Fuck you Microsoft. Fuck you.
I hate my XBox. I really, really hate it.

Don't get me wrong - the XBox is a killer system.

So what's my problem?

Well - a batch of XBoxes have a bad DVD-ROM that pretty much dies after 2-3 years. And guess what I got? That's right. My DVD-ROM is dead.

In the beginning it was just a couple random glitches. Then the player would take forever to load games. Then it would give me "Disc Dirty" errors randomly (which made playing games like Silent Hill 3 incredibly frustrating...). The big problems started with Halo 2 on XBL. I'd randomly fail to load maps and delay my party from playing, which was embarassing. Only thing I could do to temporarily fix the problem was reboot.

And then came tonight.

Halo 2's maps and gameplay have gotten very tiresome. So tonight I decided to buy Doom 3 for XBox. I've been waiting for it since it came to PC.

Getting to the Best Buy here in Chicago was traumatic enough (the L was a fucking cunt tonight) and it took me about 2 hrs to get there and back with the game. So now I have Doom 3.

And guess what? The motherfucker WON'T LOAD. That's right. I can't get past the intro gameplay video and into the real game menu. I usually can't get that far. "Disc is dirty or damaged."

No - it's the fucking piece of shit XBox.

And while Microsoft happily sends out their replacement powercables, replacing the DVD-ROM or the XBox, they won't.

So fuck you Microsoft.
- posted by Brendan @ 9:58 PM 0 comments

 
I am not an animal!
This was supposed to go up last night, but blogger wouldn't let me post :-
So, following my usual Thursday morning routine I went to class without an hour of sleep. Usually this class is just 3 hrs of sitting in a chair and listening to some boring lecture. But today it was different. Very different.

Last week's homework was to divide a scene from the Ghost World screenplay into beats. I won't get into what beats are or what exactly any of that means because, well, no one cares. In stead of merely going over how we divided the scene up, as I expected, we instead had to do a production of the scene in small groups. We'd need a director, a DP and two actors (playing Enid and Rebecca). The director was chosen randomly by the teacher, and then the director chose who he wanted to do what rolls.

I had to act today.

I am not an actor.

Now, in my other classes whenever we had to perform scripts like this we always were allowed to read off the page since none of the people in these classes are actors per se (we're all behind the camera people). However, this time it wasn't the case. This time I had to memorize a scene's dialogue. Granted, I had plenty of time to do this - but on ZERO sleep this was a pretty lofty endeavor.

I was chosen to be Rebecca. In the rehearsals it went fine. Then when the performance came, in front of actual people...

Rebecca: It's a totally normal, average neighborhood.
Rebecca: Josh said it was a really nice neighborhood.
Rebecca: I saw him at work.
Rebecca: Nothing.
Rebecca: I don't know. God! Stop acting so jealous. I only talked to him for like 2 minutes.
Rebecca: 2567... do you see it? I think that's it over there.

FREEZE..

Uhh... uhh... Line!

Rebecca: What? It looks like a totally normal place. What's wrong?

Uh...

Rebecca: Yeah, I can tell you reall love it.

Rebecca: There's been something wrong with every single place we've looked at. Why don't you just come right out and say you don't want to live with me.
Rebecca: You're the psycho. You haven't been able to deal with anything since high shcool ended!
Rebecca: Fuck you! Have fun living with your dad for the rest of your life.


I had to do this scene 2 more times and every time I got to "Rebecca: 2567... do you see it? I think that's it over there." I got stuck.

And it sucked. And it was embarassing and I felt like a huge putz.


But... it was kind of fun.

Funny thing is - I just typed out all those lines without thinking about it and didn't pause once. Sleep helps peopler remember stuff, I guess.
- posted by Brendan @ 3:57 PM 0 comments

 
It's picture time once again
Sarah has a camera phone that has left me very jealous. Here's a few photos she's taken with the camera:

Sarah and Savannah

I'm waaay too excited about the Star Wars Anakin/Darth Vader toy kit

Pat Other Pat at Corfu

Savannah thinks she's people.. she just needs a beer in hand

Stefin looks longingly at the dead easter bunny

Jesus is always watching

It'll fit perfectly in the living room

Playing with Savannah

Talitha gets a low res pic because nobody likes her... hahaha..

