First, let me show you this ridiculous and hilarious animated gif of Mario going completely berserk ala "the Night Santa Went Crazy" by Weird Al. I got this from BrandonDeSanta in the Retro Video Games google+ group, though I don't know if he's the one who made it. You can just watch that and laugh for a while if you like. This is just one of the gems I encountered over the past month.
I consumed a lot of Sci Fi this month. The best of which was a movie called 'Predestination', based on a Robert Heinlein short story called 'All You Zombies.' I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I definitely recommend the movie. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed. I will be reading the short story... shortly. Beyond that, I watched two Keanu Reeves movies: Constantine and Johnny Mnemonic. Constantine is great, a very stylish and well-shot movie. I'm kind of a sucker for God vs Devil possession movies and action adventures. Johnny Mnemonic was kind of hokey and dated, but still lots of fun. Additionally, I read Neuromancer by William Gibson, which is sort of a sequel to Johnny Mnemonic. The common link is the character of Molly, who is awesome (and called 'Jane' in the film version for some indiscernable reason). I've got the book version of Johnny Mnemonic coming soon. Fun fact: Johnny sold his childhood for a measely 80 gigs of memory.
I read a couple other Sci Fi novels: Kindred, by Octavia Butler, a time travel story about Slavery. It was a harsh read, but well written. Also, Wind up Bird Chronicle, which wasn't straightforward sci fi, just very strange like most Murakami. But I really like Murakami for his strangeness.
In Gaming news, I beat Starseed Pilgrim. FINALLY. It was pretty cool. I was tempted to start over again from the beginning, but resisted. I really, really like that game. Next, I revisited Six Days a Sacrifice, of the Chzo Mythos by Yahtzee Creshaw, and managed to beat it quickly. I enjoyed that series, and the final game ties together a lot of thematic points and characters. It's not perfect, but I appreciate the effort. Playing that game has got me in the mind to play more point and click adventure games. We'll see what the future holds!
In other news, I'm looking forward to a move in February. The plan is to get my own apartment at a more convenient location. Should be fun!
-D
P.S. Another Funny animated gif, gotten from Google+ user Miss Electro Head
80GB's in 1995, is 1481% higher than a "very good" rated hard drive from 1995 (being ~540 MB), so by today's standards of 1.5-2 TB, that'd be about (??) 2222 TB or 2.22 PB's (Petabytes) or 1,532,565,517 3 1/2" floppy disks.
ReplyDeleteI'd actually like to read the book now and see the movie, because I don't usually mind Keanu Reeves. . . except in "Bram Stoker's Dracula." That was a weird casting choice in my opinion. But I really liked Constantine too. At least my (failed) Catholic upbringing comes in handy every now-and-then.
And nice job on Starseed Pilgrim. I got about 15 minutes in, became very confused and haven't worked up the gumption to give it another try.