I Wish I Knew Where My Copy of "Thirteenth Step" Was

Does anyone know where my copy of Thirteenth Step is? It's one of my favourite albums of all time and I really feel like listening to it right now but I don't know where it is. I'm sure someone else has it...but who? Here's what it looks like.

WARNING: The rest of todays post will be a personal analysis of Thirteenth Step and why I love it. If you don't want to witness my gushing and getting all loving and emotional on you I suggest you read one of my earlier funny blogs or something. Maybe the Guide to Being a Villain or my porn review or something. You've been warned!

Anyway I thought that while we're all looking for Thirteenth Step I'd share with you why this album is held in such high regard by me (hopefully the thief who stole it will feel guilty and send it back to me...with a letter of appology...soaked in tears...wrapped in money). Anyway so Thirteenth Step is the second studio album made by A Perfect Circle, a band formed in 1999 by Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel, a guitar technician who had worked with Tool. Together they gathered other musicians to collaborate on some songs they'd been recording and eventually a new band (A Perfect Circle) and album (Mer de Noms) was born. Mer de Noms was a great album featuring several awesome songs like Judith and (my personal favourite off the album) Orestes. It was heavy, but also intricate and atmospheric. Many people consider Mer de Noms the best of their work; those people are wrong.

When I first got into A Perfect Circle I had totally missed the Mer de Noms era and was entering the scene after discovering the bands various connections with the Smashing Pumpkins (my favourite band evaaaaaaarrrrrggghh). Anyway so I downloaded a few tracks and blah de blah de blah I ended up buying their second album, Thirteenth Step.

Thirteenth Step is highly realised and conceptual. It deals with issues of addiction (the album title explicitly refences the thirteen step program for alcoholics and drug users) . Each song takes on a different role in the complexity that is addiction. There's regret, anger, accusation and fear woven throughout the lyrics. Sometimes the songs are from the point of view of the drug, maliciously manipulating it's victim, offering it empty comforts. Other times the songs are about friends in denial, not wanting to believe that they are watching someone who is essentially dying. There are twelve tracks with twelve stories to tell, each becoming part of the larger tale that is the album. One of my main issues with APC's first album is that it sounds disjointed and stilted. It sounds exactly like what it is, a series of great songs recorded and written individually and then glued together at the end. Thirteenth Step however is fluid, even though the songs have different sounds, stories and images you never feel like one song has ended and another has begun. As stated earlier the songs merge as part of something bigger. I have analysed this album lovingly for many hours, even that fact that there's an unamed and unrecorded "13th" track at the end of the album, perhaps signifying that the story of the album isn't finished; like it's left for us, or whoever needs it, to finish for themselves. That said the album isn't explicit. The songs never actually say "I'm on drugs and boy I love it but it's also not good for me." You can honestly take whatever you want out of the album. I recommend Thirteenth Step by A Perfect Circle more highly than you could imagine.

One of these days soon I'll think of something funny to write about again. Just felt passionate about this post is all.

Watchmen Review

Before I get into the serious review stuff I'd just like to congratulate Tom on his speedy response to my previous post. Elija Wood shall be yours my friend.

Moving on now, the Watchmen. The Watchmen is about a group of vigilante style "superheroes" who are outlawed by the American Government and forced to live out their lives as regular human beings, which you'd think to be relatively easy to do because all of them, bar one, ARE regular human beings. Anyway the year is 1980-something and the doomsday clock is ticking out it's last 10 minutes or so as America aniticipate the onset of nuclear war with Russia. I won't dig too much farther into the extremely involved story because we've got bigger things to discuss. Now overall I liked the Watchmen. I went in expecting a shitty, no-brainer superhero action flick of the Daredevil ilk but instead was treated to one of the grittiest and most tense films I've seen since The Dark Knight. Every one of the heroes is a well developed character with their own flaws and problems to resolve. As heroes they are all morally questionable in some way and as such you're left with a sense of deep running emptiness as you watch these vigilante heroes ruin innocent lives. You can forget about calling Spiderman a conflicted character because he can't balance his real life with his superhero life. Try watching a man who can't bear to be without his mask as he clashes violently with anyone who ticks him off. The effective thing about having such flawed main characters is that not only do you characterise them more strongly but you also end up connecting emotionally with the people they wrong along the way, the everday people.

Having said all that the movie is gritty, heavy and dark to the extreme. I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone, you need to be prepared for it. It's like trying to digest a really good meal without chewing it properly, it's a movie that'll sit heavy in your brain for a good while after watching it. That and it's graphic. There's reasonably explicit sex and some extremely visual violence. If you don't want to see a man have his skull cleavered repeatedly then don't watch this. I thought the soundtrack was pretty solid though, even if it was also unsubtle. I was thankfull that the movie wasn't trying to ram some no-name bands new single down my earhole and instead went with proven rock classics like Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and Jimi Hendrix.

