So I'm home today because the tooth the dentist was working on crumbled. At least i shouldn't have to pay for a full root canal at this point, right?

So I watched a Ninja Turtles movie I just found out about called Turtles Forever (it's on the server). It's....pretty decent, actually. Take a look at the screenshot below.
On the left, you'll notice the new turtles from the current cartoon. On the right, the cartoon turtles from the 80's. And in the middle- the original Laird/Eastman turtles. Intrigued yet?

Yes, I admit, I am still an old school Ninja Turtles fan. But I feel I should qualify that- I liked it back when it was still fairly serious. As the 80's cartoon continued, it became more and more campy and ridiculous. I guess I could enjoy it now to laugh at, much like the old Adam West Batman, but I wouldn't call it particularly good.

This movie combines turtles from several series, as you can see. I was happy to see 80's turtles again, but...Well, they didn't have any of the original voices for them, or their respective baddies either. And that got really distracting for me. Plus, as I said, I watched the 80's cartoon when it was still somewhat serious. These are the turtles from later in the series- they can't be serious for two solid seconds, are kinda dumb, and just- campy. Shredder, who used to be a tough guy is now some whining, snivelling baddy who just keep complaining about the turtles always foiling his stuff and such.

That said, many of their quirks werew brought back, and even paid attention to. At one point, raphael breaks the 4th wall and says some cheesy comment. One of the new series badguys picks him up and screams at him "Why do you keep doing that? Who are you talking to? There's nobody there!" and when they return to the 80's-verse, they are in an alleyway when they say "Before we go any further, there's something we need to do- save April!" because even though they don't know where she is or anything, they know she must be in toruble and needs to be rescued.

Particularly great to me was when the ended up meeting the Eastman originals, who are little more than trained thugs. Again, the peculiarities of their world are pointed out when Leonardo is narrating the fight "Why is he narrating? Is he crazy?" "Hardcore crazy!"

Anyway, there was a surprising amount of thought put into the movie, so if you like Ninja Turtles, it's worth a watch. It's cheesy, especially with the 80's turtles becoming such wimps (I mean, three of them start literally clutching one of the new turtles, crying their eyes out at one point int he middle of a fight, I kid you not) but it's still good solid fun.

Mind you, I also liked the CGI movie they did so yea.

Oh, one thing. The new Shredder's name is- Jor-el? Isn't that superman's father's name?

So, after several years of owning the game, I finally got around to beating Overlord. Nothing wrong with it, I just never got around to it until now. The idea of the game is that you get to be the evil overlord. What more need be said?

In fact, it is pretty clear what the actual story is. Obviously they went as close as they could without copyright infringements. Let me tell you the story.

You are Sauron. Seriously- with heavy heavy heavy influence in your looks from the movies. You have been ressurected an unknown time after the books, though it has clearly been many years. In the interim, the heroes who once slew you have become rules of their respective realms. But as the years have passed, their power has slowly corrupted them, and they have ended up becoming evil. But stupid evil- they suck up the resources and the peasants around them and use them up for no reason. In order to take over and save what is left for yourself, in order to have something to actually RULE you have to take them down one by one. And yes, you have minions throughout the game to serve your needs.

Spoilers ahead:
At the end, you find out the story isn't quite what you thought. In the fight against Sauron, Aragorn is killed. Sauron's last act was to order his minions to grab his bosy after it was left by the other heroes and take it away for resurrection. Meanwhile, Sauron's soul moves into Gandalf's body and takes it over. Over the many years, he slowly pushes, nudges the heroes towards the things that they want, justifying their desires, slowly corrupting them. After many years, when he is ready to take over again, Sauron orders Aragorn's body to be ressurrected and clad in his old armor. You are, in fact, the resurrected Aragorn, though you think the whole time that you are the evil overlord.
Spoilers ended.

There were many glitches in the game that annoyed me, but besides that, a very fun game I heartily recommend, just for the story and the humor involved. I went out of my way to be as evil as possible (there are many choices you have where you can do good or evil deeds). I ended up with a corruption level of only 81% but honestly cannot figure out how to get it any higher.

Some thoughts on things I've seen lately.

