Tumbling Down The Rabbit Hole

What a crappy week.

On Monday I was driving home from work in my 1997 Mazda Protogé. It was rush hour, and traffic was trundling along at the usual 20-25kph. I was in the far-left lane, riding alongside the cement median barrier, and I happened to have the Dr. Horrible soundtrack blaring as I sang along.

Not so bad right? Well, I was behind an 18-wheeler… and it was slowly meandering towards the aforementioned median. I started to put some distance between us when he started humping the edge of it, and the trailer began to bounce around a little.

No worries, I am alright.

So, as it bounced around a big freakin’ chunk of icy-snow dislodges from underneath the semi and onto the road, right in front of me. I cannot swerve too much to the left or right before I hit it - I am in thick traffic that is tight-packed all around me. As I hit the near 1ft cube chunk of ice my front wheel goes over it without much incident, but as it scrapes underneath my driver’s seat I feel it lift the car up slightly and then my back wheel hits it.

Then I heard a very loud and simultaneous crunch / thud of metal parts. I looked in my rear-view mirror to see if my poor relic of a car lost 3/4 of it’s exhaust system on the highway, only to be greeted by something that just should not be in the back seat of my car.

My rear-wheel’s strut! It was protruding out behind the driver’s side backseat, just beside the speaker.

Well - that’s what I dealt with most of the week. My mechanic is looking at it, he likes aging cars and has a knack for keeping them on the road for cheap. Hopefully he can perform a Hail-Mary and get it running - I don’t think I want to be buying another car right now.

Anyways, enough of my troubles. Any time not spent on the phone, at used car dealers, or groaning at the thought of decommissioning my (likely) junker of a car, here’s what I found online that was interesting to me this past week:

• Game: Monster Evolution
• Game: Shoot the Orange Godzilla
• Dollhouse - FRI FEB 13th | FOX 9/8c
• Stephenie Meyer: Midnight Sun

Game: Monster Evolution

“RooOOOAAAaaaRRRRR!”

This bad boy really helped me keep my anger in check this week (stupid car!) - it is amazing what causing a little bit of friendly mayhem can do for the soul.

There’s nothing like playing a giant monster hellbent on gobbling up people and the silly machines they create to fend off a giant kaiju invasion!

This game is really simple to play, but raising the difficulty does make the game more… difficult. Since I was in a “I gotta win!!” mood, I set the difficulty bar as low as monsterly possible and just concerned myself with how quick I could eat the humans!

Good thing I’m not a giant monster too - I totally whipped those little stickmen peeps!

Game: Shoot the Orange Godzilla

OooOOoooooh! Now this! This was what I needed at work! More stress relief!

Actually, this is rather hilarious, both as a concept and as a standalone video.

OK, so the premise is dead simple. An orange Godzilla with a suction cup on its back. You stick the thing to a mirror (in this scenario, above the sink) and whip out the included water pistol and squirt the thing and make it roar!

Three successive hits will light up three lights on its chest… and then it plays a little victory song, and resets for another battle of epic proportions!

And as hilarious as that is on its own, in this demonstration video, I love how the guy playing this is in the public washroom and just continues recording without hesitation despite someone else walking in on him as he played the game… The guy pauses for several seconds.

And then? The guy just walks past him as if playing Kill the Orange Godzilla is just, “Yeah… whatever”.

Freaking brilliant!

Dollhouse - FRI FEB 13th | FOX 9/8c

Whelp! Today’s the day. I’ve mentioned Dollhouse before, but tonight is the night of the Dollhouse television premiere. It’s playing at 9 Eastern, 8 Central (check your local listings for its play time on Fox). I intend on watching it as it airs, but I have both PVRs set to record it just in case something happens that stops me from being plopped in front of the TV at 9PM.

If you still don’t know about the show, it’s a new series by Joss Whedon (yes yes, Mr. Buffy/Angel/Firefly/Dr. Horrible/etc.) about these “dolls” that are reprogrammable with any skills and behaviours a paying customer desires. Let you imagination take things from there. Yeah, that’s right… even that.

Knowing Mr. Whedon’s knack for storytelling, I am seriously expecting this to be great. I have a hunch it’ll start slow to build up the characters and get an overall story arc going, but I am patient. I am sure the first episode will be great on its own… but I also know Whedon’s best work takes time to build up before it’s totally freakin’ awesome and engrossing to the point of becoming obsessed.

So I’ll be tuning in to see if my expectations can be met.

… and if something does prevent me from tuning in? The damned thing better be 30ft tall, drooling acid, smell like ass, and calling my mother names that I just cannot let slide without delivering a serious ass whoopin’!

Anything short of that will be ignored so that I can watch.

Stephenie Meyer: Midnight Sun

I didn’t know if I should post this last entry, but after thinking about it more I thought I would.

What is it? Well, for those not in the know, Stephenie Meyer is the author of the Twilight book series - Midnight Sun was to be the fifth book in the series, and it’d be a re-telling of the first book, but from the vampire Edward’s perspective.

Wait wait wait! Listen, I am going somewhere with this… hear me out!

So, I almost did not post this due to the backstory behind it.

As I said, Midnight Sun was to be the 5th book, and a re-telling of the first book from Edward’s perspective. If this book were to be released it’d be a guaranteed hit. Guaranteed. But it remains unfinished.

The unfinished book is available as a free download (direct link) from Stephenie’s official website, and it has been since August 28th, 2008. You can find the link right after her signature at the end of the top-most post.

But the reason it is there rather sucks, which is why I hesitated on posting about it. See, this past summer someone proof-reading the rough draft leaked it onto the internet. I have no idea if it was by accident or not, but no matter… this really sucks for an author, to have their hard work just leaked like that. Their bread and butter is the written word, and having it leaked and downloaded uncontrollably is just gut wrenching, I am sure.

As a result of this, she decided to just stop working on the book and it is indefinitely on hold. Reading her short description of how things went down really sucks, and I completely understand why she, as an author, decided to just stop.

But she made a decision to take what was leaked and PDF the thing, and post it on her site for her fans to read. At least this way she regains some control of her work.

OK.. where was I going with thi… oh, yeah!

Guys! Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, right? Do what I did! Download this 264 page copy right from the Twilight author herself! Slap it onto a USB key and give it to your special gal!

And if she’s a reader and she’s not read the series? Buy her the first book! I don’t know of any woman that’s read it that does not love it. You can find it just about anywhere, so it’ll be a cinch to buy it… and I am sure she’ll love it!

My wife’s not what I would have thought of as a vampire-genre person, but it totally sucked her in, and now she’s talking about other vampire-centric stuff. I’m hoping she’ll be open to watching Buffy with me this spring, and she’s started watching True Blood (that series is seriously messed up!)… and it’s very very cool to see her getting interested in something new that I can totally get into as well.

And like I said in my Twilight movie post… this is also something your lady friend will likely enjoy, so if you’ve not seen it, and she wishes you’d take her to see it? Get out there and do just that… it’s just so easy! WooT!

So, yeah - from a guy that usually sucks at Valentine’s Day, this year I am covered! This 264 page book is gonna make my wife smile for a good week… and that’s all a-OK with Big Karn, I’m gonna be a happy man!

Thank you Stephenie Meyer!