Game Over

Show's over, folks. I graduate Saturday, start summer work the following week, and enter graduate school in the fall. Unfortunately that basically leaves no time for gaming or anything else remotely fun. On the plus side, I did just get a swank new Toshiba laptop that can play DirectX 8.1 games smooth as silk. Maybe I'll manage to squeez in a few rounds of Counter-Strike Source or Tekken 3 on ePSXe when I'm not drowning in marketing assignments.

See you in Hell.

Episode III

Well I wasn't feeling well enough to go to the theater yesterday, but I got to see "Revenge of the Sith" today. The pacing and action is a lot better than Episode I and Episode, with no dreadfully boring parts like the build up to the racing in Phantom Menace. I don't know if I can compare it to the original three movies because I've never cared about them too much. They're good, but I'm not much of a "Star Wars" or "science fiction" nut, so I just enjoyed them for what they were - action movies with a pretty interesting story line.

I enjoyed the effects in Episode I and Episode II, but growing up on movies like Terminator 2 makes CG effects increasingly less impressive. But I'd still give credit where credit is due, because it was ILM that most those movies what they are. Whether Lucas is a master story teller or a moron that got lucky, he's forever changed the way movies are made. If it wasn't for Star Wars in 1977, or Terminator 2 in 1992, the Lord of The Rings movies wouldn't have been what they were. Not that I particularly care about that franchise either, but it shows that CG can go hand in hand with established literature to help amplify the experience.

As I said, this was a very good movie. The light saber fights were awesome (though I still like Darth Maul the best), General Grievous was a badass, and the way Anakin was finally transformed into Vader was well done. There are only a few things that bring the movie down, and they go hand in hand. The first blemish was how dreadfully corny a lot of the dialogue was. The scene where Vader is told how he killed Padme pratically had me laughing. This was a dissapointment since the back and forth between Anakin and Palpatine was pretty good earlier in the movie. Secondly, not enough time was spent with Padme explaining why she and Anakin could have been on the wrong side of the conflict, and the actual naming of "Darth Vader" seemed unreasonably abrupt. The ending was very cool, although I think it would have been better to show how Vader retained his skills as a pilot despite the injuries.

For all the corny bits, the final battle between Luke and Obiwan was classic, and the way Anakin was burned and disfigured was very convincing. He seriously looked like somebody slowly sliding into the pits of hell. Overall the movie could have been better if there were more scenes of Palpatine luring Anakin, and Padme explaining the sentiments that also helped push Anakin into becoming Darth Vader.

Overall a good movie, and one I'll be picking up on DVD in order to watch the action sequences over again. And if there's any justice in the world, it'll sink that piece of shit Titanic for the box office gross record. But with movie piracy so widespread and movies getting yanked out of the theater in order to cash in on DVD sales (you know it'll be out sometime in November), that probably won't happen. Like they say, sith happens.

Sith Happens

Finals and E3 combined to kill any time that would have made posting on here possible. I'm going to see if I actually have time for this through the remainder of the month, and if not (which is most likely the case), than it's game over.

At the very least, I should be seeing Revenge of the Sith today.

Verizon FiOS

I may be able to escape from Comcast's crap in the very near future. I pay $42.95 a month for horribly slow cable broadband that has service outage after service outage. It got so bad a few weeks ago that broadbandreports.com had a story on it, since it occured nation wide.

If there isn't some type of catch, Verizon FiOS could be my way out. It's only $7 more a month for the 15Mbps/2Mbps package, which is 10x faster than what I'm using now. They even throw in a free network router and the installation is free. I'll be busy as hell for the next few weeks with school wrapping up, but this is going to be my priority for June.

Fuck Comcast.

MODs Galore

Blogger seems to be incapable of handling even the most basic HTML, so here is a direct link link to a thread that indexes all of the available Half-Life 2 MODs: http://www.hlfallout.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=37402

All links are to filefront or other sites that don't require some homosexual login ID, unlike GaySpy.

Quad Kill

Fuck yeah.

Super SPAM

GMail is pretty good. It provides plenty of space (which I don't really make use of). It's devoid of image advertisements or annoying flash applets. And it does a really damn good job of flitering SPAM out of my inbox. Somehow, this golden nugget managed to slip through:

This was on the 9:00 o'clock news the other night and this works

THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USATODAY - IT IS FOR REAL


Subject: PLEEEEEEASE READ!!!! it was on the news!

This thing is for real. Rest assured AOL and Intel will follow through with their promises for fear of facing a multimillion-dollar class action suit similar to the one filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long ago.

Dear Friends; Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.

When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it ( If you are a Microsoft Windows user) For a two weeks time period.

For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a check.

Regards. Charles S Bailey General Manager Field Operations
1-800-842-2332 Ext. 1085 or 904-1085 or RNX
292-1085 Charles_Bailey@csx.com Charles_bailey@csx.com

I thought this was a scam myself, But two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on. Microsoft contacted me for my address and withindays, I receive a check for $24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can affoard this, Bill gates is the man.

It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many people as possible. You are bound to get at least $10,000.00. We're not going to help them out with their e-mail beta test without getting a little something for our time. My brother's girlfriend got in on this a few months ago. When i went to visit him for the Baylor/UT game. She showed me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped "Paid in full"

Like i said before, I know the law, and this is for real.

Intel and AOL are now discussing a merger which would make them the largest Internet company and in an effort make sure that AOL remains the most widely used program, Intel and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.

When you forward this e-mail to friends, Intel can and will track it( if you are a Microsoft Windows user)for a two week time period.

TRy it; What have you got to lose

My Sanity.

Frog AIDS

What The Fuck?????