DarthTofu

Dopamine? I thought I recalled hearing that your body produced it when you played highly addictive video games? Wait a minute- do you actually have a medical excuse to start gaming whenever you feel like it? I can see how that might go. *Person giving boring lecture* "Sire, my dopamine levels are dropping!" "*Sighs* Fine..." *Pulls out laptop* "Time to win me a quest or two..." Sorry, I don't mean to make light of your condition; I'm sure it's really quite trying to deal with, and doesn't involve the aforementioned scenario at all. Glad to hear that you're better, though. Keep well, Adas.

Hahaha! Excellent finds, Kryt; I particularly enjoyed the Manwich!

*Toot Toot* I have Left 4 Dead, now, for PC. I'm on Steam, same nickname as here: DarthTofu. I might also show up as chris.chrispete, seeing as that's what the game is presently calling me; my Steam account ought to have the Tofu name, though. Anybody know if I can play someone on a 360 when I'm on PC?

My favorite SciFi movie

People take their kids to Disney; I'd say that the best time to go would be some time when people would have their kids in school, and can't get them out, like during exams. Unfortunately, you being a teacher, that may prove difficult. But I'd say go while school would be in session if you want to get fewer crowds. Also, right after a holliday weekend; that's why we chose today. Everyone goes home after the holiday weekend is over.

... So I and a few friends decided that, seeing as we would have spent the majority of the school-sponsored "Grad Bash" function, where every grad from two or three counties piles into the Universal Studios Islands of Adventure theme park, we would go ahead and skip the school function (and the ensuing long-as-hell lines) and go to Islands of Adventure on our own time, on our own coin, now that we've graduated. We went today, bright and early, leaving at seven thirty to make it in time for the park to open up. When we got there, we found that there were no lines, like, at all. I went on Dueling Dragons fire three times or so and Ice at least six times. My girlfriend, being a rollercoaster-phobic sort of person, had the annoying habit of shutting her eyes on the coaster, and proclaiming that they were horribly scary. The amazing idea that you ought to open your eyes (Honor Grad, ladies and gentlemen) had never really occurred to her, and by the third ride, I managed to convince her to open them for the straight parts; took three more rides before she'd leave 'em open for the whole ride, but I managed it eventually. We did The Incredible Hulk Coaster a good five or six times, with our ride photos ranging from that first "The hell? There's a camera on this ride?" photo to our final few, which included the "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, smell no evil" (the cars are four across, and we ran out of senses to deny; "touch no evil" seemed difficult to manage) poses and four idiots all doing the "fishhook" facial expression (Fingers stretching the mouth wide, tongue out). Needless to say, it was a blast, and confirms what I always knew; if you go to theme parks when everyone else has work or school, you have no crowds and no lines. It was awesome. Unfortunately I sincerely doubt that any of you can take advantage of it, as school is about two days from being over for everyone else in Florida. Oh well.

Also, highly amusing, with lots of guilty laughter at the sickness of it all.

Go Rob! We'll revive this topic when that rolls along! On a related note: I'M A SITHSPITTIN' GRADUATE! GO ME!

I saw Terminator: Salvation as well. By and large, I agree with E- it's a great big explosion-fest, and it was enjoyable; moreso than I thought it would be. My bone with Star Trek (an action movie trying desperately to pretend that it had a plot that just wasn't there) was very much overcome in Terminator. They have about the same action level, but Terminator never really tries to pretend that it's anything but an action flick. And some of the stuff people pull is intelligent, not retarded. And the best part? The majority of it is relatively feasible. Granted, at points I said, "Wait, what?" In honor of a certain scene, I'm going to call those "Ewok moments," in which things go whodawoowie, and the characters behave highly irrationally. It's relatively predictable, and once or twice a character will do something a bit suspect, but by and large, like I said, it seems real. I particularly enjoyed one scene where two of the characters shot repeatedly at a gas tanker and couldn't make it explode; first time I've ever seen someone in a movie acknowledge that that wouldn't work in real life. Plus, they got some of the general mood right. I know I just said that it didn't really pretend for a plot, and like I said, it doesn't; but it does manage to give you that grim, post-apocalyptic future feel. It's a lot like the first and second terminator in terms of feel, though without that one resilient terminator running about throughout; they show us some new models, which are recurring, hi-lighting the enemies relatively limited, though deadly, arsenal. I'd give it four stars out of five, because A) there isn't much of a plot (think 300) and B) there were the "Ewok moments" that I mentioned before. Hi-light for the Ewok moment described. Okay, so it totally ticked me off when he jacked that terminator motorcycle... by using a piece of rope to trip it up. We watched those things dodge flipping cars an hour ago, and now a sudden rope flips it over? The hell is that? It reminded me of the Ewoks taking some vines to stormtroopers on speeder bikes (which, I suppose, could work), and so earned the name. If I'd written the script, he would've just used that signal thing to shut down the bike, hotwire it and whatnot, then turn off the signal and ride like the wind with no helmet. Makes more sense.

