I took the plunge and finally bought myself a PS3 a couple of weeks ago. Doing so now means that once again I possess every current gaming system in the States which is really not something I thought I would ever do again especially in light of Sony's dramatic fall from power. Every time a game came was coming out that I really wanted and everyone swore that it would never come out on the 360 and so I thought THAT would be the game that makes me buy the system, it would suddenly be released on the 360. This kept happening at an ever increasing rate and so it looked like I probably would never pick one up especially considering my ever dwindling funds.

The pressure in my mind leaning towards a purchase started leaning a bit more heavily over the last year as I'm a bit of a movie buff and so it's only natural to desire the latest in movie viewing technology much like the Laserdisc provided oh so many years ago. I also was very impressed with Sony's presentation at this year's E3 and felt that not only did they have a lot to offer in terms of gaming, but that they didn't horribly embarrass themselves as I felt the other consoles did. Still though...it was mighty expensive and so I sat firmly on my spending hands despite the rather warm climate in which I live.

Then a funny series of events happened. Well...OK it's not really funny per se but somewhat serendipitous I suppose. Sony suddenly created an all new slim version with oodles of memory and they lowered the price to the very acceptable $300. Due to a clerical error, I found myself with some Best Buy credit and resisting the urge to go to town buying more movies for my apartment wall, I decided to join the Sony family once again!

With a small amount of excitement indicative of an older person that owns many gadgets already yet still harboring some of that boyish glee in purchasing a new techno fun box, I began to unpack my system and get it all set up. Luckily my friend (who already owned a PS3 due to his great need to be the all-consuming master of the Ryu Ga Gotoku series) was in attendance or I would not have been a happy camper as I encountered the first of a handful of confusing technology problems. I easily created my console profile and set it up to look all crazy sharp and awesome on my semi-respectable Philips 1080i LCD monitor. I connected it to my router and went online and got the system all updated and raring to go. Then I was prompted to create an online persona and I did as asked and hit the accept button.

Then it died.

Well, it didn't die but the connection to the internet suddenly died as did my friend's laptop and my desktop computer which were both connected as well. Luckily my friend was there and informed me he expected it to do that as his PS3 did the same thing and it took him a huhwhile to figure out why. Apparently there's this option to share videos or some such feature which is "on" automatically and is apparently incompatible with...um everything? I don't know why but somehow it kills your router and so I turned that oh-so-exciting feature "off" and rebooted my router and...WHALLAH! Everybody happy!

I watched the Blu-Ray movie that I had and then...well then the PS3 just sat there. Gosh I haven't been this underwhelmed with a system since I finally had enough of the broken Animal Crossing game and realized I don't really want almost any other Wii games. I mean, I know I mainly got it as a Blu-Ray player but still it seemed kind of sad just sitting there. Then I realized my same friend had some games so perhaps I should just borrow some and play around with my new system. He brought over a small stack and lazily I picked the Wolverine Origins game as, though I already played through it on my 360, I really enjoy simple beat 'em ups and thought it would be a fun lazy late night kind of game. So I put the game in my machine...

...and it looked like crap.

Then my friend came over and exclaimed "Hey, what's with the game looking like crap Mr. I have an HD TV?". Well, he didn't really say it like that but he did express curiosity as to the low resolution being angrily displayed by my new machine. I had picked the highest resolution and wondered what the deal was. I attempted to poke through the menus and fix the problem but nothing I did had any effect. Then I looked at the back of the game and noticed that the highest any game went was 720p -- even the exclusives! Could 720p look this bad? So (bear with me here) I called up a friend of mine that makes games for the various consoles and he confirmed that the PS3 indeed is a powerful but wicked beast that doesn't like to go to 1080. I was stunned. But then he informed me that 720p should look pretty darn good and so I was concerned that something was wrong.

After more digging I found out that the PS3 had a problem with 1080i. Apparently some early HD units don't support 720p and so if the game doesn't find 720p it just shunts it down to normal resolution. I was saddened but again, since I mainly got it as a Blu-Ray player I wasn't too upset. Still it was annoying to think I was just out of luck and any future exclusive I would buy would look like crap. But wait a tick! I didn't get my HD LCD until just a couple of years ago?! So I started pouring through the many, many, MANY options on the Sony menus and realized that the PS3 wanted me to check off ALL of the resolutions supported not just the highest one like I did with the 360. Feeling foolish but relieved I put my game back in and watched all the shiny HD goodness dancing before my eyes. Still...those sad early HD 1080i folks.

Also apparently 720p is better than 1080i anyways so gosh I feel really silly now.

So now I'm enjoying my PS3 and falling back in love with the awesome and incredibly light controller that Sony still offers. I played around with the Sony Home feature and it's fairly boring but also very impressive at the same time. The media within media displayed is very impressive and I like the idea of going to a virtual movie theatre and sitting down to watch a feature. It would be nice if they had more short films or features to watch instead of just programs that are basically ads for product but still it's kind of interesting. I like the mall and the arcade but honestly there's just not enough things to do, see and purchase to keep it interesting. Maybe once more companies get on board it can get fleshed out with more desireable content and exclusive events.

Still, I do find the place, small though it may be, to be oddly compelling and sometimes I just go there and sit under the ferns to the far right of the arcade or the far left of the theatre whichever you prefer. Attempting to be brutally honest due to hurt feelings I've suffered in internet land, I once again have made a semi-realistic but somewhat troll-like avatar to tool around in so everyone realizes I'm an older burnt out shell of a man who plays games. So if you're ever in that weird hub land and see me sitting there, stop by and do a funny dance in front of me or just say "hi".

Oh yeah that Wolverine game I was playing? I totally platinumed that baby!

Title - Halloween II (2009)

Director - Rob Zombie

Country - United States

Michael Myers is back in a sequel that few thought would actually happen least of all Rob Zombie who swore he wouldn't return as the first one was just too grueling to make. But the first movie made a decent amount of cash and with the promise that Zombie would have full creative control he soon found himself under a tight deadline but eager to do the part of the movie that he felt he neglected in the first Halloween outing namely putting the spotlight on his sister Laurie Strode (Angel Myers) played by Scout Taylor-Compton.

The bulk of this film concentrates on the character of Laurie Strode who a full year after the attack of Michael Myers is completely unaware that she is really Angel Myers the sister of Michael. Laurie is having great difficulty recovering from the attack and loss of her family and is constantly plagued by nightmares in which she is stalked by Michael whilst everyone around her dies horribly at his hands. And when I mean horribly I mean repeatedly injured well beyond the point of death. All of Michael's killing involves him stabbing, slamming, crushing and/or breaking people repeatedly over and over and over almost as if he feels the need to overly punish his victims even well beyond their point of demise. It's supposed to convey a more realistic and vicious approach to violence by and overpowering madman but these scenes are filmed in a rather distant or confusing manner so the impact of shock is reduced to the point that I felt very detached and unaffected by the whole murdering process.

Laurie's constant suffering is supposed to be the main source of sympathy for the viewer but unfortunately her character's attitude and actions vacillate wildly during the course of the movie and so she ends up becoming not much of an anchor for the film to revolve around. As a result, the only sympathetic character that the movie is attempting to build up throughout the film ends up being just an irritating little girl that appears ripe for slaughter in a typical horror film.As Michael looms closer and closer to Laurie her dreams intensify and eventually she develops dreams in which she is the killer wearing her brother's old clown mask while she slits the throats of her loved ones. Although she has become a vegetarian, the effects of eating her veggie pizza sickens her when at the same time Michael is shown busily eating the heart of a freshly killed dog. It's obvious the connection between her and Michael is becoming stronger but just how strong will it become? I bet you can guess.

The other character which we spend a lot of time with is Dr. Samuel Loomis played once again by Malcolm McDowell. His character has changed quite a bit as he has become a best selling author by writing about his "star" patient Michael Myers. Although much in demand due to the infamous nature of Michael, many -- especially family members of his victims -- are greatly sickened that Loomis appears to be cashing in on the tragedy and attempting to make as much money as possible on it. Although Loomis enjoys the fame and money, he demonstrates a great hatred for his audience and seems confused and angered by their inability to ask him anything interesting.

Loomis is obviously the symbol for modern man both need for and repulsion of violence in the media and in their daily lives. As much as people hurl hatred and anger upon killers and scoundrels, three times as many people can't get enough to feed their fascination for these same people. Loomis also appears representative of Zombie's own trafficking in the entertainment of killing as well as his great disdain for the viewing audience and the fans that gather around him at appearances. Several times Loomis is forced to put up with embarrassing and uncomfortable situations in order for him to peddle his wares to the public and I have to imagine that a lot of Zombie's own nihilistic hatred of these masses is shining through. Unfortunately these scenes only serve to strengthen the viewer's hatred of his character and the, at times, comical nature of his scenes greatly destroy the flow of the movie.

Then there's Michael. In the first movie Zombie decided to step away from Carpenter's mysticism surrounding the character and decided instead to concentrate on Michael as a damaged person. Not an unstoppable evil creature bent on killing all who come in his way, but a damaged individual who is lashing out due to his childhood trauma and the trauma he received in the mental hospital. How then did he survive a shot to the face? The scene in which Michael is shown waking up and escaping from the ambulance is shown to be a bad dream of Laurie's. So when did he escape? Where is he exactly and why did it take him a year to start wandering to town?

I'm going to have write between the lines and put in my own excuses that he escaped much like what happened in Laurie's dream (she "saw" it because they're connected see?) and then he wandered around the area in which he escaped somewhat aimlessly until anniversary of that fateful Halloween night once again arose and the ghost of his mother beckoned him to "unite the family". One of the hillbilly groups that he kills talked in such a manner that they appeared to know him and thus I would have to guess he was wandering somewhat dormant until he started seeing his mother and the symbolic white horse. Did I mention the white horse?

So Sheri Moon Zombie returns as Michael's ghostly mother (with his internal child in tow of course) and pops in now and again beckoning Michael to find his sister and unite the family once more so they can all be together as one big happy family. This generally keeps Michael motivated to keep moving on down the road killing the horrible people that he encounters along the way. This is all well and good common movie symbolism but towards the last act of the movie she begins to pop in so often...

that after a while...

you just start to get annoyed when you see her...

and then when she still won't stop showing up you just start to giggle after a while at her clumsy attempts to be the movie's big symbolic device that moves the film forward. She generally doesn't do much other than long for family unity, but in one instance she implores Michael to "have a little fun" with his victims much to his approval. Yesiree! You certainly won't miss or regret anybody's death in this film as pretty much everyone who is killed is just the most awful person you could ever meet. This oppressive nihilism of Zombie's really hampers the film as the over the top disgustingness of the majority of his victims just detaches one even further from the proceedings and pretty much destroys any tension that could possibly exist.

Eschewing the shiny 35mm look of the first film H2 is shot in grimy dirty 16mm and is quite obviously every bit a Zombie film quite a bit more than the first. The '70s grind-house aesthetic is in full force here with blurry close-ups and off-centered shots being quite common. This is actually the best attraction to the film as I feel that Zombie does have a good eye for this s+yle of filming and I somehow keep hoping that he will find a good vehicle to showcase it. Unfortunately this film is not it as it is remarkably uneven and the flow of the film is hampered by quite a number of elements.

I actually went into the film with positive thoughts. Zombie's first Halloween, although faulty, I thought had potential and I liked the fact that he approached it from a fresh angle as opposed to just makeing a retread. Zombie doesn't actually like slasher films and so I thought demystifying Michael and giving him a different persona might be interesting. But unfortunately the killings actually get in the way of Michael's justification to exist. In slasher films the killing is the thing. The body count is what drives the killer and the viewer. If you take the focus off of the killing and put in on the characters then you best develop those characters so the viewer has some kind of emotional investment in them. But Zombie just appears to hate all of his characters equally and so you just kind of watch the whole affair without any real interest or a care in the world.

Stay away.

Stay far away.

Things have been slowly coming to head for a number of years and decreased pay, less hours, mounting credit bills, some medical issues, car repairs, and my own massive stupidity have led to me to have very little cash in my coffers and the very real chance that things might take an increasingly ugly turn in the next year or so. But despite my history of depression and bouts of physical assaults against my own person I am attempting to saunter on down the road in a slightly ambivalent manner no matter where it may lead.

Despite the rather realistic but dark tone of my opening statements this blog is more about the little things that I am doing or enjoying whilst I am cut off from what was once my regularly shed-yuled life. I do have a tendency to just accept the bad with the good and although I sometimes slip off into the abyss I have always had quite a gift for keeping myself occupied no matter what means I had at my disposal.

