Blargh

Just getting over a cold that lasted about a week. Me being fantastically stupid, I went back to work too early, and conceded valuable territory to the invading virii. I lost my weekend. There's my one big sickie for the year gone, anyway.

On the plus side, though: I got to catch up on my DVD watching (I'll finally see all of Firefly soon).

Episode III - NOW we get decent Star Wars???

Well, I saw Revenge of the Sith last night, in comfort, and with most of a bottle of champagne in me. I believe the comments I most oft-quoted during and after the film were "Awesome!" and "He's acting his pants off!" (regarding Ian McDiarmid's chilling performances). In essence, my socks were rocked. I will have to see it again (and again...).

It was fun and exciting; emotional; scary. Even (and I hesitate to use the word, so often abused by movie posters quoting Hollywood-stooge reviewers) "Thrilling". Yes, I was thrilled. Lou cried on and off for the last half of the movie.

There were only a handful of cringe-worthy moments. Case in point… Vader: (raises fists) “Nooooooooooo!” Suppressed giggles rippled across the theatre. But only for a moment.

Now I’m thinking: it is such a paradox; how can this film exist when the previous instalments were just... turds? It's like a light was suddenly switched on in George Lucas' mind (two movies too late, mind you).

It’s like the Matrix trilogy, only reversed. The defining moments of the series appear in the final film, rather than the first (and then subsequently go on to be debased...). I guess finishing on a high is always better.

It has occurred to me (perhaps via subtle suggestions from the cacophony of reviews out there) that Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and Episode II: Attack of the Clones, could be trimmed to be a simple, 20-minute prologue for this film (a-la Fellowship of the Ring). Maybe even as a free-on-the-web StarWars.com pre-release...

Yes, it’s much easier to see now why Lucas did SOME of the things he did with the two earlier films. We get it: Darth Sidious instrumented his own rise to power, beginning with Anakin Skywalker’s (immaculate) conception, gradual corruption, and eventual fall. The “prequel trilogy” is about the Emperor’s rise as much as Anakin’s crossing to the Dark Side – perhaps more so. The Trade Federation, the Clone Armies… the Emperor created them both, then set them against each other, until nothing left in the galaxy to prevent him from taking control. In essence, he’s a “war president”… (Hmm where have I heard that quote before...).

It’s a fantastic story, if at times a little heavy-handed and lacking in subtlety.

None of that explains Jar-Jar’s existence, Jake Lloyd’s excruciatingly annoying antics, the hammy acting, the impossible characters, the long, tedious side plots. I’m hoping someone will cut together a highlight reel of Episode I-II plot points, so I never again have to watch them in their entirety.

In the end – it’s a bittersweet time. No more Star Wars on the big screen. The Story has been told.

Until George Lucas brings out all six films in 3D-o-Vision... Hey, don’t laugh.

Many Shiny (expensive) Things

The Xbox 360 and Playstaion 3 are now officially on their way, and they have faces:

I got sucked with my Xbox. Totally drawn in by the marketing hype. I bought one (and a copy of Halo) the first day it came out. Shame on me. In the time since, I've only owned a handful of games. I traded most of them in fairly quickly. In fact the ONLY reason I took the leap to getting a console was Halo, a game who development cycle I followed from it's first announcement in 1999. My Xbox is more of a "Halo/Halo 2 Box."

Sony's PS3 apparently shits all over the Xbox 360 for power and range of games. And you know what? Good for them. But I still predict this Next Generation of game consoles will be a real 3 horse race (Nintendo still trailing, but ot too distant).

Halo 3 for Xbox 360 is a given. Maybe 6-12 months after the console comes out, but it will be there. And I'm sad to say there's a strong chance that I will fork out the $700-800 to play it. Unless someone physically restrains me.

At least I have a good 12-18 months to start saving my pennies : /

The end is Nigh (tm)

Well, soon I shifting all my work crap - From UQ (Ipswich) to UQ (St Lucia), resetting my employment situation from 2+ years ago. Those who know me will understand how happy I will be when I don't have to battle the Ipswich Motorway, and eat from a refectory that has psychotic opening hours. The down side of this is that I probably won't have a public IP address; therefore no website. I'm not too sad: mostly my site has just been a place I can point Vet students to so they can see the latest photos of themselves in various states of unconsciousness…

(Besides which, I'm pretty sure no-one reads this Blog, and I totally understand - even my verbal conversations tend toward random, indecipherable stream-of-consciousness ramblings).

But I’ll lose a hobby – at least for a while. I’ll investigate hosting options for finding a (legit) commercial web hosting service… but I doubt I’ll find one cheap enough to host my ~7 gigabytes of photos!

As kind of a side note: I’ll be losing one of my babies, come June 30. I will be car-less, and will become one of the great, unwashed, public-transport-using masses for a while.

This will give me time to appreciate owning a car, time to contemplate the nature of “being” – and of course time to pay off my many, accumulated debts: which I painstakingly collected over the course of three overseas holidays, too many night's pubbing and clubbing, two computers, and one surprisingly expensive Xbox infatuation.

After that (a period I’m thinking will last 3-6 months) I’ll just go ahead and lease a new “baby.” The frontrunners are: exactly the same car, an Astra, or a Corolla Sportivo. I love window (web) shopping for toys...

Ah.... The idea of a small car, and a 6-speed transmission mated to a 141kW engine speaks to me on a very intimate level.

Summing up:

• UQ is moving me back to St Lucia soon
• The website's going down the toilet (probably)
• the Camry is going to the great Government-auction in the sky (...and I will be bumming lifts off you all very shortly after that)

I'll see you all at the Red Room!

One less geeky thing

Well, I did it. I cancelled my Xbox Live account. Now I officially have no games I'm playing atm. Untill Halo 3 for Xbox 2 comes out, anyway.

The online gaming world is harsh; I was getting my ass handed too me far more than I was comfortable with. And the players were just nasty about it. So I'll stay in the realm of single-player games for the time being.

On the subject of geekiness though - I have Gold Class tickets to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on the night it comes out. Even if it's as crap as the last two, then the champagne I'll be skolling will ease the pain.