Christopher Nolan‘s Batman trilogy of films has been a blockbuster one, breaking records around the world. Now the finale, The Dark Knight Rises, is about to swoop into theaters on Friday, July 20, and the soundtrack is widely available as of Tuesday, July 17.
One of the components that has made the movies so successful has been Hans Zimmer‘s dynamic scores. His “Mozilla” from Batman Begins still gives me goosebumps. And the music from the final film is just as moving, if not more so.
I just couldn’t decide which of the three top books that came out this week to highlight, so I’m going to review them all in alphabetical order!
1. Batman #11. The Court of Owls epic building for the past year comes to its stunning conclusion as Batman brings to light the mad machinations of the mysterious organization.
Batman finally faces his “brother” (Owlman?) and then has to pick up the pieces before moving forward. At the end of the issue, Bruce has a great discussion with Dick Grayson, and they talk about what’s been revealed about them. Great job!
With digital very likely to be a major player for comics in the future, many comics companies are getting an early start on the entire “revolution” that may see us downloading issues from an FTP site rather than going to our local comics shops … sooner than we think!
DC Comics has been putting their toe in the water a lot recently, with some books like Batman Beyond Unlimited and Smallville Season 11 appearing in digital format before they are collected into a monthly comic. (I do love that first one especially, by the way!)
Recently, the company revived a previous Batman title with Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight, which can only be purchased online … so far. Here’s the description: “On Thursdays beginning in June, a new digital Batman series will showcase stories of the Dark Knight outside of regular DC Comics continuity and feature artists and writers such as Ben Templesmith, Steve Niles, B. Clay Moore, Nicola Scott and Joshua Hale Fialkov. One all-star issue teams writer — and Lost co-creator —Damon Lindelof with artist Jeff Lemire (Animal Man, Sweet Tooth).” Each chapter retails for .99 cents.
Well, it’s time for me to get back to blogging!
It’s been an interesting couple of months since I posted last, with corneal transplant surgery in my right eye and a change in my work status! But I hope to post as often as I can as I enter a new phase of my life.
I thought I’d start with the following story about a law passed to regular the Internet, something I oppose. The article can be found at infowars.com:
>>The state legislature of Arizona has passed a bill that vastly broadens telephone harassment laws and applies them to the Internet and other means of electronic communication.
The law, which is being pushed under the guise of an anti-bullying campaign, would mean that anything communicated or published online that was deemed to be “offensive” by the state, including editorials, illustrations, and even satire could be criminally punished.
Remember that I’m sitting at a computer while bringing this article from breitbart.com to your attention!
>>Users of tablet computers should place their device on the table and tilt its screen, rather than have it flat on their lap, to avoid potentially painful hunching of the neck, a study suggested Wednesday.
“Tablet users may be at high risk to develop neck discomfort based on current behaviours and tablet designs,” it warned.
A team led by environmental health researcher Jack Dennerlein of the Harvard School of Public Health asked seven men and eight women who were experienced tablet users to carry out tasks on an iPad2 and a Motorola Xoom.
Does anyone still get a lot of important mail anymore?
My landlord is big on checking the mail daily, but mostly all I receive is junk mail and coupons. More things of value come through FedEx or the overnight Postal Service delivery than the regular drop-offs.
So the following article from CNBC was interesting:
>>The U.S. Postal Service needs to slash 260,000 jobs and end weekend delivery if it is to climb out of its “financially insolvent” condition, Rep. Darrell Issa said.
Despite a mandate to avoid deficits, the post office loses up to $15 billion a year, Issa told CNBC during an informal gathering of senior House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members.
“It’s a combination of delivering what people want at a price they’re willing to pay,” the California Republican said. “We’ve restricted what the post office can charge for various classes of mail. But the biggest challenge is there are about 660,000 workers at the post office. In the private sector there would be about 400,000.”
Though Issa’s numbers are likely on the high side — the most recent official estimates from the postal service put the total employees at 574,000 — reducing the size of the workforce and consolidating operations has been a priority.
When I went to the New York City Comic-Con late last year, I found the subway somewhat difficult to use. The voice overhead was muffled, the stations were not clearly marked, and it was tough to find someone working for the system to answer questions. Interestingly enough, people who rode the subway were very helpful, which went against the stereotype of folks you find in NYC.
Well, I was intrigued when I came across the following story from the AP:
>>Four men have died in New York’s subway in less than 24 hours.
Police say the mishaps — all on Saturday — are unrelated.
One of the great things about the World Wide Web has been that it has been largely unregulated. Anyone can pretty much do anything out here, which is why it has thrived so strongly over the past few decades.
Well, there are parts of it that folks don’t like, including piracy, which is understandable, but a new attempt to impose rules on the Internet has met with a lot of opposition. Here’s the AP’s article on the latest developments:
>>WASHINGTON (AP) — Yielding to strong opposition from the high tech community, Senate and House leaders said Friday they will put off further action on legislation to combat online piracy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday “in light of recent events.” Those events included a petition drive by Google that attracted more than 7 million participants and a one-day blackout by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, quickly followed suit, saying consideration of a similar House bill would be postponed “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”
Since I work for a newspaper, I’m always interested in when technology replaces something non-technical.
Here’s the story of textbooks likely being replaced by electronic devices like the iBooks, iPad and Kindle. It’s from the International Business Times website:
>>Apple announced it would update its iBooks platform to include textbook capabilities. It also added a new platform called iBooks Author, which lets anyone easily create and publish their own e-books. Apple’s late co-founder and chairman Steve Jobs had hoped to bring relief to the higher education masses in the late 80s and early 90s, but 20 years later, Jobs’s legacy lives on in Apple, which hopes to make yet another dent in the education industry.
In NYC on Thursday, Apple revolutionized the education industry with its new iBooks 2 app for marking up digital textbooks, its new iBooks Author app for quick and easy e-book publishing, and the iTunes U platform for teachers to better communicate and share materials with students.
Honestly, as good an imagination as I think I have, I could not possibly come up with this stuff!
Without comment, here’s the story from, appropriately enough, the Smoking Gun website:
>>JANUARY 18–Armed with flaming tampons–yes, flaming tampons–two young Pennsylvanians attempted to blow up a vehicle after severely vandalizing it, according to police.
The bizarre January 7 incident outside a bar in Metal Township resulted in the arrest of Patricia Deshong, 25, and Quentin Deshong, 22, on a variety of charges, including attempted arson, public drunkenness, and criminal mischief.
According to State Police troopers, the Deshongs seriously damaged a 2006 Ford Fusion, which had its windshield and windows either cracked or broken, was covered with dents, and had blood on the front passenger seat. The car’s hood was also open and various hoses had been disconnected.
The Deshongs are pictured in the above mug shots.
