…but I’m going to try to get back into updating my blog on a semi-regular basis.

My rule used to be not to post anything on here unless I spent a significant amount of time writing & revising it, and it was something I felt passionate about and that it should be shared.  However, since I haven’t updated in 6 months, that’s obviously not working out so well.  So my goal now is just to update periodically with something, even if it’s not all that profound or interesting.  This way my blog will at least serve some purpose, instead of just being another dead site on the internet.

Here are a few ideas for posts that I have that may or may not come to fruition:

• Reviews/comments on movies and TV shows that I watch
• Updates on my video game exploits (with videos)
• General posts about what’s going on in my life
• Details or instructions related to projects I’ve been working on
• Musings on various topics that I’ve been
• Rants to vent frustration

I’m also considering importing all of the entries from my several previous blogs & journals, just so they’re all in one place.  But… we’ll see.  That may not be the best of ideas.

UPDATE: I’ve started adding thumbnails of each piece of armor.  I think I got all the way through the helmets, and I’ll add more as time permits.

Here’s a list of all of the armor I’ve seen in Halo: Reach videos and screenshots so far, along with their descriptions. Without accompanying pictures, the Armor Effects and Firefight Voices are probably the most interesting things on this list… though I suppose if you’re enough of a Halo nerd like me, you’ll find the Helmet variants pretty interesting as well.

To get an idea of what they look like, check out this official Bungie image, the armor images on this blog (towards the bottom), and this IGN Armory Video.

This is a list of everything I know about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at this point in time:

(updates to this list are in… whatever this color is)

General Info:

• Release Date is 11-10-09.  All major retailers are taking pre-orders.  Amazon in particular is offering release-day shipping and $10 credit towards a future purchase.
• It’s being released for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
• There are three editions, for the console versions at least.  Regular, Hardened, and Prestige.  Regular is just the game.  Hardened comes in a steel case with an art book, “custom art”, and a code to download Call of Duty 1 (HD) when it gets released for XBLA and PSN.  Prestige edition includes all that the Hardened edition does plus “fully-functional, wearable, adjustable Night Vision Goggles with indiviually numbered and engraved collector’s stand.”  The editions are priced $59.99, $79.99, and $149.99, respectively. I’m not sure what the editions will include for PC or what the prices are.

Continued…

The good news:

• Push (background) notifications for apps (e.g., you can log into all your accounts on the Meebo app then close the app – it will notify you when you get a message)
• Cut, copy  & paste text in any app, undo with a shake
• SMS app is now “Messages” app
  • MMS support (pictures in text messages)
  • Can forward and delete individual messages
  • Can send and receive contact cards, audio files, locations
• Landscape (wide) keyboard for all Apple apps (Mail, Safari, etc.)
• Peer-to-peer wireless gaming
• A2DP (stereo over bluetooth)
• Spotlight – adds search to all key apps (Address Book, Mail, Calendar. iPod, Notes)
• Sync notes to your computer
• Multi-photo emailing
• Support for turn-by-turn GPS
• Voice Memo app
• Calendar app subscriptions (CalDAV, Exchange support)
• Downloadable content for apps
• Communication with iPhone accessories (possibility of a gamepad attachment?)

The bad news:  won’t be released until sometime “this summer”. 

So it’s been a few days since I saw Watchmen, and I’ve had some time to reflect on it.  I think I did get caught up in the hype a bit and was a bit too undercritical of the movie when I first walked out of the theater (I came pretty close to calling it “better than the Dark Knight”, among other things).  Now, I do recognize that some of the character development was a bit glossed over and there really wasn’t a need for so much graphic violence, but I still think it’s a wonderfully interesting and unique movie that deserves a place beside the Dark Knight, even if it’s not above it.

