Thor. Yeah. It’s in my Top Five Comic Books of Ever, and it’s near the top of that list. I’ve had mixed feelings on the past several Marvel releases…well, since X-men 3 or Spider-man 3, whichever of those came first. The Edward Norton Incredible Hulk was, in my not-so-humble opinion, fucking awesome (I still haven’t seen The Ang Lee Incredible Hulk) and it’s a goddamned shame that it’s being scrapped for a reboot. Iron Man was damn impressive. Iron Man 2 was set up to destroy all expectations for comic book movies, and then my expectations were destroyed for comic book movies when I saw it. Don’t get me wrong! I really liked it! I just feel they could have pulled things off better — most importantly, it needed MOAR MICKEY ROURKE. I wasn’t pleased with the activation of God Mode at the end.

However, I’m getting off topic (what’s new?) and I need to get back to Thor. I had convinced myself that it was going to be utter shit. I was pissed that the visuals were “comic-booky”: I had been hoping that they’d, I dunno, use realistic-looking armor and swords. Hell, I have realistic-looking armor and swords and I’m just some underfed, unemployed, recently-graduated slacker living at his parents’ house, watching The Science Channel all day; I figured they’d pull it off in the movie.

No. We get a rubber Thor. Rubber Odin. Rubber Loki. Rubber Warriors Three, Sif, Heimdall, and Frigga. Frost Giants that, well, really weren’t all that giant (except for Laufey–GODDAMN). Did I mention I’m a Norse mythology fanatic? I probably didn’t need to. Anyway, Straczynski was onboard, so not all of my hope was lost. Just most of it.

So, I saw it opening evening (no, I didn’t go to the midnight release, unfortunately). Some of my friends that I went with were trying to convince me that I’d like it; the others were ambivalent, as they weren’t really one of us few proud Thor fans of the universe.

The visuals were stunning. I still don’t like the costumes or the appearance of Asgard (or how goddamned empty it was), but, taken out of the context of Thor, they were fucking mindblowing. Bifrost, in any context, was awesome and probably my favorite part. I was really glad it wasn’t as rainbow-y as it is in the mythology. That’s a change I liked. Another change I liked was that several of the characters were no longer just plain pasty Scandinavians (even though there was only one real Scandinavian in the movie — Stellan Skarsgård for the fucking win!): Heimdall was portrayed by Idris Elba (Charles Miner is definitely enough of a hardass, even if I didn’t like the ridiculous amount of gold on his armor) and Tadanobu Asano as Hogun (he freakin’ played Ghengis Khan). It kind of adds flavor (and some amount of believability) to the universe-spanning Yggdrasil branches.

The acting — eh. Chris Hemsworth captured the cockiness and unintentional sense of humor of Thor pretty faithfully. Anthony Hopkins hammed it up as Odin (think less serious Hopkins like Silence of the Lambs or Slipstream and more silly Hopkins like Dracula) and I was entertained, even if he was in Odinsleep for 86% of the movie. Tom Hiddleson as Loki…I still don’t know how I feel about him. He was great at going from really sad to really sneaky in the blink of an eye. I just don’t know if he’s a Loki. Well, comic book Loki, I suppose. I need to stop comparing it to the mythology. Colm Feore as Laufey — holy shit. I wanted more of him.

Cameos! Hawkeye showed up. He was never explicitly named, but if you know anything about The Avengers or, well, Marvel, you know it’s him. Same with Luke Cage. At least, I think he was Luke Cage. He was a big black guy who could fight Thor one-on-one, but I really couldn’t get a good look at him. He didn’t look like the Luke Cage I know, but hey, when you’re a body guard for S.H.I.E.L.D. in a new Marvel movie, you’re not wearing a skin-tight yellow T-shirt, skin-tight black jeans, and a huge-ass belt buckle reading CAGE, oh no, you’re dressed like you’re a member of a SWAT team (if they did that, why not metal armor?).

The story. There was a lot missing from the comics, but it’s a movie and there’s only so much you can do. Sometimes you have to settle for less.

The music was, of course, awesome. I’d go on more, but I’m not really a soundtrack expert and I don’t really know what I can say that hasn’t been said before.

So, should you see it? Yes, you should, but under certain conditions. If you’re one of us few Thor fans, yeah, definitely see it. If you want mindless action mated with silly awkward humor, definitely see it. If you want to see all of the relevant movies before watching The Avengers, definitely see it. If you don’t fall into any of those categories, I wouldn’t bother. Wait till it comes out on DVD, have your friend buy it, and watch it together (for free) with some beers (or mead).

Now, the title of this post said epicS. Why plural? Fucking Game of Thrones. I’m not going to give a very in-depth review of it because, hey, there are better ones out there (check out westeros.org for all of your GoT/ASoIaF needs). It’s fairly true to the books, but there are a lot of scenes that I take issue with and a lot of creative decisions that I think would have been better if they were left as they were in the books, but hell, it’s a TV series. There’s only so much you can do with the budget/time limitations and the format. Not having the POV characters and their extensive internal monologues takes a lot out, but the creative team is making up for it by adding new conversations or showing a look or et cetera. It’s on HBO and that’s the only network (except for maybe Showtime) that would be able to portray the books in visual form most faithfully. I think the only way to fit everything from the books into the series would be to make each episode two to three hours long, but that’s just unrealistic. Overall, I’m satisfied with what’s happening so far. I’m re-reading the book alongside the show (for probably the tenth time) to compare the two — and, that way, when I’m not satisfied with something on the show, I can just go back to the book where I know I will be satisfied.

I’m probably going to be doing an analysis of the actors with my inexperienced, pitiful thoughts on them sometime soon.

