Knuckles Dawson

I Win.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 05:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So, instead of neglecting this site due to mywork over at X3F, I'm going to be supplying you guys updates, news and stuff in bite size chunks, similar to how twitter works, (even though I just started using twitter as well.) Maybe I'll pull a Major Nelson and and a twitter widget to my sidebar or something, since I tend to send stuff from AIM etc.

 Thinking about it, after the impending spring updatethis May, I might switch the twitter IM to MSN, so I can send updates straight from my Xbox 360...Hmm.. We'll see.

Saw 300 a couple weekends back, and thought it was great.

I also have been playing Guitar Hero II, having all 5 stars on Easy and Medium. I'm now just getting started with Hard, still working on 5-starring the first setlist.

Super Paper Mario and Twilight Princess have been getting some playtime over on my Wii, and it's good to finally sink my teeth into some Zelda.

On the PS3, I've been trudging through Resistance: Fall of Man, which feels more like a chore than a game, just because there are such better experiences available on other new gen consoles. I bought flOw on the PS Store, and find it to be very relaxing and...serene.

Day 500 of my Achievement Streak has come and gone, on the 5th, and it feels good to hit such a milestone. Now should I decide to stop, I'll still feel like I accomplished what I set out to do back in November of '05.

So yeah, that should bring you up to speed mostly. I hope to clean up the bots in the forum, maybe get another admin on board to assist in maintenance. Again, We'll see.

Catch you guys on X3F. 

Speaking of, our Pod/Fancast is 12 episodes strong, and my audio quality is finally up to snuff. Episode 10 and 11 were sub-par for their own reasons.

 

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 06:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

• The gig at Xbox360Fanboy is going well, we even have a regular podcast and are 3 episodes into it. You'll notice my audio quality increase each progressive week.
• I got into the Halo 3 Beta's Rule of 3 thing. None the less, Crackdown's demo is amazing and I'm still getting the game regardless. 
• Today is Valentine's Day. But more importantly, is Rhett/iEyeCaptain's 18th Birthday! Wish him a good one.
• My achievement streak is still going strong and today is day 450. w00t, only another 50 days to go till the big milestone. Still planning on what to do for it. Any suggestions?
• For the first time since, aside from WhoIs information, I'll give out my email address foryou to contact me with. Although I'm enjoying the fact I'm not getting swamped with spam, it's MyGameretagsInitials@ThisDomainName.com. For those that can't figure it out, the initials are kd. 
•  I've been doing some achievement housecleaning, and I've even got requests from people who read OXM about whether or not they can help me get achievements in some games. If you wanna help, either drop me a line on XBL or the email clues above. Games I'm looking for assistance in are: GRAW, Need For Speed Carbon, Far Cry Instincts Predator and The Outfit for now.
•  I'll get the endeavour calendar updated soon, as the holidays have really kept me busy
• I saw Lucky Number Slevin the other day, and thought it was really good. Heroes is really good, and the new season of 24 is riveting as ever.
• Oh, and I'd like to thank everyone who's sent me kind messages after reading OXM, and sending me friend requests. I appreciate the support. Special mention of course goes to Darth Vader 350 (yes, 350), and ShadowSlayerGod for the help in The Outfit and GRAW respectively.
• In any case, thanks for the time and I'll keep you posted on anything major.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Welcome to 2007.

My Christmas and New Year was very nice, but due to the nature of our celebration I couldn't report on it in as timely a manner as I would have liked. My uncle (Doug) and cousin (Nathan) from England came down to go snowboarding for the holidays. You may have seen Nate's comments here and there on the site, as well a few posts on the forum. It was great to have them down here, and we had a lot of fun up at Whister/Blackcomb from the 24th to the 27th and on into the interior to Big White for the 31st and 1st. A great way to start off the year if you ask me.

