Unless you’ve been hiding under a closet all this time, you might’ve heard of a certain movie called The Dark Knight hitting theaters everywhere. Well, it so happens that it set a single-day box office record by taking in $66.4 million on opening day! It surpassed the previous record of $59.8 million set last year by Spider-Man 3.

What’s more astonishing is that it also broke the Weekend Box Office record when it took in a record $155.34 million in its first weekend, topping the previous best of $151.1 million for “Spider-Man 3″ in May 2007! Well, records are swell and everything, but lemme tell you this, the movie definitely lived up to the hype, and is the best film of it’s genre bar none. It elevated the superhero movie genre into a new high thanks to it’s epic writting, direction, acting and cinematography.

If you haven’t seen The Dark Knight yet, go do yourself a favor and get a ticket, or you’ll be missing out on this highly anticpated masterpiece.

And here are the titles I’m totally looking forward to:
Gundam 00 Season 2
Kurogane no Linebarrels
TodaDora!
Clannad -After Story-
Lucky Star OAV
Casshern Sins
Nodame Cantabile - Paris Chapter
To Aru Majutsu no Index
ef - a tale of melodies
Kemeko Deluxe!
Kanagi
Tales of the Abyss

Looks like it’s going to be another solid season! Can’t wait!

The other day, I stumbled on this book, “The Dumbest Generation” written by Mark Bauerlein, some professor at Emory. Essentially, the book argues that people under 30 are less smart than previous generations because of things like the internet and video games and facebook and wikipedia. And we don’t read as much. Of course, the book is sprinkled with lovely statistics about how no one can name all the supreme court justices and other vitally important facts about our lives, and how knowledge retention is vital to the nation’s survival.

The thing is, it could be argued that developmentally, our generation is much better off than our parents’. I did a class in this recently in university about how our generation’s brains work differently than the previous ones.

Basically our brains have adapted to our short attention spans and we’ve developed the ability to absorb information not so much better, but differently. We can multi-task efficiently and still retain information, whereas the generation before us would have to read and re-read something, highlighting it several times, quiz themselves several times etc.

Due to our relatively shorter attention spans and the amount of information we have access to, and the speed that we can get it at, we’re able to retain it… differently?

For example, I have a little nuance where I tend to highlight text as I’m reading it on a website, clicking and double clicking sporadically, which I guess is a way I focus on something I’m reading (I’m sure lots of you do that). If I’m trying to show my mom something to read, she’ll be reading over my shoulder and I’ll be highlighting away and she’ll get frustrated at me and tell me to stop because she can’t concentrate.

How many web pages do you have up in different tabs and windows right now? How many different programs do you have?

Videogames and computers haven’t necessarily rotted our brains, it’s fine tuned it, in a way.

And when it comes down to it, years from now, there will be technology that allows information to be instantly uploaded into the brain. All the oldies will claim the new generation is less intelligent because they gain information too easily. “Sure they have knowledge, but they have no EXPERIENCE! If knowledge comes too easily, surely creativity and invention will die” They’ll all say.

Shit changes you old farts, usually for the better. Deal with it.

And they used a Gundam on the cover… what the heck?!

For me it’s sitting in a park on a summer’s day eating my lunch, listening to something good (or not), sitting there and taking it in, feeling the sun and pie warm me, and not doing anything but just watch people pass by.

I don’t know if it’s the music or what but I feel such an immense love for the people, every single person, the homeless guy begging for change, the girl who works at the bank who always gives him nothing, the guy who is looking at the sculpture of John Curtin as if he hasn’t seen it before.

Generally when this is happening I realize though I may not have wealth, or power, or a girl, I will always have this moment, these moments, that can happen anytime, and as long as I retain the ability to see the beauty in everything, I will be happy.

The cast for the Gundam Meisters has just been announced as well:
Setsuna F. Seiei - Brad Swaile
Lockon Stratos - Alex Zahara
Allelujah Haptism - Richard Ian Cox
Tieria Erde - Sam Vincent

Bandai has put up the official English Gundam 00 site, which includes a trailer, check it out!

I’m really excited about this, Gundam 00’s a great show and I’m sure a lot of people will like it too.

Here’s the trailer in Youtube:

Well in any case, have a great 4th of July everyone.

Now that they’ve announced Chrono Trigger for the DS, I wonder if they’re planning to release FF6 for it too… I mean when it comes to epic oldschool RPGs Final Fantasy 6 definitely tops the list! Well, wishful thinking helps.

Perhaps the biggest news of the year for me, Square Enix officially revealed that they’re working on a Nintendo DS port of one of the greatest games ever: Chrono Trigger! This RPG broke new grounds when it was released for the Nintendo SNES with it’s epic story, unique battle system and memorable characters designed by famed manga artist Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball)!

It’s also one of the first RPGs I’ve played with multiple endings, and it was a blast to get through all of them. News on Chrono Trigger DS first surfaced on a Japanese gaming magazine, and afterwards a website was put up with a flash clock reminiscent of the one in Chrono Trigger’s opening sequence fuelling the fire that there will be a Chrono Trigger game for the DS. Square Enix NA stepped up and admitted that a localized version will be released on December 2008! Chrono Trigger is touted as one of the greatest RPGs of all time, and it’s great that a whole new generation of gamers will be able to experience it!

Screw Diablo III and Starcraft 2! CHRONO TRIGGER IS TEH SHIT!

Trailer:

We’ve seen a lot of comic book movies this year, like the awesome Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and the surprisingly entertaining Hancock, but The Dark Knight has a lot of expectations to live up to, of which I’m sure we won’t be disappointed. It will hit theaters everywhere on July 24, 2008!