Tag Archives: sales

Fallen Out

Distractions, Gaming
KABOOM!

KABOOM!

This weekend I finished Fallout 3 finally, after something like 40 hours of running around and killing Radroaches and listening to Three Dog howl “Thanks for liiistening… people!” And yes, I managed to get minor plasma TV burn in from the Hit Points meter. Nice!

I have to admit that using Liam Neeson as the voice of your father throughout the game skeeved me a bit. Okay a lot. He’s got a great voice and all, but I got this “pervy dad” vibe every time I heard his voice. Thing is, you have to suffer through the first half of the game while he coddles you and encourages you to grow up smart and strong. Stranger danger!

However, using Malcolm McDowell as the voice of the Enclave President was a stroke of genius. I suggest that for Fallout 4, they please use Hugo Weaving? That man is my favorite villain right now.

I originally didn’t want to play this game because the characters looked too much like “Thunderbirds” puppetry, but thanks to SharkBoy’s love of the commercial (the long slow pull out while using The Inkspots I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire), he made me get it during the Xmas sales. I was hooked after an hour of game play. Not as artistically intrinsic as Bioshock, but intriguing and engaging in it’s multi-layered storytelling.

Now we’re on to playing LEGO Indiana Jones, which are a ton of fun for two people (except the co-op can get a bit frustrating if you decide to go off and do your own thing and wind up yelling at each other for not being on your side of the screen). It’s amazing they can recreate the three movies in 99.99% pantomime. Or maybe that’s testament to the crappiness of the movies? Regardless, the game is a lot of fun with nods to Star Wars all the way through it.

I of course, can’t wait until they make the Lego version of this movie:


(video inspired from G4’s Attack of the Show)

CP24 To Offer Breakfast Television Some Youthful Competition?

Celebs and Media, Toronto, You Stupid Dick

First, let me preface this post by apologizing to all my non-Toronto readers. Go look at my Flickr account, this post will not interest you.

I’ve steadily been having a big hate-on for Breakfast Television since it’s sale to Rogers and its long, slow departure from CityTV/CTV while remaining on CTV’s news channel. The choppy and awkward station ID/commercial flips between the two has been like trying to track a schizophrenic family member’s conversation who hasn’t taken their meds in months. For the last month or so, any fan of Breakfast Television who watches on the CP24 channel will have noticed that when BT goes to commercial, CP24 kicks in with “More On CP24!” teasers of weather and traffic.

Let’s just get past the fact that the bumper title is dangerously close to “MORON CP24!” if you’re not watching the screen closely…

Besides being utterly maladroit (like that? I have Thesuarus.com open), these extra reports of traffic and weather are an additional assault of already mentioned information (it’s fucking scrolling across the bottom already!!), jazzed up with an odd segment of Cam Woolley driving around town and talking about traffic (different idea but utterly useless: “Here’s a live feed of us stuck in traffic on the DVP!”).

I’ve posted before about how BT gets my ire: particularly Kevin “I Don’t Live In Toronto” Frankish and his need to revolve the show around himself. Even his post-show blog (full of terminology errors – he calls his video posts “blogs”), gets my blood boiling. I’m really glad he’s trying to get on board with the whole Web 2.0, new technology thing but it’s becoming unwatchable, like your parent trying to email a photo off their hard drive (no offense dad!!). I have to admit in the last while, I’ve hopped over to Canada AM and have become dangerously close to accepting their dry, conservative pap as my morning ritual.

Until this morning there was a ray of hope…

This morning during a CP24 bumper, in between the weather and traffic, there were two young somethings chatting amicably about their fantastic weekend and how great the weather was. I missed their names and the segment lasted only a minute, but they got my attention… They were young, well dressed, good looking, bright, smiling, energetic and so NOT like the current Breakfast Television crew, that my heart beat faster.

Is CP24 going to cut loose BT and have their own breakfast show of goodlookings 20-30somethings? I’m hoping that CP24 is grooming young bucks to offer a breath of fresh air from curmudgeonly Kevin “I’m Old and at no way at all a Metrosexual” Frankish? Can Dina transfer over to that show if they do? She’s the only reason I’ve hung on so long.

Holiday DMZ

General

Weeee!Welcome to that zone between holiday events where a weird calm truce exists between the stress of Xmas and the drunken powder keg of New Years.

Since I’ve been unimpressed with my workplace with a layoff a week before the holidays and the arrival of a new gaming system at Casa RoboShark, (We’re “deadrobot” and “sharkboytoronto” respectively on the Sony network), I haven’t been in the mood to sit in front of a monitor for the last couple days. Judging by my RSS feed and various other outlets, not much of you netizens did either.

Sharkboy has been documenting most of Xmas this year. I recommend the “Switcheroo” post where, as usual, he proves that he is the utter master in gift giving surprises. I got punk’d and good. I’ve said before that I give bad gift. I can’t keep a surprise, I get the wrong thing, etc. Like all good overlords, SharkBoy preyed upon this weakness of mine and got me good.

Xmas dinner with Da, The Brother Playwright, Sharkboy and myself was perfect. We had Turkey-in-a-box that was delicious and more food than you could shake a stick at. Again, SharkBoy has pictures of our disastrous first attempt at a bear cake here. The rest of evening was punctuated with digesting and good deeds. On the way home we helped a slightly inebriated woman get to her home after she fell three times on the ice. Merry Xmas, titanium hip!

Speaking of gifts, I plugged in the Wii Fit we got for ourselves and the fucking thing tells me I’m obese. Back under the TV credenza it goes. Fuck you, fucking Wii Fuck Fit.

Boxing day we were up with the dawn for illegal boxing day sales (non-Canadians should know that it’s ironically illegal for a store to be open on Dec 26 unless in a designated “tourist area”, like… uh… a city) and the twinge in my back I felt starting all last week was growing to a rumbling pain, exasperated by quick slips on sidewalk ices. You know the graceful, one foot, Brian Orser style “WOOP” you do when you let your guard down as you walk one of Toronto’s many unshoveled or de-iced sidewalks. My back pain grew steadily. Regardless, we were in HMV/Futureshop/BestBuy well before 9am on Boxing day (weird side note: HMV at 830am was like a Bear411.com reunion. I saw so many live profiles it was weird…) and judging by the consumerist frenzy, there is NO economic strife. I’m convinced it’s a media manufactured myth: At BestBuy there was a man dragging a 42″ HDTV, PS3, armload of games and Home theatre set up to the cash.

At this point I would like to point out that Blu Ray movies on a 50″ TV is like angels coming down and spitting heavenly mana into your eyes. And I have not experienced a WOW moment with a home gaming system in a long time since Donkey Kong for the N64. Of course, I’m talking about Little Big Planet. Who isn’t?

Yesterday I spent the entire day in pain. At one point I couldnt get myself upright in bed. With tears running down my face, I managed to stand and move around a bit. SharkBoy tore himself away from the PS3 long enough to make dinner and help out but by bed, I was high on back pain meds and slept on my stomach all night. To my surprise, in the morning, I had very little pain. Knock wood it stays away today.

We’re going brave the rain (remember folks, it’s not global warming, there’s always a thaw just before the new year cold snap!) and go see a real movie before we go house-squirrely. Meanwhile, why not peruse some of my Xmas shots here?