i can do this....

in the past i would kill this super mutant with kindness...now i will steal his wallet

fallout 3 was one of my favorite video games i played this year and probably the first game since gears of war 1 that i had any interest in replaying once i completed the story. i let nam borrow it for a while and i just got it back a little while ago. i decided to restart the game and play it differently, as i simply ran straight through the story without dealing with any side quests.

the first time i played through i of course was extremely good and made choices and decisions in the game that match my natural bleeding heart tendencies. i was always giving water to thirsty people, helping children, always using the polite choice in the conversation path and never stealing or pickpocketing. i was basically the angel that i am in real life.

now i have put in a few hours into my new character that kinda looks like me with a beard and i am again decidedly good. i did not detonate the bomb in the middle of megaton and have not been stealing. i have made my new character less soldiery and more sciency. but i am wondering what i am missing being a goodie-2 shoes. i wanna be bad, but, and this is gonna seem real lame, i feel bad for the npc's. i get wrapped up in the game and don't want to shatter lives. my empathy is powerful and far reaching.

i ran into this same issue when i played mass effect. i would start acting like an ass and people would start crying and responding like, "how could you say that? all of those innocent people's lives are at stake..." then i start crying (me, not my character) and restart the game before i acted cruelly.

so i am gonna give being bad another try. i figure...i am so good and moral in real life and video games are meant to be an escape and to essentially live another life. i am excited about the prospect of being evil and all that goes along with it. i just need to man up and not be affected by the suffering i will cause, cause many will suffer and suffer badly...

yeah, yeah...i know

it has been quite a break but i cannot quit this blog. life has been a little eventful since august....i guess. not really, but for my own personal record when i reread this things years from now, i will be like oh yeah, i remember when i said i that that movie was ok. here are some quick hits as best i can recall:

• went to the beach with dave, chris, michele, jill and dan and we all stayed in a one econolodge room...good work on that dave.
• went back to the dragon's tail. stayed in a sweet house. saw anders pass out in a crouching/praying position. went to my first indian casino. traveled the underground lake with a tour guide with some sweet jokes.
• joined a kickball team with steve and chris. our team is no good (currently 1-3-1). the single girls on the team are hot as balls, yet cold as ice.
• still doing special olympics and am starting to take more of a leadership role. the big competition is on halloween...at mt st. mary's university....at 7am...ugh.
• jessie loves brodie.
• i changed my oil for the first time ever.
• fell down the outside stairs at brewer's art. the bouncer said it was a "graceful fall".
• beach hawk/the fruity boys
• still nowhere near where i want to be in-shape wise.
• been enjoying hanging out a lot with steve, froilan and jevon like we're back in towson.
• became pretty good friends with katie.
• i have 2 money fantasy football teams, one in 1st place, one in last, they both suck.
• nickie is moving out. who will move in?
• still don't know how to talk to girls.
• had a better time at renfest than last year. drank and ate a ton.
• saw jim gaffigan with louise and her parents.
• a trainer at my gym said i had freakish leg strength, while another gigantic man was impressed with my 395 lb dead lift.
• we no longer get fx and i now have to watch it's always sunny in philadelphia on hulu on an 8 day delay.
• got the trx.

so that's what i can remember. here's potential stuff coming up:

• dan's birthday party
• halloween...got no plans and no potential costume.
• zip lining
  
• trying to go on a trip soon...a real trip
• reconsidering learning some mma...but it's so expensive, although the physical challenge is appealing, plus it would be nice to know how to fight
• work on getting out of rut
• planning on joining more social sports, hoping we have a more inclusive team
• ravens-broncos
• need to explore my creative outlets more....write some songs, stories, paint, beatlab, etc.
• dave's gonna graduate...party?
• need to pick a new football team to follow...may blog about the awfulness of snyder.
• wizards' season is about to start...cautiously optimistic.
• learn how to drive stick

ok...so that's enough for now and it covers what i've missed blogging about in a very glossed over way. i am more or less caught up and can start blogging again in excruciating detail and with a cringe worthy whiny tone about thoughts or occurrences.

my internet video presence needs some serious work

this past weekend was chris' 31st birthday and we went out to silver spring for dinner and drinking. well while we were out a girl was looking for someone to dance with. all of my married friends pointed to me, being the single guy in the group. although, i usually avoid dancing to crappy cover bands on completely empty dance floors, i felt pressured, combined with my new "fuck-it" approach to life, i agreed. i am not a good dancer and the song was not a fast or slow song, so it made everything pretty awkward. so of course everyone watches and laughs and even videotapes it for what i can only assume will end up on the internet, much to my chagrin.

this made me pause and think. that video and the video of laura slapping me are basically my only video presence on the internet. so basically, in all videos of me online i am just getting straight clowned. that just does not sit well with me and i think i need to do a little pr work to improve my image on the web.

phil suggested i get someone to start filming candid video of me doing good deeds and then acting embarrassed that they "caught me". and that i should go on about how i don't do it for the positive attention, that i just like helping people and it's kind of just become an everyday type of thing...or even a way of life. either way, here are a few potential things i could do:

• give money to the homeless
• help protect an elderly woman from a mugger (played by a friend who wears a ski mask)
• rescue a dog (jessie) stuck in a tree
• push a kid out of the way of oncoming traffic

any other ideas? help me out.

this also all goes along with sort of a new lofty goal of creating some sort of viral video. obviously it will take a lot of trial and error and some serious luck, but i figure it will at least yield something funny to me. my hope is it is a viral video that shows me in a good light and not something that is thoroughly humiliating and briefly makes me the laughing stock of the country.

so hopefully it's not so much this:



and more along the lines of this:



who wants in on this? come holla at your boy.

happy birthday lolo

dearest lori,

45 years ago today, the world was given one of the sweetest gifts ever...you. my love for you started back around age 9 where your beauty caught my eye in the criminally underrated film, rad. everyone who knows me is familiar with you being my all time #1 celebrity crush. maybe one day i will meet you and stare in shock, not being able to talk, but that day will surely be the greatest day in my life. though you may be half way to 90, your beauty knows no age and quite frankly you put most 20 something celebrities to shame. i will end this creepy blog post now before things get even weirder, but i just want to wish you a happy birthday!

love,

kevin loughlin

28 days laura

laura and i have discussed having a horror movie marathon, which appears to be a go for saturday afternoon. i am definitely more of the scary movie connoisseur (my initial attempt at spelling that word was way off) and sent laura an initial batch of already on-hand movies we could choose from. after some e-mailing back and forth, we wittled the list down to the following:

• descent
• quarantine
• high tension
• them
• the orphanage

what i noticed was that laura was vetoing anything involving zombies. i'm glad i know that she is scared of zombies. not that i plan on using that knowledge in any sort of antagonistic way, but it's nice to stockpile as much potential arsenal as possible. either way, i am still lobbying to include 28 days later, since they are not technically undead. anybody else have any other good horror movie suggestions?

i also realize that we cannot possibly watch all of these movies since watching a dozen hours of nonstop tv can't be healthy, but we also have chris' ufc 100 party to go to. realistically we are looking at 3 movies, so hopefully we choose them wisely. i am looking forward to laura getting scared and me laughing about it.

it also crossed my mind that this could be a nice setting for some serious dance slap payback, but i'm thinking it's too soon, and i guess the fact that i am writing about it proves that i won't actually slap her. or will i? i won't.

i know i am over a day late, but i seriously love the internet