Lyrical Epic

This just happened between me and a stranger on a mutual friend's Facebook wall post. Play the song below while you read the image text.

Favorite Shows

This is a list of every TV show I have ever thought of as "my favorite show," arranged in chronological order by age. I'm going purely off memory here, so the age ranges may be inaccurate.

Age 4-5: Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

This was where my Superman... thing... started. (interest/fandom/obsession?)

Age 5-6: Star Trek: The Next Generation

I'm a third-generation Star Trek fan on both sides of my family; I think it's fair to say Trek is in my blood. TNG was fascinating for me as a five-year-old, being deep enough to be interesting and simple enough to follow.

Age 7: Mighty Ducks

In another dimension, mutant ducks live on Puckworld, a planet named for the ducks' love of hockey. When the evil reptilian Lord Dragaunus and his minions invade and conquer Puckworld, a lone strike team of ducks retaliates, chasing Dragaunus to our planet. Now trapped on Earth, Dragaunus and his goons hide somewhere in Anaheim, California, while the team of ducks search for him from their secret base directly underneath Anaheim Stadium, where the ducks have become The Mighty Ducks, Anaheim's official hockey team.

To say that I loved this show as a kid is a severe understatement. I had a ton of the toys, I watched every one of its 26 episodes with glee, and to this day I get excited when I hear the (cheesy? silly? AMAZINGLY BADASS?) theme song.

Age 8-10: The New Batman-Superman Adventures
This was where I discovered Batman, basically. And modern good superhero storytelling. Still the best superhero stories out there, IMO.

Age 11-16: Star Trek: Voyager
Right as Voyager was ending, I started to rediscover Star Trek. I watched as many reruns of Voyager as I could, only stopped by the fact that network TV simply stopped airing it.

Age 12-13: Smallville (tied with Voyager I guess?)
When I was twelve, Smallville was pretty much the greatest thing I'd ever seen. A show for teenagers but with the epicness of the Superman mythos? A TV series with Hollywood-level production values?  It was pretty great. I only stopped watching it because my mom wanted to watch 24 at the same time, so she made up a thing about me not being old enough to watch it anyhow.

Age 16-17: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003 series)
This was my first exposure to anime outside of Pokémon. And it's considered one of the greatest anime of all time, so I guess I started things off right. To say that FMA is amazing doesn't even cover it. It's an incredibly deep, dramatic series with an awesome sense of humor and charm to match. It diverges from the original manga storyline and has a... rather bizarre ending, but the journey is worth it nonetheless. They eventually did a new version of the series (subtitled Brotherhood), which follows the manga exactly, but it lacks the original series' amazing production value and dramatic strength. The 2003 series is up on Netflix right now, so please go watch it (in Japanese with English subtitles, because otherwise it's just wrong). Then go watch the movie sequel/finale, Conqueror of Shamballa.

Age 18: Bleach
I don't quite remember why I started watching this. I think I'd heard good things about it and started watching it on a whim because all the episodes at the time were on Youtube. I spent countless hours watching Bleach during my breaks in-between classes at school. There's a lot of great things about Bleach: its sense of humor, its unique fantasy mythology, its action, et cetera. Maybe the coolest thing about the show, though, is its modern stylistic sense, with its heavy influences from Japanese youth and music culture. A little like The Matrix, it's a fantasy anime made for the modern day.

Age 20: Legend of the Seeker
I wrote about Legend of the Seeker awhile back, and I think my old comments are still accurate.

Age 22: The Legend of Korra
The first season ("book") of The Legend of Korra was one of the best seasons of any show I've ever seen. Easily the best action/drama animated season of all time, in my opinion. And it was only twelve episodes.

Age 24: Video Game High School
VGHS is a web series rooted deeply in a love of video games and 80s pop culture. I can honestly say that no movie or TV series has ever captured the "heart" at the core of video gaming like VGHS. It started off a bit rocky in its early episodes, but by the end of the first season I was completely in love with it. Can't wait for Season 3.

Age 24: Arrow

The first season of Arrow walked the line between cheesy CW teen drama and serialized comic book action drama. Which is to say that it was a little bit... bleh. It was mildly fun and just deep enough to keep watching. The season 1 finale, however, was really strong, to the point where it felt like it became a totally different show. The normal storytelling tropes that CW teen shows rely upon were thrown out the window, and in its place we suddenly had a competent action drama series in the ever-fun DC Comics universe. Season 2 has thus far been tons of fun, while largely keeping up the higher standard of quality. I look forward to every episode of Arrow the way I used to look forward to new episodes of Batman in 1997.

The Desolation of Smaug

I saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug last night. In short, I liked it a lot.

I wasn't too thrilled with the first Hobbit film, An Unexpected Journey. Not that it was bad, per se, just that it was incredibly long and boring. And this is coming from me, an extremely dedicated Tolkien fan who believes that no one should ever watch anything less than the full extended editions of The Lord of the Rings. I once read a review of An Unexpected Journey that compared it to a calm, leisurely drive through Middle-Earth, as opposed to the masterful action drama of The Lord of the Rings. If that's the case, then The Desolation of Smaug is akin to jumping into a Ferrari and blasting through Middle Earth, engine screaming and adrenaline pumping.

TDOS takes quite a few liberties with the book, adding in natural context in some areas, altering select moments, and sometimes creating things that are entirely new. The end result is something that seems like it should infuriate a Tolkien diehard like myself, but it's all handled with so much love—and so much fun—that it's easy to accept. After all, The Hobbit, as a book, was a largely shallow story, focused more on entertaining children than delivering a powerful dramatic narrative. The fact that the dramatic context of The Lord of the Rings is retroactively applied to The Hobbit's story in these films—something that Tolkien himself attempted to do in written form but never finished in full—is a welcome change.

When the Hobbit film trilogy is finished, TDOS will probably be labeled "the action film." There's about as much fighting in this movie as there was walking and eating in the last film—which is, to say, a metric ton of it. If you walk into TDOS expecting or wanting to see lots and lots of epic fantasy action (as I did), you will be very pleased. Furthermore, even though the movie is just over 2.5 hours, it clips along at a rather quick pace, all things considered. When watching An Unexpected Journey, I felt that it needed trimming, but with TDOS I constantly felt that it was cutting from scene to scene unusually quickly. I suspect quite a lot of the movie is on the cutting room floor; the extended edition is sure to be much longer.

Some notes on the characters:
-Legolas shows up and kicks all the orc asses. Hooray!
-Thranduil was wonderfully venomous.
-Tauriel was enjoyable to watch, though without knowing where her story is going it's hard to tell what her purpose is. She seems to represent the opposing philosophical viewpoint to Thranduil, but given that there isn't any payoff for that yet, her story isn't satisfied as of yet. But, like Legolas, she also kicks all the orc asses, so hooray!
-Bard the Bowman was really well-acted and -written; I look forward to seeing how his story progresses. It's great to have so much depth given to a character that was totally underdeveloped in the book.
-Smaug the dragon is incredible. Seriously, this has to be the best movie dragon of all time. I'm still more than a little in awe of how well-realized he is in this movie.

Now, as positive as I've been on this film, I do want to clarify that it is not, in any way, on the same level as The Lord of the Rings. This is not the triumphant return to the epic cinematic mastery of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is, quite simply, a very fun chapter in a three-part story. But on that level, it's really enjoyable. I plan on seeing it again as soon as possible.

Iced in

On Thursday, a record-breaking winter storm swept through here and covered everything in ice. This is a very big deal for Texas. Unlike in colder states, there are no city-funded snowplows or other measures to deal with the problem. Lots of people found themselves iced into their own homes, myself included. To reiterate, the storm happened on Thursday. It's now Monday, and it's the first day I've been able to leave my house.


Things I did while being iced in:
Watched nine episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series that I hadn't seen before
Finished Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Finished Tomb Raider (2013) for the 3rd time
Played through the first half of Pokémon Ruby
Researched elven culture for a story I'm writing
Wrote more of said story
Listened to the Frozen soundtrack because of course

So yeah. Netflix, video games, and writing. That's about it. There really wasn't a whole lot else to do.
We didn't adequately prepare food supplies before the storm hit, so we ran out of most of our normal food. No bread, meat, or fruit. Towards the end, I had to get inventive. I cooked and ate a lot of popcorn (useful during Trek-watching). I learned to bake blueberry muffins.

