Knocked Up is funny. If it doesn't happen to you.

Jessica and I went to see Knocked Up. It's a movie about an unemployed stoner getting lucky with a E! online talent and getting her knocked up. It was a really funny movie, with bits of immature humor for the guys and bits of "chick flick" for the girls. It was a pretty good movie. The E! talent was Katherine Heigl , who is on my list. She looked really hot in this movie, even with the preggers-belly prosthetic. Personally, I think pregnant women are sexy. Maybe cute would be a better term. Anyway, they show Katherine in several revealing outfits and she is in several, non-nude sex scenes. These were probably some of the funniest scenes. Anyway, my attraction to the lead aside, Knocked Up really was pretty funny. Two people from different worlds (stoner vs E! on screen talent) get drunk at a bar, hook up, and she gets pregnant. It ends up being a one night stand until she discovers she is preggers. You can imagine their respective reactions. There are a lot of jokes based on all of the pregnant/birthing steriotypes and experiences as I'm sure you can imagine. I won't give anything away, because this was a pretty good film and worth the watch. It is a bit painful, in a way, if you ever went through this situation. Some of you may know that it happened to me. Luckily, it worked out for me and the wife in the end, but hearing 'I'm pregnant' when you aren't expecting it is a helluva shock. Honestly, it makes the movie a bit funnier to me since I lived through the situation. Sure, it was different for me (It wasn't a one night stand, I knocked up my girlfriend.), but some of the jokes play on the reactions that you have when a child is, unexpectedly, thrust into your life. Still, as mentioned, this flick is worth the watch.

It is Still a Vacation if It's Going To Be a Pain in the Ass?

We're leaving for California next Thursday. I was started to look forward to getting away from the daily routine for a while and relaxing a bit. Now, I am starting to rethink that. Initially, we were going to go to a wedding, but it was cancelled. I was happy about this, since I don't really like huge family engagements. Especially when I don't know any of the family members (it was Jessica's cousin getting married). We also planned on a trip to Disney, the beach and a pace called Lego Land. Jessica got the hotel rooms booked and plane tickets paid for, and I was starting to look forward to a fun week. We are going to stay most of the time in the city that another one of Jessica's cousins lives in (not the one gettign married) and then go to the beach and Lego Land from there, and then go to a different hotel near Disney for one night, go to Disney, and then leave for the airport from there. This was the plan for months. Now, this is where I start getting irritated.

Last night Jessica is talking to her cousin who tells her the Lego Land is three hours away. She wants to dive there day one, stay the night, and then go to Lego Land the next day. Well that's some great f---ing information to get a week before we fly out. As I mentioned, we already have the rooms booked. See, this is why I don't like family obligations. I love my family because they are mostly rational and plan things out well in advance. They don't wait until the week before and then suggest plans. We have alot of money rolled up into this trip and to make changes now is going to cost us more money. Plus, now instead of me drivin from the airport to the place we are staying, then from then to Disney and from Disney back to the airport, I have to add six additional hours of drive time. YIKES! I am really not looking forward to all this driving in CA.

Want to know another reason why I hate family obligations? As you may or may not know, After Jessica's mom passed away, Jessica's brother moved down to Columbus in January to be closer to us and their dad. He didn't have a job yet, but moved down anyway. He ended up getting a job, but was let go after oversleeping the first week. Apparently, after that he couldn't find another job until last month. So, for those of you that don't like math, he was living here unemployed for five months. Since he had no money, guess who he asked to pay his rent? Yup. Jessica. So, instead of having money saved up for our vacation, I had to pay our mortgage by myself for several months and everything (hotels, Disney, car rental, food, you name it) is going to have to go on my credit cards. Needless to say, I am irritated by this since I was finally able to get my credit debt down from $10000 to $2000 this past year. I know. It was bad. Now, it is going to go right back up.

OK. I am done bitching now. I really am looking forward to our trip. I just need to look beyond all of the irritants and try to have fun with the wife and kids. I will besure to take tons of pics and will recap when we get home. I just hope that the hoops we will need to jump through will be worth the effort.

More Dead Rising (sorry)

I know that most of my readers don't care, but I feel the need to post more about Dead Rising. Honestly, there isn't much else for me to post about at the moment. It's been a 'same-old-same-old' kind of week. I played alot over my past two days off. It's freaking fun and freaking frustrating all at the same time. Oh, and a little gross.

First, the fun: I keep finding new weapons to use in my zombie killin'. I went to the gun store, put five clips of ammo into the owner, and have access to shot guns and sniper rifles. Also, just around the corner is a knife/sword shop. The katana is a kick ass weapon in close quarters. After killing a psycho clown, you get a small chain saw which is better than the big one. It's quicker and lasts longer. I think I have Frank up to level 21.

Frustrating: I touched on this before, but I am still having trouble with completing some of the quests presented to Frank. The problem is that it is hard to kill the main bad guys and still have enough ammo and weapons to get the survivors back to the security room. Currently, I have been trying to kill this fat ass female cop that is holding four women in a store. I can kill the cop, but have yet to even get the women back to the park. I can get about half way there, but not with all of the girls. I have to use all of the rounds in the sniper rifle and half of the shot gun ammo just to bring down the fat cop. Then, the zombie amount seems to double and I am dealing with these freaky green faced guys. Ican give a katana to one of the girls, but the others always seem to get killed or zombiefied no matter what I do. Some of the 'bosses' are just impossible. There is a huge marine gut in a hardware store that LOVES to kick my ass. I'm just avoiding him now. There is also a group of convicts in a jeep with a machine gun on it in tha park that enjoy killing me. I try to keep away from them too.

Finally, GROSS: If zombie killin' isn't enough to gross you out, there are some pretty nasty animations in Dead Rising. The previously mentioned psycho clown falls on two running chainsaws. Iew. Sometimes when survivors are turned into zombies, there are some other gross animations. One guy was taken down and had his balls bit off and one of the girls gers her guts ripped out threw her mouth. It was nasty.

I Totally Get It Now

I now understand your obsession with Dead Rising, Woody. For those of you that didn't notice the many posts about Dead rising on Woody's blog, Let's just say that there are several. No, I am not being compensated for putting, not one, but three links to Woody's blog. I'll sum up the posts for you: Woody likes to kill him some zombies. And so do I!! I had started Dead Rising a while back, just to see what it was like, but I didn't really sit down to play it seriously until this weekend. Fun with a capital F. There are a few things that bother me, but the good things about the game out weigh the bad. I guess I will go into what bothers me first:

1. There is no auto-save. Most games that I play save themselves automatically when you pass a check point or change areas on the map. Dead Rising doesn't have that function. You need to go to one of the save points (the bathrooms or the security room) if you want to save the game. Sounds easy enough, but when you are knee deep in zombies and enthralled by the killin' you tend to forget to save. This happened to me several times. I got so wrapped up, that I completely forgot to save, then I died, and had to start all over again.

2. The survivors that you are supposed to save and escort back to the security room are morons. You have the ability to call out to people, but they don't listen. You can run into them, knock them down, and yell at them, and still they ignore you. I try to save as many people as I can, but to be honest, I have not done too well.

3. Too much to do, not enough time. There is not enough time to save the survivors and complete the main quest of the game. I guess that you need to pick and choose what you do, but why would they give you so many quests if you couldn't complete them?

What I like about the game is that it is not your everyday FPS (first person shooter). Yes, you do get a gun, but I think that it is the least useful weapon against the hordes of zombies. You need to pick up other weapons through out the shopping mall. So far, my favorite killing toy has been the lawn mower, followed closely by the chain saw. What I don't understand is why all of the weapons eventually die out on you. I get the chainsaw running out of gas, or a wooden bench eventually breaking, but things like a lead pipe or a rock should last forever. How does a rock break? I guess it adds to the game, in that, you need to constantly find means to defend yourself.

There are a few aspects of the game I am having troubles with. You are supposed to take pictures of the zombies and the things that are happening. I forget to do this. I have gotten some good pictures, one worth over 5000 prestige points (it was Kent shooting a zombie in the head and the blood spray shooting back) but I get into the killin' and neglect the picture taking. Also, when the screen is loading, you see diagrams of different martial arts moves you can do. I have not yet figured out how to do any of them. I think I need to go back and read the instructions manual. Or, I need to ask Woody for some pointers.

