Electronic Tumbleweeds » Reviews

There Will Be Brawl

Jeremy — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:45:41 +0000

After seeing the entire series at one time from beginning to end, all I have to say is “wow”. The fact that a group of fans could put together such an interesting storyline, while including so many popular Nintendo characters and quite a few less-known ones is a feat that should be applauded. While I do have my criticisms, usually the fact that you can see whatever human body part they tried to cover up or the fact that sometimes the make-up doesn’t go as far as it needs to, these issues are insignificant when compared to what a group of broke fans managed to do.

To all you 0 readers, I highly suggest you check out There Will Be Brawl. You should not be disappointed.

I Thought Arby’s Once

Jeremy — Thu, 07 May 2009 03:30:05 +0000

And I got diarrhea because of it. But I guess the sheer quantity of Arby’s commercials got to me, because a couple days ago I decided to brave the threat of mud butt and try their new sandwich. Firstly, if I had known that the last inspection score they got was a 77 before I ordered, I would’ve driven to McDonalds and never looked back. But I didn’t, so I got the sandwich and ate it.
Impressions: God it is _so_ not worth it. First off, you do not get as much bacon as they advertise. I got like one small strip that was smaller than the cheese. Second, the beef seemed like it was sitting for a while, even though they made my sandwich to order. It didn’t taste that much different than a normal hamburger to me, but my palate isn’t exactly what you might call “refined”, so take that as you will. Finally, I tried one of the new FruiTeas they were pushing; just like before, I didn’t know something I probably should’ve – that the tea is sweetened with Splenda – but the artificial taste was quite subdued.
All in all, I was tempted with somthing new and different – I won’t get fooled by that same trick again.

Uneasy Hesitance

Jeremy — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:09:05 +0000

I listened to Nine Black Alps’ latest single, but I couldn’t be bothered to blog about it until now. Anyway, I didn’t name this post “Uneasy Hesitance” without a reason:
When I first heard Everything Is, their first album, in its entirety I thought it was made for me. It was the rock music I wanted to hear – hard and heavy, making no qualms about being angry and making you want to be angry too. I fucking loved it – the first time I heard Shot Down I wanted to fuck someone, break something and burn the world and I’ll be goddamned if I wasn’t proud of it. I officially made it my favorite song a few days later and I’ve listened to it so much that that urge had waned, but I still think back to when I first heard that song with all the love in my heart.
Then came Love/Hate.
I’m not saying it was a bad album, not at all – it shows that the band isn’t a one trick pony, and has the range that I think they will need to really go the distance – but it left everyone who loved the band for their first album hanging. Sure they had a couple songs on the album that had some of that angry swagga that made me love them, but it seemed a bit…orchestrated. I’m sure that’s not the word I want to use, but it’s the only word I can think of to accurately describe how I’m feeling at 1AM. I’m not the only one – I perused their forum hoping to find some drum tabs for Shot Down when I read someone comparing “Forget My Name”, one of the few what I will now call “angry” songs on the album, to Nirvana. I had listened to the song myself prior to reading this and I thought the same thing. This was a big deal to me because I, someone who has listened to very little Nirvana, thought they sounded like Nirvana and it made me think they were losing their original, angry, “burn the world” sound for commercial viability, but to add insult to injury I don’t believe it sold all that well. I began to have doubts.
“All their albums can’t be winners.”
“I can’t like all their songs.”
“The third album will be better.”
“Will their third album be better?”
“God, I hope their third album is better…”
I put it out of my mind and gave it no second thought.
Later, I picked up Glitter Gulch, a six-song EP that showed me that they still knew what their fans of the first album loved. It only had two “angry” songs on it – Over The Ocean and Ilana Song – but they were enough to tide me over. Especially Ilana Song – it gave me that same feeling that I got when I listened to Shot Down the first time; if I was alone I would have turned up the volume until my ears bled and rocked out with my cock out until I passed out from exhaustion. I thought that maybe I _could_ keep hope alive, that their third album will turn it around – you’ll see!
Now I’ve heard the first single from their third album, Buy Nothing, and I don’t don’t like it, even though it looks on paper to be everything I asked for. It seems like they’ve gone back to their roots of anger and heaviness but it sounds overdone. It’s like with Buy Nothing they’ve tried to get from Love/Hate back to Everything Is but overshot and gone to Dragpipe, another band I listen to. The addition of political subtext in the lyrics is also an unwelcome change to their normal Seinfeld-esque songs about nothing in particular yet angry all the same.
So now I don’t know where I stand – I listen to Love/Hate and say they should be more like Everything Is, but when they do, I think they should tone down what made me love them in the first place. To quote someone from the Nine Black Alps forums, this new album will choose “between whether I say ‘I’m a fan of Nine Black Alps’ or ‘I’m a fan of Nine Black Alps’ first album’.”
I’m with you.

