Goodfellas

With my girlfriend's business trip in Seattle coming to an end today, last night I decided to have myself a good old-fashioned masculine night. I figured I'd come home, put on a suit just for the hell of it, enjoy a steak and some scotch, and watch Goodfellas. In actuality, I got into some gym shorts and flip-flops, had three hot dogs and two Bud Lights, and played Spirit Tracks on my DS. But I did still watch Goodfellas! I don't really have that much to say about it. I've never been one to enjoy gangster flicks as much as some people, but this was still a solid movie, for sure. Well-written, well-acted, and above all, well-directed. But hey, that's what I've come to expect from Scorsese. Maybe it's due to my lack of enthusiasm for the genre (or maybe it's what causes it), but it just seems as though if you've seen a few mob movies, you've seen most of them. A man pays his dues on his way up the ladder, catches some big breaks, does some unspeakable things, has all kinds of sex and does all kinds of drugs and eventually his wife leaves him and his associates don't trust him and it all comes crashing down when he ends up killed, incarcerated, or broke. I'm not saying that's the exact formula followed by Goodfellas, but I am saying it's a formula followed pretty closely, with maybe one or two key twists, by the majority of organized crime films. Even the most classic and beloved ones. If it sounds like I'm complaining, I apologize. This was a good movie and I'm not saying otherwise. I guess I just expected it to be a little more memorable or unique, rather than just a very well-made but very formulaic mobster movie.

Knight and Day

Gulp. I’m a little embarrassed I watched this. C'mon, I'm in Seattle. What else am I going to do? Bright spot in a so-so movie, the beginning was filmed in Boston! How fun! Tunnels and bridge, oh my. Mostly though, this movie just had Cameron Diaz falling in love with Tom Cruise, thinking he’s a good guy, thinking he’s a bad guy, thinking he’s a good guy, etc. etc. They ride motor bikes in the middle of the running of the bulls though. That’s fun right?

London Bridges

Flashback: Geoffrey Shafer? Is that you? You who ruined Alex Cross’ baby momma. And killed his partner. And escaped. I smell a grudge. (Surprise! You die!)

FBI Budget: Alex Cross consistently travels in helicopter to places such as France, Switzerland, Germany, London, Montana… That’s a lot of dolla dolla bills

WTF: We caught the wrong guy again?! This Wolf character is shady.

You Jerk: If you have seen the Wolf. You die. Nuff said.

L: Kidnapping Cross’ family just pisses him off. You’re in trouble now, Wolfy.

Don’t worry: Cross got him in the end guys!

Book 10/17…Lots of traveling! Lots of action! Recurring characters! 8/10

The Big Bad Wolf

Scene Change: I, Alex Cross, are now officially in the FBI.

Same Old Thang: I, Alex Cross, am still super famous and rub people the wrong way.

Highlight! 10 year old hacker outdoes the FBI and gets into closed “Wolf Den”

Awkward: You can buy people online. And do what you want with them. Like kill them.

Even more awkward: You caught the wrong guy. It was a trap!

The Wolfs still on the loose! And he’s angryyyyy.

Book 9/17…I liked you! 7/10

Four Blind Mice

Highlight! John Sampson falls in love. This big badass dude was tamed during this murder investigation

Lowlight: John Sampson was not able to save his best Vietnam buddy from Vietnam.

Lowlight Pt Deux: John Sampson almost dies. Seriously downer yo.

Awkward: Killlers are paid to frame army guys so that they will die on death row. Says wonders about the legal system.

Alex Cross is awesome: Don’t worry, he solves the case, and keeps up with former flame Jamilla.

Book of 8/17…I give you a 5/10

Violets are Blue

Ok, so I have done it again. I back-logged some stuff. Then I didn’t post it immediately. The monthly deadline is very important to me. The daily, clearly not so much. Also, I told Sweeney that this would be an exciting post for him way back earlier in the month. So here it goes, time to try to make Alex Cross exciting to others!

Bird People! Vampires! Bird People! Vampires! Which one will win out in the end? My vote: still vampires, but Sweeney on the other hand believes in the up and coming genre of bird people books. Let me tell you this though, way back in 2001, James Patterson knew vampires were gonna be big, so he wrote about them in his book. And guess what?! They are killers!

Our book starts with a disturbing scene. A couple jogging in San Francisco is attacked by a tiger. A trained tiger. WHAT?! Who can train a tiger?! Vampires can! There is a rag tag group of vampires biting, draining, and killing people around the globe, and our hero Alex Cross must solve the case. Not only does he have to deal with vampires, but he has to deal with (another) serial killer, named the Mastermind, who is tormenting his family. Spoiler alert: It’s one of his best buds in the FBI, Kyle Craig. And another surprise, Cross finds a budding love interest on this trip, tough girl detective Jamilla Hughes.

Well, the vampires turn out to be easy to catch (newbies), Kyle Craig not so much. Kyle Craig, seemingly always one step ahead, is going after Cross’ family and his best friends. Cross stabs him though, an all is well in Cross family land. Except Alex wants to retire.

