Keep chili peppers away from your balls.

Well I guess the title says it all.

I woke up Saturday morning and everyone was out of the house, so I lounged around in my underwear and decided to cook up some breakfast. I remember it well: there I was slicing up some cherry tomatoes, an onion and 2 Thai chilis for a very delicious omelette. Then, I get to frying.

Since there isn’t anyone to criticize me, I go ahead and give my balls a scratch while sauteing that veg. Nobody else is going to see me or eat my food, so why not satisfy that itch? I go to town - no holding back.

Noob move. I blame it on the combination of waking up too early after a late night and the fact that there’s no running water in the kitchen (not even a sink, due to renovations)…anyway…

Well turns out those peppers burn like fire when rubbed into the general crotch area. I can only imagine what it would feel like in your eyeball.

So I quickly toss that omelette in a bun, squirt some ketchup on it and consume that delicious western like a boss (while that pain gets worse). Then after that I run to the shower to splash some water on this thing.

It also turns out that soapy hot water intensifies the burning and soothing Dove lotion barely puts a dent in that sting. So what do I do?

Remember how I watched Cowboys & Aliens the other day? Well there was a scene where James Bond is injured and needs to get stitched up by a priest, so to numb the pain he drinks whiskey.

Boom! Shots at 8AM Saturday morning FTW.

I wake up exhausted it's not morning it's back to sleep to re-dream me

I can hear it now, the end is nigh and not a minute too soon.

What a weekend, it was kind of surreal actually. I spent the entire thing bumming around in a daze with no particular goal; eating dim sum, drinking wine, foreign films, enjoying desserts and roasting duck with a gang of misfits who had the same thing in mind. I wore shorts, I made bacon, it was glorious.

We soaked it up because after this weekend it's pretty much an all out sprint of events until New Year's Day. It's all hectic and can't be avoided.

In true loner fashion I did start it off on Friday night by planting my (sweet sweet) ass on the couch with a couple of beers, and probably stayed up later than I should have watching ridiculous movies. Here's what I have to say about that...

Sorry, metro-sexual-hawaiian dude. Arnold was better.



Unless a truly savage actor plays Conan again, I don't know if this movie can work.



I'm also not too sure about this movie, but it was definitely not unenjoyable.



There seemed to be a lot of famous actors in it...



A lot.



Anyway, Paul Rudd is a real likeable dude. I'm glad things worked out for him in the end. Oops.



And I don't know, maybe it's because he was James Bond but DC is a real man's man.



An Olivia Wilde: looking good as always.



Best movie of them all in my opinion (probably not).

December, here I come...

SWAG vs SWAG

I'm slowly making my way though this Marvel Civil War and damn is it a crazy read. The plot line actually jumps between different comic book series and characters all in the Marvel universe to create this out of control story.

Basically what happened was a bunch of noob super heroes trying to create a reality show tried to raid a house in the suburbs where a bunch of villans were hiding. A battle ensued and this one bad guy named Nitro exploded himself and blew the shit out of the surrounding neighborhood killing everyone, including a school filled with children.

One thing led to another and this Superhuman Registration Act became law. That act required that all heroes reveal their identities and work for the government. Those who refused were considered criminals and hunted down by their registered peers - and we're still only talking about just the good guys here.



So on one end you have all these heroes who think that registering is a good idea and on the other hand all the heroes who want to protect their identities. One of the biggest reasons for keeping them secret is the threat that the bad guys will know who they are, and thus can attack their family and friends.

Oh yeah, and you have the bad guys still shit disturbing all over the place because they don’t care either way.

It’s basically Good Guys vs. Good Guys - Captain America is leading the heroes/fugitives against the registration act and Iron Man/Tony Start leading the push for the registration.



What’s interesting is that Captain America is the one leading the heroes against the US Government (and everyone knows his identity anyway), Spider Man decided to reveal himself even though he’s probably one of the people who worked the hardest to conceal his identify (and J Jonah Jameson goes ape shit because of it), and Tony Stark comes off as a douche bag.



Sorry for that horrible pic (not really). Anyway, it's an interesting read.

What up, kettlebells?

Despite the fact that I haven’t lifted a dumbbell in a very long time I’ve recently jumped into these kettlebell workouts because I discovered that the instructor was this slammin’ babe I’ve become quite the lazy bum, not having to dragon boat anymore. And yes, I know that the season ended a couple months ago, but like I told you: lazy bum.

