Somewhat Manly Nerd

Christian Bale playing John Connor is enough to get me hyped up for Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. Does anyone get more badass roles?  Patrick Bateman, Grammaton Cleric John Preston, Batman…and now the savior of the human race.

I can see it. Bale just needs some deep, war-ravaged scars.

As for predicting the quality of the film, I can’t say I trust a guy who calls himself “McG.” Not to mention that his most well-known directorial work was done in Charlie’s Angels. On the other hand, I enjoyed T3 thoroughly, unlike many people who detested it and felt it shit on the previous two films in the series. I can easily see where they’re coming from, as T3 isn’t going to be look at as a classic for years to come like its predecessors. Yet I can’t help but laugh at people saying it fucked up the timeline, as time travel doesn’t make sense anyway! T3 delivered awesome action, and that’s all I wanted.

And to make a point, there’s also people that were disappointed by T2 for completely flipping the point of the original on its head and giving a lighter tone to the possibility of Judgment Day. Just like Alien before it, The Terminator was a masterfully constructed dark thriller, with a lighter action-fest for a sequel. T3 just rehashed T2 a bit too much at parts, turned the cheese factor up a notch, and once again turned the entire mythology on its head, but in a good way. I’m convinced people went in with their hate-blinders on, considering James Cameron wasn’t involved.

It’s just going to be strange to have a Terminator movie without Arnold. I’m hoping Christian Bale can make up for that, but I hear John Connor isn’t going to be the main character in T4. But they have a whole new trilogy to flesh out the story of humanity’s savior. This is the story that we’ve been waiting for.

Burnout Paradise

The definition of a love/hate relationship. I love the amazing crash physics. After approximately 1287 crashes, I hate still having to see every single one in slow-motion (previous Burnouts had the option to turn Takedown cams off). I love doing challenges online with online buddies. I hate that I’ll probably never get the 250 challenge achievement, since I’ll never do challenges with 6, 7 or 8 people. I love the ease of online racing, the leaderboards, and the stats given before each race. I hate losing races due to missing a crucial turn. I love the variety in the vehicles and how they actually react differently in collisions. I hate having to do specific Burning Lap events with specific vehicles. I still love Road Rage events. I hate the new Showtime (Crash) mode, but not nearly as much as I hate Stunt Mode.

Omega Five

Exactly the type of game that XBLA should have in droves. An original shmup that has tight controls and impressive graphics. And XBLA adds the incentive to drive for a high score with leaderboards. I can’t wait for Ikaruga to be released. I still can’t believe I just sold the GC version on Amazon Marketplace for $45. Can’t wait to rebuy a superior version for $10!

Halo 3

Yeah, I’ve been a huge critic of this series since the original, but co-op apparently is still fun. Ripped through the game on normal. Just as my predetermined hatred of the campaign was starting to recede, we reached a level that took place inside a giant anus. I don’t know who thought it’d be a good idea to have such a disgusting level in a video game. And there were anuses inside the anus. And it vibrated its walls as it spoke a few times. Bungie should be ashamed of themselves.

The Dishwasher

One of the XBL Community Games, which means it was developed with XNA Game Studio and released with XNA Creators Club. Let’s just say it’s a way for independent developers to get their cool games on XBLA. There’s still time to play a bunch of these games for free. I haven’t gotten a chance to play any others, but this one is pretty fun. You can tell it’s an amateurish work-in-progress, but it’s Devil May Cry/Ninja Gaiden in 2D, which should sound cool to anyone.

Call of Duty 4

Never completely out of the gaming rotation. Took a while to beat the single-player campaign, as Veteran was a bitch. I’m determined to eventually get 1000/1000, so I’ll need to beat the extra level on Veteran, even if it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever played. As for MP: even after weeks of vacation, I still rock the shit — most notably on Wet Work. I reached Prestige mode, and kept on mercilessly killing dudes with the vanilla M16. Call of Duty 4 might as well be renamed Boost Joel’s Self-Esteem.

