A Bit Conspicuous

I have been questing for awesome burger joints since I came to LA.  Everyone would recommend the usual like In and Out or Fatburger.  Those are both very good, but still fall under the realm of fast food.

Finally, after many years here, someone recommended a place that serves a burger that I would classify in the realm of Awesome.  “How could it take so long?  Surely LA has good burger joints somewhere!”, I have cried out many times.

Enter, The Counter.  Not only do they use high grade tasty tasty beef, but they also let you build the burger yourself using only a pencil and clipboard.  On their menu I count 10 kinds of cheese, 27 different toppings, and 17 sauces.  Some combinations will be superior to others.

Maybe I could design a fitness function for burger tastiness.  Then a simple genetic algorithm could find the top contenders for best burger out of their claimed 312,120 burger combinations.  Of course this would also mean the computer would need to be able to somehow eat the burger.

I think instead I will just go eat there a lot and decide for myself.

Two other burger places have come to my attention.  Fathers Office and 25 Degrees.  I plan to try those out soon too.

I’ve always had a soft spot for good Machinima.  It is very interesting how expressive these can be, given the limitations of available animations.  Even something as simple as position and orientation can convey emotion.

Also I like the music.

Portal is a lot of fun, even though it is short. Total time it took around three hours to finish, but it is an extremely polished experience. The difficulty curve is just right. The first few puzzles are very simple, but that seems to fit with the setting. You are a lab rat. They can make no assumptions as to your prior experience or intelligence.

The ending topped it off well. Bioshock was an amazing game, but the ending felt very abrupt. 30 second movie and then BAM, title screen. Having a good credit sequence is a great way to let someone fall slowly down, reflecting on what they have just experienced.

In that regard Portal gets my vote for one of the best game endings ever.

My only complaint is that the level picker supplied with every Source game stops at test chamber 19, (slight spoiler)which is not anywhere near the end of the game. I went through it so quickly that I don’t even have a save game near the end, so I can’t jump in and enjoy the ending easily.

Hopefully we’ll start to see some challenging user created maps. This game screams for them, and that will increase its longevity.

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I’m not sold on the idea of RTS games on the consoles in the first place, at least not in their current form. Selection is just too cumbersome, even with the BFME control style. From what we’ve seen of Halo Wars so far it doesn’t look like I will be changing my outlook any time soon.

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Without further adieu, I present to you my nephew’s second stop motion Lego movie.

My favorite part? The Stormtrooper’s heads rolling out of the way after they get squashed, and the big red laser beams hitting Jar Jar Binks.

If I remember correctly, Obi-Wan defeated General Greivous in Episode 3. Details, details…

Once Lego Movie 1 makes it onto YouTube I’ll post that as well.

Grosse-Pointe Blank is on my YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS movie list. It’s funny, has some action, and let’s not forget it has Jeremy Piven.

The real reason for this post is that I saw a review of it recently, at Double Viking (warning, the article is fine but the rest of the site is NSFW).

Every review should be like this. Simple, with pictures, and a good sense of humor.

If you have time, read their other reviews:

• Army of Darkness
• The Fifth Element (minus the cheesy Love will save us from War byline at the end)
• Robocop

Whether you have time or not, these are all movies you must see.

The new Pac-Man game on Xbox Live Arcade is awesome. I’m really surprised at how such small changes to the gameplay result in such a different experience.

The timer and pacing make it feel much more frenetic. The way the pellets spawn on either side via grabbing the fruit adds some strategy that was never there before.

In short, this is completely worth the $10 download.

Here is some gameplay footage of someone who isn’t me.

For those of you that have an inclination towards anime, I would recommend Nickelodeon’s Avatar. I opted not to link to nick.com because it is, shall we say, flash heavy.

Avatar keeps a fast pace and does not retread action or story multiple times, and so does not suffer from DragonBall Z syndrome. It has fun characters and a good balance of action and comedy.

In short, you should watch it if you haven’t yet.

My friend, who was the one to recommend Avatar to me, created this Avatar/300 mash-up in a fit of late night madness. Enjoy.

The sock post is still on the way.