#and i'm going ot the giants game next week

[cementcornfield]

i can't even describe how upset i am oh my god.

[popculturebuffet]

Sam and Max Telltale Retrospective: Save the World: Reality 2.0 (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Cyber-Hello to all you happy cyber-people! We're almost at the end of Sam and Max Save The World! It's been a long strange journey and it's only getting stranger as we jack in and execute the penultimate chapter of this fantastic game.

As usual let's take a look at Reality 2.0+as a game first. Internet 2.0 is the best chapter yet which like Morning Mark, you can probably hear me say that a lot. It combines the writing quality of the last two chapters with the far more managable but still open overworld of "The Mob, The Mole and the Meatball". The difficulty's still harder than Mob, but more in line with the second one: you might get stuck but a quick nudge from a guide or some poking around will usually fix it. The world is also just fun to explore despite being intentionally both sparse and a reskin of the main street hub. In short it's good stuff and we'll see if it holds for the finale and the next two games.

For now let's look at the bold new future of the internet in 2006 under the cut and how our heroes have to kill it before it spreads. As you do.

So we open with Max flexing his power as president. As expected most of his policy is giant fighting robot based, sending them to all three dakota's to see who surivives, and he's being impeached every day this week except wendsday.. he's on trial for war crimes. But Max has more important things to deal with than plotting his future escape from a federal maximum security prison, for once. The Chief has a job: A new game, Reality 2.0 is sweeping the nation and brainwashing it too so our heroes and max have to stop it. Our heroes first have to save Sybil, whose beta testing the game via headset, and lost in the zone. So to get info we're going ot have to wreck Sybil's life for the second episode. Meanwhile Bosco has paranoidly moved all his money into the internet. As you can probably notice unlike a lot of the satire in these games, where there more funny knowing the time, the satire for internet 2.0 has actually aged better. While at the time it was clearly parodying the boom of things like second life and mmorpg's like world of warcraft, nowadays it comes off as parodies of laughable attempts at the future like the metaverse, vr googles, and crypto. I mean the money isn't in boscocoin but like Crypto the service he's using bancolavedero.com is just as sketchy as crypto and just as likely to give you all your money back! As such despite having all the money now to launder via the us goverment, we can't buy his real world item, a bio weapon, yet.

We can however do him a solid and get rid of the compettition: part of why Bosco's gone from small arms to full on biological warefare is because Jimmy Two Teeth has set up shop in his shop. Being the rat he is, Jimmy refuses to actually sell you the mini canon he has because he's afraid you'll just turn around and use it on him

Though in this case it's a self fufilling prophecy as while he succesfully gets a hit off on Sam, he gets shoved into the canon and used as ammo oddworld styles. I just love this solution and it provides some cathariss after multiple chapters of Jimmy either being obnoxious to our heroes or actively hindering them. I mean he fell down a manwhole but ther'es probably a whole rat city down there. He can play rat blackjack and visit some rat hookers. He'll be fine. This is more fitting.. being shot at some vr googles.

Turns out though Sybil wasn't hypnotized.. or at least thinks she wasn't so she's mad, but allows our heroes to take the broken googles and decides to move on. I've really started to feel sorry for sybil. In the first two chapters she was just running a random scheme and just having a good time… in the last few she's been targeted by the mob, had her heart broken, been swindled out of millions of dollars and now had her legit buisness ruined by our heroes.. for good reasons yes but it's still awful. I'm really hoping the next chapter works out better for her. I do applaud the team for making me care about this goofy side character though. So our team has to take the googles to the best part of this episode, the C.O.P.S. The Computer Obsolescence Prevention Society are a bunch of old machines who are hilaroius: We have their leader and mouthpiece curt, an old voice synthizer similar to steven hawkings, chippy, an old pong set, and bob, a talking phone who talks like the moviephone guy. And last and most of all we have Bluster Blaster an old arcade machine who constantly screams every sentence and wants to conquer all. Their working for the internet for the oldest reasons imaginable…

But gladly suply a lot of great comedy.. and our heroes with the chip to fix the googles. There's not much else to say other than their fantastic and I was delighted to find out they return in the next two games, and have a larger role in 3.

