The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, in an attempt to not have a summer completely devoid of fun and interesting trips, it was decided that yesterday would be a day trip to St. Louis! When discussing what to do, the idea of the City Museum came up. Now, I had no idea this thing existed until about a week ago when it was mentioned, so the first thing I did was look it up. The second thing I did was get completely excited to see it. I couldn’t believe I went so many years without knowing it existed, and just a relatively short drive away. It looked amazing from the website.

It didn’t disappoint at all.

Holy crap, the place is just so pretty and so… fun. Everything is a work of art, and you can climb on everything. Inside everything. Around everything. It’s just crazy. I took some pictures you can look at to see just a taste, but, you know, they’re cell phone pictures.

But as fun as it was? Holy crap, it was tiring. I have never felt so out of shape, I swear. One can only climb on huge, metal monstrosities for so long without getting completely exhausted. I had to sit down and just recover a few times during the day while Essner dived into the tiniest crawlspaces and circled around behind me, and whatnot.
But I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. That place is so neat. SO NEAT. I crossed a tiny, open air tube made of rings of metal 5 stories in the air. I rode a slide that went from the 11th Floor to the 3rd. I crawled through a makeshift air conditioning system. It was an amazing experience.

It was such a great trip. Completely successful.

Also of note was how successful two pieces of gear were. One was my Ankle Brace. Yes, I gave in to my shitty ankle and got a brace. But you know what? I climbed around that crazy place for hours, and I never even limped a little. The brace worked like a charm. And at least nobody can see I’m wearing it under my long pants, so… I’ll have to wear it whenever I’m going to be on my feet for long periods.
The other piece of gear was Google Maps on my phone. Oh man, it was so neat. It worked so damn well! How can AT&T get away with charging money for a GPS program when I can just download this bit of free software that just works amazingly well. Note that this is my first time playing with a GPS device. I’m sure watching yourself moving on the little map is old hat to many, but I just found it so cool.

But yeah, man, a completely exhausting trip, but oh man. So great. I’m going to have to go there again someday. Perhaps at night. That sounds like a ton of fun.

So, I’ve been a Gamefly subscriber for awhile now. So I guess, the question is, how do I like the service? Or maybe that isn’t a question anyone has, but just for the record, I think it’s pretty nice. I mean, it’s been forever since I had rented games, but Gamefly seems to do everything one would want from such a service. I am fairly happy with it.

The only thing that’s annoying me is… well, the fact that they set expectations really high the first time and then cut them down.

The first time I returned a game, the very next day, I got an e-mail saying they sent out a new game. I was astounded. There was no way the game had gotten back to them yet. It turned out that they sent out the new game due to something called “FastReturn” which lets them send out new games before they even have the old one back. I was incredibly impressed with it! I was like “Yes, this is going to be totally sweet.”

FastReturn hasn’t worked for any game since the first one.

Originally I thought it was, perhaps, because I put the first game in the big mailbox at the actual post office. Maybe that gets them to scan it, and putting it in the mailbox at home does not? So I put the most recent game in that big mailbox again, and it once again did not work. Or at least, it certainly didn’t seem to.

This is one of those things like the Logan’s Burger problem. If they hadn’t ever turned it around so fast, I wouldn’t be annoyed that they haven’t since. And I mean, I shouldn’t be annoyed in general. The service is still worth the money I’m paying for it. I just want things to play, and the game I keep holding on to, Resident Evil 5 (Which I should ramble about someday) is a purely multiplayer with my brother experience, so having it around isn’t useful for just, you know, normal stuff. Normal single player gameplay. Though I suppose I could just try it and see what happens.

But yeah, anyway, those are my thoughts on Gamefly. I hope the service continues to help me not waste all kinds of money on Vidjeo Gamez. I was already proud of myself for not putting money down on Scribblenauts, even though it looks amazing, and just adding it to my game queue.

So here’s how awesome everyone’s precious Apple is.
Okay, I don’t want to get TOO down on them, because man, the iPod Touch and iPhone really are just amazing devices, but man, this struck me as so dumb.

So I’ve used my AIM account to do my iTunes transactions for a long time. I never understood why I could, but it let me, and I didn’t want to make another account, so I’ve been using it to buy my games on my iPod Touch. So Sunday, I get a message that there are new updates for games. One of them was the previously mentioned Mevo and the Grooveriders, which probably meant new free levels for me. Huzzah! So of course, I went immediately to update them. This requires logging in, so I did.

