Category: Reviews and Recommendations


A short Bayonetta review

Filed Under: Reviews and Recommendations, Video Games
Feb.15, 2010

Roughly a month ago I decided to do something crazy and buy myself an XBox 360. This turned out to be a horrible mistake financially, but such is the curse of hindsight. Or the lack of being able to tell the future, one of those. There isn’t much I can do about it though, so no reason whining. So I have a 360 now, and this is the first console I’ve ever purchased for myself. I was rather spoiled on consoles as a kid, they were always my big gifts around the holidays. I’ve had an NES, the old brick Game Boy, a Sega Genesis (as well as a 32x and a Nomad), a SNES, a Sega Saturn, a Playstation, a Playstation 2, and that was the end of my console legacy. I got my first computer during the PS2 era, and that killed any drive I may have had to buy other consoles. I think StarCraft singlehandedly made me a PC gamer.

So why did I slip back into my console gaming ways for a 360? One word: BayonettaBayonetta reviewsBayonetta reviews. I was slowly coming to realize there was a void in my heart that the PC couldn’t sufficiently fill. I needed to play an action game and I needed to play one bad. Back when my PS2 was still my favorite toy, I put countless hours into the Devil May CryDevil May Cry reviewsDevil May Cry reviews series and the God of WarGod Of War reviewsGod Of War reviews games, not to mention Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors of various flavors. I could play shooters and RTSes and RPGs all I wanted on the PC, but I couldn’t play the really badass high-impact action games I used to love so much. There was something missing from my life, and I just happened to realize it just before Bayonetta’s release date. It had to be mine. So it was!

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Mass Effect Galaxy: Meh

Filed Under: Reviews and Recommendations
Oct.19, 2009

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I’m in a Mass EffectMass Effect reviewsMass Effect reviews kick the last few days because a good friend of mine finally started up the game recently. We talked back and forth about it a little, so I decided to give it another playthrough. Yep, still an amazing game and it left me hungry for more. But since Mass Effect 2 isn’t out until January 2010 or somewhere around there, I had to get my fix somewhere else. I decided to hop onto the app store on my iPhone and pick up Mass Effect Galaxy.

My brutally honest opinion, in short, is that it is an awful game. Allow me to elaborate, however.

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TED: Neurologist Oliver Sacks on hallucinations and the mind

Filed Under: Reviews and Recommendations
Sep.19, 2009

TED.comTED.comTED.com, the official site of the TED conference, is one of my favorite websites on the entirety of the internet. The TED conference is a place where some of the greatest minds of the world come together to share their knowledge, thoughts and ideas, and through the magic of the internet, almost all of it is available to us for free. Completely non-profit. Originally aimed entirely toward Technology, Entertainment and Design, these days it’s more varied.

Some of my favorite TED talks are the ones that give you some insight into the human mind/brain. It’s such a complex thing that we may never fully understand it, but every little bit of knowledge that we have is endlessly fascinating. The one I watched today with neurologist Oliver Sacks discusses Charles Bonnet syndrome. Charles Bonnet syndrome describes the phenomenon experienced by roughly 10-15% of blind or visually impaired people in the world. They’re very complex, often confusing lucid, visual hallucinations.

Watch the video embedded above, and pay close attention to it. Consider some of the numbers thrown out, and some of the little details about the mind that Mr. Sacks gives us. The visual portions of our brain include hundreds of thousands of different, distinct cells or groups of cells with their own specialized purposes. I find that incredibly fascinating, and the fact that even one little cell misfiring could change our entire outlook on the world around us is both amazing and frightening.

I’ll probably be linking more of my favorite TED talks in the future, but this one in particular stood out to me today. A close second is Dan Pink on the science of motivation, since his topic is something I’ve been pretty passionate about the last couple of years myself.

Do any of you watch these talks? Do you have a favorite?

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The Departed, why didn’t I see this sooner?

Filed Under: Reviews and Recommendations
Aug.12, 2009

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I could have gone my entire life without seeing Jack Nicholson’s boner, but if that’s the price I had to pay to see The DepartedThe Departed reviewsThe Departed reviews, it was worth it. Yeah I know, about three years late to the party, right? The thing came out in 2006. Well, I put off seeing this movie for a really long time because my attention span sucks, and the thing is 2 1/2 hours. Plus, I was still working for Hollywood Video and on the brink of quitting the job, and I didn’t want to watch another freaking movie for all the money in the world at the time. Watching movies was the last thing I wanted to do. So I finally got around to watching it now, three years later.

