A sure sign of the impending nuclear holocaust is when you start seeing “Pip Boy” the Vault-Tec logo appearing on industrial machinery, like this generator in West Orlando. I noticed the large sticker on this industrial generator on the way home during our boring-ass commute last week and made a mental note that I absolutely had to take a photo before it was gone or vandalized. I’m crazy fanatic about the Fallout games, so to see some random thing like this is pretty rad.
Taking the photo was a real pain. It was off the road, in a place where parking is wholly impossible. I trekked through high, grassy weeds that were crawling with lizards, in ninety-degree heat. Then I found that I had nowhere to stand that wasn’t on an ant hill – which gave me a ninety second window to snap some shots before the little bastards started biting my ankles. It’s sorta funny, considering that in Fallout 3 one of the first things I did after leaving Vault 101 was murder dozens of irradiated mutant ants. Virtual karma is a bitch.
I still ended up having a fun, spontaneous adventure tonight, and was completely floored when I got back home and realized that there’s a perfect robot shadow on the right side of the photo!
The chance of me actually starting a band is unlikely, since I really don’t play any instruments, apart from depeche-mode’n around on the keyboard. And while I tear up the stage at karaoke, I can’t really sing. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
But, I like to keep the dream alive by updating my list of possible names for my future indie rock-electro band. Here’s the list I have currently loaded in my iPhone notes application. My friend Audio (the editor of Android Delight – which would be another wicked-cool band name!) said that “the closest we’ll ever get to forming a band will be on Xbox Live in Rock Band.” Yeah, he’s probably right. Maybe it’s a good time to finally start the search for Emotional Laser’s new drummer.
This past weekend, I packed up my Xbox 360 and an LCD monitor, and cruised over to a coworkers house for a night of playing Modern Warfare 2 with “the guys”. (I don’t really have my own “the guys” but for the sake of this post, we’ll sort of pretend that I do.) I learned two harsh realities that evening, the first being that you can’t system link Call of Duty for a house full of dudes, as the game only permits single player xbox link-ups. Lame.
The second thing I learned was that I’ll probably always be a noob when it comes to playing MW2 and online first-person shooters. These are the main five reasons:
1.I don’t spend enough time practicing online. Seems rather obvious, right? My problem: I had to get over the reasoning that simply because I played a lot of first-person shooter games, I should be good at any of them, in any setting. It’s sorta like a bunch of nerds playing D&D or World of Warcraft and assuming they’d have have a chance against an Orc, if they were to suddenly face one in real life. That’s not to say that all of my single player skills are wasted, at the very least they taught me how to move and aim.
2.Simply moving and aiming is not good enough. To survive in the fast-paced world on online warfare you need to MOVE! and AIM! But, you also need to know when to stay put and wait. My problem: I’m always in one place too long, or not long enough. And I really don’t have the finesse that it takes to be a killing machine. When watching the playback of my murder on the killcam, I’m amazed at the twitchy and jerky movement of my opponents. They move like a brutal, killing insect while I seem to really take my time aiming and lining up the shot. Much like my golf swing, I’ve been practicing mostly bad habits.
3.This isn’t my story and I’m not the hero. The problem with playing so many co-op or single player campaigns is that you tend to believe that you’re special. Enemy troops always rush at you from convenient locations in a perfectly timed rhythm. You should know your objectives and which way you should be moving on the map. This is all flipped upside-down in multiplayer. The maps are closed and death is your only exit. Players don’t come at you in a linear way, but punish you sideways with all sorts of inventive maneuvering. My problem: I tend to be to too cinematic. I picture myself running about, taking down enemies with the help of my friendly comrades and everything I do is part of some sort of blockbuster action sequence. When in reality, the better players aren’t even thinking, but rather moving, shooting, moving, grenade, explode, die, respawn, moving, shooting…
4.I don’t know the maps. And to be honest, I’ll never know the maps. I just know the places that I always die on the maps. My friends try to show me the prime spots to hang out and snipe at people, but when I finally get up into the roost someone is already there, ready to rock my face with a shotgun. My most successful moments are when I find a decent location, and can keep dropping enemies as they come through my bottlenecked area until I get stabbed in the back by a ninja person or humped by a guy holding a riot shield.
