The Haps and Happenstance

There we go

2010-03-25T12:41:00.001-07:00

We gots website sign! Eric Eberle Dawt Net is live, and as a special bonus treat, I've got a blog too! Revolutionary! The main site will be just my online resume, and the blog will be what this started out as: a chronicle of my journey down the road of a working actor. Definitely a sign that my life is getting more interesting!

Movie movie movie!

2010-01-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

Just got a netflix account this weekend, got my streaming on. Part of my efforts to encroach onto the lands of the film buffs.

Watched Eternal Sunshing of the Spotless Mind. Glad I stuck it out cause I didn't care for the first 30 minutes of it, totally worth it though. Loved the visualization of the world falling apart.

Watched another movie called Visioneers, dystopian dark comedy. The end felt predictable, but I really enjoyed the entire thing. Some very Futurama moments, with the (probably Jeffer's Corp's doing) making flipping off a greeting, and "chaos" pronounced "Chay-aws."

Finally got around to going through the entire thing of Romeo + Juliet, the Baz Luhrmann adaptation. I liked it, felt like I really had to listen to get what was happening while processing the dialog. I'm sure ten billion people have made this observation, but I would imagine the venn diagram of people who like Shakespeare and people who like surreal/quirky/bizarre movies looks light an eight.

Dirty Dancing. One of those movies where I knew 90% of the story and lines from pop culture references. Pretty good though! I really hate teen [STRIKE]coming of age[/STRIKE] rebellion movies, because I am the youngest old man you'll ever meet, but this was good. I had a weird moment of unusual sadness watching it. When someone like Johnny left, that was it. No cell phones, no email. Really gone. #firstworldsorrows

Amadeus. I had seen most of this a few years back. So good. Start watching this some night at your normal bedtime and you feel like you're going nuts along with several of the characters!

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist booooooo. It wasn't boring exactly, but I just couldn't care. I don't get music culture, so maybe the fact that the movie was and wasn't about music nerds was why I couldn't get into it. Sorry hipsters, I can't love this movie and all it's nose smooshing kissing.

A half hearted Album list

2009-12-18T09:50:00.001-08:00

Here's a bunch of albums I liked from the last decade, no particular order.

1. Blind Guardian's "A Night at the Opera"
2. Megadeth's "The System Has Failed"
3. Justin Timberlake's "Future Sex/Love Sounds"
4. Timbaland's "Timbaland Presents Shock Value"
5. Nine Inch Nail's "The Fragile" (Yeah yeah, 1999, it's on da list, DEAL WITH IT)
6. Postal Service's "Give Up"
7. Robyn's "Robyn"
8. Depeche Mode's "Exciter"
9. David Bowie's "Reality"
10. Glee's "Glee: The Music Vol. 1"
11. Ayreon's "The Human Equation"
12. Savage Circus' "Dreamland Manor"
13. Electric Six's "Fire"
14. "The Moulin Rogue Soundtrack"

Top 25(21) Games of All Time

2009-11-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

21. Star Trek: Birth of the Federation- (also called the "How did I forget this one" award) Such a fun game, even though I never played as anything other than the Federation. Not only did I spend hours playing this, but at least as much time reading through the technology databases.

20. Batman: Arkham Asylum- Probably one of the biggest complaints I had with the Splinter Cell games is that to get 100% on a level, you had to (usually) not only not kill anyone, but not even touch them. It made sense, but eventually the shadow hideyness became more like a platformer than a stealth game, and sometimes I wanna punch dudes. Arkham Asylum was a brilliant blend of stealth and spectacle fighter.

19. Oregon Trail- Pick your edition, honestly. Nothing quite as old school as shooting 18,000 pounds of bison to bring back to the dysentery ridden remains of your party so you will be sufficiently heavy to sink when you try to ford the Columbia river.

18. Warriors Orochi 2 (or Dynasty Warriors 3, 4, or 5, BUT NOT 6!)- Oh Warriors games, what better way to put off doing homework? I played the hell out of these in college, such mindless fun, such consistency. Which is why DW6 being a maggot filled pile of dung was such a shock. You've made like a thousand identical games, how did you mess this up now?

17. Uplink- Hacking: Hollywood style! It's the spectacle fighter of hacking games. Even though I never "beat" the game and saved the internet, I spent many a night routing my connection through various servers and falsifying police reports. Though it lost some of it's appeal when I figured out how to copy the saves, I still enjoyed it immensely.

16. Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast- This game really felt like an epic movie to me, like you could very well be one of the characters in the "next" Star Wars movie. Good graphics, good story, hella fun multiplayer.

15. Knights of the Old Republic- I am usually a goodie two-shoes in RPGs. However, from a very young age I knew that if Darth Vader walked up to me and said "Give yourself to the Dark Side", I would say "Yes please!" This game allowed me to do that, and I did. So much potential for bastardy. The twist at the end blew my mind, and being bad made it all the better. Easily my favorite Star Wars game.

14. Rockband- Beatles Rockband is boring, this is the shit and remade the genre.

13. Neverwinter Nights- THE DnD game for me. I replayed the first level sooooo many times just to create a new character. Also the place I cemented my current screen name.

12. Braid- I have a soft spot for puzzle games, but I also have a low tolerance for frustration, so it's hard to find a game that is challenging that I will ever complete. Braid's "you never really die" system and general design made every mistake feel like a step towards getting the solution. I completely missed the whole [spoiler]the princess is the atomic bomb[/spoiler] thing but I found the fact that [spoiler]the bad guy was rescuing her to be awesome.[/spoiler]

11. Grand Theft Auto IV- Heir to the Sandbox throne and ruling just fine. A browner, grittier version of everything that was good about GTAIII. Put a looot of hours into this one, but then so has everyone. My favorite moment was finally pulling off a jump from (screw their made up names) New Jersey over the Hudson and onto Manhattan. :gleam:

10. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory-I never had a PS1, so I didn't get into the MGS games. So my real intro to stealth games was the Splinter Cell franchise. Though in the later games the mandatory run-and-gun sections made for less fun, the third was the best. The gadgets and mechanics were refined, but they hadn't removed the precise darkness meter. Also, Double Agent felt too much like Dead Rising, so much to do in the in between missions sections, so little time.

9. Portal- It's Portal. See my comments for Braid regarding puzzle games. It remained good despite the internet's attempt to drive it into the ground.

8. Dance Dance Revolution (Extreme/8th Mix)- I started doing DDR in college as a joke and got hooked. I don't play much anymore, but it's still a pretty slick party trick to bust out some song on heavy. The Extreme Mix arcade machines were the most widely available when I was doing DDR a lot, full of great songs.

7. Warcraft III- My first real experience with the Warcraft universe. Such a great story, and I replayed it several times while playing WoW to get into the store more.

6. World of Warcraft- Civilization II is probably the only game I have played more than this. As close to perfect as an MMO can get. Plenty of solo and group content, constant revisions, a world that feels deeper than just a few post-its of lore here and there. Of course a large part of what gave this game staying power is the friends I made while playing, but there never being a lack of stuff to do certainly helped.

5. Final Fantasy X- Easily the best final fantasy. Enjoyed and connected with most of the characters, the story was great and had enough twists to keep me surprised, in fact the reveal that [spoiler]Yuna will become the next Sin[/spoiler] is tied for my most shocking twist. Never been a religious 100% completion guy, but I found a decent number of the ultimate weapons to feel pretty uber. And the laughing scene. Heartwarmingly goofy in the face of death. That's right, fuckers, I liked the laughing scene. What else are you going to do when you realize that you've been telling a girl who you are escorting to her death about all the stuff you're gonna do after she finishes whatever? Laugh like a moron to try to distract her from the fact that she is going to die! And Auron was boss.

4. Battlefield 1942- The shooter of LAN parties of my youth. Not quake, not unreal, 1942. Jeeps, planes, tanks, RPGs, engineers diving under tanks to drop and detonate detpacks killing everyone. So many Dew fueled nights on Wake, so many sniper duels in Stalingrad, so many smacktards destroyed.

3. Sim City 2000- Probably my earliest gaming obsession. My dad installed this on his 386 for my brother and I. It ran like shit, but we played it for YEARS. It ran so badly, we could start laying roads and zoning and stuff, connect it to power and place the service buildings all before the computer started rendering the laying of roads. We built cities of all arcos, a city with an entire segment that was all nuclear fallout (from our own self inflicted meltdowns) to simulate a nuclear testing area. We build a city with no roads, using only subways. QUESTION KORNER: Do you know what "buddamus" is?

2. Mass Effect- Game of the Year, Game of the Decade, a bit shy of Best Game of All Time, all around fantastic. The finale is the most I've ever been pulled into a game before, hell probably as engrossing as the first time I watched the Star Wars. Amazing moral choice and dialogue/voice acting, any RPG that doesn't blatantly rip off this in the future is ignoring the pile of bills marked "Free Money" that someone left on their doorstep. My friends and I all love this game so much one of them is trying to get together a system to do a Mass Effect PnP game.

1. Civilization II Gold Edition- So many hours. So many scenarios. So many world. At the height of the "omg vibeo gabe violence!" fervor, my brother and I convinced our parents that this was a better use of our free time than any shooter. Of course years later, after our parents stopped caring, we then argued that this was a worse game. Rather than revel in the violence, it downplayed it as a war crimes simulator where casual nuclear weapon use, terrorism, and the siege of cities until the civilian population started dying off was acceptable. Ah, childhood.

I once spent months using the toolkit designing a top to bottom Star Wars campaign, being able to talk about this with people until my voice was hoarse. Some of my best friends in high school played this. This is the high water mark for gaming and I have yet to find something as good.

The Grand Unified Superlative

2009-10-01T10:00:00.001-07:00

Eric Eberle's Grand Unified Superlative of the Internet: Everything you put anywhere on the internet can be seen by anyone everywhere forever.

Am I finally growing up?

2009-03-06T13:20:00.000-08:00

Well look who decided to post something!

Mostly not posting because the main source of content, my voracious appetite for video games, burned through my gamefly account, consuming all the games I had even an inkling to play. I had the new Prince of Persia, but after three months of it sitting there, I decided that I wasn't motivated enough, canceled my gamefly and lost interest is doing this. I could start reviewing MMOs or something, flash games, etc. But I'm more or less revisiting what happened to me a few months ago, I'm just not interested in them.

So consider this a second breaking point for this blog, it will be taking a new form in a few weeks, pending certain personal changes.

Changes coming soon!

2009-03-06T13:19:00.001-08:00

Ho, yes, they are a'comin'.

Reviews: Blitz Style

2008-07-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

So having not touched this is nearly two months, I've got a backlogs of missing reviews. Some recent, some not. In the words of Professor Frank, "Let's f*** this duck, shall we?"

