The Awesome Forever Blog

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game

2010-09-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

In the late 80's and early 90's, Beat 'em ups were king. You couldn't walk into a pizza parlor, a 7-11, or traditional video game arcade without seeing such classic titles as Final Fight, Golden Axe, or Double Dragon lined up ready to engorge themselves on the pocket change of 10 year old kids. Complicated combos, ultra realistic graphics and complicated plot lines weren't required. All you needed was one to four protagonists armed with a punch, jump, and kick button against an unending sea of easily dispatched henchmen and incredibly punch resilient bosses. As video games moved beyond the 8 and 16 bit era, the classic beat 'em up became a dinosaur of simple game making, consigned to the occasional appearance at Dave and Busters. So it comes as no surprise that a game based on Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Bryan Lee O'Malley's seminal graphic novel series, would chose this genre.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World isn't just a love letter to nerd culture and video games, it's also a love letter to one of the best classic NES games of it's time, River City Ransom. Like RCR, it incorporates RPG elements, allowing a player to level up and unlock more special moves while earning experience and money from defeating bad guys to buy items. One to four players can play as Scott, Ramona Flowers, Kim Pine, or Stephen Stills as they navigate through legions of Canadian hipster baddies on their quest to battle Ramona's evil exes.

If you never heard of Scott Pilgrim, do yourself a favor and go buy the graphic novels or at minimum, go see the Michael Cera movie. Not only does this game follow the art direction of the graphic novels perfectly as well as incorporate many little video game and geek references, it manages to do so in a very 8-bit style. Fans of the books will notice references to the novels and games such as Super Mario Bros sprinkled throughout the levels while uberdorks will have their minds blown at playing a video game based on a comic series whose plot plays out like a video game.

The game play itself is fairly standard to all Beat'em ups. You punch, you kick, you occasionally jump (and kick). Weapons are sprinkled all over the ground and health can be replenished by visiting shops and purchasing food bought with money gained from defeated enemies. The music is phenomenal, with frenetic upbeat tracks composed by Anamanaguchi pumping out beats you can stomp your enemies to. And at a modest price of 10 dollars, there's no reason to not get this game.

PROS:

-Follows the plot of the comics

-Great music track

-Beautiful colorful 8 bit animation

-A love letter to 8 bit video games and River City Ransom

CONS:

-Has all the things you hate about beat 'em ups: very few lives, bosses that can kill you multiple times with no effort, and attacks that can't be blocked if you happen to stand in the wrong place.

-Fairly short game play

-Is less fun in single player.

Kick Ass (2010)

2010-04-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

Sickening violence: just the way you like it! Fuck yeah Mark Millar, I concur. From the hot sweaty feverish union of Mark Millar's graphic novel, Matthew Vaughn's direction, and the Internet, comes Kick-Ass; a movie that could only work in a world where geeks are the dominant species. But really this movie should be called Hit Girl and Friends. Because Hit Girl makes this movie.

Super dork Dave Lizewski, who isn't Hit Girl btw, goes through the typical high school hell displaying talent for nothing except being invisible to girls. Why he hasn't tested this ability in say the girl's locker room when he's a nerdy virgin loser is beyond me but I digress. Dave loves comics, Dave wants to make the world a better place. Problem is, Dave is Dave and not a superhero. So one day he gets it in his head that all he needs to be a superhero is a suit and a cool name. So after buying a svelte scuba suit, because all superheros might need to scuba on the streets of New York, Dave goes out to bust crime. Problem is he's less Spider Man and more like one of the Mystery Men from that Ben Stiller movie.

Dave goes out, Dave gets stabbed, Dave doesn't learn from the whole being stabbed ordeal and goes out again, only this time he learns he can take a beating because his nerves are fried. So now Dave goes from being Dave the supernerd to Kick Ass the supernerd who can be a human punching bag. But it works, he saves a dude, starts a myspace account, and gets the attention of the Internet and the attention of two real super heroes.

Which brings us to Hit Girl and Big Daddy. Hit Girl is well bad ass. To get an idea of how bad ass she is, imagine if a dinosaur crapped out lightning which struck a robotic unicorn that exploded in a shower of magic which rained upon a Journey concert attended by the cast of Firefly. Then imagine if a 11 year old girl was more awesome than that image. That's Hit Girl. She's like every gun toting sword swinging bad ass chick cliche crammed into a carry on sized package. She swears, she stabs, she can catch ammo clips with her gun and reload in mid air. She also resembles that chick from Lazy Town, except she doesn't bake pretty cakes. Hit Girl and her father, Big Daddy, played by a less annoying than usual Nic "my kid's named Kal El" Cage go around putting the ante in vigilante justice as they waste an increasingly large number of mobsters around town. Big Daddy is not only a bad ass in his own right, he imparts his bad-assery to his child, to a point where her chores include learning to take a bullet and knowing the origins of assault rifles. It's pretty much the childhood I wish I had.

So does the movie work? Fuck yeah it works. Will fan boys get annoyed that the movie is less about Kick Ass, like the graphic novel was, and more about Hit Girl? Probably, but Hit Girl would probably say they could suck her non existent left testicle because she's such a darling. There's explosions, there's shoot outs, there's dismemberment, Mclovin's in it, and there's swearing, good god there's swearing. This is not a movie to bring kids to, and as a society everyone should throw rotten fruit at anyone who does for fear of child endangerment. But this movie definitely lives up to it's name.

The Stupid Tall Hot Girl is really a nerd! An interview with Michele Boyd of The Guild.

2009-08-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

My loyal readers will know that I love The Guild, mostly because I was one of those people who was just short of wrist cutter obsessive with World of Warcraft back in the ye old days of 2008 and before. Last season of The Guild introduced several new characters including Riley, also known as The Stupid Tall Hot Girl that was the roommate of the incredibly buff asian guy that Felicia Day's character was into. What made Riley stand out, aside from the fact she was really hot and living with an asian guy (someday I'll be that asian guy!) was that the character was also a female gamer and loved underdogs (someday I'll be that underdog too!). Through some major finagling and cunningly shrewd communication skills aka randomly emailing someone in the middle of the night; I was able to interview the actress who plays Riley, the wonderful Michele Boyd. Michele is what we in the Awesome Forever world consider true awesome. She's an actress, a scientist, a gamer, amongst other talents. Here is her interview in it's entirety:

The lovely Michele Boyd

#1 - On The Guild, which is where a lot of us recognize you from, you play the tall hot girl that's crazy for FPS games and likes underdogs. How much overlap do you have with that character? At a glance it sounds like that character was tailored to you since you are a rather attractive woman and rumor has it that you're a gamer.

While I am definitely a gamer, I'm actually primarily an RPG gamer, specifically WoW. I do also really like 3rd person shooters like Gears of War. But I definitely wouldn't be so dismissive of the MMORPG gamers, they're my people!

#2 - You went to school for Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior. Did you ever imagine that you'd ever be able to use that educational background as an actress, let alone for the Discovery Channel?

No way! I wouldn't change what I majored in, though. I think there's a lot of crossover between Behavioral Sciences and acting. Both are really about figuring out what makes people tick. The Discovery Channel was a lucky fluke; my parents were happy that my degree was getting SOME use, at least. :)

#3 - According to your bio on IMDB, you're a military kid who moved around a lot and you went to school on both coasts. Was there any place growing up where you wished you stayed forever?

Hmm...not really. I loved moving around so often; I got to reinvent myself every few years. I was also just as big a dork when I was a kid, so I didn't have a lot of close friends that I was sad to be leaving all the time. I'd say my favorite place outside of California was Boston. It's the perfect post-college place to live, tons of fun, laid back people. Who are insane drivers. #4 - Having lived in Nor Cal and So Cal and the West Coast and the East Coast, do you buy into that whole rivalry thing they have going on, or do you think it's silly?

I saw a lot of that rivalry when I was in school in Nor Cal, but down here in SoCal, I don't think people are nearly as fired up. Especially in Los Angeles, where everyone is from somewhere else anyway! It's kind of like when I lived in Boston; everyone there despises the Yankees and was fanatical about any game between them, but whenever I was in New York, I got the impression New Yorkers just didn't really care about us crazy Boston people. ;)

#5 - I met your co-star Felicia Day at Wonder Con 09 and she told me that most celebrities are just regular working people like the rest of us. Agree, or disagree? Any crazy celebrity moments you've witnessed or partaken in that you care to share?

I don't think I know any celebrities, so that's hard to say! I'm deliberately leaving Felicia out of this, although I do think of her as a celebrity, because she's attained her status so differently than everyone else in the status quo. However, I think it's just like anything else; you have the fame-whore celebrities who probably were born thinking they were better than everyone else, and then you have the celebrities who worked very hard to get where they are and appreciate good friendships and sincerity in other people.

#6 - What was it like being on The Guild, did the cast welcome you with open arms and are you all friends now?

We braid each others' hair and hang 'Keep Out' signs on our treehouse. ;) Everyone on the cast was amazing and very friendly, as is the entire crew. I wouldn't say we hang out much outside of filming, I've even been a really bad friend and have yet to make it to one of Sandeep (Zaboo)/Felicia/Jeff's (Vorik) improv nights. But everyone appreciates someone who loves what they're working on, and we all love working on The Guild.

#7 - Obviously your character Riley will be in the upcoming season of The Guild. Will we see a lot of her, or only a little? Any chance she or Wade would join the guild as their 7th and 8th members?

I can only say that Riley is going to have a more major role in Season 3. Felicia would kill me if I said more, I'm sorry!

#8 - What are the roles you like to play as an actress. Are there certain roles that you seek out or wont do?

To be honest, most of the roles I really want to play are a little older than me right now, which is good! That means that I have a little time to build up my resume so I can actually be CONSIDERED for those roles! But I would love to do the heist films, action films like Aliens (LOVE Ripley), things like that. I'm usually cast as the seemingly-innocent one; the best friend who's actually the serial killer. Which are fun as well.

#9 - What happened to Machines of Malice, I saw the first episode forever ago on the Discovery Channel but was never able to catch any others.

I'd love to know! Sadly, once we shoot a project the talent is largely left out of the loop as far as air dates or post-production. We did shoot 3 episodes in addition to the 3 that have already aired on Discovery, but I believe those are still stuck in post-production hell. If I find out anything, I'll be sure to tweet about it.

#10 - The Guild has generated quite a large fan base on the web. Any crazy fanboy emails or marriage proposals or the like? (aside from this one!)

Hah! Why, thank you. No real marriage proposals, but I've gotten lots of mail from really lovely fans (interestingly, a lot of them are from overseas, so the language barrier makes the letters all the more..interesting. ;) I got one yesterday which was only the phrase "I love you" repeated six times in sparkly and animated fonts. I have no idea how he did it!

#11 - What are some of your hobbies and talents? Anything you can do that no one knows about until you do it like walking on your hands?

Sadly, I have no skill with hand-walking! I did gymnastics for about 9 months as a kid before realizing the long legs weren't exactly ideal for tight flips. I just started training in parkour, which is beating me up fairly well, but it's ridiculously fun. I also snowboard as much as possible; I taught for about half a season but just couldn't keep that up. I can also imitate a baby murloc sound PERFECTLY.

#12 - Do you ever think you'll stop acting someday and pick up another career?

God I hope not! Truthfully though, I doubt it; working part time in an agency you see that people get that career break at any age. Acting is something you truly can try to do for the rest of your life. The key is finding a secondary job that doesn't drive you crazy that will enable you to pursue acting as much as possible.

#13 - Any advice for any people with Zaboo-like qualities looking to someday make out with a tall hot FPS girl of their own? (yes this is a fluff question)

LOL. Don't show up on their doorstep with blue flowers!

#14 - (Last question!) Any future roles we should look out for with you in them?

I shot an iCarly episode for Nickelodeon a little while ago, but they shoot those episodes so far in advance that apparently it won't be out til 2010!! I'm hoping I'm in something else before then!!

Catch Michele on The Guild. New episodes started yesterday!

The Guild

2009-08-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

At this very moment, someone somewhere on your street is playing World of Warcraft. They may even be someone you know, or could even be your friend. But this is an elusive acquaintance. You may see them for a minute as they answer the door to quickly accept a delivered pizza. Or you may catch them outside your window dashing home to do whatever it is they do. Their girlfriends or boyfriends complain and form support groups for gaming widows and widowers. Close friends don't see them for days or weeks at a time, and co workers find they call in "sick" right when a new patch has come out. Yes, in this day and age everyone knows an MMO player, someone who throws money, time, and their very soul at an online computer game they pay subscriptions for. That person could be you, and if they are you then shame on you for flakinig on your friends to raid Naxxramas! But I digress, because in this age of MMO playing there is The Guild.

What is The Guild? The Guild is that group of people you or your lost friend, lover, or co worker belongs to while they're snorting the digital crack that is online video games. They are the online equivalent of the different archtypes of the corporate world, or highschool cliques. You'd know them online by their demeanor. Even geeks follow an hierarchy and in the geek/gamer world there are also douches, hotties, ubernerds, etc. But for all intents and purposes, The Guild are these people:

The Guild (from Left to Right): Bladezz, Vorik, Zaboo, Codex, Claira, Tink

The guild is an award winning web series written by and starring the lovely Felicia Day aka hot smoking geek goddessandomgilostmytrainofthoughtstaringatherboobiesandcanttypenormally. If you don't know who Felicia Day is, you are an awful communist work slacker and I hear you smell like goat cheese and pick your own boogers, but if you're reading this article then you either have some geek cred, or I strong armed you into reading it to validate my existence but nonetheless, Felicia Day is a quirky and extraordinary actress who's web series chronicles the lives of a group of MMO players. Day plays Syd Sherman aka Codex, a neurotic, awkward MMO player who plays an online video game with a guild of people who all happen to live in the same town. The show chronicles her life as she deals with Zaboo, an incredibly nerdy, delusional Hinjew (Hindu and Jew) guy who strong armed his way into her life as well as the rest of her guildmates. There's Vorik, the leader, who is also a cheap and slightly creepy middle aged guy in a suit. Claira, the ditzy and fun loving neglectful middle age parent. Tink, the bitchy and hot asian girl. And finally Bladezz, the arrogant and slightly douchie teenager. Bladezz is basically me, if I were better looking and had a spine as a teen, he's the shit starter I wish I was, but I digress.

In short, The Guild is awesome. But only if you play video games or are some form of nerd. Much of the humor is very MMO specific so people who wouldn't enjoy the series would be Amish, old folks, Luddites, and people from states whose fads are 10 years behind the times like Utah. But for those of us who do play games, it's the right brand of tongue in cheek humor, geek references, human drama and misery (the germans call it schadenfraude), and the talented Felicia Day.

To watch The Guild, click here. Season 3 has just started as of this post!

A Practical Guide To Racism

2009-08-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

First off I am asian, my senior thesis class in college was on celebrated black author James Baldwin, and my best friends are jewish, white, asian, pirate, and robot. Second off, my favorite authors are Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut, which has influenced me to say whatever the hell I want when I want. Third off, if you're sensitive to race or humor in general, I highly suggest you listen to the song Everyone's A Little Bit Racist from the broadway hit Avenue Q here. Fourthly and this is the most important thing, this is my site and if you don't like it, blow me <3.

So when I was a young man, I was traveling through Spain with some friends. In one city, an old gypsy woman tried to grift me by putting sage leaf in my hand and telling my fortune in spanish. I of course had no money, so she in turn spat at me and cursed me with impotence, madness, and whatever the hell gypsies like to curse people with. So since then, I've disliked gypsies as shifty untrustworthy carnie folk. You might even say I'm a little bit...racist.

But racist, in the 21st century? Haven't we moved onto Star Trek-ish ideals where we can all tolerate one another in peace and harmony? Beautiful as that may sound, we're all human, and humans are stupid. It takes human stupidity to look at another human and dislike them for having a darker tan than you. Dave Chappelle had the right idea, race is an absurd perception, and stereotypes are funny because they're exaggerated truths. It's a quaint notion to think that we can move from hating people for what they look like to hating people for just being assholes but I digress.

So here comes A Practical Guide to Racism by C.H. Dalton. It is as the title; a practical guide. But racist? Not really. Sure there's a section on every ethnicity in the world as well as subgenres of every ethnicity, but racist, hardly. Sure it points out stereotypes, but stereotypes while racial in nature are rarely more mean spirited than any other complaints. Is it offensive? Yes, but like I said, it's only offensive to people who can't take a joke or can't see subtext; in other words it's offensive only to stupid people, which should be considered a race and have it's own chapter in this book. But reading this book, I learned so much about how awful Merpeople (people who live under the sea) are, and how the black man's greatest natural foe are ravenous sexually predatorial white women, also known as succubae. I also learned that you can even poke fun at dead races like the Babylonians and the Phoenicians too.

So is the Practical Guide to Racism Practical? Sort of. Does it inspire hate crimes? Hell no. Is there any real racism in it? Well there's a glossary of racial epithats, but you can find the same terms on urbandictionary.com so the final verdict is no. Worth reading? Yes it's worth reading. If anything it'd be great to leave on your coffee table to see people's reactions.

