Steampunk and CosPlay

A few months ago Sun took the daughter of a friend to San-Japan – the largest Anime Convention around.  There were a lot of people in costumes, not just anime but also Steampunk.   I guess the years of theater pulled on her because she came back and stated that it would be fun to dress up and go to conventions like that once in a while.  I am an avid gamer but have never done CosPlay and thought it sounded like a grand idea. 

We went to the Austin ComicCon last month. We did dress up but due to an unforeseen vehicle repair bill we were not able to really do what we wanted with our costumes. I am proud of what we did for our first outing but I would like to do more.  I did find it fun to be someone else, even if it is for a few hours.  What I would like to do is come up with a costume that will get people to stop and want to take my picture (Yes I am still a camera whore).  

To this end I am planning on making some new costume gear. It is going to be a fun experience and I’m sure one that is filled with much cursing. What I would like to do is build up a small amount of costume ideas and things that can be used and recycled for future events. I think my first project is going to be some leather bracers.   

Is there anyone out there that has any experience with CosPlay and have any suggestions, websites, warnings?  If so please share links. I will document my progress with each project.  Who knows, depending on how good I get with it I might be able to sell things!

Cable TV - one of the biggest scams of the 21st Century

When cable first began you could see movies that had been in the theater now in the comfort of your own home. Movies you wanted to see but could not were made available to you. You could watch local and national shows.  The world of entertainment, news, education opened up. And it was good.

Fast forward to 2012 and the model for cable is now an archaic formula to squeeze as much money out of as it can.  We have moved from several dozen stations to in some cases hundreds of stations. HBO has six or seven different stations of its own. You can watch things in most major languages. If you are a sports fanatic then you never have to leave your house because you can watch it all. What is wrong with this?  Well the high pricing structure and lack of a la cart is what killed it for me.

When I had the full cable package from U-verse I spent the vast majority of my time sitting in my comfortable recliner and flipping stations. Well to be more accurate I flipped through the programming guide looking for something to watch.  While the DVR was great I more often than not skipped whole swaths of programming and ended up watching Big Bang Theory reruns.

I ignored the political crap. I ignored the news crap. I ignored the foreign language crap. I ignored the sports crap. That left me with the networks, cable stations such as TNT and USA, and the premium.  And I spent more time searching for something to watch that we finally decided to drop the premium stations. This meant that I would lose out on Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, and others.  Sure I missed out but I can always get them through Netflix once it comes out on disk.

So now I only have the network and cable stations. Once again I spent the majority of the time flipping stations. I would try to find something new to watch but again ended up watching Sheldon and crew try to make senses of American popular culture. So, in the end we dropped our cable all together.

In its stead we subscribe to Netflix and Hulu plus.  I can get the vast majority of the network shows on Hulu, a lot of old content through Netflix, and if it is on neither of them I can typically view them through the station website.

The point of this rant – it is the 21^st century and you’d think that the content providers would go ahead and make deals to get more people to view their content.  If I don’t have HBO I have to visit a friend’s house or risk attempting to download illegally the latest episode of Game of Thrones.  HBO has an online portal but you have to have cable to view it.

The value of cable had dropped dramatically in the age of the internet. More people are dropping cable in favor of streaming sources.  I would pay $5-$10 a month to access HBO through the internet, maybe more.  Instead I’m trapped in packages that I don’t want, don’t need, and will never use.  I can pay $2 an episode through Amazon or iTunes, but again I’m getting taken to the cleaners to keep up on the shows I like.

Cable companies are shaking in their boots as more and more people cut the cord. You now have the internet, online gaming, video games, streaming video to entertain yourself with. No longer are people locked to their TV set unless the big game is on.  Why should I pay a premium for 80% stations I will never watch?  In my news feeds I can check mark the things I want to view and ignore those that I don’t. Why isn’t there a cable package like this? Money, pure and simple.

The cable companies have too much time, too much money, and too many resources in the current system. Most of the executives are trying to grasp at a bygone era as the modern age passes them by . So many stations would disappear if they were not bundled in with anything.  All those artsy stations or those catering to a small demographic would have to come up with major advertising revenue or shudder themselves.  Supply and demand baby.

