I came upon The Force Unleashed, what will be a new Star Wars game a la Jedi Knights series. Damn, it looks amazing! Note the effects on environment, and the AI responses (a stormtrooper grasping for his weapon, clinging to a pipe, etc.). There's no release date for it yet. It will be set a few years after Episode III, the idea being that Vader has a secret apprentice (approved and supported by Lucas, oddly enough). If you get wow'd by technical stuff, check out the trailer for the two engines that they're using, one for environment manipulation and realism (Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) engine) and the other for governing how the AIs move and respond (euphoria engine). Info on them and how they work in The Force Unleashed can be read here.Something I spotted on George R.R. Martin's blog: 8 things most people don't know/wouldn't suspect about me. I thought it was kind of cool, so let's give it a shot:
1) My favourite movie is The Secret Garden (1993 version with Maggie Smith). I can only defend myself by saying it's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen.
2) I still maintain a healthy paranoia about something that I'd written (270 or so printed pages) that went missing in the summer of '98... and was followed-up two months later by letter and phone call from a literary agent in Atlanta, Georgia. Those pages are still out there, somewhere. I only worry that I'm going to see that hunk of shit on a shelf somewhere. Thankfully it was shit, so that's not likely.
3) I have to drink a lot of water. I had a dehydration/heat-exhaustion incident in Phase II (army training), and since then I've had to be careful, hydration-wise, when out in hot and humid weather.
4) I want two big, extraordinarily-intelligent mastiffs and I want to name them Odin and Freyja. I have no clue why. I got it into my head one day a few years ago, and for some reason I can't get rid of the idea.
5) I've downloaded a lot of really cheesy songs such as "My Sharona", "Mad World" and "Head Over Heals" because they remind me of KTV events in Tangshan. I'm still searching for a song by Cai Yi Lin (Jolin Tsai) because it's stuck in my head. I even went so far as to send feedback to Apple/iTunes...
6) I love grocery shopping. I hate paying for groceries, however. It always seems exorbitant.
7) I have a hard time finishing anything. Hell, sometimes I have a hard time starting. The idea of succeeding frightens me, for some [very] odd reason.
8) Up until a few years ago, I'd played and beaten every Final Fantasy game released in North America - on Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo Gameboy, and the PC. Lost track of the games that have only been released on PlayStation since I don't have one of those. Thanks to a Japanese friend of mine in grade 4, I'd even beaten Final Fantasy Adventure II in Japanese (then beat FFA II in English when it came out a year+ later). Thanks, Fumio!
Those are my 8. What are yours?
12 comments:
1) I have an ego the size of a Mac Truck. I just try to keep it in check. Sometimes it works.
2) For quite a while, my favorite song was "You Gotta Be" by Desiree. Now it just tends to be anything that starts out slow and builds.
3) I hate bullies. Not that I was bullied in school more than the average person, but bullies in general make my blood boil. To the point where I'd hang them upside-down by their toenails and claim self-defense.
4) I'm extremely competitive. It used to be to the point where I'd lose sleep as I lay awake at nights thinking about what could have gone better.
5) I used to have huge trouble sleeping. The average time it would take me to go to sleep and stay there was measured in hours. Couldn't turn off my brain.
6) I find the thought of owning a bungalo style house and sleeping on the ground floor unnerving.
7) In the summer, my favorite guilty pleasures are Peanut Buster Parfaits and vanilla ice cream sandwiches.
8) I can feel good exercising, go too hard, and want to die when I stop. It feels OK at the time, but people tell me that's not entirely normal.
Andy
Uhmmmmmmm.... There is a reason why people don't know my dark secrets.... That is, people who are still alive.
I will have to ponder: revelations that feel like revelations without revealing too much.. uhm....
Nice, Andy!
PG, I had the same problem. I'm like "hmmm... people don't want to know about that..." Just go for quasi-innocent stuff. Stuff that people can't use as black-mail.
9) And one time, at band camp...
OK, I will bite. I have several groups of friends: childhood friends, college friends, military buddies, and gaming friends. Each of these groups has been exposed to completely different personas of mine, so what would surprise one would not make the other blink. I will try to pick some stuff that most of them wouldn't know, while staying away from the darker recesses of my memory.
I still don't like posting that kind of stuff in a Blog... In any case, it seems there is only Andy and I reading this site anymore... Friggin' lurkers, hey Pat?
Here is the purged version:
1) I had cosmetic surgery when I was 14. Guess what work they did on me... My uncle was part of the surgery team, and I was kept awake, which was pretty cool. Note to others: ALWAYS have pain meds on hand BEFORE in-surgery meds wear off...
2) I wrote death metal lyrics (about 4-5 songs I think) for a friend's band at age 16. When the cops busted my buddy's place for an, ahem! undisclosed reason, they searched his entire house. When they stumbled upon the lyrics, they told him he was certifiable - completely loco. Kuddos to him, he didn't point out I was the author.
3) I almost died at 2 years old - fell off my bed, stopped breathing and went blue. My dad saved me.
4) At 7 years old I became the champion of the oppressed. I stood up to an older bully picking on a 1st grader who was a friend of mine. I paid for it for the next 3 years - in the bus and in the school yard. I developed a fear of running on pavement from the number of times I got tripped or had my head shoved on the ground. Never learned my lesson - but I got bigger. Did the same in grade 9, but this time I could hold my own. By Grade 10 people knew not to fuck with me.
5) I froze one of my feet at age 16 doing wild camping in the middle of winter. My buddy and I had to hike for two hours back to "civilization" in the middle of the night so I wouldn't get severe frostbite. Since then, my feet can't handle the cold so well.
6) My sister and I bought our first computer with our own money at about age 9 & 11. It was a TRS-80 16 KB Extended (aka Color Computer 2, or COCO 2). That's when I began thinking to become a programmer. In high school, I got used to go to bed at the sound of Centipedes and other TRS-80 games - my mom was a real game addict and couldn't pry herself from the computer, which was in my bedroom. Runs in the family.
7) I got an earring at age 12 (back in the mid-80s when most guys back home didn't have one). My dad pierced my ear. My earring got ripped out of my ear about two years later in a scuffle with my sister, hence the scar on my left ear lobe.
8) I did acrobatic rock and roll in high school.
PG
I'm just excited George RR Martin has a blog! Going to check it out right now!
And will do the whole 8 things later. But was glad to know a couple of yours (and how silly that we never went grocery shopping together in Kingston- I love grocery shopping too- it's just so exciting!)
You two were room mates and NEVER went grocery shopping {together}?
{FLASHBACK}
Oh! Yeah! Pizaa Boxes Tower of Terror.... I remember now.
We never went grocery shopping together? I'm sure we did, callmescipio. We had to have. Go go 24-hour A... crap, what was it called? Not IGA. A-something-something. Ack... I can see the damn sign.
lol I'd forgotten about the pizza box tower(s). Good times.
A&P
YES! Thank you.
Not proper shopping, I'm sure of it. I always have memories of taking the bus up to Loblaws with my backpack to stuff things into it. I'm sure we hit up the corner store, or the A&P for things we missed at some point or another. Or maybe Tara's for tasy samosas and things?
And for the record, Pascal, I maintained a balanced diet. Almost no pizza boxes were mine. :) (I have a really good photo of us with the tower somewhere...)
Again, lies! We had Survivor pizza nights. :P
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