Things I need to get my son

Frequent readers (both of you) know about the pending birth of Hose, Jr. So I’m already starting to compile a list of things I need to get him. We’ve already covered the first potato head and ultimate Lego set, but now we have a third addition. Meet the MEGA Cabinet. As always, Engadget reported this first.

My son will likely grow up in a world without arcades. He’ll never know the thrill of riding his bike to the corner arcade to see what new cabinet of video game goodness had been delivered that week. He’ll never know the frustration of a pocket full of quarters banging against his leg as he wheels to that dingy corner of electronic buzzes and beeps, where a lack of proper lighting and heavy smoke (some funny, some normal) obscured the sight of the arcade manager, making it a lot easier for some bigger guys to just take your quarters…

Hmmm, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

But with computers and consoles being such fantastic gaming platforms, the arcade is no longer an attraction, it’s an add-on to pizza places and miniature golf. Even adult arcades like Dave & Buster’s have about 5 games, they just have 50 copies of each.

But with the MEGA Cabinet, finally I can simulate the arcade experience for my son. With all those buttons I can load a fully realistic Street Fighter II where I can teach him the frustration of dealing with a Blanka player who just keeps doing the electric shock. With the trackball I can show him the roots of all frustration in the “Life Is Like A Video Game–It Just Gets Faster And Faster Until You Die” school by introducing him to Missile Command. And with the included wheel I can show him the shift from 2D to 3D with the classic Tempest.

So this isn’t really a toy. It’s an educational device. As such, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to pay for this out of his college fund.

The Closer: a second look

Grade: A

Keeps getting better.

As an update to my original review of The Closer, I just need to point out that this show friggin’ rocks. If you haven’t seen this series yet, you should really check it out.

SPOILER WARNING — Some small details given away in the rest of the review

What’s great about the show is that it feels authentic while still being formulaic. We always meet the murderer in the first 10 minutes, although there’s typically a few twists trying to get us to accuse the wrong guy. That’s the formula part, but it works for the most part.

What makes it feel real is the parts when it strays from your typical police murder mystery drama show, especially when our hero essentially takes the law into her own hands. She doesn’t go vigilante, but she makes sure justice is served. For example, when a string of murders has been committed by a Russian mob informant under the protection of the FBI (because he’s a mole), she just arranges for the mob’s attorney to find out that the guy is a mole, then refuses to accept his confession–he’s killed in an hour. Or when a teenager flees to Mexico to escape murder prosecution, she lets the Mexican authorities know that the girl he killed was actually a Mexican citizen, so now the teenager will be subject to the Mexican justice system. Nice touches, great twists.

The best episode was last night’s, this season’s penultimate show. A real sicko turns out to be innocent of the murder he was convicted of, so we try to find the real murderer. The sicko actually helps out the investigation, and what could have been just another rip-off of Silence of the Lambs actually turned into a fantastic string of tense scenes, even scarier than the Clarice-Hannibal encounters in Lambs. I hope they bring this guy back for next season, could make for some great stuff.

So check out the show if you haven’t. Season finale is next week, it’ll likely be in reruns for many months. While it’s best to watch in order so you can see her relationship evolve with her detectives, her house, her boyfriend, etc., it’s still good watching if the new season turns out to be as bad as it looks.

Alien vs. Predator

Grade: B

Actually watchable, dammit!

Thirty minutes into this movie I wanted to hate it. Huge plot holes, seemingly laughable set-ups, and enough infuriatingly bad lines to make you think that this is nothing more than a rehash of other science fiction-horror-action movies. And you know what? It’s exactly that.

But there’s just no denying it: Aliens (the capital A variety) are cool; Predators are cool. Put the two together and have them fighting and that’s exponential cool. It’s exactly the kind of fight you would imagine, if you were to ever imagine an Alien fighting a Predator (and if you aren’t, then you wouldn’t want to watch this movie anyway). It’s fast, it’s physical, it’s pointy, it’s slashy, it’s bloody. And when one species bleeds acid and the other species bleeds glowing green goo–now that’s a good fight. Add in chest bursting and nasty weapons and a pyramid whose sole purpose is to block the exit until the last ten minutes of the movie and you got yourself one stupid movie that’s fun to watch.

