Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Fanot par Goo Goo Dolls, cik es nojaušu, nav labs stils. Tāpēc es arī nefanoju. Vai arī es nefanoju par šo grupu neatkarīgi no tā, labs vai slikts stils tas būtu.

I`ve been a fan of quest games since I don`t know. Probably since I first played "Kings Quest 5", a very fine game for sure but it may seem a bit dated in the modern cyber-crazy world. And so after a long starvation with no quests at all I decided to give a try to a relatively new Russian quest. Although Russia may be far from the most progressive country in the world no one can deny that it has lots of potential in the area of programming and in the past I`ve enjoyed some of their quests - games like "Bratya Piloti", "Shtirlic", "Petjka" and other stand up proudly even in the presence of "LucasArts" or "Sierra Games". Sadly "The Revolutionary Quest" fails to deliver much joy into my life. First, the graphics are a bit plain and fail to convince me that 3D quests are bettern than those in 2D. But I`m not the kind of fellow to dislike a quest because of the graphics. It may be a perfectly logical decision by the makers of the game - an artistic trick so to say. What I want from a good quest is an interesting story. Although "The Revolutionary Quest" promised to have one it delivered very little of its potential. A modern student Vanya is sucked into the year 1917 while preparing to an exam on the October revolution. What he has to do is saving Vladimir Lenin from his enemies and help the Revolution to start. This would in theory provide a background for a perfectly funny partly historical game (similar to that of "Shtirlic" or "Day of the Tentacle"). But it doesn`t turn out to be that. There`s very little possibility for the player to decide for Vanya what he hero can do - there`s never a big number of screens where to go, you can`t pick up an object earlier than you`ve used the previous one - therefore the games becomes too simple for a quester like myself. Humour is present in the game but it isn`t particulary funny. So all we have is a simple game with plain graphics.

Šī albūma pirmā dziesma bija tā, kas mani iepazīstināja ar AC/DC. Tālajā 95-ajā vai 96-ajā gadā es uzskatīju, ka AC/DC un Guns`n`Roses ir divas pasaulē lielākās un labākās metāla grupas, tādas, kuras klausās visi tie krutie ādās tērptie veči, kas braukā ar motocikliem un krustcelēs pusnaktī nogalina melnus kaķus.

Uzskatījis par MSP cienītāju sevi nekad neesmu, kādreiz par šo grupu fanoja Ziņģis, bet vai viņš ir tās cienītājs vēl joprojām, es absolūti nezinu.

I don`t remember when I last watched a real quality detective movie. And this one is one in deed. Gosford Park amazingly got quite a lot of Oscar nominations in 2002 (although it won just a single one), which is weird for a film not having big stars in it and not being particulary groundbreaking. The story is a simple on indeed - a company of guests and servants has gathered in a huge house in the country for hunting but at night the master of the house, Sir William, is murdered. And almost everybody had some reason to want his death. The detective story isn`t the central moment though - it`s more about the relationships between masters and servants (the film is set in the 1930s), masters and masters, and servants and servants. Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon (both of whom play teachers in "Harry Potter"). What are the things that distinguish from a Agatha Christie piece (which it at times ressembles) - first, there`s no marriage in the end, the only possible pair parts never to see each other again (not that they put it like that). Then, the murderer doesn`t go to prison because the cop is less intelligent than Mrs.Christie could have probably written one, and the person that solves the crime is the probable-lover of one of the killers. This film certainly has very well-developed characters, but I have seen better films than this one.

