Chill Bloggity Thing 12/5/15: The Weather is Frightful but Yay Holiday Season!

The onset of Winter is here, the fog is in play and did I mention I hate cold weather? Oh well, time to get sparked back up as now that I’ve started to adjust to the cold I can get back into things again. Yes cold weather and me do not get along which slows down everything else in my life, I swear every year this happens but oh well I’ll get through it. I need to catch up on writing, reading, and many things. The Thanksgiving Holiday and whatnot threw me off too, so colder weather and Thanksgiving totally threw me off. I’ve been in the midst of researching a few things though too, so my brain has totally been all over the place. This is life with Wesley. You all should prepare yourselves now for a scatterbrained to hell Chill Bloggity Thing.

I’ve been tweaking with my habitica for one thing mostly because of the fact that cold weather and me equals slow down time. It really makes me feel so sluggish and that sucks but I’m still keeping up with my habitica tasks for the most part. I even saw the pain fuel that is the TMNT Christmas special though, maybe I’ll write about that at some point soon. Or not, really I don’t think I should put anyone through that outside of it was really bad, so many levels of bad. Not even sure if it is good bad, it is just boring bad with no budget. At least the Star Wars Holiday Special is oddly entertaining and there’s some kind of budget involved. If you decide to watch the TMNT Christmas well it’ll make the Star Wars Holiday Special look like a four star masterpiece.

Now as for tonight, I’m thinking Batman: Endgame is in order as I got that to read. My library decided to have all of the hold titles come at me right at once. So yeah, time to play reading catch up tonight. It’ll spark my writing mind a bit anyway as seriously, Winter weather sucks and it is still technically Fall. Oh well, I make it through as I do every wacky zany Winter. So I shall end it here as I don’t have that much to say at the moment. Though my twitter has definitely been a good focus for me at points. Still can’t believe I’m almost at 2,500 followers there. That is crazy.

Take care everyone and I shall be back tomorrow as I’m making a point to get my writing groove back in action!

Hoopla: The Amazing Digital App for Libraries

 

As I use my local library more and more, I start exploring all it has to offer. I decided to take a look at Hoopla, a digital service that many libraries across the US use. It’s a way for members to use their library card to read books, listen to music, watch movies and TV shows, and it is entirely free. Now not all libraries are part of Hoopla but there is a pretty good chance that your local library is part of the program. While this isn’t perfect, wow it is a slick program that I adore and even better, it is totally free to use as long as you have a library card. I’ll explain more as we go on but I definitely say this, despite the minor glitches here and there, I love this program to pieces so far.

Best part of Hoopla is you can either use your computer or even your mobile device of choice to access the app. All the features are there either on the computer or on the app. In full admission I’ve only been checking out comics on it so I’ll be looking at that for now. On the PC it pretty much works like Comixology for the most part for reading comics. Now for the phone, it’s dead on Comixology for reading on the phone. Though one quirk on reading comics on Hoopla on your smart phone, double page spreads don’t work so well. On Comixology for a spread you can tilt it to the side with no interruptions in reading. On Hoopla, it can cause a glitch at times when you tilt the phone to the side to read a double page spread. Solution to this is to zoom in the spread as you read it rather than tilt it to the tide. A little quirky but it works in a pinch and doesn’t distract from the read at all, at least for me anyway.

The only drawback to Hoopla is the fact that you can only check out ten things at a time per month. That goes for movies, TV, and everything on there. That’s not too bad. So you don’t get an unlimited amount of streaming and whatnot but for free, that’s not too shabby at all. I’ll have to try out the streaming and so forth next month but so far I like what I see out of Hoopla and I’m not complaining too much about free anything.

If your local library carries Hoopla, try it out. You can download the app off of the Google Play and iOS stores and you can go to Hoopla’s website to register too. Enjoy the adventure and free digital reading, watching, and listening thanks to your local library.

The GWL Wrestling Chat: The Aftermath of Survivor Series for the WWE

I don’t currently subscribe to the WWE Network as I’ve decided to wait until Wrestlemania season to get back into it. I was tempted for Survivor Series thanks to the tournament but when I saw Roman Reigns in the mix, I took it to the inevitable conclusion. As the WWE main event scene is depleted between John Cena on a break, Rusev injured, Randy Orton is out, Seth Rollins is out, and it’s not a fun time in WWE land right now. Yet with Roman Reigns being set to win the championship, a certain Money in the Bank winner was waiting in the wings. Sheamus was still in the picture somewhere and while Roman won the championship, Sheamus cashed in and is now our WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Wow was my only reaction in reading the tweets I saw on twitter. We live in strange times in WWE Land to say the least.

