Green Lantern

Okay time for another rave.


One of my favourite past times is, always has been and probably always will be, reading comics. I just love ‘em (without going as overboard as some people- after all I do have my dignity….more or less). Tintin, Garfield, Asterix and just about anything from DC, Dark Horse and sometimes Marvel. Okay maybe the occasional Vertigo or Image….but I digress.

I especially love superhero comics; Batman, Superman the whole shebang. And if do happen to have crossovers and team-ups, all the better, I say.

Perhaps no more than twenty minutes before I began writing this, I finished a particularly interesting Green Lantern comic. It must be said that the Green Lanterns have probably one of the coolest powers in the world of comics. With their power rings and a decent amount of willpower, they can fly, shoot lasers and conjure up just about anything they can think of. Imagine how awesome it might be to finally unleash a 30 metre tall, sabre toothed rabbit on an unsuspecting Tokyo. Or how liberating it would feel to flip the world the biggest greenest bird anyone has ever seen. Or you know…using your powers ‘responsibly’ to fight crime and save lives instead of carving your initials all over Mt. Rushmore.

Of course, having one of the coolest powers means that there are really BIG drawbacks.

Now don’t get me wrong, superhero’s need weaknesses. Without them, they just wouldn’t be as interesting. Superman has kryptonite, Wolverine has issues with magnets and Batman….well he’s kinda vulnerable to just about anything. But that doesn’t stop him from kicking the proverbial backside.
And what is the weakness of the emerald knights? Why that is simple.

Yellow.

Yep…yellow. A colour. Anything that is coloured yellow.
HELLLLOOOOO? Does anyone else think that’s just a little dumb? I mean as if there aren’t any limitations already.
Firstly, you have to recharge the ring every 24 hours. To do that, you have to find a special lantern and chant a mantra while it charges up. What if you forget the words? What if in the time it takes for the ring to charge, someone decides to shoot you? What if you lose the lantern in a bet? What if your mum thought it was just some tacky knick-knack that was lying around and sold it for five bucks on eBay? You’re pretty much screwed.

Second, there are restrictions in place as to what you can and can’t do. For example…using lethal force is strictly prohibited and will lock the ring. Which is fair enough I suppose, but what if some gigantic, mindless, planet-eating, space slug was intent on devouring earth? You’ve thrown everything at it and still it approaches. Your ring scans the slug and you find out it’s weakness is something that you need the ring to do. Sorry….lethal force is prohibited, ring shutting down….goodbye earth.

Next problem. You need total concentration and ‘pure’ willpower. If there was say some kind of physiological disturbance like, I dunno, a neural scramblising ray or an Angelina Jolie lookalike prancing around in skin-tight spandex, the ring will cut out. Sure you might be able to regain control just you hit the ground after a 5,000 foot drop, but what if you are deep underwater our in outer space? You’d probably implode from the intense pressure or your blood would boil. Lovely.

Then your ring is ineffective against yellow? That’s like being allergic to water. There is a whole heck of a lot thing that are yellow. All your enemies would have to do is wear yellow clothing and paint their bullets yellow and that’s that. How could you stop a raging mutant canary? Or a humongous yellow meteorite? Answer- you can’t. It’s gotta be one of the dumbest weaknesses ever.

Or think about this. According to most comics, how is it that Superman is super? Why due to basking in the rays of our yellow sun of course! Wait….yellow? So technically, Green Lanterns should be completely powerless. Well thanks a lot guys! Now we all gonna die and you can’t do squat!

Now supposedly the reasoning behind this weakness, is that yellow represents fear (is it just me or does that sound kinda racist?) Which is why the rogue Corps founded by ex-lantern Sinestro, use yellow power rings. Finally the writers decided that the more powerful Lanterns such as Hal Jordan could overcome the ‘yellow impurity’ if they purged all fear from themselves. Not at all easy I’d say, especially when surrounded by thousands of monstrous beings trying to shoot, eat, disintegrate, stomp or otherwise obliterate you.

In short, I wonder if the writers ever gave any thought to this weakness. Surely there are plenty of ways to take down Green Lantern without having to resort to having an entire colour as a weakness. Now yellow radiation…that I could understand.

Ah well…

- Professor Bear

Trek to the cinemas ....Fantastic...

Today I boldly went to where no-one has gone before. Well, at least from my family.
Yep, today I entered the world of the Trekkie - however briefly- and went to see J.J. Abrams take on the Star Trek franchise.

Now let it be clear that I am a fan of sci-fi, however I’ve always been more of a Star Wars/ Doctor Who guy. Although I quite liked the first trailer I saw, I had my doubts, after all we all know how well remakes stand up to the classics…..not very. And as I said, I’m not really into ST….

….BUT THIS MOVIE WAS ACTUALLY REALLY GREAT!

With a solid storyline, heart-pumping action and spectacular effects, this film that chronicles the formation of the U.S.S Enterprise, is a breath of fresh air to what some people consider to be a franchise that doesn’t know when to just lay down and die. (Of course, some people believe the same is true for TMNT, but I disagree.) In short, though roughly enjoyable.

So for those not in the know, it follows the story of soon-to-be-legendary James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) and his early days in the Starfleet Academy. (Look it up) He is joined by everybody’s favourite Vulcan- Spock (Zachery Quinto), Doctor Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban) and the rest of the gang. Despite initial conflict, they all band together to stop the dastardly Romulan Nero (An almost indistinguishable Eric Bana) from destroying Earth with stolen Vulcan technology.

The movie has some spectacular fight scenes, one of my favourites is the high altitude sword-fight between a Romulan and Pilot Hiraku Sulu (John Cho). There are quite a few laughs, mainly provided by Simon Pegg as Scotty and Anton Yelchin as Ensign Checkov. Mainly because of their outrageous accents. There are also nods to the original series – I’ll let you figure them out- including what was probably the first of untimely red-shirt demises, you know, the cannon fodder.

Another high point is the appearance of Leonard Nimoy (looking a little like Exidor to me) , also reprising his role of Spock, combining the old with the new. I’m kinda glad Shatner didn’t do the same thing, that may have had some serious physiological trauma on young Kirk. (Kidding of course- no offense man.)

Star Trek is defiantly a must see this year, I would give and easy 10/10. It’s a fantastic way to introduce the characters and who knows, maybe I’ll even track down and watch some episodes. Or if they make a spin off TV series, I’d probably watch that.

Well that’s about it for me….

-Professor Bear
Live long and Prosper

(PS. I really must figure out how to do the Vulcan Neck Pinch!)

First Rave!!!

Time for a rave.
This has been bugging me for quite some time now, trivial as it may seem.

I believe I was in grade three (or was it grade 5?) when the substitute teacher was handing out permission slips for an excursion some days later. The destination escapes me, but I remember we departed at 9:00 am and arrived back at school around midday. Seeing the time listed as 12:00pm, I put up my hand to reveal my discovery of this blunder.
“Shouldn’t it be 12:00 am?” I asked.
After all, I was no fool and knew something about time. AM being from the early hours of the morning until noon and PM the afternoon and following night-time. I was feeling rather chuffed about the fact that I had spotted a mistake, made by the all-seeing, all-knowing beings called teachers. Until the sub brought me down like an leak brings down a zeppelin.
“Not unless you want to come back at midnight” she replied, accompanied by the sniggers of my classmates. As I later found out, that at 12 o’clock we shift from AM to PM, and vice versa at night.

To which I must say: WHAT THE HECK?

Seriously, who’s bright idea was that? I mean technically that means that we go 12:00, 1:00, 2:00 and so on! It defies everything taught in pre-school mathematics! Did we learn how to start counting by going to the biggest number first, skipping to straight to the bottom and work our way up? I doubt it. Does this mean that when folks over at NASA do their countdowns, they should go
“One…ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…Lift Off?” Surely it would make sense to start AM at 1:00 and finish at 12:00 instead of finishing the cycle off early and sticking the last hour onto the next one. Frankly, I think it’s just plain dumb, because it’s like starting a new day when the other one hasn’t finished yet.

Now before you start rattling off an email saying that I am the dumb one, let me expand.

Time is a funny thing. Technically, like actual counting, the new cycle of either AM or PM starts at 00:00, and works it’s way up. Fine, I get that. But why call it 12:00 AM. Who decided that 12 would be the new zero?
It’s like in 1984, with the whole ‘2+2=5’ shtick. It messes with my brain.
Kinda like daylight savings. But that’s an issue for another blog.

In conclusion, I reckon the military and relative parties are the only ones with their heads screwed on the right way. Start at 00:00 hours and work your way up to 23:59 hours before starting again the next day at 00:00.

But hey….maybe it’s just me.

-Professor Bear.

LLLLLLLAAADIES and Gentleman: Presenting Professor Bear!

Greetings, fellow being, my appellation is Professor T. Bear. I am a debonair 5’9’’ soprano and have several degrees in a range of social studies. I am currently endowed with the title of national fencing champion and own a Rolls Royce.

I have an overactive imagination and have told you some porkpies. I’m not the least bit suave and am more of a bass than a soprano. I do NOT hold any qualifications other than completing high school. Just. I have never fenced in my life, let alone held any titles. I did have a bicycle once, but that has long since disappeared.

Soooo, as you may have already guessed, I am not a real Professor or a real Bear. You’ll have to excuse my feeble attempt at humour, but now you have a little taste the strange and wondrously warped inner realms of my mind. If you have decided to subscribe, or at least read or even skim over this and following blogs, you will find various ravings, quirky observations, reviews - and yes, the occasional joke.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Journey begins.

- Professor Bear.