Poisoned by the Red Tide

I got sick eating at a seafood restaurant on Pier 39.

For those not in the know, Pier 39 is a tourist concentration camp on the Northeast corner of San Francisco where your welcoming attitude to foreigners goes to die. It gets trampled under the boots of a million camera-clicking French, Filipino and Japanese people who want nothing more than to get in your way.

It's because of places like this that all the small-towners who visit big cities like New York, Paris and SF leave with the impression that cities are packed shoulder to shoulder with seething masses of loud and quite possibly homosexual people. In reality, the problem is the out-of-towners themselves who feed the tourist trap with their money and turn it into an inescapable hell-hole of tacky businesses and shady restaurants.

The restaurant I went to was called Fisherman's Grotto, a nice-looking if huge restaurant packed behind a fake fish market and next to some falling-apart docks. It may be because I ordered 2 pints of beer within the first 10 minutes of my stay, but the food didn't seem bad. The only thing memorable about it was the price, which was enormous and unwarrented. Such is the way of Pier 39.

The first symptom I had was a night-long bout of physics-defying gassiness. My intestines, sensing the parasitic corruption, attempted to convert all the solids of my meal into gaseous form so that I might release them harmlessly into the atmosphere. Unfortunately the poisons were able to re-enter my system through my nose and lungs and allowed them to infect my brain more easily.

I was unable to sleep until 4 AM despite going to bed at about 11 PM. My nervous system jacked itself up to keep me from slipping into a fatal coma so I could do nothing but writhe around and vent deadly vapors while feeling my intestines deflate and re-inflate.

This morning I woke up with the feeling that my brain was lifting off from the inside of my skull to parts unknown. I felt ambivalent towards everything, including my vision blurring and my ears ringing at random intervals.

After my bowel decided to jettison everything in a last-ditch attempt to keep me alive, I decided to go jogging to sweat out the remaining toxins. While I was running I had the interesting sensation that I couldn't feel anything but my face. I had to clap my hands together to prove they still existed.

All in all, totally worth it. A little Red Tide is nothing to be afraid of when you're hungry for bottom-feeders. Next time I'm trying the crab.

Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott Ruined By Stupid People

I love boycotts. When done right, they can cause companies a ton of grief, generate controversy, and divide a community until one side becomes analogous to Hitler. In this case, supporters of buying L4D2 are the Hitlers because their blind support of Valve is the same as hard core fascism. Unfortunately, the boycott failed miserably due to the two shitbags who led the boycott, going by the names Walking_Target and the other guy. I don't know the other guy's name because it doesn't really matter: both are scumbags who wasted a perfectly good boycott opportunity.

So a few months ago these 2 dipshits created the L4D2 Boycott Steam Community Web Group Forum Twitter Page and got something like a million members championing the cause of not buying L4D2. This was a great time. Just going to the L4D steam forums the first 3 pages would be filled with whines about L4D2, complaints about the lack of support for L4D, and general FUCK U VALVE!!!!!! threads. I wanted to join in the bitch fest, but I didn't want to receive another 4 point(s) infraction from Rotten Dude:

So I just sat back, relaxed, and watched Valve's consumer support wither away from under them, as the boycott anger and strength grew with each passing week. Now you can guess where this was headed. In September, this message was posted on the boycott group page, along with this picture with the lead designer of L4D2 which seriously was the sole inspiration for this post:

Boomer!

Steam flew the two scum sucking boycott leaders to the Valve HQ for a private tour where they could preview L4D2 and directly discuss the game and their concerns with the L4D2 staff. That's where they took this picture with the fattest, ugliest boomer I've ever seen. They probably did stupid shit all day like treat everyone with respect, ask a bunch of insightful questions, etc. etc.

If you didn't want to read that entire post, I'll summarize the important parts for you:

"Over the last week or so, we've been hinting at something big. A few days ago, a potential technical difficulty forced us to say that this announcement might be postponed – which we took even more heat for."

Translation: Valve hit us with a non-disclosure agreement which we lapped up like dogs because we wanted to sell out and go to Valve HQ

"Facta Non Verba is a Latin phrase meaning quite literally “Deeds, not Words”, or “Actions speak louder than words”. This is ironic in more way than one."

Translation: This is ironic, because quite literally, I'm a pompous asshole.

"Valve took the course of Facta Non Verba in dealing with myself and Agent of Chaos. Rather than trying to explain everything via email, they invited us out to their offices in Bellevue, Washington. That alone speaks of a developer that really does care about its fanbase. So, after making arrangements and booking the time off of our jobs, we flew down for a day to take a quick tour and talk with the guys at Valve."

Translation: We creamed our pants when the fat bastards at Valve actually spoke to us. The Valve accountants decided that the boycott was going to make them lose their bonus money, so they told the HR department to order the Developers to entertain us for a day. We told our bosses to suck it because we hit the big time. Just kidding, we don't have jobs.

"We can't get into details, but we can definitely say that support for L4D is NOT being dropped by Valve and that they are actively pursuing bug fixes for Left 4 Dead. We're going to continue to talk to Valve and ask questions as needed, however if the frantic pace which we had seen people working at is any indication, we're not going to be left in the dust. The staff seemed to honestly love the original 4 Survivors and many said that “we're not done with them yet”."

Translation: The catered lunch was really good and I actually got to shake the fat developer's sweaty hand.

"As for L4D2, things seemed balanced and 'tight' and did not feel like a rushed job. While we were visiting their offices we personally witnessed what can only be called a small army of artists, coders, mappers hard at work, which explains the rapid transformations in artwork that we've all seen."

Translation: Despite the graphics of L4D2 being identical to L4D, I actually got to shake the fat artist's sweaty hand.

"We're not giving up just yet though, we will both be here up until our individual concerns are addressed and sticking with you folks."

Translation: We gave up.

"We'll be doing write ups about this tomorrow, Thrusday and Friday as well as answering questions. We will not be around that much tonight as we both have to fly back early tomorrow morning"

Translation: We will be justifying our selling out to the outraged millions of group members Thursday and Friday.

"As a collective we have done more than achieve a few goals, we have paved the way for Developer-Community relations in the future. No matter what the press or other gamers say, we have made an indelible mark upon the future of this industry. You should all be proud, we certainly are."

Translation: We've proved that all it takes to end a boycott is for the corporations to shell out a few hundred bucks to cater to two impressionable asswipes in order to avoid millions of dollars in lost revenue. Gamers have a say in what happens unless one of the boycott leaders gets to hold the golden crowbar.

Ever since the boycott effectively ended with Valve glad-handing the boycott leaders, sales of L4D2 skyrocketed. This is despite the game being priced at $50, full price for a brand new game, NOT an expansion. But wait, Valve wasn't done with those two talking heads just yet:

"We understand some of you have a problem with its price tag. Personally, I’m quite surprised with the discount on pre-orders; A 4 Pack bundle brings it down to only $33.75 for each person. I see many people took advantage of this including "boycotters", but to be honest that’s a fair price. In other words, that’s what expansions cost. You can’t blame them for making this decision."

Yes, a 4 pack bundle will only cost $33.75 each. What a great fucking deal, except that you need to buy 4 of them and you need to convince 4 friends to actually sit down all at the same exact time and play this game. And who would want to play with these two guys anyway? How do I know they won't shoot me in the back because the zombie leader gave them a tour of the zombie HQ and catered a free brain lunch for them?

"I'm sorry, but the zombies are really nice people and they are working hard on this!"

What a disappointment. I should follow more promising boycotts like Minute Maid. FUCK YOU MINUTE MAID.

The Sniper (2009) 神鎗手

lol this movie has been posted everywhere. This is the first time I've watched an HK movie without subtitles, so I probably missed some of the subtext, but I get the picture. It starts with a bunch of guys on a Chinese SWAT team that are competing to become the best sniper. They would say stuff like "chinese china bunch of chinese TOP SHOOTER! more chinese" and I would smirk. It's not long before friendly competition turns into enraged rivalry during real police action and soonafter they turn their sniper rifles on each other. It's so dramatic!
This is also the returning debut of Edison Chen after fleeing HK in disgrace due to the untimely leak of his homemade porn. He looks good. Acting still sucks though. Thing is, when I see him on the screen I just can't stop thinking about the photos of his sexual tryst ahahaha they got him good. Stuffed bear in the background watching them bahaha!

Rating: 40%

Blade 2 (2002)

Fuck yeah Blade. Let's say you were in the mood for some violence. Lots of chops, shots, and bloodletting fire. You don't care where or why it happens, simply that it does and that it happens instantly. Hands down, Wesley Snipes is your man. Blade was an "okay" movie for it's day, at the time directly competing with the not yet completed Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Matrix sequels. Those two movie series prevented Blade from being more popular than it was, making the Blade series a forgotten favorite.

When you go back and watch old movies, sometimes you get surprised by what you find in the cast. Here, I found a young Donnie Yen as a vampiric blademaster. His character is a mute (implied, as he had no lines) and has a shortlived and unsatisfying role. Basically, even though Donnie Yen was a better choreographer than the rest of the cast, he ended up with a smaller role. The first (and last) move he pulls out is the HK classic "no shadow kick". What the hell? The director must have looked at his demo reel and said, "yeah just do that move and gtfo". Ten minutes later he is vampire food.


To date, Donnie has never had another scene with fucking eyeliner.
It also struck me on how dumb the story is. Full of holes and mostly a distraction, the plot of Blade 2 was very weak. For example, the prevailing bad guy shoots Blade into a swimming pool of blood and then expects him to be dead. Common, everyone knows that if Blade receives blood, he gets fully healed. How can the bad guy be that stupid? So forget the story, just watch the action and move on.

Rating: 60%

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

It's hard to turn a kid's book containing about a paragraph worth of simple sentences in it into a feature-length film. Which is why it's necessary to take each of the simple, dialogue-less monsters from the storybook, give them interesting and meaningful names like Douglass and Judith, turn them into complex characters with psychological issues and wait for your Oscar.

What surprises me is that apparently the original author of the book is totally O.K. with this. Well, actually I'm more surprised that he's still alive. So now he gets to see his creation warped into a very non-kid friendly movie directed by a guy who normally directs music videos. And he's O.K. with it. So I guess I am too!

So what do the kids who go to see this movie learn? Here's a smattering of things I remember...um, teachers are dicks for telling kids the sun is going to eventually explode, single moms are crappy parents who raise kids that are nuts and like to dress up like foxes and hallucinate about monsters, it's not very nice to destroy your friends' houses, and interpersonal relationships are fundamentally flawed and will always fail on multiple levels if given time...and if you're a monster.

Demolition Man (1993)

When looking for movies online you often get a dichotomy of very old and very new. Following the release of a new movie, people post them everywhere, despite the movie industry's vigilant attempts to remove them. Older movies, while uploaded much less often by their niche fangroups, do not get targeted by piracy police, causing them to build up over time on the internet.

Such is the case with many early Sylvester Stallone movies. This one starts in a super fucked up city (caption says "Los Angeles, 1996") that's rife with mega-crime. Shit is on fire and all these people are getting killed, so Stallone steps in to administer justice. Just 20 minutes into the plot, and Stallone is convicted of manslaughter for failing to save the hostages and gets sentenced to 70 years in a cryogenic prison. His mass murdering nemesis (Wesley Snipes) gets the same sentence. Upon their release, they wake up to a crime-free society where everyone is a huge wuss. The cops are too nerfed to stop Wesley Snipes so they bring in tuff guy Stallone.

Basically, this started as a Rambo movie and quickly turned into Judge Dredd. The people all talk like school children and Stallone is the only remotely normal person. Every time he says "FUCK", a buzzer in the background goes off and says "John Spartan you have been fined one credit for violation of the verbal morality statute", but he just keeps talking like nothing happened. Then he follows Wesley Snipes into the museum of guns where all the plasma rifles are loaded, and they fight in the Hall of Violence while making funny insults at each other. Yeah. Stallone's voice is funny too.

Rating: 75%