The International House of Bacon

1) My current annoyance, outside of the fact that all the rechargeable batteries I have for the Wii and XBox controllers seem to want to die around the same time, is that the Wii Bluetooth has got to be the most inconsistent technological advancement in the current generation of systems. Syncing controllers is consistently a pain in the rear end, never works the same way twice, and always makes for interesting startups. It might just be me, but it’s really, really annoying.

2) We picked up Mario Kart Wii today, because when you own a system that only has 5 great games, you make sure you pick them up as soon as possible. Honestly? The Wiimote controls are difficult and literally painful, the Wii Wheel is ridiculous and I don’t use it after trying once race (and I then sold it on Amazon for $10, which boggles my mind), the handling on even the most highly-rated carts is incredibly hard, and they’ve made turbo sliding very tough. With that said, it’s still Mario Kart, and that means it’s pretty much awesome. Playing it online is probably the best part, and once I can get my controllers to sync up again, I’ll post my friend code. So I like it - a lot more than Brawl, not as much as Galaxy.

3) I beat Blue Dragon a couple weeks ago, which was nice. I think it’s the first game (outside of You Have To Burn the Rope) that I’ve played and beated in quite a long time. The ending was decent, I suppose. What was interesting to me, however, is the relative impossibility of some of the achievements. Yes, I’m an achievement whore, but not nearly enough of one to, say, rent a game just to bump my score up or play through another 40 hours to make sure I kill every last enemy in a role playing game that doesn’t allow you to skip cinematics. I have to say, the game was a blast and achievements are fun, but there’s very little chance of me going back to get 1000 points on that one.

4) Speaking of very little chance of getting 1000 achievement points, I finally decided to try my hand at Eternal Sonata. What a disappointment this game is to me early on! It takes the more annoying parts of Tales of Symphonia, ties in a storyline that’s boring me to tears, and either makes the battles way too easy or way too difficult, with no significant ease of leveling up that I’ve found yet. For those of you who have played it - does it improve? Is there hope?

5) Super Smash Bros. Brawl? Honestly? After a few days with it, it’s not really all that amazing to me. If GameStop is still offering $35 for it + 20% for Grand Theft Auto IV, I might actually jump at that. The game isn’t bad per se as much as it ended up not being that interesting to me, and many of the levels make the characters so small that it’s hard to play, and the solo “Subspace Emissary” mission is really, really poor compared to the solo mission on Melee. Color me disappointed.

6) I admit it - Viva Pinata is strangely fun.

7) Rainbow Six Vegas is good, too. I only play it multiplayer when I can catch up with Rick or Mark, because the solo is too hard and I do too much Team Fortress-style “run in with guns blazing” stuff, but I never thought I’d like a game like that, and I do.

I think that’s it for now.

* A great interview with Antonin Scalia on 60 Minutes last night. I’m a big Scalia fan, even if I don’t agree 100% with his brand of originalism, but this interview gives a good idea as to how thoughtful he is as opposed to the public perception.

* The growing cigarette black market in Massachusetts. I’d say “what are they thinking,” but that implies there’s any serious thought going on at the state level of government in Massachusetts.

* Power Line covers another source of discomfort with me regarding McCain. It has nothing to do with him criticizing the President and everything to do with his apparent acceptance of how opponents of the right perceive the right - note to McCain: being like Teddy Roosevelt isn’t really something to embrace. In a way, it’s a decent campaign tool - use the names of revered Americans to try and counter the more insane quarters of the left when securing the center, but it’s obviously at the extent of the solid right, the ideological base that needs more solidification at this point. It’s especially infuriating when he can have that and this in the same campaign cycle.

* There’s only one word I can use to describe this post: Yes.

* Joystiq’s Mario Kart Retrospective. I haven’t played about half of these, actually.

* 10 reasons the superdelegates should pick Clinton.

* Finally, this must have been uncomfortable.