1 comments

August 25, 2010

I’ll have more ink please, with a side of book nerd. Thank you.

I got my first tattoo last January even though I had been considering the process for many years.  In case you wanted to see it or learn why I got what I did I’ll refer you to the link above.

Or this one here.

Or this one.

Here.

OMG LINK. (These all go to the same place by the way.)

The subject of this post isn’t my first bit of ink but my next one.  A conversation with a friend last night got me really thinking about what I want since there now seems to be a very real possibility that I’ll be under the needle again in October.  While the lead up to the first one was a long road plagued with self doubt thinking about my next one is pretty much the exact opposite.  I have too many options to choose from and try as I might I can’t seem to narrow it down.  Oddly enough, all of the things I’m considering are based on books.  Sweet, sweet books.  *sigh*

Ender’s Game:  One of the best science fiction books ever written in my opinion and possibly my favorite book of all time.  There is so much to appreciate and take away from this short tale of child soldiers that I reread the book at least once a year and each time, despite knowing every turn of the page before it happens, I can’t seem to put it down.  But how would I encompass this with a tattoo?  Not like this chick did.

Okay, while it’s pretty damn sexy that a woman got this done, it just looks…kinda cheap.  Which is too bad since it’s just about the ONLY Ender’s Game tattoo I was able to find across the entire landscape of Teh Interweb.  I’ll have to think of something…somehow…sometime…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Remember how I mentioned that Ender’s Game was “possibly” my favorite book of all time?  Well, here is the main contender to that championship belt.  As opposed to the very serious tone that meanders through Ender’s Game, the Guide is stuffed full of weird aliens, planet destruction, fancy spaceships, and the best advice ever given: don’t panic.

This idea, and these words, speak to me on a personal level.  While I’m a goofy, fun loving, joke cracking, wise ass most of the time when things get serious I’ve often found that I’m the most level headed.  There was a particular incident during Mother’s Day when a pit bull attacked my brother’s dog and while my sister and mother cried, the neighbors stood like statues, my brother (who’s bigger than be btw) wanted to hit someone even though he and I were both bleeding from bites to our hands I kept my head, calmed him down, and got myself to the hospital.  Sounds like an interesting story doesn’t it?  It is, I’ll tell you about it later, but the point is that I don’t panic when things go down.  I really like that about myself.  :)

Atlas Shrugged: While I have read the previously mentioned books many times over I have only enjoyed Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged once, but it was enough.  It was enough to make me feel happier in a world that regularly pisses me off.  It was enough to open my eyes to a philosophy of life that I didn’t know I always wanted.  And it was enough to make me realize how poor a writer Rand was even though her ideas were great, but that last one is a little mean isn’t it?  I loved the book regardless.

While I could have posted a picture of the traditional image associated with this book, that of the Atlas statue, I preferred the one above because of the significant meaning it had in the book and what the question represents.  Who is John Galt?  Someone truly amazing.  I wouldn’t mind having his name, and by extension a bit of his ideas, tattooed on my skin.  A secondary advantage of this image would be that it would be recognized by people who have actually read the book as opposed to the statue which may be a trigger to people who have simply known of the book and seen it in bookstores.  To start up a conversation with another fan would be a book nerd dream of mine.

To anyone who reads this and loves the idea of literary tattoos I HIGHLY recommend this sweet little blog I found called Contrariwise.  It’s just stuffed with amazing images of amazing people who have amazing tattoos and probably wouldn’t be caught dead using the word amazing so many times in one amazing sentence.  Is that grammatically correct?  I don’t know, I’m not really a writer.  :)

1 comments

August 17, 2010

In which I plug some loves

This will be a shameless post of promotion.  A screaming from the proverbial rooftops, if you will.

As I mentioned in the title this is a total post of loves.  The first is a woman named Kellie R. England.  While I sometimes think that I have some sort of grasp of the written word (OMG I is blogger) this woman consistently forces me to realize that I’m pretty much garbage.  Total trash.  Detritus.    She’s also one of my best friends in the world and my roommate.  She kicks ass and makes me lolz and has a mastery of the English language which I marvel at and now you can too!  She just got a story published in an online magazine called The Cynic Online.

