I haven’t updated this blog in a while, other than a few pictures over the summer. I haven’t always been really busy, but I suppose I’ve just been trying to keep up with other things and this just fell to the wayside. I’m going to try to get back on top of this soon. I’m working on finishing up an MA class this semester on top of working full-time. I also have one more MA class to do in the Spring, maybe. Maybe two more. We’ll see how it goes.
The Man in the High Castle
Anyhow, no matter how busy things get, my wife and I take the time to enjoy a show together, usually with dinner. Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Gotham, Fear the Walking Dead, and so on. Lots of good shows lately. When there’s a lull in what’s coming on TV, we have Netflix and Amazon Prime for stuff like House of Cards and this new show, The Man in the High Castle. I had heard about it before, but it really sort of popped to the front of my “to-watch” queue when I read about all the butthurt generated by the controversial ads placed on the shuttle train here in Manhattan, which I think runs between Grand Central and Penn Station.
“…it’s Tuesday…”
Anyway, the shower is really, really well done. The acting is first-rate, the visuals are well done and the story is very engaging. It’s also very, very intense in ways that I had expected. I just didn’t expect them to be placed so well into the story I guess, like when the highway patrolman casually mentions the dust in the air is ash from the incinerator, because “it’s Tuesday” and that’s just the day for burning invalids and the terminally ill. It’s just such a casual drop of something so inhuman, that it really puts the world you’re becoming a part of through this series into much clearer perspective, in just a few seconds of dialog. Then, at the end of the second episode, so much was said and not said in those few minutes. I’m just amazed at how much is conveyed by this story, with the use of camera work and clever dialog. “I’m not a monster” indeed.
I need to get around to reading the book for this at some point, and after seeing the first two episodes of this, I’m going to just put Philip K. Dick on my reading list.
I am reading a book called Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. It’s about a bleak but believable future when the Earth has nearly exhausted its natural resources. People flock to the cities to be near reliable infrastructure and mostly live in sprawling shantytown areas called “the stacks”, so-called because they are constructed of trailer homes, RVs and even shipping containers that have been mounted into steel, vertical frames. Jobs are scarce and food is rationed. There is very little hope in the average person’s life for rising above the poverty level.
To escape this reality, people log into a 3D simulation called The OASIS. That stands for something, but I can’t remember what right now. Access requires a visor and haptic feedback gloves at a minimum, but there are higher end devices like full body suits that offer greater sensory feedback. The whole simulation is free to use and is maintained by charging real money for teleportation fees to reach other worlds and areas. The majority of commercial and leisure activity shifts to the OASIS and eventually, even school is held within the OASIS, since it eliminates travel costs and the software prevents misbehavior during class.
The creator of the OASIS dies as the sole owner of Gregarious Simulation Systems. He has no heir and creates an elaborate contest built into and hidden within the OASIS to determine who will win everything. The prize is open to anyone, but making it through the contest requires extensive knowledge of the 1980s, a decade that the OASIS’s creator was particularly obsessed with. The book takes place in (I think) the 2040s, but the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars for completing the quest first causes the entire world to become interested in the 1980s again.
Because the book relies so heavily on 1980s pop culture for its plot, there is a lot of name dropping. I was born in the early 80s so some of it is familiar to me. Other stuff I read about and it feels familiar, like going to the arcade and dropping quarters in a machine, or using pay phones in the street, or mentions of bands that I recognize and still remember hearing on the radio regularly in the early 90s. I wonder if this book would even be interesting to anyone who wasn’t born in or near the 80s? It’s nostalgic in a way, but I don’t know that I would care to read this book if it was based on, say, the 50s or 60s.
In addition to reminding me of a lot of cool stuff, like Atari game cartridges, Ready Player One is also introducing me to some great stuff that I’d never seen or heard of before, like this movie called “WarGames”, produced in 1983. After noticing the movie title in the book I found it on Netflix and watched it. It has a great Back to the Future vibe to it. There’s this shift in movie and TV now, where everything seems to be post-apocalyptic or focused on the imminent demise of the human species. In the 80s movies were about progress; now people seem to be fixated on decline, myself included. I can’t wait for the next season of The Walking Dead to start, for example.
Anyhow, if you get a chance, both the book and the movie are worth checking out.
Yesterday, my wife and I went to the Regal Crown 14 cinemas at Union Square to watch Jurassic World. We showed up at 3 PM for a 3:30 PM showing of the movie. Jurassic World had been showing for a week already, so we didn’t really expect there to be as much of a crowd as there was. There also weren’t that many kids in the audience, which I found strange. Wasn’t Jurassic World supposed to be a family summer flick? When I went into this film I was pretty hyped. I was thinking about the way the original film made me feel. The sequels were decent, but there was something magic about that first movie and I hoped that this follow-up would bring back that magic. In short, it didn’t. It was a different sort of movie from what I was expecting. It wasn’t a bad movie by any means and it’s totally worth seeing because it’s very entertaining, but it didn’t live up to the legacy of the first movie.
In retrospect, these two trailers tell you pretty much the whole plot of the movie and include most of the good scenes. The earlier trailer had more of the feel of the original movie, but the second trailer better reflects the overall tone of the movie itself: light comedy with thrills and a bit of action.
Jurassic World follows the basic formula of the original film: two kids visiting the park when something goes tragically wrong and dinosaurs get loose. There was even a “steal the embryos” scene like there was in the original, presumably to set the story up for another sequel. Someone is always trying to steal the embryos in Jurassic Park movies, though. The overall feel of the movie is less about the magic of dinosaurs, fear and human survival, but is rather more about the dangers of genetically modified organisms. It made me think of the fight against GMOs in food: “Look, this indomitasaurus thing is like the GMO corn you’re producing, Monsanto. It sounds great, but it’s destroying the environment and it’s going to destroy us too if we don’t stop it now.”
The movie is post-modern enough to reference itself and reference the audience watching the movie, which provides opportunities for a few laughs. There are also a lot of casually placed stereotypical characters. The guy in charge of the park comes to mind, as does the guy that tries to do a military takeover. The main adult characters are pretty cliche too, really. There is more fast thrill than fear, more special-effect wow than story development and tension. It is edgy and funny, but it doesn’t have the same wow factor as the original film, which this film comments on itself. It used to be enough to just see dinosaurs, but now, one character explains, kids (the audience) see dinosaurs the same way they see llamas in a petting zoo. Nothing special, move along. So, for the visitors in the park (and the theater), they create something new to try to catch our attention, but it doesn’t feel like Jurassic Park.
I didn’t want cheap thrills and laughs, or something that felt like the Austin Powers version of Jurassic Park; I wanted the same edge-of-my-seat excitement I felt when I watched the original. It’s like there’s a new formula in town for movie makers. If you can’t write a real plot and make your audience empathize with your characters, throw in some bad jokes and stereotypes, make your audience laugh at itself, self-criticize the movie within the movie to deflect criticism, and then maybe you’ll win. San Andreas used the same tactics, most notably with that whole American flag magically appearing on the bridge like the flag in the national anthem being “still there” even though bombs were bursting in air, and by golly we’re going to rebuild America because that’s what Americans do! It’s to prevent people from taking the film too seriously and essentially lowers ones expectations. How do you criticize a film that doesn’t take itself seriously?
GMO dinosaurs aren’t the same as the magic of the “real thing”. Having one giant dinosaur roaming around, mostly in unpopulated areas, mostly doing things off-screen, doesn’t create that same sense of fear and tension that a pack of deadly, primordial velociraptors stalking kids in a kitchen does. It’s GMO Cornasaurus (comes with moon roof, hybrid engine, and reduced calorie usage) vs the fear and terror of a primordial threat that is born and bred to kill. The nature of velociraptors as deadly killing machines acting on instinct is watered down in this film to the point they’re no longer seen as threats and then, instead, are turned into heroes in the story, along with another classic dinosaur. The feeling one is left with is that these velociraptors could have been replaced in the film by a pack of lions bred in captivity without losing much, if anything, in terms of plot and storyline. What was the purpose of that? Just to have a way to incorporate a critique of the US military industrial complex? Couldn’t that have been done more subtly, or better yet, been left out?
Also, the relationship between the kids in this new film, two brothers, was somehow unconvincing, but I don’t think it was the acting. It was more the storyline itself. There wasn’t enough time devoted to character development to make me care about anyone in the film and anything serious was always laughed off as a joke (“all my friends’ parents are divorced”). The only time I felt sad was in a scene with a dying brontosaurus, not because I felt emotionally connecting to the dinosaur per se, but because of the use of the scene as a commentary on killing for sport rather than necessity. It reminded me of the evils that man is capable of perpetrating and played into the movie’s overall theme of respecting nature.
Jurassic World is essentially an old story repackaged in contemporary issues, but I don’t know that it was really all necessary. Do we need a commentary on God and nature and the evils of man wrapped up in a classic story like Jurassic Park? Sure, there is some of that in the original, but that movie focuses more on the people. It is about tension and fear and survival. This movie instead focuses on cheap thrills, a few laughs, and a moral message.
Bottom line:
Was it worth seeing? Sure. I loved the cheap thrills and laughs and its a great way to be entertained for two hours. Don’t expect to be tense, or feel any fear, or connect to deeply with the characters. It is truly popcorn entertainment that will leave you laughing and feeling good about your afternoon. I have absolutely no regrets about watching it, but it doesn’t live up to the legacy of the original.
I bought this book a while ago, but I’m just getting started with it now. I saw a Japanese movie adaptation a few years ago and I’ve been wanting to read the original story.
The contents of this month’s Loot Crate are nice but I guess I’m not too excited about them because I’m not that into Batman or Doctor Who. I always preferred X-Men comics and I just recently decided to actually have a look at Doctor Who. Maybe it’ll be cool. I haven’t decided yet.
The breakfast drink is nice, though. It’s something I can actually use. I checked the nutrition information and it is comparable to a Slim Fast. It’s 180 calories in a small bottle so you can drink your breakfast on the go.
I also like the shot glass and the playing cards. I’m not sure I’ll ever use the South Park speaker, because when I’m out I use headphones. I don’t think everyone around me should have to listen to my music. When I’m home I use my big speakers. I’ll probably hang-on to the Doctor Who balloon for a few months and then throw it in the trash. The wallet I think I’ll send to my nephew.
Getting a monthly box of surprise goodies every month is always a lot of fun. Sometimes, the anticipation is better than what actually comes out of the box, but this month the guys at Loot Crate really outdid themselves. I really love zombie movies and zombie shows, so the theme of this month’s box (“Survive”) was great to start with, but they really picked a great set of items to include. I was really surprised to see a book in the box, but it fits the theme perfectly.
“I Love Your Guts” greeting card.“I Love Your Guts” greeting card inside page.
The shirt is awesome. I’ll be wearing that tomorrow. I filled out the card and gave it to my wife. She thought it was really awesome and stuck it on the fridge.
The Zombie Survival Guide and fake tattoos.
I’m not sure when I’ll have a chance to read The Zombie Survival Guide. It’s been on my reading list for a long time already, but I’m always bogged down with reading for classes. Maybe this winter. Maybe.
The monthly loot crate was a welcome distraction from my homework. I can’t say I loved everything in the box this time around, but the Stimpy plushie, Simpsons keychain and Andy Warhol-esque Stormtrooper magnet are pretty cool.
This is the fourth Loot Crate I’ve opened. The Loot Crates seem to be a little hit-or-miss for me in terms of whether or not I like what’s in them, but I suppose that’s the nature of a service like this. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time, right? This time, I was pleased.
Caffeine Chemical Structure and Stat Changes t-shirt by Shirt.Woot!
My favorite item from the box this time around is definitely the shirt. It has the chemical structure of caffeine shown in a cartoon way with the molecules smiling and holding coffee cups. Underneath there is a set of stat changes, as if caffeine were an item in an RPG. Very fun. Very cool.
Funko and AMC Walking Dead Mystery Mini (Front)Funko and AMC Walking Dead Mystery Mini (Back)
My second favorite item is the AMC Walking Dead Mystery Mini. This little guy is really cool, and I’m definitely interested in checking out the other figures in the series. It’s sort of an anime looking take on the zombies from The Walking Dead. More of these can be found here: Funko: The Walking Dead Blind Box Mystery Mini Figure*
Portal: The Cake is a Lie
The other stuff in the Loot Crate wasn’t bad either. The theme for this month was “Cake”, and as almost any person who regularly plays games can tell you, even if they haven’t played Portal, the cake is a lie. Well, except, this time it really wasn’t. I got cool Aperture (fictional company from Portal) branded stuff. I think I can manage to get some use out of the lanyard, though I’m not sure about the wrist band or the fake tattoo. I’m not sure who I know that might want those, but I’m not sure I want to just toss them either.
The Cake booklet marked as issue 1 is a better and much improved version of the informational card that used to come in Loot Crates that let’s you know what it is, exactly, that you’ve unboxed, as well as providing a theme introduction, information about a featured looter, the monthly Mega Crate, and some photo contest details. It’s very well done and full of bright, colorful pictures. I suppose that plays into the second purpose of Loot Crate as a business model: send out samples at reduced cost in return for drumming up business for the companies that provided the products.
So, will I do more business with the people that provided the products for this month’s Loot Crate? I’ll definitely be checking out Shirt.Woot!, considering a $5-off coupon was included, and even with Loot Crates, I’d still buy Jelly Belly jelly beans.
*Disclosure: The Funko Walking Dead link is affiliated, meaning if you buy something after hitting Amazon through that link, I get a kickback.
Loot Crate Box June 2013Loot Box June 2013 Contents Overview
This month is the second month that I’ve been subscribed to the Loot Crate service. I know I got my money’s worth, but somehow I just didn’t feel that excited when I opened the box. Maybe it was because the shine is wearing off, but I think it’s more likely that the items in this box just weren’t as personally interesting to me as what I received last month. That’s ok, though, because what I can’t use, I’ll pass along to friends and family. Maybe that’s part of Loot Box’s insidious plan to dominate the market. You give stuff to your friends and then they sign up too?
Robot and Mario/TMNT Stickers Close-upDead Pool-Aid Man T-Shirt (Dead Pool + Kool Aid Man)Care Instructions on the Dead Pool-Aid Man T-Shirt
Anyway, the motif this month was “Mashup”, which means they found items that combine two different characters or stories in a single item. The items in the loot box that fit the motif are the Dead Pool-Aid T-Shirt (the Kool Aid Man made to look like Dead Pool) and a sticker that shows both Mario and Rafael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The sticker is pretty cool, and I wore the t-shirt today. Maybe that wasn’t the best choice, considering the shirt is black and it’s really hot out, but it was fun to sport the Kool Aid Man.
I miss seeing those old Kool Aid Man commercials on TV. Don’t skip the video below. It mentions nostalgic and funny things, like Pogs and mailing things with paper!
8-Bit Glasses, Robot Sticker and Loot Crate Wall TangramsMario/TMNT Mashup Sticker, Warheads and BIC 2-in-1 StylusStan Lee’s Comikaze Golden Ticket
Other nifty items in the box were 8-bit glasses, a BIC Stylus 2-in-1 pen, a neat robot sticker, some Warheads, a Loot Crate Wall Tangrams and Stan Lee’s Comikaze Golden Ticket.
My wife claimed the 8-bit glasses right away.
I can give the stylus pen to my mom. She was just talking about needing one and I never use a stylus myself.
Loot Box Wall Tangrams, Mario/TMNT Mashup, Robot, and Cat Vs Human StickersLoot Box Wall TangramsMy cat Dapper just doing what she does.
The robot sticker went on the side of my bookcase, along with the Mario/TMNT mashup sticker and a Cat Vs. Human sticker I got as an added bonus when I ordered one of Yasmine Surovec’s posters. I also went ahead and put the Loot Crate Wall Tangrams thing up there. I’m not quite sure what it’s supposed to be. The stickers just looked good arranged like that. Better than a box anyway. It sort of reminds me of a giant robot that can destroy cities. The best part is, these Wall360 stickers can be rearranged up to 200 times without losing their adhesive backing. They don’t seem to leave any residue either. I took a look at the web site and I saw quite a few things I’d like to stick on my walls. I’ll definitely be ordering from them in the future.
The Comikaze Golden Ticket has a code on the back that offers a random chance for a free or discounted ticket to the Comikaze event in Los Angeles this November. It is useless to me, since I don’t live anywhere close to Los Angeles and I don’t plan on buying a plane ticket just to take advantage of a discounted ticket. I’m not sure what the Loot Crate guys were thinking when they added that into the box. Does that high a percentage of their subscriber base live in LA or California?
Last month I was happy. This month, not so much, but I suppose that’s part of the deal. It’s a random selection of stuff. I wonder what I’ll get next month?
So, like I said before, I was tipped off to a new service called “Loot Crate” by an old blogging buddy that writes Jamaipanese.com. I haven’t had much time to dive into my favorite hobbies recently because of school obligations. As I’m sure you’ve seen (if you’ve been suffering through the recent posts on my blog with any regularity) I’ve been working overtime churning out papers for classes. I’m trying to get my degree as soon as possible, so I’ve been taking more classes at one time than is probably advisable, but I’ve been managing to maintain a high GPA, so why not? The faster I get done with school, the sooner I can move on to working.
Loot Crate sort of fills a niche for me. I don’t have a lot of time to devote to gaming, anime, manga, comics or any of the other geek things I used to enjoy. I have a stack of comics and manga just waiting to be read. I have games I’ve bought that I haven’t even installed. But, Loot Crate is just a little thing each month that can put a smile on my face. It’s a low time investment way to have fun and gives me something to look forward to every month. Since I don’t know what’s going to be in each box, it’s sort of like getting a present every 30 days, except of course I’m paying a bit for it. The price isn’t bad, though, at $20 a month, counting shipping. (Disclaimer: this is not a paid advert, but the preceding link is a referral link that will get me a free Loot Crate for every 4 people who sign-up after clicking through).
I was so busy last month, between final papers, final exams, and then rushing off to visit friends in Mississippi that I didn’t have time to post about my Loot Crate until now. So, what was in May’s Loot Crate?
After just opening the Loot Crate.
As you can see in the image above, the packaging encourages just what I’m doing now. But, who wouldn’t want to share information about neat novelty items on their blog anyway?
Loot Crate Close-Up. The box is pretty sturdy.Another Loot Crate Close-Up, minus the information card.Loot Crate Unpacked
The Loot Crate was, expectedly, a bit of a mixed bag, but to be successful it has to be. Not everyone has the same tastes, after all. There’s a Batman figurine. Not bad, but I never really cared for Batman. The Ironman papercraft origami thingamabob could be fun to put together, and I’m sure I’ll find a use for the stickers. The little dude that holds cords is pretty cool. I’m definitely going to use that once I finish installing my blinds (I just moved). The items that really stood out to me in this Loot Crate are the one-year subscription to a digital Nintendo magazine (the yellow card in the image above), the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy towel, the 8-bit Space Invaders tie, and the Super Mario Question Block.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Towel
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, was one of the first books I read when I was a teenager. For some reason, the dry British humor really appealed to me. I loved that book so much that I pushed it on friends, one of whom borrowed my leather-bound, gold-page-edge edition and never brought it back. I wonder if she still has it on a shelf somewhere?
Anyway, the significance of the towel is that the book is about hitchhiking through the galaxy, and there are certain things that a successful hitchhiker just can’t do without, one of which is a towel. A good quote from the book is:
Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)
I guess I know where my towel is, now.
8 Bit Space Invaders Tie
Also fairly cool is this 8-bit tie. I’m definitely going to find an excuse to wear this. For the Lulz.
Super Mario Brothers Question Block
Finding the Super Mario Brothers Question Block was one of those nostalgic moments, since the first console game I ever played was Super Mario Brothers (1985 Nintendo Entertainment System version).
Opened Super Mario Question Block With Gold Coin Candies
Inside the Question Block are some candies that I haven’t tried yet that resemble the gold coins that would pop out of the boxes sometimes when you bumped them.
It took me a while to get around to posting about the Loot Crate, but not because it wasn’t interesting and fun; I just had too much stuff to do. Hopefully, that won’t be the case later this month, because I’m already looking forward to receiving my next Loot Crate in the mail.
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Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog 