Comic Books!

Two posts in two days? What's going on here?! Well, on my way home from work today, I was sitting on the train (forever) thinking about the comics that came out this week, and realized that I felt like talking about them. By that, I mean the comics that I actually picked up. Tons of comics came out, but I am pretty biased in my Marvel love, so there won't be any DC, Darkhorse, or whatever else here.

Let's go alphabetical. All-New X-Factor #9 came out this week, and while I love Peter David, and loved the previous run of X-Factor, I'm finding it hard to keep interested in this book. I just don't really get it. The draw to the previous book was that it was a detective agency investigating the mysteries of the Marvel universe. It all started with Decimation and grew into this crazy awesome book full of mystery and adventure and fun. This book, I just don't know where it's going. I'm still on board 'cause I want to know where it's going, but I'm starting to worry that it's just not as good as the previous book. It's not bad. I just don't get it.

Up next is Amazing X-Men. There were actually two issues of Amazing X-Men this week. And they were very different. I started with Amazing X-Men Annual #1. This one was bad. Monty Nero is new to Marvel, and it shows. The story was pretty lame. I got about halfway through and realized I just didn't care, so I just flipped through the rest looking at the pretty pictures. Salvador Larroca generally does a good job on the art, but I find his iteration of Storm pretty ugly.

On the other hand, Amazing X-Men #8 was pretty great. Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost generally make me pretty nervous when they show up in my X-Men comics. The last time they took over one of the books I loved, they killed off a bunch of my favourite characters and I was furious for months. But then they went and made me love the book even more. I'm pretty excited for this "World War Wendigo!" story they've started. It takes place in Canada, and it features members of Alpha Flight! That's the start to a great story! But after the first issue I'm worried they're up to their old tricks again.

Next was Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #2. If you're not reading this, do yourself a favour and get on it! This is only the second issue of this new series, but there's a lot to catch up on if you so choose with 200 Ultimate Spider-Man issues in several different series. Bendis is great in general, but this new story has me really excited to see what's going to happen next.

New Warriors #5, also written by Christopher Yost (minus Craig Kyle) is another fairly new book that I'm enjoying. Most of the characters are new to me, but I love team books, and especially teams of young heroes. We've got classic New Warriors team members Justice and Speedball, the new Nova, a brand new Inhuman named Haechi, a technology user named Sun Girl, an Atlantian named Water Snake (who may be related to Namorita?), the spider-clone Scarlet Spider (Kaine, not Ben Reilly), and someone named Hummingbird. I'm not sure where this book is going, but I'm very much drawn in by it.

Now, the last book I picked up this week was a doozie. The end was just... Wow... there's a picture of the tweet that explains it perfectly (please excuse the misspelling of the letter "W", I was trying for effect and I realized too late that I dunno how to properly spell it). Original Sin #3. Marvel's latest big event series. Like I said: crazy pants. If you haven't been keeping up, the gist of it is that someone killed the Watcher (the giant bald dude that watches over all of the big events of the Marvel universe, hangs out on the moon), and the heroes are trying to figure out who did it. In the mean time, a villain, or maybe a group of villains, ended up with one of the Watcher's eyes and has unleashed a bunch of secrets, and that's gonna cause some problems. But seriously. The end. Crazy pants. Go read it.

So yeah, there was some good, some great, and a bit of mediocre. But it was a memorable week for comics!

WWDC 2014 News

Alright. So, this Monday, Apple kicked off WWDC with a bang when they announced a ton of awesome new software developments. Apple's big Keynote was full of goodies, and I'm gonna talk about a few of my favourites. To start off, iOS 8 was announced with quite a few interesting improvements.

The first thing I want to talk about is the updated Messages app. This is actually one of the biggest things for me. They've packed a lot of features into the app. It's now possible to send quick voice messages within the app, as well as pictures and videos. It's easier to manage a conversation, making it possible to add and remove people from the conversation, or leave it yourself. You can set a conversation to "Do Not Disturb" so you don't get constant notifications. You can also name a conversation, and share your location with the other participants. You can also view all attachments that have been sent and received under the "details" screen so you don't have to scroll back through hours of messages to find a particular picture.

Another really interesting thing is the new Family Sharing feature. You can now share content between family members allowing all members to have access to each other's music, movies, TV shows, books, and apps, as well as shared calendars and photo streams. Find Friends and Find My iPhone have also been worked into it. My favourite part of this is that you can set it so when your kid wants to buy something from the App or iTunes Stores, it pops up with "Ask" instead of buy, and it sends a notification to your device to approve or deny it.

The new Health app provides a central place to find all of your health and fitness data from other apps. It also lets you set up an emergency card with your important medical information, just in case. iCloud Drive improves on previous iCloud functionality, adding a central place where you can manage all of your files, and not just the ones used by iCloud apps, but you can now store any file and access it on all of your devices. And Spotlight continues to evolve into a powerful search engine.

On to OS X, the new version is called Yosemite, and they've made some pretty nice visual improvements to the interface, and updated the app icons. Many of the features added to iOS 8 have been implemented here as well, and that's just a start.

The biggest thing I am excited about in OS X Yosemite is the ability to make and receive phone calls on your Mac. If someone calls and your phone is in the other room, you'll get a caller ID notification on your Mac, and you can answer it right there! You can also select a contact or a number from a website and start a call right from your Mac, through your iPhone. This also applies to regular text messages! You can now answer all of your messages on your Mac, not just your iMessages.

Another bit of new functionality is called Handoff. If you're working on something on your iPhone or iPad and walk up to your Mac, an icon will show up and you can instantly pick up your project without missing a beat! And it works the other way as well.

In Mail, they've added the ability to send large attachments with Mail Drop. Large attachments will be sent to iCloud and then downloaded again on the other end. You can also Markup attachments in Mail before sending them. You can draw on pictures, full out PDF forms, and even sign documents.

There's tons of other new things coming with these updates, but those are the ones I'm most excited for. They're still a ways off though, with a tentative release date of "fall", so the excitement will have to wait for a while.

Pokémon! I Choose You... Again!

You would think that, by now, I wouldn't get excited about things like Pokémon game remakes, but MAN am I excited!

The day before yesterday, it was announced that remakes of the third generation games, Pokémon Ruby Version and Pokémon Sapphire Version will be updated and released this November as Pokémon Omega Ruby, and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire. These will be released using the same engine as the current Pokémon X and Y games, which means a significant update to graphics and game mechanics, much like past remakes in earlier generations.

While no real details have been released, The Pokémon Company is promising a rich new world and brand new adventures. What this means, we'll have to wait and see. Along with the announcement, the game packaging was also unveiled, featuring images of Groudon and Kyogre looking powered up and intimidating. It was mentioned that there is a significance to their souped up looks, so we'll have to wait and see if this means new forms, or perhaps Mega Evolutions for these legendary pokémon. I'm also curious what that will mean for the third member of the generation III legendaries, Rayquaza.

If there are, in fact, new forms to these legendaries, how will they incorporate that into the story of the game? Will they follow the story of the originals? Or take it a brand new direction? Will we be seeing Team Aqua and Team Magma up to their old shenanigans again? Will mega evolution be possible in Hoenn? Will we finally see mega evolutions for the Treecko and Mudkip lines? So many questions! But with this only being the initial announcement, there's plenty of time before the November release period for them to slowly feed us details.

And one more thing... In X/Y they introduced the blue pentagon symbol that represents that a pokémon was caught in the Kalos region... Will they have a new symbol for Hoenn? And will it be immediately compatible with Pokémon Bank so we can bring back our favourites from the original Ruby and Sapphire games for this new adventure? So much to think about!

So that's what I'll be looking forward to for the next six months. Perhaps it's time to get X and Y out again and get back to shiny hunting... Anyway, that's all I've got to say for today!

I Love Long Weekends

Last I blogged, I mentioned that I'd have another post coming within about a week. At the time, I must have had something in mind... But I forgot what it was and haven't had anything interesting to talk about. Until now! It was Family Day here in BC, and that meant a long weekend, and an extra day of fun.