READ THIS ACTION RIGHT HERE!  Click.  Read.  Do it.  Seriously.

This second plug I can’t say as much about because I don’t know the writer.  Well, I don’t know her personally.  I know her as I met her which is as Kaylee from Firefly.  This of course means I know her to be smart, laid back, and amazingly beautiful.  Her name in the “real” world is Jewel Staite and she’s written a blog post for SyFy.  Check this out as well!

OMG HER NAME IS JEWEL AND SHE DOESN’T HAVE AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR!

I can’t wait to meet her at the Sacramento Sci-Fi/Horror show!

1 comments

August 16, 2010

*sniff sniff* I smell bullshit

While Io9 often makes me laugh, gasp, smile, and just general geek the hell out they also have the power to piss me off.  Not them exactly, the people who run the site itself are quite fine people and I wish them all the happiness in the world, but a story they posted today really pissed me off.

This is their post.

This is the link to the original BBC news story.

The source of my ire, one Professor Sharon Lamb, went out into the world and spoke with 674 boys who ranged from 4 years old to 18.  This unquestionable source of truth (because we all know boys don’t lie or anything) led her to a somewhat questionable conclusion.  From the article:

It showed two main types of man – the aggressive superhero or the slacker who does not even try.

“There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday,” said Professor Lamb.

“Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity.

“When not in superhero costume, these men exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.”

Boys could look up to and learn from comic book heroes of the past because outside of their costumes, they were “real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities”.

She said the other option for boys was to be a slacker.

“Slackers are funny, but slackers are not what boys should strive to be; slackers don’t like school and they shirk responsibility.”

This does not bode well for the future of men everywhere.  That is, if I felt for a second that her conclusions held a grain of truth.  Just ONE professor, ONE grain.  It seems to have slipped between your lost sense of professional integrity and whatever intelligence moved you through the system to the point where you ended up a professor in charge of any kind of study outside of the urinary habits of house cats.

I would like to compare Ms. Lambs conclusions to the works of some of the most well known, well liked, and most likely regularly mentioned super heroes in her study:

Tony Stark aka Iron Man – Aggressive?  Non-stop violence? Sure why not.  Sarcastic?  Hell yeah!  Exploits women, flaunts bling, and conveys his manhood in high-powered guns?  If you count an ultra advanced battle suit as a gun then sure thing.  I don’t dispute any of those claims but I take huge offense to her most damaging one, the one that actually attacks the integrity of the character, which is that this may be one of the people who “rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity”.  Let us recall the scene in the film where Tony Stark was pacing in front of his television, working on his suit while viewing the news story about the terrorist activity in the Middle East and the refugees being marched out at what amounts to gunpoint.  He felt for them, he suffered for them, he had seen what happens when politics get in the way of basic human decency and it angered him enough to put on the full suit and put his own life on the line in order to protect innocent people.  Does that sound like a man who doesn’t understand what’s “good for humanity”?  How about in the second film, when he thinks he’s going to die because his power source was  corrupting his very flesh?  Yes, he went on a whirlwind bender of booze and women, but that makes him real and human doesn’t it?  He wasn’t untouchable, he was vulnerable to the idea of impending death just like every other person (super powered or not), and he reacted in a very real way to the reality of the situation.  Does this sound like a man who isn’t a “real” person with “real problems and many vulnerabilities”?  I think not.

Bruce Wayne aka Batman – Probably the most aggressive and violent of the modern well-known super heroes but let’s examine his motivations.  In the first movie (the remade one of course) they made it very clear how tortured Batman was because of the violent murder of his parents.  He turns his rage into a lifelong struggle against all evil, from the lowest mugger to the full blown city destroying psychos.  Yes, as Bruce Wayne, he plays the womanizer to a fault, but he does this to maintain the illusion of the playboy in order for him to be able to do his real work.  He sacrifices himself, his life, his possible joys with a romantic relationship and everything else in pursuit of justice.  He can’t even hide behind fantastic powers or fancy technology to protect his body; he does this all on his own in the most real, gritty way humanly possible.  How this level of dedication to justice is seen as a detriment to the men of the future is beyond my understanding.

