Knuckles Dawson

Saturday night, after a delicious Steak and Pasta at a local half century old eatery, Nick's Spaghetti House, the quartet of acquaintances I was included in went to see Atonement. Which released in the UK back in September, then domestically a quarter later. I found it to be very well done, the acting by Keira and James was outstanding. I will admit that the pacing does taper off in the latter half, but is made up for by some stunning cinematography throughout, including a beautiful editing style that is also completely justified by a later reveal in the plot. As an added bonus, it has the most artistic and entertaining usage of what's probably consider to be the most vulgar word in the English Language. So, if you can appreciate films that are more than hollow whiz-bam action flicks, you should catch it next...erm, Friday.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

• The gig at Xbox360Fanboy is going well, we even have a regular podcast and are 3 episodes into it. You'll notice my audio quality increase each progressive week.
• I got into the Halo 3 Beta's Rule of 3 thing. None the less, Crackdown's demo is amazing and I'm still getting the game regardless. 
• Today is Valentine's Day. But more importantly, is Rhett/iEyeCaptain's 18th Birthday! Wish him a good one.
• My achievement streak is still going strong and today is day 450. w00t, only another 50 days to go till the big milestone. Still planning on what to do for it. Any suggestions?
• For the first time since, aside from WhoIs information, I'll give out my email address foryou to contact me with. Although I'm enjoying the fact I'm not getting swamped with spam, it's MyGameretagsInitials@ThisDomainName.com. For those that can't figure it out, the initials are kd. 
•  I've been doing some achievement housecleaning, and I've even got requests from people who read OXM about whether or not they can help me get achievements in some games. If you wanna help, either drop me a line on XBL or the email clues above. Games I'm looking for assistance in are: GRAW, Need For Speed Carbon, Far Cry Instincts Predator and The Outfit for now.
•  I'll get the endeavour calendar updated soon, as the holidays have really kept me busy
• I saw Lucky Number Slevin the other day, and thought it was really good. Heroes is really good, and the new season of 24 is riveting as ever.
• Oh, and I'd like to thank everyone who's sent me kind messages after reading OXM, and sending me friend requests. I appreciate the support. Special mention of course goes to Darth Vader 350 (yes, 350), and ShadowSlayerGod for the help in The Outfit and GRAW respectively.
• In any case, thanks for the time and I'll keep you posted on anything major.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, you may have heard about the heavy snow in Seattle over the last week. As you can imagine, Vancouver experienced more or less the same onslaught. Which is good news, because the North Shore Mountains look exceptionally frosted. Having been an avid snowboarder for the last 9 seasons, this, my 10th, is the first time that I've gotten a season's pass. This also is the first time that we've had a high enough body count to reap the rewards of the "Family Package", as opposed to the usual total of just two: my father and I. So, now with our party increasing 150%, and a Early Bird Family Package at Mount Seymour costing a mere 600 total, that comes to about $160 per adult. Definitely a sound investment.

So, this past weekend saw me at said mountain, for a short stint on Saturday, and a full day Sunday. Saturday was good to for getting my feet wet. Sunday, though, was awesome. A good full day of boarding, and honing my previous skills as an instructor, as I made serious progress teaching Skye how to carve after she got the hang of turning. Oly, my previous student has since "graduated" and more or less is going at his own pace.

I brought my Audio Backpack on Sunday, and it faired well, despite not being connected to my iPod. The music selection wasn't as robust as the 48 hours of music I have in a snowboarding specific playlist, but it served its purpose. I can hardly wait until I can go up with my iPod, as the volume, even on the runs, when cranked to 11, is easily audible, and others take notice.

The trip down the mountain wasn't as quick as the one up, as there was a couple trees that collapsed from the added weight of the heavy snowfall, and decided the most convenient place to not make a sound would be in the middle of the road.

