Jeff Gerstmann is Still Alive

Just finished Metal Gear.

Yeah, it’s awesome.

- Sitting in the Vegas airport, writing about Capcom games on my laptop that’ll post on Tuesday. Impressive lineup.

- Scanning the airport’s free wi-fi network for shared files.

- Hoping my 7:35 flight doesn’t get delayed.

- Noticing some stiffness in my left thumb, which indicates that I don’t play arcade games nearly often enough anymore.

- Wishing I didn’t throw away the Burger King cup I had, so that I could go get a refill.

Highs in the low-to-mid-90s here at home, making me realize how great it is to work near the water. Actually, it was crazy hot there, too, but a nice shady lunch spot on the water can always beat the heat.

My house likes to retain heat. So it’s 83 degrees outside right now, but it’s probably more like 85-88 inside. Naturally, that makes this the perfect day for me to start playing Wii Fit, right?

I should have bought a house with a pool when I had the chance.

So I’m doing some data entry type stuff for work and I’ve got wrestling on in the background. They have a text message question tonight where they want you to vote on the following question…

“Do you think Shawn Michaels is telling the truth about his knee injury?”

…I know, super exciting stuff, right? How many realities must I pull myself back through to find the answer? I mean, are we talking “real life” or “wrestling real life” here? I feel like the layers are peeling back and that I’m seeing the very nature of the universe unfold before me… maybe this cold pizza has been in the fridge too long.

Obvs, they want people to play along with the story, that’s sort of the whole point of wrestling. It’s just weird to see them essentially ask “do you believe the lies we’re telling you in the form of a story?”

72% voted yes.

Nothing like catching a cold right before a busy week. I’m over here mainlining soup and DayQuil with hopes for the best. The great bonus is that while I was out getting more cold-deflecting drugs, I managed to stop by the game shop and get a copy of The World Ends With You. After reading so many nice things about it, it sounded like the sort of thing I needed to see for myself.

But first I need to play more Boom Blox.

We both agree that the movie Go is impossible to watch in this day and age. Don’t watch Go.

We also agree that Clerks ain’t all that anymore, either. I love Clerks, but dude!

Also, we’re split on the topic of an Anchorman sequel. He’s all “whatevs.” I’m all “they’ve been making Anchorman sequels for the past few years, haven’t they?”

I still need to unwrap and watch my copy of Clerks II at some point. It’s on HD-DVD, so it’ll surely have The Look And Sound Of Perfect on its side.

Also, Big Audio Dynamite. Pro or con?

I’m so totally sick of reading these “OH CRAP IRON MAN IS OUT THE SAME WEEK AS GRAND THEFT AUTO WILL PEOPLE GO SEE IT????” stories. MTV’s got one of its own now.

I’m sure there’s something to it, as the dorks who would be most likely to go see Iron Man are probably the same dorks who would have more fun staying in and playing more GTA, but when people try to pin the woes of the movie exhibition business on games, it’s almost as pathetic as the music industry’s excuses for its own downturn.

1. Movie theaters have become an awful way to see a movie. Unless you hold some nostalgia for sticky seats and popcorn–you know, the “theater experience” or whatever–actually going to a movie theater has felt like an awful waste of time to me for years. Even if I didn’t have a sizable TV and a passable sound system, I’d rather gather up some friends and watch a movie at home. Since I’ve laid out the cash for decent equipment, I usually end up getting a better-looking, better-sounding movie than what most theaters offer these days.

2. Dude, it’s Iron Man. Hardly an A-lister in the Marvel world, unless things have somehow changed since I last followed comics. If Iron Man tanks, it’s probably because MOST PEOPLE HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THE HELL AN “IRON MAN” IS. Though as a counterpoint, if someone told me “hey, there’s a movie coming out where Robert Downey Jr. drinks and flies around fighting dudes,” I’d probably want to know more about it.

3. I once urinated on a seat in the back of a movie theater out of spite. To my knowledge, no one has urinated on my couch (yet).

So, yeah, I’ll probably stay in and play GTA, but not at the expense of Iron Man. I already didn’t care about that.

Spent the last hour or so discussing with Brendan about how, exactly, a 4th Fast and the Furious movie should work. Apparently it’s just going to be called “Fast And Furious.” AAAAAH THIS FRANCHISE HAS TOO MANY WORDS IN IT, LET’S STRIP IT DOWN TO THE BARE ESSENTIALS!

Look, I understand and appreciate the concept of making another one with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in it, but–and this shouldn’t surprise you–I’m not interested unless it has ties to the Tokyo Drift story, as well.

If the IMDB entry is to be believed, it will… but this doesn’t make much sense to me. They have Sung Kang listed as Han, the same dude he played in Tokyo Drift and Better Luck Tomorrow… but Han died in Tokyo Drift. OR DID HE!?!?!?!!?

So, then, does this film fit in a hole between the second movie and Tokyo Drift? That would explain the Vin Diesel cameo at the end of Tokyo Drift, where he claims to have “rolled” with Han in the past.

Christ, I totally can’t believe I’m sitting here dissecting this. Truth be told, I can’t remember how Rich and I decided that we were going to go see Tokyo Drift in theaters, but that decision somehow managed to ruin/enhance/ruin my life almost immeasurably.

Unless it takes place out of sequence, this movie needs Lucas Black in it. And with that mini-explosion out of my system, I can now sleep soundly.

I think I messed up my shoulder while pretending to Hula Hoop today.

More on that in a few days.

So after work last night, some fairly spontaneous decisions got made and I went into San Francisco to kick it with one Matthew Rorie and his posse. The dude has got no mercy, for sure, and yes, his crew runs DEEP. The night quickly became a blur of autographed sandwiches, a giant flying stone head that pukes guns, and a karaoke bar employee that, for all intents and purposes, was Sam Elliott.

I’m all for karaoke, but I think that people need to totally give themselves over to the experience, realize that they’re essentially making a fool of themselves in front of a crowd, and have fun with it. It always surprises me when I see people up there, singing, looking completely embarrassed. What, exactly, did you think was going to happen when you handed in your stupid little slip of paper?

We ended up bailing out of that place before most of us got a chance to sing, mostly because it was taking forever. I guess that’s one point in favor of the “rent a small room” style of karaoke, but acting like an ass in front of your friends isn’t anything special.

Last night left me a little tapped out, so I’m relaxing a bit and finally straightening up my bedroom, which has become a mess of cables, sweatshirts, networking hardware, and empty Amazon shipping boxes since I started working again. I got sort of obsessive about keeping stuff clean when I wasn’t working, since I was spending plenty of waking hours in this bedroom. Now, it’s effectively gone back to “the place where I go watch TV for a few hours and then go to sleep.” So it’s easy for stuff to pile up.

I’ve also been watching a lot less TV these past few weeks. The Law & Order reruns are history, and I haven’t really been up to keeping tabs on the two or three shows that I usually record, either. Even still, I think I’m going to upgrade to the DirecTV HDTV package. Now that baseball season’s here, I think I’m going to be spending a lot of time watching random baseball games on the weekends, and I might as well be watching them in ridiculously-high resolution. Unfortunately, this means I’d have to give up my TiVo and replace it with the crappy DirecTV equivalent. I have an SD version of the DTV DVR in my living room now and it’s an underpowered piece of crap with awful remote response times. Hmm… this is starting to sound like a white whine, so maybe I should stop here.

While writing this, news came out that Charlton Heston has died.