Scott Pilgrim – Her issues with slackers, I find, are quite hard to argue.  Not because I agree with said issues but because I couldn’t think of any other well known example of the super hero slacker than Scott Pilgrim.  Iron Man, Batman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man, any of the X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, I could go on but do you see ANY SLACKERS in these iconic names?  I don’t.  Scott Pilgrim, on the other hand, doesn’t have his own bedroom, he mooches off of his friends (which they seem okay with), he briefly dates women of questionable age, and he beats up seven evil ex-boyfriends to be with the woman he loves.  And he’s in a band.  Oh no!  Doing all he can for the woman he loves?!  It’s the downfall of civilization!  To think that a funny slacker would convince kids to become slackers themselves is…well it’s just fuck all stupid.  Does one character have more of an influence on a growing boy than his friends, family, school mates, all the other influences they come in contact with through television, comics, books, and music?  Notice I specifically said “a” funny slacker, not funny slackers in general.  Can you think of another?  Can you think of enough of them to fill a child’s bookshelf to the point where they would constitute a considerable influence?  Neither can I.

The part of her statements that really confused me was the reference which the author of the article sort of threw in.  Based on how it was written I have to believe that it came from something she said herself as her direct quote did follow.  Here’s the bit I’m thinking of.

Boys could look up to and learn from comic book heroes of the past because outside of their costumes, they were “real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities”.

Heroes of the past.  The past.  Really?  Let’s examine some birthdays shall we?

First appearances:

Batman -May 1939

Iron Man -March 1963

X-Men -September 1963

Captain America -March 1941

Superman -1932

Aquaman -November 1941

Wonder Woman -December 1941

The Hulk -May 1962

Spider-Man – August 1962

Arguably, the most admirable (in the sense that they are basically boy scouts with huge muscles) are Superman and Captain America, but I’ll spare you the details of how they at various times have acted aggressively,  violently, and have displayed their manhood.  Both seem to loathe guns in general, so I guess that’s one point on the side of the study, but when you can crush a human torso with your bare hands it really becomes a mute point.  The bottom line is that her idea that heroes of the past are something to look up to is just asinine.  The most well known ones, with the blockbuster movies, the ones that produce toys kids go crazy for are the same ones that have been around for years.  Many years.  DECADES.  They are the same characters with the same personalities.  Iron-Man’s womanizing ways have been around for 47 years.  1 + 1 always equals 2, and in this case, Professor Lamb’s ideas + FACTS (curious little things) = vomit.

2 comments

August 11, 2010

FINALLY!!! A reason to go to Ottumwa, Iowa!

This past weekend there was an amazing event that took place in Iowa.  No, it wasn’t the International Corn Games.  Nor was it the great John Deere Convention of 2010.  It wasn’t even the Farm Soil Symposium of the century!  No.  It was the International Video Game Hall of Fame inducting it’s first class of awesome.  Huzzah!

When I first heard of the idea I was quite sold.  Having heard for years of the baseball hall of fame, the football hall of fame, even the music hall of fame, it seemed odd that there wasn’t already a video game hall of fame.  After all, it’s been decades since video games came into existence and they have most definitely pushed their way into every part of society.  From games we’ve gotten sweet swag, movies, music, cultural events, conventions, all manner of amazing things.  Let us see what the good people at the IVGHOF came up with shall we?

Ladies and gentlemen, your class of 2010!!!

“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“CROWD SOOOOUUUUUNNNNDDDDD!!!!”

I must admit that I was very surprised to see so many champion players inducted.  Not because they didn’t necessarily deserve it, I was just curious about how this whole idea was going to be approached.  Had it been simply amazing games and creators (such as my personal favorite, Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, Zelda, and so much else) I would have been very happy.  But including the great champions does seem to bring this whole idea into the same realm of the baseball and football halls of fame I mentioned earlier.  While these champions, these pillars of gaming, did have their own very notable contribution to the video arts I worry about the implications for the future.  With a move from arcade gaming, which is all but dead to be perfectly honest, to home console gaming I’m not sure that there can be such well defined champions anymore.  Sure, there are still tournaments out there, but outside of the Starcraft events in South Korea I honestly can’t think of anything as definitive as the old arcade events.

