Back in the Day: Star Trek 1-3

Yea so I got pretty obsessed with the new Star Trek movie, so I decided to rent the Blu-ray versions of the original set of movies to see how well they held up. Surprisingly, they weren't nearly as bad as I expected them to be (except for the first one - truly horrible). I'll do the next three once I, you know, watch those.

For now, here are my impressions of these sci-fi masterpieces.

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Never before has Hollywood so expertly captured the look of C-movie actors staring in "disbelief" at a cloud for an extended period of time. Just the act of Kirk and Scotty's shuttle docking with the Enterprise took an excruciating NINE MINUTES. No kidding. The hokey ending didn't help either. And to add insult to injury, a movie filled with aliens, spaceships, and radios that think for themselves ends with the line "The human adventure is just beginning" splashed across the screen. Pretty much sums it up. 3/10
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - Universally regarded as the high point in the Star Trek movie franchise, I am relieved to say that this movie actually lived up to my enjoyment of it as a teenager. Khan, played by some latin-sounding duder, matches Kirk over-delivered line for over-delivered line, and Spock's "death" at the conclusion of the film was actually kinda sorta touching. Whereas the first movie felt overly amateur in the direction/writing departments, Wrath of Khan is a tight, suspenseful and fun romp through the catacombs of uber nerdiness. 8.5/10
3. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - This movie actually had the chance to close to as good as Khan. However, in the end, it was simply average. That being said: while the low-quality acting stood out more than it did in Khan and the production design ventured into Flash Gordon territory at times, it was still an enjoyable experience to watch Kirk realize he inadvertently killed his own son followed by several dubious retcons which allow Spock to come back to life. 7.0/10

Ruminations on Getting Old: First Edition

For the record, I absolutely hate it when people younger than me complain about getting old. Hate it. I want to punch them in their fat, youthful little faces. So, I'm trying to construct this post as the first in a series where I merely examine the wonderful side effects of adding a few more rings to the trunk. Here are a few of the things I've noticed in the last year or so that stick out as being somewhat grandfatherly.

1. I've become clumsy as fuck - Even though I was never particularly athletic, I always had pretty damn good balance and coordination for the most part. I rarely, if ever, fell, knocked my head on anything, stubbed my toe, hit myself in the nuts, etc. THIS HAS CHANGED. I now cannot properly grab the toothpaste out of the medicine cabinet without dropping it on the floor, in the toilet, or in the trash can. I've fallen out of my bed twice in the last year, face first. Yesterday, I was cleaning the kitchen counter and had a canister of clean-up wipes in my right hand. I lost control of the canister, and it was propelled into the air and landed wipe-side down into a pot I was soaking in the sink.
2. I forget pretty much everything - I wasn't the world's best student, but hell, I could remember if I had told you that awesome story about how the girl in the bar actually looked in my direction no problem. Not anymore. In fact, it's very likely I can't remember your name or whether we're related or not. Last week I looked for my other sock for a solid minute before realizing it was already on my foot.
3. I've become infuriatingly habitual - Changes or alterations to the normal order of things tend to make me very uncomfortable. No coffee on Saturday morning? FUCK YOU. Dinner isn't served by 6pm? GO TO HELL. I have to run an errand before going to the gym after work? UNBELIEVABLE. Honestly, I can usually predict each and every day now. Actually, I greatly prefer this.
   

More to come...

Games I've been playing

Apparently I haven't made many, if any, posts about video games. This post is an attempt to correct that.

For background, I typically vacillate between hardcore and casual. For example, I'll go through strings of several hours per day followed by a week or more of absolutely no activity whatsoever. That being said, here's a look at what I've been obsessed with/playing over the last month or so:

1. Mass Effect - An Elwood record: bought a total of THREE times and sold twice. Don't worry about the details. Anyways, I ended up buying the third and final time via Steam after realizing I didn't give it a real chance the first, ahem, two times I bought it. Best move ever. I was/am an unabashedly fanatic KOTOR fan, and Mass Effect is basically an unofficial sequel once you get past the combat differences. I'm playing a Solider and specced him to be a tank. So basically I run into the middle of a fight, pop on an ability called Immunity which reduces all damage by 80%, and just fire at crap while watching my teammates die (if you were wondering whether the teammate AI was improved over KOTOR, there's your answer). Highly enjoyable - immersive story, fun combat (once you get past the fact that it's not turn-based anymore), and really enjoyable game world(s). If you were at all discouraged by KOTOR's endless trees of dialogue, then I do not recommend purchasing Mass Effect as there is far more talking (and more shooting, really) here.

