152 insights into my soul

TV commentary:

SVU- What in the world has happened to Rose Mcgowan? Also, talk about the most ridiculous twist ever! And I've never heard "Bromance" used in that manner before.

Justified- Ah, so things didn't end so cleanly as last week's ep would like you to believe. ( spoiler cut )

Videos from around the web:

I though this GTA IV Machinima, "Hard Charger" was pretty entertaining:



Its kinda long, though the good stuff is late into it. The ending was pretty awesome, albeit over the top.

EFFIN' EFFIN' EFF! Why the frak is Fox moving Glee to 9pm Tuesdays?! When ABC moved Lost to Tuesdays at 9pm, I was all, "whew, it won't interfere with Glee!" But now they're on at the same friggin' time! I love Glee and all, but Lost is Lost, if I had to choose which to watch live, obviously it'd be the latter. I mean, its gonna be DVRed, no doubt, but since I see Lost with the usual suspects, I'll have to end up waiting to see it either the next day or staying up and watching the recording whenever I get back from where I watched Lost (more likely). I just hate that I can't watch it live. bbv('This is total BS!') I know, I know, the things I think are a big deal! People are starving and dying and worse in the world, and I'm upset about a conflicting TV schedule!?

Stuff that is cool: Ah, looks like they are gonna be releasing Episodes from Liberty City for the PS3 and PC. Cool, it did seem like PS3 owners were getting screwed over not getting a chance to play "Lost and the Damned" and "Ballad of Gay Tony".

Stuff that is stupid: Gun that won't fire unless its close to a wireless signal coming from your watch. What is this, like the RFID-tagged weapons in MGS4? While I can see the reasons why people would want "guns that only certain people can fire" technology- enemy combatants not being able to use weapons captured (though with this tech, if they got it off a soldier they killed, can't they just grab the watch too?), cops not having to be worried about being shot with their own duty weapon some criminal grabbed from them (again, unless the perp shot him from really close, which is entirely possible if they were rassling for the weapon), not having to worry about your kid getting into you gun collection and shooting himself accidentally, etc, that's not what I think is stupid, but I'll get to that. While I'm all for fancy smartphones that can do all sorts of neat things, I'm a luddite when it comes to weaponry.

Fancy electronics and wot-not are just things that can break in the middle of battle. But while I do think the AK-47 family is reliable as hell, I still like the M16 series for its ergonomics. Technological advances in small arms don't have to be fancy timed air-burst grenade launchers and sophisticated electronic scopes. Improvements in material, ergonomics, and design are advances that won't break down. So, sure this tech will prevent someone else from using the gun, but what happens when the sensors on the gun or the signal on the watch stops working? You're in the same boat!

But again, what I'm finding dumb is this company selling this pistol (which is a measly .22!) for $10,000 dollars? Who's going to pay 10K for a .22 that only fires when you're wearing a special watch. Its a novel idea, but not something someone would pay ten thousand dollars for!

Tuesday night TV commentary:

( Reaper )
****

The roomie beat GTA IV last night. Given the way the final arc for ending 1 plays out, I'm amused that it's considered the "good" ending. GTA IV seemed to be completed much faster than any of the previous games, but I'm wondering if that's because of the addition of the auto save after missions and the taxi cab thing. The auto save is something they should have always had, given how frustrating it could be completing a mission and dying on the way to your friggin safehouse to save. Its like you were always tense and driving real slow so you didn't accidentally bump a cop or get into a really bad wreck until you got to save.

But yeah, the taxi thing seems to cut down on distractions. Instead of driving to a person to get a mission, and possibly getting distracted by some cool jump you see, or accidentally bumping into a cop car and leading to a chase throughout the city, you just get into a taxi and automagically get there, and if its not a mission requiring you to use a specific car, you take a taxi to the mission start. So you can basically hammer a whole bunch of missions out without having to deal with all the time spent driving except for that required by the mission itself.

And is it me, or did they increase the size of the trucks? I mean, vehicles like the Enforcer look frickin' ginormous when compared to the normal cars!

****

( Void Avatar Prana! )

I think the roomie is almost done with the GTA IV story missions. I'm pretty sure he had only one or two to go before the final story arc. Its cool they have more gun battle type sequences in the game. There's a Heat-style bank robbery, a Clear and Present Danger-style convoy ambush (and that's you being ambushed, not doing the ambushing) that you have to run and shoot your way out of and some other insane shoot-out sequences.

But it seems to me there are way more missions than the previous ones where you're at a rundown factory, an abandoned powerplant, a shipping yard, a fancy hotel, a chinese restaurant, the projects, etc, and basically you just shoot your way through a bunch of guys to get your hands on some money/contraband or to assassinate someone.

I mean, there's still chases, but one thing we've noticed, a lot of times when they say "chase someone down and kill them", you can't actually kill them while they're in their vehicles. Like there's this one mission where you chase some bikers into the subway. Or this other mission where your gay friend makes you take out his lover's boat for a picnic on the water, and some guys try to take you out. You basically have to chase them down for a while until some "kewl" in-game sequence occurs (like one of the bikers smashing into a subway train head on, or the baddies on the boat taking out a police boat) and then after that point they'll be killable. And more often than not, they crash their car or decide to run off on foot, and that's when you can shoot them down.

So basically, the objective is really to keep up with them, so you needn't bother with actually trying to kill them. One big clue telling you you can't kill them yet is when the vehicle moves impossibly fast while still being able to perfectly weave through traffic. Don't stress trying to drive and shoot at the same time, you just need to keep up until you get to a certain point. I guess they did this so you couldn't just get lucky and kill them within 5 seconds of the chase starting. That way they force you to go through an insane chase sequence through the city.

Friday night TV commentary:

( BSG )

Finally got to see GTA IV in action after I got home from work. The graphics are definitely improved. And there's definitely a new physics engine. And the cars seem to handle differently (more realistically?). And they did improve the combat system, especially with the addition of a cover system.

In any case, while they didn't make an exact recreation of NYC, its freaky how in the vein of the different areas of NYC it is. I've only seen Liberty City's version of Queens, but the places are very familiar seeming. Like this one time the roomie was driving around and I could see their version of the Silvercup Studios (here called "Silverback") building nearby. I joked that he's almost near my old neighborhood, and as he drove on, started seeing the old warehouse buildings in that area between the parent's house and the Costco, and sure enough the area came up as "East Island City" which I assume is a play on "Long Island City".

But as he drove further, he started driving down a spitting image of that street that goes around Astoria Park. But yeah, there's also this long stretch that looks exactly like Northern Boulevard, and their analogue to Flushing/Fresh Meadows ("Meadow Hills") is a pretty reasonable facsimile with the giant globe and the world's fair circle tower thingies. So its definitely a good recreation of NYC.

Tuesday night TV commentary:

( Reaper )

Geek fun talk:

( Exalted martial arts )