Eterntal Sonata: I think I am growing out of JRPGs. Not just because I am consistantly enjoying western RPGs more, but because JRPGs have stopped being fun. I suppose in the day when I got 3 games a year (Christmas, Birthday, and one from grandma's 'I love you' money), spending 20, 40, 60 hours in a single game over a few months wasn't out of place. The straightforwardness and repetitive combat isn't the same. And it's not that I don't enjoy the stories. I would say that the end of the Eternal Sonata justified the 25 some hours spend playing it, but probably the only reason I stuck with it was that I just dropped $60 on a game and I trying to find a reason to not take it back.

Assassin's Creed: AKA Splinter Cell 1242. A fusion of In Broad Daylight stealth and every parkour wannabe's fantasy. A bit repetitive, which can be forgiven for repeating something awesome. The end is a bit too "french" and out of synch (not actually a game joke) with the rest of the game, but the inevitable trilogy will be bought by everyone who played the first one.

Dynasty Warriors 6: It's hard to imagine that after all this time they could actually screw up a Warriors game. Run around, kill hundreds of fodder troops, ice a few officers and run away from Lu Bu. Get it? Got it? WRONG! With the hundreds of banner flags on every footsoldier obscuring the combat that looks and feels like it's in a tank of aspic. And the endless chain of attacks means you can "Hoo! Ha! Ho! Hijah!" your way across the battlefield with literally no end to your chopping. Gave up with a few missions after dealing with a few "some other dude with a spear."

Culdecpt Saga: I will be the first to admit that I have a temper when it comes to games. I have pleanty of half-assed excuses and it has become something that I have come to accept. But crashing a race car ten times in a row, or getting popped by the sniper on the roof for the umteenth time, or only making 5 out of the 6 nail-bitting jumps, there are incedents that make you want to throw the controller as hard as you can (into a pillow, those things are expensive.) But a damn card/board game left me jibbering with rage. 1.5 hour games with a sperm's chance in hell of winning or getting cards to improve your deck. Terrible, terrible game.

Beautiful Katamari: Clearly another one of those games that you need drugs to enjoy. About equal parts fun and frustration. I guess I don't get it, man.

Samurai Warriors 2: Empires: A weird mix of basic Warriors gameplay with some crummy empire management or whatever. Rather than a series of linear missions, you take control of a clan and guide them around Japan on a few dozen mission with about 4 different maps. Kinda hollow, but if you've tried all the other games this might be worth it.

Ninja Gaiden 2: Extreemly pretty, utterly brutal, honestly different feeling weapons, and way to hard for me. *hides behind his "New Art" beret*

Lost Odessy: I did not totally hate what I played of this game. I loved the dream sequences, as in, I was actually moved beyond "This is sad" or "Oh my what a reprehensible act!". Beyond that, and extreemly simple RPG full of unoriginal vaguities. A magical energy called "magic energy" that sparked the "magical-industrial revolution" is not innovative storytelling.

Call of Duty 4: This is the best shooter I have played on a console. A logical and appropriately penalized autoaim system and a story that not only more than an afterthought already puts it leagues ahead of others. Respawning enemies are a bit of a trial, making you wonder what the point of long range weapons is, but it at least keeps you moving.

Unreal Tournament III: The only thing that scores points for this for me is nostalgia factor. It feels exactly like UT 2k3 and 2k4 and whatever else I played in high school. Scientists will look at my brain playing the two games and use it as a template for what must happen neurologically for something to be considered "a perfect replica." Ultimately the nostalgia factor is what killed it for me, as I have no online friends and could remember countless afternoons playing UT myself against bots.

Burnout: RE-revenging once more...again!

2008-05-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

I was somewhat at a loss when my editor (me) decided that reviewing the 3 year old Xbox original title Burnout: Revenge was a good idea. Firstly, having never played a Burnout game, I felt dubious to the idea of getting revenge with no premise, and secondly, it was a 3 year old Xbox original title. The fourth in an ever expanding series of racing game, this fit comfortably in the niche genre of "I don't even care enough to come up with a suitable metaphor involving acts and motions with associated animal body parts." It's a racing game, a game for the NASCAR smacktards who somehow managed to operate both a TV and a gaming console in the one building with electricity for the rare opportunity to drive in endless circles. I have my roots in PC gaming, the glorious bastion of nerds who take themselves very seriously. I should be above this sort of thing.

The only reason I descended from the Heavens where people quote Ayn Rand while playing Bioshock and digg-ing Ron Paul articles was, in fact, the demo for Burnout that came with my 360. I won't mince words here: it was some of the most distilled laugh-out-loud 5 minutes of fun I have had in a long time. Having just come off a GTAIV bender where most of the cars handling and top speed can best be described as "wanting", it was immensely satisfying blazing through traffic at 190 mph, running opponents off the road and watching their mangled frames spin and grind into dust in exquisitely captured slow-motion camera angles was an unrivaled joy.

The gameplay is pretty much what I expected: you take events and try to score as well as you can, by coming in first, driving dangerously, forcing opponents off the road, etc. There were some interesting and challenging variations on the drive-in-circles model, such as the "Cause a Colossal Pileup" mode, awarding points for property damage, the traffic check mode, where you run into little cars for fun, and the burning lap mode, where every 30 seconds the unfortunate chap in last place gets blown up, what I like to call "You Don't Have To Outrun the Bear" mode.

I will admit to a moment of understanding. I was having fun and the effects were thrilling, the speed was addictive, and the crashes regularly caused me to throw my head back and cackle like a hyena with Tourette's syndrome. Maybe I had underestimated the genre and it's progeny. Maybe I could learn to enjoy this, go to competitions in a baseball cap, grow a white trash 'stache, and walk away with a trophy a large breasted model on each arm.

The fun, however, the wily fellow, quickly deserted me as my cynical preconceptions of the genre were, to my simultaneous disappointment and glee, proven to be prophetic. Well, not so much prophetic as they were a reasonable observation. Driving around in circles gets boring. Crashing became a controller gnawing frustration, and smashing traffic and opponents became one of many tasks to juggle to receive maximum points, and I'm not a good juggler. There's plenty of other things wrong that began to stand out once I had driven headlong into a brick wall at 170 miles per hour with Mr. Fun in the passenger seat grasping desperately for his seatbelt. Unlocking cars is pointless and confusing and with customization that is purely aesthetic and not functional, there isn't much of a point. Forcing your opponent off the road seems inconsistent, at times a grating ram will barely change their course in the slightest, and sometimes a fender nudge will send them flying end over end to land in a heaping pile of twisted smoking metal.

Burnout Revenge hasn't changed my stance on the racing genre, and I imagine it would take great quantities of cranial trauma and all the Fast and the Furious movies looped end to end several dozen times to make me believe otherwise. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go drift race to work.

The IT(pronounced 'it') Crowd

2008-05-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

Comedy is all about recycling ideas. Storytelling is all about recycling ideas. Different takes on familiar situations. Being different for the sake of being different leaves the world with travesties like the "non chronologically presented movie" trick or The Mars Volta.

There is, however, a practical statute of limitations on some things. I think in the year 2008, we are well beyond the limit for basic computer jokes.

The IT Crowd is a British sit"com" about a group of IT workers in a London corporation. We have a Thing 1, a Thing 2, and a Girl. We are one talking not-usually-animate object from being Ctrl-Alt-Del. The Things are your vanilla nerd flavors: The Slob and The Pocket-Protector. The girl doesn't know anything about "kumpyuters" which Slob so gratingly babbles at least 5 times during the episode.

What's there to explain? A group of people who's station in life is vastly disproportionate to the angle at which their noses are turned up from the ground. And I must mention that I have become incredibly spoiled at the lack of laughtracks. I supposed the small quantity of prime time TV I watch that isn't dry laser-guided-to-my-funny-bone wit AKA The Office is partly to blame, but the phrase "you don't know what you've got until it's gone", that is, the lack of a grating laughtrack, comes rushing back like a falling "APPLAUSE" sign to the crown of the head. If you think that computer jokes that were displaced by jokes about the recent thankfully misdiagnosed Y2K problem are the hallmark of humor, then enjoy this show while you jam to "One Week" and enjoy beans from your Y2K store.

Iren(tm) Man

2008-05-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

First off, if you see this movie, STAY UNTIL THE END OF THE CREDITS! That is the most important thing to take away from this.

I'm not even going to try to hide it: I am an incredible Iron Man fan. Early adopters (Hi Mom!) will find no surprise in this as I began building a costume with no craftsmaking knowledge, skill, experience, or resources. So rather than list out (most) of what I liked about the movie, I'll point out the flaws. This will in fact be easier than usual because as with most obsessive people, I will be a harsher/more thorough critic on things I enjoy, since I will be thinking over ever minute detail for weeks after the initial stimuli.

With a major exception, there will be spoilers.
Stay until the end of the credits, dag nabbit!

What I feel is the main issue with the movie was the final fight. After all that buildup, there is a few big punches and then a disabled Tony tricking Stane into getting struck by lightning. The only real action in the Mark III armor (red and gold, philistines) is hunting the first weapons cache. Oddly, I found the spur-of-the-moment use of countermeasures one of the cooler parts of the fight. He's supposed to be an outside the box thinker.

Overall, the film felt like a massive technowank. I mean, how many times do we need to see the complicated suit-up sequence. I'm sure the CGI department was very proud of that bit, but please, the MPAA will have to come up with a new descriptor, "Excessive Donning and Doffing".

I'm sure they're leaving it for the sequel/War Machine movie, especially given the "Next time..." comment by Rhodie, but I felt they wasted a huge amount of potential with Rhodes. Now in the "Last Time I Checked" Iron Man continuity, Tony and Rhodes didn't meet until after Tony's change of heart regarding building weapons, but in this movie they were long time associates. The moment when Rhodes expresses a sense of betrayal at Tony abandoning weapons design, which was an angle I've never thought of. Of course, they ignore it in the rest of the movie. Here's to the deleted scenes!

Ultra Nit Pick: I wanted a Stark Tower. Screw this Malibu Beachouse bullcrap.

Steal my Lunch Money Nit Pick: I understood repulsor rays to be a kind of force/energy projection beam, so how the hell do you incorporate that into a durn missile?

Crackdown...right after this!

2008-05-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

"It's a beautiful day. I'm sitting in an arcade, popcorn and old cheese smells wafting through the air, the thunder of tiny feet running to and fro amid the various attractions."

I started this review a while ago, then got distracted by something. I can't tell you if it was shiny or not, but I can tell you that I now have no idea where I was going with this opening, quoted above.

Crackdown and the Grand Theft Auto series are basically my brother and I circa age 12. Identical twins experiencing the classical Erik Erikson stages of development Identity Crisis. Crackdown reacted normally with the main exception of changing for the sake of standing out from its twin. Choosing the meatball sub when he'd really prefer the Cold Cut Trio. If this convoluted metaphor is confusing, don't worry. I'm confused too.

Crackdown is a sandbox GTA spiritual successor, in that you are on the "other" side of the Law in a near future dystopian future city. I hesitate to use the term "right", as if my conduct in game is any indication, citizens of Pacific City would be paralyzed with fear, living where getting mowed down in a drive by is just as likely as your minivan getting a cybernetically enhanced roundhouse kick into the bay. As the sole effective agent of this future police force, you've been given the ability/jurisdiction to bring the criminal elements of the city to justice(death) with a prejudice several kilometers beyond "extreme." You take down lieutenants of the three gangs, a loose Hispanic association, a Eastern European industrial complex, and a hold no bars high tech vaguely Asian megacorp, complete with 6-wheeled SUVs and enough rocket launchers that they must be in league with NASA or something.

One of the main ways Crackdown differs from the GTA series is by introducing skill advancement that goes beyond "get the next biggest gun." Using your various skills gives you corresponding experience in certain fields. Using guns raises your firearms skill, blowing bad guys up raises your explosives skill, and tearing through the streets running down criminals in cars, traveling at speeds that can conservatively described as "catastrophic" raises the driving skill. With each level of skill comes the unsurprising increase in ability: guns become more accurate, you can jump higher, and dropkick suckers further. This provides you with more options when you fail a mission than "try again, stupid."Also, with the removal of any missions, you are simply left with targets to bump into at the grocery story and take down or, more often than not, ignored completely.

Therein lies the major problem with Crackdown. The whole target system gives the thing a terrific lack of urgency. The only real reason for taking down the bosses is to clear out an area so that you can get back to the real important part of the game: hopping gaily from rooftop to rooftop, or setting up jump ramps, or just driving around really fast. It's like in the good ol' days when your Mom would tell you to go clean up your room. Your room that is filled with toys. It's very hard to stay on task, and the complete lack of empathy for the citizens (as they'd have to possess a sense of self preservation to be considered alive), if you take out the people you're indifferent to or that are trying to kill you, all that's left is you, faffing about in a ruined, probably post-apoctalyptic city alone(finally!), owing your bizarre leaping skills to radioactive mutations.

I guess that is a rather weak complaint. I should be thankful that it gives you the choice between a mediocre justice simulator and a pretty fantastic running and jumping really high extravaganza. There's plenty of other things to point out, like the maxing out of weapon power 1/3 of the way through, or the complete lack of medkits/painkillers/white magic, or the endgame difficulty curve pulling an inverted Uncanny Valley Empathy move on you.

At its heart, Crackdown is a competent superhero sandbox game. Think an anime retooling of The Punisher with a dash of Speed Racer and you're there. If you like "there" stay and jump around, otherwise, move on.

Bully for you...Bully!

2008-05-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

Astronaut. Fireman. Oppressive totalitarian overlord. These are things that all normal well balanced children have wanted to be at some point in their lives. Of course, eventually we all realize that these are unrealistic goals that would require we have more scientific aptitude, physical fortitude, or political connections in a economically devastated European state vulnerable to the rhetoric of fascism. However, one thing that I personally have never had a burning desire to become is the "popular" kid in school.

This feeling of disconnect with the motives of the characters in various forms of media is simply another step on a road that I'm not sure how long I've been treading. Case in point, the movie Knocked Up. I spent most of that movie at best not caring what happened next, and at worst wishing horrible death upon all involved. Initially I thought it was simply a case of me not falling into the demographic where rampant drug usage and unwanted pregnancy are commonplace, but after a while a more disturbing thought struck me: I was old! No, I cried to myself, I can't be old, I'm still charged insurance rates that classify me as a reckless youth! These fears were further reinforced by the fact that I was concerned by feeling old. Weird Al's Weasel Stomping Day isn't that funny! The clothing and music of the kids these days is ridiculous! Eventually my fitful lips closed around the comforting lie-dipped pacifier of the demographic incompatibility being one of IQ rather than age, so I went back to playing Bully between spoonfuls of strained peas.

Bully is basically "Grant Theft Bicycle", taking from the GTA series the same gameplay, mission structure, stat tracking, game progression, and publisher. The main differences is the crimes are pranks, and there are far fewer prostitutes. You are Jimmy McTroubledTeen, who lands at a last-chance boarding school and will be appearing in GTA 4 as the cracked out jackass you see on the corner. You are plunged into a world of cliques, class, and crap in this campus of surprising social diversity despite that most people who go to schools like this one have a future that consists mostly of being on posters at the post office.

The game is pretty much what you'd expect from a GTA clone if the clone was cracked out of its test tube at 15 rather than 25. The guns are now slingshots, the cars are bikes, the cops are prefects, and the gangs are school factions. The main villain, Gary "Mini Charles Manson" Smith, is absent for 80% of the game, leaving Jimmy's quest for vengeance against Gary's betrayal to feel more like random acts of cruelty to unrelated parties.

I supposed the fact that there is no practical difference between this and GTA isn't the worst thing you could say about a game. It's simple and formulaic, and provides plenty of opportunities for people for uncommitted people like me to prance about running people over with my bike rather than be shuffled along to the next plot point as though the game is a school marm on a field trip to a museum of plot points. Probably the main flaw is that I spent most of the game hating every single character, though I was somewhat impressed by Jimmy's uncanny ability to become even more unlikeable.

So in the end, if you've played GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, and Liberty City Stories or whatever it's called, and you've given Crackdown and its kin a try, and you've been chewing your fingerprints off waiting for GTAIV, save the possibly nonexistent remnants of your sanity by chewing on Bully, but don't expect to be surprised. You might even enjoy mentally superimposing the faces of your childhood bullies on the droves of jerks you get to beat up, though prepare to be disappointed if all your childhood bullies were girls.

My Chub

2008-04-25T15:31:00.001-07:00

This should probably have a bit of explanation.

A recent forumopolis thread, someone was declaring well-founded annoyance about a rap music video. The author, a suspicious and probably unstable woman, after much lyrical nonsense, insists that her man allow her to smell his genitalia. The point being to tell if he was cheating on her.

Crazy, no?

Well, I was once again bitten by the parody bug, so here it is, My Chub, a parody of Justin Timberlake's My Love, though it's actually more aimed at Riskay's(ugh) Smell Yo Dick.

If you wrote me a dumb rap song
Ask me if you could smell my dong
(what the hell?)
I'd be out the door so fast
The sonic boom would straight up brake the glass
(of your car)

I've gone up and down the line
Never been with such a messed up mind
(She's not right in the head)
With this court order issued by the state
You should realize that it's too late
(For us two)

Because
You could travel to a far off land
You could rent me a marching band
You can ask you can beg and plead
But your request I cannot heed

You can call or write me
Go ahead excite me
Try as you might
You're just too crazy
You will never get to smell

My chub
My chub
My chub
And I know no woman who is quite so nuts
My chub
My chub
My chub

Thoughts on my trip to Japan

2008-04-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

So (my brother hates it when I start posts off that way) I just got back from a 10 day vacation in Japan. It was fun, long overdue, and extremely expensive. I should probably record this, since I was feeling philosophical on the plane.

Being is Japan, surrounded by people speaking Japanese, is like hearing a song on the radio you haven't heard in years. The rush of all the Japanese I learned and had since forgotten, teetering on the cliffs of confusion, ready to plunge into an ocean of understanding.

As for cultureshock and such, it wasn't all that bad. Alex put it slightly better than I, saying that Japan is slightly different in a million different ways. The doors open funny. You drive on the other side of the road. You sort your garbage. It's not like you have to remember to sleep on your left side or the packs of wild dogs will hear your heartbeat and devourer you in the night.

A friend of mine once asked me, mostly rhetorically, what it was about Japan was so alluring, as both my brother and one of her friends, as well as a few of her college friends, have/had gone to Japan to teach English. While I can't speak for others, I nevertheless had a theory. It's a well know fact that in Japan Americans are considered "cool."(I'm not going to speculate how they know who's an American). This is understandable in a nation that is 99.4% ethnically Japanese. As a middle class white male, by traveling to Japan I move for a huge majority to an incredible minority, and not that kind that The Man-sama insists on "getting."

Okay, it's not like people go to Japan just to be cool and different, but man, it sure helps. It sounds kinda bloo hoo hoo self-deprecation to say this, but being in Japan must be what stunningly gorgeous people feel like. Everybody noticed me, they did double takes, they tried not to stare, they started whispering after I passed, as the song goes, "boys, girls, I can't help it, baby. "Some of it I attributed to being with a clone, but my brother says the level of attention we were getting wasn't much more than he gets by himself.

Project Spacething: Arc of Cliches

2008-02-25T14:29:00.000-08:00

So chew on this: the average class size for an elementary school is somewhere between twenty five and thirty students. If you went to school in the same place for years and years, odds are you knew some of your classmates from year to year. But how many of them do you remember? If you are, heaven forbid, an awful lot like me, you problem remember a dozen or two faces and personalities, either your very closest of friends or most bitter of rivals. So what of the ten or fifteen peers that remained unnoticed, those who, years from now, look back on you when you are famous and tell people, "I went to school with that person, but we weren't close or anything." These children were, and maybe still are, unremarkable. That is a fair summation of Square-Enix's Project Slypheed:Arc of Deception.

Despite it's trying-too-hard title, the game is quite a bit easier to wrap your mind around. As a successor to the 1986 Slipheed series, a side scrolling shoot 'em up, this game expands into the mysterious 3rd dimension. You take the role of, and I actually groaned when I heard this, Katana Fairway, ace prepubescent fighter pilot of the Terran Central Forces. Your cohorts are some whiny Jimmy Olson-esque character who thankfully gets greased in the first mission, an equally prepubescent girl named Ellen, who seems likely to break down at the idea of someone speaking harshly, but still manages to shoot down enemy pilots with a brutal efficiency sought by most robot overlords, and lead by the creepy old black cyborg man from Teen Titans. Unlike most American games, in which humanity has joined its diverse set of hands to persecute peoples with far more articulable physical differences, Square has taken a perhaps more realistic approach, in that human factions are still doing what we do best: killing each other.

The gameplay is simple: you fly your extremely overpowered spaceplane to fight absurd numbers of baddies who can only scratch you it you happen to leave for a soda mid mission. That's...kinda it. You have main objectives, which are known, and subobjectives, which are a mystery, most of which involve killing everything with the ridiculous volume of armament your tiny fighter is capable of spewing into space. As you progress you get slightly better weapons, but about halfway through you have pretty much reached the ideal configuration for maximum carnage. The graphics aren't awful, discounting the thankfully rare cutsceens with playdough-textured characters, but then streaking missiles and flashy lighting effects aren't exactly uncommon in this day and age.

