Too lazy to think up a title.

So I'm going back to high school after about 7 months of absence, and I'm going to say that it'll be effin' weird. Having that... routine. It's almost scary.

I'm a man who enjoys his laziness. Is that too much to ask?

The Killing Joke

So Heath Ledger's dead. Filming on The Dark Knight is completed, so we'll be able to weep and whimper all the way through a film watching him in a role that was supposed to make us shit our pants.

I'm not going to feel any sorrow for the guy, considering he was fond in his hotel room surrounded by prescription pills. He was in full cardiac arrest by the time paramedics made it there, and was pronounced dead on the scene. He is survived by a two-year old daughter, who deserves more sympathy than this guy. Heath was 28.

I'm skeptical about his portrayal of the Joker. It takes more than clown makeup and a psycho demeanor to play the guy: The Joker is only partly insane - he has been shown to be cold and calculating, depending on what comic you're looking at.

But that's what it comes down to, I guess: the vision. Directors can change whatever they want about a previously established character and claim it's their "vision" or "direction". Sometimes it backfires horribly, like with the Dark Knight. The consensus around the internet is that fans are divided: most grew up watching Mark Hamill's Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, which was portrayed as more of a suave, loony prankster, if anything. This dirty, grimy, and downright insane characterization is a departure, to say the least. For now, however, I'll reserve my judgment.

My god. Bears.

In case the worlds' economy taking a plunge down the shitter leaves us a complete anarchic wasteland, I'll be hiding out in my bunker.

You're welcome to join me. I have licorice.

Who HACKS anymore? Juicing's the new thing

I've come across something that brings me shame to be a gamer. Going farther than hacking, going farther than screen-looking, people can now take drugs to make up for being a horrible player.

What the HELL, people?

A German company has developed a pill called FPS-Brain, which "accelerates neural processes and heightens perception and capacity of reaction and concentration." Basically, it's steroids for gamers who need the extra little bit of energy, minus the shaky hands or erraticness that caffeine-laced drinks bring. It's all of the "benefits", with (hopefully) none of the side effects. Recommended dosage is two pills for a 60 minute efffect. FPS is an acronym for "First Person Shooter", which is a type of game that puts you behind the eyes of the in-game character, allowing you to shoot whatever you (literally) see.

When did gaming turn into something so competetive that people need to turn to sources outside their own skill to win? I'm a self-proclamed gaming geek, but even I find the idea of professional, televised gaming ridiculous. I find that it takes away the purity of "playing the game for fun", and introduces an over-competetive mindset into the minds of the players. If you're good enough, you might be able to live the dream: you could play video games for a living.

The negative effect, however, is the impact it has on the player communities of the games played. An expample of this can be found in Counter-Strike, the popular round-based shooting game that is played by a ludicrous about of people daily. I can say that it has the worst community of any game I have ever played. It's gotten to the point that doing well can get you punished, as accusations of "hacking" or illegal cheating programs, run rampant. Racial slurs and insults fly, giving newer players a steep learning curve to adapt to. However, there are the elite few that play professionally, who are sponsored, and have the admiration of thousands.

You have to wonder what these guys do for fun.

Inked.

Today I met a man that would have been once been regarded as a circus freak: the tattooed man.

I met him on the bus while making a journey that took way too long. We chatted about how the bus service had hiked our fare another 20 cents, but still found the time to take coffee breaks at coffee shops and show up a half hour late. I've always been intimidated by large amounts of ink, because I tend to associate needles with pain. I could tell that the Tattooed Man did not intend for this reaction; he was merely expressing himself in a way that others couldn't comprehend.

I got to talking to him about his art in a rather clumsy way; I could tell he'd been questioned about it before. He didn't seem to mind, though. Black sections of Native-inspired designs made their ways up his forearms, separated by an inch or two of bare flesh that had escaped the tattoo artist's needle; the finished result looks like a segmented sleeve. He was about 22 years old, having purchased his art as a part of his 20th birthday. He was proud of them; they were a part of him, literally and figuratively. He explained that he could trace his heritage back to the Native peoples' time, and took pride that his history was now permanent; unforgettable.

Tattoos have skyrocketed in popularity, but along with it has come some really, really bad designs. I wonder what goes through a person's mind as they're about to get something permanently (barring expensive procedure) etched into their skin sometimes, and debate getting the procedure done myself. There's always that little bit of risk involved too, because barring certain "safe" subjects (such as family), there is always a chance that you won't like what your ink is depicting after awhile.

