A Small update on Life

I'd like to take this time to update you guys on comics, games, movies, and uh... life... I guess. SO here goes. No no no, wait. Before I do that, can I say how excited I am for Smallville. My favorite episode last season was the one Flash appeared in. I think the rival episode would be the episode where Chloe finds out about Clark's powers. You see, Chloe is an absolutely nosy reporter who only cares about the story. She also has this huge thing for Clark. After four seasons of being left in the blue, someone finally fills her in. Now before, our token black guy (Pete) knew the secret, but that proved to be useless. At least Chloe makes things interesting. I'm really excited for this upcoming season because Clark finds the ice place we see in the movies. Aquaman and Braniac (played by Spike from buffy) also make their debut. I can't wait.

Comics (SPOILERS): Ultimate Spider-man's new girlfriend IS... Kitty Pryde! And I'm all for it. Ultimate Mary Jane just doesn't know how to stay out of trouble and at this point, Kitty seems so perfect for Peter. She won't get thrown off a bridge by a big old mean goblin, oh know she won't. She's intangible! And because of her experience with the X-Men... she's a pretty good fighter. Not to mention, her pairing with Bobby Drake (Iceman) in Ultimate X-Men was so annoying. Bobby liked Rogue, she liked Bobby and kisses him, gets punched in the face by Rogue, Rogue leaves with gambit, Bobby's builds ice sculptures of Rogue... it's an ice cold mess. I'm glad Kitty is with Peter, Bobby is too dramatic and kind of a loser. In the Ultimate X-Men annual, they kill off yet another character. What is with these writers? First Gwen Stacy (the girl that made the whole Peter-MJ thing interesting)! Then Beast (who fell in the same type of accident twice, first time turned blue and second time died)! And now... I won't say. But the issues about Gambit, Rogue, and Juggernaut. Pick and choose who you think... I'm moving on.

Games: So far there's rumors that Wolverine and Human Torch will both make cameos in Ultimate Spider-man. This is exciting. There are a couple of characters making their debut including Ultimate Beetle and Ultimate Silver Sable. Fun stuff. It'll be cool to explore queens, but it will also be amazing to see the Triskelion and iconic comic buildings. In Prince of Persia 3 news, Farah (the girl from the first game) will be back and better than ever. The dark prince now has a redesign, and looks more sand creature-ish... Marvel Nemesis looks amazing with a marvel roster of Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Daredevil, Elektra, VENOM, MAGNETO, STORM!!!, The Thing, and the Human Torch. There are also the imperfects, but the only imperfect I'm excited about is The Wink, and that's because she has Nightcrawler's ability to teleport. Matrix:Path of Neo is looking good as well. The first level you play is the lobby scene, and it serves as two things. A dream scene of sorts, but also the deciding factor for the rest of the game. Do extremely well and the game will be set on hard. Suck and the game will be set on easy. Did I mention they don't tell you the controls. Afterwards you begin from the very first part of Matrix Trilogy and play through all three movies. There's NEW footage and a NEW ending. I think this could be the matrix game we've been waiting for.

Movies: X3 is well underway with everyone returning with the exception of Nightcrawler. And that sux and blows. But to make up for it we have the Beast, Gambit, and Kitty Pryde. There will also be a lot more mutants this time around. Story is still on the hush. Superman is also well on the way, there was some footage at the last Comic Convention, but nothing too new. In the Spider-man 3 rumor mill, there are a couple of villains being tossed around including Chameleon, Sandman, Lizard, and Venom??? I'll keep you posted. But for now, time to go play worms. One of these days, I'm gonna have to rant about that game. Laterz...

