Hulu Viewlu: Stargate and Dollhouse
I’ve been on a bit of a Hulu bender recently, attempting to slog my way through the deluge of queued-up television shows that need to be watched before they expire, like a bad piece of fruit. I’ve probably got roughly 372 videos in my queue. Last night I calculated my total remaining watch-time and it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve years. So, you know, I have to get through some of that before my oldest graduates high school.
In an epiphany likely sparked by my algebraic formulations, I realized that I’m simply following too much television. So I decided to cut some shows from my subscription list that I really don’t need anymore. I’ll keep favorites like Castle, The Office, Community, and Flash Forward. But there’s some things that just don’t need to be there anymore. I missed season one of Fringe, so I’ll drop season 2. Warehouse 13 got boring, so it’s gone. I was interested in Modern Family due to Ed O’Neill, but I really don’t know a whole lot about it, so I guess I don’t need to watch it. The Dresden Files? Maybe I’ll pick it up on Netflix.
Then I came down to Dollhouse. I was a fan of this show through season one and I was initially one of the seven people disappointed when news came out that it had been canceled. Then it came back for a miraculous second season. I knew that the show (and Joss Whedon in particular) enjoy a somewhat rocky relationship with Fox, so I assumed from the get-go that it wouldn’t survive another season. This is likely the case, as the show’s ratings have apparently been so bad, the show is being temporarily pulled from the November line-up and then brought back in December to conclude. Those are not the signs of a healthy production.
So, I considered dropping the show. But then, last night, as my cursor hovered over the “remove” button, I decided to go ahead and watch the first episode of season two. That was a bad idea. It was, in a word: disappointing. After such a hail-mary last-second rescue of the show by dedicated fans (and a miserly Fox network looking for potential cost savings) I fully expected the first epsidoe of the second season — which by all accounts simply should not exist — to absolutely blow me away. It didn’t. It was bland and flat. I learned some things, but not the things I wanted to learn in order to continue to be interested in the show. I aired my distaste on Twitter and received some good feedback. Most people were telling me that I should give it another chance. That it starts slow, and builds from there. But honestly, builds to what? I feel very strongly that this show will not survive to see a season three, regardless of my feelings on the issue. I’ve decided to keep watching through the Summer Glau guest-star episodes and see how I feel after that. If it can’t capture me after five episodes, it has no business being on television (or my Hulu queue) at all.
On the other hand, Stargate Universe has absolutely enraptured me. After just the opening pilot. I was never a big SG fan. I’ve seen the movie and watched a handful of SG-1 episodes. I completely missed SG: Atlantis, but when John Scalzi talked up the show (he’s a creative consultant for the production) I felt the need to at least check out the pilot. Out of courtesy, of course. And I’m immensely glad that I did. I love the premise and how it’s tied into the SG universe as a whole (pun unintended). I’m hoping beyond hope that the show doesn’t end up going straight downhill after the pilot, but I have faith in SyFy’s ability to create quality productions.
On a somewhat-related sidenote, isn’t Hulu just the greatest thing ever created? For viewing television shows on the internet, I mean.
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Steampunk Darth Vader Lego
This weekend, I was showing my son some artwork based on the steampunk Star Wars concept and explaining the general idea behind the steampunk subgenre as a whole. Being an avid Lego builder, he was apparently inspired to put together his own steampunk Star Wars creation. I present to you Caleb’s steampunk Darth Vader Lego fig.
There are a couple of beautiful details in this build. I love the white piece on his back that my son tells me is a turbine generator that powers Vader’s suit. And he also thought to re-purpose a telescope from his Lego pirate set as a brass lightsaber handle. Fantastic. I love it!
There’s a couple more pictures on our Brick Boys Flickr photostream.
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Help us name our pulp fiction anthology!
So, myself and an eclectic collection of wanna-be authors are presently working on writing short stories for our very own anthology. The catch is that the stories are all pulp fiction (this pulp fiction, not that one). We have quite the extraordinary mix at the moment: a handful of hard-boiled detective stories, at least one superhero missive (that would be mine), a sword and sorcery tale featuring an unchained barbarian, and I think there’s even a zombie story in there, as well. Beautiful genre fiction with clear-cut heroes and villains and lots of action and intrigue.
The only problem is, our anthology doesn’t yet have a name.
We have quite a few potential candidates wistfully wandering about in our heads, but nothing that a majority of us are really falling in love with. So we leave it up to you, Unknown Collective Internet Beings™®, to help us nail down a title and move past this so we can focus on the stories themselves. Yes, this really is the sincerest form of cat vacuuming for us.
I’m throwing a random (alphabetically ordered) assortment of titles we have come up with into a TwtPoll and leaving it up until Friday. GIVE US YOUR VOTES! Or feel free to suggest other options not previously considered. And re-tweet amongst your fellow banditos to your heart’s content. We don’t mind the free publicity.
And thanks! If a clear winner emerges I’ll be sure to post it here for everyone to ignore.
Because that’s what you’ll do.
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Marvel vs. DC: Zombies eating your brains
I must have a thing for Brad Guigar since this is the second post in a row where I link to him. However, in this case, we are definitely not in agreement. Read what he had to say last week in regards to DC’s current Blackest Night storyline.
Feh. I still say this plot reads like “DC Zombies” — a cheap rip-off of a popular Marvel concept. But it’s the dominant story in the DC Universe right now, so I’m going to at least pick up the core Blackest Night title. But I’m avoiding Blackest Night Batman, Blackest Night Superman and every other off-shoot right down to Blackest Night Metamorpho when it eventually comes out. So I’m gonna pick it up, but I’m holding my nose.
Incredible. Let’s take a look at the two series’ and draw comparisons, shall we?
Marvel Zombies is a standalone series set in an alternate universe from the regular Marvel universe. Essentially the hook is “Hey, it’s Marvel characters! And they’re all zombies!” Hijinks ensue. It’s meant to be humorous, and the first run absolutely was. However, it’s now on its FOURTH incarnation, each one a slight variation on the original theme, and the series has become mired in a thoughtless plot and some horrendously cliched storytelling concepts. Yes, we get it. Zombies are hungry for brains, and they have super powers. Hilarious. At one time, it made for some good jokes, but now it’s become fairly empty, hollow, and repetitious.
DC’s Blackest Night has been building for over a year. Unlike the Marvel Zombies concept, Blackest Night takes place within the actual DC universe. The story is connected primarily to the Green Lanterns, since it’s based around the idea that each reincarnated super hero is given a black ring, but the story is touching every aspect of the entire DC universe: from Superman, to Batman, the Green Lanterns, and even the Teen Titans. Also unlike the Marvel Zombies series, these reincarnations are not necessarily “zombies” in the traditional sense. They look like zombies, but they aren’t hungry for brains or shambling along mindlessly hunting the living. They’re working for a sinister evil shadowy master trying to kill as many heroes as they can. In a parallel story to Blackest Night, you also have the establishment of the entire spectrum of Lantern colors, each representing an emotion. The black lanterns and their connection to death ties into this story. If you look past the idea of “oh, it’s just zombies” you quickly realize that there is actually a unique and complicated story being woven together.
The plot to Blackest Night does not in any way, shape, or form read anything like a “cheap rip-off” of Marvel Zombies. You have to completely remove yourself from reality in order to claim that. If anything, DC is giving us an example of how you are supposed to do a “zombie story” in a comic book universe. It’s practically a giant middle finger to Marvel saying “your stuff was kinda cute, but let us show you how you really do a zombie series.” And it works.
How well does it work? Well, I see in the most recent Previews that Marvel appears to be currently doing a brand new, more serious (can you use that word in regards to a zombie comic book?) reincarnated super hero zombie series called Necrosha as a part of their series’ X-Force, New Mutants, and X-Men. My goodness! How completely original! So, wait a second, wait a second — I thought Blackest Night was nothing more than a cheap knock-off of Marvel Zombies? Now Marvel is doing their own cheap knock-off of an existing cheap knock-off? Man, I’m really confused now.
Moral of the story: there’s a reason I don’t read Marvel comics anymore. Read Blackest Night. You’ll be glad you did.
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Art is work and writer’s block is a myth
It’s obviously a fairly incendiary title for a blog post, but one that I feel is for the most part true. My thoughts on this were sparked by a blog post by Brad Guigar over on Webcomics.com called Writer’s Block: It’s a Myth where Brad muses in a straightforward way that writer’s block is not an excuse for an artist’s inability to create something.
Some ideas are good, some are mediocre and others are brilliant. But they’re all nearly equal. Why? Because art — all art — isn’t ideas.
Art is the execution of an idea.
Look back on any time you’ve experienced what others call writer’s block. I’ll guarantee you that you had ideas in your head, but yet you were unable to move forward. You were unable to move forward because you lacked confidence in any of your ideas.
I’m in nearly full agreement with Brad on this issue. Any time I’ve had “writer’s block” in the past, it hasn’t been for a lack of ideas. Ideas are easy. It’s in selecting the right idea and moving forward that stills your hand and chills your spine. There’s a certain level of fear inherent there, I think. What if I pick the wrong idea? What if the entire concept falls flat because I chose poorly? What if? What if? And the cascade of “what if” scenarios form into a wall of trepidation that we commonly refer to as “writer’s block”. One commenter on the Webcomics.com discussion really nailed it on the head. Writer’s block is really a problem of perfectionism.
Consider a sculptor. He’s worked hours on completing a sculpture of a person. He gets 95% of the way through and gets to the face. And he doesn’t know what to do with it. The problem here isn’t an external blockage of creative flow. It’s the fact that that sculptor knows whatever he does to that face will affect the quality of the rest of the sculpture. If he makes a mistake, he might feel compelled to ditch the entire thing and start over. Perfectionism is causing him to lose confidence in his abilities.
In reality, when faced with those situations, we need to push through and just get it done. If you’re writing, put words on the page. Painting? Put some color on that canvas. Sculpting? Chisel out those last details in any way you can. It may not be your best work, but it will get done. Then you assess the completed work, and either start over from scratch, or call it good and move on to the next project.
NaNoWriMo is a perfect example of this. Write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Don’t worry about how well it comes together, don’t nitpick over details or obsess about the tone and pacing. Just write. Write like you’re on a deadline, because you are. And someday, when you become the amazing author you hope to be, you will be under an actual deadline. You don’t have time for mythical beasts such as “writer’s block” to get in your way, because you have a work to complete and an editor that wants it done now.
We as a society love to think of art as INSPIRATION and BEAUTY and PASSION and HEART. And don’t get me wrong, it absolutely is. But there are those that think any artist should be able to throw paint on a canvas and have art simply appear from the midst of chaos. Unfortunately, creative efforts are seldom like that at all. Let us not forget the old motto, which holds true today just as well as it did when Thomas Edison said it back in the early 20th century: “Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration.” There’s a flash of GENIUS, a spark of INNOVATION, and then nothing but WORK and TOIL and PAIN and EFFORT until your piece is completed.
Art is work and writer’s block is a myth.
The idea here isn’t to suggest that all artists that claim to have experienced some sort of creative block are lazy or weak-willed. Absolutely not. What I’m suggesting is that collectively we within the artistic community need to work diligently to pound the concept of creative block into submission. If it isn’t a myth to you already, you need to make it a myth. It needs to be the stuff of legend, locked away in an ancient tome to be discovered by archeologists centuries from now who pore over the script and interpret all of the myriad ways in which our society chose to build up imaginary barriers to our ability to create magnificent works of artistic appeal.
Don’t make writer’s block the bogeyman that comes to steal your precious artistic talent. It isn’t there, it doesn’t exist. There is only you and your art, and nothing can stop you from creating something unique, powerful, emotional, and beautiful except for you. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It simply has to be. It isn’t going to be the last thing you ever create, so don’t act like the world rests on it being absolutely flawless.
Just. Create.
Iowa State Fair 2009: some observations
So, yesterday AND today we hauled the entire family — myself, my wife, our two boys, and our brand new (1 month old) daughter — to the Iowa State Fair. It’s a trek we take every year, though not always twice. This year was slightly more problematic than in previous years, though not necessarily for reasons you might expect. The brand new baby was probably the simplest and easiest to manage element of the entire undertaking, which is really saying something. Though please don’t take my language to mean that we had a bad time this year. The experience taken as a whole was definitely more positive than negative. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for how difficult the boys would be this year now that they have become more opinionated than ever before. I also wasn’t prepared for how poorly I would react to their combined grating irritation. But we survived! And that’s something that can definitely be said. With gusto.
And now, here are some of my general observations and tips about the Iowa State Fair.
- Park at the Park & Ride at 7th and Center downtown. Free parking on the weekends, and a nearly empty shuttle to and from the fairgrounds. Only $2 per adult and $1 for kids 5 and up. Pretty good deal if you ask me.
- If it looks like it might rain — even if you think there might just be only the slightest chance — bring your umbrellas, ponchos, galoshes, and ceremonial rain sticks, because let me tell you; there is NO WHERE to go when it begins to downpour and several hundred-thousand people make a mad dash for every available enclosed space within the entire fairgrounds. Yes, this happened. TWICE.
- The night before, take washcloths and soak them. Store them in a Ziploc bag and toss them in the freezer. Fill a couple of water bottles half-full of water and put them in the freezer, too. The next morning, throw them in your bag. The washcloths are awesome for applying to the back of your neck when it gets hot. Put some fresh water into your ice water bottles to enjoy cold, refreshing water the entire day.
- You’re welcome.
- Kiss your wife for how awesome she is if she is as prepared as my wife is.
- “On-a-stick” food is not necessarily as good as “eat-with-your-hands” food. I didn’t have any food on a stick, and quite a few foods that were wrapped in wax paper. And even more cup-based foods (generally referred to as “beverages”). The difference in quality is negligible.
- While I’m on the topic of food: steak sandwiches at Butcher Boys.
- You’re welcome.
- Last thing: if there’s any one thing that the Iowa State Fair does well, it’s would have to be its uncanny ability to make you feel like you really need to diet and exercise.
Will we go back next year? Of course we will! It’s an annual tradition. Harlyn will be more alert and potentially mobile than she was this year. Caleb and Alex will both be … well, Caleb and Alex. I might just have an aneurysm! Wouldn’t that be fun to watch? Tune in around this time next year to see how we do at the Iowa State Fair 2010!
Thirty days with a new baby, a poem
I actually wrote most of this a couple of days ago. And technically, Harlyn won’t hit thirty days until tomorrow. But it’s my blog and I can post it if I want to. Keep in mind, poetry is not necessarily my strong suit. Enjoy!
Right now, as I write this, you lay next to me.
Just wiggling by the light of my warm laptop screen.
In the past thirty days, you’ve cooed, stared, and explored.
You’ve cried, burped, and pooped: you’d think we were bored.
Alas, quite the opposite, if I say so myself!
We have quite a few things on our “need to do” shelf.
Caleb starts back to school, Alex is active as ever.
We’re selling our house (which might happen, oh, never).
But on the day you arrived, I shed tears of joy.
I was prepared for a third – and, yes, final – baby boy.
I so wanted a girl, you fulfilled my heart’s craving.
Something so small, so sweet, so amazing.
In your first week you hardly even opened your eyes.
In your second, I noticed how quickly time flies.
The third week, I told myself it wasn’t a dream.
Now the fourth week, I’m convinced. We’re an inseparable team.
I’ll protect you from boys (we’re really quite vile).
I’ll give you lots of toys (we’ll add them to the pile).
And I’ll watch and I’ll worry every day of your life.
All the way to the day you make someone their wife.
For now, life is filled, once again, with a baby.
Diapers are filled, too, but maybe – just maybe,
We can look forward to days where we laugh hard and deep.
For now, please allow us a few hours of sleep.
It’s an enormous effort to have a baby to raise.
(But mostly for mommy; she deserves all the praise).
The days, they drift by in a soft, gentle flow.
Already your birthday seems a lifetime ago.
So here we both are, just thirty days later.
You’ve already made my life that much greater.
And though I’m exhausted and my mind is in tatters,
You’re my beautiful girl, and that’s all that matters.
Meet baby Harlyn
Take a look at what has been keeping us preoccupied the past few days.
Harlyn Rosina Payne, 7/15/2009
She’s healthy and beautiful; an amazing bundle of screams, gurgles, smiles and poop. Needless to say, we’re quite taken with her.
Thought you might appreciate the update.
Front yard renovation and Father’s Day
This past weekend, my brother and his wife were looking for a home renovation project. They had already finished work on their own home, and were looking for something new to tackle. Yes, they’re insane.
So, I gave them a project to work on. We wanted to remove our cracked and ugly front sidewalk and put something new in place. We had decided instead of replacing the sidewalk with more boring, grey concrete, we would put in some nice colorful paving stones. This decision dovetailed nicely with my brother’s extensive experience in installing decks and patios with paving stones.
The result of the project is nothing short of wonderful. See for yourself below! The old photo on the left, and the new on the right.
There’s an Flickr photoset available that includes step-by-step pictures of the entire project, from before to after, and everything in between. I even added descriptions to all the photos that outline in very basic terms what we did on this project. It was a big, long, exhausting day, but thankfully it was beautifully sunny, and we were working the entire time under a very shady front yard. Many thanks are necessary to my brother and his wife for their efforts in making this project a reality.
Father’s Day was spent simply. I put the finishing touches on the sidewalk, adding a few grains of sand to one side. And then spent a couple of hours with my oldest son assembling my Father’s Day gift: a brand new hammock. My old one, purchased when I was a brand new father back in 2002, had deteriorated after years of use and neglect (NOTE: being left out in the cold and rain does not help rope hammocks stay fresh!) and it had been tossed out recently on a community large-item trash pick-up day. I had told myself that I no longer wanted a new hammock, that it wasn’t that useful, nor relaxing, and I never afforded myself the time to waste within its comfortable embrace; but secretly, I yearned for a replacement, as well as a quiet, lazy afternoon in which to enjoy it. After a couple of hours of effort (where my son Caleb probably learned a few new words!), the new hammock was assembled, and lazy loafing was engaged.
All in all, despite the sheer amount of manual labor I performed (a rarity, I can assure you – I am a creature of comfort), it was an overall productive and enjoyable weekend. I need another couple more of those before the new baby arrives.
Facebook landgrab sucessful!
I was able to successfully acquire my desired name in the great Facebook vanity URL landgrab of 2009. No longer am I Facebook Random User ID# 501415487. I can now be found at facebook.com/nathanielpayne. It’s a minor thing, truly, but one that I’m happy to have secured. And yes, I was up late at night acquiring the username. It was fun to watch the posts from my Facebook and Twitter friends, seeing who was able to get the usernames they wanted, and who ended up having to settle for their third or fourth or even fifth choices. I was also pleasantly surprised at how well the Facebook servers held up. There had to have been about a million users simultaneously hitting the same /username page trying to select the name they wanted. It didn’t even slow down or falter for me when I was making my attempt.
So, kudos to Facebook for enabling a great feature and making it run so smoothly. Hopefully enough people got the name they were looking for. If not, tought toodles. There’s always Orkut.
About Me
Email: nathaniel@nerdflood.com
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Shared Items
- 1UP Whiteboard Episode 04: Escapism (author unknown)
- Eleven myths of de-cluttering Mark Frauenfelder
- Sweet, inadvertent Sesame Street PSA for gay marriage Cory Doctorow
- Me on Humor and Science Fiction John Scalzi
- Disposable laptop design Lisa Katayama