Funny People. This movie looked fucking hilarious from the trailers. Adam Sandler plays an uber-rich comedian who is famous for his fairly dumb movies that he's mildly embaressed about (that is, himself) but finds out that he has a form of leukemia which is so far advanced that the only option they have is to try using an experimental drug which only works in 8% of the cases. Depressed, he decides to go back to his roots and start doing stand-up again. Where, his emotions overcoming him, he blows it. An up and coming comedian (Seth Rogan) who idolizes him watches him perform. Eventually Sandler contacts Rogan and hires him on as a general lackey and joke writer.

Sounds pretty quirky, no? In fact, it is something of an odd movie. It has everythign from hilarious moments to depressing moments. It's a comedy because you have comedians. However, they decided to do a movie about *comedians* which means that life isn't as funny as portrayed on stage. It also addresses the disparity between the generations of comedians, Sandler being one of the last of the old generation/first of the new but different from the current comedians. He says it himself at one point in the movie talking to Rogan:

"What about your parents? Do you have a good relationship with them?"
"Eh...not really. It's not bad, you know. I mean, they're divorced and all..."
"See, and that's why your generation will never been as funny as mine."
"What?"
"Your generation, you all have divorced parents, you never had to work at it. When I was a kid, I had to do my best to keep my dad laughing to stop him from beating me."

Looking back, where is this generation of great comedians? Seth Green, Seth McFarlane, and Seth Rogan are the biggies (a coincidence?). Look at the last generation. Bill Murray, Eddie Murphey, John Belushi, Richard Pryor (who made shitty movies but was still one funny motherfucker), Harold Ramis, Dan Ackroyd, the list goes on and on. And they did humor that wasn't just about penis' and balls and such. They had limits to what they were allowed, which forced them to be more creative. Now you can go onto a stage and say anything you please, I think that the quality of comedy has declined as a result. It is, oddly, why I still respect Ben Stiller movies (the ones he makes himself, not the ones that he just acts in). They may be good, they may be bad- but they aren't all about tits.

Speaking of Belushi, I was watching The Best of Belushi from SNL the other night with Joanna. Naturallly, Samurai Delicatessen was one of the skits. But there was one skit where he played Joe Cocker singing "with a little help from my friends." As you may have guessed, it was very funny, but he was acting like a spaztic on stage so Joanna and I knew that there was somethign we were missing. Fire up youtube and watch his performance of the song at woodstock and what do we see? The man looks like he is tripping on stage and barely keeping it together (probably because he was.)

Then I remembered something. Some years ago, I was watching the Queen's Jubilee, and Cocker came on. Before he started singing, everyone was cheering, and I heard my mother make a sound of disgust. I asked her who the hell this dude was. She responded something along the lines of "Some no talent hack who never made his own songs but became famous by remaking everyone else's." which, from what I can tell, is entirely true. In any case, I decided to look up his jubilee performance. Sure enough, there he is as an old man and what's he doing? The same tripping out shit on stage! What the hell is wrong with this guy?

And now, because I haven't seen one of these in ages but I still find them hilarious, a scientists version of Hitler in the bunker in the last days of WW II:

I have had it pointed out to me that the last post could be read as sounding depressed and such. In point of fact, I meant it as a joke. I was just sitting there on the bus and the phrase "my body is a temple" popped in my head, and I thought about how much that phrase always sounded obnoxious to me. So I figured I'd put my own spin on it. Again, meant to be a joke, not self-deprecating. I'm actually quite happy with the way I am, and if other people don't like it, that's their own business.

I have become rather weary of people criticizing my body. As if that will magically change it. I've given it a lot of thought and I've come to a conclusion- my body is a temple. It's just that the temple I'm referring to is the kind found in sunken cities with strange and eldrich tentacle motifs everywhere.

I wanted to talk about something that I rarely discuss. Music.

Now, in my home growing up, the radio was always set to the oldies station, and never budged a millimeter. As a result, rather than listening to the things other kids my age (who generally had their own radios) would, I grew up enjoying doo-wop, classic rock and roll, motown, etc. Added to this was a spattering of classical music and some showtunes. I was exposed to enough of the music around me to also enjoy 80's pop. Entering the 90's, however, music veered radically with the rise of rap, R&B, hip hop, gangsta, etc. I found most of it distasteful in the extreme. Still do, in fact. Sorry, but I can only listen to songs about crack, ho's, and crackho's only so much before I want to hit someone with something heavy.

