On-Line Gaming

At the onset of the new year I made a few decisions about how I'll live life for the next 365 days, one of which being I was going to spend more time gaming online. Now it is true that the very act of playing Warcraft is an online experience but I much prefer the calmer PvE (Player vs Environment) servers where I can pit myself against technology instead of other people, I have also spent some time in PvP battlegrounds and playing multi player shooters like Left 4 Dead, but all in all I'd rather enjoy a campaign against a machine than deal with other people I mean, c'mon, at the end of the day that's why I play video games, to get away from people.

To this end I'm going to start participating in more PUGS (Pick Up Groups), I'm currently trying to level a Priest doing nothing but battlegrounds, and I intend to not only log more Steam time with Left 4 Dead 1 + 2, I'm also intending on getting online with Bioshock 2 and hopefully Dead Rising 2.

To date I have had a wide mix of experiences doing this, some good, some bad, a few neutral, but I think I've benefited from them all. I may like solitude and want to continue in it, but realistically I can't hide in it forever, so I may as well embrace it in a form I'm comfortable with, digitized data.It's good to get outside your comfort zone occasionally, it's the only way you'll grow.

By the by, this won't include more time on Facebook or a Twitter account, they're both bastardized forms of emotional crutches and I would encourage everyone to seriously analyze why they spend time there.

Movie Review: Legion

Last night I had the opportunity to see the movie Legion and thought I would give a review for it. Let me start by saying I liked the movie, it wasn't a mind altering cinematic experience or the best movie I've ever seen, but it was a good time. This won't be a spoiler review so go ahead and read it; to be fair, the plot isn't complex enough to spoil anyway.

I took some time to read a couple reviews at www.imdb.com, I have to remember to talk about the pure douchery of most people who comment and review on IMDB someday, and I saw a theme that I believe will plague this movie and ultimately lead to it going down as a flop, a flaw with the marketing in my opinion. Let me start by saying this is not a supernatural horror or even thriller, despite the demonic overtones the trailers and TV commercials try to lend it, this is ultimately an action movie, albeit an undertoned one. In all honesty this is much closer to a zombie movie, and that's why I liked it, it was a high impact zombie movie.

Basically God has decided that the human race isn't worth his love (kind of flies in the face of the whole "Being of Infinite Love" thing) and has decided to kill everyone. To that end he has sent his angels, most specifically after the unborn child of a waitress in a truckstop who, for reasons never explained or justified has the savior of mankind in her womb. One angel refuses the order and comes to protect her, along the way forsaking his angelic powers, something that would have been very handy for the fight to come.

For some reason, also never explained, almost none of the angels can come to earth in person, they instead possess humans and use their bodies to carry out the will of god, and thus the battle begins. More than a few plot holes, but almost all can be forgiven or even justified, but that's the type of thing that kills movies popularity. They could have spent more time explaining things and a little less philosophizing about the existence of man, but they were trying to make a point, albeit one that wasn't well served for a zombie action movie.

Go see this movie if you like action and zombie movies, not either or but both zombie AND action, and see it for three other reasons : 1. watch another Dennis Quaid movie, I mean seriously, how can you not like this dude and, 2 and 3. Kate Walsh's rack! Seriously, I don't remember ever seeing her in any other movies, but any shot with her leaning over something was enough to captivate me for at least another 20 minutes.

So there you have it, do not watch it for a horror, thriller, action, or religious movie, although all those elements are present, watch it to see a demonic take on angels leading to a zombie defense movie, Dennis Quaid doing what he does best, and Kate Walsh's sweater puppies.

Best Game of 2009

2009 wasn't what I would call a stellar year for gaming, most of the games I was looking forward to got pushed off until this year, early 2010, and the rest ended up kind of flopping.

If you want to know the single game I spent the most time with last year I don't think there's any question that it would be World of Warcraft, however I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. Having said that, I can't say it was the most fun, to be quite honest the game turns into a bit of work at times, grinding professions and quests to get to the high points. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game and well worth playing, but not the outright pure fun that you might imagine.

As for shooters, I actually spent a lot of time playing Call of Duty 2, however I did find the time and means to get into Left 4 dead 2, a great game, but not ground breaking enough to really warrant a lot of talk. A really solid game, no question about it, and the melee weapon were a great addition, along with the new special infected, however it made the first one feel like more of an expanded beta than a real game, and in the end I miss Bill and Francis damn it!

