Issue 3: Feb. 2012 | Geek Valentine's Guide

DayOldStubble News & Reviews For The Refined Geek

D12 Academy Looks at Puerto Rico

Geek’s G uide to Valentin e’s Day

What We’re Reading

We Cover Ohayocon 2012 We Pick The Oscar Winners So You Don’t Have To CHRONICLE Reviewed

Top 5

Halo Combat Evolved Moments Haywire Reviewed

2 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Contents Features

11

Ohayocon 2012

We went Anime and had a ball.

6 14 16 21

online photo editors

We give you 4 picks for our best online photo editors that are sure to help you get the best picture when in a pinch.

Flash Back

We travel back to the late 90’s with reviews on Rouge Trip 2012, Godzilla, and reflect on what early WebTv really was.

Geeks Valentine’s Guide

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner we give you our top Geek gifts and date ideas to woo your significant other.

We pick the Oscars

With the Oscars coming February 26th, we give our picks on who should win the top awards.

Regulars

18

Editorial pg. 3

We’re Reading Comics

Is Crossed worth a second look?

24

Inbox pg. 4

Chronicle

Do new powers mean success?

Open Corner pg. 7 Gadgets pg. 8 SticKeyBoards pg. 9

19

D12 Academy

Puerto Rico tips & tricks.

25

What’s Happening pg. 10

Haywire Review

Gina Carano kicks butt.

Mac n Cheese Break pg. 27

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 3

From the Editor

Got Stubble? We Do! W

ell here it is, our third issue, and I must say other than working on getting DayOldStubble out at the first of the month, we are very proud of where we have come from and where we seem to be heading. Each month we have grown, adding new readers and new writers aiming to bring you, our readers, the best news and information from the massive Geek Universe.

The future is starting to look bright as well. With the addition of our newest writer, Dave Norton, we now have a new comic section, Bugger Off! I’m Reading Comics on page 18, and will soon be bringing you an exclusive comic drawn entirely for DayOldStubble the Magazine. On top of the new additions to the magazine, look for changes coming soon to DayOldStubble.com as we look to add both digital and print subscription options so you can get the latest edition, as soon as it is available, delivered straight to your inbox or doorstep.

This month James Detzler got a chance to cover the amazing Ohayocon 2012 and helped spread the word about DayOldStubble while gathering lots of Cosplay pictures for everyone to see. You can check out his round up and all the great pictures in Ninjas, Trolls, and Elves OH MY! on page 11. We also dived into the world of board games this issue with a great new D12 Academy on page 19 by Aaron DeKuiper. After last month’s great video game review, he decided to go less digital and will be bringing more great D12 Academys your way.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we couldn’t forget the confused Geek out there either, so we dug up some great gift ideas as well as ways to win over that special someone besides helping them fix their computer.

We`re still looking for a few good writers and contributors, so if you’re interested in being a part of our unique brand of refined geekiness, then drop us a line. In the mean time, don`t forget to head over to DayOldStubble.com for all your geek news.

Editor Jason Carrick email: komodojay@dayoldstubble.com/ Twitter: @jason_carrick

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EDITOR Jason Carrick DEPUTY EDITOR James Detzler Layout/Graphics Jason Carrick Contributors Aaron DeKuiper David Norton Letters info@dayoldstubble.com Advertising ads@dayoldstubble.com Press & marketing: press@dayoldstubble.com Images sxc.hu Special Thanks: Diana Six & Wayne Bialik Studio6 Laura Moore DayOldStubble Magazine is published monthly by DayOldStubble 1122 21st St Manistee, MI 49660 Volume # 3 published February 7, 2012.

All rights reserved © 2012 DayOldStubble DayOldStubble.com

4 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Inbox

Email us at info@dayoldstubble.com

Featured Letter

games coming I really like Dead Island. Are there any d as much as this one? out soon that will have me addicte -Carley Hall in fun and Sticking with your love for killing the undead out Never k chec , interesting ways I would have to say first wields a who ist Dead. A game about an immortal protagon uses his and ons of dem pretty amazing sword to rip through legions a game It’s les. puzz plete limbs, which become severed often, to com Try to . play to fun s it look with some gameplay and story issues but ily eart le-h who have to buy it for a reduced price. Second, I would It’s . year this e sometim recommend Lollipop Chainsaw coming out d face ’s who High Romero a story about a typical cheerleader at San nd arou runs , ters hun with living out her family’s calling as zombie with all the perkiness a s limb g erin emb dism and s chopping off head fun of this game is the use cheerleader should have. What adds to the the color. Oh my the color! of cheers and shouts to make combos and heads and sparkles when a Expect rainbows of blood from lopped off ing title in the vein of Dead zombie is torn asunder. A fun and interest to the day it releases. If you Rising, this should be one to look forward , and don’t mind dipping can’t wait until Lollipop Chainsaw releases check out SSX coming out into a different genre. I highly suggest you that this franchise seems on Feb. 14th. This is the first time in years of gameplay to have a viable game that has many options roller around at as well as being a fun game to pass the cont the start of the parties. I completely expect this game to be snowboarding game revival. this month’s Congratulations Carley! You were r of Geek Featured Letter. Look for your pai mail soon.

Socks from Gumball Poodle, in the

Oscar Who??

What is origin behind the Oscar naming of the Academy Awards?

John Crocker There are three supposed legends to the origin of the naming of the Academy Awards. One revolves around Bette Davis in 1934 claiming the statue reminded her of her first husband. The second story I have been able to find centers on Executive Secretary Margaret Herrick claiming it looked like her “Uncle Oscar”. This seems to be the most popular one out there. A third story involves a different Executive Secretary, Eleanor Lilleber. She said it reminded her of King Oscar II. Any of these stories could be true and all of them could be false, but we do know that the Academy Award was officially dubbed the Oscar in 1939 and it has stuck ever since..

> glasses Win a set of 16oz <beer.hdd just in time for St. Pa y’s Send us a letter and you could win a set of #include <beer.h> 16oz glasses from ThinkGeek just in time to celebrate St. Patrick’s day. This classic, highquality pint glass is emblazoned with a preprocessing directive every codemonkey can get behind.

So don’t be shy, tell us what you think of the magazine, we can take it. Let us know your thoughts, rant about the latest gadget you got your hands on, or simply add some extra insight your fellow readers would enjoy. It could be well worth your while, and who knows it could be helping to wet your whistle as well.

Send your letters to info@dayoldstubble.com or leave them on the website at www.dayoldstubble.com.

Creative Block My husband wants to buy a laptop with windows XP so he can run the latest Corel Draw program. What do you suggest? I looked at Dell’s but I think there are other options. We currently are running Corel 11.

Diana Six Well you can’t buy a computer with XP anymore, they all come with Windows 7. Dell makes some pretty good ones so does HP. I guess it all comes down to price your willing to pay.

You’re going to want at least an Intel I7 processor and 3 or more GBs of ram. Most new laptops come with a minimum of 500GB storage as well which is plenty of storage.

Unless he is going to hook the laptop up to an external, monitor a 15” screen would be the smallest I would go for using it to create on. A 17” screen is easier to do editing on but tends to make the laptop less portable.