But then I remember the Tattooed Man, and what his stood for: pride, creativity, and a willingness to say "I stand out" to the world who wants to stare.

Directionless

So I had a chance to see The Golden Compass last night, and I think this picture can sum up what I wanted from the movie:

Bears. Fighting. Other. Bears.

And that's exactly what I got... about an hour into the movie. All the other time was spent saying "what the hell!?" over and over in my mind. I wish I was kidding.

The movie has a horrible pacing issue, where they mention concepts, but never get around to explaining them. Each human in this bizarre world has a "daemon" or animal companion, but we're never told why. They also never tell us why childrens' can shift forms and the adults' can't, or other rudimentary details like why the hell is the Golden Compass so important? Sure, it "sees the truth", but besides debunking the Catholic Chu-I mean "Magisterium", it doesn't seem like anything to go to war over.

Long story short, the directors tried to mix a steampunk/magic/fantasy/exploration movie, and failed horribly. The only thing that made up for it was bears ripping eachothers' faces off (I'm not exaggerating) and a brief 5 second clip of Christopher Lee.

That's it.

Teriyaki

So, due to extreme boredom at work and a lust to help people in the third world (while flexing my literary knowlege), I've discovered FreeRice.com, a trivia game where one answers a question based on synonyms. The site will give you a word, and four possible answers. It's up to you, the player, to pick the answer that has the closest meaning to the question.

For every question you get right, the United Way will donate 20 grains of rice to a third world country. It makes me feel all fuzzy inside.

Shoryuken!

Street Fighter: The Later Years is a fan-made series depicting the characters we know and love from Capcom's timeless (some may say longwinded) series at a later stage of their lives. Dhalsim is a cabby, Zangief is a bouncer, and M. Bison is crippled. All the rest are there too, but as the series is coming to prove, there are more sinister forces at work as well. The videos below are the story so far, in order from one to seven.

Part I



Part II



Part III



Part IV



Part V



Part VI



Part VII



And that's all that's been posted for now. Enjoy!

Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend

"'What happened to your Journalistic eithics, you little motherfucker?'

'The Truth, Grisham. That's all I need.'"
-Spider Jerusalem

I watched director Steve Buscemi's film Interview recently, and it seemed quite promising: a journalist (Buscemi, starring) interviews a starlet (Sienna Miller) named Katya about her fame, to what seems to be as punishment by his publisher. I say "punishment" because the character is a pastiche of every Lindsay Lohan-type out there.

That was fine with me.

It seemed like it would be a good film, filled with deep, meaningful conversation about the current state of celebrity and how messed up peoples' perceptions of fame are.

But it choked. After what started out as a downward spiral of an interview at a restaurant, Pierre (the journalist) gets his head smashed against the driver's seat after the cabbie who's driving him home rubbernecks at Katya and runs into the back of a moving van. Of course, Katya's loft is just a couple blocks away, so she takes him into her home to recuperate. A "game of cat and mouse" with "dark secrets" starts and oh my god I can't take this seriously.

Pierre seems like a good guy. He's a political journalist by trade, and is used to asking the tough questions. It’s not that he doesn't with Katya, but he gives up way too easily. He tries using going though her product-placed Macbook to find her “diary” and attempts to manipulates his audio recording device into secretly recording her confessions, but it is all for naught; Pierre is eventually easily manipulated by the "stunning" blonde, and of course, is played like a chump. It's almost like a game of truth or dare; he reveals one secret of his in return for one of hers and in the end it screws him over. Did you see that one coming?

I sure did.

Would it be a crime for someone to show some balls and actually show a celebrity losing for once? For the truth to prevail?

Hell no. It's Hollywood.

Bees. My god.

As an addedum to that last post, I give you Nicholas Cage, the best actor of the decade.

Superclub Videotron (google it, folks)

So for some reason I've procrastinated in putting out my first post of 2008. I'm not scared or anything, but it's sort of nerve-wracking when you want to start the year off right.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Really, it takes a few weeks for the "feeling" of a new year to sink in. I've reneged on my promise to myself to avoid resolutions, and it's been a tough couple days trying to keep from binging on the many junk foods I received in my stocking.

Really, all I'm doing at the moment is killing time at work. But isn't that what blogs were invented for?