Whistler was pretty good, it snowed for the first 3 days, although getting a Live compatible connection was a bit of a hassle. Apparently, Telus ADSL doesn't have a sufficient MTU to connect to Live for Xbox 360, while I had little issues connecting to Telus with my original Xbox. Which left me with having to hunt down a different internet cafe than the first one I tried. Thanks to Aidan for all of his help, though. He even let me try to connect directly into the modem to bypass the firewall. The Christmas Miracle would reveal itself to be the manager/chef of Gone...Bakery & Soup Co., Todd. After attempting to use the Shaw Cable at the bistro, he offered us to go to his humble abode and use his connection, also Shaw. Thankfully, it worked like a charm, although it timed out when initially trying to connect, so despite correcting the internal clock, and showing my friends and messages, it prompted me to "Test Connection". I signed back in after canceling the troubleshooter with no problems. So that covered me for the 25th. The 26th and 27th were a little more complicated. Unfortunately, Todd was unavailable to lend his services for those days, so I had to resort to measures of extreme inconvenience. Drive back to Vancouver, from Whistler (77 miles each way), log in at home, do my thing both before and after midnight, grab a 3 hour nap, and then return to Whistler for one more day on the slopes. My justification is that December 26th was day 400, so to end it on 399 would be a slap in the face.

Still, the time on the hill was nice, and on the 27th, it was nice and sunny, so that was a plus. The backpack continued to own and grab attention (93% positive), with no hiccups due to being in a cold, and potentially wet, enviroment.

The main gifts for this year were the snowboard trips, so the physical gifts were obviously scant. I received a set of high quality rechargeable batteries (for said backpack), and some nice Salomon socks for snowboarding. That being said, because of my primary hobby, and the timing of when it's major releases are, I did buy myself some things within the last month or so that could count as a holiday gifts. These would include:

• Five (5) Sumo Lounge Omni chairs, 3 grey, 2 black.
• A PS3, that among three others was just chilling at a local Zellers.
• Viva Piñata. Just got into it yesterday, and it looks to be filled with fun.
• Wireless Xbox 360 Steering Wheel. Played around with it a bit in PGR3, and I plan on giving it a shot with NFS: Carbon and when I decide to actually open my copy of Test Drive Unlimited.
• Resistance: Fall of Man. Wow, the textures look so bland compared to the rich detail found in Gears of War. Maybe I need to give it more time, though.

So it's not like I don't have any new toys to mess around with.

Big White was really nice, and the hotel's business center was compatible with Xbox Live, so that was handy. The first day saw a little sun and the conditions were alright. It was close to the end of the day when we found the preferred run ride on. The next day was snowing and a bit foggy at the top of the lift, but that just gave way to fresh powder to tear through. I was going excessively fast, and it showed. I'll post pictures later, you'll be amused.

So that was my Christmas and New Years, didn't really party too much, just plowed.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, you may have heard about the heavy snow in Seattle over the last week. As you can imagine, Vancouver experienced more or less the same onslaught. Which is good news, because the North Shore Mountains look exceptionally frosted. Having been an avid snowboarder for the last 9 seasons, this, my 10th, is the first time that I've gotten a season's pass. This also is the first time that we've had a high enough body count to reap the rewards of the "Family Package", as opposed to the usual total of just two: my father and I. So, now with our party increasing 150%, and a Early Bird Family Package at Mount Seymour costing a mere 600 total, that comes to about $160 per adult. Definitely a sound investment.

So, this past weekend saw me at said mountain, for a short stint on Saturday, and a full day Sunday. Saturday was good to for getting my feet wet. Sunday, though, was awesome. A good full day of boarding, and honing my previous skills as an instructor, as I made serious progress teaching Skye how to carve after she got the hang of turning. Oly, my previous student has since "graduated" and more or less is going at his own pace.

I brought my Audio Backpack on Sunday, and it faired well, despite not being connected to my iPod. The music selection wasn't as robust as the 48 hours of music I have in a snowboarding specific playlist, but it served its purpose. I can hardly wait until I can go up with my iPod, as the volume, even on the runs, when cranked to 11, is easily audible, and others take notice.

The trip down the mountain wasn't as quick as the one up, as there was a couple trees that collapsed from the added weight of the heavy snowfall, and decided the most convenient place to not make a sound would be in the middle of the road.

Upon arriving at Delta Base, we shoveled the driveway, and rewarded ourselves with a double feature: Casino Royale and Deja Vu. Both were extremely well made and entertaining. CR being a much needed reboot of the James Bond franchise, and Deja Vu almost able to be interpreted as a loose sequel to Donnie Darko. Two great movies at one great price. Or something.

