I Know This Now

Recently my company was acquired by another company and due to the acquisition, all of us here are treated as new employees. As a result, we have to take all of the mandatory new employee training, even if it covers ground we've been trained on as little as 6 months ago. After a day of going through such training, it is safe to say that if I sexually harass someone at work, it won't be because I wasn't trained on it. This course did have the benefit of hilarious photos in it, made even more hilarious by my repeated viewings of them due to various bouts of IE crashing. At one point, a poor woman appeared to be harassed by rejects from The Village People. One man's chest hair was so thick and lustrous that you could wear it in winter to shield your tender skin from Winter's icy blasts. That statement right there may constitute harassment. Honestly, I'm not sure. Perhaps I should retake the training. I would be interested to know if any of this material comes to a surprise to people. What with kids being expelled from middle school for smacking the asses of others, the zero acceptance policy of sexual harassment is being coded in our DNA as we speak. Is there a person working today who does not know that it's inappropriate to tell someone that their boobs look great in that shirt? The mind reels.

By the way, your boobs look great in that shirt.

It would appear that my Mr. Binky column is amassing a following, and even if that following consists solely of the 3 or 4 people who come here searching for humor rather than solutions for squeaky pipes or spider bitten toddlers, I am glad to be entertaining others. For 35 years now, I have entertained only myself. It's about time that someone other than myself got a kick out of, well, myself.

I have played the GH3 demo, back in the wild wooly days of burning iso's to sparkling plastic discs. You may know this time as last Thursday. My enthusiasm for the game has not changed one bit after playing the demo, which is to say that I am just as unenthusiastic about it now as I was before. In an effort to make the game more realistic, they have taken away the crazy guitar spinning antics that used to go down once you activated Star Power. Now, symbols of your guitarist's persona come pouring out of their guitar, held aloft on gossamer wings. Judy Nails, for example, lets loose with a barrage of hearts. Yes, that's correct hearts. I have stood idly by while Neversoft has taken my beloved Ms. Nails and done all sorts of horrible things, including, but not limited to, making her resemble a monkey. This sir, is the last straw. She's not Hannah Fucking Montana.

They've also given the other band members a spruce up as well, and in some cases, like the female vocalists, the changes work. In the case of the male vocalist, on the other hand, it's a very large, chasm like step backwards. In his present form, the male vocalist looks like a massive chin/jaw combo topped with long hair. His teeth unnerve me. I defy you to start up the demo, select "Even Flow" and not feel as you were staring into a gaping maw of madness every time he opened his considerable mouth. Back when the Guitar Hero songs were mostly covers, I was ok with having the fake band singing these songs, as it's a fake song, in a way. However now that my beloved Edward Vedder is being represented by Teeth Incorporated, I must protest. At least with Rock Band, I have control, albeit limited, over my band's appearance, and I can assure you that my lead singer won't look like he can fit Omaha in his mouth.

The game play was exactly the same with the exception that Star Power is much easier to activate. This is a good thing. Unfortunately, given that nothing else seemed different, the game didn't have the same level of excitement that jump from 1 to 2 brought. Maybe it's just me. I can see why they decided to go the boss battle and power-up route as it provides something different to the experience. I'm sure the game will be great and people will love it, however for me, I'm waiting for Rock Band. It certainly doesn't help that the final song is a version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" with a horrible vocalist and a switching out of the fiddle for a guitar. It is exactly as bad as it sounds. Knowing that I would have to spend a considerable amount of time attempting a song I can't stand doesn't fill me with glee. It certainly didn't in GH2.

Speaking of Rock Band, the release date has been moved from Black Friday to the more sedate, and infinitely more accessible November 20th. A wise move, this is, however I'm still holding out for some Black Friday sales for the bundle. I'll need something to do on that day as we'll be up in the tragic, frozen north, and dragging my children from store to store in an attempt to save 10 dollars on fake instruments seems as good a way as any to spend the day. I would hazard to guess that you'll find almost a 100% attach rate between Mass Effect and Rock Band on November 20th, so strange and far reaching is this hobby that it appeals to both wannabe space warriors and wannabe drummers alike.

Like pretty much everyone else who has played it, I Heart Portal and want to have like a million of its babies. It's rare when such an enjoyable and complete gameplay experience comes about, but man, when it does, it's like lightning. There are so many moments in the game, and I won't bore you with all of them, however I will bore you with one in particular. But first, some backstory. When I was a child, like many kids in the early 80's, I had a Rubik's Cube. I was quite adept at taking the thing apart and putting it back together "solved" but I was never able to get more than two sides complete through legitimate means. One day as I sat in the chair in the family room, watching some monster movie before dinner I idly turned the cube's many rows and columns, not really paying attention to what I was doing. When I looked down, the cube was in the familar checkerboard pattern. I was astounded. Several turns later and I had a genuinely solved cube in my hands. I showed it to my sister who promptly messed it all up not five minutes later. Curse her.

While playing Portal, I had a similar situation. I was in a room that not only required the use of portals to redirect an energy charge to a receptor, but I also needed to use the same portal to get out of the room as it was an advanced map and the platforms present in the normal map were no longer there. I managed to get myself out of the room but could never do what I needed to do to get the charge out of there. After ten minutes of randomly placing portals about, I exited the room in question, turned around in frustration and found myself staring through a portal right at the emitter. How I managed to do this, I have no idea, but I realized, thankfully in time to move out of the way of the insta-death energy charge, that if I were staring at the emitter through an orange portal, then all I needed to do is place an orange portal above the receptor and the map would be complete. I did so and glory of glories, I was out of there. I haven't had a feeling of raw elation as a result of pure experimentation and general fucking around like that in a very long time. It was refreshingly beautiful and I wholeheartedly recommend the game to anyone with a pulse. Oh hell, the undead will probably enjoy it as well.

Team Fortress 2 is also a blast to play and the visual style makes me quite happy. So often, when playing Halo, I don't feel like I can contribute anything to my team other than a place for the enemies to put their bullets instead of in my teammates. In TF2, with it's incredibly well balanced class system, I feel like I can have a role suited best to my talents and do well with it. Right now I enjoy the pyro as he can set people on fire and then run away while his fire still chips away at people's health. The combination of flames and sheer, unabashed cowardice speaks to my soul and I welcome it gladly. The achievements are all easily boostable too, which makes it even more alluring.

I'm sure that the rest of the Orange Box offerings are of equally high quality however I'm having so much fun with the undirected dicking around of Portal and TF2 that it may take some time before I start up Half-Life 2: Episode 1. Plus, soon Crash of the Titans will arrive and I'll need to review it lest GameShark's content editor, a one William Abner, beats me with one of the, no doubt, many OSU tankards adorning his den. The man's love of the Buckeyes is rivaled only by his desire to shame his writers.

Mr. Binky lives on

New Mr. Binky column for those of you that give a damn. Hooray for you!

Zelda Review Up

My review for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is up. I absolutely loved the game, as the review shows. One thing I didn't mention in the review due to space limitations is that, unlike in Wind Waker, there's no way to sail the ocean after beating the final boss, so if you're playing the game, make sure you do all of your exploring before taking on Bellum.

Dragon Blade Review

Revel in my review for Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire. Go ahead, revel. You know you want to. There you go. Now don't you feel better?

Drawn to Life Review

My Drawn to Life review is up, Pulp Fiction reference and all.

Not My Intention

I had no intention of completely abandoning this place last week. It was an odd week with sick children and a day working at home and it kind of got away from me. It didn't help that I had like a bajillion games to review. Ok, not a bajillion, three actually, but still. All the reviews are done, and while they're not posted yet, I can assure you that when they do they'll crack Teh IntarWebs in half. In half! Now I get a week off until Phoenix Wright drops and then it's back into the reviewing fray. It's not a total vacation as I have to write a Mr. Binky column but those don't involve any actual effort and I can usually pound them out in my head to minimize the writing time. At some point, very soon I'm thinking, they'll realize that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing and pull the plug on the column entirely. Does two installments count as a run? Well, it was a good whatever it was.

We've had our first TV casualties in the Team Hyphen household. "Back to You" started working the daughter into the show, as I feared they would, and as such, my interest plummeted. That's not the shows only problems though. Patricia Heaton is basically the same character she was on "Raymond", a shtick that got tiring about 5 years ago. Fred Willard is amusing, but I have "Best in Show" for my Willardian amusement. The other show to go was "Dirty, Sexy Money". Peter Krause was great, but everyone else was just a caricature of people who, in the real world, I can't stand. Not exactly a good way to spend an hour. Besides, Blair Underwood kind of bugs me and he was about to join the show. I'm thinking that Bionic Woman won't end up making the cut either as they haven't done much with her Bionics. Maybe I'm just asking too much, but I want her to like kick a dude in half. Right now she can fight and scan people's faces, but that's it. Ooooh, exciting. Not sure what else I want her to do, but if I want to see someone feverishly scanning the faces for an enemy and then running off, I'll watch The Unit. I also find Katee Sackhoff's character supremely annoying.

I bought the new Jimmy Eat World cd, as was expected and so far I'm diggin' it. It's not as rocktastic as "Futures" however it flows a lot better. I always thought that "Futures" had two somewhat jarring stopping points and they always bugged me. This album doesn't have any of that. I haven't spent too much time listening to the lyrics, so I don't know how they can compare to some of the gems on "Futures" but I'm sure they won't disappoint. I was surprised to see the band got a nice spread in Entertainment Weekly along with an A- grade for the review. Go Jimmy, it truly is your birthday. I'll be seeing the band a week from Friday and I am very excited. My elbows will be sore from knocking people out of the way so that I can get to the front row and rock the fuck out. Sorry elbows!

Finally, to continue on the semi-regular feature detailing my family's trips through the culinary expanse that is our dinner time, I present to you volume two of "What's For Dinner".

