Updates
So just came out of seeing Saving Face at the Angelika Film Center - and decided to do a quick blog at the Apple Store. Haha, yes, I even made an image. 
Anyways.. While I was very eager to see this movie, I had no idea what to expect. I was thinking maybe it’s a “cute romantic comedy with typical Asian-American family craziness thrown in” or “something Ang Lee would do.” But what I got was a very fresh, funny and enjoyable film. It is now my new favorite film (and not just because it’s partly about Asian lebsians - har-har) and I can totally see myself going again and bringing more friends to check it out. Sure you may find it more entertaining if you grew up in an Asian household, but no matter who you are, you will totally get a kick out of it!
So it begins…
Sony’s little silver PS3 (or white, or black, hopefully a Burberry plaid by launch :P) made its first appearance during the opening day of E3. You gotta admit, Sony has quite an impressive machine in its hands - or so they say.. Remember all the stuff they said about the PS2 before its launch? Hehe. But with Blu-Ray, Bluetooth, Cell technology and 1080p resolution, that’s a lot of heat the PS3 is packin’. I love how one of their slides on the slideshow was having a two HD display hook-up, for a 32:9 panaromic view!? Hehe - I wish a setup like that was common, but hey, you never know in the future.
Microsoft also had their press conference for the XBox 360 and they put up a pretty well-rounded presentation (no pun intended, though I did like how the stage was circular and the presenters were able to walk and look around in full 360 degrees.. um.. yeah, hehe). I am impressed by the interface and connectivity that MS is proposing for the XBox. It is at this point where you can clearly see where each company is heading towards, and a lot of it has to do with the background of each company. MS is definitely trying to hit a wide range of people, linking them up and creating a massive online and interactive community. Sony is going for the ultimate home theater experience with the best sound, picture, and entertainment setup you can put together. These factors are key and can lead to what type of gamers would go for which system. XBox 360 specs may not match up to Sony, but they are showing a strong third-party support, from MS alum like Team Ninja and Rare, to newcomers like Mistwalker and the surprising addition of Square Enix. Sure for now it’s only FF XI.. but it’s FF XI! XBox Live is what MS will captalize on in the early stages of the console wars, and I think it can work out very well for them (having the free XBox Live Silver account is a good start).
The pic above is from the opening of the Nintendo World store here in NYC. I met up with my ultra-coolness friend Cheryl - who may look cute and innocent but would surely kick your ass in Smash Bros, hehe. We took advantage of the perfect weekend to check out the new store and indulge in the festivities. I’ve never seen so many Gameboy SP and DS consoles - not to mention crazy Pokemon fans - before, and it was quite a sight. I can see the store be something really special when Nintendo releases Revolution, new GC Zelda, and whatnot. Can’t wait! The store’s shopping bags are pretty awesome too, hehe.
More pix can be found here. My favorite is the NES prototype in the store’s “museum” displays.
Okay, I’m going to call this week “Geek Week.” “Why?” you might ask? (Especially since every week is pretty much geek week for me for some reason or another.) Let’s see..
Yeah, so that’s a pretty cheesy title for this entry - but hey, it sounds like it would come from movie promotions, right-right?
Anyways, let’s talk about this movie, which is the latest from director Michael Bay (The Rock, Armageddon). I saw the trailer some weeks ago and recently saw it again (the website launched yesterday) and I have to say, I’m getting pretty curious how it will turn out. Overall, I believe there’s a lot of potential in this movie. One of them being the fact that Bay is taking a bold new step in his film career. Here’s a breakdown.. It will be Bay’s first film NOT produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Of all of Bay’s films, it is the one with the least amount of hype and early promotion, which says a lot, especially in this summer’s huge movie season. With Bay, is a new player in Hollywood screenwriting world, Alex Kurtzman. Kurtzman has had a good run on television series, and is now working up some big Hollywood projects (The Legend of Zorro, Mission Impossible 3, Tell No One). On top of that, this film - if it gets praise and does well (it’s sure to make some sort of bank) - it would be a good sign for the upcoming and long-delayed, Transformers movie, now said to be in the hands of Bay and Kurtzman.
Saw this article over the weekend, and on Joystiq this morning, so I decided - while I’m starting to get back into blogging mode - why not post it as well.
1Up.com has always been a fun video game site. A lot of it is due to its “classic gaming” articles which brings out that nostalgia factor in everyone. A recent entry has been about the Star Wars games, in preparation for Episode III - which is getting some pretty good reviews. Nice to hear since this is the last movie and will hopefully end the saga on a high note).
Reading the article brings back some good memories (X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter!), and even though I was mainly a PC game freak (Rebel Assault… dude, I can’t believe that was cool back in the day, hehe), I can’t help but notice that they left out the arcade games! While some can be forgotten, there were two that really stood out for me. First, the original Star Wars game by Atari, with the “leading-edge” vector graphics and voice soundbytes, was so choice (yeah, 80s!). Second, Sega’s Star Wars Trilogy was actually pretty fun and had good looking 3D graphics, as opposed to the FMV graphics of Rebel Assault. It can even be said it was a precursor to the Rogue Squadron games.
I’m sure Star Wars will always be around for the gamers - though they’ve really got to filter out some of the duds. I’m sorry to say I once owned a copy of Star Wars: Yoda Stories for Windows 95. ::Sigh:: 
Hooookay. So I decided to get off my lazy ass and make a post (hehe, during a break at work, nonetheless). Wow, four months since the last entry, you’d think I would be drawing that robot-comic thing again too, erf.
So… DC Comics is going to be sporting a new logo designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studio with Richard Bruning and Georg Brewer of DC.
To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about this one. Growing up I would have been all for it. In the early 90’s I always thought the DC logo look too outdated, even though it was only a decade or so old; plus, I was always more drawn to Marvel’s logo which had quite a few changes and tweaks in the last twenty years. Now older, I’ve grown sort of fond of the old DC logo - it’s like the costumes of Superman and Batman, it’s just classic. The “circle shield” logo was also designed by the great Milton Glaser, which made me respect the logo even more. I can understand the move in a new direction, the logo does feel more modern comic book-like (whatever that means), streamline and marketable. Though at the same time it feels a little bland and not as iconic, but maybe it just needs to be given some time. Anyhoo, it does work into the whole Inifinite Crisis comics event that is being setup in the DC Universe, which BTW is looking hella cool (The OMAC Project, return of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, Captain Marvel back in the JSA, Villains United, I can go on and on, keke). I’m a big fan of Bendis, but the whole House of M storyline doesn’t seem as exciting to me as what’s going on in DC. Again, maybe I just have to give it time and we’ll see.
Hmm.. if any of you have any idea what I talked about in the last few sentences, I congratulate you. You are a bona fide comic book geek. W00t! 
:: UPDATE: 05.18.05 ::
Okay, after watching the 10-minute preview of Batman Begins shown tonight with the season finale of Smallville (Batman, BTW, is just looking better and better, the preview is amazing!), and beginning had the appearance of the new DC logo - with a motion graphics twist! Similar to the Imaginary Forces treatment to Marvel’s logo for its feature films, this identity is hella slick and has a lot of style. It is actually pretty classy and I have to say my thoughts about the logo has certainly gotten better, hehe.
Currently, I’m trying to find out who designed the motion graphics for the logo. If anyone finds out, let me know! Thanx!
Got this info from the site of my good ‘ol buddy Chris. Now this is awesome. The complete run of Calvin and Hobbes in one nice volume. Reminds me of the complete Bone comic “One Volume” edition. You know, is it me or isn’t interesting how EVERYTHING is being archived like this, especially in the past few years. Like you have old TV series and movie franchises all on DVD and now entire runs of comic strips and books being re-released, like Peanuts and now Calvin and Hobbes. Guess people are getting all nostalgic and becoming collectors. As many comic book fans know, collecting can be a very addicting trend.
Now for all you non-book geeks “HC” means hardcover.. but you’re smart enough to figure that out, right? Hehe
Comic book legend Will Eisner passed away on January 3rd after following quadruple bypass heart surgery. He was 87 years. To every comic creator, fan or follower he will always be remembered. I recommend checking out any of his works as he’s been a huge inspiration to many from sequential art to graphic design to storytelling.
Finally - TiVoToGo has been released! Can’t wait to leave work and check my TiVo back home. I knew buying a TiVo recently would pay off. That’s right people, I can finally archive my Kim Possible episodes onto my PC.. muahahaha! Girls, girls - I’m not a dork. I swear, I swear! 
TiVo fans check it out!
Clusty.com. Let’s start by saying that the name kinda sucks. No wait - it just sucks. Haha! I admit, I’m pretty impressed by this new search engine and how it clusters info (hence, its oddly-sounding name) either by topics, URLs or sources. All of it is powered by the “Vivisimo clustering algorithm,” which seems to me to work simply by smartly organizing keywords that are in websites. It’s pretty cool, or scary depending on how much you want your privacy, when you search for something like your name and some of the “topic clusters” will be links to your friends’ blogs, websites you contribute to, whatever. When I did a search for my name, one of my topics was “Whoa,” and that’s always fun to see.
While some things definitely need work on - like the image search - the orgazination of links and stuff is pretty well done for being in beta. For me though, I succumb to A9.com.
Continue reading ‘Your friendly, neighborhood search engine’
Haha.. Hokay, it’s not THAT bad to be stuck in Palm Springs - but you gotta admit, the bad weather and countless flight delays ain”t helping.
I’m actually glad to be at home for a little bit longer, though at the same time, I’m starting to miss East Coast life. Who’d believe I’d say that?! Though this is going to be my 9th year living back east, hmm - a lot of people still consider me a Cali boy - is that starting to fade!?! 
Anyways, after leaving the airport to go back to my parents’ house, I start thinking, “Hmm.. I should blog something, and maybe, MAYBE draw some comics,” haha. So just want to let people know that I still think highly of this site (though there’s dire need of SOMETHING new for it, hehe) and I’m glad so many of you have patience for it and still read it (um.. I hope, keke!). I do have more strips for Cup-O-Robots coming in (months in the works, so it’s gotta be good right? Um.. shhhyeaaah), I’ll be doing more film reviews for this site and Gearcritech.com, more desktop images, PLUS I’m going to be crazy ambitious and start another comic project - though it’s bit of a secret for now.
Okie dokie, hope y’all had a great holiday so far, and if you’re around NYC/NJ during New Year’s, gimme a shout! Cheers.
I would just like to say we should all take some time and pray for those whose lives have been lost from the South Asia earthquake and tsunamis. God bless.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou opened at Lincoln Square last Friday in Manhattan, and my friend Saki and I decided to give it a whirl - being pretty big Wes Anderson fans and all, haha. So from the get-go I’ll probably talk about this film from a very fan POV, so bear with me.
The Life Aquatic is a film that you have to let yourself be sucked into. You have to prepare yourself to let go and just absorb the world that the movie presents to you. In general, Wes Anderson’s films have to be watched in this way in order to really get the full enjoyment from his cinematic style. While not a perfect film, it had a lot enjoyment packed into it, from some good performances (a few were even a surprise to me) to some really cool set pieces of Zissou’s ship the Belafonte. Like I’ve said before, the director’s films are almost always a love or hate affair. What is it about Anderson’s films that do this?
Play-Asia.com got their hands on a PSP from SCE’s aution of 500 pre-release units (the auction’s procedes went to charity for those affected by the Mid-Niigata earthquake). In this article, Play-Asia give a a quick breakdown of the system and its hardware, and what they received in the Value Pack. They mention things like first powering on and customizing the system (similar to the DS and is pretty cool I must say), and setting the time and language (Japanese or English, good sign for importers, if you can get find one on release day ;)). They also give a ton of videos and photos displaying the interface and hardware. Though the quality of videos are iffy (taken with a DV cam I’m sure) there’s a lot of them and gives a nice impression on what it’s like to operate the thing - and the 16:9 screen looks pretty hot, just wished Play-Asia had better quality video, hehe.
I can see why Sony is pushing this in competition with like the iPod in being this generation’s Walkman. While I agree with a lot of people in that you don’t need hardcore graphics and technology for portable gaming - the original Gameboy survived nearly a decade before it went “Color” and even that upgrade wasn’t that big, plus the DS totally exceded my expectations on 3D portable graphics already - Sony’s willing to take that risk, as in losing a lot of money, to give people near-PS2 graphics and multimedia goodness.
Remember those demo videos displaying the kind of graphics next-gen consoles will be capable of rendering? (I’ll find links, but some came out around E3 time and later.) Well on Magic Box, there are two conceptual images that may shed a little more light on what’s going to be out. Basically the shots are proposing that the realtime graphics will be very similar to all the FMV in games these days. While the Need for Speed Porsche Turbo looks a little nicer than a hi-res Gran Turismo shot, I’m looking more forward to Madden. To me, sports games have always been just a step behind in graphics, when compared to other game titles (and usually football games have the best graphics for sports). I can understand the dilemma, as the games come out each season with rosters changing and updating stats - meaning more face-mapping, motion capturing, legal issues, etc. It’s a challenge to create a worthy gaming experience everytime.