Spoilers. The first two episodes of season 4 of Game of Thrones have been very interesting. I think in part this might be due to the fact that after three seasons of constant scene shifting, character introduction, and plot lines being laid down stone by stone, I kind of knew who everyone was and why they were doing what they were doing. There were like only two characters that I really had no idea who they were. There were a couple of dozen faces that I didn’t really remember much, but the Main Players were often at Center Stage in…
Category: random thoughts
Standard Elitist Rant
I like practical effects in movies, not CGI. Star Wars looks more ‘real’ than the Phantom Menace. The giant puppet Jabba the Hut looks more ‘real’ than the CGI cartoon Jabba that chatted up Han Solo in George Lucas’s new and improved Star Wars. But I’m a photographer, not a film maker, so when it comes to my own medium of choice, I’m a huge fan of Photoshop and it’s many clones and cousins. I’m working with a fellow photographer this week who is a purist, the only ‘real’ photograph is one that is ‘straight out of the camera’ as…
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Boathouse and Martin House
I’ve always liked the stuff that Frank Lloyd Wright designed-I like his windows and chairs as well as his buildings. Wright was an odd duck, as most geniuses tend to be, and he seldom did exactly what his clients wanted. So I can’t help but have mixed feeling about the Fontana Boathouse in Buffalo, New York-a Frank Lloyd Wright design build in 2007. The Boathouse certainly looks like a Wright building, it has great lines and symmetry. On the other hand, it’s not exactly a building made by craftsmen or artisans. It’s a Frank Lloyd Wright building made with modern…
Damn You Rick Berman! Er, I mean Damn You J.J. Abrams
If you don’t know who Rick Berman is, than you will never understand why so many old Trekkies now hate J.J. Abrams. Rick Berman was the producer of Star Trek The Next Generation, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Enterprise, and the Star Trek The Next Generation Movies. Instead of being a figure of love and admiration like Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman is viewed by most Star Trek fans as the Anti-Christ who did his damned best to destroy everything that made Star Trek great. J.J.Abrams must have him on speed dial. Over…
Paul Williams Still Alive
Say your a guy who makes TV commercials for a living, but you have bigger dreams. You want to make movies, maybe documentaries, maybe get to met cool people and go cool places. Then one day you see that your childhood hero Paul Williams is putting on a show and you think, hey, I could follow Paul Williams around for a couple of years and see what happens. Paul Williams Still Alive reminds me a bit of Searching for Carrie Fisher in that our film maker comes across as much more of a stalker than a film maker. The movie…
An 8 Hour Diet
Scientists have been starving mice and rats for years now to see how it effects their lifespans. Calorie restriction seems to do something good for the rodents, as they live a lot longer than animals allowed to eat as much and as often as they like. Fasting has been around for a long time as well. Over the years I have followed countless gurus telling me countless things to improve my life, my soul, and my general place in the universe-most of them recommend meditation and several are big on fasting. So I have gone through times where I would…
Tony Romo-Still The Future of The Dallas Cowboys
Jerry Jones continues to prove that he is a football genius by signing quarterback Tony Romo to a $108 million deal with $55 million guaranteed. If Tony Romo had won the Superbowl last year, I guess I could understand this decision. But since Romo is famous for choking in the Big Games, Jerry Jones’ love for Romo remains a bit of a mystery. Maybe Tony knows where some bodies are buried under the foundations of Jerry World. Tony Romo in not the new Roger Staubach or Troy Aikman, or even the new Danny White. Danny White was also a stat…
Let’s All Sue Starplex
“You can’t bring in outside food or drinks.” The Manager-or someone who I assume was a Manger at Starplex-says and points to The Wife’s water bottle. “It’s just water.” The Wife says. “You can dump it out and refill it if you want.” “It doesn’t matter.” The woman says. “You can’t bring the container in.” “You could get sued for that.” The Wife says. “It’s nothing but water.” “Jerry Jones doesn’t get sued.” The Woman says in full snit mood now. “Nether does Cineplex or General Cinema. If I let you bring in water, I’d have to let someone else…
The Dallas Cowboys:Change for Changes Sake
I grew up watching Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys. Roger Staubach would hand the ball off to Tony Dorset or throw it to Billy Joe Dupree or Drew Pearson and the game would often come down to the finial two minutes. I’m sure the Dallas Cowboys had an owner in those glory days of yore, but I never heard of him and couldn’t tell you who it was today without googling it. The Owner didn’t matter. Need I say those were the good old days? Current Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been hated by Dallas Cowboys fans since day one, with a…
The Runes of The Earth
It’s hard to know exactly where to start here, which seems to be how Stephen R Donaldson felt when he decided to take one more trip to the well for The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. The Runes of the Earth is filled with the retelling of tales any fan of the earlier books already know-and surely no one would pick this up and start reading here-so why all the backstory? The Runes of the Earth is a pretty bad book on countless levels. It follows in the tradition of the Second Chronicles-give the readers something broken-by allowing long years…