The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Gears of War 2 ain’t nuthin’ special.
It’s the same game, with the same ridiculous dialog, and essentially the same weapons, with some new locations, new gimmicks, and new plot that doesn’t make any fucking sense. It’s completely from the “longer, better, more bad-ass” school of game design.

But you know what? That’s pretty alright.

Due to my new Gamefly subscription, I put some of the co-op games I’ve always meant to play on there. I wasn’t going to play through them alone or more than once, but they would be a good ride. Gears 2 fell under this, and it was the first game I got! (Of course, unluckily, RE5, another co-op game, was the second game I got. I didn’t need two co-op only games, Gamefly!) So I sat down with Jonathan and Spaeth, alternating, as I played through the whole game, shooting some dudes from behind cover and yelling out my witty catchphrase, “Eat shit and die!”

It’s a fun time. The co-op is well-enough designed, and the base shooter gameplay is still as good as it ever was, because it is exactly the same as in Gears of War. The “we’re separated” sequences are shorter, to minimize frustration, which is nice, and now your AI partners can revive you, which also helps lower the difficulty. The way you and your co-op buddy can pick different difficulty levels is also appreciated. Jonathan picked Hardcore for most of the way through, since he played through Gears multiple times on higher difficulty levels, while I just stuck with Normal for the casual fun I wanted. We died just about the same number of times, so the difficulty system must have been doing something right.
There are many more “gimmick” levels than before, and while some suck or are kind of annoying (It’s just frustrating flailing around on a Reaver where you can’t hit anything) I’d say the game is probably better as a whole for the changes in pace. It is certainly a longer, and more complete game than Gears 1.

But yeah, the new adjusted Locust gun is pretty neat, and the Flamethrower is pretty fun… but it’s just more Gears. If you get this, you know what you are getting into. The only thing I’m sad about is that I didn’t get to try Horde mode before I sent it back… but RE5 is awaiting for my co-op time, and I wanted to get something more single-player oriented… like, say, a little Red Faction: Guerrilla. So into the mailbox it went.
Fun times, though. Fun times.

So I’ve been cleaning off my desk.
Sort of.

Mostly I’ve just been chewing all the gum that has been on my desk for months.

I’m actually unsure how this is really getting my desk cleaner, but at least it doesn’t have packs of gum on it anymore? I guess that’s nice. And I got to enjoy a “New Flavor Escape!” in the form of Maui Melon Mint gum. So that’s great.

I can’t really recommend Maui Melon Mint, though. It’s not bad, but man, when you have the options of Orbit’s Raspberry Mint or Citrus Mint, this just kind of pales in comparison. Also, why does everything have to be minty? I don’t really know. I bet they could design a gum that still made my mouth feel clean without putting mint in there.

It is also interesting to me how much the Mint contained within Maui Melon Mint clashes with the Mint in my toothpaste, as I attempted to brush my teeth the other day after chewing a bit of this gum, and it was a powerful and unfriendly clash of flavors within my mouth. If only all mints could live together, in harmony! That would be better.

Mixing Sour Pink Lemonade and Sour Apple on your snow cone, though, works rather well, though the Apple flavor totally beats the crap out of the Pink Lemonade. I shall have to go and get snow cones more often, perhaps.

But probably not a mint flavor. And certainly not “Wedding Cake.”

I find now, all of the sudden, that I have no idea why I am not following Giant Bomb more often. I was liked to a little review of Rocket Riot, a game I hadn’t really heard about, on Talking Time. I watched it, and I was like “Okay, this is pretty entertaining, let’s see what else they got… oh, here’s something about BlazBlue…” So I went to watch that.

And man, I laughed so hard.

Which caused me to notice the fact that there was over 100 episodes of something called “Endurance Run: Persona 4.” So I went to that. I’ve been watching it for quite awhile now, and I just keep laughing. Basically, they’re playing Persona 4 in 15 minutes chunks and recording it, while commenting on it. It’s a Let’s Play! But man, it’s so good. So good.

