Also I've been in a bit of a rut. I go through them sometimes. I just want to consume and consume and consume and the drive to create is there but blocked horribly. Thank Zod for OpenOffice.org, otherwise I'd of killed at least one or two large trees with the amount of paper I would have wasted with all of the writing and tossing I've been doing.
So the question then begs, what have I been consuming? TONS, Television, Games, Books, and of course Movies. Highlights include;
TV
Seasons 1-4 of "Babylon 5" I went on a rampage through this, almost no movies except for small breaks in between seasons. So basically every night was B5 night for quite a while, and it Never got old. That is saying something. The closest thing I can kind of equate the show with is "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" but that isn't really doing a service to B5 which is a far superior product. B5 even tackles many of same themes that DS9 dealt with (racism, religion, interstellar war) and does it much much better. In a lot of ways Babylon 5 was Years ahead of it's time. The show started airing in '94 and was filmed in wide screen and was totally serialized not only episode to episode but also each season was it's own large arc that shaped the universe. Very cool. To put it in perspective Firefly which aired in 2002 fought (and lost) with Fox to be aired in wide screen and to be more serialized.
Of course I still have to watch season 5, which I'm dragging on doing because even though I'm told I need to check it out. As much as I loved the first four seasons some of the aftermath from the end of S4 I wasn't particularly thrilled with so I worry if I'll like S5, I'm keeping my fingers crossed though. By the way seasons 1-2 are available on Hulu right here! That is where I watched season 1. I was way impressed with the service, even with my crappy net connection.
Bottom line, B5 S1-4 get 5 snaps in a B formation up!
Games
"Mass Effect"
Ok the game was really fun and I definitely spent a ton of time playing it. But you know what, I'm not as in love with it as I thought I would be based off of others. The story was really fun, not quite so unique though. In fact a lot of the basic themes seemed to be pretty heavily borrowed from "Knights of the Old Republic," which I'll talk about in a second but back to "Mass Effect." The story may have been good but if one thing bugged the crap out of me about the game it is the controls. At first the combat mechanic was torturous to me. I did get used to it but still it was a curve and it wasn't particularly well done. More than a few of the fights seemed more luck based than skill because of the near twitchy scheme. That isn't even mentioning the driving parts where the controls of the MAKO seem to have been developed in a very special section of Hell. Probably the one the Shepherd Book talked about, the one reserved for lawyers and people who talk in the theater.
"Knights of the Old Republic"The entire time I was playing "Mass Effect" really the main thing going through my mind was "Man do I wish I was playing KOTOR again." So when I was done with "ME" That is exactly what I did. KOTOR is THE game that I bought my original Xbox for, thus it was the first Xbox game I bought. The thing still holds up. I just with that the backward compatibility with the 360 had been a littler smoother, still it was playable. Although I was disappointed with myself when I just couldn't bring myself to go dark side this time, whats wrong with me??
GTA IV
Ok so I can't say much about this since I got it only 4 days ago now and then promptly fell to
Bottom line? If you haven't yet check out "Knights of the Old Republic" for a unique action RPG experience set in the Star Wars universe. If you like KOTOR check out "Mass Effect" once you get past the controls you'll enjoy the game play. And finally if you love doing a lot of killing you should pick up GTA IV.
Hell I think I've actually gotten my $60 worth out of GTA just sitting watching the TV in the game, especially Bas Rutten's show "The Men's Room."Books
Bram Stoker's Dracula
I'm constantly in the middle of at least one book, sometimes I'm in the middle of two or three. Yes I have attention problems at time, I would have thought that was clear by now? Anyway I don't often talk about what I read. Other than on the occasional discussion on the Sword and Laser sci-fi fantasy book club. But you know what "Dracula" was really amazing! I've never really tried horror books before other than the occasional Steven King book, and I've never been able to get into any of those. A fact which no doubt both shames and appalls my dad who is a huge fan. So I'd avoided the classics in the genre. No longer! Not after this experience. I'm not sure if it is considered a "classic" or not but one of the next on my hit list is "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson.
Bottom line, just read it! Hell if you want to make an awesome few days read the book then watch "Nosferatu" (Max Schrek version natch), then watch the film version of "Bram Stoker's Dracula." The excitement will leave you drained*!
*Yes that was a horrendous pun, no I'm not sorry, yes I laughed just a little too hard at it, no I'm still not sorry, and yes, yes you can still view my alternate ending to "Nosferatu" thank you for remembering!
Movies
This one is complicated. Believe it or not I sat down here only to write about a single movie, a movie that I'm not going to write about tonight because, well, I've written a lot, it's late, and my abuse of the comma is telling me that it wouldn't be a very well written piece. So instead of waxing on about how much I did or didn't like "The Incredible Hulk" (Guess which way I leaned) I'll give you a tidbit on something else.
"[•REC]"Credit where it's due this movie wouldn't have even been on my radar if it hadn't have been for Stacie. So yeah, she still rocks.
So back to "[•REC]." If you don't know what it is I'll try to do a simple summarization. Remember the cool idea behind the shitfest that was "Cloverfield." First person scares? Well take that but replace giant monster with zombie like creatures, replace the entire city with a quarantined apartment building, replace the non cleverly named "Hud" with an actual cameraman, and replace the rest of the main characters with Manuela Velasco. Then you make the entire thing really awesome and really fucking scary and uncomfortable. After all that then you have "[•REC]."
Bottom line, the American remake that will be named "Quarantine" doesn't have a prayer of holding a candle to the original. Since as far as I can tell it doesn't look like there will likely be a US DVD release for the movie I'll be importing it as soon as it is available with English subtitles. Even if by some miracle a US release was given this wouldn't even be a rent this would be a run out and buy immediately.
Well this post has certainly turned into a giant monster on it's own hasn't it? Remember the motto here as Askewed Views, what we (me) lack in quality we (me again) more than make up for in quantity...ya know, when we (yep still just me, what?) actually get off our (you know the drill) butt and post.
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