up! So, I was promoted to Secretary of the guild and am now responsible for taking the meeting minutes and communicating them to the guild members who can’t (or won’t) show up for the meetings. I also started to be come a Rebel pilot.

Christmas was great. Even though my mom had to work that day, me, Shauna, Amy, Glen and my grandma got together and had a beef roast done in the crock-pot with carrots and onions, mashed potatoes, and rutabagers. Amy and Glenn brought over Jell-O shots with 151 in them and a pumpkin pie with chocolate crackle poured on top. Grandma brought a really awesome Jell-O desert with cherry pie filling in it. We ate, opened presents, and had fun. When grandma left in the early evening, I went and picked my mom up from work and she came over and we all ate more, played some poker and watched Ralphie on T.V. We also munched off a relish tray and summer sausage/cheese tray.

Sick Thought of the Day: Slowly pull the tampon out of the butt – But not too fast, or it’ll break off and cause an infection.

Using the Force

Posted on by Chewbode

A few days ago, I decided to install Star Wars Galaxies and re-activate my account. I’ve gotten a bit tired of City of Heroes (although, it’s a great game). I think CoH just doesn’t have the variety of things to do as say, World of WarCraft or Galaxies. I’ve deactivated my CoH account in lieu of starting up Galaxies again.

So, anyway, I haven’t played SWG in about two years. I remember the real reason I quit was because of a couple different reasons:

1. The tedium of SWG was insane. I would log on and play the game for, maybe, about four or five hours per week at the time. My character, Zev Freelock (the original incarnation of the name), was this gunfighter guy who I was working on getting his pistolering skills up. I wanted him to be like a sharp-shooting Jango Fett, but he looked like Han Solo to a degree. Anyway, Zev has a house on Talus, a speeder bike (like the ones from Return of the Jedi) and I was part of a guild called the “New Republic”. The guild got to a point where, through inner turmoil between the higher officers, disbanded. That was a drag. Then, I realized that because I only played for four or five hours a week, that was just enough time to grind some missions and get enough money to pay the maintenance on my house, then I was broke again (houses have a cost associated with them for upkeep whether you’re logged into the game or not). So, I was getting nowhere fast. Even my speeder bike was deteriorating over time. All this, and it was hellishly tough to “level” up your character. There really weren’t any “levels” (like a level 20 Jedi, for example). All you had were tons of these skill trees that you would work on to gain expertise in such things as gunfighting, smuggling, bounty hunting, dancing (yes, dancing), etc. So, it was always quite difficult to gauge your place in the universe. And, I was clearly not spending enough time in the game to get ahead. Lots of negatives here.

2. No one I knew in real life played SWG, and that was a bit of a bummer. For some reason, if a game is “eh” for me, it can be really fun if I know the people in real life that are playing online with me. I’m not sure why that is. Anyway, Right around the time I’m getting tired of the game, CoH comes out and I start playing it. I get Millard involved and then Shauna gets hooked. We end up getting together at my place on a very regular basis and having a LAN party. Me, Shauna, and Millard would all sit in my office here and just kick some serious ass. We’d laugh, talk, and munch on goodies all night long on Friday nights, and sometimes would play all day Saturday too. It was a blast. That probably some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game. Of course, we met some great people online and had fun with them too, but it wouldn’t have been the same without Millard and Shauna. Needless to say, the fun couldn’t last forever. We got to the point where the SuperGroup (i.e., guild) closed up shop for several reasons, and we all stopped playing CoH. That was another reason why I stopped playing SWG.

Well, I fired up SWG again recently, as I’ve said, and lo and behold the gaming system has completely changed. They now have levels you can attain for your character, the skill trees are pretty much all gone, and it’s not impossible to get money. Basically, all the things that I disliked about the game are now, well, just like WoW. It’s a lot of fun. And, I’ve gotten Zev to a point where he is now studying to be a Jedi instead of a gunfighter. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to play some today.

I need to go get a greeting card and send it out to Misti and the kids today, and also need to ship presents to my brother in Michigan. That’ll take some time out of my game playing, damnit.  I also need to do some laundry, look for some jobs, clean the apartment up, and wash some dishes. Well, if I can get this all out of the way today, maybe I can realx tomorrow and play Galaxies.

Sick Thought of the Day: Jabba’s junk.

Week In Review

Posted on by Chewbode

Last Monday I worked on a new idea that I’m formulating. A couple of people already have seen a sneak-preview. I’m not going to say too much at this point, as I’m still in the R&D stage, but, if it happens, it’ll be pretty cool. And, of course, sick.

Tuesday was all about the Ford dealership. I took my Mustang in to get a free oil change (I get them free with the car) at 9:00am. I actually go there about ten minutes early and the mechanics got the ball rolling immediately. I was told it’d be about an hour. So, running a little behind, around 10:35am they finally finished. I pick up the keys and walk over to the car and notice that the driver’s side front tire is really low on air. I went into the trunk and grabbed my digital air pressure gauge and find out that the tire has about 10 lbs. of air in it. I tell my service rep and he tells me to get in the car, turn the tires to the right and move ahead slowly. Sure enough, he spots a large nail in the tire. He goes to check if I have road hazard insurance on the tires. At 11:00am he comes back and tells me that I do, but with me now being last in the queue of people and the fact that lunch breaks are happening, they probably won’t get to the car until about 1:00pm. We talk about the tire for a minute and we agree that it’ll hold out for a while, so I decide to go do some Christmas shopping for a couple of hours and come back at 1:00. I headed out and went to Michael’s Crafts and bought some supplies for my aforementioned project. I also did actually do some Christmas shopping. I get back to the dealership around 1:00pm and they take the car. I go and get a bite to eat at McDonald’s which is right next door. I come back, hang out in their lobby, and get the car back and leave around 2:30pm. I ran a couple more errands and went home. That night I watched the Lightning game and saw them lose 1 to 4 to Buffalo.