When the sun finally peeked out for a few brief moments and temperatures got above freezing, I got to work on shoveling out the driveway. The problem was that the snow on the driveway had melted and re-frozen at some point over the weekend, forging itself into some kind of bizarre ice concrete. "Shoveling" was really more an act of breaking the ice, cracking it into flat slabs, lifting those slabs and throwing them onto the front lawn. And the ice didn't break easily. The concrete of the driveway warmed just enough to turn the bottom layer of the ice into sticky slush that wouldn't lift off the ground. So I was basically an ice harvester (it's a real thing; watch Frozen if you want to see) trying to break through a rock wall and pull out bricks that were glued down.

After an afternoon of shoveling (ice-picking? ice-battling? struggling?), I'd only finished half the driveway and I was exhausted. I went to bed that night and woke up late this morning, ready to get back at it. Either because I was (kinda) rested or because the ice and snow had melted even further, I was able to clear the rest of the driveway in an hour or so. And by "clear the driveway," I mean that I just barely made enough space for my mom's car to be able to get in and out of the garage. I actually left a bunch of ice near the sidewalk because I figured the car's inertia would carry it over that patch anyway. I was right, of course. It worked perfectly. PHYSICS.

Around noon, I left the house (SMEAGOL IS FREE!) to go get more anti-snow gear and a ton of food for the fridge.

First off, I headed to Home Depot for a new shovel and some de-icing salt for the sidewalk. They were completely out of everything I needed. Then I drove to Ace Hardware for the same items and found them in about 30 seconds.

Next I went to Kroger for groceries, but that proved problematic: apparently Kroger hadn't gotten many shipments in since the storm, so stock was low on lots of things. I bought what I could and headed for home, stopping at Chick-Fil-A for lunch. After I got home, I finished up the driveway-shoveling and went straight back out to Wal-Mart (they built a brand new one near our house) to finish the shopping. On my way back, I noticed that the car's left headlight was burned out. Since my mom drives to-and-from work in the dark both ways this time of year, that was kind of important. I didn't really have any choice other than to go back out AGAIN and get new headlights. I suppose mom could have gone out to get headlights, but... wait, no, there shouldn't be a but in that sentence. She just didn't want to.

So yes. I drove out to Autozone (because Wal-Mart didn't carry the headlights I wanted/needed), straight back near where I'd been earlier in the day. I got the headlights, replaced them in the Autozone parking lot, then grabbed a burger out (my payment from mother for my troubles) and came home.

When I got home, I logged into Facebook and saw that my weekly bible study / board games-playing group (kinda my only regular group of friends/peers at this point) was meeting at 7:30pm tonight. It was then 7:45, and I had literally JUST LEFT that general area. And I haven't seen my friends in... three weeks? Something like that. I'm bereaved. I could have left home AGAIN and gotten there 45 minutes late (which would have been fine), but I was so tired that I just had to shrug and forget about it.

I've had a day. Everything aches like crazy, and I feel like I need to do something tomorrow to relax. Maybe go see Frozen again.


(see, my theory is that if I reference Frozen three times or more, it'll Beetlejuice-style summon something Frozen-relate—AAAAAARUHGUH)

For the Win

Everybody knows the cliché. A down-on-his-luck loser finds a golden ticket. A farmboy who dreams of adventure finds it and blows up a Death Star. The superhero is beaten down by the villain but finds enough strength at the last moment to save the day. The quarterback throws a winning touchdown pass and the team lifts him up on their shoulders as the crowd goes wild.

A funny thing about me: I've been that loser farmboy wannabe-hero for pretty much my entire life thus far. But I've never won anything. Never won a contest, never got a medal or a trophy. Now, I don't feel like I need to "win" most of the time. I often times actually prefer losing to winning in some board games because I really just like having fun with friends and not having to be the guy who makes everyone else at the table lose. However, occasionally I get super-competitive—completely obsessed with fighting as hard as humanly possible to win whatever it is I'm involved in. I think it comes down to whether or not it actually matters to me. A random game of Apples to Apples? I can stand to lose there; no problem. A swordfighting duel? Screw losing; I WILL ANNIHILATE.

To some extent, I think it's a matter of self-respect, or the lack thereof. Someone asked me recently when the last time was that I felt really, truly "special." I legitimately had to think about it for a while. The only solid answer I have is maybe my high school graduation in 2007. If I had to pick something more recent it might be when I got a letter in the mail from a friend on my birthday last year. But really, when I was asked that question, my first mental reaction was "well, I'm not special, so that doesn't apply."

