Today, Microsoft unveiled a new Department of the Bleeding Obvious in its public relations division. To mark this occasion, they released a report that told us what we already knew:
… 97 per cent of all emails sent in the world are unwanted spam.
Now, maybe you did you didn’t know the exact number, but surely you had an inkling that it was a big problem?
Next up, sightings of rain falling from clouds.
Source: ABC News.
With the completion of BSG, I’ve found it hard to find something to write about. I’ve been following Smallville for years, but the quality of the writing is so all over the shop that I’m just not as invested as I used to be.
Maybe it’s the shift of focus to Metropolis (though that was inevitable), but the show feels stagnant. Although we’ve finally ditched Lana (kinda — she’s still alive), the metaplot is slowly circling this inevitable showdown between Doomsday and Clark, but that’s nowhere near as exciting as Oliver forming the Justice League, or Clark taking on General Zod, or even just having Kara around.
I guess that there aren’t enough of the good characters for Clark to play off. Right now it’s lots of Chloe, some Lois, some Tess, and a little Davis. Gone are the days of the whole Kent family, and both the Luthors.
Actually, that’s probably it. Without Lex and Lionel, the show has no real heavyweight manipulators (or actors for that matter), so the plot feels either contrived or simplistic.
Through liberal use of StumbleUpon, I found the “When we play the game, it has this cover” thread on Story Games. The basic idea is for the participants to produce covers for the RPG books they use as though they advertise the way their group plays.
I was particularly amused by Graham’s entries for the Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu.
If I were to do one, it would probably be for Dragonlance. A human cleric argues with a half-elven woman. A number of other people stand around looking bored, obviously waiting for the two to resolve their differences. Over it all, a dragon breathes fire that is about to engulf the group.
I know I’ve been slack and not kept up with the last stretch of episodes. Of the three between “No Exit” and “Daybreak”, I really liked “Someone to Watch Over Me” and was underwhelmed by “Islanded in the Stream of Stars”. I’ll probably go re-watch the former and hopefully review it, while glossing over the others.
But seeing as it was the finale, I don’t think I can delay writing something about “Daybreak”. Possible spoilers after the jump.
Watchmen is one of those dangerous works in contemporary culture for anybody to touch. It’s a seminal work in the superhero comic genre, which comes with all kinds of nasty fanboy baggage, as well as being highly political. It also presents many challenges for a film maker, even given today’s amazing technology and recent successes with comic book adaptations.
And so it was with a little trepidation (mitigated somewhat by FSR‘s coverage of the whole thing) that I went to see it. I’ve only recently read the original graphic novel myself, but I could already see that the plot was compex and the visuals and narrative subtly nuanced such that there was plenty of room for error.
Overall, I was happy with Zack Snyder’s work. Obviously his previous successes with adapting comics to the big screen have not been flukes. The script kept the essentials of the long and detailed plot together coherently, and captured the essence of the story, and the dialogue was engaging enough (in that stilted comic book way) that I kept my disbelief suspended for the whole movie.