The Screaming Viking

Dead at 56

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

This is a good series, but I’ve got to say I have no idea what the story is about.  That sounds like a weird thing to say…but as you read through the books (i just finished book 3) you start to see that it isn’t a story about specific characters…it’s a story about the power struggle in this realm.  That is quite a change from other fantasy books I’ve read recently.  Most spend pages, chapters, books even sucking you in to the main characters…you know that somehow in the end these main characters will be involved and must likely prevail.  In this series you start off thinking that way…then a main character is killed off.  That seems to build the story for other main characters, then they die…then others die…in the end you have to understand that so far it’s been a story of the evolution of power in the realm.

This style has been hard to adapt to.  I found myself at one point losing interest in the story because a character was killed out of the blue.  I expected a few characters to befall something bad, but I didn’t expect them to be written out if the story.  It took another chapter to get back in to it.  The story is evolving so that no one is truly good and few are pure evil…but that makes it really hard to root for anyone.  There is one guy that I think is pretty close to being a good guy…but who knows.  From what I’ve read online his back story is suppose to develop more in feast for crows.

Something else I’m digging on is the light fantasy aspect.  There seems to be “magic”of a sort, but it is introduced gradually and doesn’t overwhelm the story.  It doesn’t feel like the mortals are essentially powerless against the “magic”.

Overall this guy tells a really good story.  So many scifi/fantasy writers get caught up in the craptastic details that it leaves no room for you to set the scene in your head.  Martain described things in detail but there is still plenty for the reader to visualize for themselves.

There is a series on the Discovery Channel call Sons of Guns that is about the Red Jacket Firearms company/shop.  I’d heard about it when it was first piloted but it didn’t draw much of my interest.  I have noticed that they come with new episodes in the doldrums of summer when anyone outside of the premium channels are not running new episodes.  If nothing else it’s something to look at while I’m kicking back for a few min before bed.  After watching a few of the episodes, I do kind of enjoy it.  I assumed it was going to be along the line of American Chopper where they build some ungodly designed bike that you have to be independently wealthy to own.  The firearms they are putting together are a little spendy, but it’s something I could reasonably  afford to buy.  $1500-$2500 will set you up with a lot of the things they put out (barring legal issues).  They main customers are military and law enforcement, so I’d have to look at the law involved in owning some of what they put out.  Beyond that, unless you are intensely into some sort of home defense mentality or just like to burn up ammunition, they are not all that justifiable to me….but I like the idea that I could buy one.

I’m watching this show last night…every once in awhile some brings in a gun they own to have it checked out, cleaned up…whatever.  Some dude brought in a japanese millitary rifle that was used in WW2, an arisaka model 38.  I listed to them a little…then got to thinking, I’ve got one of those in one of the gun cabinets.  I look, sure enough…same gun.  I listen to them explaining some of the history and significance of it, detail some of the markings…it was pretty interesting.

My grandfather brought the gun back from the pacific after his time as a marine in WW2.  He brought at least 2 guns back, I’m not sure if there were more.  They were the 7.7 and 6.5mm rifles.  The guns were shot regularly for quite a few years by him and the kids until it was finally retired for no real reason other than they acquired other guns.  After he died the 7.7 was taken by my old man and the 6.5 by his brother, my uncle.  Looking at the 7.7 it still has the “emperor” mark, which according to the show and what I read online is a touch rare.  Apparently when the soldiers thought their guns might fall into enemy hands they tried to file off the mark as a respect type thing for their emperor.  I had read that Patton also had ordered these marks filed off of acquired rifles…but the validity of that is questionable.

Listening to them talk about this rifle and the history it made me think about the significance of what is now my rifle.  It was a mass produced piece of equipment, so the quality and accuracy is probably questionable…but there’s no reason to think it’s a pile of junk.  They used it hunting, it must be somewhat accurate.  Thinking that this rifle was used by someone from another nation, sent to kill Americans/allies and an American acquired it…possibly killing the guy that owned it…it’s just kind of a strange feeling holding it.  It can be argued that every gun I own was designed to “kill people” and they could all perform that function…but this one possibly did.  The other’s can kill people, but with the exception of the glock, none of them were really designed for that function.  Most are hunting rifles, built for accuracy or target guns…etc.  This one was built to use while foreign soldiers hunt down Americans/allies and kill them.  I don’t know the story behind the gun or how it was acquired, and that’s kind of a shame.  I’d like to know if Harold took it off the battle field or picked it up in some other way.  I’m not even sure what he did in the Marines.

It did pique my interest in shooting this gun though.  It’s not worth any more than any other rifle in the collection, in fact it’s worth a bit less than several of them.  Seeing this on T.V. though did give a little bit of significance to this, before last night, insignificant rifle.

I caught this movie on opening weekend in Bottineau.  I was pretty impressed that the small bottineau theater got this show the week it opened.  I went to the theater the week before t3 opened to see the hangover 2.  I noticed they upped their admission by 2 bucks.  That was kind of a bummer, but I’d pay a little more if that meant they got the big movies opening weekend.  If they show the movies on a delay like they have been, I wouldn’t be a fan of paying more.

Since I saw it in the smaller theater I’m not sure if I got the same quality of experience that another person (not watching imax or some mega screen) would have gotten.  I thought it looked pretty good and the sound was pretty good so I don’t have any complaints in that department.  The action sequences were pretty decently done.  They were big and expansive.  If you are going expecting to see robots beat the hell out of each other..by all means this is the show for you.  If you are expecting some kind of “plausible” story or any type of acting…avoid this flick.

People have said this is the best transformers of the series, and that might be true.  It was certainly better than the 2nd one but I’m not sure if it was better than the 1st or not.  The chic (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) is IMO a bit hotter than Megan Fox, but her acting is right there with her in the crapper.  For whatever reason, I thought her performance felt more “genuine” if that can be said about anyone in this flick.  Where fox had an “omg I’m hot, look at me” air to her I thought Rosie had more of a smirk on her face about it…”yeah, I’m hot…” with a wink and a smile.

I wonder if the people in this movie can actually act.  If they were given a solid script would they be able to put out a performance that I’d like to see?  As it stands, the people are in this movie just for comic relief.  How does a 6 foot person deal with a 60 foot robot shooting energy weapons whom is also as agile as any of our athletes…oh and they are fast as a vehicle….  It just doesn’t work well.  By the 3rd episode we should have been in space or something…seeing an all out robot war with very little involvement from the people.  Maybe something about the robots leaving the planet, some people coming with to explore or something and blamo we see why fragile little bags of water can’t hang with intelligent hunks of metal.

The plot of this moive?  Well, um…it had something to do with sentinel prime being the last great hope for peace, his ship being shot…crashing in to the moon with a “super weapon”.   The space race of the 60′s was all a front to get to the moon and see what this thing is…then we never go back because we think we might have an idea of what it is?  I don’t get it.  Now the autobots are pissed cause they know the humans have kept this from them.  They use their ship to get to the moon, wake up sentinel, bring back 5 rods plus the controller…then a human realizes there should be 100′s of them.  The humans find out where they have gone, and tell the robots.  Autobots are betrayed by sentinel, and the decepticons plan to use these rods for a space bridge to bring cyberton to earth so the humans can work as slaves to rebuild it.  Humans are working with the decepticons…battle..\the autobots are told to leave the planet…which they do in one of ours/their shuttles, it’s blown out of the sky…and we have 40min of movie left.  battle…good guys end, optimus soliloquy…end.

Now, that plot sucks…I give that to you, but one of the large over all problems IMO is there is no solid story arc from 1 to 3.  They are not connected in any way.  Each one acts as completely separate episodes with very little knowledge the former existed.  In 1, yeah megatron is pissed and they fight…O.K. I get that…but in 2 the decepticons try to suck all the energy out of the sun…then in 3 they want to use them as slaves to rebuild cybertron.  Had they killed the sun, who would be their slaves to rebuild the planet?  Seems to me they should have enslaved the race first, rebuilt their home, then blown up the planet.  They don’t even try to explain the space bridge, “it violates the laws of your physics” is what the humans are told…well, if “our laws” of physics are violated, then they aren’t really laws and we are clearly wrong.  How can these things be so damn advanced and still suck at conquering earth?  I don’t get it.

Normally I get irritated at movies like this because the concept had so much more potential…with this one though, they are pretty much stuck where they are at.  Story would just get in the way of their eye candy.  I wasn’t all that in to this flick, but when sentinel (voiced by lenord nimoy) busted out a “good of the many…” line, I was done.

Horrible movie, don’t even rent it.