Rock Band - "Swing Swing"

It had been awhile since I played some Rock Band and Angelise asked if I wanted to play some "tunes" with her.

Catfish

A documentary-style movie, Catfish tells the story of Yaniv "Nev", who strikes up a Facebook friendship with Abby, an 8-year old prodigy artist from Michigan who sees Nev's pictures online and decides to send him a painting of one of his pictures. Impressed with her talent, Nev urges her to do more and in the process becomes online friends with her, her mother Angela and her 19-year old sister Megan. Nev and Megan, an aspiring model/singer/dancer, continue to keep in touch and start developing feelings for one another over the course of 8 months. Nev, however, grows suspicious of Megan when mp3's that she sends him claiming to be her recordings are in fact of other people's performances on YouTube. When a job assignment takes Nev, his brother Ariel "Rel" and best friend/filmmaking partner Henry to nearby Vail, Colorado, Nev decides it's time to drop in on Megan and her "family". The results are quite surprising.

I highly recommend this documentary and urge those that do decide to see it, not to look into the details online as to not have the outcome spoiled.

Bad Teacher (R Rated Trailer)

WARNING: R RATED TRAILER WITH ADULT LANGUAGE. DO NOT PLAY WITH KIDS NEARBY.

Starring Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Justin Timberlake and The Office's Phyllis Smith.

Nemesis (Icon Comics)

"What if Batman was the Joker?" That was the caption Mark Millar used to tease his new creator owned title at Marvel's Icon Comics division before it's release last March of 2010. He had a few other captions but his favorite was "What if Batman was a c*nt?" With a description like that, wouldn't that interest you? It definitely got me interested.

Nemesis has financial resources and combat skills similar to Batman but uses it for evil, making him the ultimate non-superpowered villian. Wealthy and cunning, Nemesis travels the world and informs the top cops in major cities that he's on his way and gunning for them. No amount of preparation on their behalf can prevent him from reaching his goal of getting his mark and leaving devastation in his wake.

Written by Mark Millar and penciled by Steve McNiven, Nemesis packs alot of action and mayhem in the 4-issue miniseries. Millar and McNiven also collaborated together on Marvel's Civil War and Wolverine: Old Man Logan. Two of Millar's previous books, Wanted and Kick-Ass, have already been made into movies. Nemesis becomes his 2nd book behind Kick-Ass to get picked up by Hollywood to be made into a movie, after only 2 issues.

I just got around to reading all 4 issues of Nemesis and enjoyed it enough that I ordered the hardcover to keep in my collection and share with my family and friends. I look forward to see what Millar has in store for Nemesis in the next volume.

How long has it been?!?

June 2010. That was my last blog post. Hard to believe. While so much has happened in the last 7+ months, I've only "talked" about it via twitter. Although I don't have many, if any, currently following my blog, I do miss putting down my thoughts on topics that interest me. With many exciting things happening in 2011 in the world of baseball, graphic novels, home theater, movies, TV shows and video games, I'll drop by every now and again with my thoughts. Happy New Year everyone!

Puerto Rican Festival 2010

After work, I headed over to the festival in spanish harlem and met up with Maria and Javier. It was the first time I've ever been there and had a pretty good time in the 2 hours we spent there. Managed to get a Monster Energy drink calendar signed by two of their beautiful models and have their picture taken with Maria. Pretty cool.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Another "comic book" (tpb) comes to the big screen. Looking forward to this one just as much as Kick-Ass. :)

Dead Space 2 In-Game Footage

Oh my, this game can't get here soon enough. The sequel to my 2007 Game of the Year winner, Dead Space 2 is definitely my most anticipated game right now.

Ever since getting back into comics last year, I've been enjoying many quality comics and graphic novels. One that I missed on was Kick-Ass. Having been released 4-5 months prior to me getting back into the hobby, the first few Kick-Ass comics had become hard-to-find collector's items that had been commanding a pretty penny on auction sites. Although I was anxious to read what all the hoopla was about, I decided to wait around for the inevitable graphic novel instead of dropping some serious coin on eBay for those first issues. But when the graphic novel finally released, the wait sure was worth it.

Kick-Ass tells the story of Dave Lizewski, a comic book loving high schooler and son to a single father. Dave wonders why no one has ever tried to become a real life super-hero and takes it upon himself to give it a try by purchasing a costume on eBay and roaming the rooftops in search of people in need while his dad works the overnight shift. While coming to the aid of a young man being mugged by a gang, Dave suffers a severe beating that requires numerous operations and months of physical rehabilitation. Before long, he's off crutches and back out roaming the rooftops. His next encounter proves more positive as he successfully defends someone in need and manages to catch the attention of a nearby passerby who records the action on his cellphone and uploads it to YouTube where Dave becomes an instant celebrity known as "Kick-Ass". I won't go further into the story as not to spoil it for those that may be interested in purchasing the book or seeing the film. Otherwise, check Wikipedia for more on the story. But please, if you can, buy the book. I highly recommend it.

WARNING: The following trailer is a Red Band trailer and contains violence and adult language. Do not view with children around.

"And the winner is..."

Like most, I've never won any sort of contest before. That changed when I was contacted by the guys at gamerdeals.net on March 2nd. I've been following them on Twitter for about 6 months now and been sharing their deals on Twitter and Facebook for around half that time. About a month ago, they posted that they would be holding a contest for a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card. To enter, all that was needed was to follow them (which I already was doing) and retweet at least 2 of their tweets per day. I would only retweet deals that would interest me so although I didn't retweet everything they posted, there were days that I would retweet as many as 5 of their posts. That being the case, I never thought I would win. So when they contacted me via Twitter and then by email, I was skeptical at best. I just figured someone was having fun with me.

I was pleasantly surprised the next day to find a code in my email for $50 to the Amazon site. Pretty cool. I thanked them on Twitter and decided to go on their site to thank them again when I noticed that they had a podcast. They were only up to #3 at the time and at only around 20 minutes, I decided to give the latest one a listen which had been posted the previous night. To my surprise, they mention me by my online identity (EvilEmpire) around the 12 minute mark as having won their contest. That was pretty cool. To listen to the podcast, just click on the "podcasts" button on the top of their page and it'll take you to their podcasts page which currently has 4 as of the posting of this blog.

So I would like to thank the Gamerdeals.net team (Patrick, Carlos, Nick and Trevor) again for choosing me to win their contest and also for providing a cool site where us gamers can keep track of the best deals out there online and at B&M stores.