More often then not I am plagued by intolerable amounts of boredom. Heaped on that is the fact that I find myself lacking the free time I once had to shoot the breeze and chat about whats happening in the world of books, movies, music and video games… Not only that but it is getting cold and rainy, a perfect time to try something new. So to start this thread, which will hopefully illicit some interesting ideas in the form of comments, I will discuss my latest media experiences…
Books: Just read Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” which sucked, and Bill Bryson’s “A Long Walk in the Woods” which was good, still working on Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe” which is quite dense and taking a long time to read but is still satisfying…
Movie: Has there been any good movies? I can’t even remember watching one in a while…
TV: I watched returning favorites “Veronica Mars” and “Lost” last night and found them to be very entertaining, as well as “Arrested Development” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” which are always good for a laugh. I watched “Everyone Hates Chris” just because it was on google video, and thought it has potential.
Video Games: I went in for some old school loving last week and played “Zelda: a Link to the Past” for the Super Nintendo on my Dreamcast. For me this was much more enjoyable then many new titles, and I liked the fact that I could complete the game without a walk though (I still have to beat Gannon). I also tried another Super Nintendo game “Lufia” which is cool because you play the final boss first as a great warrior of the past, after you “Defeat” him you start over as one of his descendants who realizes he isn’t really dead.
Music: I’ve tried many things but one I really like is Death Cab For Cutie’s “We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes”.
What are you doing with your free time?
Alright I’m in. I’ve been prepping a 05 holiday video game guide for eightandfive, in doing so I’ve been playing a lot of surprisingly good video games the last couple of weeks. Just Tuesday I had the pleasure of purchasing ‘We Love Katamari’ and then coming to my house to find that both ‘Burnout Revenge’ and ‘Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks’ had come to me via Gamefly (netflix for games–and if you don’t have it you should). All three of these are great games (although Burnout Revenge has yet to show itself as fun as its predecessor). If you need a fun co-op game Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks is perhaps the best brawler of all time (excluding Dynasty Warriors). ‘We Love Katamari’ also has some great improvements over the last even though the surprise is gone.
Other entertainment in the Wojciechowski-Prill house has included guilty consumption of absurd reality TV , ‘Biggest Loser’, ‘Nanny 911′, and ‘Max X/Cops/Blind date’. The only other TV I watch is an assload of CNN (Sojo hates it–mostly) and of course LOST, which is freaking awesome in my humble opinion.
I played Combat on a 2600 the other night.
Oh, and I’ve been pulling my hair out to get the December ATV Sport to bed.
Some guy made an emulator for the old LucasArts sorta-RPGs (it’s called ScummVM - sorry, don’t have a link). I’ve been playing The Secret Of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis. I haven’t played those games in years.
This week’s episode of Lost made me want to throw the TV out the window. We learn nothing that could not have been explained in a minute and a half, and the episode ends BEFORE the point where last week’s episode ended. I like the show, but this flashback thing is starting to feel like a major copout.
The flashbacks have taken a wierd turn in that they bring us no closer to understanding anything… The only thing about it was that he gave his exgirlfriend a polor bear, but I think we already knew that. I like the concept that for some reason Locke will be alone in the underground bunker when the alarm goes off and have no idea what numbers to put into the computer. It seems to me to be some kind of challenge and response, like a lo-jack to make sure the Australian doctor doesn’t leave quarantine. And if they don’t put the numbers in will someone come to see whats going on?
I’ve got one thing to do soon, King Kong is coming out and it’s the first movie I’ve been anticipating in about 2 years, HP I will see, but I expect King Kong to be quality.
Another good thing to do now is watch the neo-cons collapse in a steaming pile of corruption, incompetence and bad, bad hair. It’s been some of the most entertaining and vindicating news I’ve ever experienced in my life. Of course I think that its terrible for the country that these assholes are such jerks and I wish is didn’t come down to this (standard I-don’t-hate-America-just-the-people-wrecking-it liberal disclaimer) but I find myself in a wonderful mood of late knowing that there is at least a little justice to be had.
What parts of “Stranger In a Strange Land” did you find the suckiest? I enjoyed the concept of the whole starting a new religion thing…even if the method in which he chose to display it was absurd I liked how everyone mindlessly flocked to the new religion.
Then again, I haven’t read that book in years. I remember the kid-speak “Yes Jubal” which was annoying…and the Grok-speak which was only slightly less annoying.
I saw March of the Penguins today. It is far superior to anything Hollywood has distributed since 1994 or so.