Best Call and Worst Beat Ever. In the Same Hand

After winning my last tournament, I decided to play in a cash game last night. We started with four players and I started out pretty strong. I was making good calls and getting good cards, and was soon up $40. I was feeling pretty good as more and more players showed up. We maxed out at 12 players at the table. As the night went along, I was still playing well, but my hand quality was going down. I was hitting fewer big hands, so I started playing more defensively. I hit more big pots when I had the cards and around midnight, I was up to $240+/-.. No kidding. I was feeling GREAT about myself. I was playing really tight because some of the bets were getting out of control. I was playing with some guys with some serious cash and some of the bets were getting up to $70+ range. Now, I don't nomally do that. I can't afford it. Then is happened. Throughout the night, I noticed that Bennie (one of the players) was making big bets at odd times when he didn't hit his hand. It was only when there was already a lot of money in the pot. Basically, he was trying to buy pots. I noticed this on several occasions. Anyway, I was dealt 8-6 of spades. not a great hand, but this was one of the rare occasions that the opening bets were below $5, so I played them. Two spades came up on the flop, giving me four spades towards the flush (5 cards of all one suit). The turn card was another spade, so I had a flush. It was a low flush though. Remember that I only had 8-6 of spades. Two higher spades would beat me. Anyway, I bet big. Maybe $10 (big for me, but not for the table last night). Bennie goes all in, which turned out to be another $73. YIKES!!! Now, remember, I was plus $220 for the night, so I was thinking about this. I would still have alot of money if I called and lost. Remembering his tendancy to make a big bet with nothing, I called Bennie. AND I WAS RIGHT!!!! He had a jack of spades and a six of clubs. I was dominating him with only one card left to come up. The only thing that could beat me was if another spade came up, giving him a higher flush (jack high vs 8 high). there were literally seven cards that he could hit to win. Seven. Anyone want to guess what came up? A MOTHER F*#&ING SPADE!!!!! After that hand, I was crushed. I should have left with my $100+, but wanted to hang out more. I didn't win another hand for the rest of the night. I left with more money than I went with, but having $74 at the end of the night feels alot different than leaving with $300+. I guess I souldn't be too angry about it. I made a great call, but just got unlucky. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Can you see my Xbox?

I was at Sam's picking up some food for the kids (they tear through a box of chicken strips like you wouldn't believe) and on a whim I checked out the Xbox 360 stuff. They have a few games and carry systems and sometimes have some other supplies. Well, this time they had a prety neat 'cool down' kit. Basically, it was a set of fans that you plug in the back of you Xbox to decrease the over-heating issues suffered by the Xbox 360. Along with the fan, it came with four re-chargable batteries and charger, and the cammo face plate that you may or may not see in this picture. To be honest, I needed some help last night when I wanted to play. I couldn't find the damn thing! Maybe I should have gotten the kit that had the red face plate. I'm SO stupid!

On a serious note, here is the first flower on the pansy I have been tracking.

Pan's Labyrinth

One of the latest things I got through NetFlix was a movie called Pan's Labyrinth. I don't remembering hearing much about it when it came out into the theaters, only that I thought it looked interesting. I think it wan several awards. As you can read (if you follow the above link) it is a fairy tale for adults. The description on the NetFlix sleeve was a little bit off. It said something to the effect that it was about a little girl in WWII times needing to rely on her imagination to excape the ugliness of her life. If that is the case, it is a really sad film. It was really interesting to watch though. Basically, the girl's mother married a prick of a Spanish military capitan who is in charge of eliminating Spanish freedom fighters. This guy is a real asshole. I don't know how much I want to get into the details of the movie, because it really was quite interesting. It kind of reminded me of Lady in the Water. At least that kind of feel. Basically, you learn at the beginning of the movie that a child of the Underworld leaves (goes to Earth) and becomes lost and forgets what she is. Her father has portals opened to the world in hopes that she will be reborn and return to him. Sounds, weird, right? Anyway, she finds the portal in the Labyrinth and has to complete three tasks before she can open it and return home. If you don't like fantasy-type movies, skip this one. There are fairies, monsters, and a pan (up right walking goat lookin' thing). There is also some pretty brutal violence, so this is not a film for kids. I had to turn away once. Oh, and my biggest concern before watching the movie: it is in Spanish. So, if you hate reading sub-titles, skip this film. Overall, I really enjoyed watching this movie. It has a sad ending if you don't buy into the 'princess of the underworld' aspect but a happy ending if you do buy into it. It certainly isn't a movie for everyone, but I recommend it if you like Grimm Fairy tales. I'm not talking about the Disney fru-fru sugar coated versions with mice and birds makeing a dress for Cinderella. I mean the original versions where Cinderella's evil step mother had her eyes pecked out by birds at the end. I think I will probably watch it again. I give it 3 and a half start (out of 4).

Pansies

So, I posted about growing a pansy on June 1st. It;s not too exciting, really, but here is the pansy today. As you can see, it is about to flower. I have no idea why some pansies that I planted are this advanced, and others are barely the size of a quarter. They were all planted the same say in the same kind of dirt and get comperable sunlight and water. Of well. I also put up a few more nature-type pictues on my Flickr page. They are all from around my house. I like this picture of a rose.

