Matt Van Stone

I have continued my steady watching of horror movies over the past year and I thought I would share with you some of my favorites.

First off, in my opinion what makes a movie a good horror? Well usually it has to have blood and gore. Generally I tend to like unrealistic gore, but any will do. Shock factor is big with me. If at any point throughout the movie I say “ohhhhhh shit, did you see that” and bite my knuckle, chances are it’s a good movie. I’m not big on cheap scare tactics like things jumping out at you or loud noises that are meant to scare. However, I do believe music is paramount, and a good music or ambiance track can up the scare factor tenfold.

I tend to like horrors with whacko characters. I don’t know why, I have always just been a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hellraiser, or Saw kinda guy. So without further rambling, here are the best movies I have seen this year.

Haute Tension (aka High Tension)
Somehow I had avoided the spoilers for this movie for years. I used to participate regularly on a Horror forum called Crazy Mazey’s House of Horror (which has since ceased to exist) and there was a lot of talk on there about it. One day I just decided to download it and man was I sorry I hadn’t done it sooner. The movie is stock full of psychos, insane gore, and knuckle biting fun.
Highlight: Man gets his head forced through the rungs on the staircase railing. A piano is pushed down the hall and decapitates him.

Dog Soldiers
This movie was a $6.95 purchase from Best Buy. I saw it, read the back, and decided to take a risk. I am glad I did. It is not your run-of-the-mill werewolf movie. I think it added a cool twist to the tired werewolf plot and there is even a surprise ending.
Highlight: Dude gets sliced open by a werewolf. As his buddies try to drag him to safety the werewolf grabs onto his intestines and pulls on them like it’s a play toy in his masters hand.

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Yeah, so I find out tonight that Dark Tanquillity played MacEwan Hall in Calgary on the 9th and I missed them. They are pretty much my favorite band right now and seeing them would have been sweet. It would have been the best show ever (second only to seeing Black Label Society in Vancouver last May).

Last time I checked all of their dates were European, so this must have come up not too long ago.

http://www.dark-tranquillity.nl/upcoming_performances.htm

The lead singer speaks in this rad medieval tone and pronounces all of his words perfectly. I can just hear him now… “How are you all doing tonightaahh? We are Dark Tranquillity from Sweden and this song is called Monochromatic Stainssszzzzzzaaahh”

All I have to say is today is a sad sad day not to be forgotten for at least 6 or 7 fortnights….

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times it happens, it never gets old. I’m serious, every time I see Windows crash or act up when Bill Gates is trying to give a presentation it makes me tingle inside. And its not that I think Microsoft is evil, or that Windows is a steaming pile. It’s that Bill is soooo bad at pretending he isn’t phased by it. You never hear about it happening to Steve Jobs at one of his Keynotes, but it always happens to Bill. Honestly though, I’d rather have Billy freak on me than Steve. From what I hear Steve has a bit of a temper. In addition, Conan O’Brien has got to be the funniest man alive.

Best quote ever

“Ok, Alright…. kay….. and right now nine people are being fired”

This is an old video, from 2005’s CES show I think, but still it’s GOLD.

EDIT: The original video I posted was removed from YouTube, so I found this one. It is a lot longer and has a bunch of lame stuff at the start, but the clip I was talking about is still in there near the end.

Since I considered making my LCD investment (see the previous post, a Dell 2405FPW widescreen monitor) I have had to think about warranty. For a cheap monitor, it’s not a big deal. You buy it expecting it to last about 3 years, and if it works longer than that, it’s great. However, with a $900 LCD the last thing you want to happen is have it fail or get a few dead pixels after a few months (or right out of the box).

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I have been lusting after a Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD Monitor with Height Adjustable Stand for about a month now. I have been visiting the Dell.ca site every other day to look at the pictures and read over the specs. Every time though, I get to the end of the page and see that $1199 price tag + tax and a little piece of me dies.

So for the past two weeks I have been trying to work together some extra funds to be able to afford one. I put my old motherboard and video card on eBay (currently going for $71 and $55 respectively with 1 day to go). I put my two 19″ CRT monitors on usedcalgary.com. And I have modded 3 Xboxes adding another $90 to my piggy bank. Still though, the thought of plopping down almost double what my TV cost for a monitor just hurts a little bit.

I’ll keep my eye on it though and hope one day the price drops.