hobbitses and holidays

ugh...so obviously i haven't blogged since mid 2011.  i really didn't realize it had been that long to be honest.  that whole pesky life thing keeps getting in the way even though it is quite a fun and interesting ride.  so down to the most recent important stuff - the hobbit of course!  good time to talk about hobbits too considering it is currently right before elevenses (although by the time i get enough spare time to devote to finishing this post we may be at time for tea).

the hobbit:  an unexpected journey - 9.5/10 snaps - i would give this movie 10/10 however some folks are displeased with the addition of content not from the actual book (apparently there's a lot from the extra appendices to the lord of the rings novels as well as a good bit just manufactured from thin air in regard to both radagast the brown and azog).  granted i have not read the book since the year 1996 so i can't remember much of what has been added or removed for the film's sake but man did i enjoy this movie.  the acting, as in all of the lotr films, was impeccable.  my favorite actors in this particular film were ian mckellan (gandalf the grey), martin freeman (bilbo), aidan turner (kili), and richard armitage (thorin oakenshield).  the scenery was gorgeous.  the story was fun and there was no whining frodo that you wanted to kick throughout (yeah yeah the ring made him a pain, blah blah blah).

we actually shelled out the extra cash to go see this in 3d in one of the "regal premium experience" theaters.  the 3d didn't really add all that much to this particular film and i suppose it would be just as beautiful in 2d.  whilest i didn't feel like the movie dragged or lasted three hours, several of my good friends (my brother johnathon, his girlfriend sterling, etc.) did seem to think the movie was a bit long for them.

all in all i think if you're a fantasy fan, you'll certainly enjoy this movie as long as you take the hobbit:  an unexpected journey as it is and don't expect it to be verbatim from the book.

short aside on the regal premium experience - eh...i'm not that impressed.  the seats, while comfier and will lay back a bit more than in the regular theaters, were also packed closer together and even though my seat could lean substantially i kept getting kicked by anyone who had to use the restroom during this three hour movie and was in the row behind me as well as being super close to the young lady next to me who kept playing with my keys.  nice idea but maybe regal should have taken a bit more time to think about the layout of the theater.  i didn't notice any difference with the supposed awesome sound system, new projectors, or larger screen so in my honest opinion, i feel the "premium experience" could have been better.

next up - gaming - i am still playing everquest 2 but am not in norrath as much as i'd like to be as i've got too much else going on.  sean and our friend terry from eq2 have both taken quite a liking to guild wars 2.  i'll probably do a post on gw2 in a few days when i have some more time.  i find that i prefer eq2 just due to the fact that i enjoy being a pure healer class whilest in gw2 that is not really an option.

i'll post about life after the holidays so for now - merry christmas and happy new year!

as always...enjoy the silence...

prince of persia: the sands of time, splice, and the sims 3: ambitions

prince of persia: the sands of time - 4.5/10 - i thought this film would blow. i have not played the game so i have no idea how well it portrays the game at all. i'm really not a big fan of jake gyllenhaal either except for his role in donnie darko. we'll just overlook all of gemma arterton's role as she was a bit much. the movie, however, was actually somewhat enjoyable. there was enough action to keep me preoccupied throughout the film and the plot was okay even if it was somewhat predictable. i wouldn't go rushing to theaters to see this one but i think it'd be an okay popcorn flick dvd rental.

splice - 3/10 - bah! this film was so promising. i love horror. i love science. mix the two together and voila; perfect freaking movie...not so much in this case. so the movie starts off well enough in a lab where scientists are mixing animal dna to try and find proteins that will help solve diseases in livestock. so they decide to get carried away and go for a human/animal cross even though they're directly told not to do so. surprise surprise they do it anyway. spoilers ahead: so they create dren (nerd backwards) which is a pretty neat looking critter. here's where the movie becomes idiotic. so the two idiot scientists, clive and elsa, are in a relationship and have sex in front of dren (by accident of course, they just couldn't possibly think that since she was behind that curtain she would hear them). so dren decides this looks like a good idea and starts getting all affectionate with clive. well one day she kisses clive and apparently this is just too much because he drops his pants and they have sex (images i will never be able to get out of my head) but he doesn't finish so she doesn't kill him as they get caught by elsa. fast forward a bit and it looks like dren is dying since her growth rate was so quick. well turns out she was just changing from a female to a male so after being buried dren comes out of the ground to kill any competing males then manages to grunt out "inside you" when elsa asks what he wants as he proceeds to rape her. elsa manages to kill him after he's finished as clive comes in and stabs dren before dren kills clive. the movie ends with elsa pregnant - hello splice 2. i suggest skipping this one altogether. i mean species is a much better representation of what i guess the director was trying to go for here so go watch it instead.

sims 3: ambitions - i really dunno what i think of it at this point. the new occupations are pretty neat. you can be a ghost hunter, a designer, all sorts of nifty new things. there's even a new neighborhood to play in, granted it's a swamp, and i'm not kidding there, but at least it's a new neighborhood. now i find that i cannot for the life of me get past one thing they added that is completely ruining my game in my opinion. for any of you that played the sims2 and got the seasons expansion, weren't you really annoyed when it was fall and the leaves would drop from the trees and your sims would spend hours raking leaves? i know i was. well unlike seasons where you could just delete the trees or get rid of autumn all together, this expansion comes with an even more heinous task: laundry. those freaking sims change clothes all the time and leave little piles of laundry all over the place. they forego urinating to go move the clothes to the dryer. i play the sims for fun. to lord over my minions and have them do my bidding. i thoroughly dislike this humdrum task being placed in the game. oh and think you can get away with not doing laundry by deleting your washer and dryer? hell no! your sims will have to take their clothes to the laundromat, i kid you not. so for now the expansion has left me a bit deflated as my sims are too busy with laundry to do much and i really don't see why adding this feature in brings anything whatsoever to the game.

eh enough of my ranting about splice and the sims 3 expansion. enjoy the silence.

wow it's been over a month...

okay so i've been insanely busy. isn't that ridiculous? on top of research, class, working, raiding, the pets, and other gaming life has left me with little to no time. today i had time and i used it to do 4 loads of laundry, the dishes, some vacuuming, and was even able to squeeze in some quality time with rukia and eros. we'll start with movies, move to life in general, and finish up with games i think.

x-men origins: wolverine - 6.5/10 snaps - better than x3, pretty on par with x1, not better than x2. seeing as how gambit is my favorite of favorites comic character i was excited to see him in the film. he didn't have a large enough role and his accent slipped from cajun to southern to non-existent. the fighting scenes he had were nice and he looked hot enough so we'll forgive the accent bit. the other acting was pretty good in the film and i can even overlook some of the inconsistencies with folks' powers but [SPOILERS] the deadpool crap at the end was freaking ridiculous! let's pull off this bullshit move where we combine a whole bunch of mutants' powers through genetic engineering and make deadpool a controllable robot. who writes this crap? there are plenty of evil folks you can combine to have a kickass battle...why not do that? also some mutants had incorrect powers but hell in x3 they just kept adding mutants that to my knowledge don't exist in the x-men universe. eh if you love the x-men i'd say rent it. i don't suggest going to the movies to see it. also there are separate endings post the credits and we happened to get the 'drinking to remember' bs as opposed to the deadpool still being alive ending. at least make the endings comparable if there are going to be multiple ones.

star trek - 9.5/10 - FANTASTIC! i'm not a trekkie [spelling?]. i'm not a real big fan of the series. this movie is one of the best action films i've seen in a long time. it literally felt like i was in the theater for 20 minutes whereas the movie was actually 2 hours or so. i was surprised by a lot of the acting in this particular film as i'm used to silar in heroes and shaun from shaun of the dead and whatnot. a lot of big names. go see it if you haven't. even if you're into the series i think you'll find it enjoyable. i went with 3 trekkies who seemed to really enjoy it as much as i did.

terminator salvation - 5/10 - um...there were a lot of inconsistencies with this baby that really dropped it's score. the ending was another one of those 'you have to be shitting me i can't believe the editor let this go to production' endings. to tell you the truth, the ending of the film dropped it 2 snaps just by itself. i do think sam worthington did a really great job as marcus wright and look forward to seeing him as perseus in the remake of clash of the titans [as the old clash of the titans is one of my favorite films], anton yelchin also put in a good performance [charlie bartlett, also in star trek as chekov], in fact a lot of the actors were above par for this particular film. the screenplay is what gets them all in trouble. i find it hard to believe that christian bale read this and agreed to do it with that ending but as one of our other movie going friends stated it may be the millions of dollars that pushed him to it lol. also who the hell names their child moon bloodgood? seriously? um, i say wait for it to come out on usa...forget even paying to rent it unless you're a huge fan of the series and even then just go watch t2 and some of the sarah connor chronicles...

night at the museum: battle of the smithsonian - 6/10 - i swear to god amy adams is related to nicole kidman. anywho. movie was enjoyable enough. if you loved the first one go see this one. it's not quite as good but pretty close, otherwise rentable. eh you know the premise, stuff in the museum comes to life, there's some kind of evil bad guy they must overcome. would've been a lot more fun i think if jonah hill had more than a walk-on spot. he and ben stiller seem to play off one another really well.

alright done with movies. i think we're going to see up friday or next week. also i really want to see drag me to hell. i may have seen something else these past four weeks but apparently it's not as important as to post. if i remember later i'll stick it here somewhere.

