I Hate Birds

Do birds serve any purpose other than to hiss at me when I try to enter the hospital and shit on my car? I walked out of the office today and my car had more than 10 spots of crap all over, no joke. A few of the spots are as big as softballs in circumference. Honestly, I don't think I would miss the birds if they were gone. As the title says, I hate birds.

Back to the Future: The Game

Back to the Future: The Game
Release Year: 2011
Systems: PS3, multiple
IGN Score: 8.0


Following a solid year in gaming in 2010, thus far 2011 has been pretty lack luster. There are only a few games scheduled to come out that I'm interested in and I wouldn't be surprised if the new Zelda game gets pushed back to 2012. Plus the Playstation Network has been down for nearly a week now. The lack of great games has forced me to look in unusual places to find good games, which is where Angry Birds and now the Back to the Future Game came from.

Back to the Future: The Game is a point and click action adventure game that utilizes many familiar faces from the movies and puts them into an entirely new story. From the beginning you will recognize the familiar soundtrack from the movies and there are many references to events and characters from the movies as well. The voice acting is pretty decent and even stars Christopher Lloyd. Fans of the movie (presumably all players of this game are fans of the movie) will get a kick out of all of these references and frankly these references are what carry this game and make it at least decent.

The game play itself is slow paced and frankly pretty dull. You play as Marty, and you walk around and can click on various objects with the goal of finding clues to help you solve various puzzles in order to get new information. The game play actually reminds me a bit of Maniac Mansion, an old classic NES game. However, I don't find the storyline all that interesting, though episode 2 was much better than episode one. In summary, Doc goes back to the 1930s where he is framed by one of Biff Tannen's gangster relatives in the arson of one of his prohibition-era speakeasies. Marty then travels through time and talks with people in order to find clues and free Doc. The puzzles themselves aren't too difficult, but you will sit through a lot of repeat conversation if you don't ask the correct questions in the right order. It gets frustrating after awhile and I usually just press the help button as it tells me exactly what to do that way I don't have to waste time.

The graphics are just OK. The animation is pretty choppy at times and in general the game reminds me of a Sega CD game from about 20 years ago. This game costs $20 and takes about 8-10 hours to beat. If you're a fan of the movie then chances are you will find this game to be at least somewhat amusing. It's a decent time. I just wish there were more games out this year that interested me so I didn't have to settle with playing a game that is just decent. L.A. Noire can't come quick enough.

Drugs Are Bad, Mkay?

I can't go into too much detail on this because of doctor-patient confidentiality, but suffice it to say I got rid of two patients this week because of drug related incidents. One guy came to me in January as a new doctor visit and he was on multiple narcotic medications and controlled substances. When he started with us he signed a pain contract saying, among other things, that we had the right to discharge from the practice with a positive drug screen. I ran a random one on him this week which turned positive for cocaine.

The other lady showed up at our office twice this past week and both times was unhappy with my suggestions and asked for controlled substances. Keep in mind no one at our office had met her before this week. Unfortunately, narcotic addiction is a huge epidemic in the medical field. There are people out there who literally have a full time job of trying to score drugs from various doctors and emergency rooms. I feel a bit bad for the first guy because he has legitimate medical problems and has always been polite. In general, however, I have very little tolerance for this kind of behavior and am afraid that if I let him slide the word will get out that I'm nice and all of his friends will show up. And I don't particularly like the idea that I might be supporting someone's drug habit and/or drug business (OxyContin [Oxycodone] is $1/mg on the street and he was taking 60 mg twice a day). The bottom line is he signed a contract and he violated the terms. We sent him a letter saying that I would still take care of him medically but would not fill any more prescriptions for controlled substances. I doubt I'll ever see him again.

I've had a lot of patients lately who are crazy or druggies or lazy (young male who is morbidly obese who wants disability despite not being disabled) or some combination of the three. In general I love my job but I would be absolutely thrilled if I could have some normal patients for a change.

April Showers

As I am writing this post there are thunderstorms strolling through the area. All of the media is making a huge deal about these storms, though thus far they have been pretty benign. I've never been one to get too excited about weather forecasts. I can't do anything about the weather so I don't really understand what good it does to sit around and worry about it. We have had a lot of rain lately, and in general I enjoy the late spring rain. Though it can be a bit annoying when you have to get out in it to go to work.