Prosciutto and Mozzarella Paninis
A year or so ago my mom got me a Rocco DiSpirito cookbook, autographed no less. It's got some good recipes in it, however most of them can't be made in the short amount of time I have from when I get home until when the children arrive, desperate to be given food they have no intention of consuming. I did, however, find this recipe for a very tasty sandwich in the back of the book and it debuted to rave reviews from 3/4 of Team Hyphen last night. 75% is a damn good number for our family, so I'm considering it a success.

Ingredients:
4 ciabatta rolls - I bought a loaf of ciabatta bread and cut it up, however I'm thinking rolls would be better. The end pieces of the loaf worked fine, but the middle pieces didn't hold up as well to my fervent pressing.
8 oz prosciutto - you're looking for about 8 slices here, with each slice about an ounce. Don't just ask for 8 slices of prosciutto as it's usually cut tissue paper thin and 8 slices won't be enough. If you want to get crazy with your salted pork self, through some pancetta on there too.
8 oz mozzarella - again, eight slices about an ounce each
8 slices tomato - make 'em as think or as thick as you want
8 fresh basil leaves - do not use dried basil here. Spend the 2 bucks and get the fresh stuff. It makes a world of difference
Olive oil

Slice the ciabatta rolls. On each sandwich put two slices of prosciutto and two slices of mozzarella. Season with salt and pepper. Add two slices of tomato and two basil leaves. Brush the outside of the rolls with olive oil and using either a sandwich press or a two skillet combo (one to cook the sandwiches in, and one for pressing on the sandwiches) grill the sandwiches until they're golden brown on each side. I used a grill pan for cooking and a big skillet for pressing so that I could get those cool grill marks. My pictures of the sandwich post cooking didn't come out all that well, but here's a picture prior to cooking.


So yummy!

These sandwiches would work well as appetizers too. Instead of using rolls, find some good rustic bread of a smaller diameter, like for bruschetta. Season the bread and brush with olive oil. Bake 'em on a cookie sheet until the bread is crisp. Place a small amount of prosciutto and a small amount of mozzarella on each piece, and pop 'em back in the oven until the cheese melts. Top with a slice of plum tomato, also of the small diameter, and a small basil leaf. Looks good, tastes better.

Enjoy!

Review-o-rama

Two GameShark pieces today kiddies. First is my review of Brunswick Pro Bowling for the Wii. Second is the second installment in Mr. Binky's Random Stuff. Forgive the Halo centric coverage, I'm sure it'll die down at some point.

Also Also Wik Premiere Madness

We watched Pushing Daisies last night and so far it's tied with Reaper for the best new show. Both of these seemed to be hitting all cylinders right out of the gate with none of the tenuous "we don't know what the hell we're doing" first steps to common in new series. All of the characters are great, and Ned and Chuck are so damned cute as a couple that it's hard not to like them. For some reason, the show is vewy, vewy, quiet, so when the commercials come on, it's like they're advertising Ford trucks with a jet engine, but other than that, I think it's a great show. It will be interesting to see how it progresses as time goes on. We gave Bionic Woman another shot as well and right now I'm not confident that we'll stick around for an entire season. Ditto for Chuck, however I've read that Chuck really picks up with this next episode.

Supernatural is primed and ready and Friday Night Lights starts tonight so all will be in place until next year's return of both Lost and Battlestar Galactica.

I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass like a madman of late and I am enjoying it, however not as much as I think I would be were I not reviewing it. A big part of Zelda is taking the time to figure out all the various temples, time I don't feel like I have if I'm going to finish the review in time for my 10/18 deadline. It's still a great game, and anyone with a DS should own it, but I think I'd enjoy it more if I could take it my own pace. I usually try and avoid reviewing games I have an interest in, for just this reason, however it's hard to turn down 50 bucks for a game I was going to get anyway, and most likely finish in a two week time period. I'm going to try and save a lot of the ocean exploring and side quests for when I have the time to just relax with it. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for another crazy exploration game what with all of the Metroiding I've been doing lately. I don't know.

I did manage to play a few multiplayer rounds of Halo 3 and nothing seems terribly different. If you have any skill at playing Halo I'm sure there's loads to be excited about, however I don't, so it's just me getting killed in shinier, more brightly lit environments. Some of the new weapons are cool, however I always get killed once I pick them up, and the equipment seems like it'd be useful. I have a bad habit of deploying said equipment on hills where the device in question proceeds to roll away from me and then turn on while I stand there and get shot in the larynx for the 19th time. We had the misfortune of playing some truly boring game types on Friday night, so I'm hoping tonight will prove to be more interesting. Eventually I'll get my co-op on get to the story so that I can be equally unimpressed with the single player portion. Can't wait.

In soccer news, we actually scored a goal, several actually, in our past game, so the scoring drought is officially over. I'd like to see us continue to score, however now that the pressure is off, I honestly don't care. I don't think I'll be coaching again any time soon as it's just too much of a hassle for both Linda and I. Once Abby can play, I'll gladly coach her team as Ben won't have any problems understanding that he can't just run out into the field mid-game, bearing the gift of Cheezits. As it stands now, Linda has to watch the games from afar to keep Abby entertained and not screaming. That's not exactly a fun way to spend a Saturday morning, so I'll have to put away my Coach Taylor hat until she's old enough to not be such a pain in the ass. I still reserve the right to call Linda "Mrs. Taylor" though, and none of you can stop me. None of you!

Dieting sucks, in case you didn't know it. I'm hoping that at some point it will become easier, or I just learn to be OK with the extra weight I've put on and stop all this nonsense. If I were a betting man, I'd say put your money on that last one.

Brain Age 2 review up

As the title would suggest, my Brain Age 2 review is up.

Reviewtastic

My 7 Wonders review made it up today as well. Enjoy!

They Call Me Triple-B

My Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 Wii review is up, complete with authorial nickname. Rejoice!

Magic

I bought the new Springsteen album today. It's pretty good. I wouldn't say it's their best work since "The River" as I happen to think that "Born in the USA" is a damn fine album, but it is more consistent than "The Rising". Too bad they're not touring near Atlanta any time soon, if at all. The closest they're coming is DC and there's just too much time and money involved in going to DC for one show. Not sure what Bruce and Pearl Jam have against Atlanta, but neither seem to come farther south than DC. Oh well. I guess that's what concert DVD's are for.

No new premiere news. Sunday night Linda and I watched X-Men: The Last Stand to clear up some DVR space. My Lord that was a crappy movie. We saw it in theaters but time and poor memories dulled what a bag of crap it was. I don't know how they'd make another one after it, and frankly, I hope they don't.

Zelda for the DS comes out today. Yay!

That is all.

Premiere Madness Continues

More tv watching, more premieres. How exciting for all of us!

Let's see if I can remember what we watched, so thrilling were they. Bear with me. I'm tired.

Friday night we watched "Big Bang Theory". I thought it was pretty damn funny. Linda liked it as well, but not as much as I did. She got a "gay" vibe off of the shorter guy (I think his name is Leonard) rather than a "nerd" vibe which may hinder his efforts to have a relationship with the woman, who's name I think is Penny. I swear, half the time I have no idea what show I'm watching. At any rate, I enjoyed it.

We also watched "Dirty, Sexy Money" which has Peter Krause playing quite possibly the least whiny character he's played in some time, except for that Sci-Fi miniseries about the magical hotel key. The show is good, and he's great in it, but the uber-rich family he's working for is nothing but a collection of caricatures of real uber-rich people, so the writers need to tighten that up a bit. The only member of that family that seems real is the dickhead reverend who won't own up to his illegitimate kid. I'm thinking that what made him so real is that I don't know of any real life uber-rich reverends who can't keep it in their pants. Your experiences may vary. My take on the show is that I'll keep watching it, but I don't know if it will hold my interest for the entire season.

Saturday night we watched "The Unit". As usual, it took only about 5 minutes into to the show for me to have absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. This isn't a show I can watch and do other things while watching, despite my insistence to the contrary. Oh well, sadly, I still enjoy it. What can I say? I'm a Scott Foley fan. Anyway, Dennis Haysbert shaved his head and apparently also hit the gym all summer as he spent most of the show with his shirt off. He also devised a lie detector test out of a bowl of rice, so take that MacGyver! Unfortunately they got rid of the show's title music, which was the only song, other than the one that opens Psych, that Linda and I don't fast forward through. Congratulations Psych, you now hold the crown! Download the song and revel in it's greatness!

Saturday night we also watched Moonlight, which was as horribly awful as I hoped it would be. When I first read about CBS doing a show about a vampire private eye that was supposed to be nothing like Angel, I was intrigued. Seriously though, how much can you do with the vampire private eye genre to make two separate shows that different from each other? Well, in Moonlight's case, you make it so that there are vampires living among normal people, you make it so that the protagonist has a horrible NYC accent and you make it terribly, terribly awful. Oh, you also give it a Celine Dion song in the promo at the show's end. At first I wasn't sure which demographic CBS was reaching for with this show. On the one hand, vampire private eyes rest firmly in young men territory, however with a 9 PM, Friday night time slot, most young men are either getting ready to go out, or are waiting for the next Halo 3 match to start up. As I watched the promo, though and they started to focus on the romance, I realized that they're targeting this show to romantic females, like they did Beauty and the Beast. The problem is that the vampire's romantic interest is a woman he rescued from the vampire who sired him. Not really a problem until you find out that the woman was like 10 when she was kidnapped, and he's been watching over her ever since, which makes it all very creepy. It does make the Celine Dion song make sense though as she married the man who managed her since she was like 12 and that's super fucking creepy. Oh, and Logan from Veronica Mars is on it, which should give you some idea of where he stood in reference to the other actors on that show. Kristen Bell gets Heroes and he gets Moonlight. Methinks he needs a new agent. At any rate, it's a horrible show, yet at the same time, I feel powerless to stop watching it. I'm sure Linda will intervene at some point and stop the madness, but in the meantime, I'm content watching a show that has the vampire morgue attendant casually sipping blood as he goes about his work in full view of anyone who might wander into the morgue. Way to keep that secret!

