As I write this, it is the 8th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.  On April 20, 1999, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold carried out the worst high school shooting in American history, killing 12 classmates and one teacher, and wounding 24 others before committing suicide.

Since the Columbine massacre, school systems around the county have worked to prevent futher school violence, but sadly Columbine was not the last of deadly school shootings thus far, as proven by the rampage at Virginia Tech last Monday.

I'm writing this blog post to show my respect for the lives lost both at Columbine and at Virginia Tech, and you can do the same by posting below.

While you're at it, be sure to check out this website: Rachel's Challenge
This site is dedicated to the Columbine victim Rachel Joy Scott, who was singled out on the day of the shooting for being Christian.  Christian or not, you should take a look at the site and learn more about Rachel and her message of peace.

The first two weeks of May are going to be freaking movie heaven for me.  First off, Spiderman 3 is coming out on May 4. The Spiderman movies are what I consider to be the greatest comic-to-movie adaptations...screw it...the greatest anything-to-anything adaptation ever.  I'll be at the midnight showing of that, gauranteed.

What just recently had me excited was the trailer of 28 Weeks Later, which I saw last Saturday when I went to see the craptastic film Pathfinder. (Sad when the previews are better than the movie.)  Anyway, 28 Days Later is one of my favorite horror movies, and now I get to see its sequel alongside what is likely to be my favorite movie of 2007.

GAAAAH, I can't wait.  You know I'm excited when I get on Gamespot and begin ranting about movies like a little girl.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch the 28WL trailer again.

SEXY.  (http://www.gamespot.com/features/6168148/index.html?tag=topslot;title;1&om_act=convert&om_clk=topslot)

That's all I have to say about that one.  I know a lot of Sony fans are going to be pissed beyond belief about this, but it's beautiful.  Makes not having one that much more painful for me.  (Especially since my best friend owned one for a brief time.)

Anyway, say what you will about it.  I'm off to System Wars...wouldn't want to miss out on that.

All right, here's the deal.  DMC4 went multiplatform a couple of weeks ago, and while I admit that initially I was indeed a bit dissapointed at seeing a previously Playstation-exclusive franchise, that I happen to love dearly, go over to the 360 and PC, my dissapointment did not at all match up to what the Sony fanboys had in store.

Apparently, the cows (gotta love that terminology) migrated over to the Capcom forums and put together a petition with some 75,000 signatures on it (ranging from "I have a big ****" to "This petition is retarded") stating that Capcom had better keep Devil May Cry 4 exclusive to Playstation or they will (wait for it) boycott all Capcom products.  Sense does not that make.

But the really funny part (I thought at least) was Capcom's response to it all.
Quote, a Capcom exec:
"we feel that allowing more people access to our content pleases far more people than it displeases (after all, we're not denying DMC4 to anyone that was already going to get it). It really is the best decision for the company and for consumers." He later locked the thread, stating that it had "run its course, gone off course, rolled down a cliff, hit a cow, and then exploded." "

Pure gold.  Gold I tell you.

Two weeks ago, my best friend and I drove to the local Air Force Base and purchased a premium Xbox360.  As you can gather from the previous post, it was a very good moment for us.
On the day after he bought it, he recieved the "red ring of light" on his 360, and the system notified him that it could not read the current disc.  This happened with all 3 games he's played: The Elder Scrolls IV, Perfect Dark Zero, and Gears of War.  The Elder Scrolls and PDZ were both brand new, and Gears was borrowed from a friend and in near mint condition.  (Gears of War works fine on said friend's 360.)
So, we took the 360 back to the BX that we purchased it from and exchanged it for a new one.

No more than a day later, the new 360 breaks also.  We can't play a single game for more than ten minutes without it giving us a disc-read error.

I've already checked around both on the Xbox360 forums and on the Xbox website, and so far I haven't found much useful advice besides "contact Microsoft and send in the console for repair", though I'm not sure how much that would cost.

If anyone has any suggestions for me, please let me know.  Honestly, I'm pretty annoyed right now.  There's no real excuse for the sheer volume of broken 360s that I've been hearing about both from friends and 360 owners around the net.
"Give us $400 and maybe your console will work!"  Not the best philosophy in my eyes.

