GRIFT

As a game, Deadpool is basically an average combo button mashy brawler with some gunplay. As a Deadpool game, it's a hoot. I've basically just been grinning for the entire 45 minutes I was playing it earlier. It's stupid, it's mental, it's dumb, but I'm really enjoying it.

This, I know I posted about it in the Deadpool thread but guys there is a mini game where your arm gets severed, and your neck gets broken (like spun backwards) and you need to chase a dog who has stolen your arm so you can fix your broken neck. Naturally the controls are inverted.

It is so stupidly glorious.

I hope I am not the only person playing this. It can be cringe worthy at times but I've laughed pretty hard playing it and I think it is one of the better comic to video game crossovers I have ever played. It definitely captures the spirit of the character well.

I spent most of the day tormenting my employees by repeating the opening "WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR BABY?" ad nauseum.

He is drunk-driving that riding lawnmower to the big liquor store in the sky.

Only one way to handle this news...

ALWAYS.

I don't think I've ever seen it on a freak out video like this one, but one of my favorite Siskoisms is from the pilot when he is trying to lift a pylon off his wife and he just kinda bellows, "HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEA!"

I think I obnoxiously reference that once a week -- usually to get my roomate to spot at the gym but also to chip in on dishes or general cleaning.

I am just about to finish up my full rewatch of DS9 and it really is my favorite of all the series. Like numerous others have said the longer story arcs and robust ensemble really makes the show shine. I think what I like about it the most is the depth of relationships it portrays. It is really typical for a show to focus on how one character interacts with a number of others or to center around one relationship (TOS, and their movies for example leans heavily on Spock/Kirk's dynamic) but on DS9 you have Sisko and his Jake, Sisko and Dax, Dax and Bashir, Dax and Worf, O'Brien and Worf, O'Brien and Bashir, Quark and Odo, Jake and Nog, Quark and his brother, Nerys and Odo, Bashir and Garak etc... This is before you even get into protagonist/antagonist relations

All of the characters interact in some way and have a firmly defined dynamic to their relationship. It is very humanizing and for me is what made the show so much fun to watch.

Oh, and Sisko's freak outs are incredible to mimick or reference... THAT IS ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEClCAFjYHg
I've listened to this like ten times today.

You bastard.

IT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD.

I am listening to soooooooo much Nick Cave in preparation of seeing him live tonight.

You know what's ridiculous? The fact that I can't play as the alternative attires that are already in the game. It's fairly small and insignificant but there's literally no reason why I shouldn't be able to choose what attire Shawn Michaels wrestles in in Exhibition/Universe mode when he's got about four different attires in Attitude mode.

That bothers me too -- Mostly because I rather have Billy Gunn in his Mr. Ass get up in Universe rather than his blue BG gear.

Random thought brought on by this game (and their matching costumes in it): Tensai and Brodus Clay would make a beastly chest tattoo havin' tag team.

Nashville, Nashville, Nashville.

Earlier this year while I was still on the road my traveling buddy and I (before Amanda joined us in NOLA) rolled into Nashville un-showered and wild-eyed with no prospects on a place to stay. Everyone was suspiciously nice to us—which we would soon find to be genuine Southern hospitality. I made a point of seeking out a music shop and bought two new harmonicas and a Townes Van Zandt tribute album. I picked it up on the basis that it was the only thing with his name on it that I didn’t already own. When we checked out, a clerk stopped Dylan and I, shook our hands and told us about how much he, “loves our work.” It wasn’t until we reached the car that we realized he must have thought we were in a band—something that we would experience several times throughout our trip through the south.

Around 5pm, we hit the Broadway bars with a fierceness. The toast above was made by a fella who was playing at the Wagon Wheel Saloon when we walked in the door. After his set he offered to show us around a bit and introduce us to some girls. We drank from 5 until their closing time at 3am, spent a small fortune, fell in love several times, sang karaoke, and wandered back to our car intent on sleeping in it. We attempted to catch a Z in the parking lot we had left it in only for the attendant to meekly usher out onto the streets. We zipped around for a little bit before finding an overpass to park under, leaned our seats back, and cracked a final beer to cap off the night. Some short time after we dozed off a menacing maglight came knocking on the driving side window.

“Licence and registration.”

“Yes officer.”

“Rob, the cops.”

“Bummer.”

A familiar conversation had invaded my dreamspace. I straightened up best as I could. Our car was full of empty bottles and I thought for certain we were headed towards a jail cell for the night but when the officer came back something unexpected happened.

He apologized for waking us up.

We explained that we were on a roadtrip and that we didn’t have a place to stay that night. Again he apologized for waking us and after running our IDs for warrants, told us that he knew we had been drinking, hoped we had fun in Nashville and invited us to stay where we were as long as we needed to to sleep it off. Then, after apologizing a THIRD TIME he disappeared into the ether.

