Saturday, March 31, 2012

McFarlane's Cam Newton Figures

I can't even tell you the last time I bought a figure for myself, toys have been put on the backburner as the ones I'm into aren't exactly cheap, and out of all my vices they're the first that I'm willing to give up. Sure, I still order the occasional bust or statue, but as far as figures go, nothing in a good while. Enter this blog post from Jim Smash!!! yesterday. 


I dig Jim's blog quite a bit, from his comic rants to his insane mission to own as many copies of the Aliens novelization as humanly possible. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but I would eventually learn that Jim also shared my love for Auburn University. Yesterday he posted about McFarlane toys releasing Cam Newton figures soon, three of them to be exact (two Auburn and one Carolina Panthers), and despite the fact that I probably shouldn't have, I went ahead and pre-ordered mine. The McFarlane Sports Picks aren't readily available at many retailers down here, and the one or two places I've been able to find them aren't exactly local, more like an hour or so away. Add that to the fact that these are going to disappear from shelves quickly, and I didn't like my chances at finding one in store.


I only ordered one though, the Auburn blue home jersey version. It seems that the away white jersey is going to be a chase, and is already fetching an asking price of at least $75 from what I could find, and it doesn't even ship for another four months. Not particularly interested in the Carolina Panthers figure, although if I run up on it at Toys R Us or somewhere, I would likely grab it. But I'm not a Panthers fan, so I won't pre-order it or anything. 


Big thanks to Jim for drawing my attention to these figures though. Even at pre-order price, with shipping it was a bit more than I normally like to spend on a figure, but it will be worth it in the end I think. Can't wait to display him on my shelf. War Eagle!

Friday, March 30, 2012

Friday Night Drive-In


And shepherds we shall be, for Thee my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, our feet may swiftly carry out Thy commands. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be. In Nomine Patri, Et Fili, Et Spiritus Sancti.


Thursday, March 29, 2012

Infinite Playlist - Lullaby of the Crucified


Great song from Alesana off their newest record, A Place Where the Sun is Silent. What's more impressive though, is the video. Absolutely awesome, enjoy!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Gotham City Impostors Impostors

Yep, still severely addicted to Gotham City Impostors. So much so that I've officially played it on more days than games like Dead Island, Gears of War 3, any Call of Duty game, and even Battlefield 3, and I'm showing no signs of stopping any time soon. Seriously, this game owns my soul. Today I was looking around for some custom art and such for it, just to see if anybody else out there shared in my obsession, and while I didn't find much in the way of original art, I did find a contest that a website known as Destructoid ran. The contest tasked entrants to come up with a costume similar to the ones the characters in the game wear, some were good, most were lame, but I still thought I'd share some of my favorites here. The winner, by the way, won a copy of the game, and a system of their choice, along with some Gotham City Impostors swag. REALLY wishing I would've known about this contest....





These next two are of the winner, and I have to give him props, his costume was definitely the best of all the entries posted on the site. I'm not incredibly fond of the cowl he chose to recreate, but it's in the game and that doesn't change the fact that he did a hell of a job. 



This next one is my absolute favorite of anything I've seen so far. Apparently a group of people dressed up for the European release of the game and took to the streets of London in full GCI garb. The guy with the cardboard box mask looks fantastic, exactly as it looks in the game. Great picture too, I absolutely love this.


Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Phantom Prowler

Fright-Rags seems more determined than ever to make sure my new year's resolution to stop buying t-shirts is a fail of epic proportions. Speaking of epic, this is one of their latest designs, the Phantom Prowler. This is of course a nod to the best scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, in which comic book fan/artist "Mark" becomes his very own creations, The Phantom Prowler, in a dream sequence to battle Freddy. Check out the video!



Any questions as to why this is one of my all-time favorite Elm Street kills? Didn't think so. Here's the badass design Fright-Rags printed for their shirt, followed by another video. This one is actually the actor who played Mark in The Dream Child, Joe Seely sporting his brand new Phantom Prowler shirt. Too cool.


Friday, March 23, 2012

Thursday, March 22, 2012

That Just Happened.


That's right Daimio...Johann just went all "ZOMBIE MOOSE" on that ass.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Mister Bones vs Iron Maiden


No, not the British metal band from the 80's responsible for some of the greatest music of our generation, the Iron Maiden in question here is the final boss battle from Mister Grimm's campaign in the new Twisted Metal game. To say I had a bit of trouble with her would be putting it politely, this bitch straight up owned me the first several attempts I made at taking her down. For those of you who may not have gotten to her yet, and don't want things spoiled, you may want to stop reading this now, because I will be going into some detail about my experience with this portion of the game.

