Who Doesn't Watch the Watchmen?

Let me preface this with the following: I have in fact read the graphic novel, and I believe that contributed heavily to my understanding and enjoyment of the film.

Ok, now that that's out of the way...

I loved the movie. It currently stands as one of my most favorite films (up there with Terminator 2, Juno, Iron Man, and the Godfather Parts 1 and 2). The Watchmen is a culmination of everything I look for in a movie: Solid performances from multiple cast members (not everyone played their parts equally well, but there was certainly no Sofia Coppola ala Godfather Part 3), gripping/well-thought-out story line, and a perfect soundtrack...perfect in that it could not have been any better in my opinion. The music fit the irony of the entire story. Perfect.

That all being said, as I mentioned up top, I do think that in order to get a solid appreciation for the brilliance of the movie, you really really need to read the graphic novel ahead of time. The "characters" in the background (*wink*), the excellent and wise change to the ending, and the overall feel for the world of the Watchmen have to first be experienced in their original form. I had a ton of friends go into the theater expecting Spiderman even after I explained to them over many in depth conversations the significant depth and lack of "Hollywood epicness" of the graphic novel.

So to summarize: Unbelievably brilliant movie...read it first.

Tech Review

Here's what promises to be a significant posting...



MacBook Pro
My Macbook Pro is one of the greatest purchases I have ever made. Finally giving into my younger brother's persistant nagging, after I got to my current station post-Basic, I dove headfirst into the glorious Mac subculture.

My initial elf-justification came from the full support of BootCamp, and the ability to flawlessly install Windows. However, until I recently installed a Beta of Windows 7 (a review for a later date), there hadn't been a copy of a Windows OS on my laptop for at least 8 months. Most of the gaming I do now is on the PS3 or PSP, so there's not really a need for me to use Windows for anything. I've got copies of the necessary Office software, I use superior video software, and OSX is much easier to use than XP (and of course, the steaming pile of freshman-level programming garbage that it Vista).

I do have a few issues with my MacBook Pro. I don't understand the obsession with shiny coatings for electronics (be it the Mac's shiny-silver, or the PS3's Piano Black), but if it gets used, it scratches. I wish the coating was of a different texture. The bottom is scratched much more than it should be for as young as the computer still is, though I have managed to avoid messing up the top, keyboard, or palm-rests by using a cheap-external keyboard and mouse.

The only other problem I occasionally run into is a compatability issue with OSX, but only with open-source and shareware programs.


Oh, and it runs Windows 7 almost flawlessly so far...having some trouble with the sound, but I'm not concerned as I haven't spent a great deal of time trying to figure it out yet.

Hands down, if you can afford one, buy one.



Sony Playstation 3

My PS3 is a beast. I was a little reluctant to get one for a long time because of the significant differences in quality and size of its game library when compared specifically to te XBox 360. However, I have had such success with my PSP that I decided to drop some money down and give it a try. I managed to snag one of the last models with 4 USB ports, card-slots, and (most importantly) PS2 backwards compatibility. It has an 80 GB hard drive and came with a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4. I have not regretted the purchase for a second.

The backwards compatability works incredibly well. It's a shame they have since removed it.

My initial worries about the game library were quickly put to rest. Sony's exclusives are top-notch. MGS4, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, and LittleBigPlanet are each by themselves more than enough reason to buy a PS3. Their combined level of fun, innovation, and general "awesomeness" is explosive particularly LittleBigPlanet.

I actually use the PS3's media center functionality more than the gaming. The USB ports and DivX/XviD codecs make watching the mountain of TV shows I have on portable HD a snap...a little more compatability on the file extension side of things would e nice, but for the most part, I've not had any major issues. Also of course, the BluRay player works perfectly fine and supports all the necessities like BDLive and whatnot.

I recently picked up a nice 40in LCD 1080p TV and barebones Sony 5.1 sound system to complete my HD experience, and I have not been disappointed. For anyone still settling for standard definition and trying to pass it off as, "There's no difference!", I have but one word for you, "WRONG!"

HD even in 720p brings in a crystal clear picture, and true 5.1 Dolby Digital sound is glorious...Do it! Make the switch! The end of SD is near, and you are being left in the dark...Search your feelings! You know it to be true!

That's all I got. Man, it feels good to be doing this again. I miss writing...Maybe I'll revisit my story blog too...if I can find the time...

Peace

The Kingdom

One last post before I get back to work (awful awful week ahead).

I saw The Kingdom Saturday night with my youngest brother and a good friend. Fantastic movie. Anything you read about the movie's political stand point is irrelevant. I viewed it as more of a career advisement film, personally...

It's split half-and-half thriller and action and the majority of both sides is very believeable.

All the performances are spectacular, particularly those given by Jamie Foxx and Ashraf Barhorn the film's two male leads.

The Kingdom gives a very down-to-earth look at how the West and Middle-East interact on both friendly terms and unfriendly terms, specifically how the Islamic way of living greatly conflicts with the Western understanding of the world.

Brilliant film.
Hooah.

Green Street Hooligans

If you haven't this this movie, do so...my brother made me watch it over the weekend of the Fourth this summer, and I can't get enough of it now.

