Scroll down on the Amazon product page to spot the stealthy web meme in the wild. Of course: Screenshot...or it never happened.
Via NeoGAF, of course.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
The Wii's Best Feature
Scroll down on the Amazon product page to spot the stealthy web meme in the wild. Of course: Screenshot...or it never happened.
Via NeoGAF, of course.
Road trips and music
My favorite part of a road trip is scanning the radio for music that I don't usually listen to. (classic rock and country) I also almost always catch "One Burbon, One Scotch, and One Beer" which is a great driving tune. That song even makes cars on cruise control go a little faster. Anyway, Karri and I found this country song with an almost EMO layer to it. As far as I am concerned she is another reason to flirt with country every once in awhile. Waters may like her because she is under 18.
(Dock, you were correct that my last post was a set up. This one is legit.)
Thanks for the word I was looking for, Gus. Changed it to EMO.
(Dock, you were correct that my last post was a set up. This one is legit.)
Thanks for the word I was looking for, Gus. Changed it to EMO.
Summer Movies: The First Wave
I'll take a momentary break from shoving Hot Fuzz down your throats to talk about some of the other movies I saw this week. I initially wanted to see five movies in five days, but the wife and I lost steam after three. Here are some impressions:
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: This movie cashes in the last little bit of goodwill the first movie bought merely by not sucking. I'm not sure why I like the director, Gore Verbinski. He, after all, dumbed down one of my favorite J-horror flicks. But he's got a talent for cartoony nonsense. The set pieces in his debut Mousehunt had a Rube Goldberg quality to them. There are few moments of senseless anarchy in At Worlds End, but most of the movie is just senseless. Plot threads dangle, peter out and fizzle left and right. And I'd personally like to keelhaul the genius who thought that multiple Jack Sparrows would somehow exponentially magnify the character's charm.
Knocked Up: My nerd friends in Northern California were also reluctant to see this movie. I reassured them, as I do you, that the trailers do not do it justice. If anything the movie is vulgar. But more importantly it's smart, cutting and surprisingly honest. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (director Apatow's wife) play a married couple with kids whose fights ring as true as any I've seen in ages. They're all simmering passive aggression punctuated by blink and you miss 'em barbs. Rudd's character is suffering the death of a thousand cuts -- a fate all the more tragic in that all he and his wife need do is actually talk. Don't get me wrong, this is all B-story I'm talking about. The main plot is all about stupid kids making stupid decisions. And, like most paths we walk, they still tend to come out okay. And Mike, the director of your favorite comedy of all time, Harold Ramis, makes a solid cameo. That movie, at its heart, was a movie about love, youth and reproduction as well, wasn't it?
Triad Election: Johnny To is at the forefront of the current Chinese gangster film revival. He's eschewing the operatic gunplay and complicated man-on-man relationships of John Woo for a more languid approach. This, actually the second in a series, continues on the theme of mob leadership with heads of crews lobbying to be the unifying capo of Hong Kong's diverse and colorful crime groups. One reluctant wise guy, Jimmy Lee, wants to go straight and make a mint developing land in mainland China. Wouldn't you know it? They keep pulling him back in. Triad Election hits all the notes already played by the likes of The Godfather or Scarface, but sometimes all you need is a little change of scenery to make an old story worth re-telling.
Black Book: I've come to terms with the fact that people just don't get Starship Troopers. There's nothing confusing about Black Book. It's a sharply made World War II thriller about a Jewish woman who joins the Dutch resistance after her family is gunned down by Nazis. Verhoven comes down against tyranny of all kinds (his own countrymen get their due) and he does so in his trademark way. He challenges the audience at every turn to rethink their morality. He paints an SS commander as human. He pushes violence, sensuality and cruelty in the audience's face with an unflinching honesty that I can't help but admire. He's also got a soot-black sense of humor. The wife and I were the only two people laughing in a scene when a pacifist member of the resistance, a devout Christan rightfully reluctant to take lives, finally snaps and unloads his gun in the back of a sympathizing scumbag. Murder is never funny, but when he uses his victim's last words -- blasphemy against God -- as rationalization for vengeance the moment felt too cathartic to respond in any other way. Life is just fucked up that way. If you're sick of movies with happy endings this one is for you. The heroine's ordeal under German occupation eventually gives way to a depressing kind of victory -- a life behind Israeli barbed wire and battlements.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: This movie cashes in the last little bit of goodwill the first movie bought merely by not sucking. I'm not sure why I like the director, Gore Verbinski. He, after all, dumbed down one of my favorite J-horror flicks. But he's got a talent for cartoony nonsense. The set pieces in his debut Mousehunt had a Rube Goldberg quality to them. There are few moments of senseless anarchy in At Worlds End, but most of the movie is just senseless. Plot threads dangle, peter out and fizzle left and right. And I'd personally like to keelhaul the genius who thought that multiple Jack Sparrows would somehow exponentially magnify the character's charm.
