I got rick rolled

And I'm not talking about the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I was looking for a Bioshock 2 trailer on Youtube. It was right after I found a crappy video of a kid videotaping his TV while the trailer rolled, and right before I found a good quality trailer. It started normal, and then HE popped up on the screen with his dumb ass little video. Well played, sir.

In other XBox news, I updated my Live account so that we can instantly watch Netflix through the internet. It is awesome!!! So far we've only watched the current season on NCIS. But when they say instant, they mean it. You go through the computer to put things on your instant watch queue (different from the send them by mail queue) and within a couple seconds the videos in your queue pop up on the menu in the Xbox. Awesome! There's not a whole lot of good movies in the watch instantly selection yet, but tonight we're going to watch Pirates At World's End.

The video quality of a watch instantly Netflix program is pretty good. If you hit "native resolution" on the TV, you'll see the video is actually quite low resolution, but it's HD (depending on program) so once it stretches out onto the TV it still is pretty good. Better than non-HD TV programming, less than HD programming.

Oh jeez. I just remembered the last part of my XBox rant. To get the Netflix functionality to work, you have to get the update called "new Xbox experience" or something. It changes the whole menu system of the interface and it is really really stupid. You have to pick an avatar for your profile, and it is so much like the Wii I can't believe Microsoft isn't getting sued. IF I WANTED WII CHARACTERS ON MY SCREEN I'D BUY A STUPID WII!!! Since I don't have a Wii, I must not want to look at those stupid little poorly drawn characters. It really pisses me off how childish and dumb looking they made the whole thing. It was just fine they way it was before, assholes. Click for full post and comments

Would you kindly give the Bioshock guys some sort of award?

I finished Halo3, it was beautiful, but short. Now I'm working on Bioshock. It's beautiful too. I'm into the single player campaign modes, so Bioshock is a dream come true. It really shows me what can be done with graphics, sound, etc. when the rest of the disc isn't taken up with co-op mode and extras and shit. Bioshock is what I wished the Halo crew had done from the beginning: make a spectacular campaign mode, put it on its own disc, and put co-op and shit on a whole other disc! Everyone's happy! Don't get me wrong, Halo3 graphics and sound are awesome, but campaign mode's a little short. You know? I was actually starting to not mind the Flood levels because the graphics were so pretty. And squish squish every time MC walked. Awesome!

Anyway, play Bioshock! It's the best game ever! (Seriously, I'm not kidding. It's the best game ever made.) Click for full post and comments

Disappointment

So I finished Splinter Cell for the 360 the other day. I got the unresolved ending because I did the negative (to the NSA, remember Sam still works for them?) option (the cruise ship, Hamsa, and Lambert are the three times to make a decision) all three times. So, now I restarted from the very beginning to do the right thing. But not the hero ending, I want Enrica to live, and I am allowed one negative outcome of the three. So my disappointment comes when I'm reading the message boards on GameFAQs, and they are all saying how much better the solo mode is on original XBox! WTF??!! This game was designed for the 360! I did wonder at times why they didn't let us play out certain parts (hijacking the helicopter, for example). I agree with whoever said it's like they rushed to get the game out for the holidays. But, I gotta say the underwater scenes in the icebergs were awesome. That about payed for the game right there. And I'll have to make sure I get my hands on the backwards compatibility patch so I can play the other version of the game. At any rate, I'll be much happier once I've got Sam's hands around Moss' throat. Click for full post and comments

Things I'm not ashamed of

Movies I love and get pissed off when they're on TV because of the crappy editing/dubbing: Heat; Goodfellas; Casino; The Big Labowski; the worst offender, Office Space.

Movies I love: Dodgeball; Sin City; Snatch; Equilibrium; Bad Santa; and some James Bond movies, too many to list or remember.

Bands I love and every one else is an idiot for not doing the same: Pearl Jam; Who; Doors; Queen; Tool; Floyd.

Bands I like and am not ashamed to admit: Collective Soul; Guster; Goo Goo Dolls; Stabbing Westward; Filter.

Books I have read and loved: The Hobbit and LOTR; anything by Toni Morrison; Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash; Richard Adams' Watership Down.

Books I have read, enjoyed, but am only now coming to appreciate: Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. It's set in the immediate future, before Snow Crash, and world events of the last year or so have really made me realize what an accurate sense of the development of civilizations he has. All these books were written in the 90's, but you'd swear they were up-to-the-minute current. Oh yeah, he's f'ing hilarious too (scroll to the excerpt).

My husband is trying to get me to read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle books, I just haven't gotten there yet.

Those are all literature type books. I enjoy a good Tom Clancy now and again.

That reminds me:

I am also not ashamed to admit that I own an Xbox 360, and am currently about to finish Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Then it's on the the other game I got for Christmas, Call of Duty 3. Then I'll rent the latest Hitman one. Then maybe Halo 3 will be out finally.

Crafts I have going on in the background pretty steadily, it's just a matter of finding the time to do it. I have a cross stitch going for my Grandma. I am honestly worried she won't be alive when I finally get it done. It's got butterflies on it. It's purty. I also have a mosaic going. I am currently only using glass tessarae, but I think I may give marble or unglazed ceramic tile a try too. I am also in the design stages of a washi project (that link is an example of what I'm talking about): making a bill organizer that goes on your desk. Yes, you can buy those for less than I'll probably spend on paper, but I'll have made it with my own hands! I have also decided that the foyer needs an origami mobile. A big one. We're talking two stories to fill here. It will probably be tall and skinny, because a lot of the space is tall and skinny. Makes sense, right? Click for full post and comments