Grand Theft Automatic

Like every red blooded video game playing male in this country I stopped by my local monopolistic game store last night to pick up Grand Theft Auto IV. Well that is not exactly accurate, some stores opened up at midnight Tuesday so the less desirable half of our demographic (mayonnaise eating, basement dwellers) could pick up the game while I was asleep. For some reason I felt none of the giddy expectation that the rest of the gaming community was in a tizzy over for the last two weeks. Well not until 3 minutes to five, quitin' time yesterday.

I avoided most of the trailers and only drooled over half of the screen shots with the goal of making the game a surprise to me when it finally released. Well my self assigned embargo on the marketing campaign was fool proof to a fault. The last hour at work yesterday was like waking up a 5am Christmas morning knowing that present presentation ceremony was at 7am. The drive to my desired prize was a mental gymnasium. My mind kept telling me that every slow driver was keeping me from hooker stabbing, old lady stomping bliss.

Game in hand I rushed home to sling the dog some food and plug in to the TV for eight hours. Six of my friends were already playing and I got two game invites before the opening credits had finished. I turned them both down in favor of staring up the story. The graphics are a marked jump from the past three games and it runs like a champ with minimal pop in. The driving controls were a bit of a throw after many months of high speed Burnout gameplay, but they make sense considering all of the task you can micro manage while behind the wheel.

I felt like I had barely scratched the surface of the story four hours in when I got the second round of multiplayer invites. This time I obliged feeling more comfortable in my pedestrian drive by skills. The interface was a bit clunky, but the game modes were vast and varied. We played cop n' crooks mostly which feels like the culmination of a few games I played growing up with unloaded BB guns. The crooks start at point A and must escort a player (the Boss, no not Springsteen) to point B. The cops start in cars with heavy weaponry across town and must eliminate the boss before he can reach his goal. The twist is the cops can see all of the crooks and the boss on their radar, but not the goal. The crooks can see their teammates via radar and their goal. It makes for some hair raising chases across town provide the crooks can find a car before the bacon arrives.

Comics
Erik hooked me up last week with an amazon recommendation list and Monday he came through in an even bigger way with duplicate trades from his collection hand delivered by my lovely wife. Watchman and Amazing Spiderman: Kraven's Last Hunt are now a part of my collection thanks to Erik. I am five chapters in to Watchman and very impressed with the writing and story. I briefly read and collected Spiderman comics in 7th grade, but eventually fell off. I'm interested to see if Last Hunt will rekindle my love of the web slinging wonder.

Hockey
The Penguins are up three games to zero over the Rangers now after a 5-3 victory last night. I didn't watch because I was held hostage by GTA. Game four is Thursday, Go Pens!

Still Bullish on Hockey

This weekend was a sedentary blast. While that might not sound pleasant, it was nice to spend two days lazing about amid weekends packed with physical exertion and errand filled schedules. Friday night we went out to the movies (Baby Mama FTW) even though the Penguins were on (DVR FTW). When I got home I watched fast forwarded highlights of the best game I have seen in the 2008 playoffs yet. The Pens were down three goals to none and made a comeback to win 5-4 in the last two minutes of play.

Saturday was window installation day. The time frame to arrive was 9a to 12p and it was slated to take 2-3 hours to install. Of course they did not show till 11:30a so I waited for and hung around with the installers for five hours. This meant no bike ride and a bunch of TV and video games. Not the most eventful morning and afternoon, but I played about a million rounds of the NHL 08 demo for the 360. So much so that I went out later that night and picked up the actual game. I also caught the Avs vs Red Wings game at 3pm while I was reading new comics (see below). After going out for an interesting dinner with Crystal and her friend I came back home to watch more DVR fast forwarded hockey (Flyers v Canadiens).

Sunday was more of the same as I got to sleep in and play fake hockey (NHL 08) till real hockey came on 3pm (Pens v Rangers gm2). Is it me or does the once loved and now hated Jágr have a Hitler stache? After a 3rd period filled with heartburn (two late penalty kills) the Penguins won and it was off to dinner at the parents. Hockey is really starting to grow on me to the point that I may buy a season package from my cable company next season.

