The Funniest Video on the Internet
I spend a large part of my day being entertained by the internet. I probably watch about 10+ “funny” videos a day on Youtube, usually linked in forum posts or websites like Failblog etc.
After about 15 years of being connected to the WWW, my searching is over. I found the all-time funniest video on the whole internet. I can now go to sleep a happy man.
Everything about that just kills me. Just thinking about it as I try to write about it fucking kills me. I want to write about it more but I don’t want you to get spoiled so just watch it and appreciate it for the awesomeness that it is.
A Nice Change
I built a website last night – Online Poker Reviews Canada – and holy crap was it a nice change from the usual content writing I do.
Usually my content writing is done in a “professional manner” but for that site I decided to go a more personal route. It was a lot more fun, and 2500+ words of content that would normally take me over an hour was done in about 15 minutes.
Just a nice, refreshing change.
Got a new Blackberry – the Bold 9700. It was pretty awesome – I e-mailed RIM(the makers of Blackberry) and basically said that I loved my Blackberry Bold 9000, it made life so much easier, but there were a lot of problems with it and listed them. Their response was to send me out a new Bold 9700 for free, which was fucking awesome. Got it all set up yesterday and it’s so slick.
Busy weekend ahead. Gotta take Mason to Toronto. He does this thing after school called Running & Reading where they basically run, and also read. It’s great because it combines exercise & education. Well at the end of the year I guess they have a “big race” in Toronto – where Mason will have to run 5 klicks. He is PUMPED – won’t stop talking about the “big race” and asking if I think he’ll win which is funny.
So off to Toronto Saturday at 5am, then I return back later that day and the next day it’s Ellas 4th Birthday, and we’re having a party for her. Good times.
Other than that I’m just working away, watching online casinos close down like some sort of domino effect. FUN FUN FUN.
September
September is going to be quite the life-changing month for me.
Janise is going back to university in September. She’s basically cramming a 4 year course into a 2 year course. This means her schooling is about 7am-7pm every day, and with transit it’s basically 6:30am-7:30pm.
What that means for me is that my life is going to change because I literally HAVE to become a full-time single parent. The only time I’ll really get to work is when the kids are in school, from 8:30am until 2:30pm. I’m going to have to take them to all their shit like gymnastics, ball hockey, skateboarding etc.
I’m going to have to do their homework with them all the time. Breakfast every day. Make their lunch. Make dinner. Take them out places. Basically tons and tons and tons of shit to do.
And I can’t wait.
Oh I can totally wait for the single parent stuff – that’s gonna be a challenge – but I can’t wait for September because of two simple words:
Eggs Benedict.
I fucking love Eggs Benedicts – easily my favourite breakfast food ever. In Kingston I’ve eaten it at only two places – Coras(which sucked), and the Best Western(which was really good).
While Janise goes on and on and on about September and all the shit to do and all that, all I can think of is:
Eggs Benedict Madness.
I’ve decided that in September I am going to find the best Eggs Benedict in Kingston. I’m going to do it total March Madness style. I’ve called every place in Kingston to see if they serve Eggs Benedict. I’m going to set them all up in an elimination style tournament ala the NCAA March brackets, until I find the best Eggs Benedict in the whole of Kingston.
As I do this I am going to write about it, and turn it into a book which I’ll release via the Kindle.
And my wife complains that I don’t take things seriously.
When it comes to Eggs Benedict Madness, I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.
#WINNING
I’m sure most of you are aware of this – but for those who aren’t, I’m a gambling affiliate. The majority of my income is made from basically getting people to play poker online or play at casinos online or bet sports online via my links. I then make a percentage of the rake, or from their losses dependent on whether it’s poker or casino.
On Friday, some of the biggest online poker rooms had their websites and various bank accounts seized by the Department of Justice. To quickly summarize, the likes of Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars futures are unknown, and they have both had to say “goodbye” to all US players. I’ve got a lot of US players at those rooms, which make up a lot of my income. So it has the potential to really hurt me financially…
…yet I’m loving it.
Since I turned 30, I went into this “semi-retirement” mode where I basically did the bare minimum every day, and then not really much more. I know a lot of people were surprised that I was able to keep going that way considering in the past few years I’ve been a crazy goddamn workaholic.
Yet I’ve kept it up since January. The odd day I do work but I’ve basically been “slacking” the last few months. I’ve enjoyed it a lot of course – more time for family, for xbox, for reading, for just relaxing in the afternoon and taking a bath. It’s been nice being able to take my dog for a two hour walk and not worry about work for example.
All that is gone, because the motherfucking Scotsman is back.
I’ve been working overload the past two days just to make sure I have everything in track and all my ducks in a row, and doing what I can to take advantage of this situation. Everything is going motherfucking swimmingly, and this whole thing may end up being a blessing in disguise.
The workaholic Scotsman is back. And this time he’s better than ever, with his veins pumping full of tigerblood, as he proudly sits here as the owner of a “Big Poppa Pump” t-shirt.
Miss me?
#WINNING.
