The most anticipated game of the year (of the past few years) has to be Spore.  Ever since Will Wright (the same guy who came up with The Sims, one of the most successful video game franchise in history) gave a demonstration of the game 3 years ago, people have been anxiously waiting for its release.  In anticipation of its release this September, EA released a standalone Creature Creator.  While I haven’t paid the $10 to unlock all of the features, just the limited free version is enough to get me psyched for this game.  From a technical perspective, this game is just mind-blowing and if the game is half as fun as just the Creature Creator, it’s going to be a monster hit.  

My first creation is the Mars Fly Trap — Not a very original name, I know:

Christina built one as well and so there were definitely two givens: It was going to be named after me in some way and it was going to be orange.  EA built in functions for taking pictures and videos of your creations as well as integrated YouTube upload.  

While I would readily admit to being a movie junkie, I haven’t had the time to sit down and watch them very often recently. This past week or two has been a notable exception. In addition to the movies I wrote about the other day, I’ve watched 3 movies in the past 24 hours: Wall-E, Boiler Room, and Wanted.

Wall-E was, to no one’s surprise, yet another brilliant Pixar movie. Plot-wise, I actually found the movie to be quite different than what I expected but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. I remember the first time I saw a preview for Wall-E. It was before the start of another CGI movie and there were previews for several upcoming CGI movie. A girl in front of me made a comment along the lines of “Aren’t there any movies coming out with REAL people?” It was definitely made in a derogatory manner and I didn’t understand it. There seems to be some stigma associated with CGI or otherwise animated movies in that they must be for kids or can’t be as good as “real” movies with real actors. In an age where talent doesn’t seem necessary to make a movie or TV show, Pixar has managed to convey more emotion and realism into their characters than the vast majority of actors and actresses out there. Wall-E extremely entertaining and well worth the time.

Perhaps one of the best movies about stock trading is Wall Street. I read a rumor that they are making a Wall Street 2 but until then, Boiler Room is a suitable fill-in.

Last and definitely least, Wanted came out in theaters this weekend. The rumor around the net was that it was actually a decent movie. I suppose that as long as you go in expecting a pure action movie peppered with absurdities, that’s true. Not to say it was all bad — Some of the action scenes were quite impressive in the John Woo-like style and the main character had a few good lines. Additionally, they wisely kept Angelina Jolie’s lines to a minimum — we’re still waiting for the first decent movie that she’s in. It’s never a good sign when several of the people you discuss it with afterwards assume it was a spoof movie… when it wasn’t supposed to be.

The safety suggestions that every game for the Wii constantly bombard you with are really quite annoying after you’ve seen them a few hundred times. They are there for a reason though… Tighten wrist strap? Check. Check. Clear the space around you before playing? I guess I should have paid more attention to that one as I managed to punch Christina in the face while playing BoomBlox last night. Whoops! She came through relatively unscathed and mostly laughed it off but honestly… isn’t it her fault for putting her face where I might be swinging? Regardless, it might be awhile before I live down my new reputation as a wifebeater.

I’m still sorry, Christina!

I’ve been catching up on a fair number of movies recently.  Christina actually sat down and watched Rambo (the new one) with me.  I believe it was a bit much for her but I actually thought it was pretty good.  It was a straight-up action movie but it even got me to pause for a moment and realize just how cruel people can be to other people.

We also caught up on a great Steve Martin and Michael Caine classic: Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels.  Michael Caine is really the highlight of the movie:

Freddy, as a younger man, I was a sculptor, a painter, and a musician. There was just one problem: I wasn’t very good. As a matter of fact, I was dreadful. I finally came to the frustrating conclusion that I had taste and style, but not talent. I knew my limitations. We all have our limitations, Freddy. Fortunately, I discovered that taste and style were commodities that people desired. Freddy, what I am saying is: know your limitations. You are a moron.

When my family was in town last weekend, several of us watched Juno.  I was underwhelmed the first time I saw it but made it a point to watch it again.  Though I still don’t know why it got such rave critical acclaim… ok, yes I do — a different and funny perspective on a very unfunny topic: teenage pregnancy.   Anyway, I did like it even more the second time but I don’t think it’ll enter my “best movies ever” catalog.  

Speaking of “best movies ever”, I’ve been watching Ronin again in bits and pieces over the last week.  One of the great movies about clandestine activities in Europe.  In many ways, you never really learn what’s happening in certain parts of the movie but it’s a superb movie nonetheless.  Robert De Niro and Jean Reno make every movie better.

Last night, Christina and I watched King of California.  Michael Douglas plays a mentally unstable dad and the movie is essentially about the relationship between him and his daughter.  They embark on a search around California for lost gold.  It’s definitely one of the most absurd and oddest movies I’ve ever seen but it’s enjoyable.  Michael Douglas puts in a pretty good performance.

For me, the movie I’m most excited about comes out this weekend.  Pixar + robots?!  Not to get my hopes up or anything but I fully expect Wall-E to be another great movie from my favorite movie studio.  I’ll find out on Friday.

While I can appreciate some of the nicer cars out there, I’m not really much of a car person. I like my car to be well equipped but I don’t particular want or need a luxury or sports car. I don’t really like any car bigger than a small sedan and I don’t know how I’m going to come to terms with the small SUVs Christina is thinking about.

The cars that most appeal to me are definitely the hybrid, flex fuel, and plug-in electric cars that are making the news these days. I’m seeing more and more SMART cars and supposedly Think will be releasing cars soon. I’m really intrigued by the Chevy Volt currently being developed as well as stuff like the oh-so-sweet Tesla. All that said, as far as I’m concerned, cars are pretty much a huge money sink, particularly new cars. It’s probably the most expensive purchase you can make without a return on your investment.

Christina recently got rid of her car — and somehow managed to get someone to pay for it as well. Her car had been through a lot and it really needed to be put out to pasture. However, it left us with just the one car. We were just using one car for most of last year as I could drop Christina off at the Metro next to my office. That worked quite well until this past semester when Christina went to school full time to finish her Masters degree. Now that she’s finished (yeah!), it’s becoming slightly more difficult to only have the one car in the sprawl of Northern Virginia. Depending on where she finds a job, it might be hard to commute together and we could be forced to get another car. Ideally, I would find a way to convince my boss to work from home and just trade in the Celica for whatever Christina wants.

Christina and her mom have decided to co-host a party each year and have decided to use the Summer Solstice as the reason for the event.  Therefore, from Saturday morning until after dinner Sunday, I had the pleasure (curse?) of dealing with the rare but always eventful family visit.  My mom, grandmother, my sister Erin and her boyfriend, and my sister Amye with her two daughters Abigail and Samantha, crashed my house from Saturday morning through Sunday evening.  As always, there was always some sort of drama occurring but overall, it was a great weekend.  We spent most of our downtime playing Wii Sports, Wii Fit, or BoomBlox — all that much more fun when playing with a big crowd.  My niece Abigail loves the Wii and is actually pretty good at it.  My grandmother even showed us up in some of the games with her newfound skills.  

The party itself was an interesting but successful affair with a mix of Christina’s friends, her parent’s friends, and my friends.  For whatever reason, my family left early but said they had a good time and promised to come back for the one next year.  Christina Jr, Jason & Angela’s daughter, was quite the hit and found it very amusing to bring everyone bread rolls and sing Lion King songs to me over and over again.

Contrary to most every other time with my family where we never get a consensus on something to do and end up doing nothing at all, we actually got everyone interested in going to the National Zoo and spent the afternoon down in DC.  We took the Metro in but the walking got to my grandmother and I ended up wheeling her around the zoo in a wheelchair.  Truth is, I believe the walking got to most of my family.  They’re a crazy bunch in that they always suggest we go into DC and visit the monuments and museums and yet, they hate to walk around.  I think it’s the constant stopping to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, shop, etc, that drains on them.  As soon as we stop for one person to go the bathroom, the next person is hungry and we stop to get them something to eat.  At that point, someone has gotten tired of waiting and has wandered into a gift shop or gone to get something to eat themselves.  It’s an endless cycle that makes any trip five times slower than I would take alone or with Christina (who’s quite the “stopper” herself).  After visiting the first few exhibits, various family members were suggesting we go home and soon enough, we did just that.  A quick Metro ride home (w/o seats!) and dinner at Outback to satisfy Erin, my family took off.

I unexpectedly found myself home alone all evening and ended up playing some poker for most of the night and then finishing The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass. I had been speaking with Brian earlier in the day about tournament poker and, as talking about poker always does, it got me motivated to play. When Christina told me I would have the evening to myself, I went online to see if there were any interesting tournaments to play. As luck would have it, there are a nice lucrative tournament with a signficant overlay guarantee. It was a 1 rebuy/1 add-on so the field is also small relative to the payout - There were 128 players with 15 paid. I didn’t really have much to work with throughout the tournament but I held my own and consistently sat in the middle of the pack even as the field continued to shrink. Three hours in, we were down to 20 and I was sitting at 22k in chips in 15th place when my bustout occurred in a brutal river suckout.

