What bugged me or amused me in the past month

Heh!
Funny, i was going to Futureshop to buy myself some new games for my freshly aquired Gameboy DS. Met some people from high school there. They asked me why i was there, i answered ''Just buying a couple of gameboy games''.
One of them started laughing, saying: ''That sounds like the activity a 23 years old man would do!
Then i asked him why he was there, and he answered proudly ''I'm buying a new computer!''.

Now. The real funny part is that, since i know the guy, i know he's buying a new PC for the purpose of playing games.
Is it really more mature to play higher-quality games, and spend more money doing so?
Yours to discuss.

I was in the business of shopping for a handheld a few weeks ago, because i live about 1 1/2 hours away from my girlfriend, if i take the bus and subway. With all that time lost doing nothing (reading on the bus gives me headaches) i thought that i could get a nice PSP or DS to amuse myself, and have some entertainment when i'm at my girlfriend's and she's studying.

Being unemployed, the price came as an important influence on my decision. Also the fact that my brother had a PSP a year ago and i didn't like playing on it, mainly due to the analog stick being kinda sloppy. And finally, i owned pretty much every game system and gameboy from Nintendo, since the NES.

As for the price, at Futureshop (where i shopped online) the DS was $140and the PSP was $200.
Go DS!
I went to the closest Futureshop, and they were all out of consoles. I found one in a GameBuzz shop for $125, and i bought Orcs & Elves for $25.

Not so bad, I'd say. I got a DS and a game and was still $50 under the PSP price!

Well, i finished that boring, uneventful and empty game in just under 6 hours.
And it's not fun enough to restart on hard, wich i did out of boredom. I thought i'd be playing something similar to the ultra-oldschool Eye of the Beholder wich captivated me and my friends for hours when i was 10!
No race selection, no class selection, no choice when you level up, 4 available spells. Wow.
Frustrated by the fact that my DS was sitting on my shelf for a full week, i looked around on the interweb, reading reviews and looking at screenshots for different games, so that i wouldn't be screwed again.

And of course upon arriving at the shop, i looked and re-looked at all the games, not knowing wich one i was going to pick, second-guessing my pre-made choices. And then i picked the ones i came in for.

Puzzle Quest - Challenge of the warlords (a sort of Bejeweled RPG) and
Geometry Wars Galaxies (Asteroids on acid),
and it came around $55 in total.

And i must say, i am utterly captivated by the first one, amused and challenged by the second one. I am quite happy with my two choices, been playing them endlessly for the past 2 weeks, exhausting my DS battery several times and ditching the much-loved Oblivion just to play some more.

Puzzle Quest can seem pretty boring if you just look at screenshots, but i decided to give it a chance since i play a lot of puzzle games on the internet. Needless to repeat, i am now completely addicted. This game is captivating (and somehow repetitive), fun and even pretty hard at some points. Like a true RPG, sometimes it's best to just give up on a boss for a little while, and go around to train a little. This games makes it easy for such battles and grinding, since you can do instant battles instead of the story mode, and you still get to keep the gained XP and Money.
I must say though, that people around me now seem to think i am losing my mind. I have often said that i hate machines, and that they are plotting against me, especially the X-box.
Well, this game is outright cheating, right in my face! It seems to be especially lucky at getting good combos and such.

Geometry Wars is completely challenging and addictive. A little game of several levels, each more ridiculous and hard than the previous one. The controls are intuitive and easy, and i'd estimate my learning curve for them at about 12 minutes hehe. You control a little jet just like in Asteroid, and are put in some levels like squares or stars. Waves, and waves, and waves of enemies shaped in different geometric forms attack you or just fly around, each has its own way of acting. You also have a little robot that flies around following you, and with the money made killing enemies, you can buy new behaviors for him, like one that shoots behind you while you move forward, or one that just circles around you, smashing enemies that come too close. This little robot can also gain XP and evolve, becoming more effective.
You have to earn Bronze, Silver or Gold medals on each level wich gives it a good replay value.
The only downsize so far is that the game can become very slow sometimes, since the screen is packed with so much details. These details also get very confusing sometimes and that instant of confusion on your part results in your frustrating death.
Also, now my thumbs hurt a lot hahaha.


