Passengers (2016)

Passengers 2016 Movie Image
image credit: passengersmovie.com

Some sex deprived loser wrote this shit show. It’s like a socially awkward man-child took his life goal of “trap pretty lady and make her love me” and turned it into a movie. On the surface it sounds like a marginally ok space-based romantic drama, but once you realize that Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) purposefully breaks Aurora Lane’s (Jennifer Lawrence) sleepy pod just so he could basically have a fuck-partner you get this super icky feeling every time they interact (which is always since they’re basically the ONLY characters in this movie).

Chris Pratt is easy on the eyes so it’s slightly more palatable compared to, say, a late model John Travolta drooling over JL’s body. That said Jim Preston is an asshole. Plots similar to this were marginally acceptable in the 80s when teens used a computer to create “the perfect woman” with a mega perm and hotpants, but from what I remember no sex was actually involved and the kids have that dumb innocence excuse going for them. Passengers, however, was made in 2016. Jim is an adult, and there is lots of sex going on so all the nostalgia of Weird Science is flushed out the airlock and we are left with a creepy a sex starved engineer.

As almost an after thought they throw in some drama about the ship malfunctioning and saving the other sleepy pod people. Speaking of which, the explanation for why all these people are leaving earth is a range between “because I feel like it” and “earth doesn’t need plumbers”. First: Earth will never NEVER not need plumbers as long as foul liquids explode from our holes. Second: Who takes a 180 year trip for funsies?

There are some thrilling moments of Chris Pratt beating on a door. Then thrilling moments while Jennifer Lawrence beats on the same door. Then some thrilling moments as Laurence Fishburne just presses a button and opens said door.

I rate it 2 cereal explosions out of 5 “that’s not how gravity works” sequences.

Ultra Pink-Ray 2.0 Released!

Ultra Pink-ray 2 Logo

2017 will bless us with a new optical disc format: Ultra Pink-Ray 2.0 which improves on almost everything about the original Pink-Ray. If you’ve forgotten: Pink-Ray beat out Blu-ray and HD-DVD winning the HD disc wars back in 2007.

The biggest improvement for Ultra Pink-Ray 2.0 was moving to a universal video codec. The format now uses Cinepak with 71 distinct 480i streams stitched together to form a 17K resolution picture that will simply blow your friends away when they see it.

Speaking of impressing your friends the 7-D adds 4 more dimensions to the traditional 3-D “More than 2 times the D of 3D!“. Imagine their surprise when things on the screen don’t just jump to life but they fly straight through their head and hit the wall behind them! Talk about immersive!

Pink-Ray blew us away with picture-in-picture-in-picture but Ultra Pink-Ray 2.0 brings us picture-in-picture-in-picture-below-picture-in-picture or “pipipbpip” and improved “Pink View” with even more pink!

Sound was not forgotten in this update. They’ve tripled the number of channels with a grand total of 132.9. Your friends can hear sounds behind them on their home theater systems but can they pinpoint with in .05 degrees where it is coming from? Not without Ultra Pink-Ray 2.0.

Noise has been reduced significantly taking the 2 RPM original Pink-Ray disc down to just .3 RPM with UPR2.0! A rock laying on the floor in a vacuum makes more noise.*

* Statement reflects the company’s opinion and not scientific fact.

Tower of Guns

image credit: towerofguns.com
image credit: towerofguns.com

Tower of Guns by Terrible Posture Games is deceptively simple first person shooter that I think older gamers will find enjoyable. Frustratingly hard at first you might be tempted to give up but close  your eyes and get in the mind set of those unforgiving FPS from the 90s.

Random levels, enemies, bosses, and power ups make Tower of Guns interesting if you are willing to accept death and start over again and again. Depending on how good you are a complete game session lasts anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 hour, but you will get better because you start to figure out what works and what doesn’t each play-through. You also unlock new weapons that might better suit your play style. You figure out how that weird spinning enemy attacks.

Chockfull of weird visuals, secrets, humor, and randomness the game grows on you  despite having barely any story or point beyond destroying everything (except maybe hugbots because they’re so cute… they just want a hug!). Were you once obsessed with Doom and Quake? You might like this quick blast from the past with some features that make it more fun in this modern era of gaming.

Beijing Today or Blade Runner (1982)

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1. Beijing (© ChinaFotoPress/ZUMAPRESS.com via Washington Post), 2. Blade Runner, 3. Beijing, 4. Blade Runner, 5. Beijing (© boston.com), 6. Blade Runner, 7. Beijing (@ people.cn), 8. Blade Runner, 9. Blade Runner, 10. Beijing, 11. Beijing (© mining.com), 12. Beijing (© deathandtaxesmag.com), 13. Beijing, 14. Beijing, 15. Beijing, 16. Beijing

Blade Runner images © Blade Runner Partnership and the Ladd Company

Easy Step-by-Step Painting

Step 1: Sketch out the general outline of the objects in your scene. In this case I’ve chosen a cat. Your sketch does not have to be perfect! Just create general shapes.

Cat SketchStep 2: Lay down the base colors for your painting. You want light colors first then build up darker colors. Keep in mind you are not doing detail here! You are just laying down a foundation for you to build on.

Cat base color layer

Step 3: Add detail to finish!

Cat finished product

As easy as 1, 2, 5!