Entertainment tidbits
I just finished
Grim Fandango the other day. Awesome awesome game. I'm sad to see the game end.
I finished
Call of Duty 2 on veteran (difficulties: easy, normal, hardened, veteran). I'm not sad to see the end to this game.
Watched Brokeback Mountain the other day. Good Show. I don't see why straight guys are so uptight about it; you see way more dick in your average porno.
Watched Crash. It was good (potentially great) and then it just went completely downhill. Don't watch this piece of shit.
Since I've watched Brokeback and Crash, I decided to watch the other best picture nominees (Capote, Munich, Good Night and Good Luck).
More on the first four topics later when I feel like writing some more.
TV reviews
Freaks and Geeks
This show doesn’t deserve the critical acclaim. The show is somewhat more realistic than your average teen drama, but this show still plays up the stereotypes. Too many stories go nowhere and for the most part, the stories are weak standalones (I strongly prefer story arcs). The geeks are sad people and if you’re rooting for them, well my friend, you’re going be a loser for the rest of your life just like those geeks. The freaks are the only reason this show doesn’t completely suck. However, the main freak (Lindsay played by Linda Cardellini) suffers from lackluster writing. The main problem is the lack of motives given for Lindsay’s actions. I don’t necessarily need the situation to be spelled out for me, but the show doesn’t even really imply anything leaving me to speculate. Cardellini and James Franco (Harry Osbourne in the spiderman films) stand out in the cast.
Not recommended.
Desperate Housewives
I’ve only watched the first season. It’s pretty good at the beginning, but rapidly lost steam as the season progressed. The show recovered somewhat by the end of season, but I have my doubts for the second season. The overarching storyline for the season (the death of Mary Alice) suffers from:
- Bad pacing. You could skip right to the season finale and not miss that much
- 1 gigantic plot hole that really irked me. Why why why in the hell does Paul dig that stupid ass box from under the swimming pool? Wouldn’t it be smarter to leave the box hidden?
Actress pecking order
Lynette (Felicity Huffman) – By far, the best actress and the most interesting storylines. Her inability to control her kids can be somewhat annoying and repetitive.
Bree (Marcia Cross) – Alright as the anal retentive Martha Steward acolyte, but the anal retentiveness is in danger of becoming stale.
Much lower on the pecking order
Edie (Nicolette Sheridan) – No range, but Sheridan works well as Edie. I like the Susan/Edie tension and strange situations that these 2 get into.
Susan (Teri Hatcher) – Meh. Best actress in a comedy my ass. Her slapstick is sort of funny at first, but it becomes old in record time. She looks old even with the makeup. Good thing I don’t have HDTV.
Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) – Her entire acting range consists of bitchy and whiny. “Poor little rich girl” stories just didn’t appeal to me. I also don’t find her that hot.
Moderate recommendation.
24
Just watched the first season. I don’t know why I’ve slept on this show for so long because this is an awesome show. Most episodes have mini cliffhangers prior to commercial break and most shows end in intriguing cliffhangers. Very good use of split screen as scene lead ins.
Exceptional continuity. I do mean exceptional. Example: people don’t magically teleport from location to location, but instead an appropriate amount of time passes before they arrive at their destination. Actually, people do travel a bit on the quick side, but it’s forgivable given the time constraints. I can also forgive the fact that most of the characters operate at peak efficiency despite the massive stress and sleep deprivation. Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) is such a bad ass. All of the characters were interesting and well developed. Terri Bauer was somewhat annoying at the end of the season and I kinda hope they get rid of her. I really hope they get rid of Sherry Palmer.
I'm not sure about the massive plot twist at the end of the season. I might have to rewatch and skim over older episodes to see if the twist holds up.
Leftovers
Ok. I need to start on a big ol’ post queue so I’m going to clear out all of the loose ideas that I wrote down
- Here are the stats from a match in Fight Night: Round 2
120-108, 117-111, 116-114
All in favour of me.
Punch Stats for the fight
Me: 636/670 for 80%
Computer: 326/1315 for 24%
Did I mention I was playing on the hard? (3 difficulties: easy, normal, hard) In comparison, in real life, the record for punches landed is 555 and anything over a 60% connect rate is incredible. Although it was a close fight, I have also used a featherweight (126lbs) to beat a heavyweight (190lbs+). Realistic game eh?
- Gatti/Ward I. Watch round 9. You’d swear you were watching a video game or a Rocky movie. No surprise it was fight of year according Ring magazine. Emanuel Steward called it the round of the century. What an amazing fight.
- Laugh tracks really really bother me now. Nothing is unfunnier than laugh track laughter when the joke doesn’t work. However, some shows do make good use of laugh tracks (ie. Red Dwarf)
- Power Rangers managed to churn out 418 episodes. It’s pretty damn impressive for a kid’s show and more impressive considering the fickle nature of young uns.