My last issue with the film is that the movie feels as long as it is, which is very. I'm conflicted as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing because on the one hand I didn't feel like there was an abundance of unnescessary bits , in fact there were moments were you got a sense of having missed something. On the other hand it can't be good if I check my watch and say to myself, "it felt much longer than that." The movie is based off a graphic novel of the same name written in the 80's and had quite a bit to fit in and coming from a person who hadn't read the novel I found it coherent and enjoyable, so perhaps the length issue was an inevitable necessity. Every main character has his own tale to tell in the movie and they're all given a fair hunk of time to work with, so I guess that's a good thing. Overall however I find Watchment a hard movie to review. It does so many things really well and does so many new things with the overly formulaic "superhero" genre that I'm tempted to call it a must see. Unfortunately the gritty and violent nature of the film makes it unsettling and will probably alienate certain people. It's a powerful film that challenges the superhero ideology and the black and white nature of the superhero genre, but it's also likely to divide audiences.

Street Fighter IV Review

Xbox 360 is fixed and I've been playing Street Fighter IV. As promised I thought I'd have a little chat about the game and tell you what I think. First of all the game looks great and the characters are all fairly well balanced. No characters feel feel overpowered or anything so there's a real oportunity picking who suits you best. Despite the couple of complaints I'm about to make it is still an excellent fighting game.

My first complaint is a minor one, the dialogue. Street Fighter IV isn't going to win any awards for its brilliant story or anything like that but that doesn't mean the dialogue has to be this bad. The commentator actually says "the weak lose and the strong win" fairly regularly, which constantly reminds me of how bad the dialogue is. Voice acting isn't particularly strong either, Chun-Li sounds inappropriately like one of the kids from Rugrats, Zangeif has a rather patchy Russian accent and Ryu doesn't sound Japanese enough. Now onto a slightly bigger problem. Street Fighter IV is quite challenging, even on the easiest difficulty setting. This mostly comes down to the fact that the games final boss Seth is the cheapest motherfucker I can recall. He teleports behind you and grabs you before you can even turn around. He has stretchy punches that extend for the majority of the screen. He even has a move that sucks you helplessly towards him so that he can pick you up and grind you between the solid ground and his buttcheeks. Cunt. Seth. Is. A Cunt. I haven't been this frustrated by cheap enemies since Mario Kart Wii (fucking blue shells, fuck fuck fuck).

One other issue is that the Xbox 360 controller isn't ideal for fighting games. Luckily Madcatz have released some Fightpads and Arcade Sticks that are awesome for Street Fighter IV. Unfortunately they aren't out in Australia yet and they are sold out globally. Don't even think about looking on ebay unless you want to pay triple the RRP. Here's a picture of the standard edition fighting stick.

I am personally probably going to either get one of these or a fightpad. There is another better Fighstick called the Tounament Edition which uses all the Sanwa parts found in the arcade machines but they're a little pricey for me. I'm very much looking forward to getting one or two of these bad boys though.

Re-reviewing Unskippable

As the series as developed it has indeed gotten better. I actually find it more professional and amusing than the earlier ones (Eternal Sonata). So I just thought I'd update my stance on this show and give it a thumbs up. It's still no Zero Punctuation but I like it all the same.

We Love Katamari (A Review)

I think it's fair to say that creativity is NOT as profitable as people might imagine. There are people out there making genuinely excellent, original products and all people ever seem to buy are the same old products in new boxes. One of the worst mediums for this trend in stupidity amongst the spending public is gaming. Games are expensive to make and expensive to buy. When so much money is a stake people don't take risks. People are apparently incapable of research and so instead of learning about great, innovative titles they just opt for sequals and recycled ideas that they are already quite familiar with. The games industry knows this and so instead of spending heaps of money on something risky and surprising they instead re-use the same formulas that have worked over and over and over in making money. The reason I say all this is because I'm sick of it. It sickens me that souless clones sell a zillion copies whilst exciting, original titles lay forgotten. I say all of this because We Love Katamari is one of those games.

