Well, it's now the 24th of December, and I have successfully made one news post every day. Guess maybe I did have it in me after all. I know a couple were a bit crappy, but sometiimes that's just how she goes.

Today, I was intending to talk about the best DLC for Rock Band, but I'd rather just make a bit of a spiel about how I hate working on computers that aren't mine. See, I'm making this post from my girlfriend's laptop, as I will not be home at all today, and I had to make the last post, right? But anyway, I'm finding this very uncomfortable. The whole compressed keyboard thing is a pain to adjust to, and making my typing way slower. Don't get me wrong; it's a vey nice laptop, and I wouldn't mind owning one myself, but I just can't stand adjusting to a new keyboard.

Much more of an issue is the fact that it's running Windows Vista. Oh my God I hate Vista. It took me nearly half an hour to figure out how to access my FTP site or whatever through the network connections, and it really shouldn't be that hard. I don't think I could even do it again. And why doesn't the "choose program" under "open with" have a bunch of default programs? I had to dig through the whole Windows directory to find the stupid Notepad. Notepad! And yes, I do all my HTMLing in Notepad. I'm sure it would be a lot easier with a program that would pick out wrong and useles code, but whatever. I've been doing it this way for six years, why change now? I hate change.

On a lighter note, we watched A Christmas Tale from that 6-movie set last night. It was actually a lot funnier than it was scary. The plot was about a bunch of kids who found a dangerous criminal who had fallen into a pit. She had robbed a bank, and the kids were trying to get her to give them the money before they'd help her out of the hole. Then there was voodoo and zombies and a slightly ambiguous ending. It was okay, nothing special. I think my favourite part was that there were four boys, and when they were coming up with nicknames to use while talking to the criminal, they named themselves after the A-Team. That was funny.

so yep. That concludes the 24 Days of Materialism. Hoped you enjoyed it as much as I hated finding a way to make a blog post every day for 24 days staight.

As sort of a follow up to my short "review" of the Uzumaki manga, I decided that I would watch the movie. And watch I did. Last night. And much to my dismay, it really wasn't very good. So even though it's Tuesday and I'm supposed to be reviewing a video game, I'mma go ahead and tell you about this flop.

The main issue here is that they had to cram a story that spanned three books into two hours, and I suppose they did an okay job with that, but it could have been so much better. There were a lot of chapters in the books that were simply side-stories that really had no place in the movie. Particularly that of Kirie's stalker and the girl with the spiraly hair. Hell, they weren't even complete here. At the end of the movie, they show some stills of people affected by the uzumaki, and one is of the chick with the hair, her curls wrapped around a telephone pole, and her body completely emaciated. If you hadn't read the manga prior to this, you would have no idea what was going on. Would you have guessed that the ever-growing hair spirals were draining her of her life? Probably not, as it wasn't even remotely touched on.

The main story was even cut in half and slightly butchered in the process. Everything was going fine in the beginning; Shuichi's father obsessed with the uzumaki, the spiral smoke from the crematorium chimney, his mother going insane. It was all good until the end when (and I'll spoil the movie here because the book is way better) Shuichi was caught by the spiral and turned into a monster. Manga Shuichi would never have given into the spiral, much much less attack Kirie. Or does that give away too much? Well, in any case, I undersand that they had to take a few liberties to turn it into a movie, but it just hurts so much. The quote on the cover calls Uzumaki "deliriously unsettling", which is true, but the creepiness is about the only thing left intact from the source material.

Which brings me to what I did like about the film version. for one, like I said, it was still really creepy. I'm almost afraid to turn around in fear that some kind of horrible spirally fate is waiting just behind me. A good part of the gore and shocking visuals remain off-camera (or come on for only a split-second), but the screams and the sounds of bones cracking and bodies contorting in ways they were never meant to are more then enough to get the message of terror across. Also, for the very brief few seconds that we get to see the giant man-snails, they look really cool. Besides the fact that they're irrelevant to the main plot, I kinda wish they'd gotten more screen time. Oh well.

In conclusion, I really haven't changed my mind between now and four paragraphs ago. It's not a great movie, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who has not read through at least the first book will be utterly confused by what exactly is going on. It's frightening and will most likely give you the jibblies, but I think that in the end, the common man would come away from it more confused than scared. Not a big recommendation on this one unless you're absolutely crazy about the manga and must have everything asociated with it. In which case, I might warn you against obsessions like that... unless you want to end up coiled in a laundry machine.

Okay, Monday is whatever I want it to be, right? Well today I choose to do a sort of Part 2 to yesterday's post. And by that, I mean I have posted a new article; the 2008 Virtual Console Wishlist. It's all about Super Nintendo games! And it actually falls closer to the intent of this "24 Days of Materialism" feature than yesterday's rant, because it's a loving tribute to things I would like to pay money for, whereas usually I talk about things I've already paid for.

So go read that maybe. It's pretty one-sided, but I'm sure you'll agree with me on at least the last game. If you don't you're a heartless monster and you shouldn't be allowed to play video games.

I had two plans for today's entry. the first, and best, was to write a new Virtual Console wishlist. That went to shit when I took an extra shift this morning, slept the afternoon away, and then played Tales of Vesperia all evening. The next plan was to write about something exciting and new on either the VC or WiiWare. That one didn't work out because nothing even remotely interesting has been released on either service since Mega Man 3. And that was waaay back in the begining of November. Nevermind that there hasn't been anything I would buy since Secret of Mana came out in October.

