Relaxin'

Mini Vacation Day 0.5

Woke up at 4:30am to a cat screaming outside the window.
Eventually it shut up, I rolled over and slept until 9ish.

Read some comics. The new Dead@17 series is great. The move to Image comics was the right thing to do. Josh Howard's art has never looked better. The story is merging his universes together. I can't wait for the next issue. Great start to the mini vacation.

Got washed and dressed and headed out to meet Mom and my brother for lunch at the Hollywood Diner. Had a chicken spinach salad with huge chunks of feta cheese. Amazing.

Drove across the street to Frankenstein comics. They didn't have what I was looking for, but I need to save money for Wizardworld anyway so, yay I guess.

Did some food and hh supply shopping I needed to get done. Bought a new toothbrush. I shouldn't be as excited about that as I am.

I picked up the new Ghostbusters Game for the xbox. It's fun. I love that the original guys are doing the voices and the writing. It feels just as fun as the movies and cartoon. Definite buy for anyone thinking about it.

I've got about 2 hours before I head to see Sick of it All and three other hardcore bands in Philly. I haven't prepared for Wizard World yet, but that starts at noon tomorrow. That means lunches at Reading Terminal and Termini's(sp?) cannoli.

Expect pictures. Not of Sick of it All, because I know better than to bring a camera to a mosh pit.

Fuck You McAfee...

I did it. I killed him.
He was an ass. Very much full of himself, McAfee, I'm glad your gone.

I finally got around to uninstalling McAfee. I only used it because Comcast gives you a free subscription for the life of your service. Like most of Comcast's services, the hidden costs hurt.

It took me an extra 10min easy to start my computer. Oh, everything was up and loaded, but McAfee's virus updates used all the system resources. It was a fucking hog. You couldn't do anything until it was done.

It also used up 150mb of memory. That's insane.

I installed avast home, which I've been using on other pcs for years, and laughed as I removed McAfee. I might have even gotten aroused.

My Favorite Game...

My favorite game.
Good question.

Bioshock is an amazing game. The steam punk environment and objectivism themes are awesome, but it isn't my favorite. Close.

My favorite game of all time is Activision's 1984 classic H.E.R.O.
I originally played it on the Commodore 64. Now I play it more on the Atari2600 (no commodore).

Amazingly enough the gameplay is the same between the systems. The only difference is the graphics. You control Roderick Hero aka R. Hero. Miners are trapped and you need to save them. You don your helicopter backpack, dynamite and laser and head to the rescue. You need to dodge spiders and bats and blow up walls. Watch out for the magma and radioactive ore.

Too this day, I still haven't beat the game. I just installed a Commodore emulator on my psp, it's time to save the last miner and let R. Hero rest.

Retro Gaming...

I've regressed. I've become a retro-gamer. It happened slowly. I decided to look for an Atari. At first it was a 4-switch Atari from Amy. No controllers, no ac adapter... just the base unit and a couple of games. Trolling craigslist, I found a boxed 6-switch with 12 complete in box(CIB) games. I picked up a rf-adapter from Radio Shack, hooked it up to my HDtv and it was like I had my first shot of heroin. It was amazing. I traveled back in time. I was 8 years old again, sitting in front of my tv in my footy pajamas bouncing up and down trying to get a high score. Dodging blocky bad guys, shooting aliens in Space Invaders, protecting cities in Missile Command, kicking ass and taking names.

I was hooked. I slowly amased more games, more controllers, more systems(for the most part at a yard sale you need to by the system to get the games). The HDtv has too nice a picture. I finally setup my office. Half the office became a game room. I need to replace the newer old tv with a much older one, but it's not bad for right now.

I picked up a Genesis and a Nintendo at various sales. My poor xbox360 has barely been played since I beat Bioshock(Ghostbusters comes out later this month, so I'll blow the dust off).

The games are just so much fun. Today's games seem to focus more on flash then substance. Brighter and more realistic graphics takes precedence over gameplay. A game can look amazing, but repetative shitty gameplay doesn't make for a classic.

Now to find a MIB copy of Legend of Zelda and Maniac Mansion.