RSS FeedRecent gaming overload
Over the past few weeks, I’ve really stepped up my gaming. To start, we’ve visited the Pinball Hall of Fame once or twice a week for the past couple months. Honestly, I don’t see that stopping any time soon. No where else in Vegas do I know of where the entire family can go spend less than 30 bucks for 60 - 90 minutes of entertainment. If you know of a place, please let me know!
My current obsession with the pinball game Creature From the Black Lagoon remains in tact. The current grand champion on the game has just over 1 billion points. The next score is around 750 million. I hold the final 3 spots on the leader board at 620, 440 & 420 million. The 620 came this past weekend, but I gotta tell ya, I’m not giving up until I have that #1 spot. On my way home from the last visit I came up with a plan on how I think I can achieve the score. Unfortunately it’s going to be 2 weeks before I can get back to test out my plan.
Next up has been Rock Band. First I went out and bought a set of drum pads to help quiet the noise made by the sticks hitting the plastic. I had been using a set a guy at work made, but these are way better. They have cut the sound in half. Plus, these have the added benefit of deadening the vibration, so you are better able to hit all the notes in rapid succession. Next I went and bought some new sticks from Guitar Center. It was a funny conversation when I told the guy that I don’t actually play drums, but just played Rock Band. Apparently I wasn’t even close to the first person to come in looking for replacement sticks. The new sticks I bought are a little bit shorter (which I don’t care for) and a bit lighter (which I love) than the set that came with the game.
With the new equipment in place, my son and I set out to conquer the endless set. This is a 58 song set that you can’t stop and restart. Once you begin, you can push pause, but that’s it. You have to finish all 58 songs to get credit for any of it. So, he played guitar on hard and I played drums on medium. I went with medium because there are parts of Run to the Hills and a few other songs that I just wasn’t positive I could make it through. I would have hated to play for 4+ hours and then have to quit because I couldn’t get through a song. But, on a Friday afternoon we started around 4:50 PM and ended just short of 10 PM. We made it through the set scoring 5 stars on each song. It was challenging, but a ton of fun. Unfortunately we didn’t earn any new fans because I was playing on the lower level. We have already capped out the amount of fans we can earn on Easy, Medium and now Hard. To earn any new fans we need to play on Expert. To think that only a couple months ago I had never played drums before (other than just screwing around), I’m pretty pleased with my progress.
Speaking of drums, I saw the new drum set that’s going to come out in the new Guitar Hero 4, World Tour game. Just.Wow! 2 Tom-Toms, a snare, 2 cymbals and a bass drum. Apparently they are going for the most realistic video game drum set ever. So basically, if you can play drums on the harder levels of the game, you should be able to hold down a beat on a real drum set. I’ve heard that before, but don’t know that I really believe it. Yeah, I can play some songs on expert on Rock Band, but seriously, I’m just good at following the dots on the screen and hitting at the right times. That’s just years of video game play helping out. Last I checked, on a real drum set, there is no screen with scrolling dots telling you what drum to hit and at what time.
Back to pinball. My brother-in-law had been telling us about a game he’s been playing on the PS2 called Pinball Hall of Fame: the Williams Collection. I picked it up over the weekend and holy crap is it fun! First off, the list of pinball games they have in the game is fantastic. Funhouse, Black Knight, Pinbot, Taxi and 5 or 6 others. The game play is amazingly realistic. The bounces, gravity and even some of the nuances of the game are all accounted for. I just saw that Amazon.com has it available for the PSP. I may just have to buy it as well. This would be a fantastic game to kill time on a plane or in a waiting room.
I also recently picked up the game Lost: Via Domus based on the TV show Lost. I quickly realized something. I do not have the patience I once had for video games. Wow, I really suck at the game. I’ve made it through the first “episode” of the game, but am now at a point where I have to walk through a pitch black cave using a torch for visibility. I have died by falling in to the same pit several times. Thing is, it takes me 5-10 minutes to get to this point and then I have to start over after I fall to my death. As cool as the game seems to be, I think this one is bound for the dust collecting shelf.
So Much Chuck Palahniuk
It’s a good time to be a Chuck Palahniuk fan! This week his new book Snuff, a story about a girl on a quest to complete a 600 person gang bang, is set to come out. Here’s a fantastic trailer (mildly NSFW) for the book. Hilarious!
This summer we’ll be treated to Sam Rockwell staring in Choke, which just happens to be one of my favorite Palahniuk books. Looks like the current release date is August 28th. We’ll see.
While looking around on IMDB.com today I saw that Chuck also has another movie in the works. His book Invisible Monsters, a story about A disfigured fashion model and a pre-op transsexual go on a road trip of revenge and recovery, is listed as being in development. It says it’s going to be released in 2008, but there aren’t even any actors attached to the project on IMDB, so I’m not buying that.
Now, if we can just get Chuck back to Vegas for another speaking engagement, I would love to ask him if he has used the Easter morning story I told him the last time he was here at any dinner parties. If you don’t know the story I’m speaking of, it’s probably better you don’t ask.
Love/Hate: American Gladiator Style
As a kid I totally loved watching the American Gladiators. I was excited to see that it was coming back on after 14 years off the air. Excited for a couple reasons. I knew it was going to be fun to watch with my son. He’s fairly close to the age I was when the show was on originally and I knew the show would be right up his alley. I wasn’t wrong. We watched every episode of the first season together. We cheered, rooted and booed the contestants and gladiators every Tuesday afternoon (Tivo’d from the night before).
Last night was the first episode of the second season. For some reason, instead of waiting until this evening to watch the show with my son, my wife and I watched it. They have a few new events, a revamped “Eliminator” course that’s tougher than last season and a few new gladiators, including last year’s American Gladiator winners.
As we started watching the show, a few things started annoying me. First off, as they introduce the new contestants, at least one of the female competitors cries during their intro interview. Do all women immediately start to cry when they say the words, “I was a single mother?” Then, before each event Hulk Hogan and/or Laila Ali ask the contestants how they are going to take on the next challenge. Their answers are always an uncomfortable mix of forced-excitement and bad clichés. To be fair, the voice-over guy does have a few amusing lines from time to time, but they are the exception.
My wife put it best when she said, “I’d enjoy watching this so much more if we put it on mute.” So, we tried it. She was right. It was far more enjoyable to watch the show with no sound.
I’m going to go back to waiting for Tuesday’s to watch the show with my son. Hopefully his enjoyment of the show will spill over and cover for the parts of the show that irk me.
Cross Canadian Ragweed in Utah & Mustache May
This past Friday I left work a little early with the intention of heading to St. George Utah to see Cross Canadian Ragweed in concert. The plan was to leave the house around 3PM. But, thanks to another lengthy visit from the air conditioning company from hell, we didn’t get on the road until nearly 5PM.
We arrived at the venue at about 8:15 local time. Yes, I forgot to calculate in the time change. We were able to find a spot to park about 50 feet away from the front door. I found this odd, but it would wind up to be just one of the many oddities of concerts in Utah.
We headed to the front door to pick up our tickets at Will Call. We gave the guy our name and he looked us up on a printed sheet and hands us our tickets. We walk past the security guards (a guy in his 50s and his two teen-aged kids) and head inside. This is so different than going to a show in Vegas where they basically give you a body cavity search before entering the arena.
Now that we are inside it’s time to grab a drink. We walk up to the bar and see that there are a couple teenagers working this section, too. Oh, looky there… no alcohol on the menu. Bottled waters were only $1.00 which is unheard of at any concert I have ever been to. We could have ordered a Frazzle, which is like an Icee, but we decided against it.
Now we head toward the stage. That’s a short trip. This entire place can hold no more than about 350 people. But, the opening band is already on stage and there are no more than 100 people in the place. We find a spot up front and settle in. Then, we start to notice it. Almost everybody has snuck in their own alcohol. Some had flasks, but most had something mixed in a water bottle that looked faintly like piss. With no access to alcohol, I was a bit jealous of the piss drinkers.
During the show the lead singer mentions that the management has made it VERY clear that he is not supposed to curse on stage. Uh, OK… He kept to that rule basically all night. Though, he did let slip an F-bomb at one point. Another thing that he spoke about was the fact that it’s “Mustache May.” If you don’t have any facial hair, for the month of May you are supposed to let your mustache grow. If you have a goatee you are supposed to shave the bottom and keep the top. So, in the spirit of being a team player, I’ve shaved half my facial hair and now look like a cross between a 70’s porn star and a used car salesmen. Enjoy!
Busy week in review
This past week was pretty busy. I started the week by flying to San Francisco for a trade show. The thing about trade shows, they are basically all the same. Maybe not the content, but everything else about them is identical. I’ll show you what I mean. Here was my trade show:
Day 1: Fly in the night before the show, eat dinner too late, go out for drinks and get to sleep way to late.
Day 2: Get up early, have a crappy breakfast, spend most of your day on your feet, go out to dinner too late, go to an industry party with an open bar, get to sleep way to late.
Day 3: Get up a little later, have a crappy breakfast, have very few meetings at the show because everybody else went out too late last night, too, eat dinner way to late, skip the industry party, go to sleep way to late.
Day 4: Get up and rush to the airport to fly home.
The show was good. I had some great meetings and made some decent deals. But still I arrived home totally bushed. On Thursday I planned on going to sleep around 10 PM so I could get a good night’s sleep. Instead I fell asleep at 8:15 and slept all night.
