tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291178972024-03-18T20:18:50.789-07:00angry jerk with computerrampant, unbridled, horrific, nerd rage.Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-75149734403357563312009-12-31T12:20:00.000-08:002009-12-31T12:23:03.468-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7sLqz_hHSeB0K_PXK8MA2JHqyx9xvN88plq60MBRtrEJSTnkcMCKOY_QumTRepuWtbMe7VgayEj8XHDBBRHXqgzX_5dWXVqEfJaVAu3NO7N00vy7UdHvcpf0vAAYBhw4vqy1-Cg/s1600-h/IMG_0114.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7sLqz_hHSeB0K_PXK8MA2JHqyx9xvN88plq60MBRtrEJSTnkcMCKOY_QumTRepuWtbMe7VgayEj8XHDBBRHXqgzX_5dWXVqEfJaVAu3NO7N00vy7UdHvcpf0vAAYBhw4vqy1-Cg/s320/IMG_0114.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421498296312508258" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwkELauTlha0sARpoY1mKPw-jxjQk6zuq0aJMuWRHS4qf49jQAXRhkQIVXN8JIYSlMggDRLwSY_QhEJQgzuvr92LcgfZoAavJdP4_5iyaqc60O42QoGrfmom0IQif1U2kIHtS2zw/s1600-h/IMG_0142.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwkELauTlha0sARpoY1mKPw-jxjQk6zuq0aJMuWRHS4qf49jQAXRhkQIVXN8JIYSlMggDRLwSY_QhEJQgzuvr92LcgfZoAavJdP4_5iyaqc60O42QoGrfmom0IQif1U2kIHtS2zw/s320/IMG_0142.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421498428109119762" border="0" /></a>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-15931461225195385532008-12-29T14:41:00.000-08:002008-12-29T17:41:40.222-08:00A throttling...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ololcollegelibrary.pbwiki.com/f/200px-CormacMcCarthy_BloodMeridian.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 305px;" src="http://ololcollegelibrary.pbwiki.com/f/200px-CormacMcCarthy_BloodMeridian.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The first time I read <span style="font-style: italic;">Blood Meridian</span> I got lost. I think a better word actually is overwhelmed. I hadn't read prose like that since my last foray through Middle Earth, only this time instead of hooming Ents and galloping wizards it was scalped natives with sun dried bones and slaughtered babies hanging from trees by their ankles. I loved the book but it caught me off guard and therefore was a bit toug</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">h to chew on, and that comes from a dude who digests graphic violence like kettle corn. Salty <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> sweet? "Woot" I say.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">When it was first recommended to me my buddy said "This is the most violent book that has ever been written." I never categorized him as one to fib, but he could spin quite a yarn. Liar: no. Exaggerator: yes. Regardless of the level and potency </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">of said violence, it had been writ to the menu. I brought my bib. But while I was fully equipped to put my brain through the mental meat grinder, what I wasn't e</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">xpecting was the beautiful and eloquent delivery of such a horrifying story. Imagine Mary Poppins narrating The Road Warrior. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />The second time I</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> read <span style="font-style: italic;">Blood Meridia</span>n I was ready for it, and loved it even more. Long story short it's one of the best books I've read as an adult and despite the lack of any morality, hero, or other general <span style="font-style: italic;">goodness</span> whatsoever I still connected to it on a level one can only describ</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">e as special. I still think about it daily. It's my new water mark, my Michael Jordan, My Sgt Pepper. Every book I read for the rest of my life will be compared to this on</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">e until it is dethroned and sent to the catacombs of lesser diction, not an event I see happening any time soon.<br /><br />However, this post is not about "books" or "reading" or "smartness", it is about movies, because according to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983189/">rumors painted true</a> there is a Blood Meridian film in production. I have to come right out and say that it is completely impossible to accurately portray </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">thi</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">s story. <span style="font-style: italic;">It will change</span>, probably very dramatically, in being imported to the film medium. As stated a</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">bove there is</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> no protagonist, there is no morality, there is no uplifting ending, there are no lessons learned or wrongs righted, or any other Hollywood film staple. There is only pain. The story follows a group of scalp hunters in the earl</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">y years of America's development who ride through 'the west' in a literal path of destruction, slaughtering and destroying everything they come across. They murder, kill, rape, steal, kill, violate, murder, fornicate, rape, pilfer, pillage, destroy, kill, and massacre <span style="font-style: italic;">every-fucking-thing</span> in their path without so much as a single "oops" or "sorry about that." You are disgusted with the characters for the entirety of the story, yet somehow you keep reading like the words are a trail </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">of cookie crumbs. The only som</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ewhat neutral character is Judge Holden, who is just as much an instrument of chaos as he is a balancing mechanism for the abandon with which the gang behaves. I'll spare you all the "Cliff's Notes", but the point I'm trying </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">to make is clear: Using the Hollywood sheen on this story will not do it justice, and there is little to no room for compromise.<br /><br />From what I hear a lot of people said the same thing about</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country For Old Men</span>, and clearly the Cohens pulled that off like it was effing Fargo 2. But <span style="font-style: italic;">NCFOM</span> was a much different story with a plot one could sympathize with and characters that could be seen in a positive light. Who wouldn't try to run with all that drug money? All of us can connect to that excited fantasy of happening across a shit fuck ton of money that has no rightful owner, making one's early retirement a mere address change away.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Ridley Scott was originally slated as the director for this, to which I heartily shrug. Yeah, <span style="font-style: italic;">Alien</span> was good. So was <span style="font-style: italic;">Blade Runner</span>, but after seeing <span style="font-style: italic;">American Gangster</span> I pretty much wrote Scott off my "I care about this" list. Unless he was going to dress up Ruby Dee in cowboy boots and a neclace of dried Indain ears then he could get bent. But in a surprising display of wisdom, especially considering the success of McCarthy's material with <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country</span> and the soon to arrive <span style="font-style: italic;">The Ro</span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: italic;">ad</span>, he apparently hates money and so backed ou</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">t of the project. He was quoted saying the following just before officially withdrawing as dir</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ector:</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">It's written. I think it's a really tricky one, and maybe it's something that should be left as a novel. If you're going to do </span></span><a style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983189/">Blood Meridian</a><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> you've got to g</span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: italic;">o the whole nine yards into the blood bath, and there's no answer to the blood bath, that's part of the story, just the way it is and the way </span></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: italic;">it was.</span>"</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Cheers Mr. Scott. You are close to a pardon for <span style="font-style: italic;">American Gangster</span>, although judging by the synopsis</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0955308/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Nottingham</span></a> I will most likely be choking on these words this time next year.<br /><br />So now we have <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0276062/">Todd Field</a> slat</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ed to direct the film. Who is Todd Field? You don't know, right? I don't know either. Todd fucking Field is a no name, bit actor, with about as much directing experience as I have from an afternoon with a digital camera, my</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> cat, and a laptop. Todd Field has to be stoked. Todd Field is about to make my ever lengthening shit list with a </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">fucking vengance... and a couple million dollars... for ruining art... real art... not a "painting of blue" or "poem about sex" "art"... but fucking art!<br /><br />heh... butt fucking art.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />So without further hatred slinging, I will meander to the poin</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">t of this post: My picks for <span style="font-style: italic;">Blood Meridian</span> cast and crew. Based on my own outlandishly narrow minded and jaded opinions of films and their participants, here is what I would consider the best bet to getting as close as possible to an honest portrayal of McCarthy's hell ride through the desert.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://splinteredsunrise.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/braveheart.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 403px; height: 335px;" src="http://splinteredsunrise.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/braveheart.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />PRODUCER - Mel fucking Gibson<br />The movie is going to</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> need people at the helm who aren't worried about showing too much violence or grossing out the audience. Few directors/produce</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">rs have showed such a hearty commitment, nay, <span style="font-style: italic;">dedication</span> to painting the screen red with drippy gibs than Mel Gibson. I still stand behind <span style="font-style: italic;">Passion of the Christ</span> as an awesome movie, and I hate Jesus! <span style="font-style: italic;">That</span> is the level this movie needs to be at in the violence department. No apologies and no consideration for the weak of stomach. A few authors consider McCarthy insane, and we all <span style="font-style: italic;">know</span> Mel Gibson is bat shit, so this will totally work.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinemastrikesback.com/news/directors/werner%20herzog.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 259px;" src="http://www.cinemastrikesback.com/news/directors/werner%20herzog.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">DIRECTOR - Werner Herzog</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Gibson isn't allowed to direct because while he enjoys a good cerebral fountain of gore with his $9 ticket, he has too much bravado and is far too showy with his movie presentations. The story needs a director who can kee</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">p the film grounded, grim, and keep the Hollyw</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ood glitter to a non-existant mini</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">mum. Herzog is the man for the job, the key bullet point on his resume' being <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068182/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Aguirre: The Wrath of God</span></a>. A pacing and delivery similar to that film would be perfect for <span style="font-style: italic;">Blood Meridian</span>.<br /><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinematical.com/media/2006/05/gene_hackman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.cinematical.com/media/2006/05/gene_hackman.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />JUDGE HOLDEN - Gene Hackm</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">an<br />When I first pondered who might play the crucial role of The Judge, Gene Hackman briefly fluttered into my mind and I rejected it with flame and shield. The more I think about him though, the more I think he'd actually make the role seem <span style="font-style: italic;">real</span> and not so super natural. In the book, The Judge almost comes off as omniscient or super human, and having Hackman take the role I really think he could convey that sense of power with the body and voice of a mortal. Not only that but he's a practical actor, he isn't going to over act the part or try and make it into something it isn't. He can take a character as exaggerated and large as The Judge, and make him exist as a real person within the period the story takes place. Plus it'd be awesome to see him dressed up like a hairless, naked albino.<br /><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.gmtplusnine.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/yuma1_ben_foster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.gmtplusnine.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/yuma1_ben_foster.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />THE KID - That skinny guy from <span style="font-style: italic;">3:10 to Yuma<br /></span>This role needs someone with a "look", rather than actual acting skills. The Kid has almost zero dialogue but is a central part to the story. Ben Foster has the right image for this part, and he's actually not that bad an actor either.<br /><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.rockwellfarmer.com/blog/uploaded_images/KURT-780236.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.rockwellfarmer.com/blog/uploaded_images/KURT-780236.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />JOHN GLANTON - Kurt Russel<br />Glanton needs to be played by someone who can be an alcoholic hurricane, a drunk with zero conscience who completely allows his rage to drive him</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">. I almost wanted to say Mickey Rourke but his face is out of control. I almost stopped at Michael Madsen, but he's a bit too "cool" for the part. Kurt Russel! And not <span style="font-style: italic;">Tombstone</span> Kurt Russel, but R.J. MacCready, Stuntman Mike, fucking Snake Plisskin Kurt Russel.<br /></span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Sam_Rockwell/sam_rockwell.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 336px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Sam_Rockwell/sam_rockwell.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />TOADVINE - Sam Rockwell<br />Toadvine is a fucking scarred maniac. I can't remember any specific roles but for some reason Sam Rockwell stands out as being completely insane in a lot of movies (and no, I'm not thinking of <span style="font-style: italic;">Green Mile</span>, asshole). I think he'd be awesome with no teeth, no ears, covered in mud and draped in scalps.<br /><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.tribute.ca/tribute_objects/images/stars/philip_seymour_hoffman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 163px; height: 134px;" src="http://www.tribute.ca/tribute_objects/images/stars/philip_seymour_hoffman.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />EX PRIEST TOBIN </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">- Phillip Seymour Hoffman<br />Yeah yeah, I know everyone has a boner for the 'Hoff these days, but he pretty much already played this role in Cold Mountain.<br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123075/2143632/2155439/061213_assess_jackBlackEX.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 299px; height: 450px;" src="http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123075/2143632/2155439/061213_assess_jackBlackEX.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />THE IDIOT - Jack Black<br />I fucking hate Jack Black. Nothing would make me happier than to see him naked in a cage covered in his own shit... Goddammit, look at that asshole.