Aleph Ersatz

Well I’ve had a busy month.  I’ve been working crazy hours due to a deadline, and a bunch of other stuff has been going on, so the few hours I do have to blog, I’ve been too damn tired.

I did managed to do alot of stuff in the last month though.

Saw Start Trek and Wolverine, but missed Terminator Salvation.  From what I know, Star Trek was the only one really worth watching.

Knowing more about Wolverine from the original Origins series, I was whole unimpressed with it.  They really twisted and diverged in ways that forced the script into lame-leaping jumps just to fix giant plot holes.  Had they stuck with the original, I would have been much happier.

Star Trek, however, I know little about, and actually thought was pretty good.  Using alternate universes was a good way to totally diverge and reinvent Star Trek, and yet keep the same rough feel.  However the overacting and constant borrowing of lines and plot devices was indeed cheesy, and somehow fitting for the film.  Not sure it was worth the $10 I paid for it, but was still pretty good.

Got my eye on The Hurt Locker, even if it came out a while ago.  Saw a preview in the theater, and looks damn good.

Also managed to see Lucky Number Slevin.  Fucking awesome, head trippy, witty, and the strangest role I’ve ever seen Lucy Lui in.  Brilliant, just brilliant!

Been reading alot.  Need to update the Otaku list a bit, but not much.  Managed to read Fullmetal Alchemist #18 and Kurosagi #9 recently, but that’s about it.  The rest of the time I’ve been plowing through The Talistman and The Zen of Zombie.  The Zen, of course, is an excelent self-help book with some actually real and good ideas for improving your life.  The rest of it is just good old fasioned, brain-eating humour.  Go try it for fourself! Braaiiiiinnnsssss…..

Also have the new Red Dward 3-part mini-series to watch.  Yay!

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On the other side of things, I’ve been working alot lately.  Did a 6-day, 65-hour week last week, and looks like I have another one ahead.  Damn deadlines are killer, especially so when you are two weeks past.

Going to be missing Anime Evolution again this year, and for the second year in a row too!  But will be at the Thunder Rally fund-raiser dance on saturday instead.  Still going to that this September at least.

Have been trying to help and update the Thunder Rally website while the main webmaster is off in Germany, but all I have is read-only access to a SFTP site.  Such a pissoff too, because if I had shell access I could easily fix what I needed.  Now I have to try and contact the webhost, via the webmaster, to get the access I need.

Not sure what else to write, but that’s what I’ve bene up to lately.  Been a lot more I’ve wanted to write on, but been so busy and tired, I always forget.  Hope to get back to it, though.  I hate abandoning projects half way through!

No no, I haven’t forgotten, just been playing too much Left 4 Dead.  If you want to play L4D or Zombie Panic with me, email me and I’ll give you my steam account name.

Saw a couple really good movies recently too…and some bad ones.

Yes Man sucks.  Has some redeming qualities, but not till the last 20 minutes.  Jim Carey is just not funny any more.

Slumdog Millionaire was absolutely amazing.  Powerful story of never giving up no matter how bad things are.  And apparently, in India, if you are poor, things are really bad.  Money runs India, and everyone is corrupt.  The wealth gap is huge, and rights are non-existant.  It’s an eye opener, and heartwarming.  Bring a girlfriend.

Milk was actually really good, although I doubt many people I know would sit through it.  Yes, it’s about gay men, and yes tons of guys are kissing.  If you can’t get past that and enjoy the film for the acting, the story, the lives these people led and waht they accomplished, then too fucking bad for you.

I drove a car for the first time in five years today.  It was a very odd experience.

Twilight sucks.  It’s a chick flick, with extremely awkward vampires.  Except for the Christian Bale-like actor.  He was too smooth.  Yeeesh.

So today it rained, then snowed, then was sunny and decently warm, and is now raining and windy as hell.  I hate this crazy weather!  Where’s my spring! Arg!

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Got a brand new couch and loveseat today from the neighbour.  They were gonna give them away so we got it first.  Finally replaced the old chunk of our sectional and the piss-poor futon-style bed we got from EvilMart.  Not only was the matress damaged from liquid spills (kids) but the frame was shot.  Most of the welds have given out and the crap super-thin wire frame was mostly broken and falling out the bottom.  Got tons of pictures of it, and man, the damage is downright scary.  I can’t beleive we actually used that.

Will post some of the pics later.

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Couple of movies lately have shown up on my radar.  Must remeber to check them out:

• Dragonball Evolution - American butcherization of the classic Anime.  I am scared, and disturbed that they chose that one to brutalize first.
• Watchmen - Considdering how 300 and Sin City were, I’d have to say that Frank Miller comics are excelent and make great move conversions, when done faithfully.  This one appears to be very faithful, so I am intrigued, although I know nothing of the Watchmen series at all…yet.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine - I’ve read the Origin comic, and Wolverine has always been my favourite.  Plus, the X-Men movies aren’t that bad either, but I have yet to see the third one.
• Che (One/Two) - Two directors, one iconic man, one biopic.  I hope it is as good as it sounds, although I seriously do not know enough about Che Guevara as I should, I hope the movie will be accurate enough that I can learn more.

