The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

After several decades spent away from the genre, Ridley Scott makes his triumphant return to sci-fi with the much anticipated Prometheus .  Though the marketing approach sought to create a connection with Scott’s original Alien , the actual connections are few.  Although it takes place within the same universe, the direction of the movie is totally elsewhere. In Prometheus , we follow Holloway and Shaw, two archaeologists on Earth who discover ancient cave drawings around the world.  Normally, there would be nothing to it, but they find strong similarities between the drawings despite being oceans apart.  They interpret these drawings not just as pictures, but rather as a map to our supposed creator or creators.  With this in mind, they, along with a crew from the Weyland Corporation, embark on a journey galaxies away, following this map to our supposed creators.  They are led to a moon called LV-226 (not to be confused with the more familiar an...

I’m not usually one to purchase new releases, but 2 weeks ago, I bought Max Payne 3 on impulse.   There was a good deal, and I couldn’t pass on it.   Wal-Mart was selling it brand new for $40 and it also included as a bonus game, GTAIV: Episodes From Liberty City .   Two games for the discounted price of one.   And on a side note, what’s with this recent trend of rapidly reducing new releases from full price to discounted prices?   Are they not selling? A decade has passed and Max has gotten a little older.   He’s left his New York and Jersey roots for greener pastures.   Having left his former life, Max starts anew as a bodyguard for a rich and famous family in Sao Paulo, Brazil.   The Branco family consists of 3 brothers: Rodrigo, the wealthy businessman, Victor, the aspiring politician, and Marcelo, the young and obnoxious party-goer.   Think about that – the shit is surely to hit the fan.   And it’s not long before all th...

"Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago." — Kurt Vonnegut After many years of recommendations and the associated build-up, I’ve finally done it:  I read my first Douglas Coupland book.  Does he live up to the hype?  Well... Generation A tells a tale of a strange and alternate Earth, one where the bees have mysteriously disappeared.  As such, some of the things that we take for granted now are gone, like flowers and apples and such.  We are told the story from the perspectives of 5 different people around the world.  There’s Zack, a somehow model-esque redneck farmboy from Iowa.  Harj, a custo...

The other night, our church hosted a small gathering that was dubbed, “Theology on Tap”.  The idea was to head to a pub, somewhere casual and just talk theology.   Some points of discussion included the simplicity of God and also the grandness of God or the “Godness of God”, as our pastor quipped.  One person remarked that despite the grandness and infiniteness of God, that you, as a finite being, still matter. During the discussion, I was trying to process some points and understand things in terms of geek analogies. I started wondering if God sees the world in full high definition 1080p, and at the bare minimum, with a  refresh rate of 60 Hz.  At the same time, how each of us is like a single pixel on that globally expansive LED screen.  Our job as a pixel is simple; we are called to emit a light.  The light you emit can be of various colours and although you may be just a single pixel emitting a certain colour at a certain time, co...

From the mind that brought you Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter comes the new literary classic Unholy Night .  Much like AL:VH , Unholy Night takes a fictional spin on real world stories and characters.  Author Seth Grahame-Smith’s latest epic brings us on a journey alongside some of the Bible’s lesser known characters. Unholy Night is the “untold story” of the Three Wise Men.  It enlightens us on some of the lesser known details relating to the nativity story.  We follow a renowned thief named Balthazar, dubbed “the Antioch Ghost”, one who has gained notoriety by robbing bureaucrats and politicians, all the while evading the Empire and making a mockery of them.  As such, he is the bane of King Herod’s existence.  After a mishap in one of his pursuits, he is caught and thrown into prison where he is joined by two other thieves.  The three men are sentenced to death, but Balthazar and his quick wits have other plans.  After pulling off t...

Amidst the shooters that have dominated the play space in the past while, I found reprieve with Tales of Vesperia , a Japanese RPG that was originally released in America in 2008.   Tales of Vesperia follows Yuri, a former-knight turned rebel who starts off the tale chasing down a thief who’s stolen a magical artifact (referred to in the world as blastia) from his city.  Yuri tracks down the thief alongside with his trusty pipe-smoking dog, Repede.  In the middle of this mini-saga, you are joined by a doe eyed princess and a valiant hearted young hunter.  Like all good adventures (and pretty much every Japanese adventure!), what starts off as a small adventure spirals off into an enormous affair.  Your party becomes entrenched in a rivalry between the Empire and the free people (called the guilds), amidst a cosmic ballet of magic. The game is an epic adventure, to say the least, requiring around 40 hours to complete the journey.  But that is to...

Cabin in the Woods is not what you expect. I first heard about the movie when it played AICN’s Butt-Numb-A-Thon 2012, and adhered to the recommendations to avoid everything you can about Cabin in the Woods .  And rightly so as the fun with the movie is everything you don’t know about it.  So aside from seeing the trailer last year, I knew nothing of the movie.  And even then, I didn’t recall what was in the trailer, so as far as I was concerned, I went in fresh. On the outset, Cabin in the Woods is a straight-up horror movie, following five college students as they head to a countryside cottage for some R&R.  All the typical horror archetypes are represented: the jock, the sweet and innocent virgin, the slutty slut, the thoughtful and articulate smart guy (note: not nerd), and the pot smoking, comedic relief.  We also bounce between two laboratory technician characters who are monitoring the students for some mysterious reason.  Just...