Comics
Frustrated by my desire to buy comics local for as long as possible and the lack of trade selection at my current store, I went to a new one Saturday afternoon. They didn't have any Queen and Country, let alone volume two, but they did have all of Y: The Last Man. I picked up volumes one and two and was on my way. Y is a great read and my hang ups with the art in Queen are nonexistent with Y.

Forgetting Arrested Blood

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
It wasn't till after I saw this film that I realized Jason Segel who stared in it also wrote it. Which means he also wrote in 2-3 dong scenes for himself. Yes, I said dong scenes so don't go to this movie with your parents unless you want to have an awkward conversation afterwards. Mule flaunting aside this movie had Crystal and I in stitches. It definitely follows the form of other Apatow films (Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin, etc) before it so if you are not a fan you might want to pass. Forgetting goes for a lot of shocking and sometimes cheap gags, but has enough heart to not just be a shocking and cheap gag movie.

Arrested Development (plot)
I am miles behind the bandwagon on this series. It is not that I dismissed everyone who recommended or went on ad nauseum about how hilarious it was. I just haven't watched a ton of TV for the past 4-5 years. Well thanks to "the internets" I can now watch the show on all 19 amazing inches of my computer monitor. I have watched about half of the first season and I can easily see what all the fuss was about. The writing is gut punch humor with spots of sincerity that make you care about characters that are self absorbed with a dash of crazy most of the time. The actors on the show really shine sans Alia Shawkat who pales in comparison to her child co-star Michael Cera's performance. There is a rumored film staring all of the original cast coming in 2009 so I would recommend watching it as soon as you can.

There Will Be Blood (plot)
Let me preface my mini review and say that this is a movie you have to be in the mood to see. Crystal fell asleep about 45 minutes into the movie which is not to say it lacks in any way. But, that Crystal falls asleep during her favorite TV shows when they go to commercial, so she should not be the barometer for entertainment quality to sleep ratios. Daniel Day-Lewis is stellar in this film, his performance is jaw dropping at times and I can easily see how he won best actor for this role. The film as a whole is a bit slow paced and felt like it ran a bit long for what it was trying to say and do. Scenes take a while to build, but payoff every time and the ending is absolutely fantastic. A must watch when you are willing to give over your time and attention for 2 hours and 38 minutes.

Trackmania Reborn

While I have never purchased any of the Trackmania retail games I can rejoice it what appears to be the follow up to Nadeo's first free game. TrackMania Nations Forever is the essentially the sequel to TrackMania Nations. Nations was created as a sponsor and ad paid competitive game for the 2006 Electronic Sports World Cup. All of the guys that I play video games with blew up on this game and played it exclusively for around 4-5 months. We had a server with our own custom maps running and eventually built a community of regulars.

We ultimately ended up back in the realm of competitive shooters, but our brief affair with the super arcade racing game was not to be forgotten. Flash forward to 2008 and the next iteration of the free competitive racer. Forever adds dirt tracks, indoor tracks and better graphics to the long list of features already available in the first game. Swiss and I played Monday night and I went at it solo last night. It has the same draw as the first game, but if my friends don't play it I can't see sticking with it. Time for friends marketing campaign I guess (this post is the first volley).

Comics
Erik sent over a comics recommendation list by way of Crystal to me this morning. It is solid with a few of comics that are already on my list of "to read", but a bunch that were not on my radar. If Crystal had thought through the simple act of sending me a list of comics, she probably would try to take it back. My list was already super long and now I have even more books to read. That means more money and time spent in the world of comics. I'm super geeked!

2008 On Two Wheels

Mid ride yesterday Grant wondered out loud if Spring had ever been this rainy. This question was posed after three of the last four rides were in the rain. I pondered the thought momentarily and responded that "we never really rode this much before". The real point being the consistency with which we have ridden since February 2nd.

