Animal Crossing Wii

When I originally put this down on my list of things to write about here in the Nerd Blog, it was because I had seen a demo of it at PAX and wanted to talk about how much I wanted a Wii, mostly because I wanted this game.

Now I’m going to write about it because I got a Wii for Christmas, and I got (dun dun dun)THIS GAME.

I have, of course, been playing it every day since. How could I not? I am the Queen of Addicting Games. I have a knack for liking the games that will suck me in and take endless hours out of my life.

I’ve found that the differences in the game from what I’ve played with before on other Animal Crossing games (GameCube, DS) are just significant enough to keep me interested. Not that I’d actually need a whole lot in the way of differences to get me hooked and keep me playing. It’s really the general idea of the game that I love. However, adding these little things has me coming back sooner than I might have when playing. There are new items to look for. New ways of doing things. A little ghost that you get to play with and gives you things if you want them.

Plus the city.

I like the idea of Redd always being there, because you might not have the money. Though. If you just don’t have the money ON you, you can run to the ATM. Except it’s not an ATM, it’s an ABD. Automatic Bell Dispenser. Gracie’s also got her own shop there. Her stuff costs an arm and a leg, but if you’ve got that sort of money, then why not, right?

My favorite thing, so far, is the fact that I was able to buy a beak. Now I can pretend to be an animal just like everybody else is. Currently, I have on a top hat, a tuxedo, and a bird beak. I wear that beak everywhere. With everything.

So call me a nerd. I’ve already admitted that I am, haven’t I?

I’m also quite fond of the idea that I don’t have to open my pockets every time I need to switch out my tools. Of course, if I’m doing a certain thing, like fishing, I often have my tools stored in letters, so I do have to open things up anyway, but it’s the idea that if I had my tools in my pockets, I could just hit left or right and there would be a new tool in my hand! If only they would have thought to make a separate pockets thingy for the tools. Then you could just have them all there all the time. But. They didn’t.

I do miss the left, right, and back extra rooms. But I’m glad for the addition of the basement.

Purposes and ideas

Now that there are a few more people actively looking at this thing, I thought that I might clarify a couple of things.

First, as I’ve said before, this entire blog has a focus on the geekier things of life, but within that, it has no particular focus. I like a large number of things, and feel the need for an outlet for all of them. There are handy tags, however, so that you can see opinions on video games, or movies, or television, or books, or really random shit that comes to mind.

Second, I might have a large focus on something for a long time and abruptly shift to something else. Like Star Wars. It seems as if the bulk of the posts for a long time were Star Wars, and that was because a lot of the things I was involved with at that time had to do with it. I had a very large series of books to read, I had a video game to play. Of course, I also have Star Wars in my every day life. But now suddenly, the focus seems to be vampires. Why? Because now there are a lot of vampire books being read. It doesn’t happen on purpose, I promise.

Third, I don’t truly review things. I give my opinion on them. I do my best to not reveal spoilers, or anything within what I’m writing about that I think people should discover on their own. I’m not going to give a large synopsis of what I’m writing about, because you can look that up elsewhere, and I really find that boring. The point of the reason I’m writing is because I find I want to talk about these things and either nobody around me has had experience with them, or cares. So my reviews aren’t really reviews at all. Just how I feel about it with a possible urging to others to pick it up or leave it the hell alone. This also means that I have no rating system. I’m not going to give something stars. Or anything else like that. My opinion is not going to be anybody else’s. I might think something is a lot better or a lot worse than somebody else. All you can do is read what I thought and go by that.