Alpha Protocol IS Very Good
Taff did an article on his blog entitled Homefront Isn’t Very Good which saved me from rushing out and purchasing it – so I decided to respond in kind by writing about Alpha Protocol. Except my job is to persuade him and others to buy it, as it’s one of the best video games I’ve ever played.
Alpha Protocol is a game that has a LOT of critics….and I’m not really sure why. I’ve never read much on the critics, but I’ve been told from others that it’s disliked by a lot of people – which just blows my mind.
You’ve heard before about games where “you play it how you want it” but most of them don’t do a very good job at that at all – the decisions you make are either small and don’t really impact the game much, or are laid out in front of you as clear cut decisions. Don’t kill a guy in Fallout and all it will mean is that other factions may like or not like you as much, and you’ll get a different ending slide. Even the end game of Fallout New Vegas is so clear cut: basically you have a choice of 4 endings, and it’s very clear cut and dry how to select each one.
Alpha Protocol is a much more natural game – even the smallest decisions affect the game outcome. A large part of the game is conversations with other people where how you interact with them changes so much about the game. All conversations are handled like real conversations too – as soon as the person is finished saying something to you, you have maybe a second to choose how to respond which is really neat, so keeps you on the ball.
Alpha Protocol is so good that immediately after finishing it, I immediately started a new game. I probably haven’t done that since the days of the ZX Spectrum. This playthrough I am going to do completely opposite decisions from my previous game, to see how everything plays out.
What’s great is you can play the game however you want. Want to be a Splinter Cell like spy, sneaking around and never getting detected? Go for it. Want to be Hobo with a Shotgun with messy hair and a lumberjack beard, walking around in street clothes and shooting the shit outta people? You can do that! Want to be a Jack Reacher like hero, who beats the utter shit out of people with his hands? Also an option. The game is set up to accommodate all playing styles and it also changes the story of the game.
It’s just such a ridiculously fun game, and I can only give it the highest compliments: it reminds me of the Syphon Filter series. That may not mean much, but to me it means a lot. Pre-XBox 360 and achievements, I very rarely played video games. I never beat them at any rate. I owned over 200 Playstation games and over 100 Playstation 2 games and over 60 Dreamcast games. Of all those, I beat GTA 4 once and Metal Gear Solid once. Never did finish the other GTA Games, or Metal Gear Solid 2. Yet the Syphon Filter Series – I beat all 3 of them, and I beat Syphon Filter three or four times, and Syphon Filter 2 at least twice.
I’m kinda curious about the negativity Alpha Protocol receives so I’ve decided to look around the net and see some of the complaints:
The stealth in it is a joke, everyone sees you all the time
Um….no. I was wearing street clothes and just had 2 slots out of 20 of my stealth attributes filled, yet I was able to sneak around all Sam Fisher like. It’s called being good at a game you retards.
The enemy AI was awful, could walk within 2 feet of them and they wouldn’t see you
Ah the polar opposite of the last complaint. I never had this issue at all. If I wasn’t careful with the stealth they’d detect me, simple as that.
The cover system sucks
I guess it was a Gears of War style system – honestly I didn’t use the actual cover system in the game much so I can’t really say. I hid in cover and all that but it was mainly by crouching down behind walls, hit hitting “A” to latch onto them.
The melee system is glitchy and has collision detection problems
I beat up over 100 guys and I didn’t find this once. And I was doing running knees and all that shit.
The levels are predictable and repetitive
What the hell? There’s a solid variety of levels, and so many different ways to go about each level. Need to get into that building? Use a zipline, use a diversion, sneak in etc.
Braykov(one of the level bosses) is broken and impossible to beat
Um yeah….if you’re doing it wrong. I was having problems with him too and I looked at strategies to beat him and they’re ALL WRONG. If you don’t want spoilers on how to beat him skip to the next paragraph. Anyway you let him run around and chase you when he comes down from the balcony, and the second he stops running and takes a breather before going up on the balcony – THAT’S when you attack him. Easy peasy.
The accuracy in this game is pitiful, it’s like your character is blind
Ha, what? If anything it’s the complete opposite of this when I can hit someone with my shotgun from 20 feet away(only when it’s lined up for a critical hit). People are seriously idiots – they think this is a run and gun shooter or something like Call of Duty. The gun physics are a bit more realistic and you need to focus more on lining up your shot is all – and even then not once you get your skills up.
This one kills me:
As Thorton progresses through the levels, there’s a skill set tree that you can upgrade. The player can choose to upgrade Thorton’s ability with specific weapons, martial arts training, general stats and stealth ability. Adding abilities helps with the poor stealth detention on the AI, but it seems like a secret agent should already have those skills.
Jesus this is retarded. First of all it’s a goddamn video game. Second of all if you choose a class like soldier, you do start off with the abilities. Third of all if you choose recruit there’s a back story as to WHY you don’t have these abilities yet.
Honestly I thought there would be some valid complaints, but instead it just reminded me why I never trust reviews of games, or the general publics opinion on anything. Idiots.