Tuesday, September 28, 2010

More TV

Fall TV is not as promising as I was led to believe.

I was reading some TV preview thing like a month ago, and they mentioned like a half dozen new shows involving aliens, monsters, naked chicks or something. So looking feverishly through my TV listings, I see... one. And I've already told you about it in my last post. The Event. And frankly, I tried to watch it again last night, this would be the second episode already, and I just couldn't get into it. I switched it off.

So let's see for the rest of this season, I have House, and Dexter... and that's it. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Between starting this on Tuesday and finishing it on Wednesday, No Ordinary Family has premiered! A show about superheroes! :-o

So I was about to review House (which, with the loss of the hotter female cast members, has had to resort to putting Cuddy in a role as a sex object... not the best decision they've ever made), but instead, I'll just sum up. House is ok. He finally got to sleep with Cuddy, sure, and he's all smiles now. Where does that leave ME? Who do I get to thwack over NOW? Nobody, that's who. Come on guys, find some hot chicks to throw into the mix, willya? A sausage fest is great for all the female viewers, but I'm a straight male who likes his sex objects to be, well, sexy! lol All I can watch house for now is the occasional moderately attractive female guest actress of the week, who is inevitably going to be diagnosed with some deadly disease and spend the entire episode in bed. Which... can be fun, I guess, given the right circumstances? But deathly ill on a hospital bed is not how I picture girls when I spank my monkey. At least, not most of the time.

Dexter started it's fourth season off with something of a whimper. At the beginning of the series, and through seasons 1 through 3, I developed a theory that Dexter and his half-sister would eventually be facing off against each other. He would be outed as a serial killer, and she would make FBI agent, and use her knowledge of him to try and track him down. But now Dex's wife has died (last season surprise ending) and the emotional turmoil that has Dexter in a quandary has also made things a bit awkward between him and Debra. I'm starting to think that somehow, Dex and deb are going to end up in a twisted half-sibling relationship now. The actors are married to each other in real life, sure, but why do I think this is going to happen, you ask? Is it just a product of my perverted, twisted brain? Nah, Dex gave Deb a hug in the season premiere, and it seemed... odd. Maybe it was just the usual "i don't know what to feel because I am a serial killer and you're a cop who has no idea HOW i feel" kind of hug, but it seemed more than that.. and then, Deb suddenly gets into a fling with her partner. This isn't entirely unusual for Deb, her romantic choices haven't always been exactly straightforward. However, she can't seem to stand the guy. Immediately after the sex, instead of the usual "oh god that feels better" response we usually get from her, she acts like her partner walked in on her without her clothes on, like he's some sort of peeping tom and she's trying not to acknowledge it because he's a cop. With literally no other emotion behind it. At one point, he even asks "Aren't we going to talk about this?" and she replies with "Talk about what?" What I think is, Deb has suddenly sprouted, shall we say, "unusual" feelings for Dexter, and has literally no acceptable way to entertain them. So her mind just grabbed the first available thing, her partner, and she took him. Quite literally. In dexter's house, on his just-cleaned kitchen floor, and if that doesn't give a little more weight to my idea, I don't know what does. OR, I am just a psycho and Dex and Deb are still going to end up hunting each other in the end. As for this season, I expect Quinn to become the main problem, but here's the twist ending: Instead of Dexter killing Quinn as a threat, Deb saves Dexter's life by killing Quinn herself. We'll see how accurate I am when the season ends.

Now, as for No Ordinary Family. I like the show. I have never been a big fan of Michael Chiklis, the actor who plays the Dad, but it's more of a thing where's he's basically typecast into the same role over and over than him not having the ability to act it. At least, in the roles I have seen/heard of him playing, he plays a cop, and the Thing from the fantastic four. So in this series he plays a police sketch artist who gains super strength. Not exactly a stretch for him, granted, but I DO like the fact that the Mom, played by Julie Benz, is the breadwinner in the family, and the Dad is basically playing the mom role, staying at home and caring for the kids. In that respect, I almost think the MOM should have been the one with super strength, and the dad been the one with super speed, because the powers they get seem to match their needs and/or wants at the time. For instance, perhaps the dad feels a bit emasculated in his job as susie homemaker, so he can now catch bullets with his hands, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and lift railroad cars, whereas Mom, with a need to be everywhere at once and still have time for her family, develops super speed. Interestingly enough, the adult's powers seem to spring up fairly quickly, as if reacting to an immediate as well as a longstanding need, and the kid's powers tend to develop more slowly, with the daughter only gain the ability to hear thoughts intermittently, and the son, who is having trouble with math or something, suddenly gaining the ability to solve mathematical formulas easily. Perhaps whatever gave them their powers is merely giving them genetic adaptations to their most pressing needs? if so, perhaps they may develop additional powers as the need arises.

