28 July 2007

Lookin' at m'programs.

*Last time, on Bliggety Blog...*

Me: "We're on a weekend trip for our anniversary!"
You: "Cool."

*One Week Later....*

Me: "Now we're at Newgen's for a Warhammer Weekend! We already played one whole turn, out of six. My hovering mummy frog smashed a wall of the castle with an awesome spell. He was all BIFF! ZOK!, and it came crashing down! I rather enjoyed it."
You: "Cool."

*Tune in next time for more excitement! Same Bat-time, same Bat-URL!*

21 July 2007

Anniversary! Pics in sidebar (<---)!

For our fifth anniversary, Netty are in Kansas City for the weekend. The hotel we're staying at is about two blocks from Country Club Plaza, which is a really cool shopping area that's modeled after a Spanish town. We took the hotel shuttle down there yesterday (not knowing how incredibly close the Plaza actually is), and asked the driver to recommend an Italian place. I can't even tell you how very not Italian that place was. I mean, they had some pasta, but it was mostly just normal food, and a bit expensive at that. Luckily, we'd asked for a table outside, so we made an easy getaway after we were disappointed with the menu. After some wandering/map checking, we found Figlio's, which had very good spinach manicotti and their breadsticks changed my life.

Next, we came back to the hotel for the car and drove about 30 minutes to the IMAX theater to see Harry Potter again. It was a great movie the first time around, and we were curious to see what the big wizard's duel at the end would look like in 3D. Overall, it was pretty cool. Some of the closeups were blurry, which was distracting, but the wide shots looked amazing. When it worked well, it really got at that "immersive" feel they're going for. I'm really looking forward to Beowulf now.

Today we're going to go explore the Plaza properly. There are quite a few cool stores down there. There are plenty of pics of yesterday in my sidebar (to the left now, in case you somehow missed the change), and I'll continue posting pics today, too.

And we're off!

19 July 2007

Who/what are they?

If you've been keeping up with the Internets and/or movie news, you've no doubt been wondering who, exactly, the Fredericks are. Well, the mystery deepens. There's finally a trailer up, but it doesn't really tell us very much. Judging from the front page, and from the very end of the trailer, I'd guess that Fredericks are some kind of fruit, but the rest of the trailer kinda throws that into question. Maybe the fruit's just a metaphor for something. All I know is that this thing has me pretty excited, which is saying something, considering how little is actually known about this project/film/whatever-it-is. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

15 July 2007

12 July 2007

Game Nut

I don't have much to say here, but I just wanted to plug Game Nut for anyone in or around Lawrence, KS who's a gamer--especially a PC gamer. I thought the days of buying used PC games were more or less over. Game Guy stopped selling them long ago, and they're becoming more and more rare in the EB/Game Stop realm, as well. But Game Nut...oh, Game Nut. There are stacks and stacks of PC games there, along with a very respectable selection of console games, and some DVDs to boot.

It's a great store and I highly recommend it. Oh, and they're thinking of opening a store here in Manhattan. Maybe I should get on that...

03 July 2007

Oh, giant robots from space, how I love thee.

Ok, so Transformers rocked. It was two and a half hours of smashy fun, and I'll tell you why.

We'll start with the most important reason: Optimus F'n Prime. The purists--"wankers," if you will--have been all up in arms about Optimus for months now, worried that Michael Bay would ruin their favorite freedom-loving philosopher/warrior robot, and generally getting pissed off that he doesn't look exactly like he did in the cartoon (a look which someone out there in internet land has described as "a stack of dishwashers."). Well, despite the whole "Flames on Optimus! OMFG!" to-do, I think Bay and company did right by the Big Rig. He's still the same guy as he was before--well, not "guy," but you know--but maybe just a bit cooler. And he has a sense of humor now. One of the funniest lines in the movie is his "What's with you?" during a scene where Ironhide is getting overly anxious to shoot stuff. Ok, it doesn't sound that funny now, but in context, it's hilarious. This movie actually got quite a few laughs from the audience, and from me, and they weren't the forced laughs that Pirates 3 got. Oh, and one more thing on Optimus--they got the original voice, Peter Cullen. I'm not a raging Transformers lunatic (usually), but even I was excited to hear that voice.

The acting here was actually better than I expected, at least on the part of Shia LaBeouf. That kid's going places. No more Disney channel crap for him--now it's freaking Transformers and Indy 4. He's got a kind of earnestness about him that makes you believe he's really carrying on a conversation with giant robots from space. Everyone else gave adequate performances, with the notable exception of John Turturro, who apparently wasn't told which movie he was being hired for. He acted like he was on a Mexican kids TV show, and I'm not even exaggerating. He could have been wearing the frickin' Mexican bee outfit from the Simpsons the entire time, and it wouldn't have been any worse. Luckily, the acting overall was merely a bruise on the movie, not a mortal wound.

The story, as expected, is largely irrelevant. It's not bad, but its main function is clearly as an excuse for cool cars and military vehicles to transform into giant robots that smash the hell out of each other. And holy crap does it look cool when they transform. Sometimes they'll switch back and forth four or five times in a matter of a few seconds. I could watch that all day and not get bored. If that makes me shallow, then so be it--at least I'm wading in Awesome.

So, why, with mostly crap acting and a story that's just ok, did I enjoy the experience so much? Well, first of all, in case you missed it: robots. That's the last time I'm going to say it. But second, and perhaps more importantly, the movie does exactly what it sets out to do: be a lot of fun. I am highly recommending this as a summer movie, and it'll definitely be at the top of my DVD wish list next year.

My rating: 9.2/10
IMDb rating: 8.3/10

Smashy smashy.

We just saw Transformers, and while I don't feel like writing a full review right now, suffice it to say that I was far from disappointed. It was a lot of fun.