This month I am working down in my clinic everyday. I usually mostly work in the hospital. Unfortunately I've been pretty slow the past week or so, and thus am getting home around 5 or 5:30 every evening when it is still light out. I am more used to getting home around 7 or 7:30 and it being dark out and therefore haven't thought much about outdoor activities recently. Now that I am getting home earlier with a few hours of sunlight I feel a bit guilty about not spending some time outside in the nice weather (when it isn't raining). Sarah and I have been watching a lot of tennis lately and I've been in the mood to play some (we have courts just a few hundred feet from our place) so I've been thinking about getting some rackets. I'll let you know how that goes if I pursue it.

One of the fun parts of spring/early summer is the playoff sports. I've always been a sports fan, but to be honest the older I get the less I care. I just am not interested enough to devote the time it requires to adequately follow a team closely. About the only sports I watch routinely are IndyCar and F1, and the Colts. Otherwise I pay little attention to the other sports. However, this changes a bit once the playoffs roll around. I haven't watched an NBA game all year but have enjoyed the Pacers' two games against Chicago, despite the losses. Playoff NBA games are much different than regular season games. Teams play defense and overall things seem much more serious and less clownish. And once again the Wings are doing well in the playoffs. Thus far Phoenix has not been much of a challenge. The NHL playoffs are tough to beat in my mind in terms of intensity and overall enjoyment to watch.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

"It's Always Sunny" follows the story of "The Gang," a group of self-centered moron friends in their late 20s who own and run a mostly unsuccessful bar in Philadelphia. The gang is joined by Frank Reynolds, played by Danny DeVito, who is the adoptive father of two of the members of the Gang.

Episodes usually find them hatching elaborate schemes, conspiring against one another and others for personal gain, vengeance, or simply for the entertainment of watching each other's downfall. Their tactics often rely on inflicting emotional and sometimes physical pain on individuals both deserving and undeserving. They regularly use blackmail and manipulate one another and others outside of the group. Almost everything they do results in competition among themselves.

Despite their lack of worldly success, the Gang generally maintain high opinions of themselves and display an often obsessive interest in their own reputations and public images. Despite this high sense of self worth, the Gang often have little sense of shame when attempting to get what they want and will often engage in activities which others would find humiliating, disgusting, or even preposterous, such as smoking crack cocaine in order to qualify for welfare, seducing a priest, or hiding inside a leather couch in order to spy on someone.

Very simply, "It's Always Sunny" is one of the dumbest shows I've ever seen. At the same time, however, it is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. It is very immature, yet practically every episode is hilarious. Thanks to Craig for letting me borrow the DVDs. I am currently in season 3 on the DVD set.

The Black Keys

The Black Keys were the opening act at the Kings of Leon concert I went to last year, which was the first time I had ever heard of them. They got quite an applause when their name was announced and I was a bit surprised because I felt out of the loop as I had never heard of them. They played 5 or 6 songs and I thought they were pretty cool so I put them on my mental list of artists to check out. That was nearly a year ago and I am just now getting around to listening to some of their stuff.

Their newest album "Brothers" is terrific. The Black Keys are an Akron, OH-based rock duo who make blues-style rock and roll. Their music sounds much older than it truly is, and I've kind of likened them to a modern-day Led Zeppelin. "Brothers" is one of the better rock albums I've heard recently (right up there with the Phoenix album) and I'm quite excited to be seeing them in concert later this summer here in Indy. Below is one of my favorite songs "She's Long Gone." Enjoy the rock music!

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
System: PS3
Release Year: 2009
IGN Score: 9.5


Uncharted is a gaming series that follows treasure hunter Nathan Drake on his adventures looking for some of the world's most valuable and historic artifacts. Think Indiana Jones or Lara Croft but with less cleavage. Just a warning - some plot spoilers are listed below. I did not, however, reveal how the game actually ends. The following plot outline is mostly taken from the wikipedia article on the game.

The second version of the game revolves around the doomed voyage of Marco Polo home from China in 1292. Polo departed with 14 ships and over 600 passengers, but when he arrived in Persia 18 months later, only one ship and 18 passengers were left. Polo never revealed what happened to his crew or lost ships.

The story begins in medias res, with Nathan hanging off a cliff high in the Himalayas (see picture above). After you struggle to get off the dangling train, the beginning of the story is revealed through a series of flashbacks. It is one of the most memorable opening stages of any game I've ever played. Former associate Harry Flynn and old girlfriend Chloe Frazer approached him with a job to steal a Mongolian oil lamp from an Istanbul museum. Nate accepts the job when he learns that the lamp may lead to the treasure of Marco Polo's lost fleet. Harry and Drake acquire the lamp, which contains a map showing that the lost fleet had been transporting the Cintamani Stone from the mythical city of Shambhala before being thrown ashore in Borneo by a tsunami. Taking the map, Flynn double-crosses Drake, who is arrested and imprisoned for three months. Chloe, who claims to have had no knowledge of Flynn's treachery, asks for the help of Drake's friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan to secure his release.