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-40068366254181378672008-12-15T16:43:00.000-08:002008-12-15T16:44:48.510-08:00my musical hero...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://a745.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/102/l_a26927c47c843fcb6d35fcc29c490018.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 608px;" src="http://a745.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/102/l_a26927c47c843fcb6d35fcc29c490018.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />...looks like this.Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-38551904000302133642008-12-05T10:49:00.001-08:002008-12-05T10:49:39.326-08:00Burt & Ernie get BRUTAL<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/InZNBcJTmWs&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/InZNBcJTmWs&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-867663058652273192008-11-12T21:20:00.000-08:002008-11-12T22:00:13.177-08:00You mean... it's OK to be an asshole?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/05/Fallout-3-e32k6-poster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 425px; height: 565px;" src="http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/05/Fallout-3-e32k6-poster.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I've been completely ob-fucking-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">sessed</span> with Fallout 3 the last week. I have to quickly admit that this is my first experience with the sandbox/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">RPG</span> like Oblivion and shit, so pardon the n00bile over enthusiasm, but the game is a fucking gem and I can't recommend it enough.<br /><br />The biggest compliment I can pay to the game is the sheer freedom it allows one to be a complete and utter asshole to the virtual world as you progress through the game. I started the game with the goal of being an evil motherfucker, because I figure if they'll allow it, why not push the envelope and see how far you can go? Well, you can go far. Far enough that I actually occasionally feel real world guilt at some of the actions I am responsible for in fake video game land, and this is the kind of experience that truly makes games art: When they can reach out of the screen and really cause one to emote.<br /><br />In the last week there have been a number of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">poignantly</span>, excessively awesome experiences that need to be dished right goddamn now. Here are a few.<br /><br />ahem... spoilers n' shit...<br /><br />My first foray into the town of Megaton was a chaotic stroll along the salty brine of the devil's colon. Long story short, you show up to town, the sheriff tries to intimidate you into following their rules, you meet a guy who wants to pay you to arm the benign nuclear bomb in the middle of town, and are then left to explore. I got about as far as the place where you sleep with the hooker when I decided I needed to start flexing my evil bone and see what kind of shit you could get away with. I found myself alone with a friendly AI in a motorcycle helmet in a secluded room of the commons. Entering the crouch, slash, sneak position, I attempted a feeble level 2 pickpocket and of course failed. The "man" freaked out and began to run away, at which point I beat him to death with a baseball bat and looted the items I had sought to procure in the first place. Much to my shagrin, the local security was on my ass and chased me out of town. With bullets. So I followed through on the "blow up the town quest" and about 30 minutes later I was safely on the balcony of Ten Penny Tower watching the town that had dealt me so sourly go up in a mushroom cloud. Catch me pickpocketing? I kill you dead. Chase me out of town? I vaporize all you fuckers!<br /><br />Later on, I'm doing this weird side quest that involves mutated fire ants that spit flame thrower style flames at you and are a huge pain in the ass. So there's a doctor who has genetically altered these ants and accidentally turned them into giant, flame spitting bitches that need to be effing annihilated. The doctor implores you to only kill the soldiers and let the queen live so he can continue his research, promising you riches AND a shot that will boost one of your stats (that's a big deal if you haven't played RPGs before). So I agree, complete the quest to the T and return to the good doctor with his nasty soldier ants bubbling piles of guts and the bloated queen still rummaging around her ant hole. The doctor thanks me, rewards me, gives me my stat boost, and then goes on his way to continue his research. Right as he turns around BOOM I blow his head off with a pistol, loot the corpse, and head back into the ant cave to kill the queen and suck up the experience points like nectar, reaping all the benefits of completing the "good quest", but still getting the material rewards of stealing his belongings and raking up the ant queen experience.<br /><br />All I can say is: <span style="font-style: italic;">Thank you, Bethesda</span>. Thank you for not only allowing us to explore the darker side of sand box gaming, but actually facilitating the fun with a unique experience that only dick-ish players are privvy to. For me this is an easy "Game of the Year".<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-27177037513951401182008-07-25T13:43:00.000-07:002008-07-25T13:45:24.959-07:00Bach Core<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I was on the fence about buying Children of Bodom tickets until my coworker sent me this...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2iLIhLv8LuY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2iLIhLv8LuY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Damn.<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-18915307780496527472008-07-11T10:58:00.000-07:002008-07-11T11:05:10.161-07:00Chainsaw Maid<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/727719/">Chainsaw Maid</a>! My vote for best zombie clay animation short film, as it's the only one I've ever seen.<br /><br />(links to eBaums world. might be NSFW depending on your job.)<br /></span></span><embed src="http://www.ebaumsworld.com/mediaplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://media.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/video/486101/727719.flv&displayheight=325&ggtrackid=ebwcvRdoff&backcolor=0x0d0d0d&lightoclor=0x336699&frontcolor=0xcccccc&image=http://media.ebaumsworld.com/thumbs/video/486101/727719.jpg" loop="false" menu="false" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" height="345" width="425"></embed>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-91220240841501357492008-06-22T22:55:00.000-07:002008-06-22T23:30:12.748-07:00Tour Diary: Biafra 5-0 in San Francisco<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio89czOODA7CNxD8Mv9x0L_jzuASHNcXtuf1qZL9dy8D-oTvH4JG2ZJS1t_vDjv_rZSZxR4k571dZrAwUltv3EwgfctGRaHIqYCpOX_30-GgUnTSk7We2z7GNyG8epNWT00ilgYQ/s1600-h/choicereading.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio89czOODA7CNxD8Mv9x0L_jzuASHNcXtuf1qZL9dy8D-oTvH4JG2ZJS1t_vDjv_rZSZxR4k571dZrAwUltv3EwgfctGRaHIqYCpOX_30-GgUnTSk7We2z7GNyG8epNWT00ilgYQ/s320/choicereading.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214957453618478386" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Playing in a band, one that travels anyways, ends up putting one in all kinds of bizzarro situations. Planned or unplanned. I'm not particularly motivated to open this particular vellum of the Akimbo encyclopedia series, but let me just conclude my preface by saying that having the flexibility to travel and experience music on the road allows one to indulge in all kinds of adventures.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Enter Jello Biafra's 50th birthday party, loftily dubbed the "Biafra 5-0". Being a band on <a href="http://www.alternativetentacles.com">Alternative Tentacles</a>, I wasn't overly surprised or shocked that we were asked to open one of the two shows in San Francisco this June. We were at our last show of the west coast tour in August 2007 to support <span style="font-style: italic;">Navigating the Bronze</span>, in Oakland with our buddies <a href="http://www.gowalken.com">Walken</a> and <a href="http://triclopsband.com">Triclops!</a>, trying to make the best out of a dismal turn out and possibly the most belligerent, asshole, straight up naive d-bag club owners we have ever co</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">me across. My anger that night for this awful show that would actually leave us with an all night hell drive back to seat</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">tle churned like a tsunami of magma, but our political angst spitting benefactor, Mr. Biafra himself, ended up coming to </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">the show to watch us wiggle around to the loud noises and offer his to expected criticisms. It was during this time that he mentioned his 50th birthday and extended the invite, a meager nugget of treasure amo</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ngst a night plagued with rancor a</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">nd bullshit.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The nature of the event itself is what makes it an adventure to me. Sure, we've toured about as hard as a band can with whatever assets and resources we can possibly assume are out there in the void and then grasp with desperate, spiny tendrils. Going out on the road doesn't quite hold the excitement and potency it once provided in years past. Eight years of playing the same fucking shit show in every town across </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">the nation will do that to you, me, and anyone else that qualifies as sentient. The gems are out there though, waiting to be sifted from rubble.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">However, the Biafra 5-0 was a no brainer. Of course we'll play that show. We're honored to have even been asked and wouldn't dream of not being there, just to effing be there. I grew up on a healthy diet of Dead Kennedys, Nomeansno, and the rest of the Alternative Tentacles salad. This is the modern incarnation of one o</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">f the most important periods in my own personal musical journey, and I get to share the stage with it, be a part of it, he</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">lp it evolve. We marked the date, cleared the calendars, and had <a href="http://www.panacherock.com/booking/">Michelle</a> graciously book a few buffer shows to get us there and back. It's a reincarnation of our weekend warrior tours of yore, when we'd take a 3 or 4 day weekend and drive down to San Francisco to play a show, with no other reason than just to play in San Francsico. Because it is awesome. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Day one has us rolling out in the all too familiar Akimbo fashion: unprepared and awash with procrastination. I leave the air conditioned luxury of my vide</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">o game job and meet the guys in our stuffy, ungodly hot, filth pit of a practice space for a last minute refresher on some old tunes we're revitalizing for the three shows. On the walk there I'm wrapping up some loose ends with work on the cell phone and almost get ran the fuck over by a meaty douche bag who didn't see me crossing the street as he took an aggressive left onto Pike. I look at him with the stoicism of a Vulcan as he slams his brakes and reflexively throws his hands off of his steering wheel in sheer surprise. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Nice sunglasses, asshole</span>" I think to myself as I continue my phone call without missing a beat. As I continue walking, once again amidst the safe bosom of the sidewalk, the guy yells at me to "Watch where the fuck you're going!" I see red. It was clear that he assumed that because I was on the phone I </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">had no idea what was going on around me and was just haphazardly walking through intersections hoping for an acc</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ident settlement. Little does this man realize that I always check the street before I cross. I <span style="font-style: italic;">have to</span>. It's a behavior that is so deeply ingrained into my psyche that not checking left, then right, would be like leaving the house with a bra tied to my head. </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">When I looked the street was clear, and that guy was waiting to turn left towards the crosswalk that I was ab</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">out to walk through before he gunned it right towards my knees which would have smeared me like mustard. He seemed to gloss over that part. I politely ended my call, close my phone, and hollered "FUCK YOU!" which prompted a slow-drive yelling fight for half a block as we accosted each other about our displayed merits of civilian traffic laws. I haven't even smelled </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">the musty guts of the van yet, and already it is apparent that I'm 'on tour'.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The practice is short and sweaty. We load the van and unanimously agree that we are not to drive a foot without first partaking of a frosty beer in the inviting cool of the Cha Cha basement bar. We do so. Relish. I have a Mannny's, which I love ordering because 4 out of 10 times the bar tender thinks you're asking for a "mayonnaise" and you get that telling glimpse of "Oh shit, this guy is crazy" as they ask you to repeat your order. The next hurdle to clear is picking up our merch from El Corazon where Nat works. Aaron drives home to drop off his car, Nat and I go to El Corazon, get the merch, print the driving directions, choke down another High Life, and then head north to Ballard in 5 o'clock rush hour traffic. For those reading who don't kn</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ow, driving from downtown to Ballard in Seattle traffic is probably the closest mortals will ever ge</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">t to experiencing limbo. During the drive, as my delicious double beer buzz is setting in, Nat asks me to drive. I say no. He asks again. I cave. Garbage. After an</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> hour and fifteen minutes of mental pain, we have Aaron and can finally be on our way. As I take the</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> wheel I jokingly ask "Would you guys be pissed if all I listen to on this trip is obnoxious metal?" They chortle, but I think "what if I did!?!?" Three hours of <span style="font-style: italic;">Rhapsody, Cradle of Filth, Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, Blind Guardian,</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Lucca Turrilli</span> later, we were in Portland.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The show is at East End, and we're playing in a basement bar underneath the somewhat fancy bar. Tiny stage, cramped quarters, low ceiling, should be fun. The turnout is surprising for a Monday, and we're pla</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">ying with the ever savage <a href="http://www.blackelk.net">Black Elk</a>. Their set is unrelenting and inspiring, their new drummer is a human metronome and hits like a cannon, the guitar is earthy and shrill, and I have a new favorite band from Portland. We go on after them and do our best. The new/old songs come out well, and the crowd is whipped and barking for more when we're done. We throw them a bone and play our <span style="font-style: italic;">Nirvana</span> cover of "Breed" which we save exclusively for just the right crowds that are rowdy enough to rally behind that gem.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Post show is lazy and drunk, we feed on surprisingly decent bar food and load out. When we're waiting to leave we are stopped by Aaron's friend Nicole who had procured various slices of fancy cakes for us from her work and dropped them off in our van. One thing that seems to happen on tour is you end u</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">p</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> collecting a weird variety of foods as the trip progresses. People offer you things you may or may not want, but considering your situation you end up taking the offerings, because you know, <span style="font-style: italic;">just in case</span>. A few weeks later your van looks and smells like a QFC dumpster and you can't find your fucking ipod because the crushed loaves of bread, cans of soup, empty coffee cups, and jar of peanut butter with a single defiant finger swipe through the top layer are all encroaching on every available inch of space. These cakes, however, were no such burden. They were nice. <span style="font-style: italic;">The good shit</span>. Quality, individually packaged pieces of richness. Thanks Nicole.