Alright, I prised myself away from SupCom...
Alright, I've discovered that I've moved well beyond the Normal AI in Supreme Commander, which is fine, but more challenging enemies also means longer games.... damn.
When I said above that I would be taking care of a few things, what I meant to say was that I would be writing a few movie reviews while watching the episode of Lost I missed this week. Sorry for any misunderstanding.
Unrest
One of the 8 Films to Die For, Unrest is like the others, semi-obscure indie directors and writers, actors that no one's ever hear of, but, fairly decent movies. They were likely submissions that weren't good enough to stand on their own, but, package them together and market them as they did, and you've got something people will actually seek out. It clearly worked on me.
Of course, I'm a horror movie fan, be they good or bad
Now, Unrest fits in nicely. It's not terrible, but it's clear why this one wasn't marketed on it's own. The film is written and directed by no one, and stars some people I'm sure I've seen in the background of various network shows. With that said, the acting level in the film is not going to turn heads, though I've certainly seen worse. But, I won't be expecting any of these people in any other major titles soon.
The story is actually pretty straight forward, a creepy American woman dies abroad, her body is brought back to the states as a medical cadaver. The story then revolves around an young, attractive med student who doesn't feel comfortable slicing into it with her peers. Of course, this is for good reason, as the corpse is apparently carrying the enraged spirits of several Aztec or Mayan dead she'd found in some sort of mass grave. Actually, that whole part of the story is pretty convoluted.
The brunt of the movie flows like a 'suspense horror', but it seems the writer was determined to add a flair of the 'spiritual' and what have you, as many of the characters all seem to bring to topic up. The dialog is also pretty poor in more than a few spots, one memorable quote would be, "My cadaver wants something from me and I better figure it out before she kills me too." Another great line, from one medical student to another while suturing a human bite wound, "Don't you need a tetanus shot or something?"
There's also some major inconsistencies as well. First, the main heroine of the film is an atheist, but she seems to be wearing a cross necklace throughout the movie, it even falls out while she's talking about being an atheist. Another is the odd bit is where, the med student, completely creeped out, sets aside her fear for some frisky sex, which wouldn't be so bad, but they'd just been 'fighting the evil' for a while, and then suddenly flipped it to the sex. Oh, and there's not one, but two scenes where the attractive main character takes off her top to be in her bra so that she can reach into a large vat of formaldehyde, as if we didn't get enough the first time, we get to see it again.
The shooting is solid, and while it's clearly not researched well, it was supposedly shot in a real morgue, and according to the trailer, they actually used real bodies. All things considered, it seems like a great first film for those involved. The ending did seem to leave things open for a sequel, although I don't imagine we'll see one.
The Hamiltons
Now, the second of the 8 Films to Die For series that I watched, and after having a relatively good experience with the first, the second really frustrated me.
It's not that the movie is bad, it's just not exciting in any way. There's hardly any build up, perhaps it's just knowing that it's a horror film, but you don't go from zero to sixty, it just seems to remain at a zero all throughout.
Don't get me wrong, there's blood, and gore, but never there's never a shock, there's never a scene where even a 13 year old girl would jump. It's boring.
The acting isn't terrible, either, but it's certainly not compelling by any stretch of the imagination. The dialog is pretty piss poor, as well.
As to the writing, everything about the film just rolls along, of course not well, but it clips along. The problem comes in when they try to introduce the twist, it's pathetic. It's sad, and feels as though they were just itching to be clever, but fall well short of the target.
All in all, I hated it. Not in the way that I've hated movies like The House of the Dead, but in the way that I would never watch it again. I really don't recommend it.
Idiocracy
Mike Judge, apparently still trying to do things since the Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill. Alright, I'll admit to loving Office Space, but he's certainly not a juggernaut in his own right, and of course, that was in 1999. Luckily, he actually managed a pretty funny movie with Idiocracy, unfortunately, the film had nearly no marketing.
This is the first point I'll talk about, because it's annoying. The movie was distributed by 20th Century Fox. The movie does not do much to help the image of large corporations, showing the future of companies like Starbucks as handing out handjobs, and Fuddruckers name slowly morphed into Buttfuckers. Carl's Jr.'s new motto becomes "Fuck you, I'm eating", supplanting their "Don't bother me, I'm eating." Most notable is that they depict Fox News as being hosted by beefy wrestlers and having little actual news content. The end result was that the film had a limited release in only 125 theaters, a far cry from the typical 2500-3000 theater release. There were no posters, no ads, no trailers. It seems that they did everything they could be keep the film quiet. Which is really too bad.
Now, on to the actual film. The movie starts out with a montage of videos with powerful voice over, it describes the way that stupid humans seem to procreate much faster than those with some level of intellect. It uses humorous charts and various clips of an oversexed hilbilly.
From there, we are set-up for the rest of the movie, where an Army Sergeant, an meager man who when confronted with the "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" speech, will simply move away into obscurity so as not to draw attention to himself. He's taken from his job as an Army librarian, and given to a military experiment. He's supposed to be frozen for 1 year, to prove that the system works, allowing the government to freeze they're most impressive soldiers during times when they're not being used, so that they can be unfrozen when they are actually needed. The idea is to test this on someone who is completely unremarkable in every way so as to not lose an asset. There's also a hooker who goes under at the same time. Due to a snafoo, the project is dismantled and the Army base is bulldozed. They are never unfrozen.
We watch as 500 years pass, people get stupider, and keep breeding. The pair end up as part of a massive landfill, which are huge towering mountains. Apparently they are prone to avalanche, which is apparently one of several problems now plaguing humanity.
Everyone is stupid, and our hero turns out to be the smartest person on the planet. He is retained by the President to fix all the worlds problems, he's given a week. The main problems are that crops aren't growing and the country is plagued by massive sand storms.
The former Sergeant realizes, that while he's not brilliant, he realizes that the problem seems to be coming from the liberal use of Brawndo, an energy drink that has supplanted water in every application. As a matter of fact, water is only used in toilets.
The movie is pretty funny, and actually has a decent enough message, which will probably be lost on the cretinous mouth-breathers about which the film is written. But, there's enough jokes that even stupid people will laugh and point, while trying not to spill their beer.
Final Destination 3 - or - I can't believe I watched this movie...
I was at a friend's (Mike's) house, and we were going over his massive collection of DVDs and we came across this film. My initial reaction was, "Huh, they did a third one?"
But, in retrospect, I do recall saying that I would never see this movie when an ad came on television.
Alas, I did see it.
It's awful. But, at least it's awful in the way that all bad horror flicks should be.
First, there's very little consistency, most notable comes in the very beginning, when our heroine envisions the roller coaster crash. When she throws a fit, she and her cohorts end up off the ride, which promptly crashes anyway. The problem here is that the character carrying the video camera which actually cause the crash in her vision, ends up off the train as well.
It's all down hill from there folks.
Of course, they again recall the fate of those that weren't on flight 180, but in an even more loose manner than the second. The beauty of this comes from the fact that most of the people who watched this don't need it recanted, even through the illogical find on google, since they probably saw at least one of the two, and of course those that didn't aren't going to feel like they know the movie better by hearing it. It's just pointless filler that could have been left out.
The only redeeming value of this film is that the deaths are terribly fun to watch. The set-ups for each are nearly as good as the previous films, so, it's not bad.
Of course, I thought the second was better than the first, but none of these were all that good to begin with. Would I watch it again? Yeah, sadly I probably would... although I'd have to be doing something else at the same time.
That's it for now.
As always, though, I shall return.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
And now for something completely different...
Nope.
I believe I have remembered the biggest reason I've not been into the RTS genre before. The RTS is a life sucking, time sapping, deep resonate hole in the earth which pulls my soul in a relentless hold that can not be sated.
I've been playing Supreme Commander, in the hopes of learning it's wondrous secrets. It has bestowed upon me a massive amount of hatred for my inability to manage my time better. I don't know what makes me think that I have an hour and a half of my life available to skirmish play, let alone 2-4 hours available for multiple skirmishes, yet, that's exactly the tact that I have taken.
HELP!
Shooter
Mike and I went last night to Showplace 16 to see Shooter.
This film wasn't bad, on the contrary, I found that I enjoyed it quite a bit. The problem is that there's a lot of really bad elements to the movie that prevent it from being great.
Firstly, the movie has all the action you can imagine, there's also plenty of blood and guts which is always good. Mark Wahlberg is a Marine Scout Sniper, he and his spotter get into a bit of trouble on a black op some time ago and end up being left alone 8 klicks inside of a country in Africa they had no business being in after being spotted by insurgents. Alone, they begin the process of capping as many of the 100 opfor as possible. Then there's a helicopter, which misses Mark Wahlberg's character, but tears his partner apart with machine gun fire. Marky Mark gets pissed and takes out the chopper, and some 70% of the over 100 enemy soldiers.
Cut to 36 months later, he's now a hermit living in the mountains of some state where you can live in the mountains and be the only person. An Army Colonel comes to recruit him to scout out positions from which the snipe the President of the United States at a distance of at least a mile, because they have intel that says someone will do this. He's one of the few people who could make the shot, and outside of the government, and therefore the best man for the counter intel. At first he declines, but his sense of patriotism is too strong and he begrudginly goes to work. Once he recommends the position the shooter, and then is on hand the day of the speech.
Instead of capping the president, the Arch Bishop of a country in Africa is capped, and, without even a little surprise, our man gets framed.
There are loopholes a plenty in this, from the reasons why the Arch Bishop is capped here and now, when he likely could have been killed any time, to the to the way that Danny Glover and his Senator cohort celebrate their 'victory' in the end, as though Marky Mark was just gonna leave well enough alone.
The biggest complaints I have from this movie come in the way of Danny Glover's apparent stroke, which leaves him talking through his teeth with hardly an expression at all, the fact that every scene is subtitled as though the film makers didn't think we could discern from the scene where we were (the best example is at the end, when the subtitle says "Department of Justice" while the camera hovers over an official looking building, we cut to Mark Wahlberg being brought into the room in an orange jumpsuit, capture, and through the double doors can be clearly seen a massive seal that says "Department of Justice".). The other frustrating thing is the dialogue, which is so corny it's hard not to laugh at it. Most of this is delivered poorly from Danny Glover, but, there's also a scene where the guy that played Casey Jones gets his thumb shot off and starts cackling about how he can't believe he took the shot.
There are other problems too, but, for the most part, they're consistency issues. The problems are not enough to keep me from enjoying the flick for what it is, but, it's still enough that the person I watched it with couldn't help but think out loud, as a group of high ranking officials sit around a massive table, "What if that guy stands up and he's not wearing any pants?" It's at that point that it becomes clear that you weren't riveted.
Like I said, it's not a bad film. But, it's not great. Seriously, I don't remember character names, except Marky Mark's was something like Bobby Lee Swagger.. it had a Lee and a Swagger, but it could have been Billy or Franky... I just remember thinking, duh, three names, he's going to get blamed for the assassination, because all assassins have three names.
Bridge to Terabithia
I've been meaning to review this... the problem is that I have a hard time doing so without ruining the movie. This is the best I've been able to come up with so far:
I have one word for this movie: Wow!
I knew very little about this movie going into it, save the fact that it was supposed to be a fantasy. I was aware that the much of the talent of this movie came in the form of actors and actresses that are no stranger to the kid show/movie genre. I was also aware that it was done up by Gabor Csupo, very much a part of the Nickelodeon pantheon.
What I did not know was how moving this story would be. I will say that this is the first time in a while that I've cried during a movie. Secondly, it's the first time in a while that I've been surprised, nay, blindsided by a film. Worst, is that these events coincided.
The story is about imagination, growing up, and love. The story is about expression, and feeling. It delves into the far reaching depths of misunderstanding, and childhood ridcule.
Jess is a young boy, an artistic middle boy in a family of girls. His family is poor, his mother and father are struggling under the weight of an economy that doesn't favor the farmer. He's an introverted boy who doesn't have friends, and seems to rely on his drawing skills to keep his mind occupied. He meats a young girl, Leslie, who seems to understand him, she's quirky, a true outsider, from a family of writers who seems to have inherited the gift.
When they become friends, they decide they need a place that is their own. Terabithia is born as they imagine the forest across the creek is another world, it's inhabited my the metaphors for they're own lives, and it becomes real for them.
I won't say more about where they take the story, because I don't want to ruin it for you.
The feelings that this film evokes are real and moving. I don't know what else to say, I was absolutely amazed by it.
MS Paint Adventures
One of the guys found this, and it's pretty funny...
Level 1
Level 2 - Option 1
Level 2 - Option 2
Level 3
Continued from beginning?
The funniest part are the idiots on that forum who don't take the clues intentionally left for them and insist on driving the story into idiocracy (which is a title of another movie I saw recently and need to talk about...).
That's it for now...
But, I will try and quell my insatiable thirst for Supreme Commander and come back soon...
I believe I have remembered the biggest reason I've not been into the RTS genre before. The RTS is a life sucking, time sapping, deep resonate hole in the earth which pulls my soul in a relentless hold that can not be sated.
I've been playing Supreme Commander, in the hopes of learning it's wondrous secrets. It has bestowed upon me a massive amount of hatred for my inability to manage my time better. I don't know what makes me think that I have an hour and a half of my life available to skirmish play, let alone 2-4 hours available for multiple skirmishes, yet, that's exactly the tact that I have taken.
HELP!
Shooter
Mike and I went last night to Showplace 16 to see Shooter.
This film wasn't bad, on the contrary, I found that I enjoyed it quite a bit. The problem is that there's a lot of really bad elements to the movie that prevent it from being great.
Firstly, the movie has all the action you can imagine, there's also plenty of blood and guts which is always good. Mark Wahlberg is a Marine Scout Sniper, he and his spotter get into a bit of trouble on a black op some time ago and end up being left alone 8 klicks inside of a country in Africa they had no business being in after being spotted by insurgents. Alone, they begin the process of capping as many of the 100 opfor as possible. Then there's a helicopter, which misses Mark Wahlberg's character, but tears his partner apart with machine gun fire. Marky Mark gets pissed and takes out the chopper, and some 70% of the over 100 enemy soldiers.
Cut to 36 months later, he's now a hermit living in the mountains of some state where you can live in the mountains and be the only person. An Army Colonel comes to recruit him to scout out positions from which the snipe the President of the United States at a distance of at least a mile, because they have intel that says someone will do this. He's one of the few people who could make the shot, and outside of the government, and therefore the best man for the counter intel. At first he declines, but his sense of patriotism is too strong and he begrudginly goes to work. Once he recommends the position the shooter, and then is on hand the day of the speech.
