If you didn’t like Transformers as a kid, you were probably not much fun. I mean, they were freakin’ robots that freakin’ transformed. The first Transformers flick had that element of nostalgia going for it. You were seeing a modern take of something that we all loved when we were growing up. We were able to look past Michael Bay’s horrible filmmaking, past the fact that the dialogue was probably written by either actual children or someone with an equivalent reading level and past how the movie played more like a commercial for the various car and soft drink brands not so subtly placed all over the place. The majority of that has worn off and I’m sure I’m not the only one seeing the second movie for exactly what it is.

The second film takes place what I assume is a year or so after the events of the first. Sam is on his way to college and Mikaela is working for her dad at motorcycle shop where she poses uncomfortably while airbrushing graphics on the sides of hogs. While those two are dealing with the regular challenges facing long distance couples, Optimus Prime and the gang are teamed up with the military guys they fought beside in a new top secret strike force called NEST, which hunts remaining Decepticons on Earth. I’m not going to go any further into the plot because…well, the plot is seriously secondary in the movie and the vast majority of it is convoluted and cliche. That and you could probably watch the trailer and figure most of it out for yourself.

Let’s go through the positives first. For most, Transformers 2 will be entertaining. I mean, in the summer, what’s more fun than watching robots kick some ass? There’s nothing wrong with the movie in this sense. If they just left it at robots kicking ass, I would’ve probably liked it a whole lot more. The animations seemed a bit last minute and several times, there was far too much going on in the shot and a lot of it is lost in a fast paced action scene. An early fight between Sideswipe and Sideways is great because it’s simple but a number of other melee sequences are too busy. Actually, I think I liked the action featuring the human soldiers the best since Michael Bay excels at slow motion picturesque shots with people but that doesn’t translate well with 50-foot behemoths. Two or three of these giants getting tangled up doesn’t look great on camera…sometimes you can barely tell whose parts are whose. Optimus’ final battle is also a bit disappointing, especially since you see what his opponent is capable of. Did all those cool anti-gravity abilities just suddenly disappear?

Speaking of the characters, there are far too many of them. Sure, we all want to see our favorites in the film but the movie crams so many of them in, most of the time without explanation or often even names, it’s hard to care about any of them. This is especially difficult with many of the Decepticons since quite a few of them look very similar. I mean, you can tell which one is Starscream and which one is Ravage but some others get really lost in the mix. Jetfire, for example, is done properly. You get a bit of his history and he tells you his name. I’m a little confused about why he has a British accent and is a SR-71 but that’s beside the point. While we’re off-topic, isn’t the SR-71 “Blackbird” just one of the most gorgeous machines you’ve ever seen?

I’m sure I won’t be the only one to mention this or make this comparison but why did they decide to include those god awful twins in this movie?! They were the Transformers 2 equivalent of Jar-Jar Binks. Every time they were on screen, I was getting increasingly annoyed. No, they’re not funny…and why on earth do they sound like they’re from Brooklyn? They’re from space…

Perhaps my biggest complaint about the actual story requires a SPOILER ALERT. I love that they included Devastator in the movie and he looks badass but why on earth is he killed almost immediately? Sure, experimental railgun…great. We don’t want to seem the biggest Transformer get shot from a boat miles away…we want to see him throw down against the Autobots!

The humans do a reasonable job in their roles. They spend the vast majority of the movie counter-intuitively running in slow motion away from explosions or serving as thin comic relief. Also, it’s hard to complain about Megan Fox.

Again, the plot is terrible. Far too much explanation was necessary and ultimately never delivered. With the backdrop of previous encounters with early humans and a great mix of Transformers lore, conspiracy theory and human history, you’d think they’d be able to come up with something better. I had the same complaint about Angels and Demons where Tom Hanks just solves the mystery without having to really decipher the clues…almost like “Oh, here’s the answer. I’d tell you why that’s the answer but we don’t have time!”

But let’s be completely clear here…no one is going to watch this movie for an Oscar-caliber plot. The hundreds of film critics simultaneously telling people why this movie is terrible in hundreds of different languages hasn’t deterred movie-goers from making this one of the highest grossing films of all time. It’s not a good movie, but it is a fun movie. You’ll have a good time seeing it with your friends and talking about it after…or heck, even complaining about how bad it was after. I’d probably recommend you bring at least one friend that knows the names of all the Transformers so you’ll know all the names Michael Bay decided could be cut from the script. I wish he would’ve cut some more things as the film is about half to an hour too long at a whopping 149 minutes.

