Look, Mr. Bubbles!

I'm hosting a stop on the tour for The Music Tapes' "Lullabies at Bedtime" traveling show this Saturday! 6:30 at my place, with an expected $8-10 donation for the band.

Not familiar with The Music Tapes? It's the brainchild of Julian Koster, who played bass/banjo/saw/etc for Neutral Milk Hotel. Lots of handmade and untraditional instruments, and the show will feature singalongs, games, stories, and who knows what else -- they play it by ear at each stop.

More details about the show here

Thanks to work being canceled, I finally had the time to finish Mass Effect 2. What an awesome game, but now I want to immediately jump into the final chapter. I hope the rumours about ME3 arriving very early in 2011 are true. I made some interesting choices near the end, I want to see how those turn out. (I'll also probably replay this again, importing my renegade character from the original game.)

I did venture out before today's snowstorm to pick up Bioshock 2. I'm going to take a break for a bit but then try it out later tonight. I sprung for the super crazy special edition with the vinyl record and other extras.

I am secretly hoping work is canceled for the rest of the week. I'm a little bit stir crazy, but I have enough food and beverages to last. My only fear is the power going out again (lost it for 2 1/2 hours yesterday).

Mass Effect 2 is gripping me in all the ways that Dragon Age didn't.

I finally saw The Hurt Locker last night, and can see why it's getting all the award buzz. I still haven't seen everything talked about as potential Oscar movies (the most notable exception being Up in the Air), but it was the best of the movies released in 2009 that I have seen. Highly recommended.

One of the things I really liked was the way it set up expectations for standard movie tropes and scenarios, but then ignored or subverted most of them. ( Collapse )

It's beautifully shot, and filled with more tension than most horror movies. I guess it's up for some Golden Globe awards tonight, but who cares about those?

[X] Family murdered in front of him
[X] Dedicates self to life of revenge because of the murder
[X] Dresses in costume to obscure face
[X] Climbs to highest building and perches on edge to watch over the city
[X] Uses fear and notoriety to advantage
[X] Swoops down from above to take out thugs
[X] Gigantic mansion with secret passage leading to lair underneath it
[X] Elder caretaker of mansion acts as a guide and mentor, knows his secret identity
[X] Friends with genius inventor who builds gadgets for him
[X] Throwing weapons kept on a belt
[X] Master of hand-to-hand combat
[X] Wealthy playboy at higher echelon of society
[X] Master detective capable of tracking down clues normal people can't see


Yep, Ezio from Assassin's Creed 2 is totally Batman.

I saw a screening of Terry Gilliam's new film tonight, and liked it very much. The film is definitely a return to his recurring themes of the fantasist (Brazil, Time Bandits, Baron Munchausen). Totally worth seeing on a big screen for the visuals alone. There is an abundance of CGI in the stories and imaginarium worlds, but not in the real world settings; there, effects and costumes are in line with the makeshift and cobbled-together visual style of his earlier films.

This was Heath Ledger's last film, and it sure seems like he unfortunately died very close to completion. Probably 80% of the scenes with his character are done by Heath, the rest are taken over by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrel. The explanation for the different actors perfectly fits in with the theme and circumstances of the movie.

It is a bit slow in places, though nowhere near as much as Munchausen was. I like the mythos of the world, and one of the real standouts is Tom Waits -- he plays Satan with a bowler hat and John Waters moustache. He practically steals all the scenes he's in, and now I'm even more wary than before of meeting Tom Waits in some dark alley. As if I didn't already think he'd be after my soul.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus opens in limited release on Christmas, and presumably a wider release in January. I'd give it four stars, with the caveat that it's probably not for everyone. You probably already know whether you're the type who'd like it or not.

It's a mid-week holiday tomorrow. I've done all my chores, I have no errands to run, and it's gonna be rainy and crappy outside. You better believe I'm going to spend as much time as possible with a controller in hand, trying to clear out some of my game queue.

I picked up Dragon Age:Origins last week and played a bit. I'm starting to get into the world and story, though I wish I could have named my rogue "Sneaky McBackstab" instead of whatever name I picked. I think games where you name characters would be better if they let you play a while before picking a name, so I can pick up more on the lore of the world and how I want the character to evolve.