THe cops gladly give our heroes the chip. Problem is there's two heroes but luckily max's really big head qualities him for a special headset, so our heroes are off to the digtial world! Jack in, Sam and Max, Execute! Reality 2.0 is a fun setting being really sparse and seeming like a jab at games that come out mostly unfinished. Having played sonic 06 recently, the irony is not lost on me. While it is a BETA, so ti's a bit more forgivable, it's a very desolate place with Sybil stood in with a digtial copy of her, and no real detail. The only real features are bosco's itself, and Auntie Biotic, virus protection based on moira stump. Who was asking for her to come back I do not know, but she's passable.

We 'll deal with her later though first it's time to deal with bosco whose totally not brainwashed you guys honest. So in order to save him, we have to bop him in the head, but since for some reason we can't just.. use the boxing glove on him or reload the canon, we have to play the game his way and get 5 gold coins. Granted equipment usually isn't this cheap but sam and max isn't going to make you grind for several hours. or maybe ten minutes with 4x gil on, to do that. Point is you need to gather the coins.

This is where I got stuck entirely through every fault of my own. See I assumed since the goggles have an assigned button to take you out of reality 2.0, you coudln't use your inventory

Every item you have in the real world is avaliable to you. And neatly some transform, so the bug becomes a computer bug. It wasn't till reading the guide I realized I could do this.

As for who your glitching up that'd be the COPS who are gods, angry gods, of the new world and each control something. So you have to jack with them to get rid of width, popups, make your characters small, and with blaster because uh oh there goes gravity. The ways you use them are also clever and most you can figure out just from exploring: Jimmy is hoarding a coin in your office, so you have to get that from him by shirnking, and that itself requries you to figure out another mechanic: when you enter the digital world you enter from the location your at. So while the curb is too big for tiny sam and max to climb, you can simply jack out, go into the office, jack in and boom, Jimmy is violently mugged for a coin! Sybils is easy to miss, it's just behind her bookcase which you can get by going flat and finally we get the fun one of gravity, with sam deciding to become a feature film italian sterotype and max decides to call him a sell out. it's the best joke of a very funny chapter… the best one not involving an arcade cabinet screaming at you anyway. So with that we buy the long sord and get a decent enough send up of rpg combat as we fight a slime in boscos, handily despensed from a monster spawn point. This is where I got lost for a second. See I went back to the real world, as Bosco revealed his password is SO secure, he dosen't even know it, having it tattooed on him then having his memory erased. So naturally I grabbed the binoculars on his desk. problem is fitting the game's nonlinear nature you can get them AFTER you wake him up too, and my guide used this method. Thankfully I found another one, and found out I simply had to conk him out in the digtial world.

Since I can't just have a small monster do it, I used the sword, tricked bosco with the timeless "look over there" technique and found his tatoo which thankfully was nowhere near as low as feared. It's naturally bosco. He's smart at many things, survelince, knowing the goverment's after him, scamming our heroes, but this is a reminder he can be very, very dumb and we love him for it. So it's off to banco lavedero. To get in here you'll need some digitial paint from a digtial wizard whose TOTALLY not hugh bliss… though unlike moira I feel this seeming model IS the real thing given what we learn at the end of the chapter. This puzzle is clever as your liscene plate has the right color. Match em and you get past the banco lavedero fire wall. Inside we get a fun if somewhat long mini game: unsuprisingly this scam is laundering money from everywhere: the toy mafia, who sam rightly points out even if we knocked out one branch isn't exzactly gone, the goverment, bosco's mom. You simply have to get the arrows to point all the money to bosco. It's hilarious enough to work and even if you get stuck, it shoudln't take too long till bosco has the money and is forking over his bio weapon. This one I actually called: he just sneezes into a napkin. But hey it's enough to give yo ua computer virus.

