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Showing posts with label off topic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label off topic. Show all posts

Friday, March 12, 2010

OT: IT CAME FROM NETFLIX


Many of you may know that I am friends with Josh Loomis, our friendly neighborhood alchemist. What you may not know is that he's the creative mind behind the movie review series "IT CAME FROM NETFLIX."

Here's a crash course in what IT CAME FROM NETFLIX (ICFN, for short) is all about. Like many of us, Mr. Loomis can't always afford the time or duckets for a trip to the local cinema. Also like many of us, he relies on the ever-handy service known as Netflix to help him fill his downtime with something other than contemplations concerning his belly button.* What makes him stand out from the herd, though, is his ability to review selections from their catalog with humor, intelligence, and more than a little sarcasm.

Whether he's ripping apart a movie most people find popular or praising a film most of us have never even heard of, Josh never fails to entertain and enlighten his readers (and listeners, as there is now a corresponding audio supplement for every review) concerning the joys and pitfalls of film making, script writing, and movie watching. He also never misses an opportunity to make us all dig just a little bit deeper into the given subject matter to behold (and hopefully better understand) what lies beneath the surface rather than settling to simply take it at face value.

As such, I have become a regular consumer of his movie reviews, and when an opportunity came along to support his website and ICFN (and by extension, the writer himself), I jumped at it. Not long ago, Josh started taking review requests for specific films and television shows, and also made it known that monetary contributions were welcome. Without much delay, I plunked down my hard-won GameStop earnings for the chance to see Josh rip into one of the most awful films I've watched in long, long time: Jumper.

Ladies and gents, I make minimum wage at aforementioned job, and I had to work 3.5 hours just to pay for that review. The verdict? It was money very well spent. I highly recommend you go read and/or listen to his catalog of reviews, because if you're going to spend time idly clicking around the internet, you might as well spend it on something more worthwhile than LOLcats and Avatar porn.

If you have some spare change, or just a movie you'd like reviewed, I'd shoot Mr. Loomis an email. I promise you won't regret it.

Oh, and click through some of the ads on his site for good measure. We writers/reviewers/artists/imbeciles/ne'er-do-wells can't continue to deliver the goods if we starve. Just sayin'.










*If you understood that reference and where it came from, you officially rock my socks.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Open Thread: Game Recommendations

For some reason, I completely forgot to mention that I now work as a counter jockey at my local GameStop. The pay is crap, and the hours are scarce, but my managers are great, and it's a W4 job that looks good to mortgage companies.

Plus, it keeps me out of trouble.

Well, mostly.

The gig has more going for it than that, really. Besides a discount on GameStop purchases and discounts at partner stores (free refills all day long at Chick-fil-A? 30% merchandise at Barnes & Noble?? Sign me up!), there are a few hidden perks. The most noteworthy of these perks is the Employee Game Checkout program. I can check out any game in the store for free, for a period of 4 days.


*chirp*


*ribbit*


Let me repeat that for those of you sitting in the back of the class: ANY game in the store. 4 days at a time. NO COST to me.

Needless to say (but I'm going to anyway), this is huge! I was lamenting the fact I couldn't afford to perform due diligence on cross-platform games, due to the cost, and BAM! A solution presents itself. I can now try out the PlayStation and Xbox versions of most any game, as long as my store has it in stock. I can finally be a more well-rounded gamer! WOOHOO!

However, I now face a new dilemma. I have no idea what the fuzzy should I be playing.

I've already checked out Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, but the jury is still out as to how I feel about it. Having only made it to Mission 2, I don't feel I've given it a fair shake. Snagged a copy of Rainbow Six: Vegas, too, but life has gotten in the way of my actually trying it out, and it's due back at the store by the end of today. (According to Raptr, John tried it while I was at work the other night. He wasn't impressed. There was rage-quitting involved. . .and there's a new hole in the bedroom wall. You do the math. )

Then, my Thought Hamsters got my attention. That is to say, I took a Clue-by-Four to the temple. "You have a blog," their placards read. "Why not ask the readers, genius?"

While their methods. . .leave something to be desired at times, the rodents are right. I'm not writing these posts for my health. (Okay, perhaps for my mental health, but I'm pretty sure I am too far gone for the exercise to be all that effective.) I open the floor to you: What do you guys and gals suggest I play?

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P.S.--To clarify, we don't carry used PC games, so PC-only games are out of the running. Sorry, folks.

P.P.S.--Also, I don't own a Wii. Because I'm lame, obviously.