Yesterday was a pretty great day. It started off getting some local love from @mikeoz on Twitter. He works for the local newspaper, The Fresno Bee, and has written some really great articles. When I take the time to actually read the paper I always make sure to check out what he has to say. For the Fresno Bee employees there is a website called FresnoBeeHive where they add additional content that didn’t make the newspaper, and frankly the site is a lot of fun. They do concert ticket giveaways on there for local shows, the viewers get the chance to comment on the articles like on a blog site, and I find that that one website has alerted me to more things going on in my town than I could have imagined.

@mikeoz created a post on the site about Twitter. It was for the local community who hadn’t created an account or who was new to the site. Basically it was filled with recommendations. There was a section about which tv stations were on there, other cool local things/places who were on Twitter, Fresno Bee peeps, and then there was a category with just 11 “cool peeps” that he thought people should start off with.

I was totally delighted when he asked me Thursday evening if I would be cool with him putting me as one of the peeps. Of course I said yes and thanked him because it truly was flattering. Surprisingly there are a lot of locals on Twitter so he could have easily chosen somebody else because frankly lets face it, I’m not too terribly exciting lol!

As a result of that blog, I gained many new followers – obviously local ones – and I got to meet some of them at the Tweet Up that took place Friday evening at the Daily Grill. It’s always great coming across new people that you might not have found out through other means.

At the Tweet Up last night, that was wonderfully arranged by @FresYes whose real name is Jason Farris, Chris and I were only there for a little over an hour but we had a blast. We got there later than we wanted to but it was totally my fault. I couldn’t find a stupid top to wear. Then we had to leave earlier than we would have liked to but we have our obligations to our show and to our viewers.

It was great getting to meet everybody face to face because some of the people we have on Twitter use random images instead of self photograph for their avatars. @ShyTrbleMaker was a blast to meet. She was so incredibly sweet. We also got to meet @FresYes and @mikeoz, who came with his wife @tanyaoz. We met many others and there were loads more there that Chris and I didn’t even recognize!

During our conversations we came across @respres, Jeff Turner, and he showed us this great app for the iPhone called Qik. After going through the set-up of the app we can then stream live video. It will provide our Twitter followers with link in a tweet and then the viewers can start asking us questions as we are live. From what I was able to see there wasn’t a way to text the message to people but verbally answering is just fine. He had a great suggestion for us, since the videos are saved and then can be embedded or linked to, to use the video snippets as part of a weekly re-cap during our MehCast.

Absolute genius good Sir!

He was even so sweet to show us how it worked and gave Chris and I a little interview right there on the spot. In the interview we talked about our MehCast and our blog site so thank you Jeff for helping us get our name out there! We really appreciate it.

Another amazing display of Cali Love came from the couple who run Married Gamers. Every week on Saturday they do a Podcast solely about video games. Chris and I both have the Mr. (@leftybrown) on our lists and we were introduced to the Mrs, who is an Animal Crossing addict like us! Obviously we spent a bit of time discussing the game that is destroying our very lives, but we also talked about other things as well. They are going to be so awesome and so kind as to mention our blogsite/show during their Podcast that is runing today.

All in all, yesterday was a great day. It was a great day for our site, it was a great day for our show, and it was just great getting to meet our Twitter friends and making new ones in the process!

To everybody that I mentioned above, thank you so much again. We really do appreciate it and hope that someday in the future we can repay you all!

Here are some links to the sites I have been mentioning:

FresnoBeeHive : http://www.fresnobeehive.com

Jeff Turner (@respres) blog – and one of MANY : http://www.technosanity.com

The Married Gamers site : http://www.themarriedgamers.net

- She Who Has The Last Word

Well, we started the week without really meaning to talk about the Wii every day, but it happened, so we decided to call it our Wii Week.  It was an interesting week filled with highs and lows.  On the one hand, we paid off a few house expansions in Animal Crossing, and I fucking RULE at Mario Kart, but on the other hand, Francine is a dirty bitch who robbed me blind.

I really fucking hate Francine now.

I’m going to try to get her to move out of Korriban.

Anyway.  That’s all for Wii Week!  Hopefully you enjoyed it (assuming anyone actually reads this drivel).  Maybe later on we’ll do a Virtual Console Week where we download and play games through the Wii’s Virtual Console (METAL SLUG!).

-Because I said so

Wednesday night, I went on a fishing bonanza, filling my Animal Crossing house with fish to sell the next day in one big selling run.  Last night, a little while after I got home, I made my sales, getting myself up to over 85,000 bells (Animal Crossing currency), a hefty sum indeed.  I continued fishing, wanting to break the 100,000 mark, when I came across one of my town’s residents.  Francine, a rabbit, flagged me down to chat.  I took a break from fishing to see what she wanted.  She had a Sea Butterfly!  A Sea Butterfly is a tiny little fish that sells for 1,000 bells (a good price for something so small).  She asked if I would be interested in buying it and how much I would be willing to pay, which is followed by a vertical slider ranging from “Nothing” to “All of my money”.  I would hardly be willing to pay more than I could sell it for, obviously, so I moved the slider down near the Nothing (but not on the Nothing) option and continue the conversation.  She responded to my offer with:

“So 6,500 bells sounds about right?  Great!”

And suddenly, I find myself handing over 6,500 bells for a little Sea Butterfly.  I didn’t have an option to reject her ridiculous asking price.  I was forced into a purchase that lost me over 5,000 bells.  Needless to say, I was pretty pissed at that gameplay element, so I put in Mario Kart.

I fucking rule at Mario Kart.

-Because I said so

On last weeks show I mentioned the amazing arrival of Maynard James Keenan to Fresno. For those of you who have been living under a rock, MJK is the lead singer of TOOL, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer. The man is a God. I’ve seen TOOL in concert 3 times over the past 10 years, and have been a huge fan for as long as I can remember.

Let me tell you how insane I get over this man.

Back when I was 15…almost 16, I heard over the local radio station KRZR that TOOL was coming to Fresno. This was back in 98 and it was the show held at Fresno State. After I heard the radio announcer I fled out of my bedroom shrieking like a banshee heading towards my mother who was in the kitchen at the stove cooking something (obviously). I was so excited and amped up that when I reached her I grabbed at her. Instead of getting a grasp on her arm, I got her disgustingly bright neon lime green shirt. This shirt had been around since the 80′s and makes me get the Flashdance theme song in my head right now just even mentioning it. Anyways…. I had forgotten just how freaked out I was and the next thing I heard between my insane ranting was RRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPP!!!!!!! I ripped her shirt with my beastly TOOL induced strength.

At that concert I almost had my nose broken, passed out for who knows how long from hyperventilating, and cried when they played “Pushit.”

The second time I saw them was in July 2002 down in Bakersfield for their Lateralus album tour. Again, they were so fantastic but there was no passing out, no risk of bone breakages, and unfortunately they didn’t play “Pushit” so no tears were shed.

In 2003 while in labor with my daughter I brought my DiscMan and while waiting for the fun pushing part (please detect the sarcasm) I did listen to a bit of TOOL and it was very helpful. Maynards voice could calm a pack of rabid and starving lions.

The third time I saw them in concert was in August 2006 for their 10,000 Days album tour. I had the pleasure of going with a friend of mine who had never seen them in concert before so he was a wee little virgin. Peter (that’s his name) drove all the way from Palo Alto for the show here in Fresno at Selland Arena and we had a blast. Both of us lost our voices for a couple of days because we were screaming out the songs.

All of these events lead me to where we are now.

Late last year Chris had mentioned to me that Maynard was going to tour some Whole Foods in promotion of his wine that he runs from Arizona. I thought I was going to have a heart attack until we saw that Fresno wasn’t on the list.

Last week Chris was on his way home from work when he sends me a text message alerting me that Maynard was indeed coming here and for me to look it up on the internet for day, time, and specifics. At the time I was on the phone with this super nice lady from Oregon State University because I was inquiring about their online Political Science program. It took all that I could to not get hysterical on the poor woman but I pulled it off. During the conversation I did look it up and texted with Chris a bit while the excitement was starting to build up inside my body. After getting off the phone with her I immediately called my Mom and left her the most pathetic/disturbing voicemail she has probably ever received.

I first started off saying “Oh my God! Oh my God! OH MY GOD!” In between the “oh mys” you could clearly hear me breathing. I proceeded to tell her everything but I all of a sudden started bursting into tears. I was so emotional and crazed that my throat started closing off and I couldn’t get out any words. The end of the message was me squeaking out that I had to go since well… I obviously couldn’t say a word! Chris and I were to go somewhere (I can’t remember right now where to save my life) and I got so messed up making that voicemail that I had to fix and reapply my makeup.

Ever since I found out that Maynard was coming here I kept calm. Every once in awhile I would get hella stoked but I was doing my best to stay calm so that I wouldn’t get anxious and maybe have a panic attack (I have a history of getting those). Then a bit of fear struck me that maybe I would freak out and possibly pass out  in front of the man that I have wanted to meet for over 10 years. I knew that all of it was going to boil down to a battle of wits and emotion since the odds of me crying were against me. My Mom was convinced that I would break down into a massive downpour of tears and I didn’t blame her. I was convinced I would too but I was going to do my best to not become “one of those.” By “one of those” I mean stupid girls that you would find at a Jonas Brothers concert.

On Tuesday, the day of his arrival, I woke up early because I couldn’t sleep. I believe I woke up around 7:45 which is way earlier than I usually do. At 8 Whole Foods started handing out tickets that would hold your place in line so after getting ready and driving there we arrived around 8:30. When we got there we saw this HUGE sign with a list of what we couldn’t do. I already had it in my head that I was going to take a massive amount of pictures. Not only for you guys and for this blog, but for myself because I would really want to remember this day. Chris even came up with the idea of maybe bringing one of my ticket stubs for him to sign in which I thought that was a really good idea. I had questions in my head that I was thinking about asking such as: “What is your favorite book?” and “What is your favorite video game?” I even laughed at how I would probably pull a Butthead and ask some stupid question. On the big board of NO I saw that no cell phones were allowed (not making this up), no cameras, no bags, no large purses, no coats (I know… it was raining, cold outside and it’s February but no coats. What the fuck ever.), that no other items besides wine bottles would be signed, and a bunch of other bullshit that I didn’t read.

Chris and I got our tickets and we were 108 and 109. Lucky bastard pulled the 108 lol. We went back home and vegged out on our Wii until we went back around 2 so that we could get in line. We were told that was the time they were going to start selling the wine. When we got back to Whole Foods we were told that it was actually at 3:30 so we went and got some lunch at the nearby Apple Bees.

Back in the waiting area we were told that we would be put in groups of 20, us being in 100-120 (obviously). While standing there we talked to some pretty cool people. One guy got to go as part of the first group so we didn’t get his name, then there was this dude named Dane who was super cool. We talked with him for a long time about various stuff and we even gave him the blog URL so Dane… if you are reading this hellloooo and I hope you enjoyed that day as much as we did. When we got into our little group to go get the wine we had this really nice woman named (I think… if I remember) Christy. She had seen TOOL almost 20 times and she was great to talk to. There weren’t a lot of women there and the ones that were there would have given my daughter nightmares for sure. Christy wasn’t one of them. If you saw her walking down the street you would have assumed she was into stuff like Dave Matthews or something (not that there is anything wrong with Dave Matthews…but I used him for the sake of creating an image).

Up to this point I was still really calm. Every once in awhile I got a little flutter of excitement but I was doing well. Chris and I had already picked out which wines we were going to get so when we got inside Whole Foods we were ready. After going through the checkout we had to stand and wait for the remaining members of our group to finish up with their purchases. Around this time I was starting to need to fidget to help with the nervous energy that was starting to build up inside of me but I was still good.

We then were escorted by a guy to the end of the shopping area where Sharper Image used to be and there was a short line there. The line went inside one of the empty building suites where Maynard was with his wine partner. I tried to get a peek but they were behind tall black drapes. Total bummer. Standing in that line really started to mess with me because to know that somebody you think is fucking amazing is only behind some flimsy curtain can be really exciting and crazy at the same time.

Since people were still being douches about what we could and couldn’t bring with us, before entering that room we had to take off our coats. I had a sleeveless shirt on underneath a woven sweater jacket and I still had to take that off. People were having to take off hoodies, pull over sweat shirts… it was incredibly ridiculous.

When we got inside the room we only had like 3 others in front of us and I could hear his voice as he was talking to a guy. I got this incredible flutter in my stomach and knew that I was in trouble. As we inched closer to our time with him I made one vital mistake: I peeked. I PEEKED!!!

What in the FUCK was I thinking?!?!?!?!??!?!

This entire time I had been perfectly fine and then I blew it by getting a peek of him for not even 20 seconds. As soon as I leaned back to my position I immediately knew it was all over. Teary, weepy me was about to emerge and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I turned my head upwards to look at the pipes in the ceiling and I even asked Chris to give me something to think about. Him, being clever as always, told me to think about the little squirrel we saw the other day that was flattened and ran over on this road.

Thanks for that Sweetie. It was great.

Then it was our time.

My time to stand in front of Maynard.

I know that some of you reading this probably think that I need professional help but haven’t you all had somebody that if you met them you would be completely over the moon? Even if they were fictional like a super hero they still count.

As soon as I took the steps closer to the table him and dude (yeah… he was so important I obviously remembered his name lol) were at I really started to weep like a damn baby. Maynard was so sweet though and he joked with Chris about it.

Maynard: “What did you do to her man?”

Chris: “What?”

Maynard: “What did you do to her? She’s crying.”

I know that it’s hard to get the tone through text but he was being cute about it. He then asked if Chris had hit me (maybe he had seen in the news about fucking broke ass Chris Brown beating up on a certain lady) and if he should have the police man who was to the left come over. I did laugh at that. Chris did make me look like a goof by saying that I was crying due to this making my life (which is true but why would you admit that? sheesh!!)

Then things got worse… at least for me and my weepage. I then heard a combination of words that I thought I would never hear from that mans mouth:  “You look pretty today.”

OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!

So here I am… in front of him and then I get to hear this? If it wasn’t for the fact that I enjoy living and have a lot that I am looking forward to, I could have dropped dead right then and there and been pretty cool with it. Hearing those words made me want to cry even more and I was able to squeak out the words “Thank you” to him. After that our time was up and then we left to get my coat and umbrella out from their little holding area.

As I was walking out there was another woman there who said that she was probably going to do the same thing (which, very selfishly, I admit that made me feel not so bad) but when I got to where my stuff was I felt like an ass because of the dude that was there working the event. I heard “Finally! Some passion!” directed towards me. Random dude was so nice to inform me that I was the first crier of the day.

Oh fucking joy to the world.

So… I’m sorry that I didn’t get you guys pictures, sorry that I didn’t get to ask any questions because I EPICALLY FAILED, and sorry to myself for being an ass.

On the show we will show you guys the bottles of signed wine and since Chris and I don’t drink, if you happen to buy a bottle and try it let us know what you thought of it.

- She Who Has The Last Word

Our new Wii does not come without consequences.  Since we purchased our Wii, our apartment has gone to hell.  We moved our coffee table to place the Wii Fit Balance Board down.  We have dishes from LAST THURSDAY still sitting in the sink (I finally washed some yesterday and set some others in hot water to soak).  We have empty snack bags (and some not so empty snack bags) littering the floor around the couch.  We have empty fast food bags and empty Starbucks Cups creating intricate patterns of trash on the floor around the couch.  Our laundry is undone, our carpet is unvacuumed, our tile is unmopped, our trash is untakenout (untakenout?), and our dishes, as mentioned earlier, are uncleaned.

