Wonky little shitbag

Prior to my watching the wholly disappointing movie that was Sublime, I was talking to some of my friends about it and how it would supposedly kill parts of me I didn't know I had. One such friend said that description reminded her of a book that had a similar effect on her. I forgot about it, because my memory sucks like that, especially after the movie sucked so much ass. But one day, she comes into the call boards (I hang out with theater people as the resident English major), and she hands me the book. Last night, I was feeling particularly bored with Nick@Nite being delayed due to the Kid's Choice Awards, so I started to read.

Crooked Litte Vein by Warren Ellis is a first-person detective story written by a British comic book artist. The story follows Michael McGill who has been hired by the White House Chief of Staff to find a secret US Constitution that has the power to erase all the perversion from the country. He meets up with a little nympho college student, Trix, who becomes his assistant/ sidekick/fuck-buddy as they travel the country diving into some seriously fucked up stuff that--I will say now--definitely had the potential to kill me a little inside.

The writing was great, as far as I'm concerned. Very big on detail, funny quips, and he has so many ways to describe a way someone smiles it's almost unnerving. His dialog between characters is great, from McGill talking with a serial killer on a plane to his chapter-long back-and-forth with Trix. I had to remind myself I wasn't reading a Chuck Palahniuk novel, the style was very similar, But Ellis had one thing that Chuck never will, and thats the ability to be tragic. I mean, Chuck Palahniuk has tragic moments and all that, but they're bookended by sardonic nihilism which is his style and that's why I love him, but the tragic moments in this were amazing. As were the touching moments, and we mustn't forget the fact that I am literally convinced that Warren Ellis was writing about me. Mike McGill is called a shit magnet--someone who has all those big awful things that everyone experiences once in their lives happen to him all the goddamn time. He is the guy who falls for the girl who likes him, wants him, and sleeps with him, but won't stop being with everyone else either. And he reacts the same way I would! I mean, seriously, I literally kept reading to find out whether or not I die at the end.

The book didn't always follow proper grammar, but it was part of the style! There was one run-on sentence that literally went for about a page, explaining Boyfriend Things, but it was brilliant. The end of the book was a bit of a let-down for me. The writing still descriptive and engaging, but the style was lost. It picked up here and there, but the ending, while very clever and kind of unexpected, lacked the wit of the rest of the story. Except the last chapter, which was all of two paragraphs and funny as hell.

So, with the help of my friend and a two-year-old novel, I finally found something that killed a tiny little piece of me inside. Fuck that piece, who needs it? Besides, you know, people with hearts, feelings, love, or dreams.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

The Shitt

As can be seen on the bar to the right and as I have mentioned, Metal Gear Solid 4 is my personal pick for best game of 2008. The stealth play was great and engaging, as were the first play-through where I decided guns solved the answers to all questions. A very--and I mean very--close runner up was Fallout 3. I loved The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the thought of Oblivion with guns and post-apocalyptic goodness excited me to no end. I waited countless hours at the local game store--not even my store, mind you--to get a pre-street dated copy as their shipments came sooner in the week, but later in the day. When Operation: Anchorage came out, I gobbled it up right before my 360 red-ringed. And now, the latest DLC has been released and re-released because of glitching and I couldn't wait to dive in.


The Pitt takes you out of the wastes of Washington DC and puts you in the rubble of Pittsburgh. As with Operation: Anchorage, the quest line is started with a radio signal you picked up via your PipBoy, which while it seems to repeat a few times, it is infinitely better than the Oblivion method of adding DLC quests by "A messenger brought you a deed to a place your long-lost relative left to you." But you find yourself at the very top of the map buying some slaves, taking their clothes, and then taking a train cart to Pittsburgh which is now known as The Pitt and posing as a slave so you can eventually find a cure for radiation poisoning. It all makes sense in the game, I swear.

The game is still fantastic, as always, and the new DLC shares all the good graphics, writing, humor, and style of the rest of the original Fallout 3. Length-wise, it only took me about five hours and I could have done it significantly sooner if I didn't spend so much time looking for all one hundred steel ingots. Speaking of which, I am the kind of gamer achievements were made for, but I hate collection achievements. Twenty bobbleheads was a pain enough, but one hundred steel ingots was just stupid and unfair, even though they were all in the same area. But anyway, the length of the DLC was a bit longer than Operation: Anchorage, but not by much, and it has the added benefit of being able to be returned to at any time throughout the game despite what ending you choose. And the scenery of Pittsburgh, while doesn't offer the vastness of the Capital Wasteland, does give an appreciated change. But, as with most games you've beaten the hell out of, once it's over, it's over.

The DLC is definitely worth the 800 Microsoft Points ($10), and I would suggest it to anyone who has the game and Xbox Live. Now I just wish I had some MS Points left over so I could download Don't Stop Believin' for Rock Band this coming week.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Bo Burns Ham

As previously stated, I spend a lot of time on the internet. When friends of mine also spend time here, we double our efficiency at finding and sharing ridiculous and funny things. About three years ago, I was shown a YouTube video by a friend who said he used to hang out with this kid's older brother. This kid was pretty funny, at least the first few times you listen to it. Come to find out, he's on Comedy Central now and has an EP on iTunes and a full-length album in stores. Of course, I knew this, because I follow it and I've seen the kid at the local Denny's.

Bo Burnham, the cleverly named album by Bo Burnham has four studio tracks book ending a live performance. The kid is like, eighteen and has the same agent as Drew Carey and Dave Chapelle, so he must be doing something right. All the guitar and piano is played by Bo himself and he sings and writes his own songs. On a whole, the album is amusing, but I per usual have some piss to drain out of it before I'm willing to accept that it's decent enough to listen to.

Every song (except for the untitled bonus track) has been somewhere on the internet or his EP Bo Fo' Sho. The studio tracks are pretty solid and not overly produced as All My Family was on the EP. The live tracks, while funny, have some issues that seriously need to be pointed out.

First issue was with his live performance of his Bo Fo Sho rap song with no background music. I understand how this may have to be done live if he isn't playing a keyboard with built in beats, but it was seriously lacking--especially when he paused every other line waiting for the laughs. Rap is quick-paced and something you need to pay attention to to hear all the words and all the quips. Pausing in the middle, while is tolerable in his other songs, just breaks the flow of his raps. And if he couldn't play the piano part of Bo Fo Sho, why was it there in I'm Bo Yo?

Songs like Love Is... and The Perfect Woman are too close in proximity, because they are both "love songs" but are still good songs. His comedic remarks in between songs is pretty snappy and funny if not wholly inappropriate but I think that's what he's going for. The "Dicks and vaginas are kind of like Coke and Pepsi..." one was good, as with his lead into Klan Kookout. Ending the show on A Love Ballad was kind of lame, as it's not really a great finish. Think of Stephen Lynch if he ended on Taxi Driver instead of If I Were Gay.

I bought the album on iTunes, so I missed out on the DVD that has his Comedy Central special along with all his YouTube videos, but the meat of the album is the music anyway. As a whole, the album is pretty decent and worth a listen as long as you're not subjecting yourself to it over and over trying to show all your friends who are just now hearing it for the first time.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

NEXT TIME (hopefully): Fallout 3: The Pitt

How to be an asshole

This review every day thing is going to end soon, with spring break coming to a close and with school starting up, as with my job and and exams and all the crap that life regularly throws at me. Plus, I've been asked to write some tech reviews for The Silver Onion. But before I go back to the life of a student working as a shift manager at a game store, I'd write one last daily review on a film I wish I had seen before because Simon Pegg is one of my favorite actors.