So Virtual Console has been kind of a dumping ground for mediocre to crappy games for the last couple months. It's really sad because there's still so many wonderful titles that are absent from the list. We've got the essentials like Super Metroid, Mega Man 2, and the aforementioned Secret of Mana, but where are the sleepers like Dragon Warrior or even Yoshi's Island, one of the most wonderful platform games ever made? I understand that we'll never see Crono Trigger or the SNES Final Fantasy titles because they're all being remade or ported to the DS, but there are still tons of great projects under the Square-Enix name alone that will never be seen again (Wonder Project J, Lufia 2, etc) that would be perfect for the service. We won't even start on what Capcom, Konami, and all those other developers. At the very least, I want the Soulblazer trilogy. Illusion of Gaia alone would even sate me. I want to play that game agina so badly.

WiiWare hasn't been faring much better. Actually, it's been a lot worse. Aside from Stong Bad's games, the only thing I've even considered downloading in the last God-knows-how-long is Space Invaders Get Even (pictured right), but the whole buy-it-in-pieces setup has turned me off completely. I would much rather buy the whole thing for 2000 points at once than make a bunch of smaller installments. It's nice if you just want to try the game out but don't feel like shelling out a whole $20 for it, but that's exctly why Nintendo should provide demos! Have they not learned anything from the wonderful Xbox Live Arcade setup? But anyway, the service is otherwise polluted by games that look so bad I'd be amazed if even one person dowloaded them, and a flood of dumb colour-matching puzzle games. It's ridiculous, and has made Nintendo the laughing stock of the digital distribution world. And to be considered worse than Sony in that category is a real testament to just how bad things are. Yes, they're providing a lot of content, but quality control should at least be present, if even just to keep out the complete garbage like Hockey Allstar Shootout and Target Toss Pro: Bags.

So I suppose this post kind of volates the spirit of my "24 Days of Materialism" feature, being that it mostly tells you not to buy anything, and is more of a rant than a review. However, I did name a few games that are worth at least convincing a friend to buy. Like Space Invaders Get Even. You should totally get it and then invite me over to play. It'll be awesome I promise.

Did you ever notice just how thoughtful Amazon can be sometimes? I was just going to use one cover for this one, but they had a pre-made image woth all threee in it. Whoo!

But don't let that little 'whoo" there fool you. I'm actually in a trerrible mood right now and really want nothing to do with anything but sleep. But I've got a responsibility to myself to at least write a couple lines here.

So today I'm telling you to buy Arrested Development. It's one of the best shows that's ever been on TV and it's a damn shame that Fox cancelled it. But that's what Fox does. It cancels everything good. Buy these DVDs. This post is five years too late!

Last time I was down in Grand Forks, I didn't really have a shopping list, but rather I was just picking up anything that piqued my interest and was of reasonable enough price. I went home with a lot of new movies. One of the more interesting purchases the the 3-disc set you see below this paragraph, 6 Films to Keep You Awake.

I looked it over, somewhat intrigued by the descriptions of the movies contained within, and showed it to the woman. Her eyes got wide and agreed with me that it looked worthy of purchase. We got back to our hotel, and while it wasn't supplied with any DVD playing devices, I had enough foresight while packing to bring mine along with me. Only I forgot the remote! So while we couldn't navigate the menus to watch Arrested Development, each movie on this set was on a different side of each disc, so we were able to pop whichever we saw fit in and mash the play button for success! Lesson: never forget the remote.

The first film we watched was A Real Friend. To our surprise, the film was in Spanish with English subtitles, but it was of little consequence, as there was no way to decipher exactly what had gone on in the movie no matter what language it was in. There was a little girl who was friends with Leatherface and a guy who she called a vampire. A couple people died, Leatherface and the vampire fought, and then the conclusion showed the girl's happy family (with the vampire as her father) watching a TV that was playing the intro to this movie. It was confusing and didn't really explain anything. I didn't like it, and it put a bad taste in my mouth.

To Let was much more enjoyable. We watched this one the next night, and it was actually really good! Also it was Spanish too. I figured it was safe to assume at this point that all six would be. So anyway, the plot was about this young couple who were looking for an apartment. They drove out to this creepy place in a bad partof town, and once inside, they discovered that the landlady had been stalking them. They try to escape, but the deranged landlady beats the husband with a bucket, and the wife escapes to another part of the apartment building and finds another woman tied up in a bathroom. Since I like this movie, I won't spoil it, but there's a man-beast, much bloodshed, and a truly frightening old lady. It's great.

Last night, we finally picked the set up again and watched the Baby's Room. It wasn't as good as To Let, but I did enjoy it. Yet again another new family moving into a new house, only this one is haunted! Sort of. The husband starts seeing a man in the baby monitor, but can never find this apparent burglar. Eventually, he almost slices his wife's face off, thinking she was the burglar, and she takes the baby and moves out, leaving him to deal with the creepy phenomenon by his lonesome. It goes into some spooky parallel dimension shit, and the conclusion is exactly what you'll guess it to be, but I was entertained, and that's all I really ak, so it gets a pass.

We haven't watched the other three movies yet, but plan to watch A Christmas Tale sometime over the weekend. Maybe I'll tell you how it turns out. Judging from the other three, they could be awesome or terrible. I really don't expect any to top To Let, but here's hoping! Based on that movie alone, I highy recommend picking up this set. It's only like $20, and for six movies albeit of varying quality), that's not too bad at all.

