June 2009 Archives

Kinda surprised to be writing this, guess it hit me a little harder than I thought it would. Yesterday around 6:30pm Michael Jackson died of a coronary. I'm trying to resolve my feelings about that.

I know the guy was a bit creepy but look at it from his point of view for a sec. He was stuck at 12 years old. All the things he's accused of, wouldn't have even brought a blink of an eyelash if he was still 12 having some friends over for a sleepover. If I was home alone without parents around during a sleepover, hell yeah I'd go after the liquor cabinet. I'd share with my friends. And when you're that age it's not unusual to sleep in the same bed. The sexual allegations, nobody will know for sure. I think nothing happened but I could be naive.

As I posted in a reply on Facebook early this morning, I choose to remember the man for his music. I was 6 years old when he hit big with Thriller. I remember having a huge fight with my stepsister and stepmother about being able to watch the "Thriller" video cause it was "too scary". I did finally sneak a peek and wasn't scared at all, but fascinated by it.

I remember watching the "Black or White" video when it aired after The Simpsons and marveled at how cool that was....and wondered WTF he was thinking with the extended car bashing/masturbation session tacked onto it. And then the "Remember The Time" video with Eddie Murphy, even if I didn't think the song was that great, the video was pretty cool.

And of course there was Moonwalker. Bad movie but the extended scene with Smooth Criminal was worth it. To this day one of my favorite songs, and one of the best covers of the past 10 years(look up Alien Ant Farm if you haven't seen the video. Some awesome, awesome stuff).

In my circles in the 90's and high school it was never cool to admit to liking him, but everybody was a fan even if they couldn't admit it. Even today, the day after his death, people are bashing him for what he might have done but even more are celebrating the music and what could have been. All I can say is: Rest in Peace, MJ.

The english major I could have been is screaming at that title. The last finale? But won't there be others? Isn't a finale the last one anyway?

I find it funny that the Brits get subtitles even though they're speaking clear English in the Dramatic Intro.

Joe Rogan looks like shit tonight.

Inglourious Basterds trailer. In extremely annoying widescreen cropped to fit in a 4:3 SD screen on an HD channel. Looks interesting anyway....and then a Halloween 2 trailer...in full HD. Sigh.

We get Lightweights up first as Nate Diaz faces Joe Stevenson. Diaz I have seen, Stevenson I have not.

Watching Wladimir Klitschko vs Ruslan Chagaev live on my DVR right now. Glad I remembered that the Heavyweight Championship of the World was being televised on that bastion of live boxing....ESPN Classic. They couldn't even drag Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas to the studio to call the fight, nosir we get Robert(Eddie Munster) Flores and B.J.(decent Cruiser/Heavy) Flores. Actually don't mind B.J. Flores on color. He's got a good future in broadcasting when he retires.

This is so far another technical clinic by Wladimir. He knocked Chagaev down in the 2nd round, but he wasn't too hurt. That's not really Klitschko's style anyway. Over the last 7 rounds, he's pounded Chagaev and pounded some more. It's been pointed out between the 8th and 9th rounds that Chagaev has a really bad cut over his left eye. The only way he could win at this point is a knockout, and since I know the result already I know that's not the case.

Looking at the end of Round 9, that is a really bad cut. Not made better by Klitschko beating him to death at the end of the round, and the ring doctor has called the match. I agree with the announcers. This is the best performance Wlad has put on in quite some time.

Now I switch to The Ultimate Finale. I think I may try to do some round-by-round on here, even though it won't really be live.

I can't believe HBO couldn't have shown this live anyway and did what ESPN did by doing the commentary live in a studio. Kinda lame.

Listening to: Cowboy Junkies:Trinity Revisited

Forgot how good Cowboy Junkies were. Gooooood music.

Added a live Twitter feed to the sidebar. It was way easier to use Twitter's own little chunk of javascript than the plugin for MT. It kinda works the way I wanted tho I really wanted it to update the live blog. Oh well. Don't matter.

Speaking of web-type annoyances, MovableType is a real pain in the ass to get working properly. There are some hacks out there that should be incorporated into their code to fix some things that seem to come up every time. I'm still considering ditching it and moving to something like Drupal.

Picked up the new Dave Matthews Band album this past week. It's got a really good sound, like a throwback to the older albums before the mainstream crap started taking over. Well worth the purchase.

Picked up Legacy of Y's Book I and II for the DS over the weekend. Atlus did their usual wonderful job with the port but I must say the game hasn't really aged well. There are a lot of spots in Y's Book I where it doesn't give you a single clue about what you need to do. I actually had to consult a walkthrough to finish the game, and I hate doing that on the first playthrough of an RPG. Not sure if Book II is any better, but it's certainly more difficult so far. I don't regret the purchase because I've always wanted to play through an actual version of the game and not the shit NES ports that were out here. I think I do want to track down the PS2 sequel and give it a try. Come to think of it, I think we got Wanderers of Y's (Book III) on the SNES and that was just a really bad port. Guess I'll do some fact checking on that.

Another game I've played recently is Burnout Paradise. Pretty fun, but extremely repetitive. I can see the appeal of the online pvp aspect of the game, and I may check it out soon. I just spent a bunch of time unlocking cars and stuff. From what I gather that's half the game right there.

My RPG backlog is getting ridiculous now. I've got FFIV, Dragon Quest IV and V in shrinkwrap waiting for me, Persona 3, FES and Nocturne that I've never touched, Blue Dragon around here somewhere. Dunno why I keep buying them. Maybe I think I'll have some time to play them someday. Whatever. Still haven't finished FFX, X-2 or XII and XIII is just around the corner. Sigh.

Well I sorta do anyway. You can catch me on Twitter at @evilwraith and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/westonsmith. I don't approve of social networking in any of its various evils but what the hell?