Henry Imler September 17th, 2008

So far this semester I have turned in my second thesis chapter and gave my first lecture.  I did the former a few weeks ago; the latter this afternoon.  It went quite well.  Overall, I think I am pleased with how it went.  There was definitely enough material to work with as I had to cut out several parts¹ and shorten others.² I really had to cut short my description of the Acts of Philip and the Acts of Thomas’s depictions of the Jews as a religious other.  That I think is my largest self-criticism.  That was really important and I just did not give myself the time to explain it fully.  What should have taken 5-8 minutes had to be done in 2.  The other thing that I worry about is if I talked over their heads.  I had a hard time knowing what a freshman in college would get and not get.  I might post the audio of it online sometime – if I like what I hear.  I am trying to edit my notes into a post, or perhaps a post series.  We’ll see how that goes. 

Mega-Man 9 is a coming out soon!  I am pretty stoked about that one.  It is being released in a week in Japan and over here shortly after.³  The bosses are looking good, the art is looking good, and they even have a nostalgic press kit which features a game box as an NES cartridge. 

I really wanna try out The Force Unleashed.  Money is a bit tight right now,⁴ so dumping $60 on a game is a bit frivolous.  Man, I wish the 360 version had multiplayer on the 360.  I guess the 360 and the PS3 just can’t handle the three independent physics systems in the game over an Internet connection.  I wish there was a way you could revert to some old physics engine or something when you played online.  Oh well.  I could always go for the Wii version that has dueling saber battles.

What else is going on?  I hope to get more than 4 hours of sleep in a given night… Oh, that reminds me.  I am really looking forward to this weekend.  Meredith, Scott, Sarah, Alan, Patty, JR, and Amanda are coming down to Meredith’s parent’s house for the weekend.  We will just hang out.  That’s it.⁵  And I have a sermon I’ll be giving at Meredith’s dad’s church.  It should be a great time.

Ok, Meredith should be calling me soon, so I’ll end things here.  Oh, wait a tic.  I wonder what Shakespeare would say if he were alive today? (Thanks Digg)

1. such as the distinction between popular and official religion and how that impacts early Christian scholarship [↩]
2. such as a discussion of how we can reconstruct liturgical elements of early Xian practice from the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, such as the Acts of Thomas [↩]
3. I’m too lazy too look up the date [↩]
4. I get paid in the rears, so I won’t get paid for TA’ing until the end of this month for the first time since school got out last year [↩]
5. well, and grade quizzes and respond to paper drafts [↩]

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Henry Imler September 9th, 2008

Ok, so it’s because of magic that these cats can dare to challenge Supes; whatever, I’ll take a placeholder to try out his laser vision and ice breath.  If am looking for mindless fighting game, one that lets me use DC characters will get my vote.  I have no pretension that I am getting any kind of masterful story telling or canonriffic powers.  Sometimes I like to eat straight sugar.

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Henry Imler August 23rd, 2008

Two further things.

A. Star Wars: The Clone Wars was fun.  Really, really fun.  Don’t believe the naysayers.  Just go in expecting a good pilot episode for the new TV series and you will leave pleasantly surprised.  Tropic Thunder?  See here for an echo of my thoughts.

B. Star Wars the Force Unleashed is coming out soon.  Woot.  Woot.  and Hip, hip, hooray.

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Henry Imler August 14th, 2008

I might MMO…

Man, I can’t belive how emotional the Star Trek music is for me. It invokes the ideology of Star Trek, the utopian vision of humanity moreso than anything else.

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Henry Imler August 14th, 2008

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Henry Imler August 8th, 2008

Some linkage:

Olympic Comic Clips.  Hilarious.

The Comic Carnival.

Thor vs. Superman.  I think they underestimate Superman’s intelligence compared to Thor’s.

Shower Question of the Day: Jesus and Women. Do Biblical Complementarians ever use Jesus or just OT and later Pauline writings?

Wii will develop surgical skills from Ars Technica.   Wow.  I can has Jack skills?

Well, I’ll be blogged.  There is in existence a Mario Scarf Blog.

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Henry Imler August 1st, 2008

This is what I have done so far and I have had the game for two hours:

Achievements

Surf
Dodge 8 lines of enemies in Waves without firing a shot, or destroying any enemies.

15
Acquired 8/1/20088/1/2008

Millionaire
Score at least 1,000,000 points in all single player modes.

15
Acquired 8/1/20088/1/2008

Wax On
Rub your ship along all four arena walls in Pacifism.

15
Acquired 8/1/20088/1/2008

Unlocked All Modes
Unlock all game modes.

25
Acquired 8/1/20088/1/2008

Magpie
Collect 500 geoms in a single game.

15
Acquired 8/1/2008

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Henry Imler August 1st, 2008

Love.  It.