Probably the one thing that is truly awful is the story. I would appear that the writers decided to take the most cliched elements from Japanese RPGs and American SciFi and distilled them into some Ripley-from-Aliens-4-clone ultra cliche. We have the guy wimp who nevertheless is amazing at something, childhood insipid love interest who is also good at the thing, slightly older friend who leaves and betrays them to appear on the battlefield much to everyones continual shock. For the American parts, we've got (get this) a superweapon that can (you won't believe it) destroy a planet (so awesome) and the only way to the Protaganator to destroy it is to (oh man!) fly inside the weapon to the weak point and blow it up.

Are you gibbering with excitement yet?

On a very personal note, one feature that made me jump for joy is match speed with target. Basically, this was a feature from the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games that allowed you to match the current speed with the current target. In dog fights this was important to keep you from either crashing into your prey or letting them get away. This is in Slypheed, and I loves it to death.

All in all, considering I paid 22/n+1 (where n is the number of other games I rent from Gamefly this month) dollars for it, it was a decent game. It was short, simple, had lots of pretty lights, and didn't leave me wanting to do grievous bodily harm on the developers. So check it out and pretend you're Luck Skywalker for a stint.

I am Johnny Depp

2008-02-22T14:05:00.000-08:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Free pedigree charts - Family photo sharing

Two Worlds, Two Too Many

2008-02-12T15:11:00.000-08:00

I've been going over the last few days in my head, trying to figure out what exactly transpired when I acquired Two Worlds. I have two theories: one involves massive doses of psychotropic drugs, and the other involves a Reality Pump programmer with a pistol in one hand and an amnesia ray in the other, one a threat, the other a promise.

Part of my ever evolving, and occasionally for the better, review process is to start with either the best and then qualify it with the bad, or start with the horrible and then search for some redeeming quality. Two Worlds makes it hard, as every facet of this game is terrible, reinforcing the others in a mobius strip of mediocrity. Actually, to call it mediocre is a compliment, I was just going for the alliteration.

I need to start by making sure it is understood how bad the graphics are. They are bad. They are abysmal. I have seen better sprites. It looks like FFXI when I was running without a graphics card, where I had to identify people by the shape of the white blob over their head because I could not render the names clearly. It makes WoW look photo realistic. It makes Dungeon Siege look like top of the line CG. It makes me long for the crisp beauty of Diablo. The facial animations look like they were done in paint. The ferns that cover every square inch of the ground continue to be rendered as you approach them like some floral fractal gallery. It is the first game who's graphics have caused me to cry out in distress, and it wasn't due to a compelling narrative.

At this point, I cannot really say much about the story. I created a character, but I cannot be sure if he's the one I am playing. Some dude is riding through the land with his injured sister, she gets taken by some scary scary shadow figure. Several months later, this guy is wandering around looking for his sis. Not a very good merc if he can't find one person in the it's-a-small-fantasy-world. Shadowy Guy shows up with vague threats or...something. I'll be honest, I really don't care. This has to do with the compounding effect of all the terrible features. I hate talking to people in game because I can't stand looking at them. It's like talking to someone with severe body oder. No, not like talking to an ugly person. Most of the time, ugly people do not choose to look the way you do. Smelly people have actively decided to forgo the societal obligation of hygiene. They are responsible. In the same way, the wincingly ugly people in Two Worlds aren't people, they are programs. Someone is responsible for them looking like a poorly textured horse's ass.

The other thing about the story is the dialog. Merciful heavens, the dialog. It's like it was written by a 10th grader who's only exposure to Ye Olde Englishe is the Claire Danes Romeo and Juliet. The word 'tis' was used 5 times in the first 3 minutes of the game. Twases, twoulds, and mayhapses rain down like the blows of Shiva Balboa, the Sanskritin' Kitten. There is also the necessary Japanese city. In an alarmingly racist move, they all speak like extras in a bad english adaptation of a Hong Kong action movie. Anyone who approves a script with the line "You speak-a da troof" needs to reevaluate their life. Then kill them self. Another oddity is the fact that about half of the female NPC are offended that you even spoke with them, and threaten to blow their rape whistle if you keep talking. A visceral reaction to a simple conversation is mind blowing.

The most out of place line of dialog, and sadly, the most enjoyable, was when my hero, who's name I'm not sure of, if he even has one, is running around wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem, when it begins to rain. This causes Mercly McMercson to spout some regularly scheduled obnoxiously deep melodramatic dialog. But...rather than the usual "Ah, rain...again!" I was greeted with the resonant voice of Mr. Protag: "Drip...drop. Drip...drop." What the heck? What kind of kill-for-coin juggernaut wielding a god-slaying doomaxe spouts onomatopoeic nonsense, by himself, in the forest? Actually, scratch that. I would do this. I will do this. When you get to this point in the game, feel free to take the disk out and put it back in the case. You have just reached the summit of the mountain of excrement that is Two Worlds.

The game mechanics are something out of a nightmare. On the 360, attack is the right trigger. Pull the trigger, chop some suckers up. However, you have to pull the trigger for every single attack or spell. The button placement on the 360 controller is nothing short of award winning, but the most delectable fillet mignon can crush you to death if piled high enough. There's still something odd about pulling a trigger to swing a sword that isn't also a gun of some kind. The fact that it feels odd to me probably speaks volumes to my generation's familiarization with firearms. The magic system is overly simple and ridiculously imbalanced. I achieved a spell that makes monsters attack their allies. A group of ghouls approaches. I cast it on half, they attack the others, who stop to fight their turncoat friends, while I rain down woefully ineffective fireballs from a neighboring hilltop. It was like some pyrotechnically fueled berserker zombie rave, only with less drugs and more piles of corpses afterwards. This is also, by the way, the only spell that isn't a profound disappointment. If they're all going to be not worth struggling with the interface to even get to the point where you can cast them, the least they could do is look pretty.

The inventory screen is clunky, the alchemy system is wanting, the skills beyond "Hit until the man falls down" are awkward and mostly worthless. Items' usefulness and value fluctuates wildly, and the non-linear aspect of the game's story seems to be due to the fact that the quest designers were a crew ADHD chimps.

I feel that I would be shirking my duty to the gods of comedy if I didn't find some way to allude to the fact that the design company is from Poland. Given the (apparent) library of Polack jokes that everyone (must) use (or why would they still be considered a genre of jokes, like blonde jokes). Therefore, I must continue the humor recycling machine by reusing an outdated class of humor based in racism and ignorance. Here goes:

Two World is about as interesting as the Polish flag. How was that? Did I do it right?

Be Very Wary of the 10th of February

2008-02-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

As planned, Anonymous held its Worldwide raid on the Church of Scientology. There is nothing better than to see a crowd of people Rickrolling the CoS in person.(link)

Wikinews
Newsweek
The Sun(tabloid, but still)

Mass Affectations

2008-01-29T14:07:00.000-08:00

Bioware is a solid gaming company whom I trust to deliver a marginally above average gaming experience. Science Fiction is a genre that I consistently enjoy, or at least can scrape out a few redeeming moments. Despite this, Bioware's new sci-fi game Mass Effect was not something that I was yearning for, nor could I get myself excited about. This was a mistake on my part.

First off, the game is far from flawless, and not for everyone. That is to say, my positive feelings are highly personal, and will lead people to two accurate conclusion: I am a huge dork and also a mite touched in the head.

The premise: you're the dude with the 'tude to save the galaxy. Humanity is the new kids on the block, the annoying little kid that hangs out with the big boy races, trying to contribute. You're appointed to the super special forces and must stop the destruction of all life with the help of a multicultural group of aliens that would make the development team of Assassin's Creed glow across the spectrum of human(oid) emotions. The gameplay is from the 3rd person, a shooter in that you use guns, and contains squad based tactics that were taken from Yoda's The Art of War.

Do or do not? Eh, it was a bit of a stretch.

While meant to be played through several times, I started with the soldier, the run-and-gun heavy hitter. I mention this because I imagine this somewhat colors my claim that the combat isn't very intriguing. The autoaim feature, coupled with my setting it on a low difficulty, makes it rather trivial. And before you scoff at the low settings, realize that I am horrible at console shooters. It's the joysticks. I could not pass the second level of Halo 3, so I'll take all the help I can get. There is a cover system that is akin to Gears of War, though chunky AI (don't get me started on teammates running in front of my hull-puncturing sniper rifle) means that enemies either charge right at you like Battlefield 1942 smacktards, or stay cowered behind it forever, requiring you to walk up to their cowering forms and do them execution style like some twisted Loony Toons: Noir Tails, pun definitely intended.

Visually, the game is rather lacking. All the weapons and armor look the same, the levels are mostly cut and pasted from eachother, the characters look like action figures, and the occasionally stunning animation of a certain motion serving only to highlight how average the rest of the game is. There are some quirty visual effects, a 'grainy' view and a motion blur. that cause obsessive checking of the screen for flecks of garbage and motion sickness, respectively.

Without a doubt, the story is not only the strongest part of the game, both in terms of writing and voice acting. Without trawling for specifics, let me just say that I have not been so taken in by a science fiction story since Return of the freakin' Jedi. To touch on the decision-making aspect that everything from RPGs to shooters claim to have these days, I'd say we're getting somewhere. There are three basic ways to respond to most dialogs: nice, mean, and neutral. This isn't original. Agonizing about your conversation choices was the bread-and-butter of the game. aHowever, in most game, I'm looking at you Knight of the Old Republic, a mean reply would grant you one extra line of reaction dialog, and the wounded NPC would suffer from short term memory loss and proceed to continue talking like nothing had happened, leaving the player wanting to smack them around a little to remind them that you just insulted them. Part of this is solved by full voice acting, a relief from the mute protagonist days of yore. Since conversation choices pop up before the NPC is talking, and since the choices you make are more of a general attitude rather than a word for word reply, you can achieve a far more cinematic experience than the one sides phone conversations style of most voice acted American RPGs.

Another aspect of the moral choice system is rather than being a sliding scale ala Neverwinter Nights, you receive Paragon and Renegade points, both independently of each other, and while the good and evil are present, it's more of a "Play by the rules" vs. "the ends justify the means." Either way, you're trying to save the galaxy, it's just a decision of whether you want to be a role model for kids while you do it. Some will undoubtedly pine for the KotOR days of beating people with the disembodied limbs of their freshly murdered spouse, but I feel this is a move in the right direction, allowing for actual choice within a set objective rather than simply creating an illusion of choice.

As far as the much anticipated/reviled sex scene, it is about as 'hawt' as an PG-13 fan-fiction and at least 25% more confusing. I'd put it as somewhat sexier than The Sims, but not quite the debaucherous filth-fest that was The Sims 2. In many ways I had flashbacks to Jedi Knight II, where Kyle Katarn does the rescue-kiss-leave maneuver on Jan Ors. To summarize, the Quake III engine was meant for rendering suckers getting blown up, not kissing. It's like a diseased dog that woke up in a pile of its own filth and wants to say hello to you; you appreciate the sentiment, but the method of execution leaves much to be desired. Still, the media placed descriptors of 'graphic' and 'seXbox' are better aimed at, say, every friggin' movie out there than Mass Effect.

