My poor blog, why have I forsaken thee?! Well, I did finish Half Life 2. It was pretty cool. I was consistently impressed with each level. The graphics were outstanding, the sound was legendary, and the end was surreal and beautiful. I would definitely give this game a 5 out of 5 on every aspect. The only slight problem I had was lagging in a few spots, but they were brief and are to be expected for such a graphically demanding game. You could really see this game pushing the XBOX. I would someday like to get a super powerful PC to fully experience this game, it's multiplayer, it's HD performance and it's mods. I would really like a Mac version, but that doesn't seem too likely in the near future. Oh well, I am just thankful to have played it at all. Now it is back to Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil. It isn't as good as Half Life 2 so far, but I love FPS's and I will finish it anyway.

I am hoping to go see V for Vendetta at an Imax this Sunday. I am really excited. I am worried as well. It seems Alan Moore is not very happy with the movie. This really worries me. On the plus side, I will be really pleased or really disappointed by a movie on a really big screen!

Card Player

Okay, so I did not like Argento's Phantom of the Opera. It was a bad movie, and Asia's acting did not make it any better. It was the first Argento title I purchased and had to get rid of. Saying that, I also have not been the biggest fan of his post-Trauma films. I thought Sleepless had some good elements, but it could not quite achieve the magic of his earlier films. Last night I witnessed an abomination- The Card Player. You could tell right from the beginning it was going to be bad. It jumped right into some cop-drama action right from the start with little to no character development. I only continued to watch out of respect to one of my all time favorite directors, and my hopes that the movie might get better. Unfortunately, it continued to get worse. The story was about a killer who would challenge the police to 5 games of poker. For every game the police lost the killer would cut something off of the victim. If the killer was the overall winner he would kill the victim, and if the police were the overall winner he would set the victim free. It ended up turning into a bizarre love story that lacked the depth of even the Stendhal Syndrome. While it did contain small elements of some of Argento's earlier movies they were barley noticeable and did not make the film any easier to watch. One of the more heartbreaking aspects of the movie was the lack of blood and gore. There were a few scenes of corpses and a couple of murders that implied cruelty, but they came up short like the rest of the film. There are three main reasons I watch Argento's movies; the artistic gore, the beautiful costumes and set designs, and the riveting, yet sometimes confusing, storylines. This movie was lacking on every aspect. The only good thing I can say is that I did not hate the music. The score was, while not nearly as good as a Goblin score, pulsing and driving in an attempt to keep the story in motion. I think it is time for Argento to give up writing his own movies. I have read that the last of the Three Mothers trilogy is being written by an American couple right now. I am not familiar with their work, but hopefully they will be able to do a better job than Argento could do in his current writing state. I just hope he is capable of directing it.

I am consistantly trying new browsers and plug-ins for browsers. I find it a delightful aspect of the internet. I have worked with Flock a bit, and I find it a bit to glitchy for my liking. I have moved on to Firefox. I like the amount of add ons the browser can have while remaining stable. Time will tell which browser I will use the most. I prefer the newest build of Safari, but it takes away all of my Blogger editing tools. Firefox neglects the spell check feature. I am sure if I explore enough I will find a plug in for one, though. Right now I am using the plug in Deepest Sender in Firefox. Hopefully it will work well. I shall move on. The net is vast.

Just posting with a new nifty bloger widget.  I love my Macs. 

Halfer Duo

I have been overwhelmed these past few days with a horrible addiction, Half Life 2 for the Xbox. The game is just so good. Just when you get to a point where you think, "how could this game be more innovative?" The game will deliver something else new and exciting. The gravity gun is really cool, but not as cool as leading your giant insect minions to battle the evil Foot Soldiers and Zombies! Then there is the score... Wow! Powerful, emotional... Hearing in 5.1 is just amazing. I am very impressed with this game and am not even 3/4 of the way through it. I am about 10 hours into it and have loved every minute of it. It is just stunning the way the puzzles are set up to advance from one place to another. I really can't say anything bad about the game at all. It is challenging in many aspects, but very rewarding as well. With every challenge comes a great sense of accomplishment. I am taking a rest tonight, but I hope to get to play for a very long time tomorrow.