All is a Game

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been a rather busy month or so for me with holiday travel and school winding down for the semester.

Quick movie/music/game wrapup to start things off:

Harry Potter 4 (2005): It was good, but you could tell that they obviously threw out a lot of character development in order to fit the massive book into the movie's 2.5 hour time frame. The director's cut should add a few of those things back, but I think they still made all the right cuts in terms of importance. A little more character development/interactions between Ron, Hermione, and Harry would've been nice though.

Das Experiment (2001): A German language movie based on the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" from 1971 where half a group of subjects become prison guards and the other half inmates, and the psychology of it all is studied. I really enjoyed this flick, so check out the DVD if you ever run across it.


The Aristocrats (2005): This is without a doubt one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. It's a documentary by Penn of Penn and Teller and it's about the filthiest joke ever, "The Aristocrats." Lots of different comedians (from Robin Williams to Drew Carey to Bob Saget) tell their versions of the filthy joke and it's just absolutely mindblowing how funny it is. See this movie.

I really want to see Peter Jackson's King Kong as well as The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Producers, Munich, and Syriana. Should be a busy movie-going season.

Musically, the latest and greatest new addition to my music collection (other than the Decemberists catalog that I recently finally assembled) is System of a Down's "Hypnotize", which when paired with their earlier-in-2005-release "Mezmerize", makes up probably the best rock album I've heard. The "Mezmerize/Hypnotize" combo is easily in the running for my 2005 Album of the Year, grouped together with Death Cab for Cutie's "Plans", Picaresque by The Decemberists, Nada Surf's "This Weight is a Gift" and "Twin Cinema" by The New Pornographers.

From a video game perspective, I had been playing a fair amount of the new King Kong for Xbox, and I was digging it. That all changed when I finally got off my butt and got Mario Kart DS. It was a simple sell: I love Mario Kart and I have a DS with a house running a WiFi network, so why not?. Let me tell you the wireless play is INCREDIBLE. If you like Mario Kart, get this game. Easily the best game I've played all year. And it has 32 tracks! 16 new ones, and 4 from each of the last 4 MK versions (SNES, N64, GBA, and Gamecube). The new Mario soccer and baseball games I need to get as well. I loved Mario Golf and Tennis. No matter what people say, the cube was not a failure this generation - it had possibly the greatest array of purely fun games out there.

So now that we've gotten past the media reviews, what's been going on with me?

The family and I all spent Thanksgiving in Jacksonville with my relatives. I only stayed one day because I had to get home to look after the dog, Elise was coming into town the next day, and I can't stand one side of my family.

I think everybody has that one part of the family that just doesn't fit. My mom's oldest brother is a lawyer and is spoiled to the core, and his kids usually act just as rotten as he does. When I explained that I wanted to be a doctor and what my interests are, his only retorts were "oh, well you should be [insert specialty] instead because they make more money. I do their taxes, I know." The man could just not get it through his head that I'm not getting into medicine for the money. Fortunately my other uncle, a much-brighter engineer, picked up on my frustration at the issue and tried to explain to his older brother that I was doing this because it's where my heart is, not the dough. It's amazing what drives some people, and how different two people can be. I hope I never become that selfish. Almost inspires one to selfless altruism just to make sure I never become that selfish.

The day with Elise and Avni was great - a chill day where all we did was talked, ate, and watched Brotherhood of the Wolf. Pictures are up on the photo blog, as are my family's pictures from Thanksgiving.

In sports, look for 2005 year-in-reviews for both FSU and GT football in the near future. GT basketball appears to have some incredible talent on the court (see GT's narrow 2-pt loss at Michigan State in the ACC's Annual Big 10 Slaughter) but they also just reek of inconsistancy (see GT's blowout at home against the UIC Flames). Coach Hewitt's got 4 sophomores and 1 freshman starting, so I know that's what you expect from such a young squad. I also know that Paul's gonna get those boys moving, and that teams really should look out for GT down the road. We're gonna knock off somebody big.

Also, I think that after watching highlights of Reggie Bush, that he is easily the best college RB I've ever seen. Not best college player, because the things I saw Derrick Brooks and Deion Sanders do to opposing offenses were sick. But Reggie is the real deal, that's for sure. I'm sure every school in the Pac 10 will be happy to see him leave SoCal.

My Bucs are killing me as well. Missing a chip-shot FG to beat the Bears really hurt. I do however love that Brad Johnson is 4-0 with the Vikings. BJ's a class act and he deserved another chance to play pro football. I hated that the Bucs went with CHRIS FREAKING SIMMS over a proven winner like Johnson. I haven't liked Simms since his Texas days where he stole reps from a much-better QB in Major Applewhite.

Oh, and in other weird news, this post is my first on my new (old) Mac. I went to FSU's fall surplus auction and picked up a Blue and White G3 Power Macintosh for a whopping $22. Though it took some hacking to get OSX (Tiger) to run, it was all worth it. My only gripes right now are the sluggishness of the computer, but that's because it needs more RAM. The 128mb that this machine came with is not gonna cut it in the long run. So after an upgrade, it should be kickin'. Why a Mac? Because I eagerly have my eye on a new Intel-based iBook whenever Apple releases them next year, and I wanted to get accustomed to OS X to see if a switch would be worth it. I really like the flow and look of the OS, and the built-in UNIX features make it extremely useful to me. I'm sold.

Hopefully it won't be a month before my next update, but who knows. School will be done soon enough.