Achievement Unlocked

After having Left 4 Dead sitting on the shelf for a few months without playing we finally dug it out tonight. Dennis, who also works at Superstore, had bought the game when it first came out but never actually opened it let alone played it. We all played No Mercy on XBox Live and got out assed kicked...hard...on Normal! We did okay until the rooftop stand off then we died many times. I think on our fourth try we finished it, but I didn't. I got puked on by a Boomer then jumped on by a Hunter. I was saved but then got got swarmed by a horde of Infected because of the Boomer puke, then I got attacked by a Tank. Cody, Dennis, and AI Zoey made it, but I didn't get the achievement because I died. LAME! Our first attempt was going good until the second Tank showed up and punched Dennis off the roof then punched me right off the roof leaving Cody on his own. Then he died. Also, once you make into the hospital there are Infected who were patients so they are wearing hospital gowns, the ones that are open in the back so you can see their zombie butt crack. I would maybe like it if wasn't a dude, the game needs some female zombie butt crack. I'd shotgun it.

We mostly played the game when I first bought it and didn't have my own profile and gamertag yet, so all the campaign missions I finished meant I didn't get the achievements for them which is stupid because I got achievements for other stuff. Tonight I unlocked five achievements which is good for me, but easy for a L4D ace like Cam. I got the one for Pyrotechnician, Hunter Punter, Towering Inferno and the other two I can't remember. Towering Inferno is where you light up a Tank with a moltov, but that kind of back fired when he then rushes you and start pummeling on you when he is on fire, so you catch on fire.

I also unlocked an unofficial achievement when I single handedly killed all my teammates. They were all standing by this gas station and I told them to get clear and get out of the way, but nobody was listening. I shot up the gas pumps with my pistols and blew the whole thing up and killed everybody. It was sweet! Of course now everyone was dead and I was on my own until they respawned in room for me to save them. I say it was "unofficial" because you don't actually get anything for it, but you should.

You must be insanely awesome to survive on Expert. We were on Normal and getting wrecked. Then again we were clearing rooms when we should've just ripped through the levels and straight for the safe rooms. It's more fun to screw around and kill as many zombies as you can. I mean how else are you going to get the Zombie Genocidest achievement for killing 53,595 zombies. It will be mine!

The Last 1

This is the last of the thrift store wildlife postcards and was the best deal as it features a bunch of critters on it. Going clockwise you have the fox which looks kinda fake, maybe it was stuffed. Then you have some bears hanging out at some garbage cans because that is usually where they are when not attacking hikers. Next are the deer, but shouldn't they be standing in the middle of the road? Then a moose, not much to say about him, moose are boring. Finally in the centre is the forest's cutest lil' critter, the chipmunk. If you can't tell a squirrel from a chipmunk then you've never ever watched Disney's Chip and Dale cartoons city slicker.

Once when we were kids we actually caught a chipmunk at our grandparent's place at Garbutt's Lake. Then Murray tried to pet it and it tried to bite him, so he freaked out and it escaped. All our hard work gone! We later caught a blue jay, but nobody tried to pet it. FYI, peanut butter will catch any woodland critter guaranteed.

When I go back to Cranbrook next I'll go back to the Hospital Auxiliary and look for some more. There should be postcards of other less popular forest wildlife like skunks and ticks. Until then click on the the postcard above to see the super large size. I made it big so Cam can make it his new wallpaper.

Ketchup for dessert?

I was getting groceries the other day and saw some hot dogs and thought they would be good. If I was going to have hot dogs then I also need to get some ketchup because we were almost out. I noticed the Heinz ketchup bottles had thing about 100 years of Heinz in Canada. Yippee?? Then a couple days later I saw this recipe on the internet from Heinz for ketchup cake. I know it sounds pretty gross, but the picture looks so good.

I read the ingredients list and it doesn't actually have that much ketchup in it...I don't think. Maybe enough to give it some colour and in the picture it looks like there is a lot of icing on it so they would definitely help with the taste. The article says it is supposed to taste like carrot cake. I barely have the culinary skill to make hamburger helper, so ketchup cake is way over my head. If anyone wants to make this for me I will totally eat it. Just make sure to put lots of icing on it. Here is the recipe.

I ended up getting some Heinz Hot & Spicy ketchup just for something different which has tabasco in it. I wonder how that would taste as a cake? The hot dogs didn't taste as good I thought they would at the grocery store even though they were Juicy Jumbos. I ended up boiling them, but they would have tasted way better if they had been barbecued. I have a barbecue, but have never used it. My dad gave me one for my birthday and I put it together and now it is the focal point of the kitchen.

I'm a little nervous about lighting them and stuff, so I haven't bought propane yet. I'm scared I'll go to light it and blow up. That would suck. My parent's old old barbecue (which I assembled) singed the hair off my arm and some of eyelashes when it wouldn't light. I cranked up the propane and kept trying and eventually it lit in a big fireball. I am tramatized and it sucks because I liked eating charred meat.

New BK Mustard Shots!

Even though it was my day off I had to go into work(for free!) for an hour to do some stuff. I'm glad I wasn't actually "working" because it was only 11pm and it was pretty busy. The weather was really nice so I guess since it is all nice and sunny outside that going shopping is the logical thing for people to do. Don't they know that sitting inside and playing video games and watching DVDs is what you're supposed to do! Sitting in the nice cool basement messing around on the computer is also acceptable.

After I got home Cody said he wanted to go to Burger King because the TV said they have Star Trek toys and glasses. We drove all the way up to BK in Crowfoot only to find out they had no glasses. Now I was forced to eat Burger King without the reward of a glass. Cody bought a couple toys, but they didn't have anything "cool" enough for me so I passed. I got the BK Shots again and this time I didn't even have to chew them because they slid on down due to copious amounts of mustard. I'll say this, "Not cool."

Right next to BK is a blockbuster and we went inside because Cody is wanting to track down a cheap copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare for the 360. He already has it on PC, so why bother? Anyway, all previously viewed DVDs were 30% off and I managed to find something I had been looking for awhile, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr: The Complete Series. I had seen this when it first came out on DVD and back then it went for $100 or more and now you can't even find it in stores. I haven't actually even seen it since it originally aired way back on FOX in 1993, but what I vaguely remember is that I liked it. Also, Bruce Campbell is in it. After the 30% off and taxes it was $47 which is pretty cheap for an 8 disc set. The slipcase is a bit scuffed up and it is missing the liner notes written by Bruce Campbell. The funny thing is that the set still had the Best Buy receipt tucked inside. I thought Blockbuster would have distributors and suppliers for their movies and not have to go to Best Buy to get their stock.

From top to bottom there is Brisco County Jr. A-Team seasons 4 & 5, MXC seasons 4 & 5, Angel season 3, Wonder Woman seasons 2 & 3, Venture Bros season 3, VR Troopers compilation disc, Power Rangers: Mystic Force complete series and finally Dukes of Hazzard season 7. These are all TV shows on DVD that I'm currently watching or haven't started watching. It is a lot but it also doesn't account for a couple anime TV sets I have and plain movies on DVD I have. We could probably cut off the cable and maybe I'd get through everything by the time the new TV season starts in the fall, but I highly doubt it. And I wonder where my money goes.

It's all in the wrist.

I know it's not a very good picture, but on Thursday afternoon I got the stitches taken out of my lip. As it turns out there were three stitches in there. They came out pretty easy, the one stitch at the front of my lip did bleed a bit, but nothing bad. The picture was taken like 20 minutes after they came out. My lip does look and feel better now that they're out. I actually do hope the marks stay because I think they look neat.

Now, that my lip is on the mend it's time to bring on the other injuries like my wrist. I don't even know how I hurt it, but one day my right wrist just started hurting. I thought I slept on it wrong and after a few days it felt fine. Then I played my Wii and it was some game that required a lot of crazy arm waving and after about 2 hours of that I realized my wrist really hurt. Again it hurt for a few days and went away. Now, it seems the only time it hurts it after playing video games. I've barely played Wii at all and even playing the 360 seems to affect it to. I played a few hours of COD: WAW(Nazi Zombies!) and right now my wrist is pretty sore. It is the inside of the wrist that hurts. I'm not sure why playing video games would hurt it because all I'm doing is just holding the controller. Anyway, aggravating the injury with hours of video games is only going to make it worse if I then end up really messing it up at work by lifting something heavy. I could just take a break from video games for awhile until it feels better, but that would suck. This is the most saddest thing ever, but I'm considering buying a wrist brace for playing video games. I need my killing fix and if I can't play video games what am I supposed to do? Go outside? Read a book? Clean my room? I don't wanna!

Welcome to the Dark Side

Of my fridge!! Everyone knows I like stupid stuff which is why I have a fridge covered in magnets, most of which came from thrift stores and the like. I've got magnets of Blue Falcon, Mt. Rushmore, La Jolla, Pete the Plumber and some with "funny" sayings on them, there are a lot. I spotted this Darth Vader head magnet at the comic book store and while that isn't anything special, what makes it cool is that Vader's helmet comes off so you can see his horribly disfigured face. I am gonna be sick!

Sorry for the picture quality, but I snapped a couple pics and that was it. If they look crappy too bad. They also had rebel pilot Luke, IG-88, AT-AT driver and a few more I don't remember. The next wave will have the Stormtrooper, TIE pilot, R2-D2 and another Vader. Maybe this time Vader's helmet won't come off. Wow, that would be even cooler!

Not the face!!

Just when you though my mug couldn't get any uglier, it does. Stitches in the lip, I'm not even sure how many but more than one and less than fifty. I really wish I could tell you I got it fighting or something cool, I'd even take something stupid like licking the icing off the beater while it was still plugged in. Unfortunately, I just had some weird little "thing" chopped off. It was this spot on my lip that wouldn't go away and nobody really noticed it except for me whenever I looked in the mirror and it drove me crazy.

