Author: larzini

Does Dr. Manny have all the answers?

What is the correlation between Dr. Manny Alvarez readers and their fascination/concern for the Year 2012? If you look at the book descriptions for these 2012 books, you'll see that the Weather Channel (and FEMA) will be quite busy that year.
2012. Not to be confused with 2112, that's a Rush album.
What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy?

Midway at the Mall

I was picking up the kids' Christmas pictures (aka our Christmas cards) at JCPenney the other day, when I came across the Midway Arcade. The baby fell asleep in the stroller, and this arcade machine intrigued me more than shopping for Christmas presents. (Giving is cool, it's the shopping part that can be a nuisance.) Anyway the last player had been playing Defender, so I tried that out first. The controls were stiff, but the old games are much better played with a joystick than with your corporate-issue Sony Playstation controller. I tried Wizard of Wor next. I hadn't played that one since my Atari 800XL days, so that was a real treat, untril I got treated to a beat down after about three levels. Nowhere near “The Arena” (level 8), but they say those reflexes slow down with age, so I guess its downhill after age 11.

Scrolling through the selection screens I found something named Timber. I had never heard of this game before so I gave it a shot. You have X amount of time to chop down X amount of trees without them falling on you or getting hit with beehives hurled horizontally by an angry bear. Perhaps this was some sort of environmental statement against the logging industry when it was released. I have to admit it was kind of fun, a gave that game a couple plays, before moving on to Sinistar.

I know Sinistar has a strong following. All I remember in my arcade days was hearing taunt of Sinistar while I was busy with Galaga or something else. I don't know why the machine never piqued my interest, but I'm not ashamed to admit it. Needless to say I was not very good at it. Mining for crystals didn't get me too far before ol' Skullface reared his ugly head and put the kabosh on my futile efforts.

In addition to Wizard of Wor, Defender, Timber, and Sinistar, the Midway Arcade also includes Robotron, Joust, Root Beer Tapper, Rampage, Satan's Hollow, Bubbles, Splat!, and Defender II. For $379 (currently on sale, regularly $499), not such a bad buy. Personally I'd rather have a pinball machine, if I'm going to have a furniture sized piece of arcade hardware, but the price does not seem too bad.

Now I know I'm bigger now than when I was eleven, but I'm sure this has a smaller screen than the typical arcade game, and the placement of the screen was quite low. I would have preferred something with a more upright picture like Centipede, as would my neck if I was to put in the hours like I once did. A coin slot would be nice, too, then I could put it in the waiting room of my business, and have it pay itself off.

This post may or may not also appear at Armchair Arcade. Actually, right now it does under all blogs. Oh no, it looks like I have another blog.

Do you GYAKUSHU!?

Perhaps I do.

I sudoku.

Amazing Joy Buzzards was good fun. This new project from Dan Hipp may be as well. It looks less on the fun tip, and more on the good, if you know what I mean. If you don't, then you don't, that's fine, sometimes I don't know what I mean either. Look no further than the filing cabinet post.

Does it make any sense to trackback your own posts? I do it, when I link to myself. Does it matter? I don't know for sure.

Filing cabinet

I threw away a metal filing cabinet today.

It wasn't a real good filing cabinet, but a filing cabinet nonetheless.

I took a picture, but I won't post it.

I'd like to leave the cabinet with some dignity.

I left it at the dumpster near the clubhouse at the Harbour Club in Sayreville, NJ.

It may still be there if you have a need for a filing cabinet.

A metal filing cabinet, that is still somewhat serviceable, but clearly not spectacular.

In case there is another metal filing cabinet in the dumpster, please note that my metal filing cabinet has a large WFMU sticker on it.

But if the other metal filing cabinet in the dumpster seems better, I think you should take that one.

I don't typically write about metal filing cabinets, but it just felt right.

So I did.

I could have written about something else.

But I didn't.

Two-Timing Blogger.

I'm not as attentive to your needs as I used to be. I hardly talk anymore. Your suspicions are correct.

I'm blogging elsewhere. This time as paid blogger, or is the term “pro blogger”? I don't know. I'm not sure it matters. There's a part of me that believes I can maintain this blog, and still post elsewhere. There's a part of that won't admit that it doesn't, although I'll admit that the part of me that believes I can is a much bigger part. Let's call that part my lungs, versus the non-believing part my appendix. Although since I never said these were physical body parts, let's pull a 180° and not call them anything.

I'll come clean. I've been posting on a regular to semi-regular basis at askdrmanny.com. There's should hopefully be enough of a trace of my style that you'll figure out which articles are mine. Typically I write about nutrition and alternative health items that appear in the news. My angle is that I' just like anyone else trying to sift through the information out there to make health decisions for myself and my family. I'm not an authoritarian, but someone that makes gradual changes to improve health.

I will still eat cheeseburgers, but not as often. Dessert…sometimes, yes; but not all the time. Vitamins, supplements and other healthy foods will be added to my diet to improve my overall well-being.

I don't think I actually say this anywhere on the other blog, maybe I should, but that's my angle. It's easy for doctors or nutrition and fitness gurus to tell somebody to flip a switch and change their entire diet immediately, but I don't think that's realistic with all people, and may often send people right back to where they started that much quicker. And two, if you change your diet to all organic products and purchase every vitamin mineral, and herbal supplement on the market, you'll find that last week's paycheck has disappeared that much quicker.

Anyway that's where I've been. That explains the sneaking around, the long silences, the detachment. Tell me we can still make this work.

The Misfats

What the world needs now,

is an overweight,

Misfits tribute band,

like I need a post on my blog.*

I see. I chuckle. I link. The Misfats.

Waddle among them.

They fill the void. Literally. The world needed an overweight Misfits tribute band.

* Did this post need a Cracker reference? Not sure, but I started humming the tune as I wrote this. (Scroll down, the link worked at posting time.)

Toys “R” Us Bullies Rockstar Games

I've been to 2 Toys “R” Us stores and neither has had a copy of Bully, or even the marker on the shelf for it. The salesperson had no information on it. I see Toys “R” Us has no shortage of games receiving the Mature rating with the shelves lined with Scarface, Yakuza, Black and a few more. Perhaps it's the controversy over the Teen rating when many feel it should be labeled Mature. (Immature would be more like it what with the wedgies and firecrackers in the toilet type shenanigans.) Or maybe its the alternative lifestyle possibilities that Joystiq recently commented on.

Does Toys “R” Us carry this game?

Bleary-eyed Bully

'm glad I posted on the blog and then did some other work before playing Bully. Suffice to say there was not much sleep. The game is a lot of fun. Similar to Grand Theft Auto in many ways, yet a different game. Rockstar's imprint is all over this thing, from the top notch writing, interesting mini games, open game play, etc. Where you had Uzis, rocket launchers with GTA, Bully's got stinkbombs and slingshots. GTA had its rival gangs, Bully's got its rival cliques. In GTA, the cops chased you when you shot, maimed, and ran over people. In Bully, the prefects come after you for truancy, trespassing, breaking into lockers, and mmissing curfews.

If I have any willpower, I will sleep tonight. And I do wanna sleep, but maybe after just one more mission.