Either way, the show seems well done. There's no nudity for Julie Benz so far, much to my personal dismay, but it seems like the husband and wife are discovering a newfound interest in their love life, so a nude scene may not be entirely out of the question. The family appears a typical dysfunctional mess at the start, not unlike most families, but they seem willing to work on it with each other, which seems just this side of Disney to me. I mean, if my family were suddenly given superpowers, we'd end up killing each other. But hey, enough about me. The lighthearted approach to the show mimics the Incredibles movie, which was pretty decent, and even the characters/and or abilities of the heroes are somewhat similar. So I'm not sure if they just ripped this show off from the cartoon or what, but given the success of that movie I'd say it's a decent start. Plus, not only does the show focus on how these normal citizens are taking to their newfound, unheard-of powers, but they introduce a new element as well, that others have powers as well, and aren't afraid to use them for personal gain. Which just nicely sets up the whole superhero/supervillain thing, and adds a secretive element to the show. So, to sum up, perhaps simplistically, a mix of Heroes and the Incredibles. Let's hope it works for them. It seems enjoyable enough to watch on a weekly basis, at least.

I have a plan for the month of October. Okay, it's more a hypothetical guideline than a plan, but I'm going to seriously think about trying it. I am going to watch and review one horror movie per day for the entire month of october. I don't know where the hell I am going to find 31 days worth of acceptable horror movies to watch, or where I will find the time given that they won't let me watch movies in my cubicle (at least not anymore), but I may give it a shot. If AMC or something won't help me with a different horror movie or two every day, then I'll have to resort to my own personal library of horror films or what I can scrounge up online. If I do decide to do it, wish me luck. My life is crazy enough as it is without adding horror flicks and daily posts into the mix.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Fall TV Review

Okay! As most of you know, I have no life. So of course, I was able to watch the new shows coming out this season. Here are the reviews so far this week!

HOUSE - Old favorite from years past. Going to be missing 13. Hottest cast member so far. Cuddy sleeping with house is not going to cut it for me. Which is what happened in the series premiere on monday. Pretty much all day. I'm guessing 3 or more times. Not bad for old, tired people. There was some other stuff that went on, too, but it wasn't important. Basically, 13 leaves, and Cuddy and House are now an item. Mondays at 8 pm on... Fox, maybe? One of those channels.

The Event - This one's new. Looks like aliens are involved. I hope this isn't a replacement for Lost because it's already starting to be confusing and the aliens look just like normal people, which just bugs me no end. If you are going to spend millions on making a new show, and then not display any aliens nor spaceships nor anything resembling a good special effect, then why bother making it about aliens at all? The basic plot is already missing parts, I presume most of which are going to be explained in further episodes, but this whole flashback/flashforward/flashsideways thing is already annoying. I may not watch this one for much longer.

Chase - Looked like crap. I literally watched it for 5 minutes, found no interest in any of the characters or action going on, and switched. Not a keeper. Some of you are going "How can you know you won't like a show in the first 5 minutes?" I KNOW. Look, if the show doesn't grab me by the balls and drag me to the edge of my seat, it's not worth my time. I feel the same way about women, but honestly, I'm worried my balls are going to start getting damaged if I get too popular with the ladies. I can see it now. "What the hell happened to your balls?" "Met a really nice girl in a bar... she was rather forward. I liked it, then the pain came..." lol

Hawaii 5-0 - Yes, I actually turned this on for a moment. No, I didn't really watch the original series. Remember, monster movies or nothing. Even as a kid it was the same. That's all I watch. In any case, I turned this on to see if I needed to change my policy on watching non-monster-related media. No. No I don't. The few moments I watched of this was all talk and no action. I know there has to be some parts of the shows wherein there's some character dialogue. I know this. But again, no ball-grabbing = no watching. In this instance, some military fellow was talking to a mayor about something and there was too much emotion in the first few minutes. It looked too scripted, basically, they were arguing about something and since I didn't care about either of the characters yet, I had no reason to stick around to find out why. Booooo riiinng.