Got that Poker Monkey off my Back

So, I finally won a card game that wasn't played on my Xbox. I hosted a game last night and was able to come out on top. I know that makes me a rude host, but I don't care. It was about time that the cards came my way. I hit two huge hands back to back and eliminated two played from the game. Two pair followed by a straight. I even hit a full house in a hand. The best hand of the night was a straight flush(someone else's). I think it was the first time I've ever seen that happen in real life. Anyway, I think I ended up taking out 5 of the 15 people playing. I was being brutal. I was getting good hands and making great reads. I think I playedone hand wrong, but was anble to recover to win. I could afford to take a chance with my huge chip lead. We played a second smaller game after that, which I lost, but I was playing with other people's money. It took forever though. The first game with 13 people took 3 hours and the second game with 7 people took 4. I wanted to kick eveyone out, but I try to be a good host.

Dinner and a Movie, Re-defined

I wanted to go see a movie Tuesday. I was hoping to catch Spiderman 3 at around 2:00, but it was not playing at the time. Instead, I took the kids (never gonna do that again) to see Pirates of the Carribean 3. Unbeknownst to me, I went to Hilliard's new hot spot, Movie Tavern. See, it used to be a regular run-of-the-mill movie theater, but it was converted. Now, when you go see a movie, you get to sit at a table and order food and drinks. This was good because, now I could get the kids some substantial food other than pop corn. Plus, they could stuff their mouths while watching and hopfully sit still the whole time (didn't work). The food was pretty good, but pretty pricy. Remember how they screw you at the concession stands? $4 for a pop and $5 for a large pop corn? Imagine a plate of nachos or a chicken basket. Oh, and the drinks are still $4. I will never take the kids to this place again. The food is too expensive for kids that only eat half of it. Also, there were spinning chairs (like desk chairs) that the little kids were spinning in non stop. It is definately a place that I would go to with Jessica. Perfect for a speed date, and for those of us with kids, speed is good.

As for the movie, it was OK. I was a big fan of the first film. It was fun, exciting, and totally entertaining. The second, was OK. They moved away from the action a little bit and added a bit more plot. This final installment of POTC was a little disappointing. A lot of dry plot, a surreal sceen of the afterlife, and even less action. Good guys are now bad guys, bad guys are good, and a whole bunch of new and different characters were introduced. It was not the best of the three films. It's was almost like they just wanted to wrap up the story. I may have missed alot, since I had to chase the little kids all over the place.

It's almost over

So, my choice was to play Halo 3 as much as possible this weekend. I think that today is the last day that it is available. I wish it were going to be available for longer. I played several matches this weekend. It looks like most of the same games from the old Halo multi-player matches are available on H3. I played a team slayer match on a HUGE map, getting my ass beaten. I played individual slayer matches (I did pretty well in these), odd ball (keep away), king of the hill, and two other slayer variations: rockets (everyone has a rocket launcher and unlimited ammo) and 'snipes and shottys' (everyone gets a shot gun and sniper rifle). I did the best in a snipes and shotty game, taking first place once. My basic strategy is to try to sneak up on people trying to snipe and then shot gun them in the back. There are some cool new weapons in the game too. A Spartan Laser, which is a HUGE laser rifle that will take out anything it hits. The draw backs are that it is slow as hell and you only get 5 shots. There was also a chain gun or something, which shot explosive shells and was slow like the laser. Still, there are a lot of fun additions to the game. I hope I can play a little bit more before it is off Xbox Live. I am DEFINATELY going to buy H3 when it is released. The only online drawback is that there isn't anything that will separate the good players from the no-so-good players. I was in a few games with killing machines. I am OK, but was getting beat down a lot by these people. Hopfully I will be able to meet a group of people that are on my same level when the game comes out and we can have private games.

I'm done (sorta)

So, I finished the quests in Crack Down on Tuesday. Really, I was a little disapointed. I had a great time with this game, you get to kill gangstas and complete quests, with you ultimate goal to clean up the streets of a violent city. Yo are a super-cop with super strength and healing abilities. You also get to look for hidden orbs and agility orbs that give you more strength and abilities. Plus, there are races that you can compete in to give you more experience points. When I say I am done, I mean that I have killed all of the bad guys. I still need to find a bunch of hidden orbs and agility orbs. There area bunch of races I haven't done either. I'm just not sure if I want to committ the time though. What's in it for me? I guess there is bragging rights, like Woody has for Dead Rising and another person I found through Woody, Lefty Brown, has found all but one of the Hidden orbs in Crack Down. I guess that there are more weapons to find too, but is there a point? Wil they be better than my favorite machine gun/rocket launcher combo? I guess I can move on to the next level and play again, but I have Dead Rising, Rainbox 6 LV, and Oblivion to play. Not to mention my online poker addiction. I suppose that I could complete Dead Rising and then revisit Crack Down.....

