Shmee.Me

July 28, 2015July 28, 2015

Do We Want A Killing Joke Movie?

One DC’s big announcements at Comic-Con was the they are making a Batman: The Killing Joke animated movie, and just this week it was confirmed that the “THE” Joker himself Mark Hamill would reprise his role as the Clown Prince. Now The Killing Joke is a landmark graphic novel, and I am always okay with Mark Hamill’s devious laugh tickling my ears, but do we really want a Killing Joke movie?

The Killing Joke is about the Joker trying to drive Jim Gordon crazy, and pushing the Batman to break his code not to kill. Real light reading. Again a great book, but not one I am sure that I want to see acted out. Between the torture of Jim Gordon, and assault and crippling of Barbra Gordon it will be a hard movie to get through. I don’t expect all movies to be daisies and lollipops, but The Killing Joke might just be too grim to watch. Especially one featuring a mainline comic book hero.

We will see how this pans out, and Mark Hamill has wanted to do it for years, so I am sure that DC will make the best possible movie out of it they can. I just don’t know if I will want to watch it. Knowing me I probably will, but I may not be very happy with what I will witness. Hey at least we will get an Oracle origin story out of this right?

July 27, 2015

Shmee Reads The Tears Of Blood Series!

After reading the very decent book Starship Eternal by M.R. Forbes, I decided to give his fantasy books a try, and since his Tears of Blood series was on sale for three for a buck why not? (Unless you don’t like fantasy I guess) The three books in question are titled: His Dark Empire, His Cure for Magic, and His Dark Heart. Like Starship Eternal Forbes doesn’t add a lot to the fantasy genre, but his books are competent and engaging.

The stories follow a young girl Eryn who finds out she has what is known as ‘The Curse’, and an old man named Silas trying to remember his past. ‘The Curse’ is this universe’s name for magic, and all who have it are hunted down and killed, or forced to work for him. He is trying to keep control over everything, even if it means killing innocent people, and causing everyone in his empire to live in fear.

What I liked about this series is that it feels very much like it is ‘post fantasy’. Like the time of magic and elves has just past, and people are trying to live in what would be similar to the dark ages. Barely remembering the fantastic days before their time. Again this is nothing new, Game of Thrones is the same way, but unlike Game of Thrones there aren’t eight million people to keep track of. Just two, and two is enough.

I don’t think these books will blow you away, but they will entertain those who enjoy the genre. M.R. Forbes writes well, and his books are fun to read. They just aren’t amazing or new. Though there is nothing wrong with that. I wish I could write as competently. The Tears of Blood series is a good way to scratch your fantasy itch, but not much more.

July 24, 2015

I Love Short TV Seasons!

Recently a lot more TV shows have been releasing seasons in a shorter format. 13, 10, and sometimes even 6 episode series are becoming the new normal, and I think this is great! A shorter season means that the TV show can focus in on the central stories, and not get caught up with a bunch of pointless plot lines. That is not to say that a 26 episode season can’t be good, I still love The Flash and Arrow, but they definitely are prone to wander.

This is not the writers fault because to fill 26 hours of content you need to create multiple storylines and points of interest, but the viewers will not/cannot care about all of them, so any episodes that feature those plots will be quickly dismissed as filler. The Walking Dead has definitely suffered by going to 16 episodes. Again still good, but there are always a few episodes that the show could do without.

I understand from a TV channel’s perspective the more episodes of a hit show they can get the better, so they don’t have to juggle as many cycling shows. Especially now with the viewer’s expectation of year round quality programming, but a lot of those extra episodes are making the show worse, not better, and may even be loosing the show ratings, and by extension the channel.

A major bonus with shorter series is that they are easier to keep up with. If you get behind a season or two with a normal length show it is understandable to give up because you have like 50 hours of TV to watch to catch up, but with shorter seasons that time is obviously greatly reduced, and then people are more likely to watch the show live (well at least DVR’ed) since they are all current with what is going on.

I am all for the current migration towards shorter seasons. I hope that it is a trend that continues. We could all do with a lot less filler in our lives.

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015

DC And Hoopla Are A Match Made In Heaven!

When my local library system got Hoopla I didn’t pay much attention to it. It had a small number of books, and the movie and TV sections were worse. It slowly got better, but I still never went back to the App. That has all changed now however. DC Comics and Hoopla signed an agreement, so now a lot of DC’s digital trade paperback length comic books are now showing up on the site, and they say a lot more are to come. If you have never read any of the New 52, now is a great time to start since you can read a lot of them for free. Which is a pretty great price. They also have a good selection of older series as well like Neil Gaiman’s landmark Sandman.

I am not sure what the library’s game is here, maybe they never want me to go back to their buildings? Whatever the case, reading free comic books thanks to their agreement with Hoopla is wonderful. If you haven’t tried it out, you really should. Provided you have the right hardware unlike The Paladin.

July 22, 2015July 22, 2015

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II Just Got A Major Update! … Wait What?

‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords’ (nice short title there) turned ten on the PC this year, and it hasn’t had a major update in almost as long, but imagine my surprise when I looked in my Steam queue and there it was getting a 175 MB patch. It is a great update too. It includes widescreen support, save sync, Steam Achievements, a few bug fixes, modern controller support, and last but definitely not least mod support through Steam Workshop.

The widescreen support was a great addition since before you had to play the game in windowed mode for the game to run on a widescreen monitor, but the mod support is what really makes this update special because now to get all the unlocked content in the Restored Content Mod all you have to do is subscribe to it. It pretty much makes the unofficial patch official. Who knows maybe they will in the next update (we only have to wait ten years to find out).

If you didn’t play this game when it came out because it was a broken mess (who can blame you), there has never been a better time. Also since this game is always on sale it will probably only set you back a couple of bucks. It is great to see old games like this get fixed. I guess it is time to finish that Light Side play though I have always be meaning to get back to.