Malik
(3/9/09)
I hate daylight
savings time. Without a doubt, I can always count on the first full
day of daylight savings to be a miserable day. Between having work
and not enough sleep, it's a day day for me. When you add in the
craziness of this year, in which snow is on the ground and slowly
falling around me, it only gets worse. Nothing as fun as driving in
the snow with a hundred thousand other commuters who all are
freaking out over snow while being too tired to be safe drivers.
Anyway, I watched
The Watchmen on opening day. If you're at this site, you're probably
geek enough to know if the movie is for you. It's a great movie, and
does as well of a job of adapting the graphic novel to the big
screen as probably possible for such an unwieldy task. I mean the
movie is pretty faithful (there are some small things, but nothing
that breaks the movie), it looks good, it has a great and
appropriate sound track, and the acting is well done. It's all you
can hope for in a movie of this material.
The best part of
the movie for me was watching the stupidity of stereotypes. For
example, to the average idiot, this is a kiddy movie since it's
based on a comic. Despite being rated R, having some heavy material
in the plot, and plenty of nudity and violence to earn that R
rating, you can still be assured that you'll see a kid in the
audience when you watch the movie. I saw a group of kids with one
adult.
This group stood
out when they left right after a scene in which you get presented
with a half dozen blue dongs (junk, packages, spears, or
penises...they all work) presented in big screen glory. Right then
this group of kids, with their lone guardian, all left. I can easily
imagine what the guardian (who was probably the father of at least
one of these kids) was thinking; "their mother(s) is/are going to
kill me when these kids start talking about what I took them to
see." Pure gold.
Anyway, I'm not
able to form too many complete thoughts in my sleep deprived state.
I'll just end this post now, before I just fall asleep on my
keyboard and type a twenty page disertation on "fgthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...".
Malik |
Malik
(3/10/09)
It is officially
looking like it's a good day. There's some Offspring songs waiting
for me to download and try out (maybe some other singles, if they
sound good and have good charts) on Rock Band. That's always grounds
for a good day. I'll have some thoughts, probably tomorrow, on these
songs and if they are worth the investment. I think with The Kids
Aren't Alright and All I Want, a couple of these tracks will be
worth it.
Then there's the
fact that no snow is in the forecast. This is always good, and is
usually something that goes without saying in the Seattle area in
March. However, after a quick shotgun blast of snow yesterday, and
about an inch or two on I-5 (not to mention more piling up on the
side streets), no snow is good news. While snow can be a fun thing,
it's also something that gets old quite quickly when you have had
about two decades worth in the last three months.
Most of all, today
is an awesome day since my copy of Demon's Souls has both cleared
the back order and has shipped. Now it's all up to customs on how
soon I get the game. Here's to customs being quick and my package
getting to me before the end of the week.
I can finally put
my boredom to rest once I have this game in my most anticipating of
hands.
Malik |
Malik
(3/11/09)
First off, for
today I'm actually posting about the new Rock Band tracks on a
Wednesday. It seems that this is becoming a rarity as I'm not
motivated to download new songs until later in the week, usually.
On expert guitar,
this week was a good week. Well, it was a perfect week for tracks if
you like Losing My Religion (from R.E.M.). Losing My Religion is a
slow song. It's not challenging and it would be an easy full combo
for just about anyone who can handle expert guitar. However, if you
do like the song, than you're looking at a fun full combo. If this
is not your idea of a good song, than you should just skip it. No
part sounds all that involved, and the speed is quite slow.
The Richard
Thompson (or whatever the guy's name is) song is actually a good
surprise. I don't know this guy's work and was a bit uninterested
until I saw the guitar chart on youtube. After seeing the chart, I
knew this was a must-have song. It's slow, overall, but has a fun
basic verse and chorus line. However, the true fun comes from a
slightly slow, but very interesting solo. It's also a very long solo
taking up a good 40% of the song. There's some little chord shifts
in the song, but the hammer-on/pull-off part is where this song
shines. Nothing too hard, but definitely fun as hell. Possible one
of my new favorite guitar charts for Rock Band.
As for the
Offspring stuff; it's all good. I mean this is music I grew up on.