For those still with me, my disdain of racing games is well known, but despite that fact I am a sucker for vehicular combat games, particularly the Twisted Metal series, Black being my favorite to date. You take a collection of all types of cars, slap some machine guns and missiles on them, throw in a group of drivers, each with their own comic book/horror movie look and background, and I'm gonna be there with bells on every single time. Of course Sweet Tooth is and will always be my favorite, as should come as no surprise. For whatever reason I'm drawn to the homicidal ice cream man with the clown mask and eternally burning head. Unfortunately for this new game, you only get three characters in campaign mode, with each taking up 1/3 of it's entirety. Sweet Tooth's story is the first part of the campaign, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were a couple of tricky missions, but overall nothing too bad, and I was beginning to think that the reviewers who had  docked this new TM game for it's difficulty level may have just been bad at it. Not that I'm playing on "Twisted" difficulty or anything, I'm only going through on normal, but still.


After Sweet Tooth though, that's where you play as Mr. Grimm. Grimm is the dreadlocked, skull facepainted guy that rides the motorcycle and throws a chainsaw at the other cars as his special attack. On paper this sounds awesome, and it's just as awesome in game. Again, I tore through most of his campaign without much trouble....until I got to his boss battle, a fight that would put my patience with this game to the test in a big way. Let it be said that overall, I'm a pretty laid back, and easy going fellow. Sure, I've been known to let the occasional swear slip, and one time I threw a bag of skittles at a guy, but nothing on this Earth brings out my inner tourette's like a frustrating video game. I actually refer to it as my "situational tourette's", when I come across something in a game that is so cheap, so unfair, so infuriating that my mouth opens and what spews forth is a fury of cursing the likes of which this world has rarely seen. I've also lost several controllers over the years, most recently during a three game losing streak on NHL 10 in which my Thrashers were unable to overcome the goddamn New York Rangers three consecutive times. Anyway, back on topic, Iron Maiden for a person like myself pushes the frustration level into the red pretty quickly. It's a long fight, there are four different portions to it, and each has it's own different attack patterns and requirements to be met before you can move to the next. The following is a recounting of my first futile attempts to take her down before I ultimately triumphed in a glorious symphony of explosive victory.

Iron Maiden is actually the third campaign character Doll Face, only inside a gigantic flying mech of herself. Calypso, the madman behind Twisted Metal, informs you that he's added a little something to help boost your firepower as you're going to be needing it. What he means is he's added a military vehicle that fires nukes to the map (and feel free to mock my lack of knowledge of military vehicles as I have no idea what it's actually called). How to get the nuke to fire however, he gives you absolutely no instruction. So my first run didn't go very well needless to say. I rode around the vehicle shooting it, running into it, attempting to jump on it, pressing every button on the controller hoping something would happen, all the while getting pummeled by Iron Maiden's rockets, fireballs, and missiles, and getting hammered by the white limo's that were also attacking me. I had no idea what to do. This would go on for an attempt or three actually. Eventually I would notice the vehicle had a sign on the top of it that read "sacrifice to launch" and yes, it's a giant glowing sign, and how I missed it to begin with I will never know. Ok, so I have to kill something? How about those white limo's? Wait, one of them is red! Ok cool, blow up the red limo, I can do that.


So for the next few attempts, I immediately started going after the limo's, taking it to the red right off the bat. Blowing up a red limo drops a Doll Face character out on the road, calling her a "gang leader" or something like that. Running over her will attach a rope to her letting you drag her along behind you, and the "sacrifice" now makes sense to me, I have to drag her all the way back across the map to the missile launcher truck thingy. Awesome, I'm on it now. So I drag her back to the vehicle, and she's put up on what looks like some kind of catapult that has emerged on the back of my motorcycle when I drive into the green circle behind this missile launcher. How the fuck do I throw her in the back though? I'm pressing buttons like a madman again, all the while being knocked around by the white limo's and Iron Maiden's attacks. Eventually I'm thrown off the cliff and die. Oh, did I not mention that this fight takes place on a very small road along a cliffside? Yeah it does. So that didn't work, let's try taking out all the white limo's first, that way maybe I won't get knocked off the cliff and I can figure out how to get this damn nuke to launch. Turns out that was the way to go, and I dragged Doll Face back to the missile launcher again, she was hoisted up on the catapult, and again I couldn't figure out how to "sacrifice" her to it. Eventually, I just sat there, no clue what to do, ready to give up...and the goddamn missile fired. Ah, so I just have to sit there in the green circle for a second. All of this would have been good information to have prior to jumping into this battle, yanno?

