In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man.

Midnight premieres.

I have been to many midnight premieres in the years that I have walked upon the earth.  I revel in the atmosphere of a midnight premiere.  I rejoice in the opportunity to interact with my people.  The true believers, not just in the content, but in the medium itself, make themselves known.  This is the ultimate movie-going event, save one.

Advance screenings.

The advance screening, while less likely to equal or surpass the feeling of comradery and pride one finds at a midnight premiere, offers one thing – one wonderful, amazing thing – that goes beyond these lost experiences, and transcends to a level of movie-going that the midnight premiere can not match: exclusivity.

Let it roll off your tongue.  Say it slowly; pronounce each letter.  Is it not intoxicating?

At this point, you may be asking, “Chris, this is all well and good, but what does this have to do with your blog’s title, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Advance Screening?  I mean, you haven’t even posted any pictures related to Harry Potter!”  As for the pictures, you’re absolutely right!  Allow me to rectify that:

As for the relevance, well, I’m glad you asked!  On July 2, 2009, the Fresno Beehive (@FresnoBeehive) started a giveaway contest for tickets to an advance screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this Monday, July 13th; two days before the premiere.  The requirements for entry were very simple; merely comment on the post.  The winners would be randomly picked from the comments.  I immediately commented to enter myself for a chance at an advance screening of a movie I have highly anticipated.  My hopes, however, were low.  I am not generally what one would call a “winner.”  Victory does not, for the most part, lay itself at my feet.  In fact, just yesterday morning, I mentioned to Lindsey that I doubted I would win the tickets, so we would have to settle for a matinee showing on the 15th (we have urgent business on the morning of the 15th, so unfortunately, a midnight premiere was out of the question).  Imagine my surprise when, on a whim, I checked my email before bed to find that I had indeed won a pair of tickets for the advance screening!  I informed Lindsey and immediately (after a victory jig) responded to the email indicating my acceptance.

If you are one of the select few attending the advance screening with us, congratulations.  We shall see you on Monday.

If you are not, our review will be up on Tuesday.

-Because I said so

Viewing Review -

Before I go into my review for Grand Slam Tennis, I want to let you guys and gals know that I am not too keen on sports games. I have never been athletically inclined, and I’ve found most sports to be boring.

Tennis is a sport that I would never play in real life. I’m just too lazy to run back and forth on the court just to hit a ball, so that brings me to video game tennis. I’ve played it in the past on various systems (Virtua Tennis on Dreamcast, Smash Court on Playstation 2, Top Spin on Xbox, and Wii Sports Tennis on Nintendo Wii), but my most recent video game tennis experience was far better than I could’ve imagined.

Image Courtesy of Electronic Arts (EA)

Grand Slam Tennis by Electronic Arts (EA) for the Wii is a fantastic game. Right from the beginning you can tell that it’s a clean game. I liked how you had the option of playing singles, doubles (together or versus), Career Mode, and online. From what I’ve read, Grand Slam Tennis has been praised for having a highly addictive online play. Great thing is that you don’t need to have friend codes in order to play with people. All you  have to do is sign up for a free EA account to have access to the full online experience.

While playing online you can particpate in ranked or unranked matches. Having that choice is nice because sometimes all a person wants to do is pick up the controller and play a few games for fun without having to worry about being so competitive. It can take the enjoyment out of a game. Online also matches you up with people playing the game from all over the world and I think that’s great. Having such a wide community to play with adds variety and versatility to the game.

Image Courtesy of IGN

If you choose to play ranked, you earn points when you beat somebody. Those points then determine what your overall ranking in the world is. A nice feature is that when playing ranked, not only do you earn your own personal points, but you earn points for your country. There is even a National Leaderboard where you can see which country has the top players.  Unranked matches do not earn you any points, but like I said before those games will be friendly and very low-key. Unranked can be good for people to prepare for the leaderboards without all of the pressure and stress.

Grand Slam Tennis features 23 different players to choose from. 12 of the characters are some of  the current top players, while the remaining 11 are retired legends. The 12 current players are Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Kei Nishikori, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, and Lleyton Hewitt. The 11 retired legends are Chris Evert, Justine Henin, Martina Navratilova, Michael Stich, Lindsay Davenport, Pat Cash, John McEnroe, Björn Borg, Pete Sampras, Stefan Edberg, and Boris Becker. There is even a “Create-A-Player” mode that will be familiar to people who have played the Tiger Woods golf series by EA.

Image Courtesy of Electronic Arts (EA)

One of the things I noticed while watching the game were the stadiums in which you played in. They were very realistic, vibrant with colors, and you had 12 different ones. Grand Slam Tennis is the first game since Top Spin 2 on the Xbox 360 to feature a licensed Wimbledon. Here are all of the venues:

• Australian Open: Hisense Arena, Rod Laver Arena, and Court 15.
• French Open: Court Suzanne Lenglen, Court Philippe Chatrier, and Court No. 12.
• Wimbledon: Centre Court, Court No. 1, and Court No. 3.
• U.S. Open: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Louis Armstrong Stadium, and Court 9.

Image Courtesy of Electronic Arts (EA)

When I was watching Grand Slam Tennis, I saw both singles gameplay and also co-op doubles.  Chris mostly chose Federer, while his cousin Lee would switch between McEnroe and Cash. One notable match was the two of them versus the Williams sisters. After the first serve, I knew that it would be an intense match. Both of the guys attached the Wii MotionPlus to their Wii Remotes so that their actions could be rendered identically on the screen in real time, and there is a dramatic difference between using the Wii MotionPlus and not. When they would swing their arms to volley back the ball, there wasn’t a lag like you’d get without it.  It was by far one of the most fluid tennis matches I had ever seen on any video game console.

The announcer who was calling the scores wasn’t annoying, the clapping after each round wasn’t overdone, and the sounds of the game were what you’d expect to hear when watching a real competitive game of tennis. Chris and Lee were really enjoying themselves and I found myself getting into it as well, even though I was just sitting on the couch.

I would highly recommend Grand Slam Tennis to anybody who owns a Wii console. For those of you who don’t, yet own a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360, Grand Slam Tennis will be released on both of those consoles later this year in the Fall. Details on those versions are minimal right now.

All I have to say is, Virtua Tennis… you better watch out. Grand Slam Tennis delivers all you could ask for in a tennis game, and more.

-Lindsey

Playing review -

My cousin recently purchased Grand Slam Tennis for his Wii.  At his in-laws house on the 4th of July, we decided to give it a shot together.  We had both been great fans of Virtua Tennis on the Sega Dreamcast, and are both fans of tennis in general, so it seemed like the thing to do.  Loading it up, the menu system was very easy to navigate.  The selection screens are all well done, and very clean looking.  The animations are smooth, and do not lag.  We chose our location (U.S. Open, Arthur Ashe Stadium) and our characters.  I started my first match with Pete Sampras, while he chose Pat Cash. Finally, it was time to start our game.  My cousin didn’t go into a great deal of detail about gameplay, so I had plugged in the nunchuk and was prepared to dash around for the ball.  I controlled my movement for the first game, before finally realizing that the game itself will control your movement for you, if you want.  This helped me immensely, because the nunchuk wire was quite the nuisance when trying to swing at the ball.  It caused me to miss a few shots that should have been fairly easy.

Image Courtesy of Electronic Arts (EA)

The game got into full swing, literally.  While I have been told that smaller, suble movements are sufficient to manage your player, they don’t have the flare and effort a good game of tennis deserves.  With this in mind, I was playing with my entire body, and with as much effort and energy as I could.  This level of physical engagement, however, may have been the cause for some of my accuracy issues.  When returning a service, I would more often than not hit the ball completely wide of the court (especially in doubles matches).  I tried varying my swing strength and angle, but generally ended up out.  This continued through my matches as McEnroe and Federer.  Controlling the direction of the ball could be difficult at times, especially compared to DC Virtua Tennis.  There were times where the trajectory of the ball seemed to be completely arbitrary, having absolutely nothing to do with my actual swing.  However, this could be a sign that I was playing a bit too exuberantly, as I have mentioned.

Image Courtesy of Electronic Arts (EA)

When playing in a doubles match, the system handles player positioning fairly well.  When one player makes a mad dash for the ball, your teammate moves to cover, which is extremely handy given the recovery time after a particularly epic dive.  The AI players do a decent job, but as with all AI players, they do have exploitable patterns and routines.  Look hard enough, and you’ll find them!

