I’ll see you later folks! I’m taking a much due vacation with a friend and we’re hopping across the pond to explore the French countryside. As always, I’ll have my notebook with me to jot down any ideas that may one day find their way on here. I really don’t plan to work on anything while there and actually just enjoy the sights and sounds. The most I’ll do is maybe post a bit on my Twitter but that’s all for a bit.
Halloween has always been on of my favourite holidays. But surprisingly enough I’ve never carved a pumpkin in my life! For some reason as a kid I never had a desire to, so my folks never got one and carved it with me. And if I didn’t care carve one, my parents never got one to decorate for the holiday either as Halloween was never celebrated back in the old country. At least not back then, maybe nowadays it is though.
So I decided to give it a whirl this year, I mean as a man in my 30s it should be super easy. So I grabbed a stencil of an appropriate design; the Pokemon known as Haunter has always been one of the favourites and I figured he’d be a great fit. The stencil doesn’t seem too difficult so I got myself a decent sized pumpkin and a sharp knife from the kitchen.
Well shit I had no idea how thick a pumpkin could get, which meant I had to put considerable amount of muscle into cutting out shapes. This meant that my lines were not straight and all over the place. Ugh. Also the stencil required some fairly small and narrow cuts that might no way could make. Ugh again. So I messed up my Haunter stencil badly and to plan B I went, a traditional Jack O’Lantern face with lots of easy straight lines!
Ultimately I’m happy with it as my first pumpkin carving attempt, perhaps next year I may try something a little more complex and perhaps actually get more precise tools rather than just use the first knife I find. Also why no pictures of it with the lights on? Well, this pumpkin only had one good side, and it was messed up with the terrible Haunter attempt. The side with the face you see unfortunately had bruising on the skin. But I figured when the sun goes down it won’t be noticeable so I still decided to use it. Happy Halloween!
Wow. Just… wow. At $0.50 I’m tempted to get a pair just to see them in real life.
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything (though I am working on things) so I thought I’d post this. I was going through my old files on the phone and forgot that I had taken this short video of the propeller of the Q400 I was riding on. With the shutter speed of my phone I thought it produced a mildly interesting visual effect. Sorry for the vertical video, I wasn’t really thinking at the time.
Yup, exactly as the title says, this is what happens when youe try to rush through the review process.
I finally got around to watching the Venom movie last night, and despite all the negativity I heard about it prior to its release I found that I enjoyed it. Perhaps I have a bit of bias towards it though, as growing up Venom was always my favourite superhero comicbook character. If you’ve read any of my other comicbook related posts, you’d notice that I don’t generally read superhero comics, it’s mostly scifi, crime, fantasy, or horror. But I did read a bit back when I was younger and Venom was, and still is, my favourite. And given the entertainment value these days of the Marvel and DC movies, I do find myself catching the odd superhero movie from time to time. Some I enjoy like Spiderman Homecoming or The Dark Knight Returns, and some are clear misses. So when Venom got his own movie of course I had to watch it as I felt the Venom in Spiderman 2 simply didn’t do him justice.
I’m not wanting to write a thorough review or recommendation on the movie, but I’d say it was overall good. I really like that Venom was actually portrayed as a larger than human beast for starters. I felt it also captured his character well too, a bit sarcastic and somewhat comedic. I was originally worried after the trailer that there would be very little scenes with Venom actually in it and that most of it would rely on his voice due to a potentially low CGI budget. But I felt it sufficed with his screen time too, which I was happy to see (though it could have used a bit more Riot). The actions scenes were decent as well so not much in terms of complaints there either. The movie is not without its flaws, story wasn’t amazing though it wasn’t terrible. Some acting was a bit cheesy too but nothing that ruined the whole movie. And maybe it could’ve been rated R instead too. All in all it wasn’t mind blowing or amazing, but it was good enough to enjoy even if you’re not a Venom fan.
But that’s not the point of this post.
After professional critics gave it poor reviews and online discussions were already shitting on the movie, I was going into the movie with low expectations and preloaded disappointment. After enjoying it I found myself asking just how terrible my choice in movies must be. So out of curiosity I checked out the Metacritic page for the movie and found that I’m not alone.
That is quite the difference between the two numbers. Most viewers like it, and the critics said it was garbage. I’m not sure if the critics jumped on the negative bandwagon prior to release, or if they were solely being pretentious because of the type of movie it is. Either way I felt the critics were out of touch on this one.
This can also happen in reverse. When the next SimCity game after SimCity 4 came out in 2013, I was excited for it. After seeing a video demo of the game, both I and the SimCity Reddit community were really looking forward to its release. Reviewers were giving it 90+ on Metacritic too so the hype was very real. Then it hit the shelves and boy did it suck. It also didn’t help that EA presented the game as something else than what was released and their damaged control of the situation was awful. As of today the player reviews are totaling a whopping 2.2 out of 10. Again the critics were way out to lunch, or possibly bribed for a high review who knows.
Almost all art and media are subjective, it’s really up to the viewer to enjoy or detest. Take professional reviews with a grain of salt and be skeptical at times. If you are curious about watching, listening, playing, or making something, only take reviews into account but don’t let them hold back and your exploration of it, then make your own call. If you liked it great and don’t worry about what others think of your tastes. If you don’t like it, you may have learned something from trying it out anyways.