Also, I just came across this gem (sorry, had to shrink to fit):

Facebook Scrabulous

This counts! I’ll take on all comers! I’m not especially good, but I can hold my own at times.

The Knicks are the very definition of a trainwreck. You can’t look away.

A response to Sarah Silverman’s, “I’m Fucking Matt Damon”

So, so awesome. Jimmy knew he’d have a big audience after the Oscars. This has to be one of the greatest late-night things ever. Matt Damon vs. Jimmy Kimmel = Greatest Feud Ever.

This is actually getting typed up and posted on the 19th, but timestamps can be changed! And I honestly put this down on paper on the 16th. That’s what I’m going by.

- Burnout Revenge + Metallica = Awesome. There is nothing quite like going on a takedown rampage to “Master of Puppets.”

- When even a congressional hearing about whether or not some baseball player took steroids devolves into a bipartisan affair, you know something is horribly with politics. I have no idea how Congress gets anything done. Although, I guess that can be argued.

- Hardcover books are vastly superior to paperbacks. Just because you can’t afford hardcovers, don’t say that crappy mass market paperbacks are better. That’s like saying an Xbox 360 is superior to a $2000 gaming rig.

(Just look at this sexy collection of literature - Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 60s 83o pages!!!)

- I should take my Apple hating/trolling to the real world as much as possible. I was in the Apple Store yesterday, looking at the MacBook Air, when a family with a young kid came over and was looking at it. I overheard the dad saying something with a negative tone in his voice, and I just chipped in with “Yeah, it’s an overpriced novelty item.” There was an “Apple Genius” no less than five feet away, too. Screw Apple.

- I want to castrate whoever thought the Xbox 360 controller’s d-pad had a good design. It’s the only thing stopping the controller from being the most perfect controller ever constructed.

- I should really care more about the Anonymous protests on the Church of Scientology, but I just can’t take anything involving 4chan seriously. Like the kid I met at a party yesterday. The dude’s chest squeaked! That has to be a side effect of too much 4chan. This is one good thing that I’ve seen come out of the protests:

- Cupcakes vs. brownies. A battle that will never be over.

- I know a person who hit the rapper T.I. with a water balloon while he was performing on stage. Now I know a person who hit Nick Carter in the ear with a scone. My life will not be complete until I hit Fred Durst with a bus.

Thank you to Slurpy over at GAF.

I’ll admit I get some traffic on this blog, but I’m pretty sure it’s mostly bot spam, judging by the number of comments I get. I came across an article on Digg that caught my eye, as most blogging tip lists do. Not that I follow them, or even read them. But I did read this one…

The original article. And now I self-evaluate:

1. Write from the heart

Hey, I do that! Who else would talk about what everyone knows to be true, that Tom Brady is pure evil? I let my fandom get the best of me in all my sports-related posts, I do my best to rip on Halo whenever possible, and every movie review I post immediately after a theater-viewing usually turns into a gushing pile of text. I write about whatever is on my mind without holding back. I wish I had a joke to wrap this up. This post is already doomed for failure.

2. Be insanely useful

Already in trouble here. Are animated gifs useful? How about YouTube videos? I did send a random person a Hulu invite; that can only be construed as extremely helpful and useful. That social networking/Hulu post is probably the only truly useful thing I’ve posted in a while. Hmm, I’ll try to think of some ideas to change this fact. Maybe HOW TO MAKE ANIMATED GIFS!

3. Keep the reader’s problems in mind

Sorry, I have enough problems of my own. I can’t think about your problems, reader. I just try post as much inane crap as possible, so you can forget about your pitiful existence for a few short moments. (But if you have any suggestions, I’m open.)

4. Don’t just write about yourself

I know this isn’t livejournal.com. Moving on.

