Wednesday, June 30, 2010

It's that time of year again!

Tomorrow is July 1st, and while this blog has been dying, we still have our one remaining tradition here. Lita will send me links to music videos and I will watch them. Sheltered person that I am, it's very likely that I haven't seen any of the videos she'll pick.

I will post pictures, give my feelings about the video, maybe provide a commentary, and point out what I think the most awesome thing about the video is.

I will try to do one a day meaning we will see 31 videos before it's all done. If real life gets in the way we may either post several videos on one day or finish this is August. We'll see.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

I want one.

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Just in case you enjoy this blog and wonder if there's anything you could get me in return.


Just saying.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Bumblefudge Legacy: Generation 3: Chapter 3

Welcome back!

Previously on the Bumblefudge Legacy, Onil moved out of Bumblefudge Manor and into Bumblefudge Cottage where he attempted to pitch some woo at his future bride to be, Joann. It mostly went ok, except she wouldn't stop crying.


Now it's the next day and Joann is back on Onil's doorstep waiting for him to invite her inside again. Hopefully today's wooing will involve fewer tears.


I have no idea what this pose is supposed to be. Maybe Onil thinks it makes him look rugged and dynamic. Joann, for her part, mostly refuses to come any farther inside than the white tile portion of the entryway.


Yesterday Onil's attempts to win Joann's love mostly involved telling stupid jokes. Today we'll let the two of them actually talk to each other and see how it goes.


Well! What a delightful thing to learn! See where talking gets you? And he learned that from a comment about a tombstone, no less.


Onil decides the talking is a bust and goes in for a hug. Joan gamely allows her face to be enveloped by his pillowy hair.


Whatever you're doing, stop it.


Onil is a grumpy Sim and grumpy Sims don't like to compliment people, but I make him tell Joann she's pretty, anyway.


First kiss achieved!


And now they are going steady!


The message center interrupts this seduction to bring us this important message. BOG and Andrea are out of debt! I knew they could do it!


This, however, is bad news. Onil's little brother Alastair is falling in with the wrong crowd!

And now back to the smoochyfaces, still in progress.


Whenever your Sim is interacting with any other Sim, this little info dealy shows up in the upper left hand corner to tell you how the other Sim feels about the whole thing. When you're trying to get some romance going, the two key words you want to show up there are "extremely irresistible." That's when you know the target Sim can be easily convinced to do something dumb, like sleep with or marry your Sim.


See? Look! She's only known Onil for a couple of days, yet she is powerless to resist!


And because laggy parties can bite me, I force the new couple to wed immediately.

Now let's find out a little bit more about Joann, shall we?


Her lifetime want, as shown by the gold star under her portrait, is to be the CEO of some big company. Her traits are couch potato (like Onil!), excitable, frugal, loves the outdoors, and snob. Not bad at all.

She has no skills at all, but she does have a job in business, which is nice since that's where her lifetime want lies. Of course, she's only in an entry level position, and I could have done that, but still. It's nice.



The next day, I send the newlyweds out to a nearby park. I want Joann to meet people and work on her charisma (a key skill to master on the business career track). Onil is a huge chess nerd, so I want him to play some chess matches and maybe get some logic while he's at it.


The first new Sim to show up is a little kid, but that's ok. Still helps the skill.


Onil did not tell me he needed to pee before he left the house. This might work in his favor, though. That's his chess opponent right behind him. Maybe she will find it intimidating and unnerving if he pees all over her during the match.


Onil! I said during the match! DURING!

You can see his opponent walking away in the distance, flipping Onil the bird as she goes. Not a great way to strike fear in the hearts of the Chess Tournament crowd.

I send Onil home to clean up.

What's that, Message Center? Did something happen?

Oh no! Dedric "Mountain" Broke-Beck tried to mug Onil's Uncle Hero! Luckily, Hero is so awesome that he totally beat the shit out of Mountain in a defeat so humiliating that Alastair saw the light and renounced petty thuggery forever.

I love this Story driver, I really do.



While this was going on, Joann chatted with this guy. I don't know his name. I thought he might be town Cassanova and that Onil's new marriage might be in trouble already, but it turns out this guy is not the Cassanova at all, just some guy with similarly dumb hair.

So... yeah.

A new feature with the Ambitions expansion is the ability to do laundry. Considering Onil's weak bladder, I figure getting a washer and dryer might not be a bad idea. This house is small, however, and there's not much room for extra heavy appliances.

Basements are crazy inexpensive to build now that there's a special tool for them, however, so here's the new basement laundry room, floating in a scary black void. I can't actually afford a washer or dryer yet, but it'll come soon.


