Reviews & News
Yet another entertainment blog
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Something I wrote last year for Geek Pride Day 2011. Follow the link for original post.
http://emartinou.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/happy-towel-day-or-whats-its-like-being-a-geek/
Happy Towel Day! Or, What’s It’s Like Being a Geek
Happy Towel Day everyone! For the unaware, Towel Day celebrates the life and works of Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). It is also Geek Pride Day, so I thought I would write a little something about my life as a geek. I like to think of it as “Geek Lite”, although it’s becoming more and more pronounced as I age. I can’t claim I’ve ever been ostracized for being “geeky”. (Or maybe I have and just never noticed?) I have always had an interest in sci-fi, fantasy, video games, comics, technology, etc. I don’t know if I would have been considered geeky. I am a bit obsessive, and it’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. If I discover something I enjoy, I want to know everything there is to know about that subject and it’s the most important thing in the world to me at that moment. I have notebooks full of notes about TV shows, movies, books, music, etc. It’s embarrassing really. But that is who I am. I can’t say I’ve ever felt ashamed of it.
I’ve never been into sports, fashion, reality tv, etc. I’ve tried, mostly to make others happy, and it just makes me want to stick an ice pick into my skull. I do enjoy the Indians and I’m a casual soccer fan (except during the World Cup. I’m a World Cup fanatic-seriously, there are spreadsheets involved). I like shoes and clothes in a way, I’m just not fussed about what’s “fashionable”. I like what I like. The only time I really worry about it is when there are others involved and I’m trying to “fit in”. It gives me panic attacks. So I don’t really do it anymore, but I don’t really take it where I want to either. ”Reality” Tv makes me want to push a big, red button and set off a nuclear warhead. I tell you all of this because I have made an effort to be interested in what most people would consider mainstream or “normal”. I will let you in on a little (not so secret) secret: people who classify themselves as geeks love being different.
People who define themselves as a geek are proud of it. They protect it. You have to own it. If you don’t consider yourself a geek and are called one, it’s a very different feeling. However, I feel the word “geek” has changed a lot since I was younger. It used to be on the same level as “nerd”, a way to classify those people who were super intelligent (or at least smarter than “you”) and really into complicated things. As in, “I’d rather play a really complicated role-playing game than Hungry Hungry Hippos”, for example. Geeks were always marginally cooler -to me- than nerds, usually because they didn’t seem to care what people thought of them and I always thought of nerds in a more academic sense. Now it seems “geek” is used more to describe someone who back in the day would have been a fan. Which is just short for fanatic. It’s a measure of how much you enjoy something.
I think the thing that is most interesting is that, in a way, geek has gone mainstream. Comic book movies are grossing millions, gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry, Big Bang Theory is the #1 rated comedy on television. It’s the rise of the “cool geek”. I blame the creation of the computer chip and movies from the 80′s/90′s. Because of the technology in the last 20 or so years, the things geeks could only dream of became possible. You can create a video game where your “quest” looks amazing and life-like. You can CGI effects and characters in movies and tv that before would have looked ridiculous. Movies told us different wasn’t bad, it was cool: Breakfast Club, Heathers, Outsiders, Goonies, Footloose, Reality Bites, Edward Sissorhands, Empire Records, Revenge of the Nerds, Freaks and Geeks (great Apatow show, if you haven’t seen it, do so now.) Now, different is mainstream.
Luckily for most people who consider themselves true geeks know that whenever something they love goes mainstream, the people involved -who are probably not geeks of the subject they are working on- are going to bollocks it up so everyone ends up either disappointed, appeased and smug in the knowledge they screwed it up like ”we” knew ”they” would. Part of the fun is the feeling of wielding knowledge of a subject over others. Now with formerly geek territory going mainstream people who would not consider themselves geeks know things like the Doctor’s backstory or the difference between Marvel and DC characters. The question then becomes one of how much of a geek are you? As I said, I feel I’m more of a geek lite. I’m definitely not “geek chic” or a hardcore geek (I’ve never played D&D, and I don’t participate in cosplay- despite a secret desire to do so). But I know way more about Star Trek, Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, etc than anyone -who doesn’t write them- should. And I can name my favorite superheroes in the right universe-and only one has a movie. I know my reason for being geeky. I feel comfortable there. It’s discovering something few people know about or appreciate. I think that’s what attracted me to the fringe to begin with. Part of what I enjoy is exposing other people to it as well, but there’s also a part of me that likes when it’s personal, like it’s just mine to enjoy. When you can hold your own in a discussion or even get something over on someone it’s like a small victory. Or when you discover someone who loves Monty Python, the Young Ones, or the Mighty Boosh as much as you do.
Maybe it changed because everyone is a “geek” in some way, over some thing. If it’s sports, you are a fan. If you enjoy celebrities, you are a fan. When really what you are is a sports geek, a celebrity geek, art geek, music geek, movie geek, book geek, etc. Maybe it’s the idea that it’s cool to be outside the mainstream. That to be different is okay too. And maybe it’s because I am no longer in elementary school.
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Photo reblogged from WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR
Been really enjoying the Table Top series with Wil Wheaton on the YouTube channel Geek and Sundry. I’ve enjoyed it sooo much I had to make an animated gif of my favorite part of this weeks episode Ticket to Ride.
P.S. I even bought Zombie Dice!!
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Photoset reblogged from WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR
omg on criminal minds they were at a sci-fi convention and dressed as doctor who characters
SEE I TOLD YOU GUYS!
;slkfja;lsdfjsdlfs;dlfasd
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Quote reblogged from WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLRWhat an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.CARL SAGAN (via Advice to Writers)
(Source: kadrey)
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Video reblogged from Capes & Phaser Banks
Felicia Day and Colin Ferguson Crochet Together! (by geekandsundry)
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Link reblogged from My Odin senses are tingling
Please tell me that SOMEONE has noticed how limited FemShep’s options are in comparison to Sheploo?
Sheploo can CONTINUE a romance with Ashley, Liara, Tali, Miranda or Jack (ie; all the options from both previous games). He also has the option of pursuing a NEW romance with… -
UNIGOLYN / 1 HOUR AGO DEUS EX MACHINA: You’re getting your literary devices mixed up. The Crucible is not deus ex machina, it is a MacGuffin. It’s largely irrelevant except as a plot device. It is the exhaust port on the Death Star. The narrative of ME3 is not about finding the Crucible, it is about building the greatest alliance ever seen in the galaxy (which the Crucible, as a plot device, allows to happen). Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a “god from the machine” is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story. This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game? In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character’s personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you. The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist. But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion’s messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst’s claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false. The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!). CHOICES DON’T MATTER Again, you’re missing the point. No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending. And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a shit if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don’t affect your ending at all. Who gives a shit if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They’re all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He’s either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway. And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don’t matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she’s a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for. You accept Space Hitler’s premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer. How does it matter in the slightest that I’ve done the frickin’ impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set “Love and compassion” as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of “AI will always rebel” to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says “AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem”. And I go “yessuh”? WHY IS EVERYTHING SO SAD It’s not sad. You are being incredibly myopic and dismissive of our experiences by reducing it to “y every1 has 2 diezorz?”. The ending of the story is not actually sad, it’s just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes. The part that’s sad and what’s tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making shit up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way. This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it’s attempting to solve. Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia. I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don’t do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this. TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn’t get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose.#ME3 #MassEffect @masseffect
So Penny-Arcade has responded and gave their two cents on the Mass Effect 3 Ending backlash. Yet again, the journalists and media are missing the FREAKING point. Anyway, read the article for yourselves over here:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/why-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-was-satifying-and-worthy-of-the-series-mass
Then after the jump is a very well written response by user Unigolyn. I think his response is the exact heart of every Mass Effect fan, and the damn journalistic media need to pay attention to this, and the giant vocal majority so we don’t get the vomit that’s linked above.
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Photoset reblogged from Straight outta Ft. WorthI had this thought as well! So very much alike!
Mordin Solus=Sheldon Cooper
(Source: negligible-english-ancestry)
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There are some hard choices this year. Normally I’m not very excited over awards in general and didn’t even watch last year, but this year I’ve seen quite a few good movies and some of them are even nominated! My picks for this year’s Oscar winners:
BEST PICTURE- THE ARTIST
LEADING ACTOR- JEAN DUJARDIN (THE ARTIST)
SUPPORTING ACTOR- CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER (BEGINNERS)
LEADING ACTRESS-ROONEY MARA (GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO)(although you should never bet against Streep and all of these ladies gave remarkable performances)
SUPPPORTING ACTRESS-OCTAVIA SPENCER (THE HELP)
ANIMATED FEATURE- A CAT IN PARIS (even though I’m pretty sure it will be RANGO, which is a fair choice.)
ART DIRECTION-HUGO
CINEMATOGRAPHY-WAR HORSE
COSTUME DESIGN-HUGO
DIRECTING-M. SCORSESE (HUGO) (although M. Hazanavicius will probably win with THE ARTIST)
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE- PARADISE LOST 3:PURGATORY
DOCUMENTARY SHORT-THE TSUNAMI AND THE CHERRY BLOSSOM
FILM EDITING-HUGO
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM-A SEPARATION (IRAN)
MAKEUP-THE IRON LADY
ORGINAL SCORE- THE ARTIST
ORGINAL SONG- MAN OR A MUPPET (THE MUPPETS)
ANIMATED SHORT FILM- THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE (*if you haven’t seen this yet, look it up on youtube. Lovely story)
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM- PENTECOST
SOUND EDITING- WARHORSE
SOUND MIXING-WARHORSE
VISUAL EFFECTS-HUGO
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY- THE DESCENDANTS
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY- MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
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I actually choose HUGO and WARHORSE in far more categories then I had imagined. If you can find PENTECOST, watch it, it’s delightful. Do you agree or disagree with my choices?
84th Academy Awards are on ABC 7pm Est
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Photoset reblogged from Forever your girl.It sort of looks like you’re stepping into TRON…
Anish Kapoor’s famous Cloudgate, in Millennium Park, Chicago, now has an equally mesmerising choreographed light show, Luminous Field, by Luftwerk, enhancing the experience of the work furthermore.
So excited to see this this weekend during our date night staycation in the Loop!
Hey @Enzo82, when we go to Chicago, let’s see this. Please!
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Post reblogged from DC Women Kicking AssSomeone put them out of their misery already… Please?
It’s rare that I’m left speechless. But um, meet THE MASOCHIST!!!!!
SUPERMAN #9
Written by KEITH GIFFEN and DAN JURGENS
Art by DAN JURGENS and JESUS MERINO
Cover by IVAN REIS and OCLAIR ALBERT
1:25 B&W Variant cover by IVAN REIS
On sale MAY23 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• SUPERMAN faces new supervillainess MASOCHIST!
• How can Superman fight an opponent he can’t touch?
• LOIS LANE faces a turning point in her career as a journalist.
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Link reblogged from DC Women Kicking Ass
The results of the Nielsen Survey that DC did post reboot are in and the results are depressing. In an article on ICv2, DC’s Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development John Rood outlined the results.
- Remember the idea of bringing in new readers? The survey found…
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I really like the concept. It’s child-like and whimsical with lots of color. In other words, right up my alley.
Installation piece by Rivane Neuenschwander.
“Viewers are supposed to choose a ribbon, tie it round their wrist, and write down their own wishes on slips of paper to replace it. When the ribbon falls off, the wish comes true. I took a whole bunch of ribbons that day, stuffed them all in my pockets so I could save my wishes for later. I wrote down some silly lines and left them on the wall, read the wishes of strangers and peeked over people’s shoulders trying to see which ribbon they chose.
I Wish Your Wish was the first piece of conceptual art that really moved me. There is something so intimately beautiful in wishing – to wish is to place your trust in the great perhaps, and to wear them on your wrist is to wear your heart on your sleeve.” -TheJuvenilia
