DevelopingStorm

The Warded Man  This was a fun read.  The story doesn't bear strong scrutiny but if you're willing to just go with the flow it's a romp and a half. The Warded Man takes place in a world where every night horrible monsters rise like vapors from the ground and kill and eat anything that isn't hiding behind protective wards.   These wards are an ancient and mysterious set of symbols that when placed correctly form a barrier which no monster can pass. Even with the wards human kind isn't fairing very well and just moving between distant towns to carry messages has become a profession only the bravest and hardiest souls are fit for.    But being stout of heart isn't enough.  The messengers also have to know the arcane arts of warding. The construction and maintenance of the wards is a difficult but lucrative professions as everyone needs it yet the slightest mistake can mean the difference between life or death.  The novel starts out with the trag...

I received a Nook for my birthday.  It's my first e-book reader so I can't really compare it to others like the Kindle but I can say I really enjoy reading on it.  I read a lot in bed with a head lamp and because the all pages show in the same area there's none of the hand-shifting needed as with a physical book in order to get the page in the light. One unexpected side effect of the device is that it's easier for me to stop reading books I'm not enjoying.  There is no nag factor of the unfinished tome calling out to you from the book shelf.  The unfinished now sit silent and hidden in the digital library. On the down side it's harder to move around in the text and go back and review parts unless you've had the foresight to place a digital bookmark. In general it's a nice reading option but one that time will certainly improve.

Just Watched: Grown Ups With this movie I continue the sad trend of finding the most craptastic movie available.  A couple of months ago I wrote about another ensemble comedy called 'Death at a Funeral ' and lamented how such a funny cast could end up making such a shitty movie.  That sentiment goes double or triple for this movie. Just for the record,  I'm not a snob when it comes to stupid comedy. I laughed at Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.  I found Dude Where's my Car? to be kind of charming.  With the notable exception of Little Niki I generally enjoy Adam Sandler movies.  I can handle stupid.  What I can't handle is unfunny. Grown Ups is a tale of a New England town's championship winning youth basketball team that reunites twenty years later after the death of their beloved coach.  The team, now all grown up, each carry their stereotypical and trite baggage:  Sandler's career is doing well but his kids aren't grounded,  Jame...

Just Watched: Robin Hood Do not be fooled.  This film is not about Robin Hood.  It has borrowed a few names and the setting but other than that it's a much different story. I don't mind people reinventing a classic but it's not usually a good plan to start out by eviscerating the beast and then hanging a plot into the limp carcass.  I was not a big fan of Antoine Fuqua's King Arthur but at least that reinvention went whole-hog and changed everything. In this version we have Robin (who is not actually Robin),  returning to England and dishing out social justice, not in the classic mode of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor but rather by championing a Magna Carta like document his father had written.   I'll admit this Robin's actions are more morally grounded but that's not the ticket I bought when I sat down to see this film and it certainly doesn't make for an improved story. However, it wasn't until the climatic battle at the en...

I'm not mad at Sony and my German is not good enough to explain why Sid is but it's a catchy tune. How I found this is a whole other story.

The Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb  This was a very unusual series of novels.  Though ostensibly a 'fantasy novel' there's little in the way of traditional fantasy going on here.  There is magic but people don't so much control it as much as it controls them. The novels take place in a land reminiscent of the early colonial Americas and the antagonists culturally bear a strong resemblance to native Americans.   The hero is the second son of a colonial noble family and by tradition is destined to be the 'Soldier Son' who pursues a military career in the colonial wars.  Things, of course, don't go as planned. Mostly this is a novel of culture clashes.  At times it's deliciously deviant in the way it contrasts the sexual and gluttonous behaviors of the natives against the more rigid lifestyles of the colonials.  At other times it is excruciatingly painful as the hero is buffeted with indignation after indignation.  It's a very thin ...

I could taste the win all week.   Brady was his old self, the young and hungry defense was making the big plays,  Sanchez and gang were a bunch of blowhards who were about to be dealt a well earned thumping.  It wasn't to be. While this loss lacks both the historic and karmic impact of Super Bowl XLII its sting is similar - the team failed to give the fans their due.  The good news is this is only week 2.  The rematch at Gillette should be a doozy.

Brady was right.  It sucks that fans left early from Sundays game. There are good reasons to leave early however.  I've left early when it's freezing rain and the Patriots are in the shit hole.  I've left early when we had a limo and wanted to hit some strip clubs before going home.  I've left early when construction on 495 ensured a 3 hour ride home unless we beat the traffic.  But I've never left early on a sunny 1pm game that also happened to be the first game of the season.   Sure, there are better fans that I who tough it out no matter what the conditions but I feel no shame in claiming fan-hood superiority to anyone who cuts out on a sunny day in September - no matter how much the beer in the stadium costs or how good you're wife's potato salad that is chilling in the cooler in your trunk.  

I've been playing with Apples' new social networking site Ping since its release.  I'm really confused by its complete and utter lack of capabilities.  Why bother releasing or even announcing something that is this pitiful?   You would think at least it would have some hooks so people could see what music I had and what I was listening to in iTunes.  Last.FM does a much better job of these basics. Perhaps they will roll out new features but they better start soon or I many never check back.

I was flipping through a collected work of Wallace Stevens' this morning and I found this poem on a dog eared page.  It echoed the transitional time of year we're in so I thought I'd share and besides it has a some really great lines. The Dwarf Now it is September and the web is woven. The web is woven and you have to wear it. The winter is made and you have to bear it, The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind. For all the thoughts of summer that go with it In the mind, pupa of straw, moppet of rags. It is the mind that is woven, the mind that was jerked And tufted in straggling thunder and shattered sun. It is all that you are, the final dwarf of you, That is woven and woven and waiting to be worn, Neither as mask nor as garment but as a being, Torn from insipid summer, for the mirror of cold, Sitting beside your lamp, there citron to nibble And coffee dribble . . . Frost is in the stubble.         ...

A.V. Club writer Nathan Rabin,  in his column My Year of Flops ,  has skewered David Lynch's Dune movie as "comically convoluted" and "exhausting from the get-go".  Going further, using the columns motif of labeling flops either: Failure, Fiasco, or Secret Success he chooses the most damning tag 'Fiasco' for the film.   I'll be the first to admit the film is flawed but how anyone could label such a visual feast a Fiasco is beyond me. Furthermore, complaining that a Lynch movie is 'exhausting' or 'convoluted' is like complaining a Hitchcock movie is 'tense', a Jarmusch film is 'quiet' or A Scorsese picture is  'violent'.   Those descriptions embody the aesthetic choices of the directors.  Has Rabin seen Mullholland Drive?  Talk about exhausting and convoluted. As a kid when I first saw the movie I admit I was very disappointed.  Its departure from the novel annoyed me to no end. I still don't understand...

Repo Men I so wanted to like this movie.  Forest Whitaker is one of my favorite actors and the premise of human organ repossession seems like something meaty enough to build a good movie around.  I don't know what happened but the end result isn't good. The first 30 minutes of the movie are promising.  It's basically a montage of cold-blooded organ repossessions performed with a steely detachment by repo partners Whitaker and Law, justified with the oft repeated "A job is just a job".   It seemed like the perfect setup for exploring the dark side of our profit driven corporate culture and the timely issue of  predatory lending practices. For some damn reason though they chose to ignore any of the more interesting political implications of their setup and decided to just make a chase movie.  This starts when  Law's character has an accident that requires he get an artificial heart and, when he is no longer able to afford it, the evil corpor...

Death at a Funeral (2010) Not very funny.  I chucked at the drugged out white guy and when Tracy Morgan got poop on himself and a little whenever Peter Dinklage was on screen but considering the talent of this ensemble that's not much.  Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence, two very funny people,  kill (as in make dead and lifeless) any scene they are in.  If I hadn't seen this film I would never have guessed these guys could be so unfunny.  It was like watching Eddy Murphy in The Adventures of Pluto Nash.  How could people so talented have fallen so far?  Unless you're really bored, skip this film.

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Kick Ass This was not the movie I expected.  All I knew was what I saw on the TV commercials where it appeared to be a comedy about nerdy kids who want to be super heroes.  Replace 'comedy' with 'hyper violent revenge flick' and you start to get the real picture. There's nothing wrong with that either, it was actually kind of a nice surprise.  It is 'Kill Bill' meets Spiderman meets Heidi. Not much more to say about this one.  I liked it.

This is neat.  You can create public playlists on Grooveshark.  I've created an account but not uploaded any of my music.  I actually own all these but they don't know that.  How is this even legal? Updated: Not sure if I stumbled onto something I wasn't supposed to have or what the story is, but the embedded widget is no longer displaying.  It was cool while it lasted. Update #2: It's back.

Surfer Blood Astro Coast Hooky, Indie pop with a definite classic surf rock sound.  The songs are perhaps too derivative though since I keep hearing other songs in my head when the hook first appears.  Caspian Tertia  Caspian is a band out of Beverly MA that plays all instrumental rock.  While seeking more long jams I discovered this genre.  It's a bit too down-beat and repetitive for my tastes but makes for good background programming music. Godspeed You Black Emperor! Yanqui U.X.O. Another all instrumental album.  This music should have been the soundtrack to my years at IBM.  After listening to it for 15 minutes I want to vote Democrat.  All dirge all the time.   Not for casual consumption but interesting.