Things worth looking forward to

I'll start off today's post with a personal favorite of mine. Dreamfall, my favorite game of 2006, is going to become part of Xbox Live's "Xbox classics" line on March 24, i.e. this coming Monday. Great news, as this is a seriously underrated game, both by adventure game fans and people who don't care much about the genre. That's usually what happens when somebody tries to make something different, there's always the danger of alienating both fans and non-fans. Hi, season 3 of Veronica Mars!

Dreamfall definitely has its share of flaws, the worst offender being gameplay since there's too few puzzles in the game, and the ones that are there are very easy, for the most part. That's always a problem when you're trying to create an adventure game that contains puzzles that are brought about by the game's story, rather than just being there, arbitrarily. A sad fact that comes with the limitations of the genre, I guess. It has to be said though, others have done a much better job at it, the original two Monkey Island games come to mind.

Still, while not reaching the quality of the original game of the series, The Longest Journey, Dreamfall is nonetheless a great game. Beautifully designed graphics, even if they show their age nowadays, some of the best voice-acting in any videogame, and an excellent story, quite different than what gamers are used to seeing. Sadly, the storyline itself suffers from being the middle part in an apparent trilogy, but I for one was willing to oversee that.

Hopefully, with its release on the Live network for a price of 1200 Microsoft Points (about 15 euros) the game will manage to find a new audience. From what I've heard, it did quite well when it was released on Valve's Steam network, which is somewhat similar to Live, so here's hoping.

Even though I already own a copy of the game (the PC collector's edition in fact, thank you very much) I'd be tempted to buy one more, just for the heck of it. Turns out, Dreamfall will only be released on a few countries, which kind of sucks. For the whole story, including the list of countries, check this link.

In other news, there's only a few days left until the fourth, and final, season of Battlestar Galactica begins. Suffice to say, I am really hyped for it. I thought the season 3 finale was nothing short of epic, and I really want to see where the storyline will head after the positively cataclysmic revelations of that finale.

I understand that a lot of people weren't too keen on the previous season, but what I don't get is the hate for the latter part of season 3. I thought the early episodes were rather dull and took forever to go... nowhere, while most of the episodes near the end of the season were fast-paced and revealed a fuckton of lore/secret identities/prophecies/etc to us.

Oh, well. I'd like to think that even the most jaded of BSG viewers will at least like to know how the whole thing ends, even if it will be a while from now until we find out. I know I will.

And if stuff like finding out just who is that last member of the Original Five is doesn't appeal to you, here's ten more reasons why you should watch season 4 of BSG:



Ah, Tigh, you crack me up.

Lastly, this isn't something to look forward to, but it's funny nonetheless. Apparently, some dude got himself arrested for calling 911 over 27,000 times over the last 10 months. His excuse? "Because it's free."

See kids, if he had been playing videogames or watching TV shows, he'd probably wouldn't have enough free time to waste on stupid shit like that. If you're a parent, here's a reason for you to think twice before telling your kids videogames are a waste of time.

Υ.Γ.
Η ολυμπιακή φλόγα δεν αρχίζει το ταξίδι της τη Δευτέρα. Όχι, άρχισε το ταξίδι της από τον περασμένο Αύγουστο. Από δέντρο σε δέντρο... (κλεμμένο, από ακροατή του Supersport FM).

I'd like to borrow a time machine

Willing to pay for it.

Why? Well...



Need I say more? Alright, I will. I watched episodes 2 to 8 over the last two days (and got a headache in the process, but it was so worth it) and oh my gods, what a season it's been so far. So much for my "I'm not so hyped about this season" nonsense, I'm Lost's bitch oncemore. Season 4 is nothing short of astounding. Lots of answers, more questions, great use of flashbacks, flashforwards and uh, flashbetweens (!) all around. Lost is back, baby!

Glad to hear we'll be getting the whole season this year, too. It's going to be a painful wait until the break is over, but if the above preview is any indication, it's definitely going to be worth it.

