Review: The "Man Ring 2.0"

So I've mentioned "The Man Ring" (titanium utility ring) before. It's been a fixture on my hand for the last couple of years without fail. I've taken it overseas and every other damn place. And looooooved it.

Not too long ago, I learned that Boone Titanium Rings came out with a version 2 of their "Man Ring". After looking over the site, I just had to have it.

My V2.0 ring arrived the day after Thanksgiving, lifting my spirits as I lounged about my apartment, coughing up a lung and otherwise being a vector of terrible disease.

I have to say, the folks at Boone Titanium Rings really did a great job upgrading this.

The V2.0 ring boasts of fewer bits that fold out, but those that do are better-situated to work as advertised.

Instead of six little tools that fold out from the V1.0 ring, the V2.0 ring has four parts: a tiny blade (made of titanium, so not super-sharp, but good enough to open a box), a tiny comb, and two tiny saws with slightly different tooth arrangements. All of the tools extend out a good 270 degrees from closed instead of 90 degrees in the V1.0 ring, making them a bit more practical (such as tiny tools are ever practical). And when you pull all the little tool bits open, you have a little claw-like indentation in the ring's body that is a very practical bottle opener.

I look forward to my recovery so I can practice opening a beer with the new toy.

The V2.0 ring is a bit more slender than the V1.0 ring and the indentation for the bottle opener calls more attention to the tools, making them somewhat less-discrete when closed, but it's hardly an issue.

The "Man Ring 2.0" is awesome. I am giddy.

Review: "Heaven Sent"

When we last left the Doctor, something terrible had happened. Just as he has a moment to posture and pose, he's teleported...

And we get to "Heaven Sent". Spoilers.

















































You were warned.









The Doctor appears in a chamber just after some hapless, smouldering bloke collapses to the ground and turns to ash, leaving a single word drawn in the dust: "Bird".

The Doctor finds himself in a strange castle surrounded by a seemingly endless sea. In most of the chambers of the castle is a monitor. From the monitor, the Doctor can see the castle from the perspective of the other inhabitant: a shambling, shrouded, fly-encrusted creature with claw-like hands that slowly, inexorably follows him. It's conjured from his darkest nightmares so he's got good reason to haul ass and get away from it.

After some cat-and-mouse, he learns that he can make the creature freeze by confessing a secret.

The Doctor quickly divines that he's being interrogated. After an involved internal lecture to the now-deceased Clara, he puzzles his way through to the exit from the chamber: a wall of some diamond-like substance. To open it, he simply must confess his arbitrary dark secret of the season, what he knows of "the Hybrid."

If you haven't been paying attention, "the Hybrid" is the Moffant McGuffin of the season. Some kind of creature, presumed to be half Time Lord and half Dalek that will destroy Gallifrey or something.

You know? Don't ask. It's a Moffatt thing and is probably best ignored.

Anyway, the Doctor refuses to reveal the whole Hybrid thing (or admit it's really about these fancy cars he developed on Earth or something). He lets the creature kill him but he doesn't die immediately. He slowly dies and claws his way back to the teleport chamber. He figures out the teleport thingie has a backup of him somewhere. He does Doctor-finagling and reboots himself by vaporizing himself, which is how the episode started.

Turns out that "Bird" refers to the story of the bird that pecked its way through a mountain or something similarly-silly. The comparison here is that the Doctor is slowly, one incarnation at at a time, punching his way through the super-diamond wall somehow over a billion years or two.

Yeah.

Okay, so he finally gets through. The creature disintegrates as the door is open and the Doctor exits to find out he was in his Confession Dial, the other McGuffin thingie that's been a season-theme.

And he's popped out on Gallifrey.

Oh, and he claims he's the Hybrid.

So... yeah. As an exercise in watching Capaldi do his thing, I enjoyed the episode. I can gloss over the logistical issues of flesh-and-blood eventually punching through a wall harder than diamond. He's a Time Lord. Whatever works.

Overall, I'm super-tired of these ridiculous and stupid story arcs that Moffatt dreams up. The whole constant deconstruction of the Doctor thing he does really poisons the show for me.

And I'd be willing to deal with it if his deconstructions weren't such utter rubbish.

This whole Hybrid thing came out of nowhere and is just very... um... stupid.

I mean, if you're going to deal with why the Doctor left Gallifrey, it seems to me anyone who has watched the show would take cues from the very beginning of the show.

The Doctor and his granddaughter, Susan, stole a TARDIS (she claimed to have created the name, so arrogance runs in the family, I expect). It's implied they fled some trouble from their home but it wasn't explored until much later. Largely 'cause they didn't have a concept of Time Lords until the Second Doctor's era.

So, back to history: why make up arbitrary bullshit reasons for the Doctor's exit? We know he had at least one child, and presumably a spouse. It's been stated that he's lost family - presumably all of them - at some point. If he was popping off with his granddaughter, one can assume his children, and probably his spouse, were dead.

Instead of going into ridiculous prophesies, why not simply explore how his spouse and children died? Why did the Doctor skip off Gallifrey with his granddaughter instead of just raising her on their homeworld?

Given that the Doctor was in his first incarnation when he skipped out, and how long Time Lords live, I'm curious how he had grandchildren. He must've been a horn-dog by Time Lord standards, but that's neither here nor there.

Oh well. Next week is the end of another lackluster season of Moffatt's reign. Sigh.

Giving Thanks

I am not a "glass is half full" kinda guy, by nature.

I'm inclined to whine and moan at pretty much every little paper cut and bump that comes across my path. It's part of who I am and I'm comfortable with that.

Still, every now and again, I get this weird sense of perspective.

So this Thanksgiving has not been my best. I started it with a fever going into Tuesday night. I spent all Wednesday before Thanksgiving coughing up a lung, shivering, and generally being miserable. Had a fever again going to sleep that night. A tag-team combination of Nyquil and Afrin let me breathe and sleep. The fever broke Thanksgiving morning and the cough was pretty loose with added medications to help it out.

Then I developed an eye infection over the day. I spent part of yesterday at Kaiser to get antibiotics while the cough stubbornly lingers. And my apartment's thermostat is hosed.

You'd think I'd be pretty upset, but all said, I'm finding myself pretty blase about the whole matter. I got to have Thanksgiving with my family. I even baked a pie (which hopefully was baked germ-free) that was well-received. I'd already been planning on lounging around my apartment and web-surfing/online-Xmas-shopping and watching movies. Nothing changed there except I took booze out of the equation.

Just as well, really.

I've thrown on an extra sweater and busted out a portable heater, so it's not unbearably-cold in my apartment. I was even home for the delivery of some eagerly-awaited packages, which made me a bit giddy.

I've also now re-watched Buckaroo Banzai: Adventures Across the Eighth Dimension and watched season one of "Star Wars: Rebels" as well as the extended-cut of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. (Tip: The Hobbit movies do not appreciably improve with the extended versions, but there's enough in there that if you're going to sit through these, you may as well get the extended bits and turn it into a drinking game.)

While dealing with ailments, I've had two close friends deliver personal news on their behalf that's certainly made me disinclined to whine too much about my own state of affairs.

I'm not sure what my point is to this post, I suppose. It's trite to say "it could always be worse". True, but trite. Still, it's true enough. I'm certainly grateful for all that I have. I'd be grateful if these ailments would leave so I can enjoy ale again, but that's just being whiny.

Rebel Cry

With all the buzz over the new Star Wars film coming up in December, I've looked at the trailers and read the speculation and felt... nothing. The magic is gone. I feel exactly no thrill or excitement over the upcoming Disney-J.J. Abrams take on the next chapter of the Star Wars saga.

Lens flare nonsense aside, I don't blame J.J. Abrams too much. He likes to build up his mysteries to a ridiculous degree, but I'm mostly okay with that. And Disney, well I'll get to that.

It's not the lack of Lucas that has me apathetic, that's for sure. In fact, I think it's probably a reaction to just how bad the prequel stories were than I can't find myself caring about Episode VII.

I was largely ready to give up on Star Wars altogether.

Then I came across "Star Wars: Rebels".

An animated offering in the manner of the animated "Clone Wars" saga, "Rebels" is a Disney offering that means to bridge the gap between the abomination that was Episode III and the glory of Episode IV.

While "Clone Wars" gave depth and characterization to the travesties that were Episodes II and IIII, "Rebels" truly gives a fantastic picture of an established Galactic Empire slowly delivering a stranglehold on the galaxy.

It's not without its tropes, mind you. "Rebels" stars a rag-tag crew of misfits in a Millennium Falcon knockoff ship called Ghost that's more space pirate than anything.

The story centers around six characters in the crew:

• Ezra Bridger - our obligatory rising hero/teenager of a Disney-vein. He has the Force and the potential to become a powerful Jedi (making the whole Luke Skywalker story all the more into a bitter lie). Living on the streets since he was 7, he's the son of parents who spoke out against the Empire and disappeared. He is armed with an energy slingshot and a smart-ass attitude. Yet for all that, not nearly as annoying as one might expect.
• Kanan Jarrus - a Jedi who escaped Order 66 as a Padawan, Kanan looks like a bounty hunter with his shoulder-and-arm armor. He sports a pony-tail, a blaster, and a lightsaber that's made of two parts to conceal better. He's part Han Solo, part Obi-Wan, and part what Anakin Skywalker should have been if he weren't such a whiny shit. He's the leader of the rebel team.
• Hera Syndulla - a Twi'lek (tentacle-head person) and captain as well as owner of the Ghost. She's effectively the center of the team and the voice of reason. She and Kanan seem to have a little thing going on. She also knows about other rebel cells.
• Sabine Wren - a Mandalorian (think a female Boba Fett) with an artistic manner that expresses in bright colors (both on her armor and in her "tagging" efforts) and in bright explosions. Definitely a fanboy fantasy made real, but she works out surprisingly-well and is an excellent character. Also serves as the tolerant object of Ezra's puppy-dog crush. Poor lad.
• Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios - A Lasat, part of a race made nearly-extinct by the Empire due to an early failed uprising. Apparently Zeb is modeled on the early character sketches of Chewbacca, which I find interesting. More interesting than his faux-Aussie accent.
• C1-10P (aka "Chopper") - based on the early art for R2-D2, he's a temperamental droid made up of spare parts and attitude.

Together they fight stormtroopers, elite Imperials, and your obligatory dark Force-users. Since there can only be two Sith (for reasons), there's other Dark Side users called "Inquisitors" (again, for reasons) who are somehow not Sith. Don't ask. Doesn't really matter.

I've just burned through season one and I have to say "Rebels" was far and above better - story-wise - than the entirety of the prequels. Great stuff. I highly-recommend it for Star Wars fans.

Review: "Hear the Raven"

Huh.

The first episode of Doctor Who since the Eighties to...

Spoilers.





























Still there?



Yeah. So that's it. No more Clara Oswald.

What happened? The Doctor and Clara are on the TARDIS. They get a call from Rigsby, an old friend from last season. Turns out he's got a tattoo counting down on his neck. They arrive and find out he's got some kind of "Quantum something-or-other" on him. Long story short: he's gonna die and aliens are going to kill him.

The investigation leads to a "trap street", a hidden street with aliens living on it. The aliens are under the protection of Ashilda, our immortal Viking woman who is the one who put the tattoo on Rigsby for killing an alien woman.

While the Doctor and Clara poke about, they find out that the tattoo countdown invokes some kind of alien spirit that takes the form of a raven. When the time is up, it kills the tattoo holder. The tattoo can be passed along if both parties are willing, but someone dies.

Clara manages to persuade Rigsby (a new father) to pass the tattoo to her, thinking she'll be safe as Ashilda has guaranteed her safety.

The investigation finds that the alien woman Rigsby allegedly killed is actually alive in stasis. The whole thing is a trap to get the Doctor in place so a teleport bracelet can be put on him for some nefarious purpose. Ashilda turns out to be behind it as a plan to save the alien street.

Then everyone finds out Clara did a tattoo switch. It seems that prevents Ashilda from having any control over the situation and revoking the death sentence. It's implied Ashilda was planning to let the raven kill her to spare Rigsby after the trap was sprung, but Clara has inexplicably cut Ashilda out of the deal somehow.

We then get several minutes of meaningful looks and good-byes before - yes - Clara dies. On screen, no less.

The Doctor is then teleported away, but not before warning Ashilda that he's pissed and she'd best stay out of his way.

The episode ends with the TARDIS marked up in with a pic of Clara and some artwork.

So, yeah. First Companion killed onscreen (permanently) since Adric was killed in "Earthshock". Can't say I'm sorry to see Clara go. She was a vague character that never really found her voice or point in the series. I've heard folks describe her as a "manic pixie girl", and that label fits. She was a sort of Mary Sue (though not quite as bad as River Song) and annoying as a result.

Overall, the episode felt rough, clunky, and excessively contrived. The whole thing was obviously too much of a "part one" of a continued story and Clara's death felt silly and anticlimactic. I expected more somehow.

So yeah. I'm chalking this episode up as weak tea.

Review: Fidelis Co - Alcon Backpack and GTG Duffle Bag

Back when I was still supporting Kickstarter projects, one gained my attention and intrigued me: the GTG Duffle Bag by Fidelis co.

I was expecting to do some weekend traveling at the time and needed a good day bag. The description intrigued me. I figured if it didn't come in time for my planned trip, I'd have another "go bag" to use.

It came in time (a rare Kickstarter indeed) and I made use of it. It worked out perfectly. Had plenty of room, was sturdy, comfortable on my back, and made a perfect airplane carry-on.

Time passed and I continued to commute on BART for work. From time-to-time I have to lug a work laptop around and my normal messenger bags were starting to put a strain on my back. Fidelis, at that time, had sent Kickstarter backers some coupon code or something for their site opening.

Curious, I browsed and saw what I'd forgotten from their Kickstarter offering: they have a backpack. The Alcon Backpack, to be precise.

Moments later, I had an order in. A week after that, I had a parcel at my doorstep (well, at my office, but I quibble).

So I have a lot of bags. The Alcon is easily my favorite backpack and my current commuter bag. It's sturdy, rides well on my back, has comfortable shoulder straps, and has an interesting feature: a hood built in for rainy weather. The flap has a zipper to access the interior (and pull out the hood). The locking mechanism for the flap is very solid and satisfying.

The bag has another interesting feature: one side is a strip that can take Velcro patches. They sell accessory pockets (for example) that one can place on the side of the bag. These pockets aren't flimsy material. They're on pretty solid and would be noticeable if someone thought to pull a pocket off.

I have to say, Fidelis Co. is an impressive company that makes some damn fine bags. I intend to watch them for future offerings and should I need another bag, they're likely going to be my first stop on any search I conduct.

Review: "Sleep No More"

Wow. As "Doctor Who" episodes go, this one was a special brand of WTF.

Spoilers follow. Blah-blah.
















































You were warned.













Okay, so the episode is done in a "found footage" format. No opening credits (first time ever). Narrated by some bespectacled wonk, it plays as shown from various camera angles starting with a crew of four soldiers coming to a space station that's gone quiet. As cliche soldiers go, they're pretty standard: there's the young female captain, the younger mouthy political wonk, the jokester, and the genetically-modified killing machine who happens to have a bit of a crush on the young mouthy wonk.

They get on the station and go through the motions of looking at the poorly-lit surroundings with flashlights.

In grand tradition, they stumble across the Doctor and Clara. There's a moment of guns pointing then the Doctor does the psychic paper thing and everyone is friends.

Then they're attacked by weird lumpy humanoids that growl a lot.

They're separated from jokester guy who later gets killed.

The main group finds a lab with a bunch of pods. Clara gets sucked into one and we all find out that the pods are "Morpheus", a technology that lets you go without sleep. Mouthy wonk guy is proud that he doesn't use it but the captain does, as does so many people back home on Titan.

I'm flashing to "Titan Maximum" as I read that. God I miss that show. Sorry. Going on...

So they find in one of the pods the bespectacled wonk who is narrating. Turns out he's hiding from the monsters in the pods. He's also the guy who created Morpheus.

In a scuffle with the monsters, the group got a part of an arm. Turns out the monsters turn to dust easily. The Doctor analyzes the dust and finds out it's eye-gunk from when you wake up in the morning.

Ew.

Turns out the monsters are made up of eye gunk. Ponder that.

Okay, so there's another attack. Bespectacled guy is apparently eaten by one of the monsters and the group is divided again. Genetic killing machine and mouthy political guy go off in one direction while the Doctor, Clara, and the soldier captain go off in another. There's shenanigans. Killing machine sacrifices himself to save his crush: mouthy political guy, but that guy gets killed a few minutes later.

Meanwhile the Doctor works out that there's actually no cameras anywhere. Not on the soldiers' helmets. Not on the station. Nowhere. Turns out the "found footage" is coming from dust mites of sentient eye gunk that are eating people.

Ponder that for a moment.

Okay, move on.

Turns out bespectacled guy is alive and in-league with the monsters. He's trying to smuggle a creature to Titan to spore and infect all humanity.

He gets shot by the captain, then there's a scuffle with monsters. They flee back to the TARDIS but are cut off. The Doctor performs sonic sunglasses wizardry and destroys the "gravity shields" that are keeping the station in orbit around... oh crap, I forget. Neptune? Doesn't matter.

The creatures are crushed by the increasing gravity and turn to dust. The Doctor, Clara, and soldier-girl get in the TARDIS and flee to safety, planning to go to Titan to destroy all the Morpheus machines causing the creatures to exist.

Then we cut to the footage. Turns out bespectacled wonk is still alive. And he's actually an eye-gunk shell and has been all along. The "found footage" includes an electronic signal (blipped on screen) to infect anyone who watches.

Yup. That's you, audience.

And that's sort of it. I guess everyone dies "Ringu" style"? I... I really don't understand what that ending was all about.

Honestly, the best part of the entire episode towards the last quarter when the Doctor started going on about how nothing that was going on made any sense.

Way to break the fourth wall, Doctor!

I can't tell if this is a two-parter with the next episode. It doesn't appear related in the trailer.

So... yeah. This was sort of a waste of time. Nice mood and ambiance (for "found footage", a trope I truly hate), but a complete and utter failure in plot.

Review: "The Zygon Invasion"

So we get to the two-parter known as "The Zygon Invasion" for Doctor Who. Spoilers. Usual caveats apply. Etc.
















































































Still there? You were warned.







Part one starts off with fighting happening in some unknown place. Fleeing from the fighting is a familiar face: Osgood from U.N.I.T., the Doctor's number one fan-girl. This is, of course, a bit confusing as we saw her get vaporized by "Missy" in last season, but it turns out that there's been two Osgoods since the events of "The Day of the Doctor". One Zygon and one Human. Nobody knows which is which and the Osgoods have been in charge of keeping the peace in the truce between Humans and the Zygons who live in-secret amongst us.

It turns out that a splinter group of Zygons has broken the peace, wanting to live as Zygons and not shapeshifted into humans. So they want "the Osgood Box", some MacGuffin that can be used to end the cease-fire somehow. So they captured Osgood and interrogated her, but not before she was able to send off an SOS to the Doctor.

Meanwhile, Clara finds something amiss in her apartment building and gets snatched by Zygons and replaced.

The Doctor comes and meets with U.N.I.T. and Clara. He wants to talk to the splinter group and negotiate. Kate wants to use some nerve gas Harry Sullivan made to kill Zygons but the Doctor stole. There's a lot of tension.

Clara (secretly a Zygon) and a U.N.I.T. flunky do investigation in London on weird disappearances of people while Kate goes to New Mexico to investigate where Osgood disappeared. The Doctor goes to Turkmanistan to where the renegade Zygons had a training camp.

There is a lot of paranoia resulting in a lot of dead U.N.I.T. people. Clara is revealed as a Zygon before she kills all the U.N.I.T. redshirts with her. Kate is cornered by a Zygon and the Doctor is on a plane returning to the UK when Zygon-Clara calls him to say Clara is dead just before she fires a missile at his plane.



Part two starts off where the cliffhanger ended. Turns out Clara is alive and in a Zygon pod. Being a Mary Sue, Clara is able to use her special Clara mind-powers to influence the Zygon holding her shape and interfere with Zygon-Clara's assassination of the Doctor... mostly. The Zygon-Clara still blows up the plane, but the Doctor and a rescued Osgood (retrieved in the prior episode) escape to safety. Presumably the pilot is killed, but no mention is made either way. Kind of cold, really.

So Zygon-Clara finds out that her interrogation of Osgood does not get her the "Osgood Box" that she believes to be a device to force all Zygons to assume their true form, forcing war between Zygons and Humans.

Frustrated, she goes to Clara's pod and mind-melds with Clara to interrogate her. Turns out Clara knows where the "Osgood Box" is. It's in the Black Archive (from "The Day of the Doctor"). Zygon-Clara meets with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart who returns from New Mexico, apparently replaced by a Zygon.

Zygon-Clara takes Clara's pod with her and they jaunt off to the Black Archive. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Osgood have a bit of banter. The usual thing with the Doctor rambling on (he claims his first name is "Basil", for what it's worth). He wants to know if Osgood is Human or Zygon and she's not telling.

Everything comes to a head in the Black Archive where Zygon-Clara finds out there are two Osgood Boxes, each with two buttons. The Doctor comes on-scene, as does Kate. We get a reenactment of the show-down from "Day of the Doctor" only with these boxes. The Doctor claims one will either release the Zygon-killing nerve gas or detonate the nuke under the Black Archive, depending on which button is pressed. The other one will either force the Zygons into their true form or disable their shapeshifting, turning them pure human forever.

There's a lengthy bit of speeches in which the Doctor tries to convince Kate and Zygon-Clara not to press the buttons. He talks about his role in the Time War and the terrible consequences. It's pretty much the same fare that's been rehashed since 2005, so nothing new there. In an interesting turn of events, his speech works. Kate closes the box, buttons un-pressed. Zygon-Clara is reluctant, but finally agrees to not press the buttons.

Turns out the boxes are fakes. They don't do anything.

The Doctor wipes everyone's memory save for Osgood, Clara, and Zygon-Clara. Turns out this is the fifteenth time this showdown has happened.

Zygon-Clara takes the place of the missing Osgood. The Doctor and Clara jaunt off in the TARDIS. The Osgoods go off for ice cream.



The summary makes this story sound ridiculous and stupid, but I have to say I enjoyed it. The paranoia of the episodes was well-done and the threat was kind of cool. The villain being a splinter group of idiot children was a nice twist. And it was especially-nice that the Doctor's preaching found an audience for a change. Overall, it was pretty enjoyable.

EDIT: so there are a few points that bugged me in this episode:

• Why did the Doctor keep asking Osgood if she was human or Zygon? What did it matter?
• Mary-Sue-ness aside, how is Clara able to perform her bit of psychic mojo against the Zygons?
• Why do they keep portraying Kate Lethbridge-Stewart as borderline bloodthirsty? I thought she was supposed to be more "science" and less "guns".

Review: "Spectre"

Saw Spectre on opening night for the US last night.

In the words of one of my UK friends, it was "Spectre-actular". And I have to agree with her.

Taking place after the events in Skyfall, James Bond finds himself in the midst of yet another super-conspiracy, only this one leads to the evil organization that all Bond long-time fans know of: S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

I loved the film. It was reasonably fast-paced, with solid action and fun. Bond's crew (M, Q, Moneypenny, etc.) got to have some fun this time around and the movie had some familiar faces, especially Andrew Scott (who plays Moriarty on the "Sherlock" series).

Probably my favorite was Léa Seydoux, the "Bond girl". She was a good mix of smart, tough, sexy, vulnerable, and... well... um... sexy. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't totally in-love with her. Well, in-lust. Wait. Where was I?

Oh yes, Spectre. The buzz is that Daniel Craig wants to step down from playing Bond. Certainly this will make a good swan-song, for him.