Lately I`ve been listening to "Ween" a lot, although you wouldn`t know that by looking at this factoid. I was informed by three different sources that the band was supposed to be interesting: both of my favourite music reviewers - Marc Prindle and George Starostin like it a lot, and a colleague of a friend of mine once said that "Ween" was worth checking out. I can`t say that I knew absolutely nothing about the band until recently - I had heard "I`m Waving My Dick In The Wind" quite a few times for it was on the Soundtrack to either "Grand Theft Auto" or on some EA Sports game, most likely the former. But I never thought that "Ween" would be much more than a comedy band - something similar to "Weird Al" Yankovic. In reality "Ween" turned out to be a very interesting duo with a very diverse catalog of recorded music. "White Pepper" may not be the most diverce of their records but even on here you can`t really categorize what sort of a band you`re listening to. There you have the beautiful multi-layered "Flutes of the Chi", the hawaii-sounding "Bananas and Blow", the "Ace of Spades" reminding "Stroker Ace", the crazy dissonant instrumental "Ice Castles", the easy-listening "Back to Basom", the distorted and heavy "The Grobe" followed by the funky "Pandy Fackler", a masterful pop song "Stay Forever", "Falling Out" sounds somewhat like the Zutons, although they never existed when "White Pepper" came out. This is one of the albums where I`ll say - there`s no real filler and almost every song could eventually become a hit single. Which only means that the album didn`t deliver even a single hit.

Lai gan man patīk strīdēties, vienu faktu es neapstrīdēšu - Haruki Murakami ir ģēnijs. Tāpat viņš ir vienīgais japāņu rakstnieks, kuram ir pa īstam izdevies mani aizkustināt. Nav gan arī tā, ka es šausmīgi daudz būtu šīs valsts literatūrā iedziļinājies, bet Murakami manā iedomātajā zelta grāmatu plauktā pelnīti ieņem vienu no centrālajām vietām līdzās Umberto Eko, Milanam Kunderam, Kurtam Vonnegūtam, Frīdriham Dirrenmatam, Maksam Frišam, Ērikam Emanuēlam Šmitam, Viktoram Peļevinam un... laikam tas arī ir viss.

Romāns par pinbolu bija viens no pirmajiem Murakami darbiem, ar kuriem es iepazinos, taču kaut kāda iemesla dēļ mūsu iepriekšējā iepazīšanās sanāca sasteigta un nepabeigta, līdz ar to šī lasīšanas reize bija pirmā tāda, kurā sasniedzu romāna beigas.

"I`m a king kong man, I`m a voodoo man, I am an apeman." This is a quote from a song entitled "Apeman" by "The Kinks". It has little to do with the brand new film by Peter Jackson ("Lord of the Rings") but since I like this song very much I can`t stop myself from referring to it right now. "King Kong" is a classic, ofcourse. I may haven`t seen neither the original 1933 film, nor the remake from 1970s but even I had at least some idea about the story. You know, a huge ape running around carrying a blonde and fighting off T-Rex`es, that kind of stuff. This new film features a strong cast including Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black (from "Tenacious-D") and some others that I don`t know, a huge budget providing terrific special effects and a touch of humanism. What the film had a little too much of was length. I am familiar with P.Jackson`s inability to make short films but I still found some of the fighting scenes too long. At least I have to admit that I was waiting for the ending quite a lot, which is no wonder, considering that we had seets in the second row and that the film started at fifteen past eleven, PM. By the way - if you`re in the right state of mind don`t even consider sitting that close to the screen! It sucks completely - the video quality seems to be worse than that of a screener, your eyes will ache all the time, you`ll be surrounded by ape-men and ape-women and you`re gonna find it quite hard to enjoy the best of films created by man. I can appreciate what Peter Jackson did to the King Kong story and I agree that it was cleverly done (apart from lots of little logical errors) but I can`t agree that this was the best film of 2005. On the other hand I doubt that I have already seen the best one yet.

Es tā īsti nevaru saprast - cik daudz ir vēlams par filmu uzzināt, pirms to skatīties? No vienas puses, pārmērīgi daudz informācijas var tev traucēt filmu izbaudīt, no otras puses - neliela papētīšana un es, iespējams, nebūtu izlēmis skatīties "The Celestine Prophecy", kas būtu noteikti bijis prātīgs lēmums.