Bioshock 2 Hype!!!!2222!!!!

For serious, when this game comes out i'm going to piss all over the inside of my jeans.

No.......you're a towel.

If waiting was a spectator sport, watching me would be like watching the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA finals. Heart at the start, holding tight, maintaining little battler status against all odds, back to the wall and then by the end, a bumbling fucking mess. Failure in the face of overwhelming odds dictated by myself and a passion for being impatient. It's like war, there are no winners in waiting, only waiters, and you know what a waiter does? He stands there and waits until he is useful and when the time comes, he hates you for making him wait so long even though it's not only the title of his position, but also the definition of his occupation.

I could never be a waiter but right now i may as well be doing work experience for a spot at that turbo lame 360 revolving restaurant in the city. Who goes to a restaurant to revolve anyway? If i go to a restaurant, i eat. I don't want to pay extra so i can spin around and see how barren my hometown is.

It's been almost two weeks now since i sent my xbox 360 to god knows where it goes to get fixed and i am at the end of wit lane in patience town. I've learned a-lot in that almost two weeks and it's gotten to the point where it's not even about the xbox anymore. It's deeper than that. I feel like i've grown spiritually and i've learned something that i secretly knew i always knew all along.

I absolutely HATE waiting.

I am impatient. I want everything now and i will complain from a proposal's inception to it's conclusion because A) it keeps me occupied in between and B) i seriously don't know any better. This is a problem because it seems that waiting is going to be a part of my life forever. Here are some examples of times where i've had to wait and have nearly doored myself to deal with it.

* Waiting for someone to get out of the car when i'm already out of it.

* Waiting for a McDonald's order to be processed. Specifically the time between the announcement of the last item to the employees announcement of the cost so i can drive to the window. I feel impolite if i drive through before the price has been announced which sucks because i'd choose being polite and waiting that excrutiating extra second over being impolite and being at the first window quicker.

* Waiting for people at the ATM. Adults especially. This morning for example, I had a girl turn around to me twice whilst i waited for her to make a withdrawl because she couldn't figure out the difference between a cash transaction and the resulting balance display on screen or in paper form. The first time i was ok with it because she looked like an idiot but the second time i just looked away until she stopped talking. Had she done it a third time, i probably would have jammed one of her fingers into the cash dispenser and read her balance without permission.

* Lifts. I would donate half my weekly wage every week if it meant i didn't have to deal with Mr. stinky breath and Ms. Congeinality inside that metal cube for more than one second at a time. I once tried to say something on a lift to break the ice and everyone sshhh'd me and pointed to a sign that said "Don't talk on the lift, it's meant to be awkward".

* Old people making decisions on the road. If you've been alive for five times as long as i have you have two options. Be five times better than me at driving and any decision making required as a result of said driving or don't even look at a car unless it's on a television screen from the safety of that chair you always like to sit on.

* My xbox 360. Don't get me started. Actually, aside from the whole increase in social productivity, something good has come from not having an xbox. Health? Nah. Less headaches? Not even close. Increased efficiency at everything? Yeah, but that's a given at any given point in my life.
No. I'm talking about something so mindblowing that i almost banned myself from enjoying it because i didn't enjoy it when it was first introduced to me. Namely, Dragon Quest 8.
When i tell people that i'm playing a game called Dragon Quest 8 their initial reaction is to never hang out with me again. However, while i'm chasing them down the street and telling them all about the game and how much of a shame it is that it signalled the death of the Playstation 2, they want to be friends with me again. It's seriously that good.
Here's a picture:

"But, guy who writes this blog, how can you handle such an awesome looking game and all the quests that lay within it?" i hear you collectively enquire.

It's simple, i just can.

I mean, sometimes it gets difficult coming to terms with the quality of the fully orchestrated soundtrack and the gentle but challenging learning curve and the absolutely gorgeous cel-shaded graphics all at the same time but when you've become an expert at waiting for your xbox 360 and your laptop to be fixed and returned to you, anything's possible. I've totally forgotten the point i was trying to make in this post as well. It was going to eventuate to the systematic break down of a huge conspiracy theory and something about waiting but i don't even care about that anymore. I'm going to play Dragon Quest 8 and virtually wait for some virtual monsters to battle because it's marginally more exciting than waiting for anything in real life.

Like the deserts miss the rain.

Things i've done without my xbox since it broke.

• Turned it on and prayed that it will magically work again about 8000 times.
• Sat there and given it 'the eye'.
• Shaken it like a disgruntled boyfriend does his incompetent girlfriend.
• Slapped it around like a suspicious girlfriend does her slimy boyfriend.
• Accidentally judo chopped my front door open while the neighbours were watching. They already hate me so it doesn't matter. I don't know why they hate me either, if they can't say good morning loud enough for me not to ignore them that's their fault.
• Almost called Microsoft about having it repaired.
• Sparked numerous conversations with complete strangers about their core hardware failures and how they dealt with it.
• Attempted to watch commercial television. It isn't that bad once you switch the television off.
• Attempted to build a new xbox out of an empty drawer and the insides of an old mobile phone.
• Attacked people in the street for no reason, always ending the attack with "Ooohhh, sorry i don't have a working xbox 360 you fucking show off!"
• Held minute long conversations with friends and family without resorting to leaving halfway through and playing xbox.
• Borrowed a ps3. I refuse to play it until the xbox is out of the house through fear of electrical storms and domestic violence.
• Sat in my room and written completely pointless blog posts about what i've done since my xbox broke, secretly wishing that when i post it my xbox will realize how unfair it's being and start working again.

