Mario Kart Wii Impressions

So I’m taking some time out of my busy schedule (which is probably a big mistake) to quickly write about Mario Kart Wi.

After for about a year and maybe even a little more Mario Kart Wii was finally released on Sunday April 27th. The game got little to no coverage at all and it’s a shame that it didn’t too. The game definitely goes back it’s traditional roots of the N64 Mario Kart. It’s packed with plenty of new and old maps from the previous titles, even including DS, GBA, and SNES Versions/Titles. There are a few new characters and of course you’re traditional but it appears they took out a few in favor of some of the new ones.  There are some new weapons and unfortunately they removed the Item Stealing Boo. Why this was done I’m not quite sure but there is probably a number of reasons for this that I can think of.

The menu has changed a lot compared previous versions. While in a race you can’t just press start (+) and choose “Restart/Retry” like in previous versions. You can only choose “Quit” and “Continue”, this was probably most likely done to prevent everyone from being sore losers and to play the game like it was meant to be played. Choosing Quit will obviously bring you back to the main menu and you will have to start all over. In multiplayer they took out the same option but also the “Change Character” option. This in my opinion was a bad move. But hey I don’t work for Nintendo so I have no say in what goes into the game, plus I wouldn’t know why it was taken out. I’m sure they have good reason’s and I could make a few guesses why but nothing concrete.

Online play is fantastic and 10x better then SSBB. It usually takes less then 5 minutes to connect with other players and if you do not successfully connect or people drop out well you get taken back to the menu where you choose if you want to play regional or worldwide. I felt that they could have just simply put you back into search mode but I guess they wanted to give you the option of trying worldwide for example if regional didn’t work. I didn’t get a chance to try out the Mario Kart Wii Region Boards yet but the nice thing is you can access it from the Wii Channel with out a disc. Installation of the chanel takes only seconds. Nintendo got it right this time around for the online play. Now they need to implement this on they’re other upcoming games. Oh and might I mention that it’s lag free?

The Wii Wheel is great and definitely gives you a different playing experience. It’s quite easy to master but it does have it’s qwerk’s at times. For example when you go around a turn and you press B to slide some times the Wheel registers the action as sliding in the opposite direction of the turn. Luckily you can pull out of it by simply letting go of B. The power slide now has two options which are Automatic and Manual. Automatic does the slides automatically for you but you lose the ability to get that extra boost, mean while Manual you press B when going into the turn and you get the Mini Boost if you hold the slide long enough.

As mentioned before there are new characters introduced into the game. One example would be “Baby Peach”. I don’t recall there ever being a “Baby Peach” in the series but hey maybe there will be a new game featuring her in the story in the future. The new characters are all unlockable especially the “Cups” unlike in the N64 version and Double Dash if I remember correctly. Some of the original Characters must be unlocked as well. The AI can be a pain though, I’ve been in First and got bombarded by Banana’s, Shell’s, the Squid Ink all in one shot, even when I fall back to 3rd just so I don’t get hit by the damn Blue Spike Shell.

The soundtrack is nice and it’s catchy, but it can be repetitive. I mean it is Mario Kart but hearing the same tracks over and over again can get tire some. The Battle Mode has been changed to Team Based and you keep getting new balloons till time runs out. You’re goal is to hit has many players you can with items to score points before time runs out. There is also a Coin Collection mode the differs from that. I haven’t gotten the chance to try this out yet  but if anyone is familiar with the multiplayer on Mario 64 DS with the coin collection I believe it might be very similar however with Karts and Motorcycles.

The Bikes are very well balanced and are very easy to use. I was concerned about this when they were frst announced them but they were implemented very well into the game. For now I’m sticking with the Karts in Multiplayer but I’m slowly making my way over to the Bikes. Tricks have been implemented to both the Karts and the Bikes. Each controller is different but once a trick as been activated when launching off a jump, you’re character does a small move in the air and then once he/she hits the grand they get a speed boost.

I’ve pretty much covered the basics of Mario Kart Wii. Anything I missed or would like to know more about let me know and I will post an update. I highly reccommend this game and anyone who had doubts about picking it up shouldn’t as it will keep you entertained for hours with friends, family, online play or even by yourself.

Killer Bunnies Anyone?

