Don't Leave Daddy Home Alone....

Things get a little crazy after daddy gives Camryn an unsupervised bath:


Yes, I was using the blow dryer to full effect. She's just got way too much hair to dry before bedtime rolls around. And besides, she loves it!

Snack Hack

I tend to bring the same crap to eat at work each day, more out of economy than lack of wanting more variety. However, the same old shit does tend to get old after a while so anything to mix up the monotony is a good thing. Recently I stumbled upon a tasty enhancement to my old snack staple of pretzels. I usually buy a big bag of them and pack a sandwich bag full every day. Boring right? Well a few weeks ago I brought some leftover pasta and packed extra garlic powder in my lunch bag for added seasoning. Forgetting that sandwich bags are pretty permeable, the garlic's flavor seeped into everything I brought, including my pretzels. And you know what? They transformed into Kick-Ass Super Fantastic Garlic Pretzels! I was pleasantly surprised and scarfed the whole bag.

So now when I bring my formerly boring-ass pretzels to work, I sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon worth of garlic powder (not garlic salt!) into the plastic baggy and by mid morning they have once again transformed into Kick-Ass Super Fantastic Garlic Pretzels. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to spice up their standard snacks on the cheap!

Fun With Street Fighter IV

I've been playing around with Street Fighter IV for about two weeks now and can say I am very happy with how this game turned out. It's not Street Fighter II Turbo perfect, but it's pretty damn fun. The graphics and animations are stellar and the online play is much better than I expected. The new characters are creative, not as fun or endearing as the classic lineup but they are all very well done. I'm making an effort to learn some of them, namely Crimson Viper and Rufus in arcade mode.

Having played with all the modes in this game and feeling very comfortable with it now, I've noticed a few things I like very much and some that are just head-scratchers:

The Good

If you enable online requests, you can get pulled out of your single player arcade matches by an online challenger. Normally this would sound annoying, but the game pops a big "A New Challenger has entered the ring!" message, almost like someone has walked up and slapped a quarter in your machine. I think it's pretty cool and had me feeling a bit nostalgic for my old arcade days. I leave the online requests enabled most of the time unless I'm working on unlocking characters or practicing.

The gameplay is pretty basic if you've ever played Street Fighter II. Gone are the parries and insane combos of SF III and Marvel vs Capcom. Instead you have a straight up fighter with the classic move sets, along with simple Super and Ultra combo specials. They've added a Focus counter system that is easy to use but has more advanced features if you choose to master it. I'm still working on the timing of focus dash cancelling through fireballs, it's pretty neat when you get it down. But, if you could hadoukan or dragon punch 15 years ago, you can still do it today.

The online play is nearly flawless. For a game that requires precise timing, I'd say that 90% of my matches are indescernable from offline play. You'll get the occassional laggy match, but they are usually so bad you just disconnect and start over. The added bonus of online play is the Ranked bouts, where you go up against players of much better skill than standard Player fights. I get my ass kicked regularly in ranked play but I'm learning some techniques and strategies I might have never seen otherwise.

The Bad

The kids that play this game online need to branch out a bit. Expect heavy doses of Ken, Ryu and Akuma if you venture online. Just last night, I played 15 matches and faced Ryu 10 times, Ken twice, Akuma twice and Crimson Viper just once. I've yet to face anyone playing as Dhalsim, E. Honda, Vega, El Fuerte, etc. I understand Ken/Ryu are easy to play and very popular, but learn some new moves guys! Just to rebel I've been playing as Cammy or Rose in most of my online matches.

Unlocking all the characters is pretty difficult. I've unlocked them all except for Akuma, Gouken and Seth. I will probably never get Gouken unlocked due to the crazy requirements, and Akuma is looking like a longshot for me even on easy. You need a combination of perfect finishes, ultra combo finishes, no continues and beating the game with every other character to get them all. I'm not necessarily worried about never playing with these guys but it'd be fun to try them in arcade mode at least. I think the unlocks should apply to online only, so if you earn them it has more bearing on the game.

This is a small complaint, but the menu text is tiny. I play on a 27" CRT and I can't read the text on many of the custom profile titles, the profile icons are small and blurry as well. I know I'm behind the times but the game should be viewable even if you don't have an HDTV. I don't like having to stand 6" from the screen to figure out what button it's telling me to press to see my ranking in online matches.


I'm still waiting for my Mad Catz Fightstick to show up despite pre-ordering it two months ago, so I'm going at it with the standard PlayStation controller. Not the idea way to play this game, I'd prefer a SNES gamepad if I could use it, but I'm getting by. This is a very fun Street Fighter game and probably the only one I'd recommend over Marvel vs Capcom 2 (which is still my favorite fighter ever). I will now leave you so I can practice my Hooligan combo with Cammy while getting pummeled online by 14 year old kids.