Elliot! If you read this before school, can I borrow your Chem 121 book next year? Later!

I assume that after a disturbed post I should follow with a sane one; for my sake as much as yours, I assure you. 

So, SH3 was one fucking grandtrain of a game.  I was so impressed with the sheer amount of continuity that the creators were able to weave into the game that it was almost impossible to fault it for the slightly over-the-top theatrics and its somewhat preachy tone towards the end of the game.  I'm only going to say this once: PLAY THE FIRST GAME BEFORE YOU PLAY THIS ONE!  That means everybody.  I don't care how fuckin' cool you are, or how much "this plot analysis r0X0rs", you have to play the first game to really appreciate the amazing number of references and thematic elements that are brought up in both games.

This is gaming on the verge of cinema, I kid you not.

And I, for one, am so happy that this is the current trend in videogaming as of late that I could shit myself.  One moment...let's now write "shat", shall we?

What we have here is a game that manages to take some of the most obscure rabbinic texts regarding the Fall and make them accessible (and even digestable) to the modern reader, through one helluva job at research.  Not only that, but the cult (they hesitate to call it a religion in the game, as I will too) actually undergoes change between the world of Silent Hill's 1 and 3. 

Some may argue that this was done by RPG's years ago (most notably the epic FF7), but to SH3's enormous credit, they have a much smaller span of time in which they are allowed to create and maintain their world.  Very few people are able to slouch through a mammoth RPG like Xenogears--imagine if a gamer were asked to make an 80-hour committment to a Resident Evil game...doesn't bode well for the poor zombie-hunter, does it? 

However, in about 6 hours (first playthrough), I was introduced to an entire heirarchy of angels and demons, as well as an entire host of characters that I actually cared about!  Keep in mind that this isn't FF7, in which I have 20 hours of dutiful puppy love invested into dear Aeris before she's skewered by Senor Jackass--I've been with these guys in a dank hellhole for about 5 hours, and they're getting a genuine reaction out of me.  What more can you ask for? 

The game's heroine vomiting out a fetus representing "God". 

Yeah.  The game has everything.  Peace!

"And the Sins of the Wicked Shall be Repaid A Thousand-Fold..."
 
Just finished Silent Hill 3 tonight, and I can't sleep.  It was that damn scary, I kid you not. 

As I go to the bathroom, phantasmagoric visions of jerkily-ambling monsters ripping aside the stall door and gleefully digging their razor-sharp claws into my flesh flood my mind.  I step back into the dormitory hall--relieved that there are no closed doors nearby awaiting the touch of my shuddering hand to open them--and I notice that the walls are slowly losing their normal, drab tan coloration.  Even their texture is morphing--like a vast field of mercury--in front of my eyes.

First they smoke.

Then they writhe.

Then, they bleed.

I grasp my head--realizing now that I'm sprawled across the floor of my room; I never left it to go to the bathroom--and I begin to tremble again. 

I hear a siren in the distance.  A scratching at the window.  I press my knees closer and closer into my chest, hoping eventually to crush myself, to rid myself of this gnawing fear and to dive deep within to a place where these horrifying images can no longer disturb my porcelain mind.  The glass on my window begins to crack and I realize that they won't leave me alone.

WHY WON'T THEY JUST LEAVE ME-----------

 

Several hours later the police find me in my room.  At least, what's left of me.  Various bits of my innards are strung across the ceiling in haphazard fashion, held up by some type of silken material that could only be described as a type of webbing.  The crime lab mockup of the 'webbing' finds that the material indeed was chemically similar to a spider's web, yet no spider was capable of producing a thread nearly five inches in diameter. 

No one can identify me.  There's not enough of me left.  The police search for teeth and find that the head has been removed.  Sad.  No one will cry for me.  They won't even know that I'm gone.  

I wake up again, drenched in a cold sweat.  I roll over to face the wall, ready to let sleep work its gentle magic upon me.  As I begin to give into sleep's sweet caress, I notice a faint sound at the window.  I close my eyes.  They do not open again.

Okay, people...brace yourselves.  This is one of the funniest things ever, but it requires a bit of backdrop.  You guys know that I work in the pornography lab, no?  Well, we've just finished running a group of couples (married), and are currently in the process of paying them. 
 
Just so happens that accounting is really slow on disbursing these funds, and so we've been getting a lot of emails about late checks.  However, none are nearly as funny as the following set of correspondences (be sure about who you're emailing when you click 'send', children!):
 
----------------------------------------------
Leslie Horny said:
 
Hi,
 
Sorry to be a bother, but we just wanted to check up with you about our final payment.  We finished the study on June 28th and have yet to receive the payment in the mail.  We realize that Dr. Chen was out of town during that week and then there was a holiday weekend, but we wanted to make sure that we were not forgotten.
 
Thanks, 
  
Leslie  and Ron Horny
----------------------------------------------
 
The Chen Lab wrote:
Denise just checked with the head of the Psychology dept
and apparently, accounting-wise, some things were backed
up, but the check was sent yesterday, so you should receive it sometime next week.  So sorry about the delay.
 
Thanks,
Lovely Laura :)
----------------------------------------------
 
Not funny yet...but wait!  In reply, this is what we received:
 
On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 10:54:30 -0700 (PDT), Leslie Horny 
<hornyme@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thanks, Laura.  Like I said, I didn't want to be
annoying or bothersome, but wanted to check with you
guys in case it had already been sent and it was lost
in the mail.  Thanks for checking on it for us!
 
---Leslie
 
And then, the mistake that would make Ron Jeremy blush:
 
----- Forwarded message from The Chen Lab -----
    Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 23:45:26 -0000
    From: The Chen Lab
Reply-To: The Chen Lab
 Subject: Fwd: Re: couple study - final payment
      To: laura@rice.edu
 
Forwarded From: Ron Horny <jackmeoff@jmo.net>
 
thanks for finding out about this, babe.  you didn't ask her if she
 wanted to play soccer with us some time.  and by soccer i mean in the
bed.  and by in the bed i mean on the field.  adidas. 
 
And so today was the one of the funniest days of my life, topped only by the time that I saw Jason attacking that poor large girl's feet at the Salsa Club.  You've got your own kind of style, Jason; don't ever lose it. 
 
Moral of the Story? 
 
If you want to have a threesome consisting of you, your bashful wife, and a slightly kinky college girl, then by all means, pursue it! 
 
Just don't fucking advertise.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Yo.  Just wanted to let you guys know that after a brief hiatus I'm now back.  Damn computer.

I think that the GA needs an overhaul for the beginning of the school year; let's start working on this shit now!

Hey, Jesse! If you wanna get a subscription on my computer I'd let you use it...just a thought.

Josh Vs. Austin (not his roommate; the city)

My groin hurts.

Bad.

And it's all Katie Stephens' fault.

But forgivable since Austin, as is usually recognized by the college crowd, is a pretty damn fine city. In case you guys wondered where the fuck I was, or why I did not participate in the discussions of disgusting movies (which is perhaps my most favorite of pastimes), this is what I did, where I was--the whole shebang(s).

Recap:

Friday

On Friday, Katie and Josh leave Houston approximately 5:15 after Katie visits an ungodly horror dragged up from the murky depths by Poseidon himself--the Houston area Tuna Festival. Many fish/merpeople were seen, and obscenely thick grilled tuna steaks were given to the ravenous crowd. Traffic remained light, funny roadtalk ensued, and revelations were given to those willing to accept them. Example:

Josh: Man...that period where Jesse liked you and wanted to go out with you--that was funny...

Katie: Jesse wanted to go out with me?

Josh: Uh, yeah. Jesse doesn't play Yahtzee! Board games have no controllers, no pretty particle effects, no hot, curvaceous, mace-wielding women! Of course he did!

Katie: I guess you're right.

We arrived around 9 o'clock to Dane's awesome house in the middle of Austin's hill country. Yes, before you ask, he has a pool and a giant second-story patio that both overlook the greenery below. Very cool! That night after a bit of melodrama with his little sister who can't go anywhere in Austin because of new, devilishly Draconian (couldn't avoid the alliteration--sorry) laws which essentially bump up age limits everywhere, we managed to go to Mozart's--a fairly cool little coffeehouse that had live blues players. Not too bad. It was a start. After that, though, we were all too tired and then proceeded to rent Mystic River, which we all managed to fall asleep in the middle of...

END OF DAY 1

Saturday

Woke up late and went to pick up Jason Siu at his apartment on Riverside (which is supposedly near campus, but on a busy day I couldn't even imagine how long it would take to make the commute--even on a huge, angry shuttle bus). This done, we headed downtown to eat and then made our way toward Pace Bend Park.

Aside: Pace Bend Park is quite possibly the coolest place I've ever been in my life. Reason? Certainly not the fact that it's a cool park...no, it's a little above average. But, the town directly before arriving at Pace Bend is named "Bee Caves". BEE CAVES! If that isn't the greatest name you've ever heard then I'm really sorry for you, because it is. You just don't know it.

Pace Bend was a lot of fun; Dane joined Jason, Katie and I later, around dinnertime (which was provided, in part, by these cool rednecky people next to us whose son was going to Iraq next week--poor guy...Vote Kerry!) Anyway, we played around there, scurrying from rock to rock like fruity little river nymphs until we got tired of it, and then went to a barbecue place named "County Line" for dinner. Decent, if not a little overpriced. Then we went to Spiderman 2, which in my opinion was a good movie that got too much credit. Like our current president. It did some things right, but it was dragged so far down by the silly things and the inconsistencies that there's just better superhero movies out there to see (a la X-Men 2). After that, sleep. This time on an air mattress instead of a couch. Slight move upward in the grand scheme, but not much of one.

Sunday

Ah! Sunday morning and I'm feeling fresh and ready to take on the world. Good thing, too. Go to visit Dane for lunch near REI (Whole Foods), and then went to go biking around Austin. PROBLEM!

Katie only had one bike, and we consisted of Josh+Jason+Katies=3 people. Dane's parents, however, saved the day and provided us with two more bikes (although Jason's was inarguably fruity and 70's. Nice bike, just needed a paint job that wasn't pale blue with accents of electric yellow). The rest of the day was spent riding all around Austin: we rode all of UT and its environs, the capital, the river--you name it, we rode it. And so my crotch hurts so bad now that it's not even laughable. Laugh and I'll kick your ass. Strike that. I'll stumble toward you, swinging with one hand and holding my sack lovingly with the other. Eventually we met up with Dane once again and hit Zilker Park to see the fireworks along with 199,996 more predicted attendees. Yeah, it was crowded.

Problem was, the only real way to get there was to ride Municipal shuttles, of which there really weren't enough. This made for an interesting trip back. A bit of information before I tell you this next part: The shuttles come to pick you up underneath one of Austin's larger roadways--Loop 1, or "Mopac" as it's apparently called. The only way to get under Mopac and to the pickup area was to cross a ridiculously long, slender, sad little bridge, which 200,000 people were all attempting simultaneously. It was quite a sight, and I'm pretty sure this is what the Apocalypse will look like. Multitudes of people, humbly shuffling through dense fog in the dead of night, only to reach the blinding light at the end of the bridge in order to be judged by the Big Guy himself. Luckily I now know that there's plenty of time to repent--we went to see the show at 8:30 and didn't get back until 11:00.

Still had to take Jason home and then drop the bikes off at Dane's. Then Katie and I hit the road again. Sad, tired, and caked with a fine melange of sweat and sunscreen we headed off. Until...

Katie: Oh, my God...

Josh (groggily moving head and looking up): What?

Katie: Josh. We're in Bee Caves.

Josh: That means...

Both: We're going the wrong way!

Tires screech as car whips around; a hazy whirl of dust settles behind the car.


Eventually we made it all the way to Houston. When I woke up this morning (2 o'clock) it was raining.