Some years ago my car finally broke down for good and after years of adding to my credit debt in the hopes that each time a major problem occurred it would be the last, eventually I just couldn't afford to keep it running and sent it away to the graveyard. After a couple of years a good friend of mine gave me his slowly dying vehicle as he was getting a new car. This was AWESOME as I no longer had to bike for and hour and half to and from work and it greatly decreased the chance that I would be attacked on the street which has happened now and again during my life whilst biking around the big cities. Unfortunately after about 8 months the transmission died big time and thus it was back to huffing and puffing my way to work.

Recently my bike fell apart as all the gears had slowly become stripped due to the heavy use it got. I'm particularly thin for cash and so I wasn't looking forward to having to pick up a new one as I imagined that the prices had probably increased since the last time I had bought one. So I wandered down to the local Target store to pick up a cheap but serviceable bicycle hoping that it wouldn't damage me too much financially. Much to my delight the prices had actually dropped quite a bit and it ended up only being around $170. I took the bike up to the register and I was told the bike was $95 which only furthered my delight and both mentally and financially (of course )!

It's still a pain to bike around everywhere and I can't get to many places as it is L.A. but hey I'll take the good luck where I can get it.

O.K. now you're going to laugh at this one. I've somewhat curbed my habit of eating out every day and I've been trying to buy more things to make sandwiches with and frozen foods that I can snack on that last a good week. I was sitting at the computer late one night and I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I had a grilled-cheese sandwich. It's odd but although it's a rather simple thing to make I realized that I've always lived with somebody that really liked to cook and that they always offered up the idea of cooking me up some cheesy goodness -- I've never made it myself. So odd. So I actually sat there for a minute or two wondering what does one do to a simple sandwich to make it all toasty and essentially a nummy-licious type of foodstuff?

*thinks*

Right! Right! Butter needs to go on the outside dummkopf!

So happily I went about cooking me up my hot cheesy comestible...and I burnt it.

Then I ate it and somehow it still seemed delicious even though burnt toast is usually the saddest thing ever. Honestly, when you burn toast you either throw it away or you just angrily eat it noting what a failure you are as you cry into your orange juice and the birds outside sing a derisive little song about your shortcomings. Bloody birds.

But I sauntered on and now I'm a hot-cheese sammich making fool! I have a big preference for very sharp cheddar and occasionally I'll mix in some little bits 'o bacon. Good lord it's certainly a good thing that my metabolism is still somehow fairly high despite my ever increasing age otherwise I'd be quite a large-waisted man. But you know it's funny how something as simple as a sandwich can take me back to my childhood and make me feel all warm and happy inside.

Sadly most of my good friends have eithered moved far away or they have acquired a regular working schedule that is the polar opposite of my regular routine. This has resulted in the fact that over the last few years I rarely get out to the theatre all that often. I don't have a problem going to theatre on my own, but as my always lesbian couple roommates (sorta odd factoid that) will attest, I have a tendency to putter around my house if left to my own devices as I easily can lose myself in the movies, books and music that I have littered around my place.

But in an attempt to break that habit I've been venturing out into the big wide world and attending some viewings of movies that were actually released in the current year! As most people who know me know, I have a fondness for old movies and more often than not if I went out to the theatre it was some revival house featuring some silent or cult film. It's not that I dislike newer films, it's just that I tend to place a higher priority on movies that are hard to find or are rarely screened in a theatre setting. But since all those theatres are now on the other side of a small mountain I have been attempting to get out and watch some newer things while they are still all shiny and new to the general public as well and I actually find that I like that.

I've noticed that writing tends make me a bit happier and so I've been attempting to write little reviews of some of the films that I've been watching for the past few months. My use of language is rather rough and pedestrian as I'm sorely out of practice and so it doesn't always flow as smoothly or as coherently as I would like. But I'm trying to ignore my shortcomings and just stumble along with the attitude that as improper as my language use may be, it's fairly representative of how I talk and so I suppose warts and all it's my voice. I do sometimes suffer bouts of mental confusion and have trouble focusing and have to take breaks now and again but overall I'm happy to do it as it helps me ruminate a bit more over the movies that I've just seen a bit more than I normally would. Here's where I've been writing my reviews but be prepared that I like to watch a rather odd assortment of movies.

And finally we come to video games on my trusty XBox 360. The lady that you see above me is a comic book character from the Marvel universe so obscure that I'm fairly confindent that it would take you quite a long time before you found anybody who would recognized her. The lady's name is Lady Daemon and she is a character that I've had a fondness for quite some time. Along with Sumo Daemon she is my other alter ego profile on my 360 which I would use when I need a second player to get an achievement or my friend wants to keep a separate file for his accomplishments for a particular game that I have.

For some reason despite the fact that I have unplayed games I've been going back and playing some old favorites on my Lady Daemon profile just to unlock the achievements that I already have on my primary profile all over again. Right now my big game of choice is the Tenchu Z game and after playing a series of stress filled moments of shooting and fighting as Sumo Daemon, it's kind of nice to relax and unwind late at night as a ninja who just slowly and very patiently waits for their next victim to stray too close...and then it's far too late.

But when all is said is done I'm not attempting to garner sympathy or rail at the fates for the trials and tribulations that come my way in this rather wordy missive. I'm just merely taking note of how changes forced upon me are closing some door but opening others. Hopefully I'll be better off for the change when I'm eventually in a more healthy position, but for now I'm just going to make the best of what I have and try to live my little life in my little corner of the world. Besides, I'm sure my cat is happy with all the extra house time that I'm getting. Or is she? Hmmmmmm....

Title - Watchmen (2009) ~ Director's Cut

Director - Zack Snyder

Country - United States

I gained access to the director's cut of Watchmen a little early last week so despite being buried under tons of work I managed to give it a proper screening once and then watched parts of it on and off throughout the remainder of the week and over the weekend. Although I was not entirely pleased with the Watchmen movie when I watched in the theatres some months ago, I still found enough aspects of it compelling enough to warrant a rewatch with the excised material restored just to see if it would change my opinion of the film overall. Short answer: No of course not.

A few of the added scenes do make for some smoother transitions in a couple of places but one that should never have been left out in the first place is a great addition while a couple of others are fairly unnecessary or just plain embarassing in the case of the added Nixon/Kissinger footage. There's a bit more Rorschach out of mask and really, and I mean REALLY in your face to the point of distraction so I can definitely see why those were cut.

The scene that should not have been left out was a very effective and touching death scene involving the original Nite Owl Hollis Mason. His brutal beatdown transitions quite nicely and very emotionally effective to Daniel's hearing it on the news while he and Rorschach are questioning the bar thugs and really amplifies the emotions in his character as he targets a local Knot Top gang member and almost beats him to death while Rorschach ironically saves him by pulling Daniel away. Good stuff to see now but it's not a particularly long piece and it shouldn't have been cut.

But after all is said and done at its core I still am left with the Watchmen movie that Zack Snyder hath wrought. Despite my rather negative tone I am actually somewhat on the fence as far as the movie goes. There are some aspects that I did enjoy but then there's those nagging negatives and since I suppose I never did give Watchmen a proper review when I orginally watched it now is as good a time as any to go over some of those points.

I did appreciate some of the attention to detail concerning the attempt to make a period '80s film. Despite the very out of place and somewhat cartoonish political figures and TV personalities there were some more subtle attempts being made in the decoration of some of the homes of some of the heroes and characters such as the Nagel paintings in The Comedian's bedroom and the perfume commercial. But unfortunatly these are drowned out by obvious head beating red flags for those not paying attention and thus the original MTV station ID's and some random an rather inappropriate music inclusion. Oh did I mention the music?

I'm pretty sure this film makes some of the worst attempts at matching music to film that I've ever seen in a major film production. Other than a little incidental music courtesy of Phillip Glass, The Comedian's "unforgettable" and the opening working fairly well, everything else just seems inserted in the most clumsy and obvious way possible. It really took me out of the film in an incredibly violent way and I really started to have the feeling that this was done by a couple of film student's first attempt at marrying music to their film. One seemed to have a reasonable grasp on how things work, and the other just grabbed some music that they thought sounded cool 'cause he heard them in other films or their content was '80 or war oriented and never thought of how they would sound over the action.

An aspect that I did rather enjoy was the action. I'm very much a martial arts film fan and I so I'm pretty critical of fisticuffs being presented in film these days and how a film with a high level of production has no excuses these days for sloppiness or poorly staged conflicts. Damon Caro was the fight choreographer on this film and I believe he did quite a bang-up job. The fighting techniques of the various heroes are unique to their character and seem very natural and well thought out. Adrian Veidt's in particular are a thing of beauty to watch. As per his character as the "perfect man" his hits are perfect strokes of counter-hits and created openings in the defense of other's. Sure, there were a few openings a tad too large there during the end conflict but nothing egregious to the point that I just feel like I'm being overly nit-picking.

But this would all be for naught if the director couldn't properly block the scene and in this case I feel that Snyder did an excellent job in incorporating the visceral nature of the choreography with the sound and angles required to make them exciting. Unfortunately Snyder's heavy reliance on all thing digital do muck up a few moments as bones are broken and limbs are bent and copious amounts of very shiny CG blood slowly fly away from the wounds which is completely unncessary and also very silly to watch. I expect to see poorly rendered CG blood in crappy little made for TV horror films, not large budget efforts.

But that brings me to my biggest problem with the film -- the overall look. There seems to be an all encompassing sheen to the entire movie. Despite attempts to ground the film in gritty city locations and simple barren wastelands, the colour palettes of the obvious digital colour editing seem too extreme and as a result everything seems completely unreal. This is fine if you are attempting to make an unreal world, but this is supposed to be set in the real world and everywhere you look the color is too intense and the focus is too sharp. Even the details fail when the original Nite Owl's "old" war era news clippings look as new as the day they were published. Actually they look newer as the paper looks to be higher quality than they were orginally using.

Then there's the dynamic nature of the film. Despite my love for the action it goes completely against the aspirations of the material. The story is supposed to deconstruct the hero myth not build upon them. Yet time and time again the cool fight scenes come up and, entertaining though they are, they ruin the point that is trying to be made by its very execution. The Comedian's attempted rape is too dynamic and made to look almost interesting instead of simple and brutal. His character's revelation of Hooded Justice's thrill of violence is further downplayed as the reaction and sound are muted as if Snyder really had no idea what the dialogue meant.

Despite their self-denial, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II are all but useless unless they are acting out "in costume". They are broken people that were raised as heroes and never allowed to develop as individuals. The film attempts to touch upon this but it is never expressed properly and the poorly handled sex scene completely misses the point. Even Rorschach is built a bit too much up as a righteous anti-hero when in reality he is just a rabid dog that society has created and released upon itself. Snyder tries to touch upon the concept of broken heroes as he clearly tried to follow the script, but unfortunately he can't resist trying to make the characters as cool and interesting as possible despite the fact that clearly they weren't supposed to be.

As I dwell upon Snyder's missteps though I think I understand why Alan Moore and others over the years always concluded that Watchmen was unfilmable. Because to commit the story to film it's practically impossible not to force dynamic properties upon the film and that is something that clearly goes against the point of the book. The pace and the construction of the book almost demand a certain amount of inertia being brought to the superhero concept. It presents the heroes and demonstrates how if they existed in real life how broken they would become no matter what their abilities were. It's an unnatural condition and a unnatural life and to attempt to make a film about heroes then forces you to make them look...heroic. Which is something they clearly are not.

Other than people asking me what I think is the best (insert anything here) EVER, whether I prefer Coke over Pepsi, or what was the last (insert anything here) that I (insert something within Gamespot's TOU here), I think I get asked what was the first (you get the idea) that you (this joke has run its course methinks). Obviously for reasons involving my inability to warp time my choices tend to be dated a bit farther back than most people on this particular board. So for no particular reason I'd thought I'd grab a few of my favorites.

First Anime/Cartoon -

Back in 1969 other than the excitement of being given a dinosaur pop-up book (conveniently my first dinosaur book) later that year at Christmas, I distinctly remember falling in love with Kimba the White Lion otherwise known as the incredibly famous Jungle Emperor series from Japan courtesy of the legendary Osamu Tezuka. I lived in Pasadena at the time and so our antenna easily picked up the signal but I would be sorely disappointed by my parent's choices of dwellings soon after this as we began a series of moves which tended to put us in fairly distantly located trackhomes in which PBS type channels (which is the channels that aired Kimba) were very hard to receive. So over my childhood years my beloved Kimba and Speed Racer were rare commodities and I treasured every moment that I could successfully grab a signal no matter how fuzzy.