</span> </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />My sister Ailsa who has recently relocated to Portland is at the show and we go back to her place for the night. It's the first time we've hung out in her new city together and it's great to see her again. As </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">well pull into the driveway of her house I start rummaging for my nightly things and to my surprise</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> find that my sleeping bag is not in the van. I remember it being in the van. I retrace my steps: I checked my closet where it lives at my house, I checked the practice space (where I found my pillow), I asked Nat if it was in the van and he said "Should be..." It wasn't. I'm not one to rage, not without a little bit of humor at least, but the frustration at losing my sleeping bag manifested in a minor hissy fit tearing through the van, hastily throwing things around in search of my little buddy. I hate being unprepared, and I hate having to ask people for something as brainless as a blanket or sleeping bag when they're putting you up. Luckily we were staying with my sister so it was no problem asking for a blanket, an</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">d</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> luckily we had a spare sleep sack in the van, and luckily I was marginally drunk which curbed the man rage before it got absurd. Ten minutes later I was passed out in a bed dreaming of CoD4 and coffee with french vanilla creamer. Nom nom nom...</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Our dance with Lady Sleep was merely a flirt. That bitch. The alarm went off at 6 and I managed to wrangle an extra 20 minutes before giving up and rising from my slumber, my exhaustion justified at the knowledge that assholes in the world were also waking up now to work in customer service centers and soulless legal departments. Some young republican shitbag nick-named "Bozz" or some garbage was on his way to a lifeless office rat race while we get to drive to the Bay Area and play loud rock and roll. Fuck yeah. Get up. Van</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">. 10 hours to a 5:00 load in. Go.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Aaron takes his first ever </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">driving shift on tour after wrestling his license from the Washington state courts and gets 'er done into south Oregon. I try to sleep in the shotgun seat which always a losing battle while Nat slumbers on the bench seat like a wee lass. Moldy beer farts happen. It can't be helped. Gas is almost $5 a gallon in California and we blow through our money from last night in two stops. I eat a piece of van-hot, white chocolate strawberry cheesecake and find that when coupled with a hangover it could be considered u</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">nwise.</span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wx9pTkbAqswLZh7htVTMh-qOXqqFe3ZlYiAMAxLJFY1cgwvw0YwM5kqstCRH34F_YWALy4FG2p7doO6g4nVdykLKahxa0Xo5tc4mr1vzUUT9gdcp6YsXItWNscUWGuIxaCqQhQ/s1600-h/cake.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wx9pTkbAqswLZh7htVTMh-qOXqqFe3ZlYiAMAxLJFY1cgwvw0YwM5kqstCRH34F_YWALy4FG2p7doO6g4nVdykLKahxa0Xo5tc4mr1vzUUT9gdcp6YsXItWNscUWGuIxaCqQhQ/s320/cake.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214955892352713794" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">An endearing quality about touring with Aaron is that he never gets sick of funny freeway signs. We've been down I-5 together possibly 20 times now and he still laughs every time we're in Northern California and pass "Balls Ferry Road". Cute.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The drive is long and draining. I conquer a few armies in <span style="font-style: italic;">Advance Wars</span> before my DS charge dies, and then finish book one of <span style="font-style: italic;">Dune</span>. We arrive in San Francisco to a flurry of text messages informing our local friends that we're here and have a healthy guest list. The Great American Music Hall is a beautiful venue, I've always wanted to play there and this show will be our first opportunity. The staff was remarkably friendly and helpful, and they had a great meal of turkey with gravy and potatoes ready for the bands. Jon gets Thanksgiving in June, bitches. We eat and relax in the band room saying hi to our good friends Maiko, George, and Jess</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">e from Alternative Tentacles and the dudes in Triclops! as the doors open. Our friends start showing up as well </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">and shortly the downstairs is a triumphant reunion. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />First up was the Melvins performing their demo stuff from 1983, with Dale Crover playing bass and their </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">original drummer on drums. It was a great se</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">t and totally awesome to see those old punk songs played live. We played next and I felt really good about the set. No heavy screw ups and good energy from the crowd. I couldn't really tell how it sounded in the room as I was stuck right in front of my bass rig but I could hear the drums and the monitor mix was surprisingly clear. I guess thats how the pros do it. We played a quick six songs and got the gear off the crowded stage. People were not shy with their compliments which is always nice, and also answered my questions about how the room sounded. Victory!<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Up next was <a href="http://triclopsband.com">Triclops!</a> (pic below) and I still have to say they are one of my favorite "new" bands around. They play a perfect swirl of progressive rock and classic punk. They're one of those bands where every member is disgustingly talented and plays their instrument with a unique sense of individualism that is entirely its own feel, but as they play the music together as a band that individualism blends into a cohesive sonic experience where each part compliments the other. That and they're all great performers as well. They're a band that i</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">nspires</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> me, renews my excitement in music, and I'm happy to know them.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1WowDguzVPtFsZ99VKqaROal4yrBtjwVNRLg9Lca5f57SjnUIK-WHtinFFssWbX1elDi70PL1cf1IUR4tMBBr-p4iHHyxAVMe5b9-22APhIZ9c6wTVPVtUquBMwY2beZ8oYdrmA/s1600-h/triclops1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1WowDguzVPtFsZ99VKqaROal4yrBtjwVNRLg9Lca5f57SjnUIK-WHtinFFssWbX1elDi70PL1cf1IUR4tMBBr-p4iHHyxAVMe5b9-22APhIZ9c6wTVPVtUquBMwY2beZ8oYdrmA/s320/triclops1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214952906063095266" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">So now that the openers were officially out of the way it was time for Jello to hit the stage and justify his 50th birthday party. I can't think of many 50 year olds who would choose to celebrate their birthday by running up and down a stage, hollering, sweating and shirtless. Come to think of it I can't think of many people who'd want to watc</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">h the average 50 year old sweat all over a stage and be hollered at. An odd night indeed. Fortunately for us, Biafra overcame any disadvantage his age might cause and delivered. His show was excellent. His new band with guitarist Ralph from Victim's Family and bass player of Faith No More was surprisingly awesome, a great batch of songs that maintain the drive and sheer impact of simple power punk without sounding overplayed or rehashed. One of those groups that somehow pulls off an original sound while playing a very classic style. I'm really excited for them to record and start touring. Jello with the Melvins was the ruthless locomotive I remember it being, only this time their bass player was Andy from Monorchid and Wrangle</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">r Brutes, who sadly did not escape a fan boy freak out from me later that evening despite our knowing each other through mutual friends for a few years now. It's such a rush to see all those Dead Kennedys classics performed with such a phenomenal group. You can't help but fist pump and yell along.</span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZmPNYYtV34GZH69tbxuVUxgpsZgS4iLV8fKzX0uinNBoCbnNinUzvbhr6uASF3iKmqK-GDru27E3xaBNFwO4cl8aDZiCkYCTKJ7pdFwZfOXkB_7ALgtU8Tgpl771Q1xnwcOsSRA/s1600-h/jelvins2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZmPNYYtV34GZH69tbxuVUxgpsZgS4iLV8fKzX0uinNBoCbnNinUzvbhr6uASF3iKmqK-GDru27E3xaBNFwO4cl8aDZiCkYCTKJ7pdFwZfOXkB_7ALgtU8Tgpl771Q1xnwcOsSRA/s320/jelvins2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214956625438988242" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Towards the end of the set I was informed that Nat and I were to deliver Jello his Alternative Tentacles birthday cake during the encore. As they finished up "Holiday in Cambodia" we lit the candles and hand delivered the bat logo in cake form to one of punk's most prolific and outspoken founding members. I grabbed the mic out of his hand and led the crowd in a sloppy round of Happy Birthday, and returned back stage in marginal shock. It's been years now that we've been lucky enough to know, play with, and be around artists like Jello, the Melvins, Neurosis, Tad and other such musicians that have h</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">elped inspire us as kids learning to play our instruments, but there's a part of me that will always be the giddy excitable teenager when shit like that happens, and I hope that never changes.</span><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-OMut44S7nEFdOfMAr7WKECNCKcqHTIcmHpWSZ81mRHnXkxLLB20WyFoY4KJozdoTpTRz7kR2sLzRssS3o78YBGVhw7-T1K7SE_A1jz-k1uLvmI5AVd8YFOmgLEl_V2FTrhM4VA/s1600-h/batcake.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-OMut44S7nEFdOfMAr7WKECNCKcqHTIcmHpWSZ81mRHnXkxLLB20WyFoY4KJozdoTpTRz7kR2sLzRssS3o78YBGVhw7-T1K7SE_A1jz-k1uLvmI5AVd8YFOmgLEl_V2FTrhM4VA/s320/batcake.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214954022361292306" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Post show we finished the beers, packed up, and headed out to Johnny's (singer of Triclops!) place in Berkeley where we continued the liquid festivities and, as most great parties inevitably conclude, ended the night in tears laughing at each other's various youtube gems.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Next day was a lazy morning, breakfast on Telegraph, a stop by Amoeba to pick up that live Kraftwerk album I've been meaning to purchase for years, short relaxation in the shade, and then back in the van on our way to Eureka. Traffic on the way out of town was maddening, but once we cleared it I stopped and got a milkshake and drove into the evening, the sunset's orange roast coloring the beautiful hills of Northern California a robust shade of awesome.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />We pulled up to the venue in Eureka which was a small bar called The Little Red Lion. After some delicious and free pizza, I plopped down and watched cage fighting until it was time to play. I've always found an inherent humor in the sheer homoeroticism readily available in UFC fighting matches. It's like the dudes shadow box each other for a few seconds but immediately give in to their deep desires and before you know it they're on the floor dry humping like curious drama students, half making out and half performing for the invisible cameras. Occasionally they remember they're supposed to be killing each other so one</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> will toss a few lame punches, feigning exhaustion, and then they're back to mashing their groins together spread eagle, whispering "Ahh Fuh Fooh" through split lips and teeth guards.<br /><br />The show was okay, not our best in Humboldt County but far from our worst. During our last few songs the circuit breaker kept crapping out and after the 4th try we took a hint and ended the set.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">We went to the promoter's house after the show and after flirting over a few PBRs and a pipe of Eureka's finest, they busted out the Wii and we played Wii Sports into the wee hours of the morning. If I had my way, this would be protocol for every post show party. Very awesome.</span><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEflKyBmdIsMTwAV03Y5UNgigOFijvP3ANwDKIkd9BTlS-OAUYo8CcE45zXpi4vxTgjUiG88HlSqYbCPt6h4XJn4YngTvzkgllcKonZaW3Id6iviH3DA5RnNV7s-iz299M8KAnOQ/s1600-h/wii.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEflKyBmdIsMTwAV03Y5UNgigOFijvP3ANwDKIkd9BTlS-OAUYo8CcE45zXpi4vxTgjUiG88HlSqYbCPt6h4XJn4YngTvzkgllcKonZaW3Id6iviH3DA5RnNV7s-iz299M8KAnOQ/s320/wii.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214952141220269762" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I cashed all my driving credit the next day and let Nat and Aaron take care of the return trip, opting to delve further into the wastes of Arrakis and bring numerical destruction to slews of cute little soldiers on my DS. It was a relaxing drive until the last few hours of the home stretch. After a gas stop in Northern Oregon our van's engine started running extremely weird. It was shaking and putting and we were losing power. We pulled over, let it sit, started it up and drove off for another 70 miles before it started acting up again. This time we had no such luck and after long b</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">reaks off an exit in Olympia and brainstorming people we could hit up for a ride home, we only just got the thing started again, leaving us jerking along the shoulder at 20 mph with our hazards flashing. We limped to another gas station, poured a few gas additives into the tank, splurged on some supreme and crossed our fingers. It seemed to work, and after a few miles the van was running excellent as usual. We thought we were going to be stranded 60 miles from home after a brutal 1800 miles in three days, but it turns out it was just bad gas. Heh.</span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-78947366167986603572008-05-25T14:13:00.000-07:002008-05-25T15:42:18.068-07:00Like a goddamn toothpick...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cheatcc.com/imagespc/ageofconan_box.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.cheatcc.com/imagespc/ageofconan_box.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">...that's how easy I snapped. Caved. Crumbled. It was disgusting. Years of rigid defense crafted of iron-tongued arguments and witful snobbery, dashed like the courage of an Aquilonian slave under the might of Cimmerian steel. Here's how it went down.<br /><br />Since the inception of Everquest I have been an outspoken mud slinger of the MMORPG. I've seen co-workers fall into the dreaded tar pits of warm, monitor screen glow, forever gone and waving the banner of loot and rare drops. I've lost friends at the unrelenting hands of coordinated raids and group quests, eyes crusted the next day after 11 hour sessions acrosss the plains of Azeroth. I've always loved games, and always made time to give them the dedication they deserve in my life, but the time-sink that is the MMORPG has been an intimidating precipice that I have steered clear of since the start.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">My big gripe with them, and always a delicious trump card when arguing my point for not playing them, is the monthly fees associated with the game. I always figured if I paid for the system (PC), and paid for the game disc, I should be able to play as much as I fucking want to. Adding a monthly internet service fee <span style="font-style: italic;">on top</span> of the regular internet service I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">already paying for</span> is insulting. That's just too much money to play one game when there are so many others out there, not to mention other humans to interact with, beers to drink, kitties to pet, and so on. I look at it with the diamond cut logic of the "nine to fiver" condescendingly watching the crack addict dig through the gutters for apple cores from the comfort of my SUV. From this lofty vantage point, the choice to try crack-cocaine and see what all the fuss is about is clearly unwise. But once you're in the shit, sudddenly the gutter isn't that big of a deal when there's delectable crack spoils to be had. Make sense?