I should probably update more often.

One update every 3 weeks isn't too great, not that anyone actually enjoys the updates, at least I could be punctual. I've seen some new shows and movies and also played some new games, I'm such a social butterfly...

On the tv front, both 24 and Battlestar Galactica(bsg) have started up again, good times indeed. 24 started with quite a shocking first 20 minutes, killing off 2 major characters, and is still going strong(and nonstop, no repeats or off-weeks for the whole season, hence it starting in january) It's hard to not like Jack Bauer(Kiefer Sutherland) on the show, he's almost always right, he almost always saves the day, he basically just kicks ass and takes names every season. BSG ended the first half of season 2 in Sept. with a pretty big cliffhanger, it took them the first 2 episodes of this second half of the season to wrap it up. It's a damned well done show, not sure what else I can say about it. Even the filler episodes tend to be fun, hard to say that about a lot of these kind of shows.

I've seen a few movies since the last update, including both Underworld's. They recently re-released the Unrated/Extended version of Underworld(U1) on dvd and bestbuy had an exclusive offer that included a free ticket to go see Underworld 2(U2) in the theater, all for 15 bucks. The U1 unrated dvd has quite a few special features and I had never seen the movie, so for 15 bucks it was a decent price to start with, but getting in to see the sequel for free(matinee prices here are $7) was the icing on the cake. I'd held off seing the first because I'd heard so many neutral to disappointing comments about it, it wasn't a big must-see movie for me. Reading some reviews of the U1 unrated disc, a few of the reviewers commented that the added footage and changed scenes really added to the movie, adding some backstory and depth to it, I figured now was as good a time as any to try it out.

I enjoyed U1 for the most part, going in with somewhat lower expectations to be safe and avoid disappointment, and came away actually looking forward to the sequel a little bit(considering I was going to see it the very next day...) There were definitely things I would have changed with the movie, but I came away entertained. The weird thing about the sequel is that nearly everyone I've talked to came away disappointed because they didn't understand a good bit of the story, I think the issue here lies with how I think(since I've never seen the theatrical cut of U1 to be sure) that the unrated version of the first movie added a lot of backstory that they ended up using in the sequel, but the theatrical version didn't expand upon some of the directions the second movie went in. I did like the first more, but having seen the 2 movies back to back within 24 hours of each other and having seen the unrated version of one, I did come away having enjoyed U2. Again, it wasn't exactly what I would have done with it, but it did move forward the story and explain quite a bit. It's a shame that so many people went into it without seeing the unrated version first.

Watched Kiki's Delivery Service last night, another movie by Hayao Miyazaki(who I mention last update I believe) I liked it, but it's not my favorite of his movies. It's very sweet and has some very nice and caring characters, but no antagonist at all, so the story just kind of plods along without any direction. The story is about a young girl who has just turned 13, she comes from a line of witches and at 13 they are meant to go off on their own for a year to train themselves. In this world, witches are actually helpful women who use their magic for the good of their town or village, Kiki comes from a loving family but she is the one who pushes to go as soon as possible, she's very excited to make it big on her own. She flies around to find a town without a witch already, so she can set herself up and begin both training and making money helping people, she finds a very large city right on the ocean to live in. Here is where it kinda just plods on, she makes some friends and finds a place to live, sets up a delivery service(since she has a broom to fly on and get around the city) and that's about it. She tries to fit in, makes some friends, delivers some packages...that's most of the story... She does run into some problems delivering some packages and also has some problems as she uses her witch powers, but there is nothing else really going on with the story. His later movies are much better, but this is a very light and fun movie, it isn't that I didn't like it, I just felt it wasn't as good as his others.

Haven't been playing much on the mmo front, haven't really been in much of a mood to do the villains or wow thing in the past few weeks:( I oddly still like both games in their own ways, but I just never feel in the mood to play them(or if I do, it doesn't last very long) I have been playing a lot on my Nintendo DS though, a few older Castlevania games. I managed to beat 2 of them and now am working on the third. They are 2d sidescroller games, you have a huge castle to explore and you work your way through(it's fairly non-linear, besides boss battles and certain unpassable terrain) to eventually save some people and defeat Dracula. The fun part is, they are also rpg's, so you have equipment, magic, experience and leveling, hp/mp, etc. So it's a fun little action game that also lets you powerlevel yourself or farm for specific drops(and there are rare drops and money in them also, and lots of hidden areas with bonuses) Great games, glad the castlevania 2d games went in this direction from their old roots as just actiony sidescrollers instead.

I also finished book 2(A Clash of Kings) in George R R Martin's Song of Fire and Ice last week. I'm not really sure what to say about this series, I'll keep on reading and it's not that I dislike it, but it's in no way, shape, or form living up to the hype I've heard. I like very few of the characters and don't care what happens to them(or actually hope they do die...) and I'm not crazy about the directions the story keeps on going, it's like he looks at other fantasy stories and then to be different, goes in a totally different direction(but just to be different, not to improve the story) When I read a book series where I just wish about 75% of the characters would just die outright, that's not a good thing. I'll keep on reading I guess, maybe it's book 3 that will "win me over" or just show me what everyone goes on and on about. Rumor has it that it will end with book 6, though I hear that book 4(which just came out) is more than 50% about an all new character to the series, not a good sign for the 6-book rumor. I'll probably keep on reading to be a completist, but it's almost a chore at times, that's not why I read books.

