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Post by jasonlatta on May 23, 2009 17:46:44 GMT -8
I'll admit that I didn't read the entire thread, because this argument is going on at another forum I frequent, and it all sort of blurs together after a few paragraphs.
However, just in case it didn't get mentioned by somebody else, I would like to point out that the ship pre-Academy Kirk watches being built in Iowa (or Ohio, or whevertheheck he's from) isn't necessarily the Enterprise. It's never shown which ship it is. It could be the USS Fartenfetchum for all we know.
This version of Kirk was raised around a shipyard...we don't know exactly what his step-dad does for a living. I doubt that's going to help Jard like the film anymore, but it's not quite so dumb as some "Kirk is linked to the Enterprise before either even got to space" destiny thing.
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Post by jasonlatta on May 23, 2009 17:38:29 GMT -8
Thanks, guys.
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Post by jasonlatta on Feb 2, 2009 22:39:00 GMT -8
I was sick with vast gastrointestinal distress when I got word that Columbia was destroyed. Everybody gets it from time to time, I suppose, but that's an unusual place marker for that memory in my life...I had the shits at the time and I'll never forget it, now.
When the Challenger exploded I was in English class; they came on the intercom and relayed the news feed to us. I doubt I'll forget that sinking feeling of doom and grief. My first adult feelings...
Edited to add: I wanted to clarify what I meant instead of being lazy and writing half truths about the Challenger incident.
That day fucking devastated me as a child, at least in the sense that that really was the first day that I understood even people I vaguely visualized as unimpeachable heroes could be brought low by the vagaries of simple catastrophe, the same as anybody I knew in person. Years later I would encounter the poetic line "...the center does not hold" and I would think of the Challenger explosion...
It was years after THAT that I realized just how much I idolized the astronauts, even if I didn't know their individual names in the way that I know the names of Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard, Neil Armstrong, etc...
What more noble profession is there than that of a Challenger of the Unknown? To me, sirs, there are none...
And Astronauts, Cosmonauts, Taikonauts, whatever, these men and women are indeed that, Challengers of the Unknown, and worthy of the highest honor and respect.
Even now, years later, we should honor them with our highest honors, along our social warrior class, and our greatest intellectual achievers.
These are the people trying to make the world "a better place to abide" and I have all the respect in the world for them.
I did as as a child, hence my great grief at the news of the Challenger explosion, and I do now...
Forward, I say, forward.
God bless ye all.
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Post by jasonlatta on Feb 2, 2009 22:33:16 GMT -8
I liked the Angel series. Sort of. I think it would have played out well on the show, I mean.
I share your opinion of the art, but I thought the dialogue was pretty spot on, especially with Spike.
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Post by jasonlatta on Feb 2, 2009 8:42:15 GMT -8
I liked Final Crisis.
I don't think it's Grant Morrison's best work. It tells a story for supernerds who have been reading DC comics for far too long, and that's FC's great strength and weakness.
i used to read a ton of comics every month, nowadays not so much; Final Crisis was at times confusing to me because I didn't know who anybody was, and many story references went right over my head (like Jesse's explanation of the Element X thing from the chair being the Worlogog from Rock of Ages...that makes perfect sense now but I sure didn't catch that when I read the comic)
The art was great for the first few issues. I loved the design of the new Monitor, and I liked the satanic/dominatrix version of Mary Marvel; I also liked how, even though the entire universe was apparently going to shit and the comic was jumping around like a mexican jumping bean, the story managed to show most of Mary and Supergirl's brutal fist fight. So nerdy, so pervy! To have the slut and good girl slug it out for titillation purposes. I'm sure there was some metaphor hidden in that like a chinese zen riddle but who cares.
Individual panels of this series I really love. A few would make great pop art blown up to poster size...some of the Darkseid panels have to be included in a punk band's album ("I SPEAK WITH THREE BILLION VOICES..." creepy Orwellian shit)
The tie-ins were all over the map in terms of quality. I loved the Batman tie-in, thought the Superman Beyond 3-D thing was a mess. I have no clue what that was supposed to be about...
Overall, I liked it. I'm probably not going to read any more DC for awhile, however...looking at the state of things, it appears the DCU is simply going to plunge into yet another crossover from here, and I've no interest in following another one of these things, save perhaps reading it from the library.
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Post by jasonlatta on Oct 19, 2008 9:31:15 GMT -8
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Post by jasonlatta on Oct 8, 2008 19:27:40 GMT -8
this video is making all the rounds right now, but as "popular" as it is, I have to say, this is the first online meme thing that has really weirded me out in ages:
WHAT THE...!?!
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Post by jasonlatta on Oct 8, 2008 6:44:18 GMT -8
Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
Good, solid science fiction. One of the better page turners I've encountered in some time. These days it usually takes me about a week to read a 300 page novel unless I'm especially engrossed in it. I read Old Man's War in two nights, so obviously I liked it.
Scalzi thanks Robert Heinlein in the acknowledgments, and it's easy to see why...this novel reads like something Heinlein would have produced had he been writing at his peak in the early 21st century. Old Man's War is no ripoff, but it's a definite callback to a particular style of science fiction writing that hasn't been necessarily popular since before the cyberpunk movement in the 1980's. It hits all the right notes of the, er, Heinlein style while being modern in execution and sensibilities.
Scalzi has a few sequels to this novel out, and I'm almost certainly going to read them. If they maintain the same quality throughout I'll most likely read his entire catalog.
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Post by jasonlatta on Oct 6, 2008 8:31:30 GMT -8
Random metal clip of a song that I like. Planet Hell, by Nightwish.
It sounds like a metal opera. I can almost see the dorky costumes for the orcs and their Dark Lord, dancing lockstep across the stage...
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Post by jasonlatta on Oct 5, 2008 19:07:10 GMT -8
And of course, getting back to metal...
Yngwie Malmsteen. Perhaps the only dude in the world who has enough balls to wear 17th century French court attire in public non-ironically. Also perhaps the only dude in the world to publicly say--at least in a Guitar World interview, if that counts as publicly-- that he believes himself to be the reincarnation of Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart. (in retrospect he might have been joking but if so the interviewer didn't get the joke)
He has an album named, self-deprecatingly enough, MAGNUM OPUS.
Ronnie James Dio once called him a "fucking twit" and Dimebag Darrell thought he was a jackass, but nevertheless Malmsteen is a childhood hero of mine.
(I believe Malmsteen and Hulk Hogan are tied for the title of "My Lamest Childhood Heroes"...but at least Malmsteen really can shred like a motherfucker. All the Hulkster can do is take steroids and raise irresponsible children. Score a win for Yngwie, I guess.)
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Post by jasonlatta on Oct 5, 2008 18:42:43 GMT -8
Speaking of shredding...
Few things in the world beat anything off this album in terms of the technical playing ability on showcase here.
One of the most amazing recordings I've ever heard.
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Post by jasonlatta on Oct 5, 2008 18:29:28 GMT -8
No new albums for awhile for this metal nerd. The economy sucks and I have too many bills to pay. However, we can all enjoy Youtube together! Here's one of those songs that made me want to pick up an axe myself, twenty some odd years ago. Yes, it's Van Halen, and no it's not Eruption. You may think it's odd that I'd post that one, since it's acoustic and certainly not metal...but I love shredding on any instrument, metal or not, and what can I say? Spanish Fly is what made me start saving up to get my first Strat. The first forty seconds or so of this next one helped too...I had never heard anything like it at the time, and I must've rewound the tape to hear the intro to "Little Guitars" about nine million times back in the day. I also totally adored this one: I'm not the typical Van Halen fan, I guess...
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Post by jasonlatta on Sept 29, 2008 17:38:45 GMT -8
Well, she'll probably be slightly better prepared for the debate, and she's apparently been called back for reprogramming intense pre-debate training to help her say thing in her own words instead of just mindlessly repeating (inappropriate) talking points. Rumor today, though, is that CBS has a couple more stinkers from her, that were from a series of questions that were asked of both her and Biden. They are helpfully holding them until Friday at this point. Word has it that one of those stinkers is that she was asked to name a Supreme Court decision besides Roe v. Wade -- AND COULDN'T. BEST ELECTION EVER. Oh, Lord. If that's true...even a guy like me can name at least four others off the top of my head, and only one of those is the Larry Flint decision. Shouldn't you at least be required to SKIM a US almanac before you become a Governor?
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Post by jasonlatta on Sept 27, 2008 15:07:48 GMT -8
There's another reason to suspect Leo is Lex.
Recall how in Mark Millar's "Red Son" story, the conclusion showed that Superman was in fact a descendant of Lex Luthor's. We know Morrison gave that idea to Millar, and in some interview or another Morrison basically lamented the fact he had done so, because he'd have to come up with something better to top it when he got to do HIS Superman story.
I can't say that this Leo/Lex thing tops the Superman being Luthor's future offspring idea, but it sure feels like something that evolved from the same Morrisonian headspace, like an evolution of the same thought.
Probably the greatest thing about it is, you can't definitively say whether or not it's true, and so (Morrison might think) fans will be debating this one for years.
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Post by jasonlatta on Sept 27, 2008 7:00:34 GMT -8
Oh, that's a nice theory.
I haven't re-read the entire series in one sitting yet, but I'll be looking for this next time I do.
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