- The mother doesn’t die and Ted is just boring his kids because his wife has already heard all his stories 100,000,000 times. Barney and Robin are together and didn’t divorce just because Robin has a job that requires a lot of travel.
- Ted actually jumped in front of the train at the train station and has totally imagined his wife and kids and the last 20 years. He is actually in a coma waiting to die in the hospital and hallucinating constantly (my personal favorite). Meanwhile the bass player for the wedding band meets a certain nerd blogger and amateur movie reviewer and moves in with him in the Bay Area.
- Ted finally came to grips with the fact that since he has no male genitalia metaphorically he might as well embrace it and finally got his gender reassignment surgery and adopted two kids with his husband. You see this works because HE is now the mother and “How I met your mother” is really a metaphor for him meeting his true self and coming out of the closet. I like this one a lot too.
- He and Barney are now single bitter old men who are big time LARP and fantasy guys and spend their times making up stories about how their lives should have been. The kids are just a department store mannikin and a Resusci Anne Ted stole from a CPR class. Barney stops being cute and starts being super creepy.
- Lily freaks out one night and murders Marshal. Ted adopts their kids while Lily goes to the nut house and is really telling them about the events leading up to their mother going bonkers.
- Ted has been abducted by aliens after impregnating his wife and they have been probing him for years. His life with the kids growing up is all fantasy he has been developing in his head to help him deal with his ongoing vivisection. Meanwhile Marshal becomes obsessed with aliens and finding Ted and now lives in a trailer outside of Rialto, CA and wears a metal hat to protect his brain from the transmissions.
- A series of DNA tests prove that Barney is actually the father of Teds (and Marshals) kids and he is telling them the story before he and Marshal drive over and beat Barney to death with pick axe handles. Robin left Barney after he used a series of their sex tapes to launch his porn web site www.Legend-Derrieres.com.
- Ted is about to commit both his kids to a rehab clinic for massive drug use and is trying to get them to relax, little realizing the very reason they both dove head first into drugs was the massive boredom they experienced listening to his stories over the last 16 years. At the clinic Ted runs into Barney who has been committed for sex addiction.
- Ted discovers that his wife is really a super hero and she has passed on her super genes to the kids a la Incredibles. She and the kids fight crime while Ted tends house in a French maid costume and is trying to convince his kids that at some point he had some form of manhood with this story. The kids really do not buy it and basically treat him like a talking Roomba
(the image comes from a great Incredibles logo t shirt we have in our collection). Barney is the super villain. - The mother does not die.
Dracula Untold Review Part 2
The PG-13 action was particularly galling. Somehow Hollywood has come to the conclusion that if they mash all the action into an incomprehensible scrum of quick cuts and uber dense CGI shots we the audience might not notice that no one seems to be bleeding or losing significant anatomy. The veins of every casualty in this film could have been filled with Kool Aid as far as I could tell and on the rare occasion they were forced to show blood (you know, that pesky vampire drinking thing) it looks like the props guy ran down to the nearest Napa Auto Parts as it all had the consistency and color of 10/40 motor oil. Black and viscous. All this to cater to the kiddie winks. 
Let me clue you parents in on something. Your kids have no business being at a movie about Dracula or anyone who’s nickname is “the Impaler”. In fact I think your kids should be at home watching Barney videos until the day they turn 18 and then join the army (either that or locked in the Skinner box of your choice. Thanks, dad. Dracula image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt collection).
The plot holes were numerous and annoying. So the dark, head vampire is trapped in a cave at the top of Broken Tooth mountain and can never leave, yet somehow managed to sustain himself on human blood for centuries and decorate his home in a skull and broken bone motif like he found the legendary Ikea “Desecrated Corpse” collection. Um, how did he get all those fools up to his dark and foreboding man hole? Vlad had to literally free climb a cliff but the vamp ate a battalion of Turkish scouts the week before. Was there an escalator on the other side of the mountain with a sign adverting great hot wings Vlad didn’t know about? So the vamp is trapped in the cave until he finds some sucker to take on his “curse” of immortality, super speed, super strength, and the ability to transform into a swarm of bats (um, can someone email the definition of the word curse to the writers please). Gee, how about the hundreds of skulls you have been playing bocce ball with for centuries? Surely one of them at one time was inside the head of a living human who might be willing to live forever, freeing you of your imprisonment.
Incidentally, do you know how long it takes to mobilize a medieval army of 100,000 men and march them from Turkey to Transylvania? If so can you write Legendary Pictures and tell them because they seem to think it can be done in three days. Also if you are doing a historical movie about the Turkish army it is OK to have them look Turkish, not like a Aryan Army rally. They are so afraid of offending the Turks (and by extension the Muslims) that most of the Turkish cast looked like they rounded up a collection of A&F models. The film also couldn’t seem to decide on an accent for any part of the late 14th century subjecting us to American, British, Russian, very indeterminate Arabic, and at one point I swear German. The casting director clearly just wanted accents and didn’t care what kind. I wish someone who spoke fluent Klingon had applied.
(continued)
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Dracula Untold Review Part 3
And of course, the torture of Vlad having to suffer from awful temptation, eventually giving in to his thirst and thus falling from grace? Remember that part that was grossly implied might be significant in the trailers and for about 10 minutes in the movie? Well, somehow he only feels the thirst when he is with his wife, not when he is out on the battlefield literally killing 1,000 men and surely covered from head to toe with blood. Did not a drop hit his lips? Then, because there is no way a major protagonist could ever be a truly bad guy he has to suck the blood of his wife after she freely offers it him in order to save his country. Oh, thank god. We were a stones throw away from seeing a character make a morally ambiguous choice there. I was in danger of actually being interested for a moment, but the writers managed to prevent the audience from falling into that hole by filling it with safe, innocuous BBQ flavored styrofoam packing peanuts. Bon appetit!
My final issue is the fact that in the first half of the film Vlad manages to kill 1,000 Turkish soldiers by himself. At that point he fell into the Superman trap in that he was so powerful his ability to fight got boring. There is no struggle to be had unless someone manages to find some Kryptonite (or in this case silver) and like I have said about Superman and Kryptonite, if Dracula is faced with someone who has covered a 20 foot circle with silver coins why doesn’t he just stand 30 feet away and throw a 50lb boulder? 
(Or in Supermans case a few miles away and burn Lex Luthors arms and legs off with heat vision? Heat vision image courtesy of the comic book t shirts category) When nothing short of deus ex machina will slow down your hero he gets really boring. Also how is it Vlad has to look at obscure texts to learn about vampires but everyone else seems to have taken a college level course on it and written their doctoral thesis on ways to kill vampires?
Anyway, a brief recap. The Sultan of Turkey wants Vlad the Impalers son and 1,000 other Transylvanian boys to be his slave soldiers and Vlad has to ask the local vampire for the power to stop him. If Vlad can not drink blood for three days he wins his mortality back (um, is that really winning?) but naturally runs out of time and has to suck his wife dry. Bad PG-13 action ensues and somehow this film managed to throw out a fishhook baited to catch a sequel.
For all my complaints it wasn’t painfully bad. Luke Evans did the best he could with the lines he was given and there was a story. Pacing was good and appropriate for the story and the old vampire scene was pretty cool. Dracula did not ever glow in daylight and most of the vampires looked pretty gross. If the area of classic story/fairy tale reboots could be considered the Dachshund races of movie making as compared to the real dog track of practically every other movie type out there then this film would definitely be the fastest Wiener dog. Of course the issue of vampires being romanticized was pleasantly ignored for the first 87 minutes of the film only to rear it’s very ugly head in the last 5 when the producers dug deep into our pockets for sequel money but still. Not horrible.
