Thursday, January 07, 2010

Gamestop funny, 360 goes home?

Found this on Joystiq this morning, made me laugh. Most of it is factual. :)



CES 2010 is underway in Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show will surely be the focus of some updates for the next couple of days. Microsoft kicked things off early last night with a press conference, and evidently leaked video interview footage on a web site earlier yesterday. The coolest thing was their "Xbox Game Room" announcement, an avatar area devoted to classic coin op video games (think one of the cool parts of PS3 home, except you had to wait in line hoping to play). You can head over to Joystiq and check out a video and also download the Fact Sheet for more preliminary info and pricing, which wasn't too bad. $5 (400 MS points) will get you a machine on both 360 & PC, $3 (240 MS points) will get you one or the other 360 or PC, or you can pump $.50 (40 MS points) in for a single game (must be inflation old school games cost a .25 when I was going to the arcade). If one of your "friends" has purchased a game you can also visit their "Game Room" and try a game for free, before purchasing it. Sounds like a neat concept.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

And we're off... Arena opening, TV, Movies, and more...

Well New Year's Eve went off without a hitch we watched The Valet (La doublure) a French comedy, and District 9 (I even managed to stay awake throughout). A friend recommended The Valet that he noticed Hollywood Video stocked, and I had wanted to see District 9 but never had gotten around to it. I had almost picked it up on blu-ray a couple times as it was only $20 but I read mixed thoughts of people who "blind bought" it wishing they had rented it instead. We head off to the closest Hollywood, and of course no copies of D9 in stock, not to mention their blu-ray's are $5.29 for 5 days? WTF? I knew there was a reason I hadn't rented anything there for quite a while (since they did the free blu-ray promotion back in August 2008). I don't see how Hollywood, and Blockbuster stay in business with redbox machines, Netflix, and cut rate rental stores like Family Video. The Valet was a funny romantic comedy, while District 9 was enjoyable (I would probably rate it higher than my friend would) I'm glad I didn't buy it.

Got out New Year's day and decided to take in a movie (half of Wichita seemed to have the same idea), and thanks to Best Buy's Sherlock Holmes/Microsoft promo a couple weeks ago I had a free ticket. The admission ticket was up to $12 so I talked my friend into balcony seats (since mine wouldn't cost anything) at the east Warren. I've never sit in the balcony section so it was a new experience for my friend and me. The over-sized chairs were comfortable and roomy including plenty of leg room, plus they had seat (ie. butt) warmers. I'm still not great on the service staff coming in/out during the feature (I complained about this back in February last year when we went to the Warren Old Town), but there seemed to be more aisle room in front of your seat as well as more elevation between the stadium rows (compared to Old Town). In other words it didn't bother me as much this time maybe because I was only in the auditorium 2 1/2 hours compared to ~6 hours for the academy shorts. Sherlock Holmes was really good, a grimy, gritty period piece with simply amazing vistas of 1891 London. It definitely had a Guy Ritchie feel if you've seen RockNRolla, Snatch, or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.

I went to the Intrust Bank Arena 'open house' Saturday, got to walk around and visit some of areas I'll probably never see again like the Thunder locker room, and the party suites. It reminds me of a scaled down version of the Sprint Center in Kansas City, after being there it just seems so small. It was nice, and the seats were padded and comfortable. They have a bunch of different concession 'themes' scattered throughout I remember seeing BBQ, Pizza, and even a Carlos O'Kellys branded one. I think the parking is going to be a issue though, sure there are a lot of street parking space spread downtown, but are you really going to want to walk 5-6 blocks back and forth?

The holiday drought of TV shows during the last 3-4 weeks is coming to an end with a sprinkle of shows coming back this week (NCIS, and NCIS Los Angeles specifically), and most everything starting back up the week of January 10 (Chuck comes back Monday night 1/11!).