Edshugeo The GodMoor

Pretty much what I've been doing for a while. This is like my theme song. Comes from a relatively recent album by Sparks, called Hello Young Lovers, which is badass in a Bohemian Rhapsody meets Meatloaf, though not really kinda way. I thought those guys were just a new wave group from the eighties, but there's way more to them than that. I vaguely recall an old Saturday Night Live appearance, where I thought the keyboardist was named Roland because of the prominent logo on the instrument. I also recall they had the movie rights to Mai, The Psychic Girl, and they were gonna make it a musical directed by Tsui Hark. The idea frightened me at the time, but now I wish it got made. Wonder if they went ahead and wrote any songs for it.

I'm still digging Bad Brains' Build A Nation. I used to like the idea of Bad Brains more than I did their records. Now they've made a album worthy of a Punk/Reggae band, though now it's more heavy rock, than punk, in my opinion.

Video Games.

Played through Me And My Katamari on the PSP. The controls are painful compared to We Love Katamari on the PS2, but I love the 8 bit version you get at the end. Sorry if that's a spoiler. Also love the theme, Katamari on the Funk. I doubt I'll get the 360 version (Beautiful Katamari) unless it's cheap and I have nothing better to do, which, I guess, is inevitable. Starting Killzone Liberation on the PSP. Demo was cool so I picked this up a week or two ago (I know it's been out for a while).

Still have to finish We Love Katamari on the PS2. I want to be done with all my games on the PS2 and then say goodbye to them. There's a bunch. I'm bad at finishing games, but lately I'm a bit more into it. Having the XBox 360, it would be easy to move on, but I can't. I won't. Grand Theft Auto 3 was a birthday present dammit! So was Dynasty Warriors 2, I think. And I just bought two or three PS2 games like 6 or 7 weeks ago (Shadow Of The Collossus, Socom II - Socom was used - 5 bucks, and one other?) in addition to a few other decent titles just sitting around like War Of The Monsters. So I will finish them and maybe pass them on to friends.

Finished BioShock and Halo 3 on the XBox 360. Bioshock is the better of the two games, though I've yet to try out the online multiplayer function of XBox Live. I actually let my free one month gold membership lapse without trying it out. Wanted to be a better player first. I can barely shoot straight even at this point, but I'm gonna join up next week or so.

I also play various demos, or Burnout Revenge if I want a quick gaming session. I just bought The Orange Box, primarily for Portal, but it includes Half Life 2 and Team Fortress. Looks like fun. Haven't opened it yet.

Movies.

Transformers was fun, but got annoying during the second hour (I think) with the comedy bit with them searching for glasses while the robots try to hide from the parents and the big bad government goons showing up. Turned into E.T. for a little bit. I was never a fan of the cartoon, though the animated Transformers: The Movie was pretty decent.

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang was awesome, though. Picked it up at the supermarket a while back for six or seven bucks and finally checked it out. Funny as a muh-fug. Really looking forward to Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man.

Also went to see Jodie Foster's Death Wish movie, The Brave One. I liked it. Not great, but good enough. Really looking forward to seeing Terrence Howard in some kinda armor in Iron Man or maybe it's sequel.

TV?

Finished Heavenly Sword, Dragon Sabre (2003), which finishes up the Condor Heroes Trilogy, though it's not really a sequel, in my opinion. In the order I watched them, this followed the 1983 version of Legend Of The Condor Heroes and the 2006 Return Of The Condor Heroes (simply called Condor Hero in the U.S. release).

After the 2007 Legend Of is released with subtitles (fansubs perhaps), I may revisit the trilogy, following with the anime version titled Legend Of but which is actually Return Of (I have some but not all of this series) and then cap it off with the 1986 New Heaven Sword And Dragon Sabre. I also have a few volumes of the comic book adaptations of Louis Cha's novels. Legendary Couple by Tony Wong is based upon Return, and Heaven Sword Dragon Sabre was adapted by Ma Wing Shing. Both were published in English by Comics One, which went out of business before completing either story.

I've got Heroes stockpiled on my cable DVR, but haven't watched any of this season, yet. I will soon.

Audio Books.

eMusic has a audio books subscription service separate from their music downloading site. I joined, but will probably cancel after my second month. Listened to After Dark by Haruki Murakami and started A Briefer History Of Time by Stephen Hawkins. The first was a novel and was a breeze to get through, despite some audio glitches here and there. The second, not so much. Though meant to be lighter reading (listening) than Brief History, it requires a bit more of my attention than I can give it during a morning commute, or while shopping. I have to take a different approach, and will, later.

My previous experience with audio books was limited to Al Franken's Lies and The Lying Liars That Tell Them. A great audio book, but I didn't hold it up as an example of the medium, because it's a collection of funny stories delivered by a comedian who knows well how to perform his work. I've been told that normally, one should avoid audio books read by the authors themselves. Consider Al Franken an exception to this rule.

Comics.

Blood Sword back issues and the new re-translated, digitally enhanced volumes (Chinese Hero - Tales Of The Blood Sword). I'll talk about those another time, but I'll say the new volumes are great, mostly.

My creative endeavors?

All I do now is dick around, but when I get back to recording, I'll use the Vox page to blog about it rather than only using it for audio links and writing a separate blog.

Labels: comics, dorama, DVD, kung fu, movies, music, music video, PSP, tv, video games, wu-xia, XBox 360, youtube