Wunderkind PR sent me an advance reader copy (at no cost to me, full disclosure) of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. I enjoyed his movie Fanboys, and started to read it as soon as possible. I’m very happy they sent it to me, RP1 is a book full of nerdy goodness.

Story

From the synopsis on ReadyPlayerOne.com

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.

Read more

As a person of mixed racial descent, I have this to say:  Don’t let ignorant race baiting prevent you from going to see The Last Airbender or overshadow your enjoyment of the film.  It’s a magical fable of balance and imbalance, harmony and disharmony, action and consequence, power and loss, innocence and character growth.  It transcends racial and gender stereotypes, but only if you let it.  If you can’t recapture your youth and suspend your disbelief, borrow a kid and see it through new eyes.
Read more

Unlike many movie soundtracks, James Newton Howard’s, The Last Airbender soundtrack stands alone.

Just because the guy has scored a few films (well, a few more than 100, and all of M. Night Shyamalan’s   films), has a few Oscar nominations (okay, he has eight of them),  is classically trained as well as pop & rock n’ roll credentialed…well just because of all of that, doesn’t mean that I would like this soundtrack!  Yeah, who does this guy think he is, anyway?  Time for a close encounter with a potential audience member:

Read more

G.I. Joe, a highly trained elite combat force takes on a well armed and well funded terrorist organization bent on ruling the world. Two soldiers who were transporting a new weapon prototype get caught up in the action. Read more

A Sinus-y Fan Perspective on Stargate Continuum

I went camping on the Great Plains for a couple of weeks and my sinuses are paying the price. Apparently they can’t process the powerful powdered cow chips and prairie dog poop that give new meaning to the old poetic cum prosaic song lyrics, “Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.” It was almost a different time-space continuum, with an arcane cultural slant, no electricity or running water.

It was a good place from which to return…

Read more

I’ve wanted to see The Host from the first time I saw the trailer. I was finally able to get hold of it recently. Could it really live up to that kind of promise? I was kind of skeptical, because that trailer is awesome. This had to be an example of the ads being better that the movie. Right?
Read more