It’s darn easy to put off writing things—even inane things—when you end up collapsing in a heap at the end of each day. And that’s all I’ll say about my absence.

Where did I leave off? Oh; the police arrested some guy (the next day, even!) for the attempted abduction I mentioned in my last post. He’s being considered in relation to the Wilberger case, but we haven’t heard anything beyond that.

Friday night was Super Puzzle Fighter II X/Y/Z night between Nate, Kevin, and myself. I sucked it up royally in the X variant, but unleashed innate skill (a.k.a. “luck”) in both Y and Z to hold my own. We later pulled out the GameCube version of Capcom vs. SNK 2, where Kevin demonstrated how cheap M. Bison can be, and I demonstrated how cheap Cammy can be. Nate, to his credit, never resorted to being cheap. One round, however, he was confused by an option provided in the GameCube version that isn’t present in the PS2 version (namely, the ability to select the “GameCube-ism” controller style). This style disables the directional pad and the regular buttons, forcing you to use the joystick to move—and the shoulder buttons for punches and kicks (how far you press down determines how strong the punch or kick is). In trying to cancel out of “GameCube-ism,” he accidentally selected Ryu as his first character. (Nate historically views the Capcom characters as cheap, and beneath him.) Figuring the round was all but lost, he selected other worthless characters and got the match going.

As you would expect, Nate started out by getting trashed. That all changed, however, when he announced that he was going to start using the C-stick. (Part of the theory of the GameCube controller, as I understand it, is that games can use the C-stick as a shortcut to executing otherwise difficult—or impossible—button combinations.) Nate’s worthless characters came back with a fierce quickness, and the battle raged on for much longer than we expected. Towards the end I watched Nate’s controller; the only thing he was touching was the C-stick.

That’s rather longwinded, but the point is that the GameCube-ism controller setting robbed CvS2 of any difficulty. Rather than having to worry about double-quarter-circles or whatnot, all you had to do was slam the C-stick various directions.

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On Saturday evening, Eric and I went to Hollywood to rent a movie that none of the others would ever want to see. We eventually settled on The Bunker, whose cover featured skeletons (sporting glowing Terminator-red eyes) dressed up in Nazi uniforms. The movie was nothing like the cover indicated (I suspect to some disappointment on Eric’s part, albeit relief on my end); it turned out to be a low-budget British spin on Night of the Living Dead (i.e. a group of people under great stress falling apart from within)—this time in Nazi Germany. There were also fun pseudo-similarities to Nightmare on Elm Street—in the form of a burn victim attacking people—and Friday the 13th—in the time-honored tradition of the crazy old man telling people that they’re going to die. I can’t say I’d recommend it, but it’s far from the worst horror movie I’ve seen.

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I’ve also been playing some more Fire Emblem, where I continue to demonstrate my inability to act as tactician for a band of warriors. I figure I’ll get better with practice—and, until then, I can just keep restarting from a save every time I lose someone.