I think for a good fun game that kills endless hours with a decent price tag there was only one game released last year that truly fits that bill, Plants vs Zombies. The game was just good; easy to learn, fun to play, engaging, suitable for any age group, and totally without pretension. Top that off with the most entertaining music video I've seen since the 1980's (The Guild video doesn't count, it's a totally different animal, a class all it's own if you will) and you've got a winner. I had to complete the game in order to get to view it, but for you're pleasure here it is:

Google vs China

With Darcy gone this week, I figured I'd make a second post, this time on a real issue, not something often done here, but relevant nonetheless. Google, in a response to what they claim was an attack from inside China, has stopped censoring their searches in accordance with Chinese guidelines. How noble of them.

First off I have to say that it disgusts me to think that in this day and age we have government agencies deciding what information people can and cannot have access to. We're not talking about how to create date rape drugs or where to pick up children, we're talking about public events that the Chinese government doesn't want their own population to know about; searches on things like Tibet are not allowed for gods sake, that's paramount to not being able to Google Afghanistan here in Canada or, even better analogy, Iraq in the United States. Some people say information is power, but I say it's life, and everyone is entitled to life.

Having said that, lets not forget who and what Google is. The can preach about the ethics and censorship all they want, but they're not doing anything out of the goodness of their corporate hearts. If Google is taking moral high ground you can bet it's because they couldn't reach those ripe juicy $100 bills at the top of the tree from where they were standing, and they really want that money. Causing a stir like this will only serve to publicize them more and eventually draw in bigger numbers, at home if not abroad, and in the end money == money, regardless where it comes from.

I'm not naive and I don't pretend to think the world works like it should, if I've ever worn rose colored glasses I've so long since lost them that I don't even remember when I last had them, but I believe that good things can come from questionable events. If the Chinese hackers gave Google the excuse they needed to make a power grab thats all fine and well, because at the end of the day it means a little less control on information for China.

Let's just not forget that everything happens for a reason, and the big events always happen for gain and, in this case, it's Google who stands to gain the most.

Robs New Computer

I recently took it upon myself to upgrade my computer system at home. While I was running a reasonably powered machine, giving me few, if any, complaints on its day to day operation, however I was beginning to feel a nip of anxiety on the gaming front. Being that my then current system was close to 5 years old it was sporting a VGA graphics slot and a few PCI's, but no PCIe's, so essential for today's upper end cards.

So I figured what the hell, I found a nice little machine online for a really decent price and jumped for it. I can't say as I have any regrets, but I was forced to wonder at the current philosophy of design teams.

The new computer, a refurbished eMachine, was sporting a dual core 2.1 processor with 3GB of RAM and the requisite expansion ports needed for juicing up a gaming rig, exactly what I was looking for as I had hardware waiting for the job. I waited with anticipation for the new computer to show.

Upon first examination of the machine I was surprised to see it was running a 32 bit copy of Vista, not a big deal, but a but surprising for a multi core machine. I decided that it must have been a throwback to the early days of multi-cores when you still saw some 32 bit processors, not a big deal as I was planning on putting Windows 7 in anyway. Big question I had was, why put 3GB of Ram on a system that could only read 2? A bit of a Draconian interpretation of driver needs I thought.

A couple hours later we were running a shiny new copy of 64 bit Windows 7 and it was time to start looking at the hardware. I cracked the case open and was surprised to see how few expansion slots were present, 1 PCI and 1 PCIe (the PCI was actually sporting a modem, how 1990's of them). I dropped in my video card, courtesy of my best buddy guy, and, upon power up, was greeted with a squealing BIOS alarm. A quick examination showed the need for external power on the card; a second quick examination revealed that my power supply didn't have the necessary 6 pin power plug needed for a PCIe card! Furthermore it only had 2 SATA power leads, so how was I supposed to power the second hard drive I was going to install? Software aside, why give hardware expansion capabilities you can't provide for?

Over the course of two hours of Googling and stripping parts form other computers in the house I finally decided I need a new power supply. While other options exist, adapters and other hardware, the kicker was finding the machine only had a 250W power supply anyway. A trip to Future Shop (more on them later) sported a new 450W power supply, complete with a 24 pin motherboard connector, a 6 pin PCIe, an 8 pin PCIe for future needs, and enough SATA and 4 pin connections to allow me to slave in a 1TB drive and a second DVD burner. By the time I drop in the 4rth gig of RAM I've ordered it'll have cost me a bit more than I was hoping to spend, but not as bad as it could have been (thank god I do my own work).