5. Interact with readers

I make sure to respond to pretty much every comment on this blog, no matter how stupid, belligerent, or ill-informed. Just look at the plethora of comments on the Tom Brady and Bear Grylls posts. I take care of my four readers.

6. Give them a reason to come back

Shouldn’t good, regular posting be enough to achieve this? The original article says to “build anticipation.” Should I announce that I have cock pics incoming? Or exclusive Jessica Alba nudes next week? Maybe I could improve this when I set up WordPress on my own webspace. Polls! More column sidebars! Hulu embedded videos!

7. Write catchy headlines

This could possibly use some work, but I have plenty of gems. Anything with “Anti-Christ” is obviously an attention-grabber, and I liked “To Rock Band, or Not to Rock Band” and “Tightening Up the Blog Posts on Level Three.” Come on! Those are awesome.

8. On social media

Just made a post about all this ridiculous Web 2.0 stuff. The problem with them is that you actually need FRIENDS ON THEM to help popularize your posts. Build a Digg network — or maybe now a Pownce network — and you’ll get traffic. Surprisingly, Digg managed to help my “Tom Brady is the Anti-Christ” post get a shitload of traffic, but I’ve seen nothing of the sort happen to any of the other posts I dugg, including my sequel to it (which I felt was vastly superior). I think I can safely say that my biggest triumph was getting linked by Deadspin. Too bad I didn’t utilize that in any way. At all.

9. Guest posting

Hey, I let Justin post stuff on here when he feels like it. Anyone — that I know — is welcome to contribute! If it doesn’t suck.

10. Reveal yourself

I’m fairly hesitant about talking about my personal life in here. On the other hand, it’s not like my personal life would actually be interesting to anyone at this point in time. But I think stating that I’m e-stalking an internet celebrity is pretty revealing. Of a lot of things.

11. Don’t be afraid to try new things

I cover a vast network of topics. Movies, games, books (once in a blue moon), TV shows, the internet, sports, random funny stuff…I really don’t know what else I could cover with any level of intelligent writing. I guess I could always pretend I’m an expert on subjects I know absolutely nothing about. Kinda like that guy that wrote a review for Mass Effect WITHOUT LEVELING UP HIS CHARACTERS.

12. Focus on the essential

I think this means more posts with boobs.

So I finally got around to seeing Rambo this weekend. I’m not quite sure it was a good use of $7.25.

Now, before you revoke my man-card and tell me to buy some tampons, let me give a few reasons for this blasphemy (spoilers, obviously):

I saw 80% of the awesome before I ever stepped in the theater

I saw Rambo rip an about-to-be-rapist’s throat out. I saw a sniping-induced decapitation. I saw Rambo come into focus over the shoulder of a dude and subsequently knife his guts out. I saw Rambo knife a dude, take over his m
ounted machine gun and kill the guy sitting in the very same jeep as the chain-gun. I saw Rambo gun down a truck full of dudes and blow up a ship with aforementioned mounted machine gun. Only watching Rambo shoot arrows through soldiers’ faces and blow up a megaton bomb were any surprise at all.

This attempt at a philosophical argument

John Rambo: Why’d you come back?
Sarah: Waiting for you.
John Rambo: I told you before, I can’t help you.
Sarah: Well we need to go and help these people, we’re here to make a difference, we believe all lives are special.
John Rambo: Some lives, some not.
Sarah: Really? If everyone thought like you, nothing would ever change.
John Rambo: Nothing does change.
Sarah: Of course it does! Nothing stays the same.
John Rambo: Live your life cause you’ve got a good one.
Sarah: It’s what I’m trying to do!
John Rambo: No, what you’re trying to do is change what is.
Sarah: And what is?
John Rambo: Go home.

Basically the only action I hadn’t seen going in was the MASSACRE OF AN ENTIRE VILLAGE

That was fun. Peasants and children getting their limbs blown off for a few minutes, topped off with flamethrowers burning whatever was left. At that point, I was almost laughing at the ridiculousness of what I was watching. Because I knew Rambo was going to kill the entire battalion.

