Upcoming Fall TV Schedule Part 1: Repeat Offenders

Grimm – August 13th

The first of the new TV season out of the gate and here comes a show, that within the first ten minutes has already seemingly evolved and grown up from last year. The cast seem more confident. We also get a huge burst of mythology, more than the previous 20 episodes. I know a lot of people became disenchanted with Grimm but I would absolutely urge anyone to give it another try as you will be rewarded. There are a lot of answers in the premiere but even more questions are thrown up.

This is crazy, and you gave up on me already, but I’m back so watch me again maybe?

Doctor Who – September ?

With no official air-date confirmed for either the UK or US (Should be September 1st) and a very long time away from our screens, for many this will be the most eagerly awaited return. There are only five episodes (six including the Christmas Special introducing the new companion Clara). We will see the last of the Ponds. And knowing Doctor Who, their departure will likely be dramatic and bring about a tear or two.

There’s a lot to look forward to before that happens, “Asylum Of The Daleks” looks to be a classic in the making. While with “Dinosaurs On A Spaceship”, the title tells you there’s fun to be had there. And there is the wild-west-set “A Town Called Mercy” guest-staring genre favourite Ben Browder, the next two episodes are something of a mystery. The finale will feature the return of the Weeping Angels in Manhattan.

This season we say goodbye to TV’s favorite ginger

Bones – September 17th

After last season, there was a lot of changes on Bones, finally getting Brennan and Booth together really seemed to make everything seem fresh again. The plots were better and they established a truly diabolical villain that the entire team of squints were unable to defeat. He will be back to plague them again this season.

We last saw Brennan on the run, with Booth left standing not knowing what was going on. While I’m sure that will be resolved fairly early on in the first few episodes, the impact of her decision will be far reaching in their relationship. Several episodes that were pushed back from last season are to be re-edited and included this time around. I hope they can match the quality of last year.

Fans enjoyed the season finale.

How I Met Your Mother – September 24th

This might be the last season, it’s all up in the air right now. Jason Segel’s film career has exploded and he seems to be in everything. Which is good because he is fantastic and fun actor, but the show cannot go without him. If he leaves, the show must end. There’s a lot of ground to cover though. We know now that Robin and Barney get married, and their engagement will occur in the latter half of season 8. But they have to get there first and it has to seem believable. Ted has to meet the ‘mother’ of this story, it certainly isn’t Victoria who he drove off into the sunset with in the season 7 finale. Ted will have second thoughts about that and turn the car around. Can the show really deliver on all of the flash-forwards and hints from over the years if the end is in sight? It’s important to remember, the story isn’t about Ted’s relationship with this mystery woman, it is all about how he met her.

…then I bumped into your mother in the waiting room and married her the next day. The end.

Person Of Interest – September 27th

This was my favourite new show last year by a mile. If for some reason you missed it, find it and watch it as soon as possible. Person Of Interest brings the highest calibre of action drama currently on television, each episode feels like a mini movie much like 24 used to. With last year ending on a massive cliffhanger, with Finch kidnapped and his mysterious machine seemingly communicating directly with Reese, and an excellent list of guest stars lined up, this new season should be as good, if not better than the first.

Is this a flash forward? How do they get to the island?

The Big Bang Theory – September 27th

The last season of TBBT was an important one. After a rocky fourth season, they finally found a way to include Bernadette and Amy fully into the show without it feeling awkward and forced. With Leonard and Penny rekindling their relationship, and Sheldon too making leaps forward with Amy (his holding her hand when Howard went into space was so sweet) it could prove to a deciding season to where it goes in the future. Suffice to say TBBT will be on for a few more years with its fantastic ratings and awards.

The final countdown

Dexter – September 30th

The first four seasons of Dexter were the absolute definition of must watch TV but the two seasons that followed just didn’t live up to what had gone before. Everything seemed sadly lacking. But the season six finale may have given the show a real boost, with Deb catching Dexter in the act. The recent trailers have shown a lot of what happens immediately afterwards, and the writers have a clear plan for the next two years (even if the network seem intent on forcing it to a ninth season) so we have to hope this new dynamic will breathe life back into Dexter.

Deb learns Dexter’s shocking secret, that he is a little metrosexual

Supernatural – October 3rd

This is it. Make or break time. I’ve written a lot about Supernatural in the past and it being a prime case of show being dragged out until there was nothing left, but I’m still watching the weekly exploits of the Winchester boys. I’ve seen some spoilers for this season, and while I’m happy about Mark Sheppard’s Crowley featuring heavily in the villain role. The rest of the arc plot seems somewhat lacklustre. I hope the new show-runner manages to inject some of the old fun and horror back into the show. If he can’t, it might be the last season.

The editor has never watched this show. Let’s just pretend I added a fitting and witty caption.

Community – October 19th

Dan Harmon might be gone but the old adage is in force here; the show must go on. Understandably a lot of fans are upset about his departure but it is worth remembering, he didn’t write every single episode and the show has a talented team of writers. All of the cast are returning and the show’s energy comes from them, we will see what changes, if any, come. It might be that the show is no different and we don’t miss Harmon at all. However, I suspect this won’t be the case, he fought hard for the show behind the scenes and it barely scraped through to this fourth season.

One big, happy family (now with 100% less Dan Harmon!)

Californication – January

We last left Hank Moody in a dangerous place, drugged by his psychotic ex and passing out to oblivion. I always look forward to this show, every time Hank starts to get things together something invariably comes along and destroys it. He’s usually the cause but not so much this time, still he was on probation and could end up in a lot of trouble depending on how everything turns out. There’s a lot of new characters coming this season and from all accounts it’s going to be another great year for a show that hasn’t had a dip in quality, ever, which is a rare thing.

Will the new season feature Hank Moody sleeping with Scully? That’s what we really want to know.

A breakdown of some of the new shows hitting our screens will be coming soon!

Warner Brothers is at least considering Ben Affleck to direct their Justice League movie. Deadline is denying the story, but frankly they’re not as trustworthy as Variety. And while the internet has responded with some typical Affleck-backlash that the same guy who once starred in Gigli is going to direct such a key project. I’m here both to simultaneously defend this decision and offer up 6 more suggestions on directors.

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck as (George Reeves as) Superman

First off, I do believe the Variety story. Affleck doesn’t have the job currently, but they have sent him the script and they’re at least entertaining the notion of hiring him. It isn’t unusual for studios to ask a few people for their takes on a project before hiring someone and moving forward. Warner Brothers only has so many big directors they’ve been working with that they can go to. This is a studio that handed their Terminator franchise to McG and hasn’t had many successful blockbusters outside of Harry Potter in a long time. If you go down the list of directors they have deals with, Ben Affleck sounds much better than many of the alternatives.

And for all the hate, Affleck did a great job directing Gone Baby Gone and The Town. Rumors are that his Argo shoot are going well. Even if he has a few bad acting roles on his resume, lets not forget that he won an Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting.

It isn’t clear if he would act or not. In theory, he could take a Justice League hero of his choice and start with a stand-alone movie for that hero leading into his Justice League project. And while he has proven that he can direct himself reasonably well, I think that would be a mistake on a large ensemble film. Assuming he did act however, he is a better actor than he gets credit for. He delivered strong turns in The Town, Hollywoodland. Chasing Amy, Changing Lanes, The Sum of All Fears, School Ties, etc.

But here in alphabetical order, are six more realistic choices.

Brad Bird on the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol set

Brad Bird

He’s already directed a truly fantastic superhero film in The Incredibles and another geek-classic in Iron Giant. He made a name for himself with The Simpsons, but has demonstrated his range over the years. He proved he can transition from animation to live action with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which might be the best entry in the series. He has proven he can handle effects, action sequences and drama. In this list, I’ve tried to avoid any directors I know are under contract at another studio (such as Spielberg). As it turns out, Brad Bird is currently working with Warner Brothers to develop his next project. So they already have him in house.

Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp giving direction on District 9

Blomkamp has a strong effects background and has produced some great shorts. What should make Warner Brothers very happy is noting that he also knows how to produce effects on a budget. While James Cameron was spending $280 million making Avatar, Blomkamp was telling a fairly similar story with District 9 for $40 million. Peter Jackson thinks the world of him, and at one point he was going to direct Halo, except the studio wouldn’t give Microsoft the control they wanted. He is a very strong director from a technical prespective.

There might be some concerns that he has a short resume, or that he hasn’t worked with a large, ensemble cast. But he did work on Smallville, so he may have some familiarity with the source material.

Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle filming 127 Hours

This suggestion might come as a surprise to some. Boyle is best known for low-budget dramas such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours and Trainspotting. However, Boyle has worked in just about every genre imaginable and is consistently solid as a director. If you’re handing a key blockbuster project to someone, there is something to be said with picking a safe director rather than risking a massive flop.

Boyle doesn’t have one distinct visual style can likely merge and continue the work of any DC comic films that lead into Justice League. That doesn’t mean he is a weak visual director. The Beach and Sunshine are both great looking movies (even if the ending for Sunshine is a massive disappointment compared to the first two acts). And like Blomkamp, he is capable of producing a great looking movie on a budget. Boyle gets great performances from his actors and there is a reason he was trusted with directing the London Olympics opening ceremonies.

Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro making Hellboy

Guillermo del Toro was initially hand-picked by Peter Jackson to direct The Hobbit. He is a capable director with strong technical skills who makes great looking movies. Of all the directors on the list, he has perhaps the best creative vision. While Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was hyper-realistic and The Avengers had a clean aesthetic that carried over from Jon Favreau’s work on Iron Man, I think Warner Brothers has an opportunity to differentiate Justice League; it could use a dash of the quixotic.

He is also known to love comic books and delivered two very good Hellboy movies. The problem with finding great directors for huge blockbusters is that their success now has them tied up with several projects. For whatever reason, he hasn’t really had the mammoth blockbuster success yet. Since The Hobbit fell through, and At The Mountains of Madness is now dead, del Toro’s talents are mostly free. Someone should grab him while they can. I suspect after Pacific Rim drops, he will become a more expensive and popular commodity in Hollywood.

George Miller

George Miller doing motion capture work

George Miller is such a great choice for a Justice League movie that Warner Brothers hired him to make one. Like Boyle, he has a very varied resume. He brought us both Mad Max and Happy Feet. There are a couple reasons his movie never happened. Superman Returns didn’t perform as well as expected. Batman Begins exceeded expectations, but they weren’t going to get Christian Bale for the Justice League movie (which may have backfired). The Writer’s Guild strike happened. Financing fell through down in Australia. And in the end, Warner Brothers wasn’t comfortable spending $200 million making the movie.

However, the people who read the script all raved about it. Miller was passionate about the project. With advances in effects, it is possible Miller could revisit his project and make the movie for less than $200 million today, though that budget wouldn’t be unreasonable now. The Avengers had a $220 million budget. Again, Warner Brothers doesn’t have a lot of blockbuster franchises today. My only concern would be whether or not the script everyone loved would work with the upcoming Superman reboot, or if they’d have to refactor it.

Steven Soderbergh

Yes, I seriously suggested the director of Magic Mike

He just directed a movie about male strippers and is moving on to a Liberace biopic. Clearly, he is the obvious choice.

Like many of the suggestions above, Soderbergh has a very diverse resume. He is a strong visual director, elicits great performances from his cast and doesn’t force one visual style on his movies. He also happens to be one of the best all-around directors working today. He has handled action with The Limey (with General Zod no less) and Haywire.

Perhaps most importantly, what made Joss Whedon such a fantastic choice for The Avengers was his ability to handle a large cast (from his TV background) and balance it well. Soderbergh did an amazing job handling multiple screen-chewing stars in Oceans Eleven. Even if the script suffered in sequels, Soderbergh knows how to handle an ensemble cast.

When our Hollywood protagonist needs to access a secure system, they are able to use deductive reasoning to magically guess any password they need. With a little logic supposedly you can figure out exactly what password anyone is using in a given moment. And while some people choose poor passwords (the type an idiot might have on their luggage). The good news is that is a bullshit trope. Hollywood is notorious for really terrible representations of hacking and technology. People can’t magically guess your password. The bad news is that they don’t have to.

We live in a world where teenagers (who didn’t require any technical acumen) were able to “hack” Sarah Palin’s email, and the White House Twitter feed. “Script kiddies” with a little technical acumen were able to hack LinkedIn, Sony, Citigroup and others. (In Sony’s case, several of their websites were hacked with very basic SQL injection techniques while the Playstation Network involved physical access to the datacenter).

In the 21st century, technology moves faster than our comprehension for it. Exceedingly profitably companies like Apple make billions finding ways to try and make technology more accessible. In turn, hundreds of millions of consumers feel comfortable integrating technology in their lives that they don’t understand. We choose to trust companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. with our personal data, but more importantly, our digital lives. As we stand on the precipice of ubiquitous adoption of cloud computing, the biggest problem isn’t that we can’t trust those companies with our most precious personal data. It is that those companies are merely gatekeepers to our digital lives, and in most cases, that gate can be bypassed with a simple password reset.

