You're lucky it was ugly anyway Xbox.

I received an article at my inbox this morning about new Halloween costumes available for your Xbox avatars, and notably one of them is a werewolf outfit. Sadly though, werewolf sexism is alive and well in the land of the 360 as it’s only for male characters.

What is up with that? In fact, what is up with werewolf items being made almost exclusively for a male demographic. Do I have so few fellow female werewolf enthusiasts? (Being in love with Jacob from Twilight doesn’t count.)

Every year I make the attempt to build a better werewolf costume. It’s nearly impossible to do so by shopping at my local Halloween superstores. Every single item (claws, noses, teeth, clothes, etc.) is made to fit a man. The only semi-counterpart to these items are feline in nature. It’s as if to say “You don’t want to be a werewolf. How about being a nice kitty cat instead? Here’s have some lingerie and a tail while you’re at it.”

I know that generally females plus werewolf equals not so sexy. I do believe it can be done though. In fact, I think I got pretty damn close if not on target at my last shoot:

So where are all the other female werewolf aficionados? I know there have to be at least a few of us out there. I say that for once we take up the angry mob side of the equation and get us some werewolf gear. I’ll be over here with my torch and pitchfork when you’re ready to join me.

My time lately hasn’t allowed for much in the way of video games, but I finally got around to starting a campaign in Mass Effect.

I’d tried the game once before and got discouraged when I realized how much it played like a first person shooter. Fortunately, a friend told me not to worry too much and that the combat gets easier as you go along.

So far, and for the most part, I’m enjoying the game. I really like the style of RPGs that Bioware has made over the years (both Knights of the Old Republic games and Jade Empire). The idea that your character changes based on how you treat the others around you is very fascinating to me. Of course, if there’s an option to be mean I’ll pick in 99.9% of the time.

I’m still not very far into the game yet. (I’ve made it through all of the quests in the Citadel and through the planet Feros.) Everything in the game was fairly smooth until I hit Feros. Actually, Feros would have been okay had it not been for the use of the MAKO.

The MAKO is essentially an armoured tank used to cover wider swaths of terrain and supposedly to mow down enemies. They got the covering of terrain right, but for the life of me I couldn’t get it to effectively kill all the Geth attacking me. I tried the cannon, I tried the machine gun, nada. I finally got so tired of dying that I just rolled over the enemies and gave them the finger as I drove past.

I was also finding some of the tasks particularly tedious. The planet map is so expansive that you can muck about for a while without anything interesting happening. Even when there is action it can be extremely repetitive. (Those who have taken down the Thorian probably know what I’m talking about.)

I think my only other complaint about the game is pretty minor, but it still annoys me. There are a lot of things that will pop up on the screen that you can look at and gain XP. By using the term “look at”, I’m being generous. All you really do is click on it and gain XP. Yay, you found a computer, have some XP. I don’t understand being rewarded for not doing anything. If they’re trying to get you more XP, why not build more into what you gain from finishing tasks and killing things? I can understand getting points in WoW for discovering new areas, but you don’t click on rocks and get points.

All in all I’m ready to get going on the next planet in the game and see where it all takes me.

Last night we held the first annual (and possibly only) Werewolf Phest. We aptly named this event Werewolf Phest ‘09. There was an incredible turnout of two attendees.

The night kicked off with An American Werewolf in London on Blu Ray. (A review will be up after I’ve finished viewing the bonus features.) This was soon after followed with the original classic The Wolf Man, and we rounded out the night with the oft forgotten Werewolf of London.

Perhaps the true highlight of the night were the drinks. After some thought we decided the appropriate beverage for the evening would be a shot called a Brain Hemorrhage. This drink consists of peach schnapps, grenadine and Bailey’s. As you can see below, it’s quite creepy and beautiful.

There was only one catch to this drink, and that’s I have a fear of taking a full shot of anything and pulling a total Linda Blair. So instead of shooting the drink back, I thought I would sip it. While it’s fairly tasty that way, it’s a little too sweet and syrupy to drink much. That’s when I had the brilliant idea of trying to cut it with something.

That’s when the experiment began…

There was some 7-Up in the fridge and it seemed like a good mixer choice. We weren’t sure how the Bailey’s would react, but it was worth a try.

Not long after all of the ingredients were mixed the carbonation from the soda lifted the Bailey’s to the surface of the glass, causing it to congeal into a thick veil of bubbly sludge. You can see me with the results below.

Unfortunately, as awesomely disgusting as this drink looks; the Bailey’s floats away from your mouth when you try to drink it. Regardless, I have decided to dub the concoction Liquid Death.

In conclusion I would like to thank the Phest attendees. I think the film viewings were a success, and we could never have made so revolting a drink without you.