These kettlebell workouts are fairly short but super intense - makes you feel like a caveman doing real man work. They consist of alternating body weight exercises and exercises where you hold/lift/toss around these crude iron balls with handles in all sorts of positions. It’s the closest that I’ve come to non-alcoholic related vomiting in a long time because the instructor really knows how to egg you on and I refuse to be defeated by the 35 year old women also taking the class.

The only down side is that they’re held in the studio rooms where the walls are covered with these floor to ceiling mirrors. Being surrounded by women in fairly close quarters I can’t help it if I try to sneak a peek every now and again. Unfortunately, the walls have eyes (literally) and I have to get creative with trying to play it cool. I’m a man and it can’t be helped, but I know that they’re probably checking out my sweet bod too (probably not).



Anyway, this has been thrown in with the other classes that I do with middle aged/older women at the YMCA. Now that my lower back hurts again it feels like I'm actually getting somewhere.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas crap seems to be coming out of the wood work real early this year. I did go and see that new Harold and Kumar Christmas movie on opening night and it was most definitely a movie about Christmas more than anything else. That isn't exactly bad thing but it did add a sort of cheesiness to the whole film...but then you realize that it is Harold and Kumar and that you actually wanted to see this movie anyway, so you hang your head in shame you learn to appreciate it's absurdity. It was pretty funny and also provided a firm reminder to get you XMAS shopping in gear soon (I saw it a week ago and haven't even flinched since).

Anyway, Christmas is coming so deck the halls you crazy mother fockers.

So that brings me to my next point (not really). The reason I don't own a handgun is because there's a lot of regulation around it. Getting your RPAL on top of your PAL is not even more difficult, but once you actually do decide to pick up a piece then that's where things get tricky.

My memory broken Coles Notes which may probably be incorrect on the whole situation is that in order to even buy a pistol and transport it from the shop to you must first obtain an ATT from your CFO. In order to have an ATT you have to be a member of a legitimate shooting club. So if you want to keep your ATT/pistol you gotta keep dropping cash on that membership (or get a legal job as someone who actually requires a handgun (or something like that). Under most normal circumstances someone can only really transport a handgun from their home to your shooting club, after which you must immediately transport it back to your gun safe .Wielding it under any other circumstances would probably land you in some real deep shit jail.

Since that's more money and trouble than I'm willing to commit to, just so I can pop off a few rounds, I won't even bother. I guess this is where super questionable airsoft guns come into play...

On one hand you have dangerous looking toys and on the other hand you have extremely dangerous looking toys. While they might not be able to blow up a gopher, you better believe that there's more than enough power to put out an eye or hurt like hell. It's pretty much just like a paintball gun, minus the whole mess and gay high-fives.

Metal gas powered airsoft pistols look, feel and even operate just like real guns except that they use compressed gas or propane to fire off little plastic pellets as opposed to murderous lead rounds. Even still, although a dumb little pellet might not kill you it's definitely not fun to get shot with. If a little plastic BB can easily clear both sides of a cardboard box, then you better believe it'll make your ass bleed when someone shoots you in the jeans 15 yards away. Trust me.

What's crazy is that those hard plastic balls will hazardously bounce in all directions all over the place and just like a paintball gun you don't even need a PAL to get your hands on one. Any irresponsible kid over 18 can go to Pacific Mall or crappy tire, pick one up and then terrorize the neighborhood. The law seems to say that:

• If it shoots at > 500 feet per second, it's considered a firearm and needs to be registered like one
• If it looks like a real gun then it should be treated and registered like a real gun

But since they're treated like toys and there really isn't much of a process or control around buying one it's pretty easy to get a hold of.

I'll be honest, other than being really cool to hold and really really cheap to shoot I don't really know what people would do with them (other than get some condescending strange looks at the range for shooting a toy next to a guy shooting a real S&W revolver). I imagine they're used for games just like paintball but if you ever see a drunk high school kid walking around in the public park waving one in the air then you'd probably call the cops because nobody would be able to tell that it's NOT a real gun.

Anyway, play safe and don't fuck it up for the rest of us.



Is it Friday yet?

You know the drill.

It's very fascinating the personalities you see on that damn MW3 live stream. I know I've been talking about it for the past week but I guess this is the type of reality TV that I enjoy...go figure. Go ahead and watch your Cupcake Wars, lady boy.



