Mindstream

Yesterday a guy at work got a hold of X-Neb vs Street Fighter, the actual arcade game. He got it for about a hundred dollars less than his maximum bid, which was interestingly enough about $50 above what I would have paid for it. Even though it is a great game. Maybe I’ll get it off him later.

Dan managed to buy a whole slew of old magic cards. Again, something I wanted, but didn’t really have any money for.  So Dan is going to come over and we’re gonna try to sort through them and make some decks. I’m one of the few guys who didn’t sell their decks when the fad passed and now that it’s coming around again, I’m glad I still have all my stuff. I’m tempted to get some sets and things now, but since it’s getting popular again it would probably be in my best interest to wait until it dies down a bit.

So, on my day off I’m waiting for Dan to show up, John hasn’t called yet about the game so he probably doens’t have it yet, and I’m celebrating both things by rewatching X-Men Evolution on Hulu.

I gave Gramma an older computer I had because hers refused to start up. So she is super crazy happy now. Doesn’t matter that the computer is about 10 years old, and is actually a bit worse than the one she had. It’s nicer and cleaner and she is super happy. So I’m gonna show her how to do emails soon and things like that. She’s pretty excited. I offered awhile back, but she’s just not getting the bug to learn, which is cool. It’s never too late.

Weight-loss is going optimal. Writing project is less than. I have a bit of motivation back finally, now I just need some ideas. I should be able to take care of that at work. So maybe things will pick up. OK, that’s an update for now. I hope it was insightful

So I rented Slumdog Millionaire for Mike because he wanted to watch it, and Gramma wanted to watch it. I wasn’t especially interested, but I wanted to see if there was something I could while on my new thingy, I figured a movie I wasn’t especially interested in would be a good test.

By the end of the movie I was the only one still awake (just barely), it was a decent movie. Still not sure how I feel about it. But I’m not overly concerned. Sad I guess, but that’s not really surprising.

Anyway, we’ve moved onto a differnt type of movie. Repo: A Genetic Opera. It’s about organ repossessions and stuff. I heard it was a bad, bad movie, so of course I need to watch it. It’s kinda fun, the songs are as well as can be expected. Gramma woke up and Mike is still asleep

Later I’m going to try to mess with the webcam on this, we’ll see how that works out.

Let me be the first to say I will likely go watch this movie again. Of that there is little question.

There are exactly two reasons to go watch Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

* Megan Fox. Smoking hot. Bay sexed her up like never before and she practically burns a hole through you much like the Energon Blade through Optimus’ chest. Did I mention there are spoilers in this post? Well now you know.

* Giant robots beating the shit out of eachother. This really doesn’t need clarification, but I think that people don’t really understand. Like critics.

For those who are unfamiliar with transformers it is a toy line. Robots looking like cars, sure, but ultimately they are giant robots. They are engaged in a century long war to see which side can sell more. And that’s fine, I mean they’re toys, that’s what they have going for them.

The critics seemed to know this and didn’t care. Maybe they were expecting something from Pixar with cute toys joining together to be happy and save their friendship or something. This is not that movie. These are the toys little boys play with and make explosion sounds. You know the kind, you may have even made them or had a brother or friend who did. This is that kind of movie.

There is no real storyline to speak of. Well there is, but no one cares. The fanboy in me in fact was riled up at the unauthorized changes they made to the characters. The fanboy inside me has long since been told to shut up because no one cares. That’s one point I disagree with the critics on, this movie wasn’t really made for transfans. Or at least not hardcore gen1 is the only continuity transfans.

This movie was made for the college age guy who remembers transformers growing up, but never really caught the original run. This guy likes beer, women, cars, explosions, sex, and all that thing. If you’re not sure who this guy is, go to almost any frat house, he’s probably there. Or just see the movie, they’re everywhere in it.

I described the movie as Baytastic. I happen to like ID4. It’s up there with one of my favorite movies and I’m not entirely sure why, but this is in a similar vein. This movie is everything that the first movie should have been. It is a spectacle, an orgy even of explosions, robots getting utterly destroyed in ways that actually made me cringe.

There is no depth. No more depth than can be found in a kid playing with these toys himself. That is exactly what this movie feels like. When I was little playing with my transformers, this is exactly how it looked in my head. I remember it. Just like that. Although they were a bit less spikey, still. This is pretty much what went on in my head.

