Giving Thanks

Had a pretty good Thanksgiving break with the family. I know I ate way more than was healthy for me and feel like I should attempt a diet for this trip alone. I saw some high school companions which was nice to catch up briefly. Played some Rock Band and Singstar, which after getting familiar with both again, I actually didn't do half bad. Singstar just took a frustratingly long time. Caught up on some reading. Saw Oregon State lose pretty badly to rival Oregon. I suppose this is great news since now we don't have a rematch in the Rose Bowl. But now we are staring down the barrel of a shotgun since we now have to face an extremely tough USC. We went from extreme favorites to extreme underdogs. I feel that it's a better situation overall since we can prove ourselves. As long as we score more than 3 points, like OSU, we'll be good. I know it now won't happen, but I kinda hope the BCS will not pick Ohio State for a bowl. Having them stay in the Capital One Bowl allows for us to have more even matchups. The Big Ten matchups are already ridiculous so this will at least help. Also over the break, for lack of better things to do, I watched What Happens in Vegas with my mom. The movie wasn't very funny, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Pretty average and that is saying pretty much since I don't like Ashton Kutcher at all. Lastly, I also was able to listen to a lot of new CDs with all of the travel time. One CD that I thought was extremely good was SR-71's import CD of "Here We Go Again". Several songs were excellent and very fitting for me after listening to some of the lyrics.

Tonight I saw the movie Hancock. I thought it was pretty good. Will Smith seems to always get a pretty good movie for every summer release. I think this one sticks with the trend. He seemed believable as the misfit superhero and the rest of the cast seemed good as well. The main complaint every one has with the movie seems to be the major plot twist towards the end. Although I found it shocking and did slightly change the movie's tone, it by no means ruined the movie or take me out of it. I was still interested, but would have liked more continuity between the two halves. The whole movie also seemed very rushed. At only 94 minutes, I feel they could have slowed down and taken their time with some places. I feel that would have helped the movie pace a little better and maybe make the second half seem less jarring or allow it to explain itself better. Overall, a pretty enjoyable film.

Speeding to the Rose Bowl

Had a really good weekend. I went back to Penn State and was able to get some student tickets thanks to Michelle. Using my old ID, I was able to sneak into the student section for the football game vs MSU. I was determined to get there early and get good seats since this was my only game and Michelle paid good money for the tickets. This meant we were out in the freezing cold for more hours than we needed to be. Thanks to my pleading, we went to the stadium three hours early and waited until after the game until we left. We were all frozen solid with all extremities completely numb. That being said, it was soooo much fun. I just love screaming my heart out with 110,000 fans. We easily handed the Spartans a 49-18 loss which means we should be heading to the Rose Bowl. I probably won't follow the crowd there as tickets are going to be way to expensive to justify for one football game. I saw some going foe over $1,000 for one ticket. I'll gladly watch it at home or at the bar. I hope we don't have to play a rematch again though. I wish they could at least shuffle the teams if that were to happen as it would benefit all.

A real quick thought: Today I discovered the newest Linkin Park album, Minutes to Midnight from 2007. I really liked it and thought nearly every song was put together well. I was also surprised at how many songs I immediately recognized. There were 6-7 tracks I knew without ever fully playing the CD before. This CD must of had quite the exposure for me to know that many.

Lastly, my late thoughts on the Speed Racer movie that I watched through Netflix. Coming into this movie was expecting total crap to a mediocre film. Every trailer I saw over the summer looked like complete crap with just an orgy of color and absolute rubbish. I heard some mixed reviews saying that some liked and others hated the movie. For some reason, I decided to give it a shot. To my surprise, I really liked this movie. It was a total blast of a film. The races were actually very exciting and fun to watch. I was literally anticipating what would happen next and how it would be shown. The art style and visual direction were very effective and I fell in love with. The quick shots in the trailers made me hate it, but when watched as a full movie, I thought it worked extremely well. Seeing it all in High Def definitely helped, as the colors of the movie was incredible. I know everything was so hyper real, but I think that added to it. Some of the other art direction payed homage to the original anime styles and features. I thought it was a nice touch when I noticed it, and may have helped contribute to why I liked it. The movie's biggest downfall is its plot. It is very simplistic and is so formulaic. You know that Speed is going to win nearly every race as soon as you put the disk in, but I think that only deterred the movie slightly. Considering I was still anticipating every move in the actual race, knowing the final outcome mattered little. The movie was a pleasant surprise and I'm glad I enjoyed it so much. After watching the making of special feature on the disc, it made me think if there were any other major anime to movie transitions, after they were explaining some of their art choices. I'm having a very hard time coming up with one, and believe that this may be one of the first majorly successful ones.