First Comic Book/Magazine -

As a child I was a voracious reader. I read almost anything I could get my hands on and stories about the Greek and Roman Gods featured big into that equation as they offered up fantastic stories of superhuman feats. Then in one of those book club magazines (Dynamite I believe it was) they often had a feature on comics reprinting the origins of various heroes. I was fascinated by these articles but in those days no comic shops existed and only the occasional grocery store had a spinner rack with comics.

Unfortunately for me my parents had recently moved to Orange County which at the time was a barren wasteland as far as stores go. No grocery stores had comics and so the only comic happiness I could find were the short features found within magazines. Then in 1974 I discovered a drug store that occasionally got in a few of the Marvel magazines that they were marketing at the time in an attempt to bring in a more adult audience. I picked up an issue of Savage Tales No. 6 featuring Ka-Zar (Lord Plunder to you!) and read it over and over again with much glee! Much to my delight it also featured women in...well sometimes in little to no clothing and since it was John Buscema art it was very...um, well done.

Soon after that we moved once again to another distant series of track homes in Oceanside and I very quickly located what at the time was an oasis of comic book goodness...A 7-ELEVEN!!! I quickly biked to it as soon as I had the chance and snatched up a comic of my favorite series The Fantastic Four and so finally I had my first actual comic -- Fantastic Four #158! With trembling hands I read quickly through the comic only to find a cliffhanger at the end! I was saddened as I was so use to rarely being able to find issues that I was sure I'd never find another one after that. Luckily the regular deliveries proved me wrong and thus was born my love for comic collecting in 1975.

First movie in a theatre -

I was a mere 4 years old when I was taken to a showing of the legendary film 2001: a space odyssey. Why my father decided a 4 year old should attend a movie like this I'll never know but I would have to assume he thought it was merely a space adventure movie and there would be lots of color and explosions to keep me occupied. Regardless, see it I did and although I don't have clear recollection of actually being there, I do have very fond memories of growing up with the big deluxe vinyl soundtrack album. I used to play it over and over as I found the very odd tracks by Ligeti to be entrancing and spooky. It could be my natural passion for Hallowe'en as I often played the soundtrack in order to make our house seem more spooky to passer bys.

First vinyl album -

Throughout most of the '70s I had a best friend that was really into Johnny Cash. I mean really into Johnny Cash. As a result I pushed aside the Led Zeppelin albums littering most people's rooms at the time and mainly listened to Johnny Cash myself over and over again. Late one weekend night I caught this weird rock band wearing outlandish outfits and strange make-up and combining this with big pyrotechnics and a driving rock sound and lyrics. Well that was it for me as after that I was a solid Kiss fan!

The very next time my parents went out shopping I stopped by the record area and picked up their newest album for $5.99 and just played that sucker to death much to my parents chagrin. I slowly accrued all their older albums and soon started buying any magazine I could afford which featured them.

Good lord it all seems so embarassing now.

For the record, my first piece of music that wasn't children's music that I bought was a ABBA 45 single of Fernando! Then my first 8-Track that I was allowed to buy for a long road trip was Steve Miller's Book of Dreams. Luckily the early '80s came along and I developed an interest in music that was a tad less embarassing. My first Compact Disc ended up being Roxy Music's Avalon which I still have sitting on my shelf.

First movie I watched multiple times in the theatre -

When Star Wars hit the theatre in 1977 I just went nutzo! It was the single most amazing thing that I had ever seen and I somehow managed to convince my parents to attend multiple showings. When I was young I was exceedingly tiny and anytime somebody sat in front of me I really just couldn't see a damn thing. As a result I took to sitting in the very front seats which solved the problem as the seats weren't really all that close to the screen.

However one particular screening of Star Wars my parents went to some new fangled over-sized theatre and when I sat down I was looking almost straight up at the screen. Let me tell you that opening sequence in which the Imperial Cruisers come slowly flying down from the top of the screen is something I will never forget thanks to that HUGE screen.

My first pet -

I had an older brother and sister when I was growing up and although we often had pets in our family, the pet was always the family's or my brother's or sister's. While I was living in Oceanside and wandering the surrounding miles and miles of thick fields covered in high brush and railroad tracks I captured a California King Snake! I convinced my parents to let me keep him and despite the reservations of my sisters and mother concerning my ability to keep him caged I at last had my first pet!

Ah my goodness what a great snake he was too! Wild snakes, once they adapt to their surroundings, are a lot more docile than their raised in captivity brethren as they really appreciate their captivity. They're always in a warm environment, they always get fed, their owner who takes them out is warm and doesn't hurt them -- what's not to love?

I kept him as long as I could but eventually, as our family did so often, we moved on down the road and I let him go back into the wild. It still makes me sort of sad to think about it as no snake that I've owned after him has ever been as super awesome as that darn snake. I loved you Mr. Snake!

My First Vehicle -

It took me quite some time in my life before I actually got a car as I had a rather rough entry into the adult world through my own confused non-actions. One thing that my father did do for me however is to buy me this nifty Honda 450CM in order to get around a little bit. It wasn't great to ride on the freeway or anything, but it did allow me to get a job and get around the neighborhood in which I lived. This in turn led me to meeting what would be my first serious girlfriend which was quite a change in my life. Not bad for just a little putt-putt of a bike.

Well that's a small trip back through a few historic firsts in my life. What are some of yours?

Although I posted this elsewhere I get rather tired of seeing my old blogs and just felt the need to push it down further away from my eyes. I also though that there are a handful of folks who I don't see in movie topics and maybe, just maybe, they won't mind reading what I wrote about ye big old blockbuster extremis - Star Trek.

I also refuse to plan these things out and edit lightly so sorry if it's all arranged a bit haphazardly as my mind kind of fires off at strange moments and I suffer from spasms of lucidity that are uncontrollable. I would warn you not to take the things I say seriously but honestly I don't think anybody I know here is unprepared for the things that I ramble on about.

So one shiny bright day my friend informed me that the hoidy toidy theatre up the street had installed an IMAX system into one of their theatres and just by chance that happened to be the week after the weekend premiere of the new Star Trek film! So off we went with his sister and her wife in tow for an evening of very sharp and quite loud entertainment.

Star Trek - The future begins

So Star Trek it was and I was mighty excited to go see it! There had been nothing but good reviews and good word of mouth and I plunged into it fully expecting to be fully entertained with a roller coaster of entertaining 'splosions, witty dialogue, cutting edge effects, great characters, and some rather taut action scenarios.

Unfortunately I really did not enjoy the film.

What went wrong? Why did so many people overwhelmingly enjoy this film while I just thought it was a big boring loud snoozefest? It's not as if I have these heavenly standards that can only be met by broadly paced esoteric foreign films. I enjoy watching Judge Dredd for goodness sakes!

I suppose I should state for the record that I'm not a big Trekkie-type person so I don't have any holy canon issues with the material or the characters. Sure, sure...I enjoyed the series when I was young but it's nothing that I have a deep emotional connection to in any way. The idea of a fresh more visceral approach to the genre sounded mighty fine to me.

Right out of the gate I was fine. Jumping into the chaotic action of the film was a really nice approach and it was nice to see some of that Battlestar Galactic aesthetic jump in there with the mixing of the intensity of the battle with the cold and silent embrace of the surrounding space. Unfortunately that was the moment when things slowly began to spiral downwards for me and I slowly began to lose interest bit by bit.

I really feel that other than Spock that Abrams just has no idea what drives the characters and doesn't really want to bother to develop them in any sort of natural way. Kirk, instead of being a intelligent wise-ass, is just an ass who seems to demonstrate very little intelligence most of the time and he just seems to run around being a huge ass, running around in a state of panic, or getting the holy hell beaten out of him (really did you notice how often he gets beat down in this film?. When he cheats on the Kobayashi test and is confronted by Spock in front of the conference I expected some sort of great exchange between the two, but instead the moment just faded.

Also -- Kirk was raised in Iowa right? Where the hell did the Grand Canyon come from that he drove his stepfather's car into?

I really thought that the framing and many of the action scenes were poorly shot. Abrams still seems to think he's filming a TV show and has too many characters way too close to the camera and then employs the jitter camera quite liberally and as a result actions are at times confusing and hard to follow.

There were a few characters I enjoyed. Karl Urban was bloody hilarious as McCoy and I really enjoyed him a great deal. I thought the Zachary Quinto was scary good as Spock and really enjoyed his portrayal of the character. He conveyed a high intelligence and carried himself with the proper airs, but you could just feel this feral presence in his character and you were ready to him to just explode. The internal struggle between his mind and his heart was a refreshing change from what I felt was a mainly cardboard cast.

I understand the point behind the reboot. Abrams thought that Star Trek was too wordy and I thought it would be nice change of pace from the child-like humanitarianism that Roddenberry tends to espouse in most of his works. Just take the characters and thrust them into a giant space opera action fest! Sounds good no?

Unfortunately I think he went too far and I really felt that I was watching Star Wars by way of Star Trek. There were these random shots at bars or at station where suddenly you would see a quick shot of a super odd alien thing and then it's gone and off we'd go to another adventure. Then there's always that odd sidekick of Scotty's. It all just seemed terribly out of place despite my love for iconoclasm.

Scenes just seemed to present themselves for no reason other than the director's desire to create an action scene. Why was Kirk dropped off at a remote ice planet when there are plenty of solitary brigs on their ships? Why did a giant out of place creature that looks like a reject from Cloverfield grab a nice mouthful of a meal and then throw it aside just so it could chase this tiny, tiny human being all over hill and dale?

And like the serial films that inspired Star Wars it all just seemed terribly shallow and lighthearted with very little real threat behind every situation of terror. Any time a situation arose that would complicate things *bam* some deus ex machina type device, skill, or technology would present itself to fix it all up nice and shiny! All that neat fixin' just took all the tension away from pretty much every scene and it all just seemed rather sloppy.

Then there's this weird obsession with the need to have giant over-powered ships in science fiction movies. They are fine if explained and introduced properly. But I'm supposed to believe that the Romulans built a mining ship that's the size of a small planet? How could they possible run a ship that size? And how is a mining ship a mere 100 years in the future and retro-fitted with some missles so incredibly powerful that Federation war ships can't take it down?

In the end I just ended up feeling empty and hollow after watching this film. I liked Spock and Bones and I really liked the unexpected dynamic between Spock and Uhura. I was puzzled by her commands to him earlier in the film about what ship she was going to board and then laughed when I realized what was going on.

But overally I just didn't like the film. Adding a visceral kinesis to what a is generally a rather stoic universe was an interesting idea, but without the conviction that the threats are a real hurdle to overcome in the end it just felt cheap. Much like the serials it is emulating, the revelation of the solution tends to be largely unsatisfying, which is how I felt.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Cinema Cat promise that Damon will attempt to keep from savaging the newest Pixar film Up if he ever gets the time to attend a theatre again. But said cat also feels compelled to remind the readers that despite Daemon's general disdain for Pixar's overall oeuvre, he really, really enjoyed and was quite impressed with Wall-E so there is hope.

Also he is still grumpy that he watched every E3 conference and Gamespot show and has yet to receive even a single emblem.

There are times when ordinary, seemingly mundane events happen that can have a dramatic or extraordinary impact in our lives. A random stop by a retailer carrying CDs or DVDs can yield surprising finds, having to retrieve a forgotten item could prevent an auto accident, taking a different path to school could result in a physical confrontation, a conversation with a friend could spark an interest in a passer by -- a myriad of possibilities and conclusions resulting from the most commonplace activities.

Who knows whether buying that much needed bread after work could lead to their demise! Should I stay in and play it safe or should I leap before I look? Over the last week a couple of random things in my life went forward or were abruptly halted which has resulted in nothing quite so dramatic as all the noisome scribblings that preceded.

I suddenly received a notice at my quiet little email account that some person at Gamespot had suggested me for the role as a new forum moderator. Of course it would have been a minor role as a moderator in training or some such title in which I would no doubt be hazed mercilessly in the form of Nick making me clean his motorcycles or perhaps Hungry Bunny demanding that I create an animated bunny sig a day for a month until my training was complete -- "and they better be damned funny and charming as all Hell as well!!!"