2 Things

Jeremy — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:05:24 +0000

1) It snowed here Sunday. That may not be that big to my 0 readers in Maine, but trust me, it’s huge to me. In the 17.5 years I’ve lived here, it’s snowed about three distinct times that I remember: once when I was really young (about five), once last year around this time, and once on Sunday. I find it odd that I have an average snow day about every six years, bout have had two in less than a year and a half.

2) I went downtown yesterday. I don’t know what I was looking for in particular, but I do wish I had waited until it warmed up later this week. However I did find a nice Thai restaurant on 10th Street. Called (appropriately) The Tenth, it was a nice place with a warm atmosphere. Although when I got there I was the only one there, and I never like that (it might be a sign about food quality from the locals; also I always feel like I’m being watched). I got the Pad See-Ew with shrimp and it was good, well portioned and didn’t give me diarrhea the next day (or night), which is more than I can say for some places (Arby’s…). Overall I though the overall experience was nice, although pricey ($17 for 1 person after tip). However, if I came into some money and wanted Thai food, I’d definitely go back.

Transformers=S0xx0r R0xx0rage

Jeremy — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:23:03 +0000

Coming in to the movie, I thought “I hope Michael Bay didn’t fuck it up, but Jalopnik said it was cool, so he couldn’t have done too much damage.” Considering I paid $7.50 for a ticket (!; Visiting family in another state, it’s usually $4.50 for a matinee at home), I was expecting something big to recoup my losses. I can certainly say I got what I paid for. Keep in mind that this will not be the bast Transformers review ever, but it’ll be a nice synopsis. WARNING: EXTREME SPOILERS AHEAD.

OK, it starts off kinda slow, but cool, when soldiers in Iraq get attacked by a Decepticon , Scorponok, who tries to break into the US central network He does not succeed, but they try again later. Most people get murked, but some escape. Meanwhile, back in the good ol’ US of A, the hero Sam is buying his first car, which ends up being Bumblebee. He made sure he was the one to get bought when he sonically smashes all the other cars’ windows on the lot. Pretty soon after this, he meets the love interest, Mikaela at a picnic. He offers to take her home, but Bumblebee tries to get him laid when he pulls over on a scenic hill and starts playing Barry White (not really, but you get the point).

A little bit later, Frenzy (a small Decepticon, looks like a CD player) infiltrates Air Force 1 and successfully hacks their network. He finds out about “Project Iceman”, which is about Sam’s great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, finding Megatron’s frozen body while exploring the Artic Circle, and the coverup of his landing. What nobody except the robots know though, is that Captin Witwicky’s glasses, which Sam was trying to sell on eBay, contained the location of the Allspark, which Megatron wants to use to enslave humans, and Optimus Prime wants to use it to restore their homeland. Now upon finding all this out, Frenzy plants a virus. The government cuts him off before Frenzy can find everything out and before he can fully plant the virus, but he knows enough to put Archibal’s glasses with Sam Witwicky, and thus go looking for Sam.

When he comes back from the police station after being arrested, his car starts to follow him. He manages to lose it somewhat, but runs into a Decepticon, Roadblock (the really bitchin’ Shelby-lookin police ‘Stang; I love the way they made that car look). He almost gets seriously fucked up, when Bumblebee comes to save his bacon. Around this time Mikaela arives to see what is going on, but he gets her into the car with him, and the three of them (Sam, Mikaela, and Bumblebee) try to escape Barricade. They don’t succeed, and Bumblebee ends up fighting and defeating Barricade. He then goes with the two humans to meet up with the other Autobots, but not before Frenzy fights with the two humans, gets decapitated, and disuises himself as Mikaela’s cell phone.

