barely fatal

I bought a watch. I’ve not had a watch for years, because frankly, who doesn’t have a cell phone or iPod or computer or public watch at their disposal  almost all the time nowadays. Why I got one now? I’m not even sure. It looked cool, it was on sale, and I guess it’d go nicely with a suit. It doesn’t have your standard face, it’s “binary” – only that it’s not. You push a button, and LEDs show the time and day. There’re 12 LEDs for each hour and month, 12 for every five minutes and 4 for minutes. It’s perfectly easy to read, but it’s marketed as being “binary”. You should read the ridiculous slogans on the box, too, oh boy. “Connect with your intuitive ambitions. You are imminent.” Yes, feeling very imminent indeed. Anyways, it’s a nice looking watch, now let’s see how often I’ll actually wear it…

Oscars are up tomorrow. I wonder if Portman will get hers … or Nolan for that matter. Probably not.

I’ve watched Toy Story 3 (really great, better than part 2) and The Expendables. Oh my, the Expendables. I don’t think it’s as bad as everybody keep saying, but there’s some crappy scenes for sure. Especially when Arnold, Bruce and Sly meet in the church? The dialog, the horror. The rest is so ridiculous it’s fun again, or for most parts. Some parts just don’t work, and for every great action scene (shotgun) there are two “Meh” ones. Eventually seeing guys get stomped on their necks gets pretty old. The documentary on the disc is well done, and you can tell how many things Sly thought up on the spot while filming, some of them became the best parts of the movie (gunship). Too bad they couldn’t find more to do for Mickey Rourke than wise cracking and knife throwing contests… I’m surprised how well mumbling Sly is still doing. Hell, Arnold is right though, he IS too old for that kinda film by now.

The new year starts slow. Even though I’m on the new job and travel a lot (to Romania very soon!) it’s not really taken off yet. It’s still freakishly cold, though it looks like a sunny day today (which I will be spending playing New Vegas – yarr).

Saw Tron Legacy this week – in 3D – and it’s bland. The dialog hasn’t come very far since the original movie, however it looks mighty prettier nowadays. The young Jeff Bridges looks kinda eery, as these computer-youngified characters often do (best effort yet: Patrick Steward in X-Men 3). But the 3D stuff doesn’t rock my world either. Sure it’s a nice enough effect, but that’s what it is to me, an effect. The theatre I went to used shutter glasses, clunky and heavy,  and I can barely put those over my regular glasses. I spend correcting them all the time and they just felt “in the way”. Plus sometimes I got the feeling it wasn’t even working right, strange distortions and flat images (and I don’t mean the scenes which were deliberately left in 2D). I think I could have enjoyed the movie better, without the distractions, in 2D only – and cheaper, for that matter.

I got the Bad Company 2 Vietnam add-on two weeks ago by the way and have not yet even started it. Instead I tried to find a part for my bike which broke during the move. The fourth (!) bike shop had it, and I had to cycle all through town. Man, non-standard parts suck, why do they do that? Now I am less inclined to buy a bike of the same brand again…

I’ve been fighting with my internet provider since I signed up for their service. I am not a difficult customer, in fact, I’m usually very civil and forgiving. But last week I finally wrote an angry letter, after 2 months of back and forth and many, many stupid things they did. The last straw was that they asked me to chase after a modem they lost, which they said they couldn’t send me anyway and which I don’t even need as it turned out. It’s a nightmare, and that does not even take into account that in the evenings I get 10 MBit/s max, having a 32 MBit/s contract. Just sent them screenshots of their speed test and all, I wonder if they will be able to at least fix that. And if they will pay me back some money for all the trouble I’ve had with them.

Aaaahh…well. I’ll just continue enjoying this lovely quiet weekend now.

Games

I still have two items on the 2010 Backlog, I guess I’ll have to move them over:

• Resident Evil 5
• Red Dead Redemption

Time to fill up the 2011 Backlog. These are the nominees:

• Deus Ex 3
• Shogun 2
• Bulletstorm
• Homefront
• Little Big Planet 2
• Rage
• Portal 2
• The Witcher 2
• Uncharted 3
• Elder Scrolls 5
• Mass Effect 3
• Arkham City
• Dungeons

Runners up:

• Brink
• Two Worlds 2
• Max Payne 3
• Crysis 2

2010 Disappointments:

• Dragon Age (way too predictable)
• Star Trek Online (only half finished)

2010 Pleasant Surprises:

• Red Faction Guerilla (Boom!)
• Borderlands
• Arkham Asylum

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Movies Radar

• True Grit
• Social Network
• Scott Pilgrim
• Black Swan
• Tron 2.0
• Machete

So 2010′s done. Quit my job, moved south, played waaay to few games and watched too many movies. Also, put on some pounds – no surprise there with the stress and all. Just bought scales, so I’ll work on that.

Built a snowman and felt like 12 while doing so. Had a very nice Christmas but have a loooong wish list yet. Surprise: no games or movies, all stuff for the home. Sold my old dusty back up PC (finally). Now looking forward to next year’s insanity. Booya.