National Slut Day Is Here!

Today is Halloween, but as I think about it, the days of zombie and Dracula costumes are over. Instead of the Age of Scary, it’s the Age of the Sluts. And it’s not just the adults that are dressing this way, either. It’s the tweens (pre-teens – 12 and under) that are lending a hand at making this a tradition from one year to the next. They think that just because the teens do it, they can do it too, and the parents are letting them do it in increasing numbers. The wife and I were at a Halloween costume store, and as we looked around, somehow we strolled into the children’s section and there were costumes that I wouldn’t want my wife wearing and these costumes were being targeted to the 12 and under crowd. I’m talking about maids costumes with a (what looked like) 10 year old with too much make-up leggings that looked a little too provocative and a REALLY short skirt (okay, so maybe I do want to see my wife in that). What is this world coming too? And of course, Hollywood and the “in-crowd” are leading the way. With role models like Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, how can this next generation survive?

Episode 13

Episode 13 of Geezer Radio was recorded last night. It should be up within an 15 minutes of me posting this, so the chances of it being there the next time you check is VERY good.

Again, I Was Thinking

I sold my Zune a week ago and have been in agony ever since. It’s not because I can’t live without a Zune, but the thing is without a Zune, I’m forced to either a) listen to radio – nasty solution B) confiscate my wife’s iPod and listen to that until my Gears 2 Zune comes in. Now the problem with listening to an iPod is that I hate Apple products. Not because I’m a M$ fan boy (I do like a lot of their products – Xbox 360, Windows, and Zune to name three) but because Apple products do not allow for any customization of their products at all. If you want a button on an Apple product, forget about it. Not because the mass of customers don’t like it, it’s because Steve Jobs doesn’t want you to have one. Want a custom background to the iPod interface...forget it. Again Steve Jobs knows what I want and is forcing his will on me again. Want a program you programmed to be on the iPhone? Not is Steve doesn’t approve. Customization is the key to customer happiness. Think about it. Does every person on the Earth all want the same thing? No. We each have individual tastes. Do I want a McBurger with fries or do I want a double cheeseburger with lettuce, no tomato, and green peppers? I’ll take the double, and I’ll take customization over fixed platform any day of the week.

Baffling

Can a dumb blond get any more dumb? Link

So, she's afraid that she would come back 10,000 years after take-off and would be upset. Well I would be upset too, but not for her. In fact, wouldn't that make the world safer if she were not here? I would feel safer. In fact, keeping her from breeding just might save civilization. Just my 2 cents for today.

Can't Wait for 3 Things

These are the three things that I can't wait for:

1. New podcast is recorded.
2. I can play some more Fable II
3. I get my Gears of War 2 Zune.

More Coverage of Me

I felt that this blog wasn't enough for my fans, so I opened up a whole new blog. This one though, is being written by my Xbox 360. Please go to this site or see the link right below my wife's gamercard and read up on what my Xbox 360 has to say about me.

So Hot

A question occurred to me and I as I was thinking about it, I was even more confused. Let me break it down. A friend (Leslie) thinks that another co-worker (Bob) has a picture of a pretty hot (in Leslie’s opinion) girl sitting on his desk. Earlier today, he asked me whether it would be okay to comment on how hot she looked. I said, “If it’s his sister and not his girlfriend, then he probably wouldn’t mind.” And as I thought about it more, I thought it would probably be the exact opposite. I would be pissed if a co-worker said my sister was hot, because I would go into natural protection mode. On the other hand, if someone commented on how hot my wife was, I’d say, “Yep! I know it!” (In truth, my wife is really HOT! She let me play video games for 24 hours instead of going to her parent’s house to celebrate his 50th birthday. That and she is a super model in my eyes. [You can tell I’m trying to earn brownie points])

Missing It

Yesterday, I sold my Zune. I don’t know why, but I miss it SO MUCH. I didn’t have that problem when I went from my iPod to the Zune. What’s up with that? For one reason or another, I liked my Zune much more than I did an iPod. But all hope is not lost, instead of having a boring, black Zune (sorry UndergroundPoet) I will be getting a brand-spanking-new Gears of War 2 Zune the week after it comes out. Why the week after? Because I had to order it from Amazon.com and I chose the free shipping option that saves me money. Oh, I can’t wait for the chainsawin’ goodness to come on 11/7.

