Andy Wood

This flick pretty much gave me everything I was looking for in an animated movie for this year.  It is meaningful, funny and heartfelt movie that is a great movie to take a date to.

WALL-E (short for “waste allocation load lifter Earth-class”) is a boxy little robot with big binocular eyes on a long E.T. neck. Every day he gets up, recharges his batteries in the sunshine and gets to work picking up armfuls of junk. He places the refuse in his trash-compactor body, reducing it to large cubes which he stacks to form soaring pyramids.

There are lots of these pyramids, suggesting that WALL-E has been hard at work for centuries. From the carcasses of worn-out robots we surmise that he once had help, but now he’s alone… or is he?

Wizards of the Coast has announced that it will release Magic the Gathering Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra in November, with two ready-to-play 60-card decks. Cards are drawn from some of the best control and burn cards from the full 15-year run of Magic sets.  The conflict is staged bewteen two planeswalkers:  Jace Beleron, who is torn between good and evil and posssesses prodigious mental magic skills; and Chandra Nalaar, a pryomancer with sharp wits.

There are eight rare cards and six cards with new art in the Decks, including foil alternate art versions of the two primary characters. This appears to be an improvement in the rare ratio from previous sets. We did not receive a response from Wizards of the Coast by press time to the question of whether these changes in Duel Decks’ rarity scheme are part of the over-all restructuring of Magic releases.

Now that I need TV to keep me entertained, but I do enjoy a good sitcom.  I miss the days when there was the reliable "Must See" NBC, when there was Friends, Fraiser, etc.

There are still a couple of good shows on, but when all else fails.  I can still turn to Stargate SG-1, or what is referred to at the GamersCircle HQ as "The Richard Dean Anderson" show. <grin>

So, yes - we have broken out the Stargate DVD’s and started re-watching some of the episodes.

Bruce Wayne’s current squeeze is Jezebel Jet, (aka Jet) whom is not like every other woman in history of Bruce Wayne/Batman’s.  At least not being able to cope with the whole secret life of The Dark Knight.

It would appear that Jet is scared, not only that something bad might happen to him, but also that his act of masquerading as a crime fighter might be a sign of a mental illness.  She is the voice that questions whether or not Bruce might be his own worst villain and adds that the amount of money he pours into the Batcave in a month would be enough to pay off he country’s national debt. (hey!  toss a little this way would you?)

Then guess what happens?  Batman is attacked by the Black Glove, then a post-hypnotic suggestion turns him off like a light switch.  The butler return, notices that not only is the batcave is thrashed, but that Bruce and Jezebel are gone too.

Hey Al, Watch out!  Behind you!

It may have been 19 years between adventures, but moviegoers obviously still remember Indiana Jones. Though not breaking any records so far, the fourth film in the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, grossed an estimated $31 million dollars at the North American box office Friday, according to the box office tracking website boxofficeguru.com.

Added to the film’s Thursday opening day take of $25m, Crystal Skull has earned $56 so far with three full holiday weekend days still to go, putting the film on pace to perhaps gross an approximate $135-$145m by the end of Monday.

The Friday gross didn’t meet or beat the last two big Memorial Day Friday debuts. Last year Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End opened to $43M in its first Friday and in 2006 X-Men: The Last Stand took $45M on the same day. However, both of those earlier films opened on Friday, while Crystal Skull no doubt cut into its Friday total by opening fully on Thursday.

The news following last week’s disappointing opening of Disney’s Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian didn’t improve in the film’s second week. With an estimated $6.5M Friday total – good for second place – the film dropped a dramatic 66% from its opening Friday gross.

Finally, Iron Man continued to show iron legs by dropping only 40% to an estimated $5M on Friday, which means the film Paramount/Marvel production could add another $22-24M over the long weekend, its fourth weekend in release

It was around Mid-night last night when I stopped playing Age of Conan last night and my Rouge around the early teens.  So far, from what I can see, the only issue I have with the game is group stuff.  The UI isn’t very forth coming in regards to what the heck is going on with your ‘mates.

With my current gaming rig, I am able to play with the default setting and still get 60fps.    I have not played other high end graphic games (aka Crysis or BioShock) , so my point here is that things are still good for me as a PC gamer.

Oh!  I got my very first decapitation last night!

With the holiday weekend upon us, I think that I will be able to see a little more of the above action.

Funcom’s newest massively multiplayer online role-playing game has made a pretty good first impression on me.  The character creation scene is cool and dramatic.  I will not try to give anything way, but your character starts in a slave ship.

It’s an appropriate introduction to the start of this game, and it sets the stage for the initial questing, which starts you on a beach after what happens to your slave ship once you create your character.

I again have to say that I am impressed (last MMO what I was this impressed with was City of Heroes) by what I have played of Age of Conan, but there is a ton more to see and I am sure that I will run into parts of the game that I am going to hate and other parts that I will just love.

I don’t know why I haven’t done this earlier, but to use Google’ Calendar for in-store events. Making some test runs though as you never know.