Some people are just dicks

So to set the stage, our 9 year old pug Wilma is officially blind. She despises going potty on a leash or stake out and cannot be trusted to roam around outside. We can't afford to fence in the yard and don't want to banish her outside. Plus with all of the other animals and stuff roaming around and knocking her head on everything, you can tell she's genuinely miserable and we just don't have the time to devote to her care. So instead of being bastards and putting her to sleep or dumping her in a field somewhere, we tried to find a new home for her on Craigslist.

Let me tell you, don't ever post anything semi-controversial in the Madison group because you have a bunch of hating motherfuckers in there. Almost immediately our post got flamed because we're heartless bastards for getting rid of our dog now that she's "inconvinient" and "would you want your kids to do that to you?" First of all, no we're doing the compassionate thing by finding our dog another good home to go to. Secondly, yes if I'm pissing and shitting everywhere, can't see and am a general hazard to myself and others then YES put me in a home where I can get the care I need. My only hope is that the kids screen the home and don't cheap out on it. Thirdly, if you're going to flame someone, do it face-to-face (or as face-to-face as the Internet will allow) and not through some cowardly post with no contact infomation. There's a lot more to this story but suffice to say an all out flame war popped up in the postings section (many of whom were partially or completely on our side) but still it was a nightmare.

The point is, I don't recall asking anyone on Craigslist for their opinion, so if you're not inquiring about meeting us and our dog then SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP! Apparently it's quite a problem in Madison (IRL and Craigslist both). Everybody is so militant about their opinions here WHERE THEY WILL SHOUT THEM LOUDLY IN THE STREETS AND FUCK EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE. Being a college town, all these groups are gaining influence by the ranks of confused teens/twentysomethings joining. PETA, ALF, Political Parties, religions, etc. If you can't respect the other side's opinion then go fuck yourself. I wish to fuck these people would get hit by a bus. In Madison the only way to express your view is to shout down the opposition.

On top of that there's extended family drama going on that I really can't comment on here yet, but suffice it to say I have a bunch of dicks in my extended family too.

Anyways, on a happier note, the kids had a nice birthday party but it was just a nasty day for weather. I think everyone at the party was ready for a nap by 2pm and most people were gone by then, it was just one of those days. The kids got (and have already broken) some nice stuff.

Also, I found that despite my bitching about it, the Platinum trophy in RE5 is unlocked after getting all original 50 trophies, which I got last night so that's cool. I made it through the 1st chapter on Resistance 2 and it's shaping up really nicely. Hopefully, I'll be able to score all the trophies on that too before I have to give it back :) I also will have FEAR 2 in the pipe soon as my co-worker is done with it. The Platinum on Rock Band 2 is looking pretty distant as I suck complete ass on guitar and I'm supposed to get a 100% on Expert on a song and a 100% guitar solo on expert. I guess I'm just going to have to practice my ass off. I might take a crack at the endless setlist this weekend but I still have to practice singing a few songs yet before I can do it without failing.

So to sum it up, I have a lot of games to play and don't be a dick :)

What in the bloody hell?

So, for an RE5 update. I HAD 2 trophies left to get and then Capcom adds 10 more in their 1.02 update (which you don't have the option of turning down). Apparently they are putting in more online content PvP and coop Mercenaries, etc. However, it remains to be seen if these will be free or paid content. Either way it's bullshit. If you add trophies for the DLC then the trophies should be added when you actually get the DLC not before.

I was hoping to get done with the trophies because I'm borrowing Resistance 2 from a friend and right now my PS3 is so loaded with stuff that I can't keep game data from 2 seperate games at the same time on the system. Once I get all the Rock Band 2 trophies I can finally reformat the drive.

We've been complaining to doctors for about a year about our youngest daughter's swollen tonsils. Each time they kept placating us about it saying that they're not a problem, maybe she has another infection, etc. So Monday we took her into our new family doctor who says that they are a problem but doesn't think that they are that big of a deal. Nevertheless he did refer us to an ENT doc (due to our insurance we need a referral for them to cover it). So when we took her to the ENT he was surpised she could even hear, which she technically can't. Both ears and tubes are blocked up. So we've got her scheduled to get her tonsils and adenoids removed and the doc also wants to get tubes in her ears which is going to be a massive pain in the ass. Hopefully, it'll be worth it and when she can actually hear maybe she'll listen to us and then everyone will be happy.

