good sunday off got up and went to the bluegrass brunch buffet at The Mill and enjoyed some bluegrass standards, then headed out to West Liberty for the EulengSpiegel Puppet theatre’s performance of Cinderella. Pretty neat to see the Arizona Puppet theatre perfom the piece and it was at the New Strand which if your a regular reader here, you know I like that cinema alot. Just had really good Mexican food at Delicas de la mar? in West Liberty, Yummy. Full belly, nice weather time for a nap..good night.

Nintendo’s Brain Age for the Ds is doing exactly what the DS set out to do. Draw in Non gamers. For those non gamers out there DS stands for Dual Screen and it could possibly be my favorite system of all time. I have about 15 games for it all ready and have only traded in two that sucked so far(madden and Snood). Basically Brain Age is a quick five minutes a day test. It can be anything from reading out loud to doing multiplication. The goal? to make your brain younger. and I got to say, my brain right now could use some work. For only 19.99 you should give it a try. Theres no guns in this game, no swords, and no girls! but it’s definetly a new innovative way to think about gaming. That’s right, think, gaming, same sentence. I love the new Nintendo, it has made me forget there is no Sega system to dream about anymore, made me excited to watch the release lists again.

That’s right Variety is reporting that Paramount has signed JJ Abrams (creator of Alias, And Lost and director of the upcoming Mission Impossible 3) to write and direct Star Trek 11 for a 2008 release date. This news came completely out of nowhere, and if was anyone but Variety I would think it was fake but that is Hollywood’s trade paper, they don’t do fake news. I got very excited when i saw the headline and then felt my stomach tighten badly when I saw the premise. A young kirk and spock? No come on you can do better than that. I hate the latest Star Wars movies for one thing in particular. They started this whole prequel crap. I want a story to move forward not tell me the past of people I already know. Can you hear the fanboy bickering beggining as soon as they cast young kirk and young spock? How will anyone accept a new Shatner? And even with that bad feeling in my mouth I’m still kinda excited. You see Star Trek had been left for dead and to get this kind of talent behind a new motion picture is a step in the right direction and a vote of confidence from Paramount themselves for the viability of new Trek. When was the last time Star Trek had a creative person like Abrams working on it? Maybe back when Nicolas Meyer made the Wrath of Khan. And the article doesn’t mention Rick Berman at all, who has held the reins of Trek for too long. I think he should receive praise for his work on TNG and DS9 but as early as the second season of Voyager you could tell he was burnt out on ideas, and yet he stayed with the franchise for 10 more seasons and two more movies. Which led to mediorce storytelling. So yeah Im excited even if I’m not exactly thrilled, more Trek to me is like ice cream on a summer day, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the green light stays on, and that we won’t have to wait past 2008 for another adventure. Until then maybe Lost is a holodeck?

Nova # 1 (annihilation miniseries) O.k. so if you read Nova comics in the 70’s or like me out of quarter bins in the 80’s and then followed him to the the New Warriors, you know the man can be both a great hero or a pretty hokey lousy one. All depending on one thing. The writer. The costume can’t fail. It’s simple looks great and really plays well in space. But along Nova’s long journey as a Marvel B-hero he’s done alot of awesome stuff, and a lot of really hokey drug induced badly dialogued stuff. Annihilation may very well redeem this characther to the point that he will move back into the Marvel universe where the rest of his Warriors teamates will soon bite the dust. A truly enjoyable space read by Abnett and Lanning.. A plus. and bonus props to Andy Schmidt. What a wonderful coloring job. Loved the snow.

New Avengers 18. Eh. I can’t get past Deodato’s artwork. I’m sorry. I liked his run on Hulk but it doesn’t work for this book. At times it’s distracting and it just doesn’t fit with Bendis’s dialogue. If he is the regular artist on this book after Civil War, I may very well stop buying it. It’s just so… CrossGen. and for those of you who don’t know, that’s a bad thing.

Now reading. Going to start Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler tonight. Now playing Star Fox 64.(for the 100th time i think). What fun it is to be me.

So You TUbe is quickly becoming a site I am going to way too much but it’s really neat, Today someone linked me to an episode of Ricky Gervais extras starring Patrick Stewart and it’s hilarious. The Office was a brave new step for television comedy and I can’t wait to see more of the Extra shows once they come to DVD here in the states. Anyway if you want to laugh at Patrick Stewart being a perverted old man here you go

So last night a tornado or a series of tornado’s came through iowa city. About two blocks from our house which luckily is fine, is a row of houses that i don’t think anyone we be living in again. We went walking downtown after the storm and of course thousands of college kids were out wandering around as well. downtown suffered some damage as well and it will be interesting to see which buildings will have to be torn down. Luckily as bad as it was no deaths have been reported and we got our power back late this morning. Now I just have to figure out how to navigate the closed streets to work today. I feel lucky again but also very sad for everyone who lost something in this storm. I am glad everyone is o.k. and thats what is really important.

Only picked up Loveless # 6 today at the comic store. Still loving it. This issue focused soley on Atticus and gave him some much needed background. Lost tonight. last new episode till may. Also been watching steven spielbergs miniseries Taken on dvd. it’s very high quality surprised I was never interested in it before. Just goes to show no matter how big of a geek you are you can’t catch all the good stuff.
Playing Chaos Field (gamecube) and Mario Kart (online on the ds). holding my breath for the ps3 price announcement and whether i will be able to afford one this decade and can’t wait to buy a revolution this fall. About halfway through reading the kite runner. It’s a doozy and a very very good novel. The new Rainer Maria has me singing now. and that’s a wonderful thing.

Finally got the new Rainer Maria album Catastrophe Keeps Us Together. It’s very good I just wished Kyle would sing again. Oh well.
What to have for dinner? What are you having?

Ok fellow blogger and gamer el moco posted scans of next months game informer with the very first nintendo revolution screens for Ubi Softs Red Steel. As you can tell from the screen you will hold your gun out with the revolution controller and can turn it ghetto style to shoot if you so wish. All the talk about how the revolution’s graphics wont hold up to Xbox 360’s can probably be silenced now. I mean doesn’t this look good enough to your everyday gamer? How good does it need to look? I’m sorry Microsoft, I think your flawed, still not shipping enough units machine just got pawned by Nintendo. And you know what? Sony’s PS3 is just around the corner too. Go back to breaking computers with Windows. Yeah I’ve become a Nintendo fanboy, but hey the DS was a step in the right direction for gaming, please bring on the Revolution.

yep. it’s starting to warm up. for most of you , my friends to the south, it’s already warm, but here the skies are just now turning into thunderstorms, ushering in the new weather. I’m ready to go exploring, to see what the small towns of Iowa say to me, what they want to teach me about life here. It’s time for another adventure. Any chance I get to explore, and to see something unique. I’ve been thinking about how winter can collapse around us, keep us huddled inside watching movies and drinking hot chocolate, and sure that’s nice too, but my feet were made for walking sidewalks, and their ready to make fresh paths. to meet the world.