hello again all,

typical week of more highs and lows. hey, let's start with another rant about my shitty roommate, eh?

no more bullshitting or anything, this guy's an asshole. that's just sorta the best description for him without putting too much creativity into it. i guess some other good descriptions would be coward, pussy, idiot, etc.

my sister lauren, my girlfriend alayna and lauren's roommate laura come over friday night and the only thing he mustered up to say to any of 'em was a "hi" to my sister after he just awkwardly stood there as we're in the living room for a second. man he's such a fuckin loser and i'll be damned if i feel any pity for him anymore. everybody tells me the same thing when they come over, they never know what to say to him cuz the bastard just lurks. that's really all he does, he hides in his room all day/night when he's not in class (seriously that guy spends no more than 2 hours a day on campus), and when he needs something out in the living room or kitchen, he'll get it and spend less than an hour out there. i've had it with putting any effort into it and trying to do "the right thing" and try to pull him out of his shell or whatever and get him to wake the fuck up and realize he looks like a dick to everyone that bothers to come to our apartment. sometimes i'll just feed him the bullshit "so what's going on?" and he says like one word, so i say fuck him, i'll beat him at his own game and go out of my way to pretend like he's not there.

in a way it really sorta makes you feel like you're living in a dorm room again, cuz all you wanna do is exist in your own room away from the awkwardness anywhere else in the place. it's like i've got a dorm with a nice bathroom and access to a kitchen, kinda. at this point i never bother to entertain the idea of me and him having a meal together or something cuz it'd just be hella awkward and i'd end up regretting it 5 minutes in when he just went off on some topic i didn't care about. once things are fucked for a semester they don't automatically get better, so i'm sure christmas break will creep up and i'll do little more than tell him to go to hell when we leave for that and i'll forget about it while i'm in colorado and dallas. then next semester i'll be more focused about graduating and everything and by that point i'll have no interest in making any time for anybody that gives me any kinda shit like that.

i guess i can sorta sum up the weekend for ya or some shit. this was definitely the king of lazy weekends. friday night lauren, alayna and i went to applebee's and then played mario kart and crash nitro kart for a while, before the girls decided they had to make cookies, so we went to HEB and picked up laura on the way. "homemade" cookies that take 10 minutes to make only improved the already decent situation. pretty sweet (and humbling when you're 21) when you can just play video games and drink for like 4-5 hours, with everybody having a good ol' time. we even ended up topping it off with some MST3K, since the laur's get a kick out of that. alayna pretends like it's not that funny, but she'll come around soon.

saturday sorta topped friday as even more laziness. we played racquetball for an hour during the day and had gumby's pizza for dinner. quick sidenote, as an expert pizza eater, i'll give gumby's a 7 out of 10, since the crust was good, but the pizza itself was kinda mediocre and the boxes had no logo on 'em, making 'em feel kinda cheap. if you're in college station and need a quick ranking of who's got the kickass pizza, justin will tell ya double dave's (wins for being hardest to find anywhere else, plus awesome pepperoni rolls), pizza hut, dominos, papa john's, buck's, little caesar's, gumby's, etc. they'll all give ya a good time, no doubt. we fully caught up on the nbc shows and watched our tivo'd scrubs. laynie demanded (i felt like being flexible so i didn't go out of my way to argue) that we had to either watch identity or the first harry potter movie (she just finished the book) so i let her watch harry potter to help get it out of her system. from there it was basically just more typical alayna & justin bullshit, talking, goofing around and cooking breakfast. both nights we ended up just passing out, just the way i like it, heheh.

it's been a while since i've posted, so i guess i can just keep on going, right? as i said i would, i picked up crash nitro kart (CNK) and mario kart: double dash (MK) for gamecube over the last 10 days or so. even though they're both cart racing cartoony games, i don't think they're really that similar. my opinion on both:

Crash Nitro Kart
Pretty similar to the original playstation version, which means if you didn't like that one you won't like this one. luckily i liked the first, so that means this one continues the trend. the graphics are a little better than for ps1, but nothing truly amazing or anything. i love the gameplay still, i feel like the controls are just as responsive as they used to be, and overall the control scheme comes naturally. i think the racing tracks are improved over the last one, but the battle arenas (so far) don't seem extremely cool, although we might just have to play one to death to learn to love it. overall i'm happy with it and don't mind having thrown $50 at it, despite the fact that i'm sure MK outsold it heavily.

pros: awesome gameplay, good mix of challenge and ease, high replayability (mostly in battle mode), feels different enough from the mario kart series to almost be called its own concept now

cons: hard to care about the characters (characters in the crash bandicoot universe, which is 4 adventure/platform games and now 2 racing games, were never extremely well-crafted nor vividly thought out), possibly short playing life if the battle arenas don't keep you coming back

my personal overall ranking: 9.1 out of 10

Mario Kart: Double Dash
The original Super Mario Kart came out in like '91/92ish and we all fuckin loved it. my best friend at the time kevin bought it for SNES right away and we convened at his house for hours at a time for several months just to play it. he eventually played it to death and let me and lauren have it, in which case we ended up playing it to death ourselves, mastering the 150cc and special cup races and spending almost all of our time on the 4th level of battle mode. as cheesy as it may sound, that game still holds a special place for me because it's really responsible for spawning a limited array of games in which both my sister and i completely loved and as kids could just stop fighting and bickering for 2 hours long enough to play battle mode. the only problem is, when ps1 came out i latched onto that system and refused to have any interest in nintendo 64, so i only played mario kart 64 once and never really got into the game. so when everybody says that the gamecube version is too similar to the 64 version, it doesn't really matter to me.