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 5

Roku Review

Five Killer Roku Features 1. Channels Roku offers more than 350 channels, including Revision3, NBC News, The Onion News Newtwork, and Twit.tv, as well as a slew of others. More channels are being added all the time.

2. Streaming Besides all the standard channels you can also stream on demand movies and shows from the likes of Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and HBO Go to name a few.

3. Gaming Yes gaming. The Roku remote doubles as a Wii-style motion gaming control, which is perfect for playing Angry Birds which is a Roku featured game.

4. Music Besides video Roku also provides access to Pandora, Rdio, Mog, and Tunein Radio amoung others. All these choices should bring internet radio closer to your sofa all day.

5. Price This should be the number one reason to get a Roku.

The LT model starts at $49.99 and they go up to $99.99 for the XS with full HD video, motion remote, and Angry Birds avilable to play.

We Will Roku You! Roku 2 is a streaming video box that’s been radically redesigned, and its newest and hottest feature is the ability to play everyone’s favorite, Angry Birds. Included with this device that’s barely larger than a hockey puck is a brand-new game controller/remote with an accelerometer on board, allowing you to control objects on the screen using gestures, much like the Nintendo Wii. The $99.99 Roku 2 XS model, which is the top-of-the-line unit, includes an Ethernet port, a USB port for playing video, music and photos from an external storage device, and comes with the new game remote along with the Angry Birds software. The least-expensive model is the Roku 2 HD, a $59.99 box that’s limited to

720p resolution. The middle model, the Roku 2 XT is $79.99, and adds 1080p video playback.

Aside from its newfound gameplaying capabilities and radical design changes, the Roku 2 interface and sources are almost identical to its predecessor. It does an admirable job of playing high-definition content from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus and lots of other video sources.

Although the Roku 2 can’t play the variety of video files (such as .mkv files) that competing boxes such as the WD TV or the Boxee Box can, for streaming Netflix and Hulu videos — and now for playing Angry Birds — it can’t be beat.

6 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

How To

o t o h P e n i l n Fo u r O p l e H o t s r o Edit o t o h P y n A Enhance

-Jason Carrick

Ever been in the need to edit a few photos quickly but either lacked the proper software or were just being too lazy to launch Photoshop? Well then we have four online photo editors sure to fit you needs.

These great web apps only require an internet connection and web browser allowing you to manipulate your photos and images in no time.

While we are focusing on these four online editors, we want to let you know that they are all in someway trying to emulate one of the best, Picnik, which was bought by Google and is planning to shut down on April 19th. The best part about this is that from now until it closes all users get access to Picnik’s premium services for free. So you should deffinately go check it out.

The first site is Fotoflexer.com. Fotoflexor, though not as snappy to load, does offer a similar editing experience with many of the same options as Picnik. If the tools and appearance look familar to you then you may recall seeing it used on sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and others. Fotoflexor’s advanced features include blemish fix and some easyto-use layer functions. The web editor even lets you take and edit images from your computer’s built-in camera.

Another quick and easy photo editor is at Freeonlinephotoeditor.com. While this online editor keeps the flashy appearance to a minimum, its

bare-bones approach was super quick to load any image we threw at it. The one downside is that even though it offered a wide menu of options, instead of easy to understand icons and extra fancy CSS buttons and sliders, all options are represented as plain text.

Luckily, in case you are unsure of what the changes are, the undo option shows up after every change easily letting you try someting else if the option you picked was not right. They also offer a wide selection of ways to save your finished image when done, you can save it on your computer, online, Photobucket or Facebook.

Our third pick for online photo editing is the site Pixenate.com. Pixenate is another great simple editor that offers a small but complete list of options, such as crop, rotate, red eye removal, color adjustments and more. One nice feature of Pixenate is their “fill light” button for underexposed pics and a “doodle” option that lets you draw on your images. When you’ve perfected your masterpiece, Pixenate lets you save it to your desktop, share it on Flickr or print it as a T-shirt, mug, tote, or other various objects.

Finally our last, but not least, pick is for Pixlr.com.

We saved the best for last as this online editor has two options for editing your photos. The first is Pixl Express which closely resembles the much loved Picknik interface and Pixlr Editor which gives you a light version of photoshop running inside your browser complete with layers. Both options are quick to upload photos and offer a ton of options and a great selection of adjustment menus. While these options are great to use for free, we did find that the pop up menus for Pixlr Express could be a bit time consuming and confusing. While both versions allow you to save your edited images to your desktop, simply signing up for free with a vaild email gives you access to many more save open options.

the Open Corner> www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 7

Open source in 2012 The YEAR ahead in the Free world

A

s 2012 rolls along, the open source movement continues to strengthen.

No matter who you are, what software you use, what devices you interact with, somewhere along the line open source software is being used.

Here are just a few of the places you can look for big things coming this year.

Mozilla Boot2Gecko Boot to Gecko is Mozilla’s attempt to make a mobile operating system that is completely open.

All applications are written using standard web languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. 2012 should see the release of preview versions of this new mobile OS. Google Chrome With Google Chrome now surpassing Mozilla Firefox in usage, it is likely to continue its growth in 2012. Google’s Native Client, which allows you to write code for web apps in native languages such as C++ is maturing and should see more use this year. Google’s Dart might also make it into the Browser sometime in 2012.

WebOS With HP announcing that it will be making its WebOS and ENYO framework opensource we could see a revitalization of this OS. Despite its dismal sales on tablets, the opening of the code should bring a barrage of interest and new developments as well as ports to different platforms and devices.

Ubuntu Ubuntu 12.04 will be an important release for a number of reasons. First, it is the first long term release since their new Unity desktop environment, so significant work will go into stablizing and refining it. Second, this will be the first long term desktop release to get a 5-year support period up from 3-years.

Canonical is also working on a mobile and tablet version of the OS, which should see some activity in 2012.

Android While Android tablets haven’t taken off compared to their iOS counterparts, look for changes to takeplace with the release of Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Android might finally have the right tablet OS to take on Apple with their lower prices.

Lightworks Linux has a few decent quality video editors but nothing like the pro apps on Windows and OSX. However Lightworks, by Editshare, might change this. Lightworks is an Emmy and Oscar award winning video editor used in movies like The Departed, Pulp Fiction, and Mission Impossible. the source code is expected to be released in 2012 allowing Linux to gain a free pro video editor. g

-Jason Carrick

HP’s webOS to be fully open-sourced

by September HP is moving ahead with its plans to open-source webOS and has provided a few details on how the process will develop. According to the company, the mobile operating system will be given to the open source community under an Apache license 2.0, starting with the Enyo object-oriented JavaScript development framework.

Like the original framework, it supports WebKit, but version 2.0 also expands compatibility to modern desktop browsers such as Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Following Enyo 2.0’s release HP will unveil how the open source program is managed, while also releasing Qt-based WebKit browser extensions, the JavaScript engine core, and Enyo widgets that form part of the webOS UI. The company has set a few other milestones for the next few months. In September the full code base of Open webOS 1.0 will be released to the open source community.

8 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Gadgets & Collectibles

USB Type Writer If you ever wanted to go all nostalgic when writing your next masterpiece on your iPad then check out this digitally upscaled typewriter. www.usbtypewriter.com

McFarlane Halo Reach McFarlane has a new series of Halo toys, this time based on the characters and bad guys from Halo: Reach.

