GTA6 May 26 2026... something's bugging me

 Part Of me is bummed by the delay. At the same time it gave me time to reflect.

Holy shit! The trailer looks awesome! It's mostly cutscenes with zero gameplay, but I like the world... wait... May 26... May 26 wait! Wasn't that when Ray Liotta died? Yup!

Fuck damn! That's either cruel, or genius! 

I'm at a crossroads right now. Been dealing with depression, being tougher to manage. Getting a new therapist has been a bitch. I have been losing faith and many therapists suggest fonding religion. Even my old man, who I rarely speak to, is telling me to seek religion. I tried it, didn't work. I wish it did, so I tried again, different denomination, bared my heart  nothing. Tried medication, side effects were too big to ignore. The idea of antidepressants is to not be depressed which lead to joining Waller's squad. NOTE: I Don't believe in the permanent solution to a temporary problem. It has nothing to do with afterlives that I am not convinced are real. Like it would be cool if I could see my Mom again, but she's gone. I'm dealing with that pain.

I mask the pain  y rambling about games and toys, sometimes movies and books too! But Every day that passes, I'm one step closer to my game over... There are no continues, my friend.

I've run away from the idea of being a father and accepted that my accursed bloodline ends with me. Once I'm gone, my genes will no longer pollute this world. I feel like I'd love my offspring, but I would hate them far more than I'd love them. I KNOW that I would never be good enough of a father for them. 

I'm broken beyond repair. If I hate myself, how could I love? I'm a nearly empty husk full of pain, sorrow, fear, fury... hoping for the end with little space for joy..

He's doing the Metal Gear Solid 3 Bosses  Reference... He did an MGS1 reference too! This is Defcon 3 heading to 2!

I have to rely on my own  mind creating pseudo Jiminies to keep myself from falling into despair. I hide behind toys and games in order to temporarily ward off my self loathing.

Thing is: with real world situations: games taking longer to be made, the current world politics and their adverse effects on the toy industry, George RR Martin taking his sweet slow ass time... it feels like I'm being weaned from anything that would help me cope with whatever the hell is my life substitute. Days go slow and fast at the same time. Each day feels like an eternity, but time is flying ridiculously fast. I was in my 20s when this blog started. Now I'm in my 40s. 

GTA 6 is just the latest attempt at trying to recapture that sense of awe and wonder that GTA Vice City gave me back in college. My listening to all these station that plays 80s and 90s music; my collecting of toy lines Based on 80s and 90s properties; My buying of anthologies of 80s, 90s and early 2000s videogames; .My compulsion for watching old movies. All of this is me chasing a ghost. My lost innocence that I will never have, because I'm jaded by reality.

 Religion isn't working for me, but isn't Nostalgia MY RELIGION from a certain point of view? Instead of dealing with my daddy issues, I hide behind fictional parents who can solve anything in 23 minutes... Brady, Micelli, Drummond, Winslow, Banks, Matthews, Warnimont, Tanner (the one with the Melmacian), Sinclair, Tanner (the one with Gladstone and Katsopolis) even Huxtable... even non parents like Belvedere or Feeny... Bob Barker, Mr. Wizard, and Bob Ross

Spending so much time behind TV has made me realize something... my own social anxiety that makes me try to be wacky and use awful attempts at self deprecating humor is just the failure of my latchkey childhood, where I chose fiction over reality. Like a more pathetic and less intrusive version of

The Cable Guy. 

GTA6 is nothing more than a red herring in order for me to avoid pressing the actual issues... I hide from most social interactions. The thing is that I used  to enjoy some of these social interactions. Now I avoid them like the plague and use my health and my job as excuses. I don't understand the logic behind it. But I know that it's depression that's causing me to act abnormally and avoid people. My social anxiety has gotten worse. It scares me, but I keep finding solace in toys and games. So I have a year to get the SSD Expansion for my PS5 and Ghost of Yotei might be what keeps me around until GTA6. 