So there I was, I had just trudged through the 60 hours or so of Final Fantasy XII and was left feeling extremely lukewarm about the ending (these games are SUPPOSED to be heavily story driven, I liked FFX's story heaps more). Sure I thought the game was good and there was some exciting new gameplay in there but after 10 hours it had grown quite familiar. Anyway after finishing it I was in need of something exciting and fun. I started to play We Love Katamari (on the Playstation 2, just so you know). So what is this game? It's really hard to describe faithfully but here it goes. You roll sticky ball around and as you do so things stick to it. Only small things at first, but as it grows bigger it can pick up larger stuff. Essentially everything (and I mean EV-ER-Y-THING) can be rolled up eventually. It doesn't sound like much but it's truely a shining example of how one simple idea can be polished up and applied in so many varying environments. There's a level where you roll a sumo wrestler around in food so that he may grow large and defeat his opponent. There's another where you go the the zoo to roll up animals for a lonely dog so that he may have some friends. I particularly like the one where you roll up the gingerbread cottage for Hansel and Gretel. Time and size are the 2 most common challenges withing the game. Roll a Katamari this big in this many minutes is the basic idea. This idea wouldn't hold up the game on it's own but everything is designed stylishly and humorously. All you ever really do is roll stuff into a ball but the design is so wickedly clever and entertaining that it never feels repeditive. I was playing this game solidly for a week before I have to send it away for a scratch repair job and I miss it quite a bit. There's not alot else to say really, I think the game is excellent and deserves to sell zillions and if you think differently you are wrong. Simple as that.

Based on Books Part 2

Ok so now it's time to slice Jane and the Dragon up and examine it under a microscope. I must say that after Gerald McBoing Boing just about anything would look good. But really though, Jane and the Dragon can certainly hold it's own and really is actually a pretty decent show indeed. One of it's most impressive features is it's imaculate design. The show is animated using CGI but it's also made to look hand drawn. This sounds a little artsy and weak in words but seeing the product is something else altogether. The animation and design is BEAUTIFUL and that's not a description I throw around alot. It's oozes with vibrant colours and even though it looks handrawn it feels very much alive. This aspect of the show alone is enough to carry it along. My mother has actually commented on this aswell, albeit only saying "this show looks really nice" but really my mother doesn't like to go into the elaborate detail that I do. Compare that to what she has said in the past about Gerald McBoing Boing, "this show's quite strange", and you can appreciate the difference between the two.


Anyway onto the plot turf. Storywise Jane in the Dragon is less unique. An opening theme song reveals that Jane became a knight in training, despite the mocking laughs and jeers of sexist friends, after rescuing the Prince from a dragon. Perhaps demonstrating an issue with having female knights and confirming the doubts of her friends by, instead of killing the dragon, befriending it. Hault! Do not start typing that comment about how woman SHOULD be knights and how making friends is better than killing people. It's not really that I disagree with either of those things but really, this is the freaking 9th century we're talking about here. You can't just befriend everybody if you're a knight for fucksake I mean you'd have to win over freaking armies who speak other languages. Speaking of language the dragon is a wise-cracking english speaking carefree character who often finds himself in miscommunication with Jane. The running themes are ones about loyalty, friendship and trust (ie what every childrens show bleets on about these days). But really though this is just nitpicking. The show has a decent story with a variety of characters who are all as well defined as they are aesthetically pleasing all plonked in the most vibrant medieval world ever created (forget fucking Oblivion, this looks better!). But does it pass the test of greatness? Is this the kind of show that people will fondly remember from their childhoods. To be honest I don't know. I know for a fact that there are a couple of shows that people I know can remember that, on reflection, I'm not all that fussed about. This is certainly a great show and definately deserves adoration. But I have no faith in humanity regarding taste. Nobody seems into pleasant surprises anymore. In the gaming world, as an annoying example, people mindlessly lap up sequels and totally ignore exciting, creative new titles that challenge you simple desire to shoot soldiers from outer space. So don't come whining to me when the world is grey and people live in steel cubicals forgetting how to show any sort of emotion at all because it was your own damn fault for not reading my blog. Now where was I? Oh yes, Jane and the Dragon = Thumbs Up, Gerald McBoing Boing = Vomit.

