Christmas Every Day

I was driving around tonight doing some Christmas shopping, listening to some Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate with peppermint. Doing all these things to conjure up that "Christmas feeling" that is so wonderful when it comes on but is often elusive.

It got me thinking, why is it that we love Christmas so much? Why did Elvis Presley sing "why can't every day be like Christmas"? For me, the Christmas season brings to mind things I've enjoyed during past Christmases. Game nights with family or friends, music, time off to relax and read or play, getting presents, taking fun trips, eating good food and a number of other things. It's a time of year when, at least in theory, everyone is more cheerful, more giving, and more patient with each other.

But we can only keep the act up for so long. Making special meals takes time and effort and often more money. We have to go back to the daily grind of work, so that free time for relaxing and reading vanishes quickly. We aren't very willing to keep buying presents for each other on all the other days of the year. There are video games to buy for ourselves, after all.

In some ways, the Christmas season is like taking a few days or weeks and living in denial of our natural, selfish tendencies. But in another way, it foreshadows, just a tiny bit, what God has in store for those who love and trust him.

A time will come when evil and selfishness are completely removed from our thoughts and actions. God will completely and overwhelmingly satisfy our every need and desire and so we will have no reason to live selfishly. Instead, we'll spend our time for all of eternity selflessly loving God and loving others, which will only increase the excitement and joy we each experience!

The Christmas season foreshadows a time when our lives will be alien by comparison, radically different from what they are now. Every day will be an amazing experience. But it won't be like Christmas. It will be even better.

Goodbye Toenail!

Yowch!! Friday morning I slammed my big toe into the fence we put up to keep our 1 year old in a single area. Thought it hurt more than a usual toe-stubbing so I took my sock off and found my toenail bent up at almost a 45 degree angle with blood underneath it. (Gives me shivers just thinking of it again!) Freaked Holly out to look at it.

Taped it down with a bandage, though I'm told I'll probably lose it. Hurt less than I might have thought, but then again I've been spending as much time as possible off my feat the last couple of days and it's still pretty tender.

Good excuse to kick back and play Skyrim, but Friday was "opening ceremonies" for us, when we go buy our tree and put up all the Christmas stuff! Still managed to limp around getting things done and as of last night all of our Christmas stuff is up. (Whew!)

Trying Out "The Hunger Games"

If you just knew me and my younger sister superficially, you'd say we don't have much in common. She's probably more serious than I am much of the time, a whole lot smarter, and hardly watches any of the same movies I do.

But one thing we have in common is that we are both nerds. She is very selective in her nerdity, but when she geeks out, it's every bit as hard core as I am with comics, sci-fi flicks or RPGs.

She's a Harry Potter nut. Read the entire series around seven times so far and found a way to get me to read most of the books, too. (Though I didn't enjoy them as much.)

Her more recent obsession began one or two years ago when she discovered a book called "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. She suddenly kept telling me, "you gotta try this one out! You'd like it so much better than Harry Potter!"

I was skeptical, because I know firsthand that we nerds can get excited about things that really no one else will find very exciting. So I put her off until the whole trilogy was written. (I don't like cliffhangers or unresolved plot threads in novels.) Then I put her off until my wife read the trilogy, hoping she'd tell me they weren't that great. (She didn't.) Finally she tells me the movie for the first book is coming out soon. I figure I'll just watch and enjoy it as a movie. But then I saw the trailer, which looked pretty interesting, and realized "crap. I may want to read the book first."

So I'm giving it a shot now. There have been several hurdles I thought would be a problem. I don't usually like sci-fi novels. (Movies and TV, yes, nut novels for some reason no.) The "first person present tense" took some adjusting. (But not near as much as you'd think.) And almost halfway through the book now there has barely been any action. But I'm really enjoying it!

The main reason is simple. Character. The author keeps us inside the mind of the main character constantly. We know what she fears and hopes for. We feel it right along with her. Action in novels can be detached and superficial, descriptions of blows and blood with little more. (*cough* Salvatore *cough*) But when those blows, and their results, have personal meaning to the characters involved in them, the action becomes heightened and intense.

My sister assures me that some major, bloody action is coming in the series. So far, I'm enjoying the tension Collins provides even without much action. I can only imagine how much more gripping a read this will be when the characters I care about are fighting for their lives!

Thanks for prodding me, Karyne! Consider me hooked!

Timeless TV

Recently I've taken an interest in watching the old "Incredible Hulk" tv show that I watched as a kid. In those days I LOVED the Hulk. I would stomp around the house in slow motion, growling as I released the beast within. The Hulk scenes were the best part of the show.

But I remember once in college when they played an Incredible Hulk marathon on the sci-fi channel. I sat to watch just a little bit and was soon sucked in to a two-part episode. By the end, I was in tears as a heart-wrenching tragedy unfolded. This show had more to it than I remembered!

Now as I've purchased the first season on DVD from amazon and watch it on Hulu as I wait for my package to arrive, I see again and again that this is not some simple action sci-fi show. It has a tremendous amount of drama as well. In fact, I might even call it PRIMARILY a drama, and a good one!

Bill Bixby as the gentle but haunted David Banner gives us a beaten-down hero to root for, and the pain he experiences, though presented in 1970's packaging, is timeless and felt far more by me as an adult viewer than I ever had the chance of feeling as a kid. The authenticity of his performance was virtually unique in this era of television, far ahead of its time. In fact the show works so well for me and lacks almost all the "cheese" of 80's action shows, that at times I can almost imagine it was produced yesterday, but as a 70's/80's "period piece".

The Hulk scenes are okay. They don't age as well, but still serve a greatly needed function in emphasizing Dr. Banner's plight. And Lou Ferrigno is HUGE!

I'm still digging "Chuck" as I catch up on Blu-ray, but I'm amazed at how often I've opted for "The Incredible Hulk" instead!

The Craziness Begins!

Good grief. Not even Thanksgiving yet and the Christmas season is already kicking my butt. Although to be fair, not all of it is Christmas related.

I've got two songs to prepare for a memorial service Monday, a phone meeting over the weekend to go over details with an author whose audio book I'm producing, sign-up sheets to copy and put on clipboards just a few minutes before I run around at the beginning and end of classes on Sunday to announce and start organizing the annual caroling ministry I run(that a huge crazy animal by itself!), another song to prepare for a women's Christmas event at our church, 4 readings to write for use in our Christmas Eve service and the list seems to go on and on.

It's actually not so much finding time for all of these things as it is remembering to get them done and at very specific times. I can hack away at a to do list all year long. In fact, that's basically what my work entails. But when that to do list has specific times and dates attached to it, I start to lose it a bit and have to start writing on my hand to remember what's coming next.

Hopefully I won't be adding a trip to the hospital to my agenda to be treated for ink poisoning!

East Mesa Has A Comic Book Store!

For all you comic book fans in Mesa, East Mesa now has a comic book store! No more driving 20 minutes (or more!) to hit the comic shops in West Mesa. Hot Ace Comics opens TODAY on the south-east corner of Apache Trail (Main St.) and Signal Butte!

For more info, go to their facebook page!

I tried the mail order route for a few months, and there's just nothing like walking into a comic store every week and talking a little "shop" with the staff.

If you've been waiting for YEARS like I have for a comic shop to open on this side of town, come by the store today and check it out! Show your support and help this little family owned and run business succeed!

Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V ("First Five" Review)

Oblivion was my first experience with a 1st-person RPG, my strong preference then being 3rd person, and it took me two attempts before I could adjust. But once I did I discovered a gaming experience nearly without equal. For months I've waited in eager anticipation for the next game in the Elder Scrolls series, and Skyrim does everything but disappoint.

My first five impressions of any game's first five hours have almost always been an accurate summary of my thoughts on the game even after I finally play through the whole thing. So here are my first five impressions of the first five hours of "Skyrim". (Well, actually I've played twelve hours so far.)

1. The visual design has gotten a very nice upgrade. I was very impressed with the look of "Oblivion", but the new spell animations and gritty textures of "Skyrim" take the experience even further. (And people don't look weird anymore!) There is something strangely "Fallout 3" about the look of things that I can't quite identify, but that's no insult! The game looks fantastic! Though I'll echo what a reviewer at Gamespot said by observing that the world of Skyrim is best experienced by looking at the big picture rather than the details, where the graphics betray plenty of blocky pixels up close. Still, character animations have been improved and other visual upgrades have been made across the board that add wonderful life to the game.

2. They've put more effort into the auditory design as well! The score is still epic and sweeping, while having some great masculine tribal men's chorus added to great effect. The biggest improvement is the increase in the number and quality of voice actors used. My biggest gripe with Oblivion is that the game was fully voiced... by only about five actors, who made little or no effort to change their performance for different characters. (I played much of Oblivion with the voices turned off.) The character animations in conversations haven't been improved to "Dragon Age" quality, but the expanded voice cast adds some welcome life to character interaction.

3. The interface has been streamlined, in many ways cloning elements from Fallout 3. You are ultimately given less information about your character, which in some ways is fine, since I never understood every detail of my Oblivion character anyway. But some info seems missing. I didn't know I had a disease until I noticed everyone telling me I look sick. (Your character records only indicate how many diseases you've caught, not how many you currently have.) But in almost every other way the simplification in menus is appreciated. The controls also respond wonderfully and never get in the way. As an added bonus, 3rd person mode is actually an enjoyable alternative playing mode! (It was lousy in Oblivion.) I still use mainly 1st person, as the game is primarily intended to be played that way, but now and then it's helpful, or just a nice change of pace, to switch to 3rd for a bit.

