"Stone" and Other Thoughts

I watched Stone tonight. If stars Robert De Niro, Edward Norton and Milla Jovovich. A review will be coming, trust me. But it took me by surprise just what the film was like. I expected a movie about two characters playing off one another for a couple of hours, but I didn't expect it to get so philosophical and religious on me. By the end, I wondered if the film took a stand on any of that, and I think its last shot affirms that. I'll leave you to see it if it interests you, but that's what I'll be thinking about tonight.

I promised other thoughts. I'm sick. Not physically. Actually, I feel quite well right now in that regard. We finally got the treadmill up and running, so now I can finally use that. I get enough exercise as is, but really need better cardio and whatnot. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm sick of a lot of things in my life, and I'm not sure how much long I can go as I'm still going. I'm thinking of leaving the internet, at least, in my current position. I've thought about that for months now, and while it'll pain me to leave some of the people I know, it's causing me a lot of stress and absolutely no relief at the moment.

See, I have absolutely no social life outside of the internet. My current life consists of going to school. I just pay attention to the lectures there, and I talk to practically nobody. I have five classes, and I know maybe one person in one class by name, and even then, I talk to him maybe once a week. If that. Whenever I don't have class, if I can, I come home. I don't hang out with friends. I don't go out and do things. I come home. I leave to go to school or to do that soccer coaching thing.

If you're reading this, you probably got here from my Escapist profile. If that's the case, you probably know that I write film reviews. Daily. I don't mind this, and generally enjoy doing that. Posting them is another thing. Of all the sites I post my film reviews on, I get the most comments on The Escapist. I have a lot of support there. It's nice, and I thank you all (assuming more than one or two of you are reading this) for that support. But there are detractors as well. I take those kinds of comments very personally, even though I know that I shouldn't. Same thing goes with, as an example, being unfriended on The Escapist or even on something like Facebook. Sometimes, I won't notice because I've been known to friend people on The Escapist without actually talking to them. I didn't used to, but I do now due to a lack of time and the desire not to be rude. But if I did talk with you, and for no reason -- not even a fight or something -- I get unfriended, I take it hard. Like I said, I know I shouldn't, but I do.

This has happened in at least a couple of cases. Sometimes, the "friend" status is kept but it holds no bearing. If I'm no longer on friendly terms with you, for seemingly no reason, it feels really bad. This happened a couple of times in real life, and yes, it did hurt more there. But online counts for something for me. And I have lost the patience that I used to have.

But, like I said, this has been thought about for months, and I haven't done anything about it yet. So maybe this is just another empty thought. I haven't because I think I'll miss too much, and that's probably the truth. We shall see.

I'm rambling. I know. Essentially, I'm contemplating leaving most of the internet, at least, as it is right now. We'll see. I know that'll be disappointing for some, but I don't feel like me spending so much time on there is worth it for me. I need to make some changes, and this might have to be one of them.

Stay tuned.

Ciao,
Marter

The Muppets

I've never liked The Muppets. When I was younger, I didn't find them funny. Now, I just find them sad. I put them in the same category as other kiddie shows, although they might be worse than some due to how unfunny they are. You can't even laugh at them for being silly, terrible or because you aren't the target audience like you can do with some things. I dunno, guys, but I just never enjoyed them. As I grow older, I actually feel a disdain for them, especially because the new Muppets film is doing really well with critics (and audiences).

So yeah, not a fan. I was happy to see them die off, and I'm angry at this new film for bringing them back to the popular culture. Or at the very least, attempting to. I'm off to bed now, and I'll be back tomorrow to say something else.

Ciao,
Marter

I Have an iPhone

As a result, I can post from it. This makes me happy, although don't expect a ton of posts from it. I dislike its keyboard and if I'm using my phone, generally I'm not going to have the time. This is mostly just a test.

Ciao,
Marter

My First Game as Head Coach

This soccer season, I decided to coach soccer. Well, I was volunteered by my father and am now stuck with it. I'm not really complaining, but when I said "I might be able to help out if there's absolutely nobody else," I didn't mean "Offer my name right away." Oh well, c'est la vie. Anyway, he ended up being the head coach, while I'm the assistant. What does this mean? He talks to the referees before the game and gives our team a "pep talk," while I run practices, set-up the lines, and do most of the real coaching tasks.

He's not at soccer tonight. I get to be the head coach. That's fine. Our team isn't very good, and we're two players short tonight, so I doubt we'll win. We'll see. I have no expectations, except that it'll take approximately 3 hours of my life because we're playing down at the other end of the city and it takes about an hour to drive their. Oh well.

Ciao,
Marter

Things I Learned from "Left 4 Dead" and "Spiral Knights"

Today, I had to do something I rarely get to do. I had to play an online FPS, and an MMO. Okay, so the FPS wasn't technically online, as I was playing against people seated beside me, but it was with more people than if it was on a console, so it's a new experience. Kind of. See, to me, it played out far more like a generic match against bots for me.

Even though everyone was sitting beside me, we were in rows and our row was stupid enough to evenly space where our teammates are. There were six of us. Instead of having the left 3 as the Infected and the right 3 as the survivors, we decided to make the jolly decision to mix and match, meaning communication was difficult. Everyone mostly ended up playing alone. Oh, we tried to be teammates with one another, but it didn't work particularly well without communication. And no, yelling at each other couldn't have happened because we were in a room with 60+ other people, all of whom were also playing with their rows of 6.

We were playing at my university, for a school assignment. Sounds awesome, right? Well, it's certainly better than writing an essay. Unfortunately, being a console gamer, I'm not good with PC controls. I played terribly, although still better than the people who had never played an FPS before. At least I had a vague idea of the maps and controls, given that I'd played the game on the 360. You know what really sucks, though? Lag. I hate it, and since this is the university, we don't have computers that can handle dozens of zombies on the screen. So yeah, that sucked. At the 1.5 hour mark, we switched over to a game called Spiral Knights.

Spiral Knights was less interesting, although I believe my experience was darkened further by more lag. For whatever reason, my computer couldn't run the game smoothly with the lowest graphic settings, while the person beside me could run on default. Essentially, I wasn't even really playing the game. In the few sections where it didn't lag, the game wasn't all that fun. It was too easy, and I wasn't a fan of the combat system. I left about 20 minutes in, though, as I was bored and the lag was killer.

This was my night. What did I learn? I learned that lag is the worst thing in the world for PC gamers. And I also learned that console gaming skills are not particularly transferable when switching over to the PC.

Ciao,
Marter

The Dawn of a New Era

I was recently inspired to start up a blog. Why? Well, I constantly felt as if I didn't whine about my life enough. You know how sometimes, you think to yourself: "Why am I not whining to random strangers on the internet?" So here this is. If you don't know, I write movie reviews sometimes. By "sometimes," I mean that I post one online every day to a few sites. Why do I do this? Because it's fun for me, that's why. People also sometimes read them, which is always nice. And when I hear that someone took my recommendation and enjoyed their time with the film, that's probably the best feeling.

No, I don't know how often this will get used, or if I'll even continue to post on it after this introduction. But it's here, and I might feel the need to continue making posts.

Ciao,
Marter