My one beef about shooters

I have mentioned before that I love first person shooters on my XBox 360. I guess it is the rush you get from the (mock) kill or be killed situations. I am not great at these games, but I can hold my own. Lately I have been playing Call of Duty 4 alot over Halo 3. My Halo 3 disk got scratched, or I probably would have never tried COD 4. Anyway, I am better at H3 in that I win more games. I win a few COD 4 games, but not as much. ANYWAY, the main point to this post is that there is a HUGE difference in the two games. Yes, they are both shooters. the big difference is the controls. The right trigger is shoot for bother games and A is jump, but beyone that, there are HUGE differences. You may think that it wouldn't make much of a difference, but it does. I got a new H3 game this week, tried to play it, and got SMOKED. The biggest difference is that the melee button is different for each game. It is a big deal when you try to hit someone in H3, but kneel instead. Or vice-versa. I guess I am going to have to go one month playing COD4 and then another month playing H3 so that I can keep the controls straight in my head. I wish that each game would use the same basic controls for each action. Maybe I can change them in my options menu.....

Vacation, sorta

I took a few days off last week and took the family to meet my parents at Great Wolf Lodge. It is an indoor water park in Sandusky, OH. It was pretty fun. I say that it was vacation sorta because we had to chase Gabe and Ally all over the place. Mostly Gabe. He LOVED the water slides. The picture is the result of a huge bucket of water getting dumped on a bunch of people. Noah is in there somewhere. It was cold water compared to the heated pools, so I avoided it. Gabe's favorite thing was the leasure creek thing. He woud get into the tube and run around the creek. It was cute. Ally seemed to enjoy the little kid things. she went on this one slide over and over again. She would squeel each time down. It was cute. There is also an out door pool, but the main fun was indoors. It was a little chilly outside. I took a few pictures, but didn't really want to take my camera around too much. I was worried it would get wet. Plus all the lockers were full and I was worried about it getting lost or stolen. I also didn't want to look like a perv trying to take pictures of little girls in their bikinis. That scares me a little. One day my little girl is going to be a teen wanting to to wear tiny bikinis. I think it is a little scary that they make bikinis for young girls. Why do little girls need to be showing so much skin in public? Seems to me that it would fuel sickos and perverts. I will get off my high horse now.

Yup. It's Bigger Than a Baby's Arm!

I've been picking crazy big zuccinis from my garden lately. Plus a bunch of cucumbers and some yellow squash. Still, not too many tomaotes yet. Just little ones. The big ones are starting to get ripe though. It is so exciting having fresh yummy tomaotes. I am a little worried about my tomato plants though. They have some brown leaves at the bottom. I hope they are not diseased. That six foot plant I posted about before is now bigger than ever. I can't even reach the top anymore. I guess I will have to get the tomatoes that grow too high after they fall off the plant. I just love fresh veggies. The picture of my hand and the plant is me reaching up as high as I can and still not reaching the top.

Ramblings

1. I got the latest NCAA 2009 football game. I'm not really too sure why, other than I like how it gets me pumped up about the upcoming football season. I like playing the game as well, I just am not too good at it. Yet. I played four online games and lost two. The other two, I was winning and my opponents wussed out and quit. You don't get credit for a win if your opponent quits. I was urked. Really, there aren't too many changes to the game from the 2008 version. Most of the same plays and such. There are a few new bells and whistles, but nothing jaw dropping.

2. Is BSG ever coming back? I hope that the lame finding Earth episode wasn't the show finale. There has to be more right? We still need to know who the last Cylon is and what happens to everyone in the fleet. I hope they are just putting the finishing touches on the last several episodes. I am jonesing.

3. Shows I am excited about returning: Eureka at the end of the month, Heroes in September, Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronicles in September. There was another one, but I forget what. Speaking of TV, everyone should watch Wipe Out at least once this summer. The first time I saw it, I about died laughing. People go through obsticle courses and challenges in order to win $50000. It is something you have to see. Describing it won't do it justice.

What is it about Zombies?

What is up with zombies? I mean, why do I like the zombie movie genre so much? Not just the movies, games and TV shows too. I have seen almost any George Romero movie out there and their remakes. Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, all are great fun for me. Add to that Resident Evil flicks, 28 Days later, 28 Weeks Later, you name it, I've probably seen it. Let's not forget two HILARIOUS zombie spoofs: Shawn of the Dead and Fido. The whole idea is rediculous though, the dead rising to feed on the living. Rediculous. It could never really happen, right? I think we all would like to think it could happen though. No hear me out. I think everyone has a bit of a killer spirit inside them. Not enough that any sane person would act on it, but it is there. Now, if an event arose that would make it acceptable to go on a zombie killing spree, it could be exciting. Scary as hell, but exciting. I would definately go for the old school slow and stupid zombies though, rather than the scary as shit modern day fast running zombies. Look at one of my (and Woody's) favorite games on the Xbox: Dead Rising. Basically it is a zombie killin' fun fest of happiness. I hope another one comes out soon.

There are a few things about zombies though that I do not understand. A constant in all zombie movies is that the living dead all want to eat human flesh. Why? I guess the only reason that counts is "just because it is scary." Living dead that just walk around eating plants or plain not eating would be lame. The biggest thing that always bothered me though is why don't they eat each other? I guess they like the freshness, but you see movies where the dead are eating corpses they have killed. Why do these dead (the ones getting eaten) not rise up and say, "stop eating me bitch"? At what point does tasty live people turn into icky dead people?

A side note: Jessica and I watched a cheesey zombie movie where one of the dead (before he died that is) said that he was a vegitarian. So, after he died he did not eat people. I thought this a rediculous notion, but hilarious. Could you imagine the living dead vegitarians walking around looking for fresh veggies to kill and devour? My guess is that the people eaters would make fun of them and cast them out of their zombie society.

