I miss writing in my blog.  I promise I will try to get to writing soon.

Today I helped a very interesting man.  He was about 55, and very Jewish.  His clothing was very wrinkled, and he had an overall disheveled look to him — right down to the yamacah that was so poorly pinned to his thinning hair.  He had brow plastic-framed glasses that looked like he had been gnawing on the arms of them for years and was wearing and old pair of plastic soccer sandals.  He had made a heel strap for them out of some rubber bands that he knotted through holes he had gouged in the material.

He told me he was looking for something to replace his customized sandals, and that he would like something similar but closed toe to wear in the approaching cold weather.  I showed him a pair of Crocs, which he promptly tried on.

“These are too small,” he said.  “Do you have a half size bigger?”

I explained to him that crocs were small, medium, large, etc. &and that the size he had on was designed to fit a men’s 10-11.

“So, it’s ten and a half?”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it,” I said.  I then explained that the next size up in Crocs was a 12-13.

After debating the semantics of shoe sizing for a bit longer, he settled on the extra large Crocs.  He paid for them, left the store, and then quickly turned around and came back in.

Up until this point, I had thought of him merely as a quirky older man.  What transpired next totally changed my opinion.

“Hi.  I was wondering if you had read any of the articles that have been in the paper about people who wear Crocs getting their feet caught in escalators, getting their toes slashed and bleeding everywhere?”

I simply stared at him for a few moments with my overly-polite customer service grin on my face while I tried to register what it was he had just said to me.

“Well, I’ve certainly never heard of anything like that happening.”  My voice was trembling a little as I tried to hold back the peels of hysterical laughter.

“You said you have Crocs, right?”

“Yup.”

“So when you’re on escalators, do you stand off to the side, or in the center?  Because I’ve heard that with tennis shoes you shouldn’t’ stand to the side because your foot could get stuck and yanked right off your body.  So I’m wondering if I need to remain conscious of that with Crocs on, or if I can stand a little closer to the rail.”

I racked my brain to think of a reply that would satisfy him enough to leave and also one that I could say with a straight face.  “Well, if you really want to be sure you’re safe, I would take the stairs or elevator.”

“You are so right,” he said and left my store with a smile on his face.  Am I good at my job, or what?

The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass

This Zelda title had me incredibly excited for the year that happened between the time I heard about its development and its release date.  However, a few months before launch I learned something that filled my heart with dread — the entire game would be stylus-controlled.  Developer’s attempt at this in the past had left a bad taste in my mouth, and I couldn’t bear the thought of Link being subjected to the whims of my stylus for all those hours.

Despite my preconceptions, I bought the game.  I’ve played all of the installments in the franchise through to completion (except for the CDi versions - don’t even get me started on those) and I didn’t see any reason Phantom Hourglass should be different.  I’m pleased to say I made the right decision.  What Phantom Hourglass ended up being was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I’ve had on the DS.

Storyline: 3/5

The story for TLoZ: Phantom Hourglass follows the same tried and true Zelda formula: boy meets girl, girl gets snatched by an epic menace, boy sets out to save the girl and saves the entire world in the process.  There were some mildly humorous moments that were out of the ordinary, but nicely done.

Graphics: 5/5

I’m not normally one to coo over graphics, but I’m including a mention here because they’re incredible.  Say what you will about “jaggies” and such, this is the best stuff I’ve seen on the DS.

Gameplay: 5/5

Once you learn to hold the stylus in a way that keeps your hand off of the screen, controlling Link was smooth and natural.  Slashing enemies with the stylus was almost as tactile of an experience as using the Wii remote for Twilight Princess on the Wii.  New spins on old weapons made combat a lot of fun — especially the new hammer, which finally puts the blabber-mouthed faerie that follows Link around to good use.

Overall: 4.3/5

Bottom line:

If you’re looking for something truly “next gen” in a handheld action adventure title, then look no further.  Pick up a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

NOW!

I miss the time when I had something to say.  I set up this blog because I had opinions — I cared about what was happening in the world around me.  The last few months have utterly drained me, however, and left me feeling empty-headed.  All I do right now is get up in the morning, play World of Warcraft (don’t laugh) and then go to work.  Lately my shifts have averaged 13 hours, so by the time I get home, all I want to do is play WoW some more, eat dinner, and then sleep.

I’ve only just now hired a co-manager and hope to resume my normal 55 hour work week soon.  I know that sounds like a lot, but for me right now, that would be a luxury.  Hopefully by then I’ll give a crap about life again. 

Today I was eating my lunch in the food court, and a girl made fun of me for being overweight to her friends.  After they all giggled their 14 year-old giggles, the one who stared it all pointed at me and said, “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with a boyfriend who looks like THAT!”

