I'm still breathing, I'm just not updating

But one out of two ain't bad. And what a one!

Nothing much to report. Basically just been getting by from day to day. Summer has lost it's appeal since I've not been able to get out of the city for more than a day or two in years. Things get old and redundant and while it'd be nice to break that cycle, I don't see that happening.

I can live with that but it means that I don't have much to say.

And that's all I have to say about that. - asmyth82 10:58 AM -

I finally got my copy of KOTOR and all I got was eaten by a rancor

So Wednesday I stayed at work until midnight unloaading a truck. I was looking forward to sleeping in Thursday since it was my day off.

Alas, twas not to be.

I was called at eight a.m. and asked to come into work. We had gotten another truck in. Figuring I was was going to head in to buy a copy of Knights of the Old Republic anyways, I said I would.

The game hadn't arrived on the night truck and when all was said and done, it wasn't on the morning truck either. Needless to say, I was a little annoyed. Here it was the 17th and we didn't have a single copy of a game that was released on the 16th in store yet. I was figuring I'd stop off at another store and hope for the best, but fate smiled on me. About ten minutes before my shift was over, one of the merchandise workers came up and said he was told to let me know the game came in. I guess I was about as subtle waiting for it the past couple of days as a kid on Christmas. I put out a bunch of copies and bought one on my way out. So far the game has been amazing, and my character hasn't even gotten his hands on a lightsaber yet. I recommend it to anyone with an Xbox. PC folk will have to wait a couple of months, however.

I was also told that night the Microsoft guy approached one of my coworkers and told her the game wasn't supposed to be on the shelves yet. Nevermind what our internal computer system says, or the Bioware website, or the few memos we got telling us to put it out right away.

Microsoft, go figure - asmyth82 3:47 PM -

This space for rent. Enquire within.

So I figured I'd give my two cents about LXG, (finally.)

A warning for those who've read the series and expect a 100% faithful transition to screen. It's not. And for those who haven't read the series, what the hell is your major malfunction? This isn't your basic superpowered slugfest, this is a brilliant idea incorporating famous literary characters with hundreds of in jokes for those who've read the novels where the characters originated.

These in jokes in the movie are few. I did catch one about Around the World in 80 Days, but not much else.

The movie itself is a great popcorn action adventure flick. Perfect for the summer. Connery is fantastic, Nemo is cool, Hyde is great, except far too nice for the character. He's helping people out, WTF?

The invisible man provides great comic relief, Mina Harker gets to kick some ass instead of being the more "normal" character from the series. The Tom Sawyer character is a waste, and was pointless other than for the student/teacher relationship between his character and Connery's. Dorian Gray just kept reminding me of Johnny Depp.

The effects were awesome. Save for one problem. The transformation from Jeykll to Hyde was crap. Instead of showing us a transformation like the one of Banner to Hulk, (which was bad on a couple of occasions but wholly better than the transformations of LXG,) it just does this stupid flash to points during the transformation. It's Jeykll, flash! It's a slightly deformed Jeykll, flash! It's an even more dformed Jeykll, flash! Et cetera. Did they spend all their effects budget before that point? I could believe it if they did.

The Nautilus looks amazing. But it had better since they spend a good portion of time on the sub.

The characters are supposed to be slightly dark, heroes with problems. People who work together but don't wholly trust each other. They brush over this pretty damned quickly. There should have been more animosity between Quartermain and Nemo. Save for Quartermain calling Nemo a pirate, that was it. And he apologized for it shortly afterwards. The invisible man thief character should have been more self serving. He's a thief afterall, but he was quickly all about teamwork and helping people. Same with Hyde. I expected him to make tea for everyone after a while. Mr. Hyde is supposed to be an evil, despicable character. But there he is, helping the rest of the team and saving women and children. Yeesh.

Over all a very good movie despite the few problems. I recommend it.

In other news, the computer at work said we'd have the new Star Wars game for Xbox today. All the reviews have been positive and the game should be amazing. I've seen a few different dates, ranging from the 15th to the 17th. So despite this being my day off, I headed down to work in hopes of picking up a copy. Turns out while it was supposed to be here today, I have to wait for tomorrow.

Then I can choke all the people whose lack of faith I find disturbing. - asmyth82 3:37 PM -

No matter how far you go, you always wind up back at the beginning.

First off, since I've just finished reading Pattern Recognition, the Davinci Code, Idoru, Game of Thrones Book 1 of the Song of Ice and Fire, rereading Neuromancer and still in the middle of rereading Return of the King and Virtual Light, I decide I still need more, so I picked up The Darkness That Comes Before, and Jennifer Government. Jennifer Government is awesome so far and I recommend The Darkness That Comes Before not only because it's a good read, but because he's a hometown boy, still living in the city. I was contemplating buying it the other day and found out it was signed so that only added icing to the cake.

Other news:

A friend of mine is back in town for a couple of months. I hadn't seen her in almost two years, so it was great to see her again.

I saw League of Extraordinary Gentlemen earlier today. As soon as I've finished mulling it over, I'll review it. That isn't a bad thing, just collecting my thoughts. So far my recommendation is extremely positive.

It sometimes surprises me I can read five books at the same time, keep all the stories straight and also remember every damned password I've ever had. - asmyth82 5:55 PM -

God help us all

At first I thought a definite no, but my mind started to waffle. Brad could play it serious and might actually pull it off. As long as the script doesn't call for him to drees up as a gay biker and paint pictures of animals like the old Cap movies did.

According to this, however, Mr. pitt has not signed on.

The Punisher movie is shaping up however. The early trailer looked like the style was on track, though having John Travolta as the villian could lead to the kind of scenery chewing a la Broken Arrow. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is going to be in it, and I'm sure the conversation overheard in that costume department would be something like "Just put the damned blue latex on!"

I'm going to check out League of Extraordinary Gentlemen when it comes out. I was surprised they've come out with this instead of some other, more mainstream title. It should be good since Sean Connery is in it, but then I remember The Avengers and shudder.

Still have yet to hear anything really new concerning Hellboy.

The Batman Year One movie excites me, though Warner Bros. doesn't seem to know what to do with all the gold on their hands. They have so many great properties, but all they seem to do is make gold into lead.

Here's hopin' for some good movies - asmyth82 1:42 PM -