N+ Digital Masochisim

I remember some games from my childhood that were truly impossible to beat. NES games, mostly. Ghosts n Goblins comes to mind particularly. Maybe some of the Ninja Gaiden sequels where you had limited continues.

The memories of playing these games and never conquering them haunts me to this day, and those memories came flooding back when I downloaded N+ from the Xbox Live Arcade.

This game makes Super Mario: The Lost Levels look like Barbie Horse Adventures.

The game popped up on the Arcade at around 3 am one night a few weeks ago. In a bleary eyed haze, I downloaded the trial and started wall jumping around.

"This looks fun!!!" I texted to Darth Mikal. "MEGA-FUN" he texted back, an obvious reference to the Mega-Man series we both hold dearly and play regularly. So I dropped the 800 points and started cracking.

The first few levels were great. Just some casual platforming, coin collecting, anything anyone who likes Mario would enjoy. I got a bit farther, and the gaps to jump started to grow, the mines became plentiful, and missles began chasing me non-stop. "That stupid %$#@*& mother-loving missle!!!!!!" I yelled out loud as I stood up and tossed the controller in disbelief. My cats looked at me like I was insane. This little arcade game was actually going to be challenging.

Little did I know, not only would the game become increasingly difficult, it would reach a level of near impossibility quite rapidly. Not just hard, as in, your skills are not up to par hard (Ninja Gaiden). This is masochistically hard. And another, dirty little word: Cheap. Finding the right path to the exit becomes not simply a test of skill, but one of luck and patience. Because, there is only one possible route to take through that field of chain guns, missles, mines, and sentry drones, and if you dont hit the exact right combination of pixels at the exact fraction of a split second, you die instantly. And you will die. Constantly. Actually, there is an achievement in the game for dying 1,000 times. I earned it quickly.

A few days later I received a text from Darth, master of Ninja Gaiden, Mega-Man, Omega 5, and all things hard. "AGAGHAGHAGHAUUAGAGHAGHA" He was playing N+, and it was slowly driving him insane.

An hour later: "Noooooo! nononononono NO NO NO!!!!"

Two hours later: "This game is not good for your health man."

He was right, as I had long since given up on beating it. I got the acheivement for completeing the first set of levels, which was hard enough, and after doing that, I could tell what the game was devolving into, and wanted no part in it. I really hope that one day Darth beats it, but for his sanity's sake I sincerely hope he nevers tries, and just goes back to Ninja Gaiden on Master Ninja. At least that game is fun.

Woman Complains to Cop About "Bad Crack"

Dontcha just hate it when this happens?

"A 50-year-old woman walked up to a sheriff's deputy last week and complained that a drug dealer had just sold her "bad crack," according to Florida's WJXT-TV.

Eloise Reaves "told the deputy that a man in the parking lot had sold her bad crack. [Police] said Reaves then took the crack from out of her mouth and placed it on the trunk of the deputy's patrol car," the station reports. (Here's her mugshot.)

When a field test identified the substance as cocaine, "Reaves complained that it was wax and cocaine mixed, and that she wanted the deputy to make the man give her her money back," police said.

The man was searched and released. Reaves was charged with drug possession."

Hipocrisy and The New York Times: Dog Fighting vs Bull Fighting

Whats the difference?

So The New York Times has this article about a prize bull from Spain. His owner, who is a famous bull breeder, has decided that he wants to clone him to preserve his investment. Well enough, people do all sorts of bizzare things. But how can The Times, the same paper that condemned Michael Vick's dog fighting operation, treat bull fighting as a legitimate sport, and cover this story as newsworthy?

By sending a reporter to visit and interview the owner the paper accomplishes nothing more than cementing the guise of legitimacy this barbaric activity needs to be stripped of, and reinforces a double standard for the abuse and torture of animals. What is the moral difference between breeding dogs and fighting them to the death, and breeding bulls for the sole purpose of having them elaborately and slowly executed in front of a cheering crowd? None.

The New York Times eviscerated Michael Vick in a series of articles detailing his brutal exploits with canines and every step of the subsequent police investigation, and then finished up with a feel good interactive media story called Another Chance for Vick's Dogs about how some of Vicks dogs were rescued by a group in Utah that specialized in rehabbing abused animals. Apparently, for the paper, dogs count almost as people, and bulls, well, they are something you just eat.

I am not a member of PETA and I have never claimed to be an animal rights activist. I am a well established carnivore who loves to eat beef. But bull fighting is just SICK. It is no different than torturing a cat or a dog then killing it, or forcing them to fight each other to the death, and would be identified by most psycologists as psychotic behavior. That it is a historic part of Spanish culture does not imbue it with moral supremacy. Its terribly unfortunate that The Times would consider newsworthy the use of new cloning technology to further this barbaric "sport," in which the only competition is to see how long the bull fighter can keep the crowd engaged in what is a certain, grim, bloody fate.

MW2 PC - Used Copy Fail

FAIL

LOL QUEENS NY

Someone had the great idea to have 44th Road, 44th St, and 44th Ave all be in the same neighborhood - Long Island City. Oh, and 21st St is one block over from 11th St. Obviously. You could try using a GPS to navigate but it would probably just explode.

CC1CC

GT Top 10 Arcade Games Part 2

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