While I was in San Francisco, I did take a few photos that I’m pretty happy with. One of them was a 30 second exposure I took from my hotel room of the street below. I love catching the streaking lights of the cars on the road. I’m thrilled with how it came out. You can check them out over here.
Friday night we went back to Sam’s Town to play the 11 PM tourney. We started with 4 tables and it didn’t take that long to get down to the final table. We lost a couple players and when we got down to the final 5, I was the overwhelming chip leader. I then got unlucky in a couple hands and I was quickly the short stack. A few minutes later, I was out of the tournament in 5th place. That, as they say, is poker.
On Saturday I slept in. It was lovely. I woke up and watched some hockey. We then went to lunch and headed over to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Have I mentioned lately that I’m addicted to this place? My current list of favorite games are “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, “Star Trek”, and “Austin Powers”. I have had a few good games on Creature, but I feel like I’m about ready to break through and have a HUGE game. I currently have my name on the high score boards for 2 games (Star Trek & Funhouse) and I feel Creature is next on my list. Soon.
Saturday evening we ordered the UFC fight on pay-per-view and had a few friends over to watch. I have to say that watching UFC is way more fun with a group of people. I watch a fair bit of it on my own, but it’s just not the same.
Sunday is going to be low key. I need to rest up and get another good night’s sleep. I have a LOT of work to do this week. I would like to get out and take some more photos, but we’ll have to see how that shapes up.
Revisiting poker as a hobby
For the past few months, I have played remarkably little poker. Yes, I play in the monthly tourney at my house, but other than that, not too much. I don’t know if it’s the fact that summer is approaching which means the World Series of Poker is about to descend upon Las Vegas again, but for some reason, I have been jonesing to play poker all the time.
The past two Fridays in a row, Chris and I have gone to play the Friday night 11PM tourney at Sam’s Town. I’ve cashed in both of those events, so it’s no wonder that I’m a big fan of the tournament. Though, I’ve played in two of their 10AM tournaments and haven’t cashed yet, so I’m not as big a fan of that tourney.
When I first went in to the poker room at Sam’s Town, I was pleased to find that they spread a 1-5 Seven Card Stud game. (1-5 means that you can bet between 1-5 dollars any time it’s your turn to bet.) I have to say that after playing Texas Hold ‘em exclusively for the past couple years, playing something else was quite fun! I’m sorta hooked on Seven Stud right now, so I’ve been back to play a few times now. I wish I could tell you that I’ve had winning sessions each time, but that would be a lie. Honestly, I’m still learning the ins and outs of the game. I’m considering my first few sessions a relatively inexpensive lesson.
Speaking of hobbies, digital photography is something I’ve always been interested in. Thanks to an upcoming trip, I felt it was finally the right time to purchase something better than a PHD (push here, dummy) camera. I ordered a Canon Digital Rebel XTi and am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival this week. I’ve been spending a lot of time on Flickr.com checking out photos taken with the XTi, and have to say, I’m really really excited at the opportunity. I realize I will likely not be taking amazing shots on my first outing, but I definitely plan to take a few hundred (or thousand) photos before our trip. I’m really interested in learning what works and what doesn’t. Learning what the hell the ISO setting does, shutter speed, light sources, aperture, etc…
One of the final deciding factors for selecting the camera I chose is the fact that it has a setting for taking time lapse photos. As luck would have it, I signed up for the RSS feed from Digital Photography School just in time to see this AMAZING movie that was shot with a canon digital SLR using time lapse photography. I hope to one day be able to produce something even half as awesome.
Get ready for a flood of photo blogging. It’ll start soon, I’m sure.
Pinball Hall of Fame
Recently my son found out about a place here in town called the Pinball Hall of Fame and has been asking us to take him there for a couple weeks. After some quick research we found out that it’s not that far away from us [it's on the corner of Trop and Pecos]. So yesterday we piled in to the car and headed on over.
The sign out front says they have over 200 classic pinball machines and games. Woo Hoo! I can’t wait! I love playing pinball, and at one point I even owned a Funhouse Pinball machine. I was stoked to see they had a Funhouse machine as I haven’t had a chance to play the game in a couple years. Though, I’m considering buying another one from a buddy in California who has one.
They have pinball machines from just about every era. They had a ton of really old machines that I had never seen before including one, that I can’t recall the name of, that was #3 of only 11 made and there are only 2 known to still exist today.
On the very back aisle they had a bunch of classic video games including Donkey Kong, Missile Command, Tetris, Crazy Climber and a munch more. I played Donkey Kong and Crazy Climber. I did OK at Donkey Kong, but wow do I suck at Crazy Climber. I loved that game as a kid and was pretty good at it at one point. But, it’s probably been 15 years since I last played it, so I’ll cut myself some slack.
If you want to go check the place out, let me know and we’ll tag along!
I can pretty much guarantee we’ll be going back. The whole family had a good time.
Opening Weekend Movies
It is not often that I’ll go see movies on opening weekend. I usually wait until a movie has been out a week or two before I go see it in the theaters. But this weekend I sorta shot that plan in the foot. Yesterday we saw two movies, both of which were released this weekend.
In the morning we saw Vantage Point. The movie is about an assassination attempt on the US President as seen from 8 different points of view. It was pretty entertaining. I liked the way they fed revealed pieces of information bit-by-bit through each of the different view points.
In the afternoon we went back and saw Be Kind Rewind. This is a pretty silly movie about a guy (Jack Black) who becomes magnetized and erases all of the video tapes in his friends VHS video rental store. To avoid getting in trouble with the owner, they go out and re-shoot all the movies themselves. Their versions are all about 20 minutes long. Not a great movie, but I still enjoyed it.
As if that’s not enough, on Tuesday night we are heading to the Palms to see a sneak preview of the new Will Ferrell movie, Semi-Pro. Saying that a Will Ferrell movie looks silly is like pointing out that Bill Gates has a bunch of money. But, if you want proof, here’s the trailer. See, I told ya.
If that’s not enough Will Ferrell for ya, it looks like he’ll be staring in the new Land of the Lost movie coming out in summer of 2009. Sleestak’s beware!
Body suspension
Something that has intrigued me for many years is the art of body suspension. For those who don’t know, body suspension is when people insert flesh hooks in their body, connect them up to some sort of rigging and are lifted off the ground to by the hooks.
I know how that has got to sound to the uninitiated, but believe me when I say that it can be an incredibly beautiful piece of art. Plus, I’ve heard interviews with many people who have been suspended and they all say that there is a euphoric feeling associated with it. Every time I hear somebody say that, it makes me want to try it even more. I don’t know if it is comparable to the feeling I had when I first jumped out of a plane, or when I crossed the finish line after running my first half-marathon, but if it is, I really must try this at some point.
Over the years I’ve seen quite a lot of photos of body suspensions, but for some reason today was the first time I had though to check Youtube for video footage. As usually happens with Youtube, two things happen. First, I was amazed at how many videos I found. Second, I was surprised it took me so long to even look for them. These videos are not for the faint of heart, but if you’d like to see some videos, here are a few that I found that are pretty amazing.
The body can withstand some amazing things.
Aunt Jamima and the Action Junkies!
Once a month we host a poker tournament. We usually have between 10 and 20 players. We start around 7 and are usually wrapping it up around midnight. A few friends usually stick around for 30 minutes or so and we shoot the shit. This month was a little bit different…
Last night the poker game wrapped up around 11:30. A few of the players who had been knocked out early were playing some card games at the other table. Our friend Marcia had recently taught us a new game called Golf that we’ve been playing a bit, so we were teaching it to the rest of the group. After the first game, we played another. Then another. Then “just one more.” And then only one more. Rinse, repeat.
Somewhere around 3:00 AM Chris headed up to bed. Marcia, Craig, Ashley, Charles, Brent, Michelle and I kept playing. With us being as loud as we were, I have no idea how she was able to sleep at all. Around 4:00 AM there started to be talk of going to breakfast. By 4:45 we had woke Chris up and headed to Denny’s. Of course, we took along a deck of cards.
As our breakfast was being served, our waiter delivered a plate with about ten 2-ounce cups of maple syrup. By the time breakfast was over, there were 5 left. It’s at this time when Marcia says, “I want to play a game where the loser has to chug one of those cups of syrup.” After the table stopped laughing, I said I was in. We decided to play 2-card Guts. I won the first round and Marcia chugged the shot of syrup like a trooper. I knew I wasn’t off the hook that easy. There were still 4 more containers of syrup just sitting there. So we played again. 2-0 Hawkins. Woo Hoo!
After the second shot of syrup, our waiter was walking back towards the kitchen. I stopped him and asked if he wanted to play a game. I explained the rules and he agreed. So the three of us drew our cards. This time, I wasn’t so lucky. But neither was the waiter. Our waiter took the first shot like a champ. I then took mine. Holy crap that stuff is sweet. It’s also rather thick, so it’s not like just taking a drink. You almost have to chew the stuff.
Since there was one shot left, Marcia and I drew again. Another victory for me meant shot #3 for Marcia. She was so hopped up on sugar, I think she decided to leave her car at the restaurant and run home.
We tipped our waiter VERY well and headed back home to get some sleep. This was the first time in I don’t know how long that I had been awake for nearly 24 straight hours. I forgot how much that zaps your energy. Luckily I had that shot of syrup to keep me going.