If you're a video game fan, then you know that the purchase of a new game often delivers a rush similar to that induced by high grade heroin. Hopefully, actually playing the game is as much fun as the anticipation of it; unfortunately, that's often not true. A few months back I purchased a game entitled "Stuntman;" if you haven't played it, then you are living a fuller, happier life than I. That game, um, SUH--UCKED. The basic idea: you drive cars in stunt scenes for movies, flipping the car through the air and doing power turns and stuff. Here's the short list of things that pissed me off about that damn game:

• Too hard! This probably sounds whiny, but I'm used to games where you get a few easy levels before the game gets really difficult. This game just started out hard; it took me something like 21 tries to complete the first level. This brings me to:
• The game doesn't save often enough. I was going insane, because completing the first level required me to drive for like 3 minutes, go through 20+ checkpoints, and not screw up. So I'd be doing fine, get about 15 check points in, and then accidentally spin out and lose so much time that I'd fail. I would then fling my controller across the room and kick one of the cats in the head. Important note to all game makers: if the game precipitates animal cruelty, it is probably not a good game. This is why "Mary Kay's Interactive Cosmetic Testing Lab (featuring Baldy the Bunny)" didn't take off.

I played for about an hour, probably and turned it off. I have no intention of playing it again. I guess I probably should've been warned off from the game, considering I got it used for like $8.

Anyway, I bring this all up because I have purchased a new game. I picked up Max Payne on sale at the mall for $20. I know, I know, that game is SO last year. Which is why it was only $20. What, you think I'm gonna shell out $50 for a NEW game? Remember, I'm cheap. Before I go into detail about how cool this game is, I'll just quote one line from it:

He had a baseball bat and I was tied a chair. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.

Okay, in retrospect, it's probably funnier if you've been playing the game for 3 straight hours. And are drunk. Nevertheless, the game is one of the best shoot-'em-ups I've played in a long time, mainly because it includes the one thing I've always missed from regular games: the ability to dive while blasting away at your enemies. Max Payne does it one better, throwing you into slow motion when you do it; they call it "bullet time." Bullet time is the greatest invention to hit 3D shooters since B.J. Blazkowicz broke out of Castle Wolfenstein. (Note: I have just downloaded Castle Wolfenstein 3D so I can play it. I'm such an easily distracted dork.)

My only complaints about Max Payne are that there's no multiplayer mode, and loading is slow. What's the point of a shooter if you can't shoot your friends? Admittedly, having Bullet Time in 2 player mode would be kinda hard to work out, but just figure something out, dammit. As to loading: every time you die, the game has to take 30-45 seconds to completely reload from the most recent save point. This is annoying, particularly since as the game gets harder, I'm having to take 10-15 attempts to complete a level. (Max Payne also doesn't save often enough, but that doesn't trouble me too much in this game for some reason.)

All I know is, you just can't beat flinging yourself around a corner in slowmotion with an Ingrams in each hand and spray a few hundred rounds into the poor mafia goons standing there. It's like sex, I'm telling you. If you like sex with guns and Italians, that is.

And who doesn't?

posted at 6:41 PM

I'm not sure how many of y'all work on your own cars; I'm assuming all of the guys, at least, because if a guy can't change his own oil, he probably drinks wine coolers and has seen Yanni in concert. Multiple times. Anyway, this column is for those of my readers who grease their own bearings, enjoy rebuilding carburetors, and know what a U-joint is. (Not that I do.)

This weekend HW and I are going on a road trip, and I was overdue for an oil change, so I went ahead and took care of it. There are many important steps to changing fluids that I have learned and developed over years of practice. Rule One is, wait until the engine has cooled significantly; I discovered this one when I was in a hurry to get the job done once and somehow splashed 190 degree dino-juice into my eye. There is a word to describe the pain I felt, and that word is "AAADKJAKAJJAKFJAKDLKFUCKDJFDALKLAJDFAKJLKJLSKJLFKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA."

Keeping that agonizing flashback in mind, I got home yesterday around 6:30 and immediately sat down to play a game of NCAA Football 2004 while I waited for the truck to cool. (I whooped Clemson's ass, 28-7.) When that was done, I watched the Simpsons; then I played another game (barely beating UMD 17-14 to take the ACC championship and an invitation to the Orange Bowl).

Around 8:15, I changed clothes and made my way outside. Rule Two: make sure you have plenty of paper towels handy. This is a rule I learned when I ruined a nice pair of jeans and my wife stuffed me into the washing machine and set it to "hot wash, cold rinse, extended spin cycle." I grabbed a big roll of towels out of the garage, along with my plastic oil pan, my socket wrench, and a 5/8" socket (Rule 3: Make sure all your tools are handy), and slid under the truck. I undid the oil bolt and luke-warm fluid came a-streamin' out.

