Keeping Score

Holy Immersion Batman

Okay, holy mother of pearl does Oblivion deliever the goods. I am determined not to use the strategy guide for as long as I can, but that determination cost me an hour and a half just to find the Thieve's Guild when I started out.

It's amazing. This time around the Thieve's Guild isn't just a building with a bunch of thieves in it. You have to FIND THEM. Rumor has it if you can't find them (I did, and man that was some work), you can just land yourself in jail, and make some contacts the old way (or is that the new way?). It just feels so much more real, and it's not just the graphics.

Even the fighter's guild isn't a building. It's an Arena (<-- great tie-in to the original Elder Scrolls title!), and you have to fight your way out of the arena and into specialized jobs (I think, I haven't tried it yet).

And I'm only 3 hours into it thus far. I haven't even found the Assassin's guild yet. Methinks I need to kill some folks while thieving (which is against the thieve's code) in order to become "initiated."

Logan's Robot

Is it just me, or does anyone else think this robut is just going to throw the elderly right out the window?

Animators Have it Down to a T (Rex)

Saw this article today at Yahoo! News: Animations Reveal How Dinosaurs Might Have Walked.

Wow, I'm thinking. Someone at Yahoo! finally got around to watching Jurassic Park. I guess that's news these days or something. "I finally saw Jurassic Park! Say, let's put it on the front page!"

No, no, it's much more pathetic than that. These "scienticians" evidently put movement constraints on the joints of the bones, say the ankle can't move backwards past 90 degrees or whatever, and wound up generating thousands of possibilities. The animation they put up on their site they claim "looks no better or no worse" than the rest of them, meanwhile claiming that "animators" can "take a pile of digital bones and move them in any way they want. This part is easy..."

Look, I hate to break it to you asshat elitist jerks, but your animation looks nothing like a two ton dinosaur out for a walk. It looks worse than some stuff I've seen from second year college students. Shit that animators "moved in any way they wanted" THIRTEEN YEARS AGO looked better than this.

Since you dorks know nothing about 3D animation, it might suprise you to know that we've been puting rotational constraints on our joints for roughly a decade now. Even before then, we had rotational constraints in the form of "if it looks broken, don't do that." We used our better judgement. Yeah, that idea you had where the ankle can't move past a certain point? Been there. Done that, poindexter. And on top of that, ours still looks real, and yours looks like a weak-sauced computer simulation.

Next thing you know, scientists are going to discover that painters have been mixing paint wrong all these years, and publish a monochromatic color wheel of mud.

Just FYI

If you buy a little container of milk, and it smells a bit funny, don't drink it, even if the "sell by" date is tomorrow.

It will haunt you the rest of your day. Especially when you rinse out the bottle and find an dried rink of milk stuff around the top lip of the container.

[Not Mind Safe Update: I just "coughed up" something resembling cottage cheese. This is going to be a fun fun day!]

An Asshole of One

I get flipped off before 9am more than most people get flipped off all day.

Evidently Mr. Crankypants in his BMW X5 didn't like Joe Whitey in his wussy Honda Civic obeying those pesky "laws" of "right of way" when Crankypants tried to just blaze across the parking lot ignoring everything smaller than him. I don't know if it was just because he hadn't had his morning coffee (he was pulling out of the Dunkin Donuts), or whatever, but wow, I've never been flipped off for something so trite. I'm glad I'm not that angry that early in the morning.

My only regret is that I gave him the "whatever" wave off instead of my typical "blow him a kiss and smile" response. Those usually get 'em good and ragin'.

Dear Hollywood

You've completely lost touch with reality.

I don't care about your politics (even when they might happen to agree with mine). I watch movies and tune into your stupid poorly produced awards show to be entertained. If I want politics (or even jokes alluding to them) I'll watch The Daily Show. Don't bring The Daily Show to me. I've seen it already. I'll tune in if I'm interested, thanks.

I don't care if you're losing money (or really, just not lining your pockets with gold this year. As I understand things you're still making money, just not hand over fist). How many times are you going to try and bag on people for buying your own DVDs in one awards show? You want me to watch your work on the big screen? Make 2 tickets and a popcorn cheaper than buying the DVD. Because I can pay to watch it once or I can pay less to own it, pause it, rewind it, and watch it again. Save the sob story. Do the math.

You want me to not watch your movie at home? Make going to the theater a more compelling experience than sitting in front of my DLP (soon) widescreen TV with surround sound, where I don't have to listen to teenagers talking loudly behind me or an arrogant ass answering her phone and actually carrying on a conversation in front of me. Nobody's drunk in my house unless I want them to be. My floors aren't sticky, and I know who's been sitting in my seats before me. No, really, convince me how going to your house is somehow better?

You want to know what the definition of condescending is? Telling us that movies like Ben Hur and Star Wars can't be "appreciated" on the television, and then show us those movies and more on our television sets. Fuck. You. With a chainsaw.

"A Return to Glamor"? If 36 Mafia is a "return to glamor," I'd hate to see the gutter Oscar crawled out of last year.

We're through. I'm done caring. Not even John Stewart can save you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got an .avi of Syriana to suffer through.

This is Where the Magic Happened

My buddy Josh linked to a piece on IGN discussing their tour through the Disney animation archives there. Just seeing all of the beautiful 2D painted backgrounds there made me pine for the old guard of pencil and paper again.

Here's hoping that Pixar and company will force convince Disney to start doing compelling 2D stories again.