Saturday, July 24, 2010

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

New layout design, decided if I was going to keep up with this, I needed an adult looking format.

Yes, I lose Homer, but I gain safety in the knowledge that I am now safe from being cited for any kind of copyright violation.

Baby doctor visit today and I can report all systems are go. Everything looks good and our son is about two weeks bigger than the average at this stage. Will this mean an early arrival? I have no idea. The lovely wife is certainly hoping he doesn't get too big before the end of September rolls around.

I find myself in this odd space between. Too soon to be Daddy. In literal "we still have two months" too soon, not "I can't handle the pressure" too soon. Many things are drawing my attention. San Diego Comic Con is in full effect and the news and coverage is flowing like water. Tron Legacy and Walking Dead are the two media projects coming in with the most buzz and steam. Marvel's Thor, Captain America, and the soon to be Joss Whedon directed Avengers are all at least a year away. TRON Legacy is just around the corner and the amount of viral marketing for this film is absurd. They have done absolutely everything they needed to and then some to push this film to a modern audience. In the end it could be terrible, but I think the mouse house may have a winner here. The look of the film is breathtaking and feels like a worthy successor to the original cult classic.

Anyone too much older than me is shaking their head, and anyone too much younger than me has no clue what I'm talking about. The original film's sweet spot is geeks in their 30's who grew up on Jeff Bridges as Flynn and Bruce Boxleitner as the titular TRON/Alan character. This was the stuff of sleepovers with excessive amounts of popcorn and pizza. It had a cool video game and toys. The premise was almost absurd at the time. Now when we look back through the lens of massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs), hacking, and social networking, the film and it's sequel take on a bit of cyber-punk cool.

In related media driven obsessions. I am finishing up Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Unlike the first book, the second and third are the same large story split into two volumes. Larsson's heroine, Lisbeth Salander is elite hacker on the wrong side of seemingly all the right people. The first two books started slowly for me with the last two hundred or so pages suddenly hooking me like an addict forcing me to consume the stories' conclusions immediately.

As I mentioned, also coming out of Comic Con is AMC's new television drama The Walking Dead, based on Robert Kirkman's amazing zombie survival comic of the same name. Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption/The Mist) is producing and directing some episodes, so I have great faith in the translation. This one will join AMC's stellar original programming lineup in October just in time for Halloween. The greatest strengths of all zombie stories is that of the the people just trying to survive. Kirkman's is one of the best with an extraordinary cast of characters. Like with all adaptations, some things will change, some things will be worse, some will be better. I am personally really excited for this one. AMC picked this one up without a pilot so they have great faith in it.

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