Gecko Bloggle

Rick and I went to the newly-renovated (but still slightly odd) Denny’s, where we talked about an idea he has for a game.  There’s two major chunks to it, and I think he’s got the action bit figured out, but the lead-up to the action needed a little something.  Not sure what, but something.

I think it’d work.  As an actual game, in the real world, which would be fun, and kinda hectic, like when you were playing in the basement with the expensive stuff your parents owned, and they’d yell at you for “having fun wrong.”  Those were awesome games to play, until one of you broke a window, popped out a ceiling panel, bounced that switchblade off the wall back at you, or you (and I actually did this) lost a throwing star somewhere in the ceiling.

I bet that happens to real ninjas all the time, just like normal people lose socks in the wash.

I’ve always thought the best games are normal games (no learning curve for how to play) but messed with in some way.  Normal pinball is kida dull after you’ve played on a table that has multi-ball.  Foosball is just not the same after you’ve played it with three balls on the table at once.

Looking back to Rick and I in 1993, it’s deeply weird to think that the same place we used to go THEN to have some coffee and grease, is where we go NOW to have coffee and grease.  Unlike in ’93, no drag queens there tonight (well, at least there weren’t while we were there, after the dinner rush, maybe later tonight – there really wasn’t enough of a crowd to warrant a visit from any queens).

I think I’m going to have to break my photographic silence on my moustache tomorrow, ’cause you people have just GOT to see what’s happening under my nose.  I had to shave tonight ’cause I can’t do any ‘stache below the lip line, ’cause my sides-of-my-chin-growth is white, and my moustache is mostly reddish/brown (red?)  Craziness, I tell you.

The new front end on the XBOX360 (that got rammed down my throat tonight before I could watch a movie) is cute and seems like it might be fun.  Much like the first 5 minutes of The Sims.  Unfortunately, unlike the Sims, there’s nothing to DO with the character/avatar thingie you just created.

Watched the Incredible Hulk ’08 tonight.  Pretty good.  Fun.  Silly.  Explodey.  Ed Norton managed to put a little bit of acting in there, and Liv Tyler managed to keep her lips from pulling all the light out of the room.  There were only a few things (clap out a chopper-fuel fire?) that happened that were along the lines of what made a bunch of engineers and artists at Relic get into a “that wouldn’t work” fight in email.

Seriously.  That argument was a lot of fun to watch.  It was due to the commercial for the film that came out in 2002, and in that commercial, a tank is picked up the gun barrel and then flung into the distance.  People were arguing that it was impossible for anyone (even Der Hulkminsterfuller) to throw a tank by the barrel like that.  It would shear off, one side of the argument said.  You’re forgetting about centripetal force, the other side said.  Gotta love any email thread with “centripetal” in it.

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Had a halfway-decent post read tonight after about 45 minutes of writing, but when I hit the “publish” button, it went poof.

Ah, the joys of using beta software.

Just caught a commercial for Guitar Hero World Tour (looking suspiciously like some OTHER three-piece band game by another company who simply bought the development company) but here’s the cooperative cross-over from hell:

Kentucky Friend Chicken.

Really? REALLY? Anybody’s who’s ever been passed the five-buttoned Guitar Hero controller immediately after a particularly sweaty-handed rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle” will know why this is a bad idea. Deep-fried chicken and plastic guitar buttons do NOT mix.

Waiting for the other shoe: Pizza and Wii (oh wait, THAT’S why everyone was spanging their controllers off their $3,000 plasma screens).

Of course, I routinely maw down (or is it mow down?) on licorice Goodies (which are recently GOODIER meaning more licorice and less half-crumbly candy stickettes) while sitting in front of my keyboard at work.

Oh, while doing some other stuff, I ran into a design site that has some stuff that nicely blew my mind for a good five minutes.

Part of the (literally) mind blowing Don't Play With Monkey

Oh, and in my days as a desktop technician, I’ve been called on a number of times to do data recovery for drives that have “died,” or are making horrible clicking noises. For the first time (as far as I know), someone has actually collected all the horrible click, grinding, chirping and buzzing noises hard drives make when they’re playing possum. Now, you just go to this site and listen to the various noises and weird pinging that hard drives make, and then explains what’s probably going on with the drive. (via Hack-A-Day). Might not save your data, but saves you from opening your computer case, sticking the phone in there and saying “So, is that bad?” to the guy at Best Buy.

Oh, and never ever ever EVAR take your computer to a place like Future Shop or Best Buy. Seriously, as much as we hate doing support for our friends (because of the whole “last touchies” thing, we generally don’t want to see you get screwed by some jerkwad at the store, who was selling cel phones yesterday.

And now, based on watching Canada’s Worst Driver season 4, I’ve decided that most of these people should just never drive ever again. I mean, the friends/spouses/children of these bad drivers have put them up to this, but I wonder if they can actually just plain call the cops instead, and say “Uh, yeah, you know what? Bob just shouldn’t be driving any more, like, at all.” How do these people get their licenses in the first place?

Sorta like that comedian I heard years ago, who suggested magnetic darts that you could harpoon into other cars who do stupid things, and the cops would automatically pull over anyone with three or more darts. At 10 darts, they just run you off the road.

Porches, Ferraris, and HumVees ship with two permanent darts.

HEY-O!

Oh, and if you’re in a restaurant, with your family, and you have one of those Bluetooth earpiece things in your ear?

That’s a ‘poonin’.

Went for a walk to Shoppers and then SuperValu to buy Qtips (it’s a thing, I just gotsa have my tips, yo), and some newspaper for a little random floor-board cramming, and it was sketchy out there tonight.

I mean, I live in the middle of Vancouver’s West End (well, to be fair, on the East Side of the West End), but wooftie. I saw the following things in no particular order:

• Taser-armed security guard with a bad hat, watching the front door of Shoppers.
• Less-than-subtle undercover security floor-walkers. (Seriously: Who buys a single houseplant at 11:10pm on a Sunday, by yourself? Didja drop something expensive last time you nabbed some punk stealing a Snickers bar?)
• Police takedown of some sort.
• Someone watching the takedown from 20ft away, with their hoodie pulled up like the world’s stupidest ninja.
• Another hoodie & backpack guy watching from about 100ft away, sorta-kinda hiding behind a big cube container in the parking lot of the Shoppers while trying to look nonchalant in that “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! way only the addicted/sketched can.
• A tipsy dude just about get taken out entirely by a bus, because he was trying to jaywalk in front of it. Sorta like seeing really bad drivers driving a AutoBody Courtesy Car. You can see how they got that way, y’know?
• The non-full moon behind mist. Can’t blame the moon tonight.

I have to go put away laundry now, and then off to bed.

Tomorrow is Sportball again, I wonder what’s next? Hockey? Bowling? Robot Wars?

Ripley discovered headphones work in the CD player in his room, which means he can listen to music at a volume above “The Red Line.” Now, he’s probably trying to figure out if his stereo can somehow get YouTube.

In which our hero does dishes, yells at the kids, and continues to grow his “moustache.”

Don’t have a lot to say tonight, ’cause Arwen’s out for a well-deserved night on the town, and I’ve been doing a little housekeeping (read: dishes), and keeping the kids from killing each other (or me killing them, for that matter). Today was a day of whiny kids, and whiny me. I slept in until 10 today, which is surreal for some reason, ’cause Arwen usually sleeps in on Saturdays, and then I get Sundays to sleep in. I don’t know why it seemed weird, but it did.

Fascinating, I know. Edge of your seat, huh?

Ooh, another spooky/scary/space movie. Screamers. Hmm… I think I remember something about this movie. The uh… the whatsit, the badness? Yeah, I think I remember that it’s bad.

Synopsis: The year is 2078, and on the planet Sirius 6B, a long, harsh, hate-filled war is being waged between the Alliance and the NEB’s. However the NEB’s are willing to begin peace talks, so Alliance leader Col. Joseph Hendricksson, accompanied by… The year is 2078, and on the planet Sirius 6B, a long, harsh, hate-filled war is being waged between the Alliance and the NEB’s. However the NEB’s are willing to begin peace talks, so Alliance leader Col. Joseph Hendricksson, accompanied by a man named Ace, and later a young boy, journey across the nuclear war-ravaged plains to meet with their foes. Upon their arrival, however, they discover that most of the NEB’s have been annihilated by the “screamers,” knife-brandishing robots that slice and slash humans simply for fun. Hendrickson and Ace soon realize that their lives are in grave danger, for it’s impossible to know who to trust… for the blood-seeking screamers can take on any form, from an inanimate object — to a young boy.

What they left out is that the first five minutes involve a guy wandering into the human’s compound, and before they snipe him (why? exactly?) he gets chunked by what looked like someone dragging a mini traffic cone under the sand. Like Tremors meets Dune, only with more stupid. Since a human with a gun seems to have ZERO chance of surviving for even a moment, what’s the point of being a mimic? Seems like a lot of extra work for no payoff.

28% on RottenTomatoes.com, so you KNOW it’s good.

I just sneezed like a crazy person, and now I smell honey. Not that I smell OF honey (I might, but I doubt it), but I can smell honey. Weird. Maybe I was a bee in a previous life. Maybe I was human, but died with a bee-hive on my head. That’d probably make ya sneeze.

Oooh, I’m a make waffles tomorrow morning. I usually end up infusing the waffles with something, instead of putting something ON them. Sometimes it’s things like bits of ham, or cheese, but I think I’m gonna do from fruit tomorrow. Pineapple. Tate likes that, and Ripley’ll probably be starving after overdoing it at dinner, and then yarfing shortly after going to bed. He’s sick-ish, but mostly he’s got a hair-trigger yarf reflex. So having a cold/flu thing that makes you cough really hard very quickly turns into sleeping on the floor with a big steel bowl next to his pillow, just in case. Poor dude.

Now, I’m gonna go write a letter to Arwen before she gets home, ’cause she likes it when I do that, and I like writing them too.

Further documentation of my own sheer awesomeness.

I haven’t coughed like this since I quit smoking. Makes me thankful I don’t smoke any more, ’cause this is not fun. It’s occasional, but it’s violent.

Got to see the new Bond movie today, thanks to NetApp and XSM. It was fun. Bumped into people I used to work with. Still the same old folks. Some of that stuff I miss, but the wheeling and dealing types? No thanks. Always an angle.

The movie though: I gotta say I haven’t really followed the movies much since, oh, the 80s, maybe. Not that I don’t enjoy them, I just don’t really NEED to see them. Y’know?
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