I cracked open Elite Beat Agents while waiting for Deja Vu, and really liked it. I played a bit of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan at PAX '06, but didn't pick it up that well. That may have to do with not recognizing the music, and thus the tempo for the songs. EBA surprised me with a bunch of instantly recognizable tunes, and that helped me progress through it. Right now I'm just cracking through the 3rd difficulty's early songs.

On the 360 front, I've been playing plenty of Gears, and am trying to get back into Splinter Cell: Double Agent and finsh that up. Unfortunately the impending kickass snowboard season is hindering the time available for me to do so. I'll see how I manage. I played some more Twilight Princess Friday and Saturday before hitting the slopes, and beat the Forest Temple. After some fine tuning of my Wii-mote, I'm pinpointing enemies with incredible ease. Haven't touched it at all this week, though I did order a Component Cable at Nintendo's online store. I can hardly wait for that progressive goodness.

Well, I think that pretty much brings us back up to speed on what's been going on. Also, regarding the KD Experience, the next episode is currently indeed on the agenda, and should be getting a facelift in many respects.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A horse is a horse
of course, of course
and no one can talk to horse, of course.
That is, of course,
unless the horse
is the famous Mister Ed.

Go right to the source
and ask the horse,
he'll give you the answer that you'll endorse;
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mister Ed!

People yakkity yak a streak
and waste your time o' day.
But Mister Ed will never speak
unless he has something to say!

A horse is a horse,
of course, of course
and this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?
Well listen to this,
I am Mister Ed!

That may seem a little random, but trust me, that'll hit home where it needs to.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, I was in NYC for the Fall Showcase event on Monday. It was incredible, Peter Moore was there, he signed my launch Dreamcast+its respective jersey as well as my launch 360's faceplate+its respective shirt. Yeah, 4 items may be a lot, but the guy was CEO of Sega during the Dreamcast's era, so, an opportunity to pay respect to that console's legacy can't be ignored. And as my dad always told me: "Don't ask, don't get." Which is to say, you're not going to get what you want if you don't at least ask.

Anyway, I'm going to keep this brief. But, I'll leave you with this, I will go into full details on the happenings of this whole week in my podcast that will be going up this weekend. The name, naturally is KDE: The Knuckles Dawson Experience. Heh. So, until then, I'll catch you on the flip side.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, Tuesday, was Halloween. And I had, as you know, an awesome costume lined up for the night. So, I met up with friends of the family, and their kids and I went out trick or treating. I was, of course, the Tech Support Suicide by Hanging (and slit wrists). Skye was a geisha and Oly (short for Oliver, pronounced like the basic skateboard jump trick) was a CTU agent from the show 24. I suggested he go by "Agent Stiles". Which he did. Which was stylin'. Pictures of their costumes can be found at the KD Exposure, my new Flickr section. We headed out around 6 PM and went guising for about 2.5 hours.

Since I was with about 4 other kids, I easily got away with holding a bag in front of the door. I never said "Trick or Treat!" though, I instead would just shout "I'm Deeeaaad!" in a manner that was developed back in PDZ with APKJester, In any case, I cleaned house, and while most had no problems with me stealing candy from all the other children, with the ease being akin to likes of a baby, others would question me on my age, or size so something, and I'd say that the attention to detail and originality in my costume justifies my age as well as them giving me candy. And they eventually would, as no one turned me down. All in all a good Halloween.

So, Bastelyon emails me yesterday at about 9:15 AM with the following:
Do you have a number I can call you at? I've got some good news for you. :)
I shoot him back my cell and not a minute later he calls me. The news is really "good :)". Not only does it trump the other subject-that-cannot-be-mentioned, it also takes place sooner, but is in a location far more iconic, and one that I haven't been to before. On top of that, my attendance is far more valued in this case, which is really cool. I basically spent the rest of my day at work on the ninth cloud of euphoria.

After work, I called up various EB Games locations regarding Need For Speed: Carbon Collector's Edition as well as F.E.A.R. None of them had NFS:C, and only a couble had F.E.A.R.. The local Best Buy did, though, and so I grabbed both of those. So, I've decided that EB Games sucks, again, after I gave them a chance to prove themselves useful. We'll see how I handle Gears of War. I played Carbon a bit on my Alt gamertag, and found it to be very entertaining, I just need to get my hands on a VW Golf R32 as soon as possible, and beat the game with it. As that has been my tradition in various racing games.

