Epic!!!...

Now I'm in a very weird place with video games. I actually haven't consistently played video games for a while now, just now and then. The reason being is that I don't have a games console. When I moved over here from Scotland I gave up video games as I need to be 200% focused on the important stuff. Nevertheless I still get a kick from seeing what is potentially an awesome game coming out, and one thing that I've found is that video game trailers have become increasingly impressive with their depth, graphics and their overall ability to hook a gamer in... I don' even have the means to play this game but I am officially hooked on what this game has to offer.

This game is another master piece(at least I think it will be) from the people at DC universe. This game trailer is highly entertaining. It starts off with the viewer watching it and thinking "what the?..." then it goes on through to explain through the medium of a highly entertaining cinematic what is actually happening with a nice twist at the end... Just slightly epic!

Old People...

I'm gona be honest, I actually really like old folk. They always have a tale to tell, their wise(kinda) and sometimes there absolutely hilarious. I find that a recurring trait with them is that they love to pay for everything with the exact change. I was at work today and an older gentleman came in and he was buying a bunch of carriage bolts. His total was $17.07 cents. Now what I found hilarious was that as soon as he heard what the total was his game face appeared. He was on a mission now, he had to pay the exact amount, he did not want any change from me! So he slams a ten dollar bill on the counter, the a five and finally two ones. "Seventeen bucks!" he exclaims. Then he tags his wife in, she's up and its her time to shine! She slams a nickel on top of the bills then looks up at me with an anxious expression and says "ooohh, bare with me I know I have two pennies, just hang on!" she starts to frantically rummage through her purse like a sniffer dog rummages through mud when it's looking for truffles. "One penny!!..."- she yells whilst slamming on the counter whilst slamming it on the counter..."just one more..." She's going crazy at this point... looking through her whole wallet, underneath the credit cards, behind the photo of her grandchildren... then she finally finds that infamous penny. Just about breaks the counter as she slams the finally penny onto the counter whilst yelling "Seventeen dollars and seven cents!!" Their look of glee was hilarious. They were truly proud of themselves and all I can say is that I am too.

My Favourite Soccer Player Ever Is Now In The MLS

Thierry Henry, Arsenal's all time leading goal scorer and best ever player by fans choice and France's leading goal scorer and most capped player has recently signed for the New York Redbulls. Not only that he's only gone and scored for them on his debut appearance against his former team of Arsenal's biggest rival Tottenham Hotspur.

I've been a fan of Thierry ever since I was a young child from as young as 10. When Henry was bought by Arsenal back in 2000 I remember watching the weekly soccer highlights and every week without fail Henry would have made the highlights by scoring a goal or two.

Thierry Henry in my opinion is probably the best striker that has played the game within the last decade. It's sad to say, but his form has dropped considerably over the last few years, but there is moments were you see the old Thierry in all his goal scoring glory shine through, and I mean this with as much respect as possible to the MLS, hopfully we'll see more of Thierry's skills now he's playing in a lesser league compared to what he's previously played in.

2002



2010... still humiliating his old Rivals

This I am excited about...

Whenever a movie with either one of these actors comes out I will almost certainly go and see it. The movies The Expendables has all of these actors, I almost don't know how to react to it, all I know is that I'm gona love it.

I know that this movie will get slated by critics who'd rather watch a story with depth, meaning and a moral message that makes us all reflect on the society to which we live, thus making us better people having seen the movie. But I think the most important critics of all will be the audience and I can tell that ever action movie fan out there is counting down the days till this block buster comes out... At least I am, seventeen days and counting.

Whats awesome about this movie is the dynamics of the cast: You've got Stallone, playing his ever awesome Rambo-like role, Bruce Willis bringing a bit of Die-Hard to the table, Arnold who is the practically the definition of an action movie star. Then you've got Jason Statham, The Transporter, bringing his brash British demeanor to this mix. The most important ingredient in this line up in my opinion is Jet Li, the Wushu master, the one true martial artist as opposed to stuntman who has choreographed moves.

Star Wars is awesome...