Upon arriving at Delta Base, we shoveled the driveway, and rewarded ourselves with a double feature: Casino Royale and Deja Vu. Both were extremely well made and entertaining. CR being a much needed reboot of the James Bond franchise, and Deja Vu almost able to be interpreted as a loose sequel to Donnie Darko. Two great movies at one great price. Or something.

I cracked open Elite Beat Agents while waiting for Deja Vu, and really liked it. I played a bit of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan at PAX '06, but didn't pick it up that well. That may have to do with not recognizing the music, and thus the tempo for the songs. EBA surprised me with a bunch of instantly recognizable tunes, and that helped me progress through it. Right now I'm just cracking through the 3rd difficulty's early songs.

On the 360 front, I've been playing plenty of Gears, and am trying to get back into Splinter Cell: Double Agent and finsh that up. Unfortunately the impending kickass snowboard season is hindering the time available for me to do so. I'll see how I manage. I played some more Twilight Princess Friday and Saturday before hitting the slopes, and beat the Forest Temple. After some fine tuning of my Wii-mote, I'm pinpointing enemies with incredible ease. Haven't touched it at all this week, though I did order a Component Cable at Nintendo's online store. I can hardly wait for that progressive goodness.

Well, I think that pretty much brings us back up to speed on what's been going on. Also, regarding the KD Experience, the next episode is currently indeed on the agenda, and should be getting a facelift in many respects.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Damn. Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a beautiful, beautiful game. As you can see, I've been playing it a bunch. The single player is great, and the looks stunning on my 56" Samsung DLP HDTV, and sounds beautiful on my JVC 500 Watt 5.1 Surround Sound System.

This past weekend has been a focus on the Online component, in particular, the Co-op Challenges. I started playing them Friday night, with friend and squadmate, II Armag3dd0n II. Having owned the previous three games, my hacking and neck-breaking skill shone through in mere minutes and I felt right at home. Even though the "accessibility" is just another way of saying "watered down for the EveryGamer", I had fun, and it felt like the other spies vs. mercs in previous games. The upside, is that for Co-op, I ran into a bunch of people who were very capable in keeping up with me and my strategies. As long as they could talk, knew the route/plan, and could follow orders/directions, we were able to nab Gold in a few tries.

Speaking of which, I got all Golds---except for one. Mission 12. Which is a 1 star difficulty Double Agent mission. 1-11 and 13-18 have Gold. Mission 12 doesn't even have a medal. Why, you ask? In true KD fashion I've set myself up with 3 achievements that I can grab at any time. Pathetic, I know, but at least I'm looking ahead.

While helping HOLLATIP 2, whom I came across by chance on the opposing team in Saints Row matchmaking, get some of the EXPERT achievemnts for SP:DA, I got a message from my good buddy French Frye. You might remember him as "Anonymous/jerry/Onion Fart", and all I have to say is very well played, bro. He asked if I was playing with Major Nelson, whom he had on his Friends List (lucky bastard). Then said "nvm" as the Maj had gone offline, I suppose. I take this cue as a reminder to send him a random friend request. It went through! I quickly sent him a voice mail saying "Hey, I'd really appreciate if you accepted this, as I got through by luck, but if not, that's perfectly fine. Catch ya later." I then send a message to French Frye thanking him for putting the thought in my head, especially since he has campaigned to Major on a weekly basis on my behalf to send me an FR. I even tried to coax him into taking himself off to make a spot for me. Despite my hardest bargaining, he wouldn't budge, and rightfully so. Thankfully, it all worked out ahead of schedule, as I expected to nab him by November 22nd, 2006. The reasoning behind that, though, I'll go into detail a little later.

While we're on about Major Nelson and I, here's a picture of us at PAX '06 before we did the interview.



The Dreamcast shirt cost me $50 CDN. The Backpack with built in speakers is a SoundKase SoundSak Sonic Full Audio Backpack, which cost me over $200 CDN after shipping and brokerage fees were tagged onto that. It was well received at the convention, and I would supply music in exchange for skipping ahead in lines.

