Apple and I went out for dinner on Saturday night. I have to say, we had a great time, despite the restaurant we selected not quite being up to our expectations. As usual, though, the simple observations of life once again proved interesting enough to write about in and of themselves.

The restaurant—a Japanese sushi / teppanyaki grill type place—was about 40 minutes away, so we took the newly-opened north/south corridor that nobody has found yet. The traffic was great, as usual—it’s the only road in the county of which that can be said, even during season. The only problem was the Ford Lightning pickup ahead of us, which was hauling two refrigerators in its bed. The cargo wasn’t tied down whatsoever and it was too long for the truck’s liftgate to close. I hate following anyone carrying cargo, but when it’s not secured, it stops being annoying and starts becoming dangerous. I kept my distance.

The truck changed lanes, other vehicles merged in front of us, life continued unabated. But it wasn’t long before the van in front of us slowed down abruptly, and we soon discovered why: One of the Lightning’s refrigerators had fallen off the back of the truck and was now smashed in the middle of the road. Up ahead, the truck had pulled over, and the driver was probably cussing up a storm having just realized he’d destroyed half of his cargo because he’s a total and complete retard. Bully for him.

Continue Reading…

My friend Pooch bought me this game for Christmas, and it took me a couple of weeks before I really spent some time getting into it. But now I’m hooked, and totally wasting unchecked hours playing it. Basically Bloodlines is an RPG with some elements of a first-person shooter thrown in, in fact if I had to pick one game to compare it to mechanically, it would be Deus Ex. You play the role of a newly sired vampire in southern California, and the game surrounds your exploits in your new life as a member of the damned.

The game is built on Valve’s Source engine, the same used for Half-Life 2, although it may not immediately look like it. The graphics here aren’t as top notch as HL2, but more importantly, the story and dialog are rich and the environments are very thorough and well-done. Just like the aforementioned Deus Ex, in fact. Although I installed the latest patch, there are still a good number of little glitches, graphic weirdness, and other buggy stuff that you wouldn’t see in a AAA title like HL2, but so far it’s all been minor; nothing game-killing.

And it’s really quite fun, this vampire stuff. Okay, you get to feed on random blokes walking down the street. That’s fun. You also have superhuman strength and healing capabilities, and when you start throwing your fists around, people go flying. Pure entertainment. The RPG elements of experience points and character attributes are here in full force, and are just as much fun as always. A new skill that I haven’t seen before in similar games is “Seduction,” which, if built up, allows you to seduce NPCs into doing…things…for you, or tricks them into letting their guard down so you can suck their…uh, hemoglobin.

Continue Reading…

I’ve been mostly spending my spare time screwing around, which is why it was good this weekend for me to actually get some stuff done. For starters, I washed both the Trans Am and the Mazda6, neither of which had seen hide nor hair of the sponge in an embarrassingly long time, and were both in dire need. I washed the T/A the old fashioned way, but to the Mazda I took the new Mr. Clean AutoDry Car Wash kit that my parents gave me for Christmas. It’s pretty awesome! The de-ionized spotfree rinse mode is sweet. I bloody HATE drying the car and that feature makes it completely unnecessary. (Well, except for under the spoiler, but if that’s the only part I have to take a towel to, I’m satisfied.)

I also sent mail to a freelance contact I was overdue to get back with, and included the end results of a small logo adjustment project she had requested. The bikini website guy emailed asking for progress on his site, and there hasn’t been time for much yet…so I’ll throw him a bone tomorrow morning and give myself a chance to actually do some work on the thing.

Continue Reading…