Wednesday, November 2, 2011

WoW Sweatshops

No this isn’t a gold farming thing.

I was Silvermoon training tailoring when I noticed stairs leading down, on a whim I jumped down to see what was there. Now I fully expected to see a mana loom, what I found instead was the elves’ dirty little secret. They run a sweat shop of leper gnomes. There’s even a succubus whipping them back to work if they fall asleep. ‘Fo shame Blood Elves, fo’ shame.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Blizzcon Day 1

So obviously I haven’t been playing WoW as much as I used to, but I’m still a big Blizzard fan. I hop into WoW from time to time, I’m on my 4th SC2 playthrough and I’m awaiting Diablo 3. So yes, I got virtual Blizzcon.

I must say the interface has been vastly cleaned up this year over last. Last year they used an ‘enhanced RayV Player’. If enhanced you mean ‘prone to buffering’ it was the most enhanced media player since RealPlayer. This year we have a simple FlashPlayer and I had no problem whatsoever.

The big news is of course the announcement of WoW’s next expansion, Mist of Panderia. It’s funny I remember the rumor a couple months ago. Blizzard denied and it seemed to go away, now of course it’s been confirmed. I’m a little excited to see a lighter tone as, let’s face it, Azeroth can be downright depressing what with the zombie invasion and death dragon destroying everything. Now we get kung-fu pandas and beer! Yay!

The other big announcement was Diablo 3 being free with a 1-year commitment to WoW. You also get a new mount that appears to be a reskinned star pony. It looks fairly badass, like a flying pally mount really. Also according to the FAW if you also shell out for the collectors edition you get 4 months game time. I’ll most likely do this as I had every intention of not canceling WoW anyway.

A couple of minor notes:

  • Blizzard DOTA includes Stitches!
  • The Diablo 3 big bad from the trailer, Azmodan(sp?), looks kinda lame. Still, the Diablo design is so classic, where do you go?
  • The Panderia preview panel had a screen shot that made me laugh. While in all likelihood a placeholder and not final, a quest being turned in had for rewards ‘30 Valor points, 10xp and 2 copper’
  • Speaking of, Valor points were mention several times as rewards. At this point you may get Valor points for logging in
  • In general it sounds like quest design is being scaled back towards a BC modeland away from the Cataclysm hand holding. Great, I think that was once of my biggest turnoffs to Cataclysm
  • Monks, playable by all races except Worgen and Goblin, are leather wearing tank/healer/DPS hybrids… monk/druids FIGHT!
  • Challenge mode dungeons initially made me groan feeling Blizzard had officially endorsed the ‘gogogo’ assholes.
  • The Pet Battle System reminds me of another game. Or was it a TV show? Or a movie? I seem to recall a yellow lightning mouse with rosy red cheeks. During the presentation I kept waiting with each slide change for the devs to shout ‘Just kidding!’. And then it went on for another 10 minutes. It’s October, not April right?
  • Talents are getting another major revamp. Hopefully it’ll go better than lasttime when it destroyed my groove with Space*
  • 2 of my 3 picks in the costume contest won – yay!

Alright, GSL final starts in minutes. I’m out after the rant.

*Pallys have 3 interrupts now? WTF. Back in my day if a paladin wanted to interrupt something more than once a minute he brought a rogue along. Or healed through it. Or bubbled. Damn homogenization, stop crowding my action bar and give me back consecration.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Star Wars on Blu-Ray

By now I’m sure everyone’s heard of Lucas’s further fiddling with the original trilogy. On one hand I’m torn because while Lucas is getting a lot of flack of this, artist reworking their creations is nothing new and Lucas is hardly the only one.

  • Stephen King rewrote several scenes in his classic The Stand to update the time period
  • After The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had intended to rewrite several things in The Hobbit to make them more cohesive. He sent a sample chapter 1 to the publisher who did not respond, thinking they were interested Tolkien dropped the plan. However the publisher thought the proposed chapter 1 was the only change and used it the next printing
  • Apocalypse Now Redux adds so much new content it’s generally considered to be a separate movie
  • Spielberg changing guns to radios in E.T.
  • Musicians and ‘remix’ go together like banana peels and kart racing

Lucas’s problem isn’t that he’s making changes (for the most part), it’s that certain changes are stupid. For example there is little outcry over replacing muppet Yoda with digital Yoda in The Phantom Menace. Why? Because digital Yoda looks better.

However take The Revenge of the Sith. Regarded as the best of the prequels, the one scene reviled by most people is Vader waking up after being rebuilt and shouting ‘Nooo!!!!!’. So what’s Lucas do? He has Vader shout ‘Noooo!!!!’ in RotJ. Because, obviously that’s something fans are clamoring for.

OH well. I’ll get them anyway, though I WONT be getting any 3D version that may materialize. I wonder if RotJ would be considered a horrible movie if the original script called for James Earl Jones to shout ‘Noooo!!!’

Lastly: here’s samples of the changes straight from the blu-ray with no alterations. I swear.*

and…

*I’m a big fat liar

Friday, August 19, 2011

Lazy Movie Review: Sucker Punch

Mr. Snyder you have failed me. I’d try to explain the plot but I think the entire thing is a hallucination about 7 minutes into the movie. I hate that shit. I hated it with Shutter Island and I hate it here, hell I even think The Wizard of Oz was a copout*. Maybe the plot would make more sense if I’d finished, but I don’t think I should work that hard to decipher a movie. That’s the director’s job.

D.N.F. – Did not Finish

 

*The Nightmare on Elm Street series gets a pass because you know… Freddy will kill you

The New PS3: Episode 3

So Gamestop will cover price changes in a 7 day window and I got the $50.00 difference refunded today. Yay!!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

PS3 Price Drop to $249.99!!