On a different note, I planned to write a long, detailed post with my opinion on why Panathinaikos didn't make it to the Euroleague play-offs, but I decided I won't do it after all. Why? Because, well, I don't wanna.

Long-story short, you can't go far in the Euroleague championship with two of your Centers injured and out of commission for months. You just can't survive on that level of competition without your big guys. The same thing happened to us back in '03 and '04.

Could Jasikevicious's paycheck have been used to buy one or two sorta-good Centers? Quite possibly. Would that have made a big difference? I personally doubt it. Saras was one of the few players actually trying these last couple of months (I'm looking at you, Becirovic) and last year we won everything, despite having two players with huge wages (Tony Delk and Robertas Javtokas) that contributed very, very little all year long.

Shit happens, at the end of the day. That's all there is to it.

HAL do you read me, HAL?

Today marked not one, but two great losses.

Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and a multitude of other classic novels, a true pioneer in the field of sci-fi literature passed away at the age of 90. He had a good run, but it's still sad to see him go, he truly was one of the greats. In fact, there should be a law or something against such people passing away.

Anthony Minghella, director of such movies as The English Patient, Cold Mountain and others, also passed away unexpectedly, at 54. While I was never his biggest fan -I especially find The English Patient to be insufferably dull- he was still a very accomplished director, with a lot of talent. Moreover, he was still relatively young and had a lot of productive years ahead of him. A true shame.

In other news, Euroleague 2007 champions Panathinaikos (and incidentally, my favorite team) managed to get knocked out of the competition during the group phase, but I'll cover the backlash from that tomorrow. Shame there's no media strike in Greece tomorrow as well, it ends in a few hours, in fact.

Instead, I'll close this post with a video that is probably quite popular on the Internet today, Arthur Clarke's 90th birthday reflections, which also served as a farewell to his friends and fans. I could commend on this, but it would be highly unnecessary, I find.

Yes. OH YES

'Scuse the almost-orgasmic title of this post, but I just found about this:


I know, it's just the cover, and we still don't know when the actual book is going to be ready (fall? Please make it fall) but just looking at the cover makes me ecstatic. I finished A Feast for Crows while I was PC-less, and the wait for the new book is killing me.

Back with a Vengeance

I finally have my computer back after several weeks. It's an odd feeling, being part of the civilized world again. To celebrate this glorious occasion, this rather lengthy post will contain two (2) things:

1) Jack
and
2) Shit

Good night everybody.

P.S.
All these weeks passed by since I last checked, and there's still no release date for the European version of Rock Band. WHY GOD, WHY DO YOU HATE US SO.

In order for the Jedi mind trick to work, you have to be a Jedi.

An Ethics professor's wet dream

Perhaps the title is a little inappropriate, but oh well. This story of a Boxer who came home to find a stranger raping his 8-year old son and proceeded to punch him to death would make for great Ethic-classes debates.

It's hard to pass judgement on a case like this, well not for the all-knowing coach-potatoes of the Internets, but for rational people. If you read some of the comments in the post I linked, you'll find people calling him a hero, asking to not only be declared innocent but also that he should be given a medal.

I'm not going to indulge in this too much. My position is quite clear. The man did the right thing in trying to protect his son and himself from a stranger that had invaded their house and was raping his son. The last bit is italicized so we don't forget what we're talking about here. You can't ask for more from anyone, really. The need to defend yourself and your family comes as an instinct.

The fact that the rapist died, even after just three punches, is unfortunate. But it's also the father's fault. I'm not saying he should have restrained himself, nobody knows how they'd react in a similar situation. And those saying that they'd remain calm and not lash out, those are the ones that would probably go batshit insane and rip the guy to pieces. Why? Because those are the ones who really don't know themselves. Always keep an eye out for those.

But I'm deviating from the actual point. Killing somebody is never a good thing, even if it's an accident. Yet that's where special conditions come in. It can be viewed as self-defense, hell, if it's not self-defense to try and repel a stranger that has invaded your home, I don't know what the fuck else could be viewed as such. Temporary insanity could also be a case here. Think of the situation; it's hardly one in which you'd try to rationally consider the situation and the eventual consequences. To me, it sounded like the guy started seeing red and went all out.

