Missed the Lunar Eclipse!!

I don't know about you, but I love when cool astronomical things happen. They're generally rare occurrences as well. For those of you who don't know, there was a total lunar eclipse Wednesday night of last week, and I missed it! I was all set to watch it too. I can't believe I managed to miss it though. I looked up the time and I thought it was going to start a little after Midnight. This was reasonable to believe, since most lunar eclipses stretch out into the wee hours of the mourning, but it turned out that the eclipse was much earlier, like 9:00 pm early! Now the next total lunar eclipse isn't until 2010. >_______>

Flash Flash Revolution ~ Emerald Hill (Metaljonus Mix) FC

This is me playing FFR Emerald Hill (Metaljonus Mix). It's a remix of the classic tune from Sonic 2. I love this song, and I happened to full combo it for you guys. There is a AAA of this on youtube already, but I just like this song and FFR and I want to share them with you!

Check it out! http://www.flashflashrevolution.com

it's in the arcade section on the 2nd page

Dragonball live action movie?

There have been talks and rumors about a live-action Hollywood produced Dragonball film over the past decade or so. Unbeknownst to me until recently, the film is nearly completed and is slated to release in August of this year. Along with the Wachowski Brothers’ adaptation of Speed Racer, which is due out this May, Dragonball will find itself somewhat a part of history as being one of the first animes/mangas to be adapted and produced with a Hollywood, big-budget effort. Some may say that Transformers belongs in this category, but I don’t fully agree. While Transformers was originally based off a Japanese toy line, the first cartoon series was American made, and I would say, the toys, as well as the show are as much a part of American pop culture as they are in Japanese pop culture. No doubt Speed Racer and Dragonball will mark the first major releases of adaptations of anime/manga smack dab in the middle of the American mainstream.

Even though Transformers isn’t necessarily the same animal as a Dragonball or Speed Racer, it is close enough that I am willing to compare them to each other. Like Transformers before them, I expect that both Dragonball and Speed Racer will enjoy a moderate degree of box office success. Not just because of all the fanboys and otakus who will undoubtedly line the rows of theater seats, but because of the general appeal the two films will bring with them (eg Dragonball, with its superhero-esque themes will certainly draw a good sum of moviegoers). Also like Transformers, both films will incorporate brilliant production values and special effects; in fact, Speed Racer was filmed entirely in front of green screen. Also, John Gaeta, who won an academy award for his visual effects work on The Matrix was brought in to help with the Speed Racer adaptation. As for Dragonball, 87Eleven, the stunt performance studio that worked on The Matrix and 300 was contracted for the film, as well as Ariel Shaw (Final Destination Series, 300), who will work as visual effects supervisor.

My preemptive opinion about these two films, especially Dragonball, is that they will totally suck out loud. Dragonball will receive the superhero movie treatment and rely heavily on special effects at the cost of writing, story, acting, everything else. I am saying this not as a fan of the Dragonball anime/manga, which I am, but as a person who has viewed all those crappy superhero movies. Quick, name a good recent superhero movie besides the first two Spidermans and Batman Begins. Any intelligent person probably isn’t able to come up with one. I say intelligent because of the embarrassing amount of people who seem to think that the Fantastic Four movies are good. As for Speed Racer, it might turn out well because it’s the Wachoski Brothers, but the trailer has done nothing suggest that it won’t suck.

Transformers also suffered from this treatment. Believe me, I wanted this movie to be good. When I saw the trailer, I thought it was going to be awesome, but it was ultimately a huge disappointment. Michael Bay couldn’t pull enough special effects out of his ass to save this movie from being a complete waste of time for me.

I don’t know about you, but I just don’t see a film with a story inspired and influenced off of Chinese culture and Buddhism, originally written in a Japanese context, adapted to an American Hollywood feature will turn out to work. Regardless, I will probably go out and see Dragonball in the theaters. I am already beginning to regret it now.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how the two films fare at the box office, paving the way for more anime/manga based movies to come about. Currently, two confirmed anime/manga based movies are in the works. One, based off of the brilliant 1988 anime, Akira, and another based off of the Evangelion series. No news as to when these films will be released.

For those who are wondering, the Dragonball movie will follow the story of the last saga in the series, the King Piccolo saga. Where Goku (Justin Chatwin, War of the Worlds) tries to gather the magical dragonballs before the evil Piccolo (James Marsters, Smallville) does. The film will be directed by James Wong (Final Destination).

For more information on both movies head over to these links.

http://imdb.com/title/tt1098327/

http://imdb.com/title/tt0811080/

Princess Mononoke - Eminence Orchestra - ANIF06

Since I mentioned this movie to one of my friends yesterday, I wanted to post this by the Eminence Orchestra, "Journey to the West." One of the principle pieces of music from the movie. Fantastic!

What I did over my winter break...

In an inevitably futile attempt to circumvent answering the hundreds of inquiries from friends or otherwise random people walking down the sidewalk, I am going post here what I did with my three and half weeks of break. For those wanting the short answer and the one I usually give to people when they ask, “How was your break? What did you do?” It is a recurring, “It was good. Wish it was longer. I didn’t do much.” For the full answer of what I did over break, here it is.

“I didn’t do much” by many people’s standards, in that I didn’t go on a vacation or visit any distant relatives, I didn’t even leave my house all that much. Perhaps after I have laid out my entire break to excruciating detail that you might not think “I didn’t do much.”

Before I could even truly get into the full swing that was to be my break, I receive a call from my best friend, Chad, who implores me to come back to Iowa City to pick him up because his car is literally frozen to the ground. Being the kind, good friend that I am, and for lack of anything better to do, I drove back to Iowa City to pick him up, along with some items I had forgotten. (one of them happened to be my driver’s license. ^^; )

For the first few days before Christmas, I spent most of my time sleeping, briefly interrupting this rebooting time by playing video games. Standard affair and should come of no surprise.

On Christmas Eve, my brother’s girlfriend showed up to spend Christmas with us as my parents secretly dreaded every moment she was within five feet of them.

My Christmas gifts this year were more low-end than any other year. A product of getting older, and knowing every single item I was going to unwrap beforehand. Needless to say, there were no major surprises this year as there usually is. Along with the standard Christmas swag of giftcards and greenbacks, I received the following: Two new DS games, Picross DS and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, a Wii Classic controller, a Wii LAN adaptor, my own copies of the movies Kiki’s Delivery Service, Akira, and Whisper of the Heart, (<< I’m betting you don’t know what these are, shame!) a Cowboy Bebop wall scroll, and the Nintendo edition of Monopoly. I am strongly considering not opening the Monopoly, because I know it will probably be played once, maybe twice if its lucky, and it is a collector’s item after all.

Two days after Christmas I spent some of my Christmas revenue on Elite Beat Agents! for the DS, and spent the bulk of the next week playing it and my other newly acquired DS games.

I went to two Basketball games over break. The first being Iowa’s Big Ten opening loss to Indiana. The other one being Iowa’s first win in the Big Ten, which was against Michigan State. I also attended the historic meeting between the most storied wrestling programs in the nation, the dual against Oklahoma State, which we unexpectedly lost.

On more than one occasion I hung out with friends, and one day we spent at our favorite and by favorite I mean only LAN gaming café, Extreme PvP, where we played DoTA and Ravenshield for a cool $12.50.

I beat a total of six games over break: Elite Beat Agents! (DS), Phantom Hourglass (DS), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), Portal (PC), Super Metroid (SNES), Paper Mario (N64).

I installed Leopard onto my laptop. I completed another video (My Top 5 Most Anticipated Games of ’08), which is currently drifting among the YouTube community along with my others, and started on several other video projects.

That was my break. I think this is sufficient enough that people shouldn’t be asking me about it. So how was yours?

My Top 5 Most Anticipated Games of '08

I've seen so many of these "Year in Review" features on every single TV show, and web site to the point of making me sick. 2007 might have been one of the best years in the industry, but I don’t like to linger in the past. So I'm looking ahead to ’08 which looks to be a killer year for gamers, and barring inevitable delays that will make this list null in void, I'm going to attempt to give you my top five most anticipated games of 2008.


5. Soul Calibur IV (Multi)

Perhaps the most polished fighting series in the business. The SC series has built a reputation on awesome visuals, innovative gameplay, unique characters, and big boobies. This fourth installment looks to be all that and more. Namco has promised to fix some of the nagging issues from the third game, such as the balance, or lack there of, as well as provide more open environments as opposed to the cramped, ring-out-happy arenas from three. Of course, new characters will join the strong cast of veterans. And with online play, what fan can afford to miss it?

4. LittleBigPlanet (PS3)

One of the big three PS3 exclusives billed with the task of returning Sony to the top of console war, LittleBigPlanet looks to be truly genre-breaking, and one of the most unique gaming experiences ever. It will have players platforming like never before. Featuring a fantastic physics engine, players will be running, jumping and solving puzzles either alone or with three friends. The game’s main draw is that its community aspect, where players will have total freedom to create their own levels with mounds of content and share them with the world that appears like it will make Halo’s Forge look like an afterthought.

3. Starcraft II (PC)

After 10 years of torment suffered since the last Starcraft game was released in 1998, and after Blizzard is done counting their money they horded from that other ‘craft’ series, gamers will finally return to the Starcraft universe. Okay, so Blizzard hasn’t come out with an official release timetable yet, but this year has been the projected release year thus far. Let’s try to forget about past disappointments and be optimistic. New units, buildings, and abilities will further distinguish the franchise’s three unique races in this long awaited sequel to one of the best Real-Time Strategy games ever.

2. Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii)

Oh yeah, you knew this was going to be on the list, the sequel to the best selling Gamecube title, Brawl is finally arriving February 10th. Third party characters Sonic, and Solid Snake join the famous mascot ranks of Nintendo to duke it out on more stages and modes than the acclaimed Cube title, including online. While the online versus match will be slim on features, Nintendo has promised to make up for it, with an all new single player mode, a stage creation tool, character-specific “final smashes,” fully customizable controls, and more Nintendo nostalgia than you can shake a stick at.

What could possibly be number one?

1. Spore (PC)

The latest project out of the mind of Sims creator, Will Wright, Spore is going to be an experience no one should miss. It will have players start as a single celled organism into a planet dominating, UFO flying, galaxy conquering super creature. It will combine elements of from games like Pac-Man, Civilization, SimCity, and Animal Crossing. The best part is, you, the player get to create everything in the game to the last detail from how many eyes your creature has, to how tall your buildings will be with a click of the mouse. I can’t wait for this game, and be sure to be on the look out for it this year as my top most anticipated game of 2008.

Incidently, this list has titles on it that include two fighting games and two PC games, worlds I rarely delve much into. Now, without further introductory wordage is the list.

MIDI Animation

Wow, this guy redid various mario themes and it sounds and looks amazing!

He has more that are equally astounding, including final fantasy, chrono trigger, kirby and more. Check them out!