The next few months at least for the WWE are setting up Roman Reigns going after Sheamus for the belt. Unless the WWE comes up with something compelling to keep people interested, WWE ratings are going to be brutal in the coming months. Now of course Wrestlemania season is going to get people back, it always perks up interest in the WWE product in one way or another. Yet this could be tough as while people have been reacting better to Roman Reigns, he’s still not exactly universally accepted. At least he is getting reactions and Sheamus might be a good foil for him. I really wouldn’t be surprised though if the ratings take a massive hurting if John Cena takes the belt once more. Rules of the WWE if the ratings take a hit, do the ultimate Final Fantasy Summon and have John Cena to win the championship. Really wouldn’t surprise me to see John Cena as champ but with the WWE nothing shocks me.

The ratings still aren’t brilliant and I’m not exactly sure what a Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns feud is going to do for them. Unless they step up their game with the people they have to surround Sheamus and Roman Reigns, the next few months are going to hurt. As the people who aren’t watching or aren’t watching regularly are going to have to hear positive things before they give the WWE another go. With Twitter and so forth, it doesn’t take long to hear people talking about something awesome that’ll get them to check it out. It is why lately while I’ve been keeping tabs on WWE, I’ve been watching infrequently. I watch Gotham, Supergirl, and other shows on Monday Nights and check out WWE Raw later on. It’s not as high on my priority list at the moment. It is starting to happen with more and more viewers too as noted by the ratings.

Now we’ll see how WWE Raw does tonight in the aftermath of Survivor Series and what comes of it. If it creates new interest in watching WWE Raw then I say well done WWE and it won’t bother me to be wrong at all. We’ll see how this plays out for WWE and I will be keeping an eye on the ratings for sure. Thanks for checking out my occasional forays into Wrestling conversation. I just had some stuff pop into my head and wanted to write it down. Take care everyone.

Chill Bloggity Thing for 11/21/15: Processing Doctor Who and Yay Batman!

Well I did get to see Doctor Who tonight, and dang that was a powerful episode. I won’t say much but looking forward to talking about it more in a few days once things dial down and more people have had a change to see it. I don’t want anyone else to get as mega spoiled as I did on the episode. It was good and now I can’t wait for the second part, this is going to be one brutal wait. Yet I think it’ll be worth all the wait as Peter Capaldi has been amazing this season and I can’t wait to see where he takes the Doctor next with his performance. I’m strangely excited now.

If you’re wondering why the Yay Batman, well there’s a good reason for it. My local library just got in Batman: Endgame! I’m so excited to finally read that entire story. I read Batman in trade so I wait forever but I get the full story so it works for me to wait awhile. I wish DC was a little quicker with trades but I can deal with the wait as my library gets inundated with requests for the books anyway. Either way I’m finally getting to read Endgame and I also have the Joker one on hold so I’ll read that soon enough too.

I will have to write a thing on Green Lantern: New Guardians at some point, at least the Tony Bedard run I just read. That was a weird read and suffered from crossover hades at points but came together in the end. I just got to read all of that thanks to my local library actually. I’m finally starting to make headway in my reading lately and that makes me happy. I’m still backlogged but I’m used to being backlogged at this point, totally groovy with it. Onwards to the 2016 reading challenge at this point because boy howdy am I going to be ready for it. Heck I’ll probably be able to do 150 books easily at this stage of the game, my goodness me the backlog, yes indeed.

I am going to wrap this up for the night as I don’t have that much more to say and I just want to chill for the rest of the evening. It’s been a good day on this end though and I’m happy I got to catch up on reading and saw a powerful Doctor Who episode. Still haven’t started on Jessica Jones yet but that’ll be for over next weekend as more and more of my shows go on break for the season. Meaning I have to have something to watch and Jessica Jones will be my something to watch. Gotham is wrapping up soon, along with Agents of SHIELD and The Flash and Arrow are on a break this week. Perfect time for Jessica Jones will be in the next week or so for sure.