So is he a hero? For trying to save his son, yes. For killing a man, no. I wouldn't never call him a cold-blooded murderer either though. If I were a judge, I'd personally declare him guilty but make the fine something along the lines of 12 months of community work. Hey, there's a reason why I'm not a judge, 'kay?

I'd say it's one of those cases that classify as an exception, and one that makes studying law so interesting, as well as making a deep conversation piece, mostly but not only in, well, Ethics classes.

And on other news, apparently Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race, sharing the fate of the Dildo Johnson of old.

"So you do it both ways?" Sublime, once again. And Wilson is awesome.

"Taken" teaser

I bought Gears of War on Monday (slightly used, but only for 30 euros!) so I've been spending most of the last 30 hours or so on it. This game is pure awesome, even though this is my third playthrough I'm having loads of fun. Probably the only game in recent years I don't mind playing again and again, because it has that special sort of quality that games like Doom, Goldeneye and Halo did. I haven't found the word for it yet.

Anyway, I just came across this trailer for the upcoming movie Taken, which looks pretty badass. Has quite a few good actors in it, I'm a Liam Neeson fanboi, though Maggie Grace kind of sucks, and it's directed by the same French dude that did District 13. The latter is one of the best action films of the decade, do yourself a favor and look for it if you haven't seen it, it's worth the trouble. The teaser is here:



House actually liked somebody? Mind-blowing.

Rez. Play this game, damnit

Rez is a game with a shaky history. In its first appearance, it was one of the last games for the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast, it never even made it to the States, though it did come out in Japan and a European version presumably existed, yet I never saw it. Not in a legal form, anyway. *cough*

Suffice to say, by the time Rez came out on the Dreamcast, November '01, people had already moved on to the Playstation 2 so sales were terrible.

At that time, Sega had already begun developing titles, though quite a lot of them were little more than half-assed ports of existing Dreamcast games, which were already showing their age. Not so with Rez, as the game was a perfect port and it was never the most technically advanced game as far as pushing polygons is concerned.

However, due to the bad reputation of said Dreamcast ports but mostly to the fact that as a game, Rez is completely bonkers, critical and commercial reception was mediocre at best, so its sales suffered on the PS2 as well.

I'm especially bitter at the critics it received, because the amount of bullshit I read from reviewers of the time that just did not get it was staggering. I recall one review from a British PS2 mag concerning the music, inarguably the most important feature of the game, saying, and I quote, "The music is nice, but samey - 7 out of 10."

What the fuck does that even mean? "Samey music" - as if music has any obligations to change tempo every two seconds. Hell, if anything, a continuous, even monotonous tempo often adds to the appeal of a certain theme. The fact that the music in Rez is anything but "samey" isn't even worth mentioning against such a terrible argument. On a side note, I harbor an irrational hatred of the word samey.

It's also worth noting that it was a trend amongst PS2 mags at the time to give ports of Dreamcast games less-than-stellar reviews, for no other reason than being games that originally came from an "inferior" console. Good times indeed.

Now that the game has been re-released as part of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade network, however, critics are all of a sudden acknowledging Rez as a "modern classic" and "worthy of its cult hit status" and giving it one "10 out of 10" review after another. Quite funny to see, if a bit embarassing.

So what's the big deal about Rez anyway? After several paragraphs of incoherent ranting, it's about time I get to that. The problem is, Rez is one of those things you can't really describe with words. Hell, the first time you see it you still probably won't understand what's going on.

Jeff Minter said it best when he described the game as "Panzer Dragoon with its rave pants on." Because that's what Rez is, basically. The gameplay itself is pretty simple and formulaic, you're constantly moving forward in a typical "on rails" fashion, you shoot at enemies, collect power-ups you use to shoot at even more enemies, and you kill bosses that take up half the screen.

There's also a storyline somewhere in the game, and it deals with... something, but it's far too trippy and abstract for me to ever make heads or tails of it.