So, I have an eclectic taste in music. That's why I was delighted once I finally actually used Pandora radio. I had had the application on my iphone for a year or so but never used it. I decided to go back to it recently and created an account- which is free, by the way. Pandora works through both the iphone and the computer, linking the account. What does Pandora do? It asks you to enter a song or a musician you like. And that's it. It analyzes the song and consults the music genome project- which picks music apart into every various element and influence. As songs come on, you can thumbs up (like it) or thumbs down (don't like it) and it soon calibrates itself to your tastes. It gives you access to an enormous library of music. It is not a playlist, and allows you to listen to songs you enjoy but would not otherwise be exposed to. You can create several "playlists" which reflect different music types you like. So I have a pop, a rock and roll, a classical music, and a depeche mode (don't ask) playlist, depending what I'm in the mood for. I HIGHLY reccomend you make an account, especially if you have an iphone.

That said, I'll veer off topic a touch. Lady Gaga is a young woman who had apparently been a music writer in the music industry for a few years who became a pop sensation with her first album last year. You couldn't turn around without hearing one of her songs. One in particular was so prominent and also slightly ridiculous that you began to see parodies. I refer, of course, to Poker Face



With shocking speed, parodies began. Not just internet parodies, but professional ones.





One of my favs (there's no youtube link) is from Seth macfarlane's Almost Live Comedy Show, which is done in the style of a deaf woman singing it.

And yet, oddly, having had the song stuck in my head the last couple of days, I have to say- I like this song. It is a pop song that isn't about sex or falling in love- it seems to be really about just being cool. And you know what? I find that incredibly refreshing. She wrote it herself. I like that too. And she isn't skinny as a rail, which I approve of- I think that having all these teeny dinky women is terribly for body images, and it isn't healthy either. And she's a classically trained musician- she plays the piano very well, actually. I heartily approve of this. As opposed to (skip to 1:15 and watch to ~3:00 to see what I mean):



And it's got a beat I can bop my head to while I work and such. What really mystifies me is the woman. She isn't particularly attractive, and yet men are attracted to her. It is very, very odd.

So, first things first- above you see my new couch and coffee table, delivered and assembled today. I cannot tell you how happy I am. Both the couch and the coffee table are taller than the old couch and tables. This is a little more comfortable in general. But the table is a nice height to eat or drick from, without stooping down, the way the old ones were. Plus it has lots of little cubbyholes for me to put the keyboard, controllers, etc. Plus it is just the right size for me to comfortably put my feet up. I am so very very happy.

Which is good because I've been laid up with a cold since thursday. On the other hand it did mean I was on hand for the delivery, which was good. I had to put off my next root canal as there is no way I could have sat through one without sneezing or coughing.

Let's see, lots of things I've been meaning to talk about but putting off.

1. Some excellent articles here and here analyzing the reasoning behind the failure of Duke Nukem Forever. I know it isn't so important to most of you, but I found the articles to be interesting to read for the case of why there need to be some sort of limits put on forms of development. The latter tries to explain using a psychological concept called escalation of commitment. In less fancy terms, it is not being willing to cut your losses.

2. Anyone heard about the new Karate Kid movie? Jackie chan plays Mr. Miyagi and Will Smith's son plays the new karate kid. 'Nuff said.

3. Speaking of Holy 80's Flashback Movies, there is a new A-Team movie being made which looks- surprisingly badass. However, I can't let that go without some sort of comment, so here:


4.

GET READY!

ACTIVISION PRESENTS GUITAR HERO: VAN HALEN, AN ACTIVISION GAME BY ACTIVISION! GUITAR HERO: VAN HALEN BY ACTIVISION IS THE SAME AS GUITAR HERO: WORLD TOUR (AN ACTIVISION GAME) AND ACTIVISION PRESENTS: GUITAR HERO: METALLICA, BUT THIS GAME IS ALL VAN HELEN SONGS! WELL, MOSTLY VAN HALEN, ALONG WITH SOME OF YOUR OTHER FAVORITES LIKE BLINK 182 AND ALTER BRIDGE! YOU LIKE THOSE BANDS, RIGHT? ACTIVISION KNOWS YOU DO, BECAUSE ACTIVISION SAYS YOU DO! YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO PLAY A GAME WHERE ALL THE SONGS WERE BY ONE BAND, WOULD YOU? WOULD YOU?!?! ACTIVISION!!!

see here

5. Some disgusting lawsuits. Here is where a doctor is sued for denouncing chiropracters for claiming that they cure things like asthma. Here is one where GE sues a researcher for libel for presenting his findings that an MRI imaging compound they released could be potentially hazardous.

6. Always worth a laugh, abebooks' collection of weird books. Worth 5 minutes to peruse, I guarentee. And if you are like me, there are easily a dozen or so you want want want!

7. Chocolate weapons.....need I say more?

8. NSFW a woman with excellent bodypaint "dressed" as a stormtrooper.

9. A doormat I want. Or I would if it wouldn't make me look like a redneck.

10. An 8-bit nintendo remake of Left 4 Dead. Well made and free!

11. People interested in a PC port of Half-Life Decay (the only Half Life game which was never ported to the PC) can go here.

12. A very fun weather website. It only works for the USA I think but I'm not 100% sure. Take 2 seconds to check out.

13. More gaming fun. A vaguely amusing game. It was one of the centestants in the annual "make a game in 24 hours" so don't expect a lot. That said, the title alone makes it worth playing as far as I'm concerned. Fuck Oregon, Let's Go Find El Dorado!

14. An amusing note about the indie games response to everyone's most hated of gaming companies, Edge

15. A "scientific" analysis of various memes.

16. God I am getting long winded enough I won't go into my predictions for the next decade now. However, I do feel impessled to say that I think that a number of companies and investors will be unhappy this year. Why? From what I can see the three big electronic devices on the market are netbooks, tablets, and ebook readers. Hell just look at this list of ebook readers at the recent Consumer Electronic Show. It's too damn many flooding the market. And people are being surprisingly intelligent about the whole thing. Rather than goign out and buying any ebook reader, people know it is an investment and are looking around. And what are they seeing? New readers are coming out every month, each with different capabilities that the last did not have. This year alone there is color, video, LCD/eink screen swapping, smaller cheaper, larger more expensive, different document types supported. Only a fool would buy an ebook reader right now, I think, without waiting for things to settle down. There are too many options coming out. I mean, for the same price, why not one that has color? And at that point, why not wait another month for one with video? And so on and so on. Amazon's Kindle is still excellent and I'm happy with the one I have, but I wouldn't reccomend anything to anyone right now. So you don't want a multimedia player, just an ebook reader? Fine- but if it costs the same, why not get the one over the other?

17. A fun Futurama version of Space Invaders, here.

18. A very interesting new game in development which takes the traditional RTS and splices it with time travel. There's a nice video they have where they show how they deal with the Grandfather Paradox.

19. A wifi-powered electronics charger? From RCA of all people?

You know, I've never understood the attitude that, having enjoyed a book, one will subsequently discard it, content in the fact in having read it. My books are among my oldest friends, the ones I lose over the years each fondly and sadly recalled. Sometimes I only remember scenes. Sometimes names. Sometimes entire plots. I have nearly given up hope of finding a few again. There was one I recall reading back in middle school. It was an SF book my parents owned, yet neither of them can recall it. No fans I know (who have fairly encyclopedic memories of this stuff) has ever heard of it. I don't remember the author, I don't remember the title. But the story I remember in great detail, despite not having read it in 15 years. I'm going to tell the story here in hopes that someone might be able to help me find it.

Sparrow is a young man who wakes up in a hospital, surrounded by other patients all of whom ignore him no matter what he says or does. The only person he interacts with is the attractive red-headed nurse, who gently feeds him and nurses him back to strength. After a visit from several strangers, all of whom wear a strange mask, he gets ahold of one of the masks. Donning it, he looks around, only to see that the entire ward is empty. The once pristine walls are shabby and have condensing water on them. The floors are stained. He even notices that the room now smells as though it has not been properly maintained. Removing the mask, everything is back the way it was. Sparrow realizes that everything about him is an illusion which the mask allows him to penetrate. When the nurse comes in, he puts the mask back on, only to see that she remains unchanged. She scowles at his lack of trust, and informs him that if he is well enough to be suspicious, he is well enough to get back on duty.

