HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Yes, it is finally Halloween. As a Pastafarian, this holiday
holds a special, religious meaning to me. It is important because it honors the
time when pirates, the Flying Spaghetti Monster's chosen people, were free to
roam as the pleased. Quoting from the good book, "it is a little known
fact that the original Pirates were well known for passing out candy to
children, but that practice grew less common as they became persecuted"
(p. 124). I know I plan to honor my religious obligations and dress as a
pirate. I don't have the pirate overcoat and boots yet, but my eye patch, hat,
and a Hawaiian shirt should pass the point along. I hope that you all can also
enjoy the holiday and be touched by His noodly appendage. RAmen.

I thought I would take an extra moment from my
preaching to complain a little bit. I am tired of all of these schmucks who put
up little signs for kids that say they don't celebrate Halloween. What a load
of outdated bologna. First of all, how would you explain that sort of thing to
a little kid who only wants to stay up late one night and get candy? "You
see sweetie, this family doesn't want to make you happy because they hate
children." The idea that handing out candy to kids supports witchcraft and
other sacrilegious ideas is stupid. If you don't want to put up decorations or
go trick-or-treating, that's fine. At least, you should be nice enough to make
a kid happy and give them a little bit of candy. Also, try to cut back on the
salt-water taffy. I hate that stuff.

There are some games that you just should not
play before going to bed. Specifically, I think of games like Tetris, Puyo Puyo,
Meteos, and, as I have recently learned, Guitar Hero. These games, with their
addicting yet repetitive gameplay have a habit of playing themselves, even when
the game is turned off. This phenomenon is especially evident when you are
attempting to empty your head in preparation for the sweet, sweet embrace of
unconscious of the night (or morning, for some). This strange event first made
itself apparent to me after my first Tetris binge. In the wee small hours of
the night, I would find myself awake and alert, as visions of L-blocks and
squares danced through my head. This happened again with an iteration of the
Puyo Puyo series known as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (one of my favorite
games, by the way).Visions of long combination possibilities that would wreak
havoc upon my enemies ran through my head, each more improbable than the one
before. After this game, this problem wasn't so great anymore. Only a small
handful of games would keep me up longer than normal, such as The Sims,
Amplitude, Harvest Moon, etc. These, however, were not anything great, and most
likely were more the result of boredom than obsession. This changed when I
finally got my DS and played Meteos. Old nightmares from an era I thought was
long behind me made a comeback as rocket propelled meteorites exploded along
the back of my eyelids. This also brought about a nasty twitch for a few days.
Whenever I thought about the game, my hand would move up to play every few
seconds, realize that I do not actually have the stylus with me, or indeed my
DS, and go back down. This passed though, until the coming of Guitar Hero (I never
played the original, but just skipped straight to the second). Now, with the
release of the third in the series taking up most of my time, I keep seeing
colored notes passing in front of my eyes. Whenever I here some of the songs,
my left hand would start moving to press the non-present frets. It's all quite
a bother.

I have been playing Guitar Hero III for almost six hours straight. My wrist really, really hurts.

Now that I've finally finished Phantom Hourglass, I
am ready to give my three cents worth. In short, I thought it was a decent
game. It was not one of my favorite Zelda games. In fact, I would go so far as
to say it was one of my least favorite Zelda games. Don't get me wrong, I love
the series, so that does not mean that I hate the game. I just thought it was
weak in comparison to others in this historic series. I'll try to avoid
spoilers, save for one section, which will be labeled.

To begin with, the graphics were great. It gave one heck of
a display in what the DS is capable of doing. It was full 3D, and the
characters and locales looked almost as good as their Wind Waker counterparts. It
was a little more pixilated, but the long draw distance and perfect facial
expressions more than made up for it. The sound was also great, save for your
fairy's "HEY!" The controls were my main sticking point. I have read
several reviews of the game and most seem to love the new controls. I hated
them. I would often find myself slashing when I wouldn't want to, walking when
I should be running, spinning my sword when I mean just to slash, etc. I would
have much preferred an old D-pad option. Also, I'm right-handed, so whenever I
mean to move Link left, my hand would block most of my view. Bad design
decision, in my always correct opinion. The game was also extremely easy. It
practically spoon-fed you the entire way. I mean, when I play a game like this,
I want to at least try to think for myself from time to time. I did like how
you could doodle on the dungeon maps, though. Then there was the game's
story.

[spoiler: highlight below to read]

This was a bit of a joke. It all starts with Tetra, Link, and company running into the mysterious ghost ship. Tetra gets captured (as all good princesses do), and Link runs in to the rescue. Ultimately, he wakes from unconsciousness on the shore of an island. He meets up with Ciela (or Navi, as I prefer to call her), Oshu, and Linebeck (one of the best characters in a Zelda game ever), who join him on a quest to save Tetra. Eventually, it's found that Tetra has been turned to stone, and they need to go on a long-winded quest to free her. It's your basic Zelda game after that. After you defeat the final boss and free Tetra, you learn that that entire adventure was just a dream. What the heck is that!? I hate when stories end like that. Afterwards, Link and Tetra copulated ferociously (I'm guessing).

And that about wraps up my review. It's a pretty good
game for the DS. Not the best, but it gets you by while you wait for bigger and
better games. Oh, and I should mention a little something about bombchus. In
this game, they have transformed from useless wastes of inventory space into
one of the most useful weapons in the game. And that's the word.

So, I finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass this morning. I'll probably write a review for it tomorrow or the next day, so stay tuned.

When I greet a customer
at my job, I always say "how are you." It's just my stock greeting
that I use with everyone. I sincerely do not actually care how you are. A
fortunately large percentage of people understand this, and respond with a
terse "fine" or "been better." I like these responses,
because it lets you get away with follow-up conversation like "good"
or "I see" or "please remove the gun from your mouth."
After one of those lines, I can go about my work and continue to act like I
care about the person in front of me without saying a word. I can wrap it all
up with a "thank you for your patience" and send them on their way.
There is, however, that small number of people who like to make small talk,
otherwise known as the scourge of customer service. These cancers of the human
population seem to revel in slowing workers down. You see, even though a good
percentage of the time don't care what the customer is talking about, which is
rather close to one-hundred percent, I am still required to act like I care.
This takes effort. This extra effort slows me down. I'm trying to do my job,
and every few seconds I have to stop to look at the customer, nod my head, go
"uh-huh, yeah, I know what you mean," then go back to work. It's a
hassle when a small "how ya doin' today," suddenly morphs into
something along the lines of:

"Oh, I'm doing okay, I guess.
I just got a new car. (oh really?) Yeah, it's a Mustang, and, believe me, it
rides like a dream. It seems like it obeys every command I give it. (uh-huh.) I
had to trade in my Beemer for it, and I'm a little depressed about it, but this
new ride makes up for it. (Does it now?) Yeah, and I got a blue paint job. Definitely
my favorite color. I also got this racing stripe up the middle. It makes all
the difference, y'know? It makes it seem like it drives faster. (Is that so?) I
drove it down to a party just the other night. All my friends were cheering
when I pulled up in it. Heh, they were so jealous. They-"

"Okay sir, you're all set to
go. I hope you weren't too attached to that car. It looks like a Mustang just
like yours is parked in the handicapped space and is being towed as we speak.
You might want to hot foot your being over there and try to talk the tow-truck
driver out of it."

It's always satisfying to make one of these overly
talkative folks feel just a little worse about their day after dealing with me.

I don't like rap music. Wait, before you label
me as some white-trash "player hater," hear me out. I don't say that
for the same reasons most people do, which are dirty lyrics, disrespect for
women, and the belittling of humanity in general. I sincerely don't care about
any of that. I listen to rock and most of the sex, drugs, bad language, and
poor role models are readily represented. I just don't like it. It's difficult to explain. I guess it's similar to not
liking certain foods. I cannot stand eating asparagus. I have nothing against
asparagus in particular. I just don't like it. I have met, however, people who
love asparagus and regularly eat the horrendous vegetable. I don't mean to
compare rap music to asparagus (please don't kill me), but it's an accurate
simile to my feelings on the subject. I don't like country music for the same
reason. Honestly, my distaste for country music is probably greater than that
towards rap. How the heck do people listen to that warbling? I'll bet they eat
asparagus.

So, I got a new pair of glasses the other day.
That was about the only thing of importance I accomplished (note: the picture
of me from the other day is already out of date. Welcome to the Information
Age). I had an appointment with my optometrist first. I got to sit in the
waiting room for about twenty minutes reading an issue of Popular Science from
the Roosevelt administration when the doctor called my name. She led me to a
small room that was clean, sterile, and filled with instruments that looked
like they were meant to torture detainees. My least favorite is that machine
that puffs air directly into my eye. Seriously, I hate that thing. I'll bet the
government could get a ton of information out of war captives if they just sit
them at one of those things for a few hours. Anyway, I finally got to the stage
where I had to read the charts. When she asked me to read the bottom line, I
just make up some random letters. "Sure, I think it says um... 'I C U 2 £
~ ¿ ®'?" Fortunately, I got them all wrong, and the doctor knew that I was
making it up. Then, with my prescription firmly in hand (but not so firmly that
it wrinkled), I went to the eyeglass shop. I picked out some nice frames that
seemed quite sturdy. Honestly, I could probably throw these against a brick
wall and it'll just bounce off unscathed. My new lenses are significantly
thicker. These bad boys are about as thick as a car tire, and probably more
resilient. I did not realize my vision was so blurry until I put on my new glasses.
It was like changing my monitors resolution from 800x600 to 1280x1024.
Everything became a lot smaller, closer, and clearer. Just think, in a few more
years, my glasses will be so thick that my eyes will look to be about the size
of ball bearings. Maybe I could get the lead role in a Mr. Magoo remake. Still,
it is rather nice being able to see clearly. It's convenient not needing to sit
about an inch from my computer monitor.

HAPPY 1023 DAY!

What exactly is 1023 Day? To put it bluntly, itis an arbitrarily assigned day to celebrate the me-ness of being me. It hasbeen celebrated every 23rd of October since I felt like celebratingit. The great thing about 1023 Day is that it can be whatever I want. Forexample, I have the day off of work today, so I plan to celebrate with an allday Harvest Moon binge. Go ahead and take a day to celebrate whatever you want.Just, please, no virgin sacrifices.

A Personal Message from Jimbo:
"Hello, I am Jimbo. Yes, the Jimbo of this fine blog. I apologize if I've shattered any preconceived images of me you had in your head, but I just wanted to personally wish all of you a happy 1023 Day. Thank you all for your support, and thanks again for reading my drivel. This is for all of you. You make it all worthwhile."

I am getting sick and tired of all these
"school zones." Y'know, those short stretches of road that require
you to travel at an unreasonably slow speed? Nowadays, with today's super-duper
moms, the idea of a "school zone" is worthless. When was the last time
you saw a kid crossing the street? Heck, when was the last time you actually
saw a pedestrian in the quiet suburbs? Parents are so overprotective of their
kids, that they probably don't let them within five yards of their front door,
let alone the side of the street (a discussion for another time). What I'm
saying is that "school zones" are no longer necessary. In the old
days, when kids actually walked to school, the country was one filled with
horse-and-buggies. Have you ever seen a kid get run over by a horse? Neither
have I, but I would imagine that it is very ugly. When a horse was passing by a
school, he would have to slow down to a reasonable speed (one mile-per-hour),
just in case some dim-witted child decided to play chicken with a 700-pound animal.
Nowadays, most schools don't even allow recess, and if they do, the playgrounds
are surrounded by nine-foot high fences, often with razor wire. There will be
no children on those roads. When they do leave the school, they are herded
directly from the curb into their mom's minivan (another thing that should be
banished from roads) and school buses. I propose that they abolish the
"school zones" concept. Also, if possible, could you abolish all the
other drivers on the road? I'm in a bit of a rush.