Now for something really touching Q&A with Patrick Stewart one of the best people who is an icon
of our community.
Boxes with cats in um, Qubits in superposition, Lockheed Martin's future war machines, and Google doing something...
Science!
Did you hear that Microsoft is releasing a next gen console? We certainly did, and we talk all about it. Derek introduces us to the concept of Teledildonics during the draft, and we try to decide if Kinect watching you masturbate is worse for you or the Kinect.
In the most recent Episode of the Podcast we had our summer movie rundown. Sadly I wasn't there, likely because I am hard ass when it come to movies. So I will do some reviews right here since Evan Kevin is right for now.
The reboot continues, or maybe it's an alternate universe, or a dream inside the mind of a simpleton Trekkie. Who knows, and who cares? No one. This time we have Khan (The Internet's worst kept secret), then some crazy action, Spock learning to feel, more crazy action, Kirk leaning not to feel, and some more crazy action with a bunch of story that didn't really have much of a point to it.
Did I hate this movie? Absolutely not.
Did I love it? Eh. It was fun, and for anyone who is a fan of the original Star Trek series, the nods toward you are plentiful. That might be one of the best parts of the film, but it may also leave those on the outside a bit bewildered. It isn't working hard enough to be it's own creation. I'm looking at you old man Spock! My girlfriend, who grew up on The Next Generation was unimpressed by the whole experience; from inconsistent herping of the derpometer, to the over stuffed sausage of a script. I agree with both of those complaints. Most of the film had a hard time deciding what type of movie it was; action, mystery, scifi, or buddy-cop comedy and then what story it was going to tell: Kirk's love for Spock, Spock's love of well manicured bangs, Khan's deep anguish, or Scottie's booze cruise. The list goes on.
I just got finished watching the new reveal for Microsoft's Next Gen console, dubbed XBox One. My thoughts and reactions will assume you know what the fuck I am talking about, so if you are not up to speed yet, you can read a brief rundown of the presentation HERE
With the caveat that this is a preliminary announcement that delineates direction, rather than details, I am extremely encouraged by the Xbox reveal. Those of you who listened to Season 2, Episode 3 of the podcast know that I was not a huge fan of the PS4 reveal from a few months ago, and the difference is this: Microsoft understands the role of the console going into the next generation, and this presentation was a clear expression of that vision.
What Microsoft understood, and Sony did not, was that they are simply not going to compete based on "This is the ultimate gaming platform" as was the case, more or less, when the last generation debuted, but since that time has become increasingly specious as a claim for any console. Their hardware is simply not going to be able to compete with anything but the most basic gaming rigs, by necessity, at launch, and will soon be outpaced by them. I'm not really interested in how sweet your gigamawatts are, nor how many tiny tyrannosaurus rexes with lasers are running on hamster wheels to power it. These things are table stakes. Move on.
And so, after approximately 30 seconds of confirming that there is, indeed, a computer in this thing, the pitch was given and it was perfect:The XBox One is a very good gaming platform, with exclusive IPs, some of which are new and revolutionary, and there are gaming things it does well (like Sportsballs). Ultimately, however, this piece of hardware is going to be about the experience of your living room, not just the games you play on it. It is going to be the point device to control all aspects of what you experience as entertainment and living room interactivity, with your family, friends and the world.
Auto-Nerd it's time to roll out into summer. The ever glorious pro drinker Dubs wets our whistle with the Tarantino drinking game. The drinking is quite intense, and will have you feeling like a BAMF. We follow that up with a convincing argument about why you should invest the 15 dollars into the hilarious FarCry 3:BloodDragon which Kevin thinks is very funny, and we're told he is often right. Then it's time to take the short bus to "Camp Fuck You, I'm a Wizard," and how you can, in an informal, fun and meaningful way, increase the awesomeness of your nerd tribe. Be the neckbeard you want to see in the world. Our draft has us contemplating embarking on mind bending brutal war, accompanied by our favorite cartoon characters. Finally, we tell you what summer movies are going to be worth seeing, and which ones are destined for Netflix...or worse. We hope you enjoy the episode.
Get those Bat-Pasties Bruce cause it's time for a Arkham Tease.
(Totally no gameplay shown but I give no fucks!)
I like stop motion and Doctor Who.
(This makes me very happy and the officially dorkiest member of the cast.)
Can't say much about this, but if you don't watch Parks & Rec you should.
Welcome back to Kevin is Right Dubs Knows What He Is Talking About As Well Generally Speaking's guide to navigating all of you neophytes through the morass of proper nouns, navel contemplation, sweaty makeup and OH FUCK--EXPLODING CONSOLE!! that makes up the seemingly impenetrable patina of Trek. By following this guide, as well as Part I, you will achieve TREK COMPETENCY and be able to speak with some degree of authority about what it is that you actually don't like about the show. Or, you could just learn to like the show like a normal nerd. You know, whatever.
Remember Trek Trekkers: This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of every awesome Star Trek episode, nor is it meant to be any kind of ranking system. Instead, what you are getting here, if you follow the list in order, is a gentle peeling back of the labia of inaccessibility and obscurity to find the juicy, soft parts that make up Trek's fundamental awesomeness. (Yeah, that's a weird metaphor, but I'm keeping it just to make you feel somewhat uncomfortable).
All of that being said, keep leaving us comments telling us how much you hate the episodes that we chose and all the episodes that we should have chosen instead. I, for one, would like to lament the non-inclusion of "Fistful of Datas" and "Tuvix."
(Disclaimer: Do NOT watch "Fistful of Datas" or "Tuvix." Double Secret Disclaimer: No, seriously-- please, please, please do not watch "Tuvix." It's truly terrible and you will never want to watch Star Trek again.)
Phil Coulson is Dead, we all saw it happen, we may have even made a meaningful image with his wry smile and the words "COULSON LIVES" overlaid. Phil Coulson, the first and best S.H.I.E.L.D agent, who was even part of the naming committee was a regular human among gods, heroes, arrogant dicks, monsters, and a convenience store robbery that he stopped by use of a donut.
That right there, the use of a donut, is the epitomy of Coulson. He needs no shield, no arrow, no gun, no armor, no hammer, or experiment gone wrong to be a hero. He just was. Clark Gregg the actor to bring Coulson to life summed up Coulson's attitude with hacing to deal with all of these superpowered beings.
"Oh, really, Asgard? Dude, just get in the car."
During The Avengers we sadly saw Coulson lose his life before the battle of New York, and with his sacrifice inspire a team of outcasts to save the world.
But tales of his death at the hands of the Demi-God Loki may have been exaggerated. Instead of dead and gone, he was more probably.
"OH fuck this hurts. Sir? Sir? ...why are you going in my locker....hey...those are vintage...put them back in their wrapper..Owww stop touching that it hurts. I know it's through me...just work around it ok? Thank you. Sir? Fury really could you put those back...Sir I do seem to be spurting a little here and I don't want to get those all bloody, they are vintage you see. WHAT THE FUCK FURY, I WILL GO GET ANOTHER PROTOTYPE AND FUCKING TAKE YOUR OTHER EYE FOR THAT. IT HURT AND THOSE WERE VINTAGE YOU COLOSSAL DICK. *Glare*...*Breathes* All of that was from all the drugs I am on and cannot be used later in a discplinary hearing, you motherfucker Sir."
COULSON LIVES! and he is coming back to us! This Fall on ABC on the new show Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. THATS BEING SHOWRUNNED BY JOSS FUCKING WHEDON.
Take a few minutes and watch the full trailer below.
Not only is Coulson back, but the cast is rounded out by a nice mix of G-men, scientists, lab geeks, criminals, and a legitimate superhero.
At 0:50 in the trailer we get to see some great footage of a hooded man jumping out of a building and landing 4 stories below relatively unharmed. This could just be a new hero that was created for the show. But I think if we take a little leap and theorize like the madmen and women that we are we can venture a few guesses at who this established Marvel superhero may be.
EA will now be printing their own form of currency in the shape of Star Wars games. This week Disney gave the official announcement that Electronic Arts will be receiving exclusive rights to publish Star Wars branded games (Though that will not include mobile platforms.). I have been sitting on this to think about what it could end up really meaning to this franchise's games. One thing is that some of the best Star Wars games of recent memory came not from LucasArts but licensing deals; the biggie being Knights of the Old Republic which came out of BioWare the same developer that has a very cozy relationship with EA already. From what has already been said DICE and Visceral will be joining BioWare to make new games in a galaxy far far EA...
As to what I think about this whole move of Star Wars over to the "Worst Company" in America , I don't know. It is always exciting to play a Star Wars game, because I love that universe they inhabit as many others do; it is just hard to say what EA will have in store for the brand. Their trend in the last several years is to push everything to the center of the stream for the sake of sales. The example I think of as analogous to this is Mass Effect, specifically because I consider the first in the series to be real spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic (Because the actual sequel didn't do much to build on the accomplishments of the predecessor.Yes, yes I am a blasphemer and should be burned at the stake; Not important right now.) The trouble is that I think EA pushed BioWare to turn their brilliant action RPG into a shooter with some RPG elements by the end of the trilogy, and that bums me the hell out despite enjoying the series as a whole (Yes you people can burn me too.). The same thing has happened to Dead Space which started as horror game, but now has moved to a buddy cop shooter and not very scary one at that.
So this past weekend several members of the cast, our close friends, and significant others got together to celebrate our geekdom together in what I would call a Mini-Con; this was only compounded by the fact that it was also May The 4th Be With You weekend and the imbibing of much booze. So what does a group of no-good-nik nerds like us do when we gather en mass? Well exactly what you would expect; we played tabletops, video games, talked about the things we love, shared the ones we thought other should know, and argued the ones that people just don't appreciate.
This sense of community is one that I am sure many hobbyists or enthusiasts share, but the level of diversity of people and their passions at these kind of gatherings or even Cons is what is always most impressive. Half of the things that I have learned to love were taught to me by my fellow geek in passing. One of the first times I met other role-players outside my circle of friends, they introduced me to LAN parties and taught me the joys of PC gaming along with a new edition of D&D to boot. The first time I got hooked on an MMO was by a acquaintance at a Mini-Con. This past weekend I was introduced to X-Wing minis, and my girlfriend to Ticket to Ride (she loved it so much that I stopped and bought her a copy of on the way home from this very Mini-Con), both of which are great. The finest thing you can do is share your passions with others of the same mindset, but more importantly with someone that wouldn't normally have the chance.
I encourage any of you to do the same. No, you don't need to have a three day long geek-a-palooza in your house or back yard (though you should because it is AWESOME), but just the regular gaming night with friends where someone brings a game to teach everyone else. Also check out your local gaming or comic shop - they always know what's up from Friday Night Magic, to local D&D games, and more. Last is the most obvious place, the internet. With sites like MeetUp I have gotten the chance to roleplay with whole new casts of characters, or just found new places to hang out and meet fellow gamers.
In the most recent episode of LDC, Dubs and I took our phillistine co-casters on a journey into SPPPPAAAACEEEEE. Functionally, we just barraged them with reasons that Star Trek is awesome, and they left convinced that maybe this is something worth checking out. Yet, the problem persists: where does the proto-Star Trek fan, poised to take it's first awkward flipper-steps on land, eyeing the water's edge nervously (as if a giant oil monster might burst forth and kill it unexpectedly and somewhat meaninglessly), begin?
Fear not, gentle reader. Dubs and I have taken time from our busy schedules of debating other equally meaningless topics for the express purpose of assembling a guided introduction to the best Star Trek has to offer. We felt this list necessary because a guided viewing allows the reader to ignore the warts of late 80s/early 90s television production. There isn't a single series of Star Trek that didn't take time to find its voice. There's a lot of rewarding stuff in those lesser episodes, but they took place in a different era of television. Additionally, there are some episodes that require a certain prior knowledge of the universe, and thus, although tremendously rewarding, can be inscrutable to a new viewer. We're here to provide a modern filter; a hammer to crack the tough, mollusk-like, seemingly impenetrable shell of things like the below image, so you can get to the juicy, life sustaining inner meat of what truly makes Star Trek great.
We're as confused as you, buddy.
We have built the list in a specific order, not necessarily chronological, but with the episodic nature of Trek (versus the serialized TV of the post-LOST DVR era) chronological arrangement is not a requirement. The idea is to gradually introduce concepts. Some concepts build upon each other (Deep Space 9, the height of Trek on TV, is a spinoff series). Our hope is that once you have completed this list you will have grasped what is great about Star Trek, and can then look past the warts, grease make up, and man skirts, to enjoy what we have been talking about this whole time.
When some people think of the coolest person that is possible, they
may imagine a leather jacket wearing, scruffy headed, writer of novels
and comics, who treats reading like a lovely drug, is bringing a rock
star to bed nightly, travels the world writing and reading in a never
ending bender, and has been involved with everything from one of the
first graphic novels to be critically acclaimed by the New York Times to
writing a episode of Dr. Who, and having miniseries, movies, and plays
created out of their work.
That person exists, Neil Gaiman is that person, and one of that person's novels will now be a Television Series.