Well, let's see... I think I'll keep watching House, at least until they find a replacement for 13. Hawaii 5-0 and Chase got dumped already as far as I am concerned. The event.. well, maybe. It better have a lot more action or more aliens or more goddamn something or I'm dropping it fast.

Oh, and for those of you who are curious, my co-worker has recovered from her cold and no longer sounds like Scarlett. or Amber. Sigh. Still waiting for cold and flu season to really kick in. ;-)

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Scarlett Johansson, Amber Heard, and ...?

So, I am not really one to stalk movie stars...

No, really, I am not. I let go of my twitter account partially for that reason, because it's way too easy to start talking to celebrities via Twitter, and i know the real people behind the celebrity glamour are often completely unlike their facades, but still, for some people, they are hot enough that you can't help yourself.

I remember getting onto Twitter and adding Demi Moore and Alyssa Milano to my list of feeds, but then I went... maaaannn... it's just too easy to start sending them tweets and they'll respond back and forth for a while, and next thing you know, Demi's dumped Ashton Kuchner to stalk me and she ends up having a brawl with Alyssa Milano outside my bedroom window because they both want the best angle to take pics, and quite frankly, I have NO desire to do that to these two fine actresses. Besides, I wouldn't know who to bet the $20 on. So... erm... yea, that's why I dropped my Twitter account. For their sakes.

So Scarlett Johansson is pretty and all, sure. And you may or may not have heard of Amber Heard. At least that's what I think her name is. She was in Stepfather. I may have posted about her before. Basically, they are close enoguh to be sisters. Do this, watch Eight-Legged Freaks. Then, watch the 2009 Stepfather remake. Does Scarlett Johansson and Amber Heard not sound almost exactly alike in those movies? They even look like each other. I'd be willing to bet money that Amber is actually Scarlett's kid sister and just wanted to start her movie career without riding her older sister's coattails. Not a lot of money, mind you, but you know, like, two bits or something. For those of you not old enough to have been alive in the 1940's, that's like a quarter. Or close to it. Yea.

So here's my point. Ever listen to a baby cry? You know how the sounds drives it's way into your spine and makes your eyes bleed until you hold a pillow over the kid's head and... errmmmm, I mean... take.. good care of the little whippersnapper and stop it's incessant squalling? Okay, so these two ladies, their voice does that to me, but in a good way. Not sure exactly what it is about the tonal quality, the pitch, whatever. It just tickles me in my naughty places whenever I hear them speak. And sure, it's not enough to have me running out to video stores and buying up all their movies and all, because I still only watch monster movies (eight legged freaks does qualify), but goddamnit, it makes me want to hear them give me a stern lecture on how I shouldn't follow them home just so I can hear them speak.

So what brought all this on, you ask? Well, there's this blonde who sits in the cubicle across from me at work, and sure, normally her voice doesn't do that to me (much to her dismay, no doubt), but she's got a cold this week, and that whole nasal... thing... she's got going on there just makes her sound JUST like Scarlett. Or Amber. So here I am at work all day, sitting there like a good cubicle slave, trying to do my job, and it's like having Scarlett Johansson sitting in the cubicle across from me. I can't possibly describe how distracting that is. Here, I'll give you an idea. Get a job in a cubicle farm, then hire Scarlett Johansson to sit across from you and tease you with her voice all day, and see how much work YOU get done. No, go do it, I'll wait... SEE? SEE HOW DISTRACTING THAT IS????

Now, I am a bit torn here. The girl (and I call her girl because I am old enough to be her daddy) I work with seems nice enough. Do I want her to have more colds, so I can enjoy the sound of her voice? Or do I want to just get some work done and keep my job and fantasize about Scarlett (or Amber) on my own time? Decisions, decisions. You'd think there'd be some happy middle ground, but NO. You'd be wrong. The really sad part is, I mentioned it to her, and she even tried to sound sexier and it just destroyed the whole effect. It only seems to work when she's not paying attention to it, and of course, only when she has a cold. You know what? I think she needs more colds. I don't mind the coughing and sneezing and clearing of the whole throat thing as long as I can hear that goddamn sexy voice tickling my naughty places. Or maybe it's just allergies. Thank god for allergy season. Maybe her nasal thing will last for several months. Goddamn. I'm going to have to bring an extra thong to work. Seriously, have you ever tried to do technical support in a spoojy thong? Extremely unpleasant!