Instead of capping the president, the Arch Bishop of a country in Africa is capped, and, without even a little surprise, our man gets framed.
There are loopholes a plenty in this, from the reasons why the Arch Bishop is capped here and now, when he likely could have been killed any time, to the to the way that Danny Glover and his Senator cohort celebrate their 'victory' in the end, as though Marky Mark was just gonna leave well enough alone.
The biggest complaints I have from this movie come in the way of Danny Glover's apparent stroke, which leaves him talking through his teeth with hardly an expression at all, the fact that every scene is subtitled as though the film makers didn't think we could discern from the scene where we were (the best example is at the end, when the subtitle says "Department of Justice" while the camera hovers over an official looking building, we cut to Mark Wahlberg being brought into the room in an orange jumpsuit, capture, and through the double doors can be clearly seen a massive seal that says "Department of Justice".). The other frustrating thing is the dialogue, which is so corny it's hard not to laugh at it. Most of this is delivered poorly from Danny Glover, but, there's also a scene where the guy that played Casey Jones gets his thumb shot off and starts cackling about how he can't believe he took the shot.
There are other problems too, but, for the most part, they're consistency issues. The problems are not enough to keep me from enjoying the flick for what it is, but, it's still enough that the person I watched it with couldn't help but think out loud, as a group of high ranking officials sit around a massive table, "What if that guy stands up and he's not wearing any pants?" It's at that point that it becomes clear that you weren't riveted.
Like I said, it's not a bad film. But, it's not great. Seriously, I don't remember character names, except Marky Mark's was something like Bobby Lee Swagger.. it had a Lee and a Swagger, but it could have been Billy or Franky... I just remember thinking, duh, three names, he's going to get blamed for the assassination, because all assassins have three names.
Bridge to Terabithia
I've been meaning to review this... the problem is that I have a hard time doing so without ruining the movie. This is the best I've been able to come up with so far:
I have one word for this movie: Wow!
I knew very little about this movie going into it, save the fact that it was supposed to be a fantasy. I was aware that the much of the talent of this movie came in the form of actors and actresses that are no stranger to the kid show/movie genre. I was also aware that it was done up by Gabor Csupo, very much a part of the Nickelodeon pantheon.
What I did not know was how moving this story would be. I will say that this is the first time in a while that I've cried during a movie. Secondly, it's the first time in a while that I've been surprised, nay, blindsided by a film. Worst, is that these events coincided.
The story is about imagination, growing up, and love. The story is about expression, and feeling. It delves into the far reaching depths of misunderstanding, and childhood ridcule.
Jess is a young boy, an artistic middle boy in a family of girls. His family is poor, his mother and father are struggling under the weight of an economy that doesn't favor the farmer. He's an introverted boy who doesn't have friends, and seems to rely on his drawing skills to keep his mind occupied. He meats a young girl, Leslie, who seems to understand him, she's quirky, a true outsider, from a family of writers who seems to have inherited the gift.
When they become friends, they decide they need a place that is their own. Terabithia is born as they imagine the forest across the creek is another world, it's inhabited my the metaphors for they're own lives, and it becomes real for them.
I won't say more about where they take the story, because I don't want to ruin it for you.
The feelings that this film evokes are real and moving. I don't know what else to say, I was absolutely amazed by it.
MS Paint Adventures
One of the guys found this, and it's pretty funny...
Level 1
Level 2 - Option 1
Level 2 - Option 2
Level 3
Continued from beginning?
The funniest part are the idiots on that forum who don't take the clues intentionally left for them and insist on driving the story into idiocracy (which is a title of another movie I saw recently and need to talk about...).
That's it for now...
But, I will try and quell my insatiable thirst for Supreme Commander and come back soon...
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Damn.... letting a few days to slip by...
Alright, so, here's the deal, I've been busy. Not busy with anything important, but with things that are interesting.
First, I've been eating movies and crapping video games, as you might have noticed with the last couple of posts, being merely reviews.
Most recently, I watched Bridge to Terabithia. I was absolutely blindsided by this one, amazed on several levels. I will post a true review soon, but, if you get the chance, watch this movie!
Also, I watched Unrest and The Hamiltons, both part of the 8 Films to Die For series. They're good, but, there's a few issues I have, of course, I will review these as well. With independent films you can't expect perfection, but, these are pretty damn good for what they are. I will say that both have fairly different concepts than you might have seen before, which is a definite plus.
The biggest problem I'm having in the productivity department is Supreme Commander. Normally when I play a game, I might venture in for half an hour to an hour, but this game can easily sap three hours from your life. It's frustrating, yet it's enjoyable.
I've got a lot of stuff I need to get posted, because the world hasn't stopped for me, but, it will just have to wait. For now... I need sleep.
First, I've been eating movies and crapping video games, as you might have noticed with the last couple of posts, being merely reviews.
Most recently, I watched Bridge to Terabithia. I was absolutely blindsided by this one, amazed on several levels. I will post a true review soon, but, if you get the chance, watch this movie!
Also, I watched Unrest and The Hamiltons, both part of the 8 Films to Die For series. They're good, but, there's a few issues I have, of course, I will review these as well. With independent films you can't expect perfection, but, these are pretty damn good for what they are. I will say that both have fairly different concepts than you might have seen before, which is a definite plus.
The biggest problem I'm having in the productivity department is Supreme Commander. Normally when I play a game, I might venture in for half an hour to an hour, but this game can easily sap three hours from your life. It's frustrating, yet it's enjoyable.
I've got a lot of stuff I need to get posted, because the world hasn't stopped for me, but, it will just have to wait. For now... I need sleep.
Monday, March 26, 2007
TMNT Reviewed
TMNT. I probably wouldn't have loved it like I did if it didn't recall fond memories of my youth.
The fact is that it's a movie filled with regurgitated jokes, overused sight-gags, campy one-liners, and massive plot holes....
The writers of this one seemed intent on recalling the greatness of the original cartoon and movies, they also seemed to be trying to bring back some of the darkness and style of the old Eastman and Laird comics. The only problem is that they seem determined to cater to far too large of an audience, everyone from loyal fanboys to the 8 year olds who're watching the current iteration of the show.
Now, I'm more than willing to overlook a lot most of the time to enjoy a movie about something I like, and that's just what I had to do for this one. It seemed as though they weren't sure whether they were taking themselves serious or not. Now, the most important thing to mention is that this movie is still classic turtles. I was hoping for something a little more highbrow, but, overall it still harks back to the days gone by for me.
I will say that the CGI is spot on, it's beautifully done, of course, that goes without saying these days. I will say that everything is smooth and linear, and even though you're watching the impossible movements of mutant turtles and massive monsters you still believe what you're seeing.
The story is actually pretty good. I haven't really seen the current show, but I've the entire original series, all three movies and read quite a few of the comics, including the very first ones. This film seems to pick up, more or less, at the end of the second movie. Shredder is dead, Leonardo has gone into training far away from New York, so the three remaining brothers are getting by through various means. Donatello is now a one man IT service, Michalango is now a turtle party clown, and Raphael has taken to running around as a one man crime fighting machine. April O'Neil seems to be some sort of archaeologist, and Casey Jones is still a wisecrackin' vigilante. The story takes on a new challenge for our heroes. Leonardo comes home, but, it's not hugs all around. Raphael is still brooding, but more importantly, there's a bunch of 3,000 year old monsters running around the city.
I won't ruin everything for you, but, it's pretty decent stuff, though. The main problems that I have I've already outlined, and I won't go into too much detail at all. Just trust that this is flawed on many levels, but, for anyone who's a fan of the turtles, it's well worth the watch.
The fact is that it's a movie filled with regurgitated jokes, overused sight-gags, campy one-liners, and massive plot holes....
The writers of this one seemed intent on recalling the greatness of the original cartoon and movies, they also seemed to be trying to bring back some of the darkness and style of the old Eastman and Laird comics. The only problem is that they seem determined to cater to far too large of an audience, everyone from loyal fanboys to the 8 year olds who're watching the current iteration of the show.
Now, I'm more than willing to overlook a lot most of the time to enjoy a movie about something I like, and that's just what I had to do for this one. It seemed as though they weren't sure whether they were taking themselves serious or not. Now, the most important thing to mention is that this movie is still classic turtles. I was hoping for something a little more highbrow, but, overall it still harks back to the days gone by for me.
I will say that the CGI is spot on, it's beautifully done, of course, that goes without saying these days. I will say that everything is smooth and linear, and even though you're watching the impossible movements of mutant turtles and massive monsters you still believe what you're seeing.
The story is actually pretty good. I haven't really seen the current show, but I've the entire original series, all three movies and read quite a few of the comics, including the very first ones. This film seems to pick up, more or less, at the end of the second movie. Shredder is dead, Leonardo has gone into training far away from New York, so the three remaining brothers are getting by through various means. Donatello is now a one man IT service, Michalango is now a turtle party clown, and Raphael has taken to running around as a one man crime fighting machine. April O'Neil seems to be some sort of archaeologist, and Casey Jones is still a wisecrackin' vigilante. The story takes on a new challenge for our heroes. Leonardo comes home, but, it's not hugs all around. Raphael is still brooding, but more importantly, there's a bunch of 3,000 year old monsters running around the city.
I won't ruin everything for you, but, it's pretty decent stuff, though. The main problems that I have I've already outlined, and I won't go into too much detail at all. Just trust that this is flawed on many levels, but, for anyone who's a fan of the turtles, it's well worth the watch.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
A few reviews, movies and games alike!
Black Snake Moan
I loved this movie, though I almost let it slip by.
It's a great story, it's different than most of the titles available right now. It's got a little of all the things I enjoy in a movie, including sex, violence, action, dark humor, Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci....
This one caught me off guard, mostly because the ads and the trailers really didn't tell me much of anything about the movie. You see Samuel L. Jackson quip a bit, you see Christina Ricci chained up. And, that's it.
The film itself, though, is so much more. I will admit that I don't know how they could have advertised it differently, but it seems like they should have at least tried.
The movie is a tale about Rae (Ricci), whose history is sexual abuse turned impropriety catches up when her boyfriend (Timberlake), a panic-prone prone man who relys on her for stability, leaves for the military. Immediately, her past causes her to jaunt off on a bender of epic proportions, drinking and pill-popping until she's beaten and left for dead.
She's discovered by an aging black man, Lazarus (Jackson), a defunct blues singer in the deep south, going through marital issues with his wife (she left him after their long marriage, for his younger brother). He takes the girl into his home and takes care of her, but as he learns about her past, and she begins drunken sleep-walking fits, he chains her to the radiator (one that his former wife complained about, which becomes an interesting metaphor in and of itself). He decides that he's going to help this girl, no matter the cost.
The story can be used as a metaphor faith and infidelity, strength and love, it can be seen as a dark romantic comedy with teeth, and, it can be viewed a touching coming of age story of sorts. The point is that there's a deep and meaningful story.
It's twisted, and in the end, people don't end up just hugging and riding off into the sunset. The writing is tight, the imagery is raw and stunning, the human drama is palpable. It's worth a couple hours of your time.
Prey (I catch up a bit...)
You'd think a decade would be long enough to get a title right, but apparently it's not.
There's potential in the title, really. But for a company with such a great lexicon of titles under their belts, their gimmicks fall pretty flat. First, I have to say that I appreciate a game that tries to tell a story, and really, I know they were really trying not to make fun of Native American people, but from the opening sequence, through the rest of the game, I feel almost embarrassed to be playing it. The graphics are pretty, but, of course they've been done, since this does take advantage of the older Doom 3 engine.
The use of portals is a great concept, and when Valve releases Portals with Half Life 2 Ep. 2, I bet we'll see how it's done. Prey, however, fails to take advantage of a great schema. They could have done it right, but they chose to rely on a linear level style so that you never feel you've made a wrong turn. The biggest draw in this game for me was the 360DOF style gravity play. This, I thought, would finally be a game that could show me what I've been missing since the old days of Descent (actually, I still play D2 and D3, but, that's neither here nor there...). However, it really falls flat. Perhaps it's because I'm so used to getting turned around, but, there's no challenge whether I'm hanging upside down on the ceiling or sideways on the walls. Challenge... that's the next problem. There is none. Of course, I've come to expect the ability to breeze through most first person shooter titles of late. It seems that companies are trying really hard to write a story that comes off as cinematic, and they want people to be able to complete it instead of giving up, that way you can see it through. I think it's similar to holding graduation ceremonies when moving from one grade level to another in elementary school. It's catering to mediocrity. Overall it's not a terrible game, but, it's not the pinnacle of joy you might have hoped for in a game that was a decade in the making. I picked it up for $5 at Target... that seems reasonable.
Supreme Commander
OMG OMFG OMG OMFG OMFG OMG OMFG !!!!11!!eleven and other such interweberry... (Yes, I think it's pretty good)
As I've mentioned in a few of my other reviews, I'm not much of an RTS fan. At least, I hadn't been until this last year or so. This game delivers on every level possible. There's really nothing I can say against it, except that at some points it gets to be too much for my feeble brain to handle. The gameplay is simple, elegant, and very intuitive... for the most part. There are a few moments where I have found myself wondering what to do (As I had a transport ship I filled with tanks hovering over the target, I right clicked to get them in... getting them out was less obvious). But, some random clicking usually solves that, and it's been such a rare thing that I can hardly fault the game. I think they just assume certain conventions are used so frequently, I should already know them. Maybe that's a mistake, but one I'm willing to over look. An obvious draw for the game is the graphics. I hate companies that are concerned only with graphics. There are companies that seem to think that their game will only be good if I can fry an egg on my graphics card while it's running. And, admittedly, I probably COULD fry an egg on my graphics card while playing this game, the fact is, the gameplay is there to go with it. Now, don't get me wrong. I've read my share of reviews on this game, and they all talk of the fact that you there's little balance between quality and playability, but I found that I can play it fine and dandy on my system, and I've got nothing more than an average rig at this point. (AMD Athlon 64 3800+ / 3GB RAM / nVidia GeForce 7900GS 256MB), and I can play it with more than enough graphical zing.
