Monthly Archive for October, 2007

iPods

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on October 31, 2007
in Media and Television
. Comments

ipod_classic.pngSo, in case you have not heard, I have become one of the iPod owners. I have a black 80Gb iPod Classic. You know, one of the new ones. I like it, but I want the 160Gb. It’s bigger. That’s all.

The new iPod Touch is one that I considered, but it is only available in 8Gb and 16Gb versions. That’s just not enough space for me. Besides, its just an iPhone without the phone part. Kinda useless to me considering the reviews I’ve read say that it doesn’t do the things that it does do as well as the iPhone does them. That’s kinda sad if you ask me. Though there is a reason that I mention the iPod Touch. The new commercial that you have no doubt seen on the TV. Here, I’ll include it here (the grey at the beginning is a encoding error, YouTube’s fault):

[youtube KKQUZPqDZb0]

Not a bad commercial, eh? Guess what? That’s the original. I don’t know if the person who put it up on YouTube is the original creator, though the description of the video says they are, so I’ll believe them.

Yeah, I see that look on your face that says, “Hey, that was awfully familiar.” Well, it should be familiar because Apple saw that YouTube video, loved it, contacted the creator, and flew him out to their headquarters to re-shoot the commercial in HD.

This makes me sad. Some rich little fucker who has access to a $1200 piece of software puts a bunch stock footage to a song and gets a commercial bought from him by Apple. I have a shit ton of ideas that will never see the light of day because I want to finish school and I don’t have the money to buy a Mac Pro (or even a MacBook Pro), Final Cut Studio, and a camera(s). I have to wait until I’m out there looking for a job at a retail outlet to even consider doing half the shit I want to do. I realize what I’m in for in this degree field. I have to be damn good at what I do to even be considered for a job and I know that I’m not. If I could get some “real world” experience under my belt with a few online shows, that would help my case, but I don’t have the access to the equipment or the people to do that. None of the people I live with would want to host the type of show that I would be interested in producing and the people who would want to help me live an hour and a half away in Jeff City.

The one show that I would be ecstatic about producing would be one idea came up with between my new “uncle” and myself. I put the “uncle” in quotes because it is just weird for me to think of him as my uncle even though he really is. The idea was came up with in the comments of this post on his blog (look in the comments), which is about an awesome show on BBC America called Top Gear. If you haven’t seen and you have the ability to watch it, you should. Yes, it’s about cars, but it’s a good show about cars. I guarantee, you will like it if you watch it.

Ok, I’m late for bed and I think this post has gone on long enough and has covered a lot of topic area. Look for a new poll.

An Orange What?

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on October 26, 2007
in Video Games
. Comments

Orange Box.  The latest in gaming goodness to come from Valve.  You know, the makers of Half-Life and Half-Life 2.  Well, they have released the Orange Box.  It is a collection of five games: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.

I have played HL2 and loved it.  In fact, I wasn’t a real big HL fan until 2 came out.  I don’t know why, I just didn’t get into it.  Then, I played through HL2 and it was close to the best game experience I have ever had.  Now that Episodes One and Two have come out, I’m sure the experience is much better.  I have still yet to get all the way through Episode One and I have had that for a long while.  Episode Two will have to wait, but the itch to play it is still there.

The two new games of the five in Orange Box is Portal and Team Fortress 2.  Episode Two is new as well, but since I haven’t played it, I won’t talk about it much yet.

Team Fortress 2 is a very fun sequel to the first Team Fortress.  Funny how things work like that.  Well, this version is all cell shaded and pretty looking.  Something I appreciate.  In fact the game is so well made that despite the relatively fancy graphics, the game runs rather smoothly on my PC.  Something I was definitely worried about with the new HL2 releases.  That Source engine can do a lot, but requires a LOT of computing power to take advantage of it all.  The game is a sheer multiplayer game and is rather fun once you find your niche.  I went through practically all of the character types before settling on Sniper.  I got the most kills with that char type, so apparently it means I’m ok with the ol’ Rifle.  Not at all to say that I am the best, in fact most would say that I suck.  I don’t really care, though, I had fun.  Kinda glad Dave wasn’t anywhere near me because he would have been making fun of me constantly.