Then I got up to find a new filter and properly lube it. This when when I developed Rule 4: make sure you have a replacement filter BEFORE draining all the oil from your vehicle. In conjunction with this, I quickly learned rule 4a: also make sure you have actual oil to replace that which you have removed, and 4b: if you are going to forget to do 4 and 4a, at least make sure someone is around that can drive you to Pep Boys.

While walking the half-mile to the store, I learned rule 5: standing in front of the local police station and weeping loudly will get you the attention of the constabulary, who will assume you have escaped from the rehab center next door.

Luckily, PB was still open (Rule 6: Call to make sure of that before leaving the house). I grabbed 6 quarts of oil and the proper filter and headed to the front, where I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the front windows. With my grubby jeans, worn flannel, and stained work coat, I realized I looked rather insane. Or perhaps it was the muttering and severe facial twitch, I'm not entirely sure.

I walked back home, changed the filter and put oil back in, and went inside to enjoy a tasty beer. Then I realized I had to dispose of the old oil, so I poured it into a couple milk jugs (Rule 7: always save milk jugs to put used oil in), spilling a significant portion of it on the driveway 'cause I have the fine motor control of Formica, and went back inside.

I probably should take the used oil back to Pep Boys this week, but I have a really nice collection of it going in the garage, and I figure the next occupants of the house can find a use for it.

posted at 12:10 PM

Note to all of my friends: no more scheduling of weddings during important football games.

This weekend we married off Mandy and Speech, aka Mandra and La Mouton Rouge. Unfortunately, while the ceremony was happening, UD was going through multiple overtimes of football against rival UMass. Next week, Jodi and Todd will be getting married during the UD-Villanova showdown to decide the Atlantic 10 championship. I may have a seizure during the service, something upon which the priest would most certainly frown.

Nevertheless, the wedding festivities this weekend were highly enjoyable, even though they entrusted Jared (aka Rod, aka Rance, aka Manwhore) with the rings. Jared is reasonably trustworthy, but saying that he is "often tardy" is sort of like saying that "Hitler was a poor role model." Luckily he rode to the gig with me, so we were on time AND sexy as all hell. (Jared is one of the few people I know who may be prettier than I am; luckily, I have larger pectoral muscles, so all the ladies were up ons.)

I sang "One Hand, One Heart" at the service, which elicited some nice compliments, because I'm the shiznit. Mandy's brothers handled the readings, and Rev. Connie Cohen gave an amusing speech on how to keep a marriage working (avoid getting caught banging hookers in Reno, let your wife handle all the money, only slap him around when he REALLY deserves it, that kind of thing), and a harpist played some nice tunes to keep us entertained. The only downside was the heat; apparently the thermostat in the place didn't work, because once we lit all the candles and filled the room with people, it was like being stuck in an elephant's ass in there. I'm glad the service was short, because my polyester tux was starting to melt into my shirt.

The service was held at the same place (called The Waterfall) as the reception, which simplified things nicely. (When Sarah and I were married, a number of folks trying to get to the reception nearly lost their lives because Andy Wang gave them a lift in his car. Who'd've thunk an Asian guy would be such a bad driver?) Several things about the reception were fun:

• Open Bar. Most weddings have these nowadays, or at least free beer and wine, but that doesn't detract from the fact that free gin and tonics (I drank approximately 9) taste so much better than ones for which you pay.
• Dan Bouda's Father. Dan was a member of the wedding party, and a highly amusing fellow to boot. He knew Speech from way-back-when up in North Jersey. Also, his father is technically insane. I don't dance like that until at least the 7th gin-and-tonic, and Mr. Bouda was, from what I understand, stone sober. I believe he learned his moves by watching old Menudo videos.
• Jared's Speech. It was a little long-winded, but it definitely managed to work in the fact that Speech used to have one hell of a mullet and liked to wear tight black jeans.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get too drunk (as is my custom), because I had to be at work by 11pm Saturday night. To work all night. And then perform a change in the morning. Luckily, they decided they didn't really need me and sent me home at 12:30am, which worked out nicely because I managed to get 6 hours sleep before I did a four hour job in the morning.

Jodi and Todd's wedding, on the other hand, will not be interfered with by work, so I'll probably be able to write a nice coherent column on Sunday morning about how I lost my wallet in a craps game and had to sleep in a pig trough.

posted at 2:17 PM

When I last left you, I was discussing buying a new home, and we had just had our offer accepted. You, as I recall, thought that the process was complete, and I laughed at you like a rabid hyena. The process continues! Here are the remaining steps to owning your own home:

1. Schedule a home inspection. This is where you take a few hours out of your busy workday and tour the house with a professional home inspector, who is clearly the type of guy that knows what a "mitre joint" is and built his own refrigerator out of an old intake manifold, using his own frigid breath as the freon substitute. He will get out a large checklist of things to examine, and will reveal to you things like "Hey, the spokes on that bannister are too far apart, a kid could get his head caught in 'em," or "You may notice that your kitchen appears to be missing a floor."

   Luckily, the only serious issue that we found in our future home was discovered by me; when we entered the room with the furnace and water heater, I said I smelled gas. The home inspector didn't smell it, but sure enough when he held his little detector up to the pipes by my head, it screamed like an unanesthetized appendectomy patient. Of course, by this time, I had inhaled enough natural gas that I believed I could fix the problem by coating the affected pipe joint with my own saliva, but luckily Sarah and Melissa (our realtor) got me outside before I developed any kind of cancer.

2. Get your mortgage locked in. You may recall having gotten pre-approved for a mortgage before you began househunting. This is not the same thing. To get final approval for your mortgage, you will need to fill out approximately 3,874 pages of forms, in triplicate, and send them back to the lender. He will then send them back to you with a list of corrections that have to be made ("You forgot to initial here," "I don't think your truck is really worth $173,000," "I wasn't aware that your name was spelled with that many K's," etc.). Later, a woman from the mortgage company will call and request even more information to be faxed to her, and will probably question your ability to pay a $1450/month mortgage AND maintain your "toupee of the month" membership.

   In the end, you will get locked in at a rate; this rate will be higher than anybody else who has bought a home recently has paid, but you will be able to justify it when your parents mention that the rate they got on their first home in 1983 was 47.2%.

3. Contact a lawyer. Having the lawyer serves two purposes: first, they will represent you at settlement, and will be able to tell you exactly how much money you have to pay to everyone that shows up with their hand open. Secondly, after you have to begin robbing convenience stores to pay your mortgage, they will be able to represent you at trial.
4. Arrange for home insurance. I haven't gotten around to this one yet, because I'm lazy, but I imagine it will involve giving someone a massive check and praying that I hit the lottery.
5. Pack up all your stuff. Although honestly it would be simpler, and probably more cost-effective, to just throw it out and buy all new stuff, the wife is rather attached to some of the things her grandmother left her. The next easiest thing would be to hire a professional moving company to handle this, that costs money, and you're probably broke. So just throw all your crap into boxes and hope it doesn't break too much.
6. Go to settlement. This is where you sit down, sign a bunch of papers, have a bunch of things explained to you that you don't care about, hand over a lot of money, and get the keys to your new crib. This will take an hour or two, during which your thought processes will alternate from "I'm buying a new house! Wheeeee!" to "Holy crap, I'm absolutely mind-numbingly broke!" I recommend grinding up some prozac to snort every few minutes to try and keep yourself balanced.
7. Prepare the house. This means painting, fixing any simple stuff that might need it, etc. In our case, it turns out our new place has some aluminum wiring, so I'm going to have to go through it and make sure none of the wires are loose. We also intend to paint, and build a massive wet bar in the basement.
8. Move. This will require lots of friends, lots of pizza, and lots of beer. If you're lucky, nothing will get broken. If you're REALLY lucky, you'll take the week off and move all the little stuff so that when your friends show up, all they have to do is move furniture and get drunk. Be prepared for having most of your furniture badly scraped up.
9. Sit down with a beer and relax. You now own your own home!

You'll want to be sure to pick up plenty of dog food. It's all you can really afford to eat now.

posted at 12:11 PM

So HW and I are buying a house, which most of you know already. (Pictures of the new place can be found here.) What you probably aren't familiar with is the entire home buying process, so I figured I'd enlighten you as to what exactly we did to purchase our new home.

Step 1: Find a realtor. I asked my coworker, Mike, what realtor he used when he bought a house about this time last year, and he recommended Melissa. We clicked with her immediately, for three reasons:

1. She's extremely competent.
2. She's very tall.
3. She laughs at most of my stupid jokes.

Step 2: Contact a mortgage company and get preapproved for a mortgage. Get pre-approved for a $300,000 loan. Dance with joy. Realize you can only really afford a $180,000 home. Dance with somewhat mitigated mirth.

Step 3: Establish a price limit for your new home. We went with $175,000.

Step 4: Look at some homes. Every day, Melissa would email me a list of homes, and we would go out about once a week to look at the ones that fit our requirements.

