#15 - On the Chinese BBQ Pork Buns My Mother Gave Me

There is no true way to eat a bbq pork bun. At least when it comes to reheating them. I received 5 or 6 "prepackaged" pork buns from my mother last weekend. Not quite sure where she got them but perhaps I should ask. Each one was individually wrapped, without paper stuck to the bottom of it, much like you would find sweet red bean buns in the little "bread corner" in most asian supermarkets. You know what I'm talking about. High five my brothers.
I am sometimes wary of pork buns. They are delicious. They are just a bread exterior, sometimes rice dough, sometimes with sweet stuff smeared on top for extra oomph. The bbq pork inside is hard to mess up. Sometimes however I get a large bit of onion that is a little too... large for my taste. It isn't the flavor that gets me. It is the texture. As I chew on the meat, this leafy slimy thing smears itself on my tongue and gags me, turning what was a pleasurable experience into a STRUGGLE FOR LIFE ITSELF.
I broke out the pork buns in the middle of playing a videogame with my friend Nam who was thankfully online. Otherwise I would have had to share them with him. I microwaved the buns in their little packages despite his advice to steam them. I am lazy. Turns out it did not matter either. The outside bread did achieved the heat properties of a lesser star after spending a few seconds too long in the microwave and it also got a bit soggy. I was vaguely upset, though when I held it in my hand, the outside of the bread was still dry and pleasant to the touch. Not unless a fresh cooked brownie. I bit down onto the overly moist bread and hit the meat which was delicious and it's slightly drier than usual nature (though still sweet with delicious sauce) balanced out the consistency of the outer bun. Truly a good pork bun. Each one I ate over the course of the last few days has been equally dilectable and not once did I suffer an onion attack.
Grade: A

Addendum

I have temporarily removed the review #13 because it caused my browser to close at work. No idea.

#14 - On the Jousting Competition at the Maryland Renaissance Festival 2008

Let me start with the best foot forward: It was a beautiful day. Normally I find myself (if I normally do such a thing) at the Renaissance festival in the autumn, where going is an excuse to enjoy the mild weather while eating a gigantic turkey leg. This year I found myself going with Capt. Mystery to the event on its first day of celebration. I feared the worst. The weather here tends to gravitate towards the moist/fish-ridden variety of humidity and I give my sweat glands an F- because they tend to cry angry gravy at even the smallest hint of "warmth". So when I say that it was a beautiful day, do not take this lightly. I expected the worst and was given THE BEST. The sky was hollywood blue. The grass was bollywood green. Air was coolish and it was NOT very humid at all.
Already, not of its own accord, the Jousting Competition is doing pretty well.
The festival is always the same, so weather plays a big role in whether (weather? HAAAAHAHAHAHA) or not the whole thing is a lark or a lump. Does this all mean this review will be favorable? Even the dumbest baby knows the answer.
Do you know those movies, the one Hollywood loves to make, where massive armies fan out before a grandly armored leader or some sort. They are a bustle with excitement. Then a cry rings out: "MEN OF THE _direction_, HEAR MY CALL!!!" Then something about battle and then everyone and goes and dies in the name of basically that person and his/her speech. What I have learned most from the Renaissance Festival is that in a realistic situation, where a man in armor is yelling, years of community theater voice training in his throat, I will hear this: "Do __ __ ___ __ KING! AND RE_____ TO _____ __ ___ FEVERED ___ WE CHEER!" At which point someone is paid to raise a sign that tells us to cheer and the entire audience cheers. I wouldn't mind if it was just me not quite getting it. I'd still stand up and cheer wholeheartedly if everyone around me was feeling it. But the "HUZZAH" sign raised in the clear afternoon calls us all liars and lets us all know we are in on the sad lie that is "we are totally entertained and know what is going on." So it boils down to moments of boredom and confusion and despite the weather... overheating followed by bursts of LIES. CHEERING LIES.
HUZZAH! I cheer not knowing who I am cheering for.
HUZZAH! The crowd cheers, only 5% able to hear the explanation of what's happening.
Maybe if there was blood. And so the joust began. First was the rings or cans or whatever, where they knocked cans off of posts or something. Something about replacing rings with cans made it seem very wrong. Then some bearded nerd fought another bearded nerd with staves or polearms of some sort. They did say what they were. I just couldn't hear it.
The whole first fight was very stagey, but I allowed myself to enjoy it in some silly fun fashion. Then Captain Mystery whispered "Jeez, it's so staged!"
My reply was "DUH!" but what I meant was "I was trying to hide myself from that sad truth but now I cannot for thine words have pulled the cloak of mystery from my mind and I am awash in shame and embarrassment for all parties."
Next came the thing where two knights on horses hit each other with wooden swords. This was promising because you knew it didn't have to be staged. The swords were wooden, not like the metal polearms of the first fight. Let it be known however, that not staged does not mean exciting. Constrained to their horses, the two opponents could only stand next to one another and repeatedly buffet one another with similar blows, like rock em soc em robots being played by epileptic children. It was an exercise in repetition that Steve Reich would have been envious of. Eventually someone won, but I was busy looking at the place that sold wooden swords, dreaming of the day when I too could bore onlookers with my boring exploits.
The actual joust was good. Dude's hitting each other with lances. Things splintering. Nothing amazing though. I always secretly dream that something will slip, and we'll see something awful like a man impaled by a lance through his exposed throat. I say this now, edgy like all that, but in reality if I saw it, I would be the first to cry. But at least crying would be something.
In some perverse way though, in pretending to enjoy the whole affair, I almost did. At least I got to sit down.
Grade: C

