Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the remake with Johnny Depp? Fucking. Blows. It is in no way charming, or witty, or delightful. Depp comes off more as a child molester than an eccentric candy maker. In the original, Gene Wilder was weird, sure, but it was in a good way. I'm worried Depp's gonna touch me inappropriately. It's dark, bleak and uninspiring. It's not whimsical in the way the original was. Depp says weird things like Wilder did in the original, but it's like hes trying to imitate Wilder instead of bringing something unique to the role.

Sure, it follows a bit closer to the book than the original, but is it worth the severely creepy performance delivered by not only Depp, but by everybody in the damn thing? The kids are more obnoxious, their parents sickening, even Charlie and Grandpa Joe irk me. Seriously, I usually dig Burton and Depp together but this is so abysmal that I wish I had painted something, just so I could watch the paint dry instead of this. And by the way, why did they only use one guy for all the oompa loompas? Could they not find little people to cast in this movie?

Oh and on top of all this other shit I'm bitching about, the CGI sucks balls. Even the music bites. It's hard to make Danny Elfman's music suck, but they managed here. This piece of shit won awards! WTF!

This is all coming across as a fanboy's rant, like I loved the original movie. Honestly, it's ok, but it's not one of my favorites ever. But seriously, fuck this movie. Fuck it hard.

5 Hottest Ladies on TGWTG

Taking a bit of a detour today, because my Xbox is broken and they have not shipped the part to fix the buggardly thing, I’m gonna talk about some of the lovely ladies on one of my favorite sites, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses. Holy mother of God are there some sexy women on that site. This list is not in any particular order, because frankly I couldn’t choose. Now, granted, these lovely ladies are mostly playing a character, and so I’m not sure that they actually share their own personality on camera, but this is just based on what I see.

Lindsay Ellis (AKA The Nostalgia Chick)

The first lady I watched on TGWTG, Lindsay Ellis reviews “girly” movies and tv shows that would be rather odd to watch the Nostalgia Critic review. Oh my Gawd. That sums it up. Seriously, go watch either the Moulin Rouge musical review, or her single review of the movie Hocus Pocus. If she doesn’t get your motor going, check your pulse; you may be dead.

Antonella Inserra (Nella)

Nella. Oh how lovely you are. I think most people didn’t realize just how sexy this lady is until the Nostalgia Chick’s Dark Nella Saga series of videos, but I gotta say, I was diggin’ on Nella long before that.  Cute, geeky, and luscious, Nella is a frequent guest on Nostalgia Chick videos.

Jillian Zurawski (Mrs. Cinema Snob)

I envy Brad Jones. He has possibly one of the hottest wives ever. Not to mention she’s got to be one of the most understanding ladies ever, seeing the things that she does for her husband.

Update: Concerning Jillian

I think I've figured out why I really dig Mrs Snob. She reminds me forcibly of a friend of mine from high school who I had such a thing for. She looks, sounds like and is pierced just like my friend. It's uncanny. 

Sarah Wilson (PushingUpRoses)

I’m a sucker for tats and piercings and Roses is sporting both.

Allison Pregler (Obscurus Lupa)

I got a thing for redheads, what can I say?

Now, I didn’t say much about the individual ladies because they share a lot of common traits that I dig; awesome smiles, geeky (in their own special way) and they just seem like people I could actually be around without wanting to commit murder.  This whole thing is just personal opinion, and honestly, all of these women are so far outta my league it’s unreal, but I thought I’d share, since I’m bored out of my mind.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Let me start off by saying this: I hate Star Wars. Seriously. I used to love the hell out of it, i.e. before the prequels came out. Now, because of those horrible movies, I can’t even watch the originals without nitpicking and griping. So I’ve basically given up on everything related to the series. I enjoyed The Force Unleashed, but not enough to play it again or buy the second one. The only thing I enjoy about Star Wars is the pre-movies time period, like Knights of the Old Republic, a game I played to death and back, to the point that I often attempted going solo, which was incredibly difficult but quite awesome if it worked.

