The Mud Puddle

Only one day late!

2009-12-14T21:38:00.002-05:00

So, I managed to remember to do the song of the week this time, although I'm a day late on it. Ah well. I'll get the hang of this regular posting stuff someday.

Demolition Hammer - Infectious Hospital Waste

So, I'm turning the clock back a bit this time. The last 2 songs of the week (also the only 2...) were within the last couple years. This one comes from the year 1990, almost two decades ago. But, I felt like posting about it because Demolition Hammer has been somewhat forgotten by a large number of metalheads, and they made some really cool thrash back in the day.

Now then, I'll talk about the actual song. Like many thrash songs, it simply starts out with fast aggressive riffing. The production is raw, and gives it a bit of a muffled feeling. This is unfortunate, as it somewhat lessens the impact of the riffs, but it's not too much of a detriment. The riffs are quite simply, great. They're surprising brutal for thrash metal, and frequently are on the verge of crossing over into death metal riffing. Indeed, Demolition Hammer seems to be very close to being death metal throughout much of their music (except for their last album, but that's a tale for another blog post). The vocals however are pure thrash. Raw shouting and spitting. It's what good thrash vocals should be, and they do their part. The song goes on for about 5 minutes, riffing away with this brutal thrash style. It's a great song, and shows how brutal you can really make thrash metal.

Aaaagh! Song of the week!

2009-12-06T21:00:00.002-05:00

So, due to a variety of problems (such as me being sick), there were never any more short song reviews after the Swashbuckle song, even though I promised to do them every week. I apologize, and intend to make this a regular thing. Or as regular as possible. So then, onto the song.

Vesania - Rage of Reason:
So, for those of you that don't know Vesania is a symphonic black metal band, with some death metal thrown in here and there. They come from Poland, and their vocalist is Orion, the bassist of Behemoth, a Polish band that's very well known within the metal world. However, I'll avoid comparing this song to any of Behemoth's work. Now then, this song is rather good. It's got entertaining guitarworks, and good keyboard work. The keyboards really do complement the music well. They don't simply supplement the guitars, or drown them out either. They interact with them very well. Now, the vocals are what I really like about this song. Orion really has a unique style of black metal vocals, and the melodies he rasps, are very nice. The chorus is good raspy fun. There's one weird part in the song where you hear carnival music, but I guess that's to be expected considering what the artwork was for the album from which this song was; a creepy jester mask that would be right at home in some sort of bizarre evil-carnival.

So then, my overall decision is that this is a good song. Not amazing, but quite fun.

Grade: 8.2/10

[4e] Some Good ole Homebrew!

2009-11-10T17:30:00.005-05:00

So, I'll spare the introduction and cut right to the chase. These are some homebrewed D&D fourth edition items. The levels are a bit iffy, but I never cared for them anyway. Hell, 3.x barely had a level system. Regardless, they're below! I especially like the 2nd and 4d. How about you all?

Quickened Scabbard Level 1
This holster gives its blade a quicker bite.
Wondrous Item 360 gp
Property: This scabbard resizes to fit any light blade or heavy blade.
Power (At Will): Free Action. Drawing or sheathing any blade from this scabbard is a free action.
Power (Encounter): Free action. If the weapon is draw with an enemy adjacent to you, you can +1 to attack rolls until the end of your turn. The weapon must have been sheathed in the last 24 hours to regain this power.

Spiritwrought Scabbard Level 9
A ghastly scabbard, covered with runes that fade and reappear.
Wondrous Item 4,200 gp
Property: This scabbard resizes to fit any light blade or heavy blade.
Power (Daily): Free Action. When this blade is drawn, you may activate this ability. If so, you can attack incorporeal creatures as if they were corporeal. in addition to creatures you can already attack, until the end of the encounter.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. When an enemy incorporeal creature reaches 0 hit points, you may choose to become incorporeal until the end of the encounter. You can become corporeal as a minor action.

Ring of Refraction Level 7
This square ring, covered in silvery mirrors, can redirect the attacks of your enemies.
Item Slot: Ring 2,600 gp
Power (Daily): Special. When an ally uses a Burst, Blast, or Ranged attack, you may count as the origin square. You grant line of sight and line of effect.
Power (Daily) Interrupt. When an enemy hit you with a blast attack, roll d20. If you beat your opponents unmodified to-hit roll, The attack is reflected in the opposite direction.

Magician's Best Friend Level 8
With this band, a talentless man becomes a wizard!
Item Slot: Ring 3,400 gp
Property: +2 to Arcana Checks
Power (At-Will): Standard Action. You may cast any of the 4 cantrips. You may not have more than one cantrip cast at once. If one cantrip is cast while another one is still act, the first cantrip is nullified.

So boss it hurts!

2009-11-09T20:51:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: The below video may cause serious mental shortages and cerebral explosions. Seriously, not for the weak of awesome. (If you do watch you are unawesome, it'll bad… brains all of the walls… Huge burden on your family… You know, the works.)

Oh. Ehm. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

/fangirl

Now, we've all seen that really talented guy play the Mario theme on guitar (which, is awesome in its own respect), but I've never seen a modern song played on a harp. Let alone heavy metal? I love the riffing in the original song, by Iron Maiden, but the picking in that cover takes it to a whole new level. That guy has got some serious talent, quick fingers, and great taste in music. And that's why, he's the featured video of the week.

Cruise Ship Terror - Swashbuckle

2009-11-07T23:59:00.002-05:00

So, it's another post about music. It's something that Mr. Mud and I intend to do from now on. Every week, we'll post a quick paragraph or two about a song that we've recently come to like. We'll probably switch off every week. So, this week I have song duty. I'm gonna write about the song in the title, Cruise Ship Terror. So then....

The Song:
Arrr, this be a pleasin song. It's by Swashbuckle, who I mentioned in the most recent blog post. If you didn't read that post, then I'll quickly summarize them. Pirate theme thrash metal. It's quite fun stuff. In terms of rifffs and such, Swashbuckle isn't very original, but they are unbelievably fun, and their pirate theme is rather fun. Now for the song itself, this is a song about pirates attacking a cruise ship, stealing all the money and women, and in general doing what pirates always do. The song is fast, thrashy, and really fun. A high point is when the band starts chanting YO! HO! YO! HO! It has some solos at the end, but they aren't really anything special to talk about. It's got a fun, catchy chorus (party boat! parrrty boat!). In the end, it's a rockin song about pirates doing what pirates do best. And that's why it's the song of the week.