Dead Snow (2009)

2009-08-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

In general, zombies are unpleasant neighbors. Nazi zombies however, are worse. Not only do they combine the inherent undeadliness of zombies with the inherent evil of nazis, they do it with military precision.

Enter Dead Snow, a Norwegian love letter to all horror movies that involve a cabin in the woods. The premise is a bunch of med students who don't need any real names are spending a weekend in a cabin in the middle of Norwegian nowhere during winter. Like all college kids who do this in movies, their cars are parked far far away at the base of the mountain, there's no cell phone reception, and of course there's that mysterious something that they should've never fucked with, even if told they should never fuck with it.

Undeterred, the kids do what anyone in their early 20's do during winter time, they drink, they play in the snow, they jostle and tussle like people do in Fox banner ads during their programming, it's a fun old time. There's film geek guy, slutty girl, dorky guy, heroic nerdy guy, military trained guy, claustrophobia girl, and sisterly girl to the claustrophobia girl. Suddenly our care free kids meet random old guy. Random old guy, like all random old guys in horror films tell them a story that should've convinced them all to go wtf, lets get the hell out of here, but of course they ignore him. Random old guy tells them that nazis use to steal gold from the people of the land and then dissappeared into the mountains and that the land is full of evil. Naturally the kids find nazi gold shortly after, because apparently Norway is littered with nazi gold hidden in the ground. What happens next is nothing short of brutal nazi zombie battling fun.

Make no mistake, this movie is everything fun about zombie films combined with everything fun about movies where nazis are the main villains mixed with a heaping dose of Evil Dead homages. One on one fisticuffs with zombies, explosions, chainsawing, instestinal rappeling (I'm not shitting you!), etc. etc. It's a cornacopia of B movie cheesiness and grit. And at it's heart there's a morality story, a leprechaun er nazichaun and their gold cannot stand to be parted from each other.

Dead Snow gets five zombie Gomorrahs, one for each scene of instestinal fortitude.

Fly

2009-07-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

"Come have a drink with us."
"I can't, I'm poor and work tomorrow," I reply.
"You can play Altered Beast on the MAME cabinet."
".........you had me at Altered Beast."

San Francisco drinkers, meet MAME. MAME is reliable, she's dependable, and she brings the fun. MAME is a classy dame. She's also an arcade cabinet with a hundred free emulated arcade games. MAME lives in Fly, Fly is a bar. So we have the Fly bar, and the MAME cabinet, and a happy writer. Because Fly is quite frankly a nice place to be.

If I never actually went in there, I'd discount Fly as another trendy hipster/Marina douchebag hive of scum and villainy, totally not the place yours truly would go to. But then I'd miss out on a pretty good watering hole, and sometimes I need a good watering like a chia pet. For lack of a better description, Fly really is where you'd expect trendy hipster people to go, it's got the ambient lighting, kitschy-ironic-post modern-modern art on the walls, and that clean scandanavian ikea-ish interior decorating. It's fairly big and modern but it's not pretentious like other places. The bartenders are friendly, and pour with a heavy hand; good for that nice buzz, bad for when last call comes along and you find yourself outside in the Transexual Transylvania part of the Tendernob. Yes, Fly is located smack dab in the zerg spawning bed of Tranny hookers. My first few times there I thought it was a trick of the lights against the window, or that someone put a roofie in my drink, but sure enough as it got later in the evening, the groups of young people walking outside started to transform and give way to square jaws, man hands, and fishnet stockings and feathered boas. Of course that has nothing to do with how Fly is as a business. The food itself is pretty damn tasty blend of traditional pub food and californian fusion and the pizzas do a good job of staving off hangover status. But the real gem is MAME in the backroom. Something about being able to drink, eat, and play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for free in a bar makes it sound way cooler than doing it in a dorm room or a house.

Fly is located on the corner of Sutter and Larkin in the Tendernob border of Nob Hill and the Tenderloin. Expect lack of parking, drunk hipsters, and be careful of developing beer goggles, there are trannies everywhere at night.

Star Trek (2009)

2009-05-08T01:04:00.000-07:00

Ages ago, in the days of web 1.0 there was a humble website called The Brunching Shuttlecocks. This was the stone age equivalent of CollegeHumor, the premiere source of time wasting circa late 90's to early 2000's. Well the Brunching folks had a Self Made Critic who while reviewing Star Trek 9, came up with this formula for Star Trek movies.

Start with 50 Points, then add or subtract accordingly:

-The Film was based on a TV episode: +20
-The Film featured one of the stars of 7th Heaven: +10
-The Film featured Spock's Father as Spock's Father: +5
-The Film featured Spock's Father as a Klingon: +10
-A major member of the series was killed during the film (either permanently or temporarily): -15
-The captain had some kind of new love interest (ex-wives do not count): +10
-The main story nothing to do with anyone related to a crew member: +10
-Star Trek got religion: -20
-There were extensive ship-to-ship battle scenes: +15
-The Enterprise was destroyed: -10
-The Film was directed by the first officer: +10
-The Film was directed by the captain: -10
-A guest star was once nominated for a Golden Globe Award: +5
-The film featured a minor actor in a minor role who would eventually become a regular cast member on a Star Trek series: + 5
-The crew of the Enterprise saved earth: +10
-The Film was really an allegorical allusion to how we, as a people, need to be nicer to each other: -15
-There was something weird going on with the all-logical/non-feeling character of Spock and/or Data: +5
-The crew of the Enterprise broke a direct order from Starfleet: -5
-Someone traveled through time: +5
-The Villain was a machine, a bunch of pansy whales, or God: -15
-The Villain was Mr. Roarke: +15

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: 75
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: 90
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock: 50
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: 85
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: 5
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: 90
Star Trek: Generations: 70
Star Trek: First Contact: 120
Star Trek: Insurrection: 70
Star Trek: Nemesis: 70

So utilizing this formula, and depending on your interpretation or mine, the score for the newest film is between 100 and 130. In layman's terms, this movie is pure unbridled eye bacony (yes I made that word up) sex.

I am a Trekkie. If you're reading this, then you are one too, or you lost a bet, or I made you read this. Either way, I know my Trek. In fact before the movie even started I won a free popcorn by answering Star Trek trivia in front of the theater because I am that geeky. This movie is not my Star Trek. This is beyond my Star Trek. And yet it is my Star Trek. And it's everyone elses, it's the Ipod of Trek, friendly, accessible, loaded with good sound and display.

If you've ever followed any of the TV series, you know that Star Trek started as a cult show, became a pop culture giant, and then imploded on itself. The last movie didn't make money, the last series was cancelled. And then in the wake of reboot fever, the gods of Hollywood boldly went where everyone went before and tried to go where no one has gone before; making something ultra geeky ultra sexy. When I say this is not my Trek and yet it is, I use this example of how it works and if you're not afraid of spoilers then read on, this movie uses time travel. Did I spoil the movie for you? Only a little, but chances are if you're here then you already knew time travel was involved in the movie to some extent so I'm going to continue with this little tangent.

In one of my favorite Futurama episodes, Fry goes back in time and becomes his own grandfather. He is told not to mess with the past because it will affect the future. This is standard science fiction. So what does Fry do? Become his own grandfather. His fellow time travellers, seeing that he changed the past and forever altering time, literally say "take that causality" as they take their space ship and shoot up Area 51 whilst stealing a microwave dish, essentially flipping off the time space continuum. And you know what, the show continued on as Futurama, not Alternate Futurama, just Futurama. That is this movie.

Awesome to watch? See the formula above, it's a rollercoaster of a movie. It doesn't drag on, it doesn't beat you over the head with weighty philosophical questions like you'd expect from a Star Trek movie, yet it still showcases humanity at it's finest by showing how vulnerable we can be and how strong we can become. Expect what you'd expect from any of the series; shields fail, transporters save people in the nick of time, phasers stun, Bones is acerbic, Chekov talks funny, and Kirk tries to get jiggy with alien babes. We know these things, we expect these things because pop culture made us expect it. Would people who don't watch Star Trek like this movie? Yes, because it's made to be a great movie that just happens to be a sci fi. Would the hardcore Trekkies love it, even the crazy nitpickers who we all know lurk in their mother's basements? Yes, I'd even venture a double yes for the hardcore fans. Because like the Futurama episode, this movie says "take that causality," and in the end these are still the adventures of the starship Enterprise.

Rollin' with a Sockit Wench

2009-04-24T17:18:00.000-07:00

It was late July 2007 when I saw it. In the middle of an old aircraft hangar I saw two scantily clad women rolling around the concrete floor pummeling each other with their fists. In the background a Seattle punk band was playing music and there were several thousand people around me hooting and hollering with primitive fascination as we watched these two ladies scuffle. Seconds later, the fighting stopped. Was it an underground fight club I was in the middle of? No, it was roller derby. The victorious woman, known as Pia Mess, was fighting with the person on the other team that tripped her up and even though she was penalized for coming out swinging, she walked away with her head up high like she were the queen of the land. I was staring, I was yelling, I was getting turned on. This was fucking awesome.

Roller Derby has been around for almost a hundred years, but for some reason it never really caught on. As far as people were concerned throughout the years, it was a weird kitschy pseudo-sport akin to dodgeball or curling, something to be regulated to bored kids on the playground or ESPN 3-20 to fill up the time. That all changed in recent years.

So what is Roller Derby? Take roller skating, make it a race, add in elements of full contact hockey and rugby, give it some punk rock sensibilities, and bam, you got something magical. Throw in the fact that much of modern day Roller Derby is an indie sport that is predominantly women and you have a form of female empowerment that would put the 60's to shame. That's right Gloria Steinem, this is the new face of feminism, deal with it.

Where do you find Roller Derby? In old hangars, abandoned stadiums, wherever there is a lot of asphalt and bleachers, or in one case; Key Stadium where the Seattle Supersonics use to play. As of March 2009 there are over 77 leagues governed by the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), each self-financed and regulated by large bodies of volunteers and supporters. They're not in it for the money or the fame, they're here to kick asses and take names.

These people will put you in the hospital and they'll do it with lipstick.

I recently had the opportunity to interview the lovely Sister Piston about Roller Derby. Sister Piston plays for the Sockit Wenches, one of the four teams that make up the Rat City Roller Girls based out of Seattle and for the record she can mop the floor with me, with you, and with your mom and she'd sleep like a baby afterwards.

Big Bad Sister Piston

#1 How long have you been doing Roller Derby?

2 years of training

2 years on a league
4 years total

#2 What drew you to the sport, how did you find out about it?

I saw the Rat City logo on a t-shirt (Sassy Chassis' t-shirt to be exact) and looked up the website. I asked to go see it for my birthday and I knew that day that I was going to do it. I told Mister Piston that I was going to do it and he said that he didn't think I was big enough. Boy did I prove him wrong.

#3 The Rat City Roller Girls recently started having bouts at Key Arena, how does it feel to be playing in an arena that's housed the Sonics?

It feels awesome. This team isn't going to just up and leave Seattle because of a business deal...we are Seattle.

I think it's wonderful to have the city, arena staff and sponsors be so supportive of us and to enable us to play in a more professional venue. I hope we get to stay a good long time.

The best part is that we no longer have to turn away fans. Last year, every bout sold out because of a smaller venue size...this year, folks can come and try it out and never worry about finding a place to sit and watch.

#4 Since derby is an indie sport, how much work goes into setting up games, ie funding and promotion?

I honestly think we've moved just beyond indie sport into rising sport given the growth, popularity and the fact that it's managed the test of time very well. The revival has been going strong for at least 6 or 7 years now and shows no signs of slowing with international leagues popping up all over the world.

The work that goes into it is unmeasurable. Girls are warned that they can expect a non-paying part time job when the look to join the league and it is more than true. Every aspect of the work is done, organized, managed or planned by the skaters and their friends.

There are girls that commit more time than a full time job to the sport in addition to practice and skating. There are also girls that do much less than a part time job, but when you step back and look at the situation, you see that these girls are also juggling school, a family and work on top of that.

Most of us lie somewhere in the middle doing that part time job thing.

#5 How strong are the rivalries between local teams, if you see each other on the streets is there any West Side Story-ish confrontations or is it all hugs and kisses?

There's an adage in the sport that what happens on the track stays on the track. I think that we are lucky that this is true about 98 percent of the time. Every once in a while gals lose a bit of self control and harsh words are exchanged, but for the most part, the drama gets left behind at the whistle.

That's not to say that rivalries aren't extremely strong...they are. All of us want to win. No one wants to lose...and there have definitely been some weird interpersonal things that have lead to tension between specific teams. I think it adds to the experience.

Hell has no fury like a woman scorned right?

#6 Whats the worst injury you've sustained while playing?

Hmm...I'm knocking on wood right now because I've been lucky so far.

I'd say the worst was a dislocated/separated shoulder (not sure what the official diagnosis was). I wasn't even in a game, just doing a drill and landed with all of my weight right on the top of my shoulder popping it out. I was laying in bed that night and rolled onto it and heard the biggest "chunk" sound and it popped back in and I dropped about an inch. I'll tell ya, it was like that whole, ripping the tape off the skin fast thing. It was a lot less painful after that one moment.

#7 Do you foresee retiring from the sport, or will they have to pry the skates off your cold dead feet someday?

I'm going for the cold dead feet stance. I think even when I am too broken to play anymore I will be involved with coaching or some other aspect. It's really a big part of my life and it's done so much good for me that I can't bear the thought of saying goodbye to it completely.

#8 Since derby is all self financed, how much would a typical derby player end up shelling out over a year?

I would say around....$1000 for gear and dues per year. But it's really hard to tell because you've got transportation costs to go to practice and meetings like 7 days a week, you end up spending money and fundraisers because we all tend to want to support each other and if girls can afford it they often spend a good deal on airfare to go to boot camps and RollerCon to become even better. Then there's the medical costs. Those are the big whammy.

I've said often that this is not a poor woman's sport. It's like polo sorta...you have to expect to drop some serious cash at some point.

#9 How can the fans help out besides showing up at games?

Check out the volunteer options. There's almost always something someone can do to help set things up or tear down.

And SPONSOR SPONSOR SPONSOR! If you own a business or you know someone that owns a business....start talking/thinking sponsorship. Nothing makes the derby world rock more than a good sponsor. Except winning a game.

Every dollar counts, buy merchandise, talk to your boss about a great advertising opportunity...spread the word.

#10 Any memorable bouts you'd like to share with our readers?

I would say the most memorable bout has to be one where I was just a wee beginner. It was the championship game the year before last Sockit Wenches vs Derby Liberation Front (insert speech about bitter rivalry here), my second game to play ever....I was pretty much just trying not to fall down and keep up with the pack at that point.

Our captain, and one of our star jammers, Drew Blood gets hit by Kitty Kamikaze and doesn't get up. This was not good. Our team was pretty shaken and during the half time many of us went to see her in the EMT area (just a sheet on a string back then) and she kept telling us all that she was fine, just out for the game.

So we go back and manage to win it, for her. We found out after the game that she had four broken vertebrae in her back and was high on morphine when we were all talking to her.

#11 How much has derby impacted your life?

I would say it's changed my life completely. I went from being a shy introvert behind a computer every day of my life to an outgoing, active and strong individual who isn't afraid of looking silly in the quest for finding more joy in my life.

Don't get me wrong, I still love computers. But now I know how to talk to people without a qwerty.

Catch Sister Piston and the Rat City Roller Girls in championship action on May 30th, 2009 at Key Stadium in Seattle.
Photography credits: Jules Doyle aka Axle Adams

Tortilla Heights

2009-04-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

You can find good Mexican in San Francisco pretty easily. Being a town full of foodies, the people who live in this city know that good Mexican food is abundant and cheap. So it stands to reason that expensive Mexican food would be superior in every way. I mean instead of meat from questionable sources, they'd have meat from Nimon Ranch so it's gotta be better, right? Wrong, dead wrong, terribly wrong. Case in point, Tortilla Heights.

Anyone whose been around the block looking for a good burrito will tell you that a good Mexican place will be kind of divey, the staff will have dubious American Citizenship, everything on the menu is inexpensive, and if it's not a taco truck; it's a building in a ghetto-ish area. Tortilla Heights is none of these things. For one thing, Tortilla Heights is located in the Pacific Heights rich person neighborhood. It also has a tiki bar decor, which implies to me that rich people have confused Mexicans with Hawaiians. Not only that, but everyone who was a server looked like they came from a sorority. I would've been fine with all of these had my food been good, or had it been cheap, but alas it was neither.

After dinner with a good dozen of my cohorts, the general consensus was Tortilla Heights had some of the blandest Mexican food this side of the border. My chimichunga was literally flavorless. The meat inside had no seasoning or marinade, nor did it have any ingredients beyond the meat that would add any sort of taste to it. It was also $12 dollars. For $12 I could've eaten at two or even three places in the Mission District and tasted something more flavorful. The person next to me had an appetizer plater of nachos, which would sound appealing except the cheese they used looked and tasted like the cheese you have to pump out of a 7-11 nacho station. Looking at the faces of everyone at the end and it was unanimous, this place sucked. If there was any one saving grace, it was the churros. However, it's hard to fuck up fried dough with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on it so that's not saying much.

Overall, Tortilla Heights is a bland and pricey experience. The ingredients taste fresh, and wont make you sick but it's no Celia's or Tommy's as far as gourmet Mexican goes. Even worse, if you're thinking of stopping by there for a cool margarita on a hot day you'd be greated by some of the worst ventilation in any building. I assume it's to simulate the mexican heat, but no air conditioning or open windows on a hot day probably constitutes a crime somewhere. My recommendation, walk down the street to Japan Town and get ramen instead.

Tortilla Heights is located on the corner of Divisadero and Bush in Pacific Heights.

Royal Ground Coffee

2009-03-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

Living in a crazy town like San Francisco, you find yourself surrounded by caffeine addicts. Being the drinking town of the west, a hub of finance, and well land of the weird insomniacs, coffee is our lifeline. We are Seattle's best friend, which is probably why Seattle and San Francisco have the same vibe. In any case, coffee is our brown gold and we crave it like zombies crave brains, we're coffee zombies.

Royal Ground Coffee is a coffee zombie's friend. Coffee, breakfast, hot and cold sandwiches for vegetarians and meatagetarians, wi-fi, and a laundromat. It's not a beatnik place, or a place for suits, it's just a neighborhood coffee shop, the place you go to relax in before and after you get wasted. It's like the snuggie of coffee shops.

Walking into the place, it has a very open feeling from the high ceilings, it doesn't feel cramped, nor does it feel yuppy-like. The menus are done in chalk, a sign of any good establishment, and there's a lot of good options for beverages and deli sandwiches. I highly recommend the Cafe Mocha due to it tasting more chocolatey than most mocha coffees your's truly has had in a while. The Chai is also nice, even though I think there's no such thing as bad chai unless it's made from asses and dirt.

As for other amenities, there's free wifi, which gets ridiculously heavy use; a laundromat directly connected to the joint; and the crown jewel of any establishment, a crazyish owner and a sweet and sassy barista. It's as homey as D clown.

Royal Ground Coffee is located on the corner of Fillmore and Pine St. You are encouraged to tip heavily, TIP HEAVILY.

The Frag Dolls: Heartbreakers and Lifetakers

2009-03-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

If I could describe the Frag Dolls as anything, I would use the term Badass Chicks. Employed by Ubisoft, the Frag Dolls are a group of female gamers who compete professionally in tournaments, market and promote Ubisoft games, and are at the forefront of promoting female gamers as a whole. Easy on the eyes, busier than a bee, and deadly with the controller, these girls do it all including earning the distinction of being the first all female team to win a pro circuit tournament when they won first place in the Rainbow Six: Vegas tournament at CPL (Cyberathlete Professional League) 2006.

The Frag Dolls circa 2008

I recently had the opportunity to interview Brookelyn of the Frag Dolls. Brookelyn was one of the original members of the team and continues to promote women in the gaming industry today as part of the team. I thank Brookelyn and the rest of the Frag Dolls for the opportunity.

The lovely Brookelyn

#1 - The Frag Dolls have the leader of Clan PMS as one of their members. Does that ensure a very close relationship with the members of Clan PMS (i.e. when recruiting new dolls, promotion, etc.)

Not necessarily with PMS alone, every girl that supports us and tends to be more active in our forums will definitely outshine over candidates. I would consider spending time at our events and around our forums an advantage. It allows us to get to know the girl in more depth. We have the opportunity to see her skills and personality vs. a girl we know nothing about, other than her application herself. With that said, this by no means determines the outcome. Example: Former Frag Doll Calyber- we knew nothing about her, but fell in love with her resume, video and gaming skills. We disappointed a lot of our friends, but we knew in our hearts Calyber was a perfect match for us.

#2 - As employees of Ubisoft is there more demand and pressures to be great at the "company product" when competing in tournaments with Ubisoft games in them? (I.e. if you're not good at Rainbow Six Vegas 2, you're fired!)

Ubisoft has always been great in supporting us, win or lose. They would never fire us for not being the best, especially because they know how much hard work we put into training for these tournaments.

#3 - The Frag Dolls have been around for several years, do you feel it's easier to for people to accept a female professional gamer now that there are more female gamers in general, or harder because of the perception that most female gamers are casual gamers?

So much easier! Each year that goes by, I see more and more women becoming competitive in gaming. I remember my first year playing competitively for MLG, it seemed like the girls that did attend the event were just there to support/watch their boyfriends compete. It blows my mind how much girls in gaming have grown. When I first started with PMS (Pandora Might Soldier’s) there was only 10 members- 4 ½ years later, it’s over 500. Crazy huh? I’m really close with a lot of the girls in PMS and I have been competing with them for years. I know firsthand how competitive they are.

#4 - The Frag Dolls seem to combine a gaming team, with a marketing team, with a community management team. Which of those aspects seem the hardest?

I think the marketing side was more of a challenge for me. I was very anti-social before becoming a Frag Doll. Having to do interviews, press, and TV were all very scary for me at first. The marketing side of Frag Dolls has given me the tools to grow in this industry. I have learned so much! It has made me more confident, knowledgeable and strong.

#5 - Valkyrie and former doll Calyber are both on WCG Ultimate Gamer. Does this mean we'll see more Dolls in the future installments of that show?

You're not going to get any spoiler’s outta me. I will say…I love the show! Finally, a well produced gaming show that allows the main stream audience to see all aspect of competitive gaming. Did you watch episode 2 yet, when Valkyrie went head to head with Kelly Kelley (Ms. Violence)? It was so intense!

#6 - How would you feel about competing against your teammates in a tournament if it was nothing but singles matches?

We do it all the time in practice. It is way more challenging, because we have played together for so long; we know exactly what they’re going to do before they do it. As far as competing against them on a professional level, I would hate every moment of it! We have to compete against PMS all the time during Major League Gaming tournaments. It’s always sad when you have to knock out your friends.

#7 - With the number of lady gamers in the world growing each year, do you think Ubisoft would ever turn your team coed if we reached a point where the gamer population was half women or more?

I personally don’t think it will ever go co-ed, but I do think people will be seeing us sub in players for upcoming tournaments. Frag Dolls is a part-time job, and sometimes we have different events happening in our life that doesn’t allow us to compete with the team at the moment. To ensure the remaining of the girls get to compete, we will and have subbed players in, boy or girl. It just depends who works best with us as a team.

#8 - The UK Fragdolls and the French Fragdolls were recently disbanded, any word on why Ubi decided that?

I’m not sure about why the UK and France Ubisoft offices decided to disband the team. From what I read in their farewell blog, it seemed that they were headed off to exciting new adventures. That is one great thing about being a Frag Doll; so many opportunities come our way. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them was working for NASA now. :P

#9 - Any fun stories you'd like to share from traveling around the country competing and promoting?

There is just too many to share them all. I’m very easy when it comes to being entertained. I’m originally from Wichita, Kansas, so even going somewhere like Kentucky or North Carolina was fun for me. I did get invited to attend the Golden Globes this year. I got to teach celebrities how to play Ubisoft titles. It was amazing!

#10 - (The Fluff Question) As a group of fairly attractive gamer girls travelling around the country, how often do people ask you guys out/propose to you guys?

Not as much anymore. In the beginning it seemed like all the time, but now that more and more girls are gaming we aren’t considered rare treasures as much anymore. This is fine for me; I get shy with that type of attention.

M4 Airsoft Assault Rifle

2009-01-30T15:08:00.000-08:00

"What's it like having a gun?"
"It's like having two cocks, if one of your cocks could kill someone."
-Mclovin and Officer Michaels in Superbad

Much like the classic Christmas movie, A Christmas Story, I spent my holidays trying to obtain a BB gun. Much like A Christmas Story, I feared shooting my eye out. However, unlike A Christmas Story I am not a young child, and the following product is not a Red Ryder BB Gun but an M4 Airsoft Rifle from Thinkgeek.com. Why would I buy an airsoft rifle you ask? The official reason I give, to chase seagulls away from my home, but the truth is the same as why anyone gets a gun or gun like product, to shoot things.

For the low price of 24.99 off Thinkgeek.com, the M4 is a bargain basement level entry gun. It's accurately scaled and detailed enough that you could scare your roommates with it if you wanted to. The gun itself comes with a multitude of accessories such as a laser sight, blue LED flashlight, tactical harness, speed loader, and for those who fear shooting their eyes out, safety goggles. In short, if you have the burning need to shoot something but don't want to deal with things like waiting periods and the law and the temptation to go postal with nerd rage, an M4 Airsoft Rifle is a good alternative.

The only bad thing is that for such a low price, you kind of get what you paid for. The picatinny rail is a pain to slide things onto and the assembly instructions are in terrible engrish. The three point harness comes disassembled and going off the diagrams it's almost impossible to assemble it at all. But overall, if you wanna shoot and are on a budget, this is your gun. I give it a solid 3 1/2 gun toting Gomorrahs.

Outlander (2009)

2009-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

As a rule, Vikings are some of the toughest people to walk the Earth. Their no nonsense courage in the name of Odin have lead them to explore America and create Ikea and those are some ballsy achievements. So it's rather surprising that there aren't many movies about vikings out there. Despite recent films like Pathfinder and Beowulf, the big screen has been rather Norse free and the Norse we see were not as engaging. It seemed like something was lacking, a mysterious ingredient of success that eluded the viking movie's path towards badassery. The answer was simple, aliens.

Outlander is a mashup of genres. It's the spawn of Beowulf and Aliens with a heaping spoonful of character depth and for good measure, Ron Perlman. It's the tale of how Kainan aka Passion of the Christ Jesus, crash lands his spaceship onto our planet circa Viking times. Stuck on a primitive planet he finds he didn't make it off his ship alone. See, our spaceman Kainan was transporting a beast, and not just any beast, but one made from glowy lights, teeth, and the best bloodthirsty ferocity CGI can come up with. This isn't just an alien monster, it's an ALIEN MONSTER AHHHH RUN type of monster. And even worse, without his fancy ship and it's technology he has to rely on the help of vikings when it gets loose and starts snacking.

Cue the vikings, and they really are vikings. There's the old viking king who wants to protect his people from the monster. There's his spirited daughter who doesn't try to be this female Rambo feminist cliche even though she can wield a sword. There's the viking champion who covets the throne but isn't quite a douche but isn't quite a hero either and his alcoholic warrior buddy. They see the world as vikings do, hunting, pillaging, eating and drinking. It's a good life for them till the spaceman shows up and the monster begins to eat people including a rival village, giving the vikings the double threat of being eaten and being hacked to death in reprisal. But with the help of our hero and his intergalactic know how, they start forming ideas on how to stop said beasty.

In the end, Outlander is just a fun movie with surprising depth to it. It never tries to be more serious than it is, and it's got a lot more polish than typical B movie fare. The acting itself is pretty good and the characters actually have some growth to them so they aren't one dimensional throwaways to be eaten. I give Outlander four viking Gomorrahs, at least until I implement the 80's Robot Scale of Awesome (TM).

Fallout 3

2008-11-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

Nuclear war sucks, that much is obvious. In fact it's pretty much agreed that not much good comes from nuclear weapons except post nuclear apocalyptic fiction. Which brings us to Fallout 3, Bethesda's entry into the Fallout series of games. If you never picked up a Fallout game in your life, imagine playing a game set in the world of Mad Max 2 where you're trying to eek out an existence in the post apocalyptic wastelands of the world, that's Fallout.

The game starts out with the character being born, literally born, from their mother's womb. From there, a series of very clever character creation processes are laced into the introduction and the game begins. The story starts out in Vault 101, an underground fallout shelter that's survived the nuclear holocaust that devastated the world around you. Mr. Vault 101 as you'll be known as through most of the game is awoken one night and told his father has left the Vault and journeyed into the world outside. It's up to you to travel outside of the only home you've known and find him.

Upon stepping outside of the Vault, you'll find yourself in the wastelands of Washington DC, and I mean Wastelands. The "beauty" of the game's graphics is that when you look at the vast expanse of what use to be our nation's capital you see a scarred and ruined land littered with the decaying skeletons of our nation's monuments. The entire environment of the game is delicately crafted to look like a couple hundred years have passed after the world went to ruin. Debris is everywhere, skeletons posed in the position they were in life lay in beds and bathtubs, and the world is in a perpetual fog of war. As the player ventures further out into the rather expansive environment, they find all the things one would find after a nuclear holocaust. Bands of marauders raiding and pillaging, settlements of survivors of varying degrees of prosperity, aggressive genetic mutants of all kinds, and lingering radioactive areas of nuclear fallout. In short, it's a harsh unforgiving world.

Gameplay wise, Fallout is an interesting mix of Roleplaying Game and First Person Shooter. In a lot of ways it plays like Elder Scrolls, another Bethesda game. The game does follow a linear story, but with the vast expanse of Post Apocalyptic Washington DC and the many side quests and locations coupled with the sandbox environment of the game, a person could be playing for hours and not even advance the storyline one bit. Combat can be traditional first person shooter, or resolved through Vault Tec Assisted Tactical Situations (V.A.T.S.) where a player can select actions and hit locations they're targeting and let the computer resolve the probability they hit or miss. It's very useful for those with poor first person shooter skills. You can also switch from first person to third person mode, however the nature of the camera and the player's position almost virtually ensures you'll always play in first person mode. You also look like you're moving very stiffly in third person and that detracts from the game. The only other complaint I could find with the gameplay is that the game is prone to crashing, despite a patch being out that supposedly fixes that issue.

Music wise, the game comes supplied with in game radio stations that play a mix of propaganda for various factions, patriotic tunes, and old songs from the 1950's. It's a strange juxtaposition when you're shooting mutants with a missile launcher to old timey jazz. The voice acting in the game is very top notch, with celebrity voices such as Malcolm McDowell as President John Henry Eden and Liam Neeson as the voice of your father.

Overall, Fallout 3 is a top notch game that will threaten to suck your time and productivity away for hours on end. With a game environment that's huge, and dozens of side quests and ways you could play the game, a person could go through the story several times and have it end differently each time. I give Fallout 3 four irradiated Gomorrahs. They're like regular Gomorrahs but may mutate and grow extra limbs.

Kennedy's Irish Pub & Curry

2008-10-24T18:28:00.000-07:00

As a rule, there's no such thing as Irish Indians. In fact ask most Irishmen and they'll have no idea what the fuck Curry or Naan is. Yet in a melting pot like San Francisco, a place such as Kennedy's Irish Curry can exist as this magical place of Indian food and Irish beer.

The place is, as best as I can describe it, Chuck E Cheese for adults. Like a place that has all the things adults like to do, but in one building. Booze? This place has over 100 types of beer and wine to chose from. Cheap prices for food and drink, yup they got that too. Pool tables and fooseball, check. Hookah, yes there's Hookah, that magical incense smelling smoke thats just as bad for you as cigarettes but has more aesthetic appeal. Wifi, a Big Buck arcade game, and an air hockey table round things out. Plus the place is cavernous, large enough to hold any huge group that invades it's premises. So at a glance, this place kicks ass and after spending time here, I have to agree.

The bar and games area form a donut around the restaurant part, giving the place an odd juxtaposition of families eating Indian food being surrounded by drunk weirdos on the fringes. The food itself is actually pretty damn good. It's no place like Shalimar (another restaurant I should review), but it's several levels above a typical Naan and Curry disaster restaurant. I highly recommend the dosa and the stuffed naan, but be careful, their hot stuff is ridiculously hot.

If there were any real complaints to be had about this place, it would be it's location. Located on the border of North Beach and the Marina district, this place is not easy to get to. The parking is iffy, especially if there's a show going on at Bimbos, which is across the street. The major road leading to the place is Columbus, which anyone who has ever driven on knows is a nightmare. And there's no easy Freeway access. Furthermore, it's proximity to the Marina District makes it a popular haunt for the now infamous Marina douchebags.

Kennedy's Irish Pub & Curry is located on the corner of Columbus and Chestnut across from Bimbos at the tail end of North Beach. They take cash and credit card and are a great venue for large groups. Definitely a solid 4 1/2 Gomorrahs.

Bacon Salt

2008-09-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Bacon, we love it. In fact it's a known fact that bacon is the most beloved food on the planet. Proof of this bold statement you ask? Bacos, Fakeon Bacon, and the other dozen bacon substitutes. Bacon is so beloved that vegetarians, people who cannot enjoy the beauty of such food, go to great lengths of science to invent a substitute for this divine meat. Hence we've come a long long way when here in the 21st century the scientists of our world brought us Bacon Salt, combining the essence of bacon with the practicality of salt.

According to the makers of bacon salt, "Bacon Salt is a zero calorie, zero fat, vegetarian and kosher seasoning that makes everything taste like bacon." So in short, bacon salt is to be enjoyed by all, and is probably good on it's own. Seriously, it makes things smell like bacon, a scent scientifically proven to be an aphrodisiac for men. Imagine if people salted icy roads with bacon salt, the streets would taste like bacon and children would be drawn outside to play all the time. It'd be a utopia on earth. Now, if technology could go further and crossbreed a vegetable with bacon, then we'd know we reached the epoch of human achievement. But until then, bacon salt shall save us from ourselves.

P.S. Do not bacon salt a can of PBR, despite what you may think, it's a half cocked idea.

The Clone Wars (2008)

2008-08-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, in a studio far far away, there was a young George Lucas. George rose up to become a geek icon by creating something called Star Wars. Years later, after a lifetime of hookers and blow (or something along those lines) George tore everything he created down by creating prequels to his cultural phenomenon. Humanity wept, the internet went ablaze with flaming discussions over the merits of Jar Jar Binks, and here we are. Flash forward to 2008 and we have the Clone Wars movie, not to be confused with the Clone Wars shorts (which were amazing and packed more story, action, romance, and plot in every 3 minutes than Return of the Sith), an animated feature showing "other" stories from the prequel era.

First off, for those who care, this is not a real movie. This is a two hour multimillion dollar pay per view pilot episode for an upcoming TV series aimed at teens. With that in mind, you can forgive the dialogue and writing, because it's pretty damn bad. The plot of the movie is that Jabba the Hutt's son is kidnapped by the Sith and Anakin, Obi Wan, and Anakin's annoying teenage apprentice have to get him back. Simple plot, easy to follow for even the most dullest of thirteen year olds, action abound, profit, right? I always wondered why the fuck Georgie wants to kiddify Star Wars when the entire series revolve around war, fighting, and losing limbs in some epic battle of good and evil. Anakin isn't whiney or emo this time around, but his teenage jedi apprentice is, oh boy is she bad. There's also a tranny hookah smoking Hutt in the movie too for some reason. Yes, you read that correctly. Still it's Star Wars, and there's some bright spots. Lightsaber battles, always awesome to see. Gigantic slugging matches between enormous space ships, also cool. Cute little green aliens, sweet. But then everyone opens their mouths again and talk like Jedi would if they had a myspace.

For what the movie is, it's not terrible. It's certainly better than the prequels, but that's like saying a fart is better than a stinking toilet log. As a made for tv movie, I'd be all for it, but for something you pay 10 bucks in the theater for, they could have done better. Sad George, we keep hoping you'll make us love you again. The Clone Wars gets 2 1/2 Forced Gomorrahs. Haha, get it, Forced, the Force, ahhhh I slay me.

The Dark Knight (2008)

2008-08-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

There is no entry for Dark Knight. The movie was perfect, you already saw it and don't need me to validate that statement. Deal.

Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog

2008-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Mad scientists never get their big break. They plot and scheme and build devices of mass vaporization but in the end they get their comeuppance, when all they aspire for is getting some comedownance on the general population. After all, they're smarter than most of us, and shouldn't the smart people take advantage of their god given right to look down on everyone else? Thankfully we have Doctor Doogie Howser Horrible, MD, or just Dr. Horrible. Doctor Horrible has a blog, he rants on the internet, he talks about the status quo and how it's not quo at all. He's got big plans because the world's going down the toilet and to fix it he just needs to rule it. And he's like the rest of us, he does laundry, he's got problems, he has a crush on the girl at his laundramat. And we learn all this through song and dance.

Yes Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog chronicles the age old tale of a man's struggle to conquer the world, kill the good guy, and get the girl. It's a tale that stretches back to biblical times when men struggled to conquer the world, kill the good guy, and get the girl. Standing in his way is Captain Hammer, aka Captain feathered-hair-tight pants. He's dashing and buff and kind of a dick, the way you imagine most super heroes being in real life. He likes to ruin Dr. Horrible's day. He's also taking his girl. It's almost like Revenge of the Nerds, the musical, which would also be a great musical if they ever made it. But I digress.

In the end, Doctor Horrible is delightful to watch. It's got romance, suspense, danger, pretty redheads, and mad science. All the ingredients for a perfect musical. It's also got a villain named Bad Horse the thoroughbred of sin, created by the guy who created The Tick, and Fake Thomas Jefferson, and you know you've got gold when something has menacing equine villains.

Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog gets 4 Horrible Gomorrahs. They're like regular Gomorrah's but horrible, like they kicked babies and strangled prostitutes growing up.

Lucky 13

2008-07-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

The purple paint outside, the big black cat logo, yes this is Lucky 13. It's got convenience of location, being near the Church St Muni and the bus lines going down Market St. It's got a beer selection worthy of a brewery, including Framboise Raspberry Ale, a beverage that a roommate of mine has affectionately dubbed Raspberry Angel Jizz (TM). It's the type of dive bar that you'd imagine the Ramones or the Sex Pistols hanging out in, the walls are covered in punk rock murals, concert posters for the Misfits, and the entire decor is very dark. You feel like you're stepping into the void when you go there, except the void is slinging cheap beer and cheap liquor to the tune of Bad Religion. It's location seems to garner just about every facet of San Francisco's demographics. Gays wander in from the Castro, hipsters from the Mission, people coming back from shows at Cafe Du Nord and the regular San Francisco cross section of old hippies, ex rockers, and Gen X yuppies. The place gets serious praise for it's liquor selection, price, and juke box. Other bonus points are a popcorn maker dispensing free movie style popcorn that you'd pay 5 bucks for at the movie theater and the place allows dogs and other pets. After all, why walk your dog in the park when you can take him to a dive bar and give a diet of floor popcorn and spilt booze. Like most places it's not all that perfect. It's perpetually noisy in there. Blaring jukeboxes in an enclosed space and everyone shouts to be heard above the music. It's also perpetually crowded inside. But these are minor things compared to the liquid goodness this place dispenses. But for all it's boozery, I give Lucky 13 3 1/2 Gomorrahs. It can be great, but the crowdedness can be too much.

Lucky 13 is located on Market St. Parking is moderate, but doable, and transportation is handled by the Church St. Muni station. Bar is cash only, and the place has no kitchen but Castro St. and a 24 hour Safeway are nearby.

Wall-E

2008-07-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

Meet Wall-E, he's a robot. See Wall-E collect trash. See Wall-E befriend a cockroach. See Wall-E squat a log (er in this case cube) of garbage and arrange it like Jenga pieces in a tower. See Wall-E fall in love. No really, just see Wall-E. You have to hand it to Pixar, they somehow managed to pull off a post apocalyptic sci-fi Chaplin-esque romantic comedy adventure movie about the environment and not suck or be preachy about it.

Wall-E is about the last robot on Earth. In fact he's the last anything on Earth. You see, in the future mankind treated Earth like a toilet and like any lazy people who don't pick up after themselves, decided to ditch the planet and lounge it up in space while thousands of little garbage picking bots cleaned up their mess. Flash forward several centuries later and all that's left is Wall-E. He wakes up, he picks up trash, he builds neat little skyscrapers out of them, he finds little trinkets to take him, he watches musicals, then he goes to sleep (mode) and repeat. He's good at what he does, which is why he's the last thing on Earth. The only other things that seem to survive with him are the last cockroach (you know shit's hit the fan when there's only one cockroach left alive) and Twinkies. Makes you wonder why more things can't be made from Twinkies since all forms of media seem to portray them as invulnerable to the ravages of time and environment.

Now meet Eve. Apparently in the future Ipods are not only robots, they carry neat blaster cannons, scanners, and are named Eve. Eve meets Wall-E. Wall-E falls for Eve, Wall-E and Eve act out a time tested love story, but with robots. Eve takes Wall-E to her giant space ship with giant fat humans who became lazier than the Jetsons ever portrayed humans being. All the things you love about sci-fi movies seem to take place. Robots uprise, artificial intelligences deem humans stupider than them, battles are fought, lives in peril, the fate of humanity in jeopardy. And all the while, Wall-E is seducing Eve with his underdog charm and gritty exterior (really, he's one filthy bot, he picks up garbage all day remember?) and not much else since in the future robot's can't say anything beyond their name. Yes, you can count the number of words all the robots in the movie say on one hand. Which means it takes some talented body language for Wall-E to flirt with Eve, that sly devil-bot. In the end, Wall-E is about the environment, and what happens when we ignore Al Gore and the hippies and crap where we eat. But it's nice to know someday my Ipod will have a blaster cannon.

Wall-E gets 4 1/2 Gomorrahs. One for the two robots, one for the ghost of Fred Willard, one for showing the invulnerability of Twinkies, 1/2 for the references to old sci fi films, and -1/2 for getting show tunes stuck in my head.

Zeitgeist

2008-07-08T15:57:00.000-07:00

Zeit·geist
1. (noun) The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation
2. A San Francisco dive bar that doesn't need your praise to be cool.

Zeitgeist is a quintessential dive bar. It's located under a freeway, the walls are covered in graffiti, rocker memorabilia, bumper stickers abd the bathrooms are either porto potty horrors or badly lit closets of questionable sanitation. Furthermore, the staff seems to display only two moods, frantically busy or surly. And yet, Zeitgeist is probably one of the more beloved institutions in the city. This is a bar that locals go to, and they don't need your shit or your attitude if you plan to bring it.

Those who are open minded and patient can find a silver mine of lining underneath the dark cloud exterior. For one thing, Zeitgeist boasts a very large selection of beers on tap. They also are well known for making one of the best bloody marys this side of the country. Even better, they're on the cheaper end of the spectrum for booze in the city and pitchers (big glass ones, not the sissy plastic water pitchers you find in pizza places) seem to range between $10-$12 bucks. The place serves some delicious freshly grilled bbq for the cheap, although instead of fries they're served with grilled potatoes that always seem slightly undercooked. The biggest draw, however seems to be the large outdoor beer garden, where at any given time during the spring and summer seasons you'll find college kids, hipsters, bikers, bike couriers, and just whoever chilling outside with their friends over several pitchers of ale. It's like a large no stress social gathering.

Quirkier features of the place are $30 rooms you can rent per night up above that claim to be clean, though I honestly have never heard of anyone ever renting a room upstairs nor could imagine anyone wanting to sleep above the cacophony of noisy drunks, and the Mission District Tamale Lady. The Tamale Lady is somewhat of a local hero, dispensing cheap tamale treasures around the streets of the Mission District and Zeitgeist is her headquarters. At any given night cries of "The Tamale Lady" can be heard and gaggles of hipsters will line up around her as if she's bringing manna from heaven. If I were to ever give Zeitgeist a score, I'd give it a solid 4 Gomorrahs, minus one for the horrors of the bathroom I've had to endure there while drinking a pitcher of pear cider by myself, but it's Zeitgeist. They don't need my praise.

Zeitgeist is located on the corner of Valencia and Duboce, under the freeway. Parking is decent, the 16th Street BART is close by, and they only take cash so bring lots.

reserved

2008-07-01T12:47:00.001-07:00

this spot is reserved for the great San Francisco Buffalo Wing tasting test that will eventually happen.

Wanted (2008)

2008-06-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

I am very glad I don't work in a cubicle job because according to the movie Wanted, if you're a twenty something office monkey trapped in a dull pathetic existence then your only means of escape is to become an assassin and shoot a lot of people. And not just shoot them, but using some slick Matrix-style curve ball way to shoot in the process.

Loosely based on a comic book series by Mark Millar, Wanted is a story about Wesley Gibson, an apathetic victim of the cubicle monkey lifestyle. Wesley's day consists of going to work where he's constantly berated by his overbearing Nurse Ratchet of a boss, going home to his run down apartment to his girlfriend whom right from the beginning is shown cheating on him with his douchebag best friend and trying to cope with the fact that he's broke and leading a meaningless existence by taking heavy medication. In other words, he's pathetic.

A chance meeting with a woman named Fox aka Angelina Jolie playing her umpteenth bad ass gun wielding femme-fatale, steps in and informs poor Wesley that he's the heir to an ancient tradition known as killing people for hire. Apparently Wesley's father was one of the greatest assassins in the world and was recently murdered and it's up to Wesley to take on the family trade. With almost zero prompting and the minimum seven stages of denial, Wesley goes down the path from pansy to bad ass through a series of obligatory training montages with the various rogues gallery of assassinannys showing him the ropes before he's sent to take down his father's killer.

This could have been a decent summer action movie. This could have been a movie akin to Fight Club or Office Space in that we have a hero that inspired us to escape whatever monotonous lifestyle we might be living in to aspire to some sort of greatness. Unfortunately the movie gets bogged down with some video game-like concepts that would tax the suspension of disbelief of thirteen year olds. People are able to jump and flip cars as if they were playing Grand Theft Auto, bullets are shot like curve balls and able to defy logic and physics; and while cool the first time, a person would get tired of seeing two bullets collide in mid air after the third or fourth time. James McAvoy, who is a very talented actor, does a fine job with what he's given. It's just that the character Wesley isn't that great to begin with. Unlike other people who might be morally conflicted with becoming an Assassin, Wesley jumps into it with enthusiasm simply because it's better than his old lifestyle. There's just very little growth in the character. Morgan Freeman, who plays the head assassin leader, shows amazing acting simply because he's not bursting into laughter when his character delivers some of the most ridiculously hokey lines ever written for a man played by Morgan Freeman. For example, this is the first movie with Morgan Freeman where I've ever heard him drop the f bomb. Angelina Jolie is just playing Angelina Jolie in action movie mode, she holds a gun, she shoots, she pouts, she wears tight outfits, and she leans against things looking all sultry-like, it's not anything new to us. In the end, Wanted is just an action movie for the dumbed down Myspace generation.

Final Verdict:
2 1/4 Gomorrah's; great concept, some awesome action scenes, but ultimately pretty dumb.

The Gomorrah Scale of Awesome

2008-06-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

From this point on I will be using a new handy dandy trademarked rating system that I shall refer to as the Gomorrah Scale of Awesomeness (TM). Anything I review will now be rated in terms of Gomorrah-ness. For those who never read the Bible, Gomorrah (along with Sodom) was one of the towns that were destroyed by God for being full of sinful inhabitants who indulged in various pleasures. In other words, they were towns inhabited by people who knew how to have a good time. Hence everything being reviewed here will be gauged by how much enjoyment people can get out of the product.

1 Gomorrah = boring, dull, non enjoyable, the equivalent of living a Puritan lifestyle
2 Gomorrahs = Of dubious use and enjoyment, something that is utter crap except for one or two silver linings.
3 Gomorrahs = Average, kinda useful, kinda fun, fun for a while but then gets boring, like vanilla icecream.
4 Gomorrahs = Good, awesome, positive, watch this, get this, use this, eat this, just experience it in some way.
5 Gomorrahs = So much fun you'd turn into a pillar of salt if you looked back on it.

The Ex, 5 Piece Knife Set

2008-06-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

Most of you have probably seen this product in various online stores (ie Thinkgeek, Amazon, Overstock, etc.) and thought "Wow, a voodoo doll that doubles as a knife holder!" I thought the same thing which is why I currently possess one. It's quite an impressive looking addition to the kitchen and more than one person has commented on the thing upon entering our house, however there are some flaws with the thing. For one thing, the entire holder is made of plastic screwed onto a hollow plastic base. While it's big enough that it wont easily get knocked over, it feels flimsy enough that if you were to drop the holder for whatever reason, it would just shatter. My other main issue with the Ex is that the knives that were included in the set were a little dull. Now this isn't a big issue since knives can be sharpened but one would think that if you buy a knife set, the knives are already pre-sharpened. The price, at $70, is a little high too considering it only holds five knives, but of course anyone who buys this is probably looking for form over function. It would have been nice if they could sell this sans knives so those who already have a full knife set could use it. Other than that, it's an attractive thing to possess, and in my house I'm sure we'll have no shortage of pictures to tape onto the head for cathartic purposes. However my recommendation is if you buy the Ex, fill in the hollow base with something to give it more weight and stability and ditch the knives that are included for some nice Cutco knives.

The Machine Girl (2008)

2008-06-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

This movie is one of the most indescribably craziest films I've seen all year. It was as if a Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino film had a love child with an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers then went to see Iron Man and Rocky before finally produced this Grade A, B Grade, movie. Directed by Noboru Iguchi, The Machine Girl is a hyper-violent, blood soaked, semi-comedic, over the top revenge movie that reminds us that the Japanese know how to make some strange and rather fucked up movies.

The movie follows the life of Ami on a quest for revenge against a ninja-yakuza family. Barely two minutes into the movie and we already see the bodies piling up. Ami was leading a normal teenage life with her little brother when tragedy struck and her brother and his friend are murdered by the school bully. Losing her arm in the process, she sets off to avenge herself against the bully and his ninja yakuza family with the help of the auto mechanic parents of the deceased friend, a chainsaw, and the over the top gatling gun arm they built for her. In true B-grade fashion, limbs are lost, blood sprays in geysers, and people die in inadvertently funny ways and the audience is left howling with glee throughout the movie.

The plot is paper thin, the gore is over the top, and the random japanese silliness is well just silly. The actors throw themselves into their roles but in the end, as an audience, all that is secondary because we're seeing a schoolgirl with a machine gun arm blasting out justice. For those who love B movies, this one is your holy grail.

Everything is Awesome Forever

2008-06-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Awesome Forever Blog. This is the place where I attempt to review and comment on everything I deem awesome in the world. It's my outlet for any creative genius that's hiding up in my noggin and hopefully I can entertain and inform at the same time. Everything here is written in an everyman fashion that's easily understood by everybody, similar to The Self Made Critic from the old Brunching Shuttlecock's website, my direct inspiration. So please, enjoy.