The Kind of Music that Just Soothes the Soul

Give Me My Old Time Rock & Roll

With my second year of Guitar class, and perhaps my last, finally over I've been drawn out of my musically oblivious shell. Sure I may not be the greatest musician but I am developing some tastes, and interests in music that I had not known before. The Who, The Eagles, Hollies, Van Hallen, John Fogerty, Mark Knopfler, and The Band are just some of the groups and people that would have never been vibrating my eardrums or driving me insane as I tried to learn them. I grew up on Classic rock, sitting in the back of a car on the long trips to and from my Grandparent's residence, among other places, a mere six and a half hours away. I can remember some tunes when I hear them again, such as American Pie, The Sultans of Swing (a favorite of mine even when I was a Wee lad), and Johnny B. Goode. Of course, growing up with this means that I generally get along fine with my parents in terms of music, and artists.
But that's when they started to watch -Gurgle-
. . .

That's when they started to watch -sputter-
. . .

American Idol

-Blleaaaarrrrggaaaaarrrrffffffff-

Sorry about that. It’s just. It's just so hard to put up with. The show is crap. It's a panel of three 'judges' -who are just actors playing generic two dimensional characters-. There's Fun-loving girl, Soulful Black Man, and Asshole. I could play asshole. I would tell everyone how shitty they were, and it wouldn't even have be a stupid act used to generate viewers.

But, hey, their way fuckin' worked! It seems that nearly half the goddamn population of the Continent tunes in to every goddamn episode to watch a string of mediocre music sang by random people. And then have other people tell them what they thought of their 'performances'. You know what, forget what I said before. I could the Judge of the Judges, rating their goddamn acting performances. These people are not entertaining, and I would rather eat my copy of Half Life
-blip-
-rather get mauled by a horny Grizzly bear
-blip-
- watch Star Trek* than this piece of Popular Culture crap.

Well, thank you American Idol. I've never appreciated Music more than after watching your show.

*That's right. I went there.


Exams: Thank The Force That's Over.

Well, that part of the post got a little more Ranty than I had initially intended, so I hope you pulled some enjoyment out of it. As some of you may know the entire staff of Gylydal

-blip-

staff of Soup of the Day has been working on exams for the past little bit, working full time for the week after that, and slipping into the second semester. It's been rough times, but I've finally found a moment to post about my happenings! I'll try to post more frequently, because I know my January post was half-assed, and disappointing.

So I finally looked into doing a regular show on W Radio, at school. As it turns out the Radio computer is being replaced, as was every computer in the lab. Mr. H said that the new computer should be back sometime early second semester, and I was welcome to come by and play around with it! I think I'll talk it over with him some more, and maybe get a regular show going during lunch, and inevitably, it would show up here as well. I've got a few ideas for a show. This is certainly a project I would be interested in doing, and maybe it'll catch on! Even if there aren't many listeners, as I know how W Radio has been neglected in classrooms more and more in the past, I'll at very least post my shows on Soup of the Day, and perhaps you guys would be a fan of Stu! It could even generate new listeners, but I'm not ready to get my hopes up. Just completing something like this would be satisfaction enough for me.


Shout Outs
-Sorry, this post did have a point at some time. But I lost it. Oh well.
-If anyone has any idea where I might 'find' a copy of photo shop, that would be cool.
-I'm going to be doing the e-mC^2 program this year at Queens U! Interesting life events to come? Fuck Yeah!

Warning! Warning!

Four unidentified tests have been spotted on our radar

Class: Exam.
Danger level: Extremely High
Recommending Extreme caution.
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Entering Exam mode
Outward physical activities - 20%
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Internal Organ functionality - Normal
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Brain activity - 500% efficiency.

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Warning. Overheating machinery. Approximate time to melt down – 162 hours

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Approximate cool-down time – 72 hours.

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Soup of the Day is shutting down for exam mode. This is not a drill.

Holiday Mode on Telegraph Road

Happy holidays readers! I hope Christmas has been kind to you all, and exams have taken no casualties. My update is cutting it extremely close to January, which would leave December 2007 completely postless, like animals! I promised myself that I would never let that happen when I started this blog, and I’ve done a good job of it so far.

My holiday break started off as good as it could get. No homework in sight, other some much much needed Community service hours I still need to get. Christmas shopping still needed to get done, but that’s never much of a hassle. I’ve gotten plenty of hours at work, and the money pile has been building up for sometime. Unfortunately the pile may still be growing between the hours of 1:30 and 6:30 on Monday night! That’s correct. This Monday night! I will try everything within my power to get a shift switched to be with the gang at Kings, but I can’t make any promises! However, I would walk through two and a half feet of snow to the Shop if I needed to.

-This portion of the post has been removed by Stu. Tough shit everyone.-

Christmas was pretty rockin’ this year. My gifts seemed to have been well accepted. I had gotten my brother a cool Orbital desktop novelty. Some of your may be able to see it one day. I also got him a nifty Calendar themed after various WWII fighter planes. He seemed to like it well enough, but I found it extremely difficult to shop for him this year. With no ideas given to me, I couldn’t have shot more into the dark. Well, I guess if I stopped in at La Senza…

For my mother Andrew and I got her a book that she asked for about Canada’s oldest cemeteries. Of course, I was uninformed, and we both managed to pick up a copy. One has to be returned, but that’s how it goes, I suppose.

For my father I purchased a generic box of Milk Minties chocolates. Getting people chocolate always seems like such an impersonal gift. However I also managed to find a copy of Uncle John’s Gigantic Bathroom Reader. A massive 750 page addition bathroom reader series. My father always seems to enjoy reading those, so it seemed like the perfect addition!