Friday night, as is often the case, meant a trip to one of my favourite places in Vancouver, La Fontana Caffe, for Nerd HQ! Hanging with Andrea and the nerds is always a good time, and this weekend was a particularly calm version of the usual happenings. BUT! I was playing Pokémon Y, and I finally managed to complete the National Pokédex! I haven't finished the Pokédex since Pokémon Diamond, so it was quite the feat. 718 pokémon to collect and train is not an easy thing to do.

Now, the biggest highlight of the weekend was Saturday morning. For months, Andrea and I have been watching our emails, twitter feeds, and checking in on the Comic-Con website waiting for news of SDCC 2014 preregistration. And finally, last week, the announcement was made! So Saturday morning, Andrea and I got on our computers, signed into the new and improved EPIC waiting room, and waited for 9am to roll around.

In previous years, the race to get badges was all about hitting the button at the exact right time and hoping you make it into the virtual line. This year, they came up with the idea that you sign into a virtual waiting room anytime up to two hours before sales begin, and when the time comes, everyone in the waiting room gets randomly sorted into line to get their badges. It was interesting watchingb the little yellow info bar updating with news and tips. "It is VERY important that you do not refresh your browser when sorting has begun." But when sorting did happen and they began letting people in, I realized that they didn't tell you where in line you were. In previous years you would see what number in line you were, and it would update every two minutes to let you know how much closer to the front of the line you were. But this year they left it a complete mystery. I was just starting to worry that I'd be sitting there all morning just wondering, but then...

I GOT IN! At first I was confused. I thought I was just moved to the actual waiting room instead of the sorting room. But it said to put in my member ID and last name. So I excitedly texted Andrea to tell her, "I GOT IN!!!!" and went to work frantically putting in our info. Somehow I lucked out and got in SO FAST so I was able to secure both Andrea and I our four day plus preview night badges once again! We're set for our fourth round at San Diego Comic-Con and we couldn't be happier!

So that excitement has been carrying through this whole weekend, so the many times she and I have talked and/or seen eac other has erupted into excitement yet again. We also had brunch with our friends Anne and Peter, which was a pretty great time. And we were planning on seeing The Lego Movie today, but then the realization that today is Family Day meant that that idea should have been planned a little further ahead: tickets were sold out.

But we did get to hang out and watch Teen Wolf tonight! I gotta say, Teen Wolf is one of my new favourite shows. I started watching it a few weeks ago and have been hooked ever since. It's got all kinda of awesome going for it. Supernatural monsters and meyhem. Comedy, teen drama, action. And lots of very attractive guys who have a problem with keeping their shirts on. What's not to love? And the show just keeps getting more and more intense! Andrea and I were hanging out on her couch drinking tea and freaking out over everything that's going on. I can't even.

Plus! I finally finished reading The House of Hades yesterday! I started that book in October. Ridiculous. But this weekend I finally picked it up and read the second half in two days. I seriously don't know why it took so long. It was a fantastic book, and I really enjoyed it. I guess I just haven't felt much like reading for a while. I hope that's fixed now.

Anyway, those were some of the highlights of the weekend. Comic-Con. Pokémon. Teen Wolf. Heroes of Olympus. Friends. Nerds. Plus all the regular life stuff in between. Now back to the real world tomorrow.

Adventures in Transit

I'm really not keeping up with this blog business. I would have made a resolution to do better keeping up with it, but how many people ACTUALLY keep up with their resolutions? Not very many.

Anyway... Today I had a weird adventure on Vancouver transit. Every day I take the Canada Line to get to work. It's always pretty much uneventful. A few weeks ago there was some guy rapping along loudly to some shitty hip hop song he was playing on his phone, but that's about as exciting as it gets in general.

So today, as the train arrived at the Yaletown station (two stops away from where I get off at Waterfront), the intercom came on to say that the train currently at the station (the train I am currently on) would be going back to Richmond due to some malfunction. So I got off the train along with most, but not all, of the other passengers, and waited for further instruction. The train took off back the direction it came (with some confused people aboard) and everyone on the platform stood around looking amused and confused.

I decided to text my boss to let her know that there was something weird going on with transit, and while I'm doing so, another train goes zipping by in the wrong direction. It was the weirdest thing. At that point I was starting to wonder if I should just walk the rest of the way to work, or find a bus to get me the rest of the way. Pretty much whatever I decided to do, I was going to be late for work, so I decided to grab a coffee and regroup.

I checked Translink's twitter page and it turns out there was some malfunction with the switch at Waterfront station, so trains were only going as far as Yaletown and getting turned around. They got a train going back and forth between Yaletown and Waterfront shuttling people the rest of the way, so I EVENTUALLY made it to work. I was about fifteen minutes late, but it was an adventure! My first major transit issue since I moved to the big city. It was more amusing than anything else.

So yeah, random adventures in transit! I'll try to get a schedule going with the blog again. Hopefully shouldn't be more than a week before I've got something else to post on here, so see you then!

Video Games vs. Real Life

So... The other day I had a weird thought while walking home from the train station after work. There was this guy just standing there half a block away from a bus stop, just... waiting. And my immediate thought was, "What the heck is he doing there? Should I ask him what he's up to? It's none of my business, but he's weirding me out." That just seems to be where my mind goes. He must be up to something.

But then I started wondering why I have that reaction... The world is such an untrusting place nowadays. What happened to the old days of smiling and saying hi to random strangers? I'm a friendly person, but I think I'm afraid to talk to strangers for fear of what they might say or do back.

It's funny, though, 'cause it got me started thinking about video games. I'll preface this by saying I've been playing a lot (A LOT) of Pokémon Y since it came out a week and a half ago. In all of the Pokémon games, and most role playing games in general, in order to progress through the game, you need to speak to all of the NPCs (non-playable characters) to get information. Sometimes they even have special items for you. So there's motivation to talk to everyone you run into.

So if talking to everyone you meet is encouraged in video games, why not real life? Maybe I should just walk around and talk to every person I meet. Maybe they'll have something interesting to tell me. Who knows? Maybe I'd learn some valuable life skills and knowledge!

Then there's the other side of that... Can you imagine if I just started going around to everyone I meet like, "Hi! What do you have to tell me?" Or better yet, "Hey! Do you have anything for me??" I think I'd start to get some really strange looks and reactions. But I almost wanna try it out, just to see what people would do.

Anyway, this was just a random string of thoughts that went through my head. Hopefully it won't be so long before I blog again. No promises.

Long Overdue, And Pre-SDCC

Okay. I know this is long overdue. I'm sorry guys! It's been a busy few weeks! Sorta. But sitting in the airport waiting for our now-delayed flight is as good a time as any to catch up!

So, what's been going on? Well, I moved. Away from my little hometown of PG to the big city of Vancouver. What an adventure that's been! Also: an emotional roller coaster. The week before the move was nuts. Too many teary-eyed goodbyes. Lots of fun. Rob came up to help the move go smoothly. And also to drive the U-haul for me. AND to meet everyone before he steals me away. It was a great week and a terrible week all at once. It's great to be on this new adventure, but it's really hard leaving everyone back home.

The drive down was scorching hot. Rob and I had coffee with my mom on the Sunday morning and then hopped into the truck and hit the road. We left early and the heat was already up there. It got as hot as 36 degrees through the canyon and it was above 30 the whole way. It was beautiful and such a great drive. It was kind of surreal, driving through there for the first time in a few years, this time with Rob taking me to my new home. I don't really know how to describe how it felt.

Unloading and unpacking went pretty smoothly. And my first week was pretty fun. Spent a couple of nice evenings getting drunk in the back yard. Had a couple of interviews and found myself employed my very first week. That was a huge sigh of relief. And I don't start until after my trip! So it's been like an odd long vacation. That's actually exactly how it's felt so far since I've moved. Like I'm on some sort of weird long vacation. It's finally starting to sink in that I live there, but now I'm actually going on vacation.

It is that most wondrous time of year again. No, not Christmas. Comic-Con! I feel like I've used that joke before... Oh well. I'm going with it. Anyway! The airport and delayed flight I mentioned before are the start to our Comic-Con trip. Andrea and I are still sitting in YVR airport. We can see our plane out there. But apparently there's another hour to go.

In other news, we are SUPER EXCITED!! And also really tired due to lack of sleep. I think I slept 2-3 hours last night? It was pretty dumb. Anyway. I can't think of anything else to say right now. Stay tuned for updates throughout Comic-Con!