An overdue update, since I'm a slacker and haven't in awhile.

Yikes, been a few weeks since my last update, not much exciting over the holiday's, but I guess I've seen a few new movies and dvd's.

First, I enjoyed the new King Kong quite a bit, I think he did a very good job with the movie and it was a very enjoyable 3 hours, I would never have even looked at my watch if I didn't have to pee towards the end from the large cherry coke... A couple of the cgi city scenes did look cgi/bluescreened, but on the whole it looked great. The story breaks down to about 1 hour in the city, 90 minutes on the boat/island, and then only about 30 minutes back in the city. Kong is displayed as both very brutal and a inhuman, yet shows enough emotion and feeling over time that you gain sympathy for him over time without it being too forced(besides the ice skating...) I definitely recommend the movie to everyone, it totally lived up to my very high expectations.

Secondly, Chronic-what-cles of Narina(if you don't get the "-what-" part, look it up on google) I enjoyed this and it looked very good, though nothing came as a surprise since I saw it in the cartoon form oh-so-many years ago as a kiddie. No blood or gore, very family friendly but with one tear-jerker moment for the little kids, I heard at least 5 or 10 kids sobbing at this scene in the movie, and it's tragic and all, but I guess I'm just a heartless bastard(and I knew the outcome of it anyway...) I felt they took a little too long to go from the 1940's england to the narnia stuff fulltime, I think nearly the first hour isn't in narnia(short of one scene) Tilda Swinton did great as the villain(a female meant to be a female, unlike many of her other roles) and was plenty evil and vicious. It's funny, the guy playing the queen's henchman I could have sworn was deep roy, but apparently it's not...though looking at their pictures together, they do look a bit alike still after comparison.

I finally got around to watching Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind on dvd. Mr. Miyazaki is known as the japanese walt disney and I have to say that almost doesn't seem good enough in some ways. I've seen about 6 of his films and have yet to dislike a single one, some of them are outright amazing works of art that are memorable for months and years afterwards. His movies have a definite japanese feel, but once you get into them and get into the world and begin to care about the characters, it just totally puts you in a totally different world. This movie takes place about 1000 years in the future, after an apocalyptic nuclear holocaust that also unearthed some amazing beasts from under the ground, to help clear up what remained. The Valley of the Wind in the title is an area that has managed to carve a niche for itself, away from the deadly spores and creatures that remain, and also stay out of the politics of a couple nations that have formed and are at war with each other. It sounds very convoluted and odd, but the story is told with very little exposition at all, just because of how well it flows and the world and characters just develop. It beat my expectations by quite a bit and may now be my favorite Miyazaki film, very close with Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away though.

Hmm, I've been picking up the Warner Brothers' Batman and Superman: The animated series dvd's and sat down and watched the second volume of Superman, about 15 episodes or so, and have to say that this is really some of the best Superman storytelling and really should be what the comics and movies are like. Both of these series are some of the best comic storytelling around and should bethe very first thing someone should look at when they begin to either write for the comic, a tv series, or a movie involving these characters. I'm glad this style of cartoon is still around with the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series that cartoon network show, they are all part of the same universe and use some of the same art and voice acting throughout, for the most part. If you like Batman or Superman but you don't care for the comics or movies as much, these should be what you are looking for, the purest form of these characters(in my eyes)

On the gaming front I've been playing some City of Villains, World of Warcraft, Animal Crossing(for the nintento DS), and Luminese(for the psp) It's hard to believe that I bought about 8 or 10 games between october-december and I'm just playing these 4 games most of the time(only cov and animal crossing were purchased in that time period, the others date back at least 8 months or more) I guess it's similar to my dvd buying, buy 10 dvd's a month, watch one... I've also been trying to read the second book in the George R R Martin "song of fire and ice" series but that's been slow going, I don't really like any of the characters very much and with it going in such different places than I imagined, I try to take my time reading it to not miss potential clues/foreshadowing of future plot twists. I'd love to be plowing through some books, but I just hate having more than a couple books "active" at once, I have a Peter Straub book I started several months back but I lost interest in(the throat is the book, for the curious) and if I start anything else, it will almost be like giving up on those before it.

TV has been dead the past month or so, but should start picking up again now with Battlestar Galactica and 24 starting, and several other shows coming out of the christmas break period(Lost for example) I have 9 episodes(11 hours worth) of The Amazing Race: Family Edition on tivo, I can't build up enough interest to sit down and watch them yet, the season started off awfully and I hear it never recovered. I'll be glad when the new season starts and gets back to the regular 2-person teams(without little kids...) The season before Family Edition was great, minus the awful producer-adjusted final flight that should never have been toyed with(one team was so far ahead, the producers delayed a flight to get a second team on, who then went on to win...)

So that's about it for an update, as boring as it is. Stay tuned as I potentially watch more dvd's or play more games in the future...or not, who knows.