Add it all up. The plot is drivel constructed by chimps on typewriters, the dialogue is cringe-worthy, and if all the Michael Bay slow motion was played at regular speed, the movie may have only been 45 minutes. Check your brain at the door or just leave it in the car. You really shouldn’t bring it with you if you want to enjoy some MOAR EXPLOSIONS!

Verdict: 4.5 out of 10

I was deeply saddened to learn that the world lost Michael Jackson today. While his greatness might be lost amongst the stranger parts of his life to some but to me, he will always be the King of Pop. I think among my top 10 songs, MJ represents at least a third. I have no doubt that he is the greatest and his combination of songwriting, singing, dancing and just entertainment will stand the test of time…and no one will even come close for a good long while.

R.I.P. MJ.

I didn’t come up with that…John decided that was an appropriate name and we were too lazy to argue with how stupid it sounded.

This week, we went for a little change of pace and crashed Vera’s Burger Shack for some of the best burgers in town. While not quite as complex and expensive as a Feenie Burger, the burgers at Vera’s are a world apart from the fast food crap you come across on a daily basis. The majority of us are hardcore carnivores so needless to say, we love Vera’s. John and Stephen Fung went for the crazy G-Money burger which is two patties and basically everything. Leo ordered a colossal chili burger that couldn’t even be close while I went for a much more conservative BBQ burger. I think Gary and Greg had something similar.

And to explain why I look like I’m flippin’ out in the video…we were trying to explain the difference between a fight in basketball and one in other professional sports. Either that or I was waving my hands in the air…waving them like I just don’t care. I’ll let you decide.

John also appears to have cut out the part where he eats another burger after…except this time a giant ball of ice cream sandwiched between two large chocolate chip cookies!

I can’t get any work done at home. I mean, I simply have too many things to play with and too short of an attention span to be anything close to productive. Therefore, I usually leave the house for somewhere with internet access whenever I want to study, write or whatever. Usually, I’ll end up at a coffee shop or Aberdeen Center but unfortunately, Aberdeen Center is home to one of the absolute worst internet connections on the planet. The Wi-Fi signal is weak and even if you do manage to get full bars, you’re crawling along at a dial-up snail pace. This is probably because it is being throttled due to the operators being morons but either way, there’s decent food around so I usually go anyways. How, if that’s the case, do I manage to get on the internet?

Prior to Wednesday, I had to rely on PDAnet, an iPhone app available only if you happen to jailbreak your phone. While it worked, it was buggy and after awhile, it limited your access if you decide not to pay for it. Now, I would pay for the program…I’m not opposed to supporting software developers but I know for a fact that tethering your iPhone to your laptop can be done without any sort of app whatsoever. Doing so is not easy as it involves actually typing in several commands and modifying a couple files and such but I don’t think I want to pay for something that simply makes that slightly easier. Maybe if the app worked 100% of the time, I might.

However, this is all a moot point as the 3.0 software for the iPhone allows for seamless and easy tethering. How easy? Well, I turned it on, plugged my iPhone into my MacBook Pro and it worked immediately. No more messing around with creating adhoc networks! I’m not kidding…there’s probably something you’re supposed to do when plugging your iPhone into your laptop but since it just worked right off the bat, I’ve decided not to mess with it. I’m sure you Windows users might have a few menus and such to get through but on Mac OS, it was literally plug and play.

Now not everyone is going to be able to do this. I know for a fact that Rogers/Fido restricts tethering to accounts with a 1GB or more data plan so those of you with 500MB plans are SOL. No, there’s no actual good reason why they’ve done so other than to force people to get more expensive data plans. Your results in other countries may vary…since I heard that AT&T down in the States is not allowing it at all at the moment. You poor Americans…

One of the foods I miss the most from my trip to Japan was zaru soba, or cold buckwheat noodles. I’m not exaggerating when I say it is the perfect summer food. Cool, light and delicious. In the 30+ degrees of blazing heat, I think I had cold soba at least every couple days if not more. It’s quite a cheap, common meal and while it’s rare to find one that isn’t good, true mastery of cold soba is difficult to find. Kanda Yabu Soba, for instance, is a great example of absolutely amazing soba.

