Holiday Hiatus

Hey everyone! I'm going on an official Holiday Hiatus. Both Mrs Titan and I need some well-deserved R & R and want to be free from responsibilities on our work-enforced Staycation this year. The good news is that this will be my first ever Staycation, meaning I will have a lot of opportunities to explore more future content. Anyway, have a great Christmas and New Year! I will be back with new, more exciting content on January 5th!

PS. Don't lick the pole!

See you 1/5/09! Stay safe!

A Quick Plug

Hey everybody! Just a quick note today. One of my favorite websites, and one of the most useful for a TV lover like me is the Futon Critic. This website has everything you may ever want to know about what is on, what might be on, and what is no longer on TV.

The site goes into great detail on new shows, cancelled shows, and any press releases from TV networks. Every day on the calendar has a list of all new shows airing on a given night, critical information for someone recording shows on a VCR or TiVoing them with only two tuners. It is nice to see what will be on and when.

Another great feature is the DevWatch section. It opens up the TV pilot season to the public. We can read about all of the comedy, drama, and reality show pilots that are in the works. This is great fun! It is cool to see what might air in the upcoming season and to find out what is going on at each network. I really hope that someday they begin a DevWatch for cable networks as well.

You can also check out the daily next day ratings, which is fun for making sure your favorite show will survive, and probably critical for anyone with a tie to network TV. There is even a great key provided to know what the heck this means: "How I Met Your Mother" (households: 6.8/10, #5, half-hour: N/A; adults 18-49: 4.6, #2, half-hour: N/A). I'm going to assume that's good, based on this quote from the site ""The Big Bang Theory," "How I Met Your Mother" continue to see their numbers surge." And, I would actually understand it if I actually read the key!

I usually use the Futon Critic for making sure my friendly TiVo is really doing what I want him to do. I love this site! Check it out and enjoy!

Step Brothers

Hey Gang! Guess what? I have a blog, which is something I apparently forgot yesterday. Sorry for the lack of a post. Things have been a little crazy at work and Mrs Titan and I have been getting ready for the holidays, so it kind of slipped my mind. Heh, must be getting old. Speaking of which...

...we watched Step Brothers this weekend, the newest Will Ferrell movie, costarring John C Reilly. There was nothing surprising about this movie, it was pretty much exactly as advertised. It is about two forty year old guys who live with their parents and act like obnoxious and entitled teenagers. Their parents meet, fall in love, and they become step brothers.

From there, they fight (both physically and emotionally), they find a common enemy, and they work together to beat that enemy. It's pretty straightforward, and might have been heartwarming if it actually starred teens or pre-teens. But, it doesn't, it stars forty year olds, which makes it hilarious, not heartwarming. It was a great opportunity for Ferrell and Reilly to act like idiots and make fools of themselves.

I don't know what about watching men almost twice my age act like someone half my age fun, but it is. It is, admittedly, quite stupid, but there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone who doesn't like Will Ferrell or stupid humor, but if you want an evening of fun, check this out! Mrs Titan and I laughed quite a bit and it was a good bit of escapism in these troubled times. I would have to say this is the best Will Ferrell movie since Stranger Than Fiction.

I will try to be back with a new post tomorrow, but with work and Mrs Titan's finals, we'll see if I have any time to use the home computer.

Watching Movies

Hey everybody, on this Friday, I have just one simple question: How do you watch the majority of your movies? I have a suspicion, but I want to confirm it! Thanks everyone! Check out the survey on the right side of your screen!

I know how I will be watching my movies this weekend, do you? Have a great weekend, see you Monday!

A War of Gifts

This Chirstmas season I decided to read one of the very few Christmas-oriented books on my To-Be-Read Shelf. I picked up A War of Gifts, by Orson Scott Card, which I got last Christmas. It is a tiny book; a novella, or short story, that comes in at only 126 pages. It is set in Card's Enderverse, and features some of the supporting cast from the Ender and Bean series.