Concert Review #1

2009-11-06T18:47:00.002-05:00

So yeah, we haven't posted in a while. As Mr. Mud said, I've had technical difficulties. A lot of them. As you can see, they've lasted since August. I wish I could hurry the adventure up, but I can't. However, in the meantime I'm going to post something that I don't think we've had here yet. A concert review. Last night, I saw the Monsters of Death tour. For those of you that don't know, it's a tour through North America headlined by a Polish Death Metal band called Vader, with about 5 bands opening. So, onto the actual review.

So last night I saw Vader, and the five bands that opened for them. I shall now type up a rather un-brief description of it, describing how cool it was. For a short summary, scroll to the bottom.

Swashbuckle
So I walked into the venue after these guys had played about a third of their set. I looked at them, and was in awe. They were all dressed like pirates, and had a palm tree on the stage. In the pit there was a guy (presumably with Swashbuckle) dressed as a shark, moshing. After quickly buying some merchandise, I went down and enjoyed the show. These guys are very entertaining live. Instead of getting the crowd to go "Hey! Hey! Hey!" they had us chanting "YO! HO! YO! HO!". I've known of pirate themed metal bands for a while now, but this is the first time I've ever seen one live, and I must say that they made quite an impression. There's just something incredibly entertaining about a bunch of guys singing about bottles of rum and sailing on the high seas. In the end, this band was simply really fun.

Augury
This band started being fun before they even started playing. During their sound check, the venue was playing Nightwish songs from Dark Passion Play over the speakers so loudly, that they couldn't hear their instruments well enough to judge the sound quality. They kept yelling desperately that the music should be turned down. Eventually, when the sound either ignored them, or just didn't hear them, they started dancing around like it was pop music. Much of the crowd joined in, which led to good fun. Eventually, they got going. They played some very good progressive death metal, and as a reward for being a good crowd, they graced us with a beautiful bass solo. Their performance was good, although the vocalist had a shirt praising deathcore that some people in the crowd did not approve of.

The Amenta
This band certainly was weird. I didn't catch the beginning of their set, because I had seen Peter Wywczarek, and gone over to talk to him (in Polish!). But I quickly got back, and I was very entertained by them. They all looked fairly strange, with their faces lightly blackened by facepaint, the singer with his rather awesome leather boots and silver wolf-head belt buckle. The singer acted very....black metal, for someone who plays in a band that is industrial death metal. I had a hard time catching this band's name, since the vocalist always messed it up somehow when he said it, but I looked them up later. They were quite good.

Warbringer
Now this was probably the most entertaining part of the show during the night. Earlier, while Swashbuckle was playing, I had met and talked with their vocalist. Now, I had managed to get a spot right up in front against the stage (no barrier), so I had an excellent view. They started off with 3 songs on their new album, and kept kicking ass from their. They all were really into the music. One of their guitarists, John Laux, was so close to me I could have probably plucked his strings for him if I had wanted to. John Kevil (the vocalist) was a maniac, headbanging and jumping around. At some point the drummer from Swashbuckle ran on stage, and stage dived. John Kevil responded by saying "Yes, stage diving pirates are awesome! Arrrrr!" Later, Kevil stage dived himself, and was placed back on stage headfirst in a position that looked painful. Still, he got back up and managed to awe the whole crowd with how metal he was for the rest of the set.

Decrepit Birth
There's not too much I can really say about these guys. While these guys played, I rested up a bit because I had worn out my neck and voice during the last 4 bands, and I still needed all my headbanging power for when Vader came on. So I just stood and watched. They seemed to be fairly good death metal. They had live presence, and to a fan they probably would have very fun. I managed to catch a pick from the bassist, so I put it in my wallet so I wouldn't lose it. Then....I lost it. I feel kind of stupid about that.

Vader
And now for the headlining band. Really, they were simply fantastic. They played great songs, had lots of energy, nailed all the solos, Hyped up the crowd really well. A near perfect performance. Except for 2 issues. The first was that for some reason Peter's vocals were really low into the mix, so you could barely hear his growls. This was rather annoying. The other issue was that since there were a total of 6 bands playing that night, Vader's set was rather short, and they didn't get to play as many songs as I wish they would. This is especially a problem since they have a lot of short songs, so this really made it seem like their set wend by realy quickly. Still, they played some of my favorites such as Sothis, Silent Empire, and This Is The War, so I was overall happy with it. Things such as sound problems or short sets can't hold back a great band like Vader.

So overall, I would rate the show an 8/10. If you're a fan of any of these bands, then go ahead and check out this tour. It's well worth it.

More of the same, really.

2009-08-24T22:28:00.001-04:00

So, sorry for the delay, but you may have come to expect it from us - which isn't uncalled for in the least bit. Anyway, the reason the Adventure isn't up yet, is because my awesome counterpart, is running into some rather unawesome technical issues. But the adventure will be up by Thursday. To make up for this... Another sneak peak!

Uhm...

...

There'll be a part two!

Mafia Dragons - You said "Impossible"... We said "Nay".

2009-08-20T16:59:00.003-04:00

So, to kick off our Homebrewing, I thought that I'd start by giving you all a...
Preview?
That's right, we're refining the first adventure - again- so it reaches it maximum potential, for you, the valued reader. Anyways, just on the adventure::

It's going to be aimed at a 4 player party, but will be easily adjustable for more... less that 3 will take some expert Game Mastering, though it will surely be possible. Players should be around levels 2 or 3. For veteran gamers, this adventure should only be about 1 session of gaming, but if you're rolling up characters just for it, prepare hot pockets before hand; it will be a good - probably even a GREAT - 5 hours. Lastly, the adventure ends, and shouldn't lead into a campaign. Yet. Eventually we'll get around to writing some of the earth shattering ideas we had for tying it off.

Hopefully you'll all enough us being serious for a change of direction. If not, well, then the adventure should be a good laugh.

Children, it's time for a history lesson

2009-08-19T11:42:00.002-04:00

Alright, I promised a campaign setting, so here it is. Well, the beginning of it. This is simply the basic history of the world, and includes the majority of the significant historical events of this world for what is almost the last 4000 years. Now then, let's begin.

