Good times but Saltgrass sucks!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Ketchup
Last weekend we tried out the Tilted Kilt way up north of mopac. It's essentially the same as Lion and the Rose in San Antonio: a british pub-themed Hooters. They do have a better beer selection than the Hoots, I'll give em that. The food was so-so. I had a couple pints of Stella and a fish sandwich; c2 had a "irish dip," which was their version of a french dip roast beef sandwich. Both meals were decent, and I especially liked the fries. The service was a little dippy. It would probably be a fun place to watch a game if it wasn't so goddamn loud inside. Still, I might go back.
No Country For Old Men was awesome. Pretty fucking cold balls but awesome. Will had already seen it a couple weeks prior but went with me to see it again. I get now why he was so eager to watch the movie a second time. Very suspenseful with great black humor dialogue. Chigurh is one of my favorite bad guys now. Thankfully I had totally forgotten that Josh Brolin was Brent in Goonies or else I might not have taken him so seriously. Don't let anyone give away the ending for you!
Mr. Brooks was definitely head and shoulders below No Country, but I still think it had its merits. Pretty much every scene with Costner, Cook, and Hurt together is great - the alter ego gimmick worked for me - everything else is terrible. The entire sideline plot around Demi Moore's character tracking Brooks down is worthless.
Hmm what else? I threw +2 on the 9 hole at Wells Branch the other day, beating my personal best of +4. That was pretty sweet.
Oh yeah, I finally got The Orange Box, and it's as great a set of games as I was expecting. I already beat Portal, a neat little game centered around one of my all-time secret wish fantasy toys: the portable hole. It's essentially a first-person puzzler with great graphics and the same creepy, quiet atmosphere as games like Myst or the original Half Life. A great title. Teamfortress 2, however, is a fucking masterpiece. TF2 is probably one of the most perfect computer games I have ever played. The graphics are cool and the mechanics are very smooth. Obviously you need an internet connection and a worthwhile server, but there's always tons of them to choose from. All the classes are equally fun, some more challenging than others. I don't think I'll ever be a very good spy or sniper, but I'm decent with the heavy, engineer, pyro, and medic classes. It's so fun to set up those sentry guns that you just want to cry.
No Country For Old Men was awesome. Pretty fucking cold balls but awesome. Will had already seen it a couple weeks prior but went with me to see it again. I get now why he was so eager to watch the movie a second time. Very suspenseful with great black humor dialogue. Chigurh is one of my favorite bad guys now. Thankfully I had totally forgotten that Josh Brolin was Brent in Goonies or else I might not have taken him so seriously. Don't let anyone give away the ending for you!
Mr. Brooks was definitely head and shoulders below No Country, but I still think it had its merits. Pretty much every scene with Costner, Cook, and Hurt together is great - the alter ego gimmick worked for me - everything else is terrible. The entire sideline plot around Demi Moore's character tracking Brooks down is worthless.
Hmm what else? I threw +2 on the 9 hole at Wells Branch the other day, beating my personal best of +4. That was pretty sweet.
Oh yeah, I finally got The Orange Box, and it's as great a set of games as I was expecting. I already beat Portal, a neat little game centered around one of my all-time secret wish fantasy toys: the portable hole. It's essentially a first-person puzzler with great graphics and the same creepy, quiet atmosphere as games like Myst or the original Half Life. A great title. Teamfortress 2, however, is a fucking masterpiece. TF2 is probably one of the most perfect computer games I have ever played. The graphics are cool and the mechanics are very smooth. Obviously you need an internet connection and a worthwhile server, but there's always tons of them to choose from. All the classes are equally fun, some more challenging than others. I don't think I'll ever be a very good spy or sniper, but I'm decent with the heavy, engineer, pyro, and medic classes. It's so fun to set up those sentry guns that you just want to cry.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Mehdiocre Movies
I've watched my fair share of blase flicks recently. I can't wait for No Country at the end of the month to pull me back out of this shitty movie tarpit into which I've apparently wandered.
First was Wes Anderson's disappointing The Darjeeling Limited and the accompanying short film Hotel Chevalier. Usually I'm a huge fan of Anderson's work but this one just didn't keep me interested and dragged on a bit much. All his classic touches and affectations were there but they felt a little heavy for a travelling film; the characters were all carrying around literally too much baggage and they often bottomed out in not very interesting ways. Honestly the burnt out archetypes were served up better in Life Aquatic and Tenenbaums.
I rented The Battle for Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri) but I couldn't get too deep into it and stopped watching early on. I'm going to try to rent it again; it may have just been a bad week for that kind of movie.
Saw III was atrocious, just like I figured it would be. Honestly I'm very much over the whole torture porn genre - this was the old lady's pick. Some of the gimmicks are pretty clever, but you can see everything coming a mile away, and it's basically 113 minutes of gratuitious suffering that just sucks the soul right out of you. Blegh.
We watched Death Proof over a couple of nights, as it too drags on with contrived dialogue and pointless time-suck scenes. I can kind of appreciate the whole homage to shitty 70's B-movies paradigm, but I thought his earlier movies did a much better job of this, not to mention they were actually interesting films in themselves. WTF happened to the cheerleader actress, the superfine Mary Liz Winstead, who looks just like the similarly superfine Jewel Staite? Maybe my issues with Death Proof mean I couldn't appreciate the whole ironic concept of the film, but I was just expecting more fun overall. Still, there were definitely highlights. #1 Bad Ass Kurt Russell and the everpresent smoking hot chicks swinging around help you survive the overlong hangout scenes and stilted dialogue. The ending is awesome yet completely unsatisfying. What?! I know. It just is. I heard this was the better of the two Grindhouse movies, but I can't see how much worse any Rodriguez movie could be, especially with the whole McGowan gun-leg thing going for it.
Last but not least we watched 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Oh, and that's Fantastic 4 by the way; I'm guessing the title is like a hip abbreviated KFC kinda thing? Anyways. Super cheesy, gag-worthy digital effects (especially Mr. Fantastic), and pretty much nothing going for it outside of the second movie to feature Dr. Doom, who will always be one of my favorite Marvel characters ever.
First was Wes Anderson's disappointing The Darjeeling Limited and the accompanying short film Hotel Chevalier. Usually I'm a huge fan of Anderson's work but this one just didn't keep me interested and dragged on a bit much. All his classic touches and affectations were there but they felt a little heavy for a travelling film; the characters were all carrying around literally too much baggage and they often bottomed out in not very interesting ways. Honestly the burnt out archetypes were served up better in Life Aquatic and Tenenbaums.
I rented The Battle for Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri) but I couldn't get too deep into it and stopped watching early on. I'm going to try to rent it again; it may have just been a bad week for that kind of movie.
Saw III was atrocious, just like I figured it would be. Honestly I'm very much over the whole torture porn genre - this was the old lady's pick. Some of the gimmicks are pretty clever, but you can see everything coming a mile away, and it's basically 113 minutes of gratuitious suffering that just sucks the soul right out of you. Blegh.
We watched Death Proof over a couple of nights, as it too drags on with contrived dialogue and pointless time-suck scenes. I can kind of appreciate the whole homage to shitty 70's B-movies paradigm, but I thought his earlier movies did a much better job of this, not to mention they were actually interesting films in themselves. WTF happened to the cheerleader actress, the superfine Mary Liz Winstead, who looks just like the similarly superfine Jewel Staite? Maybe my issues with Death Proof mean I couldn't appreciate the whole ironic concept of the film, but I was just expecting more fun overall. Still, there were definitely highlights. #1 Bad Ass Kurt Russell and the everpresent smoking hot chicks swinging around help you survive the overlong hangout scenes and stilted dialogue. The ending is awesome yet completely unsatisfying. What?! I know. It just is. I heard this was the better of the two Grindhouse movies, but I can't see how much worse any Rodriguez movie could be, especially with the whole McGowan gun-leg thing going for it.
Last but not least we watched 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Oh, and that's Fantastic 4 by the way; I'm guessing the title is like a hip abbreviated KFC kinda thing? Anyways. Super cheesy, gag-worthy digital effects (especially Mr. Fantastic), and pretty much nothing going for it outside of the second movie to feature Dr. Doom, who will always be one of my favorite Marvel characters ever.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Beerce
I tried a couple new brews recently.
Cecil had bought some Lucifer Belgian Ale to try and he shared one with me while we were hanging out at his place a few days ago. Only after tasting it did we go back and notice it was 9% alcohol, or about double the strength of the German lagers I drink on a regular basis. Honestly these kind of long fermented ales are a little hard to enjoy when you're feeling like drinking more than one beer in a sitting. It goes down slow, getting more flavorable as it warms slightly, but by the time you feel that extra kick, the taste is a little much already. Comparable to Fat Tire's Trippel Ale but maybe not as delicate.
I grabbed a 6-pack of Independence Pale Ale, which I assume is the flagship of the Austin-based Independence Brewery. The label has a nice painting of Angelina Eberly, the inn-lady wot saved Austin in ye olden times with a single blast from her cannon. The first thing I noticed was the fairly substantial head it produces even when poured very slowly. It doubles as a timer that lets you know when this one is at about the right temperature. As it recedes, it leaves fluffy formations of foam that dance lightly on the drinker's moustache in an altogether pleasant manner. I definitely like it but the price was a little much ($7.99/6). The flavor reminds me of Sam Adams. There's a tour on the first of December with a complimentary tasting at the end, and I was thinking about checking it out. I'm interested in the Austin Amber and Freestyle Wheat brews and that sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon.
Cecil had bought some Lucifer Belgian Ale to try and he shared one with me while we were hanging out at his place a few days ago. Only after tasting it did we go back and notice it was 9% alcohol, or about double the strength of the German lagers I drink on a regular basis. Honestly these kind of long fermented ales are a little hard to enjoy when you're feeling like drinking more than one beer in a sitting. It goes down slow, getting more flavorable as it warms slightly, but by the time you feel that extra kick, the taste is a little much already. Comparable to Fat Tire's Trippel Ale but maybe not as delicate.
I grabbed a 6-pack of Independence Pale Ale, which I assume is the flagship of the Austin-based Independence Brewery. The label has a nice painting of Angelina Eberly, the inn-lady wot saved Austin in ye olden times with a single blast from her cannon. The first thing I noticed was the fairly substantial head it produces even when poured very slowly. It doubles as a timer that lets you know when this one is at about the right temperature. As it recedes, it leaves fluffy formations of foam that dance lightly on the drinker's moustache in an altogether pleasant manner. I definitely like it but the price was a little much ($7.99/6). The flavor reminds me of Sam Adams. There's a tour on the first of December with a complimentary tasting at the end, and I was thinking about checking it out. I'm interested in the Austin Amber and Freestyle Wheat brews and that sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
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