A Doomed effort from the start
Okay I admit there's been an urge to blog steadily building in my system. This urge was causing all sorts of problems for me, making me do all sorts of irrational things like sleeping before 10 p.m. for two nights in a row! I knew I would have to eventually give in lest something bad happened...

Bad in this case can be definied as "Doom the movie," which I went to see last night with some friends. I got there slightly late and missed not only the previews but also the first 5 minutes of the film. Looking back now, I'm glad I did. I realise now that even if I had arrived 30 minutes late (the movie ran 104 minutes) I probably would have derived the same level of enjoyment out of the experience ie. the first-person shooter sequence created to make gamers go 'whoa.' For the sake of not spoiling it for others who don't know better and plan on viewing it sometime, I'll refrain from get into the details of the "plot." Without even getting into the specifics of Doom's weak example of script writing, there is an overall lacking which can be felt by anyone who has played any of the games which spawned the movie. I can understand that the transition from video game to the big screen is often a challenging one; this is likely especially true for a first-person action-driven series such as Doom.

For example, consider the plot of the original video game Doom for PC. You are a marine, one of the most hardened warriors on earth, who has been deported to Mars for assaulting a senior officer when ordered to kill unarmed civilians. You are forced to work for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a military-industrial conglomerate that is performing secret experiments with teleportation between the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Suddenly, something goes wrong and creatures from Hell come out of the teleportation gates overruning the bases with demons. Realising that you are the only one left alive you try to survive and in the process you have to fight and fight and fight and... you get the picture.

As fan of the series ever since the original games' release in 1993 however, I am largely disappointed in the poor showing of director Andrzej Bartkowiak ("Romeo Must Die," "Cradle 2 the Grave"). Now I know that movies often take artistic licenses with things like plots; even so, cutting out the entire Hell element of the plot is too much. It changes the nature of the quintessensial Doom marine, the hardcore Earth warrior fighting for survival against the minions of evil. Most importantly though, this takes out the bread and butter of the Doom series. Anyone entertaining other conceptions of the movie can dissuade themselves of such notions right now - there are no minions of Hell in the movie. And by that I don't mean that there are no partly invisible spectres; there are no flaming lost souls (the heads that are on fire), no large red cacademons (red ball with one eye), no fiendish revenants (skeleton with rocket launcher built on his shoulders) - not even the ubiquitous fireball-spiting brown imp. For me this was a big let down in a movie with the same name as the game. If the producers had felt that having "monsters of Hell" might have seen as too Satanic and objectionable, I'm sure there were other ways to incorporate creatures other than zombies (although a pinky from Doom III does make an appearance).

Of course it is more likely that studio executives were merely hoping to make a relatively cheap film that would top the box office during Halloween weekend, and in this regard the movie can probably be regarded as a success. *sigh* Sometimes practicalities of business are truly a pity.

Aside from that complaint of mine, everyone else in Doom was standard fare for a campy zombie-shooter. Surprisingly the Rock's character barely displayed any trace of the dry humour that made the actor a passable action figure in his other films. Playing the role of the stoic dutiful anti-hero, there were moments that his character seemed to scream for development before that was quashed with a robotic "I'm a solider, I do as I'm told" line. The closest that his character comes to a humourous moment is when he quips, "I'm not supposed to die" while fighting off a horde of zombies. A failure of the script or a failure of the actor?

If there is one thing that I can credit the movie with, its the lack of a typical romantic subplot. Instead the 'oddly beautiful scientist' (Rosamund Pike) is the sister of the hero character (Karl Urban), together share a tragic family past on the Mars base. Unfortunately although it dodged that bullet, every other B-movie action cliche is used in Doom.

Even racial cliches are apparent in the movie as one of my fellow Doom 'victims' pointed out yesterday. When one of the black marines goes down, its an incredible fight as the man fights the zombie creature despite being slammed into walls, electrocuted, and thrown into a pit. When the asian marine dies, he is not only one of the first to go, but he is taken by surprise and goes down without a sound.

There's a mildly philosophical interpretation which can be extrapolated to the movie which my (useless) artsie mind has come upon but it is probably going far beyond the intent of the script-writers so for the spoilers sake I'll refrain from delving into it.

All in all, if you plan to watch this film don't expect too much. If you have a high performance gaming computer at home or an X-Box, you're probably better off playing Doom III at home if you've not already done so. For more information about the 1990s phenomenon which iD Software unleashed upon the world, click here.

Ugh I can't believe I've blogged again...

A Birthday without Parsley!
I celebrated a friend's birthday earlier today. We went out for a pretty decent dinner at Commerce Gate at Asian Legends. The conversations was pretty light, although there was a pretty in-depth discourse on the manliness of a certain person (imagine with whiney voice - "why do people think that I think like a guy?"). The evening was also filled with stupidity courtesy of Kevin ("I'm a commodity." [not understanding why girls aren't all over him] You know, there's always your stalker in first year Kev...). And I still don't fully understand the metrosexual comments. I mean don't most guys like to take care of yourself? I mean there's looking like a GQ poster boy and there's being a slob; surely there's middle ground somewhere there. Other intersesting tidbits include Joanne thinking that a threesome requires two girls and Kevin's reaction everytime "Miranda" was mentioned (ha! we know you stalk her in secret). It was a small affair but there was plenty of silliness/laughter.

Incidentally there was also plenty of cake to go around as well. We (Joanne actually) had bought a cake - black forest type with real cherries! - and later we found out Bowen's mother did as well. Super greasy dinner + 2 cakes + the best chinese saigo dessert in the world (courtesy again of Bowen's mother) made 4 very full university students. There was so much cake left over that Joanne actually took some with her home! *gasp*

After dinner we returned to Bowen's house for the aforementioned desserts and PS2 gaming. And I'm glad that I'm not the only one who does not know the Chinese happy birthday song. From SNK vs. Capcom 2, we learned that Kevin is a very good cheap player, although Joanne's button mashing deserves some mention for the sake of ridiculing her. After that we popped in Katamari Damacy and all hell broke loose. That game must be one of the wackiest party games in the world. The premise is this - you are an extraterrestrial ball of glue and you have to roll over as many things as possible to get them to stick to you in order to become the biggest ball of glue! FUN! I modestly admit that I was undefeated in my garbage collecting ball rolling skills. ^_^

Afterwards that mayhem X-Men Legends was popped into the PS2, Warcraft III was started up and Naruto was shown on a 17" screen - all in all, pretty good times. So again, happy birthday Bo!

I'm Almost There and He's Almost Here
Well looks like the year is coming to an end. Officially, only 2 more weeks of school left. This translates into 2 tests and an essay for me. Mostly I've been studying this weekend although today I finally got back into some 'Polish Combat' again after slacking off for a month. Needless to say the Pole had not been too happy with me and life becomes an uncertainty when a guy who can bench 250 lbs isn't pleased with you. The pain in my muscles was offset by the relief from knowing that my life was becoming more secure with each arm curl.

It is pretty interesting how much the media is trying to make of the Bush visit to Canada tomorrow compared to the PMO's attempts to play it down. Politics at play, I say. I mean even the fact that Albertan beef is on the menu has been given political significance. I think the whole thing is significant but only because Bush has not visited Canada, its very close and significant trade partner, in all his years in office (I am not counting the 2 times he has come to Canada for international summits). The Martin government has said not to expect anything major stemming from this visit, insisting that time is very tight on this "working visit" - however I think it would be prudent to be aware of any surprises they may through. So far a timeline for the resumption of the beef trade and an announcement on the softwood lumber issues are the primary suspects but we shall see...

On a side note, I think the anti-Bush sentiment in Canada has gone way too far; some people need to calm down and think a little more realistically. I'm a big supporter of political action to express opinion to our leaders but threatening a media outlet with jail for supporting Bush? Then there's the Lawyers Against the War, who want Canada to deny Bush from entering the country because he's a war criminal? Well in the end its all good because the people have spoken and all, but not allowing him to visit Canada would constitute a much more radical policy that I do not believe Canada will ever take. The problem with such protests is that they are not grounded in reality, as spirited and passionate as they are. Canada-US relations are very important for both countries, arguably more for us, and disagreements over past and current American policy should not threaten this mutually beneficial relationship. Admittedly I have to say that a scenario in which Canada gradually broke off all ties with the US has played in my head several times this weekend with interesting fantasy results. There are too many unknowns but I think that would be a case of "that which does not kill you only makes you stronger".

And finally just so none of you are fooled by anything the news outlets will tell you, the Canadian Da Vinci Project to launch a civilian space flight is terrible. It is my firm belief that the only reason they were ever considered a front runner for the X-Prize (which has already been won by the mind-blowingly expensive SpaceShipOne team) was because of their team leader Brian Feeney's amazing ability to lie with a straight face; by making it all appear like they were close to launch, they managed to secure sponsor and media interest in their project. For this reason I find all this hubbub that their launch date has been postponed due to the holidays to be quite humourous. Well for Canadian pride's sake I only hope their balloon-lifted space contraption doesn't disappoint if/when they do launch.

Anyway time to leave. Tired=Very Yes.

And I Let Another Slip By
It is so incredibly hard I find to be even semi-productive on Fridays. I always repeat to myself that I have plenty to do and ergo it would be prudent of me to spend what remaining time I have wisely. The proverb 'easier said than done' comes to mind. And although my time wasting cannot nearly compare to the like of a certain Scrubs-obsessed person (who watches entire seasons in a single sitting), the results of my efforts today are only a half page of notes. *sigh* What can I say, at least they're typed?

In other news I have joined the ranks of people who have left their car with the headlights on in a parking lot. Unfortuantely I left it that way over a period of 3 days (the three days that I have classes each week) and when I returned to it today, the power locks weren't even working. Fortunately my dad keeps jumper cables in his trunk (as do I in my car) and I was able to find a kind soul to help me get the car started. The only reason this even happened in the first place is because I missed catching the GO bus at the Mount Joy station so I drove down to the Unionville station as fast as I could hoping to catch it there. While I succeeded I clearly overlooked some important things in my insane rush. Oddly, I did remember to lock the doors though.

On the topic of parked cars, I also paid a parking ticket week today. The problem was that it was last week's ticket and it had been 8 days since I was ticketed. It turns out they are not very strict on that 'voluntary fine payment' thing at all. This is where if you pay for the ticket within one week its a reduced fine than the amount that you are ticketed for. I had forgotten about the ticket until late last night so today I called Parking Tag Operations hoping for some leniency (I was told that I could expect it but I didn't quite believe it). Before I could even get to offer some lame on-the-spot excuse, the operator told me it was okay and transfered me to an automated system where I could pay the reduced fine with a credit card. Well... the ticket stills sucks but I guess I really can't complain.

Now that it's 6 in the morning I think the only thing I can say is that I never should have stayed up to watch X-Men...

One Early (weird) Morn
In theory I am more or less writing to myself here because aside from the random blog hoppers, no one I know reads JaGD anymore. I don't really blame them seeing as my last post was around half a year ago. Still somehow today I felt inspired. Strange I know, but here I am. *shrug*

So for the past few weeks, I have fairly busy, barely getting any sleep everyday. Having assigned work due every week really makes it hard/impossible to keep up with the weekly work. Somehow, the fact that I knew this years ago isn't helping me. Fortunately having my laptop this year has been helpful in that I am now able to do work almost anywhere with a power plug. Of course considering that I've fallen asleep on desks for more nights than I can remember now the computer might not be a good thing...

Fortunately, last night I was able to sleep on something soft as I stayed over at my friend Chris' house uptown. Unfortunately this meant that I had to catch a ride back downtown to get to school. Even more annoying was that Chris had to go buy aluminum sheets for his engineering design project before school, which meant that he had to get to some warehouse in Mississauga as soon as it opened at 8:30 AM. The downside of all of this is that it necessitated us to leave really early so I was woken up at 6:00 for a total of 3 hours of sleep. (at least it was 3 more hours than the night before)

After a quick (nonexistant) breakfast we were out the door by 7:00 and soon found ourselves amidst the usual morning highway traffic. I had twisted around in my seat for the first 10 minutes trying to find a semi-comfortable position that I could sleep in to no avail . I don't think I have ever felt worse in the morning. Of course I didn't know what to make of how Chris (Clown Extrodinaire!) felt in the morning; he had decided to wear his lab goggles while driving for some strange reason. He looked absolutely stupid but I didn't even have the energy to make any snide remarks. When you think you know a person...

Heading westbound on the 401 I think Chris (Driver Extrodinaire!) chose the slowest possible combination of the express and collectors lanes because every time he switched to the seemingly faster set of lanes, it became the slower one. Regardless we were making reasonably good time. Personally my greater concern was whether we would be able to find the place at all because our only guide was a little map that Chris (Cartographer Extrodinaire!) had scrawled on a small piece of paper after quick consultation with Yahoo!Maps. Because it hurt for me to open my eyes more than a slit, I was really glad that Chris was at least capable of the driving. Or so I thought.

At around 7:30, Chris suddenly asked if I was in any shape to drive. I told him dryly that I was not. Then he took the next exit and parked in at a gas station much to my puzzlement. Apparantly Chris was ALSO extremely tired getting barely any more sleep than I did the night before; I should have probably notice from the way he had to correct himself numerous times from drifting a little to one side on the highway. Bleh. I thought I could stay up late because I didn't have class until 11 but I think idiot is the only word I can use for Chris (Dummy Extrodinaire!). Since neither of us were in any shape to drive, and we had time since we were early, we rested in the car in the Shell Station parking lot (if you consider drifting in and out of consciousness resting on my part). As I tried to find sleep, I feverently hoped that no one would notice the parked car at the gas station with two unconscious teenagers in it...

At around 8:45 AM we were back on the road; albeit a little behind schedule but a less congested highway helped compensate for this. I do not really recall much of what happened because I continued be in a semi-asleep state but Chris somehow found his way to the warehouse and got his aluminum at around 9:30 AM. Having obtained all we came all the way to Mississauga for, we headed back downtown to U of T.

Nothing too eventful in school: lunch crew, testing my laptop with a projector for Raymond's presentation, charging the laptop between classes. By napping a bit in between classes I made it to the end of the day, although I lost it a couple times when facing the ever sleep-inducing Professor Thacker, who's primary profession is actually that of a lawyer.

On a side note, I think the Buttery is soon going to be my favourite hangout - I just found out they have wireless internet service there AND comfy plush couches. Hell yeah!