I went to the walk in clinic near my place and a doctor there froze it with liquid nitrogen, but that didn't do much so he suggest I go to his uncle's clinic in Martindale. I knew Martindale was on the East side somewhere, but I thought was a newer community. It's in the NE and it was like going to another country, there are a look of East Indian and Pakistanis that live around there. I was like the whitest dude in the neighborhood. I wasn't the only white guy, just the whitest. I saw this white trash guy driving around in a pick up with a sticker on the back window of Calvin peeing on the words "bin laden". That speaks for itself.

Anyway, I went on Monday and Dr. Reddy looked at it and said to make a surgical appointment for Thursday and he would cut it off. I get there on Thursday and he says he is the only doctor on staff and might not have the time to do it. Since I live on the opposite side of town he does it anyway. As you can see he did it, but I'm sure how well he did it. It has only been a day, so my lip is still a bit swollen and the inside has a huge bruise on it.

First I lie down on the table and he comes over with this syringe of anesthetic and the thing was huge! It's it only a small spot on my lip, what is with that monstrous needle?! After he stabbed into my lip, even though my lip was numb it felt swollen and huge, but it wasn't. It was weird and I was getting really nervous now. He covered my face with this paper just so there wouldn't be blood everywhere when he started slicing. I didn't get blood on my shirt, but I also could barely breath. He then stitched me up and sent me on my way. I got see the little piece of me that got cut off. It is going to get analyzed to see what the hell it was, if anything. It was only this small circular area and I didn't even think it would require stitches. I couldn't stand looking at a little spot on my lip, so I got it cut off for a bigger disfiguring scar? I hope the stitches come out and it heals okay.

Dr. Reddy tells me not to take any aspirin, but Tylenol instead for the pain. I was like "What pain?" Oh yeah, my lip is still numb that's why it doesn't hurt. Once the anesthetic wore off it didn't even hurt as long as I didn't open my mouth wide. Tonight we were watching The A-Team and I was trying not to laugh because when I smiled it hurt. He also said not to get the stitches wet for a couple days. They're on my lip and I can't get them wet? How am I supposed to shower, put a plastic bag over my head?

After it was all done and I had to drive back across town and it's approaching rush hour. There was an accident on Deerfoot Trail so traffic going south was like crawling. I was slowly going insane. I eventually made it back to my side of town and went by Co-op so I could pick up some straws.

Eating became my biggest problem as I had barely eaten anything all day and opening my mouth was hard and I had to avoid food that made contact with my lips. The straw made it easier to drink and I think I will drink all my liquids through a straw now. I'm not sure why, but probably because I have bag of 50 bendy straws and I have to do something with them. Eating is fine as long as it's something that has small pieces that I can put directly into my mouth. Stuff I have to bite off is a little more trickier.

Today at work like everyone was like "Did you get into a fight?!" After awhile it got annoying, so I replied "No, but I'm about to!" You get some stitches in your lip and everyone assumes you were in fight, why is that? Maybe I'm just dumb and ran into a wall or was licking the knife after cutting a chocolate cake. Use your imagination people!

I was also annoyed because last month I dished out $55 + tax for A-Team season one and then found season five used for $25. Then I was at HMV and they have all the season sets priced at $16.99 each. Damn. It. I got season four and we watched the two hour season premiere tonight. It was pretty good and funny(ow, my lip!) plus it had some pretty crazy stunts you would never see on television now. It's all CG stuff now, I like seeing real things get blowed up, smashed and shot.

After getting my lip operating on and finding I overpaid for some DVDs is it possible for my day to get any worse?

NO! I found this dirty old loonie laying in the street. Looks like my luck is starting to turn around. I wonder how many straws I can with it at the dollar store?

What Would Itchy Do?

Did anyone watch The Simpsons on Sunday night? They had a hilarious Halo reference that anyone who has played a FPS online will understand. In order for Lisa and Bart to attend the prestigious Waverly Hills Elementary School, Homer rents an apartment in Waverly Hills and ends up living there. Marge comes over to visit Homer who is playing video games and she asks him to do something and he replies, "Right after I finish desecrating this corpse." Then it shows the screen of a character who more than resembles Master Chief from Halo as he tea bags a dead enemy. It was pretty funny as me and Cody were playing the Halo 3 campaign just before the show came on and after it was done we went to play the game. I now have all the campaign skulls! Anyway, it was super funny and if you missed it I've provided a picture I stole from another site. There are no doubt thousands of clips of it all over the internet by now, but you'll have to look for yourselves.

Last week Cody was in Cranbrook/Moyie and stopped by Giant Tiger and bought me this cheap poorly fitting t-shirt.

That shirt is SO me.

First Saturday in May