There used to be a time when any movie having even a passing resemblance to a "summer blockbuster" made it onto my list of movies I'd absolutely have to see as soon as it came out. This year, however, that trend has taken a sudden and sharp dive right into the ground for reasons I can only (sadly) point to as symptoms that I'm leaving the "young man" portion of my life. It started with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which I still haven't seen yet. It's weird that I'd skip out on an action-packed superhero movie, especially one that branches from the pretty-good-if-you-don't-talk-about-part-3 X-Men series. For the first time, footage of things blowing up while the hero walks away in slow motion and the allure of a overly complex fight scenes just didn't pull me in. Have I just now started to listen to reviews and internet complaints!? I don't know the reasons for sure, but Wolverine slipped from earning my $10 and instead has slid to my increasingly busy "maybe when it's out on DVD" list. A month or so later and this whole phenomenon unfolded again with Terminator Salvation. A year ago I would have been all over anything that contained robots fighting Christian Bale, especially when you toss a brief apperance from a CGI Arnold Schwarzenegger into the mix... But I simply never got around to it - and the odd part is that I'm totally okay with that! It used to be that missing out on the opening weekend of such films would drive me nuts, but I'm actually doing just fine. Just as easily, I'm not worried about seeing the explosion orgy that is Transformers 2 - and that movie is basically created with the sole purpose of bring me to the theater. Between you and me, if I did go out to see a movie this weekend, it would be to see The Hangover for a second time. All these other movies that have long been part of my cinematic wheelhouse and would have had me foaming at the mouth will instead simply become part of the waiting list on my Netflix queue... What the hell does it all mean?
As my In Rotation section currently has listed, I'm trying to juggle Prototype, Ghostbusters, and my second run-through of Fallout 3 at the moment. I'm on an economically-imposed game buying hiatus now that I've secured Ghostbusters, and that's actually probably the very best thing that can happen to me at the moment. Not only do I have a host of newish games that have been pushed aside by the even newer ones, but I also have that most common of gamer afflictions, the dreaded Pile of Shame - all those games that I started but for numerous reasons never got around to finishing. Honestly the number of games I have that still require my attention is somewhat staggering - stuff like Resistance: Fall of Man is begging for attention, finishing up Half-Life 2 and the two episode in The Orange Box is a task I've spent years avoiding, Stranglehold still need to be completed, and I'm in the middle of defending Little Mac's belt in Punch-Out!!...the list of stuff I've forgotten about doesn't seem to have a clear end. It would do me some good to have my focus return to them, even if it's basically by force. Ghostbusters was the digital equivalent of a wrecking ball, knocking everything else clearly out of my rotation. Now that I've played through the game twice, I'm really only interested in the multiplayer for the moment, and that means all my single-player time can return to other things that are on my mind. Prototype deserves a mighty return, especially since I'm really starting to unlock some seriously fun powers and abilities. There's nothing quite like absorbing a military base's commander and then calling in an airstrike to eradicate the same base I just casually strolled out of. Shortly thereafter I can take out a group of commandos with my awesome claw hands. Seriously, Prototype is all sort of fun. Also making a return is Fallout 3. In my original playthrough I managed to play the Operation: Anchorage DLC and really liked it. Since ending that character's story, Bethesda has released three more packs of DLC - it's time for me to return to the Capital Wastes. I had started up a new character, a skull-crushing young women who favors brutal melee attacks and heavy weapons over the stealthy and sneaky methods my much more ethical male character utilized my first time through. But Fallout 3 is huge, and before I can really tackle all that new content I need to level my lethal lady up a bit, and that requires some time on top of the hours and hours that The Pitt, Broken Steel, and now Point Lookout are going to add to the experience. Almost as if to pile on, Bethesda plans on releasing the last chapter of the Fallout 3 DLC, Mothership Zeta, sometime in late July. By then I'll probably be Level 22 and still trudging through the mud in the swamps of Point Lookout. I move so slow...
Michael Jackson is dead. It's no surprise that the world seems to have suddenly forgotten the things we've all spend the better part of 15 years piling up on, but when you seperate the weird-ass personal life shit from the artist merit and contribution, there is little doubt that Michael Jackson was one of the best and now simply isn't the time for cheapshots - there's plenty of time for that later, just ask Marilyn Monroe and Abraham Lincoln. I do like to picture that somewhere in the ether of the Other World, he and Elvis are finally locked in vicious combat over who truly was the greatest - and The King probably still isn't all that thrilled about the whole Lisa Marie thing either. If nothing else, Michael Jackson gave us Off The Wall and Thriller, and there's nothing that can take that away. I'd mention Bad, but Weird Al hopelessly ruined that for me forever...
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