The Post X-Mas Euphoria.

Ya know, for all the gripping and bemoaning I do every year about X-Mas and the X-Mas season, I usually end up having a decent holiday.

This year was uber-laid back. X-Mas Eve I went over to my sister's (Dizzy Lizzy's) place where me, my Bro-In-Law, my mom and sister had a nice dinner and then opened gifts. I scored some cigars and the three movies I asked for on DVD. I also got some money sent to me from Dad and I've already used it buying Saints Row 2 today. I haven't played it yet as I'm still rockin' through Fallout 3. I'm finding that F3 is slightly more limited than Oblivion and may be done with it soon.

I did take a break from F3 recently and barrelled through Halo 3. It was the first time I played through it. I found the action and environments the highlight of the game. But the single player campaign was a little on the quick side compared to its two predecessors. I'm glad I borrowed it and didn't rent it or buy it. I think the developers, Bungie, are getting a little too obsessed with the on-line, multi player modes of the game over the single player experience. Still, I found it really challenging and entertaining. Just wish it was longer.

Then on X-Mas we went over to our cousins' place. Their house was featured in a local magazine on how well they decorate their home during the holidays. There was good company and at the end of the evening I took on my cousin's little boy, Danny, in a game of Wii Batman Legos and got my ass handed to me on a silver platter.

I do have a bunch of geekified movie reviews coming up sooner or later. I just have to go over what I've seen and get my thoughts together.

I hope you all had some form of decent X-Mas celebration!

Short and sweet, this blog is (Zangz says in his best Yoda imitation).

Until next time, stay vertical!

Zangz.

Snow-ocalypse!!!!!!!!

There are twelve inches of cold, white death on the ground jam packed and encased in my hometown right now. The first really big snow storm of the season has fallen, and it will be followed by two more this same weekend! This is just the beginning. We have at least 5 more months of these kind of Mother Nature blessings to look forward to.

On my way up one, busy, city street on my way home from work I saw a slew of parking police jeeps, up and down the avenue, with their meter maid's ticketing any car that are parked, or stuck, on the curb. Merry X-Mas! Those that weren't being ticketed were being towed away into overly expensive oblivion.

I wish I had the money, brains and gumption to be able to pack up and head out to someplace with a warmer climate. Austin? Atlanta? Phoenix? Great cities in better climates, all of them. Sadly, they are void of the "Three F's" that keep me here in Milwaukee. Family. Friends. Fall. (The season. Not plummeting to the ground).

I know what's going through your heads right now, "But, Zangz, the Holidays are right around the corner. Surely that's worth a little anticipation and happiness?"

And I answer, "Nope. Though X-Mas is next week, these times before and after it are filled with turmoil and stress for your grand, geek hero... Zangz."

I'm not going into detail, but I can easily say that this is the 3rd worst X-Mas I've ever had. The first one was when my grandmother died of intestinal cancer one week before X-Mas. The second one was when I found myself unemployed right after Thanksgiving due to the usual culprit of corporate greed/ineptitude.

I'm not going to get deeply into why this is the 3rd worst X-Mas I've ever had, but stress has a frack of a lot to do with it!. And I've learned a few hard lessons this season. 1) There's no way you can please everybody all of the time, so stop trying to! 2) Realize that God made Zangz VERY, VERY, flawed and cursed. So much so that Zangz needs to double check, triple check, and quadruple check everything he does. Even if time doesn't permit it. 3) God hates Zangz!

This X-Mas I'm in a perpetual state of self loathing and pure, unadulterated stress. And today's events didn't help matters at all. In fact they tossed them into an abyss of pure nastiness. "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men" my behind!!!!

I hear you. "But, Zangz, aren't there any blessing that have come during this season? Aren't there any signs of hope?"

Actually there are two and their names are Emma and Melody. My best bud, Goof and his wife, Gayle, welcomed their twin daughters into the world this week. Kudos for them! Now the kids' older brother, Harrison, will have a handful to deal with. Hopefully that can be remedied with Goof buying Harrison boat loads of action figures as he grows older.


In other stuff.....

I finished off the first season of Pushing Daisies. The first couple of episodes had me hooked, but, sadly, I kind of got bored with it after a while. There's only so much of cutiness I can take. The show follows a pie maker who has the ability to raise the dead for only a short period of time. If they are resurrected more that a minute, something/someone else has to die in their place. He helps a local private eye solve crimes. If Tim Burton and Dr. Seuss got together to develop a crime thriller, this is what they would come up with. It's fun and different, but after a couple of episodes it gets kind of old. The characters are endearing (especially Olive. yummm). But, it's the same thing over and over and over again. I've heard that it has been cancelled already after a season and a half. Kinda sad, but understandable.


I've taken a break from Fallout 3 to finally play Halo 3. I've borrowed it from my very good friend, Roberto Del Amorte, and am finding it quite action packed and challenging with lots of great visuals to boot.


