Knicks @ Heat

The Heat had the upper hand the entire game. The Knicks fought hard, though. They didn't let the game get totally away from them, and at the end, there WAS a point where it was down to a four-point game. It was incredibly intense - the Knicks had a serious chance at a comeback. But, in the end, the Heat prevailed...there were a few fouls and a three-pointer that sealed the deal, if I remember. The final score (double-checking with ESPN) was 98 - 106 Miami.

Islanders @ Rangers

Rangers win 7-2. Big surprise there, lol.

Actually, the Islanders scored two goals over the Rangers in the first period. For a few minutes there, they hada a 2-1 lead. But the Rangers tied it up by the end of said first period, and just took that puck and ran with it.

Well played, Rangers. Well played.

Christmas B-Ball

Bulls @ Knicks: The Christmas-colored uniforms were a nice touch. Also nice, keeping the Bulls from scoring for something like seven, eight straight minutes. Knicks ended up taking it with a score of 103-95. The Bulls just fell apart there at the end, it seemed.

Incidentally, the Magic used their magic on the Celtics and managed to keep Boston down for a loss. That was a bit surprising and definitely intense. (They won over the Celtics 86-78)

Also, Lakers-Heat -- I haven't watched basketball long, but LeBron James' big thing about choosing his team, which dominated ESPN disproportinately and made it a pain to check my baseball scores last summer, have made it so that I can't stand Miami. They ended up beating the Lakers 96-80.

Boston Celtics @ New York Knicks

That was one hell of an intense game. Apparently a Celtic said it wasn't a rivalry, but that was a daaaaaamn good game. 118-116 with 0.4 seconds left, after the Celtics playing aggressive catchup to the Knicks at every turn, and I believe it was Stoudemire that threw a THREE POINT SHOT...

The ball left his hands after time ran out. He missed it by a fraction of a second.

It was agony, elation, and crushing, crushing agony.

What a good game.

Wow.

First time I really paid attention to a basketball game and wow, what a game.

The Thief and the Cobbler (+ Recobbled)

Honestly, someone had shown me this movie a few years ago, and I didn't mind it. I'm not going to say I LOVED it, because it wasn't anything exceptional. It was very Yellow Submarine-esque, though, which I appreciated. Plus, the Thief's random thoughts were epic and memorable, to me. Though they made the movie kiddie and goofy, I found them hilarous, personally.

The Nostalgia Critic recently reviewed The Thief and the Cobbler and, put simply, he ripped it a few new ones. Honestly, with his criticism of the Thief's thoughts aside, I couldn't argue with him. The musicals bugged the crap out of me, but I'm also just not a musicals person, generally. At the end of his review, he did say that the 'Recobbled' version of the movie, the one which used final film footage, storyboards, and the like to tell the story it was meant to be told by the orignal director, was pretty good.

After that, I decided that it was time to see what this 'Recobbled' version was all about. I found it on YouTube and I have to say...what the Critic said was right. It WAS pretty good. There was significantly less dialogue - neither the thief nor the cobbler spoke for the duration of the movie, with a few exceptions for each (a few for the thief like 'ow' and '*SCREAM*', the Cobbler with one line at the verrry end)...it was mostly everyone else and the animation itself carrying the story. Scenes were explained better (since they were shown in full), ideas were developed more, and there were no musical numbers anywhere. While I'll admit I missed the thief's thoughts, that's all that I could say was missing. It was so, so much better than the finished (Miramax) version. And it was a bit more mature, I'll say. Who knew that the scene where the thief crawls up a toilet (don't ask) was actually him crawling up into a covert sex scene? And that the backscratcher scene would actually serve a purpose (foreshadowing, omg!)? There was just so much that clicked and it was told beautifully with nearly no words. And it had the definite lighthearted, nostalgic feel of a sixties movie (when the movie was started), with the high-pitched chorus of singers poking in every so often.

But yeah, it was REALLY good!

Thanksgiving Jets

It was like TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN!

