In Review...
Movies, Christmas, gaming, all sorts of stuff. Things are fine, lately. The holiday was pleasant and the drive (while slow up the hills) was relaxing. All yayness. I'm even getting used to a 22" widescreen monitor at home, though mostly I'm just happy I can see the shades of black that blended together on my CRT.
Watched a couple movies in the last few weeks. The Golden Compass was decent young-fantasy fare. Neat effects, pretty airships, talking bears (and I have to agree with some reviewer I'd read that the main bear really did seem like he was talking ALL IN CAPS all the time). I just wished the storytelling weren't aimed so low as to be distracting to me. The deeper things I wanted explained weren't, while obvious things were overly explained. Also saw I am Legend which was a totally different experience. I thought it was good, but I expected more about what was happening and how instead of what we got: a close-up of the psychology of a zombie/whatever apocalypse survivor. I read just enough about the book to think the movie took a radically different turn. That just makes me want to read the book.
While at my parents' for Christmas, my dad handed me Michael Crichton's Prey to read. As he said, it's a quick read. It's a cautionary tale like most of his others ( Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and so on), though this one's about nanotechnology. I haven't a whole lot to say on it, really. It's fairly well written, it flows and held my attention just fine. The message, however, seems cliche to me. Seriously, I think I've watched/read so much science fiction that any attempt to make me consider the dangers of humans tampering with our world registers as old hat. The foreshadowing that was used also seemed transparent to me - I saw details described and said "Well, that's going to be important later." A random bit of research online showed me Crichton had apparently made/written Amazon, an old text-based (though with some graphics and sounds) game I used to play on my Commodore 64 back in the day. Never expected that.
I've started in a twice-weekly Exalted game online. Though things felt a little rocky going in, everyone seems to be having fun thusfar, and it's a nice change of pace. May post more specifics on that game late, just for the sake of doing so.
And thus, all is fine and life goes on.
Watched a couple movies in the last few weeks. The Golden Compass was decent young-fantasy fare. Neat effects, pretty airships, talking bears (and I have to agree with some reviewer I'd read that the main bear really did seem like he was talking ALL IN CAPS all the time). I just wished the storytelling weren't aimed so low as to be distracting to me. The deeper things I wanted explained weren't, while obvious things were overly explained. Also saw I am Legend which was a totally different experience. I thought it was good, but I expected more about what was happening and how instead of what we got: a close-up of the psychology of a zombie/whatever apocalypse survivor. I read just enough about the book to think the movie took a radically different turn. That just makes me want to read the book.
While at my parents' for Christmas, my dad handed me Michael Crichton's Prey to read. As he said, it's a quick read. It's a cautionary tale like most of his others ( Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and so on), though this one's about nanotechnology. I haven't a whole lot to say on it, really. It's fairly well written, it flows and held my attention just fine. The message, however, seems cliche to me. Seriously, I think I've watched/read so much science fiction that any attempt to make me consider the dangers of humans tampering with our world registers as old hat. The foreshadowing that was used also seemed transparent to me - I saw details described and said "Well, that's going to be important later." A random bit of research online showed me Crichton had apparently made/written Amazon, an old text-based (though with some graphics and sounds) game I used to play on my Commodore 64 back in the day. Never expected that.
I've started in a twice-weekly Exalted game online. Though things felt a little rocky going in, everyone seems to be having fun thusfar, and it's a nice change of pace. May post more specifics on that game late, just for the sake of doing so.
And thus, all is fine and life goes on.
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