It really makes me wonder what else I’m missing. Should I be listening to their podcast? What else of theirs should I be following? I mean, I have no idea.
But hell, at least for today, I was extremely entertained.

Work is just amazing.
I just found out that I have HOURS next week! Actual, verifiable hours! Lots of them! I will have a big paycheck! I was all happy!

And then I went “Oh, I have hours.”

I mean, I’m not someone who bitches about work a lot? When something genuinely pisses me off, sure, I will tell you about it, blog of mine, but the majority of the time, I’m just fine. I work. It sucks. A lot of the time it makes my right ankle and knee ache. But I get the job done, and I get paid, and it’s no big thing.

At the same time, my schedule changes from week to week and week again. And honestly, I’m pretty well getting sick of it.
I don’t know… I’m a creature of habit for the most part. I like things not to change. This is the sort of thing that gets me into a lot of trouble, feeling that way. I think that, more than ever before, life is just constantly changing nowadays. I wish I could get 1 job and work it for 40 years, but that just isn’t done. You spend a year or two somewhere, or even less, and then you find a better offer and go for it. Change change change…

I don’t know, I think work wouldn’t be so tiring if I didn’t work completely different hours every week. The idea of, you know, working twice the number of hours as I worked last week is kind of a soul-crushing idea, even if I know I can do it. It’s the change that makes it feel worse. If I had actually been getting this number of hours the whole time, then it wouldn’t have been a big deal, would it?

Probably not.
I don’t know.

Anyway, it’ll be nice to get a large cash infusion to my bank account, in any case.

Free shipping is a trap. A TRAP!

It took me a long while to realize this, and about when I did, I got Amazon Prime, so it would never again be an issue. Gone were the days of throwing another two or three things I didn’t need onto an order in order to get super saver shipping! No more, I said! No more!

Well, um, I just bought $100 worth of board games just for free shipping.

It wasn’t totally my fault, mann. I needed the new stand-alone expansion for Dominion, called Dominion: Intrigue. I and my friends love the shit out of Dominion, and I couldn’t pass that up! But there was the “free shipping if you buy $100!” And it was only like… $30. Surely there was another board game… well, that’s pretty cheap too… and another, and another… and then I spent $100 on board games, just like that.

It’s not so much the saving the $10 on shipping that does it, I suppose. It’s just sort of a sign. An “okay, it’s okay to splurge” sign. And I love those signs. I love having permission to do things like that. And I let it make me spend quite a lot of money.

What did I get? Well, besides the Dominion expansion, of course, I also picked up Race for the Galaxy, Dungeon Twister, and Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride I’ve played quite a bit on the XBLA version, so I know that’s worth my money. Dungeon Twister is apparently coming to XBLA, and ever since I read that, I’ve been really interested in it, as it sounds like a fantastically fun 2-player game. And Race for the Galaxy? Well… that’s more an unknown. I’ve heard good things, and it has cards. I guess that’s all it takes to sell me on a card game, huh?

Anyway, they’re all with the pre-order of Intrigue, so they won’t be shipping out until “Mid-July.” So expect a huge-ass board game party some time around then. It’ll be… exciting! Yes! Hopefully!
Man, I buy so many games…

This country is pretty okay, I suppose.

Like so many things, this country is run by some sort of system of government, which involves politics, none of with I can do anything even vaguely about. The wheels of it keep on turning, and sometimes I vote, I have even called up a congressperson once or twice, but it doesn’t particularly mean anything. It’s just kind of a suggestion that is easily ignored. I can do nothing, really, to affect this country, and as such, I can’t say I have any real strong claim to it. I certainly have nothing that even borders upon real patriotism.

Still, there are a lot of things that I hold near and dear. My home, my family, many rights that I would not have if I lived in other parts of the world. Would I be writing this stupid, stupid blog if I didn’t live in America? I don’t know. It becomes much less likely.

I don’t feel any real connection to America, and I think we don’t do a lot of things right. But I enjoy quite a bit of the freedoms and such that I’ve been given because I live here. I enjoy many things about living here.

So, you know. Happy Birthday, America. We’ll fire off some explosives that make pretty colors for you. Keep trying to improve.

It’s time for a pointless spiel about Penny Arcade!

I like Penny Arcade. Hell, you like Penny Arcade. Everyone likes Penny Arcade, and there are good reasons why everyone likes Penny Arcade. Recently, Penny Arcade put forward a series of story starters for people to vote on. This is when the problems started happening.

Now, I’m going to preface this by saying, it’s not like I’m NOT going to read Penny Arcade any more. It’s mostly just… I can’t believe all this bullshit has been happening. They HAVE IT TOGETHER. They have turned a webcomic into an actual company that makes money and runs a charity and all kinds of shit. They shouldn’t be making these weak mistakes. I don’t get why they did. I really don’t.

So they put forward these story starters, Lookouts, Automata, and a Jim Darkmagic story starter that wasn’t actually a story starter but was really a Jim Darkmagic one-off. And they said “Vote!” and so we voted. And then, when Automata won, they said “Well, uh, vote again!” And we all cried bullshit on that one.
Seriously, I trust Gabe and Tycho. They should make whatever the fuck they want. If they wanted to make Lookouts, then they should have just done Lookouts, and not tried some sort of bullshit re-voting thing to try to sway it in their favor. Ugh.

So that happened, and then it passed. And now, all of the sudden, here comes Lookouts pg 2, only it’s done by somebody else.
And everyone hates it.
This must have caught them by surprise. For once thing, since I first saw the comic, its title has been changed to “Guest Lookouts, pg 2” to try to indicate that no, it is not the real next page, ha ha, when we said that we were fooling. But it is, of course. There has been tweets about the backlash.

What happened?

There is just so much wrong with this decision, I don’t see how they could have decided this was a good plan. People were REALLY excited about Lookouts. Irrationally excited. Sure, it didn’t win, but there was much fervor for it. To throw it to someone else, even a very talented someone else, with no warning is going to piss people off. And seriously, the people who made this page. They are talented. I went and I read their comic, Tiny Kitten Teeth. It is so cute and wonderful. The art style stands out and is fantastic. But it just doesn’t work with the dark, scary world that was laid out for the Lookouts. It is a bad fit.
On top of that is the fact that this continues the story. Gabe and Tycho’s story! I think, if this had just been a little separate Lookouts story, nobody would have cared. Show me a different tale, that’s the guest artist’s doing, you know? Don’t continue what was already started. Throwing away your story like that is such a horrible plan, and people are going to hate you for it.

I just don’t get it. If they wanted pretty filler while they were vacationing that was in the Lookouts world, they could have had that. But they didn’t ask for that, obviously. Because we got this.

I just can’t understand it. Are they losing touch with people? What’s going on?

I can speculate all day, as I have been, but it won’t do me any good, I know. I mean, I have been. And I wrote this thing about it.

You’d just think at this point, they’d know that we’re all fans of THEM. I want to watch them do things, read what they have to say, and see their art. That’s why I visit the site so often.
You’d think they’d know that.

I am a person who is serious about T-shirts.

Really serious.

I spend way more time deciding what kind of t-shirts I am going to buy and what particular shirt I am going to wear every day that I should really be admitting to. (I can’t decide… I CAN’T DECIDE BRAIN ANEURYSM!) If you buy me a t-shirt, you’re sort of walking on thin ice. If I do not like the T-shirt, I will feel horrible, because I will not be able to wear it. I will not endorse your t-shirt if I cannot truly, truly WEAR the t-shirt, you know?

I should not think of my t-shirts, hell, what I wear, as a reflection of who I am… but I kind of do, so it’s kind of important to be wearing the right things.

Rules: If you’ve seen it in a store, it is unlikely to be a t-shirt that I can wear, because it is too mainstream. Cleverness wins much extra points. Cuteness also, but cleverness is more important. If it’s black, that’s fine. If it’s another color, it best makes sense in the context of the shirt. Every time someone compliments me on my shirt, or asks me where I got it and I say “internet” then I win.

