Where to being?
This Past Week’s Random (And Possibly Crazy) People That Have Annoyed Me/That I’ve Annoyed
For better or worse, I always have some sort of “encounter” at least once a day, so by the end of the week, it?s kind of a blur. But the two standouts have to be…
- While hanging out with Katie at Washington Square Park, some surly black guy came up to us, and asked me, in a totally pissed off tone: “Do you know me?!”
I replied, nice and calmly, “No.”
Just then, a police car passed near-by. He was clearly bit annoyed that I didn’t appear to be intimidated by his initial question, so the dude shot back with, while pointing towards the cops: “Do you know…. this?!?!”
Again, I answered without showing much care or concern: ‘Yes.”
And with a combination of both shock, anger, and disgust, the guy went, “And you can still fuckin’ sit there?!” He then stormed off into the night… If I’m not mistaken, he was wearing a fanny pack, like all insane crack-heads.
- While waiting in line to get tickets to Pan’s Labyrinth, MK & I were directly behind these two lame brained, skinny white NYU chicks that were buying their tickets. I noticed Zodiac was playing at the theater as well and mentioned to MK that I heard, at least from people I trusted, that the movie was an absolute retarded piece of shit, and that even diehard David Fincher fan shouldn’t waste their fucking time. Just then, one of the girls turned to me and went “THANKS FOR RUINING THE MOVIE!”
But the thing was, this was before she bought the tickets, so if I had indeed ruined the film, they could have saved her money or just got tickets to something else! Stupid bitches.
… I guess you could say that there is a third person from this week…
The Battle Over Firecrotch
So Jason and I have had Firecrotch.com for the past six or so years. It was the original home of JizzMoppa back during its debut… I believe the original plan was for the site to be the home for all sorts of wacky adult-ish games that we had ideas for, but that never panned out. We later decided to “relaunch” JizzMoppa and give him his own home. Meanwhile, Firecrotch just sat there…
Every once in a while, over the years, we’ve gotten offers to buy the domain from us. It is, after-all, a pretty fucking awesome name. And it easily lends it self to something porno-ish, hence why we scoffed at all the offers since they seemed to so paltry for something that has such potential.
Like this one dude that contacted us a few weeks back. He had noticed that we weren’t “doing much with it” and asked if he could buy it. We in turn asked for an offer, and what did he reply with? A measly $1,000. We had a feeling that it was too low, but this time we decided to check a few things and discovered that the market value for the name is actually $5,000, so we told him thanks for the offer, but we’d have to pass, though if he really wanted it, he now knew the price tag. The response? “$5,000 is too much for me. $1,100 and that is push it.”
I’m assuming he meant we were “pushing” it. And just an extra hundred bucks? WTF. And truth is, I’m pretty fucking poor right now, due to being unemployed for almost a month now, but that’s just way too low, and rather insulting to boot. So we said, sorry, but we’d wait for another offer, something closer to the $5,000 the name is valued at. He then countered with a new offer each week… $1,200. Then $1,250. Then $1,500. And each time he would state that he “needed” the name badly, and would try to convince us to be more negotiable by employing such brilliant negotiating tactics as “come on”.
Around this point, we decided to only sell the domain via a reseller, and that he would have to buy it through that, but he flat out refused to because “no smart person would” and then began passing along even more insults, like “Nobody is going to pay $5,000 for it. It isn’t worth that. If it was worth that somebody would have already offered it to you. Be realistic and make some money. Don’t be and nobody will ever buy it.”. Shortly after Jason mentioned how the domain costs next to nothing to own and by parking at the domain reseller we’ve already marked enough revenue off the test ads to cover the costs of extending ownership for two more years (so be sure to click that links folks!), and the guy barked back with “$2,500??? And that is REALLY REALLY PUSING IT!!!!1 What do you say? Seriously, that is pushing the MAX and beyond.”
Again, I could really use the money, but its the principle of it all. Anyway, I finally told the guy to fuck off this past Friday. If the dude “needs” it that bad, he’ll obviously have to pay (and if its for a porn site, which I’m assuming its for, then the game will obviously make five grand in no time flat. Sorry, if this isn’t a particularly exciting or juicy story, but I just love giving dumbshits a hard time. But anyway….
What Did He Say?
So yeah, finally saw Pan’s Labyrinth this past weekend. And the movie was pretty neat! Though that was to be expected… I guess there’s not too much left to be said; most folks have seen it already, and talked to death about it, by now. Great acting, special effects, story, directing, yada, yada, yada. I know lots of folks I personally know was turned off by the violence, but I thought everything worked together quite well, and the brutality of it all simply fit.
Oh, and Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day, and given that my girlfriend is Irish, I naturally had to spend the day in the Irish tradition of getting sloshed in some crowded pub, instead of locking myself at home like a lot of my friends opted to do (some folks I can understand, due to previous bad experiences, i.e. particularly nasty bar room brawls). We spent a few hours at a pub in Times Square with MK’s dad, uncle and cousin, who I find fascinating since not only is he a bouncer for hire (meaning club girls that go out on the town can hire him to be a personal bodyguard) but was once on the MTV/WWE reality show Tough Enough as a contestant, until he threw his duffle bag at Triple H or somebody, I forget. But really nice guy, as is the rest of the Reed Clan. MK’s dad treated me to some beers, and we ended up arguing over who hated people more; he felt that he had age on his side, but MK would later point out that I’m in contact with more people on a daily basis by virtue of living in the Big Apple. I also enjoyed watching him make fun of every person who walked in the bar with a funny hat. Though on a side note, I simply can’t wait for the next time I get to hang out with MK’s mom, at least now that I’ve discovered that she’s a budding ventriloquist….
Afterwards MK & I went to around the corner to Roseland to catch a special St. Patty’s day concert headlined by the Pogues. Mike told me that front-man Shane MacGowan would probably fall off the stage, but he didn’t! Though that was because he was in a wheelchair the whole time due to a nasty injury sustained when he fell off the stage in a recent show in Boston. I don’t think I understood a single thing that Shane said the entire night, nor did anyone else, not ever the band. And at certain points, he had to be wheeled back and a few of the other musicians took turns singing (with them you could at least understand the lyrics). And when he was on stage, he just smoked cigarets, took swigs of whiskey, and “sang”. Shane was the true epitome of what a rock star is all about. But yeah, the show was awesome! On a basic level, it was just nice to see a show with everyone in the audience was totally into the music. Mainly because the show was completely devoid of dumbfuck Willamsburg hipsters. Just young folks, and old, mostly Irish, and all drunk. The crowd up front was particularly amazing and insane, and put the douchebags in this vid to total shame.
… Have i mentioned before how much hate mail I get from that vid?Mostly for using the terms “punk” and “hardcore”. The thing is, I’m not making fun of all punk and hardcore people, just the lamebrains in the audience, as well as what is passed as such these days. Some get it, some don’t, and aside from rabid furries, I now have Blink 182 and Fall Out Boy fans wanting to kick my ass. Oy vey.
Game Related Gunk
- Haven’t had too much time to keep abreast of the news due to being so crazy busy. Though I will mention how Job text messaged me late Friday afternoon with: “NIGHTS WII CONFIRMED SEE GAF”. And that’s just what I did, and saw this. At the time, the thread was only four pages long, and everyone was still in shock and giddy with excitement. But now those the good feels have tapered off and cynicism has set in… Though I for one though it was simply an advert for Super Mario Galaxy when I first saw it. Though if NiGHTS was to appear on the system for the Virtual Console, I of course would be ecstatic, provided it was 100% exact of course, since that would mean other fine Saturn titles, such as Panzer Dragoon Saga (I still have my copy, but everyone needs to play that game), as well as…. wait for it…. Radiant Silvergun.
As for a possible NiGHTS sequel, which is what got everyone all hot and bothered… there used to be a point in which I simply salivated over the idea of one (primarily due to seeing the first stage in glorious high res via the special NiGHTS pinball board in Sonic Adventure 1), but that was before Yuji Naka and the rest of Sonic Team went completely down the shitter. Now, I’d rather let the past just rest in this instance.
- Something else that cause quite the ruckus on Friday afternoon wash the Penny Arcade: The Game trailer. Like everyone else, when I saw the 2D intro, I went “Holy shit, this game could be something amazing!” And previously, I had honestly not given the shit about the game. Bu when footage from the actual game kicked in, well….
To illustrate such an appalling degree of disparity, here’s a handy little example. Anyway, shortly afterwards, one of the dudes, Gabe I think, said that the 3D was early and that you really can’t judge the final game on what was shown, which is fine and all, but such excuses are both ironic and hallow after they just did this strip.
- Caught this at NeoGAF as well: Daytona USA 1, as well as other Model 2 games might finally be playable on a PC very soon. Though I’ll only be interested when its arcade perfect; its amazing how a fourteen year old arcade game still kicks the ass of a lot of what we see today.
- Via Select Button I believe comes this banned PSP commercial. And its pretty fucking terrible, but not unlike all the highly obnoxious Sony adverts we’ve seen recently. Hey, if they at least worked and got people buying the systems, that would be one thing, but as far as I can tell… they aren’t.
Note: tomorrow Sony will be in town and I’ll be checking out Lair, which is one of the few legitimately interesting looking PS3 games at the moment. I will also try to get a PS3! So maybe I shouldn’t say anything bad… Nah. My chances of getting a system are 0.000001% regardless. Still going to try though, so wish me luck!
- Also via SB comes this…
… which is apparently a promo for the upcoming Suda/Mikami/Kojima event taking place on April 14th called “Hopper’s”, just like the flyer says. I’ve now about a Suda/Kojima collaboration, Project S, but had no idea Mikami was involved. Interesting…
- As well as this…
… too bad the shadow is rather crappy. Otherwise, it?s a totally sweet pic.
- And here’s something just for Dave(Mauro) and Jeremiah (and maybe Joe Salina), that’s totally NSWF.
- As for what I’m playing, actually, and I know this is totally random, but I can’t stop playing Mario Kart DS for some reason. Also, I’m addicted to this game, but mostly because I find the stuff the stick figure guy says rather funny.
- Another bit of news: I am no longer with Insert Credit! And I just found this out on Friday; I’ve been meaning to post something there for a while, and when I finally found something that seemed like the perfect excuse to start doing so again, I tried doing so, but couldn’t! After a brief chat with the man in charge, Brandon Sheffield, I found out that he simply wanted to consolidate things and handle most of the updates himself. And considering I hadn’t updated in a while, it kinda makes sense that my privileges were quietly revoked. Though I initially stopped updating due to frustration; whenever I did an update, it would just sit in the que for sometimes days on end, till it became old news. But that was when he was really busy I would have to assume, and now that the IC seems to be his primary focus, its better than ever. Enough that I felt like being part of the fun again! But that’s just how it goes… so no hard feelings or sordid drama behind the move.
At least Brandon was nice enough to mention me when passing along the news item I had intended to post, which was the Lost in Blue 2 pre-order bonus.
- Brandon also recently posted an interesting tidbit regarding the Disney-fied version of Meteos. Its not by Q Entertainment, but by two different groups, one of which is kinda like Tose, in the sense that they’re just another no-name game dev that’s worked on (seemingly) a billion different games, including Virtua Fighter for the Master System/Game Gear, which I kid you not, is one of the few games I have to play before I die. Granted, I bet its probably very easy to locate the rom online, but I’m almost pretty lazy something. And Simon over at GameSetWatch just posted his own two cents regarding Meteos; Disney Magic, and he says it actually plays better with the change in the game mechanic! Well my copy arrives sometime this week (hopefully… one was actually sent last week, but it got lost in the mail), so I should be able to see for myself.
Its Coming
Also on the horizon, this upcoming weekend actually, is ICON 26. They finally got my stupid, and seriously outdated, head-shot up; unfortunately, its the only photo of me that I totally like… I actually would like it, if not for the leather jacket… I guess it was “cool” at the time. As for my schedule, that’s actually been posted at the forum for a little while now.
But more importantly is that I finally am able to play PSone games on my Mac! And that means I can finally do a review of Love Love 2 (or Love Love Truck, or Love 2 Truck, or whatever the fuck its actually called), which I’ve been talking about forever. Won’t be easy, since I can’t get the emulator (PCSX) to acknowledge my Dual Shock via the USB adaptor, meaning the game has to be played with a keyboard, which is a major pain… plus the game won’t go past the FMV intro four out of five times, though I blame that on being poorly complied in the first place… and the sound is all messed up, but I hear that’s the case regardless. The most important thing is that I can finally run the damn thing on my computer and take screenshots. Unfortunately, its going to have to wait since I not only have ICON coming up, but have seriously about a dozen other projects to work on, many of which are all due this week, but at least its finally on its way.
For those that have forgotten, Love Love 2 is that game in which you maneuver a mine cart, make sandwiches, and impress girls, all at the same time. Here’s just one screenshot to wet everyone’s appetite…
