What's this? It Smells Like... Positivity!

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that while I'm certainly prone to being an ornery motherfucker, it's certainly not the only facet of my being. I am capable on occasion of being amused, pleased, perhaps even elated should something strike me in such a manner. So today there'll be something different on the menu. Instead of compiling yet another list of things that annoy me (midterms, studying, midterms, reading, midterms), here now, are things that I'm pleased with most recently.

-Fallout 3 - I just got this last night at midnight, and considering I had an early-ish class today and scant breaks, have still logged over 5 or so hours of play in every odd moment I've had enough time for the xbox to boot up. Now, I wasn't gaming back when fallouts 1 and 2 were big, and while I've been slowly working on fallout 2 here and there, I feel like some things you just miss out on if you don't get to enjoy it in its original context (I didn't even have a computer that ran windows until about 1998. Running reader rabbit would have strained the machines I grew up with). Anyway, I'm in no way qualified to comment on how this game stands out in the series, but it's good enough that my impending midterm on Thursday has me legitimately pissed that either the test or the game couldn't have come a week later. If something gets its claws into me that quickly, I think it deserves a mention.

-Shogun by Trivium - The last album from these guys sowed the first seeds of doubt in my mind about the future of heavy music. They went from being easily one of my top 5 favorite bands in late high school to simply falling back into the rank and file of faceless metalcore acts. Suffice to say, I didn't care much when they released a new album, but because I am a torrent-whore, I downloaded it anyway. Now, ascendancy, this certainly ain't, but here is what has re-sold me on the band: They admitted that The Crusade was a piece of shit. They might not have used those words, but they talked about how they created a record that couldn't resonate with the fans, and when you factor out the PR spin, then yeah, they just admitted their last record was shit. And yet Metallica still defends creating that abortion that was St. Anger.

-Play n' Trade - For all of you NYC gamers out there, this place is a gem. It is a diamond in a sea of gamestop turds. This is motherfucking Mecca. The store is located on 13th street between 3rd and 4th avenue, and after checking out their various services, I see no reason to ever patronize a Gamestop again. First off, their buyback prices can't be beat. I traded in Too Human, Final Fantasy III, and Sonic Rush Adventure and got two new copies of No More Heroes and Contra IV (somewhere around 50$ worth of stuff) and only went 75 cents over on my trade-in credit. Had I gone to gamestop, I probably wouldn't have even been able to get Contra. Secondly, they are friendly as hell. I went there at midnight to pick up my pre-order for Fallout yesterday (today?) and started talking to one of their employees about old school PS2's (the fat ones), Penny Arcade, and upcoming releases we were excited about. When midnight rolled around and he was allowed to sell me my game, he threw in a free skin for my PS2 because I was the first one to show up that night and offered to let me upgrade to the collector's edition of Fallout even though I had preordered the standard. Had I gone to gamestop, they simply would have asked if I would like to preorder anything else before forgetting I was there so they could rob someone else. I mean, I could extoll the virtues of this place ad nauseam, and I encourage anyone looking to make console related purchases (they don't sell PC stuff unfortunately) to check them out, because they deserve the business more than gestappostop (to steal a line from dueling analogs) ever will.

Wow, I think I'm gonna die from all of these sunbeams and puppy dog smiles coming out of my ass.