More Mini-Reviews

Let's get this out of the way first: I was tired, sore and half-asleep, but yes, I watched an episode of the Bachelor. I was quite irritated at it, to be honest. Watching the season finale I had two choices of women to support: On the one hand, there was the social worker from San Francisco (read: hippie); on the other hand was a medical researcher from Palo Alto. My only thought was: "I have to choose between supporting a hippie from SF or a freakin' Stanfurd girl? WTF?" It was worse than the NBA playoffs (I'm rooting for Detroit?? WTF?)! I tried to mock the show at every opportunity, but I still feel dirty for having watched it.

I also saw Hitch. Now I wanted to see this movie in theaters because I really like Kevin James, and I kinda-sorta like Will Smith. Having now seen it, I'm glad I didn't see it in theaters. Don't get me wrong, it was a decent movie, and I generally liked it, but I'm not sure I liked it enough to have spent nine bucks on it. It was cute though. In a girly-chick-flick type way.

Less girly was Hard Candy, a pshychological thriller featuring the chick who played Kitty Pryde in X-Men 3. I'll never look at her the same; that is a seriously messed up movie. I didn't like it for a variety of reasons, none of them revolving around the quality of the movie. It's worth a look if you are interested in the genre. I'll have more to say on it later, the issues it brings up warrant a full post (though I wonder if I'll actually get around to posting about it, given my track record on these things).

I also saw Shrek the Third; it was... meh. I enjoyed it, but nowhere near as much as the first two. I don't think I would've seen it had Antonio Banderas not been in the movie; he's too much of a badass to not make a movie better. The D&D reference was at once funny and mildly insulting. Thanks for reinforcing a stereotype guys!

I haven't yet seen Pirates, which of course means I haven't played the Wii game of it, lest I get spoilers. But I'm told it's good!

I'm also proud to say that I've made Brandy watch Team America: World Police. Whereas in the beginning of the movie she wasn't thrilled with the theme song, by the end, when I said "America," she vigorously responded. My work then is done.

Well that's it for now; a Happy Birthday to me, I'll be back with all of you before the week is out hopefully.

Updates are A-Comin'

Yeah, yeah, I'll give some more... serious updating soon. On what? Well, Brandy has helped me suffer through a variety of movies and television shows, so I have to share with you all my opinions of Hitch, Hard Candy, and the season finale of the Bachelor. --Oh, God, did I just type that I need to blog about THE BACHELOR??? Sweet Christmas, what have I become? -- But this weekend involves playing WiiPirates - err... The Pirates of the Carribean Wii game - and my birthday! :) So I'll update everyone on those things soon. See, unlike some people, I don't like giving one sentence responses on movies that I watch. Let's see, if this were a television commercial, here's where I leave a cliffhanger that could CHANGE EVERYTHING, so here it is: major changes are a-comin' in the next month or so. I hope to have more info within a week or two, so, you know, keep watching.

And now the best part of my day thus far: I received an email this morning (spam!) dated January 24.
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2038.

Goodnight folks.

Sweet Christmas

Sweet Independence Day is more like it.

It took four tries, but finally, finally, there's a good Transformers trailer. And it's a doozy.

One fan's take:

Is it wrong to cry with excitement over a film based on toys? Oh, we know
it's not going to win any Oscars (well, except effects ones - look how shiny and
photo-real!) and, if you think about it, the plot is as daft as a box of drunk
badgers. But the robots! The big fighty robots! With the smashing! And the being
one thing, then another! One, like, really big thing, then another really big
thing – with guns!

WiiView

God, that's a bad pun, even for me.

I'm sure you will all be pleased to know that I/we finally got through the damn fishing experience in Zelda. And, after two hours of gameplay, finally got a damn sword. Just a wooden one, mind you. So now what are my opinions? I'm not a big fan of the sword slicing technique. You have to swing the Wii-Remote, which is ok, I think I'm just used to having a button to smash, but you put your sword away really quickly. Also, I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting to the camera movement. The Remote/Nunchuk vs. normal controller is difficult mostly because it's different. If in most video games the controller (metaphorically) requires you to pat your head and rub your stomach, this set up requires you pat your elbow while rubbing your knee. I can do it, but it takes me a little while to figure out the best way how. Next week I actually get to go out into the world and meet the Princess; how exciting.

Wii Sports is definitely growing on me. I kinda really like the boxing one; it certainly can easily build up a sweat. Although that shouldn't surprise me, considering the Wii Fitness program says I'm an age of 53. And still I'm carded at bars! I guess I'm gonna have to work on that one...

