Torchlight

I was absolutely addicted to The Diablo Series until probably 2005 or so. This may not have been the first fantasy video game, nor was it the first multiplayer game, but it was certainly the first game to successfully combine very dark subject matter with a very urgent plot and what I believe to this day was probably some of the best mood-setting music ever put to use in a video game. The randomization of the maps, combined with a max character level of 99, a bunch of different classes, and infinite item stats made the game playable for well .. I got about 7 good years out of the series. It wasn’t even a lack of replayability that killed Diablo II either, what it came down to was screen resolution. The first game had a max resolution of 640×480, the second one -only several years after release and the Continue reading Torchlight

Beauty?

I was surfing the internet one night several months back and I happened to see a picture of Kate Moss on one of the news sites. I didn’t think to grab the picture at the time, and there is no way I would be able to remember specifically which photo it was that got me to thinking about it, but the one at the right will do for my purposes. My question is: Who the hell finds this sexy? The little thumbnail there doesn’t do much justice to the picture though; I encourage you to click to look at it full size. That skinny, gnarly body with the sunken face and empty eyes looks like it would be more at home in one of those Save the Children commercials. I’m just not sure at what point someone decided that the emaciated look was sexy. In fact I have yet to Continue reading Beauty?

Treadmill

I’m pretty sure that if you look back at history Man’s ability to make excuses probably predates language itself. There is probably a pictograph on a cave wall somewhere that shows a hunter’s kill getting away because it jumped a span wide enough that it could not be chased. Bam!, an excuse” “I would have killed the deer if he just hadn’t jumped the Grand Canyon.” (here I am assuming that this was far enough back in pre-history that the Grand Canyon was precisely 15.62 feet across; an easy jump for a deer, but man would be a bit scared to try it.) Obviously it wasn’t ancient man’s fault that he didn’t make the kill before the deer got away, or that he didn’t find game more suitable to his inability to jump large spans, it was someone (thing) else’s fault. And so it started and has continued throughout history. Continue reading Treadmill

It’s Bubba Ho-Tep!

Since signing up for Netflix I have been watching a lot more movies than ever before in my life. I probably watch 10 movies a week now, where previously I would watch maybe 2-3 a month. As a result of this, and also having the ability to stream the movies instantly as opposed to having to wait for the mail to both deliver and return them, I have been watching pretty much anything with a flashy cover or catchy title; Mom always told me to always judge movies by the cover… I have watched some pretty bad movies lately as a direct result. To be fair I have also found a couple that were pretty good.