I will be the flame

So the old birthday went pretty well. The cake pictured above is the brainchild of a couple of my friends. And McCain, I guess.

Got a wad of cash thanks to my many, many relatives, and with it, I finally got a DVD drive for my PC. Not only that, but my very own Best Buy incompetence story as well! I’m so happy to finally have one of these.

Sales guy (we’ll call him Jim): Looking for anything specific?

Ryan: Yeah, I’m looking to pick up a DVD drive.

Jim: That’s cool. They’ve really come down in price. They used to be like $400.

Ryan: Yes, I know.

Jim: So what are you getting it for?

Ryan: Um… playing DVDs? Burning stuff? (to self:) What else do you do with them?

Jim: Cool cool. So they’re all pretty much the same. They’re all internal, they all do dual-layer, what-have-you.

Ryan: What about this one? I think it’s external. *points to an $80 Sony drive that’s clearly external*

Jim: Wha? *Looks at the tag that says internal, and then the box, and the tag again* Well… That’s fucked up. That tag is wrong. Huh. Well if you have any more questions, just ask.

At this point he walks away and I continue to mull over which drive to buy. About a minute later, he comes back.

Jim: Well, that’s definitely wrong. And also, the price on that one is actually $170, not $80. *rips out the tag*

Ryan: Huh. Way to be organized.

I don’t think there are many things that are as entertaining as stories about how Best Buy fucked up. Oh, and while I was there, my brother was looking for a cellphone, so my mom asked this one guy for help, and he said he’d go get someone who knew about cellphones. They waited five minutes, and after no one had shown up, they just left.

You might wind up with no one at all

So my brothers are really into this band, Avenged Sevenfold. Now, they’ve both come a long way as far as their taste in music goes, so I decided to give them a shot. I “borrowed” City of Evil to take a listen (and get a good feel for “The Beast And The Harlot” as it’s gonna be on Guitar Hero 2), and I have to say I was more than disappointed. It started off okay, but I later noticed that I had to constantly check Winamp to see what song I was listening to, because lo and behold, all their songs sound the damn same. Each one relies on the same schtick of heavy dual guitar riffs and solos punctuated by melodic choruses. Or something like that. Anyway, I have to take serious points off just for their lack of diversity alone. It’s basically different lyrics to the same music over and over. I’m pretty sure that if I looked up the lyrics, they’d all be pretty similar too. Needless to say, I don’t get the infatuation.

I’m not sure why I’m talking about Avenged Sevenfold when the band of the month is Fall Out Boy. Yep. Ya heard me. Incase you haven’t been paying attention to my blog, I’m basically as emo as fuck, so yeah. Don’t get me wrong, though. I think everyone who dresses emo and cuts themselves should fall off a cliff and die (but then again, what else is there to being emo?), but complaining about bullshit is human nature. I’m not going to pretend I don’t do it. And you know what? Fall Out Boy doesn’t suck because of the emoness. Hell, if they dressed in tight ripped jeans and flashy vests and were 20 years older, they’d probably qualify as a rock ‘n’ roll band. All the emo in FOB is in their appearance (and videos). Their music isn’t half as whiny as half the emo bands out there. So I guess what I’m saying here is that if you dislike a band because of their image (and I know so many do), you’re a dickweed. If you don’t like the music, that’s one thing, and totally acceptable. But please, for your own sake, don’t discount a band because of stupid buzzwords.

Hmmm. I seem to be in kind of a ranting mood today. I guess it’s just because FOB seems to be the butt of every emo joke these days, and it’s kind of an unfair generalization. Well, I think I got my point across anyway. I like Fall Out Boy. Under The Cork Tree is a smashing album, and I highly recommend giving it a try. A bonus is that you can tell where one song ends and the other begins. Start taking notes, Avenged Sevenfold.

So stop what you’re doing

So the topic of Final Fantasy XII came up today over at the Penny Arcade. Surely if you’ve been following it at all, you know all about this Gambit system they’re poking fun at. Now, this normally wouldn’t merit my attention, but it creates a huge anomaly in my game philosophy.

See, I don’t like conventional RPGs all that much (except Pokémon. I love Pokémon). Something about choosing your actions from a menu just doesn’t click with me. The aforementioned Gambit system serves to further sever the link between gamer and game, and yet it makes me thirst for the game so badly. I mean, I played the demo and liked it, what with it lacking random battles and all, even if it was a little awkward to learn. Even the story piqued my interest to a high degree, and I’m one who commonly berates others who “play for the story.” The thing is, either the Gambit system wasn’t there, or I didn’t notice it or I didn’t use it properly or something, because there was no “programming my guys,” to be seen. And now that I hear about it, and the depth at which I can set up my peoples, my desire for the game is only intensified.

