Seven Pounds Vs "Hammerblow!!!"

1) Seven Pounds is decent.
2) Emotionally grabbed wife but not me
3) I would easily pay a dollar to see this film but not again.
4) "Hammerblow!!!" is great to play during the emotional scenes of this film.
5) I would not watch this film with an emotionally unbalanced emo person.


Seven Pounds is a movie staring Will Smith that my wife pulled out of the Redbox at Walgreens. We paid a dollar to watch this movie and neither of us had heard of it beforehand.

Now I have an open mind and I'm willing to try out new and different things, especially if it only costs me a dollar. We sat down to watch it with our rottweiler trying to sleep between us on the couch.

My rottweiler is named Vader and we have a game we like to play. I basically make exaggerated attack moves at him while shouting the name of the move I'm making. He in turn stares at me with complete adoration while I pretend to beat him down. It relieves stress for both of us. Today's game was "Hammerblow!!!" and both Vader and my wife really had a good time with this one.

Spoiler Alert!

The movie starts out with Will Smith's character, Ben Thomas calling 911 to report his own suicide. Then he calls Woody Harrelson's character Ezra. Ezra is blind and Ben basically says the worst things you could think of and say to a blind person. Making fun of his never being able to see the ocean and such. At this point in the movie I was stoked. Will Smith committing suicide AND making fun of a blind guy! That was awesome and different! However, the movie took a slow downturn and kept running to the bottom after that.

You spend a bit of time trying to figure out what is going on. Which is great for about 10 minutes. You come to realize that Ben is meeting the people that he wants to donate his body parts and finances to after he commits suicide. He meets the people to find out if they are "worthy" of his sacrifice. Almost everybody shown makes the cut with a couple exceptions. A love interest develops between Ben and Emily (the woman who he wants to donate his heart to). The tension at the end consists of whether or not he is going to follow through with his well laid out suicide plan or choose to live life with this new woman. The choice is made for him when he finds out that donating his heart is likely the only way Emily will live.

End of Spoiler!

Now I am not a "Fast and the Furious" guy, but I am closer to being one than say a "You've got Mail." ... "guy". I'm not big on the emotional stuff but I can handle bits of it if there's something else going on that is interesting. After I understood what was happening in Seven Pounds the rest of the movie I was basically waiting for the conclusion so I could go play some WoW or Xbox.
Whenever the movie got particularly slow, I would interject by yelling "Hammerblow!!!" and mock thumping my dog. This kept everybody alert and awake, especially my dog because I did not want him to miss anything important. I know my wife enjoyed this because she kept giving me this pinched faced look. Long ago I decided to interpret her looks in my own way. As she is still married to me and gives me this particular look quite often, I have decided that this is a "I love what you're doing!" look.

The only problem I had with the movie other than the fact that it was kinda boring was that it glorified suicide. With the uprising of emoism everywhere and the fact that I work in a treatment center for troubled youths and see suicidal children everyday, I feel that at this point in time the world could use less of that. I'm not saying that I believe this movie would cause anybody to actually go and commit suicide. However as I have had to argue many times about how living your life is better than killing yourself, I feel that making suicide a noble act in a movie starring Will Smith makes it that much harder to convince some of these kids that suicide is never a viable option.

What do you think?

The Ross Clothing Store at 1931 E Highway 69, Prescott AZ

For anyone that doesn't know, Ross clothing stores are a chain of stores that sell discounted clothing some of which are manufacturing mistakes. The clothes they sell are cheap and if you don't mind an occasional missed stitch or a third armhole in your shirts; you in theory could find some good deals there.

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm not much for fashion or spending money on things that don't involve video games or vacation. It would seem as if Ross discount clothing stores and myself would be a good match. However the chances of me ever going into a Ross store was pretty much at 0%, until the day that I got married. On that day my odds of entering stores with words like "Linen" and "Candles" in their titles increased astronomically. I hate this as much as the dainty store clerks who are used to people "smelling good" and seemed a little put off by my "could be homeless" look and mannerisms. My wife does not care about any of this and seems to find it pleasing when I go places like that with her. I do what I can for society though and try to stay away from it as much as I can.

My wife tricked me into going with her to Ross this last weekend. She used the standard "I don't want to spend too much money, so go along with me to keep me under control" device. I had tried calling this "bluff" a few months earlier by telling her "You know how much money we have. You know how much money you can spend. So don't spend more than that." Then I sat back to play some Xbox while she went shopping for clothes. I was content in the knowledge that things would be okay. I was wrong, things did NOT turn out okay. I quickly put on my shoes and drove her to Ross.

Upon entering the store you see a large guy standing by the door. This guy could have been a greeter but he did not greet anyone. He stared everybody down with the look of a surly bouncer and looked like he was ready to go if somebody even cracked their knuckles. Now either this guy was somebody who completely did not understand their job title or he was...a bouncer. What could have possibly happened to necessitate a bouncer in a discount clothing store? Are people actually getting into brawls over the $5 shirt with an extra button sewn into the collar? Couldn't this guy's time be better spent...I don't know, picking up the clothes that are strewn about on the floor in the aisles?

