Wow, just read this in an article about the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). Jonathan Coulton was there and announced that there will be a $3 PAX song pack released next week, all the proceeds of which will go to Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity. I know one of the other artists (MC Frontalot), but I love Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain," so I'm definitely getting that song pack.
Ars Technica: Rock Band 2 rocks to Coulton early at PAX
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Olympic technology
This Olympics there was a lot of talk about new technologies and how they had affected the competitions, like the special swimsuits and keeping track of timings to the thousandth of a second.
I know they're over now, but I wanted to mention something I noticed thanks to good ol' HDTV: although technology might have influenced some events, it was great to see that the track and field athletes still had their numbers pinned onto their high-tech materials with good old safety pins.
That's about the only thing we have in common with those guys when we do our 10-mile races... darn pins.
I know they're over now, but I wanted to mention something I noticed thanks to good ol' HDTV: although technology might have influenced some events, it was great to see that the track and field athletes still had their numbers pinned onto their high-tech materials with good old safety pins.
That's about the only thing we have in common with those guys when we do our 10-mile races... darn pins.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Wow, two opening night movies in a row! My sister must have been in town. Unfortunately, after my kind of OK review of Tropic Thunder, I've probably got to reconsider raising its rating a bit compared to Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
It was one of those experiences where you're at a movie, and other people are laughing, but you're not. You are either not getting the joke, or the other people think it's funnier than you do, or it's forced laughter. I think it was the latter. There were a few amusing bits, but nothing to warrant coming close to labeling this a comedy.
I didn't find the script or the plot particularly good, the characters were bordering on insipid--not quite there like in other Allen films but close--and a lot of the shots were flat out bad. I'm debating whether ScarJo can in fact act.
The one bright spot: Penelope Cruz. Awesome as always. Made me want to watch Volver again.
It was one of those experiences where you're at a movie, and other people are laughing, but you're not. You are either not getting the joke, or the other people think it's funnier than you do, or it's forced laughter. I think it was the latter. There were a few amusing bits, but nothing to warrant coming close to labeling this a comedy.
I didn't find the script or the plot particularly good, the characters were bordering on insipid--not quite there like in other Allen films but close--and a lot of the shots were flat out bad. I'm debating whether ScarJo can in fact act.
The one bright spot: Penelope Cruz. Awesome as always. Made me want to watch Volver again.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Olympic "controversies": my take
Because I know America has been waiting for my commentary on these important issues.
First, the "faked" fireworks in the opening ceremony, where giant footsteps gradually led to the stadium. I watched that part and I thought the commentators made it clear that the footage that was being shown was animated and not "real." I guess they could have said something like "Attention people! You are looking at fake CGI fireworks! Do not be deceived!" It seemed pretty clear to me the way they did it. Besides, the rest of the fireworks displays easily blew away (pun intended) the footsteps.
Second, the little girl who lip-synced a song. Who was the director of the opening ceremony? Zhang Yimou. What's his day job? He directs movies in China. What do Chinese movie directors do all the time? Overdub their actors. Particularly those directors who direct in Hong Kong, because basically anywhere in Hong Kong is too noisy to record live audio. And, taking it even farther, there are supposedly some Hong Kong movie stars whose real voices have never been heard in their films, because while they're attractive enough, their voices aren't all that hot. Or for instance, Jet Li, whose Cantonese was apparently pretty bad and got overdubbed in most of his movies because of it. So, since everything gets overdubbed anyway, why not just use someone else's voice? My point is that it's not unheard of to do this in Chinese film, so it's not surprising that a Chinese film director would do the same thing in the opening ceremony.
First, the "faked" fireworks in the opening ceremony, where giant footsteps gradually led to the stadium. I watched that part and I thought the commentators made it clear that the footage that was being shown was animated and not "real." I guess they could have said something like "Attention people! You are looking at fake CGI fireworks! Do not be deceived!" It seemed pretty clear to me the way they did it. Besides, the rest of the fireworks displays easily blew away (pun intended) the footsteps.
Second, the little girl who lip-synced a song. Who was the director of the opening ceremony? Zhang Yimou. What's his day job? He directs movies in China. What do Chinese movie directors do all the time? Overdub their actors. Particularly those directors who direct in Hong Kong, because basically anywhere in Hong Kong is too noisy to record live audio. And, taking it even farther, there are supposedly some Hong Kong movie stars whose real voices have never been heard in their films, because while they're attractive enough, their voices aren't all that hot. Or for instance, Jet Li, whose Cantonese was apparently pretty bad and got overdubbed in most of his movies because of it. So, since everything gets overdubbed anyway, why not just use someone else's voice? My point is that it's not unheard of to do this in Chinese film, so it's not surprising that a Chinese film director would do the same thing in the opening ceremony.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Tropic Thunder
My sister is in town and she wanted to see Tropic Thunder so we went last night. I think that's the first movie I've seen on opening night since Return of the King. But I digress. Actually, can I digress so early in a post? OK, now THAT is a digression. Let's start again.
My sister is in town and she wanted to see Tropic Thunder so we went last night. I liked it--didn't love it but liked it enough to recommend it. There are some very funny scenes in it, and some very quotable lines (the monologue on HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray was priceless, as was the discussion of going "full retard," even if some special interest groups took offense). Robert Downey Jr. is fantastic, even though I only caught maybe half of his dialogue. Boy, between this and Iron Man, quite the summer for him.
