In The Future...

I have decided to resolve now, in the interest of not forgetting later, that next year, 2014, will be a "year of doing stuff" which I will document on my blog, with a post going up late each night about whatever it was I accomplished or simply made me happy for that day. I don't have access to a smartphone or a laptop I can carry with me, so you will know that if there isn't a post for that day that means I was out of town and the next post will recap the missing time. I can make this resolution as a consequence of discovering that the plan is for me to undergo another operation in January and that such plans would make it impossible for me to enroll in college for the spring semester, therefore leaving me with no plans through the first six months of the year.

Accomplishments documented during the Year of Doing Stuff may include, but are not limited to:

• Making actual progress in the use of the expensive leatherstamping kit I was given a couple bdays ago
• Getting better at archery
•  Reading x number of books for the first time (though I am not going to go on any binges where I read something marketed below my age level, a la Ranger's Apprentice)
• Getting better at drawing
• The day I shoot the last photo in the nearly-empty memory card of the lightly-used $100 camera I was given at 17
• Doing math lessons ( I have a tendency to forget everything I learned in math the previous semester, so I keep starting fresh and getting slightly better at it)
• Make significant progress in the WIP that has been sustaining my life for the past few years. (I recently came to a conclusion that I am not in reality the writing type, since the idea of this project is in no way exciting. However on most days free writing is the only task I can manage w/o any real physical pain. Besides I'm 60 pages along in the second draft and I know where it's going)
• Since learning to drive is out of the question I think that pretty well sums up my ideas for the coming year. If everything lines up smoothly I will start going to college next August, but I will still do my best to put up a new post every day.

However in the course of 12 months I'm sure a few other things of note will occur, especially since most projects on my list are things I will probably not have improved much at by the end of Summer.

p.s. Another item on my list is to achieve the feat of watching an LOTR extended marathon in one day, for which an opportunity may very well arise during the time I am recovering from the next operation.

Another Mad Libs Post...

Simply because it is long since time for me to put up another actual post, instead of bashing movies everyone else loves. The following needs no further explanation. You will laugh or you won't...

Droids

There are many different kinds of droids cooking around during the Clone Wars. Some of them work for the good remote controls while others burn for the ignorant guys. And each droid has a specific belt to perform. For example, Assassin droids are programmed to do one thing and one thing only: destroy every pencil in their path. Battle droids are always on the front walls and the first to engage the enemy. Protocol droids are involved in short diplomacy, searching for peaceful maps to put an end to the smelling. Astromech droids like R2-D2 help with space-spade repairs. When all is said and done its important to remember that the Clone Wars aren't just about Republic forces vs. Seperatist forces, but also a battle of clear droids vs. stretched droids.

Under the Sea with the Little Mermaid

Life under the sea is full of wonder and textbooks-especially when you are a mermaid and an ancient underwater princess like me. I live on the ocean floor in a rotten castle made of coral escalators. My dad is king Bob, ruler of the entire UFO. My friends are fish, dolphins, and underwater faucets. e spend our days exploring electric fence reefs and searching for sunken pig ears. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to whistle on land. I've heard that people there have wrists instead of fins. And that they eat around from place to place in motorized robots and wear squishy sticky notes on their hips. Someday I hope to visit this place so I can meet a handsome car dealer and fall wildly in love. That would be a mermaid's antimatter come true!

The second entry above was a blind pick from Mad Libs: Fairy Tales edition.

Supers: A Comparison

I know, it's odd that I only talk about superheroes and lotr on this blog. Maybe someday soon I will do another one of those goofy Mad Libs posts... But anyway, here we go again, and in this post I rank the Super-vehicle films I've seen in the past year: Dark Knight Rises (Batman), Iron Man 3, Man of Steel (Superman), and The Dark World (Thor). Who wins? I wasn't sure until I finished writing this post. The points are accumulated and counted up, One through four.

Awesomeness of film

Super tops IM
(IM tops Bat)

Bat tops Thor)

Coolness of Title Character (as super)

Super tops IM
(Bat tops IM)

In contrast to Kal-El naturally having his abilities and Batman getting by on fighting skills he's learned outside of his suit in addition to tech he designed, IM has no powers w/o the suit and Thor has nothing w/o the hammer but exaggerated strength and immortality. So it is a toss-up but the point lead goes to...Iron Man for knowing how to build his tech.

Coolness of character's Secret Identity

IM (in IM 3 alone) tops Bat

Bat tops Super
Thor doesn't have one

Awesomeness of Music

Bat wins over Thor by percentages. Note that this lead may change in the future.
(Thor tops IM)
IM tops Super

Humor Scale

 Thor leads (on the power of Loki)
(Im tops Bat)
Super tops Bat

Fun Factor of Supporting Cast

Thor tops IM on the strength of Loki and Heimdall
(IM tops Bat)

Bat tops Super

Villain
super tops Bat
(Bat tops IM)

Thor tops IM

So...Point scores...In the seven divisions...
Super: 4 4 2 1 1 1 4 (17 total)
IM: 3 2 4 2 3 3 1 (18)
Bat: 2 3 3 4 1 3 3 (19)
Thor: 1 1 1 3 4 4  2 (16)
So Loki and Heimdall were not enough even to pass Man of Steel which was a terrible movie when Russel Crowe wasn't involved but was made barely passable by the hour-long high-flying smackdown in the second half...Although these numbers do reflect my relative opinion of different elements of the film, (Awesomeness meaning including explosions and fights,) It does not reflect the fact that I did not actually like any of the movies. Batman got the highest point score, which does not remind you that it bored me stiff to the point of wishing I could get up and leave, which I have never felt about any movie before or since that I was watching in the theater.

Thor The Dark World Reaction

Ok, so...my reaction to the new Thor movie...Do you even want to know?

If this film had been called "Loki Messes With Asgard...Again" It would have been closer to the truth.

I knew it was going to be heavy with the Thor\Jane relationship, but showing that off weighed the story down like a brick. Yes I have a problem with melodrama and showstopping kissing shots. Those are at the top of my list of stuff I hate that's ok to put on screen.

Tom Hiddleston (who by now will forever be known as Marvel's Loki) saved the movie again. He had all the funny parts; anything Thor said that was humorous was simply a response to a Loki showstopper. Thor and Loki together were the best scenes, but Thor is still not as watchable as Heimdall or even the Warriors Three, on the good side. The 9th Doctor as the dark elf leader was impressive too. What does it say about these films when the villains are the fan favorites? (My gut reaction to the dark elves intro: What would happen if Tolkien's elves turned evil and fell through a dimensional rift in fictional spacetime?)

The two best scenes of all were really just small parts of an enormous sequence that took a huge chunk of time and which I can't say anything more about in deference to those who have not yet seen this movie.

Natalie Portman's opening act in this movie went on FAR TOO LOOOONG. It was at least ten minutes of nothing.

DR. Selveig's intro in this film was bizarre, inappropriately stupid, and did nothing to help the story. And they kept going back to it. Ouch.

 The reveal at the end was totally not a surprise.

(There are however, a couple of things in the movie which shocked me and should probably not be told to squeamish kids. But maybe I'm judging too harshly. Your call, actually)

There are two after-credit scenes. The first one moves the story along and contains spoilers. The second is just a superfluous scene of Thor rocketing back to Earth just to kiss Jane for the third time in the film. Apologies if you thought that was worth keeping hidden.

Long movie short, if you are not watching this movie for Loki and/or Heimdall, there's nothing here that'll make you come back. It is a 3 at best. I'll go with a 2.

p.s. I want the music, but I am not buying it w/o a test run, and the library may never get a hold of it...

My next post will be what I thought of the four superhero films I have seen in the past year in shorthand. You may be surprised, or not since I detail my opinions in posts like this.

Ender's Game reaction

In a word: awesome!

In a phrase:go see it as soon as you have a chance.

The fact that they managed to pack the entire book (with a few insignificant changes) into less than two hours of film was mind-blowing. It's slightly random if you have not read the original novel like I have, but I doubt anybody would get lost. Half of my statements on the trailer review I did with James Starslayer on his blog a couple months ago turned out to be way off base. I am glad. See my post on why this should be a longer movie; I rest my case. Bullies, check. Ender's team/Bean, check, although they didn't so much introduce them as throw them into the same room. Ender's first battle room scene, check. And then they combined all four of Ender's major battles as a team leader into one, which worked out well. The ending sequence was done well, alhough they left out some major depth in the middle of it. There's not much more to say since there are a lot of surprises in the story.

the trailers we got before the film were Desolation of Smaug and Catching Fire. The DoS trailer blew me away since I was finally experiencing it properly, although I still could not make out Smaugspeech, though that is my problem. The CF trailer looks cool too. This was the second one, which is a lot more compelling than the first.

Go watch Ender's Game and yell at me later1

p.s. the part I was most disappointed with, unlike most movies, was the original score. I expected the music to dominate some scenes, but it kind of hung in the background untill time came for the end credits.