Scullder's Awards 2011

You know what time it is, right? It's time for .... THE (almost) YEARLY AWARDS !!!

Yes, last year I was pretty much a mess, so I didn't do it, but here it is ... a looong all in one post:

Off the Chart ... 3

A while ago, right after coming back from Thai, I was very happy to receive the delivery of Uncharted 3, which I have been waiting in much anticipation.

Uncharted 1 was my favorite game of the year ... and so was Uncharted 2 , so  I was a bit afraid that maybe the third one will flop ... but ... what do you know? It is very possibly the best game I ever played, don't-know-how-they-pulled-it-off better than the previous two ...

If you like gaming ... and own a PS3 ... you need this ... right now...

Drake came and left again into the sunset ... and I find myself eagerly waiting his return ... AGAIN

Heavy Crunch

Aaaaaaand we're back. It's been a really crazy crazy month @ work, real commando grenades exploding s#it going down ... so ... no blogging ... or much of anything else ... Hopefully things are back to normal now, which feels kinda strange ... but even John Rambo needs to take a break every once in a while ...

Driven

After hearing about the movie Drive and watching some sneak peeks of a couple of scenes I was very decided that this is a movie I must see ... that it is the movie I have been waiting for since ... well ... quite some time now. Apparently, a bunch of other people had the same feeling, only they were expecting to see either the follow-up to their previously favorite blockbuster

Or maybe the first episode in the rumoured spinoff movies following the exploding amazing success of adrenaline pumping action packing 

Well ... the GOOD news is that, after watching the movie, one of those people decided to open a law suit against the producers of Drive as it did not meeting her very high expectations. So for all you people out there hoping to see some fast pace action including but not limited to Vin Diesel jumping from one rooftop to another shooting three pistols and throwing five grenades at the same time while driving a good old fashioned muscle car ... wait for the next Fast and Furious ... or you may feel like filing a lawsuit ...

For anyone else, go see Drive if you want to see what is probably the best movie of the decade... if only for the music ... or the guy ...

Peace, Quiet ... or something like that ... and a ton of Gold

Thai temples ... a place of tranquillity ... a place of meditation ... the perfect place for ... 

...standing in awe in the face of long lasting divine statues erected many many years ago ... or...

... visiting a creepy Thai version of Madame Tussauds (yea it's made of WAX) ... or ...

taking a hip new pic for your boring Facebook profile ...

Did I mention they've also got GOLD?

There's literally TONS AND TONS OF GOLD!!!

Eye shattering, mindblowing tons of GOLD!!

GOLD, IN THE NAME OF GOD!!! GOOOOLD!

Food Contact

So, I already wrote what I did before and after, and, after two weeks of not sitting on my butt and doing nothing, here comes the true story of what went down in Thailand ... There was adventure, excitement and reeelaxiation but probably most of all ... there was FOOD!

But let me back up a bit ... After a couple of flights and almost one day later we landed in Chang Mai. We took a taxi to our nice hotel, and this was the first time we noticed something I may blabber about a couple of times over here: contrast ... but more on that later. It was already evening, and, as my incredible advisor D. told me, in Chang Mai this is the moment you need to go towards the night market and stop along the way to eat. And eat we did ... the contact with the crowded market is a bit fuzzy in my mind as is the bar with cheeky girls we passed along the way, but what I remember is that we had an amazing dinner. It is only this moment that I remember as ... first contact.

fishy fishy ... and its ##$! spicy sauce ...

We ate all sorts of many things, some (much) more spicier than others. Chang beer flew and the incredible sticky rice with mango topped it off ... it was a real burp... and all this royal treat for about 5 eur /  person ... y a y !

Later on the girls got a quick foot massage during which we took a sneak peak around, where we saw some pretty lame muai thai fighting, bars, drinks and .... deep fried bugs.

fried bugs make thai woman happy

 
I didn't get a clear shot ... maybe it's for the best...

So here we were ... a bunch of confused tourists walking the back alleys of Chang Mai after a 24 hours trip ... the atmosphere in the air was very positive and the food was great. It had proven to be a very good first evening out into welcoming Thailand, and the best ... was yet to come ...

A Shocking Difference

So ... after two weeks we are back from Thailand! It was quite amazing and I hope to manage to blog about it all right here. Uhm ... what was that, sorry? The pic is not from Thailand ... yeah, about that ... step into my office for a few minutes.

For our first day back we decided to clear our heads and went on a short trip to Germany to visit some castle there...

It was an impressive building in the mountains, and we had a short hike through the woods, when we took some pretty pics as well as stretched our legs.

Once inside the castle we realized that you could only visit on a guided tour. Which should be OK... only we were in a group of 20 germans and the guide locked the door with the key and then went on for about 20 minutes blabbering in ... german (doh) ... Which was bad enough, but things got worse when I decided to take a closer look at our new German friends as I really didn't have anything better to do. I noticed that in my vicinity I had a couple of reverse-smiling cyborg ice queens accompanied by their male vorg counterparts. They seldom came out of silence with precise questions about the year in which the archbishop of Cologne went on to do something way to unimportant for me not to instantly forget and every time they "smiled" I could feel a shiver going up my spine. I couldn't help remembering our driver from the tuc-tuc just the day before in Bangkok. He was so happy about ... everything ... telling us in sign language how the water was up to around here in that area over there at some point and then asked some happy people in another tuc-tuc next to us where they were staying and then told us laughing that we should go see the ping-pong match. He kept telling us all kinds of jokes before he dropped us off and drove on further in the half crazy trafic...

Somewhere ... something ... went ... wrong?

So yeah ... that's something I'm still thinking about ... Gute Fahrt!

The Last Place on Earth

... you want to find yourself in the day before leaving for two weeks in Thailand is this:

Yes ... I have spent half of my day waiting to see if I will leave tomorrow or not ... apparently I'm not THAT unlucky ... Thailand (floods), HERE WE COME !!

Killzone 3 in 2

Frightened by the DREADFUL HELGHAST?

Feeling overwhelmed by their MASSIVE MACHINERY?

Fearful that controlling ONYL ONE MINIGUN JUST DOESNT CUT IT?

FEAR NO MORE! Bring a buddy along, and let those horrifying Helghast get a taste of their own medicine!

SPLATTER twice as much! 

STAB for two! 

DETONATE double the amount! 

Killzone 3, sharing the adventure with a friend on the same screen!

P.S. Thanks to M. for sharing this adventure :D. And yeah, you really need to play Killzone 3, it is simply AMAZING!

Friends with dirty Benefits

Some time ago I saw this awful awful movie where a guy and a girl try to be friends who do the dirty dirty thingie without having a proper relationship ... When I found out that somebody's making a mirror movie with the mirror of Natalie Portman I vowed not in a million years to go see it.
So, of course, I went to see Friends with Benefits last week ... in my defense, I was actually hoping to see Shark Attack 3D or whatever the name is ... mmmyeah ... what I meant was that I just had to see Justin Timberlake banging Mila Kunis .... maybe it's better just to skip all apologies and proceed ...

The Story ... Not much to tell here, two people humping repeatedly and finally falling in love ... only in Friends with Benefits it's just ... better ...  

Her ... Mila Kunis manages to hang on to her Natalie Portman mirror status, so I would put the two on par...

Him ... I guess the difference was made by Justin ... because he's about one gazillion times better than Ashton Kutcher played by Ashton Kutcher...

Woody Harrelson... wait, say what? There was no Woody Harrelson in No Script Attached ... yes, that's exactly my point, that's probably why it sucked so bad ...

So, should you go see Friends with Benefits if you already saw No Script Attached? Yup, you will not regret it ... in fact there are a couple of very strong reasons for watching the movie like seeing Justin naked .... or Mila naked ... or both together naked ... just don't be too disappointed when you find out it wasn't actually Mila's butt ...

Puppets with M

Remember the Muppets?

Well, apparently there's a movie coming out, and it has a bunch of trailers ... for other movies ... it's quite a funny way of promoting the movie since I hate how others just spoil it and give you the only 2 minutes actually worth seeing.

There's a bunch of these but here they are all together. If this is a lazy Friday, enjoy!



Hangover 2


Green lantern


Some random romantic comedy ...


The girl with the dragon tatoo




Actually ... I was kidding, there is also a real trailer, here it is ...


Myeah, maybe it would have been better to stick with the parody teasers ...

The Royal Hamster

Following the departure of our mad baboon, we were left riding the donkey for a couple of weeks. But, the waiting is over, and here is the new .... hamster (?).

As seen here invading the small roads of Luxembourg, our hamster is white, topless and has a ... royal appeal ... which I think can be better seen in the next pic.

Oh boy, finally some royalty I can like cause I can't stand royal families ... except the Grand Duke's, which is quite cool.

Long live the ... hamster! It has already won our hearts.

Summer Rollin'

While looking at the HEAVY GREY clouds sitting 10 meters above my head, I remembered that there was this ONE day a while ago when we could do this:

Ahhh ... funky donkey ... rest well in the garage, my friend ... your time will come again ... but maybe not very soon ....

I believe I can fly?