It is a sweet little story about the kids in Battle School as they deal with not being able to celebrate Christmas (and/or Sinterklaas Eve). It focuses on Dink Meeker and Flip Rietveld as they secretly celebrate Sinterklaas Eve, and lead a Santa Claus revolution at the school. And, Card shows this story through the eyes of Zeck Morgan, a right-wing, religious zealot.

The story is short and sweet and even includes a chapter which was published as a standalone story called Ender's Stocking, in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. The only problem I would have recommended this book to everyone is that if you have never dipped your toe in the Enderverse and into any Battle School book, you may not have any clue what is going on. Also, what's wrong with you? Get out there and read Ender's Game
.

Discovery Channel: Time Warp

One of the new shows that premiered on the Discovery Channel this season was Time Warp. Time Warp, starring Matt Kearny and Jeff Lieberman, has a very simple and fun premise: let's watch a ton's of stuff happen in slow motion. That's it. They use high speed cameras to capture some everyday, and some very unique actions.

Not every segment is a must see, but the majority of them are. Watching a Taser be shot, a pole vaulter jump, a car crash, and a man breaking stones with his arms are pretty incredible at 5000 frames a second. Here are some great examples:


And:


It's pretty neat stuff. And they even include some science behind what we are seeing! Check it out!

Showcase Presents Superman: Part 15

This is the fifteenth of numerous posts on Showcase Presents: Superman. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the stories.Now, this won't be like most comic blogs with scanned pictures posted throughout. Mostly because I don't have a scanner, but the stories should speak for themselves, but also because I want to go through the whole book in the next few weeks, and I want non-comics readers to enjoy the kookiness that us comics readers understand from the Silver Age. While I may mock these stories, I am not making anything up, this is all straight from the comics! I love these stories and the character of Superman. This is great stuff! The cover scans are from the Grand Comic Book Database.

Superman # 126

"The Two Faces of Superman"

Long Story Short: Both Lois Lane and Superman are truly horrible, shallow, and amoral people.

This one is especially weird. Lois gets a phone call from Chet Hartley. Her friend set her up on a date with him as a favor to him if he came to Metropolis. She doesn't want to go, but agrees anyway, even though she has a date with Superman later in the night. Apparently they can date, but they can't marry, why buy the cow Superman? Anyway, Lois makes herself look like a maladjusted eight year old to scare Chet away. They go out dancing and it works, Chet is so embarrassed that he takes her home in time for her date with Superman. However, Clark saw her there with Chet, and felt like he needs to avenge poor Chet, by playing a prank on Lois.

On the beginning of their date, Superman proposes to Lois, but says she needs to know something before she can answer. She agrees, so he takes her back to a fake apartment that he rented earlier that night and shows her some flesh colored Superman masks. You see, he wears a mask to protect his secret identity, who looks exactly like Alfred E Newman. Seriously.

Lois, being the incredibly shallow person that she is, is horrified! She cries, is embarrased to be seen with him in public (so much for a secret identity), and even has a hard time kissing him. She finally realizes that it must have been a rubber mask (they must have had incredibly realistics masks in the '50s), so she agrees to marry him.

Now Superman has to get out of it! He tells her to meet at the Justice of the Peace at noon, and if she is one minute late, he'll call it off. So, he goes about sabotaging Lois, by welding her in her car with heat vision. He is then able to get out of it. He then pulls off his mask and shows Lois what she already knew, that he was tricking her to teach her a lesson. She is upset, but realizes that she can never trick him into marrying her, she'll have to get him to ask when he really means it.

Fred Claus and Radio

We got to watch two movies this weekend that have been clogging up the Netflix Queue. The first has been on the queue since last Christmas, Fred Claus. Since it's now almost time for presents, I figured we should watch it. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but I liked it. It was kind of hard to get a feel for it though, because it was part kids movie and part adult comedy. With Vince Vaughn's rants and wisecracks, it felt like a Vaughn comedy. It was funny and he was his usually charming self, the same character he is in almost all of his films.

