I'm in Kentucky for Christmas and without my graphics tools, so all the pictureish posts will have to wait until I get back. I'll have post-Christmas posts complete with pictures hopefully. It may be fairly quiet around here until then unless something really interesting happens.

posted by Travis at 9:47 PM

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Friday, December 16, 2005

Big post here. Lots to cover.

We went to see King Kong last night. It's really good with some amazing action sequences. I'm surprised that the studio accepted it as the final cut and left everything in (it's over 3 hours long). I like long movies, so it doesn't bother me, but there is a lot of stuff I can imagine them cutting without affecting the story. The action sequences are just incredible, though. Peter Jackson has an amazing ability to keep a camera in the thick of violence. We saw this as well with Return of the King. I couldn't help but think that the movie is a little...Jurassic Park-y, but not in a bad way. I do think this movie might scare the shit out of little kids or put them into cardiac arrest or something. It's intense. It's also INCREDIBLY sad, but that might be because I'm an animal person. I was worried about Jack Black turning into a cartoon character like he usually does in movies, and you can see him just about to do it in a few scenes, but Jackson keeps him reigned in. Go see this. Oh, we saw Lex Luthor at the movies and our seats were better than his.

I haven't been posting about the comics much because I think my already small audience isn't particularly interested in that, but...to hell with you guys, I need the content. This was a good week for comics with Ultimates 2 #9, Ghost Rider #4, Secret War #5, and Ultimate Iron Man #5. Many of these are long over due (I think Secret War #5 is over a year late).

Frankly, the Ghost Rider mini-series is one of my favorite comics going now. I love the way it's written and the art is really amazing (example1, example2, example3). If the examples get shrunk to fit your screen, just mouse-over the bottom right of the window and you'll get a true-size icon. It almost feels like a story out of the old Spawn comics without all the heavy drama. I think it only has one more issue, so you can probably pick up a trade of the whole thing in a few months. Secret War (not to be confused with Secret Wars from 20 years ago) was a comic I picked up a long time ago and it had a really strong start, however, I'm disappointed in this ending especially after a year of delays. Marvel comics needs to learn that continuity is important and if they want something huge to happen in one book, the other books with those same characters need to at least acknowledge it. The art in Secret War is enough to get me to buy it, though. #5 was the last issue, so you should be able to find a trade for this as well pretty soon. Ultimates 2 and Ultimate Iron Man are just good stuff always.

The first year of archives from this site are finally up on the Archives page. I think I've cleaned up all the broken pictures (some of the links may not be good anymore), so you can see how the site first started and some of the trials and tribulations of my life. Maybe I'll collect some of my favorite posts and link them with bookmarks...but not today.

I think I'm losing you, so I'll end this for now. I think I have more stuff, but I can't remember.

posted by Travis at 7:22 PM

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Kim and I saw Narnia tonight at an advance screening. In short, it's no Lord of the Rings, but it's pretty good. I kept hearing about how the whole thing was a huge Christ story and how the movie was going to beat you over the head with Christian mythology. Well, I think they are absolutely right because I definitely remember the part from the Christ story where Santa Claus gives a 7 year-old girl a dagger as a present. ...And the part where Judas seeks solace in an ice castle. I mean it's so obvious that it's about Jesus.

There is NO OVERBEARING CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IN THIS MOVIE. Take your religious conspiracy theories elsewhere, please.

I have not read the book (although I'm working through a collection of all of them), so I can't vouch for the movie's authenticity, but I will say it's very enjoyable. This is a Lord-of-the-Rings-type movie FOR KIDS. Remember that. It has talking animals and Santa Claus, so don't complain about how it isn't violent enough or it pulls punches. The movie is about wonder and magic and fantasy and being a kid. I liked it.

Oh, and Tilda Swinton is fucking awesome as the White Witch. She looks fantastic at the end of the movie and pay attention to what she is wearing. I don't mean that she looks all hot and naked, I just mean that her character really has an amazing look all through the movie, especially the end.

posted by Travis at 10:57 PM

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Saturday, December 03, 2005

Until yesterday, I had never eaten sushi. It's not that I never had the opportunity, it just wasn't something that I was interested in trying. Well, my new boss heard me admit this, so he told me that we were going to eat sushi on Friday, his treat. He didn't ask. So we went to a Japanese restaurant and he ordered several varieties of sushi. I think I had something called California roll, which apparently is not real sushi, and something with eel in it, which was also not real sushi. I guess these don't qualify because they are cooked. They were OK. It's mostly rice and soy sauce anyway. I know you're supposed to use chopsticks, but I'm a fork and spoon man, so I just used my hands. I did ask before starting, "That's not...is that...electrical tape?" which was some indication to me that I should get the hell out of there. Anyway, later the real deal showed up; a big piece of raw fish lying on top of a mound of rice. The first time I put one of those in my mouth I thought, "Oh my God, I'm going to vomit right here." It wasn't the taste, it was the texture and the fact that I was consciously eating completely raw.

So, I've tried sushi now, and I think I'll probably pass next time. Someone get me a steak.

posted by Travis at 10:22 AM

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Thursday, December 01, 2005

My sister came out to visit during the week of Thanksgiving so we did lots of tourist-type stuff while she was here. We went to The Huntington Library, saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at Grauman's Chinese Theater and walked around downtown Hollywood, saw Walk the Line at the Arclight, bought comics at House of Secrets on Wednesday, went to Universal City Walk, and spent some time at the Santa Monica Pier and the beach. We also watched The Godfather and The Godfather part II because Kelly never saw them.

Thanksgiving came and went with no problems. Some friends of ours came over so I had to cook turkey for more than just Kim and I this year, but the only negative result of the added pressure was fewer leftovers. One of our friends is a film guy and was telling a story where he mentioned he is friendly with Adam Baldwin, at which point I interrupted and said, "Wait a minute...are you saying that you know Animal Mother?" Adam Baldwin also plays Jayne in Firefly and Serenity which we've just recently started watching. This friend of ours is, in fact, a friend of Animal Mother's and I was reminded why I don't have any celebrity friends. I don't have any celebrity friends because they know to steer clear of people like me. For instance, if Animal Mother was my friend, I'd call him every day and demand that he say lines from Full Metal Jacket. I'd email him several times a day asking for stories about his experiences on different movie sets. I'd be just barely on the legal side of stalking. Regardless, I may try to work this angle through our friend.

I'm still playing the Xbox 360 when I can. I was given some more games (Call of Duty 2, King Kong, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, and Perfect Dark Zero) to try out. I was not looking forward to Call of Duty 2 on Xbox 360 because I'd rather play it on my PC and it sounded like a port to me. I'm happy to say that playing Call of Duty 2 on a 60" screen in widescreen HD with surround sound from the couch is an exhilarating experience. Playing a shooter with a console gamepad is a tad irritating, but I got used to it. I DID play Halo all the way through, so I'm no stranger to it. I haven't spent much time with many other of the games, although King Kong shows promise. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to buy Dead or Alive 4 for a console that I don't really own.

Speaking of Xbox 360, I did venture into the world of voice communications with Xbox Live. I never used Live with my old Xbox, mostly because I didn't have a long enough ethernet cable to reach my DSL modem and I didn't want to invest in a wireless solution. So far my Live experience has not been good. I wore the headset just long enough to hear some kid scream "Oh my fucking god, you fucking suck, faggot!" when I rubbed his car out of my way in PGR3. This is THE REASON I don't want voice over IP for gaming. I don't like the children.

I have some more, but I'll save some for tomorrow.

posted by Travis at 9:35 AM

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