Greetings!
It's been a busy month so far, and it promises to continue that way.
May through July is the busiest part of our year at work, and it's ramping up right on schedule. This year ought to be less chaotic than last. At least in theory.
I saw Avengers on opening weekend and I was most favorably impressed, although being a elitist perfectionist comic snob I felt there was some room for improvment. I felt they never got around to showing just why Captain America is the natural leader of the Avengers - he needed a few more leadership moments and his command presence was slightly undercut by the rivalry with Stark.
I think the story would have been stronger had Thor 2 been earlier on the schedule, because the casual way in which, hey, Thor is back on Earth kind of devalued the end of the first Thor film. We go from "She searches for you." to "Yeah, Odin got me back. Where's my girlfriend? Oh, never mind."
Also, the end wrapped up a little too nicely - having all the Chitauri die when the portal closed was, to quote the Church Lady, just a little too convenient.
Diablo 3 is out now, if you missed the news, and initial server errors aside it's pretty darned good. I'm not too far in yet (in fact, I've just now hit level 11 on my Demon Hunter) but I'm enjoying my leisurely stroll through normal. I'm sure it gets harder on higher difficulty settings, but on normal the Demon Hunter seems pretty Easy Mode, especially with the Templar henchman at your side.
I finally managed to get the Mists of Pandaria beta installed, and have run through The Wandering Isle in order to get a Pandaran Monk up to level 12 and in to Stormwind. I have a pre-made level 85 Paladin rolled up in order to tackle the Pandaria zones proper, once i find some time.
I watched The People Vs. George Lucas last night on Netflix. As it sounds, it's about the love/hate relationship Star Wars fans have with the Maker. There were quite a few interesting figures interviewed for the documentary, including sci-fi author David Brin, who was the editor of Star Wars on Trial, published a few years back. Star Wars really did inspire an entire generation of people to go out and do amazingly creative stuff and helped push the idea of participatory culture. The backlash against Lucas in many ways is not just the "George and the prequels ruined my childhood!" stuff you see on the Internet but a protest against the inevitable pushback by Intellectual Property holders who fear losing control of their property to the masses. I find myself fascinated by the tension between artists and their audiences, and I'm on record as believing that the extension of Copyright and Intellectual Property law will inevitably beggar us as a culture.
But that's a whole 'nother blog post, as the saying goes.
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