Myself? I got a Wii from my parents, which was a very nice surprise. I honestly didn’t expect them to find one with all the hype it has been receiving of late. Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, and Resident Evil 4 are the games I got as well as a copy of Final Fantasy IV for the GBA. MP:3 from Andrew. I also got a nice pair of Ear-buds, and Dire Straits: Alchemy Live CD from my aunt and uncle, and a book entitled The Jesuit and the Skull from my Grandfather. I believe it’s supposed to be the story (although I think it may be nonfiction.) of a man in a Religious Community who makes a remarkable discovery in the field of Evolution. Varied other gifts of candy and chocolate were also received.

I also got a visit from E on Christmas Eve Eve! She brought me a shirt for Christmas, and I felt extremely bad. I had never gotten my friends anything for Christmas before, what with being a man and all, so I had never even considered getting her anything. I opened it up to see a homemade t-shirt that had the Mountain Dew Logo on it, with the words ‘Do the Dew Stu’ plastered overtop of it. Just like I said I wanted during the summer all of those long months ago. She really is a good friend.

I managed to book tomorrow off of work, so I’ll see you punks for some New Years III. For now just keep on living.

Bran Post: Keeping it Regular

Forty Lashes

-This portion of the post has been removed by Stu. Tough Shit.-

Give Me Coffee, and I shall Build You a House
It is a little known fact that I played in the first Coffee house of the year. A duet with my good friend Mike, simply called D&D. The turn out was impressive, and the laughs were genuine, warm hearted, and appreciated more than words can begin to describe. From the moments of fear stepping on the stage, the first chord (An E minor) rang out of the guitar I felt at ease. Everybody listened to the words, and cared not about the quality of the vocals, but what it was they were saying. A great applause followed the song, and I’ve gotten compliments from friends, lady-types, strangers, and teachers alike. I returned to the Drama Studio for the Remembrance Day Coffee House Auditions, or the RDCHA, I was asked by Mr. Espresso if I would like to “MC” the coffee house. I guess my singing of Cat’s in the Cradle was bad, but not bad enough to keep me off of the stage. I prepared a few words about Remembering the Canadian soldiers who had given so much for the best damn country in the world, but such words escaped me during the performances. The WWII Veteran, and Principal had already depressed, and intrigued everyone as much as they could about the day, so why not just spend the rest of the day in celebration of the Freedom they gave us? Right, so I just tried to get a few, well humored laughs in, while letting the musicians do their thing. Unfortunately they still let stupid performances into the Caffeinetorium included an extremely disturbing rendition of “Hey Big Spender” by a bunch of scantily clad grade nines…
Uhhg. Grades ten and up people. Ten. And. Up. Maybe not even ten, maybe only the senior grades. It was so…wrong.
My friend Mike, Will, and I also embarked on a journey some three weekends ago. Much like a nerd Pilgrimage, but without leaving the house. It is the thing that many say they should do, but many do not, and all should not. But we did it. Starting at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon we started to watch Star Wars Episode I, and continued in numerical order until the saga was complete at 6:30 Saturday morning. At which point we cursed a lot, stumbled around in our tired stooper – having run out of snacks by the Revenge of the Sith – and played Call of Duty 3. I feel some sort of physical illness come on now whenever anyone mentions Star Wars, and I don’t think I’ll need to watch another movie for some time.

Middle Term Comes but Twice a Year
So the report cards that gives kids who have spilled countless hours into work, and studying will have physical justifications, and kids who don’t will begin to panic, and crap their collective pants. I am greatly pleased with all of my marks, but I know that a lot, if not all, of them will go down a bunch. I guess I can be happy right now, so here’s the run down.

Religion- 89%
Guitar- 89%
Math- 89%
Physics- 89%

Average- 89%

Seems too uniform to enjoy properly.

I guess that’s my newest of updates. It wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was going to be, considering the time it’s been in process. I’ll try to keep life exciting for next time!

Be Afraid.

They are the biggest, baddest mother fuckers in all of Resident Evil. And they're all back. Maybe now we can finally have Nemesis overturn buses, and throw cars, and he comes at you in all his bullet-proofed glory. Or maybe the Proto-Tyrant will have to deal with more than just one handgun because I didn’t know I’d have to fight him. Leech guys are back too. That kind of sucks, but I suppose you must take the bad with the baddest with Umbrella Chronicles.

Where’s Mr. X? I haven’t played Resident Evil 2, but I’m curious to see him! God, I can’t wait to play this game! All the Resident Evil Games. And more!

Playing as Wekser? Yes. Yes to the max.

The Sound of Music

My baby was born today. A healthy 3.18 kg, six-string G-tar. Beautiful Cherry finish on a Mahogany body. Black pick-guard. Terrific tone, and pick-ups. The price was right, but what I didn't know is that it was right at a 25% mark down! So it was more awesome than I thought it was! Probably a whole lot more I could go on about but most of my readers probably wouldn't understand. It's a good thing you don't have to, and comments like

"Sweet axe"
-Binks Oct. '07

Are appreciated more than enough. Even if you feel like adding some sarcasm* it's still appreciated!
*Warning: Sarcasm not appreciated. If it turns out Binkle was being sarcastic he shall hence-forth be known as Professorvonstinkypantsface.

The trip to the local music store has become a somewhat regular, and very enjoyable trip. You get to talk to interesting characters, there's almost always someone playing some nice music that fills the store with a warm atmosphere. Looking at the variety of the Guitars, and cocking an eyebrow at some of the price tags. A couple things I took notice to on my most recent trip.