I also played Paper Super Mario. On the plus side; they attempted to add a plot. On the down side; they attempted to add a plot. What's the plot you ask? Well, basically take Kingdom Hearts, delete any cool Square-Enix characters, replace Donald and Goofy with Mario and a freakin' butterfly polygon and there you have it. Someone other than Bowser has kidnapped the Princess, and now you have to stop him from using The Void from destroying all the worlds!! I would prefer to stick with Sora, thanks, although I can imagine some women-folk finding the game cute and funny. I wonder if it was imported from the DS... The only really interesting part of the game is the "dimensional switch" where you can change from a side-scrolling, 2-D map to a 3-D one for a short time. This reveals special pathways and secrets. I think it is really neat, to be honest.

Oh, and the villain's name is Count Bleck, and he refers to himself in the third person constantly. It's fantastic.

A Blending of Nerdiness

So apparently, National Review Online is having s "Star Trek Day." It seems they will be having Stark Trek-themed conservative gear such as T-shirts which say: "Live Long and Cut Taxes." This almost freaks out even me. Nonetheless, I know I'll be buying at least one of these shirts for Phil, does anyone else want one?

UPDATE: Here are some of the other possibilities. Me, I'm for the Four Lights one.

Goin' Mapping

Behold! A map of the Internet!

I've always enjoyed mapping, from my Boy Scouting youth to my geological mapping college days to even now mapping subsurface utilities, something about mapping is really satisfying to me. Of course, this particular map also has the joy of looking like a Dungeons & Dragons or Final Fantasy map, so maybe that's why I enjoy it so much. Meh. I think it's cool.


h/t Candace.

Reviews

Work once more has kept me away from my adoring reader(s?), but now I am back with some updates! Specifically, some reviews:

Nintendo Wii: Well, after spending 20 minutes playing a friend's, the new girlfriend Brandy went out and bought her very own Wii, along with a variety of games. Needless to say, I've spent some time playing it. And, well, my only reaction is: Meh. Where other consoles (*cough*PS3*cough) have spent an enormous amount of time and effort making graphics improvements, Nintendo seems to have focused on changing the way the games are played. And in that, they have been hugely sucsessful. The Wii remote - which senses your movements and follows it on the screen - is amazingly accurate and sensitive (sometimes too sensitive). And certainly, it's pretty neat to bowl or golf or whatever using the actual motions. But, once the initial coolness fades, you're left wondering "Is this it?" Currently, there are precious few games which could be graciously described as "good" on the system. Wii Sports is basically a tech demo that Nintendo decided to package with the game and has graphics that the N64 could beat; the only Mario game is freakin' Paper Super Mario? Come on. Even the new Zelda game (see below for more on that) has been released on the GameCube, so why bother buying a system for it? I can see the Wii putting out some really neat shooters, the Remote and Nunchuk thing (that's its name, seriously) seem well-suited for that, but where are they now? A new Metroid game in that fashion would've done wonders for the system! Instead, we're left with WiiPlay and Smooth Moves. So, in summary: A fun party system, with a neat, innovative style of gaming, that will make some really neat shooters eventually, but thus far I'll keep my PS2. Maybe the Pirates of the Carribbean game that's coming out this summer wil change my mind.

Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess: Ah, the new Zelda game for the Wii. Let's start with sometihing positive: It's pretty. Not quite Final Fantasy XII pretty, but pretty in any case. Also, there's still no voice acting, which may or may not be a bad thing. And, unlike the last Zelda game I played, Ocarina of Time, you don't start out as a little kid, and the damnable fairy doesn't keep trying to tell you things. Other than that, it's a standard Zelda game of solving puzzles and collecting items to stop the bad guy. Well, I have to assume most of that last sentence, because I've spent the last half-hour playing trying to do one stupid task: Catch a damn fish! Apparently, the most frustrating part of the game comes right at the beginning, and it's a doozy. Now, I know that - in real life - people spend hours sipping beers and fishing. But, when I play a game, I dont' need that much reality involved. Catching a damn fish within the first hour of play shouldn't be this damn hard! But it seems that Link's a Druid in this game (sorry, D&D reference) since he can turn into a Wolf later on. If/When I get past the fishing, I'll update you all.

Runaways: A friend let me borrow the colleciton of comics titled Runaways. It's good. Really good. The story is: Six teenagers find out that their parents are part of a secret cabal of super-villains and so they run away from home, each gaining or learning about special powers of their own along the way. It also includes a genetically engineered dinosaur from the 87th century. Always helpful with a book. It's really well written and neatly drawn; I would encourage everyone to read it, as it's not your typical spandex-wearing superhero smackdowns.

Spider-Man 3: A great movie. I mean, a really great movie. A lot of stuff goes happens, as contrasted to, say, Superman Returns, where nothing happens. There are a few scenes that don't make sense, but overall, a very well done finale to the trilogy. And Kirsten Dunst is a bitch. Her MJ is going on my Emma Frost list (*sigh* more of my friends need to read comics). Anyway, go see it.