A rare treat for you this time – a brief glimpse into the madcap wacky adventure that is my life. Because sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. …but not this time. I tend to ramble, so prepare accordingly.

Got dropped off today for an appointment with my orthodontist, or an “ortho appointment” as the cool kids put it nowadays. Yes, apparently every chinese person in the Richmond Hill/Markham/Scarborough region has the same orthodontist – the one up the stairs at Market Village. The thing is, I’m scared of orthodontist and dentist appointments. The doctors are nice chaps, and I can’t think of any logical reason I’m afraid of people poking around in my mouth, but for some unknown reason I’m nervous as heck when I’m sitting in that chair. That’s why I enjoyed today so much – my last appointment. Don’t even need anymore of these once-every-six-months deals – I’m out baby. Out!

But just when I weasel out of the orthodontist appointments…the nice doctor takes a look at my wisdom teeth, and goes “Hey, your wisdom teeth are screwed up. Get your dentist to take a look at them.” Man. But I gotta admit – they are screwed up. Look up the definition of “screwed-up wisdom teeth” in the dentist textbook, and there’s a picture of mine. The english language has no words to describe the pure nexus of chaos that exists back there. So I’ll probably get them pulled this summer, and I don’t know what to make of it. On one hand…there’s no shortage of nasty painful stories I’ve heard about getting those suckers pulled. However…I’ve had the full orthodontic works for the last four years. I’ve had everything – a plate that pushed my teeth out (half a centimetre gap between my two front teeth included), then a retainer to push them back in, the braces (complete with pokey wires and stuff shredding up the inside of my mouth), the stereotypical uber-nerd headgear, the damned elastics, and the final single retainer that dogged me for over a year. Anyone with braces knows – after the ordeal, you become a verteran of teeth pain. You laugh at teeth pain. Because the stuff you’ve been through can’t even be imagined by most people. Which is what makes me doubt the true level of pain in these wisdom teeth stories. For all I know, the “worst pain” you’ve ever felt in your life could be nothing but a lazy afternoon for me. So if anyone’s ever experienced both…drop me a line. I’d love to know.

Now as sweet as that was – that wasn’t the highlight of my day. The highlight is what awaited me inside the Orbit arcade upstairs at Pacific Mall. I didn’t even know about its existence, so you can imagine how absolutely blown my mind was when I saw the sequel to one of my life’s most beloved passions. Marvel vs. Capcom 3? Psh, small potatoes. Michelle Brancheerios with marshmellows? No – something even crazier. I’m talkin’ ’bout…TIME CRISIS 3.

Good goodness, you do not know what sweet this game is. I’ll give you the idea – it’s basically just Time Crisis 2…but with different weapons to select from. Just sit back and think about that for a second. I mean, this is an FPS in the arcade. Screw that mouse and those WASD keys – you got a frickin’ gun. Handgun, machine gun, shotgun, grenade launcher…all more delicious than the last – and just the handgun is already quite delicious on its own. I blew seven bucks today on this game. I haven’t dropped that much money in an arcade since I was twelve. I’ve soiled myself just typing about it. It’s that good. Favourite game at the moment – bar none. And that includes MvC2, Gunstar Heroes, AvP, CS, Shinobi, GTA3, Chu Chu, whatever the hell there is!