Sunday, April 19

Diversions great and small

You’ll forgive my absence, I hope. With the newly acquired system came The Game That Shall Not Be Named; necessitating nightly raids through the DC wasteland and its atomized environs in search of precious, irradiated Cola.

It seems I’ve unknowingly gifted/cursed myself with what is probably the most addictive time-waster in existence for the 360; a maddening sandbox environment from the guys who did Morrowind and Oblivion. Not content with the mere evenings gamers were wasting hunting Cliff Racers to extinction, they created an apocalyptic version of Washington D.C. and the surrounding region totaling about fifty actual miles across. Into this man-made hell, they drop players with plans for the weekend or people whose blogs are already a month behind to scavenge and survive however they see fit. The general result is inevitably a few weekends lost at some point after purchase. As you can see, it’s even claimed two paragraphs of this entry already.

While the gaming sensation I’m referring to isn’t “Soda-Pop Holocaust: A Post Apocalyptic Thirst Quencher”, it’s still an understandable assumption based on what I’ve given you to work with. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy fighting the Good Fight or searching for a certain wayward parent, just that there’s a whole lot of a certain addictively sweet soft drink scattered across the blasted wastes of Virginia and Maryland that my character needs to seek out and wrest from the hands of slavering ghouls and depraved raiders.

“Coca-Cola-caust”. There we go.

Moving on.


Thoughts on Mulholland Drive.

- 2.5 hours of Naomi Watts in various, tight outfits is time well spent.
- Creepy, random thing behind diner is creepy and random.
-Feelings of tension, unease, paranoia, etc. are only exacerbated by a musical score resembling something out of a Silent Hill game.
- Despite everything it throws at you, this movie is still more coherent than Lost Highway. Depending on who you are, this might be seen as a positive.

In short: Renowned director and “WTF”-ist David Lych presents a dark, seductive neo-noir thriller in this 2001 film that may or may not be about Hollywood politics, identity crises, escapism, and hidden terrors lurking behind breakfast bars.

To say there’s a lot at work here is an understatement. A break or two into the kitchen is advised to give your head time to clarify and sort out what the hell is going on. That said, if you can recognize that a lot of what you’re seeing is mostly atmosphere and focus on the essentials, it’s just another step to boil it down to what is transpiring on the screen before you. Granted (from what I’ve read online) such conclusions seem to change depending on whom you’re talking to, but then, it’s Lynch; the man hates all things overt. Like a Bizzaro-version of Michael Bay. The anti-Bay, if you will. I want to go into more depth about it, but getting into things like structure (David Lynch. Structure. Ha!), characters, or even what the fuck is in the blue box seems like I’m giving too much away.


Dreams.

I feel comfortable saying “Dreams”. I think you and I are both safe with just that. In any case, it’s a beautifully composed drama that will affect you even if you can’t entirely discern the exact sensations being triggered within your cerebellum.


In the meantime, any comments, questions, and concerns should be forwarded to Moira’s Crater-side Supply in Megaton. I’ll be sure to answer any and all that I can in between nightly Metro raids and Behemoth hunts.