Monthly Archive for April, 2007

Exploded Computer Update

Published on April 27, 2007 in Stuff. 2 Comments Tags: , .

The last few days have been filled with tragedy.

I got my PowerMac G5 back from Apple on Saturday. The computer booted up, only to begin crashing hard when doing minor tasks. I decided I should probably do a clean install of my system, so I used this as an excuse to finally buy a bigger second internal hard drive. I backed up all my shit, then formated the original drive and did a completely clean MacOS X install. This solved the kernel panics, but applications were still spontaneously quitting for no reason. Final Cut Pro would crash while rendering without fail, as would System Update. This was especially upsetting because I also realized that of all things to forget to copy to my backup, I forgot to save my e-mail database and address book, and the whole ordeal felt pointless.

After a long angry call to AppleCare, and the advice of a couple of friends, I removed the third party RAM I had in my Mac worked without issue for the previous two years. This seemed to solve the problem, so I went and exchanged it using the Chip Merchant’s lifetime warranty. Putting in brand new RAM caused the problems to happen again. So, I called AppleCare again, and they said “yeah, we can’t guarantee it’s your RAM; take it back to the store.”

I decided to keep the Mac until I could finish my project, since it seemed to work fine without the additional RAM and I couldn’t afford to sit around for another week with a looming project deadline. The next day, Allison and I got together to work on this thing, and within an hour of video editing the machine started to pull the same shit as it did with the RAM and it became obvious there was no way we were going to get anything done.

I ended up taking the computer back to Apple because it was completely useless to me in the state it was in. I ended up buying an open-box MacBook Pro on credit in order to get the project done on time. After the project, I’ll return it to the Apple Store for a full refund. I really hope they can fix my G5…

Grindhouse (Rodriguez/Tarantino, 2007)

Published on April 18, 2007 in Movies. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Grindhouse is actually a double feature made up of Planet Terror, directed by Robert Rodriguez, and Death Proof, directed by Quentin Tarantino. The movies are done in the exploitation flick style typical of grindhouses, and are tied together by fake trailers made by Rodriguez and guest directors.

Overall I enjoyed both movies, but Rodriguez’s I liked more.  While it was grotesquely violent, it was a lot of fun, and fit perfectly with the grindhouse aesthetic.  Rodriguez’s sense of humor seems to work better in this context than in movies like Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

Tarantino’s movie was good, but it wasn’t without problems.  It doesn’t get interesting at all — in fact, I found it boring — until Kurt Russel shows up. We spend far too much time with those other characters, listening to them chatter about nothing important. I felt like Tarantino just likes hearing himself talk, likes hearing characters read his dialogue on screen.  Otherwise his movie was great… especially the last thirty minutes.  I could say why, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.

I’m disappointed that Grindhouse has done poorly in the box office.  It seems that the general public has completely missed the point.  As I left the movie, a theater employee was standing outside the door apologizing to people and giving out free passes.  As far as I knew, nothing went wrong with the screening, but I wasn’t about to turn down a free movie ticket.  I later found out from a friend that people have been complaining about “poor viewing quality” and “missing reels.”  Idiots.  The marketing campaign seemed to focus almost exclusively on explaining the grindhouse aesthetic, yet still it’s misunderstood.  Apparently some people were even unaware that the movie was a double feature, despite it being abundantly clear in all the advertising.  Despite it being a decent campaign, and surprisingly honest, it failed.  I’m curious to see if there’s anything written up about it anywhere… if any of you know, please post links in the comments.

Borked Computer Update

Published on April 17, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Tomorrow’s gonna be a fun day.  First I get to go to the mechanic to get my van fixed at noon, then at 6pm I have an appointment at the so-called “Genius Bar” in the Apple Store of Fashion Valley.

I took my van into the shop last week, but the problem persisted the next day and has actually gotten worse since they “fixed” it.  I’ll probably have to sit there for three hours or so, but at least I’ll have my DS with Puzzle Quest.

As for my computer… I doubt my hard drive was damaged, so I just hope that the problem with my computer is limited to the power supply or logic board, as AppleCare phone support told me would be most likely.  If so, it’s a fairly routine replacement that shouldn’t take much longer than the actual shipping of the part to the store.  If it’s going to take longer than a week, I need to figure out what the hell to do about the project Allison and I are working on, because we have a deadline to worry about.

