PixlBit

Happy April Fool’s Day Pixlpeeps! I’m not a fan of all the tricks and what not associated with today so this is a safe zone. So how has the week treated you good people? My week has some ups and downs and today I need to take a break from exercise because around my shin it is a bit sore. Other than that everything is good and besides can you really complain when the weekend is here? Let’s get started with Quick Hits!

Chris Watches…

House of Cards – Netflix: I finished off this past season yesterday and I didn’t see this season finale coming. Of course I am once again left wondering how the Underwood’s are going to get out of this situation but in previous seasons there is always a way. Next season should be fun.

Girls – HBO: I think this season might be my favorite in the series because the characters seem more interesting and not whiney. I also like the more character specific episodes with Shosh in Japan and last night’s Marnie wandering around NY while her husband (really annoying) is left at their apartment. I’m wondering if the writers will reunite Marine and Ray.

Batman vs. Superman Black Bar Edition (same rules highlight if you want to read, if not skip, we're still friends)

I usually wake up around 6:30am and watch the morning news until 7 when I get up and I decided to check out what time the swanky theater opens and it turns out the first showing was at 9am. I bought my tickets through the app, reserved my seat and I was off…after I finished Monday’s blog.

 

This was my seat! The theater was maybe 25% full and I saw my old Chemistry Partner from High School. She was there with her kids and she had that “We know each other look, but I don’t know where” look. I smiled and sat there enjoying my breakfast popcorn and root beer.

Black Box Time!

Ok so this movie is not good, but it isn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. Ben Afflick wasn’t bad as Batman, in fact he was probably the most interesting character in the movie. It would have been nice to have more Jeremy Irons’ Alfred in the flick and hopefully there is more in the upcoming flicks. Superman was the usual guy from Man of Steel. As for the universe that was created for the film I don’t get why Gotham and Metropolis are so close yet Superman wasn’t aware of Batman in Gotham. The worst thing about this film was easily Lex Luthor. He was flat out annoying. When I think of Lex I think a cool, evil genius who will stop at nothing to stop Superman, not some yahoo who speaks fast, while flailing arms and needs to step away from the multiple cans of Redbull. Kevin Spacey should have been given another crack at Lex (his first version was stuck in a horrible movie), hell the guy from Smallville would have been good.

The movie just wasn’t exciting, even for a Summer Popcorn flick. The buildup/similarities between both characters was obvious, especially when they were going on at the same time, especially with this whole “Superman can rule the world if he wanted to” storyline which really didn’t fit with the end of Man of Steel. The grand fight scenes I was more “its about time” instead of “heck yeah.” I remember reading awhile back about the lost Superman flick that was never made and it seems like they borrowed from that script and slapped it on this one.

Overall BvsS isn’t worth the hype, it is a decent summer flick that falls flat in trying to be as interesting as The Avengers, but hopefully with the other character driven movies that will eventually lead up to Justice League it will get better.

 

The OC – DVD: Because of Pop TV I got back into The OC and that was a major factor in wanting to rip my DVDs to iTunes. After spending a couple of days ripping all four seasons (only two episodes from Season 3 wouldn’t convert) I have the series sitting on my iPad.

For you folks that don’t know the show, it ran from like 2002-2006 and it was about a kid from Chino who got into trouble and his public defender took him in to live with his family with the rich folks in Newport Beach. It was a good teen drama that had sprinkled in comedy and had a bunch of really good music (I think this is where I first heard about Modest Mouse). It involved Ryan and Seth playing video games, reading comics, and getting into trouble. Good stuff.

 

Aztecs Basketball – The season ended for my Aztecs at Madison Square Garden. It was tough but like our student section wrote something like: “in our worse year in six seasons, we won the conference, and are NIT semifinalists.” Can’t complain when there are two new banners that will be hung at Viejas Arena, and the last time we were in this spot, the Aztecs made the Sweet 16, were ranked as high as #4, and everyone was on the bandwagon. Speaking of bandwagon, some of our “devoted” decided to sh*t on this squad for not meeting their expectations. Yeah because my happiness revolves around what a team of 18-22 year olds do. Sorry but there is a line between supporting your team, and being happy/sad based on a game. To me its entertainment, I’m happy when the team wins, bummed when they lose, but five minutes later I’ve moved on. Some older fans can’t grasp how to be a gracious winner, and loser, and that is the most depressing thing about our fanbase.

 

Chris Listens To…

I made some progress on my backlog of podcasts and one of the episodes of The Adam Carolla Show where he had David Wild and they provided commentary on Benny Mardones “Into The Night” music video. The line that got me was something about why was Benny older than the dad of the teen girl he was trying to see. I’ll listen to more of my podcasts later on today because I’m hitting the section of my playlist that involves Channel 33 and their reviews of some TV Shows and Batman vs Superman. As for my current iTunes unplayed count, last week I was at 12,296 and as of the time I screen shot my iTunes library, around an hour ago it currently stands at

 

 I got rid of most of my mixtapes because they were garbage. I don’t want the producer yelling over an artist’s track. Why even listen to something like that?

 

I saw that Kanye eased up on his “my album will only be available on Tidal”

 

I guess he realized his album is the most pirated in recent history. I really don’t care about Yeezy at this point. Heck I haven’t care enough since 808s because the stuff after that has been stuff I don’t want to listen to. I bought Yeezus and Watch The Throne, but the tracks on there don’t live on my iPod.

 

Randoms:

So early one morning I received this from Facebook

 

I live in Southern California. A couple of my friends from other states said they also received the same message. Go home Facebook, you’re drunk.

 

Saw this on Reddit and it made me laugh

 

 

Pickups!

Games

It has been a busy week for games but on a positive I didn’t spend a lot, heck I think it was less than $20.

First game is a Wii game from a GameStop my cousin and I stopped at on the way home from a trip. The store was the size of a closet but I managed to find something cool for under $2

 

I had this game at a local GS but they couldn’t find the disc. Now I have it in the library. Most likely it isn’t good, but it a game I wanted to try.

The next game I got through a website called GameChanger. They were offering the Steam key to Tomb Raider for a $1 donation. I donated and got

 

I already played the game on PS3, but I thought it would be fun to give it a go on Steam. Anyways if you want to donate here is a link to the GameChanger website.

I can’t remember when I bought this game but I know it was cheap, I used Steam credit, and I wanted to own this game since the Playstation.

 

Yeah I have the newer game but it is always fun to go back and play the older stuff and besides it’s a game I wanted to play again.

 

Graphically Ryse is a beautiful game. I’d like to see how this game looks on a supped up desktop, because if it looks good on a laptop, it has to be insanely good on a more powerful system. Oh Ryse was a midweek special for $5 on Steam.

Metro was on sale on GOG.com and if I bought both Metro games I’d save like a dime. Each game was $4.99 but if you bought them in a bundle it was $9.90. My cousin said to give them a try and I downloaded the GOG version of Steam and installed my free games as well.

The final paid game was this one from Chrono.gg for $2 during one of their daily deals

 

I talked about it on Monday’s blog. It’s a fun game where you run around in an arena taking out bad guys.

 

The next couple of games are freebies

I had to jump through some hoops to get a Steam key for this game

 

You basically had to follow the developers on Social Media and in Steam to get a Steam key. The game itself is kind of like Katamari except here the ball is used to destroy the environment to the amusement of the higher being.

 

From the Windows Store this game was a freebie but it weighs in at 21+ GB

 

This game is the ultimate in microtransactions because to use my favorite character I have to pay $5

 

Hahaha you’re cute Windows.

 

I thought I’d pass this along to you folks. I saw this website and I figured you folks would get a kick out of it

 

There are a bunch of older games on here for free. The download is a bit slow, but they come with CD Keys and the patches are on the game’s page. I have a couple of the Command & Conquer games along with MK 4. Here is a link to My Abandonware Website

 

Lego

From the Target Easter Clearance wall for $2

 

 

I’m hoping the Target by the swanky theater has them at 50% off so I can stock up on Olaf minifigures and build up a small Firefighter army.

 

Alright Pixlbit I am off, have a good weekend and don’t forget Wrestlemania is this Sunday! (NXT Takeover Dallas tonight is going to be a better show)

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris

 

For today’s song of the week, while I was typing this blog I had iTunes playing and Kingston Town by UB40

 

It sounds really familiar and after a couple of seconds it hits me

 

No shame, I own this album for this song. As for the original, UB40 covered it from an artist named Lord Creator

 

Have a good weekend!