Nice job, guys. :)

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

I finally saw it. It was incredibly well done - had all the charm and goodness of Tim Burton. The clear references to the books were amusing, though I only noticed a few (I haven't actually READ the books, I just know a few quotes like believing six impossible things and all). The designs were pretty cool, too. All the subtle character details - like how Stayne, the Knave, had a black heart eyepatch while out on the field and a red one while in the presence of the Red Queen, and the White Queen's dreamy, gentle bearing - really added to the depth of the story. And the Cheshire Cat was just win. Because the Cheshire Cat is win from the beginning, really.

I also found myself envying the designer of Alice's dresses. Though actually, to be honest, I had some problems with a few of them. They were very imaginative and very Burton, but the ones that had sleeves midway down her arm bothered me. I dunno. I just didn't like them very much. And the fact that they were either with those weird sleeves or sleeveless just...got to me, for some reason. I don't know why. I guess I found it repetitive or something. Or it didn't fit with my idea of Alice in Wonderland at all.

But that's probably my only complaint, if you could call it that. Overall the story was very imaginative and extremely well told, the characters were distinct and memorable, and it was just overall awesome. I see why people were raving about it.

El-Hazard: The Wanderers

I watched the first (dubbed) episode, and to be honest, I didn't really like it. It looked interesting from the ad I'd seen, showing all these flashy character desings...but the dub was very meh. Nanami, especially (I think that was the name of the protagonist's friend), was very, very annoying. I didn't like the way they translated things at all.

Granted the first episode is just a lot of setup and not much action, so it oculd just be that I need more to get a proper impression. But from what I saw it was like, eh...

That's saying something considering the ad touts it from being by the creators of Tenchi Muyo.

The Sly Collection + SLY 4?!

The Sly Cooper trilogy has long been high on my list of favorite games. I remember getting the first game, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus...I absolutely ADORED that game. And I remember the high levels of happiness when Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves came out. I loved the styles of the games, the worlds you got to explore in each, and honestly, the gameplay was fun as hell. Learning new tricks and techniques and ninja-ing around was amazing. (I won't lie; throughout all three games I'm more than partial to Sly. I don't really like playing as the other characters...though randomly turning the Guru into a wheel of cheese WAS amusing.) I just loved the games quite thoroughly, they were...I think the way I'm starting to ramble on shows it. They were simply good games.

So now they have the Sly Collection out, and THAT looks pretty cool - I mean, come on, the epic detail and graphics of Sly Cooper...only better. Yeah.

But that's not why I'm bringing this up now.

THIS is why I'm bringing this up now:



According to the footage of this video, they're "possibly" making a fourth Sly Cooper. Which was somewhat hinted at at the end of Honor Among Thieves, if you think about it, it was like "The end...or is it?" in the way it was played out, if I remember.

By the way, I couldn't really tell the first time I watched it, but looking at that lantern over thar...could it possibly be...Japan? FINALLY?

If this is true (and from what people are saying it looks like it probably is), this is awesome. Because...I know they say all good things must come to an end, but if Sucker Punch can work this out, if they can somehow make a good sequel to this, then by all means, they should. They did after the second game, after all - I honestly never saw how they could work that out, and yet, they did. This time it's just as conclusive-looking (at the end of Sly 3 I mean)...or IS it? Sucker Punch really knows their stuff.

I earnestly hope that Sly 4 is true...because I'm looking forward to it already.

Jets vs Browns - Epic Overtime

Admittedly, I missed the entire game. That is, I missed all four quarters. I walked by a TV to see the Jets-Browns score at 20-20, and a few minutes in to OT. Curious, I sit down to watch.

Again admittedly, I don't know that much about football. I know a majority of the basics, but I'm still a newbie. As such, I didn't know that there could possibly be a tie. I know that now. :)

But that isn't what happened. It was less than a minute to being a tie, but after a really failed field goal by the Jets (47 yards or so and waaaaaaaaaay off), a few turnovers, and a few good passes and crappy passes and "what was that"s, the Jets had the Browns at their own goal line. Browns had possession. We managed to force them to the fourth down, so they had to punt it. A Jet caught it and ran with it for like twenty yards; on the next play, the ball got passed, it worked, and the guy ran like hell.

I'm no football vet, but even I can tell when a runner's "broken through" the defense, when they're in the clear. There's just a change in their mannerism that feels like they're freeing up, like they're doing a final burst. I saw that in this guy as the people around me were like "holy. crap." And then, touchdown!

With only a few seconds to go, the Jets won it 26-20.

Iria: Zeiram the Animation

Talk about confusing. I got to watch a bit of this series without really knowing anything about it, and boy, was I lost! My friend watched it with me, and we were both completely clueless as to what was going on. Not to mention some of the physics, quirks, and logic didn't totally add up for us. It wasn't that great, really...

I did some research on it (translated, Wikipedia tiem!) and it turns out that it's an OVA. It also turns out that it's a prequel, which explains why it was a bit confusing. It shows the characters of a live-action movie known as Zeiram years before; namely, it shows the bounty hunter Iria, the main character, "as a rookie," as the Wikipedia article puts it.

To me, this kind of reminds me of the manga for Scrapped Princess. Without reading the novels or...whatever it was that manga was based off of, I honestly don't remember anymore, you're lost. I should know, the pace was breakneck and nothing was explained. In hindsight, Iria was a bit like that.

I did find an aspect of the character designs interesting, though. A lot of characters had little...I don't know how to really explain them. They were like little decorative caps on their hair.

Axis Powers Hetalia: Language v Language

I recently watched the first season of the Axis Powers Hetalia anime; I was curious to see what it was about, since I'd heard a lot of hype about it on the internet (honestly, at this point, who hasn't?). I started with the Japanese version, since that happened to be what I had access to. The voices weren't bad, for me, and I admit, I found the series to be pretty good. The characters were amusing and references to history are always fun from a nerd-tastic point of view. It's not the super-greatest anime, admittedly, it is a bit silly and all, but it's fine for what it is. And the characters are nicely done, despite the simple costumes. XD I can see why people cosplay them so much. They're not that hard to do. There are only a handful of female characters, though, from what I have seen (watching the anime + looking up the wiki).

Anyway, I came away from the experience with an overall good impression of Hetalia. Not of the fangirlish sort, but of the 'oh, it's not so bad, kinda fun actually' sort.

Then I got to see the dub.

I'm not going to say the apparently popular standpoint of "I HATE IT". I don't -hate- it. It just...it's just rather...interesting. I don't like it. The show was silly and stuff to begin with, and the accents, while I get what they were going for, are kinda reeeeeeeeally potentially offensive and definitely uber-stereotypical. And Italy sounds like Mario (as in Super Mario Brothers). It's like, no. Italy looks nothing like a chubby plumber that jumps around bravely and saves princesses. Neither Italy, North nor South, works like that. Neither are like Luigi, really, either (or...maybe they are! DUNUNUNUNUUUUUUUUUU). It's just...the accents were annoying, to me. True, they made the show sillier, as supported by the dialogue as well, and there were some really funny moments that the accents lent to, and that the dialogue made. So it wasn't all bad.

The problem I had with it was that it totally eradicated any ability to take the show seriously. I know Hetalia's silly from the start, but this was like Excel Saga ridiculous plus ten. I don't know; it just didn't work for me. It had it's moments, but then it didn't.

Overall I definitely preferred the Japanese version.

(Now I'm trying to remember; the elder Italy said something completely random about smelling like garlic bread or something...I'm trying to remember the line. That was one of the funny bits thar.)

Cyber Formula

Cyber Formula is a racing anime, following a young upstart (I believe his name is Hayato) and his struggles and triumphs in the world of racing. It's got some great character development, and shows some good growth (I know, I know, it's cliche, but to me they did it well). Major plus for me was that a character's 'secret' identity was actually figured out by the main characters (akin to Usagi/Serena figuring out that Tuxedo Mask was Mamoru/Darien on her own, as in just by coming into contact with him a lot, and not five seconds before it's revealed). Unfortunately, I was unable to watch all of the episodes, but I saw a good chunk (the beginning and the ending). What I saw, I really, really liked. It was inspiring and really drew you in. The people that showed me the series said it was one of their favorites, too; the opinion of my fellows is something I hold in pretty high regard, and my own feelings reflected what they'd said.

SALT

Okay. Granted, the way I was watching it made it really hard to hear what was being said, so it was hard to make sense of it from the getgo. But still, it was kinda ridiculous. It was, in essence, an excuse to make Angelina Jolie hardcore eye candy - being tortured, blowing stuff up, taking her panties off to get away, and just generally be a total femme fatale. Which is cool, except that they made the plot really annoyingly difficult to get with plot twists that were like okay...can it be one or the other, please? The difficulty for that may have been, though, as I said, an effect of not being able to hear the TV. And by the way, the physics were ridiculous. Jumping off a subway train barrelling by a station - those things are going AT LEAST 35 mph, especially how it seemed in the movie - is NOT going to work like that, the way physics works she would have likely slammed into (and squashed through) one of the poles. And all the jumping on trucks...yeah, right.

It was very hard for me to suspend my disbelief. All it was in my eyes was a bunch of kickass fighting and explosions with Angelina Jolie at the fore.

White Oleander

I had to read the book White Oleander by Janet Fitch for English this year, because we wanted to compare the book to the movie. I have to say, the book is amazing. The writing style was so delicately beautiful while coming from the first person of a girl who ages from about twelve or fourteen to eighteen while under unimaginable stresses. It's lyrical and artfully weaves figurative language in for a gorgeous experience. Plus, there's so much symbolism planted in it - it's basically a book that screams "I am what happens when hard work comes out right."

The story, while well done, is kind of creepy, in a few ways, though. The story follows Astrid Magnussen, a girl who's mother is quite a character: an incredibly strong, independent woman who lives the life of a cynical poet and takes pride in her Norse ancestors. Together, they have traveled the world, enjoying the poetic wonders. However, one day her mother falls in love...and that brings her world crashing down. Put in a nutshell, some Los Angeles hotshot plays with her mother's heart, causing her to break all the rules she'd carefully instituted - rules that kept her at arm's length and strong. After sleeping with the guy only to find out he had to go, he had a date [with another woman], she takes the insult to an extreme level: murder. In the wake of her actions, Astrid is thrust into the world of foster homes, and grows up in a pretty tumultuous way.

There are some aspects that will make your skin crawl, the kind that a girl will run into learning the do's and don'ts of life, but the book is incredibly powerful. It's such a beautifully written story, and it gets under your skin. I loved it despite having it as necessary reading.

The Taboo Topic: Twilight

Yes, everyone's heard of it, the four-series book about vampires and werewolves that is once beloved and despised by society (two different portions of it, not at the same time, generally). It's true, Stephenie Meyer didn't write them too well - the style is pretty bland. But once you let yourself get into it, the books aren't THAT bad. I'm not saying that they're amazing, and I can't speak any further than New Moon, but they really aren't that bad. The first one I was skeptical the whole way through but I didn't mind it in the end, and the second one I found myself getting into.

The thing about the second one, though, is that I read that AFTER I saw the movie. Now, I heard people screaming about how good it was, but I, for one, HATED the New Moon movie. I found it to be the most bland and boring thing ever on the face of the earth. I know there's a lot of intense drama going on in that book, but that is ALL that the movie is, pretty much: intense drama. I can sum up half the movie like so:

Two characters are talking, staring intensely at each other in the drama of the moment. The camera gives a headshot of CHARACTER ONE.

CHARACTER ONE
(dramatically)
LINE.

There is a pause. The camera shifts to a shot of CHARACTER TWO.

CHARACTER TWO
(dramatically)
LINE.

Seriously, that's what it felt like. The book did a better job of going in-depth and actually made it feel like Bella was a human and not just an Edward-centric puppet. I loathed that movie, I'm sorry. I just did. I couldn't stand it. But it did make the book better for me.

Now I'm going to read Eclipse, the third book (as far as I know). I have NO idea what goes on in this one, nor have I seen the movie (obviously), so this will be a first with the Twilight series. I will actually find out what the hell is going on IN THE BOOK.