Today I'm going to take a quick look at what is called a "manga". I've you aren't in the know, it's basically just a Japanese comic book. Call it a comic in front of an anime fan though, and you'll get your ear chewed off. Me, I don't care. It's a comic. You just read it backwards is all.

So Uzumaki then. It's a horror book, and there are three volumes in total. It's about a small, isolated town which inexplicably fall sunder some kind of stange curse. See, the villagers, one by one, start to see spirals and become obsessed with them, and this obsession often leads to their horrific deaths. Some are a little less shocking than others, but a few will turn a weaker man's stomach. And this is just the first volume! By book two, hospitals are being invaded by mosquito women, babies are trying to return to wombs, and the town's utter destruction seems almost inevitable. Book three is basically a small group of characters' fight to escape the town and the curse.

There's an article about it over on Game Spite that describes it way better than I ever could, so I recommend you check that out if you feel interested at all. Another thing of note is that I learned, whilst searchign for the cover image on Amazon, that there is actually an Uzumaki movie. So I'm itching to download that. Though I'm sure a lot of material would be cut for time, it seems like it would be a really frightening and surreal film. Hopefully it's good.

So the comic, yes wonderful. It's great. Not particularly scary, but if you read even the first volume, you'll never look at a spiral the same way again. Hell, you'll probably never want to see a spiral again period.

Okay, video game soundtrack time. I guess you can all just leave the room now since nobody cares.

Yep. Megaman 9 official soundtrack. I was totally psyched for this one. Had it pre-ordered and everything. And it rocks. Like, for real, not just for the sake of the pun. Inticreates had a lot of extra processing power to work with for this game, but kept it down to NES-styled graphics. The best part is that they kept the music consistent with those graphics, and you get a disc full of wonderful 8-bit techno to rock out to with this one.

Honestly, there isn't a lot else for me to say here. I want to talk on and on about it, but if you've played any of the NES Megaman games, you pretty much know what you're signing up for here. I'd say it's on par with the original game's soundtrack as far as quality goes, and that's pretty good. No song will ever trump the theme to Bubble Man's stage, but the stage anthems are great contenders. The intro music is pretty rad too.

What else do I have to say? I love it. If you like chiptunes, then you'll probably get a kick out of it. Uust make sure you import it, and don't get it through Amazon or the like, or else it'll cost you like double. That's a bad thing.

Between now and that last post, I've got my PC's audio working! Huzzah! Turns out I haven't completely forgotten everything I used to know about computers. It's just hidden under many layers of dust and dates I now have to remember.

Many months ago Nintendo released some screenshots for a new Kirby game on the DS. They didn't put a title to it, but I could tell right away that it was a remake Kirby Super Star. I was ecstatic. Sure, ports are generally frowned upon, but KSS is the best Kirby game ever, and given the generally tepid quality of Kirby Squeak Squad, there's no guarantee a new game would have been better.

When I was a young 'un, I first saw Kirby Super Star in an issue of Nintendo Power and knew it had to be mine. I owned and loved every Kirby game up until that point (minus Kirby's Dream Course), and ran as fast as I could to tell my parents that I needed it or I would die. I had used this excuse before (Chrono Trigger, Earthbound), and it had been unsuccessful. Fortunately, my birthday was right around the corner, and what did I receive? Oh yeah. Kirby.

I played that fucking game so much that I'm surprised the cartridge never died out. I played alone, I played with my brothers, I playe with friends. I played through all the games in Kirby Super Star upwards of twenty times (it took a lot longer back then!), and never got bored of it.

So naturally I grabbed the port. I had blazed through a ROM version of the original game in a single sitting not six months earlier, but was anxious to get my hands on this prettier version. And it was so much more! There are nearly twice as many games to play in this new version, and most of the new ones are really hard! Revenge of the King is a sweet "dark world" take on Spring Breeze, and Meta Knightmare has you burn through most of the original game as Meta Knight. Helper to Hero and The True Arena are great variations on the classic The Arena, and make it hard again. I used to get so frustrated with The Arena back in the day, but lately I can breeze through it without more than a couple nicks, and the new games just prove that while I've mastered what the original game threw at me, I've still got a lot of work before I can say I've truly conquered the new material.

In the end, Kirby Super Star Ultra is exactly what I'd hoped it would be: a prettier version of a game that I dearly loved in my youth. And then it's more too, with all the extra games! Of course, it's a Kirby game, so for the most part it's super-easy, but Kirby games are always fun, even that unusually lame Nintendo 64 entry. Do I recommend? Hells yeah! Just make sure you have someone else to play with: half the fun of Kirby Super Star is playing God with player 2. Also stealing all the food from your dying friend.

It's been a long and sketchy night. I havn't done it in forever, but tongight I decided that it would be a good idea to reinstall Windows on my PC. Yeah. I was up all night last night backing everything up, and I'll be up all night tonight trying to get everything back to normal.

Considering that fact that I'd pretty much forgotten what I was supposed to be doing, I think things went alright! Windows in back, and I'm connected to the internet. That much should have been obvious. It took me a while to figure out how to reconnect the website as a network place, but then I finally remembered to use "ftp" instead of "http". I was sweating there for a while! There were also some issues with graphical drivers, but I got that sorted out easily. I still haven't found my audio drivers though, and let me tell you, trying to blog without music is like a day without sunshine. If I remember correctly, I had a hell of a time trying to get my audio working last time I did this too. Let's hope I figure it out quickly.

