Eddie on "L.A. Noire"

L.A. Noire takes place in 1947 Los Angeles, a city of glamour, fame, and wealth, but also where crime, vice, and corruption are rife. The player assumes the role of Cole Phelps, a Los Angeles Police Officer who rises through the ranks of the department. He has joined the police force to "right the wrongs" he committed during the WW2 He starts off as a patrol-man, then advances to traffic detective, homicide, vice, and finally arson investigator. Each rank gives the player a partner who will help Phelps in his investigations, fights, and arrests.

I am having a pretty good time playing this game, and it looks absolutely beautiful. Pretty much this is “L.A. Confidential”, with a dash of the classic TV show “Dragnet”. And you feel like you are playing a movie more than you are playing a video game. Rockstar and Team Bondi have done excellent job creating this open world city from the past.

The in-game city has been meticulously recreated to be an accurate representation of Los Angeles in 1947, before the highways bonds swathed through the city

Visually this game is stunning and almost strangely hyper-realistic, while that might be a slight over statement, let me explain. The renderings of the in-game characters are richly detailed and are full of facial expression. And as you play you’ll start to recognize the actors that portray the game characters, literally. As I’m playing the game I’m going hey that’s the guy from “Heroes”, and then I recognize that guy, and that one, etc etc. It’s not photo-realistic but it’s still pretty damn cool if you ask me. The cut-scenes and game play graphics are seamless. The story and dialogue are strong without being to overly convoluted, and the game controls are pretty simple once you get used to them.

You have go around the city running on foot, driving cars after people and also collect clues and questions from different witnesses and suspects. You use the clues and questions to cross-reference witnesses and suspects during interrogations. It is a little confusing at first but you need to watch the expressions of the people your questioning/interrogating to judge whether there is any Truth, or Doubt, or an all out Lie to what they are saying and if you have the evidence to prove any it. So while you think one person is guilty, a piece of info will make you think otherwise. You can even use Intuition points you earn throughout the game to remove an answer, show the clues, or to ask the community (Social Club) if your online. OK everybody got that, no you don’t. This is more of a police investigative game, than it is a shoot-em-up action game.

Those of you out there that are expecting Grand Theft Auto or even Red Dead Redemption will be disappointed, because you can’t do any random acts of shooting and lawless carnage, because you are the law. You can’t just pull out a gun and shoot someone or run anyone over with a car.

Only bad things are that sometimes the investigations can be somewhat repetitive, and the other street crimes are far an few between. Also there is no multi-player gameplay, while that is not necessarily a bad thing, it would have been cool to have something like that, maybe a co-op mode.

One more thing this is Los Angeles 1947, so it is graphic, violent, racist, religiously intolerant, vulgar and brutal. Think “Black Dahlia” brutal.  It is a very mature and adult game and I’d rather see a kid playing Call of Duty than this one, plus they’d probably be bored with it anyway.

I recommend, if your not a hardcore gamer, renting it first just to test the waters, so to speak, to see if your ready to plunk down $60 for this game. If you are a gamer, you;'ll buy it no matter what, and you'll enjoy it.

A BOMB GROWS IN TOLUCA LAKE ??

To everyone who hasn't been living under a rock, on Sunday night we were made aware that our evil arch nemesis Osama Bin Laden was killed by Call of Duty: Black Ops, …I mean Special Ops in Pakistan and the Mets beat the Phillies 2-1. So on everyone’s mind has been the possibility of some sort of terrorist Taliban Jihad retaliation against us in the United States of America & can the Mets win another game ? Let's start with the story regarding the prior story of Sunday evening

So today I am watching the news and the paranoia begins..

1. Police were investigating a backpack that was found in front of the downtown criminal courts building.

2. On Monday, a Metrolink commuter train was evacuated in Riverside because a backpack had been left in a restroom.

3. In San Diego a item suspected of being a pipe bomb shut down the Coronado Bay Bridge for a time.

4. Officers with the LAX Police Department found an electronic device in the backpack of the vehicle after making a routine traffic stop near the south end of the tunnel by Imperial Highway.

5. The bomb squad responded to Alameda and 2nd streets when a suspicious package was founding a tree.

6. And one more that I know of, TOLUCA LAKE, California, that’s right folks,.. in my little old town a suspicious package was found in front of the Toluca Lake Post Office by the street side mail boxes at Riverside Drive & Mariota Ave.

da bomb?

I was driving down Riverside Drive and low and behold, the Burbank Police Dept blocked the street. For the 3 block evacuated area, no one was allowed to enter, and as the curious person I am, I pulled over to take a look. The zoom on this old Pentax, is not very good, but if you look in the middle of the photo you can see a black bag next to the mail box, that's the suspicious package.

About 10 officers were spread around the outskirts of the yellow police tape, telling people to stop and not enter the area, and to stop idiots that tried to enter, through side streets. I also noticed how some people jogging or walking their dog down Riverside Dr. were quite perplexed and some were annoyed at the police for breaking the rhythm of their daily rituals.  I just had to laugh at that.

So anyway the bomb squad walked up to the package very sl... KABOOOOM,…hahaha just kidding. Nope they slowly walked up and set up some equipment and took an x-ray photo of this black duffel bag looking package. 

After processing the film and discussing police procedures, the female member of the bomb squad walked back to the duffel bag, opened it, and slowly started looking through the bag.  The bomb squad then picked up the package and walked back to the Official Burbank Bomb Squad pick-up truck.



So while I don't know what contents of the package, it turned out obviously, not to be a bomb. And that is a relief, because if it was I wouldn't be writing this. So Pats Diner is still there, and so is Timmy Nolan's and Trader Joes.

So as the sun sets in the small little village where I live, and I must say I love this place. And it was good to see the police out there doing their duty and protecting everyone from what could have been a seriously fucked up situation.

Just a quick FYI, I wrote an earlier on my blog an article called "Is Toluca Lake Cursed?" which some of you may or may not have read. But it was quite ironic that the bomb squad was set up in the very same intersection of where the car accident happened.  Hmmmm interesting.

Does this mean there is a curse? Who knows,.. we shall only have to wait to find out,....

MWA,...MWAHA,...MWAHAHAHA,....MWAHAHAHAHAHA *cough* *cough* *cough*

GO METS,..Eddie

Eddie on "THE LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA"

I would like to put out there my views on any possible inception of legalized marijuana. And I haven't smoked in awhile, especially like I used to back in the day. Personally I don’t care whether or not a law is passed in the United States, in the future, to legalize this quite innocent drug. My father once told me it was a stupid drug to be illegal in the first place, and he was a cop. To quote the Big Guy “You never hear of someone running over a bunch of school kids after smoking a joint.” And as a matter of fact this is the truth, whether anyone likes it or not. The last thing you want to do after smoking a joint is getting in a car, not that you can’t you just don’t feel like it. You would rather just stay where you are and watch TV, Play video games, and eat something really awesome (aka The Munchies).

In the case with alcohol, you want to drive fast, start fights, or go somewhere, like another bar and try to get laid. In 2010 there were 32,788 drunk driving fatalities, and this just drunk driving. I couldn’t find a number for alcohol, related abuse, over consumption, fight, murder, and stuff like that. What I found is that, in total and including vehicular related deaths, it is an estimated 75,000.

In regards to Marijuana, I looked and looked, and looked and all the research says the same thing, a big ZERO. Now even if the were anti-marijuana people out there they would have planted some propaganda, stating something completely different, but I got zip.

So what is the government so scared about, this is the magic question. I think they a just afraid of the unknown. What do they get out of the deal?? How are they to control a substance that anyone can grow in their own backyard??