I know I know I promised an update the day after I found my keys. With Finals coming up in the next 3 weeks it’s been hard to update and there’s just so much work to do! Being a college student sure has it’s perks though well maybe.

So today I have a handful of stuff to talk about today. Let’s get started.

This past weekend was a sad one for us New Jersey Devils fans. After playing a whole Season not being able to defeat the New York Rangers we finally managed to do so, only to lose a third time to them in the Stanley Cup Playoffs during knocking us out in Round One. Never again do I want to see such a tragedy like that happen ever again. But we’ll come back with a stronger team next year and until then I’ll be cheering for which ever team plays the Rangers and defeats them.

In other news it appears GrooveShark is no longer in Beta still in Beta. If you go to the site it’s been completely revamped however you do need to  be logged in and still need the software installed to listen to music. If you don’t want to register then you can use GrooveShark Lite. Just search the artist name/song name and a player will open up in the Browser allowing you to listen with out an account. A cool feature indeed but not what I was looking for them to do.

So how many of you have heard of a nice game called Killer Bunnies? This card game is pretty much suitable for anyone of any age and features a total of 9 booster decks to add to the game. The game comes with an additional deck called the Yellow Booster Deck. You’re goal is to try to prevent the other players from collecting Golden Carrots while trying to collect these same exact Golden Carrots. The game can be played between 2 players or more. However I personally found the more the better as it takes the game to a whole new level. There’s so much detail behind the game and all that I’ll let what the description from the Killer Bunnies website do the explaining as it can explain it 10x better then I can.

Killer Bunnies & the Quest for the Magic Carrot is a fast paced, action filled card game, in which you must try to keep as many Bunnies alive as possible, while eliminating your opponents’ Bunnies. The problem: Your opponents are armed with weapons and will stop at nothing to keep you from winning the game, which can get dreadfully vengeful, horribly nasty, hilariously messy, and just plain fun!

Can you keep from being attacked by the whimsical Whisk or the torching Flame Thrower? Defend your Bunnies with the Magic Spatula, or use a Feed The Bunny card to starve out an opponent! It’s off-the-wall strategic fun, where the goal is to survive and claim the Magic Carrot to win the game!

And finally as I mentioned last Wednesday I lost my car keys at the college. I spent about 3 hrs with out them and the first 20 minutes of those 3 hrs figuring out if I dropped them or left them in a class room.

Long story short security didn’t have them and it was then when I knew where they were. Turned out they were in the room where I had my class before lunch. Only downside was a class was going on at the time. My options were to intrupt and get them or wait. I chose to be polite and wait it out meanwhile walking by every now and then looking through the window try to see if they were in view. Eventually after 3 hrs went by I decided to just go in and get them cause the class was still not over. As I walked in one student just said “Your keys are right there, we saw you walk by at least 3 times or more”, I must admit I was kind of embarassed and because I was I made up some false story that of course no one bought but hey I finally got them back!

That’s all I really have for you guys today! I’ll post some more interesting with in the next couple days, weeks, etc.

Missing Keys

You know what sucks the most? Losing your keys. Some how I managed not to grab them on my way out of class and to lunch. Hopefully I’ll find them as it would be really nice to be able to put my books in my car and then eventually be able to go home after my last class. I’ll keep you guys posted!

::Update::

Found my keys much earlier today! I’ll blog about it tomorrow.

Wildwood Days

Finally a new blog post! Things have been super crazy the past week with college. Everything is in pretty much crunch time right now and professors are starting to load a ton of work on to our shoulders for the next 3 weeks. So I’ve finally found some time out of my busy schedule to blog. So I figured why not write about my plans for Wildwood?

As I’ve written before on my old blog every summer my friends and I have made it a point to “go down the Shore” as we like to call it here in Jersey. This location happens to be Wildwood as it’s one of the best beaches at the Jersey Shore and it has the best boardwalk. Actually the good old and famous Wildwood Boardwalk. I grew up there during the summers when I was a child so I figured that my friends who have or even’t haven’t been there should share the memories I had.

Everything is still up in the air at the moment. There’s so much planning to do such as where were going to stay for the weekend, who’s coming, money, etc. I’m shooting for June as thats the last month I have to use my comp day. But it may look like it will be July or even August at the latest.

Things have changed so much down there since I was a child and since we sold our place down there. Most of the familiar motels/hotels are now gone and have been replaced with condo’s. There was one near our place that we went into all the time because they had a small gift shop where you could buy snacks, drinks, and kites. Oh and they had 3 arcade machines as well if I remember correctly. Now it’s gone though no more snacks, drinks, kites or anything of that sort. Sure you could go to a Wal-Mart, or an Eckerd/Rite Aid but you’ll be paying top dollar at those stores. Where as this place everything was reasonably priced.  The Board Walk has changed a lot too. The piers with all of the rides now have a new ticketing/wrist band system for rides. I would beg my parents to get the wrist band because it would get me on all of the rides and of course one Go Kart ride. Now a days it’s this plastic wrist band with what appears to be bar codes and they no longer apply to Go Karts. But hey they still work on all of the rides! But most of all what has changed is it appears Coca Cola bought out or made some kind of deal with the Morey’s. Everything such as the Tram cars are now branded Coca Cola and no longer have the signature bright yellow paint or the constant “WAAAWAWAAATCCHCH THE TRAM CAR PLEEAAASSSE!!!” when the drivers would hit the button repeatedly. Now it’s painted red, Coca Cola logo’s and “WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE”. The Tram cars weren’t broken it was just the way they got peoples attention and boy it did. Everyone would stop walking and watch them pass by. Now a days barely anyone does. They also now do the fireworks display and are done every Friday night. That’s cool and all but I always saw them as being special. Something that only happened on holidays and special occasions. Now it appears they’ve lost the meaning of that. And finally the one thing I didn’t like that they changed was the roller coaster titled “The Great Nor’ Eastern”. The original color was Bright Pink and you could see it for miles. It was like a landmark and I loved seeing it coming over the bridge, and seeing it from our place when I was kid. Now it’s painted White with changing color lights, and this year they completely changed the hanging cars, and renamed it “Fly The Great Nor’ Eastern”.

However a lot of good has come out of this transformation too! They built a new convention center right on the boardwalk, new street lights, sidewalks, etc. Ok well not a lot but still those are some benefits but the demolition of most hotels/motels, Coca Cola,  and what not was a bit much.

So this summer I hope everything goes well and that everyone I invite can come. I absolutely love it down there and I can’t wait to share the beauty and experience with every one.

Welcome to my Life

A couple a months ago I replied to a topic on the Mixxing Bowl entitled “Fighting Depression”, which was posted by honest_ape. My reply was quite long as it pretty was about my life till up to this current point in time. These past few months I’ve thought about bring it over here for all to see. Many things went through my head such as worrying what everyone would think of me after reading it, would my friends stop talking to me etc. Well the answer was right in front of me all along.

I typed that up and posted it on the Mixxing Bowl and none of the users over their thought any less then me, and none of them stopped talking to me. So I have finally decided to bring that reply post I made over here. Here’s a Glimpse of my life up till now. No one I knew/know has known about majority of the stuff I wrote. Not the three original youth pastors at my former church, not the kids in the two youth groups, and not even my friends. The only people who knew about it up to this point was everyone at the Mixxing Bowl. Some slight changes were made at the end to reflect up till now. Comments are more then welcomed if you feel you would like to make one.

When I was younger everyone in my family got along, we would all spend time together at night, go to church together on Sundays (as much as I hated it though little did I know how much of this would come into my life later), etc. I thought we had a perfect family or something. I thought we were close because when I was younger around the age 3 I stopped growing. The doctors at this one hospital in NY was trying to take blood samples but because my veins were so small they couldn’t find any so they kept sticking me with the needle over and over again non-stop till they hit one. We never went back there and ended up going to the Childrens Hospital of PA. They made us feel at home, etc. They figured out my body for some reason stopped making the growth hormones. So I was put on growth hormone shots that I had to take every day till I was in middle school. Some where down the line things started to go sour. We stopped getting together at night watching Jeopardy while drinking Milkshakes, we stopped going to church all together, my dad would either come home really late at night, after we were in bed or wouldn’t come home at all. My brothers and I grew distant especially from my one older brother.

Years went by and our family pretty much was torn apart. My dad and his brother (my uncle) ran a business together and they got into a big argument over the company. Long story short they ended up going to court against each other and my uncle pretty much went bankrupt. Our family no longer talked to our cousins on his side of the family or anything for the longest time. I was crushed and I missed seeing my at the time baby cousins grow up into their teen years. All of this occurred between 95 and 99. During this time frame as well my mom and I had gotten into screaming matches. It got to the extent where one time I cursed her off and punched her in the arm and where one time where she lost control and started beating me up (she still denies it to this day). I remember specifically hiding under my desk with a water jug and chair trying to hide me. She came into the room yelling and told me to come out. I refused and she screamed some more and left.

In 1999 we found out that my one older brother had been on drugs. He went to a school called Peddy and he got kicked out as they searched his room over Christmas break. He played the game and acted like he was clean while going to our local Highschool. One of his friends knew he was lying and not being truthful (his friend was in recovery too) and busted him. I remember coming home that day from school. I saw cop cars in front of my house and I walked inside the garage and as soon as I opened the door I was told to stay outside. It turned out my older brother was being arrested by my parents and a counselors advice. The cops found two pills of E on him as well and it turned out he was high at that moment too. I was about 12 years old then scary huh? Through middle school my family went through a recovery program with my brother. At the end of 8th grade I almost got into serious trouble with the law. One kid I knew took a paper clip and with a lighter heated it up. He touched it to my arm and of course it hurt. But being the stupid kids at that age we thought it was funny. There were no marks at all. Well my one other friend and I got this idea to do the same thing. However he had a much stronger lighter. One of those really hot ones. Idk what you call them but they were about the size of a regular maybe slightly bigger. We took it, heated up a paper clip, called a friend over and did the same thing to him. He ended up getting severely burned. The cops were called in and I of course was the one who got in trouble the most cause I was the one who touched it to his arm. I was told his parents could sue if they want but luckily they didn’t as we were really good friends at least I think that was the reason. But I ended up getting in school suspension for a day.

It was during this time frame as well my parents had me hospitalized as suggested by our brothers counselor. My parents were being a pain at that time and I was really upset. One day one of the kids I knew said “You should kill you parents”. Now I just shrugged it off and thought nothing of it. I told my parents about it and they got concerned. Well for some reason one weekend my parents thought that I had recent thoughts of killing them I don’t know why either and frankly I can’t even remember what sparked that. So we went to the counselor a day early and she said asked me when my last thoughts of this were. I told her over and over again that I didn’t. She wouldn’t believe me and told me to tell the truth or she’ll call the cops. Being the stupid one and not thinking of the consequence’s I just blurted out this weekend to shut her up and get this done and over with. That night I was hospitalized and spent the week and my 16th birthday I believe it was in a kid/teen hospital. They didn’t call me to say happy birthday and they refused to take my phone calls.

This scare tactic was used on me before that too. I had once gotten hit in the face with a broken paintball shell while getting rid of the remainder of the CO2. The counselor told me she would call the cops and have me arrested if I didn’t tell the truth cause I had said I was hit with a branch. So I told the truth and my parents got rid of the paintball guns. I knew what was going to happen so I lied about it until she told me the cops would be called.

Anyways we then found out all these years that my dad was cheating on my mom and that he was being abusive as well. He played the poor me act and promised to never do it again and to go into marriage counseling. Meanwhile he was still being dishonest and not loyal. We thought everything was fine those three years but we were wrong. We started get back involved in the church and I was hesitant for the longest time. But there were some people there who ran the youth group that made me feel at home, etc. From that point on my life changed and I decided to follow Christ. I mean what did I have to lose? I thought all of my problems would go away and that God would just make things better. However I was wrong. God has a tendency to put you through the toughest times to make you grow spiritually and I don’t know why. By then we started talking to our dad’s side of the family again even though my dad refused to talk to them. My older brother went to college and my parents marriage kept deteriorating. By this time I was a freshman in High School. It was that year that my older brother relapsed. It started with drinking, leading to smoking pot, to trying Heroin once (he hated it), to injecting Cocain (his new drug of choice). He got kicked out of college and by then my parents were living in the same house. My mom had gotten a restraining order put in place as my dad went against doctors orders and left the facility in Florida. He was diagnosed with borderline personality, and multiple other things as well.