Evalt was a flourishing world. Civilization had been established almost everywhere. A great war had ended. Evalt seemed to be at peace. Gratyi, the comet that was considered to be an omen of good luck, appeared. Many thought a great new era was going to soon begin. Everything just seemed right for it. But then something that no one could have foreseen happened.

Gratyi collided a very surprised world. Immediately it nearly completely wiped out an nation of people. Earthquakes shook the world, bringing cities to the ground. Fires broke out for hundreds of miles almost instantly from the heat of the impact. Entire nations burned in the inferno. The impact also sent massive tsunamis out in every direction. Coastal towns around the world were destroyed by massive waves. The whole world was in chaos. Most of the survivors lived on the other side of the planet. They were spared from the worst effects of the impact, although they too would soon suffer. The impact had shaken a lot of dust into the atmosphere, which blocked out the sun. The whole world was in darkness. With the sun blocked out, the remaining crops died. The whole world was beginning to starve. Many resorted to cannibalism to survive. Not only was there starvation, but the lack of sunlight made the world colder. Many of those that didn’t starve, froze.

However, not everyone was hurt by the lack of sunlight. Vampires loved this change in the world. The vampires that had survived the impact loved not having the ever fear the sun. Many began to hunt those who still lived. Vampires became as big a threat as starvation and the cold. One opportunistic vampire named Roltes saw an opportunity to gain power. Many of the vampires heedlessly hunted down the living, not realizing that if they continued like this their food would soon be completely extinct, and then the vampires would be the next ones to starve. Roltes began capturing the living, and keeping them like livestock. Soon, vampires began coming to him to obtain their food, and Roltes obliged. He began to establish a small kingdom, over which he ruled. Many vampires joined him. After all, he was the man with the food. Other vampires soon saw what Roltes was doing, and they too began to use the living like livestock. These vampires also created their own nations, and proclaimed themselves to be kings and lords.

These many vampire lords began to fight for power. War broke out between the vampire nations. What was most fought over, was food. Vampires raided each other’s cities and stole their “livestock.” For a century the Vampiric Wars continued. Many of the weaker nations collapsed under the control of the more powerful vampiric nations. Roltes did very well in these wars. He was a brilliant tactician, and a clever politician. He also amassed the largest supply of food in the vampiric world, which made many vampires willing to join him. By the end of the wars, Roltes emerged victorious, with all resistance crushed. He declared himself the Emperor of all of Evalt.

For the next several millennia, Roltes ruled over his empire. He continued to keep a tight control over the food supply for the vampires. He made sure to breed his “livestock” and be careful to not have too much of it eaten. Vampires were the only ones that had any real civilization during this time. Almost all the living people on the surface of the world were slaves to the vampires, used for food and work. After about a millennium of rule, Roltes proclaimed himself to be a god, and demanded that everyone in his Empire worship him. Temples dedicated to him, and Roltes became the most “popular” god in the world. During this time, he experimented with creating human-vampire hybrids, and ended up creating the bloodlings. Bloodlings had a slightly higher status than the rest of the living. They were rarely used for food, and could have some minor political power within the empire. The other slaves resented this, but could not do much. Some slave revolts occurred during the history of the empire, but they never had much success. The vampires were simply too strong.

Then, after several millennia, the dust began to settle. The vampires were extremely worried, as sunlight was beginning to reach the surface in some parts of the world. Over the course of several centuries, more and more light began to shine through. One thing however, became obvious. It only shined through on one side of the world. On the other side, it never shined through. Astronomers were perplexed. From the knowledge that was left over from before the impact, they knew that the world turned, so that the sun eventually shined on all parts of the planet. Yet it constantly shined on only one part. Clearly, something was very wrong. However, the vampires did not concern themselves with this too much, because they were far more worried about keeping their empire. Roltes was especially worried, as light was beginning to shine down on his capital, making life very difficult for the rulers. Successful slave revolts had happened in several parts of his empire, where the sunlight was too strong for the vampires to do anything. Roltes began to move himself and much of the vampire ruling class to the part of the world still in darkness. The slaves in the capital city took this opportunity, and began to revolt. The sunlight made fighting difficult for the vampires, and the slaves succeeded in their revolt. Roltes was in the city at the time, and he was never found after the revolt. No evidence has been found of him dying, but he has never been seen by anyone since the revolt, so no one knows if he’s really dead, or simply hiding somewhere.

With the fall of Roltes, the rest of the empire quickly fell apart. Vampires fled to the dark part of the world, while the slaves rebelled. The vampires in the dark side of the world had lost their unity, and were in chaos. Historians mark the fall of the final vampiric city at the year 3567 AI (After Impact). After this point, the slaves were free, and the world began to return to normality.

Except that not all was normal. The slaves realized that Evalt no longer turned like it used to. The impact had stopped it in space. Life soon adapted to this new strange world. Nations established themselves along the edges of the illuminated part of the world, for the majority of it had become an extremely hot desert due to the constant sunlight. Civilization began to re-establish itself.

It has now the year 3901 AI. The world is now divided into three zones. Pozahr where the sun always shines creating an incredibly deadly desert, Zgobisch where the sun never shines over an icy cold land, and the Central Belt, where civilization has established itself, and is thriving. The vampires have never regained the unity that they had under Roltes, and now stay within the Icelands most of the time. The world still has many problems, but it is healing.

Now, I think I'll be specific

2009-08-18T23:09:00.002-04:00

Alright, so Mr. Mud hinted at some of the things we will be doing in the future. Now then, I'd like to give definite details about this stuff. We've discussed some of this, and planned it out. This is by no means a totally definite list. We're likely to add some stuff to it, and I don't think that we'll be taking much away. Also, most of this is stuff that I'll be involved in, either together with Mr. Mud or alone. Mr. Mud might have some stuff planned for himself that I don't know about.

