Freaking fantastic movie.  If you haven’t seen it by now, you are a crazy person.  Go see it, NOW.

Seriously, I have no complaints about this movie.  The main character is distinctly unlikeable, but by the end you can sympathize, and he begins to change.  The story is believable and compelling.  You are left at the end wanting to see more of this little alternate universe.  I can’t wait for a District 10, if it ever happens.  I find it amazing that the lead actor wasn’t an actor.  District 9 was his first acting role and he improvised all of his lines.  At least according to an interview in a Star Tribune article.  I don’t feel like finding it, so look yourself.

The aliens, called Prawn, love cat food like cats love cat-nip.  Which is just great.

Lots of stuff to talk about, but only so much room and time.  I’ve read a lot of books, seen a lot of movies, and haven’t talked about any of them.

Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall:

Its about a planet named Kalgan (Aeon in the movie, guh) that has six stars in its system.  Onos is the primary, a large yellow one like the Sun, there are two blue ones, two white ones, and one red one.  The pairs of blue and white move together while Onos and the red one move seperately.  They consider it to be day time when Onos is in the sky, because the other are fairly dull.  The story follows some academics as they discover that Kalgan has suffered a horrible disaster many times in the past, and – like clock-work – it is about to happen again.  That disaster is Nightfall.  The idea is to concieve something totally foreign to terrans, perpetual light, then to present the society that knows nothing else what we take for granted, darkness.  I was able to suspend my disbelief about the astronomical situation, mainly because I believe that due to the size of the universe that anything that is possible, no matter how unlikely, MUST exist somewhere in the universe.  However, the madness that overcomes these people is a tougher pill to swallow, even though it gets easier as the story goes along.  What I simply could not take was the presence of a laser gun in that society.  They haven’t even left their own planet, but can make laser guns?  I can’t follow that.

Overall I liked the book, despite some of its flaws.  The movie adaptation, however, was un-watchable.  It merely takes the name and basic concept of the book and throws out the rest.  Not even the presence of an acting great like David Carradine could redeem it.  They had some kind of super psychic in the movie, which was NOT in the book.  When they revealed that character I saw red.  Anyhow, if you like Asimov, read the book.  But stear clear of the movie.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen:

Fans of the old cartoons probably won’t like it, but the only Transformer cartoons I watched were Beast Wars (awesome) and Beast Machines (not awesome).  I thought it was great.  Kind of a shallow action movie, with some romance and worship of self-sacrificing heroes thrown in.  Fans of the old show also seemed to be upset when a Linkin Park song was chosen for the main theme, which I didn’t understand.  They argued that the original theme (from the cartoon) should have been used.  I think they are being bitten by the nostalgia bug because that song sucked ass.  The Linkin Park song isn’t great, but its good.  This coming from a guy who hasn’t liked Linkin Park since he was 13.

Black Sky:

Black Sky is a video game project about having your own space ship and roaming about the galaxy doing missions, improving your ship, getting new ships, etc.  It is still in alpha, and from the stuff being posted on the official forums it may never be finished, but those of you who like that kind of thing (like myself) may want to check it out.  Linky.

Remember when I promised to do posts on the Maxim issues?  Remember how I posted only one of them then didn’t do it again?  Well, that is coming back and I promise to try to do it.  Also, I have more book and movie reviews coming in the next week or two.

Hello everyone!  Storm is here again with some WarCraft III content!

I recently uploaded my map Storm’s Aos ver .99c to the website war3.incgamers.com .  As of this posting, it is still in pending status.  I suspect you will see it up soon so look for newly added maps if you want to check it out.

It is an Aeon of Strife map, which predates DotA maps which are very popular right now.  Too popular if you ask me.  Which is why I made this map.  It consists of two computer controlled towns, one for each team.  Units belonging to the computer are spawned at regular intervals and attack the enemy base.  The player’s job is to defend their own base while trying to destroy the enemy’s.  At the beginning of the map you have only one unit, a Soul.  You place your Soul on the circle of power that is in front of the hero you wish to control.   That hero will be spawned into the play area and you can begin immediately.  It may be a good idea to talk to your team mates ahead of time about hero selection, because only one of each hero can be present on each team.

There are a multitude of items to purchase, mostly non-custom.  The essential item would be the Staff of Teleportation, as it will save your life many times.  There are an infinite number of respawns, but the higher your level the longer it takes before you respawn, so it might be a good idea to grab an Ankh of Reincarnation for you high-level folks.  Also, the bounty awarded for killing a hero increases with each level.

I would upload it here, but I want to have all the downloads tracked in one place.  If you download it, please leave feedback.  I am also looking for feature suggestions for future versions of the map.  Currently I am trying to make sure there is nothing wrong with it, hence version .99c.

Here is a little thing my brother put together for a class, don’t know what its about.  What I do know is that its hilarious.  Now that I think about it, this probably has to do with Fahrenheit 451.

How to Survive in the 24th Century: A Simple Guide for the Simple Man

1. Don’t Read.  Ever.

This has become Federal Law for a reason, trust me its a good one.  Nobody needs to read because nobody needs to be offended.

2. Learn to Drive Very Fast.

People nowadays don’t care about your safety.  Going to hit that dog?  Go for it, decause the guy behind you will push that pedal through the floor if you don’t.