The final bit has been moved so you have to click this entry to read it. It's not exactly something someone should be exposed to on a site like this, but you're welcome to read it if you want.

Continue reading "Tricks, Treats, Tony, Transactions and Torment" »

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Costumes

After work I biked to The Party Bazaar just down the street to see if I could find something to wear today. After some searching and checking out some candy for my eyes, I spyed a costume called "The Well Hung Man", which is basically a suicide by hanging thing, as well as a delicious pun. I guess one could argue that I need no costume in this case, but that's just stereotypical of a guy to stroke his own ego. Heh. Moving on. The package was open, so I asked the guy at the counter if that's normal. It's not. And the noose and rope for tying the wrists was gone. It was their last one. They had a spare noose, though, but no wrist rope, so I got it for $35 off, but the noose was $20, so whatever. I picked up some fake blood for slit wrists, as well. On top of that, there's a Home Depot not to far for my wrist rope. So I trekked over there with a tight fit for my aforementioned backpack, as while it wasn't going anywhere, my recent acquisition was poking out of the top and it was rather heavy.

At Home Depot, a cool twenty-something guy named Johann hooked me up with 3' of rope for like, $1.01, after tax. So I grabbed a bite at Harvey's, after I had them put the rope on the grill for a few seconds to singe it together, as Johann couldn't get the heat cutter to work. The nylon melted a bit, but another quick cut and it'll look really good. One Double Hamburger Combo later and I was off back home. It was suddenly exceptionally cold outside, and I had a big hill to pedal up that I wasn't quite exuberant about. While taking a shortcut, I came across a taxi-minivan, and was thinking, "Screw this, I'll just take the taxi." And so I did, and $6.25 later I was home and STILL under the list price for the costume.

Here's the unique spin for my costume, rather than the supplied shirt, I'll be wearing this one:

Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

So, I'll be a suicidal tech support employee who couldn't handle the imbecility on the other line. And while I don't work with Tech support, I do occasionally have to deal with clients who know just enough to be dangerous. Anyway, I'll post pics of me in full costume tomorrow or Thursday.

Community

I plopped in some UNO, and was subjected to a Hentai movie (it's wikipedia, but has a thumbnail that may be NSFW), thanks, NEG. You're lucky you're on my friends list and a cool cat. I caught up with Ninjafish, and in true KD Style™, talked without breathing for 5 minutes straight in private chat for a bit. He appears to be kinda starstruck by the whole experience. And he's absolutely right, I did have to go to go talk to Bastelyon in video chat. And what did he have to say? Well, something so TOTALLY AWESOME that I can't even talk about it. Yet. When I get the green light, I'll post up a storm. Or something.

What I can talk about is what's not going to happen. Way back in September, when Bastelyon and I first Private and Video chatted, we talked about throwing a party on November 22nd for my completing a year's streak, and stuff. As time went on though, it was obvious that the Xbox Team was going to be very busy with all the holiday hub-bub and the attendees wouldn't be as spectacular as originally planned. The subject-that-can-not-be-mentioned easily makes up for it, especially since it's before the 22nd, and Tony and I were bouncing off some other dates that could be worth throwing a party for.

Carnage

After my exciting chat with Bastelyon, I saw that K4rn4ge was online, you may have heard of him before, I think he had a high score in game where you wage war against geometric shapes but the name escapes me. I think it's called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down". Anyway, I wanted to talk to him about what just happened. He said he was just about to pop in Saints Row since there was a supposed Software Update for the multiplayer and if I got it we should play. So I throw it in, and we hop in a room and chat about this site and my clan's Gears of War division. He may come on board as another member of the KD Entourage, and put in his two cents on whatever he feels like.

So we did some co-op and he and I worked together to unlock an achievement, which was a lot of fun (the playing co-op, the achievement was icing on the proverbial cake). After that we played Frogger to get the Co-Op Brilliance achievement, which we did with no problem, and we had an interesting side affect, when he completed Level 5 and the game ended, I got that achievement as well, which was cool, I guess, but I wanted to do it myself since I only made it to the end of Level 4 that game. Oh well, still fun times though.

