The time has finally come.  The time for contest result announcings!
 
When it was all said and done I had 3 entrants (Peasel, HBaka and Bustin).  If you haven't read their entires now would be a good time to zip over to their respective blogs and find them.  Bustin's is dated  Friday, July 9th.  Peasel's is July 16th as is Hbaka's.  I'd like to thank all three of them for entering.
 
The decision making process was a tough one as all three stories were good.  I ended up eliminating Bustin's from contention because it was more of a comedic story (with the puking and excessive drunkeness) than a scary one.  That left Hbaka and Peasel's entries.  And the winner is...
*insert drumroll here*
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Peasel!
 
Both Hbaka and Peasel's stories did a good job of being scary.  I found Peasel's to be a bit better of a read (mainly due to a handful of typos in Baka's story that kind of killed the flow a few times) but I was going to give it to Hbaka anyway since his story was orginal while Peasel's was admittedly somewhat borrowed from another source.  But then I remembered that my criteria were only that the story be scary and end with 'A FACE!'.  Originality of the source wasn't actually a consideration so I couldn't judge based on that.  So once I get Peasel's mailing address (and a bit of spare time), I shall mail out the fabulous mystery prize!  If Hbaka feels slighted he can always steal it. :P  I'm also thinking on trying to come up with some sort of prize for the other two people who took the time to enter but since I'm not incredibly wealthy it'll probably be some sort of web-based prize.
 
Quote of the YesterDay: "Monotony is the mind-killer"
- Mason
I can't believe I've never quoted this excellent, excellent show before.  Yume gets credit on this one and continues the back and forth between Bustin and herself.
 
Quote of the Day: "Of course!  An elephant always never forgets!"
- ?

I rented WarioWare for the cube today and I must say it is quite a fun game.  I've yet to try the single player mode but it's my understanding that it's more or less the same experience as playing on the GBA.  The multiplayer games are quite fun.  Competing against other players with games where nobody's really sure what to do when they first start makes for an amusing experience.  WarioWare is the type of game that would be incredibly fun to play at parties (esp those where lots of alcohol is being consumed).  Highly recommended for multiplayer fun.
 
Quote of the YesterDay: "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."- Batman
 
Yume guessed this quote from one of my all-time favorite movies Batman (the 1966 version).  This movie is one of the most entertaining comedies you could ever watch.  And with her guess Yume pulls back up into a tie for first place with Bustin.
 
Quote of the Day: "Monotony is the mind-killer."
-?
 
Oh, and thanks to two people who have in fact started working on entries for the contest I've decided to extend it an extra day.  Contests are a lot more fun when there's actually some sort of competition. :P

This one will be a short one as I'm planning on getting up pretty early in the morning for a commute to PC (want to make sure I'm not driving during precious Farscape time :P). Considering that you'd think I'd go straight to bed after work but instead I played around on the computer, wrote this and plan on watching the last ep of Abenobashi before I go to sleep. So, if I'm fast I'll probably get around 5 hours of sleep. Keen, no?

And while on the trip we also get to see if the $0.0006 million car can handle another 2.5 hour drive.

Remember people the deadline on the FACE!!! contest is tomorrow night (whenever I post next) so if you want a chance to win an actual prize you'd better get cracking. So far Bustin's got the only entry so he poised to win by default. (the two sweetest words in the English language!)

Quote of the YesterDay: "All right, all right I'll call him. I mean if living means that much to you."
- Leela
Bustin gets credit for nailing this Futurama quote and regains the lead.

Quote of the Day: "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
- ?

I'll be extremely disappointed in each and every one of you if nobody gets this.

Another 'weekend' is almost upon me. It's not really a weekend per se but it's more convenient to call it that than to say 'the 2 days a week where I do not have to come in to work'. Work's been going by really quickly too.

I was worried that there would be a lot of days where the time just craaaawwled but that hasn't been the case at all. Of course my spending a large % of each shift reading web comics probably helps with that. I've burned through a good ten web-comics or so in the last week or two (can't remember the exact day when I first realized that I should spend much of my free time between calls reading comics). I've read a few that got added to my regular reading (ScaryGoRound probably being the best) and a few that were either A) not that great so not worth my bother tracking down or B) already finished comics with no more new ones coming out. Anyone out there have any suggestions for future readings? Oh and preferably ones without too much swearing. As I understand it my viewing can be monitored from time to time so I probably should avoid reading comics with a heavy % of swearing. Some swearing's fine though.

Quote of the YesterDay: "Idle hands spend time at the genitals, and you know how much God hates that."
- Ol' Drippy
Bustin was all over this one to bring himself up into a tie for first place. Supsenseful!!!

Quote of the Day: "All right, all right I'll call him. I mean if living means that much to you."
-?

I've had this really cool idea for a story kicking around in my head for a while now. I can't think of any stories that use a similar idea so it is fairly original and I think it would make for a really great story.

The problem with my idea is that it is one that couldn't be done properly within the confines of a short story. It would have to be an actual novel length deal. I've never written anything that long before and I'm only just getting back into writing short stories. So I'm not sure if I should tackle the idea now or put it on the back burner while I hone my skills some more.

