Properly Calibrated Dot Net

Food: The Deli Downstairs, Austin, TX

2010-03-31T15:50:15+00:00

I was foolish — so very foolish — to think that I would post every day at SXSW, or even post a recap. Look, man, things got all crazy and now I’m moving to Florida for a new job. Beach! Sunshine! Design! Code! BUT! This blog is about food, and…

Food: SXSW Interactive: Day 0, Part 1

2010-03-12T00:23:07+00:00

Well, I’m in Austin, at South By Southwest Interactive. Here’s the deal: I plan to eat my words from the previous post and provide you with titillating coverage of both the fascinating sessions I attend and the food (and drink) I consume. I believe the kids call that double-bloggin’…

Video Games: Look, Um

2010-03-10T03:25:51+00:00

I love you, I really do, but I started this blog at a remarkably wrong time. I have iPhone photos of food, drink, and (AND) video games accumulating in a folder, along with a number of mysterious files with the extension “.guilt”. I haven’t found the application that opens them…

Video Games: Converging On An Apex, Certainly

2010-02-17T04:06:10+00:00

Now that I’m done with work and work-after-work, I’m going to take time out of my designated Assassin’s Creed 2 Time tonight to write to you about Assassin’s Creed 2. Looking back on the sad, bare handfuls of entries from the initial iteration of PropCal as a Video Game Blog…

Video Games: Rotate The Right Analog Stick 90º To Interact

2010-02-13T06:36:58+00:00

I finished Mass Effect 2 yesterday — it took me about 30 hours. I just played the Heavy Rain demo, and that took me maybe 20 minutes. Let’s talk about Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain, if you’re not aware, is an upcoming adventure(ish) game made by a studio named Quantic Dream…

Video Games: The Saints

2010-02-08T03:53:58+00:00

I never lived in New Orleans – at least, I don’t remember living there. When my father finished medical school, we moved to his residency in South Carolina. I was born in a hospital somewhere in downtown New Orleans. I was born in a tall, grey rectangle that my parents…

Video Games: Guess What Is Totally Here, And Yay

2010-01-27T07:15:46+00:00

Hey kids! A bit of housekeeping: the RSS feed is now fixed. So now you can subscribe to that instead of feverishly refreshing all day. (Right!) Anyway: My Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition got Amazon Primed to my doorstep yesterday, and I managed to carve out a few (very late)…

Drink: The Greatest Coffee Mug

2010-01-26T05:54:02+00:00

You know how, in Super Mario Bros. level 1-1, when you grabbed the star — and Mario began blinking wildly — the music jumps into that doubletime melody — and you know by instinct that your time in this invincible mode is very limited — sprinting wildly toward the finish,…

Video Games: Exuberance In Progress

2010-01-22T23:10:38+00:00

I know you needed a breather after the double-barreled blog barrage I fired your way earlier this week, so I decided to give you some days off. I’m lying! But you knew that already, some of the nervous sweat being flung at your face by my (also nervous) tic landed…

Food: In Memoriam: Glen W. Bell Jr.

2010-01-19T19:42:27+00:00

Well, I hadn’t planned to hit you with a one-two JUNK FOOD PUNCH during these tender, formative blog days, but sometimes Fate intervenes. Last night I was perusing Google News and happened to glance at the In The News box section — a quick list of 9 people or entities…

Food: Four Burger King brand Flavored Snacks

2010-01-18T15:00:37+00:00

My love of food is constantly at odds with my level of focus throughout the workday. I’m usually basically in the middle of something at 11:30 when the hunger pangs start. If there was a cash slot in my desk which, come lunchtime, would allow me to feed in a…

Video Games: Please Take Note

2010-01-17T08:27:22+00:00

Anything on this site dated prior to the post that you are now reading is content from a previous incarnation of Properly Calibrated. Said incarnation was significantly more (completely more) focused on video games and the playing thereof. It was also an attempt to write such things in a diary…

Video Games: Meta-mockery

2009-07-20T16:50:56+00:00

Character creation. Around 2004, in Tiger Woods ‘03, ‘04, or ‘05 (can’t remember, whatever) I spent the better part of two hours with a mirror leaning against the coffee table, creating my spitting image, complete with hoodie and Chucks, who would then saunter ‘round the…

Video Games: The Inevitable Aforementioned Dropoff

2009-07-13T15:17:33+00:00

It came about 3/4 of the way through, in the form of The Blob. After a pretty satisfying large-scale battle with a boss a few dozen stories tall (spoiler alert, Sentinel), there it was. Wolverine relocated from the desert to a grocery store in one crossfade,…

Video Games: Licensed Titles With Colons

2009-07-06T15:53:33+00:00

Two things I’ll rarely do: rent a game, and spend $60 on a new release. As a member of the common people, my hard-earned 5 dozen dollars is not being spent on 6 hours of brawlery. Cheapskate? I prefer value-conscious, but whatever you wish is fine, sir. However, in a…

Video Games: In Ascending Order Of Intensity

2009-07-01T14:51:33+00:00

If I’m looking to vent some pent-up energy or frustration I usually pull out the Rock Band 2 (and the headphones, we live in an apartment) and whale on those for a while, but yesterday, I pulled out the Wii Sports and whaled on some bowling pins instead. Less setup…

Video Games: Yes, That’s Right, I’m Evil Now. Shoot Me.