I don't know if you've noticed it yet but it seems like when you kill someone (I guess if they watch the killcam or something) you can hear them rage at your for a second - it's pretty funny. Usually you can't hear the other team at all during the game but it's a pretty interesting addition nonetheless.

Hutch was also saying the other day that there's 2 pretty common phrases that you hear all the time online: 1. F U and 2. Get F'd. Now that I have a headset and listen in on this stuff, turns out it's true. Even watching the live stream the other day while Sarah Dope was playing, she yelled get f'd after killing some dude, and they're not even mic'd up.

Anyway, it's fun to watch and you should check it out since it'll be over soon.



Anyway, remember this video? Fantastic, yes I know.



Well, turns out that it was exactly a year late (not really). But yeah, substitute Martin Solveig with my sister and I and I'm certain that we would have ended up with the same music video anyway.



T G I F (I'm probably going to play MW3 all weekend)

You gotta eat shit every now and again to appreciate the good times.

So I'm on course this week and it's pretty swell. Other than learning like a boss, it's great because you get tons of 15 minute breaks, a whole hour for lunch and the instructor (who is actually pretty sarcastic) even lets you leave early. The simple luxuries...

On that note (really?) I finally got around to uninstalling the Boot Camp partition and boy was it easy. Just uninstall rEFit, run the Boot Camp assistant and follow along for about 2 minutes. Face it, all that I was used it for was to play Black Ops and Need For Speed, but there's no need for that anymore (thanks PS3).




Looks like my PC gaming days are officially dead.

Modern Warfare 3 - A New Hope

Well I haven't been able to get down and dirty with MW3 this long weekend because real life got in the way - it was kind of disappointing actually because, just like any new toy, all you want to do is play with it. Even still I kind of got my fix because that damn live stream kept drawing me in with all the interesting foolishness those people talk about.

I learned that most pros use sensitivity 2/3, a shit load of players use Kontrol Freeks, I watched the OpTic pro players take over a few times, and I even watched this 10 year old kid play for a while (and he was better than me). Those Machinima folk probably have one of the best jobs ever.

Could this also be real? A cute girl that loves video games and listens to metal - there's hope for me yet!



Anyway, there are some pretty interesting people on that stream. This one black dude had a solo shift going and out of nowhere he yelled: "I fucking love video games. How can you not love video games? It's like...why?!?" True that.



Although I only got a few hours of multiplayer in there, I did complete the single player campaign and it was pretty damn short. It finally give closure to that whole Makarov fiasco but even still it was super linear and over the top just like BF3.

I did notice a couple of dumb glitches though. I've run into this one a few times and I never really knew what was going on even though I had full bar.



Just like with the Famas/AK-74u in Black Ops I'm seeing a trend here with the UMP 45/Type 95 in MW3, aka the only guns people ever use. They did release a small patch over the weekend but I don't even know what it did. I'm going to go ahead and assume that with the next patch these two guns will get nerfed and hopefully I'll stop frame rate glitching like a boss.

Even still the game is dope.

Hello, Modern Warfare 3. We meet at last.

Canada Post, are you serious? Denying me on release day - that's BS. Aside from watching the Machinima live stream and not being able to login to Elite, I was pretty disappointed...until yesterday.



Should I say it? Dare I say it? Of course I'm going to say it: BEST COD EVER.

While it isn't exactly groundbreaking, the formula works. I managed to play some kill confirmed, a little survival mode and even started the single player campaign - everything is very fun.

The controls feel nice and that alleged 60 frames-per-second looks so silky smooth compared to Battlefield. The timing when performing certain actions seems a little better and the Black Ops sleight of hand quick reload or super fast concussion grenade toss seems to be more balanced (unless I just haven't used the right perk yet). That's kind of too bad because I love to use that cheese all the time. Compared to other games, there doesn't seem to be much recoil with the weapons either but I guess that falls in line with MW2.



My first impression is that the action is fast. Really fast. I think because the maps are so tight that it doesn't give campers much opportunity to camp (praise science), and I find myself pulling out a pistol more often than usual because there's no time to reload with so much crap going on.

With the new killstreak system there's also loads of air support. Maybe even too much air support. I can't even tell whether Assassin is overpowered because there's so much noise, planes flying through the air and red dots all over the map that you just expect to run into enemies all the time anyway. It's hectic.