Leaving me with the initial question, who built this thing? My educated guess is a team who was told, we have these left over parts and licenses, make something that will move them out the door.

This is why so many people get frustrated with their computers, if you try to buy on a budget the equipment is usually underpowered and the user is under qualified to diagnose it, let alone fix it. If you decide to not worry about the budget and just buy what you need you get screwed over badly on the price. Goes to show the old adage still stands: Buyer beware!

Kimbo Slice

Okay this is definitely not the usual movie, video game, and comic babble I normally post but I was watching my new favorite commerical for the Body Action System, side note Bas Rutten is my new hero, and it got me thinking about Kimbo Slice.

I'm not the biggest MMA fan but I am a fan and I have to say I am a pretty big Kimbo Slice fan. This wasn't always true. Before, MMA became the entertainment juggernaut it is today I remember watching the internet videos of his street fights thinking "shit these dudes are nuts" and was frankly a little disgusted by the spectacle.

I forgot about Kimbo Slice well to be honest I didn't even know that was the name of the dude fighting in those web videos. Then a few years ago I'm watch EliteXC to see the Gina "Conviction" Carano fight and who do I see, that crazy scary dude from those old underground fighting videos. He started talking and expected to hear the usual male fighter stupidity but he came across as a pretty decent guy. Since then I've watched is budding MMA career and can honestly say without a doubt I find myself always cheering for him.

Is Kimbo over-hyped? Fuck ya but is that his fault Fuck No. The guy was just taking the opportunities given to him and I suspect he knows EliteXC was over-hyping him but what could he do? It was his opportunity to become a legitmate pro fighter. Do I think he may be too old and to late in the game to pick up the skills he needs to excel? Probably but I'm still going to route for the guy and hope he can do it. Why do I like Kimbo Slice so much? He seems humble, works hard, and has a lot of heart enough said.

Anyway, I can't have the only picture here being that of a male fighter so here's a picture of Gina "Conviction" Carano.

The Best of the Last 4 Decades

It seems that "Best of ..." lists are always big this time of year so I thought I'd go one better and tell you the best of the last 4 decades (ya, go me!):

1970's

I actually don't have a wealth of knowledge on the 70's as there was very little of interest to do, however:

Top Movie = Star Wars (no brainer there)

Top TV Show = Battlestar Galactica (the one with Dirk Benedict; Starbuck is a dude, not a chick!)

Top Video Game = ya right, lets wait till the next decade why don't we?

1980's

Ah those formative years, which I spent much of wearing jeans too tight and too much hair gel:

Top Movie = This one was tough, I actually couldn't come up with a top, but it's either Empire Strikes Back or Raiders of the lost Ark (amazing how much of my life was based on Harrison Ford's acting)

Top TV Show = The A-Team (couldn't watch an episode to save my life today, but in '85 it was da bomb!) honorable mention to Tales of the Gold Monkey

Top Video Game = Super Mario Brothers (hate to admit it, but it's true, that game was a quantum leap in every aspect)

1990's

Ah yes, my 'Adult' years, a time of pre-marital children and impending failed marriages, what memories did I take from it?

Top Movie = Dumb and Dumber (BEST comedy ever!)

Top TV Show = Futurama (BEST TV show ever!)

Top Video Game = Warcraft: Through the Dark Portal (10 years before the RPG, we had the RTS! [Oh yeah, BEST video game ever!])

2000's

The digital decade who could forget it (no one yet I hope, it was less than 7 days ago)

Top Movie = Punisher War Zone (Finally a Punisher movie that worked)

Top TV Show = Futurama and Futurama reruns (That's right, it was that freakin' good [and everything else was that freakin' bad, except for Undergrads, Undergrads was OK.])

Top Video Game = Bioshock (This was a tough category too, honorable mentions go to Heroes of the Pacific and Dead Rising, but in the end Rapture stole my soul)

So there you have it, if you've only got a week to live and want to experience everything worth living for in the last 40 years you now have your guidelines to follow (tight jeans and hair gel are optional for the 80's but highly recommended).