I learned a couple of very important lessons from all of this. First, ambien kicks in faster than I thought. And second, it is possible to take a trip without ever leaving your living room.

This is the kind of insanity I’m talking about. I feel like I’m still medicated just watching it now.

Now, they’re playing Wii Sports in resting homes for Christ’s sake!

It makes me slightly angry.  Some of the same people who told me that video games would rot my brain are now waving Wiimotes around in public like they just don’t care.  I knew I was onto a good thing if they just would have listened to me.

I don’t even know why we’re still calling them “video games?”  It’s such a dated term it’s almost embarrassing to say.  With the release of a title like Heavy Rain it becomes even less appropriate.  The entire experience of this “game” is more or less an interactive movie.  You watch the narrative, and occasionally perform timed button presses (“quick time events” for you noobs) to continue the story.  You’re not shooting aliens or traversing mazes; you’re simply guiding the events of the story.  No more a game than is reading a book, really.  But we are so accustomed to calling them video games that I’m not sure if anything else would work.  I thought of combining “game” with “cinema.”  Then I got “Gamenema.” 

Hey, gang!  Anyone up for a gamenema?

You won’t make many friends like that.  Not the good kind anyway.  I’ll keep working on it.

For those interested, here’s the Gears of War 3 trailer that debuted on Fallon’s show.

I admit that I do it, but I haven’t done it for a while.  I’m afraid that when I do it again, I won’t remember how.  Or I won’t be able to last very long.  Also, I don’t like it when people make fun of how I do it.  Or call me bad names and tell me that I’m doing it wrong.  The worst part is when you’re doing it and it freezes up on you.  Then it kicks you out and you can’t get back in.

You know, I could go on like this all day.  Making sexual euphemisms out of modern warfare gameplay could be my new pastime.

–My ancestral home was destroyed.  I hit the road looking for revenge and treasure.  Heavy emphasis on the treasure.  My partner is a dog who keeps wanting me to pet his belly.

–My first two human sidekicks!  A knight named Alistair and a mage with big knockers.  They both complain way too much.

–The game keeps telling me that my dog senses something valuable buried in the ground.  When I try to get the dog to search, he just wants me to pet his belly.  Wtf???

–Finally I have a full human party!  I paid a guy to join with me.  He was in jail and I offered to free him, but he seemed more interested in staying caged.  So I actually had to pay him.  How bad do I suck?  Anyway, now the dog has to wait at camp.  Sorry doggy.

–On the road we killed some thieves.  Actually, they tried to surrender and run away, but we chased them and pummeled them to death against a big rock.  Then we found some rats to kill.  I’m hoping we get stronger soon.

–Or first quest!  The gayish wood elves are having a problem . . . with werewolves!  Exciting, huh?  They need us to kill the Werewolf King.  Sounds easy enough.  Off we go.

–Or first big battle!  We killed a bear!  Alistair and prisoner guy make great fodder.  I hid behind them until the bear was almost dead.  The mage apparently has the ability to turn into animals.  She turned into another bear and then commiserated with the actual bear about how bad a leader I am.  If she weren’t being voiced by actress Claudia Black, I would have fired her on the spot.

–We end up killing all assortment of forest animals and talking trees, but still no werewolves.  Alistair complains too much.  He keeps saying, “We could be doing something other than standing here, but NOOOOOOO!”  I don’t like him.

–We enter an ancient temple.  Everyone dies and I end up having to kill a baby dragon by myself.  Then everyone comes back, don’t ask me how.  Still, no damn werewolves.

–We go up against a horde of undead and die . . . repeatedly.  I decide that the elves can suck my balls and we get the hell out of the forest.  Alistair says that thing that pisses me off, again.  I swap him out for the dog.  Right away the dog wants me to pet his belly.

–I decide we need to get stronger.  We go around sabotaging thieves and rats until we level up.  Then we go back to the undead soldiers.  We all die.  Nope, not strong enough yet.