I've always been a Star Wars fan ever since I was a child, and what I really like is the fact that George Lucas is keeping his brand alive through the means of video games.
Star Wars the Old Republic is a game that will coming out later this year. Its an MMO game which means its going to have thousands upon thousands of players online. What really Impresses me the most about this game is the fact that maps look sensational. The map is absolutely huge, and seriously impressive look at. The game is set long before Star Wars episode one and is set in a time period where there was a lot of conflict throughout the star wars galaxy. The game's is split into two factions The Galactic Republic and The Sith Empire.

Theres eight classes to choose from in the game, the Galactic Republic has: The Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Trooper and Smuggler. The Empire has: the Sith Lord, the Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter and Imperial Agent. Each individual class has their own set of moves bespoke to their characteristics. Although I wont be playing the game, as I can't jeopardize having a life, if there ever was a game to waste you life and get fat playing this may be the one.

The Most Irritating and Demanding People in the World

Another story to add to the chronicles of "Dariush at work". You've heard about the bad-breath guy, you've heard about the widest and most annoying lady in the world and now your about to read what I think I'm going to title The Most Irritating and Demanding People in the World.It was a married couple who had just bought three appliances, and because of this they thought that all the Lowe's employees are at their disposal. Including me.

I was cashiering in my usual department of lumber and building materials, their was a big ass line and this is when this couple decided to strike by cutting the line. I was serving a customer and I remember seeing in the periphery of my vision two people standing adjacent to the line waiting for something. I thought to myself that they probably just have a quick question, so i finished serving the current customer I had then acknowledged their presence. They didn't have a question... they just laid some appliance adapters on the counter and told me they had ordered three appliances and they were told to check out at my register. So I politely told them, "okay, sure you can pay here, the line starts up there if you just wait there I'll get to you after I serve these people." The lady's husband having felt that I challenged him exclaimed "No!, we shouldn't have to wait in line, we ordered three appliances!, just ring us up now." This was another moment were my faith in my own race was being pushed to the limits. Much to my dismay, my manager went on to the other cash register and told me to ring up this duo.

So now that there's no line, and its just me and this annoying pair with a lovely air of awkwardness between us all. I finish ringing them up, give them their price, then the husband asks me the possibly the most unreasonable request ever.He asks me to go to the receiving area(which is possibly the farthest place from my cash register)and to check that we were pulling his appliances there and then. Of course I told him as politely as I could that I couldn't do that. This guy, probably trying to impress his wife looks up at me(up at me because this guy was like 4,9) and says. "Me and my wife will be back in half an hour,you see to the fact that our stuff is here ready to go when I get back. OK!" he looks at my name badge then gives me the tough/compensating for something/guy look then saunters off out of the door. Possibly the most demanding customer I've served.

Relief, what a great feeling...

The other day possibly one of the most irritating things happened to me ever. It was a hot day so I thought heck, why not roll down the window... so I did. Now when I got to my location I tried to roll my window back up, you can guess what the issue was, the bastard was stuck and it would roll back up. So what did I do. Well first thing was first, I started cursing a lot, just totally letting the natural Scotsman within me come out for a while whilst I was frantically toggling the window switch to make the window go up, when that didn't work I went to the trunk where I had a screw driver. Somehow thinking i never what I was doing I opened up the switch panel on the driver side door. The switch panel's wire-ish insides were hanging out from the door, and I had no idea what to do with them. This window had to go up and I had no idea what to do. Now heres were my stroke of luck came from, I called my uncle who was famous amongst my family for knowing a thing or two about cars. I took my car to his house were he claimed he could fix my window. Although I was naturally skeptical, his claim in fact came to fruition and against all odds he somehow managed to fix my window, and the prospect of me having to pay a few hundred bucks to get this mess was now non existent... and the feeling of relief was awesome.

Inception... what a movie!

I saw Inception the other night, and wow... seriously. Although not the easiest movie to watch as you have to constantly be thinking to keep up with the complexities of the story line, it has to be one of the most breath-taking pieces cinematography I have see since the Dark Knight(another Chris Nolan film, there seems to be a pattern emerging).
Everything about Inception was just terrific, especially the acting. Leonardo DiCaprio, watching him act is an education, he's definitely a once in a generation type of actor, the kind of actor that would be very difficult if not impossible to replace. His portrayal of his character really did suck me into the story, and how he kept and air of mystery about his experiences with his whole dreaming thing really was captivating.The only thing I didn't like about the movie, and it really wasn't that much of an issue, i just feel its necessary for me to pick one flaw at least and that is that i felt that everything in the movie was a metaphor. But like I said that was barley an issue, I actually had to think really hard to even find that flaw. To sum up this movie is a movie everyone needs to see, it's easily a *****Five Star***** and I'm just wondering how many Oscar nominations this movie's going to receive.

