Freshly DREWed!

CONFIRMED :     My Sister is a Cheater!

All my life, I always thought I was the ONLY “game junkie” in my family then I discovered a gruesome fact just recently… I came home late night from work. It was silent and lights were all out except for my bedroom. I thought maybe it was just my father playing one of those crappy card games in my computer. To my surprise, it was my sister playing The Sims: Hot Date. At first, it didn’t bother me for she was literally begging me just a few weeks ago to install it in the PC and I hesitated at first coz I view the game as kinda boring. But then, I discovered it to be quite interesting after awhile. I did not really slide the door to my room all the way. I just pushed a little enough to let me peek at what she’s doing to her character.

To my horror, she was typing all these codes (like a stenographer) right from her head and I can see her character’s finances balloon from a mere $20,000 to $150,000 in just a few seconds! I rushed in and startled her a bit. I saw her house (or rather a mansion) and it was already jam-packed with all those nifty furniture and appliances. Also, she has her own chambermaid! I asked her, “How long have you been playing?” She replied, “Just an hour ago” (WTF!?). I only installed the game the night before and my initial character was just earning $200 a day as an ambulance driver while hers was enjoying a Jacuzzi bath in a heart-shaped tub and the maid’s in a kitchen flirting with one of the house guests. I told myself that’s UNFAIR! Then again, I myself am also a game cheater so I told her to end her session, turn off the PC and let me sleep already. The following morning, the first thing I did in the office was to open a browser and search for the cheat codes for that wretched game. 

"I’m too depressed to even look at myself." (a lonesome Sim in a community of elites)

CRITIQUE :     Sporadic Spielberg…

I hate to say this but I think Steven Spielberg is losing his cool man. He may be a great director but this latest work of his, “War of the Worlds”, maybe one of his LOSER sci-fi flicks. Too bad, I read the book itself and watched the 2-season TV series back in my highschool days. Maybe I was EXPECTING too much but still, everybody expects a lot from the great movie director himself (who isn’t?).

I have read a lot of saddening reviews at the Internet Movie Database forums not that I want to be influenced or something. Anyway, we all agree the vigilante son should have been killed and the aliens looked kinda funny. Sure the director stayed true to the human emotional factor of the story including that part where the father turned to his dark side just to protect his favorite daughter (who was kinda too bratty with all that screaming so to speak) but we were expecting something else more haunting. Almost all the variables in the book were adopted, of course a bit modified so as to make the movie feel MORE AMERICAN than British, but there were a few missing details. We didn’t get to see the aliens ‘slurp’ the blood off from a wailing victim nor did we hear the aliens make that sorrowful “Ulla” cry a few minutes after they die from bacterial infection.

I have to give the movie some credit though coz it wasn’t all that bad anyway. The alien machinery was cool specifically the nest compartments or rather food basket (Nasty!). I LOVE the whole red weed twist going on especially the blood draining and spraying!  That scene where the protagonist glimpsed at a panoramic view of the blood sprayed countryside was strangely ROMANTIC to me (where can I get a screenshot of this!). If I was having an affair with an alien vixen, I will mostly likely take her there and we would have made dirty love among the red weed vegetation (twisting all over our sweaty bodies). Overall, I’d give this movie a rating of 2 out of 4 (University of the Philippines’ grading scale).

"Earth tones are out, blood red is in…" (an alien interior designer / horticulturist)