SPOILER WARNING. STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE AND ACTUALLY WANT TO WATCH IT.

Can anyone explain to me what exactly was so good about Brokeback Mountain? I just recently watched it on DVD (No it was not on the top of my list. It was probably 20 listings down, but blockbusteronline is evil and will be cancelled very soon). I don't get it! How did this movie go on to win Oscars and why were reviewers, critics, and lots of girls saying that it was the best movie of the year??

Now, it took me a lot of convincing to get my BF to watch this movie with me. I had to go: "you know honey, with all the awards its won and how other people liked it, it must be atleast watchable." it took a good deal of bargaining and leverage to get him to huffily plunk down on the futon and watch "the gay cowboy movie," but I succeeded in the end.

And the result? My credibility is butchered as we both looked at our clock multiple times waiting for the "good" part to begin. I've probably lost all chances of convincing him to put Capote and Good Night and Good Luck on our list and all for this??

Not only was this movie hellishly boring, the story wasn't even that interesting. What they did was take a standard "I can't commit due to social reasons" love story and made the main characters male cowboys. Seriously, the story isn't even that original. I admit that usually the impediment to the relationship is class, religion, or race rather than a psychologically traumatizing childhood that convinced a cowboy that coming out of the closet will result in castration and death, but that was the extent of the originality. Once I got over the "Oh my god. It's really a movie about gay Cowboys" and "eeew..Jake Gyllanhal and the Other Dude (Heath Ledger?) should really not be kissing" I realized that the movie was a bunch of love scenes separated by "why can't you commit scenes" and a lot of pretty scenery shots.

What, exactly, was the big deal? (Yes, Val, I'm talking to Ms. I cried at the end of the movie). No tears were shed, or perhaps a few sleepy yawning ones. There were no memorable lines ("I wish I knew how to quit you" does not count), no lingering music, and no memory-etching images. The scenes weren't bad, they were just bland.

The reason behind the "love" was also a little iffy - were they in love just because the only gay men they knew were each other? I kept on getting the feeling that they had sex because it was either the decent looking guy in the tent or a sheep and that the only reason Jake contacted Heath was because he kept on getting blown off by other random men he hit on. It wasn't clear whether the little scene played when Heath found out that Jake was dead was his own imagination or fact; and I just really didn't care at that point. Heath's character did not garner sympathy as much as it made me feel that he was an utter loser as far as making a decent livng goes and that being gay was the least of his problems. I have no idea why exactly his daughter liked him so much or what exactly was the problem between Jake and his wife.

In short, the movie was boring and average; it was not award-winning material by any stretch. Anyone care to disagree?

The Summer Lull is beginning to take its toll. Hopefully, Pirates of the Caribbean will succeed in luring me into paying $7.50 for a movie; Superman, with its lackluster reviews and unimpressive trailers has unfortunately been classified as a "rent." (Ofcourse, the word "rent" has much less meaning since I'm a blockbusteronline subscriber and am paying the same amount of money every month regardless of how many DVDs I watch.)

I'm still toying with the idea of Devil Wears Prada (since I am a Anne Hathaway fan). However, money has been scarce since I decided to plunk most of my liquid cash into a Home Theater upgrade and an Xbox 360. I have a feeling that Ms. Hathaway will just have to wait until I get my credit card bill under control. Of course I can always give in and cash in a Certificate of Deposit, but no game or movie will succeed in chipping away at my long-term savings just yet.

Rant aside, this blog is about how I am justifying my 50inch HDTV by actually staying at home and watching whatever the few HD channels my cable service has to offer. There were a few hidden gems that are actually worth an honorable mention.

1) Downfall - An exceeding engaging subtitled German movie about the last days of Hitler's life. I'm not a huge fan of WWII flicks, but this movie is a definite must-see. The acting was awesome, the story compelling, and it makes me wonder why Hollywood continues to churn out movies like Catwoman, Stealth, and Date Movie. This movie definitely proves that a "heavy" topic can be interesting and thought-evoking. With debacles like Alexander and the New World, Hollywood seriously needs to get its act together.

2) House (Reruns) - I don't know exactly why I never watched House during the (probably conflicted with some other show) but I'm beginning to understand why its been able to keep its place as the number 2 TV Show. (Why American Idol was the reigning champion i do not know. Seriously...Enough!!) Though not exactly original, house is definitely engaging, and the characters have enough depth to carry the show. Thumbs up!

