Statues distributed on schedule. Remain calm.
This is me, not caring about the Oscars much. I didn't see many films this year that would even come close to a major award, really. Even as a kid (when the Oscars was watched because there was no internet or YouTube to see trailers and "best bits" with robots & lasers in), I realized that my kind of movie was probably doomed to win awards for technical stuff, costume design, or maybe catering. It doesn't help that the academy is hardly a diverse group, making the awards not as meaningful as they could be. In my ideal world, the awards would be given by the Rifftrax guys (and their fans), but I figure that perhaps they should just let the accountants assign the awards, since that seems to be how they're picking what movies to make in the first place these days (this has been your moment of dark cynicism... or has it?). In a kind of related tale, Adam Sandler racked up a record 11 "Razzie" Award nominations, mostly for Jack and Jill. Speaking of which, that film has resulted in the internet forwarding something whose source viewers might find objectionable on comedic grounds. :)
I'm wondering what the total marketing budget for EA's promotion of Mass Effect 3 is, as there's yet another trailer, this one featuring what appear to be real actors with CGI scenes/insertions. Not much new is learned, except I didn't realize the glowy-wrist thing that's now a weapon has a kind of heat-seeking photon torpedo mode. I dunno if they're still planning on a Mass Effect movie or not, as they seem to have done nearly everything one can do in a sci-fi space opera (their TV Tropes list is incredibly long as it is). I suppose we could see Reaper-Slayers show up, which are even larger than the Reapers, who regularly feed on them every fifty billion years, and they're mad that we wiped out their brunch...
It's been a while since I looked at Fringe, as it was difficult to offer an opinion on how it was progressing without some more tangible developments. There were some creepy-interesting adventures, but little in the way of movement until recently when in the latest episode, we finally find out what The Observers are. They're basically Time Lords who talk like Vorlons. I had thought that given their name and the lip service to quantum physics the show occasionally gives that they were like the observer whose recording of data/events made it actualize. They'd be sort of the unseen ear that would hear every tree falling in the forest with no one else around. It turns out that the interference of an Observer is causing the big ball of timey-wimey to sort of come unraveled in spots, and like B-5's Captain Sheridan did with Kosh, a hero gets to be in the Observer's mind as he dies, receiving cryptic advice. It gives us a kind of endgame, I suppose, and it dovetails with the dramatic part of the show, so... I guess they've got the series finale planned out, if this is the last season after all.
The Williams clan needs to de-crap its house, desperately. And we're not the kind of household that buys ever gadget or a ton of furniture on a whim; we just have a bad habit of not being able to toss much out or donate it when the time arises. Not to mention that one of us is a pre-school teacher that has tubs full of rotating classroom materials and the other is, well, me. We finally decided to remove a big desk that wasn't seeing much use, and the difference in the office is incredible. I almost want to start a bonfire in the back yard and toss a ton of my garage sale debris, old computer parts, unwearable clothing, and papers I always thought someone with a suit and a badge might want to see someday on it and toast some s'mores. It made me wonder if houses are going to become less cluttered in the future as we all get rid of/stop buying actual books and other physical media in favor of digital alternatives. I still love my gaming and comic books which will stay put 'till their staples rust, but I'm wondering if my own kid will hit the "I want that non-physical thing for my birthday" earlier than I did at around age 12. And that's me calling C-64 games on floppy disks "non-physical."
I guess I'll take to my Matrix pod just to save on clutter, but only if it's made by Craftmatic. Hmmm... I may have just crossed into Wall-E territory, there. While I go sort out which dystopian future I'm aiming for, here are some other non-physical things to look at:
- Maybe this will help put the "un" back in "unlimited data plans?" A guy sued and won for AT&T throttling his phone's data plan.
- I was sad when Freakazoid left the airwaves. If they want to give it a literal reboot, they could give this a try...
- Wyoming is looking ahead towards doomsday while in the UK, it's solar flares and EMPs.
- Maybe you just feel like you work with the living dead, but Zombies, Inc. is the business sim you've been waiting for... if your mission statement includes devouring the living and feasting on their brains.
- As if the last movie wasn't a big enough insult to the memory of Indiana Jones, a new reality show wants to dig up back yards looking for buried treasure. I hope they at least call the gas company before they start... maybe...
- The trailer for season two of Game of Thrones is quite thrilling, though I still wonder if we're in for a Dragonball situation vis-a-vis the series and the actual books. I don't want sword fights to take up three episodes while Mr. R.R. Martin finishes page 534 of a book that won't be done for another decade.
- Keeping with Game of Thrones, here's a mashup of two previously linked-to covers of the theme.
- Steve Kordek, who revolutionized pinball by putting a pair of flippers at the bottom of the playfield, passed away last week.
- Sports with no helmets often result in rather humorous hair/face configurations for photographers. Olympic diving is no exception.
- When you're going to finally go for that big score, be sure that you've planned through how to get the loot back to your hideout.
- Aside from "how not to burn water," here's a list of common cooking mistakes and what you your kitchen has been doing wrong.
- Birdhouse? Nein. Nirdhaus!
- It's been too long since something involving The Lord of the Rings has been seen here, so have a mashup-song-remix-thing using footage from the movies.
- We all knew it. Mary Poppins is a time lord. I bet her bag was actually her TARDIS.
- The first of two games with familiar mechanics, Icy Fishes has you setting up chain reactions to free fish from their icy confinement so that you, an octopus, can nosh.
- The other is a kind of platform-based launch-upgrade game, Last Robot 2. Try to make it to space while gathering coins for new parts that help keep you from falling back to the planet below.