… and I got my replacement Sunday.

@#$%

Friday, August 12, 2011

PS3 RIP

*Taps*

So for the last week or so my PS3 has intermittently turning itself off. I cleans out the vents and pointed the air conditioner vent at it. Alas, it hasn’t turned back on this time. It appears to the end. I understand electronics don’t last forever, but it still makes me sad. I had an old 60GB model with backwards compatibility that I loathe to give up.

Still I think I’ll get a new replacement this time and maybe a PS2 a few months down the line.

Pity too, disc two of Burn Notice S3 is trapped in the system.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Random Awesomeness

What would happen if Mega Man was able to claim a Portal gun after clearing a stage? Pure awesome would happen!

*Courtesy www.dorkly.com

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Trailer: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

OMG, this is the funniest trailer I've seen all year. I don't often go to a theater for comedies, usually just the overblown blockbusters, but I may have to go see this. Looks freaking hilarious.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

LEGO Batman

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He’s what the city needs, not what it deserves…

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

WTF is this $%^&…

Gatorade Low Calorie is a tricky beast, it sits on the shelf right next to the regular stuff that wont kill you. But if you drink it you lapse into a coma for 3 days.

True story.

Mostly.

The Old Republic, pre-ordered

Ok so I’m a few days late, sue me.

Anyway, Star Wars: The Old Republic is now pre-ordered. I guess that means they actually intend to release this thing. Yay!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Mortal Kombat DLC… WTF?!

So the final(?) DLC character for Mortal Kombat was announced today… and it’s Freddy Kruger. Wait, what?! I can’t decide if this is awesome or retarded.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Amazing Spider-man Trailer

Hrm… looks kinda gloomy actually. Gloomy isn’t exactly a word I’d use to describe Spider-man. Ah well, it’s an early look. I’m sure the internet hype machine will convince me this is the greatest thing ever.

Note: Internet Hype Machine did fail to convince me The Dark Knight is the greatest thing ever. Sorry folks, Iron Man is simply more fun.

Friday, July 15, 2011

The Leia Effect

I recently purchase The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition on blu-ray and as I’m rewatching them I realize that LotR suffers from a phenomenon I discovered years ago reading Star Wars expanded universe books which I dubbed, The Leia Effect.

Basically, in a traditional Star Wars story the three leads breakup into separate groups, have adventures and resolve all issues at the same time. More often not, Luke is a badass and saves the day, Han is not quite a big of badass and Leia does some boring shit. Almost without fail Leia is the weak link in the group. This pattern established itself in the first movie with Luke blowing up the Death Star, Han blowing up Darth Vader and Leia watching TV. The plot lines centering on Leia were never as interesting as the rest of the book and I often found myself skimming through hurrying to the Luke section.

Now don’t get me wrong, Leia does have her moments. Her shiny, golden moments… er- where was I, oh yes. The cast in The Lord of the Rings splits up as well. There’s the Hobbits, The Heavies with Aragorn, Legalas and Gimli, and finally Gandalf is often off on his own. My point is this: Frodo = Leia.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Transformers IDW Collections

I began to wonder if I might’ve been a bit harsh in my review for Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I mean, really, was I expecting high art? Also coloring my expectations were last week I caught up a bit on my reading backlog and read through the IDW Transformers Collections 1-4. If you’re not aware, these collections are a hardbound set containing  just over a dozen issues each of IDW’s Transformers comic series in a ‘suggested reading order’. They weren’t published in this order and aren’t necessarily in chronological order either, several issues exist outside any apparent timeline and can happen pretty much at any time.

The collections contain several multi-issue miniseries and several ‘spotlight’ one-shot issues that center on one particular character, yet often fill in gaps in the larger story told by the miniseries. The ongoing story covers from the beginning of the war with Megatron: Origins to the reason Earth is so important with Spotlight: Shockwave, showing the complete and total devastation brought to Cybertron in Stormbringer to finally defeating an ancient threat from the very first Ark. I think part of the reason I was so disappointed in the movie is because these stories were so good.

Not to say that every issue was spectacular though, Maximum Dinobots was sadly subpar, as was the finale, which while tying up most loose ends, was told through several splotlight issues that didn’t really spotlight the main character. I got the sense another miniseries was planed and canceled, and they had to shoehorn the dangling plot threats into already approved spotlight issues.

By being able to completely reboot the entire myology IDW is able to reinvent several characters. Cliffjumper (also known as ‘the red Bumblebee’) is a BAMF, Arcee is a psycho bitch from hell with some serious ‘daddy issues’ and Ultra Magnus, best known for leading to the Autobots for 20 minutes on the animated movie before dying from utter stupidity, is perhaps the most badass Autobot in the whole series (with Arcee just behind).

You also get the sense that this a very large universe. Plots are centered on Earth maybe only half the time. The Earth-bound Transformers initially consist of Starscream and Prowl each leading a team of approximately six. Optimus and Megatron are initially busy elsewhere, Earth just isn’t that important and it’s a big universe. The Wreckers (elite team of Autobot asskickers) appear in several issues, each time on a different planet. There are other alien races out there. Bars that look like a Star Wars cantina. Even multiple penal colonies indicating large populations, with a underclass that need to be locked up.

Overall though an excellent series and I eagerly await volume 5 coming out, I believe, in November.

A few notes:

  • Several characters seem entirely to powerful: Megatron, Sixshot and Shockwave are nigh invulnerable
  • Contrary to standard portrayal, Perceptor isn’t the Autobot’s main scientist, nor is Ratchet or Wheeljack. Jetfire is the go-to man for any techno-babble
  • Tiny little Wheelie, universally despised Wheelie, doing his part for the war effort by running ammunition to ungrateful frontline warriors nearly brought a tear to my eye
  • Two words: Autobot ninja
  • Headmasters made cool!
  • Ok not really cool, but they’re not stupid
  • Dinobots seem sadly out of character and underpowered
  • Gestalt technology does not exist (or does it?), but several are shown as existing teams: Predacons, Technnots, Combaticons, Terrorcons
  • Sixshot is portrayed as essentially the 2nd most baddass warrior in the entire galaxy (the first being a plot device character), yet even he can stopped by being stepped on in Spotlight: Metroplex

Monday, July 11, 2011

Steam’s Summer Sale

Steam’s summer will come to a close in about about eight and a half hours, so let’s take a look at this season’s haul. I’m not positive on the prices for the last few, I appear to have deleted the confirmation email with the prices, but this is pretty close.

   8.49    Magicka+DLC
   7.48    Far Cry+Far Cry 2
   1.00    Defense Grid DLC
   7.50    Transformers: War for Cybertron
   7.50    Tropico 3 Gold
10.20    Dragon Age: Origins – Ultimate Edition
42.**

I actually already had Dragon Age, but no DLC aside from the freebies with a new copy. Essentially got $40.00+ in DLC for $10.00.

I tried Transformers briefly. The 3rd person view over the shoulder is a bit disconcerting, and I loathe the ammunition system. Can’t say I’m terribly impressed.

I also tried Far Cry… Thus far the game refuses to load. Forums say to delete the config file and disable anti-aliasing. I’ll have to mess with that later.

I’m a little torn on Tropico 3. The starting tutorial is fairly basic and I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. However, I glanced at the clock and realized I hadn’t known what I was doing for 3 hours. So there’s definitely a Civ ‘one more turn…’ vibe going on there.

For some reason I’m proud of myself for NOT buying Fallout 3 GotY Edition. I’ve already got the base game on PC on disc, and I have the GotY Edition on X-Box 360. I don’t even LIKE the game. But review scores and the internet have brainwashed me into thinking it’s the second coming* almost made me get on Steam with all DLC included. I’m convinced I must be missing something from the game. The internet would never lie to me, right?

*This is also why I have Halo: Reach

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Movie Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Another Transformers movie, another missed opportunity to see the Dinobots go nuts in Michael Bay fueled CGI glory. Seriously, is it that hard to write 5 giant robotic dinosaurs with no respect for authority and an eagerness to destroy Decepticons in the most barbaric way possible into a movie? You’d think Bay would eat this shit up.

I hesitate to even try to  summarize the plot as it makes no sense if you think about it for more than 2 seconds. I’ll try to be succinct: long ago an Autobot ship carrying Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy) and a game changing technology crashed on the moon. Optimus has a hissy went he finds out he wasn’t told about this but it’s quickly forgotten when he and Ratchet head to the moon and recover Sentinel Prime and the tech, a Space Bridge (cosmic ranged teleporter).

The Decepticons end up gaining control of the Space Bridge and plot to use it to warp in Cybertron to Earth. Earth has plenty of power resources and  handy slave labor force of approximately 6 billion to help tidy up the place, Cybertron’s a bit of a fixer upper. Humans and Autobots must unite to stop this from happening, ect.

The plot’s simply dumb. There’s way to many humans getting in the way of what we came to see, Transformer carnage. This is, to be fair,  a bit better than previous installments. I’m not sure if there’s a new cinema photographer or the change to 3D necessitated a steadier hand, but the action seems considerably less jerky and it’s easier to see the action. (see an excellent Mexican standoff between Ironhide, Sideswipe (I think) and 2 generics ‘Cons). The 3D itself is quite good, the best I’ve seen since Avatar.

The reviled twins of Revenge of the Fallen are nowhere to be seen, which actually makes no sense at all. It’s implied in the movie Cybertronians are on the verge of extinction, the entire species consist of 9 Autobots and however many Decepticons remain. The twins being MIA seems to indicate they died during the last 4 years (with no Decepticon sightings and Autobots assisting NEST with Terrans affairs), remember for all bling and jive talking, these two for the most part took out Contructionbot (that was NOT Devastator in Revenge).

Comic relief is taken over by Wheelie (apparently Sam got custody in the Megan Fox breakup) and a new character called Brains. Both are tiny about the size of a dog. Both are justifiably bitter they’ve been banished from the Autobot compound (again remember there’s only so many around). Both are also hilarious.

A couple notes:

  • There’s a subplot where Sam can’t get a job despite being an ‘ivy league’ grad, saving the world twice, and presumably letters of recommendation from the President and any number of NEST officers. Really? Ambassador to the Autobots seems like something viable
  • Sam’s mom and dad once again steal any scene they appear in. Sam has a fight with Ms. Legs and his mom goes ballistic “Sam you can’t screw this up. You’ve had two GORGEOUS girlfriends, there’s not going to be a third. Unless you know, you’ve got a huge d-“ “MOM!!”
  • Optimus now has a trailer, and no it doesn’t simply disappear when he transforms. It disconnects and acts as a portable armory. Sadly, no Roller Sad smile
  • Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and now Sentinel Prime remain the only recognizable Transformers at a glance. Remember how in the series/comics/toys Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp were identical. And yet thanks to the magic of ‘color’ we knew who was who at a glance. See also Sideswipe/Sunstreaker, Rumble/Frenzy, Bumblebee/Cliffjumper. Transformers mastered the palette swap long before Sub-Zero and Scorpion came along.
  • In particular I’m pissed about Soundwave’s treatment. Soundwave actually talks now, and gloriously sounds like Soundwave, however at one point there’s a Decepticon attack and I have no idea it’s him until he’s referred to by name. c’mon! Soundwave has a very distinctive look, at least TRY to get it right. Make him blue, not silver. Have the windshield of the car mode be the chest to resemble the tapedeck of old. Have a rocket launcher mounted to his shoulder. It’s not that difficult.
  • Megatron is still horrifically maimed from the ass-kicking he received at the end of Revenge of the Fallen. Really? Four years later and the big boss man can’t be repaired? It’s not like the Decepticons aren’t without resources. And yet Megs is continually poking at a hole in his head like an itchy scab, and he’s got robo-parasites crawling all over him. You telling me he’s in this shape and Starscream or Shockwave hasn’t just put him out of his misery and taken over.
  • I’ve heard complaints about to many Star Trek references with Nimoy voicing Sentinel Prime. I only caught 2 and both well within context of the plot (such as it is). In fact I’d have appreciated a quote or two from Galvatron (Nimoy voiced Galvatron in the animated movie)
  • The plan to transport to Cybertron to Earth seems terribly ill-conceived. Cybertron appears to be roughly 8 times the size of Earth. I’m no physicist, but I believe something called gravity would cause Earth to smash into Cybertron
  • My final point comes back to the incomprehensible plot: I don’t understand the timeline at all. Megatron supposedly crashed on Earth thousands of years ago. Yet according to Dark of the Moon, Megs was after Sentinel’s ship, which crashed in the 60’s. Wha….?

With plot holes the size of Cybertron, turn your brain off as you enter the theater. Enjoy the Bot on Bot action and when those pesky humans get on screen hope it’s a scene with Rosie-something’s legs instead of NEST nonsense.

2 out of 5 Stars    Sadly I have some minor OCD issues and will likely buy this on Blu-Ray to complete the trilogy, for everyone else rent

Trailer Breakdown:
Captain America: The 2nd trailer, still looks awesome and I look forward to it
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Is this a third trailer? Still looks interesting though I’ll likely wait for NetFlix

Sunday, June 26, 2011

The Alpocalypse is Here!

Woohoo! Somehow I didn’t realize this was out until nearly a week later. My geek websites have failed me.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Meet the Cool Cars

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Cars is probably the worst movie Pixar has made (though I have it on Blu-Ray and not Incredibles, stupid sale). However, I do have to give props here where the most badass cars are given the Cars treatment. Link

Mother Nature’s a Bitch

I killed several spiders a few days ago. Now there’s a mosquito that thinks I’m it’s personal buffet table. Coincidence?

Monday, June 13, 2011

First Impressions Can Lie

I don’t even remember what I was looking for when I found this, but I just had to bask in awe of Optimus Prime narrating… well, watch the clip. Part of it anyway. Not a good movie.

Movie’s only saving grace is featuring the delicious Lexa Doig… zomg with a cherry on top.

Friday, June 10, 2011

E3 Ramblings

I was sick last weekend and into Monday, Tuesday… so I actually got to catch a few E3 press conferences live. (This had nothing to do with sick, seriously. Maybe Tuesday… a little). I missed the Microsoft show only realizing after it was over that IGN was broadcasting these things, but I did catch Sony and Nintendo’s shows.

Sony started off humbly apologizing for the PSN outage. They didn’t dwell on it much, but I am kind of curious what would have been said if PSN hadn’t been brought back up just a week earlier. Then they moved on to Uncharted 3 which is supposed to be like the greatest series ever, I’m about an hour into Uncharted so I was like ‘Pretty, get to the NGP’. They went into Resistance 3 though and the demo actually looked kinda lame. That transitioned into the introduction of a bundle coming out including Resistance 3, an HDMI cable and a 24” 3D TV for $500.00. Now this gave me pause. I’m not all that interested in R3, but $500 seems very reasonable to get 3D ready. I ultimately decided I didn’t want to go down from my 32'” set, but this is a great deal for anyone not needing (wanting) a larger screen.

Sony shifted to plugging Move a bit making me yawn. Finally, they brought out the little guy everyone was there to see, the PlayStation Vita… Yes, Vita. Wait, what? Let’s all agree to call this thing PSV and move on. I was a little annoyed by the boo’s at the AT&T announcement (I work for AT&T), but haters gonna hate. A lot of time was spent demoing Uncharted on PSV showing how you can use the touch screen or motion controls to make jumps and scurry around ledges. They also showed you can use this new fangled invention called ‘buttons’ to do the same, not sure how well that will work out. Some other games were shown, over all impression I got was ‘badass, when’s it come out’.

Also announced was pricing: $250 for WiFi only and $300 for 3G enabled. The general consensus seems to be ‘screw AT&T, I will not get a contract’. While I  personally agree with the no contract thing, most likely it’ll be completely prepaid. A one time extra $50 for the option has me leaning towards the 3G option.

The next day Nintendo had their show. They started off with a few Zelda announcement in regard to it’s 25th anniversary. From there to a  few 3DS game announcements including a new Starfox (can I stop hearing about this now), Luigi’s Mansion 2 and… some other stuff. Nothing’s really made me feel to the need to own this thing yet.

Finally the big reveal and Nintendo announce the WiiU! I think I actually said out loud ‘Seriously?’. Apparently they were because they had slides and everything with ‘WiiU’ on it. The Big N didn’t actually show the system itself, it’s design apparently hasn’t been finalized, but much was made of the controller. It looks like a standard current gen controller with all the required analog sticks, buttons and triggers, with half an iPad slapped in the center. Looks huge and a pain to use for extended periods (though hands on people at E3 seem to be reporting it’s not that bad). The big surprise though, not the WiiU itself, was the fact that Nintendo has *drum roll* … 3rd party support! They had a whole video of people not from Nintendo talking about how excited they were to work on the new system. We’ll see how sales go when Arkham City and Darksiders 2 come out on all 3 systems.