Blinds were ~300/600 with 50 antes. Early position player raised a standard 3x blind to 1800, one of the chip leaders to my right flat-called, and I raised it to 7500 with KK. Initial raiser folded and big stack immediately pushed all-in. I insta-called. I wouldn’t have folded anyway but the pusher had been playing quite aggressively the whole time I had been seated at a table with him. In addition, in the previous 3 or 4 hands, I had played back at him twice and won two good-size pots off of him so I’m sure part of his push was just to bully me. Needless to say, I was a heavy favorite to his AQ (though you always dread seeing Ax when you have KK) and even more of a favorite on a flop of J 7 3. The turn was an ominous 10, giving him 2 more outs — any of the aces or two remaining kings would give him the win (~10-12% chance to win for him). In truly sick fashion, I made three of a kind on the river K and gave him an Ace-high straight. Surviving that sick beat would have put in the top 5 in chips and set me up for quite a nice payday. Moments like that though are why I would never recommend anyone play poker for money — you have to be able to take these brutal beats and move on. Finishing just 5 places shy of a payout is soul-crushing.

After I relaxed in front of the TV for about 15-30 minutes to blow off some steam, I wandered upstairs and played The Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS the rest of the evening (and into the morning). I ended up beating it and, without a doubt, that was a superb game. I’ve been playing it mostly on vacations and flights for the past 9 months and it is definitely a must-purchase if you own a DS.

I’m been quite disappointed with my internet connection ever since I moved to Fairfax and started using Cox. It never seems particularly reliable and the speeds are very inconsistent and even unusably slow sometimes. Unlike every other community within Fairfax county, Reston has service from Comcast and say what you will about their business practices, I always had great internet service from them when I lived there. Once I found out FiOS was going to be available in my neighborhood about the time I got back from Europe, I was looking forward to stepping off the plane and signing up for FiOS.

My enthusiasm waned a bit when I looked at the price and speed tiers Verizon offered. Their packages were nearly identical in almost every way to the packages Cox offered. Though I’ve heard nothing but great things about FiOS, I’ve found it hard to justify the switch. Verizon is about as unlikable a company as there can be but, along with Comcast, I was willing to cut them some slack if they actually delivered a good product. There are a few less notable features that FiOS can offer - FiOS doesn’t need to compress the video as much so the picture quality for TV is (supposedly) better, it should be able to scale up to faster speeds easier, and the advertised speed is actually what you get on a consistent day to day, minute to minute basis (unlike many of the cable companies). That said, I’ve been hard-pressed to take the effort to switch providers for relatively minor, if any, changes to service. Obviously, my reluctance struck a cord because today I read that Verizon is upping their speeds in all tiers in the near future. Looks like I’ll be signing up very shortly after all…

I tend to be quite self-conscious about the image I portray to others. I always try to put my best out there so that people don’t get the wrong impression of me. The past couple days, I’ve gotten a few choice quotes thrown my way:

To my cousin-in-law from his girlfriend: “Does Shawn ever get tired of winning at everything?”

From a frustrated friend during our Gears session: “What the %!@^# is your secret?”

Both of those are great for my self-esteem… so the following put me back in my place:

From a friend’s fiancee: “He’s such a good looking guy. Have you told him that he doesn’t need to make that face that makes him look like a douche all the time?”

Married life is an adjustment — especially when you marry an “opposite”. I’ve always been very independent minded and I enjoy having a fair amount of time alone. Living as a bachelor the past several years was all around a great time for me. Eventually, times change and now I’ve been married for 9 months. This past weekend I wore several hats in my new role as a married man.

Friday was a throwback to my bachelor days. I played Gears online with several of my friends and, if I may say so, I was on fire. I hadn’t played in about 6 weeks (before Europe) but I was a force that night. Always a great way to boost your self-esteem when your friends are swearing at you because “you won’t die”.

Saturday was a day for my newest role: Hanging out with other couples night. These times are the newest and oddest of my many roles. Angela & Jason came over with their two kids and we had a couples night. While we have several other couples we hang out with, Angela & Jason are the only ones with kids (yet) and thus the most jarring to my system. While the previous night I had been splattering my friends into gibblets of alien flesh and blood, Saturday consisted of a dinner party, looking at photos of our Europe trip, laughing at their kids antics, and some wholesome Wii Fit and BoomBlox thrown in. A very marked contrast but still it was great to see them.

Sunday was Fathers Day and mostly took on the role of “family” day. Christina and I did a few things around the house and then went out for Fathers Day with her family. While I had plenty of family days back when I was still a bachelor, having all your in-laws living between 2 and 30 minutes away has led to a dramatic increase in family events. Fortunately, I like my in-laws.

Later that evening, some of Christina’s best friends came over for movie night. However, as is typically the case, the 400+ movies we have were somehow insufficient and we ended up watching some recorded TV. Christina’s friends are always entertaining simply because they are so very different than most of my friends. By the way, if you’re looking for a show that you’ve probably never seen, try and catch “Pushing Daisies” — it’s very different and rather good.

This weekend turned out to be a microcosm of my new life. Marriage has certainly made things much more complicated but not necessarily in a bad way — That’s still up for debate…