Upcoming Changes For This Blog
by Paeter Frandsen on January 26th, 2012
Recently it's become necessary to adjust my work schedule significantly to better serve my wife and two boys. The amount of time I spend working will change very little, although my day to day routine is being put on its head.
Because of this, blog posts are now much more likely to go up in the evenings and I'm also planning a change in the regular content of both the Spirit Blade Underground Weblog and Paeter's Brain.
My plan is to temporarily switch to a twice weekly posting schedule on Paeter's Brain (instead of three times) while retaining the regular schedule and content for the SBU Weblog. However once I have my ducks in a row, I plan to stop posting to Paeter's Brain and instead place the posts that would normally appear here elsewhere.
When I started "Paeter's Brain", I saw it as a way for listeners of SBP to see a little more of me as a person, and share in some of my random or not so random thoughts. But I believe the forums we launched in 2010 now serve that purpose much more effectively.
The movie reviews, my odd game reviews and philosophical musings about Geekdom from a biblical perspective will soon be posted on a new blog designed specifically for that purpose. I will also include an archive page that contains all of my past reviews and some other posts from Paeter's Brain. This will serve as a growing resource for Christian Geeks who are interested in engaging in their faith more as they enjoy the crazy fun that sci-fi, fantasy, horror and comic books offer.
In the end, I'm hoping this will allow me to leverage my time a little better and bring more focus (and more readers!) to the content I put online to represent Spirit Blade Productions.
If you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions as I prepare to move into this new territory, I'd love to get your feedback!
Underworld: Awakening (Movie Review)
by Paeter Frandsen on January 24th, 2012
I'm a big fan of the "Underworld" movies. It's hard to beat vampires in leather and trench-coats leaping from tall buildings and blowing away werewolves with handguns. But this cool concoction gets even better when you add a dash of character and story worth caring about.
Star-crossed love has been a consistent theme in all three of the previous films, and two of those featured a pivotal romance between Selene, the ultimate werewolf killer among vampires, and Michael, the first vampire/werewolf hybrid in history.
Underworld: Awakening opens a few months after the events of Underworld: Evolution. The existence of vampires and lycans (werewolves) has now been made public, resulting in a worldwide attempt to exterminate both species. Michael and Selene make hasty plans to escape and live in secret far away, but are captured in the attempt. Selene is frozen by scientists for experimentation and is freed 12 years later. She immediately begins looking for Michael, but instead finds her 12 year old daughter, removed from her womb and allowed to grow up in the confines of a laboratory. Together they hope to escape and find Michael.
First off, I should say that if you haven't seen the previous films in the series, don't bother with this one. Although they briefly try to "catch you up" in the beginning, you really have no reason to invest in Selene if you haven't watched her story from the beginning. This, in itself is not a mark against the movie, just something viewers should be aware of.
The action in this flick is some of the best yet, especially where Selene is concerned. She has tons of cool drops, jumps, flips and fight choreography that make the first 30 minutes possibly the best action in the series so far. If you were hoping to have that itch scratched, you're in for a treat.
The visual look of the series is also intact, with washed out, cold color schemes even during the daytime. Costumes and props all look great. It's the signature look of Underworld from start to finish, gory action and all.
What seems to be missing is the movie's heart. As I mentioned, the previous films all had a romance at their core. Two people in love that the people around them viciously aimed to tear apart. This movie was completely missing that element, and the absence was obvious through most of the movie, which often seemed like a horror/action flick on auto-pilot rather than the emotionally driven pattern (or attempted pattern) of the rest of the movies.
Scott Speedman, who played Michael in the previous films, was not involved in Awakening, and as of yet I've been unable to hunt down a reason why. The Hollywood politics of this remain a mystery for now. Instead, in the brief moments Michael is seen, he is represented by a stand-in (human or digital, I'm not sure) always partially obscured by an object or special effect.
The script feels like the result of trying to scrape together a replacement for Michael, the result being his role clumsily divided among multiple characters. Selene's daughter is a hybrid like her father, and so brings the special abilities that he had to the movie in his absence, and two male characters serve as "stand-in male support characters", though without any romantic connections to Selene. (Though I often thought things like, "I'll bet that was Michael sitting next to her in the first draft.")
Many other elements also feel like uninspired repetition of earlier characters and story elements.
Selene encounters a vampire coven leader who stands in opposition to her agenda, with age, hair and wardrobe almost identical to the Victor character in the first three films.
As each film progresses and Selene becomes stronger, the final threat she faces must increase as well. First it was an ancient and powerful vampire. Then it was the first and very oldest vampire. But in this flick, her final foe is just a really big lycan who heals extra fast. Honestly, I was never concerned for her safety for even a moment.
The fact that the existence of vampires and lycans is now public knowledge is an interesting new twist, and I don't think it hurts the movie. In fact, it may just be the game-changing breath of fresh air the franchise needs. On the other hand, this is the "Underworld" series, taking its name from the HIDDEN war between vampires and lycans. So this change seems to go against the original premise of the movies.
Bringing a daughter into Selene's life is another big game-changer. Even if Michael were present for most of this story, a child usually changes the core story from a romance to a story about family. I'm not against this idea, but it seems like the writers aren't willingly invested in it so much as they've been forced into it.
Selene really could have carried one entire movie by herself, dealing with the tragic loss of Michael as it rips her part. After building up this romance for two movies, we should have spent one entire movie mourning its loss with Selene. Instead, Michael is quickly yanked out of the picture and Selene is forced to give lip service to her grief while also dealing with the sudden existence of a daughter. Bringing her daughter into the story before we could see Selene fully deal with the loss of Michael cheats those of us who have invested in the romantic side of these films, and I believe it was a big mistake.
Of course you might say, "they had to cram a lot into this movie since they never know if they'll be making another one later". But the writers seem very confident that they'll be making at least one more, as this movie virtually ends on a cliffhanger. (A poor choice, given our reduced lack of investment in these characters.) With a run time of only 88 minutes, a disappointing final fight and the ending they chose to go with, this feels like only the first half of a complete movie. If that's the case, and they can manage to get Scott Speedman back next time, there is still plenty of opportunity to restore this series and end it very well, placing this movie in the role of "set-up" for the grand finale. And I'd be cool with that. But this is a hard one to recommend to anyone but big fans of the previous films.
I'm scanning my brain for something I might remember in this flick that might lead to worthwhile discussion afterward, but I'm coming up with nothing. In many respects this feels like your average "Resident Evil" movie: Cool gory action with zero substance. Pure, mindless escapism, if that's what you're in the mood for.
For fans of the genre, it's not bad. A cool flick that even has moments of visual greatness worth a ticket or rental. But it's definitely missing something substantial.
Rated R for strong violence and gore, and for some language.
Quality: 8.0/10
Relevance: 5.5/10
For info on my review score system, visit spiritblade.net/reviewscores
And to listen to this review this weekend, visit spiritblade.net/podcast
Productivity Posts, Introduction and First Installment: Game Programming Night
by sean on January 24th, 2012
This post is the first in a series of “quick blogs” I’m going to write, in an attempt to document progress I’m making in various areas (to try to keep myself accountable for being productive). I’ve decided that on any night that I don’t have anything planned, I’m going to set up a “fallback activity” to, well, fall back on… one activity for each night of the week. Here’s my tentative plan:
- Sunday: Visit family, relax, read, play games
- Monday: Game Programming
- Tuesday: Write music
- Wednesday: Wire the studio, other electronics (non-computer) projects
- Thursday: Work on web sites (Ragtrader, KBMOD, etc.)
- Friday: PC Building / set up workshop
- Saturday: Housework, brew beer, play games, go to Pittsburgh
Of course any sort of scheduled activity with friends/family/band/etc. will override this list, and I can swap out activities as the need arises. It’s just a set of guidelines really, to keep me from sitting around watching Netflix when I could be doing something real.
First installment: Game Programming Night, turned OS Reinstall Night
Writing a decent game is still on my list of life-long goals, so I decided to start working on it little by little. Game programming night actually started early in the day when I found a tutorial on programming with Allegro, a C++ library for game making. Really useful stuff there. I skimmed the first few tutorials while at work, then once I got home (after making camp-style bacon, hardboiled eggs and a huge salad for dinner) I started watching the videos.
From there I tried to get Allegro installed, but the version in the Ubuntu repositories is old (go figure) so I decided I would use this as an excuse to stop putting off an Arch Linux reinstall. About an hour later, I was back in a comfortable, minimalist Openbox environment (with Xsnow thrown in for good measure). I got Allegro installed, got some of the tutorial code to compile, and then I installed and tinkerd around a bit with Aseprite, a sprite editor meant for use with Allegro. Maybe next week I’ll make and post a few sprites on here. I’ve already got a couple game ideas in mind.
Next up: music writing night. (The rest of these posts will be shorter.)
(originally posted here: Productivity Posts, Introduction and First Installment: Game Programming Night)
Forced Agnosticism In Skyrim
by Paeter Frandsen on January 23rd, 2012
Last time I brought up anything philosophical regarding "Skyrim", I was talking about the choice of religious views one can take in the Elder Scrolls world, and what my choice is as I play.
This time, I have a political decision in front of me. There is a war going on between the emperial forces and those of a rebellion known as the "Stormcloaks", and in order to see one of the major plot-lines of the game I have to choose a side to join.
The Stormcloaks are fed up with the how things have been in Skyrim for hundreds of years. They believe Skyrim's High Kings have been nothing but puppet tools of the empire, and believe the status quo should be forcefully overthrown. (Of course, they have a High King of their choosing ready to fill the empty seat as soon as the war is over.)
On the other hand, you have the empire, the legal, rightful ruler of all kingdoms, who reigns from a far off land, removed from the struggles of Skyrim and taking them for granted, except when they need men from Skyrim to fight their wars.
The status quo clearly has some shortcomings that may even be responsible for the loss of many lives in Skyrim. But the Stormcloaks are all reckless passion and little reason as they aim to make things better.
The problem is that, much like I feel in American politics, all I'm getting are opinions. No matter who I talk to, I'm getting editorial rather than straight up news. Fox and CNN talk shows instead of C-SPAN coverage of the legislative meetings. So I'm forced into a kind of political agnosticism.
Now, there are two main forms of agnosticism. The pop-culture form, when someone says "I don't know" and the more formal philosophical definition, which says something "CAN'T be known".
Far too often in our search for the truth about God, we claim to take the former definition while living like we believe the latter. We say "I don't know if God exists, or if such and such is true about God" and leave it at that, as though the answers are not available no matter how hard we search for the truth of the matter. We assume that truth really can't be found and begin to value the search for it less and less in our lives, whether the search is related to God, our next President, or the best dentist to go to.
As I read fiction and enjoy the new wave of RPGs boasting complex moral choices, it sometimes seems as though the choices aren't all that complex, they just don't provide the necessary information to make an educated decision.
True, if we go back to real-world agnosticism, we can't know with the certainty of proof that God exists or that "so and so" would be the best choice for president. But there are many things in life we choose without proof that they are the best choice. Our family doctor, our brand of toothpaste, our next car, etc. In all of these cases we examine the available evidence and make the choice that we think is most likely to be the best one. The same is true (or should be) regarding our position on God's existence or attributes, or our position on who should be governor or president.
Maybe the lack of useful decision-making information in video game RPGs like Skyrim and Mass Effect is simply because it would make the writer's job far more difficult than it's worth. Or maybe it's because there is a tendency in our popular artists to believe that truth really cannot be found.
Whichever the case, it's an interesting phenomenon I've run into in books and movies for a number of years now.
Hmm... books. Maybe the College of Magic at Winterhold has some books about the political history of Skyrim that would help me make my decision...
Movie News And Trailers!
by Paeter Frandsen on January 20th, 2012
It's been awhile, so I thought I'd share some tidbits about some upcoming movies and my projections on whether they'll sink or soar. (Thanks to David Arington for tipping me off to a few of these bits!)
The Avengers movie is coming May 4th, but if you just can't wait that long (and Marvel is banking that many of you can't) there is a four-issue comic mini-series that takes place in the Marvel Movie Universe and leads up to The Avengers. The mini is called "Road To The Avengers" and will come out in March, giving more details about Nick Fury and what the "Avengers Initiative" is for.
The next DC Universe animated movie is coming out February 28th. Justice League: Doom will be an adaptation of the Mark Waid "Tower Of Babel" JLA story, in which the JLA's villains use Batman's secret files on each JLA member's weaknesses to take them all down! This story was a significant shake-up in the DCU when it came out, since it severely strained JLA team members' relationships with Batman. It will be interesting to see how it plays out next month!
A pair of new directors are in pre-production on Monsters 2, the sequel to the indie film about an alien invasion that focused more on human relationships under extreme circumstances than it did on aliens. This choice was carried out to great effect, which is why I'm nervous to hear the guys working on this film saying things like, "There will be more monsters, more tension, more action and more extraordinary effects. We will expand the world created in the original movie whilst upping the action ante. This is our Aliens to Alien!" Good luck guys. Sounds to me like you're doing all the wrong things.
The Resident Evil: Retribution movie trailer starts out looking like a Sony commercial (and in one sense it certainly is) but gets more interesting after 15 seconds or so. Still no indication that this series is wrapping up. I'll definitely see it. I've enjoyed all of the movies to some degree. I just have trouble getting too excited about a movie series that I suspect will die with a whimper, on a cliffhanger, killed by a poor box office before anyone gets a chance to actually finish this story. It's like investing yourself in a cool tv series that get's abruptly cancelled. (Oh, Sarah Connor Chronicles... I'll never forgive Fox.) Will this finally be the end? Doubt it, but we'll know for sure September 14th!
Mania.com reports that at a Tokyo press conference, Amazing Spider-man star Andrew Garfield talked about the new approach to the movie's action, describing how he collaborated with the stunt team to do as many in camera(as opposed to digital) stunts as possible.
"A lot of the stunts are practical and grounded in reality. That was something that Marc, the director, really wanted to make sure happened in this movie to set it apart from previous ones... I would exhaust myself every day and get into near-death experiences every hour on the hour..."
I'm ALWAYS up for practical over CGI, but in filming a live action version of Spider-man, it's always gonna be challenging to go practical, since the character moves in a very inhuman way. We'll see how it turns out when Amazing Spider-man hits US theaters on July 3rd!
The remake of Total Recall starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel comes out August 3rd of this year, but I'm less than thrilled to go see it at this point. I thought the original was a fantastic flick, and it feels a little too soon to be doing a remake. Mania.com posted a recent synopsis of the movie, and it sounds all but superficially identical to the original flick. I'd rather they went with different characters and a new story, if not a new concept. I have a feeling this movie will do well in the box office on the recognition factor of the original, but is also destined to be forgotten.
On Febuary 3rd, The Chronicle will arrive in theaters, and may be an interesting study on human nature in the vein of "Watchmen", though likely dumbed down a bit, given it's produced by MTV films. The concept is stated as: Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.
Personally, I'm hoping for a cool, emotionally intense "super-powers flick" and the trailer makes me think "The Chronicle" may just deliver.
Over the Christmas break when my wife and I went out to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie (which I LOVED by the way!) I saw a promo poster that I thought must be a joke. But Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter looks like an attempt to actually tell a serious vampire story. Well, mostly serious. Even after reading the article at mania.com I couldn't quite figure out how much intended humor will be in this flick. I haven't read the book it's based on by Seth Grahame-Smith, but I'll enjoy finding out on June 22nd!
All kinds of speculation surround Ridley Scott's Prometheus, coming to theaters June 8th. It started as a prequel to Alien, with the intent of answering the question "Who was the 'space jockey' and what was he doing on the planet they found the Alien on?" Scott has since revealed that the famous "Alien" will not even appear in any form in this movie, although it does take place in the same "universe" as the Alien movies. (Or at least the first one that Scott made.) One thing is for sure, millions of rabid fans will line up on June 8th to witness Ridley Scott's return to the sci-fi genre after a 25 year absence. Count me among them!
Principle photography on the new Star Trek flick has finally begun, and the release date set for May 17th, 2013. All the familiar stars and creative forces are returning, hopefully the disfunctional relationships will make a comeback as well and keep Roddenberry's once daring and now relatively boring execution of a utopian future far in the past.
If you haven't seen the trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey yet, your hopes for the prequel to the epic "Lord Of The Rings" movies are about to be renewed. Though some familiar faces (like Galadriel for one) indicate the movie will be mining Tolkien source material outside of "The Hobbit", the look and feel of the everything in the trailer says that the property is in trustworthy hands once again. Can't wait for December 12th!
The SBU Movie Awards!
by Paeter Frandsen on January 18th, 2012
Spirit Blade Underground Podcast listener and contributor, David Arington, gave me what I thought was a great suggestion to have some kind of "movie awards" in January or February for the flicks of the previous year.
So I'm giving it a go this year, and starting fairly small. But if people respond with interest, I can increase the number of available award categories next year.
This year there are two awards to be announced. One for the highest quality film and another for the most thought-provoking.
I've narrowed down the nominees based on the highest scores I gave out in each category of my movie reviews in 2011. Four have been selected in each of the two categories and polls have been set up to determine the winners. All that remains is for YOU to VOTE!
You'll find both polls on our forums, and can jump to them easily by clicking here!
Polls close on Thursday, February 9th and the winner will be announced on the following episode of the Spirit Blade Underground Podcast! Don't delay! Vote right now!
Movie Day!
by Paeter Frandsen on January 16th, 2012
Today I'm taking most of the day off and the main event this morning is a movie with my oldest son.
We're fixin' to pop some popcorn, get under a blanket on the couch and throw in a DVD. Well, carefully place one in the player, touching only the rim of the disc and never the data side. I'm trying to teach my son proper care for DVDs. (Wish I could teach the same thing to more Red Box renters. Yikes! Scratchy fingerprint city! Who are these animals?)
I'm thinking he might be ready for Prince Of Egypt. He likes songs in videos a lot. But if there aren't enough of them, or if he decides some parts are too scary, we might switch over to the Superman animated "movie" The Last Son Of Krypton... which would also be fine with me. ;-)
Diggin’ DCU Online
by Paeter Frandsen on January 13th, 2012
I'm not a fan of MMOs. I hate the monthly subscription concept. Call me traditional, but I like to pay for a game once, and for that game to be complete. I also dislike the idea of having my play experience spoiled by someone who just feels like anonymously ticking off other people.
But if there were ever an MMO I would give a try, it would be DC Universe Online. And when it went free to play, and I suddenly had a new laptop that could run it, I had to give it a go.
The experience has largely been amazing. The world feels large and open, the action is sweet and feels great with a controller, though it's still an action RPG, meaning that hand-eye coordination skills are not required if you're willing to level grind. (Woohoo!)
Character creation is a bit narrow and pre-packaged, but the biggest thrill for me is just being able to explore my favorite comic book universe at will. It's also finally a game I can play with my gaming buddy Mark, who lives 9 hours away by car.
The game still isn't without the annoying trappings of MMOs. Even in a non PvP server I've gotten one or two requests to fight somebody. Another time several players decided to team up and block access to a room that is commonly needed by all players, just standing there to block movement, knowing they couldn't be attacked in the non-PvP server. I had to wait about 10 minutes before they were booted from the server, though other players seemed to have been waiting much longer.
My only other gripe is that once you reach about level 10, most missions basically require you to team up with others in order to be successful, or spend insane amounts of time level grinding. (Bad guys yield very little XP. Completing missions is the primary way to earn it.) So I've got my gaming buddy Mark that I'll be able to partner with, though eventually we'll probably have to find one or two others to group with if we want to see all of the game's content. Bummer.
Not that there aren't nice gamer folks like you out there that I wouldn't enjoy gaming with, but for me, video gaming is a solitaire experience almost by definition, and I prefer my rare times of co-op to be of the couch variety, with friends I've already built a relationship with away from a computer screen.
Even so, if you play the game on PC, feel free to look me up. I'm not very good at using the chat interface yet, so please forgive any perceived ignoring. So far my two characters include "Vincent Craft" when I play solo and "Paeter" when I play with my buddy. (Though I've already snagged the name of CFOS and suspect he will emerge in the world of villains sometime soon.)
Suitcase PC, finally done after 2 years
by sean on January 11th, 2012
The lovely community of folks over at KBMOD.com have a regular feature in which they describe their Bro Caves, which are the dark, comfy rooms they set up their gaming PCs in. More importantly than the rooms though, are the specs of their actual PCs. Which all blow mine out of the water. Thus, this post won’t make it onto their site, but I have been doing some finishing touches on the suitcase PC lately, and I think I can finally say — tentatively as usual — it’s finished. So here’s an attempt at writing something in the same spirit.
Bro Cave from an Alternate Reality
In some alternate universe, the fashion and decor tastes of bygone eras might still be with us today. And instead of laptops, we might have desktop PCs that are “luggable” like the old Commodore SX-64. And not only that, but we might all be using the Ubuntu operating system instead of Windows.
A man can dream can’t he?
We might have flying cars too.
As detailed in the original build post, here are the specs:
- Currently, Ubuntu 11.10 64-bit OS
- Intel DG45ID multimedia motherboard
- OCZ 700w modular power supply
- Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 CPU
- Intel GMX4500HD GPU (integrated)
- 8 Gigs of Mushkin DDR2-800 memory
- Two 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda drives (one just for backups)
- SanDisk multi-card reader
- IBM Model M keyboard
- Gigabyte WiFi PCI card (I forget the model)
- 22″ widescreen LG LCD monitor
Not very impressive by today’s standards, but this post comes just in time for me to mention a new PC build I’ll be undertaking, funds-permitting. The next one will be a real gaming & recording rig, inspired by the beastly rigs over at KBMOD, to replace my rapidly aging recording PC (which is actually an old dual-Xeon server I inherited from work… and we don’t get rid of them unless they’re pretty dang old).
(originally posted here: Suitcase PC, finally done after 2 years)
Atari 2600 Guitar Stompbox
by sean on January 11th, 2012
So here’s one of those projects that sort of randomly materializes while rummaging through old stuff in the attic. I was looking for an enclosure to build a sort of “multi FX analog stompbox” for my guitar rig, when I found an old broken Atari 2600 in all its faux-wood-trimmed glory. Immediately the wheels started turning and I began taking it apart to see how much room was in there. Turns out there’s quite a bit of space, so I took to fitting a Line6 power supply PCB I’d recently scored on eBay into the bottom, and fitting the guts of a TU-2 tuner pedal, A/B switch, tremolo, and tube screamer clone into the top. Never has the Milwaukee rotary tool seen so much action.
Unfortunately my original design was full of fail because the power transformer ended up right next to a bunch of unbalanced, guitar-level signal wires. So the thing buzzed like crazy when I put it together, and no amount of shielding trickery could eliminate it. The next thing to try, then, was moving the supply into an external enclosure. For this, I found an old failed network hard drive (actually the little mainboard is fine, just one of the drives failed… don’t get me started on the stupidity of RAID-0) and gutted it. After adding a fuse and properly tying the enclosure to ground, I ran 8 discreet 9-volt DC lines out of the enclosure via CAT5 cables and added an RJ45 jack to the back of the Atari.
The next iteration will likely incorporate two or three more pedals in the Atari, since there was plenty of room in there when I was done. What I’d really like though, is to grab the guts out of a newer-generation 2600 and mount them in there too, so it still functions as a game system.
After a hectic day of finishing this project up, I used the set up at a gig that night (the Repeal Day Brew Fest in Sharon, PA) and I was really pleased. The pedals, unlike my previous wall-wart-powered rig, were totally noise-free. The only annoying thing is that it’s a little difficult to turn the tuner on and off using my feet (since it’s turned on and off via the original Atari switches). Some sort of additional foot-friendly momentary button may need to be added at some point.
(originally posted here: Atari 2600 Guitar Stompbox)