Okay... here's my beef people. I've been gaming now for going on 8 years. I've always loved playing my games. But the best part of online gaming is the people. I've enjoyed goofing around with people, having a laugh and well, just having a good time with good friends.
At the same time, most people who game for as long as I do normally find themselves in a clan (or two). Now before I go any further, I'd like to make sure I'm very clear that I'm not referring to Clan AI (my CS gaming clan). Although AI has certainly had it's fair share of drama. I'm referring to a different clan of a game I will refrain from mentioning simply because it would be too easy for people to put two and two together. Anyway, back to my point. What's with all the drama? There's not one clan I've been in or known people that where in that hasn't had a whole boat load of drama.
Now bear with me while I draw my conclusions here. When you say "drama" what's the first thing that comes to mind? Boring long movies? Teenage girls in high school? Cat fights? Soaps? Pretty much a whole bunch of stuff that revolves around females, right? Now most gamers whether we like it or not are male. There are a few females out there that game but the numbers are staggeringly in the men's favor. So having said that - what's with all the drama? Why is it that clans full of 90%+ men have so much drama? Maybe drama doesn't have anything to do with women and everything to do with maturity?
Anyway, let's just say that I've about had it with all the blasted drama. I want to paddle some of these lil boys and send them to their room without dinner.
Okay, here's a lil geography lesson. My house is in Utah Valley which is just south of Salt Lake Valley which is where Salt Lake City is. Utah valley is mostly developed on the east side of the lake. No - not the Great Salt Lake but Utah Lake which is huge and in my opinion, beautiful. Now my house is up on the side of the mountain on what's called a "bench". In other words, it's a flat spot against the side of the mountain that overlooks the valley. Apparently at one time the valleys were full of water and hence, the benches were the shores.
SO, last night my husband and I went for our nightly walk at 2am (yes, we're night owls) and when we get to the end of the street I notice this big orangish red blob in the sky. If you've ever lived somewhere like Utah, you'll know that when it gets dark at night and there is no moon (or very little moon) that the mountains blend into the sky and are fairly hard to see. Last night it was overcast and hence the mountains weren't that easy to see. But the big orangish red blob thingie was easy to see. It took me a minute to figure out what it was when it dawned on me, the mountain is on fire. I've never seen anything like this before though. The mountain was glowing red and I could actually see the flames (can you imagine how big they must be close up?!). The mountain next to it was also red and glowing - although there were no visible flames from my distance. I've never seen anything like it before. It reminded me of Lord of the Rings or Silent Hill.
Today, the fire is so big the sky is all smokey and yucky. I don't know if I can get any good pictures of the fire tonight due to all the smoke, but I'll try. Hopefully the whole mountain doesn't burn down. :(
Alright, here's my beef. I typed up this huge long blog which now I'm gonna have to type again and when I went to grab my mouse that F-ING key on the side made it go back one page and I lost EVERYTHING. WTF?!
ANYWAY - so it's Friday morning and like normal, I'm in bed fast asleep at noon. Yes, I keep weird hours. So I hear this loud noise outside and it being Friday I assume that it's just the garbage man until I notice the sound is coming from above and not from outside. So I jolt awake and look over to see my husband looking outside. He says, "What the hell is this guy doing?"
So my first thought is, some moron is doing something in the open lot across from our house. So I get out of bed to check things out. Only when I get out of bed and peak between the blinds, there's a ladder. A ladder?! Now we've had numerous internet providers (we can only get wireless here) and satellite providers out here and it seems everytime they come they never bring a tall enough ladder. I've seen most of them use the back of their truck pulled up in the drive way with the ladder propped in it and on the house just so they can get to the roof. Yes our house is tall.
So my husband thinks quick and runs to put something on that's modest enough for outside. Meanwhile I'm still dumbfounded.... there's someone on our roof?!
He gets out there and yells up, "What the hell are you doing on my roof?" The guy responds that he's there for our antenna. Uh... what?! So the guy comes down - almost falls to his death (too bad, this story would be much more interesting then) - and when he finally gets down walks around the corner to his van and pulls out a slip of paper. He says are you Alan or Lori Fullmer? My husband of course is in no mood for a moronic kid and says, "I'm obviousy not Lori". So the guy was sent to get our antenna by an ISP we haven't had for more than 6 months.