Like clockwork weekend rides have been a matter of when not if for the past two months and change. We started on a whim at the beginning of February and had so much fun the first Saturday that we made it a bit of a tradition. We have started to extend our riverside loop and yesterday found a perfect loop from the Fan to Fort Harrison that will be added to our roster. A forum of sorts has been reestablished so we can plan rides without the encumbrance of lengthy email chains. Reddish Knob is on deck for this spring (or summer) and Williamsburg repeat is a guarantee for this summer as well.

Getting back in to cycling has been a breathe of fresh air. For the last two to three years I have admittedly ridden maybe once or twice a month in between annual big rides that I was not prepared for (Lake Anne, Williamsburg and Lake Chesdin). Being on the bike every weekend and making cycling a big part of my life again not only better prepares me for the big rides, but makes me ambitious. Russ is a 100-300k machine and invites us to join him on a regular basis. Sometime this year I will take him up on those offers.

Comics
I started reading Queen and Country this weekend and it did not disappoint. I made the mistake of picking up two volumes of the "Declassified" side story trades on my first trip to the local comic shop. I went back to my LCS and picked up vol. 1 of the regular story and now can't seem to find vol. 2. To Amazon I go!

MMA
Big fight over the weekend that I missed for dinner and a movie. St. Pierre avenged his previous loss to Matt Serra in a big way and came out the UFC welterweight champ. I admittedly like Serra, but a I have huge man crush on the Canadian champ.

When I Grow Up

I don't know what I want to be...

For a while I thought the answer was an underwriter. I like statistics and excelled in the two business related stat classes I took in college. I think that goal was one of convince though not of desire. I have been in the insurance field for seven years now and the ladder up is through underwriting. It made sense to continue down the paved road, when the gravel road that forked away would require me to lift my head.

IT
I am a hybrid of insurance, marketing and information technology in my current job. I lean toward the IT side as often as possible. An IT career seems interesting enough that I have started to read up on databases in my free time (MySQL and Oracle). Fascinating stuff right, I can't wait for the dinner party conversations. I don't know where it will lead, but I enjoy all things tech so why not make it a career. This also seems like the easiest transition of all the choices I have considered.

Librarian
This is the one career option that would send me back to school. While I am not super thrilled to collect more student loan debt, a masters in library science would leave me set for life. Not financially of course, but from a personality and interest in my work perspective. Archival, research and literature work have always sparked something in me. This would be the biggest transition, but would not be so bad as I could keep a full time job while I studied for my degree online.

Web Design and Coding
I could most likely teach myself most of everything I would need to start doing website design on the side. I have dabbled in CSS a bunch of times and I have worked in photoshop for eight years now. Actually getting a full time job would be a bit more work though. To be honest I don't know if my vision and design creativity would be up to snuff ever. This is really the pipe dream of the three, but it is nice to dream.

Grant's BPW 08 - Stories

As I mentioned Monday there are plenty of stories to tell from our adventure to Bear Creek. Here are a choice pair that are worth sharing and of an appropriate nature...

Prison Crossing
When I arrived at the Holbrook's on Saturday morning Landon had satellite photos and maps of a "compound" that we would need to by pass on our way to Bear Creek. Behind the compound was a small bridge that would allow us to cross the James with minimal traffic. It is fair to say that the rest of us already presumed this was another one of Landon's hair brain schemes. Except this one seemed right out of Where Eagles Dare complete with spy plane photos care of Google maps.

We did not discuss the "compound" again until we pulled on to Patterson at mid day over looking the Goochland Correctional Center. When we put two and two together it was clear Landon planned for us to sneak through or around a federal prison. Landon rode ahead to look for a way through while the rest of us joked about him popping out on the other side in an orange jump suit. When he returned he suggested we move in closer to figure out a way around.

We parked ourselves under a tree and looked over the prison for the path of least resistance. What we saw were layers of razor wire and armed guard towers. A pickup rolled to one of the entrances and was very clearly watching us watch them (see the full sized picture above). We decided that because the majority us did not like being sold for cartons of cigarettes that we should talk to the guards about passing through. Or rather make Landon step up and talk to them while we cracked jokes under the tree.