Other musings:

  • If Blizzard doesn’t hurry up Torchlight II may out Diablo, Diablo III
  • Arkham City appears to be drool worthy
  • Kobe fumbling around with Move was funny, on screen Lakers were getting beat by the Heat
  • Dust integrated with EVE Online seems interesting
  • Street Fighter X Tekken is coming to PS3 AND PSV, with exclusive Cole from inFamous

“Still Alive”

More post coming soon.

I swear.

Really.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

$20.00 on Voltron

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For some reason I was hunting around for Voltron wallpaper, there’s surprisingly little, and fewer at hi-res, and I found this. Now, Devastator’s going to get a few good hits in, but once the sword comes out it’s over.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Things That Piss Me Off

eBay sellers that don’t and/or wait forever to submit feedback. If I can manage to visit paypal within 4 hours of winning you should be able to click the radial button next to positive.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

So This is Our Reward

Amazon currently has Portal 2 for 34.99 and Mortal Kombat for 39.99. Bear in mind these games came out two weeks ago priced at 59.99. Now I expect games to come down in prices, months later. This is 2 freaking weeks. Way to screw over first day buyers.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Noah

It’s hard to believe Bill Cosby was a fantastic stand up comic.

Monday, April 25, 2011

I Can’t be Fat, I Only Ate One Cookie

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We’re gonna need a wider glass of milk.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Portal Kombat!

So obviously this was a good week for gamers, with the release of Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat. But, what if you can’t decide?!

Me, I ended up getting Mortal Kombat, though I’ll probably at some point get Portal 2. Maybe I’ll even post a review in a few days.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Freaks Soundboard

Bit of ancient history was found while cleaning out my bookmarks. Found this link to some Vent sound bites from back in the WoW Vanilla days. Included is Uzz’s infamous Bar Mitzvah rant.

Just under 27,000 views. Wow.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Friday, April 8, 2011

“Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes.”

I think my balls just shriveled up and got smaller.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Mass Effect 2 for Free

I bought Dragon Age 2 at launch and, while I haven’t been to impressed with the more action oriented gameplay (and godawful DLC system), I did get an unexpected (though useless) bonus.

I got an email today to celebrate the ‘Sequel Celebration’. Included was an offer for a free copy of Mass Effect 2. Now, I picked up Mass Effect 2 during the Steam Christmas sale so…. yeah. But still, excellent bonus if I didn’t already have the game.

EA as a company seems to get a bad rap as an evil empire, mostly because they’re on top, and haters gonna hate. The only thing I can think of that EA does that sucks is the yearly sports releases. Not being a sports nut I don’t need the roster updates which really seem like they should be DLC. Skip a year, maybe if they had a longer development cycle something special could be done. People buy them like clockwork though so no sane executive would cancel a yearly cash cow.

Oh wait, they did cancel NBA Elite 11 because it didn’t meet quality expectations. Those @#$%ing bastards.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats! HOOO!!!!!!!

HERE’s a link to the trailer for the new Thundercats series on Cartoon Network that showed at WonderCon. It’s not awesome but I’ll give a shot. I really enjoyed the He-Man series that came out a few years ago.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

I Failed–and We’re All Doomed

I realize it’s April 2nd and I neglected to make a joke post yesterday. Epic fail.

I seek to atone by providing this link proving among other things that mother nature can destroy us at a whim should humanity cease to entertain her.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Random Thoughts

Do people from other countries find American accents sexy?

Sunday, March 27, 2011

AT&T’s Data Caps

A short time ago AT&T announced they were going to cap data with 150GB for DSL users and 250GB for U-Verse users. Reactions have ranged from ‘ AT&T has destroyed the internet’ to ‘we’ve had data caps for years, pussy Americans’.

Personally, I was curious where my usage runs.  Today I got an email from AT&T with new terms and conditions, as well as a link to track usage. I’m averaging about 45GB  a month, so the 150GB cap is fine, for now. And the extra charge ($10 per 5oGB) seems fairly reasonable if I should somehow go over (curse thee Steam sales). I’d say I’m probably on the higher end of data users between online gaming and NetFlix instant watch, and I’m using a 3rd of what’s going to be allowed.

For the moment it looks like this will only affect the people AT&T intends, the people that haves torrents going 24/7. Still, files only get larger as the next wave of HD movies and games come out. Hopefully AT&T will scale as well.

Stacraft with Starcraft 2 Engine

I found a site www.sc2mapster.com that has custom maps recreating Starcraft using the Starcraft 2 map editor. So far the Terran and Zerg campaign is finished and they’re working on the Protoss.

I’m only a few missions in the Terrans, but so far it’s pretty cool and quite a bit harder. For example the 4th(?) mission has you protecting a base awaiting Mengsk to come rescue you. In Starcraft with mission was quite boring as you’d be attacked by a group of 3-5 Zerg every couple minutes. In this version you get attacked by 10 or so. Good stuff.

Friday, March 25, 2011

The 3rd Starter Pokemon

Courtesy gameinformer.com, here’s a depressing video showing what happens to the 3rd starter. You know, after you pick one, then your rival picks one. This guy is left…

SHHHH……..

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Directed by who…?