So, I have also been playing the Halo 3 Beta. The one thing that I have noticed (and my number one pet peeve about first persone shooters) is that I am getting my ass kicked because when I try to reload I am hitting the reload button for Crack Down (that's not the right button for Halo). Plus, I am getting my ass kicked because I basically suck in the rumble pits. AI opponents are easier to kill than real people. I started playing the old Halo story line to see if I could get my reaction times back up and get used to the controls again, but it hasn't helped much. My guess is that I will get into it more and be more successful online after H3 is out and I have gone through the quest. I will get used to the new equipment (bubble shield and portable lifts) and weapons. I heard somewhere that the release date was pushed up to September, but I doubt it.

Rain, Rain...Keep coming!

I know, I know. I sound like a farmer. I guess I am in a way. A gardener at least. 12x24 garden and I like planting flowers and stuff around the house. I finally got everything into my garden a while ago and have been fighting a several week long dry spell. I don't mind watering, but it gets expensive after a while. The weather people kept saying that it was going to rain for the longest time, but it didn't until yesterday. We got some much needed H2O. I know that this isn't much of an exciting topic of conversation, but am running dry too. I have had to work all weekend, so I'm a little drained mentally. Anyway, The rain was good for my garden. I'm sure that the plants don't get enough water when I use the hose. Mother Nature does a much better job. Anyway, here is a picture of my garden. The tall plants on the left are all tomatoes. They have grown about a foot since my dad and I planted them on the 20th last month. I LOVE home grown tomatoes. The ones you buy at the store are crap. If/when we have our cookout, hopfully we will have plenty of home grown vegies for you all.

I also am posting the pansy after about four weeks of growth. They are going a little slowly due to the lack of rain, but they have really sprung up lately. Probably doubled in size. I expect some flowers to pop out in a couple more weeks.

I Can't Believe I Almost Missed It!!!

Who said that there was no point to reading Woody's blog? I may have been me, but if that is the case I TOTALLY take it back. On a whim, I followed one of his links to Lefty Brown's blog. BOY am I glad I did! I figured that there may be some interesting Xbox content since he taught Woody how to create his own 'Achievement Unlocked' notices (see Woody's post today). I scrolled down a bit and Lefty's 05/31/2007 posting and saw that the Halo 3 Beta test was up and running. Not only that, but there is only a limited time left for me to play. WHAT!?!?!? Are you kidding me?? The entire reason for my buring Crack Down was to play the Halo 3 beta test. Now, my window of opportunity is down to 8 or 9 days!!!! I just down loaded the demo and played for about thirty minutes I had time for two fre-for-all games. The forst one, I got my ass kicked. Not just a little. Totally. I'm talking zero kills by EZE2112. The second game I did better scoring five kills. Seeing as how I have never played Halo 3 before, I think that is OK. I'm sure that some of the guys I was playing had already played several hours already and knew all of the nooks and crannies of each map. I played really well. The graphics were great. My only complaint about any of these games (I mean first person shooters) is that they all have different controller set ups. Right now I am used to Crack Down controls, which are majorly different from Halo controls. I tried to throw a grenade and hit the whong button (it was the right one for Crack Down though). But MAN did it feel great to play Halo again. Even if I was getting my ass kicked. I was planning on starting Dead Rising after finishing Crack Down, but I may need to go back and revisit Halo and Halo 2 just to that I can get geared up for Halo 3. Or at least until my controls get figured out again. Just another reason for loving myself for signing up for Xbox Live. FUN SHIT!!!

Poker Problems

So, lately I have been getting my ass kicked in poker. I'm not really sure why. I guess it's been really bad luck. I played last night and started off OK. There were several hands that I was one card away from a killer hand, but kept missing. I guess I need to stop chasing hands like that. The thing is, if I hit one of those hands, it would be killer. The hand I went out on last night, I had a flush draw, a straight draw, and a striaght flush draw. Basically, I needed one of 13 cards. Missed them all. I had a few hands like that. It is very frustrating. Then, it seemed like everyone in the game would hit their hands against me. I guess it's just terrible luck. I guess I should say that when I play on my Xbox, my luck is pretty good. I've won several games, and my online ranking is pretty good. Of course, I'd rather win money. I guess I should quit crying. I know my luck will turn around. I just wish it were sooner than later.

The Life of a Pansy

No, this is not a posting of my day to day life. Nor is it a post about any of my friends. I just thought that this would be an interesting posting idea. I plan on taking a picture of a pansy (plant) every once in a while and we can watch it grow. OK. Maybe I am a bit of a pansy too. I can't think of anything else to post at the moment.

I started these at the beginning of April and this picture was taken a few weeks ago.