Children of Men.

Due to a request from a rabid fan, I will be updating to keep faith in the morale of the troops.

I am so happy that movie theaters still exist, and in a way I wish that movies like this were the reason that they still do. As fun as seeing a lot of huge explosions with bad acting is, the hassle of going to the movie theaters is just not worth it anymore, except for something that is really special. MJR four dollar tickets early morning on Saturdays is the savior of the movie going experience for me. Not only is it extremely cheap, but there haven’t been more than 10 people in the theaters besides me and Kellie, on the day after release for both movies we saw, although they weren’t blockbusters, they were still movies that did good at the box office, even when limited release.

IMDB summary:

In 2027, as humankind faces the likelihood of its own extinction, a disillusioned government agent agrees to help transport and protect a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea where her child’s birth may help scientists to save the future of mankind.

Alfonso Cuarón is officially my new favorite director, trumping Danny Boyle which is no easy feat. It only took the opening scene for me to proclaim that the movie was amazing. I can’t recall the exact order in which I watched Y tu mamá también and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban but I was very quickly enthralled with his disregard of the invention of the steadycam, (Y tu mamá también is one of the very few movies I’ve purchased twice, once for the rated and another for the unrated edition).

No action movie has ever put set me so on edge than the two major action scenes in this movie. Both of them were done in single takes and put the viewer in the center of the action, something that to me made all the difference. Too often action from far away may took cool if stylized enough like a Yimou Zhang film, but mostly it ends up just boring. I’ve never had the experience of feeling on edge in any movie in my entire life until this one, and all of this just two scenes from a movie that is more of a science fiction drama than an action movie.

Acting, writing, directing, music, everything in this movie was just right for the kind of movie that I want. Although it was not perfect, the story could have been a little darker for my taste, but it was good enough. Definitely my favorite movie of the year and easily in my top five favorite movies of all time. Thank you Kellie for introducing me to Alfonso Cuarón and this movie.

Winter?

Winter hit for real today for the first time this year.

A beautiful picture Kellie took outside her house.

Some personal pictures.

Myself and Kellie’s adventuring tonight.

Sudoku.

So, so addicting. Close to Dice Wars I’d have to say, but probably not there yet.

Simple Sudoku

I think I missed the big Sudoku craze, but I’m okay with that, I really liked word searches when I was younger, crosswords have always seemed lame to me being that the answers are not readily available, and the vast power of the internet ruins any sort of self restraint on my part to try to solve them.

Screenshot post, High Elf starting area.

Click for higher quality. Screen shots taken at Very High Quality with as much turned up as I can while maintaining stable performance.

The very first quest NPC, the graphics are damn gorgeous.

The quest report for beta testing.

The UI, looting, and armor tooltip.

Some scenery.

First Vanguard impressions.

I am very afraid to really enjoy something somtimes, I feel like when things are really good they shouldn’t be and it is pretty scary. I really wanted to be dissapointed with Vanguard because everything I have read about it was just too good to be true. It isn’t the best game ever but there sure is a LOT more things to do than in WoW, and thats something that I really want. I spent a good 2 hours just leveling up diplomacy which is extremely fun. The fact that a card game that is actually enjoyable is the way to raise faction that would normally take hours and killing the same mob over and over is so refreshing. I can’t wait to dig deeper but I’m waiting for Kellie to get her patching done so we can play together.

This could become a Vanguard blog.

I’d said before that I’d just write down things that interest me at the time, but for now until the distant future that could very well just be one thing. Today the open beta finally started and I’ve begun the patching process. Problem is that its taking a VERY long time and the ETA is constantly jumping up to insanely large amounts of time, (20+ sometimes up to 40 hours remaining). I’ve been patching for about 10 hours now and there seems to be no sign of stopping, so perhaps I will write more when there is something to write about.

Building webs is for suckas.

I must never forget this.