LUMINES LIVE! is also a lot of fun. It's also cheaper than the retail version for PSP, much prettier than any other version, has 5.1 sound effects and music, and is just as addictive so I'm not exactly equating the price point and add-on packs as forced anal copulation. I just think that this may be the first step towards digital distribution of retail-esque content, and as such was not put in its own category of title, but put into Live Arcade. which it's kinda not. It's half Retail, Half Arcade. Eh, we'll see how this affects future titles and their price/distribution/classification. Bottom Line, though: I really, really like LL!. My first foray into Lumines was the cell phone version, which I was really good at, being able to max out the score (999.999) without too much effort, just time. LL! is a lot more difficult, and rightfully so, plus it's score doesn't have a foreseeable maximum. I'll keep plugging away at it, though.

I Grabbed some long overdue achievements on Table Tennis and The Outfit with Jester on Saturday, and we'll try to get more Outfit in there as time goes along. Although we were having some trouble getting some of the online achievements in Outfit, and I'll have to do some research on the required parameters. Oh well.

In real life I hit "Richmond Sushi" on Saturday, which is an all-you-can-eat sushi place in---*drum roll*---Richmond, BC. It was decked out in a Halloween theme, all the employees were in costume (dracula, zombies, little bo peep, frankenstein, etc.), and there was even a fog machine at the entrance. Now, I can eat sushi, which to say, put it in my mouth, chew, and swallow. It's an acquired taste, one that I haven't gotten too used to yet. But they had plenty on the menu that didn't involve raw fish and seaweed. Like, for example, some cooked chicken shish kabob, that I had like, 6 skewers of. It was delicious. At the very least, I left somewhat full. Ask iEyeCaptain, he's seen me first hand eat basket after basket of "Red Robin's Bottomless Fries™". I, like my father before me, have hollow legs.

The Las Vegas Season 4 Premiere was really good on Friday, especially in HD, and I saw Domino earlier in the week, which was over-the-top awesome. Also in HD.

So, what'd you think of the Gears of War TV/Film trailer. I thought it was beautiful. And I find it kinda funny that I posted about Donnie Darko back in September, which features Gary Jules' rendition of the Tears for Fears song, Mad World. I find it kinda sad that I didn't bother to mention the song and its hold on me since my initial viewings of both the Theatrical and Director's cut. Either way, I feel the song fits the trailer amazingly, just as it did the movie. I find it hard to tell you that I've been listening to the song on repeat for the vast majority of writing this entry. I find it hard to take some continuity errors, so I'll point the following out:

• When Marcus is running past the window and the enemy gets out of crouch position, he (the Locust) just appears, without moving into frame from the bottom.
• In the infested room, the final shot of the stochastic fire on the spidery baddie, the legs (particularly the ones on the right), have the eyes of the other enemies shine through it.

Then again, I just have an eye for picking those kinda things up, given my history in filming, editing, etc.

Damn, that's a lot of reading I threw at you guys. Sorry, just had to play catch-up with what's been going on.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So, Saturday there was a Tae Kwon Do Tourney for someone in my --- extended family, I guess would be the best way to put it --- in Lynnwood, WA. This makes it the second time I've gone to the States in the same year, the first being of course, PAX '06, and this won't be the last, either, as I'll be in the Seattle area again in late November. People on my friends list who actually talk to me know what for, but I'll fill in the rest of you sometime when things are a little more concrete.

But, back to the story at hand. So, we drove down to Lynnwood, and went to the rather large Alderwood Mall, which is far more enthralling than watching bad Martial Arts. They had a lot of stores, but not much to look at, the only things of interest was an EB Games, a Gamestop (which isn't in Canada, or at least my area), Sharper Image, the food court and the Apple Store (can be found in far Eastern region of Canada, and only 4 of them too).


The Food Court had an Orange Julius, and at the time was thinking "It's no Jamba Juice, but it'll have to do." About an hour later I found that a Jamba Juice was there, outside, not 30 feet from the Julius. Oops. In Canada, we have Booster Juice, which if you compare notes, has a strikingly similar logo (at least the "tornado" bit).