And we’re okay with that, because at least our Animal Crossing houses are very tidy, and we’ve been able to pay off two expansions!

-Because I said so

Well, since Monday was heavily focused on the Wii, and Tuesday documented a Wii-related experience, I figured we might as well make it Wii Week and run three more days of Wii blog posts.  I bet you’re all excited about that!

Lindsey and I have been playing a lot of Animal Crossing: City Folk since we got it.  It is the most played game we own now.  When we got it, I figured that would be her solo game, Super Mario Galaxy would be my solo game, and Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Mario Kart would be our together games.

I’ve played more Animal Crossing than Super Mario Galaxy.  Not because Super Mario Galaxy is a lesser game (it’s an amazing game), but because Animal Crossing is so easy and relaxed that you can’t help but lose track of time.

Which brings me to the point of this post:  Our lives are being devoured by the Wii.

Devoured, I say.

It’s a serious problem.  We’ve started caring less about things we enjoyed before because we’d rather be playing Animal Crossing.  The biggest problem is that I am completely aware of this problem, and I’m not going to do a thing about it.  I need to have a perfect rating for our town.  It will happen, and we will reap the benefits.

We’ve both had our houses expanded after paying off our original mortgage.  Lindsey has been grinding fishing for extra money, and I’ve started manipulating the residents.  Oh, it’s so very fun.

Is it weird that I like this game so much?

-Because I said so

Yesterday I mentioned that we had rented a couple of games for our new Wii from Blockbuster on Sunday night (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and De Blob).  What I failed to mention was that we had intended to rent two additional games (Cooking Mama: World Kitchen, and Spongebob’s Atlantis Squarepants), but decided, at the last minute, to refrain.  Why, do you ask?

$8.99 each.  That’s why.

Yes, Blockbuster is charging, for XBox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii games, $8.99 each for a 5-day rental.

Are you fucking kidding me?

We ended up renting the two games mentioned earlier, as well as the movie Knocked Up, which neither of us had seen (pretty funny, actually), and it cost us over $20.  That’s just ridiculous.

Fuck you, Blockbuster.  I’m checking out GameFly.

-Because I said so

On Friday the 13th, Lindsey and I became the proud new owners of a Nintendo Wii system, along with Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, Animal Crossing: City Folk (with Wii Speak), and some accessories.  Needless to say, our weekend was very productive.

Very productive.

We have both been playing mostly Animal Crossing.  She has played this game in depth on multiple systems (Gamecube and Nintendo DS, I think that’s it), while I have only jumped in briefly on her DS version.  With the Wii version, I’ve become far more interested in it than before.  We both have moved into Korriban (her choice, as the dark side is strong in her).  She is Revan (see what I mean?), and I am Zim (DOOOOOOOOOOM!).  It’s been fun, so far.  We’ve both managed to pay off our houses as of yesterday, and we had a new resident move in to town!

I’ve played some Super Mario Galaxy, going so far as to beat the Dino Piranha star (first star after the Observatory), and I am having an absolute blast with this game so far.  The camera angles can get very disconcerting, but I think they’ve done an amazing job with the levels.

Lindsey and I have played a couple of team races in Mario Kart.  We lost our first two team races, but we won the third.  It took a few laps to get used to the accelerometer controls, but I think we’ve got it down pat, now.  With Animal Crossing, Lindsey came in with the experience.  Mario Kart is my game.  I’ve played Mario Kart DS to death, I loved Mario Kart 64, and while I never owned a Super Nintendo, I had a friend with one and we would play Mario Kart a lot.  I know how to Kart.  Lindsey is very good as well, which is great.  Between the two of us, we’re almost never out of the top 3 in any given race.

