An open and frank declaration
Blogorrhea
Rapid Review of Remorse
0This review is remorseful, mostly because the first two are awesome and should have had credit earlier.
Silversun Pickups – Swoon A-
Oh Silversun, people thought you were Smashing Pumpkins redux, and you still probably are. Such a big hit with ‘lazy eye’ last time around but this new cd is just solid, I’ve been playing it over and over and it has great tempo, good grooves, and I like the vocals. Big thumbs up.
Taken A–
with Liam Neeson, goons and girls.
Liam totally rocks. I love his attitude, I love all the oneliners, the plot works for me. Its just a solid surprise of an .. action/suspense? movie. Like a Bourne style, except older, and more parental urgency drama. Good stuff. I’ll probably watch it again, and I never watch movies twice.
Watchmen B++
with nobody famous, and a blue superguy
Quite a story packed into the screen. I appreciated a lot of it, while admittedly not knowing half of their names until near the end. The pacing was herky jerky which was part of the point of the movie. I liked the ending too, all in all, its a good experience, but really hard to categorize. More of a superhero drama than an action movie, although there is some good action stuff. Rorshach is easily one of the coolest characters ever, with the best voice to-boot.
Red Eye C+
with Rachel McAdams, Cillian
Oh Rachel of Canada, I’m glad you represent our country so well. Classy, pretty, and some strength too. This plot has no subplots really, or many major turning points. It could have been a tv episode of 24, so thumbs down on the writing. The rest was fine, forgettable. If it was starring a lightweight like Sarah Michelle Gellar or someone less respectable, it would have been a D easily.
American Gangster B
with Denzel, Crowe
Crowe likes the cop role, I sorta recently watched LA Confidential which is oddly similar, but much much older. American Gangster starts off slow, showing Denzel’s rise to the the top in an italian dominated world of organized crime, specifically drug dealing. He uses some unorthodox tactics, as well as some very solid principles he’s picked up from his mentor and dominates the game. Its kinda interesting to start, but I quit half way through and resumed the next day because it was getting long. The second half was a lot more exciting since you know the cops are going to catch up with him, you just have to find out how it goes down and what happens to this mess. I enjoyed the ending and it was paced much more like a drama than an action movie, which worked for me. Excellent character development, and plot. A really good movie for the patient.
Crank 2 D+
with Statham
I have never seen anything more explicit, I’m surprised they squeaked in with the 18A/R rating. The rest of the movie was entertainingly retarded and ludicrous electricity nonsense. Idk, a lot of stuff for the crowd that I’m not a part of, so I definitely don’t recommend it. I wasn’t bored though, so there’s that. The ‘scene’ in Watchmen has got _NOTHING_ on crank. Wow. A bad wow.
Fast & Furious C+
with Diesel, Walker, testosterone
Exactly what I expected, it was the proper sequel to F&F with articles (the first one). Good racing, sorta interesting plot, lots of macho bravado. It accomplished its goal.
Seven Pounds C++
with Fresh Prince, Miss Rosario
The other measurement movie, 12 grams had a hugely different feel, but there’s something… I wont go into it too much, but I’m glad I’ve seen them both. I feel they are worth watching but because seven pounds is odd, some will hate it, some will love it. I really liked the humanity, morality and purity of good characters. Some will gag since its hard to believe people act like this since it is not as gray as almost all modern movie characters are. Except is it gray? Large questions to be asked, I liked it quite a bit. Even some heart string tugging. But I cant recommend it to everyone.
Barcelona’s 102.5 B+
Awesome radio station. “Alternative” with like 1/3 english, good stuff. Dance pop rock mostly. The only down side was that one “song” i “liked” turned out to be jonas brothers. I hang my head.
Street Fighter 4
0Street Fighter 4 A-
by Capcom from Feb 2009
I’d really like a cybernetic left thumb. Perhaps one of my eyes. But specifically the thumb would be for long street fighter 4 sessions. However with a sore thumb, I must say, Street Fighter 4 is amazing and I am surprised at how much fun it is to wave a color changing scarf.
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Chrome
0
Google is generally the company who does things right. Features you want are there, or you’ll change what you want to match their features (hooray for gmail labels!) Things are organized cleanly and logically. Performance is generally pretty good, or some things like mail can be scaled down if you’re mobile or bandwidth handicapped. Their search has become the verb for searching. I’m not sure why its the best, or if the search part of google is all that great (lots of room for improvement IMO), but google is .. google.
When chrome came out, I tried it, and wasn’t too sure it was really even necessary in the browser market. It looked pretty similar to firefox, internet explorer with slight rearrangement. The performance could be better or worse but comparing half a second or a full second is hard for me to judge, especially when my internet connection could be attributed to any delay.
I switched back to firefox because of some features (plug-ins) that I found it hard to go without. FoxyTunes to control my music, and volume is fantastic. Greasemonkey lets me do some advanced script things on certain websites. FireFTP has become my ftp app of choice which is quite bizarre because firefox doesn’t really have anything to do with ftp. FireFTP is just an application inside of a browser I guess? It isn’t perfect but its there , and quick.