Supernatural starts this week as does Pushing Daisies and Friday Night Lights, so a week of quality TV awaits one and all. Too bad I'll have to ignore most of it as I start playing the new Zelda game for the DS. Reviews wait for no man!

More Premiere Madness

Let's see, we watched Bionic Woman and Smallville last night.

Bionic Woman was OK. The whole combat training thing was kind of silly, as was Jamie's pinging between abject horror at her new condition and sex with her boyfriend, the guy who put her in this position. Katie Sackhoff was ok, but I'm not thrilled with how they're doing her hair and make-up. I know, odd things to get bugged with. Overall, I think the show has promise, and next week's pull-ups in a sports bra shots will certainly get me watching. They do need to ditch the sister though as she's annoying and you can see the various plots regarding her coming from a mile away.

Smallville was it's usual stupid self. I like that they made Bizarro's face all fucked up at times, and seeing Clark soak up sunlight to give a solar powered beatdown was great, but seriously, stopping the onrushing torrent of water with heat vision? Timmy, I saved you from drowning just so that you could get burned to death with steam instead! You're welcome! I also don't understand why Bizarro can be impaled on a girder, but not killed. Either he's invulerable, like Clark, or he's the opposite and he's not. This halfway bullshit is dumb. Absorbing kryptonite is a nice touch however there's a finite supply of kryptonite and an infinite amount of sunlight, so simply from a war of attrition, Clark is going to win out. Lana's showing up in China was flat out asinine. Seriously, why China? And why wear a blonde wig in China if you're trying to hide? Dumb, dumb, dumb. Hopefully next week we'll see more Supergirl because this show desperately needs to show more hot women to keep my interest.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 Review up

My review for Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 for the DS is up and freely available. This is what a review for a good golf game looks like. Stay tuned for my review of the same title on the Wii to see what a review for a bad golf game looks like.

2 Weeks Gone

Two weeks since my last post? Good Lord! We need better help around here. I swear, this place is going to Hell in a handbasket. Hell I tell ya!

Hi. How are you? Really? That's too bad. I'm sure it'll clear up soon.

Lots to talk about today, so let's get down to it.

First of all, my super cool new humor column "Mr. Binky's Random Stuff" has premiered at GameShark and boy howdy, if the initial reviews are any indication, this thing is a real hit with those I'm friends with. As for the general population, I have no idea, but I can only assume they have the same sense of humor as those I hang out with and, as a result, like it as well. It's probably too far fetched to assume that the general populace pities me as much as my friends do and will also read the column out of some sense of loyalty, but I'll take that too. At any rate, please head on over there and read it, and then go to like 10 other computers and visit it from them as well. Me? I've already done enough. I wrote the damn thing. Sheesh. Some people.

These next few weeks are shaping up to be musical extravaganzas the likes of which haven't been seen since, oh, I don't know. I don't really keep track of such things. The new Iron and Wine cd dropped on Tuesday and it's damn spiffy. That's right, damn spiffy. He has a band this time, which allows him to do a lot more creative arrangements. It's all good stuff and I highly recommend it. Tuesday the 2nd of October sees a new Bruce Springsteen album, E Street Band in tow, which is always a good thing. 10/2 also kicks off their tour which, unfortunately, does not stop in Atlanta. Not sure why my favorite bands aren't all making it down here, looking at you Bruce and Pearl Jam, but I'm starting to get offended. Thankfully, one of my most favoritest bands in the entire universe, nay Multiverse, Jimmy Eat World, not only has a new album dropping on 10/16, but they're also coming to Center Stage not 10 days later. Me and my Rock Buddy Chip are going to go and we're going to rock the fuck out. Chip is my Rock Buddy because a) he knows more about rock than most mortals should and b) he records musicians at concerts and stuff and has his own record label. For the record, Rock Buddy Chip is an excellent name for a rock band.

Stella has finally gotten her Metroid Prime 3 groove back, Stella being me in this horribly worded analogy, and I am enjoying it immensely. The amount of polish and creativity that went into this game's design is amazing. Developers that bemoan the lack of raw power in the Wii should look at this game and then go back to their desks, ashamed at their lack of creativity, because you can still pull off some amazing shit with that little box. Me, I'd rather have something simple and stylish like Super Paper Mario over something graphically realistic like Rainbow Six Vegas any day, but that's just me. I'm the type of guy who will spend 20 minutes on how great Puzzle Quest is. You're the type of guy eatin a tv dinner. Dammit, LL Cool J, I told you not to come in here and interrupt me!

I finally gave up on Brunswick Pro Bowling for the Wii and am about to give up on real bowling as well. No, not really, it's just that the bloom has come off of my new ball's rose. Or something. Now it's just the hard work involved in working through my various swing issues and staying positive. Truth be told, I'm just in it for the Frosty's.

The soccer season has started and your Orange Tigers are not performing to the level I would have hoped. Thankfully, the kids on the team don't get upset, or care really, that the other team can score on them at will. Whoops. Hear that? The other team just scored again. The team consists of those who want to play and score, those that just want to kick the ball and then return to the sidelines for Cheez-Its (my son is firmly in that category) and those that don't want to be there at all. Unfortunately, the kids in the first category represent only like 25% of the team. I'm hoping to bring around those that enjoy a good kicking to the side of those that know why they're on the field in the first place, but we'll see. I tried one game as super enthusiastic and one as kind of exasperated and the kids didn't care either way, so I'm just going to stick with super enthusiastic because it's more fun that way. Much harder, but more fun. Hopefully we'll turn into something resembling a team at some point. I'm also hoping to play the Purple Team at some point, because we fucking own them in scrimmage. That's right Purple Team, I'm calling you out.

Finally, glorious new TV has started! Wahey! I haven't watched all of the premieres, but here's my rundown so far, complete with spoilers:

Back To You - Great seeing Kelsey Grammar on TV as someone other than Frasier Crane. Hate the whole kid sub-plot. The show is funny, but if they keep doing stuff with the kid, I'll drop it.
How I Met Your Mother - Leg-wait for it-endary
Chuck - Like it, but they need someone who actually knows about computers to take a shot at the script. Computers don't smash into a bazillion pieces when they drop from a 4 foot height, and hard drives certainly take a lot more to kill them. The woman is cute, so that's good and Jayne from Firefly is in it, so double yay.
Heroes - Like it. I'm interested to see what the Hispanic woman's power is. Peter's memory loss could be hokey, but I'll give it a shot. I thought he'd be the one killing the elder circle people. Guess not.
Bones - Good, but not as good as I expected. Zach's return made his departure so much about nothing. This show always takes a few episodes to hit it's stride, so I'm not worried. I'm not pleased with Hodgin's lack of the manfro as it takes a very special dude to pull off that much curly hair, but oh well.
Reaper - So far, the best new show this season. Funny, well written, clever with great acting and fantastic writing, this one's a keeper. I know Kevin Smith directed it, but it sounded like he wrote it too, so if they can keep up that level of humor all season long, I'll be thrilled.

We still haven't watched Bionic Woman or Dirty, Sexy Money yet and Smallville starts tonight, so I'll chime in on them later. I expect Bionic Woman to be great, because there's a lot of hot chicks in it, Dirty, Sexy Money to be good because Peter Krause is in it and Smallville to suck because it's Smallville and all of the competent writers left years ago. Supergirl looks hot enough to melt steel though, so I'll stick around. Pushing Daisies, Friday Night Lights, and the Cackowski-Schnell Show of the Year, Supernatural all start next week. It's a good time to be watching tv.

Goings-Ons

Is that right? Is it going-ons or goings-ons? At any rate, these are the things that are ongoing. There has been much and many. Many much moosen.

On the gaming front, I finished BioShock over the weekend and boy howdy, did I enjoy that game. The ending was disappointing, both in the execution and the fact that it ended, but that's a small quibble in what was otherwise, the most enjoyable gaming experience I've had in a while. I also managed to get 960 points on one run, and given that the other 40 are for completing the game on Hard, 960 is all I'm gonna get. I watched the alternate ending on Youtube and was even less impressed, so I'm going to be happy with my 960 points and my angelic ending and move on.

Now that BioShock is in the can, I've started playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I haven't been playing as much as I'd like to, given that I'm working on reviewing Tiger Woods '08 and Brunswick Bowling for the Wii, but what I've seen so far I'm enjoying immensely. In fact, my lack of Metroid time makes me feel kind of bad, because I asked for it back from a coworker so that I could play, and I've barely touched it. Hodge, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.

Both Tiger Woods and Brunswick Bowling are interesting animals in that some aspects of the controls are either frustrating or unintuitive but if you fight through them, you can have some fun. I know this is a fact with Tiger Woods, as the aforementioned Hodge chose to return Tiger Woods to me rather than continue futzing with the putting. There are other issues with both games other than the controls, but both are niche sports games for the Wii that have aspects of their controls that could make the casual game loving, Wii-centric audience completely pass over them. Coincidence? I think not. Actually, I totally do. For the record, I think that Brunswick is a little more fun than Tiger Woods, but that's probably because I've played Tiger Woods for so long that there's not much new about it any more.

Speaking of bowling, I bought a new ball, and took another lesson, thereby ratcheting up the dollar to suck ratio. Actually, it would appear that there are some improvements, as Wednesday I bowled a 185, close to 20 points better than my previous high score. Granted, this was during practice, and not a "league" game, but it points to improvement nonetheless. My new ball is a Raw Hammer Anger, from the fine folks at Hammer. This ball is the shit. For one, it's lighter, so I can throw it with a little more power. Second, the asymmetric core, along with the reactive coverstock means that I can get a nice hook without having to really crank it. This is good, because my new stroke isn't of the cranking kind. Please, no masturbation jokes. Ok, ok, just one. Go ahead. Ha! That's pretty funny.

Anyways, I also got the ball drilled a little differently with what's called a fingertip grip. Basically you have these inserts in the finger holes that allow you to insert your fingers only up to like the first knuckle. The idea is that you get a better release because you can let the ball roll off your fingers and give the ball a little spin. At least, I think that's the idea. I really have no idea. My bowling instructor, who happens to be the pro shop guy, told me to buy this ball with this grip and I did like the good little student (sheep) that I am. Unfortunately this is causing all sorts of problems with my spare ball, which means I may need to get another one and retire Pinslayer out to pasture. I'm hoping there's a retirement hall for old bowling balls, where they can just roll around all day knocking down pins.

Soccer starts on Friday with our first practice, provided the 70% chance of rain currently predicted doesn't come to fruition. Personally, I'm somewhat interested in seeing how the kids, and I, react to having practice rained out, but then having a game on Saturday. It'd be the very definition of bedlam.

Finally, football season started and the Redskins are 1 and 0. Woo-hoo! I should savor these moments, as there's no guarantee the winning will outnumber the losing for very long. For now though, we won our season opener and have a reeling Eagles team to contend with next week, on Monday night no less. It'll either go very, very well, or very, very badly. I'm hoping for the former but am prepared for the latter. Such is the life of a Redskins fan.

Boogie review up

One of these days I'll actually post something other than notices of published reviews. That day isn't today though, and tomorrow ain't looking good either. In the mean time, enjoy my review of Boogie.

Alien Syndrome review up

My review of Alien Syndrome is up. Forget about all of the other Alien Syndrome reviews you've read. This is the definitive one.

Oh Ye of Broken Wallets

Good Lord is it an expensive week. Here's a small list of the entertainment choices available at fine retailers everywhere this week.

• Heroes Season 1 on DVD and HD-DVD
• Friday Night Lights Season 1
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 for the PS3, 360 and Wii
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Wii
• Blue Dragon for the 360

I'm sure there are other games out there as well, but that alone represents over 200 bucks if you just stuck with the DVD release of Heroes and one release of Tiger Woods. Me, I've already purchased Heroes and Friday Night Lights and have Metroid paid for with trades, and am reviewing Tiger Woods for the Wii, so the burden is lessened somewhat. I say somewhat because I managed to hit the Transformers jackpot at both Target and Wal-Mart this week, so what I didn't spend on additional games, I more than made up for in robots. It was worth it though as I am now the proud owner of the Leader class Brawl the Real Gear controller dude (I forget the name) and the Deluxe versions of Dreadwing, Longarm, Dropkick and Payload. Thank goodness I was able to flip that Collector's Edition of Bioshock as that money paid for this bounty of robotic goodness.

Leader class Brawl is a great toy if you want either a tank that makes lots of cool shooting noises, or a robot that makes lots of cool shooting noises. If you want a robot that turns into a tank, it's far less effective, however you'll still get all of those cool shooting noises, which are decidedly less cool, especially when you're trying to transform it while watching TV with your very patient and beautiful wife. A word of warning: after the 9th accidental set of shooting noises, she will attempt to brain you with the remote, so either try and transform Brawl in another room or take the damn batteries out. As a tank, and as a robot he's great and comes highly recommended. I'm hoping that the transformation becomes easier the more that I do it. After the Great Megatron Foot Fiasco of 07, transforming my Leader class Megatron became a lot easier, so hopes are high for Brawl. At the same time, he is at work, and my employer's tolerance for my hobby will plummet dramatically should I repeatedly disrupt the calm of the workplace with the sounds of heavy artillery, so I don't know how much extra practice I'll get transforming him. Looks like he may be going in for a batteryectomy.

Longarm is pretty cool, despite my residual hatred for him from the Transformers video game. I'm slowly getting over it, however there are still times that I want to pick up a random telephone pole and throw it at him, as I had to in the video game, and then stomp him into little pieces while raving like a lunatic. Those moments are getting farther and farther apart.

The video game controller dude, or High Score 100 if you want to be specific, is the biggest disappointment. As a little controller, he's pretty cool. As a robot he's not very poseable and has small, somewhat unsturdy legs. He also doesn't have hands. Well, he has hands, but the fingers are molded plastic, and not separate, so it appears that his arms end in clubs. He also has the Autobot logo on his crotch, which I find unsettling. I don't want my vision continually drawn to his robotic nether regions, but alas, it is. On the plus side, he looks as much like a gorilla in real life as he does in the package, and seeing how I wanted him because he looks like a gorilla, I guess I can't be too upset. I can assure you that my attraction to a robot being based solely on his similarity to a gorilla isn't even close to being the strangest thing about me.

I know that I spoke of a humor column in the past, and nothing has come of it since then, but I've been told that the "art is coming" and that I should "hold tight". That certainly sounds promising, and I look forward to having my humorous words seen by the public at large, but at the same time, once the art has come, and my words are let loose into the hive mind, that means that I have to come up with another idea for another column. Then, two weeks later, I have to do it again. I find this prospect terrifying because, at present, I don't have any other ideas. Sad, I know. Why I would specifically ask for a biweekly column when I knew that I didn't have more than the one idea, a poorly executed one at that, is beyond me. It's like I wish to spend my evening as a writhing ball of anxiety rather than sleeping soundly, dreaming of future fame and fortune as a critically acclaimed humor columnist. My prediction is that eventually, the fine folks at GameShark will realize that I can't deliver on my promise and all their artwork efforts have been in vain. The distrust and disgust will run so deep that they won't even want me writing reviews. I can only hope that I can string them along until November as I really want to review Manhunt 2.

I'm continuing to enjoy BioShock and have amassed a nice collection of both audio diaries and gene tonics, so barring game gliches, I should be able to get achievements for everything but completing the game on Hard in one run through. Playing while searching is both more satisfying and less satisfying at the same time. Not being able to throw myself headlong into the story and just mow down splicers is less fun, however when I find an audio diary or a gene tonic, I get to cross it off of a list and that is very empowering. I never used to be this anal. Scratch that. I've always been this anal, I've just never had a socially acceptable outlet for displaying it. There are a few things that I think the game desperately needs though to make the experience "top shelf" as my mother-in-law would say. First of all, once you have a system, as in The Darkness, that tells you how close you are to completing a certain achievement, it's hard to go back. With all of the research photos you have to take and diaries to find, it'd be nice if there was something that showed you that you found 20 of 22 audio diaries for this level, or you're 75% complete with researching security cameras. Also, it'd be nice if I could see my inventory at any time. As you progress in the game, you pick up random bits of trash that you can use to invent things. You can see how much stuff you have when you go to invent things, but if you're anal, like me, and want to be able to invent things the minute you get the required amount of stuff, you have no way of checking your progress. They're minor things, but when you have a game this good, it's usually only minor things that you find. Even though it will kill me, literally strike me dead, to not start playing Metroid tonight, I think the story of both it and BioShock will be better served if I finish one and then start the other. Ok, it might not kill me, but I will have a vague feeling of unease for most of the evening.

Finally, I have obtained the most important coaching tool, the whistle and am well prepared to use it when necessary. We also purchased other things for Ben, such as shinguards, shoes, socks, a ball and practice cones, so we feel confident that at some time, someone will play soccer. The shinguards and socks are large enough so that he should be able to get more than one season out of it. He has no choice in this matter as I need to recoup my investment and they sure as hell won't fit me. His sister appears to be getting smaller, rather than larger, so she won't be able to fit into them until sometime in her mid 30's, so it's on him to make sure we get the most for his 60 bucks. I've been told that he'll have a good time. Hopefully his good time will intersect with my value proposition or he's in for two years of unfulfilling sporting activity. Play ball!

Some time with Bioshock

As the title suggests, I've been able to spend some time with Bioshock over the past 24 hours and I'm quite impressed.

First of all, I'd like to thank Joystiq as I was lucky enough to win a copy of Bioshock from them. I had planned on buying it anyways, and in fact, I did buy the Limited Edition, however winning the game from them allowed me to turn the Limited Edition around on eBay for a nice profit. For the record, I won a copy that was purchased last week when Toys R Us broke the street date. This is a first for me in two ways as a) I never win contests and b) I never have an item I'm able to sell quickly and capitalize on the popularity of. So, yay for me. Twice. If Bioshock gamers are willing to pay an extra 30 bucks for the Limited Edition, I'm hoping that Halo 3 gamers will be willing to spend even more for the Legendary Edition of Halo 3. All I need is for the Legendary Edition to sell out before the Halo 3 release date and I'll be all set.

Ok, so Bioshock. In a nutshell, this game kicks ass. Not since Crackdown have I sat down at a game and didn't realize that over an hour had passed. It's just that immersive. Everything looks and sounds amazing and the AI is some of the best you'll ever come across. The weapons are nicely balanced and there's a good selection of Plasmids (active powers) and Gene Tonics (passive powers) to play with.

On that subject, the game does allow you to "play" with powers to a certain extent, however switching up your layout requires you to backtrack to the nearest gene bank thingy and then go find a bunch of baddies to fuck with. Sure, there's always one or two Splicers (think crazed drug addicts) roaming the halls but you don't get a feel for what your powers can do until you go up against a room of baddies.

When you do have the opportunity to play though, it's tons of fun. For example, I came across a Big Daddy that was just roaming around and knowing that I was going to have to go into a new area, no doubt filled with new baddies, I hit him with the hypnotize power and had him tag along. We get to a room, and sure enough, some Splicers meant to do me some home, so I let Rosie take care of 'em. Once the smoke cleared, Rosie was still in my thrall, so I was going to let the hypnosis just wear off, but lo and behold, here came the last Little Sister of the level, complete with her Big Daddy guardian. I'm not one to let a perfectly hypnotized Big Daddy go to waste, so I tagged Rosie with another hypnosis sphere thing, peeked out from behind some crates, and took a shot at the other Big Daddy. He goes ballistic gunning for me, and Rosie rushed to my aid. Me, I continued to hid and then threw in some grenades to finish the job that Rosie couldn't. No muss, no fuss.