Two days later, my right arm is still sore from the exertion.  Grand Slam Tennis has some incredible, and obvious, improvements over games like the Dreamcast’s Virtua Tennis, while in other aspects, I feel Virtua Tennis has the upper hand (ball control!).  As I mentioned, though, this could have been due to my flailing, and not any fault with the game itself.  When looking at Grand Slam Tennis, the most important thing to consider is the fun factor.  In that respect, Grand Slam Tennis is one of the most fun sports video games I have ever played.  What more could you really ask for?

-Chris

If you guys and gals love Heroes as much as Chris and I do, then this news will delight you immensely:

Not only do we know that September 21st is the premiere date for Redemption, but it will be a 2 hour episode!

Happy Monday!

- She Who Has The Last Word

One thing we’ve noticed about Moogle is how curious she is. She wonders what is inside a cabinet, wonders what is so awesome about the fridge, and other things. She has also taken a great interest in our laptop and PC. She watches how the mouse cursor flits about the screen, and will stare at our fingers as they click on the keyboard.

When Chris is at work, him and I talk throughout the day on AIM. Sometimes I step away from the keyboard because I am getting food, going to the restroom, getting the mail, or taking Donnie outside to do his business. Before Moogle, Chris would sit there with silence on my end. Now that we have Moogs, something new has been happening.

Before I go and do whatever I need to do, I tell Chris that I will “be right back” or “brb.” Chris will then see on AIM that it says I am typing, however I will not be anywhere near the keyboard. Some seconds later, a message will be sent to him that typically looks like this: a111111111111111111111111111111stjp.

Little Moogs takes it upon herself to walk across the keyboard and send her Daddy a message. She almost always hits the ENTER key as well, sending the message to Chris and him getting a laugh out of it.

Yesterday her keyboard escapades went a step further. A few hours after completing the blog about our forums, I went back to check and see what our viewer stats were. I was surprised to find the screen back on the blog edit page, and the title of the blog changed to “pppppppppppppppppppppp.” Our cat is so talented that she managed to get into the edit post mode, change the title of the blog, and she even SAVED it. Of course I changed it back, so I apologize to any visitors of our blog who saw the “Moogs Edition” of my forum post.

So from here on out, if you see anything silly going on our blog with words or sentences, you can pretty much guess who did it:

Lady Moogs, Slayer of Keyboards and Internetz.

- She Who Has The Last Word

If any of you are regulars to our blog, you will know that a few months back we created some forums.

Unfortunately we are lazy bastards, and really didn’t do much with them. Sure there were a few posts done, a few people signed up… but it could’ve been so much more.

Since I’ve grown frustrated with many of the current gaming forums and sites out there, I figured that we should improve on what we have instead of going out there and bothering with other sites that don’t give two fucks what we think or feel.

After getting frustrated with CSS, I am proud to announce that our forums have a new, beautiful look to them and will be constantly updated as the days go by.

If you want to be a part of our growing community, and want to share something special with us, please sign up on our forums and help us get the ball rolling!

www.worldofmeh.com/forum

Hope to see you there!

- She Who Has The Last Word

(P.S… tell a friend, it’s always appreciated!)

Thanks to WordPress, we can view what people searched for that led them to our blog. I must say, some of you guys/gals are sick puppies lol

Here are the top search results of all time for our blog (yes, I know that it’s not as many results compared to most blog sites but we are still growing):

Now some of those are nothing, however if I run a search for the top results for the past 30 days, that is when things start to get interesting:

So, at least we know who our target audience is. They like zombies, a little om nom nom action, hairy men, knowing more about hairy men, the vagina of Silk Spectre, and who could live without Dr. Manhattans big blue donggy schlong?

Thank you readers for making our “Search Result” stats something to look forward to. Keep it going with the freaky shit, and we will keep writing about it!

- She Who Has The Last Word

Almost all of you who read this blog know about our dog Donnie. For those of you who don’t, last year Chris and I adopted a dog who was already named Donnie. At the time he was 4, was owner released, and is a Terrier/Chihuahua mix. Luckily Donnie took on more of the Terrier traits and personality than the shakey Chihuahua.

We found out right away that Donnie wasn’t house trained, but at the time it wasn’t a problem since he was in a backyard. In December of last year, we moved into our current home which is an apartment and Donnie didn’t come with us right away. Instead we waited for us to get settled in so that we could bring him over, and we needed to save up for the massive $400.00 pet deposit.