3) Mac Commercials - I'm not a big Mac fan myself and do not appreicate its commercials at all; however, shouting "liar liar pants on fire" at the screen is a nice break from Oblivion.

Other than these three mentions, the TV offerings these days are paltry; the DVDs don't fare much better. With no good games coming out on the 360 anytime soon, I shall surely wither away from lack of entertainment. Suggestions would be deeply appreicated.

So..I haven't posted in a while. (Since no one reads this, I think that's ok). So why the change of heart? I sprained my ankle and was stuck at home for a day. How did I spend that day? I played Oblivion at 9 am and stopped playing at 6 pm (when my bf came back and took the controller). I then continued to watch him play until around midnight (With a dinner break, snack break, and 1 episode of House M.D.) So what's the verdict? Oblivion is definitely a very addictive game. I would say that its less addictive than Guild Wars, but that's because it has a less linear storyline. The computer graphics is amazing and the voice-acting is definitely commendable; it's one of the first games I've had fun watching as well as playing. I haven't touched the main storyline yet and have been busily doing guild quests. I like the fact that you can join more-or-less as many guilds as you want. That way, I can do Mage Guild quests and my boyfriend can play Dark Brotherhood quests using the same character. It definitely allows a great degree of freedom as far as playing styles go and is pretty much open ended. This allows for infinite gameplay. Some of the gripes I have with the game would be its controls (on the Xbox 360). It definitely takes quite a bit of getting used to and I would have preferred automatic camera angles in place of the right joystick control. The Hot-keyed directional buttons are a poor substitute for a keyboard and I would have preferred it if Microsoft allowed Keyboard controls. Otherwise, I'm extremely happy with the purchase and am pretty certain that this game with last me through the summer video game lull. (I understand why most games come out right after Thanksgiving, it beginning the Christmas Shopping Season and all..but seriously, not all gamers are children). Can't wait for Lost Planet and Army of Two - I hope they live up to the hype.

I finally caved and bought the Xbox 360. Why not wait for the PS3 you ask? Well, after watching the live broadcast of E3 (yes, I know I'm a geek) I came to the realization that even IF the PS3 was going to be better than the 360, there was no way that I would be able to make myself fork over 600$ for it. Especially not if the Xbox Premium is retailing for 400$. Yes, I've deliberated over all the arguments - I know it's also a Blu-ray player, I know it has HDMI output, I know that games playing on Blu-ray have the potential of being far beyond what Xbox DVDs can offer, I know the processor is faster, but lets face it -- 600$ is beyond my budget.

Ofcourse I'm bemoaning the fact that since I sold my PS2 (which covered about half the cost of the 360), I will never be able to play Final Fantasy ever again (and no, Final Fantasy XI does NOT count). I know, and I'm sad, but I am not going to let my poor new TV and Home Theater system go to waste just so that Sony can put even more anti-pirating hardware on their new system and charge an arm and a leg for it. And lets face it, I have no intention of freezing my toes off outside of Bestbuy on the day of the PS3 launch only to decide that I'd rather make some money by selling the system on ebay. I guess the PS3 and I were simply never meant to be.

Rant aside, I guess I should comment on the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, since I let my boyfriend win out and got Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter instead of  Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, my gaming experience was mostly comprised of headache, nausea, and motion sickness. (Just for your backgrond, all first person shooters give me motion sickness, which is why I gave up on Counter-strike and Halo). I was hoping that it would be different on a console, but I was wrong. It was actually a little worse since the screen was 50 inches and the graphics scarily realistic.

Needless to say that I'm going to fork over another 60$ to Bestbuy and get Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion later today. Sigh, I was hoping that my boyfriend and I could play the same game, but I guess we'll just have to compete for Xbox time now; to bad he's an FPS fan while I'm a staunch RPG fan -- our gaming preferences couldn't be on further ends of the spectrum.

Motion sickness aside, I would have to give a thumbs up to Ghost Recon. I checked out both the Single player campaign and the 2 person cooperative play and they were both AWESOME. Well, the graphics were awesome. We played the Co-op mode on split screen and it was quite clear that, unlike the PS2, the 360 has no trouble maintaining the great quality graphics on split screen. Although we continuously failed on our missions, the Co-op elimination mode was very fun - fun enough for me to go hunting for some anti-motion sickness pills.

