Mass Effect, Part 1

Howdy partners,

I figured I would just keep a lil' diary to bring everyone up to speed on my progress through Mass Effect and the elaborate universe within.

Just a few short days ago, I surpassed where I had been previously in the game--just about to finish up the Citadel section. This was good, as I had seen this first bit played as both a Paragon (goody-two-shoes) and Renegade (giant evil ho), so I wanted to see what happened next. New space dramz!

And boy, oh boy, did I get space dramz! After basically re-creating the woman I had made on Brennon's Xbox (only hotter, and with red lipstick...and evil), I toyed with the idea of pursuing hottie Kaidan, but then decided that obvs lesbian sex would be superior, especially if that Fox newscast was right and I could decide exactly what each person did to the other! Hot sexy minigame! So I nipped Kaidan in the bud and told him to keep his personal feelings to his damn self cause I was having NONE OF IT! None, you hear me? And since my character is a full biotic and Liara (the lesbian alien wench!) is a full biotic, I decided I needed some combat strength to fight the hordes of aliens and eeeevil machines I was sure to face on my galactic travels. Thus, I brought along a little woman named Ashley.

Ashley was totally miscast in the voice acting. She should have been voiced by Wanda Sykes. And I'll tell you why, reader-folk. Because Ashley has a (totally incredible) habit of proclaiming, "Daaaamn!" just the way Wanda Sykes does. It's amazing. Plz go buy this game right now if you don't own it, so that you too can be amused by shouting, "Daaaamn! Commanda' Shepahd! That alien's face is whack!" And in most instances, it's true. That alien's face probably is pretty darn whack. Also, Ashley is a total butch and loves to chime in while my evil ho is talking by pointing her gun at people and saying, "You want a bullet through the head? Back down!" You tell 'em, Soulja Boy Wanda!

In other Mass Effect news, my lesbian relationship with Liara is progressing nicely. I'm afraid to snub her by being my typical evil self, so I play it totally nice only with her, and then on the side, manipulate people into killing one another. It's actually quite fun when you get the hang of it, though I had reservations at first, cause my ho is REALLY mean. She constantly tells people to shut the hell up and give her money and has (once or twice) brutally murdered someone who dared oppose her.

Liara though, is a lovely woman who stands really close to me and says how much it means to her that I saved her sorry ass on that crumbling ruin. Plz. When does mama get some lovin'?

I'm almost done with my second main mission since leaving the Citadel and you know what that means! Well, maybe you don't. But it means that I get to have another conversation to bring me one step closer to finding the lesbian within, and that's never a bad thing. I want my character to be able to appreciate the wonders of the female anatomy, not run screaming from it.

Achievements so far: 75 pts. Pretty pathetic, to be sure, but it's a start. I haven't yet gotten to Two Worlds, which will no doubt be a frolic in the land of suck, but I'm seasoned at that game now. With luck, someone has found new ways to cheat and make it easier to get the achievements. I don't relish the idea of playing through it for another go, because the first go...pretty bad. Maybe they patched it and fixed the bugginess. Who knows!?

Stay tuned for part two, in which I save some more stupid aliens, kill some more stupid machines and come closer to unraveling a mystery that will change the course of the game...forever!

Quick Note on Whininess

I'm here checking up on my Google Reader when I stumble across this lil gem from Towleroad.

Apparently, some guy wore a cut-off T-shirt to his gym in California with "I need a man or a date, serious inquiries only" on it and had his gym membership revoked. Naturally, I decided to go read the comments to see what the gays who read Towleroad had to say about it. True to form, it was mostly split between reasonable people who admitted that wearing that shirt was incredibly retarded and that the guy probably deserved it, and those who cried wolf at what they see as another instance of the supposed "double standard" that exists for gays, as though a similar shirt worn by a straight guy would not garner complaints from women who felt objectified when they are trying to work out.

As someone who goes to the gym fairly often, I can tell you that even without a t-shirt explicitly stating someone's intentions, it is not often that I can go without being confronted with at least one troll who leers at me all through my workout or flashes himself at me in the sauna. This guy said he did it as a gag, but come on. What do you expect the reaction will be when you basically wear a craigslist ad on your shirt advertising your desire to meet someone? That's gross and troll-like. Guys often (rightfully) feel uncomfortable in the locker rooms because there are always dirty old men hanging around longer than necessary; doing something like this does nothing to remove that feeling, and in fact, probably just makes even more people think gays are dirty trolls who come to the gym with the intention to find a date rather than just work out like everyone else.

And I can't stand these stupid people who post on everything on Towleroad crying about how we're so damn oppressed and how this guy should sue the gym and win a huge settlement (which would never happen, given that someone called the gym and found out that he threatened them). I wonder whether he did that after they asked him to remove the shirt. Just because gays have faced oppression and still do in a lot of cases, does not mean we are entitled to wear inappropriate t-shirts and expect that everyone just let us do whatever we want lest we cry prejudice. The real double standard is thinking that you can wear something like that while saying that we're just like everyone else. Obviously, this is not to say that all gays are dirty trolls. I don't go to the gym to pick people up (except maybe my abs instructor...;)

People like this give as bad a name to gays as the old straight men who leer at girls asses as they run on the treadmills or ellipticals. Leave the trolling to Craigslist and the working out to the gym.

Notes on Lesbians

Happy President's Day, followers of my blog. I trust your weekends involved many strippers and pendulous bosoms.

My weekend started off to a lovely cultured note on Friday evening as Jason and I attended the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Mozart's Symphony No. 39 and his Requiem. There was another piece they started with...a very short, albeit quite moving one...but I don't recall the name at the moment. I highly recommend going to see this group perform, as they were incredibly talented. I always love going to the symphony and am determined this year to make it more of a regular occurence. There's something innately satisfying to me to get gussied up and mingle with the sophisticated crowds who frequent Symphony Hall. Though I lack the knowledge of music to really be able to appreciate the finer points of what makes say Mozart's music superior, I do enjoy trying to broaden my understanding along with like-minded people.

Plus, the acoustics in that place are magnificent. There's nothing quite like hearing the angelic sopranos chime in during the middle part of the Confutatis. Or hearing those first measures of the Lacrimosa. Beautiful.

So after we hob-nobbed with Boston's well dressed symphony-goers, we retired to a little Mass Effect and Devil May Cry 4. This was, in short, the foundation upon which our weekend was built, as we spent a LOT of time playing both of these games. And rightfully so, as they are gorgeous games and let us alternate between a fully engaging universe in one and badassery with a go-go gadget demon arm in the other. I highly recommend DMC4 if you have a PS3. To summarize the game in the immortal words of Tara:

"Nero should go swimming. Or something. Naked." - Tara

To which I can only reply, yes...yes he should. Rawr. You know that demon arm has got a few tricks up its sleeve in bed.

Hoo-ey!

So anyway. On Saturday I finally got around to going to my very first Yoga class. And I'm pleased to say that Baby's First Yoga was a wonderful experience. It recalled to me the Zen meditation I did Freshman year of college and sadly got out of the habit of doing. Incredibly relaxing, but a bit more challenging than just sitting on a pillow breathing. I am determined to make it a part of my usual routine because I felt better coming out of that than I ever have after a strenuous workout on the treadmill. I shot Sharon an email afterwards telling her how much I loved it and she suggested some DVDs and books from her instructor, Rodney Yee, so I bought those on Amazon this morning. Super psyched to get them and try them out at home.

So after that, we all went to iParty and bought some stuffs for the Oscar party this weekend. Should be good times. Sunday was a blur of DMC4 and Mass Effect, followed up by A Mighty Heart (which was quite good, especially Angelina's stellar performance) and Moonstruck (with the ever-delightful Olympia Dukakis and Cher). God bless weekend movie marathons.

In other news, I was just introduced to Carrie Underwood's latest video masterpiece: All-American Girl. Please, please go watch this immediately. I died. She's hysterical. I love how tongue-in-cheek she is about everything. Given that she's 100% manufactured pop music, that's a necessity.

Oh, while I'm on the topic, everyone should go buy k.d. lang's new cd, Watershed. She's back with a vengeance with this cd. Truly stunning and her voice sounds better than ever in my opinion. At the very least, check out the live version of her single, I Dream of Spring. She's got a downright sexy voice and is able to carry such emotion in it, which is quite the rarity. I am SO sad that she's gonna be here this weekend and I won't be able to see her. Silly k.d.

