Let the games begin

Eikichi has finally seen Civil War, which means we can now talk about it AND just like most people who left the theater, his face showed just how much the MCU is now changed. This was a war for the hearts and minds of the Marvel Cinematic fandom, and honestly nobody won. You watched it, you felt it, and you walked out scarred. There was no victory won in this movie, this was kind of like that "set up comic" you know where the hero is left licking his wounds trying to figure out exactly how bad he underestimated the villain.

I'm not going to say it's goblin throwing Gwen Stacy off the bridge diabolical, especially since this was more fortuitous and opportune but it was still the perfect set up. The dust settles and then the tornado comes in, and not just a dust devil, no an F5. To hell with the house, the foundation, the block, the whole city may be gone when it's all done. And the why, the why is even sympathetic. Nobody has clean hands on this one, not because people didn't try but because nobody is truly perfect and sorrow and suffering can take many forms. One man's grief resolution can be another man's vengeance, spite, or execution. Revenge is a dish best served cold and fire, microwaves, gas or electric ovens have ALL disappeared inn this one. It was hard not spoiling this for Eikichi, you wanted to tell him about it and yet you didn't want to prep him too much. Because you needed to take all these body shots, yes the chin shot was coming but those body shots were meant to build character maybe you were knocked out maybe you weren't but you learn something about yourself after all those body shots. Even that slight twist of fate, the person who wanted to drive in the knife and twist it changed NOT because two peoples mother's had the same name, no because as disrespectful as it sounds the original knife holder was a NOBODY, it wouldn't have mattered at all. No it would have been okay, but it would have been a cheap trick, unsatisfying, unredeemable, but no when that knife is grabbed from the table you completely understand it and you might even cheer for him, forgiveness at the ready.

Where is the love

Soooo I'm checking my voice mail today right, and there is this message for deletion that needs to be re-saved(yes I have been that gully in not checking my voice mail) and it's from one of the times that my mom was visiting my sister at the hospital right. I'm guessing since I hear myself on it that it's my moms phone in her purse. The thing is I had called my sister before I got in the room to pick my mother up and I guess when my mom saw my name pop up in my sisters phone it wasn't one of my normal nick names, noo it wasn't T, or Tom Jr, Older brother, Awesome older brother or even T2. Nope see that would be too much like right, what does my dear sick sister call me, who I was coming up to the hospital to see:

DARTH DRUNKARD oh yes, not only am I a dark lord of the sith but I am so NOTORIOUS for my love of the liquid courage that instead of some TERRIFYING name that will strike fear in the names of the galaxy I am called Darth Drunkard. Like I take a few shots of the old synthehol and I start

Plans for the night

As rare as it is FINALLY a late night has knocked me off my normal center. I slept well into the afternoon and it wasn't even a Sunday(which is my usual lazy day) so tonight I plan to get back to reading the books I got from the library, continue to watch some more Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny (I would recommend watching the first season otherwise that vid will make absolutely no sense), possibly try to find some news from my Eagles preseason finale(who am I kidding I will be on the webs watching the whole thing), maybe trying to swing a ride to pick up the new Madden(what this will be the 3rd one I have bought in the current gaming generation 1 360 and it would be my second ps3), more goofing off on Facebook and possibly do some google+ ing not unlike facebook while I get a lot of interaction on plus, some days I just ain there. These lulls of mine aren't just limited to my ability to write a blog and be satisfied with the content(and yes if I don't like it I refuse to post it, same as with a comment. I am evil with the backspace key if I don't feel engaged enough or dislike the quality), speaking of content seems a lot of people have been stopping by as of late(not according to google analytics but she is such a hard taskmaster to please anyway) I thank you, hope you enjoying. I know since I rarely post anything controversial here(me lack controversy, the unmitigated gall but yeah here no cursing very little controversy what can I say) I don't get too much reader interaction but then again I have gotten some, and not just from people who know me.

Energon Depletion Detected

So last night while attempting to watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon we got to the middle of the movie, the Rising Action as Kitsune was saying, it was starting to get Juicy, they had Sam Witwicky in a pinch and all the sudden *Poof* the lights go off. I don't mean a quick flicker I mean dark, game over, stayed at the arcade too long and they want to go home dark. Most of the lights were out though some of the things were still working(want some Willy Wonka candy, we got you). So we all decide to take a bathroom break, it was the 10 pm showing and we were all taking it pretty well. After finding the bathrooms sufficiently lit for us to relieve ourselves without having to worry about stream crossing or hitting the walls we walked out to speak to the Theater staff.

They were handing out free passes due to the fact that MOST of us had gotten cut off in the middle of our movies though I'm sure some were at the end. So as we walk out and joke with other customers what do you know MIRACULOUSLY the lights come back on, and we are all staring at each other. The darkened theater was suspicious in the first place because when you walk into the lobby and look out the front door everyone else has power. It wasn't much of a black out past the movie theater, and the fact that most of the patrons were outside the door now that the power comes back on made many of us think they just wanted to go home. It was the 4th of July and yeah it sucks to work on holidays but hey if you signed up for that money I say you work the whole night, just saying.

