Cleaning Up

Today I am at work cleaning up my work space. It is an absolute mess of papers and toys and magazines and crap. I hope I can be a bit more productive in 2008 if I have a cleaner work area. While I was organizing/trashing, I found the scraps of a script idea that I had. This was supposed to remind me what the plot points were so I would not forget, because I clearly did not have enough time to get all my thoughts down. I reproduce it here verbatim:

truck - load, drive, girl
stops - stolen, shot, dumped
villain - pays guy, corn
broker - brewer, vibration, bees
camp - kids, cars
villain - returns

I'm sure this is absolutely brilliant, but I have no idea what it means. Actually, I think it might be the bullet points for my killer bee movie, entitled "Swarm". (I'm being totally serious. Tagline: "Bee Afraid.") Maybe one day it will come back to me.

Photo Updates

I spent the Christmas holiday uploading new photos of the kids. I also restored my albums from Seoul and Tokyo, complete with captions. (I'm really pleased that I was able to do this.) View it all right here.

New Netflix Record

So Netflix shipped the movie "Babel" to me on June 26, 2007. I finally got around to watching it last night. It only took about six months! (Note: Amitai arrived on July 14, 2007.) Anyway, I thought the movie was fantastic.

Some critics found the movie's message ("We're all connected!") to be too simplistic or straightforward. Sure, it's "a small world after all" but if that's all you take from the movie, I think you missed the point. I was impressed with the different levels of meaning to the intertwining stories, with the common theme of communication (or lack thereof) tying the whole thing together. The performances were excellent and it is always refreshing to see unique characters that don't step out of central casting. I can't think of another movie to feature a deaf-mute Japanese teenager, can you?

So, it was worth the wait. Now let's see when we get around to viewing "The Lives of Others".

Great Gift Idea

I just gave some of my colleagues personalized storybooks from My Child Book, and they were a big hit! Aviella received one of these from a friend, and when I was thinking about what to do for work gifts, I decided this would be perfecto! I got a Justice League one, and a Marvel one, a Scooby Doo one, etc. You enter the recipient's name, their age, their hometown, a few friends, and this is the result: "John, age 32, from Atlanta, Georgia, was hanging out with Batman and Superman at the amusement park!" And so on. Great fun!

I was very tempted to get the horribly generic (and terribly illustrated) title called simply "Ninja" (pictured), but went with the licensed stuff instead. Recommended! And it won't break the bank, either.

Ben Gets a 10

Big news about the live-action Ben 10 movie, Race Against Time, which scored huge numbers (for Cartoon Network) when it aired the night before Thanksgiving.

BEN 10: RACE AGAINST TIME Scores as Cartoon Network’s
Most-Watched Telecast in Network History and #1 Show of the Day Among Boys
Live-Action Superhero Beats All Cartoon Network Programming Among Kids 6-11, Kids 2-11 Since January 2002
Cartoon Network Also Posts Its Most-Watched Total Day Ever with Kids 6-11, Kids 2-11

Young Ben Tennyson proved his supernatural delivery and ratings strength last Wednesday night when Cartoon Network premiered the original live-action movie special BEN 10: RACE AGAINST TIME (8:00 p.m., ET/PT), setting all-new records as the most-watched telecast in Cartoon Network history, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research. The 90-minute live-action film delivered 3,987,000 viewers age 2+, out-performing the network’s 2002 presentation of Dragon Ball Z, which previously held the #1 ranking. This outstanding performance propelled BEN 10: RACE AGAINST TIME to the #1 telecast of the day on all television—among both cable and broadcast—with boys 6-11 and boys 2-11. Moreover, Cartoon Network posted its most-watched day ever in total day delivery with kids 6-11 (785,000), kids 2-11 (1,101,000), boys 6-11 (615,000) and boys 2-11 (840,000).

My personal take: I thought the movie was really very good and delivered exactly what it set out to deliver: a live-action Ben 10 experience! The alien effects were better than I expected and the performances ranged from good (Lee Majors) to acceptable (the kids) to over-the-top (Eon). In fact, I have very little bad to say about the movie. It's really well done. The only thing that I'm still getting used to is the idea of the live-action cartoon movie as a general concept, and where it fits on the air. Something still feels "off" to me, but it's probably just something we need to get used to. I smell sequel!

I Wish I Had Thought of This

Legion of Rock Stars is a bunch of musicians that plays fantastic covers of your favorite tunes. From their site:

Legion of Rock Stars (LRS) pioneered Pure Pleasure, in which the band listens to original recordings of classic rock and pop songs on 30db noise-blocking headsets, and then plays along.

The results are downright hilarious. Thanks to Dave for sharing the awesome Danzig clip below.

New Photo Albums

I have gotten with the times and created a Picasa web album -- finally! You can find it here and also with the handy-dandy link on the right.

Chowder Premieres Tonight

Cartoon Network's new show Chowder premieres this evening, and I'll be watching with Aviella (assuming she does good listening and cooperating and eats all her vegetables). Toon Zone has posted their review, which is pretty much on the mark. I found the first episode to be a nice mix of sweet and funny, with some really cool and unique visual touches. Here's hoping this is the breakout show we've been waiting for.

New Blog!

In the wake of the Great Jilly Crash of 2007, I've decided to create a new blog devoted to games and work-related stuff. I started to notice that most of my posts here were about gaming, so in the interest of keeping this blog more "personal" I thought, "Why not start another blog about games?" (Because, lord knows, what the internet needs now is another game blog.)