Now for the personal notes: one of the things that struck me once I 'got the airship', so to speak, is the exploration of new planets, scouting for resources, gathering the artifacts of a dead civilization. Very Picard. While the rover handles like a 18-wheeler made of paper that's filled with cotton candy, the most, and unfortunately only, jaw-droopingly beautiful moment was driving up to a peak on some ice-ball world and seeing the sky dominated the torrential beauty of the blue giant star the planet circled.

All in all, Mass Effect is a superb story balanced on rickety legs of wasted potential and bad decisions, but if you enjoy having to wrestle with your game to squeeze out the story, bodyslam this one today!

I'm so happy I cannot think

2008-01-24T13:45:00.001-08:00

Given my hazy knowledge of the legal landscape of the internet and hacking, I'm going to go with my first instincts regarding Scientology vs. Anonymous: I haven't been this happy since I heard about the LOTR movies.

Synopsis: the Church of Scientology, the shady cult that it is, was recently victimized by an electronic break in, resulting in the release of several official videos of Tom Cruise acting like, well, Tom Cruise. Reactions ranged from hilarious to horrified, resulting in the CoS suppressing the reports via legal threats. There was a counter-reaction

Basically, Anonymous, the marshaled soldiers of the internet community 4chan, has been carrying out denial of service attacks on CoS websites.

The only thing I can add is a sincere "good luck", followed with a tentative "don't get bored and stop now, ya here?".

EDIT: and somehow I have managed to tag this twice with the same video. Oh well.

A Comment for Everything

2008-01-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about having the level of internal dialog I do is that I can enjoy practically anything, even, and sometimes especially, things I don't enjoy in and of themselves. For example: art. I don't particularly enjoy it, either the act of creating it, though this may be tied to my utter ineptness in all artistic fields, or the act of observing other peoples' art. I find it a boring, pretentious, and overly self-congratulatory practice and would get more base enjoyment out of babysitting a sociopathic set of 7 year old triplets than to go to an art gallery.

However, since I run a commentary in my head like my life is a self-narrated Truman Show, the least enjoyable task becomes an opportunity to use the verb form of the word "MST3K." Oh, I try, with varying degrees of success, to keep it mostly internal, so as not to be "that guy." Also, it's not always mocking the material itself, more of the context. The situations that lead me to be here. It's funny cause I had X for dinner tonight.

Your life is the only show you can't turn off. Make your's worth watching.

One More Day...if only

2008-01-16T10:56:00.001-08:00

The comic book fanbase is in a constant state of churning. Much like a stagnating economy, much is done, while little changes. The moment the powers that be make an infinitesimally small change that does not conform to a single person's self-generated idea of what a character or storyline should be, armies are mobilized, chests beaten, ultimatums made, and in the end, they, and yes, I am making a generalization here, go out and keep buying the comics that so enrage them. Maybe it's brand loyalty, habit, or speculative hopes on the writing changing. Maybe some honestly look forward to having something to rage about.

Honestly, there isn't much left to say about this phenomenon. It's like coming to a town meeting and asking to address the problem of divorce in America. Stuff has been said, I'm not going to do the psychoanalysis necessary to contribute anything to the discussion, and it's not going to solve itself anytime soon, but this simply serves as a rather circuitous way of arriving at this statement:

I wish I subscribed to the Spider-Man titles so I could drop them like a bad habit/ton of bricks/crying infant.

The cause of this whithering declaration, which I can only assume is causing Joe Quesada to feel a profound emptiness where his heart used to be, is the long awaited and highly dreaded One More Day storyline, which spans all the Spider-Man titles. This has apparently been in the works since Joe Q. took over as editor-in-chief, and seeks to solve the problem that is obvious to nobody but Joe: Peter Parker's got it too good. People can't identify with him, man. Successful, married to a supermodel, returned to his vigilante status in the Civil War. He wanted to shake things up by destroying the core of what made Peter keep on keepin' on: his marriage. How, you ask? By making a deal with the(a) devil. Because, and I'm not making this up, Joe thinks that magic is a better explanation for kids as to why Spider-Man isn't married anymore than divorce.

Spoilers ho: Aunt May was shot by someone gunning for Pete and is dying. The demon Mephisto will save her by resetting things to a few years ago, but will erase Peter and Mary Jane's marriage. Not a divorce, not a death, but magic. The only way to be less subtle is for a guy in a red unitard named "Ret-Con" (retiree turned convict) who constantly quipped to Spider-Man to "push his buttons."As far as insults to continuity go, this is somewhere between Aunt May as Carnage and Mary Jane cheating on Peter with Zombie Uncle Ben.

Probably the worst part of this debacle is the end result, Brand New Day, which kicks off the retconned Spiderman series. It's not "simply" a rollback of time sans Mary Jane and Peter's lo~ove. At least Spidey of years gone by was a sympathetic character who fights through adversity and bullies and such. The new Peter Parker is 25 years old, lives with his Aunt, no girlfriend, no job, and hangs out with his millionaire sleezebag friend and macks on random girls at clubs. With great mojo comes an inverse level of responsibility!

Hate (tm)

2008-01-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I joke that I do not posses a full spectrum of human emotions like most people. I postulate that I in fact lack a metaphysical heart, this simplistic organ replaced with an Engine of Hate. I don't like or dislike things, I simply hate everything to various degrees. Puppies and pretty girls, for example, I hate very little, perhaps asymptotically to zero. The rest is covered by a wide array of varyingly intense but fundamentally similar emotions.

As Pride is the primary sin, Hate is my primary emotion. On the surface, each responses is a different machine, but if you dig deep in the workings, you will find one or more pipelines leading back to the source, the smoldering center of my being

Crazy Strain

2007-12-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

A parody of Ozzy Ozbourne's "Crazy Train" based somewhat on the movie I Am Legend.

Crazy. That's how it goes
Billions of people, dying in droves
Maybe, it's not too late
to find us a cure
Before it's to mutates.

Many turn to monsters
It's messing with their brains
I'm going off my rails with this Crazy Strain

Three long years it has been
Since the bridges were blown
Since the night that I lost them
Now I am alone
Ground zero, it began in this town
The solution is out there, it's just gotta be found

Peace and quiet, surround me
Driving me insane
I'm going off my rails with this Crazy Strain

I know that things are going wrong for me
How much of this world's in my head?
Yeah!

Why shouldn't I give up?
I just wanna fold
My story will never,
Never ever be told.
Madness, creeps in all around
Anger and sadness, are all that can be found

I once again have purpose
For reasons, I cannot explain
I'm going off my rails with this Crazy Strain
I'm here to save the world from this Crazy Strain

Googled my main username

2007-12-13T16:06:00.001-08:00

Happenstance: When you google my username, all related results are me. A vast majority are from the main web forum I visit.

I am also listed as a source on nadshot.com. Oh yeah.

Rock out with your Bioshock out

2007-12-04T09:44:00.000-08:00

There is a part of me that will be forever 17. As I write this I am overcome with curiosity as to whether there is a song with that title, necessitating a google search. There is. By a Christian rock band named "Zoegirl." Yeah, no spaces. Fantastic.

The 17 year old is me is about as close to the stereotypical college student as I have ever been. The shortest way to explain what I mean is to say that I read Atlas Shrugged. I suppose I could elaborate/vindicate myself by saying that I started reading Atlas Shrugged and got 2/3rds of the way through it, but in the end the reality is that the rabidly unrealistic prose of Ayn(rhymes with 'mine', no need to get petty) Rand was at one point coursing through my mind. I will go on to unvindicate myself by saying that despite this, one of my favorite scenes in literature is in this book, though it is totally devoid of Rand's prattle. But this isn't a review of Rand's manifesto, it's a review of Bioshock.

Bioshock is a game set in the 1960s in the underwater city of Rapture. Rapture is a clear mirror for Gault's Gulch, a place where the great thinkers, scientists, industrialists, and artists of the world can live and work, free from the constraints of mooching society, reaping the benefits of the sweat of their brow. If you've read Atlas Shrugged this probably sounds much like one of Gault's speeches. The long and short of the story is Rapture has gone to hell, and you need to kill the insane people, which trying not to get killed by the insane mutated people.

The game is a straightforward shooter, supposedly laced with RPG elements, but which I assume they mean "has more plot than an Unreal Tournament game." Technically there is choice, though it boils down to murdering little girls or simply smacking 'em around. Standard guys are complimented by magic, in the form of mutation granting stem cells that are purchased with the paste you get from grinding up little girl souls.

I suppose this would be classified as a horror game, though my low tolerance for fear means that I get jumpy even , or especially, when not a thing in the world is happening (example: I chickened out on Dead Rising on my first crack at it on the first hall before the safe area. No zombies). Much of the atmosphere is defined by journals that you collect, radio diaries which document the decline of the underwater civilization.

There is a bit of conundrum I face when saying whether the game was difficult or not. Probings into designers comments reveal that ammunition conservation was meant to be a key concept. Well it worked. Nothing quite as infuriating as realizing that all of a gun's ammunition of a single type was in a single clip. However, the presence of vita chambers, respawn points that were a cross between bacta chambers and turbolifts, meant that dying was only profoundly difficult when the nearest vita chamber was thirty floors below you. This enabled me to savagely beat down a room full of mutants with machine guns and molotov cocktails with naught but my trusty wrench, returning each time I am mowed down, wrench held aloft, rallying myself with the cry of "I can't afford any more ammo!"

Even taking this odd design decision out of the picture, the game's overall difficulty is abit off. It lures you into a false sense of security by ramping up your weapons to the point where I wonder why I haven't breached a bulkhead, and then abruptly stops as most enemies continue to become more and more bulletproof. Another disappointment is battling the Big Daddies. These diving-suit donning denizens of Rapture are charged/genetically compelled to protect the Little Sisters as they harvest ADAM from corpses. Also, and this is in game cannon, the little sisters seek out Big Daddies because they smell awful. Pheromones and stuff. You kill them to get to the Little Sisters. They are among the harder enemies you face, which supposedly requires you to set up for the kills, piling up oxygen canisters and proximity mines. This is a joke, as the shotgun's electric buckshot will stun them exactly the amount of time it takes to reload a single round of electric buckshot. It's like actually fighting a guy in a Victorian diving suit while you have a shotgun.

One point of contention in the community is the "twist" in the middle. This is a challenge to write, as I do not want to give it away, but suffice to say the natural gamers' thinking is played against you as a major point of the narrative. You metagame yourself. Granted, it IS a game so you do behave in a certain way (if plunged into that situation, I personally would have sat in a corner and soiled myself), but in terms of the story, it does make one think. This section has turned out worse than I expected. Just play to the twist, you can't miss it. It will all become clear.

