I made mention in my last video blog that I'd be performing in the med school talent show. My friends and I performed 3 songs in total to a pretty warm reception. The first video is a medley of CCR/Marvin Gaye's I Heard it Through the Grapevine and The Cure's Love Song. The second video is an original song written by the bass player called The Beta Cell Blues. It's about type II diabetes and is probably a lot funnier if you're a med student or know a lot about diabetes. I'm on the left side of the stage and play lead guitar. Enjoy.

[video=diFnl2H_5b0NvjHZ]

[video=IScywmD-5b0Nvj7e]

`Nick

Voila.

[video=dXAwnzv65b0NuzTX]

[video=KnA3wWP95b0NuzXf]

Hello my friends. Things at school have been hectic, preventing me from doing any real blogging. Fortunately, I finished my most recent set of exams and now have a moderate amount of free time for the next week. I started it off by sleeping for 12 hours (Fun Fact #1: The only activity that will consistently and significantly increase duration of sleep is a prior lack of sleep) and downloading Still Alive for Rock Band. I played through it once and, while it is extremely easy, it's a lot of fun. I've always found the song hilarious and I think it's great that Valve treats their customers so well.

No other real news to report. I'll probably do a new video blog pretty soon, but I'm not sure when. Also, I may be playing a few songs (guitar) in the med school talent show in a week and a half so I need to get practicing for that. And before I go, this one is dedicated to MsCortana:

Fun Fact #2: The earliest written reference to the phenomenon of medical immunity can be traced back to 430 BC in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. He noted that only those who had recovered fom the plague could treat those infected with it.

`Nick

Great game or greatest game?

There Will Be Blood is a challenging movie. It will shove you to the ground and rub dirt in your face and have no qualms about doing so. Rather than tiptoe around it, the movie embraces the ambiguous morality of its characters and provides no clear answers. The case is presented and the judgment is left to the viewer. As such, there is something utterly rewarding lying beneath the surface of it all, but you'll have to dig deep to get at it.

The movie spends most of its time detailing Daniel Plainview's (Daniel Day-Lewis) efforts to establish a prominent oil field near a small town in southern California. Despite the lack of diversity in locales, this movie is epic. The journey of Plainview from small-time silver miner to alcoholic oil tycoon clocks in at a lengthy two hours and forty minutes, with nary a moment for respite. The story winds it's way through thirty years of technological and social changes and forces the viewer to examine the virtues of religion and capitalism in a country growing at an unprecedented rate.

The local pastor, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), is a man who claims he speaks for the Lord and demands a share of the oil profits for his church. This breeds constant conflict between him and Plainview and makes for some of the most intense scenes in the film. Chances are you've heard the buzz and will watch this movie to see Day-Lewis in his earth-shattering turn as a power-hungry entrepreneur, and you will not be disappointed. The way he and Dano play off each other is a prime example of what drama should look like on the big screen. The lack of an Oscar nomination, much less win, for Dano as best supporting actor is utterly mind-boggling, but does nothing to detract from his stellar performance. The scenes between the two men are only matched by those echoing the venturistic relationship between Plainview and his son. It is impossible to avoid being swept up in the emotional narrative they weave.

The gusto with which the actors perform is brilliantly matched by the impressive cinematography and amazing score. The soundtrack manages to create a foreboding tension using a minimal amount of instrumentation, driving the movie at a steady pace. It perfectly complements the visuals, rather than overtaking them; don't be surprised if you become engrossed in scenes that should be monotonous. I often found myself preparing for the worst as the music bore down on my subconscious, only to find my own mind had misled me. The score has that kind of power.

In the end, this film will haunt you; it may take weeks, even months to digest. You will not spend your time wondering who was right and who was wrong, or what drove these men to the brink. Instead, you'll find yourself wondering why this side of humanity is so dominant, so prevalent in everyday life. Chances are you'll feel exhausted after watching this movie and you may never want to see it again. Depending on who you are, that may be a good thing. The one thing that holds There Will Be Blood back is the same thing that makes it truly stand out; it is an unforgiving film. Rather than try to enjoy it, just try to absorb it. There is an awful lot to take in.

3 / 4

I know this has been done to death, but what is going on GS? I thought after the whole Gerstmann debacle things would get better. If you read NeoJedi's blog yesterday or Joe Dodson's review of Army of Two, you know what I'm talking about. As if that wasn't bad enough, I log onto GS today and see the abysmal scores for Turning Point: FoL.

The score itself does not upset me as I haven't played the game, but the timing is extremely suspect. I understand that GS is now short-staffed and are notorious for taking a long time to hire new people, but is that really the reason the review went up so late? This game has been out long enough for thousands of people to buy it, without a review score from GS to help with the decision. I would think nothing of it, but during the whole Gerstmann incident there were insider reports detailing GS's review policies. According to those accounts, GS sometimes delayed the release of a review if the game received low scores. This practice is shady at best and clearly not favorable to the consumer. Is this what happened with Turning Point? I don't know. I do know that the site was plastered in ads for the game just a short while ago.

The bottom line here is that GS didn't get information to the readers in a timely fashion. Maybe they couldn't get a retail copy of the game early enough, maybe they were understaffed, maybe they wanted more time to test the online play, or maybe they purposely withheld the score as a favor to the publishers. If the worst case scenario is also the truth, then GS reviews have lost the last of my respect. Unfortunately for GS, any one of the remaining scenarios paints the site as an inefficient machine that can't get the job done.

Thank God for the community.

`Nick

EDIT: I know this blog seems kind of scathing, but it is not a reflection of my opinion of the entire site or the staff. There are still some excellent writers here and I love the site, it's just that the reviews section has become a joke. Gamespot used to be the only place I'd come to find out how good a game is. If GS gave a game an 8+, I wanted it. Not because I'm some mindless slug, but because I like that GS is harsh and I like that they don't shy away from criticizing great games. Now I feel like the whole system is falling apart; I can't even get a timely review on a relatively high-profile game. As I said above, I know the site is understaffed, but that is their problem, not mine. I make them money by coming to this site and they supply me with information. It's a fair trade and I used to feel like I was coming out way ahead because of all of the great coverage GS was supplying. In fact, I still feel that way, just not when it comes to reviews.

I'm not advocating anyone jump ship, because the site will eventually right itself (I hope). Instead, I just wrote this blog to vent my frustration at losing faith in my gaming mecca. In a glass-half-full sort of way, I'm really just providing valuable feedback to the manufacturer. Don't forget that the mods and staff actually read what we write. Here's to getting things back on track. *toast*

If you're like me and bought a now-defunct HD-DVD player, you probably spend half your day scanning the internet for great deals on HD-DVDs. If you're smarter than me and didn't buy one, I have nothing further to say to you.:evil:

For all of us who make poor decisions, today is a good day. Amazon has the HD-DVD Bourne Trilogy on sale for $30 shipped. Even if you have one of the movies already, this is a killer deal. You can't even beat this deal by buying used copies on eBay (I've tried).

Also Discovery Store has the HD-DVD American version of Planet Earth on sale for $30 shipped. Use code EMAIL07 or EML2008 for $5 off and a final price of $25 shipped.

These deals can all be found on Slickdeals.net, but I just wanted to give a quick heads up to my fellow gamers with 360 HD-DVD add-ons. Peace.

`Nick

[video=cSBnxDLw5bwEvTTe]

[video=cXA1lzr_5bwEvTTb]

`Nick

It's about time. Bring on the clearance sales!

`Nick

Please excuse the length.

[video=JHIwxDP75bwLvz_Y]

[video=I3Zmnzr45bwLvz_Z]