Category Archives: Andrew Hales

by | August 1, 2013 · 3:44 pm

The Reading List of Doom

I scream sometimes in the shower.  “So many good books, so little time to read them!” I cry out, with nothing to hear my pain but the falling water. I bang my head against the hard tiles in an attempt to stop the pain, but it fails.  It doesn’t help that I’m a slow reader. The ever expanding pile of books that I want to read absolutely drives me crazy, and doesn’t even count magazines, graphic novels, and my weekly comics.  On one hand, it’s a blessing to have so many good books that are worth my time, and on the other it’s a curse that I’m certain is designed by some evil being to drive me completely insane.  The Reading List of Doom as I like to call it has presented me with a particularly stubborn challenge to overcome.

bibleinjail21

Not exactly the best idea.

My indecision can sometimes lead to another option:  reading multiple books at once. There are times where this system does work; however, it usually ends up meaning that I make less progress on each book than I otherwise would.  My typical method in this case is to read one book at work during lunch and then read the other at night in bed.  While in theory this would allow me to make progress on both, it rarely works out that way.  The only time that reading more than one book at a time is a good idea is when I get fatigued with one, but don’t just want to abandon it half way through.  For instance, right now I’m working my way through Game of Thrones but since I’ve seen the show and know what happens, I’m a little tired of it.  George R. R. Martin’s writing is wonderful and reading the book has added quite a bit to my love of the world he has created, but it’s 800 pages of story I already know, after all. I’m over 500 pages in and I don’t want to give up, especially since there are four more books for me to read. So instead I’ve put down Game of Thrones and picked up The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T.E. Lawrence.  It’s a nice change of pace and it relieves my fatigue. Best of all it moves the list forward.

In my family there is no such thing as too many books. In fact such a statement is tantamount to heresy.  My father collects military history books and has several thousand volumes, so I grew up with stack and piles all around the house that formed as we ran out of bookshelf space.  Sadly, in my case, there are few books I actually collect simply for the sake of having a library available on a particular subject.  Most of my reading is whatever strikes my fancy and is usually not worth anything. I use this fact to justify not buying books to add to my stash, since the content isn’t particularly valuable, but I also hate it.

As a kid this was all much less of a problem as I was a much faster reader. Somewhere along the way I lost that talent and I sorely miss it. One summer I plowed through Airframe in 5 hours. I was averaging just over 100 pages an hour! Now I’m lucky to get through 30 in the same time. I wish I had the skill to push through my reading list at a rate such that I have to buy new books to keep up. One of my good friends has that ability and I am so jealous. He has to look hard to find new books he wants to read, while the Reading List of Doom is rapidly approaching the height of a 12 year old.

Reading List of Doom. And this is only the prioritized stuff.

Reading List of Doom.
And this is only the prioritized stuff.

In the end, I know that the Reading List of Doom is not the worst thing that can happen to me.  I am fortunate that I enjoy reading and that I live in a place that embraces free speech and allows me to read whatever I please. Reading provides nourishment for my hunger for knowledge.  I have a wide variety of interests and it’s always nice to find a book that helps to increase my level of knowledge regarding a particular topic, even if that book may be stuck at the bottom of the reading list for a while.  Fear not, book-on-the-bottom-of-the-pile, soon enough you will have new brethren to join you while you wait to share your wonderful content with me.

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by | July 30, 2013 · 2:21 pm

Review: The Wolverine

the_wolverine_teaser_one-sheet

“I’m Wolverine. I’m the best at what I do, but what I do isn’t very nice”.  Ok, so that quote isn’t in The Wolverine, but it has always been true.  This movie is no exception.  The Wolverine provides plenty of high energy action as well as some nice quiet moments which are used to explore the thoughts going on inside Logan’s head.  All said and done this was a fun summer action movie, but while certainly better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine there was still some room for improvement.

Prior to seeing the film on Friday night, I had intentionally avoided reading or watching almost anything about the film as much as possible.  While parts of X-Men Origins: Wolverine were good, overall I was not impressed and I wanted to come into this film with as clean a slate as I could.  This meant that until about fifteen minutes into the movie I wasn’t quite sure where in the X-Men film timeline this film took place.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I had assumed it would be a direct sequel to the first Wolverine movie.  Instead it takes place sometime after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand.

After an opening flashback sequence, we find Logan living on the fringes of society, sleeping in the woods, haunted by nightmares of things he’s done.  A quick few scenes occur in Wolverine’s native Canada and then viewers are off to Japan, where the real story begins.  This story taps into material from the Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series as well as the first story arc of the Wolverine on-going series that followed.

The first thing I’d like to mention is that they fixed the biggest problem I had with the last movie:  the CGI claws. For whatever reason, in several scenes of the previous Wolverine movie, the CGI claws look incredibly low budget and just plain bad.  That was not the case this time around. I don’t know if it was due to better CGI or the possible increased use of physical claws, but it did the trick.

I had no issue with the plot.  I have only a passing knowledge of this particular portion of Wolverine comics, so the movie seemed to line up well enough with what I already knew.

Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine is still fantastic.  He has a great understanding of the character and it appears that he truly enjoys putting on the claws and sideburns to become Wolverine.

Okamoto-Mariko

I think it’s a pretty good fit.

Playing Wolverine’s love interest, Mariko, was new comer Tao Okamoto.  I liked her performance, but it did seem as though she is new to film acting.  With a bit more time and experience I think she could do some interesting things.

Fellow model-turned-actress Rila Fukushima served as a sidekick of sorts to Wolverine and served well enough in the role, though her English was a bit choppy and that wore on me after a while.  Several of the other cast members looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t place them and had to look them up on IMDB.  Mariko’s father, Shingen, was played by Hiroyuki Sanada, who I knew as Kaneda in Sunshine, and Yashida, played by Hal Yamanouchi, had a small role in 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

The phrase “big superhero movie” implies several things, chief among which is action. The Wolverine delivers on the action pretty consistently though the movie.  All actions movies have their peaks and valleys, but this one seemed to have many more of both. Shorter, more frequent periods of calm were punctuated by action sequences of varying length. Since the movie was rated PG-13, the amount of violence that could be shown was minimal, but it was still obvious that Wolverine is still the best at what he does—slashing and stabbing people.

Unfortunately, the action scenes lead me into what I didn’t like about the movie.  I cannot stand shaky camera work, and many of the action sequences were shot using this terrible technique. I understand that the idea is to try and convey a sense of movement and the chaos of a fight, but instead it just causes viewers confusion and really bad visuals. Some of these scenes would look so much better they didn’t feel like a Parkinson’s patient was holding the camera. On a positive note, the panoramic scenery shots were wonderful.  They really make me want to visit Australia, where the film was shot.

My other biggest complaint has to do with the considerable amount of prior knowledge necessary to really enjoy most of this film.  At various points in the movie, Logan dreams about Jean Grey.  Although I have always loved her character, her inclusion without any explanation made for some confusion.  I also felt that Jean’s presence in this movie was unnecessary. It’s not that I didn’t like the actress who played her or how they used her; I just think the movie would have been perfectly fine without her in it.

I would also like to point out that there were far too many secondary villains.  There were 5 different characters that I would classify as secondary villains, in addition to the final bad guy, the Silver Samurai. The only saving grace in this is that unlike Iron Man 2, which suffered from too many villains with separate plots running at the same time, all of Wolverine’s foes tied into a single interwoven plot.  viperAlso, the use of Viper as a secondary villain confused even me. I have a fair amount of Marvel Comics knowledge and I had to look her up when I got home. I’m sure there was another more prominent villain that they could have used.  I’m also unsure of her previous connections to Wolverine in the comic universe.

In both the comic and the movie universes Wolverine is a major fan favorite, and yet for some reason, these movies keep falling short of achieving their full potential. I have heard nothing about a potential sequel, and this weekend’s box office take makes me doubt the likelihood a bit, but the increase in quality makes me believe that a third movie could really be something special.  While I liked the movie, I wasn’t wowed by it and there were some considerable flaws that detracted from the overall enjoyment of the movie. Moreover, the amount of background knowledge needed makes this a difficult jumping on point for new movie goers.  I give The Wolverine 3 out of 5 Death Stars.

3 Death Stars

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by | July 25, 2013 · 11:19 am

Star Trek Tech

One of the biggest reasons for my lifelong love affair with Star Trek is the amazing Star Trek technology. Since the very beginning, Gene Roddenberry imagined Star Trek as an idealized future for humanity, where we have been able to set aside our petty differences and work for the betterment not just of mankind but an entire alliance of alien races as well, by using their incredible technology. This fantastic vision has helped inspire several generations of Trekkie engineers to try and develop the wonderful devices that lead them to fall in love with the show in the first place. Being an engineer myself, it’s kind of fun to think about what we have already been able to achieve and where we still have to go.

THE PADD

padd3

One of the simplest and most ubiquitous pieces of tech found on the Enterprise is the PADD. A small data entry device, slightly larger than a book and about as thick as a yellow legal pad, they are used for everything from writing an official report to serving as a catalog for wedding dresses. When Star Trek writers want to make it look like a character is hard at work, they usually show them half out of uniform, sleeves rolled up and a table covered in PADDs.

ipad.mini2

In January of 2010, the late, great Steve Jobs announced a new Apple device. Not just inspired by Star Trek, the iPad has been almost completely ripped off Star Trek.  It even had almost exactly the same name and bore more than a striking resemblance to the Star Trek device, albeit a bit larger. Flash forward to 2012 and a few iPad models later, Apple announced the iPad mini, which is now basically the same size as a PADD. This is one of the few times blatant plagiarism is absolutely acceptable.

UHURA’S EAR PIECE

uhuraearpiece

Not as universal as the Pad, this little device is much more iconic. A quick Google image search for Uhura will come back with hundreds of images of her sitting at her station wearing her ear piece. It’s so iconic in fact that it was also included without change in J.J. Abrams 2010 reboot. Although essentially gone by the time of The Next Generation, for 1960’s America this ear piece was quite the impressive device. They had never seen a wireless device this small that would so easily fit into someone’s ear.

btheadset

Those of us living in the 21st century, however, see this all the time.  We call it a Bluetooth headset. People in their mid-twenties or older remember that when Bluetooth first came on the market, it was used almost exclusively as a hands free devices for phones.  This lead to many humorous moments trying to figure out if someone was on the phone or if they were crazy and talking to themselves (especially if the conversation got particularly heated).  Now we’ve grown use to seeing this, but in the early 2000’s it was pretty damn funny.

HOLODECK

Riker_Jungle_Holodeck_2364

worf2

This is honestly as glorious as it looks.

In the pilot of The Next Generation, Riker goes to find Data on the Holodeck, a room where the entire environment, including interactive characters, is artificially generated. The system started off very basic, but as the show progressed (and budgets increased) entire episodes would be set on the Holodeck. This simple room allowed the crew of the Enterprise to visit far off alien planets, fantasy worlds, or various historical periods (Worf in the Old West was one of my favorites). Frequently these episodes would end up revolving around something going wrong with the Holodeck, so much so that even the show made a joking reference to it in an episode of Deep Space Nine.

tupac_1

I hope I look this good when I’ve been dead 16 years.

In April of 2012 at the Cochella Music Festival the audience was treated to a surprise performance by rapper 2Pac. This appearance was a huge surprise because 2Pac has been dead for sixteen years and this unbelievable feat was accomplished through the use of holograms. While it isn’t the Holodeck yet, it is a considerable advance in holographic technology. This same technology is being used in Japan to create an entirely artificial pop music star, Hatsune Miku. We aren’t that far away from completely interactive worlds that we can explore.

What Star Trek Tech do you want to see make its way to our modern world? Let us know down below in the Comment section.

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by | July 23, 2013 · 3:43 pm

SDCC Wrap Up

San Diego Comic Con has come and gone, and while I was unable to attend I have kept up to date with the latest and coolest announcements. I’m going to take a minute and cover some of the things that I’m most excited about. This is by no means an exhaustive list; it’s just what has piqued my interest.

 

COMICS

Obviously there are going to be plenty of comic book announcements coming from a comic book convention. Probably the most interesting announcements are coming out of IDW. Next year looks rather bright for them with a new Walt Simonson Viking series called Ragnarők, an artist edition of another Simonson title Star Slammers; An artist edition of Hellboy in Hell (which I plan to preorder as soon as I can); and a new series Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland.Nemo_Teaser_color_2.2 I’m certain most people are unfamiliar with Little Nemo (nothing to do with Finding Nemo), but I have been unable to find this favorite of my childhood since I was about twelve and I am super excited for a chance to return to this universe. The fact that it comes from the writers of Locke & Key, about whom I have heard nothing but good things , excites me even further.

Speaking of hearing good things, this year’s Eisner awards were announced the Friday of the convention and not surprisingly, Saga has done very well for itself, winning both Best Continuing Series and Best New Series as well as a Best Writer award for Brian K. Vaughan. This shouldn’t be any surprise as it’s Vaughan’s third Eisner for Best New Series and his second for Best Writer, but I don’t care. This series is amazing and it deserves recognition. While I would have also loved to see Fiona Staples win (or be nominated for that matter), David Aja’s wins for Best Cover Artist and Best Penciler/Inker nearly make up for this. I honestly don’t care about Hawkeye as a character, but I keep reading the book because Aja’s amazing art and Fraction’s superior writing.

hawkeye-david-aja

Finally, coming out of Marvel’s catch-all Cup O’ Joe panel are two announcements that make me hopeful. First up is Young Avengers Afterparty. I’m not much of an after-party fan, but Young Avengers has been very enjoyable so far and this should be a nice Christmas time wrap up of the story arc. It also promises to include some shorter stories about a couple of the characters, including one of my favorites, Pixie.

The second of Mr. Quesada’s announcements is that a new series called Revolutionary War, featuring many second and third string UK based characters is on its way. I like these kinds of series. There is always so much room to develop these characters in whatever new ways the creative teams wants to take it. I will admit that not knowing a single character that’s going to be in the series, I’m cautiously optimistic.

 

MOVIES

What would SDCC be without movie announcements? It might be all about comics and who really wants that (Oh the humanity!). This year is no exception. Right off the bat we have The Avengers: Age of Ultron. After The Avengers turned into a mega-blockbuster last summer, we all knew that a sequel was on its way, but I assumed, based on the Easter Egg, that the villain would be Thanos, the Mad Titan. Turns out I was wrong. It looks like Marvel is saving that one for film number three (as well as for Guardians of the Galaxy) and instead we get one of the Avengers’ greatest foes, Ultron. ultronFor those who don’t know, Ultron is an artificial intelligence created by original Avenger Hank Pym (Ant Man). It eventually turns on him and becomes an incredibly intelligent, ever evolving, homicidal robot who frequently tries to kill our beloved heroes. Ultimately, this is a villain I can get behind, and I’m pleased with the announcement.

trask

This is going to be fun. The mustache says so.

Now from the other side of the street, over at DC there are two big pieces of movie news. First and probably most controversial is that the upcoming Man of Steel sequel will include Superman and Batman working as a team. I’m not really sure how I feel about this. Man of Steel left us with so much potential for more adventures with Superman that I’m a little disappointed they feel the need to do a crossover between the two franchises so soon. Also the fact that Christian Bale will likely not be returning for the film adds to my apprehension. For all his flaws as a person, Bale played a very really and believable Batman and it will be tough for someone else to fill his shoes.

The second reveal is the post Justice League: Flash Point Paradox/ Justice League: War DC animated films. There is no doubt that while DC has not done well in the feature film market, they are dominating the animated original movie market. There were rumors that after Flash Point that there would only be New 52 based movies, but this is not going to be the case. Not only that, the next two movies will feature Batman. Batman and Son will introduce Damian Wayne to the animated comic universe and Batman: Assault on Arkham will presumably take place somewhere in the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game universe. I’ve been selective on which of the animated films I buy, but I think both of these will make the cut.

 

GAMING

Gaming at SDCC seemed to take a bit of a back seat. Given the massive announcements leading up to and during E3, it’s not surprising that things were a bit more subdued in California. Microsoft showed off some of the new features with the Kinect and Xbox One. The coolest one by far is the fact that the Kinect will recognize unique users and automatically switch user profiles based on who has the controller. I used to go absolutely nuts when my roommate and I would play games because I like inverted controls and he doesn’t. A couple months ago we set up my NES and looking back it’s amazing how far this technology has come along.

The best and worst gaming news however comes from Nintendo. My favorite RPG of all time, Earthbound, is finally being re-released. I have played many RPGs in my day, some of the top titles among them, but none of them quite live up to the awesomeness that is Earthbound. However, it is only being released for the Wii U, a console that I do not own. I am now torn.  Do I wait even longer and hope that it comes out for a system I do own, like 3DS (which can totally hack the graphics), or do I fork out the $350 for the system so I can play this game again? There are certainly pluses and minuses to both sides so this may have to come down the best method of decision making I know of:  flipping a quarter.

earthbound

Alright folks, this is what I loved about SDCC. What did you like? Comment below and let us know what you liked and what you wanted to see more of.

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