I came across this Video Game trailer on GameSpy (via clearout.blogspot.com). It's called 'Killzone' and may come out on PS3 sometime in 2006. If the whole contents of the preview is real-time game-play then "DAMN THAT IS AWESOME!". Watch the whole trailer in Hi-res(640 x 480) on GameSpy.com or Right-Click to download to your PC. It was only a matter of time that someone would come up with a better game like 'Half-Life 2' that is so much close to the real-world.
I had some time on my hands, so I took a picture of somebody's Alabama Driver's License and doctored it to make it look like Gordon Freeman's Alabama Driver's License. Even though 'Black Mesa' is in New Mexico, the New Mexico Driver's License had too much overlays, therefore was very difficult to mess with, so I tried it with Alabama. The first license picture is from planet Half-Life and the second picture is from Half-Life 2's concept art.
I came across these quotes from two famous historical Indian figures, Nehru and Gandhi. The two quotes are so similar that I got confused between the two and also to who said what to whom. The quotes goes like this.
John F. Kennedy: "What do you think of our Peace Corps?"
Jawaharlal Nehru: "A good idea, privileged young Americans could learn a lot from the poor villagers of South Asia."
An English Reporter: "What do you think of Western Civilization, Mr. Gandhi."
Mohandas Gandhi: "I think it would be a very good idea."
Good, I got that cleared out. Although, I pretty much doubt the quote from Gandhi because I could not find the name of the reporter that asked that question anywhere on the Internet or any authentic source.
If some reporter had asked me that question then I would have replied with one of these answers:
The month of June began and I thought I now finally had the time to do something constructive, or at least what I wanted to do in a long time. Just when I thought I could afford to pick-up a serious hobby like photography, my digital camera broke down in someway. Damn! What the hell am I going do now? I really hate it when good essential equipment breaks down and there is nothing anyone could do about it except buy a new one. I have 2 broken laptops and who knows what's wrong with them.
I bought the Kodak EasyShare CX7300 (3.2 MP) digital Camera for around a $100 about 6 months ago. The first 4 months after purchase, it worked flawlessly. Now, for some reason it drains the batteries within minutes and new batteries doesn't exactly fix the problem. Although, there is a 1 year warranty on it, but I threw away the receipt and therefore have no proof of purchase anymore in order for a refund.
I went online to see whether I'm the only one who has this problem and it turned out that there are many more people who also had the very same battery related flaw. It seems to me that Kodak sold a product with a major hardware defect and suspiciously on purpose. Some consumer rights group should sue these bastards. Damn it! Where else am I going to get a digital camera? Awe screw it.
In the "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" episode of "Family Guy", Cleveland's marriage falls apart because of Loretta's infidelity. Eventually, Loretta kicks Cleveland out of the house and Cleveland moves in with Peter. Throughout the whole episode there was no mention of their kid Cleveland Jr. I thought maybe there wasn't enough time to write him in the script for that episode. But, even in the "Brian the Bachelor" episode, where Peter tries to get Cleveland on "The Bachelorette", there was no mention of Cleveland Jr. in that episode either. It's like the Family Guy writers just forgot all about little Cleveland Jr. WTF Man!? They just can't leave that kind of loose end like that. Hey, Family Guy crew... "Whatever Happened To Cleveland Jr.?". At least send him to his Grandparents or something.
Hurricane Dennis came so close to Mobile, Alabama and diverted towards east and then back towards west again as soon as it went out of range. It seemed as if it was divine intervention. Hurricane Dennis hardly touched Mobile, which turned out to be a good thing.
I was under the impression that I would either leave town or take refuge in a local storm shelter before the hurricane got to Mobile just like last year with 'Ivan', where I left for St. Louis. But, it turned out that the two idiots I live with had a third option in mind and didn't bother to tell me about it until it was too late. Sometime within the last 24 hours before the hurricane struck, they thought to themselves "Why go anywhere at all? Lets just ride this 145mph(Category-4) baby out on a second-floor, redneck built, wooden, shaky, cardboard covered sorry excuse for an apartment!".
I was sure that if we had not left town by midnight then surely we'll be going to a storm shelter by Sunday morning. On the day of the hurricane, we just sat around watching the weather channel all day, waiting with the thought of impending doom, well I was at least. I told them if it came to the worst then I have first preference on the closet. It had been a long time since I prayed to God to spare my life in such an ordeal, thanks Guys! Never again, never again.