The greatest advantage of cloud computing is the notion that your data is forever safe. The hard drive in your computer has an expiration date. At some point it will die and take all its precious data with it. But if I store my pictures, music, email, movies, and musings in the cloud, then they will always live another day (even if laptop were submerged in liquid nitrogen and then destroyed). And yet it was specifically because Mat Honan used cloud services that hackers were able to remotely wipe his phone, laptop, Google account, and all the photos of his daughter.

Teenagers accidentally hacking NORAD in Wargames. Today they do it intentionally for “lulz”

Even more terrifying is what those hackers could have done. Once they had access to his email, they could have performed password resets for his credit card accounts and used social engineering to target all the high profile technologists in his address book. The technique to destroy his digital life is trivial. Apple and Amazon are both changing policies that allowed his accounts to be so easily hacked, but in the end, passwords have utterly failed us.

Sadly, many of our policies that we believe increase security (making complex, hard to remember passwords and enforcing that we change them frequently) hurt more than they help. This encourages people to write down passwords, or use passwords that can be determined via social engineering. And for what it is worth, long passwords that are easy to remember are more secure than short passwords, but most systems I’ve seen limit max password length foolishly.

Mixing different characters is trivial for brute force attacks where last year’s technology could crack an 8 character case-sensitive password in 2 hours. If there was a valuable target, you can assemble a temporary super computer via Amazon’s cloud offering to greatly reduce that time. The linked article mentions the super computer could be used for cancer research, but it could likewise be used for nefarious purposes.

Ideally, someone shouldn’t be able to attempt password guesses repeatedly with brute force attacks. But not every system follows best practices, and in the end you’re only as secure as your weakest link. We can try to improve the situation. Google Chrome could offer a feature in their browser to generate a random, difficult password unique to each website or service you use, and store these passwords in a password locker. You then use one password to open the locker, but if that one password is compromised you lose everything. And it doesn’t address the root problem of password resets.

So long as passwords can be reset with commonly accessed knowledge, passwords are inherently insecure. And since so many millions of username/password combinations have been leaked online in the past year, there is a good chance someone can access your accounts without even needing to do a password reset.

Oddly enough, the rise of cloud computing can be both the problem and solution. More and more people have smartphones, and thusly an always connected device. Your phone can be used for what people currently call two-factor authentication, though it arguably isn’t. Google currently supports this if you enable it. You have to type in a password, and a code that is sent to your phone. The problem is that if someone steals your phone, they’ll have access to your email (to do password resets, and your actual phone). This would prevent hackers from remotely accessing your account, or someone trying to access several accounts if they don’t possess the physical phone.

But perhaps the ideal solution is a true two-factor authentication of using biometrics (such as a finger print) on our phones. Either way, we need to move away from passwords.

Sometimes it’s really hard being a girl.

From a young age, we’re told that we can be anything we want to be. We’re encouraged to try new things and left with the thought that when we get older everything we were spoon fed will be true. And then we grow up and discover that, yes, we can be anything we want to be, so long as it conforms nicely into a very restricted set of expectations.

There are limitations too, ones that we ignored as children but get faced with on an almost daily basis as we grow up. We can’t like science-fiction; or sports. It’s okay to do well in math and science in school, but don’t think about pursuing a career in those fields. And owning a successful business? Good luck with that.

Yes, there are some exceptions to these. Women who ignore what society tells us and break the mold. But they’re still few and far in between, even today. And that is why it is so important to have positive female role models; something that can be hard to find in the age of Jersey Shore and other reality TV.

So, my mission over the next few months is to find those women. The women who have succeeded in areas that are still predominantly strongholds for men. The women who are exceptional role models for girls young and old.

The first featured role model is Ashley Eckstein. Known as the voice of Ahsoka Tano in the animated Clone Wars series, Ashley is also the founder and owner of Her Universe. Spurred on by her own experiences and seeing the lack of science fiction shirts for female fans, Ashley created Her Universe. It is the first fashion line to produce science fiction themed shirts just for women. The initial designs were all Star Wars, but now the line includes such hits as Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who. They even have a line of children’s clothing for the younger geeks.

Ashley has done something quite amazing. She’s into science fiction and owns a successful business all without having to sacrifice her femininity, a challenge that many women who venture into fields dominated by men face. She makes it okay for female geeks to be both female and geeks. Or, as she put it during our interview: Flaunt your world- We’re girls and we can be cute, we can show off our passion and our fandom and look cute while doing it.

You list Disney as your first love- when and how did you first get interested in sci-fi (particularly Star Wars)?

Honestly I got started in to the whole sci-fi/fantasy world before I can even remember because my dad started working for Disney when I was just two years old. I just remember a childhood full of not only watching every single Disney Movie that came out and sometimes getting advance screenings because my dad was an employee, but I grew up watching Star Wars and the Hobbit cartoons and the Never Ending Story. It was a childhood full of a lot of sci-fi and fantasy so I don’t even remember exactly what age because it goes back as far as my memory goes back.

My first memory of Star Wars is the shot of R2-D2 and C3PO in the desert of Tatooine. I remember the scene vividly as a little girl. My favorite character has always been R2-D2, still to this day. Instead of playing Princess Leia I would play R2-D2.

With my dad working for Disney I got to go what is now Hollywood Studios when it first opened, but more importantly Star Tours when it first opened. I remember being a part of that and that ride opening and how big of a deal it was. Posing on the Star Speeder, and the Ewoks and it’s just a big part of my memories as a kid.

How did you get the role of voicing Ahsoka?

I got the role of voice Ahsoka similar to how most actors in L.A. get a job. I got a call from my agent. I got a call the night before, that’s usually how it works- you find out the night before about your auditions the next day. He called me the night before and said you have an audition tomorrow for the voice of Padme on the Clone Wars. Usually I’m a pretty positive person and I remember telling him, look, I just don’t think I sound like Natalie Portman from Star Wars, but I’ll give it my best shot. I wasn’t too optimistic about it because no matter how hard I tried I just didn’t feel I sounded like her.

Sure enough I went to the audition and the first line out of my mouth they stopped me and said I didn’t sound anything like Padme, I sounded too young. But, there’s this new character, a fourteen year old girl we’re auditioning for that we’d like you to try out for that part. Because it was so top secret they weren’t announcing the auditions for that character. They were keeping it very secretive and private.

Luckily I went in anyway for Padme and they had me audition for Ahsoka. I found out I got the part but I didn’t know who I was playing until after I got the part because it was so top secret. All I knew was that I got the part of a new girl in the new SW cartoon. I found out on my first day of work actually. I went in and they explained who I was going to be playing. It’s one of those moments where you pinch yourself and I’m like really? How did I get here? How did I get this part? Are you really trusting me to help originate a new character- especially Anakin Skywalker’s padawan? And I didn’t believe it for a while and I was so nervous that they were going to recast me and find somebody new because it was such a big deal. I’m just so thankful and honored that they gave me the opportunity.