Wanna se something quite impressive? Take a look at the vid below:



Now, that's impressive... but you know what would be even more impressive (yes it is possible)?

That thing above streaming 3D cam to this:

I can't wait till we all have implants in our brains and can't get off the couch 'cause we're too lazy or fat to do anything for real...

Superman's ... New Costume

While looking at that pic above, I bet we're all thinking the same thing ... Shouldn't Superman have a BIGGER S on his chest?? Then there's the problem of the missing red panties ... I don't know why but I think it downplays his ... visual impact. It's just not hitting you in the face HARD enough, know what I mean?

Does anyone have a spare potato on hand?

Corporal America

So ... here came Captain America : The First Avenger ... with his ... well ... skinny body, at first.

But then ...KAPOWWWW MOTHERF#KEEEERZZZ

By the time, he started parading his muscles around everybody was jumping up and down their seats with excitement. And then ... it came ... the panic mode of Hollywood screenwriters who just spent half the movie building a good story and realized they needed to insert 157 (onehundredandfiftyseven) explosions into the movie as it was expressly demanded by the producers. This resulted, of course, in a complete mess. The story starts rolling around more frantic than a dog who's got a score to settle with his own tail. We get explosions here, fights there, explosions everywhere. Who, how, does not matter, all we want is some freaking EXPLOZIONZZZZ!!!! Yeah ... or something like that ...

Even they don't know what the f@#k is goin' on...

Somebody could have saved the day, and it was none other than Red skull Schmidt.Unfortunately, somebody else was so happy they got "the bad guy from Matrix" that they decided to continually wink at us with this. We get perfect replicas of two Matrix scenes with Agent Schmidt and they never really build the character, probably deciding to rely on the character buildup from Matrix. In the end the character is ... weak ... and very forgettable.

Captain America could have done Great ... he did almost OK ... I'm getting quite concerned with regards to that Avengers movie ...

The Yellow-Brown ... Monster

Starting with Fantastic 4 Silver Surfer, it looks like the shapeless monster came to become a habit in big budget Hollywood movies. They have it more or less in transformers as well, but it did not have until now a clear identity, it was too shapeless... to generic to be truly frightening ... well ... prepare to fear the shapeless monster ... forever...

I was expecting Green Lantern to be a movie about a hot heterosexual guy wearing a green ring and still managing to remain secure about his sexuality ... I was wrong ... it's about a hot heterosexual guy wearing a green ring fighting ... a very bad case of DIARRHEA... in outer space ... in 3D. The huge diarrhea monster feeds from everyone's fear, because let's face it, what could be more  frightening than diarrhea hitting you RIGHT NOW? Well ... I can't really think of anything else that would frighten me more ... except maybe having to go to see another movie as terribly crappy as Green Lantern...

Oh ... Blake Lively is also in the movie ... playing Blake Lively ... and some other guy who's performance consists mostly in screaming like a wimp ... and a bunch of CGI characters that can't act ...

I was expecting this movie to be bad ... instead it was a big pile of green pooh ... with yellow diarrhea on top ... in 3D ... yeah...

Apes will go Bananas

When hearing about monkeys taking over the planet, you can't help but wonder how in the hell would some monkeys ever be able to take out the human population with its superior numbers and technology. Well, even though it has been done before in another monkey related movie, the answer from Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a pretty good one. I hope I didn't just spoil it for anyone back there ... The monkeys launch nuclear missiles with their butts! There ... I said it ...

Other than that, the movie has good acting, often crappy visual fx and the story often wonders in the naivety sector ... very often ... all in all its a decent movie, which is all I can hope for these days.

Watch out, nuclear butt missile coming down ...

Back to the Movies ... again ...

Remember how a few weeks back I was happy about going to see a bunch of movies and playing video games? Well ... apparently it's another movie marathon week, as I should go see the following:

- Raving apes taking over the world;
- Some guy who wears a green ring but still remains confident about his sexuallity;
- Some kind of E.T. remake where he goes bazookas and blows s#it up;
- Another guy, wearing red tights, hoping to finally win America some gold medals in the Olympics throwing challenges;
- A bunch of blue midgets running crazy around Manhattan;
- James Bond, traveling through time to fight aliens with guns from the wild wild west ....for fun

Plus, I really need to write something about this Heavy Rain thing ... it's gonna be a busy busy busy week.

There and back again ...

I just wanted to report that I managed to avoid being eaten by werewolves in Kiskunfélegyháza, where I spent the night on the way to Bucharest. Otherwise, the trip was quite nice, one last journey together man and baboon, it was difficult to part ways but some things just need to happen ...

So, now it's back to sunny Luxembourg, where the weather is really beginning to get on my nerves ...