Now I’ve always been a little fuzzy on what exactly a director does. He doesn’t come up with ideas, that’s the producer. He doesn’t writes the script, the writers do. He doesn’t point the camera, the cinematographer does. He doesn’t cut the film, the editor does. And so on. He has his hands in all though areas though and probably spends most his time as a referee between departments. He also ultimately gets credit for the film, good or bad. Though the producer gets the Oscar for Best Picture, go fig.

Anyway, I got to thinking earlier that it’s kinda weird, but I have no freaking clue who is directing Captain America. I mean, I know Jon Faverau directed Iron Man, Christopher Nolan directed Batman, Joss Wedon is heading Avengers, Kenneth Branagh is helming Thor and Zack Snyder had Watchmen and now Superman. Who’s in charge od Cap? Marvel’s media machine had failed. I am lacking info that I may need to be properly motivated to see this film!*

OK, a 5 second search turns up Joe Johnston… who? Ah I see, he directed that shitty Wolfman movie last year, and Hidalgo? Jurassic Park III? Who’s dick did this guy suck to get this gig. Ah well, as least The Rocketeer is in there… 20 years ago.

*Untrue, I’ll see it opening weekend

Wait, what?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Captain America Trailer Hits

Looks cool. I notice they kept a reign on the action scenes previewed, though we’ll prolly get spoiled in the second trailer. My only complaint is the technology seems a bit to advanced for WWII (was that a B2 bomber/transport?). Hopefully it’s a SHIELD prototype on loan from Namor. Or something.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

5 Reasons NOT to Take Kids to the Zoo

Don’t click this, seriously. I mean it.

*Courtesy www.djmick.co.uk

Friday, March 18, 2011

She’s Back, with Cake!*

Can’t wait.

*The cake is a lie

Random Forum Quote of the Day*

Remember kids, a smart man knows when to RUN LIKE A LITTLE B**CH!

*or whatever

Monday, March 14, 2011

Movie Review: Battle: Los Angeles

Movies like Battle: Los Angeles (BLA from here on out) are why I stopped listening to critics (for the most part, spill.com is often hilarious). BLA is getting blasted by critics everywhere and frankly, I don’t understand it, I had a lot of fun.

BLA follows the exploits of a small marine squad who’s tasked with the rescue of a group of civilians hold up at a police station after the aliens attacked and the city evacuated. There’s no overreaching strategy on the worldwide effort to repel the alien invaders. This is about the battle for Los Angeles, and at first a fairly minor aspect of that.

The brass has decided the city is lost and the Air Force is going to carpet bomb the place in 3 hours. With the clock ticking the squad heads out to find the civilians and get them out of there. This is very much a ‘man in the field’ movie. There’s no peek into the Oval Office with the Secretary of Defense pleading with the President to ‘make the call’ and bomb LA. No, the highest ranking main character is a Second Lieutenant just out of OCS Training. His babysitter is veteran Staff Sergeant Nantz. The film centers on Nantz (Arron Eckhart, The Dark Knight), he’s burnt out after his last deployment and nearing retirement. There’s a few scenes to assign some of the other characters their cliché: the engaged one, the virgin, the green lieutenant, the tough chick (Michelle Rodriguez, who else?).

One thing I especially like about BLA is the treatment of the civilians. Often in movies like this we see the civilians are assholes and you don’t really want them saved. They blame their rescuers as if they had anything to do with the alien invasion of earth. There’s usually a gangbanger with a chip on his shoulder. Here, the Latino is a caring dad who chastises his young son for saying ‘damn’.

I’ve seen complaints about shaky cams and no real info about the worldwide effort. Bullshit. This movie is about this particular squad, I highly doubt the a lowly marine squad would have info on the overall war. They have their mission, that’s what they worry about. As for the camera, Cloverfield this is not.

That’s not to say the film is perfect. It suffers from same logic fail problems most alien attack movies have. Why don’t they just unleash an orbital bombardment and wipe us out from the safety of space? It’d be a short, boring and depressing movie, that’s why. The designs for the aliens are a bit lackluster as well. The alien soldiers remind me of Bioshock and the alien tech seems almost.. steampunk. They use bullets and super rockets, not lasers and shields.

Still, I had fun. I’m hesitant to give it a higher score since I’m not sure how repeat viewings will fair, but it’s definitely worth a watch.

4 out of 5 Stars

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Random Thoughts

Is Tony Stark’s chest waterproof? Does he survive electrocution every time he takes a shower. Or spills a drink?

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

By Request!

My WoW schedule, hrm… Well lately I’ve been hopping for fairly short periods, maybe a quest hub or two. As far as times, Mon-Fri I can get on approximately 11:45, I’m free weekends.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Upgrading Early

I’d been planning on getting a new video card to run The Old Republic when it comes out later this year. However the last couple days my existing card has been acting up. Seems like I just got this, but reviewing my order history at Newegg.com  see I’ve have this card (Radeon HD 4850 512MB) for over 2 years so I figured why not upgrade a bit early.

I’ll be getting a Radeon HD 6970 2GB in a few days. It’s not the best, but seems to be tied for second best at the moment for a single GPU (I really don’t want to mess with CrossFire for SLI), and is $200 cheaper than the best, Nvidia’s 580.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Avatar + Scott Pilgrim = Awesome

UGO.com has a countdown of movie mashups. I was fairly impressed with the Power Rangers/Dark Knight and TMNT/Reservoir Gods, however this... this simply wins.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

The Good Ol’ Days…

I was screwing around on YouTube and found this. Classic.

Optimus Prime promoting Tenchi Muyo. Does it get anymore epic than this? They really need to rerelease this show. Copies are $300.00 on eBay. Who owns the rights anyway? I think it’s FUNimation. I promise, release a new edition for $35 and I’ll snap it up in a heartbeat.