It's pretty, but more importantly, it's a lot of fun. There's nothing like building your force and swooping down on the enemy and watching the carnage ensue. All of the units solid enough AI to try and use their strengths and hide their weakness. The campaign mode as a decent enough story, and it's played out by reasonable good voice actors. The videos are pretty, and it seems they at least tried to give you something to think about while you're clicking around between cut scenes. Really, my only complaint is that some of the missions can be long, lasting for hours and hours, as the map is continually opened up, and, especially if you missed the dialogue, you can easily not understand WHAT you're supposed to do for a specific objective. (A good example is the second mission of the UEF, an objective opens up where you need to get to a base to help them evacuate, the dialogue says what not to forget to bring, but, the object just lists them as: 0/12 0/20 0/8... 0 of 12 WHAT is not made clear if you missed it...)
The skirmish modes have tons of options so that you can customize the game to your tastes, and, with various mods, you can extend the replay value indefinitely... which is good since there isn't a system built yet with the power to run this with settings maxed, you'll likely play for quite a while, and then, when you get that new 9950GTXST2SLI4 card, you'll be reinstalling just to see how many particles you can get. And I'd be willing to bet that you'll get hooked again. Back on track though, the skirmish mode has more than enough to keep the game re-playable, even if you don't have that 1337 cable connection, especially with the ability to alter the games AI so much and taylor the game to the playing style you most like... or are challenged most by, it doesn't get boring easily.
The multiplayer is really where it's at, even if I suck to the point of hilarity compared to most people out there. As I said, I'm pretty green with the modern RTS. However, the fact that you can have 3 hour sieges, or quick 45 minute romps is great. They have a built in matchmaking system, clan, ladder, and ranking systems as well, and all of it is free through their service. Of course, that means you'll need to get it out of your system now, before it's down to that select 100 players and they either cancel the service, you find you'll never beat any of them. (Sorry... I just know how proprietary game servers tend to be, once the game's no longer the flavor of the week, the multiplayer goes all to hell...)
Overall, this game is just fun as hell, and I can't get enough of it, and by the looks of things, a lot of people feel the same way. It's one of the few games I consider well worth investing in new (at full price, I mean), and like I said, I don't even like RTS's.
Star Wars: Empire at War
A credit to its license! Rich and immersive, doing so many things right, that little detractions can't kill the fun!
I'm not a fan of the RTS genre. While I loved the Warcraft series, and StarCraft, as well as C&C RA 1 and 2, and I'm currently enamored with Company of Heroes, I really just don't dig the RTS games. It's not them, it's me. I just suck at them. Mostly, I get bored with them when I can't win. Put me in front of most game types, I'll dominate just fine, or at least hold my own. But, for whatever reason, I've never been able to wrap my head around them. However, this game holds something special for me. There's something different about this than, say, Age of Empires. What makes this game special? The Star Wars license.
Now, I'm not a Star Wars nut, but I enjoy the movies. I've loved a lot of the previous Star Wars games, especially X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, to which I devoted a good chunk of my life many years ago. This game doesn't disappoint my appetite for laser blast and Jedi powers. Why all the back story on me? Because it might help you understand where I'm coming from on this thing. I enjoy this game. I can't imagine myself becoming obsessed over it, but it's something I can see myself diving into every now and then for a while. I bought this game out of the bargain bin at an Office Depot for $2.50. I saw it, and remembered the reviews I'd seen were relatively good, and there's a giant Star Wars logo on the front, and a screen shot of Vader leading an army of Storm Troopers across the battlefield, and I thought: it's worth a couple bucks.
For the game itself, it's very well built. Obviously it's a few years old, but I'm amazed at the graphics quality. Everything is spot on, and the most impressive component is the scale. AT-STs tower over the Rebel forces, X-Wings buzz around Reclamaters like Gnats. The effects are truly amazing, explosions bloom brilliantly, and even the simple blaster fire is impressive. The sound is also spot-on. There's something almost familiar and comforting about the sound of an imperial blaster, or the engine of a TIE fighter. You know what it sounds like, and they get them right on every point in this game. In addition to the sound, the voice-a-likes they hired are pretty amazing as well, and there are points that they say things you think must have been cannibalized from one of the films, except the words were never spoken in film.
The game play is great as well. There's so much to do that it's hard to warp your head around. There's a cute little card that comes with the game, although it's less card than thick poster, but it contains the units and the upgrade pathways for both the Rebels and the Imperial Forces. Several hours in, and I've yet to get them all.
The other thing that's great is the multi-layered play style. You get to fight both in planetary land battles and massive space confrontations. You get to build your forces tactically from a Galactic map, and then move from point to point initiating space and sky battles. It's fun to try and keep an eye on all your resources as you build up your Galactic Empire. My only gripe about the maps, though, is that there are a lot of limits imposed on your paths. You don't get to dominate a massive landscape / skyscape, but instead, you get to move through an almost gauntlet like series of corridors. Also, the maps seem to get a little repetitive after a while.
The last thing I'll mention is the brilliant interaction and components. Hero characters give you an edge on the battle field, bring unique abilities to the battles, while each unit has its own pluses and minuses. The fact that they don't include anything that isn't a true Star Wars component, and that it all works together so well, makes it that much more fun. Overall it's a rich and immersive game with no end of fun.
It's definitely Worth Playing.
Coming soon: TMNT, Bridge to Terabithia, and from the 8 films to die for: Unrest (more of those are coming soon too)
I loved this movie, though I almost let it slip by.
It's a great story, it's different than most of the titles available right now. It's got a little of all the things I enjoy in a movie, including sex, violence, action, dark humor, Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci....
This one caught me off guard, mostly because the ads and the trailers really didn't tell me much of anything about the movie. You see Samuel L. Jackson quip a bit, you see Christina Ricci chained up. And, that's it.
The film itself, though, is so much more. I will admit that I don't know how they could have advertised it differently, but it seems like they should have at least tried.
The movie is a tale about Rae (Ricci), whose history is sexual abuse turned impropriety catches up when her boyfriend (Timberlake), a panic-prone prone man who relys on her for stability, leaves for the military. Immediately, her past causes her to jaunt off on a bender of epic proportions, drinking and pill-popping until she's beaten and left for dead.
She's discovered by an aging black man, Lazarus (Jackson), a defunct blues singer in the deep south, going through marital issues with his wife (she left him after their long marriage, for his younger brother). He takes the girl into his home and takes care of her, but as he learns about her past, and she begins drunken sleep-walking fits, he chains her to the radiator (one that his former wife complained about, which becomes an interesting metaphor in and of itself). He decides that he's going to help this girl, no matter the cost.
The story can be used as a metaphor faith and infidelity, strength and love, it can be seen as a dark romantic comedy with teeth, and, it can be viewed a touching coming of age story of sorts. The point is that there's a deep and meaningful story.
It's twisted, and in the end, people don't end up just hugging and riding off into the sunset. The writing is tight, the imagery is raw and stunning, the human drama is palpable. It's worth a couple hours of your time.
Prey (I catch up a bit...)
You'd think a decade would be long enough to get a title right, but apparently it's not.
There's potential in the title, really. But for a company with such a great lexicon of titles under their belts, their gimmicks fall pretty flat. First, I have to say that I appreciate a game that tries to tell a story, and really, I know they were really trying not to make fun of Native American people, but from the opening sequence, through the rest of the game, I feel almost embarrassed to be playing it. The graphics are pretty, but, of course they've been done, since this does take advantage of the older Doom 3 engine.
The use of portals is a great concept, and when Valve releases Portals with Half Life 2 Ep. 2, I bet we'll see how it's done. Prey, however, fails to take advantage of a great schema. They could have done it right, but they chose to rely on a linear level style so that you never feel you've made a wrong turn. The biggest draw in this game for me was the 360DOF style gravity play. This, I thought, would finally be a game that could show me what I've been missing since the old days of Descent (actually, I still play D2 and D3, but, that's neither here nor there...). However, it really falls flat. Perhaps it's because I'm so used to getting turned around, but, there's no challenge whether I'm hanging upside down on the ceiling or sideways on the walls. Challenge... that's the next problem. There is none. Of course, I've come to expect the ability to breeze through most first person shooter titles of late. It seems that companies are trying really hard to write a story that comes off as cinematic, and they want people to be able to complete it instead of giving up, that way you can see it through. I think it's similar to holding graduation ceremonies when moving from one grade level to another in elementary school. It's catering to mediocrity. Overall it's not a terrible game, but, it's not the pinnacle of joy you might have hoped for in a game that was a decade in the making. I picked it up for $5 at Target... that seems reasonable.
Supreme Commander
OMG OMFG OMG OMFG OMFG OMG OMFG !!!!11!!eleven and other such interweberry... (Yes, I think it's pretty good)
As I've mentioned in a few of my other reviews, I'm not much of an RTS fan. At least, I hadn't been until this last year or so. This game delivers on every level possible. There's really nothing I can say against it, except that at some points it gets to be too much for my feeble brain to handle. The gameplay is simple, elegant, and very intuitive... for the most part. There are a few moments where I have found myself wondering what to do (As I had a transport ship I filled with tanks hovering over the target, I right clicked to get them in... getting them out was less obvious). But, some random clicking usually solves that, and it's been such a rare thing that I can hardly fault the game. I think they just assume certain conventions are used so frequently, I should already know them. Maybe that's a mistake, but one I'm willing to over look. An obvious draw for the game is the graphics. I hate companies that are concerned only with graphics. There are companies that seem to think that their game will only be good if I can fry an egg on my graphics card while it's running. And, admittedly, I probably COULD fry an egg on my graphics card while playing this game, the fact is, the gameplay is there to go with it. Now, don't get me wrong. I've read my share of reviews on this game, and they all talk of the fact that you there's little balance between quality and playability, but I found that I can play it fine and dandy on my system, and I've got nothing more than an average rig at this point. (AMD Athlon 64 3800+ / 3GB RAM / nVidia GeForce 7900GS 256MB), and I can play it with more than enough graphical zing.
It's pretty, but more importantly, it's a lot of fun. There's nothing like building your force and swooping down on the enemy and watching the carnage ensue. All of the units solid enough AI to try and use their strengths and hide their weakness. The campaign mode as a decent enough story, and it's played out by reasonable good voice actors. The videos are pretty, and it seems they at least tried to give you something to think about while you're clicking around between cut scenes. Really, my only complaint is that some of the missions can be long, lasting for hours and hours, as the map is continually opened up, and, especially if you missed the dialogue, you can easily not understand WHAT you're supposed to do for a specific objective. (A good example is the second mission of the UEF, an objective opens up where you need to get to a base to help them evacuate, the dialogue says what not to forget to bring, but, the object just lists them as: 0/12 0/20 0/8... 0 of 12 WHAT is not made clear if you missed it...)
The skirmish modes have tons of options so that you can customize the game to your tastes, and, with various mods, you can extend the replay value indefinitely... which is good since there isn't a system built yet with the power to run this with settings maxed, you'll likely play for quite a while, and then, when you get that new 9950GTXST2SLI4 card, you'll be reinstalling just to see how many particles you can get. And I'd be willing to bet that you'll get hooked again. Back on track though, the skirmish mode has more than enough to keep the game re-playable, even if you don't have that 1337 cable connection, especially with the ability to alter the games AI so much and taylor the game to the playing style you most like... or are challenged most by, it doesn't get boring easily.
The multiplayer is really where it's at, even if I suck to the point of hilarity compared to most people out there. As I said, I'm pretty green with the modern RTS. However, the fact that you can have 3 hour sieges, or quick 45 minute romps is great. They have a built in matchmaking system, clan, ladder, and ranking systems as well, and all of it is free through their service. Of course, that means you'll need to get it out of your system now, before it's down to that select 100 players and they either cancel the service, you find you'll never beat any of them. (Sorry... I just know how proprietary game servers tend to be, once the game's no longer the flavor of the week, the multiplayer goes all to hell...)
Overall, this game is just fun as hell, and I can't get enough of it, and by the looks of things, a lot of people feel the same way. It's one of the few games I consider well worth investing in new (at full price, I mean), and like I said, I don't even like RTS's.
Star Wars: Empire at War
A credit to its license! Rich and immersive, doing so many things right, that little detractions can't kill the fun!
I'm not a fan of the RTS genre. While I loved the Warcraft series, and StarCraft, as well as C&C RA 1 and 2, and I'm currently enamored with Company of Heroes, I really just don't dig the RTS games. It's not them, it's me. I just suck at them. Mostly, I get bored with them when I can't win. Put me in front of most game types, I'll dominate just fine, or at least hold my own. But, for whatever reason, I've never been able to wrap my head around them. However, this game holds something special for me. There's something different about this than, say, Age of Empires. What makes this game special? The Star Wars license.
Now, I'm not a Star Wars nut, but I enjoy the movies. I've loved a lot of the previous Star Wars games, especially X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, to which I devoted a good chunk of my life many years ago. This game doesn't disappoint my appetite for laser blast and Jedi powers. Why all the back story on me? Because it might help you understand where I'm coming from on this thing. I enjoy this game. I can't imagine myself becoming obsessed over it, but it's something I can see myself diving into every now and then for a while. I bought this game out of the bargain bin at an Office Depot for $2.50. I saw it, and remembered the reviews I'd seen were relatively good, and there's a giant Star Wars logo on the front, and a screen shot of Vader leading an army of Storm Troopers across the battlefield, and I thought: it's worth a couple bucks.
For the game itself, it's very well built. Obviously it's a few years old, but I'm amazed at the graphics quality. Everything is spot on, and the most impressive component is the scale. AT-STs tower over the Rebel forces, X-Wings buzz around Reclamaters like Gnats. The effects are truly amazing, explosions bloom brilliantly, and even the simple blaster fire is impressive. The sound is also spot-on. There's something almost familiar and comforting about the sound of an imperial blaster, or the engine of a TIE fighter. You know what it sounds like, and they get them right on every point in this game. In addition to the sound, the voice-a-likes they hired are pretty amazing as well, and there are points that they say things you think must have been cannibalized from one of the films, except the words were never spoken in film.
The game play is great as well. There's so much to do that it's hard to warp your head around. There's a cute little card that comes with the game, although it's less card than thick poster, but it contains the units and the upgrade pathways for both the Rebels and the Imperial Forces. Several hours in, and I've yet to get them all.
The other thing that's great is the multi-layered play style. You get to fight both in planetary land battles and massive space confrontations. You get to build your forces tactically from a Galactic map, and then move from point to point initiating space and sky battles. It's fun to try and keep an eye on all your resources as you build up your Galactic Empire. My only gripe about the maps, though, is that there are a lot of limits imposed on your paths. You don't get to dominate a massive landscape / skyscape, but instead, you get to move through an almost gauntlet like series of corridors. Also, the maps seem to get a little repetitive after a while.
