Gorram Go Neong Yung Duh

I need to swear a bit more subtly, so I've decided to go Mandarin.

It pays to swear in Mandarin when dealing with the public. It's amazing what you can mutter under your breath in front of people who would pass out if you said 'Damn' in front of them.

I've been swearing in a lot of Mandarin lately because I've been doing something hateful to myself: I've been catching up on DC Comics' Countdown.

To say this is terrible would be undervalue the word. I sometimes sit back in mo min chi meow (ridicuously illogical,nonsensical) shock at just how badly this series is. Even reading every issue, back to gorram (damn)back, still makes no real sense. Even the big draw for nuhn tze huhns (real manly men)like myself--the return of the Mulitverse--is handled like a buhn dahn.(idiot) Because, frankly, if anyone thinks that the Multiverse will still be around in a year, well, you are a buhn dahn.

Meh. I still have a fondness for DC Comics, I still read Legion and Blue Beetle, but we haven't seen a comic book low this bad since Secret Wars II.

So what is good to read? I'm enjoying mostly Marvel books these days--Fantastic Four, Iron Fist, and especially The Order. Anything to clear the taste of marketing crapitude that is Countdown.

Ooka A Boo Ooka A Boo, I'm Stuck In London, Boo

Sadly, I won't be at Lee's Palace tonight to see the rock and roll equivalent of Prozac and fuzzy kittens. Whenever I'm down, I put on one of their albums. It's no surprise they take up a lot of space on my MP3.

But damned if I won't post a link to their awesomeness.

Sounds Razor

I'm sorry, but whenever I hear 'Razor', I think of Katie Holmes from Disturbing Behaviour. "Sounds razor," she sighs as a punk girl. Never get tired of saying that. You may get tired of hearing me say it, though.

I admit I've fallen away from BSG, but this brought me back. I remembered both my love of the show's writing, it's amazing dogfights, and my complete appreciation of Starbuck. There is a moment here as well that made me shout out in joy, but I won't spoil it for you.

And no--it's not the return of Daggit. Which would be awesome, but only if he was played by Katie Holmes.

The Big Kiss Up

House is quiet, swaddled in winter afternoon gloom. Vulcan Ninja is asleep on the couch, a copy of The Anubis Gates on her chest. The promise of Saturday night awaits, all constructed for her enjoyment, since she attended a family function (my side) last night directly after finishing a long day at work. Not a word of complaint, because I do all the complaining and whining in this marriage. So tonight, it is for her.

This includes:

1. Watching 28 Weeks Later. " I want zombies," she said.



2. Imported beers--three bottles of Warsteiner and Chimay.

3. A copy of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which she was very taken with, smiling maniacally as she read the back cover.


Thank the universe for making strange women, and allowing me to marry one. Where else could I use the undead to maintain peace?

Couldn't You Get Your Old Job Back, Rose?

So I watched the first episode of Secret Diary of A Call Girl last night.

Hmm.

Well.

Right.

Well, on the plus side, it does star Billie Piper, who I would watch read a Swahili phone book. Without her, this show would be bound for the $2.99 bin, or forever lost in the limbo that is late night Showcase programming. As well, any reclusive, anti-social Who fans who have had trouble imagining--shall we say--certain situations, will not have those problems any longer.

On the negative side, I'm fairly sure that this has about as much to do with real prostitution as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves has to do with actual slave labour mining. Yet Piper makes at least her scenes watchable, even if I really didn't need to see her sitting on a toilet. Or riding a middle aged man in a saddle. Or...I think I'm going to go for a run now, kay?

The Horror, The Horror

So I get up this morning, as is my wont. I drowsily eat a bowl of Raisin Bran, staring at Layla Kayleigh as she relates my morning dose of pop culture.

After putting my cereal bowl in the kitchen, I pour a cup of coffee, stumble back to the couch. I lay down, pull a blanket over me, and stare at the darkness that is the pre-dawn.

I feel a thud on my chest. I look down to see that Marmalade has followed me down from bed, and is now continuing his rest with me. My eyes start to close, but then I see Marmalade get up. He turns, and I think he's going to head back upstairs to bed.

But no. With his backside a hand's width from my face, he farts.

The stench could knock an elephant from a tree. My eyes burning in my head, my lungs shredded and my hair now turned a preternatural white, Marmalade continues his rotation. Facing me again, he settles back down for his sleep.

I lay there, thinking I've either earned my sainthood or have become a feline joke for generations to come.

All My Love To Long Ago

You should check out the Tenth Doctor/Fifth Doctor crossover, 'Time Crash' here before TPTB rip from the Innnernet.

