Long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas tried to poison me

Years ago, people discovered that lead is bad for you. Really bad. Since then, parents, activists ans environmentalists have spun the substance up into the evil slayer of school children and a silent killer laying in wait on vintage painted walls and water pipes.
So you can imagine my surprise to find that George Lucas is trying to poison me with cup enrobed in lead. The cup was cleverly decorated in an attractive slate grey matte finish and emblazoned with the logo Mr. Lucas' newest cash cow, Lucasfilm Animation. You know I had to buy it when i was at the Ranch. Now I'm afraid to drink out of it because of this... I shit you not.

CSI - DX4 - POT, WTF

Besides the fact that I wish real cops had the tech, resources, and success rate of the phony Crime Scene Cops on this ridiculous show, I love the plot devices. This week's episode involves a gun called the DX4, referred to as vaporizer that can shoot 100 thousand rounds a second and can "vaporize" its targe. While I do think a gun like this could exist, the name they gave it is also a name of a popular tobacco vaporizer called the DX4 vaporizer.

God, I love pot heads, especially ones the ones that write for CSI.

Project Runway - out

I just got done watching a bit of Project Runway. The challenge this episode was for the designers to design an outfit for Tiki Barber. Now while the challenge was ridiculous, most of contestants performed okay, but overall they looks were dismal with only three workable pieces. Asking someone do design menswear when all they've ever done is womens wear is totally unfair by itself. Make the addition of a totally unrealistic timelin BAM, POW KABOOM... you have great TV, but it was hard to watch. As an artist the worst part for me was when the vacuous douchebag judges (who really need to be replaced) acted like this should be no problem for the designers. They sat there and laughed about how bad some of the stuff was. Pretty much doing what an artist fears most during a critique. Like that talentless queen Michael Kors could do any better, or that tool Nina Garcia, she's a fashion editor, basically making here a glorified customer. Oh yeah, Heidi Klum knock the smartass cunt act off, it's not doing you any favors.

Essentially you have several competent designers failing on a project that is a kin to asking an football player to play soccer when they've never tried it. Then kicking them off the football team because they don't play soccer well.

I guess what I'm saying is that on such nightmare challenge ,that bends the rules of the show(it is womenswear) they should have bent the rules for judging. I don't know, maybe having all the contestants vote on there favorites, something that would make it a bit more compassionate and empathic. Like the interviews from all the contestant judging wouldn't make better TV than a bunch of out of touch aging bourgeoisie making lame quips.

Also I am just really tired of these reality contest show judges acting like they are curing cancer and how they have the keys castle when in reality all the shows is rigged by the producers based on psychological profiling and ratings analysis. Its like pro wrestling for TMZ set.

Halo - where can I get some of that Kool-aid

So, my friend Paco and I have been talking alot lately. One of our favorite topics has been Halo, and more specifically Halo 3. We both ordered the legendarty edition of the game, and as we stair in to the scaled down visor of the Master Chief, only one thing comes to mind... what is the big deal? Why is Halo so popular? I mean really, what is it about the game that make people go nutz. No, I'm not asking one of those philosophical questions, like "why are we here?" and then we go into some tome-like diatribe about the aspects of existence and purpose. What I'm asking is what is the big deal with Halo? From what I can tell it isn't that good, its not amazing and its certainly not game of the year. As it stands, now, poised to gain accolades upon accolades, Halo reminds me of Titanic. Its this big epic creation filled with hot air and false sentiment, amounting to a whole lot of canned nothing.

Why do I bring this up 2 months after the launch of Halo3. Well, while browsing the interweb during some lengthy file transfers I found the "Journey's End" vidocs for H3. These two mini documentary are brimming with the game's developers expounding on the awesomeness of the Halo universe and the "epic" story found with the 3 games. They go on and on about how the third game wraps up the story (which it blatantly doesn't not). They drone on about all this deep internal/behind the veil story that is so primal and amazing... After playing, and defeating all three titles I find myself compelled to CALL BULLSHIT! on Bungie. They remind me of the Wachowski brothers, (post Matrix pre-sequels) high on the smell of their own methane.

While the gameplay in Multiplayer offers some great console action, the single player games are bit repetive and boring. I for one don't play multiplayer, I find it a crutch that a lot developers lean on (far to much) to make a game "a game" when they aren't able to really flesh out a good single player experience. I find it disheartening to see that in Halo 3, the single player game is shallow and pretty much a retelling of the first Halo. Also, for the record whoever thought the Brutes could replace the Elites as competent opponents should be shot. All I hear is how awesome the Brute AI is in the game, (cocks head) REALLY. I'm not quite sure where they spent their time on this game but it wasn't in AI. Hats off to the testing team, they've managed to make the game playable by any and all, to bad the same effort wasn't put toward single player AI. AI is after all where this gen should be staking it claim. A claim shared in AI and character interaction, not in graphics, the apparent focus of all this new found processing power (but thats a conversation best left for another time.

In short Halo and its 2 sequels are not original, they're not ground breaking and the story's contrived and done at best. Given so many opportunities to really expand go in interesting directions, game's designers continually take the us down a tried, true, and ultimately mediocre path. FUCK THIS WHOLE HYPE THING... that is all.