Step 5: Realize that none of the homes that fit your requirements are located in areas in which you want to live (defined in our case as "areas where we wouldn't need to put snipers on the roof to deter serial murderers"), and bump your price limit up by 10 grand or so.

Step 6: Look at more homes.

Step 7: Increase price limit to $190,000. Become extremely concerned about your ability to buy a home outside of the ghetto.

Step 8: Look at more homes. Weep openly in your realtor's van.

Step 9: Increase price limit to $200,000. Resolve yourself to eating nothing but cat food and ramen noodles for the next 30 years.

Step 10: Find a glorious home, and put in a bid. Find out that the seller is insane, and refuses to bargain at all on the price. (We found out later she dumped her agent, found a new one, and bumped the price up even more.)

Step 11: Look at more homes. Consider moving in with your parents and spiking their eggs with strychnine so that you can inherit.

Step 12: Find another nice home, and put in a bid. Haggle back and forth for a week. Meet your realtor at a supermarket (Zingo's, in our case) to sign the papers.

What, you think you're done? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now the work just begins!

Having finally settled on a home, you have to make mortgage arrangements (you thought you did that already; you were wrong), find a lawyer, bribe civic officials, and sleep with the zoning commissioner. These, and other issues (somehow I found myself owing a favor to the Godfather) will be covered in the next column.

posted at 2:07 PM

This is it! I'm finally completing the process of puberty. Or at least I'm past the midway point. I now have to shave every day.

That may not seem like an accomplishment in and of itself, but when coupled with the fact that I now have a pretty nice collection of chest hairs (even if 70% are congregated around, for some reason, my right nipple), and recently I've had to spend a LOT more time yanking at nosehairs during meetings, I think I'm advancing towards manhood pretty quickly now.

This is great! I'll be able to ask out all those hot high school girls that would never come near me before I developed the ability to grow 11pm shadow. And then, after I'm convicted of statutory rape (17 year old girls don't keep quiet about that as much as they used to), I'll be able to grow a really cool goatee in prison to go along with the "I be chuckie's bitch" tattoo on my cheek.

Of course, I still can't grow a moustachio; the hair there consists mostly of fine white hairs. I think one of my aunts has more upper lip growth. And my sideburns don't actually connect my cheek whiskers to my hairline. I imagine these things will come in due course, and I should be able to grow a nice handlebar just in time for them to fit me for a coffin.

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Queries? Problems? Your brain leaking from your nose? I don't care. Ah, just kidding. Shoot an email to spam(at)matthearn(dot)com.

posted at 3:54 PM

Is it just me, or are people wearing a lot more perfume recently? Perhaps I'm just sensitive to it because I'm a singer. There's nothing quite like taking a deep breath just as an old lady walks by wearing two gallons of Eckerd's new scent "Intransigence", followed by your throat snapping shut and your nose flinging itself from your face, sliding across the floor, leaving a trail of boogery slime.

I find it happens a lot at church, which of course is where I do most of my singing. The choir, luckily, has to deal with the same issues I do, so they mostly don't wear any stinkum. Unfortunately, I usually find myself sitting within a few seats of the acolytes and communion helpers, none of whom are singers, and at least one of whom seems to have a vat of CK1 in her backyard into which she dips herself after bathing. People that don't sing never seem to get why it's so bad, either; if you ask them to maybe tone down the Eau de Nasal Searing, their usual response is, "I smell just fine!" I think I should be allowed to stab them.

It's even worse when you go out to a party or a club. Apparently the best way to attract women these days is to spray Drakkar Noir onto yourself until you get a nice crusty layer of it dried onto your shirt. Around here, some folks call it a Puerto Rican Shower, which is of course highly insulting and racist, and therefore never fails to make me laugh myself hoarse.

It happens at work as well. We have a woman here who is very nice, but luckily is not someone I have to deal with very often. It's difficult to talk to someone while holding your breath to avoid passing out. I fail to understand why you need perfume at work. The purpose of smell, last I checked, was to attract potential lovers. Not something you particularly want to do at work.

I can't even escape it at home! I'll be on the throne, having some nice quiet time before showering and driving to work. Suddenly Sarah bursts into the room, and fills the air with some kind of cross between daisies, honeysuckle, and wild boar sweat. She then vacates as abruptly as she arrived, leaving me with my head between my legs, trying to breathe whatever fresh air might be left in the toilet bowl beneath me.

I often get my revenge, however. I've developed my own scent, which I call Essence of Stench. All you need to make your own batch of it is a large vat of refried beans, and it's guaranteed to clear the room of odorous individuals.

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Queries? Problems? Your brain leaking from your nose? I don't care. Ah, just kidding. Shoot an email to spam(at)matthearn(dot)com.

posted at 2:12 PM