Fuck.

Published on April 16, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Bummer status.

So, my computer just exploded.

I’m on my laptop now. I left my desktop computer while I was playing video games, then came back and found it off. When I tried to turn it back on again, it made a loud whirring noise before shutting off. I tried it a couple more times, only to have the same thing happen except this time with a burning plastic smell. Needless to say I stopped trying.

I’ll be calling Apple first thing in the morning.

Umbrella Chronicles Gameplay

Published on April 16, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Kotaku posted this gamplay clip from Umbrella Chronicles, one of the upcoming Wii Resident Evil games.

Looks pretty fucking cool. Based on what Capcom has done with the GameCube hardware in the past, this Wii title is very promising. I hope it’s as intense and unnerving as RE:4.

Upcoming Capcom Games

Published on April 14, 2007 in Links and Video Games. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Capcom is preparing to open the floodgates to unleash a flood of pure awesome. Here’s some links to Game|Life’s excellent coverage of Capcom Game Day, with hands-on impressions of several of the games.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii)
A zombie shooter on rails, similar to House of the Dead.

Resident Evil 4 (Wii)
An update of RE:4 for the Wii. A must-have if you never played the Cube version.

Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations (DS)
Another Phoenix Wright game! Can’t wait for this… I love puzzle adventure games.

Untitled Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law game (PS2/PSP)
Capcom is apparently working on a Phoenix Wright-style game based on Adult Swim’s Harvey Birdman series. Because of the quality of Capcom’s PW series, this game has some serious potential if it’s well written and features the voice cast of the show.

Project Treasure Island Z (Wii)
Chris Kohler calls this game “the love child of Wario Ware and Monkey Island.” I can’t wait to play this.

Super Paper Mario (Wii)

Published on April 13, 2007 in Video Games. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

Super Paper Mario is the latest in the Paper Mario series, which begun on the N64 and has its roots in Mario RPG for the SNES. I had never played Paper Mario (N64), but I played the sequel on the GameCube, Thousand Year Door, as well as the Mario & Luigi RPG games on the GBA and DS, which are not sequels but are definitely related. So, I was anxiously awaiting the release of Super Paper Mario, the first Wii game to come out since launch that I was truly interested in playing.

Super Paper Mario differs from its predecessors in that it has simplified the gameplay by abandoning turn-based battles in favor of something closer to the classic Super Mario Bros. formula. The game is actually a 2D sidescroller with real-time Mario combat — stomping Goombas and kicking Koopa shells. The twist is that Mario has the ability to “flip” into the third dimension, revealing hidden depth in the 2D world and allowing you to move in it to overcome obstacles that seem impassable in 2D.

super paper mario screenshot

Mario flipping to the third dimension.

Since combat is real-time, you only control one character from your party at a time. You can switch at any time between characters after you find them, and each has unique abilities. For example, Peach can float using her parasol, a-la Super Mario Bros. 2, and Bowser can breathe fire. You also find sidekicks called Pixls throughout the game, and each gives you a new ability. One Pixl can be equipped at time. The game is further simplified by the complete exclusion of stat-boosting equipable items.

The simplification works because of the intuitiveness of the controls. The Wiimote is held like an NES controller, and other than the d-pad only three buttons are actively used during the game. The Wiimote is sometimes also shaken or used as a pointer. The use of the Wiimote feels like a natural fit for the game; it has definitely benefited from being pushed over to the Wii from the GameCube.

While the game is definitely a lot of fun, the level of challenge isn’t very high. Thousand Year Door was an easy game, too, but so far this one is far easier. In this regard the simplicity hurts the game, because the pace of play feels too slow in relationship to it.

super paper mario screenshot

Wow, Nintendo’s sure got my number.

Where this game really shines is writing and presentation. Super Paper Mario maintains the sense of humor of the previous games in the series, and it’s a joy to talk to every NPC to see what they have to say. The characters are full of personality, and the game has tons of funny little Nintendo references.