What I wonder with all this horseshit is, is all this runaround due to the fact that we're on state insurance or what? I mean it's not like we're just subjecting our kids to frivolous procedures for the hell of it. Yet, 4 General Practitioners looked at our daughters tonsils and all 4 thought it wasn't a big deal and only 1 was willing to refer us to an expert. So what's the story here? Is the policy not to cut on little kids? To fuck with people who don't have decent insurance? Who knows. 1 thing I did learn is that even if you're not a doctor, you know your kids. You owe it to them to push the issue and to get multiple opinions when you think there is something wrong.

What also pisses me off is when people just can't admit that they do not know something. I know that you need to be seen as knowledgeable in your line of work, but if you don't know just say so. I won't think any less of you, in fact I'll probably think more because I know you're not going to feed me a line of bullshit to cover your lack of knowledge. I see that everywhere. Doctors, mechanics, computer tech, stock gurus. Just admit that you don't fucking know everything. Seriously, I must say "I don't know" probably 20-30 times in a given day. I'll speculate, but I'll tell the customers that this is what I THINK happened not what I KNOW happened.

Anyways, that's enough bitching for today. Happy Friday, y'all

Making Albert Wesker my Bitch

So I finished Resident Evil 5 last night (this morning). I stayed up until 3am playing it. It ends on a good note with all the plot points resolved and everybody happy. The nice thing is that even though all the conflict going all the way back to RE1 is now over, there's still plenty of stories that can be written about bioweapons and terrorism. Of course, you won't have too much in dramatic reveals in RE6 (unless one of the good guys goes bad) but the series will just keep on chugging on. Now I just have to get the rest of the trophies (about 13 more) and then I'll be done-done. Of course, one of the trophies is to beat it on Professional which is one step above where I was. For that it's mostly one hit kills from everything....I was swearing profusely on Hard, I just might have a heart attack on Professional.

As promised here are some pics of my reflooring of the coat room. I couldn't find a picture of the floor before I started (and I didn't have my camera when I started).

If there wasn't that section on the right (I suspect that's where the old basement stairs were before the addition), we almost could have kept the original hardwood.

Halfway there

Woo hoo. I still have to put in trim, but that's not too hard. It would be even easier if I didn't have to make beveled cuts. :(

So it's alllll good so far. Just gotta finish the trim in both rooms this weekend, and clean the garage and basement. After all that, I may just be able to get the endless setlist done in. So yeah, it's busy, busy, busy again.

Dude, where's my weekend?

I spent the bulk of Saturday and Sunday working on the damn coat room floor. Trying to do the edges takes forever, especially because ceramic tile is such a pain in the ass to cut through. Nevertheless, I worked my ass off and now the floors themselves are done. Now we just need to mop a few times, I have to put the trim in and it is FINISHED!!!! I'll be posting pics once I get them off the camera.

Speaking of pictures, Pam and I took the girls to a St. Patricks day parade in Fox Lake Sunday. Fox Lake has about only 1000 people in it so it's a big event for them. The kids liked it but I was pretty meh about the whole thing. I'm not Irish, not Catholic, and I don't like getting drunk in public :) Seriously, the parade is nothing more than an excuse to get shitfaced for most people, which happened to include most of those standing by me. Oh well, fun was had by most and that's what matters.

