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hipster diary archive 8 |
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Archive Archive 12 |
Diaries: celeb sighting 5: max kellerman booze experimentation deus ex: invisible war the weakest fortune ever celeb sighting 4: christina aguilera
 Yeah, the little guy with the boyband beard and the wiseguy smirk actually has an interesting story. He apparently had his own boxing public access show when he was a teenager, which he somehow parlayed into a show on ESPN 2 and a career in boxing commentary. Okay, it's not that interesting--and he seems to have had the longevity of that Squirt TV kid's show--but his annoying voice will resonate forever. I'm not sure what this greasy monkey is up to now, but I'm sure he's somewhere calling Evander Holyfield a washed up old hack. So I decided to be a smartass and order a Makers Mark Manhattan at Dylan Prime. I love the city, after all, so how bad can the drink be? As it turns out, it can be pretty fucking horrendous. Who knew a martini made entirely of Maker's Mark bourbon would be disgusting? Never has a booze experiment gone so wrong--that is since the great gin rickey placemat debacle of 1998. The thing kinda tasted how I would imagine a glass full of cool Windex would taste. I'm glad for the shiny esophagus and stomach, but how or why anyone would find this concoction tasty is beyond me. Granted, I'm not a 93-year-old man, but shouldn't booze, and the Manhattan in particular, be accessible to all? Why does William Faulkner get to enjoy the sweet, sweet nectar, when it turns to vinegar in my mouth? I'm done experimenting with booze. I'm going to stick to my Kettle Ones and soda. I'm sticking to beer. Maybe I'll hit the Jack occasionally. But, Lord, I'm done ordering anything named after a city, a person or an animal. I have very little allegiance to video games. In fact, back in the day, I was the little kid watching Ricky Schroder play Red Baron at the Sherman Oaks Galleria because I was too cheap to throw down a quarter to play another game of Tempest or Dig Dug. I mean, a quarter's a lot for three minutes of entertainment and a possible thumb blister. The best thing that ever happened to me was the U.S. vs. U.S.S.R. Bubble Hockey Game. That thing lasted forever, provided serious competition, and didn't deteriorate your brain or make you want to shoot up your junior high. You want to waste your time playing Dragon's Lair or Star Wars? Be my guest. I'm going to stick to self-contained games that don't take my entire allowance to get through. And so starts my adventure with home computer games. Think about it; there's one flat fee for the things, you can save your progress whenever you want, and there isn't some asshole kid with sticky shit all over his face asking you when you're going to be done. And so begins my video gaming in the post Intellivision, Apple IIe, Mac SE era. I don't do it a lot, and was just rewarded with an Xbox late last year for being a good son-in-law, but I did start as a PC game guy. And my favorite game I ever played was the original Deus Ex. Unlike those basic games I wrote in fourth grade, one didn't have to follow a distinct pattern in order to accomplish goals and finish the game. I had free will! Well, sort of. In any case, the thing was fun, different and really passed the time when the girlfriend was out of town on business. And as nerdy as it sounds, I was looking forward to the new Deus Ex coming out. I mean, not the same way I was looking forward to sleeping with a woman prior to actually doing it, or the way I look forward to Saturdays, but more in the way I look forward to buying a new book I read good things about in some snobby article somewhere. So I got my Xbox all warmed up and ready to go. Not having to hit keyboard keys in order to reload and move and whatnot would be a welcome thing, as I'm about as dexterous with that as waitress in the grips of drug withdrawal. I fired the thing up, picked up the awkward Microsoft controller and went to work.
The graphics were pretty damn cool, and the gameplay was relatively smooth, but the AI--as the kids call it--was the worst since Berzerk. I know you're supposed to be able to hide in the shadows or make yourself harder to see if you're crouched, but I would literally be five feet from some guard and he's sitting there asking, "Who's there?" Uh, it's me, the guy sitting right in front of you with the giant gun aimed at your head. The guard then stands there and gives up and says something like, "Huh, I guess it was my imagination" and continues on his way. I then shoot him in the back, spit on his corpse and take whatever ammo he has. I did manage to die about 8,000 times, so the AI couldn't have been completely horrible, but it certainly could have been a lot smarter. Regardless of its shortcomings, the game has a really cool feel to it, and creates a pretty awesome world that allows you to follow your own course and determine your own future. In other words, somebody actually put some effort into the storyline, even if it does become a bit convoluted and overly-cerebral at times. There are some changes from the first game in terms of gameplay, but due to my terrible ADD and lack if a short-term memory, the only thing I noticed was that the ammo you pick up can be used by any weapon. Again, kind of unrealistic, but whatever. All in all, I enjoyed the game very much and can't wait to see how they bring back all these elements for the third installment after I pretty much blew up the world.  i'm still waiting for that callback from the x-files folks I don't generally take my cues from fortune cookies, or believe they impart wonderful dollops of wisdom, but this has to be the weakest "fortune" of all time.  The odd part is that the thing is exactly right! I do love Chinese food! I hereby change my opinion about the extra-sensory powers of the mighty fortune cookie. I mean, how could they possibly know that I love the tasty MSG-tinged nuggets of chicken and veggies that are so cheap for lunch and so easy for dinner? They must have seen my application to the JCC, or rummaged through my garbage for that Tay-Sachs test I took way back when. There are probably pictures of me from third grade gnawing on a Peking duck leg on Christmas Eve (right after seeing Condorman for the fifth time). In other words, my people are genetically predisposed to loving the grub from the East, just as Republicans are predisposed to bouts of evil-based stupidity and a complete lack of compassion and common sense. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Dick!) Anyway, whoever this poor five-year-old child is who is sitting in some straw hut in the Qinghai Province penning these pearls in her own blood, I want her to know that she has touched me with her intuition and cute, little smiley faces. Oh, and I hit on those lottery numbers, so I'll be buying two first-class tickets to China to buy a few crates of really good Rolex fakes. See you there, little Zhang!
 This is basically what I saw sitting in the booth, but way more orange. She had the same exact blonde, curly mess going on, but her skin was an odd orange color that I can only associate with fake baking--although this looked more like she took a trip to the Cheetos factory and made out with Chester Cheetah. The Betty Boop look was also very, um, strange, and I couldn't help but think that the thing on her head had to be a wig.  I obviously haven't kept up with my Christina news in the past five years, as I was still under the impression she looked like a blonde version of Jennifer Aniston. What the hell happened to her? Look at most of your teenage celebs out there. They generally start off cute and fuzzy and then transition into cute and sexy. Then, maybe they start shaking some ass or appear in a pillow-fight scene in their underwear (or in a wet t-shirt kissing an upside-down Spiderman). Then they realize the error of their ways, and want to be taken as a serious artist, so they start wearing sweater-sets, go to India to pet some starving children (with Entertainment Tonight in tow), or get arrested protesting an animal testing lab with PETA. It's not until much later, when several of their albums and/or movies tank that they start entertaining the offers from Playboy (which by that point doesn't want them), and they end up living out their days as the spurned lover in late night Cinemax movies with Marc Singer, Eric Roberts and Jeff Fahey. Apparently Aguilera skipped that whole process and went directly to weird, Dracula sextoy.  "Why can I still see my reflection?" |
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