Anyhoo, that's all for now people. Back to the grind. On the slate for tonight: laundry, coupled with some exploration of The Citadel in Mass Effect. I have a lot of assignments to do there so that I can get the achievement for having Liara in my party for most of the game. And so I can continue to lesbian-seduce her. Word.

Idiots

I don't have anything particularly compelling to add to the discussion floating around surrounding the shooter at the NIU killings, but this headline caught my eyes just now.

Police: Illinois campus gunman reportedly off medication

I love that people this obviously unstable somehow think it's a swell idea to just stop taking the medication they are prescribed. And his friends knew he had stopped taking it and had begun acting erratically and they apparently decided not to do anything about it. One would think that if someone needs medication not to go shoot up a school, there should be some plan devised to make sure they are taking it and don't decide to see what happens when they go off their meds.

Also, his eyebrows are freakishly groomed. Weird.

Anyhoo, that is all. Thoughts go out to the slain and their families. Let's hope this impels some people to maybe not vote for John McCain, who believes the right to bear arms is something we have a "sacred duty to protect." Douchebag.

Thoughts on Atonement

So the kids and I saw Atonement last night because the Lowes at Boston Common randomly decided to stop airing No Country for Old Men. Whatevs, Javier Bardem! Manbob.

I've been rather strongly resisting going to see this movie, despite loving the first (and only) Ian McEwan book I read, Saturday. I mean, that novel was delightfully intelligent and his prose is incredible, but this movie stars Kiera Knightley. Typically...not the biggest KK fan. She's got that whole Zoolander face going on and tends never to eat, which bothers me a bit. But she actually looks quite beautiful in this movie, and were I inclined towards cross-dressing, I'd be very jealous that I don't own her fantastic green dress. Hot mama. And come on, sex against the stacks, amazing.

So anyhoo, saw that movie last night, which far surpassed my expectations of it. I get the feeling, just from having read Saturday, that they probably upped the schmaltz factor, but they might not have. It just seems that epic love story ain't really his bag. If it is, then kudos to McEwan for being very versatile. Yay him. It's shot wonderfully as well, with lots of focus on the characters' eyes. Appropriate, given the point of the movie. I'm glad I didn't have the ending ruined for me ahead of time, because it had quite an impact as you're watching and suddenly Vanessa Redgrave graces the screen. Seeing her in this and Evening (which was fairly crappy all and all) still makes me want to go rent everything she's been in. I think she's gorgeous and her eyes are wicked, plus she's got some hardcore acting chops on her.

Saoirse Ronan is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for this film, which in a year without the much-lauded performance by Cate Blanchett would pretty much be a shoe-in given how much the Academy loves to give that award to debutantes. Still though, she was very impressive for such a young woman. I keep trying to write what was so great about her performance, but I can't really find the words for it. She just managed to take the part (which, admittedly, was great) and invest it with even more depth and complexity, but all in a very subdued sort of way. Very awesome, and worth seeing the movie if only for her.

That's about all I've got for Atonement at the moment.

In other news, it's Valentine's Day, so enjoy that all of you with peeps. I will be enjoying it with some gym action (the workout kind), some Xbox360 purchasing action, and a giant heart-shaped brownie courtesy of TBell. And maybe an episode or two of Lost. And maybe five hours of Mass Effect once everyone goes to bed. I need to work on buffing up my gamerscore from scratch. Sad day! It'll be good times though.

Til next time, kids.

Jonathan Day-Lewis

That is my new name, or it will be once I realize my life's ambition: to marry Daniel Day-Lewis. I've totally had a wee bit of a man-crush on him since I saw My Beautiful Laundrette in my Gay and Lesbian Film and Literature course at BU. In it, he plays the gay lover of this Pakistani dude in the United Kingdom. It's a really sweet movie and his character is this lovable little thug who hangs out with the tough kids from the wrong side of the tracks (think The Outsiders) but inside, he has a (gay) heart of gold. Obvs, the movie is incredible not because it is gay, but because it stars one of the greatest actors of our time. I fracking love him, which is why I was oh-so-excited to see There Will Be Blood, despite seeing that it was really long, about oil (zzz) and worst of all, had my beloved Daniel sporting a heinous mustache.

I can't bear mustaches since I made the horrible mistake in middle school of convincing my father to grow one simply to amuse me. He then kept it for a good six months to a year (time is fuzzy when you go that far back, but it certainly felt like forever) despite my and my brother's repeated pleas to him to shave the damn thing off, you were so much better off without it and why god why did you ever listen to us. I think in my heart it was payback for treating his face like a joke. But honestly, how was I to know, I was young and foolish.

So the roommates and I decided to go see There Will Be Blood as part of our effort to see as many Oscar movies before the possibly-nonexistant Oscars as we can. Unfortunately, it seems that every year the Oscars get earlier and earlier and the Oscar movies get later and later. And why is it that filmmakers typically refuse to offer any real "film" during the rest of the year. Must it ALL wait til December? Plus then you have amazingly wonderful movies like Waitress get shat on because movies like Juno happen to come out towards the end of the year and I hate you stupid Academy people. I mean, come on, Juno and gang were cute and all, but Waitress was so so awesome and it took more acting skill for Keri Russell to play that role than it did for Ellen Page to make some well-written quips sound funny. Anyway, /end soapbox.

The point here is that Daniel Day-Lewis was in There Will Be Blood, by Paul Thomas Anderson. Now, I'm the first to laud PTA for his amazing direction. He gets incredible performances out of people and typically has the good sense to put super-awesome actors in his movies. I mean, just look at Tom Cruise in Magnolia, Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights and Julianne Moore in both. Amazing. Another common thread is that these movies are insanely long and especially in the case of Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood, could have done with a bit of heavy-handed editing. Regardless, Blood is entirely worth seeing if only for DDL, who is ridiculous. He is one of those actors I can watch and forget that he's acting because he so totally inhabits the role that he's playing.

His character in this film is basically one of the worst people I can imagine, which has its own charm to be sure, as who doesn't love a good villain. (Side note: I was totally trolling IMDB earlier to suggest movies to Jason and I came across Kenneth Branagh by way of Emma Thompson (OMG I LOVE YOU, EMMA!) and he was in Othello with Laurence Fishburne and he played Iago which is my favorite villain EVS. Totally awesome.) Well, actually, I do really enjoy the villain in the video game Heavenly Sword, which Jason is playing right now, because the guy is played by Andy Serkis and he's totally insane, just like Iago. That used to be my favorite Shakespeare play, and still probably is. I wish they'd put that on around here somewhere so I could go see it.

but yes, you should all go see Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, Faithful Readers, because at one point, he froths at the mouth and you see spittle drop to the floor. And that, my friends, is hot. HOT.

Oh man, Jason is not doing well at the bow chick in Heavenly Sword. He was making the arrow fly all over the place using the capabilities of the SIXAXIS controller, which is the gayest name ever for a controller. GAY. Gay like Captain Apollo is when he rubs my back and calls me lover. That gay.

Oh Nariko you hot ho.

I was going to post this post earlier (not this post, but the one I am about to describe) about some article I saw on CNN about video games desensitizing kids to violence. I mean, it's basically a no-shit sherlock kinda thing, though a lot of other stuff desensitizes people in general to violence, but the real important part of the article was that after having the crackpot scientist guy give his shpiel, they actually gave a well-reasoned counter-argument about how video games are simply the latest scapegoat on the war against violence (har har) and that parents simply need to play an active role in their children's lives. But Kotaku beat me to the punch and now I'd look a fool (a fool I say!!) if I were to post about that. Jesus. I mean, right? Right? Totally right, I know. God.

In other news, I am a bit psychotic with the spending today and bought myself an HDTV and an Xbox 360 to be shipped to my home and work, respectively, this week. Yay. I am so very very excited to have a real television on which to play my PS3, cause currently I am using an OLD OLD TV of Tara's that can't really even be called a TV in good conscience, it is that bad. I mean, really. God. The text on the PS3's subtitles is totally awful. Horrible. But Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is great, cause Nate is a total hottie and it is a super fun game that throws zombie vampire people at you about half-way through. Random, but scary as hell. And fun. yay!

So, soon I will be a real gamer-nerd and have all three major gaming systems plus both major portable gaming systems and a big ass HDTV that I'll no doubt be paying on until I'm old (aka for six months). Word.

Ok, we're off to watch Tomb Raider and imagine Angie playing Nariko in the feature film version of Heavenly Sword.

PS: I totally bought new Lucinda Williams, k.d. lang and that-chick-from-the-new-apple-commerical cds. They are all amazing. Thank you. Go buy everything Lucinda and k.d. have ever recorded. You may thank me later.