I was reading an article today about how Tina Fey sometimes browses for phrases from 30 Rock. I doubt this website would ever randomly show up, but if it did, I have this to say:
You have the best show on TV. I can't wait for the new season.
Also, you'd probably be the first person to read this blog.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Season premieres, Project 8, and Reese's Snacksters
My thoughts on some season premieres:
The Simpsons: Maybe not one of the golden episodes, but I thought it was pretty funny. Good plot and good jokes. That's what I like.
Family Guy: Wow, this sucked. This sucked hard. It may really be the worst episode of Family Guy ever. That's how bad it was.
Heroes: Tons of plot twists and recapping information from Season One. Pretty interesting how they actually put in a time gap since the season finale. I really liked it.
And now, on to Project 8. Project 8...how could you?
The main thing that sets this apart from previous Hawk games is that, instead of going to one places, completing some goals there, then going to another place until you beat the game, you have to get to be the #8 skater in the world/your unnamed city (this doesn't take place in a real location, like previous Hawk games have). Essentially, anything you do will help you move up in the ranks. Find a gap? Move up in the ranks. Complete a goal? Move up in the ranks.
The other thing is that there's one universal difficulty, and what you do decides whether you get ranked Am, Pro, or Sick. For instance, if you do a grind to one point, that's Am, but if you go further, that's Pro.
There are a few main problems here. One of them is that the goals are really repetitive. The only variety comes from the Classic challenges (which are now integrated with the game), Pro challenges, and the unlocking of new areas. Besides that, it's just same old same old same old. There's only so many times you can skate around an area doing tricks and trying to keep up with a filmer before you get bored. Losing the more unique goals that were throughout the previous games hurts a lot.
The other problem is there are now approximately 1000 things mapped to the controller. It's awful. You'll try to grind and end up doing a wallride, try to wallride and do a natas spin. It gets frustrating fast.
And also, Jason Lee is all over the place. It's like getting constant phone calls from Earl Hickey. Seriously, I know he's a skater, but he just feels out of place. Which reminds me, some of the pros can't act.
Overall, it was really just another mediocre Hawk game. The series really needs to step it up back to "great", especially with Skate coming out.
Finally, buy Reese's Snacksters. They're amazing. They put Reese's Puffs, Reese's Pieces, and some other random Reese's stuff into one bag. It's like an endless parade of peanut butter whenever you want it. They also come in a Hershey's version, which I haven't tried, but I'm sure it's just as amazing.
The Simpsons: Maybe not one of the golden episodes, but I thought it was pretty funny. Good plot and good jokes. That's what I like.
Family Guy: Wow, this sucked. This sucked hard. It may really be the worst episode of Family Guy ever. That's how bad it was.
Heroes: Tons of plot twists and recapping information from Season One. Pretty interesting how they actually put in a time gap since the season finale. I really liked it.
And now, on to Project 8. Project 8...how could you?
The main thing that sets this apart from previous Hawk games is that, instead of going to one places, completing some goals there, then going to another place until you beat the game, you have to get to be the #8 skater in the world/your unnamed city (this doesn't take place in a real location, like previous Hawk games have). Essentially, anything you do will help you move up in the ranks. Find a gap? Move up in the ranks. Complete a goal? Move up in the ranks.
The other thing is that there's one universal difficulty, and what you do decides whether you get ranked Am, Pro, or Sick. For instance, if you do a grind to one point, that's Am, but if you go further, that's Pro.
There are a few main problems here. One of them is that the goals are really repetitive. The only variety comes from the Classic challenges (which are now integrated with the game), Pro challenges, and the unlocking of new areas. Besides that, it's just same old same old same old. There's only so many times you can skate around an area doing tricks and trying to keep up with a filmer before you get bored. Losing the more unique goals that were throughout the previous games hurts a lot.
The other problem is there are now approximately 1000 things mapped to the controller. It's awful. You'll try to grind and end up doing a wallride, try to wallride and do a natas spin. It gets frustrating fast.
And also, Jason Lee is all over the place. It's like getting constant phone calls from Earl Hickey. Seriously, I know he's a skater, but he just feels out of place. Which reminds me, some of the pros can't act.
Overall, it was really just another mediocre Hawk game. The series really needs to step it up back to "great", especially with Skate coming out.
