The VilleBook: Understanding the Phenomenon

Image via Wikipedia

For few years now, Facebook was overwhelmed by gamers. And it wouldn't be bad if these were regular, PC or console gamers. But no. Some random dudes got the Idea: Hey, let's make a game that involves spamming people's Facebooks with random messages! And, surprisingly, it worked. Nobody knows how or why, but it does.
However, after some time these games were up, scientists came up with an explanation: *Ville players are being subjected to a Skinner "treatment". Let's see how it's done.

New camera, Zemanta and a review coming soon.

Image by JacobMetcalf via Flickr

That's not how I reacted. That's not even me.
Consider it a stock photo.

Today, I bought a new camera. A crappy, battery-powered, £50 Kodak thing. Only good thing - more or less 12mpix, does nice photos. Didn't test video yet. Has a 2GB card I found in my card reader, the one I used in my phone before I bought a 8GB one. I don't know, I might want to swap them, since maximum video lenght is approximately 40 minutes. Which isn't too bad, but you see, I'm interested in film making. For everyone who's interested, here's the link to Kodak's specs: Kodak Easyshare C182 @ Kodak store.
I might want to do a review on it in future, but I can safely say that: this fucker drains batteries like a thirsty camel drains whisky.
I am also testing a new gadget, called Zemanta. Seems to be OK, and for some longer reviews or articles, it may even provide some helpful pics and traffic. Zemanta sits as a sidebar to the right of the post editor, and manifests itself on the blog with the zemid...zemandi...zombi... Obviously, I'm going bit too far on that one. You'll just have to see. Also, the In-Text links feature seems to be quite useful. Thank you, Zemanta!
Do you remember that review schedule I've posted few weeks ago? Well, I said fuck it and decided to review whatever I feel needs to be reviewed. Thus, next review: The Others, with Nicole Kidman.

Few kinds of idiots that destroy any forum discussion

Sometimes the cropping makes a difference.

The situation: you're in the real world, talking about something, and then some idiot comes in and throws random trivia in the talk. This attracts other idiots who start to argue about stuff right between the lines of the main conversation, and you are left with them and try to wait until the flame war dies out (preferably with those who started it). But no. Some smart guy once said that there are only few idiots in the world, but they're scattered around so cunningly you'll run into them almost always.
Now, let's see what happens if those idiots finally learn how to use a computer and the Internet.

Artemis Fowl review

There are things that can go in two ways only: be fucked up in a retarded manner, or be one of the few little gems. One of these things is writing a fictional book in a style of a character's biography. Daniel Handler did it well, because he took the guise of Lemony Snicket. Eoin Colfer is doing it wrong, because he took a guise of Eoin Colfer. Granted, Artemis Fowl's concept is pretty good, which portrays the bad guy as the protagonist, but...

Fairies, not Jedis.

Next review: Artemis Fowl

See the title. Also,
FUCKING FAIRIES FUCKING TECHNOLOGY FUCKING 12 YEAR OLD KID WHO WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD!

Instant noodle soup + computers = FAIL (1)

It was a happy, sunny Tuesday. I was happily (read as: I WAS FUCKING PISSED OFF) coming back home, and was about to open cracked.com, where I learn how to write by reading others. But NOOOOO, there had to be trouble. You see, I found out that my computer-stupid mother spilled a shitload of instant noodle soup.

This lil' fucker.

Short Review: Spiderwick Chronicles film

Well, as it turns out, Narnia was not enough, so some assholes decided to rip it off and thus The Spiderwick Chronicles were born. It's about a couple of kids (Narnia knockoff factor = 1) who moved into a new house (Narnia knockoff factor = 2) which is inhabited by some gnome or dwarf or elf or whatever the fuck magical creature. They learn that there's a magical world out there (Narnia knockoff factor = 3), and one day, one of the kids is either lured or captured and dragged into a magical world, and to the villain (Narnia knockoff factor = 4), who is a shape-shifting ogre called Mulgarath.

O RLY?

...so the other kids get their friend/relative back (Narnia knockoff factor = 5), and prepare to fight back the evil forces, with the help of other magical creatures (Narnia knockoff factor = 6). Then they fly on a griffin to a totally cracked up magical dimension where the author of a book of the magical creatures they've been using was. Unable to get out, he gives the kids some advice. They fight Mulgarath and everybody lives happily ever after (Narnia knockoff factor fuck you).

Film review:
Well, it was OK, but if I was to watch  a fucked-up fantasy film, I'd choose Narnia.
My rating: 3.2/5

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Fucked Up Ideas

Cover via Amazon

Indiana Jones, the icon. Since The Raiders of the Lost Ark, it had equal number of fans as Star Wars, maybe because both franchises star Harrison Ford, or maybe because both of them are awesome. George Lucas again shown us how to make a film – and it was not Howard the Duck. Of course, I watched all three of them, and, of course, I thought that it's too bad they won't make another one. That was until 2008, when they announced Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.
Thus, when the news reached me, I obviously went to the cinema and…

Update on Indy 4 review

I already finished all the text stuff, and cleaned up most of the fucking tag bullshit Word 2007 calls "valid XHTML". Yeah. Valid it is, but shove it up validator's ass! Empty tags, spans instead of paragraphs, just what the fuck is Word doing with the text, HUH?
So I'm done with the review, I'll just prepare the pictures tomorrow and it will be up by tomorrow 1800 hours. I hope.

A new blog has been spawned

Since I'm an orthodox atheist in nature, I like to bash the hell out of religious ideas. And wouldn't you know it, I've created a blog called God Dies Here: lamp-ARR-ski Atheist. Sounds cool? 'Cause it is! Also, that's why I added that "lamp-ARR-ski blognet" thing above the posts. For your convenience, of course.
Indiana Jones review is coming up tomorrow. I promise.

A minor rant on people who make blogs about their babies.

Well, there I am, clicking the "next blog" button on my blogger bar. And guess where the fuck do I land - that's right, on a blog someone made for a god damn baby of theirs. And, as it happens often, I do not barf from the cuteness. I barf from the "what the fuck were they thinking?!". Seriously. No one except you care about your kid. I believe George Carlin made himself clear.



Video thanks to AmmonRa801.

The Week of Torture

It's really sucky in the week before half term. People press you to work, and when you're done and go back home, you fall down so tired you won't make a jack shit out of the universe, head full of trigonometry, reading between lines and ozone layer, trying not to forget that there's some stupid process called 'learning' going on. I love to learn, but it really sucks. This term was exhausting. Heat, pressure, fucking spring outside.

News Update: Damn.

I was working on Star Trek review, but then the video editor started crashing and freezing so often that it became impossible for me to edit it any more. 15 minutes into the film, and fucking Edius crashed! I'll never use a trial version of a video editor again! Agrh! I need new computer!

For Coming Soon, there's a definite list of my reviews I'm going to do by the end of June:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (filmwatching in progress)
2. Spiderwick Chronicles film
3. Gamer
4. Star Trek (still text only)
5. Avatar (I'm still digging through all the news about plagiarism)
6. Star Trek - The Next Generation (the WHOLE series, folks!)

News Update: Coming Soon

The voice-over review of Star Trek 2009 is on its way. Meanwhile, I'd like to present a new coming soon list of my reviews.

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. Spiderwick Chronicles (the film version)
3. Gamer

The reason I dropped Avatar off is that I'm going to wait for the sequel and review them both in one article.

Short note on Robert Cormier's "Heroes".

I got this book to read in my English class. It's kinda OK. There's that Francis guy who returns after war with face injuries and wants to kill other guy, LaSalle, because... I didn't get there yet. This is a successful attempt at writing a complex plot in a bitesize form for children and... teenagers? Believe it or not, this book is actually described as "young adult novels" by Wikipedia, but then again it might be my biased point of view because I first read DaVinci Code when I was 11, and I enjoyed.

Tidbit: Google Wave Down For Maintenance... FTW!

I've been using a preview of Google's new web app, Google Wave. It's for collaboration. It's not e-mail, it's not chat, it's not a forum... it's wave. You have to see it for yourself.
So Wave is down for maintenance, and they have this message on their site.

Press "Read More" to see it...

Exams, delays and how Word sucks and stuff

Hi people, it's lamp-ARR-ski here, with a news update and other crap.

Next week will be pretty busy for me, because the exams are coming up, and yeah, I need to study, so the lamp-ARR-ski reviews will be delayed — but after the exams, I'll return, possibly with voice-over reviews. They won't come as often as text reviews, but way more interesting. You won't be able to say "tl;dr" now, thankyouverymuch.

Film Review: American Godzilla (1998)

Godzilla – The American Monstrosity

And now it's retro time on lamp-ARR-ski Reviews.

Do you remember the 90s? All the new, cutting-edge CGI technology advanced to sack half of the model builders and stop-motion animators and those people who made special effects possible, in favour of the new nerds and geeks, also known as the CGI artists. Those where the happy days when effects didn't have to be too realistic to be great. So, remember when Stargate came out? I don't – because I was born shortly after. But I watched it on a DVD recently, and boy, did it suck. I mean, I liked the film as a whole, but this pyramids built by aliens concept was just crazy and fucked up. No Egyptian geniuses, no architectural wonders, no calculations – just aliens.

Then, Independence Day came out. And boy, did it suck. This time, the only upside to this film was the visual effects, which were very neat for their times, so I won't write too much about it.

Then, few years after I was born, Godzilla came out, from the producers of Stargate and Independence Day, or should I say, people held responsible for those films. The only reason people actually went to see this film was the advertising strategy. We never see the whole monster in the trailers, so we go to the theatres, just for the sake of our curiosity. And yeah, you guessed it – it sucked balls. So, let's dig into American Godzilla of 1998, shall we?

News update: Coming soon

Just to let you know, I'm halfway through with the Godzilla review. I'll post it not later than this weekend, although I hope to post it earlier. This will be a longer one, since I wanted to review it in detail, so it will take time.
Therefore, the coming soon list looks like:

1. American Godzilla [DONE!]
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3. Spiderwick Chronicles
4. Avatar

And please, before you send me hate mail about Avatar, think again, because this film is not as good as many people think. I personally love Avatar, but there are few things that are just total nonsense.
That's all for now, lamp-ARR-ski out.

News update 3/05/2010: Upcoming reviews, request a review and whatnot.

 Hi, lamp-ARR-ski here. From now on, I will accept requests for films/books/comic books/certain games to review. In this news update, you'll find list of upcoming reviews, criteria for request a review, and information regarding voiceover/video reviews I might start doing soon.

Review: Doctor Who New Season 5 Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Five years ago, when Doctor Who franchise was rebooted with nice CGI and Christopher Eccleston, most of the fans were delighted to see it again. Now, with the season 5, there are questions about Doctor Who franchise. For example, why new sonic screwdriver? Why does interior of the TARDIS look like inside a fairytale dream or acid trip? Why does the time vortex look like hell? And the most of all, why the hell new Daleks? Let's find out, for this is The First Three Of New Season Five of Doctor Who.

Film Review: The Invasion [2007]

Cover of The Invasion [Blu-ray]

How could they fuck up the Body Snatchers?

I never reviewed a film before, but after watching The Invasion, 2007 remake of "The Invasion of Body Snatchers", I really feel like it. See, there are some certain things that change the way you think about world, media, or our culture. The Invasion is definitely one of them. I'd say it's that kind of thing you wish you hadn't touched. It's not bad, it's just boring. And boring is the keyword for this review.
I've seen many boring films and episodes, like all 5 seasons of Lost or those 30 boring me shitless episodes of Star Trek TNG, some films from Bland Shit 101, but never. Ever. Experienced. This... rip-off of rip-offs, this...this...mass of unadulterated blandness this film brings about! I mean, HOW COULD THEY FUCK UP BODY SNATCHERS?