Even with these kinds of interactions at my fingertips, I still find myself equipping the same combination of Plasmids. Part of that is because, as I mentioned before, it's not always convenient to switch up your layout, but part of that is because I found a combination that works, and once I do that in a game, I'll stick with it until the cows come home. The game limits how often you can expand the number of Plasmids and Gene Tonics you can have equipped at a time so it forces you to experiment with different combinations. That being said, this game is just screaming for a cheat mode similar to Crackdown's "Keys to the City" mode that allowed you to turn on whatever abilities and weapons you wanted and go to town against the city's gangs. It'd be great if you could switch out Plasmids and Gene Tonics on the fly and mess around with the baddies.

I know that some people were complaining about not being able to die in the game, and yes, it is a bit of a crutch, but it makes the game so much more fun to play and is part of what makes the game so streamlined. Personally, I think it's great and helps reduce the frustration level. You still don't want to die, as you always have to do some backtracking and sometimes you come back in a tank that's in an unexplored area, one teeming with baddies at that. Basically, all it does, is allow you to keep your progress when you're not so quick on the draw. Nothing bad about that.

As much as I gushed over the voice work in The Darkness, this game blows it out of the water. Every performance is amazing and really does a lot to flesh out the game world. Special effects are similarly well done and help to draw the player in. The story comes in little pieces, through audio diaries you find along the way, and while having this kind of story telling mode carries with it the risk that some players won't get the full story, in my case, it makes me want to explore every nook and cranny so that I don't miss anything.

My only grudge with the game is that managing weapon ammo can be a bit of a pain. You can have various types of ammo for each weapon, picked via the d-pad when your weapon is equipped. The problem is that when you run out of a particular type of ammo, it doesn't cut over to the next available type. Combat in this game is very hectic and when switching between using Plasmids and using weapons, it's all too easy to forget that you don't have any ammo and end up getting punched in the face by a Big Daddy. Guess I shouldn't complain too much. They made the game so that I can't die. The least I could do is keep an eye on how many anti-personnel rounds I have.

With this game, one of the most expensive and "game of the year" candidate filled holiday seasons kicks off, and if the subsequent big releases from all three companies come even close to the level of quality in Bioshock, this will be a holiday gaming season for the ages. If the other games don't come close, then just having Bioshock be this good will be enough.

Friday Musings

Ah, the pre-bowling calm, when everyone dreams of perfect scores and the crushing weight of reality has yet to fall upon them. What better time to compile my musings? Sure beats working.

The Bioshock demo has only intensified my already crazed levels of enthusiasm for this game. This holiday season is jam packed with delicious content, across all platforms, yet Bioshock is the game I'm the most excited about. How fitting that it should lead the charge! Oh sure, I'm giddy for Metroid 3, and look forward to finally having some closure in Halo 3, and who doesn't want to set Venezuela alight in Mercenaries 2, but Bioshock is the one game I would pick to play this fall, if I had to only pick one. The next game I'm this excited about is Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which drops in December, to provide a nice, violent exclamation point on the holiday season.

I'll be working diligently to finish my Alien Syndrome and Boogie reviews in the next few days so that I can enter into Bioshock with an uncluttered calendar. As irritated as I was to not get any broken street date lovin' and get my hands on Bioshock early, in the end, I'm glad I didn't. If I had to stop playing Bioshock to play Alien Syndrome, I'd be pretty pissed. That's not a knock against Alien Syndrome, more a word of praise for Bioshock. I'll be pissed when I have to stop playing it to go to bed, or eat or do any of the other myriad things necessary to keep me alive and with a healthy marriage.

As for Alien Syndrome and Boogie, I have informed Linda that this weekend, our basement will be host to not only a dance-off, but a cooperative effort to eradicate the aforementioned Alien Syndrome. Despite her lack of enthusiasm, she's secretly, silently thrilled. Just ask her.

The biggest news of the week is that, not only has Ben been signed up to play soccer this fall, but I have volunteered to coach his team. This flies directly against my nature, which includes a deep and bitter hatred for the offspring of others, however I need material for this column, and if I can't find something funny about 5 year olds being coached by someone with no athletic skill whatsoever, well, I have no business writing at all.

The hits just keep on coming...

My review for The Darkness is up. Revel in my critical genius!

Picross review up

My super special Picross DS review is up. Bonus points for not hating it. Wahey!

Random Bits + Dinner

Some random stuff today, and then the first of a semi-regular feature highlighting some of the Cackowski-Schnell dinner favorites. Exciting, I'm sure but what the hell. I stole the dinner idea from Andy, who in turn, stole it from Booster. We're all thieves and liars over here.

Finally, some non-GH1 songs are available for download for Guitar Hero 2. They're all from My Chemical Romance, and all from "The Black Parade" album, which makes them A-OK in my book. It doesn't hurt that they're particularly crunchy and full of mad shredding, which is probably why they were picked. Naturally, the interwebs are aflame with youngsters railing to the heavens about how MCR is such a bunch of emo queers. Whatever. I stand by the statement that "Dead" is one of the most fun songs to play in GH2 and these songs are just as much fun to listen to, so I'm sure they'll be as much fun to play. Besides, I stopped caring about what others thought of my musical tastes a long, long time ago.

The Bioshock demo has also dropped but somehow a cruel trick has been played upon me and I seem to be unable to download it with anything more than glacial speeds. I'm hoping that tonight will prove more successful than Sunday night or last night. If not, the game comes out in a week, but man, it sucks to hear how much people are loving this demo and I can do naught to experience it.

It would appear that I've been able to fool the folks at GameShark into believing that I can write a bi-weekly humor column. All of the details have yet to be finalized, but hopefully I can announce something soon. I have no idea how I'm going to come up with something to write about every other week, and be funny at the same time, but I figure it's a good opportunity and it will be a good learning experience. That being said, if you are able to come up with a funny, bi-weekly gaming column, please let me know. I pay 25 bucks a column. Hopefully that will free up my creativity to devote more time to this place, but as that has yet to happen, I wouldn't hold my breath. I'll see if I can get this site linked to from the humor column, thereby forcing myself to update here but I'm not sure they'd go for that. We'll see.

Enough prattle. Let's eat.

What's For Dinner - Sausage and Peppers
As you may or may not know, I do all of the cooking at home. This is, in part because Linda doesn't enjoy cooking, and in part because I really, really love to eat and the only way I can eat a bunch of different things is by cooking it my own damn self. It's all just selfishness when you get right down to it, but seeing how I can rock a kitchen 'til your hair turns gray, no one is complaining.

My Sausage and Peppers recipe was originally a Cooking Light recipe but I modified it to meet my own discriminating palate. It hasn't changed that much, just a little here and there, mostly to remove the "Light" part. As it's a fairly simple recipe, the quality of the ingredients is very important. There's not a lot there to mask sub-par sausage, so just buck up and be willing to spend the time to find peppers that don't look like they've been out on the sidewalk for 3 weeks.

Ingredients:
12 oz uncooked penne pasta - If you don't have a kitchen scale (which you should) and don't feel like doing the math, you can use the whole 1 lb box. The S&P is served individually, on top of the cooked pasta, so having extra cooked pasta won't throw off the balance or anything.
1 lb Italian sausage - I like to use hot sausage here as it pairs nicely with the peppers, but I guess you could use sweet if you preferred it. I'm not a big fan of sweet Italian sausage, but that's just me. Just don't go trying this with some bullshit turkey sausage or gourmet chicken and apple shit. This is an Italian dish and as such, needs good, old fashioned pork sausage. Save your Sam Jackson speech for someone who cares.
1 red, yellow and green pepper cut into 1/4 inch strips - Again, get good peppers here. Nothing all wrinkled and pitted. It's worth it.
1 26 ounce jar of pasta sauce - More than anything else, this ingredient will really change the flavor of the dish. I prefer something sweeter, like a garden sauce with lots of vegetables. Linda prefers something more herb-y, like a 7 herb tomato or a simple tomato and basil. I do not recommend a meat or a cheese sauce as it's way too overpowering. Ditto for vodka or tomato cream sauces.
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced or 3 tsp of minced garlic - Garlic is good however you do it, so it's your choice
Shredded Mozzarella cheese - the amount is up to you, but somewhere between 1/4 cup to a cup should do it.
Love - I know this is a stupid ingredient, and maybe I'm just channeling generations of Italian moms here, but ever since my wife and my son have started asking for this dish by name, I've been better at making it.

1. Cook the pasta according to package directions, just without any oil or salt. You don't need it as this dish has enough fat as it is.
2. Cook the Italian sausage. The original recipe called for frying it for 8 minutes over med-high heat, which I did for quite some time, but I have since switched to grilling them as it's cleaner and I think the sausages benefit from being grilled. For some reason, this dish has a rustic feel to it and when I think rustic, I think open flame, not anodized aluminum pans. If you decided to grill, do them on direct-medium (directly over a medium flame) for 8 minutes, turning them over after 4 minutes.
3. Once the sausages are done, heat a little olive oil in a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat. If you have one of those nice chicken frying pans that are like 3 or 4 inches deep, use one of those. Cook the peppers in the frying pan for 6 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. While the peppers cook, let the sausages cool a little and then slice them into 1/4 inch slices. Don't eat any yet, as they're probably not fully cooked yet and you don't want to get sick.
5. Add the sausage to the peppers and cook for another 2 minutes.
6. Add the garlic to the sausage and peppers and cook for another 2 minutes.
7. Add the pasta sauce to the pan (see why a deep pan is helpful?), stir and bring the mixture to a simmer. Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.
8. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cheese. Keep stirring until all of the cheese is melted.

Serve up some pasta in shallow, individual pasta bowls and cover with the Sausage and Peppers. A big loaf of crusty Italian bread always helps, as does the tasty beverage of your choice. This dish is particularly good as leftovers too, provided you don't eat it all in one sitting.

Enjoy!

Transformer Game Reviews

My reviews for the Wii and DS versions of the latest Transformer movie games are available for your perusal. While you're there, check out the PS3 and 360 reviews too. We're unified in our hatred.

John Mayer + Ben Folds

Once again rose from my cave and ventured out into world to take in some live music. Sunday night's performance? John Mayer with Ben Folds and James Morrison.