Landon again left our group to talk to the pickup truck. Inside the truck was a white mustached guard who kept a scoped rifle at his side. The guard suggested we double back to 522 to cross the river as only the warden could bless our prison crossing and he was not around. The other option was getting the warden on the phone. Which Landon pushed for and eventually got. We were to follow the pickup escort, not stop and not take pictures. Just as the warden granted us access the rain started to come down in buckets.

We were waiting under the tree putting on our raincoats when Landon returned and told us about our safe and legal passage. Soon enough we were on the rear bumper of the pickup flanked by razor wire and hidden stares. The bridge across the river was a single lane road that could not have been more than three feet above the James. Once we were across the rain soon lifted and we were on our way.

Landon started the day with a hair brained idea to sneak through a federal prison and end up getting us an armed escort and a great story.

Bodacious!
Our first encounter with the infamous Bodacious was at a middle of no where intersection that we stopped to rest and take photos at. A white pickup slightly lowered and splashed with chrome pulled up to the stop sign and lowered a tinted window. Bass, smoke and a dirt lipped mustache came pouring out of the vehicle.

Dirt Lip: Ya'll know this area?
Me: No
Landon: Yes
Dirt Lip: Where is Bodacious...mud bog?
Landon: Ahhh (looking at his map)
Me: (to Landon) He means a club or restaurant not a place on the map
Landon: (to Dirt Lip) No

Dirt Lip looked a bit annoyed, sealed up his window of tint and pealed away from the intersection. We presumed at the time that this was the end of Bodacious, but we now know Bodacious does not end or begin it just is. An hour later at another intersection stopping to take some pictures a black pickup on two stories of rubber roared past us and the only thing louder than its V6 was the battle of "Boooooodacious!".

The navigation request and hollers continued for the rest of the day to a total of five or six in all. The only other notable one was because of a near fatal accident Bodacious almost caused. Climbing up a hill on a 55 MPH road with no shoulder a mid nineties Honda coming from the opposite direction screeched to a stop when they saw humans traveling in slow vehicles (us). It was again to ask for directions, but the SUV behind the young explorers must have know where he was going. Not expecting to stop the SUV slammed its breaks narrowly avoiding the car full of teenagers.

Bodacious indeed.

All of the pictures in case you missed them Monday.

P.S. I know now that Bodacious is not a club or restaurant, but at the time I was ignorant of the mighty beast.

P.S.S. There was a building in the middle of the prison labeled "Meat House". Yeah I don't want to know either.

Grant's BPW 08 - Photos

Grant's bachelor party weekend has come and gone. We rode to and camped at Bear Creek lake with seven good friends. There was much laughter, pain and good stories to be had, but those will have to wait for a follow up "stories" post on Wednesday. Images can tell most of the story for now, so I will let them tell their tale...

8am start and group shot

On the road to Oilville

Oilville for food and Matt's bits

Corn dogs!

The man of the hour

Landon and I

Hose got hops

Our rides

On to the prison

Yeah, I said prison (more on Wednesday)

Then it rained a lot

Prison bridge in the rain

Another stop for food

More corn dogs

Grant and his ride

More of Matt's bits

Landon and his ride

Landon and his roses

Butterfly!

Me and my ride

Flat tire

Macro shot flat change

Waterfalls and my new Brooks

Gravel roads and my new Brooks

Landon climbing in the gravel

We finally made it to the site (5:30pm)

Time to light a fire and relax

Smores and facial hair

Matt and Mike

Landon, Bill and Chris

Grant

About to call it a night

6:30am time for coffee

Grant, Mike and Me (I need coffee bad)

Chris and Bill do too

Good morning wheels of steel

Hose (Matt) and his ride

Bill is a passionate man

Chris, Bill, Me, Grant, Landon, Matt, Mike

Bad knees and mental fatigue mean a ride home in a car

Grant and I were luck enough to get picked up by our ladies

The weekend was over too soon, but a crazy good time. The four that rode to Bear Creek were too beat and injured to tough it out a second day so we got rides home. The ride there was epic though and I will have stories about the prison, bodacious! and more on Wednesday.

All of the Photos

Mehtul's Mux