Oh hey, speaking of colds and flus, I read an article on the internet today that says popular people get flu faster because they are at the center of their social circle, and thus are exposed to more vectors of disease than your average joe. See? It's not that I have an unhealthy immune system from living in my parent's basement, it's that I am a popular guy at the center of my social circle! I KNEW THAT WAS THE REAL REASON!!!

This being typed while sneezing my lungs out. Damn allergies. Outside world, who needs it!?!?! BLECHIE!!!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Republicans Make Your Kids Fat, Stupid and Ugly

Being a genius can be a pain sometimes. I don't know how many of the two people who I know read my blog can sympathize with me or not, but seriously, it can. Odd ideas come to you in odd places, and just totally destroy your brain with how much sense it makes. I imagine Einstein was no different, he was probably eating lunch one day, not thinking about anything, gnawing on his ham sandwich, when E=mc squared popped into his head, and he shouted it at the tops of his lungs, spewing ham and bits of rye and mustard all over the place, dropping his food on the table and running to the lab to write it all down. Or maybe my imagination is just weird.

So I am sitting on the Throne of All Knowledge at 4 am this morning (the toilet, obviously), and it comes to me. When I say it comes to me, it didn't actually come to me. It was more of a tired, percolating bubble of thoughts that kind of coalesced into something disturbingly coherent and yet oddly simple in it's profundity. I don't even know if profundity is a word. The sad part is, it's all based off actual facts, facts you can check at any time, anywhere, on any internet connection. In fact, please check my facts, because I am often wrong. Let's take the first fact.

It's been known for years that Cortisol, a stress hormone released by your adrenal glands, causes your body to store fat around your midsection. We're not talking like a scare in a movie theater kind of stress, Cortisol is only released in large enough quantities to have this effect over the long-term. So for instance, if you are usually worried about life, your job, world war 3, the avian flu and MRSA eating your baby on a daily basis, then you are going to be fat. It's just a biological thing, you can't help it. Worry equals fat. That's point one.

Point two, americans in general have been getting fatter. It's more a recent thing, I mean, sure, we spend more time indoors, more time in front of the computer, and this COULD mean we spend less time playing baseball. Who knows. I am sure it could have an effect. However, given point one, I think it's possible we are just under more stress, but who can say for sure? Last I heard, 75% of Americans were overweight, at least a little bit. That's 3 out of every 4 people. So I have lots of company! :-D

More recent research has suggested that, when you lose weight, your fat cells can release their stored toxins into your bloodstream, which can damage your internal organs as they try to process it out of your body. Which suggests the idea that fat is where the body's toxins are stored. Which, since Americans are getting fatter, as I've mentioned, would imply that we are being exposed to or ingesting more toxins. See, I'm not fat, I just store a lot of toxins.

Another point, just for guys now, is the trend that older men who masturbate less tend to have more testicular cancer. I am simplifying the result of the research, but basically it says that your testicles, seminal fluid or little swimmy spermy guys are your body's way of getting rid of at least some of the toxins you have in you. Because, if you don't get rid of them frequently, according to this study, the toxins hang around in your balls and cause cancer. Obviously, toxins are not only bad for your balls, but they cause cancer. Cancer, as we all know, is caused my mutated genetic material, or DNA. Toxins, therefore, mutate your DNA. Even more reason for me to masturbate furiously more often. In my cubicle, even. Hey, I'm not jerking off, I'm curing cancer!

One last point, and it seems wholly separate from the others at first, but I'm going to tie it in in just a minute, so bear with me. Republicans, for the most part (at least, with my admittedly limited knowledge of politics) tend to run on platforms of fear. "The commies are going to get us if you don't elect a republican." or "The terrorists are going to win if you don't elect a strong warlike republican to keep them away." or "The gays and lesbians are going to corrupt your children if you don't let us republicans stop them from marrying each other." I'm pretty sure these slogans have been the basic tenets of every Republican front runner in the last 50 years or so. That last point completely despite the fact that, every politician I have ever heard of who was outed as being secretly gay or having sex with a male intern, has been Republican. I can't be sure of that, but I can't remember any Democrats who have been doing that? Also, completely despite the fact that most republicans run on a strong family-based platform and rely on the christian, conservative base to get most of their votes. Or essentially, the bible belt. Now, I am NOT trying to imply that all Republicans are gay, nor that Democrats don't have their own issues, or that there is anything wrong with being gay (or lesbian... mmmm lesbians), I'm just saying, most Republicans seem to have the same strategy to get votes. They incite your fear. Also, they tend to support free enterprise and want to let companies do as they please without any government oversight.

