I'm the type of person that enjoys creating my own halloween costumes, however, I'm also a cheap bastard, so I try to use items I either already have or simple designs that I think will be the most cost effective. Last year I went as Rorschach from Watchmen.

On my honeymoon spent in Hawaii I received an authentic kukui nut necklace at a luau and instantly thought to myself, I need to dress up as Akuma. The time finally came this Halloween.



So here it is. Very simple, aside from the necklace which I already owned I bought a cheap hoodie from Modells cut off the sleeves and hood and used the extra material from the sleeves to make my belt and wristbands. Then I bought some acrylic paint for the symbol on the back and some red hair spray from the Halloween store. The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the t-shirt I was wearing under my hoodie but its cold where I live so it was kinda necessary for me. I did at least choose a bright red because I thought it matched well. So there it is. My cheap ass homemade Akuma costume. Here's another picture from the front.



Also happening this year my lovely wife decided to go as Kate Gosselin from the TV series "Jon & Kate Plus 8" as we were shopping through the halloween store we saw a wig titled "8 is too much" and she thought it was too funny to pass up, so she bought the wig and later went to the dollar store to buy a boa and eight baby dolls and some corny stickers and slapped them all on the boa and proudly wore them the whole night. Take a look.



So that was my halloween this year, I think it turned out pretty well.

So I played three equally disappointing WiiWare titles last night, all games I was looking forward to too... what a great service... sorry, I just feel the need to rant, I'll only be a minute.

I played Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, beautiful style, graphics, music, all stunning... gameplay however is completely absent, its really really frustrating how gorgeous the game is and how much it completely failed. Its a simple run and gun game, its not a particularly difficult genre to pull off, but they managed to poop all over it.

Then I played Bit Boy!! with its unique charm and brilliant concept of progressing through the different ages of videogames... they even take a nod to Nintendo's silly naming conventions as they named each age Bit Boy... Super Bit Boy... Bit Boy 64... Bit Boy Wii... its really cool and they give you a little lesson before each age... problem here... the game is no fun. It's Pacman minus the strategy and any and all enjoyment. The levels are crudely designed with loads of dead ends that constantly trap the player which only make the game frustrating and just plain boring.

Lastly, I played Bit.Trip Core... which in it of itself wasn't bad, but after playing Bit.Trip Beat for so long (which I loved) the charm had worn off the style and presentation was no longer unique and Bit.Trip Core merely felt like it should have been Level 2 of Bit.Trip Beat... problem with this is I felt it was much less compelling and I hear they are making more Bit.Trip games and unfortunately I don't think I'll give a crap about any of those either. I feel like they should have waited and released them all as one package with a little more umpf and then you would have another awesome and stylish Rhythm Tengoku on your hands. Needless to say they did not do this and as it stands I felt Bit.Trip Core was a let down.

So thats my story... oh and addition to all these crappy titles, I was also happy to learn that the arcade version of Space Harrier came to the VC some time ago... played that last night too and that was fantastic, as I expected. Haha.

This blog was inspired by princessdaisy...

My beautiful home



With a beautiful view



My den



My music room



Every man's dream... Samus in bed anyone?



Samus rummaging through my messy basement




Samus picking a fight with a Pig in the city



This is my wife's home



My wife celebrating new years! (please note the awesomeness that is my towns flag)



and last but not least, my charming letter to one of my dear friends



That is all. I hope you enjoyed your stay in Camden.

I enjoy making my own costumes for Halloween, as crude as they may be, they're always more creative and often cheaper. This Rorschach costume I made was quite simple and cost less than $20 bucks! The colors are off, I was too cheap to buy a real trench coat and the ink started to smear off the mask, haha. All things considered, I still think I did a fine job.

I made the costume from one trip to Kohls, bought a cheap scarf (the whitest I could find) white female stockings and a cheap fedora. I took the stockings and put a piece of cardboard inside to stretch it out and then drew the pattern on with a sharpie. The jacket is my regular coat, which didn't look too bad, so I went with it.



What does everybody think?

I don't understand R-Type's appeal.

I consider myself a pretty big shmup fan and I've never liked the R-Type series. I've played and beat the first two R-Types on the GBC cart R-Type DX, while this may not have been the best port, I liked shmups so I bought it way back when, I was amused, but ultimately disappointed with the gameplay. I recently decided to give R-Type III a shot. I was very hesitant to buy this game because of my disinterest in the series thus far, yet, with the advent of Super R-Type being released on the VC recently, internet talk about how great the series is began to surface once more. I thought to myself maybe the series deserves another look. So I bought R-Type III as I'm told it’s the best of the three available on the VC.

So far, it’s one of the most frustrating shmups I've ever played. I'm currently on the last level, so I'm not totally getting crushed, but its one of those games, I'm determined to beat because of its shear difficulty, but will probably never play it again because it’s so damn infuriating.

Plus all you need to do is memorize every last detail of the level before you can complete it and I question how that’s fun exactly. The purpose of shmups, in my opinion, is to have quick reflexes and score big points. R-Type, is pure memorization. I just don't understand…

Aside from the whole memorization bit, I just think it's plain boring. There are few tense and pressing moments, but ultimately when I play R-Type, these are the thoughts that go through my head "la la la, this stage looks neat, hey, what's tha... shit I'm dead" whereas a game like Super Star Soldier for example, has much more action and the battles are so intense my thought process is more like "crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap... fuck. That was cool! Let me try that again." The later thought process being far more fun in my opinion.

I don't know, maybe I'm just being too judgmental, but I'm sorry, this is one shmup series I'm gonna stay away from.

But my opinion aside, I’m curious to hear what other shmup fans think. Is R-Type a bust? or best shump ever? Also, I’m curious to know what everybody’s favorite shumps are…

Any and all comments are appreciated. Thanks.

Behold in all its glory... not my Turning Point gaming rig... =(

It's just another lame PC, nothing special at all. An Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.20GHz, 1GB of RAM, Leadtek WinFast PX7800 GT. The last PC game I was able to play without problems was DOOM 3. I'd very much like a new PC... but alas... I am cheap.

Anywho, check out some more pics of my brilliant rig... or just look at the pretty lights... its the only thing my computer still knows how to do properly anymore.



Light up keyboards own!



Stupid cases are stupid.



Except when light up all pretty and useless of course!

K, that's all you get. I hope you enjoyed your stay. Bye now.