There are Spartans with multiplayer colour schemes, actual character Spartans from the game with no helmets on, giant aliens, human pilots and, my favourite, a pack containing multiplayer accessories like flags, grenades and skulls. www.spawn.com/halo/

Tick Tock Dock Dock and set your alarm on your iPod/iPhone for a great start to the day with this retrostyled alarm clock. includes FM Tuner, Alarm Clock and Aux input for use without your device. www.edifier.us.com

Price: $650 | Out Now

Price: $80 with shipping | Out Now

Price: $10 and up | Out Now

SMK-Link Wireless Keyboard A mini, gamepad style controller thats an office in disquise. The SMKLink lets you hookup your computer to your big screen and work comfortably from the couch. This laid back productivity tool is sure to out power any tablet. www.smklink.com Price: $69.99 | Out Now

Acer iconia Tab A200 The first tablet to run Ice Cream Sandwich is set to do so at a budget price. This 10.1â&#x20AC;? tablet features a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core 1 GHz processor and comes in a selection of colors with either 8GB or 16GB of storage. www.acer.com Price: $350 online | Out Now

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 9

SticKeyBoards

Our selection of websites safe to surf late at night.

www.gamejolt.com

www.kongregate.com

I know Kongregate may not be a new site to you, but this site still deserves praise for taking what could just be another hub of independent games and injecting an achievement system and creating a community where people are constantly sharing this new game they found on the site and tips on how to play games on it. They have great incentive achievements, and I wish they had kept the card game you could earn cards for. They are also paired with GameStop, allowing you to score PowerUp Rewards points for completing certain achievements. So now your free online gaming can help you earn free games at GameStop. In my opinion that’s a win/win.

www.hatsproductions.com

The Men Who Wear Many Hats is a small group of indie game developers who like to make games and their dedication shows. This website was created to bring their awesome ideas to us, the masses, and keep us enthralled for hours How can you go wrong with a game called Organ Trail? A game giving serious homage to the classic Oregon Trail while injecting a fun and interesting idea(zombies) and radically challenging our memories from childhood. I see some serious growth in the future for this site and you should keep it on your radar.

GameJolt is a site that I have found here recently that focuses on the indie game developer. What I like about this site versus many of their competitors is the simplicity. It is a straight-forward website making it easy to see what they have available. Secondly, I like their gaming options from freeware to open source and even online gaming; this site has some variety. Definitely worth a look-see if you want to find some original games.

www.warbarons.com

Warbarons is a site dedicated to a single game. Once you play it you can see why. An idea by two internet friends to remake a classic 90’s strategy game called Warlords is what started Mattias Carlström and Jonte Rydberg down this road and they are now into their 5th Beta. Their game has a great community with a lot of nostalgia and strategy packed in. This is one game that will suck you in and get you invested not only in your own character but this whole world they have created.

www.lazybraingames.com

Like retro gaming in the vein of Contra and Joust? Then this gaming site is a great place to find original 8-bit styled games.

This site is all thanks to Johnny B. who also does all of the game designing for these fresh and fun games. Every game he has posted to his site is his own original work and requires you download a small zipped file to your computer. Unzip it and now its good to go full screen and everything.

This site is where you want to go for that retro game feel with out playing the same games over and over.

Have any cool websites you would like to share? Send them to info@dayoldstubble.com and we’ll check them out.

10 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

What’s Happening

Upcoming Movies 2.10.2012 Rampart

Woody Harrelson steps back into the serious drama ring again and delivers a knockout performance as a renegade cop trying to make a living for his family any way that he can. Look for him to be possibly talked about as a Best Actor nominee for next years Oscars.

MystiCon VA

Feb. 24-26 Roanoke, VA MystiCon VA is a three day weekend of authors, media guests, artists, robotics demos, larping, filking, gaming, and more!

Conventions worth visiting

Upcoming Video Games

2.12.2011 Alma Con 2012. February 10-12 Alma, MI • A free anime and gaming convention hosted by the Alma College Otaku and Gamers. This event is in its second year.

2.07.2012 The Darkness 2 Available for XBox 360, PS3, & PC

02.17.2012 ShevaCon 2012. February 17-19 Roanoke, VA • SheVaCon is celebrating it’s 20th year as the largest Multi-Media Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror convention in Southwestern Virginia. We offer many fun events and great programming.

02.17.2012 MegaCon. February 1719 Orlando, FL • MegaCon, the largest comic book, anime, gaming and multi media event in the Southeast.

02.18.2012 Creation Weekend of Horrors is a Horror Convention which will be held on Feb 18th-19th, 2012 in Burbank, California

2.08.2012 Gotham City Imposters Available for XBox 360, PS3, & PC 2.14.2012 SSX Available for XBox 360,& PS3

2.14.2012 This Means War

Yes, I know this is date movie bait.

With how fun and energetic this movie looks, I certainly won’t mind. Now pony up and go have a good time with your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day. I assure you, you both will walk out laughing about this movie.

2.24.2012 Act Of Valor

2.21.2012 Syndicate Available for XBox 360, PS3, & PC 2.28.2012 Mortal Combat: Komplete Edition Available for XBox 360 & PS3 3.06.2012 Mass Effect 3 Available for XBox 360, PS3, & PC

This is movie is taking a risky move by putting completely unknown actors in every role. I personally am looking forward to the realistic tactics and movements that the active Navy SEAL’s will bring to big screen.

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 11

Ohayocon 2012

Ninjas, Trolls, and Elves OH MY!

DayOldStubble at Ohayocon 2012

I love experiencing new things. Last year I made it to Chicago Comic Con and Mid-Ohio Comic Con and they both were amazing experiences. I never have been much of an avid comic fan but it was something that I always kept a slight interest in growing up. I usually settled for the funny pages and Calvin and Hobbes books to keep my comic interest in check. I knew I was out of my element at these events and was mainly interested in the new comics from up and coming writers as well as the panels from some of my favorite stars.

So when I decided to go to Ohayocon, a Japanese animation convention, I thought I would be more prepared.

I watched quite a bit of animation over the last few years with Netflix and late night Cartoon Network. Surely I will know more about this convention than the comic cons.

WRONG! I was completely in shock with the sheer number of people that showed up for this convention. It was held in the same exact building as Mid-Ohio Comic Con and nothing could prepare me for the number of people in the hallways. There were groups of people clumped together everywhere. Some were chilling and blasting music(typically J-Pop) on portable speakers. Others were involved in a game of Ninja. Being in the hall did not prevent these anime lovers from doing whatever they

wanted, even setting up impromptu card games in an out of the way spot. This was due to the fact that many rooms were being occupied for programming all weekend long.

To give some perspective, Mid-Ohio had the one main ballroom where all the dealers were located along with Artist Alley.

Other than this one main room, there were three programming rooms for panels. They also occupied one large room for all of their gaming needs.

Ohayocon, on the other hand, had the big main ballroom housing only the dealers. Artist Alley had to be located on the balcony level up above the main ballroom. Next there were eight, yes EIGHT rooms running programming through

12 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

out the day and they didn’t just stop around dinner time. No, these rooms had programming all the way up until 12 o’ clock MIDNIGHT people. The panels were extremely diverse as well.

Subjects ranged from how to start up your own anime club to dysfunctional aspects of the otaku sub-culture, even politics in video games .