<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The other prime motivational means of avoidance has been the fact that I am well aware of my own weakness and susceptability to the gravitational force of the RPG. I know with grim certainty that if I were to indulge in the MMORPG, my fall from grace would be swift, violent, and decisive, leaving me a 300 pound, unwashed, patchy-bearded poster child for unhealth. I loved the <span style="font-style: italic;">Warcraft</span> games, and I consider it a monumental personal feat of will power that I never so much as asked a friend to try a game of WoW on their account. I knew the consequences would be dire, and rather than flirt with the succubus I shut my eyes and ran the other way.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">And then I heard about <span style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan</span>. The visceral and immensely detailed MMORPG based on the world Robert E. Howard crafted over decades of masterful authorship, seemingly just for guys like me who could use a little more blood and beheading with our Tolkien, and a little less</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> poetry and song with our marauding warriors. I avoided the previews and screen shots in the following months like a recently recovered alcoholic avoids bars and nightlife. I ignored the guild planning and class plotting "water cooler talk" taking place during breaks at work, hoping I could possibly enjoy the fruits vicariously as a fly on the wall from the back row.</span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/age-of-conan-pc-screenshot-big.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/age-of-conan-pc-screenshot-big.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">And then the fateful day arrived... I arrive to work and as I pass my co-workers' office I happen to look in and see a big red box with a shimmering golden lion head on the front, <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">AGE OF CONAN: Hyborian Adventures</span> proudly declaring the contents nestled within the special edition limited release. I had to peek. They were abuzz. The install was already under way. I drooled over the packaging, the map of Hyboria included, the art work. We talked, I chided, they rallied, trying to get me on board their slave vessel. I balked, left, and fought back the tears. Pondered, doubted, wrestled with years of logic I had defended like a goddamn citadel, and then made the last mistake before my epic tumble into the forrays of MMORPG... I returned to their office and watched character creation.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Now for normal RPG nerds the character creation in AOC is already top notch. The level of customization available to the player is a fucking bouquet of scars, wrinkles, skin tones, markings, hair cuts, and facial features. I was already 60% sold, but when I saw the available geographical selection where one could opt between <span style="font-style: italic;">Cimmerian</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Aquilonian</span>, or <span style="font-style: italic;">Stygian</span>, and that selection would then offer an entirely new original </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">pallet of selections with which to customize your character's look (based on the region they're from!) I swooned. The developers had done their research, and they knew that if I had an unnatural obsession with how inhumanly bad ass the sect of Set followers were, and that if I so desired I could create my own follower of Set with the unique features and cultural genetic traits of generations of Stygian blood, I could do so. With <span style="font-style: italic;">relish</span>. It was a glimpse into an interactive experience within one of my all time favorite fantasy worlds. The damage was done, and I caved like a diabetic in Baskin Robins. Twenty minutes later I had procurred the disc, signed up with Funcom, and committed to 3 months service... just to try it out.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://z.about.com/d/internetgames/1/7/l/H/aoc08.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://z.about.com/d/internetgames/1/7/l/H/aoc08.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I think my one saving grace that will keep me free of the perils that come with embracing the pure amount of raw <span style="font-style: italic;">time</span> I could possibly sacrifice in the name of Hyborian domination is the fact that I can only play this game at work. My home computer is a Mac lap top and I'd like to think that if I tried to install the <span style="font-style: italic;">40 GB </span>game on the poor little guy, the screen would manifest into a giant boxing glove that would continuously punch me in the face until I cancelled the install. Buying a PC at home for this game is completely out of the question. Not only do I not want a big old PC in my tiny apartment, even if I got to that level of desperation I already know how quickly that conversation would be snuffed by Maria. The task before me now is balancing my work time with Conan, and making sure that "playing a little during lunch" doesn't snowball into a legitimate issue that will involve HR.<br /><br />So there it is. It was nice knowing you all, and now you know why </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I no longer exist. If you need me for anything urgent, please contact the Stygian Tempest of Set traipsing across the Hyborian plains in search of Cimmerian allies and nubile blood with which to wet his cudgel... at least for the next 3 months...</span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.infoaddict.com/fileadmin/Images/Games/ageofconan_ces_11.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.infoaddict.com/fileadmin/Images/Games/ageofconan_ces_11.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-72554000555179574942008-04-06T02:05:00.000-07:002008-04-06T02:51:01.203-07:00Overdue update<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2110/1559897707_0eaed261ff_m.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2110/1559897707_0eaed261ff_m.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">It's been a good few months since I updated. Too much shit has befallen to write in the interest of accuracy, so in the interest of efficiency I'll gloss over some of the jibba jabba I wanted to write about but didn't.<br /><br />After Microsoft dangled a carrot in front of my face, saying I could go back to work at Bungie as soon as my 100 day mandatory vacation was up, I was suddenly getting some "we're not sure" and "we'll have to see" and "go fuck yourself" type answers on a return date. Garbage. Not like they were going to hire me full time anyways, but promising a place after the break and then peeing in your mouth whenever you try to ask about details on said place... Not so shocking new levels of mouth peeing from Microshaft. For those who don't know, MS only allows contractors to work for them for 9-12 months before you're forced to take a 100 day break. It's so they don't have to burden you with things like benefits, a salary, and an overall sense of being appreciated by your employer.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I got a new job. A better job. A <span style="font-style: italic;">grown up</span> job. By some fluke of fate I landed a Test Lead position at the upstart WB Games. WB stands for Warner Brothers, as in, fucking <span style="font-style: italic;">Warner Brothers</span>. I'm a big kid now, with big kid pants at the big kid table. The job is great, so far I've attained three completely free, completely unwatchable DVDs of garbage movies I had no intention of watching as "perks", and am working on <a href="http://www.projectorigincommunity.com/agegate">Project Origin</a>, the sequel to F.E.A.R. The game is looking great, and is a sweet first project to sink my bitter teeth into at the new company. Here's the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.gametrailers.com/player/25252.html">latest trailer</a>.<br /><br />Gary Gygax passed. QQ.<br /><br />I went to Jon's (my DM) birthday party, where we rolled up characters and played a quick adventure in true, 12 year old, social reject, too old for ninja turtles, too young for beer, birthday party fashion. He invited Todd Gamble, his son's art teacher who also happens to be the guy who built all the p</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">rofessional terrain for D&D miniature advertisements, and also contributed a lot of art to the various TSR worlds. It was pretty cool meeting him. He was very humble, very excited that he had contributed to the D&D legacy, and ironically has never played the game. He sat with us and sketched out scenes as they were happening (fucking incredible!), and at one point even leaned over to the Forgotten Realms map we were using and said "This looks familiar... I think I drew this."<br /><br />My Xbox broke. The video output shat as I was about to embark on a rampant evening of Halo 3 n00binating, leaving me at the mercy of the peanut gallery in my headset. It's been a long time in "the shop". It comes back on Monday. We will embrace, make love, and then resume our frolicking across the fields of Valhalla.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Maria and I went an saw <span style="font-style: italic;">Shutter</span>. My one word review: Shitter.<br /><br />I started playing Call of Cthulhu table top RPG with a group of friends. It's a pretty jarring change from the "kill orc/loot orc/level up" formula I've always known with AD&D. The game is much more mental, you have a lot more thinking to do, and I've found that there are a lot of points in the adventure where we all get silent, I go "uuuuuuuh" and then someone says "I don't know what to do." There's no leveling up, your awareness of Cthulhu lore is directly tied to your sanity, and there's no real objective other than "find Cthulhu and try not to blow your brains out".<br /><br />Lastly, I'm getting a sweet tattoo right now featuring Neptune rising from the depths in order to smite some fools. Check it:<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2013/2110217760_e95d71bb0b_m.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2013/2110217760_e95d71bb0b_m.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-39492660537513052682008-03-02T15:56:00.000-08:002008-03-02T15:57:09.029-08:00<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ILjJDcI2Em8"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ILjJDcI2Em8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-78239789027886292372008-02-03T12:17:00.001-08:002008-02-03T12:21:50.482-08:00Pac Man Cake<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjmItjWpUZxz2aEHgG0bZ67ULHW_q-ixF-o3ZGflpmnZ-Z3gPN_hVjMcFRO1lschzdRqsi2VFwqEIFUBXeV-qP2doyfCd0o9ZpJIeZzLBf76pzAViYexbt1gRUy7mu-SylD6WDA/s1600-h/pacman+cake.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjmItjWpUZxz2aEHgG0bZ67ULHW_q-ixF-o3ZGflpmnZ-Z3gPN_hVjMcFRO1lschzdRqsi2VFwqEIFUBXeV-qP2doyfCd0o9ZpJIeZzLBf76pzAViYexbt1gRUy7mu-SylD6WDA/s320/pacman+cake.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162850873552502530" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My little sister, Ailsa, just sent me this photo of a birthday cake she made for some dude named Josh. I don't know this Josh character, but he scored a pretty fierce cake. I hope he appreciates how highly this rates on the awesometer.</span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-58479262580889673812008-01-30T15:01:00.000-08:002008-01-30T15:34:09.189-08:00AD&D Terrain<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Ever since age 12 I've been a huge fan of and have played pen and paper role playing games. About a year or so ago my childhood friend, cohort of many teenage adventures, and easily the best DM I've ever played with got in touch and we started playing AD&D 2nd Edition in Forgotten Realms again for the first time in years.<br /><br />I play an elf thief who has reached 7th level so far and has narrowly escaped death in just about every gaming session we've had. He's almost been annihilated by tribal Uthgart Barbarians, a 100' tall demon spider known as Bebelith (twice), hordes of Demon-Elf half breed warriors, a shifty backstabbing asshole thief named Tiger Bloodshanks, a Carrion Crawler (totally embarrasing), a Gnoll fighter/mage and his giant serpent familiar, and a necromancer that summoned more Wights than would ever be considered reasonable.<br /><br />Aside from being a great DM, Jon (pictured below) is also an amazing terrain builder. Here are some pictures from some of our recent games.</span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUUDbzVDKz7-ncNDnAhjkqb0QJyb__IkXI6jqBo30F0kriNa1ya73894UTGZ7ijdKdl-YG92coPD6LQb99sGbQMsxSgnyGh6wCqI1Qxu6qdPYpBc7ykLfNXr2aVvYIMySZjbfGg/s1600-h/The+DM.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUUDbzVDKz7-ncNDnAhjkqb0QJyb__IkXI6jqBo30F0kriNa1ya73894UTGZ7ijdKdl-YG92coPD6LQb99sGbQMsxSgnyGh6wCqI1Qxu6qdPYpBc7ykLfNXr2aVvYIMySZjbfGg/s400/The+DM.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161416534864264946" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4wp9qq8MXHAyKZwJSai3AfoQYwWvuR5fggo1V_KSg7qaqZLLAE8b9qKVY_omxUlDWcDD6S2RVsqzpEHbJX7d4hv3-kDFEuqFh0Mp20_JVJYrKXR-nxPLUIrb0W3pI-KcYKueYA/s1600-h/Demon+Elves+3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4wp9qq8MXHAyKZwJSai3AfoQYwWvuR5fggo1V_KSg7qaqZLLAE8b9qKVY_omxUlDWcDD6S2RVsqzpEHbJX7d4hv3-kDFEuqFh0Mp20_JVJYrKXR-nxPLUIrb0W3pI-KcYKueYA/s400/Demon+Elves+3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161415942158778082" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKY93AM6F9cWa1ffxAToyfWDLJ7SmGdwwh5IR3rPAUYJqEtiePbHjQuerSOrFONyYEND3wqKdqg8tcVQCLIiP7PbiUt4H4RVcXDDrKp9SAjQga-SYYy48Suo0Vl178PMmi92AlMQ/s1600-h/Demon+Elves+2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKY93AM6F9cWa1ffxAToyfWDLJ7SmGdwwh5IR3rPAUYJqEtiePbHjQuerSOrFONyYEND3wqKdqg8tcVQCLIiP7PbiUt4H4RVcXDDrKp9SAjQga-SYYy48Suo0Vl178PMmi92AlMQ/s400/Demon+Elves+2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161415778950020818" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFpdM-Z0AhGc2VrWiE9bGoeB-TMzDS0R9XaUUdlWhY9BI87wvgABJJqh5N3WZNOASoyL-Xk7E7swbv039jZrTS2YGr8AYEfhMtyotBLXk2aAPMHNDSJ2G0S-myKT8I7vGq46XPg/s1600-h/Demon+Elves+1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFpdM-Z0AhGc2VrWiE9bGoeB-TMzDS0R9XaUUdlWhY9BI87wvgABJJqh5N3WZNOASoyL-Xk7E7swbv039jZrTS2YGr8AYEfhMtyotBLXk2aAPMHNDSJ2G0S-myKT8I7vGq46XPg/s400/Demon+Elves+1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161415645806034626" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6NEKGov1NxyAUUzqCwhXBiBYZui0Lse_7ytHgw1PLj3p2mhlshfAoubzAtlIfuOhUCm1z0JLXuTSWwellB7mC2iLWou7sSfn7msPXBDx7qhkLbscj5QLtZRn894bEgj1qLtBnRw/s1600-h/Orc+Ambush+7.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6NEKGov1NxyAUUzqCwhXBiBYZui0Lse_7ytHgw1PLj3p2mhlshfAoubzAtlIfuOhUCm1z0JLXuTSWwellB7mC2iLWou7sSfn7msPXBDx7qhkLbscj5QLtZRn894bEgj1qLtBnRw/s400/Orc+Ambush+7.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161415319388520114" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlrzUcyhl6BHyoCCCWsKPly-8t0x6uwaRRrP1YdFTr7Bs4Z67Tqou8Z-YvXxrihhi2kVcF46xRsHQAa3PK5O2UI3a8FtcXnq8Etceo9P1xOvl5uv_CnwXMm_3g6XMwoV09GIBmQ/s1600-h/Orc+Ambush+5.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlrzUcyhl6BHyoCCCWsKPly-8t0x6uwaRRrP1YdFTr7Bs4Z67Tqou8Z-YvXxrihhi2kVcF46xRsHQAa3PK5O2UI3a8FtcXnq8Etceo9P1xOvl5uv_CnwXMm_3g6XMwoV09GIBmQ/s400/Orc+Ambush+5.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161415186244533922" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FnvLWN3Z5im_f_DWjDX0-eyftx_fK7-fH-tVI2TSl-xlzoUNPMh5crx-iBYcrBc065uf5Zct-_hrbtQMu_ZXsmuuR-L6fb_VdU6XTNNvMgJmKNVhJH1YWJl03hraxRmbPLHpaA/s1600-h/Orc+Ambush+6.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FnvLWN3Z5im_f_DWjDX0-eyftx_fK7-fH-tVI2TSl-xlzoUNPMh5crx-iBYcrBc065uf5Zct-_hrbtQMu_ZXsmuuR-L6fb_VdU6XTNNvMgJmKNVhJH1YWJl03hraxRmbPLHpaA/s400/Orc+Ambush+6.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161414967201201810" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-10692183356274404802008-01-30T14:45:00.000-08:002008-01-30T15:00:06.154-08:00New(ish) music...<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I've been listening to these newish bands a lot lately. All very very good. I won't bother with elborate self serving descriptions, but if you're curious here are some links. Check it out if you want.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/triclopsband">TRICLOPS!</a> (San Francisco/Oakland)<br />New label mates of ours and ex members of Fleshies, Victim's Family, Bottles & Skulls, Lower Forty Eight and a bunch of other bands.<br />Recommended track: Salton<br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/variationsontheme">OM</a> (Oakland)<br />Ex members of Sleep, gloriously loud live.