Now I head off, thanks for reading and I hope you all are doing well out there. Bye for now!

The Entire Internet is One Massive Spoiler Theater

Oh my lord, so I accept live tweeting and talking about shows as a way of life. I’ve written about it and talked about it frequently.  Here’s a thing  with Doctor Who airing here in the states the same day as it airs in England, it should usually prevent major spoilers. Not this round as I’ve seen some stuff. Not that bad but enough to be a little annoying and when I hear about people saying they’ve had the entire show spoiled, that’s not cool. See there’s a good reason why people reference the worst audience for live tweeting is The Walking Dead audience, they spoil the heck out of the show. They spoil with reckless abandon and it ticks people off. The Doctor Who fans have usually been good until recently, now they’re having a moment of let us spoil everything before the rest of the world can watch it. As I say, bad audience bad, don’t be The Walking Dead audience.

Now live tweeting and talking about your favorite shows is fine, but for the love of everything don’t spoil the entire show on social media five seconds after it airs. Tumblr is not your spoiler country, put spoiler tags or cut the image if you really want to talk about it but geez, warn people because you know, we want to enjoy the show too. Now I’m trying not to sound like I’m yelling at you, we’re all cool for the most part but wow social media you are failing at not spoiling things for people. At least in comics people usually put spoiler tags in news articles and in anything else talking about a story. Not saying it is perfect but people are usually good. On websites people are good about spoilers but then on Social Media, all heck breaks loose and people spoil all of the things.

I swear the Internet really needs to adopt some kind of etiquette but I know I’ve talked about that too and boy does that go away quickly. I understand excitement about movies, tv, and so forth but you don’t have to spoil a show to talk about what you love. If you want to talk about a spoiler, tag it or wait for a bit before you go spoiler crazy. I may have to actually come up with a formal etiquette on spoilers here but I know someone has written the darn thing somewhere. Heck there’s even been videos done about it alas people do what they do.

Anyway, I had to get that out of my system. The Internet is one big Spoiler Theater and maybe one day it won’t be as much. One can dream right? Yep, one can dream.

Thought Process on Frank Miller Doing Dark Knight IV

The excitement over Dark Knight III: The Master Race has been mixed at best. Brian Azzarello is supposed to be working with Frank Miller on this story. Until Newsarama confirmed in an interview that Frank Miller is working on The Dark Knight IV. Miller says that he’s seen what Azzarello is up to with Dark Knight III but the story is all Azzarello’s. When Miller saw what Azzarello was up to it spurred him to make Dark Knight IV. Miller is waiting to read Azzarello’s Dark Knight III before he starts work on his own story. Now Dark Knight III is a four part story and then at some point we’ll get Frank Miller’s Dark Knight IV. Wow, comic book life is sure getting weird huh?

Dark Knight III is DC’s big event story with Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello, the hype machine is in full swing. Now we have Dark Knight IV being the official return of Frank Miller to Batman. I can imagine some are more curious that Azzarello is doing Dark Knight III on his own now. Yet I can already see people not wanting to get Dark Knight IV when Miller releases the series. Yet with both series, there is curiosity no matter what the creative team or teams are.

The reason why I’m making this a Thought Process is because well, it is Frank Miller. I loved the Dark Knight Returns back in the day. Heck when I was getting back into comics it was another of the early books I bought way back when. The Dark Knight Strikes Back was well…strange but I plan on re-reading it soon and that’ll be an adventure in its own right. People are going to check out Dark Knight III and in a weird way they may want to read it more without Miller’s involvement, yes that’s weird but comics are weird. The Dark Knight series without Miller for one part of the journey will be strange but it is going to go over huge. Most people are going to see Dark Knight and grab it because now Miller is coming back for his own bit in Dark Knight once more.

We’ll see what happens when The Dark Knight III comes out in a couple weeks. I can see this whole situation increasing interest in the long haul. I may be wrong but this is a Thought Process and totally opinion anyway. So if I’m wrong then I’m wrong, no harm no foul from me. I may end up checking out Dark Knight III anyway because it should be a good read. I can’t even lie, I’m curious about Frank Miller’s Dark Knight IV and want to see how it’ll turn out.