Then a little window pops up, saying I needed to transfer my account to an Apple ID. It seems they finally stopped the odd, nonsensical ability to use my AIM name for transactions. That’s fine with me, it makes sense, no worries. So I click the little “Update Account” button.
I get taken to a little screen explaining that I’m going to make a new Apple ID, and they’re going to transfer my licenses and whatnot. Sounds good! So I click continue.

“iTunes could not process your request. Try again later.”

So I tried again later. Same problem. And again. Same problem.

It’s important to note that I can’t update my apps, nor can I purchase new apps, until I get this transferred. It stops any transaction and makes me do this thing that I cannot do. Brilliant.

So I e-mail tech support, and ask them to fix the problem. The e-mail that comes back says, sure, they can do it for me (as opposed to fix their broken program) and that all I need to do is relinquish the password to my AIM (which they will change, sometime at random, and it will just stop working I guess, probably right when I need it) and all kinds of financial data through an e-mail.
I don’t really want to do that. I don’t want to have to worry about losing connection to my messengers. I guess I’m just lame, but the idea of my AIM account being held hostage for any length of time, however small, really really bothers me. I don’t want to do anything fancy. I just want to be able to give them money. But apparently I can’t do that.

I guess I’m just lucky that there isn’t any apps I really want to buy right now, so it’s not really affecting me. But eventually there will be. I hope they’ve fixed their stupid form by that point so I can make it all happen.

So I was busy doing VERY IMPORTANT work that involved uploading a video of Molly being cute (which you can see here. As you can tell, VERY IMPORTANT) when suddenly my 3G connection seemed to die and I had nothing, nothing, for awhile in there.

Now, I’ve only had internet on my phone for, what… 3 weeks? 2? Not very long. And yet, the loss of the net connection on my phone instilled in me the same pointless rage as when the internet goes down at my house. How dare I be disconnected! How dare they have a momentary loss of service!

The service was back up in, what… 10 minutes? 15? It wasn’t very long. I could once again get my tweets and my IMs and my random internet stuffs wherever I might be. But man, for those moments when I was shopping at Wal-Mart and unable to twitter and tell the world about it? Intense Fury.

If there’s one thing that’s clear, though, it’s that I am likely never going to be able to go back to not having data on my phone. Luckily/hopefully data stuff will be a lot cheaper by the time this contract runs out and I get a phone on my own. I mean, it’s only a matter of time until it becomes standard.
But yeah, never going to be without it. Ever.

Also, we all know this post was just an excuse to post that video. And reviews are already in. This is a bad cell phone video of a puppy you do NOT want to miss! And because it’s so popular, I’ve prepared an additional puppy video! That’s right! Two shitty cell phone puppy videos for the price of one! Don’t delay! Watch today!

So, did you hear? Magic 2010: the 11th Edition that comes out in 2009 is out! In 2009! Already! Wow! So, you know, that means we’ve gotta draft it. I mean, we just had to, right? So last Tuesday, we got to it.

I walked into the draft claiming I was going to force Black for no reason. Jonathan was claiming he was going to force opening three Planeswalkers. We all claimed that Justin Spaeth was going to take all the Lightning Bolts. (Gods, seriously, I am so pissed at Wizards for reprinting that card. Ugh.) Two of these things came true. Jonathan only opened one Planeswalker.

But seriously, I’m not too sure what I was thinking. Spaeth opened his first pack, and announced his rare was Royal Assassin. Obviously he is going to be running Black, and he did. It was really kind of stupid for me to force Black. And yet, Doom Blades, Tendrils of Corruption, and Assassinates kept getting passed to me, and I couldn’t let them go. Even though I was joking, I ended up forcing Black.
Still, it worked out well for me. I ended up B/u with a huge amount of removal. Sure, I was counting on a bunch of small fliers to get my damage in and whatnot, but eh, such is a tried and true Black/Blue strategy.

And it worked really well, actually. I was kind of a complete dick to everyone, removing thing after thing. Bam Bam Bam! I did some major ass-kicking. Jonathan was having some serious Mana-flood issues that really kind of ruined his surprisingly strong-looking mill deck unluckily, and so I beat him easily. Spaeth’s Black/Red deck gave me some trouble, but in the end I managed to get enough evasion to defeat him in some tense rounds. Essner was the only one I didn’t best. He had too much lifegain for my little creatures sneaking in after I murdered things, and always managed to turn the game around after I had him down to like three, and then he regained some life… it was unfortunate.
So I went 2 and 1. But oh well, I was sort of the winner since I tied with Spaeth, and I beat him. Or so we said. We don’t care too much about wins and losses. (says the person who just spent several sentences talking about wins and losses.) It’s all about building that deck and then seeing it actually work well. In that case, I completely succeeded. The deck really felt like a well-oiled machine. I did a great job this time around.
Almost makes me want to build a deck like it. But that would really get me hated right off the table.