HBO
and Playtone will be presenting to the world the novel American Gods
(Nebula award winner) which is the story of a man who is an Ex-con, and
much more, named only Shadow, the old gods (comprised of a con man
calling himself Mr. Wednesday, A charming old man who is a spider god,
an Irfit driving a cab, and Anubis running a funeral parlor in Illinois)
with the new gods (Comprised of The Technical boy, Media, and the many
Men In Black.)
HBO has been honing the act of remaining
true to the source material while adapting books to screen with shows
like "True Blood" (Southern Vampire Mysteries), "Game Of Thrones",
"Boardwalk Empire" and "Band of Brothers."
Playtone, as
a production company, has been giving out some amazing looking media
for years. Worried that the grittyness of American Gods won't be
evident? Playtone made "Band Of Brothers" and "The Pacific", two series
that have showed some pulse pounding violence. Picture a fight between
gods new and old being produced by a company that made those
spellbinding and realistic battles from World War II.
The art of the heist seems to be making it's way into video games in a serious way which is freaking awesome. Just recently we had the release of Monaco a top down co-op heist game on Steam, and this Autumn Grand Theft Auto V is will be stealing the show.
There are some major changes coming to this franchise with this next installment. The most obvious thing that people will have noticed (if they watched the trailer) is that you will be playing as a trio. We have Franklin who is looking to leave the thug life for bigger and better spoils; Micheal a man in the midst of a mid life crisis, but looking to mix things up; then the bottom of the trio is occupied by Trevor who seems to be the insane shotgun toting redneck wildcard. You will get the chance to freely swap from one character to another. Meanwhile AI will take over the idle members to keep them active in their own stories. This will also be a big part of how the whole group will tackle tasks when it comes to heists. The three perspective game play has me pumped, since I will admit that after a fairly short amount of time I find most GTA charaters to be kinda flat (Niko might be a little bit of an exception.), and leads to just playing for mayhem rather than story.
Light up your pipe weed kids because Willie the Grey is here.
(How did he not get cast as Radagast the Brown?!)
So I have mention that toys in Japan and generally very unsafe. This one takes the cake.
(I really just want to know when they will be making this in adult sizes.)
Help stop this immoral holiday, and May the 4th not be with you!
So many ninjas! I am not even that big of a Mad Wolvie-Berserk styles, but NINJAS!
(I really just want a Wolverine Origin Comic movie.)
Yesterday the internet turned twenty years old and it felt strange to think about. At this point it has become a form of communication so ubiquitous that not many people really think about how quick of an adoption it's had. Granted the real birth of the World Wide Web happened in 1989 before I was truly cognizant of the world around me, but its growth since then has remained every present like my own.
In the mid 90's I remember the installing of modems into peoples homes and eventually the beeping dial up that would be connected to my own Macintosh Quadra. This was mind blowing stuff for me and my peers, from the onslaught of AOL sample disks, to the original trolling in chat rooms, and the slow blurry reveal of dirty pictures; which would get your computer privileges revoked for weeks if discovered by a parent. Most of the time I took it for granted until my inquisitiveness took a hold of me sometime in middle school, and I decided to figure out how this all worked by studying HTML and making my own GeoCities webpage. I felt really proud of it even to this day, despite being inconsequential to the digital landscape at large. It took weeks of tweaking and adjusting to get just right, but creating something felt great and it still does; weather it's a piece of art, a performance on stage, or this very blog and podcast that I get to be part of on a daily basis.
That might be the most significant aspect of the Web. We all get a chance to make a mark, build something that might be silly or eloquent; enlightening or offensive. The monument to self that the internet is astounds me. Be it YouTube, Facebook, or the iTunes store all of it fueled by us, from genius programmer to layman LiveJournal-er alike. Not every Instagram is a prolific work of art, but the desire to create and the access to a tool that makes it possible is. In 2006 Time Magazine named the person of the year "You" and had a little computer screen on the cover with a mirror in it. At the time I though them to be lazy shits, but thinking about it now, they were spot on.
Knights of the Old Republic (Because the actual sequel didn't do much to build on the accomplishments of the predecessor.Yes, yes I am a blasphemer and should be burned at the stake; Not important right now.) The trouble is that I think EA pushed BioWare to turn their brilliant action RPG into a shooter with some RPG elements by the end of the trilogy, and that bums me the hell out despite enjoying the series as a whole (Yes you people can burn me too.). The same thing has happened to Dead Space which started as horror game, but now has moved to a buddy cop shooter and not very scary one at that.
