Olympic Mistborn Animals Avenge Homer Simpson

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first Sanderson novel that I have picked up. I decided to check it out from the library after hearing multiple people say how they enjoyed them. I have to say that I am very impressed, and you can count on me reading Sanderson's other books - with the rest of the Mistborn series on the top of my list. Sanderson does everything well with this book. He creates such an amazingly descriptive world and has some great character development. Some moments were predictable, but not necessarily in a bad way. The story is fantastic and the intriguing abilities of the Mistborn and other Allomancers are very cool. The book is pretty violent (just a heads up) with many brutal killings, but the book is clean of bad language and sexual descriptions. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to read a good fantasy novel. Fantastic. (View all my 'goodreads' reviews)

The Avengers

I saw The Avengers this last weekend (with about a half million others probably) and I really enjoyed it (surprise surprise from the man who still goes and buys a comic book every once and a while). With the success of comic book hero movies over the past decade, Marvel used the oldest trick in the book to make this movie the huge success it is - combine many great things into one great thing. Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, and throw in Hawkeye and Black Widow and you have an amazing line up of comic book heroes (The Avengers) and some great actors (and actresses - including Cobie Smulders who plays some prominent agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.).

The Avengers is a non-stop action type flick with some witty one-liners, in other words, a comic book brought to life on the big screen. The story line could be simplified to the following: the world is in danger from an evil villain and these super heroes have to band together to save the world. You don't really need to see the other movies before seeing this film, but I would highly recommend doing so (not just because they are great movies, but it will help you get some of the jokes throughout this film). For story line purposes, the movie Thor would be the most important in understanding the movie a bit more because the evil villain in this film is Loki (Thor's brother). If you were not a fan of Thor, I don't think you will enjoy this movie either (maybe you will a bit more than Thor, but since the story line is heavily based off of Thor...). The fact is, I love comic books and I love the movies that Marvel has done. This is definitely a winner in my book, and I'm not surprised that Disney confirmed The Avengers 2 is already in the works. There is also Iron Man 3 to look forward to next year and other sequels coming out like Thor 2 and Captain America 2. Stay 'till the credits are done to get a couple more quick clips. It looks like Thanos will be the next villain The Avengers will have to face (or he may end up in some of the other sequel movies before then). Thumbs up for The Avengers.

Lou Compared to Homer Simpson

I was recently compared to Homer Simpson and I was very flattered (Mmmmm....Fat). Other than the fact that we have a similar work environment, I'm overweight, and I'm on my way to baldness... Homer was once a food critic who gave reviews like me. Let me explain. Homer Simpson loves food, but not only that...he loves everything he eats. I guess you could say we are similar in this regard as well. Not only do I love food, but I love board games. Now, contrary to popular belief I bet there are some board games out there that I may not like so much - I just haven't played them yet. I own games that I really enjoy, and hence the good reviews (and if we learned anything from that Simpson's episode, bad reviews can bring some unwanted attention). I may start including more reviews from The Wife along with mine to give readers a different perspective now and again.

Day 13 - Animal Olympics
Designed by Heinz Meister
Illustrated by Uwe Schildmeier


With the London Summer Olympic Games starting July 27th, tonight The Wife and I played Animal Olympics. 2-4 players, ages 7 and up, and taking 5-10 minutes to play, this is a great little game for teaching children to think critically and about ordering with numbers. Each player is dealt eight cards, face down in front of them in a line. The goal of the game is to get the cards in order from the lowest on the left to the highest on the right. This is accomplished by drawing a card either from the discard pile or the draw pile and replacing one of the face down cards in front of you. The first player to successfully have 8 cards face up in the proper order wins the whole enchilada. The Wife and I played best of three. I won the gold medal. The game is a little too simple for my liking but is a great teaching tool for youngsters. I thoroughly enjoy the illustrations. The hippo in 31st place is my favorite and that is How Lou Sees It.

A Night at the Movies

Welcome to another installment of rapid review, where I rate some movies that I have seen recently, as well as movies from way back when:

Knight and Day

An action, adventure, and comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. This is a pretty entertaining action flick. Now, I didn't say it was the greatest action movie, or the best movie in general, but it was entertaining. One that I would perhaps watch again, but one that I definitely would not buy. Rent it, enjoy it, forget about it.

Tron

A great video game back in the day (basically the game of snake with opponents, but cooler because you are on motorcycles in the future). The sci-fi action movie starring Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde did the best they could with what story they had to go off of. The movie did not really get stellar reviews from many, but I actually really enjoyed it. Maybe it was because it reminded me of the feeling of watching Saturday morning cartoons, I don't know. It had some fun action scenes and some great music. I liked it.

Sydny White

Another Amanda Bynes movie. That pretty much describes the movie. Her movies are funny and are good for a laugh. This movie actually was not as great as some of her other movies, but it made for a good night. The story is roughly based off of Snow White.

Copying Beethoven

Drama starring Ed Harris and Diane Kruger. The movie is about Beethoven in his dying days and a female copyist. It was a very well done movie, and similar feel to Amadeus. Although it was a good movie, it felt long and by the end we were ready for Beethoven to die.

Melinda and Melinda

A movie with an intriguing story concept, the movie written and directed by Woody Allen fell short of my expectations. It is a drama comedy starring Will Ferrell. It tells a story two different ways; one telling of the story is a drama and the other is told as a comedy. Great potential, especially with Will Ferrell in it, but it just fell short.

Scoop

Woody Allen redeemed himself with Scoop, a comedy mystery where he actually has a big role in the movie along side Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman (both fantastic). This was actually a really enjoyable movie, it dragged its feet sometimes making the movie slow at points, but it was a great movie!

The Hunt for Red October

A fantastic movie that came out around 20 years ago based off of a Tom Clancy novel and starring none other than one of my favorites Sir Sean Connery as well as Alec Baldwin. I recently bought a VHS copy of the movie from DI, because I saw it and said to myself, "self, you have wanted to watch this movie for a long time...just buy it." I'm so glad I did. A classic that belongs with all the other classics such as The Fugitive. Also, I have had submarines on the brain because I just finished reading "Blind Man's Bluff" (come back and look for my review on it soon).

Dan in Real Life

I love this movie! This is one that is on my to buy list. Starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche, this is a fantastic romantic comedy. I really don't know what to say about it, other than the fact that it is a great movie. Steve Carell does a really great job in this movie. One that I could watch again and again.

Mulan

A Disney movie that came out in 1998, I include this in the many reviews because I have watched it recently and it is pretty much one of my favorite Disney animated movies, if not my absolute favorite. Eddie Murphy as Mushu and Donny Osmond singing. It has some of the greatest and most enjoyable songs out of all of the Disney movies, and it has lots of great action and lots of laughs. Good stuff.

Preview of Upcoming Blog Posts

Upcoming blog posts include: review of "Blind Man's Bluff" (a book), new Cornelius Fly comics and a special archive post of the original comics that started it all, reviews on board games such as Dominion, Carcassonne, Citadels, Hive, and Power Grid, more movie reviews including reviews on Despicable Me, Megamind, and special movie posts dedicated to the different superhero movies and all of the sequels (ie. the Superman movies, the Batman movies, the Spider-man movies, the X-men movies, the Iron Man movies, and the upcoming superhero movies), television show reviews of Smallville, Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, Outsourced, The Sing-Off, The Simpsons, and How I Met Your Mother.....

There will be many more reviews and much more commentary. Also starting soon, I will be keeping you all informed of Superman and his current walk across America (stay tuned)!

And that is How Lou Sees It.