Anyway, the point is, I have no fucking idea why it took me so long to start going to Woot Shirt.

Basically, they make a T-shirt every day. They are t-shirts that are decently priced. Most of the time, they’re sort of artistically cool but not something I’d wear. But that’s okay! I think they should exist! For example, this shirt? I wouldn’t wear it, but it’s totally bad-ass and whatnot. But I mean, when you offer me something like this? Or this? How the fuck can I resist? Not to mention that the shirts are so short-term that the kind of unspoken rule I have about not wanting to be wearing something anyone else is wearing is pretty well going to be protected.

Seriously, finding those shirts and buying them makes me wonder what the fuck I’ve been missing. I need to check the damn site every day. I need to keep up with my t-shirt purchases. I also need to purchase this one and this one too…

I don’t buy as many t-shirts as Vidjeo Gamez… but I still perhaps spend too much money on them.

I always used to wonder why people bitched so much about working retail. I mean, I have a retail job, and I really don’t mind it. Almost like it some days. Sure, I’m just working for the paycheck, but that’s why you go to work. I could think of many jobs I would rather do, but none that I had access to. My job was just fine. I don’t know why I should hate it.

Recently, there haven’t been many ad sets, and I’ve been filling in on the floor quite a bit in order to get some hours.

I get why people bitch and hate retail jobs now.

Granted, it’s not for the reasons that I think most people would think. It’s not the customers. On the contrary, I rather like dealing with customers, because it gives me something to do. That’s the main thing I want at work: I want something to keep me busy. Something to make the time fly by faster. Something to keep my paws working. And if there’s nothing to do, I want the freedom to do whatever I need to entertain myself until there is something to do. So no, I don’t mind dealing with customers, even with dick-ish ones, because at least I’m doing something.

But depending on where I am working in the store, there is nothing to do. I pace back and forth. Every once and while, I find a shirt to fold, and I fold it. And then I pace more… and more. If I’m lucky, someone whom I am friends with is working that day, so I have someone to go bother and talk to time and again. But it’s very possible that that is not the case. So I just keep pacing, and pacing, and all the walking makes my ankle ache more and more, and it’s just horrible. Give me work, I want to yell! I can do things! I CAN DO THEM!

It’s really frustrating. Normally when I get to work, I might resist going, but once I’m there, I’m fine. Working these floor shifts, I want nothing more than to go home, the whole time. It sucks.

So, yeah, I’m sorry for not saying but thinking that you need to suck it up if you ever talked about hating a retail job. I take it back.

Work on Saturday night sucked.

Why, you ask? Well…

So it was looking like it was going to be a pretty big night. A lot of work to do! A lot of stuff to sign. No big deal, everyone is short on hours due to some horrible scheduling issue that’s screwing everyone, staying an hour or two late wasn’t going to make anyone mad. And we needed that time too, as our crew was made up mostly of the new members of the team, including one new guy who was still being trained. So yeah, it was going to be slow going.

So I plan everything out for this, I get people out there, we get working, etc. At 11:15, over the loudspeaker comes the announcement that we have to be out of the building at 12:15. This wasn’t me, the team supervisor being told this. No, this was everyone being told this. But it was the first I’d heard about it. If I had known about it ahead of time, I could have done something about it. I could have planned the night around the limited time, and maximized what we got done and made it easy for the rest of the store to finish up after us.

But it was too late for that. We had an hour to do half the work of a basically 6 hour shift.

We rushed. We got done what we could, and I wrote a note explaining, but fuck… this makes me look bad. Very bad. To both the people working in the store tomorrow and to my crew. Maybe it’s stupid of me, for I am just Management’s puppet, but I like to at least seem like I know what’s going on and am in control. It just makes people worry less, so we get more done. But that sure as fuck didn’t happen that night.

I shouldn’t care. I’m not going to get fired for it, because it’s not my fault. I got paid. I shouldn’t give a shit about my silly part time retail job.
But bleh… still frustrating…