I think what MW3 boils down to is fast paced gun-on-gun action - your quintessential twitch shooter. I don't think I've even seen anyone use a shotgun or sniper, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that SMGs will dominate the game - that stock class with the UMP rapid fire is so cheesy that I can even see it getting nerfed.

I don't know how the perk system works, how to pimp out attachments, what killstreaks are useful or even what weapons are good. Games passed so quickly last night that I didn't even care to try and investigate those systems because I just wanted to keep playing. Yeah, it's addicting.

I thought that I would be using Elite all now to find that kind of info out anyway, but the service has just been a huge failure so far and I can't even get in to admire my own founder status check my stats.



Sorry Battlefield, we're on a break right now.

...and then I got addicted to Modern Warfare 3

Let's face it: I don't watch TV, I don't read magazines and I don't have a girlfriend. Aside from all the masturbation enjoying as much delicious food as I can and then hibernating, I plan on filling my other winter hours trying to get over this damn clumsy PS3 annoying-console-controller-hump-foolishness. Sexy - yes I know. It's been a couple of months since switching over to console gaming and it's been worse than picking up golf.

For whatever reason I found myself watching the Machinima livestream last night when Sark, Seananners and Hutch kicked it off at midnight. They're doing a 15 day stream this time around to see how far they can prestige by playing around the clock, and last time it took Machinima something like 25 days to max out in Black Ops (and I plan on watching it all day). Best job ever.



With that said my Hardened Edition copy of Modern Warfare 3 got mailed yesterday, so if Canada Post fails to deliver it to me by the time I get home from the gym then heads are going to roll. More likely I'll just have to watch Crazy, Stupid, Love (or something like that).

I guess COD Elite is also official, and by official I mean still struggles just like the malfunctioning beta did.



From what I can see it looks comparable to Battlelog and even though I'll have a paid subscription I don't really know what that means yet, other than getting all the DLC for a year. You can tell the developers were working around the clock yesterday, because every time I logged in the site changed - hopefully it'll be fully operational soon.

What I'd like to see is upcoming unlocks and perk challenges, but I think they have bigger fish to fry on this launch day...



It's going to be interesting to see how the whole tournaments, challenges and prizes work out too but the main reason I got the Hardened Edition was for that Elite membership. Even though I'm not sure how the new PSN account limit policy will work, it somehow gives me the impression that DLC sharing is about to become a little more difficult.

Across a couple games those $15 DLCs can add up and all things considered, the extra $40 for the Hardened Edition which includes a year membership plus all that extra COD swag is a pretty good deal.



What you know about prestige? Still not much apparently. It was pretty time consuming to even prestige once on both PS3 and PC so I don't know if I'll even go for 2 this time around. I guess it'll come down to how difficult the challenges are, but we'll see how that new revamped killstreak and perk system works out.

Anyway, time to get my game on aka strike while the iron is hot. Is it Thursday yet?



Did I also forget to mention that TD Rewards was offering a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and a wireless headset package for only $99 last week?!? That's cheese.

It'll also be interesting to see how much Battlefield 3 I play after today, and I still haven't even tried coop yet either. BTW, they're patching the tactical light (finally).



Man, do I need a girlfriend...any takers?

Karma, step in.

It's unfortunate when your car gets randomly crapped on and there's nothing you can do about it - this is why I rarely leave the safety of my bedroom. Downtown is full of sketchy people and you never know what will happen, especially in those busy areas where there's tons of human traffic.

As an example, a couple of us were out watching some stand-up on Saturday night and all was just groovy until we eventually found out that one of my buddies got his side-view mirror kicked off while parking along the street. Talk about shitbags bad luck. Seriously? It's just a Civic.





MW3 TOMORROW

Nobody wants to see your creepy mustache

I thought that the whole point of Movember was to raise money for charity and not just to look like a douche and creep out little children?

Anyway, I have no plans for November. Nothing. 3 days in and I'm already bored but I have no plans on growing out my (sparse and thin) mustache because making it onto the sexual offenders list probably won't impress the ladies (that much). It's that month where dragon boat is way past done, it's just a little too cold to ride or shoot anymore, and there's no snow on the ground yet either. It's definitely Maybe it's all just excuses to be lazy, but as a result I've fully engaged bumb mode - all I can do now is get my skis sharpened, save some cash for the holiday season and play some video games...

Now about that...apparently this transition to console gaming has not been a very smooth one. Year One with this DS3 controller has proven to be more frustrating than I previously imagined. Unlike PC where I could hold my own, on PS3 my mind can think shoot to kill but my thumbs just want to pick my nose (or something like that).