This is my new Guitar. Or, the closest possible replica I could find. Certainly it paints the picture of my description. I'm just so proud of it! But I noticed something else, perhaps more interesting in my travels.
I found this. This Metal-Acoustic Fender Resonator. It must have been at least 5 kg in mass. I had never seen anything like it. Or, at least, I didn't think I did. As it turns out the Metal-Acoustics give off a very different sound than the regular acoustics, and you might recognize one of those sounds.


It's pretty awesome to hold the same guitar that one of the greats, or for me, the great Mark Knopfler uses. Maybe, when the day comes that I have a hankering for the Cold-Steel Beauty I'll throw down the dough for a Resonator. But for now, it's time to practice until my fingers bleed with my Les Paul.


This will be my last Music related post for a while. I swear!

Classic Metal, New Gear

Shortly after school started I was able to complete The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The ending of the game was just the right amounts of climactic, epic, and all around snazzy. Unfortunately, like the rest of the game, it wasn't very challenging. I was never really hard-pressed to figure out what I had to do in order to complete a puzzle, or fight an enemy. The boss fights, although cinematic in presentation: were way too easy. There are something like six towns spread out through the game, without many side-quests, and not but a few mini-games to be found. Come on! What ever happened to archery ranges? Those things were awesome!

All of those things aside, the fact remains that it was still a Zelda game. Of course it was an adventure worthy of my many (many) hours of log-time. The game, much like everything else in the series, is just plain fun. The near-artistic blend of puzzles, adventure, action, and story was as fun as it always is, but this time the ending left me wanting more. Perhaps there was more to be had, or maybe I've started getting into deeper games, and the standards of a full game have risen? At any rate, it was by no means a bad game, and was an adventure I would recommend to everyone who has access to it.

After that embarrassingly long Zelda adventure, I had previously promised that I would pick up a Wii, and a copy of Metroid Prime 3 and/or Resident Evil 4. However, something has come up. Two games that I had ignored throughout the life-span of the GCN have caught my interest and I could not pass up a chance to play either of them. MP:C and RE:4 will have to wait, for now I must play through Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Plus, Half Life 2, and Episode One still have to be completed. Civilizations III, and Phantom Hourglass constantly call my name. I think it could be sometime before I even need to get my hands on a Wii, which may come as less of a shock than I think it would.

And, without the promise of Guitar Hero III for the Wii I've decided I must become my own Guitar Hero. I've already purchased the Best of Dire Straits song book, to go with my CD of awesome, and I think it's about time for a nice Electric Guitar. Something like…this:

Fuck. Yes. That is all.

All the Trouble and the Strife

Hello world.

I know, I know, I'm late for my post! Hey! I don't need you to yell at me! Can't you see I'm sorry? Come on, you know this is my busy time of year. Now don't you cry like that! I'll make it up to you, darling. In fact, I'll do it right now! I'll whip out two glasses of the good font, and we'll have our post right now just like we always do. No! Better than we always do. It'll be a magical evening, just like when we were dating, and we can rest under the stars together. . .

Let's never fight again, world!

Part I: The Strife

Where did I last leave you in the - hopefully- many versed ballad of my life? Ah, yes. I had just started school, and everything was going fine. But, just as the car going down the road at 310 km/h you'll feel like you’re on top of the world. Somewhere down the road, however, you will begin to swerve very slightly, and bam! You're rolling over the highway, almost instantly disintegrating whatever crazy-ass vehicle you used to get going that fast in the first place.


Well, the whole E situation kind of blew up in my face, as I sort of figured it would. What I didn't know is that E had broken up with her previous boyfriend while I was on vacation in the Rocky Mountains. I.S., (who I'll refer to as Tank: the son of a popular Science teacher.) was there to comfort her, as friends do. I had been hanging out with Tank and E for most of the summer, and had grown used to the fact that they would probably end up locking lips eventually, and I would remain a mutual friend of both of them in the meantime. However, I also expected them to maybe tell me when they started going out, or when a significant event happened in their social lives. Like breaking up with a boyfriend.
After I returned from The Rocks I got together with the two of them for a few hours, playing some Tekken, and Guitar Hero, and then finally going on my way. No one had informed me of that anything was going on, but I noticed that they had began to talk amongst each other is hushed voices. I tried to make it seem as though I didn't really care, but I knew I was being left out of something, and due to minor paranoia, kind of figured they were saying bad things about me.

A week goes by, and I get no word from them.

School has started, and I return to my friends from the Grand Table of Lunch. We're all conversing, and having a merry time. Things quickly get back in-swing, and it's the good old days all over again. I get the chance to talk to Tank and E during Physics, but they seem a little pissed off at me. This only further added to my suspicions of them bad-mouthing me. As one particular day, a couple weeks in, comes to a close, I catch up with Tank at his locker. I talk to him about getting together on Friday with E, since it had been so long since I had gotten to spend time with either of them. Having worked several nights a week, school, homework, and other things to worry about, I hadn't gotten a chance to really talk with them in quite sometime. So Tank finally lets me in on the situation, and apparently I'm an asshole for having a goddamn life outside of them!
They seemed to think that I was ignoring them, and just reverting back to my old friends, and that sort of Jazz. Due to having to work about 22 hours a week on top of my homework, and other things I had not been able to do anything with E and Tank since that last day in the summer." Well, shit," I said "I'm asking if you guys want to do something now, aren't I?" The two of them agreed to it, and we planned the Friday as the time.