Finally, buy Reese's Snacksters. They're amazing. They put Reese's Puffs, Reese's Pieces, and some other random Reese's stuff into one bag. It's like an endless parade of peanut butter whenever you want it. They also come in a Hershey's version, which I haven't tried, but I'm sure it's just as amazing.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Fellini Satyricon
Today I watched the weirdest movie I have ever seen. It was called Fellini Satyricon. To explain the title, it's actually Satyricon, but that name was already registered, so the director threw his name on it.
I've seen the damn thing, and I still had to look at my 1001 Movies Book, IMDB, Charter (cable company, which I recorded it with), and Netflix (whose description is so far off, even I know it's wrong) just to get a general idea about it. I'll go with Charter's description for the basic thing, who say it's about the debauchery in Rome during Nero's reign (although I don't think Nero was ever mentioned during the movie). I'm going to go into detail, so yeah, there will be spoilers.
As it starts, the main character (who appears in a majority of the movie - more on that in a second) is talking about how his friend stole his boyfriend (I'm too lazy to remember all the names, so just go by these). Then his friend shows up and explains how he sold the boyfriend to a famous actor. Then main character and friend meet up and fight. Eventually, main character goes to the actor, gets back the boyfriend, and goes home...where friend shows up again. He says to let the boyfriend choose who to go with, and he goes with friend. Then an earthquake happens. I kid you not.
From here, the movie really makes no sense. It's just a random threading along of the main character going places and having stuff happen across different segments. There are some interesting segments on their own, but there's no real story in place here that links them all together. There is a plotline near the end where the main character, uh, becomes a "disarmed soldier". That is, his "scepter stops working". So he goes to a witch who was cursed by a wizard so that her vagina created fire.
At the end, the main character sails off, and while talking about something, stops, and it fades to pictures of the movie's various characters on some ruins. That's it.
It was an intersting movie at parts, yeah, but I don't think I really liked it. It was just too hard to keep up with, mainly because it didn't bother trying to make sure you could keep up with it.
I've seen the damn thing, and I still had to look at my 1001 Movies Book, IMDB, Charter (cable company, which I recorded it with), and Netflix (whose description is so far off, even I know it's wrong) just to get a general idea about it. I'll go with Charter's description for the basic thing, who say it's about the debauchery in Rome during Nero's reign (although I don't think Nero was ever mentioned during the movie). I'm going to go into detail, so yeah, there will be spoilers.
As it starts, the main character (who appears in a majority of the movie - more on that in a second) is talking about how his friend stole his boyfriend (I'm too lazy to remember all the names, so just go by these). Then his friend shows up and explains how he sold the boyfriend to a famous actor. Then main character and friend meet up and fight. Eventually, main character goes to the actor, gets back the boyfriend, and goes home...where friend shows up again. He says to let the boyfriend choose who to go with, and he goes with friend. Then an earthquake happens. I kid you not.
From here, the movie really makes no sense. It's just a random threading along of the main character going places and having stuff happen across different segments. There are some interesting segments on their own, but there's no real story in place here that links them all together. There is a plotline near the end where the main character, uh, becomes a "disarmed soldier". That is, his "scepter stops working". So he goes to a witch who was cursed by a wizard so that her vagina created fire.
At the end, the main character sails off, and while talking about something, stops, and it fades to pictures of the movie's various characters on some ruins. That's it.
It was an intersting movie at parts, yeah, but I don't think I really liked it. It was just too hard to keep up with, mainly because it didn't bother trying to make sure you could keep up with it.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Open Season, Just Cause, and Second Opinion
Open Season sucked. It sucked so hard I watched Monsters, Inc. again just so I could watch a GOOD computer-animated movie. It sucked so hard it made me want to punch the characters in the face. ALL OF THEM. Except the rabbits. They were seriously the only good part of the movie, mainly because I kept thinking "DAAAAAAA!" whenever they were onscreen.
Just Cause half-sucks. In one way, it's a really cool concept, and in some spots it really works. In other ways, the vehicles are a son of a bitch to control, the game likes killing you (at one point, a truck hit me when I had full health and instantly killed me, in other points, I'll be parachuting when a helicopter hit me and caused me to go into freefall and not be able to reopen my chute so I'd fall to the ground), and the side missions are really repetitive. I hate to say it (mainly because I actually wanted to play this game before Gametap got it), but Total Overdose was so much more fun. I'll probably still play through this, though.