I've lost a lot. Family, friends, my college career (somewhat). I've pretty much been gut-punched repeatedly by life. Every time I've been in a love triangle (a total of two times; I don't recommend it), I've been the guy not chosen. So much for the old "save the world, get the girl" routine.

People tell me I'm smart all the time. Female friends say they're confused as to why I'm single (but keep me at arm's length). Parents ask me what I'm up to as if they expect me to say I've published three books and solved the energy crisis by inventing a new form of math. By everyone else's indication, I should be a pretty special guy. But I haven't felt that way about myself in a very long time.

I really just want to win for once. To not be third best, left out, ignored, unwanted. I want that moment of triumph. I don't want to be better than anyone else; I don't want to be held up on a pedestal for all time. I just want to not entirely suck at everything.

One thing I actually am good at—not pro level, but still really good at—it's playing video games. Lots of my friends growing up were involved in sports, and some of them actually ended up doing really well with that. If video games were a sport, I could be the quarterback. I'd have been the guy winning all the games and getting cheered on by hundreds.

As it happens, my favorite show is a web series called Video Game High School. It's set in a version of our world where video games dominate modern culture. The so-named Video Game High School is, essentially, Hogwarts for video games: where kids go to learn to be better gamers. Instead of basketball and football, students join teams for First-Person Shooters, Drift Racing, Fighting Games, et cetera. Instead of sports championships, students have gaming championships. In short, it's a place where gamers aren't looked down upon as losers, but are recognized the same way everyone else is. It's a bizarre kind of fantasy world, but it's really fun. It's also got this fun 80s/90s teen movie/TV vibe (think Back to the Future and Saved by the Bell).
Go watch it on Netflix or search for it on Youtube. It's awesome.

So yeah, I didn't really have a point here. It was pretty much just "I want to win something / VGHS is awesome and you should go watch it."

Also this track by Two Steps From Hell has the same title as this blog post.

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is something I've gotten into only in the last couple of years, and it's already become one of my core favorite franchises.

For those uninitiated:
Doctor Who follows the adventures of a mysterious alien man—known only as "the Doctor"—as he travels through all of time and space in his ship, the TARDIS.

Doctor Who is a staple of British culture, but it's gaining more and more popularity worldwide, especially in the United States. It's also the longest-running science fiction TV series of all time, spanning 33 seasons (soon to be 34). However, although Doctor Who technically has 33 seasons, the show was relaunched in 2005 after a hiatus, and no viewing of the previous 26 seasons is required. Just hop on Netflix, look up "Doctor Who" (not "Classic Doctor Who") and start watching. The first season is a bit rough, but stick with it—it quickly gets amazing.

One of the reasons that DW has lasted so long is that the show is able to reinvent itself as it goes along. The character of the Doctor, being a Time Lord, is able to "regenerate" when near death, taking on a new physical body and personality. Because of this, new actors are able to assume the role of the Doctor, constantly keeping the show fresh and new. The current Doctor, played by Matt Smith, is the eleventh Doctor, with a twelfth to be introduced later this year.

The reason I love Doctor Who most is that, at its core, it's a story of endless fun and adventure. It's an oft-random, cartoonish-yet-dramatic story that can go from mind-bogglingly silly to darkly serious at a moments' notice—yet never so serious that it can't turn out happy by the end. The science fiction genre is dominated by shows and movies that are grim, dramatic, and "realistic." In a world where the ultra-serious Battlestar Galactica reigns supreme, Doctor Who stands out as a bright spot of joy. It's not shallow or childish, but it's mature enough to realize that stories can be emotional and fun at the same time. Even more than that, Doctor Who is an optimistic tale: one where altruism wins out, and the hero always does his best to save lives rather than take them.

Modern Doctor Who is well-written, well-acted, and endlessly imaginative. It'll likely be one of my favorite shows forever.

Flickchart: My Favorite Movies

There's a website called Flickchart that lets you compile a list of all the movies you've seen and helps you rank them through a tournament-style process. It's pretty amazing.
Here's my top twenty movies:


20. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Basically the epitome of adventure action. To say that it's a classic is an understatement.

19. Return of the Jedi

It's my least-favorite of the original Star Wars trilogy, but that's not to say that it's bad. It's an epic adventure on an epic scale. At the very least, this is probably the most fun film of the Original Trilogy.

