J0HNNY FRIENDLY's Blog - Apr to Jun 12 (85 followers)

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What the fuck is with these pants? The last time I wore these pants I peed on a guy. I blamed the pants immediately, but also took some personal responsibility for my urinating carelessness. Last week I picked the pants up from the cleaners. Yesterday I wore them to work. But another restroom incident has me wondering if the pants are cursed in some way. Were they worn by a dead guy? Perhaps that “inspected by 27” tag really means some seamstress in a Haitian sweat shop put a curse on them.



You walk into the bathroom at work and there are sinks on the left before you hit the urinal. The urinal is recessed so that you kind of have to make a quick left past the sinks before you can get to it. It’s hidden get it? Normally I’m a monotasker. One thing at a time. But today I’m like Superman.



See. He’s dropping Trou as he’s passing where the sinks would be so that by the time he gets to the left turn he’s ready to go. But apparently, I’m not fucking Superman. ‘Cause when I turn the corner with pants at half-mast ready to let go, I run right into a guy who’s decided to turn around and attempt the Superman maneuver in the opposite direction. I won’t admit to a collision, but fuck, AKWARD!
I mean what do you say at a time like this? “How you doing?” “I see you like Superman too” “I never knew you were Jewish” “Does this look infected to you?” Now what? Have I challenged him to some kind of duel? Weapons of choice, but no sword fighting please! Maybe I should play it safe and refuse to wear any pants at work.



On to gaming:

I put about 10 hours into Test Drive Unlimited. I really wanted to like this game. I should like this game. My friends liked this game. But not me. It’s not that it’s a bad game by any means. They actually modeled the whole island of Oahu. Literally. You can drive around the whole island and it looks great. I don’t know of any other racing game where you can drive so many miles on different roads. Need for Speed: The Run could only manage to do this for about 5 minutes at a time. In TDU, you can drive for hours and never see the same thing twice. It’s amazing. But the gameplay didn’t resonate with me. At first I thought it might be the poor graphics of the character models. I picked the hottest chick for my character, from a distance she looks pretty good, sexy dress, etc. But as you get closer, the blocky graphics make her boobs look like they are made out of Legos, all corners and edges. And she’s got some weird skin thing going on. Plus, when she smiles, she looks like some creepy Zombie. But I’ve played games with sub-par graphics and liked them before so that’s not it.
I still can’t put my finger on exactly what is wrong with that game for me. All I know is that as I played it I found myself getting cranky. Bitter. Bored. That’s not what gaming should be about.



Once I popped in Driver: San Francisco though, all was right with the world. It’s modern, yet it’s also retro 70’s cool. Great soundtrack, fun missions. And the map of San Francisco is HUGE. Why it’s been so drastically marked down at Gamefly already I have no idea. I love this game

I’ve been doing the car themed games and movies for a little over a week now. Last night’s movie was the remake of Gone in 60 seconds. The 2000 version. Total Crap. Who writes this stuff? Oh yeah, JJ Abrams of Lost fame. Apparently JJ was saving the good stuff for his own show, because this turd pile of a movie is comically bad. But not bad enough for me to recommended to fans of really bad movies. The CGI is really intrusive when you watch it in Blu Ray. I seem to be a member of the pre-CGI car movie school of thought. You know, when actual stuntmen did actual stunts. CGI makes it too easy. It’s the lazy man’s formula for action. Luckily I had copy of Rifftrax Best of Shorts vol 1 on hand from Netflix. I had to stay up late and watch it to get the bad taste of the steaming turd pile that was Gone in 60 Seconds out of my mouth. Now I have to watch the Fast and Furious franchise. Pray for me.

Pretty lengthy today. If I knew how to do those cool blog section headers I could separate stuff out so you could skip to the part you want to read. You know. A section on Movies, a section on Games, a section on my Urinal Misadventures. I’ll work on that.

Stay classy San Diego

The subject of blogging became a bit of a hot topic on TA this weekend. It can be traced to a patient zero, kind of like that male flight attendant who spread that disease with the letters. Anyway, it got me thinking about blogs in general.

I write a blog because I like being funny. I like spreading some joy and making people laugh. Even when I’m bitching about something you have to read between the lines and know I’m not really being that serious. If I ever talk about something and don’t try to do it in a humorous way, you’ll know I’m really being serious. So that’s it. If I can put a smile on your face I’m happy. Sure there are some shitty things about gaming, and some assholes on TA, but I’ve got no axes to grind. I try to write in an approachable way. I’m no pro gamer. I’ve got a medicore gamer score and don’t have any great technical knowledge to impart. But I can to get you to laugh. And because I can, I don’t need to get you to hate. So move along Contrarian Hipster….

