Let’s talk a little about our group (we were in a tour group, just like the original Alaskan explorers!). First off, we had the venerable Scott, the twenty something law student leading the charge. With the single exception of some lovely young ladies from Chattanooga, mostly everyone in the tour was old and boring. No offense to old and/or boring people, of course. Who am I kidding, you don’t use the internet anyways.

Though we did stop at every expansive view, where we would all topple out of the bus, the majority of our time was spent riding a bus. I won’t elaborate.

Because lists are easily digested, let’s just list the things we did by the order of coolness:

1. Plane ride over glaciers. This was just good ol’ fashioned awesome. You really have no idea what you are dealing with when it comes to the great white north until you see it from the sky. Really. Just look.
2. Kyle’s first three (legal?) beers. They seem to grow up so fast! Especially when you cross a border where the drinking age is lower…
3. White water rafting in the Nenana river. This was very cool too. I’m man enough to admit I was the only white water virgin on the raft that day. Good thing the Tennessee family went with my little brother and I, otherwise we’d had been the only two in the raft.
4. Old junk at the gold dredge. I’m a sucker for rustic like junk artifacts (read: not trash). I just love taking photos of old equipment because it’s so freaking cool. It is also easy to do and makes me feel like a big-boy photographer.
5. Panning for gold. Though I didn’t find much, my little brother found a little. So did my parents. About $30′s worth combined.

You can check out our entire Helmig Family Flickr photostream for the photos, we’ll be adding them regularly. Not sure if any of the tour members will ever run across this, but if you do, drop a comment and say hi!

But noooooo, along comes Left 4 Dead in all it’s gory beauty. Damn you Valve.

I love zombies. I love killing zombies, so therefore, I love Left 4 Dead.

A lot has been said about how zombies cannot run. While I tend to agree with Simon’s position, when you add slow moving zombies to a first-person-shooter, you get a big steaming pile of boring. So this was part of my original justification to try it out, along with the fact that Valve was involved.

My verdict: bloody good. The best part is re-playability. Every time you play through a new campaign, it’s different. Random crowds of zombies will come at a different points each time. Boss zombies will be in new spots, sometimes…

Also, the concept behind the campaigns is solid. There is no back story, just four players (usually human in an online world) in a situation trying to get to an extraction point. Surrounded by zombies. Oh, you also get guns, ammo, health items and grenade items, but you need to get the hell out of there.

Each campaign ends with a huge fight as you wait for rescue, these can be intense and rewarding. I remember one time fighting at the riverfront, waiting for a boat. We see the boat coming it’s just three of us now running for the dock. Of course I run the slowest being a woman the most damaged and I get knocked to the ground 10 feet from the boat. One guy covers me while another helps me up as we watch a Tank boss (aka the Hulk) comes crashing towards us. We made it out with less than a second to spare. A great moment in gaming. You had to be there I guess.

To PC or not to PC: PC vs. XBOX

I have played both PC and XBOX versions of Left 4 Dead, and they are both fine. I enjoy mouse and keyboard a lot so I tend to like PC. However, I do like how much more reliable XBOX Live seems to be over the PC online play, and the split screen is awesome, especially with some brews.

So yes, I will be online, playing this game.

And I don’t think I will be quitting anytime soon. So hit me up on Steam as mstrymn or XBOX as Cheezsticks.