Giving money to a crackhead

I wanted to make a post on my thoughts on an auto industry bailout, which many have speculated over for some time now in this economic downturn. I'm against it. Why should we spend all this money for only a few specific companies in a specific sector of the market? Does this mean we should bailout other companies that employ large numbers of people, just because others deem it necessary? What about if a large tech company was about to go under, would we bail them out, or would we let the free market take it's toll. Maybe I wouldn't have such a hard time swallowing this large bill that will be forked over to me, if these companies were actually competitive. They have been hemorrhaging money for what seems like the past decade. If they would have made some good business decisions, they wouldn't be in this position to begin with. And it's not like they changed anything since the economic troubles. They just keep on chugging. None of them have changed CEOs so the exact same wasteful spending and uninspired decisions are going to be made. These companies will continue to not be profitable along with wasting all of our money. The problem is that they failed to see a market that was changing and now are behind the times. Their vehicles are of questionable quality most of the time. They failed to realize that not everyone wants a giant Hummer Limo.
Look at the foreign car companies that are making (record) profits since they have built up their name for quality and knew how to capitalize a single part of the market. Most of these companies make their cars in America, so the jobs are still coming to America, while they continue to open up plants and increase jobs. Perhaps the biggest problem with the American auto industry is that they have failed to innovate, which is what you need to do to stay healthy in a competitive industry. The best thing GM has come up in recent years is the flex vehicles which run on E85 ethanol or regular gas. Look how far that has come, with very few ethanol fill-ups. Meanwhile the foreign car companies were the first to offer the best in low fuel, hybrid, and electric cars. That is innovation that matters. We here at IBM cherish innovation which is why we built an industry around it. We understand how important it is. The same apparently cannot be said about the auto industry.
I almost feel that the money that would be used to help out the American auto industry would be better spent elsewhere. (Besides the fact that it's not exactly fair if every auto company doesn't get a chunk of it). (TWiT #169 has a pretty good discussion at the end) The money would better spent giving it out to the families that could lose their jobs. We could train their workers to find better jobs or just to give them a nice bonus until they can find a new one. We should also invest in innovation. The auto makers that are leading in the next generation of vehicles, especially those that are green and energy efficient. Since we know that this will help the economy and the US as a whole, let alone helping the planet. Companies like Tesla should see additional funding to further research the possibilities of full electric cars. I just feel that it is wasteful spending.
I know that it is a backbone of our economy and our manufacturing industry, but why should we keep giving money to companies that continue to fail at innovating and never turn a profit. I realize that I may be not as affected about this as others, but feel that we as a country can stammer through it and allow our economy to rebuild on innovation and tried principles, not on free money all the time. Giving them money will not change the trend. Innovation is key, and that is where we need to lend taxpayers money, which will allow us to get it back.
< /rant >

Sing-along

So I decided to finally watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog. I know it's been out quite awhile, but I never got around to it. I'm just a little behind the times. I thought it was very good. by far the best web production I think I've seen. The songs seemed to be better versions that those in Sweeny Todd. This truly is the way of production and entertaining over the next few years.

Seeing how Felicia Day did such a good job, I decided to watch all of the Guild too, since I had some time after Heroes. The series itself, was pretty good and had me chuckling at a few moments, although for the most part, Felicia was the best character. She is a pretty good actor and I hope she gets more chances in the future.

Also, I want to claim my love of Top Gear. I think this is the best TV educational TV show, ever. Yes, even better than Mythbusters and Alton Brown (who by the way looks absolutely horrid lately, especially in HD. Think Tom Hanks from The DaVinci Code) This show is thoroughly entertaining and drop dead funny, all while teaching me about cars. Even though I'm not a huge car fanatic, I find it absolutely enjoyable. It being British also gives me this sense of knowledge, for which I have absolutely no reason why. I only wish it was more convenient to get a hold of. I don't get BBC America unfortunately and BBC's player doesn't work outside the UK, which is too much of a trouble to get a UK IP address. It's the best show they've got. They really should export it more easily.

