The Hot 5

Here are some of the things that I have been enthralled with lately. I plan to post a few of these from time to time when something really gets on my mind grapes.  So let me know what you think, and what your Top 5 are?

The Walking Dead (AMC Sundays)

What a premiere.  I was hesitant to read the comic book because I wasn't a huge fan of zombies.  I still don't really see the fascination with zombies and zombie movies.  But I'm so glad I started the comic, it had such a great story and I was excited to see how they'd treat the television series.  Fortunately the producer of The Walking Dead, Frank Darabont, wanted to make sure that not only would he please the audience but that he would also please the creator of the source material: Robert Kirkman.  They capture the comic extremely well, as well as add a few elements that improve upon the story.  The premiere showed not only some shocking and graphic moments, but some really poignant and sad moments.  The zombie stuff: headshots, people getting killed, and guts is fun, but I think the success of this show will come down to the characters.  How the characters deal with this horrific situation, where there are basically no more rules left, that is going to be the crux of the story moreso than the zombie infestation.  Watch this show.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Undercovers [canceled])

I'm pretty sad that this show got cancelled, not surprised, but sad.  Gugu Mbatha-Raw is one of those women that you would instantly fall in love with the moment you lay your eyes on her.  She radiates off the screen.  I'm very sad I wont be seeing much of her soon.  Unfortunately due to weak ratings Undercovers was recently canceled.  Like I said, I'm not surprised.  The show was entertaining enough but the decision to go episodic instead of serialized really hurt it.  Despite this you can be sure that Gugu will appear my Top Celebrities later this year.

Fable III Collector's Edition (Xbox 360)

Even though I thoroughly enjoyed Fable III there are lot of issues with it.  Ridiculous frame rate issues, stupid interaction system and some boring side quests kept this game from being great.  The Collector's Edition, although it only comes with an extra DLC, playing cards, and a cool coin, is one of of my favorite Collector's Editions so far.  What makes it so great is the packaging.  It comes in what looks like an old book or a bible. It feels like leather and even has a cool clasp.  The book opens to reveal the game and then there's a false bottom where the aforementioned Collector's Edition stuff is hidden.  It's a bucket of win.

No Ordinary Family (ABC Tuesdays @8:00pm)

From the very first episode I was hooked.  I was a huge fan of Heroes and was disappointed that it went down the path it did. You know...got horrible and unwatchable.  This show looks like it is going to do the genre right.  It's a family show and deals with family problems, but now they have super powers.  Ever since the Commish I have been a huge fan of Michael Chiklis.  His run on The Shield was often times bone chilling.  It's a little awkward seeing him in a much lighter role, but it suits him.  Julie Benz, I fell in love with on Dexter.  It's great to see her play a confident woman instead of the often uncertain character on Dexter.  The way the powers are displayed is done really well.  The speed effects for the mother and the math effects for the son are nice touches.  The parents confide in two characters who add a lot to the show played by Romany Malco and Autumn Reeser.  The story continues to expand on the universe and evolve their powers.  I hope they can keep it interesting.

Nicki Minaj (Pink Friday drops November 19, 2010)

This woman is on fire.  I realize lately that I am growing older and I really dislike most artists these days (Drake, Rihanna) but Nicki Minaj is just fierce.  She had an auspicious start with me because the first time I heard her was when she used the line "asbestos."  But I started hearing more of her lines on the Cash Money album and started realizing her flow was pretty unique and catchy.  She is probably one of the hottest artists right now: appearing on a ton of tracks and releasing a few mixtapes.  Her album is dropping this week and I think it is going to be huge.

It feels like I'm already waiting in line...

"He's moving like molasses!" - Hayden Panattiere (Remember the Titans)

Hey all...just a few random thoughts as I have been waiting to purchase Comic-Con tickets for over 40 minutes. This website is loading hella slow!  Anyways...

