Electric Dreamstate

As some of you may know, the Writers Guild of America went on strike at 12:01am this morning. If the strike lasts a week, we won't see many effects of it. If it lasts a month or two pretty much every new TV show that hasn't found its audience will be cancelled. If it ends up lasting until June, when the contracts with the Actors and Directors guilds are up ... well then it's a whole 'nother ballgame.

To put this in perspective I will use an obscure reference. Do you remember the season two finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation? For those who don't here is a refresher. Riker beams down to a planet and then gets pricked by the stinger of a creature that looks like a log. He then goes back to the ship and has a clip-show in his head. If the Simpsons episode where Bart shakes Homer's beer too much is the best clip show ever, then this is the worst. Clips are arranged in a nonsensical way and the entire proceeding is almost impossible to sit through. It was also, as mentioned before, the season two finale. The episode completely derailed the narrative momentum of the show. It was an episode created because there was a WGA strike.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'm personally on the side of the writers. The fact that they don't get any money for shows sold on the internet is ludicrous (if someone is profiting, the writers should get paid), and it smacks of terrible Hollywood accounting. If there are any big updates I'll post 'em here.

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To commemorate the fact that Super Mario Galaxy is coming out very soon (Monday officially I believe), I'm posting this video for the last true Mario game, Super Mario Sunshine.



(For those of you reading this on facebook, you will probably have to click through back to the blog, I'm pretty sure Facebook won't import the movie)

EDIT: Galaxy isn't coming out until the 12th. Sorry guys.

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The word "read" is in quotation marks because I actually listened to most of these via audio book. They were universally unabridged versions though, so it isn't like I missed anything.

In chronological order the books that I finished in the time between when I left Edmonton on April 27 until now.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

In the audio book version of Fragile Things Neil Gaiman narrates superbly. So well, in fact, that it makes you hate him a little bit. He's good at that too? The story collection itself is a mixed bag (as most story collections are) and flits from being engrossingly fantastic to disturbingly psycho-sexual. Enjoyable if you're a fan of his work, but not a great place to start if you haven't read him before.

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

Fun and forgettable. The story of a messed up girl who becomes a bail bondsman. A true airport book.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Unfortunately I never saw the movie, but the book is quite a nice little read. It isn't especially heavy and it has a very pre-Tolkien vibe to its fantasy. Unlike Fragile Things, this is a good place to begin if you want to start reading Neil Gaiman. One could also say that it's like the Princess Bride, except that it really isn't anything like the Princess Bride except that it's more like it than anything else that I can think of.

Illium by Dan Simmons

This one is sort of a cheat since I read the first half back in Edmonton, and then read the second half in spurts while doing my laundry after I got here. It's essentially about a group of technologically advanced post-humans recreating the battle of Troy on Mars. Sort-of. The book is dense and a bit imposing, for example there is a chapter which entirely consists of robots from the moons of the gas giants considering the finer points of Shakespeare's sonnets as they compare to the writing of Proust. However, it's worth picking up and giving a glance through to see if it's your thing. Simmons' earlier series of books (starting with Hyperion) is perhaps a bit more welcoming and emotionally satisfying though.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Yes another Neil Gaiman book. This one follows two brothers who are the sons of Mr Nancy (also known as the god Anansi the trickster and storyteller) and their trials as they find their place in the world. It is tangentially related to American Gods which had Mr Nancy as a side character. The book has a sense of playfulness that befits the trickster nature of Anansi although there is rarely a true sense of danger. Again a fine read, but probably not a great place to start reading Neil Gaiman.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The last Gaiman book I promise. This was the second time that I read American Gods and it was still an excellent book the second time around. It's a fine merger of folklore, genre fiction and the modern literary novel*. In fact, this second time around made me realize that the genre fiction stuff was really subdued here, and that Gaiman is just one book about his mid-life crisis and wanting to bang Katie Holmes away from a Pulitzer. Also the book has zombie sex in it. Kind of.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clark

A strange alien vessel enters the solar system and some astronauts go and check it out. The documentation of their perplexing and unknowable findings takes up most of the book. The novel is notable for two reasons: First, like most eastern European Sci-Fi (and especially Stanislav Lem) one of the main themes of the book is the unknowability of the alien. Second, the characters are all astronauts who confront the unknowable and don't go crazy, or turn on each other or otherwise act so unprofessionally that you wonder how they got trained. It's quite nice actually.

Ringworld by Larry Niven

I read this when I was 16 and I loved it. Reading it now, I can see what I liked (the amazing world building), but a lot of new issues popped up. First off, the prose is ... underwhelming. I didn't think that the overuse and misuse of "presently" could irk me so much. And then there is the underlying (and most likely unintentional) dismissal of female characters. Still a fun read, but not the borderline hard Sci-Fi that I remember.

The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven

A classic unnecessary sequel, The Ringworld Engineers is like the first book only not quite as good. The healthy doses of retcons don't really detract from the first book too much, but the introduction of the concept of "rishathra" which is ... well lets just say that the writers on Futurama had to get the idea for "snu-snu" from somewhere. I didn't read the third or fourth in the series.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by J K Rowling

I listened to all of these back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I think I'll talk about them in a future post.

Dune by Frank Herbert

A fun little number about a guy taking LSD and then taking over the Universe. Dune is another novel that I read when I was 16 and it holds up much better than Ringworld. In fact I don't think I really liked Dune back then. The novel drops you into a foreign culture and then assumes you can fill in the blanks. The use of full third-person unlimited omniscient narration is a change from most genre novels and gives the book an almost psychedelic feel.

Yup done.

