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Brave New World

Overall, I liked it.

It was not a bad movie, nor a great movie.

It felt to me like a bunch of set pieces/action scenes that were put together around something of a plot.

Anthony Mackie was great as Captain America.

Danny Ramirez was okay as Falcon.

Nothing really jumped out at me as significant, but like others have said elsewhere, this feels like it set up so much for the next few movies, and at the same time it tied up a bunch of loose ends in the MCU, dating back to 2008.

What did stand out (and I may be biased) was Harrison Ford taking over the role of Thunderbolt Ross from the late great William Hurt.  He and Mackie carried the film.  A lot of the supporting characters seemed flat to me, including the main villain.

There were a couple of cameos that surprised me, though on reflection they shouldn’t have.

This film was better than a majority of Marvel films that came out after Endgame, which isn’t saying much, of course, but I would rank it above Eternals, and I actually liked Eternals.

Here’s hoping Thunderbolts* lives up to it’s hype in May.

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#prepare4launch

It’s no secret that Superman and Spider-Man are my top 2 superheroes from DC and Marvel, respectively.

But in the early 80s, when Marvel stopped publishing The Micronauts, of which I had a subscription, I chose to get the Fantastic Four as a replacement title in the mail.  And the reason for that was because I loved the late 70s Fantastic Four cartoon, which introduced H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot.

This was just as John Byrne started his run on the book, and I loved everything about the look of his Fantastic Four.

I had a mail subscription for a few more years, and then started getting the book monthly along with a bunch of other books from a comic book store.

I gave up on comics in the mid 90s, and I think I stopped getting FF shortly before that.

Flash forward to this morning, and I waited that full hour until the actual trailer was shown.

Annoyed as I was with the stupid countdown and the overly drawn out interviews, the trailer was awesome.

The Thing looked like the Thing I’ve always known.  Johnny, Reed, and Sue all looked great, to me.  As did Galactus’ shadow and helmet.

The whole retro vibe of this movie feels so right for the way the MCU works and how the FF needs to be brought into Phase 5.

I may be more excited about this movie than I am about Gunn’s Superman.

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Secret Movie Night

Cinemark had one of their $5 Secret Movie Nights on Monday, and I bought a ticket a couple of weeks ago, when it was first announced.

I had a feeling I knew what movie it was from what was coming out later this week.

I love the original Gladiator, and for $5, I was willing to see if this sequel was as good if not better.

It was good.  I think the original was better.

We still had like 20 minutes of trailers before the movie started, but once it did, I had a big grin on my face when the title appeared.

All the actors were good, especially Denzel and Pedro, and the callbacks to the first film were great.

Overall I think it’s worth a watch.  3 stars out of 4.

Go see it!

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Stream of Consciousness

This morning I found out that a blu-ray and DVD set were released for the COMPLETE Super Friends series.

I then looked up how much they were, and actually put the blu-ray set in my cart on Amazon.

I then remembered that I bought a bunch of  Super Friends content on  Amazon Prime Video a year or so ago using an Amazon gift card.

I then checked how many episodes of Super Friends were made.

93.

I then went back to Amazon Prime Video and counted the total number of episodes that I had purchased, over the 9 seasons of the series.

93.

Well then.

I then removed the blu-ray set from my Amazon cart.

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Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum

My turn for this, I suppose.

The last A’s game I went to was September 2, 1996.  It was the Yankees vs. The A’s, and David Cone was coming off a stint on the DL/IL.  he pitched 7 innings of no-hit ball against the A’s but he was on a pitch count so he was taken out of the game.

The last time I was in the Arena was for a preseason exhibition game with the newly-formed San Francisco Spiders hockey team.  I can’t recall who they played, or the exact date, but it must have been in September of 1995.

The last time I visited the area was April 4th, 2021, for my first COVID-19 vaccination.

I recall other baseball and one basketball game I’d attended.

We were there the weekend in 1981 when the A’s opened the season with 11 straight wins.  I don’t recall if we were there for the 10th win on Saturday, or the 11th win of the first game of a Sunday double header.

My gaming group surprised our DM on his birthday by getting tickets to a A’s-Tigers game, as he was a big Detroit Tigers fan.

As for basketball, the one Warriors game that I attended at the Arena (the other was at the Shark Tank, of all places) was a Lakers-Warriors matchup where the only thing I really remember was that we had seats above and behind a backboard, and Magic Johnson scored on a breakaway right at us.  It might have been a slam dunk, too, but my memory fails me.  It probably was, though.

So those are my few stories about the Oakland-Alameda County Stadium.

And even though I’m not an A’s fan, I will miss them and the Bay Area rivalry with the Giants.

I’ve felt that feeling of loss, when we almost lost the Giants after the 1992 season.

Unfortunately, I don’t see a last minute save by local investors to keep this team where I feel they belong.

My heart goes out to A’s fans everywhere, but especially to the ones who live around the area and/or have been loyally attending games for years.

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Drakar och Demoner Official Soundtrack

Sometimes I forget to claim all of the items from a Kickstarter pledge.

For example, the soundtrack to Drakar och Demoner/Dragonbane.

Listening to it as I type this, sounds very Epic RPG.

Available pretty much everywhere for purchase or streaming, including Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube.

Pretty cool when they add mood music for a tabletop RPG.

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Rings of Power

Looks like I stopped watching this one in the middle of Season 1, because I didn’t want to watch two high fantasy shows at the same time, the other being House of the Dragon.

I was also annoyed that EACH episode was well over an hour long, at least 70 minutes runtime.

However, I got on a Lord of the Rings kick a couple of weeks ago, after watching reaction videos of the Extended Editions.

I may try watching the rest of Season 1 and start on Season 2.

My renewed interest in tabletop fantasy RPGs (the new D&D Player’s Handbook is available next week, I’ll have it Monday) is certainly rekindling interest as well.

On to Rings of Power, Season 1, Episode 5!

Engage!

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The Spider in the Urinal

Monday at work.

I had to go to the bathroom, so I walked over to the men’s room on the 3rd floor.

I walked up to the urinal, unzipped, and started to do my business at the urinal.

I looked down, and saw that a spider was in the urinal, avoiding my pee, but when I stepped away, the spider got caught in the auto flush and disappeared under the splash guard.

Sorry for killing you, spider, I thought to myself.

After zipping up, I walked over to the sink to wash my hands, dried them, left the bathroom and went about my way.

—

Later, my old man bladder had me up and going to the bathroom again.

I walked to the bathroom, went to the same urinal, unzipped and began to do my business again.

This time, however, I saw that I had actually hit the spider with my pee!  Oh no, I thought to myself.

The auto flush again took him under the splash guard, and I was sure that he was dead this time.

Again I zipped up, washed my hands, dried them, and walked out of the bathroom to continue my work day.

—

Before leaving for the day I went to the bathroom for a third time, only this time I checked the urinal before doing my business.

Sure enough, the spider was still there.

I figured he had had enough, so I grabbed some paper towels, folded them over and poked at the spider with it, and it grabbed the towels!

I quickly brought him over to the trash bin and tossed the towels and the spider inside.

Be free little guy, I thought to myself, you’ve endured enough today!

I then relieved myself as I had earlier in the day.

I left work feeling good that I rescued a spider.

I hope he’s still out there, thriving.