It's fun, it's pure Moffat magic, and it's a standing ovation to 'my' Doctor as well.

Perhaps The Worst Experiment Ever

I have no idea why I'm suddenly nostalgic for my high school days. Perhaps I have a brain tumour, or my subconscious is tired of thinking about a)selling my novel for a million dollars, then b)going on a world tour, then c)meeting Billie Piper in a high end London hotel bar at 11:58 p.m. and then d)spending an entire night discovering she loved the Micronauts as much as I did. Perhaps my subconscious simply wants a change.

Which brings us to General Hospital.

Back in the Eighties, when I proudly wore my Duran Duran T-shirt and listened to Big Country on a Walkman, I had a girlfriend. I loved her as much as you can as a teenage boy, and she will always be a part of my teenage memories. Sure, she crosses the street now to avoid me, and probably thanks God and any other attendant gods that she didn't end up marrying a writer, but still, we had some good times. And part of those times was watching General Hospital.

She got me into it, damn her. I tuned in just after the whole Ice Princess storyline, where some madman was going to freeze Port Charles with a freeze ray. No, really, he was. My time with the show included Jack Wagner's turn as Frisco Jones (yeah!), John Stamos running about as Blackie, and of course--Luke and Laura. So many days at Westminster would end with my girlfriend and I crashed on her couch, sipping Cokes and watching our beloved GH.

So I thought I'd watch it again. For a week.

Hey, as blog experiments go, at least it doesn't involve poetry. So that's a good thing, right?

You Know You're A Complete Geek When....

...you start finding yourself nostalgic for Marvel's 'space' stories of the Seventies.

Those of you here who are turning grey and have felt your dreams turn to ash in your mouth know what I'm talkin' 'bout. You hear the words Kree, Mar-Vell, or Skrull, and you feel this tiny bit of longing. A longing for a time when you could actually feel your young mind expand as you read about Adam Warlock or the Celestials. Cue up a Boston album at the same time, and no finer heaven exists this side of...well, heaven.

Which is probably why certain Marvel books are beside my reading chair, books that are nothing less than a Marvel space stories revival. Among them? Annihilation: Conquest, Nova, and the new Captain Marvel.

You know it's more than a feeling. The space stories are back, and representing.

I'll prattle about them later. Still, to keep with the geek, there's this King of All Geek videos. I still watch this more than I should--even with System of A Down taking up tons of space on my MP3 player, I just can't get enough. Did I also mention I have four CDs of Final Fantasy soundtracks on the player as well? Good thing I'm married, because I'd never get laid, otherwise.

Pavlovian, So It Is

So I come to you.

I'm getting the Mario shakes. With the arrival of Super Mario Galaxy on Tuesday, I find I want this game and I WANT IT NOW. But if I do go and buy it, I can say with much certainty that a chill will descend upon my home. That the Teutonic heritage that usually lays dormant within my wife will arise. Flames will shoot from her eyes, and across the city babies will cry in their sleep. She will very quietly point out how many games I have on my shelves, of how much time I spend playing World of Warcraft and EVE Online, and then she will ask every so pointedly where the time to play this will magically arrive.

"But it's Mario," I'll say. As if that explains everything. As if to demand a deeper answer to insult something bigger than both of us.

The chill will deepen. Water pipes will burst throughout a six block radius.

And she will repeat the question.

So, should I buy this or not? Question not the need for a man to need Mario, to see an Italian plumber leap from planet to planet, to stumble around his living room with his Wii controller. For if we question this, we do, in a very real way, question why we ever climbed from the seas in the first place.

Broads and Heists: A Mixture Made In Heaven

Just finished pouring through Richard Stark's The Hunter, after going about it ass-backwards and reading its sequel, The Man With The Getaway Face, first. I just adored both of them, and now will have to pace myself not to tear like a rabid weasel into the third one, The Outfit.

These are part of Stark's Parker series of novels about a hardcore thief and occasional murderer known only as Parker. He exists on the fringes of the criminal underworld--not with the mob, not with a gang, but operating only with fellow fringers. For the most part, Parker is a thief who steers clear of any 'Outfit' jobs (mob jobs), getting by on a few profitable heists a year. In The Hunter, (the first of the Parker novels), a job goes horrendously wrong, leaving Parker feeling more than a little pissed off at a double cross. This leads him to come into conflict with the Outfit, which seems to be an connecting theme in the early novels.



The Parker novels I read came out in the Sixties, and were apparently so popular that they were made into movies with Lee Marvin and Robert Duvall. I've never heard of them, which either shows how little I know about cinema or these films made very little impact. Even a more recent Mel Gibson novel--Payback--which I did see, and enjoyed immensely--is based on The Hunter, although Parker's name is changed to Porter, for some reason.

