Movie Madness

So we haven't been to the movie theater since the third Pirates movie came out. This week we went twice. And remembered why we don't go to the theater. A)Chris managed a theater and notices every flaw in both the theater and the movie. B)Movies are super expensive. C) The biggest reason of all- Movies generally are not that great.
This week we saw The Hulk, which wasn't a bad movie, but not worth $25 to see. It didn't help that it was out of focus the entire movie either. But it was fun because we went with some friends, but I can watch a movie with friends at home, and on Blu-Ray so its never out of focus unless it should be. Saturday we went and saw Wall-E, the new Pixar movie. How can you go wrong with a studio that has a pretty much flawless record? That's what we thought. But I was really disappointed. Not to say that the movie wasn't good, but it didn't live up to Pixar standards. The animation was awesome, don't get me wrong. But I feel like Pixar stopped short of what the movie could be. I loved the robot parts, they were funny and very entertaining. I would still recommend seeing it for sure, but don't get your hopes too high.

Weight loss...

So it's been a good week. A really good week. Since April my assignment at work was to change my classroom so that it would pass the state re-inspection. Unfortunately, changing my classroom did not involve much, only changing the attitudes and habits of my fellow teachers. Needless to say, it was somewhat stressful. And some of you may know that I don't necessarily do well with a lot of stress. Thank goodness that Chris is so patient. Anyway the state inspector came back for his re-inspection this last Tuesday. And the final verdict? We passed. Hooray! The best weight loss program ever. I haven't felt lighter in a long time. Anyway that's my big news. Now I get to apply and interview for the job that I've been doing for the last 3 months and get my classroom ready for re-accreditation. Sounds like fun.

alphaBETA

So I got an invite to a very exciting Beta to a game I am not officially allowed to mention but is of the same family as R6. I'm very excited as I always love being in betas, but more importantly I LOVE TC games. I'll be sure to post some generic notes about the game- we'll call it something entirely different... sorry I have to be semi-mysterious- I had to sign an NDA (yeah already, I know!). I'll, umm, communicate more as I get to start. I don't even get the game till the 15th, but still...guess I know what I'll be doing that week.
-Chris

And the mystery visitor of two weeks ago is...

Nick the Alfajor! Congrats to Nick on winning our lovely prize of a 10 days/11 nights trip to San Diego. Where he enjoyed sun, surf, sand, mexican food, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007, lots of time doing nothing, and of course lovely Knotts Berry Farm (home of the world famous Boomerang and The Jaguar). For more details on the exciting trip stay tuned as we recap the highs and lows of Nick, the now graduated from High School, Waite's visit to see his favorite sister and brother-in-law.
-Chris

Why I hate the Nintendo DS

So the irony of this post is that I don't really hate the DS- per se. (I'm not even allowed to hate the DS b/c A) I play games on Alicia's sometimes and B) Oh yeah, I bought Alicia's for her for her birthday)What I hate is what it's doing to certain video games... allow me to explain: See I'm not the guy who thinks that if it's not "HardCore," it's crap. That's not me at all. In fact some of my favorite games are deffinetly not hardcore, but see this is where I have a problem. The following is a quote from Ubisoft UK managing director Rob Cooper:
"Sony needs to show us a bit more about what its plans are to convince the publisher to invest lots more money into it. Especially when you've got the DS selling at such a tremendous pace.

"I suppose it's almost too technical for the casual person, those that are buying the DS at the moment, who want a few buttons and not a lot more. It's so simple what [Nintendo] has done. That's where I think Sony has gone a little bit too complicated, they've over-specced it, the price is too high and they need to go back to the drawing board and start again," he added. (From Gameindustry.biz)

See my problem is this- I don't want less buttons. I don't care! I can handle the fact that my current controllers have...(let's see... 1,2,3,4,5...13 plus 3 joysticks)13 plus 3 directional pads of some sort. Heck, I play PC games they have...(let's see...1,2,3,4...100+) something like 104 or so keys- WHY do I need less!?! Furthermore, I love my PSP- part of the reason I own it is b/c it is technologically superior, heck I can use it to wacth a Movie, and TV show, play several games, and listen to music, all with out having to carry anything more than the PSP itself (yes I can do all of those off a single Memory stick that I load into the side of it, no movies, no game discs, nothing but the PSP alone). Most of the reason we bought our PS3 was b/c the Blu-Ray looks so nice on our TV, heck the Wii didn't even offer the ability to listen to a CD or DVD on it. So what this guy is saying is that the rest of the industry should do just like Nintendo did with both the DS and the Wii (like I said here's the irony, cause you guessed it- we own a Wii too) but what if we don't always want the kind of garbage that is put out on the Wii and DS (Case in point: Petz series from the fool who opined this to begin with- I'd like to add that I think it is a travesty that we are teaching an entire generation of kidz that it's OK to spell using Z as the letter to indicate plurality... oh yeah and that whole Dogz Fashion...ughhh shoot me now!). So where am I going with this? Easy.

While I don't mind the collection of games that inhabit the Wii and DS and I really like the idea that more people are "in to" games and all things that go along with video games, I really wish that certain publishers would stop saying that we are all the same and that the games that might appeal to my niece, Madison, or to my parents (proud Wii owners, I might add), should be the games that I want to own. Cause so help me if all I can buy 2 years from now is Petz and stinking Raving Rabbids I'm gonna sell all my video games and take up a new hobby like cross-stitching.

I have my own abilities and sometimes I like the complex and harder games, sometimes I like technology that is forward thinking not just two palm pilots merged together. Ah well what a world we live in when the white boy in SoCal has to cry out that he too is an individual and can think and act apart from everyone around him.

-Chriz

Famous, almost

This is just a realy funny side story. For those of you who may have hoped that I had grown up (read matured) and mellowed out after serving some time in the bishopric- lemme direct you to the following interaction I recently had with a friend of ours.

I am so funny

-Chris

Fired!

Yup I might as well be because I apparently have no time to blog (I'm thinking of a good reason why Lish can't- I'll let you know when it hits me). In the mean time you should know that I have started on 3 posts only to have the thought train either A) Leave the station without me or B) Derail mid-post. Kinda sucks. So a quick catch up on all the ongoings: In the last 2 weeks I have: WORKED, worked, worked oh yeah and had to go into work once or twice. Lots of church (as usual) and then there was the random visitor. I'll have to let you know more about him in a future post. But in the mean time... oh yeah, played some video games (not too much believe it or not), went to Knotts Berry Farm- flashback to 20 years ago, got beat up something fierce at KBF, stupid Boomerang, surfed a couple times, been informed of the dangers of crabs (don't ask you don't want to know), hung out with friends, BBQ'd, took care of some shopping, including the addition of 15 or so 12-packs of the new dew flavors, and even got in a baseball game. Most of said activities were directly or indirectly a result of the visitor.
Well I gotta run- I'll convince Lish to post later or something.
-Chris