Mokka mit Schlag » Pop Culture

Attempting to install Lord of the Rings Online for the first time on a fairly stock Vista system, and the installer fails while updating some Visual C++ runtime library. When are we going to learn that we should not depend on the latest versions of every single library? Software should simply not require users to upgrade their libraries. (I say this having just shipped a product that fails on Java 5 on the Mac but succeeds on Java 6, so I’m hardly blameless here. The bug is really Apple’s fault, but we should have worked around it. Update: looks like a colleague fixed that a few hours ago. Cool.)

However, the real WTF is this error message I got while the installer was updating the files:

Naturally, I can’t copy and paste that URL. I’m supposed to type it into my web browser. More likely I just won’t play the game and try Warhammer instead.
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I caught Hancock at the $2 movie in Woodbridge last week. ($1.50 matinee actually.) That was about the right price. There were seeds of a couple of really interesting movies here. One you saw in previews: polishing the obnoxious superhero for modern media. The other story–well, I won’t spoil it for you.

Unfortunately there really wasn’t time to do both stories in 90 minutes or so. This story might have been better done as a TV series (Heroes?). But what really killed it in the end was a cliché that has lost all force.
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I caught the premiere of Fringe last night. More plausible than Alias but not quite as plausible as Lost. I’ll probably set the DVR to record future episodes, but as long as they’re enough King of the Hill repeats to keep me occupied, I probably won’t get around to watching them until they’re automatically erased.

I finally caught Tomb of the Dragon Emperor yesterday. Moving the story to China insead of Egypt, and finding a new mummy was a nice change of pace. Maria Bello was a definite improvement on Rachel Wesiz (if not quite as easy on the eyes) and Brendan Fraser was, well, Brendan Fraser.

However the basic rule for these sorts of movies is that they need to move so fast that you don’t have time to notice all the holes in the plot. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor didn’t quite achieve sufficient speed to lift off. Just when you thought it would; there’d be a long boring sequence that gave you time to catch your breath and start laughing at how silly the whole thing was. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t bother. It’s not worth the $10.

So apparently there now was a Superboy? Kal-el did start getting his powers at or before puberty? And he did hang out with the LSH in his early days? How many complete retcons does this make now? 5? 6? 7?

The Legion was one of the first books I read starting somewhere before issue 200, and I kept at it through some of the bad times (Legionnaires, anime-art) right through Legion Lost, after which point I just completely lost the plot and was never able to pick it up again.
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I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight yesterday. I don’t know why the rule that comic book sequels are always better than the originals, but it continues to hold. (Superman II, Batman Returns, The Incredible Hulk). Possibly it also holds in sci fi in general: The Wrath of Khan, Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones, etc.

As everyone already knows, Heath Ledger was incredible as The Joker, and Christian Bale once again blew chunks. (Why no actor has ever been able to voice Batman properly, I have no idea; but in my head I just never heard him talking in some funky whisper. Batman has a strong, authoritative, commanding voice. It’s Bruce Wayne who disguises his voice, not Batman.) Nonetheless, it’s a really good movie. Go see it.

The reason I waited so long was that I wanted to see it in IMAX. I heard that it had been specially designed and shot for IMAX, and that it would really take advantage of the medium. Wow, was that wrong.
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