But this is one of those games where it's not about the gameplay nor the story, not on their own at least. It's all about the aesthetics of the game. Or rather, how each one ties with the other seamlessly. It has to do with the way everything around you vibrates to the tune of the trance music in the background and its beat. A beat you control by shooting at the enemies on your screen. Furthermore, deciding which enemy to target and kill first is also a nearly-subconscious decision based on the way it moves and the sound triggered when you first target it.

What's that last sentence even about, you're asking? It's all about synesthesia. I could try to explain what's going on, but I think I'll just leave it to the game's creator, Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his recent 1up interview. You may have to scroll down a bit to find the interview, but the whole article is worth reading, actually.

I understand that the above might not be making much sense, trust me when it's damn hard to explain Rez with words. I believe the best way to describe the game is the following: Rez is one trippy experience. Because it's an experience, first and foremost.

Now that the game has at last managed to convince reviewers about its uniqueness and its incredible quality, hopefully so will the players finally realize that Rez is worth buying and playing. You can buy it from the Xbox Live Marketplace for a mere 800 Microsoft Points. Even though I already own a PS2 copy, I'm probably buying it again once I'm able to actually buy MS points (long story, has to do with Greece sucking and being a Banana republic.) Partly as a statement and partly because I've retired my PS2.

In closing, seeing as describing the game can be hard with words, and since a picture is more or less worth a thousand words, here's a collection of pictures in the form of a video. Do keep in mind that actually playing Rez is far more different than simply seeing it.

Get your money for nothing and your Brain Training for free

The pun in today's post title is... ridiculously bad. I make no apologies for that, however.

At any rate, I'm a big fan of Nintendo's DS game, Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training. Yes, that name is quite a mouthful. Not only because it introduced me to the madness that is Sudoku puzzles, but also because it's damn fun.

Both this game and its sequel have been a rousing success worldwide, reportedly 17 million games have been sold so far, netting a total of approximately 14.6 million Euros. This has helped the DS establish itself firmly as the most successful gaming console of the current generation, as well as introducing more people to gaming, especially to people who traditionally snubbed videogames.

There's a lot of talk going around on how this game has started the trend of targeting "casual gamers" with projects such as this one. If anything the DS's library would indicate that the people that have bought the console are mostly interested in quick puzzle/party games rather than conversions of big-name projects from home consoles.

A little sidenote here, but if there's one term that's being used in the gaming industry that I abhor is the term "casual gamer" (the other one would be "hardcore gamer.") There's too many definitions on what constitutes a casual gamer, and seemingly everyone has a different opinion on the matter. But that's besides the point, I may get back to this one day.

In any case, there's a lot of criticism going around about these games, and how they're how they're a bit of a sham and don't really make you actually smarter or make you remember the name of your second big love interest in life. Well, how to put this... they're, y'know, games.

Nobody would like these games if they were as strict as a professional test, not if they played them while trying to relax, anyway. But as all games, Brain Training and More Brain Training have the ability to both entertain you and make you just a tiny bit smarter. Or make you think/calculate more quickly, give you a new method to use when trying to remember things, something.

More legitimate concerns have to do with the fact that it's easy to cheat in this games. For example if you think that the correct answer in a math puzzle is either 1 or 2, you can write a number that could resemble either one, and the game will fill in the blanks and take your answer as correct every time. That's the part where the limitations of it being a game come in. But hey, nothing's perfect. And why would you cheat in such a game, you ask? If you're looking for a more elaborate answer than "because you can," you're in for a disappointment.

Anyway, at this point I'd like to return to the title of this post. The gaming site Eurogamer (one of the better ones of its kind) posted an article earlier about Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, the doctor who gives his name and his testing methods to the game. What's of interest in the article is the fact that while these games have made tremendous profit so far, the good doctor hasn't gotten a single penny of it. And that's his choice.

He does have an annual salary of more than 66,000 Euros, but as we all know, there's one thing about money. You can never have enough of it. Except for this guy, apparently. He could choose to become filthy rich, and pay whatever consequences come with that, but he preferred to focus on his work and research.