Wednesday morning I watched the most recent episode of Heroes on NBC.com. I guess they’re gonna be taking a break from episodes for about a month or so, and I think they’re gonna start back up on January 22nd. Ugh. Later that morning, I had a steam cleaner guy come over and do the carpets in the apartment. I did a bunch of paperwork.

Thursday I did a bunch of job hunting and submitted my resume. I was also contacted by a recruiter in Tampa (not the same one I normally use). He wanted to meet with me on Friday and said he’d send me an e-mail with his address and contact info and direction on how to get there. That night, I watched the Lightning kick Atlanta’s asses 8 to 0.

Friday was spent getting things ready, ironing shirts, and planning on going to Tampa. Unfortunately, my 1:30pm appointment came and went and I got no e-mail from the recruiter. I had no way to contact him to remind him of our meeting and that he didn’t send the info he promised. Around 2:30pm he e-mailed me and apologized as he realized he didn’t send out the e-mail. He wanted me to get in touch with him the next week so we could try again.

Saturday was a big day. I met up with my brother-in-law, Glen, and we went out to the SRQ R/C airfield. The SRQ squadron was hosting their Warbird fly-in, which showcases scale WWI and WWII military aircraft. I picked Glen up around 9:30am and we headed to the airfield. We got there around 10:30am. After getting settled, we watched the pilots fly their planes around, had some hot chocolates and doughnuts and talked a while. The announcer stated that there would be a scale jet demonstration at noon and that they were going to open the pits to visitors so they could see the planes up close. Glen and I decided to stick around long enough to see the jet. I love the smell of that jet fuel, as Schunk will tell you. So, while we’re waiting for all that, I get a hot dog for brunch. They then tell us that there’s to be a real, full-scale P51 Mustang flyby around 12:30pm.

Once again, we decide to stay long enough to see that. Time goes by, I get a couple of cheeseburgers and a free hot dog(!) and we look at the planes in the pits, watch the jet demonstration, and, eventually around 1:00pm, see the Mustang fly by.

Glen and I then decide to do what we intended to do that day;’ go Christmas shopping. We head out to the mall, a few stores, and get some shopping done. Around 3:30pm or so, he calls my sister and we decide to all get together with my mom and watch the Lightning hockey game at my place. We picked up my sister and mom and are at my place around 6:00pm or so. The game was starting at 7:30pm. We play some poker while waiting for Shauna to come back from the store, and when she does, I order pizza and we settle in to watch the game. The girls all talked and had fun and Glenn and I watched the game and I showed him my Fantasy Hockey team (he promptly gets engrossed in the Fantasy idea and vows to join next year). The pizza arrives, we eat, drink some beers and have a lot of fun and everyone goes home around 12:30am.

Sunday was a day for relaxing. I installed Star Wars Galaxies on my PC and started playing with it again for the hell of it. I also paid some bills.

Monday was the same, although I did contact the recruiter in Tampa. I have a meeting with him tomorrow. Of course, there was no Heroes last night, so I just played Galaxies. I had to go out and pay the storage unit that day and also ship a couple of boxes to Millard.

Today I have some more bills to pay, and will be doing a bunch more job-hunting. I will most likely play some SWG today and will watch the Lightning game tonight.

Sick Thought of the Day: Anal Taint.

Ode To Insanity

Posted on by Chewbode

Tongue.
Into Anus.
Maybe Heinous.
But I like it.

Forks.
Into the nether.
I wear leather.
To keep them out.

Tickles.
Onto the belly.
It’s slightly smelly.
It was my urine.

Failure.
Makes midgets stronger.
The knight is no longer.
And not very short.

Apples.
Stuffed in his mouth.
My fingers go south.
Into applesauce.

Hair.
Lickety-lick the horn.
He manages his scorn.
It’ll be better now.

Roots.
Makes the tree stand.
Finger in the can.
I heave it out.

Torque.
The smile is coiled.
My balls have spoiled.
You are not needed.

Sick Thought of the Day: American Han Solo, made into doughnut meat.

Slow Day

Posted on by Chewbode

I got an early-morning call from my mom that my sister needed a ride home from the vet’s office. Evidently, her ride (a friend of the family) had to go to work and couldn’t wait around for her while my sister finished getting the paperwork finished for getting her cat’s nuts whacked off. I picked her up around 8:45am and we then went out for breakfast at McDonalds and then stopped off to take a look at a house they’ve been looking at buying.

I put up a new section for my family today called the Wish List. It’s an area of the site that we can get to that allows up to build Christmas (or birthday, etc.) lists and then make notes on the lists so that we all know what we’re getting each other for said holiday. Of course, the person that entered their list into the system won’t be able to see the comments of others, therefore won’t know what they’re getting. I’m brilliant.

I also worked on the Digital Archive some today. I’ve started to re-work the PC Video Games. When they are all re-done, I’ll make that new section show up on the site (right now it’s hidden and I’m the only one who can see it).

I think I will play some Dark Star One for a while until Shauna gets home from work.

Sick Thought of the Day: Shits that look like states.