A Geezer’s Take on Extra Life

This probably won't make it onto Sarcastic Gamer website/blog, so I'm going to post it here for my friends/wife and admirers. Please realize that I wrote this after the 24 hours of gaming and before I fell asleep in exhaustion.

"Did I realize what I was getting myself into? I must not have but I do have to say that I am proud of myself and SparkStalker, as well as, the thousand others that participated in Extra Life. It’s funny how things go. When Halo 3 first came out, I played it on Legendary over the course of two to three days (that was over a year ago, for those of you keeping tack). Now, 24 hours of playing video games seems to be something that could be handled with ease, but you’d be wrong. Well, this is how Spark and my 24 hours went.

First, we started off with some Halo 3…easy right? Not if you try and tackle Halo 3 on Legendary in one day! Now with four people, Halo 3 on Legendary is not very hard, but with three people, it gets harder, and in our example, with only two people, it’s really hard. But since Spark didn’t have all the skulls or hadn’t yet defeated the game on Legendary before, we decided to attack that first…but in reality, it was more like the game attacking us.

The first level alone took at least an hour. Then thankfully, reinforcements arrived. With the help of at least one more person at any given time, Spark and I finally complete the campaign on Legendary but it took us seven hours. With that done, Spark, in his infantine wisdom, decided to play Duke Nukem’ on the highest difficulty. I’m not sure how many times we both re-spawned, but we sure did need an extra life. After becoming royally annoyed with Duke Nukem’, Spark and I went our separate ways for a while. I hooked up with another friend who was play Gears of War campaign on Insane and finished Act 4 and 5. Then it was time to take on some of the arcade games that I had left behind: Hexic HD, Mega Man 9, Carcassonne, Dig Dug and Golf: Tee It Up.

Then at around midnight, with Spark still entrenched in Halo 3 (he did manage to play other games) I decided to work on my garden…my Piñata garden that is. At one point (around 4 AM) I sent a message to Spark wanting to know if he wanted to do some Gears of War on Insane and that I was playing in my garden. For one reason or another, I never get tired of Gears of War. He responded with, “You and those (expletive deleted) piñata’s!”

At five in the morning, after 20 hours of gaming, SparkStalker and I hoped into Gears of War and played it on Insane…yes we are just that. First we play Halo 3 on Legendary from the beginning to the end, and now we’re going to punish ourselves some more by doing Gears on Insane from the beginning to end. Well, we didn’t quite get to the end; in fact we only got to Act 2 before we just got sick and tired of it. At 20 minutes until 9 in the morning on Sunday (23 hours and 40 minutes into our marathon) Spark and I left Gears of War and finished up our time in Uno.

But what Spark and I did wasn’t as special as why we were doing it. As of writing this, I’ve head that this Extra Life challenge raised over $100,000 in donations. Way to go, EVERYONE!"

What a Wild Six Days

These past 6 days have been anything but normal. It started off the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday having to go to a web conference from 11 Am to 5 Pm and watch a PowerPoint presentation that I had a copy of in my hands. The main reason for me to be in that webinar was to learn about something that was only touched upon with an hour and a half before the conference ended (for those of you keeping track at home that’s 18 hours of webinar [no breaks or lunches] and only spending 1:30 minutes on it). Why was I there? Why did I have to put up with that? I could tell you, but I’m not going to. Anyway, I normally would have gotten off of work at 4 pm, but because of this conference, I was leaving at around 5:30 pm. It wasn’t the extra hour and half that was worrisome; it was the feeling of not being at home on time was what was weird.

