Saturday, April 22, 2006

The dead seek out sin

Silence has been broken.

I saw the 10:30 showing of Silent Hill last night. Me, my jumbo popcorn and sugar water, and a theatre full of the most hellish noises you can imagine. Once I duct-taped the teenagers' mouths shut, though, you could hear the movie just fine.

So, then, what did I think? Obviously I'm biased for my enthusiasm about the game, but I'll be as objective as I can.

...

Okay, fuck objective. This movie was incredible. Aside from being the first truly well-done game-to-movie that wasn't all rendered (FF:TSW reigns supreme in the 3DCG category), this movie gave me all the scares I was hoping for, and actually managed to carry a decent plot. Unfortunately, that plot was watered down a bit from the game, and Gans took some liberties with characters, but it stood on its own just fine.

And I got to see Pyramid Head on the big screen. How freaking cool is THAT?

However, a caution to my readers: it should go without saying for any horror movie, but it really goes double for this one. DO NOT see this movie if you have problems with gore. It has it in spades. Among other things, there are scenes of scalpel mutilation, flaying by Pyramid Head's bare hand, burning alive, and the most graphic barbed-wire scene I have ever seen in my life. I ate it up, but I know a few others who, if disturbed by the final fight in "V for Vendetta," (yes, Lady J, I am looking at you :-P), would quite likely pass out more than once during SH. Probably 5 times during the final church scene alone.

Little things:
-The alleyway scene from the beginning of SH1 was recreated BEAUTIFULLY. Even the camera-tilt at the corner was picture-perfect. And the mumblers were truly chilling.
-Hearing Akira Yamaoka's "music" (a.k.a. noise horror) arranged for the big screen was one giant fan-gasm. Half the fun was trying to pick out all the songs and remember which game they were from, when they played, etc.
-It was nice to see the "tough guy" character actually respond properly in the face of reality-defying terror. Cybil started out a little more...erm, butch...than I remember from the game, but she was freaking out quite acutely within a half hour of being introduced to Silent Hill's otherworld. This was a wonderful change from the John-Woo-style uzi-wielding Alice from Resident Evil, who would just shoot at whatever nasties were on the screen. In slow-motion. With heavy metal playing in the background. Did I mention the RE movies sucked? But none of that crap here-even when Cybil shot at Pyramid Head, he just kept coming. True to PH style, he abruptly turned and walked away when the world began to shift back to reality, but he sure didn't mind those bullets.
-On that note, seeing Pyramid Head on the big screen was worth the price of admission. I now know that in a battle of the gigantic-blade-wielding villains, Sephiroth would be toast in about two seconds, screaming and crying tears of blood as Pyramid Head systematically disassembled his body with his bare hands.

Silent Hill was not a perfect movie, granted, but it was one hell of a ride, and one I would happily see again and again.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Awesome

Yeah, Lady J is awesome too.

Installing cryptography plugins isn't the only way to attain awesomeness.

*sigh*

The communication blackout of late has led me to believe I've upset you. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry if I did.

You may not encrypt your IM sessions, but you are still awesome. Anyone who can manage to remain by my side through the hardest times of my life and especially through what we went through with Ireland and my subsequent metamorphosis into King Bastard transcends awesome. Anyone who will come over to my house with no plans or special reason and just kick back and join me in a LotR marathon is far beyond awesome.

Anyone who goes through a fiasco like the Chicago Pizza thing and doesn't wind up eating me for dinner instead of the pizza exceeds awesome.

Lady J, you are awesome, and I love you. Not in the same way I used to, not in the HAWT HAWT TRISHEESECKS way, but I do. It's like what Catherine said in Twin Peaks. About lashing out at the one person who was decent enough to stand by her all that time. Granted, I never took my principal pleasure in it, and granted you weren't the one and only person who never strayed from my side, but you're one of the few.

I do get overzealous about InfoSec stuff-it's what I study and what interests me. And privacy is also very, very important to me, for reasons I've explained to the world many times before. But I'm not going to let my enthusiasm for bit-scrambling drive a wedge between us.

I hereby present this awesomeness award to Lady J, for her long years of outstanding awesomeness.

LADY J IS AWESOME
LADY J IS AWESOME
LADY J IS AWESOME
Lady J is awesome
LADY J IS AWESOME
Lady J is awesome

Recordez-vous

So I did it. I broke down and ordered a DVCam. I figure if I'm going to get into doing video, I might as well have my own for complete autonomy. Last thing I want is another power struggle with another hotheaded member of my household (though that wound up having positive results for me) who refuses to take "fuck off and die" for an answer.

So watch out world, I'm armed and dangerous. Now where'd I put those MiniDV blanks?


Quote of the Moment Returns:

Oni: "I mean, think about it. Microsoft's address is 'One Microsoft Way'

I'm not kidding. That's their address. A bit pretentious don't you think? But Apple names theirs 'infinite loop.' A programming joke. How cool is that?"


Senjutsu: "Pretentious? It's the clearest statement of their philosophy that they've ever made. Unless someone happens to have a video of Ballmer screaming 'Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer'?"

Monday, April 17, 2006

WikiGimmick

Go to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death.

Events:

  • 1888 - Mary Ann Nicholls is murdered. She is perhaps the first of Jack the Ripper's victims

  • 1897 - Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.

  • 1920 - First news radio program broadcast in Detroit, Michigan.



Births:

  • 1928 - James Coburn, American actor (d. 2002)

  • 1945 - Van Morrison, Irish musician



Death:
  • 651 - Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Irish bishop and missionary (Draw your own conclusions on THAT one.)


"Pity the insomniac dyslexic agnostic. He loses sleep wondering if there really is a dog."

Ugh

People ask me why I'm not a MySpace user. Behold: the reason.

Now mind you, it's not that I've done anything illegal and want to avoid being caught. It's that MySpace users are apparently so staggeringly stupid that you'd swear evolution was working backwards.

People, there's this little thing about firebombing hangars. First of all, don't do it. But if for whatever cokehead reason you're going to go ahead and do it anyway, kindly refrain from posting it on the fucking internet, you retards.

It's people like you who are preventing First Contact, and I want to see me some Vulcans.

Idiots.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

In a hard candy shell

While I don't buy into the religious aspect of Easter, one truth is simply incontestable...

Cadbury creme eggs kick ass.

In endless dark

5 days until silence is broken.

"Monsters? They look like monsters to you?" -Vincent