Today's review is not really an object that can be bought, but rather more of a Christmassy memory for me. It's also relevant now! More on that later though.

I would just like to take a couple paragraphs to talk about Ninja Turtle stockings. Yeah, I suppose I should have grown out of these a long time ago, but my TMNT fanboyism is hardly waning. The fact that I've kept my turtle stockings (not pictured) over the many years is not a tribute to my everlasting love of the green guys, but rather a testament to what a pack rat I am. But these are cool so they get a free pass! How could you throw out something like that?

So anyway, I bring up the turtle stockings because recently they have become part of The World's Greatest Coincidence. See, I have two turtle stockings, Leonardo and Donatello. I suppose they sufficed when I was a child, but I've had a secret longing in my head to own the other two for as long as I can remember. Imagine my surprise one day when I was visiting my girlfriend's house while her family was unpacking their Christmas decorations and I saw that they had two as well: Raphael and Michelangelo. Meant to be together or just dumb luck? I like the first option. It's like we each had half of a pendant and came together to form the whole. It is clearly our destiny to be together.

So yeah, that's going to be my greatest Christmas story for years to come. You might wanna get used to it now. I will totally be telling our children and grandchildren and various other relatives this story, and I figured it was perfect for a blog entry too. Of course, it'll still be some time before all four turtles are united under a single roof (we can't afford a house on TRU salaries!), but they day that they are... that will be magical.

If you aren't exactly in the loop, Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe was released not long ago, and it's pretty much been the talk of guys at work. I'm actually really surprised at how much people have been talking about it. I never thought Mortal Kombatwas very good. At all. If I ever played it, it was just to rebel againt my parents who didn't want me playing anything with blood in it.

What I am interested in though, is the new Street Fighter! No no, not 4. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix!

Okay, long name. But it's great! It's almost exactly like SSF2T as you remember it, but pretty! And rebalanced, and with more options, and with online play, and some other stuff. The point is that it still plays exactly like Street Fighter should, and that's why I love it. Despite the fact that I am complete crap at it.

Yeah. I tried playing the remixed mode on easy, which supposedly, was really easy. It wasn't. Not for me. I made it about four guys before I got to Cammy and I just could not defeat her. I know that I suck at fighters, but I just had to get in on this action. And you know what? Despite the fact that I couldn't even get halfway through the fighter roster, I'm having fun with it. It's Street Fighter! How could it not be fun?

The only qualm I have with the game is that it shows you how to execute every character's special move, but only with an arrow. Sometimes those arrows are very twisted, and I cannot make out for the life of me what they're trying to communicate to me. I wouldn't mind if it said B-BD-D-FD-F+X. That is completely understandable to me. But trying to understand an arrow that goes across them twists in on itself is like trying to read a completely foreign language. Just too hard. Also I could never do the Dragon Punch even when I knew the combination so that's not helping. In the end though, great game. But that much was obvious 15 years ago.

Alright! Twelve days are gone and done with, and that means I'm halfway there! I think that alone is cause enough for celebration, as I'm pretty sure that none of us thought I would make it even this far. So here's to twelve more days. I can do it!

Today's object of my affection is season two of Metalocalypse, Brendon Small's wonderful black metal-themed satire. If you didn't read last year's review of season one, the show is about a band called Dethklok. It's full of brilliant social commentary, satire on Hollywood and the media, and violence. Oh yes, so much violence. Season one was pretty bad, but season two takes everything up a notch and almost gets disturbing. And while it's twice as funny as well, the fact that even I'm starting to think the violence is getting to be too much really says something.

But enough about the downside of things. The show is hilarious! This season parodies wonderful things like publicity stunts, "with-it" celebrity managers, rehab, and celebrities who decide to become government officials. "Deathgov" is definitely one of my favourite episodes. The season starts out right after the first ended, with Dethklok and the rest of the world recovering from an attempt on the band's lives, though sadly it continues on throughout the season as self-contained episodes and shows barely any interest in a running story until the last two episodes. I was a little disappointed, but then I realized that the show was great anyway, so I'll forget about it.

I think one of the greatest things about the DVD set in particular is the special features. Like the last season, this one's special features are all just a bunch of extra material. Not blooper reels or deleted scenes, but rather entirely new short sketches. Or, well, not short. Most of them are really long and some even make fun of you for sitting through the entire thing. My favourite has the band sitting in their band meeting closet, only eyes visible, just naming bands. It's hilarious in its own way, and the fact that it lasts for around twenty minutes (didn't actually time it) is the icing on the cake. It's nice to see that even the DVD extras are taking jabs at how puffed up the importance of DVD special features is. I guess the only things that would be considered special features are two music videos for a pair of songs from The Dethalbum. Also, Nathan reading Shakespeare makes a return, wonderful as ever. That should be enough to convince fans to rush out and buy this set.

So what am I going to do with my conclusuory (yes it is a word) paragraph? Not much. How many more positive adjectives do I need to use? You know what? I could really go for some spaghetti...

Have you watched any of the Futurama movies yet? You really should have, they're all very high quality. And, you know, it's Futurama.

So today I want to go on about the second one, The Beast With a Billion Backs. To be honest, I think Bender's Big Score has been the best one so far, but I've already gone over it and I'd prefer to keep the content of this little project fresh. So this movie, while not quite as great as the first, is still a great watch.

The plot, as described by the title and cover, is that a giant tentacled creature from far-off space has crawled its way to Earth through a tear in time and space, which was created at the end of the last movie by Bender's time-travelling antics. At first, everyone is afraid of the creature, and who could blame them? But then slowly, people are taken over by the monster's tentacles and start to love it. And then stuff happens and I don't want to spoil the rest.

To tell the truth, I've mostly forgotten what happens. This thing came out like months ago. I watched it when I got it, and then haven't since. Oh well. David Cross does the voice of the creature, so yeah. He's pretty hilarious. And so is the rest of the movie. And Kif dies. Sort of. I don't know. I don't have any writing left in me. I suppose barely using my blog over the past how many months has kind of dulled my writing bone. Not that it was ever overly sharp, but it's certainly not as good as it used to be.

In conclusion! I like this movie. Go buy it and Bender's Big Score right now if you don't already own them. Bender's Game was good too, but I didn't like it nearly as much. Oddly, and non sequitiurly, I kind of want to play Mass Effect right now.

Hey, um, sorry about last night's weak-ass post. There was just a lot going on, and blogging was really the last thing I should have been doing, so it had to be quick. But moving on...

Another Thursday, another book to review. This week we're looking at Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide. I'm not going to beat around the bush here, it's exactly what it sounds like; a small book filled with ways to avoid becoming lunch should the living dead rise.

The book is placed in the humour section of most bookstores, and rightly so, because it really wouldn't fit anywhere else. The only thing I should mention it that it's not explicitly funny. I've read a lot of the big internet-loved books like The Alphabet of Manliness and My Tank is Fight!, and while the latter wasn't supposed to be explicitly funny either, it did make me laugh a few times. This book, on the other hand, finds its houmr in entirely conceptual ways. By that, I mean that the ideas are kind of funny and the authour isn't cracking any jokes.

In any case, if you think zombies are cool, or are just interested in how to survive should they attack, I think you'll find this a good read. I enjoyed it, but I'm a zombie fanatic, so there's an obvious level of bias there. Just don't mock me and then come running to me for help if you find yourself being chased by zombies. I could save you, but what makes you think I would want to?

Hey all. Sorry, I don't really have it in me to write up an entire blog post. Here's a CD. I like it.

It's called Runnin' Wild and it's by Airbourne. It's rock 'n' roll the way roock 'n' roll was meant to be. Awesome.

One of this year's most anticipated and hyped titles was Fable II. I think that for the first time in a long time, the excessive amount of pre-release media coverage actually did not turn me off the game, as was the case with last year's Mass Effect (damn good thing I tried it anyway!) But yeah, I was totally disinterested with Fable II, but the more I heard about it, the more it seemed neat and kind of like something I would like to play. And it was!

I skipped over the original Fable almost completely, playing the PC version for about five hours total before forgetting about it in favour of games based on consoles that I owned. So it stands to reason that if the original game couldn't start a fire in my heart, then the second probably would suffer the same ignorance that I showed the first, if not moreso. I'm not entirely sure at exactly what point it clicked and I decided I wanted to try out Fable II, but I think it may have had something to do with the dog. The idea of a game where you have a dog that follows you everywhere appeals to me for some reason.

Oh, wait, no. I remember now. I wanted to play it so that I could be the female character, have babies, and sell them into slave labour for millions of gold. I have yet to accomplish the last phase of this plan. Though one time I did whore out my lesbian wife to a con artist. That was neat.

So yeah, I really like the game. It's got a lot of faults though. The number one problem being the lagginess. Oh, the lag! I can sort of understand why the game might slow down a bit when you're in a huge fight or wandering around a densely populated part of town, but why are the menus so slow? It sometimes takes forever just to load the main pause menu screen! It's ridiculous! And trying to get anywhere else from there is going to take you some time, so you may want to think about whether changing your hat is really worth the three minutes it'll take to do it. Also the contols are not nearly as tight as they could be, but that's not nearly as annoying as the menu lag. In fact, I've mostly gotten used to it.

On the upside, the game is plenty of fun! And it's easy to accomplish things! Like Mass Effect, a large amount of the sidequests are shown to you by the game itself, so you don't have to worry about missing out on the time-sensitive ones like in pretty much every other RPG. That has always been one of my most hated parts of RPGs, and any game that does away with that stress gets a gold star from me. The flashing trail that leads you to your objective is wonderful in certain cases, and the ability to instantly jump almost anywhere in the world is such a time-saver that it almost makes up for the menu lag. Loading times are pretty long, of course, but the areas are so large and pretty that I'm willing to let it slide.

I don't know what else to say. I mean, I've got a ton of hilarious stories and other things about the game I could praise until the cows come home, but I don't want this post to ramble on forever. I'll just end it here saying that if you haven't picked up Fable II yet, it's maybe something you might want to consider. At least rent it. It's so much better than the first.

I have another short post today. I know it may seem like I'm getting bored of this whole post-a-day thing, but that's only because I absolutely am.

Wait. That came out wrong.

