Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Its dark in here
Hmmm, I'm not sure I'm going to post my favorite albums thing yet. I'm going to hold out until I get two comments on one post. I can dream that someday that day will come and I will be prepared for it.

Seriously though I need you guys to get the word out and plug my blog for me or something. I'll give out free candy or something.
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Monday, November 29, 2004

Pinback +
The Pinback show was actually kinda weak. I was excited about the opener (the Advantage) because of the nintendo songs, even though I don't like them nearly as much as the Minibosses. Basically they just reaffirmed that I don't like them so much. They are technically awesome musicians and play some insane guitar parts, but they basically just emulate the songs from Castlevania and Mega Man etc. too perfectly and do not really add any personality to it. Its just like listening to the songs on the NES. You go, oh, cool I remember that song from metal gear but that's about it. The novelty wears off pretty quick except for a few songs that sound really good on guitar. They didn't announce the songs before they played them either so I didn't recognize all of them.

Neil Hamburger was the second act, with really bad and semi dirty comedy. He mostly made fun of popular music figures like Courtney Love and such. His schtick is that he's a bad comedian, and its slightly entertaining that way. He has a wicked combover and dressed in an out of date tux. By the end people in the crowd started swearing at him and yelling to get off the stage. That was ok though, because he was basically taunting us with a really really long joke that didn't go anywhere. Seriously it was about 20 minutes of one joke.

Pinback started and I was kinda unimpressed. I have heard them quite a bit from my friend but never went out and bought a CD. Its kinda slow emo-ish music that works for casual listening but turns out to be a pretty boring show. I left about 6 or 7 songs into their set because I was just bored. Same feeling from that Built to Spill show a while back, so I think I need to go to a really rocking show next, maybe a hardcore or metal band or just something like that with a lot more energy. The only other show I have tickets for is Modest Mouse in December, which should fill that void if I can break past all the jocks and teeniboppers that are likely to flood the show this time around. Popularity comes at a price I suppose.

Oh, and on another note I beat Shin Megami tensei: Nocturne this weekend. I got the neutral ending I think, which is pretty much a reflection of how I wanted things to happen. I'm going to play through again though so I can finish the last few optional dungeons in the game and kill the final last boss :)

That and Metal Gear Solid 3 is the best game ever! Seriously it blows almost everything else away if you like the sneak around gameplay at all.
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Next...
Well, I'm back at the computer after a good time enjoying thatnksgiving related laziness. My hands are cold and fingers not working so well so I figure I'll update a little later today about the Pinback show and I was thinking of doing my favorite albums of the year thing. Its almost December so those kinds of lists are prevalent. Maybe later this week I'll do the same thing for videogames.

*I rented Rumble Roses this weekend, not as dirty as I expected but quite cheesy and sexy. Weird that videogames are starting to become sexy.
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Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Wednesday
Well, Thanksgiving is a demotivational factor for today. That and the fact that the results I got in lab today are weird and inconclusive. Either way, I'm going to take off early today and go and see the Advantage and Pinback play in town. I don't like the advantage really as much as the Minibosses but it should be fun anyhow. You can't go too wrong with rock versions of NES songs.

Anyway, have fun tommorrow and be sure to give someone that thinks you are their frind a diseased blanket in honor of Thanksgiving. If that is too extreme then just load them up with alcohol and guns and watch the carnage.
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Monday, November 22, 2004

Curse you Holidays!!!
I got a chance to do a few things this weekend, but here are some of the highlights.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra: I rented this movie from netflix after one of my Chemistry pals rented it. Its a 'spoof' of the old B-movie science fiction films, like stuff they used to show on Mystery science theatre 3000. Basically they made the movie to be exactly like one of those films, and did it pretty well down to the wooden acting. Different groups of people are searching for a meteor which contains atmospherium, and one evil scientist wants to use it to revive the lost skeleton of cadavra. The skeleton is the best part of the movie, though he comes in pretty late in the film. He has a great booming voice and tells people to shutup fairly often. Some of my favorite parts were the couple where the husband was a scientist, because they have some really great quotes. "This could mean actual advances in the field of science." It might be extra funny for me since I am a scientist though. I'd give it overall a 7/10, and recommend it to anyone here to at least check out.

I also started playing Metal Gear Solid 3 this weekend. Its REALLY good. The whole gameplay experience is very realistic. If you've played any of the other MGS games, you can pretty much make it through them by staying out of their line of sight "cones" that you can see on their radar screens. It was fun, but basically amounted to a puzzle where you could walk right by soldiers without them seeing you if you stood in the right place.

This game is much more realistic. The enemies can see you from good distances, and you don't have the radar screen map at the top anymore. Also you need to 'sneak' around more, which amounts to walking or crawling fairly slowly. To balance this out the game focuses on camoflague (spelled right?) which you can change based on where you are hiding. You can wait from a distance and watch guards follow their routes, then sneak to an appropriate hididng spot where you can pop out of the bush and grab them in a spot where no other guards are. You need a lot of patience, but I think that it makes the game seem really realistic that way. It has taken me a few tries to get past sets of guards for every area I've been in so far. One good trick is that you can grab and interrogate guards, and they give up info as to where weapons are hidden and one gave me the enemy positions on my map.

You also have to catch your own food, and can eat almost anything from snakes to birds to alligators. If you tranquilize them they don't spoil either which is nice. I ate a peice of rotten meat, and it made me sick so I went into the camo-viewer (you see a 3d model of Snake) and spun him around on the screen. When I went back into the game I threw up the rotten meat. There is just soooo much to this game its great. It is pretty hard though, especially getting away from the guards after they've spotted you.

I think this is the best game of the year so far that I have played. It really is a gaming experience rather than a simple videogame. If you are starving or injured to the point you can't move you can save and turn the game off, and the longer you rest the more you will recover. It just blows away most games which don't do anything that innovative.
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Friday, November 19, 2004

Hobo Snake
I went to the store yesterday and got some bread and soup for dinner with my wife, and on the way back out was getting jazzed up about sneaking over to the Gamecrazy (dumb name) across the parking lot for Metal gear Solid 3.
Me: "I got the itch, Machie (nickname [May-chee])" *scratches beard and head*
Wife: "What some kind of rash?"
Me: "No! the itch to go get MGS3"
Greatest wife ever: "Alright lets go over there."

So right then we were stopped by a couple in their 20's who looked really sad and spoke super softly. He really spoke super quiet but after making him repeat himself a couple of times he said he and his wife was trying to get to florence and had run out of gas. Rachael gave him a dollar and I gave him $5. If gas prices weren't $2 a gallon that might have actually gotten them there. I don't really know if I believe them, but at least they were gone when I got out of the game store so maybe they actually did go and get gas.

Around that same area they is fairly often a guy who stands at the corner with a sign saying he needs help to get his heart medicine. A few weeks ago a younger guy was yelling at him from across the street with a sign that says "fake". On my way back I saw the younger guy on the streetcorner where the heart meds guy was, holding his own please help sign.

There really is no way to judge who really needs help, but I usually stop for the kids my age that are begging, just cause they are very non-threatening (in Eugene) and I feel bad for them. They are probably just runaways, but I'm not really cash strapped so a couple of bucks isn't going to kill me. Not everyone in the US is as fortunate as us in school or has jobs, so I try to help in small ways like that. Its scary sometimes though because a lot of places have homeless people with mental health problems who really out to be in a hospital somewhere, but they lose funding with budget cuts and are just set loose.

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Thursday, November 18, 2004

Error and trial
Whew, today is tiring. I've spend all day so far tryin gto get this machine to work right for me in lab today. I'm fairly new to it, so basically I've been trying to run it, then one thing doesn't work. I go get the guy who knows how to use it the most, then he fixes the one problem, I start working again and then another thing goes wrong and I try to figure it out, fail, and repeat. Its very frustrating to spend so much time on an instrument and essentially get no good data. AH, well nobody visiting here will probably ever use an HPLC so this probably isn't too interesting.

Thanks to HC for the feedback on the MP3 player. I'm still not really sure which one I should go for, there are a few trade-offs. Seems like iPod would be nice and easy to use, but the battery lifetime is kinda poor. Some of the other brands like iRiver have cool features and better batteries, but seem to cater to more of the computer nerd crowd. I sort of only have a functional knowledge of computers, so I'm good with the programs I know, but thats about it. Well maybe there will be some kinda crazy sale or I will run into mad money somehow and I can just blow $300 no problem (yeah right).

Anyway, I still have my trusty primitive CD player to listen to. I broke out the last Bloodhound gang album the other day for the first time in a while (Hooray for Boobies). Its such a good CD! Its pretty funny and ridiculously dirty, but really the most important thing is that the music is actually really good. They sort fo swing back and forth between genre's on the album, and have Weezer-esque straight up rock tunes, to metal, to electronica and a lot of rap/rhymes. Its a pretty long album too, so you get a lot out of it. There's a crack smoking Pac-man, phone conversations with Jimmy Pop's mom where he's asking for words that rhyme with vagina (Carolina?) and a whole bunch of little jokes between songs. Pretty much all of the songs on the album are better/funnier than the Bad touch, which might have been one of the only songs they could release without massive editing. Check them out, I think you can listen to a few songs on www.bloodhoundgang.com
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Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Well.....
I've been musing over the idea of getting a portable MP3 player, I listen to music almost exclusively on the way to and from school and such, and I'm getting tired of scrounging up my CD's from the car and whatever. That and I also really like silly little electronic toys in that stereotypical man sort of way. I might just buy it for my wife for christmas, then steal it for myself to go to school. Its not quite as bad as the bowlingball with Homer's name written on it.

Problem is that I'm not really knowing anything about them, which I feel pretty silly about. I did grow up with casette tapes and records though so I shouldn't feel to bad. My very first album was Pearl Jam's Ten, which I had on casette and probably came close to wearing out. I think I still have it in a box with my other tapes, probably next to Megadeth and GN'R.

Anyway, back to MP3's, I'm going to ask some stupid questions and hopefully y'all can help or at least point me in the right direction.

1. Can you just pop a CD into your computer and create MP3's to put in your player? Is there some sort of program that does this?

2. Anyone know of a good MP3 player or brand, or what do you have? I'm hoping ideally to have a player that is PC and Mac compatible on the fly.

3. Mommy, where do MP3's come from?

thanks all!
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Monday, November 15, 2004

pleh
Well after reading that issue of walking dead I had a weird zombie dream. It was kinda scary and kinda funny, but mostly I was suprised because the last time I can connect a dream to something I did before I went to bed was when I was playing waaay too much FF7 and had this weird videogame-ish dream.

Anyway, this one had me and a bunch of people going into a prison to try and find food or somewhere safe to stay. It was particularly weird because "Big Dane" who is the assecories guy at west coast customs (from pimp my ride on MTV) was there with me. We wnadered in and fought off a few zombies, but there were also zombie-crabs??? I don't really get it as to how I even knew the crabs were zombies. They sure were though and I had to protect my cat from them. Damn that was odd.

I've also been making some good progress on Shin Megami Tensei, I think I'm not too far off the end, things are definitely coming to a head. I tried to rent Mario Tennis this weekend but both places I went to were rented out. I got to play it in the store and decided that it would definitely be a fun rental, but not worth $50. I don't have enough videogamer friends anyway to play with to make it worthwhile.
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Friday, November 12, 2004

Look Down
Nobody has read Walking Dead yet? Where are all the comic nerds?

Anyway, since I'm still a fledgeling chemist, that will have to do for now with respect to getting my name in print. When I get me a publication on my research then things will really get going.
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