3.  Learn to Love Fire.

Fire is the all-cleansing force that purifies all of society’s ills and shortcomings in little to no time.  It’ll burn away the ammunition for those stuck-up book readers.

4.  Don’t Ever Question Things.

You probably won’t understand anything too complicated about the world, so don’t try.  Trying to measure the world and reason it out is just a bad idea.

5.  Thinking Less = Having More Fun.

As stated above, don’t try to measure or reason out the world.  You’ll have more fun that way.  It doesn’t matter what’s going on in front of you, just so long as you get a bit of a tic when it happens.

6.  Knowledge is for Losers.

The more you know about the world, the uglier it seems to be.  Only idiots will try to learn anything more complicated than setting up a television.

7.  Learn to Love Sensory Information.

Just because it doesn’t have real meaning doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love it.  Who needs to be deep when you get a jolt of pleasure from what you are doing?

8.  The Government is Always Right.

Like I said before, don’t question anything, and it goes double for the government.  They always do the right thing in the right way, so what does it matter?

9.  Don’t Offend People.

Even if you have to be dull as a rock, its much better not to offend people.  Its much better to be the one everyone likes than to be interesting or unique.

10.  Always get to the Point.

Who wants to waste twenty minutes of their life listening to you drabble on about details?  No one cares about the who and how, just the what.  Its the end of the journey that counts, not the journey itself!

11.  Never Stand Idle.

Even if it is completely pointless, always be doing something.  Work with your hands, feet, anything but your mind.  Who cares about down time?  What would you need it for anyway?  Certainly not reading!

Obviously satire, and pretty funny if you ask me.

Gateworld has a teaser trailer for the new Stargate Universe series. It appeared alongside the series finale of BSG on the British channel SkyOne.

Here is the link: Teaser Trailer.

From this, it appears to have more than a hint of BSG in it.

So I’ve added two new people to the blog. Hopefully this means that posts will be made more often. No guarantees however, these people are almost as lazy and unmotivated as I am, which is quite a feat.

I trust that any of you who have been here more than once will treat these new bloods with the respect they deserve, which is none. Kidding! Anyway, that is all.

That’s right, I have been converted.  I just installed FireFox 3 last night and I’m not turning back.  What made me turn after so many years of using IE?  Java source files.  IE can’t open a java file into the browser, FireFox can.

FireFox also has a more intuitive address bar-browsing history relationship.  It also runs alittle faster.  But it was the Java thing that broke the camel’s back.  I’ve also fallen in love with that download manager.  No more having my task bar cluttered with individual dl managers, a la IE.

Thats all, have fun everyone.

So I read a really good book last week called “Pebble in the Sky” by Isaac Asimov.  I am a big fan of old Isaac’s work, and this is one of his best.  It takes place during the early years of the Galactic Empire of Trantor.  To be precise its in the late 9th century of the Galactic Era.  A retired tailor living in Chicago in 1949 finds himself transported, midstep, over 50,000 years into the future.  That part was a huge suprise to me, because I thought the Empire formed 8,000 years in the future.

I’ve always found Isaac to tend toward the logical more than the fanciful, so I was curious how he would move a man into the future.  I was not dissapointed.  Its one of the best books by Isaac i’ve ever read.  However, its characters do tend to make big leaps in logic that stretch belief, but that is what people tend to do in extraordinary circumstances and with limited or false information.  The instances of this are far more tolerable than in “Second Foundation” and “Foundation’s Edge” where the characters are pulling plots and schemes out of there asses.

I came away thinking it would make an excellant movie, and inwardly prayed that Shia Labeuf and Will Smith would never come near it if it came true.  I’m just plain sick of Shia and Will Smith has ruined enough sci-fi classics (I, Robot: another work of Isaac’s, and I am Legend).

There are rumors going around for the casting information for the series regulars of Stargate Universe.  Some of the seem okay, but I fear the kind of character development that would revolve around such characters.

In interviews TPTB said they were looking to fill the void left behind by BSG.  I didn’t like BSG that much, so hopefully Universe is more like stargate than bsg.

Go to Gateworld for the full story.

So I watched “The House Bunny” a couple hours ago.  I liked it.  Some of the characters are painfully dorky/irritating (the President of the Zeta House, for instance).  But overall it was a good, funny movie.  I recommend it.  Fun fact: Real Playboy Bunnies were used in the movie.  Some that I noticed were Hiromi Oshima and Sarah Jean Underwood.  Both uber-hotties.  I actually have the issue with Hiromi in it, I got it because Denise Richards was in it… or was it Charisma Carpenter?  Hmm…  Anyway, Mrs. Oshima was a bonus.

You may have noticed I recommend damn near every movie I see, thats because I don’t watch shitty movies.  Just so you don’t think I lack discerning tastes.

You may have noticed the “Gate” in the title.  Yes, I have some Stargate news.  First, if you don’t know already, Atlantis will be canceled.  Thats right, Season Five will be the last.  However, TV movies/DVDs are planned and the first has already been greenlit.  Also, Stargate Universe will begin filming in February of 09 for a planned premiere that summer.  Thirdly, there is some photography on the new villains being introduced in the episode “First Contact” that airs Sept 29th.

You can find more information on all three of these at GateWorld.net.