I've been considering reading Snowcrash. I haven't read Stephenson before, would it be a good place to start?

Sent from my Iconia A500 using Tapatalk 2

Snow Crash is probably the most accessible of his books. It's got some fantastic, interesting characters and writing.

I love me a good public shaming.

This may be my first topic started, but I don't understand something.

The subject matter of DC Comics can easily make for good movies.  I don't think I am out of line by stating that, with few exceptions, the DC Animated DVDs have had much better reviews and stories than the Live Action ones.  The Animated ones are usually stand alone, and yet do not reboot each time.

Given the use of CGI and the cost of each, is there a reason that the decision makers do not use the scripts/treatments that the DVDs tend to use?  Green Lantern: First Flight could have been stretched a bit (origin, etc) to make a 2hr film and I believe that treatment was much better than the vehicle that was produced.

Justice League?  If that much money is to be invested (and Green Lantern needs a reboot already), Final Frontier seems to be a good story for the screen.

Even back to that late 1980's and earlier 1990's. Mask of the Phantasm was on a par (storywise, not money) with Batman, and the best treatment until Batman Begins.

I believe that those stories would make the money that any other treatment would Live Action.  Try an experiemnt... use the DCU animated Wonder Woman and do that properly cast and budgeted Live Action.  Can't do much worse that Green Lantern or Superman Returns.

After 74 years of stories, there are better things to film than what WB has been doing.

Oftentimes, animated films can get away with scenes and effects that would cost a fortune or be unbelievable in real action. Also, they perhaps don't have another Bruce Timm or Paul Dini available to them. Who knows, maybe Timm and/or Dini have no interest in messing around with the world of live action.

Where's my Incredibles sequel? I'm looking at you, Brad Bird.

Human Target's rewrite for Season 2 with the additional new characters really played havoc with the chemistry of the show. My enjoyment went steadily downhill until by the end of the season, I wasn't sure if I was going to watch the next season. Guess I had that decision taken out of my hands.

I'm using both Carbonite and an external hard drive. The only problem with Carbonite (for me) is that it can't keep up with me. I do a lot of photography and so I'm editing a lot of big files on a regular basis. Carbonite currently has 31GB to back up and at my upload speeds, that takes forever. I would hate myself if my computer died and I lost a bunch of photos because Carbonite hadn't caught up yet. So I just use WIndows backup to backup to the drive every week and Carbonite continues to backup to the cloud.

Is it just me, or is the turf just wreaking havoc?

Saw it the day after Christmas and really enjoyed it. Jeff Bridges was excellent as Rooster Cogburn and the story was really enjoyable. I haven't seen the original but I do love the Duke so I have nothing to compare this True Grit to. However, I have been a Coen Bros fan since Blood Simple and will defend them no matter what. Including the Hudsucker Proxy. 

Hudsucker Proxy is in my top 5 all time.

"You know, for kids!"

[A]

So Saturday night there was an "emergency" and my wife had the kids with her.  They did not get home until 8:30.  I took Annaliese straight from the car, told her it was time for bed and laid her down.  She fell asleep fairly fast as she had had no nap and was exhausted.

Today, we again had no nap.  My wife was a basket case thanks to my step mom basically saying flat out that we are horrible parents because we let our daughter wear shoes without socks today, when it was 30 degrees outside, and my daughter was outside for all of about 45 seconds to get her from the car into church.  She said people could call CYS on us for neglect...because we put socks on our daughter and she took them off and we didn't fight with her to make her put them back on.  I am sorry but some battles just aren't worth fighting.  If her feet get cold, she will put on socks.  (We have yet to find a pair of socks that don't "make her crazy" as she says.)

Anyway, tonight Annaliese was a real crab, my wife was an emotional train wreck.  She cried the whole way home from church, then for another hour and a half after church.  She took the kids to her grandparents and got home about 6:15.  6:30 I told Annaliese it was time for a bath, she told me that she hated me...my heart sunk.  I put her in the tub, read with her from 7:00 - 7:30, then took her in and laid her down.  She screamed for about 10 minutes and then was out, though was again exhausted because there was no nap.

While the routine is starting to work it would seem...my wife and I feel like even worse parents than before this all started.

I am such a failure at everything I do.  No matter what it is I set out to do, I fail miserably.

Most of all, it seems pretty clear I have done a great job of failing at being a husband as well as a father.

Someone once told me parenting is like LSD, because you can only truly understand it by doing it, but once you've done it, you can't somehow undo the experience. And what you often don't hear before having a baby is that there are going to be lots of times where you are frustrated with your child. Heck, downright *angry* with them. Tears and pain in unexpected places. But those feelings don't make you a bad parent. They just make you A parent. Our daughter was hard to get to sleep and we had to go through the same process, including driving my wife to tears. But we got through it and now we have a beautiful just about to be 8 year old daughter that is a joy to be with.

I guess that's the other thing that noone tells you. Some stages of your child's life, you will enjoy much more than others. I enjoyed babyhood. I didn't much enjoy 3-5 yrs old because she and I didn't have a lot in common - all the stuff she liked to do, I really didn't enjoy doing all that much. But now, I really enjoy doing her activities with her. I'm sure at the teenage years, I will be driven insane. But that's okay. All the happy moments completely outweigh the rough ones.

In short, you're doing a good job. Hang in there.

Saw it this afternoon!

Hard to describe and hard to recommend without knowing you personally, but I did enjoy it myself.  It's a jumbled mix of 300, Asian martial arts movies, circus movies and westerns, with a little bit of Shoot 'Em Up (super cute baby to protect) for good measure.  Action sequences were pretty videogame (Bayonetta-ish maybe) like and enjoyable to watch.  There's actually a significant amount of Kate Bosworth, exposition and humor, and less action than I thought there would be.  All I can say is I had fun but I would really have to know you liked this type of movie before I could recommend it.

I saw it last night and that's a good description. I don't know if it is a "good" movie, but it certainly has its own consistent tone and vision and I found it to be quite enjoyable.

It was the work of a marker. Crayon lines are not that accurate.

These notes are too accurate for Sand Crayons. Only Imperial Stormmarkers are that precise.

Bad Medicine!

Besides Cashback, which gets another thumbs up from me, there is also:

Following - Christopher Nolan's first film. 70 minutes long, black and white, but if you like his films, it is definitely worth a watch. Not quite as polished as some of his more recent films, but you can see the underpinnings of a lot of them in this film.

Timecrimes - Spanish film about murder and time travel. Starts a little slow but really gets moving later on.

Nothing to Lose - If you've never seen this underrated Tim Robbins/Martin Lawrence comedy, it's worth giving it a go. It's a semi-standard odd couple buddy flick, but I don't like Martin Lawrence normally and I liked him in this film.

I love Weird Science...but I love Real Genius more. I have maybe re-watched Weird Science once or twice since it's original release. I've watched Real Genius more times than I count. It holds up remarkably well.

I had to have emergency gall bladder surgery - but it was a piece of cake. Nothing to be worried about at all. I haven't noticed any of the irritable bowel syndrome, or if it has been there, I've just written it off to other things. Definitely a "not a big deal" surgery.

Playing Alan Wake - up to episode 4.

If Die Hard is 100% on the "Action Movie Scale", due to memorable characters, good acting, exciting action scenes, and quality writing, From Paris in Love probably scores somewhere between 65-70%, I would think. I found Travolta's character fairly memorable, the action scenes were entertaining, the acting was solid, and the writing was decent (although probably doesn't hold up to a second viewing). Definitely worth a watchthrough, and not really deserving of a 30% on Rottentomatoes, imo.

Yep, this one was fantastic, and the soundtrack is excellent too.

"There is no Sayid!"
"I wish you wouldn't have believed me." (ncl-Locke to ncl-Jack)
I'm pretty sure the "dentist" that Jack went to see knows what's up with NCL (no crash land).
Even as stupid as ncl-Jack is I think he's finally getting a clue that something's not quite right in NCL.
Poor Jin and Sun. That wasn't very nice of the writers.

The whole plane/attack the sub stuff didn't feel right. Uber-paranoid Widmore had only two guards at the plane? The sub was unguarded? Didn't make any sense to me. Maybe smokey did more damage than was shown when he freed the prisoners? Piss poor writing? 

I'm still holding out hope that smokey is not the bad guy simply because the idea of Widmore being the good guy is repugnant. 

There are no good guys.

I don't know whether this will work on a critical or box-office level, but I know that:

A) I love everything Whedon has done
B) The Avengers is my favorite comic book

so the likelihood is strong that this film will please ME. And since I'm the only one that matters (to me), it's all good.

Mass Effect 2, as I try to finish it and Bioshock 2 before Alan Wake comes out.

Also, resisting buying a PS3 just for Heavy Rain.

I love the fact that Jack has basically pulled a 180 and become the Man of Faith. It feels right for what seems to be a season where we seeing a sort of mirror image of the events of Season 1.

In some respects, that makes sense since Jacob is the representative of faith and destiny and Flocke (MiB) of free will and decisions based on information.

Got this from Netflix the other day and it passed the time, I guess.

Nathan Fillion.  He could (should) have a career comparable to Harrison Ford.

+1 for Nathan.  How this guy isn't a massive star is beyond me.

+2.  I love me some Nate!

Don't we all? I watch Castle and love it and it is all because of his charisma and his co-star's charisma. I'm usually not big on shows that are solely star vehicles, but this is one...and it is awesome.

I know Taye Diggs has Grey's Anatomy and all, but I really expected him to bust loose in the movie scene. Everything I've seen him in, he just seems to steal the scene.

I looked at the score, the pros and cons and nothing else. I won't touch the demo and I will not be posting or even looking in any Heavy Rain impressions threads...until I'm done with it.


Like Tilt, this is a weight off of me as I've been anticipating this game like crazy.  Yeehaw!

Can't wait!

My review is damned near spoiler free.

Indeed. It's a good review for a game in which almost anything you can say will be considered spoilers. I didn't feel spoiled in any way.

I'm not concerned with spoilers so much as wanting to go in completely blind.  I usually prefer to know as little as possible once I've decided to watch/play something.  Even knowing that a particular character or situation appears, even in the opening scene, takes a bit away from it for me.  It's not just this game, it's most games, movies, books, and shows.  Once I've seen enough to get interested, I go into info blackout mode.

I'm on board with that - for example, "twist" movies. Revealing to me just the existence of a twist causes me to watch the movie differently. So I tend to go into this sort of blackout mode for stuff I'm really interested in.

[ask]

One summary I read pointed out that the Others have always had to ask the main set of players (Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, etc) to do what needed to be done - they can't just make them do it (Ben making Jack WANT to perform the surgery, for example). It seems this pattern continues. They can't make Sayid take the pill or just kill him. They have to make Jack WANT to do it. Very interesting.

There's only one kind of challenge that works for Superman and that is one of morality. He's the ultimate boy scout and to make it interesting he has to be in a position where he has to bend the rules to get the job done.

The other option is to do a movie of the death of superman, but I don't think you could do it justice, or even come close, in 2 hours.

I've also always liked the idea of exploring the fact that while he's extremely powerful, he's not omniscient and can't be everywhere - how do you keep from falling into the temptation to constantly be on watch, never giving yourself any chance to live a life...and if you do live that life, what guilt do you experience from taking time for yourself instead of using your powers to save the people that are surely dying while you're doing your day job?

Seriously, why should an eBook cost $15? There is no overhead. No warehouse cost. And the authors don't make any more royalties off the books. If they kept the price reasonable they would sell a hell of a lot more ebooks. AND Amazon has already announced that they are bumping royalties on kindle to 70% provided the books are priced under $9.99. I've actually asked my publisher to lower the price on my new book for Kindle. If I had my way it would sell for $2.99 but it looks like $4.99 will have to do. BTW. eBooks sell 6 copies for every 10 paper copies on Amazon.

This is slightly OT, but if you think longer term, doesn't the whole idea of "ebooks" make "publishers" completely irrelevant?  At some point won't the price of a new "book" simply be set by whatever the market/readers are willing to bear?  Imagine this: you are an author, you "release" your new book electronically, say for argument as an iPad "app" or through iBooks exclusively, so there is no other publisher side middleman, so you get 70% (or whatever it is) of all the profits.  Technically is there anything stopping any budding writer from doing that right now (aside from Apple approval) and setting the price of their book to whatever they want or think is fair?

I'm not really trying to make any partiuclar point and I am kind of confusing myself to be honest.  I just think it's an interesting topic.  If you believe that printed media is slowly on its way out (maybe 10 years, 20 years? I don't know), it really starts to re-define the entire "book" industry, doesn't it?

Most authors interviews I've read indicate that a publisher support is invaluable, especially in terms editing, copy editing, and promotion.  

Well they pretty much have to say that right now, don't they?  Without a publisher they have no means to... publish or get their material out there.  But things are changing really fast, and I'm sure it's scary for people used to doing things the traditional way.  

The fact is, though, even right at this moment, I could write a novel, have a friend edit it (or not), and then build it into an iPhone "app" and promote it through the web however I wanted to, sell my novel for $0.99 (or whatever) on the App store and have access to 75 million potential customers.  

Thinking out loud now: from an established author's POV, they could likely reap a great deal more profit with no middle man.  Just imagine if JK Rowling or Stephanie Meyer decided to release their next Harry Potter or Twilight sequel this way.  They could set the price to whatever they felt like, say $9.99 and you know everyone and their grandma and tween niece would buy it, and they get all the profit.  Do they really need a publisher to promote them?

While I generally think you're on target about publishers potentially starting to get squeezed out...I wouldn't discount the value of a good editor. Lord only knows how much crap I've read that could've used from someone with some real copy editing skills cleaning up their work.

I didn't realize until recently that this is going to be based on the Tim Powers book - I don't know why I didn't make the connection. Tim Powers is about as awesome a fantasy author as you get. Strange, creative, bold. This really raises my interest after the disappointing 3rd movie.

Simon Cowell is leaving too, at the end of this season.  put a fork in her boys, she's done.

I can't imagine that Fox will kill the cash cow that is American Idol.

There's too much to do to rewatch stuff that I've already seen, less the movie is just spectacular. So I don't buy DVDs any more either. Saves space too!

I've seen the Real 3D glasses look a couple different ways. One seems oversized (almost like something Elton John would wear), the other is more like this:
http://www.reald.com/Content/cinemaProducts.aspx?pageID=13

Those are the ones we got.  I just didn't feel comfortable with them over my regular glasses.  It was kind of the equivalent of wearing sunglasses over eyeglasses.  Doable, but not ideal.

I agree with everything Rumpy says above.  The story is kind of secondary to the entire experience of being in the world.

But a better story would have made it better AND would make it a classic that would last well past the time when other movies will catch up, visually.

I still enjoyed the experience, but it could have been so much more.

The Scifi movies I still watch, (Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, etc) do not have great stories.  What I love about them is the world they create.  I feel like Avatar is similar in that respect.

Blade Runner doesn't have a great story?

Read:

His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novak

Currently Reading:
On hold, waiting for my Nook to arrive. And for a trip to the library to get the next Repairman Jack novel.

My first Stephenson book, and really liking it so far.  Probably going to turn this into the beginning of a Neal Stephenson mini-marathon.

 

Make Snow Crash your next one. Or Cryptonomicon.

Definitely Snow Crash.

Got Borderlands from the massive Steam holiday sale and I've been playing that.

You mean beat on one day?

For Wednesday.  http://www.examiner.com/x-15166-Dallas-Comedy-Examiner~y2009m12d24-SHOCKER-Alvin-and-The-Chipmunks-The-Squeekquel-topples-Avatar-at-the-box-office

I think Avatar will have really long legs, though.  3D TVs aren't common, so people are going to want to see it in the theater.  "Alvin" might win a battle, but Avatar will win the war.

Much like Titanic, which didn't have a huge opening weekend...but it kept going with no dropoff every week as people going back to see it. I don't think Avatar will have those kind of legs, but it almost certainly will have long ones.

To be fair, I think a lot of the twists and turns are reliant on having background in place to set them up. Also, at this point, Dollhouse has barely had a full season worth of episodes. A normal full order is 22 and they've shown 23 or 24 now. If you cut the first 5 that Fox stuck their noses into or recut them, you're basically at a full season.

Basically, Whedon is a slow starter normally - Buffy didn't really get kicking until Season 2 (oddly, about the same time as Dollhouse too, since Buffy had a 13 episode first season normally). Combine that with the fact the premise of Dollhouse is also a slow starter, one that requires a lot of background and buildup for real payoff. Formula for disaster on a major network.

Firefly has been the odd man out for Whedon - a show where it didn't require a build and the characters were fantastic from moment one. So of course, that got canceled immediately.

Man...sometimes I dont get the US.
...
What gives? Are you really so afraid of people talking about sex?

Yes.