Update and Alice in Wonderland review
I figure it's time for a bit of an update. It has been a while after all. Last week I got hit by the great meltdown of the Playstation Network. Since my fatty is old it kept trying to register March 1 as February 29.
Other than complete fail on the part of the programmers for the internal clock counting every even year as a leap year (Dudes, it's 365.24 days a year not 365.54) it caused a huge problem due to many PS3 games requiring a trophy sync before playing. Since the day was a phantom day to the network anyone with a fatty couldn't log on, and being unable to log on meant being unable to sync trophies, being unable to sync trophies mean being unable to play some games offline!
Thereby turning my PS3 into an expensive ass paperweight for a day.
If I were Sony I'd definitely be working on a firmware upgrade to make sure the year 2014 doesn't prove to be as disasterous (if all these fatties are still working by then, which they may not be...or a PS4 is in the works, which I've heard not a single rumour about). I'd also being sueing the pants off the company who programmed the internal clock (since it wasn't Sony who designed and programmed the motherboard, I believe). Seriously, did the person skip second grade in which leap year is pretty much explained in enough detail that you should at least know if the year is divisible by 4 it's a freaking leap year!
I'm not entirely certain why everyone was immediately predicting that this 24 hour down time for the Playstation Network for older model's spelled financial doom for Sony. I mean seriously, the XBox Live network is completely fickle and it's a service that users have to PAY for. Yeah I was a bit pissed that I couldn't play my games for 24 hours, but still comparing this downtime to XBox Live is definitely comparing apples to oranges.
Anyway, also got my ticket paid for for my UK invasion. Woohoo! End of May is when I'm planning to invade and Steph and I already have some plans. This is definitely the year for Stonehenge, we've found a relatively cheap tour bus in Salisbury for it. Also our time in London is going to be spent doing a mix of local things that Steph likes to do when she heads into the city, and touristy things. We are taking this Big Bus Tour which includes a 3 hour hop on/off tour of all major landmarks in London and it also includes a free half hour cruise down the Thames. We also want to stop at the Tower Bridge and do a small tour they have there where you can see the old timey engines! Yes it's geeky, but we are excited about it.
After that it's pretty much just plans to hang out and enjoy all the bad for us food.
In other news I'm really glad that the beginning of this year has been riddled with several new games that I've wanted to play. It's kept me busy and sane so that I haven't killed anyone that lives in my house. How I've kept my sanity this long I have no idea. Some days are definitely harder than others.
Last but not least saw Alice in Wonderland this week. I enjoyed it for the fluff that it was. I expected it to be nothing more than fluff so I wasn't at all disappointed. However...I'm not entirely sure WHAT was up with the CGI. I did like that it made everything look over the top and whimsical, but it was disjointed at best. There were moments were the Red Queen/Queen of Hearts moved her head and it didn't match up with her body at all (same with the Knave). I suppose I'm spoiled by Avatar when it comes to CGI, but hell my VIDEO games almost had better CGI than what this film had. What's worse is, it's made by Disney, a company known for it's computer animated films, and this film was complete fail when it came to the CG elements. Also the story was very discombobulated. It was obviously trying to integrate elements of the Lewis Carroll books and expound on them to create a "sequel" but it just kind of ended up being all over the place. I'm not going to be as critical as one reviewer who went in wanting to dislike Alice (and even complained about Depp's "slipping" accent, failing to notice it was done to show the Hatter's lapses in sanity/personality), but the story is really want ended up being the failure to this piece. Definitely do go in expecting to analyze the story in anyway. And definitely don't go in thinking Alice will be anything more than a 1 dimensional character. She spends the entire time convinced she's dreaming until right before the movie climax, yet she's supposed to be a very smart and intuitive character. It doesn't come through, and the actress is so flat it makes Alice look dumber.
In the end the movie is strict entertainment, but not necessarily something for rewatchability. The best parts of this movie is pretty much everyone other than Alice.
Other than complete fail on the part of the programmers for the internal clock counting every even year as a leap year (Dudes, it's 365.24 days a year not 365.54) it caused a huge problem due to many PS3 games requiring a trophy sync before playing. Since the day was a phantom day to the network anyone with a fatty couldn't log on, and being unable to log on meant being unable to sync trophies, being unable to sync trophies mean being unable to play some games offline!
Thereby turning my PS3 into an expensive ass paperweight for a day.
If I were Sony I'd definitely be working on a firmware upgrade to make sure the year 2014 doesn't prove to be as disasterous (if all these fatties are still working by then, which they may not be...or a PS4 is in the works, which I've heard not a single rumour about). I'd also being sueing the pants off the company who programmed the internal clock (since it wasn't Sony who designed and programmed the motherboard, I believe). Seriously, did the person skip second grade in which leap year is pretty much explained in enough detail that you should at least know if the year is divisible by 4 it's a freaking leap year!
I'm not entirely certain why everyone was immediately predicting that this 24 hour down time for the Playstation Network for older model's spelled financial doom for Sony. I mean seriously, the XBox Live network is completely fickle and it's a service that users have to PAY for. Yeah I was a bit pissed that I couldn't play my games for 24 hours, but still comparing this downtime to XBox Live is definitely comparing apples to oranges.
Anyway, also got my ticket paid for for my UK invasion. Woohoo! End of May is when I'm planning to invade and Steph and I already have some plans. This is definitely the year for Stonehenge, we've found a relatively cheap tour bus in Salisbury for it. Also our time in London is going to be spent doing a mix of local things that Steph likes to do when she heads into the city, and touristy things. We are taking this Big Bus Tour which includes a 3 hour hop on/off tour of all major landmarks in London and it also includes a free half hour cruise down the Thames. We also want to stop at the Tower Bridge and do a small tour they have there where you can see the old timey engines! Yes it's geeky, but we are excited about it.
After that it's pretty much just plans to hang out and enjoy all the bad for us food.
In other news I'm really glad that the beginning of this year has been riddled with several new games that I've wanted to play. It's kept me busy and sane so that I haven't killed anyone that lives in my house. How I've kept my sanity this long I have no idea. Some days are definitely harder than others.
Last but not least saw Alice in Wonderland this week. I enjoyed it for the fluff that it was. I expected it to be nothing more than fluff so I wasn't at all disappointed. However...I'm not entirely sure WHAT was up with the CGI. I did like that it made everything look over the top and whimsical, but it was disjointed at best. There were moments were the Red Queen/Queen of Hearts moved her head and it didn't match up with her body at all (same with the Knave). I suppose I'm spoiled by Avatar when it comes to CGI, but hell my VIDEO games almost had better CGI than what this film had. What's worse is, it's made by Disney, a company known for it's computer animated films, and this film was complete fail when it came to the CG elements. Also the story was very discombobulated. It was obviously trying to integrate elements of the Lewis Carroll books and expound on them to create a "sequel" but it just kind of ended up being all over the place. I'm not going to be as critical as one reviewer who went in wanting to dislike Alice (and even complained about Depp's "slipping" accent, failing to notice it was done to show the Hatter's lapses in sanity/personality), but the story is really want ended up being the failure to this piece. Definitely do go in expecting to analyze the story in anyway. And definitely don't go in thinking Alice will be anything more than a 1 dimensional character. She spends the entire time convinced she's dreaming until right before the movie climax, yet she's supposed to be a very smart and intuitive character. It doesn't come through, and the actress is so flat it makes Alice look dumber.
In the end the movie is strict entertainment, but not necessarily something for rewatchability. The best parts of this movie is pretty much everyone other than Alice.