ON +/-

I was about to review the movie Pineapple Express which would receive a C+ when I realized that I had just given Brazilian Girls a B-. What's the fundamental difference between those two grades? Is it like a line on a scale? Rather than using the + or - as replacements for smaller incremental markings on a scale, I look at this this way. Pineapple Express was basically a C movie, it was okay, the jokes were pretty good, the pacing was sometimes off, and whatever, but it had the addest great value of the chemistry of the cast and that they all seemed to be having a good time. That augments how I felt about the movie, without changing what I feel the overall quality of the movie was.
Brazilian Girls' "New York City" is a good album, but there's some weird lack of artistic zeal, some hidden bit of daring that holds it back just slightly. It nags in the back of my mind and makes me question giving it a B, but in the end, it's still a good album. Not enough to take it down.
C+ is an average thing with things that push it slightly upwards. B- is a good thing with the minor niggles that keep it from being close to an A. Make sense?
Probably not.

#12 - On the album "New York City" by Brazilian Girls

Brazilian Girls occupies a strange area in the pop spectrum. It seems as if they are unsure what they are shooting for in the grand scheme of their career. This is not to say that they are unfocused in their sound, which is a mish mash of French pop, hip hop beats, rock, and whatever else comes their way. In fact this aspect of the band seems almost too calculated at times. Also, such flagrant strides for eclecticism to mask actual songwriting and ideas seems a bit... 1990's. Still, they do what they do pretty well, and when the songs match up to the production, it's still middle ground music, but high middle ground. Are they shooting for the charts or just trying to stay artistically viable? Can't tell. This album basically nails that high middle ground and stays there. Far better than their previous album "Talk to La Bomb" which I found almost annoying, this one has moments that are genuinely gorgeous/moving/exciting. "Nouveau American" reminds one of Ms. John Soda at their best, and "L'interprete" is gorgeous because they don't throw all their tricks in the basket, opting for a gentle acoustic song that reminds me of a Vashti Bunyan song if sung by Francoise Hardy. Pretty stuff. And the album carries on like that. It finds the band becoming more sure of their place in the world, even if that place is some strange place between things, and confidently waggling their music in it. I like it quite a bit when it's "on", but I don't know if I'll find it playing that much in the iPod. I recommend it to friends who aren't into the stuff I say I like the most. You know who you are.
Grade: B-

#11 - On "Farty Guy"

Let me state first that farting or "passing gas" is a natural occurrence and should at no point reflect on the person releasing such emissions, no matter how stinky they are. The grade to be given to the following subject is due to an assortment of reasons and the monicker given to him is just that: a name used to refer to the subject.
Do you remember the alphabet? I sure do. But Farty Guy does not. He walks into a record store and asks for the "rhythm and blues" section. After being directed to the section, Farty Guy then asks where Starpoint is. When shown where it is, Farty Guy stares at the section and then asks where Cherelle is. Farty Guy is always asking after looking for only 2 seconds. Is he actually looking then? After he asks, he continues to look. What is the point then? Farty Guy does not know. He would probably also ask this question. If he was someone smarter than Farty Guy.
Farty Guy then brings his objects to the counter to be purchased, and while talking, he farts. The smell is an explosion of wrong. It is the frowns of eleven small D-average school children. It is a flower wilting in a velvet painting in a thrift store. It is perhaps, the most unhappy smell ever. Farty Guy dwells in the realm of the smell for a while before exiting the store. Upon opening the door to leave, however, he takes a look behind him and says in the best confused voice he can muster, "What the?" as if the idea of using his nose had just come to him. As if the fart had crawled forth from some dark unknown recess of his body beyond time and his own notice, hovered for a while, watching the transaction with a bemused expression on its face before tapping him on the shoulder and saying, matter-of-factly, "you farted. shhhh..."
Thanks Farty Guy, for leaving your indelible stamp in here and requiring that we prop the door open with a wooden stick.
Grade: D+