What I meant to say, was that I've been mostly out of this for so long that it's hard to remember that I need to make a post every day, and especially over the weekend, I haven't been getting to the computer before about 11:30 PM. And Saturdays, of course, I'm only home between the time I wake up and go to work half an hour later, so my Saturday posts have to be done after midnight on Friday night. It's tough balancing this with everything, but the fact that I didn't even sign on to do an entire month really helps. 24 days didn't sound too bad, and knowing there's only 16 left is even better. What isn't good, is that I only have 16 shopping days left, and I haven't even started. Fuck Christmas.

Oh! That image makes me feel better! Since Monday is cause for miscellany in ol' review world, today I will talk about one of my favouritest treats ever: the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's frozen chocolate-covered cheesecake - on a stick! I pretty much love everything I've had at Rocky Mountain (black forest fudge in particular), but the frozen chocolate-covered cheescake is magical. I love cheesecake more than almost any other food - junk or otherwise - in the world, and slathering it in chocolate and freezing it does something incredible that makes it even better. It also goes without saying that all the best foods come on a stick, so that alone is a win.

The only downside, ironically, is the stick. It's made of some kind of horrible, very tasty (in the sense that it has a strong taste) wood. This is not a good taste. Not at all. It's kind of like licking a two-by-four, but without the splinters. Most things with a somethign inside have a delicious something in there. This cheesecake on a stick decidedly does not. Not a deal-breaker by any stretch, but it is a little inconvenient. Otherwise, the cheesecake on a stick is the greatest invention man has ever inventioned, and I champion Rocky Mountain for being the only place I know where I can find it. If you know somewhere else that sells a cheesecake on a stick, then by God, man! Why haven't you told me!?

On Sunday, I will review games from the various download services on current generation video game consoles. Today is Sunday! Here's one of my favourite games that recently appeared on the Wii's Virtual Console.

Don't recognise it? It's Super Dodgeball! One of the greatest NES games ever made. I really don't feel like making a huge post out of this, mostly because I'm lazy, but also because it's a really simple game. It's just fucking dodgeball. But it's so damn fun! So yeah, if you're really interested in knowing more, go find a NES emulator and the ROM. I swear you're in for a wondeful time.

It's TV time! Yeah. This one's actually been the hardest to find things for, but I think I've pretty much got it wrapped up. I only really have to do three for the whole month, so despite my difficulty in finding things that not everyone already watches (or more importantly, that I haven't discussed in the past), I've made some selections that I think are pretty good.

Actually, I think this one is totally the balls. And I'm pretty sure anyone who is anyone watches it, but that's besides the point. The Venture Bros. is far and away my favourite [adult swim] program (Metalocalypse taking a close second), and for a short while was my favourite show on TV. Actually it was a span of about 7 months, so I'd say that's pretty significant. My point of view pretty much comes out to: if you don't like this show, fuck you.

Alright, maybe I'm not so into it that I'd slander those who don't share my opinion, but I do love the show. If by some random chance you've never seen it, I would suggest you get right on that. I know that a lot of stuff I like isn't great but I love it anyway due to personal tastes, but The Venture Bros. is a fantastic show, and that's a fact.

The show is sort of a parody on the boy adventurer genre of decades past, drawing inspiration mostly from things along the lines of Jonny Quest. That's not to say that it doesn't spoof other things. In fact, I'm pretty sure that every episode contains at least one "Star Wars" reference, and one of my favourite episodes is a complete takeoff of Scooby-Doo. The show has its own sense of humour too, not relying solely on pop culture references to sell itself.

Each main character is totally fleshed out, and most of them are completely batshit insane in one way or another. Our heroes Hank and Dean Venture are teenaged boy adventurers, dealing not only with the streses of villains constantly trying to kill them, but also the awkwardness of growing up. Not to mention that they're usually totally oblivious to everything that matters. Their father, Dr. Venture, is a failed scientist getting by only with all the inventions his own father left behind. He's neurotic, quick to anger, and his arch nemesis is a man dressed as a butterfly. The doctor's bodyguard, Brock, is voiced by Patrick Warburton and therefore is awesome by default. And let's not forget the gigantic supporting cast, each more hilarious than the last!

I don't think I should really need to try any harder to sell you on this one. If you own any ANY television DVDs at all, these two sets should damn well be in there. I just really wish I had the friggin' Cartoon Network so that I wouldn't have to wait until January to see the third season episodes. Hell, the fact that there exists a third season (and fourth even!) makes me all tingly inside. Highly recommended.

Eff this. These 24 days of bullshit is bullshit.

At least that what I feel like saying. When I comitted myself to this project, I kind forgot that some days I don't even see my home, nevermind my computer, so yeah. But I shall forge on! Today, reviewing a movie of my coosing. And my choice is agreat new-ish monster movie titles "The Host".

When talking to people, I often described "The Host" as a small-scale "Cloverfield". Thinking about it now, I don't think I could really be more wrong. The only thing the two movies have in common is the moster element and the fact that the basic plot is one person looking for a loved one. Other than that, not really the same at all. Even a little.

The plot to this movie, as it were, revolves around a man and his daughter. Also his other immediate family (siblings and father), but they're just support characters. They're living a pretty standard (if a little poor) life when one day a monster emerges from the nearby river and starts eating the shit out of people. It spies Main Character's Daughter, and goes after her. Main Character witnesses his daughter devoured whole and vows to go after the creature. The twist is that the moster does not actually eat the girl, but rather brings her back to its hidey-hole for later snacking. And the story more or less just has the guy hunting the beast, and the girl fighting to stay alive.

