Hunger. Games. Both at the same time.

McK and I went to see The Hunger Games last Saturday. Personally, I'm of the opinion that they did a pretty brilliant job with the film. I wasn't crazy about the shaky cam that wandered through District 12 at the beginning, but I think it made sense for the battle scenes. A couple of the places I wander around the internet took issue with the movie, but I think they missed some of the point. First, partially due to said camera, the violence was never glorified. You weren't really given a chance to "enjoy" the fights which would have been counter productive to the point of the whole film.

I've also managed to come to some sort of terms over the whole Hunger Games/Battle Royale thing. At least as far as the film is concerned. There's certainly a lot of overlap in the stories, but Hunger Games gets spun through a more American perspective where Battle Royale is certainly more Japanese.

I managed a victory over lovely wife at Summoner Wars the other evening. The game should have been much shorter than it was, but after my initial couple of turns (where I had her Summoner down to a couple life points) I could not roll a three or higher to save my life (or more appropriately end hers). But in the end the Swamp Orcs declared victory over the Benders. So yay for that I guess. I'm looking forward to the eventual release of this game on the iPad.

Speaking of, 100 Rogues was free the other day and is once again filling me with roguelike glee. I still enjoy Shiren a touch more, but this is a pretty decent game for the iPad. And we're still pretty far down the Draw Something rabbit hole. We have lots of colors now...

I took G and M to the Library on Saturday for the Dinosaurs and pizza story time. It was pretty fun, even if it did take the kids a few minutes to get over some of their shyness. It's so amusing watching them in groups of people. Not that I can fault them really, I suspect a decent amount of my own introvertedness has rubbed off on them.

We watched Tintin over the weekend as well. I felt it was ok for the first two thirds. The last third suffered from existing (movie felt a little long) and some silliness. (A crane fight? Really?) I'd watch a sequel though, so that says something.

Managed to earn $10 in iTunes through that Viggle app. So yay for rewards for watching TV. Especially as we don't watch much.

I need a nap...

Your title could be here

I seriously hate making titles. It's like those quotes at the beginnings of the Myth books' chapters.

Finally had my first win at Summoner Wars. It was most certainly not due to having played the game a couple times and playing against the letter 'r' who had never played. Or being at least somewhat familiar with the army I had. Nope not at all.

Watched the original Japanese version of Godzilla. I'm glad that movie is running around on DVD. Good ol' Criterion Collection. I was a little worried it would be horrible after all this time, but it really wasn't. Oh sure, it was a little slow, but it was still pretty fun. The destruction of Tokyo was still thrilling. And it was neat to see the old special effects.

I have given up on reading Liars and Outliers by Bruce Schneier. I had hopes that it would be interesting, but it really wasn't. That and I took issue with most of his premise. So, well, there you go. It deals with trust in societies and why we behave the way we do and the little tricks societies use to build trust in a population that would rather kill each other off and take what they want. Like I said, issues.

Written in Bone, the second Simon Beckett book was also a fun read. I'm currently on the third one. Mostly as the end of the second one was a pretty big cliffhanger (well excepting the existence of a third and fourth book) and I wanted to know what happened.

Got in a game of 7 Wonders over the weekend and somehow McK managed to win that one. I suspect even after trying to account for some cheating that was going on.

And speaking of McK, this weekend we will be off to see The Hunger Games. Saturday morning in fact. Can't be bothered to deal with opening day crowds. At least we have reserved seats...

Incroyable

What's this? Not one, not two, but three posts?! Some with actual relevant content? Yeah, yeah, don't get used to it. It's been an odd week.

Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig was pretty darn decent. It played with my mind quite a bit as they lifted characters and settings from the first graphic novel without using those plot points. And then they ended the season right where the graphic novel started. So I've no idea what that means as far as compatibility with the manga's timeline, but it was certainly interesting from a nudge, nudge, wink, wink sort of standpoint. I think I liked the end of season 1 better, but they're both good. Good on ya' Production I.G.!

Monster continues to be interesting as does Cromartie High School.

I will be tackling The Hunger Games soon, mostly to see how it compares to Battle Royale. I will admit to being somewhat skeptical... It might be decent, but I'm expecting a certain amount of been there, done that, it was better in the original. Heh. ^_^

Well, my brain is fried. I blame the updating. I'll get back to you next week. Or will I?

Oh I really, really want to see Moon. Yeah, that's all.