Friday Night Lights

So I did see Friday Night Lights last night and I'm surprised at how few people came for such a great movie. It had everything you could want in a football movie: random spurts of humor, some harsh football games, and a bit of heart wedged under there. The movie is about a football team in a Odessa, Texas, which is a football that puts a lot of pressure on them. This movie also shows the pressure they get from their family though, and it all melds together pretty well. The acting is superb and so are the shots from the football games. This movie is a lot better than I thought it would be and should never be compared to Remember the Titans. I reccomend you all watch it, but because I have to head to the NSC Spring retreat (hence the earliness of the post) in less than an hour I'm gonna end this paragraph move right along.

I have bad news for X-men fans, it turns out that a lot of the old characters won't be returning, including James Marsden (Cyclops), because of a fued between Fox and WB. Apparantly the shooting schedule for Superman Returns collides with X3 and since Bryan Singer is casting some actors from the X-men movies Fox is kinda screwed. There is some good news though: Spider-man 3 may feature Venom! Who's that, you non-cool people may ask? Take a look:



The most prominent story behind Venom is that Jonah Jameson's son goes into space and encounters this symbiote that comes to earth through his shuttle. Scientists try to study it but it ends up getting out and eventually takes control of Spider-man, which makes him evil and more powerful. These is all hearsay though and nothing has been confirmed, but internet geeks can still dream. In other movie news though, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest now has a plot, and it sounds pretty hokey. It turns out that Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) owes some kind of blood debt to someone and will be sentenced to eternal damnation if he doesn't get himself out of it. And what a coincidence, he got Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) involved again. I wouldn't hold my breath for this one. The Halo movie finally got a writer: Alex Garland (of 28 Days Later fame). So now it has a chance of being alright, especially because the Halo team will have a say. And finally, JoBlo put up some cool wallpapers here if anyone wants to change theirs.

I have a nominal amount of nerd news. To continue the Linux trend: there's a fantastic article about the state of gaming in Linux over here. It's an especially good read for people like me who didn't know that Linux even had good games available for it. I wanted to mention this really cool opinion piece on what life would be like if Windows 3.0 didn't exist. It's quite provocative so give it a look.

Today I even have some video games items. Family Guy, which will be coming back to television next month I believe, will be getting its own video game! The very fact that Take-Two is creating it is very good news. Any of you weirdos hoping that the Tekken spinoff, Death by Degrees, would be good will be sorely disappointed to discover that it actually blows. There are some harsh words at the end of that review, but take solace in the fact that the new NBA Street game conversely kicks ass. There were always high hopes surrounding this game so if you only get one sports game this year, maybe it should be that one. Or FIFA Street if they do that right. I'll leave off this paragraph with one of a few pictures released from the upcoming Godfather game:



And now to conclude with a few quick random items. It pisses me off that Donald Rumsfeld submitted resignation papers twice, but Bush wanted him to stay on. That really sucks because he was the only one in Bush's cabinet whose resignation I was clamoring for. Who knows, maybe the wizard of Oz will give him a brain. I wanted to relate the power of oration to everything with an article about how a recent Greenspan speech increased the value of the dollar. This is actually a common technique of the Fed and it works surprisingly well. Strongbad fans will be happy to know that he put up a new e-mail a few days ago and it's extremely random and fun at the same time.

And now for the Friday Fiver:

1. Have you ever tried meditation?
In an out-of-body sense, no. But I try to be in a meditative state when I pray, particularly when I say rosaries. If you're not fully focused and at peace when you pray, then what's the point?

2. Do you pray?
Yes I do and it makes me feel good to air my feelings out and have faith that God will facilitate karma.

3. Worst nightmare:
Dying alone. Pretty harsh, huh? Nothing would really scare me more than to grow old all by my lonesome.

4. Do trolls live under your bed?
I haven't looked under my bed in a while so it's anyone's best guess.

5. Make a wish:
I wish I would get into GUI 201!