I Don't Have Much Time Left...

Game of Thrones Season 7: Official Trailer

Hey everyone, it's a bright shiny new Game of Thrones trailer! Season 6, aka the one where they finally lapped the books, was pretty well received by casual watchers and huge GRRM nerds alike. I'm excited to see where things go in this, the penultimate, season. Just off the trailers and based rampant speculation I'm guessing this season will be spent building the final conflict. Of course, the added layer here is what's really the final conflict? The White Walkers invading Westeros or Daenerys storming Kings Landing and gaining control of the 7 kingdoms. Maybe those things will all happen at the same time? I for one wouldn't be surprised if they put Dany on the throne, trick the audience into thinking everything is settled and then throw an invading army of White Walkers at everyone.

Whatever happens it should be fun, I can't wait for July!

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Universal’s Dark Universe risks being yet another extended universe franchise. Soooo, Universal is rebooting League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but they're making it into like 30 interconnecting movies and the kick off is Tom Cruise's sexy Mummy movie? Have fun with that. Maybe, and this is a big MAYBE if this was just a single movie with a bunch of monsters throwing down it could be interesting but what they have right now sounds like the worst attempt at getting some of that Marvel money.... except without the interesting characters or good movies.

Microsoft is placing a big bet on its new Surface family. The Surface is probably my favorite computer that I'll probably never actually buy. They're pretty and I like their functionality but they just cost too much. I'm already all in on PC gaming so nothing is replacing my tower that's a given. If I'm on the go there's not much I need to do that I can't do on my phone or my kindle. Or at least there's not a lot I would be doing because my kids won't give me a second to myself. The only thing I really didn't like here is they're adopting that awful Apple terminology where they're just calling the new Surface Pro, the "Surface Pro" so there's no way to casually identify it as the new unit and not one of the previous iterations. The comic book collector in my hates it when things aren't numbered nicely.

Strafe: Difficult, randomly generated Quake-like kicks ‘90s ass. Thanks to the new Zelda game I'm a week removed from having played Overwatch. Once I beat Zelda I might have to check out this game Strafe. Sounds like they're finally unlocked the secret to randomly generated levels that don't feel boring and repetitive. Plus I'm big into those retro graphics right now.

The Best-Looking Video Game Consoles Of All Time. Speaking of retro graphics. This list is short and sweet. The only one they missed that I would have included is this JVC WonderMega. Look at that thing. I'm not sure if it plays video games, launches missiles or drops the beat. In fact put a fan in the middle of it and I'm pretty sure it looks just like my latest graphics card. I bet it's ready for 4K gaming.

Destiny 2 - Official Gameplay Reveal Trailer

I think most people would concede that Bungie's billion dollar IP Destiny fell a bit short on its first iteration. Before the game released in 2014 expectations were really really high. It wasn't just that Bungie has a great reputation but they promised some pretty amazing things. Even with the luke warm response on launch I was still willing to give the game a try but it was scrapped for the PC, so that quickly turned into a non-issue for me.

But here comes Destiny 2! Yesterday they posted the first gameplay trailer and it looks cool enough. For a gameplay trailer its still pretty heavy on cinematics so that has me a bit skeptical, still. I'm really intrigued by a FPS/dungeon crawler hybrid. If this thing runs well on PC (yes it's PC confirmed!) and it can overcome some of the criticisms of the first one I'm willing to give it a shot. It doesn't release until September and I MIGHT be done with Zelda: Breath of the Wild by then.

Star Trek Discovery: First Look

Lookie here, it's the trailer for CBS's new show Star Trek Discovery. It looks good, perfectly fine. I doesn't look good enough for me to ignore all the horrible things you hear about it's production. I'm too lazy to link to anything specific but if you google it, it's out there. They lost their showrunner, it's been delayed by about a year, I believe I even read something about how the scripts have undergone massive rewrites. Not the kind of behind the scenes stuff that usually goes along with a great show.

Also this is going to be the first CBS: All Access exclusive show, so if you want to see it you have to pay $7 a month for it and unlimited reruns of Two and a Half Men and Hawaii Five-0. Honestly, I'm probably not even going to bother torrenting it unless I hear REALLY good things about it. I mean I already pay for cable and I can watch The Expanse every week. Why am I paying extra for a service I have zero interest in for a sci-fi show that's probably not going to be half as good as what I can already get?

Sometimes I feel like I'm an outlier when it comes to nerdy stuff like this but I have a pretty good feeling that I'm not alone on my thoughts of CBS's streaming service and this show. Either this thing flops huge and ends up on regular TV anyway or it flops moderately and it ends up on Hulu after a couple years. The people that watch CBS aren't paying for a streaming service and the people that are willing to pay for a streaming service aren't watching CBS, no matter how many Star Trek shows they have. Good luck with all that CBS, live long and prosper.

GLOW Official Trailer

If you had told me last year that in June 2017 I would be hotly anticipating a new GLOW TV show AND a Baywatch Movie I'd have been very incredulous for about 5 seconds, thought about it, and then said "you know, that sounds about right".

The only big problem with this is that it's on Netflix and right now Netflix is on super-ultra low priority at casa de Newburn. I'm about 5 episodes behind on Bob's Burgers, The Goldbergs, Fresh of the Boat, etc. Not to mention I haven't even started Luke Cage or Iron Fist. There's a VERY VERY slim chance I get to GLOW before Fall when the new season of everything starts. My only chance is if all the WWE stars start tweeting or Instagraming about it and my wife really wants to check it out. So, hopefully that happens.

The Difference

This is Progress

British Wrestling is really hot right now. I mean I'm not watching any but the fine folks that make up my twitter feed are crazy for it. Specifically they're crazy for this promotion Progress. The trailer for This is Progress, a kickstarter funded documentary on the promotion gives you a quick glimpse as to why people are nuts for it. Or maybe gives you a quick glimpse of the people that are crazy for it. I guess that's kind of splitting hairs.

Hopefully they get their cash, documentaries on wrestling are usually pretty cool even when they're trainwrecks.

Today's Star Wars weather

Apparently meteorologist Sian Welby from 5 News over in England somewhere really likes to sprinkle pop culture puns and references into her reports. She's done Back to the Future and Superman v Batman, Suicide Squad, etc. I know this clip is about a year old but what the heck, it's Star Wars day and I couldn't find anything else that was both interesting and quick to post.

ENJOY!

World 1-1

Jimmy Kimmel Reveals Details of His Son’s Birth & Heart Disease

I'm not going to lie to you, this monologue from Jimmy Kimmel had me in tears last night. First off, I can only imagine how awful it is to have your kid rushed to major surgery like that so soon after they were born. Just having my son born via "rushed" (emergency isn't quite the right word there) c-section was enough for me. When they wheeled my wife into the operating room and I had to wait outside while they prepped her, it was the longest 10 minutes. A couple months ago my daughter had to have an MRI for a spinal issue and that was equally nerve-racking.

My daughter is fine, in the grand scheme of things but we've been in and out of Children's Hospital the last couple weeks and have appointments scheduled through May. Some days it is tough going there and seeing all the medical issues kids have to deal with. Kids should be outside climbing trees or inside watching too much youtube, they shouldn't be in hospitals.

Anyway I'm missing my point, which is totally political. The United States of America is the richest nation in the world, probably in the history of the world. It's beyond ridiculous that we can't care for each others medial needs. My daughter's spinal issue (which again, isn't that big of a deal) is going to require an MRI every six months to monitor until it either goes away or she's done growing at the age of like 22. Even with insurance that's $3,000 an MRI and I'm not about to do the math to see how much that will cost in until she's graduated and has her own insurance. Without provisions for pre-existing conditions there's a good chance she would never be able to get insurance or if she could it's going to be insanely expensive.

I'm not saying I have all the answers or even any answers. I just know that in a nation with this much wealth its ridiculous that anyone should have to go bankrupt because they needed medical care. How some people are cool with stockpiling tanks we don't need and nuclear weapons we hope to never use, but heaven forbid we pay for someone's liver transplant is beyond me. People's lives aren't just another line in the budget, whatever it takes to keep kids, mothers, fathers, brothers, aunts and uncles alive and healthy is money well spent.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now. My next post will be a Mario cartoon or something.

Disaster Links

Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower. It is hilarious to me that Apple hasn't updated the Mac Pro in a couple years. Do you have any idea how long a couple years is in PC computing power time? It's like dog years. I'd be surprised if the Mac Pro could even run Zork. If I was a musician or graphic designer who really really "needed" to run Mac OS you better believe I'd build my own. It's insane that they expect you to pay a premium for out of date hardware, but I guess that's the Apple way.

A Tech Bro Charged Thousands for an Island Getaway That Turned Into The Hunger Games. OMG you guys, have you been keeping up with the Fyre festival disaster? I know this story popped last Friday but it's been a busy few days. Long story short is the Fyre Festival was sold as "what if Coachella was in a tropical paradise and everyone there was super rich". Tickets went from a mildly unreasonable $1,200 to an absurd $250,000. Turns out the guys running the festival had no idea what they were doing, all the bands canceled and the people who went there expecting super luxury conditions got cheese sandwiches and disaster relief tents.

I Worked at Fyre Festival. It Was Always Going to Be a Disaster. “Let’s just do it and be legends, man." That's your money quote from some Fyre Festival exec who was told the event would cost 50 million to produce and STILL wouldn't live up to what was hyped. Then they fired almost everyone working on it. I'm assuming to save some cash for those cheese sandwiches. Seriously man, this first hand account of how poorly planned this festival was is amazeballs.

$100 Million Lawsuit Claims Fyre Festival Owners Knew It Was Doomed All Along. And here's your lawsuit! Looks like there's some evidence that the promoters actually told certain high end guests to stay away knowing was a shitshow everything was turning out to be. Of course they let all the other suckers fly out the to Bahamas anyway. The absolute best part about all of this is they're still planning on a Fyre Festival 2018. Good luck selling that amigos.

Star Wars THE LAST JEDI - Easter Eggs & Predictions

I've been so busy the last few weeks I'm not even sure I posted the trailer for The Last Jedi. So lets just skip that and go straight to this Easter Egg breakdown from The New Rockstars. There's definitely some good stuff in there that I missed the first dozen times I watched it. I'm not 100% sure their educated guesses to storyline points are more than guesses but hey, it's always fun to speculate. Plus my son watched this with me yesterday and said I need to put it on my blog. Not even sure he knows what a blog is yet but that was a fun Sunday,