I should point out that prior to this show, I was a much bigger Ben Folds fan than I was a John Mayer fan. Nothing against John Mayer, as I have all his albums, but the only live recording I had of him was in support of his first record and didn't show off a lot of guitar work. Ben Folds, on the other hand, I'd already seen twice and both times were treated to an incredibly talented performer with a lot of personality and a great sense of humor. After seeing the show, I will do my best to see John Mayer whenever he comes to town as not only is he an incredibly talented performer with a lot of personality and a great sense of humor, but that dude can play the hell out of a guitar. Holy shit, can he lay it down.

James Morrison had a great voice and a tight band, but alas I spent most of his set trying to get a t-shirt in the right size, so I can't comment on him. He seemed pretty good and he's sold like 2 million record in Europe, so obviously he's doing something right.

I feel somewhat bad for Ben Folds because, as the opening band, he wasn't awarded the same attention and interest that the headliner gets. This is a shame, because he did a great set with lots of material covering his work with the Ben Folds 5 and his solo stuff. Oddly enough, he toured with only a drummer and a bassist, which is the exact makeup of the BF5, but they weren't the BF5. They only sounded exactly like the BF5. Whatever. It was a good time, and I did my best to represent and sing along and such, but it's hard to do so when most of the people around you aren't paying any fucking attention.

Thankfully, with the exception of the text message addict next to me, people gave John Mayer their full attention. His set list was mostly from his latest two solo albums, which makes sense as they're better tuned for displaying his mad guitar chops. He could have had some stuff from his Trio album, but as I don't have that album, I have no idea. There was a nice range of material and the crowd loved every minute of it.

This was probably one of the best produced shows I've ever been to. The lighting was awesome, which is saying something because I usually don't notice stuff like that. There were 3 screens behind the band, made to look like windows, that they used to show the band members, or JM's face, or his guitar work. They weren't big, jumbotron screens, so you didn't get the feeling that they were there to help out those in the cheap seats, more that they were part of the set. It was all done really well. His touring band is quite talented and everyone got a chance to show off.

Having never ventured to that part of downtown for a show, I was hesitant about being able to find parking, however by being willing to walk 10 minutes to the venue, I was able to save 10 bucks. This also gave me the opportunity to walk through Olympic Centennial Park at night, which is quite a sight. Unfortunately, it's easier to get into the park at 11:15 PM than it is to get out of it, so I had to do some creative fence hopping to escape. Then I was treated to the sight of my fellow parking lot customers tearing down the gate blocking exit from the lot when it dropped and locked into place inexplicably. Atlanta residents are many things, but patient is not one of them.

This now makes 5 shows that I've gone and seen since moving to Atlanta, which is more than I ever saw in 5 years of living in VA, if memory serves. While I still prefer to go with other people, I'm learning to enjoy going by myself, and take the opportunity to stoke the bitter flames of resentment that I feel whenever I'm surrounded by other people, all of whom are arguably beneath me. I mean, for fuck's sake, turn your goddamned phone off for 2 hours. It's a fucking rock show.

Twit.

Here are some crappy pictures to commemorate the event.

This is James Morrison's set. He's there, somewhere. I think he had a guitar.

After Morrison's set, as they were setting up for Ben Folds. It's just a reference shot to show where I was. The seat was pretty good, as it should have been as one ticket was like 72 bucks. Stupid fucking convenience fees.

Ben Folds's set. He's on the left, in front of the piano. Yes, there's a piano there. Jesus, my phone's camera sucks.

John Mayer, singing the first few lines to "Why Georgia, Why?"

John Mayer and the band in full swing. John is in front of that super nova in the center of the stage. You can somewhat see the screens I was talking about. Somewhat. I'm such a shitty photographer.

A Lesson on Value

Let's say you buy a set of three movies on DVD. For the sake of argument, let's call it the Die Hard Trilogy. Three movies for 26 bucks may seem like a great deal, but what if you already own Die Hard? Well, 26 bucks for two movies is less of a great deal, but, in the interest of complicating matters, let's say there's a ticket in the box for $8.50 off of an admission for Die Hard 4. Is this still a good value?

This is a trick question. The answer is "no" because I'm too fucking stupid to realize that the goddamn movie ticket had a goddamn expiration date, particularly an expiration date of July the goddamned 21st. Arrggh. Further compounding the insult is that not a week or two after I bought the set, the individual movies were on sale at Circuit City for $7.50 each. Nice! I honestly thought that I'd go to the movie, but alas, I'm too damn lazy. In my defense, once I work a full day and then make dinner and get the kids put to bed, going to a movie takes a supreme effort. Oh well, something to grow on for the future.

In other news, I'll be reviewing Picross for the DS for GameShark soon. In the meantime, I'm going to pull an IGN and say if you like logic puzzle games, you'll love Picross!!!!!

I saw the robot replicas versions of Barricade and Megatron today. In a nutshell, they're action figues of the Transformers in robot mode. In a slightly bigger nutshell, they're butt ugly and hopefully super poseable because otherwise, there's really no reason to buy them unlike you like spending 10 bucks on an ugly toy that doesn't turn into anything. I don't really know who these would be marketed towards as the transforming inherent in Transformers is what makes them so much fun. These figures are decidedly less fun and might actually cross over into anti-fun.

Fear My Parenting

This weekend I had one of those pivotal moments in parenting, when you get the feeling that everything you're doing with your kids is finally setting in. Parents of kids older than a year know what I'm talking about. I say over a year, because parenting a child under 12 months is mostly just an exercise in keeping them alive. Maybe it's when your kid says "please" or "thank you" for the first time. Maybe it's when they do something without being asked five hundred times.Maybe it's when they can recognize the helmet of a professional football team without prompting. This past week, my son ran from me in fear for the first time. More specifically he ran from my mad disciplinary skills, but I'll take the credit.

Before we progress further, I should probably explain some things. First of all, neither I, nor my wife employ strange or violent disciplinary measures. We don't spank, hit, pinch, slap or otherwise use physical force. No one gets forced to stay in a dank cellar. No one lives under the stairs. No one gets whipped for using wire hangers. We use the tried and true methods of denying privileges and banishment to one's room. When I say "room" I actually mean the room of the house designated as owned by the child in question, not some shackled up outhouse with nothing but a bucket to pee in and an eye hole to look out of. So when I say that my kid ran in fear of being disciplined, I can assure you that it's not because he thought I was going to hit him with an oar.

Allow me to set the stage. Sunday mornings I get up with the kids while Linda sleeps in. Like all good parents, I do my best to avoid the children entirely and encourage them to play with one another. Anyone with multiple children knows exactly what I'm talking about as the only reason to have more than one child is so that you don't have to play, and lose, at race cars 500 bajillion times. Parents that say they had multiple children because they had lots of love to give, or some similarly rosy sounding bullshit are lying to you. They had multiple kids because they did the math and realized that 2 years of putting up with a child that can't do anything for themselves is better than being chief playmate and entertainment source for 18 years.

But I digress. As the kids play, I get the menu for the week together and make the grocery list. It takes some time as I don't like to repeat meals from week to week. The kids are usually content to spend this time playing with one another. They're playing, for the most part, consists of Ben ordering Abby around and her doing whatever he tells her. That is, when they're not arguing over something. Linda read somewhere that the normal amount of time between conflict for kids their age is roughly 10 minutes. If ten minutes were to go by with my kids not yelling at each other about something, I would worry that the book case fell on them.

Of late, Abby has taken to playing with this set of 16 wooden blocks that Ben had as a toddler. I don't know what it is about them, but she will sit for upwards of an hour and just dump them out of their wooden tray and then put them back. It's kind of strange, but it makes her immensely happy. Ben is less than thrilled about this recent development, in part because it's his right as a sibling to immediately want whatever his sibling is receiving enjoyment from, even if not 5 minutes ago he cast it aside as the most repulsive thing ever. The other part is that, and I think this is more important, when she's playing with the blocks, he can't tell her what to do. 4 year olds excel at few things, but instructing others how to do things is one of them. When Abby is in her block fugue, not only does she not listen to what he's saying to her, but it's like he doesn't exist.

Given that there is so little in this world that will actually make Abby happy, and not just happy but entertained and enthralled for long periods of time, the general rule around the house has become "don't mess with your sister when she's playing with the blocks." An odd rule, to be sure, and one that really only applies to the blocks, but it's necessary, because the boy absolutely will not stop fucking with this child when she's playing with those damn blocks. You might, at this point, say "well, why not make them share the blocks and get him involved so that he can play too?" No dice. He doesn't want to be involved, he wants to take over and once he starts playing with her, they won't be playing with the blocks in the manner she wants to, they'll be turning the blocks into eggs or Lego Racers or something else and using them to play Super Block Ball or some shit. All the poor child wants to do is dump out the blocks and put them back. We've told Ben that he can help her do that, but it rarely stays that way, so the block rule has been enforced.

Now, on another note, my take is that Abby, whom I love to pieces, don't get me wrong, can be a fucking hornet's nest if riled up, so why, in the name of all that is good and holy, would you do anything to bother her if she's happy and content? I'm not saying you should tiptoe around the kid if she's smacking the dog with a fireplace poker, but if she's playing with something that is completely ok for her to play with, and having a good time, why not just leave her the fuck alone? Alas reason is lost on 4 year olds, although he will be the first one to point out when his sister is screaming at the top of her lungs.

So, back to Sunday morning. She's playing with her blocks, I'm menu planning and he starts messing with her. I tell him a number of times to leave her alone and then I hear silence. Then I hear the sound of a pom-pom being waved. The kids have some stupid pom-pom they got at the grocery store as a giveaway or something. I really have no idea how it got into the house. Then I hear the sound of the pom-pom being smacked into something. I assume it's the floor. Then I hear Abby plaintively wailing "Daaaaddddyyyyy!!!" It would appear I was wrong in my assumption.

I get up and come into the room, but as I'm coming into the living room, I hear him running out of the room, a sure sign that something's up as he's never ran that fast to do anything in his life. I check on Abby and she's ok, playing with the blocks, with the pom-pom on the floor next to her. I then leave the living room through the other door into the foyer and I still don't see Ben but I can hear him. He was actually moving away from me to escape capture. "Well played," I thought as I was impressed that he didn't just pause outside the door.

I may be many things, but capable of being outsmarted by someone who can't tie his shoes ain't one of them. Knowing that he might think I'm still in the living room and not come back, I went back the way I came, into the hallway connecting the living room to the family room and waited. This way, when he came back through a glance from the foyer or the dining room would make the room appear to be safe to return to. In a moment he returned and just like that, the steely jaws of my trap sprang shut.

I walked out and the look of surprise on his face was priceless. Then the interrogation began.

"What were you doing before I came into the room?"

"I don't know." This is his new thing. It rarely works, yet he persists in trying it.

"Don't lie to me boy." I don't know why I call him boy in these situations. It must be a southern thing. "You must have been doing something you knew was wrong or you wouldn't have run away. Now, what were you doing?"

Pause. Another pause. "Hitting Abby with the pom-pom."

"Why?"

"Because she wasn't sharing the blocks with me."

At this point, I went into the whole thing about not hitting and you're a big brother, you should be looking out for her and she's half your size and blah blah blah. The end result was that he got sent to his room for 45 minutes. The entire time, Abby played with the blocks with the biggest smile on her face.

Now, had it just been a he said she said thing and he hadn't ran and hadn't confessed, there wouldn't have been much that I could do because I didn't actually see anything and I couldn't trust that Abby would tell me the truth. 2 year olds are notoriously unreliable eyewitnesses. Even if he had just ran, and not confessed, I still wouldn't have been able to do anything, because again, I didn't see it and he could have just been running to run. I'm glad he did confess, because I want my kids to be honest, even if it means owning up to something they're going to get punished for, but at the same time, I know that there will soon come a day when I know he's lying to me, but I can't do anything about it because I won't have seen the infraction occur.

In the end, it wasn't a big deal. He got lectured again when he came out of his room, he didn't hit her again and the day continued like any other. Obviously, I don't like punishing my kids, but at the same time, it's nice to know that they know there are consequences to their actions. It'd be nicer if they didn't carry out the act that they're going to get punished for, but alas, punishment is not about prevention, it's about teaching accountability.

For the record, were that Abby whipping Ben with the pom-pom, not only would she have stayed in the room as I entered, but she would have flashed me the "hold on one second" hand sign as she continued to beat him about the head and neck. As much as it pains me to have her in this emotionally volatile state, I fear the days when she's older because I know that she's stubborn and willful and traditional disciplinary techniques won't work with her. When those days arrive, I may have to go out and buy an oar.

Marvel Trading Card Game review

My review for the Marvel Trading Card Game for the DS is up at GameShark. Just thought you'd like to know.

The Weekly Standard

Once again, I have left you, dear reader, high and dry with nary an update on my life and its twists and turns. Oh how it must make you weep to see the same boring posts day after day as you excitedly refresh your browser. It makes me weep also.

I had planned on posting earlier in the week, but alas, things came up. Namely, the guy who was supposed to review "The Darkness" for GameShark was visited by the ruby tinged spectre, the Red Rings of Death, and no longer has a working 360. As I was about half way done with the game, I offered my services up, powered through it and wrote a review. It hasn't been posted yet, but I till tell you that I enjoyed it immensely. More on that later. Now, what does me writing a review have to do with not posting? I'll tell you.

I have a finite well of ink and wit (the wit well is much, much smaller than the inkwell) and if I use either up to write something, I have a hard time refilling it for something else. This is how I know that I couldn't ditch my day job and become a full time freelance writer who flits from project to project. I know that the best thing a writer can do is write, all forms included, as it helps hone's one's skills, but it doesn't make it any easier to actually do it. Also, from a practical standpoint, work has been busier and now that I'm reviewing games, oftentimes, my "free" time isn't free anymore. Oh sure, I'm playing games, but you'd be surprised how unappealing that notion becomes when you're slogging through your third Transformers game. Oh, almighty dollar, why must you tempt me so?

I also think that part of the problem is that I got married to the idea of this site being less of a blog and more of a column back when I first started it, and had dreams of becoming the next Dave Barry. Because of that, I don't feel like I can write things unless I have a full column structure in my head and that's becoming increasingly harder to do as I become older and more scatterbrained. If I can learn how to be funny in smaller chunks that are written more frequently, I think most of my problems will be solved. Oh sure, I can write the longer pieces when I need to, but smaller and more frequent may be the way to go. It's strange that I think I have to write a certain way because I feel that people don't want to come here and revel in the minutia of my life while I check my friends' sites every day for just that. I guess I expect my readers to be smarter than I am and want more out of their leisure time. Kidding!

I've been hanging out at the Blog for the Sports Gamer more often these days. I used to hang out there before the Great Football Ban was placed on our home like a death shroud, but recently came back as both Dan and Bill, two of the site's contributors, work for GameShark. They write more about non-sports gaming things than they used to, so despite my complete and total ignorance about most sports and sports games, I can usually find something of interest there. Plus, at times Bill will drop some knowledge about the inner workings of GameShark which I always find fascinating. It's also interesting from an anthropological perspective as I've always felt decidedly un-male due to my lack of interest in professional sports. Oh sure, I love football, but more so, I love the Redskins and they happen to be a football team. If I didn't have a team to route for, I wouldn't follow the sport, as witnessed by my ambivalence towards college football. Reading about their interest is vaguely interesting, that is until they start discussing which sliders need to be adjusted to get the various football video games to act appropriately and not like your cornerbacks are on 'ludes. 'Ludes man. Fucking 'ludes!

Back to The Darkness. I daresay that I loved this game. I won't talk about too much and instead will just point you to the review when it drops, but I will tell you that I was sad to see it end, partially because I wasn't going to be able to play it any more, but mostly because I really liked the character of Jackie Estacado and enjoyed spending time with him. Granted, I was him in the game, so that helped. I'm not sure if I would want to go out and grab a beer with him given that at any moment he might impale me and devour my heart. I've seen it happen.

I've obtained all but 6 of the achievements in the game, which is a pretty high success rate for my slacker ass. Unfortunately, the 100 wins in a MP match achievement was 22 wins away from my grasp when a nasty bug reared it's ugly head and reverted me back to 50 wins. If you play matches with automatic map rotation turned on, the game doesn't save the number of wins unless you enter into the single player mode and do something that saves your game. Bummer. Given that I obtained the wins in a less than sportsmanlike manner, it's hard to get too upset, however if I had been battling it out in public matches, I'd be pretty pissed. I guess this is what happens when you tack on multiplayer. Let this be a lesson to developers and gamers alike, sometimes a good single player mode is all you need!

Through various bouts of game trading I have managed to pay for Metroid Prime 3, Mass Effect, Mercenaries 2 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. In any other year, you would count me as being done for the holiday season with all major releases covered however this season is an anomaly that will try man's soul and wallet and as such, I have barely made a dent in the onslaught. Note the lack of mention of Bioshock, Two Worlds, Stranglehold, Jericho, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Phoenix Wright 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. On the plus side, when I finished my bought and paid for games, there will be no shortage of excellent titles to move on to. On the negative side, there isn't enough time in the day to play all of these games. I can only hope that the Jan - Feb months prove to be their usual gaming wasteland, devoid of quality titles, as publishers and developers alike expect gamers to be fat and happy, sated from the feast of holiday releases placed before them. Only then will I be able to give all of these titles the love and care they deserve.

Random Bits

I'm not feeling the narrative today, so instead I'll just blather on about my pointless activities. Yay!

Reviews
I haven't posted any more links to reviews because I haven't had any more reviews posted. Not for lack of trying, that's for sure. I've written two more reviews for GameShark since my Transformers movie review, they just haven't been posted yet. There's still a lot of info from E3 to get posted, which is somewhat time sensitive so it makes sense to post that stuff first. Of course, it's not my decision to make, so what makes sense doesn't matter much in this regard. I wrote 'em and I'll invoice for 'em. What the site does with them is up to them. I've got some pretty interesting games in the pipeline including, but not limited to Alien Syndrome and Boogie for the Wii. At any rate, once my stuff goes up, I'll post a link for all to read. I can give you a sneak peak and let you know that my streak of not liking a god damned thing has been maintained.

On that note, some of my coworkers think I'm being too harsh on these games, to which I respond thusly: whatevah! I'm trying to tell people if it's worth dropping their hard earned cash on a game. To do that, I have to point out the things that I think detract from a game's value, as well as add to it. It just so happens that the games I've reviewed so far had more things that took away from the value than added to it. I think I've explained things in such a way that any reasonably intelligent reader will be able to decide for themselves if the things I'm knocking the games for would be an issue for them. If I'm not, and the review is just a big "this game sucked but it's not clear why" statement, then I obviously have a problem and need to rethink how I do things. That being said, my short term reviewing schedule, including things that have yet to be posted and the next two games I'm doing (not the two I just mentioned) won't do much to change my coworkers' perceptions.

Harry Potter
Linda and I saw the latest movie yesterday and while we both enjoyed it, I think either of the previous two rank higher. I'm torn between my love of Cuaron's work on "Azkaban" and the sheer amount of mayhem in "Goblet of Fire". At any rate, fans of the movie series will find lots to enjoy in this one but upon the picture's end, will want to just jump ahead to the next movie.

Linda and I both have the book preordered for delivery on or before Saturday. I can only hope that my selective media blackout will help keep me from being spoiled. The big death at the end of the last book was ruined for me by some asshole morning disc jockey who has, thankfully, since been let go. Fuck you, Fred Toucher. Since I can't listen to terrestrial radio without blood streaming from my ears, I think I'll be safe from that. Now I just have to hope that the rest of the media world understands that not everyone has the ability to read a 800 page book in one night and keeps their collective pie hole shut for at least a week. I honestly have no idea how this one is going to end and I'd hate for it to be ruined by some dickheaded AP reporter who's dealing with a slow news day.