Cobra Kai is now over...

 What a ride. It's amazing how seeing Johnny Lawrence sucking at life and deciding to turn things around by helping a geeky kid become a karateka, becames a crazy show with CGI Miyagi, School mega brawls and basically turning the Valley into Final Fight even fucking Ninjas. 

CGI Miyagi is scary.

To say that the show lost the plot is an understatement, especially with the whole Sekai Taikai bullshit. Somehow the final third managed to redirect itself and give us a glorious ending to the tale of Johnny Lawrence the True Karate Kid.

Fuck Hilary Swank for refusing to appear...

But back to Cobra Kai. The resolution to the Sekai Taikai was a bit of a stretch, but it gave us the closure we needed for Cobra Kai. Now I need to see the Chan Crossover.

Karate Kid: Street Rumble: Beating High School Kids with an old man

 Who happens to be a Demon Sorcerer Karate Master isn't as fun as I thought it would be. It's the best Karate Kid game so far, beating the First Cobra Kai, but it's not THAT Great.

It feels like a severely watered down Shredder's Revenge. It has a cool Special Bar shields your health bar gimmick, but nothing more to write home about. The story mode skews a bit hard, but that's to promote team play. Annoying for a solo player like me.

The thing is that the only things the game has for are: cutesy sprites and Nostalgia factor.

Still entering a school and kicking the shit out of students as a crazy old man is priceless!

Game is on sale on the PS Store at $20 until tomorrow. Don't get it at it's full price of $40.

Retro Gaming: Is it purely Nostalgia?

I'll be honest. I don't play current gen games that often. I'm more drawn back to older Gens... Mostly from NES to PS2... Now, I'm not sure if it's Nostalgia or if it's something else.
I guess the FPS craze that is going around with current gen games like Halo, Battlefield, Call of Duty, etc. has turned me off from current gen gaming. I know the Arkham games are good, but I haven't had the Bat-Disposition to sit and play them... The Last of Us, Uncharted, hell even the New Tomb Raider that everyone raves about hasn't attracted me enough to get the game and play it. I'm being drawn back to older gens... I think the two current Gen games I revisit every now and then are:


and



I know these games are old, but I just keep coming back to them. In RDR's case, I like the world better than GTA IV's Liberty City... I still need to play GTA V... But there's a couple of games I need to tackle before it. Now, part of the appeal to me of RDR's world I think it stems back from my love of JRPG games from the 16 and 32 bit era. Traveling the world map through various expanses of empty land while doing the occasional random battle... I feel more "at home" than on IV's Liberty City... (I can get just fine in III's Liberty City) Then again, I love to pop in the GTA games to drive around aimlessly... just to cure boredom.
MGS 4 is mostly not cause of the story that I revisit it, but just to mess with the enemy soldiers... (a nice pastime in older MGS games as well)

Then again, I still pop in the SNES to play Super Mario World... This freaked me out and it's actually true!!

Why go back to SMW? I mean there's Mario 64, Sunshine, NSMB, etc... but I go back to this one (and All-stars to play SMB 3)
Of course that with JRPGs I love to visit IV,V,VI,VII,Tactics,VIII,X,X,XII and games without Final or Fantasy in the title... Wish I had Suikoden II to revisit...


is still my most played Fighting game... We can be on ULTRA IV, but I still return to SUPER II...

WHY IS THIS?

I guess we can chalk it up to Nostalgia being the main reason. I can say that many of these did not need a 2 hour unskippable in-game tutorial, but that is for everything on the 8 and 16-bit era.

Oh! I think I got the reason: CHEAT DEVICES!! current Gen games do not have Cheat Devices... Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I NEED Cheat devices, but sometimes they can spice up the gameplay. Or help you reduce time on future replays... All power-ups being spreadshot in CONTRA, or having the Level 7 card from the start in MGS... Nononononono, Level 99 and infinite money for everyone in Final Fantasy VI cause screw you grinding!! Or simply make Battletoads a beatable 2 player game... Instead modern games give you achievements for the stupidest of things.

