Ain't That a Kick in the Head?

This passed week has been mostly wonderful!

Isn't that a good thing?

It's been a while since there has been any updates here, and for that I apologize. This may be a lengthy one.

First things first:

Fallout New Vegas.

Has is been taking up a lot of my time?

The answer is "yes".

At this point I am at level...18? And well on my way. So here comes the "review", so to speak.

The beginning of the game may have been the biggest disappointment I have faced since Sonic the Hedgehog became 3D.

The storyline was god-awful, the startup of the game was slow, the area was boring and the new features were confusing.

Total play time before throwing down the controller: 45 minutes.

Total time spent bitching because the game sucked: 5 days.

Eventually I had some more spare time and I finally mustered up the patients to guts to pick it up again.

Same thing.

Total play time: An hour and 15 minutes.

Faith in Bethesda: Diminished.

"Oh, it gets better," they said.

"Keep playing!" They said.

Fine.

"You can launch Ghouls into outer space!" They said.

...

Well... in that case...

Controller back in hand, I trudged onward through the Mojave wasteland, trying to make the best of things.

Total playtime: 32 hours and 15 minutes.

Ultimately, it redeemed itself, making it a more playable game. Less frustrating, too. Here is a quick run through of what is good and not so good.

Good:

The dialog. I was extremely impressed with the dialog, this time around.

In Fallout 3, you could walk around and another character would make a nasty, offhand remark about you. Though, as soon as you clicked on them to speak, they were cheery as can be.

Here, that changed that. When they're mean, they're mean. When they're nice, they're nice. It is refreshing. Other than that, the dialog options are great.

Creatures and people.

The new characters and creatures in the game are awesome! Robotic dogs, firebreathing geckos, Elvis impersonators. Its great. A lot less run-of-the-mill.

Companions.

The companions you have follow you are swell. They also give you a lot of neat-o perks.

Let me tell you, Boone is just the bee's knees.

Fame:

Instead of just having good or bad karma, you gain fame an infamy amongst the other colonizations and groups in the wasteland. This is really nice, actually, because instead of having EVERYONE shooting at you, you only have a few people. Though, the disguises and outfits don't work as well as I had hoped they would...

Mediocre:

The storyline.

Perhaps Im just not far enough along yet, but I think that I like the other storyline a little bit better....

Housing:

It takes a bit longer to get your house here, I feel, but the options are greater. The first house you get, there is little or no attachment to the tow you're in. No reason to stat, reall. Evertually you get a really badass one.

Perks: There are some good ones, but there are also a lot of the same ones.... its disappointing. On top of that, you only get to choose a perk every-other level, which confused and upset me in the beginning.

Weapon mods:

Cool in theory, but a little too complicated for my liking. Especially the ammo. It is too time consuming and the menu screens are too cluttered for my to bother taking my time on it.

Bad:

THE BUGS AND GLITCHES.

This may be the reason that I permanently lay this game to rest. There are too many quest-breaking bugs. It stutters, freezes and stalls. People and items don't show up where they need to be, and we have has some file corruptions that set us back HOURS.

Ammo mods/Creation:

I hate this and try to avoid it at all cost. Too much of a pain in the ass for me.

Snow globes:

I miss the bobble heads! And they give you money, instead of skill points... Oh well...

Overall, its pretty cool, but it doesn't quite hold a candle to Fallout 3. After falling in love with those characters, it really sucks to have to start over again. The bugs in the game are excruciating and frustrating (along with the lengthly loading screens...)

I would recommend picking it up, for sure. But I may actually recommend that you wait until there is a patch out for it or you will just be wasting your time.

When not playing Fallout, I have been working overnights (hence the lack of updates.) Personally, I think it is awesome. Most of it was physical labor, which was a nice chance. Getting in to work at 9, then leaving at 9 in the morning was actually pretty sweet. (McDonald's bacon, egg and cheese bagels for dinner! YES!)

I didn't really like sleeping all day though. Didn't get to see Van very much either. But other than that, it was nice. A lot of hours and a lot of moving around. I dig.

Finally I caved and applied for college again. I just need to get my transcripts sent in. I'm going to be a High School English teacher. This is something I look forward to.