However, it is more difficult than you imagine to find zaru soba in North America. Regardless of the permeation of Japanese cuisine into the Western world, the idea of cold noodles is lost on most people here. It is available at very few Japanese restaurants and even fewer actually get it right. I look for relatively dry, chilled noodles that are not stuck together and don’t fall apart very easily. There’s nothing worse than having to pick up bits and pieces of noodles stuck together. It sounds simple but in reality, it is quite difficult to achieve.

Vancouver is blessed with a number of wonderful Japanese restaurants where the vocabulary isn’t limited to “teriyaki” and “california roll”. I’ve been missing Japan more and more lately since around this time, I was still traveling so I expect to review a few of the great Japanese restaurants in town, such as Sushi Hachi, Seto and Ichiro. Torarenbo is one such place that has a number of traditional Japanese dishes as well as some that are indigenous to North America. The ingredients are fresh and prepared well.

I ordered the tenzaru soba, which is cold buckwheat noodles served with assorted tempura as well as a chopped scallop and tobiko (flying fish roe) roll. My roll arrived first and the scallops were fresh and sweet. Those of you who have only had their scallops seared or otherwise cooked are missing out. Raw scallops are perhaps one of the best foods in the world to eat raw.

The soba tray was quite a bit bigger than I expected. Usually, soba is regarded as a very light meal but the mount sitting on the bamboo sieve appeared mountainous! However, upon closer inspection, the noodles were simply sitting on a bed of ice cubes to keep them chilled. Not as huge an amount as I originally thought but still a very good amount of noodles.

Perhaps even more important than the quality and texture of the noodles is the quality of the tsuyu, or the dipping sauce for your zaru soba, which is usually a mixture of sweet soy sauce and mirin. My noodles at Torarenbo came with something I’ve never really seen before with soba…a raw quail egg. I don’t know about you but I love raw eggs. They add a great richness and depth to a lot of things. You also dash in some sesame seeds, wasabi and chopped green onions into your tsuyu. My tray also came with a large plate of tempura – a couple large prawns, zuchini, yam and pumpkin.

The noodles were fantastic and held up well, without any little bits and pieces hanging around the bottom of the bamboo tray at the end. Although the tempura wasn’t as oil-free and as lightly battered as some of the better tempura I’ve had, it also wasn’t anything to really complain about. Still a world apart from the junk you usually get at many Japanese restaurants. Either way, I was ecstatic to have some good cold soba close to home! The staff is very friendly and my surroundings were quite Japanese with Hanshin Tigers memorabilia on the walls and a Japanese food show on the flat screen on the wall.

With the soba a steal at $7.95 and my roll at $4.50, my bill came to just under $15 after a Coke. If you’re melting in the summer heat, grab yourself a tray of zaru soba and cool down with a great hot weather meal.

Many of the annoyances from the first game appear to be fixed in the second. While I’m still actually waiting for the next game in the Hitman series, this will probably be enough for me to play a fulltime killer for the time being.

Well played, Penguins. We’re coming for you next year, though.

And c’mon, no one likes working.

To be honest, I’m slightly disappointed by the new features of Apple’s latest iPhone. I mean, sure, it will still be the dominant smartphone in the market but after weeks of speculation about hardware improvements, we really didn’t see many at all. Yes, it will be “twice as fast” but I was hoping for a OLED screen in the front. Heck, I would’ve settled for the rumored solid matte black body without any stupid chrome trim. I’m underwhelmed by other things like, for example, the built-in compass. Seriously, why would I need a compass when the device has built-in GPS? It’s not always accurate but I’m sure I’ll be able to tell which way, in general, I’m going. Oleophobic coating? We wouldn’t have the fingerprint and oil smudges if you didn’t make the damn thing glossy!

There are, however, several positives that came out of the Apple keynote at WWDC. The new iPhone 3.0 software available in a week is exciting, especially with new features like built-in tethering. I actually quite like PDAnet but having to connect to my own laptop via Wi-Fi was clunky and sometimes buggy. Having it supported natively is much more convenient.

What features are you looking foward to? Or maybe you’re an iPhone hater and went to go buy a Palm Pre recently?