On one hand it would be nice to improve myself to make sure I was able to do the story properly when I went to write it. On the other hand though I have a fear that if I don't start the story soon it'll never end up getting written. I'm not sure what to do...

Quote of the YesterDay: "I'm going to go inside and watch the Brady Bunch, and I don't mind telling you I find four of those children very arousing."
- Duckman
No points on this quote. It's good to know that some person out there did know it though. Go mystery person!

Quote of the Day: "Idle hands spend time at the genitals, and you know how much God hates that."
- ?

Thanks for all the game related comments. Most of them aren't really viable for my current computer situation (my sister's computer is only a 1 Ghz so it'll probably have difficulty playing Morrowind and probably won't even run Knights of the Old Republic). Four Swords does look like a good renter though. And Tropico is indeed a fun and addictive game. I may look into accquiring that (perhaps even officially given its probable low price).

I'd been thinking the last couple days that I needed a new game for when I beat XIII but I wasn't really sure what I wanted. Of sort of close upcoming releases I want the new WWE game and Pikmin 2 but neither will be out till the end of August. So I left for work early today and stopped in Gamezilla. I'd never been in the store as it's usually closed when I drive past it at night but I thought it might be a good place for games (I'm not sure how I deduced that one). Gamezilla is actually a chain though there are only 3 stores as far as I know (the others being in Fredricton and Truro). It's a pretty cool place. It's kind of like the comic book store in Wolfville but a lot bigger (it's got a whole seperate large-size room for tabletop RPGs and stuff), with video games (for buy and rent) and a lot more anime stuff.

I browsed the selection of cube games and saw they had a copy of Skies of Arcadia Legends. I knew Skies of Arcadia was a really good RPG and I knew the remake for cube is also supposed to be really good so I picked it up. I'd actually had an urge to pick it up before but had never seen it in a store and didn't feel like ordering it online. So once I beat XIII I'll have many more hours of gaming ahead.

While I was there I also picked up the first Excel Saga graphic novel. It's the first time I've actually bought a graphic novel but Excel Saga's awesome enough for me to feel safe picking it up in manga form. I'll probably tear through that tonight and/or tomorrow (it's 4:45 AM right now so I'll probably do that 'sleep' thing soon).

So I had myself a good little gamezilla spree. And as a bonus I got 2 free rentals (one for each purchase, I assume). I'll probably make use of at least one of those the next time I'm off for two days and not going home (I definitely wouldn't mind checking out Four Swords and/or the Megaman collection).

Quote of the YesterDay: "I'm just a drop in an ocean of badness. Or, rather, more of a bucketful."
- Prince
This quote comes from one of my favorite villians. Yume gets credit for this one and jumps into sole possession of the lead. I'm still too lazy to do up a scoreboard on the side but here's the score for those curious.
Yume Ryuu 2
Bustin 1
All the little villagers 0

Quote of the Day: "I'm going to go inside and watch the Brady Bunch, and I don't mind telling you I find four of those children very arousing."
-?

Also of note is a quote policy I just came up with today. No show or movie will be used as a source for the quote more than once in any given week. That way you can't win just by knowing Simpsons really well. :P
Since the contest started I've used Simpsons, Lexx and Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter (so you won't see those again this week)

While playing XIII the last few days (I'm very near the end. I'm fighting who I assume to be the second to last boss. Very tough but I'm getting a little closer to killing him each time I try. And then there's the 'shocking twist' of who #1 is yet to be revealed. I don't know for a fact who #1 (the head conspirator in a plot to take over the country) is but I'm still expecting it to be the person I expected it to be the very first time I played the game. In fact if they really wanted to shock me they'd have someone else be #1. Anyway enough digressing.) an idea occurred to me. The game's storyline (which is pretty good except for the aforementioned predictability of the final reveal) takes place in a fairly short period of time and all the missions have a time of day both when you start and finish a level. The time has nothing to do with the time in the real world but it got me thinking. I think it would be cool to have a game where you have a set amount of real time to beat it. There are lots of games out there that give you a set amount of in-game time to win but to my knowledge there's no games that require you to beat them in a certain amount of real-time.

I think it would add to the suspense factor of a game like XIII. As the time limit counted down there would be a real concern about failing your mission and getting a game over screen. There are very few games that you can actually lose in this day and age. Virtually all games have infinite continues even if they have a limited number of lives. I think you'd have to give the player the option of setting their own time limit to take in to account the fact that some people have little free time whereas others have lots. Unfortunately some people would probably abuse that facet and set really high time limits that they didn't need but for the player who liked a challenge it could really add a sense of urgency to the gameplay (and also increased the feeling of accomplishment if/when you succeed). It's times like this when I wished I had my own video game company. And oodles of dollars. And a time machine. And some sort of death clock.

Quote of the Yesterday: "If I'm not back in five minutes, call the Pope."
- Jesus

I wasn't really expecting anyway to get this as I didn't know that anyone else had seen Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter but apparently Yume has so she gets in to a tie for first place on the leaderboard I've yet to post.

Quote of the Day: "I'm just a drop in an ocean of badness. Or, rather, more of a bucketful."
-?