Let me know your thoughts on the story in the comments below. Time to talk and have a good chat about this for awhile. When Frank Miller is involved in anything, life gets that much more fascinating in the process.

 

Chill Bloggity Thing 11/16 to 17/15 Edition: Recharge Was Needed

Ever have those points where you’re writing and you’re not feeling anything? That was me the past few days. I couldn’t hardly feel anything I was writing and I just didn’t really want to focus much at all. So I took a couple recharge days and I think I needed it more than I realized. I got a lot of cleaning done and found a few things I’d even somehow forgotten I had. I finally found a missing issue of The Intimates series I thought I’d somehow lost but turns out it was in a random box in my closet. That was so cool to find today, thank you massive cleaning session for that! I even found a good chunk of the Steven Grant and Warren Ellis X-Man run from Counter X that I’d thought I’d lost but again, it was just hidden within boxes, so freaking happy!

I just happened to notice that WordPress made some upgrades to their system today. Whoa, this is weird to get used to. I didn’t know that wordpress had done any upgrades recently, that’s pretty cool though. I don’t mind the new system as the quick update here is similar to the more plain but detailed WordPress backend. I can work either way though and it is weird not to have the word count below but I can deal.  If anything I can just make a point to go to the backend version to update the blog here if anything else. Though I kind of like using the quick version here as it is pretty fun. Reminds me of my old school blogging days and I like it. It makes things that much more immediate.

Anyway, yeah I needed some recharge time. Now I’m back in action and ready to get some stuff done again! I’ve been plotting out even more things and looking forward to a lot of even better things along the way for 2016. I’m pretty excited right now and I’m even going to make a point to see if I’ll start talking more TV here. Some people are enjoying my little James Bond post so I’m pretty game to do more TV talk and so forth here again. Maybe not recap things but definitely little chats about shows and so forth in between the comic talk. Definitely can make that happen as I do have some stuff to say about certain shows lately. Especially since all of the shows are going bonkers, at least the ones that I watch and that is too much fun!

So yes welcome to the Chill Bloggity Thing as I really don’t have too much to dive into but I’m getting the ideas back. Bless me for coming up with this as it is the ultimate way to let me write without any major restrictions and just to write. I should remember that even in recharge mode to just write away with these Chill Bloggity Things. I swear I have to make reminders of that all the time. Relaxing is a good thing my friends, totally a good thing.

I’ll end this here as it is mega rambling and it’ll become more of a ramble as it goes on. Take care everyone and back in full action now. Bye for now!

 

Thought Process on The New James Bond 007 Film, Spectre: A Disjointed Wonderland of a Movie

I finally got to see Spectre and I was excited for it, extremely excited for the film. Skyfall was an amazing movie and the ultimate high point in Daniel Craig’s run as James Bond. Every single moment of that film from top to bottom was excellent and Skyfall was such an impressive movie. Now as for Spectre, that’s another story. It isn’t a bad movie at all. Yet the one thing you say about Spectre is the fact that it is a disjointed movie. Leaping about from story to story, sometimes being boring at small points, and ending with such a rocking finale that helps to balance out the weaknesses of the film. This is strange movie for me to talk about and I don’t often talk movies outside of yes I liked this, no I didn’t tweets and so forth but hey, let’s dive into some movie talk for a minute. It is my blog and I do what I want with it so let’s do a fun thing here talking about Spectre for a little bit, heck yeah.

At first the movie has such a cool vibe to it, it has an amazing opening set in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead. It’s amazing, it’s mind blowing, and it is one of the coolest things I have seen in awhile. It’s an excellent sequence filled with chases, adventure, tons of background, endless atmosphere, and it glued me to the screen the entire time. It is one of three amazing pieces of the film that can’t help but leave you at least smiling as you leave the theater. If only the middle of the film was as engaging. One the opening credits are, let’s be blunt the opening song isn’t that great and the opening credits are filled with cool visuals but the song is not good, not good at all. I was watching the film with my parents my Mom says, “Wow this is awful.” and there we go. The opinion I’d been hearing for the past week was set as my Mom, Dad, and I were in agreement that the opening song was pretty bad. I’m trying not to be mean but that song was not a good fit. Of course when you’re following “Skyfall” it is hard to top that amazing piece of music.