Firstly, we will be doing quite a bit of D&D material. Together with Mr. Mud I've been writing an adventure. It started off as his idea, and the adventure itself is somewhat standard (don't worry, it's still good), but it leads to other things that can be...quite exciting. I won't say any more. I think we should have this adventure up by the end of the week if all goes well. It should be in 4th edition D&D, as Mr. Mud is the one who intends to use it, not me. Although I myself prefer 3.5. There will be a few more adventures, but they'll come along later

Next, is a campaign setting. This will be somewhat of a longer project, and it will be mostly done by me, with some contributions from Mr. Mud. He's already given me an idea for a race. This will be using 3.5 edition D&D. However, I am considering making a 4th edition version. We'll see. The basic premise of this world, is that in the past it was hit by a large comet. It now no longer moves through space, and no longer turns, due to the impact. One side of the planet always faces the sun, while one side always faces away. Civilization thrives in the middle between these two sides. That's all I'll say for now.

Our next idea is a bit more...silly. At some point I actually wrote up how you would have to modify a fighter jet so that a T-rex could fly it. As someone with actual experience in a plane, I have a fairly good idea of how the plane would have to be modified so that it could fly a T-rex. Now then, you might ask me why I did something so ridiculous? Well obviously I did it because it's so damn cool. Come on, it's a fighter plane flown by a friggin dinosaur. And this won't be the end. Both me and Muddie will be making more machines modified to accept animals.

Next, I'll be reviewing some music. I'll be doing an album called De Profundis by Vader. It's not exactly new (it came out in the 90s), but I've been listening to it a lot, so I'll review it. This should interest anyone that likes metal, especially if the metal that they like is DEATH METAL.

Another musical thing that we'll be doing is a "weekly song suggestion." Basically, each week Muddie and I will pick a song that we like (probably one that's recently been released), and then one of us will write a brief paragraph about it. Most of these songs will probably be metal, since we're both complete metalheads, but that might not always be the case.

Also, when Mr. Mud said that we'd have art, that was total crap. We both suck at making anything remotely artistic.

That's all for now!

.... God, I wish we had these ideas sooner.

2009-08-16T14:06:00.004-04:00

Come one, come all, to the Mud Puddle Magic Emporium... This week, to kick off the new open season of blogging, we shall be covering a few, NEW topics (not like we really covered anything before.... but I digress). In to what we usual rant about, we will be trying to write about one of the follow, maybe two times a week... Here's a complete list of what we were thinking of:

Movies
Video Games
Politics
Music
Random Internet Goodness.
[insert all other avenues of creativity]
New Game Mastering (table top games)
New Our crazy Ideas of world domination.*
New and finally... Art? More on that at a later date.

* Yes, we've finally put together a plan, in which you all are the pawns, in our nefarious scheme of total power... But anyway, be sure to look for a post of something extremely awesome... And half baked. But we've half baked it twice, my friends.

Autobots, and Decepticons, and Bears; Oh My!

2009-06-29T15:02:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been a little time since my last post, and I'm kind of disappointed it took me this long... Expect a bit more over the next few weeks.

Let's start back up with Transformers Two: Rise of the Fallen.

Now, I always liked Transformers in my (very) juvenile years, when it was on TV frequently, and the graphics weren't spiffy and 3D resemblance, but I never was a hardcore fan. I knew the basis of the show, who Optimus Prime was, Megatron, Hotshot, Bumblebee, Starscream... and so on, but I never really knew anything past that (probably because I picked up halfway through the series, and missed the entire beginning... Anyway.

Transformers 2 was pretty good, compared to the first one which I really didn't care for. I thought the action scenes were superb, and I actually felt a rush from two several-megaton robots beating crap out of each other for my amusement (or the fate of earth. Whichever.). Although admittedly, sometimes there were just so many moving parts in different parts, and they were all, for the most part, that metallic silvery grey, I had no idea who was choking who. Now for the bad:

Michael Bay definitely tried to hard with the humor bit. There were probably 12 unnecessary gags in there, that drove up the production cost up a few hundred thousand... I mean, sure, even if Sam's mom running into a hanging flower pots cost... $20, it ruins the whole moment of suspense... Transformers is an action series... And should be an action series. An occasional joke here and there is fine, but I mean it just seems like they're giving up the key nerd demographic, to entice more and more people to come spend money for the two bit puns.

Which I won't stand for ;).

So in hindsight, Transformers 2: Rise of the fallen is definitely must see if you're (A) into the series, or (B) like lots of action. If you're not either of those two, I'd definitely recommend renting T1 and T2, just because they're all around great movies...

I'd say Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen scores a solid, 8 god-killingly-awesome-transforming-Cameros, out of 10.

Matt Lauer Can Suck It!: Land of the Lost (spoilers possible)

2009-06-11T22:43:00.009-04:00

The movie is hilarious, so I'll try and keep the spoilers low, but it's going to be hard... It was Classic Will Ferrell, backed by a great supporting Cast... They entailed: Anna Friel, Jorma Taccone and Danny McBride (more on him later). Supporting casts, are really the heart and soul of Ferrel movies; for without them, who else will he verbally - and sometimes physically - abuse?

But right, saving the best for... first, I guess we should start with the opening trailers... There Were 4: Year One, 9, G Force, Funny People. Two looked great, one looked... intriguing to say the least, and one looked AMAZING!
... For 8 year olds.

Let's start Funny People. I hadn't heard of it until tonight and all of you, sans Adam Sandler fanatics, haven't either. It looked kind of confusing in the beginning, but the movie in general looks pretty funny. Basically, Super Funny Man (Sandler) has sustained a flourish stand-up career for awhile... And his biggest fan (Seth Rogen.. score!) knows every joke by heart. They meet, get close and Sandler reveals he is really sick... and Rogen might have to take the throne. All turns out well though, and I'm sure Sudden-Death-due-to-Laughter is one of the diseases Sandler is affiliated with in the Flick.

Now for... 9. I saw this trailer (all) of the times I went to see Star Trek, and each time I didn't really know what's going on... see if you can make sense of it:
Mad Scientist is one of the last people in a dying world, and he's putting his legacy into a tiny, cloth, homunculus resembling creature, whose destiny is to save the world... Some big scissor monster is chasing him, and he's hiding in a mouse hole with other homunculi rag dolls. It sort of looks like one of those "Hero gonna slays the Dragon, and probably gets the girl to boot", which I'm not a big fan of, but hey, Tim Burton *is* magic.

