Geekomon

Saikano- Lots of death, with tragic romances left and right. I'm not a romantic buff but children screaming/dying is always emotionally great and makes for good watching.
I'm really enjoying this. Surprisingly good.

Mushishi- Relatively new anime. So far, I can safely say that this will either be episodically sucky or super great. The animation is great and so is the Mushi/spirit mythology. Japanese X-files only with Nature as magic. Don't know whether this is great but the stories so far are interesting and varied. Then again, this could be another Hundred Stories which was a huge dissapointment.

Blood+A different spin on Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossed with Brian Lumley crossed with Vampire Hunter D set in modern times. Eh. It's not a great anime. it's not a bad one either. Just not interesting enough. It's a vampire hunting girl. The premise isn't rocket science, you know? No mythology whatsoever. I would stop watching this except the art is pretty good. Morphing biomass vampire flesh is great.

Shakugan no ShanaVery very promising. Stephen King's Langoliers mixed with a little Noein and a little nihilism. Shonen. But good Shonen. The first 3 episodes are very good but then again, you have to be careful with Shonen. They usually start sucking at episode 20. Not every shonen can be Future Boy Conan.

Okay. Here it goes.

Surface from NBC studios maybe a drama that rivals Lost. Wait. In some ways it's a helluva lot better than lost. Here's a synopsis of what happened so far:

-Free Willy Story with the Killer Dolphin being a baby monster
-New Species that swims in Lava
-Scientists that discover the Monster's secret gets Offed by Government.
-Enter heroic civilians who, thru fate, forced into a corner with nowhere to go, must prove the existence of the Subterranean monsters.

All these stories are entertwined, too. In a meaningful way. Masterful storytelling even.

The characters aren't Kate Moss gorgeous but then again, they don't sniff cocaine. They grow on you.
In fact, they GROW. Wax heroic even. To the point where they look damn fine.

I've just finished 6 episodes of Surface, and I find myself trying to catch it on TV.

Now that's allure.

Did I mention that the producer is David Greenwalt? Produced Angel, Buff, worked with Joss Whedon. I knew there was a reason why Surface was so unusually good. If David Greenwalt doesnt gain success with Surface, it would really be a damn shame.

Because if Microsoft was good, software technology would be far greater than what it is now.

If you look at the hardware side of things, everyone's moving forward, getting low power chips out, advancing both RISC and CISC architecture, and getting ready for Beehive computing.

If you look at Windows, you get nothin'. Even the stuff that's coming down the pipes don't seem to sync with the future.

Look at the markets. Food. RFID. Army. Friend and Foe recognitions systems. AEGIS. Google Earth. Japan. Robots.

What links all these technologies together? They all need object recognition. Software that can do spatial mathetmatics. Calculate the distance their looking at, while taking in perspective.

Here's what I mean, say your on a desert road. How does the highway look to you? does it seem narrower farther away? Sure? But is it really narrower? No! The road is standard width.

I don't really care about voice recognition. Not to mention it's so hard.
Object recognition is doable and 10x more important.

After all, I can see you before I can hear you. Unless your behind a corner. Yeah yeah. Screw you too.

zdnet link

Jesus frackkin christ. Read the article. Or not. It's kinda dense. Let me sum it up for you. They think that Africa's barrier to the Information Age is directly tied to the lack of expertise and not the high cost of software.

Now, any government competing globally needs FASTNESS. In everything. Roads, information. Now, who builds, owns, levys and traffics the highway infrastructure?

The Government.

Now who builds the system, maintains, structures, the information?

I hope to god Africa is smart enough to use Open Source Software to do their smartjumping to the Information Age. How are you going to give U.S. the finger when an U.S. company owns your computational power?

Have you ever read Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep?

Africa, be careful of the High Beyond and the recipes you find. Powers are rarely friendly.

I've got to hand it to Smallville Season 5. It's actually getting better! And it only took them 5 years to do it!

Although, I have to say this:



Does this guy look like Aquaman to you? I'm not judging his face or anything--god knows I can't tell a horse from a mule--but there's something not right about him. Ever seen the movie Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carrey? They must go to the same hair salon.

Ugh.

I just finished tiki bar video podcasts which is like a Children's Show--except it teaches you how to mix drinks.

But IT's also funny as fucking hell. And Lala is hot.

Off the top of my head, they teach how to make a Trapdoor, a Margarita, and a Something.

Margarita
Shaker with ice with 2 half wedges of squeezed lime.
2 oz Gold Tequila
.5 oz White Tequila
3 oz Lemon Cordial
.5 oz Triple Sec
splash of Orange Curacao.

Serve cold and with salt.
One way to remember drinks is to categorize them. Have a tree where you have group tequila drinks, gin and rum drinks, and straight up drinks with a column for drinks that are served cold.

There's a simple one they made that consisted of 2 oz scotch, 2 oz brandy, and 5 oz of lemon juice. Fucking gets you wasted mad quick.

It's good to test out the memory once in a while.

Itunes link: tiki bar podcast

Thanks to Adam at MACCAST.COM for introducing this great vidcast their podcast.

First of all, I'd like to say that UXM written by Vaughn sucks. I don't have any reason. Actually I have several, but they'll all seem weird.

Maybe it's because I can't remember a single Vaughn plot in UXM.
Or maybe it's because it's an endless parade of new characters who are not that different from 616 Marvel. Or maybe because the whole book forgot it's general theme.

For someone who wrote Runaways, Y The Last Man, and Ex Machina, how could he write such utter shit? I'm thinking that it's a mandate from editorial. If that's the case, I don't think Mr. Replacement Kirkman will fare any better.

Come on. Bring back the novel concepts. Divergent histories. And stop using a single style. The early issues of UXM had really interesting art. From cell shading to semi-realistic to plastic.

Gorsh. This is why I don't recommend comics to friends. The quality always turns to shit after a while.

Here's a flash movie summarizing The Shining movie. (jack nicholson stephen king? you know.)

Only it's in 30 seconds.
Only it's reenacted by bunnies.

HERE, don't say i never gave you jack.

HERE's another one.

Caveat Emptor: All these books are relatively new. So take it in context that I can only judge them by what's out.

Northwest Passage #1- Good stuff. English exploration stuff. Reminds me of Scott Card's Hatrack River coupled with a lot of Lewis and Clark. The best part of the book was the Hero's oratory on complacency and how the Company was in a rut because it wasn't exploring anymore. Success and safety builds complacency. Complacency means: Tortoise wins. Very good theme. Also, many parallel subplots, which means: Good story. Very Promising.

HoM - after reading all 7 issues of this mini, i can safely say that i'm underwhelmed. Totally underwhelmed. It's this Chaos Magic premise that's insane. The whole Marvel mutant world is built on the tension between humans and mutants. If you are going to destroy 96 percent of the mutants in the world, would'nt it be better if the USA declared war on these folk? Internment camps, furnaces, etc etc. That's a helluva lot more believable than chaos magic. No one likes Deus Ex Machinas. Bendis is still a good writer/director/framer but this Marvel megaevent is nothing but a stopgap response to Identiy Crisis. Marvel is good because it lets its writers have more power than the editors. That = better stories than DC. I hope they return to their bread and butter. Having said that, the writing is still pretty sharp. Interesting characters, good art, nicely organized panelling-->Doesnt matter how pretty your pig smells. It's still a pig.

Infinite Crisis #1 - Death, war, shit hitting the fan. I don't really know everything that's going on but hey, physical war and death of superheroes is awesome. Plus the Lex thing is awesome. DC is suppose to be about grand, sweeping, Dragonball style epics. Their superheroes are built with too much power to support any other type of story. IC #1 epitomizes all that is good about DC.
Unlike Worlds at War, the deaths in IC1 are graphic, and brutal. Realistic. Did I mention how stupid Worlds at War was?

Villains United - Possibly the only Countdown mini worthy of it's cover price. Taken as a whole, this is a rollickin' good read. Deadshot and Catman = Deadpool and Cable. That's high praise. The ending was nice, and the overall plot wasn't hackneyed. Everything made sense. Not only did it clink, it also built up several characters. Remember, these are second tier characters Gail is working with. She's actually given them life. And life means sales. Sales means popularity. Popularity means movies. Movies means DVDs. DVDs mean money. Gail needs a raise. And Birds of Prey needs to be canceled or turned into porn.

Uncanny X-men #464-#465 - You know, Chris Claremont and Scott Bachalo make a good team. Chris can write all these little useless Byrne captions and Scott can draw interesting pictures that make these Claremont explanations useless. Hey, anything that makes you not need to read Claremont exposition is A+. Of course, you've got to give Chris a coin or two for putting a DC world toppling spin into X-men. Bachalo, you should ask for a raise immediately. Your practically writing Uncanny by yourself.

Marvel Team-up #13 - I have to confess. I think Robert Kirkman knows his trade better than most people in the business. He KNOWS what he's doing. I have no idea why the Savage Critic doesn't like Team-up. This is fun, smart, and thinky. All his stuff is. I guess there's two schools. Robert Kirkman is manga good. Laters. (I'm not a big fan of tech jacket or battle pope though)

Dropped: House M.D., Grey's Anatomy

Following: Numb3rs, Gilmore Girls, Boston Legal

Dogshit: Threshold, Smallville (just too inconsistent), Supernatural
(I thought the first year of Angel was dogshit too but it turned out to be a pretty good series. So take it as you like.)

New Stuff: Surface, Rome

P.S. David S. Goyer produces Threshold--Ah, now i know why I don't like it. I recognize David stink everywhere.

I'm not the only one who does'nt like David Goyer.

Well, I don't hate him. I..what's a stronger word for hate? He's the embodiment of the broken dream. Someone who's in the art to make the quick buck. While sure, it's pragmatic to stick up your ass for someone to push money into, it doesnt feed the soul and it sure as hell shouldn't be respected. I still can't get over that ipod product placement in Blade Trinity. Or his love for slow-moes. And his demarginalization of Wesley Snipes.

That Blade Trinity movie showed his true colors. Thank God, Christopher Nolan was there to save Batman Begins. Why do the good writers get saddled with the piss poor directors, and the crappy, dishonorable ones land the Big Fish?

here's some of the dislikes of Goyer summed up succinctly.
superherohype forum hate on Goyer

You know, if he really respected the material(comic/geek), he would have Joss Whedon status. Come on, he wrote a comic, helmed the Blade franchise, and did the best Batman film to date(I dont like Batman Begins but it is the best one to date)

He's a poser. He's a Hollywooder. My umbrage with him is that he won't admit his own mistakes. Look at Kevin Smith! He's not a great writer. He's a pretty decent one though, plus he's Mark Twain funny (that's a high compliment). He ADMITS his mistakes. Like Jersey Girl. Which did disastrous in the theatres. You see, he admits it was wrong to cast Ben Affleck in the role. The nepotism was a wrong move.

To this date, Goyer has not admitted that it was entirely wrong of him to train his basic directoring skills on a paying public. I doubt Goyer even did storyboards or pre-production on Blade Trinity. When you write the script as you're filming it, that's not skill, that is poor planning, sloth, and hubris.

Goyer is going to fucking ruin Flash. The only people online that support him are under his pay. Because that's what Hollywooders do. Hire shills. Come on. Deep in your geek hearts, you've seen David Goyer before. Straight up 100 percent snake oil salesman. Except without the talent.

(The Big Damn Movie)
Serenity was pretty good. It ran 1:49 minutes but after it ended, i wanted more. Any firefly is better than no firefly, I guess, as Tycho at Penny-arcade.com so succinctly puts it. My problem with it was the certain smirky bits that were in it. Almost as if the humor needed laugh tracks. Like drum roll, and a light flashes above the theatre to say: "please insert laugh here." The plot though, is excellent. Someone cut the wrong scenes in the editing room.

Once again, the plot is excellent. Orson Scott Card likes the movie. I like the movie. Sci fi people will like the movie. Everyone will like the movie.

NEXT!

New TV Series

Over at Geek speak radio, they were talking about the new scifi shows. Out of all those shows, the only good scifi was Surface which is like Morlocks and 20,000 Leagues all mixed up in one. It grows on you. As a show, it's structured very well.
Good plot, good directing, good sfx but the cast---well, they don't seem to wear their clothes well.

Stay away from Bones or Threshold. Very transparent attempts from people who want a long lasting job.

One day, The Writers said, "How can I get a studio to pay for enough episodes to send into syndication?"

Two days later, these shows start popping up.

NEXT!

Returning TV series

Okay, I don't like Smallville. I think it's shit. No story. Super stupid teen melodrama with an overaged cast. Micheal Rosenbaum is a great Lex though. Season 5 must have a new writer because it's actually interesting.

I use to watch Grey's Anatomy but now it's blah. The premise isnt strong enough. There's no major problems in it for Grey to resolve. Same thing with House--what happened to the evil Vogel? Heroes are useless without villains.

Numb3rs though, works in a Law and Order level. But either get rid of all the relationship stuff or put more in. You cant have it both ways. The main protag was Mr. Universe in Serenity, woot.


That's about it.