How do you come up with the designs for Her Universe?

That’s one of my favorite parts. Every design has a story, an inspiration or a person behind it. Every single genre, every single universe is so large especially Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who. All three franchises are so massive- where do you even start?

I start with stories, either from personal friends or fans or castmates. Stories from people or events that happened, or my favorite moments. Sometimes it selfishly comes from what I’ve always want to see. But every design has a story.

The “I Know” shirt actually came from Catherine Taber who does the voice of Padme. We once recorded a show on Valentine’s Day. The cast had a little celebration because we were all working most of the day together. She brought in heart shaped cookies and half of them said ‘I love you’ and half of them said ‘I know’. And that was always one of her favorite moments and my favorite moments and so we did a shirt inspired by it.

The “I’ve Got a Crush on Crusher” shirt came from my head designer for Her Universe. She was a Star Trek fan growing up and her crush was Wesley Crusher. She spoke up about it and absolutely had to do the design and brought it to me. She had such a connection to the shirt and design. I love that.

There’s so much thought and compassion and care for each design.

Who were some of your role models while you were growing up?

I was definitely an odd kid. Growing up before I decided I wanted to be an actress, my uncle was a lawyer and he showed me all of his law books. I knew I wanted to get into law- in third grade. I didn’t want to be a lawyer; I wanted to be a judge. Around the same time I did a book report on the first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. I was fascinated by her because of what she stood for. She was the first. She was the first female Supreme Court Justice. She paved the way and now it’s common. I was so inspired by that. She really struck a chord with me.

When I decided I wanted to be an actress and no longer pursue law school she was still an inspiration to me because she represented that just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean you can’t achieve it or make it happen. I’ve always had her in the back of my mind. If she could gain a seat on the highest court in the United States then I can achieve anything. If that’s possible, then I can do it too.

I’ve always been one of those people that when you tell me I can’t achieve something I’m going to find a way to make it happen to prove you wrong. I was turned down twice for Her Universe. It was the third time that I re-approached the notion and the idea that we were actually able to make it happen. I knew there was a need for it. Just because it’s never been done before, just because people believed girls wouldn’t buy sci-fi merchandise doesn’t mean that’s the case. The numbers spoke otherwise; close to all sc-fi fans are women. I just needed to figure out the right way to go about it. If I did that, I knew it could be a success because the fans are there and they want to be recognized.

Who are some of your role models now?

I think it’s all sorts of people around me. I think a true role model should be someone in a person’s life on a regular basis whether it’s a family member or a close friend or someone you can interact with on a regular basis.

With being an actress and a personality and also with my husband being a sports figure I take it very seriously because I know that when you’re a public figure you are a role model whether you like it or not. When athletes and actors or actresses say that they don’t want to be role models that is unfortunately not the reality. Just because you don’t want to be a role model doesn’t mean that you aren’t. If you are in the public eye, you are going to be a role model to someone. People look up to you, especially kids.

Being in that position is something I don’t take lightly; I take it very seriously. Once I got the role of Ahsoka, I hoped that her character would be a role model for girls. I knew that being the voice of such a strong female character and being associated with the Lucasfilm franchise, that I would also be in the position to be a role model. I knew it was going to be a big responsibility and I was going to do right by it. I was going to make the most of that opportunity.

My role models now are family members, people I work with. I have several close friends that I work with on Clone Wars that are my role models. I have several people I work with on Her Universe that have guided me to work on the business. It’s very important to develop a team of trusted people that bring out the best in you and that you can learn from and can be role models to you.

First and foremost my number one role model is my husband. He’s my best friend and I look up to him, and he helps me in always doing the right thing and always making the right decision. We work together as a team.

What message do you have for the young girls of today? What about young women and grown women?

I would have to say that it would be Her Universe’s new tagline: Dream Your world. Be Your World. Flaunt Your World.

Dream your world represents the little girl that has dreams of being a superhero or Ahsoka Tano or a Jedi or a fantastical character and doing great things. But as a little kid you have your parents that control your destiny, so they’re essentially just dreams because you don’t know at that point that you can actually achieve them.

Be your world comes in as we get older and we realize that we do control our own destiny and we can be a real life superhero. I look at the 501st and Rebel Legion. They have these amazing costumes, but they do things for good. They’re always at charity events. They’re always making kids smile and doing positive things. That shows that you can change the world, you can be that superhero. So that world you dreamed of as a little kid- you can go live that world now.

Flaunt your world is where the term “geek chic” comes in. You can show off your fandom with pride. You don’t have to hide it anymore. Be proud of it, flaunt your world.

We all remember Katie- the 7 year old who was teased for liking Star Wars. What do you think about the fact that this sort of attitude (girls can’t like sci-fi) still exists today?

We definitely have a long way to go- I’ll be the first to say that. I feel that we’ve made huge strides but it’s such a major stereotype that it’s going to take a long time. I would just say, and ask, not just female fans but male fans as they are some of our most passionate fans in speaking up for the women in their lives- to speak up about it. That’s the way we’re going to change it. That will debunk the stereotype and make sci-fi a more accepting place for both genders. Sci-fi is for everyone. Also rally around the young kids, bringing awareness to the fact that this genre we love is not gender specific.

It’s a big task to take on. Carrie Goldman launched her book this week, called Bullied, based on her experience from a year of research on bullying. She brought up some great points on things we need to learn and how we can fix it and how to end this cycle of fear.

Doing whatever possible to get the word out to change the perception. The more that we speak up about it, the more it will change. I think that it is changing, but we still have a long way to go.

Be sure to follow Her Universe on Twitter and like them on Facebook!

Here is your latest bowl of cranial chunks. Grab a spoon and dig in.

Peter Jackson has made it official. The unnecessary cash-grab of stretching the 300 pages of The Hobbit into two movies is now even more unnecessary as it will become three movies. We already knew that he was adding characters into The Hobbit that never appeared in the book. There are some collected notes, The Simarillion, appendixes, etc. that Jackson can pull from for additional content. However his note refers to stories that would otherwise be untold. I fear Jackson is delving into the realm of cinematic fan fiction and adding stories that simply didn’t exist in the source material. He is an accomplished filmmaker, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy should earn him a fair share of trust. The problem is that J. R. R. Tolkein died nearly 40 years ago and was never able to consent to another expanding on his world in this fashion. While the final product may be good, I’m just not sure Jackson should hijack the work of another.

Even Gollum thinks MGM is being greedy

All C’s Collectibles in Aurora, Colorado is organizing a fundraiser for the Aurora shooting victims and their families called Aurora Rise. I half expect someone to make a donation or silent auction purchase under the name of Bruce Wayne.