I came across these gems courtesy of Ed Brubaker's recommendation in his superb Criminal comic, which is perhaps the only comic I make sure to read within minutes of getting home. If I haven't recommended this book enough, let me recommend it now. (Brubaker's main character in the last Criminal storyline--Lawless-- was inspired by Parker--but isn't quite as ruthless as he is.)

It's interesting to note that I'm reading more crime fiction these days than science fiction or fantasy. I may have to plunge into William Gibson's Pattern Recognition tonight just to maintain my geek cred.

Catching The Gay

Probably best not to be drinking any beverages whilst watching this. Made my Tuesday, even if I need a new keyboard.

Post 400! And How I Celebrated!

I got up, put on my housecoat, poured a cup of steaming hot joe, and watched Tron.

I've been trying to re-watch this film for nearly a year now, with the promise of it being the Grail of most weekends, one that always was yanked from my fingers courtesy of housework, deadlines, or what have you. So today would be the day, and my post would crest me over the 400 mark. Yowza!

The film still captivates. Sure, Jeff Bridges is irritating as Boy Genius Flynn, but I do like his video arcade. I especially liked seeing an elderly couple wandering around amidst the tube-socked teenagers. I don't know about you, but the best thing for me about arcade gaming in the Eighties was the senior citizens. They always hogged Defender, the senile bastards.

Beside me, Vulcan Ninja fell back asleep, the New York Times crossword in her lap. But I hung on, looking at all the pretty colours, marveling at the other dimensional look of the film--a bit like a silent film on neon--and trying to remember who I was back in 1982, and what I thought of it then.

And that's that.

End of line.

THE TOP FIVE GAMES OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS: NUMBER ONE

Oh, thank God we finally made it here. And here it is, the game I cannot stop thinking about, cannot stop playing, and truly think is the best game I've seen in half a decade:



Simply fucktastic.

What makes Resident Evil 4 so great is the collision of my love of horror and a great game. It's rare that those two things actually occur. I enjoyed--and got the hell scared out of me--with the Silent Hill series, but there was an random element to the gameplay that could well and seriously bugger you up, if you didn't find each clue and/or did the right thing each time. Evil realized that, so instead laid out a fairly linear storyline, but one that still would challenge you, frustrate you, and most importantly, exhilarate you.

Outside of shooting unshaven Los Ganados (infected Spanish rural types)--which never gets old--the game was also so well structured. My knowledge of game design is limited to only a lifetime of playing the damn things, but I know enough to see when something works--and when it doesn't. With all due respect to KOTOR, it really had one planet adventure too many before the big Final Confrontation. A game level should offer the player something new, should build upon what the gamer has learned before (especially in terms of gameplay--for example, if you had to manage the Super Jump in the last stage, well hold on baby, cuz now you gotta do the Super Duper Jump).The final planet adventure in KOTOR was unnecessary, because it did none of those things, other than eating up about three hours gametime.

Resident Evil 4 has game design down pat, and makes it bring it coffee. For example,once you get past the first wave of murderous Ganados (did I mention that's Spanish for 'cattle'?), you then have to deal with being on a boat and a giant worm thing that wants to snap you in half. Later, you have to explore a dank castle, complete with dungeons and gorgeous moonlight effects. You learn how to knife fight. The game also makes you play another character, tearing you away from the macho cool Leon Kennedy to run around in the skirt of the not-so virginal Ashley Graham. It's a quiet escalation of fun and surprise that we just don't see enough of in games.

Of course, it also looked gorgeous--if you find monsters and zombies gorgeous. Which I do. The story is simple, yet captivating. And on top of all this, the game also scared the living beejeezus out of me. There were at least four incidents in Res where I jumped and shrieked like the little five year old wimp that I am.


I can still remember exactly when I finished this game--a Friday morning at 10:30. I was off work (legitimately), and when I watched the final cutscene, I called my wife, so excited, to let her know I'd finally done it.

"That's good," she said, distractedly. "Good for you." It took me a day to realize that maybe she wasn't as excited as I was, so high was my glee.

Even now, I'm still trying to get through it again, but it's now proving beyond my weak gaming skills. ( I cannot get past the lake scene despite months of attempts and volumes of curse words.) The mini-game 'The Mercenaries' still remains outside of my grasp (I cannot get five stars to save my life), but that's fine. The fun is still there, even after all this time.

I adore this game. If you haven't played it--and you love FPSs--then at least rent it. As much love as HALO gets, I still think this is a better game. And I'll fight anyone who says different.