The new Tomb Raider, Snakes on a Plane, and the rest of the weekend
Pretty chill weekend. Our friend Alison is getting ready to head off on a crazy trip to other continents, so we spent several hours with her and other friends at C-Bar over in SE PDX. Fun bar - way too dark. When people took out their cameras and started snapping pictures, I was seriously blinded by their flash strobes. Ouch.
Saturday morning was several hours of Tomb Raider Legends on the PS2. For whatever reason, when I would display it in Progressive scan mode, the image would not get stretched all the way out to the edges of the screen - I think that's probably a limitation of the TV I got. It probably doesn't deal well with switching from interlaced to progressive mode ... though I got the same effect regardless if the TV was already on or if I turned it on after switching the video type. Who knows.
Anyway, the new TR:L was a lot of fun. Perfect rental for me - about 10 hours of game play, but fantastic sets, great game play, and a good mix of challenges. I didn't use any FAQs for my first run through and got a 92% completion. Went back and spent another few hours getting all the rewards. Nothing too special about the things it unlocked, but it was still fun to play the levels again. One downside: stupid cliff hanger ending. Setting up a sequel - bleh.
Speaking of VG, I have Rez sitting at home as well. It's a quirky little music based, Tron-esque shooter. Sort of Vortex meets Tron or something. Great fun - combines music, rumble, and visuals suberbly. I'm glad I can still rent this thing - it's apparently expensive on eBay. Go GameFly!
Watched Empire of the Sun, an old Spielberg movie featuring Christian Bale's first film role. Really good movie - I enjoyed it.
Attended a fun little block party on the SE side of town Saturday afternoon. Got to meet Damon's daughter. Crazy to think that he has a kid now. Pretty cute - though she liked to complain when she wasn't constantly in motion. Good little get together! Though eating two hamburgers in a weekend after not having any for months was probably not the best idea ...
Capped off Sunday night by going to see Snakes on a Plane by myself as Rachel would have nothing to do with it. So while she was watching her Sunday night TV, I was off enjoying a fantastic B movie. It was pretty much everything I had hoped for. And there were snakes on the muthafucking plane. :)
Got numerous trips coming up:
Saturday morning was several hours of Tomb Raider Legends on the PS2. For whatever reason, when I would display it in Progressive scan mode, the image would not get stretched all the way out to the edges of the screen - I think that's probably a limitation of the TV I got. It probably doesn't deal well with switching from interlaced to progressive mode ... though I got the same effect regardless if the TV was already on or if I turned it on after switching the video type. Who knows.
Anyway, the new TR:L was a lot of fun. Perfect rental for me - about 10 hours of game play, but fantastic sets, great game play, and a good mix of challenges. I didn't use any FAQs for my first run through and got a 92% completion. Went back and spent another few hours getting all the rewards. Nothing too special about the things it unlocked, but it was still fun to play the levels again. One downside: stupid cliff hanger ending. Setting up a sequel - bleh.
Speaking of VG, I have Rez sitting at home as well. It's a quirky little music based, Tron-esque shooter. Sort of Vortex meets Tron or something. Great fun - combines music, rumble, and visuals suberbly. I'm glad I can still rent this thing - it's apparently expensive on eBay. Go GameFly!
Watched Empire of the Sun, an old Spielberg movie featuring Christian Bale's first film role. Really good movie - I enjoyed it.
Attended a fun little block party on the SE side of town Saturday afternoon. Got to meet Damon's daughter. Crazy to think that he has a kid now. Pretty cute - though she liked to complain when she wasn't constantly in motion. Good little get together! Though eating two hamburgers in a weekend after not having any for months was probably not the best idea ...
Capped off Sunday night by going to see Snakes on a Plane by myself as Rachel would have nothing to do with it. So while she was watching her Sunday night TV, I was off enjoying a fantastic B movie. It was pretty much everything I had hoped for. And there were snakes on the muthafucking plane. :)
Got numerous trips coming up:
- PAX this weekend. I'm stoked for it - wish I'd gotten into the Omegathon (to win a 360 and a Scion) but it's still going to be awesome. I'll get to hang out with the always cool MC Frontalot again. Good times.
- Trip down to California to hang out with the parents and such the following weekend with Rachel. Should be fun - and an extra day off for Laboring can't be all bad!
- Heading out to Japan to visit my brother in late October! Here's hoping I have an excuse to buy a DS Lite before then (OK, I will ... heh)
- Doing the Christmas vacation thing in California this year. Sort of a trade off from Ohio. Plus we got Southwest tickets cheap! $178 round trip