Petezah

It’s finally rainy season here in Phoenix, and the thunder continually puts me in the mood for eerie games. What a coincidence, it’s gotten thundery in Fatal Frame now too, whee. I started this game a while ago, but got distracted by some other games for some reason. I’m not sure why; it’s a great game, and I’m enjoying it a great deal—again. Well, back at it.

I saw the horrible, horrible trailer of the Pulse remake tonight on TV, and I just had to say something about it. First of all, if you’ve seen this trailer and are planning to see this movie when it comes out, please watch the original version. If you’ve clicked on these links you’ll notice that at first glance, they look kind of similar, but trust me, from experience comparing other remakes to their originals—horrible trailer aside—the Hollywood director completely missed the point of the Japanese film. Which is why he wanted to remake it in the first place I’m guessing. Anyway, you’re probably going to hate the new one, and then you won’t believe that the original was any good. So see the original now, before it’s too late.

The trailer I saw on TV tonight irritated me so much that I had to watch the Japanese one right away to remind me how much better a director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is than whoever is desecrating the new version. I’m still impressed by his technique—as much as when I first saw the movie. But then I watched the new trailer again and it irritated me even more than before. They’re turning a really cool movie into a standard-fare, crappy Hollywood horror movie. For one thing, the original wasn’t really a horror movie in the standard sense; it was more creepy and thought-provoking, and even somewhat depressing. The new trailer looks exactly like the remake of “The Grudge”, complete with requisite bathroom scenes, and funky arms coming out of weird places to startle you slightly.

Some of you know that I’ve been looking for a house to buy. Actually, I didn’t mean to keep anyone out of the loop on this, but I always forget who I did and didn’t tell which details and end up assuming I told everyone everything. Anyway, I found a place this week, and after the inspection yesterday, it proved to be in an overall good condition. We’ll just be in final negotiations for minor repairs, etc, next week.

As requested, I took some pictures of the neighboring area, as seen from the front door. There are also pictures of the rooms in the house, but bear in mind that the person living here hasn’t moved her furniture out of the house yet, so it’s not going to look exactly the same when I’m done with it.

[cpg_image:10,68] [cpg_image:10,77]

Before lunch about a week and a half ago, after describing the sandwich known as the Monte Cristo to everyone that was coming along on our lunch outing and then proceeding to not be able to get one, it was established that I research over the weekend to find a restaurant that makes this delicacy. I then proceeded to forget to look, and, after being reminded for the third or fourth time—usually right before lunch when there wasn’t time to properly search—I googled around and actually managed to find the sandwich. Four of us got one for lunch on Monday, and it did not disappoint. If you’re in town, the restaurant is Chompie’s. Yes, it is a strange name, but the sandwich is worth it.

By the way, the sandwich comes quartered, and this picture is, in fact, only half of the sandwich.

I love articles like this. Do the folks who say stuff like that realize that AI academics have been saying this for over 40 years now? That’s not to mention the fact that to say “10 years from now” in that context means a nearly infinite amount of time. It reminds me of Carnegie Mellon’s hype-filled robotics speech last month. It’s long been a dream of academics to have computers that could program themselves, but honestly, to say that means one lacks a true understanding of the subject.