Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Serious nerd talk

I've been lax on my posting I know, but I've been busy. Not doing anything constructive, but busy nonetheless. I'll start with my Star Trek movie update. I'm up to the seventh Trek and they have been up and down. Wrath of Khan is a work of genius and I really dug the Search for Spock as well. But it's a bit spotty after that.

The Voyage Home annoys me with all the time travelling, save the whales, we're in the 80s nonsense and The Final Frontier was even worse. Just dreadful. The sixth movie, The Undiscovered Country was pretty damn good. Definitely worth seeing. But it was followed by Generations, which puts both the original cast in a movie with the Next Generation cast and there was too much going on. That's as far as I've gotten. Only three more to go.

In other movie news, I saw Angels and Demons and that was ok. Not great, but worth catching at some time. I'm gonna see the new Terminator tomorrow, but I have low expectations. Still my nerd cred requires that I go see it because it has robots smashing stuff.

Trip and I have been playing UFC Undistputed quite a bit. Last week I owned him so hard he threw up... ok that's a lie, but he did get all mad and walk out. Which is awesome. You have truly pwned someone when they have to leave the room. Reminded me of how I riled Adam up at Call of Duty 4 when we were seeing the Skins-Cowboys game in DC.

Sadly this week Trip's skills have improved somewhat and I didn't get to molest him as much, but I definitely gave better than I got. I took Rashad Evans and pounded Rampage into a fine paste on the mat.

Also the Penguins are bringing the pain to Carolina and I've loving it. Been watching a lot of the Pens this year. Those guys are deadly. Malkin, Crosby, Fleury, Gonchar, Satan. Good quality. The way it's looking now it could be a repeat of last year's Stanley Cup final. Hopefully with a different end result.

Monday, May 18, 2009

From Hell's heart

I'm exhausted, once again. Nothing new I suppose. It's a regular thing. But on top of it I'm feeling down. General malaise I suppose. This week wasn't particularly bad, actually. Just one of my weird mood swings.

Anyway I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture, (the first of my voyage into Star Trek's cinematic legacy) which I had heard was terribly dull. It was definitely slow paced. The director, Robert Wise, was clearly influenced by Solaris and 2001. Ponderously slow plot, expansive outer space and alien vistas. Also there was a nigh fetishistic focus on the Enterprise, which was clearly just fan service. All in all it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great.

As we speak I'm watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. A great movie I haven't seen in years. More on that later.

I'm reading Neil Stephenson's Anathem, which is anything but a quick read. I've been getting caught up in some long tomes of late. I'm about halfway through and it's getting easier to parse, but it took some serious plowing initially to get all the terms down. You gotta want it.

I'm picking up the new UFC game this week and looking forward to that. It may even break me out of my Plants vs. Zombies addiction. Ohh and I game I picked up a while back on the cheap, but forgot to mention. I bought the new Techmo Bowl game for the DS. It's... ok. Not great. Plays pretty much the same as the old one, but lacks the actual NFL teams. Seems kinda like it's been lost in time and came back without any new developments and sans it's original draw. All in all, it's pretty forgettable.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Boldy going where tons of nerds have gone before

Saw the Star Trek movie with Trip tonight and I loved it. I've always been somewhat ambivalent about Star Trek, I think it's got some cool stuff going on, but it's also got a lot of strikes against it. The first being the sad ubergeek fanbase. Also it seemed significantly less cool that Star Wars when I was a kid. Of course, the prequels have done everything they can to erode that good will.

So I've decided to take a new look at Star Trek and give it a shot. I've queued up all ten of the previous movies and will be watching them as time allows. I'll keep you posted on how that's going and if my interest wanes. The first should probably come in Wednesday. If this keeps my interest I may look into watching the series... but that's a lot to do and I'm not sure if I got that in me.

As for the new movie, see it. Even if you don't care about Star Trek it's still a pretty good summer action movie. I like the new cast and really was impressed with how they explained the new continuity. I'm usually annoyed with time travel deus ex machina explanations, but this one works for me. The special effects rock. Certain scenes in outer space just take your breathe away. The only downside was the row of dipshits behind me providing idiot commentary. "That's Tyler Perry!!" No shit. He sucks and you suck for liking him... now shut the fuck up and let me watch the movie you fucktard.

Moving on I continue to be totally hooked on Plants vs. Zombies. I actually have it running in the background now as I type this. I'm it's slave. But I think I'm going to try to tear myself away from it and get into Resident Evil 5, which I got from Gamefly. Also need to work on Dead Space.

I also need to finish Of Human Bondage, which just doesn't seem to want to end. It's good, but I'm on page 600 and it's got some real downer moments. Still it is wonderfully written and worth the effort.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Working with an asset

And so the weekend comes to an end again. Sad. I've had some adventure. Waking up with a blue tongue and blue phlegm. A lovely feeling. Can't thank my neighbors enough. I'm stunned. Trip accused me of blowing Smurfs, but I usually just stick to the Keebler Elves.

Anyway, what's kept me occupied these last coupla days has been Plants vs. Zombies, which is a new Popcap game. I'd recommend it to anyone. There is a free demo and you can actually buy it for $10 through Steam. It's worth $30 at least.

I also powered my way through season 1 of Chuck and over half of Season 2 of Burn Notice. Both are very good. Chuck leans more toward the funny (and nerdy) and I think I may prefer it overall, but Burn Notice is a good watch as well. I mean it's got Bruce Campbell in it, how can it be bad?

I suppose that's it. I thought I had more to say, but I can't for the life of me remember it. Ohh right, now I remember. I was gonna talk about how my memory seems to be going. I was on the phone with Gabe the other day talking about whatever. I started looking around the desk looking for my phone and freaked when I couldn't find it. Of course, it was obviously not on the desk, it was in my hand. I told Gabe and he just laughed at my dumb ass. Who can blame him. Should a 34-year-old be having senior moments like that? Yesh.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Zombie attack down under

Good clean undead fun

Output suffering

I've noticed that I'm currently on pace to have even fewer blogs this year than I have in years past. I'm not really thrilled by my current tendency to put off blogging for a week and then hammer my poor readers (is it even plural now?) with a leviathan post that amount to cliffnotes of all the entertainment I've been perusing. But, honestly, my life is not set up like it once was and blogging is suffering for it. I used to never be that far from a net enabled computer and could post on a moment's notice. Now my job doesn't really allow for that. It's a problem that's not going to be solved anytime soon, so I guess I'll continue in the limited fashion allowed me and try to supplement with Twitter.

Anyway, I saw the Wolverine movie tonight. I wasn't disappointed, but my expectations were pretty low. It had some cool concepts, but wasn't what I'd call well done. Some plot points just hammered in there to drive home the continuity with the first XMen movie. Definitely not up to the standard set by last year's Hulk and Iron Man movies.

Quantum of Solace was a bit better, in my opinion. I watched that Sunday night. I'd heard lots of people saying it wasn't great, but watchable and I'd say it's a little better than that. The plot is kinda thin, but I'm not typically looking for that kind of depth from a Bond movie. So overall I enjoyed it. I like the "closer to reality" route they've taken with the Daniel Craig reboot.

Reading-wise has been slow going as I'm wading through W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. It's long and has some real depth, but I'm loving it. It's nice to pepper in the occasional classic with all the pulp drivel I spend so much time reading.