Serenity, Casino Royale and Never Too Loud

A while back I bought the Serenity Collector’s Edition, but only just now have I watched it. The main reason for this is that, I’ve had the original DVD version ever since it came out and have watched it probably two dozen times or more (the most I’ve ever watched any movie, probably), and figured that, yes, it has some new featurettes, but that it could wait as I didn’t want to become tired with it. However, this Saturday I popped it in and started watching said featurettes and bonus materials and have to admit, after watching everthing on the damned disc, that it sucked me right back in. In fact, I ended up watching the movie with the producer/director’s commentary running over it. I guess that’s how much I love Serenity. Funny thing is, I never really cared much for Joss Whedon’s other works such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel–but here, Firefly and Serenity are pure works of genius, I’ll admit.

After going through Serenity again, I became inspired. It’s really the grittiness and living-on-the-edge themes that I like in Serenity–plus, it never gets too serious and has plenty of comedy in it. It really is the archetype for the sci-fi/fantasy story in my head. However, now, I realize where my story is going, probably more toward Serenity’s style. Obviously not a copy of it, but something a bit different yet similar. Anyway.

Before I watched Serenity, I rewatched the latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale. And, I have to admit, I liked it just as much as the first time I saw it. It’s a little long, though. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but the story begins to feel drawn out. I do like how it ends, though: with Bond shooting the bad guy and leaving him there on the ground in pain Works for me. I think the stunts, though, are what make this movie. Like most Bond films, Casino Royale is simply filled with stunts–these stunts, however, are all over the top.

Then, I finally gave a listen to some of the songs on the latest Danko Jones album, Never Too Loud. Railwolf will know what I’m talking about here. Out of the songs so far I really like Forest for the Trees, which is very Linkin Park like, but 100% better; the pitching on the vocals is outstanding.

ABC WLOS - LOST

Wow, that was painful. I had to suffer through an entire episode of LOST without any sound. It seems that my local ABC affiliate, WLOS, was having an issue with their sound equipment. I could have accepted their apology had it come earlier than it did. And if they hadn’t shown as much incompetence as they did–and if they hadn’t lied.

Only five minutes into the show and…the sound cut out. Then it came back and then it cut out again for the rest of the show. You could hear a slight buzzing/modulation noise with the very faint soundtrack in the background. That was bad enough. Then, somehow, I don’t know how, the station managed to put on its audio track from another station that they run: My 40. And what was said My 40 showing? That stupid Pauly Shore movie In the Army Now. That soundtrack played over the top of LOST for probably five minutes or so before, again, there was nothing.

I might as well have not even watched LOST tonight I already didn’t have a high opinion of the ABC station here. And, well, now they just went to the bottom of my list. Complete incompetence! Oh, and at the end, just as the credits were about to roll, a brief clip of In the Army Now appeared on the screen before returning back to LOST.

Half way through this most heinous error, the ABC station put up an explanation using the Breaking News feature that they have. They said they were “experiencing technical difficulties with their audio feed from ABC”. Yeah, and if that were the case all the commericials and news promos would have had audio, but they didn’t. So that was a blatant lie.

Console Gaming

This weekend I played way too much Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. I was closed up with my face glued to the screen. In fact, Saturday, when I could have been out somewhere, I was sitting there absorbed completely in BioShock. That game is just so intense and graphically beautiful you want to keep on playing to see what’s around the next corner. Sadly, though, Irrational Games, now 2K Boston, has no plans on working on a sequel to their SWAT series, because BioShock 2 is taking up all their time, apparently. Oh well, BioShock is waaaay better graphically and storyline speaking than any of the SWAT games, but still SWAT is a whole lot of fun. Anyhow.

So far, I’ve had a lot of fun on the Wii with Wii Sports, but, truth be told, I’m not that impressed by the Zelda game, Twilight Princess. It looks too dated, and they don’t have voiceovers for the characters. You have to read, ugh! If I wanted to do that, I’d just go pick up a book. Metroid, on the other hand, is awesome!

However, after playing Wii Sports for a good hour my shoulder started to hurt. LOL I’m suing The tennis and boxing games were the ones that wore me out pretty quickly. The reptitive action somehow really does start to get you “feeling” something. I mean, I even started to sweat! Of course, I was sweating in BioShock when I had a bunch of Splicers on me all at once–including the Nitro ones, which I hate to no end.

It was weird telling everyone that I was going to “play with my Wii” this weekend, though. In fact, they kind of gave me a weird look.

Movies That Rock…Or Not

Over the years there have been a lot of movies done by Hollywood to parody rock music. And I’ve seen just about every one of them, too. Some have been better than others, obviously. Anyway. Here is my list, in no particular order:

• Airheads
• Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
• Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
• Wayne’s World
• Wayne’s World 2
• School of Rock
• Tenacious D In The Pick of Destiny
• This Is Spinal Tap

Out of all of these I think School of Rock and Spinal Tap are the best. Just my opinion. Oh, and Wayne’s World 2 is, ugh, terrible, in my opinion. It’s even more bogus than Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey!

