As some of you may have noticed, I went a bit AWOL this weekend. I had grand plans of working on some items in C&C FarCry, as well as getting a new rev out for SWG Labs. Unfortunately, none of this happened.
Friday night, as usual, me and the wife went for our date night, we had planned on going to watch Night at the Museum in IMax but the theater was WAY overpacked, and we just got some dinner at the Fox Grill. This is where the journey began...
My wife, being a fun type of girl she is, decided that we must find Guitar Hero 2 and 2 guitars just after Xmas where that game was one of the most sout after PS2 games it seems. First, we head to Best Buy (1), no luck, other then a copy of Guitar Hero 1 and guitar combo. Next, we hit up Walmart (1). We visited a couple more places that memory escapes me of, yet to no luck. I picked up a copy of some bargain bin stunt car game for PC, which still sits packaged on my desk.
We head home after picking up some movies to watch, one being the Naked Mile. Decent movie, a bit "cliche" on some of the parts of it, as well as having some seriously horrible actors ("Coos") comes to mind.
Day 2
Day 2 of the journey began with breakfast at Jack in the Box, then a trip to Target (pronounced Tar-jhey). Nothing there, of coarse, off to Fry's, Toys'R'Us, Costco, EB Games, Games For Less, and then Circuit City. Circuit city was a score, we found Guitar Hero 2 with one of the guitar controllers packaged. Us being the fun people we are, wanted another controller, and remembered that Walmart sold wireless guitar controllers. Off to Walmart.
This is where luck smiled upon us.
Browsing through Walmart, getting stuck behind the retardation that usually regulars Walmart, we finally get to the electronic section, where I head directly to the Playstation department, thinking we might just get another PS2 for upstairs so we don't have to deal with my brother-in-law and his 2 yr old mind of "mine, i wanna play".
As I look in the case at the PS2's, I see a gold mine right next to them, a 60 gig PS3 sitting there with a golden halo. Without even taking a breath, other then a small exhale that sounded like I spent too much time with Tim Taylor, I rush the Walmart stock boys to open the case and "gimme". 90% expecting them to say "oh, thats just the box for display purposes, its not really a PS3". Instead, they say "oh wow, when did that get put in there...". In my frantic speaking, I instruct the stock boy to grab me a copy of Tony Hawk's Project 8 to go along with that.
$700 later, we head out to the car, being asked about 10 times where we got the PS3, my fear of being ganked was huge. We got it in the car, and also had purchased a wireless guitar controller, thankfully the wife wasn't as shocked as I was about buying a PS3. One thing I will say, the damn thing is heavy, like... really heavy, my PC weighs in about the same amount.
We head home to do some playing on Guitar Hero 2, I had unpacked my PS3, but hadn't plugged it in yet, being the patient husband I am, I held in my anxiety to get started on the PS3 to spend some time playing a fun game with the wife. Here is a hint for you boys out there who want your wife/girlfriend to be "ok" with you playing games, play games with her that she likes until she is tired of playing them, then you get free reign of the games you want to play while they do other things.
I will say this first and foremost, if your TV sucks, get a PS2. I first plugged in the PS3 to the 8 yr old 37" tv in the family room of my wifes parents house, other then Tony Hawk not going to standard 4:3 resolution properly, it looked just like PS2. I was flabbergasted, pissed off, and needless to say, quite disappointed. Still, I love Tony Hawk, so I spend about an hour getting familiar with the new game, new trick methods, etc...
Me and the wife head to Target (again, Tar-jhey) to pick up some batteries for the wireless guitar, as well as a controller and new game for the PS3 so that she can enjoy it as well. This is where I bash a company for making shitty hardware, so beware. We pick up a Creative PS3 controller, having loved Creative for years, they need to go back to making speakers and sound cards. The control, not only was it clunky due to the "cooling system", the analog controls would stick and seriously cause some stupidity in the controls. After a 10 minute digestion of Tony Hawk MP with 1/2 the side of the screens missing, we went back to Guitar Hero 2 and completed the Career in Easy.
Day 3
Digging in the trash for my reciept for the controller, we head back to Target (tar-jhey) and exchange for a Sony PS3 wireless controller, and pick up Marvel Alliance. We probably play for about 3-4 hours, the wife goes and gets ready for our new years eve party while I play Tony Hawk some more in career mode.
Warning: After reaching over 25, your body can not consume mass amounts of alcohol like when you where 21.
Ok, so we go to a party, I drink about 10 shots of tequila and a half a bottle of vodka in our favorite drink (Strip and go naked) and I am checking out my lunch from 3 days ago in the toilet. Two days later I still feel like I was in a car accident. It wasn't good. I am pretty sure that that will never happen again, I don't think I could manage that, and my wife's patience was very good, I wouldn't want to have to put her though that again...
So...
Day 4
My wifes parents are having a new years party downstairs, I pretty much stay in bed zoning in and out of sleep, trying to rehydrate myself until about 4pm where I finally make it out of the house alive. We head to IKea to get some candles and other junk. I love that place. When we get home we watch "New World" or something like that with Colin Farell and Christian Bale. I like movies, seriously I do, but this thing was a snorer, it was mostly about 2 people walking around in the grass with some plot thrown in there about people coming to start colonies in America. Don't watch this unless you have insomnia and need to sleep.
So, the wife is dead asleep, its 8pm, its time for more PS3. I haul everything upstairs to our bedroom, and plug in the PS3 to my 23" HD Widescreen (using RCA, didn't have an HDMI handy). I go through the configurations to put the system back in 16:9 etc...
WOW, talk about a huge damned difference, the wife wakes up and we play through the Omega Base on Marvel Alliance, and the game is beutiful. I can't imagine what it will look like in HD, it really can't get much better. After about 3 hours, we hit the sack, and that brings me to this morning where I wake up feeling like a trainwreck again, but still having to goto work.
All in all, it was a very eventful weekend, and I got to spend some quality time with the wife, which we have really needed here lately. If you can find a woman who will drive you home, stop every block to let you puke out the door, help you inside, try to keep you hydrated, go to the store for you the next day, bring you food in bed, and keep a smile on her face, marry her, she really loves you. Just make sure you do something special for her after acting like an ass like that.
Now, tonight, I shall go home, take the wife out to a nice dinner, come home, play some PS3, pack it up for work (i got that messenger bag for it, its quite nice and worth the $60 to be able to safely transport it around) and head to bed for another great night.
Some of you may wonder when I will get some time to work on RenEvo projects, that will take place most likely starting this weekend, I want to get some things in my personal life taken care of this week while I am home at night, as well as playing my new PS3.