Game #1688: ZZYZZYXX

ZZYZZYXX, by Cinematronics circa 1982

Note 1: I'm not actually going to play 1688 games because some games require shit like guns, and still others have multiple records for the same game (like 2 player shit [like I'd let anyone play games with me, pfft])
Note 2: What kind of a fucking name is ZZYZZYXX? I mean, look at that cabinet! That thing is AWFUL.


I hate Japan. Anyways. This game looks terrible. Let's find out. Checking the leaderboard gives us:

Variation:	TGTS [TGTS]
Platform:	M.A.M.E.
Rules:	ROMset = "ZZYZZYXX" Difficulty = "EASY" Starting lives = 3 Bonus = 10K and 50K 2nd bonus given = "YES" Starting laps = 2 Show intermissions = "NO" Extra lives = "NONE"

1) Ryan Sullivan 47,715
2) Joe Perry 39,685
3) Robert Mruczek 18,820

Those look reachable, maybe. I should get #3 just so Mruczek gets displaced. What kind of an awful name is that. Holy shit.

Trying to launch the game creates the first horrible problem; I can't remember how to "spell" the title of this game. I seriously typed in 2 or 3 different things because I could get the game to run. I hate it already.

First Try: 470 fucking points. That was pathetic. ZZYZZYXX was more pathetic. The music at launch is classic obnoxious MIDI crap, the noises are ok I guess by 1982 standards. But anyways, this game registers a whopping 2 directions and 1 button. The directions are up and down, but I'm pretty sure the game only registers up and down about 50% of the time, which makes sense. Any team that forgets about left and right is bound to forget up and down sometimes. Time for try 2, aka getting my face eaten by bug looking fuckers.

Pre-2nd play note: I realized the game was giving me a back story a la Ms. Pac Man at the start screen. Get this. My fucking NAME is zzyzzyxx. Weird. Next, the goal is to run around this little area gathering shit like flowers and rings for points--fair enough. Thing is, I'm trying to get to a chick with this stuff, and if I haven't gathered enough, she won't accept me! How messed up is that. If I brave a moving labyrinth with death beetles in it to gather you a SINGLE FUCKING RING you better accept me back asshole.

Second Try: 1295 fucking points. Hey I beat the first level. My green zzyzzyxx guy turned blue... that was neat until he turned green again. I'm not sure what blue meant. Probably because he got blue balls because that girl would only let him get to 2nd base after only getting her a single flower and ring. Holy shit I'm funny.

Third Try: 455 fucking points. That try, 2 of my 3 lives were lost by moving directly into death beetles myself.

Verdict: This game sucks and is impossible. Never date a woman named Lola. She will feed you to death beetles. The end.

Video Game MISSION

I think I might change the topic of this crispex. I have been reading this guy's blog lately.

http://www.tombstoned.co.uk/words/

Negative: He's not that funny
Positive: But he's interesting
Negative: He's ranty and British
Positive: His idea rules

He's going from A-Z playing every MAME game in the Video Game Record Book thing. I like that idea. I think I'm going to do the same thing, but ZAZZY TASTIC I'm starting from Z. Fuck you.

And once I make a few posts, I'm definitely going to start advertising this shitshow.

Edit: And fuck you. I know it's nerdy. But I built my own arcade machine for fuck's sake, so you KNOW I like my old school games.

What's that smell? Oh wait, it's just Michael Moore.

Here's the latest in a long line of things that annoy me: Michael Moore.

Here's a couple of reasons why Michael Moore is good: 1) he gets close-minded people to actually talk about issues they wouldn't normally talk about, 2) his overall message is USUALLY a decent enough one (Sicko is here), and 3) he can eat a human baby without chewing.

So I just got reading a [biased] list of "facts" Moore fucked up in Farenheit 9.11. It had like 50 things on it, and yes, most of them were nitpicky and shitty. But there were a lot of scenes in the movie that were particularly important and striking. Example: the golf scene. I thought until about 5 minutes ago that Bush was talking about 9/11, but it was about some terrorist attack in Israel and come on, they have like 10 a day over there. Of course he's gonna act casual. I think little fibs like this are enough to severely doubt the rest of Moore's work. Any time you lie about say... a date, or a statistic, you could just as easily be lying about something that would be harder to check--like any of the complex political shit in the rest of the movie.