Elijah Wood, a kick-ass soundtrack, and rowdy, English football fans. Unbelievably good.

More PSP

**Shameless plug warning**

So, recently, a universal "unbricker/downgrader" was released by a psp-hacker-dream team via the internet.

If you're more-or-less up to date on my thoughts on the psp, you might be aware that I think the psp is an amazing piece of technology and own one. If you do not own one, I highly recommend you look into at the very least trying one out.

The universal downgrader makes it possible for any psp to be made homebrew-capable for free. Emulators (to be used legally), homebrewed applications and software, legally-ripped UMDs run from the memory card for increased loading speeds, Playstation 1 titles...the list of benefits goes on and on and on...

It's truly a miraculous work of ingenuity and reverse-engineering...check out the article here or the forum thread here for the whole story.

Hooah.

Thank You for Smoking

A brilliant movie...

One of my room mates introduced me to the film over Spring Break while we were in Florida. A few friends and I came across it tonight in a local video store and decided to give it another watch. It was even more fun the second time around.

Thank You for Smoking follows Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for Big Tobacco, on his journey to further his industry's agenda while coming to grips with his role as a father. Aaron Eckhart is marvelous as the silver-tongued hero of the smoking industry. You will laugh until your sides split...and not once does it feel like an anti or pro-smoking advertisement...no one is safe! Rather than radically defending one side or the other, it presents the issues as they are in real life, and then stands by its message of free choice, allowing the viewer to make his or her own decisions.

I also saw Knocked Up last night. This movie is also wonderful. I went into the experience with fairly low expectations...a movie about an unwanted pregnancy has to be about abortion...well, much to my surprise and delight, the issue only arose twice for less than a minute each time.

Knocked Up addresses parental responsibility and facing the consequences of the choices we make, for better or worse. The chemistry among the cast members is marvelous, and it was fantastically written. Language and adult-content make it fairly un-kid-friendly, but for anyone old enough looking for a good way to spend an evening, go and see this one.

In other news, it's nice to see France's conservatives are doing so well in the elections, as it's been a fairly uphill battle for them to this point.

One more thing...This is older news, but if you haven't seen Global Warming: The Great Swindle, watch this series of videos:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

I think the best part of this video comes in the form of the debates that spring up in the comments below...really...check it out. You can read about people like srfurchick88 who believe that (and I quote) "...whatever the FACTS are might be different or similar to my point of view, but no matter wat the facts are it still does not change my POINT OF VIEW.. I BELIEV WHAT I BELIEVE."

Debate needs to be reintroduced into mainstream education. Way too many people today confuse fact with opinion (or "POINT OF VIEW" as srfurchick88 might call it). The fact (pun intended) of the matter is that in the end, science is what it is...and politics, public opinion, and political agendas won't be able to change anything.

In other words, to reference yesterday's posting, no matter how many pretty pictures you paint of a velociraptor munching lettuce, given the chance, one would still eat your face.

That's all I've got.
Peace out.

He's back!

Finals are done, I'm on summer break, and work has started.

I've got lots of stuff on my mind to post, so I'm going to break them down into a couple of posts that should hit the site throughout this evening.

The first thought stems from the Sony PSP I bought a few days ago. It's wonderful. I do have one particular problem with it; it's not so much an issue with the system itself.

The rant should begin with an explanation. I have a problem with our country's current intellectual property laws. I don't like DRM (digital rights management) or the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. That being said (and all music, movie, and software related arguments aside), I would love to play old-school and homebrew games on my PSP.

The current laws are set up to allow anyone with a legitimate hard copy of a video game to own one soft copy for backup purposes. Reasonable...if it were easy to utilize or create those backups. There are ways to obtain emulators and get them to work with the PSP, but it is tedious and borderline illegal.

I understand holding the rights to older games that are being (or certainly warrant) remade (Final Fantasy series, Megaman series...etc). Those games, despite their age, are still making money for those companies. However, titles like Mickey Mania barely made money while they were out, but are still a blast to play. Why hold onto the rights for games like that?

That being said, I actually own copies of the games I would like to play on the PSP...so I should be allowed to make/obtain soft copies...but changing my PSP to be able to do so could permanently damage the system and make it unusable. How in the world does Sony benefit from my not being able to modify this console as I see fit when I stay well within my legal rights?

Emulation is a wonderful way to preserve the classic games and keep "old school" gameplay alive. I wish the big game companies would wake up and think about whether or not older games are really making them that much money anymore...

On a more fun note, there is a website that keeps track of thousands of older games that are now in public domain for one reason or another. Check out The Underdogs for more info.

That's post one...not terribly well-written or thought-out, but it's something...more to come after I get back from my run...

Peace out.

Film recommendations

Ok, if you've been under a rock for the past few weeks and haven't had a chance to see 300, do it.

The movie is fantastic. It's amazing how Frank Miller and Zach Snyder could take a fairly straight forward story and transform it into a cinematic masterpiece. While certainly a miraculous tale, the Battle of Themopylae was not exactly plot-central. For anyone familiar with the comic, the movie parallels it sufficiently to do justice to Frank Miller's original creation.

