A Few Tabs

Here are a couple things I’ve been sitting on.

• My perfect partner would come out of the pool laughing.  Or at least would show up at the reception with some hastily-procured water wings.
• I love Apostrophe Catastrophe.  And here’s the worst one yet—A tattoo.  Oops.
• I’m disappointed about Terrence Howard being replaced in the later Iron Man movies.  I thought he did a fine job, and would be great in the later films.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Don Cheadle a lot, too, but something about this deal smells like a studio who just wants a bigger name.
• I’ve finally moved to importing all my MacknzieMail into gmail, then using Outlook to fetch them.  This is my way to get more mobility.  Gmail just makes it so easy!
• Too many games!  The only one I was planning on getting has been Fallout 3, which I’m very excited about.  But the talk about a few others is getting my attention.  First, there’s Far Cry 2.  I really liked the first game, which allowed me to indulge in my sneaking and sniping tendencies.  The preliminary reviews on the sequel seem to be pretty good, so I’m optimistic.  Then there’s Left 4 Dead.  It’s a zombie apocalypse-themed online co-op game.  I’m not generally much for online play, but all reports of this one are very favorable.  Plus, I do like to play a touch of TF2 from time to time—just not enough to be that good at it.  So we’ll see how it goes, between the time and money involved in these purchases (though the latter two do have pre-order discounts).
• The cost aspect is not trivial.  This is particularly true since I’ll need to buy a license for my Windows Home Server pretty soon (which I love, but hate the cost)—and maybe a new hard drive to make it run decently.  Feh.
• I’ve been watching Fringe, and I have this to say: I’m just not that into it.  It’s a bit too much “procedural” and not enough cool plotline and overarching sense of the world.  We’ll see if it gets better, but I’m not that into it.
• On the other hand, True Blood has gotten a bit more interesting since the premiere.  It’s still a bit melodramatic, but melodrama is pretty in line with the gothic tradition, so that doesn’t bother me too much.  It has moved up on my list from “meh” to “vampire show with a bit of merit.”
• I’m sad to see that the film version of Max Payne seems to be terrible.  The game was excellent—even if only for the fantastic storyline.  Apparently, the filmmakers went for something else with the film, not trusting that a movie-going audience would be able to handle the game’s plot.  I think that was a mistake (and apparently the game’s developer is mystified at the movie).  But what do I know?  I’ve never made a gazillion-dollar-grossing movie.  Of course, I’ve never lost a gazillion dollars, either.
• This controversy, or lack thereof, is interesting to me.  For those who don’t want to click through, the basic idea is that there’s a game out there that got delayed because some of the background vocals in a musical bit used words that were a direct quote from the Qur’an.  The article’s focus is on how the game should not have been delayed.  I myself have no horse in this race: I am neither Muslim nor was I planning on getting this game—it appears to not be my cup of tea.  (Seldom has there been a more hotly-anticipated title in the gamer community for which I could muster less enthusiasm.)  But I think the public discussion on this topic is very interesting.

That’s all for now.