In the spirit of so many forms of televised and theatrical entertainment insisting that there is more fun to be had in telling prologues and backstories than in actually seeing what our favorite characters are up to on any given day, we thought we would share a little bit of the childhood of young Elrond Hubbard.

This has been a very indulgent week for me. Mirror's Edge, Gears of War 2 and a matinee showing of Quantum of Solace. Oddly enough, Mirror's Edge and Quantum of Solace have a great deal in common. Instead of a suave man of mystery armed with incredibly cool gadgets and super badass vehicles, we watch Bond free running around various exotic locales. Like Faith from Mirror's Edge. Or a low-rent Jason Bourne.

I just noticed that James Bond and Jason Bourne have the same initials. Coincidence?

My biggest disappointment came from seeing that the filmmakers loved Casino Royale so much that they decided to make a sequel, which is not something that is typical of the Bond universe. And Bond never nails the Bond girl. Sure, he bags the file clerk MI-6 foolishly sends to retrieve him from Haiti, but who wouldn't?

I don't know what series of movies the new producers intend to make, but they're not really Bond films. I guess I'll have to wait 'til 2010 for the next one. With any luck, they won't be rounding out the Royale Trilogy.

And while I'm almost gripe-free with Gears of War 2, there is a small problem: Horde Mode is a very strange proposition. Here is a situation where you could, potentially, be in a 3 hour online game with people that:

  • You don't know.
  • Don't have their mics plugged in.
  • Have their mics plugged in, but are complete fucking douchebags.
  • Have human-sized bladders.
Seriously. Who can sit for 3 hours straight without a break? Did Epic not think of this? Did they not play test it past Wave 15? I was in one group that made it to Wave 35 before dying out. Some waves last up to 4 minutes. That's a solid 2 hour game, when we're all used to 10 or 15 minute matches.

All in all, an embarrassment of entertainment riches. And, like Scrooge McDuck, I'm off to swim in my treasures. Again, I ask everyone to share this site with their friends and leave us comments. So we can, you know, pretend to have readers.