Duty? Sparrow discovers that he is on a spaceship, a lifeship sent out from Earth with the express purpose of seeking out alien life. For the last 2,000 years shiptime they have explored planet after planet, solar system after solar system but have not found anything as yet. Earth has ceased to send out signals long hence, which distresses the crew. Taking their relativistic travel into consideration, many, many more than 2000 years have elapsed on Earth.

Sparrow discovers that he was in an accident, which caused his amnesia. His coworkers are mroe than happy to help him out in trying to remember incidents. Even the Captain comes down to congradulate him on his speedy recovery. As a way of saying thanks, Sparrow wishes the Captain to know that he is sure that all the previous Captains would be proud of his accomplishments. The Captain smiles and says thanks, "But this ship has only ever had one Captain."

We find out that, indeed, the Captain was alive on Earth at the launch. He was taken by top scientists, his physiology altered to allow him to live long enough to find alien life, no matter how long it took.

Sparrow begins to have strange dreams which he soon realizes are memories. He remembers right before the accident when he was climbing a canyon and carves the letter H into the dust with his fingers. He wakes up to remember why. He was carving his name- Hamlet. He goes to confront his coworker, Ophelia. The relationship in their names is not lost to him. He demands to know what is really going on, and why everyone is lying to him.

He finds out that there was a ship-board mutiny hundreds of years before. The lack of a signal from Earth finally convinced the crew that they must return to see if anything was left. A reasonable commander would have allowed it. However, the Captain was programmed by the top scientists of Earth to continue to explore the universe until they had located alien life. Having done so, no matter how insignificant, he would turn over the reigns to the return crew and return Captain, who were held in cryogenic stasis the whole time. The mutineers, however, decide to unhatch the return crew, who are just as programmed to return home once woken up. They all die in the ensuing battles. The only survivor was the return Captain, since the Captain realizes that in order to fulfill their mission he must. However, to prevent further mutiny, he wipes the return Captain's memories. Every 5-10 years or so, however, his memories begin to return and he must be re-wiped. Sparrow is the return Captain.

Curiously, this is revealed roughly halfway through the book. There are many things I don't remember, and many bits which are insignificant to the main story, but are character and place settings. How does a crew of people on a lifeship remain sane after 2,000 years? How do they control their breeding? How do they remember all those who came before them? What do they do with the remains after they die? These are all answered, I'm just not going to write them- I've written enough.

Eventually, Sparrow joins the Rebellion which until that point had been a small sort of club that allowed people to blow off steam. The Captain is aware of them and keeps tabs on them but leaves it alone as harmless as it functions more as a pressure release than any actual danger. However, Sparrow convinces the Rebellion to finally act, to return back to Earth and find out what happened. The Rebellion wins, and Sparrow goes to confront the Captain in his quarters. On the way, he passes by the cryogenic tubes of all the return crew who were not thawed but are now, due to accidents, merely corpsicles. With a shock, he realizes that he knows the name and has memories of every single one of them. Confronting the Captain, he remembers that they were old friends from Earth, and had continued to be for hundreds of years- that the Captain liked to have someone around who remembered old Earth along with him. Sparrow explains his intent. The Captain agrees that he is reasonable, but explains that due to the brainwashing he had no choice but to do his best. As the two Captains square off, Sparrow says something that finally sets off the Captain, who informs him that he has had enough of this nonsense, and he was no longer going to let him off with a simply memory wipe, not anymore- it would be the Recycler for him.

Sparrow manages to fling the Captain into an open cryogenic tube, where the automated processes begin. Since he was not prepped beforehand for it, the Captain knows that he will die within moments. The Captain smiles and tells Sparrow that he forgives him, because Sparrow is just as programmed to return to Earth as the Captain was to explore, and so he knew that this was inevitable.

Fast forwards a couple of hundred years, Sparrow, now Captain, commands his crew to study the dark planet below them for life. They have returned to Earth, and it is as barren as any other planet they have explored. Just as they are giving up hope, they are alerted that a lichin has been found, the only life on the planet. There is enormous celebration and the book ends.

Maybe because I haven't grown up in a lifeship, but lichin still doesn't do it for me. Earth was sterilized, down to the lowest form, practically. Is that something to really celebrate? Yes, you are home, but what of it? What now?

Anyway, if any of this sounded at all familiar to any of you, please let me know. I've searched google again and again over the years but have been unable to track the book down.