Amy Acker is a Person of Interest @DragonCon2014

I have an irrational love of the show Person of Interest. The main character is basically Batman with guns. How can you not love that premise?

Whedon Guests of @DragonCon, 2014

Bringing Harry Dresden to life, @DragonCon

Remember when I mentioned that The Dresden Files was a tv show?

Paul Blackthorn, currently on Arrow, played Dresden in the TV show. I think Jim Butcher did an admirable job of not going postal.

If you're wondering what I'm talking about, you can refer to previous DragonCon reports, and listen to some of his hesitancy when answering questions about the show itself below.

@DragonCon, 2014: An Hour with Jim Butcher

It's fun listening to author Jim Butcher, if only to hear someone else be such a nerd.

Butcher is the author of The Dresden Files novels.  There was, briefly, a tv show that ... ended badly.

Adam Baldwin @DragonCon 2014

I'm back from DragonCon.  My usual, typed reports will probably be taking a backseat to videos this year. Some of which I recorded personally. However, to start with, I'm found better video taken from other people.

First up, Adam Baldwin, actor, no relation to the Baldwin brothers.

I enjoy just listening to this guy.  The actor who usually plays thugs and tough guys is actually a lot more interesting in real life. Enjoy

More Music to write to: Tarja Turunen

This is sung by former Nightwish lead singer Tarja Turunen. I'm not sure I'm crazy about the song, Where were you last night? but I can write to it easily enough. But the video is shiny, and I have obviously run out of things to blog about lately.

And DragonCon is later

Photos from the Catholic Writers Guild Conference.

There is a lot -- and I mean a LOT -- of photos from the Catholic Media Network conference. You can find them on my Facebook page. But if you aren't a fan of The Pius Trilogy on Facebook, you haven't seen them.

Now you can.

In the beginning, there were Catholic Teddy Bears. Lots of Teddy Bears.

Gone to DragonCon: will be back next week.

The title says it all.

I don't have a sign that says "Gone fishing."

Sadly, I don't have a sign called "Gone fission," because I may need that one.

Starting next week, we'll have videos and reports from DragonCon, including Peter David, David Weber, Jim Butcher, Gene Wolfe, and the ever-present John Ringo.

Also, with Ron Glass, Jeri Ryan, and Adam Baldwin.

It's been a LOOONNGGG weekend. See you all next week. Hope you had a good Labor day.a

PG-13 Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

There will be spoilers, but nothing that you couldn't have figured out from the trailers.

Since everyone in the universe has already seen Guardians of the Galaxy, I figure I would throw my two cents in. After all, I saw it over a week ago now, and I still haven't joined the masses on the subject. Besides, I had nothing else to blog about today.

My thoughts?

Is "Bat-shit insane" two words or three?

From an opening credit that has our lead dancing through an abandoned Temple of Doom set singing along to 80s music while kicking away vicious rats with an attitude problem, all the way to a climactic standoff with a bad guy that even had the bad guy going "What are you doing?" this was a roller coaster of demented from start to finish. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I hear Moulin Rouge won a few academy awards for their purely warped film.

Let's look at our roster of strangeness, even though that was one of the few things the credits conveyed in their The Usual Suspects-style commercials.

Peter "Starlord" Quill (Chris Pratt) was an alien abductee who was pretty much adopted by the abductors known as the Ravagers, almost immediately after his mother died of cancer ... well, that's timing. In the comics, the abductors murdered his mother during the course of his kidnapping, but they needed the Ravagers in the movie to be cavalry-ish, so they couldn't be too evil. In fact, considering that the Ravagers all have Southern accents, it almost felt like it was Duck Dynasty to the rescue. Sort of.  It's a long, strange story.

When the film opens, Quill has decided to betray the Ravagers by getting to the McGuffin device before the Ravagers can.

Anyway, we have Gamora, played by the wide-eyed Zoe Saldana. Yes, there's some chemistry, though she's not really the love interest in this one; but since they're getting a sequel, director James Gunn probably figured that they could stretch it out a bit, which I'm fine with. Gamora is the adoptive daughter of Thanos (big, stoney and purple from the end of The Avengers), modified to wreak havoc at his command. She's been loaned out to an alien terrorist called Ronan the Accuser, in exchange for the McGuffin.

Gamora sees the McGuffin device as her way far, far away from Thanos, who has earned his title of "The Mad Titan." So she's after Quill.

The .... let's call them Mercenaries ... Rocket Raccoon and Groot (walking tree) spot Quill when he goes to cash in on the McGuffin, and sees that the Ravagers have posted a bounty on his head.

When the four of them get together, the ensuing chase / fight is actually very well done. It goes back and forth like a tennis match gone awry. It's everybody versus everybody else, and it's like trying to get leverage on Gumbi.

Then the police arrive and throw everyone in the prison from Face / Off. No, I'm not kidding. It feels like they even took the set.

In jail, they run into Drax the Destroyer. Drax's entire family was murdered by Ronan, and Gamora was working for Ronan. This will not end well. Quill talks Drax down by suggesting that Gamora be used as bait.

If I say that there's a breakout, will anyone see that as a spoiler?

Anyway. Our five-some takes the McGuffin to Gamora's fence, known as the Collector (post-credits on Thor: The Dark World), who explains that the McGuffin is one of the Infinity Gems. Previous Infinity Gems include the Tesseract / Cosmic Cube from Captain America and The Avengers, the Aether from Thor 2, and probably the gem at the end of the spear of fate (The Avengers). This is #4. There are six of them scattered throughout the galaxy. Any one of them individually can wreak havoc.

But Ronan wants the gem, and our protagonists have it.   Hilarity ensues.

I must compliment James Gunn for introducing the insanity that is the Marvel cosmic universe to a mainstream audience. Let's face it, it's a big job. He has to set up five characters, set up the universe, all the while telling a story that will explain the endgame of the Marvel franchise.  Yes, endgame.  Trust me, Thanos is going to be the bad guy for The Avengers Three, probably subtitled The Infinity War. While strange, GotG is going to be necessary for the final product of the overall story arc.

Ronan, in the comics

Are there problems? Yes. Sure. Our adversary, Ronan the Accuser, isn't very colorful. Loki has some depth of character. Ronan is "a terrorist." He's too "traditional," without explaining what the traditions are. Is he someone who wants the return of the Persian Empire, or just wear funny hats? And he's described as a Kree, and at war with the Nova Corps and the people of Xandar ... but the Kree in the comics were at war with the Skrulls. In fact, the Accusers were essentially Judges from the Judge Dredd universe, and he was The Accuser because he was their Police Commissioner.  So, yes, I'd nitpick that Ronan in the comics had become more of a good guy, and had been part of a major war against something called "The Cancerverse," but I don't think anyone cares. He could have used a bit more fleshing out.

Anyway, what else? I suspect there are deleted scenes from the film. Mainly because they hired Karen Gillan of Doctor Who, and barely used her. Gillan plays Nebula, another daughter of Thanos. I expected a knockdown dragout with Gamora, but their battle felt truncated, and I suspect that there's stuff that ended on the cutting room floor.In fact, Nebula seems to only be there so she shows up in Avengers 3 (see above). Also, I wanted some more explanation here and there. For example .... who hired the Ravagers in the first place to find the McGuffin? There's a fence who hired them, yes, but who was it going to? We never knew.

But, overall, James Gunn had to put together the Avengers in space, with none of the backstory, previous movies, or large established fan base, and he did a fantastic job of it in less time than the Avengers did. I've only seen it once, so I may have to watch it a few more times before I decide whether or not there's anything beneath the strange.

But it's a summer movie. Yes, it's not as intellectually deep as Captain America, but there are more moving parts, and probably more going on in the background. Also, it's very meta.  It makes fun of itself, using standard movie tropes, then poking fun at it.  For example, that scene when they decide that yes, we're going to make a stand against the bad guys! Yes, we're going to go out fighting! I'm going to stand with you! (Then literally stand). Then they poke fun at that as they're doing it.

Also -- George Lucas, your special effects suck. You writing sucks. Your directing sucks. Why? BECAUSE YOU GOT OWNED BY A RACCOON. THAT'S WHY.

Yes, time for the acting critique.

The acting was quite good. It was the best acting gig Vin Diesel ever had (insert "he's very wooden" joke here); and they did a good job with someone who had only four words in the entire movie. Yes. Four. Bradley Cooper as Rocket was surprisingly touching at times, which means he's been allowed more acting range in this film than in every other movie combined.

Peter Quill was ... well, if Mal Reynolds had a personality, he'd probably be Peter Quill. Or Nathan Fillion.

Zoe Saldana didn't have a great acting range in this film, but then again, she doesn't need it on her resume, she held Columbiana together with both hands.

However, her stunt fighting was fun. Don't mess with Uhura in the next Star Trek film.

The surprise performance in this one was actually from Dave Bautista as Drax. Drax had emotional depth, the best one-liners in the film, and was a deeply, deeply damaged fellow.

This is more acting in one film than Mr. Bautista was allowed in all his years in wrestling.  (Yes, I sort of follow wrestling. And it's only "fake" if you plan to hit someone with a metal chair "just so," in such a way as you're not making them a rutabaga.)

In short, I liked it.

Gun shop visit

Margot St. Aubin.

While I was in Chicago, I was offered a visit to a gun range by fellow Catholic blogger, Margot St. Aubin.  She had read the Pius trilogy thus far and could see that I wasn't exactly up on guns.

And by that I means I've never seen one off of a cop, and never held one. Welcome to New York City. Screw you, Bloomberg.

Anyway....

So, she offered me a range visit while I was in the area.

I walked in to the gun range, and explained the situation. When I said I was I New Yorker, I used the cop line from above.

Off of that visit .... well, one suggestion for writers: First of all, assume that there are no clips. They are magazines. Period. Few guns actually use clips.

Second, I didn't take any pictures because, really, I'm an idiot. Actually, I'm still not used to the concept of my phone as a tool to document every last event in my life.

Springfield, XD, 9mm. The model I used at the range

Upon my arrival, the store owner was pleasant. He went over the rules of gun safety, most of which I knew. He then went over the gun's operation, some of which I knew. I never really knew what to do with my thumbs when firing, now I know that they go over one side.

I knew about avoiding slide bite (when gripping the gun, make sure the slide doesn't take off skin between your thumb and forefinger).

Squeeze, don't pull.  I always knew this rule, just didn't really know how to apply it. Even after firing off some rounds, I'm still not 100% I do.

Don't point at anything you don't intend to shoot at / act like it's loaded all the time... again, I picked that up from many, many thrillers where guns come into play.

What I didn't know were the rules of the individual range. I knew that the slide locked back when the gun was empty, though I didn't know there was a little switch? Button? on the side that slid it back into position after it was reloaded, and automatically filling the chamber.

My stance was a simple weaver stance. Feet are diagonal, gun is cupped in both hands, elbows are not locked out ...

Basically, I learned the stance by watching Jack Bauer on 24.

I started out relatively close, only a quarter of the range, then I moved it halfway down range.  I fired 21 rounds, all but 3 landing within the 10 ring (well, I think). When one of the employees saw it, I think the word he used was "fantastic."  Or was that the hotel employee who saw me bringing it inside the hotel?  I'm not sure. There were a few compliments from complete and total strangers.

Either way, we've got photos.

Some observations.

Brass goes EVERYWHERE.  And I mean EVERYWHERE. The casing ejected over my shoulder, around my body, directly onto the floor, bouncing off the stall I was in, rolling as far as 8 feet away, easily.  I understand why not every killer polices their brass. It's hard work. And I was standing still. Imagine if it were a running shootout. Oy.

Firing a gun is a lot easier than I thought. Then again, the Springfield that I was using was very easy to operate.  It's not quite point and click, but it's close.  The grip safety is nothing. It's a button at the back of the pistol grip, just under where it meets the rest of the gun, where the webbing between thumb and index finger wrap around the gun.  From what I can tell, the hardest part was putting the bullets into the magazine. Step one, the broad flat part of the bullet goes into the narrow part of the magazine. The pointy-er bit goes towards the open end.  And after the first ten bullets, the spring inside the magazine starts to fight back.

Damn, that thing's light. As in toy gun light. The gun owner stripped the barrel off for me and let me hold the frame. The frame is comparable with a squirt gun.  The bullets will double the weight. Just over a dozen pill-sized pellets of doom will double the weight. Imagine it. It's strange.

Come to think of it, I think a super soaker, empty, is heavier than an actual gun.  Okay, it's been years since I've even seen a super soaker, but you get the idea.

I always heard that the magazine ejection button was behind the trigger, but it's actually on the side of the gun behind the trigger guard.

After firing, there was no smell that I really picked up on.  None. Seriously, none. There were three other people firing guns in that range at the same time, and I didn't really pick up on any major scent. I expected a smell akin to a fireworks display.  But, apparently, expanded cordite doesn't exist anymore. At all. So, just pretend it doesn't exist. I made reference to it in A Pius Man, but thankfully, I didn't say where the explosive came from, just that it smelled like a fireworks display.  Granted, I said it smelled like Cordite, but I might be able to bluff through if I'm called on it.

There are pink AR-15s. Really. It was strange, because I could ID it by sight, despite the pink. I may have been looking at guns too long.

It's official. Guns are not that scary. Also, I may need to rewrite some scenes in future novels.

Thanks once more to Margot for bringing me along. It was awesome.