The last thing I'll mention is the brilliant interaction and components. Hero characters give you an edge on the battle field, bring unique abilities to the battles, while each unit has its own pluses and minuses. The fact that they don't include anything that isn't a true Star Wars component, and that it all works together so well, makes it that much more fun. Overall it's a rich and immersive game with no end of fun.
It's definitely Worth Playing.
Coming soon: TMNT, Bridge to Terabithia, and from the 8 films to die for: Unrest (more of those are coming soon too)
Saturday, March 24, 2007
20 PRINT "Hello World!"
So, I've been absent...
I'm so sorry to have you left you all alone. I know that without my guidance, your world seems dark and dreary. But, I'm back, and I hope that you'll be able to recover from your withdrawal quickly.
Where I've been... mostly on a short, Vicodin related drug trip. Really, since the surgery, I've just been a bit loopy. It doesn't mean that I haven't been able to concentrate, no no no. As a matter of fact, I've managed to plunk down a good 4,000 words between a couple of my writing projects, and I got a chance to see Black Snake Moan as well.
Other than that I've been playing a copy of Star Wars: Empire at War, which is a pretty phenomenal game. I only paid $2.50 for it, and I would probably like it a lot less than I do if I'd paid any more than that, really. But the game is fun.
Next, Mike has completed the rough draft for his second Screenplay, working title: The Ghoul Next Door, and is now ready to go back and start working on re-drafting his first screenplay, Ink. He and I have been spending a lot time talking about the various details, the goal is to try and shoot Ink sometime around Summer 2008. There's a lot that will need to get done between now and then, I've been tasked as "Producer" which basically means: I'm the guy what makes the things happen. You can expect to hear more about it as time goes on... especially when we start dropping things on the great interwebs to create that happy buzz small budget movies need to be successful.
On to links and things....
I was so furious when I read this that I was actually shaking.
Rebecca Riley died on December 13th of last year. She was 4. She died of an overdose of prescribed Clonidine, a blood pressure med, Depakote, an anti-seizure "mood stabilizing drug", a cough suppressant, and anti-histamine medicines.
At the age of 2 and a half she was diagnosed with ADD and BiPolar Disorder (formerly manic depression). In this world, ADD has become the catch all diagnosis, because, children don't behave as calmly as most adults. They are constantly active and in motion, and parents don't seem willing to deal with it.
I, like so many other people, have been frustrated with this trend for years now. They diagnosed me with ADD and ADHD when I was a kid, and I was on ritlin for a while, but, even my mother and I recognized after a while that it didn't make any sense.
Diagnosing kids before the age of 10 is ludicrous. Kids haven't developed enough for these kinds of disorders to manifest. It comes down to the parents, because most often, it seems that it isn't the kids that are the problem, but the parents who are lazy.
I was reading another story not too long ago, about a mother of 3, the oldest being 6 years old, who had her kids on various mood enhancers, as well as a prescribed sleeping pill, which put her kids down for 3 hour naps during the day.
3 hour naps? That isn't medicating, that's just lazy parenting.
I had an argument about 2 months ago, I was out with my kids, and a woman nearby had commented on how well behaved they were, then she actually asked what I had them on. I said nothing. She said, oh, you're lucky. She told me her two boys were so wild that she had them diagnosed with ADD and then she rattled off 2 scrips that they were on, and then she proceeded to tell me of their wild actions. They were just being kids. I just rolled my eyes, and she caught it, and asked once. I couldn't hold back. I said, I highly doubt that the problem is in the chemical balance of your boys. She was taken aback, but I wasn't going to let up. I said, you want to know why my daughters are well behaved? I said, I've spent years raising them, I've invested untold hours of my time teaching them and molding them to be polite and respectful. I said, I don't just plunk them down in front the T.V. nanny and go about my life, and if they act up, and yes, they do sometimes act up, I will discipline them. I said, maybe if you weren't expecting your boys to be mini adults instead of children, you might find they better behaved then you think for, and that a little parenting goes a long way.
The woman blinked at me a few times, and started saying that I didn't know how hard-. But I cut her off, I said, I do know how hard it is. I'm a parent, and you could one too if you just tried. Then I collected my daughters with one command and waked away.
It angers me so much that I just have to move on from this.
Rest in Piece young Rebecca, I hope you're in a better place now.
Forbes Explains Why Next Gen Costs Money
Forbes released an article, which discusses, in semi-in depth manner, why it is that NextGen titles will set you back $60 a piece.
It's pretty straight forward, and to me, quite obvious. But, I suppose there are a lot of people out there who don't understand the process of how the things they buy ends up on the shelf for them. I'm sure most of them suspect magic is involved.
Another PC vs. Mac Spoof.
This time, it's Novell that's released those fun little ads to YouTube. In this version the fake PC and Mac are chilling out, but now, there's a new entry, a mildly attractive woman: Linux.
There are two videos on WIRED Blogs, the second one is funny... the first one is not-so-much.
Daily Monsters
Someone over at deviantArt tipped me off to the Daily Monster site. It's nothing more than some interesting looking monster things. At the bottom of the page, there's a nifty video showing the guy drawing one, only really really fast.
The process is pretty nifty, because the guy just splatters some ink in a line across the paper, and then builds from that. The result, however, is quite interesting. It's one of those things that makes you go: Huh, that's neat.
Check it out, he's apparently got a ton of fans who are submitting their own version all the time.
MEMEJET
So, there's a company called Silverbrook. They developed technology that I envisioned many years ago. Basically, it's inkjet technology that borrows from the logic of laser printing by spanning the entire page with nozzles. There's video on their page, as well as the article I read about it.
It's amazing to see, though, some are trying to call it a hoax. It doesn't seem anywhere near being implausible.
The printers are capable of printing A4 (Letter Size anywhere but the U.S.) full color with 20% coverage at over 60 pages per minute for around 6¢ a page, and black at around 2¢. It can print on a plotter 51" wide at 6-12" per second. It can churn out 4x6 photos at over 2 seconds each (or 30ppm).
More amazing is there price estimates. For something that's been in development for over 10 years, you'd expect some hefty costs involved, instead, they are claiming that their A4 printer will retail around $200, and I've already alluded to their cost per page estimates, which means they aren't going to try and supplement their pricing with ink.
It's pretty amazing stuff, the only thing that I don't like is that they are God awful looking, ugly as hell hunks of plastic. Clearly they aren't focused on designing something that's aesthetically pleasing. It will be interesting to see if they keep the current design, or if they end up sending it out to someone for tweaking. Because, as hard as it might be for the average engineer to understand, there's a lot more weight on looks of a product in the buying decision sometimes than in functionality.
"Well, I know it will improve my efficiency by over 500%, but it's so ugly. I'll go with the more expensive one that won't improve anything. It looks so much better."
Alright Jim's here... so I'm done.
I'm so sorry to have you left you all alone. I know that without my guidance, your world seems dark and dreary. But, I'm back, and I hope that you'll be able to recover from your withdrawal quickly.
Where I've been... mostly on a short, Vicodin related drug trip. Really, since the surgery, I've just been a bit loopy. It doesn't mean that I haven't been able to concentrate, no no no. As a matter of fact, I've managed to plunk down a good 4,000 words between a couple of my writing projects, and I got a chance to see Black Snake Moan as well.
Other than that I've been playing a copy of Star Wars: Empire at War, which is a pretty phenomenal game. I only paid $2.50 for it, and I would probably like it a lot less than I do if I'd paid any more than that, really. But the game is fun.
Next, Mike has completed the rough draft for his second Screenplay, working title: The Ghoul Next Door, and is now ready to go back and start working on re-drafting his first screenplay, Ink. He and I have been spending a lot time talking about the various details, the goal is to try and shoot Ink sometime around Summer 2008. There's a lot that will need to get done between now and then, I've been tasked as "Producer" which basically means: I'm the guy what makes the things happen. You can expect to hear more about it as time goes on... especially when we start dropping things on the great interwebs to create that happy buzz small budget movies need to be successful.
On to links and things....
I was so furious when I read this that I was actually shaking.
Rebecca Riley died on December 13th of last year. She was 4. She died of an overdose of prescribed Clonidine, a blood pressure med, Depakote, an anti-seizure "mood stabilizing drug", a cough suppressant, and anti-histamine medicines.
At the age of 2 and a half she was diagnosed with ADD and BiPolar Disorder (formerly manic depression). In this world, ADD has become the catch all diagnosis, because, children don't behave as calmly as most adults. They are constantly active and in motion, and parents don't seem willing to deal with it.
I, like so many other people, have been frustrated with this trend for years now. They diagnosed me with ADD and ADHD when I was a kid, and I was on ritlin for a while, but, even my mother and I recognized after a while that it didn't make any sense.
Diagnosing kids before the age of 10 is ludicrous. Kids haven't developed enough for these kinds of disorders to manifest. It comes down to the parents, because most often, it seems that it isn't the kids that are the problem, but the parents who are lazy.
I was reading another story not too long ago, about a mother of 3, the oldest being 6 years old, who had her kids on various mood enhancers, as well as a prescribed sleeping pill, which put her kids down for 3 hour naps during the day.
3 hour naps? That isn't medicating, that's just lazy parenting.
I had an argument about 2 months ago, I was out with my kids, and a woman nearby had commented on how well behaved they were, then she actually asked what I had them on. I said nothing. She said, oh, you're lucky. She told me her two boys were so wild that she had them diagnosed with ADD and then she rattled off 2 scrips that they were on, and then she proceeded to tell me of their wild actions. They were just being kids. I just rolled my eyes, and she caught it, and asked once. I couldn't hold back. I said, I highly doubt that the problem is in the chemical balance of your boys. She was taken aback, but I wasn't going to let up. I said, you want to know why my daughters are well behaved? I said, I've spent years raising them, I've invested untold hours of my time teaching them and molding them to be polite and respectful. I said, I don't just plunk them down in front the T.V. nanny and go about my life, and if they act up, and yes, they do sometimes act up, I will discipline them. I said, maybe if you weren't expecting your boys to be mini adults instead of children, you might find they better behaved then you think for, and that a little parenting goes a long way.
The woman blinked at me a few times, and started saying that I didn't know how hard-. But I cut her off, I said, I do know how hard it is. I'm a parent, and you could one too if you just tried. Then I collected my daughters with one command and waked away.
It angers me so much that I just have to move on from this.
Rest in Piece young Rebecca, I hope you're in a better place now.
Forbes Explains Why Next Gen Costs Money
Forbes released an article, which discusses, in semi-in depth manner, why it is that NextGen titles will set you back $60 a piece.
It's pretty straight forward, and to me, quite obvious. But, I suppose there are a lot of people out there who don't understand the process of how the things they buy ends up on the shelf for them. I'm sure most of them suspect magic is involved.
Another PC vs. Mac Spoof.
This time, it's Novell that's released those fun little ads to YouTube. In this version the fake PC and Mac are chilling out, but now, there's a new entry, a mildly attractive woman: Linux.
There are two videos on WIRED Blogs, the second one is funny... the first one is not-so-much.
Daily Monsters
Someone over at deviantArt tipped me off to the Daily Monster site. It's nothing more than some interesting looking monster things. At the bottom of the page, there's a nifty video showing the guy drawing one, only really really fast.The process is pretty nifty, because the guy just splatters some ink in a line across the paper, and then builds from that. The result, however, is quite interesting. It's one of those things that makes you go: Huh, that's neat.
Check it out, he's apparently got a ton of fans who are submitting their own version all the time.
MEMEJET
So, there's a company called Silverbrook. They developed technology that I envisioned many years ago. Basically, it's inkjet technology that borrows from the logic of laser printing by spanning the entire page with nozzles. There's video on their page, as well as the article I read about it. It's amazing to see, though, some are trying to call it a hoax. It doesn't seem anywhere near being implausible.
The printers are capable of printing A4 (Letter Size anywhere but the U.S.) full color with 20% coverage at over 60 pages per minute for around 6¢ a page, and black at around 2¢. It can print on a plotter 51" wide at 6-12" per second. It can churn out 4x6 photos at over 2 seconds each (or 30ppm).
More amazing is there price estimates. For something that's been in development for over 10 years, you'd expect some hefty costs involved, instead, they are claiming that their A4 printer will retail around $200, and I've already alluded to their cost per page estimates, which means they aren't going to try and supplement their pricing with ink.
It's pretty amazing stuff, the only thing that I don't like is that they are God awful looking, ugly as hell hunks of plastic. Clearly they aren't focused on designing something that's aesthetically pleasing. It will be interesting to see if they keep the current design, or if they end up sending it out to someone for tweaking. Because, as hard as it might be for the average engineer to understand, there's a lot more weight on looks of a product in the buying decision sometimes than in functionality.
"Well, I know it will improve my efficiency by over 500%, but it's so ugly. I'll go with the more expensive one that won't improve anything. It looks so much better."
Alright Jim's here... so I'm done.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
A Festival of Light and Sound!
No...
Not, really, this is actually going to be a post of things that haven't quite made it into my blog. Some of these I've had for a while... now I'm just going to regurgitate them.
A Protective Force Field for your PS3!
Apparently, dust is evil, as is cigarette smoke! Now, they've made a dust/smoke shield for the PS3. At first blush, I thought this seemed silly, but, after thinking about it, it's actually a pretty brilliant idea.
I've actually cracked open my XBox and Gamecubes, as well as my old PSX and every Nintendo system I've ever owned at some point or another and cleaned out the dust at some point. If I'd had something like this, it would have saved me the trouble. Of course, being the geek that I am, I actually really enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together, so, perhaps I would have lost out in that.
Anyway, it's kind of neat, and only $20 or so with shipping. Although, it doesn't release until April, so, you'll have to try and hold out until then. There's a ton of silly add-ons for your PS3, XBox 360, and Wii all over the interwebs.
Snoughnuts?
This is not something I would call news... but, it's interesting anyway. Apparently this is more common that you'd think. It's much like a snowball, but, more doughnut like. The Seattle Times website has a surprisingly long article all about them.
Talking Urinal Cakes? Minnesota is a splendid place to live!
The Star Tribune, Minneapolis' premiere newspaper, has a special recording of new speaking urinal cakes on their site. Apparently it's an effort from MNDoPS, they distributed out about 100 them to various venues for St. Patrick's Day. A woman's voice speaks to you, while you deluge the cake with urine, saying, "Hey there, big guy!" She urges you to get a ride if you've been drinking, and then reminds you that "...you're future is in your hand."
My penis?
Huh.
Mozilla Desktop Environment
So, the folks over at the mozilla.dev.planning list have been discussing a building a Mozilla based Desktop Environment for Linux, similar to KDE or Gnome, but based around the Mozilla Project, the great people that have brought us FireFox and Thunderbird. They would have a lot of work to do, such as implementing a file browser in FireFox, but, I can imagine that this would be wildly successful if implemented correctly.
The beauty of this would be the fact that they could package it as a distribution, being able to pick whatever kernel they'd like. They've already got a great programming language: XUL, which is the XML User Interface Language.
I'm going to be keeping an eye on this, I hope they can pull it off!
Rear Window v.5
Disturbia, a new movie starring no one of interest, and directed by no one of interest, seems to be taking liberty, yet again, with Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Of course, it's been updated to reflect our current world. Instead of the great Jimmy Stewart sitting in his apartment with a broken leg and a pair of binoculars who witnesses a crime. It's a handsome teenager under house arrest with a pair of binoculars who witnesses a crime.
Congratulations, whoever you are, you just plagiarized a great man! Genius! No one will notice!
Old, but funny list!
From the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational, circa 2005.
There's a slew of great comment entries on that page, too, well worth checking out.
Stupid Funny: Tilted Room!
Another Oddly Addiction Game
It's called Boomshine. It's very simplistic, but a lot of fun. Basically, you have to 'ignite' colored dots, causing them to explode, and take out as many other dots as possible. You have a goal in each level to get a certain number of the total. So far my best score is 284, which I though was pretty darned good... until I saw the high score list, where there are people with numbers that don't even seem possible.
Enjoy!
Stan Lee Media Sues Marvel: $5B
This is the kind of story that just sickens me. Stan Lee Media, a defunct dot com from the 90's, which was originally found by Stan Lee and Marvel as a web presence for their heroes, died many many years ago. Since then, apparently, one man has brought it back from the dead, and is trying to make good on a contract agreement that gives them the rights of co-ownership of the main Marvel heroes pantheon. Now, they are suing Marvel for $5 BILLION.
It's twisted, it probably won' work, but it if it does... it's genius.
Stan Lee is upset about the whole thing too. Even though his name's on the company, he hasn't got a damn thing to do with it anymore.
Read the whole article here.
Run Vista legally without Activation?
It was reported about a month ago that you could skip the activation feature in Windows Vista up to 3 times using the SkipRearm method. When you install Windows Vista, you are given 30 days to activate, if you use the SkipRearm method, it will give you another 30 days. If you do this three times, you will get 120 days worth of activation free use. This is a feature that was included in Windows to help businesses and customers that were not in a position to activate their copy of Windows.
Now, it seems that the same people have discovered that you can actually use this method for at least a year... possibly indefinitely.
Microsoft is upset, calling it a "hack", and an "exploit." This is hilarious because it's a documented feature they've included.
Nerdery abounds.
NSFW Photo Spread...
Yep, this is a page filled with Bikinis that are as small as possible... I doubt anyone could get away with wearing them in public... but, I'll be damned if the photos aren't fap worthy...
Energy Fiend
A website filled with ridiculously detailed information about caffeine related food and drink... I was most intrigued by the "Kill Me" button on this page, at least, how easily I was willing to click on anything that says, "Kill Me".
THAT'S IT!
And, hopefully it's enough for today...
Lata!
Not, really, this is actually going to be a post of things that haven't quite made it into my blog. Some of these I've had for a while... now I'm just going to regurgitate them.
A Protective Force Field for your PS3!
Apparently, dust is evil, as is cigarette smoke! Now, they've made a dust/smoke shield for the PS3. At first blush, I thought this seemed silly, but, after thinking about it, it's actually a pretty brilliant idea. I've actually cracked open my XBox and Gamecubes, as well as my old PSX and every Nintendo system I've ever owned at some point or another and cleaned out the dust at some point. If I'd had something like this, it would have saved me the trouble. Of course, being the geek that I am, I actually really enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together, so, perhaps I would have lost out in that.
Anyway, it's kind of neat, and only $20 or so with shipping. Although, it doesn't release until April, so, you'll have to try and hold out until then. There's a ton of silly add-ons for your PS3, XBox 360, and Wii all over the interwebs.
Snoughnuts?
This is not something I would call news... but, it's interesting anyway. Apparently this is more common that you'd think. It's much like a snowball, but, more doughnut like. The Seattle Times website has a surprisingly long article all about them. "This is no joke. We did not build it," said Mike Stanford, an avalanche-control expert with the state Department of Transportation (WSDOT). "They are a natural occurrence in nature."
Talking Urinal Cakes? Minnesota is a splendid place to live!
The Star Tribune, Minneapolis' premiere newspaper, has a special recording of new speaking urinal cakes on their site. Apparently it's an effort from MNDoPS, they distributed out about 100 them to various venues for St. Patrick's Day. A woman's voice speaks to you, while you deluge the cake with urine, saying, "Hey there, big guy!" She urges you to get a ride if you've been drinking, and then reminds you that "...you're future is in your hand."
My penis?
Huh.
Mozilla Desktop Environment
So, the folks over at the mozilla.dev.planning list have been discussing a building a Mozilla based Desktop Environment for Linux, similar to KDE or Gnome, but based around the Mozilla Project, the great people that have brought us FireFox and Thunderbird. They would have a lot of work to do, such as implementing a file browser in FireFox, but, I can imagine that this would be wildly successful if implemented correctly.
The beauty of this would be the fact that they could package it as a distribution, being able to pick whatever kernel they'd like. They've already got a great programming language: XUL, which is the XML User Interface Language.
I'm going to be keeping an eye on this, I hope they can pull it off!
Rear Window v.5
Disturbia, a new movie starring no one of interest, and directed by no one of interest, seems to be taking liberty, yet again, with Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Of course, it's been updated to reflect our current world. Instead of the great Jimmy Stewart sitting in his apartment with a broken leg and a pair of binoculars who witnesses a crime. It's a handsome teenager under house arrest with a pair of binoculars who witnesses a crime.
Congratulations, whoever you are, you just plagiarized a great man! Genius! No one will notice!
Old, but funny list!
From the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational, circa 2005.
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the
subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until
you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
12. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day
consuming only things that are good for you.
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after
you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
There's a slew of great comment entries on that page, too, well worth checking out.
Stupid Funny: Tilted Room!
Another Oddly Addiction Game
It's called Boomshine. It's very simplistic, but a lot of fun. Basically, you have to 'ignite' colored dots, causing them to explode, and take out as many other dots as possible. You have a goal in each level to get a certain number of the total. So far my best score is 284, which I though was pretty darned good... until I saw the high score list, where there are people with numbers that don't even seem possible.
Enjoy!
Stan Lee Media Sues Marvel: $5B
This is the kind of story that just sickens me. Stan Lee Media, a defunct dot com from the 90's, which was originally found by Stan Lee and Marvel as a web presence for their heroes, died many many years ago. Since then, apparently, one man has brought it back from the dead, and is trying to make good on a contract agreement that gives them the rights of co-ownership of the main Marvel heroes pantheon. Now, they are suing Marvel for $5 BILLION.
It's twisted, it probably won' work, but it if it does... it's genius.
Stan Lee is upset about the whole thing too. Even though his name's on the company, he hasn't got a damn thing to do with it anymore.
Read the whole article here.
Run Vista legally without Activation?
It was reported about a month ago that you could skip the activation feature in Windows Vista up to 3 times using the SkipRearm method. When you install Windows Vista, you are given 30 days to activate, if you use the SkipRearm method, it will give you another 30 days. If you do this three times, you will get 120 days worth of activation free use. This is a feature that was included in Windows to help businesses and customers that were not in a position to activate their copy of Windows.
Now, it seems that the same people have discovered that you can actually use this method for at least a year... possibly indefinitely.
Microsoft is upset, calling it a "hack", and an "exploit." This is hilarious because it's a documented feature they've included.
Nerdery abounds.
NSFW Photo Spread...
Yep, this is a page filled with Bikinis that are as small as possible... I doubt anyone could get away with wearing them in public... but, I'll be damned if the photos aren't fap worthy...
Energy Fiend
A website filled with ridiculously detailed information about caffeine related food and drink... I was most intrigued by the "Kill Me" button on this page, at least, how easily I was willing to click on anything that says, "Kill Me".
THAT'S IT!
And, hopefully it's enough for today...
Lata!
I'm not yet a Zombie...
No matter how much you might have wanted it.
As mentioned previously, I've been having a bit of an issue with my wisdom teeth coming in. Today I had surgery to remove the problems...
I went in at 11:30am, it was just outside Downtown St. Paul, so, I got lost at first. I used to live about 10 miles from there, but it doesn't matter, I can never find my way around that city. Minneapolis is fine, I grew up enough in Mpls. that I can generally find my way around Downtown just fine, but put me in St. Paul and I get all turned around. Anyway, I made it there pretty much unscathed.
I filled out the forms they make you fill out every time you go to a new office. It's not that big of a deal, but, when you've filled out the same forms over and over with different headers and footers, it gets a little old. I sometimes think I should just make my own forms to bring with me, and then just make them fill it out themselves. "No, I've got more, everything you need is there, fill it out when you have time."
Because they planned to put me under, I wasn't allowed to eat or drink for 6 hours before. The dentist I was referred by told me this, but failed to mention that I would need someone to drive me home. Of course, I knew this, so I was fine, but it was funny to hear all the people who were completely blind sided by it, "What, I was just knocked out with a powerful anesthetic and now I'm not supposed to drive?"
So, I go into the office, where I have a bit of a Q & A session with one of the techs. As I go, I realize that this doctor has a freaking oral surgical assembly line thing going on. He has 8 rooms set up, and his appointments are staggered by about 15-30 min. He just moves from room to room doing surgery from 8 AM to 1:30 PM, then, I assume he goes home and swims through his mountains of cash.
The surgical tech asks questions, to which I reply. Things about my high blood pressure. At one point my incredible libido comes up. I explain my stalwart resistance to anesthesia.
After all of this, she leaves for a moment, and then comes back with the surgical tray and a giant bib for me. About 1 minute later the doctor comes in. He doesn't look at me, but asks the 2 techs, one of which walked in with him, what he's there to do. They tell him they're pulling 3 teeth. He looks at the X-Rays hanging behind me, and then asks me, "How old are you?" He pauses for about half a second and realizes I don't know who he is, he then says, "I'm sorry, Stephen. Dr. Mittling. How old are you?"
That's it exactly, he speaks as if he's a third party who's introducing two people in a semi-formal setting.
I answer, 26, and he says, no, we're taking two teeth, the wisdom tooth can stay, and it will likely shift into a better position once we get the infected one out.
I say, "Ok."
He walks over to the tray, and grabs an I.V. serenge, and one of techs wraps a rubber strap around my arm. The surgeon, he says, "Make a tight fist for me, you might feel a pinch. Good, now relax your hand."
He administers some of the liquid, then reaches over to the tray with one hand and grabs a black foam rubber block, he tells me to open my mouth wide, and then to bite down on the things he's just shoved into my face.
Then the first surgical tech is saying, "Time to wake up. Here, get into this chair." Which, I do, and she says, "You did good. It went well."
What I'm thinking is: are we gonna do the surgery yet?
She pushes me into a little room with plastic beds like those in a school nurses office, and helps me to lay down. I feel heavier than usual. I roll over onto my side, and taste evil in my mouth. I try to roll over the other way, and a guy in the little cubby hole of a room, apparently a little further on in his recovery, lunges forward to keep me from falling onto the floor.
About half an hour later, I've paid my down payment, received my scrip for Vicodin and I'm on my way home.
Now, the upper whole that once housed a tooth is throbbing, my whole jaw feels like I've just been in a rough fist fight, even with the Vicodin, and I need to keep gauze in my mouth to catch the oozing blood... which is really uncomfortable.
At least I didn't die and join the ranks of the undead.
Only one link... for now.
The Russkies have über boots!
These boots are in the news again. Gas power boots that can give you up to a twelve foot stride, propelling you, on foot, at up to 25 m.p.h.
Neat.
YouTube video from the first link:
WOOO!
As mentioned previously, I've been having a bit of an issue with my wisdom teeth coming in. Today I had surgery to remove the problems...
I went in at 11:30am, it was just outside Downtown St. Paul, so, I got lost at first. I used to live about 10 miles from there, but it doesn't matter, I can never find my way around that city. Minneapolis is fine, I grew up enough in Mpls. that I can generally find my way around Downtown just fine, but put me in St. Paul and I get all turned around. Anyway, I made it there pretty much unscathed.
I filled out the forms they make you fill out every time you go to a new office. It's not that big of a deal, but, when you've filled out the same forms over and over with different headers and footers, it gets a little old. I sometimes think I should just make my own forms to bring with me, and then just make them fill it out themselves. "No, I've got more, everything you need is there, fill it out when you have time."
Because they planned to put me under, I wasn't allowed to eat or drink for 6 hours before. The dentist I was referred by told me this, but failed to mention that I would need someone to drive me home. Of course, I knew this, so I was fine, but it was funny to hear all the people who were completely blind sided by it, "What, I was just knocked out with a powerful anesthetic and now I'm not supposed to drive?"
So, I go into the office, where I have a bit of a Q & A session with one of the techs. As I go, I realize that this doctor has a freaking oral surgical assembly line thing going on. He has 8 rooms set up, and his appointments are staggered by about 15-30 min. He just moves from room to room doing surgery from 8 AM to 1:30 PM, then, I assume he goes home and swims through his mountains of cash.
The surgical tech asks questions, to which I reply. Things about my high blood pressure. At one point my incredible libido comes up. I explain my stalwart resistance to anesthesia.
After all of this, she leaves for a moment, and then comes back with the surgical tray and a giant bib for me. About 1 minute later the doctor comes in. He doesn't look at me, but asks the 2 techs, one of which walked in with him, what he's there to do. They tell him they're pulling 3 teeth. He looks at the X-Rays hanging behind me, and then asks me, "How old are you?" He pauses for about half a second and realizes I don't know who he is, he then says, "I'm sorry, Stephen. Dr. Mittling. How old are you?"
That's it exactly, he speaks as if he's a third party who's introducing two people in a semi-formal setting.
I answer, 26, and he says, no, we're taking two teeth, the wisdom tooth can stay, and it will likely shift into a better position once we get the infected one out.
I say, "Ok."