Final Fantasy X-2

Oh boy. Where to begin? With Final Fantasy X, I suppose. I loved Final Fantasy X. I played it and beat it - beat the hell out of it, really - in the spring, summer, and fall of 2002. I was a huge fan of the in-battle gameplay, the "customizable but guided" nature of the sphere grid system, and the visually stunning world brought to me courtesy of the PS2's very capable graphics engine. The story wasn't my favorite in a Final Fantasy game, but was solid and compelling and expansive nonetheless. There was a solemn and sad tone that carried throughout most of the game, allowing for several memorable and meaningful cut scenes. And while some of the characters were more flamboyant and childish than in any previous game in the beloved franchise, they were all pretty fleshed out and interesting. All things considered, it was a great game, and until a few years ago when I rediscovered a ton of old games in college, I considered it one of my ten favorite games of all time. And I wasn't alone; Final Fantasy X was a huge commercial and critical success, and to this day probably remains the franchise's second-most mainstream title after Final Fantasy VII. So Squaresoft - actually, it was Square Enix by then - decided to make a direct sequel. And that is why we have Final Fantasy X-2, a game with a very different tone, feel, and style than its acclaimed predecessor. Fellow blogger Sweeney played and beat Final Fantasy X last fall, and said that his biggest beef with the game was the awkward relationship between the main characters Tidus and Yuna. He'll be sorry to hear - and hell, I'm sorry to have to say - that their relationship is what drives the story this time around. I'll keep this light spoiler vague, but Tidus "goes away" in a sense at the end of Final Fantasy X, after saving the world and all, leaving Yuna kind of sad. Then, to kick off Final Fantasy X-2, Yuna has a vision in which she sees Tidus again, and suddenly the main goal of the game is to find out whether or not Yuna can reunite with Tidus. I mean, there are plenty of other stories going on too, but still, the sequel just felt so much lighter and less meaningful than the original. And we haven't even discussed the tone, look, and feel of X-2 yet. Since you end up saving the world from an endless cycle of despair at the end of Final Fantasy X, the world is a much happier and cheerier place in Final Fantasy X-2. And maybe it's just that I'm American and not Japanese, but frankly, I wasn't amused by all of the comically goofy cut scenes and I didn't think it was cool or fun that Yuna and your two other party members - returning Rikku and newcomer Paine - are in a pop group together. I mean, it makes sense. I get it. The world was a sad and sorrowful place in Final Fantasy X, but now in Final Fantasy X-2 things are so much better off and everyone's just trying to have a little fun. So, it works, in that respect. It just doesn't carry the same weight and emotional investment that its predecessor did, and therefore, my interest waned pretty quickly. Gameplay revolves around a new mechanic called "dresspheres," in which Charlie's angels - I mean, Yuna and company - change their outfits mid-battle (or between battles) so as to change their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. The idea of "job classes" is nothing new to Final Fantasy, and has in fact long been a staple of the series. But even though characters' appearances have always changed when their job classes have - a wizard looks a lot different than a knight, for example - Final Fantasy X-2 is the first time in the series where it seems like the different outfits are the reason to change job classes, and not just a side effect of the process. It's actually not quite as bad as it sounds; none of the outfits are scant or sexual enough to carry a "NSFW" label or anything, and aside from a class called "mascot" in which the girls change into big plush Moogle costumes, none of the different outfits reinforced the "perverted Japanese" stereotype. Nonetheless, this is the sequel to an acclaimed and beloved and epic RPG, and the battle system revolves around playing dress-up and the story revolves around pop concerts and love triangles. It just doesn't hold up. Final Fantasy X-2 is a slightly strange but decent game by its own right, for sure, but as a sequel to Final Fantasy X it just doesn't hold up so well. At least the optional nature of so many missions made it a pretty short game by Final Fantasy standards. Twenty hours or so got me through the story and about half of the sidequests. Actually, the amount of optional parts of the game that you complete before beating it will directly affect how the game ends for you. Are Yuna and Tidus reunited? Well, if you're like me, and you left half of the game unplayed, then no! (But who cares? Not you; you're like me!) But a quick perusal through some YouTube clips has satisfied what little desire I had to see those two hug it out again. Another clutch performance by the Internet! (Speaking of which, without the Internet, I'd never have been able to finish the game as quickly as I did. Gotta love those guys who spend days writing walkthroughs for no compensation. They deserve to get their own "real men of genius" Bud Light commercial or something.) And so concludes my time with Final Fantasy X-2. It was what it was, and that's just fine with me.

Super Stardust HD

This was one of the two free games I got from Sony's "Welcome Back" Program (a.k.a. the "We Fucked Up Big Time and We're Hoping You'll Appreciate the Two Free Games We're Giving You Enough to Continue to Trust Us With Your Privacy" Program). And I really enjoyed playing it. So, thanks, Sony. It's an arcade-style stage-based spaceship shooter in which you both avoid and destroy other spaceships and chunks of rock. In other words, it's an Asteroids clone, plain and simple. But there are a few notable differences, aside from the gorgeous HD/3D display and graphical upgrades. For starters, you have three types of weapons, a green "rock crusher," a red "gold melter," and a blue "ice blaster," each of which does significantly more damage to one of the three different types of asteroids on screen (you guessed it - rock, gold, and ice). Any weapon will damage any asteroid, but you'll rack up points faster by constantly switching weapon types to handle the different rock types. The control scheme is also much-improved over the "rotate, go straight" mechanic in Asteroids. Now, you use the left stick to move and the right stick to shoot. So you can head upwards while shooting downward and to the right. Two additional functions allow you to collect and use bombs (destroying everything in a very large radius) or use "hyper speed" to temporarily make you invincible as you dart off in one straight line for a short burst of time. Furthermore, while Asteroids took place on a toroidal plane in space, Super Stardust HD takes place on a spherical surface that surrounds a planet. Not a huge difference in terms of gameplay, but it more than doubles your "playing space relative to screen size" ratio. There are five different planets in the game (to protect form asteroids and spaceships and such) and each of them has five stages, the last of which is a boss fight. It took me many attempts to beat the first planet, thus unlocking the second one, and after I failed on the second planet's boss, I put the game away and decided I could consider it "beaten." I didn't put it away out of frustration, and I do hope to someday beat the remaining four planets (thus "completing" the game), but with sixty-plus games still in my backlog, I figure I've seen and played enough of this one to offer an insightful paragraph of text about it. (Have I done so? You be the judge.) There's a co-op feature that I'd love to try sometime (any interest, anyone?) and I'm sure I'll be launching this game form the PS3 menu several times after finishing a DVD or something, since I use my PS3 to watch those. So, yeah. Even though I'm posting about this game, I'm by no means done with it. It's very much a "pick up and play" game - arcade games usually are - and I was enjoying the hour and a half I spent on it last night enough to merit several more sessions. I probably wouldn't have bought this game - or ever even heard of it - had Sony not offered it to me for free, but I'm glad to call it part of my collection.

The Time Machine

Continuing my list of classics I decided I would read The Time Machine. Actually I didn't really decide anything, my buddy thrust it in my chest and said "read this." I wanted to love this book, actually I did love this book for the first 60 or 70 pages and then I really started to become indifferent towards it. I read the bulk of it in one sitting and by the end of that sitting it started to become boring so I put it down expecting that I was just suffering from plot overload and that I would come back and finish it in another sitting (since it is only like 95 pages). This, however, was not the case, I came back time and time again trying to beast the rest of it out and found myself unable. The plot, like a good gravy thickened over time but like a sea of good gravy I found myself unable to wade through it. Bad similes aside the book became damn unreadable near the end. Right when you were expecting it to get good again it wrapped up with damn near no conflict which answers my questions when I watch movies and read books of "why didn't so and so just do this or just do that it would have made life easier. The time traveler did things the easy way and it worked out, huzzah, without being interesting at all. Also this book is damn boring. The man invents a time machine and finds a way to find, what must be, the most boring period in Earth's history.

The Wire: Season 4

Alright. I'm sold. The Wire is fucking amazing. The degree to which I've enjoyed the past two seasons makes me wonder what the hell I was missing in the first two, and I'm dying to go back and watch those early seasons all over again, preferably with a Wire virgin like my girlfriend or several of my friends. Many people have not only called The Wire the greatest show ever, but have specifically pinpointed Season 4 as the single greatest TV season ever. I'm not entirely sure I'd cosign on that, but I would absolutely put it in my top five without even stopping to wonder what else is in that top five. The Wire as a whole has also absolutely crept up toward the top of my own personal list of greatest shows ever - and this is after being moderately unimpressed by the first two seasons as little as two months ago. The main characters this season included four teenage boys who we'd never seen in previous seasons, a politician who had only been introduced the year prior, a teacher who had been a background character earlier on in the show's history (and not a very likable one until now), and a drug kingpin and some dealers who were also absent in the show's earlier years. I'm being vague to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that the majority of main characters from Seasons 1 and 2 have been killed off, locked up, or just written into the background of the show. That The Wire gets it done this year largely on new talent and formerly minor or unlikable characters speaks volumes about the strength of its writing and storytelling. I'm absolutely jumping right into Season 5 as soon as possible, and as I've already said, I hope to soon re-watch the whole series. And given my commitment and focus on my backlog, that is a rare thing indeed. Watch The Wire. Its fans aren't lying. I was a skeptic, and look at me now.

Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble

When playing Red Hot Rumble, one is immediately reminded of the Super Smash Bros. series. This is a fast and frenzied four-way fighting game with a large cast of playable characters, about half of which aren't available to you until you unlock them. I'll admit right off the bat that I didn't spend any time unlocking these characters and probably never will. I'll also admit that I played this game solo, like so many other games on my backlog that are probably best enjoyed with friends. But I'm happy to report that I kind of liked it. This isn't Viewtiful Joe 3, and thank God for that. This is instead a spin-off fighting game with minimal plot. I spent no more than three or four hours dabbling with the very limited "story" mode. The Viewtiful Joe series heavily spoofs Hollywood and the movie industries. (I can't remember if I made that clear when reviewing either of the first two games. Oh well.) And the point of Red Hot Rumble is that a director is looking for an action movie hero to star as the lead in his next movie. So he holds an open invitation fighting tournament and the grand prize is the starring role of his upcoming film. Now, I compared gameplay to that of Super Smash Bros., but it's also a little bit Mario Party-esque in that each quick battle is a minigame of sorts. "Defeat the most enemies." "Collect the most orbs." These directives, and many others, give purpose to each minute-long round of fighting. Unlike in Smash, you're not simply trying to destroy your opponent. Attacks to opponents will hinder their progress, for sure, but the goal is just scoring the most points. Almost like the "coin battle" games in Smash that nobody ever wants to play. Now, this is clearly a game designed for multiplayer action, but when I read reviews, they all said that three-player and four-player games were maddeningly chaotic. So it's nice to hear that I'm not missing out on much by not forcing some friends to play Red Hot Rumble with me. Not that I would have done so anyway, even if reviews were glowing. The pace is a little too fast, the characters a bit too unvaried, and the overall experience falls just shy of "enjoyable." But at the end of the day it's still a better note for me to end my time with the series on than Viewtiful Joe 2 was.

WALL·E

When I first saw WALL·E in theaters three summers ago (was it really three whole Pixar movies ago?), it immediately became one of my favorite G-rated/kids movies. Cute, moving, endearing - if you've seen it you know what I mean, and if you haven't you've surely heard all about it. So I guess I don't need to waste any time lauding more praise on WALL·E three years after the fact. Instead, let's talk about whether or not certain movies can "hold up" after a good amount of time has passed. Because I'm amazed to say that WALL·E kind of doesn't. It mostly does. But the whole bit about Earth becoming too polluted to sustain life, and people becoming far too out of shape to even walk on their own two legs - that aspect of the movie kind of clashes with the modern day focus on health and environmentalism. It's kind of like how 1984 still reads like a classic but feels incredibly dated while Brave New World doesn't. Brave New World focuses primarily on a dystopian future in which materialism and media have run amok, which is a future we're still conceivably heading toward. 1984 deals with a world run by one totalitarian regime projecting a guise of being three separate warring superpowers. While that could still ultimately happen (anything is possible!) it just seems a whole lot less likely given the current political snapshot of the globe. (And it certainly didn't happen by 1984!) So while both are great books, one feels more dated than the other. And although three years is hardly a long enough timeframe with which to judge whether or not a movie will end up being more "timeless" or "dated," WALL·E is already showing some slight signs of age in a way that most other Pixar movies aren't. And whether or not that's a big deal is in the eye of the beholder. Three years is longer than it feels sometimes; when this movie debuted, the most recent Olympic Games had taken place in Turin, Italy, neither Lady Gaga nor Katy Perry had ever had a number one hit, and Barack Obama had only just won the Democratic primary election on his way to the U.S. Presidency. So we can forgive it for feeling a tad dated already. But it does feel a tad dated already nonetheless. That's my only point. All said and done though, I still consider it to be one of my favorite Pixar movies. Toy Story 3 did manage to surpass it last summer, but I'll get to that movie soon enough.

True Blood: Season 3

Well, I'm officially all caught up for tonight's True Blood Season 4 premiere, which, due to HBO monthly rates, I will not be seeing until next week at least. But I'm okay with that. And that is to say that while I was just as capable of blazing through this season of True Blood as I was the previous two, my interest levels were waning and depreciating as it went along. I'm not saying that this was the worst season of True Blood yet - just that maybe after thirty-six episodes in less than a month, I could use a breather before jumping right into Season 4 tonight. Season 3 felt more or less par for the course based on the series so far. A bunch of supernatural beings dealt with quarrels and power struggles while a bunch of humans in Louisiana acted pretty stupid pretty often. A negative comparison came to mind as I watched, and that comparison is to Heroes, another show dealing with supernatural phenomena and seemingly incessant cast growth. Heroes grew old when I realized that the writers were content to make things up as they went along (which isn't always bad) without ever focusing the overall story into anything cohesive or meaningful (which is always bad). True Blood seems as though it may end up driving me crazy for similar reasons, but at least the show is more entertaining, believable, and enjoyable than that NBC superhero flop. And at least True Blood is based on a pre-existing series of books. I haven't read those books, and don't intend to do so, but I have enough blind faith in their author to believe that she's mapped out several seasons' worth of content for the HBO show to follow that will end up being at least decent. In my post for Season 2, I said that I thought the series could last for ten or more years, based on how many books there already were. But now I wonder if the show won't have overstayed its welcome by then. Eh. We'll see how Season 4 goes. I'm curious to see whether or not viewing just one episode a week will make the show lose momentum in my eyes, or if it'll be a slowed down pace that I can tolerate a little more.

Viewtiful Joe 2

I really wasn't looking forward to playing this game. Avid Back-Blogged fans will recall that two Marches ago, I finished off the first Viewtiful Joe game, and also may recall that I didn't care much for it. For those that can't be bothered to follow links, a few phrases from that review are "a treat to play but a hassle to beat" and "fun but frustrating." And those serve just as well as descriptions of this nearly identical sequel. Viewtiful Joe 2 gave me exactly as much entertainment and exactly as much annoyance as its predecessor did. Actually, that's kind of a lie. Since I was expecting Viewtiful Joe 2 to be exactly the same as Viewtiful Joe, and since the concept and gameplay were nothing new to me this time around, what I really experienced was a whole lot of bored melancholy. This is one of those games that, were it not for my silly little mission to beat every game I own, I'd have stopped playing after two or three levels. But that's pretty typical of Capcom games - remember when I nearly went postal playing the exact same Mega Man game a dozen times a year ago? Also in typical Capcom fashion, the penultimate level of this game was just me running through a gauntlet of bosses from previous levels, each one stronger and more dangerous than his original incarnation. I dreaded this all game, and when it finally happened, I just pressed forward soullessly without so much as a "Goddammit" or a "Fuck yes!" That's really the best way to sum up this whole game though; I just didn't care. It wasn't terrible, it wasn't long, and it wasn't broken, but I simply didn't enjoy much of it at all. And that's not to say that you won't, or wouldn't. It just means I didn't. Kind of like the Left 4 Dead games, I guess; I see the appeal, but it just didn't blow me away. C'est la vie.

The Wire: Season 3

It's no secret to long-time readers of this blog that I've struggled to get through the first two seasons of The Wire with the kind of passion and addiction one expects to have for what many consider to be the greatest TV show of all time. But I'm happy to say that watching Season 3 was an immensely enjoyable and rewarding experience. It's as if once I stopped actively trying to like the show too hard, I was capable of honestly and actually enjoying it. I have several theories on why this season was capable of sucking me in in a way that the previous two were unable to do, but they all combine to form one basic sentiment: that Season 3 is simply better than Seasons 1 and 2. (Which, again, isn't to say that those two seasons were terrible. They were very good. But I came in expecting "best show of all time," and since it took two full seasons to get to this one - in which I'm beginning to understand the "best show of all time" argument - I was unfairly slightly disappointed in the first two seasons. But you already knew that.) At any rate, I'm extremely glad that I've come around on The Wire and I look forward to watching the fourth season very much. Many people call the fourth season the greatest single season of any show in the history of television. I'm excited. (But not to the point of having unattainable expectations for it, thankfully.) There's no telling how soon I'll start Season 4, since a lot of other shows remain on my backlog. Completely unintentionally, I've now logged seasons of The Wire in August '10, January '11, and June '11. If that five-month pace holds, I'll finish Season 4 in November and Season 5 next April. No promises, but let's just say I severely doubt either season will remain in the backlog by summer's end.

The Stand

Took a little while, but here it is. In addition to the Dark Tower series Trev got me into and then subsequently abandoned, Trev also swore by what many consider to be Stephen King's greatest single work- The Stand. Marissa, the other King reader on the blog, insisted that the book was really boring and seemed to regret reading it. Well, I knew I was going to give it a shot sooner or later, and finally did over the last couple weeks. And I'm glad I did! The Stand begins as a gripping account of what would happen if the U.S. developed a super-virus and accidentally leaked it, killing around 99.9% of the population. The start of the book is very disjointed and it's hard to stay focused on what's going on- there's 6 or 7 different 'main characters' each dealing with their own problems as the plague starts to spread. It takes hundreds of pages before any of them meet up, at which point the book starts to drift into the supernatural. It would be pretty hard to have any hope or conceivable chance of survival if that much of the population just died off; America's a big country and no one would find eachother. The survivors start having visions though- the 'good' people all dream of a nice old woman, Mother Abagail, and follow her to Nebraska, eventually settling in Boulder Colorado. The 'bad' people all gather in Las Vegas to meet 'the Man in Black' from the Dark Tower series, Randal Flagg. A major chunk of the book features the good people in Boulder attempting to rebuild society and planning to destroy Randal Flagg, knowing nothing about him other than the horrible feeling he gives everyone in dreams. As the book draws to a conclusion, Mother Abagail tells the main characters to quit dickin around, they need to go kill Randall Flagg at all costs, setting up "the stand" the book is named after. And while it's up to interpretation how successful the main characters actually are in the task, the actual conclusion doesn't disappoint. So yeah, there's some supernatural aspects to this, but I've yet to see the overblown forced horror that spawned the whole "it's a haunted... lamp! wooooo!" joke. I'm definitely gonna read some more Stephen King soon, and I'm not ashamed!

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Nobody likes to talk about this game. Like many of its contemporary "second games in franchises that would eventually become enormously popular" - I'm thinking specifically of Super Mario and Final Fantasy here - Zelda II stands out in hindsight as a real black sheep compared to the rest of its family tree. I'll get into why in a moment, but it also warrants mentioning that, as with Super Mario Bros. 2 and Final Fantasy II, Zelda II set many important precedents that would help shape so many ensuing games down the road. But there are reasons nobody likes to talk about this game. For starters, it's unlike any other Zelda game in that it is a side-scrolling platform hack-and-slash akin to Castlevania. The overworld is still presented in a top-down manner, but there are random encounters. And you get experience points when you defeat enemies. In describing the game to a friend, I joked that it should have been called "Final Fantasy Zelda-Vania." Because aside from the presence of Link (and, briefly, Zelda), there's absolutely nothing Zelda-esque about this game. No bombs. No boomerang. No bow and arrows. No shield or tunic upgrades. No puzzle-based dungeons and no maps or compasses either. And yet, this is the game in the series that first gave us Dark Link, villages full of non-playable characters, "pogo stick" downward thrusting (and, well, jumping in general), and, believe it or not, the Triforce of Courage. (The first Zelda gave us the Triforces of Wisdom and Power but made no reference to a third one. This is especially weird since "Triforce" has that "Tri-" prefix and all, and since the three-triangle Triforce has become an internationally recognized symbol for the franchise. Strange.) There were parts of Zelda II I didn't mind. Experience points, for example, made it possible for me to "grind" and become very strong very early on in the game. And the side-scroller gimmick only felt weird until I realized that the 3D Zelda games are more similar to side-scrollers than top-down games. Still, at the end of the day, I'm glad Nintendo abandoned most of what made Zelda II so different from the first Zelda. It seems fitting that this game is the only one in the fifteen-long franchise whose title does not officially begin with "The Legend of Zelda." Ultimately it wasn't terrible, but it was certainly the least enjoyable Zelda game I've ever played. But thankfully, it's done now. Bye bye, black sheep, and bye bye, compilation disc!

