SCANDAL!

I had the boys from work over to my house this past Saturday for a little night of gaming. A couple of us all own EA Sports' Fight Night Round 2, and we had all been talking shit to each other about how so-and-so was going to beat so-and-so. Well, Saturday night came around and it was time to settle all the grudge matches. The main one that was brewing was between myself and my friend Jason. He and his wife (sorry Christy; I swear they'll be more girls here next time so you won't be bored) showed up about midway through the night and it was time to fight. Up until Jason had arrived, we had already had a pretty fun time fighting each other in Soulcalibur II and then we had decided to start Fight Night. I had already decimated most of my opponents in Fight Night until the time Jason arrived; in fact, so complete was the destruction of my opponents that they usually resorted to DQ'ing themselves in the fight to avoid any more public humiliation.

But now Jason was here. It was time to prove who is the best. At first, Jason was having trouble fighting me like all the rest. In his defense, he was using a pre-made character versus my created character who I had built up through the career mode. Translation: my character is stronger overall than the one he was using. Also, he was playing on the opposite side from what he is used to. For those of you who might not understand this, in Fight Night (and in some other games) the first player is always oriented on the left-side of the screen no matter how much you move the character around. So, some people get used to this and have trouble when they have to play the second-player side which would always be oriented on the right. So being the benevolent gaming god that I am, I offered Jason a chance at redemption by allowing him to choose a more even character and letting him play as the first-player. Now, you would think that my benevolence would be rewarded with a good, clean fight. Nay, good sir/madam. You would be wrong!

Somehow, Jason paid off the virtual referee! We were in the middle of a classic heavyweight fight, going 10 rounds strong! I will easily admit that Jason was hurting me with brutal haymakers, but I was landing a lot more shots on Jason each round. Though mine were weaker, the fact that I was hitting a larger percentage and amount of hits was winning me rounds with the judges. Then sometime in the middle of the 10th round, the ref stops the fight! WTF?!? What gives you the audacity to stop this match?! Bah, so what if I can't see out of one eye? I still have one good eye! And I was winning on two of the three judges cards, and was set to win by decision after the 12th round! This treasonous attempt to usurp my throne by Jason will not go unchallenged! I was never knocked out, and I will never acknowledge any win that Jason might claim he has! He paid off the ref to save him, because he knew he was never going to win this fight!

Rest in Peace, Red Dog ...

A couple of weeks ago, I was alerted to some horrible news. The Red Dog Bar & Grill had closed. A friend of mine from work, who also was the person to introduce me to this wonderful place, told me.

X, rotfiend and I have all gone there many times, and we got to know some of the people who had worked there. It was a fun place, with a rustic look and damn good music coming from the jukebox. Kinda small, but there was a deck out front that could accomadate quite a lot of people. Parking was shitty, but then we always parked next door in the shopping plaza anyway. The food was always great and they had a good selection of beer on tap and in bottles (who can go wrong with some Shinerbock). A lot of times, X and I would meet up there after a long day at work on a Thursday and just relax, roll some bones, and drink until we had to meet some friends later on in the evening. Oh, and did I mention that Thursday nights were Theme Nights. I don't really know how it started, and I don't really care. All I know is that I liked it! The women all seemed to enjoy it, and I'm sure their tips over the course of a Thursday evening got to be pretty nice. The bar also got a pretty good amount of people regularly coming in. It was located near Macdill Airforce base, so a lot of military came. I have personally seen players from the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Red Dog, including Vincent Lecavalier and Dave Andreychuk. When they won Lord Stanley's Cup, they even brought it there. Shit, we enjoyed going there so much that myself and two others were plotting to buy the place. Be much more fun than what we do now, that's for sure. Unfortunately, that's all over now.

I can't say it came as much of a surprise when I heard that the Red Dog was gone. Their website (luckily archived by the Wayback Machine) had been unreachable for quite a few months. From what I understand, near the end you could go there and ask for a certain beer only to be told that they didn't have any. How can a bar not have shit like Bud Light?

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Have to pick a new watering hole, I reckon. As X likes to say, I hate to watch you go, Red Dog, but I love to watch you leave.

*^@G$!

I am simply going to stop mentioning how I intend to finish this, or do that, and just fucking write.

OK, took two tests in the past week that were linked off this journal of sorts that I read now. A friend of mine from work showed this site to me after I got back from Japan, and quite frankly it is awesome. I cannot say I witnessed any of the things that Azrael mentions in his posts (except for the hidden trash can in Kyoto; wtf is up with that?), but reading about his experience kind of makes me want to go back. If you are interested in a little read, go to I am a Japanese School Teacher.

As for the tests, here were my results.

Pretty good You are 64% smarty pants!

Good work! There's more for you to learn, but you have a very good foundation to build on. You definitely have an above average level of knowledge. Also check out The Academically Hardcore Test.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 24% on Knowledge

Link: The Understand Stuff Around You Test written by backatcha on Ok Cupid

Softcore You scored 24 gunnerness!

You're a laid back student. This doesn't mean that you don't care about school, but you don't let yourself become consumed with a test or assignment, and a bad test score won't get you down. You wonder if those who work harder are actually happy with their lives or are just trying to please someone else in their lives. There are better ways to spend your time than stressing out over school. It's important to have a life outside of class. After all, that's where the real education is to be had. Also check out The Understand Stuff Around You Test.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 40% on gunnerness

Link: The Academically Hardcore Test written by backatcha on Ok Cupid