I've got nothin' else to blab on about today. So, if I don't pop up another post before X-Mas, I truly want all of you to have a far better holiday than I'm currently having.

And if you're wondering why I refer to Christmas as X-Mas... If you read my blog and have bad eyesight it looks like I'm talking about the X-Men rather than X-Mas. And the X-Men are far cooler than X-Mas, aren't they?

Until next time, as a very wise man once said, stay vertical!

Zangz is outta da hizzouzz.

And the darkness of a cold, black holiday season decsends....

I remember when I was a kid and I'd be really excited about the winter and holidays. I remember loving to go outside in the late afternoon before dinner and jump around in the huge snow banks as darkness fell. I would pretend I was an astronaut on the moon or some other strange planet.

I loved frosting cookies with my mom and decorating the tree and house in preparation of Santa arriving on X-Mas eve to bring me my Kenner Star Wars Death Star Tower, or my G.I. Joe Action Team Headquarters or my Atari 2600. I loved staying up late on New Years Eve to see the ball drop (insert your own puberty joke here______________.)

Outside of the material crap that X-Mas provided (Did I forget to mention the Six Million Dollar Man action figure or the Lone Ranger action figure or the Big Jim action figure I got several X-Mas' past?) there really was a sort of mysterious magic about the holidays. There was an energy that you could almost taste. Perhaps it was the two weeks off we got when school went into it's winter vacation period? Or maybe it was all the toys and treats that we were smothered with during the season.

One thing that I really loved on X-Mas eve, outside ot the presents, was that my family was all together on one evening. Mom, Dad, Sis, Grandma and Grandpa. We'd drink eggnog and chow down on cookies and open presents together.

X-Mas has certainly changed since childhood. Grandma and Grandpa are long gone. Mom and Dad are divorced. That enchanting, white planet that I used to romp around on is now nothing but dirty slush I have to shovel up and avoid slipping on. The air is bitter, cold feeling I don't remember having to deal with during childhood. Or maybe I just didn't care. Who knows. I don't see myself getting the Star Wars G.I. Joe Action Death Tower I got when I was a child this year.

Instead, I get to deal with cognitively challenged drivers who go 20 mph under the speed limit when there's an inch of snow, obnoxious yuppie shoppers and an economy that expects us to spend-spend-spend when none of us have anything to spend in the first place thanks a bunch to greedy CEOs of Fortune 500 companies that can STILL afford to get their spoiled brats animatronic dinosaurs for X-Mas.

Plop on top of all that the comfort and joy that has "blessed" us over the last couple of weeks. We've been hit with two huge snow falls this winter, the death of Forrey J. Ackerman AND Bettie Page, I've learned that two close friends of our family have cancer (one isn't going to make it and one caught it early enough) and you get a full tilt crapolla holiday season.

Here's hoping that some of you actually get to rediscover that magic of the season, and those of us that can't can at least tolerate the holidays.


On to more nicer subjects....

I've been renting TV shows I've missed like a mad man. I finished off Torchwood season 2 (goodbye Tosh and Owen. You shall be missed!), went though season 2 of Dexter (Goodbye Doakes. You were a D*&#$@ B!@%. You will not be missed.). And will start Pushing Daisies this weekend. Down the pike I have all of the original 1980's BBC shows of Robin Hood to check out. I loved that show when they would show it on public TV in the late '80's and early '90's. We'll see if it still holds up in my appreciation of it today.


I'm really rockin' through Fallout 3. This is a deep, dense, dark game that I really love so far. I do have a few complaints about it and can't say it is up to quite the standards of Morrowind or Oblivion (it's predecessors from the same production company). But it is till one of the best games I've ever played! Please check it out for your totally imearsive, open world, post apocalyptic, video game, role playing extravaganza! Once I've done pretty much all you can do in the game, I'll give a full review of it. Highlight for spoiler....

My understanding is, that you don't want to really go full force through the game with only the main quest. Start the main quest when you begin the game, then go out and explore the world, do a lot of the sub-quests and once you've found everything in the world, then go and complete the main quest. Otherwise you're going to miss out on an awful lot the first time around!


What am I listening to right this very second as I type this? Well, I'm going a bit old school and listening to Social Distortion, "Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell" It's hard to believe that this was released 16 years ago. It stands up to today's standards as a great Rock 'N' Roll album! Don't tell me that you can't listen to "When She Begins" without rockin' out just a little bit.

Okay, I'm gunna check out the first season of Pushing Daisies. Hope it doesn't suck as much as this holiday season.

Bah friggin' Humbug, mutha trucka's!

Goodnight sweet Betty, we'll miss you dearly.

Zangz.

Nooooooo!

Say it ain't so!

More proof that god does not exist.

Zangz.