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Showing posts from January, 2009

Waltz with Bashir

Wednesday night I saw Waltz with Bashir at the Carleton with some friends. I really liked the music and sound, which the animation made stand out -- every footstep and breath and bullet all the more audible. The beach memory music in particular I found haunting. Yeah, the first half or so of the movie I felt was excellent, when the memories are still just fragments, broken pieces that don't line up. It's when they start forming a coherent picture does the movie begin to turn into this .. well, lame, boring documentary. I had hoped that the final statement would be more profound or beautiful but alas, I did not find it so. Still, overall I quite enjoyed it. I've also been playing a bit of Mount and Blade, this neat independent game, a sandboxed action RPG. The bit that brings me back to it is the mounted combat -- there's something very satisfying about riding circles around bandits and shooting arrows at them. I just.. I can't quite explain what it is. F

Replacement iPhone, blackout, a close call on the highway

First things first, I got my new iPhone. I had lost my old one the night of my birthday , it having likely fallen out of my pocket into a taxi from the same pants I lost my trusty SCP-4000 . Comfortable those pants but negligent in their holding of valuables! And I say "old", but I only had that iPhone for about 3 months, sigh. So, it turns out that to replace a 16 GB iPhone costs $650 CDN I kid you not. Once again I had to turn to Rogers customer service to rant about the price thrust upon me. After an anxious wait they offered me a refurbished one for $250 which I greedily took. It has since arrived and iTunes, surprisingly to me, restored all my files and setting properly and conveniently so that I am back to where I was, minus $250 but without the scratches and the wonky Home button my old iPhone had. Today I applied that Invisible Shield I had ordered on-line, a small project reminiscent of my days working with vinyl graphics. Second things second, my apartment

Lost iPhone, birthday with family. Pirates!

Birthday was a quiet night out with a friend, playing pool and such. So much so that I seem to have misplaced my iPhone, yes precious. I briefly flirted with the idea of not getting a replacement but it seems nobody wants me to go without it. I miss the iPod functionality most and have turned to imeem.com for my temporary music fix. Oh, but back to my birthday. Yes very quiet and I have no recollection of the latter parts of the evening. Exactly. Saturday I spent primarily in bed haunted by odd, unexpected dreams. In the late afternoon I was able to finally drag myself from my hangover grave to frantically clean my apartment before my family came over for dinner. My mom brought her usual serving of far more food than necessary, though all completely appreciated. Presents, yes. Nothing extravagant, some books, a plant, bowls, homemade cookies. Funny, I was so stressed trying to get my apartment in shape and it seemed to all work out and I guess I stressed for naught. Sund

Prince of Persia

For no real reason other than curiosity I installed Prince of Persia first. The graphics are as tasty as the screenshots. I love the animated oil painting design, and the colors are rich and summer-y, the scenery divine. The gameplay is somewhat mixed -- I'm not a huge fan of platformers, so all the jumping and running and climbing didn't do much for me. At first the instant respawning was quite nice, then the animation became annoying (because I died so frequently) and then it became an acceptable punishment as I got better, the animations less obtrusive. And, even though visually you can see quite far, it felt like a very small, tiny world since you could only stand in a few places here and there. The fights, again, beautiful to watch, but somewhat tiresome in practice. They were satisfying to win, sure, but they felt more like a timing puzzle than a battle. I did like the banter between the Prince and Elika, at times comedic, other times serious, and later on playful and

New Year's in Kitchener, Mirror's Edge

Yes, in the last minute throes of uncertainty, I went to Kitchener to hang out with Growl and company for New Year's Eve, thanks to an unsolicited last minute offer. The night was... largely, mostly, almost entirely uneventful. Drinks (SoCos) and shots (Jager bombs) were had. Photos were taken. Names were forgotten. Coats, mittens and scarves were lost. Words were slurred. Asses were slapped. Friends were reunited. The day following the only nearby place to eat was Tim Horton's, Waterloo otherwise a ghost town. Growl and I then played some eight hours of Mirror's Edge, that new first-person parkour platformer. I have to say, it looks downright gorgeous -- such clean, simple designs and graphics, without any of that murkiness that seems so popular today. The game can be difficult at times but when you start getting the hang of wall-jumps and wall-running, well, it's an exhilarating, rewarding experience. As a tumbling/running/clambering-over-things game, it