the-inbetween.com

Five Topics for Halloween

Halloween: Bah humbug.

Politics: well, well, well. Two months ago, the Liberals said, and I quote:

I, Dalton McGuinty, leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, promise, if my party is elected as the next government, that I will:

Not raise taxes or implement any new taxes without the explicit consent of Ontario voters;

Now they're in power, and what do we hear?

Premier pledges to raise tobacco tax, cancel Tory tax cuts to deal with $5.6-billion deficit

From zero to lie in less than two months! That must be a new record. Even the federal liberal party didn't do it that quickly!

Yes, I know. It's the fault of the Tories' deficit! Those damned Tories. It's all their fault! This finger-pointing tune, I'm going to guess here, is going to be the Liberal cry for the next four years. Didn't deliver on the doctor shortage? It's the Tories' fault! Didn't freeze tuition rates? Blame Eves! Didn't lower insurance rates by 10 to 20 percent? Not our fault!

The problem with the Deficit Defense is that they were aware of it weeks before the election, and had time to change their pre-election promises. Instead, they stayed by their guns and shot for the stars with unrealistic (and expensive) expectations. Now, suddenly, they can't afford it. What a surprise!

"Choose Change", indeed. Welcome to the new government, same as the old.

Consumerism: so I bought two 2L bottles of Coca-Cola from a Daisy Mart, brought them home, poured a glass, and was greeted with the foulest tasting cola I've ever had. I checked the bottle, and there was something I definitely did not expect: 25AU03. Thus, I did the only sensible thing: I ratted out the store and the manager to multinational Coca-Cola Corp. I better be reimbursed for that flat shit.

Entertainment: I'll be damned, they're finally making an Alien vs Predator movie. The question is, how to react to this news?

A dozen years ago, when I was a pre-teen, the rumours of an AvP film were definitely tantalizing. There was a definite nerdy coolness to it, at a time when those kinds of movies had a far stronger appeal to me. The nostalgia to that simpler time of geekery still exists in me, but my matured movie sensibilities balk at the ideas behind this movie. What the hell is with this Antarctican pyramid bullshit? Why the hell does this have to be set on Earth? How does this fuck up the Alien continuity? Paul fucking Anderson? It's got S-H-I-T written all over it.

Finance: the Economics of Suicide better not give me any wrong ideas...

Rock, Paper, Scissors

I just got back from the 2003 World Rock Paper Scissor Championships, held here in Toronto, and organized by the WorldRPS Society The grand champion, winning $5000, was a member of the "Legion of the Red Fist." I was an official tournament referee there, so I'll have an update later.

Update. Photos from the event. The Official Photo Gallery.

Boo-yeah!

I just have one thing to say:

Fuckin-A!

Also, sidetalkin.com is amusing.

Bomb Toronto

Those crazy, sensitive Quebecers have their panties in a knot over Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain. This fictional game is to have a fictional mission in which you have to prevent fictional militant Quebec separatists from blowing up a Toronto subway station. Separatists (and the TTC) whined. Sony caved. They say they will remove the references.

I'm curious as to how they're going to "fix" this. Are they just going to apply the "Generic Arab" skin on the terrorist models, and replace the Canadian flags of Toronto with American flags, and just set the mission in Generictown, USA? I hope not, because it'd be interesting to see their take on Toronto*. Not to mention, it'd be nice to get a chance to blow shit up within Toronto (assuming I'd ever play this game in the first place.)

* There are screenshots available, and some of them look like they are trying to portray Toronto -- and with those shots, it looks like the developers didn't do their research. But it's too early to say.

Two things come to mind about this. The most obvious one is that people here are being way too sensitive. Did Baltimore complain about being nuked in The Sum of All Fears? The second thing is that this seems like a deliberate ploy on Sony's part. Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain has not been a buzz generating game, in part to its poor E3 showing and in part to its ho-hum lineage. This little "controversy" has generated more publicity for Syphon Filter than it likely deserves.

Update: This was front page news on all the major papers today. To paraphrase:
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
MAN.
Talk about screwed up priorities.

Update to the update: Look at the screenshot in this article on Canada.com. Do I see a "Gamespot" watermark there? Do I not see any credit to Gamespot? Tsk tsk tsk. Not only is it lousy "news", it's also lazy reporting.

Gator is spyware

Gator has sued -- and won -- to keep its piece of shit "malware" from being called "spyware". I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this...