Some bloggers use the “I’ll be an asshole and people will follow me” approach. That works for them. Some blogs are cliquish. If you post a comment and they don’t know you, you’re a Troll. Some bloggers act they don’t get your sense of humor because they are afraid of being upstaged so they post some smart ass reply when all you want to do is say hello and make their acquaintance but they are want nothing to do with you this is my usual run on sentence of course this has never happened to me and I’m not bitter. HA!

I’m a narcissist. I love getting new followers, hate losing followers. People who say they don’t care about followers are full of shit. If you blog, you care. The one’s most full of shit are the ones who post a blog with the express purpose of causing controversy. They know that by doing so they will garner a lot of comments and a short lived burst of interest in what they have to say. But this is cheap. Bloggers that can sustain a large number of followers over a sustained period have to work at it. And they don’t have to rely on parlour tricks and inflammatory contrarian statements to gain interest.

“Dude what is your fucking point today? I’m going to un-follow you, then re-follow you just so I can un-follow you again just in case you didn’t get it the first time!”

I don’t know. I’ve got a feeling this is so poorly written I may have to un-follow myself. Fucking brain not workee today.

Stay Thirsty, my friends!

Señor Ramon: Your only job is to cook. Do you not realize I have had diarrhea since Easters?

Nacho: Ok... Maybe I am not meant for these duties. Cooking duty. Dead guy duty. Maybe it's time for me to get a better duty!

Bookending with some Nacho Libre quotes today; ‘cause I love that movie.

I’ve been derelict in my blogging duties. Been sick the past few days, but I’m back on the horse now. Time to turn out the best in mediocre blogging about non-topical gaming.

I was severely chastised in party chat last night. Normally I’m pretty anal about playing games in order. Forza 2 before Forza 3. Won’t play Skyfim before I finish Oblivion DLC, stuff like that. It’s a cross you bear for being a late XBOX adopter. I have a friend who works for AT&T who suggested I might like Test Drive Unlimited. A perfect fit in my car themed block of games. But Gamefly delivered Test Drive Unlimited 2 instead. After 20 minutes of mandatory downloads I was ready to do some relaxing island cruising. Much to my dismay the folks in the chat session informed me it was really the first one that was better, and I should be playing that one instead. I’m like Al Pacino in Godfather 3. “Just when I try to get out (of playing old games and playing games in order) they keep dragging me back in!” It’s off to Gamestop today to start at the beginning once again. That and I got a tip that Borderlands GOTY with all the DLC included is at Best Buy for some ridiculously cheap price. Now I have to sell my unopened Platinum Hits edition on the EBAY.

So I’ve been sick. I was laying in bed and figured I would get on the Words With Friends train. I downloaded it from the app store (I have an iphone) and jumped into a random game. If you don’t know, it’s kind of like Scrabble, you get a bunch of letters and have to form words. The tiles you put the words in sometimes have different multipliers for more score. Like I said, it’s like Scrabble. So I start and play my first word: H A T. It’s my first game. I’m still learning. I have a college degree and all, but I don’t wear my education on my sleeve. HAT. It’s a good word.

The problem with this game is that (from what I can tell) it’s untimed. It’s turn based. You play your word then the other person can take as long as they want to play their word. So basically there is nothing stopping you from going to an anagram site in between turns with your letters and looking up high scoring words. The word my opponent used? Q U E A N. What the fuck kind of word is that? I’ll tell you what word I used after that: U R N A H O L E. Triple word score that you prick.

I don’t know why Driver: San Francisco is in the bargain bin already. It’s fun. Has a nice 70’s vibe to it. Sure it has a ridiculous plot line, but the driving missions themselves are entertaining. I like it.

Nacho: Chancho. When you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It's for fun.

Have a good weekend

Still at the beginning of my car themed block. Tried to cancel Gamefly but they sucked my back in with a free month for staying. Moved Test Drive Unlimited to tops in the que. The idea of tooling around Hawaii appeals to me. I’ve been to Maui 3 times, Big Island once. It truly is paradise. I love when idiots call anyplace they live “God’s Country.” Sorry, but if Denver is God’s Country, please deport me to “Satan Land.” It sound’s a whole lot more fun. For some reason a lot of people here vacation in Mexico. Idiots. I want to vacation in a third world shithole like I want a fucking hole in my head. I want to vacation in a place where as soon as I travel 5 meters of the property (Metres, you know, cause it’s Mexico) I’m engulfed in extreme poverty. The armed soldiers on the beach are always a nice touch too. Whatever. I grew up in California. Going to Mexico stops being fun when you can finally drink legally in the U.S. And California Mexican food is better than Mexican Mexican food.