Now for a man shopping at Ross it is fair to warn you that 80% of the store is woman's clothes. 15% is various housewares and shoes that you would probably prefer to buy somewhere else. That means that the entire men's section comprises about 5% of the store for those of you that fail at math. The men's "section" is delegated to about 4 racks set up at the front of the store to the right. My wife went with glee to find some deals and then try them on. I knew that I had about an hour to hang out.

Now I'm not a huge guy, I wear XL usually, like most guys I know. I actually only know 1 or 2 guys that are small enough to wear shirts that say "medium" or "small" on them. These 4 racks of clothes had hundreds of choices for elves and leprechauns. I slowly walked down the aisle while glancing at legions of women hanging out at the changing closets thinking to myself "who in their right minds would wear these clothes with even the slightest notion of pride?" Keep in mind that while I'm thinking this that I'm currently sporting the "could be homeless" look complete with the "my wife made me go all of sudden" hair. Not even I would buy these clothes.

I finally get to the XL section and there are 3 shirts available. One has flowery pink writing emblazoned in front of some tropical setting. This shirt probably belonged in one of the other sections. The other shirt was a black button up with gold patches on one side of both the front and back. The last shirt, the only shirt that I could possibly conceive of buying was plain grey with the Nike symbol on the shoulder. There was no way I was going to pay $10 for that shirt.

800 years later my wife was finally ready to go. I left the store with a feeling of frustration and immense boredom. Here are my ratings regarding this store.

Friendliness: 3 (having some guy stare me down because I'm walking into one of the cheapest clothing stores in town is irritating. Seriously this store is barely an upgrade from the Goodwill and you should be thanking people for coming in ... you know, like a greeter.)

Atmosphere: 3 (row upon row of strewn about clothing make this store more like my room than a retail chain. The odd "Ross" smell combined with poor lighting work together to create a "basement at Sears" motif.

Selection: 1 (This was written by a guy, so this is from a guy's point of view. Unless you are a transvestite or some kind of magical fairy creature from another dimension, you probably will not find anything you would wear)






As a kind of disclaimer I would like to acknowledge that the dig at Ross involving Goodwill stores was made purely to dig at Ross. I've found some sweet deals on decent clothes at various Goodwill stores that I've frequented.

Ghost Master - A perspective.

1) This game is a good value at $5
2) Some minor thinking required
3) Different than the norm
4) Fun for almost all ages
5) Scaring the **** out of sims


I was checking out the $5 games on Steam to see if there was anything worthwhile when I came across Ghost Master. I did about 3 minutes of intensive forum searching to find that people were saying good things. So, I went ahead and bought it.

The very first thing I noticed was the high pitched campy music that immediately began to attack my inner ear. I started clicking madly and pressing the escape button in order to move past the opening music as quickly as possible. The mission select screen opened up and immediately the game got much better.

You take the role of a ghost master (surprising considering the title) and your job is to scare the beejeus out of an entire town place by place. You select your mission and then you get a selection of ghosts to take with you. These ghosts are bound to different fetters which enable them to interact with the world. There are a bunch of different ghosts and each have different powers that they control.

The missions comprise a few different activities. Usually your goal is to scare away the mortals but sometimes your goal is something more specific. Sprinkled throughout the missions are other ghosts that can help you but you have to figure out how to free them first. This adds a nice little bonus challenge to each mission.

I have had a lot of fun with this game. I paid Steam $5 to download it and feel that it was very good value for my money. If you're in need of some lighthearted campy fun then I would pick up this title for sure.




Negatives: music at the beginning sucks
can't save in the middle of a mission
controls sometimes wonky.

Positives: the puzzles
scaring the shit out of the sims
rpg-like character progression/addition of powers
sound effects are good.
good value
good nods to different horror movies/themes.

Other thoughts: Voice acting- tutorial lady was annoying. Other voice acting is pretty good
The missions are fun but the overall story could use some work.


If you have tried this game feel free to offer your opinion in the comments section.

STAR TREK

The Path by Tale of Tales

1) This game is very slow paced
2) Depressing
3) Highly intriguing
4) Not very much action
5) Unconventional

When I first heard about this game coming out I was very excited. I thought that the Little Red Riding Hood story would be a great thing to expand upon. I really enjoyed what American Megee did with Alice and was hoping to see the same sort of treatment in The Path. What I got after the $9.99 purchase was very different than anything I expected.

The Path begins with the scene of a room with six girls doing various idle activities.
You select one of the girls to play through her story. The room fades out and the intro begins. There is the sound of a bus moving while presumably you are being taken to the edge of town. This takes quite a bit of time, setting the pace for the rest of the experience. Thankfully you have to option of skipping this section by hitting the escape button during this time.

After the intro, the girl you picked will be standing on a path and written instructions come up that tell you to go to Grandmother's house and to stay on the path. These are the only instructions that you are given and the rest is left for you to piece together. For those of you that haven't yet played this game, I don't want to give anything away. Lets just say that The Path begins messing with you right away. It defies preconceived notions of what a game is supposed to be. Many people have even stated that they don't consider The Path to be a game at all but rather an artistic form of expression. I am not about to get in an argument with random strangers over the Internet over such things. I believe that The Path means different things to different people. You'll get out of it, what you put into it.

The Path is very immersing to me. I quickly get lost when I go into the forest and I usually have a good sense of direction. You are forced to explore slowly. When you run, the camera fades back and up so you can't see where you are going or anything important that you may stumble across.
The music also changes into something frightening and odd shapes, whirls and splatters begin appearing on the screen giving a very disconcerting feeling.

The game is very slow paced and obviously designed to be so. This can be frustrating to people who demand instant satisfaction. Lets be honest though, the kind of people who would be interested in this game are the kind of people that probably will appreciate the fact that it's so very different from other games out there.

The Path is called "a short horror game" by Tale of Tales. The horror here is not achieved by having monsters jump out at you or running away for your life. The horror is psychological in that you are driving a little girl towards her fate. While it is your choice to do this, it is necessary in order to complete the experience.

I have attempted to explain this game without giving too much away. I believe it's important for individuals to experience for themselves this unorthodox approach taken by Tale of Tales. I absolutely feel that even though you may not consider The Path to be "fun-filled" or a "game" that people should give it a try. I think it's great that it makes you take a look at and think about yourself. So if you are not afraid of something different and do not cower when it comes time to think; than The Path is definitely worth $10.

As always I welcome your thoughts and opinions in the comment section. Please try to prevent spoilers for those that haven't given this a chance yet.

Free Browser based Video Game -- Civony -- A perspective after 2 days

1) This game is laggy as hell
2) This game is free
3) There are no beautiful models in the game
4) Strangely addicting
5) You must have great patience to enjoy Civony

I was reading something on the web when I ran across a picture of a beautiful girl with a picture of a castle or something behind her.
I thought to myself "hmm some kind of strategy game with hot chicks involved...count me in!"

I clicked on the link and it took me to the start up page for Civony. With expectations of medieval armies and busty wenches I gladly gave them my email address. This is all that is required to start your account and begin play.

I was taken to a city building screen and thought "Wow, that looks a lot like Age of Empires." I only have my memory of AoE to go by as I no longer have that game, but several people were mirroring what I was thinking over general chat. The animations look as if they were ripped straight from AoE.

I dove into the game almost without thinking. I began upgrading and making new structures like any standard RTS. The deviate from the rule being that you can only build or upgrade one thing at a time. Also, the higher the level building you are upgrading, the longer it takes to build each time. This involves a BUNCH of waiting around for stuff to be built. For example: when I first started the buildings were taking anywhere from 45 seconds to 3 minutes to build. Now, if I want to upgrade my castle walls it's going to take 3 hours and 36 minutes.

Resources in the game are Gold, Food, Lumber, Stone and Iron. You begin with a supply of each, with more rolling in all the time. The amount that comes in depends on how many resource gathering nodes you have built and the level you have upgraded them to. When I say "all the time" I mean precisely that. The game is like an MMO in that there is a persistent world where things happen regardless of whether or not you're logged on.

It is a multiplayer game and it throws you randomly onto a large map filled with other kingdoms. You are given a "beginner buff" which makes it so you have seven days where people cannot attack you. You can voluntarily give up this buff and go to war whenever you wish. I have not checked out much of the multiplayer aspect as I am making full use of the time you are given to build yourself up. I will update this post after I have some idea of the multiplayer.

Strangely, I have found this game extremely addicting. I cannot resist the urge to check on my little kingdom. I need to see if my construction is complete and check the levels of my resources. Honestly I've checked on my kingdom no less than 3 times since I began writing this. It's the kind of game you must have patience for. You will not have much instant gratification with this game, but I believe if you take the time, you'll find it to have that odd flavor that truly addicting games have. That "Why do I keep looking at this screen when I should be sleeping?!" voice going off in your head will annoy you almost as much the constant lame question spam coming over the general chat. Seriously people, read the "Quest" tab and it will tell you what you need to do to get started and how to play.

The makers of this game sell "coins" in exchange for real money. These "coins" enhance the game in various ways. You can make your army have more attack power or defensive power for 24 hours, or complete a structure instantly with the coins. I have not found that I wish to throw down my hard earned cash for these little advances yet. The screen they have set up for purchasing the coins is silly. There is a drop down menu for how many USD in exchange for cents Civony game coins. People read "30 USD in exchange for 300 cents Civony game coins". I don't know how successful they are going to be using this terminology.

If you hadn't noticed after the second paragraph I didn't mention hot girls or busty wenches again. It's because after two days of playing I have yet to see ANY picture of ANY female. I have not gotten a queen or anything like that. Some people may be disappointed by the distinct lack of cleavage in the actual game versus what was advertised. I am one of those people, however I will continue to give this game a chance and will write more if people are interested.

Please feel free to use the comments to tell me your impressions of this game. Also feel free to shoot me a mail in game. I am Lord Woozy and play on Server 1