The Height of my Insanity

Clearly... T-Shirt slogans are on the bottom of the list of things that worry me about my upcoming future. Needless to say, I've been throwing around some ideas of funny t-shirts that I could rock for school. But obviously, this is not what I'm gonna talk about. Throughout the course of this blog thing I've reviewed movies, comics, and games. Sometimes I would go onto a tangent, but I have never gotten truly personal. I don't plan to. My thoughts are dark. However, I will take you to the edge. Consider yourself warned. Yesterday I had the twisted pleasure of watching American Psycho. I hated it. It was brilliant to those who pretended to get it or got some satisfaction from being inside the mind of a pyschopath. Granted, the acting was great and the atmosphere of the movie was on key. However, in terms of subject matter the movie was clinically insane. Now considering my hate for movies of late, I came to the conclusion that this movie speaks about humanity and that's why I hate it. There are people who think like Patrick Bateman (the main character brilliantly played by our billionaire superhero... Christian Bale) and there are those who share his insanity in different forms. I hate this movie, because I hate my own insanity. I see darkness in my insanity and therefore I want to remove myself from it completely. It's a movie that's sick... good, but sick.

The Insanity of Thought. In the course of yesterday alone I have dreaded the very things I think about it. Thankfully, my mind doesn't take me to murder, or rape, or anything else truly disturbing. I'm happy I'm squimish and even more happy the blood disgusts me. I couldn't be a doctor. Also thankfully, I hate dishonesty, greed, and cheating... I couldn't be a lawyer. My problem is I think too much of things that probably won't matter. I could not believe this last week my 5'4" stature was bothering me. I could hardly believe thoughts of marriage pierced me every single time I've heard that someone else was not having the ideal marriage. Thoughts of what religion really was boggled my mind, even though I had a clear cut idea of what it was. Manipulation is man's worst enemy. The (d)evil is manipulation. So what's right? I can only hope time will tell. And this hope comes from my trust in the truth, and my faith in God. So where does my insanity leave me... obsessed with love. I am in love in with the very entity of love, because somewhere deep down I fear I may never truly experience it. This is insane. To think this, is lunacy. And yet I do, and that's why I hate my insanity. It takes my thoughts to places that demoralize my values. Do I feel loved? Absolutely. Do I feel passion? Not quite. Where do I go from here? The same place I've been: the road of patience.

Back to School Shrooming

Badger badger badger badger, mushrooms, mushrooms. Badger badger badger badger, mushrooms, mushrooms. Yes, these words along with "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" are some of the fond memories of my first year at Dartmouth. The other: Mushrooms. Since my first year I have become a mushroom addict. Quite amusing really, and also kinda sad... but boy are they good. Which is why my jaw dropped and me and my sister yelled simoultaneously "That looks so good!" (we do that, me and my sis... our brains work in sync... either that or she's really good at reading my mind) when we saw the new "'Shrooms and Swiss Angus Steak Burger." We immediately ran inside the burger king and each bought a burger. Now I wasn't that hungry, but I just had to taste it. It was amazing. The way each juicy mushroom exploded in my mouth and the way the swiss just melted into bliss on my tongue... oh... nearly heaven. But I will not go any further. It was just good. And uh... I guess I went back to school shopping today.

Tale of the Clever Fairy Stories

So you probably won't know this, but I'm a sucker for fairytales. I've written a fair few. Although, yesterday I watched two movies based on ancient folklore, one hollywood title and one bollywood title. I'll begin with the Brother's Grimm. This movie is an average rollercoaster with very clever references to famous folklore like Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and a bunch of others. It's a story about two ghostbusting frauds who run into a very real story. It's quite entertaining. People who like this movie will like Sleepy Hollow and Van Helsing. I enjoyed both, so this was quite good. The second movie is Paheli. It is a movie starring Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukerjee that's about a spirit who falls in love with a human being. It's based on an old indian folklore and it's quite good. I think I enjoyed Paheli more than Grimm though, because as you can guess, Paheli is a lot brighter and magical. I definitely recommend both. On a side note, I've been very anxious to get back to school. I'm so excited that for everynight in the past week I've dreamt of being there in some form or another. Now I'm off to go look up when my favorite games will be coming out. Ttyl!

5 Marks Above an A

Black. Sanjay Leela Bhansali's masterpiece. Another great film under the great Yash Chopra. Amitabh Bhachan and Rani Mukerjee are so brilliant, 5 oscars for best performance (each!), just wouldn't cut it. How can one praise the most vivid, the most inspiring, empowering, and realistic performance that the greatest critics would probably never see. One can't. It is far from a performance. You are so emerged in the darkness that every glimmer of light you catch, there's hope. You feel graced by such light, that you can't help but wonder why this movie is called "Black." Black... black... black is radiance. Black is beautiful. B.L.A.C.K is the first letters one who is deaf and blind learn. "Black" is a Bollywood movie inspired by the life of Hellen Keller and does what no movie has ever done. There is no greater inspiration. Find this movie and watch it.

Love. No this is not another movie. But after a conversation with my father I have become curious about the true meaning of this word. What he called acceptance, I called more. Love is the existence of compassion, the intensity of passion, and something that happens that one can never truly explain. Love is beyond emotion and therefore beyond control. It is about showing care and how much intensity you bring to that care. Words is knowledge, but the heart is deaf to logic and blind to law. But it does have a boundary. Compassion is the care. Passion is the intensity of the care. As human beings, we long to feel passion, we long to experience it. Passion is like a game. But whether we lose or win, we play. Passion like the game, is about experiencing passion and not so much attaining it. Because we reach the goal, and it's over. It's anti-climatic. But during the game, we are thrilled and excited. Some return to the game to experience it once again knowing very well that they might lose. Some never even make it to the end and never understand. Some make it to the end, and are content with the experience. Passion is the game. The game is the intensity. Compassion on the other hand is our humanity. It is who we are. Every human being is fully capable whether intentionally or unintentionally. Human beings feel and there's no other way to put it. So taking these two ideas we see why people fall in love and why they are capable of falling in love more than once. We also see why love between a mother, is different from love of a wife. But why does it happen. It just does. Love is something that happens... sometimes it doesn't. That... is love.

Defeated

Defeat is when failure meets responsibility. I'm defeated, and fatigued.

But do not worry! I refuse to end this on a bad note... so here's some inspiration from yours truly...

If you want to live a life you love, love the life you live.

Ultimate Card Games

So it seems I have fans now. That sorta came out of left field. I honestly didn't expect that to happen. But I do, and I'm glad you guys enjoy my blogs. As you can see, I just write about what interest me. No big. Anyways, some of the comments I read actually has a lot to do with the chapter I'm writing now. You see, in the distant future, you people will come to learn abot Aceun. Aceun, is very much a traditionalist, in the sense that, he doesn't want to see magic abolished. But around the 7th book, it very much will. The reason is business and technology. So it was kind of funny to get all these advertisements for business and psychic readings (this was pretty cool) and what not. Some comments were genuine, and I appreciate those ones. I'm actually not very familiar with blogs, (as I have just started) so I don't know how to put stuff up like websites and what not. Um... yeah. I don't know.

Ultimate Comics! See, Marvel has this new line up of comics called Ultimate Comics that basically take traditional Marvel superheroes, like Spider-man and X-Men, and placing them in the current century. So Peter Parker is not a photographer but a lanky 15 year old webhead (and by webhead I mean computers)... It's really cool stuff and I recommend anyone to pick it up. Especially the Ultimates. They are the modern day Avengers and there's some really good stuff there. Well either way, these next couple of weeks we'll see Ultimate Annuals. Marvel used to come out with Annuals, but for some reason stopped. Ultimate comics I guess will now have annuals. I read the Spider-man and Ultimates annual (both of which I really liked), X-Men comes out this wednesday, and Fantastic Four next week. So I'm excited.

Two more things: If you are a superhero fan, go to www.superherohype.com... or if you are curious what Bryan Singer is doing for the new superman movie, check out www.bluetights.net... And finally, you can check out my music by going to www.acidplanet.com and searching for ace (da grimreaper) . Yep, that's it. Time to go play Worms World Party. Good game that is.

Red Eye Takes Flight

So I go to the movie theater with pre-concieved notions of what Red Eye would be. Now maybe it was the beyond amazing crowd reaction, but this thriller kept me at the edge of my seat and was definitely worth it. Both leading actors played their parts so well and the whole thing was very believable. A fast, intense, and edgy film from Wes Craven... it was brilliant.

Btw... I got contacts. You know, for the eyes.

7 Reasons To Heart A Key

Title makes no sense. I don't care. In the past couple of days I saw se7en, I Heart Huckabees, and the Skeleton Key. Each movie, great, but at the end left me wanting so much more. I Heart Huckabees was a great movie. I rank it right up there with Sideways and Garden State. It's psycho-realism at its peak, with philosophical craziness to make even the sanest man question his existence, even if it is for half a second. It ended like life. Se7en was a great tale of the seven deadly sins and their role in human existence. The even make mention of the greatest sin, apathy... without even caring to tell it. But apathy is dangerous. Either way, moving on along, the movie ended like life. Finally I see Skeleton Key, a tale wrapped in mysticism and voodoo. Very thrilling, but doesn't really shine on the spook meter, but does indeed have a better twist than the sixth sense. Again, this movie, although has a less believable ending than Huckabees, still ends like life. What the hell do I mean by that? Some things just happen. And there's nothing you can do about it. Am I being cynical. I don't know. But I do like movies that have happy endings, but it seems the movies that are brilliant always end on a crumpled note.

A Sky High Inspiration

Just came from seeing Sky High. Fun in its own way and another good disney movie. I enjoyed it. My favorite part, was the powers. They were just very fun to see. So I've decided to create a team of superhero misfits called Cast Aside. My goal is to come up with some truly inventive abilities. Most of these abilities will seem downright quirky and outrageous, but hey the powers is not the only fun part. These people, a truly diverse group of young adults will be an amazing sight to behold not because of their powers but how they deal with each other, the society, and being superhero outcasts. They're like mutants, but instead of being mutant to humankind, their mutant to superheroes. They have seemingly useless abilities that only seem to make sense when they work together. It's about powers and people. It's about family and isolation. I'm just gonna love writing this. Who knows, maybe it might be a comic or a movie one day. Either way, I can't wait. There are 9 of them, 10 if you include the leader. They each have their backstories, unique talents, and attitudes. See you soon.

Cellie on the Run

Before I get into the point of this post I will first talk about the movie Cellular starring our beloved Human Torch, the Transporter, and that Bassinger lady. This movie picks right up and gives you one of the most adrenaline pumped chases I've seen in a full 2 hour movie. It's a really good summer flick and I recommend anyone watch it. Chris Evans is a great character and you see why he was chosen to be the utterly fantastic johnny storm. Kim Bassinger is beyond believable and that Transporter guy, whatever his name is, plays his villainous role well enough. The movie is pure fun, so go see it.

Now, something has been bothering me. Fear. We are all afraid of something. The first obvious thing to do when you're scared is to run. And I've found myself doing that a lot lately. If I'm in a problem I can't solve, I immediately want to run. Problems at home, I want to run to school. Problems at school, I want to run home. Always running. Why? I've figured it out, I'm afraid that I will be defenseless, vulnerable, unable to do anything about it. I'm afraid I won't be strong enough, fast enough, or even smart enough. And that's why I run. My fear is weakness. And now I feel that attempting to conquer this fear will do nothing but corrupt me or hurt me. Dilemma. Run or fight it, knowing very well I might lose?

The Devil Burns

So I finally got the chance to watch Dardevil yesterday. Now, it was the extended version so I might have to see the original to see what everyone was talking about. I enjoyed it. Daredevil's character was amazingly interesting. Ben Afflek only made me cringe in one part, but that's because I instantly compared his attempt at a alter-ego voice to Christian Bale's batman, which is hardly a fair comparison. The movie was pretty believable and although the CG was obvious, it made it artistic almost. I really enjoyed the effects and the actors all played their part well. Even Ben Afflek wasn't as bad as I imagined. The movie was well done and I rank it up there with X2. I've written some Daredevil stories. It was a for a series called Supreme Marvel that me and my friend started a while ago. It died somewhere along the process. Either way, you can go to:

marvelsupreme.nexuswebs.net

And then go to Supreme Daredevil and read stuff by me. You can also read Supreme X-Men and Supreme Avengers. Funny thing, Spider-man never worked out. The writer bailed and me and zerk had some good stuff planned. However, the site didn't work out as well. Well off to do... stuff.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Oy. Birthdays. So overrated. But today's birthday was perfect. No cakes (I don't eat cakes), no big parties and at the same time I got all the "happy birthdays" from everyone, along with those charming emails, and the best gift ever, a hat. Now, contrary to popular belief, I'm not being sarcastic, this is how I feel. And I was hoping I would get socks, but the hat works fine cuz now I have something weird to freak out my 09's. What do I mean by that? Well, in a couple of weeks I'll go through training to be a UGA (Undergraduate Advisor) or for more common college lingo, RA (Resident Advisor)... And since the class coming in are graduating 2009 they are called 09's. This is how it works at Dartmouth. Anyways, I'm very very excited. And what's absolutely perfect is that I just got a list of all their names. I think I'll email them now! Also, in recent Burnout news I finished the whole crash mode. Now it's time for the race parts. I've got some pretty rad vehicles, but I need more tracks/courses.

Burnout 3 and Upcoming Games

Well, I can finally talk about Burnout 3. If there's one word that comes to mind when anyone says Burnout... it's definitely crash. Burnout has the most exhilirating crashes ever to meet the face of gaming. It's so intense and so realistic that I can't help but feel guilty for enjoying it as much as I do. Let's start with the basics...

Graphics: These are by far some of the most amazing graphics on the PS2... they are incredibly polished and ranked with games like God of War (great game btw), Need for Speed, and I'd even say Gran Turismo.

Sound: It sounds unbelievably realistic, and with the exception of the annoying radio announcer the games sound is perfect. The rock choices are good enough to keep me pumped up for a race.

Gameplay: Here is where the game shines. There are four main modes. Race, Road Rage, Crash, and Time Attack. Race is when you go for the finish line taking down enemies and driving dangerously. Road Rage is not about time or goal, you just take down as many enemies as you can before you get taken out. Crash is about causing the most damage in traffic and seeing just how much money your crash is worth. And time attack is simply beating a time limit on a track. Now, time attack is the weakest mode in the game, but all the other modes sport the best intense racing action ever to be created in a game. This game is unbelievably good, believe the hype.

Final Say: Go get this game!
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Let's see, I'm excited for a couple of games.

I'll begin with Ultimate Spider-man. I love spider-man, and I really enjoy reading the Ultimate comic series. Ultimate Spider-man is just a fun read, and now there's a game coming out for it. It has crazy 3D inking technology that's similar to cel-shading, but a lot cleaner. This makes the whole game feel like playing the actual comic book. The swinging mechanics from the Spiderman 2 game are here and here's the great news. You get to play as venom. I can't wait!

Prince of Persia has been a great series. You know how I feel about Sands of Time. Warrior Within was a great game with an amazing fighting system that outdid Sands of Time on so many levels. However, the music and the storytelling was lost somewhere in the second installment. Which brings us to the third installment of POP. Kindred Blades is the working title and the three new features are chariot racing, stealth kills, and the Dark Prince. Chariot racing is self explanatory. Stealth kills: Don't let the name fool you, they're not slow at all. They're actually very quick one hit kill moves. And the Dark Prince is the prince's alter ego who brings up great moments in storytelling (as the prince will now be talking to his counterpart and vice-versa) and introduces the new Daggertail weapon which creates unique moves both in terms of combat and platforming. Should be good times!

Kingdom Hearts is an amazing game! I love disney and I loved the final fantasy series. This game is truly magical. The second installment features lots of cool things including new characters like mulan and jack sparrow from the pirates of the carribean, as well as new attacks, fusions and more. And the best part... the story sounds amazing so far. This one should be a real gem.

Other titles that have caught my interest are Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (a new marvel vs. EA title that pits marvel's greatest superheroes against a band of nobodies called the imperfects), Matrix: Path of Neo, and Urban Reign (a current-gen street brawler: finally!)