The Old Republic is a new MMO from Bioware, makers of fine games such as Dragon Age, Mass Effect and, coincidentally, Knights of the Old Republic. It takes place some 200 years after KotOR, so still well before the movies, thank God.

I won’t really give anything away plot wise, considering I didn’t get really deep into any of the classes’ plots but the classes I played were excellent. Every character, including the player, is voice and voiced well. Much like Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2, the player chooses a simplified version of what they want to say, and the character rattles off a sentence or two that gets that message across and makes it feel like the npc and the player are actually having a conversation. 

I played on my laptop, which isn’t usually the best idea for gaming, because of the integrated graphics card, but TOR actually takes that into consideration, and my computer meets all the requirements and actually exceeds even the recommendations. Having said that, the game ran kinda jerky and seemed kinda jumpy at times. But at the same time, the whole point of this beta test was to stress the servers, and stress them we did, because often, the servers were completely full. Saturday, I got on at 7:30 CST and I still had to wait about 

10 to 15 minutes to get on.

There were a lot of people on, and the starter areas were rather crowded, leading to a lot of waiting around for stuff to spawn for quests and stuff. There were very few “go kill that thingie over there” quests, in fact most were just bonus quests while you were questing in other areas. I dig that. Honestly, to level up, they were necessary quests, but I think it was nicely implemented. If you’ve read my previous rant about WoW and how they say they’re “in tune with nature” or whatever and then they make you go kill hundreds of animals, TOR handles it much better this way. 

Really, it’s hard for me to do a positive review; it’s much easier to find stuff to bitch about, but honestly, even though this was only a beta, it felt damn close to finished. I enjoyed playing it immensely and I cannot wait for the 15^th of December for early access. I was skeptical when I first heard about it, even despite knowing Bioware was working on it. But on the basis of just this 4 day trial, I’ve pre-ordered it and waiting intently for launch. 

May the Force be with you, I’ll see you in game!

Update

Something bugs me about this game. I'm not sure what it is either. Maybe I burned myself out on it, because for about 3 months after it came out, it was pretty much the only thing I played, but I stopped playing. I've recently returned to it and I find myself getting bored again. Now it's entirely possible that I'm bored with TOR because I just got Assassin's Creed 3 so I'd rather be playing it. I'm not sure though. 

Nightmare on Elm Street: A Fanboy's Retrospective.

I love the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. It has always been my favorite movie series, probably because the movies always frightened the FUCK out of me. As a kid, I had a lot of nightmares, so when I got a little older and watched Freddy Krueger murdering teenagers in their nightmares, it really resonated with me. I watched the remake last night and I thought I'd come on here and give my thoughts on the series as a whole. This isn't going to be a plot synopsis, but just what I thought about the movies.

A Nightmare on Elm Street:

The original. Without this one, none of the others would have been made, and it's still the best. Heather Langenkamp as Nancy is believable as a protagonist, and while the others are completely disposable, they play their roles. It's worth noting that this movies is Johnny Depp's first role in a movie. Who knew that this kid who got yanked into the bed in a horror film would actually turn into a world famous actor?

Being the movie that started it all, it's not nearly as campy or humorous as later films would be, its much darker and it still holds up after all these years.

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

I hate this movie. I really cannot explain why, but I really hate it. I cannot say more about this one.

Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Hell yes. To me, this is really where the series got good. It's also where it started to get really campy but I can overlook that. Heather Langenkamp coming back as Nancy was awesome again, and I loved the dream powers of all of the kids. This movie was one of my favorites until I saw some of the later movies.

Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master

Yet another great movie, in the same vein as Dream Warriors. It brings back 3 of the characters from the previous movie and adds its own cast of teenagers for Freddy to kill. It's a little more campy and over the top, but I don't mind that. Alice's own dream power of absorbing the powers of her friends, making her into the Dream Master, makes her a foe that Freddy hasn't seen since Nancy. A great movie, surpassed in my eyes by only the next in the series.

Nightmare on Elm Street 5: Dream Child

This, in my eyes, is the best of the series, combining the surreal images of the dream world with a premise that's quite original. Freddy using the dreams of Alice's own child to get at her friends is a great idea, that could have been terrifying if they hadn't kept up the camp factor. By using Amanda Krueger to put an end to her undead son, I feel that it put an end to the series better than the next movie.

Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare

Another movie that I fucking hate. Even taking away the insipid 3D factor, the movie sucks hard. It starts with the humor and doesn't let up. It's completely idiotic, and I don't even bother with this one when I watch the whole series.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Ah the New Nightmare. I used to loathe this movie. I guess I just didn't understand the point of it, but I get it now that I'm older. It's a great movie, but I hardly expect anything less from Wes Craven.

Freddy Vs Jason

Yet another idiotic movie. The premise is stupid, the whole thing is a typical new type slasher movie: set up a bunch of stereotypes that everybody in the audience will hate and want to die. That is not scary. It's scary when we see characters we care about  in danger. Cheering on the killer is not scary, its pointless, gory idiocy.

Nightmare on Elm Street (Remake)

Initially I did not want to see this movie. I saw it as a pointless remake, and it is. But let's face it, all remakes are pointless.

I'm going to get this out of the way right now: this movie was fucking awesome. I've heard that the kids were all disposable. In what Nightmare movie were the kids not disposable? Here, I saw character even in the obviously dead characters. Nancy in this was a quiet, introverted loner, instead of the center of a large group of friends, and I dug that. I was the same way in school, and I thought that the actress pulled off the sleep deprivation well. Some have said she didn't have the charisma or personality that Heather Langenkamp had, but I disagree. Not taking anything away from Heather, but this girl acted like someone who'd been up for several days would; I know from experience.

Jackie Earl Haley was great as Freddy. He seemed more physically imposing that Robert Englund and the fidgeting with the blades on his hand really drove home, to me at least, that these things are deadly. I didn't mind him roughening up his voice, not unlike Christian Bale as Batman, and it makes sense that he would sound like that, due to smoke and heat damage to his throat. I thought the make up was ridiculous, he looked like Voldemort's Asian cousin, but honestly, that was the only problem I had with the remake. I thought it reused certain scenes from the original to decent enough effect, except when Freddy comes out of the wall. That bit of CG sucked, to the point that I actually laughed and commented that it looked better in the original. Most of the others were well used; when Nancy sees Chris in the body bag at school, it really drives home just how sleep deprived she is, showing that she's started to dream while she's awake.

Despite my misgivings, the remake of Nightmare was very well done, it brought Freddy back to his darker roots, and even added some of Wes Craven's original ideas back into the movie. Very well done.

So that's my thoughts about the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Sure it's campy at times, ridiculously stupid at others, but scared the fuck out of me as a kid and will always hold a special place on my movie shelf.

And now for something completely different.

A few days ago I read a story someone on The Lord of the Rings: Online had written concerning his character and I thought that I should attempt that. I've been writing short stories off and on since the first grade and this is probably the first one I've managed to write all the way to the end in probably 11 years. This is basically a backstory for my main character on the Elendilmir server, Ruras the Warden.

A lone elf stands on a hilltop near the bounds of The Shire. He had been in this country before; he adored the rolling green hills and the lush farmland. He came here to think, it was one of the few places left in Middle-Earth peaceful enough to sit and think about all that had happened to him over his long, long life.

He was found by Marchwardens of Lothlorien near the Great River Anduin. They supposed his parents had been slain by the orcs of the Misty Mountains, but they could never be sure. As is the way with the Eldar, he grew quickly among the people of Lorien, and learned the skills of the Warden. He became known throughout his homeland as a hunter of orcs, for the hatred of their kind burned more fiercely within him than in others of his kindred. A need for some sort of vengeance seemed to consume him.

This was why he was in The Shire now. Rumours had reached him in Bree that camps of foul orcs and goblins had been seen near the bounds. Sitting atop this hill, he could see several camps, not just of orcs, but also goblins and bandits. Raising himself slowly, gripping the rawhide-wrapped haft of his spear for support, he let out a sigh and set out for the nearest orc camp, running full-tilt, not feeling the weight of the shield on his left arm, or the javelin on his back. Occasionally he used his spear to brush aside branches of trees but otherwise he ran unimpeded.

