The Inaction Team!

My day:

1. After a late night brewing beer with Matt, wake up with a horrible headache and a gnawing sense of anger. Headache: due to considerable amount of beer drunk while brewing. Anger: due to the previously-mentioned employment fuckover I received earlier this week.
2. Spent day editing this one story ("Cannibals of West LA," for those who may have seen it) for resubmission. I edited the story and submitted it for an anthology of zombie short stories. The editor wrote back that although he didn't want it for that anthology, if I tightened it up he'd consider it for the NEXT zombie short story anthology. For a while I wavered back and forth on whether to do it (1. Not sure I wanted to edit it; 2. Not sure I wanted to devote the time to edit it, thus diverting time away from other projects like masturbation and beer brewing; 3. Can't remember third reason), but finally I decided to go ahead and do it. So, I took my notes, edited the story, resubmitted it as an rtf. Maybe it'll sell, probably it won't, that's how these things go.
3. Oh yeah, third reason was that I'm not crazy about the story anyway. But hey, some people liked it a lot, so I think it's at least decent.
3. Got ready to go to my exciting new "shift lite" at work, from 12-4. (We call in on a daily basis to see what the work schedule is like the next day.) Left the house at 11:15. Decided to stop by the Galleria first because I heard MGS2 for Xbox was out, thought I'd pick it up. Also: luncheon.
4. At mall, decided that there was no way in hell I wanted to go to work. So, didn't go.
5. Got the game and some luncheon.
6. Came home. Let the dogs in out of the rain. After being in for approximately one minute, Vanessa (who is pretty old, almost 13) is walking down the downstairs hall when I hear a horrible squirting sound emerging from her direction. I am horrified to discover that in the space of 1 second, she has released a seven-foot-long spray of highly viscous diarrhea along the entire length of the downstairs hallway. Said diarrhea is the foulest-smelling example of animal waste I have come across in many moons.
7. Spent the next 45 minutes utilizing 409, Febreze, paper towels, a dustpan, and a steam cleaner in an effort to remove the waste from the carpet. When finished, there is nothing left but a mild stain on the carpet which seemingly nothing but Zeus Himself can destroy.
8. Got some coffee and dinner. Did some writing.
9. Played Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance for many hours while crying.
10. Wrote this while listening to sleeping dog's stomach rumble dangerously. Having gone through a bout of food poisoning not too long ago, I am sympathetic to all those with intestinal discomfort, man and beast alike, but I must say that the shit fountain, amazing a display as it was, is not something that I am keen on seeing again.

Mini-Review: Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (Xbox version)

In this game, you play a man named Solid Snake who is some kind of warrior who is cloned from a man named Big Boss and also you have a brother named Liquid Snake who you killed in the last game, but he is still alive because his arm is attached to a man named Revolver Ocelot. You are on a tanker. You have a flechette gun which induces paralysis but you can also break the guards' necks. You have a camera and you can take pictures of the Japanese women in bikinis who are on posters around the ship and then Solid Snake says "Good." Also you can hold up the terrorists and steal their dogtags. You talk to a lot of people on the radio and you get to bungee-jump, rappel, jump around explosions, however you do not get to actually do these things with the controller, you do them with your imagination while watching cinematic cutscenes.

Then after you play for two hours, and you have the game mechanics pretty well in hand, you switch to another character who looks and talks like any bishonen (pretty-boy) anime character you can imagine, who is a rookie, and for some reason the game designers confused the character with you, the player, so they find it necessary to re-explain all of the controls and mechanics to you, over and over, in loooong conversations on the radio. This is why I don't have a cell phone. I am afraid Eric will call me and say, "Jon, I see that you have secured some rations in a yellow box. If you put some of those rations into a bowl and then pour milk into them, and then ready the spoon and use the action button, you will enjoy the rations and regain some health." Then I'll be going to the bank and Rudy will call and say, "Jon, dollars are the monetary unit of the United States of America. You can either save them, or you can spend them on lap-dances."

Comparitive Grade: (That is, compared to cleaning diarrhea off the carpet.): A+