5.I’m a bit of a carebear. That’s gamerspeak for, “pussy”. Although if you play shooters on Xbox Live for any amount of time, you’ll realize that is one of the milder terms of endearment. My problem: I just like having fun, casually shooting at people. I don’t have the heart (nor skill) to constantly be at the enemy spawn point machine-gun raping the same guy over and over again. (Because usually, I’m the guy respawning.) I suppose that’s why I’m making this list. Not to make excuses, but rather to embrace my noobness and try learn from it…one horrible agonizing death at a time.
It’s been a while since I’ve just posted random videos off the web that I didn’t make, but my laziness was trumped this morning by this brilliant nerdcore mashup of classic Trek and Ke$ha’s ubiquitous “Tik Tok” song.
It’s not as totally as fast paced as the song, but the creator really did an awesome job of lining up all those crazy-ass clips of the crew getting wasted.
We finally bought a house. It’s actually the second house we made an offer on, but the first house on the list that we liked (if that makes sense). Anyway, it’s pretty solid, despite the absence of a Bat Cave or secret lair. And there’s no skeletons in the closet or a Buffalo Bill lotion pit, among many other positive features.
Actually, the whole house buying process went rather smoothly. Many years ago I launched “Operation: Clean Credit Rating” which has paid off immensely during this transaction, though was nowhere near as fun as “Operation: Destroy Credit Rating”, launched back in my early twenties. I think the hardest part about becoming a new homeowner is coming to terms with the fact that we actually bought a house. Closing date is still several weeks away, so in many ways it still doesn’t seem real. I’m used to downloading songs off iTunes and rocking them on my iPod a moment later, or gadget shopping on Amazon and getting the device the next morning. So waiting six weeks for something that I just bought seems painfully s-l-o-w.
We won’t technically be Orlando residents, by the way. Nope. LLR headquarters will soon be located in the nearby suburb of Maitland (which has its own rockin’ theme song).
I feel like I’m on vacation. Maybe it’s because, in the midst of all of our intense relocation efforts, we went to DisneyWorld. That’s right, we didn’t last three days before going to the Magic Kingdom (and tomorrow we’re going to SeaWorld). Actually, it’s kinda perfect that we’re taking a little time off as a family. We didn’t get a chance to celebrate our adoption anniversary, and now we also get to celebrate getting pre-approved for a home loan. The house hunting has already begun, and my chances of having a secret lair or ‘man cave” are still pretty good.
I can’t believe that it’s already been a week since our whole moving ordeal and partial cross-country trip! Logistical nightmare. Also, it was surreal to see the urban landscape transform from the Texas South back to “The South”. You know, I probably should have noticed it sooner, as the number of Cracker Barrel restaurants increased significantly, but it was driving past the thirty anti-abortion billboards in Pensacola that made me go, “Oh yeah. This kind of stuff again.” Though, now that we’re in Orlando I’m finding it to be less “The South” and more just “Awesome America”. All in one region we have: palm trees, theme parks, water parks, alligator hunting, nearly every fast food and retail chain, NASA, NASCAR, and Daytona Beach.
America, fuck yeah.
It looks like my new weight loss plan (called, “Just Stop Eating Like a Pig”) will have to be put on hold, as I now freak out every time I see 7-Eleven and can start drinking Slurpees again. And I’m thrilled to have a fridge filled again with gallons of Publix brand Diet Sweet Tea. It’s a gift from the Sucralose Gods.
Eliza loves watching us pack up the house, so much in fact, that she wanted to be part of the action. So I gave her a large wardrobe box to play in (which kept her entertained for about 20 golden minutes), and here’s a few of the shots I snapped while she played.
Four Rivers Smokehouse
Full Sail 2
NYPD Pizza
Aveda Institute
TrenD
