Project Natal takes me back to day 1

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Atari 2600. When I was a kid that word and that number put together created digital magic. The details around when and why the Atari 2600 showed up at my house are vague now at thirty-two years old, but I clearly remember the experience of opening the box and playing it for the first time.

I have an older brother so the Atari was a combined gift for both of us. No problem since my favorite game at the time was the game that came with most of the systems: COMBAT!. COMBAT! seemed like a steal to me. It had what felt like 100 games on one cartridge. My brother and I played tanks the most followed closely by the airplanes game (jets not bi-planes).

I think I played combat enough that you could have just put super glue around the edge of the cartridge and I would not have complained. Thank god that never happened because I soon discovered the wondrous world of Pac-Man. We played that game as long and as often as we could get away with and unfortunately for my mother the tw0-bit sophistication of yesterday's games soundtracks could induce ear-splitting nauseating headaches unknown to any human being to that point.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. As I sat on my couch awaiting the beginning of Microsoft's E3 press conference for the Xbox 360 I realized the long and short road I had taken to that point. The amazing run and disappearance of the Atari 2600. The rebirth of games and the arcades during the reign of the NES. The rivalry of the arcade graphics vs the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. The WTF head scratching of the Atari Jaguar and 3DO. The pain of realizing that the Sega CD was the biggest waste of $300 in my entire 16 years on the planet. The joy of finally having my own job and money to buy a Sega Dreamcast. All the way to the wow moment I had last night as I was 1 of 50,000 people online playing the 1 vs 100 beta live on Xbox Live.

The hobby that my father once told me was a waste of time and money because I would outgrow it still has my a giddy as a five year old kid on Christmas morning. It happened again yesterday as Microsoft announced Project Natal. All I could say to my friends and family was, "Whoa! You have got to see this thing."

Now all I ask is that Microsoft delivers like Santa Claus and not steal my joy like the Grinch.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Stand Up, Make Some Noise With Microsoft (abcnews.go.com)

Lost Season 5 Finale

Image via Wikipedia

LOST will be a show that goes down in pop-culture history. It will be like the Michael Jordan of high-concept pop-culture television. For years to come we will talk about how great the show was and constantly try to anoint the a new show as "the Next LOST".

There are plenty of sites that have recapped last night's episode as part of their review (HERE and HERE) so I will skip straight past that and get into post show thoughts and in a later post write my detailed "RE-WATCH" commentary.

POST SHOW THOUGHTS (the post show thoughts are my thoughts, comments and questions after just one initial viewing)

• So are Jacob and "Not-Jacob" (seen on the beach at the beginning of the episode) the embodiment of good vs evil? Like a Ying/Yang cosmic balance kind of thing?
• Is "Not-Jacob" actually Smokey??? I think so. I think the Smoke Monster is just on of the many forms that "Not-Jacob" has taken over the course of the series. Now that we know that he is/was Locke and that Locke really is dead it makes sense that "Not-Jacob" took on the appearance of Christian Shepard and Yemi on the island.
• Can someone PLEASE translate the Egyptian hieroglyphics.
• I am now convinced that what the Losties in 1977 did was really the incident as Miles explained. The fade to white at the end was really a time travel white light flash and everyone is going back to their proper place in time.
• I really hope Juliet is not dead.
• I think Sayid is dead.
• WHERE IS CLAIRE???
• Wasn't it cool seeing the Black Rock coming to the island? Now we know that Jacob summoned them to the island in what seems like an ongoing study of the human condition/spirit between these two greater beings.
• It was very creepy to see how Jacob interacted with all of the main Losties somewhere in their lives. It seemed that he was that a major life turning points (Sawyer deciding to become a con-man for revenge, Locke being betrayed by his father, Jack having his moment of doubt and loss of faith, Kate becoming a criminal, Sayid losing his one true love)

Overall the season and the finale were amazing. I am going to watch it again tonight or tomorrow and write commentary along the way.

Iron Man

I saw Iron Man over a week ago on Thursday May 1st. I thought I had posted about it and realized I did not. So here are a few thoughts as opposed to a review.

Kick Ass - Downey Great - Go See - So good I want to bootleg it

I think that covers it.

ComiCon 2008!!

One of the main topics you will see me cover on this blog in the coming months is ComiCon 2008. I have been a huge comic book fan since I was around 7 years old. I really started to get into collecting comics when I was around 12 years old.

I think I was maybe 14 or 15 when I discovered the San Diego Comic Book Convention which has since morphed into just ComiCon. It has been on my bucket list since that day many years ago and this year I am finally going.

I will be making the trip to the pop culture mecca this July. As I get closer to the trip and to the day I will post on what I am excited to see and what I hope to see. I will also post about my experiences and maybe attempt so blogging while I am there.

More to come...

I'm Back

I have been successful in keeping up my Media Center focused blog, so I thought I would give this another try.

The purpose of this blog is for me to have an outlet to talk about all of my pop culture obsessions. The secondary purpose is to discuss the root of my current obsessions and how (as the title suggests) my mind was corrupted by my upbringing as a child of the 80's.

How exactly did I go from a Saturday morning, He-Man/GI Joe/Transformers, summer popcorn movie, Knight Rider/Air Hawk/Dynasty, Laser Tag, mix tape kid from the 80's to the person that can remember the exact release date of any summer movie but not what my wife said 2 seconds ago? I'm not sure but maybe the blog will provide the answer.

OMG!!! Transformers are here...

One of the fondest memories from my childhood has made the leap from the toy chest to the big screen. Transformers finally arrived in theaters this week. I was excited and scared at the same time. Did Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg do the fans justice or did they just crap all over the pedestal on which Optimus Prime and Megatron have presided on since Transformers Generation 1 first hit the airwaves in 1984?

Everyone will have their own answer to that question, but for me I definitely feel justified Not only did they manage to keep the original spirit of the cartoon, but that they also updated the Transformers for a new generation and a new fan base. I have seen the movie once (this past Monday at 8:30pm) and I cannot wait to see it again.

The Transfomers looked great. The characters were spot on for the most part (more Megatron - Starscream in the sequel please!!!). Shia LaBeouf
was great and carried the movie as far as I am concerned. It was just a fun summer popcorn movie.

Of course the movie is not perfect. It is extremely easy to be an armchair Hollywood director and find fault after fault. I for one am an extremely satisfied customer. I will watch this movie over and over, in the theater and eventually on DVD (or HD-DVD) as I patiently wait for the sequel.

Assuming that Transformers is the hit it should be you have to be asking: what's next? [Thundercats is going to be a CGI flick so I am not even going to count that.] The holy grail would be a kick ass G.I. Joe movie. This is a military special forces team going up against a worldwide terror organization!!! The timing couldn't be better to give the spotlight to Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Stalker, Duke, Hawk, Rock N' Roll, Storm Shadow, Cobra Commander, Destro, Baroness. C'mon Hollywood movers and shakers. Make it happen.