Well Hugh Jackman released the first teaser footage of X-Men: Days of Future past on Instagram, and I have to say that it just feels good to have the gang back together again. Hopefully with Singer back in control of the franchise we will get another great X-Men movie, and I cannot wait to see how it turns out!
Shmee Pursues Flight In Captain Marvel Volume 1!
After arguing for a Captain Marvel movie, I decided that I should read the new Captain Marvel re-launch that features Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, as the new Captain Marvel. The new series is written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, and with the art by Dexter Soy and Emma Rios. I read the first trade paperback volume, In Pursuit of Flight, and I was quite impressed.
The story starts off with Captain America trying to get Ms. Marvel demoted. Which is a joke because Carol Danvers is a Colonel in the Air Force, so becoming a ‘Captain’ would be a couple of steps down. This prompting leads to some soul searching, and the soul searching leads to an old friend giving her an old airplane that somehow takes her to the past. While in the World War II era she is able to rediscover who she is, and why she is the perfect Captain Marvel.
The story in this book is very well done, DeConnick did a great job of not writing an origin story, but covering enough of the past so that if you are new to the Captain Marvel franchise, you will have no problems following along. Meanwhile she crafts a new hero to root for.
The art is well done, but it is also this volume’s greatest weakness. They change artists towards the end of the book, and it is totally different, so it is hard to tell who is who and what is going on until you get adjusted to the new look. It is still good art. It is just a hard left as far as the look goes.
If you are looking for a new Avenger to root for, the new Captain Marvel is a great one to read about. I enjoyed getting to know the other ‘Captain’ in the Avengers a little better, and I cannot wait to read the next volume in her story.
Shmee Plays The Dark Mod 2.0!
Do you like the Thief Games? I like the Thief Games, but The Dark Mod was made by people who love the Thief Games, so they decided to make their own version of them, but update them a bit using the Doom 3 engine. Things really went their way when Id Games released the Doom 3 Engine as open source, so now you can download and play The Dark Mod for free on Windows and Linux, and you don’t have to install Doom 3. They really should change the name of the game now that it is no longer a mod.
If you have never played Thief than you are missing out. The game is a first person stealth game where you club people on the back of the head or shoot people from the darkness with your bow and arrow and of course steal stuff. All based in kind of a steam punk dark ages world. The Dark Mod is exactly the same, but with a minor difference.
The Thief games always had an overarching story, but The Dark Mod is a series of fan created missions that you can download in game, or find them on the forums. They also encourage you to make your own missions and share them with the community, so there is a lot of content.
As you can guess, I think this is a pretty great game, and since it is free and it runs on the older Doom 3 Engine there is no reason not to download it and see if you like it as well.
Shmee Starts The Journey To The Dark Tower!
The Dark Tower by Stephen King was always a series I was interested in. I mean it is a fantasy novel about a Gunslinger on a magical journey to the nexus of time and space called The Dark Tower, so that is right up my ally, but I have never started because King never finished the series. When he finally got around to writing the last book in 2003, it had fallen off my radar, but thanks to movie types trying to make a movie or show about the series it came back to the top of my reading list.
I have only read the first book, but I am hooked. It is a fun book in a cool universe, and now that I know it has an ending, I can’t wait to read it. If this series has been off your reading list, it is probably time to put it back on.
What Is Next For Tech?
So Nokia and Apple both had press conferences yesterday, and I would love to talk about all the exciting and interesting things that happened in them, but I can’t because they are just faster versions of what are already out there. True the Nokias have bigger screens, and the new iPads are thinner, but they mostly just do what they did before, so I was thinking, “what will be the next big thing for tech?”
Some people are saying it will be wearable computing like watches, Google Glasses, or even Oculus Rift, but I don’t see it. The watches don’t anything super useful, Google Glasses makes you look like a dork, and Oculus Rift will make you vomit.
So my guess is that the next big thing will be power. It may not affect you like your cell phone or tablet does, but it will be way more important. The need for vast amounts of electrical power is rapidly amping up, so the world’s top people are working on it. They are doing cool things with fusion now, and looking in to all sorts of random power generating theories. It is only a matter of time before they hit that eureka moment.
Once we have almost unlimited electrical power then I think we will start to see real personal tech advancement again, like personal robot butlers.