Featured Movie: Quigley Down Under

Today's inaugural Featured Movie will kick off with a Western-themed week, beginning with this gem of 90s Western films: Quigley Down Under.

Tom Selleck stars as frontier sharpshooter Matthew Quigley, who is hired by a well-to-do landowner in western Australia by the name of Eliot Marston, played by Alan Rickman, for one job and one job only: wholesale slaughter of Australian Aborigines.

Read more below the fold.

Featured Movie: New Feature

So I thought I'd try blogging about another interest of mine that's near and dear to my heart: movies. I wouldn't consider myself a cinephile; I don't run out to watch every new movie that appears in theaters, nor do I actively seek obscure titles or cult classics just because they're en vogue. I have an eclectic collection of films ranging from comedy to westerns, war classics and dramas, James Bond and Indiana Jones, pretty much a whole lot of everything.

Another one of my interesting quirks is the ability to absorb movies like a sponge. One of my favorite games of all time is one of my own creation, called Movie Quotes. What I do is say a line from a movie of my choosing, and everyone has to guess what it's from. I use especially innocuous quotes, or quotes from highly obscure titles that practically nobody would have seen unless they knew what they were looking for. Some of the answers I have gotten have been so funny, I almost pissed myself laughing on several occasions.

But as I have only two people following, there's no point in doing the game here, so I will simply write reviews of movies that I watch the most. Sometimes I'll do a double feature, themed reviews, maybe a Western week, a Dirty Harry week, Star Wars week, something like that. Coming up very soon, the first review will be Quigley Down Under.

Housekeeping

I'm gonna be movin' this layout all around today, see if I can't get the con-sarned thing to work the way I want it to. So if thigs start getting loopy to you, gentle reader, worry not.

Maybe I'll Have a Voice This Time

So last Friday, I was looking through my email when I spy a message from the Playstation Network. Usually I just give these a cursory glance and then move to the next unread message, but the subject line intrigued me.

L.A. gamers: join us for a focus group

OK, let's have a look-see at what it says.

Sony Computer Entertainment America will be conducting focus groups to discuss consoles, software and other gaming-related topics on the evening of June 24th in the Los Angeles area.

If you qualify,you will participate in a discussion lasting approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. All participants will be paid $100 each.

Because we want your unfiltered opinions, we have hired an independent research company named Focus Pointe Santa Monica to conduct these discussions. If you would like more information or would like to participate, please click here and fill out the questionnaire about yourself and the videogames you play. If you qualify, you will then be contacted as soon as possible to see if you are available.

Remember, we are looking for all sorts of different gamers, so just answer the questions honestly. We would love to hear your opinions!

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, please click here and you will be contacted if you qualify.

Thanks,

Sony Computer Entertainment America

(links removed)

A hundred dollars for my opinion? Hells yes I will. So what did I do? I clicked on the lovely little link and filled out my questionnaire, and waited. And waited.

On Tuesday, I got the call from them, and I got into the focus group. The voice on the other end of the line pretty much gave another questionnaire, rehashing what I had answered earlier to confirm I was who I said I was. A little redundant, but whatever. Anyway, after about twenty minutes of 20 Questions, I was told that I would get another call soon, so I am waiting on that. But overall, it looks like I'll be able to give Sony a piece of my mind, and get paid for it.

As a side note, they did ask a few questions about Playstation Home, and I am hoping that some of this discussion will be geared towards Home, so I will be able to throw my hat into the ring and tell it straight what I want to happen, and maybe I'll take some complaints from the peanut gallery too.

From Monster Fail to Epic Win

So today, my friend and I went to Long Beach City College Stadium for the Hi-Performance Swap Meet, where folks who sell classic cars and car parts come together for a day. Unfortunately, it's more or less lost its luster, since the event gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller every time. There was nothing of interest, and there were no real good-looking cars this time around.

Figuring this was a waste of time, we decided to head to Sunset Boulevard and check out Amoeba Music. After gathering up a basket-load of CDs to listen to, we headed upstairs to the movie section to have a listen. Unbeknownst to us, they had moved the listening booths downstairs, way back by the jazz station. We had climbed stairs for nothing.

Until...

We are ready to walk down the stairs, when my friend points down, and says to me:
"Hey, is that Danzig?"
I follow his finger, and, sure enough, someone who looked like Glenn Danzig of The Misfits fame was starting to ascend the stairs, directly towards us. As my friend and I asked each other if it was indeed him, he passed us and proceeded to browse the cult classics section. We nonchalantly follow, still unsure. I finally tell my friend to ask, figuring it was a 50/50 shot. So he does.

"Excuse me, are you Danzig?"
"Yeah." (score!)
"Can me and my friend get a picture with you?"
"Make it quick."

I extricated my camera from my cargo pocket, handed it to his female companion to photograph us, and the rest is history. Suffice it to say, it was an awesome end to an otherwise bust of a day.

Gaming Rig FAIL

So yeah, mere hours before my PS3 is expected to return to me in the lovely white Fedex truck, my gaming computer's hard drive decides to give up the ghost. Along with over 5GB of photos, text documents, game saves, and what have you.

So much for that new graphics card, PSU, and that extra 2GB of RAM. I seriously need money.

Console Update #3

Good news from GopherMods.com: my PS3 has been fixed and is now returning to me via Fedex. I will be back gaming in about one or two weeks. UPDATE: ETA is slated for Thursday, June 10th. See you then.

Console Update #2

Here's the skinny so far on my b0rked PS3.

I got an email today from GopherMods telling me that the console has arrived safe and sound, so those techno-monkeys should be pulling the guts out and fixing it toot sweet right now. With any luck, it will be in another box and on its way back to me by Monday.

UNGA BUNGA BUNGA

Sorry for the late post. So I managed to get my gaming rig hooked up and updated, using the CAT5 cable from the DVR in the other room, and got all my stuff up to date. So now I can play ArmA and Half-Life 2 again.

Secondly, I found a clip from a Bugs Bunny cartoon that I remember fondly, and it still gives me a chuckle to this day. It was banned for being culturally insensitive, but I remember seeing this cartoon almost every Saturday morning when I was a young'un. Here is Bugs Bunny and an Australian Aborigine having a war of words. Enjoy.

*EDIT: Apparently, Blogger is mulching Youtube vids in my posts, so here's a link to see the vid. You CLICK on it. :)

Gaming Rig!

So here's the scoop.

I spent a good chunk of Sunday moving out my gaming rig from the storage bin into my room. Not an hour ago, I hooked it all back up: monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. The only thing missing right now is internet.

I am trying to remedy that right now by attempting to piggyback Internet to the gaming rig via this laptop and an Ethernet cable. And, well... It's pretty slow going. Learning how to set up a home network is hard. :/