He walks over to the tray, and grabs an I.V. serenge, and one of techs wraps a rubber strap around my arm. The surgeon, he says, "Make a tight fist for me, you might feel a pinch. Good, now relax your hand."
He administers some of the liquid, then reaches over to the tray with one hand and grabs a black foam rubber block, he tells me to open my mouth wide, and then to bite down on the things he's just shoved into my face.
Then the first surgical tech is saying, "Time to wake up. Here, get into this chair." Which, I do, and she says, "You did good. It went well."
What I'm thinking is: are we gonna do the surgery yet?
She pushes me into a little room with plastic beds like those in a school nurses office, and helps me to lay down. I feel heavier than usual. I roll over onto my side, and taste evil in my mouth. I try to roll over the other way, and a guy in the little cubby hole of a room, apparently a little further on in his recovery, lunges forward to keep me from falling onto the floor.
About half an hour later, I've paid my down payment, received my scrip for Vicodin and I'm on my way home.
Now, the upper whole that once housed a tooth is throbbing, my whole jaw feels like I've just been in a rough fist fight, even with the Vicodin, and I need to keep gauze in my mouth to catch the oozing blood... which is really uncomfortable.
At least I didn't die and join the ranks of the undead.
Only one link... for now.
The Russkies have über boots!
These boots are in the news again. Gas power boots that can give you up to a twelve foot stride, propelling you, on foot, at up to 25 m.p.h.
Neat.
YouTube video from the first link:
WOOO!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Mostly about Commodore.... but, there's some racial stuff too.
Commodore's Back Baby!!
Wow!
I recently mentioned an article which stated that Commodore was coming back with new gaming machines...
This news was pretty cool. But now that I see what they're doing... I'm just impressed. Of course I'm a little biased, because Commodore is a name from my youth, and to see the company getting updated hardware and focusing heavily on current technology for gaming... it just feels right!
Europe's largest tech show, CeBIT, not unlike our CES, just took place. Commodore was there showing off their new machines, and according to what I've read, it was a jaw dropping experience.
I've never been a big fan of OEM PCs. The biggest reason is the amount of Spyware and Malware that comes bundled out of the box, not to mention the trialware and insertcreditcardnumberheretokeepmachinerunningware. PC manufacturers generally subsidize the cost of building machines by getting kickbacks from various software vendors for bundling their code in their machines. I understand the reasons why Dell, HP, and Companies like them do this: it's a cutthroat business with limited profit margins. They buy parts from the lowest bidders, and are not interested in give the end user the best performance. In all honesty, though, the machines you buy from your local retailer still have enough performance to do the basic stuff.
Worse, is that the cost of gaming machines from companies like Alienware (Dell now), and WidowPC is astronomical. The reason behind this is the better components, and less of that terrible software pre-installed. Gamers want power, and these companies are able to capitalize on that. And, they do provide something that the average user who would build their own wouldn't get: Support. Maybe it's outsourced to India, maybe there'll be a 3 month turnaround on repairs, but, you have some level of piece of mind you wouldn't get otherwise.
Commodore is entering into this world. The competitive world of gaming machines. But, they have something that none of the other companies have: brand recognition.
If you think about it, most people in their target demographic will likely remember the lofty heights to which their own machines were held. They were the pinnacle, at the time. Most kids at least knew someone with a C64, and if they were lucky enough to own one themselves, they knew they were on the cutting edge. Now, those kids are likely part of the working world, going around voting with their dollars. I imagine that those votes will be cast in the direction of Commodore's new offering, much like the new TMNT movie. In addition, the Amiga, one of the Commodore brands, has managed to keep a cult following, the Amiga OS just recently got ANOTHER upgrade, and is still catering to those people that love the brand.
So far, pricing is unknown, but I imagine the costs will be high. Apple high. According to their website, they'll be releasing machines with 2 letter codes: the XX, GX, GS, and G. The top of the line XX will be a Core 2 Quad with SLI'd Dual nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX's and 4GB of Corsair Ram, although, it's supposed to be customizable. The basic G system will be a lower end Core 2 Duo with 2GB of ram and an nVidia GeForce 7900 GS, which is still plenty of performance for most games these days (that setup is similar to what I'm running, and trust me, I do fine).
Adding to the joy that is Commodore power is the C-Kin case system. A set of interchangeable panels, and not cheap ones either, are going to be offered with their machines. There are TONS of options, and I imagine that, as your interest in a game wanes, and is supplanted with new hotness, you'll be able to order new panels to match your taste. There are several Commodore Classic designs, a plethora of Game designs, graffiti tag designs, art photographs and landscapes, as well as a slew of (not so plain) colours. Seriously, the options are actually almost inundating.
Thus far, it appears that these machines will be limited to europe... at least for the moment, and pricing has not been announced, but, I'm not too worried about that. I wouldn't, and couldn't buy one in the foreseeable future anyway. It's just great to see old brands making good moves.
In other commodore news, they are trying to saturate the market, it seems. They'll be releasing a series of devices they call 'Gravels'. There's portable media players with WiFi and Cameras, called Gravel in Pocket and Gravel Personal, and a GPS navigator, called Gravel in Car. All seem to have a really intuitive navigation schema by putting a joystick on the back, where your fingers rest. Why didn't anyone else think of that? (Besides me...) It looks like they'll be sparing no one in this new push for success. I just hope it pans out for them, I'd hate to see another name fall into obscurity again.
In other news: Searchles!
It's funny to me that I hadn't heard of Searchles, a really amazing social search engine, until I read an article about Sony's video site, Grouper, which I'd also never seen before.
What's interesting about Searchles is that they've got a new feature called "Searchles TV", which allows you to embed a mash-up of videos into one player which can then be embedded into your Blogger, MySpace, or personal website. The videos, though, don't come from one source, but can actually come from Google Video, YouTube, MySpace Video, Grouper, and a few others. It's also dynamic, so that whatever you add to your channel on the Searchles sites, automatically propagates out to wherever you've embedded your video.
It's interesting... I just don't have time to fuck with it. Maybe you do.
Tar Baby!
On Friday, Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator John McCain used the term "Tar-Baby", and immediately knew he'd made a mistake. I'm not a fan of McCain, he's always contradicting himself and making horrible flubs. He can't seem to think on his feet. There's no shortage of people who don't like him. The problem is, he used the term correctly. Seriously, it was originally used to describe a spade of tar used on ships in the 19th century, it was hella messy if handled incorrectly.
What he said was:
Now, people generally associate the term "tar baby" to being a derogatory term for African Americans, such as Nigger, Porch Monkey, Coon, and the like.
Now, what he was referring to was this, the lovable (and banned) Disney character, who is sticky and causes no end of trouble for the poor Br'er (brother) Rabbit. It's an old story, very old, passed down for years and years until Disney turned it into part of Song of the South. The Uncle Remus stories that it's based on, are basically African American folklore and oral storytelling, which were written in the mid-1800's and were revolutionary for their time. Now, however, they're racist.
This is one of those frustrating things. Black people used to tell these stories. They are derived from even older African tales of characters like the trickster Anansi. They used to use these words and talk about these things, it's part of their culture. Just as much TuPac as rapping about "coming up", and "shootin' da nigga", or Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream".
It's a sad world where we can't talk about this stuff in an open forum. Why is racism a problem? Because no one can let it go. Innocuous comments like this, which aren't meant to be derogatory, become huge issues. Now, if he'd said this while wearing a white sheet... perhaps then I might be convinced of it's negativity. But, seriously, I'm more racially offended by Coca-Cola's portrayal of Black people drinking their products on some of their more recent commercials. Everyone knows they don't drink Coke, just Orange Soda.
Seriously, though, the problem remains that we still insist on seeing color. And that will never change, but until we can embrace the fact that each of us has a unique culture, and that there is always going to be differences, we'll never truly be able to move forward, together.
Now, as I looked around at the various bits of info for Br'er Rabbit, and Song of the South, I did come across a couple of videos that I think are somewhat funny... well, sorta. They are 'banned' from regular view due to their 'questionable' content.
The first is Popeye in "You're a sap, Mr. Jap". Clearly, this is Max Fleischer and Kings Feature's way of showing support for the war effort (WWII). Obviously, a dark part in our history was rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them into internment camps for fear on an on-soil attack. And, just as clearly, what we have is a very racially biased video. It wasn't the first time "orientals" were portrayed in this way...
The next video, however, is quite a bit darker. Disney's "Education for Death". It is somewhat disturbing to watch, but, it's also very interestingly artistic. It's obvious why this one has been 'banned' from general viewing. Disney has had a lot of bizarre allegations alleged against him from being communist, to a Nazi sympathizer, and of course, there are the rumors that he's been cryogenically frozen, and his body is interned at Disneyland, awaiting the day that there's a cure for lung cancer. There are equally strange allegations against the old Eisner as well... but, that's neither here nor there.
The mood on this blog may have dropped slightly...
So, check out Wedding Thriller
If ever I bother to get married again... I might have to do something like this. Though, perhaps instead I'll have use do a scene from West Side Story.
Funnier still is... Indian Thriller! (Dot, not feather)
And this is just hilarious...
Wow!
I recently mentioned an article which stated that Commodore was coming back with new gaming machines...
This news was pretty cool. But now that I see what they're doing... I'm just impressed. Of course I'm a little biased, because Commodore is a name from my youth, and to see the company getting updated hardware and focusing heavily on current technology for gaming... it just feels right!
Europe's largest tech show, CeBIT, not unlike our CES, just took place. Commodore was there showing off their new machines, and according to what I've read, it was a jaw dropping experience.
I've never been a big fan of OEM PCs. The biggest reason is the amount of Spyware and Malware that comes bundled out of the box, not to mention the trialware and insertcreditcardnumberheretokeepmachinerunningware. PC manufacturers generally subsidize the cost of building machines by getting kickbacks from various software vendors for bundling their code in their machines. I understand the reasons why Dell, HP, and Companies like them do this: it's a cutthroat business with limited profit margins. They buy parts from the lowest bidders, and are not interested in give the end user the best performance. In all honesty, though, the machines you buy from your local retailer still have enough performance to do the basic stuff.
Worse, is that the cost of gaming machines from companies like Alienware (Dell now), and WidowPC is astronomical. The reason behind this is the better components, and less of that terrible software pre-installed. Gamers want power, and these companies are able to capitalize on that. And, they do provide something that the average user who would build their own wouldn't get: Support. Maybe it's outsourced to India, maybe there'll be a 3 month turnaround on repairs, but, you have some level of piece of mind you wouldn't get otherwise.
Commodore is entering into this world. The competitive world of gaming machines. But, they have something that none of the other companies have: brand recognition.
If you think about it, most people in their target demographic will likely remember the lofty heights to which their own machines were held. They were the pinnacle, at the time. Most kids at least knew someone with a C64, and if they were lucky enough to own one themselves, they knew they were on the cutting edge. Now, those kids are likely part of the working world, going around voting with their dollars. I imagine that those votes will be cast in the direction of Commodore's new offering, much like the new TMNT movie. In addition, the Amiga, one of the Commodore brands, has managed to keep a cult following, the Amiga OS just recently got ANOTHER upgrade, and is still catering to those people that love the brand.
So far, pricing is unknown, but I imagine the costs will be high. Apple high. According to their website, they'll be releasing machines with 2 letter codes: the XX, GX, GS, and G. The top of the line XX will be a Core 2 Quad with SLI'd Dual nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX's and 4GB of Corsair Ram, although, it's supposed to be customizable. The basic G system will be a lower end Core 2 Duo with 2GB of ram and an nVidia GeForce 7900 GS, which is still plenty of performance for most games these days (that setup is similar to what I'm running, and trust me, I do fine).
Adding to the joy that is Commodore power is the C-Kin case system. A set of interchangeable panels, and not cheap ones either, are going to be offered with their machines. There are TONS of options, and I imagine that, as your interest in a game wanes, and is supplanted with new hotness, you'll be able to order new panels to match your taste. There are several Commodore Classic designs, a plethora of Game designs, graffiti tag designs, art photographs and landscapes, as well as a slew of (not so plain) colours. Seriously, the options are actually almost inundating.
Thus far, it appears that these machines will be limited to europe... at least for the moment, and pricing has not been announced, but, I'm not too worried about that. I wouldn't, and couldn't buy one in the foreseeable future anyway. It's just great to see old brands making good moves.
In other commodore news, they are trying to saturate the market, it seems. They'll be releasing a series of devices they call 'Gravels'. There's portable media players with WiFi and Cameras, called Gravel in Pocket and Gravel Personal, and a GPS navigator, called Gravel in Car. All seem to have a really intuitive navigation schema by putting a joystick on the back, where your fingers rest. Why didn't anyone else think of that? (Besides me...) It looks like they'll be sparing no one in this new push for success. I just hope it pans out for them, I'd hate to see another name fall into obscurity again.
In other news: Searchles!
It's funny to me that I hadn't heard of Searchles, a really amazing social search engine, until I read an article about Sony's video site, Grouper, which I'd also never seen before.
What's interesting about Searchles is that they've got a new feature called "Searchles TV", which allows you to embed a mash-up of videos into one player which can then be embedded into your Blogger, MySpace, or personal website. The videos, though, don't come from one source, but can actually come from Google Video, YouTube, MySpace Video, Grouper, and a few others. It's also dynamic, so that whatever you add to your channel on the Searchles sites, automatically propagates out to wherever you've embedded your video.
It's interesting... I just don't have time to fuck with it. Maybe you do.
Tar Baby!
On Friday, Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator John McCain used the term "Tar-Baby", and immediately knew he'd made a mistake. I'm not a fan of McCain, he's always contradicting himself and making horrible flubs. He can't seem to think on his feet. There's no shortage of people who don't like him. The problem is, he used the term correctly. Seriously, it was originally used to describe a spade of tar used on ships in the 19th century, it was hella messy if handled incorrectly.
What he said was:
"For me to stand here and … say I'm going to declare divorces invalid because of someone who feels they weren't treated fairly in court, we are getting into a tar baby of enormous proportions and I don't know how you get out of that."
Now, people generally associate the term "tar baby" to being a derogatory term for African Americans, such as Nigger, Porch Monkey, Coon, and the like.