The evil general is a pedophile

Apparently, Stallone didn’t think we got the point when he ordered the killing of hundreds of people and stole the children from a half-burnt down village. He had to be shown petting the head of a little boy, before the door closed… for the night. I guess we really had to hate him, so we could love it when Rambo sliced his guts up and sent him tumbling down a hill over his own intestines.

After the final battle, Rambo felt like staring into infinity

It was almost like that scene out of Kung Pow; Rambo and the woman he saved felt it necessary to stare at one another while the camera switched back and forth at least 6 times. It was obviously added to make the movie long enough to be deemed a feature-length film.

Ok, I think I’m being a bit tough on the movie. It promised ridiculously gory action, and it delivered. And most of the things I listed also could be construed as positives. I did laugh at “Go Home.” pretty damn hard. It just seemed a bit short. Maybe Stallone shouldn’t have released so many damn clips and a 4-minute-long trailer.

(I should get paid for this type of pimpage.)

Fuck MySpace. I’m back on Facebook for the fifth time. I fill my Twitter profile with inane quips, observations, and rants. I post awesome stuff in my Pownce profile. My Muse obsession is well-documented on my Last.fm profile. I’ve had a Digg profile for a while, and I’m starting to utilize that again. I’ve uploaded three badass concerts on Stage6 (but one has since been taken down — actually, the whole site has been taken down for a while due to some hackers). I even got an invite to Hulu, a totally legal TV show streaming site that is still in beta form. Once I FINALLY setup my own webspace, I’ll be sure to embed some of my favorite shows and clips.

I’m also on two forums, and would be on three if a certain online buddy weren’t a fellow poor college student. Instead of buying me the Something Awful subscription he promised, he spends money on food — what a friend he is. And of course, there’s this little piece of internet, along with the one I carved out a few years ago. Google CajoleJuice. Go ahead. Do it. My blog being the first Google result parallels a similar fact that almost led to possible disaster a few years ago. This time around, I’m a little more amused and content. While you’re at it, Google Anti-Christ Tom Brady. The power of Digg. Although, it didn’t seem to work for the follow-up post this year. All I have left is to buy a webcam so I create a channel on Yahoo! Live and stream myself over the web. Oh wait, I’m not an attention-whoring teenage girl.

I don’t even quite know what I hoped to achieve with this post, but I hate wasting possible posts that I already wrote up. I truly believe everyone should sign up on Pownce as soon as possible, solely due to the file sharing capabilities. You can’t see it, but I uploaded a bunch of music. At the time, I didn’t realize just how worthless an effort that was. I knew you needed to be friends on Pownce to be able to see each other’s files, but I didn’t know you needed to be friends BEFORE the file was uploaded. So yeah, that was a waste. And now that my goddamn Photobucket account has exceeded its bandwidth and the site TrialPay is currently fisting my asshole while I wait for them to upgrade me to Pro, pretty much the only thing on my public profile is this:

Don’t let that give you a bad impression of Pownce. It’s like Twitter on steroids, even though there’s a good chance no one reading this knows what Twitter is. Let’s just say that Pownce is much more useful, and less annoying, than Facebook. It rocks. It’s almost like a mini-blogger. So sign up and friend me, so we can start posting music for each other. Or humorous links for each other. All that crap.

I must embarrassing admit that I found a couple of these sites through the e-stalking of Veronica Belmont. I saw how many sites she was on, and consequently had to join them and friend her. But the awesome side-effect was finding a great site like Pownce. Twitter is fairly dumb fun as well. As for Hulu, I knew about it for a while, but you need an invite to register. The person that first informed me of it sent me an invite last night. If you want an invite, just let me know. I only have 10, so first-come, first-served (as if 10 people will even read this). I’ll be pimping it in the weeks to come, as it inevitably creeps closer to public launch. Hmm, I wonder if Veronica needs an invite…

I doubt it.