Tonight, tonight, tonight

Ever since I bought my Xbox 360, I've kept a somewhat wary eye on it. Its reputation for loudness, overheating and failure often weighed on my mind and sometimes I ask myself: Why did I buy an Xbox 360 in the first place? I now have the answer: Mass Effect.

Mass Effect is a sci-fi role playing game from Bioware, who made other excellent RPGs like the Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic series. And this game has all the hallmarks of a Bioware game. Excellent plot, interesting characters and amazing visuals. You play Commander Shepard, a human soldier trying to save the galaxy. You can customise Shepard in a myriad ways, from gender, hair, and facial structure. The combat is fun and simple, and there are plenty of quests and things that keep you busy.

I bought Mass Effect for a mere $77 and I've been playing it since Monday, racking up 30-something hours of play. I've been hooked since I started playing and already I'm thinking of playing it again a few times just to try different play styles, dialogue choices and plot options. And the times that I'm not playing Mass Effect, I'm catching up on reading. I introduced my dad to the wonders of buying stuff off the internet and while he is suspicious of eBay, he has really taken to Amazon and has already bought a swag load of books from them. The books on my list right now are:

• Secret Army Secret War: Washington's Tragic Spy Operation in North Vietnam by Sedgwick Tourison

• The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois et al

• A Devil in Paradise by Henry Miller

I've only finished the first, which basically details the shitty US spy operation in North Vietnam. Basically they trained South Vietnamese soldiers to do special ops like in World War II, recruiting freedom fighters and disrupting the North Vietnamese Army by blowing up bridges and dams and etc. Pretty much all the ops were massive failures. There was no clear leadership nor goals and later when clear goals were detailed it was way too ambitious. All the parachute drops into North Vietnam basically failed. The teams were drop way off course and in most cases were captured by North Vietnamese forces within days. The VC had basically penetrated the operations centers in the South and the US were too arrogant to assume that they had been compromised. It just shows that while the US is the world's foremost superpower, it has and can be defeated in the battlefield. That's what Vietnam was. A defeat. And that's not mentioning the conspiracy theories on how the US cut deals with China to abandon Vietnam. It's an interesting but depressing read.

The two other books I haven't read yet, but I'll probably start with A Devil in Paradise, seeing that the Black Book of Communism is over 800 pages on detailing the failures and atrocities of communist regimes.

Well I guess it's back to some more Mass Effect.

Wicked Game

Bought the Xbox 360 a few days ago and I've been playing a lot ever since. Got it at GAME for $499 plus 2 games (Viva Pinata and Forza 2) and I was damn lucky since I got the very last unit left. I'm hoping that's a good sign.

It is a lot bigger than I thought. I have a slim PlayStation 2 and compared to the Xbox 360, it's tiny. The first thing I did was to plug it in, turn it on and stare at it for 15 minutes. I was half convinced that the moment I put in a game, it would play fine then explode in a shower of red flames and leaving a small mushroom cloud behind. It's fairly quiet and it doesn't get that hot. The Xbox 360 has a notorious reputation for being loud, overheating and dying just after the warranty expires. But I think I got the new Falcon revision with a smaller CPU, so that's probably why it isn't so loud and hot.

It ended up costing quite a bit, the console pack itself was $499 plus wireless controller with charge kit, extended 2 year warranty, plus an extra game NBA 2k8. I picked up a preowned copy of Gears of War for $44 yesterday. Gears of War is proving to be great fun with co-op. My brother and I have probably finished half the game already. It's a bit of challenge playing a shooter on a console, since it's not at accurate or easy as a PC. I bought Gears of War from GAME, but I'll probably remove the "preowned" stickers and trade it in for something else, Assassin's Creed maybe? Mass Effect comes in on Monday, so I'm hurrying to finish Gears of War soon.

I also dropped into Borders at Parramatta Westfields just to see if any new books caught my eye. And one did. The Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, part of a tetralogy of books. It's the third book and seems to be freshly translated from Russian into English. I've grown to love the series. Think Harry Potter, Russian style, set in a post-communist Russia with more adult and philosophical musings. If you enjoy fantasy, you should pick this up quicksmart and the earlier books, The Night Watch and The Day Watch.


Also picked up a DVD of We Are The Strange. $40 bucks plus delivery from the US. It's a very strange film and it's definitely not for everyone. The plot is about two outcasts, a doll called eMMM and his female companion called Blue. After meeting each other, they travel to a sinister city in search of ice cream. However, bizarre monsters roam this city all apparently controlled by the evil ruler called Him. Fortunately, they encounter a hero called Rain, who starts destroying all the monsters around them. The rather vague plot does the job, but the entire movie is held together by it's amazing and alarming strange visuals.


The director, calling himself M dot Strange, combines stop-motion animation, 8-bit artwork, computer imagery and sheer strangeness, creating the visual weirdness that he dubs str8nime. Str8nime is basically strangeness + 8 bit artwork + anime. The film itself is more of an emotional ride. It's more of "what do you feel right now?" rather than "wtf is going on?". And if you subscribe to the former, then the film is much more enjoyable. Seriously, this film looks as if Pixar made while high on drugs and it's mind boggling that M dot Strange basically made the entire film himself over a period of three years. I guess the film reminds me of 300. That film had a thin plot to string together the massive fight scenes and was a primarily a visual experience. We Are The Strange is no different. Check out the homepage and Youtube channel before deciding to commit to this.



That's it for now. The holidays is a bit more manageable and the horrors of clinical practice is still weeks and weeks away. That is going to be hard.

On Occasion

I've basically decided to bite the bullet and buy an Xbox 360. Despite my fun experiences with the Nintendo Wii and the now less expensive PlayStation 3, the games I really want to play are on the Xbox.

Knowing Jimmy, he'll probably drop a comment noting that I am mistaken in my choice, the Xbox 360 is shit, and with a month I will curled in a fetal position, sobbing, because I got screwed over. And on the balance of probability, he'll probably be right. But I'm taking that risk. There's a whole bunch of games that I want to play that are only on the Xbox 360 and not on any other platform. Mass Effect is a prime example.

I'm going to go buy it at GAME (they took over GameWizards) since they have the Pro bundle with 2 games at only $499. And I'll probably throw in an extra controller, maybe an extra basketball game for my bro and some extra warranty stuff. That'll probably add another $150 at least.

I already have my eye on Mass Effect. Too bad both EB and GAME sell it at $100. I've found a site that sells it at $77 with free shipping. Oh, the wonders of the internet. Unfortunately, my coffers will be sorely depleted. I might get some money for Christmas or maybe flog the unwanted presents over Ebay. And maybe get a job. No wait. Can't really do that. My second year of uni has 18 weeks of clinical Mon-to-Fri and unless it's weekend work I can't do it. If it were weekend work, I'd be so tired.

Now, once I have an Xbox 360 within the next few days, I should probably try to convince my dad that a new HD tv would be good. Space will be an issue, so I don't think I might be able to get those big plasmas. Bah, I'll cross that bridge later.

And when will this writer's strike end? House ended weeks ago and I need my fix. At least Doctor Who will be unaffected.

Eyes are at the Billion

I've settled somewhat into a comfortable routine of waking up, checking my downloads, then spending my time catching up on reading. It's been a long time since I read for pleasure, but I've hit up some goood books, so this post will be more like a review.

First book that I'm currently reading is The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan, who is the former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve for over 30 years. Look him on Wiki and you'll know this guy is the real deal. His memoirs deal mainly with his experiences growing up and working in the world of economics, especially his time at the Federal Reserve. He goes on to examine the economic policy of several American presidents, and he is quite critical of George W. Bush's economic policy. Besides that it's also a massive discussion on how capitalism is the only market economy that works and how to have a successful capitalist market you need a democratic government. Those people doing economics would find it easy reading, but since I've never did anything economically related in my life, there were a few parts that had me puzzling over the technical terms.

But it's very educational and enlightening. My dad always said that if you read a book and you learn just one new thing from it, then it's totally worth the price of the book, regardless of the actual price. I subscribe to that view. For example, western Europe's economy is going to well with slow growth and high employment. Greenspan argues that there is too much labour protection that it hampers the economy. It's become too hard and expensive to fire employees that employers don't want to hire more people even if they need to, because when the economy slumps then they have to fire people which ends up costing a lot. Now I can see some of the reasoning behind Howard's whole WorkChoices thingo, but I reckon that some kind of labour protection should be in place, especially against unfair dismissals and the like. Howard probably wanted to go a little too far.

Next up is The Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly, the sequel to The Seven Ancient Wonders. It's a very action packed novel that reads exactly like a Hollywood action film. 30 seconds of exposition then non-stop action and explosions. There is some character development but it's still minimal at best and you need to read the first book to get the full effect. It has a massive cliffhanger ending which pissed me off to no end, but it does it's job of making me want more. Definitely pick it up, it's different from how other authors right and because to that it's fun and exciting.

I'll probably buy more books eventually. The Dune series attracts my interest, combining science fiction, with environmental, religious and political messages with a hint of military action. Frank Herbert wrote six books, and had planned to write more before he died. His son, Brain Herbet and sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson are writing the continuation. They did write the prequel series to Dune, which was alright, but it wasn't as good as Frank Herbert. Still I'd like to complete my Dune collection one day.

And finally some anime stuff. To be brutally honest, I don't watch that much anime. I read manga much more now, since it's always ahead of the anime and doesn't have those massive fillers. I used to watch Naruto and Bleach, but the fillers pissed me off. Eyeshield 21 is a manga I also read, since the anime, in my opinion, is crap. The last anime I watched was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was different, quirky and fun. A second series is coming out next year supposedly. However, there is any anime that caught my attention quite by accident. It's called Moyashimon : Tales of Agriculture. It's about a boy who goes to an agricultural university, with the unique ability to see, hold and communicate with microbes. It's different and its taken me by surprise. With my minor Chemistry background, it is quite interesting, the whole microbe thing. Also at the end of every episode, they showcase a new microbe, its name, where its found. The draw the microbes in a very cutesy way. I'm sure plushy toys are just around the corner. You can find it here, and personally, I watch the BSS subs. Watch it. I highly recommend it.

That's all really. Oh and if anyone is having a party, BBQ, outing or anything, just drop me a line and I might rock up. Holidays is starting to get a bit boring, and my clinical placement doesn't start until January 29th.