Long Day Done

I swear, the whole day today was just a blend of enjoyment and disappointment. But since the day was too long, and I'm too tired and lazy already, I'll just enumerate all the things that's happened earlier.

1. It's pay day, and a "third pay for the month" to boot. So I went to the bank to get me some cash and see if my money is growing. It is, and I'm happy.
2. Then I went to see Indy Jones IV. It was okay but, compared to other Indy Jones movies, I'm disappointed.
3. Went to Applebee's after the movie. Then glutted on Steak & Riblets with double order of Onion Rings on the side. I was full and happy again.
4. After eating, I stopped by at Best Buy to get either a PS3 or a Blu-Ray player. But I kept running back and forth between the PS3 and Blu-Ray Player aisles. Ended up with nothing, and left the store unsatisfied.
5. When I got home, I found my comics (Secret Invasion #2 and Uncanny X-Men #498) in the mailbox.

The day concluded in the colorful pages of comic books.

So, yeah, there you go. It was a long day, literally speaking. In a mixed bag of nuts kind of day too. But I did spend my day off real well.

Book Review: A Journey Round My Skull

A Journey Round My Skull
9.3 of 10
Author: Frigyes Karinthy






I finished reading A Journey Round My Skull last night, and it's a very interesting read. It's an autobiographical novel of Frigyes Karinthy, a Hungarian journalist and humorist, about his experiences with his brain tumor, which lead to an open brain surgery in Stockholm. The author, in his book, recounts his out-of-body experiences and auditory hallucinations. He makes it sound so vivid and psychedelic that you'd almost wish you had a brain tumor.

Electrocuted

A friend of mine asked me if I can show her how to digitize her CD collection and transfer it to her mp3 player. I obliged and we got to it last night, after work. Her music was mostly electronica and, while we were working, she was listening to some of her newer CDs. I couldn't dig into it. In fact, I was quite annoyed. Although some I did appreciate. Like the new album of Portishead and Santogold.

I've heard of Portishead before, and I'm pretty sure they were trip hop. On their new album, Third, however, they don't sound like the Portishead that I knew. Their new music seems like a creepy black and white movie with lots of static, or a classical jazz gone awry.

Santogold is a new artist (I think), and she has one refreshing sound. Her music is a blend of reggae, punk, ska, pop, and electronica. It's very urban. It's like "No Doubt meets The Pixies" interesting kind of music.

I usually don't listen to electronica, or to music similar to the artists I mentioned above. So I was a bit surprised to know that I even bothered to listen to the music of Portishead and Santogold. Still, I don't like them enough to go to their concerts.

Black Lagoon

I can get into anime but I'm no otaku. I only watch popular series like Naruto, and never take risks of buying obscure titles. But if I do want something obscure, I usually check the forums I frequent at and find anime threads. Last night, when I did some digging, most otakus in the forum were singing praises about Black Lagoon. So I trusted their word and bought 3 DVD volumes of the series.

Turns out those otakus were right, Black Lagoon is one explosive title. I got hooked right after watching the first episode. What I like, in particular, is its setting has a lot of grit, grime, and action prevalent in the criminal underworld society. The "girl with guns" theme is also interesting, as you'll often see nuns with guns (who also sells guns) and maids with guns. There's also a strong character diversity in the series, in which all characters comes from a different ethnicity or political affiliations. From Japanese to African-Americans, and Neo-Nazis to Islamic Fundamentalists.

Trigger Happy Revy

All in all, I enjoyed watching all 3 volumes of Black Lagoon. Unfortunately, I've only watched the first 12 episodes (it goes up to 24 episodes). So it's a bit of cliffhanger for me. I wish they'd release the next 12 episode of Black Lagoon: Second Barrage here in the States soon.

Ame-Comi Catwoman

I went out for a stroll this morning, and how fortuitous it was since I caught the last box of DC Direct's Ame-Comi version of Catwoman at FYE. The Ame-Comi is a series of DC heroine action figures in manga style, and much gratitude to DC Direct for starting this series. It's a spectacular series and I intend to collect them all...if money allows.

As for the Catwoman figure, it's a sterling piece of work. It's not that detailed but, then again, Catwoman don't have much things on her. It's a well sculpted and proportioned toy. It has a huge circular stand that supports the figure quite well. The paint job is masterly done but it has room for improvement. I also wish it they used a gloss black on the cat suit to make it look like latex instead of leather.

DVDead: PS3 vs. BD30K

I was off today. So I took the opportunity to relax and watch a flick here at home. Then, when I was just starting to unwind, the DVD player went kaput. It just died out on me, beyond repair. I can't blame the thing though. I mean, it's been running the show in our house for many years. It's just too bad that we don't have any means of watching home films (except for Pay-Per-View). So I think it's time to bury this dead DVD player and move on. By "move on", I actually meant "upgrade".

Good thing the format war is over. Now it'll be much less confusing to "upgrade" our home theater to the next tier, which is Blu-ray Disc. Honestly, I was hoping that HD DVD would win. So that I'd have another reason to buy an XBOX 360 other than just to play Obsidian Entertainment's Aliens RPG. Unfortunately, they didn't. So now, I need to decide between to BD players: Sony PS3 (40 GB) or Panasonic BD30K.


PS3 would be the more practical choice of buying a BD player since it also functions as a gaming console. The problem is there aren't any games available...or any games available that I like. If it also happens that I decide to go with a PS3, I'll be getting my hardware at Best Buy, and they only have the 40 GB version. Which means, I won't be playing any PS2 games since it isn't compatible with the PS3 40 GB. As for the Panasonic BD30K. It has better image quality than the PS3. At least that's what I've read in reviews. But it's a tad more expensive than the PS3, and you can't play games on it.

Well, one on one square off between the PS3 and the BD30K. I might go with PS3's games or I might go with BD30K's image quality. But since I'm no console gamer nor an image quality whore, I might pass on both and wait for a better, cheaper Blu-ray Disc player.

Album Review: Gods of the Earth

The Sword - Gods of the Earth
8.3 of 10





The Sword haven't changed much in Gods of the Earth, their sophomore album. The crunchy Sabbath-esque riffs and chugs -that I fell in love with back in 2006- still fuels the band's ferocity, and they still wield mystical lyrics about wizards and wenches that'll make any fantasy geek reminisce about all those trashy books he had read. The vocals, however, are still as muddy and unintelligible like it was back in their first album. Nevertheless, despite the bad vocals, Gods of the Earth is still a kick ass album with a nostalgic flair.

Wolverine and the X-Men

Marvel has released a trailer for the new animation entitled Wolverine and the X-Men. It's probably a sequel to X-Men: Evolution, although set in the near future, since the art is almost a-like. As seen on the trailer, the new animation will feature a wide array of mutants from the comics, even the underused ones such as Mojo and Spiral. But what I like about this new show is that the cast is based on the present days of the X-Men (probably from the Astonishing X-Men comic title due to their costumes), which means no Jean Grey and yes Emma Frost. It's always good to have Emma Frost on the team. The only thing I don't like about this new toon is the title.

Iron Man

I went out to see Iron Man last Friday. Unfortunately, since I worked 12 hours a day for the whole week, I was really tired and fell asleep inside the theatre. But I had the chance to watch it again today, and I was very impressed with it. It's probably the best Marvel comic-to-film since X2. Robert Downey Jr. also did a great job playing as Tony Stark. It seems to me that he was born to play the role.

Secret Invasion #1

I was so tired from work today but I was so happy when I saw Secret Invasion #1, a Marvel Universe 8 issue event, in my mail. Like I said before, I only buy collected graphic novels nowadays. So this [Secret Invasion] is my first comic issue since Uncanny X-Men #301. About this whole event, I think the concept is pretty solid. Those shape-shifting alien invaders, The Skrulls, will just spit confusion both for the readers and the heroes. It'll put everyone to their ultimate test. Which is trust between the heroes, and just how well the readers know their heroes.

Jin Saotome's Custom Toys

Hulkbuster Iron Man

Iron Man will be coming out this Friday (today) and he's in all of the talks right now. So while I was searching for a Psylocke action figure, my search query lead me instead to Jin Saotome's custom Iron Man action figures. They're pretty cool (and pretty expensive too). How I wish I can make toys on my own. I wonder if there's any courses on Toy Making?

May "To-Do" List

Here's my "To-Do" list for this month:

• Read and finish A Journey 'Round My Skull
• Learn to play a song
• Write at least one music review
• Reach level 60 with my World of Warcraft character
• Don't buy any food from hospital cafeteria.
  

Last month's "To-Do" list:

• Write at least one music review. (Done)
  
• Learn how to play a song. (Done)
  
• Reach level 50 with my main character in World of Warcraft. (None)
  
• Finish reading The Ten-Cent Plague. (Done)
  
• Finish working on my scale model. (None)