How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) is a film inspired by a memoir of the same name written by Toby Young. The memoir was about a real failure to succeed in magazine, as is the film was about a fictional failure peppered with romance, sex, drugs, and Simon Pegg being a douchebag. It also stars Kirstin Dunst as a love interest, Megan Fox as a sex interest, Jeff Bridges as the boss, Danny Huston as a prick, and Gillian Anderson as a bitch. The film was directed by an American, Robert B. Weide, which actually took me by surprise. The beginning had some really good and entirely stylistically British directing choices, with quick wipes, changing directions, blur, and other things found in other Simon Pegg films (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), and Snatch. After all the effort Weide put in to appear British, he quickly gave it up for a kind of uninspired typical directing job that can be found from turning on your every day sitcom or hospital drama--not that there's much different between them anymore.

The writing by Peter Straughan is a playwrite by trade, and it kind of shows. A lot of the lines were overwritten, too much emphasis on certain twists and they would have translated much better on stage as opposed to the screen. Other things about the writing were really good, but still a bit too over-the-top to make it really agreeable to watch. Simon Pegg is obviously a not nice person, with a title like How to Lose Friends and Alienate People--something I can obviously relate to--the cruelty and complete lack of respect for authority and personal space is still overly done. I consider myself quite the miscreant and find myself surrounded by people who would do the same, and even on our worst days when our filter is at its weakest those things would still not come out of our mouths.

I saw this movie because Simon Pegg is in it. I loved him in both the films he did with Edgar Wright, enjoyed Run Fatboy Run, even as the directorial debut from Ross of Friends, and he kicked ass as The Editor in an episode of Doctor Who. So, obviously I enjoyed his performance. Kirstin Dunst is someone else who I will typically enjoy, despite constantly being casted in the same role of "put-offish girl who wants nothing to do with guy until she realizes he's actually better in every way, etc etc." The rest of the acting was good, but what do you expect with that cast? Those are all very talented actors. Except Megan Fox. She's just good looking.

The soundtrack was maybe my favorite part of it, with The Kinks, the Scissor Sisters, Motorhead, and even a bit of La Dolce Vita. One of the funnier moments in the film involves Simon Pegg, a hermaphrodite, and Ace of Spades. Put it together.

The film to me was a rather large disappointment, as I really like Simon Pegg and it's sad to see him put something out that was so bad. The Sunday Times said How to Lose Friends & Alienate People "had more laughs than any British comedy to appear over the past decade." They're wrong. They're always going to be wrong. In Bruges had more laughs than that did and it wasn't even a comedy. Maybe they weren't around for Pegg's first two big movies, but they were way funnier than this piece of garbage. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg need to team up again, damnit.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

PS - Don't take my opening bit as saying I won't be reviewing anymore. It just won't be at such a high frequency.
EO

Guild'd

I live on the internet, mostly. I like reading internet comics (Penny Arcade being a favorite), watching YouTube videos, and posting on Facebook and LiveJournal and wherever people will listen to me. I've been recommended one particular internet sitcom by people I work with, family, and even Xbox Live Marketplace.

The Guild started as the brain child of actress Felicia Day who has been in nothing that I'm even aware of save for a few episodes of Buffy (blame my ex-girlfriend), an episode of House I haven't seen yet, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog that my little brother won't get off my ass about having not seen yet.

The show is in its second season with each episode running three to seven minutes in length. It features Felicia Day, Jeff Lewis, Amy Okuda, Sandeep Parikh, Vincent Caso, and Robin Thorsen as members of an unspecified MMORPG guild known as The Knights of Good run by Vork (Jeff Lewis). The show takes the main perspective of Codex as played by Felicia Day, and each episode starts with her recording her video blog. The first line of the whole series is laugh-out-loud funny, when Codex says, "I got fired from my job. My therapist...broke up with me." Of course, you find out that through the odd linguistic uses they appear to be using in the show that "broke up with" means that she was dropped as a patient, but it was still funny. All of her problems stem from her gaming addiction despite her desire for a normal life--something I'm sure a lot of us can relate to. The funny starts when her guild-mate Zaboo as played by Sandeep Parikh shows up at her doorstep and proceeds to make himself at home and moving forward in an imaginary romantic relationship he feels he has with Codex.

