Google Voice Coming

Some great news reaches us today from good ol' Google. It seems they're ramping up to release Google Voice to people who have requested to use the service (including yours truly). I tried to sign up for GrandCentral, but Google shut that down to start working on Google Voice a few days before I tried. I've been patiently waiting ever since to get my hands on this service that allows you to have one number that rings to all of your phones, plus a single voicemail to check. I imagine there will be all kinds of other Google-y features (I'd love to have my tea house fox theme in Voice too!) to explore once the service opens up.

According to the official Google blog (linked above), they will soon start sending invites to the folks who have requested them. If you're interested, sign up for an invite over here.

Michael Bay is Laughing All the Way to the Bank

I would be too, though. His epically awesome sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, took in $112m in the US this weekend, bringing its 5 day total to the jaw-droppingly awesome amount of $201.2m. This, of course, shatters, the record of $152.4m set by Spider-Man 2 for a 5 day opening weekend. What's more, globally the film took in $387m, which gives this movie the largest global opening weekend in history.

To give you an idea of just how much money this is, the movie itself cost $200m. In one weekend, the movie paid for itself. Also, as far as the other summer blockbusters go, Star Trek has been out over a month now, and it has taken in $246m domestically. That means with even a marginal showing next weekend, Transformers will surpass Star Trek after just two weeks. Also, Pixar's Up, which this weekend stole the title of highest grossing summer movie from Star Trek has made $250.2m domestically, and Transformers may well surpass even that next weekend.

So, it appears that audiences everywhere,the world over, are snubbing the critics, who tore the movie to shreds in their reviews. It's score on the Tomatometer is a downright rotten 20%, but, like I said before, it might very well surpass Star Trek and Up in it's second week! Put nicely, I'm impressed. I mean, I love the movie (you can see my take on it here), but I wasn't quite sure how audiences would react to it. I'm glad it's getting the reception it deserves though.

I spent literally all weekend arguing with people about why the movie is awesome. In a strange twist of events, I have heard people say that there is not enough action, and others saying that there is too much... I can't say I've ever heard two opposing reactions to the same movie like that before. It's a bit befuddling to argue about how there are lots of slower moments in the movie, then have to turn around and argue that there's not too little action. I, for one, think it was nicely balanced.

Regardless, the movie is awesome, I'm glad that it's raking in the big bucks, and I can't wait for the inevitable next one.

Edit: I stumbled across this interesting factoid while browsing the web today. Like I mentioned above, over its first 5 days, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen grossed $387m globally. That makes it the 2nd highest grossing movie (globally speaking) of 2009, behind only Angels & Demons, which has grossed $467.7m globally (interestingly enough, only $130.3m of that is from the US). In 5 days Transformers made about 80% of what Angels & Demons (my take on that movie is here) has made in 5 weeks. So think about that for a second. Despite being one of the lowest rated films of 2009, it stands ready to be the year's biggest phenomenon, both domestically and abroad.

Edit, Part 2: It seems I am going to see the movie again on IMAX tomorrow night. I can't wait!!!

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - The Review

I would like to begin this post by saying: What the hell? And by that I mean what the hell were all those reviewers thinking? Did they watch the same movie I did? Were they smoking something that dampens happiness, perhaps? Currently, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is sitting at a terribly misleading 22% on the Tomatometer, with a tally of 37/167 "fresh" reviews. While the reviews may be abysmal, I assure you, the movie most certainly is not.

I'm going to say two things now, right up front. First, this movie is far and away better than its predecessor in every way I can think of. Second, this came within about an inch of dethroning Star Trek as the movie of the summer.

Yes, I said it. No, I wasn't being sarcastic.

Let's break some things down here, based on the things people are criticizing the most.

Story: The reviewers say it's got none. I beg to differ. This movie has every bit as much story as the first, so if you liked the first, you'll dig the second. Actually, Chris, over at The Knight Shift said there was too much story (at least back story and hole-filling), and I will once again respectfully differ. I saw the first Transformers in 2007 with the eyes of an infant. I knew diddly and squat about the Transformer mythos - I never followed the story when I was little, never watched the animated cartoon, never saw the animated movie - I just didn't do anything with Transformers other than play with the toys. Heck, going into the first one, I knew who Optimus Prime was, and I knew Megatron, and that was it. Coming from the uneducated background I did, I got a kick out of the first movie as my official introduction into this fascinating world. Then, along comes the sequel that goes to great lengths to fill in some of the plot holes from the first and really shows us what Transformers are all about. Yes there is a good amount of back story, but I loved every second of it - it never really felt like too much to me.

Length: People are almost unanimously saying the movie is too long. I am going to throw my wrench in that right now. It felt more like an hour to me. I was sad in my heart when I realized the movie was over (when that atrocious Linkin Park song came on). There was a ton of ground to cover in this movie, a ton of it, so they really needed all that time to do it. I've heard complaints from various sources that a lot of that movie should have been left on the cutting room floor, and once again, I can't help but disagree. Looking back on that movie, there wasn't a single scene that I didn't feel like I wanted to watch. Sam's mom getting high - hilarious. Back story - fascinating. All the explosions and action - jaw-dropping.

Skids and Mudflap: The talk around movie-dom is that these two are unfunny and stereotypically, ahem, racist. I can certainly see validity to those arguments, because, in a real-people movie, they would be your token black people. Yet, in that role, they are funny. Besides, every time their humor started to get annoying, something else shut them up. They did spend a lot of time calling the token pansy in the movie out for being a pansy. Good stuff, though I would say the movie could have done without them.

Acting: Wha-what? Criticisms have been thrown left and right about bad acting, and I'm going to be honest, I just didn't see it. I'll get back to this in a minute.

Shifting gears, let's talk about how this movie really excelled. I'd like to start with the score, which I purchased on Tuesday when it came out. The score, simply put, is phenomenal. It fits so damn well into the movie, it' quite beyond words. Every single time Optimus Prime's theme came bursting through the action, I got chills. Steve Jablonsky is to be commended on yet another amazing score.

The humor in this movie is bountiful and well-timed. This is by far the funniest movie I've seen in a very long time. The best way, in my opinion, to attach an audience to the characters is through laughter. When the characters amuse us, they connect with us as well. The humor throughout the movie reels us in, and when shit starts hitting the fan, the impact is greater because of that humor.

This leads me directly into the characters. Damn, I love them - not all of them, but damn close. The first movie introduced us to Sam Witwicky as played by the amazing Shia LaBeouf, his naive and entertaining parents, his girlfriend Mikaela (here is the mandatory "Megan Fox is HOT" comment, just so we get that out of the way). Along with him we have the Marines Major Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Master Seargent Epps (Tyrese Gibson) and the lovable Sector 7 agent, Agent Simmons (John Turturro). These characters each have their own identities and personalities, and they are back in great form in the sequel. more to the point, however, they get to grow as characters, and ultimately, as people. Most of the humor comes from the fact that we understand their personalities, and there are many funny moments to be found in them.

Sam Witwicky is, as we came to expect from the first one, hilarious in an awkward kind of way. LaBeouf plays him with a wit and charisma that is endearing even as we laugh at his exploits. Speaking of the guy whose name I can barely pronounce, LaBeouf is definitely one of my favorite actors around right now. I will very seriously pay to see any movie that he's in, just because I enjoy his on-screen personas. I watched (and actually surprisingly liked) Disturbia, in which he was awesome. Transformers 1 and now 2 were both beyond anything I expected, and I even saw the otherwise crappy Indiana Jones movie, which he saved from being a complete waste of time. Oh, and let's not forget The Greatest Game Ever Played, which happens to be about the most boring sport ever (golf), but was still a great movie for the fact that he is awesome. I have yet to see Eagle Eye, though I have every intention of doing so.

Anyway, LaBeouf certainly doesn't disappoint in this movie, and in fact, I'm going to jump right out there (again) and say that he out acted himself in this movie. There were some damned intense moments in the movie that required certain amounts of intensity from the actors and he never failed to deliver. Everything from the funny, awkward moments with Mikaela to the losing his mind bits where his brain is actually working faster than his mouth can speak (brilliant acting in those parts, just brilliant) to the intense and powerful scenes (think the forest battle and the climactic battle) shows that this man can act.

Anyway, returning from my tangent - characters. Sam Witwicky = great lead, highly amusing, very well acted. Moving on to the lovely, lovely Megan Fox. She's taken a lot of heat for her performance in this movie. I agree that there were certainly some times when it was over done, but for the most part, she did really well. She was the female lead rather than just the chick who happens to be in the movie because she happens to be the hot girlfriend.

John Turturro returns in great form - Agent Simmons provides the kind of comic relief only he can provide. And yes, he does utter the line "I'm standing under the alien's.... scrotum." I laughed muchly.

The first Transformers introduced us the the pair of military officers Major Lennox and Master Seargent Epps. Lennox was one of my favorite characters from the first flick, being the Marine with the wife at home with the kid he'd never seen, then he's thrust into the middle of this machine war as he's supposed to be returning home. Gone from this movie is the mention of the wife and kids, but both he and Epps provide the much-needed human side to the Autobots, and defend them constantly from the criticisms of outsiders. I wasn't sure if these guys were going to make it into the sequel, but I'm sure glad they did.

Sam's parents made their mark on the last movie with their naive moments. For example, the, ah, masturbation scene from the first movie was just priceless. They are back with a vengeance for the sequel, and their antics are even more funny this time around. Yes, in case you haven't heard yet, Sam's mother gets high off some "all natural" brownies near the beginning of the movie and proceeds to spend a couple of minutes making a general ass of herself. Had my chair not been firmly rooted to the ground, I would have been on the floor hyperventilating.

Finally, we come to mister whiny-pants. He drove me absolutely nuts in this movie, and he was the reason I appreciated the presence of Skids and Mudflap. Leo Spitz - Sam's new college roommate, and all around girly-man. He gets dragged along for the ride and adds nothing, nothing, to the plot other than whining the entire time. He does provide some further comic relief, I suppose, as the Autobot twins are constantly call him out on his general pussiness, he tazes himself in the nuts once, and then Agent Simmons tazes him in the neck (that might've been the best part of the movie... maybe it was Sam's mother tackling the Frisbee guy.... or maybe it was the climactic battle. Hell, the whole movie is good, why bother picking a best part?).

There is a lot of action in this film. Let me repeat that: there is A LOT of action in this film. It is a Michael Bay film, after all, and this is Michael Bay at his stunning best. Under normal circumstances, the volume of action contained in this film would have been utterly boring after about 30 minutes or so. Fortunately, Bay has a very unique and wonderful style for shooting action. He has a knack for finding camera angles that ramp up the intensity and make an audience feel like they are in the middle of the action. He shoots explosions and battles in a unique and exhilarating way, and I look back on the experience thinking it would have been impossible to be bored. It also helps that ILM yet again stepped up to the plate with their ridiculously realistic special effects. They were damned purty too.

Like I said before, the movie felt like it was an hour long. Prettiness and directing style aside, there are other things that make the action memorable. First are the characters, as they are great, and I found myself very honestly caring about their well-being. Take the forest battle, an intense fight during which things happened that I never would have predicted. The reaction across the board, the audience, Sam, myself, was one of astonished, silent shock. This could not have been the result of that fight if we, as the audience, didn't care about the characters. Heck, the final battle had me on the edge of my seat with a white-knuckled death grip on my armrests (fingers cramping even now). And again, it was because of these characters that were developed so well over the course of two movies that I couldn't help but care for them. During that one part when we're led to believe that ............ I was sitting there with one half of my mind like "they wouldn't" and the other was like "ohgodohgodohgodohgod."

Second, the score is brilliantly executed, and it definitely gets the ol' adrenaline pumping.

Taken as a whole, this is one damn fine movie. Period. This is not a bad movie wrapped in pretty explosions that happens to be entertaining. This is a great movie, and the pretty explosions are just icing on a very delicious cake. Top to bottom, my complaints are few and small, and the things it does right, it does really, really well. It is easily the funniest movie I've seen in years, and it kicks the pants right off the first movie in terms of everything. Had this been any other year, any year where we didn't have the sheer amazingness that is Star Trek, this movie would've been a shoo-in for my best movie of the year. Easily. As it stands, it came literally within an inch of topping even the almighty Star Trek.

Yeah, it may be poorly reviewed, but audiences across America are telling the critics to shove their opinions. The movie opened yesterday to the largest Wednesday opening in history. It raked in a staggering $60.6 million (let me reiterate, this is a one day gross, not an entire weekend gross), with $16 million of that coming just from the midnight showing. This shattered the record for Wednesday openings, which was previously held by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with $44.2 million. What's more, the movie is on pace to break the current 5-day opening weekend record, which is held by Spider-Man 2 with $152.4 million. I predict that this will be the biggest grossing movie of the summer. Currently, that position is held by Star Trek, which, as of Monday, had made almost $240 million. Transformers made a quarter of that in one day!!

Monetary statistics aside, the audience at my (sold out) showing was very much enjoying the movie. The laughter was riotous (I was not the only one bouncing around in my seat), the crowd was hushed during all the intense moments, there were gasps during some of the more tragic moments, and the movie concluded with a thunderous standing ovation. Not even Star Trek got one of those.

Anyway, like I said, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is an absurdly good movie. It was 2.5 hours of me either on the edge of my seat or bouncing around in laughter. The acting is solid, the characters are great, there is a story, the action was impressive, and it all got my adrenaline pumping. I think it still might be pumping, actually.

I went into this movie with very, very tiny expectations after reading the reviews that have been posted online; I won't lie about that. Not only did the movie rise past those low expectations, it shattered the expectations I formed when I finished the first movie. Don't let the "professional" reviewers fool you on this one - you owe it to yourself to see this movie.

Score: 9.8/10.0

Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett Have Died

It has truly been a sad day. It's now been confirmed that Michael Jackson has died at the age of 50, after having a heart attack earlier today.

Also, after a valiant fight with cancer, Farah Fawcett also died today at the age of 62. Farah was an inspiration to many suffering from cancer, and he passion and heart will definitely be missed.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Score

So, in anticipation of what could be the summer's best movie - it would first have to dethrone the amazing Star Trek - I went out and picked up the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen score yesterday from iTunes. By "went out" I really mean I clicked "Buy Album" while eating dinner last night, but you get the point... right?

