Augmented Reality

Imagine this: You're sitting on the couch watching a movie. It's dim, but not dark. You're alone. Or so you think. You hear a noise! It sounds like it's coming from the kitchen. You walk over to the kitchen and see a giant scary alien monster drinking your milk! You make your hand into a gun shape, point at the alien, and make a "Pow!" noise with your mouth. The alien falls down dead, and disappears. You take off your AR headset, and go back to watching TV. You sitting on the couch and running around the house with your fingers pointed and making gun noises was real. The alien in your kitchen, however, was not. 

Augmented Reality is like Virtual Reality except, unlike VR where it lets you play around in a world created by someone else, it allows you to interact with things that don't exist, but are in your own world. For example, Photoshop. You know how, in Photoshop, you have layers of all the things you added to enhance a photograph? Well, AR just layers things on top of the world that already exists in real time. This allows you to interact with digital things in the real world.

Remember Pokemon Go? That is AR. You can catch Pokemon in your living room, down the street, etc. The game uses actual locations in the real world and just plants Pokemon in it. 

Pokemon Go really got the conversations about what AR can really do. While most people are still backing the VR horse, I personally see it as a stepping stone to the real prize. Augmented Reality can allow you to experience a new sense of wonder. If you are playing a video game, it's cool and all, but it's just you pressing buttons and staring at the TV. What if the video game world was your backyard and your controller was your hands?

Augmented Reality is meant to bring back everyone's social nature. It allows us to continue experiencing the world for what it is instead of giving us more excuses to stay inside and never leaving to do anything while being glued to someone else's dream. 

While writing this blog, I thought I was going to have to talk about all the possibilities of AR, but it turns out there is this tech guy named Meron Gribetz and he had a Ted Talk about the things AR can and will allow you to do. I was so stunned about what his team has already accomplished, it blew anything I thought you could do with it out of the water. 

Supernatural and Pop Culture

The Supernatural Fandom and You!

By: Me!

Let me start out by saying that I very much dislike Supernatural. I kind of hate it. Why? Because it's boring television! "Oh, look, it's two bad asses, one is a smart whiney b word and the other one is super cool and sexy and stoic with a heart of pure gold beams, and they fight monsters all across the country with their old American cars!" It's terrible! It's trash! The show constantly goes back and forth from one brother sacrificing himself to save the other over and over again and, in the meantime, they fight a new threat every week/season. The show is wash, rinse, repeat at its core. Which would be fine, if the fans of the show didn't treat it like the best thing ever. I wouldn't be surprised if the show went on for another 10+ years. And the fans will all say "That's a good thing! This show will never end!" To which I quote Vision from Avengers: Age of Ultron "A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts." I wish the people who loved the show would understand that a good thing ends early and leaves you wanting more, not rolling at the dice until it loses your trust (Dexter!) But this blog isn't supposed to be me bashing on Supernatural. (It's supposed to be one thirdish of that.) It's supposed to be the influence that Supernatural has on it's fan.

After a full paragraph of how much I hated Supernatural and have much disdain for it's fandom, let me now talk about how everyone in my family absolutely loves this show. I swear! I thought I taught my brother better, but when I came home from college the first time for Thanksgiving Break, I found my brother in the thick of season 10, and I knew all hope was lost. "It's not THAT bad." He would say. I would just shake my head in utter shame. My parents used to watch it pretty regularly when it came out, up until around season 4 or 5. (We didn't have cable after that.) And my grand parents do nothing but watch reruns of the show almost every day. The biggest fan, and arguably the one that got everyone else started, was my Aunt Jessica. She loves this show. It's the biggest thing to her since Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I actually LIKE that show). She would have Supernatural posters and shirtless pics of Sam and Dean as the wallpaper of any device she had (soon to be replaced with a shirtless Jon Snow after I got her into GoT.) She loved it. I can't blame her for letting her Supernatural flag fly. The show hit it's hightest peak of fandom around 2013. While I was excited for the finale of Breaking Bad, everyone else was trading seasons 1-5000 with each other at school. 

She would often tell me, "It's just so cool! I liked it in the beginning and now everyone else is seeing what I love about it!" I can't take away the joy of that feeling (me being the hardcore Marvel fan(who got made fun of lots of times in school for it(Spider-Man isn't REAL, Justice!) only for my favorite characters to be what dominates the box office every year for 8 straight years and counting.) The Supernatural Fandom is often poked at in the show. Making them feel that much closer to the thing they love. In the show, the Supernatual brand exists as a series of books that are then turned into a tv show to which the actors of the show are the very same actors of the actual show in real life. (Meta enough for you?) They even hold Supernatural conventions in show and in real life where people dress up as their favorite Supernatural characters. (Most notably, you guessed it, Sam and Dean.)