My brother refused to live with my brothers, myself and my mom. Instead he went to live with my dad as he knew he was a manipulator , etc. My parents got divorced sometime during my sophomore year if I remember correctly. I still went to church, youth group, etc but I was by no means a so called “Goody Tooshoo” Christian or the misconception most people have about Christians. I was the furthest from it. I struggled with relationships, viewing inappropriate things on the internet (at work at the moment trying to keep it PG as much as I can), etc. It even got to the point with the girl I was dating at the time where we pretty much did everything. You name it we most likely did it. We even almost got to the point where we felt it was time to move on to the next step of our relationship and sleep with each other. I was living a lie for the longest time during that year of my freshman into part of my Sophomore year. Well long story short with that it never happened and she cheated on me and we broke up. I’ve been single since and really haven’t figured out why. Anyways through out high school I still gave the God thing a shot. I did grow closer to Him and everything but still there wasn’t one part of me I wasn’t letting go of which was my habit of being on the computer late at night and well yeah you get the picture.

I had completely let go of myself honestly. I went on a downhill spiral. For a while I didn’t shower every day, wore dirty clothes, etc. I had hit a low depression because of everything I’ve been through but also because of the guilt I felt for what I was doing in my own personal life and because I always felt I needed to be perfect because I was a so called Christian. But I still pressed on through high school. I didn’t kick the habit or anything but I was able to hide it very well from everyone! I went on missions trips, retreats, etc. I even built that youth groups website. I felt like everything was starting to shape up. But alas I was wrong. My youth pastor was leaving the church to start a daughter church. I didn’t get it and he was leaving right after our next missions trip to England. Where I met those most beautiful girl I knew. We hooked up on the trip (thats making out here in Jersey), and we thought we would be together eventually. Alas this has never happened and I don’t think it will. Anyways our youth pastor left and the new youth pastor came on board. He seemed nice and cool so I got to know him. I trusted him with everything, I told him my deepest darkest secret about my late night habits. But a year later he back stabbed me, and took the website away from me. I made the mistake of giving him the passwords and FTP access to the site.

The webhost found out and we gave him some options as I was getting free hosting for helping him run the Hosting Company. They opted to leave the company and pay for hosting as they did not want me back on the project. The whole church started to shun me and I’ve been scared since. I avoided going to church for months, till I decided to go to a new church my mom was going to called Liquid Church. By this time I had started college already. This all took place last year in 06. I thought things were going well but alas again I was wrong. I was still caring that deep and dark secret. I was helping them set up for church every Sunday at 5am as they are taking place in the Morristown Hyatt considering they just launched and can’t afford to get their own building yet. I eventually grew stressed, tired, etc. I stopped helping out and stopped going to church. I had hit the depression again. Over the summer I changed for about a month, I wasn’t my usual self, I started going to a college party once, and then a party in upstate new york and got drunk up there. I quickly saw what was happening and I stopped this behavior before I couldn’t control it. Now here I am present day. Over the months I slowly but surely started going back to Liquid. And I still carry the deep and dark secret. I try my best to follow God and I know I’m not perfect and that He doesn’t expect me to be. I finally understand that and accept that. But it is still the biggest struggle for me. I struggle with the fact that I haven’t been in a relationship in years, but I still hold on tight.

Which now leads me to your post. Many times I find myself restless, with a feeling in my stomach like something bad is going to happen, I wake up tired and keep reseting the alarm to every 10 - 30 min. All the way up to the point where I wake up last minute, take a shower, and head off to work. I’ve been late to work by 20 - 30 minutes for the past 2 - 3 months now because of this. And I’m sure they haven’t fired me yet cause I’m the CEO’s nephew. So yeah that’s it thats my story. I”m trying to make an effort to get involved in a small group over at Liquid Church. It’s tough though because of the way my schedule currently is, I may have to wait till the summer but that’s ok cause classes end in May. Thanks to those growth hormone shots I’m now my full height which is 5′7″. This is all a struggle, it really is and I’m trying my best to hang in there tight. You guys are actually the first ones to find out about my late night habits, my hospital experiences, etc. There’s hope for everyone who suffers as I know there is hope for me.