Southern Hospitality indeed!

Next came Memphis, which was a greasy blur and if fucked us up like a month full of Mondays. We bought a joke from a homeless man. I signed Dylan up for a number of karaoke songs without his consent. We partied with a pair of Coyote Ugly gals in their empty bar. Dylan disappeared for a bit. I won a few pool games. I lost a few more. Dylan called me to ask why he was driving. I helped him find his way back to me. He had McDonalds with him. We drank more. We listened to amazing music. Got in a fight with some guys on Bourbon. Got in a fight with each other. Laughed maniacally. Blackout. Blackout. Blackout. Black. Out. Then, somehow, we woke up in Mississippi.

At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot; How the hell do you get comebacks to work? I've tried pressing the button, spamming the button, and it every time since getting into it, I've been reversed. Is it just the sliders being too high on reversal? Or am I doing something wrong? :| The game is a blast and all, but I'd like to at least get myself a win once in a while through non-jackass ways (Dominating the computer, being a spammy bastard, reversing finishers, ect)

For comebacks, you press the button as close to the right time as possible, not spam it it, I believe.

After activating the comeback state you need to position your opponent in the right place for combo to start. With Daniel Bryan, for example, after activating the comeback state you need to get your opponent in the turnbuckles to do his backflip.

I wanted the 450

I think he also has that. I think the whole moveset is a sort of mock Aries moveset.

My favorite run in Universe so far has started at the Royal Rumble where I was entered as number one with a CAW and number two was Daniel Bryan. I beat the ever loving tar our of Bryan, but purposely never eliminated him from the match. At the end of the rumble we were the final two, and he hit his comeback sequence and I ended up against the ropes. I allowed him to eliminate my CAW (I didn't want this character near the world title scene).

Similar to real life, Mark Henry has been my World Heavyweight Champion and has been injuring folks left and right. In the following weeks Daniel Bryan ended up being booked against increasingly larger opponents. Barrett, Sheamus, Nash, Big Show, etc... and each time would comeback and make them tap to the LaBell Lock, or score a surprise crucifix.

Elimination Chamber comes around. It is the sequence of guys DB had beaten one on one and the champ. The match starts with DB out first against me as Henry. Again, Bryan takes a pillar to post beat down but picks up most of the eliminations until it is Henry, Nash, and Bryan. Bryan locked me in the LaBell and Nash broke it up, Jacknife'd him and then turned into my World Strongest Slam only to be pinned himself. Then Henry pinned the downed Bryan and retained.

Next Raw we have the Champion vs Champion match and Bryan runs in and beats down Henry, triggering a rash of matches where Henry would manage Bryan's opponents, DB would win and Henry would then run in and murder him after the match.

Wrestlemania is up next...

One thing that irks me a little is that they took out the option to hold onto a submission until the ref's 5 count. The immediate rope breaks are a bummer.

Ok, I know I said the next few post would be what I will come to call "The Ramonna Trilogy" but last night was too strange not to highlight immediately.

As a voting day, yesterday was one of my busiest days of the year. I went into it with very little sleep from the night before and this year had two big issues I was organizing around. One, making sure we got out the vote in support of keeping our same day voter registration rights, and two, collecting the signatures necessary to put gay marriage on the ballot in 2012. At then end of my 19 hour day, we had won on both fronts. Keeping our registration rights 60%-40% and we had collected over 35,000 petition signatures which when added to the work we'd already done totaled out to over 85,000 signatures-- well about the 57,000 it takes to get something onto the ballot.

Exhausted, my fellow organizers and I were eager to get home and get some rest. Unfortunately, this was simply not in the cards.

About 15 minutes into our hour long ride home my Ryan, who drove us to work that day, hit a deer at about 70 miles per hour. We hit the body as it was bounding across the highway so the head connected squarely with the driver side headlight leaving the back end to spin up towards the windshield-- just long enough for me to watch its asshole spew liquid shit and guts from the impact-- before it rolled off the driver's side. It totaled the car. The front end folded up and split the radiator.

As tired as we were any adrenaline rush this might have brought about simply brought us back to baseline. We calmly called the police, made arrangements for a ride home, and called AAA for a tow. When the police officer arrived he had to shoot the deer who was somehow still holding onto life.

Now, for some people, a high speed car wreck, blue lights, blood, guts, and gunshots would be the end of a night. For us, not so much.

The officer asked us if we wanted to keep the deer. It was a pretty good sized doe, and while much of its body was likely no longer any good (when the organs explode from impact it contaminates much of the meat) the hind quarters (about 50 lbs each) could still be salvaged. So tired and delirious and with the officers aid, we dragged the dear deeper over the embankment and buried it under brush so no one would stop and pick it up for themselves, completed our drive home and then drove 45 minutes back with my truck to pick the animal up, hack off its hind quarters and stay up all night butchering it in my garage.

