Up In The Air – George Clooney stars as a corporate downsizing expert. He flies all around the world assisting in the firing of employees. He cherishes his life on the road and looks to one day gain ten million frequent flyer miles but then he meets the woman of his dreams who is also a frequent flyer. Directed by Jason Reitman (Juno).

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire – Precious is a black, illiterate, obese teenage girl who is pregnant for the 2nd time with her own father’s child. Her mother is abusive and constantly puts her down. She gets accepted to a special school where she gets some sort of happiness in her life but her mother does not approve.

Old Dogs – Robin Williams plays a successful businessman whose world is rocked when a former lover comes back into his life to introduce him to his twin sons. When he finds himself in charge of the boys, he enlists his best friend and colleague, played by John Travolta, to co-parent. From the director of Wild Hogs.

It’s time once again for everybody’s favorite game of hypotheticals. This time we’re exploring the ladies of everyone’s favorite mind-f*ck Lost. PS – Ladies… feel free to use Jack, Sawyer, Sayid, Locke, Ben, etc… we’re equal-opportunity here @ Shamoozal.

You know the rules, you gotta pick one for each category…. F*ck, Marry, Kill.

Hit the jump for the Choices:

Over the weekend I was interviewed by Karen Demsko of Color the Grayscale and the podcast went live earlier today.

Head on over to here if you’re interested in a somewhat more personal interview than normal. I go into a history of Jacquo the Rabbit, talk a bit about more life outside of Shamoozal including what I do for a living and some of my more terrible experiences, and of course talk a little about games and art as a whole. Plus I also spend half the time stumbling over words, so there is that too. Enjoy!

Believe it or not but it’s been well over two months since we recorded our last edition of Shamoozal Radio. The gang reunites this Saturday, the 30th, around 8pm(ish) eastern time and we’ll be talking about the regular assortment of nonsense. Of course we’ll be recording the entire thing live and we’ll have the MP3 up afterward. Hope to see you there!

I took one look at a few stills from Capcom’s Dark Void a few years back and haven’t really looked at it much in between now and then. To be honest, I had almost forgotten that it was even coming out at all, until the seemingly much more interesting 8-bit spin off on for the DSi was announced a few weeks ago. Then I had heard that it was done by the team that created Crimson Skies for the original Xbox and all of a sudden I was much more interested in the project.

Crimson Skies is a really well made arcade style flight game and one of the few Xbox exclusives worth looking into. When I found out that Dark Void was basically The Rocketeer meets Crimson Skies, I was almost sold. Now that reviews are out it is becoming quite clear that maybe Dark Void isn’t anything special after all and that maybe my hunch was right all along. I needed to find out for myself, so I decided to download the demo.

From what I’ve played the game does seem really awesome. Flying around is practically identical to Crimson Skies, complete with the same special moves by pushing the sticks in and rolling them from side to side. It has a great sense of speed when you fire those thrusters, and the shooting feels just as satisfying as it does in Crimson Skies. Then you land and all of a sudden the game magically turns into every other cover based shooter, minus the polish of something like Uncharted from what I’ve seen. It sort of reminds me of the Gamecube game Star Wars Rebel Strike in that the air stuff was great but the land stuff was garbage. From the way reviews sound, it seems that just like Rebel Strike, the garbage outweighs the good. Jack of all trades, master of none… well I guess in these cases, one.

During MAGFest I had the opportunity to meet Randy Yasenchak, the owner of elder-geek.com, and was invited to record a podcast for his site. Last night I met with the group over Skype and took part in the latest “issue” of their podcast series Elder-Speek. So hop on over and listen to yours truly blab about the latest game news, MAGFest, and of course a large helping of Shamoozal talk in general. I had a lot of fun doing this and would just like to thank the gang at Elder-Geek for inviting me on in the first place.

So head on over, what are you waiting for?

After 11 days off I had to drag my ass out of bed this morning and head back to the grind. Overall I’d say this was the best holiday break I’ve ever had. I cooked my first turkey, hung out all day with my wife and daughter and spent some quality time with my game consoles. The majority of my time off was spent wandering around Italy’s Renaissance period in Assassin’s Creed 2, but I still managed to squeeze in some SOCOM and Modern Warfare 2 goodness.

I’m finding that as I get older, the holidays are less about the gifts and more about relaxing and enjoying my life. I did get some money from parents, in-laws, grandparents so I picked up a few things for myself… but for the most part it was just nice not having to “do” anything all day.

So what did you do over the break (if you had one)?

So while MAGFest actually officially started on Thursday night, I’m on my way down there this morning. The official Shamoozal table will be in full effect, and I’m sure we’ll be easy to find since we’ll likely be the most yellow looking thing in the lot. So if you’re near the area (Alexandria, VA) stop on by and say “hi!” I’ll even hand you some free stickers, buttons and stuff.

Don’t let the title fool you. I am a fan of the Thanksgiving holiday. I just think it is greatly overlooked in this day and age. Christmas comes as soon as October sometimes according to department stores, TV commercials, and radio stations. Everyone forgets a great family holiday that isn’t overshadowed by presents and greediness. Thanksgiving is just about getting together as a family, throwing back some cold ones, and stuffing your face. The only thing to worry about is making sure your turkey is cooked right. There isn’t a need for presents or even that much money to be spent. Now I know there’s history behind the actual holiday, just like Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. But lets be real, to most people it’s more about what you do as a family tradition. I’m not bashing Christmas, I actually love Christmas. I love it in December. Not October which is Halloween month for me. Or November which is Thanksgiving month. I look forward to my Mom’s cooking and spending time with the family just shootin’ the breeze.

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