SameOldSchmidt

Last night we lined up a sitter and went out to a few places with some friends. We started at Knickerbockers for 25cent tacos, which is always fun, and They really are pretty decent tacos for a quarter.

Then we went to the Dark Visions Haunted House on 16th street, just a little south of O. We were all pretty skeptical before going in, thinking it would probably be lame, but it turned out to be very good. Admission was $9.00 per person, which is a bit high. The consensus in our group was that if it were more like $5.00, we’d recommend everyone go check it out. I guess I’d still recommend people go even at $9.00, because the Dark Visions folks really put some effort into it and it’s a once-a-year thing. I have no idea how their business model works; They had several “actors” inside the house and I assume each of them gets paid something, so maybe $9.00 is what they have to charge to make it worthwhile for them? We’ll be reviewing the haunted house on an upcoming episode of the Splattercast, so I’ll save some comments for that.

After the haunted house we strolled over to the Starlite Lounge, which I’d never been to before. It’s a 60’s theme joint, pretty classy as far as bars go. I almost felt like I should have been dressed a little nicer. They have pretty good drink specials on Thursdays and even hand out free appetizers. I’m sure we’ll go back again.

All in all, a very fun night. Tina and I will enjoy catching up on all of these interesting places to go here in Lincoln.

There’s this guy, montyoum, who makes pretty awesome video mash-ups of video game characters. He got a lot of buzz for his “Haloid” video featuring Master Chief and Samus Aran. He’s just put out a new video called Dead Fantasy 1, which features characters from Dead or Alive and Final Fantasy X. Very cool.

I had the day off on Monday for Columbus Day so I went along to Genny’s physical therapy appointment. Everyone there seemed very nice. Genny’s doing well with these little brace thingamabobs that she’s wearing on her feet. They’re not too conspicuous, they almost look like cute little sandals.

After Genny’s appointment, we stopped at a nearby McDonald’s for a late breakfast. As we were eating, this older guy came into the store and asked to see the manager. They had their conversation just a few feet from where we were sitting so we heard pretty much the whole thing.

Apparently the guy had come in for dinner the night before and he had a lot of complaints about his dining experience. He was going on and on about how terrible it was, his fries had salt when he ordered them without and there weren’t enough fries in his box, the cashier was rude, etc. He quite clearly demanded that a certain employee be fired over it. He said that if he came back to this store and that employee was still around he’d escalate it to the district bosses, and he was taking it “all the way to the top” - whatever that means. Was he going to call Ronald and demand satisfaction?

For some reason, this guy was really making me angry. Sure, I’ve had bad experiences at fast food joints before; crummy service, incorrect orders and stuff like that. But to come back the next day and flip out, demanding that someone be fired? I dunno, maybe it’s because I used to work at a McDonald’s so I’m sympathetic. The manager was playing it by the McBook, being very polite and gracious to the old bastard. I really wanted to walk over to them and get in the dude’s face, tell him he needed to get a life and I hope he chokes on his next order of unsalted fries.

Of course, I chickened out and didn’t say anything. Tina didn’t want me to make a scene, and I suppose I don’t know all the facts. Maybe the guy really did have the most awful experience imaginable and his grievance was legitimate? I somehow doubt that, though. I think he was just one huge McAsshole.

Pardon my French (fries).

But anyway, take it from a former fast food chef: Don’t screw with the people who make your food. We will remember you, and we will spit in your burger, or worse, the next time you come through.

Before I went to bed last night I FTP’d into my Xbox and copied over the QOF characters along with the definition file I had edited by hand. I booted up the game and, to my surprise, everything seemed to work fine. This Xmugen stuff will probably be a fun thing to play around with, adding new music, customizing some graphics and junk like that. I don’t see myself getting really deep into it, but I’ll have some fun tweaking the setup here and there.

So, if you want to play a B-grade Street Fighter clone with 600+ characters, including topless cartoon chicks, just drop by the crib some time.

Watched the season premieres of South Park and The Sarah Silverman program on Comedy Central tonight. I thought they were both pretty good. These are a couple of the small handful of shows that I enjoy watching outside of Adult Swim. In my opinion, South Park has become a pretty amazing show as it’s progressed over the years and Silverman’s show sort of reminds me of Strangers With Candy in some ways, which is a high complement.

I went in to Trade A Tape today to look for a birthday present for my pal Brady. I had a hard time picking a book, there were so many to choose from. Brady, if you’re reading this: You’re getting a New Avengers trade by Bendis & Finch. I couldn’t remember if I’d already given this book to you on a CD; I apologize if you already have it!

As I was browsing around in the shop, I started feeling the urge to pick up a few issues for myself. As I’ve said a couple times, I’ve cut out the comic books since we moved to Lincoln. I did it mainly because they just piled up and consumed a lot of space. Perusing the current release rack today was kind of like running into some old friends, all these books that I used to read every month. I wasn’t jonesing for a fix or anything, but I saw that Punisher (Max) #50 was out and it looked like they’re doing the next Barracuda arc. I’m totally gonna get that when it gets released as a trade.

So I got Xmugen, or X-M.U.G.E.N. or however it’s supposed to be spelled, up and running on my Xbox. I had to FTP into the console with a crossover cable and copy the game files onto the Xbox that way. I have a laptop, so it’s easy enough to hook that up to the Xbox for file transfers.

The game doesn’t run quite like other games that I’ve loaded onto my Xbox hard drive. Xmugen has to load up a linux distro and then run itself inside of that environment. It’s sort of a lengthy start-up process, and you lose the soft reset that all my other Xbox games and apps have. Kind of irritating when you’re used to quick loads and the ability to jump back to the dashboard (main menu) of the Xbox at will. But then, how important is it, really? I’m griping about a freeware video game!

The game itself? It’s pretty cool, fun to piddle around with but definitely a novelty thing. The schtick is that it’s got 500+ characters and you can load in more, take others out and customize your game in a lot of different ways. For example, I definitely want to try and integrate the Queen of Fighters characters into my Xmugen setup. As a game, it’s nowhere near an official Capcom or SNK fighter in terms of play quality or overall tightness, but some day when I actually have some friends over I can see this being a blast to play for a little while.