Maybe I’m just in the mood for some mindless entertainment, what with that other recent videogame movie I liked. Don’t get me wrong, the plot here makes absolutely no sense. None. Not a drop. Trying to list all the plot holes and logical flaws would take far too long. There’s a Director’s Cut DVD out there that supposedly contains a bunch of deleted scenes that try to explain these plot holes away. I don’t really see the point–this is a movie about Aliens fighting Predators. Do you really need a consistent plot to put this all together?

Okay, how about this–they’re fighting because they fight. Period. Now get some acid blood mixing with some glowing green blood, dammit! Extendable second jaw, laser blasters, explosives, funky curved knives, laser sightings, heat vision, night vision, moving pyramid, run run run run, die die die die, hissing from the shadows, slow motion running, traps, slimy goo, tail slices, chest bursting, queen Alien, run run run run, die die die die, dead end, fight fight fight fight, bleed, fight fight fight, the end. There’s your plot, buddy. You want a consistent mystery, deep drama, fine acting, go rent something else suckafool.

The biggest mystery (that’s actually worth thinking about) from this movie is the director, Paul W. S. Anderson. First, there’s the whole W.S. thing which he allegedly added to avoid being confused with Paul T. Anderson of Magnolia and Boogie Nights fame. Sounds like a bogus story–and why is it so bad being confused with a really hot director again?

But the bigger mystery is how inconsistent his movies turn out. Mortal Kombat was actually a pretty good video game movie, as was the first Resident Evil, and this one was enjoyable. But Event Horizon was horrible, same with Soldier. Hmmm…maybe he can only do justice to video games? He’s often dismissed bad reviews based on studio cuts. Um, what director doesn’t get cut by the studio whose last name doesn’t end with “ucas,” “pielberg,” or “corsese?” Maybe he just needs to stick to video game movies.

World of Warcraft movie anyone?

This just in: winter is cold!

According to the Farmers’ Almanac, your favorite 189-year old weather prediction publication, winter this year is going to have a lot of fluctuations. The official term is that winter will feel like you are “riding a roller, or in this case, ‘polar’ coaster.” Apparently roller coasters were really wild 189 years ago.

The almanac claims 80 to 85% accuracy by using a secret formula that allows the weather to be predicted two years in advance. The formula is closely guarded along the lines of the secret Coca-Cola formula, the Colonel’s blend of herbs and spices, and the proper amount of crack cocaine Wendy’s puts in their fries. This amazing formula predicts the weather using such dead-on data points as sunspots, the position of the planets, and the tidal action of the moon. That freak rainstorm the day you got the really bad parking spot at the mall, forcing you to get soaked to the bone while you desperately clutched that Pottery Barn bag to your chest? All Jupiter’s fault. Damn you Giant Red Spot!

According to the general predictions, Austin is right on the border of the part of the country that will be “Cold” this winter (whatever the sunspots say that means) and the area that will be “Wetter Than Normal.”

In other words, pack an umbrella the next time you go to Pottery Barn.

That? That’s not a monitor…THIS is a monitor!

From the Things To Buy With That Extra $10,000 You Have Sitting Around file comes a great deal on Ebay. This bad boy has 2 3.2 GHz Xeon processors, 4 GB of 266 MHz DDR SDRAM, 2 146GB SCSI 10K RPM hard drives, 8X DVD+RW/+R and 2 Colorgraphic Xentera GT 4 video cards.

“But wait a minute, Hose,” you’re probably saying right now, “Why on earth would I need two video cards that each contain four distinct 128 bit video processing units with 64 megs of SGRAM per VPU?” Why, to power the eight 20″ monitors connected to this computer, of course.

You could probably play the world’s biggest game of Minesweeper on this puppy. Or finally have enough room for all those extra buttons on World of Warcraft.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Grade: B

It’s a video game where the only button you push is PLAY.

The first Resident Evil movie was actually a bit of a surprise. They managed to hold onto some of the eeriness of the videogame while still containing the action elements, a transition from Alien to a zombie movie. Starts off guns blazing, ends with panicked runs through tight halls that end in rooms you just know can’t be good.

