Beer Burgers

A brief list of things I have actually done in real life: (the purpose of this is to set down my awesomeness on the internet so that if anyone ever wonders if I am awesome or not, the answer will be easily available to them (the answer is yes) end parenthesis) unnecessary semicolon; anyway here is the list, you tell me if I am awesome or not:
1. Brought my Mom on a visit to C-Squat

2. Drank beer with a spy in a bar full of poisonous snakes in Cambodia

3. Made out with three chicks at once

4. Flew a helicopter inside a volcano

It’s been a while since I’ve had the technology and the time to play a video game that could be remotely considered current, so I have been reveling in the opportunity to play Bioshock on my XBOX 360 this week. It’s a fun game, and it deals with some themes that are kind of favorites of mine, the failure of great ideas, the limits of modernism, the inevitable collapse of idealism in the face of grim reality (even if said includes genetically altered mutants shooting lightening out of their fingers).

And Bioshock is being hailed across the internet as a great game. As with every product that comes out now, there are two groups of people, those who believe that this is the product that will finally bring them happiness, the final fruition of Capitalism, the Ultimate Thing (you know, like the iPhone was the day before yesterday), and those who firmly believe that the product is terrible, a revolting pile of rancid feces foisted on an unsuspecting public by a company which exists purely to murder babies and conduct unnecessary surgery on a puppy named Mr Sparkles.
This brings us to the following, a hilarious, very negative review of Bioshock by a guy who calls himself Zero Punctuation. If you don’t watch it, you won’t get the next thing I am going to talk about. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

So that was pretty funny, right? Sure, it was. However, there is one nit I have to pick. Bioshock is not Steampunk. It does not take place in the 1890’s, and steam is not the dominant technology. There is no reason to get any panties in a bunch about anything steam-powered because THE GAME TAKES PLACE IN THE 1950′S. In fact, it takes place in 1959, only ten years before the moon landing. Here is a brief list of things that existed in 1959:

Cars

Televisions

Nuclear Weapons

Computers

Airplanes

My point is this: Bioshock is Science Fiction, like Alfred Bester and Robert Heinlein. It’s not Steampunk. Somehow a few brass fittings and old-style diving suits gave this guy the impression that it was “ye olden days,” and he ended up seventy years off the mark (notwithstanding the giant “Happy New Year 1959″ sign in the first level. Now that’s not a big deal, I’m just saying if you’re going to suspend disbelief to the point where you can accept a giant city under water, why get upset over a gun turret that is just a few generations of existing technology ahead of its time.

I am constantly baffled by the richness and fullness of the lives of people around me. I work my ass off just to retain a basic level of competence and productivity at work, a reasonable level of physical fitness, and a home that is clean, organized, and pleasant to be in. I consider these things to be the bare essentials of a life worth living, and they take pretty much all my energy to achieve. If I have time to play a video game or read a book, or drink a beer with a friend every couple of days, I consider myself exceptionally lucky. So that’s how I live, and like most things in life, it’s fine until you see someone who has something better. I have friends who take dancing lessons, go to Jazz clubs, learn to cook complicated foods, learn second languages, surf, and who knows what all. Now I can cook a delicious chicken soup, and I SCUBA dive like it’s cool, but I’m starting to feel like I’m a failure as a man if I’m not a salsa-dancing sushi chef who can do a brake job while cracking wise in Tagalog. Is self-improvement even a reasonable goal when you’re always conscious that some asshole is going to be a thousand times better than you? I suppose the only thing to do is keep working at it every day, as lame as that sounds. I know I’m a lot better now, by any reasonable standard, than I was this time last year. Will I be this much better next year? Now that’s something to aim for.

I made a Flickr

Also, if you click this link here you can see what pictures people are uploading and where in real time.

I guess I don’t take blogging very seriously any more.

Well, what can I say? It’s been a busy six months? I’ve been trapped in a mineshaft? I’ve been kidnapped by ninjas? Well all of that is more or less true, and I can’t promise there won’t be another six months of nothing, but for now, I’ve got a little something for you all.

It’s Adventure Time:

1. Grill Meat, using fire.

2. Eat meat.

3. Stand way too close to fireworks.

4. Attempt to win drinking contest in which you are not techinically participating.

5. Hold field-expedient rave in the hallway using absurdly poor beat-boxing skills and lightswitches.

6. Describe a roman candle as “like the penis of being made of pure energy that has evolved beyond the need for a body but not beyond the need for a penis.”

Happy Independence Day, motherbitches! Go get drunk and set some stuff on fire!

Also, you need to watch this video, or else you hate America.

Hey kids, how about instead of an entry, I give you another youtube link like every other blog in the universe?

I just love that record-scratch sound effect.

And speaking of which, here is the clip that got me started on this whole youtube thing: Shining!

And finally, watch my drunken hero and godfather of Portal of Evil, K Thor, rock the shit on horrifically embarrasing television disaster Blind Date. Holy hell that made my week. Rollin’ with the dirt dog!

And if you’re disappointed with the quality of this entry, here is a page of Batman Onomotopeia in Spanish, and you can take that to the bank.

Happiness is explaining to your incredibly annoying and often uptight boss (father of various young daughters) that the punchline of the joke powerpoint slide he just missed was “Two in the pink, one in the stink.”

Watching his expression switch from anticipation of getting the joke to severe, disgusted, displeasure was like watching the sun rise over the Rockies.

If you have ever found yourself sitting in a shack in the middle of a huge grass field in the Florida panhandle waiting for your turn to fly a helicopter around the pattern for an hour and a half, you might have discovered that the TV in the waiting area only gets one channel, and, if it was between nine am and noon, you might have found youself watching “Martha Stewart Living” out of sheer, desperate, eye-gouging boredom. I can’t imagine why anyone who has never found themself in that situation would be familiar with this particular television show. However, if you have ever watched the show, you wil probably find this completely awesome. Give it a few minutes to get going. It gets really, really good.

Martha Stewart’s most awesome guest ever.

While discussing the next scheduled Nuclear, Biological and Chemical training event (known as the gas chamber), the following exchange took place:

Co-worker #1: The last gas chamber was pretty good. They got everyone in and out of there in like three hours.

Co-worker #2 (sarcastically): Yeah, it was so good, I’m thinking of bringing my family to the next one.

Me: You know, I’d bring my family to the next one, but they have this wierd thing about gas chambers.

Sudden Horrified Silence: . . .

Well I thought it was funny.