But what are really getting to me now are the reactions that I’ve heard from friends and family and those that I’ve read online.  It seems to break down like this:

• Movie critics generally see the movie as a bore, the characters as uninteresting or underdeveloped, and the movie overly ambitious and full of a lot of over-the-top stylistic elements without much substance.
• Watchmen graphic novel fans usually tear the movie apart for omitting or changing what they considered to be key elements of the story, or condemn the movie more generally for not communicating the same themes well enough or not having the same impact as the source material.
• The average movie-goer (unfamiliar with Watchmen at all) was wholly disappointed (this goes back to my expectations post last week).  The movie was too boring, didn’t have enough action, was too graphically violent, had too much nudity, not enough story, too many characters, etc., etc.  Like I already mentioned, I write a lot of this off as simply people wanting another blockbuster, action-packed superhero movie and becoming rather indignant when they didn’t get it. (I heard at least one report of a parent bringing their 8-12 year-old children along…)

Continued…

Here’s what I ordered:

• 24″ iMac (MB420LL/A, March ’09)
• Glossy widescreen TFT active-matrix LCD (CCFL backlit)
  1920×1200 maximum resolution
  385 cd/m2 typical brightness
  750:1 typical contrast ratio
  178° horizontal, 178° vertical typical viewing angles
• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB GDDR3 memory
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2x2GB)
  6MB shared L2 cache
  1066MHz frontside bus
• 1.0TB 7200RPM Serial ATA Hard Drive
  Slot-loading Serial ATA 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet
  802.11n Airport Extreme wireless networking
  Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
  1x FireWire 800 port, 7 watts, up to 800MBps (backwards compatible with FireWire 400)
  4x USB 2.0 ports, up to 480MBps
• Internal 24-watt digital amplifier
  Built-in stereo speakers, microphone, iSight camera
  Optical digital audio input & output (minijacks)
  Mini DisplayPort output with support for DVI, VGA, and dual-link DVI
• Supports:
  - Extended desktop and video mirroring modes
  - Up to two external displays
  - Full native resolution on the built-in display simultaneously with 2560×1600 resoultion on an external display
• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
  iLife ’09 (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand)
  iWork ’09 (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
• Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse (though I’ll still use my Logitech VX Revolution mouse)
  Apple Wireless Keyboard
  Apple Remote

These are the improvements it will offer over my current 12″ PowerBook laptop:

Continued…

I saw Watchmen last night (Thursday night 12:01am showing), and I loved it. The person I saw it with, however, did not. This in itself doesn’t bother me – I’m OK with people having different opinions than me (well, usually). But after talking to her, it became clear that her expectations for the movie were the reason for a large part of her disappointment.

Personally, I’ve been stung by this before. I usually try my best to go into movies with little or no expectations, so even if the movie is just average it’s still a pleasant suprise and experience. Sometimes, however, this is next to impossible, given the familiarity I have with the subject or the hype surrounding the movie (or in the case of Watchmen, both). Star Wars Episode I is a perfect example of this. After repeated viewings more recently I have come to appreciate the movie more for what it is, but at the time I was so disgusted by how much it didn’t live up to the original trilogy that I left the theater in a pretty bad mood.

I admit that I haven’t read the Watchmen graphic novel. It seems like something I should have done before seeing the movie, but in scenarios such as this I can’t escape the feeling that doing so could negatively affect my enjoyment of the movie (if they cut out some really cool scenes from the movie that were in the book, for example). However, that didn’t stop me from researching the graphic novel. I read the Wikipedia entry and some of the associated links, I watched interviews with Zack Snyder and others about the source material, and I read comments and literary reviews of the novel itself. I would say by the end I understood the cultural significance of the text, and while I didn’t know every detail of the storyline, I had a pretty good idea what to expect. These accurate and semi-accurate expectations probably helped me enjoy the movie much more than I otherwise would have.

As I mentioned before, it came to light after the movie that her expectations were quite a bit different. It’s too late for me to affect her initial impression of the movie (I can only hope she comes to enjoy more like I have with repeated viewings, if she’s willing to do so), but I can offer an “expectation adjustment” to those of you who haven’t seen it yet and aren’t familiar with the graphic novel.

So, I thought I’d run through a quick list of what Watchmen is and is not:

Continued…