Driving home with my daughter the other day I was “forced” to listen to 101.5, her current favorite radio station. I really don’t listen to the radio anymore (not since getting my first MP3 player in 2002 and then switching to the iPod in 2006 and discovering podcasts) but she’s at that tweener stage where listening to …
After seeing “Cars 2” last summer, I lamented that it lacked the depth, imagination, and emotion I have come to expect from Pixar’s films. I wondered at the time if their next film would re-capture that spirit It has. “Brave” is amazing to look at, the story is entertaining, and the characters aren’t toys, cars, …
The film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” has now spent three consecutive weeks at #1 and this past Easter weekend I finally took my daughter to see it. She had wanted to see it immediately on opening weekend (like a lot of her friends did), but the PG-13 rating concerned me and I …
Continue reading ‘The odds are apparently in favor of “The Hunger Games”’ »
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that …
If you owned a personal computer in the 80s and played computer games, you probably played at least one Infocom text-based adventure game like Zork or (my personal favorite) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Known as interactive fiction, or IF, these games used the most powerful computers on the planet for their processing engines …
Continue reading ‘Creating interactive fiction with Inform 7’ »
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. …
Six months ago I got my daughter a refurbished 2nd generation Amazon Kindle from woot! and she has been inseparable from it. Thus, it was a distressing day for her this past Thanksgiving weekend when she turned it on and found just a series of black lines on the screen. None of the reset methods …
We got up early this morning to take advantage of the early (8am) opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Islands of Adventure for hotel guests. Of course almost every other hotel guest was doing the same thing, but since there are only a few Universal hotels, the crowd was still manageable.
The last time I’d been to Universal Studios was in 1999, right after Islands of Adventure and CityWalk had opened (almost 12 years ago!) so I was really looking forward to our visit today.
Twenty-five years ago (Aug. 17, 1986), “Luxo, Jr.,” a short depicting the misadventures of a rambunctious little desk lamp and his weary father, premiered in Dallas and did something no computer-animated film had done before: It made audiences laugh. The first film from Steve Jobs’ newly formed company Pixar and the second from director John …