Of course, this gets into a very long story, but I'll just tell you the ending, to spare the reader of minor, uninteresting, and equally unimportant details.

We had come into my house, to out of the rain. We all dropped into a chair in the Den, and I thought it would be a good idea to change my soaking shirt, as well as grab the two of them some towels to help the wet situation. I got back downstairs, and offered to pull E and Tanks bikes out of the rain, and into the garage. Unfortunately for me, as I came back from putting the storing the bikes I heard an awful sound coming from the den. Sort of like the sound of pulling a nerf dart off the wall. The smack-pop shook my head as a dozen emotions went through me at the same time. The loudest one was probably anger. I was right pissed off. I was pissed off the whole night, but I tried to hide it. When we went out for Pizza, (Tank had to leave for work) E seemed to catch on to my pissed-off mood. I threw up a smile, and went on with the rest of the night. The fact that they were making out didn't bother me as much as the fact that they didn't tell me, and still haven't (however by now it is painfully obvious).

And in my own house! That's the worst part of all! I had to find out by walking in on them in my own goddamn house. That is betrayal at the highest level! And the two of them going at it seems to leave me with the position of Third Wheel, which has left me out of doing anything with them since the Friday of crap.

Part II: The Trouble

Despite my awkward, and frustrating social situation my quest for higher education presses on relentlessly. After an awesome showing of cardboard boatery, my group placing fist out of a combined class of 60, my marks for Physics seems hopeful. However my Math marks seem to be in peril, with a test approaching quickly, and my understanding of the lessons is slipping slowly. However, I have struck speaking grounds with an incredibly bright, and pretty I might add, young lass who has moved to the desk right in front of me since the beginning of the school year. She may be able to help me with my math problems, and save my marks from drooping further.
Guitar has easily become my most enjoyable, and perhaps my most challenging class. New techniques are difficult to master, and note-reading has never been a strength of mine. However, because I love the class, so much I have put a boat-load of effort to keep up, and I think I'm starting to close the gap between the rest of the class. Putting a hell of a lot towards finger-picking and bare chords, I've yet to become Music Literate. However, I've decided to put way more of my time towards practicing Guitar, and less time towards uselessly sitting on the computer. With time, and only time, will I get any better with my instrument. The difficulty of senior guitar is made much better by the attitude Mr. C has towards teaching it. As long as you are making a serious effort towards any sort of improvement he'll give you respect for it.
My math and Guitar will come together someday, and to quote the poster above the chalkboard - a poster I look at every single day - "Just because you can't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Only that you should try harder."

Part III: Do the Walk of Life

To tell you that things have not gone a tad askew in the past month would a complete lie. I'm slipping up in my school work in the most important year to date, and a friendship seems to have blown up in mid air, with an unknown casualty count. Things are reverting back to normal slowly.
In honor of Kyle's 16th birthday five of us went Paintballing on the past Wednesday. This event shall get a post all of its own. A.K., (taking a page out of Liam's book shall receive the nick-name Kalashnikov to avoid future embarrassment.) the unbelievably pretty girl from Math, is willing to help me out with my math issues during lunches. This can only end up being a win-win situation, and other positive things to be posted about in the very near future. No matter how bad you wreck your rocket-car, so long as you’re alive: you can always salvage the pieces and have the long walk back home.

I Have Eight Sides On Me

The beginning of this school year makes me think of a very simple analogy to generalize the school, and the certain quality it has that erodes your will-power, and determination. The idea came to me whilst listening to Mike and Jerry, otherwise known as Gabe and Tycho, from Penny Arcade.

It is as though I have entered The Octagon with some sort of freak personification of School. The match plays out in slow-motion, and School's unbeatable strategy, as with all other UFC fighters, is to drag me onto the ground in some sort of snake-like death grip, and punch me in the balls until I lose to will to go on.

Sure, for the first agonizingly slow moments of frame by frame progression, I may try to fight back against the ball-punching death-grip. Maybe I punch it in the face a few times before it takes me to the ground. However, it does get a hold of me and maybe I will grab a hold of the cage in a desperate attempt to pull myself up, while my scrotum is being reduced to something that resembles the daily plate in the Cafetorium. I would try, but, not unlike in UFC, the ball punching always wins out. No victory is worth going through that. Such as this, school does ware you out, and you will get tired of it eventually. But I am determined, just this once, to hang through the brutal ball-punching mayhem, and emerge victorious over the year! I will dominate it! Than I will return next year, to defend my title, and some sort of gigantic novelty belt that I got for being the champion.

So, yeah, I hope you enjoyed that little bit. School has started again, and it's enjoyable for the most-part. For some reason, being surrounded by annoying, and artsy, incredibly uninteresting, people in Math class has made it a goddamn chore. We will prevail! For the joys of Mathematics and the high-hopes of lunch will allow me to plow through the day, to the enjoyable hour and fifteen minutes of Physics! Hurrah!

Xbox 360 or Wii?

Well, as my list of consol games starts drawing to a close, with the exception of Andrew's Xbox which he is keeping in storage that isn't this house, I figured it was time to start planning on a new consol to keep up with new games, and good times. At first I thought the obvious choice was a Nintendo Wii, due to the abundance of franchises carried from the Gamecube that are making their way to the Wii.

Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Super Mario Galaxy, along with a handful of other promising games to come in the future, it seemed like the obvious choice.

But was it really that easy?

Looking at the 360's list of upcoming attractions, a few games I'm familiar with, along with new names, and promising experiences fill the list. Gears of War, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, BioShock, Mass Effect, Too Human, Halo 3, Fable 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Assasin's Creed. To name a few.