<br />Recommended track: At Giza (this is the ending of their 20 minute epic from the first record)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/futureoftheleft">FUTURE OF THE LEFT</a> (Cardiff, UK)<br />Ex members of Maclusky.<br />Recommended track: Small Bones Small Bodies<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-67970512277587006482008-01-30T13:04:00.000-08:002008-01-30T14:51:34.630-08:00RAMBO!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2008/01/27/280108RAMBO_wideweb__470x277,0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2008/01/27/280108RAMBO_wideweb__470x277,0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">"Fuck you, okay?"</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />...is the first line of Stallone's latest "remember how awesome I used to be" revisiting of his classic characters. Sadly, I doubt we will see his lumpish, botched face adorn any Oscar nominations, but as soon as the academy allocates an award for "Best Explosion of a Human Body" or "Highest Body Count in a Motion Picture" then <span style="font-style: italic;">Rambo</span> may get the respect it deserves. The acting and story hold about as much water as you can cram into a thimble, as expected, but the film's true triumph is a return to the action movie formula of yore, conjuring classics like <span style="font-style: italic;">Commando</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Cyborg</span>, and the <span style="font-style: italic;">Death Wish</span> series. The iconic villain is so heinous it's almost beyond human capacity, smirking behind a cigar and aviator shades from the passenger seat of a jeep as his cronies mow down hundreds of innocent Burmese villagers with automatic weapons. No real plot or reason is provided for this, other than Stallone's token slur saying "It's a war zone up there." and it basically gives us the black and white distinction required for the mindless slaughter to come. <span style="font-style: italic;">These are the bad guys, and they are so bad you will be happy when Rambo kills them. </span>Happy is an understatement. Rejoice. Make merry. Here are just a few of the selling points in convenient, organized, anal retentive bullet points.<br /></span></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Rambo ends every argument with "Go home."</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Stupid christian missionaries run into Burma, get pwned hard, and must rely on angry Rambo to save them by killing everyone, thus rendering "God's work" irrelevant.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Rambo forges his own choppin' sword.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Numerous deaths by bow and arrow, including a zinger where the arrow enters through a dude's chin and </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">comes out his eye socket.<br /></span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Fastidious attention paid to the graphic violence that occurs when the human body is exploded by mortar and/or trip mine.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sylvester Stallone's lumpy face is laughable proof that plastic surgery has come a long way since he turned 40. He looks like he pissed off a bunch of bees.<br /></span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Rambo sets off an atomic explosion in the woods using a rigged claymore and a dirty rag.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Rambo says "Fuck the world."</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Awesome night vision scope scenes of dudes getting shot with a massive sniper rifle, causing heads to explode and bodies to go flying.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Dude gets dangled over hungry pigs who eat his feet.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Rambo spends a literal 20 minutes on a machine gun turret killing people. He's up there so long they even shoot an elaborate relaoding sequence of him changing the ammo drum so that he can continue raging.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The following chart (Please note the last line; Zero sex scenes in any Rambo film!):</span></span></li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://wigu.com/dump/rambo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://wigu.com/dump/rambo.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Please take care to catch Rambo if you're a fan of the action classics, it does not disappoint. I recommend pre-gaming with friends and showing up loaded.<br /><br />Honorable mentions also go out to <span style="font-style: italic;">Cloverfield</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">There Will Be Blood</span>.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Cloverfield </span>was totally killer, a disaster movie told from the hand held video camera perspective of people trudging through a giant monster attacking Manhattan. The minute the action starts it doesn't let up until the end, the monster is not hokey at all, acting is well done, overall a pretty brilliant take on a monster movie. If you can stand the shakey cam on the big screen then check it out.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">There Will Be Blood</span> was all the oscar fodder you'd imagine it would be. Daniel Day-Lewis is a shoe in for best actor this year, he's a treat to watch. Without any spoilers, or exaggeration for that matter, this film had the best ending I think I've ever seen.<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-90580915561985197782008-01-08T17:26:00.001-08:002008-01-08T17:38:30.310-08:00An open letter to the East Coast<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.gamehelper.com/images/uploads/new/media/image/base/new_image/26818/CoD4_mpscreens_081607__3_.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.gamehelper.com/images/uploads/new/media/image/base/new_image/26818/CoD4_mpscreens_081607__3_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br />AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EAST COAST:<br />Get off Xbox live. Do not come home from work. Do not turn on your Xbox. Do not log on to live. You can do anything you want, as long as it is not done within the realm of Xbox Live, which I will now dub "The West Coast Was Here First. Fuck Off." Just leave it. I know it's microsoft, and they <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span> be able to handle the traffic, and they <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">have</span> thought about it before the holidays, and it <span style="font-style: italic;">shouldn't</span> cause us to sit in lobbies for MINUTES AND MINUTES, but that's not the case. Leave me alone. I was here first. You have to wait, not me. Daddy needs a zoom scope for his G3 assault rifle.<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-57066231754404191512007-12-31T11:46:00.000-08:002007-12-31T18:26:07.685-08:00ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (vs.) I AM LEGEND<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2007/10/photo-of-predalien-from-aliens-vs-predator.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2007/10/photo-of-predalien-from-aliens-vs-predator.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM<br />I thankfully missed the first one when it balled theatres, and when I eventually did get around to seeing the thing it was like being whipped raw with a Nintendo controller; something you love most dearly being used to cause severe pain against your person. I was at work a few months ago when someone barked out: "Holy shit, have you guys seen the preview for the new Alien Versus Predator?" to which he was harrangued with a hurricane chorus of boos and fuck thats. He pressed, and we eventually caved and summoned Youtube and to the entire test team's mutual surprise it looked pretty good. It was basically 2 minutes of people dying, and it seemed that they finally figured out that the humanity's struggle in the midst of the opposing alien forces was <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> interesting in the least, and that humans should pretty much just get murdered for 90 minutes. Make the fans happy. Well, they didn't quite get there, but it was a hell of a lot closer than the first movie...<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/I_am_legend_teaser.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/I_am_legend_teaser.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I AM LEGEND</span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />When I heard that Richard Matheson's short story was being chopped, blended, and vomited into a movie spiced with a big budget, my immediate reaction was absolute euphoria. I'll save the details for later, but simply put <span style="font-style: italic;">I Am Legend</span> is hands down the best vampire story ever committed to paper. It doesn't have the legacy of the uber vampire champions like Nosferatu and Dracula, but at face value it is brutal and chilling, and the concept it presents at the story's conclusion is completely original to the genre. Fucking read it, you will hail me with praise. When I found out that none other than <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> Fresh Prince, Will Smith, would be cast as Robert Neville, my skepticism swelled but I held fast and waited patiently beneath the information spout, my mouth open, ready to digest whatever bullshit they were about to pour out. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Welcome 'uh' urf, bitch!</span>"<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>True anger seeped freely once I found out it was <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> going be a vampire movie, but that the enemies were actually going to be rabid, infected, plague victims that turn into angry, screeching, soccer hooligans. I unleashed angry jerk and condemned the movie to Hollywood self stimulation. I actually had every intention of boycotting the movie all together, until Maria said "I feel like watching I am Legend" and I said ".....Ok." So, while they pretty much swatted away potential perfection by ignoring everything that made the book a monumental chapter in vampire lore, the movie was actually pretty painless. Actually, it was awesome...<br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">BODY COUNT:<br /></span></span></span><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">AVP wastes no time whatsoever in stacking the body count highly in it's favor, farting out a paper thin plot of a crashed Predator ship that happened to be experimenting on aliens and face huggers, creating an alien/predator hybrid thing and then unleashing them on earth to the collective shagrin of mankind. Predator arrives to investigate his comrade's distress call, sees that the aliens are loose and eating whinos in the sewer, and therefore with some mysterious sense of cosmic justice decides that they need to be hunted and killed. We are not privy to <span style="font-style: italic;">why</span> this predator feels the need to throw man-kind a bone, and it's pretty inconsistent for his character considering <span style="font-style: italic;">Predator</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Predator 2</span> were both spent annihilating the human race for sport. I mean, dude is called Predator, not Gracious Savior. But his <span style="font-style: italic;">actual</span> 'saving grace' is that in his efforts to knock out the invading aliens, he invariably destroys any people that get in his way like shooing flies. The aliens maintain quality kill numbers by doing their thing and pretty much eating and/or impregnating every person they come across. Combine this with the fact that Predator is also killing aliens in addition to people, and the body count is enough that just about every scene involves events that include or lead up to the death of <span style="font-style: italic;">something</span>. The amount of on screen deaths definitely earned AVP honors and helped keep the shit fest of actors squashed into the back of your mind while relishing their merciless doom. Extra points for killing little kids, infants, and pregnant women, and they almost went over the top with an "everybody dies" ending, but they allowed a mother and daughter to escape last minute and so lost that particular medal, but more details on that later. (WINNER for blowing up the entire city!)<br /></span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The actual body count in <span style="font-style: italic;">I Am Legend </span>is hard to ascertain. The drive for the entire story is that the whole world is dead, so technically that's a pretty astronomical kill count, but all it is is a technicality and I prefer to judge a film's body count by the number of tangible deaths on screen. Implied kills will not suffice, they must be presented to the viewer so that we may rejoice. Following this guideline, IAL falls drastically behind AVP in the body count. Neville relies mainly on firearms as defense and most kill scenes involve one or two infected creatures that go down in a flash of quick editing and shakey cam. (Can we be done with shakey cam soon? Please?) The death rate rises towards the end of the film when Robert Neville has a brief road rage scene, offing a good amount of infect-oids with his SUV, and then again bumps when they invade his house and he sets off an arsenal of explosives to keep them out, but the slower pacing and <span style="font-style: italic;">actual suspense</span> never really lets the movie come close to the carnage depicted in AVP.<br /></span></span></span></li></ul><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />CREATIVE DEATH SCENES:<br /></span></span></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Of course AVP is the obvious winner here, being that Predator is essentially an ornary intergalactic James Bond combining forces with the indifferent slaughter stylings of the rare-to-disappoint aliens. There is a wealthy color pallet with which to paint the pain picture in this film, from bionic shoulder lazers and crazy blades of all kinds, to acid blood and thrusting mouth-mouths. Predator excelled in kills, tearing the aliens into fillets and rampaging all over the humans. I gladly place the golden kill crown 'pon his dreds and drink to his continued savagery. Notable kills are the double lazer blast with which he simultaneously vaporizes two heads at once in a fountainous splash of wet brain, and the moment in which (to my delicious surprise) he dispaches the promiscuous blonde love interest (I expected her to survive! Eeeee! Delight!) with his boomerang-blade-ninja star thing, catching her mid run and pegging her into the wall. No slumps themselves, the aliens had a few shining moments to their credit, mostly involving the acid blood. One of the first kills in the movie shows a man lose his arm at the elbow to acid blood, and we are also treated to a visually thirst quenching close up of a douche bag teenager's face getting melted to the skull by spilled alien gore. Predator-Alien hybrid rages in an all new way, reproducing not through goopy eggs and facehuggers but via vomiting eggs down pregnant women's throats so that the baby aliens can eat her infant in the womb and then skuttle out of her swollen belly. Yeah that's right, pregnant women hosting multiple <span style="font-style: italic;">litters</span> of chest bursting babies. AVP makes gore history with a sweeping shot of the maternity ward featuring dead mothers in all the beds, their pregnant stomachs torn open with volley ball sized holes. W00T! Chest bursting is not reserved for the preggers either, and amongst many others a 10 year old kid goes down in the first ten minutes of the movie with a baby alien exiting his stomach before he even grew pubes. AVP gets big points for trodding into the taboo territory of little kids, infants, and pregnant women. All they needed was to off a few down syndrome inflicted individuals and they pretty much would have trampled over the trifecto of most offensive demographics available in America. While AVP was the winner by a long shot here, some of the normal alien kills were a bit "stock", with the slow creep of the drooling alien, lips twitching, just to mouth-mouth into someone's face. I don't think we need anymore of that, or the leg-grab-pull-through-the-floor maneuver, and considering their capabilities there could have been much more creativity in each alien moment. (WINNER for face melt and pregnant chest bursts!)