the graphics in this game are obviously pretty gorgeous in that mario cartoony way and sorta has the same feel that super mario sunshine had, which i thought looked terrific. the thing that struck me immediately about the game was just how adorable and cute everything was, from the characters to the scenery to the menus. it's nice after playing so much CTR and CNK to go back to having all the characters you either love or love to hate instead of characters you don't really give a shit about. the new concept is that each cart has 2 people in it so that one can use items and the other can drive. overall it's a fun new twist, but i'm not completely sure if i'm sold on it. can't really say if it's completely necessary. the goals and everything are pretty much the same as any other cart racing game. the tracks are relatively clever, although i'm not sure if they're as good as the CNK ones.

for me, the jury's still out as far as to if the battle mode has the same kind of replayability as the SNES version had ten years ago. the arenas feel a lot smaller than they used to, and a bit too open. the weapons are a bit more sophisticated and character-specific, and the options to play shine thief or bob-omb blast are kinda cool.

pros: excellent execution as far as characters/graphics/sound, easy to pick up so typically fun for beginners, another candidate for long replay value, the original kart video game formula

cons: worse gameplay than it used to be -- for some reason nintendo decided to remove the hop... not really *that* important but the game feels a bit lacking without it, feels like too few tracks... or at least that they're not dynamic enough, 2-person per cart setup seems a bit forced at times and just doesn't add a whole lot to the game

my personal overall ranking: 8.8 out of 10

so yes, it looks as if i've actually rated CNK (the supposed imposter) higher than MK (the supposed king of all kart games)! i could be a bit biased cuz i got CNK a week earlier than MK, but i've still put in about 5-6 hours of playing time in on MK. i think my preference really comes down to which has the tighter gameplay, and thus, more fun. CNK's game engine allows you to completely stop on a dime and pivot, by going from gas to brake and jump/boosting at the same time, which works beautifully in battle mode. the same move in MK is simply not as clean, and you pay for that as soon as you try to stop and pivot to go pick up a loose shine.

overall they're both great games and i'm glad i bought them. they're the kind of games that should be played in multiplayer mode at least 75% of the time, since most people love these kinds of games and can get easily hooked on 'em. the verdict so far, at least from the 3 girls was that they preferred MK over CNK. i'm just not sure yet if i can agree with that. i think CNK screwed a couple things up (battle arenas, execution in some areas, etc) but overall (thus far) it just feels like a game with more horsepower than the other. you feel like you're moving faster, the competition is a bit more fierce, and you're a bit more proud when you cross the finish line in first place.

shit, that took long enough to explain, eh?

what's coming up for me... my 4th and final thanksgiving break from a&m... it's a bit bittersweet since i've got an aunt on her deathbed after a long bout with cancer. so unfortunately a funeral sometime soon will be part of my thanksgiving fesitivites. i'm leaving on tuesday afternoon to get back to dallas for a late dentist appointment since i ripped out a filling while chewing quench gum during a game of racquetball. shit, i still say it was worth it when i kicked that guy's ass in that game. i'm definitely looking forward to having our thanksgiving meal on thursday, and i'm not usually the kinda guy that ever looks forward to some kinda home-cooked meal. the plan is to come back friday morning to go to the a&m vs UT football game since we've never seen them play in person, but if we have to attend the funeral then i won't be able to go.

from there it's back to college station for the next couple weeks to finish up classes and exams. i'm done with the semester on december 17th and we drive to our house in westcliffe, colorado most likely on december 20th. we'll most likely be there from the 20th till the 30th, with lauren's boyfriend zach there for a few days and alayna there for a few days as well. most of the details aren't worked out yet but it should be pretty badass for the most part. we'll ski a time or two while we're there and it's always more fun if it snows in our area. we typically end up spending our time doing things as a family, plus playing video games, dvd's, reading, hiking, 4-wheeling, etc. i typically see it as going to our 2nd house in colorado is fun as long as we're not there really often and for long periods of time. xmas is the longest visit of the year, and it can get hella boring if you're not careful, but everything should be pretty cool this time around. it's my last visit as a college student and stuff, so sort of the end of an era.

i know a lot of things really slow down over the holidays, but you'll prolly hear more from me blog-wise over the next few weeks. i usually post more while i'm home and in colorado if we've got a laptop with us. i've really lacked on posts lately cuz my computer's basically fucked and it's too risky to try to type out a whole post without worrying that it'll reboot on me. several people have ended up enjoying reading my posts and i wanna make sure everybody knows i'm not giving up on it.

talk to everybody soon,
justin