So what can we infer from all this? Republicans have been using our fear to get themselves elected for the last few decades, at least. Fear makes people retain body fat. Body fat stores toxins. Companies that produce toxins don't like having to clean up their messes (just look at BP). Toxins make people fat. Toxins are stored in body fat, and temporarily (at least) stored in the testes. The testes are where half your genetic makeup comes from. So half your genetic makeup, or the tiny little spermatozoa that eventually makes boom boom with your mommy's egg and produces your rugrat hellspawn, has been swimming around in a pool of toxic swill for god only knows how long, with the genetic material being all warped and twisted like that old Batman episode where Robin, batman and Batgirl were tied into a Human Knot (luckily, Batman was able to free them by wiggling his left earlobe... whew, close one).

And so you end up with fat, mutant, stupid little children with birth defects. Good job, Republicans. Well done.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Mondays

You know I never really listened to that whole theory about mondays being the worst days of the week. Usually, I get up fairly well rested, if not entirely ready for the first day of my work week, at least prepared emotionally to handle the obscene amount of work that I'll have to do, and to bear the crushing weight of stress and confusion that assaults me at my job.

Yes, I only work 5 hours a day.

But that's not the point. My point is, yesterday was pretty bad. I get to work late, first off, because school is now back in session and there's buses all over and people get SO upset when you run over a kid. I mean, sure, it's not only socially disconcerting, but legally, it's bad, too. Which just sucks, I mean, they're small little buggers! You can barely see them over the hood of the car sometimes, especially when they are hanging onto your grillwork trying not to fall under the car as you plow through the crosswalk doing 75. How the hell can people hold it against you if a few of them end up stuck in your front bumper? People make mistakes, you know!

So then, I get to work and we are SWAMPED. Literally swamped with calls, and on top of that, they are STOOPID. That's stoopid with TWO O's. Count em. TWO. And there's not even supposed to be one O in stupid, so that just gives you an idea of how bad it was. I got a woman who doesn't know her home phone number because she never calls herself. I got a guy who can't connect to his own business network and blames us because he can't get his work email. And then, fun of funs, I peed myself.

Yea, it's happened before, I know, even at work, but dammit, I just hate it when my bad aim means I have to walk around with wet spots on my jeans. I know, I know, it's one thing when I see a hot babe and BAM there's stains in my underwear, but I didn't even see a hot babe this time, I was just trying to use the damn urinal and next thing I know, OOPSIE I missed. Hey, shit happens, or in this case, piss happens. Not like anyone noticed, at least, no one even spoke to me yesterday at work, we were so busy. And NO, i did NOT fall asleep at the urinal again. That only happened that one time and I am sick of hearing about it, dammit.

But, today is better. Except for the weather. Sure, it's a bit sunnier, but what the fuck, it's like 60 out. I know, you're going, 60 in Buffalo NY in the fall isn't bad, well FUCK YOU. It's still goddamn summer. Fall doesn't start until the 21st, and I'm not done with summer yet.

Here's how my summer went: June, 60 degrees tops. cold and windy. July, Hot, 90's, camping trip. August, Hot, 90's for two weeks. Then, back into the 60's. Yep. Third week in august, when I took off work to enjoy the heat... 60's. Well, HA HA mother nature, you fickle ho. Very fuckin funny. If you were a real woman I'd spank you for shit like that. And now we can't even get out of the 50's or maybe low 60's. Since the second week in AUGUST. AUGUST!! You know, the goddamn dog days of august? When it's usually so hot you can't see straight? WHAT THE HELL!!!!!! Six weeks of goddamn summer is NOT ENOUGH.

Everyone's saying it's going to be a bad winter. There's some el nina or la nno's pizza shit going on with the weather so that means lots of snow or something here, and like toads falling from the sky in europe or something, but here's my prediction. If all the weather guys say it's going to be cold and snowy, I predict dry and hot. Because I know how accurate those guys are. Sure, I know meteorology isn't an exact science, but if I was wrong that often I'd get put in jail, much less fired from my job. I mean, how much effort does it take to stand in front of a map of the US and go "There's some cold and windy shit flowing down from canada. Probably won't hit us here in florida, though. hyuk hyuk!" Well, is that right? The guy's a genius! And when it does, all he's got to say is "Well, it came down farther than we thought." And he STILL HAS A JOB. I suppose they have to, though, I mean, if you fired everyone who was bad at predicting the weather, we wouldn't HAVE weather people. So there's my prediction, DRY and HOT winter. Maybe I can still work on my tan in december this year, because this september cold spell shit just isn't cutting it for me.