That being said, I spent an hour last night (an hour I should have spent writing this post BTW) chatting with the roommates about the games that WILL end up in the hall of fame.  The creme de la creme.  The games that have had an amazing impact just by existing.  If any of the three of us even hesitated then it was generally decided that the item didn’t deserve the distinction.  Here’s what we came up with:

  • Super Mario Brothers 3 (although we argued about Super Mario World)
  • Goldeneye 64 (btw, they are MAKING A NEW WII VERSION OF THIS!  Google it.)
  • Perfect Dark
  • Resident Evil
  • Tetris
  • Tomb Raider
  • Star Fox (SNES verision)
  • Final Fantasy VII (possibly 3 as well)
  • Dig Dug
  • Street Fighter II
  • Mortal Kombat
  • Gran Tourismo
  • Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Earthbound
  • Pokemon (Red and Blue) [Back when there were only 150 pokemon!]
  • Halo
  • Half-Life 2
  • Guitar Hero
  • Galaga
  • Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past OR Ocarina of Time (we couldn’t decide on this one…)  Zelda is in regardless.
  • Pong
  • One of the Grand Theft Autos
  • Pitfall
  • Metal Gear Solid

That was, to the best of my knowledge, what we came up with.  Can you think of any more?  What are THE definitive games/people that should be in?

4 comments

August 7, 2010

daily dorkiness

It was pretty sunny out today as I went for my jog.  The idiot drivers were out in full force, there were kids playing in the park, and all was right with the world.  Until I started to get this pain in my left knee.  Ouch.  TOTAL friggin’ ouch.  The point of this isn’t that I got a pain but the words that immediately came into my mind mid stride.

“Man, I’ve got a phase variance in my left knee…”

Star Trek Voyager rears it’s epic head yet again.  All those years of watching their ship bob and weave its way through the Delta quadrant has left an impression in my psyche.  It got me thinking: what other nerdy things do I do/think/express regularly?

  • The phase variance thing, for starters, which does extend to any random pain I may experience.
  • While entering a store with automatic doors I have, on occasion, waved my hand to pretend that I’m opening them myself.  While this may be easily dismissed as a desire to be a Jedi I really had Magneto’s powers in mind.
  • I’ve often found myself singing Still Alive, the end song to Portal.
  • I sometimes reach for things at home or my desk and think, for the briefest of seconds, “accio ____”.  As if a Harry Potter spell would work in real life.  It doesn’t…

While they may be brief they really speak to my level of…well, some would say lame.  I prefer awesome.  :)

Do you have any daily nerd-isms?

2 comments

August 2, 2010

I know I’m a nerd but even I have my limits…

I’ve done many things to satisfy my geeky tendencies. I’ve watched countless hours of sci-fi and fantasy movies, read literally hundreds of comic books, and even dressed up in a variety of colorful ensembles for anime conventions. However, I would never, ever, not in a million years, have a super hero themed wedding.

Like these crazy kids did.

There it is kids, the height of geekdom.  I hope to the high heavens that I will someday find a woman who is as nerdy as me and would think this wedding is cool but damn, I couldn’t do it myself. I wouldn’t do it.  I won’t I won’t I won’t!

…

I’d probably go as Mario.

2 comments

July 27, 2010

DRM-ing

I had every intention of sitting down this evening and wrapping up my thoughts, feelings, perhaps even musings on the end of the San Diego Comic Con. But no. I can not go down that road. Not because I don’t have thoughts to share on the greatest nerdy convention of the year but because I have witnessed a great tragedy which must take precedence. I am of course speaking of the debacle that is the new Starcraft II.

I awoke giddy, much like a child feels on Christmas day. With my Best Buy Reward Zone coupon in my wallet I ran out the door, late as usual, with every intention of stopping by the aforementioned store on my way home from work and picking up a copy of the game I had waited over 10 years to play. Ahhhhh, Starcraft, that wonderful little bastard. I have such wonderful memories of countless matches played between my friends and I during high school. I mean that literally, we managed to play during class on several occasions, one of the perks of having a group of nerdy friends who literally set up and wired our entire classroom. Add to this the pile of hours spent playing the main campaign on my own, devouring the storyline like a well worn paperback novel, and you may start to see why I love this game so damn much.

Oh look! Here comes Blizzard to rape those childhood memories.

I watched the videos, admired the artwork, and waited for the release of what I thought would be the greatest game since Portal. Nope. I didn’t even buy it today. I was sucked into the black hole of Amazon reviews and discovered with disgusting clarity the major flaws in the new installment. First of all, it’s a literal installment, they decided to split the game into three parts. AND STILL CHARGE $60 FOR EACH OF THEM! So if I want to get the full story, which I started over a decade ago and am desperate to continue, I will have to shell out $180. Plus tax. Let me go ahead and add that the best estimate of the single player campaign I was able to find mentioned it takes only 8 hours to complete. This is slightly more time than it took to finish Portal but I only payed $10 for that. Bollocks.

Those wonderful memories I mentioned, full of LAN game goodness between friends? Gone. Through some sort of wisdom that only Blizzard seems to possess they’ve ripped that away. For why? Because it brought too much joy to the masses? Because a new generation of gamers shouldn’t know the joy of crowding into a buddies garage/house/wherever and playing through the night while being fueled by a steady stream of pizza and various caffeinated drinks? I guess so. That just sounds like too much fun. We can’t have THAT now can we?

Lastly, DRM has reared it’s ugly head again. For those who don’t know, DRM means digital rights management and is a catchall term for things which control access to media. In this case, access to games. Again in this case, access to Starcraft II. It appears that I have to have an active Internet connection to “activate” my $60 purchase on Battle.net (Blizzard’s online system) after I install it. Or patch it. Or install any new maps. I also have to log on to save any of my progress unless I want to play the single player campaign as a “guest”…after paying $60 for this game. While I understand a company wanting to protect their property I can’t happily give my money to a company who wants to run me through the gauntlet at every turn. It breaks my heart but I just can’t do it.

Does this seem right? Does this seem like something you could support? I chose to wield the only powers I have available against this horrible release: my words, contained in this blog, and my money, which will stay firmly in my account.

0 comments

July 23, 2010

SDCC day 2

My goodness, it looks like this was the day of movies at the San Diego Comic Con.  Well, movies and television shows.  Video, in general.  Sorta.  Basically.  This is going to totally be a video post.  SO!  In keeping with that idea, let the first thing I show tonight to be a video of the Walking Dead panel.

Next up, for all the gamers out there, some new footage of Marvel vs Capcom 3 has rolled out of San Diego.  I must admit that I’m not the biggest fan of fighters but if I were to pick one up it would be this one.  Not only does it satisfy my interest in very fast, very flashy action, it comes with a slew of awesome characters from Marvel plus my own past.  When I was young I spent many hours (and quarters) on a Street Fighter II machine at a local batting cage place.  Please ignore the fact that I skipped the sporting practice and opted for the video games even as a young elementary school kid.

It looks like Nicholas Cage is gearing up (har har, you’ll see what that’s a joke in a minute) for another movie that sorta kinda follows the trail he blazed (HA!) in Ghost Rider.  In Drive Angry, he plays a man who comes back from the dead to kill in the name of justice.  He goes after a man who murdered his daughter and kidnapped her child, who would be his grandchild I suppose.  Here’s what he had to say about deathly characters and their vehicles:

It’s not secret that I’m a huge fan of cartoons, everything from anime to Family Guy and even to kids cartoons like Teen Titans.  Coming right on the heels of those very Titans is this awesome looking new show filled with DC characters galore!  Young Justice looks like it will totally kick ass.