Perhaps someone else is wondering the same thing? Which should you go for? Let's take a closer, in-depth look!

The Wii

System

It's an adorable little machine, for a relatively low price, and it's packing a mighty punch. The Wii is offering a delicious new way of playing old-style video games, as well as allowing all new kinds of games to present themselves. Nintendo has met, and exceeded, the market standard in online gaming that they were pooh-poohed for neglecting on the Gamecube. Plenty of online capabilities including, but not limited to: Classic NES, SNES, and N64 games available through their Virtual Consol, as well as Online Multiplayer for certain games. Powering graphics that push beyond the boundaries of the Gamecube, but still quite limited to what the competition can produce, The Wii still remains a grand choice for a proper Next-Gen Consol.

Games

Upcoming games for the Wii are not many in number, but they are familiar and warm with names I know well.

Metroid Prime: Corruption came out just recently, and has been hailed as "Fucking awesome" by many. Metroid Prime has been one of my favorite series on the Gamecube, and not being able to finish it would be a constant gnawing in my mind. Forever in the dark of how the adventure came to a close.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl is another stellar game that is coming out for the Wii. The Super Smash Brothers series is a very popular one among Nintendo fans, and I am no exception. The near endless playability, tones of my favorite characters, and ridiculously fun multiplayer to boot, this game is sure to continue the tradition, and whoop all kinds of ass.

Super Mario Galaxy looks semi-interesting to me. Probably the disappointment of Super Mario Sunshine is keeping me from being extremely excited for it, but SMG

Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles could be a hit or miss. Although, unlike Super Mario Galaxy, I'll be keeping up to date with it, remaining excited and hopeful for the newest Nintendo-bound Resident Evil game.
does have its interesting bits.

New games are sure to pop-up in the future of the Wii as well, offering much more variety, and diversity to any gaming library.

Cost (With Tax):

Wii: $333.50
Controllers With Nunchuk: $80.50 each
Games: $70.00 each

Total: (2 controllers, 3 games) = $704.50 over the course of several months.

Over All the Wii is a very reliable gaming consol. Combining the classic game series' that I can trust for a good time, along with new ones that I can further explore. It offers new, really fun gaming, and affordability. Such a bundle one might only be able to find in an annoying car commercial if it weren't for the Nintendo Wii.

PROS: Cheapest Next-Gen consol.
Bad ass new controller is sure to offer up some awesome ways to play games.
Favorite series such as Metroid Prime and Super Smash Brothers are available.
New games sure to please the soul.

CONS: Not as powerful as the other Next-Gen consoles, so it won't be as pretty.
Lacks some really good games as of now (Other than Metroid Prime).
What the fuck is up with all the crap clogging up the gaming library? Seriously.

That was a short summary of the Wii and how I feel about it. Now let's bring out the copmetition.

X-Box 360

The System:

Microsoft's Xbox 360 is a hulking mass of awesome. Its powerful innards are barely contained by its sleek, easily melted outer shell. The 360 doesn't use any sort of knock-off Nintendo controller, unlike some consoles, but keeps with classic controller, which is a fine way to play Videogames. The Xbox already has an impressive library on, or perhaps under, their belt and is packing in more worth-while games this holiday season. Xbox Live, the online component of the 360, gives a gamer an unmatched online gaming experience with downloadable Demos, extras to you favorite games, TV shows, trailers, communication between fellows, classic and new arcade games, online multiplayer, earnable rewards for your offline games. But it costs money. :( Still, the Xbox 360 is a powerful contender to the market and a grand choice for a Next Generation Consol.

Games

There are a lot of very cool looking games coming out for the Xbox 360. Let's take a look at some of the lesser known ones, because looking at all of them would take forever.

Halo 3: Shut up. I know what I just said, but it's effing Halo! I demand to finish the fight and whoop some Brute ass!

Mass Effect: I think it's a pretty well known fact that if you see a game and it has the word "BioWare" on it somewhere: it's an awesome game. Mass Effect is BioWare's latest RPG for the -guess what- 360. But it doesn't play like an RPG. It plays like a third person shooter, and looks like a very well polished classic Sci-Fi TV show- but not in a bad way! Very large amounts of detailed character customization, as well as many worlds to explore in the Galaxy, and a crew to assemble and command, Mass Effect looks very cool indeed. Shipping late November.

Resident Evil 5: Drool, man, super drool. But it doesn't come out until I'm, like, 20. So...yeah.

Assassins Creed: Another Jem from UbiSoft, this looks to be a very close realative to the Prince of Persia series, only it stars a Mysterious Assassin. It seems like it'll be a lot more open ended than Prince of Persia, but the cinimatics, acrobatics, and combat are all looking very cool.

Turok: This series has been around forever, and I'm aware of that. I was never too interested in the Turok games, probably because I was very young when they came out on the N64, but now there's an all new Turok game coming out for the PS3 and 360. Combining Dinosaurs, and a pretty cool Sci-fi FPS is cool enough even if I didn't have a child-hood obsession with Dinosaurs. Very cool looking game, and I'll be sure to keep up with it's development.

Others that look cool, but you probably know something about them, or perhaps they're coming out in a very long time: BioShock, GTA IV, Too Human, Gears of War, Oblivion, and a little Fable 2. Maybe even Dead Rising.