Unskippable: A Review

Let me just say this right here and now; Zero Punctuation IS The Escapist. If The Escapist had never bought the rights to Zero Punctuation then I would never go there. Not now. Not EVER. I know it sounds kinda cruel but occassionally, out of boredom, I have actually looked at some of the other series The Escapist runs and I am always disappointed and disgusted at what I discover. Anyway, out of the kindness and pity of my heart, I decided to look at one of the newest video series to feature on The Escapist, Unskippable. So far it is only two episodes in, but if it doesn't improve alot by episode three or four I'm not going to follow it any further. To cut right to the heart of the matter, the premise is that these two guys who speak in dull monotones overdub the unskippable cutscenes of videogames. It's kinda like what we do when we play games with friends sometimes, you know? Just having a few laughs is ok but I'd never put it up on the internet. Really though the premise is solid and interesting enough, and there are a buttload of games with shitty dialogue and the like, but the whole thing feels unprofessional and smacks of desperation. To me it feels more like something I'd accidently end up watching half of on Youtube before growing impatient with it's bullshit and leaving my computer altogether. One thing I really, REALLY disliked about it was the fact that most of the audio is still left in there. This would be fine if it was cleverly interwoven but as it stands it just stands in absolute contrast to the jokes that they ham-handedly wank into our faces. Perhaps this all sounds too harsh; and you know what? It is! I AM being harsh because really I think this show could be great. It's a solid idea with a wealth of opportunity and room to make it a real winner. It's like when people say they've found a diamond in the rough. In this case the diamond was in a sewer and was ripped out and sold to a jeweler too quickly, only to find that they'd forgotten to wash it off. So fix it up guys. Liven up your voices, scrap unnescessary audio and work on your material. You've got to be cruel to be kind.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Review

There's quite a bit of anime out there these days isn't there? In a lot of ways it's a rather inaccessible form of entertainment for us Western folk, seeing as how pretty much every anime that is broadcast over here is mediocre at best and aimed at kids young enough to buy all the trading cards and not feel ripped off. If you're reading this blog and haven't seen an anime that isn't Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Dragon Ball Z or Naruto then I can totally forgive you for thinking that anime is nothing more than an infantile, slow-paced bucket of jargon-filled dross starring over-excitable morons with Sonic hairdos and huge watery eyes. BUT, as my massive praise of Ghost in the Shell might've hinted, I'm a guy who can appreciate a really good anime. This is a very good thing indeed considering that the anime I'm about to review IS an excellent anime. So if you haven't closed the window by now, let's get down to buisiness.

Just the other day I bought myself the complete boxed set of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and after watching the first 2 episodes decided that nothing in the world was as important as watching more of it and I promptly slammed out the rest of the season; thoroughly enjoying every minute of it I might add. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of those hard-to-describe affairs which are excellent to watch but make it hard to recruite followers without using the old "just trust me" lines. But seeing as how this is SUPPOSED to be a review I guess I should try and explain the set up. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is set in a high school and follows the adventures of a school-based club called the SOS Brigade and their excitable and eccentric leader, Haruhi Suzumiya, as they attempt to delve into the world of aliens, espers and time travelers. It's funny, it's charming, it's slightly romantic and it has fully fleshed-out characters who you will actually grow quite fond of. Haruhi herself, who could easily have fallen into the annoying category as so many excitable anime leads tend to do, comes accross as an engaging, multilayered personality who will probably become the victim of erotic fan fiction at some point. I don't really want to say too much about the series for I fear that I may simultaneously make the show sound crappy and spoil key plot developments. So all you really need to know is that I was overjoyed to hear that there will be a second season and I will gladly fork over the $100 or so to buy the boxset when it comes out.

Skate

I am sure you are all vaguely familiar with who Tony Hawkes is, even if it is only because his name is currently attached to one of the largest and most repetitive game series still alive today. I was actually on board with the first 2 Tony Hawkes games in the series but by number 3 it was getting a little silly and before you knew it there was an annual release of a brand new game in the series. When Tony Hawkes games first emerged onto the scene it was the kind of thing that ate it's shitty competition for breakfast and the series went crazy and rampaged through the market unchallenged like a financial Godzilla. Anyway after what seems like 20 Tony Hawkes games (each becoming successively less to do with Tony) the skating genre seemed at an end when a game called Skate swept in and pulled off a perfect nosegrind across the top of Tony Hawkes gaming grave. The thing about skate is it actually reinvented the genre with a cool new control scheme. Instead of being able to pull off rediculously impossible combo's by just mashing pre-memorised button combinations like a speedy robot you have to stick with tricks and combo's that are far more in the realistic side of things. This is done by simply replacing button mashing with stick flicking but that simple idea was actually quite a huge step. It feels more natural and it gives an appropriate difficulty level to the harder tricks. That said it can be extremely hard to differentiate certain tricks with similar stick motions and I'm never completely sure if it's my fault or the games. I've also heard some criticisms regarding product placement in the game but for me it seems like a good thing rather than a bad one. The game is supposed to be a realistic skate game and picking and wearing skate brands only seems authentic rather than an act of selling out. I'm not sure exactly how to wrap this up. If you're even mildly interested in skating it's worth a look, especially if you thought the first Tony Hawkes game was original and exciting at the time.