I Watched the Watchmen.

I bought 9 tickets for the Watchmen movie. Family, friends, etc... I don't expect to be paid back for any of them.

I'd just finished reading the book a week ago and was very skeptical as to if it would translate well to the screen. After all, almost everyone who has touched this film in the past has called it unfilmable before quitting. Early impressions by other geeks and cult experts put my mind at ease to some degree, but I still went in with a critical mind.

WATCHMEN DELIVERS. GO SEE IT. I COMMAND IT.

You can stop reading now if you want. I'll go on, but I seriously have nothing to say that has not already been said by thousands.

Seriously, on a scale from 1-10, Watchmen scores about an 86.

Other than director Zack Snyder (of 300 fame), there's really nobody in the credits that you'd easily recognize. That said, EVERYBODY puled their weight, right down to the cameos. I love that David Hayter (Solid Snake *squee*) helped wrote the screenplay.

One thing that struck me was the awesome soundtrack. I was not sure what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised. My friend Kurtis and I were singing along to many of the tracks at an almost inaudible level. If they put out a CD I'll buy.

The movie was not perfect however. The ending was changed slightly by switching the alien threat hoax with Dr. Manhattan. I guess it was a smart move to keep things moving and simplify the situation. Still, I was hoping to see all the dead bodies in NYC. My mother was already cringing from all the blood and sex. She's not oblivious to such things, but the blood did turn her off a little.

I thought it was hilarious how many people took REALLY young children to see this. I was shocked by the number of pre-teens. That made the two sex-scenes extra funny. I'm sure one or two kids got the birds and the bees talk that night (side-note! I did a quick tally of how many of my friends ever got that talk, and NONE of them did! I didn't. Does anyone anymore?). People, check the ratings on movies before you give your kids cash to see them. I saw people complaining at customer services because of the level off sex and violence that they were "tricked" into exposing their kids to. Give me a break. I'll rant on this another day.

I see a lot of people asking why Rorschach had to die. The easiest way of answering that is asking yourself if he could have lived. The world changed, and someone like him would have had no place in it. In that regard Dr. Manhattan did him a favour, and I believe Rorschach knew it. I don't think any of them expected Rorschach to be a real threat to the hoax.

Favorite character = Nite Owl. Anyone who know me knows I'd connect with his character instantly. Always the dreamer and the idealist.

o7

Weekend writing... hopefully.

You know I'm dead-on-arrival when I'm writing about mediocre weekend plans. Sorry.

Hope to get a good amount of writing done. I've been handed an opportunity for some good RPing by Roc and I have a little planning to do on that front. Also continuing work on some submissions I plan for ENN.

I need to work on another blog I'm running. Yes I've got another blog. It's a sex blog.

I need to set up Skype on my PC.

I may jump on Live for some mindless fragging if I feel the urge.

I want to see if any of my corpmates are in empire this weekend. Group mission-running is a great way to field-test ship setups.

My lady has taken a pause from learning skills to quickly get herself into a mining barge. AFK mining in Hulm isn't all that AFK if you have to dock every two minutes. Ever seen a barge with two basic miners? You will...

Next week is Apocrypha week! Finally get to find out if my comp will be able to run the premium lite client at all. Here's hoping. At minimum I'll be happy if I can just change my skills until I build my new comp in the fall. I don't want to be paying for a game I can't play. If I can't even do that I may have to take... extreme measures.

I may go see Watchmen this weekend.

Should probably hit the gym Saturday. May end up at Carl's place again playing MGS4.

I'm being forced to take some sort of vacation from my job. They say I need time to decompress after a year. I've decided to take a 4-day weekend at the end of the month. That's the weekend I'm taking my parents to the Toronto Wine and Cheese Show.

Weekend starts tonight with the next episode of Dollhouse and BattleStar Galactica (only 3 eps left!).

I'm expecting a call between now and Wednesday from a Master Corporal Willis regarding recruitment into the 32 Brigade Armoured Recon unit.

Those are the plans. We'll see how it goes.

o7

Watchmen Movie Predictions.

I'm almost done the graphic novel, and after watching every trailer and checking every ad and pic, I'm still not entirely sure the story will fully translate to the big screen.

Now let me be fair, it looks AWESOME and as far as I can tell the acting is spot-on. The mood I get from the book and movie samples are very similar to each other. My problem is two-fold.

1) Time. The graphic novel is long, and even if you cut away the pirate stuff and some other small side-stories, it's an epic to be told. I'm not sure if a running time has been announced, but if it's shy of 2.5 hours, I don't think it can be done well. If you have a confirmed running time or just want to argue this point, go ahead.

2) Super saturation. Anyone who's read the book knows there's nothing super or heroic about these characters. It's a vigilante story with costumes. The problem is that it doesn't come off like that in the trailers. It comes off as another superhero flick, and we may be reaching a mainstream media saturation point with that genre. Marvel and DC are pumping out movies as quickly as possible, and Heroes is still going strong on the small screen. Will people just write The Watchmen off before seeing it? It all depends on initial reviews. If the point is made that this is NOT a superhero movie, than it may just attract movie-goers.

Let me know what you think.

o7

2008: Year in Review.

2008: Year in Review.

2008 was definitely a great year for geekdom, and being an uber-geek, I flourished in it.

Firstly, I returned to EVE. I did a lot of research into what I did wrong during my first jaunt and vowed not to rush into stupid decisions. My goals were to find a group to Role-Play with, and to become proficient in PvP. I managed to join the famous Ushra'Khan alliance, and was placed into the corporation COGNet SpaceSystems Ltd. They turned out to be a very supporting group, but the RP was a little lacking, so I decided to write a multi-chapter story and see where that would take me.

I still have an Xbox 360, but my game library grew at a scary pace. I have games that I bought months ago that I haven't had more that 10 minutes with, triple-A titles though they may be. Games like Gears of War 2, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto 4, Fable 2, Fallout 3 and more. I haven't gotten around to buying a PS3, but it's in the pipe for '09. My comp isn't where in needs to be hardware-wise for the EVE premium client graphics or for the newer PC games, but I'll get around to building a gaming rig at some point. I bought a netbook. Asus EeePC1001. Sweet little machine that navigates the series of tubes with ease.

I started a blog. I wanted a place to write about myself and publish any work I may write. Others have told me that I should have a separate blogs for separate subjects, but that won't be happening. This blog is about me, not EVE. EVE players may read it, but I'm not here to cater to them at my own expense. This isn't journalism. I've done journalism (a 40,000 copy weekly circulation and a national roundtable conference), and that's not my goal here. If you're interested and entertained by my blog, I thank you for your interest.

In comics, Marvel gave us a series of huge events that tied one into another and brought new life to old and new characters alike. DC gave me a reason (finally) to read Green Lantern, and I finally started to read indie comics like Atomic Robo. I met Matt Fraction and actually learned something. We lost Michael Turner to a long battle with bone cancer. We got some good movie adaptations, and some horrible ones.

In anime, things were a little light this year, which is probably a boon to my bank account. Gurren-Lagann showed us that nothing is impossible. Haruhi Susumiya showed if we think nothing odd is happening, we're not looking hard enough. In Japan the industry began a painful change away from cookie-cutter shows and physical formats.

I bought a new TV (LG Scarlet 37") and canceled my cable TV to cut costs. Most shows I'll just buy on DVD, but I'm still going to miss Battlestar Galactica. That said, I canceled the service 3 months ago and they have yet to actually disconnect it. Sweet.

Didn't go to the movie cinema much this year, though Dark Knight is now my all-time favorite Hollywood film. Too bad The Spirit flopped.

Didn't read many novels, though Empyrean Age was pretty good. I plan to start buying novels in bulk from Amazon.

I began listening to a lot more Epic Metal and Nerdcore rap. Alt rock is still pretty prevalent but getting indie stuff is a little tricky. No concerts. Maybe in '09.

I realized the local big convention (FanExpo) is not worth by time anymore, so the decision was made to try getting to PAX, NYCC, SDCC and EVE FanFest in the next few years.

I took a huge chunk out of my debt, and I hope to have a lot more financial freedom in '09 to actually further my career.

Politics and economies were... fucked almost everywhere in the world. Good thing Obama is in though...

Cheers to '09, and to you, good reader.

o7

Mind-Bomb! Issue #1

Welcome to the first installment of Mind-Bomb, a semi-regular collection of news, events and other items I'm reading about. During the course of my day I try to absorb as much news and (educated) opinion as I can. This will be my attempt to share some of what I find interesting with you.

The Thundercats movie is looking to be in good hands. I have high hopes.

Nootropics are going to be a VERY big deal in the coming years, and I think we should have a good set of legal ones we can take alongside our vitamins. What do you think?

It's not the final season yet, but a Battlestar Galactica freak like me can't ignore this fraking awesome content. Maybe a movement should be started to get "frak" used more often in EVE.

As far as indie comics go, I'm really only reading Atomic Robo, which rocks. I should get the guys at One Million Comix to get this in.

Ignatieff should have won this before Dion had a chance to fuck up an already fucked-up party. Let's see where he goes from here. And FYI, suspending parliament to avoid a vote is just as undemocratic as forming a coalition right after an election.

Troy Dixon (T-Bag) from Pure Pwnage died in a car crash last Saturday. I really liked his character and I think it added a lot to the show. I had the good fortune to be in his premiere episode. My heart goes out to his friends, family and fans. R.I.P. Troy.

07

Not exactly according to plan.

So I jet off home after work, shower and change, then brave the traffic back out downtown. I just reach Lone Star when I run into Drestin waving me over outside. Apparently there was no reservation, contradicting the info on the boards. I go double-check with the hostess, and Dres and I end up getting ourselves a table by the bar. 10 minutes of shooting the shit with him and we run into another small group of confused EVEers. We make ourselves a reservation and eventually get a table. Slowly, almost everyone showed.

It was a great time with great people great stories and great conversation. Too bad the food was horrible and it upset my stomach so much I could only manage a single beer. Oh well. One of the best stories I heard was a guy who was mining with a carrier. WTF!

I took a few pics with my phone. Next time I'm bringing a camera.

1. (The gang.)
2. (Great couple. I need to introduce them to my wife. We should hang or something.)
3. (Drestin. Scared me the first time I met him because I was such a noob and he was talking in EVE short-hand. Nice guy.)
4. (Would you believe I've taken a photography course?)
5. (Candid shots are fun...)
6. (Came to the rescue of the mining carrier. Regrets it. Great story though.)

We gotta do these meets more often than twice a year, and at better venues. Big shout-out to everyone who came.

Anywho, weekend hasn't gone like I planned. Yesterday I ran down to Million to pick up my comics, and grab DVD 3 of Black Lagoon: Second barrage and the Special Edition box of Gurren-Lagann. It came with a Core Drill with a green LED that lights it up. This sort of thing fills me with geeky glee, and makes my wife fear for me mental health. Today I'm visiting the folks up in Woodbridge. My mom makes the most awesome roast. I've decided to stretch my Dead Space experience with online Gears 2 play, since I'm blowing through it a little too fast. I still have GTA4 and Assassin's Creed to finish up as well. I'll be getting my copy of R6V2 next weekend.

Picked up the Gears of War prequel novel, which I'll blow through this week. Gonna buy Hardcovers of the Dune series and the EVE novel over Amazon (which will save me shipping if I buy tthem at once). Also getting this awesome Nerdcore 2009 calander.

Went to see Quantum of Solace. People who think they're just trying to copy Bourne need to try paying attention to a little thing called Nuance. Great movie, though it's not as good as Casino Royale. Shortest Bond movie ever, though it didn't feel contracted. Best opening Bond theme ever. Jack White ROCKS. Barry needs to learn what a theatre voice is, which is basically whispering straight into someone's ear by their shoulder. He was yelling over the explosions, which was a little embarrassing, though I hope I didn't hurt his feelings by giving him the finger-to-the-lips. He'll comment on how ugly or hot a girl is at full volume so she can hear, which he did a lot at Yorkdale mall.

One BIG disappointment was the absent Star Trek trialer. I was really looking forward to that and I ended up having to rely on a bad bootleg on YouTube. Tomorrow I'll be able to see it tomorrow here, but from what I've already seen it's really gonna be a great movie.

This week? Not planning much EVE. Empathy V finishes Friday morning. Probably spend a good amount of time on Gears, and some simgle-player breaks on Dead Space and Ninja Gaiden 2. Probably finishing up reading Watchmen and go through the Gears novel.

See you all Monday.

Ja.

And so it begins, again and for the first time.

This isn't my first attempt at maintaining a blog.

First it was Livejournal @ psychediver.livejournal.com. That was during my media studies at Humber College.

Then it was blogs.ign.com/psychediver. I still thought I had a future as a journalist.

This will be different. I don't think this will net me a writing job in the future nor will I try to stick to one topic. Everything I am, I will try and post, and I will do it frequently.

Life, love, comics, anime, video games, movies, TV, novels, politics, science, technology, philosophy, sex, gadgets, etc...

I hope to build a readership, but at this point I have no idea how to attract people other than to write a LOT. So I will.

Stay tuned. It should be interesting.