We really shouldn’t be surprised by anything coming from Japan these days. I mean, this is the country with “complete the tongue twister or get kicked in the junk” game shows. In fact, this move seems to almost make sense since…well, green tea is yummy and so is Coca-Cola…so what’s not to like? Of course, Coke is trying to pass this off as some kind of “health-conscious” beverage because green tea is full of good stuff like anti-oxidants and such but let’s not kid ourselves here…it’s still Coca-Cola and there’s no argument in the world that is going to convince anyone that all that sugar is in any way good for you. I’m sure, however, this is better than that curry flavored green tea that Jeremy Clarkson had when he was racing the bullet train in the GTR.

That being said…I want to give this stuff a try and will probably see if any of my friends in Japan want to mail me a bottle. Anyone going to Japan anytime soon?

Some may think of Left 4 Dead as a simple video game but if you’re like me, you know exactly what it really is: preparation for the zombie apocalypse. Never before has any game really brought to life (har har…) the feeling of a zombie swarm and the epic panic that ensues. As you can imagine, I was supremely excited when I heard that a sequel would be gnawing at our brains soon.

Although a chainsaw or any close combat weapon wouldn’t be your first choice when fighting off the horde of undead, in the hands of a skilled operator, such weapons can decimate a large crowd of zombies. I mean, look at how useful the mini-chainsaws were in Dead Rising. This time around, we’ll be able to make use of what look like chainsaws, baseball bats, fire axes and…frying pans in Left 4 Dead 2

I’m already dusting off my zombie-killing pants.

…what? You can’t kill zombies without some rockin’ pants, can you?

Although the majority of his music is synonymous with easy listening boredom, John Mayer is actually a rather funny dude. I mean, his impromptu stand-up has received positive reviews and he’s had funny spots on Chappelle’s Show and even Seasame Street. His Twitter is also a great source of humor…you just don’t expect the My Body is a Wonderland guy to be so random. A tweet he sent out the other day immediately struck me as an essential truth about travelling:

There’s always a moment on a trip when you decide you want to go home. Fight it. Because beyond that moment lies the best parts.

Especially in the case of long term trips, this particular occurrence is what I like to refer to as “The Wall”. Bikers and long distance runners will immediately identify this as the point where their bodies have consumed all readily available glycogen in their bodies and are starting to burn fat for energy, which is not as easily done. This is the time when fatigue becomes much more significant.

The same can be said about any significant time away from home. Undoubtedly, there will be a time when you feel like you would rather go home than continue on your trip, or the traveler’s version of “The Wall”. It can manifest itself in many different forms. I mean, if you are traveling with friends, you might feel like you’re getting sick of each other or people are nitpicking things or bickering with each other. If you are traveling solo, you could be battling a bit of loneliness and isolation. Either way, you feel like you’ve had as much fun as you can have.

Personally, I’ve been on many different long term trips where I’ve been away for months at a time and I can say from experience that “The Wall” can happen at any time during your trip. On my trip to Japan last year, it came near the middle on a particularly rainy day when all the trains were knocked out by a storm. Of course, many of the best moments of my trip came after that happened and I even decided to cancel my plane tickets home until I felt I was satisfied with my time in Japan. In 2006 while backpacking through Europe, it came just after my first week during our stop in Amsterdam. Of course, it could’ve been due to a mixture of the alcohol and…other…things but I was severely emotionally homesick the next day to the point where I had to call my family. Of course, all the best parts of the trip happened afterwards, including World Cup and a few weeks in London.

The key, really, is awareness that it is simply “The Wall” and remembering why you went on a trip in the first place. Just knowing is almost the whole battle. It is entirely natural to be homesick and regardless of how well-travelled you are, you are bound to experience it to some degree. There’s no solid, foolproof way to defeat “The Wall” but resisting the temptation to call it a trip or letting it drag on longer than a moment is important to how much awesoming time you’ll get on vacation.

No, I didn’t happen to eat at the famed Gordon Ramsay restaurant where every few seconds, you’d hear rambling strings of profanity mixed with various farm animals like “pig” or “donkkaaayy!”. There is a restaurant of the same name on west 4th in Vancouver and people there are much more friendly than our favorite Scottish potty-mouth.