So the Christmas Holiday has pretty much begun. I know I've seen ads for Christmas stuff as early as probably a month ago, but about now is when things start picking up. I can tell, because it is difficult to do anything for the next 2 months. The streets are packed and parking is horrendous. I tried going to the mall, and it was so crowded. Where are these people the rest of the year? I hope it dies down like most places mid January. Christmas shopping is exceedingly hard this year. Being away from everyone, I have no idea what to get people for the holidays. I hope when I'm home over Thanksgiving I can get some ideas for people. It doesn't get any easier telling others what I want either. Now that I have a job with steady paychecks coming in, when I want something I go out and buy it for the most part. This makes telling people what I want difficult. Hopefully I can come up with some stuff like clothes to pick out over the next few weeks.

Here's to hoping for a layoff free Christmas!

Send in the Clones

Tonight I finished 2 things that I wanted to get my feelings out for. The first was that I watched the new Star Wars movie: The Clone Wars. This is the computer animated film based off the tv show...I think. I have to say, it didn't click with me very well. First is the whole art direction they did which I hated. Having everyone made of block doesn't really help anything or add anything. The voice acting was also pretty bad sometimes, but at other times quite good. I guess my biggest gripe in that respect is how the voice actors didn't sound like the original actors at all. The plot was simple, but effective. It never was amazing, but I was never surprised either. I didn't care for the constant banter between Anakin and his new padawon. It really just reminded me of a brother and sister. Overall, pretty average fare, especially since I wasn't expecting a whole lot.

Tonight I also finished up Heavenly Sword. The only gripe I can find with the game is that it is pretty short. Everything else was simply amazing. The graphics were awesome and having vistas while fighting was pretty cool. At one point there you have to fight an entire army. There are probably close to 1000 discrete enemies on the screen and there was no slowdown what so ever. This was impressive. The voice acting was also really well done. I think this may have been the best voice acting I've seen for a video game. The actual game play was cool, but it did feel like a God of War clone, even having some quick time events. The game was super linear. I couldn't even explore or backtrack in order to keep the story moving along. The entire game felt like a giant, epic blockbuster of a summer movie, and it had the quality to match. I was thoroughly impressed by this game. Such a good job on the game, even if hack and slash isn't usually my type.


I'm not quite sure what I'll be playing next. Right now I'm leaning towards picking up something off of my PS1 backlog, possibly Vagrant Story. I guess I'll see.

Measuring the Queue

So gearing up for the holiday season and realizing all of the insanely good games that have been/will be coming out. My wallet is going to be hurting. Among the regular list of good games that I keep my eye open for a good deal, there are at least 2 PS3 and 2 PS2 games I want to buy this holiday season. (There's also a few PSN titles that looked good too) That's pretty expensive for such a limited time frame. Luckily there doesn't look to be too many coming out immediately after and I may get some gift certificates to help fray some of those costs. At the very least, this can be a test of willpower to see if I can hold out long enough to possibly pick up a used copy or even wait long enough for a price drop. My always constant fear is that the game will become rare and I won't be able to find it without paying a hefty price for it. (this is what happened to several PS1 games since I was late to the party)

This, stemmed with the fact that I am getting close to beating Heavenly Sword, got me thinking about my current backlog of games. I knew it was large, but wanted to see how bad it really was. My breakdown of completed games is as follows:
PS1 - 12/20 = 60%
PS2 - 35/55 = 64%
PS3 - 3/9 = 33%
I find this pretty bad. I have 20 games that need to played for the PS2 alone! And yet I want more. I find that my backlog grows for several reasons. The first would be exactly as mentioned above: I can't resist a good deal. If I find a good deal for a game, I'll buy it now and assume I'll play it later. This has gotten me into trouble, since I'm now eye high in games. Also, I tend to impulse buy on occasion. Recently, I went out and bought several NIS games since I knew most of them were good. Or how several years ago I bought 3 megaman games for PS1, which turned out mediocre at best. I also find that I get new system jitters. When I first got my PS2 and also with my PS3, I bought games which I probably wouldn't care for, or were of a little less quality. For example, my first purchase was Wild Arms 2 for my PS2. A mediocre PS1 game at best, but it was available right up the road from my house. I also bought several PS2 games including Summoner and Orphan, even though they weren't particularly good since I wanted PS2 games to see what the system was capable of. For the PS3, I bought a few games already, although this time around I feel I was just a tad smarter. I bought Enchanted Arms, Folklore, Assassin's Creed, and even Heavenly Sword, since I wanted some high-def gaming, although this time around, I tried to stick to games that were cheaper and I figured I would play. Lastly, my backlog keeps growing since I often suffer from a LIFO problem. Since the games I like keep me occupied for many many hours (darn you RPGs), I often will grow slightly tired of them. If I get a new game, before I finish the old one, I might skip to it and start playing. This seemed to always be bad at Christmas since I got several games, and wanted to play all of them at the same time, which always failed along with whatever game I was playing before Christmas.