Now, what he was referring to was this, the lovable (and banned) Disney character, who is sticky and causes no end of trouble for the poor Br'er (brother) Rabbit. It's an old story, very old, passed down for years and years until Disney turned it into part of Song of the South. The Uncle Remus stories that it's based on, are basically African American folklore and oral storytelling, which were written in the mid-1800's and were revolutionary for their time. Now, however, they're racist.This is one of those frustrating things. Black people used to tell these stories. They are derived from even older African tales of characters like the trickster Anansi. They used to use these words and talk about these things, it's part of their culture. Just as much TuPac as rapping about "coming up", and "shootin' da nigga", or Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream". It's a sad world where we can't talk about this stuff in an open forum. Why is racism a problem? Because no one can let it go. Innocuous comments like this, which aren't meant to be derogatory, become huge issues. Now, if he'd said this while wearing a white sheet... perhaps then I might be convinced of it's negativity. But, seriously, I'm more racially offended by Coca-Cola's portrayal of Black people drinking their products on some of their more recent commercials. Everyone knows they don't drink Coke, just Orange Soda.
Seriously, though, the problem remains that we still insist on seeing color. And that will never change, but until we can embrace the fact that each of us has a unique culture, and that there is always going to be differences, we'll never truly be able to move forward, together.
Now, as I looked around at the various bits of info for Br'er Rabbit, and Song of the South, I did come across a couple of videos that I think are somewhat funny... well, sorta. They are 'banned' from regular view due to their 'questionable' content.
The first is Popeye in "You're a sap, Mr. Jap". Clearly, this is Max Fleischer and Kings Feature's way of showing support for the war effort (WWII). Obviously, a dark part in our history was rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them into internment camps for fear on an on-soil attack. And, just as clearly, what we have is a very racially biased video. It wasn't the first time "orientals" were portrayed in this way...
The next video, however, is quite a bit darker. Disney's "Education for Death". It is somewhat disturbing to watch, but, it's also very interestingly artistic. It's obvious why this one has been 'banned' from general viewing. Disney has had a lot of bizarre allegations alleged against him from being communist, to a Nazi sympathizer, and of course, there are the rumors that he's been cryogenically frozen, and his body is interned at Disneyland, awaiting the day that there's a cure for lung cancer. There are equally strange allegations against the old Eisner as well... but, that's neither here nor there.
The mood on this blog may have dropped slightly...
So, check out Wedding Thriller
If ever I bother to get married again... I might have to do something like this. Though, perhaps instead I'll have use do a scene from West Side Story.
Funnier still is... Indian Thriller! (Dot, not feather)
And this is just hilarious...
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I'm on Vicodin!!!
Oh God... I wish I were dead...
This, right here, is the X-Ray of my upper right molars, specifically 1-4. What you'll see is that I have my upper right wisdom tooth absolutely destroying my already terrible molar. I've had bad teeth in the back since I was in high school. For various reasons, I've not really taken care of problems as they've arisen in the back there since the mid-90's.
Now, I've always taken decent enough care of my mouth, brushing twice a day, etc.. but, when I was younger, poor hygiene, and what I think might have been a greedy dental practitioner led to several fillings in the back teeth. The front have always been fine, although somewhat yellowed from too much coca-cola, coffee, and eventually smoking.
When I was in high school, I was told I needed a root canal. I don't remember experiencing a lot of pain until after the procedure was done, then the filling immediately came out and there was a ton of pain. They re-performed, but since then, I've more or less sworn off dentists. Relying instead on better hygiene and Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and Aspirin.
The lower wisdom teeth came in years ago, both breaking apart the teeth in front of them. The upper left came in about two months ago, with very little fan fare. I just sort of noticed one day that there was a tooth where gum had been.
This one, however, has been troubling me for about as long, and it's been absolute murder. I haven't slept now in three days, and yesterday I actually passed out at work from the pain.
Going to the dentist today, I was informed that I need to have both of those teeth surgically removed.
Surgery is scheduled for Monday at 11:45 AM in St. Paul.
Wish me luck. Oh, and feel free to donate money to me, because I have NO IDEA how I'm going to pay for this.
The good news is that my teeth up front still look just fine. And that's all that matters, right?
Rant
No, actually, it's not me that's ranting. Instead, and I'm not sure how he snuck it out on me, but, Chuck Palahniuk's new book, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey, comes out on March 1st! I can't believe that I didn't know about this sooner. I was anticipating Haunted, his last novel, forever. Literally from the dawn of time I waited for it.
Rant seems to be written in an interview format. The couple of pre-reviews I've read so far seem positive, but even if they'd said it sucked, I still would read it. Chuck's work is amazing!
Anyway, checking out Chuck's Website, I also saw info on a book written through his Writer's Workshop: Monica Drake's Clown Girl. It seems to be about some sort of strange clown chick, and her struggles with life, or something. I read the first few pages on Amazon, and it's pretty good so far. It has a real Chuck feel, which might be why he's given writing credit... so I'll likely pick that up soon as well.
If you've never read his work, or are like me and just can't get enough of the guy, you can check out a short story he had published in the magazine Viceland called "Mister Elegant". It's not exactly his greatest work, but it gives you a decent feel for his work. He's the mastermind behind Fight Club, which was actually a book before it was a movie.
LED Throwies
I absolutely must make a million of these!
I don't' know if you're familiar with instrucables.com, but, in the vein of many howto sites, like wikihow.com, the content of which come solely from it's users, though, instructables is much more stylish. It's filled with a ton of useless shit and a few really interesting bits.
One of those interesting bits is LED Throwies, as seen on the right. It's amazing. I must do it... MUST DO IT!!!
Wow, you think the Vicodin is making me loopy?
Heeeere FISHY FISHY FISHY!!!
Rare memories of joy from my youth... good times.
The Onion's new ploy for illiteracy in America.
Yep, they're promoting it. Why read the magazine that used to be really funny... when you can watch it and just let it happen at you...
Maybe they'll have edgy new material...
no, they won't.
I need to go lay down...
bye.
This, right here, is the X-Ray of my upper right molars, specifically 1-4. What you'll see is that I have my upper right wisdom tooth absolutely destroying my already terrible molar. I've had bad teeth in the back since I was in high school. For various reasons, I've not really taken care of problems as they've arisen in the back there since the mid-90's.Now, I've always taken decent enough care of my mouth, brushing twice a day, etc.. but, when I was younger, poor hygiene, and what I think might have been a greedy dental practitioner led to several fillings in the back teeth. The front have always been fine, although somewhat yellowed from too much coca-cola, coffee, and eventually smoking.
When I was in high school, I was told I needed a root canal. I don't remember experiencing a lot of pain until after the procedure was done, then the filling immediately came out and there was a ton of pain. They re-performed, but since then, I've more or less sworn off dentists. Relying instead on better hygiene and Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and Aspirin.
The lower wisdom teeth came in years ago, both breaking apart the teeth in front of them. The upper left came in about two months ago, with very little fan fare. I just sort of noticed one day that there was a tooth where gum had been.
This one, however, has been troubling me for about as long, and it's been absolute murder. I haven't slept now in three days, and yesterday I actually passed out at work from the pain.
Going to the dentist today, I was informed that I need to have both of those teeth surgically removed.
Surgery is scheduled for Monday at 11:45 AM in St. Paul.
Wish me luck. Oh, and feel free to donate money to me, because I have NO IDEA how I'm going to pay for this.
The good news is that my teeth up front still look just fine. And that's all that matters, right?
Rant
No, actually, it's not me that's ranting. Instead, and I'm not sure how he snuck it out on me, but, Chuck Palahniuk's new book, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey, comes out on March 1st! I can't believe that I didn't know about this sooner. I was anticipating Haunted, his last novel, forever. Literally from the dawn of time I waited for it.
Rant seems to be written in an interview format. The couple of pre-reviews I've read so far seem positive, but even if they'd said it sucked, I still would read it. Chuck's work is amazing!
Anyway, checking out Chuck's Website, I also saw info on a book written through his Writer's Workshop: Monica Drake's Clown Girl. It seems to be about some sort of strange clown chick, and her struggles with life, or something. I read the first few pages on Amazon, and it's pretty good so far. It has a real Chuck feel, which might be why he's given writing credit... so I'll likely pick that up soon as well.
If you've never read his work, or are like me and just can't get enough of the guy, you can check out a short story he had published in the magazine Viceland called "Mister Elegant". It's not exactly his greatest work, but it gives you a decent feel for his work. He's the mastermind behind Fight Club, which was actually a book before it was a movie.
LED Throwies
I absolutely must make a million of these! I don't' know if you're familiar with instrucables.com, but, in the vein of many howto sites, like wikihow.com, the content of which come solely from it's users, though, instructables is much more stylish. It's filled with a ton of useless shit and a few really interesting bits.
One of those interesting bits is LED Throwies, as seen on the right. It's amazing. I must do it... MUST DO IT!!!
Wow, you think the Vicodin is making me loopy?
Heeeere FISHY FISHY FISHY!!!
Rare memories of joy from my youth... good times.
The Onion's new ploy for illiteracy in America.
Yep, they're promoting it. Why read the magazine that used to be really funny... when you can watch it and just let it happen at you...
Maybe they'll have edgy new material...
no, they won't.
I need to go lay down...
bye.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Write these words back down...
Nothing to say...
Seriously, there's not even a stitch of news about me. Sorry. (Because I truly think you care...) Read on for things you might ACTUALLY care about though...
"R" Rated Transformers?
I really don't know how much weight you can put into this "news" article from JoBlo.com.
Supposedly the MPAA gave the first submission of the new Transformers movie an 'R' rating for intense violence. Michael Bay, not wanting to make any changes, apparently called upon a higher power, uttering some sort of dark prayer. That higher powers was, apparently, Steven Spielberg. Now, after working some sort of voodoo magic, the same film has been relegated to the land of PG-13.
Again, I really don't know if I can trust this completely un-cited story. I gather we are supposed to take it upon authority that user "ElderPredator" is just "in the know."
If it is true, however, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I mean, yes, the original cartoon had shooting and guns and things, but, it was still more than acceptable for the average child to watch. But, this new version is supposedly not watchable by anyone but adults? What gives Michael Bay? Moreover, what's the deal with making a movie that's clearly not watchable by children, and then having the great and powerful Wizard of Hollywood bully the MPAA into dropping its rating?
I don't get it.
Oh well.
The Top 10 Most Important Video Games of all Time!
This is mildly interesting.
Mostly, they've decided that the following are the most important games of all time, but there's more story than that, some of which is somewhat worth reading, but only if you have time.
I Mention an Article... because it's filled with stupid.
CVG, a website I can't remember visiting before, but apparently exists none the less, reported about something the CEO of ID Software said, which is that ID went to consoles to 'battle piracy'.
I'm just gonna say... DUH! I mean, wow, it's slightly harder to pirate a video game, but, at the same time, piracy is part of the gaming world.
What really made me laugh was this:
You can't pirate an MMO, eh? Tell that to the guys on the various Hamachi servers...
The Internet's not a Big Truck...
But soon, it may not be a series of tubes either?
Several big companies are pushing for internet to be offered a whole new way... over the airwaves. Specifically, they want to use the channels in various markets that aren't being used already to offer high speed internet service.
It's an interesting read, though the Washington Post article does not mention important factors like speed, security, and cost. Most notable in all of this is the plain and simple fact that you cannot 'own' anything being transmitted over the air, so, I can't imagine it would take long before people 'hack' the technology and it becomes another 'pirated' service. The other issue is that I can see the potential in 'receiving' data, but how, without every user building a massive radio tower, could people also send specific data. Also, how many users could such a technology actually support?
I hope these answers come swiftly.
The good news is that something like this might mean my Comcast bill could go DOWN for a change...
I know, I know. That won't EVER happen. But, it's nice to dream a little.
Gangsta Rap... Colouring Book?
bahahhahahahahahhahahaha
Clearly the Sun is the most reputable of all news sources, but, I can't help but laugh at the little girl that's coloring '50 Cent' "white".
Another Wonderful Time Waster
Line Game
That's it for now! Enjoy!
Seriously, there's not even a stitch of news about me. Sorry. (Because I truly think you care...) Read on for things you might ACTUALLY care about though...
"R" Rated Transformers?
I really don't know how much weight you can put into this "news" article from JoBlo.com.
Supposedly the MPAA gave the first submission of the new Transformers movie an 'R' rating for intense violence. Michael Bay, not wanting to make any changes, apparently called upon a higher power, uttering some sort of dark prayer. That higher powers was, apparently, Steven Spielberg. Now, after working some sort of voodoo magic, the same film has been relegated to the land of PG-13.
Again, I really don't know if I can trust this completely un-cited story. I gather we are supposed to take it upon authority that user "ElderPredator" is just "in the know."
If it is true, however, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I mean, yes, the original cartoon had shooting and guns and things, but, it was still more than acceptable for the average child to watch. But, this new version is supposedly not watchable by anyone but adults? What gives Michael Bay? Moreover, what's the deal with making a movie that's clearly not watchable by children, and then having the great and powerful Wizard of Hollywood bully the MPAA into dropping its rating?
I don't get it.
Oh well.
The Top 10 Most Important Video Games of all Time!
This is mildly interesting.
Mostly, they've decided that the following are the most important games of all time, but there's more story than that, some of which is somewhat worth reading, but only if you have time.
Mr. Lowood and the four members of his committee — the game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky; Matteo Bittanti, an academic researcher; and Christopher Grant, a game journalist — announced their list of the 10 most important video games of all time: Spacewar! (1962), Star Raiders (1979), Zork (1980), Tetris (1985), SimCity (1989), Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990), Civilization I/II (1991), Doom (1993), Warcraft series (beginning 1994) and Sensible World of Soccer (1994).
I Mention an Article... because it's filled with stupid.
CVG, a website I can't remember visiting before, but apparently exists none the less, reported about something the CEO of ID Software said, which is that ID went to consoles to 'battle piracy'.
I'm just gonna say... DUH! I mean, wow, it's slightly harder to pirate a video game, but, at the same time, piracy is part of the gaming world.
What really made me laugh was this:
In the discussion, Soren Johsnon - designer/lead programmer, Sid Meier's Civilization III & IV - said "game design on the PC is going to bend toward persistence" as in MMOGs. Massively multiplayer online games succeed because "You cannot pirate an MMO. Period", said Johsnon.
You can't pirate an MMO, eh? Tell that to the guys on the various Hamachi servers...
The Internet's not a Big Truck...
But soon, it may not be a series of tubes either?
Several big companies are pushing for internet to be offered a whole new way... over the airwaves. Specifically, they want to use the channels in various markets that aren't being used already to offer high speed internet service.