A couple of my friends and I actually went here unintentionally as the restaurant we actually went to first doesn’t serve lunch on Saturdays (or whatever you would call a meal at 3:30 in the afternoon). However, it was a nice day and a short walk along west 4th gives you plenty of choices when it comes to food. Hell’s Kitchen looks more like a bar than many of the trendier places along the same street but the name alone makes an interesting first impression.

We walked in to learn that they were only serving pizzas until dinner, which was fine since we wanted to go for pizza in the first place. After much debate over the many choices on the menu, we settled on the Aphrodite (Pesto, smoked free-range chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted almonds, asiago) and the Soprano (Spicy capicolla, prosciutto ham, provolone cheese, basil, chorizo). Small 11″ pies are $11-14 and a large 15″ is $20-22. Two larges was more than enough for three people, despite us being big eaters and polishing it all off anyways.

The Soprano tastes like a much more interesting pepperoni pizza as the crispy proscuitto and chewy provolone are perfect. The capicolla and chorizo provide more than enough heat, even though the friendly waitress plopped down a bottle of sriracha that was probably overdoing it.

The Aphrodite was a more mixed review as the sun-dried tomatoes provided far too much sweetness while the chicken was rather dry and the pesto lacked in flavor. The almonds, however, worked unexpectedly well in a pizza.

More than anything, though, the crust was the best part. The thin, slightly charred but still slightly chewy is great. Not the perfection of a crust I had at Seirinkan but still, not bad. Compared to local fare, I still prefer the greatness that is Steveston Pizza.

Overall, not a bad little spot. Sitting on the patio on a nice Vancouver summer day with a beer or two is fantastic in itself.

I’m not sure why exactly but the Dot Com Pho crew decided to find out how fast and perhaps furious we were by heading to TBC Indoor Racing for a little go karting. Joining regulars like myself, Leo Chiang, Stephen Fung, John Chow and Greg Morgan was newcomer Preet and the crew from NeverBlue Ads.

Of course, not surprisingly, John went for bumping the rest of us into walls rather than passing us the correct way. In fact, I ended up in the wall after he used my kart to to take a corner…and since there’s no reverse gear, I had to wait there until someone came to get me. Of course, ending up in the wall isn’t as bad as forgetting to wear proper footwear and having to borrow shoes left behind for some reason to meet safety regulations. That and wearing balaclavas on your feet.

…and it certainly isn’t as bad as the little fender bender…or rather a wheel bender…that Leo got into afterwards while still in race mode.

Carl Nelson told me about Afrika when he came to hang out with me in Japan for a few days. I remember I was talking about how I wished there was actually a photography game for the PS3…well, one that wasn’t one of the totally weird and creepy ones they make in Japan and Carl mentioned “Well, there is one…”

Honestly, I was amazed that there was such a niche game existed considering how the vast majority of gamers are Halo tards and at first, I was afraid that Afrika would be more of a glorified Deer Hunter with cameras instead of scoped rifles. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, Afrika is a photojournalism and safari simulator for the Playstation 3 where you get assignments to find and photograph animals in Africa. I saw a demo in Japan last year and the graphics are gorgeous, at least as good as the Crytek engine.

Since I doubt I’ll be going to Africa myself anytime soon (I can’t handle that sort of heat…), I’m excited at the idea of this game, to be released on August 28th.

With all the videos and such of people falling on their face and hilariously injuring themselves on the internet, I’m sure we were all thinking the same thing when we first encounter this particular animated GIF.

I still don’t recommend you try this at home but if you do please make a video so we can watch you hilariously injure yourself…not on the internet but probably on the floor.

Of course, books are so 1991 so what we have here is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” YouTube video. Make sure you have the annotations turned on before you try to pick up the hot tub girl or else you’ll just be watching a really short and useless video that doesn’t make any sense. Don’t worry…it’s all relatively safe for work. Unless you work with nuns or something.

It’s funny how these things are so realistic…since I totally know John Stamos.

It was a huge success so it really isn’t a huge surprise that a sequel is on the way. In a bit of a twist, you’ll be playing as a Big Daddy, the nearly unstoppable juggernaut from the first game…but this time around, there’s something even tougher and meaner than even a super Big Daddy.

Be sure to watch in Hi-Res!