Despite some over-charting, I still can't help but enjoy these two
tracks.
The Kids Aren't
Alright is fast, frantic, and sounds awesome. You put those features
together and you have something worth the price of admission. Plus,
if you grew up in the 90's and 00's, then this is music you probably
know and love as it is.
All I Want is a
good fast and frantic song. However, there is some over-charting
going on, like with most other Offspring tracks. It's nothing major,
but there are some things that just seem out of place when you know
that The Offspring has two guitarists and Harmonix expects the RB
guitarist to play both parts. Much like how there's over-charting in
Gone Away. It doesn't break the song, but it does boost the
difficulty of the guitar part a bit as you're playing, at times,
double the speed you should be playing at. This is not a song made
for full combos on expert from a sight read.
At least it's
better than Green Grass and High Tides with the two or three guitar
parts on such a frantic song being crammed into a single guitar
track.
On a final note
for today...an observation. This isn't too much in the geek realm,
but it's an observation that drives me crazy.
Seattle has some
of the most passive drivers in the world. People are so damned nice
that people will literally block traffic at intersections as two
people fight to be the one who didn't go first. If you turn on your
turn signal to change lanes on the freeway, it's almost expected
that you will find an instant opening as cars stop to make room for
you, despite slowing legally proceeding traffic behind the lane
change. This makes for a few jerks on the road as an expectation
goes out. If an impatient driver turns on a turn signal, they expect
instant gratification of an opening to merge in to.
This also makes
for some damned funny, yet tragic, road rage incidents when a
non-passive driver tries to merge into another non-passive driver.
Well, the simple truth is a turn signal is "required" to change
lanes, not the other way around. I love when I actually don't decide
to delay legal traffic behind me to make room as soon as someone
turns on their signal next to me, so the merging/lane-changing drive
next to me decides to time for passive aggressive rage (luckily,
I've evaded pure aggressive rage).
My observation;
I'd love for these passive aggressive dumb asses to be driving in a
city that's far less polite-to-a-fault. Maybe LA or NY. I bet the
type of driving in these more focused driving areas (more focused
due to bad traffic conditions being a constant) would beat this
self-entitled bullshit out of these drivers in no time. It's
constantly said that traffic in Seattle ranks in the top ten worst
traffic in the US year after year. Well, less of this overly polite
bullshit and this self-entitled crap would definitely fix this
traffic mess more than any highway improvements ever could.
Malik |
Malik
(3/13/09)
It will be a quick
post today. Life is hitting hard and fast right about now, which
leaves me near the end of my wits. So, I'll just say it will be an
interesting week next week for Rock Band DLC.
There's a bunch of
$2 tracks, with two from The New Pornographers, two from Papa Roach,
and one from Against Me!. Of those, it's interesting to finally see
TNP get some new content in RB. I thought they would have had more
by now considering they were one of the few bands from the original
set of RB1 to not have any DLC. Plus, with them being so well know
for their drumming insanity in RB, it seems fitting for them to have
had more DLC before now.
As for Papa Roach
and Against Me!...I really don't care. I guess Last Resort is a fun
song if you're into nostalgia for a time when rock/rap rules the
world. However, with a decade going by, I just don't get why this
would be of much interest. I remember listening to the song just a
few months ago on the radio and thinking about how it really didn't
age well.
The rest of the
tracks for next week may be more fun. I'm talking about a $5.50
three song Funk Pack, with one song each from James Brown, Average
White Band, and Earth Wind & Fire. It seems a bit out of place on
Rock Band, but it also looks like a lot of fun. I can't even imagine
the fun factor for singing the Godfather of Soul.
On a final bit of
news, for those who follow The Angry Video Game Nerd; new video is
due on Monday! It's good to see him contract dispute/negotiations
are over with.
Now back to my
stress filled life while also sitting around waiting for Demon's
Souls. Please, US Customs, don't leave me hanging.
Malik |
|
For Those Who Don't
Have Flash Plug-Ins...
Rested
XP News
Reviews
Videos Features
Forums
Archives Search
This Site Links
Contact Us Disclaimer
|
|
|