With each episode being less than ten minutes, there are obviously some episodes that are a little short on laughs. The jokes are hugely oriented towards MMO players or just gamers in general, so if you're not inclined to that kind of humor it will probably be a bit lost on you. The directing done by two no-name directors Jane Morgan and Greg Bensen is pretty good considering it's just an internet program. The acting of the gamers is different for everyone with the only really likable character being Codex. Vork is a loner tight-wad who runs the guild professionally, Tinkerballa as played by Amy Okuda is a huge bitch, Zaboo is a delusional socially awkward kid, Bladezz (Vincent Caso) is a horny asshole who steals the guild's gold and items, and Clara as played by Robin Thorsen is an awful inattentive mother. Then there's Codex, who is socially awkward and spends far too much time behind a computer, but longs for the real life and even tries bringing the guild together in the "material realm."

As a gamer, I appreciate the series and I even find myself eagerly awaiting the third season. However, I do hate MMORPGs and seeing the awkwardness I am so familiar in seeing in my friends on television softens the blow a bit. But the show really is a toss up whether you like it or not. My roommate plays a lot of games but thought the series was god awful and would roll his eyes when he saw me continue watching it. The humor is subjective and the story-lines are kind of silly, but the characters are very human and crazy and flawed which makes for a lot of funny. Plus, since all the episodes are on youtube, the official website, and free downloads on the Xbox Live Marketplace you owe it to yourself to check it out if even for the off chance that you might enjoy it.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Ymagine

At the top of this page, it can plainly be seen that this review blog/site/thing is meant to review all things. From movies, video games, and music to car shops other things I come across in life. Here is a critical review of a rather stupid choice made by a television network.

Again, someone has put a Y where it just doesn't belong. It didn't belong in "Kym" in Rachel Getting Married and it doesn't belong in Science Fiction either, unless you are describing something as "science fiction-y."

Sci Fi Channell announced the other day that they will be changing their brand name to "SyFy" in effort to dash away their association with "geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that," says TV historian Tim Brooks. Um. What?

As a long-time viewer and fan of the network, I feel like I should be offended by this. I mean, I'm not, because I don't get offended that easily, but what the hell? You air Star Trek: Enterprise for Christ's sake, widely considered to be the worst Star Trek series--even by real Trek fans. You air Doctor Who, which I love, and you're going to tell me you're not Sci Fi even though you air some of the longest running science fiction series ever? Mr. Brooks also said "when people who say they don't like science fiction enjoy a film like Star Wars, they don't think it's science fiction; they think it's a good movie." These people are just as wrong as you, Timothy. It doesn't matter if they don't THINK it's science fiction; it just IS science fiction. Genres are not up to subjective interpretation. Would you listen to the The Ramones and decide they're heavy metal because you don't like punk music? If so, the X is in the corner. Press it.

SpikeTV airs a lot of "geeky" shows and movies. They air Star Wars once a month! They air lots of Star Trek series, as well as CSI which you can't tell me isn't geeky; it's all science. Spike has a lot of other stuff though, being "men's television" with shows about death and sex and UFC and all that jazz. Sci Fi has two regularly airing shows that don't qualify as science fiction: ECW and Ultimate Gamer--both of which are very geeky in their own rights.

What's worse is what Dave Howe, the company's president said when they polled their 18-34 demographic."When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you'd text it. It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise." You are not cooler because you made a mistake that happens to be what you wanted to achieve. SyFy is still a stupid spelling in texting just as it would be on television.

I'm probably the only person who gets pissed off at this type of thing, but I'm a writer. I've been writing for my whole life and I can't just turn off the part of me that flinches when I hear people speak incorrectly or can't bear to read manuscripts by people who have no grasp of grammar. I just can't do it.

What's more is this: I'm a nerd. And I'm okay with that. If I wasn't a nerd I wouldn't be throwing my opinions of pretty nerdy things on the internet. I remember when Sci Fi had a Doctor Who marathon about a month back, and when I got to school and told my friends about it, they went into a nerd-rage for having missed it. Nerds are the kinds of people you want being interested in your programming; most people won't lose any sleep about missing an episode, but nerds have so few things to get really into and those things are what keep us going. Of course, this is a huge generalization, but you get my idea.

