PERSONAL Disappointment Station
Monday night was supposed to be my first 45-minute sketch set with my Conservatory class. The reason I say "was supposed to be" and not simply "was" is that our class shows need 25 tickets sold by 7:45 PM or else there is no show. And, guess what? If you said "you didn't have a show because you didn't sell 25 tickets by 7:45 PM" than give yourself a gold star for the day. So I didn't have the show Monday I was supposed to have. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I don't think that my class was necessarily ready for this performance... and it would have been good for my class to experience that level of failure, frankly. The improv seems to have come to us pretty easily... and I would like us to realize as a class that 45-minutes of sketch is hard. A performance like that is going to be HARD... and we need to practice. We NEED to rehearse for it... and I don't think that my class is really all that "into" rehearsing outside of class. And, unfortunately, for this reason I feel like my class is not going to stay together unless we're only doing improv. Unless we can get together, perform, and then leave our separate ways... my class will not stay together. I think that's sad... since we're talented as a class, but if talent alone could stick people together how many bands would still be together? Oh well, hopefully we'll have an actual show next Monday night.
VIDEO GAMES Half-Life 2 FULL Of Life
A couple of weeks ago, I rented Half-Life 2 from GameFly. It is, by far, the best first-person shooter I've ever played. The environments are enormous (lots of loading screens!), and the level design is the most 3D oriented--and by that I mean you have to really look down and up to see where to go next--of any game in any genre I've ever played! I mean, for example, at least half of the game happens after you've already cleared an area of enemies. Once all the enemies are gone, you find yourself looking around saying "Now where the hell am I going next?" Honestly, I find myself sometimes sitting, playing the game with my mouth wide open... I'm just sitting there with my mouth open?!... trying to figure out where I'm going and how I can get there. The game is as beautiful as it is gory... and can I say how much I love "rag-doll" physics? It's awesome! The physics in this game are incredible! It's a very smart game (with the physics and the level design)... but I honestly don't think I'll buy it. I know I'm beaming about it right now... but one of the best reasons for buying a shooter is that you can play it with other people. I think, if (read: when) we see Half-Life 3 on the NexGen consoles (XBox 360), it will have a co-op option--which is my favorite part of first-person shooters. Half-Life 2 is an amazing game... but, besides the amazing 1 player mode (which I've played for almost 10 hours and am still not done), this game won't have much replay-ability. So go out and rent HL2, be blow away by it, and return it when you're done.