The Sasquatch Journal

Whenever I shrug off the stereotypes of L.A. women as shallow, self-absorbed exhibitionists I meet someone like Mandy, a oversexed 28-year old single mother of three, who in a short 15 minute conversation while waiting to board our plane to Chicago on Monday, told me the following things without my prompting:
1. Her boobs (carefully placed so they would be peeking out of her shirt) were real.
2. Though she had three kids, she still had a hearty sex drive.
3. Lately she's been into being choked until she is near the point of unconsciousness during sex.
4. She's been thinking about joining the "Mile High Club" lately.
And that's not even mentioning the terrible Holocaust joke she told that Jacob (who is Jewish) heard while he sat on the floor next to me...oh, or that she spilled half of her Starbucks coffee on the floor, causing some to splash up on an old woman's leg. Miss Mandy neither apologized, nor cleaned it up. But hey, can a hot blonde chick who works in the movie industry (scouting locations at least, not acting) be expected to say "I'm sorry"? Not likely.

-The software company I'm temporarily working for is aesthetically interesting to say the least. It's in an aging blue collar neighborhood in Menands, New York, just outside of Albany. When we first drove up to this huge haunted looking brick warehouse, we wondered out loud if we were at the right place until we saw the sign. But it turns out, past the empty concrete corridors, Vicarious Visions transformed part of this circa-1940's Montgomery Wards into a hip, modern office building.

It's definately the coolest place I've ever worked from an architectural point of view. It's large, curved pillars incorporates scooped walls, warm colors, huge, airy rooms and it feels very comfortable. I wish more companies would take chances like VV has with investing in a smallish town and resisting the bandwagon movements to booming metropolises or the Silicon Valleys of the world.

-Hotel life has been relaxing, but exceedingly boring thus far. It's been a lot of watching one of three Showtime channels, reading Sherlock Holmes stories, eating bananas and Pop-Tarts (though not at the same time) and writing these thrilling blog entries. But the University of Albany, conveniantly located across the street, is cool to walk around in....The New York Giants is also holding training camp there, so I plan on possibly catching a practice sometime soon. Maybe I'll ask Eli Manning if he's worth keeping for my fantasy team.

Perhaps my most exciting adventure thus far involved getting attacked by a skunk. Well, sort of. While walking in the bushes late at night last night, I saw this weird darkish shape sniffing around in the grass. It took me a second to realize that it was a skunk. Seriously, I bet I've only seen a live skunk maybe once. It didn't look like too alarming of a creature, so I slowly slunk up to it while taking pictures with my little crappy cellphone camera. It seemed oblivious at first, but as I walked into the light, it made a quasi-hissing sound, arched it's back and thrust its bushy tail at me like a scorpion ready to sting. I was startled and amused at the same time. What could this harmless little skunk do to me besides get a little stinky? Well, it was about that time that the skunk charged me. Oh crap, I thought, as I took a few hasty steps back. The skunk really wasn't interested in a fight however, he just wanted to intimidate me.

Sufficiently intimidated, I walked back to my hotel to watch Better Off Dead on Showtime 3.

For those interested, my review of the new Grand Theft Auto for PS2 was published today at Popmatters.com. Here's a link:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/multimedia/reviews/grand-theft-auto-liberty-city-stories

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

by Ryan Smith

The release of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories may come as a relief to those worried that Joseph Lieberman had secretly become the CEO of Rockstar Games. Collective jaws were dropped when the company that GTA built unveiled a straightfaced table tennis simulation as its first Xbox 360 release this spring. What was next, asked snarky critics, Rockstar Presents Lawn Darts or Friday Night Bingo at the American Legion Local 721?

There’s no hint of parlor games in Liberty City Stories, a game in which Rockstar returns to its crime-loving, street-hustling roots. But arguably, too much so. I say this because LCS isn’t the bold new GTA game many fans were hoping for. Oddly enough, it’s also a direct port from Sony’s PSP system, which marks one of the only times you’ll see a handheld-to-console port. There’s no doubt that to be able to play a GTA game like LCS on a three inch screen is impressive, but on the PlayStation 2 LCS suffers considerably.

LCS returns to the East Coast locale of Liberty City (A thinly veiled New York City clone) to tell the story of Toni Cipriani, a quasi low level lackey working for a stereotypical Italian mob family in the Leones. Toni has just returned to Liberty City after lying low for awhile because of some “services” he provided for Salvatore Leone, the don of the family.

As LCS opens, Salvatore hands Toni over to one of his main men in Vincenzo Cilli, who gives Toni several missions involving wiping out enemies of the family and furthering his own cause. The story is a new one, but feels almost indistinguishable from GTA III—lots of contract hits, double crossings, and your usual mob boss hubris.

Despite this, a few characters manage to separate themselves from the pack. Such as an entrepreneur/philanthropist named Donald Love, a well-liked member of the community who you find to be coldhearted and borderline insane. And one of your missions is to get this dirty politician elected as mayor of Liberty City, which you accomplish by driving around town in a “Don Love for Mayor” campaign van in marked neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, though, most of the missions are fairly uninspired. For every interesting mission like getting Love elected, there is your typical “Drive from A to B and kill gangster X” mission. Maybe it’s because the scope of LCS is so much smaller than what we’re used to, but the missions feel rather perfunctory.

Of course, part of the immense appeal of the series is that you don’t have to complete any of the various missions. One could spend hours and hours stealing exotic sports cars, driving over unsuspecting pedestrians, running your own taxi service, delivering pizzas, or participating in your own version of World’s Most Dangerous Police Chases. There is even a new minigame that lets you play the role of a car salesman, though it’s not much more than giving potential customers a test drive in a car of their choice.

The graphics don’t help matters. The GTA series was never known for its eye popping visuals, but LCS is just plain ugly. What looks striking on the PSP’s small screen doesn’t convert well when blown up on a TV.
LCS isn’t a bad game by any means (and the $19.99 price tag is a treat), but it suffers in comparison to its PS2 siblings. GTA fanatics and completists will want to pick up LCS, but casual fans of the series may want to hold on to that Andrew Jackson and wait for Grand Theft Auto 4. Ping pong, anyone?