But here I am writing this blog on Chrome, so why did I abandon my old foxy browser? It was boggin me down. Too often firefox would take forever to close, or take forever to start up. Could this be due to my plugins? very likely. Also on some evil website with heavy multimedia or scripting usage, my firefox grinds to a halt and crashes too often.
What is google’s solution? Tabs are separate tasks, and don’t crash each other. Also, a few nice features I had in firefox, like a 9 panel multipage preview screen, is built in. The download manager I love in firefox (popup windows are so 2003) is built in chrome, and probably even better.
But the biggest thing is that Chrome is just better on my underpowered laptop, it doesn’t hog giants amount of memory to slow down my games on my desktop, its just less intrusive. I never have to scream “bah Chrome is acting up!” like i do with firefox. I never (not yet) have to go in task manager and kill chrome from doing whatever startup or shutdown crap its doing. So, all in all, I’ll have to find new way to use FTP (using a cygwin shell is more fun anyway) and also to control my music I’m starting to use the magic buttons on my keyboard more, or the taskbar miniversion of WMP11.
I hope some new features get added into chrome, I saw a sky blue browser and i want it painted black! (and some music control would be nice again…)
top 3 that missed the top 11 list
1These albums came out around dec 07, but they deserve some mention even if they were too early for this year.
Lupe Fiasco – The Cool
Lupe is the only rapper other than JayZ to appreciate it as an art form, sure others are good, and they can make a catchy song, but Lupe makes it flow, and its not really that easy to explain. Go go go go go go gadget flow. In the words of lupe himself. (He’s not a loser I promise)
Alicia Keys – As I Am
As my money goes, she might be the “queen” of pop, or r&b, which is pop these days. Fantastic cd from start to finish, emotion, melodies, musical skill, she has everything. You are a super woman Alicia!
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Foxboro Hot Tubs -
This is an LP so I’m cheating, but its great! Who knew Green Day could be a retro rockabilly band? I think its my second favorite CD of theirs after Warning. (Ya, I am not a true green day friend if i dont gush over dookie nimrod and american idiot, so sue me)
Top 11 Albums
0There are tons of these lists, but too many are snooty and focus on “raw” underproduced music. I guess for reviewers who hear heavily produced stuff constantly they get sick of it. However, there is something to be said for high music quality, no matter how famous or unfamous they are. So here’s my list of my fav of 2008
Justice – A Cross the Universe – this is a live cd, pretty much the same as last year’s Cross, but man it is epic. Maybe it doesn’t count, i dont think cds without new material should count… so here’s the other 10
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Greatest Movie Characters
0A lot of people have fond memories for a character they see two-three hours on a screen. Amazing hours with a full sensual experience, but mere hours nevertheless. What does that say about the movie genre that these filmmakers can connect so much with us in a short period of time? I wonder if games can ever make that connection.
Empire Online compiled a list of 100 great characters. I was so excited that #13 made this list, IMO this character should have won an Oscar. All in all I think this list is excellent. Although Luke Skywalker is lame, lame, lame. Leia too. #1 is definitely not my #1, and action movies are too high (diehard? cmon)
Empire’s 100 greatest movie characters/
This list is so good it has inspired me to go back and watch dozens of movies I’ve seen, and dozens more I haven’t.
Phases of Cultural Movie Quotes
0I wonder if Napoleon Dynamite quotes will come back. Or if they were over used and died a short lived life.
How do I measure this? Perhaps I should use the 2% line and see if I get a date out of it.
Try to get a laugh from telling people about my nunchuk, bow hunting, computer hacking and skills. (I’ve gotten laughs before, but its worn out)
Or next time someone asks me what I do I can tell them not to be jealous, I’ve been chatting online with babes all day. (ooh, close to home)
Did Ferris Beuhler come back? I think it did. Breakfast Club? Fast Times at Ridgemont High I think definitely did. It must have been super racey at the time, but I guess somewhat accurate as to where culture was going?
Is there anything since Napoleon? Will people be quoting High School Music 3? Actually I’d go with Juno, as far as boyfriends go, Paulie Bleaker is totally boss. The scene about not trying at all, trying really hard is one of my favorites ever. I might have more success picking up a girl by piling her mailbox with tic-tacs. Or she might not get it and think I’m totally nutso.
quote whatever you wanna quote, gosh
CPAC Coalition
0How many days would I watch CPAC, or ever even thought about watching it? One. Today.
Apparently overthrowing a government is kinda exciting, and underhanded. Its sorta like they scripted it for a tv show, now all we need to do is have Jacques Bouret come in and defend Ignatieff, who somehow overthrows all 3 dudes and takes over, just because his name is cooler and the writers would probably want him to have some face time. And a steamy romance. Beep Beep Beep Beep. (as an aside, I’m actually sorta excited about 24 this season! Prison Break bait and switched me one too many times, I have broken up with PB to return to my first action love, 24)
But for what is actually on CPAC, it is none of that, well I don’t know for sure, perhaps they’ve spiced things up. At the very least, forming coalition governments with quasi-separatist party and .. the NDP, is quite gripping entertainment on its own.