As they weren't going to restart the movie(hey I had my free pass in hand) it didn't matter to me or Kitsune it didn't become a free movie without them giving us our money back. Yeah yeah let me see you get a double dip opportunity and not take it, I thought so. So we know who the new bad guy is, we know who is going to day(at least up to the first half of the movie), and we have seen that Shockwave looks pretty much to the cartoon with a few minor changes. I would like to thank Michael Bay for always sticking to as much character design as is plausible. So Transformers Take 2 will either happen to day or tomorrow, seems like it pulled in a decent haul this weekend so thats nice. We might get a fourth one, dunno there are more than enough transformers you can bring to life if you so choose to keep going.

I just missed your Heart

The scene is a snow covered forest, you see grayish eyes looking out between some furlined hunting clothes. They appear to be watching some of the fauna in the area, a bow is pulled taut and she releases her arrow into the neck of a tall buck the runs off staggering across the field.

The young archer walks up pulls her fur scarf away from her face and says "I just missed your heart" pulls out a gun and shoots the buck in the head. After shooting the buck and killing it she pulls out her knife and starts field dressing it. Cutting out the intestines, heart, while she is cutting a voice comes over her back "You are already dead". The young girl seems angry they begin to fight, tussle, and wrestle while the young girl appears to at least give up a foot and 60 pounds to the taller bearded man she seems to be holding her own. Near the end of the fight she is on the mans back with him in rear naked choke, she seems to hesistate. The man throws her off and says "you hesitated, for that you can drag the deer back alone".

The young girl is seen trudging along with the large buck in a make shift sled, she gets home appears to have cut more off the dear and walks in to a wooden house. The man starts speaking to her first in english, then german, then french, and then in spanish. Where she asks perfectly "Father did you really expect me to snap your neck" in an exasperated tone.

And the winner of the awesomest older brother of the year

Once upon a time in the city of Memphis

 They may have been 2 days late, it may not be all of them, but my baby brother got the ALMOST complete set of Scott Pilgrim books, Ironically enough Scott Pilgrim vs. the world(the book for which the movie was made) ISsssssssssss......... out of print *face palm*, yes we would have been pressing the awesome button full speed ahead except book 2 is no longer being printed, which means I'm going to have to E-bay it probably to get him the complete set. As with many other comic/anime/graphic novel to movie transitions while we had heard of scott pilgrim vs. we hadn't really read them because well basically I'm a marvel whore and unless it was a passing "oooh I gots ta have it" fancy my money went to marvel comics. And for those who don't know my most recent marvel "obsession"(is obsession even a strong enough word) is the ultimate series TPB or trade paperbacks. I'm old, I'm cranky and I want the whole storyline in one book, thus I go back and by the trades volume by volume and let my eyes feast.  Now by ultimate I don't just mean THE Ultimates, I mean ultimate X-men, Ultimate spidey, Ultimate FF, and the ultimates.

 Scott Pilgrim though was printed by Oni Press created by  Bryan lee O'Malley from Toronto. On my various movie sites that I like to frequent(and I have mentioned them plenty of times before and will mention them in the labels) Scott Pilgrim was getting a lot of buzz, so me and baby bro(he doesn't frequent said sites but he did like Lead actor Micheal Cera because of "Superbad") went to check it out in the movies. Just prior to the movies release PSN(playstation network) put out an 8 bit inspired game about Mr. Pilgrim and it was a blast so okay we are gonna go check out this goofy movie that we didn't know much about.

And we LOVED IT, the whole movie:the gay room mate, the 7 evil EX's, the fact that Michael Cera was perfect for the part because he makes a great goofy loser, which made him perfect for Scott's goofy every day demeanor and the SHOCK of him kicking MAJOR LEAGUE BOOTAY so much more fun. July and her auto censor, the way music played an integral part and wasn't just like a thrown in for extra teen ANGSTINESS(eh don't start my blog another word I made up DO NOT CARE). So yeah for a character we knew pretty much nothing about except for a trailer here and there and an 8 bit game our socks were knocked off, to say Scotty P was a wise investment is an understatement. So after waiting for it to come out on DVD we do(okay blu  ray, I like to keep my movies especially the new good ones where I can find them 1 blu ray player in the house NO WHERE ELSE TO WATCH THEM) and while some folks don't like the fact that I watch the extras from time to time, Ero Kitsune(yeah yeah I have an american nom de plume him japanese, I swear not my fault he chose it on his own) will watch them with me. Can I tell you the extras just made this movie funnier, I didn't even get to the "auditions yet, or half the behind the scenes stuff" oh no the blooper reel and the deleted scenes are just classic. I want to say this, whoever directed scott pilgrim the movie is EVIL, just see how many takes the "delivery" scene took.

And as with most movies we like we want to know the back story, thing is I'm a on a Deadpool kick now so meh wasn't really interested in reaching out to a new series, baby bro though really wanted to read all the books. And what do you know his birthday was coming up and HayLeeeeeeew(going for a Mrs. Doubtfire effect work with me here) where have a rather nice Comic Shoppe in the area so I stroll up, ask the friendly proprietor at the Comic Cellar (I want to say I knew NOTHING about the website, this is a first time, but not a last because I do go there for comics all the time, and now I have to go edit the last blog to add the link in there) about the scott pilgrim books, he tells me he can order them(he doesn't keep them in stock) and as he looks it up mentions that he believe one was out of print. I figured it was probably the first one, had been a while and oldest one usually falls off. But no it was the actual book NAMED Scott Pilgrim vs. the world. Oh well he said it would take about a week or two to get them in (which was perfect because his birthday was in a little OVER 2 weeks at the time) dropped a small down payment(I usually like to pay the books off up front so I can just go pick them up, but hey even I hadn't planned previous to the brain blast of buying 5 books) and left the shop, now I told baby bro on the day I reserved them about the missing book. He was like I was "making him mad because now he wanted them" but I know him, the face drop would have been terrible when he noticed the world wasn't in there. So 2 weeks before you get them to get over the disappointment of not having the whole set was a very good idea.

(I may re edit this later and crop out some of the extra gobbledygook from each of the individual pictures) so here we go five books for my baby brother for his 22nd birthday. I rock, I'm awesome, he's been enjoying them ever since. Yes this still leaves my title of "Evil older Brother" intact it just also shows that the "Older Brother" part of my title is just as important to me as the evil. Total bill was about 60 bucks, and it was 60 bucks well spent. Sharing hobbies with a sibling or even having a similar if not the same hobby(I'm a big comics fan, he's a huge manga fan, I watch the sub titled anime's but I haven't really gotten into the reading the books stage of my anime viewership yet.I'm currently on Book 3 picture to the upper right hand side of this paragraph. It covers the whole Scott, Romana and Envy(or probably N.V. her name is actually Natalie V. Adams, I could look to see what the V stood for but it's just the first to letters that matter on this one) saga as well as scotts fight with todd Evil Ex number 3. Yeah yeah the whole He's a vegan and thus Awesome thing is in this book but it's more than just the bass battle, and him tricking him so that he would be De-Veganized.

 I like the extra details and the kind of silly stuff that Mr. O'Malley added to the world of scott pilgrim in the graphic novels. It makes scott even more lovelable, moochish(you can be a moocher but not moochish fine new word, I'm claiming it again) and shows how far Sex bob-omb came as a group. Now a little spoiler the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the world combines all the books into the Second GN's title so each book will be following the escapades to beat each evil Ex until the final Show down with Gideon Graves. Now it's good that they gave us the whole story and so well put together but it's also bad, because that means (for the moment and if they are strictly going by the comics) no sequel and I wouldn't mind seeing scott pilgrim again. the little short scott vs the animation was cool that they showed on CN was fun and a nice piece of backstory. It's most likely from book 4 the whole scott and kim backstory but I wouldn't mind another movie to see what happens to every body.

The fact that (at least up to this point) Roxie Richter wasn't actually in the comics but was created for the game and the movie is awesome. It's another pick on scott moment(hey it works with spidey and look how much dough marvel makes off the Wall crawler, by the way if you don't know how to look up MARVEL COMICS, or who MARVEL COMICS is, nor spiderman you need help, I may link to marvel on a later name drop, just night right now technically this is an Oni Press party so I am trying to give them their well deserved props) . While all in black and white (similar to Sin City) the inking and shading tell the story perfectly without all the extra colors.

I have said it before and will say it again, a good story will ALWAYS trump the flash most people throw at you. I mean some people get a hold of potentially profitable franchises or good characters and make a heart wrenching mess. I am so glad that Universal didn't and that they introduced me fully into the world of Scott Pilgrim, and I thank Bryan Lee O'Malley for creating such an Awkward and loveable character.

The present has been given(gave it to him monday), he has been reading them almost non stop and for good measure we have both rewatched the DVD a few times, some catchy tunes and great action in this movie. This is hollywood the way I like it, not worried about what you can believe and more worried about making sure they Immerse you in the world THEY are creating. The real world is what you go to the theater to escape, not to figure out "hmmm is it going to be believable" make a good story and nobody is worried about believable they are just worried about wow.

*while the pictures taken in this blog were taken by me the characters, artwork, and copyrights belong to Oni Press, Bryan Lee O'malley, and who ever else collaborated on these wonderful graphic novels. I am in no way trying to claim ownership and if asked I will gladly take the pictures down*