August Update

It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to post, but I wanted to give you an update on some things going on…

Throughout these last few days I’ve been all over the place, trying to balance out a hectic week at work, spending time with Bethany and my other friends, my sister coming home from spending all summer in Boston (although she leaves again in 2 weeks), volunteer work, and all the other fun stuff going on in my life.

But of course, in the juggling my time, I’ve spent some quality time feeding my Madden 2006 addiction…  Ugh… 

MADDEN 2006 is basically "video game crack".  It feeds on my enthusiasm and excitement for football and results in the elimination of basically any and all of my free time.  It’s been pretty bad, but so far I’m still getting the hang of this game.  Now many of you may be asking "Wait…  Don’t you already have Madden 2005 (and 2004, 2003, 2002, etc.)?  Is this year’s game really all that different to justify spending $50 for?".  Well…. Yes!  Not only do you get all of the updated rosters (and with all of the free agency and player movement in the NFL, they’ve also introduced a ton of new features).  Supposedly last year was their "Year of the Defense" and this year they’ve made just as many offensive additions to the new version – the most noticeable being the "Quarterback Vision" .  It’s actually a really cool concept.  The game basically replicates your QB’s field of vision, illustrating it with a cone-shaped lighting while you throw.  If you throw within the lighting, then your passes will be pretty accurate.  If you throw outside of the cone you’ll either throw a pick or just a pretty stupid pass.  For each Quarterback their skill and awareness dictates the size of their cone.  What’s really funny is how highly (or lowly in many cases) EA Sports considers each Quarterback.  Payton Manning’s "Vision" is basically a 90 degree angle..  Jake Plummer…. well…    I would say that it’s probably fair and reflective of his skill, but it’s disappointing when your favorite team has a crappy quarterback (and you’re reminded of that).

They have a cool tutorial about the vision and how it works, and I went through all those motions, but no help – basically for the first 5 games I played I just got my ass kicked all over again.  Sack.. Sack..  Sack!  Ugh…  I think I ended up with something like 2 for 10 for my first game or something, it was really pathetic.  I got the hang of it after a while though (with the Eagles beating the Ravens 30-2  – not too bad!)  It’s definitely an equalizer when it comes to defense though.  I really like the QB vision because then you get a sense to where the QB is looking, and it’s easier to defend. What’s really funny is that the biggest change for the way I play has nothing to do with offense, but that they switched the "speed" and "switch player" buttons on defense.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve screwed up my pass-rushes… Ugh…  So I’m excited to see how other people will fare with the new Madden.  I’ve been playing the computer a lot these last few days, ready to play a real person… 

Oh and the PC version comes out on Tuesday…  You bet I’m going to be in line to get that one as well, and pray that it’ll install on my laptop (makes flights A LOT SHORTER!).

 

On Thursday night Bethany and I went to go see Charlie and the Chocoloate Factory.  I’ve heard a lot of good things about this movie from my family and friends, but after sitting through the movie, I can’t really say that I agree with them.  While I can see how people enjoyed the movie, both Bethany and I couldn’t stand it!  Maybe I was trying too hard to compare it with the 1971 version with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, but when you think about Wonka and Johnny Depp, I didn’t think that Depp was going for the Willy Wonka role at all.  Depp wasn’t Willy Wonka, he was Michael Jackson!  The appearance, mannerisms and even down to Depp talking about "P..P…Parents".  Ugh!  That really did it for me!  The other qualm I had about the characterization of Wonka in this movie was the fact that it had this "Dr. Phil’s analysis" part of it.  We already knew that Wonka was crazy and a little loopy, but I didn’t need to know that it’s caused my a "repressed anger and disappointment at your parents" thing.  Can’t anyone just be NUTS?!?  I didn’t appreciate that part of the back story.

Now with the rest of the casting, I liked the kids they got to play Veruca Salt, Violet  Beauregarde and Augustus Gloop.  I wasn’t a big fan of Charlie, but I really couldn’t stand Grandpa Joe…  It’s almost as if they went out of their way to make Grandpa really weird-looking.  I really couldn’t stand the scene where he got out of bed.  In both the book and the original movie Gramps got out of bed because Charlie really wanted him to go, but in this movie Granda seemed pretty eager to re-live his past and when he hopped out of bed it looked like he was holding out on the rest of the family.  At that point I thought "Wait a minute, so you were too sick to go out and get a job, but when it comes time to gravy-train off the kid’s trip to the factory you’re perfectly healthy?!?   Thanks for nothin’ gramps!

Oh, and the Oompa Loompa’s were horrible!  I guess they ran out of money and needed to re-cast the same person over and over again, but they were just creepy!  And I didn’t appreciate the dance troupe thing they had going on, it was just lame…  And the songs – totally sucked!  Maybe I’m just a bit nostalgic for "Ooompa Loompa do-pa-di-do… "

Like I said before, I can understand why other people liked the movie, but I personally couldn’t stand it!

I also went to go see Four Brothers today… I’ll write more about it in a bit..  Oh, and I have an update on the web site saga.  More to come…