The long way home ...

This weekend I will make the longest trip of my life by car ... again. The baboon is heading back home and I will be taking on the trip by myself this time.

So ... Bucharest here I come ... 2100Km to go ... whish me good luck. Hopefully I will report in halfway there.

The end of Transformers

Yesterday evening we went to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and THANK GOD they said it would be THE LAST from the series, because if I see robots fighting on the highway and robots fighting on skyscrapers one more time my brain will blow up.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start so I will just say that the cast was ... welll ... problematic. You see, we have all the guys from the previous movies coming back, but instead of the already annoying Megan Fox we have the theatrical debut of ... a wooden plank:

I know, without all the makeup it may look confusing so I will try to clear things up by posting some images from the movie. Let's start with the exact same dumb wooden plank look above, only with some makeup on:

We can then go right into the middle of the action with this VERY EXCITING shot:

 

And what I can only assume whas happening behind the cameras ...

Unfortunately, showing off the butt on 500 centimeter heels and in ONE GAZILLION many different outfits didn't help too much ... Quite on the contrary, I felt as if I went in to see Transformers and every once in a while I was forced to watch a VERY poorly acted lame scene from the latest Sex and the City movie.
For CHRIST SAKE IT"S A F-ING ALIEN INVASION!!!! Who wears FIVE HUNDRED CENTIMETER HEELS to an ALIEN INVASION????  ... it was ... unbearable ...

In the other movie I was watching, as in any great Michael Bay movie, the U S of A brave and proud soldiers make another appearance and kick some serious alien robot butt, defending once again this great nation that is America and also in the process saving once again Earth from slavery in the hands of mean aliens from outer space.

So ... how bad was it? ... between watching THE EXACT F-ING SAME robots fighting each other scenes on highways and skyscrapers and watching a wooden plank parade around in fancy dresses on high heels, it was .... HORRENDOUS ...

Infamoused

Part of my games and movies week, here comes my blabbering about PS3 game Infamous.

In the wake of the Playstation Network mega-hack, when 70 MILLION user accounts were compromised, Sony thought it needs to come up with something impressive if it wants to reconcile with all those people that got hacked. So, they decided to offer for FREE to all these people a selection of some of the best PS3 and PSP games available. This is how Infamous and I met ...

The game starts off very well. There is a very very nice feeling of progression throughout the game, as the main character gathers new powers. The "I got the power!" feeling is very intense, especially towards the end when you really can (and surely will) blow some serious s#it up!! Also, during the game you can choose between the GOOD path and the BAD. I chose good, of course (?) and this means that towards the end you have to watch it because you are a mean machine of pure destruction that can really make a LOT of collateral victims... which in the end contributes AGAIN to that whoa I am so powerful feeling.

The story has some nice twists and the one at the very end managed to take me by surprise, which is quite ... surprising.

What I think is the best way I can describe the game is the way I felt after playing it, because as soon as the credits started rolling I thought to myself two things:

I want to play Infamous 2 ... now.

And ... This was cool, I want to play Infamous 1 AGAIN! But this time, I'll squash all those puny pedestrian human beings that stand between me and additional POWER!! MUWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

The End of Harry Potter

We decided to kick off the week with Harry Potter. So ... our dirty Harry has finally come to an end ... The movie was quite OK, but it does have it's bitty problem.

I seriously don't know who came up with the idea of splitting a movie in two parts ... it sucked for Matrix, and it sure sucks for our Harry, although admitedly not THAT hard. Basically, after the first movie they were left with an epic battle for the second one. Which means that about two thirds of the movie is a big climatic battle. Which makes it quite hard to have a climax ... of the climax. So, in the end the movie feels a bit flat and doesn't really manage to create this BIG moment of confrontation between Harry and the skinhead vandal.

Oh, and remember that mean uber-uvil witch Beatrix that killed Doby, the most lovable character from the entire series? She is killed by ... a mildly revolted old cleaning lady ...?

Otherwise, the movie was OK, 3D looked quite impressive, not very intrussive, story does some twists, some more predictable than others, some more confusing, it was OK overall ...

Myeah ... it's sad to see you go Harry ... you had only just begun to manage to keep Andreea awake ...

Back to the Movies

After quite some time without movies, we have decided to come back strong this week. We will start off with Harry, continue with Transformers and finish off with something quite special, Heavy Rain, the incredible PS3 game-movie.

I'm soo excited ...

What's even better is that we will go to the movies riding the donkey, which after 1 year and a half of struggle is FINALLY hittin tha streets of Luexmburger!! yaaaaaaaa!!

P.S. Yes, that amazing trooper on the left is part two of my incredible birthday gift!