<br /></span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">In the interest of realism, most of IAL's deaths are not very over the top or "creative". Neville primarily uses firearms to drop the infected dogs and/or people, and since most deaths take place during frantic action sequences they are quick shots of the enemies going down while Neville is running or driving or yelling or something. During the road rage scene there are a few good shots of infected dudes getting slammed and tossed by the car, and a notable scene where he pins one against a lamp post. The best death occurs when the audience finds out that the infected things die in sunlight, when one leaps at Neville and goes out the window only to writhe and sizzle on the pavement. But really, there aren't any "shout an expletive out loud" quality deaths in IAL, but surprisingly it doesn't really detract anything from the film experience.<br /></span></span></li></ul><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />TRUTH TO SOURCE MATERIAL:<br /></span></span></span><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">AVP wins almost too hard, if not by default, in the source material contest. It is pretty much text book alien and predator scenery, homage after homage, whorring itself to the genre fans in a fit of "remember this?"s. Aliens are seen crawling on ceilings, emerging from shadows, drooling right up next to scared women, all the familiar shit that we remember from the other 5 movies. Other than adding a few new gadgets to his arsenal, Predator does all the same moves we know him for as well, including the "turn invisible and flash your eyes before you impale someone" move, the "slow ascension from the water as the invisibility shorts out", "skin the dude and hang him from the branch", the "heal your injured leg in a tree with neon blue acid and then yell real loud because it hurts" scene, and of course the "slowly remove your face mask before the final fist fight against the alien boss". They even tossed in the "What the hell are you?" line into the script, although thank Zeus it's not actually predator who says it. I like my intergalactic sport hunters silent and sans catch phrases, thanks. As I left the theatre, I almost felt a little cheated because looking back on the movie it just seemed like their answer to the wash of anguish the first AVP caused was just to reshoot the classic moments of both films frame for frame in a new medium and tie it together with a sub par plot and call it good. (WINNER for unabashed regurgitation of the classic moments from both series.)</span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">IAL strayed long and far from the original story written by Richard Matheson. Essentially, the only thing that remained intact was the concept of the last man on earth sharing the world with monsters. In the book Robert Neville is an alcoholic ex family man living in a non-descript residential suburb who spends his nights drinking out of pure fear as vampires try to break into his house and eat him. The females try to tempt him out by making sex noises because they know he's alone and sans lady, his neighbor he used to be friends with harrasses him endlessly trying to incite anger and get him outside, and he can hear them crawling all around the house while he drinks himself into a stupor. During the day he hunts them out of their hovels and kills them while they sleep, hoping that if he can kill them all then he'll finally be able to rest. The book follows very traditional vampire rules: they won't go near garlic, he kills them with wooden stakes and by dragging them into the sun, they are sentient, etc. The film doesn't incorporate any of this. Neville is a military bio chemist, he lives in New York, he is haunted by scores of savage humans infected by a virus he helped spread, and his source of anguish comes from trying to find a cure during the day and not getting eaten at night. I'm really sick of the "virus that turns people rabid and angry" plots that have been circulating since <span style="font-style: italic;">28 Days Later</span>, and it seemed a huge cop out when the original story worked so well with just vampires. They're vampires! No need to invent a scientific explanation, to create a plausible theory. Vampires are so engrained in horror culture they don't need plausibility, the audience will accept it and it saves the writer the challenge of making it <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> real. They suck blood, make new vampires, and eventually they'll run out of people: <span style="font-style: italic;">I am Legend</span> the book! For me, the biggest bummer in this area was the implication of the movie's title. The words "I am legend" are essential to the book in a very clever way, and as it is the core plot twist in the final moments of the story. I won't spoil it here, because it's so good it's worth <span style="font-style: italic;">not spoiling </span><span>on the off chance someone checks it out after reading this rant</span> (God bless you, you tolerant <span style="font-style: italic;">tolerant</span> soul). In the movie, all it means is that Robert Neville's blood is the cure for the virus, which he doesn't discover until his final moments. So he dies, but his blood contains the anti-body that cures the virus and allows humanity to start over. Yeah, I spoiled it, because when it unveils at the end of the movie, it's what you've been thinking for the last hour.<br /></span></li></ul><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />SPECIAL EFFECTS:<br /></span></span></span><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Not bad, but not great." </span>is what I would say for AVP's special effects. I love that they stayed pretty far away from relying on digital effects for that movie. The costumes in both the Alien and Predator series were pretty groundbreaking and believable for their time. They stay true to it and use digital effects as enhancement rather than a crutch. No complaints here. Party on.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >While IAL uses digital effects pretty heavily, they are pretty good and do some amazing things for the ambience of the film. As stated throughout, my skepticism for this movie was at the boiling point and I expected to be pawing to the arcade after 25 minutes. However, from the first open shot of Manhattan as a desolate, uninhabited wasteland, I was grateful that I got to the theatre to see it on a big screen. The digital rendition of the infected humans worked pretty well in low lighting scenes, but closeups and brighter scenes betrayed obvious digital effects and pulled me out of the moment. It's not hard to take a good physical actor and paint some rotting skin and scabby mouth sores on them for a realistic antagonist, and I wish they had gone that route as opposed to the digital paint job. Regardless, the overgrown tundra of Manhattan totally won me over. (WINNER for an entirely believable "forgotten" Times Square.)<br /></span></li></ul><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />ACTUAL QUALITY / "WATCH IT AGAIN" POTENTIAL:<br /></span></span></span><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >Sadly, AVP's entertainment value comes to a sharp stop beyond the visceral carnage and I found myself bored beyond measure at the parts when someone wasn't dying. I was hoping that the story would involve just aliens and predator with humans getting caught up like sheep grazing at a shooting range, but unfortunately a sad, pathetic human story got wound into the mix and left me gagging for blood. The typical Hollywood love story is present, featuring underdog skinny dude, fawning after hot blonde with low cut v necks, thwarted by her overprotective jerk boyfriend. They also spin in an ex-military mom just back from Iraq, reunited with her family, only to have her husband mash faces with an alien, prompting her to kick ass, drive armored vehicles and fly helicopters to save the day. LAME. This is never, ever, what horror fans want to see, EVER, but for some reason it plagues pretty much every film that comes from a major studio. If you can't afford good actors or screenwriters, don't rely on them! Drop the "story", and show us some brutal shit! It's what we paid for, so deliver. I don't think I'll make any effort to see this movie again, but I would allow it as background noise while writing, playing DS, shitting, or playing triumphant riffs on my Fender. As long as I have something to do when Predator is not on screen or an alien is not eating it's way out of a pregnant stomach, then we're cool. It was good, a marked improvement on the last one, but the Hollywood formula hobbles the momentum and will keep it well out of my DVD collection. While the deaths and gore were great, it was all very rehash and could've used some more inspiration.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >Maybe it was because I expected to hate it, but IAL pretty much blew me away. Will Smith was a big part of the formula, as he left his "witty bad ass" character </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bad Boys</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Independance Day</span> </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" > that I was so loathe to watch destroy my favorite vampire story at the door, and really pulled the thing off. His relationship with his dog is downright emotional, and he is extremely believable as a guilt racked dude completely alone in the husk of the biggest city in America. He is not a hero, he is flawed, he fucks up, he gets hurt, and he gets really scared. It wasn't the story I wanted, but it stands alone as a good movie thematically based on the book and the scenery and ambience are tense and compelling. I wish they had incorporated the same message that the title "I am legend" implies at the end of Matheson's book, but at the same time the further they went from it the more sacred and intact it remained in my eyes. It's hard for me to say they ruined it in the movie, when thhey barely even touched it in the first place. I just wished they would've picked a different title for the movie, but if I was involved in production I would probably use it anyways. It's a fucking great title. All said and done, the movie was great and I would absolutely watch it again. (WINNER for making that hurty lump in my throat when the dog dies.)<br /></span></li></ul><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />WINNER:<br />The winner is <span style="font-style: italic;">I am Legend</span>. If you can stomach some sub par digital closeups on the bad guys, then I recommend it highly over AVP. AVP is a rental. Buy <span style="font-style: italic;">I am Legend</span> the book and read it between the bloody parts. I'm betting your TV will be on mute after 10 minutes.<br /></span></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-15061174688855860222007-12-13T15:27:00.000-08:002007-12-13T15:28:55.324-08:00The best birthday present I have ever received<object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bY2WWCqudDs&rel=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bY2WWCqudDs&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-10601219570769271092007-12-06T15:27:00.000-08:002007-12-06T15:57:40.027-08:00Orcs & Elves for DS!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://media.1up.com/media?id=3436775&type=lg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://media.1up.com/media?id=3436775&type=lg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Hark! <span style="font-style: italic;">Orcs & Elves</span> is out for Nintendo DS! I almost bought this game whilst internet window shopping for a game to play on my cell phone, but ended up not commiting because my phone is a petrified chunk of rat droppings and I was worried it would crumble to dust if I pushed anything more complex than the Bejeweled demo on it. I could mug you with it and still text Maria to pick up some cat food on the way home. The thing is rock with a talk hole.<br /><br />But it's out for DS now! I was instantly attracted to it when I first looked it up as it harkened back to my memories of trudging through the tedious step-by-step dungeon crawl gameplay of Shadowgate, Sword & Serpents, Wizardy, and this one awesome game I used to rent for NES as a kid that had these crazy zombies and spiders that would attack a little too often. These games were a tedious mess, and often times not worth the effort of playing to completion, but my 10-12 hood is brimming with memories of tenaciously building parties, crafting the perfect balance of fighters, healers, and spell casters (what good is a thief in a dungeon crawl?) giving them names like "Shitface" and "Assface" and "Buttface", and then cleaving down enemies until level two or three where I was invariably slaughtered by the outrageous difficulty curve.<br /><br />No doubt, <span style="font-style: italic;">Orcs & Elves</span> has been refined in this matter, in these modern days of user friendly game experiences. It's not the 80's any more, we don't have the "t<span style="font-style: italic;">hree lives and you're fucked, start over!</span>" wall punching, controller snapping games to tackle these days, and this is why I'm excited. I might actually complete this one.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3164761">Good review on 1up.com</a>, and Scott Sharkey seems to value what I'm looking for in a port like this. Will definietly be picking it up soon.<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-76347803138187997282007-12-05T19:45:00.000-08:002007-12-05T20:22:27.068-08:00Blizzard + Activision = end of the world?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/games/2005/world-of-warcraft3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/games/2005/world-of-warcraft3.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It was recently announced that Activision and Vivendi are <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/03/vivendi_activision_merge_into_activision_blizzard/">set to merge in a deal worth 18.9 billion</a> space bucks. If you don't know, Vivendi owns Blizzard, who made <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Xz9l_cHNo&NR=1">World of Warcraft</a>, which is the biggest online videogame ever, and has made Blizzard one of the most profitable game companies in the world. To me this is slightly insane on Vivendi's behalf, and I imagine the offices at Activision have ceased operations for a company wide kegger hosted by Night Elf beer wenches. That's right, your next 'gotta have' shit smeared movie license videogame will be delayed because the devs are beer bonging PBR in Tauren costumes and laugh-vomiting all over their keyboards. I wonder if they're going to get free WoW accounts...<br /><br />This trumps EA's recent acquisition of BioWare/Pandemic, and actually bumps them down a notch to #2 most hugely unnecessarily profitable game publisher in America, and we all know second place is the first loser. I'm eager to see what kind of shenanigans they pull to get back on top. Maybe they'll try and buy Microsoft. The gods would laugh.<br /><br />To me it's just pretty crazy. As long as the games remain untainted (actually, Activision could probably use some Blizzard-ness to help gloss up some of their IPs) I suppose it doesn't really matter unless you work at one of the two companies, but the monopoly mayhem going on is a little unsettling. Am I the only one who's a bit nervous at the umbrella shadow that is being cast over today's prominent developer houses? If they can be bought this easily, can they be shut down and/or pawned just as easily? Well, if it means we get "Call of Warcraft", pitting the Horde in a vicious ground skirmish against the nazis in northern France then I guess I can't be too skeptical, right? <span style="font-style: italic;">Heil Grom Hellscream!</span><br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-51918327280111831582007-12-03T09:36:00.000-08:002007-12-04T00:23:50.948-08:00BeoW00T!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuoxQFLwLFhZMM2OpTJ0rwZhiH0F0pOnQWJcWLgLYZBEie6N_pJpR-m2nnazlohfJJfvtDH9bDzIQfYktjf-CKHrygMWBmBQrAjqDA2eCvPEvuJ58cJy8AcSGDPAYGA7K6ue-eQ/s1600-h/beowulf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuoxQFLwLFhZMM2OpTJ0rwZhiH0F0pOnQWJcWLgLYZBEie6N_pJpR-m2nnazlohfJJfvtDH9bDzIQfYktjf-CKHrygMWBmBQrAjqDA2eCvPEvuJ58cJy8AcSGDPAYGA7K6ue-eQ/s200/beowulf.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5140029848808692338" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I plunged and took the supreme risk of going to see Beowulf this weekend. I wanted to see it, had to scratch the itch, to gaze into the depths of Pandora's box and see if it was worth it, worth my time, my money, my <span style="font-style: italic;">love</span>. It was good. Way good.<br /><br />Not good for everyone though. I would say that experience with Dungeons & Dragons and/or familiarity with at least two fantasy authors or series by name is a prerequisite, and no, Beowulf the book doesn't count. I would not recommend this movie</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> to those of you who are expecting a "realistic" CGI film, in the literal sense, regardless of how it has been advertised by it's makers. The movie is "realistic" in zero ways, both in visuals and story. For those who will nit pick, the fields are ripe with swollen fruit, bursting from the vine and begging to be plucked and hurled. I'll get you started: The human faces are at times laughably faux, the physics are too controlled and lack weight (seen Shrek?), and a running horse looks like two dudes in a pantomime horse costume... running.<br /><br />But shut up. Shut up all you guys like me, who are plucking at all the flaws with the relish of a bored 10 year old mauling a daisy. All the post film banter of what didn't work, who looked like shit, what dialogue made you barf in your mouth, it all dissolves in the overly epic action sequences that are spread perfectly throughout the course of the film. Just like the <span style="font-style: italic;">Lord of the Rings</span> films, where Pippin's emotional crooning and Frodo's tortured pretty boy grimace were dashed like sand on the rock of rampaging Oliphaunts and thousand Orc sieges, so do <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf'</span>s flaws melt into putty beneath the shadow of Grendel and possibly the most bad ass dragon a film has ever seen.<br /><br />Crispin Glover continues his legacy of the tortured, psychotic weirdo that invokes equal portions sympathy and disgust as the voice of Grendel, hardly speaking any words and relying more on screams of anguish and alarm. Yeah, Grendel isn't</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> the T-1000 unstoppable monsterific force that is eluded to in the orginal epic, he's actually a deformed retard CHUD baby sans genitals that happens to be huge and capable of causing extreme damage in his infantile rage. He evoked strong sympathy with me. His motivation for coming down the mountain and grinding Hrothgar's people into pulp is because they party too loud and he can't sleep, something we've all craved and pondered during those summer nights when the neighbors are having deck parties and raging barbeques. Surprisingly, Angelina Jolie looked a little less hideous than in real life portrayed as the water demon with a pointy tail. Bitch can walk on water... in <span style="font-style: italic;">heels</span>! Anthony Hopkins, as the digital King Hrothgar, is one of the more believable characters portrayed as a toga clad, drunk, party animal.<br /><br />Anyways, if you're a fan of the battle scenes in <span style="font-style: italic;">Lord of the Rings</span>, have ever enjoyed table top role playing, or just like dudes with swords fighting monsters, be sure to catch Beowulf in the theatre (in 3D) before it goes. Both Grendel and the final fight against the dragon is pretty mind blowing, and well worth the ticket price and boring talky parts between the blood and chopping.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZDr7gA1O0rQyLJxyFHoFcLfEANVZOZCmhhVQdeXqzK5gOmHUqGZVlot95mPX-pNrlVXJnLhHLAOLTtmiSa9oXloqmLrb6M8zCHBd7RVPDTizC6shIFtL2eGy2fcgjabpiPuIBoA/s1600-h/dragon.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 257px; height: 119px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZDr7gA1O0rQyLJxyFHoFcLfEANVZOZCmhhVQdeXqzK5gOmHUqGZVlot95mPX-pNrlVXJnLhHLAOLTtmiSa9oXloqmLrb6M8zCHBd7RVPDTizC6shIFtL2eGy2fcgjabpiPuIBoA/s200/dragon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5140030012017449602" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-19254604457688170592007-12-01T22:38:00.000-08:002007-12-02T01:59:19.925-08:00The Jeff Gerstmann debacle<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I recently read about a bummer of a situation that went down over at videogame internet hub, Gamespot dot com. One of the major videogame websites out there, Gamespot is like Wolf Man in the monster world. Not up there like Dracula (IGN.com), but pretty well known. A staple. The site sees thousands of visitors, has a billion annoying pop up ads, and every page takes about a minute to load on your average high speed connection because they throw so much bullshit in your face at every possible moment that it turns your computer into an 80 year old man in a sack race. I usually go there rather than IGN for game information, because IGN always felt very corporate, like trying to find an article that says "Stop it with the disco drums!" in <span style="font-style: italic;">Rolling Stone</span>, pandering to the big players and high profiles. Sadly, that has changed.<br /><br />Jeff Gerstmann was the Senior Editor at Gamespot, playing games and writing reviews, and considered a top player in the world of game media. As I said earlier, I would go to Gamespot for their game feedback because it was immediately apparent any time reading their material that these guys played the games, cared about them, wanted a good experience, and weren't shy about letting the consumer know which games were not worth their money. Jeff was no exception, and while I don't recall any of his reviews from previous visits, mainly because I don't really give a shit about the name of the dude putting the words down on the webpage, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review">his review of <span style="font-style: italic;">Kane and Lynch: Dead Men</span></a> by Eidos shows exactly how scrutinizing these guys can be in the face of flashy graphics, lots of violence, and an almost Reservoir Dogs style videogame that should make most gamers shudder in anticipation. So why do I suddenly care about the reviewers name? Because he gave it a 6 out of 10 and was fired the day after his review went live. Not only fired, locked out of his office and asked to leave the premises. That's some bullshit I expect to see in the President's cabinet on a fierce episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">24</span>, not to hear about from an internet game company. Working in games is supposed to be like being Tom Hanks in <span style="font-style: italic;">Big</span>, and many of us try very hard to keep it that way.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/283/934403_20071011_screen015.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/283/934403_20071011_screen015.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(Kane and Lynch, respectively, I think.)<br /><br /><br />Apparently Eidos had spent more than a few hundred thousand dollars in advertisements for <span style="font-style: italic;">Kane and Lynch</span> on Gamespot. When the review went live, they supposedly read it, and then pulled more hundreds of thousands of dollars reserved for future titles from the site. As Gamespot's revenue lies entirely in the sale of web ads, I can see how this could cause the bosses to run to the men's room and check their boxers. There's no official word from the Gamespot business crew on the issue, in the typical "no comment" backhanded deflection tactic popular amongst the corporate hounds when they shit on some guy, prompting one of us with <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/morals">morals</a> to say, "Hey, you just shit on that guy." The only reasons given for the termination all seem to revolve around Jeff's "tone" rather than what he specifically wrote, and that he had been "talked to" about his "tone" on previous occasions. This, of course, is as vague as black matter. There's no such thing as "tone" in the written word. The "tone" is created in the reader's head, and regardless, it's not even worth an argument because it anyone can look at the situation and see with the utmost clarity that blaming "tone" is simply a lie. Yeah, a lie. His bad review lost Gamespot a lot of ad money, so they freaked out and fired him. When you read it like that it almost makes sense.<br /><br />In addition to the finger pointing and vagueries from the corporate side of Gamespot, there has also been no official word on the situation from Jeff's peers at Gamespot, the other editors, who are the ones I really want to hear from and probably have a very biased yet true accounting of what went down. Their silence absolutley makes sense, because if they're now facing life on the chopping block then there's no reason to start coming to work in short shorts and cat-in-the-hat hats. I did track down an <a href="http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerstmann/gamespot-editor--on-fired-reviewer-328775.php"><span style="font-style: italic;">unofficial</span> commentary from a supposed Gamespot editor</a>, in which the mysterious blogster pretty much confirms the obvious. Notable quotes from the above link are as follows:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >"</span><span style="font-style: italic;">Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year </span></span><strong style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up."<br /><br /></strong><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >"I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were "multiple instances of tone" in the reviews that he hadn't been happy about, but that wasn't Jeff's problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that "AAA" titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that </span><strong style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site."</strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Okay. No need to keep going on this trajectory, other than to point out Josh Larson is a douche, but here's what I'm getting at: Where does this leave us, the confused and addled consumer when seeking advice on hot shit xtreme game titles? We are being assaulted constantly via TV, internet, magazines, billboards, soda pop cans, and whatever the fuck else with crazy ads for games. If the marketing department can differenciate from one's ass and one's elbow, they make the game look good. Real good, regardless of the actual experience therein. I'm in a commited relationship and have been for a long time, but at my core I am a bachelor in many ways. One of the manifestationsof said bachelorism is in my quest for desired information. I don't scroll down the list of citysearch reviews on a restaurant if I'm curious about the fare they offer, I go there and fucking eat it. If I want to see a movie, I go straight to the theatre listing of the closest cinema and find the next screening and then I go and watch it. When I want to find out if some crazy looking game I just saw an ad for is worth half a shit, <span style="font-weight: bold;">I go to Gamespot and check the review. </span>I can't do that anymore! I now know full well that whether or not the editors like it, their content is now in league with the media machine chomping at our wallets and their integrity as <span style="font-style: italic;">journalists</span> is about as sound as particle board.<br /><br />So the next logical step is finding a new source for authentic and honest reports on the regurgitated refuse disguised as cream soda coming from the game publishers. And that's truth, so so many games look like they're going to be fan-fucking-tastic and end up coming out like spoiled turds. <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/">Penny Arcade</a> has always been the best source for game reviews, mainly because they don't actually review games for a living. As fans of videogames, they laud the games they are playing and enjoying, and they complain about the ones that are worth the time and effort of complaining about in a public forum such as teh interwebzzor. It's much more genuine than a guy who's job is to play shitty games all day and then try and politely convey that they'd rather eat a plate of hot garbage than spend another minute in the grips of whatever digital nightmare they've had to grapple with. Every time I've acted on a favorable PA recommendation it's been worth it. But, what makes their reviews so good is precisely what makes them unreliable at this particular service I need. You can't go to their site and get a quick run down of the new Conan game, because they didn't bother writing about it. This leaves us in the grip of blogs and less professional sites and publications for authentic game reviews. Will they be honest? Yes. Will they be untouched by the pressures of marketing and corporate hand shakes? Yes. Will they most likely be written by fan boys who are "above message boards" and just want to gorge on a feast of their own jaded views on whether or not cell shaded Link is cool? Fucking yes godammit. So while Gamespot was not the be all end all of game reviews, it served a very important service in my life and I'm sad that I have to put it on the Bullshit Shelf next to <span style="font-style: italic;">Jaws Unleashed</span> and new Star Wars.<br /><br />And really, this post is also about how horribly Jeff Gerstmann was treated for not giving to marketing pressure and being true to the fans that built gaming into the disc golem it is today. This shit happens all the time, and it's tragic. I put it in the same unjust category of unnecessary rent increases in cheap apartment buildings occupied by low income tenants, and charging $9.75 for an afternoon showing of <span style="font-style: italic;">Norbit</span>. Highway robbery! I hope that he goes on to find employment at a place that values honesty and us old schoolers that are still scrounging and spending to be able to keep up with our favorite form of entertainment, or better yet that he starts his own site or magazine.<br /><br />I do feel the need to interject on the subject of <span style="font-style: italic;">Kane and Lynch</span> before I wrap up here. I was lucky enough to meet an employee of Eidos Germany while on tour in Europe, and he invited us to the office to hang out, see the digs, shoot the shit, and psyche him the fuck out bragging on my Halo skillz. While there he demo'd the first level of <span style="font-style: italic;">Kane and Lynch</span> for us on the office PS3 and I have to say it looked pretty good. From an observers point of view, I could tell there was a bit of trickery with the aiming (an element that gets a lot of shrapnel in Gerstmann's review) and one thing that would bother me if I had control was the slow speed at which the characters move. I hate that in a game. But it looked <span style="font-style: italic;">fun</span>, and isn't that what we're looking for in a game? The theatrical way in which the encounters unfolded were intriguing and downright progressive. I can't say too much because I didn't have any actual hands on experience with the game which is the only way to properly scrutinize, but I left the building with the game on my "to rent" list. One thing he does say that I sympathize with involved the inconsistency of attaching to cover: <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >"</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >...it seems like you're always snapping into cover behind something at the most inopportune times, making the game quite frustrating." </span><span style="font-family:arial;">This was a problem I had with <span style="font-style: italic;">Gears of War</span> during frantic close quarters battles, and it is lost on me if anyone ever went on record saying this in a review for that game. If the proverbial 'they' didn't, the proverbial 'they' should have.<br /><br />But, in reading Gerstmann's review one can see the wear and tear of a decade of game reviews under the belt, as he seems to slightly nit pick, favoring his editorial space for the crucifixion of the game's flaws and largely ignoring some of the more theatrical feats I witnessed at Eidos. I'm hardly standing up for the decision to fire him based on his review, I'm not even playing devil's advocate. It's just the inverse sharp edge of having honest, experienced reviewers that aren't fan boys or message board spammers. Their job is to play games and <span style="font-style: italic;">judge them</span> on the behalf of the consumer. It's all they do, cast judgement. If you do any job (no matter how sweet it is) for a long time you get burnt out in little ways, it's unavoidable. The burn these men feel is the mediocrity of the sub par game that gets hyped beyond hype and fails to deliver on fundamental mechanics. They lash out and do their best to level the bar, and I respect that with all the floating skittles that comprise my soul, but sometimes I just want to pass by the angst.<br /><br />All said and done, I think the "User Score" at the header of the review speaks the loudest on the issue. A score of 2.6 out of 10, averaged from 3,410 votes at the time of this writing. Utterly abysmal. Internet backlash from the Gerstmann debacle? Possibly. It also suggests that Gerstmann did indeed comply with his corporate superiors and score the game much higher than he had desired in the face of Eidos's deep pockets. Regardless, I salute Jeff and hope he comes out of this whole mess better off, both financially and spiritually.