Parents with young children.  For pete's sake, and for mine, please...if your child is constantly talking during a movie in the theater please remove him/her.  I watched Megamind the other day and this nice family sat next to me.  About 15 minutes into the movie one of the kids starts whining.  Is it wrong for me to want to tell the parent to tell the child to shut up?  If an adult was constantly talking next to me you wouldn't have a problem with me telling that person to be quiet right?  Argh...it was so annoying.  I was able to tune him out for the most part but he would still talk during crucial moments of the movie.  Parents I understand that you paid good money for the movie and don't want to leave but it's not fair to those around you.  It was annoying.  That is all about that

Other random thoughts as this registration screen is STILL loading...

How was everyone's Halloween?  Mine was okay...actually pretty boring on Halloween itself.  I drove to my brother and sister's place and saw only a few trick or treaters.  Kind of sad because Halloween was so much fun when I was younger.  The only thing I did for Halloween was finish Fable III and go to my sibling's house to watch the Giants game.  Had some good food and that was it.  My Halloween came early on Thursday where I attended the Yelp Elite Costume Party in San Mateo.  This was my first Yelp Elite Event (YEE) and it was awesome.  I got to talk to a lot of girls and made a few new Yelp friends.  The costumes were awesome and the atmosphere was really chill.  Here's my review for the event.  Unfortunately I still haven't found my go-to date for all social events as my usual go-to is in Japan (miss you!).  Luckily I went with a co-worker and we had a great time.  The best thing about the event, the ratio of guys:girls was the opposite of Man Jose...lotsa ladies to talk to.  The next day at work we had our Halloween social.  I was kind of sad that not many people dressed up.  In fact I was only 1 of 2 men that dressed up.  That greatly increased my chances of winning Best Male costume, but I think I would have been in the running regardless.  My Samurai costume was pretty cool if I do say so myself.

Okay...we're approaching the 1-hour mark for this load time.  I'm going to run out of random thoughts.

I love the day after Halloween because concerned parents bring in candy to rot our teeth...I just grabbed a bunch of Nerds.  The candy, not to be confused with the nerds that are making my browser load for 1 hour.  Man orange flavored Nerds are the greatest.

One hour and 15 minutes since I started trying to register.

I love when TV shows do Halloween specials, and last week we got treated to 3 great ones.  Modern Family dealt with the Dunphy's trying to put together a haunted house atmosphere in their home, but nobody was really into it.  We got some super hot outfits from Hayley (shut up she's 18 in real life) and some hilarious stuff between Jay and Gloria about her mispronunciation of American words and sayings.  Not to mention Mitch escaping the second floor of his building dressed as Spider-Man.  The Office had a fashion show to win the coveted prize of the Coupon book.  Best costumes included Gabe as Lady Gaga, Angela in her slutty nurse outfit, Michael Scott as MacGruber, and Pam as Olive Oil.

The best Halloween special goes to Community though.  I don't think they'll ever top their paintball episode but this one comes very close.  They actually had a zombie outbreak.  It was hilarious.  The costumes were great, Abed and Troy dressed up as Ripley and an Alien, Jeff dressed as David Beckham, Britta refusing to use Halloween to dress slutty wore a cumbersome T-Rex outfit, Annie was an adorable Little Red Riding Hood, and I don't care what she says but Shirley was Miss Piggy.  This episode aired 4 days and I've already seen it 7 times.  There are so many funny parts of this episode, here are my favorite: the cat in the basement, the star wars "i love you" scene, and the return of Doc Pottery-wood.

Okay...after 2 hours I'm hearing now that they are moving registration to another day.  I would call this a colossal waste of time but I got to write in my blog so it wasn't all bad.  Okay then hopefully I can register with ease next time.

Under Construction...

I found some awesome blog templates and I'm currently playing with them.  So if you visit my blog and it has some weird stuff or a strange design don't worry all will be right with the world soon.

