programmer, avid gamer, reader of fine fantasy / sci-fi, husband, frequent ass
// July 18th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Reviews, Reviews - Flicks
I’ll begin by letting you know that this review contains scads of hardcore, unapologetic spoilers concerning Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince [HBP]. If you’ve read the books, then nothing in here should shock you. Otherwise, continue at your own peril.
harry potter & the temple of doom
// June 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Journal
This past week/weekend has been an absolute blur. There’s so much shit going on, it’s straight-up craziness. Madness.
Last Thursday, I had the first session of my last Master’s class at VT (the Northern Virginia campus). After a severe bout of misguidance via my various school advisors, I’ve been forced to take this one last class after being told I was done for good after finishing a course in Artificial Intelligence over a year ago. If that came out confusing, it’s probably because the whole graduate school situation has been fucked up for many, many months now. As it stands, I just need to defend my thesis (which is complete, but untouched for 6 months now) and get a passing grade in this summer class to finally get my MS and move the hell on.
Without getting into too many trivial details, this class is an absolute joke. The professor who teaches it is a hardcore academic and is of the mindset that all programmers eventually ‘graduate’ from coding and enter the ranks of middle management at some point in their careers. I don’t know about him, but the day I stop coding or designing is the day I start looking for a new job. At any rate, the worst part of the class is that it starts in the early evening and doesn’t get out until 10pm. So, I’m basically forced to work late, scarf down reheated left-overs at work for dinner, drive out to Falls Church, attend class, drive home to Leesburg, and then pretty much go to bed before heading out to work the next morning. Goddamn drag and a half. To top it off, last Thursday I called Krystle on the way home only to find out she had an accident while I was in class. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt at all, but she hit a deer coming home on a back-road in the dead of night. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, living way out in the boonies like we do – but it’s still a pain in the ass (and a several hundred dollar deductible) to sort through.
The weekend ended up being pretty nice, though. We slammed through all of our errands / chores on Saturday so that we could pretty much just chill out the entire weekend. Chilling out, in this context, involved watching a metric ton of the French Open and playing a bunch of games. The highlight of the tournament has definitely been the match today where the Swede, Robin Soderling, absolutely manhandled Nadal to beat him in four sets. This is the absolutely first time that Nadal has ever lost a match in the French Open and I’m insanely happy that Soderling was the man to finally do it. He’s been one of my favourite players since last Wimbledon when he pissed Rafa off by mocking him and pretending to pick his ass like OCD Nadal always does before a serve. Serves him right – fantastic match.
I mentioned that Krystle and I played a bunch of games, but that’s a straight-up lie. In reality, we’ve just been playing the hell out of one game – Sacred 2 for the 360. Generally, the only games that she’ll even consider cooping with me are the isometric, hack-and-slash RPGs which, pretty suprisingly, are in severe short supply on the 360. After scoping this out on-line, it looked right up her alley and so I ended up buying it Friday evening. Needless to say, we’re both addicted to the damn game, and we’ve racked up about 15 hours just from this weekend alone. While it can be buggy as hell and it’s interface is pretty clumsy, there’s something intangibly awesome about the game in general. For one thing, we’ve been running around completing quests and leveling up and, after all this time, we’re still in the first chapter. There’s still 85% of the game we have yet to uncover – it’s insanely massive, to put it mildly. So, it looks like we’ll have a distraction for quite a while to come.
Speaking of massive, this post has turned gargantuan. Serves me right for taking so long to update, I suppose. The tech blog at Pansopht is still in the works, I’m just tweaking the design before I turn it live. In addition, I’m working on a few other projects which should yield some interesting things in the next few weeks. As for the near future, I think Krystle and I are going to see Up tomorrow after work. I’m a huge fan of Pixar’s body of work, so I’m really jazzed about seeing it. If we do end up seeing it tomorrow, I’ll be sure to write a review and post it by the middle of the week for those who are interested.
Well, that’s all I’ve got. Night.
// May 25th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Reviews, Reviews - Flicks
just use your reimagination
It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion by now that summer blockbusters are as much an American tradition as apple pie, Coca-Cola, and Chuck Norris (circa Delta Force, of course). When the weather warms up, we are more than willing to shell out a couple of ten-dollar bills to see movies starring actors who get paid more per second of screen time than the average blue-collar Joe will likely ever earn in their entire lives. But this isn’t a review of class inequality in post-modern America. No, my friends, this review involves robots.
Terminator: Salvation is yet another stark reimagining of a beloved franchise in a long line of others being released this summer season (Star Trek, I’m looking at you). But, wait – how can the rather morbid Terminator franchise grow starker and… more reimagined than it already is? How can a series built around the premise of homicidal, time-travelling, humanoid robots possibly be brought back to the big screen for a fourth time without jumping the shark a la Terminator 3? Well, Hollywood pondered this for a hot minute, stroked their forked goatees, and *BAM* they cast Christian Bale. Worked for Batman. Done.
So, as always, the question remains… Does director McG, the creative mastermind behind such gems as Charlie’s Angels and The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll manage to deliver on the massive reams of hype? Or should his contract be TERMINATED? Click to find out.
// May 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Reviews, Reviews - Flicks
A reporter once interviewed Gene Roddenberry (the creater of Star Trek) when Star Trek: The Next Generation first premiered and remarked on his choice of the patently-hairless Patrick Stewart for the role of Picard: “Look, it doesn’t make any sense. You’ve got a bald actor playing this part. ” In reply, Roddenberry supposedly quipped: “In the 24th century, no one will care.”
I like this quote particularly because I believe it epitomizes the very essence of the Star Trek series; from its inception in the mid-60s, to the numerous syndicated spin-offs, and the Hollywood productions which now number in the double digits. The Star Trek universe is all about the pursuit of (mostly) pacifistic diplomacy and the promulgation of brotherhood amongst the many, often war-faring, species scattered throughout the galaxy. At least, that’s what Roddenberry originally shaped it to be; and continued moulding until his untimely death in the early 90’s. Flash-forward to 2009 and we’re suddenly faced with a reboot of this beloved series that possesses one of the most rabid fan-bases on the planet. Tasked with crafting a ‘darker reimagining’, the question remains: does director J.J Abrams (Lost, Fringe, Cloverfield) fail to capture the lightning-in-a-bottle panache that its predecessors possessed? Or does Abrams, despite the odds, manage to set phasers to FUN?
// May 6th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Reviews, Reviews - Flicks
dear christ, why did i agree to a prequel?
I walked into X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber) with the best of intentions and the very highest of aspirations. Relishing the dawn of what promises to be a blockbuster summer movie season, I bought into the Wolverine hype and was thoroughly convinced that it would usher in the season with a bang. The blizzard of trailers and teasers which preceded its release spoke of finally unveiling the mysterious origins of everyone’s favourite X-Man, whose initial appearance in the first X-Men movie kick-started Hugh Jackman’s American film career. They displayed scenes of utter adrenaline-inducing awesomeness including Wolverine using his adamantium claws as a hand-brake to make a u-turn on a vintage chopper just before he rides the bike off a ramp and into the flashing blades of a military attack helicopter. Therefore, with all the hype and fan-faire surrounding this release, the question remains: does Wolverine earn its place in the well-regarded ranks of its X-Men predecessors or is it just another hollow superhero movie riding off their acclaim?
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