Anyway, I hope you will check out Metroid Crossing and tell me what you think. It's geeky!

We're Back

Jilly Boel went down, but just like some of Jilly's greatest songs, JB.com refuses to die. Hooray for technology! Hooray for KJ! Hooray for the forums! I'm happy that my blog is back up, but most of my images were lost -- so there are lots of broken links in the archives. You know, for all the people who read this thing.

Also, Aviella's album is down, in addition to all of my past image galleries. Fortunately, I have those all backed up, but I doubt I will re-post them. My image sharing software is horribly dated, and I want to start using Picasa. Also, I have two kids now, you know.

Sigh...

This gets me to thinking that I might need to start a new blog for gaming/work stuff and keep this one personal. There are just so many hours in the day, though.

Brutal Legend

The new Tim Schafer/Double Fine production is called Brutal Legend. It appears to be about a heavy metal roadie who goes to some alternate universe in which he cuts people in half with an axe and sprouts bat wings.

All to the tune of "The Mob Rules" -- which gets HUGE points from me.



Looks great!

EA WTB Bioware/Pandemic

It's been about a week since the surprise announcement that EA is going to buy Bioware/Pandemic. Industry analysts weigh in on the subject, and all seem to agree it was a good move on EA's part. It will be very interesting to see the games that come out of this merger/partnership/buyout. The best point made in the above article, I think, is that the games that both Bioware and Pandemic make (RPGs, action-adventure) nicely complement the games that EA makes (sports, driving, movie licenses).

More FusionFall Q&A

RPG Vault, part of the IGN network, has posted a new interview with FusionFall exec. producer Chris Waldron. Very nice to read, though I can't believe people still make the mistake of using the term, "Powderpuff Girls". Sigh.

FusionFall Newsletter

Hey, the first FusionFall newsletter was released today. Check it out, or better yet, sign up at the official site.

Top 5 Consoles

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I started to think about the best gaming console systems EVAR. Why? Dunno.

1. SNES - The apex of 2D gaming and features some of Nintendo's finest first-party titles ever.
2. PLAYSTATION 2 - Seriously, how many games have been released for this thing? Something like 124,000? The best value bar none, and still going.
3. ATARI 2600 - Gaming in its purest form, when graphics didn't matter and it was all about gameplay. Not to mention the fond gaming memories.
4. DREAMCAST - Poor, poor Dreamcast. You were so much better than the PS1! And you had some great games! And a fine controller, too.
5. NES - Not only did the NES bring gaming back from the dead, it had River City Ransom. That alone puts it in the Top 5.

Creeping up: the Nintendo DS is my current favorite platform. It's so sassy!

Maple Story Ads

Some folks at work yesterday were talking about the new Maple Story TV ads which have been cropping up on cable. They are certainly attention-grabbing, although their effectiveness is debatable. (Hmmm, reminds me of an ad campaign for a certain all-you-can-eat games subscription service.)

Snails:


Fish:


Pig:


Despite the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird vibe, I have to admit that there's a certain charm to the line, "Is that pig wearing a gentleman's hat?" But: the fact that we do not see even one image from the game in these ads -- to tie it back to the live-action silliness -- is a shocking creative error in my opinion.

The ads can also be found here, on the Nexon site that launched in conjunction with the ad campaign. Wish them luck!

YTMND <3 DTMB

A few weeks later, and this is still cracking me up. Thanks, YTMND.

Geek News

We get a brief news update every day from our research group here at the office. Today's email was chock-full of interesting nerd tidbits. Some of these items are probably old news, but these days, it's hard to keep up!

- Paul Dini is working on a new Gatchaman (G-Force) feature
- the same folks are also making an Astro Boy animated feature
- George Miller is going to direct the Justice League movie
- Tokyopop is doing a manga prequel of the Dark Crystal
- Genndy Tartakovsky is working on a new Dark Crystal animated feature

That's a lot of cool stuff!

Impossible Mission, Wii

Surfing the web this weekend, I came across the interesting news that Impossible Mission is being remade for the Wii! This is only one of the coolest old-school games of all time. Having played it again at some point in the last year or so on GameTap, it is definitely in need of a reface. Sad thing is, I'm not sure if it is going to be available in the US. The Amazon UK site has a boxed version for sale, though. Further inspection reveals that Impossible Mission may in fact come to the Wii's Virtual Console as a downloadable title. Is this true? Can a Lode Runner remake be too far behind? Seriously, this is all very exciting, but I can't imagine that there are too many gamers out there under the age of 30 who would be interested in something like this. Anyway, check out the screenshot:


I'll be keeping my eye on the Metacritic page. There appears to be DS, PSP and PS2 versions planned as well. I like this quote from a PSP review: "Retro platforming at its most hernia-inducingly painful." Talk about evil villainy. Mwa ha ha!

Halo 3 Psychologists

You probably saw last month's Wired cover story about the development of Halo 3. Microsoft's testing lab for the game studied an extraordinary number of gameplay elements to fine-tune the game for the largest number of players.

Today, NPR reports on the same thing, noting the "psychologists" that Microsoft employs to test Halo 3's playability. I've often scoffed at the mainstream media's insistence that game companies hire psycohologists to make their products "more addictive" -- but in this case, it appears to be the case.

Gee, I wonder if anyone is gonna buy this thing? Find out tonight at midnight!