THINGS I AM GOING TO DO BEFORE I DIE

• Hug a bear (preferably polar, but any will do), tiger, fox, skunk, lion, etc.
• Learn how to pilot a helicopter (and eventually own one).
• Publish something (other than the one thing I have already published, which isn’t really mine).
• Learn a martial art (thai chi and/or muy thai).
• Improve my German language skills
• Learn Russian, Swedish, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Old English, etc.
• Visit Europe again.
• Visit Canada again.
• Write the script for a video game, movie, and/or TV show – and have it become real and not a paperweight.
• Direct a movie and/or TV show.
• Be a voice actor.
• Become a certified diver.

In other news, it is the last semester (and, yeah, algebra is fucking it up because it’s eating up all of my time–and it’s definitely going to keep me off the honors list/dean’s list. Fuck.) and I have my senior project to work on. I’m probably going to be sporadically updating here to all (zero) of you that read this with updates on my progress. And whatnot.

Fuck algebra.

So, Minecraft. My nerdery is getting in the way of my nerdery, as I almost missed Tron and I haven’t had time for KotOR or Dwarf Fortress because of it. Anyway, I have two worlds (and, of course, a dwarf skin for my character). In my main one, I am building an epic mountain fortress. In my other one, I’m building a little island fortress.

In the island fortress world, I just finished the fortress proper (just a nice little bastard made of stone, wood, and clay) and I decided to start an actual mine instead of just digging in the basement. So, I’m digging a shaft downward and finding a lot of coal and a few pockets of iron and I’m pretty happy, as I hadn’t found this much of each before. I keep digging downward and I break into a cave. I think, “Dammit, this is going to ruin my mine. Oh well, I have torches. I’ll look around.” Well, said cave has EVERYTHING. Diamonds? Redstone? Gold? Iron? Coal? Red mushrooms? Water? Magma? Obsidian? Yeah, all of that. I think I have a new main world.

At any rate, I’ve been on Peaceful difficulty while I build because I want to be creative and I got sick of Creepers. Bastards. Once I get some good defenses (and offenses, as I have none), I’m going to turn on monsters and see how long I can last!

So, that’s that. Minecraft has taken over.

Now that I’m finished, I have no idea of how to spend my time or what to do with myself. I have several assignments to catch up on for my classes, so that’s going to be tackled in the next few days. I have games to play and whatnot. I have to update Get Off My Lawn, Dammit. Still, though, it seems weird to not be pouring every effort into completing the novel. Damn you, NaNoWriMo. Can next November be here already?

For those of you who care, here’s a tally of my progress through the month.

Day 1: 371 words; scrapped and recycled on Day 2
Day 2: 3,227 – 3,227/50,000
Day 3: 0 – 3,227/50,000
Day 4: 4,214 – 7,441/50,000
Day 5: 2,127 – 9,568/50,000
Day 6: 0 – 9,568/50,000
Day 7: 2,540 – 12,108/50,000
Day 8: 613 – 12,721/50,000
Day 9: 8,077 – 20,798/50,000
Day 10: 2,515 – 23,313/50,000
Day 11: 2,119 – 25,432/50,000
Day 12: 0 – 25,432/50,000
Day 13: 3,306 – 28,738/50,000
Day 14: 1,963 – 30,701/50,000
Day 15: 1,737 – 32,438/50,000
Day 16: 5,332 – 37,770/50,000
Day 17: 0 – 37,770/50,000
Day 18: 3,186 – 40,956/50,000
Day 19: 3,806 – 44,762/50,000
Day 20: 4,399 – 49,161/50,000
Day 21: 848 – 50,009/50,000
Day 22: 192 – 50,201/50,000

I’m going to begin my quest to hit 50k as soon as I post this. I don’t know if the story will be over at 50k, but reaching 50k is my goal for today. If the story continues, then I will continue writing!

I had planned on going over to Houghton today to get an oil change and maybe do a cigarette run to Baraga, but it started snowing last night and we have a substantial amount already. The roads are pretty shitty, so I think I’m going to wait until the salt/sand trucks and snow plows are running to embark on those quests. Shiny.

However, I may have reached that low point of Week Two yesterday. On the sixty-first page of my manuscript, the beginning of chapter thirteen, one of the main characters, Riley, asks, “Now what?”

I DON’T KNOW, YOU BASTARD.

I raged at him last night when I was attempting to write some more. I wrote myself into the story (referring to myself as the Mighty Author) and threw him off of a 10,000 foot drop. It’s not part of the story, so I took it out (and the Mighty Author, who was much more impressive and good-looking than the real me, showing up would make it, well, suck), but I wish I would have saved the few paragraphs to post on here. Well, there’s always next time, I guess.

I know where I’m going with the story, but it’s just a matter of time before I can get there. I can’t just shoehorn them into situation; it’s has to happen naturally and of the characters’ own volition. Riley and possibly Randall are going to meet a way-cool space smuggler/bounty hunter/dashing rogue at some point, but I need to figure out how they’re going to get into (and survive) the bad part of Olympus City, and it would make more sense if it happened at night. Right now, it’s, like, noon. Mars noon. The four of them still have some business to take care of, but that won’t take me all the way to night, and they’re getting stubborn and not really writing the story for me anymore. Dammit.

By the time my brain refused to allow my hands to write any more because of the mental exhaustion, I had written a total of 8,077 words for a total of 20,798 words. Good googly moogly.

At any rate, I hope to have another good day of writing. I really only want to get my 1,667 words for the day, but that’s all I planned on doing yesterday, so…we’ll see. So far, NaNoWriMo has proven to me that I chose the correct way to go with my life. Being a writer kicks so much ass.

Enough gushing about NaNo. I’m in class right now and, well, I have to leave in three minutes. Now I’m rambling. And derailing. And tangenting. lol.