Anyway, the score is simply astounding. Jablonsky is in top form here, delivering yet another score that is both action-y and powerful at the same time. It incorporates several of the themes from the first Transformers score (though we are sadly missing the Scorponok theme) while expanding its horizons into brand spankin' new territory. In fact, we barely hear anything resembling themes from the first score until the track entitled "Forest Battle" which is a good 2/3 of the way into the CD. But when the music settles into the familiar structures, it's a triumphant return, and the effect is chilling.

I am very interested to see how this great score fits into the movie. I won't lie, I am terribly excited about this film (even though the Tomatometer is currently sitting at a depressing 21% - that translates, at the time of this writing, into 29/109 "fresh" ratings. To put that into perspective, The Pink Panther 2 scored 13%, and my worst movie of the summer, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, scored higher with 37%. Yikes).

Two years ago, Transformers won the Best Movie of 2007 award on my old MySpace blog, so my expectations are high for Bay, LaBeouf, and company. What made the first one so good was a relatable lead, an interesting, entertaining (even if not deep) story line, and some sick special effects for the 'bots. Couple those things with the amazing score that brought the entire movie to life, and you had a summer blockbuster to remember. Here we are, 2 years later, with the sequel that begs to be seen by anybody who even remotely enjoyed the first movie. Assuming Revenge of the Fallen keeps intact that which the first movie did correctly, this should be another fun (if not terribly deep) flick.

Anyway, I've got the ticket to see the film on IMAX tomorrow at 7:30. I hope to have the review published either Thursday night or Friday morning, depending on what goes on after the movie. Stop by soon for the full lowdown.

Until then.

Chevelle's New Single "Jars" is Awesome

Hey all. Check out the new awesomeness by Chevelle. Their new single, entitled "Jars," is utterly fantastic. I'm listening to the song for the 10th or 11th straight time right now. The song demonstrates that the band continues to evolve their sound. This song is great, and it doesn't really sound like Vena Sera. It's quite obviously Chevelle (Pete Loeffler's got one of the best voices in rock), but it has a different sound from their previous albums.

Click the linkey below to hear the epic greatness for yourself. Keep an eye out, because the new album, Sci-Fi Crime, drops in September.

Chevelle - Jars

EDIT: It appears the link above no longer has the song. Shame on whoever decided to take it down. Not to fear, though. You can go to YouTube and check it out. No video yet, but feel free to click here to gander at the art for the single and listen to the awesomeness.

Amazing Things Happening in Iran

Today a friend showed me the remarkable and historic way Twitter is being used over in Iran. It is truly amazing how this social networking site is bringing people across the globe together in support of a free Iran.

The citizens of Iran are literally tweeting live and updating everybody on what is really happening in their country as they protest their current leadership and demand a new presidential election. The people claim that the election was rigged. What's more, the Tweets persist, even as the leadership regime, headed up by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tries to silenec those who are tweeting.

Tomorrow, Iranians will hold an organized protest, and concerns are running rampant that Khamenei, who has warned that action may be taken against protestors, will resort to violence. Khamenei said that opposition leaders "will be held accountable for all the violence, bloodshed, and rioting" if the protest rallies do not cease.

The rally is scheduled to be a march between Revolution Square to Freedom Square at 4:00pm local time. Freedom Square was already the site of a fatal confrontation between protestors and the pro-government militia this week.

Anybody interested in supporting this amazing and historical movement can do so by changing any social networking, forum, or chat avatars to have a green overlay. Search it up on Google if you aren't sure how to do this. If you are interested in following the events as told by the protesters on Twitter, have at this link: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23iranelection

For any protestors that happen to stop by this blog, you have my full support as you cling to your right for freedom and a fair election. The right to freedom is a basic human right and should never be denied a person by their government, and so I wish you all luck as you show the world what it means to stand up for that right.

Video Games Equal Violence???

It seems that the last couple of weeks have been tough ones for us supporters of video games. Two events in the last couple of weeks have given further ammunition to the folks who think video games should be censored and/or banned due to "inappropriate content".

First, our President, my favorite and yours, gave a speech to the American Medical Association, during which he stated: "It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside."

... The implications here are that children are spending too much time playing video games and not enough playing outside. Is this the fault of the video games though? No, not really. But notice how video games have stepped in as the "Americans are unhealthy" scapegoat, taking the place of the once-hated inactivity that was waching TV. I've never particularly agreed with either of the statements: we are not becoming an obese society because of watching TV or playing video games. We are becoming that way because of personal irresponsibility.

To use myself as an example, I play video games. I play a lot of video games, in fact, but I am not an unhealthy person. I am capable of removing my behind from the couch and doing active things, such as going on hikes or riding a bike. Video games to not prevent me from doing these things. I'm sure they would if I let them, but I take responsibility for my health and I always make time for things that promote that idea.

Speaking of irresponsibility, I've got a story for you. For those of you that don't know, I make my living working for a cable company. I don't do it any more (yay promotion!), but I used to take calls, listen to customers, and help them any way that I could. There were times when the troubleshooting I could perform over the phone was not adequate, and I'd have to schedule a technician to come out to the home to investigate the problem there. My favorite response to this adequately illustrates the point I'll be making here in a moment. "Well, what are my kids supposed to do without TV until the technician gets here?"

No, I'm sad to say, this was not a rare question.

There were many thoughts that ran through my head when one of these questions was asked of me. The list of things to do without a TV seems endless. Your children could:

• read a book
• go on a hike
• do something with friends
• spend time with their family
• draw
• write
• ride their bike
• take a nap
• go to the park
• do homework
• play a sport
• take up a new hobby
• play a board game

The list goes on and on and on. More to the point, though, is the question "why are you asking me that?" It takes a sad parent indeed who can't think of something to do with their kid and who thinks the TV should do the the kid's parenting. The response that wanted to come out of my mouth during those conversations was always "Why don't you spend some time with them? You know, do a little bit of that parenting thing you may have heard about?" Not wanting to get fired, I refrained from the sarcastic answers and merely said "I don't know."

Perhaps IGN's lovely Jessica Chobot puts it best in the Daily Fix for June 16 when she said, quite simply: "Good advice Mr. President, but yet again, is this just making video games the scapegoat? Maybe you should have just stopped your speech at 'We need to raise our children.' Period." Ah, common sense. Gotta love it. I wish I could've said that to some of my customers.

Anyway, part 2.

Daniel Petric, an Ohio teenager who shot and killed his mother and seriously wounded his father after his mother banned him from playing Halo 3, was sentenced to life in prison with perole eligibility after 23 years. The sentence was handed down earlier this week. This is great news. People who kill people should be sentenced as such. Rock on.

At least, that's great news until we get to the judge's little post-verdict speech, in which he basically blames "violent video games" for this young man's reaction to his mother... Quote the judge (emphasis mine):

The Court must enter a finding of guilty on the counts set forth in the indictment. That being said, it's my firm belief as a human being - and not as a jurist - that Daniel does suffer from a serious defect of the mind.

This Court's opinion is that we don't know enough about these video games. In this particular case, not so much the violence of the game because I believe in the Halo 3, what it amounts to is a contest to see who can shoot the most aliens who attack.