I did manage to go through some more on Resident Evil 5 and Rock Band 2. I got all of the bass trophies and am now working on the guitar. We're going to have to have some people over eventually so I can get the actual band ones (8X multiplier, etc)

As far as RE5 goes, it looks like I was right. Chris Redfield's dead former partner does figure into the story (and I've got a good idea who she is in the game). The infection agent is the Las Plagas parasite from RE4 but the samples that were stolen by Ada Wong and Albert Wesker were apparently modified by Tricell (the new Umbrella) and tested out on the population of a small African village. You do get to fight some tribals later in the game so that's fun. I'm doing pretty well as far as the trophy's go. I'll have to go through a few more times to find all the secrets and also score Rank S on every chapter, but it's keeping me busy :)

First Thoughts: Resident Evil 5

So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth I was able to come up with a plan to buy Resident Evil 5. I hit Gamestop last night for their midnight release and played it until 3 in the morning. A few thoughts on the game:

-Would it be freakin possible to break the game data that needs to be installed into smaller chapter sized chunks, ala Metal Gear Solid or run the install concurrently with the introductory cutscene? The 1GB data install before you can play the game took 15 minutes to install. I understand it's necessary for the proper running of the game but c'mon. 15 minutes is 14 and a half too long.

-I have a love/hate relationship with the new parter system. For those who don't know, your main character Chris Redfield (from RE:1 and Code:Veronica) has a partner in the field that can be controlled via AI or an online or offline human partner. I love it because it adds a new dyanmic to the game which is much more in depth than the partner stuff from RE4 (mainly because Sheva is also a highly trained agent and can hold her own). I hate it however because you have limited control options over her. You can tell her to either go on the offensive or cover you. In either case you have to control her inventory because she won't always pick up ammo for herself. Also with her around it makes it hard to accomplish certain trophies/achievements such as 'kill 5 enemies with your knife'. Well, I can't do that if my partner is popping shots into the zombie I'm trying to stab. You literally have to disarm her to do it.

-Speaking of trophies, they are all fairly acheiveable and the counter ones (kill x zombies with y) add up whether or not you die after doing it. Most of the harder ones are ones where you have to get all the weapons fully upgraded and that's just hard because of the game time involved. You also have to play through at least twice, once on Easy/Medium/Hard to unlock Extreme difficulty and then beat the game on that. I've found no word if beating it on hard will satisfy the beat it on easy or medium trophies.

-The graphic and lighting effect are top notch (as they should be). The first part of the game is played in an African village with blazing sun beating down on you. When you go from shadow to light you are momentarily blinded as your "eyes" adjust.

-The new zombies, dubbed the Manjini, are similar in speed to the Ganados of RE4 but with even more erratic movement making them harder to hit. Their "zombie" biological agent appears to be some sort of worm. Later you have to fight a sub-boss composed of nothing but worms. It's a very interesting fight.

-Many of the improvements from RE4 are still there. Over the shoulder camera, context specific button presses (i.e. near a window, press square to jump out. Near a fence press square to jump over). The big change is that inventory management is done in real time like RE: Outbreak (the online one). Also like RE: Outbreak, your inventory is limited to 9 different things which you can switch from a larger inventory between chapters or when continuing.

-One thing that continues to vex me is there is no dodge or 'jump back' feature (to my knowledge, I've yet to look at the instruction manual). If there really isn't one, seriously why not? You have a Special Ops. trained agent and the best he can do for evasion is to do a quick turn and run? Also, WHY IN THE HELL CAN'T HE WALK WHEN HIS KNIFE OR GUN IS DRAWN!!! Capcom, if you're going to move more toward realism then please, please remove this last gameplay mechanism tie to the 1st Resident Evil.

-The story so far is really good, with one minor gripe. They revealed that a major character from games past is now dead. I have two thoughts. If it relates to nothing, then it was way too early. My other thought is that it may relate to this mysterious hooded figure you see in the beginning who is apparently working for the bad guy, and yes Wesker shows up again. Maybe you'll finally be able to kill his smug sunglass wearing ass?

So yeah, all that in two hours of playing :) I can't wait for the rest, too bad I have to finish all my 'projects' this weekend :(

Drama and Dramamine

So anyways, I got my camera yesterday and it's working pretty nice. I took some pics of the work I did in the living room

Gotta paint the wire guard yet, but it looks infinitely better than the mess that was there before.

There's still some trim to install yet and Pam wants to change the ceiling tiles (we have a drop ceiling) but the living room is practically done. Now the only other room in the house that needs work is the coat room (install tile) and the kitchen (install recessed lights and sink)

I put $10 down on the Collector's Edition of Resident Evil 5 as well so I have that to look forward to on my birthday

However, it's not all whipped cream and nipple clamps. We were informed that our house payment would not change. So even though the Escrow is now taking an extra $100 out of our income, they don't see that as a reason to lower the payment. It's not the end of the world but it's complete bullshit I think.

