Day: September 19, 2004

Hot, Furry Death

So I’m entering hour 5 of NFL viewing (well, 5 hours of sports viewing, as I watched a bunch of the Yankees’ 11-1 victory against the Red Sox), when I see an ad for the Star Wars Battlefronts game (you can see the same ad by clicking “navigate,” “downloads” then “trailer”).

Evidently, this videogame consists of most of the combat scenes from the original three Star Wars movies. According to the trailer, “For years, you’ve watched the greatest Star Wars battles. What if you could actually live them?”

Sounds cool, right? Evidently, you can play from either side–Empire or rebels–which isn’t quite tantamount to guys who always play the Nazis in WWII simulations.

The trailer commenced with a series of quick cuts, including a few moments that I found REALLY perplexing. Fortunately, I have TiVo, so I was able to freeze the ad and go back to see what it was:

That’s right. In this game, you can actually blow away Ewoks. I picked up these captures from the internet version, but the TV version also includes the on-screen phrase, “Jim killed Ewok.”

All we need now is Jar Jar Binks: Shooting Gallery, and George Lucas can buy that private island he’s always wanted.

Fight Night

Watched the Hopkins/De La Hoya match last night at the home of a boxing family: two brothers of former light heavyweight champ Bobby Czyz were in attendance, and we watched a couple of Bobby’s old matches while the undercards were duking it out in Vegas.

It was pretty informative, watching boxing with people who’ve been in the ring, and who’ve watched so much of the sport. As with every other subject, the layman can learn a ton from listening to the vocabulary of people who are initiates. So, primed by listening to their commentary over a few other matches, I was able to see the main event last night with a different set of eyes.

It helped that, early in the night, one of the brothers made a comment about hitting a body shot right in the liver, and how it caused an opponent to crumple to the ground. When De La Hoya fell to the canvas, the whole sequence made sense, given that he didn’t appear to be that beaten up before he dropped.

Anyway, it was an interesting match to watch, from a chess-match standpoint. It didn’t have the exctiement and absolutely destructive slugfest-itude of, say, Gotti/Ward I, but De La Hoya’s change of strategy (coming out boxing, instead of moving back and dancing) and Hopkins’ ability to adapt to it, while enforcing his will in the later rounds, was pretty cool to watch.