So I got the nuke off, and just watched as it harmlessly flew out into the air before exploding absolutely nowhere near Iron Maiden. Oh shit, I have to steer the missile myself?! Again, would've been nice to know. So here we go again, only this time I know what to do. Missile fires, and guess what? The controls aren't inverted, fuck me. I always, always, always use inverted controls, especially when flying. For those who don't know, inverted bascially is when you press up on the stick and whatever it is you're controlling moves down, you press down it moves up. I blame Top Gun on the NES for my need to play things in this manner. So the first nuke didn't hit her because I didn't know I was supposed to steer, the second one didn't hit her because I flew it directly into the ground. Let's do it again, kill the limo's, drag Doll Face, nuke launches, I make some navigational errors, but...SUCCESS! A direct hit, and her shield is halfway down. Yep, half way, I have to do this twice. No big, right? Wrong, now the military vehicle nuke launcher thingy is moving. I have to do the sacrificing of Doll Face behind a moving target instead of a stationary one like before. This part actually wasn't too bad, other than the first missile I launched when the truck was facing the wall of the canyon and my missile detonated as soon as it was fired. I made sure the truck was in a clearing the next time, and bingo, we're on to phase two of this boss fight! Yep, all this was phase one. Of four.

Now that her shield is down, we can actually do damage to her with our attacks! She's flying around, I'm throwing chainsaws all over the place, and she puts up a medium sized green force field around herself known as a cage. FUCK. During the campaign up to this point there have been a couple of missions in which there are zones, or "cages" that you have to stay inside. If you venture outside the cage, you begin taking damage until you return back inside. These have been the most frustrating levels of the game for me up until this point, because the cage only stays in one place for a few seconds before it moves, sort of like Crazy King in Halo. Iron Maiden's cage doesn't jump around like that, but it's only around her, and she's flying, so yeah it moves, a lot, and I'm stuck racing up and down this narrow ass, winding road that runs along a cliff. Let's just say I fell, and I fell, and fell, and fell, and fell. Thankfully when you continue, you begin at phase two instead of going back to the very beginning, otherwise I never would've gotten through this. It took a while, but I was finally able to stay inside the cage long enough to take her down. I found that using the chainsaw special attack worked best, especially if you added flames to it by popping a wheelie and dragging the saw on the ground. Mega damage if it connects, and you can get to the next phase by landing just two or three of these. On to phase three!


This phase beings with the damage you did to her in the last phase causing her to fall to the ground, halfway destroying a bridge. At the last second she clings to the edge and pulls herself up so that her head and arms are laying on the road. Again, she puts up a cage, and this time it's a very small one forcing you to get up close and personal with her, and on a very small bridge, smaller than the road you were on previously. She also adds a shockwave attack, which as you probably guessed, will throw you off said bridge. It threw me off, lots, but thankfully again, you start here when you die and reload. The small cage/shockwave combo makes this part a little tough but using the flaming chainsaw attacks, I got through this pretty quickly. Iron Maiden screams, loses her grip, and falls into the canyon! Victory! Or so I thought, as you know this was only phase three, one more to go. Phase four!

For this final part, you only have to deal with Iron Maiden's head. She flies back up out of the canyon and goes on the attack, but to my surprise didn't really do anything different. Same old rockets, fire balls, missiles, and shockwave. I expected this to be the toughest part, but it really wasn't bad. Sort of like the final boss of Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox, the whole thing had been brutally difficult up until the final boss, and he was a pushover. Iron Maiden's head wasn't really a pushover, but the main frustration came from me having trouble lining up my chainsaw throws because she was now 1/4 of her previous size. I found it easiest to wait until she was about to launch an attack, she pauses for a second, and that's when I would throw the chainsaw. A couple of flaming, quad damage chainsaws later and this marathon of a boss battle finally came to a close, with Mr. Grimm emerging victorious.