I may actually try to catch Watchmen while it’s in theaters too.  Somewhat rare for me especially now with our spending money hampered.

I spent the day listening to the NIN Victoria HD rip.  Very impressive stuff, and I’ve almost got the fan-made 2 DVD Sacramento video.  I’ve seen some of the guy’s work on youtube, while the editing isn’t great, the film quality is magnificent!

Just watched the vast majority of Elizabeth.  I can’t seem to sit still long enough to enjoy any movie anymore, even a damn excelent one as this!  It may not be totally factual, but it was just magnificent.  The score too brought out some old Mozart, which got me listening to classical a bit again.  So glad I managed to find both of E. S. Posthumus‘ albums!  Their stuff is amazing modern classics, and ha been used in tongs of TV shows and movies!  Very much worth a listen.

I’m sure the bigs news today has been Obama’s Inauguration, but really, I have nothing to say about that.  I’m excited, I’m glad, but it explains itself.  Now we sit back and find out just how much of that was true.  (Albeit, I beleive almost all of it was.)

Around here, things have been very odd.  I tried to get some decent pictures of thee crazy fog we’ve had for almost two weeks, but no luck.  Each night it seems to get thicker, to the point that it becomes almost Silent Hill-eque.  My crazy co-worker, (the partner-in-crime on the desk wrapping), wants to make a Pyramid Head costume and wander around with an air raid siren blaring.  I’d love to help, but the fog will (hoepfully) be gone before this can come to fruition.

I finally found out what “The Gift” from NIN was.  405 gigabyes of raw unedited footages, torrented and hosted for editing and fan-made DVD creation!

They included data from three shows, Sacramento, Portland and …. Victoria!  I do not have the ability to edit, but I am anxiously awaiting the many DVDs and videos that will come.  I ranted and raved about the Lights in the Sky concert when I saw it, and it truly is an experience that deserves a recording to immortalize it in the digital era of cheap pop music.  I am vastly excited, and knowing how the fans are, I’m sure at least one DVD will be made!

Oh, and 320 kbps rips of the Victoria audio!  Getting it now as I post. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X2OTDDIW

than I thought.

It’s amazing how sometimes, things happen that you really want to discuss, blather about, spew forth verbally and nit pick, but you can’t.  They are just too personal, things that you just can’t share with others, but can’t keep inside.  It’s a weird mix, and I find myself a bit conflicted on it all.  But I’m sure things will work out fine.

Three months later, I am still playing Fallout 3.  While I have only “officially” logged 25 hours with my first character, it’s probably been more like 30 - 35.  I like to do things the right way the first time, so I often re-do parts of RPG-esque games a couple of times, to get just the right answer out of the situation.  Plus, it’s fun to play with all the options the first time around, without reprecusion.

Also, the Fallout 3 Editor, G.E.C.K., has been released!  I am extremely happy about this because I enjoyed both adding and making mods for Morrowind.  (Never got far into Oblivion, although I may try to one day.)  Even better, it is an updated version of the Morrowind/Oblivion editor, so I already know how to use most of it.  I am planning on making a few small mods in the future, but no ideas exactly what yet.  Will have to see how far it gets.

Also been wartching alot of movies lately.  Not normal, but most of them were pretty good!  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is actually rather good, but very slow and a bit long.  Definentally a good date movie.

Amazing film, simpy brilliant.  I <strong>must</strong> read the book now!

If you like the Die Hard movies, Live Free or Die Hard is definentally worth seeing.  It’s good old John McClane saving the world and cracking smart ass jokes along the way, as usual.  Although this time he gets a geek pro hacker sidekick he gets to draw along for the ride.

Good fun.

On monday I took the whole fam-damily to the movies to see the monstorous advertising campaign that is: Shrek 3.  I had well prepared myself by watching Shrek 2, with my good friends Coke and Bacardi.  I really liked the first Shrek and thought it was great, but knowing most trilogies spawned by sales figures, I wasn’t expecting much.  Baring that, I have to admin that Shrek 2 was quite good, not quite as good as the first, but definentally a quality family movie none-the-less.

With the second movie freshly in my mind, I partook in the viewing of the third movie, with my neck craned up as the front row was the only place where we could get four steats side-by-side.  Now despite the bad viewing angle, I still managed to watch and enjoy the movie.  However, it is pretty much the same as the second movie, except with a different plot.  The jokes are pretty much similar, the apex is similar, the points about believing in yourself are similar.  (Despite the fact that Shrek refuses to be King because he doesn’t believe he can.  Smart ogre?  Hypocrite?)

I will give Dreamworks props for the most creative use of a Led Zeppelin song in a movie I’ve seen thusfar.  But I will  also wave my parental finger of shame at them for throwing a Hooters reference into a family movie.

Overall it was a good movie, but just another Shrek movie.  A good movie to rent or *cough* borrow (via the internet) at some point, bot not worth the $9+ movie ticket price by any means.  Unless, of course, you are babysitting children, then I would call it 2 hours well spent.