I was looking on Amazon for "Supernatural Merchandise" for a V-Day gift, and noticed the large amounts of odd merch. There was a hot wheelz toy of the classic American car used int he show. There was a pillow case of both the brothers in the show, laying in a bed with each other, with nothing but white towels covering up the naughty bits, tanned abs, and heterosexual-ism to spare. (#Wincest (I don't support #Destiel))

To me, the Supernatural Fandom is a weird, dark, and scary place. It is a place I will likely never venture in my years, and feel more fulfilled for it. If it is your cup of tea, more power to you, but, jeez, there are many better things!  #TheLeftovers

TV Review

A Review of A Series of Unfortunate Events

            It’s no secret that I am a fan of “sad” TV. When my brother is in a mood, he likes to watch short comedy movies or shows just so he can not pay attention and have the occasional laugh. I do the opposite twice. When I’m happy, I watch sad stuff. When I’m sad, I watch sad(der) stuff. I don’t know why that is, maybe I like to feel my emotions when I’m sad or maybe I like to look at sad people and think “, Thank God I’m not like them!” Whatever the case may be, I LOVE sad TV.

            Flashback to the 2003 movie A Series of Unfortunate Events starring Jim Carrey. I remember I was around 7(ish?) and we had just got a new DVD player. My Dad didn’t know how to work it and the screen would skip around whenever we watched a DVD. We always just powered through and watched it. One movie I distinctly remember is A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was going through my Jim Carrey phase, watching such classics as Liar Liar and Ace Ventura. The film, I hardly remember, but the character of Count Olaf is one that stuck with me. It was the darkest character I had seen Carrey play and it stuck with me. Count Olaf is, of course, the main villain and, to me, seems more goofy than scary, but, the point is, I never saw Jim Carrey actively try and kill people in a movie. Never mind three orphaned children. I was too young to understand the movie, but it did give me interest in the books. I never read them, however, because they would always say on the back or in the first few paragraphs that, “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other books.” I was a kid at the time, too scared to venture into the unknown, but, now at age 20, when I heard of the Netflix Series of Unfortunate Events, I was ready to get my feet wet and discover what the stories had in store.

THE CAST

            I don’t know the names of the kids in the show and I’m probably too lazy to look it up, but they are all terrific. The boy that plays Klaus is especially good, he can play pissed and sad and smart and ready to fight back all in one look. The girl that play Violet is a tad less interesting, but I think it is because she is more of a doer than a thinker, making her a good foil for Klaus. Their sister, Sunny, is cute (I guess) but I never really payed attention to her unless she was biting something

            The two true stars of the show are Patrick Warburton and Neil Patrick Harris. Truly bringing their A game. Neil Patrick Harris is having so much fun playing Count Olaf that it literally radiates off the screen. He plays the character slightly better than Jim Carrey, I think, mainly because he seems less threatening, so when he actually does do something truly vile, it packs more of a punch. He also is just an utter failure with everything, making him just the slightest bit relatable. My favorite part of the show, though, is Patrick Warburton as Lemony Snicket. Talk about haunting, and witty, and just sad all around. I was scared at first of the idea of Joe from Family Guy playing a person as damaged and bad ass as Snicket, but Warburton knocks it out of the park, planet, gosh darn universe. His delivery and sorrow actually made me audibly “Aww” any time he talked about his long dead love, Beatrice.

THE MUSIC

            The music is whimsy without being Tim Burtony. I seem to remember the movie having a Tim Burton feel, which kind of turned me off, but the music in the show pulls back from that while also being just as fun and interesting. The theme song, which (slightly) changes every 2 episodes, pokes good fun with the original warnings that scared me from reading the books as the child, constantly bellowing “Look away! Look away!”

THE SET DESIGN/CINEMATOGRAPHY

            This show is the most interesting looking show that Netflix has ever produced, and, believe me, that is no small task by a damn sight. House of Cards, Daredevil, Luke Cage, hell, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt all have unbelievable looks to them, but this show takes the entire bakery. The sets are, again, whimsy without being Tim Burtony. I don’t hate Tim Burton, but his movie all have the same, depressed, look to them that, if done wrong, would look terrible. It’s too easy to try and paint with Tim Burton’s brush, especially with a show like this, but the sets are eye catching and fun to behold

            The cinematography is amazing. It’s like candy for your eyes. While some plot points of the show seem semi wash and repeat, the look never seems to repeat itself. Whether you’re in Count Olaf’s gross home, or the Reptile Room, or the Miserable Mill, you feel like it’s a whole new place that you have to discover along with the three orphans.

STORY, SIDE CAST, AND CONCLUSIONS

            This show is a must watch for the main cast alone, but the “side” characters are just as fun. The person who plays the banker, Mr. Poe, is delightfully ignorant of obvious things. And their Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine are played, to perfection, by Aasif Mandvi and Alfre Woodard.

            My only, very minuscule gripe, is that some episodes seem recycled from past episodes, but only in some spots and plot points. Otherwise, it is fresher than Sunday morning orange juice. This show is a must watch, especially if you have a free weekend. 

TRAILER: https://youtu.be/Tup-5yOcJuM