Yay Modern Gaming!!

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not some elitist game snob/hipster with the belief that Retro Gaming is so much better than modern gaming. I just tend to gravitate towards the older stuff...

Insert Coin(s) PRESS START is a thing of the past.

I knew that Arcades were dying a long time ago, but Today it hit me very hard when the largest and oldest Local Time Out closed and now a big chunk of empty space lies in its place.
I dropped on my knees and yelled "NOOOOOOOOO!!" just as I did many years ago when KB Toys closed down. (I know it sounds a bit melodramatic and over the top, but these two places had a special place in my heart.) Now who's going to teach kids that drugs are bad!?

Or, Hell... That means that there's no more of THIS!

OK, I hate the DDR Douches, but still, they WERE a part of Arcade History!!

Things like these are a thing of the past... Now Everything is Online Multiplayer Experience...
Sure, Online can bring us "closer" as we can... I'll Let Jim Carrey explain it:

Call me old-school, but I DO miss the Arcade... sure, they were Quarter guzzling traps, but it WAS fun...
I mean, playing Hang-On while Riding a Bike-like Contraption surely beats the crap about doing it with a Sega Master System Controller... Or Teaming Up with the 4 Turtles to defeat Shredder and Krang instead of being just two Turtles on the NES... Or how about the first Fatality! Now Arcade sticks like the NES Advantage and the others that came after it (to their respective consoles) won't make sense to modern kids...

It's kinda sad that this is almost a reality...
I used to have braces and from 97 to 2000 my Orthodontist's office was at a mall with 2 ARCADES! (The more expensive one near the food court and the "lamer/cheaper one on the first level) So, every last Friday of each month, I left school early for my appointment (also the monthly Teachers' meeting meant that school was over at noon) and from 1:00 till 4:30 the Mall was my Playground... Guess where I spent most of the time...
Marvel Superheroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Darkstalkers 3, King of Fighters 95 and 96 were my biggest time killers...
Even in my first year of College I spent a lot of time at the Arcade... (This one was a bit too shady, but it had DDR that only required 1 coin per game...) There it was Marvel Vs Capcom 2 and Capcom vs SNK that got most of my coinage.

Where am I going with this? Simple... The Arcades are dying... All the games go straight to consoles now... Can you picture how awesome it would have been to play an ARCADE version of MVC3, Street Fighter Cross Tekken, or any recent fighter? Heck even playing some older games like Silent Scope or Time Crisis the way they were MEANT to be played...

The only true element missing from the arcade in this online world is the face-to-face social experience with the other player(s)... which is in part the BEST PART of the Arcade experience... something that no headset or keyboard will replace.

Hey kids It's Mark Hamill!! {APPLAUSE}

You probably know Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker... The son of "Annie" Skywalker, a.k.a. the emo kid who became Darth Vader. Oops! I've spoiled Star Wars for you... Yes Luke Skywalker, the Last Jedi on Star Wars. (Technically Luke was not really a Jedi, but all of the other Jedi Masters/ Sith were dead by the end of Return of the Jedi... we must assume that either Luke or Anakin are the Jedi who was Returning... I think that Anakin was the one returning, but I digress...)

Now don't worry, Luke... I won't make fun of you for being an idiot... I'm not gonna mention any of the following:
-How you turned off the aiming system to fire the shots that blew up the 1st Death Star. That's as intelligent as closing your eyes before changing lanes and hoping that God will guide you.
-I'm not going to mention how you ignored Yoda's teachings and warnings when you went to Bespin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVnArp9ZE0
Thank you Admiral Ackbar.

-I swear I won't talk about your "Jedi Master" plan to save Han Solo in which everyone got captured. (By Master I mean IDIOT!!!)

I shall talk about the guy that plays Luke... Mark Hamill.

The Guyver... What can I say. It's one of the few American made attempts at Live Action Anime. It's not good (The Sequel Dark Hero is better... Solid Snake is the Guyver on GII:DH.) The only memorable scene of the first Guyver movie is this one right here... Hey kids It's Mark Hamill!!! {APPLAUSE} being turned into a giant cockroach...{APPLAUSE}


Hey kids! It's Mark Hamill!! {APPLAUSE} Here he's playing The Trickster. He managed to brainwash the Flash on this Episode (The Flash is none other than Dawson's dad...)

Hey Kids It's Mark Hamill!! {APPLAUSE} playing the Trickster in animated form... Funny thing, The Flash is played by the guy who plays Lex Luthor in Supes' creek... I mean Smallvile. The Trickster is NOT the only role Mark Hamill has played on the DC Universe.

Hey Kids It's Mark Hamill! {APPLAUSE!} as the Joker. Heath Ledger Scmeath Smedger... The best Joker is Mark Hamill.

Hey Kids It's Mark Hamill's voice {Applause} Mark's Joker is practically THE Joker.
Mark's done some roles on Marvel related stuff too... He's played Hobgoblin in Spider-man The animated Series and Wolverine in the game X-2: Wolverine's revenge.

I'm not going to use the gag I've overused on the article since it comes from here... BTW This is the FOURTH movie in which Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher have been together... (and it's not a Star Wars movie.)

That's about it on Mark Hamill. He's done a lot of odd jobs on the industry. It's always a pleasure to see him spicing up whatever project he is in... Especially if he's playing the Joker...

Talk shows...

Maury Povich... I miss his show. It's a shame that Maury is no longer shown on Puerto Rico.
I used to watch Maury whenever I was sick during High School and whenever I had a chance during college.

It was an elightening experience, but predictable. (at times a bit disturbing.) I liked the show cause of it's predictability. Now I'll present a list of the 5 most recurring themes on Maury. (usually what they showed on a week.)

5- (Monday): I'm the mother of an incredibly obese baby...

Good God! what the Hell are these people thinking!? 84 pound 3 year old! Why the Hell hasn't child services taken away the kids from these abusive parents!? Honestly people like this shouldn't reproduce...

4- (Tuesday)My daughter sleeps with everything that has a, you know...

Ah the one with the little horny tween/teen episode, not to be confused with the tween/teen who breaks everything up, is growing up to be one of America's Most Wanted and needs to go to boot camp in order to become an upstanding citizen.

3- (Wednesday)Help! I've slept with an entire town and I don't know who's the father of my child!

This one usually aired either the day before the network aired a horny tweens episode. Basically Women who slept with many men and didn't have a clue to who the father was. The crowd (and Maury) were usually on the ladies' side. Until Mr. Povich said the magic words...
You are NOT the father...

2- (Thursday) The ones with tween/teens who break everything up, are growing up to be on America's Most Wanted and need to go to boot camp in order to become upstanding citizens. (There are some horny tween/teens here but thisones are violent.)


1- (Friday) Wild card. This is where predictability is thrown out the window. Anything goes, from a midget trying to marry a giant, to people who are afraid of popsicles. Wild card day on Maury is home of the strangest events on the show.

See? One day its Jack Hanna, promoting his love of animals (or any other random "celebrity", the next "wild card day" is one of the odd couples episodes, the next one is a weird phobia, sometimes it's a recap of the previous themes (wild kids, who's the daddy,etc.).

There is one talk show that I miss more than the Maury show...
Can you feel the electricity in the air, the foul smell of betrayal mixed with blood while an audience cheers on? If you close your eyes and open your ears you might hear a faint solemn chant turning into a ferocious battle cry... Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
The Jerry Springer show! The trashiest tlak show on television (albeit a tamer version of what tJSs used to be.) I do miss that a lot!

It's a shame that Springer isn't what it used to be... and that it's not available on Puerto Rico. They say TV rots the mind, well these two guys made sure that my brains were undesirable to a zombie...