Pacifism is amazing. Check out this dude’s high score:

Brendan, Jake, Grant, Q, you must all get this game.

By the way, I waited until 4pm to get this after working since 7am.

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Henry Imler August 1st, 2008

Man, I wanna go home right now, buy, and then play this game.

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Henry Imler July 24th, 2008

Played Ticket to Ride on XBL with Jake - fun times, hope to get Dawn and Meredith on there as well.  Q, Grant?  We should do it sometime - or play Halo 3 campaign sometime as well.  Brendo - what are you playing?

Ultimate Spiderman 123 marks the return of Venom and I gotta say - it was a masterful telling of what has been going on with Eddie/Venom since he was defeated and disappeared all those issues ago.  It is here where that three panel shot took place - and, by the way, the way they did that was great.  I heart you Bendis; like a good lil’ comic reader.

Red Hulk?  One of the dumbest things I have ever read.  Best line besides the whole of this review? "I haven’t read Incredible Hulk in a while, because it was so Incredibly Bad."

Getting up at six tomorrow to squeeze in some work before I help the Parsons with their move and have my nice Jazz and Dark Knight date with Meredith tomorrow.

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Henry Imler July 14th, 2008

Subscribe to Netflix?  Subscribe to Xbox Live Gold?  If so, then you’ll be able to watch netflix movies instantly on your TV.  No need for hobbled together media center plugins or $100 set top boxes.

READ.

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Henry Imler June 23rd, 2008

Seriously, folks, does it get any better?

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Henry Imler June 16th, 2008

That’s right, the basic plot for Marvel’s sequel for the hit superhero RPG, Ultimate Alliance, will be based around the Civil War storyline. Gotta say I am pretty pumped.

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Henry Imler May 4th, 2008

No, this is not a post about the perils of media consumptions, just some spastic comments touching some of the media I have consumed recently.

Iron Man - Wow, great summer superhero movie.  The folks contributing to Rotten Tomatoes got it right, this one is a gem. From the effects to the story to the the dialog, everything was very well done.  I went with a large group of friends late Thursday night to see the opening.

JR, Jake, Grant, Q, Meredith, and others went with me.  Jake’s wife, Dawn, was too sick to go Thursday.  On Friday Meredith was out of town helping with a wedding shower, so I invited Jake and Dawn to go see it with me Friday.  Jake replied to my offer saying that Dawn was still sick and therefore could not make it.  So, I bought my lone ticket to the 10:45 showing thinking that it was better than sitting around preparing for the review session I am teaching Monday.  About 5 minutes later, I get an email from Jake saying that Dawn urged him to see the flick a second time.  And so we went and reveled in the glory that is Iron Man for a second time.  Afterwards, we got to thinking and happened upon a funny, yet sad fact: we entered into Friday watching Iron Man in the theater and we exited Friday watching Iron Man in the theater.

I appreciated all of the small tie ins to the comic.  From the mentioning of the ten rings to the War Machine plans in the credits, there were lots of little things to notice and look for in the sequel.  The final scene after the credits?  Perfect.  Although, if Fury is Samuel Jackson, then the suit is all wrong and Stark should have been bald and blue-skinned in his young pictures. (i.e. should have been Ultimate Iron Man to go with Ultimate Nick Fury)  However, anything is better than Baywatch Nick Fury.

Fear Agent - This campy, grisly space comic is well worth your while.  As my friend Jake says, it is a 1950’s space comic.  Buy this now.

Super Mario Galaxy - I bought this game with Christmas money.  I played it some over Christmas break and loved it.  After leaving it at my in-laws for 4 months, I am playing it every once and a while.  It is truly a great game in all respects, save one.  The graphics are gorgeous; the game play and storyline are imaginative and fresh (for a mario game).  The one problem is the boss battles, which are often repetitive and simple to beat.  Beyond that, however, the game is spectacular.

Mario Kart - Everything they say is true.  At once, the same is immaculate and ridiculous at the same time.  The new courses are beautiful.  The multiple control schemes allow for fun for everyone.  The only problem?  Item bloat.  The items are simply punishing.  You can go from 1st to 8th in a matter of seconds.  This is all fine and dandy when you are racing your friends, but when you are trying to unlock Daisy for you wife and all you need is to finish Rainbow Road in the top three, getting bombarded with a redshell, lightning, blue-shell and the pow block in a 10 second span on the last lap becomes rather irritating.  Group play?  Fan-tastick, with a k.

Justice League/ Justice League Unlimited - I watched this series the last couple of months while working on Greek or preparing to teach.  It follows the creation and exploits of DC Comics’ Justice League.  The first few seasons only deal with the 7 founding members (in this incarnation, anyway), Superman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawk Girl, and the Green Lantern.  In the last few seasons, they expand the universe to include all of the members of the Justice League.  Because of this, the last few seasons are great if you want little side stories on minor DC characters.  However, this also has the side effect of series loosing focus.  It is at its best when mantaining a cohesive storyline with the main seven characters.  Overall, it is worth watching on netflix, but not collecting the DVDs.