Anyway, the movie itself. I’d been nervous about the length and my short attention span conflicting, and I really didn’t need to worry about that at all. The movie was 2 1/2 hours long, which is pretty freaking long by current standards, but I was never bored. It never lost my attention. I assume most people know what it’s about, but if not: It’s a cop/mob movie. Martin Scorsese suspense flick with tons of betrayal, deceit, and… people getting bullets through the skull. It was incredible the whole way through, and the cast really couldn’t have been any better.

I’m not going to do a rundown of the whole cast, but I wanted to touch on one person: Leo. Leonardo DiCaprio is one of those names that a lot of people roll their eyes at ever since Titanic, but I’ve come to realize it’s pretty unfair. The guy is great, and I think he’s at his best in movies where his character is a little more dark. See: Blood Diamond, Gangs of New York. This movie really played that up, and it was fantastic. His character reminded me a lot of Donnie Brasco, which is another good movie in the genre. The characters match up with the whole “losing yourself” aspect of what he had to do. You’re around terrible people doing terrible things so long that you start doing it yourself, whether you think it’s right or not. It just becomes a part of you, it’s something you need to do to get by regardless of your morality. It’s always a fascinating transformation to watch.

The ending was a bit depressing, but satisfyingly so, if that makes any sense. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but it didn’t leave you feeling empty either. Everything was simply… done.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, please go do it. If you have seen it and think I’m an idiot for not watching it sooner, feel free to mock me ruthlessly in the comments section.

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Festa Italiana and Alterra at the Lake

Filed Under: Reviews and Recommendations
Jul.24, 2009

az_italiana_pinocchio-450Hey, what do you know! I made it to another festival that I had on my list! Unfortunately, I’m going to miss GermanFest this weekend… but oh well, let’s focus on what I did get to do.

The ginormous picture you see above is the Pinocchio sand sculpture they had more or less right at the entrance of Henry Meier. At least, at the entrance that we used (since there are three different ones). Yes, it’s made out of sand. Ridiculous, isn’t it? I guess it was being constructed as the festival was happening, but we went on the very last day so it was already done when we got there. Shame.

I had my first cannoli, which was awesome. They had regular cannolis and chocolate cannolis, and I bought a chocolate one thinking the cream filing would be chocolate… but no. The entire cannoli was dipped in chocolate. Holy crap! It was delicious, though.

I wish I could say the same for these things the festival was advertising as “funnolis” all over the place. I saw the price, $1.50, and immediately suspected something was wrong with them. Come on, festival food that only costs a buck and a half? They’re either disgusting or poison, one or the other. There is no in between. Luckily for me, it was the former.

It was nothing like a cannoli. It was basically a puff pastry with white icing on top, and red/green jimmies sprinkled on to make it look like the Italian flag. The filling was supposedly strawberry, but it basically tasted like chalky paste. It was pretty much the worst thing I’ve tasted in a very, very long time, which is disappointing because it was the last thing I ate on the way out. Seriously? I go to an Italian festival with awesome food all around, and I had to pick the most disgusting thing there as my last taste of the festival? Ugh.

And… we honestly didn’t do much more there! We tend not to do much when we go to these festivals, all of the various events and attractions in the park cost more money than we have to spend, so we stuck with food. Beyond the cannoli and funnoli, I had a pepperoni calzone. I fuckin’ love me some calzones. Nicole had a Sicilian Steak sandwich, whatever that is, and some weird peach wine drink. I just had a Mountain Dew. Sorry, I’m not down with paying $7 for festival booze. $2.50 for festival soda is already absurd. $7.00 for one drink is out of the question.

Afterwards, we did some driving around. My step-dad showed Nicole around downtown Milwaukee and portions of the east side. She was excited about it right up until we went to the lakeside Alterra Coffee. After we had our coffees/shakes, I think she shifted into “I’m tired and do not give one single shit” mode until we got home.

By the way, you guys from out of town, if you ever visit Milwaukee you absolutely need to swing by Alterra Lakefront. It’s kind of a hipster coffee shop, but it’s built into an old, old building that was original a river purification plant from the very early 1900s. Most of the machinery that was used then is still there and you can look at it, read about it, and sit right next to it if you want to. Very cool place. You can check out some pictures of it (not mine) right here.

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