Do Me So Far, Do Me?
I haven't posted to this thing in a while, so eat a weiner.
Music
...Trail of Dead - So Divided: The most depressing release of 2006. After their last sub-par release, Worlds Apart, I had hoped that they would come back to redeem themselves. Sadly, the first 5 songs of this album are the worst ToD songs to date. On the bright side, the second half of the cd (excepting "Eight Day Hell") is actually good. "So Divided", "Life", "Witches Web", and "Sunken Dreams", if combined with the couple of segues and made into an EP, would rate highly in my book. Unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good, and this cd collectively is a failure. 5.875/10
Blood Brothers - Young Machetes: "Laser Life" and "Camouflage, Camouflage" are two of the most brilliant songs these gentlemen have written as of yet. The rest of the cd has a decent mix of musical tracks and purely high-energy thrashes. Not quite Burn Piano Island Burn, but more lasting appeal than Crimes. 7.625/10
Charlotte Gainsbourg - 5:55: Charlotte Gainsbourg is the leading actress in "The Science of Sleep". I was surprised to see that she had a musical career, and even more surprised that her new cd doesn't suck. She has the French musical (and homosexual?) duo Air to thank for that. Anyways, I'd recommend it even though it isn't rockin'. 7.125/10
Cursive - Happy Hollow: See previous post. Opinion unchanged, although I should mention they are touring with a cellist, and sounded great last month. My favorite of this year's releases. 7.875/10
Forget Cassettes - Salt: I had pretty high hopes for this considering the addition of a bassist. The cd was fairly dissapointing, however, and Beth's songs weren't nearly as good as Instruments of Action. The band sounds good as a three-piece, although I feel that Doni contributed more to the overall sound. Too bad he's busy failing with ...Trail of Dead. 6.875/10
The Mars Volta - Amputechture: At least they ditched the ambient bullshit on this one. Unfortunately the only good track on the cd is "Tetragrammaton". The rest is uninspired, and its safe to say they are far too pretentious to ever release a great cd again. 4.125/10
Supersystem - One Million Microphones: Wasn't sure about this one at first, but grew to love it more than their last cd. A great live band, especially when they play "Defcon" as an encore. They definitely deserve more recongnition. 8.125/10
Video Games
Nintendo Wii: Oh hell yes. I've pre-ordered mine, and paid in full. Wii Sports, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Red Steel, and Excite Truck will be waiting for me November 19th. Total cost: $540. I can not wait.
Now, I'm not expecting the technology to work perfectly, but one thing will be certain: the gameplay mechanics will be Fun. This is what Playstation 3 is failing to convey with their system. Graphics are cool, but if the games aren't fun, then what is the point? Consider the lame controller and a $600 pricetag without any games, and there isn't really much to be desired. I'll wait at least 2 years before I get one, given the library of games is good enough.
Well, until November 19th, I'll be looking forward to Guitar Hero 2 on November 7. I'm not getting it, but Havi is, so I will be playing it whenever I am over there. Also, Final Fantasy III comes out for DS on November 14. I'd be excited for Final Fantasy 12, but my PS2 doesn't read DVD discs, so I'm powned until I can figure something out about that.
Also, I bought a m3 media player for my new black DS Lite. First of all, the DS Lite is ridiculously better looking than the DS. Even on the lowest light setting (which I use), it looks about the same as the normal DS screen, though still a bit crisper. What makes it really worth it is the battery life. On the lowest light setting, it lasts 15-19 hours. On the highest, which looks absolutely amazing, it still lasts 5-8 hours.
As for the media player, I've got the full NES library and GB library working at the moment. I still need to figure out how to get TG16, Sega Master System, and Game Gear games working. That will likely happen when I am not forced to use my camera to access the data on the SD card (which is ghetto as hell). I also have to sort through the thousands of GBA games I have. I'm happy with the investment, though I need to spend some more time with it before it is 100% pownage.
Movies
The Science of Sleep: Easily my favorite movie of 2006. Though not exactly a comedy, some parts had me rofling mao. A creative movie with an interesting plot, and a kickass soundtrack. 5/5 neckties.
Fearless: Jet Li's final martial arts epic, and a seriously pown one, at that. It had awesome action scenes, and an extremely well written story to back it up. 4.75/5 neckties.
Jackass 2: Now, don't get me wrong, I was a huge fan of the first Jackass movie. I went into this one expecting to laugh uncontrollably. As expected, there were lots of weiners, butts, and poo-- all positives. Unfortunately, it just seemed like it had all been done before. I laughed, but not nearly as much as the first movie. However, it was worth the price I payed to get in, though that was $0. 2/5 neckties.
The Prestige: Holy ass, was this movie crazy. It makes me wonder why the Illusionist was made. The only downside was the editing of the movie chopped up the time sequence, which made for a little confusion. However, if you couldn't figure out what was going on by the halfway point, you must be retarded. 4.5/5 neckties.
Other Stuff
I'm pretty sure everyone knows, but I quit my job at Dave & Busters to focus on being lazy and having time to enjoy myself. I've been practicing guitar recently, which I haven't really done in ages. I managed to record Shadow Man from Mega Man 3 the other day. It's okay. Get it here.
Cedar Point VII: May 20-24. Season passes are $95 until November 16 (when they go up $10). Cabin will be $135 a night, divided by the number of people who are going. J2 will be attending.
Finally, the following video is hilarious. J.D. Roth is one of the biggest homos of early 90's tv hosts. I was watching this, and the others, with Havi and Abner last night, and we were laughing mondo hysterically the whole time. Don't forget to note the kid experiencing intense pleasure in the intro montage.
Click to view"SCAT is a 2 player game!"
"My main man mega man!"
"You know what to do! Get ready to jump off! Whoooooa!"
"Check out the middle ages at your local library!"
I still need to update with scans of a couple interesting articles obtained at somewhat recent spiffy movie outings.