In the World

I am a rather voracious consumer of entertainment media. Books, movies, music, DVDs, television, stage productions…at any given time I have around 65 DVDs in my Netflix queue, and my Tivo records everything from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to Fringe. 2008 was a great year for movies, and I’m looking forward to the DVD catch-up of the movies I didn’t make it out to see.

2009 is not looking so hot. Every year around this time I look up the coming movies for the next year and make a rough list of what to see, what to skip, and what to plan on renting. Mostly rent, because I don’t go to the theater terribly often. This year, I figured I’d post my list here, just for the fun of it.

Besides, it looks like it’s going to be a pretty rough year for Hollywood. I figure they can use all the promotion they can get right now.

January

Inkheart – Yet another Brendan Fraser action/adventure flick…what can I say, I love the guy. This is a renter.

Outlander – This one is already in my Netflix queue, because there’s no way I’ll actually see it in a theater. So very, very B. I miss MST3K.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans – How can you go wrong with vampires AND werewolves in the same movie?

The Dark Knight – RUMOR! I have seen reference on the Internets (therefore it MUST be true!) that The Dark Knight will be returning to IMAX screens sometime in January. I might have to get a babysitter.

February

Push – Looks like another Jumper–marginal action/sci-fi. Rent, but don’t expect much beyond some flashy SXF.

The Velveteen Rabbit – Something to take my daughter to see! The only other movie she’s seen in the theater is Wall-E, and we saw that twice.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li – The only redeeming factor of this movie is…wait, there isn’t one. But it’s Street Fighter, so I’ll rent it eventually. Shoryu-ken!

The Resurrection – This is one of those rare movies that I’ll see in the theater even if it’s awful.

March

12 – A remake of Twelve Angry Men! A renter for sure. It’ll have to be amazing to outdo the original. Maybe it’ll have mind-readers, or robots, or time travel. Or maybe a time-traveling, mind reading robot. Or not.

Watchmen – More comic superheroes. Unless I hear really good things about this one, it’ll be a renter.

April

Dragonball Evolution – As a huge Dragonball and Dragonball Z fan, I can’t express in words how terribly frightened I am of this movie. The cast actually looks good, but In the Name of the King is recent proof that a good cast can’t make up for a bad director. Definitely a renter, unless I’m looking to blow an evening on something pointless. On the other hand, I’m sure some of my friends could twist my arm into convincing me to watch Emmy Rossum for 90 minutes. Kamehameha!

The Soloist – A drama that actually looks good. What a concept.

May

(This is going to be a busy month. Why Hollywood has to smash all the good stuff together I’ll never understand.)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine – This is the first of the “Babysitter Night” movies. I will see this in the theater.

Star Trek – What can I say here? Don’t screw it up, J.J. Abrams. Opening night will be a Babysitter Night, if I don’t manage to make it to a midnight opening. This is my Number One Movie to Be Excited For in 2009.

Angels & Demons – My favorite Dan Brown book, and likely to be a much better movie than The Da Vinci Code. I’m hoping the soundtrack is as good as Da Vinci Code’s. That will make the movie worth seeing. Again, I’m predicting a Babysitter Night.

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian – The first Night at the Museum was a fun movie, and I’m looking forward to seeing the familiar Smithsonian buildings in this one.

Terminator Salvation – A Terminator movie without Ahnold?  BUT it has Christian Bale as John Conner! Woo! I guess Bale can’t get enough of saving the world. Can you say Babysitter Night?

Up – The new Pixar film. Need I say more? This won’t need to be a Babysitter Night, because I’ll be taking the Munchkin to see this one!

June

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Yay more Transformers! Should be good, even if we have to put up with more of Michael Bay’s nearly incoherent action sequences. Definitely another Babysitter Night.

July

Ice Age 3 – Yep, another Ice Age movie. I’m predicting another father-daughter outing.

2012 – Another disaster movie from Roland “I’ll never make another disaster movie” Emmerich. I’ll definitely see this, thought probably not in the theater. The very idea of 2012 is just too tempting to pass up. I do have to say, though, I’m rather disappointed that I haven’t seen any Christians jumping on the “end of the world in 2012″ bandwagon with books predicting the rapture or Jesus’ return. My favorite part of the legend is the bit about the domesticated animals rising up against their human oppressors. Fun times!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – This one is on my must-see list for the summer. I think I’ve already got a babysitter lined up.

August

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra – I’m pretty excited about this movie, but the movie photos seem to be mysteriously devoid of any American flags. I thought GI Joe was “The Real American Hero”. Hopefully this will make our military boys and girls look as awesome as Transformers did.

September

Pandorum – Looks like another Sunshine, which was almost a good movie–or possibly another Event Horizon, which wasn’t.

Daybreakers – This will probably be a renter. It sounds like I Am Legend, but with more bloodthirsty vampires. And hopefully less depressing.

Whiteout – Another renter, I think. Could be a fun thriller.

Surrogates – An interesting combination of robot-related ideas. Definitely a renter.

October

Zombieland – Sounds like somebody read World War Z a few too many times. Might be a renter, if they manage to keep it from being a gore-fest. Otherwise, it’s a cool idea, but I’ll skip it and wait for the real World War Z movie.

Where the Wild Things Are – Yay! Imagination! If the trailer looks really good, this might be a family outing.

Astro Boy – Must. Rent. Movies. Based. On. Anime! Now if only they’d make Akira…

November

New Moon – More baseball-playing angst-ridden romance-seeking non-gory vampires, please. And don’t forget the funny.

December

Avatar – No, not that Avatar (which is apparently being directed by Shyamalan), but it still looks like it might be good. Not Aang/Katara/Toph/Sokka/Zuko good, but watchable.

Anything Else?

Okay, so 2009 is actually looking pretty slim as far as movies go. Hopefully I’ll find some good anime to keep me out of trouble.

And I’ve got a bit of a backlog in my Netflix queue, so maybe I’ll have a chance to catch up now.

I am rarely surprised by Christmas gifts.

But this caught me by surprise. Not just because of the gift itself, but because of the execution of the charade.

This is what I opened Christmas morning, which was pretty awesome, because I jumped back into photography this past summer.

But it was what I opened a few minutes later that turned Christmas into a conspiracy. There was a box, which contained a box, within which was nestled another box, inside of which was hiding yet another box. This last box contained a set of keys, which went to this:

Yes, I now have a brand new motorcycle. Shiny.

To say I was surprised would be a bit of an understatement. Too bad I have to wait until April to ride it.

I am a voracious consumer of media in many forms.

Video game music has always been one of my favorites, from Super Mario Brothers and Bionic Commando on the Nintendo to Final Fantasy 7 on the Playstation to Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2.

The latest bit of video game music awesomeness is the opening track from Mirror’s Edge, Still Alive. I’ve played the game (which is tons of vertigo-inducing fun), but the music is what really hit me. It’s like the sound director was channeling Sarah Brightman. And to make things even better, PS3 owners can download the .mp3 from PSN. You can also see a good fan-vid here.

Of course, Still Alive from Mirror’s Edge is not to be confused with another song called Still Alive from a different game called Portal. Which is also a great (and terribly funny) video game credits song. You can hear the song in the credits context here. And also a HILARIOUS fan-vid! The cake is a lie.

Maybe next I’ll link to Aeris’s Theme or One-Winged Angel from the Final Fantasy 7 soundtrack. Or not.

Please note that if you are still on dial-up internet, you may want to join the 21st century before clicking any of the links.

And yes, I am an elitist.

Somewhere around the end of October my trusty little Thinkpad T41p laptop died. It was a hardworking little machine, and never complained when I asked it to work into the wee hours of the morning. It was my faithful companion through thick and thin for more than 3 years.

Then, late one night, just as the hour of the wolf chimed, my trusty IBM Thinkpad blinked, shuddered, and was no more.

So I replaced it. What? It was just a computer.

Now I’m running a 2007-model Macbook, but it just isn’t the same. I miss having a pointing stick. I miss having a keyboard light. I miss the square 14″ screen. I miss having a dock and being able to run my business apps natively.

Not that my MacBook is bad, mind you. It just wasn’t designed with someone like me in mind. There are too many things that I can nitpick. At least Terminal Services works.

I’m horribly selective when it comes to any kind of computer. I can’t buy computers at Circuit City or Best Buy. I’m that geeky guy who knows more about the computers than the people selling them. I’m like the car mechanic shopping for a new car at a dealership: I know what I want, and why I want it. Finding a laptop that covers it all is something else altogether. If only Toshiba would add a pointing stick and a 14″ screen to it’s R500 Portege. Sigh.

I’m just glad that there’s a VirtualBox binary for OSX, and Xcode has given me a bit of entertainment. The fact the my Mac will talk to my Tivo, and that it can now handle Netflix movies also helps make things tolerable. I guess a “yay Silverlight!” is in order for the little victory over flash that Microsoft was able to pull off at Netflix.

Oh well. At least it’s not a pink Vaio.

It’s a brand new day, and the sun is high!

The best television show that never appeared on television came out on DVD today.

If you’ve never seen Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog then you are missing out. During the Hollywood writer’s strike last year, Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly/Serenity) and his brother got bored. So in a fit of what I can only describe as brilliant insanity they pulled together Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, and Felicia Day and made what they describe as the world’s first super-villain musical.

And it’s amazing. Especially the “It’s a Brand New Day” song at 25:08 (the end of Act 2).

Maybe if I plug enough sales for them they’ll give me a key to a shiny new Australia when they’ve taken over the world (although world domination isn’t necessarily part of the plan).

Dr. Horrible on Hulu (free)

Dr. Horrible for sale on Amazon

The Dr. Horrible Soundtrack on Amazon

A warning, though: This won’t be for everyone. Think PG-13.

May the Lord bless you all the days of your life, Joss Whedon.

In lieu of a real post, I have been updating the links to the left this week. If I can manage to post something non-political or non-financial this week, I will. I really don’t want to touch on either of those subjects this week, but I can’t seem to get away from them. I mean, it’s really hard to take government figures seriously when they continuously show themselves to be severely misinformed, and actively spreading disinformation to further their agendas.

(Case in point: I was listening to a radio show this week that had a U.S. Senator as a guest. This Senator pointed to the Big Dig tunnel collapse and the Minneapolis bridge collapse as undeniable proof that we have crumbling bridges and roads. That the senator believed this was misinformation; that he repeated it was an act of spreading disinformation. Neither event was caused by poor maintenance, but rather poor building and design flaws.)

If you are somewhat masochistic, I suggest you explore the links.But only if you have a strong stomach.

I will try to mark NSFW links as such, but you really shouldn’t be reading blogs on work time anyway.

And as I said in an earlier post, I will try to keep everything PG-13. But there’s no guarantee of that, so click accordingly!

It’s true.

But at least I’m comforted in that it can’t be too uncommon. I mean, there is a song about it.

I think my daughter may be shedding her anglo-saxon-german-african-gypsy-mediterranean heritage in favor of the Japanese.

She is 3 and a half, and she is already showing the signs of becoming a full-fledged otaku (not that her parents have anything to do with that, of course not! My DBZ and Tenchi Muyo collections, and my wife’s Sailor Moon obsession play no part in these events).

Anyway, back to the subject: Here is a partial list of my daughter’s favorite things. See if you notice a trend.

Chocolate snack of choice: Pocky.

Favorite movie: The Cat Returns (pseudo-sequel to the incredibly cute Whisper of the Heart).

Headgear she cannot be parted from: She has two (yes, TWO) neko hats (caps with cat ears), in addition to a matching set of tiger ears and tail.

Backpack she likes to take nearly everywhere: Fuku-Ohki Plush Backpack (she also has a Ryo-Ohki plushie, but they are harder to get nowadays and I don’t really want a link to J-List in my blog).

And she still thinks manga are little coloring books.

I think it will be a while, however, before I let her watch End of Evangelion. I watched it as an adult and it messed with my head.

My daughter is so cute.

I’ve spent a good portion of the last two weeks going through archives and photos in preparing some displays for the upcoming Destiny Image 25th Anniversary celebration (Friday, December 5).

You never quite realize how many people come and go in your life until you sit down and actually think about it. It seems to be even worse when you have photographic evidence. Ah, nostalgia!

K.S. and I were talking today and realized that we are getting to the point where we should probably have a company historian. I’m sure nobody thought we would ever need one. I don’t think we thought we’d make it this long sometimes.

But 25 years is pretty admirable. Here’s to the next 25!