All in all, I liked the game. As I alluded to earlier, the 17 year old in me love the idea of Rapture. He also reads the front page of the Wall Street Journal and scoffs as he applies idealistic economic theory to the real world, but give him a break, he's 17. The length means that I won't be playing through it again anytime soon, and the RPG elements means that either you are a saint or satan, and then little girls say mean things to you. I at LEAST need to ruin a couple of people's retirement funds before I consider the evil worth my time.

Nostalgia and the Lense of Knowledge

2007-11-30T08:47:00.000-08:00

Just the other day I found my way to an online archive of Calvin and Hobbes comics. There is a funny thing that happens on these occasional saunters down memory lane. I come across comics that I remember perfectly, but the meanings are not what I recall. One of the instances of this are a particular comic where the two are playing cowboys and Hobbes shoots Calvin. He falls over with a melodramatic display and his feline companion hands him a maraca, explaining it as a death rattle.

The 9-year-old me read that as a simple pun, though the somewhat more educated 22-year-old me has a clue about what a death rattle is. There's another comic where the world goes black and white, which my recent rereading reveals was a metaphor for how Calvin views the issues in a debate with his dad, not simply another crazy happening.

I bet this is what kids today will feel like watching the 20th anniversary edition of Shrek.

Rock Band (review?)

2007-11-28T10:37:00.000-08:00

So Rock Band, which until a month prior to it's release was inadvertently referred to as Band Hero, was released about a week ago to the joyous cries of gamers and the self-righteous indignation of real musicians everywhere. As the puckered sphincter of nowhere that is the Tri-Cities is in to hurry to be perceived as a metropolis by anyone's definition, there were no true midnight releases. So I hurried myself at 11:45 PM to the media midnight release mecca of Benton county: Walmart, who's release regalia consisted of a spiral bound sign-up sheet and a chucklehead pulling a cart laden with the beautiful boxes. There were plenty to go around. Oh the joy!

The content of the box was mostly straight forward, save for a few odd pieces of plastic designated as headset attachments. Since Xbox Life for me is as riveting as watching a sloth swim in aspic, I haven't has much inclination to figure it out. The provided USB hub is crap. A flimsy housing the size of a matchbook with a power adapter the size of a flashlight seems off to me.

THE BAD(slang): The game is fantastic. The songs rock, visuals of the band amazing, the cinematography and visual effects for the songs are sweet, and also tight.

THE BAD(bad): The drum controller, which I have spent the most time with, has some odd cases of not registering beats when there's more than one at a time. This becomes a problem on difficulties where there is one to three notes on every 1/16th beat. Also there are wide rumors (probably from people who 5-star GH songs on expert) that the guitar controllers are flimsy and many have already broken.

THE BADD(misspelled): Multiplayer bands have some odd choices. A single player is designated the leader, and the band cannot play without him. You cannot change the leader, and if the leader quits the band, it disbands. I imagine it's designed to keep people from stealing the hypothetical "you"'s band by vote or some such, but couldn't you just make the leader pick someone else? A personal nitpick is that when presented with a list you cannot scroll up to jump to the bottom of the list. To me this would be like a program where double-clicking doesn't open files.

The two things I've been working on are drums and vocals. Drums are interesting. They start off surprisingly hard, i.e. with a basic drum beat, and get reasonably harder as the difficulty increases. I feel I'm a bit ahead of the curve, as I own a real drum kit (this is distinct from being a drummer. >_>), and aced medium and cruised through about the first 2/3rds of the hard solo tour before I had to take the time to really learn the songs. I am running into trouble with certain parts, as the drum response is poor on extremely rapid segments. Also, syncopated bass notes are my bane, while drum fills are so much fun I stop being a gamer for a moment and feel like a musician, trying to find fills that work with the part of the song.

As someone who's been a singer for years, I am currently finding that the hardest part of vocals is NOT improvising. At my current level, a quarter of the way through expert, I am finding much more of a "I am playing a game" feel than "I am doing elaborate karaoke and having a jolly old time." Also, I have found that the female vocals, which at low difficulties can be sung an octave or two lower(as the game is intended to work), become extremely hard as the game becomes strict on what's correct to the point of singing in the exact same vocal range. Falsetto is my friend.

Multiplayer is great, even with the annoyances I've mentioned. I enjoy the unlocking of venues and collecting stars/fans. Band naming is highly amusing ("Barely Hyperbole", "Grizzly Bear the Crustacean", "Between the Sheets"[cause we're a cover band, see?], "Raped in a Bathroom" [okay not really]), the clothing options are fun, though I find myself making perfect outfits rather than any kind of mix-and-matching. All in all, it is an amazing game that I would recommend to anyone who can mug $180 worth of pedestrians.

Deja Vu!

2007-11-05T16:13:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting here at work, and my head is itching. A few days ago I konked myself on set piece running off stage at rehearsal, but itching was unusual. I start searching in my unkempt mat to see if I can locate whatever is causing my discomfort. Success! I locate a scab that I was previously unaware of. My course of action, naturally, was to rip it off. I had the strangest sensation, something that I've not thought about in...16 years. It was like scratching at chicken pox on your scalp.

Deja vu's a funny thing.

THIS! IS(N'T)! GEOCITIES!

2007-10-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

TIME FOR AN UPDATE:

We're in pre-tech week for Peter Pan in Richland High's auditorium. While the constant "being called and sitting around for two hours while they do other stuff" tries one's patience, they are flying, which is both cool to watch and essential to learn to do it correctly. Still, tiresome.

Geoff and I went to a Halloween karaoke party up in Bellingham. The location had an amazing setup, with thousands of songs. I rocked "If I Were a Rich Man" and the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, as well as a few other songs. Far too little Queen available.

I was the venerable Dr. McNinja.

Yep, no way I was going to be able to finish my Iron Man Costumes, and I would have had a heat stroke in it anyway.

I'm getting a tad miffed at the local comic shop's continual messing up of my orders. Not in a nerdrage "MAH STORIES!" kind of way, but more of a "How do you deal with people for whom this IS a big deal."

Iron Man Trailer

2007-09-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

Though it is little more than rehashed videos of the Comic Con video, just yesterday they released the official teaser trailer for the Iron Man movie, theoretically located here, though I have had little luck with quicktime. I am ecstatic.

Progress on my armor is coming along nicely, though I am still unsure if it will be completed in time for the Halloween party at Cale's. By my estimation I have to build:

Helmet
Neckpiece
Shoulder plates
Back plates
Gloves
Bracers
Upper arms
Chestplate
Torso
Groin
Upper legs
Boots and lower legs

I have completed the neck, back plates, bracers, the torso is all but finished, and I am waiting for a shipment of materials to complete the gloves. Four hundred and thirty two feet squared of red contact paper. If I can't whip something up with this, I don't deserve to wear it.

Been a bit sparse on the comics lately. World War Hulk tie-ins are petering out. The Incredible Hulk #110 was interesting (booyah spoilerish). In short, Amadeus Cho has determined that the Hulk's mind works just like his, but that the Hulk's is subconscious, which is why he can throw a tank a mile and yet not kill the crew. Joe Q's big "One More Day" Spider-Man started last week, I am at least intrigued.

Thor #3, AKA Iron Man v Thor, comes out this week. Alas, I was spoiled, but come on, god v. some dude isn't exactaly a fair fight. Heroes for Hire: hentai edition comes out as well, hopefully the last of the WWH tie-ins. New Avenger's #34 is supposed to be good, they are setting up for another Skrull Invasion or something, and I don't want to spend 3 issues reeling from the lack of context like many of the WWH tie-in.

The Happenstance: I, with the help of some people who were smarter than I, managed to marginally understand cosmic microwave background radiation. I am pretty psyched.

My top 25 albums, part the IV

2007-08-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

16. The Cure Disentigration
I have over time developed the mutant power to tell The Cure from Tears for Fears. Also, I don't think they let you own a black trenchcoat without also liking The Cure.

17. Jim's Big Ego They're Everywhere
Good solid funny music. Specific props to "The Ballad of Barry Allen." Though not on this album, their song "Stress" used to be my 4'o'clock on Friday song.

18. Bare Naked Ladies Stunt
So many good songs. "Alcohol" and "Who Needs Sleep" are particularly funny sons

19. Blind Guardian A Night at the Opera
Yeah, 3rd entry for a single artist, but this was the album that made me buy a drum kit. Also containing my favorite romantic song of all time, "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight", it must be included. I kinda played this album to death, so I don't listen to it much.

20. Ghengis Tron Cloak of Love
This was a group that I was hesitant to add. I wouldn't say I truly enjoy their music, but its effect on me is too unique to leave it off this list. This music terrifies me. Their songs start playing, and a deep primal fear wells up and I start to panic. Even when I'm expecting it. It's got a freaky fusion of screamer metal and video game-like music. It's worth a look.

Bah, I'm done for now. At this point I'm kinda reaching.

My top 25 albums, part the tres

2007-08-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

11. Ayreon The Human Equation
I think the reason I have so many "firsts" on this list is that I'm not incredibly adventurous in my musical tastes, so I tend to check out bands that are highly recommended. The Human Equation was my introduction to the concept(haw) of a concept album. Probably the reason this one's my favorite is because Arjen's less prominent vocal role. Not a huge fan of the hyper-vibrato of his earlier stuff.

12. MC Frontalot Nerdcore Rising
I was hesitant to add this to my list, as it's a very campy album, but it remains the only hip hop album I own and contains the only hip hop music I can stand. I came to the realization that I don't dislike rap/hip hop (though the exact difference eludes me), I just dislike 99% of the rap/hip hop that has ever been made! How pretentious!

13. Ben Folds Five Ben Folds Five
Sure, Ben Folds is one of the greatest lyricists alive, but beyond that, this album takes me back to the good ol' days of downloading AMVs via dialup from morethantoast [dawt] com, a download that would take hours , so you boot up Rollercoaster Tycoon and...well, that's not the point, but it's excellent music, and his solo stuff is just as good.

14. Savage Circus Dreamland Manor
After realizing that I'd never see Queen live, learning that I'd never see the Blind Guardian I fell in love with in concert was the biggest musical disappointment of my life (still hoping for a reunion). Thomen Stauch was the reason I bought a drum kit. So when I heard he was founding a band in the vein of old school BG, I was thrilled. Pure old school power metal, I especially love that it's mixed with the drums as the more prominent of the instruments.

15. Dragonforce Inhuman Rampage
Another album that I wasn't sure if it belonged here, as it may seem campy, but what the hell. A highly divisive album, perhaps drawing the line between the metal fan and the fanatic. Pure metal for the sake of metal. With an undeniable energy, this self-genre'ed extreem power metal is one of far too few that deserve the additional adjectives. To live one day with the passion that they cram into a single song.

My top 25 albums, part the deuce

2007-08-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

6. Megadeth Cryptic Writtings
My #5 and #6 are probably the only ones who's order is irrelevant. I was introduced to both at the same time, love them both, same nostalgia attached to both. I flipped a coin and Countdown won.

7. Queensryche Operation:Mindcrime
One of the great discoveries of Pandora radio, and easily one of my favorite concept albums. Geoff Tate's voice makes me jealous. A beautiful and sad collection of songs. "The Needle Lies" is a great song. I feel like a bit of a douche comparing any of the silly obsession in my life to a heroin addiction, but I find it a very moving song.

8. Beck The Information
This was the first non-metal album I bought after college. A fun album, especially the track about the exoskeleton. That track cracks me up.

9. Dream Theater Octavarium
I don't remember how I came upon this band. I bought a DVD of their 20th anniversary tour and it was great. I don't really get the hate they seem to draw, but then I've not been a life-long fan.

10. Blind Guardian Nightfall in Middle-Earth
This was my first BG album. I can still remember going into my room and putting this on, and sixty-five minutes later coming down. It was much like watching a movie based on a book you were familar with, a song would start and I'd think "Oh! This part! I know this!"

My top 25 albums, part the first

2007-08-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

NO PREFACE!

1. Blind Guardian Imaginations from the Other Side
While making a top 25 list is difficult, picking my #1 wasn't. This album recently edged out BGs A Night at the Opera for the #1 slot. This album have everything, from the sweeping anthems to the tragic ballads. I find myself thinking "Yes!" at the beginning of each song, they're all great, and I have yet to tire of it.

2. David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
Ah, good ol' Bowie. A friend introduced me to his music in highschool and I've been loving it ever since. Another album where I love every song on it. If I could, however, I'd make this entry "A burned copy of Ziggy Stardust with 'Bring me the Disco King' at the end."

3. Queen Queen on Fire: Live at the Bowl
Freddie Mercury is the greatest frontman of any band ever. There, I said it. Someday they will build cyborg to rival him, with a heart powered by liquid charisma who causes anyone who hears his voice to orgasm forever. Choosing a Queen album was hard, since I spent most of highschool listening to the Best Of set. As someone who idolizes Mercury's singing, I prefer him live over his studio work, as the live is generally lower and little to no falsetto.

4. Depeche Mode Exciter
It wouldn't be my list if Depeche Mode wasn't in the top 5. A friend slipped me a CD that infected my pure metal playlist with this depressing crap, that I came to love. As the only non-singles compilation album I own, this is what made the list.

5. Megadeth Countdown to Extinction
Megadeth was my introduction to the heavy metal genre. I was 14, at my first LAN party, someone put on a AMV with "Sweating Bullets." As a highly sheltered youth, I found is very disturbing, and loved it.

My personal top 25 albums, part PROLOGUE

2007-08-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

I don't usually like to talk about music much, which is a product of my ignorance and my absolute refusal to debate subjective points, unless it's really really funny. Music is primarily an issue of taste, and, though I am an ardent supporter of the idea that tastes can be wrong, in a field as varied and all encompassing as "music," it is quite difficult to be wrong. To say that one likes music is similar to proclaiming ones love of "movies," or your affinity to "things."

There are several challenges I face in compiling a list such as this. First off, my musical tastes are rather narrow, or at least narrow in the genres that I can speak on in any length. There are bands such as Modest Mouse, Red Hot Chillie Peppers, Matchbox 20, Santana, etc, etc, that I know I would/do enjoy, but I neither own nor could name a single album. Therefore, sticking to what I know, I'd guess that 15 to 20 of them will be some clicky metal powerhouse.

The other major challenge is that a good chunk of the non-metal music I listen to is all digital, and mostly not mine. Most of my music by the Cure, Depeche Mode, and Tears for Fears is from a data DVD that Geoff handed me and said "listen to this." Since I'm usually doing something else, I hear a song here and there, not entire albums at a time.

Onward, to the center of my aural being!

And the winner of "Most Inappropriate Casting Ever" goes to...

2007-08-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Me! Whitest man ever to be cast as a non-Caucasian ethnic role!

I landed a role in Richland Light Opera's "Peter Pan" as an Indian dancer. But not just an Indian dancer, a special Indian dancer! Whether that means I will do more than simply dance, or will be Tiger Lily's lovable simpleton brother, remains to be seen.

A few new links in the sidebar. Life in Plastic Pants is a story about a group a Lego knights and their adventures, most of which involve excrement and discussions and observations about excrement. The Lego aspect tickled my funny bone.

Wondermark is a disturbing comic using vintage etchings with bizarre dialogue. The alt text on the comics are particularly funny.

Lucid TV is an artistically dramatic, and topically macabre comic involving the misadventures of several sociopath doctors. It nails my morbid sense of humor.

In the wake of a massive allergy attack, I crafted a joke involving the state of my immune system, how if tested, the suppression due to the vast amount of antihistamines would make it appear that I had AIDS. I decided that the complex context was too much for most.

The Happenstance: I am often struck by a mild sense of disappointment Saturday mornings when I wake up, even after drinking to the point of illness, and I don't have a hangover. I smack myself in the head with a cry of "You're doing it wrong!" Not that I can exactly correct myself.

Steamcore Rising!

2007-08-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

An FO thread with the simple aim to be ever so puntastic, has blossomed into something far greater. The author claimed to want to pioneer the Steampunk-Rock. Clever. Later in the thread, in a satirical jab at the music industry, someone made a reference to a calculated release of "steam-core rap" for maximum profit via coattail ridding. Various people came into the thread with short bits of rapping, Victorial-gangsta style. While chuckling my brains out, I was struck by a bolt of inspiration.

I hold my lady's parasol
while she rides on the carousel
my clock-works are a miracle
wound tighter than my lyrical
verse, not to be terse
but you're worse at engineering than a dead man is of hearing
While you're busy failing I'll be unveiling
my latest invention with the intention
of changing the world.
Gonna start a revolution
while you stay obtuse 'n
I'll usher in a new age, like the Plague, from London to The Hague
I won't be staid, and you'll be laid
to rest. in the halls of Obscurity, while I'm sure to be
celebrated all the whole world wide, I won't lie
Though shirts may get ruffled, and mortal coils be shuffled
My legacy
Will not
Die.

Steamcore. While that wasn't fast writing, it just kept coming.(that's what she said). It was like an iceberg, slow and unstoppable.

I can see it now, pinstripe pants and suspenders, a wrench stuffed into the front of the pants, rolling into the MTV awards in a carriage with brass spinners on the wheels, a cane and top hat, challenging other rappers to battles with a slap of a glove. Tight.

Bwaaaanaaaah na na na! Bwananananananaaa na na naaa!

2007-08-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

So my family's left town for the church retreat. Me, I'm working on my Iron Man costume. This is the kind of work that makes me wish I had four arms and elastic eyeballs. I'm sure this would be much easier if I knew anything about pattern-making and sewing...and had decent spatial thinking skills. Or has any engineering skills.

Anyway, despite all my shortcomings, my costume is making unprecedented progress. The chest and top of the back, as well as some of the wrap-around chest area are done...ish. I need a lot more red crafting foam. I hope I don't lose interest (again) before Halloween. I hear Cale is having a party and I want to be ready. I don't quite know how I'd manage to tow my armor and all the crap all my friends will need for a night or more in Bellingham. IF I WERE A BILLIONAIRE I WOULDN'T HAVE THIS PROBLEM. Geez, the Universe is so unthinking.

I hope to have the basic structure done before Halloween, and some more advanced features done for the Iron Man premier next May. GOSH, that can't come soon enough. I plan to have at least some lights on the various repulsor and pacemaker stuff, maybe some sounds set up.

The Happenstance: I found a letter on my end table that's been there for months. It contains the insurance card that I've been waiting months to receive. WHO KNEW?

IT'S OVAH!

2007-07-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

Huzzah, the Iron Curtain of Fear is lifted. The internet is safe. I will resist making some Harry Potter reference to the newfound sense of security with the death of...oh come on, what did you think happens?

I went to Barnes & Noble for the release, though I did not secure a book there. It was a wreck. There were at least 800 people there, and the person who crafted the delivery system should be scooped up by some government agency; the tapestry of bureaucracy would become an impenetrable web. Via second-hand accounts, I understand that the pre-orders were being brought in fifty at a time, as pre-order numbers were tied to individual copies of the book. Great. After about forty minutes, B&N got a big "Screw you guys, I'ma going to Walmart," from me. Walked into the store, saw a mountain wrought of books, got one (and some sweet swag!). In and out in less than five minutes. Something like a review in a bit.

I didn't actually finish the book until Sunday evening. Part of this was a desire to savor it, but mostly it was because I picked up a bunch of comics that I had missed. Once again, WWH: X-Men stood out as my favorite, with WWH #2 and Avengers: The Initiative being quite good as well. Gamma Corps confused the hell out of me, pulling the lame "It's a WWH tie-in cause you see Hulk in the last panel" that Ghost Rider #12 did. Silver Surfer: Requiem had a serene sadness that was matched with the art.

I enjoyed Deathly Hallows. Slightly confused since it's been about two years since I read book 6 and longer since any of the others. I recognized some names no further than "someone we've seen before," but still a pleasant read. Good resolution, bits and pieces made me chuckle "How conveeeeeeenient!" but I liked it. The very end confusing, with half a hoji of characters with little to no info on them, but what are you gonna do?

I got a sneaking suspicion that Rowling is a bit unsure of how to write a Harry Potter book without Hogwarts. Past works had been, in a gross simplification, "Harry Potter Goes to Hogwarts (and something happens!)". The chamber of secrets was a something. The return of Voldemort was a something. We had a solid framework that was revisited, and something additional. School, homework, finals, someone not speaking to someone else, hating on Snape, Hogsmeade, etc. Without Hogwarts, it becomes "Harry Potter, and Something Happens(and something else happens too!)". The middle chunk of the book felt like three or four endings stuck together.

The other beef that I have with the books is the rampant immaturity shown by, well, everyone. Every single character could be a first year student at Hogwarts. Kids, grown-ups, good, evil, doesn't matter: whiny, petty little bastards. I supposed this is to make it easier for kids to relate to the characters. It is a children's' book, after all. Only Dumbledore ever seemed to be above it all, calm and collected, always in control as he dealt with the crowds of squabbling children.

Anyway, the only reason I nitpick like I do is because I love the story so much, so it's on my mind a lot. If I didn't care, I wouldn't over-analyze it.

Living in Fear

2007-07-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

I have always considered myself to be what could be called a paranoid person. I lock my doors, I casually check to see if my wallet's been snatched, I view rooms and buildings in terms of defense and escapability, and I look over my shoulder when walking at dusk. I once tried to explain this to a friend of mine, and she seemed truly saddened by this, saying something to the effect of "I can't imagine living with that much fear."

Fear? Fear? This isn't an angry response, merely a shocked one. I don't do this out of fear. If I conveyed this, apologies. Again to clarify, this isn't an I'M NOT SCARED I'M A MAN reply, it's a fact. If I never get pick-pocketed, attacked, invaded, or stalked, I will not look back on my life from the Heavens and chuckle at myself, thinking what a foolish and paranoid lad I was. I respond to theoretical threats because, best case scenario, I will be over prepared. It is natural for me to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. So I'm paranoid, but not afraid of something that could possibly happen to me at some point in the future.

Except for now. I am going to be spoiled on the end of the the 7th Harry Potter book.

It's quite surreal, actually. It's not "You'll be dead by the end of the week" fear. It's a slow, creeping fear. I could go to work, come home, goof off on my Xbox, and on Friday go to Walmart and pick up my copy. I'll read it, be happy, and go on with my life having enjoyed the ending to a good series of books without any spoilers.

But there's a chance.

That chance is very small. I don't frequent many sites that would spoil me. I don't spend hours drudging through the comments of SlashDot or various gaming forums. I don't have a MySpace where droves of prepubescent killjoys can leave me comments on who died/got married/joined the circus in the next book. With the knowledge that there are real spoilers lurking out there, I am going to even further to assure the purity of my brain for the release. No YouTube, for fear of mass ctrl C ctrl Vs of the ending, or some video with the Big Reveal as the title plastered over the top viewed list, seventy billion viewers' collective stupidity bringing the stunning conclusion to a stunning end. No news sites, CNN, BBC, etc. A good friend of mine was spoiled on the end of the 6th book by some knob goblin commenting on an article about the latest from the Senate Judiciary committee. Glorious.

If I am spoilered, my life will not end. I am not going to cry. I may swear, I may strike a solid surface with great vehemence , but it won't remove any enjoyment of the narrative itself. But still, I'd rather have my enjoyment of both the form and the content at the same time.

Needless to say, I will be brining both earplugs and headphones to the midnight event.

The pizza shop by where I work has a DDR Extreme machine. I am most happy.

EDIT: I just edited this post for a single apostrophe does that make me a bad person?

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Barometric Pressure

2007-07-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

Via a website of questionable legality, who's existence was revealed, amazingly enough, by my sister, I managed to watch the new Fantastic Four movie the other night. Some British movie streaming site with dirty ads. Classy.

The FF have been something of a surprising enigma for me as I've done more and more reading about them. I mostly dismissed them from even casual analysis. Invisible Girl's powers don't make sense. Strong and durable: duh. Fire and flight: works. Invisibility and force fields: what? Mr. Fantastic's power always struck me as impossibly lame. I am made of elastic. Woop-dee-freakin'-do.

They do have some interesting aspects. The lack of a secret identity was always cool. While this bothered me in the first movie (until you've saved someone/thing, you're not a hero, you're a freak), it is a pleasant departure from the "Society hates people that are flipping awesome." Reading some Ultimate FF pointed out that the four powers are based on the four primal elements: earth, fire, air(Sue), and water(Reed).

Not to say that the new movie was much good. It was a hurried, barely 120 minutes long anti-climatic festival of snoozes. Dr. Doom was retarded, quite a feat for the 2nd greatest mind on the planet, the Surfer was dull, Reed was (mostly) a push-over, and Sue was "Sue Storm as adapted for Hispanic audiences."

I don't feel like going into overly-nitpicky detail about the movie, but Galactus was a monumental disappointment. Speculations abound how we didn't actually see him, but here's the long and short of it:

as presented in the movie, Galactus is a cloud.

A cloud.

A fucking weather phenomenon.

Sure, it was kinda fiery and nebulous, and it cast a shadow shapped like regular Galactus' head, but still, it was a cloud. I could have dealt without a giant man in a deathstar wearing purple kapris, but a somewhat menacing thunderhead does inspire visions of the End of All that Is.

I received my copy of "The Zombie Survival Guide" the other day. Fairly entertaining read, but not tons I didn't know. It was comforting to have my thought backed up by a professional, mainly in that heading to the nearest bargain warehouse isn't the smartest move since everyone will be doing that. The section about zombie attacks throughout history was by far the most interesting.

I intend to drink much liquor tonight, for no reason than to reward myself for accomplishing...something. I'll think of what that is later.

Reed Richards is a dick

2007-07-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

I will admit to never having an affinity for the Fantastic Four, or any comics for that matter. I have three separate memories having to do with comics in my youth.

1) I read a Batman graphic novel in the library that was based on the Batman Returns movie. I was mildly shocked by the violence displayed, and never quite understood why Catwoman had so many lives. She didn't have powers, so why did she have lives?

2) I do recall seeing a Fantastic Five comic book at a grocery store, and thinking it was incredibly lame, like the blade wars of Gillette and Schlick.

3) I became terrified of the comics sections of grocery stores (man, do they sell them in grocery stores anymore?) after seeing a Spawn comic.

DC, Marvel, and Image. How appropriate.

Anyway, Reed's a dick. In a few minutes of perusing scans_daily, I found him using some cosmic magnet to pull a meteor down to earth and through the roof of his house, as well as attacking his wife to "test her reflexes" and then getting mad when she gets mad. Wimen!

This is on my mind because I started playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and given how dumb friendly AI is, the Fantastic Four is a retardedly effective team. Reed's an awesome melee fighter. Still, he's a dick.

It's 7-11, free slurpie day at all 7-11s, which means the one by work was packed. Jillions of kiddies all clamoring for frozen slurpy goodness, meaning that the staff was swamped, which means that they were out of my usual Big Gulp cups. It's cool, I've been looking for an excuse to cut back.

The new Harry Potter movie comes out today, or last night. Details. This one kinda snuck up on me since I've been expecting the book

The Happenstance: A co-worker asked why I rag on her all the time. I told her it was the same reason a climber climbs a mountain. She figured it out eventually.

I need a haircut

2007-07-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

I miss my shaved head sometimes. I mean, I went for six months without needing to get a haircut, which I hate having to get. It's always so weird. I never have anything in common with the hair dressers, if I'm lucky there's some event/holiday that I can talk about my plans. But usually, I just sit there in silence and worry about passing out while I bake under the plastic smock.

I don't remember when I stopped getting haircuts at home. We used to make events of it, when Alex, my father and I would all get a cut on the same day. We would then sweep all our discarded hair into a pile and name it. Oh, simpler times!

The Haps: The 4th was very mellow. The church picnic had almost none of my peeps there, so I sat in the shade and thought about parkour. Afterwards I went to Macy's for a few things, and came back to play Wii games with some friends. I didn't even see the fireworks. I hate the traffic afterwards anyway.

Never going to a mall again...

2007-07-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

For as little of a life as I have, I had quite a full weekend.

Friday-The party at Esther's place was great. Her apartment is equal parts sweet and relaxing. The deck with a sunset view of Rattlesnake Mountain seals the need to ask this question: great place to live, or greatest place to live?

We broke out the Taboo. Suffice to say, we, and by "we" I mean "Geoff, Nick, and I," still got it. Much better when additional party-goers arrived and a restructuring of the teams saw the three of us on the same team.

Most obscure and obscene reference(which my CREW didn't get): "I'm so pumped I could play a ____ with my cock!!" Your's truly, Trumpet.
Most convoluted reference(that someone got): Geoff made a Deathnote relationship to amnesia.

Karaoke was pretty awesome. First time for most people there, including the owner of the machine. Geoff and I rocked "Under Pressure" and Claire obliterated everyone with "Son of a Preacher Man."

Saturday-Kim Dewinkle's wedding was pretty fun, with humorous/embarrassing stories told of the betrothed. The reception was in a neat room at the convention center, low lights, many happy people, though most were neither shiny nor holding hands.

Afterwards, a few of us went to Geoff's for a Keanu Reeves-less vampire movie event where we watched the first three Hellsing OAVs. I have to say, that is the second anime anything that I prefer the dubs to subtitled. It's a little silly when some refined British lady is "wooooo"ing while some super-distorted dream sequence plays out, but overall it sounds superb, and Little Brother Valentine wins the "Best Foul-Mouthed Character since Rocco from Boondock Saints" award.

Nick brought his Wii over and we played a bit of sports. I'm sorry, but boxing was lame. I'm used to getting angry and frustrated at loosing and poor controls, respectively, but with boxing you get the added (bonus?) of being tired and looking like a fool while you loose and struggle with controls.

Bowling and golf were a blast. Golf in particular was eerily relaxing, just chatting about whatever, contemplating the next shot, and since we were all new to it, we were still trying to figure out the controls, etc. A jolly good time.

SUNDAY! Sunday! SUUUUNDAY!-Took my first real crack at Dead Rising because I chickened out late Saturday night. It really throws you into the action after pulling a Hitchcock psych at you. Zombie rent-a-cops are much tougher than their living counterparts. Also, I don't think most photojournalists would have it in them to charge across the eves of the food court to bludgeon a machine gun-wielding psychopath with a baseball bat. Just sayin's all. Also, I feel kinda bad taking pictures of people at the end of their rope, contemplating being eaten by zombies.

I also received my pre-ordered hardcover of "Planet Hulk," a full two weeks earlier that Amazon claimed. Huzzah. I have two things to say:

1) All Hail the Green Scar.

2) Did I just see a four-armed bug king get the moves put on him by one of the Alien aliens? I kind of don't want to know.

One post is for suckers

2007-06-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

So I'm getting sick of looking at a single post while I crap around with the various settings. So here is the Haps:

I bought a Xbox 360 this week. A debut on the console scene has been on my mind for a while, and with a slap of both hands to the table, and a cry of "We doin' this thing" I went to Best Buy and picked one up, along with the game Overlord. Think American McGee meets Lord of the Rings. Also, I now lack any reason to not be all over Rock Band this fall.

Esther is having a birthday/housewarming party tonight. Lacking a designated driver, I shall consume a fraction of the alcohol that pop-culture has lead me to believe is necessary to perform karaoke. But I'm a trooper. I will manage.

I have not heard from my parents since they touched down in Honolulu last Thursday. I was thinking of worrying about it, but then I thought that there must not be descent cell reception in the middle of the freaking ocean.

The Happenstance: I lent Geoff my car to take his driving test, something that the number of things that are conspiring to prevent it from happening can only be described as "Act One of a Romantic Comedy." My insurance card was expired. Now I know I have insurance. I vividly remember paying the fee as one twist of the thumb-screw, the other twists being writing rent and student loan payment checks in the same sitting. What this means is that someone in a pile somewhere in my house is my latest insurance cards. That's my dragon to slay this weekend.

Cheers

First P0st!

2007-06-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

So this is a blog. Like most things in the world, I am behind the curve, probably some karmatic balancing from being "gifted" growing up. Screw you, karma!

To get the questions out of the way, the title was literally made up with a few seconds of thought. I had a few other ideas, as starting a blog has been on the back burner of my mind for a while, but most were far too nerdy for even me. "The Haps" being vaguely modern slang, and Happenstance being an equally vague archaic word, I have managed to create a blog title that transcends modern sensical English, infrared and ultraviolet-like. I do that sometimes.