When Donnie eventually joined us in February, we went to PetSmart to get him some stuff. After shopping, we spent about $230.00 on a crate for him, food, new water bowls and dishes, a pet bed, and some other stuff. The crate was so that he could be kept in it over night because the last thing we needed was to wake up and see a piss filled carpet and crap all over the place. We even got a crate one size bigger so that he would have a side to sleep on, with a little mattress pad of course, and room to walk around in. We also made sure that food and water bowls were in there too.

So far he has done well in the crate. He threw up once in it and I can’t remember any other accidents until yesterday morning.

Let me set it up for you all….

On the night of June 29th, Chris and I stayed up late. The last time Donnie went to use the restroom was close to 1 in the morning which would’ve made it the 30th. Typically Donnie is put away around 10-11 and not taken out until I wake up which varies between 9 and close to 11. On the morning of the 30th, Chris woke up at his usual time of 6:15 and went to the bathroom. He does this every morning but that time I heard him say…”oh goddamnit!” Of course that woke me up and when I looked in the direction of the bathroom, I saw Chris start to head towards the kitchen. I thought he was running late and that he was in a rush. Unfortunately I was wrong.

Chris said “oh goddamnit!” because he smelled shit. Originally he thought it was coming from Moogles litter box because we keep that in the bathroom. When he saw no evidence, he then started to look around on the floor. Nothing was there. When he went into the kitchen and looked at Donnie’s crate… he found the culprit.

In the crate there were two big piles of shit. One was of a regular consistency that was partially on the floor of the crate and partially on his little mattress, the other was very squishy and only half of that made it into the crate. The rest, lovingly, was on our kitchen tile. I offered to clean it up but Chris refused to let me get out of bed, knowing that once I did I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.

Poor Chris took Donnie outside onto the patio, and then proceeded to clean out the kennel, gagging the entire time due to the horrible stench. It was so strong, and so putrid, that you could smell it throughout the entire apartment. I obviously had no clue since I was asleep when it happened, but as I started to wake up more my sense of smell kicked in. It was not pretty. I honestly thought he was going to vomit, and I know he thought so too because he told me.

Needless to say, Chris was a little late to work but we thought the crisis was over.

Oh how wrong I was AGAIN!

A few hours later, I woke up around 9:40 to the sound of Donnie’s nails “tap dancing” around on the floor of the kennel. Moogle was in bed with me so I knew she wasn’t antagonizing him. Since it was really loud, I yelled at Donnie to “shush it” so that I could lay in bed for a few more minutes.

The sound didn’t stop. I kept hearing the tippity tappity of his nails and I knew that something was up. I knew, in the pit of my stomach, that I was going to find a huge mess. I was correct. As I rounded the corner to the kitchen I could smell it. Chris got the easy round of his shit, I got the disaster.

It was everywhere, and when I say everywhere…. I mean it. It was all over the inside of his kennel. It almost looked like there was a layer of watery mud in there. It even sprayed out onto the tile floor. I could also see that there was a pretty decent amount of piss in there too.

I was so angry that I picked up the entire crate, being oh so careful not to spill the contents on myself or the carpet, and put the entire thing in our bathtub. I ran the water at a nice temperature, and showered the entire thing down… with Donnie inside of it.

After I was done with that, I moved him and the crate outside onto the patio. It was hot so I put him in the shade, gave him food and water with ice cubes inside of it, and then proceeded to mop down the kitchen tile.

I hoped that was the last of it, but I was wrong… for the third time.

A few hours later from hosing Donnie down in the shower, I saw him circling around the inside of his crate. Sometimes he does this when he is trying to find a spot to sit or lay down, but he instead chose to blow shit out of his ass… using a lot of force I might add. It came out so fast that I didn’t have enough time to run to the sliding glass door and get him out.

Great thing was, there were sound effects too. As soon as it squished out of his butt, I heard this “PFFFTTTTT!!!!” It was so loud that I was able to hear it loud and clear 10 feet away, and through our sliding glass door.

Since I wasn’t about to drag the crate back inside again, I flushed it out with water that I brought outside in a large bowl. You can all imagine how many trips I had to make going back and forth…

Thankfully, that was the last of his shit we had to worry about and he didn’t make a mess in his crate for the rest of the day. He also made it through the night without any mistakes and he just went outside to use the world as his toilet. Hopefully it was just a little stomach bug and it has passed, but I will be keeping a close eye on him and he is back in his crate for right now.

Donnie truly is living up to his nickname I gave him… Mr. Poopy Duper!

- She Who Has The Last Word