I did manage, though, to get a new episode of Geezer Radio up for download.

If that weren’t enough, Saturday and Sunday was a blur of video games, a debacle in Dallas and sleeping from 6 pm Sunday until 6 am Monday. Let me explain further. My good friend (and probably best friend) SparkStalker and I participated in a 24 hour gaming marathon for pediatric cancer research which was called Extra Life and started by SarcasticGamer.com. I have written up a review on the whole event from our perspective and given it to the founder of Sarcastic Gamer in the hope that he puts it up his website, and if that doesn’t happen, then I will post it here.

But back to the point. Extra Life was fun and not as difficult of a task as I thought it would be. I had no problem staying up the full 24 hours. The only real problem both Spark and I had was defeating Halo 3 on Legendary. That’s right everyone. Spark and I played the entire game of Halo 3 on Legendary in one day! It was an accomplishment. I also played four acts of Gears of War on Insane to finish out the day. But I think the funniest thing that I heard that whole day was when I told Spark about me playing Viva Piñata, he responded with, “You and those (expletive deleted) piñata’s! I laughed for a good twenty minutes after I heard that.

The debacle in Dallas...I don’t want to talk about it except to say, I wish I were a hockey fan. But I’m not.

This week, though, I’ll be back on my regularly scheduled schedule...(does that make sense?)

Anniversary?

Today, me and the wife will be celebrating our 2nd year Wedding Anniversary. Yep, two years ago today, I ruined my life.

Sad Announcement

I just wanted to let everyone know that for the rest of the week, I will be in web conferences and will not be able to post anything. I am sorry for the inconvenience and please stayed tuned.

I will be back!

Silly Waiters

The wife and I were out of town celebrating our 2 year anniversary, and we went to a restaurant (Joe’s Crab Shack) and had dinner. Two times during our dinner, the waiters and waitresses broke out into a song and dance. Some of them seemed to enjoy it, while the others just looked like they were going through the motions just to keep their job. The reason why I bring this up is because I just wonder who really enjoys doing that? If a boss of mine asked me to get up at a certain song and dance around the office, I would question their sanity. I saw this movie with Ryan Reynolds and Justin Long called “Waiting” and at one point, all the waiters and waitresses get up and sing happy birthday to a child and the waiters involved all HATED doing that. I used to work at an amusement park and I got more Star Cards (tiny morale awards) for my dancing and singing along to songs and changing their lyrics to meet the game I was working than any other activity. But I must say that was when I was still in high school. But these days (being the same age as some of those waiters/waitresses) I would have felt stupid and silly.

You Got Chainsawed

Last night, me and seven others all experienced something that not everyone gets to experience. It’s something that someone like me strives to experience. It’s close to a prolonged tantric sex, but much, much better. Last night me and seven others (all men, but at one point a teenage girl [the daughter of the father who was gaming]) played Gears of War on Annex for three hours!!! It was truly an orgasmic gaming experience. I have not had as much fun fraggin’, shotgunnin’, chainsawin’ mayhem in a LONG LLOOOONNNNNGGGGG time. I had a blast and I think that signing up to play every Thursday night as the weekly Gears Night for Geezer Gamers. The only thing that could put a kink in this...Gears 2, which I am SO getting!

But with all that fun, there was one thing that overshadowed my night. Just as I entered the first Gears game, I got a voice message from my wife over XBL saying that we need to get the next Season of The Girls Next Door on DVD because Pamela Anderson is naked at Hef’s 82nd birthday. That was perhaps the best voice message that I had ever received from her. Also, I just love her! What other wife would say that? It turns out that the best thing that I EVER did was marry her.

Air Fresheners 2

So, I teased you yesterday about my four favorite podcasts that I listen to daily, no here is the list of the four non-daily must listen to podcasts.