It's an interesting read, though the Washington Post article does not mention important factors like speed, security, and cost. Most notable in all of this is the plain and simple fact that you cannot 'own' anything being transmitted over the air, so, I can't imagine it would take long before people 'hack' the technology and it becomes another 'pirated' service. The other issue is that I can see the potential in 'receiving' data, but how, without every user building a massive radio tower, could people also send specific data. Also, how many users could such a technology actually support?
I hope these answers come swiftly.
The good news is that something like this might mean my Comcast bill could go DOWN for a change...
I know, I know. That won't EVER happen. But, it's nice to dream a little.
Gangsta Rap... Colouring Book?
bahahhahahahahahhahahaha
Clearly the Sun is the most reputable of all news sources, but, I can't help but laugh at the little girl that's coloring '50 Cent' "white".
Another Wonderful Time Waster
Line Game
That's it for now! Enjoy!
Sunday, March 11, 2007
One Hundereth Post Extravaganza!
Not really, I just like making myself sound important...
In my world, things happened. Last night I went out for my birthday, the one that happened 2 weeks ago. It was just me and a few friends. Less snow happened, so, we went and had dinner at Champps, then to D & B's for a few hours of half drunken video games, and rounded out the night at Boston's....
All was good, except the service at Boston's, which was pretty awful. We were there for 3 hours, and all 4 pitchers we ordered sat on the bar for about 10-20 minutes before they made it to our table. It took almost an hour to flag down the waitress so that Katie could get some water, and when Brandon showed up, around 1:20, the waitress brought us our bill rather than offer us more drinks.
Her tip was ZERO dollars. It would have been near $50 had she been better.
Oh well. It was still a good time.
Also, this night, I spent some time with my good friend Mikey-poo, which is he shall be referred to from now on... or until I forget, about ten minutes from now.
We dug out some of his old shit from back when we were in high school and reminisced about being gangly, ugly mother fuckers with very little talent. Now we're just ugly mother fuckers with very little talent.
It comes full circle. And then there's a panda.
On to the LINKS!
Zoomquilt 2
The original zoomquilt was amazing. Enter Zoomquilt 2! It's excellently good! What it is: A collaborative art project designed like an internet 'quilt', where each piece blends into the whole. It flows continuously. Check it out!
A photo gallery that freaks me out...
Square America
Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock And Roll
The Onion, one of the most respected news organizations on the planet is reporting what I copy and pasted up there in the 'title' of this section. Are you adequately prepared to rock?
I know I am.
Speaking of reminiscing...
This is great, even if they can't spell the page title right... it's < title >Console Time Attack Videos< /title > stupids!
Oh well, it has what the misspelled title implies, videos of console games being played through really quickly. It's a lot of fun... if you like that sort of thing.
ReadyMech!
Seriously, the FWIS guys have got the best way to waste printer ink on the planet!
READYMECH!!! Print some out, grasp an Exacto and some double sided tape and get to work.
Fwis has some really interesting things to look at, the only problem I have with them is that I really have a hard time understanding what I'm looking at. Their site is nearly impossible to navigate without getting lost and confused, and really, just plain scared.
(*Note - I will not be blamed for anything that goes awry from grasping double sided tape).
Difficult Simple Game...
I've given an hour of my life to this game. I give up. I hit 42.something seconds... that's good enough as far as I'm concerned. Besides, it's in French.
A man's fight to stop ski mask discrimination...
Check out one of the stupidest web sites on the planet. Yes, even stupider than this one. Even stupider than your 10 year old nephews Naruto page.
In case you missed it on the mouse hover... http://www.crazyskimask.com/
Wow.
From the Out of the Woodwork & Beggin' for money, Dept.
A guy is actually claiming that he invented SpongeBob Squarepants... during the recession of the 90's... it's...
No, just read this:
They both live in a house concept...
Well damn... Viacom ought to be forking over the money any day now.
Speaking of... I need to have some words with Marvel and DC, because I remember creating a whole slew of superhero characters when I was 8 that seem to be plagiarized quite a bit now...
Watch this somewhere other than work...
John Cleese teaches sex. ed.... Monty Python remains fresh and funny.
For a milestone type post...
this was pretty lackluster. I'm sorry.
In my world, things happened. Last night I went out for my birthday, the one that happened 2 weeks ago. It was just me and a few friends. Less snow happened, so, we went and had dinner at Champps, then to D & B's for a few hours of half drunken video games, and rounded out the night at Boston's....
All was good, except the service at Boston's, which was pretty awful. We were there for 3 hours, and all 4 pitchers we ordered sat on the bar for about 10-20 minutes before they made it to our table. It took almost an hour to flag down the waitress so that Katie could get some water, and when Brandon showed up, around 1:20, the waitress brought us our bill rather than offer us more drinks.
Her tip was ZERO dollars. It would have been near $50 had she been better.
Oh well. It was still a good time.
Also, this night, I spent some time with my good friend Mikey-poo, which is he shall be referred to from now on... or until I forget, about ten minutes from now.
We dug out some of his old shit from back when we were in high school and reminisced about being gangly, ugly mother fuckers with very little talent. Now we're just ugly mother fuckers with very little talent.
It comes full circle. And then there's a panda.
On to the LINKS!
Zoomquilt 2
The original zoomquilt was amazing. Enter Zoomquilt 2! It's excellently good! What it is: A collaborative art project designed like an internet 'quilt', where each piece blends into the whole. It flows continuously. Check it out!
A photo gallery that freaks me out...
Square America
Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock And Roll
The Onion, one of the most respected news organizations on the planet is reporting what I copy and pasted up there in the 'title' of this section. Are you adequately prepared to rock?
I know I am.
Speaking of reminiscing...
This is great, even if they can't spell the page title right... it's < title >Console Time Attack Videos< /title > stupids!
Oh well, it has what the misspelled title implies, videos of console games being played through really quickly. It's a lot of fun... if you like that sort of thing.
ReadyMech!
Seriously, the FWIS guys have got the best way to waste printer ink on the planet!
READYMECH!!! Print some out, grasp an Exacto and some double sided tape and get to work.
Fwis has some really interesting things to look at, the only problem I have with them is that I really have a hard time understanding what I'm looking at. Their site is nearly impossible to navigate without getting lost and confused, and really, just plain scared.
(*Note - I will not be blamed for anything that goes awry from grasping double sided tape).
Difficult Simple Game...
I've given an hour of my life to this game. I give up. I hit 42.something seconds... that's good enough as far as I'm concerned. Besides, it's in French.
A man's fight to stop ski mask discrimination...
Check out one of the stupidest web sites on the planet. Yes, even stupider than this one. Even stupider than your 10 year old nephews Naruto page.
In case you missed it on the mouse hover... http://www.crazyskimask.com/
Wow.
From the Out of the Woodwork & Beggin' for money, Dept.
A guy is actually claiming that he invented SpongeBob Squarepants... during the recession of the 90's... it's...
No, just read this:
"It is more than ironic that two working class sponges are named Bob," Walker says in his complaint. "Both characters are unemployed. Both characters live in a house concept."
They both live in a house concept...
Well damn... Viacom ought to be forking over the money any day now.
Speaking of... I need to have some words with Marvel and DC, because I remember creating a whole slew of superhero characters when I was 8 that seem to be plagiarized quite a bit now...
Watch this somewhere other than work...
John Cleese teaches sex. ed.... Monty Python remains fresh and funny.
For a milestone type post...
this was pretty lackluster. I'm sorry.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
300 Reviewed and loved...
... however:
I give it 4.5/5, but I do so based on the movie it is... and not what it might have been:
Amazingly visual. Disappointingly poor adaptation.
This film had everything at its disposal to make perfection. Money. But, unfortunately, they didn't quite get it.
You can read the plot summary on your own. Basically, the story goes thusly: Due to Spartan law, the king is unable to take the full force of his highly trained (read, from birth) army to face a massive Persian force numbering in the 100's of thousands. He merely takes a small handful, 300, to try and stop the advance of this multi-continental force by hole-ing up in a small mountain pass that eliminates the numerical advantage of their enemy. It's based, albeit very loosely, on true historical recordings. The film is an adaptation of the Frank Miller's fantastic comic.
I'll focus first on the positives: Visceral visuals. Violent and powerful shooting, excellent effects, and more (gruesome) sound than the human brain should process. There's something to be said for the current trend of big budget green screens. That something is: WOW! It's incredibly immersive, there's nary a point in the movie that you don't feel convinced that the things on screen are real, even when you know they cannot be. The sound comes at you from every direction, and in the extremely well choreographed fight scenes (the majority of the film), the sounds of blades rending flesh and bones being crushed are amazing.
The character design is also spot on, and translates well from the original books. There's more than a few moments where you'll wish you could pause it on the big screen just to examine some strangely disfigured creature, or amazingly detailed animal. The costumes are also astounding, while the Spartans merely sport red capes and leather bikini briefs, the Persians are well adorned with Jewelry and armor as are the animals. The most amazing is the "God King Xerxes", whose costume is as dazzling as his stature (which I would guess at around 8 feet).
The negatives, however, are a bit more problematic. It's hard to really settle on the problems, because they aren't really consistent throughout the film.
There are bits of dialogue that you'll hear, and you'll regret them for the writers. There's a sub story involving the romance between the Spartan King and his Queen that goes more or less unnoticed, although it seems as though they wanted it to be a pivotal plot device. There's a plus / minus point, depending on your point of view, in that there's a near soft-core like pornographic sex scene that really does nothing to further the story in any way, but does give the viewer a few moments of visual carnal knowledge that's hard not to "enjoy".
By far, my biggest complaint is the pace. It seemed as though the actual story component of the movie was rushed, or possibly cut, in favor for the massive battles. The battles are amazing to behold, and you still feel very much compelled by the Spartan's plight, but, there are pieces of the puzzle that feel like they're missing.
A great example would be the size of Sparta itself. They focus so very narrowly on merely the king at the beginning of the film. When he takes his handful of Spartans, the 300 to which the title refers to, you get the 'impression' that this is a small number compared to those which might be at his control. They explain why he's taking a small number, but not very well, and you really have no sense of the size of the Spartan army until the very end. Perhaps that was the intent, but, none-the-less, it seems as though you might feel more impressed if you knew from the beginning that his numbers COULD have been 10,000 strong, and, even facing armies that out number them 6 to 1, this would have been an adequate figure to do some damage to King Xerxes masses. As a matter of fact, the movie does a terrible job depicting the actual size of Sparta in general, in the beginning, when an messenger from the Persians comes, you see what seems like the entire city of Sparta, all 27 of them.
Are these things enough to make the movie 'bad'? NO! It's an excellent film, even if just for the incredibly detailed visual immersion. But, for those that are going in looking for a powerful story, historical reference, or even just Sin City 2, you'll be horribly disappointed.
It's a movie that I loved for what it was. And, I recommend that everyone do the same.
I give it 4.5/5, but I do so based on the movie it is... and not what it might have been:
Amazingly visual. Disappointingly poor adaptation.
This film had everything at its disposal to make perfection. Money. But, unfortunately, they didn't quite get it.
You can read the plot summary on your own. Basically, the story goes thusly: Due to Spartan law, the king is unable to take the full force of his highly trained (read, from birth) army to face a massive Persian force numbering in the 100's of thousands. He merely takes a small handful, 300, to try and stop the advance of this multi-continental force by hole-ing up in a small mountain pass that eliminates the numerical advantage of their enemy. It's based, albeit very loosely, on true historical recordings. The film is an adaptation of the Frank Miller's fantastic comic.
I'll focus first on the positives: Visceral visuals. Violent and powerful shooting, excellent effects, and more (gruesome) sound than the human brain should process. There's something to be said for the current trend of big budget green screens. That something is: WOW! It's incredibly immersive, there's nary a point in the movie that you don't feel convinced that the things on screen are real, even when you know they cannot be. The sound comes at you from every direction, and in the extremely well choreographed fight scenes (the majority of the film), the sounds of blades rending flesh and bones being crushed are amazing.
The character design is also spot on, and translates well from the original books. There's more than a few moments where you'll wish you could pause it on the big screen just to examine some strangely disfigured creature, or amazingly detailed animal. The costumes are also astounding, while the Spartans merely sport red capes and leather bikini briefs, the Persians are well adorned with Jewelry and armor as are the animals. The most amazing is the "God King Xerxes", whose costume is as dazzling as his stature (which I would guess at around 8 feet).
The negatives, however, are a bit more problematic. It's hard to really settle on the problems, because they aren't really consistent throughout the film.
There are bits of dialogue that you'll hear, and you'll regret them for the writers. There's a sub story involving the romance between the Spartan King and his Queen that goes more or less unnoticed, although it seems as though they wanted it to be a pivotal plot device. There's a plus / minus point, depending on your point of view, in that there's a near soft-core like pornographic sex scene that really does nothing to further the story in any way, but does give the viewer a few moments of visual carnal knowledge that's hard not to "enjoy".
By far, my biggest complaint is the pace. It seemed as though the actual story component of the movie was rushed, or possibly cut, in favor for the massive battles. The battles are amazing to behold, and you still feel very much compelled by the Spartan's plight, but, there are pieces of the puzzle that feel like they're missing.
A great example would be the size of Sparta itself. They focus so very narrowly on merely the king at the beginning of the film. When he takes his handful of Spartans, the 300 to which the title refers to, you get the 'impression' that this is a small number compared to those which might be at his control. They explain why he's taking a small number, but not very well, and you really have no sense of the size of the Spartan army until the very end. Perhaps that was the intent, but, none-the-less, it seems as though you might feel more impressed if you knew from the beginning that his numbers COULD have been 10,000 strong, and, even facing armies that out number them 6 to 1, this would have been an adequate figure to do some damage to King Xerxes masses. As a matter of fact, the movie does a terrible job depicting the actual size of Sparta in general, in the beginning, when an messenger from the Persians comes, you see what seems like the entire city of Sparta, all 27 of them.
Are these things enough to make the movie 'bad'? NO! It's an excellent film, even if just for the incredibly detailed visual immersion. But, for those that are going in looking for a powerful story, historical reference, or even just Sin City 2, you'll be horribly disappointed.
It's a movie that I loved for what it was. And, I recommend that everyone do the same.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
And in the last post I learned...
That I shouldn't try and use the 'WYSIWYG' editor in blogger...
Wow. I'm not sure what it did... I just wanted to try changing the bold titles to orange... but, they ended up all fuxxored.
I guess the html will have to be the way to go... ugh!
Wow. I'm not sure what it did... I just wanted to try changing the bold titles to orange... but, they ended up all fuxxored.
I guess the html will have to be the way to go... ugh!
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