Geek StuffPosted by Ray-himself Wed, March 10, 2010 17:09:16I have absolutely no desire to lie to you, hence this very basic truth: I am 100% geek - I love big tvs and sound systems, amazing movies - all that stuff. So I just had to vent my excitement - they're going to re-release Batman Arkam Asylum with 3D glasses on the Xbox!!! Let me tell you, since the chatter about 3D tvs started picking up I've been daring to hope that a home cinema revolution is coming - now Batman is coming and I don't need a new TV. And the 3D apparently doesn'y suck - you get a full colour 3D experience with steroscopic megabucks!!!!!! As you can probably tell, this excites me a great deal. I really hope it's worth it.
Geek StuffPosted by Ray-himself Mon, February 15, 2010 21:41:29Seriously, has noone else on the planet noticed that Microsofts Project Natal was featured in this weeks episode of Smallville? And they showed a game (cheap Wii Sports knock off) running on it - is this not the first sight of a Natal game? Am I the only one who cares? Am I that much of a geek? :(
Geek StuffPosted by Ray-himself Sat, January 09, 2010 16:44:27For old Star Trek fans like myself 2009 was an exciting year.
Not only did the franchise return but it
did so in a form that could be described as good (or in my opinion, brilliant) without
any of the usual qualifications tagged onto praise of a new Trek film. With the birth of my first nephew occurring at
the end of the year the renewed interest in Star Trek seemed like a good reason
to dig out my old (and unopened) Trek figures in order to taunt the baby’s
mother. My sister, it should be
understood, is vitriolic in her hatred for all things set in space. Suffice it to say she is suitably terrified
by the prospect that her son will one day follow in her uncle’s sci-fi loving
footsteps. But seeing these old
treasures stirred a desire in me to revisit the original source material. Please don’t misunderstand, I am a diehard
Trekkie and always will be, but I rarely watch a large number of the films the
series has spawned for various reasons.
As with all old love affairs memories are sweet and when my
dear wife presented me a Blu Ray box set containing the Next Generation movies
I was, understandably, over the moon.
Now, we’ve had a trying couple of days, what with our water supply freezing
and generally unbearable temperatures and as such my wife and I plan on
spending a night cuddled up watching the new film. At the time of writing however, my wife is
currently enjoying a renewed love affair with running water and I have decided
to crack open Star Trek Generations (a movie I’ve always had mixed feelings
about) as a special geek treat. Now, I
quite enjoyed the opening scenes on the Enterprise-B (though they have many
issues!) but the reintroduction of the Next Generation cast is truly
terrible. So bad, in fact, that I am
writing this blog in disgust. What is (was)
it with those shepherding Trek that made them so intent on writing fan fiction
style scenes into what could otherwise be a truly epic experience? I mean, the
movie looks incredible. The lighting is
unreal and the high definition transfer is unreal, the use of models for the
ships giving the movie a timeless quality to its special effects, but why make
a $30 million episode of the Next Generation?
And the opening Next Generation scene is not an isolated
clunker. The whole Data story in this
flick is truly rancid, but what makes it so bad is the quality in some of the
other subplots. Patrick Stewart gives an
incredibly brooding performance throughout much of the film (the climatic
action sequences undermining this somewhat) that I simply did not appreciate in
my youth and some dialogue scenes are left open ended with undercurrents of
mystery and suspense that have never been replicated in any other Trek film. This raises the ultimate point behind this
blog. Why has it taken the powers that
be so long to create an unquestionably brilliant Star Trek film? Not since the
Wrath of Kahn has a Trek film reached the heights achieved in 2009, but why has
it taken so long and, more to the point, why have the diehards like myself
accepted anything less than perfection for so long? There are no easy answers
to this question and I don’t propose to offer any here only a final thought for
the day. Like all good love affairs,
loving Trek can be a tough and often contradictory experience. I won’t say I wouldn’t have it any other way
(because I would) but that’s just the way it is. I guess that’s why Star Trek fans have their
own name.
Xevicom, mostlyPosted by Ray-himself Fri, November 13, 2009 23:26:24So, some pretty cool news today – we’ve decided to sell the
digital edition of Xevicom Forever and let you folks pay whatever you
choose. The deal is really simple – just
head over to the official site purchase page (http://www.xevicom.com/buynow.html)
and you will see a big, bold link that says “Buy Now and Pay Whatever You Want”
(you can’t miss it). Click this and you will be taken to our donations page
where you can pay us whatever you feel is the right price to pay for the full
graphic novel. Our normal price for the
digital edition is $6.95 but you are free to pay less (or more if you think
that is fair). You can buy the digital
edition for as little as $0.01 if you so choose. No matter what you pay you get the complete
graphic novel – nothing has been cut out, and there are no adverts put in place
or anything like that. All we ask is
that if you think this is a good deal then please pass it on to a friend so
they can have the chance to pay whatever they want for the book. This deal will not last forever so don’t let
the opportunity pass you by.
Comic book movies and TV showsPosted by Ray-himself Thu, November 12, 2009 19:08:22Bit bizarre I suppose, particularly as I could not tell you
exactly what the two seasons were about and I haven’t watched since I sat down
with one of my friends to watch every episode of a two week period, but few TV
shows, let alone animated ones, have left such a lasting impression upon
me. There is just something about the
animation, the sparseness in the writing – those long, agonizing seconds that
draw out like minutes where characters simply stare at one another, allowing
their words to sink in to the audience.
Even the bizarre robot tanks that were added to the show simply for
comedy value have a deep and even heart warming story that plays out over the
course of the series. It’s a very odd
thing, but I honestly think I would rather watch the anime TV show again than
the either the first or second movies, even though I love both of those
also. The second, in particular, simply looks
amazing. I’ve been thinking for some
time about trying to buy the series on Blu Ray (I’m all about the HD now), in
order to relive the experience but every time I consider searching for it, I
back down, scared that I might, in some way tarnish my wonderful memories,
though I can’t quite see how that is possible.
There again, I have the Blu Ray of the Clone Wars movie and that has yet
to be played in my house, so maybe not tarnishing memories comes from past
experiences? And no, don’t talk to me about Indy IV, really don’t!
Comic book movies and TV showsPosted by Ray-himself Mon, November 09, 2009 18:37:07I know, back again on the subject of Smallville without even
a sympathetic nod towards Heroes.
Actually, I’m still thinking about what exactly I will write on the
subject of the ever inconsistent Heroes but suffice it to say that at the
moment I am at least four episodes behind on Heroes whilst, simultaneously, I
cannot wait, week to week, to see what happens next in Smallville. I mention this not to underscore whatever (or
what little) credibility I might have as a comic book adaptation snob, but
simply to underscore how much I am enjoying Smallville at the moment. And this is quite a turnaround, believe
me. When Heroes premiered you could not
stop me from obsessively awaiting the next episode at the expense of the rest
of my life, whilst Smallville I tended to largely ignore. Yes, my apathy has indeed seen a significant
reversal in recent months and though I cannot comment on the recent Heroes
episodes I can tell you that just based upon the most recent episode of
Smallville alone, I think I know which show will have the most significant,
lasting place in my pop culture filled heart.
Now, although Smallville has at times been radically inconsistent
it tends more often to be consistently below average. Season six, I am looking at you. Rarely does the show maintain an incredibly
high level of consistency from episode to episode. Indeed, the nearly compulsive need for the
show’s writers in past seasons to fall back on the tired “freak of the week”
structure, a plot point that was extremely tired by season 2, has often made
large chunks of the show nearly unwatchable, their only saving grace tending to
be a plot point or discussion in the episode’s final act that ties the
otherwise uninteresting, staid narrative into a part of the larger
Smallville/Superman mythology. Kandor,
the seventh episode in the show’s ninth season, shows exactly why the
Smallville writers must, at all costs, never follow that road again because
this unique and well executed 45 minutes of geeky heaven demonstrates
effortlessly how incredible, varied, and well executed this show can be when
the action focuses upon a single, season wide story arc.
With effortless ease all of the lingering questions over the
Kandorians posed in the show’s first few episodes have been answered, perfectly
repaying invested faith in the show’s writing and production team whilst
setting up further developments to occur throughout the season. The use of flashbacks to explain Jor-El and
Zod’s interlocked pasts on Krypton were inspired with both Callum Blue and
Julian Sands giving fantastic performances in their respective roles. The trial of Jor-El sticks out particularly,
wonderfully tying the Smallville universe to the Christopher Reeve Superman
movies whilst simultaneously helping to define the show as unique entity in its
own right. As with all things Smallville
the episode is hardly perfect but it captures that essential essence of what
makes the Superman mythology so special and, more than anything else, what
makes Smallville’s interpretation of that mythology so relevant.
Xevicom, mostlyPosted by Ray-himself Mon, November 02, 2009 15:48:38CELL was a story I wrote a few years ago during a particuarly introsepctive time, if memory serves. For whatever reason the story that would later become CELL popped into my head almost fully formed and in a flurry of writing I had finished the story in just a couple of days. Luckily for me I was not the only one to enjoy the tale and the good folks over at Variant Frequencies adapted the tale into a really excellent sounding audiobook which you can listen to now:
CLICK HERE to listen to Part One
CLICK HERE to listen to Part Two
CLICK HERE to listen to Part Three
CLICK HERE to listen to Part Four
CLICK HERE to listen to Part Five
Xevicom, mostlyPosted by Ray-himself Sat, October 31, 2009 22:05:50Xevicom Forever now has a facebook page - Add us by clicking the link
HERE