SOCL just recently graduated from college, so wish him luck as he progresses. Now, on to the far more important matter- I graduate from high school tomorrow, so all of you stand up in a line and give me the mandatory and insincere wishes of happiness and joy throughout college and life that decorum dictates you must give me!

I guess my camera's just not high enough quality to take up too much space. Well, that and I delete the old raw footage once I post it to YouTube. *Shrug* But yeah, video files will tax you out the wazzoo, I suppose.

Haha- Sherlock Homes looks like it will be amusing, but also like it will be an explosion-fest. There's nothing wrong with an explodo-fest movie, it's just that we have kind of a lot of them, and I always liked Holmes dealing, well, strictly with the how and the why, less with the "FISTICUFFS AS WE CAPTURE THE BAD GUY!" side. We'll see as more is released, though...

What do you people do that requires that much memory?! Most games take up, like, six gigs, max, and that's if you download the entire game! Or are you lot all doing work stuff that requires an insane amount of memory in the realm of a terrabyte?

Ninjas? In Egypt? And one of them is a Star Wars fanatic?! Oh, my! I think that may be an awesome overload! Congratulations, Forge! That's absolutely brilliant; pure props to you, sir!

Well, I finally saw Star Trek as well. I didn't think it was bad by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not sure it was worth all of the hype it was given. I came in sort of expecting what the critic in E's link complained about with the original Star Trek- a more drawn out plot, with less action. In fact, I was hoping for that. I was hoping for a plot style similar to that of The Dark Knight, where we got some wicked action and some good moral dilemmas. I got the cool action part- everything they did with special effects was beautiful and (relatively) seamless. Some rocks on Vulcan were overly digital, but I'm just being picky, there. Much as I liked the action and some of the humor, though, it just wasn't what I wanted. I wanted a plot that made sense. This one with (SPOILER ALERT!) time travel, alternate realities, and black holes that don't rip people and space ships to shreds for some reason... that was just dumb. The black holes followed no laws of physics (maybe that's a property of red matter that I just don't know about), and the genius-level characters just sort of popped up wherever. Convenient that, on a planet full of ice and the like, Kirk happened upon Spock and the federation base (would've made more sense if Spock had just gone to the base and met Kirk there) which happened to harbor and latent genius... but ah, well. That's just me being too picky again. The plot just didn't click for me, though. Like the red matter- if it only took a drop of that crap for Spock to make a black hole big enough to capture the massive energy of a dying sun (without, apparently, affecting the nearby planet), why did Spock take, like, a kiloliter of it along? Seems like gross overkill and practically an invitation for the Romulans to take him hostage and use the red matter for nefarious ends. *Shrug* (END SPOILERS) It's an action flick- make no mistake about it. If you go in looking for a sturdy plot, you'll be disappointed. If you go in expecting the science to make sense, you'll be disappointed. If you go in expecting lots of pretty things to get blowed up and make "boom" noises- you're good.

lol- that is epic! Also:

Well, dang... I suppose we can just go ahead and start putting "'09" up there every now and again, and then just hope nobody catches it... that's a bothersome issue.

Does anyone have any idea when these things are updated/if there's a schedule for updates floating around on the web somewhere? I want to do something like when the firefox corn field team all laid down in a field (I assume that's what happened; I haven't found that specific image, but a friend told me about it), and formed the logo strictly for the Google Earth image. I'm trying to do something on a less grand scale, but I still need to know, in general, when the satellites might be overhead taking a picture so that I can prepare. I know that my area should be updated soon (if I catch it in time, and it hasn't updated already), but I can't seem to find when. Anyone have a place that might help? Google has not yielded much to my efforts so far...

Unfortunately mind tricks don't work on Hutts- greed overpowers them.