#10 - On Today's Drive to Work

I was running about a minute late so in my hurry I didn't notice much that was notable happening around me. The weather is particularly hot nowadays which left me relying on the a/c instead of lowering my windows. This is not a great thing as I like the feeling of the wind roaring through the car. I get to blast music louder and FEEL THE ROCK N ROLL! On the good side, the windows being down hinders the aerodynamics of my car somewhat, lessening my gas mileage. Minimal red lights. Minimal bad drivers. The main part of the drive, down 95 N, was a bit crowded but nothing that really slowed me down. In Laurel, a block or so away from work, I did spot "Crazy Olympics" man (see: #1 - On Laurel...) dressed in nothing but the usual shorts and pink bandana. Oddly, he was standing next to a man at a crosswalk who was wearing blue jeans shorts and a blue bandana. I don't know if it made it more or less appropriate that instead of being shirtless, this other man, who I assume was also crazy, was wearing a blue stonewashed vest. Each one was a mountain of rippling muscles, no doubt from their daily crazy olympic training: doing push ups outside Chipotle, yelling at strangers, hiding food in bushes, and dancing to inaudible music.
For my music, I was listening to the soundtrack for Beck (reviewed below) which, detached from the show, is not that great, but contains two or three good songs. I listened to one song twice, leaving me with not enough time to listen to the other ones. I instead indecisively, and quite me-ishly, flipped through half of one song and half of the other and got really nothing out of it in the process.
The left turn into work was not as bad as it usually is. And parking was a snap, despite me thinking the store's owner was at work due to all the shiny black "business class" cars in the lot.
So the drive did its job, getting me from point A to point B with no hassles and with a little entertainment, though the entertainment did make me question my sanity a bit.
Grade: B

#9 - On BECK: The Series

Hopefully this isn't a trend of turning this blog into a nerdy anime review site. This will give the reader the wrong impression that I am some sort of uber anime nerd. Yeah, I watch a few shows, but I only have enjoyed a few. Cowboy Bebop, the Giant Robo OVA's, Miyazaki movies, Satoshi Kon, and the work of Studio 4C. Other than that, I find the "genre" (a funny term to use for basically an entire industry that cranks out works of all sorts of genres) to be kind of stale because for all of its inventiveness, every story is told in the same sort of anime "voice". The same staples come out and to casual viewers are either confusing or annoying and to a person who (being japanese) kind of grew up with alot of it... it becomes slightly embarrassing. This isn't to say that popular American television isn't full of awful things. I'm just used to it, I suppose. This is a thing people have to remember when they say "oh, i don't like anime." It's just an entire culture of television, and like any large group of pop cultural products, you are bound to have your bad and average things and sometimes, very rarely, something great will pop up.
Not that Beck is that "great thing", but it is very good.
Perhaps I am biased though. A long time ago, maybe over ten years ago, I saw a movie on television called Cotton Candy. Later I found out that this was some lame tv movie done in the 70's by Ron Howard. It was about a high school kid (played by I believe Charles Martin Smith of The Untouchables and Never Cry Wolf) who starts a fun little pop rock band to defeat the resident "cool" band in a big Battle of the Bands. I LOVED this movie. Was it good? NO. But it was about a band. Apparently I will watch anything involving music and the camraderie that forms in the making of it. Once? Check. The Commitments? Check. That Thing You Do? Check. MUSIC & LYRICS??? Check! And I liked each one. Don't get me wrong, I love the occassional rockumentary (DiG! was brilliant) but sometimes you just wanna see a fake ass band MAKE IT!!!!!!!!
(Seriously though, Cotton Candy... fun shit.)
BECK is an anime series about a young boy, about 14 years old, named Koyuki Tanaka (I think... I don't really recall) who is sort of a shy losery type. He eventually discovers the power of ROCK N ROLL and learns how to play the guitar and joins a band called, surprise, BECK. Alot of sites had cited this show as SUPERCOOL! but what I really enjoy about it is how UNCOOL it is. Sure, it tries to get all cool with how super awesome the lead guitarist for BECK is supposed to be. There are anime moments about "his skills are unsurpassed!" but then the objects of power are not crystals of power but vintage Telecasters. I suppose that IS cool. The uncool part is how boring life outside the band seems, but not in a bad way. The show seems to capture the NEAR poetry of how mundane everyday life is while still working in a love story that unfolds with little drama but still in a sweet sad little way. When Koyuki joins the band, one almost believes his life will immediately become awesome and the show will take flight in a ROCK N ROLL!!!!! Guitar Wolf kind of way. But instead his life, like in real life, doesn't really change. And it's all the more beautiful for it. The show does build to a big climactic point, but then moves past it in a gentler way and the very ending is realistic and totally uplifting. Sweet but not too saccharine.
All of this praise however comes with small prices. Certain characters speak English, and while the bad english is kind of forgiveable when it comes to Japanese characters (although they DO try to sound kinda cool too and fail), it is also unforgiveably bad when spoken by AMERICAN characters. This took me out of the show but not enough to hate it.
Is the music good? Not really, though I enjoyed a few songs. You can't make a large scale project about a rock band that is supposed to be AMAZING without making some concessions to the crappy music throne but some of the pop songs that BECK performs are pretty great. At least in the context of the show. Definitely better than say... The HEIGHTS (anyone?).
I will add that I love the theme song of the show and wish it was a song the band played.
The art for Beck is also noteworthy for it's beautifully painted backgrounds. Nothing super stylish. In fact, almost the opposite, the show is more slanted towards the realistic end of the anime spectrum.
I do have one big beef which is (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!) in the Japanese release of the show, a main character performs "I've Got a Feeling" by The Beatles by himself as basically the big climactic moment of the series. In the American dub, it's a different song because of rights, understandable. In the japanese dub however, it is also different. And if the song was okay, it would make sense, but basically the dude sings the same boring verse OVER AND OVER ("I've Got A Feeling" is a long song and in the show the scene lasts a LONG TIME.) This would be awesome if it had the build of the original song in the Japanese release (I've heard it and it's great) but instead... it nearly destroys the big moment. The melody the character sings is totally fine, but more laid back, and in the context of the show, the beauty of "I've Got A Feeling" is how naked and open the exclamation is. How the melody rises. All of it is an exclamation that builds and builds on itself. It's not just a song... it's.. A FEEEEELING!
This is totally lost in the change. So if I next go to Japan, you know I'll be getting the DVD there of that episode.
Bottom line: This show is great if you are not into "anime-feeling" anime. However there are a few things that are VERY "anime" in it. It's a tough sell but if you can get past its faults and get into the "mode" of it, it's an amazing series. For music loving anime nerds who can get past the fact that the music isn't awesome, just the fact that the people making it are.
Grade: B+

#7 - A few short reviews from the past:

"Once" (movie) - Beautiful and intimate. Grade: A
***
"Wall-E" (movie) - At once intimate and epic. Slightly disjointed in pace. Grade: A-
***
"Hellboy 2" (movie) - Unashamedly fun. Visually gorgeous. A medium weight movie done by a heavyweight director. Grade: B+
***
"The Dark Knight" (movie)- A dark crisp feature. "Depth" mainly when compared to other "comic book movies". Not the masterpiece people say it is. But still... Grade: B+
***
"Persepolis" (movie) - Beautiful. A subdued animated masterpiece. The art style, while slightly different from the comic, is gloriously realized. Grade: A
***
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (movie) - You'd think it'd be easy to make another movie about a dude who basically runs from Nazis and it's immediately cool. NOPE. Apparently it is impossible. At least to anything involving George Lucas. The movie at least TRIES. Or DOES IT? Grade: C-
***
Lil Wayne "The Carter III" (music) - A great diverse album from one of hip hop's most original (yet still gangsta) voices. Some songs a bit too R&B-ish. His mixtapes (WHICH ARE FREE) are better. Grade: B-
***
Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago" (music) - A bleak and gorgeous album. Beautiful vocals, amazing simple production. A sad long painful goodbye to pain. Grade: A
***
Beirut "The Flying Club Cup" (music) - The band has one of the most beautiful sounds in modern music. Unfortunately the songs begin to sound a bit samey, and no song here is as solid as earlier 'hits' "Elephant Gun" and "Postcards From Italy". It seems that they are sometimes coasting on a formula they nearly perfected. But not quite. Grade: B
***
Weezer "The Red Album" (music) - Good Weezer albums are becoming more of a surprise nowadays. This album is not a surprise. It is more disheartening than ever. Most embarrassing tracks than usual. Grade: D
***
REM - "Accelerate" (music) - Less a return to form and more a swing in the right direction, this album sees REM doing what it did best (and better) in it's IRS records heyday. Throwing out seemingly simple but rousing pop/rock numbers. Unfortunately, none of the songs are as good as before and it just seems like "Document"-lite. Still, that's better than 80% of what is out there. Grade: C
***
Seether - any albums (music?) - Grade: n/a Material reviewed must serve as some form of art or entertainment to have any sort of grade allocated to it.
***