Ryoko FTW!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Jukebox: Hellsing Opening theme–Full Version

I remember watching Hellsing in a marathon one weekend, awesome show.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

New Oscar Categories

Speaking of the Oscars, I’d meant to post this a few days ago. Oops.

Cracked.com has terrific article with suggestions for new categories. I fully endorse Best Stunt. The others are maybe a bit to… quirky for the Oscars though. Maybe the MTV Movie awards.

Oscars 2011

It’s Oscar time again, which means awards are going to be handed out to films I’ve never seen and/or heard of. I remember years ago when nominees were announced I’d root for someone. These days it seems I just don’t care and yet I watch anyway. Anyway  a couple observations:

  • an ‘F-Bomb’ in an acceptance speech, classy
  • Hey Sorkin, enough already, wrap it up
  • RDJr and Jude Law are awesome
  • I’m sad How to Train Your Dragon lost, I haven’t seen Toy Story 3 yet but I LOVED Dragon. I’m also feeling the continuance of a backlash that stated with the overrated Up, it’s the Animated Feature category, not the Pixar category
  • Has Sandra Bullock aged since Speed?
  • Who invited Oprah again? At the Emmys sure, but Oscars?
  • Halle Berry looks fantastic, what has she been doing lately
  • Auto Tuned musicals for the win! *
  • Ah Billy Crystal, the good ol’ days
  • Did they leave out Patrick Swayze in the RIP montage? Was that long enough ago it was last year?
  • Spielberg presenting for best picture ‘…the losers will be in the company of Citizen Kane…’  - Classic

In related news, the Razzies are out. Not suprisingly The Last Airbender got the lions share with Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Eye-Gouging Misuse of 3D, Worst Screenplay and Worst Director. Sex in the City 2 took most of the other categories.

*Lazy Basterd fully supports the use of Auto Tune for the creation of one-off 3 minute skits, any attempt to create a full length feature will be met with hostility

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Step 1: Survival, Step 2: …

As I was looking over my preparations of my bomb shelter (insurance agents get weird when you say zombie shelter) I began to wonder about more than mere survival. What do you do with the zombies? You can’t kill them, they’re already dead. And it came to me. Cement shoes and a baseball bat. Viola – interactive piñatas!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Ghost Story–Delayed

According to Jim… Butcher, not the show, Ghost Story is delayed until July. The 13th (14 if you count Backup, 15 if you count Side Jobs) book in the totally awesome Dresden Files was supposed to come out in April. Jim basically said we could either get a half-assed story in April, or a full-assed one in July.

*Source

I’m told she’s attractive…

Am I the only one not into the whole Olivia Munn thing? According to the internet* she’s the greatest thing since Megan Fox and any gamer must kneel before her. Well, ok, she’s attractive, but not spectacularly so. I’d trade an Olivia Munn for a Sarah Shahi in an instant.

*Needs citation

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Superbowl Commercials Early

http://screenrant.com/ has several Superbowl trailers posted early. My question is why? Isn’t the entire point of $3 mil for a 30 second spot so you can have a world premiere with the largest audience of the year? Instead any bozo that can type youtube gets access.

It’s a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Jukebox–The Little Things by Danny Elfman

This song is from the soundtrack to Wanted, an underrated action movie from a few years ago. Catchy as hell.

Movie Review: Robin Hood–Crowe Edition

I’m previously mentioned my irrational hatred of Russell Crowe, so it was with a certain trepidation I placed Robin Hood in the ol’ PS3. The film opens with us finding out that Crowe is not in fact, the erstwhile Robin Loxley, he’s Robin Longstride, fourth archer from the right in Richard’s army as they trudge back home from the Crusades. After Richard gets himself killed, Robin and some buddies (Allan-a-Dale, Little John and Will Scarlet) desert figuring it was hard enough getting paid when the King was alive. The groups head off to England only to come across the slaughtered of knights that were returning the Crown to London. A dying Robin Loxley begs Robin to return his sword to his father. After looting the killed knights and becoming rich, Robin figures karma’s a bitch if he doesn’t return the sword, so they do.

Once Robin gets to Nottingham he hooks up with ‘Robin’s’ dad who ask Robin to stick around and pretend to be ‘Robin’, he’s old and without an heir the crown’s just going to claim the lands. Marion isn’t happy about being forced to pretend to be married to a fake Robin (she was married to Robin Loxley for like, a day, before he left for the Crusades). Robin takes to being a noble very well showing much more wisdom, compassion and intelligence solving the problems of the local lord’s domain than you’d generally expect from the fourth archer from the right.

Meanwhile, Lord Godfrey has hooked up with King Phillip of France to invade England now that Richard’s dead and the little prat John is in charge. The nobles and their armies get called up to fight off the invasion and Robin shows much more tactical brilliance than one might generally expect from the fourth archer from the right.

Some other stuff happens, but who cares. You may have noticed I didn’t mention anything about Sherwood forest, bandits, the Sheriff or an archery tournament. That’s because there isn’t one. The sheriff makes a brief appearance to hit on Marion, but it’s obvious he’s no match for the fourth archer from the right. Marion thinks she’s Eowyn at the big fight at the end, something I just don’t see from a middle-aged noble woman in 12th century England. Maybe I’m off on my history, but weren’t they expected to sew?

In the end I didn’t hate the movie, it was so 'meh’ to have strong emotions approaching hate, it’s just so tame compared to Gladiator (Scott and Crowe’s other history romp). Catch only if you’re a nut for old school sword battles. Which I am… Oh yeah, just skip it. Catch Kevin Costner’s Prince of Thieves or Disney’s Robin Hood, you know, the one with the foxes.