We then made eye contact for a few seconds, and I don’t think it was until that moment that she realized how loud she was, and that I had heard everything they had said.  She then stared ant the table and didn’t say anything else for the duration of their stay at the table.  The whole time, I sat there staring at her and fantasized about smothering her to death with my huge, overweight belly.  Times like that make me wonder how long it will be before I loose all control and maim someone in public.

If I don’t get these shoes, I’ll die.  They’re inspired by Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Kreuger.

This one shoes the detail on the insole.

If I don’t get these I’ll die.

Developed by Sanrio; Published by Character Soft

Released in 1992

System: Famicom

Automatic side-scrolling arcade style game

Players: 1 or 2 (Cooperative)

Hello Kitty World was originally released as Balloon Kid for the GameBoy, and then re-released on the Famicom as Hello Kitty World.  There were no major changes outside of changing the protagonist to Hello Kitty and colorizing/improving the graphics.  In it you play Hello Kitty, who for some reason has two balloons tied to her butt.  The balloons give Hello Kitty enough weightlessness that by, simply flapping her arms, she can soar through the air.  You flap your arms by tapping A and use the control pad to collect balloons placed throughout the level and avoid the vast amount of enemies that want nothing more than to pop your butt balloons.  When a balloon has been popped, you can land somewhere safe and inflate new ones by tapping down on the control pad repeatedly.  It’s important to keep balloons inflated, because otherwise you won’t be able to clear some of the larger gaps that you need to clear to reach the end of each level.  Many of the enemies (mostly birds) fly in the air, but there are grounded enemies that can make trouble for you.  The most bothersome ground enemies were the weird campfire thingies that hopped viciously at my Hello Kitty, trying to singe her little whiskers.

Each level has an entrance to a bonus area (the door is marked with a Strawberry) where you can collect more balloons that float out of pipes that look like they were hijacked from the Mushroom Kingdom.  Since I can’t read Japanese, I have a hard time telling you what the balloons you collect do, other than contribute to your score at the end of every level.  Also, 1-ups float out of the pipe if you can collect all the balloons without letting one hit the ceiling.  The 1-ups were very valuable to me, because I found myself watching Hello Kitty’s balloonless butt fall to her death quite often.  Luckily, the game seems to have a sort of checkpoint system in place so you don’t have to start over at the beginning of the level each time you die.

The boss battles were quite easy, and only involved bouncing on some crazed, indistinguishable animal’s head three times.  You can’t be holding balloons when you jump though, or you won’t be heavy enough to do any damage.

Graphics:   Very bright and colorful.  Some of the enemies seem out of scale compared to Hello Kitty – they’re so small they make her seem like a giant.  The backgrounds while flat and not very detailed, are cute and appropriate for this type of title.  Score:  5/10

Sound: Catchy, cheerful, and repetitive.  The song you hear when you watch the cut scene after completing a level is particularly triumphant-sounding.  Overall, the music was pretty clean and not too overdone.  Score: 5/10

Gameplay/Controls:  Pretty straight-forward controls; use the directional pad to move, A to fly, B to release your balloons (which is necessary to make it through some portions of the levels).  When you’re on the ground, A makes you jump.  The controls were intuitive with a short learning curve.  Score: 6/10

Overall:   Hello Kitty world would be great to play in an arcade for ten minutes, but I can’t see why anyone would ever want to own it at home.  Each level was essentially the same, only with more enemies and a faster scrolling speed.  Hello Kitty World is nothing more than a quick time-waster at best.  Score: 5/10

Disclaimer: The following rant is not directed at all Christians, just the weird ones.

A new guy at work just moved to Bloomington from a smaller town that is about 300 miles from here.  Before he started, he told me he was going to need every Sunday off because he drove back home to attend church, because he was the one who lead the singing and dancing portion of their services.

I’m fine and dandy with that, because Sunday is the shortest day of the week I can work.  But it seems like in the upcoming weeks, this guy has some things that conflict with his church schedule.  Today he expressed to me that he was concerned if he missed too many church services, his church would fire him.  He didn’t think getting fired from a “religious job would look very good in the next life”.

That statement flabbergasted me.  I haven’t been in church for a long time now (and I never was much of a believer in all that stuff to begin with), but during the 6 or 7 years I was attending church regularly, they never said anything about needing good references to get into heaven.  Is there a resume required now to gain admittance?  I can imagine the scene now: St. Pete at the pearly gates, squinting at a computer monitor displaying information from careerbuilder.com.  He looks up at one of god’s faithful with a frown on his face. 

“Sorry,” he says.  “You’re not listed as rehirable from the last church you went to.  I’m afraid it’ll have to be the lake of fire for you.”

What utter poppycock.