Well, I've done it:  I've now played both the 360 and the PS3.  Last weekend, my best friend saved up enough the premium system, along with The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Gears of War. (We also got Perfect Dark Zero free with the system.)

It was great that the system came with component calbes; we hooked it up to my HDTV and surround sound, and my excitement was arguably greater than when I was hooking up the PS3. (maybe not.  I was pretty damn excited for the PS3.)
Here's my impression of the games that we played for 360 so far:

 
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:  I won't lie, Oblivion is an impressive game, but to be honest it's my least favorite so far.  This is probably because I usually dislike RPGs, but that's not to say that I don't like anything about it.  I do admire a lot of elements, particularly the amazing amount of depth in the character creation and custimization.  I'm a sucker for that stuff.  It's an enormous game with enormous environments, and the graphics are downright purdy.

Perfect Dark Zero:  Awesome, awesome, awesome.  At first, I was a bit put off by the cartoony artstyle for an M rated game, as well as the lame opening level (who wants to shoot little bugs in a next-gen FPS?).  However, I kept playing, and the game grew on me very quickly.  The weapons that I've used so far have a great sense of uniqueness and kick to them, and the sense of style in the game rocks.  Just watching Joanna Dark put a silencer on a pistol has me giddy.

Gears of War:  This is the game that everyone's judging the 360 by, and it doesn't dissapoint.  The gameplay is intense and surprisingly original, even though it borrows elements from past shooters (and does them about 10x better.).  I love the graphics, it has a perfectly fitting, gritty, almost horror-themed style.  The meat of the game is the shooting, and luckily firefights are intense and are even designed to be slightly different each time you play.  Chainsawing a locust in half is the best melee since the feral punch from Far Cry.  Overall, it's an exteremely impressive game.  There were a few annoying elements to the gameplay (I have to revive my teammates every five seconds but they can't revive me?) and I was annoyed by the blatant lack of story, but besides that it's great.

So, overall I love the 360.  I still remember back in E3 '04 when I was sure that I'd die before I bought one, and now I'm truly jealous.  I want one.
I wanted to avoid this topic, but it seems pretty inevitable when sizing up the system.  How does it compare to the PS3?  At the moment, my inner fanboy wants to talk about how much more powerful the PS3 is, but to be honest I've had more fun with the 360 so far (with Resistance being the exception), and I don't see a significant difference in graphics.  Having said that, I'm sure the PS3 will start truly offering the thrills later this year (just like the 360 did).  Regardless, I'm just glad that now I can experience the best of both systems.

After many months, and many, many RIDGE RACER! jokes, the Playstation 3 is finally where it belongs: cemented firmly in my gameroom.

Believe it or not, I actually got this one (as well as the games) at sale price.  It's quite a story too.  My parents are in the Air Force, and recently the BX at our base got a shipment of (wait for it) 4 whole PS3s. (Just FOUR.)  Anyways, due to the demand for them, the base did what I believe to be the smart thing and had a drawing.  Now, keep in mind, this was not a drawing to OWN a PS3, it was a drawing to have the chance to buy one.  As it turns out, my parents put their name in the drawing box a few billion times by the time it was over.  Regardless, I was shocked when I found out that they had won.  Even more so when they won the second time.  I believe they let someone else buy the second PS3, but only after I made sure that the first was safe within my kung-fu grip.

I've yapped enough, here are some very terrible pictures of Sony's newest console. (And games, everyone loves games.)

Here it is, sitting in all of its black, glossy, very dusty glory.  My PS2 and Xbox are currently in a heap on the floor.

Teh top view.  Black glossy things are frigging dust magnets.

My 3 games, two of which were Christmas presents, and the Blu-Ray movie Telledega Nights (I don't entirely care if I spelled it right.) which came with the PS3.

The start-up screen, showing the sweet Resistance background.

A big giant mechanized spider-type thing.

And now I'm fighting it.  Looks a lot like Lost Planet.

BFG

Random chaos

My kitty cat.

There you have it.  I'm still in shock that I actually got one, and I didn't even have to pay a ridiculous price on Ebay.  To tell the truth, I had almost given up hope of getting one at all.  A few more weeks, and I would have bought an Xbox 360.  Funny how things turn out.

I do not have a Playstation 3.

:cry:

That is all.

That California-based quartet known for using elements of rock, hip-hop, funk and pop in their music, (yes, I speak of The Red Hot Chili Peppers) have recently released Stadium Arcadium, their latest and greatest (and I put my emphasis on greatest) album to date.  Though many of the Peppers’ songs have received critical acclaim in the past, their previous albums haven’t always appealed to as wide of an audience as possible.  However, it pleases me to announce that Stadium Arcadium is finally the Red Hot Chili Peppers album that everyone can enjoy.  Stadium is actually a 2-disc double-album that contains 28 songs, with 14 songs on each disc…at the price of a regular-sized CD.  And no, there are no “cop-out” tracks, such as a 20-second musical in between songs.  By the time you’re done listening to the entire collection of songs on each CD, prepare to have the chorus of each track stuck in your head.  This is a difficult feat for any album to accomplish, which is why I am amazed at the Peppers’ ability to pull it off with such an enormous collection of songs.  All of the familiar staples of the Red Hot Chili Peppers are here, from Flea’s infectious bass solos to Anthony Kiedis’s funky rapping.  Each song manages to maintain the recognizable sound of the Chili Peppers without becoming repetitive, and Kiedis’s unique vocal style, in addition to the numerous guitar solos throughout, combine to offer an extremely distinguished, memorable and satisfying sound.

The first disc (“Jupiter”) starts off red hot with the single “Dani California”, in which the Peppers pay their tribute to various musical styles of the past and present, and keeps things going with catchy tracks such as “Snow” and “She’s Only 18”.  Some portions of the first disc echo some of the Peppers past songs (in a good way) such as By The Way(2002) and Otherside(1999).  I found the title song, Stadium Arcadium, to be somewhat reminiscent of the Peppers’ most well-known song to date, Californication(1999).  If you haven’t noticed, these songs are among the Peppers’ best ever, so it’s a pretty good thing that Stadium Arcadium reminds me of them.  The second disc (Mars), is noticeably slower than the first, but no less entertaining.  In fact, it contains some of the most exciting songs on the whole album, such as Tell me baby, 21st Century, and Storm in a Teacup.  By the time you’re halfway through the second disc of Stadium Arcadium, you may find yourself asking “How many songs are there?”.

If I had to complain about anything regarding Stadium Arcadium, it would be that the songs are much slower and more mellow than what a Chili Peppers fan is used to.  The only real fast-paced songs on the album take place within the first couple of tracks on either disc, and then it’s peaceful sailing from there on.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have a few more songs to appease the headbangers in the audience.  The album definitely doesn’t sound remotely like a stadium…or an arcade.  Also, it’s common for song lyrics to be a bit on the esoteric side these days, but the Chili Peppers take it to the extreme in Stadium Arcadium. 

Here, let me demonstrate some lyrics: 

Smoke surrounds your perfect face

And I’m falling

Pushing a broom out into space

And this is where I find a way.

The Stadium Arcadium,

A mirror to the moon

I’m forming

And I’m warming

State of the art

Until the clouds come crashing.

 

Please don’t ask me what that means, because I have no idea.

 

Despite these few complaints, I still recommend Stadium Arcadium.  Even if you’re not a Red Hot Chili Peppers, you shouldn’t miss out on the sound that they’ve created with their latest album.  Besides, with 28 tracks, something has to appeal to you.  And if nothing does, then maybe music just isn’t for you.

 

8.5 out of 10

GREAT

PROS AND CONS

SNOW

+ 28 songs on 2 discs

+ Musical style is very catchy, even on the slow songs

+ There’s a lot to be appreciated about the guitar rifts and vocal style

 

SNOOZE

- Songs are slower than you might expect

- Lyrics don’t make an enormous amount of sense

- Listening to all 28 tracks might get tiring after a while

 

It appears that the good old Level 16-17 glitch has occurred; I've made a jump from Level 15 to 17.
Hooray for Gamespot glitches!  Now if they'd give me my damn Good Taste emblem back...