Game of Thrones TV Crawl

It truly is amazing what we can do with computers these days. This has to be the most epic credits sequence for any show or film I have ever seen.



I only heard about Game of Thrones by chance. I was probably watching Hulu or something. I had never heard of George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, or any of his other works until then. Now, I don't live with my head under a rock, but neither am I on the cutting edge of the literary community. I read Eragon in 2004, and excepting Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, was pretty much the only fantasy I had read up to that point. I have been trying to make up for that ever since. So when I heard about "America's Tolkien", I grew curious. Research into the show increased my excitement, but I only actually bought the first novel in the series a couple days ago. I read the Prologue, and it seems par for the fantasy course. Black Guards and Undead with glowing blue eyes. I'm saving the rest for my loooooong plane flight(s) tomorrow. Here's hoping it will be a good book.

~ Tommy

(It's kind of funny, writing a post that will be published automatically later. Yeah, when this goes live, I will be in Cochabamba, Bolivia, South America, visiting my good friends. So excited!)

I'm pretty pumped about the Avengers movie coming to Cleveland in August. With the par set by recent super hero movies, it might prove to be one of the more ambitious movies ever made. With not one, not two, but - prima donnas whose characters need to be catered to, I'm curious to see how well the makers will be able to pull it off. They definitely needed the solo movies to set up the characters. And I'm curious to see who the villains will be. The ending of Thor would seem to indicate Loki, and I imagine the Red Skull will be in there somewhere. But that's really not enough villains for a single Avengers' movie.

Speaking of the solo movies, did anyone who actually saw Thor like it? Honestly, I felt they could have done a better job. The only part I really liked was Hawkeye's cameo. Hawkeye is my second favorite avenger. (Captain America first. Since three is a nice, traditional number, Black Panther is my third)

I actually have my reservations about the Captain America movie. It could be totally awesome, or it could be akin to G.I. Joe. That's what I draw from the trailers, anyway.

Iron Man I and II? Meh. I never really liked bad guys that are essential clones of the good guy. Heck, that means that Hulk movie too. Which one are they going off of? The first one or the reboot? I didn't see the first one. The reboot was pretty good in parts. But again, Abomination was a pretty lame villain.

That's really what I don't understand. If you want to have a recurring series of super hero movies, DON'T cast the lame villain in the first one! They didn't do that in Batman! But that's hard to live up to. Maybe that's not fair. Oh well. Life isn't fair. Take a lesson from Mr. Nolan, Marvel hero movie makers!

Since we're on the topic of heroes in general, I recently saw Green Lantern and was also disappointed. That one I compared heavily to Batman Begins and found it wanting. Hal Jordan wasn't a very compelling flawed hero. They tried to make him a cross between Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne. Childhood tragedy and playboy status combined. Eh, it flopped. And, like Thor, it felt like there was no real passage of time. How much time elapsed in that movie? Like, a week? That's what it felt like. But you know what? Enough ranting.

Oh, did I mention the Avengers is filming in Cleveland in August? A while ago, a call went out for local crew to work the film. Being a film student, I applied. Having no experience, I'm not surprised I did not make the cut. I'm not even going to bother applying to be an extra at this point. But honestly? If I could just stand somewhere, out of the way yet near the set and watch and listen and learn? I would be more than happy to spend many long days in Cleveland for that. Heck, it's going to be a Joss Whedon movie! Best learning experience evah!

~ Tommy

Bolivia!

Hello my friends,

For almost every year since 2004, I have undertaken a summer mission trip with my family to the great nation of Bolivia. My church supports a missionary family there, and over the course of so many trips, I have become great friends with all of them.

Tomorrow I am getting on a plane with some friends and we are all flying down to Bolivia for 2011's trip. We shall be gone a couple of weeks and will be painting, pouring concrete, building tables and benches, and other miscellaneous projects to help support the missionary family. We will also be assisting them in their ministry to the children of Cochabamba. God is going to do great things this year. Every year so far, it has been a life-changing trip. I'm looking forward to this!

Since I am going to be out of country for the next couple weeks, I will not be posting any live updates. Some automatic "filler" updates will post periodically, so if any of you are regular readers, you won't be disappointed!

God bless, my friends!

~ Tommy

Chief Reason I Despise Anime

Okay, so it's really more a tendency than a hard and fast rule. Nevertheless, I feel that a theme in most anime I have ever seen is the girlification of men. Normally, I would say that it doesn't particularly bother me. Everyone is entitled to his or her own creative tendencies. But this is going too far...



Anime + Wolverine = Very, very bad idea...

~ Tommy

Genius or Madness?

Premise: A police drama with song and dance numbers.

Result?



~ Tommy

Aesop: The Original Machiavelli?

Seriously. Everything I needed to learn about deception I learned from Aesop.

~Tommy