So worth seeing? Sure, why not? It’s stupidly entertaining (like most modern movies to be perfectly honest). The only way you will feel ripped off is if you think you are going to see a horror film. This is a medieval super hero action film that borders on fan fiction as written by sweaty teenage girls. There is no horror to be had here. I think this movie is safe enough for a date as long as she doesn’t want to have her IQ challenged (or half her IQ challenged). Nothing will be gained from having watched this film, but on the other hand nothing will have been lost.
the Infamous Dave Inman
@NerdKungFu
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Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 23 A Taste of Armageddon
This is an episode that strikes a cord with most nerds. I mean, which of us hasn’t simulated interplanetary war on a computer at some point? The Eminiarians and Vendikarians just took it to the next level and started executing simulated casualties. It’s like if South Korea and North Korea chose to restart hostilities but instead of fighting opted to play marathon games of Starcraft II (I think South Korea might have the advantage. Starcraft image courtesy of the video game t shirt category).
This is one of those episodes that doesn’t really spring to mind when I think of my favorites but if I see it I realize I like it a lot. It’s pretty damned cool, has a great title, a jackass that Kirk gets to put in his place, and the chance to wreak havoc upon not one but two planetary civilizations. Prime Directive? What’s that again? Also the Eminiarian sonic disruptor pistols look a lot cooler than most of the Federation weapons. Thank god in Next Gen they brought back the phaser rifle (previously only seen in one episode of TOS, Where No Man Has Gone Before).
The Infamous Dave Inman
10 Endings for How I Met Your Mother that would have been better then the garbage they wrote.
If you read my last post you might have gleaned that I was a little miffed at the god awful ending the “writers” plumbed out of the depths of their sweatiest ass. In spite all the many reasons they gave me to hate that show (most of them rhyming with “Med Tosby”) they actually managed to get me to care about how it ended (still not sure how that happened) and so when they basically took everything the show was building up towards and shot it into the sun in order to do…something (really, guys, what was the point?) I felt more than a little betrayed. However, like some kind of powerful nerd deity I destroy with one hand and create with the other so rather than just harp on how many balls that ending sucked I will instead come up with some suggestions on what they could have done instead. (SPOILERS incoming)
That’s just off the top of my head. Imagine what I would have come up with had I thought about it for more than an hour. Of course I think an hour is a lot longer than the actual writers used but whatever. If you have a suggestion or a better ending feel free to post it in the comments section.
the Infamous Dave Inman
I finally got to the ending of How I Met Your Mother and DIE TED MOSBY! DIE!
DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!
SPOILER ALERTS So season 8 has been pretty awful in every way possible. Getting through it was like eating light bulbs. It was like trying to pass a golf ball sized kidney stone along with the wrist watch your doctor accidentally sewed up inside your bladder. It was as grindtastic as possible without actually getting an appendage caught in a meat grinder (and in retrospect I kind of wish I had had that happen instead).
So everything I liked about the show was gone and replaced with everything I hated about it. Gone was Barney Stinson hilarious playboy. Instead we get Barney Stinson, blushing groom. Gone was Lily and Marshal, generally cool couple and funny reality check. Instead we get Lily and Marshal fighting, remaking Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and trying to prove which of them could be the biggest doormat. Honestly, those were the only parts of the show I liked. Of course the parts I hated were still in full effect. Ted Mosby, the poorest excuse for a male since Hedwig, was all over the screen like vomit on a prom dress and the story, normally at least pretending to take place in a regular pacing, crammed 22 episodes over three days with flash backs, flash forwards, and flash sideways like Doctor Who was tripping acid.
Then we finally get to the ending and after meeting his dream mother that we sat through 8 seasons listening to him whine about only to find out that after spawning his children she…dies? THERE IS NO MIDDLE FINGER BIG ENOUGH TO PROPERLY EXPRESS MY FEELINGS FOR THIS ENDING! 
Whoever wrote that “twist” needs to be strapped down to Dexters kill table in order to pay for the crime of murdering my faith in humanity (image courtesy of the my collection of Dexter t shirts). Oh, in other twists that make me hope the show writers all burn in hell Barney and Robin get divorced, Barney knocks up some bimbo and transforms into super dad, and the series ends with Ted once again asking out Robin. This whole thing screams of wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
In summary, Ted Mosby die and writers burn in hell. Thank you.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 24 This Side of Paradise
Not my favorite by a long shot. I never liked any of the episodes that force Spock to change his character (except for Amok Time, of course) and this one was the worst. For a guy who only mates every seven years this guy has his love interests, but the hippy spore people were lame.
Also once they managed to get the spores out of everyone why did the colonists really want to leave? As far as they knew Starfleet had just left them to die a horrible, painful death and these spores not only helped them out, they made them continuously happy. There are housewives today who spend every week at the pharmacy trying to medicate their way to such bliss, and drug addicts on the street who do it illegally every day. How do you think Walter White made his money? (Image courtesy of the Breaking Bad t shirts category)
That aside, another great fight scene where Spock really shows Kirk who’s boss. All the shoulder rolls in the universe are not enough to slow Spock down when he is on full on beat down mode. Next time bring more than a length of pipe Kirk (oh wait. Next time Kirk will be on the business end of a lirpa. Oh, well).
the Infamous Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 25 the Devil in the Dark
As a kid the Horta scared the crap out of me. It was way worse than Jaws, Freddy, Jason, or any other horror film I have seen ever since (except maybe Punpkinhead. Also Pennywise from it, but that is a clown. Jaws is a close second and the image I got from one of the many Jaws t shirts in our horror collection). An invulnerable rock monster that looks like a moving pile of guts and dissolves men alive in acid? Good thing I’m not Kirk as I would have evacuated every human on the planet and cut it in half with the Enterprise phasers. Gah. Odds are it was worse because it involved characters I knew and loved but still.
When you think about it was saving the Horta (was that the single creatures name or the race?) the right thing to do? I mean how do they keep all those baby Hortas from attacking humans? What if one of them turns out to be the Horta equivalent of Ted Bundy and just opts to kill people? How do you track him down? Can you pick out which Horta did what out of a lineup? Let us not disregard the commercial value of novelty Horta eggs (or silicon nodules). I could totally see these selling at Ikea as a table centerpiece. I’m just saying.
The Infamous Dave Inman.
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 26 Errand of Mercy
This is an episode I kind of like but kind of don’t really care a lot about. All it resulted in was a peace treaty and the set up for the Trouble With Tribbles. The Organians as super powerful energy beings honestly got kind of boring once you learn who they really are. The only real fun was watching Kirk and Kor verbally spar and treat the peace loving Organians with absolute contempt for their unwillingness to kill people. Also, what is the deal with the letter K? Kirk, Kor, Kang, Khan. Is that the recommended letter for future Star Trek Alpha males in the Roddenberry universe?
I supposed one cool thing was the idea of so powerful a being shown as so innocuous. Usually when we think powerful we see something like the guy on this Attack on Titan t shirt but really the powerful people in the universe are usually the ones you least expect. In comic books it’s always the brainy villains who are the most dangerous. You can avoid Killer Krok but Joker is not to be messed with. It’s not always about obvious brawn.
The Infamous Dave Inman
The Pros at Cons A Review of Convolution 2014: Halfway Home Part 7
Day 2 Continued: Star Trek or Star Wars, LARP, and making new friends.
On my way back down in the elevator, there was another convention-goer and a layman on the lift with me. The non-Con attendee asked us, “Are you guys with the Star Wars convention or the Star Trek Convention?” And we were like, “No, it’s all one big Science Fiction Convention. We’re with both.” (Image courtesy of the Star Wars t-shirt category) After that, I had every intention of going to panels, but they were hard to find and I kept getting distracted. Plus, all of the panels were scheduled in blocks from 10-12, 12-2 and 2-4, and it was already around 3pm by the time I left the hospitality suite. There may have been a fourth block of panels from 4-6 on Saturday only, but the schedule guide and key to where to find things was small, poorly designed and hard to understand unless you had used it before. Then there was the mighty task of choosing between similar panels that were held on opposite ends of the hotel at the same time, which is something I always detest about the whole convention-going experience. So I went in search of LARP groups instead in order to pass the time until Day 2 was concluded.
I did not find the Firefly LARP group (that day) and it might not have mattered if I had since their game for the night was for 21 people and 25 had pre-registered, not including the people actually working the Con or helping to run the game itself. But I did stumble across the table of the Victorian World of Darkness game, “Gaslight”. They invited me to sit and have a cup of fresh brewed tea from a nice China tea set and I ended up spending the next 2-1/2 hours talking with them about writing, running game vs. playing NPCs vs. being a PC and having less control and less responsibility. Then I sat down with Glenn Barett, the only founding member of the group still on and running things after several incarnations, and we talked OOC about RL stuff, like family and feeling like a creeper at Cons because you’re getting older while fans are getting younger, and about feminism and the school system and California’s crisis with prisons and how that relates to youth, feminism and what we as individuals can do about it. That’s all not as deep or hysterical or even as liberal-hippie-fight-the-power as it sounds, either. It was just a gentle yet sweeping reminder that I get to be myself at these things. I come to Conventions to have fun, to spend money and to meet new people. Vendors come for the same reasons, but also to make money, to make inroads towards a better future and connections within their industries. Convolution was convoluted, poorly advertised and expensive, but it was also the single best experience I’ve had at a Convention so far yet, and it was for no other reason than that these people weren’t just other fans at the same place as me, these were my people. I went for work reasons and came out with new personal friends. That is not to say that I didn’t learn anything. More on that in my next post.
The Pros at Cons A Review of Convolution 2014: Halfway Home Part 6
Day 2 Continued: Firefly, Pew-Pew Guns, Game of Thrones, and George Lucas.
My final stop before heading out of the vendor’s room was right of the exit to the hall, where two ladies were selling various sci-fi themed toys and some official Convention swag at an otherwise unadorned table. (I’ve looked all over my notes for their info, but I never got it, which sucks.) They were amazing. They explained the whole history of Convolution to me, that it used to be just a meet-up for hard sci-fi writers in the bay area, and then it opened a little to include fantasy and other genre fiction, then it was just about writing all fiction and over the past couple of years they’ve wanted to open it up more to a wider audience and make it about all things pop culture, sci-fi, speculative fiction, science and engineering, fandom and Cosplay. They told me about a Firefly LARP and a hospitality room with free food upstairs for Con goers, and one of them played me an original Serenity Filk (that’s fan-folk, as in music that would be played in-universe of a given series) on her acoustic guitar. She lives in Colorado or Seattle or something so I not only regret not writing down all her info, but that I’ll probably never cross paths with her again. Oh, and they sold me weapons. Well, I mean I purchased a small pew-pew gun that lights up and makes fun sounds for my four year old son for $6 to be donated to the charity (Chabot Space & Science Center, of that year. They also had bigger pew-pew guns for $10 each, but I thought the smaller one was better for my purposes. For the first time that day I felt like I looked like I belonged there in my red leather jacket and my tiny plastic firearm tucked into my front pocket as conspicuously as I dared.
Finally, around 2pm I left the vendors room like a shot to find the hospitality suite and nosh some free cutlets. It was far better than anything I expected and I saw a lot of great cosplayers around the hotel too, including a fully detailed Zoe from Firefly that I complimented in passing. The suite was exactly that: just a room in the hotel with the door standing open and a full buffet table taking up most of it. I ate some of everything and there were maybe 2-3 other people in the room with me also quietly eating and resting their feet. Then I noticed there was a chocolate sheet cake on the table with the only Con employee there behind it, and I asked if I could have some. I thought it might be just for VIP’s or volunteers or something, but no, it was donated for everyone and I was told to please help myself, so I ate more of that than anything else because I like cake and it was there. “The cake was not a lie.” 
I was just about to leave when a new wave of people began to file into the room and I somehow got sucked into several conversations, which then morphed into me giving loud overtures about things like the necessity of Netflix streaming, Game of Thrones spoilers and the documentary film, “The People vs. George Lucas”. (image courtesy of the Game of Thrones t shirt category)
