Finally saw Spider-Man 2. We weren't trying to avoid it; we had every intention of seeing it in theaters, but never got around to it. Plus, I felt much of the bloom was off the rose after that massive trailer that hit every major plot point. Ruined it a bit, I thought.

Not as good as the first one. Probably all those flippy action smacking into walls bits looked so cool in the first movie... and just one sequel later they're already old. Doctor Octopus was a much better character than Green Goblin, particularly in costume design. So, better villain, worse movie. Interesting paradox.

This time Mike and Noelle hosted the New Year's event (last year we stranded ourselves in the wilds of upstate PA)... and as expected, we played games.

San Andreas was a regular visitor, an odd choice given the mostly single-playerness of it all. Although since the game tends to become an action movie during even the simplest of missions, it remains fun to watch. Assuming action movies are your thing. It certainly is a crowd pleaser for the male half, at any rate.

Cranium is always a good choice for big groups. We had two teams of four. I managed to sneak a couple of those thrice-damned Humdinger cards (where you have to hum a song for others to guess) to the back of the box. It's astonishing how large a gap is present between what a song sounds like in your head and how it escapes your lips. They're almost always a loss when they appear - unless the song is asininely easy, like "When the Saints Go Marching In" - so I dump them when I can. I've been thinking I should buy one of the Cranium Booster packs and swap out most of the Humdingers. More Sculptorades, I say.

Last time I talked about San Andreas, I was afraid to leave home. Well, young lad, you'll never get anywhere in life with that attitude, so I did the right thing and tackled the final Los Santos mission. It's a smallish gang fight in a parking lot, pretty easy actually. I did, however, wait until I had taken over every available enemy gang territory.

And actually, at the moment I'm fresh out of San Fierro, the game's second major metropolitan area. I'm in the Toreno missions, which seem to center mainly in the desert area that precedes Las Venturas (city #3.) I really liked the change in CJ's circle of friends in San Fierro... sort of a Scooby gang of toughs: Cesar, Woozie, and the Truth (what happened to him anyway? Haven't seen him in a while.)

Here's a fatal flaw for you: just about every boss fight in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is preceded by a huge conversation. If you die in the boss fight, you have to re-live the conversation with no way to skip through it (other than the time-honored practice of smacking a button to speed up the text display.) Ugh. I love plot and story and characterization in my video games. But when you have to re-read the conversation multiple times, it actually works against the flow of the narrative. The dramatic punch is diluted - and in fact becomes a source of anger - when you have to hammer the A button to get through it. If you opt to continue after dying in a boss fight, the game should reset you at the start of the boss fight. End of discussion.

So the Macworld Expo Keynote rumors were (mostly) true, and we now have a smaller iPod and a smaller Mac. My favorite live update site of the day was, predictably, Gizmodo. Especially the bit where he too questions the "Ken Burns Effect". Come on, it's a freaking pan and/or zoom. We don't call the rack focus the "Alfred Hitchcock Effect." We don't even capitalize rack focus.

And now, the iPod Shuffle, presumably named so because iPod Mini was already taken. The Shuffle is minier than the Mini, "smaller than a pack of gum and weighs less than 4 quarters," to paraphrase the marketing metaphors. I never liked the Mini, because $250 for 4gig is preposterous compared to $300 for 20gig. Don't try to explain to me how the Mini and the Regular Size are placed in different market segments. That's nonsense. If you like a Mini, it's because you like the style and size of the hardware, not because you think you're getting a great deal compared to other (IE, non-Apple) music players. Regular iPod is a much better buy than the Mini, unless you're deadset for having one in light blue. Or you absolutely don't have that extra $50, which is stupid crazy.

The stakes are raised: now Scott is in on the online PS2 poker fun. Tonight during the obligatory pre-game call, Mike asked me if I liked playing it. Sounds weird, but not really an odd question if you know Mike, or if you know me. What he's getting at is that I usually don't much enjoy games like poker... probability-based, abstract, wagering games. In fact, were it not for Doomtown, I wouldn't even know the hand ranks. As for Mike, well, he just likes asking questions.

But I do like it. I think I like it mainly due to all the gear being utilized. All three of us have identical setups: broadband and wireless network, USB headset for voice chat, EyeToy camera for live jpeggy video feed. Plus the PS2 and game, naturally. It's a pleasing amount of peripherals all working in concert to mimic three pals playing a trendy game of Texas Hold 'Em. Without all the cards and chips and cleanup.