The other game that I found rather FUCKING AWESOME is Portal.  This is a little puzzle game that uses a sort of dimensional rifter gun to solve the levels.  The Portal Gun shoots two portals that connect to each other and when you walk through the portal, you come out the other portal.  It’s a little more complicated than that, but it’s about as good as I can get to explaining it at the moment.  All I can really say is that the game is fucking awesome and I really cannot wait for more levels to be available for this bitch.  The only complaint that I have is with the portal rendering.  It bogs my machine down a bit, dropping it down to below 15 frames per second, but that’s ok, my machine could use a rather large upgrade.

Anyway, check out Orange Box if you have a PC or Xbox 360.  A lot of fun will be had.  I promise.

How about some nice stuff to talk about?

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on October 23, 2007
in Television and Video Games
. Comments

Ok. Here it is. My official, on the Internet, opinion of Halo 3. It… is… awesome. It is awesome in the sense that it is a Halo game. I’ve always loved Halo and was kind of disappointed with the story on Halo 2. I’m sure you’ve heard about that. The cliffhanger ending and all that. Yeah, I liked the game, but it felt a little empty to me. The first Halo was a fulfilling, open game with big levels that were a bit linear, but still fun. Halo 2 was extremely linear and had hardly any feel of openness to it. Halo 3 still has that feeling of linear gameplay, but it is masked. You feel like you are in these huge, open levels, but you still are given a perfect, defined path through the level. I don’t really mind it because each level is huge and generally takes a while to play through. Single player is fun, but it’s coop that I’ve always really liked. I love playing through the game with another person and having the satisfaction of working together and developing strategies. Legendary isn’t actually all that tough. If you play with at least one other buddy (you can play with up to three other people in coop) Legendary is more than manageable, though I would play through on Normal first just to get the story of the game. Dave and I got him through Legendary on his 360 and maybe someday he will help me get through it on mine. Continue reading ‘How about some nice stuff to talk about?’

I hate everyone.

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on October 23, 2007
in Drama
. Comments

Well, not everyone.

There’s this new girl that Dave has been hanging out with a lot and she has come over the past couple of days.  Tonight at around 11pm.  That bothered me a little bit, but I figured it wasn’t any of my business since neither she nor Dave want anything to do with me when she is here.  It is seriously fucked up.  She won’t even acknowledge the fact that I just said something.  It really fucking pisses me off.  Then Dave just decides that apparently the only way to amuse her is to make fun of either me or Richard.  Probably mostly Richard for whatever reason, but when they whisper to eachother and laugh uproariously and look at the couch, you have to assume something.

Really, I don’t care as long as they don’t interrupt my shows with loud talking or wake me up after I’ve gone to bed.  Wait.  That happened.  Huh.  Fancy that.

Anyway.  Enough bitching.  I had to tell someone about that and I’m too passive aggressive to actually say anything to anyone.  I guess you get to be the lucky one(s).  Maybe I should work on being more assertive.  Then, of course, people would view me as a pushy asshole.  Ho hum.

Someday, I would like to hang out with my friends.  Maybe I should get some friends around here first.  Huh.

I am now wed.

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on October 7, 2007
in Drama, Sad and Self Realization
. Comments

This weekend, I got married.  Hopefully those of you who read this were either at the ceremony, the reception, or were at least aware of this fact.  Everything went very well, for the most part.  There was one little incident that has put a very, VERY large rift between myself and my best man and friend, and pretty much everyone else I live with.  I won’t go into details, but let’s just say there was a throw-down of Myself-Being-A-Moron proportions.

Other than that, the whole day was great even though I didn’t get to have a typical post-wedding day night.  I still enjoyed having everyone there and watching everyone have a good time.  I just can’t get over that shit I pulled.  I’ll let him decide what he wants to do in regards with stuff between him and me.

I need a soda.

I will update soon

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on October 4, 2007
in General
. Comments

After this weekend, when I will be officially married, I will write a post. I will cover what I think about Halo 3 (I have all four Silver Skulls btw), what happened at the bachelor party, all that stuff. Right now, I am off to bed. I need to sleep.

If any of you have a 360 and Xbox Live, add me as a friend. I am Two Tone Ska. I know, lame name, but I don’t want to spend the 800 Points to change it.