My Haircut and Video Game Review

1st, the video game review. Today's video game is: 'Altered Beast'. This 1988 Sega Genesis Classic is...terrible. I've been at my parents' house for the holidays and have broken out the old Sega. NHL '94 is still incredible, RBI Baseball is serviceable, Revenge of Shinobi is pretty sweet...so wtf.org Altered Beast?

5 levels. Here's the breakdown:

Level 1: Stuff comes at you. You can punch or kick...or mix it up. Then you become a wolf and a stationary tall boss throws heads across the screen that then drop down in the easiest possible way for you to avoid them while you beat his a$$.

Level 2: Stuff comes at you. Mostly kicking. You turn into a dragon and to kill the giant eye that shoots little eyes, you get right next to it and push 'B' 8 times. I counted.

Level 3. Stuff comes at you. Mostly kicking. There are also gaps. You are forced to incorporate 'the jump button' or 'C'. You become a bear. You get next to a weird lizard on a bed that goes back and forth but in a limited range. Push 'B' 18 times.

Level 4: Stuff comes at you. Punching and kicking. You become a tiger and a flying gator mouth flies along the exact same pattern. 'B' button around 22 times depending on skill level.

Level 5: Stuff comes at you. Mostly kicking. You become a wolf again. You fight a rhino that is a boxer. Lots of 'B' button with the 'A' in the mix from distance.

Game ends. Ending sequence is of wolf staring at a blue bird flying in figure eight patter. If I could go back in time, besides resisting the urge to buy that Turbo Graphics 16, I'd put that copy of Altered Beast back on the shelf and replace it with attempting to talk to a girl. We learn by failure, not by playing video games in the dark.


The following is a recount of my resent haircut saga. Awkward.

My neighborhood in New York is really cool. I've got friends up here like Ryan Conner and Rory Scovel (Hoboken) and Erin Conroy (Brooklyn) and they think they live in cool neighborhoods. Erin wears a bullet proof vest. Ryan should wear one and Rory doesn't believe in vests. The point is, my hood is totally the coolest. It's like Adams Morgan in DC with more stores and places to eat...and more hipsters. My T-shirt is ironic!

Anyway, there are lots of white folks. Not that this means anything in general, but for this story it does. For all the white guys I see around my way, I never see any of them getting their hair cut. There are a bunch of barber shops/salons within a 10 minute walk of my apartment but when you walk by, you NEVER see a white guy getting his hair cut. I'm still pretty new to this area so I don't have things established. I knew where I could get my hair cut in DC. I don't in New York. I've been putting it off and I finally decided to take action.

I walked around, scouted locations, and paced around outside of places trying to pretend that I wasn't actually checking out these spots like an X boyfriend in a C- movie where he was charming until it was over. I settled on a clean looking Latin spot. I walk in. I was greeted by a stereotype. Seriously. It was like a John Leguizamo character.

'Ju nee' a 'aircuh'? OK, lemme see if de barbor is doing...'

He comes back shortly.

'OK unnnnn, de barbor is wif a guy right now...cutting hair not li' de odder ssing (laughs to himself that he made a double entendre) ...ann' unnn, dere is anover man 'oo is waiting for a chape up...so isss gon to be li' dirty minutes or son-sing...'

Cool. I'll come back later.

Undaunted, I roll close by to another barber shop that I've walked past many times. I get a little confused as to what block its on. Its really cold and windy. I finally find it. I open the door without really looking inside before I walked in...16 black men. That's who's inside this barber shop. There are 16 black dudes and they all stop and stare at me. I freeze. This is AWKWARD. What do I do? I'm white. Man am I white. I'm suddenly aware that I'm really white. Wow.

Lots of information is flooding to me in a short amount of time.

5 seats. Seat 1, man getting corn rows tightened. Seat 2, man getting afro picked. Seat 3, shape up. Seat 4, possible flat top box in progress. Seat 5, designs in the hair.

There are 2 amazingly old men playing checkers. 4 guys just chilling; just BS-ing and the 5 guys cutting hair. Those are your 16 and they are all staring at me. I decide that I'm going to roll with this. I start to take my jacket off and am trying to formulate the words to ask if it's cool if I hang out until it's time for my haircut. Before I can get the words out, the barber at the first chair, turns his clippers off, looks at me and says:

'Ain't got nuffin fo you up in here white boy.'

I say: 'Ok thanks!' and turn around a leave as fast as you can without running. The door is one of those kinds that opens normal but closes slow to allow for deliveries and such. I can hear them mocking me as I depart.

'Check out that corny muthaf*cka!'

'What's that weather like in Nebraska b*tch!'