But luckily I feel this is getting better. The PSN helps me a lot since I can get plenty of demos for all kinds of games. This will help me not purchase a game I will ultimately not like very much. (Although it can also be a detriment since I can try many more games, which I may end up liking) In addition, unlike the past 8 years or so, I now am done with school and should be able to game on a more regular basis. Before my gaming was extremely limited due to High School and 30-40 hours a week working and after that college in general, since my gaming all but halted as work picked up. Now I usually can get quite a few hours in a week, which is helping me complete games in a timely fashion so that I stay interested in the story longer, and am able to finish them. In the last 5 months or so, I was able to complete 8 games, 4 of which were pretty long RPGs. Hopefully the fact of having a steady income doesn't persuade me to make too many more purchases. I know I can't justify it. Now, I just wonder what I will play next.

Disappointed Panda

So quite a disappointing weekend with Penn State losing. It was a pretty bad performance with bad athletic performances and play calling across the board. With the wind as bad as it was, I was expecting some good running plays, but nothing of the sort was in store. I'm hoping we can pick up our emotions and play better next week before finishing up the regular season with Michigan State. If we win the last two, we should be heading to the Rose Bowl. I think that would be a good game against USC, although I still hat the fact that the Rose Bowl is played in California, across the fricking street pretty much from USC. Let's go State.

I also sat down and watched Kung Fu Panda. Quite a fun and enjoyable little family film. It was nothing extraordinary like a Pixar, but it still had it's moments of fun. The fight scenes were the best parts since if was CGI and could get away with a lot more than normal. I wish I would have payed attention to some of the voice work better. It turns out Jackie Chan voiced the monkey. Oh well, I don't remember him saying much anyway. It looked good as always on blu-ray.

Other things I watched included the premiere of the third Naruto movie and the anime block of Adult Swim. I thought the movie was a little slow and lacked much depth or surprises compared to the other movies. It just felt like an extended episode really. The anime block was a nice gesture from Adult Swim. I wonder how long it will stay around before they decide on more schedule changes. It looks semi permanent with all of the episode 1's they were showing. The episode of Code Geass really pulled me back in, even though I missed like the last 8 episodes of the first season. Hopefully it can keep my interest, unlike the last season.

I suppose I'll also give some final thoughts pertaining to LittleBigPlanet. I finished all of the story mode, aceing all but two levels and collecting ~80% of the items would be my guess. I played online some, and explored some of the levels others have made. I doubt I'll make any levels, I would rather play. The game is an absolute blast. I love the simplistic platforming and the intricacies of the levels. They are an engineers dream. I'm sometimes just so amazed at them. Other people's levels can be hit or miss. I've seen planet of bad ones, but a few really amaze me. My favorites seemed to be the ones based on other creations. Like there was one that was replicating Megaman levels and another that replicated Mario and Sonic levels. Still, others recreate entire musical scores which left me awestruck. The online system seems a little confusing. t seems hard to join others and the camera is a little annoying at times, trying to focus on the majority of the players, instead of everyone. Having a lot of players can make things harder, especially with perilous jumps and obstacles. I absolutely love this game, and will be frequenting back to see what other levels people have made. For the time being though, I think I'll move on to other things since my backlog is so huge. Currently I just started Heavenly Sword. So far I'm blown away by the graphics, and the entire thing is like a Summer blockbuster. It's short enough, so It probably won't be long until I have my reactions.

Bite my Shiny Metal ...

Tonight I watched the new Futurama movie, Bender's Game. I thought it was classic Futurama fun, although I thought it was probably the worst movie yet. The previous two were much more fun and had more throwbacks and inside jokes. This one started off very slow, and was only able to get a few more laughs from me towards the end. My main gripe with the movie is that the whole second half plot is based entirely on making fun of The Lord of the Rings. This would have been great if it came out even remotely close to when the movies came out, but it's been like 5 years at least. Many of the jokes just seemed old and stale and as if the whole movie was really a plot for when the show was actually airing. But since I'm a geek, I enjoyed it overall. I got the blu-ray of the movie. Not sure if it was necessary with a cartoon movie, but it looked fantastic.