Right now all I can think about is food, so I'm going to go and perhaps play Fallout until Van wakes up. My sleeping schedule is all screwed up now, so I just woke up a little while ago and its 4 AM (I think? Daylight savings time has confused me a little bit, since the clock on my computer is already wrong?)

Off to scrounge up some Lucky Charms.

Bacon. Brownies.

Most exciting things!

I made bacon brownies and Moutain Dew cupcakes!

The brownies turned out surprisingly well. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect so I just made a test batch of 4. I must say, they were quite good!
Bacon brownies with chocolate maple frosting. Its a wonderful thing.

The Mt. Dew cupcakes turned out alright too. They were kind of ugly, so I do have to work on the colors a little bit. But other than that, they were wonderful!

Just in case.

If you are interested in purchasing them, you can find them at www.pixelpastries.webs.com.

Now I just need to continue my quest for old action figures!
Yay!




Fun fact of the day:

The letter "e" is the most commonly used letter in the English language. The novel Gadsby, by Ernest Vincent Wright does not contain the letter "e" throughout the entire book.

Because I'm A Heartless, Sarcastic Bitch

Another list.

I used to say that I thought I was a rather patient person. As my life goes on and I encounter more people, this theory seems to change a little bit. Perhaps morals are just different from what they used to be. Maybe people have just stopped caring. Who knows. I certainly don't. There are a lot of things that I see kids (and adults, for that matter) doing that I know for sure I would have gotten in HUGE trouble for if I did.
Not to say that my parents were strict, because they definitely were not; they just brought me up to generally be polite, courteous and have manners. I must say that for this I am thankful.

Sadly though, I see how people act these days and it sickens me. I don't mean to be "hoity-toity" or stuck up, but at the rate our race is going, we're about to drive ourselves into the ground.

So, now, it is time for another list!


SKELLYTON'S SOCIAL PET PEEVES 1. Playing music off of your cellphone in public.Whether you're sitting on the bus, walking through the mall or eating at a restaurant, you should NOT have your cellphone out playing your shit-quality MP3's for everyone to hear. Use some headphones. I don't want to know your "Top 10 favorite songs this week" while I am trying to enjoy me meal.I once had a couple come in to Ruby Tuesday's while Van and I were eating, sit down at the table across from us and play music through their cellphone throughout their entire meal. Should I have said something? Probably. Would it have made a difference? No. Why? They were friends with the waiter. Go figure. 2. Take up two parking spaces, because your car is "the shit".There is no need for you to double park your shit. If you do this intentionally, you are a pompous asshole. If you do this accidentally, you are a 16 year old girl that just got her license.Another time, while at the mall, Van and I encountered another bout of douchebaggery. It was a Saturday afternoon and the parking lots were almost all full at the movie theater. It took us at least 15 minutes to find a space, when finally, low and behold, there was one! We begin to pull our car up only to see that someone had very intentionally parked on the line. This irked me horribly. If you are worried about your car getting scratched or bumped, don't take it to the mall. Don't take it to the movie theater at the mall. Don't take it to the movie theater at the mall on the Saturday afternoon. And lastly, don't take it to the movie theater at the mall on Saturday afternoon in POUGHKEEPSIE NEW YORK. I hastily wrote a note that said "You;re car isn't THAT nice, asshole" stuck it on their windshield, then went and enjoyed my film. The end. 3. Pure and simple lazinessLaziness within reason, I can handle. Being so lazy that you cause more strain for someone else, I cannot. Laziness and ignorance go hand and hand, to me.Guess where I was for this one? Yep! THE MALL! Though, this time I was working. Sadly, this happens on a somewhat regular basis. A customer comes in, hustling like their ass in on fire, and comes up to me. They do not say "hi", they do not say "excuse me". The first thing out of their mouth is "I need 'x'". Now, 'x', is usually a CD of sorts. Let's say its The Rolling Stones.
"I need The Rolling Stones."
Usually in this situation, I would like to reply "No. You don't. You WANT the Rolling Stones. You don't need shit." But I don't. I don't say it. Usually, to be honest, I say "okay.""You'll be able to find it a lot faster than I will, I don't have a lot of time.""Its under "R" for "Rolling". All of our CDs go alphabetically.""Where is that?""Under "R". Comes after "Q" and before "S".""You need to show me."Jesusfuckingchristmaythisearthburnbeforemeandsufferonethousandfierydeaths.At this point, I stop whatever I am doing, walk over to the very predominantly labeled "R" section and point to the 4 to 5 rows of Rolling Stones CDs we have."Which one is the latest?""I don't know...here..."I then pick up a CD and look at the date on the back, explaining that CDs have a date on the back. I hand them the one that says "2010""Is this the latest one?""Yes. Its from 2010."They then walk away without a word. Apparently working in retail makes you sub human.

This post is getting far to long, so perhaps I will continue my list later on.

Jerkin Around

Today a man jerked off to my voice on the phone at work.


Yep.

You read that correctly.




As of recent I changed my position at work; instead of working on the floor, helping customers find the products they need, I became a sales operator and I answer the phones.

A co-worker of mine answered the phone and was trying to help this man, he started making her feel uncomfortable, so she put him on hold and transfered him to the department he was asking for.
This went around several times, as this... "customer" hung up multiple times.

Long story short, I ended up on the phone with him,
the man told me to talk "slower and slower", asked me round about questions and ask me directions on how to get to the store in a panting, raspy voice. All while Im laughing hysterically, and all while ending it with "I just blew my load..."
This of course, alarmed me as I said "EXCUSE ME?!"
He told me he was talking to himself.
I hung up the phone.


Fuckin creep.

What a day.


What.
A.
Day.







Strange, raspy pervert
Calling the retail sex-line
Go buy a laptop

I am pretty lost right now
in a way no GPS could help me
Kind of strolling about
with no reception
in a country where I don't speak the language.
I don't really know what to do with myself for the time being.
In between being very, very sad, I am also bored, confused and frustrated.
Help?

I think I came back to New York too early.
Should have waited another day.
But I had been gone so long that I wanted to see Van again.
And now I have to go to work, which I shouldn't, but I've been away for quite some time and have no money at the time being.
So I need to keep going.
and I need more jobs.
Looking at perhaps a bookstore?
That might be nice.
Since I like to alphabetize.

No, Mumm Ra, That Is My Cheese Cake!

If my blog were a puppy, it would have died from neglect by now, or at least been taken away by social services. We still don't have Internet in my house, since money is a little bit tight. But I think one of my neighbors has it, hence the fact that I am typing right this very moment.
Life...is big.
As of now.
There have been a lot of changes.

I dropped out of cooking school, which many people tell me was a bad idea.
Personally, I don't think saving thousands of dollars from going to waste is a bad idea. At some point in the near future I will be changing my major and going to a new school. Most likely for journalism I believe we already went through this. I had been working as a chef for a horrible restaurant called All Shook Up, that charged 9 dollars for a tiny sandwich and didn't have ice cream when they called themselves a "malt shop". Thankfully I am no longer there.
I now work a mediocre job at Best Buy, but I am not complaining. All things considered, I am making money and selling video games, so all is not that bad. I've come to the understanding that sometimes you have to start from the bottom and work your way up. There are no cheat-codes for life, with maybe the exception of the lottery. But that is one of those impossible cheat codes that are really difficult to activate, much like the ones in Earthworm Jim.
Speaking of Earthworm Jim, he is now permanently engraved into my bicep. As I had always said he would be. My sleeve is coming along nicely.

Thanks to some awesome Black Friday sales, we got Left 4 Dead 2 and Dragon Age for outstanding prices. Van and I beat L4D2 on Co-op mode, but need to go through it on single player still. It is a good game, the graphics are nice and the new weapons are useful, but it isn't all that different from the first one. Honestly, it kind of seems the exact same in some parts. Though, I don't own the first one, so I'm alright with that.
Zombies tend to go in a backwards order for me. Always start with the second part. as I did with 28 Weeks later.
Dragon age is pretty awesome, but also very frustrating to me. There are a lot of different controls and settings that I really don't have the patients to deal with. I just want to go and be the most evil of mages. Unfortunately I have to listen to hours of dialog to do so. Alas, it shall be done.
\And while we are on the topic, I will quickly state that I got to level 30 out of 55 on Zombies Ate My Neighbors. No cheats used. Go me.

As of recent we have a new addition to our family: Mumm Ra our little cat-baby.
Well, he isn't so little anymore, but he is still a young one. We found him outside last month and didn't want to leave him. He came right up to me and was more than happy to stay. Now that he is massive and has become a master of parkour. He is also trying to eat my cheesecake.
And yes, the name Mumm Ra did come from ThunderCats.


Yes, that is a chicken hat.


My parents just got to meet Mumm Ra at our first Thanksgiving.
It was a very interesting and slightly horrifying experience, but luckily enough it all turned out okay in the end, despite our power going out an hour into cooking our Turducken in out electric stove and me being rather sick for a few days. In the end all was good and we had enough food for 30 people to feed our little gathering of 6.


I suppose that is all that needs to be said for the time being. When I think of something new and also have Internet, I will keep this updated.
Ta.

I Do What I Must Because I Can

Another day goes by,

always with more things to do

An angry morning.

I have shanghaied the Culinary's computer lab in order to gain some form of Internet access. At least I can check my bank account now, since I lost my debit card AGAIN.

Thankfully it is all in order and my card is now cancelled with a new one on the way.

Someday I will make a dress out of all of my debit cards that I have gone through.

A visit to Stop N Shop proved successful, and again they twisted my arm into buying 10/10 candy bars. Dirty bastards.

Tonight I feel that I will be making a cake. This sounds like a good plan to me. Perhaps when I go home, after I clean up after Hurricane SpaceMarine and finish picking bids of Kameamea** Testosteroni* pizza out of the carpeting.

Ironically, my GPS has gone missing and I can't seem to find it, or the cord. It seems as through someone may have taken it out of my car. A bad decision on their part.

All things aside, my new job begins tomorrow.

I quit working at Mohonk Want To Kill Yourself And Everyone Around You House and will now be working at an undisclosed location, cheffing it up.

And yes, this means that I will not be finishing my externship, which means that yes, I will not be returning to the Culinary Institute, and yes, I am very happy about this.

Goal: write for Game Informer magazine.

*chicken, bacon, ham, ground beef, sausage, steak, pepperoni. Weighs about as much as a small pit-bull.

**with pineapple

Meow Meow!

I have come to the sad realization of "sleeping in for 5 hours means that I wake up at 9 am".

quite a bummer.

My last day off was last Friday and wow does it feel nice to take a bit of a break. But, of course, back to work tomorrow.

Today though, I should go to the store to buy some asprin and other important things. If I go out today, I will. If I don't...I will not. Obviously.

But, until I make that decision, I think I will watch Mama Mia (ALL BY MY LONESOME!)

and eat a bagle, that I will not be sharing.

And here is where you can pretend that I put a smily face. I don't use those in my blog. No no.

I Pose A Theory.