<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-39466048884841746912007-11-30T16:10:00.000-08:002007-11-30T17:15:12.450-08:00Ninja Warrior<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maria, the lovely and wise, did humanity a great service while I was gone and ordered a bonus cable package that will last us a meager six months. I've always been against cable TV, it's like inviting a black hole into your living room. A black hole that makes you stupid. But, invariably, I watch. I'm on my mandatory 100 day break from working at Microsoft... It's this horrible headlock they grapple you with should you choose to seek their employ. A huge percentage of the Microsoft work force is made up of contractors like myself, and to get around giving us things like good wages and benefits, we are forced to take a "vacation" every 9 to 12 months. While I relish my work at MS / Bungie, I also love <span style="font-style: italic;">not working</span>. Either way I'm a winner and a loser. A woser?<br /><br />So anyways, my days are filled with excrutiating trips to the gym, drinking brutally strong coffee, typing on the lappy toppy, playing guitar, watching TV, and lots of Halo 3. The coffee-Halo combination has been pretty fun as I can get pretty worked up. The other day I was drying off in the shower and noticed a fist sized bruise just over my right knee... a bruise made from punching myself in caffeine induced frenzies of anger after being Needler'd or losing the melee hit coin toss.<br /><br />Daytime TV kind of blows a lot. But, for dudes like me there is a savior. A gistening golden messenger of health and prosperity, a cupid, a perfect package of entertainment. Her name is G4, and watching her is like eating pizza. Complete, rampant indulgence. For those who don't know, G4 is a channel made for nerds. Most programs revolve around gaming, others will show off the latest tech gadgets, movie previews, graphic novel reviews, and one show called Cinematech just feeds 30 minutes of game footage. No commentary, just games. I'm watching it right now. They just played a commercial where a unicorn vomits a PSP. I can say with absolution that I have never seen a unicorn vomit a gaming system anywhere else, and it is unlikely that I will ever go back on that statement.<br /><br />However, if I can recommend anything to you few friends who read this, it is a program called <span style="font-style: italic;">Ninja Warrior</span>. To sum it up, average Japanese dudes run through ridiculous obstacle courses to try and push a giant red button before the clock runs out. The obstacles vary from simple jumps over a water pit, to rope swinging like Tarzan (it's actually called the "Tarzan Ropes"), to trampolining over more water pits to grapple onto rope nets, to hanging onto a rolling log that spins and knocks the contestant into, yes, a water pit. The failures are nothing short of hillarious, awkward crashes into the muddy depths below, limbs completely splayed, rendering any and all athleticism moot. The victories are butt clenching. I actually flex and squirm watching the poor Ninja hopefuls grapple that last climb up the rope to the shiny red button, arms weak, straining, the clock ticking away the last ten seconds. The subtitled commentary is of course priceless, as can be expected from most Japanese game shows.<br /><br />But truly the most enamoring element to the show are the contestants themselves. They are serious. Some dish it out with a garnish of humor, but many of them are motivated and passionate. About ninjas. Or I guess, about <span style="font-style: italic;">being</span> a ninja. These people are entering the competition years and years in a row. They are training in their free time, building elaborate reconstructions of the challenges that thwarted their last attempt. I understand the drive to succeed, the passion needed to return to a potentially ruinous situation at the behest of ones pride, only to best yourself. But these people are running full kilter across foam rocks for the titlee of "ninja", largely useless in today's world of commerce and business. They are dressing like ninjas. They are dressing like superman and spiderman. They are dressing in their work outfits, their sports uniforms. It's like they are meelding their identity with the challenge. My favorite contestant so far owns a gas station. He has competed five years in a row and never gotten past the first challenge. He competes in his work uniform: red shirt with name tag, hat, dark slacks. The previous year he made it to the last rope climb, mere feet from the almighty button, and dislocated his shoulder in a freak twist. I just watched him fail again, timing out on the same rope climb that doomed his last attempt (I was flexing!), and I'm sure he'll be back next season.<br /><br />I leave you with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nttua5w3h3A">OCTOPUS</a> as a teaser. The guy is 57.<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-79477990182295650652007-11-30T15:59:00.000-08:002007-11-30T16:07:24.755-08:00Europe Summary<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Akimbo just got back from a three week tour in Europe. We hit the usual stops: Germany, France, Holland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. The tour was a success, I got a bit cranky at times, but there's nothing like unlimited beer to cure one of their particulars. I can sum it all up with this picture, taken at our sold out show in Berlin.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFNAXEaYLjnKa2yr3UKqXUf4NnNfSYmhppcJgshAac0HDw7YcsgCJXHqb7FWkVPcQ0FDvb2DI7l7mg_Vc3Qar4CgUfQwc7Kgcu1J06dbV4Bp-4lVAkNOM0NOIca5Wmi73RMY_pOQ/s1600-r/meatmyugliest.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1YjlSp3rHwj7jPKbwdvvkH9RuUJ4Z5LZlrJA3x7Yj5mWkkHeMwgXKtKfdRYLpJw9-hbiuSThMRECDHKUW3X8vrsQVsRD84iIatcm7mri81sYaLxKs56cg5D7DJwpcmdxX_hnNw/s200/meatmyugliest.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5138788848073284194" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Look at my face. It's seriously the ugliest picture that's ever been taken of me. I can't stop laughing at this shit. Vanity, where art thou?</span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117897.post-53887930983056344982007-09-29T00:23:00.000-07:002007-10-01T22:51:05.596-07:00Resident Evil: Shit Stink Tion<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Maria and I went and saw the new Resident Evil movie tonight. I cast this blargery using the snide leer of a gamer, a <span style="font-style: italic;">nerdus extremus</span> that not only examines the film for it's stand-alone merits as a moving picture, but also as homage to the game that inspired it. Spoilers lie beyond. You have been warned.<br /><br />In griping about this movie, one must take into account that it falls under a very unique sub-sub-genre. It's not just a zombie movie, it's a zombie movie based on a video game. There's a huge difference, and that difference is that all movies based on video games suck. Straight up. It's science, as absolute as gravity. If I drop a rock, it falls down and hits the ground. If I make a movie based on a video game, it eats balls and pisses off nerds. However, what brings these movies above any other shit fest is that they havee the opportunity to stay loyal to the subject matter and therefore appease the fans that allowed it to exist in the first place. This is how I justify watching these deplorable hunks of ass meat, and ultimately what keeps me going back to the theatre and paying money. I know it's going to be bad by all "movie" standards, but I'm driven by an unholy force to see how well they adopt the artistic direction of the games, almost like I'm watching over Hollywood to make sure everything is ok and that our little social group isn't shit on too hard.<br /><br />The Resident Evil movies have sucked since their inception, plain and simple. The first one has it's moments, and is a decent zombie movie, but Michelle Rodriguez is an automatic fail if you are trying to make a film with "quality" and "charisma". I cheered in real life when she got kicked off of <span style="font-style: italic;">Lost</span> for that DUI in Hawaii. Stay away from my show you cudgel of an actress. Milla Jovovich is of course a babe, and her willingness, nay, <span style="font-style: italic;">quest</span> to get naked in her movies is huge points for the RE films. I would say that the definining moment of the first movie is her slow motion ninja kick to the skinless zombie dogs. Yeah, it was in the preview. Twice. But sadly, blurry crotchal shots only go so far and I am not, nor ever will be a dude who's into Mr. Skin dot com. The second movie, Nemesis, had absolutely ZERO redeeming qualities and was a straight up slap in the face to all the geeks who spent all that money building the Resident Evil empire. At this time I'd like to say 'fuck you' to Capcom for allowing our baby to get raped that hard, for that long, on that big of a screen, for $9 a ticket. I was a huge fan of Resident Evil 3 (for you trogs out there who haven't played the games, the big puffy asshole in the rubber penis suit in Apocalypse was the central villain for the third game, and I bit my pillow and cried when I saw the movie for the first time) even though many gamers tout it as a weak entry to the series. In my harsh, jaded, bullish opinion, the Nemesis character was a step in the right direction for the continuity of the drama surrounding the Umbrella story, and every time he broke through a wall and made my life suck for 2 minutes as I mashed and smashed the controller trying to get away was a true experience in gaming life. Touche, Nemesis. We had a good run. After the second film was ruined, I threw my hands up in exasperation, once again cursing the powers that be for turning a robust gaming experience into pithy drabble, and expanding further on the sterotype that video games are only for slobbering nerds during masturbation breaks, inherently and forever lame...<br /><br />Until I saw the <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0432021/trailers-screenplay-E31688-10-2">preview for Resident Evil: Extinction</a>. Like a kitty sniffing a freshly opened can of tuna I was pawing at the cinema screen watching Milla once again take to the air, slow motion ninja kicking zombies in the middle of the desert, dressed like The Road Warrior and wielding twin daggers. Seriously, shit looked like Mad Max working his way through the undead masses, only with hyper charged ninja skillz, short shorts, and boobies. I was pumped, but as I've proved many times before I am a prime sucker for a preview that promises graphic violence and reanimated corpses. So of course, the fuckers got my admission money. Again. And I'm left with merely a poorly attended blog site to reap my righteous revenge.<br /><br />The movie begins after all the previous Resident Evil lore entered into the series through the movies and games, with the insatiable T-Virus turning planet earth into a wasted desert. That's right, the T-Virus kills water. Scientific botchery aside, I completely approve of apocalyptic settings for these kind of movies so I roll with it and sit tight. It immediately becomes apparent that zero effort was put into writing interesting dialogue, you know, like for a movie, with people that talk to eachother. I haven't seen worse dialogue since <span style="font-style: italic;">Path Finder</span>. It was like watching a cut scene from Resident Evil 2, which had some of the most awkward cinematics in the PlayStation's career. While I respect Capcom as giants in the game industry, fathers of a myriad of classic and contemporary master pieces, they can't deliver semi believable voice acting to save their lives and this is the first consistent line one can draw from the game to the movie. Sad.<br />It takes a while for anything decent to happen, the first of two good scenes rolls in after about 20-30 minutes in and involves a bunch of pissed off crows that attack a convoy of protagonists. The body count is moderate and the special effects are pretty good, but all it is is <span style="font-style: italic;">The Birds</span> on steroids. Flock of creepy birds, lots of swooping, eyes getting pecked out, squaking, etc. The humans fight back, yes, by shooting at the crows with pistols, and much to my shagrin the flying devils did not produce any hand gun ammunition or red gems once killed, which was one of my favorite little moments of obvious un-realism in Resident Evil 4. The environment is the most vivid and detailed out of any of the games, so real that you could even shoot and kill the cows, chickens, crows... and they drop a box of hand gun bullets for your trouble. Must've been nestled under the wing. W00t!<br />But this scene, while awesome and filled with people being eaten alive by zombie crows, introduces one of the lamest concepts from the movie into the mix. Telekinetic powers! Right as the dude manning the giant flamethrower on top of the school bus (why do they always have one of those in an apolcalyptic desert movie?) gets his face chewed by birds and sends the flamethrower in a deadly arc towards two of his allies, Alice (Jovovich) shows up and drops an energy bubble around them, bouncing the fire up at the birds to save the day. WHAT?!?!? Not once has telekinesis been marginally approached in the games or movies, unless you count Wesker's force punch in the Mercenaries mini game, or the occasional defiance of physics during a particularly nasty boss fight. Suddenly, Alice has "powers", and can do all kinds of unrealistic bullshit so that the special effects team can wank to their wanking heart's content and the writing team doesn't have to come up with feasible ways for her to get out of sticky situations. Fucking bullshit! How come when I was trapped in a mansion with a giant snake vomiting poison every which way I couldn't just summon an energy ball and blow a hole in through the door? Why did I run back and forth through Raccoon City to gather keys and figure out 7th grade picture puzzles when I could have just floated my way to the final encounter? Why the fuck did I spend all those spinnels and gems on weapon upgrades when I could have just given chainsaw-bag-head a seductive look and broken his neck <span style="font-style: italic;">with my brain</span>? Think of all the outfits Leon could have bought.<br /><br />The second good scene is the action sequence that goes down when the group reaches the sanded-over Las Vegas of the future. No time to hit the Bellagio, we've got to kick the balls off of crazy running zombies. Yes, even though the previews clearly show the standard "shuffling" zombies of yore, the primary zombie killing moments happen in an extended, violent, extreme sports commercial. While slow zombies dominate the game series, running zombies are not new to the RE world. You will recall the "red face" zombies from the RE1 remake for GameCube that would sit up upon you re-entry to their place of death and promptly haul ass to your vicinity and mop the floor with your skin. Shit was terrifying. Not so on film. The running zombies, with their matching one piece jump suits and shaved heads, looked like a rotting <span style="font-style: italic;">Blue Man Group</span> charging out of a cloning device like pop corn. Regardless, they were shot, stabbed, sliced, and chopped, every bloody burst almost bringing me back onto team RE. The body count of friendlies during this scene should also be noted, and most of the sub-par actors floundering for screen time were snuffed with efficiency. My faith was not fully restored though, and unfortunately the boss fight was another telekinetic let down in the laser room.<br /><br />The big bummer at the end was the obvious set up for a new RE movie, which I will avoid like buzzards perched on razor wire if the fruit does indeed ripen. They have some serious accounting to do if I pay full price for another Capcom infused feature. However, the previews for this film yielded an exciting look at <span style="font-style: italic;">30 Days of Night</span>, which looks awesome. Only father time will judge its true merit. The real excitement is that I know sometime in 2008 I'll get my hands on Resident Evil 5 for XBox 360. The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILuP43jcaXw">game footage shown at E3 </a>was absolutley mouth watering, even if it does prominently feature a white cop shooting black people <span style="font-style: italic;">in Africa</span>. While Capcom's IPs stink like foot cheese when viewed through the standard de-awesomifying Hollywood goggles, I will unwaiveringly sport the RE flag when it involves the interactive experience that hooked us all in that first trounce through the mansion.<br /></span></span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666967078564624134noreply@blogger.com4