*You can tell these books because they say "a novel" on the front, and the cover is usually textured in eggshell. Also the cover is usually something abstract or takes a picture of a person and makes it austere. Sometimes this differentiation between literary novel and genre novel is a bit strained such as in the case of books like The Time Traveler's Wife which is marketed as a literary novel but could have easily been sold as either a sci-fi novel or a romance novel. Also the movie version of the Time Traveller's Wife is shooting about a block from my apartment.

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I saw Live Free or Die Hard tonight and I'm of confused by it. It isn't Die Hard 4. It's not really a Die Hard movie at all. It's as if the Die Hard movies were translated into an internet meme and then reconstructed into a movie. Just like Chuck Norris' never really was like the persona that embodies Chuck Norris jokes, neither did John McClain ever act like the unbeatable super-hero shown in LFoDH. John McClain is the guy who gets his feet all cut up by glass and then bleeds everywhere and limps into the final showdown. Not the guy who jumps out of a moving car at 50mph and then shows no ill effects five minutes later.

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I purchased a Hard Drive for my Xbox 360 and downloaded some games over the last couple of weeks. I also downloaded Ninja Gaiden for the NES on the Wii.

Ninja Gaiden on the Wii Virtual Console

Still as bloody hard as I remember it being way back in the day, the game is helped immensely by the fact that the Wii allows you to turn off your game and save your progress. Although it's frustrating in a few ways that it's sequels aren't (the fact that you can grab onto most walls but can't climb them leads to situations where you just postpone your inevitable death), the platforming action is tight and when you do succeed it feels like you've accomplished something. Worth $5.

Settlers of Catan on Xbox Live Arcade

This is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the hit German board game Settlers of Catan. I've heard Settlers mentioned on numerous video game websites as being a "hard core" game, which confuses me a bit. As far as board games go, it's really more of an entry level game designed to ease people into games more complicated than Sorry. Something like Risk is more complicated (though not better designed) than Settlers. Compared to the even the most basic multiplayer online-game it's actually amazingly simple and new player friendly.

As for the port itself, the game is given more audio and visual fidelity than I think it really needs, but I'm not complaining. The trade interface is elegant and the A.I. is actually amazingly smart, although it's sometimes annoying when an A.I. won't trade with you from the very beginning of the game (that happens with real people too though). If you're going to play the game online and not in Real Life this is the best version by far. The game flow plays elegantly and you never feel like you're waiting around for other people too much. Anyone who likes board games and has Xbox Live gold should get this game.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Xbox Live Arcade

This was an excellent game when it came out on the PS1 ten years ago and it's an excellent game now. In fact, I would have gladly paid two or three times the amount the asking price for it.

The game is, quite simply, a copy of Super Metroid with a Castlevaina skin pulled over it and some light RPG elements added in. It never achieves quite the level of absolute excellence that Super Metroid did, but that isn't especially surprising because Super Metriod is one of the best games ever made. However, C:SotN is one of the best games for the PS1, and is better than most of the Xbox 360's full priced library.

The negatives: 1) the game is still a bit short (but for the price it's actually quite long), 2) the graphics are the best 2D that 1997 could offer, so they are excellent, but a bit dated and 3) The game really feels like it should have more than 200 Achievement Points.

If you have a 360 and a Hard Drive, you should download Symphony of the Night.

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Hmm, John Rambo always seemed like a crazy stupid idea for a movie (hell First Blood II: Rambo and Rambo III are stupid ideas for movies too). I don't know if this footage to sell the film to distributors changes my mind on that. But it could be okay. I guess.

EDIT: Oh yeah. NSFW

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The first good trailer for Transformers just came out. One that actually makes me want to see the movie.

If you haven't seen it yet you get get it by clicking here. It's the one marked "Exclusive".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of crazy transfan who's up in arms that they added flames on Optimus, but everything I had seen from the movie so far looked shitty regardless of how closely it stuck to the premise of a 25-year-old toy line.

Though I guess it doesn't matter what I think so much, because I was going to see the movie anyway. That's just the kind of nerd that I am.

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Many of you haven't seen the latest movie from the producers/writers/stars of Shaun of the Dead. You should; it's awesome. I'll post more when I'm not at work.

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I saw two movies today.

Ghost Rider

Do any of the following apply to you?
• You saw the cover of any Black Sabath album, or the cover of any album with the words "Bat", "Out", "of" and "Hell" in the title and thought "man I want to see that made as a movie?"
• You're interested in seeing a movie about Ghost Rider.

If you answered yes to either of those questions then you will like the Ghost Rider movie. Otherwise, not so much.


Smoking Aces

Probably my favorite of the post-Pulp-Fiction Pulp-Fiction rip-offs, Smoking Aces is worth seeing if you don't mind a bit of violence. Much better than the last major attempt at a pPF Lucky Number Slevin. Those staying away because they don't like Ben Affleck shouldn't worry. He isn't in it much.

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So I've been fairly negligent of this blog. Sorry about that for the five to ten of you who are still reading this.

Anywho, Best Buy offered the first four seasons of E.R. for $15 each, which is crazy low. I ended up purchasing all four during various trips to Best Buy during the holidays.

Generally the show is fairly good. Not great (although it does have its moments), but solid above average story telling. Sadly you can tell that the original concept, which was perfectly portrayed in the pilot episode, of mixing big stories (OMG breakup!, this man is GOING TO DIE!, AIDS!, ect) with small stories (working 80 hours a week is hard, growing up is confusing, I feel overwhelmed by life, ect), was almost completely discarded by the end of the first season in lieu of just telling the big stories. If that makes any sense.

So yeah, if you see E.R. on sale for $15 a season, it's worth it, at least for the first season.

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So I'm 26. Yeah.

I've left this blog off mostly because I had about 700 words of a Zelda review which I wasn't happy with. So I'm just going to post all the review you need: the game is good: play it.

I'm going to post a video later today when I'm less drunk.

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