The Archives

Life
Classified cobra ops
11.30.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

The chronicles might look a little different to some of you regular readers, but this is how it’s going to stay for now (well, it’s also going to get even a little more edited, but for today I’m done). Someone I’ve made frequent mention of is considering a career change, and I don’t want to cause that person any problems. I’m sure the chances are slim to none that anything negative would ever spawn from something I wrote/posted here, but I would hate myself even more if I ruined this person’s chance at achieving their dreams.

It took a lot longer than I expected to remove all mention of that person (and a few others) from the first page of this blog. It turns out I mention them far more often than I thought. I guess maybe that’s proof I love them. I have a lot more posts to remove, then there is the matter of establishing code names. I think I’ll let everyone pick their own.
Angry Art, Gaming
Do n00bz dream in colour?
11.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

That’s what a cobra hiding on a rock looks like just before he strikes.

Enjoy the nightmares kids…
Food, Photos
Crude Cobra changes
11.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

The Mandarin always seems to have the best fortunes (here’s proof: one, two, three). Which is good, because I didn’t even want the Mandarin last night, but the fortune made it all worth it. We had intended on eating Indian buffet at Passage to India, but didn’t realize the buffet is only offered Friday – Sunday, so we chose Mandarin by default.

The top one is mine, the bottom is Holly’s. We suspect hers is some old proverb that got messed up in translation. I’m thinking it means you don’t have to look far for happiness, but I say just to be safe we should excavate the entire property A.S.A.P.
Photos, Roanisms
Kid Cobra creations
11.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Roan brought this new drawing home from school yesterday. I think it’s awesome. I love the colours, the outlines, everything. I think it’s my favourite drawing he’s done so far, aside from his zombie drawings – those are still the best. I’m sort of jealous since I couldn’t create anything this awesome even now, never mind when I was nine.

He missed his last art lesson last weekend (apparently his father forgot all about it, probably had other things on his mind…) and didn’t get to bring home all the neat stuff he made. Holly is going to try and get in touch with his teacher and make arrangements to get his stuff. Hopefully she can, and I’ll post photos of it all here once we have it. I’m going to be sad if he ever grows out of drawing. I love his art.
Animals, Video
Mr Squirrel enjoys a cup of water
11.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Maybe I’m the only person who finds things like this cute, but so what. This is Mr Squirrel drinking the last of Roan’s morning pill taking water. She had to squish her little fuzzy face in there to get it, but that’s a hell of a lot easier than walking over to the water dish. Water dishes are gay.
Fuck Microsoft, Fuck Sony, Gaming, Photos, Video
Cobras <3 COD:BLOPS art
11.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

As I previously mentioned, I’m loving COD: Black Ops and all it’s new features. Yesterday I played a few matches before work (as I usually do – I love to kill dudes while I’m drinking my coffee) and I managed to max out my character. I decided to “Prestige“, then spent a few minutes messing about in the Theater. I made a montage of a killing spree I went on (7 or 8 dudes I think!) but didn’t realize it had to be shorter than 30 seconds if I wanted to upload it to my Youtube account. Oh well…

Here’s my first screen shot. It’s me calling in a mortar strike on hostile territories my squad is attempting to capture (just after killing those 7 or 8 dudes mentioned above), and not me trying to order a new pair of pants from Sears because I pissed myself (it kind of looks like I pissed myself). Clicking it will take you to the full version.

Here’s my first video. It’s just a short clip of me diving (my new favourite thing to do in COD) into a prone position, and neutralizing a hostile tango attempting to capture and destroy an allied headquarters. I swapped the audio with some lame techno song offered on Youtube. Enjoy!

This clip is my first successful attempt at making a montage of clips in the COD Theater. Think of it as a trailer or ad for a killer for hire, showcasing my awesome skills and battle tactics, set to some beautiful melody provided by 2 seconds of search in the Youtube audio swap “instrumental” libraries. I think it fits just fine. The kill at the end of the clip was a game winner / ender by yours truly. Unfortunately when you render the clips so they upload to Youtube, some of the details are left out. For example, that car I dive beside… it was on fire and smoking like mad in the original clip, making it look infinitely more bad-ass.

The top photo is my Player Card Emblem. I designed it, and it’s proudly sported on all my guns. I’m guessing a million people have seen it by now, since it flashes up on their screen while I’m dipping my nuts in their mouth after killing them.
Animals, Gageisms, Photos
Mr Squirrel
11.25.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Last night, while Holly and I were making dinner, Gage asked if we could name the new cat Mister Squirrel. Holly said “No, she’s not a mister!”. I quickly pointed out she’s also not a squirrel, and said I’m all for the name. Holly thought about it for a second before agreeing it was a good name. Gage couldn’t believe we agreed to it, and asked “Really? we can call her that?”, then ran off to tell Roan and his friends.

I remember being a kid and wanting to name my dog Puppy. My parents refused to let me, so I tried to get away with Kitty. They again said no and named the dog Dusty. I remember being bummed because instead of my options, it got named after one of my least favourite G.I.Joes. Perhaps that had something to do with why the dog turned out to be a huge asshole.
Animals, Photos, Roanisms, Video
Feline first-contacts, compact catapults
11.22.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Over the weekend I finished Roan’s catapult and he did his written part of his assignment. This morning he had to bring it with him to hand in. I walked with him so he didn’t have to carry it. I also tried to briefly explain why long levers are better for exerting more force, but I think it was a little beyond my skills as a teacher. After I dropped him off I saw a little girl getting dropped off by her mom and they were carrying a suit of armor made of cardboard and aluminum foil. It was pretty awesome.

On the way back home I wandered over to Donut Diner for a coffee. By the time I got back, the new kitty (still no name decided on) had dumped Holly’s box of Gobstoppers all over the floor by my computer. I decided after cleaning up her mess, to introduce her to the rest of the gang. Her last pill was yesterday, so she’s finally cleared for release from de-con.

After a few minutes of stare-downs and face sniffing the cats seemed to be relatively unfazed by the new member. Her and Tabbouleh had a brief hiss-off, but it didn’t last long and seemed pretty harmless. About ten minutes after being introduced Shakespeare initiated first contact.
Gaming, Random
Cobra COD BlOps
11.20.10 | Permalink | Comment?
While Holly and the boys were away at Disney, I went one night and stood in the cold for 2 hours at midnight in a lineup of virgins I couldn’t wait to teabag with my virtual nuts later that night. I did this because we were all really looking forward to the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops, and our pre-ordered copies were finally available. The wait was worth it. I’ve played every COD game since COD 3 and can honestly say this one is best. Every complaint I had about previous itterations has been rectified.

Today was the first chance Holly and I got to sit and play around all day, aside from playing the odd round of zombies whenever we’ve got a bit of free time. We started out playing zombies shortly after she woke up, but had very little luck getting anywhere. After getting frusstrated, I asked her to attempt some of the new “Combat Training” mode with me. She obviously loved it since we played for just over five hours in total today. I’m glad she likes it, and I’m hoping that with the right amount of practice she’ll be comfortable enough to play online with me. I would love to hear her trash talking noobs while she teabags them.

Above is a somewhat related image. The newest COD includes the ability to record screen shots and short in-game clips, then retrieve them off the COD website. I, however, have had zero luck linking my COD webID with my PSN ID, and thus wrote an email requesting some help. I felt it necessary to add a little ASCII Art signature which I think will now become my fulltime signature.

Or maybe just this:
```
                8""""8
                8    " eeeee eeeee  eeeee  eeeee
                8e     8  88 8   8  8   8  8   8
                88     8   8 8eee8e 8eee8e 8eee8
                88   e 8   8 88   8 88   8 88  8
                88eee8 8eee8 88eee8 88   8 88  8
```
Cobra Classics, Music, Photos
Confessions of a childhood cobra
11.18.10 | Permalink | Comment?

When I was a kid I loved music (and I suppose I still do, but back then I had little else to do but hang out with friends and listen to tapes, where as now I only listen to music when I’m working, or exercising). I started with organ lessons when I was tiny. I gave that up one xmas morning when I realized Santa had ignored my plea for an electronic keyboard (like the kind they’d use in Van Halen!) which would allow me to take my unique sound to new levels. Instead, I got a note telling me I don’t practice enough to have earned a keyboard, and that if I do better next year I might have a shot. I soon forgot about keyboards, pianos and organs altogether.

A few years later, I was hanging out with this kid named Joey Mellon who lived around the corner. His house was cool. His dad was a carpenter and had converted half their entire basement into a multi-leveled play fort. They also had Super Nintendo before anyone else I knew. I didn’t really like Joey, but I wasn’t stupid – I knew to be nice so I could get to enjoy the things he had that I didn’t. Another thing he had in his basement was his dad’s enormous drum set. I had never seen real drums before and I was impressed. Joey banged on them for a few minutes, then I barged in and took the sticks from him. I remember going home and telling my parents how badly I needed to have drums.

After a year or two of begging (and not deserving by any means) my parents finally surprised me on xmas morning with my own set of beginner drums. I set them up right away and made them all regret their purchase immediately. My parents insisted I take lessons, and I did. I think I had about five in total.

They hired this guy who was teaching my cousin (who I was jealous of until I got my drums) to come by once a week. I forget his name, but I remember thinking “This guy is a nerd, like 9 – 0″. He was a dink. His dad was a drummer in some band. This guy and all his buddies (who were also the kids of the other members of his dad’s band) formed a band and cleverly dubbed themselves “ditto”. When he told me this I almost dropped a hard F on him and laughed in his face. I can’t remember what year it was, but I know I had just recently been forced to sit through the movie Ghost, in which zombie Swayze always replies to his annoying girlfriend’s I love you‘s with, “Ditto!”. I don’t think I listened to a single thing he said that first lesson because I was too busy wondering why he was so gay. After four more visits I told my parents I wasn’t learning cool enough drums from Dr. Ditto and begged them to cancel and find me a cooler teacher who would turn me into Metallica.

I never took another lesson, but I kept playing all the time (which I’m sure my parents loved). I even joined a band with my two best friends, Dallas and Will. We formed the band solely for the purpose of playing the grade 7 or 8 talent show at our school. We wrote three songs (with the help of my brother) that, combined, probably totaled four minutes in length. One was called Monkey Boy (it was about this kid named Jason Harder who someone started a rumor about him having sex with a monkey – shit we were mean/bad kids), another was called Red Garage (named after Will’s parent’s garage door which a bunch of us hid behind before jumping some kids who picked a fight with Will, we won, some kid got a bat broken over his back…) and the third I can’t remember. Our band name was stolen from The Simpsons, since it was the biggest thing on the planet at the time. We were Melvin and the Squirrels. I fought for my suggestion of Melbatoast right up until we hit the stage, but my band mates wouldn’t listen. I was just the drummer.

Dallas’ dad posted the picture above on Facebook today, so you can thank him for this wordy anecdote that was completely unnecessary, but somewhat fun to remember.