I'm going to go make myself a dang quasadilla.

Video Game Characters Best Forgotten Part 6 or 7, i'm not sure how many i've done.

Master Onion: Parappa The Rapper

Hang on! You're an onion! WTF are you doing here? You can't rap you stupid onion! Look at you! ONIONS CAN'T RAP!
Get the fuck outta here onion! Go be in some pasta or something!

The entire Master Onion verse for proof that onions have no concept of rhyme or reason:

Hayatatatacha!

Kick! Punch! It’s all in the mind
If you wanna test me, I’m sure you’ll find
The things I’ll teach ya is sure to beat ya
But nevertheless you’ll get a lesson from teacher

Don’t get cocky, it’s gonna get rocky
We gonna move down to the next ya jockey now

Hm, yeah I see you’re gettin’ better
Kick to the limit in order to get her now

Kick, punch – Chop, block – Chop, kick – Punch, block
It’s gonna get harder now
Duck and jump – Turn and pose – Duck and turn – Jump and punch

Come on now, why don’tcha follow my words
Because we’re almost done, I’ll make it easy at first
I wanna see if you wanna see what it takes
To be the man with the master plan
Are you the man now?

Hatatatacha! That’s it for today.
Good job, Parappa, you can go on to the next stage.

....
......
........
............YOU'RE A FUCKING ONION! FUCK OFF ONION YOU CAN'T RAP FOR SHIT! YOU CAN'T EVEN STAND UP STRAIGHT SO FUCK OFF!
GO AND BE IN FOOD BECAUSE THAT'S ALL YOUR GOOD FOR AKA NOT RAPPING!!

I am a simple man, who is simply entertained.

They say small things amuse small minds, but that is not the case here, suckers.

Standing only 6" tall and weighing a solid half a kilo, my limited edition Bioshock collector's figurine has produced endless amounts of glee for my huge brain and wealth of knowledge.
So much glee in fact, that i took him down to the river for an impromptu photo shoot surrounded by his favorite chemical composition, H20. Having come straight out of the plastic, he wasn't really ready for the camera but if you'll take a look at the shots below, you definitely can't tell!

I've also attached a clip (ok, one of the greatest game intros ever conceived) displaying the sheer amazingness of this game, and the figurine in question. Watch it, then staple all of your fingers together for not owning it yet.

Video Game Characters Best Forgotten (remembered) Pt. 3

Extremely sexual but somehow still G-rated dancing girl from the first level of Super Parodius for the SNES console.

Between the ages of eight and eight and a half, this was what i thought all girls looked like when they took their clothes off. I had no time to consider things like weight, age and skin imperfections; all i had to worry about was perfect legs, high heels and a vagina. This was easily the closest thing to porn i had at that age and the best part was, i could look at it for as long as i liked without having to quickly shove it underneath my mattress and pretend i was reading about basketball cards.
I had a-lot of trouble finishing this game as well. It's kind of hard (!) to make progress when you keep killing yourself purposely on the first level just to pop a boner again.

Buy it for me HERE.

My new favourite pastime.

When you are killed in a round of Gears of War multiplayer, you are given the convenient option of ghosting around the place and taking killersweet action shots of your teammates and the scenery. You can then upload them to your windows live account and if you are especially smart, you can caption them with your own witty retorts.

These are their stories.

Retail space of the week

Good customer service is like the dinosaur age, you know it existed once but no-one has actually seen proof with their own eyes.
Having worked in retail for a healthy slice of my occupational life, i know this all too well. I also know that whenever i walk into a retail space that i don't work at, i feel like spitting on the staff members for even offering me the inconvenience of what they define as 'service'. Know-nothings, overzealous teens with aspirations of irritation, bitter middle-aged women and badly dressed men with superiority complexes are but a small example of the employees i have to deal with when i want to buy something. It sucks, but unfortunately it's always going to be like that.

Luckily, Gametraders takes a big digital dump on tradition with their A-grade service and super-friendly attitudes towards closet nerds like myself. Ever since Hi-tech world Innaloo closed down, i've been forced to chop and change my local game emporium on a monthly basis according to where i recieve the best service or whichever store stocks the best games first. I used to shop at EB, until i realised that they hate me for being a customer and JB Hi-Fi is way too impersonal for someone that might want to stand around and reminisce about the good old days for protracted time periods. I found gametraders by chance in the city and as soon as i had walked in there my preconceptions of all gaming retail spaces were swiftly taken out the back, shot and buried next to the vacant hole that used to occupy my need for deadstock Super Nintendo games.
I win.

Seriously though, Winter is approaching and you're going to need video games as much as homeless people need blankets. While Gametraders doesn't have the greatest selection of blankets in town (they could if they wanted to), they do stock a plethora of games for every platform since the NES era at super reasonable prices and they'll even offer you credit for any old games you've become to snobby to play. Plus, they have more toys and assorted gaming paraphenalia than that other place does.
Also, this is probably the only post i'll ever do that doesn't relate to stuff that i hate, so feel free to marinate in it for a while, but don't get used to it. Just like i won't get used to getting good customer service anywhere else.

/shameless plug.

Video Game Characters Best Forgotten Part 2.

'Voldo' from the Soul Calibur series.

I only picked this guy because he looks like the lovechild of Edward Scissorhands' lovechild between himself and a blind Donatella Versace. Aside from being one of the more formidable fighters in the game, Voldo also had the unique ability to make hand-bound spinning blades look really lame. A near imposssible feat.