Machete... uh oh!

Theres a new movie coming soon, It's called Machete. It's a very Quentin-Tarintino-esque movie. It's about a Mexican fellow who gets double crossed by an evil white man and apparently, to quote a line in the movie trailer, "He F*%#@d with the wrong Mexican". Now when I first saw this trailer I was getting excited as I love action movies, and this looked full of action, it even featured Steven Segal in the trailer, which got me more excited than the fact Jessica Alba's in the movie. So naturally I decided to do a little research on the movie to find out more about it. A movie with Dinero, Segal, Jessica Alba, and two of former Lost cast members was definitely worth a deeper look beyond the trailer. What I found was really unnerving, the movie draws some very direct and unsubtle parallels to whats going on with the Hispanic community in Arizona. Whats more, the film maker, Rob Rodriguez directly uses white(Caucasian) people as the main villain and from what I read the film is basically a slaughter-fest of white folk by Hispanic Americans. The imagery and symbolism in the movie also doesn't hold back on condemning white people, there are several scenes where the main character Machete is shown in a literally saint-like fashion as he slaughters people while the evil-white people are displayed in a typically sinister and evil manner. whether or not you agree or disagree with Whats going down in Arizona one thing is for sure. Anything that could potentially breed violence and pain is not the answer, and I hope that when this movie comes out that it doesn't inspire certain groups of people to react in a similar fashion.

Mortal Kombat...

As a child I religiously played this game. It was violent, it had excessive blood during the fights and it was everything grown-up's didn't want their kids to be viewing. So its lure to me and many other kids who played this game was similar to that of moth and a flame. I remember playing this game and being memorized by the blood that would gush out of your opponents face whenever you done any sort of move, and what was cool was that the blood would stay on the floor so by the end of the fight you have something of a visual representation of just how badly you messed your opponent up, so any late viewers of the fight can see how awesome you were. As violent as the game was, the fact of the matter is that it was simple pix elated graphics and the blood was nothing but red pixels that didn't even resemble blood that much, it was merely a novelty to the whole fighting experience.

Mortal Kombat 9 is game that is coming out soon, and as a loyal fan to the franchise I obviously watched the trailer and the game play excerpt. I was amazed, for two reasons. The first being that this game was a throw back to a by-gone era as it was re-employing the 2-D fighting plane, something they havn't done since Mortal Kombat 2 back in the late 90's. Despite it being a 2-D fighting plane the character renderings were still very much in high detail 3-D form, and their renderings looked awesome, especially Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Now something to always expect from MK is that it's always going to be extremely violent, and strangely, the violent aspect of the game believe it or not is the aspect that surprised me the most. MK 9 is ridiculously violent, and I never thought I'd ever say this, but I think it's too violent(an opinion my mothers had all her life). I have a feeling they've over iced the cake with the violence in this game, because thats all the blood ever was in MK, icing on the cake. But I think this time I want some cake with my icing if you get my drift.

The World Cup is over...

The World Cup is over for another four years. The biggest sporting event came to a close yesterday and Spain are now the world champions. I really don't think theres much you can say other than Spain deserved it. Their one-touch football was sensational, each player's individual skill level was through the roof and their composure was unbelievable. What I particularly loved was how the question of who was Spain's player was so debatable. Theres was no player who had a Kobe-Bryant-Like-Role, you know... there was no player that you could pick as the best. An opposing fan couldn't say after his team loses "oh you couldn't have done it with out Alonso!"