I'm planning on grabbing a copy of Left 4 Dead for PC at some point in the future (IE when I get my laptop), and the GF is grabbing the Game of the Year edition for X Box 360. I may or may not shell out the extra ten bucks for GotY when I get my copy... I'm going to wait and see what folks have to say about it, and whether or not the multiplayer stuff is worth it.

When GL's grand-son decides to make a remake The thing SW has to do is to become more like ESB and less like the Ewok movie. Clearly they must aim for older audiences. The obvious issue with that is money flow. The majority of folks who would be attracted to that are die-hard Star Wars fans, like you and me and most everyone else on a Star Wars-related forums about a game that came out over a decade ago. Most people aren't this dorky, and it would completely alienate them if someone tried to make that movie, it would be critically acclaimed by the people who had begged for it, but there wouldn't be a big enough audience. Of course, having a niche audience wouldn't hurt Star Wars, seeing as trying to appeal to everyone has blown up in its face, but that's not the strategy anyone's going to take any time soon, in my opinion.

Depends. Is George Lucas connected to this in any way, shape, or form? Are we basing this silver screen escapade on the tried-and-true novels of the EU, staying true to their plots, or at least core concepts (IE The insanely popular X-wing series), or are we trying something completely new? Also, what's our target age? Are we making a series about wars marketable strictly for, oh, I dunno, preteens and the market of that stupid digital Clone Wars series, or are we being cool enough to acknowledge that lightsabers hack people's limbs off and making this for the action movie junkie, PG-13 rating crowd?

May The Fourth Be With You!

I was portraying Xerxes, as he was portrayed in 300- an androgynous, creepy huge guy. The smaller guy was portraying Leonidas, and given the huge discrepancy in our heights (and the fact that he called dibs on Leonidas), I had to portray Xerxes. And I officially want one of those chainsaw rockets!