Costs (With Taxes):

Xbox 360: $458.85
Elite (As seen in picture):$573.85
Games: $80.49 Each
Controllers: $69.00 Each
Xbox Live: $50.00 a Year

Total: (2 controllers 3 games) $826.83 With Xbox Live subscription: $876.83
(Elite, 2 controllers 3 games) $941.83 With Xbox Live subscription: $991.83

Over All: The Xbox 360 is certainly an impressive machine with a very good line-up of games. Xbox Live allows the maximum amount of gameplay out of each and every game you have. Maybe it's not quite as affordable as the Wii, but it certainly is quite the contender, and a fine choice for a Gaming consol.


PROS: Promise of a Vast gaming library
Xbox live compatibility with nearly everything
Friends who own Xbox 360s offer up plenty of chance for some LANing fun.
Games look nicer. . .? Woo hoo?

CONS: Xbox live costs money :(
Lots of games may take years to come out.
Lots of people of Xbox Live are douche bags.
The Xbox 360 is pretty pricey.
Lots of games may lead to not a whole lot of money.
Too many First Person shooters, not enough diversity.



The Choice.

Well, it's been a long post, but I think it really allowed me to make the proper choice. The Nintendo Wii is the system for me. The games for it are the games I know and love on the Gamecube, and on the N64. Being the cheaper of the two is probably the most influencial aspect of the Wii, seeing as how I don't really feel like droping too much money for my gaming consol, and as Jordan stated, I can always work my way towards a 360 in the duration the console's life-span. Or even after the Xbox (360 x 2)^1 comes out. Plus, and extensive gaming library from the 360, and $80.00 could end up being a very, very shitty thing. So good bye Xbox 360, it was good to keep the dream alive, but I think I'll stick with the Wii.

After I beat Zelda (Almost there) I'll be sure to pick up a Wii on the Weekend, and a copy of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Resident Evil 4.

Thanks readers, and I hope you enjoyed my comparison page.

Bring the Noise!

If I will bring up the past for the moment, I hope it will not upset my viewers. Or my readers. If we examine one skeleton in the closet - that isn't really a skeleton but a past comments from Granite's Box - he said that if Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles was multiplayer co-op that he would take up arms with me, and we would rock some zombie face! As a team. If you were to recall that, Jordan. . .


Bam! Shit got real.

Almost Epic

A few minutes with Windows Movie Maker can make something surprisingly epic.




The important part is I like it. I'm afraid of the idiotic Youtube comments though.

POST!

Part I: Marks of Yore, and Classes of Yonder

I’ve got my classes for the next two terms, and my marks from the last one. I’ve actually had them for a while, but I couldn’t be bothered to put them up. I can’t imagine that there’s too much demand for up-to-the-minute Stu updates, and I’m only putting them up now for general knowledge, and pride.

Final Marks :

Religion - 80
Communications Technology - 90
Math - 88
English – 86

Average 86%

Over all I’m pretty happy with my marks, despite the predicted fall of numbers. As it turns out my slow-handed righting is going to be quite troublesome, and I should probably look to fix that before Grade 11 and 12 exams come up lest I shit all over my future, and potential career choices.

My future classes are as follows, keeping in mind that I do not have the actual schedule on hand so I do not know the teacher names, but I wish I did have it in order to explain some changes to the time-table. Now, instead of having periods 2 - 4 lunches they all occur on a 2 hour long period 3. Grade 9s have their lunch for the first 40 minutes, grade 10's have their class interupted for the second 40 minutes, and 11's and 12's will be having theirs for the final 40 minutes of period 3. Feel free to discuss that. However, even if I did have the schedule on me, I would probably keep teachers anonymous in case they chose to google their names, and see what things some jackass kids are saying about them on the inter-tubes.

Semester 1

World Religion
Guitar
Math
Physics

Semester 2

English
Ancient History
Chemistry
Biology

It should be a fun-filled, eventful, and busy year. But we don’t need to worry about that quite yet.

Part II: Bee-Eff-Eff

So, I'm sure regular readership all remembers my soft spot for that girl in my math class, she knows who she is! Anyway, the short version of the story was to befriend the female, in hopes of increasing hangout time, and getting to know her. Well, it actually worked a lot better than I could have possibly hoped!
It was several weeks ago, the day that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hit theatre boxes everywhere. She happened to be talking to me via instant messaging, and asked if I was going to see it. Of course I was not, just like the rest of the movies, but I did admit I thought this one may have been taken in the right direction. She quickly followed up by asking if I wanted to go see it with her family, which I did.

So we went and watched the movie, quietly making ridiculous suggestions to improve the movie, mocking the huge gaps missing from the plot, and just making conversation the whole night, laughing away. Since then we’ve hung out for the vast majority of the waking hours on several days of the week, joined with good-guy Tank. That most-popular Mr. Smith's son. The three of us have watched Kung-Fu Hustle, Hot Fuzz, Reservoir Dogs, and 300 just this week, as well as billiards, guitar hero, swimming, mission, and walking around aimlessly. It's be a few weeks of a lot of fun, and I'm surprised that i didn't really have to put much effort into befriending her, and yet it has turned out so great! Hurray for things that put themselves together, eh?

Part III: To Do

So far I am about halfway through my summer vacation, and I still have loads to do. Beating a few games, going on a wacky family vacation, and re-teaching myself music notes, and their corresponding placements on a guitar, as well as keeping up with the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. So far I’ve made some new friends, found a deadly spider, beaten some games, and watched some really, really awesome movies. The seconds half should be awesome and should at least provide me with some interesting posts.

‘Till next time readership.

