Category: Personal

Stuff about me or my family.

Superman Returns Rocked

Movies, Personal
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blastr LogoIn Not Guilty: Superman Returns revisited, blastr.com’s Cher Martinetti expands on a point I’ve been making for years: “Superman Returns” [IMDB] rocked. While I normally prefer to defend the position by suggesting opponents lack the ability to find their elbows with both hands, Cher has decided to present well-constructed arguments instead.

I agree with every point she makes. The movie was a delicate homage and spiritual climax to Richard Donner’s 1978 classic, “Superman” [IMDB] and his sadly marred vision for “Superman II” [IMDB] (which was only realized partially decades later with his labor-of-love, special edition, “Superman II: Richard Donner Cut” [IMDB]). It also does the world a favor by completely ignoring the existence of “Superman 3” and “Superman 4: The Quest for Peace” (sorry, folks: I won’t even link to them).

The three movies together, “Superman”, “Superman II: Richard Donner Cut” and “Superman Returns” perfectly transition Superman across multiple generations. I was eight years-old when I first saw “Superman” in the theater and my son was eight years-old when I took him to see “Superman Returns”. I was thrilled to be able to share Superman with him. Not a “reimagining” or an “interpretation” but – essentially – the same Superman that had made such an impact on me.

I’m not against change. I loved “Man of Steel” [My Review] and I’m looking forward to seeing more of our new Superman. Still, I’ll always be thankful to “Superman Returns” for allowing me to share a new adventure of my Superman with my son.

Wired Presents the Oral History of MST3K

Personal
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Wired_MST3kUntil somebody is smart enough to do a real, professional documentary of Mystery Science Theater 3000 Brian Raftery of Wired has us covered in his extensive “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Definitive Oral History of a TV Masterpiece“.

15 years after its depressing cancellation MST3K remains a perennial fan favorite. To call it “cult” undercuts its quiet, but massive, impact it had. Minute-for-minute no other show, before or since, has provided the sheer density of hilarity. We’ve had the pleasure of seeing Joel Hodgson speak about the origins of his particular brand of riffing and, if possible, left with even more respect for his understated genius.

This is an absolute must read for fans.

Boiled Eggs and Brain Eaters 2014!

Personal
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BEBE Logo_TransToBlackIt really snuck up on us, but Boiled Eggs and Brain Eaters (BEBE),our Easter celebration of everything zombie, is less a week away! April 20th!

We’ll be spending most of the week and all day Sunday on our sister blog, MoreBrains.com. If you’re into zombies, why not join us?

Well be doing another batch of zombie cookies and likely have another go at an undead bunny cake. Of course there’ll be plenty of boiled eggs, movies and games also on the menu!

BEBE was started in 2009 and is something our family always looks forward too. If the reanimated corpses of the recently deceased can’t bring us closer together then, truly, what good are they?

Tabletop Day!

Personal
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tabletopdaylogoToday, April 5th, is International Tabletop Day!

It’s an easy day to observe: just get together with people you like (or people you might like) and play some games.  Old-fashioned cardboard and plastic, look-each-other-in-the-eye games.

Everybody has a game or twenty tucked in a closet or stuck up on shelves.  Get them out!  Better yet go to your local game shop and ask about the hundreds of awesome independent games available.  Whether you have kids or not, five minutes or five hours, want to think really hard or not at all there’s a game out there that’s perfect.  Go find it!

Gotta Love the Science Guy!

Personal
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Here’s a wonderful look at how Bill Nye became “The Science Guy”. I love science and people like Bill, Don Herbert (“Mr. Wizard“) and Paul Zaloom (“Beakman’s World“) are much of the reason why. They nutured that love early on and then handed me off gently to the likes of Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov.

These guys don’t just teach science, they transmit it, like a glorious infection. You can tell that, even if nobody was watching, they’d still be out there, on some street corner, talking about how gravity works. Just because it’s so damn cool that they can’t keep it to themselves.

Personal Archaeology: Virtual Reality, 1995 Style

Gaming, Personal
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Virtually Wired 1995, Virtuality 2000With the simmering success of the Occulus Rift, Sony’s announcement of their “Project Morpheus” device for the PS4 and persistent rumors that Microsoft is doing something similar for the XBox One this definitely seems to be the year when head-mounted VR will make its push into our living rooms. What people forget is that this is far from the first time that this has been promised.

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500 Posts! Hooray for Arbitrary Numbers!

Personal
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The last post was the 500th at DepressedPress.com. A long time ago I completed my 10th post on this site, but 500 is, like, 50 times that. So, yay for me and the decimal system, I guess.

Over the past three years I’ve posted 388 movie reviews, 33 game reviews, a mess of JavaScript and a whole lotta random nonsense. It’s kept me off the street and away from my kids and that’ll all I ever wanted. Thanks, website!

ESO Dagger Mounted in Style!

Personal
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Greatness Awaits ESO DaggerAs I posted about before, I won part of the PlayStation 4 “Greatness Awaits” contest. In a stroke of pure-freakin’-genius this contest allowed fans to leverage their gold trophies as entries to win props from the awesome “Perfect Day” PS4 commercial. I won the Dagger from the Elder Scrolls Online segment.

The dagger, based on designs by Bethesda and ZeniMax Online Studios, looked awesome but wasn’t very “presentational” so I spent the last couple of weeks creating a suitable display plaque inspired by those in the “Hearthfire” add-in in “Skyrim”. (Here’s hoping the design is reused for Elder Scrolls Online!)

I’m extremely pleased with the results. I’ll be posting more images and a project walk-through soon, but for now I’m happy to simply present the final product. I was also lucky enough to be a beta participant for Elder Scrolls Online (on the PC) and while I can’t offer specifics, I am enjoying myself! Here’s hoping I’ll be able to use a virtual version of my actual dagger at some point!

Stupid Arguments for Pedantic People: America

Rants
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American FlagThere are certain causes, certain arguments, that certain people hold very deeply, very truly.  Causes that every single other person on earth simply can’t bring themselves to care about.  It’s not that other people are ill-equipped or unable to understand the issue.  It’s specifically that the issue simply doesn’t have a single valid impact on… anything.

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