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Henry Imler April 29th, 2008

This video from GameSpot takes a look at the various incarnations of tracks and how they have chagned throughout the Mario Kart series. 

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Henry Imler April 11th, 2008

Anyone that i) is a Star Wars fan or ii) owns a game console has been looking forward to Star Wars, the Force Unleashed for some time. Basically you play as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, who is tasked with rooting out the remaining Jedi that survived Order 66.  It is being hyped as a murder-by-means-of-the-force fest, which is right up a whole lot of people’s alleys.  There are supposed to be three new physics engines being put to work in the game for the first time, allowing for some redic fighting.

The game will be released on the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii.  Some think that the Wii version will suck because of its lack horsepower under the hood.  My buddy Jake sent me this hands-on-preview of the game by IGN:  Hands-on Star Wars: Force Unleashed.

Check it out - the Wii version looks to be super fun and has the added bonus of saber dualing:

My buddy is going to get the Wii version and I am going to pick up the 360 version come this September.

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Henry Imler October 25th, 2007

Looks like Super Smash Brothers Brawl will allow you to send your friends replay footage.

This is shaping up to be such a great game! Between this and Mario
Kart for the Wii, no work will get done in our household in the 1st
quarter of 2008. Dishes will pile up, schools will expel, jobs will
fire, Meredith and I will get nothing done.

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Henry Imler October 21st, 2007

The Vortigaunts healing Alex Vance

I took a break from homework tonight to finish Half Life Two, Episode 2.

Spoilers to follow:

I make the trek from City 17 to the abandoned missel silo out in the middle of white forest, saving Alex from certain death along the way (I had to go down into the antlion caves to get an extract that the Vortigaunts used to bring her back to life.)

I not only clear the White Forrest Base from an Combine Infantry/Hunter invasion, but also repel twelve strider/hunter assaults (4 at a time at some points!) in order to protect the launch of a missile that would close the Combine’s portal to Earth. Driving around a gutted 1969 Dodge Charger chasing down the gigantic Striders being protected by the insanely difficult hunters before they reach the base and hoping out to take them down before jumping back into the car to find the next Strider was an exhilarating experience. Beats anything in Halo 3. Hands Down. Quintin Imler I am looking at you.

A Strider `rastles with Dog

An incredible adrenaline rush. The sense of triumph after repelling those intent on stopping humankind’s only chance at survival, and seeing the successful launch of the rocket containing humanity’s only

hope was as great of a rush as I have ever felt playing a video game.After all of this, Alex and I are about to head off to the Arctic to find a ship that contains some technology from Aperture Science, Inc. that might help end the Combine grip on Earth… or trigger an event worse than Black Mesa. Right as we are about to take off, two Advisors show up and attack, killing Alex’s father and Gordon’s mentor, Eli Vance. Luckily for Alex and Gordon, Dog shows up to chase them off.

The game fades to black with Alex holding her dead father in her arms sobbing.

Man. Most depressing end to a video game of all time. The highs juxtaposed with the lows - incredible effect.

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Henry Imler October 11th, 2007

I
have no sympathy for Bowser at all. Who in their right mind would
choose to fight on a bridge that is held up by an easily removable ax?
Now keep in mind that Bowser (King Koopa’s first name) is chillin’ in
his own castle, a huge fortress equiped with all kinds of defenses.

It is not as though Koopa is on his way to meet a Dr. Wiley for
lunch and Mario catches up with him on a creaky “indiana - Jones - and
- the - temple - of - doom - final - sequence” bridge. No, it is
Koopa’s battle pit, where he challenges his foes in some weird mortal
kombat event. What was he thinking when he approved the blueprints?
“Surely no one would ever think to hit the ax attached the to support
chains. Its just too obvious! I’ll hide my sole weakness in plain
sight!”

If I were Bowser, and assuming that I still wanted the Mortal Kombat
bridge of death thing going on, I would use either my endless supply of
hammers to wedge that ax in there good and tight, or use my amazing
fire breath to weld the whole apparatus together.

I blame Bowser’s stupidity rather than Mario Mario’s¹ pluckyness for his downfall.

^{Footnotes
1) His first name is Mario and he and his brother are known as the
Mario Brothers. So I am guessing his first name is the same as the last}

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Henry Imler April 5th, 2007

I finally was able to check out “Beyond the Red Line” this afternoon after section.

It is a total-conversion modification of the open source game,
Freespace 2. Installation is a breeze (one exe installer). I have only
played one training mission and it was enough too get me hooked. You
need some time to mess with the controls and possibly re-map them, but
hey, this should get me by until the mini-movie comes out.

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