Trauma Center: Second Opinion is a lot of fun. With the combination of Easy mode and the easier Wii controls, I was able to pass an operation that I never could pass on the DS version. So yeah, that was cool. ^_^
Just Cause half-sucks. In one way, it's a really cool concept, and in some spots it really works. In other ways, the vehicles are a son of a bitch to control, the game likes killing you (at one point, a truck hit me when I had full health and instantly killed me, in other points, I'll be parachuting when a helicopter hit me and caused me to go into freefall and not be able to reopen my chute so I'd fall to the ground), and the side missions are really repetitive. I hate to say it (mainly because I actually wanted to play this game before Gametap got it), but Total Overdose was so much more fun. I'll probably still play through this, though.
Trauma Center: Second Opinion is a lot of fun. With the combination of Easy mode and the easier Wii controls, I was able to pass an operation that I never could pass on the DS version. So yeah, that was cool. ^_^
Friday, September 7, 2007
Red Eye, CSI, and...uh...something else to do with eyes
So, I just watched Red Eye. I don't think I've ever seen any Wes Craven movies before, but I liked this one. It was a good thriller, and Cillian Murphy was a total badass, in that psychotic kind of way.
I recently got the PC game CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder (HA! Bet you thought this would be about the TV show! Well, you were WRONG! This blog is full of twists like that.), mainly because Telltale Games developed it and it was only $19 from Amazon, not at all because I like the show (I've only ever seen the beginning of an episode). It's an enjoyable game for $19, but I never feel like I'm in too much control. I mean, you go to a crime scene, you do a complete sweep to make sure you get every single piece of evidence, you exhaust the dialog trees of any people, you take evidence back to the lab, repeat with a new location, keep this up until you beat the case (there are 5 cases). You get to choose what crime tools you need to use, but besides that, there's not really any puzzles. Even once you have all the evidence, the game basically says "Yeah, you need to arrest that guy". I'd much rather have a scenario where you have to choose who to arrest, use the evidence and facts in your casefile to prove they did it, etc., kinda like Phoenix Wright. It doesn't help that your character is a CSI trainee, which means that he's not an actual person in the game world, just your first-person view. Instead, the CSI cast regulars do all the deductive reasoning for you, you just have to click on the dialog tree.
So yeah, not a great game, by any means, but what the hell. I paid $19 for it. I just hope there's more control in Hard Evidence (the next one, which is also coming out for Wii).
Anyways, I didn't really have anything else about eyes. It is worth noting that I still haven't fixed my glasses. The nosepieces broke off a while ago. It's not like it's hard to go fix them, I just never remember to. Oh well.
I recently got the PC game CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder (HA! Bet you thought this would be about the TV show! Well, you were WRONG! This blog is full of twists like that.), mainly because Telltale Games developed it and it was only $19 from Amazon, not at all because I like the show (I've only ever seen the beginning of an episode). It's an enjoyable game for $19, but I never feel like I'm in too much control. I mean, you go to a crime scene, you do a complete sweep to make sure you get every single piece of evidence, you exhaust the dialog trees of any people, you take evidence back to the lab, repeat with a new location, keep this up until you beat the case (there are 5 cases). You get to choose what crime tools you need to use, but besides that, there's not really any puzzles. Even once you have all the evidence, the game basically says "Yeah, you need to arrest that guy". I'd much rather have a scenario where you have to choose who to arrest, use the evidence and facts in your casefile to prove they did it, etc., kinda like Phoenix Wright. It doesn't help that your character is a CSI trainee, which means that he's not an actual person in the game world, just your first-person view. Instead, the CSI cast regulars do all the deductive reasoning for you, you just have to click on the dialog tree.
So yeah, not a great game, by any means, but what the hell. I paid $19 for it. I just hope there's more control in Hard Evidence (the next one, which is also coming out for Wii).