Today I had a horrifying experience.
As a Pagan and an ex-vegan, I still feel the need to treat nature well and with respect, regardless of the situation, but unfortunately work today seemed to focus mainly on the demise of small animals.
Working in a bakery, it is only natural to have mice show up now and again. To me, I figure as long as they aren't getting into the food and making a mess, it should be okay. Unfortunately, the entire reason mice go to places in the first place is so that they can get into the food and consequently, make a mess. Therefor the mice had to go. The proper way to handle this kind of situation would have been to order enclosed traps and relocate the mice to a nearby field, which we have plenty of. I do understand that there are 1. too many mice, and 2. not enough time to do this. So, in the end this means that they must be killed. As much as I don't like the idea of this, it is understood. Personally, I have no problem disposing of a dead mouse. To be honest, I am a little bit afraid of the living ones since I got bit by one as a kid. Though a dead one doesn't bother me. Since this is the case, I was elected head of Mouse Disposal Crew. Actually, I was the only member of mouse disposal crew, due to the fact that we have other things to do other than play with dead mice, and also that they had to be quickly removed since they were decaying and the whole place smelled horribly of dead rodent. Sad to say, I can identify the smell of dead rodent very well.
Moving right along.
As I go to dispose of what I thought would be one or two dead mice in snap traps, I find that my employers have decided to use the least humane form of trap possible: a glue trap. And little did I know that there were not one or two mice, but seven. Two of which were still a alive and stuck in the little gooey trays.
As previously mentioned, it was a horrifying experience to see the small creature staring up at me with its shining, beaded eyes, with it's nose and feet stuck in a thick layer of gel. It immediately began squirming and tugging in fear as I approached. Feeling there was no kind of polite way to dispose of it, I placed a paper towel over the entire tray, covering both the living mouse and the couple dead ones that lay stuck next to it. At this point I was unsure of what to do. Do I put it in the plastic bag and let it suffocate slowly? Do I quickly end it's life by stepping on it? I felt that the second would have been the nicer thing to do, but on the other hand who am I to play God and take a life? it is not my choice when something should die. So instead I tied it into the plastic bag and tossed it into the dumpster. Perhaps the poor creature will free itself from the trap and make its way into a safe dumpster haven. As unlikely as this is, I can hope. The only thing worse than the one still wriggling, was the small mouse that had to have only been a few days old. No larger than my thumb he stood stuck in the glue, ribs fluctuating with each panicked breath as my hand drew closer to pick up the tray. The saddest part of the whole experience was the fact that this small one began squeaking in terror, trying to escape. This was not something I would like to have to do again, although I do know that there is another glue trap in the back room.
Scary that this all happened by 7:00 am.
As the day progressed we had several, and by several I mean anywhere between 5 and 8 people woth arms bigger around than my head, come in to install our new proof box. How exciting. Lucky for me, my space was taken over and I had to relocate to a different table right in the way of every person that walked by with a huge piece of the metal box. Please note my sarcasm. We usually have seven or so people working at the same time in our bake shop, occasionally a dishwasher or another employee from a different part of the building will come in. Today we ended up with a total of 15 people in the room at once. Mind you, this bakeshop is not very large.
One of my co-workers then said "In a perfect world, we would be working at different times." Meaning the bakers and the men that were installing the proof box.
This then got me thinking "What is a perfect world?"
I pondered this thought for quite a while as I put danishes and cinnamon rolls on a tray.
I then finally come to the conclusion that we already live in a perfect world, everything is perfect as it is. This theory is still in the works, considering that I haven't had anyone to discuss this yet, but so far I can not think of a reason why this world is not perfect. Yes, I understand that each individual person is not perfect, but people as a whole are. But then you must break that down. Are only half of the people perfect? No, because no one is perfect. And if no one is perfect, then there is nothing above imperfect. We know nothing greater than imperfection. And if there is nothing greater than imperfection, then imperfection is indeed perfection. If there were anything that was indeed 100% perfect, that would then make something else obsolete. And obsoletion is imperfection. Imperfection is necessary for perfection. Again, I am still testing this theory and I welcome any criticisms and will answer or reply to them in later posts.

"I Lost My Bubsy AND My CoolSpot!"

That sounded dirty....

It becomes problematic when I forget or do not have time to update this for a few days. So many things happen that I need to write down, but when I comes time to do so, I usually can't remember what I intended to write about.

I've been working for about a month now and I really cannot express how miserable it really is. The actual work isn't terribly bad, I suppose, its just a really frustrating situation due to the people there, the way things are handled, things that take place in the building and my ever declining health.

When the job first began, it definitely seemed like waking up at 4 am would be the worst part, but it really isn't so bad at all. Given, I do sleep a little bit later than that, then rush my ass to work every morning, cutting what should be an hour or so long trip down to a 20-30 minute one.

It seems kind of like I'm getting more out of my day. I come home at 3:00, on a good day, and that was a full day of work. Yeah, it is rather boring after that, until Van comes home, but still.

Today, I have off, which is nice. Had off yesterday and got to spend the whole day with Van. We rented the new sonic game, Sonic Unleashed. The graphics are absolutely spectacular, but the game play is a little iffy. The characters are really hard to control, and when Sonic is in Werehog form, he doesn't go too quick. We've only played a few levels though, so I'm sure you can guess what Ill be doing today on my day off.

And laundry.

And eating food.

I hope my dice get here soon, too!

Anyhow, off I go to fight the evil Dr. Eggman!

Cut This Cake Into Pieces, I Work At A Resort

Finally got home at a reasonable hour today.
What a miracle.
But Im still really tired.
And need to buy groceries.
But, I went to the bank to cash my second check, and this is definitely a good thing, to be able to pay for gas, yes?

Lucky for me I did not burn anything today and I made some badass baklava.
Yeah, baklava.
Be badass.


And some self proclaimed fat 17 year old boy is trying to convince me to download msn so he can 'show me his pair"
Back the fuck off, son!


I hate the Internet.