007: Skyfall (2012) – Micro Movie Review

Wow! I enjoy the James Bond movies and I was looking forward to this one. All the classic Bond elements are there – tuxedo, casino, beautiful women, exotic locales, crazy-but-interesting villain, etc. But they managed to also put that into the context of the modern world. And while it’s not exactly a comedy, there’s a wonderful, droll sense of humour that me chuckling throughout the movie. Daniel Craig is terrific at wearing his scars on screen (both physical and emotional). And the villain (forgot the actor’s name) puts on a terrific, memorable performance. But I was most impressed with Judi Dench. She’s a brilliant actor in anything she does, but in this movie she’s exceptionally good, even by her high standards. Big thumbs up, don’t miss it!

Bad Mornings

I wake up at 3am this morning, can’t sleep.  The same thing happened yesterday morning, so I know I’m going to be dead tired today.  And even though it’s Friday, we have our Christmas event tomorrow, so that means I have to work tomorrow, which kills any TGIF buzz I may have had.

 

I look into the living room and see that one of the cats got ahold of a toilet paper roll, so now there’s shredded toilet tissue all over the living room floor.  But that’s not all.  Another cat (or maybe the same cat, not sure), got into my bag of rice, so now there’s a big pile of dry rice in front of the sink.  And somehow the cats have managed to track little pieces of dry rice all over the apartment.

 

Also, one of the cats (or maybe the same cat, not sure) spilled the water dish, so around the water dish there’s a lovely mixture of wet tissue and wet rice, that I know isn’t going to clean up well with a broom.  I try to forget about all this and take a shower, when I notice that my towel, that I had hung up yesterday, is now in a wet heap on the floor.  It must have fallen down.  So now it’s wet and has a wonderful mildewy smell.  Thankfully, I at least had another clean towel.  In fact the other dry towel is a big Polo bath sheet.  In fact it’s my favourite towel!  So I start drying myself off and suddenly I hear a R-R-R-I-P sound.  Great, my favourite towel just ripped.  I go into the bedroom to get dressed and I notice that the top sheet on my bed has once again come off the corner.  Once again I try to put it over the corner, only to have another corner come off.  So I go back and forth trying to get both corners to stay put, and of course the cats are running around and doing everything in their power to obstruct me (because they’re cats and this amuses them).  I think I almost have it when.. DING DONG!

 

My phone is ringing like crazy because it’s 5AM and it’s now time to wake up.  I stop the alarm, go back to the bed and _finally_ get both the corners of the top sheet in their proper place.  Now it’s 5:17am.  I’m half dressed, and I realize that tonight people are coming to upgrade my internet, so before I leave for work, I have to clean up all the rice and tissue in my apartment.  I also notice that the cats are out of food, so once I leave the apartment I have to go to 7-11, buy some cat food, then come back, feed the cats, then finally I can go to work.  And yes, I live on the fourth floor and no, there is no elevator in my building.

 

I don’t mean to be a negative Nancy, but I think it’s safe to say that my day has not started well (sigh)..

Uncharted: Golden Abyss for Playstation Vita – Micro Game Review

Uncharted: Golden Abyss Screen Shot

I got this in a bundle with my Vita at the Taiwanese launch.  It was the first Uncharted game I had played and I actually really enjoyed it, somewhat to my surprise.  The shooting action works great on the Vita’s dual-analog sticks, the story has interesting characters and entertaining dialog, and the production values and voice acting are all top notch.  I also like that it’s not just shooting – there’s plenty of exploring to do as well, and a bit of puzzle solving but nothing too distracting.  The same can’t be said for some of the touchscreen gimmickry and other nonsense that appears to have been shoehorned into the game, for no other purpose than to say “Hey, we can do this!”  But I guess, as the flagship launch title, Sony wants to show off all the features of their hardware.  All said however, this one’s a winner.  Big thumbs up!

Uncharted – Box Shot