Fourth, I don’t really care what anybody else thinks. I mean I do, in such that I will pick something up if it’s recommended by somebody, but that’s about the extent of it. I’m not going to completely avoid something if I’m told that somebody doesn’t like it. I’m also not going to judge things based on what friends think. I don’t care if my friends don’t like something, I won’t hide the fact that I do, if I do. I will let them know that I did, in fact, enjoy it, and move on. I don’t expect people to like things because I do, either. Honest opinions are welcome. If you disagree with something I’ve said, then feel free to mention it. I don’t mind. But don’t get angry with me because I like something you don’t, or don’t like something you do. Don’t argue your points, don’t call me stupid. You can tell me WHY you didn’t or did, and we can have a rational discussion on it, but in this space opinions are respected. I like what I like, you like what you like. I also don’t really listen to reviewers. I’ve found too often that I don’t agree with them, so it’s best for me to just find out for myself.

So, there. I think that’s about it. I guess I can answer any other questions that there might be, but I can’t think of what they would consist of.

Let The Right One In

Last night I watched Let The Right One In. For those who might not know, it’s a Swedish vampire flick. I’d heard about it from a few different sources, and admittedly I was curious about it. Several reasons for this, really. One, I love vampires. Two, I love well done vampire movies. (Okay, sometimes I even like the really really bad ones, too) But three, and the most important I think, is that it sounded like something different. Something good. Something interesting.

The vampire in it is young. In fact, both of the main characters are young. So while the vampire isn’t actually young, she looks young. 12, in fact. It’s not very often that you get to see vampires of this age. Vampires that aren’t absolutely gorgeous specimens of adult life.

There’s another thing about the vampire. She’s not really a she.

I finally sat down and found it online and watched it. I have to say that I’m completely blown away by the entire thing. It was beautifully done. I’m in love.

And as with many things I find myself in love with, I have also found myself obsessed with it. I did a little bit of digging last night and discovered that there’s a book that this is based off of. I will have to get it.

I also found out that there’s going to be an English remake of it, and that the director intends to follow the book a little more closely. So it’ll be more of it’s own movie than it will be an exact replica or a true remake. I still have a bit of time to wait for this to come to be, so I suppose for right now I’ll satisfy myself with waiting for the DVD release of the Swedish version (March), and find the book.

Open letter to Best Buy

Dear Best Buy,

Please stop putting those fucking ridiculously impossible to remove stickers on my dvd packaging. Seriously. I know that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the world that don’t give a shit what you do, but you have to consider everybody, don’t you? There are those, like me, who are a little bit obsessive about getting all stickers off of our packaging before we can watch what we’ve just purchased.

So I’d really like it if it didn’t take me fifteen minutes to get the sticker off of my cardboard cover. I’d also like it if said sticker didn’t leave behind residue or bits of itself. Or the tell-tale indentation of my fingernails from where I sat scraping at the bastard thing for so long that I nearly forgot I had been intending to watch a movie in the first place.

The book stores understand this concept. They know that paper and cardboard are gentle and delicate things, which must be treated with kind hands and careful consideration. They have these magic stickers that stick… but don’t. They stay right where they need to stay until the moment of purchase, when the sticker can be peeled off with terrific ease. In one piece, even.

You can’t tell us that you’re worried that somebody’s going to switch the price on you. Because that’s what UPC codes are for. If something is truly on sale, then it’s going to be in your computer. If something is not, then it’s going to ring up as the right price. If you have a customer that attempts this, then you can point out the two dozen other copies on the shelf and the fact that they all say something vastly different.

This is no yard sale, Best Buy. You have technology. You have the ability to track this shit. You do. I’ve seen it. I’ve watched it used. And it’s not like you’re using these stickers as your theft sensors, are you? No. Because those are placed INSIDE the box these days. Inside. Where the disk is. People have to be really determined to steal shit these days. The sticker isn’t going to stop them if they’re really that into it.

It’s just going to make people like me incredibly frustrated. INCREDIBLY. Please. For the love of all things obsessive and/or compulsive, change your sticker glue. Change it! It’s a small change. A cheap change. I bet the bookstores would hook you up with their supplier if you asked nice.

Thanks.

-Me.

PS – This applies to all things, really. But in particular those things with fancy cardboard outerwear that gets ruined easy. Some of us like to keep them because they have pretty pictures on them.