Yesterware

…Fox News after midnight repeats the same crap so often it's worse than being forced to count the Coke Logo's for the 43rd time while you wait for your movie to start. ...the Google "current" channel is comprised of the trifecta of softcore porn affectionately labeled "National Geographic-type nudity", newslike segments singing the praises of group sex, and animated cartoons so offensive that they make Southpark look like the Care Bears. ...how to perform maintenance on a Compaq 1850-R server using a letter opener, my fingernails and a pocket knife. ...someone has developed ( I am not making this up ) a urinal that functions as a video game controller. ...Reggie Fils-Aime is not only a member of Nintendo of America, he's also the president. (Well he is now, anyway.) ...No one really knows what the new 2007 Camaro will look like. ...That it's okay to delete the contents of /var/tmp/portage and /tmp . ...That Microsoft almost bought Ebay. ...Not to a...

I saw two movies this weekend, but I'm only writing a review for one of them. A local theater specializes in obscure and older movies and was playing the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That was the most fun I've had at a movie since the Lord of the Rings trilogy night. 99% of the audience already knew the movie forwards and backwards, there was cheering and shouts of "We love you Master Splinter!" Someone started humming Darth Vader's theme music when Shredder made his dramatic entrance, and Chief Sterns was immediately compared to Chief Wiggam from the Simpsons - half of the audience shouted a nasally "Nyaa" every time he was on screen. It's a classic that still holds its own - which is more than I can say for its sequels. But on to the other movie I saw: The Davinci Code This movie was somewhat of a disappointment in numerous respects. On several occasions, people have recommended the book to me, but I never got around to reading it. Aft...

It's been six days with nowhere to sit down in my house. My feet are still sore from standing up for 10 hours at a stretch. I've gone through 16 AA batteries to take nearly 1200 pictures. My dog and cat probably want to kill me for completely disrupting the order of my household. Thankfully my wife was just as excited to see just how much video game crap I have accumulated over the last 11 years as I was. I had no earthly idea how large and time-consuming that this project would become when I first decided to do it last week. But it sure feels good to get it done. Here are a couple of highlights of my collection. My complete collection of Working Designs games: My Final Fantasy VII Launch T-Shirt: My PS2 Linux Kit: My Grandia Cloth Map: I'm writing a database to archive my collection in OpenOffice.org Base, but for a little instant gratification, I put up a simple php gallery viewable here: Paladin's Game Collection It's not on the fastest server in the world,...

I saw a contest over at luv2game.com where users were encouraged to post pictures of their game collections. I saw one or two of impressive size, but I found myself thinking "that's pretty big, but mine's bigger." I've been collecting games since around 1995. I actually got my first game system back in 1989 but for reasons I won't get into, I started at basically 0 in 1995. I've been amassing this collection for some time, but I realized that I had never actually seen it in one place at one time, so I had this brilliant idea - my wife and I would create a visual archive of the collection. Three days into the project, I realize that it was much easier said than done. I have stashes all over the house, intertwined with Pokemon and Transformer collections. My back is sore, I've lost sleep three nights in a row; man this is hard work! Here is the state that my theater room finds itself in:

With all of the recent publicity Tom Cruise has been getting over his choice of fiancees and his aggressive pursuit of the futuristic Scientology religion, I thought it would be hard to separate Tom Cruise from the role he plays as Ethan Hunt. But once the action started...Tom Who? Gone is the stylized ultra-slick Metallica rendition of the Mission Impossible theme from MI:II, Ethan Hunt's cavalier attitudes about women, and motorcycle kung-fu. I couldn't help but be reminded of Lethal Weapon 4's approach to a maturing franchise, as the story opens with Ethan trying to finally settle down and start a family, taking a back seat at the IMF as a trainer. And of course, this is not to last. This movie really packs a lot of punch, bombarding you with intense action scenes as well as gut-wrenching drama. You'll hate the bad guys and cheer the good guys - provided you can figure out who is who. As any fan of the series should expect, it's filled with plot twists and false ...

A little more than seven years ago when the first Silent Hill game was released for the Playstation, curiosity and hype drove me to to rent it. As a rule, I don't generally go in for "survival horror" games. Resident Evil had failed to capture my interest in all but the most technical aspects. I remember being told by magazine reviewers that this game was extremely frightening and unnerving at times, but I didn't really believe it until I sat down and started playing it. The first 10 minutes of the game were some of the most mortifying that I have ever spent with a controller in my hand. The developers of this game really knew how to get under your skin and keep you jumping at shadows. I finished Silent Hill in one night - eager to bring the whole thing to some sort of closure so I could sleep a little easier. I have never picked up any of the Silent Hill sequels, but if they're anything like the first one, I'm sure they're intimately frightening. When I s...

After 125 hours of playtime, 450 saves and 20+ XBOX lockups, I can honestly say I'm done with Elder Scrolls IV. I've collected the entire 1000 points for my XBOX Live gamerscore, completed the main quest, become head of the Mages Guild, Fighter's Guild, Theives Guild and the Dark Brotherhood, become Grand Champion of the Arena, and acquired every house in the game. After all that the game still has a smattering of quests that I haven't completed such as the ridiculously tedious Nirnroot quest, not to mention a dozen or more dungeons that aren't tied to any quests but contain some great loot. There is still plenty of room for improvement of my stats. Add to that the fact that I've only played through as one gender of one race, and you can start to see how enormous the replay potential for this game is. That being said, I probably still won't pick it up again until an expansion or "Game of the Year" edition is released with additional quest line...