Saturday, January 30, 2010

Netflix is Creepy

Netflix has 2 different rating systems. Gold stars are you rate a movie, red stars are what Netflix ‘thinks’ you’ll rate a movie. Red stars are calculated based on gold stars and the type of movies that you watch and rate correlated with what others who rate the same way you do rate other stuff.

Whatever, I just know I went to rate GI Joe Resolute 4 stars and Netflix ‘thought’ I’d give it 3.8. This isn’t the first time. I swear they have Cerebro in the basement. Shit is creepy.

Lazy Movie Review: GI Joe: Resolute

So I received GI Joe Resolute from NetFlix and managed to watch it without a several day lapse from laziness, must say I’m impressed. Originally a a web series of 5 minute episodes, it’s been edited together for an hour long dvd.

Film opens with Cobra Commander delivering an ultimatum to the UN, ‘Give me the world within 24 hours, or else'.’ To illustrate his point, Cobra vaporizes Moscow using unknown technology. Meanwhile at the Joe headquarters (aircraft carrier USS Flagg) an explosion rocks the ship destroying most of the Joes vehicles. Who could possibly have snuck aboard a ship at sea and planted these charges? (Hint: Here there be ninjas). Cobra also somehow knocked out satellite communication worldwide.

So the team splits up to handle the various issues at hand. Snake-Eyes deals with Storm Shadow, Duke and Scarlett head to Siberia to take out part of the weapon, Tunnel Rat handles the satellite problem and  Gung-Ho and Roadblock take out the power course. Flint remains at HQ in charge with Dial Tone as the resident sexy super geek advisor (yes she used to be a dude, work with me!). Everyone meets up at the end to launch on assault on Springfield USA.

Good stuff with a couple highlights:

  • Ninjas
  • Cobra Commander is a raving lunatic and we love it
  • Bullets are used and people (well vipers) die
  • Joes (when required by plots) also die
  • Alley Vipers – always my favorite viper and to see Scarlett shout “Oh shit – Alley Vipers!” and duck for cover was awesome
  • Goddamn ninjas!!

An observation though, not really pertaining tot he movie but GI Joe in general. Why the hell is Duke in command? Duke’s an E-8 which isn’t even highest enlisted rank. My understanding of military rank says Flint as a warrant officer outranks Duke. Hell, Steeler as an O-1 is an officer and trumps them both. Is it so hard to write General Hawk in?

4 out of 5

Sunday, January 24, 2010

I’m Have to Make a Belf Rogue Now

Coriel at http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/ is doing a countdown on the top 5 WoW vdeos. 5 was ok, but 4… holy shit. This guy has mad skillz.

*Update: Video's not centered correctly, chunk on the right is chopped off. Click through to youtube for the full effect.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Success – T9 Complete!

Photobucket

Spacepally in full T9. My first complete set since Wildheart back in the day on Feral. To bad it’s ret, but then my prot set is better than T9.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Megan Fox pt Deux

It has been brought to my attention that I’m and idiot and Megan Fox is totally ‘doable’.

First: I did not say Megan Fox is not attractive, I said she was. She is however, over exposed and annoying. She’s the latest incarnation of J Lo, Lindsay Lohan, Heidi Montag – all those celebrities that are everywhere so much we just want them to go away.

Second: Bloody, I know how to contact Amber – I’m telling. Hahaha.

Now, I’d like to present a short list of Megan Fox alternatives.

  • Roselyn Sanchez
  • Daniela Pestova
  • Jennifer Hawkins

No pictures, this isn’t a pron site and I’m lazy. But google works, and you wont be disappointed.

Things That Piss Me Off: Random Players

As I stated in my previous post, for the most part random PUGs have gone pretty well, though I must comment on a few types of people that just irritate the hell out of me.

  • MIGHT PLEASE! Fuck you, you get kings. I’m not reconfiguring PallyPower every run. Mages tap AI, druids hit GotW, Priest have to cast 3 – fort, shadow resist and spirit, good god they have it rough. Pallys get 4 buffs, each one desired by different classed that can also differ by spec. I need a damn addon in order to just not go nuts keeping track. To me, only shaman have a right to bitch about buffs because of the headache that is totems. But you know, I don’t think I’ve ever requested a specific totem (save on occasion tremor for specific fights), I leave it to the shaman to what’s best. And you know what, this is a random heroic not ICC Progression raid, if your gonna be bitchy about getting 10% to stats, right-click it off and move on.
  • The Mute I realize we’re either not gonna see each other again, or not remember that we’d met before, but come on. Say something, say ‘yo’ as you zone in. Let us know there’s a person there. Don’t be an asshole.
  • gogogo Oh really? You know, I actually intended to watch the clock and wait a full minute between pulls. Just to piss you off… Seriously, I don’t know who the hell you are, I don’t know if the healer can keep up. I usually pull one group at a time, with a short pause between to allow for looting. I ‘can’ pull faster, however tanks like that piss me off (see prima Donna tanks below). Also, inevitably there’s some asshat dps that can’t wait for threat to be established before pulling  a mob off me making me turn around and scramble. Also I actually had a run where the healer had just shifted specs, literally at zero mana and spoke up because I wasn’t pulling yet. Well excuse me all to hell for watching my healer’s mana bar.
  • THE BOSSY GUY THAT INSIST ON YELLING AT ME Ahem, in case you’re not aware, all caps is the typing equivalent of yelling at someone. It’s also harder to read. I also don’t like being told what to do by some random asshole. I swear nearly every group I’ve bailed on as been because someone started yelling at me. Have fun finding a new tank.  *** I’ve also seemed to notice this person is usually a healer, does a shorter que bring out our inner asshat?
  • Prima Donna Tanks These guys are usually way, way overgeared for a simple heroic and insist on pulling as fast as their character can actually move. They often pull multiple groups, do not wait to loot and seem to always be half a room ahead of me when I’m DPSing. Perhaps I just suck and need to get with it.

Wow, that’s a pretty long list of people that piss me off. I hope I’m not one of the prima donna tanks I bitched about. If I am – sorry.

WoW Rant: The Quest for Badges

So like everyone else I’ve been running a lot of randoms lately. It really is quite odd because I used to shudder at the very thought of a PUG, I mean it’s not that I just didn’t do PUGs very often, I never did them. It hasn’t been that bad really. I’ve come to the conclusion that one of 2 things has happened.

  1. The WoW playerbase is more skilled than I gave them credit.
  2. As a tank I’ve reached  gear critical mass point where the group can screw up anything and I’ll survive it.

I hope for the former, though fear and suspect the latter. I remember one run where after a boss fight someone posted a recount of damage taken for the fight – I’d taken none. On a boss fight. Zero. Dodged, parried, completely blocked every single attack thrown at me. As awesome as that is, it’s a bit OP.

The point of running randoms of course, is badge farming. Badges in the Wrath era have become stupidly simple to get. One day I got 40 badges, that’s just nuts. There’s no sense of accomplishment.

I don’t know a better system, obviously no one wants to farm Nax for alts to gear up for Uldaur to gear up for ToC to gear up for ICC. Still I can’t help but feel the game has lost something. I rmember once standing around the bank in Shatt and some asking ‘wow, where’s you get that?’ - ‘dragonhawk boss in ZA’. Now looking at my armory profile the majority of my answers would be ‘I spent hours sleepily trudging through heroics then spoke to a vendor’.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Things That Piss Me Off

iTunes recommended the New Moon soundtrack.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Star Wars The Old Republic - Delayed

Is it a delay when a release isn’t so much pushed back, as to just be much farther out than you thought? SWTOR is tentatively scheduled for Spring 2011. Well… that sucks. I was looking forward to this game. I suppose I still am, but yeah... that’s a long time.

I don’t recall ever seeing a release date so it’s not like I can shake my fist and call Bioware/Lucasarts liars or anything. But come on, with the amount of press the game’s been getting it was implied a release was soon. When games are a year away you give us concept art, perhaps few screenshots. Not a 20minute video walking through through several classes and instance design. That sort of thing leads one to believe the game is nearly completed.

Ah well, back to Azeroth.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Megan Fox

Can’t all just agree she’s attractive and move on? God, I’m so sick of that bitch…

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Frankenstein

The Science Fiction Book Club had a great end of the year sale (who doesn’t?) and I picked up a few things. Among them was a copy of Frankenstein.

I’m always hesitant to pick up a classic, it seems inevitably I end up disappointed and wonder what the fuss is about. I’ve utterly failed to get anywhere in Lord of the Rings (yay Peter Jackson), Dracula put me to sleep and  Lancelot and Guinevere’s shenanigans in The Once and Future King made me toss it in disgust (I know, what did I expect).

Not to say I’m a completely uncultured hack, I’ve read A Christmas Carol, The Invisible Man and the mountain that is Stephen King’s The Stand.

Anyway, back to Frankenstein. Frankie’s in the public domain so anyone can publish and a quick google search will find options to read it online legally. The edition I got was published by Dark Horse Comics and is exceptionally high quality. It’s oversized, larger even than a strategy guide, cloth bound with a ribbon placeholder. The page quality is so high and thick I’ve repeatedly thought I’d turned more than one page. Finally, it’s illustrated. Look at he pretty pictures.

Now, I haven’t read it yet. I think The Belgariad is next on my list... maybe. Anyway, I did read the intro by Stephen King and he made me chuckle. King comments that Frankenstein is probably put down unfinished by the majority of people that ever try and read it ‘for fun’. He himself originally attempted the read at age 13 ad failed miserably. He finally was forced to read Frankenstein when it was part of a curriculum he was teaching. I think I was 15 when I turned in my high school library’s copy the next day. Still made me chuckle – imagine the modern master of horror not getting into Frankenstein.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Power of the Prefix

My last post prompted me to comment upon a phenomena I noticed wherein certain words, will automatically make something cooler. One of these words is ‘ninja’. Adding ninja to something automatically makes it cooler.

What do you do for a living? Pizza delivery? Loser. Wait, what… your a NINJA pizza delivery?? Holy shit, that’s hardcore. Bet your ass you get a tip.

Other words that make things cool:

  • Zombie
  • Cowboy
  • Bat (ala Bat-arang!)

And yes, I can use bullet points in Live Writer!!

GI Joe 2 Confirmed

So I was going through the websites I check daily and found an article that made me chuckle. One of those sites I visit daily is http://www.denofgeek.com/ This paticular article gives a few details on GI Joe 2 being green lit and writes hired (dudes that wrote Zombieland, yay!). Anyway, what made me chuckle is the comments section, a few examples:

  • “…a proper 'brain off' thrill ride, utterly dumb but entertaining nonetheless…”
  • “The dumbest movie of last summer…”
  • “GI joe was one of the better summer block busters, better than terminator and wolverine, and transformers 2 it was dumb fun.”
  • “I would rather see another "Weekend at Bernie's" sequel before any continuation of the torture that was "G.I. Joe"…”

I find it hilarious there’s such a wide range of opinions on this movie. Me personally, I found it entertaining though not without it’s problems. Namely accelerator suits, Scarlett (why is Snake-Eye’s girl hooking up with Ripcord?) and the weird mouth thing on Snake-Eyes mask, wtf.

Good points include Storm Shadow, the multinational Joes angle, Snake-Eyes, somewhat beleivable near-future tech and of couse, ninjas (Hollywood needs more ninjas).

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