“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]

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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.

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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.

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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.

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This trip wasn’t exactly a vacation.  We drove down to the cities, hit the concert not long after we got there…crashed out and came back right away in the morning.  It would have been nice to take a little more time and make a weekend of it, but neither the wife nor I have the time to take off right now.  With the move coming up this summer we couldn’t spare the time from work.  It’s a lot of time in the car, and if I had it to do again I would probably chose to skip the concert instead of trying to force a rushed trip.  For the kid I think it worked out O.K., for the wife and I not so much…but it was something for the kid so that’s fine.

As I said earlier, this is the second swift concert we’ve been to.  The first one was the last stop on her first big tour.  The setup for that one was quite a bit more to my liking than this one.  In that one she got talked to the audience a bit more and the overall performance felt a little more organic.  I got the feeling that she had an outline of what she was going to do, but over all she was a little more loose and open to whatever happened.  This concert was very heavy on production.  Each song was setup as a “play” for lack of a better word depicting what was happening in that song.  There were probably 10ish wardrobe and set changes.  While it flowed fine and it didn’t lag too much from one set to another the overall concert felt more like a performance…a play.  It didn’t matter that there was an actual audience there…there was very little crowd involvement.  She said the obligatory “I love being in [insert town and state]”  ”[insert town and state] you feel so much like family!”.  Outside of that there was no dialogue that was specific to this show, this night in this town.  It was very scripted.

The crowd ate that up, they seemed to love the production and how things went down.  Could thousands of screaming teenage girls be wrong??  It wasn’t my cup of tea though.  I enjoyed the first concert we went to, but this one felt like I could have just as well been watching it on T.V.  There was nothing unique about being there live.  I didn’t feel like I was part of the overall experience…I don’t feel that we (as a crowd) mattered to her performance.  That’s really why I go to concerts…to be part of the whole show.  I want the performer to make me feel like I am part of their rock star life for those couple of hours.  I want to “party like a rock star” while I’m there.  I want to buy in to the whole life style and I want to feel like the whole crowd is jamming out like one big house party.  I want to feel like the performer is talking to me, like we’re all part of one big party…not like it’s a show put on for my amusement.

I thought, for example, nickelback (hate ‘em if you want…I enjoy their music) put on a great party.  The tickets were around 70 each and there was something like 5 bands that started at 6 and went till around 11-12.  Nickelback did a good job playing up to the crowd and making it feel like it was one big party.  I’m sure what they said was pretty standard from town to town, but it didn’t feel like it.  They didn’t change clothes, change sets or have some big drawn out story that we were suppose to follow…they just jammed for 2hrs.  There was one part of their act that I’m sure was a bit regional.  They came to the front of the stage and played a couple of covers.  I would expect that changes from place to place…but they reacted to the crowd depending on how the crowd reacted to the songs they played.  They didn’t have a lot of production but there was some pyro that was pretty cool.  Overall it was a good value.  I’ve also been to two theory of a deadman concerts and I really dig on those guys.  The first one I saw was at the “Hub” which is a very small venue and that was the best way to see those guys.  The crowd was going, those guys were going hard…it was really cool.  They don’t have pyro like nickelback but they play to the crowd really well.  They react to what the crowd is doing and comment on it.  To the contrary…swift didn’t seem to bring the crowds reaction into her script at all.

In the end though the kid really enjoyed it, so that was worth the trip.  I’m not huge in to going to do stuff.  I have most everything I need within 100 miles of the farmstead.  Whether that’s because all I want is in that area or because it’s the way I was raised I have no idea.  When I was a kid we didn’t go do much.  I had the “things” I wanted/needed but we didn’t do much for trips.  I’m sure that was a product of both time and money.  The old man was a rancher/farmer so spring-fall was full of work.  Winter was full with school, and there wasn’t a whole lot of money for extra traveling.  It’s fine if Sam grows up and decides that everything she wants/needs is within a short radius of wherever she decides to live, but while she’s growing I want to make sure she gets opportunities to do things.  Stay in the cities and screw around at a water park for a couple days, catch some concerts, amusement parks…etc.  I’m curious to find out if a child who is brought up doing stuff like that is prone to being an adult who will be more interested in traveling.  Granted, a sample size of one will not tell me anything…but when she gets older I can be confident that we gave her chances to do some things and have some experiences.  I don’t think I missed out on much as a child.  Looking back though, the one thing I would have liked more opportunity to do is amusement parks…ride and water slides.  I got to go a couple of times and those things were a blast.  As an adult I really like going to movies and concerts…so the monster will have some opportunities for that, at least the age appropriate ones.

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This episode also is attacking the death of drogo and the screwy events that surround that.  When I read how that whole thing went down…well, it was just really weird.  Even for a fantasy series it struck me as weird.  (there is something in book 2 that hits an equal level of strange as well)  The events that transpire are important though to the development of Dany.  I’m curious how they will play out the last scene in episode 10…I’m really hoping the CGI doesn’t suck too bad.

Touching back on eddard’s death, this series has built to that point very well.  If you go back and watch the episodes you see how the character seems to linger just a little bit longer than you would expect in some places, most notably the kiss between him and the wife when she leaves King’s Landing and when his daughter is “learning to dance”.  It’s those scenes that T.V. is able to capture a little better than text.  Also, when he was being wheeled out, him seeing his daughter clinging to the statue was key..then him looking for her a bit frantically before he is chopped.  Again, that is something that translates a bit better on T.V. than in text.

Overall I think HBO has handled this series much better than I expected after watching the first couple of episodes.  I still think they are severely missing out on the connection between the Starks and the dire wolves.  As I’m reading through the series it’s clear how important and beneficial that connection is.  So far there is no sense of how attached these kids are to the wolves, later when they (I assume) will try to establish some of the weird stuff that goes on between the wolves and kids…how are we going to know that there is a deep connection there?  At this point in the book you got the sense that the wolves were intense protectors for the children, watching the series we don’t get that feeling at all.  Maybe it’s a bit to hard to work with the animals, but I think it’s probably just something they chose to sacrifice for budget (time) reasons.

One last thing that I was really disappointed with and I hope it’s not a reoccurring theme is the lack of fight scenes.  I get that it would be very expensive to stage the fights on the massive scale that they are in the book, but we need some kind of action.  The imp getting knocked out before the first skirmish with “rob’s troops” was a nice way to get around filming it.  It did miss a couple of things that helped the development of the imp character, but over all in the grand scheme of the story the actual fighting was kinda unimportant.  Still, it would have been nice to see some blood and guts.

There is one episode left, and I think they are in a good position to wrap things up for this season.  I wonder if they will change the name of the show for next year to match the book title.  I’m not sure if Martain projected an end to this series.  Currently the wiki has 7 books listed in the series.  I do hope he “ends” the story somewhere.  There is nothing more frustrating than trying to get in to a series and the author keeps on going and going.  I like some sort of finality to a story.  It needs that closure for me to feel like reading it was worth my time.

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Season to date, GOT has an average gross audience (linear plays, DVR and HBO On Demand) of 8.3 million viewers.

Not bad at all

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I’m starting to appreciate what HBO is doing for the story verses what the book has done.  HBO moves really quick and some spots seem choppy to me, but from what I can see in various social networking areas they are holding on to fans.  On twitter I follow some people that you would not expect would be in to this kind of show and they are carving out that time slot on their Sunday to watch…my house must be the only place in the free world that uses tivo for everything.  When the new season for shows I follow is in full swing I don’t even bring up the guide…I very seldom will watch live T.V.  It’s like “power watching t.v.” I guess.  Anyway…

Episodes 7 & 8 can be summed up in pretty much the same post as they both serve the same purpose…they build up a little more story for the excitement that is going to be 9 and 10.  Both shows setup that which is yet to come.  I liked the scene in 7 with Baelish and the whores where he tells the story of him and kat.  That scene added so much to the end when he put the dagger to eddard’s throat…you get a feeling for why he’s doing what he’s doing.  You understand that in the end he has his own interests at heart.  It brings in to question all of the old advise that he gave ned along the way.  A person almost should go back and watch the season again with the “new” information to understand all the nuances about how these people move around on this chess board.

About 1/2 way through episode 8 you have to start feeling sorry for ned.  It’s almost pathetic how “stupid” he is about what’s going on around him.  He seems to operate under the assumption that everyone is interested in ‘doing the right thing’ like he is.  All the people around him are playing this long drawn out chess match to best position themselves to reach their own goals…and this poor guy comes barreling in under the banner of “good” only to get slaughtered by the vipers.  It doesn’t occur to him that someone is giving him less than the truth or that their “word” won’t mean anything when steels starts flying.  You hope that the Starks can catch up to the southerners and their games.

I wasn’t impressed with the rape and pillage scene in ep 8.  It was far more graphic in my mind than what they were able to show on even HBO.  I think that’s my whole problem with the dothraki…I picture their culture so violent and brutal that it just can’t be shown to my satisfaction on HBO.  It’s good to see the Kaleeshi step in to her role. Her failure to embrace the brutality of their culture, I think, will ultimately cost her.  Does anyone else question the motives of the witch doctor treating drogo?  In the book I didn’t give it much thought…but watching it on the screen it seemed like a really stupid thing to allow her to treat Drogo’s wound.  Not sure why that didn’t stand out more to me in print.

Another thing I’m not happy with in the show compared to the book is how old the boys look.  Rob is suppose to be about 15ish, on screen he looks more like mid 20′s.  The other lords treat him like he is a boy, but he doesn’t look the part.  I would have liked to see a much younger actor in that role.  Jon, I think, looks about right, Joffery looks about right…which should be the same age as Rob I think?  Why was Rob chosen to be played by such an old looking actor?

I don’t remember arya killing someone during her escape…but it’s possible I overlooked it.  Come to think of it, there have been several things I don’t remember in the book that is showing up on screen.  Some of it helps build the background, but some of it doesn’t seem necessary.  Trust in HBO though, they are selling this show.  The ratings seem to be right around the 2.5 million per episode mark.  They go a little over 3 million for Sunday once you figure in the repeats.

I read someone in a review posted a quick note about how they think T.V. shows like this are eclipsing movies.  I can see that as far as character development is concerned.  It seems rather obvious.  With new ways to deliver this content (box sets, paid downloads…etc) people like HBO that are willing to put in time and money are able to reap some reward for their effort.  I got all the movie channels for free for 3 months with my direct tv subscription.  I’m going to be holding on to HBO, but the rest of them can be cancelled.  No other network is coming close to holding my attention with their original series like HBO and in the end, that’s what it takes to get my dollar.

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For a “professional” review of Thor, check out screen rant’s writeup.

In essence, the story was about Thor being powerful and arrogant, odin needing to knock him down a few notches…and Thor finding…well, I don’t want to say “humility” but I suppose the connection would be “humanity”.  Basically, he met a hot chic he wanted to hook up with.  For me, the switch between arrogant and humanity happened too quickly.  It was like someone flipped a switch..he was acting one way then suddenly acting another.  He didn’t gradually find out what it’s like to care for other people.  But, what depth do you expect from a comic book flick?

The final battle sequences were quite disappointing.  By far the battle at the beginning with the ice giants blew away the bit of fighting at the end.  The initial battle really showcased Thor’s strength and all balls no quit attitude.  At the end, it seemed like you were to assume the fight was a formality on the way to his victory.

Chris Hemsworth played the character well, IMO he was very good at the arrogant part…it felt right like it fit the character but I think humility took him a little to quickly and because of that it never felt like it was natural.  The only place I’d seen Hemsworth before this was the few min scene at the beginning of star trek.  He really had to bulk up for the role of Thor.  From what I read, he put on more muscle than the studio expected and the suit didn’t fit him when he showed up for shooting.  There is a scene for the ladies with his shirt off, and he looks cut well, but not overly muscular.  I would be curious to know if any HGH or ‘roids were used during the process…but given his good definition I think he could have hit this body type with just diet and exercise over the course of a year.  Looking over his movie list, Red Dawn releases after Thor, then he is shooting The Avengers.  I wonder if he’s going to try to cut weight for Red Dawn, then have to put it back on to play Thor again.  I would expect something like that to be pretty hard on his body.  I am curious if the body type he has to keep up to keep playing Thor is going to take it’s toll on him physically and limit the roles he will be offered in the future.  We’re not talking about a guy like Arnold who made a career first as a body builder then brought that body to acting…this guy wasn’t a large guy who had to get large to play a role.  I’ll be curious to see how this plays out.

Overall if you’re a fan of the comic book genre this movie is worth seeing…if you are a passing fan, wait to watch it on blue ray.  I read a few places that said this was the best comic book movie to date…and IMO that is just flat wrong.  It’s not up to the caliber of spiderman 2, and I don’t think it’s even as good as the Incredible Hulk (not the ang lee hack fest…I’m talking about the one with Ed Norton).

We still have x-men first class and captain america coming out this year for comic book movies.  Initially I thought x-men would suck, but from the previews I’ve seen it looks quite interesting.  The jury is still out on cap.  I think I’ll wait to rent that one unless it’s a really boring weekend in botno when it hits the theater up here.

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