TV wins!

How many of you gorged yourself over the holidays? I'm kinda surprised that the top Google search isn't "best weight loss supplement." According to Bing, their top search is "Top 10 TV premieres." I suppose that isn't too surprising though. The winter reruns are over and now our shows are returning to us. TV will always win out in the end.

Jmovie review: Lupin III: Strange Psycho-Kinetic Strategy

Lupin
Title: Lupin III: Strange Psycho-Kinetic Strategy Release date: 1974 Genre: Action Comedy Cast: Yuuki Meguro, Hideko Ezaki, Kunio Tanaka, Shirou Itou Plot: Hijinks ensue when Lupin (Meguro), the world's greatest thief, meets Fujiko (Ezaki), a female thief. What is good: Lupin versus Zenigata (Itou) is always funny. What is bad: Too much slapstick. Letter rating: D+ Overall: For some reason, when I added this to my Netflix queue, I thought it was an animated version of Lupin. I was a little surprised when I popped in the disc to see a live action version instead. Regardless, it's still Lupin and I always enjoy Lupin movies. Well, now I can change that line of thought. Where Lupin tends to be silly, he always has a serious side. This version failed to show his serious side. We saw "Funny Lupin," "Horny Lupin," a little tiny bit of "Clever Lupin," but never once was there "Serious Lupin." In my opinion, this is where the movie failed. They relied way too much on "Funny Lupin" to carry the movie. Perhaps this would have been satisfactory in 1974, but it just doesn't stand the test of time.

Celebrities and accidents

A few months ago, I was watching TMZ (yeah, I shouldn't watch that junk...it's addicting though). They had a story about Brad Pitt hitting a parked car with his motorcycle. There wasn't tons of damage to the car. I think a side mirror broke off and that was it. But it made me think...did he leave a note with his insurance information? Will a pleasanton motorcycle accident attorney be coming after him for damages? Or does he just get off scott-free because he's Brad Pitt? Hrm...

No more sickies

I don't really do New Year resolutions. I think it's simply setting yourself up for failure. However, I will say I have a 'resolution' to stay healthy this year. (No medical equipment for me!) My daughter ended up with a week-long flu, which is the first time in many years that she has been sick. She was very upset that she had to miss an entire week of school so I'd like to try to avoid that for this year if it is possible.

Belated Merry Christmas

Ah Monday. It's back to the grindstone for most people. I hope everyone had a happy holiday, no matter what they celebrate. Things went well for me and I got some much needed rest. This week should be the last ultra-busy week for me. Then I can go back to playing video games and watching dramas. I apologize that I haven't been able to do much of either for a long time. I will get my free time back, I swear!

Game review: Artist Colony

Since we were snowed in all weekend, I decided to waste some time playing Artist Colony. It looked a lot like Virtual Villagers. Since I really enjoyed that series, this should be fun too, right? Well, it's mostly fun. As with most simulation games, there is a set of goals that the characters need to finish. The story is about a group of artists coming together to rebuild an old artists' colony. (There's a backstory about friendship and love, but it's not really all that necessary to the game play.) You get money to complete tasks by selling the artists' works. Since you begin with only two artists, it's a little difficult to raise money. However, once you start attracting new artists to the colony, things can really get moving. Then it ends up being a little difficult to keep track of everyone. On top of that, I found myself getting bored with the tedious task of training the artist and having them create masterpieces to sell. Perhaps if the selling part went a little faster, the creating part wouldn't be so dull. As it was, I ended up with artists that couldn't create anything because I filled up my gallery yet no one was coming to buy anything.

Overall, it was a decent game. There were little annoyances, but I could easily overlook them. If nothing else, I wanted to see what the end result was.