True Blood: Season 2

My post on Season 1 didn't really say a thing about this show, so I'll let this one serve as a reflection on the series so far. For one thing, it moves fast. I had no problems plowing through three to five episodes a day, and that's how I was able to watch 24 of them in just a week and a half. But for a show that feels like it goes by so fast, there's honestly not a whole lot that happens in it. Season-long story arcs can be summarized in a few sentences and, two full seasons in, I still feel as though I've barely scratched the surface of the show's mythology and ever-increasing cast of characters. Contrast this with The Wire, an extremely dense show whose first two seasons took me something like four months to get through. Since  you invest so much effort and attention in that show, you reap a great reward. True Blood's only reward, by comparison, is the mostly mindless entertainment it provides. And I don't say that demeaningly. This is "guilty pleasure" TV at its finest. It's got all the right ingredients: an array of well-developed main characters with extreme personalities, plenty of cheap and manufactured drama, an interesting and ever-growing (if slightly silly) mythology. Oh, and plenty of titties. No, seriously, there have been like three or four separate episodes with blood orgies, and regular "vanilla" vampire sex happens every other episode. Again, the show's got an admittedly silly and hollow premise. Vampires have "come out of the coffin" to the world at large, but they struggle to co-exist with humans out in the open. They fight for "vampire rights" but plenty of regular people are opposed to treating them as equals. There are assholes and decent folks of either "race," however, and the long-term point of the show appears to be about vampires as they struggle for equal rights. But the shorter, seasonal arcs so far have involved a small town serial killer murder mystery and a demon-goddess thing taking over the same small town and, well, killing a few people too. (But also hypnotizing nearly everyone into sex-crazed zombie-like followers. Because, you know, titties.) I'm not sure what the production value and ratings are for True Blood (I want to say "medium" and "high" for HBO, respectively) but I could honestly see the show lasting for many, many years, with each season devoting the bulk of its time to whatever interesting and bizarre danger plagues the small town this year while still contributing a good chunk of time to the overall nationwide struggle for vampire rights. My understanding is that each season of the show is based on a novel in an existing series, and that that series is something like ten or fourteen books long. So, yeah. Like I said, this could really be an HBO mainstay for a long, long time. And frankly, that's fine by me. I've enjoyed it so far. It's nothing I'd proudly call one of the best shows on TV by any stretch, but I'm sure that's not a distinction True Blood ever set out to earn. It's fun, it's simple, and I'll definitely be watching the third season whenever my girlfriend's DVD set from Amazon comes.

Sherlock Series 1

The other day I managed to explain to Dee my regret at not having posted in so long. She, understanding my embarrassment, decided that she would aid in my logging by introducing me to the hit British series Sherlock. When I say hit, I mean three episode season. The episodes are 90 minutes long and so far each contain one mystery neatly wrapped up inside with what appears to be a larger, overarching, story building around. The two main characters are Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson. The series is modeled closely on the original books, adapted for a modern reconstruction. Instead of Dr. Watson being a veteran of the original Afghan War (The one between Britain and Afghanistan), he is a veteran of the modern day Afghani conflict. Sherlock is a genius sociopath and is quick to jump to conclusions based on astute observations. In the first episode you hear mention of Sherlock Holmes arch nemesis Moriarty.

Curious things I noticed. The producer, Steven Moffat, is closely tied to Dr. Who and he is close friends with people involved in the Hitchhikers Guide. This is curious because the theme song to this show is very similar in sound and tempo to the radio music for the original hitchhikers guide to the galaxy radio broadcasts.

Anyway, this series is a genre I am not typically very fond of. I hate mysteries and I hate drama television shows, as a rule. This show, however, caught my interest and to be honest I didn't hate it. I am not saying I loved it but I am willing to put the 4.5 hours into watching the second three episode series, slated to be released this fall. Mostly because the third episode of this one ended with a cliff hanger and I have to see how it ends. I apologize to any readers for possible spoilers so I will try and keep that as vague as possible but Moriarty is definitely involved.

The Legend of Zelda

Happy 25th birthday, original Legend of Zelda. My, you don't look a day over 22. I mean, really, you seem much more like a late '80s game than a mid-'80s game, and for that, I commend you. Unfortunately, that's one of the nicest compliments I can give you, because, damn, gaming has just gotten so much better over the course of my lifetime. To the magazine editors and gaming community who have dubbed you the greatest game ever in recent years, I ask, what's with the age fetish? (Alright, this second-person gimmick is getting pretty silly.) So, yeah. The Legend of Zelda is the second game on my Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition compilation that I've beaten in as many days. I didn't beat the game in one day, having been playing it alongside Majora's Mask a little bit, but I probably would have been able to. The final boss's defeat clocked in at just over five hours and the video walkthrough I was following religiously didn't even last two hours. On the one hand, I'm sure the game was absolutely groundbreaking and revolutionary for its time. It did, after all, spawn an amazing franchise of critically acclaimed and very popular games on multiple consoles across multiple decades. On the other, modern day gaming is just so very different from 1986 gaming. While this was an extremely impressive NES game and probably the greatest one I've played aside from Super Mario Bros. 3, it's still, well, a 1986 8-bit game, and that comes with its own bevy of shortcomings. So much of the game is based on exploration. And what I really mean by that is the game gives you no indication of where to go next, ever, at all. Secret passages may be opened up if you bomb certain rock walls or burn down specific trees or move certain boulders, but there's absolutely no hint given whatsoever that any specific rock or tree (among the hundreds of rocks and trees in Hyrule) will give way to yield a passageway to an essential upgrade. I can just picture somebody bombing every square inch of the overworld 25 years ago for hours on end, thrilled to high heaven when he finally stumbled upon one heart container and calling it a day. Wow! No offense, Generation X, but that doesn't sound like any fun at all! And that's why I used the aforementioned video walkthrough to get me through the game. Exploration aside, the slow and clunky NES-style controls made the game challenging enough - I died like six or seven times before finding the first item. Frankly, my options were either to play the game for weeks on end like those poor bastards did 25 years ago, or, skip the hassle and just get shit done in several hours flat. I won't apologize to myself or anyone else for taking the easy way out. And while I can practically hear a hypothetical old school gamer calling me out and saying that I deprived myself of the real Legend of Zelda experience, I can also refrain from giving a shit. I've now seen all the dungeons and power-ups and bosses that the classic game had to offer, and I've still got the next two dozen free nights available for other video games (or other activities in general). So, you can keep your old school experience, hypothetical angry thirty-something gamer; my video walkthrough and I will be moving on to other games. Like perhaps even this game's sequel, since the compilation disc is still in my Wii and all. This is like those Mega Man compilations all over again. Wait, no. There were like sixteen of those games and there are only two pre-2000 Zelda games on this compilation disc. And now one of them is already done! Whew. Now - or, eventually, rather - it's on to Zelda II, that infamous side-scrolling RPG black sheep cousin on the Zelda family tree. I'm sure it sucks, but I hope it's quick!