Peace out,

Joel

Confessions of an Achievement Whore

"This time baby I'll be...bulletproof." - La Roux

If you play the Xbox 360 chances are you know what achievements are, and chances are you are an achievement whore like I am.  For the uninitiated, achievements are points you get for completing certain actions in an Xbox game.  These can come from just playing the game normally and passing the levels.  They can also come by doing challenging or strange actions like the "Dastardly" achievement in Red Dead Redemption.  This achievement involved playing the role of a dastardly villain from the old timey shows.  You have to hogtie a woman, place her on the train tracks, and watch her get run over by the train.  If that's not awesome I don't know what is.  You gain nothing from these achievements, purely bragging rights.  Unlocking achievements adds a ton of replay value to certain games, it can also subtract some replay value as well (I'll delve into this later).  I have played a 10 hour game over 4 different times to try to get all of the achievements.

I think achievements are such an ingenious way to get gamers invested in the games, and I think, at least for me, that it is a way for me to keep purchasing Xbox 360 games over Playstation 3 games.  Sony does have their own "Trophy" system but they started it, I believe, due to the popularity of achievements.  It works in a completely different way, and I heard that it is pretty rewarding, but I think its too little too late.  Honestly, unless I read reviews and they are completely skewed toward the Playstation 3 (hasn't happened yet) for a multi-platform game I will ALWAYS purchase this game for the Xbox 360.  Why?  Achievements.  I've already invested so much of my time building a high Gamerscore (the score that tallies all of the achievement points you've unlocked) and I just want to keep improving on it.

Another thing achievements do is add a sense of old school competitive nature.  Nowadays people are bragging about how many kills they have, what they're K/D spread is, and so on and so forth.  But gamerscore showcases a few things: 1) how dedicated you are at playing your games 2) how skilled you are at playing games and 3) how much of a nerd you are.  It's a way of quantifying exactly how much better you are at games than they are.  So when I get shot in the head playing Modern Warfare 2, and I end the match in last place with a record of 2 - 20, I just say, "shut up, I have a higher gamerscore than you."  Then they continue to own me.  These points are reminiscent of old school arcade machines that people toiled over trying to beat the high score.  It's just another way to earn bragging rights...of which I just recently lost.  My jobless friend has surpassed my gamerscore and I vow to regain my dominance.

I mentioned earlier that achievements can subtract for a game's overall replay value.  How this happens is when all of a game's achievements are easily unlocked.  For example, one of my favorite games last year was Batman Arkham Asylum.  The best Batman game ever made.  I had so much fun playing it.  However after I completed the story there were only a few other achievements I had to unlock, they were challenging, but when they were done I didn't feel the need to pick the game up again.  There was still another difficulty level I could have tried and a few more challenge maps I never attempted.  The same thing goes for Mass Effect 2.  One of my absolute favorite games.  I got most of the achievements on my first playthrough, and then the rest starting my second.  I did finish the game even though there were no achievements to be had, but the story is just so awesome, plus I want a bunch of different save states for when I play Mass Effect 3.  Then after that I put the game down for a good while, having gotten 1000 gamerpoints from this game I didn't need to pick it up again until some new DLC came out that added more achievements.

I think achievements and gamerpoints definitely change the way you play games, and for some like me, the way you buy them.  Thanks for reading.  You earned this.

- Joel

My TV schedule

I think I finally figured out my weekly TV schedule.  Check it out:


Monday
- Chuck
- How I Met Your Mother
- Castle
- The Event
- Hawaii 5-0
Tuesday
- No Ordinary Family
- Running Wilde
Wednesday
- Modern Family
- Undercovers
Thursday
- Community
- The Big Bang Theory
- 30 Rock
- Fringe
- The Office
Friday
- Supernatural
Sunday
- The Simpsons
- Family Guy
- The Cleveland Show
- Dexter
- Boardwalk Empire


What do you guys watch?  What should be on my list?


Fade to black,
-Joel

Love: An Outsider's Perspective

It's been a long time since I've been in love.  But most of my closest friends and family are well entrenched.  From observation alone I think I've deciphered the meaning of love.  Here are my findings.

Love means:

- never having to plan your own birthday

- never being alone on a Friday night

- holding hands while driving

- sharing bank accounts

- sharing debts

- forgiving each other for being stupid

- taking vacations together

- sharing lazy Sundays together

- giving up videogame time

- having ridiculous arguments

- waiting to watch a television show together, even if it means you are many episodes behind

- it doesn't matter who pays for dinner

- you have a lot of family parties to attend

- you go to visit in-laws in remote locations with nothing to do

- you slowly start to take up each others hobbies

- more home cooked meals

- taking care of your in-laws when they need help

- not having to buy each other birthday presents

- still buying each other birthday presents

- holding hands

- having complete trust in each other even during ladies or guys night out
- you travel miles to a different city and just sit in a hotel room while the person you love works for the weekend
- you have traditional food nights like "taco night"
- getting fat together
- getting fit together
- you get to dress each other
- you never worry about growing old alone.


This is just a portion of what my research has yielded.  I one day hope to find the love of my life where I can discover my own definitions of the coolest four letter word in the world.  Are my findings incorrect?  Which of these do you find true?  What does love mean to you?  And to my family and friends can you spot which of these is about you?


Much Love (really),
- Joel

If you don't know, now you know...

"I got this money baby, I want to spend it on you...I got this Sunday baby, I want to spend it with you.  We can do what you like, I promise that I'll be true..." - Childish Gambino

Do you ever listen to something or watch a movie, or play a video game, and just love it to death?  Love it so much that you're so excited to talk to someone about it?  And then when you go to school or work you find out that nobody has even heard of it?  I hate that.  For that reason I am going to list some of the shows, music artists, movies and videogames I wish more people knew about.

Music:

Childish Gambino - Culdesac

Download here: http://www.culdesac-album.com/

Best known for playing Troy on my favorite show on television right now, Community, and writing for 30 Rock, Donald Glover is legit.  Despite being able to find him doing stand up comedy, and on classic Youtube videos his rhymes are no joke.  Sure some of them will make you laugh, but he isn't trying to make a comedy album like Weird Al or Lonely Island.  In his mixtapes he often raps over Indy groups such as Discovery and Vampire Weekend.  His album Culdesac has hints of Indy but with Kanye/Lil Wayne caliber rhymes.  Go download his album, it's free!

Television:

Community - NBC Thursdays 8:00pm

I'll be honest.  Before this show aired last year I had no interest in watching it.  A show about Community college with that douche-bag from The Soup?  No thanks.  Unfortunately nothing was on at 8:00pm on Thursday so I decided to check it out.  The first episode was okay, had a few laughs, I enjoyed the way it was shot and the humor...but I wasn't overly impressed.  Still, I liked it enough to tune in for the second episode.  Ridiculousness ensued with Chevy Chase and Joel McHale, giving the worst presentation ever...pretty funny episode.  And then the end credits rolled and Donald Glover and Danni Pudi did the Spanish Rap.  I was instantly hooked.  The great part about this show is that it knows no bounds.  It has reality based episodes like Episode 3 - Introduction to Film where it ends on an extremely touching moment with Abed and his father.  And then it has off the wall episodes like Episode 23 - Modern Warfare where the entire school is engulfed in a paintball war full of classic action movie references and awesome gun fights.  If the episodes aren't awesome enough, the end credits are usually just some delicious icing on top.  Watch this show.

Other mentions: 

Parks & Recreation (Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones)

Lie to Me (Tim Roth)

Movies:

25th Hour - Edward Norton, Rosario Dawson, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Anna Paquin, and Barry Pepper.

One of my all time favorite movies.  A Spike Lee joint, this movie revolves around the last night of a man before he goes off to prison.  Edward Norton is awesome...always.  Just a great story, the best part being a rant that Norton goes on in front of a bathroom mirror.  If you get a chance, put this flick on your queue.

Other mentions:

Confidence (Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz)

Way of the Gun (Ryan Phillippe, Benicio Del Toro)

Jackie Brown (Samuel L. Jackson, Pam Grier)

Heat (Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro)

Video Games:

Mass Effect Series

Despite being the greatest game of all time (IMO and in a lot of game reviewers O) not a lot of people around me have played the series.  Maybe they were turned off by the RPG elements from the first game...or the massive amount of dialog.  Maybe it was the wonky shooter mechanics...boy I'm not really selling this game well am I?  This is definitely a game where the end product is greater than the sum of its parts.  When this title was announced, it was announced as a trilogy.  The first one was ground breaking, the second one just improved vastly on the shooter mechanics, inventory system, and dialog system.  Unfortunately it improved on the first one so much I can't bring myself to go back and play it again.  As I sit here eagerly awaiting the 3rd and final installment to this trilogy I have only a few people to talk to about this wonderful feat of gaming ingenuity.

Other mentions:

Ico

Shadow of the Collosus

Well that's what I have for now.  There are a ton more that I could have added but I can't think of them all.  If you haven't heard of any of these, or thought to yourself, yeah it looks cool but I don't have the time to check it out..give it a shot.  If anything you'll know you'll have someone passionate about any one of these things to talk about it later.

- Joel

Violence in Videogames

"Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up." - Mohandas Gandhi

I'd like to tackle a subject that people have been asking my opinion on for awhile now.  Violence in Videogames.  The debate over the content of videogames has raged on since the days of Pac-Man.  Where ghost critics wondered why all the violence against their brethren.  Invaders from space sent in angry telegrams and snail mail, and morse code, however they used to communicate in the 80s, complaining of the mis-use of their likeness and their intent, stating, "all we wanted to do was invade the earth and kill all humans."  Nowadays the big topics are Grand Theft Auto and Mass Effect.  But I think society has let one culprit, or two, if you are playing with a friend, off the hook.  The Mario Brothers.

Hate mongers.

Mario and Luigi Mario (seriously is Mario their last name? what kind of parents name their kid Mario Mario?) have been harassing the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom, namely the gentle Koopa Troopa.  I challenge you, go back and play those Super Mario games, namely Super Mario World.  Look at those Koopa Troopas, watch them, what are they doing?  They're walking.  Not only are they walking, they're walking with a smile on their face!  The Koopa Troopa is probably just trying to get home to his wife and kid at home.  Or the flying Koopas that just got their wings and are excited to fly up and down in the middle  of chasm.  These little turtles don't deserve to be stepped on and evacuated from their shells.  Or worse yet to be eaten by a dinosaur with a saddle and consumed to take advantage of their power depending on shell color.  Why all the hatred for our green, red, blue, and yellow shelled friends?  I've heard unconfirmed reports that race organizers kill innocent Koopa Troopas, hollow out the shell and use them on race courses to be used as weapons.


The goombas I understand.  I mean look at those ugly freaks, they don't even have a body and you know they're evil because their teeth come from the bottom of their mouth.  Pirahna plants?  Sure they need to be set aflame, they jump out of pipes unexpectedly to bite your ass.  But the Koopa Troopa, this innocent fella just wants to get home and enjoy a nice TV dinner and watch The Biggest Loser.  Next time you play Super Mario Bros. just leave these stalwart nomads be.  How could you hate the Koopa Troopa?  Just look at him.

What'd I ever do?

Spare the Koopa Troopas,
Joel S.

So many new shows, so little time...

"If I could write you a song to make you fall in love, I would already have you up under my arm." - Mike Posner, Cooler than Me

Hey all.  So after writing that intro post I wanted to go into my next post immediately.  However, I got caught up designing and editing my blog.  Snazzy eh?  So typically I watch a lot of television.  I'm usually pretty resistant to new shows, and often times it takes me until 5 people tell me a show is incredible to give it a chance.  Lost was one of those shows.  This season I'm trying to be more open minded with the new crop of shows.  That being said I don't like watching too many shows while they're on.  I try to pick and choose a few shows to watch regularly as they are shown, and then the rest, depending on if they survive, watch when the season is over.

Here's a list of my must-watch shows (along with a mention of the hottest girl on that show):

1. Community (Alison Brie)
2. 30 Rock (Tina Fey)
3. Chuck (Yvonne Strahovski)
4. Castle (Stana Katic)
5. How I Met Your Mother (Colbie Smuther)
6. The Big Bang Theory (Kaley Cuoco)
7. Supernatural (Alona Tai [deceased, boo!])
8. Leverage (Beth Riesgraf)

Now this isn't a definitive list of all the shows I'll keep up with this season, but these shows I will usually watch the same night that they are on.  Man looking at this list is kind of sad.  Some notable shows aren't on it, mainly 24 and Lost.  Oh Lost how I will miss thee.  It seems like every show is trying to be the next Lost.  Flashforward tried and failed.  V never captivated me.  And now we got a new one: The Event.  I caught the premiere.  It was okay, a little frustrating with all of the flashbacks and overly convoluted story.  It might out-Lost itself.  But it did pique my interest enough to watch it next week.  Speaking of Lost, one of the creators, a Mr. JJ Abrams is back with a new series, this time he's back in the spy world with Undercovers.  I didn't know what to expect, but I just finished watching the Pilot and it left me smiling.  Great chemistry between the two leads, some good action and story telling, and some excellent dialog had me looking forward to the next episode.  Keeping with the spy theme, Nikita, starring the oh so sexy Maggie Q premiered a few weeks ago. It had some decent action, a lot of Maggie Q in awesome outfits, and a nice twist.  I was a bit disappointed it felt like a CW show, I was hoping for more.  But I might check this one out after Season 1 is over.  On that note those last two shows Undercovers and Nikita both have non-white leads.  I haven't seen a primetime show with a non-white lead before.  That's pretty rad.  Oh and the girl on Undercovers: Gugu Mbatha-Raw...so hot.

I recently watched the belated Arrested Development and really enjoyed it.  Michael Cera and Will Arnett are fantastic on that show.  If you liked Arrested Development you should check out Running WIlde.  It has the vibe of Arrested Development, but it looks like it'll have more heart.

A few shows I wanted to mention before I call it quits.  I am really looking forward to seeing Dexter return.  After that finale the show could change drastically.  Also, even though I have to wait a whole year, Breaking Bad.  I freaking love this show.  On the same channel as Breaking Bad, AMC, even though I'm not a big zombie fan I am looking forward to The Walking Dead.  From all previews and pictures its looking like a dead-on (pun intended) translation of the comic books (written by Robert Kirkman).

Wow I wrote a lot.  Hope you enjoyed my geekaucity.

Peace Outside,

Joel

PS You probably that quote was going to summarize this blog...it did not.  I just always have a quote in my head.

Let the Adventure Begin...

"The journey of a thousand blogs begins with a single post."

Hey there.  If you're reading this you probably know me, if not...why are you reading this?  What are you some kind of stalker?  Nice my first stalker!  Welcome stalkers and friends.  I'm Joel Samson.  Recently, possibly due to being really bored with an obscene amount of free time I have really started to enjoy writing again.  If you follow me on facebook you'll see that I usually write movie reviews and such.  I thought I could use this blog to share my thoughts on movies, TV shows, videogames, and whatever random thing pops into my brain.  I usually start stuff like this and then stop writing in them.  We'll see how the reception goes.

If you started reading because of the title then you should know that I use it ironically.  As nothing about my life is adventurous, at all.  Haha.  It's okay I am a simple guy with simple ambitions.  I want to find a wife, and raise a family.  Some things to note about me: I love movies (most kinds), videogames, anime, television, football, and of course...the ladies!  I can't stand ignorance, rudeness, and douchebaggery.  Sense of style?  Don't really have any.  If I could I'd wear a football jersey everywhere I went, but alas I cannot do that.  I'm not in to status symbols like fancy watches or expensive cars.  Like I said, simple.

I hope you like what I have to read.  Please leave me comments.  You can also follow me on twitter @tensai214.  I'll end this entry here...and start a new one right about...

Mucho Love,

Joel