Halo Reach, Buy It.

Four good friends, four controllers, one big television - and hours of alien carnage the likes of which haven't impressed me since the original Doom series.  Halo Reach's campaign is a candle beside the nuclear blast that is Firefight. Endless waves of alien bastards for your killing pleasure, with progressively harder waves and hundreds of user-defined variables, offer a sandbox of violence.


Halo ODST pioneered Halo's vision of a Firefight mode (something as old as gaming, despite what bungie would have us believe.), and Halo Reach gets it right. With specialized "loadouts", you can fight against the tide with SPARTAN's equipped with jet packs, special bubble shields that never run out, temporary but unlimited invulnerability, and other gear that offers an expansive experience that hasn't been matched in recent console first person shooters.

My one complaint (and its not really a complaint), is that after getting spoiled by ODST, I constantly find myself missing the seemingly endless barrage of grenades that I used to be able to through. New weapons, including a covenant multiple-grenade/missile launcher, and standard grenade-gun, make up for any decrease in 'nade power. If you haven't bought this game for yourself, click the amazon link above and do so now. One of the few modern video games I can get behind 100%.

Crockpot Cooking…

Or trying to. I purchased a small crockpot, hoping to capitalize on some nice recipes. However, I bought the crockpot  prior to purchasing stuff to actually make those recipes with. This resulted in some nifty bachelor logic that justified the concoction currently brewing in my kitchen.

1 can cream of chicken. 1 can whole potatoes. 1 can navy beans.

My belief was: None of those require intense heat (E.g. I won’t give myself food poisoning), and they all seem like they would go well together.

They’ve been in the pot for about two-hours, and I figure I’ll let them sit there on high for at least another two. In the interim, internet research has led to the following conclusions:

1. The potatoes will have been waaaaay overdone and will probably resemble mush.

2. The same with the beans.

3. Cream of chicken =/= Chicken broth.

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I’m just hoping that should the worst case scenario occur, that my sink can handle all that yellowy sludge simmering beneath the plastic lid.

New Years…

Is a ways off. However, I have always found that if you are serious about fulfilling “New Years Resolutions” (NYR), its best to start a few days in advance to work out the bugs and get into a routine.

Here are some of my goals for next semester, in order -

Bump my grades up a little.

Tack back on ten pounds of muscle that have been lost.

Get a job. (Still seeking… I must be well over a hundred applications by  now).

Land a new chick.

And here are the detailed plans for each:

#1, Grades:  Buy differentiated notebooks for each class, purchase a white-board to keep track of tests and exams (lost the one I used sophomore year). Attend class (some things are harder to do than others).

#2, Bodybuilding: Get my diet back on track, solve the various medical aliments that have cropped up this semester (hernia etc.). Establish a gym routine (probably just Starting Strength).

#3, Job: I suppose I’ll just keep plugging away on this one.

#4, Chick: This one is usually contingent on #2 and #3… If both of those fall through, it wont be worth the effort. Seriously, sex is wonderful, but (nice)guys tend to let women destroy their lives.

Happy Christmas. Merry Holidays.

My Descent Into Alcoholism…

Sorry, I still wouldn’t categorize myself as such. Although today, or rather, yesterday at precisely 5:30 pm I and several friends began chugging. Four movies later, and we’re still drinking. In fact, we may continue to drink until the party tonight. The problem  is beer.

At this particular stage in our lives, it is nigh impossible to get “to” drunk off of beer. And I would like to dedicate this post to broke college students everywhere, who in their youthful hubris, make the mistake of thinking a couple of cases will negate the need for hard liquor.

Let us prove once and for all (via questionable assumptions, and using today/tonight as an example), that you should never leave the tequila on the shelf at the store.

One handle of Jack: Thirty-five dollars. Split between four guys, and consumed within a reasonable time period (two-three hours), will leave us with liquor left over, and four passed out guests. But did we take that simple route? No.

Instead, TEN HOURS, three and a half cases of beer, cigarettes, B-movies, and Mcdonalds… have left us with nothing more than churning stomachs, crystal clear urine, headaches, and a general feeling of sickness.

An average of 2 beers an hour is simply not enough. Even doing our particular version of the simpson’s movie drinking game (Drink: Every time you see homer, any time there is a scene change involving homer, anytime homer is on the screen for more than fifteen seconds) at the start of the night, where beers disappear at shot-gunning speeds… it just wasn’t enough.

One of these days we will realize: you simply cannot substitute beer for liquor (but you can substitute ghetto-wine).

I assure you, our livers look forward to that day.

Inhale… Exhale… Just got an ounce in the mail.

My lack of posts should indicate just how content I’ve been with this new apartment lifestyle. Although a shortage of money has left me somewhat bereft of alcohol, entheogens and some cutting edge legal research chem. substances have helped pass the down time between sleep, parties, and the gym.

With an incoming class of freshmen arriving within the next two weeks, I feel it necessary to offer another public service announcement about drugs:

They. Are. Everywhere. 

And barring some of the synthetics (Heroin, Crack), they really aren’t going to ruin your son or daughter’s life. Unless your son or daughter is a complete idiot in how they pursue the acquisition and use of said substances – E.g. they get busted, shot, OD’d, or poisoned.

In such cases, I feel that the illegality of most substances is well warranted*:  If you’re not smart enough to do the drugs without getting wasted on the way, you have no business doing them. So keep up the ban on weed, meth, coke, X, salvia, DXM, opiates. If I want them, I can get them. And if it helps keep the dealer employed, and the local high-school kiddies away, all the better. Think of it as a further level of natural selection.*

 

So come along, take a hit from the bong!

*A comment below has made me realize that I didn't quite make clear my intent - which is that I am a proponent of age-related drug and alcohol laws (I have some posts that touch on this theme).  I do however feel that with the majority of "drugs" consumed (Esp. Marijuana, Mushrooms, Acid, Salvia, JWH, DXM, Mescaline, etc.) should be made legal to adults.

And efforts should be made by the government (in a perfect world) to inform the public as to the product, rather than propaganda aimed at motivating them to buy or reject (see cigarettes, which i have quit to save $). That is my current position on the subject, but flexibility of ideas is a must in this world.

Thanks for making me check this post after so many months! :)