Really the story itself about the world not needing the Double OO program and going away from spies and so forth in favor of drones and whatnot, it’s not executed that well honestly. I mean really James Bond is sent all over the world to cool locations and you get some fun moments but they don’t add up to that much. Oh sure it is fun to see Daniel Craig having fights with Dave Bautista at random points of the movie but that’s really it, I mean it’s fun but there’s only so much there. There’s not a lot of real substance happening and that’s kind of frustrating. There’s stakes in the film yet it also doesn’t feel like there’s any major stakes, it feels like that there was enough there to say that this is a movie. I hate to compare this to Skyfall but after Skyfall, the stakes for the film series got heightened for me. What can I say outside of I was spoiled by Skyfall.

Daniel Craig is still a solid James Bond and actually he gets to have some fun in this film which I do really enjoy. I don’t agree with people who say this is as bad as Quantum of Solace, that film was just a mess of a thing. Yes this film is a little messy but this film still has a story and it still comes together in the end. I’m also trying to avoid spoilers at this stage, I may talk about them later but it does help in getting the movie to come together a little better. Christoph Waltz is so much fun as the villain of the piece and his part in the film is so ridiculously fun I wished he was in that much more of the movie. I did like Lea Seydoux and Monica Bellucci in the film and Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, and Naomie Harris did well in the film too. Seriously loved seeing the interactions of Q (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) hanging with Bond like buddies at certain points, that was a lot of fun.

Yet a lot of the film seemed to meander outside of those small conversational bright spots here and there. Lea Seydoux and Daniel Craig played off each other well so that worked out decently for the most part. Heck Seydoux was pretty fun from the start and I enjoyed that. It’s a strange thing with this film honestly, lots of fun moments drowned out by a plodding plot. As only so much was focused around Spectre and really it only got any kind of traction in about the last 45 minutes which was kind of awesome. I swear this movie left me with so many mixed feelings.

So to put Spectre in perspective, it has an amazing beginning, slow middle with fun spots here and there, and an excellent ending. It’s not as crazy as Skyfall as to all that goes down but it would be hard to match all that Skyfall ended up doing. Skyfall straight up broke a lot of things and then repaired them again to make them better. Spectre didn’t quite have those stakes. High expectations are a heck of a thing with a film and Spectre had those kind of expectations for me. I think it is why I am still glad I saw it but I have issues with it.

Now if you read this and think I hated the movie, far from it. It is still worth seeing overall. It’s not perfect but it is actually pretty fun in parts and I am glad I got to see it. Seriously the entire Mexico City sequence alone with worth the price of admission. I’m glad I saw it though and I don’t consider it a waste of time. At least it wasn’t as hit or miss as Quantum of Solace and that my friends is a good thing.

Chill Bloggity Thing for 11/11/15: Relax, Have Fun, and Talk Comics

Today I am off to a decent start with my reading adventures thus far. I got Secret Wars #7, Illuminati #1, and All-New All-Different Avengers #1 read thus far. I’ll read more late tonight as I’ll use it for my pre-sleep time chill out session but yeah I’m off to a decent start. I’m taking the advice I gave a friend of mine and just relax and write for a bit. There’s a good reason why this is called the Chill Bloggity Thing, it is for me to write and just relax. That’s why this is named what it is. My brain is having trouble wanting to write anything so I use this as a way to loosen up the old mind and get it functioning. Sometimes I’m on fire and I can write away with no problem but other days nothing comes to me so pretty much it is Chill Bloggity Thing time. I really should just make these a daily to twice daily thing just so keep everything flowing on the blog and keep myself writing throughout the day.

Anyway, comic wise on TV right now I am really excited for a lot of things. The Flash has been rocking and rolling on all cylinders as Zoom is possibly one of the most terrifying villains in a long time. The design is still seared into my mind and what he has unleashed so far makes me wonder what will happen next on the show and Grodd is next week! Gorilla Grodd so far looks better than his first appearance and from what we got from King Shark, man I can’t wait to see what we get out of Grodd next week. Now as for Arrow, that show is still solid but not as solid as The Flash has been this season. Though I did love Constantine’s appearance as Matt Ryan is amazing and I miss the Constantine TV series so much. Sadly no other cable network so possibly afford it outside of maybe AMC and FX. We’ll see but I don’t think we’re done with Constantine quite yet. I may have more to write on this in the future now that I think on it. See this is why I love the Chill Bloggity Thing, I get ideas just from writing stuff out here, cool huh?

