Red Alert 3 and stuff

So I've been playing a lot of C&C Red Alert 3 lately. Since it's an online beta I've only been able to play online. I have to say it's quite a good game. Definitely the best C&C game I've ever played. It sports a much improved Warcraft style resource model and I love the amphibiousness of the buildings. The three races seem quite varied, and if they're not quite balanced yet, I still have a ton of fun playing the game. My chosen race is the Empire of the Rising sun due to their unlimited expand ability and the transformation of the mechs.

One of the great things about the game is the back and forth nature I've had with some of the battles, and the ability to recover from missteps. In the last game I played I was doing really well, but I had neglected to fully build up my navy and lo and behold, the enemy comes with some naval vessels. Luckily I could just pack up my construction yard, move it on to land where it would be well protected by my infantry and continue the game, which I handily won through ground and air forces. This follows another game I played back and forth with an opponent for over an hour wherein we were constantly battling for control of the map until finally I was able to destroy his army, though we were both basically out of resources.

I'm glad I work at Pandemic at times like this so I can get in on some of these early betas (though now it's available to all C&C 3 owners). Anyway if you can get your hands on the beta, highly recommended, otherwise, hopefully there will be a demo.

We also saw two movies this weekend, Pineapple Express and Bottle Shock. Pineapple express was really good. Funny and action-packed, it wasn't a movie just for stoners. Tons of laughs. Bottle shock was elevated due to the performances of Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman, but I don't think it was quite a good movie. It's about the Judgement of Paris in 1976, where California wines first beat French wines in a blind taste test. The movie focused on the family that owned Chateau Montelena at the time and embelished quite a bit. It was still a good film, but I find the subject matter interesting enough to not have it Hollywoodized all to hell. Interestingly the screening we selected included a Q&A with the director and producer of the film. Both were affable and you wanted to like them. The movie was good, but apparently another movie is coming out about the same subject matter, so I hope that one is better.

Amanda Palmer at Troubadour 8/4/08

The wife and I hit up the Troubadour to see Amanda Palmer tonight. There was a really good opening band called Vermillion Lies, not sure if I'd like thier music on an album but an extremely entertaining live show. Apparently this was Amanda's first show on her new tour, so she was pretty nervous.

Still a great show. I have to say I really appreciate shows where the artist or band appreciates the audience. I first noticed this when I saw Devotchka and the band just seemed happy to be able to play music for an audience that really wanted to hear them. For some reason that really made me fall in love with the band. This show was much the same. When the Dresden Dolls perform, it tends to be a bit more "professional", the show seems more rehearsed or something. This show was more cozy, almost friendly. I really like that kind of thing. The performance was really good also, Amanda brings all the passion she normally brings to Dresden Dolls shows to her solo performance as well. I'm also liking how her new album sounds so far so the fact that most of the show was her solo stuff was a plus for me, thought the crowd seemed happy to be pandered to with older Dresden Dolls material. It was a really good show, and I highly recommend the Troubadour as a venue. The wife and I were thinking of seeing more shows there for bands we don't know so well just to try to find new bands since it's such a great venue. We've seen Devotchka and Amanda Palmer there now and both shows were lots of fun.