The game makes up for the Wii’s lack of kick in the graphics department through beautiful, highly stylized design. The game combines vectorized 2D animated sprites with cell-shaded 3D models that resemble simple papercraft. Each world has a unique environment, and some have unique visual styles. There’s items that cause a bunch of tiny 8-bit Marios to run onto the screen, or turn you into a gigantic 8-bit Mario that crushes everything. The visuals make me giddy with glee; Nintendo proves yet again that games don’t need to be made on cutting edge graphics hardware to look great.

super paper mario dragon boss

Cell shaded awesomeness for a boss battle inspired by Shadow of the Colossus.

Super Paper Mario was definitely worth the wait for the GameCube to Wii transition. Let’s hope the true Wii first-party Nintendo games I’m anxiously anticipating will be just as good.

Marie Antoinette (Coppola, 2006)

Published on April 8, 2007 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: , , .
marie antoinette poster

Marie Antoinette is a film about the fall of the French monarchy and Louis XIV’s court, as seen through the eyes of the young queen who begins as an Austrian outsider but is quickly sucked in by Versailles’ decadence. Sofia Coppola’s take on the story, while interesting, is rather one-note. Versailles was like high school. Ok, we get it… and then the movie goes on for another hour and a half.

The movie was famously both cheered and booed at Cannes. Critical reception seems to be pretty polarized for this one in general. Going to RottenTomatoes.com, we see reviews that range from glowing to stuff like:

…it feels like a teenager’s diary, read aloud over some awesome mixtape.

and

Without daddy’s money…Coppola’s emaciated screenplay would still be moldering on her hard drive as the author worked the 10-4 shift at the Starbucks on Figueroa.

Roger Ebert wrote a review that defends the film.  I look to his reviews to get a feel for a movie before I see it, because while I often don’t agree with him, he writes excellent reviews that give good insight into films.  While he makes excellent points, it’s still not enough to convince me to like this movie.

Lady in the Water (Shyamalan, 2005)

Published on April 8, 2007 in Movies. 2 Comments Tags: , , .
Lady in the Water poster

With Lady in the Water, M. Night Shyamalan continues to challenge himself by writing and directing increasingly terrible movies. Other than Unbreakable, a single fluke, his movies have been consistently awful.

The plot and dialogue are almost laughably bad, and the performances are awful, with the exception of Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard. In his most self-indulgent film yet, Shyamalan goes even further by casting himself in a role that only proves his unwarranted pretentiousness and arrogance — he plays a writer destined to write a book that will change the world and eventually be martyred. Needless to say, his performance is less than stellar.

Lady in the Water revolves around the re-enactment of a mythology made up by Shyamalan for the movie. This works poorly, since the mythology feels silly and isn’t captivating enough to create the necessary suspension of disbelief to really enjoy a movie like this. On top of that, the creature design is rather unimpressive, making for a villain that isn’t nearly menacing enough, and ultimately making the ending underwhelming.

The movie is compellingly bad; the only thing that kept me watching is to see how much worse it could possibly get. The sad part is that’s the only suspenseful part of watching this movie.

Thai Yellow Curry

Published on April 6, 2007 in Stuff. 1 Comment Tags: , .

After an meeting at Chef Works yesterday, Allison, Derek and I went to Lotus Thai in Hillcrest for lunch.  I had the Yellow Curry with chicken, which was amazing, as usual.  The dish gets better and better with every bite, and is even better the next day if you keep some leftovers.

The first time I had it I liked it, but I wasn’t that excited about it.  But then the next day I actually woke up in the morning thinking about eating it again, and when I had the leftovers for lunch the curry was simply spectacular.

Unfortunately this time around I couldn’t take any home.  First of all, it’s Passover, so I wasn’t supposed to be eating it to begin with.  More importantly, I got the lunch special, which came with additional items but less curry and rice, so there wasn’t much of anything left to take home after the meal.  Fortunately the additional items that come with it were delicious, and allowed me to try new things at the restaurant.  The combo included a spring roll with sweet and sour dipping sauce, and a small salad with a honey mustard dressing.  The spring roll and sauce were great, and while the salad was fairly plain, the dressing was very good.

I also usually get a lemon grass soup, but when he first sat down we were almost immediately given complementary cups of  a different soup.  The soup was amazing, so I wasn’t disappointed.  Next time I might have to order a small cup of each.  I’m really looking forward to going there again… I’m already craving that soup and curry.