Every aspect of Spain's infrastructure was world class. From Iker Cassillas being like a wall between the two goal posts, humiliating any striker that tried to out-wit him; to David Villa, Spain's primary source of goals who was nothing short of a magician when the ball was at his feet. Not to mention Spain's midfield, you have the choice to use the likes of the experienced Xabi Alonso, the king pin that held the whole formation of Spain together. Or you can turn to the bench and use Spain's future legend(that's if he's not already considered one already), that is Cesc Fabregas, the more inquisitive and creative player who can seem to miraculously create chances out of situations were no other player can.

All in all, despite Spain's loss to the Swiss in the very first game they played, there was no excuse for them lose any of the games they played, what with all the skill they had offer, and full credit to the coach for utilizing all the talent and skill he had at his disposal. Let's see what they can do in four more years.

You serious?

As you may already know I work at Lowe's. It's a great job, its really easy work, the people are cool, they provide me good hours... for a student it's perfect. However there are moments were you faith in the human race is tested. These moments come in the form of customers who come up to you with the most unreasonable requests oblivious to how things are run in the 21st century.Usually when you hear one of their dumb request's you sometime's debate to yourself as to whether or not their joking. For example a relatively annoying one is when a customer uses a gift card on a small purchase and expect's change back, they'll usually ask "can I just cash back?, same thing right?". In that moment ill just explain why I can't, then send them packing. A more a annoying moment is where a customer has a seriously outrageous request and fights to their death to try and win at it.

Today I think I may have had the most annoying customer I've had in a while. For sure in the top 5 asshole customer list that I have in my head. It was a couple who were working in a drywall project, now the husband/slave was a cool guy, his wife, who was possibly the widest lady I've every seen, was not. She whined about everything! With every beep of the scanner she questioned the price, "oh, no, thats not right... it said that the drywall was $6.75 per piece, not $8.25!!" She was making stuff up, I could tell... some customers with her physicality have the potential to intimidate and bully some cashiers into yielding to their unreasonable demands. I wasn't one of those cashiers, I knew my department's product's price's well and I wasn't letting this big lady defeat me. So I stood my ground and rang up 9 drywall pieces for full price. The big lady wasn't giving up though, she was examining each drywall piece looking for a flaw, knowing should she find a flaw she has a justifiable case for a discount. Her husband, meanwhile, just stood there with about as much life as a dead flower, she must have drained his life force, but he had just enough energy to look at me and mouth the words "sorry" to me. Which I did appreciate.

She eventually found what she though to be a flaw, a minuscule bit a of crumbling in the corner of one piece of drywall. So minuscule that you would literally need a magnifying glass to observe it. Because of that she wanted 50% of that piece. Heck no! she got 10% only because passing floor manager allowed it. So the score was 1-1, I kept the price the original cost, she got her minute discount of 80cents. Then the real battle begun.

I scanned a box of drywall nails. Big lady not being pleased with her discount, still thirsty for a bigger a discount, ask me. "If we don't need all these nails and we have some left over can we return whatever's left?". I gave her a stonewall reply of "no". Nothing less nothing more. Just, no. "Why!?" she replied, "we probably won't need them all, what are we going to do with all thats left over?" I honestly stood there stunned, I couldn't believe how stupid this lady was. Does she really not understand how things work? All I could do was suggest that she find some cheaper nails. She snapped back at me that they were the cheapest she could find. I risked getting a customer complaint, and in a very cheeky manner replied, "well then looks like you gotta make do with what you got then!, cause you can't return half used boxes of nails." The lady was about to rebuttal. I cut her off mid-sentence and gave her a brief analogy. "Do you return a half-eaten box of donuts to the supermarket? It's the same thing here! your total is $197.17cents"... she hesitantly paid the price then told me that from now on she's taking her business to Home Depot. Despite the fact that more Lowe's customers mean more job security for me, I was okay with the fact she's now a Home Depot customer, I just hope she keeps her word. Oh, and god help her husband.

Earthquakes...

I come from a country where earthquakes are non-existent. As you may know from previous posts I in fact live in Scotland for 15 years. So when I experience an Earthquake I think I'm going to die. I panic, I move around frantically whilst yelling what do we do?, what do we do?...Whilst i'm doing this my roommates are just chilling on the sofa eating Cheeto's watching TV looking at the foreigner panic like a little girl. They tell me "dude that's barley a four pointer... put down your car keys dude! where were you gonna go anyway?! you can't run from an earthquake" As I was panicking my natural reaction was to flee to safety, hence the car keys. During the intermission between my roommates laughter fit they assured me that if there was an earthquake worth stressing over they'd let me know, then they continued their laughter as my face still hadn't regained it's full color as during the four seconds of the earthquake I apparently went white with fear.

