Alera Pulchra

I’ve just finished Jim Butcher’s First Lord’s Fury, the 6th book of his series Codex Alera. While First Lord’s Fury is not the best book in the series (my personal favorites are the 2nd and 3rd), the novel is an enjoyable read, and has inspired me to re-read all 12 books of Jim Butcher’s excellently written Dresden Files.

BTW, is it just me, or does Alera talking to Tavi sound a lot like Number Six talking to Gaius Baltar?

Music Monday: The later Callas

The experts say that her voice had precipitously declined in later years, in part due to a diet that drove down both her weight and her vocal power.  But, after hearing Maria Callas, one wonders just how high was her summit, that she could be so magnificent after the fall…

Google’s Pacman Super-Doodle

It’s a doodle moment of awesome.  ”The New Google Doodle Is a FREAKING GAME OF PAC-MAN“, says Gizmodo.

And it so is.  Actually playable, with 256 levels says the Gizmodo folks, though I’ve so far blundered through only 2 (because I am seriously out of practice, and using a Mouse to choose directions is a tad counter-intuitive).  Even Google Philippines, which is often a poor cousin of the main Google.com site (e.g., try choosing News in its search options), has the super-doodle.

And here I was, thinking that the Hans Christian Andersen doodles were the best I would ever see.  I happily sit (playing and getting gobbled up by ghosts) corrected.

It’s only up 0n the weekend to celebrate 30 years of Pacman, amici, so enjoy it now.

Deus vobiscum.

Why kill Nightcrawler?

Is Marvel Comics anti-Christian? Or is it just an accident that Christians (or thinkly disguised Christians) have been portrayed as villains since before Messiah War; or that California is lionized for its “tolerance”; or that the token Catholic was killed protecting the mutant messiah?

In any case, religion or ideology aside, Nightcrawler (along with Logan and Rogue) was always one of my favorite characters, just as Cyclops (a colorless piece of cardboard, no matter how bada_s they try to make him, even in the Age of Apocalypse) will always be was one of my peeves.  Nightcrawler always refused to be as flat as his teammates, in part because his demonic appearance contrasted so sharply with his character.

Which rather makes me wonder at the times that Marvel would magnify characters without substance or with poorly contrived back stories  while ignoring those with better narrative potential.  I mean, seriously, they gave Psylocke a shout-out pseudo-Kill Bill miniseries when Rogue or Gambit or Nightcrawler himself sure as inferno deserved a solo title better–especially now that there are so few mutants to go around, and they have a chance to shine.

DC, for its part, initially cast aside Barbara Gordon (without first seriously considering, for instance, how she adjusted growing older with her planned-to-be-outgrown hero role), but at least that felix culpa gave us Oracle.  What do we get from Nightcrawler dying–that is, aside from trading emotional space for time, after Marvel wrote itself into a trap with the persecution-myopic post-Decimation storylines?

Deus vobiscum.

A blessed new year…

And belated merry Christ-Mass to all!

We remember the Cristeros

Today, 1 January, we remember the formal beginning of the Cristero rebellion (or the Cristero war), through which the Mexican people attempted to wrest their nation back from their militantly atheist government.  The political and economic elites had attempted, through oppressive laws and an anticlerical Constitution, to suppress the Faith of the staunchly Christian nation.  Hence, the people, with few arms and little organization, were forced to take up arms against the well-armed army and paramilitary forces of the government.  And although they did not achieve their goals, with persecution continuing for another decade, we remember the valiant Catholics, heroes all, who defended their freedom to believe and worship as Christians of the one true Church.

¡Viva Cristo Rey! ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

(See also our posts at Scriptorium, “The martyrs of Savenay” and “So tired of Anti-Catholicism“.)  

Typecast!

Have just watched the 1st part of the (rather anti-Christian) Children of Dune miniseries from the SciFi Channel.  Albeit one might quibble with collapsing 2 volumes in one miniseries, so far the miniseries seems excellent (by which this Talifan means faithful, within the limits of the medium) and worth every cent.

Poor Alec Newman, though.  Everytime I see him–i.e., in Angel, though he was wearing a hood there, so I can’t be blamed–I can hear “Muad-dib! Muad-dib!” being chanted at the back of my mind.

Which reminds me of Ken Watanabe:  In Letters from Iwo Jima, I could almost hear the Japanese soldiers shouting “typecast!” instead of “banzai!”

Just meandering.  Now off to Sexta…