Television

Wednesday Night Menu

April 20, 2011 by Christopher

I haven’t watched much TV this week due to all the gaming I’ve been doing, and I’ve been remiss in posting my daily menu for the two of you who read it. The menu tonight:

Justified: There’s only a few episodes left, and there’s a whole lot of story threads out there. I find myself hoping they don’t wrap everything up by the end of the season. With Boyd re-entering the criminal underworld, Mags as the marijuana kingpin, and Dickie as the loose cannon, I’d be thrilled if this all spilled into season three, because having multiple crime bosses struggling for control is more interesting than just one bad guy on the top of the heap. I suspect most of it will be resolved, though. Mags will probably take a fall and Dickie seems too stupid to survive much longer. I’m sure Boyd will make it to season three, though.

As far as the hitmen from last week, I suspect they were sent by Winona’s ex (or the mob goons he’s associated with) to rub her out — Mags wouldn’t employ anyone who drove a Mercedes. So, that’s all gonna be in play, too, along with the stolen money storyline… man, it’s gearing up to be a busy conclusion this season. (FX)

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Video Games

Bullet Points: Portal 2, Part 2 (Spoiler-Free)

April 20, 2011 by Christopher

Well, I finished Portal 2 last night. To avoid spoilers of any kind, this installment of Bullet Points is going to be pretty short. Even the spoiler-free reviews I read after finishing the game gave away stuff I’m much happier to have found out myself while playing, so don’t read any of them! Don’t even read this one! (Actually, this one is fine to read.)

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Video Games

Bullet Points: Crysis 2, Part 5

April 19, 2011 by Christopher

I played great gobs of Crysis 2 over the weekend. Enjoying it still, for the most part. I’m seven hours in, according to my Steam stats.

I think I’ve been a little too sloppy with posting spoilers, blatantly listing out the storyline and such, so sorry about that. I’ll try to be a little more general with my descriptions from here on out, for those of you who haven’t played but are interested.

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Video Games

Bullet Points: Portal 2, Part 1 (Spoiler-Free)

April 19, 2011 by Christopher

There will be no spoilers below, I’m just going to be talking in very general terms about the game (which I haven’t even finished). There’s too much fun stuff to discover on your own, which is why I avoided as much of the pre-release media blitz as I could. (And I feel like I’ve probably had too many spoilers in the Crysis 2 stuff I’ve been posting). I’m not even going to post screenshots. About the only thing I mention specifically below is about an actor who does some voice-work in the game.

Anyway. Portal 2! It’s finally here, and out a few hours early to boot. It unlocked for me around 10pm last night, and after about ten minutes of waiting for the files to decrypt, I was able to start playing. I played about two hours last night, and followed it up with a little more this morning (I called in late). I haven’t tried multiplayer yet; I want to finish the single-player stuff first.

How is it? It’s great and you should buy it and play it. Some general deets and thoughts below. If you leave a comment, please keep them spoiler-free as well.

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DVD

TRON: Legacy (DVD)

April 18, 2011 by Christopher

I watched TRON: Legacy on DVD this weekend. I don’t think there are any serious spoilers below. This isn’t really a review, just some notes I made while watching it. [Read more…]

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Movies | Television | Video Games

Weekend Menu: Presidents, Parrots, and Possibly Portals

April 15, 2011 by Christopher

Busy week, what with trying to get this blog off the ground. Thanks to anyone who’s been reading!

My own personal menu for the weekend includes a watching of Tron: Legacy, which just arrived on DVD from Netflix. I’ve seen the first ten minutes of the film already, and I don’t have a lot of hope that I’ll enjoy the rest, because the preview featured a digitally-created young version of Jeff Bridges that was creepy and unconvincing. He looked like a character from a video game cut-scene. From two years ago. Also, there was a guy base-jumping off a skyscraper that served no purpose except to make the character doing it seem X-TREME.

Here’s the weekend menu; see you on Monday!

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Movies

The Future Was Then: Timecop

April 15, 2011 by Christopher

A lot can happen in ten years, but perhaps not as much as you might expect. Filmmakers in the 80’s and 90’s predicted grand changes to society and technology as we prepared to enter the 21st century, but now that we’re here, how accurate were their visions?

Today, The Future Was Then looks at Timecop, the 1994 time-travel action flick starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Interestingly, this week the Chinese government banned time-travel movies because they “disrespect history”, and after watching Timecop it’s kind of hard to argue with them.

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Television

Thursday Night Menu

April 14, 2011 by Christopher

I was a little disappointed in last night’s Extreme Couponing. The first segment featured twins who went around finding free stuff on their birthday, like lunch at Red Robin. That’s not extreme. Anyone can do that. Then, they found a grocery store selling ten pork chops for ten dollars. And they only bought ten! How is that extreme? They should be backing a truck up and buying enough pork to last them until the Rapture. Lame. Double lame, because they were twins.

The second segment featured the guy from the pilot, who bought a ton of stuff with the intent of donating some of it to U.S. soldiers, which is nice. Apparently, he’s donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods in the same manner. It’s great to see such support for our soldiers, I only wish they’d shown video of the soldiers opening their gift packages to see the looks on their faces as they received twenty pounds of women’s deodorant and Colgate toothpaste.

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Video Games

Bullet Points: Crysis 2, Part 4

April 14, 2011 by Christopher

I’m starting to realize that the stuff Prophet was doing in the intro movie is a bit different than the stuff I’m doing. He was jumping off buildings and blowing up trucks and ripping giant guns off vehicles and staring down helicopters like they couldn’t even hurt him. Me, I mainly sneak around, invisible, shooting people when they’re not paying attention and then scamper off and hide.

Not that I’m not having fun, I am. But if we were both in The Fantastic Four, Prophet would be The Thing and I’d be The Invisible Woman, if the invisible woman had a machine gun.

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DVD | Television

Wednesday Night Menu

April 13, 2011 by Christopher

I watched Unstoppable on DVD. Based on a true and interesting story about a runaway freight train, it was directed by Tony Scott, who I think realized too late that he wanted to make an action film but most of the action boils down to two guys sitting in a train cab, talking.

His solution was to never, ever stop swinging the camera around and around and around. It was almost funny if not for the fact that I was almost getting motion sick. No matter how mundane the topic, the camera was always swooshing all over the place. Anyway, the movie was not enjoyable awful, nor awfully enjoyable. It was just sort of there.

To the menu!

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