Now let's go back to 6 months ago. We had WavePoint Internet which was amazingly good for wireless. We were totally happy with it... until Digis. Well, you've probably heard of the Midas Touch - everything turns to gold? Well Digis has the exact opposite. Everything they touch turns to crap. They should really consider a career in manure. ANYWAY - so we called and cancelled when they bought Wavepoint and immediately our internet started sucking it up. As per their guidelines, we left the antenna on the patio for them to come pick up. A week passed and no one came. My husband called and complained. A month passes, still no one. So finally he gives up and puts it in the garage. But he still calls them every month when they send us a bill for zero dollars and reminds them to come get their crappy equipment.
So today, their moron company decides it's time to come get the antenna. So they come out here to get it and what, it's not on the patio?!?! It must be the one hooked up on the roof. So without calling, without ringing the doorbell, he just shimmies on up to the roof to get the one that is hooked up. Never mind that it doesn't look anything like their other antennas. That's when we come into the picture.
And what does Digis - the craptastic internet - have to say about all of this? Well no one was scheduled to come out here today so it must have been some error - but hey, did we give the guy the antenna? WHAT THE F#@!?!?! He wasn't scheduled yet he had our names and our address right there on a piece of paper? He wasn't scheduled yet he had a Digis van that he was driving? And why the hell does he care more about his antenna that they haven't come to get for more than 6 months than the fact that he sent a total retard to our house and up on our roof to take an antenna that wasn't even theirs?! What if we had not been here and he'd taken someone elses antenna?! MORONS I TELL YOU!!!!!
In my review a few weeks back, I mentioned the burn-in issue with Mario Party 8. I don't play a lot of MP8, but I do play when I have friend over and of course - anytime there's something big to unlock (like a new character and a whole game board). So you can imagine how irritated I was about the unchanging screen on the game anytime you are on any screen other than the main load screen.
So I called Nintendo and yelled at them after sitting down to watch "Lady in the Water" (surprisingly not a horrible movie) and noticed that I could still see the MP8 screen. My TV is only about a month and a half old - 63" plasma - and so I was rather ticked to see my investment ruined thanks to Nintendo and their $50 game.
However, surprisingly, their staff was really nice. The initial guy I talked to didn't know what I was talking about. He took my number and told me he'd have someone call me back. Well that someone called back within 10 minutes and had an actual solution. It seems that those of us who have newer TVs typically run the Wii in widescreen mode (it's an actual setting on the Wii console). I affirmed that I do run my Wii in widescreen mode (since my TV is widescreen). I had tried changing the viewing mode on the TV and the bars never disappeared. BUT - it seems if you change the mode on the actual Wii console, those nasty bars disappear.
Overall, Nintendo was friendly, prompt, and geniunely concerned. They fixed the problem so I can continue playing my game too. I will say though, that I'm not thrilled that this information was easily accessible somewhere on the net and wasn't anywhere in the manual that came with the game. So problem fixed - but the problem still shouldn't have occurred to begin with.
So I beat Mario Party 8. Apparently you actually "win" MP8 after completing the Star Battle. The Goomba board took me two tries and the train board three tries. Overall, the single player part of the game is actually pretty fun and challenging. The best part is that when you win, you unlock tons of stuff. After finishing boards 1-5 (the ones that come unlocked with the game), the creepy little hat dude that runs the show awards you with the Star Rod. BUT - Bowser doesn't like that you are crowned the one and only SuperStar of Mario Party 8 and so he steals the star rod from you and makes you play his game board (thus unlocking it). Even more, he makes you play against Blooper (thus unlocking him). Blooper is actually kind cute so I might have to retire my Toad days and start using Blooper.
Anyway, Bowser's board is set in space. Basically you run around this space station thing and try to steal stars from your opponent (at least in the single player star battle version). To win you have to steal ALL of your opponents stars. There are two new candies just for this board and both are scary and hopefully don't show up in other game boards. One turns you into Bowser, let's you roll two dice and steals two stars from any opponent in your path. The other turns you into a Bullet Bill, let's you roll three dice and steals one star from any opponent in your path. Scary huh?
Then there are the ? spaces that turn the board around and make everyone move in the opposite direction. The only saving grace for this whole thing was the turnstile areas in the map. There are two or three areas where once you go through, your opponent has to go the opposite direction. They end up at the same spot but it saves your hide should someone have one of those scary candies.
So I finished that on my first try and Bowser handed over the Star Rod. But being Bowser, he decided it was time to take it back. So he swiped that thing and made me play some weird minigame that wore me out. Basically you hold the wiimote above your head and swirl it kinda like a lasso all the while dodging all sorts of things from Bowser. Then you when the Star Rod (which you're holding above your head) reaches full power, you throw it at Bowser. Whoever lives, wins. I practiced like 10 times and only one once. My husband practices several times and won only once. I even turned to him at one point and said, "I don't even know why I need this rod. What good does it do me?" to which he said, "I can't believe you just said that." ROFL.
ANYWAY, I went for it and amazingly, survived (barely - only 1 health left!). And then the credits rolled. And rolled. And rolled. And you can't skip them. BORING. But at the end they gave me 200 carnival cards so that unlocked for new games in the extra area for me. :)
So I gave the new games a try. The chain chomp one was okay. The racing moped game.... pretty fun! I actually enjoyed it even tho it's freakishly hard. I so can't wait for mario kart!
So the past couple of days this particular topic keeps coming up in vent. I dunno why... but everyone is talking about the supernatural. Maybe I started it by discussing the show A Haunting on Discovery Channel. My DVR records the program for me and when I have nothing else to watch, I watch it (even after Oprah.... so it's way down the list). Discovery does a pretty decent job of making the show actually kinda creepy - like an 80s horror flick. About 80% of them in my mind are fake even though they have the real people who experienced the haunting there talking about it. I think a lot of it is in their mind.
For example, this one show the family moves into the house and suddenly they start hearing things. They've never seen anything - just heard footsteps and they suddenly flee from the house! Well, old houses do make noises. And if you have pets or kids, they do make footstep sounds sometimes.
Anyway, my personal take on all of this is that as humans we use a very small percentage of our brains. We don't fully understand a lot of things like time. Hell, just a few hundred years ago, we thought the world was flat! So who's to say we fully understand the after life either? I personally believe that places that are dear to us - where we have special memories - have our imprint on them. Some times people feel they are being haunted because they feel, see, or experience that imprint. Kinda like a fingerprint of your memory. So most of what people think are hauntings, I fully believe are not. BUT - I do believe there are spirits and ghosts and that there are some places that truely are haunted.
So what do you think?
So, as I mentioned in my WiiView of Mario Party 8, there's this single player area where you've gotta battle it out on each board with a different computer character. Well wouldn't you know it, I made it all the way to the Train board when Toadette cheated!!!!! TWICE!
The first time, I wasn't even CLOSE to the star when she made it over to Holly Koopa and bought the ONLY star for 50 coins leaving me to start all over again. So I start the board over again determined to pwn Toadette. This time I'm like at 500 coins or something (maybe more like 71) and Toadette keeps landing on the ? spaces which moves my train farther from Holly Koopa. Then I land on the vent spot which puts me back inside the train but in the train exactly in front of Holly Koopa (I want to be in the train behind her). So I make it all the way around by purchasing a Thrice Candy (three dice blocks) and make it within 4 spots of her but just 2 spots in front of Toadette who happens to only have 48 coins. So I'm thinking I'm doing great because there's no way Toadette will win cause I'll get to Holly first and she won't have 50 coins.
GUESS WHAT SHE WHIPS OUT?!?!?! A BOWLO CANDY!!!! So she turns into a beach ball and happens to roll a 10 and runs over me STEALING 20 of my coins!!!!! And of course she makes it to Holly Koopa who gives her the star and I lose AGAIN! I almost chucked my wiimote at that annoying lil toadette thing!!! ARGH!
I live the ideal gamer life. I don't work. I don't have any major responsibilities (other than paying bills and keeping the house clean). And I get to spend a vast majority of my free time playing games. So how is it that I'm bored out of my mind at the age of 29 on a Saturday evening??? I've already played Mario Party 8 (both games the computer cheated) and Natural Selection (to which the server crashed no less than 10 times). I could go watch TV but it's the off season of pretty much everything so all that's on is reruns.
Sure I have laundry that could be folded and a guest bed that needs to have the clean sheets put back on it (my parents just visted last week) - but who wants to do work on a Saturday?! I'd go outside but there are little devils (aka children) running around screaming and acting all joyful like. :\ So what to do???