To beat her though we need a chekovs gun.. but since tha't snot in the inventory we instead need some slime goop, gotten whenyou first get your sword as his sludgey machine is now an enemy spawn point and the results are just as dangerous. You take it out with some turn based rpg parody, though the shouting out of dexerity is just.. weird. This isn't dungeons and dragons, it's a computer rpg. It's hilarious enough though I dont' care enitirely.

WIth the goop you simply have to defy gravity again and go to a nearbye billboard and you get the unicorn sword. +2 baby! You can unstick it with the goop and then fight moira using the sword and another chekovs gun: early on you'll see a jack in the box surrounded by pop ups. Disable those, grab it, then enable them before the fights and you've got a shiled. It's a wonderful brick joke and with that you can mail the virus ot break the internet.

Problem is the interent.. plans to take everyone in it with her, so to save the world you have to brave the depths of gaming history, a TEXT ADVENTURE!

The Text Adventure bit.. is a lot of fun. You put all of boscos into your inventory, deal with a giant drippy pool of cute kittens , use their slime to dip boscos and then feed it to a shambling corprate presence, the greatest monster in all of rpg history. Yes over stabby mc mommy issues or Garnland, who will knock you all down. You feed him, get him tobarf up the internet's faith in humanity an save her from herself… and then she dies because our heroes knida gave her a virus. Yes our heroes killed the ineternet and I for one…

Sorry about that had to kick in the backup internet. Hard being a blogger these days. Anyways the internmet is dead and the most she can give our heroes is the mysterious mastermind behind all this is Roy. G. Biv… our heroes dont' take the obvious hint and go to dinner… as hugh bliss shows up as the face int he moon

Next Time: We go to the MOOONNNNN to wrap this game up and confront the true mastermind behind it all! But where is hugh? What is hugh? and why is Hugh? All to be colorfully answered next time!

[badwolfweightloss-blog]

Jan 22 - Still Here

Brushing myself off after a slight dieting fail last night. But it won't stop me.

Overall, January has been very successful. There have been ups and downs and drama, though.

On Friday after I wrote the last entry, hubby and I were supposed to go on a date night. But, my mouth was killing me from all of the problems I was experiencing with this bone spur that was jetting out of my gums. I had it filed down again and was told I needed an oral surgeon to investigate what it was and make sure it wasn't a tumor. Of course, my anxiety was sky high after all of this. Hubby and I went out anyway for a little date. Didn't overeat, but when we came home, there was wine and I think perhaps some checutterie.

The next morning, my blood pressure was extremely high - 180 over 130. I was extremely dizzy. Went ot the ER for the whole day, got a catscan of my head, and lots of other tests. Of course, like every other anxiety attack I've ever had, it turned out to be nothing. A week and a half later, I finally go to an oral surgeon who said it was all resolved. I feel like an idiot now inretrospect, but this was all very real and scary to me while it was happening.

Anyway, the whole month was very on point after that. No overeating, I lost almost 8 pounds. I feel a little sad about this because when I was younger I would have lost faster, and I never had that big week one loss this time. That's ok though, I've been very on program, walking a little every day, and I even started the couch potato to 5k again. My joints feel every step and I feel a lot of hatred about what I've done to myself. I've been reading a lot about people with hanging skin after losing 100 pounds and this makes me apprehensive too. I have been completely alcohol free this month except that Friday and overall, that experience was so scary that most of me doesn't want to resume alcohol at all again. Of course, there are those moments when it becomes something that calls me. Once in a while, I can remember how wonderful that first glass of red wine feels, how it tastes like relaxation and special moments. How I crave both of those things so much, so red wine brings it and brings it hard. But the next day is so terrible that I have to keep that in mind.