2009-06-24T16:19:33+00:00

Assassin’s Creed continues to be interesting. Even though the entire game essentially boils down to … Run Around Assassinate Guards Fight Guards Collect Flags Pickpocket Dudes Assassinate 1 Important Dude Every Two Hours Or So … it’s still reasonably fun to do all of the above. I’ve discovered…

Video Games: Aliens don’t have chinstraps.

2009-06-22T05:57:33+00:00

My PS3 has primarily become my demo machine. The paltry 20GB drive on my XBox (not getting the Pro: mistake) is bursting at the seams with DLC, with about 700MB to spare — just enough to download the X-Blades demo. X-Blades appears to be about a scantily-clad, double-sworded, triple-ponytailed…

Video Games: It’s, Like, Better Than Real Bowling

2009-06-17T15:40:33+00:00

Have you tried the bowling training in Wii Sports? There are 3 tiers of training: clearing splits (no fun), “spin control” (bowl around obstacles to hit single pins; very fun), and something I believe is called “power throws”. We’re here to talk about the latter. In “power throws”, you bowl…

Video Games: Almost Eligible for Wii Social Security

2009-06-12T15:47:33+00:00

My Wii says I’m 56. It’s accurate; inexplicably, the insides of my elbows are sore today. Probably from overswinging the Wiimote during Baseball. Clearly, I’m millions of units sold late to this realization, but still: within the confines of some of the most simplistic, limiting games ever made, the Wii…

Video Games: And The Earth Continued Its Vast, Cyclical Journey.

2009-06-11T20:42:33+00:00

Thousands of spam comments ago, I wrote here. I’m going to attempt to do so again. My original effort ground to a halt when I promised you, the (likely) non-existent reader, a categorical rundown of Mass Effect’s myriad rough edges. I believe my mistake was in believing I would do…

Video Games: Say hello to my leetle fraind.

2009-01-30T18:23:33+00:00

My character in Mass Effect specializes in pistols & sniper rifles. I picked up a High Explosive Ammo upgrade at one point, which increases damage something like 400%, but also allows for far fewer shots before overheating (Mass Effect’s replacement for ammo clips). Packed onto my sniper rifle (which only…

Video Games: Horses + Arms = Nothing Much, Apparently

2009-01-20T05:21:33+00:00

Spent a couple of hours knocking out some secondary quests for Mass Effect. Saved a few dozen lives, came to terms with my horrific military past, that sort of thing. Spent some time on the planet Ontarom finding some scientists. Turns out they were at the map marker labeled “Underground…

Video Games: We’re gonna need bigger guns.

2009-01-19T05:36:33+00:00

A few more hours of Mass Effect today. It’s so good that I haven’t even taken time off to attempt another futile run at a Geometry Wars 2 achievement. I haven’t even popped in Burnout Paradise and fantasized ways to smush DJ Atomica with my car. Now that I’m back…

Video Games: The monkey does not have the module.

2009-01-18T06:20:33+00:00

I’m 11 hours into Mass Effect, and then this happens. DISCOVERY: The monkey does not have the module. I’m running around a valley, pressing A at lethargically plodding semi-elongated space monkeys on the planet Eletania (in the Hercules system), trying to find the module that one of them…

Video Games: Sick Convicted Felon Sesh, Dawg

2009-01-14T18:06:33+00:00

Today, all I had time for was the Skate 2 demo. I remember liking the Skate 1 demo (and have been waiting for it to drop in price ever since), and I have an intimate childhood bond with installments 1 through 3 of Tony Hawk Pro Skater, so Skate 2…

Video Games: Well, here we go.

2009-01-14T02:28:33+00:00

Welcome to Properly Calibrated, unfortunate Google seekers. This is a blog where I (hopefully obsessively) chronicle my gaming exploits. And by “exploits”, I merely mean “achievements”, not gameplay exploits. And by “achievements”, I mean achievements in the general sense, not XBox Live Achievements™. Clearly, most of the accomplishment-related…