The fun didn’t stop at midnight folks. No, this was a 48 hr party.

Just because the sun was down didn’t mean it was time to go home. Both Friday and Saturday night they had dancing that started at 10pm and ran until 5:30 IN THE MORNING. Also Friday night featured fancy ballroom dancing at 7pm before the main dance while Saturday had a brief foray into J-Pop music starting at 9pm. These weren’t the only things going on all night. Besides the eight program rooms there were also four rooms dedicated to screening anime constantly all weekend. Complete seasons, movies, hard to find episodes, you name it, they had it. Once it hit a certain time at night they even began showing some of the more mature-rated shows that you needed your ID to enter. As if this convention didn’t already have enough things going on they also hosted gaming tournaments for some of the more popular games throughout the weekend.

This convention was not without its bevy of stars. You could hardly watch an anime and not hear at least one of the voices from the top-notch list of voice acting celebrities they collected. From Todd Haberkorn, to Carrie Savage, even Greg and Chris Ayres. Granted I couldn’t pick them out by voice alone initially, but once I started going through the list of all the anime’s which some of them had worked in that I have seen, I began to realize I could recognize the voice from show to show. I just needed to know what name I was attributing to the voice.

Even with everything that Ohayocon had going on, to me the best part of the entire weekend was seeing this community spring up and thrive in nearly every hall of the convention center. Yes, most of the attendees were more in what I would call the high school range, but that didn’t stop them from making new friends, and sharing their love for anime. Their enthusiasm was so infectious you couldn’t help but smile and just enjoy people watching.

At the other two conventions I have attended prior to Ohayocon, I would probably say about 35% of the people there were dressed up in cosplay

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 13

outfits. Walking in the doors of the convention hall this time, I noticed at least 50% of the people were wearing some sort of cosplay. People grouped together to create entire ensemble casts from tv shows and movies, while some created mash-up costumes combining two of their favorite characters.

Soul Eater, Homestuck, and Final Fantasy characters seemed to be the most popular with Link and other game icons coming up close behind.

This isn’t a convention you go to expecting to see everything, because there is so much to do, it just isn’t physically possible to attend every panel, see every anime, play every game, and dance all night. If you are planning on going next year, get there early so you can spend the first hour or so getting adjusted to this entirely new world. It’s a doozy, and no matter how much I tell you about this convention, you still have to experience it for yourself. Even if you have not understood many of the terms that I have used in this article and your wondering what language I am using at times, this is still a convention for anyone. You may not come to Ohayocon an anime fan, but you’ll leave as one. Detz All Folks! g -James Detzler

FlashBack

- A look at quality games, movies and tech of yesteryear that still make for a great experience today!

Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012

Original system: Playstation One, developed in 1998

by SingleTrac Entertainment

SingleTrac is best known for the supersuccessful Twisted Metal series- but don’t overlook this hidden gem.

Rogue Trip takes everything that made the TM games fun, adds a little twist, and comes away as a great example of why more of a good thing is never a bad thing.

A car combat game at its core, Rogue Trip puts you behind the wheel of a souped -up destruction automobile and sets you out to destroy your competitors before they can do the same to you. Co-op is fully integrated, and by

(Photo: GT Interactive)

(Photo: GT Interactive)

far the best way to experience the game is with a friend watching your back.

The twist in Rogue Trip is that your automercenary is aiming to ferry a tourist around each level, giving them an opportunity to take photo ops and making more cash the longer you hold onto them. Cash can be parlayed into weapon upgrades and repairs, giving you a significant competitive edge. With only one tourist and numerous opponents though, sometimes your best route to victory is to concentrate more on fighting them than on running around like a drunken monkey trying not to get hit.

Rogue Trip was one of the earlier games to feature actual songs in a soundtrack, most notably “The Rascal King” by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in the XLAX level. As anyone who has played sports games over the last decade can attest, having a great tune in the background really enhances the overall feel of a game.

Almost 15 years later and the graphics are quite dated, but there’s still a visceral thrill in tearing around corners at several hundred miles an hour while flinging missiles with impunity. The simple hook of systematically eliminating your competitors is given more depth with the tourist component, and this game as a whole provides you with another 10 levels to roll through once you know everything in Twisted Metal 2 by heart. g -Aaron DeKuiper

(Photo: GT Interactive)

WebTV (MSN TV) 1996-2007 Sony, Philips, Microsoft The technology behind WebTv was invented in 1996

by Diba Inc and Zenith Electronics, who produced and marketed the first WebTV sets.

Zenith originally rolled out two top of the line TV’s with “Netvision” Internet access technology in the fall of 1996.

The first was a 27-inch model with a built in 28.8-kbs modem priced at $999, and a larger 35-inch model named “Inteq” and targeted at home entertainment users priced at $3,499.

When these TV’s failed to sell, Sony and Philips Electronics produced the now famous WebTV boxes that sold for $300 a piece and connected to any size TV. There was little difference between the first Sony and the Philips WebTV settop boxes, except for the housing and packaging.

The WebTV set-top box had very limited processing and memory resources (just a 112 MHz MIPS CPU, 2 megabytes of RAM, 2 megabytes of ROM, 1 megabyte of Flash memory) and the device relied upon a

Godzilla

Release: May 20, 1998 Stars: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Hank Azaria Director: Rolan Emmerich 3.5 out of 5 Stars Godzilla is not a horrible film. This not only applies to the original 1950’s movies but also the remake version in 1998, which is the one I will be addressing here. While the 1998 version shared the name and same over all concept for the creature, that’s where similarities end. I am sure this is largely why the remake got a lot of flak from people.

This is not a movie that you are going to walk away from feeling enlightened. Monster films rarely ever delve into anything deeper than survival and, as we all know, survival is the strongest of human motivations. This is a film that

connection through a 33.6 kbit/s dialup modem to connect to the WebTV Service.

In April of 1997, Microsoft bought the WebTV network for $425 million dollars and have since trademarked the name under MSN TV. Since the WebTV set-top box was a dedicated web browser appliance that did not need to be based on a standard operating system, the cost of licensing an operating system could be avoided. The box featured a 64bit RISC CPU chip, and a smart card reader. The smart card reader was not utilized significantly. The web browser was compatible with both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer and the WebTV set-top box featured 2 MB of RAM. The first WebTV set-top boxes had a 33.6 kbit/s modem, and later versions had 56kbit/s modems. The WebTV set-top boxes used a caching proxy for acceleration capable of reformatting and compressing web pages, a feature generally unavailable to dialup ISPs users at the time and as such, had to be developed by WebTV. For web browsing purposes, given WebTV’s thin client software, there was no need for a hard disk, but by putting the browser in non-volatile memory, upgrades could be downloaded from the WebTV service.

As broadband access became more readily available Microsoft introduced MSN TV2 in late 2004.The latest version of MSN TV was an Internet & Media Player that required no software to buy or install. It included an internet media player, a wireless remote, a wireless keyboard, a telephone line T-splitter, a phone cord, an audio/video cable, and a power supply.

MSN TV hardware is no longer being sold by Microsoft although the service is still ongoing for existing users.