But we shall never know as I decided to politely decline the offer. I don't have any issues with the job itself and I have no problem laying down the hammer or letting minor shenanigans go unpunished if they are engaged in a polite and/or amusing fashion -- for a little while anyway. But I have a full-time job that has increasingly become very physically and mentally punishing to the point that I find it hard to become motivated about almost anything and so I felt that this just wasn't the best time to be engaging in watching the kids.

To be honest, I thought it might be kind of fun and help me come out of my Gamespot shell a bit, but it's just not in the cards right now. I still don't know who nominated me but I thank you for thinking of me and perhaps in the future I'll be a bit better off in order to help Gamespot keep from becoming a fetid wasteland of agressive cliques and softcore porn advertising that I've watched so many other boards become. Did I make a mistake in turning it down? Who knows?

Much like the creation of my personal little MySpace site, one very late night during a period of incredible, restless boredom a Facebook page was created by your odd little author. I'm not particularly social and the friends that I do have are loathe to communicate through these popular sources of a social nexus. But I was in one of those moods in which filling out forms and lists which represent your likes and dislikes seem like a fun thing.

What?

Anyways...there I was all ready and willing for this big old bad networking site that has seemingly supplanted MySpace's amazing popularity. It was the king of the kings! Every tech show I watch or read about can't go a minute without bringing up the MASSIVE popularity of Facebook and how it's taken over the world! I connected, filled out all my info, added a quick profile pic which, in true Daemon fashion, was not actually a picture of me. Then I stood back and checked out my handiwork.

What I saw appalled me.

What?

This was...it? It couldn't be!

I started poking around at every option that I could find and nope, nada, nothing. Facebook is just this big empty sheet which has your likes and dislikes in nice clear text and...well that's it folks. MySpace is like having your own web site in which the sky's the limit! You could totally write all sorts of HTML code like crazy and create an animated, media heavy environment, you could plug in movies and videos and songs...well pretty much anything you wanted -- or just leave it nice and plain for your friends with slow 'puters. Again, whatever you wanted.

Now I know I'm not particularly tech savvy but I see none of this on Facebook. It kind of just looks like I filled out a dating website profile and now I feel a tad foolish and bit dirty for jumping onto this particular bandwagon. It looks like the kind of social website that would've been created ten years before the advent of MySpace and most certainly not the next step. Can somebody explain to me why anybody would use this site over anything else? I just don't get it.

So there my Facebook sits, just kinda blah and empty. I added a couple of TV shows just to see something there and I guess I could post some pics of paintings I like or some such thing but honestly...what the hell?! But who knows, perhaps something unforeseen will result in this seemingly boring and incredibly underwhelming act. I suppose I shouldn't become too jaded about the small things in my life.

Because you run the risk of making events that are actually amazing and shocking seem mundane and then nothing seems exciting anymore.

With all the Sturm Und Drang swirling about the internet involving the Watchmen movie I decided to take a different approach and completely steal something I found rather amusing. It's from the only blog I read on the internet called Chris's Invincible Blog written by the great Chris Sims.

Also I'm rather busy at work with inventory this weekend and I'm a bit under the weather with a chest cold and I tore my left eye so I'm still a tad double-visioned and the meds I'm taking make me kind of tired and woozy and rather hard to focus at times and...well gosh I'm not sure how many excuses I need not to write a Watchmen review at the moment. Until then...enjoy!

There I sat a mighty lump on my broken couch/bed. Tired as all hell from 7 days in a row of work and wanting to play some games and enjoy the night but just completely unable...or pehaps unwilling, to leap into anything heavier than a light Animal Crossing session.

Somehow I managed to make it until the wee Pacific Time Zone hours of 4am (give or take) and I was suddenly hit with a voice party request. After some initial 360 Elite headphone issues which rendered the voice of my unknown companion something akin to an alien attempting to declare war, I discovered my new XBL friend wanted to do a little DOA4 boosting and chat a bit.

After that was all done for the "night" I initially was amazed that there had been no lag despite the fact that my friend was located in Great Britain. Determined to at last go to bed I suddenly discovered that after many days of little to no activity the folks at XBL had uploaded quite an array of demos! Reeling with the fantastic knowledge of not having to go anywhere for the next two days I jumped right into them.

Here are my rough and poorly written impressions.

Wanted - Weapons of Fate - The game takes off directly where the movie left off as you play Wesley Griffin, master assassin and something of a one man army. The game is a 3rd person shooter which utilzes an engine similar to the cover and shoot method found in Gears of War -- but a bit faster thank goodness.

The demo was okay and I found it easy to navigate and shoot my opponents down like the dogs that I have to presume that they are in order to justify my love for violence. I found it odd that for a film that pushed the concept that the whole "bending the bullet" skill was the key point of the movie it isn't even mentioned in the demo as a skill. I figured out where it was but I didn't find too many places that it would be any more effective then to just gun or stab them down. I had mixed results as far as effectiveness goes as well but that may just be a case of not being overly familar with how to best utilize the skill.

Acceptable shooter but somewhat plain and the demo didn't bring much excitement. It basically cried "Look at me! I totally work okay!".

WWE - Legends of Wrestlemania - I have to admit that I was initially excited at the idea of playing around with Andre the Giant so I was really looking forward to this demo. There are two basic modes included -- exhibition mode with Andre and Hulk, and a Wrestlemania event with The Rock and Austin.

In the exhibition mode you are pretty much left to do whatever you want with no agenda. I played with a manager and without and I was mightily amused to see my manager come up and distract my opponent so that I had a free opening. I wasn't initially happy with the engine as the slightest hit seems to completey stun your character and one of the things I can't stand is losing control of my character. I learned to be careful however and pretty soon I was mauling the Hulkster like there was no tomorrow.

The engine left me fairly unhappy. It's a bare bones affair and it seemed like a huge step back as far as technical wrestling is concerned. There are just a couple of canned ground grapples and ground strikes when your opponent is down and this disappointed me greatly as I am a big fan of submission wrestling.

The reversal system is somewhat easy to perfom as it is just initialized by a series of quick-time event button pushes, but I was confused by it as it seemed to randomly come up and somewhat beyond your control. Perhaps you can increase the movesets and ability to reverse more often but from what this demo offers that wasn't clear and I was somewhat let down.

The Wrestlemania matches have an agenda in that you gain extra points for reenacting key moments with those wrestlers. Those goals were kind of fun and not too hard to pull off but the overall ease of doing so made the goals not too challenging.

There might be fun to be had but to me it looks like a pretty bare bones affair.

Wheelman - I really didn't have much hope for this demo. It's from some of the team that brought us the Driver series which is a series I really, really dislike. In this game Vin Diesel replaces "driver" and his job is to infiltrate the mob in Barcelona and help bring them down.

Good lord the key story vehicle combat is really bloody good fun! You can slam cars chasing you with a simple flick of the right analog stick and if you time it right they wreck with quite a satisfying crash. The basic controls of the car are intuitive and easy to just pick up and gun your way into action. You can shoot your opponents as well as perform special vehicle attacks in which you spin your vehicle around in order to gun down you pursuers. Fun stuff indeed!

Then I hit the side parts of the game in the form of racing and chasing and...yeah, not so happy.

Your opponents in racing all take off like crazy leaving you to play the catch up game. The ambient traffic seems to clearly have it out for you and do whatever they can to attach themselves to your bumper. You opponents seem to move somewhat tron-like in the turns and the whole process just seemed to be a recipe for big frustration.

The chasing elements weren't too bad once I got used to jumping from car to car but again the ambient traffic is just a big, big pain. The cars you chase seem to turn better than they should and their ability to accelerate no matter how large the vehicle is was quite annoying.

The core game was fun but the side missions and racing left me scared and annoyed for a purchase.

Watchmen - The End is Nigh - It's a basic wandering old fashioned beat 'em up with some nice modern touches. You play as either Nite Owl or Rorschach and you pretty much have 30 mintues (in the free demo version) in which to run around and beat the hell out of a bunch or rioting prisoners.

The game starts off REALLY basic at first with very few moves other than light punch and heavy punch combos. You pick up icons that give you more moves though and before you know it you're grappling, evading and counter attacking your way through the unruly pack of thugs. As you get more abilities and get your opponents in various aspects of being stunned or knocked down/back, you are often give the opportunity to do some very brutal attacks with the simple push of a button which was quite satisfying.

Overall I had a great time playing it and I'll probably buy it. It's nothing amazing but it's a fun beat 'em up and I'm always a sucker for those. One annoying aspect however -- the game is bloody dark. Even on my 1080i TV I had a hard time seeing my characters in certain environments.

The Chronicles of Riddick - Assault on Dark Athena - Basically a rerelease of one of the best games on ye olde original XBox and one of those pesky games that couldn't be backwards programmed to work on the new system. A great 1st person stealth game I had forgotten how unforgiving it was and died quite a few times while fooling around with the demo.

If you like carefully stalking your opponents and tearing them a new one and don't mind Vin Diesel grumbling at you during the cut scenes then you should probably pick this up when it's finally released. It has an added campaign for those who played the hell out of it already so there's a good incentive to relive a great, great game.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think my cat and I are starting to hallucinate as we are rather overdue for a nice long sleep.

Yea verily my friends we gather once again to take notice on Daemon's most recent ability to acquire ethereal goals in pursuit of an empty dream. Aye, there is the occasional passerby that puts forth a tasty tidbit of apocryphal information from the Gods on high at Microsoft that perhaps someday, in some fashion, we will all be rewarded for our constant acquisition of these points.

Aye...someday mayhaps.

But the Gods are spiteful beings full of remorse and anger towards their followers and rarely will they allow the sunlight to truly shine upon those willing, but wholly undeserving, masses. And so we toil and struggle to make ourselves appear and feel that we are truly an accomplished gathering of humanity and attempt to keep going forward. Many games have helped me in my goal and here are a few of the most recent.

Fable 2 - I really wasn't sure what to expect from this game. I never got around to playing the old XBox iteration of this title but all the online reports I received from my friends sure made it seem like a good time. With that I jumped at the chance to literally dive into this game (no really, I actually jumped onto the box in my living room. Don't look at me like that!) and I had a blast for most of the way. I didn't really like having everything taken from me at one point but other than that it was pretty damn fun.

Hey guess what? I actually got all the achievements for this baby as well! 1100/1100 which was very sweet! Sure most of them weren't hard, but a few involved online antics which, if you note my star rating, is not something I do very often. A few also involved those damn gambling games and at one point I was fairly settled into the fact that I just wouldn't get those. But guess what again? I bore down and attacked the pub games and played those damn games and it turns out it wasn't really that hard! What a big silly goof I had been for avoiding them like the plague! Silly Daemons!

The last piece of the puzzle was finished by a postively lovely gentleman floating around the Fable 2 board whose name I wish I could recall in order to thank him once again. He allowed me to mooch the thrice-damned doll collector achievement off of him and I couldn't be more happier for hitting that goal. He even danced a little bit with me to get me the last co-op achievement and that was that. Did I mention that the online community around Fable 2 is really a nice bunch of folks?

Afro Samurai - I was really looking forward to this game as I'm always happiest when I'm wailing away with a nice run around beat-em-up game. The aesthetic is there, the music is unbelieveably great, and the fighting engine is rather bloody and fun. The problem is the boss tactics are very boring and/or random so you don't feel particularly skilled when taking them down, and the little bits of platforming are painfully bad.

Those facts coupled with my atypical literal diving technique (there I go again) of gaming made Daemon a very angry boy on his first playthrough of the game as my friend can well attest to. But now that I've looked into matters and found out that I wasn't alone in my anger (as well as a few tips that proved useful) have now helped me to calm down and enjoy all the slice n' dice action attributed properly to the various types of cannon fodder available in the game and just have fun. I still haven't got all the achievements but I've gotten quite a few and I was just about to finish them up when...

F.E.A.R. 2 - Project Origin - Yet another game in which I never played the original game! This game came out of nowhere on the XBL and I had such a blast playing the demo I quite literally ran out (well...I biked out to be specific and actually literal) of the house...er, tiny studio apartment, and reserved it right away!

Currently I'm about halfway through the game and I'm really enjoying it. I really like the mix of traditional 1st person OPS firefights mixed with really messed up freaky scary horror stuff hitting you suddenly like a cannon messing with your ability to control your surroundings and keep your zone comfortable...but in a good way if that makes any sense.

