#200 Stargate

A space ship armed with exploding rockets patrols the surface of the Earth shooting all Martian invaders. In its stockpile of weapons lie 7 nuclear bombs that kill everything except human rockets and humans. The fabric of space and time has been ripped creating rectangular warp holes that teleport the ship to the oppisite end of the Earth which isn't very far away because the Earth has shrunk from radioactivity and now has a diameter of a few thousand meters making it possible to circumnavigate the Earth in a matter of 3.5 seconds in a space ship flying 100 miles per hour.

The humans are frozen with fear and do little when Martians ships latch onto their skulls carrying them into space to be tortured. The one surviving human spaceship can never land to collect these poor earthlings because of malfunctions in the landing gear, however, it can shoot the martian spaceships that are snatching bodies and as the humans full toward the earth the spaceship can collect the startled people by opening the hatch and allowing them to fall on the couch in the ships bridge. Once all the martian invaders have been killed off they magically regenerate and life goes on in this way endlessly or until you have lost your ship and your two remaining ships that are stowed in the trunk space of your first ship.

This is pretty much Defender 2 revamped to make the ship look different and Defender 2 was a copy of Defender which made video game history by incorporating the scrolling affect. The best part of the game is catching the humans on your couch but this aspect happens far too infrequently and your likely to get bored with the same old alien warships attacking again and a again. We've come to expect more from our video games and now we have more, but has anything really changed? The cooler a video game is the more it encourages you to watse time. And for all the benefits that zoning out and switching off incorporate is there any more toxic than video games, much less retro video games. Are is there some great pursuit involve, some art, something that gamers are reaching for? Or is it just competition for the sake of competition ever racking up the score playing king of the hill in some battle of eye hand coordination reflexes and wits?

I once thought Dr. Mario was the ultimate video game and all others that came after were merely reaching for greatness in the glory of ever increasing graphics. But maybe video game history started and ended with Defender and nothing new will ever come along that so aptly describes the video game world. You are a ship endlessly scrolling through chaos, eliminating baddies, collecting goodies, wondering when it will all end.

#201 Super Arabian

Super Arabian is a game where you are a sworded Persian Prince who runs around various backgrounds collecting bags of money whilst avoiding birds. You are no doubt a good prince because every time you die a halo appears over your head instead of being smushed and sucked down into hell like Mario. I'm guessing this is some sort of future game because why else would a bird barely touching you kill you. This is just some video game programmer trying to hype up the whole avain flu crap that the scientists are labelling as the number one world health concern. I guess that's tied with AIDS, starvation, and obesity.

And how might you defend yourself against these birds? Obviously with your sword, what? No? Oh, you kick them. That's right you kick them. Cause how else are you going to kill a bird when armed with just a sword? The cool thing is that if you kick a bird its corpse becomes a deadly weapon as it goes flying across the screen like a rootbeer float delivered to George McFly in a 1950esque diner. The initial kick scores you a mere 100 points but with each vermridden bird it crashes into it adds 500 points. So you got that going for you too.

The sword is only used to triumphantly praise God in all his glory for helping you find the money. You must at that time jump towards the heavens and extend your sword to God with thanks. I'm guessing the whole antisword use is kind of like a 28 days later thing where you don't want any excess blood because if it gets into your eye you become a zombie or at least are infected with instant death bird flu.

Thus far I have only made it to level 3 which requires a lot of jumping on carpets going in opposing directions with a never ending supply of deadly birds appearing out of nowhere. On my most recent attempt I discovered that the bags of money all have different letters on them and if you manage to spell the right word by collecting the money bags in te right order you stand to gain a substantially higher sum of money. Or maybe the videogame programmer is like a huge Hitchcock fan and the birds truly do terrify him and he thought that this feeling was universal. But the not using your sword thing? That's like saving your hammer brother suit the whole damn game and not remembering to activate the suit until after Bowser has been tricked into falling into the hole he created. What the hell is that?

Drinking Milk

drinking milk
Originally uploaded by eatjuk

I probably drink 3 dollars worth of milk everyday. Excessive? I think so, but old habits die hard and it complements my cereal and penaut butter crackers and my chocolate and my potato chips beautifully. Milk is my number one expense throughout the week, far more than health care. Of course when I worked as a janitor back in my teenaged days I probably spent 3 dollars a day on soda so I'd call this an improvement.

Confiscated part 2

If you know your gonna be on the crapper for an hour and you have an hour left to go at work that's a good enough reason to leave work an hour early right? I mean.. Why the shit should they give a crap where you drop your dong? Check out this sweet Yu-Gi-Yo card I confiscated!

What's my name again?

whitedan
Originally uploaded by eatjuk

One of my students was misbehaving in class and having not yet memorized 350 Korean names, I demanded he tell me his identity so I could properly berate him. Upon this request he replied, "Pig" much to the enjoyment of his classmates. I took this opportunity to permanently brand him with a new name. Though "Pig" didn't feel the right word to dub a slightly chubby Korean child, I went ahead and christianed him "Sum Gyup Saul" which in Korean is roughly equivalent to "Porkchops" Uproarious laughter ensued and the acute pain of remorse set in the eyes of my little Porkchop.

Confiscated

The little dragon egg you see before you is one of the many many items I will be confiscating from children over the course of the next year. I'm hoping to add a few more cell phones to my collection. Last night I enjoyed a traditional Korean birthday party to celebrate the completion of one year of life on Earth. The highlights of the festivities involved the incredible spread of food which consisted mainly of meat and cookies.

There of course also were the Hanbok costumes forced upon the baby and his parents. The parents looked like two Korean dolls and the baby was adorned in an outfit becoming to a pinata. The guest of honor although having just entered his second yar on Earth had the great responsibility of holding what could only be described as a Viking sword to cut the birthday cake. They merely place the blade's handle in the baby's hand and let the weight of the sword drop through the cake and then knick the table just to be certain the slice made it all the way through.

The best part of the night was when the baby had to choose his life's destiny by picking an item from a tray full of symbolic tokens that represented future careers. This particular baby seemed to have no interest in the items which made me suspect he would become a monk. Eventally the mother stuck the pencil in his hand which meant that he would become of scholar of sorts. She cheated though, so we now the gods won't allow it. Among the other items were a microphone, a $20 bill, a piece of string, and a mouse - a live mouse scurrying among the other items. Grabbing the mice meant the child would be a vicious warrior that would lead the country into an unpopular and costly war. The mother cheated further my shooshing the mouse to the far end of the tray while the little pinata curiously peered among the treasures.

I love you Beth Cooper

A quick enjoyable read and a slapstick comedy about a highschool graduation night that goes from bad to worse for the valedictorian protagonist after he confesses his love to the head cheerleader. Reminds me a little of Dave Barry's Big Trouble in that over the top writing stlye and Barry does bring his street cred to the back jacket as it turns out. A good way to turn off your brain and have a harmless chuckle at the expense of a nerd getting beaten up around town. Thanks for the read Shortcake.

Image

photowar
Originally uploaded by eatjuk

Three days ago I woke up with sleepy eyes. I thought sleepy eyes were something that only the sight impaired suffered from because oddly enough ever since I got zapped I've been waking up with eagle eye precision immediaitaly. But the past couple days I've woken up with a foggy vision I always associated with not wearing glasses. But now I know that everyone gets sleepy eyes occassionaly and only time will bring them into focus.

Its got me thinking about the good old days of wearing glasses for 14 years or so and as I flip through some old photos every once in a while I'll come across one and say, jeez, the glasses make me look better. Why'd I blow 3 grand on unnecessary surgery? Then I realize I can always go out and buy some glasses just to look cool so I've got that going for me too.

#202 Taiwan Majong4

Um, I don't know. I guess its Mahjong and according to Wikipedia its a four player game and popular in Asia. But mashing buttons have not led to any satisfactory experiences thus far. Maybe I'll come back to this one when I have the Chinese langauge nailed down or the Wangmaster is here to translate.

Kyobo

kyobo
Originally uploaded by eatjuk

If it weren't for Starbucks I'd have to say Kyobo Book store and Dos Tacos pretty much get the highest percentage of my money in Korea. In the past week alone we've bought 3 packages of pastels, 3 canvases, Tetris DS, speakers, a sketch book, and two watches. And I've got my eye on a Playstation 2 there if I can't get my old PS2 back into action again.

Oh yeah I also bought a Coca-Cola and a banana milk there...I don't really know why they call it a book store...Oh wait, Monica bought like 6 books there, but we've only been here a month so she's just getting started.