On the “MSN TV Website”, a message states “Sorry, MSN TV hardware is no longer available for purchase from Microsoft. Microsoft continues to support the subscription service for existing WebTV and MSN TV customers.” g -Jason Carrick is supposed to be in the same vein as the Jurassic Park movies and when perceived that way this movie is one of the greats. Sure the dialogue is kind of crappy and the plot feels like someone stuck it on the firing range before they used it, but that wasn’t point of the movie. It was a movie to see some awesome special effects, which at the time were top notch, and see a giant creature destroy things. I love the way that they kept teasing people with little parts of Godzilla before the final big reveal. It just added that much more awe to seeing the full monster in all its glory. A monster movie where you can take the main cast and swap them with anyone else and still be an interesting movie is a fine monster film in my opinion. This means the focus was on the creature and to me that’s the most important in those films..g -James Detzler

16 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Geek Valentine Gifts 1. Mix Drive Mix tapes are so 80’s and mix CDs are so 90’s. It’s 2012 and these days, more and more people are putting their mixes of music on flash drives. Bring the romantic thought and planning of the oldfashioned mix tape into 2012 with a mix drive by putting your mix of music on a flash drive. Most common flash drives hold more music than a CD and it’s easier to carry around with you. If your geek works in an office, I suggest grabbing a Split Stick for them.

It’s two flash drives in one, so your geek can keep that music mix on one side and use the other to move files from home to work and back. http://www.quirky.com | Cost: $24.99 2. Scent Drive For the lady who has everything. From causal Fashion Drive to Smart Elegance, this one-of-a-kind Scent DriveTM diffuses fragrance when in use. Scent DriveTM also comes in a Luxury line, crystals by Swarovski, and other exotic materials. http://www.scent-drive.com | Cost: $29 – $60 3. 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt ThinkGeek’s gamer shirt with an romantic twist is animated, fun, and definitely geeky. Your GamerGeek will appreciate the Life level the hearts represent, your TechGeek will love that the shirts interact by proximity, and your RomantiGeek will enjoy his or her hearts getting filled up when you are near with the same shirt. http://www.thinkgeek.com | Cost: $17.99 – $24.99 4. 8-Bit Flower Bouquet This 8-bit bouquet is the perfect flower arrangement for a vintage videogame fan. With no need for water, they’ll look great propped on a desk or table with the included stand. So cool, this brill bouquet makes ordinary posies look like they have far too many pixels. http://www.thinkgeek.com | Cost: $14.99

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5. USB Tulip Hub Give the love of your life the precious gift of extra USB ports with this cheerful tulip-shaped four-port hub. In addition to its functionality, it’ll still be cheering up a desk long after real flowers would have faded. http://www.fredflare.com | Cost: $22 6. I Love Geeks I Love Geeks is a light hearted look at geekdom from the eyes of a women (and geek) in love with a geeky guy. Includes guides to surviving and loving Comic Con and more. http://www.amazon.com | Price: $10 7. Energy drinks Energy drinks packaged as health potions? Sign us up. You can also score energy drinks packaged as Mana potions, blood transfusions, and zombie blood. http://www.chemicalevolution.com | Price: $3-6

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You may think Valentine’s day is a load of crap, right? Just some holiday that the card and candy companies got together on to try and trick the human race into buying more things they don’t need, right? WRONG! There is actual merit behind Valentine’s day!

Saint Valentine’s Day, most commonly shortened to Valentine’s Day has been around since 500 AD established by Pope Gelasius I. It has always been a day to celebrate love and expressing that love with flowers, cards, and confectionery.

In 1969, however, the revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints excluded the feast day of Saint Valentine’s on February 14 the reason being “Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14th.”

So now that the history is taken care of what in the world do you get your significant other? Below you will find a list of some popular flowers and the meanings behind them, as well as a few date ideas to make Februrary 14th not just another day on the calendar for you. Remember it is not how much you spend but how much thought you put into your gift!

Baby’s Breath posies – Gentleness, Everlasting Love Carnation – Fascination, Burning Love, Woman’s Love Daisy (Ox-eye) – A token Gardenia – A Secret Love Lilac (purple) – Love’s first emotion Orchid – A beauty Iris – Message for you; flame; My compliments Rose – Love Tulip (Red) – Declaration of love Tulip (Yellow) – Hopeless love Violet (Blue) – Faithfulness; Love Violet (Purple) – You occupy my thoughts If flowers aren’t your thing, try some of these other ideas sure to impress.

Geek ‘s Guide to...

o t e d i u G s ’ A Geek

s e n i t n e l a V Day

01001 0 01001 01 001000 00 1 01110 00 011011 11 110 0 1 00100 000 0 100101 1 01101 111 0 011001 11101 01

Hey we know dating a geek can be tough — video game obsessions, constant trips to Comic-Con, and the gadget that never shuts up can make for some stiff competition. Geek or not, you’ll have loads of fun and may even find that you’re more of a tech nerd than you thought!

Play Hard to Get

How about having a romantic scavenger hunt? Give them a list of objects to capture on their digital camera or build a mobile phone based scavenger hunt using SCVNGR.com.

The prize? You, of course!

Stargazing

Instead of gazing at each other why not do some stargazing of your own. Grab your significant other for a night of identifying constellations and wishing on shooting stars. No telescope? Head over to the nearest planetarium instead.

Game Together to Stay Together

A perfect night can still include video games. Besides being loads of fun, playing video games together encourages a friendly dose of competition and team building.

Bring the Chemist Into the Kitchen

People don’t give cooking enough geek cred. When you consider all the exact measurements that go into a good meal, comparisons to a high school chem lab don’t seem that far off.

Turn it up a notch with a molecular gastronomy kit from ThinkGeek.com and enter the world of chef-chemists.

You’ll be making spheres of salad dressing and blue cheese foam in no time!

Say Cheese

A camera geek is still a geek! If your significant other holds a special place in her/his heart for Polaroid, 35 mm film, and photobooths use Foursquare to look for photobooths in your area and spend the evening barhopping.

By the end of the night you’ll have unlocked the “Photogenic” badge and have a pile of cool pics to remember it by.

Put Down The Computer

Finally, there’s the gift that can’t be bought. Make a commitment for just one day to stay off the computer, stop checking your phone, avoid gaming, and whatever else you need to do in order to devote all your attention on Valentine’s Day to the person you love.

g

-Jason Carrick

18 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

CHAPTER NAME

Bugger-Off!

I’m Readin’ Comics!

Before I start to rant I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jason, James, and the whole gang here at Day Old Stubble for bringing me on board to discuss a topic that’s close to my heart .....COMIC BOOKS! I started reading comics when I was 7 years old and haven’t looked back since.

Whether its been beating up the Joker with Batman, chasing the stars with the X-Men, solving paranormal problems with Hellboy, or battling Shredder with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I have LOVED every minute of it. There are times, however, when story lines can become a little stagnate or repetitious. When that happens it seems that’s when the best ideas or story lines begin. One such idea I happened to come across while rifling through a copy of Previews magazine a couple of years ago.

Created by comic book legend Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows CROSSED, from Avatar comics, is a very dark and frightening tale of a plague that has manifested itself on Earth causing the victims to act out their most dastardly and evil thoughts without ANY remorse.

Unlike normal zombie stories where

the walking dead just chase after you to feed, the CROSSED have all of their memories and faculties that they had before their infection. Meaning that if one of the CROSSED knew where all of our nuclear weapons are stationed and how to use them that particular CROSSED member would have that same knowledge after infestation.