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

This post is dedicated to Keith, who began this game just before I did, but was condemned by the powers that be to work two straight weeks of fourteen hour days, weekends included. Get well soon, Keith! And then beat Majora's Mask. So anyway, yeah. Let's talk about Majora's Mask. How do you make a fulfilling follow-up to Ocarina of Time, widely considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time? Apparently, you just try to make a darker, more mysterious, and more mature game. Because that's what Majora's Mask is. Both games feature Link trying to save the world, but in the former game it's in an epic and heroic fashion that ends up earning Link the title "Hero of Time." In this game, it's in a much more subtle and relatively anonymous manner. It's easy to see, then why Majora's Mask felt a bit flat on arrival. The bright and clear-cut story from Ocarina are nowhere to be found, replaced instead by an objective to prevent a menacing moon from crashing into the land of Termina below. You've got three days to stop this from happening, aided by an ocarina song that will "reset" the clock and transport you back to the first day. There's an immediate "thanklessness" feeling throughout your journey this time around; while there's a heavy emphasis on helping people in order to obtain new items and such, there's also a built-in "reset" mechanic that "undoes" all of your philanthropy every so often. Even by the end of the game, the various people of Termina are no more familiar with Link than they were at the beginning of the game, giving somewhat of a Groundhog Day vibe that feels the slightest bit frustrating. But enough about the story and time travel gimmick - the question is, of course, whether or not Majora's Mask held up to Ocarina of Time. Gameplay-wise, they're almost exactly the same. Bombs, archery, fairies in bottles, ocarina tunes. You know the drill. But Majora's Mask only contained four temples and fewer weapons and items as well. No slingshot, no boomerang, no tunic upgrades, and no Zelda-given magic spells. What you have instead are masks that transform you into different creatures (a Deku scrub, a Goron, a Zora) with different abilities. It wasn't an unwelcome gimmick, but at the end of the day I still prefer the more traditional approach that gives Link more capabilities himself as opposed to transforming him into other creatures for different combat and exploration purposes. Ultimately I think that Ocarina is and always has been at least a little bit overrated and over-praised. And I think Majora's Mask has certainly been underrated and under-praised. (I mean in general; as with anything else in the age of the Internet, Majora's Mask has indeed attracted a cult following who call it the greatest Zelda game of all.) But I still think Ocarina was a superior game to Majora's Mask in a number of ways. That doesn't mean I disliked Majora's Mask or found it to be tedious and dull. I've actually been curious enough about the vague story and darker tone to read into a number of fan theories, and several have been very interesting. "Link's dead, and his time in Termina helps him accept that." "Termina was always doomed regardless of Link's actions." "It all boils down to friendship." "It was all a dream." Most hold up pretty well under my limited scrutiny, and I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be interested in hearing more theories on Majora's Mask for years to come. But for now, it's time to move on to the next step in reducing my backlog.

Drew Carey Show Season 1

Side Story: It's my Sophomore year of college. I walk into my suite and notice that my neighbors are once again playing beruit at 1 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. I soon realize they have taken it to a new level and become aware that there is not beer, nor water, in the cups but jagermeister. I ask them when the last time they went to class was. The taller of the two (names kept quiet for obvious reasons) looks at me and I can see him start to do the math in his head. After several minutes he deducts that its been on three solid weeks. I tell him, not for the first time, that he should resume going to class. Here's where I finally get to my point; He tells me that hes embarrassed to start on a Thursday and that its been too long he might as well wait till Monday to turn his life around. This is where I am right now in my posting. I started this year with the intention of posting once a week. I started off strong and have fallen into a lull. For weeks I have been intending on finishing one of the many "projects" I have been working on but have been unable to complete any of them. I finally finished one last week, mid week, and I decided that its best to post it on Sunday, that being the first day of the new week and the start of a renewed stretch of summer posts. Especially since its outdoor reading weather. So here goes.

The drew Carey show was one of my favorites growing up. I loved it but I always watched after school and never seemed to understand the complexities of the plot lines because I never seemed to be able to watch it in the correct order. Feeling nostalgic, and finding that I have the time and interest I decided to start the series from the beginning and she how it went and how much I remembered. Starting with the theme song; I completely forgot that the show had more than the one. I expected to hear "Cleveland rocks" and was surprised to hear "moon over Parma."

The show stars Drew Carey a member of the Winfred Lowder department store management team. He is a virtual every-man stuck in a go nowhere job and the show features him and his friends struggles to get by. The show is full of one liners. Drew's and his coworker Mimi (large woman who is easily confused as a circus clown) are in a constant practical joke war. The war started in episode one when Mimi applies for a job and drew dismisses her based on her looks. She vows to make his life a living hell as a result and guarantees that she will get him fired. Much to Drew's surprise she gets hired in the second episode to be his boss' personal assistant. This practical joke war is second only to the one that occurs in the office between Jim and Dwight.

The show is full of guest stars. Penn and Teller star as Winfred Lowders team of Lawyers in one episode. Time Allen also shows up in a tree in Drews back yard in one episode. He finds himself in this situation as a result of a charity sky diving incident that went awry.

Some of the highlights of the season include the episode where Drew meets the woman of his dreams and is unable to date her because she is an employee and he is management. The episode where drew gets sued for sexual harassment as a result of a comic that he attaches to a store memo depicting a caterpillar crawling on a french fry. Drew decides to date his wild hair dresser (Jamie Lee Curtis). And the season ends when the gang decides to pool their life savings to brew beer commercially.

True Blood: Season 1

I swear I'm not gay either. Marissa and Trevor have already contributed their own opinions about this particular season of TV, so I'll spend my post focusing on an issue I've been struggling with for a few months now: how to handle the merging of my girlfriend's DVD collection with my own. As you probably know if you follow this blog regularly, I spent most of high school and college buying whatever movies and TV shows caught my eye and ended up blowing a couple thousand dollars on what must be at least 600 DVDs. My girlfriend "only" has like fifty of her own, so the collection that currently sits on our shelving units is largely my own (and thankfully, largely already seen). But still - the original goal behind the Back-Blogged project was to "finish everything on our shelves." And, well, True Blood now sits on my shelf. For a while I ignored the concept of merging backlogs, but the inevitability of the idea has slowly crept its way into my mind and, well, fuck it. I guess I'm "doomed" to watching several seasons of Grey's Anatomy, Gossip Girl, and Sex and the City as well as a few chick flicks. (I must stress "few" - Marissa is more of a shitty action movie fan than a rom-com girl. What can I say? I found a winner.) But, wait, does that also condemn me to three-dozen murder mysteries? And Candy Factory on the Wii? Because my backlog is big enough, and I don't need to go nuts adding stuff to it for the sake of, well, adding stuff to it. So I've come up with a plan that isn't even a new one, but merely an extension of what I was doing when living with my parents and sisters. When it comes to stuff that doesn't technically belong to me but still resides in my own residence, I'm gonna watch read, and play what I want to watch, read, and play. What a novel concept! That means I'm chomping at the bit to get my hands on Marissa's copy of The Orange Box (again, I chose well) but I'll ignore the presence of Glee on my DVD shelf for as long as I possibly can. My understanding is that plenty of my fellow bloggers employ similar systems. I know Marissa blogs about my stuff all the time, and I think Sweeney has made several posts on TV seasons or video games that he's borrowed from me or his roommate or someone else. (He's credited me with many an "assist.") We all define and approach our backlogs with differing degrees of precision and completion. For now, I'll just "add" my girlfriend's stuff to my list of logged stuff without ever actually placing them in my backlog first. Cheating? Hardly! Oh, yeah, and True Blood is actually a decent show. Not great, but decent. But more on that when I finish and post about Season 2.