Food commercials...

I hate food commercials. Yogurt one's especially. It starts of with a woman who in a very scientific and fancy manner tells the viewer she's having trouble pooping or some problem in the lower intestine and colon region. She'll then describe the product and how it helps her take a dump, again in an unnecessarily fancy manner. Here's the annoying part, the build up was just a warm up getting me all fired up. You'll see her peel the lid off the top of yogurt in a way that no one else in the entire would peel it off, then she'll lick the this lid way to freaking slowly! Seriously! And whilst she licking away she has this arrogant self-indulgent grin. Why does she have the seriously unfitting-for-the-moment grin!!?? I mean you grin like that if you achieve something or receive certificate. When I was 8 years old I received a certificate for being able to swim 25 meters, I had a grin like that, and I regret it when I look back on it. This woman is grinning because she knows she going to take a nice big dump later. Am I the only one who gets bothered by this?! But what I mentioned isn't even the most annoying part, what I am about to mention is something that every food commercial is guilty of... especially yogurt ones. Its the part where the actor or actress takes a bite or spoonful of whatever the product is. They'll be gazing into the distance with a stupid grin on their face whilst slowly bringing the food up to their mouth then when they take a bite they'll close their eye's and shuffle around as if their having an orgasm. Seriously!!! I mean c'mon!!! that's why I think Snickers and Cheezit commercials are the last bastion's of hope for the integrity of food commercials. The funny commercials they have are the pillars of support for all food commercials.

Shameful phobia...

I have an Arachnophobia, fear of spiders and things of and arachnid nature. I look at spider's and think to myself, do they really need to look so freaking evil? Is it really that necessary? Its not just that either, Their temperamental... and confrontational. Have you ever seen something in the corner of your eye moving rather quickly then when you look at what it is it comes to a complete halt and you find, much to your dismay, that it is a spider? I have. I hate it when that happens. Why does it stop when you notice it!? It's charging across the wall and as soon as you see it... HALT! A perfect stop also, no skidding, no messing up of it's leg work, just a perfect halt. It's like watching a car stop from 100mph-0mph in less that a second. In that situation I find myself in a show down with the spider, It's like its challenged me. It's looking at me with it's evil eight eyes, taunting me, sensing my fear. So I'll find myself approaching the spider, getting closer and closer(why? you may ask, I really don't know). So my face is about one foot away from the spider, I'm staring right into it's evil eight eyes trying to solve some sort of mystery, or find out what it is the spider's hiding from me... why it choses to torment me! And I forget, the spiders are fast and little bastards. So me staring deep into this little shit's eyes, thinking about to have a revelation as to what the mystery of this spider is. The crazy f*@%#r, base jumps of the wall onto the floor. Now with it completely out of sight, I'm reduced a little-girl-like-state of feeling vulnerable think that every spec of dust that touches me is this spider and that every spec of dust on the carpet is this spider. The whole time this is going I'm certain that this spawn of evil and anarchy is watching me from a safe vantage point laughing it's ugly little face off! Probably planing it's next attack.

To be or not to be Scottish?!...

It's always nice when someone hears the faint remnants of my Scottish accent. However, as much as I appreciate their enthusiasm and their interest in my heritage. It get's a little weird when they ask me to be Scottish or do something Scottish. It's extremely difficult to please the people who request such things as I have know idea what they expect me to do. So I usually just stand there and say with a very awkward and confused smile on my face "I'm doing it, I being Scottish right now". Usually after that line I'll see the person's face that previously had an excited expression of anticipation fade into disappointed and deflated frown, as if to say "was that it!". Like I said before, I have know idea what they expect me to do, and judging from the disappointed sighs of sadness I get when I can't seem to be Scottish enough for them, I can only assume they expected me to pull out a set of bagpipes from my back pocket whilst metamorphosing into Mel Gibson from Braveheart... It's not easy being Scottish.