And what the fuck is up with my nose??? Goddamn allergies! I can't BREATHE, DAMMIT! GAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Mafia 2

Okay, after playing Mafia 2 a few times, I don't like it.

Let's start with the complete lack of replayability. There's a series of missions, and once you do them, that's it. I mean, I haven't played through til the end yet but that's what I heard. Plus there's little to no side quests, so literally following the story line is all you can do. At one point, going through the game for the third time (reasons to follow later) I became so bored with it, I just grabbed a machine gun from a dead policeman and unloaded on innocent bystanders. I must have killed about 100-200 people before I gave up, walked down an alley, and the cops forgot about me.

So, I cheat at my games. Yes, I won't pirate a game (not that I see anything wrong with it, Brando old buddy, and I completely agree with your last comment, but someone has to pay the makers for the games, and I'm that guy), but I see nothing wrong with cheating at the single player aspect of it. I mean, you get a bunch of programmers and game designers telling you to play the game a certain way, and they pretty much have to, because no game can be set up for EVERY contingency you might come up with, right? But what if I don't want to play things their way? This happens usually because the game is boring their way, and everyone is different, and enjoys different things, so this is going to happen sooner or later.

So one of the reasons I didn't like mafia 2 was, it's incredibly hard to cheat at. Not because of the copy protection. No, the problem was for legitimate users. Basically, the pirate-protection software they installed made it hard for trainers to work. So, I had to find a no-CD fix online in order to disable the copy protection so I could get my trainer to work. And then as soon as they updated the game, my game kept crashing whenever i tried to use the trainer. Yea, it was a big pain in the ass.

Now to the actual gameplay. Mafia 2 would make a reasonably watchable documentary about gangster life in the 40's and 50's. It does not make a reasonably fun game. Sure, it's realistic for the times. I got in my car, drove halfway across the city, did whatever it was I was supposed to do, then drove back home and went to sleep. You can't finish a mission unless you go home and go to sleep at the end of it. Me, I prefer to have a few beers first, maybe hook up with the hot babe singing at the local speakeasy.. but NO, there are no singers at the speakeasy. in fact, mostly the bars were meeting paces to get started on new missions, which, again, you had to sleep first before you could start a new one, which involved a long boring drive across the city. And it was even boring plowing through pedestrians to get there. They just never scream realistically in games for some reason, I don't know. Takes all the fun out of it.

I remember one particular mission, getting woken up by a phone call in my place. Driving across the city. Getting into a truck with my buddy. Driving to another location to... sell cigarettes. Yea... Realistic, yes, but exceedingly boring. If I wanted to sell cigarettes I'd work at 7-11. And it wasn't even a cut scene until the good parts, either. I had to literally stand in the back of the truck, waiting for the word on what kind of cigarettes the customer wanted, and then physically click on the appropriate color box, so my character would pick up a box and throw it to my buddy in the game. I kept expecting a bunch of guys to come barreling up and there'd be this mass shootout, but.. no. So then we get in the truck and drive to another place to do the same thing. And I'm handing out cigarettes, thinking how boring this game is, and finally a bunch of cars pull up and... my buddy, in a cut scene, shoots one and they all drive off. Yes. The next action I got to perform was to call my boss and tell him we got jacked. And it wasn't even a cutscene. That was the extent of the action I got to perform in that mission. Wow. Fun stuff, eh?

This pretty much follows a pattern through the whole game. At one point your character goes to jail, and you have to scrub urinals. Yea, it's not a cut scene, either. I don't really know why. Maybe this was the scariest thing the game designers could come up with. Urinal scrubbing. Oh my. But hey, following that, there was a shower brawl with some fat guys! And everyone in the shower had boxers on. Yea, okay, I am heterosexual, but I am secure enough in my heterosexuality to say "When in the history of prisons have all the guys ever showered with boxers on? Doesn't that give you wet boxers? I mean, i've never personally showered with boxers on, so I couldn't say, but I would think it would... Eh whatever. It was a short fight.

And speaking of the fighting... Yea, not that good. For a game that starts out all Call-of-Duty-ish, with an opening sequence where you are literally firing machine guns and lobbing grenades at Nazis, you rarely get to use a gun on an actual mission. half of it is straight up brawling. And the brawling isn't coded all that well. It looks good at first glance, because there's light jabs and hard swings and you can block and use finishing moves on a stunned opponent. But most of the time, you can only throw a certain type of punch when it wants you to. If you aren't throwing THAT punch, you can't throw ANY punches. I can see if it was that way for just the first fight, so you get the hang of it, but it was like that for all of them. So, while I am trying to throw a few jabs to stun this big bruiser so I can destroy him with a haymaker, he's destroying ME with haymakers because I'm not allowed to throw a jab right then and there. If I wasn't cheating, I'd have got my ass kicked all through the 40's.

I ran into a couple other annoying glitches, where I didn't know what to do or couldn't finish the mission because of it, and I gave up. I think I've already uninstalled it and moved on, so if you want my opinion, don't bother buying it, just move on to the next game. And if you don't want my opinion, then what the HELL are you doing here? Stalker.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Re-Ability

So here's the greatest test a movie or game has to pass for me to endorse it as good... Re-watch-ability, or replay-ability.

Not that my endorsement means much. I mean, to try the game or watch the movie, I've already spent the money on it, and my readers don't even number in the double digits as far as I know, so it's not like companies are losing millions because I don't like a game.

But if you can't watch a movie again, or play a game again after the first few times, then it wasn't much to begin with, was it? I mean, you take a movie like transformers 2. I saw it once, and it was ok. Yes, dimitri, I am talking to you, it was ok to watch once. So I notice, it's come on cable several times since then, and I always switch away from it. Well. Unless it's the part where he's at college, that decepticon transformer chick is pretty hot. But I switch after that. Whereas, I have seen Kung Fu Panda like, 75 times. And I will keep watching it. Why? What makes it so much better than transformers 2? Entertainment companies would spend billions trying to find out the answer, but I'm going to sum it up in two words.

Shia Labeouf.

Yes, that's correct. That's what makes one movie watchable over and over again, and another movie you can watch once and then use the DVD as a coaster. Shia Labeouf makes coasters. Jack Black makes heavily used and rewatched DVD's. Daniel craig makes coasters. Pierce Brosnan makes DVD's.

Now I am sure that's not the only reason. Transformers 2 was kind of a bloated gasbag of a movie where the main character, which should have been optimus prime, spent half the movie dead, being carted around by the US military. And we're not talking about in a funny way, like Weekend at Bernies, here. Whereas Kung Fu panda zipped through it's runtime with a constant stream of action or jokes and very little filler, yet had an eminently watchable plot mixed in with funny gags. Plus, let's be honest, the characters in Kung Fu panda were lovable. Whereas, if Shia Labeouf had been slaughtered by a decepticon at some point, I'd have cheered.

So why DO entertainment companies cast annoying losers as main protagonists? Well, I don't think it's because all the good roles have been taken. Maybe it's a resounding lack of qualified actors? I mean, you get people like gene hackman retiring, and you are left with... shia labeouf. I mean, come on, for every gene hackman out there, I am sure there's about 50 shia's, and they are cheaper to get and, I would guess, easier to con into doing piece of crap movies with bad acting and horrible plots. I seriously doubt gene hackman would have consented to acting in transformers 2, you get what I am saying? I mean, who the hell else are they going to cast in the lead role? Nicholas Cage? :-o

Then you get movies like Drag Me To Hell, where you hate the main character so much, you want her stupid ass dragged off to hell and tortured for eternity. They need to make more movies like that, I think. I don't think anyone would mind seeing movies where horrible managers and sexually harassing bosses are beaten and dragged off to hell, right? I mean, shit, think 9 to 5 here, that movie with dolly parton and lily tomlin way back in the 80's. Everyone wants to see their dipshit bosses get their comeuppance! Let's do this with hollywood movie producers getting savaged by demons! We'll use real producers, too, to give it that extra special kick! lol

Eh, but that would be original, and hollywood doesn't do original. Oh well. I tried.

Happy Halloween!

And OHMRAT 2023 ends just as it began.  With a quiet whimper.  Sadly, I had no time this month.  Too busy trying to stay alive.  But, I did ...