The Sopranos: Season 2

Boy, it sure took my girlfriend and I a long-ass time to finish the second season of what many have called the greatest TV show of all time. We started last March, and only just finished. Must have been a pretty shitty season, right? Wrong! I actually enjoyed it from start to finish (and especially the finish, but more on that later), and simply never could quite find the time to get back into it after watching the first five episodes a while ago. But allow me to backtrack just a moment and explain why it is that I like this show. It isn't the mobster genre. I could take or leave the parts that involve Tony organizing a hit on somebody or running a crime ring or whatever. What I'm enjoying is the depth of all the character interactions, particularly within Tony's family. Tony is the way he is, and because of this, his wife is the way she is. And maybe Tony is only the way he is because his mother is the way she is. And Tony's kids, coming of age, are finding out more and more every season just who and what their dad is and it's certainly affecting who and what they are. I know that's vague as shit, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers at all costs. Because quite frankly, this is a show that people should watch and enjoy for themselves. I'm glad I'm finally doing so. Now, about that season-finishing goodness... I think that the Season 2 finale was the best episode I've seen yet. It starts out with the aftermath of the previous episode, in which a big event occurs, and for ten or fifteen minutes it's just diarrhea humor after Tony eats at an Indian restaurant.  Then he begins to have some bizarre and foreboding dreams. Then he and his associates go off and do something you always knew they'd have to do, but wished they wouldn't. And all of a sudden some repercussions from a previous incident manifest. And then the season ends with Tony living large but with this foreboding sense of an impending downfall. I've certainly done it no justice, but seriously, it went from "low-brow humor" to "surreal dreams" to "this is really very touching and sad" to "oh shit, that thing they did is coming bak to bite them in the ass" to "oh, Tony, live it up you sick, bad man!" all within one beautifully crafted hour of television. I'm very excited to see what comes next and that is why I am sure that we can finish Season 3 before another three months have gone by. But first it looks like I'm gonna have to sit through a season or two of True Blood. Through one and a half episodes so far. Tons of tits. Pretty cool.

Street Fighter IV 3D Edition

So I bought the 3DS on a whim last weekend and decided I would pick this up with it because it was the highest rated game. The problem with that is that I don't much like fighting games. I never have the patience to learn the moves so it always leads to me mashing buttons. With that being said, this is a great fighting game. I've played the console version and this is pretty much that console version now in 3D. No sacrifices were made in the character department as this game has the entire cast from its console counterpart. However, because the 3DS has a limited amount of buttons, combos are now mapped to the touch screen. The touch screen is divided into quadrants, each one being a button devoted to a powerful combo. This makes the game much easier, which I am personally okay with. This game is more about learning timing rather than learning buttom combos.

With all that being said, I am so impressed by the 3D tech that I will wholeheartedly recommend this game. It's your standard fighter, but in the palm of your hand and in 3D.

Heroes: Season 4

Since I already lashed into Heroes as an entire four-season series in another blog, I'm going to do something I never thought I would do. I'm going to write a positive post about this final season of Heroes. In fact, I will break convention entirely and make a bullet list of every positive feature I can come up with. I'm sure there'll be a fair share of sarcasm, but bear with me. This is no easy task! Anyway...

• It wasn't the worst season of Heroes. That distinction still belongs to Season 3. The series had "enjoyed" an entirely downward quality trajectory before reaching this season, which managed to rebound from "absolutely horrible" to simply "mostly terrible." Picture a "quality versus time" graph that looks like a ski jump.
• I watched all 812 minutes of this DVD set in under twelve hours. I could have done so in nine. About halfway through the season I realized that if I pressed "fast forward" on my PS3, the first option was a 1.5-fold speed up in which all audio and video remained intact. Yes, characters moved and spoke rather quickly, but I honestly didn't miss a thing of any substance (as if there was any to miss at all - sorry, I know, positive thoughts, positive thoughts) and after a few episodes it felt weird not to be watching the show in 1.5-speed. Talk about a time saver!
• For a few episodes I was genuinely interested in what was happening. I don't feel like verifying it, but I think the three or four episodes I'm talking about were spread out neatly across the season. This is a win. I came in expecting the season to go 0 for 18 and instead it went like 3.5 for 18. That's still just a .194 batting average, but then, the Mendoza line is more or less the limit for Heroes.
• Robert Knepper (T-Bag from Prison Break) was used to the best of his abilities and was one of the season's highlights. The creepy but charismatic charmer didn't simply play a Heroes version of T-Bag all over again. Instead, his character spoke with some sort of Irish accent and was hellbent on bringing his "family" (a traveling carnival full of people with superpowers) to a promised land of sorts. Same charming but sleazy T-Bag vibe, but with a totally different delivery. Acting has never been an issue with Heroes, but I still need to give props to Knepper for a job well done.
• A refined and slightly trimmed down cast allowed us to focus on the characters that mattered. After three ever-increasingly bloated seasons were spent introducing new people with special abilities without really killing or writing off that many characters, it really felt like this one cut back, and hard. Nathan, Mohinder, whatever character Ali Larter was playing this time, Parkman, Claire's mom, and Hiro's dad were all minimally present, leaving the focus primarily on Peter, Claire, Hiro, Sylar, and Knepper's "Samuel" character. It didn't make any of those characters better or more interesting, but it did make for a less convoluted and annoying story arc.
• They briefly teased a Hayden Panettiere lesbian angle. It never panned out and the other girl wasn't attractive. (Think Rebecca Black, aged poorly.) But still.
• The finale, which was never intended to be the series finale, actually works pretty well as a series finale. So there aren't a ton of loose ends left, at least in Heroes terms. After foiling a villainous plot to destroy the world at the end of the "volume" (as per usual), the next volume begins with Claire sick of hiding her powers from the world and jumping off a Ferris wheel on national television. "She just changed the world," remarked Peter, or Sylar, or someone. And it ends. So we can all rest easy now that the "specials" (people with abilities) were welcomed and embraced by society and that was that. Hurrah!

And so it ends. The idea of continuing the franchise in some form or another is still floating around out there, but I've paid my dues and after watching four whole seasons on DVD (and two of them also on NBC), I can't imagine that I'll be in on any straight-to-DVD movies or a novelization series or whatever, if anything, comes next.

House of Leaves

Wow... Back-Blog... Is it really you? It’s me... Trevor. Yes, Trevor. Jeez, I don’t believe it. How long has it been? Over two months! What have you been up to? Oh, Jazzercise classes. Uh-huh. Well, it certainly shows... you look fantastic. And me... well, you know...

Coming back to the Back-Blog feels a little like reconnecting with an old flame you bumped into at the coffee shop. We have so much history yet I can’t help but feel like we’re strangers now. Part of me wants to just pick up from where we last left off, but the other part is too ashamed of all the broken promises and mediocre sex followed long bouts of crying to just resume life as it was.

In case you forgot about my promise, in my last post (months ago) I swore that that was going to set a new record in the amount of blogs posted here. And what happened? Like a coward, I cracked under the pressure, hopped into SpeedDemon (my 2001 Red Jetta with the crumpled bumper and cardboard spoiler), and began my life as a drifter. Half-watching movies and partially reading books as I pleased. No one telling me how or when to finish whatever it was I was working on. And for a while, things were good. Things were simple.

