We watched Black Friday on Black Friday and I don’t know what was worse: the movie or the sales day. I don’t care much about the sales day (I avoid it every year). As for the movie, it was bad.
Just as in Ash vs Evil Dead, Bruce Campbell delivers a demonstration of overacting. The scenario is horrible and lacks pretty much everything that would keep us interested. The special effects of the final scene were laughable and we were so bored that we got restless in the coach.
I get the whole analogy between customers and zombies, but it was made in the most boring way possible. My final advice: if you see Bruce Campbell in the credits of a movie, don’t watch it!
Based on the science fiction novel series of the same name by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse takes place in a future in which humanity has colonized the solar system and a cold war threatens the balance of power. The heroes at the center unwind a conspiracy theory that changes the course of human history. (Source: Polygon)
I believe that what makes The Expanse so great is the balance between the science and the persons. As N. Shankar said in an interview for Art Technica: “That’s always the challenge, balancing multiple storylines, balancing the weight of personal, emotional character stuff with the gigantic geopolitical [elements], the big, beautiful space battles, all of the scope and spectacle. This is always the conversation in our writers room when we come into any season on the show. If we’re doing it right, it does have that balance between the personal and the epic.”
We’ve finally watched the 5th season of The Expanse and I can safely say that this show is not only my favorite Sci-Fi TV shows (just after Star Trek), but also one of my favorite show ever.
The 5th season sees many developments and I enjoyed them all: Marco Inaros’ multiple plots, Amos and Peaches’ hike through the snow, Avasarala’s new rise, Bobby and Alex adventure aboard the Razorback,… Many storylines that each bring their own thing to a fantastic bigger picture.
Jeff Bezos did one of the only good things I’ve ever seen a billionaire do by swooping in to save the show after it was cancelled on Syfy as it was a personal favorite of his. Unfortunately, despite what the authors say, the 6th season may very well be the end. Which means that not all the content of the novels will have been covered by the show. As a fan, I can only wish for more but, sometimes, it’s good when a great show reaches a good place before ending.
By the way, if you click on the image at the top of the post, you’ll be able to download this awesome wallpaper in many resolutions from the website theexpanselives.com.
To celebrate Lara Croft’s 25th anniversary, I replayed Tomb Raider (2013). I think that of all the solo games I’ve ever played, Tomb Raider games are among my favorites. I remember when I was still living at my parent’s home, playing my very first Tomb Raider game during Christmas Holidays… It was 1996 and I was 22 years old. 25 years have passed and the adventurer with the British accent still gives me as much fun as back then.
There are several things that really make it amazing. First, the character is great: a young English girl with a past filled with secrets that she discovers through her adventures… Second, I love exploration and Tomb Raider has plenty. Third, I love to collect all the relics and to complete all the challenges. I’ve just completed Tomb Raider with a 100% completion and it feels fantastic.
The end of the year is coming and I have a ton of games to play, but I’ll probably make some time later this winter to complete again Rise and Shadow.
Anyway, Thank you, Lara, for 25 years of explorations, collections and impossible jumps. To 25 more!
This is a timelapse of us building the LEGO Haunted House (10273).
We wanted the house to be ready for Halloween but we didn’t think that it would be that big, so we’ve spent the entire 30th of October assembling it. We’ve watched the complete first season of Sulphur Springs on Disney+ (great show), Frankenweenie and Final Destination 3 during the build.
Just as in the previous timelapse (Building the Falcon), I made the music and I still didn’t have the time to edit the track, I just bounced the loop with Logic Pro.
The video ends on a picture of the completed house but it doesn’t looks as great as it does in real. Also, it kinda sucks that the video stops so abruptly, I’ll find a way to make it smoother in our next timelapse, which will probably be the new LEGO Christmas House (Santas’s Visit – 10293). I’ve almost spent more time creating the vignette with Affinity photo than making the video on Imovie.
As a side note, I’d like to give a big thumbs up to Affinity Photo which replaces nicely Photoshop. We didn’t renew our Creative Cloud subscription because we want to stay as far from Adobe and it’s subscription system as we can. I don’t really do any in depth photo editing, I mostly use the software to correct the levels and add a stroke around the text. At that level, I don’t have the feeling to have lost anything by leaving Photoshop.
A young woman is found brutally murdered in a playground and one of her hands is missing. Above her hangs a small man made of chestnuts.(source: IMDB)
We enjoy a good Nordic Noir on Saturday evening, especially when it’s raining outside and the apartment is lit up with candles. It’s without surprise that we enjoyed The Chestnut man since it’s based on a bookwritten by Søren Sveistrup, the creator of the hit television show Forbrydelsen (The Killing), which we also enjoyed very much.
The Chestnut Man is in the same vein, cold, brutal and free from unneeded drama. We watched two episodes per evening and we enjoyed each of them so much that we were actually counting down to the next Saturday.
The chemistry between the characters grows as the suspense intensifies and it was almost impossible to guess the identity of the killer. At least, we didn’t.
At this time, a second season hasn’t been green lit yet. Fingers crossed!
We’ve finally done it, the Millennium Falcon is complete! We’ve been working on it every Sunday morning and we had a ton of fun. The entire timelapse was recorded on an Iphone 11 pro max and the 29 parts were assembled on Apple Imovie.
I made the background music loop on Apple Logic Pro X with an Akai midi keyboard. I wish that I could have edited the track a bit further and that I could have made a live recording instead of bouncing the loop but I was a bit short on time and I still have much to learn abut Logic Pro.
We have purchased a 3D printed stand from Wicked Brick and it will be placed on top of the cabinet that you can see right behind me. It will still have to wait January because we’ll first use it to display the LEGO Haunted House (10273) that we’re about to build for Halloween and, later, the Winter village which will stay until the end of December.
I love Cobra Kai so much, I could binge 72 hours and still want more. Johnny is the best (and has always been), Larusso is a whiner (and has always been) and Kreese is a PTSDed war veteran who shouldn’t be allowed around kids (and has always been).
Spoiler Alert
I’m not going to debate about who’s right and who’s wrong. To be honest, kids shouldn’t be taught to fight outside of dojos (they should be playing D&D together instead), but that’s not the point of this post. Season 3 makes 2 very important points:
It’s about time that Johnny and Daniel get together to fight Kreese, who’s always been the real enemy;
It’s put in evidence that Larusso has always been the guy who steals the girlfriends and I’m so glad that Johnny would have been the one who would have ended up with nowadays Elisabeth Shue (who is still very cute), if he wouldn’t already have been with Miguel’s mum. It was awesome to see Johnny and Ali spend a day together at the street fair, he so deserved it. I know, I’m a big soapy dude.
We’ve both read the trilogy, we’ve seen the original movie (diected by David Lynch), I’ve played the video game on Commodore Amiga (one of my favourite, even though I’m not into RTS) and my nickname – Sardoken – is a derivative of Sardaukar, the elite military force of the emperor.
There was no way that we would miss Dune on the big screen!
My first advice is: if you’re a fan of Frank Herbert or of Science-Fiction in general, watch this movie at the theatre. The amazing images and the otherworldly music of Hans Zimmer make for an amazing spectacle that deserves to be seen on a huge screen.
My second advice is: if you know someone who has something negative to say about Dune… You know, the kind who always finds something that he would have done better… Turn your back and walk away from him/her. This movie is incredible and nitpickers should be ignored.
Dune is a very complex story and Villeneuve’s adaptation doesn’t sacrifice the impressive detail of Frank Herbert’s original vision.
I could have used a picture of Rebecca Ferguson for the post, she is awesome as Lady Jessica. But even her couldn’t steal the show from the real star of the movie: the worms of Arakis.
Throughout the years, I’ve swapped factions and races. So, the time has come to re-introduce my hunter as she is nowadays.
Her name is Snory, she’s a Void Elf BM Hunter on the EU server Argent Dawn. You can follow this link to visit her armory page and better see her transmog gear.
I’ve been mainly playing this character for all post-Cataclysm expansions and I can say that Beast Mastery is my favorite hunter specialisation. The rotation makes sense, it’s fast, it’s ranged and it remains fun even when a fight requires to move a lot. It’s a real jack of all trade since you can easily top the meters in group content (LFR hero lol) and solo pretty much anything in the game.
Her professions are Mining and Engineering, which explains why she’s transmogrified as “techno” Hunter with Mimiron’s Repeater as weapon. my greatest wish in the game would be to get Mimiron’s Head as mount to complete her style (yep, back to Ulduar).
My total /played time with my hunter is over 152 days, which means 3642 hours and that’s only one of my characters. I could calculate my total WoW /played time, but some things are better left unknown…
In the fall of 1987, a group of small-town friends must survive the night in the home of a sinister couple after a tragic accident brings them to the couple’s door. (source: IMDB)
A bunch of teens at a street fair in the 80’s, it all started so well… Then begins the revenge game of a couple of old (what are they even?) witches. One slow scene after another, until we became restless in the couch, fighting not to fall asleep. We made it until the end but we won’t make it again, this post will make sure of it.
