Random Dialogue

When the lights came up on the most recent Peter Jackson project, this past Friday, I turned to my companions and said “I just got my money’s worth.” Y’see, I saw a giant ape take on not one, not two, but three Tyrannosaurs. Kong climbed the Empire State Building, and there was lots of screaming.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism that the movie was too long, and there were some moments that I thought could have been edited down a little bit. There were ‘looking’ moments that just went on and on … In some ways I think Jackson and Co. were still in epic film-making mode from the LOTR trilogy. While those skills were useful in the middle of a series of genre-defining films, they may have been liabilities in reenvisioning what I consider to be something of a pulp-action film.

I, personally, wasn’t bored. Whenever a scene went on too long, I just amused myself by noting the deep visual environment within the film. Kong’s incredibly lifelike pelt, the atmosphere of 1930s New York, and the humid environs of Skull Island were all amazing backdrops for the film’s action. The movie’s action was terrific, with some truly inspiringly gross/thrilling/heroic moments.

The actors held up the slower-moving moments of the film admirably, with the principal players muddling through their sometimes muddy characters quite personably. Jack Black does indeed only play the one guy, but I like that guy. Adrien Brody’s Driscoll character was already someone I liked, having filled his shoes for several hours in the Kong game. Ms. Watts made for an extremely likable and forceful female protagonist; Indeed, I’m sure she would have been the bright spot of the movie for Katie had she been with us. The supporting cast was unfortunately mostly ignorable, with Thomas Kretschmann as the roguish Capt. Englehorn a notable exception.

The biggest impression the film pushes is that of place and movement. The IMDB entry makes it clear the level of detail Jackson put into recreating the film. The movement and presence WETA puts into the movie’s reality is where they step beyond the limitations of the 1933 Kong. From big to small, the creatures move extremely convincingly. Probably my favorite aspect of the creature design was their “Jurassic Park Plus” mentality. Dinosaur stampedes for the win.

Having seen the original Kong not too long ago, I felt that Jackson’s vision did captured the core elements of the first film. In some ways I share my wife’s opinion, which goes something like “Why remake a movie that’s already been made?” That said, I had a great time on Friday night at a film that I went in expecting to be nothing more than a popcorn flick.

Movable Type, WordPress, and Blogger all have something to offer. One of them offers simplicity, one of them offers power, and the other one offers suck. Which is which?

All Blogged Out: Comparing Movable Type, Blogger, and WordPress
From the piece:

“WordPress finally does what blogging packages have tantalizingly promised since they started seeing widespread use. If you don’t want to munge code, you don’t have to. You can expand your site if you know how to read, and are able to download and upload. The system realizes the egalitarian dream of the interweb: My mom could use this with a little prompting.”

Normally after coming home from a Poker game I’d link to Alan De Smet’s page showing our standings since we started playing. I’m not going to do that tonight because, to be honest, I got clobbered tonight. I begrudge him not a penny of his earnings, but Sam Davenport just plain kicked our asses. At one point I started yammering about how he could have built a fort out of his chips and started a chip fight with us, and how he would win because he had SO MANY chips.

Most frustrating was that I wasn’t really out of the running. On a five-card draw hand, I was dealt an Ace-high hearts flush. It was so unexpected I was about to lay the hand down, until I looked again and realized the mess of crap in my hand was all hearts. Sam beat me with what should have been two pair, because one of those pairs was made of wild cards. I also ended up splitting the pot no less than three times, twice with a really nice straight. /sigh

This post has a gauntlet. I am throwing it down, and I’m throwing it at the feet of: me. Michael, the following post titles have to have stories attached to them by the end of next week.

The Legacy of Amak
(The History of a Two-Year Old MMOG Character)

All Blogged Out:
(Blogger, WordPress, and Movable Type Compared)

Shadowrun’s Facelift
(Shadowrun 3.0 to 4.0 Notes)

The Public Image of Sony Online Entertainment
(SOE’s Crappy Year)

I Like The NGE
(My experiences in a post-NGE SWG)

Mucho MMOGs
(Why I play so damn many Massive games)

Animal Crossing: Wild World, has been covering in depth here, here, and here. I am officially slacking today. I’ll have a feature for Friday (when no one will be reading, I’m sure), but until then it’s obsessive gaming-for-fun for me.

Yes, truly, after a year spent playing games I didn’t want to play (Evil Genius) or just plain was bored by (Nexus: The Jupiter Incident), I’m having a week of guilty pleasures playing nothing but fun stuff. I’ve actually been letting the 360 get some rest while I indulge my passion for MMOGs, and MMOG trial accounts. Star Wars Galaxies is still getting a lot of play, but I’ve upped a trial account for Eve Online … which, yes, is just as beautiful as that little screenshot would have you believe. Moreso, in fact, when it is in motion. I’m also as I type this downloading the Beta client for Dungeons and Dragons Online, so I’ll be getting my dungeoncrawl on today as well.