This movie is the right sequel to the first–the zombie theme has been established and now the spookiness is kicked up a notch by surrounding it with the escape plot. You’ve got your basic characters trying to escape a zombie infestation, you’ve got your run-of-the-mill nuke that’s on its way to cleanse the city in a few hours so everyone should really leave, like, yesterday. Oh, and since the zombies have some superhuman abilities (only headshots kill them, which makes a lot of sense as long as you don’t think about it), well then one of our heroes has to have superhuman abilities. In this case, Milla Jovovich is given the ability to tear her clothing in revealing ways while not doing anything. This couples amazingly well with her other power–the ability to not tear that clothing when diving through plate glass or fighting off a vicious Super-Zombie with her bare hands. As in the first film, Milla still retains her ability to die and come back to life naked–a feature that I believe was included in the original video games via a Rockstar patch.

There are two types of movies in the world: head-heavy and eye-candy. Head-heavy movies make you think, like Schindler’s List or Wayne’s World. Eye-candy are just to sit back and watch, like Star Wars or Wayne’s World 2. And then there’s movies that miss their mark, which I suppose are a third category. Oh, and chick flicks too.

Let me start over.

There are four types of movies in the world: head movies, eyeball movies, movies that miss and chick flicks. Well, I suppose documentaries count as something else.

Dammit.

There are five types of movies in the world: thinkers, watchers, crap, chick crap, and documentaries. Resident Evil falls into the watchers category, which is probably a long way of arriving at the bottom line: watch this if you’re in the mood for a 90 minute video game where you don’t have to use a controller.

Leggo my Legos!

So now I can add a second toy to the growing list of things to buy post-January. (For those that don’t remember, here’s the first.)

Engadget reports on the new program called LEGO Factory (official site). You download a program that allows you to virtually make anything with any amount of Lego blocks. Anything. This is cool, but has been around in one form or another for several years. What’s cool this time is that you can click a button and the program will break down your Lego model into the component pieces and allow you to purchase your custom Lego set so you can actually build your virtual creation.

Coolest thing ever? Maybe not ever, but it’s up there. Finally, a true computer-to-Lego geekboy dream come true connection to increase the efficiency of Lego purchases.

The results are in…

So, for those of you who recall my big news back in June, there’s some follow-up. Big sonogram was yesterday, and for those few who don’t view graphics or are reading the RSS stream, it’s a boy!

No, a name has not been selected, and probably won’t be until maybe the day he gets here. But the news is out and we’re over the moon.

The 40 Year-Old Virgin

Grade: A+

Out of nowhere, the comedic hit of the year.

The 40 Year-Old Virgin is a rare gem of a comedy. It is one of the very few comedies you will ever see where you’re actually laughing with people instead of at them. It has heart, fantastic characters matched with pitch-perfect performances, and above all else, it feels real.

Sure, it has its flaws, like an over-the-top experience with an alcoholic, but that’s about the only scene in the movie that feels artificial. And even that one is done to perfection. It also has a scene (I’m not going to say what, so don’t ask) that is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever witnessed. It had me crying harder than The Artistocrats Aristocrats. The only time I’ve laughed harder was the first time I went to improv night at The Comedy Store in London (where the original Whose Line Is It Anyway? came from).

Most comedies today get their laughs from going into completely unrealistic situations or actions. They get the shock-laugh, but there isn’t much for repeat viewing. Case in point: how much less did you laugh the second time you saw There’s Something About Mary? If you even saw it a second time. Or if you even laughed the first time. That’s shock humor, and it has value but it’s a different kind. This movie has genuine humor and characters that the movie cares about, so you care about it. The result is near perfection, but the flaws make it that much more enjoyable.

I cannot wait for this movie to come out on DVD. I think the extended/deleted scenes are going to be outstanding.

Post #101

Just realized that my review of Assault on Precinct 13 was post #100 for Hose Knows. Pretty cool milestone for my blog, which began a little over four months ago.

Thanks to those of you who actually read this stuff, and thanks more to those who post comments, which actually let me know that people read this stuff.

And big kudos if you get the connection to the picture. You don’t win a prize or anything. It just means that for right now, right this second, you’re as geeky as I am.

I suppose that’s a good thing.