That kind of power in the hands of a psychopathic killer does not bode well for our small group of survivors.

Adding to the creepiness of all of this, each person that has been infected has a cross on their face made from some sort of a blood rash. Now imagine if you will, several thousands of these CROSSED looking for you to torture, rape, dismember, and then murder you and your loved ones. All of your darkest fears rolled into one.

The story follows around our group of survivors led by Cindy, a very cold and calculated woman whose main goal is to find safety for her and her 5 year old son Patrick. Another member of the group, Stan, serves as the narrator on their tour of Hell. We see this decayed world through his eyes. Then there is Kelly and Thomas.

Kelly is blinded early on in the book by the detonation of a nuclear bomb.

(See, I told you!) Through the course of the story, the reader finds out how each member of the group has made it to this point --- each tale more horrific than the last. (Just my own opinion, my life wouldn’t be worth living if my family weren’t in it. Try and imagine seeing your loved ones destroyed in front of your

eyes in the most gruesome manner or becoming the creatures causing this turmoil. That’s what scares me!) It is a brutal, gory, psychological, heart wrenching, terrifying, and depressing journey that our survivors take us on. This book WILL scare you with its plot lines and some of the artwork will give you mental images that will take some time to get out of your head.

Be warned that this book IS NOT for children. It comes with a very strong MATURE rating.

In today’s day and age of biological warfare, would it be possible for something like CROSSED to happen? It’s unlikely but one can see how, with a good imagination, something like this could happen.

That’s what makes this story line AMAZING! Any time a story can capture your attention like this one does, it has staying power. There have been a few sequels released since this CROSSED story line debuted but in my opinion they are not as good as the original. It seems that in the sequels the new writers are going more for shock value. (See, stagnate and repetitious!) So if you haven’t read the original CROSSED story line stop by your local comic book shop and pick up the copies or the trade paperback.

Be warned. Pay close attention to the person on the other side of the counter. If they have a blood rash in the shape of a cross on their face....

RUN LIKE HELL and don’t look back.g -Dave Norton

D12 Academy

An in-depth study on a different board game each month…increase your strategic knowledge and/or decide if it’s worth a purchase.

What It Is Puerto Rico is a Euro game of resource gathering and limited opportunities.

Players take turns selecting rolesTrader, Miner, and so forth- and then everyone performs an associated action with the person who chose it getting a slight bonus. You develop plantations and buildings, and throughout the game generate trade goods which you ultimately seek to ship back to Europe to accumulate Victory Points.

The theme centers around the thriving trading industry of the colonial Caribbean period.

Sugar, Coffee, and other luxury goods could be grown cheaply on the islands and then sold for a fortune in the Old World. But there are also risks. Crops can spoil and there is always very limited space on the ships sailing out.

Many period-inspired buildings can assist your growing mercantile operation, from warehouses for crops to a harbor for your own personal ship! Yes, success can be sweet.

Puerto Rico

Published in 2002

by Rio Grande Games

How It Plays Like most Euro games, the conflicts in Puerto Rico are occur as a result of pursuing the best option for your personal island. Any player who actively sets out to go after another player will find himself outscored by opponents who use their time more effectively toward their own goals. As each role can only be chosen once per round, the most common way you thwart your friend’s plans is by blocking them from a role they need.

Be prepared to feel a time crunch from early on in the game. There are never enough rounds to develop as many buildings as you would like and frequently your engine

just gets ramped up to full steam when the game ends.

For some, that is infuriating. For others, it is motivation to refine your strategy and play again.

Puerto Rico is a medium-length game…expect a session to take 1-2 hours, once everyone is up to speed on the rules. It accommodates 3-5 players, though there is an optional variant for just two players. Four or five players flows best, with enough blocking to make for an interesting game, but not too much downtime since everyone is taking actions each time a new role is chosen.

If you haven’t gotten into the game previously now may be a great time- an anniversary edition was recently released that includes more durable and attractive game components. It also comes with two small expansions that can otherwise be hard to find and add more depth and replay value to the game.

20 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Board Games It May Be For You If… Some other games that share similarities with Puerto Rico include Goa, Caylus, and Traders of Genoa. This game is best for players who like having limited choices to worry about at any given time, but still enjoy the opportunity to keep an eye on the big picture several turns ahead. If you’re looking for a wargame or one where you can go after your opponents and upset the balance of power through combat, you should look elsewhere. Some groups prefer games where you can self-regulate who wins by ganging up on anyone who gets too far in the lead. Puerto Rico isn’t one of those, instead presenting a game where it’s unlikely for anyone to have hard feelings afterwards because you’re almost always taking actions based on advancing your own goals rather than on spite.

How To Dominate Your Friends Strategy in Puerto Rico is generally built along one of two major aims- shipping a lot of goods or gaining VP’s through expensive structures. It is critical though to be open to change mid-game…if too many of your opponents are pursuing a similar strategy to your own it can be difficult to win without shifting paths. If you don’t want to be locked into one direction success can sometimes be found by choosing the “best option available” course on each turn, and then hoping to build up a diverse and flexible island over time to capitalize on whatever options present themselves.

If you aim to win by shipping massive amounts of goods, the Captain role is your best friend. Ship whatever you can, whenever you can, and let everyone else use the Craftsman to generate your goods for you. You can mostly ignore the Trader role, use the Miner if you really need to get some extra money. You’ll want to produce corn and indigo, the cheapest, most plentiful crops. If others are working to spoil your abundant goods you can counter with a Warehouse, but your ultimate goal from buildings is to get a Harbor (extra VP from shipping) or a Wharf (your own ship!). Run down the pile of victory chips and seal your victory before your friends can build up their slower strategies.

If you aim to win through fancy buildings, you have to establish a sound economic foundation. Either tobacco or coffee, aided by a Market and utilizing the Trader role as often possible will generate more money than you can spend easily. Though it is an overlooked building, the Office will be critical to your engine unless your opponents just allow you to use Trader with impunity. You don’t need a ton of plantations or crops, just enough to sell regularly and ship a few every now and

then. In the end your goal will be to grab as many of the VP-generating “big buildings” as you can get your hands on. Start with whichever will get you the most points, but if you are trading lot of expensive goods you should be able to get several while everyone else struggles to get even one. University can also be a powerful building, by making sure that all your future structures get activated right away (critical for the big buildings, which only generate VP’s once they get activated). Create an impressive city of big buildings and finish the game before someone else can win by shipping a zillion units of lousy corn. g -Aaron DeKuiper

Gaming Jargon: Euro Game- Games by European designers tend to focus more on wise use of limited resources, and less on directly attacking other players. Theme also usually plays a heavy role in creating the overall experience in a Euro game.

Wargame- Wargames concentrate on combat and frequently have little or no elements of economic, cultural, or resource development. Dice are almost always employed which means that ultimately any strategy is going to require elements of luck as well.

Engine- A strategy within a game- how you build yourself up to win. In any given game your engine might be drawing tons of cards, building a powerful army, or creating combos of special abilities. How long your engine takes to set up and how efficiently it runs is critical to your chances of victory.

