On Sunday, I got to partake in the awesomeness that is acting in a short film with some of the coolest people I know. Here is a short synopsis:

In the not so distant dystopian future, there is very little to drink… let alone the refreshing goodness of a diet drank!

That is all you need to know. Watch the cheese-laden wonderfulness:



And just because I can, here is a mugshot of my character.



I felt so bad ass!

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Fail.

Some may recall a blog I posted a little while back about girls and gaming. You might also recall that I mentioned that female gamers seem to be fewer in number, and are sometimes treated as oddities by their male counterparts. To upset the balance further, a company called GameCrush has decided to try and make things even more polarized by offering a service where you can PAY to play games with sexy girls. Because, you know, no sexy girls would want to play games with you unless they’re paid to do so.

From IGN.com’s article:

On GameCrush, guys are Players and girls are PlayDates. Players pay to play and PlayDates get paid to play. Guys can browse PlayDate profiles (there are currently around 1,200), view photos, and even chat with girls for free. Publicityhazard’s turn ons include vibrating controllers, for instance, and is turned off by three red lights. Once you find a gal you fancy you send her a game invite and if she accepts you get six to ten minutes of one-on-one gaming time. PlayDates have the ability to block any guy they want for any reason. When the service launches tomorrow it will only support the Xbox 360 and a few casual games hosted on the GameCrush website, but there are plans to add PlayStation 3, Wii, and World of Warcraft support as soon as possible.

How sad is that? As the subhead on TechRadar’s article reads:

Buying girls’ attention? Isn’t there a word for that?

I also have a few more words for it: eww, eww and eww with a side of eww for dipping.

Of course we all know this service will turn a profit. Then again, so does prostitution and stripping. (The chicks joining this service are just trying to pay their way through college too, right?)

According to IGN, GameCrush’s payment system was calculated to be about the price of buying a girl a drink at a bar ($8.25). This price translates to about 10 minutes of game play. The girls on this system get to keep about 60 percent of the cash they bring in, and can store it in their virtual g-string. (So I made that last part up, what’re you going to do about it?)

After completing a gaming, er, session…players can rate their “PlayDate” on things like gaming skill, hotness and flirtiness. Those with the highest ratings will receive preferred placement on the site. Remind me again how this system isn’t just a computerized pimp? All it needs is a fuzzy hat and a mean backhand.

I know no one is forcing these girls to join in, but I still find the whole thing extremely creepy and pathetic not only for the girls, but for the guys using this service. Maybe you should get off your lazy butt and go to a strip club or something, at least that way you’d be getting exercise for more than your right hand.

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What is 8.13? I can’t tell you what it is, just that it’s coming…

…you’ve been warned.

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Make friends with Mr. Period.

I know that I have a tendency to grouse about any number of things on a regular basis. While I do have a tendency towards hyperbole, there is one thing that really does bother me as much as I say it does: proper grammar and spelling. This is especially true of e-mails I receive during my work day.

At times I wonder if people have forgotten that correct spelling and grammar are more than just a formality, and that sentence structure and paragraphs exist for a reason. These things are tools meant to help you convey something to the receiver, and have it be understood correctly. As we are all aware, reading can be a very subjective process. It is easy to misinterpret information and tone without any other sort of context. The better job you can do at making your statements clear, the better chance it will have of being deciphered accurately.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not asking that everyone be exemplary spellers with a wide vocabulary, or use loads of punctuation. I’m also not saying that making a mistake is unacceptable. All I’m saying is that even an elementary school knowledge should have been able to set people up with the ability to construct basic, simple and concise sentences. Sometimes I get e-mails that make me feel like I should print them up, mark corrections in red pen and then send them back with a grade. Many people wouldn’t pass.

With regard to spelling, almost every program you can type in these days is equipped with a spellchecker. Even web browsers now carry this technology, so yes, you too can correctly spell words in your Facebook updates. However, this technology is a tool, not a substitute for thinking. A spellchecker is not going to be able to discern if you know the difference between there, their and they’re. Nor will it help you with your, you’re, were, we’re, accept, except, should have, should of, should’ve, etc. These words are not interchangeable, and using the incorrect one can completely change the meaning of a statement. For example, I was at the mall some years ago and there was a promotional car parked on the walkway. Someone thought it would be funny to write on the paper license plate. Unless they had a very odd sense of humour, what they wrote was incorrect. Instead of writing “you’re gay” they wrote “your gay”. As in, “here, take this gay. It was my gay, but now it’s your gay.”

Of course, there are times where proper spelling and grammar are difficult to carry out. I don’t fault people on World of Warcraft (well, sometimes I do) for typing in short hand so that they can get back to killing things. I suppose I can also handle the odd text message containing things meant to replace actual words like “2″, “U” and “R”, even though they make me die a little inside. I also don’t fault people who are not native English speakers. I DO fault those who are writing professional e-mails, but can’t be bothered to capitalize the first letters of sentences or use any sort of logical punctuation. I know they are capable of typing in caps because they will emphasize something completely unnecessary by TYPING IT LIKE THIS.

I know I’m not perfect. I know no one is perfect. The thing is, there is a difference between making an error and not even trying. I also know I’m not the only one irritated by the disinterest people have in their writing, so I leave you with a link to the Punctuation Pals from Penny-Arcade. You’re welcome.

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I want a sweet duster like that.

I finally managed to grab my Bluray copy of Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. I saw the movie in theatres originally and I was itching to see it again.

To give a short summary; kids go to see freak show, vampire has cool pet spider, kid screws with vampire’s pet spider, spider bites kid’s friend, kid goes to ask vampire to help friend, vampire bites kid, vampire saves friend, friend wants to be bitten by vampire, Salma Hayek with a beard. Everyone got that? (In all seriousness, the story is fairly solid and I’m just too lazy to type it all up. You can read an actual synopsis here.)

While I very much enjoyed this movie, it got slammed by critics. This is one of those rare times where I can kind of understand why they had problems with it. It’s a movie that can’t seem to decide if it’s for kids or for teenagers, so ends up being for neither. There is language and violence that make this difficult to show a kid, but there are elements that teenagers are going to find too juvenile.

The fact that the movie didn’t do well is really a shame. It’s a fun movie with an interesting array of characters. John C. Reilly wasn’t an actor that came to mind when I thought “vampire”, but that’s kind of what’s nice about it. Oddly enough, the real show stealer is Evra the Snake Boy, played by Patrick Fugit. He managed to infuse a fair amount of comedy into his character and make him seem less like someone who is half serpent and more like a teenager with some unfortunate form of green acne.

The overall character designs for the film are fun and interesting. (Even though it certainly had one of the ugliest, if not THE ugliest, wolf men I’ve ever seen.) Even though many of the freaks at the cirque are bit characters, each actor seemed to work really hard to infuse them with some sort of distinct personality. With such a large cast it’s nice to see a group effort rather than characters that are really nothing more than set dressings.

The effects in the film aren’t great, but they’re passable. It was nice to see that they attempted practical effects when possible instead of going a pure CGI route. The actual style of the film is very sharp and appealing.

At its core, the film has a lot of heart and likable characters. It probably needed some more sorting to help it better find its audience, but ends up being highly entertaining regardless. I’d actually love to see a sequel, but with the abysmal reviews, I’m fairly sure one won’t be made. Luckily it is based off of a book series, so there’s still a way to find out what happens next.

If you’re inclined to give it a chance, I would encourage it. It has more elements to enjoy than to criticize.

Final Score: 4 out of 5.

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