While driving away to meet the other Autobots, Mikaela makes a snide comment about Bumblebee’s appearance (a ’69 “Piece of crap Camaro”). At this point, Bumblebee kicks the both of them out, and it makes for a funny line from Sam (
“He’s a very sensitive car.”), but he turns around and scans a 2008 Camaro coming the other way, and changes his form to it.

The next scene is basically the humans meeting up with everyone: Jazz (a Solstice, acts black), Ironhide (a GMC Topkick, weapons expert), Ratchet (a H2 Hummer in search/rescue livery, makes funniest one liner in the movie: ” The pheromone levels in the male indicates he wants to mate with the other.”(That quote is so nice it deserves its own story; after that, Mikaela looks akwardly away from Sam, and Sam stands there speechless, he should’ve told Ratchet to quit c-blocking, or something)), and finally Optimus Prime. I don’t have to say what he was because everyone should know.

After the introductions, Optimus tells Sam why they need to find his great-great-grandfather’s glasses, and how it benefits them all. It’s not without incident, though, since they mess up his father’s backyard, nearly vaproized their pet chihuahua, Mojo, and caused a very awkward-and funny-conversation about masturbation (I hate the fact that I can’t find it, but I will edit it into this post when I do). But the glasses are given to the Autobots when Sector Seven. arrives (“Never heard of you.”"And you never will.”) Basically the NSA on steroids, takes Sam, his family, and Mikaela, but not before the Autobots can intercept Sam and Mikaela’s transport.

Basically from here on, it’s straight action sequences, explosions, and all other kinds of cool shit. They find the Allspark (the gov’t was hiding it, of course), and to show its power they transform one guy’s phone (Anthony Anderson, I forget his character’s name) into a transformer; they didn’t say who it was affiliated with, but since it tried to kill them while they were looking at him, I think it’s safe to say it was a Decepticon. The ending was , I guess you could say, bittersweet, not because it was happy yet sad, but happy yet weird. Anyway, that’s my review, and I hope all 0 of you out there like it.

The end of an era…

Jeremy — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:21:16 +0000

…the era of Red Vs. Blue. God, has it really been four years? I mean, I jumped in at the start of the fourth season, so I came late to the party, but I jumped in headfirst, and took in the community. But this isn’t just the end of one series, it’s the end of the series, the one that started the whole machinima craze in the first place! RvB is the de facto standard for machinima in this universe. You aren’t considered an actual machinima artist unless you can match up to the standards of comedy, script quality, and visual mastery set forth by Rooster Teeth in that first episode. But enough of me singing their praises; why don’t I just talk about the final episode!

Well the storyline of the last few episodes really threw me for a loop, cause I didn’t really get it. I usually get things like that, but for some reason I went dee dee dee for the last few; probably because I wouldn’t dl them like I normally do b/c I lost my sponsorship and would have to download the standard-res versions, so I just watched the flash versions. But basically, what I got was that Tucker’s baby could help O’Malley conquer the universe, and the blues were set to stop it, but Tex worked out a deal with O’Malley for none of them to get hurt, but Church went and blew it all to hell by trying to save everyone. Go figure. Once back outside, Church and Tex basically beat everyone to find out where O’Malley went, but that forced him inside Tex, who went with Tucker’s baby to conquer the universe. However, the Reds had other plans, since they set Andy inside the ship Tex was using to escape, and detonated him before Tex could make away. Church, sullen that his ex was destroyed, goes back to Blue base to brood, so Sarge decided to call Vic for reinforcments to destroy the Blues, but Vic denied to help him. Sarge, in retaliation, decides to waste the computer they found in the caves, thus completing (and winning) the game.

Flash forward to the postgame report. We see it was all a game of Halo. And it’s always been a game of Halo. Everyone talks about their experiences through the game (and the subsequent series), and they decide to start a new game on a new map.

I just wish for two things from there. The first is that they remove the “new episodes” end shot, and that they actually start a new series of Red Vs. Blue on a new map. Somewhere nice.