Skidding to a stop a few hundred yards away from the camp, he gripped his spear in the same hand as his shield and took down his javelin. The orc guarding the entrance to the camp was not only hideously malformed but was also inattentive; perhaps the eye it was missing had something to do with it, or the fact that its ears had been melted off, probably by a spell. The warden slowed his footsteps, making sure not to tread on anything too noisy he snuck up on his unknowing quarry. Muttering softly in Elvish, he hurled his javelin at the orc.

The javelin flew true, as it always did when he threw. It sailed through the air and embedded its self in the orc's skull, the steel head buried in the soft flesh of the creature's brain. Charging forward, he transferred his spear to his right hand and planted the head in the creature's chest, making certain the foul beast was dead. He pulled his spear and javelin from the orc and cleaned its blood off his tools. He pushed forward into the camp, killing silently where he could, wielding his spear as the farmer wields the scythe, cutting down orcs as quick as they sprang up.

Nearing the end of the encampment he began to hear muffled struggling. Ducking into a shrub near a small hill, he surveyed the area ahead of him. The leader's tent was near, and he could see several hobbit prisoners near, as well as...He armed sweat from his brow, blinked his eyes and looked again. Yes, he was right; a lady elf. He took in her appearance. Tattered robes, face smeared in ash and plaster dust, and the satchel at her side all signified a rune-keeper. Trained in the tongues of Men and Elves, they used words and runes of power for both healing and destroying their opponents. She would make a powerful ally if the warden could but save her.

That was where the problem lay. He had never faced orcs of this type before, they were bigger than the orcs of Mordor, could bear the light of the sun without harm and bore a strange sigil on their armour, that of the White Hand. This was not a problem, these creatures died like any other orc.

Summoning all his strength for the final charge, he let out a yell and bounded down the hill, throwing his javelin at one of the orc guards at the entrance to the camp, and plunging his spear into the throat of the other. Yanking it free of the foul creature, he spun and plunged the head deep into the guts of another orc. Slashing the throat of another with the head of his spear, he pulled a throwing dagger from his belt and, almost casually threw at another beast, taking it in the eye.

The warden glanced at the lady Elf and saw the gag around her mouth turn instantly to ash. She raised herself up to her full height, bonds also falling to ash. Pulling a runestone from her satchel, she muttered something in Elvish and pointed the stone at the warden. He felt his muscles come alive as the healing magic took effect, and he resumed the fight, bashing orcs with his shield, shouting taunts and impaling them with spear and javelin.

The rune keeper also joined the fray, not only healing the warden's wounds, but throwing lightning bolts, and doing a curious bit of foretelling, prophesying how her opponents would fall. The two Elves worked around each other flawlessly, each covering the other's back, taking down orcs by the dozen. Finally the foul creatures were dealt with and the two warriors looked at each other. Standing to his full height, the warden bowed.

'Mae govannen. Im Ruras.'

The rune keeper laughed softly and replied in the Common Speech:

'Greetings Ruras. I am known as Lalaith, though that is not my true name. Come, let us loose these merry folk and be upon our way.'

As the two set the hobbits free, Ruras asked, 'Lady Lalaith, how do you know our path goes the same way?'

Smiling, she answered, 'The runes tell me much of what is to be. Surely a warden of Lothlorien has encountered such powers of foresight?'

'Indeed not, lady. I was a march warden and did not often journey to Caras Galadhon. If we are journeying together, whither are we going? Into the West?'

Lalaith shook her head sadly and looked into Ruras's eyes.

'Nay, strong-heart. The West is denied us for now, our road lies East; into Shadow. You are a hunter of the creatures of the Enemy, you feel the same hatred for them as I. As long as they haunt Middle-Earth, neither of us shall leave.'

Adjusting the rawhide wrapping on his spear, and replacing the javelin on his back, Ruras smiled.

'Then let us begone.'

So starts my vacation.