#6 - On My Coworker Today at the Music Store

At the behest of Cap'n Mystery, I will review my coworker at the Music Store today. In my other job, doing IT at an embassy in DC, this would be difficult as I have no real co-workers, unless you count the employees at the embassy. One could do that I suppose, but I am a contract worker there so they are technically not my co-workers but elements of my job. At this music store it is much easier.

Unless the day happens to be today, which by some twist of fate, today IS today. My co-worker in this case is an empty patch of air.

Without a co-worker, I no longer have proof that I exist. The customers in the store are a woefully craptacular lot so perhaps they merely slogged forth from the murky swamp of my mind. I do have proof that I am working, for work is done, but perhaps that is part of the nightmare as well. Still, be it dream or not, I exist in the mind of whatever I am, wherever I am. The air does not do much of the work for me, and sometimes it also becomes uncomfortably warm. At times like this, I press a button on the wall and it seems to drive my co-worker a little further away.

Attempts to converse with my co-worker are met with uncomfortable silence. Is this because it is mute? Does not wish to speak to me? I pass through my co-worker often during the day and perhaps it finds this offensive. Still, it does not get in my way when I am working and it does not play awful music in the cd player and that is really the most important part.

Grade: B+

Review #5 - Tweeny Witches: the Series

Let me explain this one first. Yeah yeah, it's an anime basically for kids. Female kids even. A friend made me watch it. That's not the real reason though.

Studio 4C. That's why.

For those unfamiliar, Studio 4C is an animation studio that gave us (and by "us" I mean... not many people) the movies Tekkon Kincreet (which was pretty good) and Mind Game (which was AMAZING, but only released in Japan because life is unfair) along with the odd series Kemonozume (which is also quite brilliant.) The one thing all of these shows have in common is their vividly imaginative visual style. I say this as someone who has seen his fair share of anime, but is also vaguely sick of the usual anime visual style. The style of Studio 4C shows tends to be equal parts anime and then european style comics and american independent animation. It's a delirious mix that consistently surprises with it's camera angles, compositions, use of color schemes and odd animation effects. Mind Game was best among these, followed by Kemonozume, then Tekkon Kincreet. Coming in last is Tweeny Witches, which seems to be the company's shot at making a relatively "normal" anime style series. I found the show on their website and mentioned it to Cap'n Mystery (name changed for political reasons) who then watched the show on youtube (her being closer to the target demographic than I am). When it later came out on DVD in the states, she promptly snapped it up and watched it all over again, this time dragging me along for the ride.

As I said, the show seems to be the company's attempt at making a regular anime. Unfortunately it is not as easy and breezy as most regular anime's nor is it as cutting edge as their usual fair. In the end, the whole thing is less than the sum of the parts. Visually, it is an amazing show. Witches and wizards fly about wearing goggles and drawn in such odd shapes that highlight more the outlining shapes of the characters. It's hard to describe what makes the style so beautiful to me. But a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the show: I kept falling asleep. Not that this is new to me, but no matter how dramatic the story got, I was slightly puzzled/bored/apathetic. It was all a bit too much grand gesturing with every grand gesture/plot twist displayed as if in a case showing the most generic essence of each thing. This despite the show being really weird.

What was it about? A girl named Arusu (or Alice) finding herself in a magical world where magic exists and fairies are being hunted for.. some reason. Something to do with dark magic/light magic and some other hoohah. Alice is supposed to be spunky and fun, but we know this more because we are told this many times. Not because she actually is. And that is the problem. The show seems to be advertising what it's all about more than actually BEING what it is all about. In the end though, I had no real idea what had happened, just how I was supposed to feel but didn't really.

Still, it was really effin' pretty.