"If we find anyone publicly calling us spyware, we correct it and take action if necessary," said Scott Eagle, Gator's senior vice president of marketing.

That Gator software is spyware of the worst kind. It's also malware. Evilware. Advertising-asshole-ware. And, oh yeah, that Scott Eagle? He's a clueless motherfucking marketing asshole that wouldn't know spyware if it took pictures of him, without his consent, fucking his dog.

That was kinda fun. More fun at Slashdot.

Disc Can Not Be Read

Mega64 has a video spoof of Shenmue [25MB]. The gag, as with similar jokes to this, is that the seemingly normal in a video game, when acted out in a real world situation, is absurd. Dave Chappelle did this with the car-jacking in Grand Theft Auto 3. These guys focus on the clue-seeking conversations with strangers that are common in Shenmue.

The 2003 Dumbass Corporate Lawsuit Awards. The sad part is that they could, very likely, increase it from a Top 10 List to a Top 100 List.

A local store, Animation Connection, sells a lot of cartoon prints, etchings, original art, and original cels. Most worthy of note: The Simpsons, including many original production cels. Anyone have $500US to spare?

As an aside, my F-Zero GX disc -- which has been sitting in its case for weeks -- has, seemingly, been damaged. This has rendered the game all but unplayable. The disc has not been dragged on the ground, chewed on by the cat, sneezed on, or anything. The last time I played it, it worked fine. Since then, it's been in its packaging. Now it doesn't work. This is annoying, and it has left me pining for the good old fashioned cartridge days. Stupid disc technology.

Brain Tumour Wavelengths

USB Drives are interesting in that they are far more usable and portable than CDs, don't require any special CD-RWs or Zip-Drives, and have far more capacity than old style floppies (though that one's a given). Their small size also allows them to be integrated with other bits of technology, like the USB Watch. However, other than that and some miniscule mp3 players, I haven't seen anything else interesting in this area. Until now. Here's a cool little gadget: USB Wifi and memory storage. I would so get one if I didn't already have a Wifi card.

The Sony-Ericsson P900, the update to the downright cool but pricey P800, is coming soon. But the more of these new high-tech phones that I see, with their cameras and their games and their PDAs and GPS and whatever else they think of, the more content I am with my no-frills, nearly three year old pre-Sony Ericsson handset. And just as this article's writer says to Nokia's CEO, I will likely not upgrade my phone until it is dead for good.

The other thing that would keep me from upgrading to a high-end phone is the fact that my carrier's, Rogers, phone selection is absolutely horrible. Mostly lousy and already out-dated phones. That alone has me thinking of going Fido, with their far better phones.

Volume One and a Half

One last Kill Bill mention -- until February. Via Google I came across Everything Tarantino which linked to the HKFlix Kill Bill Study Guide, and someone there links to a Tarantino interview that talks, at lenght, about all the references.

This isn't an art film mediation on these movies. This is the genuine article. The real deal. And that was one of the ideas behind splitting it in half. There just seems something pretentious about a three hour exploitation film. But two! Two exploitation movies! That's ambitious.

Also, Road to Perdition was influenced by Lone Wolf and Cub? *Carson voice* I did not know that.

As a final note, here is one of the best aspects of Kill Bill. Wallpaper size, too.

On to something else...

2002: A Palindrome Story. Not only is the story a palindrome, but it uses exactly 2002 words -- which, itself, is a palindrome. Here's a review. I was going to be clever and write this paragraph as a palindrome, but I'm not that clever.

Volume One

Fuck it. Despite what I previously said, I went to see Kill Bill. Here's a 50 word review:

Amalgamation of references and nods to Hong Kong action, Japanese samurai, anime, blaxploitation and other, mostly 70s era, pop culture presented under a Tarantino guise. [review to be continued]

The problem with having such a strong homage movie is that you can find the references distracting. Especially if you don't get the references. Rather than focus on what is being said or done, you think to yourself: Why was her name beeped out? Where is that flashback/revenge tune from? What's it mean? Who is that guy? What is that song? Why does this scene look familiar? Where the hell does Star Trek fit into this?

That's the biggest problem with the film. You can't ignore them, because you know they're there. They're not hidden or subtle; they're chop-your-arm-off obvious and blatant. Even if you don't understand them, you know that they are nods to something that you haven't seen, perhaps should have seen, or might never see.

And it bugs you.

Or maybe I'm just being anal. Riding my desire to understand the film, I get lost in some B-movie moviephiles' orgasmic dream made manifest. I feel as though I'm seeing half the movie (a quarter, when you count both volumes), and that makes me uncomfortable. It makes me feel as though I've missed out on something special; but it also makes me want to seek out those under-the-radar movies that Tarantino, quite clearly, loves. It's that appreciation that shows through in Kill Bill, and it's partly what makes it so enjoyable.

That said, Volume Two is going to get my money -- Volume One was fun enough to warrant it. I liked it. Hell, even even The Star (er, Geoff Pevere) loved it.

Finally, I have already subjected an unfortunate soul to my diatribe about the pre-movie commercials and trailers (all twenty-five minutes of them), so I'll spare you from it.

Entry 200

You have to admit, it is a catchy little tune. Na na na na na-na-na-na, na na na naa -- FUCKING USA!

Nintendo overdose: the game is infested with syntactically challenged old men who say things like, 'Eastmost peninsula is the secret,' when they mean, 'Hang a right.'

Truly, one of the best aspects of the original Zelda.

And, this is quite the television. 18 minutes of footage takes 3.5 terabytes.

The footage was then shown to members of the public on a 4x7m wide-angle screen provoking, according to Mitani, gasps of astonishment. Some viewers even experienced nausea because of the ultra realistic visual effect of speed without the usual physical sensation of movement.

Henshin-a-Go-Go, baby!

And off I went to do the things I shouldn't be doing: buying new games!

First off, a Dreamcast is finally in my hands. Or, technically, on my floor. Got Shenmue along with it, and while it's regarded by many as an essential Dreamcast title, the little time that I did spend with it has failed to captivate me. Nonetheless, now that I have that console, I can begin my search for my essential titles: Bangai-O; Mars Matrix; and Border Down, amongst others. The latter of which, an import title, was just released. The console might be all but dead, but there's still some limited support out there -- particularly in Japan.

Then came Bombastic, the spiritual sequel to one of the Playstation's best puzzle games, Devil Dice. The sequel makes the old game completely obsolete. While the original "Classic" gameplay is still there, the new Bombastic mode is like Classic on crack. The same dice matching strategy applies, but now there's an emphasis on keeping a combo going during the more frentic -- and dangerous, as the die now explode -- gameplay. The almost-budget price of 39.99 CDN is an extra perk. Great little game.

My only beef with it is the fact that they replaced the "Puzzle" mode with a "Quest" mode. A story is something a game like this does not need.

Then there is Viewtiful Joe.

It's been praised and gushed over by others already. Many times. All of it justified. It's got great, intuitive controls; slick look and design; inventive puzzles and layouts; challenging difficulty; deep and stylish action; and a fun, irreverent story that is not meant to be taken seriously. As they say on ebay, A++++++++.

Or, in this case, V+++++++.

Don't ask where the money for these games came from. While it certainly could have gone to better, more critical things, I can not escape this "hobby" that I have grown fond of. The bright side is that I get to play three really solid games on three seperate systems. The other side of the story, the more irritating side, is that I'm essentially stalling on my credit card dues. Minimum payments are wonderful things when you're strapped for cash, but they mean that, at this rate, my credit card bills won't be paid off until sometime in 2014.

Treachery of Images

For no reason other than for looking at them, here's a bunch of paintings (and one collage) I like. Some of these fit my current mood; then again, they fit my always mood, which is probably why I like them in the first place.

MORE...

Kill Bill Chill

I'm undecided as to what I'm going to do with Kill Bill. The movie comes out soon, and it is one of my anticipated "must see"s, but I have hesitations. It's not that I don't want to see the movie; it's just that I have no wish to buy two movie tickets for what is, in essence, one movie.

Miramax's decision to split the movie into two is both perplexing and retarded. I can't see how the argument that the movie, at just over three hours, is too long can fly. Not when the biggest movies of the last two years have been three hour epics. It's pure business bullshit, that's what it is. Miramax just wants two seperate box office receipts, and they're betting that the first volume will be successful enough to warrant return customers for the second volume. That's a fucking scam.

I think I'll just wait for the "Complete" DVD release. Purchasing a standard DVD is cheaper than two movie tickets as it is, and you don't have to deal with the lines, the loud teenagers, the pre-movie ads, and the pre-movie trailers.