Some final thoughts on the election that are on the top of my mind at the moment. Why did CNN have their ridiculous special effects show? The hologram of people, the 3d virtual models, etc. It just seemed superfluous.
I'm almost more inclined to think that the antiquated model of the electoral college should be changed. I like the idea of the popular vote or at least doing what Maine and Nebraska do and split their votes. This would allow and make a candidate to focus on the whole country they will be running, instead of just the key battleground. This way maybe people in not highly contested area will get to see the candidates. In four years, I imagine I won't get to see any of the candidates or see much coverage besides what is national. It also might make people feel like their vote counts more. I'm kinda scared to suggest this since it seems like it may harm the democratic party.
I was over analyzing john McCain's choice of Palin, and was thinking of the long shot that since this was a "democratic year" (although very winnable for him) he may have been thinking more about the future of the republican party. Now they have a young, new face that energizes the base beyond belief and gives them a new look. This way if she does decide to run in 2012, she now is recognizable instead of just the Governor of Alaska.
I think xkcd described my feelings almost perfectly concerning the political process that is now over:

Witnessing History

It is amazing to be witnessing history for such a memorable moment for our country. It is amazing to know that many parts of our country have come so far to elect President Obama. It is a truly great feeling considering how the other memorable things happening as of late have been so horrible...9/11, Katrina, Challenger, etc. This is truly amazing.

Mariobama

Mario knows who he's voting for, and I can't agree more. Should be an interesting day tomorrow with the election results. I plan to vote early to avoid the lines, hopefully. Then in the evening after work I can watch the results poor in. I'm hoping for some crazy results and the polls got it wrong (in a good way). Like Georgia, North Dakota, and Montana all going for Obama. Or maybe even Arizona. I'm hoping for a huge landslide and a good piece of the popular vote. Since polls generally don't favor/include cell phones, young people, or African Americans very much I think our chances are pretty good. Get out and vote!

El Presidente

I had a very busy weekend, doing lots of stuff. On Friday, I went back to Penn State to the Anime Club's Halloween Party. I had a good time, but was a little underwhelmed. I didn't know many people since many have graduated and moved on and the activities didn't catch my eye, but I had a good time just walking around pestering and talking to people. I enjoyed getting dressed up as Cid and people seemed to still like it, but I really would like to get a new costume. This one is getting old and worn out.

On my drive back to New York on Saturday, I saw the McCain bus parked at a rest stop. I was pretty ecstatic since it was a cool passing, with plenty of people all surrounding his bus. Later when I was on I-84, the bus passed me going probably at least 90 mph, on his way to 30 Rockefeller Plaza is my best guess to be on SNL that night. It was pretty weird having the bus pass me going so fast, but I guess if you are a presidential candidate you can get away with such things. (Either that or he's a POW)

That night I went to Anthony's Halloween party. I went as Mario. I felt it described pretty well as a geek, but was mainstream enough for everyone to appreciate. I think my costume was ok. It might have been a little too much from what I could pick up. People liked it and commented, but it might have just been small talk. Other people's costumes seemed to be simpler, or maybe I just paid too much attention to detail. I had a pretty good time. Anthony's band played which I liked a lot and they were pretty good. If they are ever in the local bars and I remember, I might go. I enjoyed seeing everybody, but only wish I knew more people. I imagine that will come. I didn't want to keep bothering the few co-workers I knew the entire night. I had a good time and hope I'm invited back next year, guess I'll see.

I also saw that yesterday Texas lost. That's good news for Penn State. Now with just a few more losses, we'll be set to play in the National Championship. Hopefully this week versus Iowa doesn't cause any problems.

And finally, tonight, I watched The Orphanage. For the Halloween spirit I decided to rent a scary movie, even though I don't usually see too many. I had heard this one was particularly scary and good, so I decided to give it a try. The movie ended up being very suspenseful. It was scary a few times, and made me jump just a few times, but nothing as bad as some reviews I had heard. Particularly Geekscape's review. The movie was beautifully well done and I enjoyed it being a Spanish movie. The movie was very good and I hoped people gave it a shot even though it's subtitled.