Damn I am weird sometimes. And NO. I don't really want the dead to rise and try to eat my ass. I am just trying to understand my zombie facination.

Fun Weekend

I guess Friday was pretty uneventful. We watched some TV.

Saturday, I went to play some cards. I usually don't go out on the weekends, so that I can stay home with the family, but for some reason, I felt the need to get out. I guess I was feeling tired of the same old-same old. I ended up winning $80. I beat up on my buddy Hasan most of the night, which made me feel a little bad. I had a huge suck out against him. He went all in for $30 and I called him. I had a pair of aces with a 10 and he had a pair of aces with a jack. The last card to come up was a 10, giving me two pair. Another hand against him, he his a full house and I hit the hand of all hands: a Royal Flush. I had never seen a royal flush in real life. It was fun.

Sunday was more fun for Gabe than is was for me. Actually, it was a little irritating for me. Gabe was invited to party at Pump it Up, which is an inflated play ground of sorts. there was a bouncer castle, a big slide, and an obstacle course. He had fun and was running around like a maniac. Actually, about 20 kids were. It's amazing how weird some kids are. One asked if I wanted him to tickle me. I said no. He then tickled me and said it was opposite day. Are you serious? What kid would do that to a stranger? Then, the birthday boy started crying because his mom told him to wait and eat his cake after everyone was served. Well, she didn't tell everyone this, so all the kids were eating cake before the birthday boy. I can see how he could be upset, but to go on and cry like that (for a while) seemed a bit much. It really makes me feel better about Gabe. Now I know his whining and overreacting is normal for the age. He was pretty well behaved at the party. Accident prone though. He scraped himself up a but on the slide. I think it happens alot there since the staff people had a big supply of bandages. It was frustrating for me because the place was in the middle of nowhere and the sign was on the back of the building where you couldn't see it. I looked for it for about 15 minutes until I found it.

The Key to Victory

I finally have this Call of Duty 4 game figured out. I have been stuck at the bottom of the pack in my multi player matches. I usually have an equal kill to death ratio and often have the fewest deaths of all players, so I was confused as to why I never won or came into the top three. The key: air support. One this about this game that I find unfair is that all players are NOT treated equally. The higher ranked people get better perks and weapons, making it easier for them to kill us lowly folk. Still, I didn't understand how the top people would get 25 kills before everyone else got 10 or more. It seemed so unlikely. Then, it happened. Yesterday, I got three kill right off the bat, which give me a radar perk (so I can see where everyone is on the map). Then, I got two more, giving me an air strike (I get to call in jets that bomb an area I specify, which gave me another kill. After my seventh kill in a row, I got to call in an attack chopper. This is where the fun starts. A chopper comes in a guns down everyone else in the game. I started getting kills on top of kills. I didn't win the match, but I came in second, scoring 20 kills. I was pretty stoaked. I quit playing right after that so that I wouuld end on a high note for the day.

Six foot Maters

As I commented on Betsy's blog, I have some big ass tomato plants this year. My dad starts tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and several other plants in his basement every spring. No, not pot. As a result, we get a jump on the growing season and more yummy veggies every year. It is no trick of the camera or a weird aspect, that plant in the back is taller than my fence. My six foot fence. It is a cherry tomato plant, so it has about 50 little green tomatoes waiting to ripen. someare about ready. We also have yellow cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, and pink tomatoes. YUM. One of the best things in the summer is cutting up some tomatoes, adding some fresh parsley and onion, and putting Italian dressing on it. It is great! See some more plant and kid pictures on my Flickr page. Here's a close up of the six footer.

Xbox Live WTF

I was playing on my Xbox yesterday and got booted from a Call of Duty game I was in. I then received a message that stated that my Live ID was logged in at a different location. I thought it weird, but turned off my Xbox to do some things around the house. Later, I tried to play again and when I logged into Xbox Live I got a message stating that my profile had been suspended. Huh? The message also stated that I could log back in today, but it did not say why I was suspended. This morning I called Xbox support and talked to someone that gave me no information at all. So, I check my email and saw one from Microsoft stating that my account was suspended because they received complaints about some inappropriate content on my account. Huh? I have no idea what that could be because I have no idea how I would go about putting up inappropriate content on my Xbox Live account. So, I am clueless as to why I have been suspended from Xbox Live. I don't talk trash, I don't have a camera to take naughty pictures, and I don't post nasty comments anywhere. the only thing I could think of is that someone gained access to my account somehow or someone just filed a complaint against me just to fuck with me. I am hoping that this was some sort of fluke and won't happen again. I would hate to have to start a new Live account and lose all of my achievements and gamer stats.

General Posts

- I played some cards last night. It was my first good night in a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time. I was hitting HUGE hands and making good plays with them. I ended up winning $215. The biggest hand I had was four queens. I think I won about $40 that hand. I also hit some straights and a full house. I'm still WAY down for the year, but it was a nice night. It's alot easier to win when the cards fall your way.

- Happy 4th everyone! I have to work Saturday and Suday, but I get to have tomorrow off. The boys will be out of town. Gabe is staying with my mom for the weekend and Noah is with his bio-dad again. It will be just me and my girls for the long weekend. I don't think we have anything exciting planned, but it will be nice to have a break from the boys' fighting.

- I bowled a 289 the other night! On the Wii.....I finally figured out how to be pretty consistant rolling the Wii ball. I was perfect until the tenth frame. Then I got robbed and left a ten pin. Oh well. I would much rather roll a 300 in real life. I think I am going to get a new bowling ball for the next bowling season.