With that I have finished the Mr. Grimm campaign! Next up in the Doll Face campaign, and after that I assume there's some sort of battle against Calypso. Honestly, after this I'm not entirely confident that I'll be able to even finish Doll Face's campaign, as God only knows what kind of boss battle she's going up against, and I'd be willing to be good money I won't be allowed to use the Iron Maiden mech myself against whatever it is. Calypso may end up having not much to fear from yours truly, but we'll see. Overall I still dig the hell out of this game, punishing difficulty at times notwithstanding. My main gripe is the short campaign though, only getting to play with three characters sucks. Obviously multiplayer was the main focus here, unfortunately I'm not all that interested in online multiplayer on this one. Twisted Metal was meant to be played sitting on the couch with three of your buds in splitscreen mode. Problem there is, I don't have three friends, so campaign it is for me. None of that changes the fact that Twisted Metal is a badass game though, it's no Black, but it's a worthy successor and a good revamp for one of gaming's best franchises.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Friday Night Drive-In


What do I look like, me lad? See the hat? The buckles on me shoes? Why, I'm a Leprechaun!


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Jason's Nirvana


Although I prefer to call it "Smells Like Teen Slaughter", Nowhere Bad has yet another great design up for sale for four days only. A meager $12 has it on it's way to your mailbox! Seriously, who doesn't want a Jason/Nirvana mash-up?

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Why Won't You Die...Percy?


Prison guard Percy Wetmore comes closer to my "Mrs. Carmody-level hatred" of a movie character than just about anybody else. Mrs. Carmody sets the hate-bar high, but Percy is right up there with her. For starters, I hate spoiled rotten little bastards like this who get off on being a dick just because he's lived an over-privileged life, in this case his being the nephew of the governor. Top that off with the fact that he's nothing but a bully, and he's got that slightly sadistic "likes to torture animals" thing going on, and you've got yourself a recipe for loathing from the very first time he's on the screen.

I could sit here and list all the heinous shit this guy does throughout The Green Mile, but honestly that might take all night. There is not one single redeeming thing about this guy. So let's hit the highlights, as stated he's a bully, and nobody gets it worse than poor Del. I wanted so badly for Del to get some kind of revenge on Percy, but as we know, sadly he never gets the chance. Percy even goes so far as to sabotage Del's execution by not wetting the sponge for the top of his head, which caused him to catch fire during his execution and die agonizingly. And Percy can't even bear to watch what he's done, the pussy actually turns away from the horrific sight. Before the execution though, he commits what is probably one of the cruelest things I have ever witnessed anyone do to another person (and that's saying something, I've seen A Serbian Film), he steps on and kills Del's only friend in the world, his pet mouse Mr. Jingles. Percy, you son of a bitch, you have got to die. Painfully.


Of course he doesn't technically die in the movie, which is why I hesitated initially to do a Percy post, but he does get his and in a pretty bad way. I don't know anybody who doesn't cheer when John Coffey gives Percy the warden's wife's cancerous brain tumor. Enjoy your brain cancer Percy, you despicable bastard.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Help get Solace Lost on Warped Tour


Solace Lost are vying for a spot on the Warped Tour bill this year, and it's up to us to help make it happen. Sure, I may be a little biased, but have you seen the line-up for Warped the past few years? Warped Tour doesn't just want Solace Lost on that stage, they NEED Solace Lost on that stage. You have to create an account on the site, which only takes a few seconds, and after that you're allowed to vote once a day. The rules say that the contest will run until the date specified on the site, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so I'm not sure how long it's going to run. 


Do your part! Help support up and coming artists by voting for Solace Lost in the Warped Tour Battle of the Bands here! 


Saturday, March 10, 2012

I was picked for Horror Blog of the Month!


Always cool to get these little awards from fellow bloggers. I'm surprised as hell that anybody even stops by here, so to be given an award is always a shocking, but nice surprise. This time it's my good buddy Maynard Morrisey who runs the review-tastic Horror Movie Diary. I can tell you in all honesty, I read every single new post there, and Maynard and I are usually in agreement when it comes to movies. Short story, he's a good guy, and my kind of people. If you'd like to read my answers to his questions, check March's "Horror Blog of the Month" post here. While you're there, I strongly urge you to look around, and add the Horror Movie Diary to your blogroll if it isn't already there.

Thanks one more time for the honor Maynard!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Goon


I make no secret of my love of the sport of hockey. In fact it brings me happiness like few things do. I'm not sure exactly what it was that first got me into it, all I remember is watching ESPN as a kid when Eric Lindros was in the draft and there was all this buzz surrounding him. He ended up getting picked by the Flyers, and I started following them just to see what all the fuss was about. I've been hooked ever since. Being that I love the sport such as I do, I tend to get really excited whenever a movie comes along that in any way features it. Hell, I even went and saw Sudden Death, the Van Damme "Die Hard" knock-off that took place in Pittsburgh during game seven of a Penguins/Blackhawks Stanley Cup Finals series. Needless to say, good hockey movies are few and far between. Enter Goon, the latest from Fubar director Michael Dowse starring Sean William Scott. Does it live up to the legacy set forth by the Hanson brothers way back in 1977's classic "Slap Shot" or is it just another disappointment, further assuring hockey's almost non-existant fan base in the USofA?