Anyways, I didn't really have anything else about eyes. It is worth noting that I still haven't fixed my glasses. The nosepieces broke off a while ago. It's not like it's hard to go fix them, I just never remember to. Oh well.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Eureka, Aeon Flux, and cooking
One of the shows I was really looking forward to returning this summer was Eureka. If you haven't seen it, a sherrif (sheriff? sherriff? I hate double letters) and his daughter get into a car accident and end up finding a secret government town with lots of expirements going on, and they decide to stay. Of course, the expirements constantly go wrong, they look for what's causing the wrongness, blah blah blah, and the sherif saves the day in the end.
The problem is that the episodes are getting ridiculously predictable. 10 minutes into the episode, I'm already saying "That guy is a red herring, it's really that guy that's causing it". Although it is interesting how they keep thinking up of experiments to go wrong (last night's episode dealt with invisibility), the show really needs to focus on its character development. The weakest episodes are the ones where there's little character development and little information on the season's overarcing plot. Fortunately, this episode had some of both, so it was a pretty good episode.
Next up: the Aeon Flux movie. I am going to prefix this with the fact that I have never seen the Aeon Flux show, so my opinion is of a complete outsider to it. Also, I never think of Aeon as pronounced "Eon". I always pronouce it like Ay-on. It sounds cooler that way.
Anyways, I actually kinda enjoyed the movie in some ways. I thought the plot was pretty interesting, and a lot of the visuals were well done. In other ways, I also didn't like it. In fact, this is one of the movies where I really think they should've gone R, considering a lot of the scenes seemed like they'd actually benefit from a bit of ultra-violence. I think I'd give it about a 6.5/10.
And the last thing is completely non-review related, but I've been doing cooking for my family recently. So far, I've made corn chowder, bratwurst in a beer sauce thing, salisbury steak, and chicken curry. All the recipes I've done no one in my family has made before (although we've made similar recipes, these have new variations), but I think I've been doing pretty well so far. So if you ever come to my house, I can cook for you. ^_^
The problem is that the episodes are getting ridiculously predictable. 10 minutes into the episode, I'm already saying "That guy is a red herring, it's really that guy that's causing it". Although it is interesting how they keep thinking up of experiments to go wrong (last night's episode dealt with invisibility), the show really needs to focus on its character development. The weakest episodes are the ones where there's little character development and little information on the season's overarcing plot. Fortunately, this episode had some of both, so it was a pretty good episode.
Next up: the Aeon Flux movie. I am going to prefix this with the fact that I have never seen the Aeon Flux show, so my opinion is of a complete outsider to it. Also, I never think of Aeon as pronounced "Eon". I always pronouce it like Ay-on. It sounds cooler that way.
Anyways, I actually kinda enjoyed the movie in some ways. I thought the plot was pretty interesting, and a lot of the visuals were well done. In other ways, I also didn't like it. In fact, this is one of the movies where I really think they should've gone R, considering a lot of the scenes seemed like they'd actually benefit from a bit of ultra-violence. I think I'd give it about a 6.5/10.
And the last thing is completely non-review related, but I've been doing cooking for my family recently. So far, I've made corn chowder, bratwurst in a beer sauce thing, salisbury steak, and chicken curry. All the recipes I've done no one in my family has made before (although we've made similar recipes, these have new variations), but I think I've been doing pretty well so far. So if you ever come to my house, I can cook for you. ^_^
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
This is a blog (also, Man of the Year)
Just because I feel like it, I decided to start up a blog, mainly thanks to Lupin (the Gametap user, not the anime). If you want to know what this will be about, I'll just be posting mini-reviews of games, movies, TV shows, songs, CDs, manga, food, anything that's reviewable and I feel like putting up here. Point to this? None, really, but it'll occupy me.
Today, I thought I'd just review a movie I saw only a few hours ago, Man of the Year, starring Robin Williams.
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You know, staring at that poster, Robin has this look on his face. Kinda like "WHAT MY HAIR IS Ooooooh it's a wig hahahah". But not that last part. Just the first part right here. Like they put this mirror in front of him that also takes pictures.
Right, back to the topic. The funniest parts of this were when Robin Williams was just let loose into stand-up quality stuff. Because that's what he does best, really. For some reason, though, they decided to market this as a comedy, when in reality, it's a thriller by the end. The villain's motivations didn't really make much sense to me, and the whole thing just turns out silly.
I was also disappointed Jon Stewart didn't make a cameo, considering his name is always mentioned when they're trying to compare the main character to other political comedians, but oh well. I give this a 6/10.
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