Familiar Hell

There are times when everything familiar depresses the hell out of you and you want to get as far away from it all as you possibly can.

Beat SH4 But Got Worst Ending

Tonight I beat Silent Hill 4: The Room. There are four endings and I got the worst one because I didn't take enough care of Eileen, and I let her walk into the machinery in the pool of blood during the final battle with Walter, so she got sliced up. But what the hell, I was busy fighting Walter, and he was such a stubborn bastard that it took about six charged-up Rusty Axe attacks and a dozen revolver bullets to finally kill him (I beat him on the third attempt). Plus Eileen was walking pretty fast into the machinery anyway. Why was she doing that? Well, because she was possessed because I didn't take enough care of her, and she probably got bitten too many times by those skinned dogs with the three-foot-long tongues. Oh well. I hate babysitting in videogames anyway, so who cares.
The other reason I got the worst ending was because I didn't clear at least 80% of the hauntings in my room. But was it my fault that there weren't enough Holy Candles in the game? No. And was it my fault that I didn't know you could also clear the hauntings using Sacred Medallions? No. I thought they were only for warding off those annoying ghosts (because you couldn't kill the damn things). Anyway, the hauntings were definitely one of the coolest and scariest parts of the game. I experienced the following hauntings:
+ Big evil-looking cracks in the wall that started moving when you got close to them along with a scary sound;
+ Walking back into the living room to find the windows rattling like crazy, opening a quarter way and closing again real fast. Very scary;
+ Hearing the TV blasting loud static and walking near it to see horrifying indistinct faces trying to come out of the screen;
+ Seeing bloody footprints in the kitchen made by the slippers that were always next to the front door, the slippers now in the middle of the kitchen floor and when I got near them the screen flashed red and I started taking damage (you take damage if you move too close to these *hauntings*);
+ Waking up in my bedroom to hear a young boy sobbing, and seeing a silhouette of that young boy in the closet;
+ Hearing a surging sound from the kitchen and walking up to find the kitchen sink tap pouring a constant jet of blood;
+ Hideous purple baby faces coming out of the wall in the living room, making horrible wailing and sobbing sounds;
+ The wall clock hands spinning fast.

In conclusion, Silent Hill 4 was very good although not as good as Silent Hill 2 where James Sunderland got a letter from his wife who died three years ago. If you want to play a Silent Hill game, that's the one you want to play first.

Girls Gone Wild

from The Onion (www.theonion.com):

Girls Gone Wild Released Back Into Civilization



SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TX — In what wildlifestyle reformation volunteers are calling a "positive step," the first group of rehabilitated Girls Gone Wild were released back into the civilized world Monday, and early signs indicate that they are adjusting smoothly, according to the director of the group responsible for their rescue.

Two Girls Gone Wild in their natural habitat, just before capture at the height of molting season.
"At first, the girls were disoriented," said Janet Ottley, director of the South Padre Island Wild Life Rescue Foundation. "They were frightened by the absence of familiar comforts such as overt male attention, binge drinking, and camcorders. But over time, we've seen improvement: so far, no reports of nipple exposure, so we're very hopeful."

The 11 girls were captured nearly one month ago during their annual spring migration to the area and then put through an intensive rehabilitation program. "They have come a very long way," Ottley said. "When we first brought them into our clinic, they could barely function beyond baring their breasts, and they communicated solely through loud, sustained hoots."

As their subspecies does every year, the Girls Gone Wild, roaming in packs, flocked to bars and clubs during the spring break migratory season. Lured by drink specials, promotional merchandise, and the chance to "go wild," they were discovered at Señor Chug Chug's, a nightspot where the girls gathered to perform a mating ritual in which brief nudity is exchanged for Jell-O shots and Smirnoff Ice trucker hats.

Rescue volunteers identified the Girls Gone Wild by their torn tank tops, threadbare Daisy Duke-style cutoff shorts, hair extension plumage, and bright orange skin with patterned lower-back markings.

Park ranger Jeff Macken, who assisted in the rescue effort, said they attracted the girls with bright lights similar to those of camera crews. "We had planned to catch them with a net, then sedate them," Macken said. "But we found that shooting them with tranquilizer darts was not as effective as taking a page from nature and putting Rohypnol in their exotic drinks."

The girls were put through an intensive recovery program and, over several weeks, slowly phased back into civilized behavior. Trainers gently conditioned them not only to reduce breast baring, but also to shower alone instead of in pairs or threesomes, and to drink from glasses rather than from each other's navels.

Captured Girls Gone Wild in a simulated classroom setting, where tracking collars that emit a slight shock are used to curb the girls' instinct to jump up on desks and remove their tops.
Despite the girls' early positive response, Ottley said that there is still a risk that they could revert to their wild state, so she continued to severely restrict their exposure to the outside world. "Any proximity to a D-list celebrity, a song by Poison, or a neon beer bong could set reintegration back to square one," Ottley said.

In later stages, long-sleeved shirts and full-bottomed panties were reintroduced into their wardrobes. Finally, they were taught to engage in basic economic exchanges, rather than breast-jiggling for plastic beads.

Critics of the program argue that girls, after they've gone wild, can never function at the same level as girls who remain tame, and, once reintroduced into society, pose a threat to non-wild girls.

"Let's face it, they were in the wild too long," said Fort Lauderdale car-show organizer Daryl Dykstra. "At best, they might become spokesmodels, but only through hard work and constant validation." Dykstra reluctantly conceded that they might have some use as Hooters waitresses or tanning-salon clerks.

Ottley disagreed, saying that Girls Gone Wild are "entirely capable" of rejoining society.

"They will be tagged with radio-equipped belly-button rings to alert us of any sign of G-strings or wet T-shirts," Ottley said. "Continual monitoring is essential, because you never really know just how wild these girls could get."

Lost In The Fog

Why is it so hard to think of something to write? Do you ever find it hard to think of something to write? It occurs to me that when you run into times like these, you can look back on stuff you did manage to write, and wonder at it, knowing you wrote it and that nobody else could have written it, but at the same time feeling that somebody else did write it, after all, because it seems to have been written by somebody who had ideas. It's depressing to have no ideas. Or, to have ideas, but when they are written down they don't seem like very good ones. It's depressing to have not very good ideas of things to write about.
I keep hitting the keys, hoping to come up with something. There must be some kind of chance I will come up with something, so I try again, but when I look back at it, I'm disappointed. It's not a good feeling, disappointment. It feels bad to be disappointed. Disappointment is a negative feeling. Despair is another negative feeling. In fact, despair could definitely be said to be even worse than disappointment. I'm sure of that. Well, at least I'm sure of something. It feels good to be sure of something...

Hard Quest?

Well, I'd better finish Silent Hill 4 this weekend because next week Dragon Quest VIII is released in Australia (we get everything late here - it came out in North America last November). I pre-ordered this game about three months ago. It's a big deal, this game. Why is it a big deal? Well, it's the first Dragon Quest game to be released in the West. In Japan it's a National Treasure and whenever a new Dragon Quest game comes out, there are lines of people going around the block three or four times, queueing up to get a copy. Every new DQ sells around 250 million copies [may be a slight exaggeration].
But let me tell you something. I am now apprehensive about this game! Apprehensive, I say!
OK, allow me to set the scene... I recently saw the first episode of the Hare + Guu anime and the first scene was very funny. There was a kid playing a video game, sweating like crazy. The game was an RPG and his team were getting totally hammered by a big green dragon Boss. His three team members ran up to the dragon and tap-tap-tapped it with their little swords, causing 5 Hit Points damage, then the dragon unleashed a napalm-like blast of screen-filling fire at them, causing 500 Hit Points damage to the entire party, killing one of them. The surviving two of the party ran up to the dragon and tap-tap-tapped it once more, inflicting a (not) awesome 3 Hit Points damage, then ran back again only to feel the mighty force of the dragon's wrath, a bone-rattling swipe of its mighty tail, and 500 Hit Points, thus eliminating another member of the brave party. The camera switches to the kid playing, now sweating more than ever.
Well, when I saw this I thought it was very funny. Anybody who has played an RPG would find it funny. But what I didn't know, but later learned, was that this scene was based on a real game - Dragon Quest VIII. Apparently, the game is HARD, man. The game has been called a "traditional style RPG", and I'm not exactly sure what that means, since I don't think I've ever played a "traditional style RPG", but maybe that simply means that it is HARD AS HELL. What does that mean? Maybe that means that you can't spend an extra hour or two running around fighting random battles to level-up enough to beat the Boss easily. Maybe that means there is NO WAY to beat the Bosses easily. Indeed, it could mean that the game is so damned HARD that a non-HARDcore player like myself may end up smashing the controller into millions of tiny pieces long before he gets the chance to see the rest of this *totally awesome* game.
But, I really hope not.
Oh well. I'll find out next week, and make a report SUBSEQUENTLY.

Frozen: The Endless Saga

Q: How can you tell that you still have writer's block?
A: It takes you one hour to come up with a handful of sentences in reply to two people who made comments in your blog.

Bathroom Hole

You are in your room and it's late at night. You hear weird scraping sounds coming from your bathroom. You live alone, so there's not supposed to be anybody in your bathroom, much less somebody making weird scraping sounds. What the hell is it? You feel the skin on your scalp tighten and hear a low buzzing in your ears. The bathroom door is closed and you take a hesitant step toward it. The sounds get louder. They are definitely coming from your bathroom. There's somebody in there, somebody who shouldn't be there. You don't seem to be in control of yourself any more as you take the final step to the bathroom door and shove it open. There's nobody in there after all. But there's a big, roughly made hole in the wall, just large enough for a body to crawl through. And from its depths you hear the echoes of a woman sobbing.