This is our crazy dog, Luna.
Crazy Dog
All posts by mhuffman
Pokémon GO (Update)
So Pokémon Go just added the ability to add friends and allow for Pokémon trading… It’s been needed for a long time. There are some Pokémon we realize that we’ll never be able to collect — we’d have to be world travelers and do lots of raid battles to catch legendary Pokémon. What’s funny is that now I have enough Pokémon Go friends, but they’re scattered across the globe — meet through our interaction with the LEGO fan community.
The other exciting news is that Pokémon Go will interact with the new Pokémon Nintendo Switch game. It sounds very limited and a little lame, but I know I’m not the target audience…
The wife and I started watching season 16 or Pokémon XY. We about 2-3 generations of Pokémon ahead of PokéGo… so can’t wait until the game catches up to our viewing… to be honest, we’ve caught a few episodes of Pokémon Sun & Moon via Netflix in between bingeing on other shows…
Tokyo Godfathers
I have a new favorite holiday movie — Tokyo Godfathers. It’s a story Christmas in Tokyo, Japan, where three homeless 
friends: a young girl, a transvestite, and a middle-aged bum find an abandoned newborn. Then they go on a journey to return the baby to her mother and all sorts of wacky/strange/fortunate events happen to the trio. It was heart warming, despite the movie being about the more unfortunate in society. It wasn’t your typical Anime — the artwork was very realistic, with only brief periods of exaggeration. It’s very gritty, not your super polished magic-girl fluff.
If you haven’t checked it out, do so!
Pokémon GO
A few days ago, I wanted to post my status on Facebook as “So my evening conversation with my wife has become, ‘which Pokémon have you caught today?’.” Which is funny because it’s been so true…
I didn’t grow up on Pokémon. As a matter of fact, I didn’t start watching it until after college — I caught it on Cartoon Network as I was getting ready for work in the mornings… Don’t know which season, or where in the story line I started… And I barely remember the episodes I caught. I just remember that the show wasn’t bad, and I could see the appeal.
I’ve also never collected any of the cards. And I’ve never played any of the Pokémon video games, although I’m playing Pokémon GO… I’ve even got my wife playing it.
The game itself is pretty interesting. And having downloaded a few of the first episodes of Pokémon, it stays true to the story line. I did read an article saying that the game lacks the heart of the show — pfft, whatever. It’s about beating your opponent and building your Pokémon army, friendships are secondary, dude!
So if I had to look ahead 5 years, I’d think Niantic would create a convention, and at the convention, hold live gaming tournaments. Only people at the conventions could catch super-rare Pokémon and collect convention medals. And then, and only then… after about 5 of these happening, will this fad die out. Until then, Pikachu, I choose you!
What am I watching/reading?
I’ve pretty much stopped watching traditional TV — I DVR a few shows like Gotham or The Muppets, but don’t feel the need to watch them immediately. I’m thinking Game of Thrones might be the only show I’m looking forward to… Or the 2nd season of Daredevil. Mostly in the evenings, I’ve been watching Anime, like Dimension W, Assassination Classroom, Boku dake ga Inai Machi (ERASED), Musaigen no Phantom World, and Dagashi Kashi… I have to say, ERASED has been my favorite, followed by Dimension W.
I’ve got a few books that I should finish, but I’m not finding the motivation to. I read the occasional graphic novel… My comic pull consists of Swamp Thing, Saga, Astrocity, James Bond, Sandman Overture, , and the occasional book by Alan Moore.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Over the weekend, I watched Mad Max: Fury Road, but not before rewatching Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. 🙂 I had forgotten some bits and pieces about Thunderdome, but not that basic plot… after awhile, it felt like watching a movie from the 80’s… seemed slower paced, not as much computer CGI, etc. Fury Road felt like the CGI was a little over the top, with some parts just going against the laws of physics. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the post-apocalyptic mythology.
I spotted an article on Boing Boing, called: “Fury Road, hieroglyph edition” And fell in love with the artwork. It’s a good recap of the movie, you begin to understand what the images mean after seeing the movie.
I don’t know if it’s tongue-in-cheek, but Boing Boing had posted several articles on Fury Road since the movie first came out… from the flame throwing guitar, to the edible spray-on silver paint, to the strong feminist overtones… all in praise of the movie. Personally, I thought the movie was good, but a little hard to swallow at times.
But I think it was the mythology I most enjoyed… from the devout fanatical devotion of the half-life War Boys, to the wanting to maintain genetic purity of the line, survival after hope is dead, the iconography of different tribes of survivors, iconography of the different war machines, the iconography of the chastity belts, etc. There’s probably symbolism behind the 5 wifes that I’ve missed… I’m sure there’s more symbolism in this movie that I missed as compared to Thunderdome, that made Fury Road stand out more.
For the most part, Fury Road was predictable… even the bit about the “Green Place” — it was like learning that Captain Walker didn’t return all over again. You knew it was coming. Didn’t mean the movie wasn’t enjoyable… I think I enjoyed Fury Road more than Thunderdome, but if I had to grade it, it’s a solid: B-
No Game No Life
Finished another anime called No Game No Life. I like it because it’s smartly written and there’s many layers to the story. For instance, “__” or Blank is the names of urban legend characters in the video gaming world — they are undefeated. The two main characters in the story, the brother and sister team, Shiro and Sora, are those characters IRL. However, if you combined their name in Japanese, if forms the word “Blank”. The strength of the two main story characters comes from combining their talents, and their absolute trust in one-another.
The story itself is set in an imaginary world, inhabited by 16 races and where conflict is resolved by games, and the set of 10 “gaming” rules that govern conflict resolution. Shiro and Sora are forced into this world, where they set out to win against “Tet”, the god-like being that pull them into this new imaginary world. And along the way, we learn about game theory, Japanese bathing culture, creepy brother/sister relationship (toned down for the TV show, I understand), and strength coming from weakness. For the few outlandish and “anime” moments it has, there’s a intelligence and well thought out strategies behind every game the main characters take on. The only disappointment about the series, is that it’s too short and leave you wanting the story to continue.
Minecraft
I’ve been playing Minecraft for a few years now, mostly in survival mode. Because I’m a fan of LEGO, most of the time, I collect resources so I can build stuff… safe houses, castles, etc. And the virtual creations do help with physical creations in LEGO, although I’m more limited in the physical.
A while back, I started a blog where I posted screen shots from the game and some of the creations, called The King’s Road. The idea was, I’d adventure around, building garrisons or forts and connect them all back to a central castle by a road; written from the perspective of the adventurer doing the work. And I’d post some of the wonderful terrains that the game generates, or the things I build along the way… Nothing too elaborate or flashy, since with almost every major upgrade, I tend to start all over again with a new world; I seem to never find the time to do something as elaborate as build a full scale Enterprise ship or Kings’ Landing. I respect the people who can have the time and ability to coordinate such builds.
Ore Monogatari!!
For a few weeks, I had been reading articles from an Anime blog about an anime called, “Ore Monogatari!!” My first impression was, ok, I get it… a misunderstood giant high-schooler falls in love with a cute petite girl and their awkward, inexperience relationship. Figured I’d watch the first episode to see what the blog was raving about and write it off as silly and unwatchable. To my surprise, I’ve actually enjoy the show…
After watching enough animes, the whole awkward, shy teenager and the easily misreading of the situation thing is very cliche. Once you get past that, there’s a very tender hearted story there, within the relationships of the characters. The relationship between the two main characters, Takeo and Yamato, is very syrupy, but there’s a innocent sweetness to it, like all young love. Between Takeo’s giant ogre-like, larger-than-life, socially awkward qualities and his handsome, stoic-like, super-popular friend Sunakawa, there’s a genuine friendship.
This anime is my guilty pleasure. I like the slice-of-life elements to it. And I like the small glimpses into the back-stories — I like stories with multiple layers.
MineCon 2013
So after sharing photos from Tampa Bay ComicCon the other day, I figured I share another geek-achievements. Back in 2013, a friend of mine and I decided to pick up tickets for MineCon. Until then, we had been playing on a server he set up — occasionally play as a team with friends, or just alone when we had time… Survival of course. I mainly focused on building, while he focused on exploring.
Anyway, I got talked into volunteering for MineCon, where basically I wore a shirt and did line/crowd control for a vendor booth. Not grueling work, but it did teach me how unorganized the convention was. Now keep in mind, I’ve volunteer/helped organize a few LEGO conventions in the past; although not nearly the attendance nor size of MineCon. In the end, volunteering was more of an excuse to meet the people of Mojang up close and personal. Some guys from the Mojang team were friendly enough & thanked everyone for their hard work, but they weren’t as popular as Notch or Jeb.
I even got to see Notch as he made his way through the crowd of volunteers. He briefly stopped to talk to a few families, then was whisked away quickly.
So this plugin I’m using only displays 20 pictures in its free state. If you want to see the rest of my Flickr album of pictures, it’s here: 2013.11 – MineCon