From what I've seen I guess the first game had mainly nigh impossible achievements so, if that's true, it's nice to see a large assortment of more obtainable goals. There are a decent amount of online dreary deathmatch achievements though so I suppose I'll never get those.

Wall-E - Confession time. I get a lot of these license games for free as I know folks who actually put a lot of these games together. Some I do buy as I'm a rather impatient type of person and I actually enjoy playing silly license titles, but many I receive as gifts. I received this game as just such a gift and as it was handed to me the person winced just a bit and noted "It...it's not very good.". Undaunted by this comment I sallied forth...and put it on my wall of games neatly in the "W" section.

What?! I just got Saints Row 2 on the same day and do you know how awesome that game is?! Do you!? It's like somebody took all the story out of Grand Theft Auto IV and replaced it all with insane fun!

Some time later I finally got around to watching the Wall-E movie and lordy I was surprised as to how much I enjoyed it. This may sound surprising to some of you that don't know my movie tastes but other than The Incredibles I don't really like most Pixar films. To me they are just characters on a constant fetch quests running back and forth on the screen yet accomplishing very little in terms of story or character development. So delighted was I by Wall-E however, that I decided to sally forth (for realsies this time no foolies) and play the damn game.

*wait for it*

Hey! I actually liked the game! What the...hell? I guess my friend was just pulling a trademarked Daemon attitude and just demonstrated some grade-a lack of satisfaction with everything they've accomplished. Well life is pretty hard for developers of official license products -- unreal deadlines, sudden last minute changes demanded by the licensee, little room for improvisation and creativity; quite difficult conditions to work under indeed. I assume that he just wished they had more time to fix things up to their satisfaction before release time.

Regardless, I had fun playing it. The only problems I had were in the last level in which there were some odd little platform puzzles involving a auto-magnetic strip whose physics engined didn't always work correctly and occasionally you would be hurled to your doom. Now if you're just playing it for the heck of it then you wouldn't have a problem as you would just respawn very close to your area of demise. But there's an achievement for not getting killed for every level so it made some areas very...tense to say the least. But overall I had fun reliving parts of the movie and listening to those funny voices once again.

Hey...it made me smile.

EVVVVVVEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

As a few of ye out there in yespotland might have noticed I was not around so much during the latter half of 2008. I had a computer meltdown right as I was headed into an unfortunate and rather problematic time in my life. It had been a few years since I'd bought a new computer so normally I would just thin down some spending and pick one up but unfortunately my aforementioned times were a bit tougher than normal and I had larger bills to pay for what I perceived as more important things. I have a rather bad connection at work but I'm rarely at my desk and it's a bit of a problem if anybody else wants to use it at the same time (I know...such a sad work).

Then suddenly it dawned on me that my sad and rarely used Wii console has a web browser on it! Sure it's just awful and slow and glitchy and the full screen doesn't fit and it's rather ugly and...did I mention it's slow? But regardless of all these faults it did allow me to stop by from time to time and say hello to a few people here and there albeit for short periods of time and with somewhat tersely written text as the keyboard I has likes to cut out now and again -- but still I existed!!! Finally at long last my Wii console proved useful for something other than terrorizing my cat (a story for another time).

Of course in November I picked up Animal Crossing and now it gets a daily workout but still up until the computer meltdown I pretty much never touched it. Such a strange little sad system for my household but I got it as a gift so I don't feel too silly for having the old waggle machine laying about my apartment.

But then Xmas made its annual appearance and lucky for me it coincided with the offices at THQ busily getting rid of their computers to get all nice shiny new ones replete with all those extra cool shiny new things that those crazy tech kids like to talk about excitedly amongst themselves. A very good friend of mine is a semi-muckity muck over there and so for a very nominal fee I once again was ready and raring to go on the internet with a used and plaing looking, but very happy, computer all prepped for civil duty outside of the gaming industry!

Since it's not a computer meant for public use I keep finding little things that should be in there that just aren't and, with the mighty help of my cat Shoes, we are slowly getting it into a nice state of normalcy; normalcy for me that is. Sorry if it seemed like I was just ignoring people or not commenting in your blogs and all those things but it was very difficult to load up media heavy things like blogs on my little Wii machine and it's been a slow process in getting my 'puter all up and running. I'm not much of a computer guy but I'm fairly decent at poking and poking and polking until I get it working.

That's my long-winded excuse anyways. So hello again people!

Curses, be they literal or figurative, are rather a double-edged sword type of affair. Although they may damn you beyond your ability to reason and/or make you something of a social pariah, quite often they can be the impetus behind long periods of self-reflection as you are forced to reassess what it is that makes you truly you.

Now that you've been forced into a situation that you would have never imagined being in, what are you going to do now? Are you going to fold and just curl up and wait to die? Are you going to desperately fight your plight and attempt to reclaim all that you feel is rightfully yours? Or perhaps you have a deep-seeded cauldron of hatred bubbling oh so gleefully to full boil deep down in your gutty works and now is the right time to make them pay -- THEY WILL ALL PAY!!!

Take my recent zombification at the hands of Samwel X....

Elizabeth was a pretty girl but not drop dead gorgeous by any means. But what she did have was a whip-smart intelligence and a keen sense of aesthetics so strong and to the point that she would argue with the Gods themselves over the improper use of shadows in whatever murky forest they would contruct in order to insnare some hapless travellers. No I don't know why the Gods continue to do such things especially in lands that I rule over. But I do think that they bring a certain flavor to the place and so they play their little games and fight over this and that -- I try not to get involved in all honesty.

Elizabeth was a rather adventurous woman but she didn't quite have the strength that she desired to strike out on her own and stake her claim in the world. Sure it was a world that marched to my tune and she had my protection (for the moment) but she was strong-willed and had things to prove and goals to accomplish. Art and mind were not enough to sate her, she needed physical proof of the veracity of her beliefs!

That's when she met the sword. Or did the sword meet up with her? I'm not sure as I wasn't there and omniscience is a slippery slope so I haven't dug in deep but regardless the two did meet. Then the screaming started. Unfortunately for the screaming masses I had hunkered down in my abode for an all night marathon of Shaw Bros. films (honestly you people should seriously watch "Martial Club") and with all that constant praying, screaming, and cursing that regularly gets hurled my direction on a regular basis I have a tendency to just tune them all out for long periods of time -- I got stuff to do folks!

The next day when I finally became tad more of a receptive deity I realized that it had suddenly gotten very, very, quiet. I was so wrapped up in creating my own false sense of silence on a regular basis as a matter of course that it never dawned on me that the voices might all one day be silenced. Such a strange awful silence it was that fell upon my once mighty land. The whole place was dead, every plant was burnt, every building was rubble, everything that was once alive was now very still and quite lifeless. Well...there was still Elizabeth.

It was one of those amusing little soul sucking swords that you often read about in dreary fantasy pulp novels in which everyone is all oh so sad and depressed all the time over the power they need but are hesistant to use. Elizabeth and the sword had become hopelessly merged and she had gone quite insane as you can imagine. It's not often that people become hosts of for an untold amount of screaming corpses formerly known as the population of a world. How she ever got so much killing done in such a small space of time I'll never know.

Oddly enough the whole scene was rather...beautiful, albeit in a rather horrific fashion. It was like looking at an unending Witkin photograph in which you are horrified by what you see but you can't help but appreciate the quite daring sense of superior composition that went into the effort. Ever the artistic master eh Elizabeth? Oh! And what she did to the Gods was just something not fit for print but let me tell you that I don't think I've laughed that long in a good long while!

But in the end I couldn't resolve myself to allow Elizabeth to run amuck and possibly go hunting for the Old Ones who we know not to speak of too often lest we become a source of attention for them. So in the end it was indeed I who turned the sword upon its master and watched as the two died screaming in unison. It was strange...although she was fighting me all the way, Elizabeth seemed rather relieved and happy as I watched her eyes glass over and dim. Perhaps she somehow sense my unease with the land as it was and in the end the gift she gave me was rather unique to say the least; and the sword looks rather spiffy over my mantle!

Oh yes! My zombification!

So I awoke to discover the infection had been cast my way and although I do hold sway over the undead and the illness does not adversely affect me, it did serve to attract a rather large crowd of zombies mucking about my dwelling. I quickly put them to work cleaning up the place as bachelors aren't always at their best when it comes to keeping a dwelling clean. Then suddenly there she was! Elizabeth was quietly sitting in the chair near my couch. Saying nothing, refusing any commands or inquiries, she just sat there reading through some of my more recently acquired Gustave Moreau books.

Eventually I just settled in and starting some late night gaming session in which I engaged in my usual practice of screaming at whatever console my game was attibuted to and promising a painful series of blows to the programmer that created it...AND ITS CHEATING CHEATING WAYS!!!..and I forgot about the mass of undead. Occasionally a particularly violent outbreak on my part would result in Elizabeth slightly tilting her head my way and smiling and I could imagine the unspoken tsk tsking being aimed my direction. It was like old times and soon my exhaustion got the best of me and I fell asleep with my head in Elizabeth's lap.

Today is a new day however and all the undead are gone. I have decided to infect Telvisnostic, ShuLordLiuPei, Dhyce, DJ Pulserfan and Mattmaul although in this case you're not so much infected with the zombie affliction as you have quite a large amount of undead assemblage in which to utilize as you see fit. Have fun!

Also...has anybody seen that soul sucking sword? I swear I left it above the fireplace but I'll be damned if I can find it anywhere. Oh well. What's the worse that could happen?

There he sat. Not the usually type of sitting mind you, but a very particular one in which the right leg is bent "just so" leaving said sitter free from the possibility of sudden life-affirming jolts of pain ripping through his knee. He chose this option from a short list of "natural" and his own trademarked "like that" position. Although "like that" could indeed be deemed to possess some therapeutic value, the very fact that it could possibly improve his life despite the possibility of pain was enough to make him take the lazy route on this cold and dreary night -- "like that" was right out. As for "natural"...well let's just say that his painful shortcomings are such that he felt obliged to embrace his false air of iconoclasm in order to dismiss any possibility of commonality being introduced into his daily actions.

"La la la la la la!" spake the Daemon beastie. "There's no way I could possibly lose my job!" he spoke in a tone so insincere that no sane person over 10 years of age would believe. "La la la la la la la!" he repeated in a rhythmic outburst of giddy confusion. "Gosh but I do so love to bike for an hour and half everyday to work and back!" he added doubling-up his lies against reality and further compacting his personal universe of disdain and hate. "La la la la la!" he went on adding all of his life's woes real and imaginary until they soon resembled a rather oddly shaped origami chicken.

But the origami pity party chicken, multi-faceted though it was, did not have nearly enough surface material too encompass the sheer volume of self-loathing and despair unleashed this particular night. On and on the rant went and soon the sad paper avian ended up twisted and confused in an Escher-like room full of lies and bluster with no ending and no beginning until it was hopelessly lost yet interconnected to the make shift life frame in an embarassing Borg-like fashion.

The only creature witness to this entirely unprofessional outburst was the cat named Shoes. Far from being afraid of this localized vocal antic, Shoes was becoming increasingly sure that these babbling words were simply a prelude to the act of his being chased around the apartment and then perhaps a spot of tuna -- such is the ego-riddled world of the cat. But just as the moment arrived when he was sure his keeper would lunge and strike, the babbling halted as the mail arrived heralding some well-timed movie news. No tuna would be had this day.

Times have been a little tough for arguably the most famous man in all of Asia. Sure he's still making money but he's just not doing that well in his homeland and it has begun to irk him somewhat. Reluctantly Jackie appears to be accepting the fact that he's not quite limber enough to play the perpetually child-like kung-fu clown and he has begun to turn to more serious fare.

This time out Jackie is teaming up with veteran director Derek Yee and he is taking on a completely serious dramatic role well away from any martial arts choreography. I quite enjoyed the more serious tone of Jackie's New Police Story and I really liked the short, but well done, appearance he put in as the doomed general Meng Yi in the somewhat forgettable The Myth so I have some hope that this will turn out well. If Jackie can stifle his tendency to revert to his silent film cliched type of overacting then it might turn out rather interesting in Yee's hands.

Official English Site

Hey kids! It's the fun loving and hardest working director in all of Japan Takashi Miike! Just what does he do when he's not thrusting lactating villians at us and constantly redefining just what is an acceptable way in which to end a movie? Why...he makes a kid's movie that's what!