Popped in Driver: San Francisco. I think I’ll like it.

As part of my ongoing car themed multimedia adventure I watched the original Gone in 60 Seconds last night. I’m not going to lie to you. There are a lot problems with this movie. I’ve seen better “acting” in a 70’s porn flick. (Hey, have you seen that show Dave’s old porn on Showtime? Memories…) Anyway, bad acting, slow pacing, wigs from that “Sabotage” Beastie Boys video. But man. The last 35 minutes is one continuous car chase. It sneaks up on you. About halfway through it I found myself smiling and thinking “this is some good shit.” It’s the edginess of it, the rawness of it. There’s no CGI, no speed up camera, just real guys driving REALLY dangerously. Example. There is footage in the movie of a stunt gone wrong, where the main character’s car gets wrapped around a light post. Literally. It’s so good it’s scary. A couple of feet back and the driver would have been D. E. A. D. dead. So if you can get past the boring ass first part, and you are not a slave to MTV quick cuts, check it out.

I’ve never watched a movie on my XBOX before. I wish I could figure out a way to make the picture fill more than a third of the screen. Guess I’ll just have to buy a bigger TV. I promised Rotorschnee I would watch a couple of his recommended flicks. He is a REAL movie guy unlike the dilettante movie buff like myself. The first one arrives tomorrow. Finished up by installing the Netflix app and watching some MST3K. (Tom Servo fucking rules!) Why is the selection on Netflix streaming such crap? I hadn’t done any MST3K streaming in over a year, I check out the selection last night, it’s the same episodes they’ve had up for a year. I’m going to have to buy the boxed sets I guess.

See you on the Satellite of Love

A little change in my gaming habits this weekend. An epiphany of sorts. I’ve got quite a little backlog collection. For a long time I’d buy pretty much anything in the bargain bin or on sale at Gamestop. I’ve ended up with about 100 unplayed games. I’m starting to work through all my car games and if you know anything about me you probably know I usually try to go old to new, shitty to good. So I popped in Nascar 08 Saturday morning figuring I would play it, get it off the unplayed shelf.

I jumped into the “Race Now” mode to get a feel for it without committing myself. The first thing I noticed is how much the menus look like every other EA sports game. For real. If you changed out the wallpaper picture of a Nascar guy, it could be Madden, Tiger Woods PGA, some basketball game. They all look the same. As for the game itself. Complete Shit. I blame myself. It was cheap, I bought it knowing ahead of time what the reviews said about it. The car handling is awesome! And by awesome I mean fucking horrible. I don’t even really like Nascar. If I ever have contest where first prize is a copy of Nascar 08 I already know what second prize will be: TWO copies of Nascar 08.

That’s when I decided I’m not going to be a slave to shit, just because it’s on my shelf. I could die in a fiery plane crash tomorrow. I could get run over by a fiery bus. A train that is on fire and travelling at 130 mph could strike me down (apparently NY subways go this fast, I saw it in NFS: The Run) I’m not changing gaming for achievements (I see blogs all the time about this, but once you’re hooked….you know) I’m just not going to grind horrible shit for cheevos just because I made a poor impulse buying decision. Life is too short, I’m too fucking old. Shit is shit whether you paid full retail or got it for some incredible discount.

Played NFS: The Run. I quite liked it. It was good, but could have been great. The cool thing is that you don’t have to grind out lap after lap like on most racing games. It’s a great idea. You get to drive across the whole country and the tracks don’t repeat. Too short though. And those load screens. I spent almost as much time waiting on load screens as playing. Each race is a 2 to 5 minutes. Each load screen is a little over a minute. Fun game though. I’m thinking I’m going to like NFS: Hot Pursuit.

A little quick on the trigger with the Netflix Que apparently. As part of playing a bunch of car themed games I’m SUPPOSED to be watching a bunch of car themed movies. I put Vanishing Point in the top of my que and it came on Friday. But not really. Instead of getting the epic 70’s counter culture what is the meaning of personal freedom I must find myself while driving a bad ass white Charger oh look there’s a naked chick on a motorcycle movie, I got the TV movie of Vanishing Point starring Viggo Mortenson. Fuck. In my haste, I ordered the wrong version by mistake. The real one should be here tomorrow.

Managed to watch the director’s cut of Das Boot. Didn’t realize at the time I ordered it that it was 3 ½ hours long. I could have watched two car movies in that time. Usually with foreign films I watch them in original language with subtitles, but I was lazy this weekend and watched the dubbed version. It kind of felt “dubbed’ down, if you get my drift.

Don't know what happened with the Photobucket picture from my last post. Guess they don't like Pirates.

Til Tomorrow,
Good Day, Sir!