I'm waiting for a good racing game to come out on the 360. Since I already played NFS Most wanted on the PS2, I wasn't willing to pay twice for the same game. I personally do not like the Burnout series since I can't stand it's lack of an explorable world and a decent career and car-modification mode, so I ruled that out as well. I tried Project Gotham Racing at Bestbuy and, as good as it is as a driving simulation, it's just isn't that fun to race. Sigh, I guess I'll just have to wait for the game lauches in the Fall.

Gaming aside, the 360 is an awesome machine. Neither my boyfriend nor I had Windows Media Center on our PCs, so we weren't able to stream movies over to the Xbox or use it as a media extension. (I'm waiting for Windows Vista, which I've heard is also compatible with the 360, to come out) We were, however, able to access his music collection and pictures. (Windows media connect refused to work on my PC for some reason. No idea why.) The music visualization definitely looked awesome in High Definition and the Xbox proved extremely easy to use. We also downloaded some demos off Xbox Live and they looked awesome as well. All in all, I don't think I regret selling off my PS2 and getting the Xbox 360, although it'll take some time for either of us to pay off our credit card bills.

*yawn*

I'm beginning to realize that my full-time job is paying me 8$ an hour to sit around and do very little - who calls the Dean during the summer anyway? Heeding my supervisor's advice to bring a book, I decided to start reading Don't Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis. Yes, it is a history book - it covers American history from its "discovery" to the 2000 elections. Sounds boring, doesn't it? (500 years of US History? ... yuck)

Contrary to my nerdish high-school image, I have no interest in reading boring books. I don't know how people got the idea that I would sit around reading either Tolstoy or Nature magazine; I spent most of my late highschool and early college years reading only a single genre - Romance (). Boring books (I'm forced to read those) put me to sleep.

So why did I shell out $14 of my hard-earned cash on a 600 page history book? The answer is simple - I started skimming through it at Borders and simply couldn't put it down. Unlike most history authors, Davis did not fall into the trap of trying to make a boring subject even more boring. In other words, he resisted the urge to constantly use words that no one, except for perhaps himself and writers of the Oxford English Dictionary, know. He also remembered that History, although set in a certain time, are essentially about people. I don't have a clue why writers seem to think that listing 20 dates in a row  enhances the effectiveness of a history book. It doesn't. The date and time is seldom important especially if one is trying to cover a period of 500 years.

Davis has a genius for picking out information that is actually interesting and presenting it with enough humor and wit such that it remains interesting. His book is fun, engrossing, and extremely informative; it is written in such a way that I actually remember most of the details without having to try. I haven't finished it yet, but if any of you want to know a little more about US History, I'd definitely recommend his book.

The X-box 360 is all the rage nowadays and I can't deny that I really want one. However, the hefty price tag is too high a drain on my resources so it got me into looking for alternatives. Now, I was watchig G4TV and found a possible venue. Basically, there is this website (yes, I know, it sounds like a scam, just hear me out) that offers you free stuff inexchange for getting people to sign up for certain services (5 for the ipod, 8 for the X-box 360, etc). Such services include blockbuster online (Which I have signed up for and is a really good service) or magazines such as Maxim (which my boyfriend really wanted to get...I stopped him, needless to say). So, I did a little research and found that this isn't a scam. Basically, you're being paid to do publicity for these companies; if you get them enough clients, you've earned your X-box.

So..I'm obviously doing some publicity right now. If you're interested in joining the game, please click on the link below.

http://xbox360s.freepay.com/?r=29501834

You need to sign up for a service to get credit for it, but you can cancel the service after a month. I'd recommend blockbuster because its the cheapest one (9.99 for the first month) and so far, its actually more prompt than netflix. Try it out for yourself.!

I personally don't like watching South Park; however, my boyfriend's addicted. I have to admit that it has a lot of funny moments, but the gross moments outweigh any good. What I  do have fun doing, however, is creating South Park style characters using the link below:

http://spstudio.claudia.hosting-friends.de/spstudio.html

Some examples are shown below. (The goofy looking guy with glasses is Humza, the white guy is Brian, the girl with the teddy bear is Linh, the girl with the coffee is val and the girl with purple gloves is me)