I should start doing a weekly TV chat blog here just to set up conversations and so forth. No real recapping, I’ve done my share of recaps for both Arrow and Agents of SHIELD in my day and I could be persuaded to revive those, we’ll see. Heck if I could figure out a way to be as prolific as Emergency Awesome with all he covers TV wise I’d be set, seriously that youtube channel blows my mind. Solid recaps and he gets them done pretty quickly, the only reason why some shows are delayed is because there is so much going on and that’s a good thing. It is inspiring really and just another one of those things that inspires me to push myself that much more. So much good TV right now, dang that is unreal. I love this age of TV so much.

Now as for comics, there is so much going on too. That’s so unreal as to how much great stuff is coming out in the near future. So many cool projects on the way, Marvel has a lot of great stuff and next week from DC I am looking forward to reading the Batman: Europa book. Then we’ll have the Dark Knight book on the way too. Yes I am going to read at least the first issue of Dark Knight as hey I can’t help but be curious. I actually got Superman: American Alien today and I’m curious about that one, that one I will definitely end up writing something on as I haven’t bought a Superman comic in forever. This is going to be interesting, I’m hopeful I’ll end up digging it. Yep that’ll be part of my late night reading tonight. Most definitely part of my late night reading tonight.

Now I am getting pretty relaxed and getting back into my groove a little more even as I write here, ah the fun of the Chill Bloggity Thing. Tomorrow shall be fun and I need to prep for the Comics and Coffee feed for Friday. I’ll be doing that a good bit as last Friday I was hanging with family awhile so that kept me away from the computer a lot. At least this Friday I’ll be home a little more so that should work out pretty well.  Now I shall head off for the night. Time for this guy to get himself some sleep and relax and read for a bit. Catch you all later, bye for now and take care everybody!

The Next Big Project: The Comic Book Reading Adventure of 2015/2016 (Also Book Reading)

As I’ve been falling extremely behind in my reading lately I am going to set myself a goal for the rest of the year, to read at least one TPB, Graphic Novel, or Three Comics a day. See sometimes when I get lost in a bunch of things and start projecting, I start getting distracted and falling behind on my reading and so forth. So in turn that makes me a cranky Wesley and I don’t like falling behind on my reading. Now this is becoming a concerted effort as I want to make this happen so this is going to happen come heck or high water. Besides it’ll give me something for sure to write about every day and make sure that I don’t fall off task off of anything else. I am going to make sure I do some novel reading too as I have on my Habitica to read 50-100 pages of a novel a day and I’ve been falling off track with that tremendously. I was doing good for a bit but I had a couple rough days and fell off track and now I am getting back on that track. I don’t give up, I may stumble but I never give up. That’s the plan from now on. I know there’s a chance I’ll have a couple days where it’ll stumble but I know I can do this and announcing it on the blog here will help in making sure I don’t stumble at least too much anyway.

Think of it as a Goodreads challenge just chronicled on my blog in an organized fashion. Then throughout 2016 I’ll be doing the same updating along with my Goodreads account once the new challenge hits. Some of this stuff is for other projects I want to do, others are just stuff I’ve been wanting to read and will probably end up writing about anyway. Heck I fully plan on writing about my entire 2016 reading challenge next year, that’s going to be a big one for me. Next year is going to be a major one for me and this is just part of what I’m up to for it. Besides I got a lot of cool comics and whatnot I want to read. Heck if I get lost in a good novel then heck I may even try my hand at a book review, hey you never know.

Yep that’s the plan for the foreseeable future. I’m allowing myself wiggle room as we have holidays coming up and so forth so I expect a little bit of stumbling here and there. I’ll do my best though and I know I can do it. Once I put something out there, I am more apt to do it as people can read it and hold me to task. Not too mean though, like I said I expect to have days where I get busy. Maybe I’ll even set up small update blogs day by day to let you all know what I’m reading. Yeah that’ll be fun. You all get to join me along for the day by day of it, the meat and potatoes of the Comic Book Reading Adventure.

This should be a lot of fun and I hope you all join me for the ride. Part one in a longer and more exciting journey ahead. Thanks for reading and take care everyone.