My entertainment dollars are very precious and I am very careful how I spend them.  In this economy you have to be. I am hopeful that the old business model for cable goes the way of the long distance calls and local calling plans. I suspect we’ll have peace in the Middle East and something actually pass through Congress with bipartisan support before it happens. /endrant

Battlestar Galactica - Blood and Chrome

Blood and Chrome is the upcoming Syfy telemovie.  It is being broken up into ten webisodes viewable through Youtube. Two episodes have been posted so far. This is all based off the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.

Blood and Chrome  picks after the show Caprica, ten years into the Cylon war. In it we find a young William "Husker" Adama, fresh out of the Academy, and now assigned to his first post - the Battlestar Galactica. He is a hotshot pilot who is eager to fly a Viper and clash with the enemy of the Colonies - the Cylons.  Of course the life in the academy and the realities of war are two different things.

The first mini-episode introduces us to the young Ensign Adama, his copilot Coker. Instead of the Viper he was planning on taking to war  Adama is instead put into the cockpit of a Raptor, one of the reconnaissance and rescue vehicle. Where Adama is eager to prove himself in the war Coker, on the other hand, is a veteran who has seen more than his share.   He has seen the horrors of the war. Coker plans to muster out after his second mandatory tour. Together they are assigned a milk run, a simple pick up and delivery. Naturally this  run  turns out to be a bit more than either planned for.

The cast is a mix of youthful faces who have bought into the propaganda of the war and are ready to kill toasters and those who have actually been in the war and know better. I found the story engaging and fast moving. There was not a lot of build up, you are dropped into the middle of the war. The virtual sets are top notch and the exterior space shots are amazing. I did grow a bit tired of the quick pan shots as well as the lens flares.  I enjoyed the music, especially the homage to the original Stu Philips score for the original show.

I am eagerly looking forward to future installments.  These can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/machinima

Arrow

A decade ago the Superman franchise was reinvented with Smallville. It followed the coming of age story of Clark Kent as he learns that he is more than what his parents told him. Much more. It was a rocky, wild ride for ten seasons.  Over all a great show and it showed that a superhero could survive on television outside of the campy 60's Batman or the necessity of a cartoon.

Enter Arrow, the 2012 take on the classic DC character Green Arrow. I will be the first to admit I know almost nothing about the Green Arrow except he dresses like Robin Hood and uses a bow and arrow. I don't have a dog in the hunt for the changes, such as dropping Green from his name or changing the name of the city to Starling City.  I guess I'm going into this cold and that isn't a bad thing.

Arrow is the tale of Oliver Queen, the son of a billionaire who is spoiled rotten. While on a yachting trip with his father the boat sinks and he winds up on a deserted isle. Five years pass and he is rescued.

We find the spoiled boy has returned as a man. He has scars, tattoos, and a mysterious crate. Inside the crate we find a bow, arrows, a costume, and his father’s little black book. The book contains names to the rich and elite who have helped turn the once great Starling city into cesspool.

Oliver Queen takes no time to establish his lair. A network is set up. From here he trains in some pretty impressive exercises. And then he gets to work finding those who live off the backs, pain, and misery of Starling City and makes them pay.

This task is not easy because his family wants to find out what he has been up to for five years.  After he and a friend are kidnapped (and rescued by Queen himself, telling the authorities a green hooded man rescued him) he now has a bodyguard that he must evade.

He must also deal with his former girlfriend, whom he was cheating on with her own sister on the yacht that sank. He has to deal with her father, who is a police detected who is not overly thrilled at the return of Queen. Oliver has to come to grips that his young sister has begun to follow in his footsteps – drugs, alcohol, and general teenage angst.

With each episode we have flashback scenes that show us snippets of what happened on the island after he landed.  We find that his father made him promise to help clean up his mistakes and to rescue the city. We also find that the island is not as deserted as he has told people.

I am three episodes in and I am digging the show a lot. 
The good:
The cast:

Stephen Amell plays Oliver Queen/Arrow. He is young and for me plays the loner vigilante quite well. I am not sure if he is doing all of his stunts and the scenes of training but if he is then damn.

Susanna Thompson is Moira Queen, the matriarch of the family.  She is a caring and concerned mother who sees the road her daughter is going down and tries to stop her from becoming her brother.  However we do find not everything is at it seems.

Willa Holland is Thea Queen, Oliver’s younger sister. She has hit her rebellious phase and is not the little sister Oliver left. He finds her doing many questionable things and rebuffing any attempt of his to steer her away from the life he once led.

David Ramsey plays John Diggle the bodyguard hired to protect Oliver. He is former military who spent three tours in Afghanistan. He is no nonsense and does not appreciate how Oliver eludes him. He suspects that something more is going on.

And my favorite – Paul Blackthorne. He played Harry Dresden on the failed Sci-Fi show the Dresden files. In Arrow he plays Detective Quentin Lance, father of the young girl who died on the yacht with Queen five years ago. He is also the father to Laurel Lance, Oliver’s old girlfriend and now a district attorney for the city.

The pace of the story:

The stories are fast moving and include quite a bit of action. Far more action and violence then I expected in its timeslot. We discover more each week about what is going on in Starling City and another facet of what Oliver has become.

The Flashbacks

These are done very well. Only snippets are given but so far you find that it wasn’t a picnic on the island.  Somehow he acquired many scars, broken bones, and a fluency in Russian.

The Bad

The Lair. Within 24 hours of being back in Starling City he establishes a lair, including generator and computer network.  While automotive technology hasn’t changed a whole lot over 20 years, computers and the internet  change quite a bit every year. He has established, all by himself, a computer network that can monitor police reports and government agencies?  Unless there was an internet bar on the island and he just never happened to email anyone where exactly did he get the skill and know-how to set all this up?  Where does he get his internet connection?

His arrows.  In the first episode he takes out the villains bodyguards and does not seem to pick them up. He also has a special “hacking” arrow. I am reasonably certain that you can’t pick up those kinds of arrows at your local sporting goods store. Which means they have to be specially fabricated. Computer equipment like the ones to hack a secure network you don’t just pick up at Fry’s Electronics. Unless he has a self-destruct mechanism someone will be able to crack them open and trace who made what. 

His box.  The sealed one that has his costume and bow.  You can’t tell me that no one opened it to examine it and confirm he wasn’t carrying his dead fathers head or some other weird item after being trapped on an island for five years?  What if he was carrying a toxic plant or animal, something that customs generally frown on? Sure he’s the son of a wealthy billionaire but come on.   

Despite these things I am enjoying the show. If you can overlook these small (and not so small) holes then I think you will enjoy the show.

4 stars out of 5.

Obama has won. Now we must move forward.

This is not a congratulatory post for Obama. But the simple fact is he won. After a long, hard fought battle we will have four more years of President Obama. Contrary to what the left is going to say - all of our woes - political, domestic, foreign - are not going to vanish.  And despite what the right is telling us - the country is not going to suddenly stop being the United States of America.

With the elections over we, as a country, must now face the future and all the issues that we have been blinded by the flash and pomp of our election. We still have a dangerously high unemployment rate.We still do not have a national budget.  Iran may or may not be trying to build a nuclear weapon. Reality Tv is still growing and helping to dumb down the masses.

The only way that we are going to break the gridlock is for BOTH sides to compromise.  We can no longer afford the schoolyard fighting or gang partisanship and we have to work to move the country forward. This means some hard realities are going to have to be realized.

Spending on social services and programs is going to have to be cut.  There is no way around this.  I also believe in order to get Federal benefits that you must earn them.  Work at a local shelter, pick up garbage on the side of highways, work in a communal farm.  But you can't just hold your hand out.

Tax loopholes are going to have to be closed. Corporations get away with murder because of the taxing structure they have bought - I mean lobbied for.  If you take a job overseas then no breaks for you.  If you bring jobs, full time, decent paying jobs back to the States then we'll talk. 

Like it or not the Military is going to have to be trimmed. I'm not talking about gutted it but the times of a full land war are over. Wars of the future will be fought by small groups of specially trained soldiers along with coordinated airstrikes and artillery. 

I also feel that politicians should have their wages and benefits slashed to whatever the lowest fast food worker is making. Why?  Because politicians are elected by us.  Why in the hell should a senator or a representative be making multiple times the amount of the average person who voted them there? Why should they be allowed a Cadillac benefits package when so many Americans have to choose between having gas to go to work or making sure their child(ren) have food to eat.

Big oil tax subsidies?  If you are making billions in profits then you don't need subsidies. Farmers who are being paid NOT to grow food?  I'd love to get into that racket. I'd love to be paid to not contribute to anything.