(I was wearing my baseball sweatshirt) In the black guy doing a white guy voice: 'Yo homies, I play baseball.'

'Corny muthaf*cka lost!'

'Broke a$$ gps!'

New York city.

Congrats EJ!!!!

Congrats to my friend Erin Jackson who will be on Live at Gotham.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Mark A$$ Buster...

Buster Olney, one of my favorite baseball writers, said what I tried to say in a much better way on ESPN.com. Check out the article. He explains why the Mitchell Report was just a show game with zero teeth...it shows why he is a baseball writer and I am a guy that writes about stuff on a space that literally anyone can reserve space in.

I am not a fan of new years. It's always a hot mess trying to figure out what to do. I'm doing this, you guys should too...then no one else does it and you're a douche. You either spend a ton of money on a thing that is always a let down. Open bar actually means you get those tiny plastic cups with the idea of alcohol in them for 2 hours then its cash bar, or you get pink eye and go to new york and get mugged before sleeping on some dude's pee stain that you thought was sweat until you realized that it wasn't and it was too late to move so you just curl up in the corner of the bed as best you can and listen to your boy snore in the next room into a megaphone that is piped directly into your ear...I'm over it. It's a nice occasion because you can get people to hang out. I like it for that reason. It's like prom every year for grown ups.

People start asking the question in November. You always hurt someone's feelings. It's beat.

The best new year's I ever had was 2000. My boy Attorney Jon and I went around saying: 'Happy Armageddon'. This was the humors because it made everyone discomfortable. I would never hang out at Rhino Bar again though...

Mitchell....

Watch my show, 'The A-List' on Animal Planet. New episodes every Friday night at 9. I am in the show a lot in the coming weeks. This is a good thing for me.

Senator George Mitchell is dropping his report. Lots of names are being named. Not sure what this means for baseball. I do know that the amount of scrutiny is pretty amazing. I think the fact that we even have a 'Mitchell Report' is troubling. Congress is involved. This is still baseball. It's a game. Sure, it's a game that generates huge revenue, but it's a game. I don't know that Congress should be involved. Congress should be handling other things...like ending the war for example. Thanks Democrats, way to seize the momentum.

Anyway, one of the guys named a ton is Roger Clemens. Now I don't know how definitive we're taking this info. I don't know what we do now. Everyone is talking about 'how we take this'. I don't know. I tend to believe the info. Everyone has come after Barry Bonds (rightly so) but we now have to apply the same standard. Clemens cheated as much or worse as Bonds. Do we asterisk the strikeout record? Do we asterisk the win totals?

What pisses me off the most is that everyone is late to this party. Everyone around the game knew. I knew. I could have told you when Clemens left Boston as a fat slob that refused to work hard at age 34 in 1996 and then showed up with 5 more mph and the build of a diesel train in Toronto on his way to a Cy Young; Clemens cheated. No idea how no one even questioned the guy. He escaped scrutiny. Over the next 10 years, as he continued to dominate, no one raised an eyebrow. This has always baffled me. Where is the spite turned Bonds' way? Where is the venom? The league starts testing, he sits out until the first round of testing happens and then comes back. No one says a word.

Anyway, the names are staggering. Big ones. No one knows what happens next. One of the flaws in this whole thing is that Mitchell was appointed by MLB. Basically, he presents this report, makes some recommendations, and MLB takes action or it doesn't. It lacks teeth. No MLB players (except Jason Giambi) cooperated on advice of the players union. This whole thing is a big pony show. My guess is that this was done to keep Congress off of MLB. Now what? My guess is that nothing happens. Literally, there won't be any actions. No prosecutions, no discipline recommendations, zero. Basically, the result of this will be that lots of players are embarrassed by the report. If you really want to get into it, I bet that this is all a move by MLB owners (chief Selig) to hurt the players union and ultimately lower salaries.

I don't know where we go from here. I'm pretty frustrated I guess. Such a big 'to do' for no real results. Everyone will deny. We'll move forward I guess.

Kurt Radomski will not be at any MLB player's Christmas parties...

Tonight

Hey everyone,

Tune into my show, 'The A-List', tonight at 9 on Animal Planet. The network is airing the first 2 episodes back-to-back. I'm all over 1 of the shows tonight and the majority of the episodes over the coming weeks. Tivo people. DVR that shizzle.

Also, check out podcast #2 on my website. Rory and I talk about a bunch of stuff...you should listen to said stuff.

Last, I'm in DC this Saturday for the Poonanza. Saturday night at 10 PM at the Warehouse Theater. Email me at danny.rouhier@gmail.com if you want to reserve tix.

Thanks!