Back Again!

Hey everybody!  Sorry for the lack of meaningful posts lately, but with finals and getting ready to move to a new place, it's been pretty hectic.  Now is where I impart with you all something heartier and more filling than my previous post.

I have heard a lot of things about the series Firefly.  There are so many fans of this show that are raving mad about it, and insist it is the greatest show ever.  I was not one of these people, but one day I decided to give into the hype and see what this show is about.  After watching the whole series (which isn't much), I am still now one of those crazy fans.  But it is a damn good show.

Firefly is not your typical sci-fi series; set in the 26th century, it tells the story of a small ship and its crew as it explores the 'verse.  There are no aliens, only people trying to make a living.  It is a western set in space, and it is a very unique environment that boasts very unique characters.  I think that a lot of the allure of this show is its brevity.  You only get told so much about backgrounds of each character, it leaves you aching for more.  Plus, Christina Hendricks is in a few episodes, and she does not disappoint.

My only gripe with this show is the intro sequence.  It is so boring, droll, and just does not fit the excitement that the series contains.  Other then that, check this show out.  If you like it, check out the movie too, Serenity.  

Finals Almost Over

Sorry I haven't posted much here lately, I have been pretty busy with finals (and procrastinating), so I'm going to make a small post here.  The end is nigh!!!  That's right, we're going to be all on summer vacation if you go to school.  If you're a working schmuck, then get ready to envy everyone else!  In all seriousness though, I have two finals in about 4 hours, so I should probably get some kind of sleep.  I have usually been good with getting content on here, so you'll have to forgive me this week.  In the meantime, please give me your opinions on the Wii U.  I have very mixed feelings about this.

Nerd Rant: Breaking Comic Canon

I watched X-Men: First Class yesterday night, and I must say, I was surprised when I was greeted with a movie that had a pretty coherent plot and good action sequences.  I guess I was expecting some kind of catastrophe like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or even worse, X-Men: Last Stand.  Yet as I was watching, there were parts of me that couldn't help but cringe.  See, if it wasn't clear enough yet by the rest of my blog posts so far, I'm a huge comic nerd.  A huge one.  I have huge nerdgasms when something is done right in a comic-based movie, such as the recent Thor movie where he called himself Donald Blake.  But if there is some sort of inaccuracy, I go into such a nerdrage that whatever sort of nergasm I had going gets halted and I end up with the worst kind of metaphorical blue balls.  I want to be gratified by a movie, I do, but regardless of all the amazing things that would be done in the movie, there is always that nagging feeling in the back of my mind, whispering to me an unholy truth: "The movie did it wrong.  The whole movie is now wrong."  It is pretty goddamn annoying.  And now I present to you some of the most rage-inducing inaccuracies that I have had the misfortune to witness.

It's the Juggernaut (Bitch)
The Juggernaut is a recurring villain in X-Men story arcs.  He is Charles Xavier's step-brother, and a constant nuisance to the X-Men.  He is also practically indestructible.  This guy is a bad mofo.  Check it.

Wait wait wait.......who the hell is the guy next to him???  This is what was given to us in X-Men: The Last Stand.  This guy had no relation to Xavier, was found randomly in a truck, and was thwarted by Kitty Pryde.  Yeah, no thanks.  What they should've done: See any episode of X-Men: The Animated Series.  Ever.


Wait, Amnesia??
Yes, amnesia.  This was by far, the most ridiculous plot hole to be included in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  At the end of the movie, William Stryker loads a revolver with adamantium bullets, and shoots him in the head with the intent of removing his memory.  Wait, what?  Yes, here is an excerpt from the horrible, horrible script.

 CORNELIUS
          We saved the leftover adamantium
          from the Weapon X procedure.
          Stryker plucks one of the bullets from
          its niche and rolls it between his 
          fingers, examining it with a practiced
          eye.
          CORNELIUS (cont'd)
          Each one's got a high-explosive
          core. Two in the head and Logan's
          brain will have to regenerate from
          scratch.

          STRYKER
          They won't kill him?

          CORNELIUS
          According to the computer models we
          ran, there's a 30 percent chance
          his healing factor will
          reconstitute the gray matter. But
          those synaptic bridges that form
          our memories? Gone. If he survives,
          his brain will come back fresh.

What in the flying fuck??  Adamantium can't be destroyed, even by other adamantium.  This is why he can rub his claws together all he wants.  Worst that would happen if he were shot would be that he'd get a bad headache.  His body has been evaporated to the point of only leaving behind a skeleton, and he still remembered everything.

Not only that, but how the hell could they predict that it would erase his memory.  Honestly, the amount of effort that was put into making a coherent plot was almost as much as the money they put into the special effects for this movie: not much.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!111

In X-Men: First Class, they assemble a team of mutants to combat a new adversary, which I won't reveal.  What I will reveal is this: one of the members was Alex Summers, a.k.a. Havok.  Yes, the younger brother of Scott Summers that was one of Xavier's first students was on the team....in 1962.  What the fucking fuck??  There are so many things wrong with this!!!  First off, he is the YOUNGER brother, and Scott was only about 30 in the movies and series.  No fucking way Alex was alive in 1962.  Secondly, they made his powers only focus through his chest, even though he uses his arms.  Why do that?  That's just confusing, makes him seem like he's Chamber or something.  Now I know some people will say this is ok because Alex is older than Scott in the Ultimate continuity, but those people can't explain how Alex would more than a decade older than Scott when this is not the case in the Ultimate continuity.  Plus, Ultimate Marvel sucks; it's full of incest and people who should be white and have hair on their heads.  Case in point, Nick Fury.

I WANT MY NICK FURY TO BE WHITE DAMNIT!!!

Ok, I think that was some healthy venting.  This is probably the most geektastic thing I have ever written.  Keep in mind that these are just a bunch of pet peeves from a guy who grew up watching and reading this stuff.  This is not to say that the movies are bad (except for Origins and Last Stand): I thoroughly enjoyed most of the Marvel movies that have come out thus far, and have high hopes for the Captain America movie that is coming out later this summer.  I really hope I'm not the only person that is bugged by things like this.

Comic Series Recommendation: The Walking Dead

I am a huge fan of zombies.  If you haven't noticed my post last Friday, I am keen follower of any and all things related to zombies.  That being said, not everything zombie is good.  I have been witness to countless books, movies, and comics that shamefully represent the zombie genre.  Shit can get really bad.  Luckily, there are certain series out there that shine amongst the dark mass of terrible media.  One of these series is The Walking Dead.

This series is incredible.  The art style is in black and white, something that is rare for comics these days.  Tells the tale of a sheriff who falls comatose after a shootout, only to awaken in a world overridden with the dead.  There is no shortage of blood and gore, and the zombies themselves are of the classic slow variety.  What this series does so well that few others can replicate is the character interaction.  Illustrated in every issue are the struggles that the remaining humans have to overcome to survive, and the huge physical, emotional, psychological toll it has on those who are trying to live through the apocalypse.  There was a show that recently came out based on the series, which is also very good.  There are a few divergences here and there, but the overall tone is the same.  I'd recommend the show as well, but not over the comic series first.

So You Wanna Start Programming

There are a tonne of resources out there for any novice to gain programming experience.  Plenty of books exist on the subject, and they're all great.  But there are very few resources out there like Hackety Hack.

This program teaches you how to program in Ruby, a very recent object-oriented programming language that is most commonly associated with Ruby on Rails, a web application framework.  It is a very interactive way to learn how to program, and I highly recommend it to people that want to learn the mystic ways of the code.  Check it out!

I've Seen the Light

When I first learned to program, I learned in C++.  It was a pretty daunting task, but I grew to love the language.  I grew very familiar with it, and soon I started to learn other languages.  I learned some Python, OCaml, Ruby, etc., but I still felt that C++ was my favorite.  Granted, each language has its advantages and disadvantages, but I became quite a bit of a fanboy.  Then I started to learn Java.

I was very hesitant at first.  "This is a cheap ripoff of C++, this sucks!"  I tried not to like it, but the more and more I worked with it, the more I grew to appreciate all of its features.  Automatic garbage collection, great class hierarchy, and a plethora of libraries full of methods (still getting used to calling things "methods" instead of "functions").  Add to the mix the awesome Eclipse IDE, and you have such a great development environment, you're ready to start making some sweet programs.  I know this may be a bit confusing to people who don't know anything about programming, but I should be posting some How-To's in a few days, so stay tuned!  Until then, I'm going to keep working with this bad boy, and maybe crank out a few Android Apps while I'm at it.  But that's probably a bit ambitious.

Movie Recommendation: Dawn of the Dead

I'm a huge zombie fan.  I follow the zombie genre of any medium, be it games, movies, or comics.  The zombie scene seems to have exploded as of recent, and it is getting flooded with a lot of crap.  Really bad stuff.  So I'm here to try and steer anybody interested in the right direction.  My recommendation for this Friday:  Dawn of the Dead.

Now I recommend the remake over the original for a few reasons.  I think that it is much more interesting for someone who hasn't seen too many zombie films.  The original is a classic, but was plagued by a very low budget.  The remake takes a few liberties afforded to it by being set in modern days, and makes it work really well.  A zombie epidemic is set loose upon the world, and a few survivors are trying to hold up in an abandoned mall.  The movie has great character dynamics, as well as a few noticeable actors such as Ving Rhames and Mekhi Phifer.

The special effects are very nice, something that seems like a must these days.  But the effects aren't there to cover up a bad movie, only to expand on it.  My only gripe with this movie is the fast zombies.  I'm an old school zombie guy myself, but they make fast zombies work nonetheless.  If you guys want to go to the movies this weekend, go see The Hangover Part II.  If you want to stay in and watch a film, check out Dawn of the Dead.  Have a good Memorial Day weekend!