Other than tactical lights and lasers (seriously EA?) what really annoys the shit out of me is that people don't really seem to understand how respawn tickets work and despite the fact that each class has a role to play, I generally don't come across many people who will actually go deep, play the objective and help out teammates (other than me). Sometimes I'll come across players who actually do work together and it's not very difficult to clean house when that happens. Unfortunately, since most of the 12 year olds on PSN couldn't care less about anything other than their own KDR you don't really run into that kind of thing. But when you do, it makes you remember why Battlefield 3 is such a good game.

I'm under the impression that with the massive 64 vs 64 huge map matches on PC that the dynamic of the game is a little different, but PS3 is apparently full of haters or I'm actually so bad that I really do make my team lose. Check my Win/Lose ratio as evidence.



Seriously, that tactical light is so annoying that I had to start using it. I actually toned it down and use the laser attachment, but even still talk about cheese. I mean how often are you just be running around a corner in broad daylight, then out of nowhere get blinded by a wall of white, spray and pray, and then die. Patch that shit.

It's also pretty interesting that there exist players who specialize in flying choppers or jets. They'll spend entire games in aircraft and unless you let that stinger missile fly, they're legitimately doing work and showing skill with those specialized class. I still crash choppers immediately after I get in them.



Anyway, MW3 drops next week and while I was pretty excited about Battlefield 3, I'm legitimately excited about MW3 (which is probably why I pre-orderd the Hardened Edition). Having spent ~210 PC hours in Black Ops, I think I'm qualified to say that I enjoy the COD franchise.

I do enjoy Battlefield but even still I think that I'll enjoy MW3 even more. Other than being able to get in/out quickly (just like in real life), the fast paced games and the ability to respawn right away, here's what I like about COD:

• Everything boils down to TDM, so you don't really need to rely on your teammates who don't play the objective or support their classes.
• A single game doesn't last 45 minutes.
• You don't have to quit the entire game every time you want to switch a lobby or play a different game type.
And I'm going to go ahead and assume that parties and voice communication will actually work in MW3, unlike the massive fail in Battlefield 3.

Hey Controller stop holding me back.

So I think I finally got this whole Blogger light-box thing figured out...

Skiing vs Snowboarding is like PC vs Mac...who cares/have fun

So I'm officially registered for snowboarding lessons and I have to admit that I've been walking around the house in my snowboard boots I haven't been this excited about something in a long time. It's a good thing cheese and milk taste so delicious because I'm under the impression that my bones will need all the support they can get for this.



Turns out lessons cost as much as a flight out West, so I'm (probably) going to skip out on any trips this season to level up my non-existent snowboarding skills (unless someone manages to convince me otherwise). I do have the luxury of being able to jump on my skis at any point if the mountains do end up calling my name, so no big deal.



I'm lucky enough to have friends that love the snow too, and trips out East or West (or to Blue Mountain when we were poor students) have been common practice since around the 90s. Hell, my dad sucks (hard) at skiing but having lived in Calgary for years he (still) loves taking my sis and I to the Rockies, but more likely as an excuse to fly over and shoot the shit with his friends out West.

It's pretty amazing when you look up at a mountain and realize after getting on the lift and passing that crest, that what you thought was the top is actually just 1/4 of the way up and really you can't see jack from the bottom. Damn.



Although that streak might end this year, skiing's taken me to some pretty interesting places that I probably wouldn't have gone to otherwise. While it's limited to North America (for now), here's my list:

• Glen Eden - Milton, ON
• Hockley Valley - Orangeville, ON
• Blue Mountain - Collingwood, ON
• Mount St. Louis Moonstone - Coldwater, ON
• Sunshine Village - Banff, AB
• Lake Louise - Lake Louise, AB
• Kicking Horse - Golden, BC
• Revelstoke - Revelstoke, BC
• Whistler - Lake Louise, BC
• Mont-Tremblant - Mont-Tremblant, QC
• Mont Blanc - St-Faustin-Lac-Carré, QC
• Stowe - Stowe, VT
• Smuggler's Notch - South Smugglers' Notch, VT
• Jay Peak - Jay, VT
• Holiday Valey - Ellicottville, NY

In short, the woman I marry must be able to ski or snowboard well. Believe it.



One step forward, two steps back...