So yeah, it’s kind of wierd. Maybe I’ll go play the demo again in hopes that I can convince myself it’s just as bad as all the other FF games, but I doubt it’ll work. It’s set in Ivalice after all. And we all know that nothing related to FF Tactics, Advance or otherwise, can truly be bad.

Turn off the shyness

So here’s an odd one: Steve Irwin is dead. Yeah. Just let that sink in for a minute. I normally don’t care when people die (what with the hollow tin chest and all), but this one strikes me as kind of sad. You know, getting pwned by a stingray and all. I’m not sure what else to say.

Um, so anyway, Mike’s got a new article up. It’s about comics vs video games. Go read it and vote. I won’t tell you which side to vote for, but make sure you vote. Because it’s your duty as an American interweb dork.

August 2006 archive is up and running if you feel like reading about what I did and saw last month. I also moved over a couple more old articles from Angelfire. Slowly but surely they’re all making their way over, and it looks like they’ve got some unfinished friends in tow! But will I ever finish them? that’s for the future to know and you to find out. A long time from now.

Give something new a try

So I sat down today and wrote out an article. I’ve been meaning to do it for about two months now, but that’s by no stetch the longest I’ve ever had an article waiting to be written. I still have a lot in the backlog, and I guess I should do some soon, because I think they might be breeding.

I also updated the CD collection on Friday, but never got around to making the news post to announce it. I also couldn’t get the CSS to work right for the updated page links, so you’ll have to consult the “last update” callout to see what’s what. I guess I could tell you here, but I feel like being an ass and leaving it up to you.

I have a feeling September might be a little slower than the last couple months have been. I’m going through my “I don’t even want to think about the internet” phase right now, so we’ll see what happens.

Ooh, and I rented Clock Tower 3. Wow. I definitely should have played it before Haunting Ground, that’s all I’ve got to say. Though I might never have given Haunting Ground a chance if I’d played CT3 first. Who knows? Either way, I recommend both for the high levels of cheezy horror. You might just want to watch someone play CT3 though. It’s not so good when you’re actually playing it.

No time to talk

Ugh. So as kind of expected, I blew the driving test. Not too badly, though, and I should be able to pass easily next time. When that next time is going to happen, I have no idea. Given my penchant for procrastinating, probably not too soon. I also had a job interview yesterday, which was sweet. I doubt I’m going to get hired, but it was nice to at least get an interview. Those are rare.

I don’t have much in the way of links today, but I suggest checking out The Top Eleven Best Arch-Nemeses

I said I’d talk about StarFox Command on the off chance that I bought it, and quite frankly, I seem to have a problem saying no to StarFox. That’s not such a bad thing though. Command is almost as good as StarFox 64, even though it deviates from the formula quite a bit. All the flying is done in free-range areas, maning no on-rails levels. A shame, because I love those kind of levels, but I’m not going to complain. The things that do put me off are A)you’re always on a timer, and B) there’s very little variety as far as objectives go. Either you’re hunting down a specific enemy type, or you’re going up against a boss. The formula could use a little more, but it’s still fun.

The new thing in this game is that for each stage, you actually have a tactical map to move your Arwings through, collecting items, encountering enemies, and liberating bases along the way. It sounded dumb in previews, but I actually really like how it works out. You even get to control all your pilots (who switch in and out during the story) independently, and each one has a unique ship and theme music. It all works out really well, and I most definitely suggest you pick this one up if you have a DS. I haven’t even gotten around to playing mulitplayer yet, and I think that says a good amount about how good the single-player game is.

Just to watch it burn

Busy week here in Ryan Land. Tomorrow is what I like to call D-Day (as in Driving Test Day). I don’t know how well that’ll go, but here’s hoping it won’t get too ugly. I’m pretty confident, but it’s mostly false confidence. Which I’m told is a character flaw. But is it really false confidence if I know it’s false? The perplexity of it all makes my head hurt.

I also have to head back to the dentist on Thursday so that he can fuck around some more in my facehole. Getting a filling isn’t nearly as bad as some have made it out to be, but I could most certainly be doing more enjoyable things with my morning.

