Somewhat Manly Nerd

http://theslip.nin.com/

Trent Reznor owns. Radiohead had that one time deal, but now Trent has released two albums for free. It’s like he knows he’s going to die, and he’s just going on a writing spree — a la Tupac. Only the internet now allows an artist to release stuff as he writes it.

Apparently, it’s taking many people a long time to get their e-mails, but I got mine immediately. Trent knew I was listening to my The Downward Spiral CD this morning, and he rewarded me. Or maybe my e-mail was already in the database or something, from when Ghosts I-IV was released. I just know I’m currently downloading both the MP3 and FLAC versions of the album for FREE. LEGALLY.

In case you haven’t noticed the link on the top of the sidebar, I’ve added a page under “Extra.” This page is a collection of just about all the animated GIFs I’ve made over the past few years for forums. Seinfeld, The Office, Arrested Development, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia…the list goes on. Oh, the amount of time I’ve wasted…

BEWARE, it will take a while to load, and it’s a lot of stuff for one browser to display.

PC Stress Test in the form of GIFs

DO IT. CLICK THE LINK. TOUCH IT.

Let’s see:

- Bought GTA IV. Oh wait, that wasn’t that awesome. How did this game get 10s across the board? How did Zelda: OOT get dethroned by this sluggish, buggy game? Ok, the scope and detail of the world is nothing less than impressive, but the framerate is pretty awful and the game almost seems to have a blurry filter. The 20fps only serve to excerbate the already sluggish controls. Everything just moves so damn slowly. I’m not even going to rip on the driving like I’ve seen a lot of people do. I guess Rockstar just wanted to go a more realistic route this time around. They didn’t want to try to compete with Crackdown, which I’m tempted to say is the king of the sandbox genre at this point. I was just playing that game endlessly a few weeks back, so the transition to the gameplay of GTA IV is jarring. The online makes the game worth a purchase, though. The first day I played mostly multi, since I kept getting invited to games. It’s funny how the gameplay is the worst part of the videogame, yet it still is universally praised. It’s not a surprise I haven’t played the game at all this weekend. But that may have to do with the next thing…

- Got a new laptop. A huge 17″ Dell Inspiron 1720 with a 1920×1200 LCD screen. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I had both the Google Sidebar and Vista Sidebar going at one time, and it was totally unnecessary and awesome. Unfortunately, that wasn’t supposed to happen, so I’ve never managed to recreate the gloriousness. I’ve played Team Fortress 2, Company of Heroes, and Trackmania Nations Forever, leaving my GTA IV to rot in my 360 disk tray. Birthday + Graduation gifts FTW.

- Speaking of Company of Heroes, I’ve missed the RTS genre so much. I’m truly not sure of the last RTS I bought. If SimCity 4 doesn’t count, I think it’s Warcraft III. So my re-entrance into one of my favorite genres of gaming has made this a good week. The physics in CoH are incredible — watching an entire city get destroyed over the course of a mission is one the most awe-inspiring things I’ve seen in a game. Watching artillery strikes rain down on enemy units reminds me of watching siege tanks destroy hydra rushes in Starcraft. Oh God, Starcraft 2.

- Got a new job — one that will hopefully turn into a career. (Not that half of you would even know what an actuary is. And if you do, it’s probably from that god-forsaken Ben Stiller movie that I’ve heard people bring up a bunch of times.) A family friend connection basically got me the job. Yeah, that’s right. Not that I was under-qualified or anything, but I never would’ve known about the place otherwise. It definitely changed my plans for at least the next year, and probably many more. Now I will be able to buy an HDTV!

- And that brings me back to my orgasmic laptop. FULL HD with BLU-RAY. When I first got it, I didn’t think I would want to bother watching movies on it, since it’s still only 17″, but the latest Dark Knight trailer changed that. So I bought Terminator 2, Blade Runner, and 2001: A Space Odyssey on BD. I love me some sci-fi. Why is it abbreviated BD anyway? It should be BRD. Whatever, everyone says “Blu-Ray” anyway.

- I also had no exams and next to no work this week. I had to read Issac Asimov’s I, Robot and one of his short stories — but those were totally awesome. Which was a nice change of pace between the two exams and paper of two weeks ago, and upcoming finals and actuarial exam. Fun stuff.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

That’s all I needed. I would pay $6.25+tax (500 MS points) for that alone.

But “Exo-Politics” and “Supermassive Black Hole” are also in the 3-song pack being released on May 8.

Meanwhile, Rock Band is getting some pack with Fallout Boy in it.

So for one week, GH3 > Rock Band.

But I might need to finally buy Rock Band when “Hysteria” is released for it (guessing it will coincide with the European release on May 22).

So since I haven’t even bothered editing the last post, leaving shitty YouTube bootlegs alone, it’s only natural that this post is the trailer in its full glory.

http://www.whysoserious.com/happytrails/trailer.htm

Owning a Full-HD-capable laptop is so awesome. I couldn’t believe how incredible that trailer looked. Absolutely incredible. This movie is going to own my soul. Nothing else coming out this summer compares. There’s a podcast called “Filmspotting” and right on their website, there is a poll: MOST anticipated summer movie (excluding The Dark Knight). That’s right. Christopher Nolan is going to rock this shit out of the park.

I refer you to

New The Dark Knight Trailer in HD

Well, considering the amount of schoolwork and exams I had last week, anything would seem better this week. Outside of the possibility of getting turned down for a job I’m hoping to get, this week is shaping up to be the complete opposite.

Right now, Grand Theft Auto IV is having its midnight launch of the US East Coast (the time zone that matters). I never preorder games anymore, unless there’s an awesome free bonus. I still have little doubt I’ll be able to walk into Best Buy tomorrow morning and pick up a copy for my 360. I’ll check both Best Buys that are on the way to class. If that doesn’t turn out well…I guess I’ll check Walmart or something. I really do not expect such drastic measures. I even put a month GAF ban on it.

The reviews GTA IV is getting are absolutely off the charts. Pretty much the most lavishly praised game since The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, perhaps even more so. I just felt like typing that whole title out for once. I’m getting caught in the hype at the last minute, like with Halo 3. And with both series, the last iteration really didn’t do much for me. But somehow I’m sure that GTA IV won’t disappoint like Halo 3. And there’s no game coming out analogous that could overshadow GTA IV the way Call of Duty 4 showed up Halo 3 by releasing around the same time.

This upcoming weekend there is the release of Iron Man and Redbelt. (And I didn’t even realize until today that Harold and Kumar 2 was released last Friday). The former is probably known by everyone, and I’m pretty sure it will rock, if only due to Robert Downey Jr. being the star. And the special effects don’t look too bad either. Redbelt is written by David Mamet and revolves around MMA. That’s enough to get me to want to see it. In case you are unaware, Mamet wrote Glengarry Glen Ross. That’s all you need to know.

Last but not least, there was SUPPOSED to be a new The Dark Knight trailer virally leaked today, but it never surfaced, unfortunately. I think Warner Bros. was just messing with fans. Talk about blue balls. My anticipation of that movie has been much greater than that for GTA IV. Still over two and a half months away. ARGH. But hopefully by the end of the week, it will be on the internets.

Of course, this whole post will be wrong if I am not hired. But at least I’ll have GTA IV. Hopefully.

That didn’t turn out so bad. Once again, the Mets have proved they can beat their division rivals. Of course, both of these teams were missing arguably their best players at the time, and Tim Hudson and John Smoltz looked broken in each of their starts…but you have to take what you can! Carlos Delgado hit 2 HRs in one game! I bet you didn’t see that coming. Maybe he won’t be completely worthless this year. Unfortunately, Aaron Heilman still sucks.

The Mets probably should’ve SWEPT the series, considering Tim McClelland all but gave the Mets the series opener, when he chose to fuck with Jair Jurrjens after he showed him up on a close call. Four straight walks, the last three with the bases loaded. I think Sunday was the only time the Mets actually scored runs by hitting well. They had ONE good inning on Saturday.

I still don’t know what to make of the team — I bet now they’ll lose a couple of games in a row to the Pirates. Oh, and Moises Alou might be hurt again before he has even managed to get back in the lineup. AWESOME signing there. The guy was hurt coming out of the womb, at 124 years old it’s only going to be 5x worse.

Meanwhile, considering the other New York team (usually a reference to the Mets), Wang is pretty good. (lol) No really, he’s been pretty great this year. He’s like the total opposite of Barry Zito. I just complained about the Alou signing, but wow. Zito is now 0-6 with a 7.53 ERA. I bet when I check my Yahoo! fantasy league tomorrow, there’ll be a notice saying “Barry Zito has been dropped by 23674 teams.” The Giants wish they could do the same.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin is so awesome. Still the best Apatow movie.

Basically, that entire scene is absolute gold.

The Mets are pretty awful right now. The spirit of Brad Lidge has taken over Aaron Heilman’s body, Jorge Sosa is arguably even worse than him, Carlos Delgado is hitting under .200, and Oliver Perez is still as self-destructive as ever. Not to mention that the entire team has only 12 home runs. Chase Utley has 10 by himself.

I just wanted to make this post before Chipper Jones absolutely demolishes the Mets this weekend. It’s going to be ugly. Jurrjens, Hudson, and Smoltz lined up for them. Oh God. I didn’t even realize it was that bad. Pelfrey, Maine, and Figueroa need to pitch at least 7 innings to win. I really don’t see it happening.

And Delgado sucks at first base too, by the way.