Kate Kligman

2013 was very much a catch-up year for me. This is a list of my favorite books and games that I discovered in 2013 (some works debuted 2010 – 2012).

Audiobooks

Best Audiobook: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Superb narration and the ending made me cry. Highly recommend.

Honorable mention: Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Karen Cushman

The voice of Meggy Swann reminds me of Ann McCaffrey’s early work. The narration is also excellent.

Fluff mention: Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

Good narration and the writing has a groove to it. The printed version also reads well.

Small Press / Indie Books

Coldwater by Diana Gould

I spent part of the year reading indie titles from NetGalley and Coldwater by Diana Gould really stuck with me. It’s a bit more epic than I’m used to in the TV show sense but it’s a really good story.

Video Games

Super Hexagon

Minimalist retro arcade style action game. Would have eaten ALL the quarters back in the day.

Honorable mention: Botanicula

This is the best children’s game. Best. The cheerful sound design and elegant beauty make this game special.

Honorable mention 2: Trauma

A really different kind of ghost story. Original and spooky point and click adventure puzzle game.

 

Patrick Rothfuss is holding a Twitter contest to guess his real identity from a group of 6 Twitter accounts with 5 impersonators.

These are my guesses:

@PatRothfuss – John Scalzi

@Pat_Rothfuss – Mary Robinette Kowal

@NotPatRothfuss – Wil Wheaton

@RealPatRothfuss – Felicia Day

My guess is @PatrickRothfuss is the real Patrick Rothfuss and @FakePatRothfuss is an unknown participant I haven’t been able to identify.

My Analysis

I started with the tweet content and thought I had at least one of them pegged. Then I realized there was possibly a different way to do this.

I wrote a computer program to determine the consecutive hours of the day the Twitter accounts of the presumed participants, Felicia Day, John Scalzi, and Wil Wheaton, would never tweet. The program used this information to determine their rough sleeping / off schedules and compared them to the schedules of the Patrick Rothfuss accounts.

John Scalzi was the first and most exact match and to my surprise his was @PatRothfuss! (@Pat_Rothfuss was my initial guess for him based on content).

Wil Wheaton roughly fit @NotPatRothfuss and Felicia Day roughly fit @RealPatRothfuss.

This left the @Pat_Rothfuss account, whose analysis showed it wasn’t big on sleep. I guessed Mary Robinette Kowal was possibly a participant and her off schedule fit into the account. The quality of the tweets was also very high, so high, that Twitter tried to verify this account several times. Did I mention Mary is clever? The account also used TweetDeck and Android and from looking at Mary’s feed she has an Android phone. I vaguely remember she’s setup or used TweetDeck in the past…so…guessing this is her and not the real Patrick Rothfuss.

Two accounts remained: @FakePatRothfuss and @PatrickRothfuss. @FakePatRothfuss had a normal sleep / off schedule and limited regular device use.  But the @PatrickRothfuss account was going haywire and tweeting at all hours of the day on a wide variety of different platforms and devices.

One of the participant contest instructions from Patrick Rothfuss’s blog states:

So when I put this contest together, I knew I had to thwart those tendencies. For example, if you try to guess based on what device different profiles are twittering from? You’re probably going to be wrong. Why? Because one of the requirements for all the players is that they tweet from all manner of different platforms and devices.

Only one of the accounts appears to have regularly followed this advice: the haywire @PatrickRothfuss.  I think this is Patrick Rothfuss because he has the most interest and personal investment in this contest and therefore enthusiasm. So my guess is this is him.

We Are All Patrick Rothfuss

Another cool part of this contest was getting permission to be a Pat Rothfuss for Halloween.

My Twitter Halloween name this year is Katie Klingon, but maybe I will change it a bit more :-).

Flash Gordon is the first movie by date on my Twitter compiled list of 1980’s films. If you haven’t yet seen it, a low resolution version is available from the Internet Archive. Spoilers follow.

To start, I didn’t know much about Flash Gordon. Is he a super hero? What are his powers? Well, as it turns out…nothing! He has no powers. He claims to be a quarterback and mentions taking airplane flying lessons. Oh, and he’s on the cover of People Magazine and has his own t-shirt line that he wears constantly. He’s famous for being famous. That’s it!

The Costumes

The costumes are easily the most entertaining part of the film.  The best costume is a difficult choice between centurions with wings and court sparkle guys.

