Sneakers: Wiki Leaks meets War Games

I’ve been pondering a subject lately that I think you might find interesting. Secrets. Particularly government secrets. When I started my career in journalism I saw it as my solemn duty to ensure that my government kept no secrets from the public. That is after all the whole reason the first amendment was created, so we don’t go all U.S.S.R. or D.P.R.K. and establish a state controlled media that keeps the voting public in the dark. But I worked for pre-information age editor at a pre-information age newspaper. Those dinosaurs have been persuaded by politicians that there are some bits of information that put the public at risk if made common knowledge. During the Cold War I have no doubt this was true at the highest levels of government. But the wall fell more than a drinker’s age ago. So what is the point of secrets in the modern world? What if we could bring to light all secrets simultaneously with some sort of magic enigma machine? Why don’t we ask Robert Redford and his Sneakers.

The Trenches: A darker look at the industry we love

Video game tester.  Three words that I’m certain many gamers had wistfully considered some time over the years.  For those of us who were raised with fond memories of trouncing games going back two decades, the ability to go to work and play games for a living sounds like a dream come true.  I don’t think a lot of us really considered what that would really mean.  The tedium involved.  The long hours, the low pay, the thankless monotony of it all.

The Trenches, a relatively new comic by three well-known titans of the web comic world, is a look at a side of the industry you don’t get to see very often.  Largely because it’s the side that we’re not supposed to notice is there at all.  Kind of like how you’re not supposed to notice who has been making all those sweet tennis shoes at the mall.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Remember the first Mission Impossible movie?  A confusing mess of a plot involving double and triple crosses, some cool action set pieces, and Tom Cruise RUNNING.  Seriously, dude looks good running.  We’re now on film number four in this franchise and the plot line stays pretty much the same.  The setting around it though, hoo boy.  I hate to use the phrase “ACTION BLOCKBUSTER!” but watching Ghost Protocol it might as well have preceded every scene in huge block letters.  I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but for better or worse, the film has become a bit less cerebral and much more eye candy.  It’s a spectacle to behold, just don’t think it about it too much.

Felix and the Frontier: Space without the Spiff

Hello. My name is Enosh and I bought a smartphone. Hi Enosh. I got a great deal on a refurbished unit so at least I can sleep at night knowing I didn’t pay full retail for a device I’m not entirely convinced I need. To be completely honest I got it mostly so I could browse Reddit while on the john. I recently learned that because my wife owns a Kindle I can put the Kindle app on my phone and read books for free on the John too. As you may have guessed I am a bibliophile and as such the thought of digital books cuts me to the core. Always when I move to a new town my first order of business is to locate the library. Nothing beats a building full of the smells of a thousand decaying trees desecrated with the tales of a million worlds. Still, the library is in a part of town I rarely find time to visit and its hours are less than ideal. Plus they seemed to be more interested in stocking DVDs and computer labs than books these days. So here I am gobbling up Kindle books like caviar at the Kremlin. Most recently I finished a novella written by a man called Cheeseburger Brown entitled Felix and the Frontier.

Die Hard 2: YOU’RE A LOOSE CANNON, MCCLANE

The first time it happened he was surprised. The second time it happened he was REALLY surprised.

Watching the Die Hard movies has been interesting.  For one, I learned that I have never actually watched any of the Die Hard movies from start to finish before now.  I’m not sure how I managed that, saying as how I was alive during the late 80s and early 90s.  If I had to guess, I’d say my mother had something to do with that.  For years she didn’t let me and my brother watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom because the heart-ripping scene was “too violent” in a futile attempt to protect her children from totally awesome gore.  So Bruce Willis running around popping terrorists like tick tacks probably was a little above the violence threshold.

A few months…  or so?  ago, I reviewed Die Hard, which was also the first time I watched that movie in its entirety.  Suddenly, as if by magic, Die Hard 2: Die Harder appeared on Netflicks and I knew what I had to do because, to quote Homestuck (and honestly, is there any time when I’m not quoting HS?), “we are motherfuckin entrenched in this bitch.”

What’s up with Japanese RPG’s?

I'll tell you what's NOT wrong with JRPG's. Lightning. <3

Japanese RPG’s made me the gaming nerd I am today.  I can remember the exact moment that gaming TRULY hooked me.  I went over to my friend Patrick’s house one afternoon.  His step brother was visiting from out of town and had brought with him a game called Final Fantasy 2 for the Super Nintendo.  Pat and I sat, enthralled, as Palom burned through the ice blocking the entrance to Mt. Ordeals.  Then in battle, I soon saw Fire TWO.  Never mind that I had no concept of Fire One, Fire two was damn impressive.  More than anything though, what struck me about FF4 (Final Fantasy numbering makes no sense, thanks AMERCIA!) was the story.  As in, it was telling one.  I dove in head first to the world of Cecil, Kain, Golbez, Rydia, and all the rest.  Games that tell amazing stories have been my favorite ever since.  So why did the JPRG’s of my youth give way to a general feeling of “meh” now?  What happened?

Downton Abbey: A decidedly British affair

I must admit this post has a distinct lack of science and horror in comparison to my usual fair. I’m afraid I’ve gone a bit astray as of late. My wife and I have been enjoying a little British drama known as Downton Abbey. My wife is quite a Jane Austen fan so the idea of a show, or program as the Brits call them, about an Earl and his family fretting over inheritance and the latest social soiree was right up her alley. For me it was the dapper dress and the historical accuracy. Like one-million-pounds-an-episode historical accuracy.

Rango: A Redneck Redwall story

This movie poster is kind of misleading. That fish is actually a very minor character, even if it is a legendary actor.

I finally worked up the nerve to sit down and watch my way through Rango on Netflicks the other day, which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while but had been dreading for quite some time.  I knew nothing about this film, basically.  Just that it featured a weird, possibly brain dead lizard guy clutching an adorable orange fish to his chest on the movie poster, and also that Johnny Depp is involved, I guess?  I’m pretty bad with movie actors, but Johnny Depp is the one who was a hilarious pirate and also was a guy who was physically incapable of running without scissors, right?  He was also Michael Jackson I mean Willie Wonka in that one film about murdering children with a chocolate factory.

All I really knew about Rango came from what other people told me.  Which was: It got bad reviews, don’t waste your money.  But I’m a poor blogger with aspirations of being a writer!  It’s basically impossible for me to do anything without wasting money!  So, here’s the deal about Rango, since no one else seems to eager to talk about it.

XBLA Goodness: Trials Evolution and Fez

There’s a whole lot of  Xbox LIV(E)ing going on in Elrood land these days.  Since Mass Effect no retail game has struck me as must play but some of the Xbox Live exclusives that MS is pumping out these days are well worth the time.  Remember when the first piece of DLC hit Xbox Live, which was horse armor for Oblivion?  How far we’ve come.  Two games have hit in the past week that deserve some attention.  The old school graphics with new school weirdness Fez and the insane physics happy dirt bike racing sequel Trials Evolution.  Silly hats only from this point forward!

Atlas Shrugged: and so did I

This year marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the publishing of Atlas Shrugged, the foundation of libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand‘s Objectivism ideals. In the years since her passing she has largely slipped from the public conscience and with the fall of communism her ideals have largely been taken for granted or simply left to decay like so many Soviet tanks in a field. There have been efforts to reopen her philosophy for debate. Bioshock was a thinly veiled critic of John Galt and Ayn Rand. And now someone has seen fit to make her Magnum Opus into a movie.