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Two weekends in a row viewing The Incredibles and that’s 3 hours of my life well spent. Brad Bird (him what brought us the underrated Iron Giant) and Pixar have created the all around best movie I’ve seen this year. Sure Kill Bill may be a better action flick. Ghost in the Shell 2 has better animation. Shawn of the Dead was funnier. But nothing is the total package like The Incredibles.

Character, story, action, gadgets, geek references, retro design and style and some really amazing CG animation that you miss because it’s done so well. Pay attention to the hair and cloth (there’s a reason that teams gets their own billing) for some really impressive CG. The whole is much greater than the sum of it’s parts. Pixar continues to put out great stories and characters that happen to be animated. They’ve taken a big step by letting Bird avoid the trap of a “kiddie flick” and went for the PG rating. Disney is in a lot of trouble once they finish parting ways.

If you’re in the mood to be entertained go see this movie. Doesn’t matter what age you are, doesn’t matter if you like superheroes or not, doesn’t matter if you’re not crazy anout animation (CG or 2d) this is an excellent film.

Funniest. Strong Bad Email. Ever.

There are a number of copy protection schemes out there for CDs and DVDs. One commonly used in games is SecuROM. I’ve been having big problems with more recent games protected by SecuROM not starting on my PC even though I legally purchased the game and had the CD in the drive at launch. The publishers, developers and SecuROM were all stuck and basically blowing me off when I called and emailed.

This has required me to resort to no-CD patches which override the copy protection built into the main game executable. Recent games like UT2004, Tribes: Vengeance, and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 are unplayable for me unless I “crack” the game.

Until today… when over on the Atari Forums a poster by the name of WormHoleUT pointed to an updated ASPI driver from Adaptec that fixes my problem. Now I can play the games that I bought. This makes me very happy and I’ll be sure to post a bunch about RCT3, a game I’ve had for the past 3 weeks but haven’t played much of at all. Thanks WormHoleUT.

I’m in holiday lockdown. This means that I’m no longer allowed to purchase video games since I’ll buy all the releases on the day they come out (it’s fun being a grown up!) denying friends and family of holiday gift giving opportunities. So I won’t be playing Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines any time soon, but I know a friend or two that are big fans of the World of Darkness and should probably check it out. Looks like the reviews are positive.

Since I’m on the list to be comment spammed I’m trying out some moderation schemes on all submitted comments. You don’t have to register or log in to comment, but I may have to approve them for viewing. Your patience as I check the site and approve the real comments and delete the spam is appreciated, and I appreciate your comments.

(I know sentences like the previous one make my writer friends wince but this is my web log damnit and I can write however I want!)

P.S. I’m not a fan of web sites that force a fixed column width so I recommend the Blue Fade style for this site.

Halo 2 is the best console First Person Shooter out there. It’s not better than some PC FPSs, but for hooking up a game to your TV there’s no better. When you take Halo 2 online through Xbox Live you’ll see some real nifty things that may change competitive on-line gaming from here forward. As of this writing about 350,000 seperate people played Halo 2 online in the last 24 hours. With first day sales estimated at $125 Million, that’s a lot of people being exposed to this new way to game online.
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