4. "Immersive" is a word that keeps coming to mind. Even more so than Oblivion, Skyrim is an open, living world, with people and creatures in the wild living their own lives. I even passed a giant who had no interest in attacking me, and a dragon circled over head for three minutes while I was wandering in the forest. Scared the crap out of me but he finally moved on. It might seem counter-intuitive in design, but I actually love that this game isn't always "about me"! And again there is a ton to do. You can mix potions like before, as well as work in the smithy, smelter, tanner, workbench and grindstone to make your own weapons from scratch or improve existing weapons! And there are more quests than I can possibly keep up with!

5. This game is addictive! Finishing many quests introduces new ones and the sights and sounds of this world just beg to be explored from top to bottom. My hand-eye coordination is lame, so I'm playing on easy, and I'm in the sweet spot of my difficulty curve. Combat is challenging, and yet I feel like somebody that no one should mess with. Dungeons are now also marked "cleared" on your world map once you've actually explored them (instead of just "discovering them"), making it easy to check dungeons off the completist's exploration list, and tempting to tackle "just one more". And the story is engaging and feels "alive" rather than scripted.

In simple terms, this games just "works" on every level. Although there are small details I could nitpick, the sum of this game's parts is probably the best RPG video game experience I've ever had.

Immortals

An evil King leads an army across the land on a quest to retrieve an ancient weapon and awaken an evil power that will destroy the world. It falls to a man named Theseus, battle trained by Zeus himself, to lead the forces of good and fight for humanity's survival.

"The producers of '300'" were heavily marketed as being behind this flick, and between that, the cool slow-mo action trailers and the plot description, you're probably thinking this movie sounds like the stuff the best brutal, fantasy action flicks are made of, right? Unfortunately, this one was mostly knock-off style with little depth or substance.

Director Tarsem Singh is best known for his trippy visual style, as showcased in movies like "The Cell". And he brings those sensibilities to "Immortals" as well, though I'm not sure they're always the best fit.

There is a lot of green screen going on here, but it didn't bother me too much. I even got used to every shot obviously looking like it was created on a sound stage somewhere. (All the big "epic" shots of armies and such were CGI filler.) So I didn't suffer from much visual claustrophobia.
But the costumes and sets jumped back and forth between fantastic and cheap.

The gods are played by what look like hairless male models wearing just a hint of lipstick, dressed up in golden plastic clothes and armor that look ornate and mythological. But the end result looks less powerful and majestic and more like a strange fantasy-themed perfume commercial, only without the wind-blown bedsheets in the background. One set in particular looked like little more than white cardboard walls, spotlessly untouched by human hands.
The bronze breastplates worn by many look fine, until late in the movie when Theseus takes his off and it bends and wobbles like plastic in the process.

Speaking of artificial, these were some of the most two-dimensional characters I've seen on screen in awhile. There were plenty of theoretical reasons for me to care about them. We saw loved ones getting killed, fathers having to punish their sons and love bubbling to the surface amidst terrible circumstances. But none of the characters were invested in enough for me to care.

Killing someone's mother won't feel very jarring to movie watchers if we don't see before hand the relationships she had with her children. The pain of a father having to punish his son won't come across unless we see first how much he loves his son. And why should we believe that a complete stranger could infuse soldiers with sudden courage who had never met him before and had no reason to believe he could lead them in battle? The script tried to take advantage of numerous emotional beats that it just plain hadn't earned in advance. I couldn't have cared any less how this movie ended.

What it did have going for it, in addition to some striking visual designs, were some cool, brutal, slow motion action sequences. Despite being ripped straight from 300 and some of your favorite video games, they were still fun to watch and make me wish I could have stopped the movie a few times to go back and watch them again. Very cool looking stuff.

Given the polytheistic setting and the theme of belief vs. unbelief present in the movie, there are several jumping off points for worthwhile discussion after seeing this movie. In fact, one of the exercises that kept me interested in the experience of watching came from making quick comparisons between the gods of this flick and the God of the Bible.

The gods may or may not choose to "have faith in" humanity. God doesn't "have faith" in anything or anyone, because faith only exists in someone who does not have complete, objective knowledge of all things.

The gods, even in their "divine forms", can be injured or even killed. God is completely unchanging and unchangeable.

In one scene near the end, Zeus even looks up into the light above him before making a major decision. A gesture that implies he is looking for guidance or some kind of reaction from a power above him. God has no beginning, nor is he the effect of some cause before him. There is no source or standard of power, knowledge or goodness greater than him and therefore no reason for him to ever seek council or approval.

It was an interesting little mental activity, but one resulting from a lack of interest in the movie, not a desire to talk about the themes it developed or thoughts it provoked. The movie was neither thematically interesting or thought-provoking. Only those bent toward "getting philosophical" are likely to have any meaningful discussion as a result of seeing this flick.

Fans of brutal fantasy will likely want to check this one out, and I wouldn't advise them not to. But I'd wait and rent this one. It wasn't worth the five bucks I paid.

Rated R for sequences of strong bloody violence, and a scene of sexuality.

Quality: 7.5/10

Relevance: 7.0/10

For information about my scoring system, visit spiritblade.net/reviewscores.
To listen to this review, visit spiritblade.net/podcast

Blehh

Not much to say today. Got some kinda bug in my stomach. No vomiting yet, but if it happens and you'd like pictures or video, please leave your request here as a comment.

Countdown To Skyrim And Potentially Huge Disappointment!

Friday is the big day. If you're an RPG video game fan, then by now you've seen the trailers and game play footage. You're probably even watering at the mouth as much as I am, while also making a point to not schedule social activities for at least the next 2-3 weeks.

I've been between games again for a little while now, play testing my card game and playing "filler video games" for the last couple of months. But as the anticipation builds I find that the filler games just aren't scratching that nerdy itch like they used to. And more and more I'm itching for the kinda stuff that only Skyrim is likely to provide anytime soon.

The last time I was this excited about a game was for the release of "Dragon Age 2". Of course, Bethesda won't disappoint me like Bioware did, will they? Please?

(Sigh) Let's face it. The more we nerds let things like this build in our minds, the more likely they are to disappoint. There's an elusive standard of bliss that we keep thinking that next game or movie will match, but it never really does, or at least not for long.

I think it's a reminder that we weren't built for temporary fulfillment. The intention all along has been for us to be completely fulfilled and for that experience to last forever. We were engineered to anticipate and think in terms of "forever".

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
(Ecclesiastes 3:11, NIV)

So while the nerd in me is still aching for Bethesda's next (hopefully) triumph to be released on Friday, I'm also aiming to remember that there's an experience waiting for me that a million of the best game designers working for billions of years couldn't achieve. And it won't get boring or stale with time. It will only get better and better... and last forever.

I'm An American Again!

In early August my Xbox Live account was hacked and then transferred to the Russian server. A huge pain in the butt that meant I couldn't download new content, couldn't re-download games I'd previously purchased and couldn't navigate any of the Xbox Live menus without a Russian translator sitting next to me. (I don't have one of those.)

Repeated calls to Xbox support ended with basically "it should just be a week or two more, sir". A week or two must mean three months in Microsoft Math. (Which shouldn't surprise me based on their wonky "points to dollars" ratios.)

But FINALLY I got an automated e-mail from Xbox support (still in Russian, but I found an online translator) on Wednesday telling me that my account was back in the US again. I launched my Xbox desktop and lo and behold, I am no longer a Russian!

Of course there's still the matter of the 120 Microsoft Points that the investigation team hasn't added back to my account yet. (Sigh.) Where is that phone number again?

Bye Bye Cable!

We finally did it! Over the weekend my wife brought up the idea of ditching cable again. We'd been weighing pros and cons and were sitting on the fence for quite awhile, but on Sunday when it came up we both just said, "Let's do it!" And so after one phone call with a persistent cable rep., our cable is no more.

We really hadn't been watching much TV at all. I would tune in to G4 for X-Play in hopes of seeing coverage on a game I care about. But that was usually wasted time and there are plenty of both written and video(my preference) reviews for games online.

I LOVE AMC's "The Walking Dead". And though it can't be seen for free online, each episode can be purchased soon after its TV airing for two bucks. And I'd MUCH rather watch it commercial free on MY schedule anyway. Granted, watching movies and TV on my computer isn't as cool as watching on my TV, but I'll eventually buy the blu-rays for the full experience, and in the meantime 8 bucks a month is a lot different from 80 bucks, which is what we're saving now, since we also downgraded our phone service. (No caller ID, so we're back to screening every call with the machine. Sorry folks. Try my cell instead!)

The only gap left to fill in my normal TV watching is my "lunch break tv", which used to be the Daily Show and/or the Colbert Report (incidentally, two GREAT ways to keep your hand on the pulse of American pop-philosophy, even if you don't agree with the ideas and assumptions presented), though Comedy Central recently started playing movies in that time-slot instead. As of now, the previous day's shows are put up on their websites, so no problem there.

And if those websites stop posting full episodes, I've been looking for time in my schedule to enjoy a geek podcast now and then anyway. (I usually listen to theology/apologetics teaching podcasts when I exercise and the rest of my work day demands too much mental focus to listen to podcasts.) Yesterday I downloaded a bunch of different episodes from a variety of board game enthusiast podcasts, so I think I'm all set.

So... why have we been paying for cable for all this time? Hmm. It must have been for the privilege of watching "Two And A Half Men" on at least two channels at any given time of day.