Grade: C
For Cat or other type nerds, me included: B-

#4 - On videogame "Geometry Wars 2" for the XBLA

I remember when I first saw Geometry Wars. It was about half a year after it came out but I was spellbound. Unlike the rock band The Killers, it seems that developer Bizarre has taken something from the 80's (in this case the Robotron style, twin stick shooter) and reworked it into something actually stylish and fun. The music in the first Geometry Wars was also better than anything off of "Hot Fuss" or "Sam's Town".

When a new Geometry Wars was announced, I wondered how they polish up a game known for it's simplicity. Any big changes would change it into something altogether different. Not enough and it would not be worth it. Though at 10$ most fans of the original have probably already purchased a copy of it to try out.

Graphically, not much has changed, yet the game seems more alive with color and, for lack of better word: GLOWIER. A common criticism often lobbed at the original game was, that with all of the onscreen activity going on, it was hard to follow the action. The player would lose track of where their tiny spaceship was and this would spell CERTAIN DOOOOOOM. The thing is, this didn't really happen. I am near sighted in one eye and far sighted in the other. Things tend to lose focus for me and I get lost in busy images but not once did I have problems with Geometry Wars and the same holds for this game despite that fact defying all visual logic. Playing the game can often, to the casual observer, seem like watching a videotape of a fireworks display as held in the world of Tron if that movie was made in Flatland.

That is precisely why the game was brilliant. It worked. That says something about the careful visual balance attained, just on the edge of insanity, but playable by most everyone. It takes simple gameplay and puts it on the verge of being nearly TOO futuristic. Walking that fine line is what makes the series such a joy to play.

To those who do now know what Geometry Wars is and who do not know what "Robotron Style Shooter" means, here is a brief explanation (which is really all that is necessary): The player controls a small avatar on-screen, in Geometry Wars it is a triangle/spaceship and in Robotron it was a little humanoid figure. With the left joystick they control the movement of the character. With the right joystick, they control the direction the character shoots. There is no fire button involved. Simply push the joystick in the direction you wish to fire and PEW PEW PEW!!! Lasers. Enemies emerge on the field of battle and try to kill you. That's about it. In Robotron there were killer robots. In this game IT IS GLOWING GEOMETRIC SHAPES. The brilliance of Geometry Wars is that each shape comes in a distinctive color and acts according to a separate but identifiable AI (artificial intelligence) routine. Blue diamonds slowly follow around your ship where as pink diamonds are quicker and quirkier in their path to kill you. Green blobs chase you about but when you turn to fire on them they bob and weave and try to run from you. They are like the cowardly managers in the old pro wrestling shows that would act cowardly then hit you in the back with a folding chair. There are glowing snakes that seem to meander vaguely in your direction. Tiny orange arrows that merely dart to and fro across the field of battle. At any given moment there could be anywhere up to a hundred or so shapes at one time. When the green ones clump together it is like doing battle with a glowing pool of water. The effect is mesmerizing and gorgeous. All the while you interact with all of these creatures in terms that seem very simple but in the simple world seem like all you ever need. It feels smart and realistic in the terms of the game. Rather than a game that shoots to emulate reality and then falls prey to the uncanny valley, you get ultimate flexible simplicity. The world is simple and beautiful and nearly poetic in it's neon hyperactivity. The game feels more alive than most games could ever hope to, all in a package that is as simple as Pac Man ever was.

But that is merely a description of Geometry Wars. The cosmetic differences are probably only apparent to people who spent hours playing the original and if that was all there was it would not be worth the purchase (though I still would have purchased it.) Added to the sequel is a small gaggle of different enemy types and more significantly, a slew of new game modes.

The addition of new game modes and the brilliance of the "in-menu leaderboard" add to the addictive quality of the game, much like the timer/score mechanic did in the recent update of Pac Man on XBLA. What this means is that on the screen where you select which game type you wish to play, there is a leaderboard for each type showing the highest scores among your friends who own the game. This leads to that "oh no he/she didn't!" feeling where you want to jump in and one up one another. It's a simple and brilliant little detail that adds alot to what makes the game so great.

There are 6 game modes:
Deadline - You have 3 minutes to score as many points as possible. You have unlimited lives, but every time you die, the enemies all go away for a few seconds. This is a big deal when you're trying to destroy as many as you can in a limited time.

King - A clever play on King of the Hill game types, your ship can only shoot from inside glowing circles which eventually shrink and go away. The enemy cannot enter the circles making the game a mad dash from circle to circle. The whole thing looks like germs swirling around neon petri dishes.

Evolved - The classic "last as long as you can, score as high as possible" game from the original Geometry Wars Evolved game.

Pacifism - Easily my favorite of the group. You cannot shoot and must fly through small gates to destroy nearby enemies. No description can convey how fun this game type is. It is a game of pure skill. Since you cannot shoot, you use only one joystick. That is it.

Waves - The hardest of the group (to me) but seemingly the easiest. Waves of little enemy ships that basically fly back and forth until you kill them appear. That's it. Good luck.

Sequence - My second favorite of the games, you have to fight through a series of times battles that ramp up in difficulty. Nearly a space adventure (told by little geometric shapes)!

The games play so fast, sometimes lasting as little as a half a second if you're REALLY awful, that you can easily get caught up in a neverending cycle, constantly reaching for that friend's high score. If you get sick of one game, you just pick another, they are all different enough. The game is a brilliant balance of all things: modern, retro, simple, hectic, easy controls, horribly challenging gameplay. And it's around 10 bucks. WTF people, hop to it.

Grade: A

Small Sidenote: Today I heard the song "When I Grow Up" by Garbage (from the album Version 2.0, which is a pretty good old pop album) and one of the first sentences finds singer Shirley Manson comparing something to a "giant juggernaut". By definition of the word, are there small juggernauts? Was it perhaps a standout juggernaut in a field of "everyday Joe-Shmo" juggernauts? Let us think on this until next we meet.

#3 - On the Midnight Release of Stephanie Meyer's Book "Breaking Dawn" at a Barnes & Noble in Bethesda

The Book Release as an Event. I have only been to two of these before, each one being a Harry Potter release. I was curious to see how tonight's gathering would go as I have little to no interest in the book and had no idea how popular it was exactly. Would the evening have the crackling nerdish energy of the HP release parties? Would it bring together all nerds, great and small, huddling in the aisles of the local large chain bookstore?
As I drove around the store I noted that it did not seem as busy as the HP releases that I had been to. There no line snaking its way out of the mouth of the store and onto the sidewalk outside. It seemed to be quite a regular night. Then Mandi pointed to the second floor and that is where I saw THE DANCING.
This almost made us reconsider going inside to get the book. Thankfully we powered through our feelings of what-can-only-be-called shame and entered the store. It really was just like any other night in the week save for the top floor which was filled with all teenaged girls dressed in black and red in charmingly ramshackle approximations of the "hot vampire" aesthetic. A good 0% achieved the look successfully and unlike the Harry Potter nights, there were probably 1 or 2 males in attendance. This is including me. I surprised myself by being less annoyed at all the teenagers and more quaintly amused. How could I be mad at a bunch of kids who were excited by a book (however lame that book may be)? Still, the fiasco was contained to small hotspots in the store. People took prom style photos for some odd reason. The aforementioned dancing. Each activity was altogether lame and yet adorably charming. It made me question every single time I thought I may have felt cool as a teen. But then it made me embrace those moments because weren't we all just trying to become people back then?
The actual waiting for the book was disappointingly easy. I vaguely craved a near apocalyptic struggle between order and chaos to ensue. What I got was more a strange prom-like dance between order and chaos, where order and chaos stay pressed to the walls, afraid to dance with one another. The line made no sense to me, yet it moved along fine and before long I was outside the store and Mandi had her book. It wasn't great, but it wasn't as dreadful as it could have been. If I was forced to, for some reason, endure it alone however, that place would have gone up in flames.
Grade: B-
-Ben

#2 - On the DVD Case for "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"

