Reviews - today's CS games

When one only plays a game once a week, often it can be hard to settle back into its unique rhythms. In single-player this is less of an issue, however in multi-player, where one is expected to be at %100 all the time, many deaths are required before the hang is gotten. And so, every Friday, I fire up Counter-Strike and try to get my groove back so on Saturday I can rock it once more. Yesterday was spent doing other things, so my first round of the weekend was this morning. It wasn't pretty. Well, first I don't know de_aztec that well yet so that didn't help (there's a corner there?!?, etc.), but overall I felt like I was rushing all the time, and often alone. It took a good 5 minutes to get used to the recoil sometimes.

Of course, my computers weren't behaving quite right (as usual upstairs, abnormally down) so that didn't help when every 5 minutes I'd be watching it reboot. The evening session was interrupted by my dad and I fixing a p2 laptop. It needed a $60 power supply, and we had to figure out how to put it in. Much harder than we thought. Seems to work though, so the games kept coming.
Unfortunately de_dust was giving me headaches round after round, so I said "done" and fired up dmc. aaaah... everyone's a target.

Box score (out of 5)
Originality ***
Appeal **
Value ***

Overall ***

Reveiews - CD: Weezer - These demos don't suck

A collection of 10(!!!) songs from the much-maligned Weez. Their most recent release, the Green Album (the problem is, it's slight." - Graham) was disappointing in the extreme. In response to that, these 10 songs have been passed around the internet as what the green album "should have been." A quick listen reveals that this hold true, mostly.

If the crunchier guitars and metal-fan pop of Green made you think "weezer is better geeky!" then perhaps these aren't worth your time. The sound is essentially the same, but the crucial difference is (gasp!) actual songwriting. It's not as if the band could sound very different in this material than they do in everything else the made at the same time. In "American Gigolo" they blatantly rip off their own riffs from all over Green with the same guitar tone as "Hash Pipe", only without the audible coporate greasiness. Songs like "Listen Up" sound like the beach boys revisted, only to be followed with the very Fucking Champsey "Your Room". Accusations of Rivers Cuomo's youthful Metallica worship may not have been misplaced.

So what do you get for your 2 hours of bandwidth? Well, if you bought Green and hated it, plenty. If you don't remember Blue, don't miss this oppourtunity to hear the weezer you love singing material worth your while.

Box Score (out of 5)
Originality ***
-weezer doesn't bring anything new to either rock or songwriting, but...
Appeal *****
-it's darn hard not to like this stuff. It's just fun, way more so than Green and tremendously more than Pinkerton
Value **
-much points off for being low quality internet only. These songs are great and finished, where's my CD copy?
Overall ****
-worth hunting down, for sure. 5 stars if I could buy it.