On another note, what the fuck's up with all the cops in the subway stations of Montréal!

Let me elaborate.

The bus passes and fares have been steadily going up at least a quarter a year for the past few years. When i arrived in Montréal, taking the bus was $1,25. 7 years later, it costs me $2,75!
A student bus pass is now $36 (can't remember what it used to be) and for regular adults it's $65. So, like a lot of people, i go to the pharmacy and i buy the student pass, even if i'm not a school. The clerks don't demand the special Bus Student I.D.
The thing is, a lot of people buy the student pass now, and the bus company is losing a lot of money, i guess.
To counteract this, at rush hours, cops with a very serious expression are standing around, looking at your card when you use it. If you get caught using a student card and you look suspicious, they ask for the student I.D. pass. If you don't have it, it's a good $200 fine.

How nice of the cops to be catching all these criminals! I truly feel safe now that i know they are in subway stations instead of on patrol!

Putting the mix back in COMICS!

Hey!

Here's my first official blog for blogger.com.
By that, i mean that all the previous posts were copy-pasted from my Myspace blog.
Don't laugh!

Anyways.

I have been stricken with insomnia and unemployment for almost 2 months now, and as any person with half a brain might expect, i have lots and lots of time to think about everything and nothing.

Also, an unclean amount of free time to browse the intamaweb, re-re-read all my favorite comics, re-play video games, and complain about lots of shit.

All of this, gives me material to write on this here blog. So, without further delay, here's what i came here to ''talk'' about.

FIRST!
Does anybody still enjoy reading comics, or do they buy them so that they can bitch about everything in it with their online forumial community?
I have been browsing several forums lately, and geeeeeez is there a lot of people unhappy with the current state of comics!
If you don't like today's comics, just buy back issues already!

I, for instance, am not very difficult with comics. Maybe because i like them. Maybe because i LOVE them. Maybe because i don't stop every page to think about what makes sense and not, or how i would have handled the development of the story.

I just take it like it is.

Don't get me wrong, i don't like everything about every comic i read. There's some stuff that i don't like, and some comics that let me down. When that happens, i don't get the title anymore.

But i am a big believer of second chance.

Wich is why i am going to give Spider-Man's ''A Brand New Day'' a try.

I understand why a lot of people would be angry about this. Totally erasing Spidey's continuity of the past... what, 20 years?
But let's be honest, most of it was not very memorable anyways. What i am a little bit frustrated about is Spidey's idendity is secret once again. I thought that this turn in Civil War was cool, and giving the character a brand new direction.

What i think is really funny is that, a lot of people online that have been bitching about ''Brand New Day'' are the same that have been bitching about any Spidey change for the past 2-3 years since i've read their posts. Why are you pissed? It's back to BEFORE they made all the changes that you hate so much!

A little bit about DC now.
I am just now starting to read DC comics, being somewhat of a marvel zombie and marvel fan since as long as i can remember.
Black Adam is what sucked me in, and now i like to read the classic Batmans and Booster Gold.
I am looking forward to all the villain-related issues they will release soon enough.
But what i really want to say is that, i bow to DC.
I bow to them, for creating such a hype about their COUNTDOWN series.
And i bow to them because their idea is so stupid, it's genius.

Invert the issue numbers.
I mean, instead of going 1-2-3-4, the issues go 4-3-2-1.
Undoubtedly creating a sense of urgency and importance.
Genius.



Well, this lack of sleep and brain activity is really imparing my ability to formulate sentences based on thoughts inhabiting my brain.
I think it's time for me to stop this blog.

Hopefully someone somewhere understood something.