Things that go BOOM

My apologies for missing last week, I've been busy working on class assignments and helping to organize a club that I helped to start up last Spring, the F.P.S. League.

We provide a place where people who want to play first person shooter games (Halo series, Call of Duty series, Left 4 Dead, and so on) can do so in a more social environment instead of being cooped up in your room.

In any case, a couple of games that I'm looking forward to:
-Halo 3: ODST - Other members of the club have copies of the game, but I have yet to play it.
-Left for Dead 2 - Part of the campaign is set in Savannah GA, where I attend school, so it'll be interesting to see how accurate the level design is.
-Starcraft 2
-Bioshock 2

TED

My apologies for the missed transmission last week, I was busy packing and moving back below the Mason-Dixon line for college.

This week I bring you TED.com, an amazing site full of fascinating and inspirational videos. If you haven't heard of it before, take a moment to go check out the site, I'll wait.

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Ok, now back to the other part of today's cerebral offering; a selection of my favorite videos thus far, although I still have many videos to still watch.

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

Aimee Mullins and her 12 pairs of legs

Adam Savage's obsessions

Tim Brown on creativity and play

Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity

Emily Levine's theory of everything

Scott McCloud on comics

Enjoy these videos and please explore the rest of the site.

Be inspired.

Pass it on.

Welcome to District 9

I know it's not exactly the best of start on my "consistent Monday updates", but I bring good news to make up for it, a review of District 9.

If you're not familiar with the movie, the basic premise is this:

An alien mother ship comes to Earth and stops over Johannesburg, South Africa. After a few months the Authorities decide to go up and cut their way into the ship, making first contact with an extraterrestrial species. Instead of bright lights and an advanced species to learn from, what they find are emaciated, malnourished creatures living in squalor. In a humanitarian effort, a temporary housing camp to tend to the aliens' medical needs. What starts as a temporary site becomes a permanent militarized encampment/slum housing the Prawns, as the aliens come to be called. All of this takes place 20 years before the movie begins.

Not wanting to spoil anything for those who have yet to see the movie, that's as much as I'll say for now.

The visual effects and the CGI were top notch, with a couple of spots that I felt were a little off in terms of the quality of rendering.

What was done with the cinematography was rather interesting, with the first half or so of the movie done as though it were a documentary. There were a few times when it got a tad confusing as to whether it was still running as though it were a documentary or if it had gotten to the "invisible cameraman" that constitutes the 4th wall in cinema. A few times it seemed as though they tossed in a camera effect or technique just for the hell of it, but all in all the camera work was well done.

The designs of the prawns and their technology were well done and I will certainly be on the look out for the "Art of District 9", seriously want to see the conceptual art for this one.

The story was well written as far as I've seen, not that I'm really one to analyze it. The CGI and the designs were just too awesome for me to really spot any major flaws.

For those of you who found this "tl,dr", I'll bottom line this for you:

Go see District 9.