- The game over screen for Final Fantasy 6 scares the crap out of me. I’m not sure why. Probably because they look so helpless
- Ronnie Coleman. Either a) he’s on roids, HGH, whatever or b) one of his parents fucked a gorilla
- At my government job in Penticton, I admit to taking some extra stationery from the supply room. I’m strangely fascinated with gel pens that don’t leak onto the other side of the page.
- As a kid I wanted to beat the out crap out of the following fictional characters
1) The kids that harassed Dumbo, which forced Dumbo’s mom to open a can of whoop-ass.However, Dumbo’s mom ended up getting locked up because of this outburst, leaving poor Dumbo without a mom. Fucking kids
2) Elmo. Stupid Elmo was really annoying poor ol’ Bert.
- In grade 6, we regularly mocked the Christian school soccer team during recess and lunch because we thought they sucked badly (their school was right beside our school). Eventually our two schools played each other. My school’s soccer team was really big so we had an A, B, and C team. Yes, the letter was indicative of the skill of the team. Me and the rest of the A team played first and we jumped out to an early lead (2-0) before switching off. The B and C teams then screwed badly up costing us the victory. I suppose this was God’s way of punishing us.
Daily Musings
I ended up lying down for some sleep at 8 am-ish. Luckily through a combination of my mom and alarm clock, I woke up at 9 am ish rather than in the afternoon. For the time being my sleep cycle is normal.
I’ve hit a wall in Grim Fandango and I’ve convinced myself not to cheat and read a guide. According to all of the game reviews, the puzzle solutions are logical and so far, they have been. Actually I read a FAQ for a puzzle in the first section of the game and I feel awful for doing so. It was a multi part puzzle and I had figured out every part except for one part. I had an idea about the remaining part, but I gave up way too soon. Anyways, I’m flat out stuck right now and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out from using a guide. Basically my key item is a picture of this cat race and I can’t figure whether I’m supposed to show the picture to someone or to generate a fake betting stub based on details on the picture. For latter, I need three bits of info: race #, week and day. Unfortunately, the stupid picture only has two numbers, 6 & 6. There is also a plaque that mentions a race in week 2. Anyhow, I’ve tried many combinations of (race 6, week 6, day X) and (race 6, week 2, day 6 = Saturday), but no combination works. I’ve spoken to everyone, and presented each inventory item to them, yet I’ve come up empty handed. If I'm still stuck after a week of concentrated play, I think I'll just cheat and save myself time.
I realized that I was late for my job for Penticton which started today. I threw on some clothes and ran out into the back alleys of Vancouver. How would my boss react when I’d call it sick? I thought about the Greyhound that I needed to catch ASAP and I wondered if I could make it to Penticton in time. I started panicking and I wondered how I managed to screw up again. I thought about the serious repercussions this would have on my career. Then I woke up and after a few panicky moments, I realized it was just one awful dream.
Mild insomnia. Sorta
It's 4:54am and I can't really fall asleep, so I decided to take drastic measures to fix my sleep cycle. I woke up at 2pm sunday afternoon and I don't plan on sleeping until after the finish of game 7 later tonight. The last time (a couple of weeks ago) I tried a plan like this, I ended up getting drowsy at 8-9ish and had to sleep for a 1-2 hours, which quickly turned into about 6 hours or 3pm-ish thus maintaining the sleep status quo. Hopefully I can hold on this time. Time to play Grim Fandango in the meantime.
Jim Lampley is a bitch
Why
a)
For his idiotic remarks on mixed martial artsb) His horrible biased play by play. During Winky-Taylor, he would act like Taylor was landing hard blows when in reality, Taylor was hitting Winky's gloves. I haven't watched enough HBO boxing to say more, but a lot of people would say he's horribly biased in most fights (according to a forum I read).
Movie Musings
Watched Annie Hall the other day (I actually bought the DVD. A hunch really). Strange surreal film that doesn't follow the usual conventions of film making. Snappy dialogue. Overall I'd say I liked it, but it's something you'd have to watch at least twice. I can see why this film won best picture over Star Wars.
Watched Shawshank Redemption. Wow. One of the best ever? Well it depends on what I feel after some more time passes. It can be on the melodramatic side at the end, but it never really bothered me.
Watched a clip of the new ECW. Unlike the old ECW, I realized that WWE wasn't going to shell out for licensed music, which is really a huge shame. The entrance music in the old ECW really added to the anti establishment feel.
The cool entrance themes that I remember:
Tommy Dream: Alice in Chains - Man in the box
Raven: The Offspring - Come Out and Play (Keep 'Em Separated)
New Jack: Dr Dre and Ice Cube - Natural Born Killaz (this would be played during the entire match)
Rob Van Dam: Pantera - Walk
Never seen this one, but I'd imagine it must've been a riot.