The Story

En route home from a trip Flash is kidnapped by a mad scientist, captured by an evil galactic emperor, and has to save the earth. Along the way he woos a flight attendant and acquires a sidekick I think of as Robin Hood Guy. Everyone else seems to be along for the ride until they encounter Flash, then turn from evil to sort of good in the process.

Flash spends most of his time getting randomly captured, which turns out to be his real superpower. In one of the better action scenes Flash gets detained by Hawkmen and is forced to fight to the death on a sophisticated rotating platform. This is a strange form of trial by combat for a society with wings, but well.

Flash eventually manages to escape his 4th? 5th? capture on an flying exercise bike surrounded by Hawkmen and eventually saves the day as heroes do.

The Music

The soundtrack is by Queen, who often sings FLLLLLLAAASSHHHHHH OOOOH OOOH during action scenes. There’s also a battle melody that was later reused in the 1981 Atari 2600 video game Vanguard. I played that game as a kid!

Google Glass Demo Gone Horribly Wrong

There’s a hilarious scene near the end where a mission control of baddies are doing computer things with a goggle interface. Robin Hood Guy yanks the goggles off of one to repurpose it and things go horribly wrong.

In Conclusion

Flash Gordon is a fun and very silly movie.  Flash seems hooked into a random adventure generator with one scenario after another thrown at him. There’s little point to any of them, but the ridiculous costumes and random surprises make the constant plot twists almost worth it. I enjoy movies with more substance so I’m giving Flash Gordon a B-.

One of my favorite groups. The video is trippy too.

This is a no spoiler review of the movie Rush.

Yesterday morning I was contacted on Twitter and asked if I wanted to attend a free pre-screening of the movie Rush. Now, I’m not into sports movies, but I never seen one on racing. My father also bought me a Formula One racing video game when I was little and I never figured out the appeal. So I said Sure!

The movie was pretty good. A few no spoiler items that made it awesome:

• I didn’t realize it was based on a real life story. If you don’t know the story and want to see the film, don’t look it up until after. It’s an extra treat not knowing how things will turn out.
• The action sequences were solid. I’ve watched bits of racing on TV and it always kind of bored me. Rush really rocked it. I actually felt like going back to my old Formula One racing game.
• It’s funny in the right spots.

Rush does have some violent scenes and they don’t pull punches on the gore or how dangerous racing is. I think it’s appropriate and adds value to the story but…it’s something to take into account before seeing the movie.

In all I had a good time — thank you Universal! And I’m interested enough to maybe follow a racing season and try out my old (and now retro) racing game.

A few days ago I asked Twitter “So, what are your favorite 80’s movies of all time?”. Here are the results in order by year:

Flash Gordon (1980) – My Review

Midnight Madness (1980)

Somewhere In Time (1980)

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Howling (1980)

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Blade Runner (1982)

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Creepshow (1982)

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1982)

The Thing (1982)

Tron (1982)

White Dog (1982)

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983)

2010 (1984)

Ghostbusters (1984)

The Hit (1984)

The Terminator (1984)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

The NeverEnding Story (1984)

Back to the Future (1985)

Brazil (1985)

Aliens (1986)

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Flight of the Navigator (1986)

The Mosquito Coast (1986)

The Transformers: The Movie (Animated) (1986)

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Predator (1987)

RoboCop (1987)

The Princess Bride (1987)

Raising Arizona (1987)

Spaceballs (1987)

The Running Man (1987)

Akira (1988)

Die Hard (1988)

Miracle Mile (1988)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

The ‘Burbs (1989)

Left off the list was Total Recall, which premiered in 1990.

I’m especially happy with this list because it includes movies I haven’t seen. I’m also taking a bit of an Internet break in September and the 1980’s were a time without Internet for most. My plan is to watch the movies in order by year and maybe I’ll post in a week or two (or three!) how the viewings went.

Update 10/9/13: Added Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1982), and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) suggested by Benjamin Wilson. Added Midnight Madness (1980) suggested by eight_76.

Update 10/26/13: Added Creepshow (1982), The Hit (1984), Miracle Mile (1988), White Dog (1982), Somewhere In Time (1980), The Howling (1980) suggested by @danofspiz.

I am watching all of the X-files on Netflix. It’s not even a rewatch for me because I missed most of the series when it came out. And…it’s fun! Last night I finished the pilot episode and was convinced it was about Slender Man until the ending.

It’s good to have a regular TV show again.