1. Major Nelson’s Weekly Podcast – I really like the fact that he is willing to come to us on a weekly basis and give us an inside look at what is happening in Xbox news and in Redmond, WA (Microsoft’s headquarters).
2. Sarcastic Gamer Red Show – Doc, Lono and Dave are really awesome to listen too and they always keep me interested and listening.
3. Hubblecast – I am a space fanatic. And the Hubble Telescope is one of the finest/greatest inventions (in terms of space) ever. I love looking and downloading the images from there. Their podcast is also very informative about space.
4. Sarcastic Gamer Humpday Update – Short, sweet and to the point. I like it!

There you have it! I wish I could say that my lists are sexier, but I think that they are good and solid choices.

Air Fresheners

I couldn’t think of anything else to write today, and I know my wife hates it when I don’t post anything, so I will list my top four must listen to on a daily basis podcasts and in the order that I listen to them. Why four, you ask? Well, there are only four that come out on a daily basis. For that reason, I will list the four non-daily must listen to podcasts tomorrow (unless something else pops up).

1. Buzz Out Loud – I really have a love/hate relationship with this podcast. I love some episodes and all the tech information that I get, but I hate the way that they sometimes go on and on with their inside jokes. Otherwise it’s a really good show.
2. WRVA Q94 Podcast – WRVA Q94 is a local radio station that has one of the best programs on it. The War of the Roses program is F***ing hilarious. Basically, it involves a single person in a relationship. And this person thinks that their significant other is having an affair. The radio DJ’s call up the allegedly cheating person and offer the (usually) guy a free dozen roses to be sent to whomever they want. When they pick the person they have cheated with, the (usually) woman goes off on him and they are caught. It’s awesome, not because they are cheating, but because of their reactions.
3. Talkin’ Cowboys – Yes, I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. Just go ahead and mock me, everyone else does. Anyway, this is the one and only source of information that isn’t completely biased (i.e. ESPN) against the Cowboys.
4. The Lunch Break – My only other source of non-biased Cowboys podcast. If it wasn’t for these two podcasts, I wouldn’t have any faith in my one and only favorite sports team. Not just football, all of sports.

There you have it!

Burned Out

Does anyone get burned out at something that they continuously do? I think I am approaching that level. I think I am getting burned out at being married...just kidding, honey! No, I think that I am getting burned out at silly twitter posts. I think from now on, I'll just send the occasional message over twitter and save my real posts for this blog.

The 1 Day Weekend

This weekend was everything that I thought it would be...busy and tiring (and not in a good way). It started off with a movie with friends (Ben and his fiancé) that I rather enjoyed. “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” was a delight. Simon Pegg was funny as all get out, but it was Megan Fox in a see through dress (and later in the movie her underwear) that stole the show for me. Ben and Tina later alluded me to the fact that the man in the film, who was British (Ben is also British), was pretty accurate, even their selection of strippers...you know what I’m talking about, Ben! On another funny note, me and the wife ran into my wife’s sister at the theater. She saw us there and asked us if we were stalking her. I responded, “Yes, we invite our friends to go stalking.”

Anyway, the next day (Saturday) was the day that things got crazy. The wife and I woke up at around 9:30 in the morning and were supposed to be on the road to nowhere. Well, we got ready and my sister arrived at our house. It turned out that we didn’t leave Richmond until around noon, which meant that we wouldn’t be getting to nowhere until 3 in the afternoon. It wasn’t a bad trip there, but it wasn’t that fun either. Once we got there, we were forced to sit around and wait for things to happen. We were at my grandmother’s house but we were supposed to stay at my aunt’s house. As we find out, my aunt is out at a charity event for the Altavista fire department and wont be home until late, so me and the wife have to wait and watch the grass grow! HOW BORING!!! Finally at around 7pm, we get so tired of waiting that we just go to her house anyway and risk waiting longer. It turns out that that was a good move because she had just gotten home five minutes before we got there. We watched a couple of movies and then went to bed (that was the most enjoyment that we had all weekend in Gretna/Altavista).