Folks on welfare who are not making an earnest effort to get off to dole?  Put a limit on it.  Or enforce having to prove that you are looking for a job.  Keep popping out kids every 10-11 months?  Well no more extra for you.  If you are unable to properly use protection or expect to get more money because you've added another mouth then you should be steralized.

Above all else we must hold our elected maggots feet to the fire. Promises have been made, goals have been set. It is time to hold them accountable. Both sides. Dems don't just point the finger at the Republicans. Republicans don't just focus on what the president has said. We are in this together. The issues that have arisen did not do so in a vacuum and neither side is without blame. Compromise is not all my way or the highway. That is the voice of a petulant five year old.  Compromise means giving up something you want or hold dear in order to move towards the future.

Obama has been elected president for four more years.  Remember what goes along with that.  Four  more years of watching Joe Biden try to pull his feet from his mouth. 

Alternate history

I've always enjoyed alternate history stories.  These are an interesting take on "what might have been." I've been working on a small project that may evolve into something larger. The concept is in the genre of Weird West. One of the major points - the South won the Civil War and successfully seceded from the Union.

The victory of the Civil War is more of back-story to the project and not especially pertinent to the story. However I want to try and make it somewhat believable. This does mean a lot of research. You can say "The South won the Civil War" but there are so many factors that lead up to and happened that you have to research and modify. What lead up to the war? What happened during the war? Battles? Political intrigues? The list goes on.

An example - World War II. By all accounts the war began when Germany invaded Poland in 1937.   That is it in a nutshell. However there was a lot of buildup. Why did Germany invade Poland?  Why did Germany build up their army and Luftwaffe?  Answers go back to World War I and how that began and ended. Even then you have to back before the war to read about the tensions that caused the different alliances to have formed.

Most major events in history are like this.  Back on topic - this is a fun project, lots of research, lots of notes, and I'm having a lot of fun writing it. The first draft is almost done then I go back and start to edit it.  I've created a bunch of characters, situations, and I think it will be fun to see where it leads. I'll finish this and try to go back to some of my older projects that have been put onto the back burner.

Vote!

I am going to try to keep this blog as politically neutral as I can. Having said that if you are a citizen of the United States of America and over the age of 18 I want you get out and vote.   I'm not going to tell you who to vote for. That is your decision. But please do a little research and don't vote for someone based upon what some talking head on the radio, internet, or TV told you to vote for.

The sad truth is whoever gets voted into office is going to have a rough time. I doubt much, if anything will happen.  The Republicans will more than likely maintain their control of the House and the Democrats the Senate. That means in this era of partisanship that neither side is going to compromise and get any bills passed. When was the last time we actually had a budget passed? The Democrats will oppose Romney at all costs, and the Republicans Obama.

What I would like to see is an implementation of term limits. The president can only serve for 2 terms. I would like to see a similar policy instituted for both the House and Senate. This will clear the way for some new blood, not a bunch of career politician maggots whose first goal is to get elected, their second goal is to pay back those who donated to their campaign, and third goal is to ensure they get reelected. I'm sure at some point they will make some speeches about "changing the culture of Washington" and pretend to help their constituents.  I know this is a pipe dream, but a guy can hope.

Bottom line - get off your ass and vote. Football won't be on so you won't have the butt magnet in your couch keeping you from leaving. Get out and make a difference. If you don't vote then you forfeit any right to bitch about the current state of affairs.

Lazy People

One of the things that has been bugging me when I go to the grocery store are lazy people.  You know the ones who push their cart to their vehicle, unload, and then leave the cart there. It's not like the cart corrals are miles away. This morning I saw two or three carts sitting in empty parking spots maybe ten to fifteen feet from the freaking corral. If you are in such a hurry that you can't push the cart and put it away then maybe you should learn time management.

Just this morning I watched two different people push their carts away from their now grocery laden vehicle and just walk away.  I half wanted to walk over and push the cart into their bumper.  I made eye contact with one of them and they just looked away as if being an asshole is a normal part of nature.  How sad is it that these lazy fucks are teaching the same behavior to their vile spawn. Talking to them makes no difference. They’ll come up with some lame-ass excuse. Bah.

These are the same lazy jackasses that just throw their used cigarette butts out the window or pitch their garbage onto the street instead of disposing of them properly.  I will be the first person to admit that I am not an eco-nut but goddam, come on people!  From an aesthetic point of view who likes to walk around and look down at an empty McDonald’s wrapper or the filter of a cigarette?