And here's how it looks from ground level! I'll put some kind of enclosure or something around the stairs sometime, but in the meantime it'll just have to look dumb like this. That's how it goes.

And on that exciting note, I leave you.

Until next time, take care!

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Bumblefudge Legacy: Generation 3: Chapter 2

Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.

Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.

Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya (Who'd have thought they'd lead ya)
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)

Yeah we tease you a lot cause we've got you on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.


Awwww, yeah, I'm back with my Legacy, babies! Did you miss me? Tough.

So where have I been all this time? Eh. I don't know. Hanging around. Game got really slow. Maybe I need to put more memory in the computer or something, I don't know.

So why am I back now?

EA put out a new Sims 3 expansion pack that I couldn't resist! Ambitions! Sims with jobs! Way more interesting than Sims on vacation! I also heard some random person comment that they thought maybe their game loads faster with Ambitions, and that was enough for me. I bought it and here we are.

I've played it a little bit. Not enough to have experienced much of the new stuff, yet. Game is pretty slow.

So let's get started!


Here's our current heir, the lovely and beautiful Onil Bumblefudge, eating some waffles at three in the morning. Why is he up so late/early? No idea. It's been months since I played this thing. It occurs to me that you might not remember anybody either, so I'll wait until morning and give you a cast list.


Onil lives in Bumblefudge Manor with his mother, Andrea.


Also present is former heir and Onil's father, the impossible to photograph BOG Bumblefudge.


Here are Onil's younger brothers, Alastair (front) and Rambo (back, pantsless).


Onil's uncle Hero lives elsewhere with his husband, but still checks in via info bubble from time to time. Looks like my story driver has declared him Town Nerd! Congrats, Hero!


Here he is now, leaving his place of work. Rocky cowers in the background because... well, mainly because he's a coward and that's what cowards do.


Evil Aunt Angie died offscreen, leaving everybody a sizeable inheritance. It's the only helpful thing she ever did.



So! Back to our heir! The childfaced, maidenhaired Onil is chatting online before he has to go to work. That's a portrait of his sainted grandmother and original heir, wurwolf, on the wall behind his head there.


And now Onil is back from work, wondering why I told him to get his phone out. Why, Onil? Because it took me like three real-time hours just to get through your one work day. I can't take this lag anymore. You are moving out. Hopefully a smaller lot with fewer people will make this game go faster.

Maybe one day we can return the legacy to Bumblefudge Manor, but in the meantime, off you go.


I hope you had a chance to say goodbye to all those people I just reintroduced you to. No? Oh well.



I have relinquished control of Bumblefudge Manor for about five seconds before the Story finds elderly devoted housewife Andrea a job. Ugh.

Whatever, Story, do what you want. I'm moving beyond these people.

In other news, Super Nerds get to have peons. Who knew? I bet Tork is reading this wondering when people were planning to tell him about this.


Here we are in the nicest home I could afford with the Bumblefudge family's available assets, Bumblefudge Cottage. It's small, but pretty. Overall, it's not bad.

As you can see from the plumbbob, Onil is tired and cranky from the long drive. And the long standing around on the lawn of Bumblefudge Manor for a few hours waiting for the lag to catch up. Hopefully things move faster now.


First look at the inside. The place is mostly unfurnished, except for the (fridgeless) kitchen and the bathroom. Fortunately, Onil brought some of his own stuff from the Manor and will be able to find a place to sit and to sleep tonight.


No fridge, though, and no cooking skills even if he had one. It's late, so I let Onil order pizza tonight. He does not let the poor pizza girl leave without bitching at her about how sleepy he is.


Plenty of open counter space in the kitchen, not to mention an open desk in the study. Where does Onil dump his pizza? Bathroom. Of course.


He disappoints me by not eating his pizza on the toilet, however.

Onil enjoys his first meal in his new home and then scoots off to bed.


I have no idea what the hell happened in that first info box, but am amused by it, nonetheless.

I'm less amused by the second info box, but I guess this is what happens to you when your eldest son runs off with all your money leaving you without a Simoleon to your name. I'm sure it'll be fine, though. BOG is a rockstar and Andrea has a job, and the game found jobs for Alastair and Rambo as well. They should have a few bucks soon enough.


In the previous chapter, oh so long ago, I introduced Sim Onil to several eligible(ish) neighborhood women and asked his IRL wife wurwolf to pick one out. She did just that, and now it's time to meet Joann "Mystery Date" Watson-Traylor.