Knocked Up: My nerd friends in Northern California were also reluctant to see this movie. I reassured them, as I do you, that the trailers do not do it justice. If anything the movie is vulgar. But more importantly it's smart, cutting and surprisingly honest. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (director Apatow's wife) play a married couple with kids whose fights ring as true as any I've seen in ages. They're all simmering passive aggression punctuated by blink and you miss 'em barbs. Rudd's character is suffering the death of a thousand cuts -- a fate all the more tragic in that all he and his wife need do is actually talk. Don't get me wrong, this is all B-story I'm talking about. The main plot is all about stupid kids making stupid decisions. And, like most paths we walk, they still tend to come out okay. And Mike, the director of your favorite comedy of all time, Harold Ramis, makes a solid cameo. That movie, at its heart, was a movie about love, youth and reproduction as well, wasn't it?Triad Election: Johnny To is at the forefront of the current Chinese gangster film revival. He's eschewing the operatic gunplay and complicated man-on-man relationships of John Woo for a more languid approach. This, actually the second in a series, continues on the theme of mob leadership with heads of crews lobbying to be the unifying capo of Hong Kong's diverse and colorful crime groups. One reluctant wise guy, Jimmy Lee, wants to go straight and make a mint developing land in mainland China. Wouldn't you know it? They keep pulling him back in. Triad Election hits all the notes already played by the likes of The Godfather or Scarface, but sometimes all you need is a little change of scenery to make an old story worth re-telling.
Black Book: I've come to terms with the fact that people just don't get Starship Troopers. There's nothing confusing about Black Book. It's a sharply made World War II thriller about a Jewish woman who joins the Dutch resistance after her family is gunned down by Nazis. Verhoven comes down against tyranny of all kinds (his own countrymen get their due) and he does so in his trademark way. He challenges the audience at every turn to rethink their morality. He paints an SS commander as human. He pushes violence, sensuality and cruelty in the audience's face with an unflinching honesty that I can't help but admire. He's also got a soot-black sense of humor. The wife and I were the only two people laughing in a scene when a pacifist member of the resistance, a devout Christan rightfully reluctant to take lives, finally snaps and unloads his gun in the back of a sympathizing scumbag. Murder is never funny, but when he uses his victim's last words -- blasphemy against God -- as rationalization for vengeance the moment felt too cathartic to respond in any other way. Life is just fucked up that way. If you're sick of movies with happy endings this one is for you. The heroine's ordeal under German occupation eventually gives way to a depressing kind of victory -- a life behind Israeli barbed wire and battlements.
Uh-oh, our politicians have found faith again.
And suprise suprise it is in the context of a campaign. I didn't watch last night's Democrat debate and I am not watching tonights Republican debate either. I am just wondering if anyone else noticed all the news accounts of politicians and thier faiths today. I bring this up because I am once again in the unenviable position of deciding which party I am going to let take advantage of me for having a faith myself.
No not really.
You see while AVK just learned that I don't think people always do stuff for money I am almost 100% sure politicians only do things for votes during campaigns.
I am once again leaning towards just voting pocketbook. ;)
No not really.
You see while AVK just learned that I don't think people always do stuff for money I am almost 100% sure politicians only do things for votes during campaigns.
I am once again leaning towards just voting pocketbook. ;)
Monday, June 4, 2007
Atheists With Attitude
Christopher Hitchens' latest book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, has been getting a decent amount of press lately. A couple weeks ago The New Yorker surveyed several books rooting for the death of faith in the long-form review "Atheists With Attitude" by Anthony Gottlieb.To me the most interesting part of the story is the way the writer looks to Hume as perhaps the most effective proponent of secularism. The writer suggests that Hume's softball approach converted more souls (a spoonful of sugar to help the oblivion go down) than Hitchens' venoml or Dawkins' haughty intellectualism will ever woo.
The second review comes by way of one of my favorite cartoonists, Tony Millionaire. His one-page strip "God Is A Big Jerk" lets a little more air out of Hitchen's puffed shirt. Tony unpacks the strip a bit more in this blog post, where he adds "I also hate his stupid little American flag pin."
Who doesn't?
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
Respawning Monsters :(
I don't know how many of you are playing Etrian Odyssey. But FOEs are the game's wandering monsters. They're mean, strong and can join a battle all ready in progress. Ugly. Apparently FOE stands for Foedus Obrepit Errabundus, or foul wandering creature who sneaks up for surprise buttsehx. The first FOE in the game is the Ragelope, who many gamers have already nicknamed Rapelope. If you plan on exploring the labyrinth bring your own lube.
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