Even I take serious calculated risks now and then, in case they backfire, there are always plan Bs and Cs to switch too unlike this 'Wizard of Oz' predicament. No one has time to implement plan Bs or Cs in that hurricane situation. Anyway, I hope a thing like this doesn't happen in the future.
Looks like another storm is brewing up called "Emily" in the Atlantic. The weather channel is predicting that it will also become into a hurricane, lets see where it hits this time.
7/7 --another date the western world will never let me forget. Oh God not again! Please let it be the IRA, please let it be the Irish this time. I'm glad this didn't happen on '7/31'--my birthday, otherwise they would have made me regret the very day I was born. ;)
Lets all hope the Brits don't go down that same road like the Americans did and say stupid things like "They attacked us because they hate our freedom", "They hate us because they're jealous of our freedom", or any other nonsense like it. I wonder, would today's incident mean that 'French Fries' will now be officially renamed to 'Freedom Fries' all over England?
Well at least CNN didn't show any unrelated footage of Palestinians celebrating this time.
They're saying it's the worst attack on London since WWII. That's what Americans had said similar to after 9/11, you know the worst attack since Pearl Harbor and all.
You know the weird thing about this attack is that the Brits were expecting it for about 2 years now and still they could not prevent it. Even with all the hi-tech security cams installed all over London and Al-Qaida still managed to bomb London. I can only imagine the impact of this attack on British sense of security.
Just imagine the state of helplessness if the Al-Qaida bombers called in and gave the time and place of the attack a week before they carried it out. Now that would have shattered any ounce of the nation's sense of safety and security.
Anyway, I feel I should also condemn this attack before these "infidels" start to question my freedom and existence.
I finally got the chance to go and watch ‘War of the Worlds’. Before I go in to details of this movie review, let me try to sum it up in just one word first. Kids can you say A-W-E-S-O-M-E? From the part of the thunderstorm and up to the capsizing of the barge, I was literally at the edge of my seat.
The movie is based on H.G. Wells' Sci-Fi book ‘The War of the Worlds’ first published in 1898. H.G. Wells also wrote such famous works like ‘The Time Machine (1895)’ and ‘The Invisible Man (1897)’ etc, which later on also were brought to the big screen not only once but twice. The whole plot of the original ‘War of the Worlds’ was that Martians invade earth and try to annihilate the whole human race in order for them to make way for their own species.
In the latest movie, Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a blue-collar average divorced Joe. His X-wife (Miranda Otto) leaves their two children Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and Rachel (Dakota Fanning) with Ray for the weekend, so she could go visit her parents. The same day there are reports of severe isolated lightning storms around the world. One such storm strikes in Ray’s town of residence unleashing a giant alien tripod from underground, exterminating every human in its path with its vaporizing ray gun. The rest of the movie is all about Ray trying to escape the alien onslaught along with his children.
The alien tripod attack sequence is the best part of the movie. The action is so intense that it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole alien attack. The sound was so good that it made it feel like the theater itself was under attack. Whenever the alien tripods approached, they made this loud eerie sound; it sent shivers down my spine every time. The tripod reminded me of the alien tripod from Half-Life 2.
I would rank this number 2 on my favorite Spielberg movie list right after ‘Jurassic Park’. I really was looking forward to watching another movie like ‘Jurassic Park’ because that was the movie made by my favorite writing (Michael Crichton) and directing (Steven Spielberg) geniuses. I thought ‘Minority Report’ was going to turn out great, but it sucked. When the trailer ‘War of the Worlds’ came out, I was so hoping that it doesn’t turn out to be another disappointment like ‘AI’ and ‘Minority Report’.
The story had some significant holes. The part about the father-son relationship between Ray and his son was poorly written. I’m used to the unrealistic and fake reaction to fear by Americans in movies. But, I didn’t get Ray’s son’s bullshit behavior at all. I mean what the hell was he saying? It seemed like laziness on the writer’s part. They didn’t pay much screen time to explain about the red veins growing all over the place either.
Overall, I would give this movie a rating of 4.7/5.0 for the sensational action sequences.
Movie Trivia: The actor who plays Mary Ann's (Miranda Otto) father (Gene Barry) also played the protagonist Dr. Clayton Forrester in the 1953 version of the War of the Worlds.