Xbox 360 Hooked Up and Rearing to Go!

My Xbox 360 arrived yesterday, and its journey getting to my house was quite interesting, to say the least. Since it’s, apparently, slightly difficult to get one’s hands on a 360 at the moment, except for the possibility of maybe finding one online, which is what I did. None of the stores in my area had an Xbox 360 in stock–except, I’ll amend, a refurbished one. And, I’m sort of partial to things being new–even if it does have a factory warranty after being repaired, I don’t want it. I suppose, it’s the obsessive/compulsive in me.

Now, I’ve been thinking about getting an Xbox for a long time. I never got the original, because I thought it was nothing more than a computer, and I was pretty satisfied with the choice of PC games as well as the games I had for my GameCube. But, this time around, the Xbox 360 has features none of the other systems currently have–as well as a big game title library. Though, one of the biggest things for me were the online features, particulary the Xbox Live Marketplace and Arcade.

I had made my mind up about Microsoft’s second generation console about a week and a half ago after seeing what you could actually do with it at a friend’s house. I did some searching around and learned that there are three current models available of the 360: Arcade, Premium (Pro), and Elite. The differences between them are quite simple, too. The Arcade has no harddrive and has a wired controller whereas the Premium has a 20GB harddrive and a wireless controller–the Elite, on the otherhand, has all the same features as the Premium but, instead, comes with a 120GB harddrive; it’s also painted in a matte black finish. However, the cost is really the main difference between the three. Arcade $279. Premium $349. Elite $449.

It was a nobrainer. I went with the Premium. While the extra space with the bigger harddrive would have been nice, I had to ask myself: Is it really worth the extra $100? I shook my head and told myself, “No.” I went with the Premium. Finding one, though, was the next task. Of course, I went first to the Internet. I checked out all of the regional chain stores in my area and, alas, as I said before, nobody had a 360 in stock! However, Circuit City still had the “Holiday Bundle” available on their website. The bundle comes with two games: Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Forza 2. Otherwise, it has everything that the Premium by itself comes with, at the same price to boot.

Almost as soon as I saw it, I clicked “Add to Cart”, because I knew if I didn’t do it, I would NEVER do it. Plus, shipping was free! Of course, I knew that part, the “free”, would mean that my shipment would probably take about a week or more–particularly because I had placed the order on a Thursday afternoon. However, I was surprised that it actually shipped out that very same day via FedEx.

Now, I didn’t start checking the FedEx site on a regular basis until probably Monday, I think. That’s when I saw the bizarre journey that I wasn’t expecting my package to take. It went from the Circuit City warehouse to Atlanta, which was normal. It sat there for a day, then it went on to Charlotte, NC where it sat, so it seemed, for another two days. Next thing I knew, it said that my 360 had been accepted where I live at 6:30 in the morning. Of course, I didn’t check this until I got to work, because last it said it was still in Charlotte and it’d be, at least, two more days before it would show up. This was on last Wednesday.

That morning I didn’t check the front porch, because A) deliveries here are rare before noon and B) I thought the FedEx driver would probably ring the doorbell before leaving a package and C) my brother would have brought said package into the house and left it where I could see it, presumeably, since he leaves for work around when the package was supposedly delivered. Needless to say, I was frantic to get home during lunch to see if the 360 was, indeed, there. But, I was remiss to find nothing. I was pretty sure somebody had either stolen it off the porch or FedEx had delivered it to the wrong address. Come to find out, the 360 had been sent via some service called FedEx Smart Post.

In a nutshell, this service utilizes the US Postal Service for the last leg of a shipment. Basically FedEx carries it to one of their “sortation” centers and then they mail it to your local post office where your postal carrier then delivers to your house. I had never heard of this service, hence the reason I was so damned confused. Anyway.

The 360 had shown up by the time I got home that evening. I immediately set to hooking it up and getting it ready to play some games. Now, I wanted to make sure it was hooked up with the best possible signal and sound. So, I decided to use the HDMI port, but the Premium doesn’t come with an HDMI cable, only a stupid component cable. Here is where I got clever. My upconverting DVD player is attached with an HDMI hookup, so I borrowed the cable from there, instead of buying another cable. And, to hook up the Internet to it, I ran a 100ft cable from the router in my bedroom to the Xbox in the livingroom–the cable I already had, as I had used it for something else a couple of years ago (more than a couple of years ago, actually). I took the cheap way out, and everything works just fine.

So far, I’ve played the two games that came with my 360, several game demos, some Xbox Live Arcade games, and, coolest of all, some HD movies I downloaded from “the Marketplace”. All in all, I am so far enjoying the Xbox 360. There are only a few minor things that are irritating, though. When playing a singleplayer game, the system completely disconnects from Xbox Live, even if you are downloading something. The internal cooling fan is a bit noisy. And the controller doesn’t come with a rechargeable battery system–that is sold separately. Oh, and the Xbox Live headset is sort of cheesy. Other than that, the system is fairly good, in my opinion. Ugh, I hate saying that. Damned Microsoft