On top of that we had to fight with our new bank for 3 weeks to get our debit cards and checks (which we finally got last night)

Both of our kids keep acting out too, which is driving us crazy because we don't know how to get them to listen. If you seperate them, they're usually fine, but together they are a handful. We'd like to have a 3rd, but definitely not while these issues are still happening.

I suppose it's not really as bad as it sounds. Pam's mom is giving us a little help to offset some of the price increases we're seeing, which is only fair because we provide a lot of help to them in other ways (computer repair, etc.) The kids will eventually grow out of it and the house payment will go down eventually or our wages will go up. It just seems like with all this recession bullshit, everything is stressful.

What pisses me off more is that the government (from what I've heard on the news) is now going to be buying out 5 million home loans and working with lenders to restructure 4 million more of homeowners in risk of foreclosure. What I want to know is do these people deserve it? I understand that keeping people in homes is good long term, but it continues to send the message that if you fuck up, Uncle Sam will fix it.

Are they helping out the people who spent beyond their means and now can't afford their homes? Are they helping people who shouldn't have qualified for a loan in the first place? Are they helping people trying to make a quick buck and got stuck with a toxic loan? I sure hope not. Those people should lose their homes as even a buyout won't cure the root of the problem which is greed both on the lenders and the buyers. The people who should be getting the help are responsible people with bad luck (losing a job, etc.). They should also be helping those who needs a little help like *COUGH* *COUGH* us *COUGH*. It's not like we are asking USDA to pay for our house completely, we just need a little bit to compensate for the rise in taxes and insurance. But no they cockblock us. What. the. Fuck?

OK, I'm all worked up now. Time to take a break.

Things are hopefully a little better now

So the living room is 98% done for now. I still have to lay Quarter round around the room to hide the gap for the laminate floor. Other than replacing the drop ceiling tiles (and upgrading the electronics *nudge* *wink*) that room is D-O-N-E, done. After that, there's replacing the ceiling tile in the office and installing a closet door, putting ceramic tile in the coat room and then putting in recessed lighting in the kitchen and then I think the entire 1st floor is complete.

It was a bit of a pain in the ass and took up all my weekend, but the new living room it fucking sweet. I'll admit I didn't think it would turn out well but that's because I couldn't imagine the wall color on the non-brick walls. With the color it used to be, a brick wall would have looked stupid. But I guess I have a failure to visualize the whole room. Guys don't operate like that, and I suppose Pam will never let me forget that I was vehemently oppoosed to a brick wall in there. Oh well, at least it looks nice.

I would be posting pictures, but our camera has been broken for weeks now. The lens mechanism for going in and out is broken. I just purchased a new one for $89 with 2 day shipping with the funds from selling my external hard drive. That's kind of irritating because in a perfect world, I would have been using that money for either an internal 1TB drive for the computer or the collector's Edition of Resident Evil 5. With the money I have left and money from other places, I still have a shot at getting it but I'll have to see. I guess it depends if I can get Pam to 'loan' me $40 which I'll put back into checking later. Considering I didn't get paid for my 16 hours of work, that should be a fair deal :)

I did manage to get some Rock Band in. I'm making pretty good progress on the trophies. I've gotten the "All venues played" and "1,000,000" fans trophies. I'm hoping to find time for the 'iron bladder' trophy. That's where you go through all 85 songs without pausing or failing. Hopefully if you can do it on Medium that shouldn't be a problem, I just hope my voice and/or arms hold out for 3.5-4 hours of straight playing.

I would have done more last night but I had to get my "24" fix in. I'm all about suspending disbelief for TV, but seriously, a underwater passageway from the Potomac into the White House, really? Oh well, it'll be fun to see Candyman (General Juma) go up against Jack Bauer. It's too bad that David Palmer isn't still the President on the show. I wonder what Jobu would make of the Candyman?

Anyways, gotta go, these calls won't answer themselves