Just to add some new developments to what golliz said here, the conservatives are now trying to use the “Look, that loveable Rush Limbaugh lookalike is laying it thick on those smug liburul Hollywood scum!” narrative after what happened. Ignoring what the man at the centre of this teacup tempest said, I’m sure since they’re so enamoured of Gervais, they should be happy to invite him to their own dinner events. Because like the last time that something like that happened, things just went SWIMMINGLY, with a gracious and good-natured crowd lapping things up.
Month: January 2011
Skyrim Watch, Part 1
The first in-game screenshots of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been revealed and the “Creation Engine” looks fantastic. I’m a longtime Elder Scrolls fan and Skyrim is probably my most anticipated game of the year.
Thoughts on some of the info tidbits:
- No class selection – that’s a very good thing, in my opinion. This way your style of play shapes your character and not vice versa.
- 18 total skills – streamlining the available skills is probably a good thing, though we’ll have to see what’s been cut out.
- Dragons – officially in an Elder Scrolls for the first time (apart from the Dragonlings in Daggerfall), fantastic!
- ‘Developers promise combat is more “dynamic and tactical” than before. Focus was on improving combat and the feel of weapons in your hands.’ – cue taken from the Deadly Reflex and Unnecessary Violence mods for Oblivion I guess? Both are recommended, by the way.
- Dual wielding – YES.
- Improvements to AI and quest system – depends. The Oblivion Radiant AI turned out to be a little underwhelming. I certainly hope the development team achieves everything they aim for.
- Other graphical and cosmetic improvements – hardly the most important factor for me, but the screenshots are looking good so far.
- Level scaling – unfortunately it’s not going away, but at least the Fallout 3 scheme will be used, which is more tolerable. In any case, I’m sure modders will come to the rescue yet again.
The little poem on the back cover of the February issue of Game Informer translated from the “Tongue of the Dragons”:
Dragonborn Dragonborn
By his honor is sworn
To keep evil forever at bay
And the fiercest foes rout
When they hear triumph’s shout
Dragonborn for hunger blessing we prayAnd the scrolls have fortold
Of black wings in the cold
That when brothers wage war come unfurled
Alduin, bane of kings
Ancient shadow unbound
With a hunger to swallow the world
Video teaser:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Teaser
I am properly pumped up!
Screen shot and information taken from Video Games Blogger.
How I learn to stop worrying and start loving Taiwan Long Juan Feng
As the Taiwan Tornado departs from our shores on 19th Jan 2011; I thought it is fitting to actually blog about this insanely over the top Taiwanese Soap Opera why I love watching this shit.
- Lin Anna – crazy bitch who kept scheming on every evil plan to be the #1 in the Huang family only to have every scheme blow up in her face. She’s kinda like Wile E Coyote only pretty (not in this show, but in Ai!)
- Huang Zhizhong – The Human Spanish Fly who can get almost every woman’s panties wet by simply grinning his stupid idiot grin. So charming he turned a lesbian straight. This bugger is also faultless. Raped a woman one day, only to have her fall in love with him weeks later.
- Yuan Zhilong -Zhizhong’s half brother, who was gay one day, straight and devoted lover the next, always filial to his chio mum. Always scheming.
- Speaking of Zhilong, the mofo killed his own stepdad, yet all is forgiven and forgotten much later on.
- Nobody gets laid unless… they get drug-raped/gang raped, were fucked cos the other fella was eyeing on his/her money or has their anus raped by prisoners. Tossed Salad is a popular dish even when you’re in a detention cell.
- A guy can get shot at point-blank range for 10 over shots, only to come out unharmed. (Huang Pingqiu)
- However, one can get unceremoniously dumped outta the show too as Zhihan, sister of Zhizhong was in the show one day, and the next, simply died in a plane crash…over the Grand Canyon. Biggest contribution to the sub-plots : repeatedly falling in love with the same guy over and over again…even after his dick got snipped off.
- A-De, a ruffian who suddenly had a new wardrobe the moment he became the love interest of a rich daughter…who was kidnapped by him. Stockholm syndrome, this show is deep man.
- Too much love will kill ya – Everybody who raped will get AIDS. And the window period is…. 1 day.
- Surprisingly nobody I know who speaks Hokkien can tell me what the Hell does “Hiong Jit Buay” (the chrous) means.
I dun think I’ll even get a chance to miss the actors literally the whole cast will be back in some other show which starts airing on Thursday!
Ricky Gervais, I worship thee …
It has always been said that the Golden Globes are literally just an excuse for the Hollywood Foreign Press throwing a star-studded lavish 4 hour party for Hollywood bigwigs to pat each other on the back.
Well, somebody sure didn’t remember to tell that to this year’s host, Ricky Gervais.
The visibly slimmer acid-tongued has lost none of his sting. Insulting presenters and Hollywood in general. The man was on fire. Sadly, most of the stars forgot to remove the stick wedged up their arses, and even starts rebutting at the host (which I must say is a first for me).
My big surprise was after Robert Downey Jr’s comeback at Ricky’s funny intro, he went on to suggest the nominees shoulda slept with him. So, I suppose making cracks at screwing an actress is OK, but being teased about your past convictions are a no-no?
I dunno.. but RDJ has always been a charming bastard and manages to pull off the risque little speech well.
On the whole, I thought Ricky managed to do the impossible.
He made the Golden Globes fun.
Thank God for Ricky, even if he doesn’t believe in one.
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Interesting notes :
Why is Mark Zuckerberg suddenly being revered whenever “The Social Network” wins anything? Did MZ threaten to remove their Facebook accounts or something?
Is Christian Bale channeling Johnny Depp or was he trying to look like Jesus?