Enter the childhood favorite anime series Yatterman! Hooray! Cue the confusion amongst casual fans and the years worth of smug satisfaction from the Japanophiles out there! Not that this is totally without precendence of course as any Miike fan will be keenly aware of his kids movie The Great Yokai War. Considering how many films Miike churns out I suppose it's almost surprising that he hasn't got around to making another one before this but here it is in all it's technicolor color!

Official Site (Japanese - the trailer is the fourth button over from the left).

Despite it being a kiddie flick I'll probably still give it a spin as...well it is Miike and you never know what to expect. Still though, it be nice if they had some kind of nudge-nudge type of humor (visual or otherwise) ensconced within all the bright color madness and posing. Something that would probably fly over the heads of the younger kids....

Why hello there miss?...Kyoko Fukada? You say you helped to design the costume yourself? Why aren't you just the most helpful movie super villian ever! This of course in no way will influence my decision to watch this film.

Last up is an animated CG movie from Thailand called Nek from the good folks that brought you the martial arts brawler Ong Bak. Yes you read that right.

The Story

"Ghost and spirits surround us all, invisible most of the time. Some good ghosts help us, some evil ghosts tease us, but generally the worlds of humans and ghosts leave each other alone.

Until one day when Tee, a young human boy, suddenly gets targeted by an evil force because he is the key to a ceremony to open a large portal. This will allow a large army of evil spirits to enter the human world and reign supreme for all eternity. Bwoohahaha!

Thankfully, the boy is guarded by a group of good spirits led by the legendary and powerful Nak. When Tee still gets kidnapped, his little sister Kaem travels with Nak to the heart of the evil ghost empire to retrieve him in a desperate attempt to save the world."

This film is an extensive who's who of asian ghosts and spooks with all sorts of in-jokes and appearances made with famous ghosts from all over. But the real fun starts when the evil ghosts start to attack our heroic ensemble of benevolent spirits. The main villian in this film is none other than that damned long black-haired girl from the orginal Ring movie! Apparently, in the animated film there is a screening of the Ring movie and the evil Sadako crawls off of the movie theatre screen and begins a reign of terror upon mankind.

The word on the street is that it all comes together rather well and is very enjoyable. Not the highest production film in the world, but it's Thailand's first big entry into the animated CG market so here's hoping it does well enough to get the ball rolling on future productions.

Did I mention that they're in the middle of production on a new animated CG Astroboy movie? Ahhh! You already knew that didn't you? Oh well.

La la la la la la! I'm so bloody happy!

*brush brush brush brush brush*

!

Wuh duh heb ar u...

*spits*

What the heck are you doing here? Me? Well yes I was thinking of settling down for the night but I'll probably get through a couple of movies before I actually get to sleep. What? Well yes most people know that I have a fairly heavy home movie watching shed-yule. Other than constantly watching the TCM channel I'm really looking forward to Tom Tykwer's International and Henrik Ruben Genz's Terribly Happy as well as the upcoming DVD releases by the great French director Abel Gance and...what? Oh something different? Well there are some a handful of not that well known films coming out sometime in the future that fit somewhat squarely in the horror and trash cinema circle. Hmmm...squarely in the circle eh? I'll have to remember that.

First up is Quarantine and it might actually be well known amongst a handful of horror films fans out there. It's actually a remake of a film from Spain entitled simply [REC]. While it's generally not in my nature to recommend a remake, I'm hoping that this turns out well enough that [REC] might find a larger audience -- the way that the Japanese version of Ring did before that whole aspect of horror got out of control. The film is shot in cinema verite fashion similar to Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project.

The Plot - "Television reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman (Steve Harris) are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions and cell phone access have been cut-off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. When the quarantine is finally lifted, the only evidence of what took place is the news crews videotape."

Trailer

Next up is Beyond the Grave from Brazilian film maker Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro. I haven't seen anything by this director before but he cites Jodorowsky and Sergio Leone as his big influences so that sounds promising. The effects crew is the same that worked on the legendary Coffin Joe pictures so that's another decent sign that this could be...interesting.

The Plot - A detective has been tracking a notorious serial killer for untold years. As he slowly gathers more and more clues he begins to suspect that this killer may be something...more. Something more evil. Perhaps something more than merely, human.

Although this doesn't inherently sound like the most original of plots did I neglect to mention that this is all going on as the world decends into hell falling victim to an ongoing zombie apocalypse? No? Interested now perhaps?

Trailer

From the far flung mystical world of er...Sweden comes a very interesting take on the coming of age story. The movie is Let The Right One In and yes it is indeed named after a Morrissey song if you were wondering. You weren't? Ah well. This film has been making quite a stir lately in the various film festivals held around the world and looks to be truly touching in a slightly unusual fashion.

The Plot - "Twelve-year-old Oskar lives in a drab village outside Stockholm, where by day he's the victim of relentless bullying, and by night he dreams of revenge. Slipping out of sight of his single mother, Oskar fills a notebook with news on the gruesome killings that have set neighborhood nerves on edge-someone is tying people up, breaking their necks, and draining their blood-and rehearses knife moves in the icy courtyard of his apartment complex. One night, an apparition appears on the decaying jungle gym behind him: Eli, the new girl next door. The two misfits befriend each other, Eli coaching Oskar in bravery, Oskar awakening Eli's hunger for love. But Eli, alas, needs something more-blood."

You see, Eli is a vampire. She tries to warn Oskar away knowing it's a dangerous situation but somehow they end up forming a tight bond despite her reservations.

Trailer

Now we turn to the seedier side of cinema and look at a couple trash cinema interests of mine.

Ah yes a movie called ***** Slap with a trio of sexy women brandishing weaponry really sounds like a night of true cinema magic doesn't it? There's tons of movies like this aren't there? You've seen one you've probably seen them all. Why does this one rate any different than the others? Well first of all this film is basically an homage to the legendary Faster ******** Kill! Kill! movie by Russ Meyer. The funny part is that Tarantino is actually doing a remake of that film but these guys beat him out of the gate by at least a year or more. Who are these people?

Well if you look past the main trio of characters you might notice a few recognizable names, Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor & Michael Hurst being the standouts. Yes indeed, the team that brought you Xena - Princess Warrior and The Legendary Tales of Hercules are the force behind this film! That's either a big drawing point for you or an equally effective repellent, but to me at least it kind of made me sit up and take notice as I rather enjoyed the tongue and cheek nature of both TV series.

The Plot - ***** Slap" follows three bad girls as they arrive at a remote desert hideaway to extort massive booty from a ruthless underworld kingpin. Things quickly spin out of control as allegiances change, truths are revealed, other criminals arrive for the score, the fate of the world hangs in the balance and they are forced to confront a villain much worse than they ever expected… themselves. It's the ultimate morality tale as, one by one, they realize the whole "she-bang" was a set-up and one of the film's characters may not even be human…

Trailer

Lastly we have the movie Pig Hunt. This film fully embraces its trash cinema leanings and goes after it will an amazing amount of gusto. Definitely not one for the film snobs but it could be one hell of a lot of fun if all the crazy elements jam-packed into this film come together in some kind of darkly cohesive manner.

The Plot - "When John takes his San Francisco friends to his deceased uncle's remote ranch to hunt wild pigs, it seems like a typical guys weekend with guns - despite the presence of John's sexy girlfriend Brooks. But as John and his crew trek deeper into the forest, they begin tracking the awful truth about his uncle's demise and the legend of The Ripper -- a murderous three-thousand-pound black boar! Their pursuit leads them through fields of marijuana and into the muddy landscape of Big Wallow, involving high-powered weaponry, the violent and unpredictable Tibbs Brothers, massacred emus, a machete-toting Hippie Stranger, vengeful rednecks, and throat-slitting Cult Girls who grow dope by day and worship a Giant Killer Pig by night. By the time the pig hunt is done, no one is innocent - or unscathed."

Again...sounds fun but cult films are always walking that tightrope of just plain awful and bloody glorious fun. I guess I'll have to wait and see. I can't provide the trailer as it has all kinds of nudity in it which I believe violates that TOS dealie here. So I'll just provide a link to the official site and you can navigate your way towards the trailer and see if it looks like fun to you. It's on YouTube as well but you have to navigate around vids of actual pig hunts.

Official Site

Now...if you will excuse me I'm a tad undressed and I would like to get some film watching in. Good day to you sirs and madams and...others. >_>

Awesome! The San Diego Comic-con! The world's largest gathering of all things once used to be considered nerdy! Comic books! Graphic Novels! Video Games! Anime! Manga! Star Trek! Fantasy! Cosplay! Well...okay cosplay is generally still considered fairly nerdy but if you've seen some of the costumes that I've seen then you certainly wouldn't say that anymore.

W...wait a tick! Didn't the convention start yesterday? Why are you blogging about it already? Aren't you busy enough with the convention's goings on that you wouldn't have the time nor the presence of mind to bother writing about it now? Normally that would be true except this year, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I am not attending.

Ahhhh, I see that puzzled look on your collective faces! I suppose I should be happy to know that I haven't geeked it up enough for those who know me online to fully understand the magnitude of what I have just stated -- or should I be concerned that I don't define myself well enough? Regardless let me see if I can sum it up in once sentence.

I have been attending the San Diego Comic-con every year since 1982.

That's right, every year since I graduated from High School I have somehow gotten my nerdy little butt down to San Diego in order to do some major shopping. Of course it was much, much, smaller then and I had so much less to shop with but in those days (insert old man voice here) conventions were pretty much the only way to find the anime/comic book kinds of things that bring people like myself a decent amount of happiness; or a least a distraction from the lack thereof.

So here I sit, uneasy and somewhat despondent. Everything I move seems to uncover reminders of conventions past and all the great people I've met and all the strange encounters I've experienced. The convention has gotten so big and out of control that many channels that I watch as well as online sites that I frequent, continously remind me of the exciting times happening down at the giant con in San Diego. Come on down it's great! We're having a special event at such and such location! Stop on by! Look how much fun we're having!!!

*sigh*

So to prevent this from devolving into a rather unseemly maudlin affair let me attempt to reinvigorate myself by helping to dispel two of the biggest misconceptions that exist about the San Diego Comic-con. These are iron clad guarantees as there is quite obviously no bigger expert on the San Diego Comic-con than myself. That's goes without saying right?

Nerds - It's almost impossible not to hear this word liberally tossed around when a writer is attempting to encapsulate the San Diego Comic-con going experience. Even more amusing, stations that supposedly cater to what are ostensibly nerd-oriented interests such as G4 will quite often use the word in the most derogatory manner almost as if they feel oppressed by their supposed presence and that they are just an unesscessary evil to avoid at all costs.

The truth? There are actually very few serious nerds at the San Diego Comic-con. They are out there, sure, sure. But this convention is quite a bit different from most conventions in that it's not focused on one main interest and as a result you have major percentage of average folks just wandering around looking for their particular interest. You'd actually be hard pressed to find a hardcore stereotypical comic book nerd amongst the throng but when you do, they do truly stand out as quite the anomaly.

Cosplayers - Yes you know...those people that you always read about and see on the internet. If you seen any report on the nightly news or from G4 you'll no doubt see quite a lot of these people. G4 in particular has this proclivity for rounding up large groups of cosplayers and has them fill the area behind their talent as they segue from report to report about various comic book movies on the horizon. Wow! There must be tons of them down there! It's the biggest convention after all! Right?

The truth? No. There's really not that many of them there percentage-wise. I'll admit that If you distilled all the non-constumed folks away from the mighty throng in attendance then indeed you could probably get quite a few buses full of cosplayers. But for a convention so large there just really aren't that many of them there and they tend to really stand out. Honest! If you ever see pictures of mine of lines involving hundreds of people that I stand in waiting for an event to start you'd be hard pressed to find anybody in a costume at all. I would say there's a costume bedecked person for every 200 people and that's being really, really generous.

Exceptions to the rule - On Saturday night there's the big costume award show so there are a bit more of them around although they are fairly concentrated in the specific areas that it's happening in (usually the Ballroom) so they're easy to completely miss. Also there are a couple of convention standards involving Star Wars stormtroopers and Klingons. The stormtroopers are very well organized and have very professional outfits as well as a rather smashing hierarchy. They make regular sweeps all over the convention site and are rather impressive sight. Then there's the Klingons...