Zero sleep and a McDonald's cup

- posted by Brendan @ 6:31 PM 1 comments

 
I'd rather be your W I G G A.. so we can dress shitty and say "dawg!" all day..
So, I have come back from Florida and now sport a fresh authentic tan. Oh yeah, bitches.

I'm too lazy right now to do a complete recap of interesting anecdotes, so here's the highlights...

- The car's alternator (?) failed after the first day's drive and we had to stay at a roadside, Bates-esque, motel called "Alpine Lodge". It was creepy and run down, like where you bring your prostitute for a night of water sports, but quaint in its own right.. I guess. We didn't leave till around noon the next day while the car was repaired, and so we lost about 4/5 hrs of travel time. We didn't get to Orlando until around 9:00pm.

- Florida is overflowing with wiggers. Like.. hardcore. It was amazing. Every guy in Florida seemed to either be bare chested with baggy jeans/shorts or sporting a wife beater. And they all had a baseball cap slightly off center.

- Most colleges had already had spring break, so Daytona was full of punk ass high school kids that consisted of wiggers (see above) and underage Pseudo Sluts.

- First night I was there I went to the bar and around 2am, at last call, I heard two women call me over. I turned around and saw one already had her top off and the other one was pulling her's up. Two pairs of tits were on full view. I went over to talk to them, of course, and then realized they were sitting with their boyfriends. I thought it was a trap and I was about to get punched in the face for looking at their tits, but it turned out the guys were as drunk as the girls. One of them pulled out his cell phone to show me naked pics of her. Then the women demanded I give them $5. I said no. Then they demanded I show them my penis, I explained that I wasn't drunk enough for that. Then they saw a bird fly by and their attention was diverted to that.

That was kind of scary.

- I met a guy from Canada named Seamus later that night. He was cool and had an Irish accent. We complained about the state of affairs (see above). Then we walked around the streets and he tried to pick fights with the wiggers. Then we had pizza and parted ways. Never saw him again.

- Met a girl named Gina and her friends when I lit a cigarette with the butt of another cigarette. Gina saw and told me I was her personal hero because of it. Kind of sad that you can become a personal hero because of how much one chain smokes. I was mad I didn't have my camera because they kept taking pictures with me and it would have been nice to have some of my own. Maybe she'll email some of them to me..

- Seeing all the pretty people made me decide I need to start working out again. I think it's easier to be like that in Florida by a beach because everyone's out and semi-naked all the time. In Chicago you spend 7 to 8 months bundled up underneath layers and layers of clothing. Then when summer does come you get about 3 or 4 months of shirtlessness. *shrug*

- I became a fan of this season of The Surreal Life. I don't have VH1 here, so I never watched it before. But that shit's funny. Gotta start d/ling that one..

- On the way home we were delayed a long time because of a bad accident involving a semi on the other side of the highway. Here are pics I snapped as we went by:



Notice in the second pic that the car had been burning.. and that's the roof of the SUV lying on the ground in the third pic.

Shit sucks.

Anyway - it was a good, fun, trip.

Got a bunch of stuff coming up to look forward to in the next couple months:
• April 16th is Sarah's bday - that means way fun times.
• Weekend after that I'll be heading out for Visit to Finiak at Eastern - Part 2.
• Weekend after that, Menthol is playing again at The Bottom Lounge. Hell yeah. Since Sarah will be 21 by that time, maybe she can come with. I'd love for her to see them live.
• May 13-15 = Anime Central.... which means Evangelion Panel #5.
• May 19th - Star Wars Episode 3. Mark my words, Revenge of the Sith will pwn you.

Life is not bad. :)
- posted by Brendan @ 11:09 PM 0 comments