Do not expect one hundred percent historical accuracy, for you will be sorely disappointed. 300 is derived from a graphic novel which is based roughly on the Battle of Thermopylae. Of course King Leonidas, the Spartans, and the miraculous battle with the Persians are all central, but the story Miller weaves delves so much deeper. Speculation and fiction? Of course, but it sure makes for excellent cinema.

And the gratuitous violence, blood, and gore are all here...but it's an ancient world battle! Even movies like Braveheart, one of the greatest films of all time in my opinion, did not do old-world combat justice in the ways of sheer gore. There was nothing pretty about the pitched battles of the old world...and even they were an improvement on the ancient world. Spear + chest = blood. Fact.

A lot of people grilled Snyder and Miller about whether or not the movie was meant to mirror our current conflict in Middle East...and if it did, which side it supported. Both sides found evidence in their favor and tried to justify their opinions on such things...but when questioned, both director and writer laughed and simply said something to the effect of, "Make of it whatever you want. We're not going to say anything. Why on Earth would we alienate half our audience either way?" I whole-heartedly both respect and appreciate that.

The Prestige is also a fantastic movie. I rented it over Easter Break, and made an afternoon out of it. According to every other person I have talked to recently who has seen the movie, it was the most unpredictable film in history...I swear I had it pegged from very early in my viewing experience. That certainly did not stop me from enjoying it though. The entire film will probably keep you guessing. Give it a rent and then buy it!

My room mate and I have decided we're going to swim everyday to get in really good shape for the record APFT at the end of the month. So far so good...very sleepy. We'll see how PT goes in the morning, heh.

Ok, time to get to work. Peace out.

Post-Spring Break Report

Last week was excellent...75+ degree weather in Jacksonville, no rain. Wonderful.

A couple of days on the beach, a couple days shopping...just what I needed. I picked up the four books in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams. I'm about halfway through the first book, The Dragonbone Chair, and so far, it is doing a marvelous job of keeping my attention. Some of the writing has been a tad (pun not necessarily intended) repetative; no reason to leave this intriguing story by the wayside though.

I also picked up Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, a turn-based strategy game for the Gameboy Advanced for $9.99 at Best Buy...excellent game. I've logged in some 5-hours into it so far (thank goodness for 14 hour car rides), and I've had a devil of a time ignoring it for the tests I've had this week.

One last plug. Battlefield 2 for the PC is possibly the best value game I've ever purchased. The game costs around $10.00 on Amazon.com. The game is an excellent battlefield simulater...it pits the USMC (not quite Army...but I'll survive) against the Chinese against the Middle-Eastern Coalition in the possible-not-so-distant-future. Every match you complete online earns you points based on your kills and flag-captures in addition to other things. These points allow you to unlock various weapons and specials as you increase in rank.

There are also medals, honors, and ribbons awarded for accomplishing in-game tasks. For instance, I recently earned an ariborne ribbon for jumping out of a helicoptor and successfully landing after 10+ seconds.

Everyone in my house has purchased Battlefield 2 within the past couple of weeks and we just can't get enough. I've even comtemplated purchasing the expansion packs...

So anyway, now we're back into the swing of things with school and the Army.

PT has been successful so far this week. My room mate and I have decided to start putting serious supplement time into our PT, so I've started lifting and running on off days. A little more hurt, but the results are going to be good.

The battalion is going on FTX this weekend (field training exercise). It's patrolling stuffs and whatnot. I unfortunately will not be attending because I am technically not a part of the program nor will I be training to be an officer which is of course the purpose of the ROTC program. I would have liked to have had the experience, but no big deal. I'm doing to try to catch the second one this semester or both next fall before basic.

Now for a rant. Apparently, a polar bear cub recently born in a German zoo is causing quite a fuss. Apparently, Knut's (the bear cub) mother and brother ignored him after he was born. So the zoo officials have decided to raise the cub themselves. According to animal rights activist Frank Albrecht via the Bild Daily "Feeding by hand is not species-appropriate but a gross violation of animal protection laws...The zoo must kill the bear."

Now, I could be wrong, but aren't animal protection laws in place to...I dunno save animals from death-by-humans? Apparently not.

Polar bears are near extinction according to all the environmentalist reports that I've heard as of late...something about carbon dioxide building in the atmosphere causing their habitats to melt away or some bogus science like that...

In all seriousness, this story did make me laugh. Albrecht's logic is that if the mother ignores the baby, the zoo ought to obey nature's laws and put the cub down, completely ignoring the fact that this is a great opportunity for breeding the cub can provide down the road.

"They cannot domesticate a wild animal," Ruediger Schmiedel, head of the Foundation for Bears, told Der Spiegel Weekly in its Monday edition.
Um, how about the fact that it was going to be raised in a zoo anyway? How do you think most zoos feed their bears (or any of the animals for that rate)? They toss them the food at feeding time! I've watched it happen...fact.

Ok, enough said. I hold you all have a great weekend.
Peace out.

EDIT: Read my good friend's posting on the economy over at the Common Virtue. The link to the site is over in "Friends."