My point is that Michael Moore is a prick. I'm glad Sicko wasn't bad and is actually a nice, non-partisan idea, but holy fucking shit he is a fat asshole.

suck(vlog) > suck(blog)

That's really all I got. Chris Benoit is insane. People still have no compassion for other people (read any fark.com comments on Virginia Tech if you want proof). And the video game the above picture was stolen from would be amazing if those guys had any money to make it. I'd play it. Every fucking day. Until I got tired of clubbing seals that is (but who REALLY gets tired of that).

Crispex out.

Observing humanity has left me wanting... to not be human anymore? I CLAIM ZOMBIES

Short post.

Over the weekend, it appears the Chris Benoit (pro wrestler and childhood hero of mine) went nuts and murdered his family and took his own life. As of this writing, autopsy results aren't back yet, so there is no 100% concrete story. The only things I'm hearing are from various reporters saying things like "We have to check our story to get 100% confirmation, but it's really disturbing and bizarre." Fuck.

I'm not a good enough writer to elaborate much on what I want to say at the moment. It's not that I'm distraught over this or anything. I never met Benoit, and it's not like I had posters all over my wall. It's just yet another shocked chapter of life where you learn about humanity. Not just from the accounts the Benoit was just a quiet, nice guy. I've mostly been severely disappointed by people on message boards throughout the internet. And these aren't your places where 14 year olds hang out. As far as I can tell, these forums are for college aged people and older. Lack of compassion towards human life is something I just don't understand, and watching these shitdicks around the internet making snarky comments to get some other shitdick to laugh is just.. pathetic, sickening, etc. They'll get it someday. I hope.

The Wanting Seed left me wanting to read something else, ZING!

This book was really disturbing and pretty much craptastic. I liked the last 30-50 pages, but the lead in was awful. Everyone speaks in this assbackwards British way and trying to decipher what the hell is going on is painful sometimes. Burgess pulled that shit off in A Clockwork Orange--not so much here.

Pennsylvania is turning out to be less of a hellhole than I originally thought, but it still kind of sucks. I realize it's commonplace and ignorant to complain about where you live, even if it is temporary, but I also realize it's commonplace for everyone to pine for home when you're away. Even if your home is Pennsylvania. And it sucks.

Since I still have the allusion that this is generally a pro wrestling/baseball blo... check that. I hate that word, so from here on out this "interweb space for thought" is going to be referred to as my "Crispex." Why? Because Crispix is delicious and they have that copywritten. And I like the e more than the i. The e is irrational, but the i is imaginary (and that's bull shit).

The point is, I should at least talk about pro wrestling on my Crispex because last night's pay-per-view was supposed to be a big one. I went in hoping to see Sycho Sid or Chris Jericho return, and at the very least a 4-star match from Benoit and Punk. WWE didn't even give the fans a grim reaper, and it all sucked. It was indeed a fun time, but the matches blew ass. I did meet a guy at the bar wearing a shirt that said "DIE ORC" and he talked about his pro wrestling club at PSU. I wonder what the odds are that he's gonna die a virgin.

About eleventy billion to one that if he doesn't, money was involved. Or furries.

A lack of cognitive thought

Surprisingly, I have been avoiding pro wrestling the past few weeks. This Vince McMahon death angle is pretty stupid and offensive. I think it would be epic to see him get sued by all the stockholders. Baseball has been good, but it's still just the dregs of summer.

Right now I'm working on this project that is only possible thanks to the wonderful fancy pants people at Minitab. There is actually a published paper floating around out there in published-academia-land about fitting Pythagorean Wins to a 3-parameter Weibull distribution. Well Minitab can do that shit automatically it seems. As long as I could get my hands on some stupid data sets... then we'd be lookin' at something.

1st positive fact I've learned about Pennsylvania since I've been here: PBR is slightly cheaper.

1098317th negative fact I've learned about Pennsylvania since I've been here: shitting in your roommate's bed is rarely a good idea. But I haven't learned my lesson. We southerners are mighty slow.