Yeah I fought like hell with this one to get it reformatted to some semblance of legibility. If I have a bit of time I'll go back and add the requisite spaces.

Streamed Childish Gambino's "Camp" from NPR. It's a pretty damn good album. Favourite song is probably "Heartbeat". Admittedly, I sort of zoned out i the middle, but I was busy. That said, his monolouge on the outro is awesome.

Can't decide if I like it enough to buy it though.

I was about to come in here and sing that very album's praises! Bonfire's " 'You're my favorite rapper now!' Yeah man I better be, or you can fucking kiss my ass-- human centipede" is up there with his great line from Freaks and Geeks', "I got some pussy that was insane, so insane, it's an enemy of Batman."

I am definitely going to pick up his first commercial release when it drops even though I already have a been bumping the album for free for the last two weeks. All of his previous releases and EP's are available for free, and if you grab those before you buy this it is a good way to jump into things. 30 songs for free helps to soften the blow of paying for his big commercial debut and if sales do well should ensure a lot more to come.

Sure this game looks pretty good, but until a wrestling game brings back this feature I am just not interested:

But honestly, this will mark the first time I buy one of these games in ages. I suspect this and Skyrim will keep me out of the bars and help me save some money until after X-mas.

Nothing to see here.

"COME ON COME ON COME ON -- TOUCH ME BABE!" My ringtone blasted over and over again like a skipping record. I tried to ignore it and push out what felt like like the on coming rush of a level five world-ender classed hangover, but Mr. MoJo Rising's thought never completed itself over Ray Manzarek's psychedelic keys. Instead it repeated with maddening persistence until suddenly... mercifully... it stopped.

Then the girl in my bed started to scream.

Lets rewind, and gear up for ...

In September of 2010, I was reaching the end of yet another political project, and was set to return home from California for a friend'swedding and to negotiate my next assignment from home. Before I left, I made up for ditching the girl I left at the bar on my "going away night" that I told you all about in 1. Possum Kingdom by The Toadies or Grifter Gets a Cigarette Put Out on his Chest (from here out to be referred to as Princeton-- where she went to college) by taking her out for dinner and spending one of my last nights at her apartment. Leading into my VERY last night in California the plan was for me to lay low, cook my roommate dinner, pack my stuff, and in the morning Princeton would swing in to give me aride to the airport for my very early flight.

Well, that almost happened. After I packed all my bags andwas just about to plate up dinner for my roommate Dan (who also my boss and mentor) we had a knock at the door. Dan answered and surprisingly enough it was for me. It was the punker girl I had taken home from karaoke who had put the cigarette out on my chest, with a bottle of Maker's in hand. She said she stopped by because I hadn't returned any of her calls and she wanted to give me a gift before she left.

Dan, seemingly wanting to invite trouble into my life asked her to come in and have dinner with us.

As the night unfolded we all spiraled deeper and deeper into the whiskey and when the bottle kicked Dan presented a bottle of Jameson that HE had intended to give me before he disappeared to bed. The Crazy Punker and I took the bottle to my room and screwed in just about every corner before blacking out on my futon. A few short hours of sleep/time-travel later, and we caught up to the thread's opening. I had forgotten to set my alarm and Princeton was calling me from outside.

When her calls went unanswered she took it on herself, being the lovely lass she is, to walk around to my window and she started to call my name. When that failed, she threw one of the pebbles that lined our walkway through the open window and the curtains only for it to land squarely on the bare thigh of the Crazy Punker. This, naturally, freaked the slumbering Punker right the fuck out. Suddenly she started screaming which sent Princeton into yelling as well.

"IS THERE SOMEONE IN THERE WITH YOU?"

Realizing what was going on, and quite possibly still drunk,I stumbled out of bed tripping over my own boots and rushed to put my clothing on. Soon the voices of shrieking women were joined by a low man's voice. All of this 4am commotion had woken up my roommate/boss (a man who has Arnold on speeddial) .

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" Completed my shameful cacophony.

Not satisfied to yell at me through my window Princeton tried to call me one more time, again sending John Morrison into his fractured tune. 'Where the hell was my phone? Under the bed? Fuck it.' I though before grabbing my suitcase.

As I left my house the confused naked punker screamed at me until I left my room. My roommate met me at the door, yelling at me from my room to the exit, where I was met by Princeton who yelled at me from my apartment door to the airport. Yes, shockingly she still gave me a ride to the airport, presumably to insure that the entire expanse of the continental US was between us by the time she went to bed that night.

Although, she did kiss me goodbye and recently asked me tospend a week with her in Tahoe when I make it that far west this winter. So deep run the charms of Grifter!

Next... a trilogy of posts about the same girl that get progressivelystranger.