Three Strikes: You’re In – Movie Trilogies Worth Sticking With

Today on Plans Mr. Orr posed this question:

Christopher Nolan, when asked if he would make a third Batman film, asked, “How many good third movies in a franchise can people name?”

So I’m thinking: how many are there?

He listed a fair number of the most obvious:

• Return of the Jedi
• Return of the King
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Back to the Future III
• The Bourne Ultimatum
• Goldfinger
• The Search for Spock
  

I agree with all his choices.  I did a fair amount of research before coming up with what I thought was a comprehensive list.  Here are the other films I decided to include:

• Die Hard with a Vengeance
  
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
  
• The Muppets Take Manhattan
• Chasing Amy
• Monty Python’s Life of Brian

Then I came up with a few where the entire series is questionable, but the third movie is certainly no worse and probably better than many of the others:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
• Police Academy 3: Back in Training
• Ernest Saves Christmas
• King Kong vs. Godzilla

Am I missing anything?

They Got the Band Back Together

More Ben Folds News!

His band Ben Folds Five reunited recently for one show to pay tribute to their album The Autobiography of Reinhold Messner!

It must be good if I’m willing to link to Myspace!

I meet the Hodg-man

Tonight I went to a booksigning for John Hodgman‘s new book More Information Than You Require.  It was an excellent time.  I have not yet read the book but I intend to over the next several days.

I am, however, going to subject you to more puns.  The pumpkin names in the previous post was certainly not the end of these portents.  When I got up to the table to discource with John Hodgman as he signed my book, the exchange went something like this:

Me: Hi, I’m Greg.

The Hodge: I’m John.

Me: I have had this pun bouncing around in my head and I can’t help but let it out.  If you converted to Islam and visited Mecca during the high holy times, you would be entitled by tradition to change your name.  What could you change it to?

The Hodge: Er… Greg?

Me: No, Hajji Hodgman!

The Hodge: Ah ha!  And my wife’s middle name could be Sweet…  No, nevermind.

He then proceeded to call me a punster.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing. But his “Sweet” comment was impressive off the cuff. I’d had plenty of time waiting in line to construct my spiel.  I was very impressed.

My parents and I were talking recently about famous people we had met; I only had one on my list until tonight: Bill Nye.  So now I can say I’ve met The Science Guy AND The Resident Expert.

Pumpkin Naming Conventions

I went to the pumpkin patch today at Butler’s Orchard and picked up a full sized pumpkin for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long.  It might have been the first time ever.

The past few years we would get a small decorative gourd from the grocery store and name it.  The first one was named Gourdon.  The next one was named Beauregourd.  I thought those were both very clever names.  Now that I have a real pumpkin, I figure I should go with something a little bigger and more grandiose.  Here are the ones I’ve thought up as possibilities:

• Michael Gourdan
• George Plimpkin
• Mikhail Gourdachev
• Samwise Pumpkee

Anyone have any better ideas?

An Impressive (Double?) Ambigram

My friend Cole is getting this tattooed on his back:

I thought it was an amazingly cool design.

Health Care Solutions: The Retail Clinic Experience

When I discuss the issues of health care with people, I tend to take what I consider the most libertarian position: that many of the high costs associated with health care are due to the structure of licensing and certification and regulation that exists in our country.  In many places around the world, prescriptions for medications needed to treat common diseases are not necessary; a pharmacist can help you get the drugs you need when you need them.  In the U.S., however, we have a gatekeeper system.

There are attempts, however, to make things work a little better here.  Some CVS pharmacies in my area have set up “minute clinics” which are in-store clinics which employ technicians who are trained to diagnose many common ills and write the prescriptions people need for those illnesses.  The prices for diagnosing and treating various ailments are given up front and everything is taken care of right there in the pharmacy.

Since I politically approve of these types of setups, I decided to go to one of these clinics and get some treatment for a sore throat / infection that I’ve had on and off for the past two weeks.  I was pretty sure I would just need a course of antibiotics and I would be fine (this happens to me nearly every year).

The technician was very careful and did everything a doctor would normally do.  She seemed pretty sure (just like I was) that I just needed some antibiotics and I would be fine, but when she listened to my lungs she thought she heard something that might indicate pnuemonia or bronchitis, and said I would have to go to a doctor.  I was skeptical because I don’t really have a cough at all, but she said she wouldn’t be able to give me the antibiotics due to the fact that my diagnosis had to be treated by a doctor.

So, I left, a little disappointed that the system didn’t work the way I thought, politically, it was supposed to.  I called my primary care doctor, but they were on lunch break so I left a message.  I drove up to their offices anyway and got lunch nearby and dilly-dallied until they called and told me to come in immediately.

I got into the doctor’s office relatively quickly after they got back from lunch and then I saw the doctor: she said my lungs sounded fine, my throat looked red, prescribed antibiotics and the whole thing was done in about 5 minutes.  She wasn’t even all that thorough, I think she just sees so many people in this situation that she diagnoses quickly and is done with it.  She seemed surprised that the clinic folks sent me to her at all.

So, I got the antibiotics I knew I needed from the start by taking up three hours of my time, burning a ton of gas, and having my insurance company pay a bunch of money.  The reform I was hoping would solve a lot of these problems apparently just made things worse, because it was so incomplete and tentative.  I still love the idea of retail clinics (and not requiring prescriptions for common drugs but letting the pharmacist be the gatekeeper) but in this case they didn’t go far enough, and for that reason I’m skeptical that the whole thing isn’t a boondoggle.

Oh well, at least I got to see a helicopter land at the hospital.

Morning recap: Diablo III

Guest author: Orlowski

Blizzcon is now over and I’m sad that I’ll have to wait probably 6 months to a year to play Diablo III again, but I’ve had a great weekend. I went to Medieval Times last night and, to my dismay, I kept thinking about my Diablo III experience.  MT was great fun. We got to cheer our hearts out for the Black and White knight (That green knight has serious issues). Maybe it was the high-impact sword fighting or the sparks from the zinc/magnesium-embossed polearms but my mind kept meandering back to the fights in D3. Maybe if I tell you guys more about it, I can get it out of my system.

Look and feel:

Much like the old Diablo games, you start by choosing a character and gender. I chose a male barbarian, much like the one in the demo video.  Hulking and strong, probably 6’8”, his frame towers over the npcs and the monsters. They have really gotten the feel of scale. The way he interacts with the environment is very satisfying; smashing tables, tearing down walls, doing a thunderclap type ability that knocks enemies back.  It all ‘feels’ right.

The pace of the game keeps up with the feel, too. The action doesnt really stop, and if it does, you know something is about to happen. There are lots of clues from the environment and music that further engross the player into the storyline. As usual with Blizzard, the attention to detail is outstanding in Diablo III. Zombies and ghouls climb like fleshy spiders from holes in the ground and you can find yourself quickly surrounded. In these cases, there is some decision-making to be made. Do you try to cut through one side of the encircling monsters or do you use an area of effect ability to destroy them all? The fun part is that there isn’t one answer.

Mechanics:

The mechanics of the barbarian are much like that of the rage mechanic in WoW. The longer you are in battle and the more consecutive kills you have the more your ‘rage’ bar fills up. certain abilities like the area knockback require a good amount of rage, so you have to time the positioning and rage generation right if you don’t want to take much damage. The abilites are as simple and as complex as they need to be. Granted, this was only a 20 minute demo, but the abilities have a good synergy, and there are many options for how to chain attacks and which combos are most effective. Attacking a bunch of sheild-weilding skeletons with a cleave probably won’t be as productive as knocking them off their balance so they put down their guard and THEN smashing them to bits.  One thing is that it’s easy to take damage in D3, but as you kill monsters, they drop health ‘orbs’ so you can re-fill during a fight.  I never really got in over my head in any of the encounters, but I’m sure I’ll get into plenty of trouble in the real game.

Monsters:

Attention to detail, attention to detail, attention to detail. One of the things that really added to the engrossing nature of D3 was the monsters. Not only did interacting with the environment feel solid and real, but the monsters did also. In Wow, there isn’t clipping with other monsters, so you were never really ‘surrounded’, but the throngs that can encircle you in D3 actually force you to smash your way out of a bad situation, using aforementioned tactics.  Some of the coolest monsters I saw were the big abomination-like giants and the vomit-wrenching zombies.

Last impressions:
This game has already grabbed a hold of some place in my subconscious.  Like Diablo and Diablo 2, this game has incredible potential for continuous solid and engrossing gameplay, and with the multiplayer options, it could be even worse as you are drafted by your friends to help out on even more missions and quests.  I can only hope that I don’t drive myself crazy waiting for this game to come out. I could definitely see Blizzard being their own worst enemy when people stop playing WoW and move to Diablo III.

A Gastronomic Challenge is Issued…

Not to interrupt the excellent on the spot Blizzcon reporting from orlowski, but my appetite has been whetted by an interesting search that led someone to find this blog:

japanese crab wasabi quesadilla recipes

I challenge both of my cobloggers, who are both culinary wizards of one sort or another, to come up with a recipe that sates this unlikely searcher’s desires, and then prepare it!  If they both succeed at meeting this challenge, I will assemble a panel of judges to choose the victor, IRON CHEF STYLE!

Disclaimer: The panel of judges may consist of only me.

Blizzcon, Day 1

Guest Post: Orlowski

First and foremost, the lack of public internet in Anaheim is very frustrating. I hoped to be able to post more frequently, but internet is either A: not available or B: $10.00 pr 6 hour period. I finally broke down and bought 2 hours of internet in starbucks, so here i am.

Inro speech:

I was honestly somewhat disappointed by the intro speech to Blizzcon. As I’m sure many of you have heard, there weren’t really any new announcements other than the Wizard class for Diablo III. They DID play some of the cinematic sequences for WOTLK and Diablo II and I must admit that it was awesome watching those videos with 7999 other Blizzard fans.  It was also interesting hearing the CEO speak with love for his company and the work he does. It is obvious why Blizzard’s products are the best electronic games in history.

The other 7999 Blizzard fans

Nifty Gadgets:

Some time after the intro speech, the throngs dissolved a bit and I could move around and look at some of the vendor booths. One of the coolest things I saw was the booth for the custom figurines (site). They were demonstrating the process of the creation of these figures and had some cool ones on display. One of them was a gnome ‘towering’ over a slain Tauren. They also had on display the panda pet

Figurine of Collectors Edition panda vanity pet

from the collector’s edition of classic WoW. The creation process is pretty much like you might expect. There is a ‘printer’ that progressively plasters layers of glue, building the 3d representation from the ground up. In the second phase, the printer prints the color onto the dried model. There were many other booths to explore, but I left most of them for today. The volume of people crowding different booths made even some meek peeking unproductive. I do have a ‘quest’ card from Brady Games from my SWAG bag that I’m going to turn in today. Hopefully I’ll get some sort of coupon that will make me buy something. I also plan on buying some shirts today.

FigurePrints figurine printer

Devoted fans:

The imagination and enthusiasm of the fans was on full display. I’m not sure what today will bring as far as costumes, but the contest yesterday attracted some very impressive creations. I saw multiple (tired, imho) succubus costumes, other scantily clad women in harpy and more than one High Inquisitor Whitemane. One of the fans had constructed her own working, ridable turtle mount, acquired in-game by entering a code found on a rare wow trading card (She was an industrial engineering major).

Druid? and High Inqusitor Whiteman

WOTLK:

After a bit of enjoying the fans, booths and the ambiance, I decided it was time to try out some of the games.  There were three main corrals of computers set up for each of 3 games: Diablo III, Starcraft II and WOTLK.  I started with WOTLK.  The line moved swiftly, as there were over 100 computers and each user was limited to 20 mins per turn.  Using their custom accounts, I created a level 80 death knight and started playing around. I don’t know what the numbers SHOULD be like for a new 80, but I was doing a fun amount of damage. The mechanics also look like they’re going to be interactive and thought-provoking. It’s not just a xxxxstrike spam.  The ‘rain of zombies’ was particularly cool. It’s a channeled spell where you keep summoning ghouls/zombies the longer you channel and they hang around and kill stuff with you for a bit.
Today I plan on waiting in line and trying out some of the Balance druid talents, like starfall.

Diablo III:

Talk about nostalgia. A few months back, I re-installed Diablo II to remind myself of how I spent so many hours in my early high-school career and a tear almost appeared in my eye. After sitting down and logging into Diablo III, that same feeling washed over me as I was immediately drawn into both the story and the  gameplay. The same interface is there but it seems 1000 times smoother.  Lots of things in the environment are destructable now and the game really feels satisfying to cast a huge explosion or slam a group of ghouls back.  At one point I was forced to eliminate some vomiting zombies. At least I didn’t have to clean up that mess.

Diablo III is going to be amazing. Not only will the single-player aspect grab players by the throat, but the co-op multiplayer is going to ruin lives. It’s amazing (and scary) how quickly 20 minutes can go by. Perhaps they will need a warning label on the box.

Undetermined characters + lady from Ohio + Scantily clad harpy

Starcraft II:

I was a pretty big Starcraft fan. I’ll admit that I was never that great, but I’ll use the excuse that I was 15 when I was in my Starcraft prime.  Starcraft II definitely has the ‘Blizzard Polish’ on it, similar to that on Diablo III, and it’s not even done yet. The mechanics are mainly the same: resource management, territorial expansion, industrial sabotage, but I need some more time to figure out some of the tactical and aesthetic differences Starcraft II will bring.  I was playing it at the end of the day, so I was tired and not on top of my game. I think I’ll give it another go today. FOR THE ZERG!!!

[Orlo] whispers:

Guest post: by orlowski

Blizzcon has been going great. Having learned my lesson from last night, I showed up an hour in advance of the doors opening. I was greeted with a hefty line but was confident because I already had my badge, bag and mount; not much to lose now. For at least 30 minutes people were streaming past me, towards the end of the line, so I felt like I had come just at the right time. The line went into and out of the adjacent arena, but by the time I reached the outside, it was 10:00 and the doors opened. The line quickly dissolved into the convention center and I was in!

I will let some of these pictures speak for themselves. I do have one mystery to solve this weekend, though. I’m pretty sure I understand the sources of the smell of rotting clothes, but the *multiple* sources of the smell of baby powder are still elusive.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Nick.orlowski/Blizzcon