Joann is Onil's new fiance, though she doesn't know it yet. She's also a teen, which is more than a little bit creepy. It's a fixable problem, though, just hold tight.


The second she comes into Onil's Pedo Palace, she starts crying about some old lady who died. Probably it's her sainted mother who always told her not to enter the homes of creepy older men with long flaxen locks or something like that, who knows.


Anyway, on with the seduction (barf). Obviously I'm not going to throw any flirts her way yet. Even if I did have the proper hacks enabled to make that possible (I don't), it would be super gross. Instead, I have Onil tell Joann lots of jokes. He's a funny guy with the funny trait, so no attempt he ever makes at humor falls flat. Here he's just done that "There's something on your shirt" nose flick thing... and she's laughing! Nobody laughs at that stupid joke! This humorous trait is magic!


Soon the ick-factor becomes unbearable, so I declare it Joann's birthday and buy her a cake. She is now Onil's age!


And although there is birthday cake on the counter, she makes herself at home and raids his fridge for pizza. (Oh yeah, I bought him a fridge.)


Now that Joann is in Onil's age range, I feel comfortable letting him flirt with her a little bit. She responds positively, but it's still too early to push for anything serious.

We'll leave it here for now. Next time, we'll try to make this friendship a marriage! Everybody's happy! Hooray! Take care!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

2010 E3 for the Big N

I watched the E3 live show for the fifth straight year, and this one will be remembered as being as big as the famous 2006 one. The show just had big game after big game this year, with little boring parts.


The show started with Zelda Wii right off the bat. The game has a Twilight Princess/Wind Waker hybrid look to it. The controls weren't working during the show but I'm sure Zelda: Recalibrate Every Five Minutes* will be a step up from Spirit Tracks.

* - Also known as Skyward Sword.


After that we got to the next few games, Wii Party, Mario Mix Sports, and Just Dance 2. Wii Party might be worth a look but I didn't care for Mario Party 8. Mario Mix Sports could have been worth a try if it had football like I assumed it would, but it has hockey, volleyball, and dodgeball. Eh. I'm not touching Just Dance.

That seemed to be it for the "casual" games, weirdly enough. Next up was Golden Sun DS. I have nothing to say about that because I never had a Golden Sun game. But I did have Goldeneye, and screw the revision historians. The N64 version is still a great game, so hopefully the Wii remake will be good.

Next up was Epic Mickey. It seemed to be a combo of Super Mario Sunshine mixed with Judge Doom. I hope the paint erasing means something other than removing a polygon in your way. Otherwise it seems to be like a 3d Mickey Mania.

The next couple games were Kirby: Yarn Epic and Donkey Kong Country Returns. I'll be honest, the Kirby game hurt my eyes a bit. I wish Kirby was whole while everything else was yarn. I was never a big fan of Donkey Kong Country but this remake should be a good platformer. It has Donkey and Diddy like the original game.

After that I was begging for some 3DS screens, but no, more games. I think there was a bit about Dragon's Quest IX but I tuned out at that point.

Metroid Other M was shown. The latest trailer didn't really show anything new. Too bad, because I really want that game when it comes out late August.


The big news of the show was the 3DS. That took up the final 30 minutes. Good, because that was what I anticipated the most. Sadly, they couldn't actually show the 3d features on the big monitors. I hope to see one in stores before too long. I was disappointed initially by the fact that it looks a lot like the DS, but the software and GameCube quality graphics look great. (Seriously, we Nintendo fans will be getting Street Fighter 4 and Saints Row.) And they're promising movies, which hopefully means I can put movies on it like an iPhone. If that's the case, that's a day 1 purchase right there. Too bad they didn't give a price.

The big surprise of the show was a new Kid Icarus game. I didn't care for the NES game, but hey, this is a chance to make it into a franchise so maybe it'll be a great first party title for the new portable.



After the show some nerds complained, but there weren't as many as usual. Also the Xbox 360 Slim would be purchased by me if I wasn't so ancient by video game standards. Oh well. I hope to try Kinect in a store. I know people are putting it down but if it's fun, it's fun.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Won't be posting much for a couple weeks!

I'm going to circumnavigate the globe on a raft. Yup, I figure if rich teen girls can do it, so can I.

I'm not going to lie. I'm going to sail around the countries with the hotter women. Maybe I can get an Indian wife and she'll explain what's the deal with Bollywood to me.


And yes, I said raft. I'm doing this Tom Sawyer style.

Friday, June 11, 2010

No matter how much...

Google insists that I should care about soccer, I must respectfully disagree.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Tork considers awarding himself...

Perfect Blogger!



And I earned it, too.