Back again after another exhausting couple of weeks playing Civ III compulsively… I am tempted to write a “History of MyRule” post describing my favorite tribes and techniques for computerized ass whomping and “nation building,” but I really doubt it would be very interesting for anyone besides me. This game really is addictive to the point where I am reminded of these stop smoking commercials… I don’t know if they are just in the U.S. but these people get up in the morning and pour coffee on the floor and crack eggs right onto the burner, etc. They have no idea what to do with themselves or how to start the day without a cigarette in their hand. That’s me turning on my computer and just staring at the screen. “Now what?” The mouse pointer automatically heads toward Start -> programs -> infogrames interactive-> civilizations III but I stop myself before I click “Play Civilizations III.” One day at a time.

As I have gradually weened myself off of the intoxicating mix of fake power and fake violence though, the majority of my time recently has been taken up by my work with dogs. First, I created a new website for the boarding facility where I work (using wordpress so that it looks eerily similar to this page) and have been doing some pretty regular posts on our “Dog Blog.” Next, I cut back my hours there and started volunteering at the Humane Society as a Kennel Assistant and trainer for unadoptable dogs. Finally, I have been doing this online correspondence course with Penn Foster to earn some sort of dog trainer’s certificate. I need to change my avatar now, because I am really starting to think that Cesar Millan is kind of full of shit, but the Monks of New Skete are not nearly as recognizable and I don’t think Brother Stavros’ headshot is very becoming…

Zeus still has a problem with jumping over the fence and running out in the street to greet people that walk by our house, and I highly doubt that the basic obedience class that we are halfway through will help that at all, but it’s a process. We’ll get there. Kudos on the cat posts, it’s a step in the right direction. But seriously, to all cat owners world wide: Grow a pair and get a dog!

Too true. To a lot of people, there’s no more iconic role for Mel Gibson that lunatic suicidal Vietnam vet cop Martin Riggs. And why not? If that’s not your bag, theres always the wise-cracking, goofy…almost Jim Carrey with a gun Riggs of the later Lethal Weapon movies. Different strokes for different folks.

That’s why I smiled when I found Lethal Weapon in the local pawn shop today. A lot of good cheap finds today in fact. I found Cheech and Chong’s Up In Smoke, Police Academy, and National Lampoon’s Vacation, all for about $20 total. Regardless, we just watched Lethal Weapon.

The original 1987 Lethal Weapon movie is the absolute pinnacle of the Buddy Cop genre of movies. Sure, 48 Hours was first, by five years or so, but Lethal Weapon was better in my view. Was this a good thing, though? I really like the first one. I like the second one just slightly less. It goes down from there. Maybe I’m in the minority, but the likelihood of me disliking a Lethal Weapon movie is directly proportional to how cluttered the poster is. I don’t have anything against Joe Pesci or Rene Russo or Chris Rock or Jet Lei, really. But all these people aren’t adding to the movies.

The film itself still holds up pretty good. As mentioned above though, the scene where (does a 21 year old movie need a SPOILER ALERT?) the cops just let Riggs and Gary Busey beat the shit out of each other doesn’t make any damn sense. Would have loved to read the paperwork they filed on it afterwards. “Perpetrator was killed while in police custody when he was able to steal a pistol from Officer Jenkins, after being savagely beaten by Sgt. Riggs in a UFC-style pit fight in a ring a cheering officers. Jenkins file has been requested by Internal Affairs. Sgt. Riggs has been promoted to Pope.”

On the DVD there was also the theatrical trailer, which is like grounding 1987 into a fine powder and snorting it until your nostril is caked with blood. Take a look-

Trailer Hitch.

Do you feel old? I feel old.

If you’re interested, the title here means nothing. It’s just a hilarious turn of phrase that I read recently, and thought I’d share. Here’s some news and reviews-

Mario Kart Wii-

At once, this is the most fun and most frustrating game I’ve played recently. As opposed to previous Mario Kart games, this one has 12 racers instead of 8, and a bunch of new items, so the action is frenetic and chaotic. It’s hard to hold onto first place, but at the same time, it’s not too hard to make a come back from 9th or 10th place.

The controls with the Wii Wheel are great. It’s a little awkward at first, but you get used to it pretty quick. I imagine I would have a hard time going back to a standard controller now, actually. I did find it odd, however, that EB Games here wasn’t selling extra wheels. That seems kind of weird, but maybe they just sold out.

The new courses are well designed, and the online options are really fun.