Coffee
An odd topic, I realize, but just go with it. I started ordering flavored coffee from The Coffee Fool a few months ago and I thought I'd spread the word. Oddly enough, I found out about them from a targeted ad in my Gmail inbox. I usually don't touch those ads with a 10 foot pool, but this one, entitled "The 10 things coffee CEO's don't want you to know" intrigued me. What made me order was the sheer number of flavored offerings they have, most, if not all of which are available in decaf. Finding good, flavored decaf for my nighttime consumption has been a thorn in my side for years. A man can't live on hazelnut alone!

Anyways, the African Cinnamon is excellent (I'm enjoying a pot as I write this) as is the Chocolate Mint and the Banana Nut. I just got an order of the Chocolate Espresso in and it is slowly becoming my new favorite. The flavors meld together very well and it's the perfect brew to enjoy with that nightly dessert. Mmmmm, nightly dessert. No, I haven't lost any weight, but that's another story. Order processing is fast and I've always gotten my stuff within 2 - 3 days. You also get a discount as you order more and more stuff, and you can set up regular shipments if you find a flavor schedule that works for you. Give 'em a try and help to loosen the stranglehold that Millstone has on the coffee world.

The Darkness
I'm currently playing The Darkness for the 360 and this is one damn fine game. The voice acting is superb, which makes quite the difference. The Darkness powers are well done, and devouring hearts has never been so fun! Actually, I don't know if devouring hearts has ever been fun, so take that last comment with a grain of salt. Should you be in need of a good gaming experience for your 360 (or PS3 if you swing that way) I highly recommend it. It can be completed well in time for the upcoming deluge of titles too and the lack of a ranked match requirement for the multiplayer achievements makes it boost friendly, as my Gamer Tag would attest to. Anyone who has ever played mulitplayer anything with me knows that I couldn't get 50 flag captures in my wildest dreams. Ah boosting, is there nothing you can't do?

Paula Dean is My Hero
I long for the days when I'm old and retired and can spend the day out on my massive deck, the river gurgling in the background, grilling and cooking and making all manner of tasty delights while my husband does yard work. I'm prepared to marry a man to make this happen if I have to. I also appreciate Paula's love of butter, as I love it too! Longevity is overrated. I've got my life insurance policy. I say bring on the butter!

We're All Winners

Actually, we are all not winners. In fact, the only winner at our household continues to be my son. In the past few weeks, here are some things he has "won" at:

The Seat Belt Buckling Competetion
Now that he's older, he's old enough and big enough to buckle himself in with the seat belt. Granted we make sure he's buckled in before we put the car into motion as child services would frown on the 4 year old being the sole guardian of his auto safety, but he requires assistance less and less every day. Once he buckles himself in, he usually exclaims that he has won because he got buckled in before his sister. This would be the sister that is still in a car seat because she's the size of a pygmy mamorset (We watch a lot of Diego. Deal with it.) and can't buckle herself in. I've tried explaining to Ben that it's not really a contest if one of the people competing can't actually do the thing themselves, but he's usually too busy celebrating his victory.

Getting Dressed
My son is, quite possibly, the slowest person I've ever seen when it comes to putting on an article of clothing. Some kids slow things down when they're getting ready for bed, or getting ready to go to school, as a stall tactic, but my kid takes this to an entirely new level and would take 15 minutes to put on a sock even if he was getting ready to be given the keys to Ice Cream Land. The other night he was getting dressed while I was making his bed and I swear it took him 5 minutes just to lay the shirt on the floor correctly. It was painful to watch. Eventually I had had enough and helped get the dang thing situated so that he could put it on. 2 more assists later, he finally finished and exclaimed "I win!" I can only assume he meant that he won the award for Most People Dead of Natural Causes While I Put on My Pajamas.

Lego Racing
I've touched on the Lego Racing before, but it has achieved new heights since last we spoke. Linda and I will usually ask Ben what he did at school while we three eat dinner and Abby ignores her food. Every day it's the same answer, "played Lego racers." The other night, after getting this answer again, I asked him if he played Lego racers with his friends and he said no. "They all watch me play" he said. That didn't seem right to me, so I asked him again, and again he said that all of his friends watched him play and win Lego Racers. This seemed odd, as most 4 year olds don't care about much more than themselves, so I can't see a whole class of kids sitting back and watching one child race around. It also seemed odd because how can you win if you're the only one there? Further probing, later in the week by Linda, discovered that all of this Lego racing takes place on the computer, and the kids are on the computer one at a time, presumably while the other kids sit back and mope. The fact that Lego Racing exists, to him, only in a digital form still doesn't keep him from turning every single thing into a Lego Racer and wanting to race with it. I've heard of children who want to do nothing but sit slack-jawed in front of the television and I'd like to know how you go about getting one of those. I don't think I can handle any more racing and/or winning.

Template changes

Now that Blogger supports labels, I've started labeling my posts that point to my GameShark reviews with the "Review" label. There's also now a handy link on the right side that points to all the reviews. You can also follow this link.

Transformers Reduxe Reduxe

My official Transformers movie review is up at GameShark. Those of you who have read my review here, and then read my review there will realize that I'm calling myself a fanboy. To thine own self be true.

Personally, I think I'm a better game reviewer than I am a movie reviewer, but both are skills I want to grow, so I'm very thankful to the guys at GameShark for giving me this opportunity.

Transformers Reduxe

Now that I've had some more sleep, punctuated by my dog throwing up on the bed yet again, I can speak a little more eloquently on the Transformers movie. I won't though, instead choosing to say that this movie kicks a tremendous amount of ass. I'm fresh off the heels of yet another review for the fine folks at GameShark.com, so instead I'll opt for the format of hacks everywhere, the oh so popular Good, Bad and Ugly.

The Good

The Effects - This movie has, hands down, the best special effects I've ever seen in a movie. If this movie doesn't win every Oscar for visual effects, then I'll be very surprised. It's not just the effects, it's how the effects integrated into real world results. Starscream transforming into robot form and sliding down the street caused real cars to be tossed about like Matchboxes. Shit exploded for reals, yo, and that, combined with the visuals, made you think that things were completely real.

The Transformations - For me, the reason we haven't been graced with a non-animated Transformers movie yet, is because the technology needed time to mature to where you could realistically show the transformations. That time is now. Yes, it did seem a little odd to have a Camaro, which is about 10 feet long, turn into a 20 foot tall robot, but the transformations were so well done, so mesmerizing that it just didn't matter. At one point, Barricade was running towards the camera, leapt forward, transformed in midair and hit the ground in vehicle form, hauling ass. At this point the crowd erupted in cheers. It's this kind of transformation combined with the real world objects that made the movie look so damn cool. About 2/3 of the way into it, every time I saw a vehicle, I thought it was going to transform and start tearing shit up.

The Funny - There are plenty of laugh out loud moments in this movie. The story isn't very strong (more on that later) so instead, the quieter moments are filled with humor, and some very good humor to boot. Shia LaBeouf handled the non-robotic lead very well and was very likable. The best lines went to Anthony Anderson who made me crack up every time he opened his mouth. Plus, he was a Redskins fan, so yay for that. Some of the humor was a bit much, but all in all, it was much funnier than I would have thought.

The Fights - Optimus Prime is a badass motherfucker. That dude can lay some shit down. The fight scenes in this movie, while being a bit frenetic at times, were absolutely amazing. If all you wanted was hot robot on robot action, then you'd be happy. The movie did some really cool things with using the transformations in combat, so it wasn't just fly/drive in as a vehicle, transform and beat each other up as robots.

The Autobots - The Autobots each had a very distinct personality and Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, was wonderful. Hearing that familiar voice in this movie really helped make it special. The movie did a really good job of making you care about the Autobots, Bumblebee in particular, that when hard times befall them, and boy do hard times come a fallin', you feel for these guys. Maybe I'm just getting sentimental in my old age.

The Women - Megan Fox is a damn fine good looking woman.

The Soda Machine - You'll see.

The Bad

The Story - It's not that the story is bad, it's that there isn't much of one. Thankfully, you're not thinking about it while watching the movie, but once you leave the theater, you will start asking questions and probably won't be satisfied with the answers you come up with. I think the movie did a good job as a first movie, cause you know there will be more than this one, but for the second one, it's going to have to be a lot more than the two factions battling over the Allspark.

The Decepticons - Don't get me wrong, the Decepticons were cool as hell, there just wasn't any interaction between them other than a couple of lines between Megatron and Starscream. While the Autobots had personality, the Decepticons were basically just badass robots looking to bust shit up. The story didn't really lend itself to scenes with the Decepticons hanging out in their Hall of Injustice, but some sort of collaboration would have been nice. I also wanted to see more of Bonecrusher, but only because he's so huggable.

Frenzy - Yeah, he looked cool and was pretty important to the story, but I think a little Frenzy, in his movie incarnation, goes a long way and we got way more than a little. He reminded me of Stitch, from the "Lilo and Stitch" movies/tv show, which made me believe he was there for the kids, despite the fact that he was all to eager to kill folks. I don't know what it is about him that bugged me, but he did so there you go.

The Ugly

Rachel Taylor's nose stud - She's pretty hot, don't get me wrong, but I can't stand nose studs in anyone. All I can think of is snot related issues and it creeps me out.

John Turturro's underwear - If Aloha also means "good bye" then I welcome the sentiment.

As you can see, I had a hard time coming up with things that were really awful about the movie. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and am willing to let the not so good parts slide, because the good parts were just that good. Obviously, those not into the Transformers as much as I am, may have a hard time letting the same things slide, but I think they'd still have a good time, as long as they go into it expecting a big, loud action movie. There are worse ways to spend your time this summer than with a group of badass robots.

Transformers

Just got out of the movie and all I can say is holy fucking shit. More later. I'm too tired from getting my ass rocked.