Cheers Canada, even if its going to be a giant explosion, destroying our comparably good economic position, at least its going to make me read some Canadian news.
Lights Review – nerd cute.
03 years ago
Lights EP B++
by Lights from Sept 2008
So then there’s this new electro light pop sensation from Toronto called Lights (music video was linked a post or two ago). So I thought I’d bust out an actual music review. What is the verdict? Great so far! And according to the heavy play time in the past week or two. I definitely recommend it. She has airy, pleasant, technoy, nice melodies. I like the lyrics even if they are repetitive (such is the nature of electropop) It reminds me of innocent Britney Spears, which I definitely wasn’t much of a fan at the time. This is better because its got more dancy synth. Plus I can turn shadows into white. (My fav song so far)
http://www.last.fm/music/Lights/_/White
Check it out if you like very feminine light dance pop. Hah. I guess thats me? Maybe its you.
—ok, review over, personal gushing time.
I dont know what it is about girls who are nerdy, freedom to be an individual, appreciation of a common art form, or entertainment form.
I am a new fan and while watching one of her blogs, I noticed she talks sooo quickly! Wow. She says she lost her nintendo ds with super mario and final fantasy and goes to pretend like she’s playing a ds using a kleenex box. Oh what a nerd, but very cute. (I lost my DS with super mario too! It was even pink… hah)
Oh, she talks about her spider, lance, as like an adult, hah, its also quite cute. She made him talk back with a paper comic book speech bubbles.
And made a pile of fans hold pieces of paper with <3 , no not an actual heart, it was a < and a 3. Hah, nerd.
cute.
"I am on a hyppogryph at the speed of hyppogryph which is fast because they have wings + hooves + antlers which makes for a wicked combination of speed." - Lights
Games should kill Television
0People don’t live in ‘reality’ 100% of the time. I think a game can be made for every non-reality desire. And I think it can cross over into real world too.
I love games, and I’ve been listening to a bunch of game developer conference lectures and they love games too.
One thing I like is that Jane McGonigal said she wants to kill television. Me too. It is a one way static medium. Just like radio shows died because they lacked visuals. Television too should die because it lacks interactivity. I don’t care if you want to watch pop singers compete, it should still be a game. You should still have the option to manipulate it, give your input, see output changed, even participate. Instead of watching an action show, why can’t you play one, or if you aren’t feeling particularly active, make it more automated and dictated. How about comedy? Can you make a comedy game that is intelligently written and fresh like a tv show? Some ‘funny’ games have come out, but they just insert laugh gags that will get stale, that is not what a tv comedy show is about. Can we do interactive humour? Or a comedy writer-written non-player-character? What would it be like to have a role in an episode of the office? Maybe too many people are unfunny and lack confidence and skills to participate, but I think we should try to make that a game. I run improv drama games at camp and it _can_ work. Lower expectations, have some guidance and boom, its a fun game 
I’d play it.
What about killing the telephone too. I find it hard to gab on the phone, looking at a wall, but if both parties were engaged in a common activity, or could see each other, or representations of each other, I think it works a lot better. I wish emotional feedback could be more accurately represented than emoticons! 
Although I hate social ‘games’ that have no meat. Its hard to do it without being unbelievably bad.
Can we kill music in its static form? It already is sorta happening with guitar hero and rock band. How else can it be made interactive. Dance games too, add new elements to music. These things if made easier could turn music into a game at all times, last.fm tracks music played, it could sort of be a game too.
What about cooking? eating even? Or running? (gdc lady suggested nike plus be a MMO)
Dating/Flirting already is a game, can we track it? Or create a system around it to make it better? easier for people to find what they want? e-dating does this, but do people consider this to be a game? There are also a lot of these elements in games, but do people consider that flirting/dating?
Where does the line between game and reality cross?
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I love games though for a few reasons
- Games connect you with people, real or imaginary. … although too many are uninspired and lifeless, but this is a problem both in real life and imaginary land.
- Games have character, they conjure up feelings or experiences otherwise impossible.
- Games have environments, new worlds, wildly changing, thoroughly detailed and immersive.
- Games have Mario, who I think I almost consider as a friend?
- Games have Megaman, who I think is just unbelieveably cool looking, arm is a gun, can slide along ground, swing a sword, adapt to new guns, upgradable parts, you can see his face and big smile. “ya!”. A sweet soundtrack, I want those things!
- Games have trackable progress, leveling up
- Games have “showtime moments” boss battles, adrenaline rushes
- Games have definitive victories, beating another player
- Games can give complete conclusion and accomplishment, beating the game
I wish I had these feelings in real life, or I wish I could conjure them in someone else. Reality or gaming-world.
I like making games.
