The Last Candle

If people were talking more about more film aspects in The Passion of the Christ and less on the violence and other controversial topics (the talk of supposed anti-Semetism, of which I will not utter here), I’d be more willing to see the film. As it is now, to those uneducated in The History of the Christ (that’s me), the idea aggregated from reading reviews and impressions is that it’s a tremendous gob of violence and little else if you’re not familiar with the environment. Not for me, thanks. I’d like to hear more about the acting, cinematography, soundtrack, symbolism, and visual design before I make my move. If I was a devote Christian or knew more about the life and times of Jesus Christ, they’d be a different sway. But I’m just a guy who goes to films rarely, so I’m darned particular about my choices. <p/> Read these impressions set down by Sgt. Stryker. The impressions rely on knowing what actually happened compared to the film’s viewpoint (reimagining, just like Planet of the Apes and Tim Burton!), but there were a couple of ideas that stimulated my noodle, both regarding the violence and comparison to other films that “glorified” the violence. Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, namely. I’ve only seen Saving Private Ryan out of the two, and there’s an interesting question posed by Sgt. Stryker in the second paragraph:

For what purpose, I ask, would someone pay money to watch American servicemen and innocent Jews [from Schindler’s List] mocked, beaten, broken, and murdered? And why are those films rightly praised, while The Passion of the Christ seems to be judged by a different standard?

He answers it shortly after that with a reference from The Empire Strikes Back. Paraphrased, Stryker says that the film will be viewed very differently depend on what you intend to see. “Duh,” right? But I think in the context of especially The Passion of the Christ, it’s far more pronounced than, say, going to see a Jerry Bruckheimer film and looking for amazing acting or historical accuracy. And if a particular viewer didn’t get what they wanted (which is likely in the case of Bruckheimer considering the two aspects mentioned), then they might have a very different opinion of the films based on inaccurate or aesthetic values. In in the case of The Passion, it has to transcend aesthetics and typical theatrical judgements. The point is to instead differentiate on a ideological and spiritual level. If you know and understand the mayhem Jesus endured during his final days and why he did it, then the violence will be transfigured into one of the most important portrayals ever displayed on film. Or, if you’re like me, who doesn’t “get it,” then the power is wasted. Not to be offensive by putting it into these terms, but I feel like I’m missing out on a massive inside joke.

Packzi — erm, Fat Tuesday today. We didn’t want to feel left out, so we ventured out and rustled up some fine Polish cuisine. The evidence. Chomp! <p/> I’ve never participated in Lent or Ash Wednesday or, uh, whatever else is associated with this time. Just never identified with it enough, which is probably missing the point in a number of ways. Or I could do something like Joe does, who gives up multiple things every year for little reason other than testing self-will. For this year, he’s giving up caffine, chocolate, pop, alcohol, cigarettes, bananas, and probably bone marrow. Good luck to ye, lad!

Beat the REmake for the second time in a week. I was mashing buttons and hauling tail throughout the grounds this time, lowering my total time from 16 hours to six and a half. And since I saved my comrades instead of leaving them to bitter death this time, the ending was much more satisfying. <p/> Caveats? Why sure. The controls still stink. I kept thinking how much more fluid the game would be if the character wasn’t so darn sluggish to move! Additionally, I discovered that I’ve been playing on the gasp EASY DIFFICULTY, which I didn’t intend to do. Resident Evil gives you your difficulty choices like this: you pick Chris or Jill as your playable character of which Chris is the more difficult. As Jill, you get stronger weapons earlier, have to do fewer motions for the same results, and you get a pal, Barry, that shows up often to bail you out of jams. Chris has fewer weapons, has to run to people’s aid instead of people aiding him, and gets to run around the mansion about thirty times. Chris seems like the hard setting, yes? It was in the original game, and I had already played Jill’s endeavor way-back-when. So I chose Chris. But when the game asks “do you like mountain climbing or hiking more?” as the next question, I didn’t think that was the actual difficulty setting. Because it doesn’t fricking say so. Knowing that Chris’ game was going to be a pain in the neck in any case, I chose hiking. Enter easy mode. <p/> Prior to starting it on easy the second time through, I tried it on normal, believing that was the original setting (it didn’t say “normal” or “easy” the first time around), and found that I had tons of new fleshy friends wandering the mansion! Areas empty before would have two, three zombies meandering about. Oops. I didn’t want to spend a ton of time wasting all these bloodsuckers — just the good ending. So I chose easy and blew on through with, um, ease. Got the good ending, but didn’t get anything extra for beating it on easy a second time. Boo! I wanted the One Dangerous Zombie mode, where you’re stalked continously by a zombie strapped by grenades, who you can’t even slap without making him explode. <p/> I’m thinking about playing it again as Jill. On normal, this time. But I think I’ll try Chrono Trigger first and see how that goes. I know the soundtrack r0×0rs, but the gameplay might not have aged way. Nostalgia and age can be very tough on attemping to reacclimate with an old favorite. <p/> A clip of goodness.

Sunday, February 15: In the middle of a phone conversation with his Dad, Owen decides that the proper signal to upgrade the core system components on his computer would be the next AMD pants price drop. The vow is made. Silently, but truly. <p/> Monday, February 16: AMD issues new pricing for all processors — effective February 17th. <p/> throws fist into the air YES! <p/> So, it’s time update ole’ Winterheart here, who’s been running on a Duron 750 @ 750 for the past two years. Started off with an original Athlon 800 in Summer 2000, burned out two Abit KA7 motherboards (that I later discovered were infamous for that calamity), and “downgraded” to the Duron 750 for some reason. Hey, the Duron 750 was only $40 two years ago, and I didn’t do much computer gaming. My GeForce256, 256MB of RAM, Abit KT7 and Duron 750 have served me a long, productive time. birds chirping, wind singing, etc. <p/> Time’s up. Order new stuff time. The only sound to be heard now is the torrently rush of water that broke through the dam, killing all the birds and drowning out the wind. <p/> Plan so far: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor (overclocked to speeds reaching the 3200+) with the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe-A-MUNDO motherboard. 512MB of PC3200 RAM by Crucial. Aw yeah. <p/> Which brings me to a big point in all this: It’s going to take a while to understand what and why I’m getting, because I’ve never been a monstrous hardware fan. I’m not a hardware enthusiast: I’m a feature-set and functionality enthusiast. I waited 3 years for a DVD-ROM drive because I decided one day that it’s be nice to watch movies and program at the same time. (Which usually doesn’t work very well. The movie gets watched, and the program stays put. But the drive does exactly what it’s supposed to!) One of my reasons for upgrading this crate is that my recent addition of a Radeon 9600 goes wholly unused and unappreciated. Sure, it has all the pretty capabilities for games and screensavers, but rarely can I use them and still get reasonable feedback in all other aspects of the entertainment. As in the framerates suck. The new Unreal Tournament 2004 demo? Oh, looks great, but everytime I add another bot, I lose another 5 frames per second — and I’ve only got ten frames left! Essetinally, the games that are recent enough to implement all the cool shader and surface effects the Radeon loves to chomp on is being dragged down other things not video card related so that things are still to darned slow. So I need matching hardware, but in order to do that, I have a need to educate myself on what I’m getting. And for now, I just keep getting more questions. <p/> This overclocking business, for example. The XP 2500+ is well-known for being able to gain an additional gigahertz and not have any problems. Buy a $80 processor, overclock it using the methods that probably thousands of previous users found to be successful, and get the same performance from an $210 processor. Nice, aye? But I’ve never overlocked anything. Some processor sare locked. I suppose that means that the multiplier on the bus is locked, so then I can’t overclock at all. Well, okay. People have gotten around it before, so how do I do? And is it gonna be gritty work? And, since overclocking voids the warranty, I’m going to want to make absolutely sure to my extent that there are no heating problems. Which means cooling greater than the stock fan and heatsinks I’m used to. There are as many fans and heatsinks out there as there are motherboards. Where to start? Just pick a good one that everyone at NewEgg recommends? But will it fit in my case? <p/> Too. Many. Questions! But this is the good kind of torment. <p/> By the way, this is a pretty brilliant model for a cooling solution. I mean, heck, you want the chip to be cooled? How about sticking on a cooler that looks like it was modeled off of the intakes on commercial airliners? Those babies pump air pretty good, don’t they? <p/> I was once everything-bottlenecked. Now I’m just everything-but-video adapter bottlenecked. But the near future shows…UT2K4 smooth as butter. Just gotta figure a few things out first.

Microsoft’s doing a charitable thing to the Windows community by offering a free compact disc of security updates released October 2003 and before.

The Windows Security Update CD will be shipped to you free of charge. This CD includes Microsoft critical updates released through October 2003 and information to help you protect your PC. In addition, you will also receive free antivirus and firewall trial software. <p/> This CD is only available for Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows 98, and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE). <p/> Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery.

I ordered one. Having a fresh installation patched up before hopping onto the network will be a glorious and healthful thing. Also, free trials of antivirus and firewall software — yay? I mean, there are decent free versions of both firewalls and antivirus software. (Why doesn’t Microsoft make their own antivirus software anyway?) <p/> Another great security measure is slipstreaming SP1 with an original XP disc. The result is a bootable install disc of Windows XP, with Service Pack 1 included in the installation! Nice.