Bu-bu-ba-bump! Sorry to double-post, but I just saw Origins, and I feel the need to offer everyone my spoilery two bits worth. As that sentence implied, spoilers follow, so don't read if you don't want 'em. My two biggest complaints surprised me: It was too short, and there wasn't enough blood. That doesn't sound the least bit like it should make a difference, but it somehow really does. Wolverine is running around hacking at and stabbing people with his newfound metal claws which, somehow, never have blood on them when they rip through his skin. It was way cooler when it all tore through and there was blood on the claws; you got that impression that Wolverine didn't really want to kill all of the time (except when he was enraged), and that taking out the claws was a big deal for him. It wasn't something to be done lightly. Anyway, that's one complaint, the complete lack of violence; while I recognize that a movie involving mutants jumping around like Circ Du Sole (sp?) performers on steroids, being viewed from the perspective of someone high on paint fumes is completely and totally unbelievable, it wouldn't have hurt them to just bump it up to an R rating, considering how many times the characters all say bull****. My other complaint, the length, really hurt the movie. It opens up with a young Logan, called "James" at the time, ala the Origins comic. James is sitting in bed, sick, chatting with Sabertooth as a young man. Thirty seconds later, his father comes in, says "You'll be better in the morning!" and acts lovey dovey. Then someone shouts something downstairs. Than the dad goes downstairs. Then there's a shot. Then James runs downstairs to find his father shot by a guy who is apparently Sabertooth's father. Then James pops bone claws and stabs him. Then we find out that was his father. About two minutes have gone by, at most. This was a serious weakness, here! We got no feel for James as a mutant, no feel of, "Holy crap, what's going on, here?! I just popped bone claws! The hell was that?!" There was a second of shock before he stabbed daddy, and then we run off to a montage that we saw most of in the trailer, featuring Sabertooth and Wolverine (I'm going to just call them as much) dashing through every major battle from the Civil War to Vietnam, during which I guess we're supposed to see Wolverine trying to curb his half-brother's more wild side, but Victor didn't really come across as too wild until Vietnam, and only in one scene. We were, I guess, supposed to be disturbed by watching him fire at a machine gun nest of Germans on D-Day, killing everyone inside. And, apparently, continuing to fire after they all died. Whoopdie-frigging doo. In 'Nam he's shooting a gun at what would appear to be the open forrest as they leave in a helicopter, and Wolverine grabs him screaming, "That's enough!" Absolutely no change in my emotional level at that point. The first "distrubing" thing Victor Creed/Sabertooth does is to (apparently) attempt to rape a Vietnamese girl. A random soldier tries to stop him, and Wolverine winds up killing (or at least beating up- the lack of blood anywhere makes it hard to tell) everyone, while Logan tries to hold him back.. slash, you know, beats up all of the other soldiers. Jump forward- a firing squad tries to kill them, but can't, because they're both apparently immortal, or psuedo-immortal. Or something. They join Weapon X, and we get to what appears to be the most promising part of the film! We see the full Weapon X team, based on the original comic book team, all of whom look more or less like I felt they ought to. John Wraith, played by Will I. Am, was particularly good- looked just like his role, and was a believable character, if a bit cocky. He wasn't the paranoid guy he was in the comics, but he worked- he had a personality, and he stuck to it. Oh, and he looked friggin' sweet when he teleported! Wade Wilson was also good- Ryan Reynolds would make a wonderful Deadpool as the Merc with a mouth. He only got about five minutes, conglomerate, of screen time (He's supposedly killed off-screen, but it's strongly implied that he's Weapon XI), but all of his lines were great, devastating humor blows. "Oh, great, I'm trapped in an elevator with five guys on the high-protein diet. This is like a dream come true." "Be quiet, Wade." "Yes, sir. And can I just say, that green is really your color. It brings out the seriousness in your eyes." That and, "Okay, people are dead, now! You can come in!" worked well. I don't know much about the other mutant, Chris, but I got a feel for his powers and though he did well. Agent Zero was awesome, but not faithful to the comics- he just seemed to have extremely good aim (accurate) and super-dooper agility (not accurate). In the comics, he and Wolverine wound up being friends; in this, Wolverine kills him. Anyway, I'm getting off track, because I really liked what I saw of the Weapon X team. What I didn't like was that we didn't see more! We went on one mission with them, we saw Stryker order the team to kill a few civilians (for no good reason), and then Wolverine (who, along with Sabertooth, has done absolutely jack with the team up until this point- them bone claws are useless) up and leaves, and everyone acts like it makes a huge impression on them. He was there for two days, tops. And he didn't die. Get over it, Weapon X team! We jump along through time, now, and most of it is handled pretty well. Sabertooth kills Chris (I cannot remember his last name), and we hear that Wade Wilson is dead, too. Stryker tries to recruit Wolverine, Wolverine tells him to stick it where the sun don't shine, Stryker leaves, Sabertooth kills Silverfox, Wolverine joins Weapon X and gets adamantium bonded all over his body, he escapes and blows up a helicopter and some other stuff- Jesus, how fast can one movie run?!? Anyway, he escapes and has as strong desire to kill Sabertooth, now. So he runs off and learns from some retired Weapon X team members that a guy in New Orleans- Gambit- will probably know. After a pointless fight with Gambit, Wolverine makes friends with him and runs off to Three Mile Island, where Weapon XI is being developed by Stryker, who controlled Sabertooth all this time. Some stuff goes down (I won't reveal it, because this was an actual good plot element), and long story short, Weapon XI gets activated. It's a "Deadpool" (Oh, gee, I wonder if they're implying that it was Wade Wilson?) of mutant powers, and features (most prominently) a sewn-shut mouth, Wolverine's healing ability, John Wraith's teleportation ability, a pair of katana-like blades shooting out of its wrists, ala Wade's swords from earlier in the film, and Cyclopses eye beam ability. It kicks Wolverine's butt, Sabertooth shows up to help out, it kicks both of their butts, and then Wolverine finally beheads it... and apparently blows up a nuclear reactor in the process. Some more stuff happens, which culminates in Wolverine getting shot in the head with Adamantium bullets, resulting in a memory loss on his part. Big of a fan as I am of Deadpool, I think I'm okay with what they did, there. You can't please everyone, and Deadpool has survived having his head hacked off in the comics. Maybe he would survive it here, too? I dunno. Apparently in one theatrical ending the severed head is still alive, and whispers, "Shhh" to the audience; in another one, Wade shows up and looks at the dead Weapon XI saying, "Who are you supposed to be?" and in a third (the lame one I saw) Wolverine is sitting around drinking in a bar in Japan "to remember." Oh, well. All in all, it was a good action flick, but pretty average in terms of movies. Two out of five, maybe two and a half stars. Worth seeing, but I'd wait until it's on TV; not worth going to see in theaters.