Latino Review once again scores an exclusive scoop with news on Ant-Man. It is far more important to get facts correct rather than report first. I’m not sure that readers care who gets a scoop first, but Latino Review has a history of both early and accurate reporting on Marvel movie news. I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

Ant-Man will film in London when Thor: The Dark World wraps up principal photography. Ant-Man would likely have a summer 2014 release date (perhaps one of the two dates Marvel vacated) and make 2014 the first year Marvel releases three movies. What I find interesting is that Marvel is continuing to take risks. After banking Avengers success, they could expand with a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie, or another take on the Hulk. Instead we’re getting Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. It is entirely possible that Marvel/Kevin Feige have planned far enough out that Ant-Man plays a crucial role in The Avengers 2, or that Guardians of the Galaxy is necessary to introduce Thanos as a villain, though I suspect he could have just as easily entered via a Thor movie.

I don’t know that Marvel needs to be adding more characters when they need to focus on why these characters can’t always cross-over for each other. After the budding bromance between Bruce Banner and Tony Stark in The Avengers, it will feel odd that Banner doesn’t appear in Iron Man 3. Even my six year old daughter noted that for no apparent reason War Machine was missing as is.

I’m shocked I haven’t seen anyone else mention is that the addition of several new characters could also open the door to kill off existing ones.

The film no one asked for, but we’re getting anyway

OUYA is looking to revolutionize and democratize the console industry. I’ll likely review the hardware/service when it launches and provide more in-depth coverage at that time. The long and short is that they’re providing a low-cost ($99) Android-powered console with free games. With relatively standard Android hardware/software, game developers have a very easy platform to target for development. Microsoft just came under fire recently for charging a small developer $40,000 to release a patch. Getting on the main platforms is a challenge to begin with.

Unlike Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo going after hardware modders, you’re welcomed and encouraged to tinker with the hardware if you want. The case opens with standard screws.

And like I mentioned above, all games will be free in some sense. Either they will be demos that can be upgraded to full versions, freemium games, or completely free titles. This kind of revolutionary thinking can be both more profitable for developers, and more appealing to consumers. This could be the solution to the conundrum I posed earlier this month.

The question I had was, how many developers would target this platform? Android has over 400 million device activations, but some of those are old devices no longer in use, or older hardware that can’t run newer games. Developing for Android in general can reach a large audience, but not necessarily as large today as the big three consoles. OUYA hasn’t shipped yet. And while it is the most successful Kickstarter project of all time (it has already raised nearly $6 million with 8 days remaining), they haven’t sold millions of consoles yet. It is currently a niche platform.

Developers could target both traditional mobile Android devices and OUYA simultaneously, designing both touch and controller input schemes. But still I wondered if larger developers would lend credence to this device?

Today Square Enix and OUYA announced that they are bringing Final Fantasy III to the platform. FFIII was initially a Japanese-only release, which led to confusing numbering in the series. The US release called II was actually IV, and III was actually VI. It wasn’t until VII that both countries has the same naming scheme. FFIII has a DS and iOS port, but this will be the first time consumers outside of Japan will be able to play FFIII on their TV.

The new international Skyfall trailer looks so good, even Daniel Burden might have to renounce his hatred for Daniel Craig as Bond. Though I’m wondering if it is going to become a cliché for Javier Bardem to appear as a villain with goofy hair. I’m just happy that Sam Mendes is able to make this movie. MGM initially shut down production due to financial problems, and they’re basically counting on The Hobbit to be a cash cow to finance this movie. It is almost enough to forgive the aforementioned cash grab.

Wolfire has organized several “Humble Bundles” in the past. These are limited time sales where you can name your own price (even a penny) to a buy a bundle of indie games. You also determine how to distribute your money between the game developers and charity. Most of these games have had Mac, Windows and Linux versions and are DRM-free releases. Now they’re trying their hand at a Humble Music Bundle. You can name your own price for MP3 and FLAC (high quality lossless) music from MC Frontalot, They Might Be Giants, Christopher Tin, Hitoshi Sakimoto and Jonathon Coulton. Other than They Might Be Giants, these artists have ties to video games.

If you pay more than the average price (currently $8.26) then you also unlock an OK Go album.

Back on the Kickstarter front, Penny Arcade has a successful empire (as I discussed previously) but wants to work for their fans directly rather than advertisers. I enjoy reading Penny Arcade a great deal, but I’m not sure I’ll back this drive.

I’m not motivated to throw money at them just to remove ads from their site because the ads are unobtrusive, and reflect products they sincerely want to endorse. However, some of their stretch goals really appeal to me. They’ve already raised enough money to do another Automata series. If they raise enough money, they’ll put together a web cartoonist reality show competition, bring us more Lookouts and even a Twisp and Catsby children’s e-book.

Mike and Jerry provide three free funny jpgs per week. I’m happy to consume these and I’m certainly glad to see them financially succeed. I’m just wondering if these stretch goals shouldn’t be Kickstarter projects in and of themselves. If they only have so much time to produce a limited amount of content, then let the fans speak with their wallets on what they want to see rather than throwing money into a large Penny Arcade pot.

I don’t want fewer ads. I want more Penny Arcade.

I’m not a music expert. I’m old enough now that I worry I’m drifting out of touch with new music and spend most of my time listening to songs released 20 years ago. But I do try to touch on music a little with each of these Brain Nugget columns.

As far as semi-recent albums go, I’ve been listening to Not Your Kind of People from Garbage, Oceania by The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (yes that is the title) from Fiona Apple. These are all enjoyable and decent albums that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend, but they fall short of amazing. Oceania in particular is the best offering from Billy Corgan (counting his solo work, Zwan and the Pumpkins) in some time, but still not as good as Melon Collie.

But the album I can’t stop listening to is My Head Is An Animal from Of Monsters and Men. It’s just really fucking good and I don’t seem to tire of it. Buy it already. That is all.

BSIG doesn’t run articles over the weekend (at least at the moment), so we are late to report that it was somewhat suddenly determined that July 29th (Wil Wheaton’s birthday) should also be known as Don’t Be a Dick Day. To Wil, I’d say happy day-after-your-birthday (happy afterbirth?).

Celebrity birthdays are not necessarily more notable than others. I could equally call to attention that today is my friend Matt Scharf’s birthday. He is celebrating it in Afghanistan. Some felt Wheaton was acting self-serving to ask for a personal holiday, which became its own divisive topic. The problem is that this discussion of birthdays and their importance obfuscates the far greater message.

Wheaton first established (somewhat unwittingly) his law during the 2007 Penny Arcade Expo Keynote with the following quote:

Arcades were more than just magnificent geek Shangri-Las, filled with all sorts of video games and pinball machines. They were a vital part of my generation’s social development. If I beat another kid in a two player game and taunted him mercilessly, with explicit references to his mother’s sex life and my role in it, the way some online gamers do today, he would have justifiably kicked the everliving shit out of me. So I learned – in arcades – the importance of good sportsmanship. Because arcades were real places, staffed by real people, we had to worry about much more than getting kicked off a server if we were complete idiots in a game. I guess this is a double-edged sword, and I’m feeling like a cranky old man by even mentioning it, but would you all do me a favor? When you’re playing online, have fun, and don’t be a dick, okay?

It was three years earlier that Penny Arcade ran a comic on John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory:

As a society, we do seem to have a problem. Maybe the anonymity of the internet is to blame. Perhaps it is the antagonistic nature of the media and the partisan culture we’ve developed into. Either way, I am inundated daily with inconsiderate behavior and it saddens me deeply.

My six year old daughter enjoys playing video games with me. She has asked a few times whether or not she can turn on chat in online games, and I always tell her no. I haven’t explained to her yet why I won’t let her. She still has an optimistic view of human nature and I don’t know how to answer her without crushing said view. And frankly the people behaving like asshats in said online chats likely aren’t aware and don’t care that there might be a six year old girl playing the game.

Just two days after I wrote that we shouldn’t take human tragedy and twist it into an opportunistic platform for grandstanding on political issues, that is precisely what is precisely what happened immediately after the Aurora shooting. Instead of having empathy for the families of the victims, people used this moment of human suffering to judge and criticize others. Lost in all the finger-pointing and confirmation bias was the perspective of those directly affected. You can read an a rather enlightening statement from someone who was actually in that theater here.

With a presidential election coming up in the US, our partisan divide is about to widen even further. I’m hearing from half of my friends that all Republicans are evil, and the other half believe the same of Democrats. Can we reconcile those statements? Do we truly believe that half of the country (people we live next door to, work with, and speak to everyday) truly has sincere evil in their hearts?

Somewhere along the way we lost our ability to disagree respectfully.

I’m a strong proponent of gay rights (or as I like to call them, human rights), must to the consternation of my Republican friends. I’m adamantly pro-life, much to the consternation of my Democrat friends. (For what it is worth, I advocate personal freedoms, both social and economic. I just happen to believe that the baby has equal rights too.) Statistically speaking, I likely offended you with one of the two above statements. Your view of me has perhaps lessened because of it. But am I truly less of a person simply because we disagree?

Maybe the Penny Arcade comic had it right. When I’m just a voice, or a bunch of text on the internet, I’m not perceived as a person, especially when I can be attacked anonymously without fear of retribution. When someone nearly hits me in traffic because they decided to cut me off without room or signalling, in their mind they likely aren’t endangering the life of another human being. My car is just an object impeding their goal of getting to a destination on time. When we attack political groups, we aren’t attacking the people who are members.

Except we are. The world is filled with people and it is important to note that. Wil Wheaton’s Law may seem to some like an off-the-cuff remark, but it is an important message. Our forum rules start with it for a reason. Your thoughts and actions affect others whether you realize it or not. Really, every day should be Don’t Be a Dick Day, but taking one day as a reminder is a good start.

This column written while listening to MGMT.

Is the geek in your life about to have a birthday? Are you still guilty for getting them that lame American Eagle sweater for Christmas, and don’t want to see that disappointed look in their eye again?

Here’s the answer. An all-inclusive Gift Buying Geek Guide. If you’re ever in need for a geeky gift–look here for ideas and you’ll be sure to make the geek in your life very, very happy.

A Batmobile

Tumblers aren’t just social networks

Now, ideally, you’ll give the real deal. Hopefully you’re friends with a brilliant engineer and have the funds to create the powerful ride complete with Cable Cutter Blade, Bat Ray Projector, Detect-a-scope, Bat Eye Switch, Automatic Tire Inflation Device, Remote Batcomputer, Emergency Bat Turn Lever, Anti-Fire Activator, Bat Smoke, Bat Photoscope, and many other Bat gadgets. Nothing would bring a bigger smile to a geek’s face than to see the batmobile with a huge gaudy red bow on its hood, sitting in the middle of their driveway. That is, if it can fit in their driveway.

However, if engineer friends or huge funds are eluding you, try for a smaller batmobile. Remote-control batmobile, a LEGO batmobile, heck even a PEZ dispenser batmobile is cool. Seriously. Batmobiles. You can’t go wrong with ‘em.

A Geeky Hat or T-Shirt

Beanie with elf ears? Cool. Indiana Jones hat? Even cooler. Storm Trooper helmet? Coolest! The great thing bout giving a hat to a geek is that on the off chance *more like definitive* chance that they played Skyrim instead of taking a shower then a hat will cover up their greasy hair. So . . . yeah, a repertoire of awesome hats is helpful to a geek.

And you know how every sports nut likes to have underwear, socks, t-shirts, hoodies, shorts, and ties with the logo of their favorite sport Kingdom (they’re called Kingdoms, aren’t they?) Well, geeks like to do that, too. Not only will having a t-shirt of The Legend of Zelda’s Hylian Shield remind you of all the times you’ve saved Hyrule, but it will also attract other Hyrule heroes to you when they see your shirt. Besides, what else would best display their love for Monte Python than to have “Your mother was a hampster and your father smelt of elderberries,” t-shirt to display! So t-shirts are excellent both for the proclaiming adoration and attracting geeky conversations with strangers.

Recommended: Snorgtees.com & threadless.com for ultra geeky shirts.

Something Useful For The Zombie Apocalypse

Get them a book of edible forest plants. Or a box of freeze dried food. Or a big jug of gas. Or a rope. Or a professional grade backpack. Or a tent. Or a pick axe.  Or a crowbar. Or a pitchfork. Or anything that would be helpful in the off chance *more like definitive* chance that there will be a zombie apocalypse.

In Nebraska, we take zombie apocalypse preparation seriously

I mean, your geeky friends may not ever climb a mountain but they sure like knowing that they have a backpack to use if they ever needed to climb one. And you’d be surprised at how often they’d planned elaborate escape routes from their residence just in case a zombie horde was approaching. Believe me, they’ll sleep better at night knowing that they have a rope and a pitchfork under their bed.

Electric Cord Organizers

For geeks, seeing someone with organized electrical cords is like seeing the mother who scrapbooks her pictures every month (instead of when the kids are grown and out of the house, as God intended).

Anything that organizes electric cords and cables is a useful thing of beauty. I swear, if I see the back of a television with streams of cords flowing in perfect order I’ll Ooo and Ahh and grow green with envious admiration as if they had smithed their own Elindil.

Food. And Drinks.

If you don’t remember anything else from this list, please remember this: Feed the Geek. When there’s a twelve hour Dungeons and Dragons marathon going on, no one has time to make meatballs. In fact, when you’re trying to beat the last boss in a video game, you don’t even have time to order pizza.

Geeks prefer bite sized food, so then only one hand is needed. Geeks prefer high protein munchies, like beef jerky or butterfingers … to keep up their strength. Geeks prefer highly caffeinated beverages, so that their strength can be used to play longer.

Remember that Taiwanese man who died after binging on internet video games for three days straight? He obviously didn’t have good friends that would bring him meatballs and pizza.

So gift your geeky friends with food. A lot of it. And regularly. It could save lives.

What gift do YOU think geeks would like? Speaking objectively, of course.

I was once a devout follower of the church of Pandora.

I suffered through the streaming caps, endured the songs I had no interest in hearing because I had already skipped over too many. My days were full of unanswered questions like “How is this artist at all similar to the suggestions?” and “Why can’t you just play that one song I want to listen to?”

But then one day, my eyes were opened. And I was saved by Spotify.

In the land of internet based music apps there are many players; we know them well. Pandora, last.fm, Rhapsody, just to name a few. But they all pale in comparison to Spotify.

To be fair, I was skeptical of Spotify when it first came to the U.S a year ago. And during its infancy that skepticism was well founded. You could only get an account through invitations and the music library was somewhat limited.

Now that Spotify has had a year to work out all those kinks it is (in my opinion) the best streaming music platform out there.

One of my favorite features of Spotify, and what sets it apart from others is that you can listen to the exact song that you want when you want to. No waiting, no skipping through songs that you have no interest in. Another great feature is the seemingly never ending music library; albums are added daily with new releases available almost instantly. You can also import local music files. And if you’re a fan of the Pandora-esque ability to discover new songs, Spotify has a radio function as well.

Another great feature, and one that can be quite fun, are the playlists. You can create as many as you want and share those playlists with your friends. Playlists can also be collaborative, allowing others to add songs. There are some great ones out there, like a 90’s Nostalgia list with hundreds of songs. Or one of my favorites (and biased because of its creator), a playlist to cheer on the apocalypse.

As for the nuts and bolts of things, Spotify has three different options. The free version is the most basic, allowing you access to the music library on your computer only. However, the latest iOS version of Spotify now allows basic members access to the Radio feature on their phones. After six months of the Basic membership, you’re capped at 10 hours of listening time per month.

Spotify Unlimited will set you back $4.99 a month. With Unlimited there are no ads, and you get unlimited listening time as well as the Radio feature.

Good music makes me want to dance like Les Grossman

Spotify Premium, which I have, runs $9.99 a month. You get all the features of Basic and Unlimted, plus the option of playing music in offline mode. Offline mode allows you to sync your playlists to your device and listen to them without streaming. This comes in handy if you’re worried about data usage or you’re in an area with bad reception.

There are, however, a few knocks on Spotify. You have to sign in with your Facebook credentials, but the automatic spamming of your listening history can be turned off. Currently Spotify is only available for Mac OS and Windows, but Linux users can still use it through Wine or try out the preview of their Linux platform. It’s also not available in all countries, but at sixteen countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) it far outranks the availability of other services.

What do you think? Am I drinking the Kool-Aid, or do you agree with my worshiping of Spotify? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

There are very few things in this world that I truly hate.

The Yankees. Green and red peppers. Jar Jar Binks.

But most of all, above and beyond anything else, I hate cancer. And not just a normal, emotional filled hatred. But a slow burning, deeply ingrained hate. In fact, there aren’t really words adequate enough to exemplify my hatred for cancer. So it’s best said in this picture:

This pretty much sums it all up

That cross-stitch was given to me by a good friend in late 2010 when I had my own personal cancer scare and has hung on the wall in our office since then. It’s not a very eloquent statement, but when words fail I find that it gets the job done.

Why such a hatred for cancer?

Aside from the fact that it’s still one of the top killers, that it strikes without regard for age, race, sex or occupation, I hate cancer because of all the good people that it has taken away from this world. I was reminded of that and my hatred for cancer yesterday with the news of the passing of Greg Mohns. Most of those outside of the football community won’t know who he is, but there are countless men out there who owe their football careers to Greg. He had an amazing career in the CFL and XFL, and last year he worked for the UFL. Greg was the Director of Player Personnel for the Omaha Nighthawks, and he was my friend.

Greg Mohns was a kind soul and a wonderful person to be around on a daily basis. Midway through the season he was diagnosed with throat cancer. Because I was dealing with this on a fairly personal level, I formed a closer bond with Greg. He started treatments and remained optimistic about his prognosis. Unfortunately, I lost contact with Greg after the season ended and was overcome with grief to hear of his passing.

But my all encompassing reason for hating cancer, the reason why I wish I had the super power to eradicate the awful disease from the face of the planet, is my dad.

Me and dad, October 1988

My dad’s battle with cancer is a fairly long, drawn out tale. Full of ups and downs and in betweens. It was so random and so unexpected, and to this day still has some fairly surreal moments. And that’s the thing about cancer; it can strike when you least expect it. It’s one of those things that’s always there, but you live your life thinking and hoping that it will never happen to you. You can even do everything the experts advise to avoid cancer. Eat healthy, get regular exams, exercise. But even those can only do so much in the face of a genetic lottery or, in my dad’s case, the unknown.

It all started in April of 1998. My dad had always been fairly healthy with no major complaints. And while he was a smoker, it would not be lung cancer that would start my hatred of the disease. No, it would be a brain tumor to fill that role. He had no warning signs, nothing beyond some headaches, but headaches are so common that most people wouldn’t suspect anything. That day at work he had two seizures, and another in the ICU. I remember the panic gripping my heart when I was called down to my counselor’s office, remember that same panic echoing in my mom’s voice on the other end of the phone. At this point we still had no idea what was going on, no idea how that day would change our lives for the next thirteen years.

I’ll skip over the bits about seeing my dad on a ventilator in the ICU, suffice to say it was pretty traumatic for my fourteen year old self. The rest of that week is a bit of a blur, but in the end the final diagnosis was an astrocytoma, a malignant brain tumor. The surgeon was confident that he had gotten all of it out and ensured us that my dad would have a full recovery. When my dad was discharged the next week, we all clung to this hope and the illusion of comfort that it gave us.

That illusion crumbled away in November when the tumor came back. They opted for radiation this time, and once again we were content in our belief that this was it. No more cancer, no more tumors. And for the next nine years, that would be true. Aside from residual seizures from scar tissue or medication imbalances, my dad’s brain remained tumor free. Those awful moments of 1998 were a distant memory. We all believed, as my dad put it, that we were done with that cancer shit.