I took a week off from work and so I'm going to spend the whole time cooking. So I've decided to detail my successes and failures here. I got the idea to talk about my own cooking on here from a friend online and I have to admit it makes sense. Food is my passion; if I could afford it, I'd go to culinary school and start my own restaurant.

Anyway, I started yesterday, which was my birthday. I didn't make dinner, but I did make my birthday cake. It was kind of an experiment, as I've never made a layer cake before. My problem was I picked a very labor intensive cake to be the first one; I made a coconut cake, and used fresh coconuts.

So after roasting, cracking, peeling and grating 3 coconuts, I kinda wanted to kick my own ass for doing this to myself. But I sallied forth and made the coconut cream and milk. I used store-bought extract because I don't habitually keep vodka around.

The cake turned out good. Light, tender, fluffy, all the adjectives they like to bandy about when talking about cake. The problem was that because I used a darker colored pan, the bottom and sides got a little crispy and it was kind of hard to cut through. Also, when I split them, they split unevenly because of the technique I used, so i got 2 semi normal layers and 2 that are just domes of cake. After frosting the cake with a 7 minute coconut frosting, it looked great. It tastes awesome, if a little sweet...Ok, a lot sweet. I could only eat one piece before I thought I may go into a sugar coma; coffee would have helped.

Other than the pan being uncooperative and the fact that I don't have a round cake stand, I call this one a success, but hey, it's cake right? Even a fucked up cake is almost edible.  Tonight will be different, as I'm making ravioli. I've made cheese stuffed ravioli before, but tonight I'm going to experiment with a meat filling. When it's done, I'll make sure to post the results and my thoughts on how I could have done better.

Restaurant Review: The Shed

Let the choir of angels sing: I have found good barbeque in the south! Between the nasty, how-does-the-health-department-not-shut-this-place-down horror of Anjac's to the gut wrenching disaster Hog Heaven, I thought I'd have to go back to the midwest or open my own restaurant to get good bbq. Thankfully I was wrong!

I should have gone here first. This place has been on the Food Network. They sent Diners, Drive-ins and Dives to this place. They've won awards. But then again, Anjac's claims to have won awards too, and that place is nasty. Ok. Let me start from the beginning. There's a food truck down on the beach, owned and operated by The Shed, a local bbq join. I have no problem with food trucks, hell, I'd open one myself if I could afford it. But after so many bad experiences with southern bbq, I really did not want to go here.

First of all, the price? At this truck at least, you cannot beat it. I think it came out to about $10 for a sandwich and 2 sides. And these sandwiches were not small; I'm a big guy and I thought they were damn near huge. Gotta say the portion size was much better than Hog Heaven. I didn't even eat the bun. It wasn't necessary. The meat was so tender and juicy even without the sauce. THIS is what really well done brisket is supposed to taste like. No fat at all, oh it was beautiful. I could have eaten 5 pounds of it and not batted an eye. The sauce was even great, and I think they sell it by the bottle.

I didn't even care about the sides. I got the beans and potato salad. The beans were very good, and obviously home made. I'm not a fan of southern potato salad though. I prefer mustard in my potato salad and they don't do that here. I can't hold that against them; it's just my own personal taste. The only thing that could have made this meal better would've been fries or onion rings. But it was a food truck so maybe not.

And since it was on the beach, you couldn't beat the view.

Quick update

Ok, I apparently have been receiving a lot of visitors, so I figure I should at least update once in awhile. I meant to try a positive review for once, just to see if I can actually do it, but I recently developed TMJ and my jaw feels like someone hit me in the face with a baseball bat. So once it heals, I hope I'll be able to get another video up. Maybe I can find my real camera and stop with the bad webcam videos.

Anyway, the next review will hopefully be coming soon. See you guys later, I gotta go ice my jaw.

Restaurant Review 2: Hog Heaven.

Shitty video time! Seriously though, sorry about the guerrilla style photography and poor sound and lighting; I'm on my webcam again because I don't know where the charger is for my normal camera.

Caution: I swear alot.

V-log 1/8/11 A few games

Please excuse the guerrilla style videography; I'm recording on my webcam and this is my first video ever. So there are a lot of um's and pauses in here.