life in general. aurora had her puppies. she had 7 total. 2 were stillborn. of the other 5 only 1 was born inside the placental sac. so i took all 5 to the vet when they were one day old as some of them weren't breathing well and weren't nursing so i was bottle feeding two of them. the vet told me that they all aspirated during birth and gave one of them oxygen and two of them a shot of antibiotics. sean and i took them back home and held 4 of them while they died. it was awful. i feel awful for the puppies, i feel awful for us, i feel awful for aurora but she seems pretty happy with just the one. so sean decided that we have to keep the remaining puppy [SEAN DECIDED, can you believe it wasn't me begging to keep the dog?] anywho so we didn't get her tail docked and her name is kuma [japanese for bear] as she looks like a little bear. i'll post a pic of her soon when she gets a little older. there's a cute photoshopped one of her on old school's myspace page wearing an old school shirt.

went to disney world with the folks, sean, and johnathon last week. we just got back yesterday. it was a fantastic time but man i have to lose some weight and get more fit. my feet were absolutely killing me the entire time after the first day. i'll get some pictures up from that trip as well. this semester went really well. i passed my qualifying exam for my phd. this means i've just got my comprehensive exam and my thesis defense to go. i wonder if i could do it in 3 years like my friend stephanie has done. time will tell i suppose.

on to the games. everquest 2 is my addiction of choice right now of course but i've been playing viva pinata again like a mad fiend as well. i found a pc copy for 7.99 at gamestop last week. i already have it on the 360 but man is it quicker with a mouse. also this week is SIMS 3. i cannot wait! i only have one more day to go huzzah!

eh i'm getting a bit tired so i'm heading off to bed. hopefully i'll be able to keep up a bit better with the blog now that it's summertime.

as for now...enjoy the silence...

oh teh sims...why have ye forsaken me?

so i've been anxiously awaiting the sims 3 which was due to come out at the end of february ever since my sims 2 game decided to ingest a bug and stop working correctly even when reinstalled. on february 3rd the idiots at ea decided that they were going to postpone the title until JUNE. /cry

snake porn

well i originally thought about entertaining you with the story regarding the title of today's blog but i've decided it'll prolly just be better for you to make up a more interesting one all on your own. this was all started by sean finding a baby snake outside our house this am and our capturing it in our attempt to identify it to make sure it was safe to leave outside. we're thinking it's an eastern hognose snake but aren't completely positive. i've decided to call him hamlet since he has the word hog in his name and i'm assuming he's a he, i'll prolly never really know. and as i'm sure you all guessed we went to see burn after reading this weekend with my folks.

burn after reading - 9/10 snaps - 3 words. ha ha ha. i've come to the realization that actors WANT to make movies with the coen brothers because it looks like they have a great time doing such. i suggest going to see it if you have that sarcastic sense of humor required for the coen films. actually i suggest going to see it just to see what george clooney creates in the film. oh i'm hardly able to type i'm laughing so hard. i have to finish downloading no country for old men cause i still have yet to see it /gasp!

eh besides that everything seems to be going well. coming down with another throat sickness but maybe i've squished it already by downing half a gallon of oj yesterday. i'm well enough to work so i'm not too worried about it. i'm going to guess i'm getting it from all these students who keep telling me they are ill. then don't come to class! heehee. i'm loving teaching and getting back into the groove of class. just wish i had some more time for gaming. spore has been great fun. i only have one creature that i came up with and made sean design for me that looks like a cross between a squirrel and mr. snuffleupagus [yes i looked it up for correct spelling]. then we played a little bit at my aunt's house and came up with another creature called the johnavore [ha ha aren't we creative - my brother's name {johnathon} mixed with the word carnivore] that looks like some kinda mosquito with two really tall legs. if you need a spore friend send me your name. mine's nightpyper and sean's is gonei95. sean's on the space stage, i'm about to start the civilian stage [i told you i haven't had time for gaming] plus i want to start back up on knocking out the bleach game on the wii. unfortunately i'm at the stage where i have to play as hanataro yamada and i just think that's going to end badly several times over as he's a healer in the anime, not quite that great a fighter. anywho, back to the daily grind!

enjoy the silence.

yahtzee reviews lego indiana jones

i really liked this week's zero punctuation of lego indiana jones so here it is. if you'd like to see more, visit yahtzee's videos at the escapist magazine. i enjoyed the psychonauts review an awful lot because i liked psychonauts and yahtzee did too. also, the escapist likes to give some of their other shows some advertising by putting them at the end of yahtzee's videos. once you get to the unforgotten realms portion, yahtzee is finished and that's another one of their random series [oddly enough on their site it was a drawn by pain advertisement, makes me wonder if the adverts change every time you load up the video...hmm...].



enjoy the silence.

-pyper