G-Force, or the movie that was totally out of place being shown in a Borderline PG-13/R movie, would have looked kind of cool to me if I was half my age... It was about CIA agents, that were the government's pride and joy, and were being closed down and spread through out the country because they were becoming too well known. They started to live normally lives, only for the government to call them back again when they need them most. Does this seem like a R rated thriller to you, at first glance? Me too! Except, I forgot to mention the aforementioned CIA agents, are guinea pigs.

Lastly, Year One has looked epic since the firs time I heard about it. Hell, I was excited when I saw the cardboard cut out of Jack Black and Mike Cera. So basically, if you haven't heard any of the hub-bub, it's really like history's first round trip... But this time we use my favorite medium: Foot. They set out from their primitive hunter gather tribe, to some big city (looked like Rome... but that wouldn't make sense. Probably Jerusalem, or something like that). They stumble their way through the town, and comedy ensues. Can't you just wait for Black to over-deliver every joke, and Cera to under-deliver everything?

Now, to the feature presentation *lights dim, and cool music cues*

Land of the Lost, I think, was probably the best movie I've seen in the last 2 or 3 years, sans Stepbrothers for the sheer hilarity, and Star Trek... for well, being Star Trek. But Land of the Lost, was some of Ferrell's best work... I clearly remember, at one point, the whole theater was laughing from one joke, to the next big one about 2 minutes later... There were only about 30 people present. I don't want to spoil the whole entire movie, but Ferrell is dismissed as a mad man, by Matt Lauer and the scientific community and now teaches 7th or 8th grade children. Another scientist (Much younger and hotter, might I add), from Cambridge comes to talk to Ferrell about his theories about time travel... He shows him some fossils, and he eventually gets around to finishing the machine to take them, not backwards, but sideways in past, to the Land of the Lost. There, he does all of the following: Get's a blood feud with a T-Rex.
Roundhouse kicks an alien into a fiery oven.
Becomes the master of a half ape half man.
Freezes a Dinosaur my catapults nitrogen into it.

See what I'm getting at? Who else, but Will Ferrell. Movie is great though, I really recommend it... and if you're pretty liberal on what you kids (probably 10 or 11 is the minimum age I'd advise) watch, it's decently family friendly. Funny as anything, but not too vulgar... But I digress. At first, I thought land of the lost would ruin Ferrell's great dynasty of Hollywood Comedy dominance, but I was pleasantly surprised tonight. I can't really stress how funny it was, and everyone needs to see it for him or herself. There are puns, and tons of irony... even penis jokes! (PENIS JOKES FOR GOD'S SAKE!)
The movie was 9.5/10, where I thought it'd be in the high 5.x at best. Get off my blog (for tonight) get on Fandango. And go see this movie.

Ah right, and about Danny McBride... I thought he did a good job of acting, but I really wish the "Will Ferrell, and John C. Reily duo stuck together... they were harmony and hilarity... Harlartiy? I think that he would've played the place of Will a bit better, if only becasue him and Ferrell have a history of sheer awesome behind them.

-- We have topped the 500 hits mark! I'm looking forward to another 500 with you all :D.

A Shout-out to Coidzor!

HOLY $#!T: My Playthrough of X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-06-10T11:10:00.006-04:00

As the title states, there was one phrase that me and my buddies couldn't stop shouting during epic fights... "HOLY ****, WOAH! DUDE!" reverberated through my basement louder than my guitar amp. This is simply because X Men Origins: Wolverine was:

GOREgeous.

I mean, sure, if you're not into the whole 'bloody heads being pulled off in the most acrobatic ways possible' then The game, probably isn't for you. But if you are... Every kill you'll feel the adrenaline pumping through you, and excitement of the slow-motion head being chopped off. I remember, at one point, there is a mini-boss battle, and you push the "Windigo" off a small cliff... you proceed to walk down it, only to be ambushed by the half-dead mutant, and we tries to crush you to death... Of course, the "Mash 'Y' Button" trap is waiting for you, but once you flex out of it, you rip the Windigos head off... while doing a back flip. I distinctly remember letting out a roar at this part, as the tension was so great... But when it really gets down to it, XMO:W is really just a button masher, with slow motion scenes of awesome gore... which, on no scale is bad, and is special in its own right, but the game could have been made so much more in depth. The game play is decent, and the skills and upgrades section, while essential in games these days, is nice. The game play, and the minor puzzles in XMOW are very... transparent. While the combat moves look nice, you're sort of limited to what you can do... and after a little while, it seems that the only strategy that will efficiently end your foes: Lunge, stab, stab, roll dodge, lunge, stab, stab, roll dodge, lunge, stab... et cetera. Camera Angles also weren't the greatest. The camera would occasionally glitch, and zoom really close in on Logan, making seeing the environment impossible (for all my World of Warcraft players can you say, Strigid Screecher?). This wouldn't be that bad of a problem, if it didn't happen most every boss battle. Last peeve that I have with XMOW, would probably be the redundance of all the puzzles presented to Logan... a striking majority of them - I'd say over 90% - are "Pick up the [C4/Crobar/Battery] and plug/plant it into/on the [truck/Cage/Generator/Machine] and press B". Even the very first time you do it, you feel bored, but by the 50th time...

So, in hindsight: X-Men Origins: Wolverine was great fun, even thoguh it's not very special... The gore is spectacular, if you like that kind of thing, but if not this game isn't for you. Be wary of the the camera glitches, and extremely poorly thought out array of puzzles and traps. X-Men origins is probably not worth the $50-60 to buy it, but renting it for a week or two worth is a great deal.

7/10.

A note about The Mud Puddle in general: Firstly, I'd like to give a big shout out to Mr. Nameless, on GitP for making this sweet banner, which you can see in my signature on the Giant in the Playground forums. This is the first post in a series of probably about 100 over this summer. I hope you all are as excited as we are.

-- Mud.

Justification

2009-05-21T14:41:00.003-04:00

Missed us? I think not. Maybe noticed for a little while and then forgot? I'd hope so. Due to inexplicably busy schedules on both mine, and Biedrik's part, The mud puddle has started crusting over. Don't worry all that much... The idea well isn't dry yet, and come summer I'm fairly positive posts will be coming in (or out?) like clockwork.

Possible posts coming soon:

Our Reviews of:

Music:
- New Heaven and Hell album
- New Warbringer album

Movies:
- Star Trek
- Angels and Demons
- Terminator Salvation

Politics/Media News:
- Surprise review of an event I (Mrmud) has access to exclusively... This will be interesting.

But anyway, On behalf of both of us, I'd like to apologize on how slow things have been moving around here, albeit we had our reasons.

Stay tuned.

Superbowl; Super Rant!

2009-01-31T14:10:00.001-05:00

Okay it's been awhile since my last post everyone, But I feel compelled to spew my thoughts about the upcoming Superbowl... This isn't going to go very in depth, because I'm no sports guru, just a modest fan.

"Pappa Kurt" Warner has 'played his Cards' really well over the past season, finishing his less than star studded team at a respectable 9-7, winning the NFC West. But the credit doesn't rely solely with Warner; Larry Fitzgerald has carried the Cards threw the play offs with 4 stellar games thus far. Kurt and Coach Wisenhunt have really turned the team around since last season...

On the flip side of that, is the AFC East Powerhouse, king of Smash-Mouth football, or simply the Pittsburgh Steelers. Big Ben and the team aren't competing for their 6th play off win... They're gunning for their 6th Superbowl.

But whatever with me and the stupid lines.

If the Cards are going to have a chance, I think, they rely on their 'O' line giving Warner enough time to deliver the football, and the brain's behind the operation on the sidelines calling plays that get Fitzgerald open, and down field where he can do what he does best. Steelers defense has never been a problem (quite literally, NEVER been a problem), and their basic pass rush can break down some teams... Just the Pass rush. Not when they are blitzing, but the core pass rush can break down a team's Line. But the odds are against the Cardinals, and I'm not sure Kurt Warner would change that; he operates best when he's under pressure. The Steelers cannot afford to go into this game thinking its already won, because we've seen this happen tiem and time again... Like with Joe Namath. If the Steelers don't play their very best football, the game, In my opinion will be the Cards. Easily.

That's why I'm going against my better judgment, and picking the Arizona Cardinals Over the Pittsburgh Steelers:

27-24.

No matter the outcome, the question of Kurt Warner being accepted into the Hall of Fame will arise somehow. Personally, I think he should be in because Tons of QBs with lesser stats and no Bowl Rings are in... But then again Kurt Warner is in a Pass-Happy-Offense, and was so, possibly even more so with the 2000-ish Rams. This renders stats inefficient in measuring how good he is. So... hm, the only way is to see how he changes a Football team... and so far, he's taken two teams out of the Cellar, and brought them all the way up to the Superbowl... America, induct Kurt Warner.

Anyways, just random banter, feel free to Comment!

Fuck. The. Roman. Airport.

2009-01-06T16:51:00.002-05:00

So I felt that I might rant about some bad experiences I had flying to Poland recently. It describes what a massive monument to inneficiency the airport in Rome is. So 2 weeks ago when I set off to Poland I was supposed to fly on Swiss Air where I would change flights in Zurich due to a lack of direct flights from Boston to Warsaw. But, the flight was canceled so I got put onto an Alitalia flight that would go through Rome. BUT, I would need to get my boarding passes for my next flight in Rome, not in Boston. So the flight to Rome was fairly normal. Typical for a transatlantic flight. So I land in Rome, pass through security, and follow the signs that say "Transfers." The signs at some point stopped, probably because the airport makers assumed that like most people I would know which gate I'm going to. Sadly I didn't, but I saw something that sayid "Alitalia Help Desk" or something like that. So I stand in line for half an hour, after which I am told that they have no idea how I should get a bording pass for my next flight but some help desk in Terminal B would. So I get on some train thing to Terminal B, and find the help desk that I was directed to. However, they too do not know how I should get a boarding pass so they direct me to Terminal C, which I just came from. Apparently there's another help desk that should know what to do. So I head back on the quck train ride to Terminal C, find that help desk. They also don't know what to do, but I should head to another part of the terminal (at least I don't need to go to another terminal) where they will help me. So I head in the direction that they pointed me in, but I get lost. But I do see a general information desk, so I ask there. They say that I need to go outside, up a floor, and then to the place where you would normally check in if you were coming to the airport from the city. But I get pointed in the wrong direction and I end up wandering into another part of the terminal. BUT, I see a Swiss Air desk. Since these guys were originally supposed to fly me to Warsaw I thought they might help. They confirm what the most recent source tolde me, and give me good directions. So I get to the Alitalia desk where I'm supposed to be, but I'm told that due to the fact that I've had to walk all over the fucking airport my flight is gone. So I beg and plead that they get me on another flight. After 10 minutes, the Alitalia employee that I was talking with finally gives into my pleas, and puts me on a flight to Warsaw that would go through Paris first. But I only get my ticket. Not my boarding passes. This is when the greatest example of how inneficient this airport is appears. I get my ticket in Terminal C. I then have to be in Terminal A to get my boarding pass. Finally, I have to go to Terminal B to actually board my plane. That's THREE terminals just to get on a damn plane. So I finally get on the plane, but it just sits around and takes of an hour and a half later with no explanation. This is very bad because in Paris I'm going to only have 2 hours to get to my next flight to Warsaw. When I land in Paris I find out that I am in fact too late to get onto my next flight. However, my luck was actually good after this. I quickly go to an Air France desk, where they give me another flight, a hotel, food, and excellent directions to my hotel. What took 3 hours in Rome took 5 minutes in Paris. And the kind and merciful woman who provided all this said that she too had bad experiences with that airport. So I'm not a unique case. Later on when I finally get to Warsaw, it turns out my luggage didn't arrive. I report this to the airport so that they will know to look for my luggage. And they workers say that a lot of luggage seems to get delayed at that airport. Overall, I think there are some vital lessons to be learned from this.

1. Never ever fly Alitalia.
2. Never ever fly through Rome. If there are any complications you will be screwed. In multiple terminals.
3. Seriously, stay out of the Roman Airport.

The Supersized Phone goes Bit-Size!

2008-12-24T18:50:00.004-05:00

While doing a bit of reading before this post, I see that the "iPhone Nano" rumors are coming back, and oddly enough you all don't buy it?

I was having a great conversation with a family friend this weekend over up and coming Adobe products among...other things. He actually tested... well over 50% of the apps currently available in the app store today. But I digress.