The next morning, after a very uncomfortable sleep, the wife and I woke-up and leisurely got ready for my grandmothers party. We tried to delay our getting there until after it started to avoid getting hooked into doing anything. We succeeded in one way and failed in another. Within three minutes of us arriving at the party, I was asked to take pictures on someone else’s camera, and the wife was asked to lead the party in singing “Happy Birthday.” At least we succeeded in showing up after the party started.

At around 3 pm, the wife and I left the party to go to Powhatan to have dinner with the wife’s family. We arrived at 5:20 perfect time for me to watch the rest of the Cowboys game. We ate dinner, and talked and at around 8 pm we left and headed for home. We didn’t get home from our trip until 9:20. All in all, our weekend kind of melted into a very long road trip. I am looking forward to resting next weekend.

Journey to the Center of Nowhere

The wife and I are leaving town this weekend (Saturday morning) to sit in a house in the woods and do nothing...that's right, I'm going to visit my Grandmother and my extended family. Now, let me say that I love my extended family, but I don't know how they live in the sticks. It's one thing to not have a Target, but it's another to be reduced to dial-up internet...if that. But it's not a question of wanting to go, I don't have a choice. My grandmother is turning 95, and if I don't go, I might as well tell the family I want to be a woman. So, this weekend, it's over the water and through the trees to grandmothers abode we go.

On another note, my house was put back on the market yesterday. The housing situation has gotten a lot better since we took it down. Four of the five houses in our neighborhood have sold and the house we really like is still available. So, wish us luck.

The Day I Turned 30

I am now finally able to tell you about the events that occurred on my birthday, September 25, 2008. It was a blast (after I got off work).

The day started off okay as I got up in the morning and kissed my wife goodbye. She said to me, “I hope you have a happy birthday.” I looked her in the eye, and said, “You too...wait! I mean have a nice day honey.” I’ve gotten so used to her saying “Have a good day” that it’s become automatic for me to just say “You too.” Next thing you know, I’ll be saying “Ditto.”

Work was just so-so. Only two people said anything to me, my good friend Nate (who I’ve been friends with high school). Another person asked me how it felt to be a Geezer. Being part of Geezer Gamers, I looked at him and said, “I’ve been a Geezer for a couple of years now, and I don’t feel any different.” I smiled and left their office. But no one else in the office even mentioned it. Not a word from ANYONE! I’m afraid to ask if they didn’t know or that they didn’t care.

When I got home, my wife immediately took me to one of her favorite restaurants: Hooters. I didn’t mind at all. In fact, it’s becoming quite the tradition. For the third year in a row, we’ve gone there. That’s how comfortable we are in our marriage. I don’t mind her ordering boneless chicken hot wings, and she doesn’t mind when I tip 40%. Anyway, dinner was fun. At one point, I pointed out a waitress and swore up and down that I went to high school with her. Then I admitted that she was probably too young for that, and my darling of a wife said, “You got that right” followed quickly by “I didn’t mean it!” For the rest of the night, she was trying to take that comment back (in fact, on the way home, she said I was handsome. I looked are her and said, “Thanks honey, but that doesn’t absolve you of that earlier comment) but the damage had been done, and I felt REALLY old at that time.

We got home and my final birthday gift from my wife was waiting for me: a night of nothing but pure, unadulterated Xbox 360 playing time! I felt kind of naughty when my wife asked me what I was doing and I said, “Making the piñata’s $#%^!”

As I look back at the past week, so far being 30 years old isn’t as bad as people made it out to be. An acquaintance of mine from my past once told me that the day you turn 30, everything starts to fail. Well, he was wrong. Next year though...well that might be a different story.

So Busy

I have been SO busy at work the past two days that I haven't had much time to put out a full post, but I have managed to find time to edit the next podcast and that should be up sometime today. I do want to let you know of what happened on my birthday, but I don't know if I will get a chance in the next couple of days. If I do get it down on paper, I'll be sure to post it.