With still plenty of time on our hands before the TDK was done with, so we went to see Gridiron Gang, which was really good. The first 20 minutes reminded me of gang gameplay found in GTA:SA and Saints Row. It was actually kinda, eye-opening, to see that. I mean, for me at least, seeing a drive-by in either of those games is one thing, but seeing "real people" get shot down and run over in a movie? It feels completely different. But, to say the least, it got my attention, and the movie, again, was really good, and apparently, according to the documentary-style footage shown during the credits, is actually quite true to source material.

On the way back to the Great White North, eh, we stopped at the Seattle Premium Outlets, where I picked up some more shirts. After that we saw a place called The Fudgery, where they make a show out of making their fudge. On duty, by chance, was a fellow in his late teens by the name of Patrick. He was very entertaining and outgoing, and was readily able to laugh at himself for the crowd. His sobriety at the time came into question for others watching, but I just felt he had a similar personality that I do: Outspoken, Outgoing, Outrageous. Or something.

In any case, I was participating with the show, in true KD style and kept him on his toes, cracking him up and leaving him speechless/without a retort a few times. After his show, he and I chatted a bit, and hung out for about 10 minutes in the parking lot, looking at his car, talking about games, his grappling hook that he found and finally telling him about my little streak thing. Rather than give him my MSN, I gave him this URL and he posted up a comment a few entries back. I'm sure he'll have something unique to say about this one.

Anyway, we went home with little hickups, and watched some movies. Still, a cool day, and it sure beat staying at home doing jack squat.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, after work on Friday, I come home to two pieces of mail. A Canada Post notice that I was not available to receive a parcel, (at 9:50 AM, no less, when everyone is chilling at home on a weekday.), and an express package from Redmond, WA. I'm not sure if you've heard of this "Microsoft Corporation", but it's this small, upstart company that deals with computer software and various IT/Entertainment related products. Anyway, I already know what's inside: An Xbox Live Vision camera. Free. From Microsoft, or more specifically, from Bastelyon, the Community PR Manager at MS.

We met at PAX '06, he gave me his card, and was rather impressed with this little streak I got going here, and was kind enough to accept my friend request. We talked a couple days after PAX ended on Live, and he asked if I had a camera yet. I told him I didn't, and he said he's been sending them to Community MVPs, so they can essentially show them off to everyone else and build hype. Then, get this: He tells me to email him (provided on the business card he handed me at PAX), and if they have any left he'll send one to me. And so I did, the next day. Then messaged him a few days later and he said he shipped it Friday and for me to expect it sometime this week. And so I did. And come Friday, it arrived.

I was fortunate enough to run into Bastelyon on the same day and thank him "in person", and he and I talked about another cool little idea that I'll save for another post. I then did some video chat with friends that got the camera at Toys R Us, and played Uno.

Saturday saw me Playing through some Prey and Saint's Row, taking advantage of the beautiful weather and biking around Vancouver/Stanley Park for about 4 hours, then checking out the parcel notice I got with along with the camera. It was billed as $15.06, so I figured it was for something I bought online. A pair of Soap Shoes were waiting for me, and I'll be messing around with them on Monday most likely, as I started to build a "training rail" on Saturday, but need another wood support in the middle before I can use it.

Finally, Sunday had me watching Donnie Darko, which is a great little film. It's similar in concept to The Butterfly Effect, but is its own story. I also finished the Vice Kings missions on Saints Row, and messed around on Uno. I relaxed most of the day because of the overcast/rainy weather, and my leg muscles were sore from yesterday's biking, which was good.

All in all a good weekend, and I even brainstormed some design things for my site, while getting the go-ahead from Bastelyon regarding my borrowing some "elements" on stuff. You'll see. And while I got you here, send him a message and thank him on my behalf for getting me a camera. He'll like that, especially while he's currently in Tokyo prepping for TGS. Still, I'll catch you all around later.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)