The Man Who Wasn't There

So, I'm at home today. I finally have a chance to stay home and rest, so I took it and slept in today. I was planning on going to the doctor today, but I'm actually starting to feel a little better.

I've been trying to psych myself up for my 8 week training session in Biloxi. I'm working on a list of things I'm looking forward to so that it's not all bad:

1. Visiting New Orleans
2. Taking tons of pictures
3. Eating fresh and damn good seafood
4. Kick-starting my diet again
5. Saving money with the possibility of making money

That's all I got so far. But, it's a start. The new Mars Volta album is out today. Whew! It's killer! Here's a taste:



They're unlike anything you'll ever hear. Love it. Especially like how mercurial the song is. Every time you get it pegged, it flips and changes into something else. And the technical proficiency of the band is absolutely mind-blowing.

I'm finally going to watch Blade Runner! Tally and Tyler sent the Blu Ray version to me for my birthday and I got it today. So, I think I might watch it this afternoon! Also, The Nines is out today! Excited for that one.

Weekend was good. Didn't do much, outside of the fight, but it was good. I did take a video of another fight, that of my brother's best friend Tony. Tony is a beast. He's 220-230ish (can't remember), and his fight lasted about 10 seconds. Got to meet him, finally, yesterday and it's amazing. He basically amounts to a teddy bear outside of the ring. But, damn, I would not want to face him in the ring.

My brother told me yesterday that the guy he beat actually passed out. I didn't realize this until today, but I caught a moment on film where you can see the results. As the film fades out to the aftermath portion, you can see the ref reach down, pick up the guy's arm, it flops down. He was unconscious at that point.

This is an awesome article, written concerning the recent hooopla over Mass Effect on Fox News. I was really, really glad to see it. But, it also exemplifies the problem with "journalism" today. And I use the term journalism very, very loosely. It's not about hashing things out and getting to the bottom of controversies. It's not about pursuing truth. It's not about telling the truth. It's about tabloids. It's about speaking before knowing. It's about lies.

I remember reading an article a few years ago about the "new journalism." The article, written, ironically enough, by a journalist working for the companies that it affects and is about, described how 9/11 changed the face of journalism. I'm going to completely butcher what was said, but the basic gist was that during 9/11 it was the tabloids who were getting the most news. For years, they were the place to go for "news" concerning celebs and when 9/11 happened, a lot of people apparently turned to them in droves because they had the information faster than the news programs.

When 9/11 was over and things were calming down, news programs began realizing just how much tabloids were making off of gossip, celebs and controversies. So, what happened to the news? They started taking on aspects of tabloids. We all know tabloids tell before knowing and make up the most egregious things before knowing if they're true or not, becuase it's about the dollar and about who can sell the news the quickest. No one who reads those magazines seem to care if it's real or not; if it is, they read it first. If it's not, well, there's always next time.

So, this piece of Fox News is interesting because it proves this point so damn well:

“'I recognize that I misspoke,' she said. 'I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke.

'Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography,' she added. 'But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of Lost that are more sexually explicit.'"

Basically, we're listening to this woman; a woman who not only hasn't played the game but had absolutely no frickin' knowledge of the game past what someone "heard"? Utterly ridiculous.

Oh man, it is flippin' cold. I know it's flippin' cold because of two things. The first is that I noticed that I had frost/ice on the inside of my car. The second is that my car told me it was -7. In places around the metro it was -11. So, in retrospect I should say it was warm where I was at because it could have been colder.

Since I'm an idiot, I'm driving to work with my hands in my sweater's sleeves because I have yet to purchase gloves. Why? Because I'm an idiot.

I actually wish that, of all the times I could be going to training in Biloxi that I were there right now. I see that it's 48 degrees right now. Which some of you might scoff at as being called warm, but is like roasting in the fires of hell right now, compared to where I'm at.

DMC4 demo and PixelJunk Monsters are out today and for that I cry, "Huzzah!" The Moment of Truth is crap television. And not the kind of crap television that is actually fun to watch in a sort of why-the-hell-am-I-subjecting-myself-to-this. It's the crap television that's...well, crap. It's boring as hell, for one. And I don't understand how someone could lose the game outside of not answering a question. The first guy they had on lied and I'm thinking, why would you do that? You're at $100,000 and you lied? Way to go slick. Horribly boring and stupid show. In my defense, it was only background noise as we were destroying skeletons and wights in DDO...

My brother is supposedly fighting this weekend. He's one of the two headliners on the flyer. So they have him all looking tough and stuff on the flyer, with his fists up. It's kind of silly. But he's really excited and I'm...well, about the same as last time. Which is to say not very excited because that's my brother those fists are flying at.

I say he's supposedly fighting and that's because the guy he's supposed to fight never got back with them to schedule the fight. So, I asked him who he's fighting and it sounded like they'll have to grab someone at the fight. Which makes me wonder how many people just show up there, hoping to get in the ring. I have to say I'm a little relieved he's not fighting the guy he was supposed to. That guy is more experienced; he's had seven fights, four of which he's won and, according to my brother, none of his opponents were easy.

In other good news, I feel like I'm making strides towards feeling better. I'm still hacking up a lung, but it's more like half a lung than a full one right now. So...relatively speaking, that's a good thing.

...right?

So the reason the US Xbox 360 owners are getting screwed on the lack of Turok demo on Xbox Live is because it is apparently an exclusive demo for the Official Xbox Magazine. The announcement was probably either a slip-up or was released too soon. The review for it came up at 7.0; they basically said it's an "old school FPS" game, with the annoyingly use check point system and a very hard difficulty level, especially with bosses where you have to learn their pattern (usually dying a few times in the process). They said those who enjoy the old school shooters will probably get more enjoyment out of the game than they did.

The Xbox Mag also has three exclusive songs for Rock Band that you can't find elsewhere. Xbox.com, additionally, accidently let slip what's probably coming to Rock Band's downloadable content roster the next two weeks. Expect an Oasis pack (with Wonderall and their other big hit) next week with a "progressive rock" pack the following week. The progressive rock pack has a Coheed and Cambria song (!), a Rush song and......a Smashing Pumpkins song? Since when is Smashing Pumpkins "progressive rock?"

Before you get too excited, though, it looks like both the Coheed and the Rush song are covers...which isn't surprising with Rush...but Coheed? That makes me a sad panda. At least it's a good song ("10 Speed (God's Blood and Burial)").

I'm glad to see Cloverfield is sitting at a nice 77% with 65 reviews so far. Means it should be a pretty good movie. I'm really excited to see it tonight. I'm dragging people to it because of my birthday. We're going to eat at Nebraska Brewing Company then it's monster-destroys-New-York-time.

I'm so glad it's a three day weekend. I just wish I could kick this cold. I haven't had a good, full night of sleep this entire week. I even took a cough suppressant last night that's supposed to work for 12 hours and I woke at 2:00, coughing and hacking up a lung. You know how you cough and cough and your chest and throat start to hurt? That's my morning.

Finally...alright Quentin. We already know you're in love with trash films, exploitative films and grindhouse pictures. We get it. But, seriously, move on. Please. I really don't think the world needs a remake of the exploitative Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Let's just leave the homage responsibility to the song which, surprisingly, is kind of catchy.

As the week progresses, it's getting harder and harder to get out of bed. I'm feeling like crap and have been since Monday. Drainage for the lose. It's in my chest, so I'm coughing like crazy, my nose is plugged so I can't sleep. And when I do finally start to drift to sleep, I start coughing like mad. Then there's the once-in-awhile chills. Blech. So, last night I woke up around 3:30 and it took me forever to get back to sleep. There was a point, when I was staring at my alarm as it read 4:15 that I thought about saying screw it and just get up. But I didn't.

Whine whine whine.

Cloverfield is turning into what I expected it to be: a good, fun old monster movie dressed up in hip clothes. Reviews are coming in with people giving it positives while saying it's an old film looking new and with others dogging it for being the same thing. Still looking forward to it; I think it'll be fun. Movie's at 68% with 22 reviews counted so far.

Every time I see Lisa Schwarzbaum's name, my lip curls.

Supposedly, a Turok demo is on Live. Haven't looked yet. Might check it out. Also, apparently a Devil May Cry 4 demo is also inbound, hopefully prior to the game's release. I really wish they'd release the TGS demo of Lost Odyssey.

Next week, PixelJunk Monsters will be out on the PS3's Playstation Network. I absolutely love tower defense games (like in Warcraft 3) and this game looks to mesh cute story book graphics with tower defense gameplay. I can't wait! Here's some info about it; hopefully it'll be just as addictive as the other Tower Defense games I've played. Now...to find someone else to play this with.

Now that Age of Conan looks to be really and truly sticking with its March 25th release date, my excitement is growing by the day. I really wish I were in the beta right now. I want to build cities, wage war, dismember my foes, partake in "drunkin' brawling" in the taverns and go around yelling "CROOOMMM!"

...okay, maybe not the last one.