We were wrong.

In August of 2007, my dad had his second brain surgery to remove yet another tumor. This was when I was intimately introduced to the intricacies of a Medical Power of Attorney and Do Not Resuscitate orders. But, yet again and against most odds, my dad recovered quickly. There was one minor change, however. After the surgery he was put on chemotherapy. A pill form, thankfully. It seemed to be doing the trick for a while and we had another three years of that wonderful illusion of beating cancer. In the spring of 2010, there was new growth. They changed the form of chemo to include infusions. This seemed to keep the new tumor at bay and, again, it was back to that comforting illusion. And then we come to 2011, or what I refer to as the year from hell.

In February of last year, my dad had several seizures. Normally this wouldn’t be much to cause panic, but the fact that his medication levels were all normal was a concern. He was rushed in for an MRI and we got the news we had been dreading; new growth. From the sound of it, nasty new growth. Much bigger than they had anticipated. Less than two weeks later my dad was under the knife for his third brain surgery to remove his fifth brain tumor.

I should mention now that during the majority of these tumor incidents, my dad was living almost 200 miles away in Kansas City. The day of his surgery, February 24 2011, was also the day of a particularly awful blizzard. The normal three hour drive to Kansas City took us almost eight.

I knew from that first night of seeing him in the ICU that this tumor was different. My dad had lost a significant amount of weight and was incredibly weak. We went to Kansas City anticipating that we’d drop him off at his apartment at the end of the weekend, just like in 2007. Instead we left with uncertainty because he still wasn’t ready to be discharged. Things got worse when my dad, ever the stubborn man, got out of bed on his own and fell. He broke his shoulder and was transferred to the rehab unit. When he still wasn’t ready to live on his own, he was admitted to a skilled nursing facility.

Neither of us could expect at this point that he would never again see the outside of a nursing home.

Thus began a long, drawn out ordeal of fighting with insurance companies and medicaid laws and uncooperative doctors. But the biggest battle, my arch nemesis, was the cancer. This brain tumor acted like a glioblastoma – the worst of the worst. Whereas before he had very little effects in memory or behavior, this bad boy changed him. He’d accuse us of awful things, forget conversations and important details, or even create false memories. It was horrible to see my dad, the strongest man I have ever known, like that.

We finally got him to Omaha in July, but it didn’t make things any easier. He was starting to decline, his health and memory getting worse every day. In August he agreed to go into Hospice care. (As an aside- Hospice workers are the most amazing people this planet has. I don’t know how they do it.) We took our daughter to see him in September when he was still fairly coherent. From there it only got worse. On October 20, his 65th birthday, his hospice nurse called to tell me that he was now only able to eat soft foods and that he had to have everything done for him. At that time she estimated he only had about another two to three weeks left. My husband and I went to see him later that day. At first he didn’t even respond to us, and my husband fed him his dinner. But as the visit progressed, there was a small spark of my dad that returned. The people in the dining room sang him happy birthday and T.J. told him some awful jokes. Before we left that night, I told my dad goodbye. I said that I loved him, and that he didn’t need to worry about me anymore, because I had T.J. to take care of me now.

Zoe and her papa, September 2011

At the time I had no idea that those were the last words I would ever say to him.

On November 5, I received a call in the afternoon from the nursing home. My dad had been slightly unresponsive and needed some oxygen, but was otherwise stable again. We had plans to see him the next day anyways, and the thought that this was the end didn’t cross my mind.

He passed away around three in the morning on November 6.

I remember getting the call from the hospice worker and the mix of relief and despair that I felt, the almost dream like state I was in when we got to the home, the numbness that took ahold of me as I planned out the final arrangements. We held a small visitation here in Omaha. Per his wishes, he was cremated. I took his ashes back to England a few weeks later and we scattered them at a very peaceful and beautiful spot in Bexhill.

The South Downs in England

Eight months later it is still a very raw feeling, and the passing of Greg makes me hate cancer even more.

I’m open minded in my hatred of the disease, not singling out a particular type. This translates into the organizations I support. The American Cancer Society and Stand Up 2 Cancer are, in my opinion, the two best out there today. They both excel in advocacy, awareness and contributions to research. SU2C gets bonus points for their collaboration with Star Wars.

So, here’s a resounding Fuck Cancer for all those that have been taken away by this awful disease. My biggest hope is that one day we’ll live in a world where cancer no longer exists.

James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer collaborated on the scores for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. For The Dark Knight Rises, Hans Zimmer is finally allowed to fly solo and he soars.

Their work on Batman Begins was atmospheric and at times evocative of being in a cave surrounded by bats. In that regard, it is effective, but frequently it is forgettable. Superheros deserve iconic themes. Heroic journeys need dramatic musical cues. And while I get that perhaps the score reflects the more realistic tone Christopher Nolan was aiming for to the extent that Danny Elfman’s otherwise excellent Batman theme would feel out place, I always felt like they under-delivered. I was also put off on how the tracks were named after different genera of bats. The Latin names and subtle austere come off a bit pretentious. I want the score of a film to carry me through the emotional journey of said film. The score was too minimalist which did not match the movie.

Zimmer experimented with a much more non-traditional approach to reflect the chaotic nature of the Joker with the score for The Dark Knight. This was once again a joint venture with Howard, but I got the impression we were hearing more of Zimmer this time around. His willingness to take risks and explore the themes of the story shined through.

With the third film, Nolan stated that Zimmer’s brilliance truly paid off in a critical way, but it wasn’t anything that Zimmer composed or anything that appears on the score. When they were trying to determine how to handle the national anthem for the football scene, Zimmer chimed in that it should be a young boy singing to connect the theme of Bruce Wayne’s journey.

The scores got progressively better with each film, and I’m really enjoying listening to the score from The Dark Knight Rises. Howard is supposed to be the more bombastic of the two composers, but Zimmer isn’t afraid to hammer out tense cues with aggressive percussion. This is the first of the three where I feel the emotional journey of the film. The track names reference emotional beats in the movie and it is clear what Zimmer was trying to capture with each one.

The physical copies unlock bonus tracks online. There is a deluxe digital version with even more bonus tracks. “Bombers Over Ibiza (Junkie XL Remix)” feels out of place with the score and takes me out of the listening experience every time it comes up. It’s enough to almost consider staying away from the deluxe version, except I really love “The Shadows Betray You” which is only featured in that version.

Perhaps even more exciting, Zimmer also worked on an iOS app that allows you to integrate music from the movie into a personal soundtrack. The app responds to your location, movements, time of day, and other factors to create an augmented reality experience. You can download it for free from Apple’s App Store. You can add more music to the app with an in app purchase.