It's my firm belief that after a while the same physiological responses occur that occur in the ingestion of some drugs. And I believe that an addiction to these games can do the same thing. The dopamine surge, the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens - the same as an addiction. Such that when you stop, your brain won't stand for it.

The other dangerous thing about these games, in my opinion, is that when these changes occur, they occur in an environment that is delusional. Because you can shoot these aliens, and they're there again the next day. You have to shoot them again. And I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea, at the time he hatched this plot, that if he killed his parents, they would be dead forever.

His poor speaking skills aside, he firmly believes that video games killed this man's understanding of what it means to kill somebody? Really? This entire statement is just idiocy. His statement makes two arguments I believe are completely false. First he says that video games are addicting in the same way that a chemical drug is addicting. Second, he says that video games skew perception of reality, of right and wrong.

I don't believe that video games can be addicting any more than I believe sex can be. Chemicals, such as drugs, are addicting because your body gets to the point that it cannot function correctly without them, because it becomes used to their presence. A body comes to depend on the chemical reactions that take place when a certain chemical or combination of chemicals is ingested. For example, a chemical dependency to painkillers is formed when the following things happen:

1. A person takes the painkiller often enough that the body develops a tolerance for it. The dosage being taken until this point starts to become ineffective.
2. Because the painkiller is no longer working as desired, the person begins to take either a larger dose or begins taking doses more often.

When the person, for whatever reason, stops ingesting the chemical(s), the body reacts, as it must get used to functioning without the chemicals on which it has come to depend. In the above example, the body must learn once again to deal with pain on its own, without the aid of chemical painkillers.

A physical activity, such as playing video games or having sex, does not involve foreign chemicals entering the body. It involves fun or interest, and a person reacts to that fun in the same way he'd react to any fun or interesting activity. The body releases endorphins that say "this is awesome." Now, everybody likes to have fun, whether by playing video games or playing football, but most people are capable of continuing on with their lives even when denied their particular favorite method of having fun. It is the people who lack the willpower to restrain themselves - the people who allow their need for this fun experience dominate their lives - who become obsessed with the experience, and we label them addicts. Saying that a person is addicted to an experience that doesn't involve chemicals is really just a way to shirk blame from that person and place it on this imaginary addiction. This alleviates the need for that person to take responsibility to change things, because "this person can't help it, he's addicted."

The judge's second point is that video games skew the real world and diminish the thought of real world consequences that might prevent a person from doing something bad. I find the notion that a person's moral compass is skewed because that person just finished playing a video game (where you are shooting pixels on the screen) to be ludicrous. I find it much more likely that any person, such as Mr. Petric, who will shoot somebody over a video game had an off-kilter moral compass long before laying hands on a video game.

Jessica Chobot also weighed in on this matter in the June 17 Daily Fix. She put it very simply: "The whole thing is seriously fucked up." Rock on.

I'm reminded of the Columbine shooting and the resulting fallout. It so happens that the two students responsible for the atrocities that took place that day also played Doom. As a result, there was a huge public outcry against violent video games, because these two must have been influenced by this game - which, oddly enough, has you running around killing demons from hell. There was this funny theory that said that people who played violent video games were more likely to shoot up their schools. Hell, I was in high school at the time, and I was yanked into the principal's office (during finals, no less) and interrogated by the Woodland Park Police, because it was known that I was an avid video gamer. They had all kinds of great questions for me, such as "Do you play violent video games like Doom?" and "Do these video games ever make you think you can shoot somebody in real life without consequences?" or how about "Do you think about killing people, such as your fellow students, when you are playing these games?"

The idea that video games lead to violence, as I mentioned before, is ridiculous. Yes, you will always have people who play video games who also kill people. Just like you will always have people who go to church who also kill people, or people who drink wine or appreciate fine art or have jobs or go to their neighbors' bar-be-ques who also kill people. But video games cannot be our scapegoat. We cannot point at them and say "that's why person X killed person Y." To do so misses the entire point.

Person X killed person Y.

It doesn't really matter why this happened, only that it did. Person X should be punished just the same, regardless of whether person Y restricted person X's video games or person Y threatened to punch person X. Hold the person who committed the act responsible for the act rather than finding something else to blame.

Shepard's Death and Other Mass Effect 2 News

In his blog over at IGN, Bioware's Casey Shepard announced that it will be your decisions throughout the game that determine whether the protagonist you've created will live or die. From the blog:

When we say that Shepard can die in Mass Effect 2, it’s not something that happens at points in the middle of the game. Yes, you can “die” in gameplay as normal but that’s not what we’re talking about here. It’s not a “Game Over” screen. It’s not a gimmicky thing where you make a choice, “die”, and reload to continue to the “real” ending. When you get to the very end of the story in Mass Effect 2, you will get one of a wide variety of climactic and satisfying endings. Depending on how prepared you were, your ending may involve Shepard making the ultimate sacrifice to accomplish the mission.

What that means: if your choices cause Shepard to die in Mass Effect 2, you will not be able to play as Shepard in Mass Effect 3.

Casey goes on:

If you do die in the ending of Mass Effect 2, it will not come as a surprise, nor will it be random. It will be pretty obvious that you headed into the final mission knowing that Shepard probably wouldn’t make it out alive. Throughout the middle of the game you are building up information, resources, a team, and a ship that will be able to do the job, and although you can jump straight to the final mission at a certain point, you’ll have a good feel for whether you’re likely to survive it.

Part of what makes the final mission dangerous in a more profound way is that each squad member could potentially die a real, story-based death during that mission as well. You might have an ending where Shepard’s entire team survives, or where the entire mission is a bloodbath and everyone (including Shepard) is killed, or anything in between. And for all characters, death in Mass Effect 2 means they won’t show up in Mass Effect 3.

One big reason you’ll want to be alive after the ending is that after the credits roll, you are returned to the game world - ready to head back out for more adventure. You can complete unfinished missions, explore the galaxy, and download new adventures to play. But Mass Effect is a trilogy about Commander Shepard’s journey - if your Shepard dies in the end of Mass Effect 2, that’s the end of him / her. In that case, you can play Mass Effect 3 as “a” Shepard – just not “your” Shepard. As in real life, not being able to keep living is really the main down-side of death. So if you care about playing the next game with your character, make sure you survive this one.

Wow. That's just ridiculous. I am quite seriously drooling in anticipation of this one. Casey goes on to give some more details of what exactly is carried over from Mass Effect into the sequel if you have a save game to import. He has confirmed that all choices you made in the first game will be imported to the second game and may have an impact on the events of the sequel. He has also confirmed that skills and items in ME2 have been completely redone from ME, so the import will "adapt the key assets of your character" without necessarily bringing the exact skill points and level over.

The primary party members from ME (Liara, Ashley, Kaiden, Wrex, and Garrus) will return to ME2 assuming you did not allow them to die in ME. Not all will be able to join your squad for ME2.

We also have some more information about the potentially really sweet interrupt actions. Watching Shepard push the guard out the window in the demo was really sweet, and this promises to be one of many such moments throughout the game.

Interrupts are not meant to be “quick time events”. They are additional options that can appear throughout an NPC’s line that allow you to take a more physical action versus one of the verbal responses. You don’t need to fixate on a part of the screen – a flashing icon will catch your attention in your peripheral vision when it is available. A red icon on the left of the conversation wheel means you can pull the left trigger to fire a hostile interrupt. A blue one on the right side means you can pull the right trigger to do a heroic interrupt. This system allows you to really throw your weight around and get involved in more dynamic interactions with other characters.

And finally, Casey gives us some more juicy tidbits about the improved combat system. I loved the combat engine from the first game - it was fun, intense, and full of strategic options. But this one looks to push all those bars to new and exciting levels.

We’ve made a bunch of changes that add up to the ability to fight without pausing. But you can still hold the powers screen up to pause the action and plan your next moves. One of the biggest improvements was the option to fire your powers in realtime by mapping your favorite ones to buttons – this is a lot of fun and really unlocks the real potential of the combat system. The other big improvement was separate, context-based squad commands on the d-pad. So with a single press of the d-pad you can send a specific squad member to exactly where you want him / her, or to hit an enemy with a special power. This means you can run around with the best powers of your team right at your fingertips and enjoy realtime tactical mayhem – or you can pause with the powers screen to really think about what you want to do next.

Color me excited for this game. It's easily the thing I'm anticipating the most for the new year.

Prototype - The Review

I would like to begin this by saying that this game is so disappointing I could cry, but at the same time, it's an immense amount of fun.

The premise of Prototype, story-wise, is kind of cool. You are Alex Mercer, a guy who wakes up in a morgue in the middle of a viral outbreak on Manhattan. You have no memory of anything prior to waking up, but you discover you have these... powers. You can get shot and not die, you can kick people's asses, You can run fast and jump great distances. In all, you probably feel a little like Jason Bourne.

Over the course of the game, Mercer will grow to have a whole slew of powers. Perhaps the most important of these is the ability to consume others. Mercer can consume anybody, and doing so yields him different benefits. First and foremost, consuming people gives him more health. Given that civilians are plentiful, you are never short of "medikits." Second, Mercer can shape shift into the last person you consumed. This helps you blend into the crowd if the military is chasing you, and it allows you access to otherwise restricted areas, like military bases.

Having discovered these powers, you set out to kill the person who left you to die in the morgue.

Thus you are launched into an open world, sandboxy game where you can run around and do pretty much whatever you want. Go do storyline missions, do some side events scattered throughout the city, blow up a virus hive building or a military installation, the choices seem boundless. Each mission or event that you complete, each person you kill (let's face it, you have zero moral compass in this game - you kill everything) earns you evolution points, which allows you to purchase new abilities or upgrade existing ones.

There are 31 storyline missions in the game to partake in, but they only tell a small portion of the story. The rest is told through the Web of Intrigue. As you venture throughout the city, you will find people (designated with a red icon) who you can consume, and upon doing so, you will see a slick cut scene. See, when you consume people, you absorb their memories. The folks who contribute to the Web of Intrigue have memories that tell bits and pieces of the past and the events leading up to the viral outbreak. Get all 131 nodes on the web, and you have the complete story.

I really, really like this mechanic as a storytelling device in a sandbox game such as this. It gives you reason to explore the city beyond the standard hidden orbs and such. It ensures that you don't get the entire picture until you've invested some time into the game.

And time is something you may very well want to invest here. The use and abuse of Mercer's powers provides grin-inducing entertainment throughout the entire game. Without these powers, the game would have been a complete waste of time. But thanks to the developer's understanding that all we're really going to want to do is kill shit in awesome ways, it's almost possible to overlook all the shortcomings.

Ah, the shortcomings, there are many of them. First and foremost is the story. There are loopholes you could pilot a space shuttle through, there are loose ends galore, and it's really not very well written. Cheesy lines are found throughout, and I'm not talking campy-cool-cheesy like you find in RE games.

I'm going to share an example here of one of the bigger loopholes in the story. This is a major spoiler (though not the biggest), so if you haven't yet played the game and would rather experience this twist for yourself, skip down to the next paragraph. For those of you who have beaten it already or don't care, highlight away. Alex Mercer, the real Alex Mercer, dies in Penn Station right before the game picks up. We discover near the end that Mercer is actually the virus manifested in human form. Hence all his cool abilities. But, if he's a manifestation of the virus, why does the virus attack him, and where does his flimsy idea of being a good person come from? They never really bother to explain that, and given my love for all things character development, it bothers me to no end.

Aside from the story, the graphics are bad. They're bland, drab, and they look like they belong on the original Xbox. Mercer is literally the only thing in the world that looks detailed enough to be on the 360. There's a lot of sameness everywhere. New York, according to this game, is made up of thousands of people who share maybe 10 different skins. All marines are white, all commanding officers have buzz cuts and sunglasses. Every military base in New York looks exactly the same, and if you blow up 100 hive buildings, they will all look alike. One of the great things about this generation of consoles is that you can really implement variety in games. If you'd like a great example of crowd variety, go take a peek at Assassin's Creed. There's no reason everything/body has to look the same at this point in the evolution of video games.

Speaking of Assassin's Creed, this game reminded me of Assassin's Creed at many points. Our hooded protagonist looks like a less-cool Altaire, with his hooded garb and all. He also controls much like Altaire. Simply hold the right trigger and move. The game handles all the complexities for you like jumping over cars, scaling buildings, avoiding obstacles, etc. This is utterly necessary, as the entire rest of the controller is used to control your powers. There are a lot of them, and it can be aggravating trying to select the correct attack power, for example, in the middle of a hectic firefight.

The learning curve in this game feels more spikey than curvey. This can be attributed to the difficulty that swings wildly between very easy and throwing the controller through the TV hard. For example, the superior hunters (such an awesome name!!!) are difficult literally to the point of ruining the experience. You fight 2 in the game, and I really couldn't stand those fights. You spend more time running away than actually fighting, because your attacks (even the fully upgraded ones) do a pitiful amount of damage compared to their 2 hit kill shenanigans. Spoiler note: For crying out loud, I am the virus! How can I not kill them? They are a product of ME!

As long as we're on the topic of enemies, it should be noted that there are approximately 5 kinds in the entire game. Soldiers, infected, stronger infected, hunters, lead hunters. Then there are boss battles. 5 is a very small number, so the enemies get old particularly fast (especially since they all look the same).

On top of all that, there are frame rate issues. I'd need both hands and feet plus some to count all the times my frame rate dropped well below the standard 30fps. In this game, there is always a ton of action going on onscreen. Most of the time, the game does well with all the gore-tastic moments, but there are numerous times when it just slows to a crawl, particularly during the final boss fight.

The side events exist much like they do in Spider-man games. No, you aren't going to chase any balloons for little girls, but many of the events were ripped right out of those games. You've got your race style events where you have to hit a certain number of checkpoints in a certain amount of time. There's the kill things events where you kill as many baddies as possible within a certain time limit. These are rather derivative, I've done them a million times in other games, and they're boring. There are a couple of interesting mission types, though. One, called War, aligns you with a side (military or infected) and you must kill all members of the opposing side before everybody on your side dies. Being on the military's side is just awful, because they fall so quickly to infected hunters, it's just silly. Then there's the glide event, in which you use Mercer's gliding ability (think like a squirrel) to get as close to a target as possible.

There are two vision modes that you can activate, both of which are utterly useless and probably could have been cut from the game. The first vision mode allows you to tell an enemy from a civilian. Considering the game doesn't care if you're killing civilians while trying to kill enemies, and hell, even if you're trying not to you will anyway, there's no point to ever activating this. The other vision mode shows you who is carrying the infection. This is useful for exactly one mission in the game in which you are tracking certain infected people to consume, but beyond that it is worthless. True, you can see that the military is slowly getting infected as the game goes on, and I was hoping they'd make something of that in the story, but no.

So, what is it that makes the game so fun exactly? Well, like I said before, powers! The purpose of this game is to make you feel like a badass (the most recent example being The Force Unleashed), and it succeeds there admirably (most of the time, anyway). Even at the beginning when I lacked the really awesome powers, I still felt awesome. So far, I've spent more time in the game wandering around and finding fun ways to exploit my badassness than I spent actually following the story. I'm sure eventually killing people would get old, but it hasn't happened yet.

Powers aside, my favorite thing about the game is watching New York evolve as the game progresses. At first, when the outbreak is just beginning, the city is all as normal. But as the game progresses, the virus starts gaining footholds across the city, and the military starts setting up posts in the city as well (these are marked on your map with red and blue circles respectively). At first you see people on the sidewalk start coughing up blood and clutching themselves in pain. As you move out of areas protected by the military and into infected zones, the sky turns red, buildings are on fire, you can see organic matter on the streets and on buildings, cars are no longer driving on the roads but instead litter the streets as their owners shamble around trying to kill you. As the infection spreads, taking control of more and more of the city, the soldiers start coming out with their tanks and helicopters to kill the infected, and there is literally war in the streets. This game-long evolution is exciting to watch.

Helicopters are a blast. I love hijacking helicopters (talk about feeling cool, but you can eventually fly a helicopter, jump out as it explodes after being hit with a missile, latch onto another helicopter as you're falling, kill the pilots, and carry on blowing things up), and I love air-to-air combat. Especially near the end of the game when the military helicopters just don't stop coming. It's a blast, in more ways than one.

Infiltrating military bases and trying to consume the necessary folks (certain soldiers in each base will give you skills if you consume them) all stealth-like is quite challenging and entertaining.

I also like finding people on the Web of Intrigue. Few things in the game are more exciting than stumbling on one of those red icons that just scream EAT ME!

Overall, this game has so much potential, it's hard to just write it off as a bad game. No, it doesn't live up to expectations, yes, it feels like it was rushed through development. The graphics could have used some polish, the city and enemies need more variety, as do the side events, and the story needed a good deal more time to flesh things out. But all that is almost negligible in the face of how much fun it is just to run around in that world, go to town with Mercer's powers, and watch the city evolve through the epidemic. This is not a game I should enjoy playing, all things considered, but I do anyway.

Score: 5.5/10.0

Assassin's Creed 2 Trailer

Here we go! Bask in the Renaissance-era Italy and drool a bit as we all look forward to playing this one closer to the end of the year.

Police Officers Shoot 5-pound Dog... Three Times

I've been trying to avoid the blog this week, as I've got a lot of work to catch up on thanks to my vacation. However, I ran across this story while eating lunch today, and I think it bears mention. 

Chris over at The Knight Shift wrote about this one too. You can read his thoughts here.

Anyway, some police officers over in Blue Ash, OH shot and killed a 5 pound Chihuahua-mix named Jack. Jack was a member of the Bullock family. Scott and Sharon had given Jack to their 12-year-old son as a gift a few years ago. Jack escaped their backyard, and the officers who were trying to catch him ended up shooting him, three times, as Jack cowered on the Bullock's front porch. The Bullocks came home (from a funeral, no less) to find blood, 3 bullets, and a note on their front porch. The note said to contact the police department for information on their missing dog.

The officers said that they shot the dog because it bit one of the officers. ... ... ... Really? A five pound dog besting two fully grown men who are trained police officers? I find that a smidge hard to believe. The officers said they also tried to tase the dog prior to shooting it, but the taser didn't work. Again, really? A taser can bring a fully grown man down pretty effectively, so perhaps the officers would like to explain how a 5-pound dog is immune to its effects. The officers finally came up with the time-tested excuse "we were just following procedure." I'd love to find the procedure that says 3 bullets are necessary to deal with a small, terrified dog like that. 

The Bullocks told their sons that Jack had run away. Could you bear to tell your kids the truth when the truth is so awful?

When I was in high school, the officer assigned as a liason between the students and the department ran over two of the high school students as he sped along the main road through town. It was a foggy morning, and the two girls were waiting for the school bus. The public, and the student body especially, was outraged. The department "investigated" the incident, but ultimately found "nothing" to use to strip the man of his badge. About a year later, once the incident had blown over, they promoted the man, made him a detective, and to this day he remains at the school working with the students. 

I view this incident in the same light as I viewed that. The Blue Wall will go up here, the heads of the Blue Ash PD will mumble out some things about how they're looking into it and taking the matter very seriously. Yet, in the end, they will come up with nothing, and these disgusting men will continue to wield their badge, and the ego trip that goes right along with it. Perhaps, like the officer at my high school, they will even get promoted. 

I agree with Chris' thought that the folks who wear the uniform and the badge must be held to a higher standard of accountability, since they are the ones who enforce it on everybody else. This act shows that we are not holding the police to the standards that they should be held to. At the very least, these officers should be stripped of their badges and their pensions. Heck, if I was walking down the street and a shot somebody's dog as it stood on their front porch, no doubt criminal charges would be brought agaist me, and rightfully so. 

So, what makes these two officers so different?

You can read the full and heartbreaking story over here.

Crunchberries Are Not Actual Berries

Apparently, California resident Janine Sugarawa needs a lesson in real food versus brightly colored cereal puffs. She sued Quaker (on behalf of herself and other consumers who are as dumb as she is), claiming that their marketing led her to believe that Crunchberries were, in fact, a real fruit. She claimed the use of the word "berries" in conjunction with the brightly colored puff balls being "thrust" at the consumer on the box's picture were the things that misled her. 

I don't know about you, but those don't look like any berries I've ever seen. Besides, the front of the box clearly states that Crunchberries is a "Sweetened Corm & Oat Cereal". No reasonable consumer would think they're real. 

The court shut this case down pretty quickly, thankfully. Thanks to Lowering the Bar for the entertaining story.

More Video Game Joy

While we have to wait for next year for Mass Effect 2, there are several other HUGE video games getting released this fall. First up is Modern Warfare 2, the sequel to the best selling shooter of all time. It certainly ranks as the best first person shooter in my book. The epic moments are unparalleled in gaming history. And MW2 promises to show us even more. It's developed by the same folks who started the Call of Duty franchise and did the original Modern Warfare game, Infinity Ward. Speaking of Call of Duty, the franchise used to be good... that is until certain other developers started making the games and adding Nazi zombies and other junk. Anyway, Infinity Ward seems to have moved completely to the far superior Modern Warfare franchise. Check out the demo of the game. Keep in mind that all of this is in-game footage and it's all player controlled. These are not cut scenes. This game can't come fast enough.

