WHO ME?

I’ve mentioned this before but I’ll do it again. I have a very simple e-mail address at a major Canadian ISP. I never use it and I only have it because my ISP forced it upon me. As you might imagine, I do 99% of my e-mailing on this kickass domain and 1% on Hotmail when I need to enter contests and the like receive pornography.

Every once in a while, I check the other account. Because the address is so simple, once in a while, I get messages that aren’t for me, sorta like if you had kowalski@hotmail.com or something. Anyways, a few weeks ago, I got sent some weird e-mail from some irrigation regulation board in Alberta. Apparently, the dude they were looking for was selling water he wasn’t supposed to. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

Anyways, I ignored the e-mail but tonight, I got a follow-up e-mail from the same person. They were all like “why comes you haven’t responded to us G?“. Ok, so they didn’t actually write that but that was the intent of their message and I had fun writing it.

Based on their serious tone, I decided I had to tell the water police they had the wrong guy. So I replied saying I wasn’t that dude. I won’t reveal what I wrote but I was perhaps a little bit more cheeky than I had to be. That hindsight crap is like 40 * 0.5 /40 * 0.5.

Let’s see if they reply to my e-mail. What if they don’t believe I’m not that dude?

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

I was at Wal-Mart over the weekend. They usually play music throughout the store to enhance my shopping experience. As I was trying on a pair of pants in the men’s department, the music caught my attention.

Was that a Christmas song?

I listened intently for a few seconds. Yes, it was indeed a Christmas song and when that one ended, another played. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me but I believe some retailers are now waiting until the day after Halloween and then immediately swinging into Christmas mode. In this manner, they maximize their Christmas retail period with the full 54 shopping days. Crazy.

Anyways, I decided to go with the pair of acid-wash jeans which I will wear to work tomorrow morning.

THE BEST (GAMING RELATED) HALLOWEEN COSTUMES OF 2007

It would be easy for me to link to galleries of young women scantily on Halloween but let’s not go that route for this post. It takes a lot of effort to make a gaming related costume, so let’s recognize the work some people did.

The first picture above is from a group of people who made Team Fortress 2 costumes. I’ve played hundreds of hours of Team Fortress Classic, so I really get a kick of their gear. TF2 has only been out a few weeks, so for them to get all this done is awesome. Everyone is even posed the same way in the promo pic! They also get extra points for the fact that it appears they have women in the group. How do you convince a lady to be a scout or medic for Halloween?

Next we have one of the better Big Daddy/ Little Sister combo costumes. This is from the game Bioshock. If you’ve never played Bioshock, these costumes won’t mean anything to you. The pair above gets massive props for having one of the best, if not the best, Big Daddy costume I’ve seen this season. It looks so well-done from the simulated rust to the blood on the drill-hand. The Little Sister gets points for the Adam extractor. I know it can’t be helped but the woman dressed up as the LS is way too tall but then again, LS are supposed to be children. Still, a fantastic costume anyway you look at it!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEqZkglTVYE&rel=1]

Perhaps the most sentimental costume pair of this season is the father who dressed up like a Big Daddy and then dressed up his own daughter as a Little Sister! His BD costume isn’t as good as the one above but he gets lots of points for the proper sized LS. Apparently, father and daughter had a blast wearing the costumes and trick-or-treating! Here are some actual comments from the father:

“Thanks for all the good comments!!

My daughter, Lylly (lyllypoppies!), and my other daughter, Sarah, (scaaawy!), did a lot of bioshock playing with one or the other hiding in the cabinet while the other one played the big daddy. Thats what gave me the idea for the costume. The girls really like the idea.

And yeah, they called me Mr Bubbles off camera and while trick or treating. They got mad when people asked me what I was dressed as, and repeatedly yelled at them that I was a big daddy.”

SUGAR UPDATE

As I mentioned before, I’ve been trying to cut down on my daily sugar consumption, starting with foods with “added” sugars. My only setback today was a single chocolate glazed Tim Horton’s doughnut. I did not drink any sodas nor did I partake in a sugary cup of french vanilla coffee.

I am noticing, however, some changes when I do taste sugar. Tonight, I was eating some grapes when I discovered their sweetness was quite vivid. Almost like a fireworks display of sweetness, you know like when Remy was describing taste to his brother in Ratatouille. Anyways, the grapes were good but they weren’t erection-inducing or anything.

My point is, in certain circumstances sugar tastes like a real treat now rather a constant chemical I taste in everything.

SICK DAY

After over a year of employment at EA, I took my first sick day today. I’ve been battling this nasty cough that keeps me from sleeping at night. This morning, I woke up all groggy and decided it was probably a good idea to stay home. I managed to roll out of bed and sent out an e-mail to my manager around 10am. I rolled back into bed and the next thing I saw was the clock, which somehow was now reading 3:30pm.

I think I might be ok to go to work tomorrow. I am, however, extremely glad that EA is letting us all go home at 3pm because of Halloween.

NOW IN FULL COLOUR

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wffwg7pA0t8&rel=1]

Daddy is sick so there won’t be any Pulitzer material in tonight’s post. I know several of you find it creepy when I refer to myself as “Daddy” but that won’t get me to stop.

For this post, please enjoy the video above which features a rousing musical performance. A million people have made some negative comments about Ms. Hedger’s performance but I, for one, applaud her creativity for bringing together pantomime, Star Wars, and a trumpet. I’m serious!

And if you’re reading, happy birthday Sarena!

JUST SAYIN'

I know all of you are very eager to see how Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground did sales-wise in its first week of release. The above chart is from vgchartz.com for the week ending October 20, across all platforms. The snippet above only shows data for the Xbox 360.

Just for comparison, I included skate‘s position on the chart (keep in mind, skate. has been out for six weeks now). The last Tony Hawk game, Project 8, sold about 30K copies in its first week. Historically, titles almost always decline in sales from their first week on so its unclear if THPG will meet Project 8‘s 640K total.

One interesting thing to note is that the PS2 version of THPG did better in sales than the 360 version. THPG for PS2 sold 27K copies, good for 13th place on the charts.

FOILED

Tonight’s post entirely hinged on one web site being up and running. Since it is not now and I don’t know what’s happened to it, I really have nothing to write about. I guess I could just tell you what you would have seen but that takes away from it.

It’s kinda like if I had a really good video clip of Bigfoot or a UFO but I couldn’t show it to you. Instead, I would describe it to you in words. Not exactly the same is it? This not to say I was going to show you something of that magnitude.

For lunch today, I had roast lamb. So there.