"Excuse Me"

Lately we've been trying to teach our three-year-old to say "excuse me".

It occurs to me that we use this phrase both when greeting someone who is somehow occupied, and when we fart.

Kind of makes me want to fart loudly just before entering a conversation, just to make economical use of speech.

Geeky News And Rumors!

Some cool and interesting news of interest to geeks that I came across this week. Here's the quick rundown, but you can get more details on this weekend's episode of my podcast.


Anthony Hopkins talks about his personal beliefs in connection to his new movie "The Rite".
http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=1592

DC Comics is committing to have all of their main titles stay at $2.99 and not a penny more!

McG will direct the Pilot for the Wonder Woman TV series due for release this coming fall on NBC!

The rumors of a Matrix 4 and 5? Completely bogus. :-(

Possibly due to friction between Guillermo Del Toro and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, a movie about the BRPD is more likely to come before a Hellboy 3.

Wizard Magazine is no more!!

Anne Hathaway will be Catwoman and Tom Hardy will play Bane in the next Batman movie!

Ridley Scott is working on a movie that was originally going to be a prequel to "Alien", but now may be a totally original concept.

"Battlestar Galactica: Blood And Chrome" has started casting!

A new Thundercats cartoon is coming this year to Cartoon Network!

For more details and my opinions about all these developments, don't miss this weekend's episode of The Spirit Blade Underground Podcast!

Fallout 3 For A Lousy FPS player

I've been giving Fallout 3 another shot this week, and so far it's going pretty good!

The first time I exchanged gunfire I got toasted pretty quick. In fact, it happened so fast that I almost quit right then and there. But after taking a few deep breaths, I came back to the same fight again and used VATS a little more often. APs recharge more quickly than I remember from the last time I tried this game.

So far, some key elements of my strategy that have helped to offset my insanely terrible FPS skills include:

1. Being a pack rat and picking up everything worth at least twice its own weight. Then fast traveling to Megaton to sell as much as I can. I make multiple trips just for this if I have to. Finances are a major part of my survival, because they directly impact my ability to enact two other parts of my strategy.

2. Buy as many stimpacks and AP recharging aids as I can. Then hot-keying stimpacks for use in battle.

3. Buying the best armor and plenty of ammo(I'm a lousy shot, so I use a lot), as well as keeping my equipment in the best repair possible.

4. Charging enemies that are firing at me and standing or walking backward for melee enemies charging me. With stimpacks stabbing away, I find it much easier to take down the baddies when they cover more space on the screen.

5. Save, save save! Save after every fight. Save after just walking for a bit. They design saving to be quick and possible at almost any time. And though I've only died once so far, it's a safety net that makes the rest of my experience much less stressful.


Unless I come upon some major frustration in the next few nights, I plan on keeping the game this time. With a little adjustment to my expectations, I think this is an action RPG that even a lousy FPS player like me can really enjoy.

Giving "Fallout 3" another chance

After a couple of years, I've decided to give "Fallout 3" another shot. The last time I tried it, I gave up because it felt too much like a first person shooter and I got frustrated when I was wiped out in a gun fight.

I suck at shooters, especially in the first person. I don't know how people successfully line up their cross hairs on moving targets and shoot while also moving to avoid enemy fire. I just don't have the thumbs for it. (And my computer can't run the PC version, which I think would handle easier in the FPS parts using a mouse.)

But in the last couple of years I've been stretched a bit as a gamer. Neverwinter Nights prepared me for the pause-able yet real-time combat I would play in Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age: Origins prepared me for the open ended, non-linear RPG experience I would need to be ready for in Oblivion. And I'm hoping that Oblivion has prepared me better now for the first person combat of Fallout 3. Each game in this progression has stretched me a bit, and I know that I'm missing some fantastic gaming in Fallout 3.

My hope is that I'll be able to hotkey a ton of stimpacks (health potions) to use in combat to help compensate for my lousy skills. I'm also going to go in with an expectation of dying more often than I usually do in RPGs, saving a lot along the way. With luck, my adjusted expectations and other compensations will result in adding a great new game to my library.

If not, oh well. I've got more "Oblivion" to explore, and I've already pre-ordered my copy of Dragon Age 2, coming out in early March!

Need Some New Fantasy

Crap. I thought I'd found one. I thought I'd found a new author whose books I could throw myself into and enjoy for their fast pacing and focus on character. David B. Coe did a great job on his first trilogy, the "Lon Tobyn Chronicles". Won an award for it too, which is no shocker.

Too bad his follow up series, in a different world and running twice as long, feels completely different.

It's all cultural/court politics and intrigue. Yuck.

I wish so much there was a fancy device I could plug my favorite authors' names into that would then spit out an author recommendation for me. And I mean one that actually works. For some reason, Amazon.com thinks that because I like Brent Weeks or Terry Goodkind, I'll also like Robert Jordan. (What the crap?? Jordan writes three paragraphs for every strand of lace on a woman's dress! When is something going to HAPPEN already?!)

So here I am, stuck again with nothing to read that suits my tastes. Ugh... The hunt begins anew. yay.

Obliterating Oblivion

I've finally "finished" Elder Scrolls: Oblivion on the 360, including the two expansions available for it. But with only about 100 hours logged, I know I've only played through about half of what the game has to offer on a single, exhaustive run through everything.

Oblivion gates are no longer available to me, since I beat the main game long ago before doing the expansion material. But honestly, I don't really miss them. Despite how cool they looked, the experience of exploring and shutting down gates became repetitive. I WILL miss the cool sigils I earned from those missions, though. You can use them to power up weapons. Looks like I've got the best I'm going to get in that department.

So what now? I've saved the world and everyone loves me. Yet there are a number of paths I haven't gone down because they involved criminal behavior I didn't want to stain my record with. But now that I've done all I can as the savior of this world, I think I'll see what fun I can have destroying it. All those off-limits items lying around are going in my sack! I'm coming for your household trinkets, Tamriel! I'll take down an army of city guards and my name will spread in infamy across the land! Bwahahahahaaaa!

Super Why: Destroyer Of Worlds!!

Our oldest son, now three, has recently become a big fan of the PBS reading cartoon, "Super Why". To the point where much of his play time has been spent taking his stuffed animals and flying them around the room shouting things like, "the power to read!" and "Super Why to the rescue!"

There are two things, aside from Truth, that I'd be thrilled if my boys grew up loving: Reading, and Superheroes. So I wasn't about to miss the chance to get our boy his very first "action figures". Sure, the ones we found were small plush toys on clearance, so collectors wouldn't call them "action figures". But given that he still likes to handle them pretty rough while playing, I consider them "age appropriate action figures".

And lest you think that "The Super Readers" don't count as superheroes, consider this: This is a team of four people who can change reality itself... just by spelling stuff!

Darkseid? The Anti-Monitor? One solution for "Super Why". Spelled D-E-A-D! Fight's over!

The Green Hornet (Movie Review)

I'm a big fan of Green Lantern, and it used to be that when I would tell people this, they might say "Oh, yeah! Kato was cool!" I got used to sighing as I explained that Green Lantern and Green Hornet were two different characters, and that Green Lantern was MUCH cooler. Green Lantern is still the cooler hero, but the new Green Hornet movie comes closer to competing than ever before.

Seth Rogen, best known for raunchy comedies like "Knocked Up" and "Observe And Report", brings his comedic sensibilities to bear as both writer and star of "The Green Hornet", while trading in most of his raunchy humor for some really cool action and gags with more general appeal.

Based on the radio and tv shows of the same name, the story centers on Britt Reid, the recent heir of his father's newspaper media empire. Realizing that he has wasted himself in a life of decadence, Reid decides to make a difference by becoming a masked crime-fighter. With one twist. He presents himself as a criminal, so that he is able to get closer to organized crime than a professing hero ever would.

Aiding him and providing the vast majority of practical skills, is Kato, the mysterious Japanese man who served as auto mechanic and "coffee maker" for Britt's father. His true talents, however, including martial arts mastery and technical wizardry, are the most potent tools he brings to the table.

This movie is just plain fun. The action scenes are very cool to watch, featuring a return to some of the stylized slow motion and crazy camera moves of the Matrix movies, with even more inspiration possibly being taken from Jet Li's "The One", in which the chief combatant movies in normal or slightly slower motion, while those he is attacking move and respond to blows at various slower speeds. It's really something to see and a visual high point of the movie. And if your action tastes are more down to earth, there's also a tricked out car and various forms of big, manly guns involved on a regular basis. Any fears I had about action being sacrificed to comedy evaporated in the first 30 minutes. This is a great action flick with some dazzling and clever stunts and effects that often had me grinning from ear to ear.

The writing and performances by Seth Rogen (Green Hornet) and newcomer Jay Chou (Kato) were a ton of fun to watch. The rest of the cast does a fine job, and the chief villain, played by Christoph Waltz of "Inglourious Basterds", is very unique and fascinating in every scene, offering a few laughs of his own. Cameron Diaz also does well with her relatively small role, playing off of Rogen's comedic timing to good effect. But the stars of this movie are clearly Green Hornet and Kato, and the bond they form with each other.

This Green Hornet is a fairly average joe who's a bit out of shape and just gets lucky a lot. But he's not so inept that every moment is played for comedy. In fact he has a few moments in which he rises to the occasion and pulls off some great super-heroics. But these are the exception to the rule, and his primary role is to create a character the audience can walk in the shoes of, enjoying the ride vicariously through him. The device works brilliantly and lends itself to some gratifying and hilarious moments. I don't often laugh at comedies, but this movie, not even a pure bred comedy, had me laughing a number of times.

The script certainly allows for some interesting themes to discuss. The idea of doing the right thing, even when being condemned for it, is central to the concept. A few other elements are worth pondering as well. But the forward energy of the comedy and action never lets up long enough for any potentially worthwhile content to be noticed on a casual viewing.

The tone of the movie is similar to the first "Iron Man" movie, although this film leans a little more on the side of comedy than action. But its a fantastic flick that I would highly recommend to almost anyone.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violent action, language, sensuality and drug content.

Quality: 9.5/10

Relevance: 5.5/10

www.spiritblade.net/paeter
www.spiritblade.net/podcast

Flu Firewall

I'm the last man standing.

First my oldest son. Started feeling warm and losing energy yesterday. Puked a waterfall of bile down my shoulder and back today. My wife is getting the sniffles. Kissing is off-limits. And now our 3 month old is fighting a mild fever.

While my wife has been working, I've been trying to keep two sick, sensitive boys from melting down all day long. And failing.

Started the week with a lot of excitement over my plans for Spirit Blade Productions this spring. Filled with energy and ideas, ready to go. But with my family all jacked up? Not even an option.

So here I stand. One solitary figure tossed out of the boat of productivity by waves of familial obligation(and y'know, love and stuff, too), hoping to hold off this nasty flu bug and somehow, praying that my mind is not lost in the effort.

Too melodramatic? Yeah, sorry. I'm a sensitive ar-TEEST.

The Cape (TV Pilot Review)

I'm a big comic book fan, so I'm EXTREMELY grateful to my bro-in-law for letting me know that the premiere of the new NBC series "The Cape" was playing last night. (Way to drop the ball, NBC marketing department.)

The story is about a Palm City's last honest cop, Vince Faraday, who is framed for murder by a masked villain who soon becomes the owner of the city's privatized police force. Hunted down and presumed dead, Faraday is unable to come out of hiding until he can clear his name. Luckily, he is found by a disillusioned circus troupe who trains him with their combined talents to become a masked superhero modeled and named after his son's favorite comic book hero, "The Cape".

I saw previews of this last summer and have been highly anticipating the pilot, unsure of what to expect, but still hopeful. With the cancellation of NBC's "Heroes", it looks like they're trying to get a second chance with a similar demographic, only this time, the show features just one "superhero" and he has no superhuman abilities.

Another difference noticeable almost immediately is the tone. While the lead character and his family are written with more realistic personalities than those in ABC's "No Ordinary Family", and the show includes a very serious, even tragic plot thread in that regard, the show in general is certainly much lighter than the tone aimed for in "Heroes" or modern superhero films like "The Dark Knight" or "X-men".

The chief villain of the story is a big business man who moonlights as a rubber-masked criminal named "Chess". Yet for a guy who names himself after a deeply strategic, "thinking man's" game, he still makes the foolish decision to "monologue" and reveal his true identity and plot to the hero near the beginning of the story.

Likewise, reality is stretched regularly in the realm of technology and physics. Hypnotism that controls even the unwilling, grabbing and throwing things with nothing but a cape, holographic computer interfaces and "on the fly" illusionist tricks that amount to teleportation. Granted, these are all common elements in comic books, but most comics today take more time offering exposition and also contain years of continuity that explain how the unrealistic elements are possible or came to be.

Still, if you don't need to have a foundation of realism laid out for you, there's much to be enjoyed, and the story is constantly grounded emotionally in Vince's desire to reconnect with his wife and son, who believe him to be dead. The seriousness and realism with which these elements are treated goes a long way to help emotionally invest in the lead character. And if emotional investment is present, lack of realism can be forgiven to a degree. The writers would be wise to make his desire to be reconnected to his family the driving force of every episode.

Love for family is probably the strongest theme in the premiere, though it is unlikely to inspire much conversation, regardless of how it may connect with one emotionally.

Every father wants to be a hero in his children's eyes, and Vince Faraday actually takes on the persona of his son's favorite superhero. Emotionally sensitive comic book-loving Dad's beware: You may find yourself with "something in your eye" as you watch this show.

The premiere is an enjoyable, though flawed beginning that will hopefully become refined in time. Until then, it may have just enough material worth investing in to keep audiences interested, including myself.

Quality: 8.0/10

Relevance: 6.5/10

www.spiritblade.net/paeter
www.spiritblade.net/podcast

Season Of The Witch (Movie Review)

Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman star in this movie about two medieval knights who have agreed to take an alleged witch to a distant monastery to be tried and, if appropriate, ritually purged and executed in order to lift a plague cursing towns across the land.

Performances by Cage and Perlman are on par for both, if not historically or culturally authentic. The characters themselves are pretty uninteresting, but their story helps make up for it, and the bond of friendship between them is strong and enjoyable to watch at times.

The dialogue is best when dealing with the story conflict and themes presented and falls flat when it attempts to be humorous. But much of the shortcoming could also be placed at the feet of the actors on the last count.

Still, this is a pretty good movie, especially if you give it a chance to get going. While not being creative in its shot design, the movie has a consistent dark and cold quality that fans of dark fantasy or movies like "Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans" will appreciate. It also has great, gory make-up effects and a few cool costume pieces that set the mood well.

Fight scenes are appropriate, but sometimes very forgettable in the first half of the movie. Nothing innovative happening here, but they get the job done. Things really pick up, however, in the second half of the movie and near the end, where the special effects budget becomes much more visible and the supernatural becomes more common. The bad guys in this movie range from rabid wolves, to undead witches, zombies and even demons! Plenty to satisfy genre fans, though the best creature stuff is clustered near the end. If you're looking for something to scratch your dark fantasy itch, this movie is no breakthrough, but it will likely do the job.

The themes and conflict presented in the movie were some of the strongest points. Cage and Perlman play knights in the Crusades who desert their unit after being part of a raid that resulted in the deaths of far more innocents than enemy soldiers. While they committed to serving God in the Crusades, and hold to that commitment, they make it clear that they no longer serve The Church.

As is common in Hollywood flicks, especially in any content referencing the Crusades, organized religion in general (or the Catholic church in specific) is criticized while belief in God of some kind is still mostly tolerated or patronizingly praised. This viewpoint is a popular one today, as many verbally support the idea of being "spiritual" (a vague, undefined pop-culture term) while preferring to avoid "religion" or "organized religion".

I'm certainly not saying that the Crusades were a good thing. Far from it. But we have a tendency to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" when it comes to Christianity. Even being a Christian while not engaging in a local, Bible-teaching church is counter to much of the New Testament books of the Bible, where letter upon letter is written about how to best "organize" believers into groups that can effectively grow and serve together.

While the Knights in this movie probably made the best moral choice in leaving their unit and their commitment to the church as it was, it is a scenario that is far different from those today, where many forsake involvement in any Christian church anywhere because of vaguely suspected corruption in churches "in general" that can most times be dealt with through simple investigation, accountability and conversation.

What's interesting about this movie is that it does not completely follow the normal path of this story type, where the church is corrupt and, as a result, basically wrong in nearly every way it can be. Instead, the church leadership is portrayed as largely corrupt (as it certainly was at that time), while the validity of some of it's claims holds true. Even the "outlandish" ones. Such as the existence of witches and demons. This creates a more complex view of religion for the film, in which religious leaders can be wrong and corrupt, without being completely wrong. This movie portrays some women being wrongly executed for witchcraft, but also shows that some were rightly accused. It's a mixed bag.

Other complex questions are presented. In a moment of despair and frustration, Cage's character shouts that "A benevolent God would not ask these things of man!" The apparent conflict between God's all-loving character, his omnipotence and the evil we encounter in life is a common one for many. More than once in this movie, the nature of God's character is the subject of a sentence during difficult situations. If God is all-loving AND all-powerful, why does he allow evil to exist? There are certainly answers to this question from a biblical perspective, though this script doesn't provide any.

There is a theme of redemption running through the movie with one of the characters that (as is common in Hollywood) implies that most any wrong can be made up for by sacrificing your own life in a good cause. Redemption through self-sacrifice is extremely common in fiction, though it runs counter to biblical teaching.

Lastly, one of the chief concepts we have to accept in order to suspend disbelief and enter the world of the story, is that priests and monks are kind of like wizards, who use ancient religious texts (other than the Bible, oddly enough) like spell books to ward off or destroy the powers of evil. These "spell books" (which are just undefined religious rituals) seem to gain their power by simply being old and mysterious. God's power or direct involvement in defeating evil is left virtually out of the picture.

Genre fans can certainly wait to rent this movie, though they are likely to enjoy more than a few parts and have plenty of good jumping off points for meaningful conversation.

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, violence and disturbing content.

Quality: 8.0/10

Relevance: 8.5/10

www.spiritblade.net/paeter
www.spiritblade.net/podcast

Looking Into DVR

I may finally be stepping out of the stone age of TV technology. Or at least TV recording technology. All these DVD burners and DVR thingies like Tivo just haven't had any appeal for me. We've had a perfectly good VCR for years, and if I like a show enough I can buy it on DVD.

But a few months ago(or has it been years now?), every signal went digital, and our VCR just wasn't up to the challenge. (Not to mention it's never even been able to receive signals for channels over 121.) This wasn't a problem for awhile. With websites like Hulu or network sites showing full episodes online, I could easily catch up on shows I missed watching live.

But suddenly, in just one month, I ran into two shows that are not available for free viewing online anywhere that I could find. The Cartoon Network "Young Justice" pilot and AMCs "The Walking Dead". Two great shows that I will definitely be watching in the future.

So it seems the time has come at last to find out how much it will add to our cable bill to get a DVR. (Sigh.)

I was perfectly happy with the way things were. Why do some technological advances seem like such a step backward?

Radian Games' "Inferno"

Over the weekend I needed a change of pace in gaming, but only had 120 microsoft points and zero cash. But I spent some time sifting through the Indie games on Xbox live and came across a special gem called "Inferno" by Radian Games.

Unlike the other games produced by Radian, this one is not just a shooter. It's an action RPG! The trappings are similar to other Radian Games, but rather than a single screen on which you fight wave after wave of enemies in your spaceship, you explore 30 different levels, grabbing gold and earning upgrade points to trick out your ship to fit your strategy.

There are multiple difficulty settings, and as a person who has lousy hand/eye coordination, this is appreciated. The easiest setting might even be a little on the too easy side for me and I'm looking forward to trying the next difficulty after playing through it once on this difficulty.

If you've played Geometry wars and the dozens of games that have copied its visual style, Inferno may not feel very new to your eyes. But since I haven't played many of those Geometry Wars clones, the visuals are still fresh, and beautifully mesmerizing. A retro vibe with modern graphics effects.

For only a buck (80 msp), this game felt like a steal. Now if I could only find an update/clone of "Stargate"(Defender) in this visual style!