Modern Warfare 2 at IGN.com

Second up is the other BioWare game called Dragon Age: Origins. Unlike the other Origins we've experienced this year (*cough* Wolverine *cough*), this, I can almost guarantee you, will be great. I mean, come on, it's BioWare!! They're the same folks who make Mass Effect! Check out the trailer here too.

More Dragon Age: Origins Info

While we're at the video game trailers thing, check out Assassin's Creed 2, which takes place during the Italian Renaissance.

Assassin's Creed II at IGN.com

Oh, and I stumbled across these direct feeds of the Mass Effect 2 demo. Revel in their glory. Note the detailed lighting and better graphics. Smooth framerates. Evolved score. Good god, I cannot wait for this game. Drooooooool.

More Mass Effect 2 News & Previews

Mass Effect 2 at IGN.com

More Mass Effect 2 Info

More Mass Effect 2 News & Previews

Mass Effect 2 at IGN.com

I would like to end this blog by expressing my undying love for BioWare and the amazing games they produce. :-)

Juicy Details from Mass Effect 2

With E3 coming to a close today, I've had a chance to look back on it and find the things I am most excited about. And the thing I am most excited about... three words. 

Mass. Effect. Two.

Holy cow the details came pouring out of E3 over the last couple of days. Additionally, OXM ran a very detailed report prior to E3, giving us tons of new details. Shepard's not dead, at least, in the beginning of the game he's alive. Sigh of relief. I started playing Mass Effect again last night, a new game plus with my level 52 Vanguard. I almost forgot how easy it is to get swept away by the game's deftly executed story and the deep and engaging characters. I don't think that one will be leaving my XBox until I beat it again. 

The best character in the game is, of course, Commander Shepard. He is whoever you make him, and that, combined with the sheer intensity of the story, make him into a character you care about. He is, after all, YOU in game form. So the idea that he may end up dead... well, it's a little startling. 

Anyway, Bioware told OXM that the Geth shown in the teaser trailer (you know, the one that looks like it's wearing Shepard's armor) is actually a character in the game, one that we as the audience are going to empathize with a great deal. so does that mean...

Could Shepard be turned into a Geth? A little out there, but it might be feasible. Only time will tell.

Also confirmed is that the decisions you made in the first game will impact the second game. Nobody's sure if every decision will matter. But if you killed Wrex, expect him to remain dead when you continue into Mass Effect 2. If you allowed the Council to die, then they will remain dead, and whatever form of government you allowed to be established at the end of the game will be in place (or in the process of being created) when you begin Mass Effect 2. Also, the choices that you make in this game - supposedly darker and more impacting - will continue to shape how the game plays. Bioware says that the decisions you make in ME2 will directly impact how the game plays, there will be more deaths, and the choices will be much harder with more serious consequences. I don't know about you, but the decision to let the Council die when I was playing as a Renegade was tough. It was hard to let them die, because the characters were so real, it was like making a decision to let somebody actually die. If the choices are darker in the sequel, I may not be able to continue on with my Renegade.

Bioware has not confirmed how your character's level and skills will transfer over, if they do at all. I'd be a little disappointed if all the time I will take to get my Vanguard up to level 60 goes to waste, but given the already huge complexity of the game, it wouldn't be that big of a deal to me. I know many people who would be just up in arms about it though. 

The story, as we know it so far, revolves around the mysterious disappearance of several human colonies. Shepard takes on a mission to investigate it, a mission headed by Cerberus. The mission is considered a suicide mission, but we as players, will surely find a way to survive... right?

I am ready for this game. 

The game is slated for release in early 2010, and it truly can't get here fast enough. Here's a trailer with which to bide our time, courtesy of the folks over at IGN. Play it hi-res if at all possible. 

More Mass Effect 2 News & Previews

Back from Seattle...

...and wishing I was still there. It was a sad day indeed when the plane took off from Sea-Tac airport and I was homeward bound. There was a feeling akin to regret acting as butterflies in my gut as we flew westward over the mountains. Perhaps it was the feeling of not having done enough - though we did not stop doing things the entire week we were there - perhaps it was the idea that we weren't there long enough. 

Regardless of the feelings on the plane, I must say that the 5 full days we spent in Seattle were some of the best in my life. I wasn't worried about politics or the economy or working or anything. I was hanging out with my best friend and a group of other close friends for 5 days of fun and tourism. We visited the Wizards headquarters in Renton - they make Magic, and we met the VP of legal who gave us a very exclusive tour of the most secret parts of the building. Seriously, nobody gets to tour that place, but we did. And that was just the start of the fun. 

We looked at the Space Needle (didn't get to go up, but that's not a huge deal). It's not nearly as tall as they make it look, but it makes for some striking pictures. We went to EMP, the Experience Music Project, and I watched Randy, Uriah, and Steve make silliness of themselves on stage playing Purple Haze (and by "playing" I mean "not really"); it was hilarious. We toured the Pike Place Market, a giant outdoor market that sold seemingly everything, including the freshest fruits and veggies I've ever seen. We toured the Underground City, which was fascinating. Our tour guide was a swell gentleman who was thoroughly entertaining while being educational as well. That was one of my highlights from the vacation. We ate out three or four times per day at places I wish we had in Colorado. We gaped at the sheer beauty of Washington, the trees, Rainier, the water. We took in the warm weather in shorts and T-shirts and listened to locals talk about how the weather is never this beautiful at this time of year. We got lost on Seattle's confusing labyrinth of roads.  I went to my first strip club (gasp!!!). We sat on the pier and talked. I have never had more fun. Ever. The company was perfect, the location was awesome, the events were entertaining, the food was amazing, and did I mention how cool my friends are?

Seattle may very well be the most perfect place I have ever been. I love it there. The weather (I love me some rain!), the atmosphere, the people... it's all so awesome. I love having both water and mountains to look at, and sitting on the pier for an hour watching ships come and go, was just about as relaxing as you can get. Their downtown section is beautiful, and the open highways where you can look at the incredible foliage or gaze south at the distant image of Mount Rainier are often breathtaking. 

The Experience Music Project is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It's like a gigantic interactive museum. It has the traditional read and stare at things on the wall portions where you could learn about the histories of various types of music and instruments - with a huge section devoted to the northwest (read: Seattle) music scene, with mad props given to Nirvana (gag). That was all pretty ho-hum until we came to the actual experience part. There were instruments set up all over the place that you could just try. There were videos that went along with the instruments that would teach you how to play. It covered everything from guitars to turntables, but it was sadly lacking in the classical instruments department. Then there was the give a "live" concert section. You get up on stage with a fake audience and "play" a song. Really, all people do is get out there and do random things on the instruments. Uriah played the keyboard and we have a picture of the keyboard crotch-grab of awesomeness. Steve played the drums, and I don't think I'll ever forget the double-axehandles onto the cymbals. Randy played the guitar behind his back and with his teeth - there was a guitar solo or two in there as well, but come on, with his teeth!

The underground city was only really notable because of our tour guide, who was funny and informational. It was kind of nifty to learn about the city of Seattle, how it was originally built on the tide plane, meaning on sea level, and the method in which it was raised above sea level. First, the raised the streets, then the sidewalks, which left the ground floor of each building underground. This underground section, what we toured, became a 24x7 marketplace for the folks passing through for the gold rush. We took the late night, adults-only tour which included a thorough history of the rampant prostitution of the era with all kinds of ridiculous (but true) stories of the various prostitutes and their scams and such. A delightful time followed up by a free cocktail. Perfect.

Ironically, everybody else ends up at the local Deja Vu after the tour. I sleep in the car for about an hour. Funny thing is, the next night Randy talks me into accompanying him to the strip club in Tacoma, but that's a story for another blog post. 

Now we finally get around to the Magic portion of the trip. Mind you, we probably wouldn't be in Seattle were it not for this tournament. Grand Prix Seattle, which actually takes place in Tacoma, was one hell of a great time. Friday is registration followed by spending the rest of the day (literally) buying, selling, and trading cards. My first trade of the morning moved several hundred dollars worth of cards, then I went to a merchant, who bought $577 worth of cards from me. I promptly converted that into more cards, and the cycle pretty much repeated itself. Well over a thousand dollars worth of commerce (if you will) took place just that day. Never mind the rest of the weekend. 

Saturday was the tournament itself. My results were disappointing - I went 1-3 before dropping. My deck was fun, though, so I have no regrets. I spent the rest of the day getting cards signed by artists that were there and playing casually with the folks from Wizards' R&D department. 

Colorado Springs had a surprisingly large turnout. Randy, me, Uriah, Steve, Dave, Hugh and Sean (Hugs and Kisses... don't ask :-) ), Brandon, and several people with whom I am not acquainted but were known to the rest of the group. Having so many people around that I knew ensured I was never alone or with nothing to do. The sheer number of casual games we played is staggering in number. 

Sunday was spent with more trading and selling, plus an EDH tournament. Elder Dragon Highlander is by far my favorite way to play magic, and this is the first real tournament I've played in the format. The tournament was in pod format - 4-5 people per pod in free-for-all action. The winner from each pod advances to the next group of pods. Winner of those pods move to the final pod. The winner makes $200. There was a two-hour time limit in place. 

My pod was filled with very friendly people, including one Wizards employee. We played a slow, casual game in which we had a lot of conversation about our decks, the rest of the tournament, and what have you. One thing I absolutely love about this format is the simple casual nature of it. Due to the nature of the format, there aren't really any sanctioned tournaments, so people don't build decks with the idea of winning things. They build them to have fun. There are exceptions to that rule (Randy faced two such nitwits in his pod), but for the most part, it's just a fun format. Anyway, we got to the two hour mark before the first person was eliminated, who, unfortunately, happened to be me. It was OK, though, because playing with the group I got to play with was a ton of fun. After he was eliminated, the Wizards employee came up and complimented my deck. He said it was one of the best EDH decks he's seen, which was really cool of him. We talked about how heavily the format is played in Colorado Springs and about how my deck had a lot of feedback that has made it into what it is today. 

Monday was nothing more than an early plane ride home. 

So, going back in time once again, let's talk about food. Man I ate well in Washington. After getting off the plane, we were looking for a place to have breakfast. We ended up at a small place called Pancake Chef. I treated myself to a polish sausage omelet, which was just yummy. Delicious. Then I used the bathroom, saw bugs, and almost tossed it all back up. Would I eat there again? Perhaps. The food was that good (and I would hope the kitchen is cleaner... they'd be closed otherwise, right?).

Dinner that night saw us eating at a place in the market, Lowell's. It was sub-standard and very expensive.

Thursday, the notable meal was lunch. We went to a pasta bar suggested by Dave's wife, in the outdoor market. Oh god. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Spaghetti, a little Alfredo sauce, marinara sauce with ground beef, seasoned meatballs, and garlic bread. Drool. I'd go back in a heartbeat if I could. My only complaint was really the sauce was a bit too watery for my taste. In terms of flavor though, mmm, mmmm good. That night we ate at The Fisherman. The place was ridiculously expensive, so I just ordered a Caesar salad. I think we were paying for the view, as the restaurant was right on the pier looking out over the bay. The view was beautiful. The salad on the other hand... atrocious. Literally it was a chopped up head of iceberg lettuce with a couple of unflavored croutons and a drizzle (literally a drizzle) of dressing. Horrible, and completely not worth the $10 it cost me. Randy talked me into trying a piece of his popcorn shrimp (popcorn shrimp at a high end dinner place, who'da thunkit?). All you could taste was the breading. Aside: Anybody who knows me knows I detest seafood. Severely. But, I figured, what the heck, it's a vacation, might as well try something different. Like I said, though, all I could taste was the Cajun-flavored breading.

Given that Friday was the tourney, we just ate lunch at the convention center after a fast food breakfast. For dinner we got the group together - Randy, me, Uriah, Steve, Mike, and some guy who used to work at WOW! Chad - for dinner at a place Chad picked out called Verrazanno's. My spelling might be off on that. Anyway, it was the worst stop of the trip. From the time we walked in the door, it took us two hours, yes, two of them, to get our food. Heck, it took them half an hour to give us our free bread and butter. Mike and I split a Margherita pizza, which was all right, but it was obvious it had been sitting under the heat lamp for a long time. Uriah got a calzone that was not even half cooked. The worst part about it, though, was not the food or the service. It was Chad. The fact that I had to spend two hours listening to that asinine, self-serving, condescending assfuck (sorry, but I'm very passionate in my dislike for that douche) was simply the worst part of the trip. The previous two nights' dinners were admittedly sub-par, but at least the company was good. The two hours spent at this Italian restaurant whose name begins with "V" was spent listening to him yak yak yak about anything having to do with making himself look good. He had a lot of self-deprecating humor, but it was used in much the way Obama uses the same humor, to make himself look really good. I felt truly sorry for our waiter, a high school or early college aged guy who was very kind and on the ball with everything he could control, but had to suffer through the lectures doled out by Chad and his perceived infinite wisdom. 

Anyway...

The next day found us again eating food at the convention center during the tourney. For dinner, Randy, Hugs, Kisses, and I grabbed a pizza at a pizza joint up the street called The Rock (has come back... kidding). The pizza was extraordinary in every way imaginable. Hugh and Sean are also amazing company so there wasn't a dull moment the entire night. Uriah and Steve joined us after a while, and more fun ensued until we all got tired and went back to our respective staying places.

After we left the convention center on Sunday, Randy and I wanted meat, so we drove around downtown Seattle looking for a place that served just that. We happened upon a hole-in-the-wall steak place whose name escapes me at the moment. I ordered a rack of lamb, which according to the menu, was marinated in a rosemary and garlic sauce. It was simply the best dining experience of the trip. The place was empty save for Randy and myself (it was ten in the evening after all), and our waiter, the owner, was polite and very friendly. The lamb was mouth-wateringly amazing and cooked perfectly. I love lamb, I've eaten a lot of it, but that was easily the best I've ever had. Randy enjoyed his steak too, and the meal was filled with us talking about how great our food was. My plate was $34, and I was quite ready to order another one I was so happy with it. I'm going to have to go back and figure out what the place is called now...

So, that was the trip. Like I said before, it was the most fun I've ever had. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, even though I now find myself broke until payday. I've posted my entire vacation's worth of photos over at my Picasa site, if you'd like to check them out.

Anyway, now it's back to the more standard blog fare of movies, games, and political idiocy. Until next time.