The titular Goon is Doug Glatt, a bouncer who is just a couple of beers short of a six pack. Seen as a disappointment in his parent's eyes, constantly in the shadow of his brother who is a doctor, Doug isn't good at much except breaking bones. He's also a hockey fan though, and when he and a friend are attending a local minor league hockey game, Doug gets noticed by the home team's coach when he pummels a player from the opposing team who climbed into the stands to go after Dougy's foul mouthed best friend Ryan. When asked if he'd consider trying out for the team, Doug sees an opportunity to make his family proud, and finally make something of himself. Used primarily as a bruiser, he pummels his way through game after game, earning a name for himself, and helping spark his under-achieving team back to it's winning ways.


Let me say this right now, there's Slap Shot and then there's Goon. Sure there are a couple of other decent hockey flicks, Mystery Alaska and Miracle come to mind, but those are different kinds of hockey flicks. Goon comes closer than any other to actually getting the feeling, the brutality, the beauty of the sport of hockey since Slap Shot did it way back in 77. Goon is absolutely hilarious but not in any kind of a slap-sticky way. Think "The Water Boy" but not stupid. What would a hockey movie be without violence? This is where Goon really compares to Slap Shot. There are some brutal scenes in this movie, a couple of times even coming close to what I'd call gory. Nobody's getting decapitated, but there are bones being broken, teeth being knocked out, and blood goes flying on several occasions.

Sean William Scott has never been a favorite of mine, but I actually thought he did a great job here. The real stars of Goon though, are his teammates. I laughed out loud at almost every single scene that took place in their locker room. The characters are all different, and all of whom had their own quirks that the actors seemed to just go with. The result was exactly like what I'd expect to be looking at were I to ever find myself sitting in a semi-pro hockey organization's locker room. That's not to say Goon is perfect, there were some little things I didn't care for, mostly having to do with Alison Pill, as Doug's love interest Eva. Their whole romance felt forced to me, and a little out of place. Couple that with the fact that Eva was a pretty detestable character in my opinion anyway, and it really took me out of the movie a bit as I couldn't help but hate her and want them to get back to the hockey and fighting.


When all is said and done, Goon is a sports movie. If you don't dig sports movies, this one won't change your mind. If the kind of sports movies you like are more of the "Remember the Titans" or "Hoosiers" sort, then it probably isn't for you either. But if you like your sports movie with some dark humor, and maybe a little bit of blood and violence, then definitely give it a shot, even if hockey might not be your thing. As for my fellow puck heads, this is a no-brainer. Goon is as close to recapturing that Slap Shot magic as we're ever likely to see, and I loved it.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

I also went to New York

The second, and longer, portion of my mini-vacation, New York City. We boarded a Greyhound Friday morning at 9am, leaving Philadelphia in the rear view. I pretty much knew what I wanted to get out of my time in Philly, but New York was the exact opposite. I basically told my brother that I didn't care what we did, it was on him, I was down for anything. Honestly, two days simply isn't enough for New York, and I learned this lesson quickly.

The first day, basically, all I did was the Statue of Liberty, and then went to a bar or two and met a bunch of people. I gotta say, all you hear is about how New Yorkers are rude, unfriendly, etc. but you can't prove that by me. Every single person I met was friendly, and most were quick to buy an out-of-towner a drink. Sure most of them already knew my brother, and had heard about me through him, but still that doesn't change the fact that they were shelling out money for me to get my drink on. I'm rambling though, first up as I said, Lady Liberty.



These are a couple of shots of the city from the ferry. Remember when I said I was goddamn cold in Philly? Yeah, well on the ferry out to Liberty Island, I was VERY goddamn cold, as you can plainly see. I didn't exactly pack for extreme cold, as the weather forecast assured me the coldest it would get would be the high 50's. It was in fact much colder than that, I don't give a fuck what the Weather Channel said.



