Maximum Suckage
Wow… and I mean WOW. I never thought that I’d be SO bad at a game. I have finally put in that Gears of War disk and immediately regretted it. . . How bad is it that you die in the first battle? Isn’t this suppose to be the training part of it to get used to the controls? Evidently I need much more training. . . Fenix will probably come through the tv and just beat the crap outta me for being so horrible. :p On the up side I’m enjoying following the other guys around and watching them shoot locusts while I get my shots in once in awhile. I laugh at the suggestion from someone that you should just start on hardcore because casual is so easy. . . I’d probably STILL be on the training mission trying to figure out where to get more ammo since I ran out in casual (can you say bad shot?)
I almost didn’t get to play again tonight because SUPRISE! We just NEEDED to go to the store. At least I was able to pick up a shirt i’m going to wear to work tomorrow with the saying "Disgruntled Employee of the Month" :p I like it. I may be tired tomorrow, but I wasn’t about to give in and only play a level of Bejeweled 2 and then crawl into bed… nope… I just had to try out Gears… In fact, I think if there was some actual dialog while I was playing it would probably go something like this
Me: Hey cool! what’s that?
Other Guy: <pulls me down behind cover> get down you idiot! Do you want to get your head blown off?!
Me: Oh… those are the bad guys? <stands up> There’s about three of them over there.
Other Guy: <pulls me down again> What is your malfunction?!
Me: Whoops, I keep hitting the wrong button which one fires again? <starts shooting off in a random direction>
Other Guy: <shakes his head> I’m gonna die. . .
Me: Oh yeah, left trigger first to aim… silly me. Where’d the bad guys go?
Other Guy: <runs to a different cover point>
Me: <dives over the cover, rolls and then stands up in the middle of empty space> Whoa! I did a cool manuever… hey… I’m getting hit <casually walks to a wall and tries twice before taking cover> Dang, I forgot how to run – I’ll be feeling that in the morning.
Other Guy: <kills the bad guys>
Me: Dang, I’m out of ammo.
Just in case you may be wondering: I believe that’s what happened in the training mission… except I died before that scene so that was my second shot. I haven’t gone too far in the first act, but I’ve already died twice there. This is going to take me a LONG time to complete… Oh well, if I think of any more dialog I’ll be sure to clue you in as to how I’m doing… that is like I stated before Fenix doesn’t come through the tv and show me how that chainsaw bayonet works. . .
EDIT: Just in case I sounded like I didn’t have fun… I would like to say this is a great game – I just like having fun picking out my trouble areas in a humorous way. :p
Not Paying Attention
Probably I should have just deleted my last entry, but I wanted to move my little story along. The problem is that I couldn’t remember where I was in my tale and when I looked back on my stories category to look at what I had so far. . . my last two entries not only are darn near identical in title but similar in content as well. I guess I should have checked first and then posted – but oh well, they still work together so I’m going to keep them. I kinda like the second one more than I like the first one I did "Connected…" plus is goes a half step farther into the non-existent plot that I haven’t established yet :p That’s my favorite part of my stories, I just make it up as it comes along so that sometimes I’m even suprised at where they go.
Speaking of not paying attention (as I make a lame attempt at a segue to explain yesterday) I don’t think a certain "significant" other pays much attention so does not realize that I’ve been pretty much running non-stop for the past couple of weeks between working – getting things in order at lunch time and them after work doing errands and listening to a constant stream of complaining. I’m worn out and need a break. Gaming would probably be a nice relaxing task so that’s what I’m going to attempt to do tonight. No running around, no errands, nothing – I’m a vegetable come 4:00 and nobody is going to be able to make me do anything!
GEARing Up. . .
. . . for the holidays. Yeah, I misled you with THAT particular title didn’t I? :p Now that Thanksgiving is over, I have been entrusted to dig the Christmas tree out. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a little bit.
Running around was never my thing. There’s just something about staying inside that appeals to my inner peace – especially when the weather is starting to turn nasty. I think the wife gets a sense of control when she makes me go out and run errands all day. I despise her for that because she doesn’t run ANY errands. Heck, I even fill up her gas tank and run to the store to buy her cigarettes because she’s too lazy to do it herself. /bitterness
Sundays are always shopping days so that took up a little over an hour of my day. Add to that, cleaning a little bit of the house up and going out to pick up dinner and you can see that my total gaming time has been cut down to about 15 minutes in which I played a quarter of a level of Bejeweled 2 (big whoop). My reward for all this running around? I "get" to pull out the Christmas tree and set it up! Oh LUCKY me. /dripping sarcasm
It wouldn’t have been all that bad if I wasn’t nagged about it all freaking day and getting past experiences thrown back in my face like never putting up the pool over the summer. Oh, just in case you were wondering about THAT – I can’t/don’t swim. I hate the water, yet IF I had put it up, I would have had to clean it…. make sure the chemical levels were right… cover it up at night… FORCED to get in the damn thing. I hate it. If it was up to me I’d shred the pool and throw it away. . . errr… I’ve gotten off on a tangent. Let me get back on track.
I just wonder about putting the tree up when we aren’t even going to be here on Christmas. That’s right, the 24th (oh joy… to the world) we are going to fight the holiday traveling and head out to Illinois. . . 2,000 miles away. It’s at times like this I would like to take out my frustration with some games. . . Such as Gears of War which I did just so happen to pick up today :p So in hindsight the title is somewhat appropriate after all…. I just wanna PLAY though!! >sigh< maybe tomorrow. . . Unless we have to go all over town to show off the new vehicle once we pick it up from the dealership. Knowing my luck – It’ll be days before I get time to really sit down and game again.
Almost Under Control
If you’ve been following along with the drama of my life, you’ll probably roll your eyes thinking… "Oh great, here we go again." When last updated, the fence had been started on and possibly by Monday completed (I can hope). On another front I’m in a rental car and wasn’t sure what I was going to do come Monday when I have to return it. Today that little situation was taken care of… Down at the Dodge dealer we’ve purchased (well – payments anyway) a used 2000 Dodge Durango. So you see, you didn’t have to roll your eyes like that :p It was good news.
Overdoing it x 2
I don’t normally like to eat, but Thanksgiving (and Christmas for that matter) tends to find me filling my plate a couple of times. This usually leads to the heavy eyelids and an ache located roughly mid-section. I was there. In fact, I’m still full about 8 hours later. I also overdid it in the gaming section.
It’s true, counting last night’s (early early morning) round with Viva Pinata I put in more gaming than I have in a long time. . . One achievement maybe, but I got too involved to worry about those. :p In fact, I started experimenting and just couldn’t stop.
Today was more gaming – however, I skipped on the pinatas and focused on a couple other games. Bejeweled 2 is now under the evil control of level 182 which means that I am now officially less than 100 levels left to completion of Endless Mode! Also in the arcade arena I attempted once again to see if I couldn’t get some kind of achievement in Mutant Storm (actually I’m just frustrated that I can’t be consistent with this one) and ended up crashing into things and getting shot on levels that I have been able to get through many times unscathed. Must have been all that turkey I ate that’s slowing my reflexes down. :p
F.E.A.R. is teaching me a few things. I’m pretty good at predicting which direction is the way they want me to go. I don’t know why but I usually have to back up and wander down the dead ends to make sure I’m not passing any goodies up. I’m now on Interval 5 and I believe it goes up to 10 so once I complete this level, I’ll be at the halfway point. Yeah, I’m doing it on the easy difficulty – but it’s because I’m a lousy shot. I mean REALLY lousy – my mode of firing is pull the trigger and wave the gun around while hoping I’m going to hit what needs to be hit. :p I can see everyone drooling wanting to play against me in multiplayer shooters no… heh heh heh Anyway, it’s tough getting through this one quickly since I can only play a little bit at a time so I don’t make myself sick.
Quake 4 was the last game I played and I didn’t think I could make it past that boss of level 1 but for some strange reason I found out how to. I just started trying different things and then all of a sudden I stumbled across the solution. It was the only achievement I unlocked today, but seeing it pop up on the screen brought a smile to my face. Guess what? I suck at this shooter too because I still have trouble with the ‘wait until the reticule turns to targeted before pulling the trigger’. I am slowly making my way through though – it’s amazing I even got the untouchable achievement considering I’m always wearing my bullet magnet suit :p
I did play too much of F.E.A.R. and Quake though, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow in order to play some more… At least I didn’t overdo it with Mutant Storm… my thumb and wrist don’t hurt like they did the last time I played it for hours on end, trying to get that darn Yellow belt achievement or the x4 multiplier achievement. My self delusion of maybe catching up with Stiek one more time has crumbled since I’m having too much fun with these games that give out very few points for the time consuming achievements :p So, I guess I’ll just wait for Vellan to catch up to me now.