2 1/2 Stars -my review
3 Stars – Netflix prediction

*out of 5

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Jukebox–You Know My Name by Chris Cornell

You’ll recognize this as the intro to Casino Royale. Usually I find the Bond guest singers gimmicky and irritating, but this is catchy as hell. I got the single on my iPod and it gets a fair bit of play.

The End of Days is Here…

Several news outlets are reporting the lockdown of the Dugway Proving Ground, an Army base in Utah. There are no details as to the exact nature of the lockdown or the operation.

However… “Dugway Proving Ground is a chemical and biological proving ground and serves as a test facility for weapon defense systems.”

Jesus Christ people, have you seen The Stand? 28 Days later? It’s basically a tossup between zombies and Captain Trips. We’re doomed.

*************Update:***********
Oh it was no biggie, they just lost some VX Nerve Agent.

Wait, WHAT?!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

In the Company of Greatness

Sometimes I wonder about the future, like 400 years.

Will contemporary artist we take for granted today be considered great, in say 2400? How about John Williams, The Beetles, Lady Gaga?? Will be mentioned with same reverence as Mozart? Beethoven?

How about writing? Is there a Shakespeare among us? Is Stephen King going to be remembered as the Master of Horror, or a footnote. Who do you think will be remembered in a few centuries? I’m sure King would beat out Stephanie Meyer. Jim Butcher? Probably not. JK Rowling? John Grisham? Stan Lee?

Batman. What about Batman. In the future will people still know who Batman is? While I doubt DC Comics will be up and running it would be a shame if Batman disappeared from the public consciousness. Will Batman and Spider-man become the new myths and legends taking their place alongside Hercules and King Arthur?

The thought of future generations frolicking among the red sand of Mars not knowing of The Dark Knight, makes me a sad panda.

I Hate People… Especially

I have an irrational hatred of Russell Crowe. I think it started with Gladiator, not that Gladiator was a bad movie, it’s just it was so overrated it spoiled me for the man. It’s quite sad as I thoroughly enjoyed some of his earlier work Virtuosity and L.A. Confidential. Anyway, as a result I’ve not seen several movies that are supposed to be quite good, but thus far I’ve refused because they star Crowe. The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man – I haven’t seen any of them. I mention this because I have Robin Hood sitting on my desk from Netflix and I’m looking at it thinking *Jeez, 2 hours, 36 minutes of Crowe… Why’d I que this again?* I suppose I’ll watch it this weekend when I have more time and can take Crowebreaks.

I also have an irrational hatred of Mandy Patinkin, despite Inigo Montoya, so have never seen Criminal Minds which several people assure me is quite good. I understand he’s not even on the show anymore.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Things That Piss Me Off…

Young vampires. Seriously, if you’re going to have an immortal character, make him old.

This post is inspired by the news the vampire in the US remake of Being Human (Pilot is free on iTunes atm, haven’t seen it yet but early buzz is good) was turned during the American Revolution. The BBC version was turning during WWI, makes him a century, what’s the point? And as much as I like True Blood, Bill was turning during the Civil War, makes him about 150. Edward Cullen is 105. @#%$!! HUMANS are older than that, granted they usually aren’t as active, but I think you get my point.

Now I’m not saying you have to be Methos (cookies if you get the ref), but I demand multiple centuries. Hell, Duncan MacLeod was young compared to most of the Immortals in Highlander and he was 400. Amanda was over 1,000. Lestat’s 350. Selene… (sorry, got distracted thinking of Beckinsale) was 600.

New rule: Immortals have to be old enough to have seen the Renaissance.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Movie Review: Jonah Hex

Yeah… I’m just gonna say that yes, it really is that bad.

1 out of 5 Stars (1 Star for a scene in which Megan Fox gets bitchslapped)

However! The DC Showcase short can be found here. It’s 12 minutes of good ol’ fashioned cowboy awesome that I’m shocked hasn’t been yanked off YouTube, catch it while you can.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Is This Even a Contest…?

You know those sites that do who’s hotter contest, well I found one with Amanda Seyfriend vs Ashley Greene. It made me pause because while Seyfriend seems to be on Hollywood’s ‘Next Big Thing’ list, she kinda creeps me out. Have you seen her? Something about her eyes, I think. It’s weird. And on the other hand you have Ashley Greene. Ah, Ashley… where was I… oh yes. I think we’re all aware Ms Greene’s the reason Twilight makes money.

So I ask again, is this even a  contest?

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Star Wars–On Blu-Ray

Coming September. Yeah I’m getting it, The Complete Saga, not just the Original Trilogy. 

LOTR–The Short Version

Haha, found this courtesy unreality.com

Those idiots have to make things so damn difficult.

Comic Crossovers

I like comics but I never buy them. Well, I never buy single issues, I have a collection of trades. I ran across something that made me buy several single issues. It’s all pre-order now so I can’t say it good yet but.. omg, look at this crossover! Do you like Transformers? GI Joe? Ghostbusters? Star Trek?? ZOMBIES?! I present IDW’s Infestation.

Photobucket

Sunday, January 2, 2011

@#$%ing Steam

So the Steam Winter Sale it over. I went in hoping to pick up Mass Effect 2 and The Jedi Knight Collection. They were both daily deals and I ended grabbing them for 9.99 and 5.00 respectively. Also, some ah… other stuff.

It’s amazing how ‘other stuff’ adds up. #$%^ing Steam.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

“Dat my kind of woman!”

Clips like this make me wonder what celebrities think of doing stuff like this. Do they get pressured by an agent or for appearances sake, or do they get a kick out of it. (Zomg! I just got upstaged by Animal! Awesome!)

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