The Year is Coming to a Close

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2014 is almost over, and I can hardly believe it (yes I can). It seems like just yesterday I was writing a recap of 2013 (no it doesn’t). Last year I did do something that was a bit more involved. It had a lot of examples of the failings of the tech industry in 2013. I’m not going to do that this year, because they did fix some things, and did not fix others at all because why fix what is clearly broken.

I’m just going to look back at the year a bit, and as I’m starting to do that I might get the impression that it was a negative year. There was very little good news from anywhere this year, which seems unfortunate. I don’t want to list off all of the bad news, especially since it isn’t really over. For me, however, this year wasn’t too bad. I got quite a few things done, never really stopped moving forward and improving (in my opinion), and I learned a lot of things.

I hope your 2014 was good (by some measure of the word), as well. And at least, that the next week of rest between Christmas and New Year’s is. If you have been a steady reader, thank you for reading and watching my various posts throughout the year, I hope you enjoyed them and like what’s coming. And I hope this next year does you better than the last.

Table Topics Family 56 #111-112

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QUESTIONS

1. Would you rather be a pilot, horse trainer, farmer, or P.E. teacher?

2. Who can make you feel better when you’re sad or angry?

ANSWERS By: Austin Smith

1. Probably a pilot.

2. That would depend on how I feel.

Review – Pilot BP-S Medium

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For quite some time, pen companies have been trying to come out with the “superior” ink. And many succeed in varying ways. Every ink has its benefits and faults. The Pilot BP-S (which I can only assume stands for “better pen” as it uses the “better” refill) claims to have a “revolutionary” ink (perhaps when it was first made) that is very smooth and writes the first time. But all my quotation marks just make me a skeptic. Let’s look at the pen.

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The body of the pen looks like a hyped-up Bic Cristal. It’s got a similar hexagonal shape, with a black end cap that screws off for easy refilling (with the Pilot better refills). The body is clear with a minor amount of information physically molded into it. It’s enough to tell you what you’re using. The grip is series of tiny ridges that lead all the way to the metal cone tip, and are surprisingly grippy compared to the rest of the pen. The refill in this model is medium, and it comes out a ways beyond the cone. The cap is nothing to write home about, though it does have a flat surface for easy removal, which is nice.

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On to the writing.  I can tell you for a fact that no pen that isn’t liquid ink will write the first time every time, but this one comes close. It does take some pressure to start, usually, and a more constant pressure to continue writing than a regular ballpoint, but the overall experience is smoother. With the right amount of pressure, the ink comes out in a consistent line, and with a little let up, a serviceable one with a few gaps. Neither of these options are more strain on the hand than a regular ballpoint. The ink is black, most of the time. Sometimes it’s more of a cool dark grey. And that’s fine for any office setting, though not really for art. It is also smudge-resistant and water-resistant, like most ballpoints, so it will survive a spill as long as the paper does.

Overall it’s a good pen. Perhaps it was better comparatively when it was first introduced. It is nothing terribly special, but it is superior to standard ballpoint offerings from most major companies. Again, just slightly. If a ballpoint is the perfect writing or art utensil for you, but it just isn’t quite smooth enough, these are probably worth a look. They certainly don’t cross over into the realm of feeling or acting like another type of pen, which unfortunately tends to happen with these “smooth” inks.

Table Topics Family 55 #109-110

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QUESTIONS

1. How can adults show respect to children?

2. Which animal would you leave out of the ark?

ANSWERS By: Austin Smith

1. The same way you show respect of everyone else?

2. None, God would probably be pissed if I did.

So… I Saw some Trailers

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So, I haven’t done one of these “so” things in a while, and I just saw the trailers for a few movies, and I want to talk about them because I am excited about them, even though like most movies released in the past few years I likely won’t see them because I have no time ever.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Just a tease really: you get to see an X-wing, the Millennium Falcon, and a couple of other cool things. I saw some people who were talking about how it’s good a black person is in the trailer. And that seems kinda silly to me. I hope he’s just in the stormtrooper outfit as a disguise, though, because I have the same problem with a black stormtrooper as I had with women and aliens being in the Empire’s military. It just doesn’t fit. Part of the evil was that everyone was a strong white dude. And the rebels had strong white dudes, strong black dudes, strong women, and strong aliens. Making the Empire more inclusive makes them less evil. My thought was “oh, a black guy in a stormtrooper outfit… wait, aren’t stormtroopers bad guys?”

Jurassic World. I have the same problem with this trailer as I had with the military dinosaurs idea that was being tossed around quite a few years ago, when I had a site like “jurassicpark4rumors.com” bookmarked. I looked at it every day because I love the movies, and the books, and just everything about it in general. I’m not too sure about the genetically modified dinosaur, but that’s more in execution than a problem as part of both the books and movies was that they didn’t faithfully recreate the dinosaurs and that caused problems. I will have to wait and see if they do the trained raptors well. They could be great, but they could also be awful, and I like the idea of at least someone realizing, (what was the point of the books?), that making dinosaurs and meddling around with DNA for profit is a bad idea.

Terminator Genisys. As an action movie, this looks awesome. As an addition to the Terminator franchise, it looks better than 3 or 4, which both made the points of the previous movies entirely moot for different reasons. It’s weird how each Terminator movie is in almost a different genre. Terminator was horror, Judgement Day was action and suspense, Rise of the Machines was action comedy, and Salvation was post-apocalyptic. We forgot the aesthetic and point of the entire series. I wouldn’t say Salvation was a bad movie (I have a hard time saying that about any movie) but it did miss the point. This one looks like it will still screw with the point of the end of 2, which was that everything was final, and that things could get better if we were better prepared, and maybe machines could be empathetic, and it was uplifting and optimistic. And 3 just threw that away. So now we have this one, and I hope it at least references the previous movies in an entertaining and well-written way.