Calgary

GeekesS and I proceeded to video chat into the night, talking about PAX '07, helping her find her cell by calling it while she rummaged through the room. Anytime I got her voicemail I'd leave a message like "I'm watching you!" in a stalker-esque voice, or "I think you're hotter than Rosie O'Donnell", since her Halloween costume this year is Betty Rubble, whom I was able to guess by only seeing the wig. We shot the breeze till a little past midnight, where she went to bed, and I went to download Ultimate MK3, and get an 8 G achievement before the update at 2 AM, as a precaution should anything go awry. There's a category that still doesn't have any posts associated with it, I'll let you do math.

Chaos

This morning I got up and downloaded the update, as soon as the console reboot. There was a collision between a fan and feces (read: baby mice, for you Donnie Darko buffs). The screen was blinking in and out, and the image was white, over exposed and grainy. Not good. The best way to describe it would be if I were a spy in nightvision in SC:DA multiplayer, and I got hit with a flashbang (that actually blinded spies). In a slight panic, I switched the HD/AV cable to TV, which worked, then I browsed around, and switched back to HDTV. It came up really good. Gave me a brief scare, though. It also shows why I'll always get an achievement before any Dash Updates or Server Maintenance, if possible. You never know how a system wide patch is going to do to your console. Especially since mine is still the original Xbox 360 I got at launch, with little to no hiccups, aside from games known to freeze. This may have been an issue with the TV handling the system's reboot.

Candy

My current obsession when it comes to treats would be Läkerol Cassis Pastilles. The Cassis would imply that they are Blackcurrant flavoured, and they are addictive and so tasty. IKEA has them in stock, and you get a discount if you buy them by the 24 pack.

Oh My!

Trivia about IKEA and me. When I was a really little I went to South Korea and stayed with my grandparents, while my Mom, Dad and sister went to Thailand (where my dad was born). The reason why I'm very caucasian is that my grandparents were Missionaries, and my dad was born while they were on the job just outside of Bangkok. In any case, South Korea was definitely in my vocabulary when I was 3 and 4 because of my grandparents working there, so I always called IKEA I-Korea. I guess since 1998 that would be spelled iKorea

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Damn. Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a beautiful, beautiful game. As you can see, I've been playing it a bunch. The single player is great, and the looks stunning on my 56" Samsung DLP HDTV, and sounds beautiful on my JVC 500 Watt 5.1 Surround Sound System.

This past weekend has been a focus on the Online component, in particular, the Co-op Challenges. I started playing them Friday night, with friend and squadmate, II Armag3dd0n II. Having owned the previous three games, my hacking and neck-breaking skill shone through in mere minutes and I felt right at home. Even though the "accessibility" is just another way of saying "watered down for the EveryGamer", I had fun, and it felt like the other spies vs. mercs in previous games. The upside, is that for Co-op, I ran into a bunch of people who were very capable in keeping up with me and my strategies. As long as they could talk, knew the route/plan, and could follow orders/directions, we were able to nab Gold in a few tries.

Speaking of which, I got all Golds---except for one. Mission 12. Which is a 1 star difficulty Double Agent mission. 1-11 and 13-18 have Gold. Mission 12 doesn't even have a medal. Why, you ask? In true KD fashion I've set myself up with 3 achievements that I can grab at any time. Pathetic, I know, but at least I'm looking ahead.

While helping HOLLATIP 2, whom I came across by chance on the opposing team in Saints Row matchmaking, get some of the EXPERT achievemnts for SP:DA, I got a message from my good buddy French Frye. You might remember him as "Anonymous/jerry/Onion Fart", and all I have to say is very well played, bro. He asked if I was playing with Major Nelson, whom he had on his Friends List (lucky bastard). Then said "nvm" as the Maj had gone offline, I suppose. I take this cue as a reminder to send him a random friend request. It went through! I quickly sent him a voice mail saying "Hey, I'd really appreciate if you accepted this, as I got through by luck, but if not, that's perfectly fine. Catch ya later." I then send a message to French Frye thanking him for putting the thought in my head, especially since he has campaigned to Major on a weekly basis on my behalf to send me an FR. I even tried to coax him into taking himself off to make a spot for me. Despite my hardest bargaining, he wouldn't budge, and rightfully so. Thankfully, it all worked out ahead of schedule, as I expected to nab him by November 22nd, 2006. The reasoning behind that, though, I'll go into detail a little later.

While we're on about Major Nelson and I, here's a picture of us at PAX '06 before we did the interview.



The Dreamcast shirt cost me $50 CDN. The Backpack with built in speakers is a SoundKase SoundSak Sonic Full Audio Backpack, which cost me over $200 CDN after shipping and brokerage fees were tagged onto that. It was well received at the convention, and I would supply music in exchange for skipping ahead in lines.

LUMINES LIVE! is also a lot of fun. It's also cheaper than the retail version for PSP, much prettier than any other version, has 5.1 sound effects and music, and is just as addictive so I'm not exactly equating the price point and add-on packs as forced anal copulation. I just think that this may be the first step towards digital distribution of retail-esque content, and as such was not put in its own category of title, but put into Live Arcade. which it's kinda not. It's half Retail, Half Arcade. Eh, we'll see how this affects future titles and their price/distribution/classification. Bottom Line, though: I really, really like LL!. My first foray into Lumines was the cell phone version, which I was really good at, being able to max out the score (999.999) without too much effort, just time. LL! is a lot more difficult, and rightfully so, plus it's score doesn't have a foreseeable maximum. I'll keep plugging away at it, though.

I Grabbed some long overdue achievements on Table Tennis and The Outfit with Jester on Saturday, and we'll try to get more Outfit in there as time goes along. Although we were having some trouble getting some of the online achievements in Outfit, and I'll have to do some research on the required parameters. Oh well.

In real life I hit "Richmond Sushi" on Saturday, which is an all-you-can-eat sushi place in---*drum roll*---Richmond, BC. It was decked out in a Halloween theme, all the employees were in costume (dracula, zombies, little bo peep, frankenstein, etc.), and there was even a fog machine at the entrance. Now, I can eat sushi, which to say, put it in my mouth, chew, and swallow. It's an acquired taste, one that I haven't gotten too used to yet. But they had plenty on the menu that didn't involve raw fish and seaweed. Like, for example, some cooked chicken shish kabob, that I had like, 6 skewers of. It was delicious. At the very least, I left somewhat full. Ask iEyeCaptain, he's seen me first hand eat basket after basket of "Red Robin's Bottomless Fries™". I, like my father before me, have hollow legs.

The Las Vegas Season 4 Premiere was really good on Friday, especially in HD, and I saw Domino earlier in the week, which was over-the-top awesome. Also in HD.

So, what'd you think of the Gears of War TV/Film trailer. I thought it was beautiful. And I find it kinda funny that I posted about Donnie Darko back in September, which features Gary Jules' rendition of the Tears for Fears song, Mad World. I find it kinda sad that I didn't bother to mention the song and its hold on me since my initial viewings of both the Theatrical and Director's cut. Either way, I feel the song fits the trailer amazingly, just as it did the movie. I find it hard to tell you that I've been listening to the song on repeat for the vast majority of writing this entry. I find it hard to take some continuity errors, so I'll point the following out:

• When Marcus is running past the window and the enemy gets out of crouch position, he (the Locust) just appears, without moving into frame from the bottom.
• In the infested room, the final shot of the stochastic fire on the spidery baddie, the legs (particularly the ones on the right), have the eyes of the other enemies shine through it.

Then again, I just have an eye for picking those kinda things up, given my history in filming, editing, etc.

Damn, that's a lot of reading I threw at you guys. Sorry, just had to play catch-up with what's been going on.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So, Saturday there was a Tae Kwon Do Tourney for someone in my --- extended family, I guess would be the best way to put it --- in Lynnwood, WA. This makes it the second time I've gone to the States in the same year, the first being of course, PAX '06, and this won't be the last, either, as I'll be in the Seattle area again in late November. People on my friends list who actually talk to me know what for, but I'll fill in the rest of you sometime when things are a little more concrete.

But, back to the story at hand. So, we drove down to Lynnwood, and went to the rather large Alderwood Mall, which is far more enthralling than watching bad Martial Arts. They had a lot of stores, but not much to look at, the only things of interest was an EB Games, a Gamestop (which isn't in Canada, or at least my area), Sharper Image, the food court and the Apple Store (can be found in far Eastern region of Canada, and only 4 of them too).


The Food Court had an Orange Julius, and at the time was thinking "It's no Jamba Juice, but it'll have to do." About an hour later I found that a Jamba Juice was there, outside, not 30 feet from the Julius. Oops. In Canada, we have Booster Juice, which if you compare notes, has a strikingly similar logo (at least the "tornado" bit).

With still plenty of time on our hands before the TDK was done with, so we went to see Gridiron Gang, which was really good. The first 20 minutes reminded me of gang gameplay found in GTA:SA and Saints Row. It was actually kinda, eye-opening, to see that. I mean, for me at least, seeing a drive-by in either of those games is one thing, but seeing "real people" get shot down and run over in a movie? It feels completely different. But, to say the least, it got my attention, and the movie, again, was really good, and apparently, according to the documentary-style footage shown during the credits, is actually quite true to source material.

On the way back to the Great White North, eh, we stopped at the Seattle Premium Outlets, where I picked up some more shirts. After that we saw a place called The Fudgery, where they make a show out of making their fudge. On duty, by chance, was a fellow in his late teens by the name of Patrick. He was very entertaining and outgoing, and was readily able to laugh at himself for the crowd. His sobriety at the time came into question for others watching, but I just felt he had a similar personality that I do: Outspoken, Outgoing, Outrageous. Or something.

In any case, I was participating with the show, in true KD style and kept him on his toes, cracking him up and leaving him speechless/without a retort a few times. After his show, he and I chatted a bit, and hung out for about 10 minutes in the parking lot, looking at his car, talking about games, his grappling hook that he found and finally telling him about my little streak thing. Rather than give him my MSN, I gave him this URL and he posted up a comment a few entries back. I'm sure he'll have something unique to say about this one.

Anyway, we went home with little hickups, and watched some movies. Still, a cool day, and it sure beat staying at home doing jack squat.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, after work on Friday, I come home to two pieces of mail. A Canada Post notice that I was not available to receive a parcel, (at 9:50 AM, no less, when everyone is chilling at home on a weekday.), and an express package from Redmond, WA. I'm not sure if you've heard of this "Microsoft Corporation", but it's this small, upstart company that deals with computer software and various IT/Entertainment related products. Anyway, I already know what's inside: An Xbox Live Vision camera. Free. From Microsoft, or more specifically, from Bastelyon, the Community PR Manager at MS.

We met at PAX '06, he gave me his card, and was rather impressed with this little streak I got going here, and was kind enough to accept my friend request. We talked a couple days after PAX ended on Live, and he asked if I had a camera yet. I told him I didn't, and he said he's been sending them to Community MVPs, so they can essentially show them off to everyone else and build hype. Then, get this: He tells me to email him (provided on the business card he handed me at PAX), and if they have any left he'll send one to me. And so I did, the next day. Then messaged him a few days later and he said he shipped it Friday and for me to expect it sometime this week. And so I did. And come Friday, it arrived.

I was fortunate enough to run into Bastelyon on the same day and thank him "in person", and he and I talked about another cool little idea that I'll save for another post. I then did some video chat with friends that got the camera at Toys R Us, and played Uno.

Saturday saw me Playing through some Prey and Saint's Row, taking advantage of the beautiful weather and biking around Vancouver/Stanley Park for about 4 hours, then checking out the parcel notice I got with along with the camera. It was billed as $15.06, so I figured it was for something I bought online. A pair of Soap Shoes were waiting for me, and I'll be messing around with them on Monday most likely, as I started to build a "training rail" on Saturday, but need another wood support in the middle before I can use it.

Finally, Sunday had me watching Donnie Darko, which is a great little film. It's similar in concept to The Butterfly Effect, but is its own story. I also finished the Vice Kings missions on Saints Row, and messed around on Uno. I relaxed most of the day because of the overcast/rainy weather, and my leg muscles were sore from yesterday's biking, which was good.

All in all a good weekend, and I even brainstormed some design things for my site, while getting the go-ahead from Bastelyon regarding my borrowing some "elements" on stuff. You'll see. And while I got you here, send him a message and thank him on my behalf for getting me a camera. He'll like that, especially while he's currently in Tokyo prepping for TGS. Still, I'll catch you all around later.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)