IMG_1860

IMG_1860, originally uploaded by MondoUNC.

From my photoshoot with Aminal on the 23rd.

Why I can't have nice things...Like a Girlfriend

or Mondo tries online dating, hilarity ensues.

I think this is my first comedic post, and by comedy I mean we're going to look at some aspect of my life and laugh. I've never been a "people person" and it's tough for me to meet people now that I'm out of school so my friends urged me to join OkCupid with them. My profile is somewhat entertaining because I wrote it to be amusing not to actually meet people. To a certain extent I would like to meet someone but this has really just become a way for me to entertain myself with pathetic attempts at talking to people. Here are a few of my faves:


First Girl:

Someone just winked at you!

If you'd like to strike up a conversation with her, simply reply with something short and encouraging, like "Thanks for the wink! What's new?"

A wink is a special gesture on OkCupid, limited to 1.5 per person, per day, per eye.

Enjoy!

Me:

Thanks for the wink, I'm still not quite sure what that means nor how to respond.

"What's up?"

Does that seem adequate?

Her:

Hello and what's up is what I meant by the wink. I hope that you are doing well this evening. I am tired from a long week and a long day today.

Me:

Lucky me, I had the day off from work so I got some cleaning done around the house, played a little RockBand with a friend and then capped of the night catching up on some TV online. So, yes, all is well with me.

Long weeks suck. Plans for the weekend? I'm hoping to go out with some friends tomorrow night and then catch some football on Sunday.

I'm sorry if this isn't at all interesting. I've unfortunately never had much contact with anyone on this site. the one girl i had an actual dialog with randomly stopped talking to me. My point is I'm never quite sure what to talk about.

Sorry if that was an off putting tangent, but I have a problem with honesty.

Needless to say she did not respond. I guess it was an off putting tangent. So there was another girl who had viewed my profile, so I decided to "wink" at her in the hopes of starting a conversation like the previous girl had tried with me.

Here's the message I sent her:

Subject: I tried winking but im not sure if it did anything
Message:So, I thought I'd strike up a conversation. I like stand up too, who are your top 5 comedians?

I'm sorry if this seems like a juvenile way to go about talking to someone but initiating small talk is not my forte.

This last one is probably the worst for obvious (stalkerish) reasons. I had exchanged a few emails with this girl and though she had a good sense of humor, so I took a shot at her feminist beliefs. It was nothing huge, I said "Ladies first (as a feminist I'm sure you'll love that)" and she apparently didn't. After weeks of not hearing back from her I send this:

Apparently I have a problem letting things go. Actually I'm just curios and would like to learn from my mistakes. Did I say something to offend you? Is that why you stopped talking to me?

Apologies if this seems stalker-ish, I'm a bit OCD.

Maybe my sense of humor just doesn't translate well to type, more likely I'm and idiot when it comes to actually trying to have real conversations with people (especially women).

I may leave the site but it is kind of fun. Besides I'll never get better without practice.

Bliss UNC Cupcakes

Bliss UNC Cupcakes, originally uploaded by MondoUNC.

New product shots. This is one of my favorite ideas in a while.

PROTOTYPE and why sometimes you just have to let go

The other weekend I finally had the opportunity to rent Prototype and was extremely disappointed with the game. I wound up taking it back to blockbuster after coming to terms with the reality that I couldn't get into the story and did not enjoy the gameplay. I was perfectly content to let that be the end of it, until I read this great article by ArsTechnica entitled "Why we quit," but now instead of returning it and never mentioning it again I'd like to point out the parts that I found frustrating. Maybe doing so will be therapeutic and I can rent Prototype again and give it a second chance, or maybe Infamous will finally be in and I can just play the superior version of the same game.

And maybe that's a good place to start, after playing just the demo of Infamous, no matter how often I tried to put Infamous out of my mind it was hard not to notice the similarities between the two. Infamous' lead character, Cole, is electric powered and the controls reflect this fluidity that you'd expect from a parkour delivery boy versus the barreling rhinoceros that is Prototype's lead, Alex. Everything about Alex is dumbed down and forced: the way he moves, his morality, even his dialogue. The only thing that has any finesse is the amazing cinematics that play when you kill someone in some of the most grotesque way imaginable.

Even the fun parts of this game aren't all that enjoyable. Killing people as horrifically as possible? Press one button and watch Alex have all the fun, or just do the same 3 button combo over and over. Quickly the funnest thing to do will be to grab random people off the street run up the side of the tallest building nearby and see how far you can throw them, but even this can be ruined when Alex has some problem with curved walls or even running straight. OK, maybe I was just being OCD, but I wanted to stand at the very top of the Empire State Building and every time i got up to the spire near the top Alex would do a backflip off the building and crush my dreams.

Well maybe I'll enjoy completing some of those missions that will unlock more of that story I don't care about...think again. The game opens with you playing as a god basically, you have all your powers and get to wreak havoc toward some checkpoints, until they send you to where the story began(you know, that boring part where you don't have all your awesome powers). The missions might be fun for a minute but let me explain what I recall of the few that made me quit.

1.Somehow I unleashed these "Hunters" and while they we're killed in 3 hits when you were all powerful they can now obliterate you, easily. Then you realize that the game would like for you to kill 20 of these hunters before it lets you move on.

2.There are some infected water towers that I need to get DNA from but if i get to close to them they explode and unleash hunters. I somehow missed that they'd explode if I got to close (one of the perils of having and SD tv, is that many games have text to small for anything other than HD) so I get bored and spend an hour or so karate kicking helicopters tell I get bored of that and try to figure out the water towers again.

3.I have to destroy some military patrols before they find my hideout. Alright, destroyed 7 patrol groups and then I die and get sent all the way back to the beginning?! Is this not the year 2009? Do modern games not have check points? I get that some people might enjoy this part or you might have needed to include it to extend gameplay but not providing a few more checkpoints turns something that might be enjoyable into an unnecessary grind.

There are things to enjoy about Prototype although it mainly seems to be mindless fun which isn't enough when Infamous is on the shelf right next to it. Alas, maybe I'm asking to much of Prototype. Penny Arcade seemed to enjoy it (I've embedded the comic below but here is a link too).