Wii Fit.  Fuck the Half Moon and fuck Lunges.  Everything else is cool, but fuck those two.  The Lunges really did a number on Lindsey, and the Half Moon is really painful.  I’m going to keep doing the god damned Half Moon, because it’s probably really good for my posture and spine, but fuck it straight to hell.  Other than that, it’s an amazing game that makes working out a lot of fun.  With the training tracker, graphs, BMI measurements, Wii Fit Body Age, etc, you get to have a lot of fun while having a visual goal.  We’re going to try at least half an hour each every day.

I enjoyed the Wii Play games (most of them), but Lindsey has given Wii Play a solid thumbs down.  I think the 7-2 score may have had something to do with that.

We didn’t do anything more in Wii Sports together, but I played a few frames of Bowling, as well as a couple of matches of Tennis.  I also did a game of Baseball, which is a lot of fun, even though I don’t really enjoy baseball too much.

We browsed through the Virtual Console games, and found some titles that really took us back, and some that made us go “Fuck that” at the same time (Ecco the Dolphin, anyone?  That’s another post altogether.).

Last night we rented two more games to try out: Metroid Prime 3 – Corruption and De Blob.  Metroid is Metroid, this we recognize.  De Blob, however, we have heard nothing about.  It looks like a pretty cool party game, maybe a puzzle game, we’re not sure.  We’ll try it out and see.

We love our Wii.

-Because I said so

Our Friday the 13th episode started with some unlucky technical difficulties, resulting in a late start of almost 10 minutes!  We sincerely apologize, but we were so busy playing on our new Wii that we didn’t take the time to confirm that everything was ready to go.  Our bad.

This episode saw Lindsey in aluminum devil horns (which were easy to do since all she did was wrap them around her real horns – I’ll probably get in trouble for that one).  We discussed the See’s Candy dental assistant conspiracy, a ridiculous experience we had at the local Apple store, Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman, Maynard coming to our local Whole Foods, Chris Brown and what a bastard he is, our new wii, Lindsey’s new iPhone, cool iPhone apps, the recently ported Kingdom Hearts game, the Joydick (masturbatory game controller), our neighbors finally being kicked out, the bailout plans, the stimulus, the problems Scholastic and the Amazon Kindle are facing, Lindsey’s tax experience, Lindsey’s wish to return to college, our fridge problem, and our gross chicken problem.

We discussed our dog Donnie and his brush with the police, a cool little kitty cat in our apartment complex, my little cousin Pantera, the legend of the Dude from Unit 131, our rediscovery of a local frozen custard place, my Jay and Silent Bob alarm clock, Nip Tuck, Scrubs, Heroes, and South Park.

Good show!

Episode discussion at:

http://worldofmeh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=24

-Because I said so

Today was Valentine’s Day.  It was the second Valentine’s Day that Lindsey and I have had, and the first since we moved in together and since we became engaged.  The first thing we did was get breakfast.  Sorry, let me correct that.  The first thing I did was get breakfast.  The first thing Lindsey did was play Animal Crossing: City Folk on our new Wii.  After eating breakfast, we continued playing Animal Crossing.  She took a bit of a nap, during which time I popped in Super Mario Galaxy, which is very fun (but has extremely weird camera angles).  Next up was Wii Play, which I found fairly entertaining, but which Lindsey hated most of.  After that, we put our Wii Fit to use with a half hour of training for each of us, followed by Wii Sports Boxing.  Once Lindsey put me down to the mat, she went off to start cooking our Valentine’s Day dinner while I played some more Wii Sports and some Animal Crossing.  Finally, dinner was ready.  Lindsey made some amazing salmon, spaghetti alfredo, peas, and a great salad.  For dessert, she made a wonderful red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  After dinner, we watched Memoirs of a Geisha, which she hadn’t seen for a very long time, and I hadn’t seen at all.  It just finished up about 10-15 minutes ago, when I realized we had yet to do a post for today, which brings us to the current moment!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

-Because I said so