–Kill more thieves and rats.  Head back.  Die again.  Leave.

–The prisoner guy confides that one of the wood elves keeps hitting on him.  I tell him not to be so uptight.  There might be treasure or skill points in it for him.

–Finally, I decide we all need a vacation.  We head up north for some R&R.  On the way, we’re ambushed by a baby dragon and we all die.

The End.

Quite the exciting tale, eh?  Now you know why it takes so long to finish one of these games.

–Barrage of abusive, angry MW2 fans.  Ready?  Three . . . two . . . one . . .  (Whistle Blows)

–Actually I think its meant to not work, you know . . . keeping consistency with the rest of the game

–Having taken the day off . . . Now it appears to have broken the whole of MW2 for me!  Great,thanks a lot!

–LOL!  Serves you right for taking the day off for a silly map pack.  Knobhead!

–Sunrise_phil took the day off work to play the new maps?  And the maps don’t work?  I can spot the connection . . . Do you work at Infinity Ward’s quality assurance?  Get back to work!

–Should have just booked a half-day.

–Ha Ha as the song goes “take ya broke ass home” IW you f**ked up and I love it mugs

–Oh yeah.  That famous song.

–Major Nelson is working on pushing out the title update.  It’s taking longer than my wife took to push my kids out.

–I blame the Russians.

I downloaded a new character last week and he has since become my personal hero.  He’s a 1970’s blacksploitation martial arts film star named Brock Lee.  Here was my first endeavor with him.  I thought I would throw a little Brock surprise at the people on top of the building in the background.  The video quality is pretty horrible, but you’ll get the idea. 

Brock Lee in “Take No Prisoners!”

Yep.  It went a little differently than I had planned.

My next attempt was craftier.  I thought I would try to reach the top of the building by applying the ricochet approach.

Brock Lee in “Happy Trails.”

You can’t see Brock’s progression very well due to the crappy video quality.  But let’s just say that he finally got that oceanside vacation he had been wanting. 

Ok, I decided to give it one last try.  But what was initially an attempt to scale a building ended in a confrontation with a radioactive beaver.

Brock Lee in “Brock Lee VS Beaverzilla.”

My second favorite Pain character is none other than David Hasselhoff.  Here I offer my reenactment of Hasselhoff’s career.

Followed by a short I lovingly call, “Hoff goes for the Big “O”.

And, lastly, a Hoff clip with very strong Freudian overtones.

I’m like the guy who forces people to watch home movies of his vacations, but I can’t help it.  The whole video capture thing amuses me to no end so expect plenty more.  But only once I find out how to improve the video quality.  

I’m thinking of writing to the makers of the game with suggestions for their next celebrity character.  I would love to hurl Patrick Swayze into some buildings.  Of course, he’d have to say, “Pain don’t hurt.”  How perfect would that be?

A new sort-of console was announced at the GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) in San Francisco and I still don’t know what to make of it.  I think it was sent to us from the future to destroy Sony and Microsoft before they mate and produce mankind’s downfall in the form of a Death-bot with excellent frame rate.  (I leave Nintendo out of this scenario because I’m sure they already have numerous giant robots in storage and are just waiting for a reason.)  If the hype is true, then you could stream any game (PS3, 360, PC) and play it on your monitor or television with little or no lag time.  The price will supposedly be less than buying a next-gen console.  Best of all, since the OnLive server does all the heavy lifting on its end, you could make all of this happen with even a piece of shit PC like mine.  I also heard rumor that it might be possible to stream it onto a home console like the PS3 or 360 by purchasing an inexpensive converter.

It’s like we’re in Jetsons territory now.  We all know the digital revolution will eventually overtake cds and dvds, but just imagine when all the peripheral players and assorted metal boxes are reduced to just one device?  Or . . . no devices . . .

. . . . . . .

Sorry, I zoned out.

The future is bright.  The future is scary.  The future is full of some crazy shit.