Yesterday was the Giants game, and I had a similar situation, but instead of remembering how terrible I'd feel afterwards, I caved in for food. I cannot seem to stop beating myself up about it. I need to move on and I need to get good with myself again but I'm so very angry at my choices. I was 3 points left for the night but there was this inner call to order wings and things that I couldn't ignore. It wasn't even about me initially - it was about making it a special occasion for my kids. I know my daughter was mad for my son and I spending the night with the football game, and I know my son wanted wings. But is that just an excuse? Was it really me that wanted a special night? I wanted that excitement of a lot of people cheering for the game. I wanted my friends to be hosting something so I could go over and be part of something. In the end, one of them was available but she would have come to me and I didn't want to clean. I hate that my house is a mess. I hate that my other friends seem to have forgotten about me. I hate that my husband is always working and that he lied to me when he said he was going to retire this year. He lied to me when we got married when he said he was going to retire at 20 year and we would get a chance to live a normal life. Its all lies. He will never leave his job. I will always be a single. I regret marrying him and I regret this life and I regre this house and the whole thing. I don't get a doover. This is my life I've created and I have to live in it.

This is the background noise that runs in my head. Its run less this month as I've felt more proud of the weight loss and other work I'm doing to better myself. But, it was running last night and I caved. I am so so mad at myself. I ordered a veggie wrap, thinking it would be enough. And it would have put me at just negative 2 points for the 5 point tortilla. But I didn't stop there. I didn't stop. I started with some fries. Just a few. Then a whole lot. Then the wings. Just one. Then all 6 that were left. They were spicy and buttery and saucy and I loved them. And I loved the salty fries. They were salty and flavored and I was watching the football game with it.

But it was not pointed, and it wasn't planned, and it wasn't ok. And this morning I woke up with stomach cramps and had bad bowel movement, and I have literally not stopped thinking about what a failure I am. Was it worth it? Will I not see any loss this week? Why did I do this? What is wrong with me?

[thecrimsonkat-blog]

I'm a FUCKING WREAK at the moment...

Ok, so here's the story: My mothers boyfriend (Shannon) has a medium large family, he has no kids himself so his nieces and nephews he treats like his own kids. One in particular is named Angus (the one the story mainly revolves around). And I cant actually write how I feel about him.... wait..... yes I can..... ok, so; my heart pounds harder with each passing minute he's in the room. I feel my mind become clouded and I become clumsy at the mention of his name. I feel like I would protect him from harm if any came to him, he has a slight amger issue but when he gets mad, all i want to do is hug him tightly and remind him to relax, to sum it up, I'M INVESTED. Bonus to add to my grief, he also in hetero amd has a girlfriend. So here comes the issue, my family was having a house warming party and all, and I mean ALL the family was invited, so stuff happened and now its time for people to go, turns out one of my little cousins was staying the night and I was really not in the mood to deal with him. So his family was saying goodbye when I offered to lend him some clothes if he wanted to stay the night, he was offered to stay a night many times before but he turned it down because he was busy or something else got in the way. Do remember, I am FUCKING INVESTED in this guy. I put all the pursuaion I could feel into the question and hoped for the best outcome. And he said yes. BOY WAS I FUCKING HIGH, I FEEL LIKE I COULD'VE DONE A BACKFLIP, SOAR TO THE MOON OR EVEN KISS HIM ON THE SPOT. But I didnt. So me, angus and my brat of a cousin were in the games room playing my consoles, when I decided it was late enough and everyone should go to bed. My cousin took FUCKING 3 HOURS BEFORE HE WENT TO BED. Me and Angus stayed up till 1am trying to get him to sleep, and when we did we went back in the games room amd got ready for bed. I'm not sure about anyone else, but when its really late, I get really personal. So I'm chillin on the two seater with my body pilllow and blanket, unable to get to sleep and he's chillin on the bed diagonal from me, trying to sleep. Neither of us could btw. Here is where it gets good, so we both are tired as fuck, its 1am and he begins asking me questions about my homosexuality. How I realised I was gay, amd stuff like that. Then out of the blue, he asks who my crush is. By this time I was sure he could hear my heart, It was beating so hard against my chest I was sure It would shatter. I wanted to tell him so badly but also didnt, because I have a giant heart and didnt want to ruin our friendship. Amd because I hesitated for so long, he decided to ask me question about who I was crushing on. So, i thought why not, if he figures it out on his own then so be it. He begins asking questions like height, hair colour, age, and eye colour. He then says he has it figured ot out to between 3 people. He says their names and i deny them all. I could feel his confusion or what I thought was confusion. He then asks me more question, like what I would do for that person. For those who dont like MA 15+ stuff, then stop reading. So to sample the questions, mainly because I cant remember all of then because I was sleep deprived, he asked: "If the peraon were to come up to you, and ask if you would have sex with him, would you?" "What would you do if they asked you to do it to them?" "If they asked you to suck their dick, would you?" "What would you do if that person liked you back?" "What would you do if that person didn't have a girlfriend?" So the questions continued for a literal hour, until he says this, "I think I know who it is" Just and add on, earlier that day, him and his uncle, Shannon, were having a conversation about his sexuality and he said exactly this... "If I was gay, I would be hooked up with this fella, *points directly at me and wraps an arm around my neck*" my heart was like FUCKING ON CRACK it was spasing out. So he proceeds to ask me to play hangman, and because its 2:30am by that time, and I was way to lazy to find a pen and paper, we just used my phone, bur it was slightly modified: QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM -------------------------------- This is what the screen looked like, he would type the letters that were in the name below the line and erase the letters that were not. So he goes through the list of letters and not very far in he makes and unusual sound, and thats when I realised he actually knew. He even writes his own name down amd asks me to type 'yes or no' beside it, the screen looked like this when I got my phone back: QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM -------------------------------- A N G U S So, seeing a perfect moment, I be really sarcastic and say "Im not sure your spelling it right, I think you may be missing a few letters" as I proceed to write yes next to it. MEANWHILE MY HEART IS DOING LITERAL BURNOUTS IN MY CHEAT WHILE ON FIRE AT MARTIGRA. I was so fucking high from it, i even began slurring my words from my clouded mind. I hand back the phone and he was so sincerly confused, then he saw what i wrote then it hit him, and i said as it did. He hamds me back my phone and he goes silent for a few seconds, the proceeds to question further about what i would do to him, or as he put it 'the person' if the asked for something. And the one that hurts the most was "would you have sex with them if they asked, even though they had a girlfriend, and if the asked you to keep it a secret, would you?" My mind was fucking running like crazy, I was likeing the way the direction of conversation was going, i was keen to get in his pants. I answered then he goes silent. What felt like twenty minutes later did he speak again. And he changed to conversation about what he did last time a gay guy hit on him, the guy apparently touched him on the arse Angus didn't like it so he turned round and grabbed the guy by the throat and pinned him agains the wall and threatened to really hurt him if he did it again. WHAT THE FUCK DUDE, YOU LITERALLY BEGAN LEADING ME TO YOUR BED THEN TOSSED ME INTO THE GUTTER INSTEAD. I FELT MY HEART CRACK, AND IT FUCKING HURT, I WAS A LITTLE MAD AND DECIDED TO GET HIM BACK LATER FOR DOING THAT TO ME. BUT HE LITERALLY CRUSHED MY HOPES OF US ACTUALLY GETTING TOGETHER, I HAD TO BITE MY LIPS TO STOP MYSELF FROM CRYING. I was so torn up. He toyed with my feelings and I let him, now i feel like he dumped me, without really having dated me. It fucking hurts, and think back to that night, it fuckin hurts. And now, i know it will probably emotionally scar me for the rest of my life. But what makes it worse, about a week earlier I had lost one of my friends that I became invested in, Dom, because he split with his girlfriend, which I think I had already explained earlier, if not here's a recap. She dumped him, she was my friend and knew i like him, he was my friend that i had a crush on, but I would never tell because it would shatter my friendship I had with him. She dumped him and told him I had a crush on him, he reacted badly amd stop talking to me bevause he felt uncomfortable talking to me, even through gaming sites and suck alike. So I was feeling a little abandoned. Now it was like being abandoned again, i flet myself slip away from Angus. So when he slept, i got revenge. Not gonna go into detail about that tho. So thats my life atm, im already wreaked in the head, so this can probably just go on the pile and break me some more...