Turning it Around
Even though I’ve been struggling through a really busy 1/2 week – at least it’s been a LOT better than the previous week. Even with it being busy at work the days have been flying by. I have gotten a little bit of gaming done except for Wednesday because the wife wouldn’t stop playing Viva Pinata :p I’m staying just a half a step ahead of her though and using her as a test subject to see if I can pick up any tricks from her.
The fence has been started on by the workers, so that will be one less thing to worry about. I suppose we are going to be looking at cars this weekend, and that’s something I just dread doing. The headache of the Thanksgiving date routine has been finally passed (i.e. I didn’t get any relevant phone calls from work tonight) and that leaves one more headache for January – federal related job that takes approximately all month to complete all the little details. At least I’m not the only one that has to do them and I am more of the ‘help’ than I am the main person.
1 o’clock in the morning and I’m still up… I really should get some sleep to rest up for the turkey induced coma later on. O well, my momma always told me I weren’t that bright. :p Seriously though, all that eating will take its toll when it comes to gaming. I can just see me attempt some Bejeweled 2 and just falling asleep after three moves.
Friday I’ll be able to stay at home because there is NO way I’m venturing out on "Black Friday". I did that last year and there are just way to many people at the stores looking for those deals. Nope, I’m gonna stay right in front of the tv and do some gaming. Those of you that think I’m going to concentrate on passing Striek’s gamerscore… I can’t say that I’ll try. I will just try to have a little fun and get to some of those games like Quake 4, Chromehounds, Dead Rising, and F.E.A.R.
Have I become incoherent yet? If I have I’ll blame it on the lack of sleep and the relief of a four day weekend. :p For those that celebrate – Happy Thanksgiving! For those that don’t celebrate…. Have a great day none-the-less – For I am thankfull for the friends I’ve made here online in the 360 world and beyond!
P.E.A.R.
Yeah… I’m taking a spin off from someone else’s idea…. with Gears of War being SOOOO popular and those addicted to Viva Pinata to the point where they were playing Viva Pinata instead of GOW someone suggested they should make Pinatas of War. Well, over the weekend I played some F.E.A.R. and thought.. hey… Pinata Encounter Assault Recon could be just as fun as Pinatas of War :p
Seriously though, I was able to get some playtime in with my 360 to the point where I hurt myself. Evidently Viva Pinata and Bejeweled 2 aren’t injury prone games so I’m gonna point to…. Mutant Storm. Somebody please tell me why I thought this would be good game to download. Okay, the only reason I got it was to prove someone wrong and that was I could knock out this game in just a few hours. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I can’t even get the yellow belt achievement! All I have to do to get that is to get through 19 levels from what I’ve read to get that… 21 levels if I die once. Hmmmm… I was on a roll too. I was fighting through those first levels with no problems whatsoever… In fact I was in a zone and I wasn’t even taking names! I was going to get to yellow belt – – – – phone rang. GRRRR with the wife still asleep I couldn’t let it ring, and for some reason I just couldn’t figure out how to pause the game (might not even be possible). I never got back in my zone and I tried many times that morning.
Enough of that though, you want to hear about F.E.A.R. errr… only I didn’t play too much of it. Then why… OH why did I even mention it? I wanted to play Viva Pinata because it doesn’t matter if the tv sound is low or not. Unfortunately I got the dirty disc error. I only put F.E.A.R. in to see if that disc played and it worked fine. But I can’t just walk away after verifying – I gotta play through to the next checkpoint at least. :p I really need to get more into this game and see where it’s going – it’s just that I’m missing all the laptop and phone clues… Especially when the sound is down. I’ll pay more attention through subsequent playthroughs.
Viva Las Ve…. errr.. I mean Viva Pinata is still running by the way. I just cleaned the disc a little and was able to play… well, more specifically my wife was able to play. :p Yes, I got her to play through the tutorial and she has become hooked just like I thought. She has even been getting the achievements I haven’t been able to do (but I always knew that she was better at this type of game). She’s even been able to … wait… no I won’t say it just in case it’s considered a spoiler. Let’s just say that she’s 2 of 3 on a specific area and I’m 1 of 3 :p How vague can I get? heh heh heh The only time I yelled at the tv was when I FINALLY got a pinata that I wanted and some OTHER non resident wandered over and gobbled it up! Stupid pinatas!! Now I have a different resident :p I know as soon as I try to get that other pinata back the second OTHER pinata will eat it. Meanwhile, I finally got that 10 hour achievement :p
EDIT: Hey! I see that Striek has surpassed my gamerscore! Curses. . . Foiled again! :p heh heh heh Great job Striek, now I guess the ball is back in my court to see if I can summon up the moxie to get past you at least one more time before I succumb to reality. :p
At the Sound of the Tone. . .
Hi!
You’ve reached the blog of cluskevird. I’m out of my mind right now so if you’d like to leave a response I’ll get back to it once I’ve found my senses.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
Well, if only that would work in real life :p No, I guess I’m actually here but I could have felt much better if I was able to just stay in bed today and not come out until I felt like it. Instead I’m still at work for a double shift with things going badly. Our most critical job of all time decided to fail miserably tonight and a programmer is on her way to get it working again. You may wonder just how critical this job is and I can tell you that if this job doesn’t get fixed and running… the governor of the state gets involved. :p It’s not pretty when that happens either.
I’ve been curious about how the PS3 launch has been going and the only thing I’ve seen so far is that there have been numerous robberies, muggings, fighting and a shooting. However, I haven’t seen anything about the numbers of consoles sold. I did see that there were some problems with the backward compatibility… but other than that – nothing. Before today I was reading something from the media saying that Sony has prepared buyers by asserting that there would be limited supplies and wouldn’t suffer the same outcry that Xbox360 did…. What? Do these so called reporters actually pay attention? I don’t know how often I read about the 360 not having the consoles at launch. I was completely aware that there would be no consoles available which is why I waited until February to get mine. Maybe they’re on Sony’s payroll… I don’t know. I just don’t have any faith in the reporting of news these days.
What do I think about the "console wars"? I think someone should just parody Star Wars and show the main players as key figures… Sony cast as the Empire… 360 as the Rebels and the Wii….. hmmm…. bountyhunters and bad guys such as Jabba the Hut :p
Come on.. you know you’ve imagined Ken Ku*COUGH*mumbl. gi as the Emperor and his puppet… errr.. right hand man as Darth Vader while Obi-Wan looks suspiciously like J Allard Peter Moore like Luke Skywalker while Han Solo has that Major Nelson look. . . . but I’m sure I’d be killed if I even mentioned TriXie taking the Chewbacca role so I’m going to not say it. . . errr…. wait. Did I type that out loud?
Well, I gotta go now… bye! :p
Mixed Day
Today was a little good. . . and a little bad, so I’m not sure what kind of day I had.
I got an estimate for the fence repair and it’s 690 dollars. Since my deductible is 500 dollars there’s no point in going through insurance. At least it’s better than the thousand to twelve hundred like I was thinking it would be more like. It’s still going to be after Thanksgiving before they can come out and do the repair. I’ll have to do something temporary til then.
The verdict on the car also came in today. . . totaled. That’s so not cool. so now we are down to one vehicle since the loaner is gone come the 27th. With the wife going down to part time, there is no way we can afford a new car so I think we’re gonna have to do our best to get by with just the one. I’m on a list – and I don’t think it’s a good one…
All that’s left is to get the courage to find out how bad I’ll be taking it in the shorts on the roof and skirting for the house. It’s the one that frightens me the most.
As all things go, they’re moving along and hopefully I’ll extract myself from these worries and stress by rolling with the punches. Hey, did you know I played some Viva Pinata? :p I had to stop a fight and I’ve spotted a ruffian wandering by. I am currently attempting to turn my sours into nice helpful pinatas. . . though so far my attempts have failed. . . Stupid Shellybean! Maybe I’ll have better luck with the bat.
The Mixed-Up world of Cluskevird 