Criminal by: Karin Slaughter

Recently I had the privilege to read best selling author Karin Slaughter's new novel Criminal (on sale 7.3.12) This book has literally something for everyone.  It has a compelling mystery, a troubled love story, tough cops, and a crazy killer.  Below the fold I'll try to maintain a mostly spoiler free review.

The Avengers

I was finally able to get to the movies and see The Avengers as I was suggested many times that it was a must see. It's a fan service movie. If you know me personally you know I have a fond distaste for these. Not because they can't be good, but I just feel like they are cheap money grabs at the fan's wallets. If you've been a fan of the DC comic movies of late, you've already seen it, and I'm sure you LOVE it. Which makes me happy, because hey, you got something good!

For everyone else, well you probably had a decent time at the very least.

As for me, I payed for movie seats in a theater that was caving in. The ceiling was dripping, and fiber glass was hanging down. Kind of a drag, Shame on you Carmike Cinemas, that room should have been shut down! Now that I think about it, I should have snapped a photo of it. Seriously, my party couldn't decide if we should do an about face and demand our money back or just deal with it.

Aside from the appalling state of the theater room, Here are some things I noted about Avengers. Captain America has lovely eye lashes.

The scene where Nick Fury throws the bloody Capt. America cards on the table. Iron Man's chest Arc reactor wasn't glowing for the whole scene. He was also wearing a Black Sabbath Tee.

The only character that got any real screen time containing back story or personality was Iron Man. Thor came close, but it was needed because his brother Loki was the villain, it couldn't be avoided.

Mewling Quim was used. I love purple prose.

Hawk Eye's mind control reminded me of Mako poisoning.

To wrap this up @Gabe_Games said "I would sit it a pile of trash to watch that movie...so its worth it jem jem!" so this movie is defiantly worth seeing.

Super Smash Brothers: The Expansion Pack

Literally a month ago on this day was the release of what could be considered one of the most highly awaited Wii games. Super Smash Bro's: Brawl.

I got a few chances to play this, and I must say, this game falls short of what a fan could want.

In short this was Nintendo's game that only sells because fans eat up the fact that is has a lot of their favorite characters from all the Nintendo games (plus licensed to Nintendo character's now) in the same game ... that being said it is true this games controls are better then most movie games(the worst games constantly for fans of anything), but compared to them there really isn't much more to be happy about.

For starters they added a on-line multi-player mode, pretty sweet for any SSB fan. To bad if you play with Wi-Fi you'll lag out of the game or just lose because you can't control your character fast enough, and I have a feeling the wired experience won't be that huge jump in performance.

Second, the adventure mode while completely new, in short doses can be fun but overall is frustrating especially if you decide to play with a friend, and I have a huuuge beef with how zoomed in camera is in this mode, so much so you can't see anything going on, but while in melee every character (excluding GIANT TVs) everyone is the size of an ant because the camera stays so far out on every map.

So even newest features are a serious flop and even the change out in characters and other minor adjustments only make this game a glorified full price expansion pack to the SSB: Melee experience. Not worth it, unless your a hardcore fan. Save yourself the from the disappointment of lack luster addition to this series, skip this title.

A Month in Review: Olympus E-510

Around a month ago I was elated to be gifted my very first DSLR camera, The Olympus E-510.

This little camera I've come to really love. It's got everything a photographer could want from their very first DSLR.

First and for most my favorite feature, this little baby has built in image stabilization. Considering the lenses I'll be buying this feature works great, I haven't had a blurry image yet, and with this feature included I won't have to spend extra on lenses to have the feature included. That is a costly addition, for a college student and hobbyist, to any lens.

Next up is the sensor cleaning. The E-510 has self-cleaning image sensor. While eventually I'll probably have to clean it myself, I haven't seen any specks on my pictures. Because, every time I turn the camera off the sensor cleans itself, super simple. The sound of the cleaning process is a bit sickening though, kind of like the sound of a dying hard-drive. Just relax and read the manual if you don't believe me. Just the cleaning cycle.

Image quality should be touched on, seeing as that is a major factor for a camera. My thoughts: Awesome. I haven't been disappointed. The pictures, as long as they are adjusted appropriately and the focus is set, come out crisp and full of detail. The added DoF (from the 3/4 format) really are nice if you like landscape shots. The color quality is fantastic and usually true to life, but make sure to manually set the White-Balance for that because the automatic on this camera sometimes makes this a lot cooler then they need to be so you can easily end up with a lot of smurf people & land shots.



Other nice features of this camera are: 10 MP images, lots of preprogrammed shooting modes, mechanical auto-focus with the option for manual focus, the camera is lighter then most, feels and is durable, brand name lens (even kit lens) are high quality. This camera even has an automatic mode for people who are shy of the more manual settings.

Also the actual kit compared to the big two (Nikon and Canon) of a comparable camera is actually a cheaper option.

A bit of warning, this camera isn't for everyone. If you want one that has large amount of compatible lenses, you'd do better to buy a Nikon or Canon. Also the lenses for the Olympus camera's tend to be more expensive then the other two populars as well as harder to find in actually physical stores.

Other then that also be sure that there are some users who have complained the camera is too small in their hands or that the camera's LCD is to small for the resolution of the pictures it's taking, and I agree with that latter point, but I don't spend too much time chimping so it's not a problem to me. I only double check the screen previews every so often to make sure my white balance is ok.

All in all this is a wonderful camera for a first timer who is looking for something that is reasonably priced but has a forgiving learning curve but includes all the bells and whistles to make a pro feel confident.

At Worlds End Everyone is a Captian

The Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End was a movie that is defiantly is worth seeing in the theaters. For a third part of a trilogy it did not meet the lack luster expectation one might hold to expect from the end of a trilogy. The whole movie was crammed with action and the plot will keep you guessing till the very end. It almost became predictable though in the sense because it seemed almost everyone got the title captain “They're just giving that title away” – Jack Sparrow and everyone was very busy stabbing everyone else in the back to meet their wants and needs.

At points though it was almost confusing as to what everyone was thinking, because of all the traitorisms and switching of ones goals. In the end, everything worked out in a sad yet unpredictable way for Disney. Some loose ends were left because the movies makers were trying to cram more action at the end rather than finishing up the story.

There is new joke material in this movie, such as Captain Jack’s hallucinations, so it’s not the same old rehashed jokes from the previous two trying to release some tension and make the movie more family friendly, while not making a new movie at all. Except for the sea turtle joke, which I believe was mentioned twice in the whole movie.

Also lots of new pirate faces appear in this one and they were all very unique and interesting, with a nice touch of added female roles in leadership positions. Some of the new pirates are from Singapore which one could clearly see were of Asian decent because of all the detail spent on costuming and stages/props for these characters.

The movie though is a bit drawn out to make it seem more epic, and it did fall short of ones expectations of how "dark" this one was suppose to be compaired to the others.

Overall I would believe this movie is a 4 out of 5.

Related Links:
Offical Website for PotC: At Worlds End
IMDb Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End
Rotten Tomato's Review of PotC: At Worlds End