But yeah, Magic 2010: the 11th Edition that comes out in 2009 really does seem like a pretty neat core set. The new stuff keeps it fresh, and it really seems designed for more interesting draft play than previous core sets. Previous core set drafts didn’t seem nearly as dynamic and action-packed as this one did. They tended to be more of a plodding forward kind of game without big swings. In that regard, I pretty well think this set is a success.
Then again, I’ve only played one draft. Who knows. Heh.

Molly is a cute puppy. Just look at her! Awww. Adorable.

But she won’t eat.

Seriously, my parents have tried to feed her everything. Multiple types of dog food, just about any table scraps you can think of, and she just won’t eat. She eats barely enough to even get by, it’s crazy. And yet, she’s still a happy puppy. She jumps about and play and has fun. I have no idea how she finds the energy. And her not eating makes my mom quite worried, really.

Last Sunday, after a whole day of my mom trying desperately to get the little puppy to eat something, Essner comes over for a few rounds of Race for the Galaxy. (He’s addicted, I swear.) So Molly runs up to greet him. He pets her, they play a little on the floor, and then we turn to our game.
Molly immediately runs over to her food, and starts devouring it. Then we get out more for her, and she eats all of that too. Totally stuffs herself.

Was the whole reason she wasn’t eating just because she was too depressed to eat? That seeing a guest cheered her up? That she was missing Essner, Spaeth, and my friends coming over? I really don’t think it was a lack of being able to play, as I fiddle with her and try to play fairly often, though she’s normally not interested. And yet, magically, she was hungry.
I mean, I guess it’s not surprising that her little doggy emotions could affect her so completely and make her not want to eat. I mean, she has gotten doctor-certified so nervous she threw up before. She is a very timid little dog sometimes. She likes things not to change.
So was she just so used to my friends always coming over that it depressed her that they hadn’t shown up for awhile?

Man, I don’t know. I’m glad she ate something. But man, that’s so weird. If she really needs cheering up, I guess we’ll have to come up with a day to do so. But man, that seems like some serious dog-pampering, when you’re worried about their depression.

Still, she’s my cute puppy, so… yeah. I’ll do my best.

Something was wrong.

The Melancho

…wait, I said I wasn’t that stupid. Okay then.

So here’s some things to be happy about, as opposed to being in an Endless Summer.

There’s a Scott Pilgrim downloadable Beat-em-up coming out around the release of the movie. I hope to god they do it justice, but hell, it’s kind of a perfect fit. It desperately needs to be 2D animated, though. If they do that, with O’Malley’s art style, I bet I’ll end up picking it up.

Thanks to Kale and my own Pepsi drinking habits, I’ve acquired over 100 dollars of free Wii Points. Okay, so this is mostly something for me to be happy about, but, you know. If you wanted to try something on Virtual Console at my house or something, I have tons of points. So, uh, I guess… potentially a group thing. Maybe.

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth has a firm American release date. Let the giddiness ensue! At least for me. I love this series with the heat of a thousand suns. I wish they’d do some sort of episodic model somehow, because that would still be COMPLETELY SWEET.

The Weezer 8-bit album came out, and it’s actually fairly completely awesome, and well worth a download. So many sound like some completely badass Mega Man level. I especially love the version of Hash Pipe. There’s vocals with 8-bit music done RIGHT.

Yeah, so… put a smile on. Be happy. Time never comes back once it’s gone! There’s so little summer left! Use it to smile!
(I am saying this to myself just as much as to any of you reading.)

I love my parents, but man, there’s just been a huge gap between us for a lot of my life. They wanted things for me, and I wanted completely different things. They wanted someone who played sports, who was a “normal” kid who was fashionable like the “normal” kids, and, hell, a son. I was interested in computers, video games, writing, and, you know, being myself. We never really saw eye to eye. Until recently, when I somehow finally started to get it through their heads that, not only was I a functional adult, but I was a functional adult that was trendy in my own way, and was doing things that are as important and legit as anything else, the things I did were silly and a waste of time. Nothing I could be doing was more important than what they wanted me to do.

But again, now, in some ways, things are really starting to turn around in our relationship. I think getting my mother a computer so she could use the internet showed her how awesome the internet was, so she leaves me alone about things like that. Games like You’re In The Movies and Scene It! Lights, Camera, Action have showed them some of what I see in video games. And again, I have proven myself a lot more to be a responsible adult.

It’s kind of addicting, too, to have my interests suddenly be worthwhile in their eyes, or at least understandable. For so long, I could really kind of care less if they were involved in what I do. Now I want to show them everything.

The biggest example, and the reason I thought of writing this post, is Beatles: Rock Band. My mom was one of those screaming girls back in the day, and she gets the appeal of regular Rock Band, though she is mostly uninterested as she doesn’t know any of the songs. Now the Beatles? She knows the Beatles. It is awesome to see her excited about the game. I drag her in here to look at the computer every time some new footage or something comes out, and it’s great to see her be as pumped as I am.

I honestly can’t wait to hand her the mic when the game comes in and sing the crap out of the game. It is going to be so much fun.
And hey, maybe we’ll get just that much closer. That would be nice. I don’t want our relationship to get any closer to the one between Rose and her mother.

In July, the IoTM of the Month for the game called “Kingdom of Loathing” is the Bag o’ Tricks. I really like this one. Really like it. Yep.

First off, just look at those base stats for equipping it. +item? Yes please. And the MP regen and +spell damage just go great alongside a Chefstaff. It makes the early turns of a Mysticality class go so, so much easier, because you actually have the MP to cast spells and deal some damage with them. It’s completely worth equipping for spellcasters even without the other effects, although it perhaps wouldn’t be worth a Mr. A without them.

Probably the most powerful element of the bag is extending 5 random buffs on your person once a day. That can really save you some money, and is really fairly neat. It’s unfortunate that you have to unequip the bag to use this ability, as that can mean a lot of wasted clicks. Still, the bleeding edge Softcore players probably aren’t going to be actually equipping it anyway, when they could shieldbutt their way to victory with a Pilgrim Shield, so this benefit is probably all their going to get out of it. It’s probably worth it.

But the ability in combat is what impresses me the most. Opening the Bag o’ Tricks is a free action, and not only does it give you some strong buffs (+meat, +items, or +ML (Which I don’t have to remind you essentially equals +stats), depending on how you use it, but it also is a free attack every once and awhile. Dealing a free 40 damage every few turns really does help make annoying fights easier, and I rather love the Bag for that.

Basically, the Bag o’ Tricks is the perfect softcore item for me. It makes the game so much easier and more fun while giving me some new systems to fiddle around with and think about, to keep the game from being boring. I doubt it’s bleeding edge, and I rather doubt it will be talked about much outside of this month (although Val did lay out a complicated way where the bag is optimal, at least until you use up your charges of getting Chihuahua Underfoot) but I’m sure I will be loving the crap out of it on subsequent softcore Mysticality runs. I sure as hell am loving it all over the place on this run.

Over in the land of Twilight, the current garment that is all the rage is the Three-Speed Bicycle Shorts. This stylish pair of shorts comes in three flavors: First gear, Second Gear, and High Gear.

This is a solid item. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to enjoy the real neatness of these pants until we get into some sort of ascension/retcon environment, though, as the neat thing is that they level up with you. Every five levels you get to boost the pants into the next gear. But how are they individually?

Well, the Second Gear is obviously the weakest. HP regen, while useful, just isn’t something I need right now, as an Elementalist. I never turn down HP regen, but I never look for it. Classes without a good healing skill could probably benefit more from it, though. There’s nothing wrong with the time reduction, though, on par with other equipment in that slot, and the +to hit is never going to be a hindrance or anything. It’s useful, but unimpressive. You’ll equip it for the -time spent and nothing else.

At the top end, you have an item that is clearly better than, say, the Xentrium Breeches, and gives some all-important PP regen. This is how I’ve been using them, and they really are quite good. Unless you’re looking for item drops, they are probably better than, say, the Amazing Technicolor Dreampants, though the random nature of the pants makes them more fun, to me anyway. Also, the fact that they’re crazy rainbow pants. But yeah, you’d be doing pretty good at most level 10 and above content in these things, perhaps disregarding the super-high level stuff with the dreamer’s clock.

It’s the First Gear that’s really the unknown quantity here. I just don’t know how speedrunning in this game is going to work. It certainly seems like +XP is going to be very useful to people starting a run, but I just have no way of knowing how useful, since the game doesn’t really have any sort of speedrun community or anything at the moment. Granted, at level 1, -5 seconds is a huge boon, and being able to dodge hits probably is to. It’s just… I don’t know. Anyone in the game who is serious enough to donate for these pants is probably way past the level while the first gear is useful, and without people to test it, who knows if it’s actually as good as it looks. Is this and the Letter Shirt or sports bra better than, say, the Exosuit at early levels? I just have no idea.

Still, this is probably worth your time. It’s got options, options, options involved with it, and that is something I am always down for, and it does have effects that are better than what’s out there. It is likely worth your time.