He said that the iPhone Nano will appear in... oh, 1-3 months. (And yes I know a very narrower time period, but I promised I'd keep at least that much in). Adds will appear, with even more silly names, and small hands. The iPhone Nano (henceforth IP-N) will be about the size of the bottom half of the Motorola Razor. That's right, all us people with big hands are really @*#$ed, although a stylus was also hinted at - which might infuriate me if it was anything like the DS's. The current iPhone 3g has four bottoms across every row on the main screen, while the Nano will only have 3 across, and 3 down. Squares everywhere! Apps will remain the same, and he couldn't give me hardware specs, or else he'd have to kill me. OR hire someone to, and that takes way too much time and effort, and a big chance at being caught by cops, and taped on Dateline NBC. I'm guessing it will be around... 2-4g? The regular iPhone's memory/Hard Drive (or soft drive as I like to call) will atleast double. Apple has to have SOME new sales pitch.

Anyhow accurate pic's are really hard to find, but this although fake, is a good representation of the size.

Pic! (sorry, picture embedding is not being nice today).

While the portability of the IPN is so much greater than the iPhone, do you really want a small touch screen phone? How would text? How you I blog? How would you be amused?

The answer is you wouldn't. Apple is making a big mistake thinking that us Americans want smaller things. I like my Big Mac with a side of Heart Medicine, and my Ice cream deep fried, and I most certainly do not want a small phone, that requires me to use my hands, which can easily palm a basketball, to interact with. Size Matters America, and you know what they say about us people with big hands...

... big egos.

Oh right, and any questions anyone has, please feel free to email me, especially this subject... mailto:Cornhusker776@live.com

Tonight IS Christmas eve, So Merry Christmas everyone... and Happy Holidays!

A Few Words on Updates

2008-12-23T09:36:00.002-05:00

Howdy readers, as you might have seen I haven't had a post since... hell, too long. And Biedrik had his last way back on Thursday. This was for a number of reasons, which I'm sure you don't really care about:
1. I was out of town from Friday, 'till late last night (but don't worry, it was down South, so I have a lot of politics to talk about concerning Obama and the typical southerner's response to him... And this is the DEEP South).
2. I have been mesmerized by the MMORPG Crowns of Power which I equate to World of Warcraft, except minus the 6 million players, the monthly cost, and all the bugs. Then add five hundred different bugs. But oddly enough the game isn't really much different than other MMORPG's but I have to say it is very very entertaining -- so much so that I am playing it as I type --(and guys, there is a /rickroll command... lets see WoW do that).
3. This is a very minor reason, for I am not very good at the game, and it has not taken up too much of my type, but I am reading up on, and playing abit of, Go. It is an old Japanese game that over the last 20-30 years has gained a ton of popularity around the globe... And it's actually quite fun. Anyways, more on this later...
4. We don't really want to... dry up the proverbial idea well, for our posts. We really really want to keep every post interesting (except for these of course, who the hell is actually reading this =P). Thanks for your patience everybody.

Anyways, I am off today, and have nothing to do except cut the grass in subarctic temperatures. You can expect a post about reasons 1,2, or 3 today. Maybe something else.

Stay tuned,
Mud.

A bit on musical taste

2008-12-17T17:05:00.003-05:00

So I thought I'd post a little observation I made on musical taste. It's probably not totally revolutionary, but I thought I should point it out. I have no idea if this will be long or short, so let's see how it goes.

Well in general the observation is that our musical tastes are defined by what is different from what your previous tastes were. In other words, you search for what's not what you like. Well...to a certain extent. You'll actually crave similar things for a while, before moving onto other stuff. For example, if you've just started to listen to a bunch of 70s hard rock (such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple) you may for a while crave it. You might even declare it your favorite type of music. But inevitably you will feel the urge to move onto other stuff. Something different. Similar stuff will begin to sound plain boring, although it may have been better if you had heard it earlier. In other words, 70s hard rock has stagnated for you.

So where do you go from here? Somewhere different without a doubt. Possibly similar, possibly not. But what's the significance of this pretty unoriginal observation? Well first of all it explains why you might not like some music. Go listen to it later once you're done with whatever you happen to be liking a lot that's similar to it. Next, this explains why music seems to have so many trends. You'd think that people would just listen to what's good, and that we wouldn't really have one certain style become more popular than the other. But it doesn't. Something about the human mind makes us get bored with certain types of music after some time. Throw in the fact that we are naturally conformist, and trends in music appear. Not to say that music that happens to be in a trend is bad. Just that it may in fact be more trendy than good, but I'm sure that's a point that's already been made by many others. It's still an important thing to remember. This applies to all music, not just the popular genres. Even the underground which sometimes claims to "screw the trends" has its own trends. So remember this when you're confused by why something is popular (I'm looking at you metalcore).

I wonder if Bush was always first pick in Dodgeball as a kid

2008-12-16T17:45:00.003-05:00

For those of you who don't know, which all of you should since 'lolcats' pics don't upload till Wednesday (usually...), a, in my opinion, radical Islamic journalist threw his shoes at bush Sunday. Here's a look at the president's reflex... I'm guessing he took a few levels of Rogue back in the day:

See that? Just the pure cat-like reflexes we need in a president. I'd love to see John Kerry do that without his Botox bursting out ;).

But seriously, where the hell was secret service on that one. When I read the story, I expected the article to tell when his funeral service was at the end... instead all it said was he suffered a black eye, and a temporary sentence to international prison will we waits to me sentences and tried. IF the secret service was doing their job, the man should've been dead before the first shoe hit the ground... who knows if there was a bomb inside, or if that wasn't even a shoe at all, but a hand grenade or something? I don't care if there are 'ethics' or 'morals' involved. A second shoe shouldn't have been thrown; the guy should have been killed, or apprehended (and by apprehended, I mean boxed up and shipped to Gitmo.).

As Biedrik says, the men in suits HAVE to be the best. If we aren't able to protect our leader, that means our leader isn't going to be able to protect us... the secret service is letting the radicals win people! That makes 'we got balls' the score:
Secret Service - 0.
Islam Extremists - 1.

So all that I've taken from this whole ordeal is, 1 Presidential Dodgeball on Addictinggames is way unrealistic, and 2
Bush has gained: +10 shoe-pwn!!!

Rob Halford will ride in on a motorcycle and take it all

2008-12-15T16:54:00.005-05:00

Judas Priest should win everything. I'll have more to say after the whole thing.