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 21

Oscar Picks for 2012

DayOldStubble Goes Down The Red Carpet We Pick the Winners So You Don’t Have To

-James Detzler

22 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Oscar Picks for 2012 February isn’t only host to the football showdown of the year but later this month the stars come out to see who will throw the smackdown and walk away with the gold statue.

Yup, the Oscars are coming up on the 26th. Now we here at DayOldStubble understand that most people only care about the main categories, we couldn’t agree more. So we picked the 7 categories that we are the most interested in seeing who wins.

Best Picture The Artist The Descendants “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” The Help

Hugo Midnight in Paris Moneyball The Tree of Life War Horse

Sadly I have not seen most of these movies due to living in a small city. This year there are only nine nominees, leaving one spot open which I felt could have been filled by any number of films. Some of which could have been serious contenders. From what I can tell The Descendants and The Artist are the two forerunners. If I had to speculate on who the winner would be, I would say The Artist for its style, acting and music. There’s a reason it has 10 other nominations. Personally my pick for the top film would go to Hugo (one of the two films I did see in this category). Here’s the thing though folks. Hugo has the most nominations with 11. Yup, it goes toe to toe with The Artist in most categories, but pulls away with a nomination in Visual Effects, something The Artist has none of. If the voters recognize that Hugo has the whole package instead of just a bunch of hype, then we should be looking at a surprise win folks.

Winner: Hugo Best Actor Demian Bichir (A Better Life) George Clooney (The Descendants)

Jean Dujardin (The Artist) Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

When I pick the best actor (or actress for that matter), I always lean towards the person who seems to immerse themselves completely in their role. Gary Oldman is my pick for the Best Actor this year. He convincingly pulls off the experience of a cool, calculated, and intelligent spy. A far cry from other spy movies (cough, MI:4, cough), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a perfect film for Oldman to showcase his skills and I look forward to him coming out on top.

Winner: Gary Oldman

Best Actress Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) Viola Davis (The Help) Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)

Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

This will be another competitive year for this category. Of the five women, three are no stranger to being nominated.

One is a newcomer with some great chops and the fifth is an abomination. Personally, I really hope Glenn Close pulls off the win with her sixth nomination. Her portrayal of a woman who disguises herself as a man to make a living as a butler is Oscar worthy. Her transformation and mental process is hard to comprehend, but her acting is really what made that film. That’s what I look for when a person’s acting is so great it is the one thing that really drives a film.

Winner: Glenn Close Best Supporting Actor Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn) Jonah Hill (Moneyball) Nick Nolte (Warrior)

Christopher Plummer (Beginners) Max Von Sydow (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

It seems this year had very view quality male supporting roles to pick from. I am having a hard time remembering any supporting actor who made an impression on me. At least they culled together some of the best actors and gave them the nominations. A pick from these nominees will at least give them some long deserved attention. I would really like Nick Nolte to be able to put that statue in his home this year. He has had so many great roles and rarely gets the attention that he deserves because of some good competition. Out of the choices that were given I feel he had the most impact on his movie.

Winner: Nick Nolte

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 23

Best Animated Film

Best Supporting Actress Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) Jessica Chastain (The Help) Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)

Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs) Octavia Spencer (The Help)

In my opinion it can be easier to pick supporting role winners than leading roles. This is due to the fact that a supporting actor/actress can gain significant attention by essentially “stealing” scenes. When a person in a supporting role does such a good job that they stand out amongst the top-billed actors in the movie, that’s top-tier acting.

This requires me to give some credit to Bridesmaids, which besides this category should be left off any other ballots. I must say that Melissa McCarthy pulled out all of the stops in this film with her role. She took a very crass character and had fun with her, which showed to everyone who watched Bridesmaids. Here’s to Melissa and may her wins be aplenty.

Winner: Melissa McCarthy Best Director Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris) Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life) Alexander Payne (The Descendants)

This is a category on which I am quite torn. I really like Hugo and want to give the win to Martin Scorsese but I really can’t ignore what Woody Allen did with Midnight in Paris. He did a wonderful job portraying 1920’s Paris and fusing that line between the past and present. He had the romanticism of Paris down to a T. Which isn’t surprising with how well this man can take a city, capture its essence, boil it down, and inject it into a movie to the point where the city itself is a character in his movies. So I am sorry Scorsese, the lovable, stuttering man from Brooklyn gets my vote this year.

Winner: Woody Allen

A Cat in Paris Chico & Rita Kung Fu Panda 2

Puss In Boots Rango

I almost refuse to give my opinion on this category this year. I am angry with the Academy and in total shock how they could even possibly not include The Adventures of Tintin. I mean come on, Puss in Boots???? KUNG FU PANDA 2?????? Really? These two films are nominees but not Tintin? I am not saying these are bad movies. But they are in no way are on the level of Tintin, even in just the animation department. In retaliation, and because I have no knowledge of the two foreign nominees, my vote goes to Rango.

Winner: Rango

24 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Movie Reviews

This is one of those movies that I find hard to review. It is a film that I went into having extremely high hopes for and really wanting to see certain aspects. While they may have hit many of the right notes, overall there are some big issues that overpower what is good in this film. It makes this a movie with good principles, just poor execution.

CHRONICLE

(Photo: 20th Century Fox)

Let’s start with the bad so I can finish up this review on a 3 out of 5 positive note, because Chronicle we all love happy (20th Century Fox) endings. Which is one Drama/Scifi/Fantasy • Rated: PG-13 small qualm I have Michael B. Jordan, Dane DeHaan, with this film. There Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw was this big climatic scene, very iconic and yet I felt unfulfilled by the ending. Maybe I was hoping for a little darker ending, something with a bit more mystery.

My largest issue with this film is also the most obvious one. Three words: FOUND FOOTAGE FILM. The 3F’s must be undertaken with extreme caution. Please, never use the 3F’s unless you know what you are capable of and know that it will work. I understand that the director was trying to make it so the audience felt more connected with the main characters by being right in the action but it failed. It was a horrible attempt. When you have to create scenes, and introduce characters, just to explain some of the shots that were achieved, STOP!! That should be your first alert. This film would have been phenomenal if they had just filmed

(Photo: 20th Century Fox)

it from a normal 3rd person viewpoint. Sadly, they had to ruin any credibility this film fought so valiantly for by trying to run with a trend.

In stark contrast to my hate for the 3F’s, is my love for everything else this film did.

The story was different and interesting. The effects were overall great. Some of their early effects were a bit off, but funny as it may sound, as the movie progressed and their powers grew, the effects improved eventually peaking during the flight scenes. Their portrayal of high school life was fairly realistic even if it did seem to highlight the bad parts. Best of all was the acting of the three boys and how they were extremely different people, but were able to bond over a common interest and transcend whatever barriers they had erected. I think more emotional weight would have been added to this film if it had spanned a longer period of time and their bonds had become closer.

Even though the movie ran a little shorter than I would have liked, and they didn’t take full advantage of their idea, it was a fairly solid film. Unfortunately this movie is overshadowed by the usage of found footage but I hope people look past this (Photo: 20th Century Fox) mistake and give it the credit it deserves. g -James Detzler

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 25

3.5 out of 5

Haywire

It is always refreshing to see a new face on the acting scene. One that can actually act that is. Especially in the genre of female action movies. Move over Angelina Jolie, Gina Carano is here to kick your

ass.