The thing to note here is that this movie is originally Korean (I'm pretty sure). From this fact, we can extrapolate that the voices we hear speaking are not the actual voices of the characters. On this note, I would like to mention that the dubbing is very, very bad. Hilarious bad at times. The kind of bad that sort of makes the movie more enjoyable. Once scene that has all the family mouning the loss of Main Character's Daughter in particular is so ridiculous that I could not keep my composure and broke out laughing. Only after the fact did I truly pity how bad it really was.

Sketchy dubbing aside, I agree with the media blurbs on the cover, and think that "The Host" is a wicked awesome monster movie. Or at least as wicked awesome as a modern monster flick can be. The creature itself is way way cooler than the "Cloverfield" beast by all stretches of the imagination (the lack of massive hype helped), even though it's many times smaller. It's fast, ferocious, and pretty much all-out cool. It's kind of like a big, pissed-off fish with a taste for blood. And it shows up on screen a lot! Unlike the Mr. I-Want-To-Remain-Mysterious "Cloverfield" monster. Sadly, there aren't a lot of quality screencaps of the thing, but here's a decent one.

Yeah, I know. Awesome. I seriously want one. Except without a penchant for snacking on humans. That part might work against me. But anyway, I hear that they're doing an American remake, and I wholly expect that one to suck ass, but if you go out and get the original version of "The Host", I doubt you'll be disappointed. It's not super-heavy on depth or anything, but it's a fun watch with a symathetic plot. Without spoiling anything, I'll also mention that it doesn't have exactly the happiest of endings. But yes, totally recommended. In fact, writing this makes me want to watch it over again. Now if only I could find some time to sit down and watch a movie. Maybe I can convince the woman to watch it...

Thursday is the day that I've chosen to use for reviewing reading material. Books, if you will. This might come as a shock to those of you who know me better, as I'm not known as the most avid reader around. I'm almost going to be late on my deadline here too, so let's get this bitch movin'!

Ha ha ha. Oh Ryan, you so cheap! Yeah, I know, it's not really reading material, but it's in the form of a book, so it counts! And this is pretty much the kind of thing you're going to see when I review books, so get useded to it.

Moving on, I'm touting the Penny Arcade books not because of the comics inside. No, if that was all I was after, I'd just read the website. It's not like they've got a bunch of book-only strips or anything, so it's all good. No, the real gold here is the extra commentary that goes along with every comic. They're usually hilarious, and surprisingly often more funny than the comic strip it's describing. I've had a hard time not lawling while reading these books, and that says a lot. And I only have the first two volumes!

The other extra material -namely the forewords and bonus art galleries- are also totally worth buying the books for. If your'e into that kind of thing, I mean. There's some really spectacular artwork hidden in the backs of these books, and while it's sometimes hard to appreciate for the common man, someone who spends a good amount of his time doodling (like myself) will truly enjoy it. I guess there isn't much else to say about that then. If you don't like PA (monster), then you most likely won't like the books. The commentaries might strike a chord than the comics don't, I don't know. The bottom line here would be that if you like dick jokes, buy these.

Day three, still doing good. Granted, I still have 21 more to go, but for 2008, posting three days in a row is a huge improvement. If I need to refresh your memory on what category I'm working on today, it's music! I can imagine everyone groaning at that one. Yes, I know hearing me talk about music is boring. I'm sorry, but it's something I have to do! I have bills to pay and mouths to feed!

Ah, been a while since I've said anything about Jimmy Eat World. Though really, I guess it makes sense. Up until last week, I never owned any of their CDs but Futures, and that I barely ever listened to. Well, I started listeneing to it again a while back, right around the last time I went to Grand Forks. Thought it would be something good to put on the iPod to make my playlist a little more girlfriend-friendly.

Other than that, they were really put out of my mind though. But when I started playing Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour, the tides changed just a little bit. If you weren't aware, JEW's biggest single, "The Middle", is in both games. Back in the day it was real popular-like, and I was one of those kids who shunned stuff that got popular like that, so I wrote it and the band off. Futures happened for me because it was so different and emo-tastic, but other than that I would never say I was a huge JEW fan. But plastically strumming along to the song, I found myself enamored of it, and decided to check out the rest of their work. So I downloaded the Jimmy Eat World discography. Now hold your pitchforks, download haters, there's more to the story.

I quickly fell for Bleed American (features "The Middle"), and then I gave their newest disc, Chase This Light, a spin. Digitally. The short version s that I loved it right away. It turns out that the title track was actually being piped in through TRU's satellite radio, and I loved that song but had no idea who it was (despite the fact that Jim Adkins has a very noticable voice).

In the here and now, I'm not as crazy about the album, but I've actually gone out and paid cash moneys for it, so that says something about how much I still like it. It'll never have the profound effect on my that Futures did, but that was a different time, and I was a slightly different person. To be a little more descriptive, Chase This Light is a lot more poppy than Futures, and it doesn't have even half the depth of the latter album, but it's still a great listen, and I'm pretty sure that most people with open musical tastes would welcome it into their music collection with open arms, were they to receive it as a certain holiday gift. Yes, that means I recommend it. How often do I review things that I don't recommend? Pretty much never. Especially not at the most wonderful time of the year.