I find that really admirable. Knowing when to stop is never easy, especially when it comes to money. I guess it comes with being really friggin' smart and all.

Dropouts and comebacks

So republican nominee Rudy "I mention 9/11 in everything I ever do" Giuliani has also dropped out of the race, thought it took me a while to pick it up. It's funny, I remember some of the polls from like... a year ago, in which Giuliani was supposedly winning the actual presidential election.

Goes to show why you shouldn't take such polls seriously, I guess. Giuliani might have had a more universal appeal, but as most people have said, he was too "left-wing" for a republican.

On the subject of comebacks, Lost is finally returning tonight, with the first of what will be a really short season. Eight episode long, to be exact, half of what it was supposed to be. I'm calling it now, there will be a heck of a lot of frustrated people screaming "ZAMG WAI NO ANSWERZZ!!!" once these eight episodes are over. People, get over it. That's how Lost is, it always raised more question than the ones it answered.

That being said, I find myself not being quite as hyped for this than I thought I'd be. I absolutely loved the finale of the third season, but that was in May 2007, feels almost like a lifetime ago, and I've sorta lost my Lost vibe since that. I'll remain cautiously pessimistic about tonight's episode. With any luck, the episode will catch me by surprise.

Lastly, after trying to give the 5 versus 5 arenas in World of Warcraft one last serious attempt, one word sums up my feelings perfectly...

LOL

So that's not exactly one word, more of an abbreviation of three ones, but whatever. The matchmaking system is an absolute joke, and this is painfully obvious after the sublime system in Halo 3.

My 1390-rated team had to wait for around five minutes on average for one game, and when we actually found a game, what were we up against? Teams with a rating of more than 2000, and as a result, their gear level was so much better than ours that there wasn't even a point in trying to fight back. Which we did, because we're stubborn like that, but the result was depressing.

I understand not everyone is familiar with the system implemented in WoW's arenas, so here's the deal: It's a rather simplified version of the Elo rating system, commonly used in chess.

What this means in WoW is that the higher rated team (which start at a 1500 rating, mine is lower than average therefore) will always have access to better gear. The problem is that while the matchmaking system is supposed to match rating as well as gear level, it gives me the impression that it's been programmed in such a way in which after the first two minutes, it goes all "Fuck it, I'll just randomly put two unbalanced groups together and piss both of them off." Fun fun fun.

One step closer to a permanently canceled account, yes sirree.

So Edwards dropped out.

John Edwards, that is. A few days before "Super Tuesday" too. Shame, as I liked him. It didn't really seem like he ever got a legitimate chance at winning, but I liked him more than Hillary, and even Obama at times.

It'll be interesting to see which remaining Democratic candidate his followers will turn to, seeing as Edwards will not officially endorse either of them. The easy answer would be Hillary because "lol she's white" but Obama has shown to be quite popular amongst the white population as well.

In other news, I need to stop posting at such late hours, and House was of course awesome last night. It was a bit strange to see an Xmas episode one month after the actual holiday, but the episode itself was wonderful. Fantastic dialog once more, and an ending with a surprise, sardonic, twist. Also, milk in the knee, what the Hell?

Guillermo Del Toro to direct The Hobbit

Hello.

Yes, I know. Long time no see. As I've said a few times before, this is a slow month. Plus with me having a new console after so long, I haven't been particularly inspired with writing anything. It's much easier to shoot people dead in Halo 3. I'm loving the matchmaking system they've implemented, too, as it helps hopelessly bad players such as myself to avoid all the "pros" and "elites" out there. Much love.

Anyway, cult-favorite Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro has been rumored (or should that be pretty much confirmed?) selected to film the movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. After the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it was inevitable that this movie would be someday made, and after Peter Jackson announced that he wouldn't be involved in directing the Hobbit, most people were rather skeptical. Myself included.