The story of Haywire by itself is nothing spectacular.

Typical undercover agent gets double-crossed and they go on a revenge rampage to even the score. Fortunately this is a film direced by Steven Soderbergh. He may not be one for trying anything outside of the box, but Soderbergh is very good about having a short script and having the character’s actions tell the stories. He doesn’t baby the viewer, feeding them every little scrap of information in easy to digest dialogue. He would rather have you pay attention to the screen, watch the story, and let your mind unfold to what is happening.

Watching this film is easy to do. Especially with the likes of Gina Carano gracing the screen, it is very easy to be

(Photo: Relativity Media)

(Relativity Media) enthralled. Who Drama/Action/Suspense • Rated: R is Gina Carano you Gina Carano, Channing Tatum, Ewan may ask? Gina Carano McGregor, Michael Fassbender, is a female MMA fighter Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, who has made her way Michael Douglas, Michael Angarano to the big screen to show us how a woman fights. I am very pleased by her arrival to the movie scene as I have just recently viewed what seemed to be one of the most uninspired female assassin fights in history during Ghost Protocol. Through out all of Haywire her fight was consistent with how I would expect a trained assassin to fight, and this made me very happy. I didn’t want to see a woman cat-fight, I wanted to see her kick ass. She did so struggling, and it added to the realism of the fighting. She was outmatched by many of her opponents in body mass but she took a licking and used her training to come out on top.

I was a little disappointed in the storytelling mechanic though. Forcing her way into that guy’s car and spilling her entire story ended up having a plausible reasoning but seemed simply like the easy way out on how to start the story. The film would have been just as good without those scenes. I kept waiting for some kind of trick but it really was just a straight-forward storytelling. The only other flaw with this movie would be Channing Tatum’s character.

Granted, he was supposed to be this bored, laid-back guy with hidden talents but he came across as a lazy bum who seemed sleepy all the time. This made it even less plausible to believe that Gina Carano’s character, a motivated and highly-alert woman, would be physically/romantically interested in him. It seemed to be a very forced plot point that had little implications other than to add a little more sentiment to the movie. Both of these things could have been removed from the movie and it would have been just as entertaining.

To Gina Carano, I raise a toast. May you have a long and illustrious movie career showing us how a true female action star fights. g -James Detzler

26 | February | DayOldStubble | www.DayOldStubble.com

Top Five Pics To celebrate the recent re-release, this

e v i F p To

month we’re scouring through this seminal game for the top moments that made it such a huge hit in 2001…and still a great gaming experience ten years later.

5

Night Flight

4

The Gun Pointed at the Head of the Universe

3

Massive Assault

The third level in the game presents you with a thrilling opportunity to stalk across the nightdarkened terrain taking out Covenant foes with a sniper rifle. Each mini-area is sufficiently separated from the next so that you can discreetly eliminate one spot, and then carefully set up for the rest. This level is a distinct change of pace from the assault-rifle toting frenetic melees that most other battles in the game become.

By this point Master Chief has spent five levels fighting through countless Covenant and another two tagging along with 343 Guilty Spark, the talkative monitor of the Halo installation. Spark has been helping the Chief take the steps to activate the ring in order to stop the Flood- with one convenient little piece of information neglected. Good ‘ole Cortana returns just in time to explain the truth before you make a fatal mistake. It’s a great reveal the first time you experience it, and the innocent manner in which Spark tells not-quite-enough of the truth make him a more interesting and chilling nemesis.

Set mostly in the snowy outdoors, the level titled “Assault on the Control Room” presents you with the largest and longest throw-down combat of the entire game. There are multiple great instances of an area overflowing with enemies and lots of options to take them on- almost every vehicle and weapon in the game gets some screen time here. The end result is an exhilarating tour that showcases just why Master Chief is such an unstoppable badass.

Moments

2

The Race to the Finish

1

The Flood Appear

Well…you’ve overcome 343 Guilty Spark, stopped Halo from activating, and set up a chain reaction explosion in the engine core of the Pillar of Autumn that will destroy the ring once and for all. What’s left to do?

Escape! The latter part of the finale level finds you driving 3.5 kilometers in a warthog to flee Halo before it explodes with a six minute clock (only five minutes on Legendary difficulty!) counting down beside you. It’s a great ride to end a great game and an homage to many classic sci-fi moments such as Lando escaping the Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

All game long as the story builds you’re wondering just what exactly Halo is and what it was built for. There are many great teases such as the end of the end of the fifth level when Cortana learns the truth but doesn’t have time to fully fill you in, and then throughout the following level which has a tone and foreboding progression that is reminiscent of the movie Alien. Then the Flood finally make their full appearance, showing how they butchered a squad of marines previously and then swarming against you throughout the rest of the level in a constant…well, flood is both what they are, and what they do. The Flood is a great sci-fi enemy and the mood and way they are revealed slowly and meticulously is a high point in the series as a whole. g -Aaron DeKuiper

www.DayOldStubble.com | DayOldStubble | February | 27

Mac N Cheese Break Oscar Rage The Oscars are coming up at the end of this month. February 26th to be exact. On a quick side note, I would love to know why they keep getting pushed back further every year. Maybe they aren’t and it’s just in my imagination. Or they are. If you have some kind of knowledge as to why, I would love to hear it. Anyways back to the awards. This past year was a year that seemed like it was going to be exciting, full of new opportunities and finishing up story lines with long awaited sequels. In my opinion, it was quite a letdown. Sure we had some good films, but none that made me excited after watching them. In years past, there has always been at least one movie that I would see in theaters, eagerly await its DVD release, and then watch said DVD over and over again for weeks. This is the first year that I did not buy a DVD of a new high profile movie. The only ones I ended up buying were films that I would not have been able to see in theaters largely due to my location and its lack of variety.

This lets me bring up another qualm I have with most Oscar films. A lot of Oscar nominated films are of movies that have a limited release or are shown only in larger cities.This creates a false sense about a movie.

People will want to see a film that they are not actually interested in just to be in on the new “IT” movie. They will then staunchly defend it, on its Oscar buzz alone. On the flip side it could be detrimental to a film also. Some one could go into a hyped movie, and while it may not be a bad film, it doesn’t live up to the expected standards and in return gets doused with lighter fluid and burned because of the disappointment.

Why should extra hype be given to a movie that most will have to wait until DVD to see? Limited releases are usually used for smaller indie films that don’t have the budget for a wide release or they know that they only want to be seen by a select number of people. So how does this make for a good Oscar nominated film?? Take The Artist for example. If you take each of the nine weeks that this film has been released to the public, add the amount of screens that it is shown on each week (keep in mind that many of these screens are on there for more than one week), and you only end up with 2,157 screens that The Artist has played on. In comparison, Moneyball aired on 2,993 on its opening weekend alone. If a film is so great, shouldn’t getting the backing to release on more screens be easy? Or is it that the film wants people to think it is good so they show it to the few select people that matter when it comes to voting on the Oscars? I really wish they would change the selection process. Sure it may be more work, but we the people don’t want to know what the people in the industry think is the best film. We want to know who we collectively think moved us the most with their performances.

Sadly we are stuck with an awards show where the industry folks like to come and pat themselves on the back in a glorified display of selfgratification.

Detz All Folks!!

-James Detzler

Deputy Editor

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