So...as of this last Saturday (which, not coincidentally at all, was Brian's 23rd birthday), we are officially a Wii-60 family. It's kind of a funny story how it happened - I bought Brian an Xbox game (not Xbox 360, just a regular Xbox game) that he'd been wanting for some time now as a birthday present. This required, as one might expect, deciding how to connect the Xbox to our Screen and Sound System of Gigantitude and Awesomeness, as well as our Wireless Broadband Internet Connection of Not As Much Awesomeness But Much More Freeness (since said Xbox had never been updated and therefore didn't have the ability to do much in terms of upscaling content to a high definition display). Given that we didn't want to have a 150-foot patch cable running from the Xbox in the theater room to the router in the living room, Brian toyed with the idea of hacking a couple of Linksys routers to jury-rig a wireless connection (apparently ordering the actual adapter was out of the question since it was his birthday and he wanted to play the game now, dammit). However, after talking it over, we decided to just go ahead and buy a 360 - we were planning on getting one eventually anyway, and since it was being advertised as a "wireless wonderland" and both of its direct competitors included wireless internet access as a standard feature, it would already have that function built in, right?
As it turns out, not exactly.
We go to Costco and purchase the 360 bundle pack (which is actually a pretty good deal - it came with another wireless controller, a play-and-charge kit, and a sampling of some of the more popular Xbox Live Arcade games), bring it home, and set it up. (Aside: I have to give the Microsoft design crew mass props this time around - it's obvious they listened to the complaints about the giant size and clunky form factor of the original Xbox.) Brian turns it on and starts to mess with the Internet settings so he can download the backwards compatibility stuff to play his games.
All well and good, until we discover that it does not, in fact, have wireless internet access built in as we anticipated.
There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth and cursing of Microsoft's marketing department, as well as time spent where Brian does in fact try to hack a Linksys router to provide access (forgetting at the time that he had it in the back of the J&W Beetle because it didn't work in the first place), but eventually we trek down to Fred Meyer and shell out the extra $100 for the wireless adapter. And after a bit more fiddling with connection (part of the joy of our Wireless Internet Connection of Freeness is that it comes with some nonstandard settings), we have a functional Internet-enabled almost-completely-wireless 360. And after seeing the difference in display and upscaling capability, I'm almost inclined to think it was all worth it, even if all we do is play older Xbox games on it. Especially since we later discovered that our original Xbox has somehow gotten fried in the last six months or so since we've played with it.
Of course, we're not actually going to only play old Xbox games on it, but investing in newer ones (at least on my end) is going to be a bit slowed by the fact that they tend to run about $60-$80 new. Fortunately, the only one I'm really interested in at the moment (Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which promises all the joys of massive role-playing without the joys of people going "D00D I AM SO HIGH RITE NOW" and not bothering to actually, y'know, play the game) I was able to nab off of Half.com for $44 with shipping. We'll see if it holds my attention long enough to justify the investment. If not, I can always play through Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic again, or try out Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (the game I bought for Brian, which looks to be very KotOR-like in terms of interesting plot and characters with fantastic voice acting).
Interestingly enough, that wasn't the only upgrade our home theater received last weekend. David (a friend and coworker of ours whom I've probably mentioned before) went over to our place last week to help Brian jump start the J&W Beetle. While it was charging, Brian took him inside to show off our Screen of Gigantitude and Awesomeness, which apparently prompted David to head over to Costco and purchase the same model of screen for himself. And, since he had no use for the stand that came with it (his television room is rather smaller than ours), he traded us the stand for the extra receiver that we had laying around thanks to the speaker company sending us two sets way back when. So we now have our coffee table back in the living room, and the television on its matching (and much slimmer) stand, which makes the theater room noticeably less crowded as well as putting the TV at a much better viewing angle. Truth to tell, it looks pretty seriously spiffy in there now. (Grr...if only I could figure out where my digital camera is...)
As far as actually making use of our veritable Altar To Entertainment, we've been working our way through the first season of Battlestar Galactica. One of the strongest impressions it made on me to start was how well it differentiated itself from previous sci-fi series (such as Star Trek) - obviously the backstory is a lot darker, but it goes down to much more subtle differences too. Note the world music influences in the soundtrack, for instance, especially the noticeable lack of traditional brass-horn fanfare in the opening sequence. Or the documentary hand-held camera style of the cinematography in both interior and exterior/effects shots (a technique, I might add with a touch of fannish pride, pioneered in Firefly) that makes the whole thing feel that much more present-time and urgent. Or the washed-out color palette that gives you that almost claustrophobic feeling of being confined to a starship, where the lighting is entirely artificial. None of these tricks are original, of course, but together they combine to do a fantastic job of establishing Galactica's uniqueness in the canon of science fiction television on an almost subconscious level.
Of course, what makes this all work so well is fantastic writing and acting. The cast is uniformly excellent at making very well-developed characters come to life, complete with anger, fear, paranoia, grudges, and general humanity on full display. As for the writing...well, as an example, "Six Degrees of Separation" (my favorite episode so far) is the best damn example I've ever seen of taking literally every reasonable theory about a character, dumping them all out onto the pavement, running them over with a semi truck, and then brushing the pieces onto the wind with a fine whisk. And it's all done without breaking character or tone, and with just enough gentle beckoning to have that theory-producing part of your brain working overtime to try and make all the new evidence fit into some sort of framework.
Anyway, as some might've gathered from the slightly more frequent updates, work's been settling down into a more usual routine. One of the things I've started doing on occasion to pass the time is writing reviews over on Amazon.com - not very many, since most of the stuff I've bought is pretty well-reviewed already, but when I find something that doesn't have much content in the "customer reviews" section I try to add something with a little more information to it. I'm particularly happy with the way my review for the Teddybears' Soft Machine came out, so I'm reprinting it here:
Like many Americans, my first exposure to the this Teddybears album was through the Iggy Pop-voiced single "Punkrocker". I've always had a fondness for European techno (unlike Americans, the folk on the other side of the pond seem to understand the idea of using variation to keep their mixes interesting), and the synthesized background tracks were catchy, so I went to check out the whole album. The results were a little different than I expected - while "Punkrocker" is definitely in the same vein as the rest of the songs, it's definitely not representative of the album as a whole. There is a wide range of themes and attitudes here, as evidenced by the myriad guest vocalists. What ties it all together, however, is the persistent dance sound that will have you moving to the music almost subconsciously.
Whether or not you'll be into the album as a whole depends mostly on whether you're open to revisiting the 80s early-techno genre. For those who appreciate the style, there's much to like - old-school primitive synthesizer tracks are overlaid with some excellent vocal turns (other standouts include Elephant Man's "Are You Feelin' It" and Neneh Cherry's "Yours to Keep"). The experimental time-capsule nature of the album verges on self-awareness at times, with results ranging from biting (the lyrics of "Punkrocker") to amusing (the vocal appearance of the Fred voice of the Macintosh Classic in "Automatic Lover"). And while the lyrics are hardly multilayered, the tracks themselves are more than enjoyable enough to justify repeat listening.
"Soft Machine" may be a bit simplistic in scope and execution, but this is a nonetheless enjoyable album that makes a nice alternative to much of the other bubblegum-pop ear candy on the radio today.
Guess that's all the news for the moment. At the very least, I'll probably be back with some thoughts on Oblivion in a week or so...unless it ends up being as addicting as everyone claims, in which case I'll see you all in three or four months. =)
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pleasantly lazy
serene
blah
trying not to get sick
hungry
anticipatory