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.