Nate and Sully follow Flynn and his boss Zoran Lazarevic, a Serbian war criminal who is widely thought to be dead, to Borneo. With the help of Chloe working within Lazarevic's camp as a mole, they discover that the lost fleet never actually possessed the Cintamani Stone. They locate a tomb containing the bodies of Polo's passengers, as well as a Tibetan phurba and a letter from Polo saying that the next clue is in Kathmandu, Nepal in a temple. Flynn and his men appear in the tomb soon after and take the letter, while Nate and Sully escape by jumping off a cliff into a river.

En route to the temple in Nepal, the pair runs into Elena Fisher and her cameraman Jeff, who are tracking down Lazarevic to prove he is still alive. The four reach the temple and discover that the stone and Shambhala are in the Himalayas. As they are about to leave, the group is ambushed, and Jeff is shot by one of Lazarevic's men. Despite Chloe's insistence to leave Jeff behind, the group pushes on until they are caught. Chloe reluctantly pulls her gun on Nate to protect her "cover", while Lazarevic executes Jeff. While Lazarevic and Chloe leave for the train yard, Nate and Elena manage to escape just as Flynn is about to kill them. The couple manages to catch up with Lazarevic's train on a stolen jeep. Nate boards the train and finds Chloe, who is upset about Nate having taken Elena and Jeff along earlier and refuses to leave with him. As the two argue, Flynn arrives and shoots Nate in the abdomen. With no other option, Nate shoots a pile of propane tanks, killing Flynn's men and sending Nate's half of the train over a steep cliff, which is where the opening scene in the game starts.

Nate escapes the train and travels through a snow storm, recovering the phurba among the wreckage before falling unconscious. He awakens in a Tibetan village, where he is reunited with Elena and is introduced to a German man named Karl Schäfer. Schäfer tells Nate that the phurba is the key to finding Shambhala, but Nate tells him he is no longer interested. To convince him otherwise, Schäfer sends Nate and the village leader, Tenzin, to find the remains of the men in his expedition, who were looking for Shambhala and the stone 70 years earlier.

As Nate and Tenzin search the Himalayas for remains of the expedition and for Lazarevic, unexpected plot twists happen and to expose them here would be unfortunate for those who haven't played the game. Let's just say things get weird up in the mountains.

Uncharted 2 is often said to be the best game on the PS3 and I agree completely. It does almost everything perfect. The game is visually stunning and impressive, even cinematic. As mentioned, the opening scene where Drake awakens on a train hanging from a cliff looks and plays so well it is one of the most memorable opening scenes of any game I've ever played. The story is at least partly factual, based around historic people and events. I enjoyed reading and learning about things like the Cintamani stone as I was playing through the game. Overall the story is quite interesting and engaging. The acting in the game is excellent too, and the dialogue is witty and humerus. The game has two memorable game babes in it as well in Chloe and Elena. And they don't just serve as eye candy, they play important roles in the plot and more than hold their own in gun fights.

Uncharted 2 is mostly a first person shooter, but combines many other gaming elements around the FPS model and does so quite well. First is platforming. You do a lot of jumping around in this game from object to object in order to advance. The way it is integrated in the game makes it look spectacular, exciting (is he going to make it??), and natural. For the most part it is done well, but there are some places where it is easy to jump the wrong way and fall off the cliff, resulting in death. The other aspect of the game that is used frequently is puzzle solving. Often you will reach a point in a temple where you have to position a series of objects a certain way in order to open a secret door to advance. This is done well overall, though it isn't nearly as complex or impressive as the puzzle solving seen in the temples in the Legend of Zelda series. As far as the FPS goes, it too is done well though there are some points in the game where the fighting is a bit ridiculous. It's usually you and one of the girls versus 20 or 30 of Lazarevic's guys who have shotguns, laser site riffles, RPG's, etc. In addition they frequently have riot shields and heavy duty armor. Simply, you are pretty much always out-manned and have a major disadvantage in artillery. Sometimes this gets a bit old but generally speaking the gunfights are enjoyable.

Very simply, Uncharted 2 is the best game I've played for the Playstation 3. It has some minor hiccups with platforming and the gun battles, but in general everything it does is spectacular. It's a relatively short game, clocking in under 20 hours. It is well worth your time if you're a PS3 owner. You won't be disappointed.

Go Butler!