That’s the kind of movie this is. Take your kids to see it (mind the sex refrences/jokes) relive your childhood. Don’t go expecting to be moved by the story. The first cartoon was better for that. This movie is something you watch and go into cruise control and enjoy the ride.

And truthfully, shamefully even, I did. Immensely. I am going to see it again (hopefully)

The sexting laws completely baffle me. If you haven’t heard of them you should check out the forums I posted some links to different areas reactions, but it’s still strange to me. What they are essentially, are laws that say that a teenager under age, can be labeled as a child pornographer and sex offender under Megan’s Law for taking and distributing pictures of themselves or their significant others.

Now this seems ok in theory, I mean child pornography is bad right. We don’t want sex offenders running around and taking pictures of underage kids and posting them on the interwebs for everyone to see. I understand this. I understand that an adult can coerce a child into doing things they’d rather not do, and that is wrong. Right. Sometimes the children don’t understand the consequences of their actions and end up doing things that as an adult they’d regret. I don’t have an issue with that.

What I have an issue with is under the new interpretation of the laws, you can be sent to jail and be labeled a sex offender for pictures you took of yourself while you were under 18. If you look at those pictures, of yourself, that you took yourself, you are viewing and have already made child pornography and must now be put on a list of sex offenders with rapists and whatnot. Do you see the problem here?

Now I understand if a boyfriend pushes a pretty young thing to take those pictures. That is of course wrong, or worse still if he takes them himself via coercion or without her willing consent. Right that’s bad. But if someone takes pictures of themselves they are making child porn. That’s what I don’t get. Are we outlawing what we can do with ourselves in our own homes? As for the transmission of these files, that’s a little hairy (or not depending on how young they are)

I happen to have some pictures of my ex from back in the day, and I’m sure there are pictures of me floating around. I gave those willingly, and received those willingly. I don’t really have a problem with someone posting them somewhere (after all who would want to see them?). I however respect my ex enough to keep those pictures of her private. I understand that sending them to someone without her permission would be illegal, I don’t have a problem with that interpretation of the law. If you pass around nude pics of someone, that’s pandering obscenity, and that really should be a crime.

But it still boggles my mind how you can criminalize someone for taking pictures of themselves. Is this seriously what we want? Are we telling our kids that no, sex is bad, at least until you’re over 18, then have fun. *sigh* I guess I really don’t belong in this era.

Ok, I just beat this game. So here’s what I think.

First off the game is easy. Like… stupidly easy. Like…. target audience in the single digit age range easy. And not the high digits either. The other glaring flaw is the QA sucks. I managed to glitch the game during a boss battle (thankfully Tails tells you to save every few seconds so I didn’t lose too much) and several times when I put it in sleep mode right before a cutscene.

However I still recommend this game to sonic fans for one reason. Bioware did their homework. The writing is generally very good, keeping true to the characters, Tails actually isn’t a knob-slobbering wuss anymore, Amy is still fawning, but she’s trying to get over Sonic, so there is some character development.

There are tons of references to past continuity, so much in fact that I was lost for about half the storyline. Fortunately they provide you with cheatsheet background info, but I recommend playing the other Sonic Adventure games first to get some background (or if you’re lazy like me just watch Sonic X).

Again it’s an easy easy game. Every fight gives you some sort of loot. Special moves from the enemy can generally be dodged, and even if they aren’t they rarely hit very hard. If you do manage to die you give up some rings and you get to go again or you can restart from the last save.

The special move system is very much like Super Mario RPG. In fact when I first started playing I was calling the game Super Sonic RPG. You activate moves by selecting them from a menu and doing stylus thingies. Which is cool and all but I never was a huge stylus fan. Enemy moves also come up with a stylus prompt if you get those right you dodge or at lease heavily mitigate the move. Again though, toward the end I just stopped caring.

The story is quite good, although a bit short. I beat the game in about 4 hours of game-time. It deals heavily with Knuckles and Sonic’s return from some trip he was on. The writing is excellent and some of the character interactions are amazing. Tails and Robotnik are good together (and have a cool combo) and I heard different dialogue choices actually give you different story outcomes, I may try again later to see.

The credits actually had me laughing quite loudly. They’re done Whose Line style, with Tails (and E-123 Omega later) rattling off the designers while Sonic makes fun of them. Again much props to the writing team.

I’d recommend this game for Sonic fans, and younglings, especially trying to get a kid into RPG’s, but if you’re not into Sonic…. or even looking for a challenge, then I’d wait for it. I however did enjoy it.