The last thing I want to mention is sort of a rumor.  There was a panel today where Joss Whedon made a comment about Nathan Fillion playing Ant Man in the upcoming Avenger’s movie.  Fantastic right!  Captain Mal Reynolds/Rick Castle playing the wonderful Hank Pym!?  YAY!  Well, no, kinda, maybe, we’ll see.  Fillion implied that Whedon was joking but the cheers from the crowd seem to have dropped an avalanche over the truth.  I would love it if this were true but it feels too soon to tell.  There are several news sites reporting that it’s a done deal but from various comments on posts as well as Tweets coming from the actual people on the ground there is still a lot of confusion about how his words were meant.  The issue with an event like Comic Con is that the slightest whisper is heard by 1,000 different sets of ears and everyone hears something slightly different.  I will wait, with bated breath, for the truth to shine.

0 comments

July 22, 2010

SDCC day 1

It really hit me last night.  I was upstairs, watching TV, and it just floated through my mind that today would be the start of the San Diego Comic Con and I wasn’t going to be there.  Insert super sad face here.  Because of my own interests and partly because of blogging itself I have spent the last year more connected to geeky news than ever before.  I mention this only to illustrate how much crappier it is that I’m sitting at home right now while thousands of jerks have descended on San Diego to enjoy the great geeky pilgrimage.  Those jerks.  I’m not jealous or anything.

First day highlight roundup!

  • One of the first things I saw came from my beloved IO9.  They were kind enough to provide a look at some new figures from a movie coming out next year called Sucker Punch.  From their article: Set in the 1950s, “Sucker” centers on a girl confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather, who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. While there, she imagines an alternate reality to hide from the pain and in that world begins planning her escape, needing to steal five objects to help get her out. Friggin’ sweet right!

  • Thank you Topless Robot for this image.  Granted, I saw it in other places too (namely Facebook) but I saw it on TR first.  It honestly isn’t exactly what I thought we’d get for the Norse God but I think it gives another small look at the tone of the film and just the visual feel they are going for.  From the upcoming Thor movie I give you Odin’s throne:

  • This next one comes with a small story.  When my roommates went to the Fanime Con, an anime convention in San Jose, they witnessed a group of religious protesters holding up signs about how anime fans were going to burn in hell and basically being total dicks for no reason.  Well, it appears that there was a similar protest planned for SDCC and the nerdy hoards gathered to stage their own counter protest.  All hail the flying spaghetti monster!

(via)

  • And last but not least comes my favorite tidbit from day one.  The cherry on the sundae, if you will.  It’s a small one in length (hee hee that’s what she said) and it doesn’t even come with a picture but it is very important and will have much more of a lasting influence on my geeky life than possibly anything else over the whole weekend.

Joss Whedon is officially directing the Avenger’s movie.

OMGWTFYAYTHISISALLICOULDHAVEEVERASKEDFOR WEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“I am still writing an outline. I’m still in that stage.  I will say the thing I love about it, the thing that made me excited to do it, is how counter intuitive it is. These people shouldn’t be in the same room — and that is the very definition of family.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m spent.

2 comments

July 19, 2010

Webcomic Spotlight

As you may or may not know, I love webcomics.  I love traditional comics as well but I find that webcomics are typically funnier, more immediate, and offer just a daily dose of creative greatness that I don’t get from those monthly Marvel titles.  I wish I could say that I will now begin a regular “webcomic spotlight” feature on here but I know that’s not true.  Screw you.  I’m far too lazy for that and I don’t wanna.  BUT!  Here’s an amazing thing I found today:

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Fudge That Sugar.  Since it seems that most of the people who read my posts on a regular basis are actually bloggers or at least blog readers I would like to point out that many of A.K. Tettenborn’s comics come with a nice little post about how it reflects her life.  It’s like a weird sorta kinda truthful and funny blog.  Thing.  Oh yeah, in case you didn’t figure it out, A.K. Tettenborn is the creator of all this goodness and she’s already one of my favorite people in the world.  That’s not weird is it?

Yeah, it probably is.

PS: now I feel stupid because it was only when I created the direct link to her site that I noticed it was hosted on WordPress.  And here I thought I was being somewhat observant for noticing it was blog-like.  FAIL.

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