Couple of things about the statue herself. Number one, the first thing I noticed, it's way smaller than I thought. I was always under the impression that she was as big as a skyscraper, not sure exactly what made me think that, I suppose she just looks huge on television, but she really isn't. That's not to say she's not an impressive sight, in fact I was honestly surprised at my reaction to her. I was almost in awe. The second thing though, and this is the kicker, apparently right now there's a lot of work being done to renovate Liberty Island, and as such, the first picture of her up there is as close as you're allowed to get right now. That would've been fine had they bothered to explain this before I paid the money to board the ferry to go out there, or at the very least maybe put up some signage to let us know we wouldn't be able to get very close to her. I still would've gone out, but I felt like I got a little ripped off there.

As I said, following the Statue, the rest of the night was basically all meet and greet. I met a ton of awesome people, most of whom were my brother's co-workers. One person in particular though ended up being super awesome. A friend of one of my brother's friends was this guy named Charlie, who as it turns out works as a letterer for DC Comics, which as far as I'm concerned makes him a celebrity. So she called him, and asked him to come out to the bar to meet me, and to my surprise, he obliged! So I told him how awesome I thought his job was, he actually letters several books that I read, including Red Lanterns, Teen Titans, and a couple others. He didn't stay long, but he hung out long enough for me to buy him a beer, and he gave me a free Green Lantern t-shirt and told me to find him on Facebook, which I of course did.


Me and Carlos "Charlie" Mangoul. Check your copies of Red Lanterns and Teen Titans, his name is totally in there!

Some other shenanigans which I will not speak of as to protect both the guilty and the innocent rounded out the evening. The next morning we got up bright and early and hit the town again, this time on the agenda was a trip to Wall Street, the Rockefeller Center, and of course Times Square. This time I'm basically going to do the few pics I have do most of the talking, as I ended up doing more walking that photo taking and you really don't want to read about all the random shit I remember seeing anyway. As with Philly, I will pop in and give a brief explanation as to what you're looking at though.


This is what's left of a sculpture that sat in the lobby of one of the World Trade Center towers. It's one of the first things I remember seeing when we got off the train. Kind of sent a chill up my spine when I thought about where it came from and what it had been through. There was a memorial plaque which I should've taken a pic of too, but for some reason didn't.



The famous Wall Street Bull. Second photo included just in case any of you were wondering if he was anatomically correct. He is.




My favorite part of Manhattan, an NHL store! I equate my walking into this store to how the Golden Ticket winners in Willy Wonka must have felt when they first entered that big ass room where everything was made of candy. Most of the money I ended up spending on the trip went to this place. The second photo is me sharing my thoughts about the Winnipeg Jets, who as you know used to be my beloved Atlanta Thrashers just a season ago.




These are just a few random shots from the top of the Rockefeller Center. The middle one is a good look at Central Park, and the bottom of course is the Empire State Building. If you're planning on going to New York, I have to recommend going to either the top of the Empire State Building, or Rockefeller Center (Top of the Rock as it's known) but make sure you bring your wallet. The view is great, but it's going to cost you $25 to ride their elevators. Side note, I'm now charging people $5 to go up on the roof of the hospital I work at. It's not exactly 68 stories, but you do get a nice view of the Chattahoochee River...


Seriously, the less said about this the better. Suffice it to say my brother has probably spent $5 on way better things than this, but he insisted I do this, and who am I to disappoint?


Last but most certainly not least, after an entire day of walking, we decided that instead of going back out we would take it back to the apartment and just invite some people over, throw some burgers and brats on the grill, and have some drinks at home. You know, southern style. I met a couple of new people, another friend of my brother's who ended up being one of my favorite parts of my trip because of her Brooklyn accent which I couldn't help but love, and probably most importantly of all, I talked an old online Xbox buddy of mine into coming out! That's right kids, after somewhere around 8 years of online chatting, texting, and more importantly Xbox Live gaming, I finally got to meet Antek718! This cat is super cool, and I had a fucking blast hanging out with him, shooting the proverbial shit and playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (for some reason, and don't as me to explain as there was much alcohol involved). Don't know if he still stops by here, but big thanks to my homie Antek for coming out.

The next day we got up early and I caught my train home. As with Philly, I was sad to leave, but at the same time I knew it was time to head back home. I missed my kids, and the simpler life of driving places I want to go and such. Not a big fan of the trains/buses/etc. that we rode around NY in for two and a half days. I do owe a big thank you to everyone I met while I was there though. They showed me a hell of a good time, and made sure my first trip to New York was one that I will never forget. I hope I get to see them all again next time I make the trek. 

There you have it, my mini-vacation as told (mostly) through photographs. I hope you enjoyed! Tomorrow my plan is to do a movie write-up, and I have at least one other in the works as well. I also hope to get a Drive-In post up for Friday, but we'll see how things go. Until then!