18. Tarzan

I love this movie: the score, the "deep canvas" animation style, the Phil Collins songs, all of it. It's not on the epic level of some of the other Disney Renaissance films, but it's still one of my favorites.

17. X2: X-Men United

Essentially a masterpiece of comic book storytelling, filled with hundreds of character moments, beautiful directing, and a healthy reverence to the source material. The best X-Men film to date, and one of the best superhero movies of all time.

16. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

My favorite Indiana Jones movie. It's a bit sillier than Raiders and Temple of Doom, but in a way that's genuinely funny. The action and drama are also probably at their strongest in this film.

15. The Princess Bride

One of the greatest movies ever filmed. Manages to both capture the essence of fairy tales while also poking healthy fun at them. Whether as a comedy, action film, or romance, it's hard not to love this movie.

14. That Thing You Do

A feel-good comedy drama about a one-hit wonder band in the 1960s. It's nearly impossible to watch TTYD and not feel incredibly happy by the end.

13. The Lion King

Some call it the best animated film of all time, but those people are still stuck in 1994. Even so, it is indeed a classic, and one of the best animated films of all time. Equal parts fun and powerful.

12. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings is easily the best modern fantasy film series, and The Fellowship of the Ring is easily the most fun of all three films—but not lacking in depth whatsoever. On one hand, there's endless amounts of depth in the culture and music of Middle-Earth. On the other hand, it's hard not to feel a sense of glee while watching the heroes slice their way through hordes of goblins.

11. Star Trek: First Contact

First Contact is the single most dramatically powerful Trek movie. In just about every way possible, FC gets it right.

10. Jurassic Park

DINOSAURS, MAN. DINOSAURS.

9. Tangled

When I walked into the theater to watch Tangled, I only knew that it was a Disney CG animated film that had been very well-liked by critics and moviegoers alike. I had no idea that it was a straight-up Disney Princess film, complete with all the same tropes from my favorite childhood movies. Tangled is unabashedly sweet, and I absolutely love it for that.

8. Toy Story 2

IMO, still the best Pixar movie. An awesome masterpiece.

7. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

This is where Lord of the Rings slows down and becomes more serious and character-focused. The extended cut of The Two Towers is a long-form drama with so many character moments and so much genuine depth that it's astounding. It also feels the most "real" of the series, with more emphasis on humanity rather than the fantastical. It's not as fun as Fellowship or as epic as Return of the King, but Two Towers is still a monument of fantasy storytelling at its best.

6. The Matrix

Eastern philosophy cyberpunk hard sci-fi action drama. The Matrix is oft-underrated these days, mostly because of its less-impressive sequels. Regardless, it's a wonderfully deep movie that delves into the cyberpunk/hacker counter-culture, mixing it with Eastern philosophy in a surprisingly apt manner. It's also got the best kung fu gunfight action in any movie ever.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Return of the King is one of the rare films I've seen as many as five times in the theater, to say nothing of the many extended edition DVD marathons. Trying to encapsulate its greatness in a small paragraph is ridiculous. Suffice it to say that ROTK doesn't disappoint as the finale to The Lord of the Rings, which is a monumental achievement in itself.

4. The Little Mermaid

Yeah, this one... I can't entirely justify it, per se, I just like it for reasons I can't entirely explain. It probably has to do with the fact that I watched it a ton as a toddler and it imprinted on my psyche.

3. Star Wars

Pretty much the pinnacle of action and adventure in film. It's ranked at #3, but it's honestly tied with Empire Strikes Back. Star Wars is the "heart" of the original trilogy: it's Star Wars at its most fun, its most uplifting, and its most simple (in the best way). If you've seen this film, you've seen exactly what Star Wars has to offer: epic, mythic storytelling, told in a relatable and enthralling way.

2. The Empire Strikes Back

If the first film is Star Wars' heart, Empire is its soul. Empire takes the characters of Star Wars and turns them into real people who we really care about—all while still continuing with the mythic story and expanding it in ways no one ever expected.

1. Beauty and the Beast

Disney animated films are known for their incredible production value, but are sometimes accused of being shallow. After all, many Disney romances are simple tales of true-love-at-first-sight. Beauty and the Beast flips that concept on its head, forcing its protagonists to come together out of a genuine and mature care for one another. I can't quite explain precisely why this is my favorite movie at this particular moment; it just resonates with me like nothing else at this point in my life.