But I think this is good news. As a fan of both of Del Toro's commercial projects (Hellboy, I even liked Mimic. But not Blade 2) and his more low-key, more personal films (The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth) I'm quite pleased to hear he's, probably, going to be the man to direct the Hobbit. He has both the artistic vision to make sure the movie will stay true to its roots, and hopefully add his special kind of eerie, surreal horror to it, as well as the necessary knowledge on how to make a commercially successful movie. And let's face it, this is going to be a big, expensive project, and it will have to be a box office hit. Not that this is a bad thing, unlike what some people would have you thinking.

New House M.D episode tonight, too! The wait has been long, but it's definitely worth it, as we're getting three episodes in eight days (today, on Superbowl Sunday and again next Tuesday.) Of course the wait after that is going to be even longer, but y'know, shtuff happens.

I has a 360

An Xbox360, that is. About time, too.

Setting up Xbox live prove to be a long and frustrating affair, I honestly don't understand why simple things like this must take so damn long. I'm not trying to sell my spleen here (or worse yet, somebody else's) -I'm just trying to play some games. Anyway, all's well that ends well. Fuck Greece, though.

First thing I did was download the new Devil May Cry 4 demo. It's really damn impressive. You get two options, either play a 10-minute long run of a stage (reminiscent of the old Resident Evil 2 demo) or the Executioner mode, in which so far I've fought three opponents that looked like mini-bosses, and an actual boss. I kinda suck in DMC games, so I haven't finished either so far, but it's damn fun and the boss fight is visually astonishing.

The new moves, namely the ability to "charge" your sword for stronger attacks and a throw ability, really add a lot of depth to the gameplay and provide with even more options to (stylishly) dispose of your enemies. I can't wait to see what kind of combos the "pros" will come up with. I was a bit skeptical about this game at first, but it's shaping up to be a must-have.

The special edition is available for pre-order for a mere 30 English pounds at Amazon, by the way. Heck of a deal, if you ask me.

After that, I just had to download Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It doesn't matter if I've completed this game like 6-7 times so far, I just have to have it. I'm probably going to play it through again during the week. A full run takes me less than eight hours, nowadays.

But the game I was really waiting to play? Guitar Hero 3! Or its demo, at any rate. Damn. I ended up playing for around 90 minutes and I didn't even realize how time had passed. My hands hurt, even. And to think I used to mock this game, heh. I don't even want to imagine how addicted I'll be to the full game. Or worse, Rock Band.

One last thing about Xbox Live, there's this fun, addictive, little game called Undertow that's being offered for free through Xbox Live Arcade until the 27th of this month. It's a small download and the game is definitely worth it. I'm willing to bet it's awesome on multiplayer.

Next games to play: Virtua Fighter 5, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Street Figher 2 Hyper Fighting and Ultimate Mortal Kombat. Oh, my poor aching wallet. :[

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

At first I thought it was some sort of stupid internet joke, but sadly it's true.

I don't make a habit of being riled up by deaths of people I've never met, as I find there's a certain amount of hypocricy there, but... When a young man, who at the same time is such a talented actor, dies it's hard not to feel bad about this event.

He was one of my favorite young actors, he had several "big breaks" on the horizon, and he had earned the respect of a great many people for playing in films actually worth a damn, rather than every single teen rom-com on Earth, even though he could have easily done that.

A damn shame.

Nothing more worth saying. Rest in piece, Heath.

Headaches, Animaniacs, Shakespeare and whaaa?

First of all, headaches suck. I have one right now and it feels like my head is going to explode. Therefore this post is going to be really short.

Even though I'm a huge Animaniacs fan, I haven't watched all the episodes of the show, as it was canceled half-way through season two here in Greece. Yesterday I came across a video I hadn't seen before, a modern-day translation of the "Yorick" soliloquy from Hamlet, thought I'd share:



And last thing for today, a blog post by the (in)famous WoW player Ming. He's good at theorycrafting and makes decent WoW movies, but sometimes he represents everything that's wrong with this world. It talks about how WoW players could/should find a girl through WoW, and the nonsense starts from the very title, "When She Called Me By My Forum Name, I Turned Soft"

Dude, what the fuck?

An astronomy picture a day...

Does something-something-something-else-that-rhymes-with "day."

Quiet days, these last ones, not too exciting either but hey. I'm not complaining, I like quiet.

I did come across something very interesting today though. A website called Astronomy Picture of the Day. As you may have guessed, it features a different picture of our universe every day, accompanied by commentary by an astronomer.

I find pictures of different planets, solar systems and even galaxies to be quite fascinating. It's always a good reminder to know that we live in a practically infinite universe, where our little blue planet is but less than a drop in the proverbial ocean.

Yes, there's just something about the universe, and pictures related to it. Sometimes I actually find them scary, be it a picture of a supernova or a picture of a lonely planet. I'm not sure why, but pictures of a single planet, with only perpetual darkness around it is just... terrifying to me.

Some others are simply majestic. Especially Nebulas, and the myriads of colors that make them up. I guess supernovas are also majestic. In a terrifying way. And then there's always the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

Speaking of Nebulas, the Carina Nebula might be on to us, despite it being 8,000 light years away.


I know we earthlings aren't the best of kinds, but that's just rude, man. It's not polite to give the finger like that to people you don't know. *pouts*

Highly inappropriate

But I lol'd.

So, like

Two toothpicks are walking down the street. Right across the street there's a pin walking the opposite way.

One toothpick turns to the other and goes, "Dude, check it out, it's Robocop!"

(Haven't had anything remotely interesting to say lately, so a horribad joke sounded like decent filler material.)

Some good news

Hey, it's late and I've been traveling, so I forgot to mention these on the previous post. Plus they're good news so they'd feel out of place in the previous post of random negativity.

First piece of news isn't really that new, but it's awesome nonetheless. Nobody has a clue yet if A Dance With Dragons is coming out this year (thought it'd be ace if it did, I could use something to read while in the army), buuuuuuut! There's a new sample chapter up at George R.R. Martin's website, and it's a...

*drumroll*

Jon Snow chapter! I tend to avoid sample chapters as they're spoilerish in nature, but Jon Snow is one of my favorite characters, and I certainly don't regret reading through that chapter, as it's well, sublime. Do want.

The second, and more unexpected, news of the day came from Ron Gilbert's blog. Gilbert, the creator of the first two Monkey Island games for you heathens out there, is working on an episodic RPG-Adventure game called "DeathSpank: Episode One: Orphans of Justice." It goes without saying that this is excellent news. Gilbert is one of the few original game creators out there. Between his new game, Tim Schaefer's new game and Street Fighter 4, 2008 looks like an amazing year for gaming. Read more about DeathSpank here.

There and Back Again

I may have a few more kilos and fewer hair than I used to, but I'm back in Athens. Karditsa, my hometown, felt like London lately, or perhaps even Silent Hill with all that damn fog going around night and day. The cold wasn't very welcoming, either.

Seems like I'm back just on time, as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report re-appeared after a long hiatus, although they're still missing their writers. I've only seen one TDS episode so far, but I thought it was still as funny as usual.

I can't wait to see what they'll have to say about the New Hampshire primary results, which saw Hilary clinching the win with a small 3% difference, and McCaine winning the Republican primary, despite most people writing him off already. Moreover, Bill Clinton called Obama's campaign the "Biggest Fairy Tale I've ever seen!" Ouch. Looks like the kid gloves are off. /cliché.

I'm not sure why I'm keeping such a close eye on the primaries. $10 say that if I were American I'd probably wouldn't give a shit about them and probably wouldn't even vote either. Don't tell anyone, but I only decided to vote on the Greek election about two hours before the deadline.

What I'd really like to know is what the HELL are Darth Vader and Yoda doing in Soulcalibur 4. I mean, WHAT?! Spawn and Link in Soul Calibur 2 at least made a little bit of sense from a purely marketing point of view, and could even perhaps convince people buy more than just one version of the game. Spawn still was a friggin' weird idea to which I had objected back then as well, but his creator, Todd McFarlane, or rather his company, was creating Soul Calibur action figures back then. So go figure.

But Darth Vader and Yoda? Sweet zombie Jesus. I hope that Inigo Montoya and Zorro will appear in SC5. Now that'd be something to wait for.