Christmas day was lovely, but busy. Katie and I pulled double duty again with the two families, spending about an hour and a half at each home in the morning and about two and a half hours at each home in the evening. It takes some of the Christmas cheer out of it to be running around, but we still had a very good time. We both got some very nice things from our relatives, and from each other. I got her a bunch of little things, but she seemed especially taken with the first season of He-Man, and the Teddy Bear Encyclopedia. She got me the Star Wars Wildlife Field Guide, which absolutely rules. I’ve wanted that book for well over a year, and it’s been a lot of fun to look through.

Not much to do this week other than rest, clean up the apartment, and get that story written for Friday. This weekend Saturday we’ve got a shindig at Jeff and Viv’s to go to, and I’m on duty both New Year’s eve and New Year’s day. Vorpal will have a Happy New Year with us, I think.

A slow bin lead to a lazy Friday. I had most of the day scheduled out by about 11 am or so, and so I allowed myself the chance to take it easy, for once. Had lunch with Brian and Alan at Nam’s Noodles (yummy yummy fried rice), and then did some socializing on the online for much of the evening before I picked up Katie from work.

The online socializing: As you may or may not have noticed from XFire, I’ve been playing Star Wars Galaxies again this week. The recent New Game Experience changeup has fascinated me on a number of levels, and I really wanted to see it firsthand. It’s…interesting. Galaxies has always drawn me back into its orbit every three or four months. It’s the first MMOG I played with any level of seriousness (my flings with EQ and others prior to that limited to other people’s accounts), and I’ve always followed what has been going on in the universe a long time ago and far, far away with interest.

Today we’re finishing up wrapping, making dishes for dinner tomorrow, and heading out for a house-hopping tour of friends and family. In fact, we’re getting on our shoes to go out for the evening.

Merry C.

I am looking forward to Christmas this year. I don’t, normally. In fact, I hate the damned holiday. It’s crass, it’s commercial, and the evening of Christmas day ends with you looking out onto a dark and harsh winter world. It’s just depressing. So why am I looking forward to it this year? I honestly couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it’s my job, which I’m starting to really enjoy pushing up against every day. There are problems with having a job that can hit back, but it does make it more interesting. Maybe it’s my wife, who it has been my pleasure to get to know even better since August. Everytime I think I have her pegged, I get to learn something new. It’s neat, and I’m looking forward to a lot more Christmases to come with this woman.

For whatever reason I’m in the Christmas spirit, and the work-week is ending well. It’s been a busy few days, but all kinds of busy that I can handle. We’ve already seen a lot of family this week, so we’re prepared for this weekend’s familyfest. After Paul and my cousin Rebecca assisted us with the tree on Monday, Katie, Ben, and I ended up having dinner with my Mom last night. It was a quiet Wednesday, and so with the Davenport van’s help we wrangled a piece of furniture from Mary Dee’s place to our apartment. Benvenuto’s served up some good gone-to-Spain stories, and reminded me (again) what an interesting and kind mother I have. This evening for dinner we hung out with Katie’s brother Don, talking about this, that, and the other. Tomorrow we both work like crazy, and then sink into the laxitude of the Holiday weekend. I wouldn’t have been on duty anyway this weekend, but it’s still nice to pretend I’m getting time off.

Somehow when I posted on Tuesday I neglected to mention my Prince of Persia review, which I should have done. Yesterday saw my (much discussed) Impressions of a Second Shipment 360 Owner piece go up. Next week I’m going to writeup my experiences with Animal Crossing for the DS (not a review per se, another Nintendogs experience piece), and I’m thinking I’ll wrap up the new year with some look-backs and sniping. This will mark the third week in a row I’ve done a non-straight review piece, and I think I like it. I have ‘ideas’ for more more non-review stuff, which is good. I’ve been wanting to get away from the straight review since I started this gig. I don’t know how the users will react … but that’s part of the fun. [cue evil laughter]

The image attached to this post is a look-see at my new desktop setup. Playing with the interfaces on the 360, my Apple laptop, and WordPress has made me appreciative of a comfortable UI. I downloaded WindowBlinds, a skinning program for the Windows XP OS, and I’m messing around with some different themes. This is the one I like the most so far. The desktop feels much more open with the taskbar on the side, too. It’s fun to change things up every once in a while.

The plan of attack for this weekend includes Dinner with the Giacomini’s, then house-hopping with my family. Presents in the morning with Katie’s family on Sunday, then double-duty dinner. Mmph. It’s a good thing I love these people. I certainly am going to be seeing a lot of them.

If you’ve haven’t already been over to see the new look, my wife’s site has a new look over at Pixiepalace.com.

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