You cannot take my language and the identity of so many away. Or you shouldn't, rather. You CAN do whatever you want, you uncool closet-geek bastards.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

The Faux Doctor

Back to real reviews, where I'm not spewing fire or demons or curse words to try to illustrate my anger with a given title or situation. And a first! An episode of a television show!

The show is none other than the insanely long-running Doctor Who series which I have grown a love for. The first episode I ever saw was "The Doctor Dances" and I did not care for it. About a year later, I started from the beginning and "Doctor Dances" ended up being one of my favorites. Then I got to season two and I was angry that David Tennant wasn't Christopher Eccleston, so I stopped watching again. I got back into the series from random episodes being shown on Sci-Fi Channel and started my endeavor to watch them all in order. This morning, I finished, ending with what was the first of five special episodes for 2009-2010 because David Tennant is busy doing Shakespeare.

The Next Doctor was written by writer Russell T Davies, who has written some episodes such as the revived pilot episode "Rose", the Christmas Specials (which "The Next Doctor" technically is one of), season premiers, season finales, and some other sadly unremarkable episodes. A competent writer, but he's no Steven Moffat to be sure. The episode was directed by Andy Goddard, who was sporting his name on Doctor Who for the first time, having just finished a stint directing a spin-off series, Torchwood. I have no real complaints about either the directing or writing, as it is all done very differently for television and was done in usual Doctor Who style and magnificence. The acting was, as always with the series, fantastic with David Tennant and his long coat, brainy specs, sonic screwdriver and high pitched exacerbated voice. The supporting cast too, was stylish and British and everything it needs to be to work in The Doctor's world.

For those who don't know and are still reading for some reason, a history lesson: The Doctor is a Time Lord--the last one, in fact--and in this particular story he is the tenth incarnation of the The Doctor. When a Time Lord dies, he/she regenerates into a different form, having all the same memories and abilities but having a different personality quirk each time and being played by a different actor. Having just been left by everyone he loved, The Doctor finds himself in London 1851 on Christmas Eve and finds the titular Next Doctor as played by David Morrissey. The Cybermen are back and are trying to convert the human race again. David Morrissey's Doctor is trying to figure out a murder mystery surrounding them with his own sonic screwdriver (a screwdriver that makes noise) and his own TARDIS (a hot air balloon).

Now, I had the plot figured out relatively quickly, save for the initial confusion, and that was kind of disappointing to me. I like being surprised by a twist ending, not seeing it coming from miles away. Plus, the Cybermen were really badass when they came back in the revived series, but after the Daleks ripped them apart in the season two finale they kind of lost their appeal as a big baddy. Now they're just kind of lame, and all I can think of is Dalek Sec saying "We can destroy eight million Cybermen with one Dalek." And he was right. Therefore, Cybermen=lame.

The episode as a whole wasn't bad. Had all the things that make Doctor Who so great: humor, drama, running. But as with other Christmas episodes, he didn't have a proper companion with which to directly relate to. I still think Billie Piper as Rose Tyler was a high point in the series, whether she was with Tennant or Eccleston, and Martha Jones grew on you quickly; less so for Donna Noble, but in the end she's the savior of the universe. And now, right after they're all gone, here's The Doctor alone again--which isn't to say that he's bad alone. It just makes it harder to identify with.

I am interested where the next four specials are going to go. It has been announced that Matthew Smith will be taking over the role of The Doctor in season five, and I can't help but want to see how The Doctor is going to kick off and need to regenerate. I also wonder if River Song from the "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" serial comes back in any of these specials, as she was obviously very close to The Doctor in his tenth incarnation to recognize him so readily. The next special will air in England on Easter, and in the states some time afterward. But fear not! I will find a way to review that son of a bitch as soon as I can.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor