A Non-shitty Monday? OUTRAGEOUS!

Today was a not-so-bad Monday. That's saying something; my Monday usually consist of about 24 hours of pure misery with tiny, delicate threads of misanthropy weaved within. I guess it's the fact that I was actually PREPARED for class today. Rarity of rarities!

Not really that much on my mind today, but I'm really trying to update this thing on a consistent basis. Not that any of you bastards really read this thing, but what the hell? It's a nice way to vent. Diaries are for wimps anyhow. What's the point of revealing your innermost feelings if you're not publishing it for all to see?

Spring Break is only five (four, technically) days away, and frankly I can't imagine a more opportune moment for this glorious week of rest to arrive. This stupid Pertussis is ruining me physically, and I think it's getting to my head, too. I feel handicapped with this damned disease always hounding me, preventing me from doing the things I'd like. Hell, I can't even do the things I don't like; I find myself bursting into coughing fits in the middle of class, raising the inevitable "Holy shit! Are you okay? You should get that cough looked at." Been there, done that.

I had been planning on going to San Diego for the week, but then ol' B. Pertussis (the "B" stands for Bullshit! I'm so clever!) kicked in, and it looks like it'll take a couple of weeks before things look up. That said, I still wanted to be able to hang with the boys for at least a little bit, so I decided it would be great if instead of the usual plane ride, I'd hitch a ride with my buddies. It should be a lot of fun.

On the gaming front, I've rediscovered Left 4 Dead. Having not been able to access the 'Net from my XBox most of the time, I had forgotten how fun it is to be able to play with other people. Some cool guys out there. Of course, you'll end up in the occasional lobby where the game creator seems to be unable to do anything but make weird sex noises into the mic, but other than that there's some pretty level-headed people playing L4D. Thing is, though, I'm always playing Campaign, where everybody's working toward the same end. I've played a few Versus games, and I can imagine that the crazy's a bit amped up in that neck of the woods.

The World Baseball classic is a joke. The US obviously doesn't think it's worth their time to establish their country as the NUMBER ONE NATION IN BASEBALL. No, they'll just let Japan or Cuba take it again. Peavy gets lit up in the opening innings, and you let him stay in the game because you think he could use the "practice?" What a crock.

Pirates will dwell in the basement yet again. That's a given. The Halos, on the other hand, are a mystery to me. I'm sure Mike Scioscia knew what he was doing when he raided the free agent market for people I didn't know existed (with the exception of Abreu, of course), but I won't know what to think of these guys until they start the season. As it should be, I guess. That's the fun of it.

Hulu is retarded. All I want to do is watch Family Guy, and all I'm getting is a TWO MINUTE LONG commercial featuring Danica Patrick that refuses to load correctly. As far as broken sites go, I think this piece of shit will forever have a special place on the leaderboards. "Here's an idea! Let's allow people to watch our shows on the Internet! But wait...we have to make sure that the site stops loading altogether as much as possible, and make the commercials REALLY FUCKING LONG!" "BRILLIANT!"

Da Stillers, da whiners, and LA MOOSICA

Well, the roomie's presumably gone for the weekend and everybody's going out. So here I am, sitting on my butt in front of my computer screen. Time to blog, folks!

I REALLY, REALLY have to get out more. I find myself stuck at home like this more often. But given my current state of health, it's not like I can just pick up and go wherever the hell I feel like going. I kinda miss the knowledge that I could, despite the fact that I never did. Ah, well, when I get my health back I'll be hittin' the parties and making a total ass of myself in no time.

I have tried my hardest to build some sort of foundation for my music library in progress. I've chosen Sublime and Santana to be the first building blocks I've put together. Here's hoping all goes well.

Just had my last midterm of the season today. It's nice to finally get those Goddamned things out of the way. Still got some papers to do, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. As for something school-related that I actually engjoy, I've been taking a sketch comedy class, and a friend and I are currently working on the first draft of our skit. It's shaping up to be pretty good. My partner's a genius when he's not putting off writing the damn thing.

I haven't really talked about the SIX TIME SUPER BOWL CHAMPION PITTSBURGH STEELERS, but I figure now would be a great time to do so, what with the staying home on a Friday night. *regains composure* Anyhow, let me just say...

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! HELL FUCKING YES!!!

See, I haven't exactly been able to celebrate, even more than a month after the fact. Living in Berkeley, I've gotta cope with the "casual" football fans who took all the fun out of the game with their incessant "the refs screwed the Cards" drivel. I got a call from my Mom (perhaps a bigger Steelers fan than I), who screamed and ranted and raved until I finally told her to get a hold of herself. I was less enthusiastic, as the last play of the game was a fumble that should definitely have been called an incomplete pass. That said, to say that the refs fucked over the Cards is nothing short of retarded. Had the refs been really trying to screw over the Cardinals, we would NOT have seen a score as close as it was. And I guess that's all I have to say about that.

Crappy Essays, Horrible Music and Hoops, Oh My!

Hey, check it out! Two consecutive blog posts! Seeing as how the previous post was posted at about 1 AM this morning, I guess this doesn't count as two consecutive days. But whatever.

I just wrote the most pathetic essay I've ever had to put to paper. Imagine a world in which you are expected to analyze, but not interpret. That's some deep shit. And I am indeed in deep shit. See, I've garnered a lot of good will from my professors based solely on my ability to interpret, but now having been neutered of that ability, I have nothing to rely on but my ability to say that WORD X sounds like WORD Y. And that's it. Perhaps that's taking the whole "no interpretation" thing too far, but dammit, that's all I can work with.

I never realized how pathetic my musical tastes were until I pounced upon the opportunity to purchase an iPod shuffle for thirty dollars. Upon receiving the device, I came upon the realization that my music library consisted little more than a collection of game music and crappy J-pop anime themes. This has to change soon. But the thing is, I've never been what one would call a "music buff." It seems as though I've gotten by just fine listening to the radio on occasion, but now I'm suddenly confronted with actually going out and choosing music to listen to. It boggles the mind.

The decision is made more difficult by the fact that a lot of the music made readily available at iTunes is not exactly my kind of music. I'm just saying, the fucking Meatspin song remixed into a rap beat just doesn't appeal to me. Then again, upon pondering my music library, the Super Mario Bros. theme remixed in 400 ways isn't exactly much of an improvement.

College hoops, or hoops in general, for that matter, have always taken a backseat for me, even in my sports-happy present state. It's an exciting sport, and after purchasing season tickets to witness said sport on several occasions, I'll be the first to admit a layup can be damn exciting when tens of thousands of other people are cheering for it. This year has been an especially "up" year for college hoops in the world of The Plumber, especially with the California Golden Bears seemingly locking up a spot in the NCAA tournament. In terms of the college game, Cal will always have my undying loyalty; however, a problem arises when I consider the professional game. I'm pretty much torn between two NBA teams who 1. don't particularly like one another and 2. have the hardcore loyalty of several close friends, so that means that if I were to ever pick one I'd have to work hard to win back my friends who happen to be fans of another. Thank God for baseball and the NFL.

With all the crappy essay writing, I had forgotten how much fun writing can be. Expect more of this more often.

Down in the ol' Economic Dumps. Shucks

Not much to talk about in terms of games, unfortunately. Seems the economy's taken its toll on pretty much everything these days. What with housing to pay for, and the schooling, with the thing, it's getting pretty hectic. So with so much to worry about, games have taken somewhat of a backseat. That, and football season's long over. I feel like I should definitely get more sports posts in here. That's the one thing besides video games in which I have any emotional investment. With the MLB season coming up, that shouldn't be a big deal. I'm an Angels fan, so expect LOTS of bitching.

What the hell? Let's get some sports blogging in here anyway. The Denver Broncos look like they're just about ready to contend for the Detroit Lions' coveted title of "Most Retarded Front-Office." You've just fired Mike Shanahan, one of the more revered coaches of this generation. You've got a freakin' Pro Bowl quarterback (Well, should have been Philip Rivers in the Pro Bowl this year, but that's another story)that looks poised to take the franchise to heights long-missed by Denver fans, and then you go and tease that you're going to trade him. Really? You're going to ruin your relationship with a future franchise QB RIGHT AFTER you fired Mike Shanahan? And for what? Matt Cassel? Guess what, fellas, New England had pieces in place to make Cassel comfortable in the starting position. Denver has had no running game for God knows how long and a defense that's old enough to be in the AARP Hall of Fame. You're definitely NOT on the right track.

In terms of me, myself, and/or I, I've got a big thing going with this God-forsaken disease I like to call Whooping Cough. My roomie and I were going over how such a ridiculously painful and strenuous disease ended up with such a retarded name, but I guess after experiencing some of the symptoms first-hand, I have to agree with the "whooping" thing. Not fun. We're talking about violent coughing fits that are so strenuous, more often than not you'll end up vomiting. There's that and the off chance you'll end up fainting from lack of oxygen. Not life-threatening, but inconvenient.

Games on the horizon that I'm looking forward to:
Mario and Luigi 3
Resident Evil 5 (Though I haven't played any of the previous 4...lame)
That's it! Crap I need to acquire some taste.

Whoring myself out

So uh, there you go. I got a 360 over the holidays. I got Madden and Left 4 Dead, and good God have I been missing out. It's good to own a system that consistently gets quality titles, though the cost is a little pricey. Just sayin' Nintendo...you're pretty close to costing yourself a customer. Like you give a damn. Bastards.

I just read my Sonic Unleashed post from last year, but I guess after playing the demo and reading the reviews, there's not much to complain about in the Mario to Sonic Game ratio. Better to have nothing than to spend sixty bucks on crap.

GO STEELERS!!!!!

I'm feeling a change in the tides of fate in the video game world. On an overall scale, it's not that significant, but for the Mario and Sonic fanboy camps, it's huge.
Consider this: Sonic fans can look forward to two new titles in the coming year: Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Chronicles: the Dark Brotherhood. Now, you might ask yourself how that threatens Mario's current position as pretty much the mascot for video games in general. Sonic Unleashed has that crappy Wolf Sonic mode and Sonic Chronicles is just an RPG for the DS. Well, the fact of the matter is that they're freaking GAMES. And Sonic fans are GETTING them in a time shorter than 3 years. As a matter of fact, they don't seem half bad. SC is being developed by BioWare, and Sonic Unleashed looks fun as hell. They seem like pretty solid quality games. Meanwhile, Mario fans are forced to wait another 3 or so years before the next Mario title and put up with crap like Mario Super Sluggers. I'm still waiting for Super Mario Awww, Who Gives a Crap, Here's Some Idiotic Game With More Crappy Characters That You Don't Care About. Through Nintendo's bumbling, Mario has become what Mario fans have always feared...a whore.
Now I know Mario's been whored out for a while now, but at least those games were good. I love Mario Tennis and Golf, and the Mario RPGs are always an entertaining distraction. But recently, we've been subjected to stuff like Sluggers and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, which just seem to lack the finesse and effort put into earlier Mario spinoff titles. You know who else had their games decline in popularity as his rival garnered momentum? Sonic. That's right. It may not happen, but it's a possibility that Sonic may overtake Mario in popularity by the end of the decade and become the new face of the gaming industry. Um...again.
But Nintendo can blame no one but itself for Mario's faltering. They've spent all this time pandering to the "casual gamer" and cheapening the overall experience of video games that Mario, not to mention all of their other core franchises, has been in serious danger of falling out of the public eye, and Nintendo out of their audience's favor. I honestly don't know what they can do to revive their old franchises, but they'd better think of something before some of their fans (yours truly included) jump off their rapidly sinking ship.

I want Madden. Need a PS3 or a 360 for that. So...there you go, Nintendo. That's one reason for me to jump off. Now give me a damn reason to stay on.

Bored as all hell

I love my Wii, but I'll be damned if I'm not completely bored with it right now. The last quality title I bought was Mario Kart Wii, which is a blast, but I'm itching for more stuff to play. Third-party titles, WiiWare, whatever...I need something new. But I look at the titles available, and apart from the games I already had, there's nothing out there that even remotely garners my interest. I've recently played through Super Metroid for the first time, so the Prime series seems a bit interesting. But God, I'm desperate for anything to play. I've even contemplated buying a 360 or a PS3. Probably a 360, since it's cheaper and such, and Banjo-Kazooie looks like fun. I guess I'm looking for a game with lots of platformers, seeing as how that's my thing.

I dunno. Hurry up and come up with something, Nintendo.