First off, you are never, ever, going to be able to walk into a 7-11 or liquor store and buy weed, so get that out of your head, dude. The only way to purchase it would be marijuana dispensaries, and the government would tax the shit out of it, and you would have to be a registered user. In other words like today, the government, as well as Medical Marijuana dispensaries, you would need an I.D. and they would have you in the system as a user and have a record of your purchase dates. Now some people don’t care about being on some list, but this could also affect something somewhere down the line. There could be an issue with, let’s say a job, you would never get a government job, or be a pilot, cab driver, it would be all based on the employer and their companies standards.

Now in regards to personally growing your own, that's the one thing they can’t wrap their head around. Here a great story, a close friend years ago threw some seeds in his parents, who are old school Italians, large backyard vegetable garden. Now his mom didn’t know what it was, so she watered it, and took care of it, thinking it was some vegetable. Next thing you know he’s got a 6 foot plant full of buds in the backyard, so he quickly cut it down, yea that was a good summer hahaha Now back to the blog at hand. There is no real way for the government to control anything, once it becomes legal. So many people would be growing their own that they can’t constantly check with everyone. They could put a law limiting the amount you can grow for personal use, but they would have to go door to door, just to find out who is growing what and how much. Just because your growing a potent plant in you closet and it reeks doesn’t mean you growing a forest in the basement. What are they going to do watch for high peaks in your electric bill??

Also just to let you know marijuana is illegal in the Netherlands, as it is in the rest of the world. But it is considered a soft –drug as opposed to hard-drug. So it is pretty much left alone, as are the “Coffee Shops” because they have a limit of how many plants you can have and how much one person can have on their person at any given time.

So as for now it will still be illegal, until all the old-timey religious political leaders are dead and gone. And I bet, even then, we still won’t know what the hell to do with it.

Eddie on "HULU"

Hulu or HuluPlus is online service that let’s you stream instantly TV, Movies, and Trailers. But on Hulu you can watch shows that aired 24 hours prior, on regular television. Wait… isn’t that called On-Demand. Hulu also carries movies that you can watch instantly…Wait…that’s called Netflix. And on top of that Hulu lets you watch movie trailers, ok…wait… what, you can do that anywhere on the Internet. You can also stream these movies on your Xbox and PS3, when they get that one working again,..son of a ….. That’s it…. what the hell is going on here?

Well I decided to give it a shot and try their one-week free trial to see what this was all about, and they didn’t ask for a credit card number.

T.V. Shows: You get pretty much the same as On-Demand except you get more shows and a few other channels that aren’t available there. Also during commercial breaks they throw in a quick 30-second spot for whatever. But as i see it, if you already have a DVR or cable, it’s useless.

Movies: Same exact thing as Netflix, except for one big, really big, No-No. They place commercial spots in the movie every 15 minutes or so, with no real place to put them. They just drop the commercials at a random time placement with no consideration for plot points. So you are immediately pulled out of the movie, to watch a 30 second spot for, I don’t know,,.. life insurance, or something like that. While they do have a few movies that aren’t available on Netflix, it doesn’t matter. If I wanted commercial to appear in the middle of a movie, I’d just watch T.V. Also at this point there are only a small amount of films available.

Trailers: Useless,.. Enough said, I don’t know what to say about this. There are thousands of sights online, and on consoles, to watch trailers.

Another quick note they do have things they call Clips. These are specific items such as movie scenes, T.V. scenes etc, it’s pretty much a Youtube, kind of gimmick. So what ever.

While this service is free for a limited time, they have another special offer. If you do join after the week is up you only pay $7.99 a month “For a Limited Time”,..wink,..wink,.. for the service.

All and all, this for someone who has Wifi service on their laptop and they're never at home. I personally wouldn’t use this, because I have a DVR and I already subscribe to Netflix. Also if I’m paying a fee, I do not want to see commercial littered throughout any movie, TV I don’t care about, but the movies,.. really. I think this is just the big studios trying to figure out how to jump on the streaming instantly band wagon, and if it works out in the long run, then good for them. But this is one pony that ain’t following the trail.

But who am I judge, it's only my opinion, if you want to try it, give it a shot, and leave some comments on blog to tell me what you think.