Review: The Fast And The Furious

I don't understand anything of what I just saw, LEAST of all how this movie became the springboard for ANY sequels, let alone SIX MORE of them.

Postscript: Mad Max - Furry Road

I couldn't stop thinking this every time I read the title of the movie.  It is unbelievably hard to not type this when reviewing the movie.

Minecraft P/E: Northern Outpost

So this is the second round of Minecraft builds in the same world as the last time. I built a highway from the original mine, then thanks to a decision to build a "skyway" over a pretty flowered glen ended up hovering over the water. Rather than keep going I ended up building a hovering platform, and from there kept adding to it. At this point I think it is pretty much done.

The Northern Outpost
(Probably more intricate than Home Base is right now)

So thanks to the marvel that is gravel, I've added some "legs" to give the illusion of support. I've built a second level where the "workshop" stuff is.  And the third level is a Solar Cathedral.

Dawn in the Solar Cathedral

Glass is a pain to collect in my current world because sand isn't anywhere near where I've been wandering.  Gravel is more common, which is good because it is incredibly useful, but you can't make glass out of it.

The other thing I've been playing with is the idea for a dam made of glass. I have managed to build a prototype using sand and gravel. To be honest, the idea for this arose when I started mining a very shallow beach for sand using a gravel wall that I started progressively pushing outwards.  I figured if I put up a gravel wall, then put glass up against that, I could pull the gravel out from the bottom and end up with water against the glass.

How's that for a view

This particular one is limited because immediately underneith this "floor" is a cavern that would have to be dealt with if we wanted to drop things lower, and we are pretty much at the edge of the sand bar that I was mining.  But the technique is probably sound.

It might be neat to try to use this technique to build a house entirely out of glass under water.  If the top layer of the gravel stays under the water except where the door is, I probably wouldn't get the same edge dropping that I am getting here.

Small dam made of glass

So maybe I'll try to find a place to build a prototype under-water house next.

Review: Mad Max -- Fury Road

I'm not big on metaphors or anything but this movie is two hours of only barely relenting, marginally incoherent, and unexplained violence. If you understand ahead of time that this is ridiculous and pony up your money anyways you'll do fine. I would file this movie as one of those few which are so terrible they are great.

Review: Avengers 2 -- Age Of Ultron (3D)

The "Age of Ultron" spanned less than a week. Lots of moving parts which individually are mostly fun but the whole "robot decides to destroy humanity in order to achieve world peace" trope is well-tired. Ultron is a pretty disappointing enemy. Nobody really calls Tony out for trying to correct his mistake with a robotic AI by trying to loose another AI. It makes me think that the "arc" purpose of this movie was to A) introduce The Vision and B) move the Avengers members out so that they can be replaced with (the New?  the Young?  the Uncanny?  the Ultimate?) Avengers. Overall though it was an adequate way to spend two and a half hours.

From a "going to the movies" perspective, this was opening day, and we got neither any teasers nor a post-credits thing (ie like the shwarma thing in the first Avengers). We were disappointed.

The 3D was neither intrusive nor especially noticeable. Frankly I still wonder why people pay for it.