Saying farewell to 2014 and hello to 2015

To say 2014 was a year of change for me would be a mild understatement. The last three months have been pretty crazy, mainly with the shift into a new job and all the rippling changes that come from that.

It's been a crazy-as-hell year:

• My previous employer had an utter meltdown from a transfer in ownership that made most of 2014 an unpleasant and somewhat nerve-wracking experience.
• Job-hunting (see above) taught me no small amount of humility.
• A dizzying number of friends moved on to other phases in their lives and friendships I'd assumed were solid were solid seemed to be shockingly-fragile while others remained just as shockingly solid, if not more-so. People always surprise me.
• The Bike Gods unleashed their wrath upon me for reasons I cannot fathom.
• Some damn good books came across my path ("The Martian", "Tower Lord", "Skin Game", and others).
• I concluded a role-playing game campaign that was a good thirteen years long (give or take).
• Said gaming group lost and gained members. New faces around the table. New dice in the hand. New campaigns going on.
• I got to visit England for the first time in ages.
• Bad habits have started to catch up with me but now I'm inspired to fix them, so there's a silver lining in that cloud.

So now I'm sitting in my apartment to greet the New Year. We're suffering a mild cold-snap here in the Bay Area and it turns out my apartment's wall-heater is dead as can be, making my apartment akin to an icebox. Thankfully I have a space heater that works nicely. I'm suffering from a mild cold/bug/something that discourages me from going out. The mail just delivered Guardians of the Galaxy on DVD and I believe I've managed to kill off the ants invading the bar in my kitchen, so I think there's a movie and some sipping bourbon on the menu to greet 2015.

Whomever you are and where-ever you are, may you have a very happy New Year and may 2015 bring you more good than bad in your life.

Cheers!

Adventures in Pasta Making

A birthday or two back I got a pasta maker.

It languished, unused, for ages atop my freezer until today. I got a recipe for making pasta and decided to make it a try.

And that's when everything went wrong.

First off, I tried the recipe and found that there simply wasn't enough liquid in what I was following to make the pasta stick together in a ball.

Then, when I managed to get something that approximated dough, it took forever to get something useable to come out of the damn pasta maker.

And then the ant infestation returned as I struggled to get the noodles cut.

And then the pasta maker broke, gumming up the works with dough.

So you're not supposed to wash the pasta maker with soap and water for reasons. So instead, I had to bust out three different sets of tools and a can of compressed air to try to get to the hidden-away corners in the goddamn thing to clean it properly and then repair the broken track.

So now I'm covered in flour, I have ants in my kitchen and no idea how they're getting in. I have noodles that may or may not be an utter disaster. And I am irritated beyond words. The things I do in the name of the FSM...

Review: "The Last Christmas"

Aaaah, the Doctor Who Xmas special. It's become a thing since the days of RTD and continues under Moffatt's reign.

The last couple of Xmas specials have been beyond crappy so I had no expectations for this one.

It probably helped.

I could go all spoiler-y and recap the plot but I don't think I will this time. Instead, in broad strokes, Moffatt told a tale of creepy monsters mixed with Xmas schlock (complete with Nick Frost as Santa Claus himself). It was weird, oddly-funny at times, and creepy in others. Moffatt retains is ability to create disturbing monsters that play off of perceptions. It was - as this season has gone - a pretty good episode. Though as I say that, I should be clear: most of the season has been nearly unwatchably-bad.

Many thanks to V for letting me watch a recording. Cheers.

Figures

It's that slow, subtle feeling that something is off. Your throat feels a bit scratchy and raw. You have a headache. You get winded easily.

You go to work anyway. Maybe it will get better. The day goes on and you do feel better. Then the afternoon comes and you feel the "off" feeling stronger.

Yep. Getting sick. Just before goddamn Xmas.

Hello Nyquil. Glad I'm on holiday for a few days. Sigh.

Thoughts on "The Hobbit: Bloat of the Five Armies" (or something like that)

Just saw the third Hobbit flick.

I hold to my previous opinions on these films. They're not adaptations of Tolkien's novel. They're takes on a 13-year-old boy's Dungeons & Dragons campaign that was inspired vaguely by the book as half-read then turned into a comic book, then filtered into a video game, and then distilled into a sound byte for marketing wonks.

It's a pretty film but bloated, excessive, and ridiculous in so many parts.

The funny thing is that I liked all the actors. They all did fine with their roles. I enjoyed them all on screen (though I wanted more of Beorn throwing down with the Orcs). The story was just... unnecessarily-inflated with garbage while skipping over actual valid stuff from the book.

Tolkien isn't spinning in his grave. He's breaking free as a Nazgul to seek revenge for the butchery done to his story.

Books

Commuting on BART requires a few things:

1. Patience.
2. Flexibility.
3. A poor sense of smell.
4. Tolerance for the eccentric behavior of one's fellow human beings.
5. A strong immune system.

What the hell does this have to do with books? Well, points 1, 2, and 4 are all greatly-assisted by having reading material on-hand. I could load some books on my phone and read, but I'm not a fan of burning through my phone's battery unnecessarily. Plus the screen is kinda tiny. I could get an e-reader to replace my dead Kobo, but I haven't yet decided on what I want or how to deal with my excessive number of epub e-books (largely ruling-out Kindle).

So dead trees it is.

I got "Clariel" by Garth Nix, back in November and burned through it a little too fast. It was a nice prequel to his Abhorsen series, though a little choppy for me in parts.

I also got "The Slow, Silent Regard for Things" by Patrick Rothfuss. While I enjoyed it, I found myself irritated that this distracted from book three of his Kingkiller Chronicles.

I'm kind of an entitled ass when it comes to my entertainment. I've come to accept that and am somewhat glad that nobody really cares all that much about my whining.

So I found myself at loose ends on reading material and splurged a bit to get "The Red Sword" by Miles Cameron and gambled on its sequel, "The Fell Sword".

I'm a bit over 150 pages into "The Red Knight" and am enjoying it. Cameron is clearly someone with an SCA background and is a little too in-love with describing medieval armor components and attire, but he is solid at world-building and I'm really enjoying his characters and setting. The story is interesting and the magic system intrigues me. I expect good things from this.

After those two are done, I plan to go to "Half a King" by Joe Abercrombie. I like Abercrombie's work, but I didn't want to read one of his books before Xmas. His bleak stories tend to depress me.

After that is "Words of Radiance" by the ever-awesome Brandon Sanderson. That's a fat book and will take me a good long while.

I need a bigger bag. Sigh.

Time flies

Nearly a month since I tormented the world with my ridiculous nonsense! How could I let such a lapse take place?

So yeah. Most of my last four weeks has been adjusting to new employers and all that fun stuff. Gotta redefine the job and what it means in my life, etc., etc.

It's been a thing.

Not much that's blog-worthy (and given the inane prattle I post, that's saying something). I will say that I'm getting a tad tired of Oakland going into protest-riot mode every twenty seconds. I get that there's some serious racial imbalance out there and some insane injustice, but blocking freeways, shutting down BART stations, and destroying local shops in riots isn't helping, guys.

That's about it on my end.

Review: "Death in Heaven"

And we've come to the finale.

Spoilers follow and all that. Proceed at your own risk.
























































Still there? You were warned. Highlight to view.




Starting from the ridiculous mess that was "Dark Water", the gender-bent Master, now known as "Missy" has brought the Cybermen back to Earth using imprinted memories from the dead from across time and space, thanks to Time Lord technology. U.N.I.T. crashes the scene, taking both the Doctor and "Missy" into custody as the Cybermen display flight capabilities and depart. They go into the skies above all major population centers and explode.

Meanwhile, Clara - trapped by a Cyberman - tries a bluff by claiming to be the regenerated Doctor to buy her time before she's killed. Her erstwhile boyfriend, Danny, has also returned as a Cyberman but with his emotions intact. He rescues Clara from the other Cybermen and knocks her out.

The Doctor awakens to find his TARDIS in U.N.I.T. custody. U.N.I.T. gets him and "Missy" on a plane then reveal that the Doctor is now the de-facto President of Earth to lead them out of the current threat. You see, the exploded Cybermen have turned into clouds that rain over graveyards and bring back the dead as Cybermen.

Don't ask.

So the world is in terrible danger, blah-blah.

Meanwhile, "Missy" plays head-games with one of the U.N.I.T. scientists before gleefully murdering her and the really useless U.N.I.T. guards.

Fast-forward to the Cybermen attacking the plane. The Doctor and "Missy" have a showdown, but "Missy" outmatches the Doctor by blowing out the side of the plane, sending Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (the daughter of the Brigadier) to her apparent death and then the Doctor to the same as "Missy" teleports to safety.

The Doctor manages to get into his falling TARDIS and head to the revived Clara, who is attempting to help the Cyberman-Danny delete his emotions because reasons.

"Missy" reveals to the Doctor that she can control all the Cybermen in the world as her puppets and they are invaluable tool to conquer the known universe. And she gives control of the Cybermen to the Doctor so he can find out that he's no different than she.

The Doctor ponders who he is, then gives control of the Cybermen to Cyber-Danny who uses the Cybermen to destroy the Cyber-clouds that are awakening the dead.

Clara, having stolen "Missy's" death-ray-thing, prepares to murder the renegade Time Lady, but the Doctor stops her. The Doctor struggles to finish "Missy" himself when she is apparently disintegrated by another Cyberman. It seems Danny wasn't the only Cyberman among the dead to retain his emotions. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is revealed to be alive thanks to a Cyberman who can only be the Brigadier.

The episode ends with some hand-wavy stuff from beyond in which Danny sends the kid he killed as a soldier back to Clara so Clara can get him home. The Doctor and Clara meet one last time and lie to one another to ease their parting. Then Santa Claus appears.

Okay, my snark aside, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this finale. It was probably one of the few Moffatt-finales I actually did enjoy. The story writing was rough, but far, far better than his previous attempts. The gleeful, horrific brutality of "Missy" made up for much of the overly-convoluted nonsense of the plot and sold me on "Missy" as an incarnation of the Master. I also liked the grimly-brutal resolution of the Danny Pink storyline and how it really was an unhappy ending for Clara and Danny. I was also impressed with the consistency of the horrible lying that ultimately split the Doctor and Clara apart.

So, I raise a toast to you, Stephen Moffatt. Nicely-played. It wasn't great but I found it somewhat-enjoyable. Now please go on to other things and pass the baton to someone else.

Fishing for chips

I spent a couple of weeks in the UK recently. I was able to visit northern England where matronly cafe-ladies call everyone "love" and "cheers" is the ubiquitous utterance. Ale is hand pumped and room temperature. Steak and ale pie is a thing. People drive on the other side of the road and everything feels a bit... off... to an American.

It was glorious.

I was able to attend celebrations for Guy Fawkes Night, which consisted of many fireworks and a HUGE bonfire upon which an effigy of good old Guy was lit aflame.

Words fail me.

I must say I love the UK. The people are quite nice, the food - while generally unhealthy - suited my palate nicely, and the pubs just made me happy.

Can't say I enjoyed the travel to and from the county, though. As a California resident, my trek there was many hours in the air or in airports.

It's no shock that I caught a head cold while returning, though I've mostly fought it off.

I got to catch up on movies on the flight back. I managed to see the utter train wreck that was the latest Godzilla movie as well as watch Tom Cruise die over and over in End of Tomorrow (or was it Edge of Tomorrow? I forget).

All-in-all, I'm glad to be home. Travel is fun once you're at your destination, but the act of getting from point A to point B just sucks.

Not a review: "Dark Water"

I'm not going to bother on this one.

I was in the UK when it aired and got to see it broadcast. There's nothing positive I can say about this episode at all.

Honestly, I can't think of a single positive thing. So rather than turn this into a bile-filled tirade, I'll just leave it here as I didn't like the episode and it's just another example of Moffatt losing it.

Not-Really-A-Review: "Into the Forest of the Night"

I'm not even going to bother summarizing this one. I don't think I can. It was an utter, disjointed, incoherent mess of acid-induced crap. I can't even spoil it as it's too incoherent. This one is up there with "Love and Monsters" for my list of worst episodes ever. Though I'm still leaning towards hating "Love and Monsters" more.

Charting New Courses

So I've started a new job. Going through all the fun of training and learning new things and meeting new people. It's been good times thus far.

One of the biggest adjustments is the added commute time on BART.

I've spent a great deal of time on BART, usually on pleasure treks to-and-from some social outing. Over the years I've had nearly all the classic non-violent encounters on BART, ranging from idle flirting with a complete stranger (and the subsequent regret I didn't get a name/phone number) to often-unwilling interactions with the obviously mentally-ill (and hygienically-challenged).

Some of my friends who commute regularly on BART felt a need to warn me that I'd encounter rude folks and more obnoxious behavior. I haven't seen it yet. I've had the full-gambit this week of delayed trains, packed (oh-so-packed) trains, the odd crazy people, and normal commutes and it's been no problem at all. Sure, people get irritable when things go sour, but I've found that small attempts at being gracious and polite pay great dividends in making for an easier ride.

I wonder how I'll feel in a few months? Heh.

Review: "Flatline"

Huh. That was a lot better than I expected!

My commentary follows with a summary. Spoilers, standard stuff. Highlight to see. Blah-blah.






































































Still there? You were warned...








The episode starts out with a panicked man calling about disappearances. There's something out there responsible and he knows what it is. As he's on the phone with the police he suddenly vanishes.

The TARDIS materializes in a Council Estate (public housing area). Clara is still on her lying to the Doctor about how her boyfriend Danny is cool with her continuing travels with the Doctor (he's not).

And there's a problem: the TARDIS appears in a diminutive size, half of what it is normally. The Doctor and Clara are able to exit the TARDIS and look around a bit. The Doctor re-enters the TARDIS, puzzled, and sends Clara off to investigate.

Clara stumbles across a monument to some missing people and some guys doing community service. Two of the guys who stand out are Rigsby, a kid who got busted for tagging and a racist old bastard who bullies the crap out of the others.

Clara notices a few weird things, such as the various missing people the tagger-kid tells her about and mysterious murals of all the missing folks.

She returns to the Doctor to find the TARDIS has shrunk again. It's the size of a kid's toy and the Doctor cannot exit. He loans Clara his sonic screwdriver and psychic paper and has her carry the TARDIS with her as she goes to investigate some more. Her investigations run her across a policewoman, who is quickly killed, while they are investigating an apartment of a missing man (the guy who died at the beginning of the episode). The Doctor quickly groks what's going on: aliens from a 2-dimensional universe are killing and dissecting people. Clara and Rigsby escape and wind up rejoining the other community service guys. And the aliens follow them.

The Doctor struggles between some kind of dimensional drain against the TARDIS by these aliens and advising Clara. Clara, for her part, leads the community service guys to escape the hostile aliens.

There's a brief attempt to communicate with the aliens, which really just seems to reveal they're hostile and evolving. Then cue the chase scenes.

The aliens can turn things 2-dimensional (thus obliterating doorknobs and such), which makes fleeing hard for our heroes. And the aliens learn how to become 3-dimensional constructs as they start taking out the crew, one-by-one, until there's only Clara, Rigsby, and the asshole guy left. Clara is separated from the Doctor as the miniaturized TARDIS is knocked from her hand. The TARDIS goes into "siege mode", locking down completely and separating the Doctor from Clara, save via their little erratic communications link.

Clara, with Rigsby's help, manages to trick the aliens into pouring power into the TARDIS, allowing the TARDIS to restore its size. The Doctor emerges and uses some kind of Time Lord magic to obliterate the aliens after a corny speech.

The episode ended with Rigsby, the asshole-guy, and another side-character picked up along the way surviving. The Doctor seems disturbed that Clara took over his role so well.

And we pull back to our obligatory reference to the ever-so-boring "Heaven" mystery bit as Missy the weird story-arc character gloats about how Clara was such a good choice for something... DUN-DUN-DUN!!!!!!!


Overall, I found "Flatline" an entertaining episode. Rigsby had awesome Companion-potential, as seems to be a pattern with a number of side-characters getting introduced. I kind of like that the asshole character survived. It made things weird.

Clara had more to do in the episode, which was nice. The character still bugs me, but I have to give Jenna Coleman credit for doing her best with what she's got.

I'm kind of getting tired of the endless dickishness of Capaldi's Doctor, but it's a minor quibble for me, at best.

I appreciate that we're finally getting proper "bad guy" monsters back in the show. It's certainly an improvement.

Too much of a good thing

So I spent yesterday evening celebrating and saying fond and heartfelt farewells to many friends.

There were more than a few drinks.

And it all caught up with me this morning.

So... sick... I'd be happy if water would stay down. Being hydrated is nice.

Fluke of the Universe

So today is my last day with my employer of... well... a very long time.

This is what one of my co-workers sent me:



I'm totally going to miss this place. Seriously.

Now, ONWARDS TO ADVENTURE!

Review: "Mummy on the Orient Express"

I was all set to hate this one. I really was. The premise alone sounded too stupid for me to want to give it a chance.

I admit that this one caught me by surprise.

Spoilers follow.
















































































Still there? You were warned.




It starts on an old-fashioned train. An old lady starts hallucinating a mummy that only she can see. Then it reaches her and she's suddenly dead.

It turns out the old-fashioned train is actually a spacecraft set up to replicate the old Orient Express for reasons. Everyone on the train is dressed up in period outfits and acts period for reasons.

The TARDIS materializes in the cargo hold and the Doctor and Clara disembark. This is to be their last journey together and the Doctor brought her for a last huzzah. They have drinks and exchange some talk. The Doctor talks of planets and phenomena. Clara talks of feelings. They're not really communicating. They have a brief encounter with the grand-daughter of the old woman who died. The grand-daughter is out-of-it and tips them off to the mysterious death.

It doesn't take long before the Doctor is poking around and investigating. Clara, in the meantime, winds up with the grief-stricken granddaughter. Shenanigans get them trapped in a cargo hold while more deaths happen by the mummy that only the impending-dead can see. A countdown of 66 seconds happens when the mummy appears until the target is dead. Nobody can stop it.

The Doctor's investigation brings him across the ship's engineer, the PSTD-plagued ship's captain, and a few other passengers. It turns out almost all the passengers are actually highly-skilled scientists. Everyone has been maneuvered on to the train to solve the mystery of the mummy (called "the Foretold") which has been killing people for millennia.

The Doctor reveals that the mysterious puppet master has even lured him, though the Doctor knew he was being lured. Clara, by this point, is furious at being dragged into danger and lied to by the Doctor. The Doctor, however, is more focused on figuring out the mystery of the mummy. As people are targeted, he remorselessly quizzes the soon-to-be-dead on giving him information on the mummy before the target is killed. The Doctor's callous behavior is angering and disgusting others, including Clara.

Finally, the mummy targets the grief-stricken granddaughter. The Doctor performs technological wizardry and tricks the mummy into thinking the Doctor is the target. He quickly decrypts the mummy's secret: it is a super-soldier kept alive by some sort of malfunctioning life-draining technology. The Doctor surrenders, and the mummy stands down then disintegrates.

The puppet-master behind tricking everyone on the train then tries to murder everyone on board to cover up the events, but the Doctor saves them all.

Clara finally decides to continue staying with the Doctor, lying to him about Danny Pink being okay with it. The Doctor seems dubious, but glad of her company.

All-in-all, it was an entertaining episode. A menacing, proper monster and the claustrophobic feel of "classic Doctor Who" coupled with memorable side-characters made for a pleasant change of pace. I even enjoyed the Doctor and Clara interacting (for a change). I'm really liking the seeming-misanthropic callousness of Capaldi's Doctor. Not a bad story. Not bad at all.

The Very Hungry Cthulupillar

Giant orange eye

Sometimes I suspect nature is trying subtle methods of killing me.

On this morning's commute into my office, a full moon hung low on the horizon, looking reddish-orange like a huge Eye of Sauron. The low fog, dwelling in random puffs above the bay, would hide the glowing orb, then reveal it suddenly.

And, of course, I was driving. It was hard not to get distracted, let me tell you.

Review: "Kill the Moon"

Just saw "Kill the Moon". Spoilers and all that.





















































































Still there? You were warned...












Where to begin? So this wasn't a Moffatt-penned episode and it was really clear from how the story moved along. The Doctor has apparently been a bad influence on student Courtney Woods, who is mainly a teen brat. Woods, who was interesting in "The Caretaker" has devolved in the episode to whiny as the Doctor's obnoxious manner hurts her feelings. Clara drags the Doctor to Courtney to make him apologize. Instead, the Doctor takes Clara and Courtney in the TARDIS to the Moon, where Courtney can become the first woman to walk on the Moon.

And then things go wrong.

The TARDIS instead materializes on a space shuttle that is landing on the Moon with a trio of astronauts and a crapload of nukes.

It's the mid-21st century (some thirty or so years in our future) and the Moon is causing gravity disruptions that are damaging the Earth. When they all land, the Moon has essentially got Earth-normal gravity, weirding out the Doctor.

The astronauts are coming to investigate a Mexican-sponsored mining base that went dark ten years prior. Oh, and probably use the nukes to blow up the Moon, 'cause that's a great idea.

They find dessicated bodies and spider webs about. Before long, a couple of the redshirt astronauts are snacked on by giant spider-like things. The group runs scared until Courtney kills a spider thing with some Windex she has from class.

Turns out the spider thing is actually a giant germ. There's tons of them living in the ever-widening cracks of the disintegrating Moon.

Before long, the Doctor does some crazy exploration and they discover that the Moon is instead a giant egg for some kind of giant alien beast. The spider things are just the bacteria from the egg.

The remaining astronaut, afraid the hatching Moon egg will destroy the Earth, wants to use the nukes to kill the baby alien. Clara and Courtney, outraged, want to save the alien. The Doctor, weirdly, detaches himself from the discussion and jaunts off in the TARDIS, leaving the decision to the three women.

There's a brief moment when Clara communicates with the Earth to ask Earth to vote over saving or killing the alien by turning on or off their lights. The vote becomes immaterial as the astronaut decides to detonate the nukes anyway, only to be stopped by Clara. Then, as the Moon is hatching, the Doctor returns with the TARDIS and takes the three to Earth.

They watch the alien hatch from the disintegrating Moon (no debris survives to damage the Earth). The alien flies away, leaving behind an egg that is a new Moon.

The Doctor takes Courtney home then Clara, well and truly pissed off at the Doctor for abandoning them, finally tells him off and tells him to go away. She then finds comfort in the arms of Danny Pink.

So... yeah. This was an uneven episode, at best. The spider-monsters were moderately cool (and doubtless will give arachniphobes nightmares for years to come) but otherwise, the rest was pretty much trash.

The Doctor's weirdly-inconsistent and misanthropic behavior just feels jarring and wrong, especially when he decides not to take an active hand in saving the baby alien. The character of Courtney, who was entertaining in "The Caretaker" has slid into boring and ridiculous. And Clara remains sort of vague.

The premise - that the Moon is a giant egg - was probably one of the stupidest plots I've seen in ages, though in all fairness it's very much the sort of thing one might see in a "classic" Doctor Who episode from the old days.

I'm pretty disappointed in this season so far.

Change

After... wow... over 16 years, I'm going to make a huge change (new job). Kinda freaked out now...

Review: "The Caretaker"

Sweet FSM! A 12th Doctor ep that actually surprised me by being better than expected! How novel!

Spoilers follow, highlight to see... unless you have a hand-held device. Then just scroll down a bit 'cause I don't know how to hide text other than using this deprecated font tag thing.




























































































Still there? You were warned...






The episode starts with snippets of the double-life Clara is leading by romancing Danny Pink when she's not jaunting off on adventures with the Doctor. She's told the Doctor she's dating someone but not who and she's certainly never told Danny about the Doctor.

Finally a day comes when the Doctor brushes off Clara, claiming he has to go "under cover". In typical Doctor fashion, he explains nothing.

Predictably, he shows up at Coal Hill School (where Clara and Danny are teachers) as the new caretaker: "John Smith" (homage to his alias from the Pertwee days).

The Doctor is tracking a deadly robot-alien killing machine that is in the area for REASONS. It kills a policeman and poses a threat to "the entire planet" in typical show melodrama.

The Doctor behaves as erratically as usual, which offers great comic moments, both from Capaldi's Doctor and from Coleman's Clara as she tries to cope with the Doctor being right in front of her during her work hours... and in front of her new boyfriend.

The Doctor makes his way across the campus of the school, laying "time mines" to deal with the alien. During these encounters, he and Danny Pink meet. The Doctor learns Danny used to be a soldier and flips into his uniquely Capaldi-era overreaction against soldiers (conveniently forgetting his friendship with Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, Sergeant Benton, and others from his U.N.I.T. days). In short, the Doctor and Danny don't get along in a contrived prejudice the Doctor holds that's apparently going to be a theme this season.

Danny notes there's something off about the Doctor and that Clara seems to know him.

There's a few sitcom-esque misunderstandings for a bit that quickly get brushed-aside as the Doctor leads the alien back to the school using an invisibility-watch he's created to trap the alien with his "time mines".

Things get complicated when Danny's decided to investigate the Doctor's doings and disrupted the placement of the time mines... the alien nearly kills Danny and is sucked into a time vortex... just not far enough away.

The Doctor and Danny have the normal conflict that happens when the Doctor's plans are disrupted. Danny is shown the TARDIS and told the Doctor is an alien. He leaves to process and the Doctor prepares for the alien, which is due to return in three days due to the time mines being disrupted. Clara, in the meanwhile, tries to balance the two people in her life and get them to get along.

Cue ahead to some serious Clara-Danny conversations that are predictable. Meanwhile, a troublesome young student who has "future Companion" written all over her meets the Doctor and they sort of bond in a surprisingly-good mix of chemistry while the Doctor prepares for the return of the alien killing machine.

The alien returns early, in the middle of parents' night, disrupting Clara and Danny's jobs.

The Doctor has Clara act as bait for the alien killing machine as he prepares a gadget. There's a sudden, unexpected twist to the final confrontation that has Danny swoop in to distract the alien and buy time for the Doctor to finally deactivate the alien robot killing machine.

There's a terse, manly truce between the two men over Clara. The Doctor takes the teenage kid on a jaunt in the TARDIS, causing her to throw up (hilariously). And we get another hint of the over-arcing "paradise" story that is too stupid to mention.


Overall, the story was a tremendous improvement over the ENTIRE previous offerings of the season. The banter was solid and amusing. The dynamic between Capaldi's Doctor and Samuel Anderson's Danny Pink is surprisingly-good for being so contrived. And Clara seems to be settling into her own a bit.

I'm liking that the stories are less-reliant on the magic-wand Sonic Screwdriver and going more into other sci-fi gadgetry of the Doctor's making. The show really needs more random inventions and less of the Sonic Screwdriver being the end-all super-gadget.

The monster was a nice touch, being both weird and threatening.

I could do with less of the relationship stuff. Honestly, these last few seasons have felt like Moffatt thinks he's still writing for "Coupling" instead of a science-fiction program. I've no objections to romance in the show, but I'm old-school in feeling it really shouldn't be a focus.

I still think this weird "Promised Land" over-arcing plot is ridiculous. Otherwise, it felt like an improvement.

Review(s): "Among Thieves" and "Sworn in Steel" by Douglas Hulick

Amazon reviews suggested a book to me a while back: "Among Thieves" by Douglas Hulick. In my last batch of books I acquired, that was among them.

It was the first of my latest batch to read and... wow.

It is the tale of Drothe, a "Nose" among the Kin (slang for being a snoop/investigator for the criminal class of his homeland).

Drothe is a tolerable swordsman, a reasonably good thief, and has a fondness for stimulant seeds called armahni. He smuggles holy artifacts while serving as a spy (of sorts) for a local "Upright Man" (crime boss).

A client of his turns on him, stealing one of his artifacts, and things go sour really quickly.

Before long, Drothe is finding himself in the middle of a brewing gang war that endangers the Kin and has secrets that threaten the Empire in which he lives. His assets are his wits, his few friends (a blonde, grouchy, bodyguard who serves as his occasional lover), his semi-homicidal sister, and his best friend - a lethal swordsman named Degan.

Just when I thought I had a handle on what the book was about, Hulick took the story off in directions I wasn't expecting. I have to say it had me hooked up to the last page. I was so thrilled by it, that I ran out to a local Barnes & Noble to pick up the sequel: "Sworn in Steel".

Set three months after the insanity of "Among Thieves", Drothe is in a different place with his fortunes and not all of them good. Circumstances (mostly blackmail) have him and Fowler Jess (his lethal lover/bodyguard) going to the land of the Djann to find a friend of Drothe's so he can try to save his friends and himself.

As with "Among Thieves", Hulick quickly takes Drothe's tale and spins it into something bigger and deeper in his intricate and insanely-well-developed mythology.

Hulick does a fantastic job with his characters and his world-building. His "cant" spoken by the criminals of his world is apparently based on real-world criminal slang he researched and it adds a fantastic flavor to the series.

I can't wait for the next book. Argh! I seriously can't wait...

Review "Time Heist"

"Time Heist".

Okay, that was a pretty good episode.

Spoilers follow, blah-blah-blah.












































































































Still there? You were warned...

















Clara's getting spiffed-up for a date while the Doctor lingers around in a vaguely creepy manner. There's a phone call from the TARDIS and... bam. Next thing everyone knows, the Doctor and Clara are in a room with two other people - Psi (a cyborg) and Saibra (a shapeshifter). Everyone's had their memories voluntarily wiped up to a certain point by memory worms.

A mysterious figure known only as "The Architect" explains in a recording that their little quasi-Ocean's Seven group is to rob the most secure bank in the galaxy.

What follows is a classic parody of a "heist film", complete with the stylized cut-outs and poses.

There's lots of timey-whimey stuff that makes one ask how the Architect got all kinds of little tools in place for the robbers. And opposing them are the bank staff, including a creature known as "the Teller" which can not only read minds, but melt brains (and skulls, apparently).

There's a few moments to reveal what Psi and Saibra want in a few scenes. Psi, a hacker, deleted all memories of his family and loved ones to save them when he was arrested. He wants those memories back. Saibra takes the form of anyone she touches, making physical relations nearly impossible. She wants a cure for her mutant powers.

There's sudden reversals in which it seems Saibra is killed by a "fail-safe" left by the Architect. Psi follows not too long after.

Then all is revealed as the Doctor and Clara confront the bank owner. It turns out the bank owner has her own clones operating the bank and has the mate of the Teller captive in order to get the Teller's service. The two beings are the last of their kind.

It turns out - predictably - that the Doctor is "the Architect". He gives the bank owner a way to contact him for when she's old and regretting all the terrible things she's done. She contacts him as he's dying, starting the chain of events that becomes the episode.

All in all, it was a fun romp. The story felt rushed and cramped in parts, but it was tons better than the naval-gazing nonsense from "Listen".

Review: "Listen"

Aaaand we're back to Steven Moffat's writing for the latest episode of "Doctor Who".


Spoilers, masked with a font tag... blah blah blah.







































































Still there? Okay, you were warned...


The episode starts with the Doctor musing about some kind of hypothetical creature that has evolved a perfect method for hiding. He's seeming a bit manic, though there's a bit of creepy stuff in the TARDIS that lends credence to the idea that the Doctor is not actually alone.

Cue Clara having her date with Danny (aka Rupert) Pink, her fellow teacher. The date goes poorly. There is much mutual head-banging over both Clara and Danny having classic date awkwardness issues. Blah-blah-blah.

The Doctor grabs Clara from her apartment and has her plug into the TARDIS mainframe for... um... reasons... so they can go to a point in her timeline when she had a weird dream about something being under the bed in order for the Doctor to pursue his bug hunt.

Clara gets a call while plugged into the TARDIS, causing the TARDIS to go to Danny Pink's childhood where she interacts with the young Rupert Pink (he changes his name later) in a boy's home.

Turns out there is something creepy going on. Clara and the young Rupert encounter a thing on Rupert's bed that hides under a blanket. The Doctor intervenes and he, Clara, and Rupert convince the never-seen thing that it can go away. It leaves, both the room and the story.

Clara has the Doctor take her to the tail end of her date disaster where she tries to reconnect with the adult-Rupert-now-called-Danny, but makes a slip by calling him "Rupert" when she's not supposed to know his name.

The date ends badly again. A guy in a spacesuit then comes along and lures Clara back into the TARDIS.

Turns out the guy in the spacesuit - who looks like Danny/Rupert is a descendant of Danny (and probably Clara) who blew a time-travel experiment and wound up at the end of the Universe.

The Doctor takes them to the end of the Universe so descendent-boy can pack. The Doctor and Clara then try to see if there's really something hiding at the end of the Universe that may be his mysterious hidden alien.

It's ambiguous if there ever is an alien. The Doctor gets knocked out by a hull-breach and Clara plugs into the TARDIS again to flee... this time accidentally to the Doctor's childhood where she gives him cloying words of wisdom against being afraid of the dark.

Everyone goes home to their respective timelines, Clara and Danny get busy snogging. The Doctor gets no closure. No sign is ever seen of these hidden aliens again or why anyone even needs to care about them.

Okay, that should take care of the spoilery-bits.

The episode was classic Moffat: great mood and ambiance with fantastic setup, then utterly falls short on delivery. The plot details are all about a cool gimmick with no proper delivery or attention to continuity or details. Mix in some cloying, overly-sentimental and navel-gazing nonsense and there's your story.

Another bit of cotton candy. He gets points for the awesome mood but the weak, disjointed, incoherent story kind of spoiled it for me.

Why is it so hard to write a goddamn story?

Review: "Robot of Sherwood"

FINALLY!

A goddamn "Doctor Who" episode that didn't feel as though it was written by a deranged five-year-old on acid.

So, standard deal. I'm going to offer my opinions and they'll contain spoilers. I'll try to obscure them with that font tag, but... well... it may not work, so be warned.




























































































Still there? Okay...









"Robot of Sherwood" is written by the ever-brilliant Mark Gatiss. Plot summary:

The TARDIS is in the vortex. The Doctor offers Clara the choice of their next destination as he works away writing obscure stuff on a chalkboard and licking food off a spoon. Clara says she wants to meet Robin Hood.

The Doctor assures Clara that Robin Hood is a myth, but takes her to Sherwood Forest all the same to prove he's not real.

And that's when they meet Robin Hood.

The Doctor duels Robin Hood in a somewhat ludicrous battle with Robin using a sword and the Doctor using a spoon. The Doctor mostly wins, establishing animosity between the Time Lord and the outlaw.

The Doctor and Clara go to meet the Merry Men and learn of the whole Sheriff of Nottingham deal.

The Doctor is convinced Robin Hood and his Merry Men are not real, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. The one thing that the Doctor finds to be off is the weather. The sun is shining and the forest green in Autumn.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff has taken away a damsel in distress with faceless knights at his beck and call. His interest is in gathering slave labor and gold.

Robin Hood intends to interrupt the legendary archery contest. Clara warns him it is a trap but he claims to already know and intend to interrupt all the same.

The archery contest goes down as expected, though the Doctor trumps it by his own fancy archery seeming to be a match for Robin Hood. The Sheriff's guards come to arrest everyone and in a battle, one has its arm cut off revealing the Sheriff's men to be robots with laser-beams that shoot out of their faces.

And then the fun begins.

The Doctor, Clara, and Robin Hood are captured. After some bickering in a cell, Clara is taken to the Sheriff where she learns that the robots come from a crashed spacecraft and they elicited the Sheriff's aid. The Sheriff gathers gold to help them repair their ship and they will help the Sheriff conquer the world.

The Doctor and Robin, in the meantime, argue and bicker endlessly (and stupidly). They finally cooperate to escape and stumble across the control center for the spaceship. Turns out the Sheriff's castle is the spaceship in disguise. The spaceship and its robot crew is going to "the Promised Land" (the strange and somewhat stupid story-arc for this season) and they crashed on Earth.

The Doctor determines that the ship is too badly damaged. If it tries to take off, the explosion will obliterate half of England.

Another fight. Robin Hood escapes with Clara. The Doctor is captured by the Sheriff.

Robin interrogates Clara on what she knows of Robin Hood from history. The Doctor, in the meantime meets up with the girl captured earlier in the episode and brings about a revolt of the captives, using plates and trays to reflect the robot lasers and destroy most of the robots.

Robin and Clara then arrive and it's all Robin vs. the Sheriff. Robin wins, the Sheriff falls into a vat of gold (ouch). They flee the launching spaceship. The ship takes off but can't get into orbit. The Doctor, a wounded Robin Hood, and Clara use the golden arrow won from the archery contest to shoot gold into the spaceship (in fairness, that was probably the stupidest part of this whole story).

The spaceship gets into orbit and blows up.

The Doctor and Clara leave. Robin learns he is not considered a historical figure. He seems cool with it.

The TARDIS fades away and the saved damsel-in-distress appears behind it. Turns out she's Maid Marion, who Robin has been looking for but somehow unable to find. Happy kissing reunion. Good times.



So, yeah. Gatiss wrote an episode that was silly but felt more true to classic "Doctor Who" than anything I've seen in a good, long time. Classic villains, robots, the Doctor having to resort to tricks rather than exclusively using the sonic screwdriver, and not too much focus on the Doctor.

There were parts I found disappointing: I wasn't keen on how ridiculously-contrary the Doctor was. I enjoyed him being dark and crotchety, but that got old fast.


Overall, pretty entertaining episode. Best one of the season. I hope Gatiss writes many more.

Robin Hood would've loved this

Compact Folding Survival Bow. This just looks really neat.

Stealth Fashion

"Orwell" garments.

God, I love Kickstarter!

Belaboring

So it's September. 2014 is blazing along nicely, it seems.

The rugrats are all in school, causing all sorts of traffic hell.

Labor Day is behind us and with it, the delightful days of sloth. I took a five day weekend and my only regret was my empty bank account.

Oh, and maybe watching "Into the Dalek". Yeesh, that was a bad episode. I'm getting soured on the Capaldi Doctor pretty quickly. I expected the first episode to suck, but the obligatory Dalek one was just a horrible mishmash of stupid.

Working my way through "Among Thieves" by Douglas Hulick. Delightful read thus far. I expect I'll pick up the next book after I finish this one. I'm trying to savor it and take my time. I have a small backlog of books for when I do finish, but still, I'm in no rush.

I can't freakin' believe it's September already.

Review: "Into the Dalek"

Yeah.... I'm not even sure how to review this.

I'm not even sure doing spoilers would help or hurt.

It's... um... yeah. It's got Daleks and if you took a dozen classic Dalek episodes and put them in a blender. And... yeah.

I got nothin'.

It's episode two of the Capaldi era and I'm seeing lots of choppy, weak writing thus far.

Not really interested in delving into this one.

Please let them stop with the Daleks. Good lord...

I'm all shook up

I was sound asleep and rather enjoying it.

First came dim perception of something amiss. I think it was the windows rattling. That's usually the case.

Then came the shaking. It wasn't too crazy, but it was enough for me to awaken and realize an earthquake was going on. And it went on for a bit.

I didn't hear the sound of breaking glass or car alarms, so I went back to sleep pretty quickly.

I'm a California boy. I have my moments of being blase about earthquakes.

Hours later I stirred, got up, and eventually turned on the TV as I wolfed down breakfast.

Apparently there was a 6.1 quake up in the American Canyon area.

6.1 is... not small. Huh.

Review: "Deep Breath"

So... yeah. Series Eight of "Doctor Who" started today.

Peter Capaldi's premier episode was written by Steven Moffatt.

Aaaaaand... reactions that follow are going to be just loaded with spoilers and opinions. I shall endeavor to conceal all the spoilers behind obscuring text (highlight to read), but do keep in mind this doesn't do jack on handhelds, so...




















































Still there? Let's see if my trick works.








The episode opens with a T-Rex in Victorian London. We get our obligatory disoriented-new-Doctor schtick done by Capaldi and we get our Madam Vastra and the gang. There's a series of spontaneous human combustion events going on instigated by a weird, clockwork man for reasons.

The Doctor, now seeming to take on a rather sinister new personality, goes about his standard, random and chaotic investigations. In the meantime, Clara is having the standard female companion reaction to a new Doctor. She's freaking out. In fairness, the Doctor is giving her some reasons to freak out.

Turns out the clockwork man is a homicidal robot-cyborg-thing using humans as spare parts to build giant balloons and rebuild itself as a human-ish being. For... um... reasons.

Yeah.

So Moffatt tried his best to go for a nice, dark villain. He got somewhere in the neighborhood but the entire episode felt a bit navel-gazing with his references to the "Girl in the Fireplace". The writing seemed too proud of the past reference, leaving the villain feeling a bit flat.

Capaldi and Coleman did great in their roles. The new 12th (13th?) Doctor's incarnation felt a bit choppy, but I credit that to first episode jitters. Capaldi has a lot of promise as an intriguing future Doctor.

Certainly Moffatt gives Capaldi's Doctor a decidedly sinister air. He's got more of a dangerous feel than Hurt's "War Doctor" ever had. And he's certainly willing to take extreme measures.

I can't say I'm warming to Clara. I like Jenna Coleman as an actress and I think the only reason I can stomach the character of Clara at all is due to Coleman giving her some sort of charm, but the 21st Century "version" of Clara has always sort of left me cold. In this episode, she went from sort of a zero to being annoyingly-whiny. To her credit, she didn't consistently stay whiny. There was good bits when the character was convincingly scared.

Still, the episode felt a bit choppy. The ending was vaguely unsatisfying and the Vastra gang inclusion felt like a pandering afterthought.

I did like the TARDIS interior redesign.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the odd character added at the end of the episode.

I guess we'll see how it goes.

A sign of the endtimes?

Hayen Christiansen and Nicholas Cage together in a sword flick. Sort of set in China. I think. With Cage doing a bad English accent.

Will this be "so bad it's funny-good" or will it be "oh god, please let me claw out the memory centers of my brain through my eyes" bad?

Is it a sign there's no god or a sign that there is a god?

Review: "Seven Forges" by James A. Moore

On an Amazon recommendation, I picked up "Seven Forges", a fantasy novel by James A. Moore.

I finished it about an hour ago.

Thoughts: So "Seven Forges" is ostensibly about a mercenary named Merros Dulver and his meeting a strange, gray-skinned people who live in a forbidding place called the Seven Forges, set amidst an icy wasteland of monsters and not much else.

The story is slow going, at first. Lots of setup as Dulver gets to know the mysterious inhabitants of the Seven Forges. And there's much (chapters and chapters of much) description of how badass these gray-skinned people are.

It's an entertaining read, if a bit plodding in parts. It diverges about a third through the book to a different point-of-view character then about halfway through, jumps to more POV characters. By the last quarter of the book, there's shit actually going down and multiple POVs introduced.

I can't say that I ever really got a good feel for any of the characters, save the later-added Andover who gets horribly mauled a few pages after his introduction.

Moore's narrative style is engaging enough, but I found the introduction and evolution of the characters left me cold. The end of the book was an obvious lead-in to the next novel but also sort of left me with a "huh, that's it?" kind of feeling.

I'm honestly not sure if I'll pick up the next book in the series. It was an okay diversion, but I can't say I care about any of the characters or what happens to them.

A hard read after the likes of Anthony Ryan and Jim Butcher.

Ia Ia Cthulhu fhtagn!

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Also: a happy celebration of the spawning forth of the demi-lich known as "Mackie". We who continue to exist in another corner of reality also celebrate the dark shadow you cast across reality. A toast of something appropriately dark shall be made before the stars fall out of alignment.

D&D and boys & girls

When I was a kid, Dungeons & Dragons (aka "D&D") was pretty much only something boys played.

Nerdy boys, at that.

It wasn't until college when we'd have ladies join our gaming groups. Usually it was the girlfriend of one of the players, but not always.

I'm not sure why my gaming groups never regularly had female players. I'd like to think we weren't driving them away, but who knows? Certainly they rocked at it.

Why am I pondering this? BoingBoing had an article on the topic of girls playing D&D.

I personally think girls should be encouraged to participate in this hobby. Hell, I think schools should encourage role-playing games as part of the educational process for both boys and girls. I think table-top RPGs, done correctly, encourage imagination, open-mindedness, and empathy.

Given how utterly fucked-up the world seems to be, I think we could all benefit from some more imagination, open-mindedness, and empathy.

My Friday

Taking a long weekend.

Hell of a week. Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall both exit the stage. Williams is especially tragic. I find myself shocked that there's assholes out there trolling his daughter on Twitter. It's amazing that I still get shocked by that kind of behavior. Goddamn there's some terrible people out there in the world.

The Peter Capaldi season of "Doctor Who" starts next week. I'm thinking of seeing it in theaters, though I may just try to catch the broadcast on the 23rd instead. I'm not convinced a theater broadcast will be worth it.

Monday Musings

• Apparently, J. Michael Straczynski may reboot Babylon-5 as a feature film. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Sure, the series is a bit dated in FX, but those could be fixed pretty easily. Hell, they did it for "Star Trek: The Original Series". With Andreas Katsulas gone, there simply isn't another G'Kar out there.
  
  Then again, it's JMS at the helm, so it will still probably be awesome.
• Started my morning with one of the senior developers handing me a bottle of beer. Some kind of lager he recommends. If this is starting a trend in which my co-workers are going to be giving me beer, I may need to be pinched 'cause I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming.
• I know there's something seriously-wrong with my bike when a new inner-tube goes flat before I even ride the bike. I think my bike has become an inner-tube vampire.

Wait, Who now?

(via io9)

I'm torn between being fascinated and appalled.

While I'm on the topic of my favorite Time Lord, I saw this on rpg.net:



This pleases me.

Grootastic

Yep. Watched Guardians of the Galaxy again last night. Good times. Damn that movie is awesome!

Groot Times

To say it's rare to see rain in August is a bit of an understatement.

And yet, there it is. Yup, actual droplets of water coming out of the sky.

Oh, it's probably an exaggeration to call it "rain". It's more spitting-drizzle, but it's still unusual.

Good times.

---

I think my neighbors are getting tired of me playing "Hooked on a Feeling", but I do like the "Ooga-chakka".

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Saw the first seven minutes of "Star Wars: Rebels". You can see it here if your Google-fu is weak. io9 pegs it. It's very Aladdin in feel. The Disney influence is certainly clear. I'm ambivalent about it one way or the other. "Clone Wars" was okay as a series, but I'm kinda done with prequel story material. Especially prequel material that more-or-less retcons the original series. Or if it doesn't, then "Rebels" is going to have one hell of a depressing ending...

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Snipped from io9:

Speaking at London Film and Comic Con, Steven Moffat gave a few more details about how the previous Who appearance by Peter Capaldi will be explained. He said, again, that Russell T. Davies' previous idea would provide the basis, but added:

Truthfully I don't think it's something you have to resolve because audiences do understand that the same actor can play different parts.
When Peter Capaldi turned up in Torchwood, Russell said he had a plan in his head on why he looked like the guy in The Fires of Pompeii. So I emailed him and said what was the explanation and does it fit with the new Doctor? And it sort of does.
So in a very low-key way we'll address it. It won't be a major deal because in the end people know the real reason is he's played by the same actor.
What's really worrying me is Karen Gillan in The Fires of Pompeii. That's just inexplicable – I'm going to get to that eventually.

Okay, seriously? THIS is the sort of continuity stuff that keeps Moffat awake? Having actors play different roles across a series? Seriously?

Dude, Steven, I gotta say something to you: THIS IS NOT IMPORTANT! What is important is writing stories that explain plot points instead of doing timey-whimey hand-waving. Examples:

• Bad guys blow up the TARDIS, causing a rift in time-and-space. How? Never explained. (see the Pandorica storyline)
• Bad guys existing in a timeline in which they shouldn't (Cybermen shouldn't exist during the Roman era on Earth. Mondas wasn't there yet... again: Pandorica storyline)
• Everything about River Song and her timey-whimey past. All of it. How she syncs with the Doctor (hint: not as advertised) and the rationale behind making her an assassin to kill the Doctor (if the bad guys could time travel and use memory-wiping, lightning-throwing monsters, why bother with River at all?).
• The Name of the Doctor. Just... what?
• The hand-regeneration. Seriously?
• The entire plot of "The Time of the Doctor". All of it. I look at it and get too wound-up to even start to take the plot apart.

Dude, stop worrying about casting minutiae. Focus on sane stories with logical narratives. The rest will attend to itself.

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The post title means nothing save that my brain is still on Guardians of the Galaxy.

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

Saw it.

If you haven't yet seen Guardians of the Galaxy, drop what you are doing and go see it.

If you have seen it... OH MY GOD WASN'T THAT THE BEST MOVIE EVER????

It was the perfect mix of engaging characters, humor ("I need that guy's eye"), action, effects, and fun.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the story of Peter Quill, an Earth-born lad who is abducted by aliens and grows up to be a sort of thief-pirate. Peter (who prefers to go by the nickname of "Star Lord") acquires a sphere, which he tries to fence. He runs afoul of Gamora, a lovely, green-skinned, assassin who is the surrogate daughter of the evil Thanos. She and her "sister", Nebula, serve the insane Kree warlord Ronan the Accuser. While Peter and Gamora duke it out, in comes "Rocket", an intelligent and bipedal raccoon and Groot, a walking tree with a limited vocabulary ("I am Groot").

Stuff happens and these four find themselves in a bad situation and meet Drax the Destroyer, a big, bald, humor-deficient killing machine.

And then the fun really begins.

If you're a fan of the Marvel comics for Guardians of the Galaxy or Nova, you'll doubtless find much to entertain you. If you have no idea of these comics, you'll still love the movie. It's Star Wars level of fun with a better plot and dialog.

I'm going to see this movie again. And again. And again...

Who are the good guys in Star Wars?

So I keep seeing adverts for "Star Wars: Rebels" and it harkens me back to the the myriad plot points that bug me:

• Yoda: Super-powerful Jedi master. What does he do with his power and skills? Hides on a freakin' jungle planet out in the middle of nowhere, lies to Luke about being the last Jedi, and won't tell Luke the truth of his parentage.
  
  Conclusion: he's a lying, impotent little manipulator. Instead of trying to constructively counter the rising fascist Empire after his failed assassination attempt on Palpatine, he hides like a coward then manipulates the son of the very man he alienated and opposed joining the Jedi to shape into a weapon as a proxy.
  
  Further, he's a bit of a sexist, keeping Leia as the "backup" to Luke and never training her at all in Jedi powers.
• Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi: Pretty much the same thing, but he's a stalker on a desert planet taking a more active, manipulative role in turning Luke into a weapon against Palpatine and Vader/Anakin. He doesn't own up to lying until he's called on it after he's a Force ghost. He's as much of a coward and manipulator as Yoda, only more pathetic for letting Yoda set that policy from another part of the freakin' galaxy.
• Luke Skywalker: Seriously. He kept the surname of "Skywalker", the very name of the guy who leads the betrayal of the Jedi, slaughters kids, and all that. If you're loyal to the Jedi, you'd think that name would attract negative attention. If you're an Imperial agent, you'd think that name would come up and make its way to the Emperor's desk. WTF was the Empire doing on Tatooine, anyway?
• Stormtroopers: What exactly is the good of that armor if arrows and rocks can kill people wearing it?
• Yavin IV Base: Seriously. As soon as the Death Star popped in, WHY DIDN'T THE REBELS EVACUATE?
• The Sith: If there can only be two, why are there so many "Dark Jedi" being used by Palpatine and Vader in so many side-stories?
• Jedi: Okay, seriously, what's up with the impractical robes? Why was Luke in his black-outfit (which looked very Sith-ish) the only practically-garbed Jedi? Oh and the weird emotional-suppression creed Yoda preached: what the hell is up with that? You're a star-spanning civilization. You don't understand what that kind of emotional suppression can do to a human mind? Seriously? WTF?
• Chewbacca: Meets Yoda in Episode III. Forgets about it or never brings it up when Obi-Wan and Luke come on the Millennium Falcon for the first time. Um...?
• Actually, the entire Luke vs the Emperor and Vader thing: Unnecessary. A combination of Han and Leia's commando team on Endor, coupled with the space assault led by Lando and Wedge are what actually blow up the Death Star and kill everyone on board. The Force wasn't going to save Palpatine and Vader from an explosion of that size. Luke's entire duel on the Death Star II was irrelevant and pointless. One could argue the character stops being relevant right after A New Hope.

So, yeah. Star Wars. Left me with some issues. There you have it.

Review: The Rhesus Chart

Finished it last night.

The latest in the Laundry Files stories by Charles Stross, The Rhesus Chart tells the next story of Bob Howard, Darkside Hacker extraordinaire and apprentice Eater of Souls who works for the Laundry, the UK's occult intelligence service.

Without spoiling the story too much, the occult menace in this story is vampires (which, of course, don't exist), but as with any of the Laundry stories, that doesn't begin to touch on the actual situation.

I personally have mixed feelings about the book. As someone now-trained in Agile software development and on multiple Scrum teams, I found the Scrum (an actual group of characters in the story) to be disturbingly-familiar. Especially the character who leads the Scrum and speaks in buzzwords.

I'm starting to look at certain people in my company in a new light.

But I digress... there were cool things. I always enjoy Bob's true nemesis: corporate b.s. and matrix management, but otherwise I felt the story seemed to drag a lot. It meandered aimlessly for a while then the conclusion felt rushed and abrupt, if deeply, deeply fucked up.

I enjoyed it, but it felt a bit hollow next to the previous offerings. I'm hoping the next one is a bit meatier.

Wednesday Interwebz

• Hard not to agree.
• 
• A new take on shipping.
• That's no moon.

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In other news, I needed to use up some ingredients in the kitchen last night so I made a batch of brownies. Then I realized the only sugar I had in the place was some bags of cane sugar I'd gotten from FSM-knows-where.

An hour later, I was four brownies into the batch before I managed the Herculean effort of self-control and stopped gobbling them down.

Not as powerfully-sweet, nor as fluffy, but tasty all the same.

I may have to try this again one day. Y'know, for SCIENCE!

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My continuing education in learning JavaScript is a constant and painful reminder as to how I am woefully unsuited to coding.

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I'm about 95% done reading The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross. The latest Laundry novel is okay. It's not really grabbing me like some of the others and feels a bit like a slog, but there's some clever stuff in there (as always).

In parallel, I'm reading The City of Light by Will Wight. The third novel in his Traveler's Gate trilogy is also okay. It's got some good stuff, but I'm still having trouble feeling a lot of sympathy for any characters. I do like his concept of "Incarnation" (a magic user uses too much magic and becomes the embodiment of the user's source of magic). Still worth my reading time.

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Guardians of the Galaxy on Friday. Woo-hoo!

Review: Space Pirate Captain Harlock

Earlier today, I watched Space Pirate Captain Harlock.

Released in Japan in 2013, Space Pirate Captain Harlock is a computer-animated film about the notorious space pirate, Captain Harlock (yes, I know it was hard to divine that from the title) as he fights against the corrupt Gaia Coalition that controls the Earth, the last resource for humanity.

So... yeah. The plot makes little to no sense, but I mostly manage to ignore that in favor of the visual effects, which are frankly outstanding. This was a gorgeous movie. Apparently it took over 1400 shots using 806 machines to render over five years. Something in the area of 250 terabytes of data in the rendering. Crazy shit.

If you have the time and you're looking for some brain-candy space opera, see if you can watch a copy of this. It's cheese-tacular and batshit crazy.

huh

This morning I've seen lightning flashes across the sky and now I'm watching it rain for the first time in... wow... months. And it's freakin' July. Odd.

Comic stuff

• So, Thor is now a woman. No matter how I look at this, it just seems like pandering to me. Marvel is just trying to say: "Oooh! Look at us! We're about diversity and being edgy! Ladies, buy our comics! And boys, we'll aim for some cheesecake shots so you keep buying!"
• I guess the Falcon is now Captain America? Cool? I honestly haven't been keeping track of Marvel comics in years, so I have no reaction to offer.
• I'm of two minds on the whole re-imagining thing that comics keep doing. On the one hand, it's nice they're trying to freshen up some brands, but on the other hand, it's kind of lazy. Instead of aiming for a new, cool character, writers just slap a socially-relevant label on an existing character as a sort of nod to being "diverse", such as a Middle-Eastern-American Green Lantern or a female Thor or whatever. Then again, it's just comics. I should give 'em props for trying to keep comics relevant to modern-day.
• I re-watched Captain America: The First Avenger yesterday (coincidentally). I'm still impressed by how well-done the film was. It really was the supporting characters that helped make it awesome. Agent Carter and the Howling Commandos were really solid and the Red Skull was just perfect.

Truth

All anyone asks, really.

Today's Saying

From a conversation in the office:

Co-worker: "You are filled with the milk of human kindness."

Me: "And I'm lactose intolerant."

More reflections

I'm spending a few days wrapping up my thirteen-year game in email. Crafting epilogs and the like.

Meanwhile, one player has his own thoughts on the campaign..

So what next?

Well, I have other campaigns in-progress. One modern-day-ish campaign of super-powered hunted characters. You know the trope. Scanners meets "The Tomorrow People" meets "X-Men". It's stalled from the loss of certain key players, but I hope to revisit it one day.

Got a few other fantasy games going in the same world as the uber-campaign, though I'm only running one of those.

I plan to focus on "real life" endeavors a bit more and polish up some job skills. Maybe shed a few pounds, too. Yeah right...

Bumps in the Monday road

The bike gods demand - DEMAND - I spend more money on my bike. Specifically to sate its hunger for inner tubes.

At least it waited until I was 2/3rds of the way home before delivering unto me yet another flat tire.

*(&($*#%ing bike...

End of an Era

In February of 2001, four friends and I started recording a home-grown role-playing campaign we'd created from scratch using the rules from Steve Jackson Games' GURPS.

Before the year ended, our numbers were around seven or eight players (it varied as schedules allowed).

For the next thirteen years, we'd game at least once a month (with the occasional skipped month due to schedule problems). Some of our number would marry. Some of our number would jaunt off across the globe, only to return later. Some of our number would leave, answering the call of real life. Some of our number would be asked to leave, as personalities conflicted.

Last night was the conclusion of thirteen years and five months of fairly-frequent gaming in the classic fantasy vein: lowly would-be heroes rise up to save the world, etc.

Sure, it was loaded with tropes. So. Many. Tropes. It wasn't particularly original, though I found our spin on things to be pretty clever (in all humility).

However one looks at it, it was thirteen years of sitting around a table with good friends, some dice, some paper (and later, laptops, 'cause... 21st Century and all that). It was thirteen years of pizza, Chinese food, sushi, beer, candy, pretzels, chips, and FSM-knows-what-else. Later it was home-cooked meals, sometimes by one of our number, sometimes by an incredibly-understanding spouse of one of our number.

That was a damn good thirteen years.

We're not done as a group. We've got other campaigns - most of which are set in the same made-up world - but the campaign that served as the foundation to all of it is now over.

It's a bittersweet feeling for me. Both a relief and something I'll miss terribly. Now I need to figure out how I'll redirect my OCD elsewhere.

Heh.

To those I game (or gamed) with, if you're reading this, thank you for your time, your patience, your participation, and your special brand of crazy. I expect to be rolling the dice at the retirement home with you lads.

Some cool things

• How to approach every day like an explorer
• Spy stuff
• Tool pen!!!
• Want to buy a tank?
• Friday.

Sensei Who

(via Nerdist.

This needs to be an incarnation of the Doctor for real.

and things

In an effort to combat my lazy, gluttonous nature, I'm embarking on an ambitious plan of exercising a lot and cutting back on the bad stuff.

I'm not cutting out sweets and booze, just cutting back. I know I don't have the willpower to cut it out entirely.

This week I've made some traction on that plan. Bike riding some days, running on others (actually running at points, not sort-of-trotting). I've been good and had no more than one alcoholic beverage, often forgoing that if I have dessert or sugary snacks at any point.

Now that I've had a few days to contemplate this, I gotta say this sucks. Still, sacrifices must be made.

Also (slowly) teaching myself JavaScript. I used to have a basic working knowledge of PERL, so certain underlying concepts are pretty easy to pick up but the book I'm using has very strict formatting requirements in its online tests, so I'm finding myself occasionally cursing.

Still, it's a good brain exercise. Managed to slam out a few chapters/tests yesterday after running and all that.

---

Finished "Rogues", the compilation of stories edited by George R.R. Martin (and someone else whose name escapes me at the moment). Has a lot of really good short stories in it, including a great Scott Lynch story, an utterly brilliant Neil Gaiman story (about the Marquis de Carabas, no less), and a truly awesome Patrick Rothfuss story. By comparison, Martin's offering is kind of weak tea, actually. A bit disappointing, but whatever works.

---

Day two of my makeshift bicycle repairs. I've found my inner-tube issues manifest after about a week of bike use, so I've a ways to go before I'm even somewhat-confident I fixed the problem.

---

This weekend starts the end of a role-playing campaign I've been running/co-running for over fifteen years. It's been keeping me up at nights trying to figure out how to finish this off properly. It's exhausting to run and part of me wants to finish it as soon as possible, while part of me wants to slow down and do it right. The years have taken their toll on players and what was once a group of eight is now down to four, so the pressure is kind of on.

I'm thinking of trying my hand at converting the campaign into actual stories (maybe novels?) at some point. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

---

Because of this:



I can no longer hear the Game of Thrones theme without hearing Peter Dinklage's name on the edge of my hearing.

This is not really a bad thing.

Review: "Tower Lord" by Anthony Ryan

The sequel to "Blood Song", "Tower Lord" continues the adventures of Vaelin Al Sorna, the swordsman who has the magical gift called the Blood Song.

The story starts off shortly after the events in the first book. Well, the latest events in the book. "Blood Song" had a tendency to jump about in time, making the narrative less-than-linear.

"Tower Lord" doesn't generally have that problem.

It's a bit hard to review this book without spoiling it, and I'm loathe to do so, but it's a solid sequel. It's a vicious story, making "Blood Song" seem like a fluffy romp through daffodils and rainbows in parts.

Unlike "Blood Song" that really only had two point-of-view protagonists (Vaelin and Verniers), "Tower Lord" splits off into what is really five distinct POV characters: Vaelin, Verniers (poor schmuck), Princess Lyrna, Frentis, and a new character.

The story is deeply fucked-up but interesting and engaging. Anthony Ryan is brilliant in his tales of victory snatched from the ashes and victories turning into ash. His villains are explored in greater detail with newer, more despicable, ones added for good measure.

Ryan's heroes are horribly-scarred people, both internally and externally, but likeable for all their flaws.

"Tower Lord" ends on some interesting notes, leaving me wondering where the next book is going. I can't wait to read it.

stuff-n-things

I'm having one of those weeks in which everything I touch seems to want to turn into a hydra of complicated mess or just turn into crap.

I still don't know why my main DVD player died. Power supply? And the second one is... fussy.

On the plus side, I got my copy of Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan yesterday. So... goooood.....

And now that it's the Third of July:



Compelling argument.

So endeth June

Monday. End of June.

• I'm hung over.
• My DVD player died for reasons I can't figure out.
• My backup DVD player does not work properly.
• Annoying amounts of bad news in email.
• Did I mention that I'm hung over?

This is Super

I have certain character traits:

• I'm afraid of needles.
• I don't like pain.
• I'm fickle.

It should therefore come as no surprise that I do not have a tattoo nor am I likely to willingly ever have a tattoo. So I am impressed beyond words when my friend Erik, who does have a tattoo... like the godfather of tattoos, really... won an award for his.

Check it out. Bet you can guess which one is his (assuming you don't read his blog and have seen the progress photos).

Kickstarter Xmas - the ZeroHour has arrived

Yeah, I get excited about the Kickstarters I back. It varies. Some I'm interested in but don't froth at the mouth over.

Then there's those that just make me jump up and down and squee like an 8-year-old on Xmas morning.

The ZeroHour Flashlight is one of those that falls in the latter category.

The Kickstarter page is here and describes the end-product better than I ever could.

In a nutshell, it's a variable flashlight (delivering 1000 - that's one thousand) lumens at its highest setting and acts as a power supply for phones, tablets, and the like.

Mine arrived over the weekend.

My shouts of joy were probably heard across the state and I'm pretty sure I have freaked out my neighbors as I play with the light's ridiculously-bright strobe function.

Initial thoughts:

• The ZeroHour is a beefy, squat light. Sits in the hand with a comfortable weight. Might be too big for someone with small hands.
• I believe non-Kickstarter purchases always come with lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged. It comes with a charger (both USB and AC), a carrying bag, a larger draw bag, a lanyard, and varying end-caps (closed cap, open cap, and - in some cases - a lanyard cap).
• The light has a nice, wide emitter dish and a burly-looking strike-bezel on the end. It's got a single Cree bulb that is blindingly-bright.

All-in-all, it's a nice light to have in a large jacket pocket or a carry bag. I'm a little wary of the light switch getting clicked accidentally in a bag, thus turning it on. I know first-hand the light gets hot if it's on for a while. Still, it hasn't happened, so I may be worrying needlessly.

Certainly I'm not leaving this thing at home. I am too enamored with my shiny new toy to be apart from it for too long.

This might be the best flashlight I've ever had.

Gettin' edgy - Sebenza 21 and the TAD Dauntless MK3

I've previously mentioned that I got my hands on a Sebenza 21. I believe I communicated my enthusiasm fairly-well.

Honestly, I figured the Sebenza 21 was going to be the last knife I was going to buy. I loved it that much.

Yeah... I wasn't convinced either.

So I was perusing one blog or another and came across mention of the TAD Dauntless. I'd seen this knife on the TAD Gear site (and in the stores) before. It's not cheap, so I'd never really given it more than passing notice.

After reading a glowing review, I grew more curious. I liked the look of it and the design.

The knife is almost always out-of-stock, so I got on a mailing list and moved on.

Then one morning I got a notification that the Dauntless MK 3 was going on sale.

I did some creative things with my schedule (it went on sale at a singularly-inconvenient time). It wasn't the best time to make a purchase like that, but I've never been one for good judgment with shiny things.

It arrived a few days later. And I found myself struggling with my undying singular loyalty to the Sebenza 21.

I've now given both time and attention by carrying them and have thoughts I will share unsolicited with the world. And pictures:



So here's the two knives folded together, side-by-side, on my indifferently-clean carpet. Yeah, you probably didn't need that last detail, did you?

Anyway, the Dauntless is a bit bigger in dimensions. Feels beefier and has a nice, solid weight. I've been undecided if I want to keep the fob on the Sebenza, but have left it in place because I'm loathe to mess with the knife in any way. It's so pretty...



And now they're opened. Note the different blade designs. The Dauntless has a cool spear-head blade. The rounded indentation towards the bottom of the blade's edge is nice for a better-controlled grip on finer use. I have to honestly say, the Sebenza came much sharper. Like ridiculously-sharp. The Dauntless has a nice edge on it, but the Sebenza is "take-a-finger-off sharp".



The Dauntless on its own. So the knife's grip is really nice. I found the opening action to be a bit sticky, though. I loosened the main screw to give it better opening action and found the screw then had a tendency to loosen too much. I disassembled the knife to grease it and tinker with it a bit. It's still a tad (hah!) fussy and there's certainly a trick to opening it one-handed, but it's improved a bit.



The Sebenza getting some solo-action now. I have to admit there's a trick to getting this one to open one-handed as well, but it's smooth going and hasn't required any tinkering on my part.

So do I have a preference? Jeez... it's hard to say. I find the Sebenza to be "prettier". It's more of a "gentleman's knife" in many ways. It's also much sharper. Its smaller size makes it less of an issue to carry in public (as much as any knife is a great idea to flourish in public). The Dauntless has a better feel to it. The size is better for my hands and I really like the grip and blade design. I wish it were a bit smoother for opening, but it seems to have found its happy place.

I'm almost-convinced I'm done now. I have the perfect pocket knives.

Almost convinced...

Gear for the Zombie-NSA apocalypse

Yeah... I struggled with that headline. In my defense, I've only had one cup of coffee.

Moving on...

So, Kickstarter's got some interesting projects underway that I wanted to give a shout-out:

• The KLAX ("It's more than just an axe"). A multi-tool detachable axe-head with a clamping system allowing you to use pretty much any chunk of wood as a handle. Depending on the model, you get options:
  • The Feller gives you a scraper on top of the basic axe function. Can serve as a hammer as well. Secured to a handle by a screw and paracord.
  • The Woodsman does the same, but has an adjustable clamp for securing to a handle.
  • The Lumberjack (cue the Monty Python song...) is where the juicy stuff is at: wrenches, hex-driver, and bottle opener beyond the scraper/hammer/axe-blade functionality. Plus it's got the adjustable clamp thingie.
  • The Ti-KLAX. A Lumberjack only in titanium. Drool.
  Use? Zombie apocalypse. Price? Not too bad unless you start looking at titanium. Then... ye gods. They're funded and more, so this is a thing.
• The Recon 6 ("World’s First 14-in-1 Adventure & Survival Recon Watch"). As the tagline says, it's a watch that can do a ton of other stuff. James Bond would swoon over this. It's got a multi-tool, a bottle opener, a little blade, a can opener, a fire-striker, a whistle, a signal mirror, a fire starter, fishing wire, magnifying glass, flashlight... and so on. And it can tell time (duh). I'm not clear if the watch is waterproof or not. Use? Zombie apocalypse. Price? Not cheap. At time of writing this post, they're still about $35K away from funding. I hope they make it.
• The Visor ("Stealth Hoodie-Face Guard Hood with Clear Vision"). From the people who made The Shield Tech Hoodie (glorious bit of garb) and The Shield Tech Jacket comes yet another hoodie from Avid Union. In a nutshell, it's a hoodie that zips up to completely obscure the face while still allowing the wearer to see out. Thus, you too can be a superhero and/or ninja while avoiding all those pesky facial-recognition-software cameras out there. Way to fight the Machine!. Use? NSA countering. Not sure if zombies will care. Price? Affordable. At time of writing this post, they're about $5K away from funding. I'm guessing they'll make it.

Review: How to Train your Dragon 2

Just came out of a late-afternoon/early-evening viewing of How to Train Your Dragon 2. In all fairness, I have three pints of tasty beer and a very well-made BLT in my belly right now, so... perspective.

This movie made me very happy. Very happy.

The movie starts five years after the first movie ended. Hiccup and friends are now in their early 20's by all accounts. Hiccup is being evasive when it comes to any responsibility and going out to goof off with his dragon.

Then stuff happens.

The plot really doesn't matter. It's kind of rocky, when you look at it, but for all that I enjoyed the film. It has some surprisingly-intense moments for a children's film (spoiler alert: someone dies). The villain is weak tea, but the dragons are kind of awesome. Plus Hiccup has a fire sword. Don't ask.

All-in-all a thoroughly-enjoyable film. I may see it again in theaters and I will definitely add it to my DVD collection when the time comes.

Two swords up!

Getting Belted

Saw this belt on Uncrate. I approve of the concept, but it makes me sad that nobody ever seems to take these fancy belts to the next level and make 'em money belts. Seriously, how hard would it be to stick a little zipper or velcro pouch in there?

Actually, kinda hard if you have no skill in sewing or alterations. I know. I've tried.

Time for the hockey mask

• It's a full moon and it's Friday the 13th.
  
  Yeah. Nothing bad can possibly happen under combined circumstances such as these.
• Now reading "Blood and Iron" by Jon Sprunk. Book one of his "Black Earth" series, it's helping me fill time until "Tower Lord" by Anthony Ryan comes out.
  
  Sprunk's novel is formulaic but the protagonist is interesting enough and the world he's built is engaging. I'm about halfway through and enjoying it fine.
• I need to figure out a way to profit from my gaming hobby. Maybe transition my attentions from game prep to actual novel writing. Given the ridiculous amount of time I dedicate to this hobby, it should be earning me some cash.
• Got a bag of dark chocolate M&Ms the other day. I was looking for dark chocolate Kit Kats. Why is it so goddamn hard to find dark chocolate Kit Kats in stores? WHY??? KHAAAAAAAAN!!!!
  
  Sure, I could go through Amazon or something, but these should be easy to buy locally! DAMNIT!!!!
• Internet Archive uploaded a bajillion Doctor Who-related books. And my e-reader is toast. This is how the universe operates. F*cking universe.

Holy damn

I have to hand it to Hayao Miyazaki. The dude could do the most amazing stuff ever in animation.

So I'm reading Nerd Approved this morning and saw a post that led to this.

A Miyazaki music video. Seven minutes of Miyazaki awesome.

And what I love best about Miyazaki's work is his effortless ability to engage my interest and lift my spirits. I got up in a crappy mood that I carried from yesterday and was expecting to sulk my way through 'till my workday was over. Now I feel... lighter. I dunno. This just really made my day.

Miyazaki-sama, you rock!

Raining Gremlin Piss

First my bike decides to develop an unhealthy appetite for inner-tubes. Now my eReader is kaput. What the hell?

Pun-tastic

Presented without further comment:

Friday and the Bike Gods

I suppose the Bike Gods are being a bit merciful this fine Friday morning. They could have given me the flat tire halfway into the office instead of a hundred yards away.

Getting home is going to be a pain in the arse today, but it could be worse.

At least it's Friday.

I need to get the damn bike into a shop to figure out what the HELL is causing all these flats!

Thoughts on the Hobbit Movies

On a whim, I re-watched The Desolation of Smaug over the weekend.

On its own merits as a fantasy story, I have to admit it's a piece of escapist glory. Bad bad-guys. Anti-heroes. Questionable or bad decisions. Fancy FX magic. Shiny things. Elf-fu. Oh, and the dragon. Gotta love the dragon.

It bears only the vaguest, loosest connection to Tolkien's work, of course. I've blathered about that before, so no need to rehash.

I just find myself amused by Jackson's tweaks and changes. He's sporting such a little crush on Legolas that it's kind of embarrassing to watch. And Tauriel is... well, suffice it to say I dread what weird slashfic Jackson's got stored away re: Legolas, Tauriel, and rock-star Dwarf (I forget the character's name).

Having seen how stupid the folk of Lake Town are portrayed in the film, I gotta say I'm really rooting for Smaug.

ugh

It's Monday.

My meeting dance-card is full.

I think I'm coming down with something.

I get to end my day with an unrelated afternoon appointment that will put me in the middle of rush hour traffic.

I've got a full tank of gas, a half pack of chewing gum, it's dark, and I'm wearing sunglasses. And I'm all out of bubblegum.

Yes, mangled two classic movie quotes just now. Because I can. And I don't smoke.

Thoughts on "Skin Game"

I got the latest Dresden Files book by Jim Butcher the other day.

Entitled "Skin Game", it's the latest chapter in the life of Harry Dresden, Chicago's private investigator/wizard.

Harry's been through some shit the last few books. Vampires. Evil wizards. Necromancers. Ghouls. Faeries. Ghosts. He's fought pretty much everything. He's obliterated an entire type of vampire. He's killed people closest to him. And he's been killed at least once.

Now he's working for an unpleasant Faerie queen.

For all that, the last few Dresden Files books have fallen into a kind of routine. We (the readers) get to hang out in Harry's head as he psychoanalyzes his various sexual hang-ups while facing down bad guys of various stripes.

It was cool for a few books, but I have to say I'm starting to get a little tired of it. One of the great things about the Dresden Files series was the slow but steady progression and growth of Harry throughout the series. It kind of feels like that's stalled in the last few books.

That or the character progression isn't doing much for me.

I guess he started losing me in "Ghost Story", but it's really come home in "Skin Game".

The plot is sort of an "Ocean's 11" heist story with no real surprises. Lots of Murphy and Harry doing the sexual-frustration dance. Lots of Harry ogling chicks. Lots of bad guys being bad. Lots of Mab the Queen of Winter being a badass. Lots of Harry mouthing off too much. Lots of Harry getting googly-eyed over his daughter.

Yawn.

I dunno. I guess I'm just expecting more after so many books echoing this theme. There was a neat part when we got a new Knight of the Swords (read the series if you don't know to what I refer) but even that was kind of... I dunno. Tepid. Just lacked punch.

I am given to understand Butcher plans on about 20 Dresden books. I still plan to read them all. Butcher's prose is fun and easy to follow. I do enjoy his books, but I have to say they're falling into kind of a dull pattern now. I'm a tiny bit disappointed.