I went ahead and banged out a sort of "Materialism Matrix" just now, and I have pretty much the entire month's worth of blog posts planned out. There are a few days that could use a little more thought, or things that should probably be fleshed out into full articles, but at least I have a rough draft of what I'm going to be working on for the next twenty-odd days. Also, each day has a set "theme," which are as follows:

• Monday - Whatever
• Tuesday - Video Games
• Wednesday - Music
• Thursday - Reading
• Friday - Movies
• Saturday - TV
• Sunday - VC/WiiWare/XBLA

So then, being as it's Tuesday, I guess we're in store for a short review of a video games of some sort. Hmmmm... I think that today, we'll take a look at Castelvania Judgement, a fighting game starring a host of popular CV characters.

Yeah, I know. You don't have to tell me that this is a very bad idea. We all remember the diaster that was Ehrgeiz. The difference would be that the Castlevania franchise doesn't exactly have all the retard of the gaming world by the balls like Final Fantasy VII did (and sadly, still does). But hey, with the promise of finally having a chance to reverse the roles and beat down some Belmonts with the almighty Dracula, who could refuse?

To tell the truth, Judgement does bring on flashbacks of Ehrgeiz. They're painful, but then I realize I don't have to suffer through any appearances by that douche Sephiroth, and I feel a little better. Also, I realize that it's much more polished and actually playable, and I stop convulsing and start playing. That isn't to say that Judgement is good. Oh no. It's a half-assed game, but it's kinda neat and has a lot of features. The main attraction being beating the snot out of randomly chosen opponents one by one like every other fighting game. The difficulty is up there, beacuse some characters are painfully cheap, but once you learn to use all the abilities the game affords you, it gets a lot more bearable. Almost easy, even.

The other main mode of play is the "Castle" mode, which I was hoping would have a little adventuring, but rather it's a series of rooms with specific challenges. Some are jsut beating down a handful of zombies, some collecting a number of hearts, and some fighting another character with stat bonuses or penalties. It's neat, and there are plenty of goodies to be won. Which brings me to a particularly fun aspect: accessories! As you progress through Castle Mode, you win jusnk that you can equip to your characters to make them look... well, most just make them look odd. Simon Belmont with shades? Carmilla with a pirate hat? It certainly adds a splash of humour to the game.

Perhaps the greatest part of the game is the huge stride it makes for Nintendo's online gaming system. Every game up until now has required the use of friend codes. While Jusdgement still uses them, they are not mandatory to save friends. Or so I've heard. I haven't actually been able to connect to another player yet. Probably because so few people are buying this game. But in any case, that's awesome. The only thing it's missing is WiiSpeak support, and it would be the first perfectly executed online Wii game. Oh well! Maybe next year.

So if there's all these great things about it, then why is it so half-assed? Well, like I said, the difficulty is pretty rough until you've learned to exploit all your abilities and then it gets pretty easy. Also, the controls are kinda wonky. I mean, you attack by pressing the B button, and use special moves by holding A and then pressing B. It's totally weird. Don't even get me started on how bad it is if you try to use the Wiimote+Nunchuck control scheme. But anyway, it's a half-decent game, but maybe you'd rather wait until it hits the bargain bin. It's not really that bad, but if you're picky, you might just want to look elsewhere.

It's December again! Despite living in Winterpeg and working in retail, there are some things I absolutely love about the month of December. X-Entertainment's Advent Calendar would be the obvious one. Oh, and that Christmas thing is pretty cool too, as long as you don't mind overblown holidays. I also like the opportunity to dress up my website with little snowmen. A little snowman. Whatever. The point is snowman.

But with this change in header image comes an absolutely massive commitment: The 24 Days of Materialism. Yes. That's right. It's back. You may or not remember that last year I attempted to review 24 things, one a day from December 1st until December 24th. It burned out with only three days to go, but I feel good about it this year! And for someone who hasn't made more than three blog posts a month for almost the entire year, it's a pretty grand claim. But I can do it! And I will do it! You shouldn't start sentences with 'and' or 'but'! Given that it's a pretty big project and it's my first day, I think I'll start small.

Jones Soda carbonated candy has been around for ages, but I only just discovered it whence I was visiting the top of a montain in Banff earlier this year. I then found more in the shopping district and was amazed. I ate it, and it was magical. I was swooned. When I returned home, I proudly showed off my find to my mom and youngest brother, but was quickly shot down when he said he'd been getting the stuff down at the 7-Eleven for ages. I slumped to the ground in defeat.

The Jones candy isn't terribly special on its own. I've been eating little candy bottlecaps and other stuff that has the sweet fizzing effect that the Jones candy so proudly touts since I was but a wee nipper, and as far as I can remember, they all taste just as good. Or even better in some cases. I'd take a root beer bottlecap over a sour green apple "fufu berry" Jones candy any day. The cream soda is rockin' though! The thing that really sets them apart is the sweet tin that they come in. Okay, fine, it's not super great, but I've been obsessed with candy tins since like forever. I have a collection of Altoids tins in my closet that is just a small testament to my love of candy tins. In recent years, I've been purging my room of useless things like that bit by bot, so it's not as apparent as it would have been back when this site was still coated in black. It physically hurt me to toss out the Jones candy tins, but I'm told that fewer people respect packrats.

If that last sentence weren't there, I'd have a wicked awesome segue into this paragraph, but so it goes. I just wanted to mention today that it's been a whole year since I gave Torrential Equilibrium a facelift, and I still like it. Though to its credit, I think the last layout lasted about three years, so we'll see how I feel about this one come 2010.