Overall, I would say that this is only the second absolutely must-have Wii game, after Mario Galaxy. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of other good games, but these two are the absolute peak so far (according to reviews and word of mouth, Metroid Prime 3 is another, but I haven’t played it yet).

Speaking of the Wii, Nintendo recently launched the Wii Ware programs, which are downloadable games designed specifically for the Wii. There’s a handful of them right now, with a Final Fantasy game and a couple of others. They look interesting, I’ll let you know about quality after I try a few.

We went to see Iron Man the other night, and I give it a thumbs up. Robert Downey Jr. is pitch perfect casting for the role of eventual-alcoholic Tony Stark. He’s an ass, but you can’t help but like him. Also, I was surprised at what a convincing villain Jeff Bridges (yes, The Dude from Big Lebowski) made. The bald head helped, I’m sure. The movie itself is a lot of fun. It’s not as mind-blowing and intense as Batman Begins, but it’s not really trying to be. Here’s hoping that this new wave of Marvel comics movies can clean up the mess left by some of the shittier Fox productions like Fantastic Four and Hulk. Speaking of which, actually, the new Hulk movie looks pretty cool as well.

My copy of the soundtrack to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls finally came in, and it’s actually better than I remember it. I really dig the songs on this album. Here’s a clip from the movie with one of the better songs finishing it up.

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See you soon kids.

So I woke up this morning at 6am and prompty said “screw that” and fell back asleep; then woke up at 7:30; then woke up at 9:30 and said “yeah that’s about right.” I was having two dreams throughout, though, one evil and one awesome. The awesome one I’m actually going to use as inspiration for a storyline for some comics so I won’t put them here. But the evil one!

This dream was a bit of a recurring one, I’ve had it before almost identical, maybe 4 or 5 times in the last 10 years. Me and a few others (barely any interaction don’t remember who) go to ‘investigate’ a haunted house. It’s a fairly modern house, definitely not rustic victorian, but it has a gloomy basement with dirt floor (and really high ceiling down there so going up the rickety stairs takes forever), modern locks, no creaky floors, etc…

Now when you show up at the house there’s a note on the front door, a nice form that says “these people will die:” and a bunch of blanks. And a policeman shows up to aid in the investigation about halfway through the dream and as a joke he writes his first name down. Then he gets a little nervous and crosses it out with a scribble. About 5 minutes later he dies; but first we see him in the mirror and his face is all covered in creepy white makeup kinda a cross between KISS and death, and just before he dies me and another person see him without the mirror in same makeup.

I seem to have this ability, I can see people’s shadows get slashed up and get all Misty, then a few seconds later the person gets slashed up the same way (the mist being blood spraying out about them) by an unseen force.

There’s a pressure of time in there somewhere, I don’t remember why, but we have to figure out how to stop the house from killing before XYZ time otherwise we’ll all die.

Through the course of the dream my teammates start dying too, I find them hung in the closets or slashed up (I usually see their shadow through a doorway into another room getting slashed up, and I run in to see them looking at me going “what you looking so panicked about? ABALALALLLAHGUGUGHGhhhhhhhhhh”

There’s rooms I’d walk into and hear weird moaning and see flickers of ghosts but usually I just panick and run away, and when I go back with backup it’s gone.

The kinda trippy part is going down to the basement though. Imagine giant, cavernous basment (1/2 km per side?); has some gloomy lights so you can make everything out faintly. Only structure are the walls (So far in the distance can’t really see) and one flight of stairs, rickety wooden style, about 6 stories tall, right in the middle with light streaming down from the house above through the particles suspended in the air. Long steady shot; me walking down the steps slowly, it’s really creepy if not amazing cinematography. Go brain!

The corner of the basement is a ‘dig’ of some kind, evidence or archeological, lots of fancy floodlights pointed at the ground. This is where it gets kinda trippy. As I walk into the area, I’m suddenly hit with a historical flashback, where I see what happened here long long ago. Turns out were on some alien planet that has been long colonized (?? I’m sure the dream starts off in 1995 earth), and this spot was one of the first human landing sites. I watch as three astronauts all suited up are dicking with some instruments when the charismatic guy (looks like stereotypical captain but I’m not sure) ends up cutting the air hoses to the other dude and girl’s helmet. I think girl was his and other dude was stealing her away? Anyway he was right pissed. But the girl was something special or something and cursed him pretty hardcore.