Steve Austin: Andrew Lloyd Weber - Jesus Christ Superstar
Of course, the best one was definitely
Sandman: Metallica - Enter Sandman
The same sequence would happen every single time. The first chords of Enter Sandman would garner a huge pop from the crowd. Then the Sandman would appear somewhere in the audience with beers and cigarettes in hand. The Sandman would down a couple of beers and smash a couple of beer cans on his forehead. Then he'd finally hit the ring after 1-2 minutes. Fans usually ate this stuff up.
Catcher in the Rye
Read it in grade 10. I didn't like it. I think it's grossly overrated.
Mmmm......grease (Food musings)
I had the Wendy's triple burger combo the other day. A classmate called the burger "intense". I beg to differ. Well it was fairly filling, but I could've at least done two of those combos. The burger itself was pretty good. I'd had to side with Derek: Wendys is the best fast food restaurant. A&W or Burger King would be my second favorite. But many times, it's strange how I'd go to Mcdicks just to save literally a buck or two. Scratch that. When I was in Penticton, I think I went to Wendys more often than Mcdicks. I lived in the central part of town and there were *so* many restaurants in close proximity.
I had a 12 oz steak last month. I think 48 oz would be a more realistic challenge for me. But geez, I'd imagine that would be ~$100. 60 oz is too intimidating for me; maybe if I survive 48 oz.
It really boggles my mind how people in Vanier/Totem had cafeteria points leftover at the end of the year. I didn't go to Hubbards that much and I went to Safeway to pick some extras (mostly a 4L milk) once a week. Yet, somehow I was buying like $300-700 extra points at the end of the year.
My metabolism died around grade 11 (trust me, it did) and I suppose I would be a complete lard boy without any discipline.
Pwnage.
We got our asses kicked in ultimate today. It was very frustrating. Everyone played below their potential. Especially moi.
Played and won 2 games of dota today. I was dominated in the first game (11-3) and although I struggled in the second game (13-11), I felt I was vital to our team's success (107 min game).
I suppose that is the universe's way of balancing things out.
Daily Musings
- I've been writing in forums as of late except I find the whole process to be very aggravating. People tend to be either a) very very very very stupid b) trolls or c) fanboys that just cannot be swayed. So I think I'll just use forums to ask questions from now on.
- Oh yeah, I also finished
Ninja Gaiden (NES) without using save states. Yay me. I was able to string together that perfect run to finish stage 6 and the three end bosses (if you die against the boss, you are sent back to the start of the stage). Technically I used a save state to get to stage 6-2, but that was more of a time saving measure. I could easily get to stage 6-2 in about 20 - 60 minutes.
- Also I managed to string together a good run and finished the infamous level 3 of
Battletoads. Actually, I don't think the stage is that hard aside from the end of the fourth section. Afterwards I started abused save states like no tomorrow, but I just can't get past this stage called "Rat Races" even with save states. This game is simply way too hard. According to people on the forum, I'm a scrub for even suggesting the game is ridiculously hard.
You go backwards but then you go forwards
You go backwards but then you go forwards again
During congregation, I was standing in the line to the Chan Center staring at my degree. It felt like an eternity since my high school graduation (June 9, 2001) and here I was at my UBC graduation (May 30, 2006). Overall, I wouldn’t necessarily call the last five years the happiest days of my life, but I definitely had a lot of fun. There were many difficult and challenging periods that I wouldn’t have survived without the help & support of my peers, friends and family.
So I’d like to thank: Marian, the Lugs (Derek, Victor, Rich, Jowen), Doris, Conrad, Winnie, Zach, Jeff, Lloyd, Susan, Will & Steve, Nima, Mohit, Dale, Kyle, Bruce, Leo, Alan, Mak, Crazy Jon, Nubby & Courtenay, Eddy, Greg, Jimbo, Andreas, Jason B, Erikson & Tim & Jacky, Alvaro A, Brian, Henry, Scott, Tyler, Winton, Anthony, Charlene M, Linda, Salman, John Drover, Rosa & Andre, Linda Stocker, Sammi, Noreen Kamal, Michelle Lachmann, the Eng Fizz ultimate team (the Fizzbees) and hell I thank Madjid for not failing me in CHBE 346. I’m sorry if I missed anyone.
And of course, my cousins Ky & Chan, Uncle Sam, Aunt Lydia & Han and my parents.
Why post this? Geez, what if I got hit by a bus tomorrow? I thought my parents might’ve gotten in car accident the other day because, despite having work the next day, they didn’t get home until 1:30-2:00 am-ish. Turns out they took the bus back from the night market and managed to catch one of the last buses. My mom said I had a dirty mouth for suggesting the above. My dad just laughed.