The Klingons, not to be confused with any silly prat that puts on a rubber furrowed brow and pointy ears, but the serious Klingons are in full force at the SD con although they are a tight knit bunch so you may easily miss them. They hold Klingon rituals and rites of passage in various rooms as part of a scheduled performance. They are serious about what they do but they are not weird about it if that makes sense. They have been attending the SD for almost as long as I have and they have my utmost respect as, like the now organized and unionized Storm Troopers (no I'm not kidding), they are complete professionals. Also on a side note many of the Klingons are in reality really big beefy guys that could really, really, hurt you if you tried to get cute so just...don't.

Don't mess with the Klingons at the San Diego Comic-con. I can't stress that enough.

Oh man! That San Diego Comic-con really sounds like a lot of fun!

Did I ever tell you that I used to go to the San Diego Comic-con every year?

No really!

It was fun.

A lot of fun.

I'll tell you about it some day.

*sigh*

...is Billie Piper otherwise known as Rose Tyler in the BBC series Dr. Who!

Wait! Wait! Don't run!

I'm not a big Dr. Who fanatic who will talk at you ad infinitum over which actor was the best Doctor and why (although the answer is pretty obvious). Sure, I grew up with the character and greatly enjoyed the series, but I was much more a fantasy reading type of fellow so I never became particularly fanatical about any sci-fi series.

The new series has however had a great hold over me since its inception. I'm still not that fanatical, but I am keenly interested in the show and the characters which in my opinion have been very well fleshed out. I am however, a bit enamoured with Billie Piper who played the good Doctor's 1st companion in the new series. Although it was slow to build, there really seemed to be a deep connection between The Doctor and Rose and it was heavily alluded to that the two have actually spent a lot more time together than the series on the surface lets on. Though I suppose absorbing all the power of the Tardis and being able to see everything that exists in time at once will probably bring you rather close to a Time Lord.

But eventually the need for apocalyptic drama reared its ugly, but quite necessary, head and the good Doctor and Rose were separated by a dimensional rift that neither could cross. In one of the arguably most heart-wrenching scenes (pictured above) of the series they share a quiet moment in which to say goodbye knowing that neither one has the ability to hold the other although the desire to do so is quite intently palpable. In other words...

Holy crap it was amazingly sad and touching and just a great moment!

So her stinct with the series had ended and off went Miss Piper! Doing some modeling, doing voiceovers for commercials, and filming more series for the BBC for which she is contracted to do a series of Pullman novel adaptations. She's keeping busy and getting good jobs so good for her!

But the void she left in the show was quite noticeable. Sure the other actors who portrayed later companions were all very good in their own way, but Billie seemed to have brought something very special and fans longed to have her back. There were quite a bit of ye olde rumouring but nothing ever came of it. She was always busy and the writers didn't seem to think it would ever happen and so I, and others, had somewhat given up hope.

The it happened last episode. Rose Tyler was back! She was still caught up in another dimension but she found a way to use an older victimized companion to bridge the gap and deliver the good Doctor a chilling message of ultimate annihilation! When the Doctor realized that somebody in the other dimension had knowledge to convey he stiffened at the description of the bearer of the news and was thunderstruck by the words she spoke -- end part 1.

To say I was excited and had chills running down my spine would be something of an understatement. Actually I suppose that would be a quite apt description but it sounds more dramatic when I type it out that way you understand.

So this coming Friday comes the second part and the romantic in me desperately hopes those two crazy kids somehow end up sharing some kind of intimate moment for once. The BBC America channel has hinted that a death will be in the offering so perhaps Rose will meet her end but as long as it's done right I wouldn't mind -- as long as they share that moment that is.

Kiss her dammit!

*ahem*

But life goes on and Billie Piper's acting career goes forward. She has a series in the States on the Showtime network called Secret Diary of a Call Girl for which I thank telvisnostic for turning me on to as I had erroneously thought that she had joined the cast of the Showtime series WEEDS due to the way the show was being advertised. I have yet to see an episode yet but I'm keen to watch it because as you might have deciphered by my subtle clues, I'm somewhat keen on her.

I thank the very few of you who read this for enduring my Dr. Who rant and yes I realize that probably a decent amount of the handful of my viewers won't really understand or care what I'm talking about but I needed to vent.

I'm not sure how I did it. I didn't get paid for it. I didn't get accolades for it. I didn't even get free food for it. Yet somehow, for some unknown reason, I managed to get up early each and every day and immerse myself fully in the world of the latest E3 Media and Business summit.

I watched every feed I could find. I kept detailed notes of my likes and dislikes of every conference. I furiously scribbled names and titles on any handy piece of paper for further reference fearful, always fearful, that my brain would become easily distracted by all the swirling colors and shiny pulsating lights and ever so easily unburden my mind of a precious shred of knowledge.

I even doubled-up my coverage by leaving a feed open on G4 playing in the backround so that the second a piece of information was uncovered I would be there. I could turn from feed to feed and...um, feed upon the knowledge being spewed forth like a technicolor display of dancing waters -- so bright and shiny, so dark and gritty, I could reach out and touch it but it would only run through my fingers as if it never existed. No, the games aren't ready for release just yet. But I was ready, very ready, to find out everything. No stone would be left unturned.

Did I mention that I consider myself a casual gamer?

Obviously if you watched what I watched and you are a gamer of diverse tastes then you are fully aware of the onslaught of gaming goodness coming our way. I could go and on about my favorites, or games that really disappointed me, or perhaps games that completely confounded me. But after that intense barrage of gaming glory I thought I'd just concentrate on a few games from a few questionably named categories that I created, that I had little to no interest in before E3. That's the whole purpose of the E3 coverage after all right?

THE EPIC

Resistance 2 for the Playstation 3

This is really the only game that just took me completely by surprise and just floored me. You see...I'm just not really much of a FPS or Covert OPS gaming type of guy. I do like to play FPS games here and there, but usually just WWII or fantasy types of FPS games. I'm really just generally bored with Sci-fi oriented FPS games and I think that the death match modes just killed the growth of the games. I'm just old school -- give me a machine gun, a pistol, and a shotgun and I'm good. I'll kill that monster for you ma'am don't you worry.

But this game just blew me away. Going into a city overrun with aliens monsters and fighting off monsters quite literally as large as a skyscraper?! I have to knock a building on it to kill it?! So I have to play a cat and mouse game with the monster from Cloverfield in order to put it down?! Awesome! I'm down!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for multiple platforms

Okay sure, sure -- I'm a nerd. I was there in 1977, a very diminutive lad who always had to sit in the front row so that the towering adults wouldn't obscure my vision, watching Star Wars and happy as a pig in mud. But my joy for the Star Wars universe has diminished quite a bit since those days. Those prequel films really did a lot of harm to my psyche.

So when this game was announced my feeling was slight interest tempered with vague apathy. Sure I liked the Jedi Outcast and Jedi Knight games for the Xbox but I really wasn't that excited for another game treading the same ground. Boy was I wrong. This game looks and seems to play exactly how I hoped it would. The fighting is fast and furious and it really put me in the mind of the sorely underrated game Psi-Ops for the PS2.

Tomb Raider - Underworld for multiple platforms

Much like Star Wars the Tomb Raider license just seemed really played out to me. They did make some improvements in making a decent game in the last iteration, just not enough to interest me. From the footage that I saw of this game they have definitely piqued my interest once again. The action looked really good and responsive, the sense of exploring the unknown without being forcibly led seemed intact, and Lara's curves - I mean environments look really...um, inviting.

The Interesting

inFAMOUS for the Playstation 3

A sandbox superhero game in which your decisions and actions will decide whether you are considered a hero, a villain, or perhaps somewhere in between. You control and can summon and shoot electricity and the city is overrun with criminals. Now go! I really like the simple but fun mechanic of this game. You can jump on vehicles, crawl and scale any building and have a duck and cover firefight with villians trying to shoot them while you fry them!

...or do you? You could just create electrical handcuffs and knock them out. Some citizens got caught up in the firefight and were struck down. Will you use your electrical powers to revive them? Did I mention that your electrical powers just arc like crazy all over the place? Cool game that I never heard of until now.

Dark Void for multiple platforms

Do you remember the awesome Crimson Skies game for the XBox? Well this is made by most of the people from that team! That alone was almost enough to win me over but then I calmed down and watched the gameplay footage. The designers have decided to make a fully 3D environment but they included the ceiling. You have a future-retro jetpack and you can fly. Sure you can run around like normal just shooting up the bad guys, but then you can just jump off the cliff and scale your way to victory.

They created a nice camera technique so that when you come across a cliff face the camera will flip underneath you so that you engage in a duck and cover firefight utilizing the rocky projections as protection. Nice stuff and the mechanical designs are really nice.

Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3

This was shown ever so briefly at the Sony conference and the graphics really caught my eye. The character designs are similar to the fantasy WWII anime designs used in Operation Darkness but in this game they give them an odd watercolor look. The game's mechanics are strategy RPG and it looks to be a real hidden gem! I'm not much of a strategy gamer but this game might just make me change my mind.

The Downright Odd

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom for unknown platforms

An independent game that is being shopped around in an attempt to get it published. Things look good for a XBL and Sony online entry and I certainly hope it does as I really want to play this game. Obstensibly a puzzle platform game but you create time paradoxes in order to obtain delicious pie! My descriptions really won't do this game justice so just stop the creator's website and enjoy!

Official Site

Deadly Creatures for the Wii

An action/adventure fighting game in which you play a tarantula and a scorpion? Sounds like and odd idea and so immediately I'm very interested in it. The developers are really pushing the power of the Wii engine and it's nice seeing somebody actually really trying to make a different but interesting game without resorting to shovelware tactics. The lizard boss fights look epic!

Onechanbara Revolution for the Wii

This is basically a port of a game that was released on the XBox 360 in Japan but it never came out in the States. I always hoped it would especially after they released another game from this company, Earth Defense Force 2017, but they never did and every day I cried and cried in despair. Let's get one thing straight -- D3 doesn't make good games. They quickly make rough games with funny themes that are slightly above the Burger King games in terms of quality. Sometimes they're kind of fun and other times...not so much.

The games are part of a series called simple games and that's what they are. Simple, sometimes fun, but simple. On the upside the simplistic nature of the controls should actually transfer well to the Wii which isn't really generally tooled for lightning quick moves. Oh yeah the game! You basically play a bikini clad warrior (along with some other various sexy girl types) and you shoot and chop up zombies like there's no tomorrow. That's it! Have fun warrior!

Oh yeah, one more thing...

The Lost

Where the hell is Tekken 6?! It was suppose to be the game that was going to make me have to buy a PS3! A year ago they had a teaser trailer and now a whole year later -- NOTHING?! WTH Namco?

The bee-yooo-tee-ful Kodak Theatre is now quiet and empty, a condition brought about by the obvious lack of programming on this fair night and the simple fact that long ago the Kodak theatre employees would have surely called the police on you if you insisted on staying long after all the conferences had ended. Honestly! I can't take you blog readers anywhere! As purty as it is you can't stay here and play DS games all night long! So what happened here? In an excercise to sorely test my self-editorial skills I shall attempt to write a brief impression of each conference. I'll surely fail so if you're bored and just want to humor me you can flip down to the bottom to get my final concise word.

Microsoft seems to have turned into the what everyone wants to force Nintendo to be, a company with a solid insight into the future of gaming and plenty of games for every genre and gaming sensibility. They attacked from almost every side of the gaming community. They immediately launched into Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5 and Gears of War 2 -- all just awesome looking titles that demand your attention when they are being demonstrated.

Hardcore gamers - check

They hit upon new XBox Live games and content like Galaga Legions, Geometry Wars 2, Portal: Still Alive (!) and new content in the form of GTAIV stuff as well as community developed games for download. They announced an agreement with Netflix in response to their weak movie presence which could be huge in the near future. This further solidifies their online dominance to a vast audience of gamers of all types.

Online gamers - check

They announced a new Banjo and Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and a proper sequel to their suprise smash hit Viva Pinata. They also included an odd You're in the Movies game in which you splice yourself and your friends into films as well as an update to the Scene It! game.

Kids and casual fun gamers - check

Then they went on to hit on every level with announcements of sequels to Guitar Hero and Rock Band as well as a new singing game called Lips which allows you to sing along to any song on your iPod or Zune.

Massive trendy games and popular technology tie-ins - check

Then suddenly it happened! The next Final Fantasy would be on the XBox 360! This was an actually stunning announcement and drew a lot of positive reaction from the crowd.

End on a bang and to leave them mumbling excitedly all the way out the door - check

Oh wait! There was one more thing...