2. Runes of Magic - A free MMO which apes WoW in most areas but is still entertaining and a fun way to unwind after a day of yard work, grocery shopping and office work (the aforementioned four things really describe pretty much every waking moment I spend not eating or going to the bathroom).

RoM really should be a post in itself, because like most MMOs, the game has a ton of content. Quickly, though, I'll say that it's more of a grindfest than WoW, but definitely has some improvements over said game in that it allows dual classes (you're actually two classes at once and can train hybrid skills and even use, say, healing skills when you're a warrior). I'm also impressed with the open crafting system, but if you don't watch out, you could spend your whole day mining zinc ore and gathering mountain demon grass. Fun! Also, guild castles, player housing are all in there, but I've been too obsessed with Mass Effect to mess with that stuff yet.

3. Demigod - I suck really badly at RTS games, and this was no different, despite the fact that it bears more than a passing resemblance to the greatest game EVAR, Diablo II. Still, this is a neat idea for a game that hadn't been previously explored outside of a Warcraft III mod called Defense of the Ancients. I just wish I were better at it. I'll keep an eye on future updates, perhaps adding additional classes/demigods, maps, etc. I'm a huge fan of the publisher, Stardock, and the way they support their games for years after release.

Up next: More Runes of Magic, Dead Space (PC), Crysis (PC)

Experimenting with social networking sites

Every now and then I will sign up for the newest social networking craze, poke around the site for a while, then decide it's not for me and quickly delete any evidence I was ever there.

This is has happened a few times already, and I fully expect it to happen with my newest impulse sign-up, tumblr. Apparently it's a cross between a blog and Twitter? Not sure if that description is accurate or not, but that's what the Interweb has revealed during my minute and a half of research. If that's true, then the service may be useful - there have been times I felt like sharing stuff with people, but the content would've be too long for a Tweet but too short for a blog post. Let's see how it goes, eh what?

nucleartrout.tumblr.com

Childhood movies that scarred me for life

When I was growing up, there were a few movies released that - indescribably - were aimed at entertaining children. Instead, from what the Interweb has taught me, they managed to scare the living shit out of more children than clowns and freakish, human-sized Easter bunnies combined, myself included.

Just for fun (lolz!), here is a very rough list of the movies I saw when I was a child that scarred me the most. I'm going to refrain from including adult movies like Jaws and Alien, both of which I saw before I turned 11 but interestingly enough didn't have the feeling of pure, uninhibited fear attached to them like the following films do.

1. The Dark Crystal - Rotting, decaying bird-people terrorize a race of do-no-harm elves. Who wouldn't find this scary? Oh, did I mention that the aforementioned bird-people, known as the Skeksis (I'm positive there's an awful indie rock band called this), will forever haunt my dreams and surely populate whatever hellscape I visit after I die, torturing me for all eternity? Oh, by the way, this is a fucking Muppet movie. WTF, Jim Henson, WTF.



2. Return to Oz - Hi, I'd like to inform you that they made a sequel to The Wizard of Oz in the 1980s, entitled Return to Oz. Oh, by the way, the film allegedly had far more in common with L. Frank Baum's original Oz mythos than did the first film version. Why, might you ask? Oh, just because it epitomizes sheer terror. The video below showcases what are called The Wheelers. By the way, I just soiled myself.



3. Something Wicked This Way Comes - All I really remember from this movie is Mr. Dark (the villain) and a street covered in tarantulas. Also a Disney movie.




Honorable Mentions:

1. The Quest (also known as Frog Dreaming, apparently)
2. Gremlins
3. Arachnophobia


What about you? Any obvious additions I forgot?