Paul Giamatti was a little weird as Santa, and didn't seem to be too comfortable in the role. Although, that might have been the point. Kevin Spacey as the efficiency expert with a vendetta against the North Pole, however, was great. He and Vaughn both led this film and made it fun. It did seem a little childish and out of place a couple times when we got weird cartoon sound effects for the action on screen. It made me think that there were going for a movie like Elf, but didn't quite get there. It was fun, but it won't be making my required Christmas movie list.

The next movie we watched was Radio. Now, before I am berated and mocked, this was Mrs Titan's pick. And before she is berated and mocked, it was her parent's recommendation. Against my better judgement, I put it on the Queue. Ultimately, this was Cuba Gooding Jr's "mental illness film." He plays a "retarded" boy (he was never diagnosed in the film, so we have to stick with that, sorry) who likes to hang around the school and watch the football practice. Plus, collect radios.

Anyway, he is eventually befriended by the football coach/athletic director and becomes beloved to the entire school. All of the cliches are there, he is mocked, the coach sets the kids right, they love him, a parent wants to be rid of him, happy ending where he is loved (at least he never plays).

Gooding Jr is kind of embarrassing to watch in this film. He is hard to understand because of his awful accent and his grotesque fake teeth. (I should point out that this movie is based on a true story and at the end they show a video of the real Radio. He did not have those wacky teeth.) The supporting actors, like Ed Harris, were great, but I couldn't understand their attachement to Radio. The movie wasn't the worst thing I ever saw, but it wasn't really worth watching, avoid it if you can.

Mass Effect

Well, after about 30 hours of gameplay I finally beat Mass Effect. It is a pretty amazing game, and I have to thank Skoth (aka Mr Little Sis, a name which is apparently "weird" and not good enough, we wanted to be called "my brother-in-law", but that's stupid!) for letting me borrow it. It is the best game I have played in a long time.

Once you choose your sex, appearence, history, and character type, you go on your first, exciting mission for the Human Alliance marines for this innovative action role-playing game. This mission is, obviously, where you learn the basics of fighting and playing, and also where you become very important to the galaxy, by recieving visions from an ancient artifact. It is also where you get the first glance of the main antagonist in this epic story.

Once this mission is completed, you get to see the headquarters of civilized life in the known galaxy, the Citadel. This is your real introfuction to the galaxy. And what a galaxy! This game has one of the most fleshed-out and fully realized universe of any game, and even more so that many books, movies, and TV shows. There are multiple alien species to interact with, and all of them have their own history, culture, economy, religion, military, and alliances. If you spend the time to read all of the detailed Codex logs, you will learn everything you could ever want to know about this universe.

I spent at least six hours on the Citadel, doing different missions, shopping and learning everything I could before finally setting out into the galaxy. Once you take command of your own ship, you can choose where to go and what order to perform the main story missions. I, of course, wanted the broadest experience of the game, so I did every side mission I could before attempting the first story mission. These were great. Basically, you pull up in a solar system, and get to explore. You can survey planets and read details on the history and composition of these systems. Almost every system also has a planet that you can land on and explore in your dune buggy/tank, the Mako. This is great fun! There is a mission on almost every planet as well, and they are not all the same, there are a variety of mission types and objectives.

As you go through the missions, you are able to make choices. These choices generally fall into two categories: Paragon Renegade. For my first playthrough, I went straight Paragon and I had a great time. The characters were believable and interesting, thanks to some fantastic voice acting, and the choices seem to make a difference in the outcome of the game. I have evern decided to replay as a Renegade to see if this is actually true.

I truly loved this game, and enjoyed every moment of it. I only wish that there were a few more story missions (there were only 5, but were about 2-4 hours of gameplay each) and that it was a little longer. This is a universe I would revisit in a second and I can only hope they are making a sequel. Oh wait! I might even consider reading a Mass Effect novel (!). Anyway, check this one out, and enjoy! You can get it for only $25 at Amazon!

Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars Volume One: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh

This is the first Star Trek book I have ever read. After being a fan of the show for as long as I can remember, and missing it since Enterprise was cancelled, I decided to start checking out some of the numerous books.

That said, I have no idea why I picked this one first, but I am glad I did, because Greg Cox is a great writer. I have never seen a complete episode of the original series (I know, geek blasphemy! Sorry.). I know of Khan from Star Trek II, and that's it. So, it was odd that I picked it up a few years ago.

Anyway, the book is actually all about Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. After a prologue featuring Kirk and the gang, the book is set in the late twentieth century, spanning almost 20 years. Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln had the use of a supercomputer, transporters, and a "servo" (basically fancy phasers). I didn't understand why they had these things in the 1970s, so I did some research. I found out that these are canon characters from an episode of TOS, Assignment Earth, where the crew heads back to 1968.

I guess Gary Seven had been sent to Earth to keep humans from destroying themselves. In the show he prevented a nuclear missile from launching. In the book, he, along with Roberta and his alien cat Isis, is a super agent in the vein of Bond. Well...the old Bond, you know, with gadgets. And teleporters. Anyway, many adventures are alluded to, and we get to see all those that involve the young Khan.

The book uses real world events, such as nuclear testing under the Indian desert, the chemical plant explosion at Bhopal, and the Reykjavík Summit to frame Khan's development from a sweet super-powerful genetically enhanced kid, to an angry super-powerful genetically enhanced teen. It is neat how Cox was able to tie in real events into Star Trek mythos. The book ended in a cliff-hanger, and after I finish the book I am reading now, I will pick up the sequel. Even if you aren't a Star Trek fan, check this one out, it's a lot of fun!

Discovery Channel: Storm Chasers

After Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs, the rest of the Discovery Channel shows are all just about on equal footing. Storm Chasers is all about...well...storm chasers. Specifically, Sean Casey and Dr Josh Wurman, and this year we have the welcome inclusion of Reed Timmer. Last season was the first year I watched this show, and last year we didn't have Reed.

The premise then, and mostly now, is that Casey, a filmmaker, travels in his giant eight ton TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle), attempting to get a shot from inside a tornado. He is directed by Dr Wurman from his DOW (Doppler on Wheels), a giant semi loaded with a radar and tons of computer equipment. What makes it kind of fun is that Casey is a nutty artsy type who wants to go go go while Dr Wurman is all about the science. He is much more conservative in his actions and takes his time. His goal is collecting data while Casey's is getting "the shot."

This clash of personalities is interesting, but it can be a little grating. The inclusion of Reed Timmer helps to aleviate this because he is laid back and young. He cruises in his SUV with his friends and is able to move quickly and directly. He is also much more of a risk taker, getting as close as possible to the actual tornadoes. He actually sells the footage he makes and has been able to turn his love of chasing into a business. His enthusiasm is infectious and it is fun to watch people enjoy themselves on these kinds of shows.

The nature of a show like Storm Chasers is interesting. There is only a short filming season where there is not a guarantee of excitement. I imagine much of the chasing season is actually quite boring, waiting for weather to go after. The inclusion of multiple teams (we follow at least five groups as part of the two teams) really keeps things interesting. The action is usually intense and the footage of storms is pretty amazing. It is qute fun to see (as long as I only see it on the TV!).

There is only one new episode left, next Sunday, so check it out, and then watch reruns and watch for the show to come back next season.

Showcase Presents Superman: Part 14

This is the fourteenth of numerous posts on Showcase Presents: Superman. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the stories.Now, this won't be like most comic blogs with scanned pictures posted throughout. Mostly because I don't have a scanner, but the stories should speak for themselves, but also because I want to go through the whole book in the next few weeks, and I want non-comics readers to enjoy the kookiness that us comics readers understand from the Silver Age. While I may mock these stories, I am not making anything up, this is all straight from the comics! I love these stories and the character of Superman. This is great stuff! The cover scans are from the Grand Comics Database.


Superman #126


"The Spell of the Shandu Clock"


Long Story Short: There is no supernatural, and a Superman story is never as interesting as it first looks.


This short back-up story is kind of dark and gloomy looking, like an old EC horror story. It starts with a "tense" audience watching Shandu, a master illusionist, while he performs a show. Shandu causes a table to burst into flames and begins to float when Superman flies in, exposes his tricks (like that Breaking the Magician's Code guy), and calls him a fraud. Shandu admits he cheated this time, but claims that he will prove it to Supes.


Superman then goes to the Daily Planet and Perry White tells him that Shandu died at sea, and left a message for Superman that he will prove that the supernatural is real from beyond the grave. He then asks Superman to take Jimmy and Lois to Shandu's house for a story. We then learn that Shandu built a supernatural clock before he died. When they get to the house they see a giant, hideous clock, and when it a metal Superman rings a gongs, Superman falls into a trance.


He then flies off into a distant valley and smashes a boulder with his head in front of some shocked cowboys. When he makes it back to the clock he decides he wants to see what's going on inside, but can find nothing unusual about the interior. The metal Superman rings the gong again, and yet again, Supes falls into a trance. This time he burns a hole into a pile of sand (seriously). Jimmy, Lois, and Perry all gather together to worry about what will happen if Superman is in a trance when the Fallon Gang activate their new "crime machine." I don't know what this is, but they "invented" it. Cool. I want one.


Anyway...Superman decides he needs to destroy it, so he makes a giant hammer. I have no idea why he needs that, but there you go. He is unable to follow-through though, due to an invisible force holding him back. Before Superman can figure out how to destroy it, he tells Lois to leave him alone and then the gong rings again. This time the Fallon Gang is watching and they decide to used their "Sonic Vibrator" hi Googlers! to zap Metropolis National Bank.


Superman then shows up, but he is covered in metal. It's the Superman from the clock. The crooks blast him with the vibrator and the metal breaks off. Ah, of course, like all of these old Superman stories, it's just a giant prank. The Superman in a trance was a robot, and Shandu was a fake. They were all working together just to capture the Fallon Gang. Well, that was a lot of build-up for another fake out. Oh well.

Kung Fu Panda

We only watched one movie on this long and relaxing weekend, Kung Fu Panda. This animated, Jack Black film didn't look all that interesting to me when I first saw the previews for it. It kinda looked a lot like a lot of other animated movies and Jack Black hasn't really had a ton of appeal for me since School of Rock.

However, once the movie started, I was hooked. It opens with a dream sequence with Po the Panda fighting along side his heroes, the Furious Five, and kicking butt. He is "bringing the awesomeness" to his enemies. You know, just like I do here on the Titan blog! The sequence has a really stylistic design. It was part anime, part hand-drawn animation, and part CG. It was really unique and very cool.

Then...we get the rest of the movie. We see that Po actually works in his dad's noodle shop, and idolizes the Furious Five, he is no Kung Fu master. In fact, if you have seen the trailer, you know that he is fat and clumsy. He tries to get up to the see the ceremony where the Kung Fu masters choose the next Dragon Warrior. It is pretty obvious from the get-go that Po will be chosen, but when he is, things start to get a little more interesting.

You see, Po is the ultimate fanboy. He recalls with awe the battles that the Furious Five have fought like a comic book geek can recall all the first appearances of their favorite villains. He interacts with the FF (hmmm...coincidence?) as if they are heroes, and it is kind fun to watch them get annoyed at him and then slowly warm up to him. And, the FF aren't unknown actors either, they are all A-listers: Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross, and Seth Rogen (!). Dustin Hoffman even voices their master.

Ultimately this movie is great fun, if a little predictable. I thoroughly enjoyed it the whole way through and I thought the fight scenes were a lot of fun. I can't stress enough that I loved the opening sequence. This is definitely one to check out!