Anyway then I snap out of flashback thing and I notice a little key on a chain in the dirt where chicky died, so I grab that and rush back up the stairs because now for some reason I “know how to solve this” but I have no idea why. I hold the key up to the ceiling in the house halways and I start seeing some glass bubbles show up (cloaked or something?(??)) containing cameras behind darkened glass. I start smashing them, then a computerized SAL-voice chirps in threatening me (in spacesuit womans voice! ghost in the machine!) and the house starts shaking a bit.

Now that whole robotic-ai-gone-mad thing is a new angle but I’ve been playing SpaceShip13 recently so it’s a new addition to this recurring dream.

Normally I end up at the giant oak doors to the big fancy study, which is solidly locked. The door won’t open for me but I slide in the key and then I wake up. HOWEVER, this time is different!

This time I slide in the key and the lock clicks, I pull open the door… And I swear I think my brain dreamed up this whole reality to end at that point, and I divided by zero or something when I opened that door. Because as soon as I opened it, it turned out it wasn’t the study at all, but the front door! and just down the three cement steps was the drab green jeep from the Indiana Jones 4 trailor I saw not too long ago, complete with ring of soliders holding guns pointed right at me. They ask me to get into the car rather politely.

I hop in and the guy with the glasses that melts in Lost Ark is in there, and he is asking me all sorts of questions. The jeep ends up in a barn at the other side of town, and I’m sure he’s going to kill me and toss me out, but thank god I wake up.

Any dream that ends with me being Harrison Ford is a dream to behold. Maybe it will happen someday?

Funny story: back in the summer of 2006, I was in training for XM radio retention at a call centre, and a few of the higher ups came in to talk to us. The talk was suspiciously informal and it quickly became apparent, that they were looking for people who had potential to become management types. This was obvious to everyone else too, since they all answered the question “where do you see yourself in two years?” with variations on “I’d like to move up the company and get to work with you guys, cause I’m willing to do anything, anything (winks for emphasis) to get paid more than the $8/hr I’m making right now.” As for me, I had neglected to tell them that I was going back to university in September anyway, so I had no interest in blowing smoke up their asses or performing any sort of professionally political verbal fellatio. “Hmmmmm,” I said taking a good long time to formulate my answer. “In the next two years, I would like to be a cat owner.” My co-workers laughed, as did my immediate supervisor, though she choked it back when the higher ups looked at her.

Here we are two years later, and not only do I own a cat, but I’m not working in a goddamn call centre. I love it when a plan comes together.

Paul is adapting nicely to his new environment, here in our decent little apartment conveniently above flood level in Fredericton. He adapted quickly, to be sure; he’s never had a potty accident, and he has yet to really cause any major damage around here. He seems like he almost knows his name, and responds well to simple commands like “no,” or “stop” or the more colorful “don’t bite you little shithead!”

He’s also in quite good health, says our vet. He even put up with our giving him worm medicine (standard practice with a kitten, apparently, they’re all born with some amount of worms). He didn’t like it when we gave him the medicine, but on the other hand, he didn’t throw a massive fit either. He just dealt with it.

My biggest concern is cords. We’ve got an electrical current running through the cords for the Wii, the PS2, two computers, the stereo, the amplifier, the record player, the TV and whatever else at any given time. He doesn’t seem to have much interest in the computer cords, but he has been chewing on some other cords. Sometimes, a “NO!” is enough to get him off them. Other times, it takes a loud clap accompanied by a “no!” In a worst case scenario, he gets the spray bottle, which will inevitably drive him to sulk off in the closet where his food and litter box are.

He seems to be enjoying himself though. Luckily, he’s a huge fan of little felt mice and a tiny kitty tent that we got at the Dollar Store. He’s been slowly destroying the tent, and we’ll have to replace it at some point, but for a few bucks a pop, who cares? Also, he’s just recently noticed that if he get’s up on the sill, there’s a whole world outside the window. It seems to catch him completely off guard, as he’ll just drop whatever he’s doing and stare out the window when he notices it.

I just called him and he came. That’s a good sign, I think. Lindsay hopes she can teach him some tricks. We’ll see how that turns out.

I’ve got a number of ideas backlogged for blitzes, but in case you haven’t heard, we’ve had some minor issues here in the ol’ New Brunswick capital.

So, I’ve been busy working with the effort to combat the most dangerous game of all: nature. And today, I would have time to write something, but for one small detail.

This is Paul Peterman, scientifically proven to be the cutest kitten in the world. When a time comes that you have to choose between the Blitz and looking at pieces of houses floating down a bloated and swollen river on a sunny day while petting a surprisingly sociable six week old kitten, the choice is obvious.

Oh, and Mario Kart Wii is also providing a distraction. Review forthcoming.