It's ironic... Chris and I were just talking about this last week. Older versions of Movable Type are highly susceptible to automated comment insertion, where unscrupulous internet shamboys run scripts that post commercial comments wherever possible. Chris was hit hard with it some months back, so he removed the comment feature on his weblog. I was slammed once, end of last month. I manually deleted all the offending comments and crossed my fingers.

And then yesterday I was hit again, as a hundred "comments" all advertising some Online Poker game appeared all over my site. So I dumped my comment feature too.

Stop me if you've heard this one: adventurous young lad travels through a series of Disney movie-based worlds - accompanied by Donald Duck and Goofy - in the hopes of reuniting with his missing friends.

What worked for the seminal PS2 Kingdom Hearts works for the GBA sequel. Picking up exactly where KH left off, Chain of Memories takes series lead Sora into a bizarre sidestory of promises and lies. If you did not play the original KH, this game will feel very fresh, dramatic and imaginative. If you did, Chain is a little stale, because the game rehashes almost every environment and character from its precursor. There are some critical differences in combat and exploration, but the visuals are all very very familiar. Some of which is comforting from a franchise standpoint (for example, Sora's heels-over-head leap to reach a higher platform... a cute example of good characterization through movement from the first game that is re-created here in 2D sprites), but at times you'd rather the restrictive storyline would allow for more new concepts.

I've now had a DS for two months. It hasn't become the end-all portable gaming gadget for me, just sort of a GBA with bonus features. The really big DS games are still too far away - Animal Crossing, Pokemon Pearl/Diamond. WarioWare Touched is next month; that will be my next DS purchase. So how does the DS (and 4 games) stand up after two months?

Metroid Prime: Hunters: First Hunt: Demo Version: Free With Purchase is still a great example of good stylus usage. The simulated mouselook is the best thing since actual mouse mouselook. It's fast and smooth and just plain works. The only weak spot is attaching jump to tapping the stylus. There's some kind of touchy timing to pull it off, and it makes the jumping platform sections of the demo moderately obnoxious. They need to hurry up and get the full game out, because it will be a major rung towards taking the DS seriously.

The big Fantastic Four teaser trailer hit online last week. A "teaser trailer" means you get a trailer that does nothing but show explosions.

Even though I'm a big comics guy, I haven't seen many of the modern era Marvel films. Pretty much only the Spider-Man and X-Men ones. Did not see Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher or any of the Blades. And I likely won't. It's just difficult to imagine them being much good. I mean, Blade?

As for this summer's FF movie... I don't know. I'll probably buy it on DVD four months later out of affection for the characters, rather than out of expecting a great movie. The teaser trailer doesn't do much more than look like a new X-Men sequel.

If you're not already visiting Mark Evanier's website, now's a good time to see what the man has to offer... because he's been posting some crazy good stuff about the late great Johnny Carson. (Archives begin here and continue on for several days.) What makes his weblog so interesting is that his career in broadcasting/animation/writing has brought him in contact with so many industry greats... and anyone he hasn't met, he's done research on. (He's mentioned alongside some terrific Bob Kane stories in a book about comics I just read, Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones.) So he always has a good story to tell. Particularly about celebs from the classic eras gone by. Unfortunately, these folks are becoming scarcer and scarcer, so he's posting more memorial items than he'd like. To wit: the passing of Carson.

Bought Resident Evil 4. Which brings me to five major console games I have yet to boot. No time for love, Dr. Jones.

Not that I needed RE4, but I had good reasons. #1) $50 gift certificate to the mall, which is what passes for the office holiday bonus these days. #2) buying RE4 at EB comes with a free Making of Resident Evil 4 DVD. So really, there was no cost at all, except that I threw in the San Andreas soundtrack CD set as well.

The San Andreas soundtrack album is awful. Unlike Vice City, you don't get every single song in the game, or even nearly every single song. The San Andreas soundtrack is a 2 CD set, totalling about two songs per in-game radio station. And since the game's radio stations cover such a wide range of musical tastes, you're guaranteed to absolutely hate half the songs in this set. No L7's "Pretend We're Dead," no En Vogue's "My Lovin (Never Gonna Get It)," not even Rod Stewart's career-defining magnum opus "Young Turks," a song so terrible it's actually good. Instead you get that 7 minute James Brown song that refuses to end and the embarrassingly juvenile angst anthem "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine.