Yes, it's that day.

[newnumber6]

It's my birthday. Well, my half-birthday, but this is the one everyone but me counts.

Meh. Another year older. Otherwise, not much marks the occasion. Still went to work, nobody there knew. Couple wishes from family and on FB. No party today, doing some combined birthday/easter thing on the weekend. Bought myself a big bag of BBQ chips to pig out on.

In other news, I finally did my taxes, and I'm getting a lot more than I expected. I think there's a new tax credit because of the incoming harmonized sales tax or something. That probably accounts for it. So, assuming this wasn't some mixup in my tax preparation, I'll be doing what I've been talking about for a while... no, not getting my life in order and stop wasting it. Who do you think this is? No, I just mean that I'm about 80% certain I'll be buying an X-box 360 in the very near future.

If anybody on my flist has one and wants to play online some time, be warned that I will almost certainly suck, and will mostly be getting games you've probably played to death rather than new stuff, but I'm still open to it!

I don't know what games specifically I'm going to get with it, depends on what's in the store when I go buy it. But on my general wishlist is Dead Rising, GTA 4, Mass Effect, Prototype, and... I don't know. Probably more, but equally probably, not all at once. I'm hoping I'll get one of those package deals that come with games, that X-box seems to offer every now and then (last time i saw it it had Halo ODST and some other game I don't care about).

In other, other news, it's old news by now, but Peter Watts (author of Blindsight) was convicted of a obstructing an officer in the US as the result of a border check. The jury found that despite that he didn't assault the officer (as was alleged) and even though most of the police's allegations were proven lies, he did fail to obey a lawful order to get on the ground (after having been beaten about the face), and, as a matter of statute, that is exactly the same crime as actually assaulting the officer to prevent the perfomance of his duties, or resisting arrest, so he now has a felony and faces 2 years in prison. Lovely world, and reconfirms my inklings not to visit the US (not that I've been invited or haveany pressing reason to). I can only hope that the judge is more sane in the sentencing (since two years is the maximum, and he could just get a suspended sentence or probation, since he committed no other crime except failure to appropriately cower).

Comments

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

No Left 4 Dead on your wish list? I know you've played the demo for Left 4 Dead 2, but getting access to the entire game is good fun. Though, the campaigns can get old fast; you really just buy it to play on-line. But I wholeheartedly endorse Mass Effect. :-D

I'm locker monster on Xbox Live, so if you do get around to buying an Xbox, look me up.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

It's on my bargain wishlist, I think. I want to get it, but I don't think I want it enough to pay too much for it... but if I see it cheap (even used) I'll definitely pick it up. Though I'm so used to the elements from L4D2 that I'll probably be disappointed in L4D1. "What, I can't use a katana?" But on the other hand, I'll probably have better luck finding the first game for cheaper.

I'll definitely be looking you up if I get games we can play together. Just go easy on me. ;)


And wow, this post just reminds me I had a GTA dream last night. Except it was GTA: Toronto (Which, I guess, would be "GTA: GTA"?) And it was next-gen, so one of the features of the game was that it was generated in part using Google Earth/Street view, so every part of real Toronto was represented and visitable in the game. I was trying to get to my place to see if you could go inside, but kept getting attacked by gangbangers on the way. Weird.

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

I do love the melee weapons. It's been awhile since I've played the first game, but they're both basically the same in most regards. And it's all about killing zombies, right? :-)

Hee, the next city to be represented in GTA should totally be Toronto. Then all the thugs will be nice to you while trying to kill you. And it's surprising how accurate the game cities are to the real cities. When I visited San Francisco a few years ago, everything that was in the game was where it was in real life.

[argaud.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday. Or half-birthday, if you prefer :)

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Thanks, man!

[occamsnailfile.livejournal.com]

Half-Birthday to you, then. My XBL tag is pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to be, but I don't sign in very often.

I also recommend Crackdown from the 'bargain wishlist' of 360 games. It wanted to be a better game than it was, but you can still leap from rooftop to rooftop and punch trucks off of bridges, so it has some good points--especially as cheap as it is now.

Oh, and if you like subtly dystopian but extremely beautiful gardening sims, Viva Pinata. No, seriously, they say the game is for kids but it's about raising alive pinatas to send off to parties. It's also really fun.

I am sorry to hear about the Watts conviction. I mean, of all the times one would wish for jury nullification. Our border laws are pretty absurd because of all the hate-on for the Mexicans, and since we don't want to appear racist we apply them to Canadians too. I don't like them applying to anybody.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Crackdown is one of those titles that when I hear about it I put it on my list, but I typically don't remember it when I'm actually reassembling my list from memory. (Since I have no hardcopies of the list). But thanks for reminding me. :) Not sure on Viva Pinata. Gardening sims don't sound like too much appeal to me, and I have bad memories of when the only cartoons I could get on TV had the TV show version, so I imagine I'll compulsively twitch if Iever started to play. ;)

Yeah, Jury nullification would have been nice, but from some of the comments of the jury they didn't even consider it... not surprising because in many places it's illegal to even suggest it. Although I can sort of see the reasoning for that, even if I don't like it in this particular case. I mean, let's say, white guy in the 60s on trial for killing a black guy. You want them thinking about the law as it is, not nullifying it because they don't think it's a crime worthy of sending a "good, proper citizen" to jail. Or even modern day, if, say, somebody was on trial for violating the civil rights of some 'unpopular' minority. If people start talking jury nullification, you can get a jury that says it's okay. It's a tough problem because either way you screw somebody over... there's no way to ensure only the smart people will use the technique. I'd rather hope there was some grounds to challenge the statute or appeal on constitutitional grounds because to me, a law that creates a crime and draws no distinction between "not following a lawful order passively" and "fighting an officer" is hopelessly vague and will not lead to fair justice. Even aside from the problems inherent in creating a law saying "you must follow orders", it'd be like a drug trafficing law that says "one is guilty of drug trafficing if one transports illegal drugs for sale, or buys a beer and then crosses state lines and resells it. The punishment is up to 15 years in jail." Sure, there _might_ be valid reasons you want both to be illegal (different licensing standards in the two states, etc) , but let's have some perspective and not treat it at exactly the same crime.

[robyrt.livejournal.com]

My XBL tag is robyrt pi. My Xbox recently broke, and I procured a refurbished one for US$140, because I'm cheap. I've played a few too many games, but here's my list for budget goodies:
Mass Effect
Bioshock
The Orange Box
Rock Band (if you have friends who haven't played it; no fun alone)
Crackdown
Street Fighter 4

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks for the recs. A few of those are already on my look-for list (though not Rock Band, since I don't even listen to music, much less have any interst in a game revolving around pretending to play it).

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Oh cock, I totally forgot it was your birthday (half?) yesterday. Happy belated Half Birthday! Belated half birthdays are getting into the realms of obscurity I can't even fathom, but hope you had a good one anyway.

[soleta-nf.livejournal.com]

Ontario's getting HST? Wow. How did that happen? The only reason (most of) Atlantic Canada got it is that our overall tax rate went down, but we haven't been entirely happy with it.

Congrats on your tax return, and the Xbox 360!