Hooky day planned: ‘Bioshock Infinite’ release date announced

I know what I’m doing on Oct. 16: I’m going airborne. “Bioshock: Infinite” will release on that day.

Y’all know how I feel about the “Bioshock” franchise, and I’m already on record as saying that “Infinite” will be epic. And that was before I read about 1999 mode.

And I alluded to this in the column I wrote for Enjoy back in December, but let me be more specific: The “Bioshock” franchise is marked by an Ayn Randian world, development of abilities, making moral choices and paying the price for them — not shooting things underwater, Rapture, Big Daddies or Little Sisters. When the announcement of this first game got made back in 2010, I saw all kinds of worrywarts comment that the sky-city would ruin the spirit of the game. However, people who paid attention understood that “Infinite” is definitely a Bioshock game. And I can’t help noticing that all the worrywarts were silenced by the gameplay videos.

I just hope I can finish “Skyrim” in time. I can finish that game by October, right? Maybe with a few more hooky days…

If you haven’t seen the gameplay trailer from E3, getcha popcorn:

Card collection rebuilt slowly but surely

I’ve loved playing cards since I was 3. I had a big sherbet tub filled with five or six loose decks, and I used to play with them for hours. Some of the decks were standard Bicycle Rider backs or Hoyle shell backs. One was a bridge deck with a picture of an old woman wearing purple — I always thought it was a picture of MaMere, an old French lady that lived near us in New Jersey.

Yes, I’m having girl problems — feel bad for me, brother Nord

I’m having a girl problem. Her name is Lydia. She was given to me by the Jarl of Whiterun. At first, things were OK, except she was always in my way, standing in doors and arches when I’m trying to loot chests and fix salmon steaks. But now she’s gone. She didn’t say anything about it, or let me know where she was going. She just disappeared.

What the hell?

Is she mad at me? Did I kill one too many rabbits in front of her? Did I give her too much of my stuff to carry around? I gave her some good stuff, too! She was using a steel sword of cold, and kicking a lot of ass with it.

Or maybe it’s how I let her fight everyone, then I’d sneak up behind whomever she was fighting and finish them off. I thought that’s how she liked to fight, because she’d always rush up to anyone or anything and start slashy-slashin’. Apparently I was wrong. I haven’t seen her since we went to Gallows Rock with Delphine and slaughtered a freshly summoned dragon.

I’ve looked all over for her. She’s not dead — her corpse isn’t in the Hall of the Dead. She wasn’t waiting at home for me, either. I looked in Dragonsreach, Gallows Rock, Riverwood, Ivarstead, High Hrothgar, EVERYWHERE we’ve been together. She’s gone. No forwarding address, and she’s not responding to my text messages.

I have someone else now. Her name is Jenassa, or Janessa, or… you know what, I don’t care what her name is. Picked her up at the Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun for 500 gold. She’s terrible. She doesn’t rush in. All she does is fire weak-ass arrows from a distance. My knees are getting riddled with arrows. My ass has been handed to me in 100 different ways. I’m trying to rescue someone at Mistwatch, but I can’t get past three bandits. I could with Lydia. Not with this weak bitch.

Lydia, I miss you. Come back to me.

My relationship with Lara Croft was so much easier.

p.s. If you think this post was slightly disturbing, it’s NOTHING compared to all the Lydia-based Skyrim porn I found while trying to find a picture of Lydia.

Internet is changing magic, not killing it

This pic is from my wedding. It is NOT a promotional shot.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a magician. I work mainly with playing cards, the things I have loved since I was 3 years old. In my 20s, I experimented with magic: I used tricks I bought at a Wal-mart to perform for kids at a McDonald’s. I wasn’t hired properly as a magician — I was a swing manager at the time, known for being good with kids, so the store owners milked me. Point is that I had no idea about the larger world of sleight of hand.

When I found it in 2005, my world was forever changed. I found a deck of cards called Tally Ho Vipers at a Tower Records in Nashville. An ad card inside led me to an Internet site called Ellusionist.com. On that site I watched videos of people marketing custom decks of cards by performing incredible sleight of hand. I was hooked.

I am an Internet magician. I have learned my art from the Internet, and taken it to the streets. I have been paid for magic shows.

According to Salon.com, I’m one of the people killing magic.

‘Beautiful Creatures’ authors’ idea of teen male not realistic

The Lovely Paula told me the kind of books I ought to write: Young adult for males. After reading “Beautiful Creatures,” I completely agree. The book by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl features a male lead narrator who deals with a supernatural female — a nice switch from “Twilight” and many other young-adult novels — but there’s nothing very male about him.

Which is disappointing, actually. I’ve had “Beautiful Creatures” on my to-read list for a while, ever since I spotted it as one of the next big book series to help ease the sting from losing Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. One of the reasons was for the male lead.

And he starts out pretty male. Ethan Wate, 16, is part of the in crowd, a power shooter on the basketball team, fresh off of dating one of the most popular girls in school. But when the girl he has seen in his dreams suddenly starts attending his school, he gets very intropsective, moody, attentive to his dreams, romantic and borderline emo.

In other words: He doesn’t quite act like a guy.

I give Garcia and Stohl credit for making their lead a guy, but this guy is neutered. “Beautiful Creatures” features the same type of “Twilight” chastity that makes all the characters seem like brainwashed, scrubbed avatars of some adult’s perfect world. As Wate sticks up for his girlfriend in the midst of an outright witch hunt, he acts like a woman’s idea of a perfect gentleman. Consider:

• During a scene where Ethan and Lena are wrapped together in a blanket, sharing a present and kissing for hours, he doesn’t once mention passion or the urge to do more.
• Ethan spent more time describing the differences between two fictional dress shops than he did describing how the girls looked in the dresses. When he does get around to noticing girls in dresses, he’s more of a cat than a dog.
• Ethan seems strangely resistant to Lena’s cousin, who happens to be a Siren.
• As the year progresses, details about how Ethan has been money on the basketball court are treated like afterthoughts. Not one game is depicted. Practices are barely covered. No talk about scoring, rival schools or game-day anticipation. Then about two-thirds through the book, Ethan quits the team because he feels excluded by his teammates, who are really just super-jealous of his witchy girlfriend, apparently.
• Not once in the book does Ethan deal with a natural part of being a teen guy surrounded by hot girls — or as Thea of The Book Smugglers says much better than me, he “never once does pop a stiffy or even think about sex.”

Those are all glaring character holes that make Ethan seem like some sort of mindless narrator golem, without a soul, passion or other emotional drives that make guys guys. I remember what it was like to be a teen boy, and though I diverted and didn’t act on my urges to get it on with girls who meant a lot to me, I still had those urges.

There’s other stuff in the book that’s pretty good. Wate describes a sleepy Southern town full of what makes the South the South, and the lushness of the scene makes it easy to feel Wate’s and Lena’s isolation. The explanation of the Casters is pretty decent, although it feels like there is way too much description and explanation at times.

But when push comes to shove, some of the bad guys fold too mysteriously. And the adults hide some pretty crucial information from Lena, who as it turns out, has a pretty big choice to make.

There’s two more books in the Caster chronicles, and I’ll probably read them. Granted, I’m not jonesing to scoop them up like I did “The Hunger Games,” but I’ll still finish them. Also, movies are on the way — the authors are stoked over who got cast as Ethan and Lena –so the stories should get even bigger. Hopefully the next two in the series and other future books address some of these not-so-manly holes.

In other words, it’s time for Ethan to nut up. And it’s time for me to start writing.

Cherry rub turns steak into meat candy: Nom

Sweet mercy, this stuff works well on steak. Turned it into meat candy. I wish it had a saltier flavor, but this rub worked its way well into a flat iron steak. The cherry flavor perfectly enhanced the beef, and gave it a good lookin’ and tasty crust.

I picked this up at Steve’s Fireplaces and Barbecue about a month ago, during one of those rare times that the store was actually open (dude keeps the store open only six hours a day.) After talking with Steve, it was clear that he didn’t want to say he hadn’t tried putting the cherry rub on steak. Instead, he said that the John Henry line was one of the ones used the most by competitive barbecue chefs.

I can see why. The cherry rub worked on steak and a butter pecan rub punched well into some chicken breasts I grilled tonight. Usually I have to marinade chicken breasts to get them to stay moist. Fortunately, my fire wasn’t very hot, so the breasts slow-roasted pretty well and let the rub do its work.

I measure barbecue success by how The Lovely Paula’s eyes glaze over, and I got an OK glaze with the chicken. The steak beat the chicken in glazes tonight.

Here’s a pro tip: I use a spoon to rub on rubs. While many dredge or use their fingers to apply a rub, I use a spoon because I hate wasting my flavor. It packs the rub onto the meat better, which means a better crust when it hits the grill.

Like ‘The Princess Bride?’ Congrats: You support gay marriage!

What better time than Valentine’s Day to ask this question: Do you believe in love at first sight?

Seriously: Is that something you not only wistfully wish for, but actively believe in? That super-strong, hella-romantic, “Princess Bride” kind of love, the kind that death cannot stop, only delay for a little while? Twoo wuv? That will fowwow you fowevah?

OK, apply that to your significant other. Whether you’re married or dating, ask yourself if the strength of your relationship is defined, or at least enhanced, by one of those love-at-first-sight moments. Is that how you met your significant other? Was there a magical moment of first contact?

If you believe in love at first sight, then that means, logically, that being gay is not a choice. And because that is true, there is no logical reason to have laws that keep gay people from getting married.

Consider: If you believe in love at first sight, then you believe that our romantic feelings are subject to fate, that humans are puzzle pieces just waiting to find their perfect fit and be part of a bigger picture. That means it might be someone of the same sex that awakens your soul. If you believe in love at first sight, or soulmates, then you believe in giving up your choice in whom you love.

And isn’t marriage about being with the one you love?

I’m happy to hear that Washington has joined the ranks of states that will allow gay marriage (the recently passed measure still has some hurdles to overcome). I live in a state that thinks quite the opposite: Missouri voters — 70 percent of them — passed a state constitutional amendment in 2004 that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. I was a proud member of the 30 percent minority.

I could go off on a few tangents here, notably about how Rick Santorum’s thoughts about gay people being the same as people who practice bestiality are downright scary, how Santorum’s views about gay people will scare away moderates and give the election to Obama, etc. But I’m still just shocked that people who believe in the Constitution would approve of such an unconstitutional act of prejudice against gay people. It’s inequality, plain and simple.

I understand that a lot of religious people find anything gay distasteful, and that’s their right to think so. I’m not asking them to approve of gay people or tolerate a gay couple. But they must acknowledge that a ban on marriage for gay people is unconstitutional. And if they believe that government should get off of people’s backs, then they should stop standing in the way of gay people seeking equality.

This is true love we’re talking about. You think this kind of thing happens every day?

Why did ‘Invader Zim’ get canceled, again?

We just bought the booger a new GIR backpack from Hot Topic. The store has had an “Invader Zim” section for years. The cartoon franchise is one of the store’s top sellers, right up there with “Hello Kitty.”

Why did that show get canceled, again?

Oren Peli’s new show like ‘Paranormal Activity,’ but a river runs through it

I finally got a chance to catch up with “The River,” and it actually surprised me. It’s not as good as “The Walking Dead” or “American Horror Story,” but it’ll do for some good entertainment.

Backed by Steven Spielberg, “Paranormal Activity” producer Oren Peli brought his handheld vision to a family drama centered around a missing nature-show host and the family that believes he might be alive. So they take off to the Amazon to find him and find some creepy crap.

Fans of “Paranormal Activity” will recognize Peli’s habits. There’s cameras everywhere, but even the mounted ones shake like the San Andreas Fault. The cameras always point to where the monster was, not is. There’s the standard time-lapse sequences, where Peli speeds up to show something creepy happening for a long time. But all of this happens at an unnaturally fast pace — to the point where there’s not enough time for Peli to build the suspense that highlights his movie forays.

The premise is clever and the characters aren’t terrible — in fact, they grew on me in the second episode. There’s also some good creep-out moments (a forest of hanging dolls? Jibblies) and some compelling instances that are signs of the show’s mythology and big picture. I’ll watch, but because the ratings weren’t that great, I have a feeling I won’t be watching more than a season’s worth.

Spades are cool, but skulls suck

I love huge posters that look like cards. Skulls are dumb. But this one looks kinda badass. Don’t know if I should frame this or hide it. Can you empathize with my dilemma?