Then things took a turn for the worse. Without finishing anything I started my life fell into despair. Librarians hurl bricks through my windows demanding I return - or at least renew - the piles of half-read books that now litter my apartment. Netflix has put a hold on my account after noticing my massive instant queue list was still untouched. And my rank on Xbox Live dropped to an embarrassing level as I fail again and again to earn any achievement points from my barely touched games. That’s when I realized that I was nothing more than shadow of my former self. A pathetic excuse for a human being. Then it hit me. An epiphany. Everything in my life that was good and wholesome was due to Back-Blog... It completes me.

Now, I know you can’t just take me back - and after what I did I don’t blame you - but maybe there’s a way to show you I’ve change.

As I was walking the isle of my local Borders (now an Urban Outfitters) I overheard a couple talking about the scariest book they ever read. Being a fan of horror, I swooped in after they left to see what all the fuss was about this is what I found:

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

I don’t really know where to begin explaining this book. I guess I’ll just start with a few simple questions. Did I like it? Yes. Was it scary? Yes. Would I recommend this book to others? Eh, maybe.

Let me try to explain myself. This book does not read like most novels. There’s no “real” coherent, central storyline to follow. Rather the book tries to break down the fourth wall (if you can even do that with literature) as you begin to uncover this seemingly real case of a family living within a “haunted” house. Ugh... I’m really not doing the book any justice trying to explain it this way. I’ll just start from the beginning.

A tattoo artist, Johnny Truant, from Los Angeles greets you in the introduction. From the start you can tell that this man is mad. Not mad by nature, something has changed him, eaten away his sanity. Quickly you discover that not too long ago his friend (the manager to an apartment building) invites Truant over to check out something weird within one of his recently deceased tenant’s rooms. As they explore the dead man’s room, they discover two things: stacks upon stacks of cluttered writing and notes, and in the middle of it all are claw marks dug into the hard wood floor. With no sign of struggle in the old man’s death, there’s no clue as to what the scratches are all about; but that’s besides the point. The real focus are the stacks of papers left about the apartment because that is in effect what the book is. Danielewski has basically set up a situation where you have in your hands the life’s work of a dead man who has attempted to report upon the Navidson Record - a mysterious, unknown documentary about a family who moves into their new house to find out that the dimensions on the inside surpass those on the outside leading to far more surprises.

Now, while you begin to read through this man’s take on the Navidson Record, you are continuous interrupted with Truant’s side notes, which are sometimes insightful to the text at hand... but honestly they mostly annoying. They almost always involve him having sex or yearning to have sex while he slowly describes his descent into madness through his obsession over these records.

All that aside, however, the book’s largest strength is its ability to allow the reader to choose how much they want to let the book consume them. One one hand you could just flip through the pages focusing solely on the sections dealing with the Navidson Record, learning about the creepy house with the mysterious innards. That would be the bare minimum approach, but you will still grasp the central concept to the book. On the other hand, however, you can have fun diving deep into all the superfluous information gaining deep insights into all the characters and their struggles. The book reads a lot like a school text book with footnotes aplenty always reference you to various appendixes containing certain photos or letters that are relevant to the topic at hand. For example, there’s an entire section in the appendix devoted to dozens of letters written by Truant’s mother after she was committed to a mental institution or something. Although the character has no purpose in the story, by reading her letters you gain great sympathy and understanding of Truant that would have never been gathered on the surface. But once again, it’s completely unnecessary if all you really care about is learning about the family and the haunted house.

Another factor I find astonishing is Danielewski's formatting and pacing of the text. While I said it reads pretty much reads like a textbook (footnotes and all) the standard organization of the page begins to unravel the further you sink into the story. Soon text begins to overlap text, entire lines sit at strange angles, font and sizing randomly change, various words and phrases might be inked in red.

Basically the book makes you go mad just as it has done to Truant and all those before him. And I, for one, think that’s brilliant.

So to tackle those three questions I present a few paragraphs back, this book is fascinating, fun - and most importantly - an original read that does a great job of dropping your defenses and making you vulnerable to any privacy or solitude you may have once found solace in. But is this book for everyone. Well, if your looking for just a conventional novel, a story with your standard character arc and three act structure then I would stay away from this guy. However, if you’re looking or something completely different, then turn down the lights, set Pandora to LUSTMORD (just trust me on this; it completes the mood), and good luck navigating the endless hallways of the Navidson’s home.

Well, there you go. My first review in months. Does this mean I’ve changed, that I’m a better man. Yes and no. I may not be a better man, but I do understand what kind of man I am. I’m a man who can’t keep promises. So no more guarantees on how I’ll be setting a new record in posts. What you see is what you get with me. Maybe you’ll see me tomorrow. Maybe you’ll see in a couple of months. Back-Blog, if you can take me as I am, then maybe we can give this whole thing another shot. What do you say?

Oh, and Back-Blog in case you also forgot about the mediocre sex... that’s probably for the best.

Fallout 3

Many years ago, when I first got a 360 (ok, so it was my little brother's 360, whatever) the first game I bought to play on the new system was The Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion. At this point I had never played an rpg before, let alone one of these fancy first-person open ended affairs, and I loved it. It was basically the only game I played at my house during the summer between sophomore and junior year. It didn't play like a Final Fantasy- the whole point of the game was to forge your own path- come back to the main storyline when you wanted, but 90% of the game was found in the engaging sidequests and heavy level of customization. I joined guilds, made all sorts of friends and enemies, explored tons of huge random dungeons for loot, and then after I finished off the main campaign I went back for more. Why so much talk about Oblivion in what's clearly a Fallout 3 post? Because I got basically the exact same feeling here. This makes sense, Bethesda made Fallout 3 right after Oblivion. I've never played a previous Fallout game and don't really plan to- none of it really appeals to me, but this one appears to be completely different- emphasis on single player, playable on a console, FPS, and the like. Anyway Fallout 3 trades away a vibrant fantasy setting for post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., and obviously has a much higher emphasis on gunplay than Oblivion. Didn't matter for me, I still focused almost entirely on building up my melee skill to the point where I was clubbing some of the most powerful enemies in the game down in a few casual whacks. One of the game's most famous gimmicks is VATS, a system which allows you to periodically freeze time in the midst of combat, zoom in on different limbs of the enemy your fighting and manually pick which one you want to shoot off. Unfortunately since I was a melee weapons expert I rarely used this tactic, but when I did I found it to be great fun, if a little inefficient. The game should also be lauded for its unique introduction- the gameplay is taught over the course of your character's lifetime- first you control him as a baby and customize your starting skillset, then as a kid you learn some combat with a BB gun, then finally as an adult you make a daring escape from the vault you've been locked up in your whole life out to the wasteland that is Washington D.C. From here I thought the story took a sorta generic turn- go find your Dad, something about purifying water to save civilization, although the final battle in which you follow a giant robot spewing anti-Communist propaganda was a great finale. Overall it would have been nice to spend more time on the game- Oblivion wouldn't have been half as fun as it was if I only focused on the main storyline, but that's just how logging is. Fallout 3 is done, and like Jay Z I'm on to the next one.