Odds are pretty high, barring some tragic event that would no doubt score an F here, that I will never see the movie "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale". The trailers for it were pretty lousy, making it seem like a budget version of Lord of the Rings where the camera lens was covered with some sort of sand colored filter to make everything seem grittier... manlier even. As a result, the "art" on the front of the DVD case is most definitely gritty and sand colored: a large photo of Jason Statham's face superimposed over tiny battle scene. Or is it the other way? Is it a tiny scene superimposed over the manly landscape that is Statham's face? Perhaps the graphic artist was trying to create that odd sense where the viewer questions what he/she is seeing and perhaps learns a little about themself in the process. That tension would be an interesting thing to explore visually, but rather than call attention to the space where the tension is greatest in the image, the graphic designer merely placed the title of the movie in BOLD RED LETTERS. The bold nearly Impact style font used is very modern for such a medieval romp, perhaps suggesting that despite the era this takes place in, it is a "hip" modern movie. It is saying: "I am too powerful a work of art to be corralled in by the constraints placed on other such period fantasy pieces. I bristle with unpredictablity and you definitely want to find out what other treasures lie within this DVD case."
Below the title, possibly added after the fact, comes the words "A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE". The font used for this seems quite throwaway. Perhaps someone forgot this was a dungeon siege tale and was reminded. It seems like an odd thing to advertise anyways. I am aware that this movie is based on a videogame, but then why not just call it DUNGEON SIEGE? The title "In the Name of the King" seems to suggest that perhaps director/auteur Uwe Boll was attempting to move away from the amateurish conventions of his earlier work and also the stigma of being a videogame movie director. "This movie is no longer a Dungeon Siege movie. It is now a visionary fantasy epic by me, Uwe Boll! It is its own being!" And then maybe somebody saw the movie and the "A DUNGEON SIEGE MOVIE" got stamped on the case. Having this as a subtitle lends to the case a terrifying assumption that perhaps there will be a series of movies that are DUNGEON SIEGE TALES. I would rather not think about that now though. Next to the gigantic head of Jason Statham is the words "Jason Statham". Perhaps in case you did not know he was in the movie.
At the very center of the case is a review blurb calling this "A Grand, Epic Adventure." Well really it is in all caps like this: "A GRAND, EPIC ADVENTURE", but I am assuming the critic from Cinemablend.com did not actually yell this out. Either way, I will probably never read Cinemablend.com as a result of this.
On the back of the case is a paragraph about the movie which curves around a photo of Jason Statham, again looking manly. Below him is the standard row of stills from the movie. Each one seems to be of a persons face looking stern or angry. All are comical.
This case seems to advertise: "Buy this movie if you want a manly fantasy adventure starring Jason Statham. As a bonus, I am an awful movie." I'm sure the people who put out the DVD wanted the former advertised more than the latter. Unfortunately, both are in full force here.
Grade: C+
-Ben

#1: On Laurel on a Sunny Afternoon (Location)

It is a sunny afternoon in Laurel, MD. Many people would mistake the word "sunny" for happy, and perhaps some people are happy right now in this town. Sunny in MD usually also means humid to the point where the air becomes drinking water (though given the hygiene of the locals, possibly only after thorough filtering.) The heat also brings out the local crazy man whose name is supposedly "Robert" although my friend Kevin calls him "Crazy Olympics". Let me explain. "Robert" is a large muscular black man who, when first spotted, was seen doing pushups and dancing in front of a boombox in front of the local Chipotle. He was wearing nothing but a bandana around his head, and shorts. Maybe shoes. But perhaps that is asking too much of him. It was pretty silly. A week later when he was still doing it, it was sillier still and even a bit scary. And then half a year later, when he came into the CD Store and threatened to kill everyone inside, it was even less silly and more scary. One day, in the early days of his appearances, my friend Dave was driving with Kevin and they spotted him by the side of the road, obviously doing push ups or some sort of exercise.
Dave: "What's that guy doing?"
Kevin: "Training for the crazy olympics."
And so on this hot day, we have this man here. Laurel drivers are out in droves because apparently nobody in this town has a job to be at, and they are most wonderful at being some of the most selfish and careless drivers ever, driving with only themselves in mind and possibly a feeling that maybe their car is a ghost car, capable of passing through other vehicles should they be driving carelessly on the correct side of the road.
Still, Laurel also has less SUV's than most places. I guess that's good. Until you realize that the people who can afford SUV's here just end up getting HUMVEES. Usually camouflage ones. And why camouflage? What is the practical use of camouflage, a color scheme used to hide one from one's enemies, on a car that is bought mainly to attract attention with its audacity?
A notch above Glen Burnie, which consists of less jerks, but of more sad people jonesin for crack money, I give Laurel on this Sunny Day an average score. It may seem bad, but hey, this is America.
Grade: C
-Ben

Next Time Maybe: Are you excited about the exciting Stephanie Meyers book? The blood pumping "Twilight" series is drawn to a close! WOW! Tomorrow, I will post a glorious review of, not the book, but the Barnes&Noble where I will be waiting in line with my friend as she waits to buy the book. It's going to be spectacular. And maybe someday I'll read one of these books.

Blogging About Stuff I Like

On the vast expanse of the interweb, I have a few plots of virtual real estate, each one devoted to basically the same type of blogging. Here I will not blog, but post reviews of things that I have enjoyed and maybe no enjoyed so much. They will be graded, like children from (worst to best): F,E,D,C,B,A,S(uper!)
After a while, perhaps the reasonings behind my gradings while become lucid. Perhaps not.
Enjoys!