But what I think I'm really going to do tomorrow is try to finish Uncharted 2. I set it aside after originally getting it, not playing very far. I did a bit more on Sunday while waiting for laundry and it got significantly more awesome after the slow beginning. I like the pacing much more than the original¹ -- the first game had too many fights that went on just a little too long or had just one too many waves of enemies, but in the sequel they all seem to end at the right time. And the train levels were just as incredible as people have been saying. Tomorrow I am going to plunder the shit out of Shambala!

I could go on, but there's probably only three people that care. Essentially, Uncharted 2 is the best action movie I've seen this year, only I'm the one in control.

I'd planned to wait on playing Borderlands, but two things happened:
First, everyone I know who got it was screaming about how great it was.
Second, I came into some "unallocated" money.

So I grabbed it on Thursday, and it's one of those games that does something neither Brutal Legend nor Uncharted 2 can do -- keep me up way past my bedtime. It's got that addictive quality not unlike Civilization or Diablo, where I know if I put in just another five more minutes something neat will happen. And then another five minutes, and so on. Last night I tried the co-op for the first time and was up until almost 3am shooting monsters and leather-clad shotgun-wielding midgets. I swear I am not making up that last part, evil sex dwarfs are in fact a common part of this game.

For those unfamiliar, it's basically Diablo, but as a first-person shooter, and set in a space cowboy/Mad Max world. I guess there's a plot but it doesn't really matter, the game is all about finding crazy guns and shooting everything that makes your crosshairs turn red. (There are also vehicles in some areas, so you can also run over the midgets.) And you can be a character with a pet bird who swoops into combat and fucks shit up. Really, how could I not get this? Last night I upgraded him so the bird is on fire and can also immolate people he attacks!

The real star of the game is the weapons; the commercials advertise "67 bazillion guns", and it's probably not that far off. So far everything I've found is unique, and they're starting to have crazy powers and descriptions. Last night I found a shotgun with the text "Holy crap! It shoots rockets!" I have a sniper rifle that penetrates armor, has a night vision scope, and sets enemies ablize. I have an SMG that does electrical damage and has an extended clip. I have bouncing napalm grenades. I have another shotgun that shoots out projectiles in an expanding wave like some Japanese shmup. And I'm still relatively low level, in the first areas of the game.

I still need to get back to Uncharted 2, which is a truly great game, but I think it will be one of those situations where first I'll check xbox live and see if anybody I know is playing Borderlands with a joinable game...

Batman Arkham Asylum: possibly best game I've played this year. Kind of want to play it again, and I already got 100% the first time through.

Shadow Complex: fun little metroidvania game, just about the right length. Just wish the camera would zoom out when I'm getting shot by dudes offscreen.

The Dig: $4.99 on Steam. I've forgotten most of it, am enjoying going back even though the pixels kind of hurt my eyes.

Killzone 2: Twenty minutes in I realized this was not a game I gave a shit about and put it back in the Gamefly envelope. Beautiful graphics, retarded dialog, retarded story, gameplay nothing special.

Looking forward to Scribblenauts. Trying to resist call to go back and start another game of Fallout 3. Anticipating Brutal Legend, Uncharted 2, and Assassin's Creed 2.

I had to call UPS customer support to find out where a missing package was. They have one of those automated answering things that requires you to speak the choices rather than pressing buttons.

I don't hear the options I want at first, so I say "Customer service". It recognizes that but says first I must pick one of the previously mentioned choices. So I say "tracking". Then it wants me to say my tracking number. My 20-character tracking number. I hate these things, because the voice recognition is never good enough, and it would take me about five seconds to just push buttons. Still, I recite off the tracking number. It doesn't understand any of it and starts the whole process over. I try pushing the buttons but it doesn't get that. I get frustrated and scream "FUCK YOU!" at the phone and it then connects me to an operator who helps me out and answers my question in thirty seconds.

Moral of the story: next time you have to call UPS customer support, just say "FUCK YOU!" when the robot picks up.