Ain’t it great to see Trent Reznor win for Best Score? It’s so hip and non-conventional, and best of all, it already got dumped by the Academy (Oscars) cos it’s not ‘original enough’
Speaking of the Social Network… DAVID FINCHER. BEST DIRECTOR. WOOHOO!!
Why does a blonde Emma Stone look more like Lindsay Lohan than Gwen Stacy?
But last but not least. January Jones, the hands-down winner for Miss Golden Globes 2011.
Infinite Stratos 02: Haven’t I seen this before six years ago?
“We meet again Kira Yamato….now *I* am the master…”
So against all better judgement, here I am writing about Infinite Stratos part Deux. To be fair to the series, it does get better once they get SkyMio’s (predictably trite) antics over with and get to the duel proper, which is generally well animated unless you really squint and pick bones out of your CGI egg. Setting aside the anime fetish of once again bringing a sword to a gunfight, we get the over the top action we expect from a less pantsu oriented version of Strike Witches, down to the usual hewing down of projectiles as if they were redneck beer cans and even a “Shaving off my life by putting my energies into my attack!” attack, which would have elicited a groan from me if I hadn’t used it on the unwelcome Gundam Seed memories this fight brought back.
We also get a bit of backstory on her Mio-ness and her sister, who is chief boffin behind the mysterious IS system, complete with DUM-DUM-DUM a black box of a core. The sister (who I see is voiced by her petite Shiro Akuma-ness), is either a wanderer or has gone missing, and the two are estranged. All this I guess is meant to set the stage for later Shocking Developments(tm) where their WHOOSH WHOOSH battle-armour is not as simple as it seems to their young users.
The harem aspects kick in hard again at the end of the show (once the duel ends and Cecilia starts to feel the ramifications of that inconclusive encounter), and I’m still shaking my head at the preview, which promises YET ANOTHER osananajimi, unbelievably presented as a fang-tan twintail from CHINA. This is going to be one of those anime of two halves, and in the scenario of liking one and disliking the other, how much of the disliked portion you can stomach.
Gosick 02: A Berry Trip on the High Seas
(The second episode picks up from where the first left off, with Kujo and Victorique aboard the mysterious ship. Things soon come to a head with the usual mysterious deaths in/aboard the Locked Room/Villa/Ship and we soon find out what the box/hare metaphor refers to, as the players are whittled down one by one….)
Gosick 02 has some of the common trope issues that Japanese tantei tales have, such as the over-reliance of the Scooby-Doo setup mechanic. Still the whodunit elements aren’t as predictable as what was delivered in the first segment of this arc, and we get to see more of Victorique’s behaviourial tics and welcome comedy relief through the Holmes/Watson exasperation dynamic, including a truly priceless scene after Kujo nearly bites it from a trap. The introduction to a large cast of new characters is a bit of a wash with half of them predictably removed from the picture quickly. The events that set the grisly chain of events in motion are rooted firmly in the sins of the past, another common element of Japanese anime/manga detection.
The interplay between Kujo and Victorique, although reasonable and generally quite amusing, was hamstrung by Kujo being a typical patronizing shounen git, with his laughably cliche backstory leading to the annoyingly paternalistic behaviour we get to experience in excruciating detail, including a doubled flashback.
Now, it’s a reality that Gosick is generally targeted towards the otaku market, and using Japanese characters to placate the ridiculously insular modern manga/anime domestic consumer is seemingly a must these days, but Kujo seems completely like a shoehorned fish out of water, and generally his character buildup only detracts from the story, unlike instances such as Monster, where a foreign surgeon is an acceptable premise and has further plausible plot consequences, as loser-x reminded me.
Still, as a side-effect of all this, we also get another great scene where Kujo saves Victorique from something her lack of inches would never have put her in danger of. Predictably, nothing comes from the anime ever acknowledging it. The cliffhanger at the end of the episode is also extremely pointless, not only because it highlights the above issues, but because we know nothing is going to happen to both the main characters within less than an hour of the season.
Gosick continues to be solid but unspectacular, but that’s enough in these diminished times for the industry. What’s needed is to build on Victorique as a character, since she’s the selling point of this story, and to polish the whodunit elements. Everything else should be second priorites, including wasting valuable time on Kujo’s Japan-ness.
Hey This Looks Familar…
Just happened to catch a teaser for American Idol Season 10 (view the AI Launch 1 video) on the local TV channel and the Jennifer Lopez caricature made me think… hey, I’ve seen this before.
And then it hit me, the depiction of Lakshmi in Sita Sings the Blues, of course.
Probably all a coincidence.
You can download or view the entire show on YouTube . Highly recommended. And then either donate or buy some merchandise to support the creator, Miss Nina Paley, who have so kindly given this work of art to us for free.
Likely the silliest thing I’ll read all week
The classic tune “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits has been deemed unacceptable for play on Canadian radio by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council because of the word faggot. Ridiculous. Of course it is an offensive word but consider the context it is used in. This is as moronic as replacing the so-called “N-word” in Huckleberry Finn with “slave” of all words. The Daily Show treats it with the scorn it deserves.
I’ll listen to that fantastic guitar riff any chance I have, so, presenting the groundbreaking video:
Dire Straits - Money For Nothing (Official Music Video)
I so want a ….Barbie Doll ! (or two)
Mad Men does not a good drinking game make…
Never known for my smarts… I decided to play a drinking game (Macallan 18 years, *thumbs up*) while catching up on my Mad Men.
Me:Â Seated and ready with drink in hand (old fashion 😛 )
[Scene] Roger Sterling came in, pours himself a half cup of whisky
Me : raising my glass to toast to my newfound hero
[Scene] Roger gulps it down in one shot.
Me : My left hand is still raised in salute.
3 seconds.
Maybe lesser.
I’ll probably change the rule to drinking whenever Jane does something like this :