The other notable appearance is Tom Cruise. I'll say no more for those who didn't even realize he was in it, other than to say he was hilarious.
I do like movies about making movies -- for instance, The Player, Bowfinger, The Stunt Man, Wag the Dog (OK, that's a movie about fabricating a war but kind of the same idea) -- so I had high expectations for Tropic Thunder. It wasn't quite up to the level of those other movies, but still worth a view.
One more note. It was ironic that there was a monologue about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray in this movie, since the entire time I was looking at the slightly-out-of-focus screen and listening to the muffled audio, and I was thinking "My home theater gives a WAY higher quality experience than this crap."
My sister is in town and she wanted to see Tropic Thunder so we went last night. I liked it--didn't love it but liked it enough to recommend it. There are some very funny scenes in it, and some very quotable lines (the monologue on HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray was priceless, as was the discussion of going "full retard," even if some special interest groups took offense). Robert Downey Jr. is fantastic, even though I only caught maybe half of his dialogue. Boy, between this and Iron Man, quite the summer for him.
The other notable appearance is Tom Cruise. I'll say no more for those who didn't even realize he was in it, other than to say he was hilarious.
I do like movies about making movies -- for instance, The Player, Bowfinger, The Stunt Man, Wag the Dog (OK, that's a movie about fabricating a war but kind of the same idea) -- so I had high expectations for Tropic Thunder. It wasn't quite up to the level of those other movies, but still worth a view.
One more note. It was ironic that there was a monologue about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray in this movie, since the entire time I was looking at the slightly-out-of-focus screen and listening to the muffled audio, and I was thinking "My home theater gives a WAY higher quality experience than this crap."
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Sackboy Kratos for pre-ordering LBP
Monday, August 04, 2008
360 customer support, or lack thereof
I was trying to help a friend of Theo's get his old red-ringed Xbox 360's 20GB drive moved over to his new Xbox 360 Elite's 120GB drive. Actually, I had been trying to do this over a month ago, when I had the extreme pleasure NOT of talking to Microsoft for an hour and a half on why their data transfer system was not working. At the time the disc included with the transfer cable kept coming up as "unreadable." They gave me lots of things to try, including deleting corrupted files, clearing out the cache with the secret keystroke command, etc.
So yesterday I finally had a chance to update the dashboard, clear out the cache, search for corrupted files, all that junk. Of course, this did not help. The disc still tries to load and then either reports as "unreadable" or gives a gray screen that says something like "This disc must be loaded into an Xbox 360 console." I even tried the disc on my 360 at home. Same problem. Sure sounds like an unreadable disc to me. Doesn't it to you?
Called Microsoft. Talked to one person who immediately transferred me to another person. I tell the second person that I'm trying to help transfer files from one 360 to a new one. He says "Well, you'll need the Data Transfer Kit for that." I tell him I know, I have it, it's already all plugged in, and that the disc turns up as "unreadable" on multiple systems. He then tells me that I've got it connected wrong... he says the old 20GB drive has to be on the OLD console, not the new one. I point out to him that p.5 of the kit's manual says to do it the way I'd done it (old drive attached to NEW console, then 120GB drive plugged in via USB).
I then ask why there is such a reluctance to send me a new disc, when the simplest solution is that the disc is unreadable. After two separate hold times, he grudgingly says they'll send out a whole new kit, and that it'll take... 3 to 4 weeks. I ask if it'd be any faster to just send out the disc rather than the whole thing, since that's the only thing needed, and he says they apparently can't break the kits apart like that.
Ugh. It's really hard to be a 360 booster with support like that.
So yesterday I finally had a chance to update the dashboard, clear out the cache, search for corrupted files, all that junk. Of course, this did not help. The disc still tries to load and then either reports as "unreadable" or gives a gray screen that says something like "This disc must be loaded into an Xbox 360 console." I even tried the disc on my 360 at home. Same problem. Sure sounds like an unreadable disc to me. Doesn't it to you?
Called Microsoft. Talked to one person who immediately transferred me to another person. I tell the second person that I'm trying to help transfer files from one 360 to a new one. He says "Well, you'll need the Data Transfer Kit for that." I tell him I know, I have it, it's already all plugged in, and that the disc turns up as "unreadable" on multiple systems. He then tells me that I've got it connected wrong... he says the old 20GB drive has to be on the OLD console, not the new one. I point out to him that p.5 of the kit's manual says to do it the way I'd done it (old drive attached to NEW console, then 120GB drive plugged in via USB).
I then ask why there is such a reluctance to send me a new disc, when the simplest solution is that the disc is unreadable. After two separate hold times, he grudgingly says they'll send out a whole new kit, and that it'll take... 3 to 4 weeks. I ask if it'd be any faster to just send out the disc rather than the whole thing, since that's the only thing needed, and he says they apparently can't break the kits apart like that.
Ugh. It's really hard to be a 360 booster with support like that.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Believa Pinata
This clip will only be enjoyed, or, for that matter, understood, by Xbox 360 owners who liked both Halo 3 and Viva Pinata. Since I fall into that category, I enjoyed and understood it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