Nextly, it’s a pretty big week for Coozy For Hire. Along with the regularly scheduled comic on Thursday, we’ve got our 1st year celebration on Friday, which will come with a free bonus comic. And to top it off, the second episode of Spare! hits on Saturday, so you’re going to be getting three comic days in a row. Just nuts I tell you. Fortunately, I had most of them done early (though now my buffer is totally used up and I have to start drawing again). Not to mention, our traffic is steadily increasing every month, and that’s very reassuring. I imagined that this little project would flop long before the year mark. I even have some juicy tidbits for you: firstly, the comics up until at least the second week of October are gold. Secondly, I’m working on a new feature, but I’m not sure if it’s going to work out. It’s for a very minor audience anyway, so I doubt it’ll matter in the end.

StarFox Command hit yesterday, and I want it, but I’m a little wary. The whole “command the missons” junk is a little off-putting, but I think WiFi dogfights would easily make it worth buying even if single player is a miss. I’ll make sure to log my thoughts about it if I do decide to pick it up.

Keep an eye on RainbowPuke.com. I recently submitted a piece. It’ll likely appear once a third page is posted, and you’ll likely be able to tell it’s mine. Cause it has my name on it.

Due to my recent CD acquisitions, I will have to update at least one page in the CD Collection. I’ll also be adding a new page by the end of the week. Not many short ones left, either. B, Q, and S in particular are ones I’m not at all looking forward to doing.

After all this, I think it’s pretty much understood that I’m not going to be doing much on the article front this week.

Look at the hottie in the tight jeans

I watched The Bechwarmers the other night. It was surprisingly good. I mean, it’s not something I would buy, but I’ll recommend renting it. Dick and fart jokes, plenty of slapstick, and mucho vomit. Exactly what I look for in a dumb movie. Plus a bunch of good names. I’m not a huge Rob Schneider fan, but he, David Spade and Jon Heder do a commendable job on this one.

Bought me a buttload of CDs over the last couple days. Four, actually, but I defy you to load your butt with more than four CDs. Bad Religion’s The Empire Strikes First is fan-frickin-tastic, and Thrice’s Red Sky EP headbutts women in the ovaries for fun. The other two (Resident Evil Soundtrack, OK Go’s Oh No) are less notable, but I like them enough to have bought them. I also finally found a copy of The Alpahbet of Manliness. Needless to say, it’s the best book I’ve read since… Well, probably ever.

Lastly for today, I will wipe any doubt that I don’t kick major ass from your mind. Behold:

click for king-size

Frankly, “Bark At The Moon” was a bitch, but otherwise, I think I’m getting pretty good. I’m not going anywhere near Expert mode though. Not until I five-star everything on Hard, at least. It literally frightens me.

What’s the matter with you?

Stumbled onto a sizeabe deposit of twenty-spots earlier today. One almost large enough to fund an XBox 360. But there are far more important uses for those twenties, so Dead Rising will have to wait.

In other news, my brother showed me the greatest candies ever; Ice Breakers Sours.

There totally isn’t enough to talk about here to write a whole article, so I’m gonna constrain it to the blog. The thesis here is that these are friggin’ awesome candies. While they go under the guise of mints, I’m going to be referring to these as candies, beacuse quite frankly, they have all the properties of candy, and very few semblances to mints.

Let’s get the obvious bit over with, they taste awesome. Coming in either “berry” or “fruit” varieties, Ice Breakers Sours taste like scoring with your friend’s hot sister. So awesome. They’re called sour, and I’m not a big fan of sour, but they’re not so bad. The whole sour bit lasts about four seconds, and you’re just left with sweet candy taste. The first time I ate one, the sour hit me hard, then faded away into the delicious berry taste that I could only describe as “happiness.”

They’re got a pretty good texture to them, being shaped and smooth like Sweet Tarts. They’re about as hard as Sweet Tarts too, but they crumble very nicely once you bite into them.

Ice Breakers Sours are officially regarded as mints, but they certianly don’t act like mints. Yes, their strong flavour will linger in your mouth for a while, but it doesn’t last long enough to be put to any serious breath-freshening use. They cost a pretty penny, though, which is common for top-tier mints, like these and Altoids. It’s damned hard to resist eating them like candy too. You know, the whole delicious thing playing a part there.

Overall, I stand firmly behind my opinion that Ice Breakers Sours rule. One might even say they’re crumbelievable.