...the hell? This was the one moment in the presentation in which there was much confused mumbling which was quickly followed by polite and erratic applause. You know...the kind of accolade you give to a drunk person attempting to tell you a joke in the hopes that they will just go away? Yeah. Everyone is a tad iffy about the whole change. Most think it's a Wii-ification and others think it's MS's attempt to make the online XBL look more like the much maligned Vista OS.

Overall though I was very happy with the presentation and it seemed to have a little something for everyone. Even though it was long-ish, the whole affair seemed to move along fairly well but that may be due to my heavier interest in the 360. In fact I'm pretty sure it was...DON'T TRUST ME!

Whoof! This seemed like the longest presentation in the world even though it wasn't any longer than MS's. Again, it might due to my lack of PS3 goodness in my house but it also might be because I was very ill whilst watching the whole affair. At any rate let's forge ahead and try to hit this quick and dirty as to be brief.

The Good - Resistance 2 is crazy beautiful. I'm not a big sci-fi oriented FPS type of guy but immediately I wanted to stop everything and playt his game once I saw the showdown with that giant monster. You don't understand! It's you, a super soldier, against the monster from Cloverfield!!! My God it looked awesome! Nice job! Star Wars - The Force Unleashed is great! God of War 3 holy crap! Loco Roco and Patapon sequels for the PSP! Great PSP support! Online DC game could be cool! A montage of awesome games coming out that I had to go back and quickly figure out what was what. In that montage I saw something interesting.

Well this looks interesting. It puts me in the mind of Operation Darkness. Silly me and my proclivity for grabbing on to odd little side games that nobody plays.

The Bad - Yakuza 2 (AKA Ryu Ga Gotoku 2)? While it's nice to finally see this game come out it's been a loooooooong time and they would have been better served to immediately try to get Ryu Ga Gotoku - Kenzan! out right on its heels. Throwing in the announcement that Sony is offering a new exciting bundle...for the PS2. Dude I've heard of hedging your bets to get money from every port but seriously, do this stuff away from the crowds. This kind of stuff just makes me worry about you Sony. Speaking of which...

The Ugly - Sony aired various testimonials from programmers insisting that the PS3 was not hard to program for and that they love programming for it because you can just keep getting more and more power from it. Now if you know any programmers that indeed work on games for the PS3 then you know that this is completely untrue. I constantly have to hear from my friends on how painfully awful it is and exactly why in ways that I don't fully understand as I'm not a programmer. Oh Sony...if somebody insists over and over again that they don't have a problem without anybody prompting them to do so then they probably do.

Overall though - just tons of games that are very exciting even though I don't have a PS3 which speaks volumes. Hmmm...no Tekken 6 though.

Oh man here we go! It's the program that seemingly everybody was whining about. Indeed I will admit that I really don't enjoy my Wii system. To top it off I thought last year's presentation was the worst I've ever seen as they spent most of it concentrating on the perplexingly awful Wii-Fit board. But that was last year so let's let bygones be bygones and move on.

I actually enjoyed Nintendo's presentation. It was incredibly brief which, although I'm not sure was the greatest idea, did make the whole affair move along quite smoothly. Although the presenters weren't great, they did juggle them around a bit so their presence didn't seem to wear as much as the other presenters.

There was much Nintendo fun-nessness to be had. Raving Rabbits, Star Wars - Jedi, Wii-Sports resorts, that scary Wii-music thing with all that electronic sax and flute noise, and then lots and lots of exciting DS goodness. Good lord lots of DS goodness! Also...GTA IV for the DS?!?! Good Lord! Although I was still very sleepy and not at all well, as soon as Animal Crossing came up I almost fell out of my chair in excitement. Jeez! What is it about that game? I love it so much!

But...what about the hardcore gamers Daemon? What about our needs?!

Here's the reality. Nintendo didn't abandon the hardcore gamers, the hardcore gamers abandoned Nintendo years ago. Remember that N64 that you didn't play as much of because the Dreamcast had shiny games with hot chicks and blood which you then quickly abandoned for the PS2 which had even more blood and more detailed hot chicks? Why didn't you buy any of that 3rd party software?

Remember that Gamecube system which was actually very solid and awesome but you didn't buy? In fact you spat on it and called it kiddy whilst beating hookers down and blowing up the heads of aliens. Guess what happens when you ignore and abuse somebody? They pick themselves up, get a haircut, buy some new clothes, and go out looking for new friends that will accept them for who they are. Guess what happened?

They found friends. Lots and lots of friends. Friends who thought nobody thought about them either. Guess what? These friends have lots of disposable cash -- and lots of kids. So now the folks in Wii-land are supposed to take you back and worry about your needs? Didn't we give you a Zelda and a Mario? You want one every year?! Have we ever done that?

So am I surprised that Nintendo didn't address the need of the "hardcore" gamers? No. Why should they? Hardcore gamers have demonstrated quite clearly that they don't care about them and Nintendo has always -- ALWAYS -- been about Nintendo. They are notorious for their lack of concern towards third party developers and that's that. So here's fun Nintendo stuff to play with. Shut up and have some fun you killing machine you.

The funny thing is that there are in fact serious gamer games coming out for the Wii. If you do something as simple as to look at the E3 listing of games and select it to filter all the Wii games you will see awesome things like Mad World, Megaman 9, Castlevania Judgement, and a new Tales of Symphonia among others. Sound like normal adult games for all gaming types doesn't it?

So overall, even though I didn't really like most of what Nintendo had to offer, I could clearly see why lots of people would and so I give them a big thumbs up and I reserve a different digit entirely for all the furious hardcore gamers that won't stop whining about the mother they abandoned long ago.

Awww crap I really typed a lot again didn't I? Well I'm feeling much better so I'm riding on a high of sorts I suppose so lets sum it up for those of you that skipped ahead.

Microsoft - The leaders of the core gamer crowd -tons of cool games - Something for everybody - all things to all people - Very exciting.

Sony - The foundation of the core game crowd - a decent amount of really cool games - not as many exclusives in order to differentiate themselves from the 360 lineup but they're getting there - they need to move ahead faster and get more stuff out before MS develops a new system.

Nintendo - In a world of their own making and boy it feels good - Nintendo just gleefully plays around and makes tons of dough laughing at the hardcore gamers that spurned them - The DS is a unstoppable juggernaut - some interesting Wii-sclusives (my word! I made it up!) from third parties coming up but buried under Nintendo's hype machine. Go play!

So who won Daemon? That's what everyone wants to know right? Isn't it obvious?

Everyone.

No that's not a cop out. You might not have noticed but we are in the middle of a gaming renaissance. If you stop and think about all the great games that you'll never have time to play because there are so damn many of them then you'll go crazy. No matter what system you have there's plenty of games to play and have a great time with. So get out of here and go play some games you crazy kids!

Now for that pesky cat that posted my last blog...

Awwww...I can't stay mad at you, you little ball of fur.

Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing! Animal Crossing!

*faints*

Shoes here -- Please forgive my owner. He really meant to write a small blog about the E3 show but he's been up all night and he's not at all well and, well, you know...Animal Crossing. It looked like he was busily writing up some nice little entry summing up his thoughts on the whole affair but he just suddenly got up and collapsed on the couch mumbling about bugs, fishes, fossils, furniture and how big the new houses were and other stuff I can't understand 'cause I'm just a cat. I came over here and all I saw was Animal Crossing over and over again so I thought I'd post it 'cause it must be important.

Anyways...I'm sure he'll be fine tomorrow and it looks like he put a lot of foods in my bowl so I won't go hungry and...hey, is that a bug? 'Scuse me...

Meow.

The Natsu Bashou has come and gone once again and all that's left is to check the scoreboard and see how our favorite rikishi did and flip a coin to guess which of the Mongolian Yokozuna took the prize once again. But what's this?! There's a giant caucasian sitting on the throne?! Yes indeed for the first time ever a European has won the Emperor's cup and that person is the very quiet, and very, very tall (6'8") Bulgarian Ozeki Kotooshu (koto-o-oshu). Congratulations big guy!

Kotooshu's father flew out for the last few days of the matches when it became obvious his son might actually win. Since most people's eyes were still on the Yokozuna they didn't really notice Kotooshu's dad in the crowd and when Kotooshu clinched the tournament on the 14th day his father exploded with joy and stood up waving the Bulgarian flag and shouting.

At first the people around him just thought he was an over excited fan, but it quickly became apparent that it was indeed his father and the Japanese audience rallied behind him and gave his father a giant round of applause! The Japanese sport audiences remind me a lot of the French in this way. Although they completely support their hometown favorites, they just love upsets and underdog wins and will quickly support outsiders as long as they show determination.

Along with the win comes a bevy of fun things of course...

A parade! Every victory gets the usual big parade to display the winning banners and to give everyone who didn't attend the tournament a chance to come out and demonstrate some support for the winner! Unfortunately just a few minutes after the parade started it began to rain and poor Kotooshu and company had to roll up the windows and put up the roof in order to escape the weather.

Curse you Odin!

The up side to this is that the people who came out to show their support for the Ozeki didn't run from the weather. Despite the fact that Kotooshu had to wave at them from a tiny window they firmly withstood the weather and cheered their man on all the way home to his stable. Kotooshu was said to be overwhelmed with emotion at this demonstration of support and Kotooshu is not a man to demonstrate any kind of emotion.

Alright fish! Yes indeed these are mighty good luck fish that only winners of the yushou are allowed to hoist in such an ostentatious manner! Bow down your mighty Bulgarian fish-fisted master! Bow I say!

Then of course a nice hearty handshake from your boss to end an incredibly long day of a thousand cups, banners, and sponser prizes! I'm not sure why they decided to go for a photo op in front of what must be the angriest painting of a sumo wrestler...EVER, but who am I to judge? Perhaps it's another one of those mysterious closed-door hush-hush good luck sumo things. >_>

This gentleman's name is His Excellency Demon Kogure. As you might have guessed he is indeed one of those big production heavy metal perfomance artists in which all the members assume an identity to be something other than human much like the band members of GWAR.

Although he may seem a tad over the top to be involved with Sumo he is actually very knowledgable and has been following the sport for some time. The Sumo association, starved for attention and desperately wanting new younger fans, enjoys having him stop by to do additional commentary from time to time.

This time however he chose to throw everyone a curve ball and he decided that he wanted to sit in the booth doing the English commentary. Apparently he's been working very hard at learning English and he jumped head first into an opportunity to try out his skills. Although his abilities didn't quite match his enthusiasm, the English folks (and yes, quite a few of them are British) were keen to help him express himself properly so it was all very entertaining and fun. Kogure, or "Kakka" as he likes to be called, is very blunt in his criticism and does not pull punches. I look forward to seeing more of him in the future.

The rikishi Ama was a big spoiler in this tournament and he took down a lot of wrestlers along the way. He still has a little ways to go to stay consistant enough to make the Ozeki rank, but for now he remains the stand out guy that nobody wants to wrestle. In the match pictured above, He turned a costly mistake of a perfectly defended throw attempt by winning at the edge of the ring with a perfectly executed Utchari (backward pivot throw) move.

His opponent, the Russian Wakanoho, was having a very up and down tournament and desperately needed more wins. He was sure that he had victory in the bag when he perfectly read Ama's throw attempt and blocked it and got him up against the edge of the dohyo -- just one more inch and...victory! But instead all he got was another defeat.

This door paid the price for Wakanoho's loss.

You can watch the whole thing here in the replay from the broadcast which, somewhat humorously, begins with Wakanoho's immediate reaction once he was away from the crowd as he walked over to the replay monitor. Enjoy at Ama's ability to instantly shift and change with his opponent!

There was a somewhat ugly incident on the very last match of the tournament. The two Yokozuna's met up for the last match but a win or a loss was meaningless at this point as Kotooshu had already won the tournament and had beaten both of them. Asashoryu won but as Hakuho was going down and Asashoryu was beginning to mount a further attack in case he did not, Asa's momentum carried him into Hakuho's back into what Hakuho perceived as an extra shove (which Asashoryu has been known to do to lesser ranked opponents).

Now as you might have heard me said before, Mongolians are "Mui Macho" people especially with each other, and Hakuho is a Yokozuna no less. When Hakuho arose he shouldered Asashoryu hard and glared at him as they both walked away. Luckily, Asashoryu attempted to play it off as an accident (which is debatable) so at least the main ugliness came from just one man but still it left a somewhat sour note in people's minds.

Both were reprimanded by the way.

Not the prettiest tournament, but a strange one that ended in a unexpected manner which was nice for a change.