Eighth time's the charm!

2008-12-15T10:34:00.004-05:00

Metal heads, and common folk alike, Metallica has been nominated for another FOUR Grammy's, which would bring their grammy total to twelve, given they win them all tonight... direct quote from metallica.com:

"Death Magnetic" has been nominated in the Best Rock Album and Best Recording Package categories, while "Suicide and Redemption" gets the nod in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance area and "My Apocalypse" goes up for Best Metal Performance.

Okay, old news maybe, but Death Magnetic (which was so good, I bought twice on iTunes, and CD form...) only has competition from Coldplay's "Viva la Vida And Death To All His Friends". Don't get me wrong, I mean Coldplay is great to listen to when you're in the mood... to tear your ears off. The Grammy should definitely go to Ulrich and friends, because the contrast between St. Anger and Death Magnetic was about the difference between Metallica and Coldplay. I'm not sure about the recording category Grammy though... I'm not a big enough fan as too read the bio's of the art/recording directors at Warner Bros.

"Suicide and Redemption", I'm sad to say, will probably be beat by Rush, with their even LONGER songs that Metallica. "My Apocalypse" is running against:

Heroes Of Our Time
DragonForce
[Roadrunner Records] - Lets pray not to hear anything from this 'band' ever again.

Nostradamus
Judas Priest
Track from: Nostradamus - Breaking the Law, Breaking the Law
[Epic]

Under My Thumb
Ministry
Track from: Cover Up - Ministry is... Meh.
[Megaforce Records]

Psychosocial
Slipknot
[Roadrunner Records] - Slipknot is great but I don't think they are on the same level as the Metal Giants like Judas Priest and Metallica...

Anyways, that's enough of a rant for today... it's not fun when you're sober.

Oh, and a big congrats to Rick Rubin for being nominated for Producer of the Year for his work on:

Death Magnetic (Metallica)
Home Before Dark (Neil Diamond)
Mercy (Dancing For The Death Of An Imaginary Enemy)
Seeing Things (Jakob Dylan)
Weezer (Red Album) (Weezer)

VGA's: Jack Black is like Santa!

2008-12-14T14:04:00.002-05:00

Gamers, you know as well as I that it is the most wonderful time of year. The only time of year when can put down that Halo 3 custom plated control, and rise up out of the bean bag chair. . . When you get together with all your friends and family, and everything seems so jolly, and happy. That's right, today is the Video Game Awards on Spike.

The award ceremony is tonight on Spike TV (in America… sorry those 'across the pond') and the nominees look like they all could have a shot at their respective categories… Take a look (my picks are in bold… but some races are just too close.)

Best Multi-Player Game -
Call of Duty: World at War - Has some big shoes to fill after CoD: 4, but World at War is another take on WWII, which oddly enough is still loads of fun.
Resistance 2
Left 4 Dead
Gears of War 2

Best PC Game -
Left 4 Dead - Played the demo over, and over, and over… and over again. Was really looking forward to this game… Zombie killing fun for the entire family!
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Crysis Warhead
Spore

Best PS3 Game -
Grand Theft Auto IV
LittleBigPlanet
Resistance 2
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - Snake's getting old since his 16-bit graphics days, but the game isn't.

Best Wii Game -
Super Smash Bros. Brawl - If you haven't played the Super Smash Bros. series, a one-liner endorcing it cannot aptly describe it.
No More Heroes
Wii Fit
Boom Blox

Best Xbox 360 Game -
Fallout 3
Grand Theft Auto IV
Gears of War 2
Fable II - This game took Oblivion, and Baldur's gate, plus everything that has happened in the world of Final Fantasy, and rolled it all up into a single RPG. Game of the Year.

Studio of the Year
Media Molecule
Rockstar North
Harmonix
Bethesda Game Studios -Hugely consistent name in the gaming industry today… (i.e. Fallout 3? OBLIVION?!)

Game of the Year
Gears of War 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Fallout 3 - The wrong games were nominated here, but hey, don't get me wrong, Fallout 3 was great…

LittleBigPlanet Best Team Sports Game
FIFA Soccer 09
Madden NFL 09 - Long time fan of the Madden series… Same great replay-ability and spiffy new features.
NHL 09
NBA 2K9

The smart guy is in...

2008-12-11T20:11:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone. So Mr. Mud asked me to contribute here because I'm apparently excellent for setting him up for puns. Or as he put it, so he doesn't "hurt himself in thought." So apparently I'm going to post my various (wise) musings about music and whatnot. And maybe about politics. All in all, it will be me being a smartass about stuff that interests me. Or maybe I'll create a massive 42753284098728504975258402975675025798575743 word post explaining why I am always right. But enough screwing around. I do actually intend to make some intelligent posts here, primarily about music. Because I love music. I will never shut up about music. Especially if it's metal music. I will ramble forever about it. But in a way that is (presumabely) intelligent. Those of you that do like heavy metal will probably be the most interested in what I have to say. Anyways, that's enough talk from the smartass.

(And for those who want to know, Biedrik is not just some crap I made up. It's a shortened version of my outrageously difficult to pronounce last name. No, I will not tell you what it is. It's long, insane, and Slavic.)

Where to begin, Where to begin...

2008-12-11T16:16:00.000-05:00

Hello to anyone unlucky enough to find this blog. I'll be posting under the name Mr. Mud (as you can see, this is The Mud Puddle) which is a nickname various friends and family members have handed down to me... it's almost a pseudo-heirloom of sorts. You can contact me at Cornhusker776@live.com but hey, I rarely check it, so don't expect an immediate response. Thanks.

In any case, the blog is going to be primary about my video game reviews, music and pop culture, and flawed political views*. One might say this is a generic blog you can find anywhere on the internet on which some fool talks about every small occurrence he had that day, but you'd be very wrong... This is a generic blog on which I talk about moderately important occurrences, that you can find only through Google, with kind of cool layouts.

But enough with the pleasantries. This blog is going to be, at times, very very sarcastic and mean spirited, so read at one's own risk... What I'm trying to say is that serious posts on things other than video games and music will be few and far between. I hope that all the nonsense in the other posts might make just one person laugh or smile... and If it does, I think it would be all worth it.

Now can I please stop talking with such good conventions?