Widower

This tale starts off the same as any other. I was at work going about my business, when I was asked by a costumer if we happened to have any "nice green grapes." I'd go check, I told him. I gave the cooler a look over but couldn't find any when I finally decided to ask my coworker, Max, if we had any. Max simply motioned beside where he was standing, and there was a huge stack of grape boxes, so I decided to fill up the grapes.

I'd grab the grape bags, and jerk them in the direction of the grape pile; this way was much quicker than reaching in and grabbing the bundle of grapes. I tossed a bunch, and threw the bag into my garbage box, when I reached for another bag.

Holy. Shit.

There was a rather large spider sitting at the edge of my grape box. I backed away a few steps, due to my fear of spiders. May as well grab something to kill him with I had thought, but then I noticed something. It was larger than an average house-spider, and it looked like it had large fangs, as it raised its legs towards me.

Oh. My. God.

"Hey! Jamie!" I called. You had better take a look at this. So my co-worker Jamie came over, and we both agreed that it was possible it could be a Black Widow spider. I left Jamie to watch the arachnid, and ran to the back to get our senior worker, Max, to deal with it. He came quickly, with many pairs of gloves, and a plastic container. He managed to scoop up the Widow, and we taped it shut, and punctured the lid so it was able to breathe. We examined the spider, and found a red hour-glass shape on its abdomen. That confirmed it. We had just caught a deadly spider that came from a box of Californian grapes. Needless to say, I didn't finish the grapes, and Max agreed with me. They didn't pay me enough, and there was no need to take the risk.

The beast is currently inside of Zehrs, in its make-shift prison. I had to close up tonight, and when I checked it seemed to be dead, or at very least almost dead.

The Winning Edge

So, I sat down and played the Resident Evil Remake yesterday. Now, I'm not saying that I played it for a bit, and then stopped. I played the game. The whole thing. I sat down after the Colbert Report, and I beat it in Normal mode, as Jill ,as fast as I could.

I needed to beat the game in under 5 hours to get the Samurai Edge handgun, a modified Berretta pistol equipped with .40 caliber rounds, 3 round burst-fire, infinite ammo, and badassery. Albert Wekser uses one in the game.

Getting under the 3 hour mark would earn me the most prized possession in any Resident Evil arsenal. The Unlimited Rocket Launcher. Capcom has decided to include such a weapon in most of their Resident Evil game, but set the time to get it so short that when you do earn it one would cherish it like a priceless trophy that somehow justified not having a Girlfriend.

My final time was… 3 hours 15 minutes and 23 seconds...

Fuck.

Oh well, I still earned Jill’s RE:3 Costume, Real Survivor Mode, and the Samurai Edge Handgun. It would have been much better if I had told this through a montage, with You're the Best playing in the background as I shot up Zombies. But I couldn't be bothered to do that.

Real Life posts on their way!

Short Answer

Now, I know I've been asked this many times in person. Because of that I know it must also be on all of your minds: so I decided I would answer it now. For all (two-five) of my readers.

People have asked me, time and time again, "Stu, how do you ride?"

Motherfucker, I ride like this!



Oh, and a Happy Birthday to Binkle. I'm about 14 minutes late on that one, but it's still there!

Robots in Disguise

So, I just came back from the theatre, watching the old Transformers rough it up on the silver screen with their new movie. Unfortunately I had to sit beside a little shit who really deserved have his head driven into the seat in front of him, and I was just about ready to do it. What the fuck is a little kid (somewhere between 4 and 8) doing in Transformers anyway?! There’s no chance in hell he is old enough to remember any of the Transformers sagas, let alone the one the movie is based off of. And with the amount of violence, and subject matter in the movie they shouldn’t have let him in anyway. That, and there should be an age restriction on little children going to movies, but I’ll save that for a later post. If that child is not subjected to one of Granite’s sentences, you know the ones for voting in one of those stupid SSB:B characters, at some point in his life there will be no justice in this world. Anyway, despite having a shitty seat, a sot-nosed little shit, and a packed theatre: the movie was pretty good.

Minor spoilers ahead.

I immediately groaned when I witnessed the opening scene. The U.S.A military base in the Middle East reminded me of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, in which the United States military was made out to be an unstoppable, alien destroying super power that saves the day every time. It was not appropriate in War of the World’s and would certainly not go down with Transformers, the Autobots are supposed to bring the hurt to the Descepticons. My heart lightened as Blackout came riding in, out of the desert, and wiped out the military base in minutes. Scorpinok made short work of some of the survivors, but after the fight with Scorpinok, they seemed to focus in on how we, the United States military, rock. And will find a way to destroy these mega-super-awesome robots. Because we’re so cool! But it worked out in the end, as the military served as great cannon fodder for such awesome Desepticons as Starscream, Megatron, and Devastator, who happened to be a badass, modified M1 Abrams. Bitchin’.

The Special Effects were absolutely stunning. Not quite as impressive as Jurassic Park was when it first devastated the movie industry, but certainly leaps and bounds past what other movies have managed to achieve. When you watch the movie you will not see any flaws in the robots, their fluid transformations, or the fight scenes. They are done perfectly, and in a way that I’m not even sure if it was all CGI, or is they actually used models for the scenes. Or perhaps they found the real Transformers and decided that they could make a movie with them, which seems like a very real possibility as well.

The plot was…well…unimportant. I came to see giant fucking robots beat the crap out of each other, and that’s just what I got! The plot was decent for a Transformers movie, and wasn’t so mind-boggingly stupid that it ruined the movie, but it was pretty good, and made sure that there was plenty of close-combat action. If you can shake off the stench of United States superiority than this is definitely an awesome movie, and a great way to see those robots that are more than meets the eyes one more time.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Looking Back, Forward, And Both Ways Before Crossing the Street

Well folks, it's finally over. The exams put up a good fight, but I'm pretty happy with them over all. I know my math exam could have gone a lot better, but I suppose there's not much I can do about it. Another drag was that I was pretty sure that 3/4 of my marks could only remain about the same, or go lower. So my marks will certainly drop from what they were at mid-term which is understandable, but when your marks go down you can't help but be a little bummed out.

Grade ten was a hell of a year! I was out of Student Council, and asked on a regular basis why I didn't return, if I was planning on running next year, and why I'm just plain awesome. It's nice to know that people liked what I did, and enjoyed my wacky antics, but it's also nice to think that I won't have to work with student council anymore. There are too many senior-grade girls whining constantly about workloads, exams, life, and says “how hot that guy is” or “How wasted we’re going to get” and not enough people getting the goddamn work done. Plus too many flamers whose possession of a genuine penis is rather questionable.

...Oh, yeah, right. This is not about that! In grade ten I managed to get a job, make some friends, finish some mandatory classes, and take another step towards post secondary - which is fast approaching for someone who has not one fucking idea of what he wants to do. The work loads were building up and grade ten religion was absolute hell. But I did gain something positive out of that whole experience: I no longer fear death. The rest of my classes were just fine, and the people were great! My classes for next year, although I don’t know the order, are as follows.

1 Biology
2 Chemistry
3 Physics
4 Mathematics
5 English
6 World Religion
7 Ancient History
8 Guitar

All of these are university courses, and I’ll get my needed Canadian studies, and Gym/Arts/Business credits. I chose to take another guitar class because I don’t really feel like I’d be much of an athlete and Guitar was easily my favorite class this year! Mr. C was an awesome teacher, and I actually enjoyed my homework, as well as the in-class work. Mr. Carroll said that they did offer a University Guitar class for Grade 11’s, so I jumped at the opportunity! I will just have to make sure that I relearn to read notes over the summer, and keep up with my playing in general.

That does it for this post. Look forward to the second of a confidential-number-of-posts in my summer extravaganza!

Awesomeness in 3 Parts

Behold, followers of the Soup! I have returned from my exam hibernation to bring to you a message of awesomeness! Those who instantly recognize its greatness: rejoice in it! Others: you shall go off to play Tales of Symphonia immediately!







That’s all. Also, I’m done Grade 10 Religion. FOREVER!

2 down 2 to go.

Pre-Exams

Part I: The Girl

I’ve made a decision on the Emily situation, since my constant switching of sides has surely caused some confusion. I have decided (not so much a decision as it is common sense) that I will try to be friends with her as best as I can. I will still get to hang out with her this way, on good terms, and no harm can come from having a female companion in life. If something happens to come up I may go for it, or I may not. It depends on how it feels when, or if, it comes up. Maybe it will feel right, or maybe it will feel weird. Either way, I won’t try to interfere with anything because I don’t want to fuck over someone’s life due to my own blundering selfishness. I’ll just be friends with Emily as much as I can manage, while respecting her separate life. Seems simple, and seems like what I was doing already, but I can at least treat her as more of a friend than just another girl in class.

Part II: Red Vs Blue

In other news, I’ve really gotten into Red Vs Blue just recently. I had watched a few clips of it on youtube, (a ‘The Best of Caboose” clip) and I decided to check out the whole series! I remember Binkle tried to show us a few episodes way way back when. Unfortunately our sound wasn’t working for some reason, so we couldn’t watch it. But now I’ve watched the first four seasons on Google Video, and caught up to where they have left off at the end of Season Five.

I was amazed that on the Monday that I got to episode 99 was the day they had released it! After than I had just found out that they were only making 100 episodes! I was excited to know I had jumped on the Red Vs Blue train just before it was finished, but at the same time I was disappointed that the series will end just as I get on board with it. Just like The Show with ZeFrank, it was a very strange feeling that something this good would be ended forever very soon.

It is a very clever show, funny from the beginning, and the plot becomes surprisingly genius as the show progresses. There is not a character I find annoying, and they’re all played so well. It’s a very well made series and I recommend you all check it out from the beginning, if you haven’t already. They make a lot of throw-back references, and the first season is pretty good anyway, unlike a lot of online material which takes a while to really get off the ground.

I’m currently getting each episode of season five in their low-quality offerings. It will have do for me unless I can suddenly purchase things from the inter-tubes, and feel like spending $20.00 (USD) a season!

Part III: The Test(s).

In other, other news: exams are starting soon. According to my planner, Period 1 starts on the afternoon of Thursday, the 21st, followed by period 2 on the Friday. This is the perfect set up, because I have my less important/difficult Religion and Communications Technology exams on those days, and then I get the whole weekend to review my Math and English, the more difficult (and important) of the two.

Studying should commence on the weekend, although I don’t know how faithful I will be to studying for Religion, and Math and English will seem so far away! At very least I will begin to review my math work, seeing how I find math to be my most difficult, as well as my most important, exam. Wish me luck and I will probably go into exam hibernation before I can update again, so prepare for radio silence until Tuesday the 26^th!

Also: feel free to discuss why it’s stupid to have the period 3 and period 5 exams on the Monday, and the period 4 exam on the Tuesday, thus resulting in ruined lives of those university-hopefuls with something like University Physics Period 3, and University Chemistry Period 5, dealing with those two exams on the same day would be fuckin’ hell! Why not just give them period 3 and period 4 exams on the same day, thus giving them a break due to a period 4 lunch?

I leave you all now with this: