So far, there have been some real highlights (Demon Knights, Batman), surprises (Frankenstein, Wonder Woman) and some real stinkers (Green Arrow, DC Presents...).  So, let's see what this fifth and final reboot week brings.

Only five books on my pull list...

DC Reboot: Week Five
(comics shipped 9/28/2011)
DC Titles tried: 5/13

All-Star Western #1 - Jonah Hex is the badassingest badass to ever badass the ol' west.

Palmiotti & Gray did not create Hex, but I think they're responsible for all of the Hex stories I've read so far, and are the reason I fell in love with the character. And now they'e brought him to Gotham. If Batman were around in the 1880s, he might have something to say about that, but he's not and the 1880s Gotham City needs somebody to clean it up a bit.

Not that Hex is going to clean anything up, but he's sure as hell going to kick it's ass.

The story puts our not-so-loveable bounty hunter in a team up with one Doctor Amadeus Arkham. The good doctor is a physician, by trade, but also a burgeoning criminal psychologist. The pair are on the trail of an apparent serial killer dubbed the Gotham Butcher.

I loved every bit of this story and Moritat's art was a perfect compliment. The lines were dark and heavy when needed but also tight and detailed when the scene called for it. Bautista's colors, too, were great. Subtle and muted, but effective, they felt like I was watching a Sergio Leone film.

This is everything I could have wanted from this book. ★★★★★

Justice League Dark #1 - When this was first announced, I was quite intrigued. A team book focused on the mystical? I'm not sure that's ever been done before. John Constantine, Zatanna, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, some guy with a jacket...

The setup involves some major magical problem involving the Enchantress, who looks much worse for wear than she does in Marvel, and the regular Justice League show up to investigate. Superman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg aren't quite equipped to deal with the situation and fail miserably.

You can see where this is going.

The story was interesting enough that I'd like to see more, but I'm more sold on the premise than the implementation so far. It will be nice when the characters are all in the same place and we can see how they interact. (Assuming that's where we're headed.) The art's great, and it serves this style of story very well. ★★★☆☆

Blackhawks #1 - If Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE is Hellboy in the DCU, then Blackhawks is GI JOE in the DCU.

The art was good.

And thus ends my praise for Blackhawks. The story was disjointed and I felt like I was introduced to a dozen characters in about as many pages. It wasn't really that bad, but it still felt so.  Let's see… There was Scarlet, Steven Segal, Wolverine, Roadblock, Peter Gyrich, Doc, Cyclops and Cable. Did I get all their names right? No? Who cares.

I think the writer worked too hard to introduce the team.  It might have been better to give us one or two characters to focus on and familiarize ourselves with before dumping the entire cast on us. (Maybe this isn't an issue for the Blackhawks fans from the Wildstorm days, but one of them, I am not.) I didn't care about any of the characters, and that's never good.

It was a grade C action movie with grade A cinematography. I guess that gets you a grade B flick overall? I had high hopes for this, and I hold out some hope that it gets better, but I don't have much reason to believe that it will. ★★½☆☆

Batman: The Dark Knight #1 - AKA: Batman: Because Three Batman Books Is One Too Few. There isn't much to distinguish this from the other bat-books, at least story-wise. Bruce Wayne doing Bruce Wayne things, and then there's a breakout attempt at Arkham. (That never happens, right?) When Bats arrives on scene he's focused on where Two-Face is, but I'm not sure why. Of all the villains in the bat-pantheon, he doesn't seem like the most dangerous. He's no Joker or Killer Croc. Then, when Bats does find him it looks like Mr. Dent has been hitting the gym quit a bit.  Maybe juicing even. I don't know if he's changed since last time I saw him, or if the change is part of the story. If that's the bat-hook to make this an interesting story, I'm not sure it was enough.

I have very mixed feelings on the art in this book. It's very serviceable, story-telling-wise. Finch draws a lovely Gotham and the action is decent. The faces one all the male characters, though… man those are some ugly mugs. It's like they don't sit right on their skulls. I find it off-putting.

I tried three out of the four Batman books, and I'm pretty sure this is my fourth favorite. ★★½☆☆

Voodoo #1 - It's like if that Demi Moore movie, Striptease, were an episode of X-Files, except we're following the monster instead of Mulder and Scully. Or maybe this is Species, with strippers. I'm not sure yet. Except there's definitely strippers.

The entire issue feels like it could be the cold open to a X-Files/Fringe/Warehouse 13/Sanctuary/Special Unit 2… What? You've never heard of Special Unit 2? It was great. Totally before it's time.

Where was I? Oh, yes… Voodoo #1. I'll give #2 a shot, since I'm curious where this is going in the long run, but issue 2 needs to up the ante a bit and really convince me to stick around. More of Sam Basri's art would also be a decent reason to stick around though. This is a pretty, pretty book. ★★★☆☆

RELAUNCH TITLES SKIPPED: Aquaman, The Flash, Superman, Savage Hawkman, Teen Titans, Green Lantern: The New Guardians, Fury of Firestorm, and I, Vampire. It's probably criminal to a DC-die-hard, but I just don't care about Aquaman, The Flash, Firestorm, Hawkman or Supes. I used to like Hawkman as a kid, but I think that's because he reminded me of Prince Vultan from Flash Gordon and that guy kicked ass.

If I hear really good things about Savage Hawkman or The Flash, I might give those a try. Also, I heard I, Vampire might be good but I just don't have room in my life for more than one vampire comic and that slot is already taken by the amazing American Vampire.

Last week, I had 8 DC titles and I'm kind of happy it's down to six this week.

DC Reboot: Week Four
(comics shipped 9/21/2011)
DC Titles tried: 6/12

Batman #1 - Scott Snyder writes a great Batman story. Greg Capullo draws a great Batman story. Together, they fuse their powers and make a double-great Batman story. Snyder weaves a fairly standard Batman mystery, but it does a decent job of setting up the scene and the characters for his tale. The twists in the middle and end are good, and I'm curious to see where this goes. Capullo's art is fantastic. ★★★★★

Catwoman #1 - Ok, let's get this out there right up front. I have a thing for Catwoman. Blame Julie Newmar being on TV reruns during my formative years. That said, I really do think the character is interesting, but up until this year, I hadn't read too much featuring her. (Earlier this year, I pinged the iFanboy guys for some suggestions on Catwoman books to read and they chatted about it on episode 272 of their podcast.)

I enjoyed most of this book. It certainly had quite a bit of cheesecake, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  The storyline itself was decent with her running for her life and toying with the Russian mob.  It just ended on a weird note.  The whole Bat/Cat hookup thing isn't new, but it was kind of strange. It seemed more dysfunctional than … whatever they were going for. Unless they were going for codependent. That said, some of the backlash on the 'net is just plain silly.

The art was lovely though. If you're going to serve cheesecake, this is how you do it. ★★★☆☆

Birds of Prey #1 - I really don't know much about these characters and this book did nothing to fix that.  That's ok, though. I'm ok with learning about them we go. Starling (aka Ev Crawford) is my kinda girl though. Fast drivin', hard drinkin', gun toting', tattooed, all around bad-ass chick. I don't even know if she has any powers aside from badassery and I don't care.

Black Canary is in this too, and she was fun. I guess there will be a couple more added to the roster too, but for me this is the Ev Show. I'm not sold on the series yet, but the art was good and I'd like to see where they are going.  ★★★☆☆

Green Lantern Corps #1 - When it comes to Green Lanterns, Guy Gardner and John Stewart are probably my favorites.  This book features the both of them, along with a small crew of other GLs investigating a mysterious attack. It's space cop stuff… just like it's supposed to be.

I'm most definitely in for this story line.  After that, it will see if the focus shifts to other GLs.  If so, I might be out. ★★★★☆

Wonder Woman #1 - I've tried several times over the years to read a good Wonder Woman story. The character is iconic, but I've never read a WW book that really felt like it did the character justice.  I'd given up for a while, though I did give the ill-fated JMS reboot a chance.

Enter the big reboot and I can sum up my opinion on this book in one word:  FINALLY.

This is a great Wonder Woman story! It's steeped in Greek mythology set in the present day.  Sure, we've seen that kind of thing before, but this is one of the best takes on that story that I've ever seen. The character design is rad, and the entire thing was a little reminiscent of American Gods which is one of the highest compliments I can give anything.  ★★★★★

At least the cover is nice.DC Universe Presents #1 - What?

No, serious… what? The story had great range: from bad to boring. It was convoluted, wordy and uninteresting.  I get the concept, it's Quantum Leap but instead of Scott Bakula, it's a dickhead ghost (is this guy supposed to be likable? relatable?) but instead of where Scott solves the problem and saves the day, this guy fails people. Maybe there's more to him, but hat's what I got from this.

The art, as far as art goes was mediocre.  The art as far as storytelling goes was horrid. I feel like it may have damaged my iPad.

The upside is, Green Arrow is no longer the worst reboot title I've read. So there's that. Call me when the creative team changes and this book is presenting something else. ★½☆☆☆

RELAUNCH TITLES SKIPPED: Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Legion of Super-Heroes, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws and Supergirl. If it ain't Ted Kord, it ain't my Blue Beetle.

Next week is Justice League Dark and Jonah Hex...

I figured seven DC titles last week was the high-water mark. Well, grab the sandbags… we're up to eight this week.

DC Reboot: Week Three
(comics shipped 9/14/2011)
DC Titles tried: 8/13

Green Lantern #1 - I have a love/hate relationship with Green Lantern. Over the years, I keep trying to read Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, but find the stories lacking or overly convoluted. The reboot seems like a perfect time to try again.

I'm honestly surprised how much I enjoyed this book. We start off with Hal, who is an EX-Green Lantern. He's been booted from the Corps because he's too reckless. I like that this isn't an origin story, it's smart enough to know that even new readers can figure out who GL is without all the beginning pieces.

Hal's unemployed, behind on rent, and generally losing at life. It's pretty comical. At the same time, at the other end of the Universe, the Guardians (who run the Lanterns) are reinstating Sinestro, a long time villain, as an actual Green Lantern. I like the setup. I'm in. ★★★★★

Grifter #1 - I've never read a Grifter comic, but he just looks so goddamned cool. He's one of those Wildstorm characters that DC acquired when they got Jim Lee. He's a conman with a cool mask and guns. That's about all I know going in.

I still don't know much more than that, but it's a damned fine ride.  It's one part con-job story, one part action flick and one part X-Files. Let's see where it goes. ★★★★☆

Mister Terrific #1 - I had no intention of getting this.  It was basically a whim based on the preview pages I saw. A super intelligent hero who fights crime with science (read: improbable gadgets and technojargon). Decent premise, but that could also describe Iron Man, Reed Richards, or even Batman or Spider-man (on a good day).

I think it caught my attention because before the reboot, I had never even heard of him. He's certainly not new (the original debuted in 1942!), he just never made it on to my radar. It was fun and the art was decent. I'm probably in at least for the first story arc. ★★½☆☆

Deathstroke #1 - So this is DC's answer to Deadpool? Sure, he's got guns and swords and looks cool, but he's old and not very funny.  And his name? "Slade Wilson" even rhymes with "Wade Wilson." It's like DC wasn't even trying when they came up with the character. What? Deadpool appeared in 1991 and Deathstroke dates back to 1980? Oh. I see.

Deathstroke the Terminator, is a mercenary and assassin. Apparently sometimes he's an antihero. (Emphasis on the anti.) This book sets him up as an older player in the merc game and one that might be thought of as too old to matter. It felt kinda of like one of those action movies where a beloved star is "getting too old for this shit", except those guys are generally likable and Slade Wilson is a prick. Art was ok, story was ok. I don't have a lot to say beyond that. Maybe it could have used some of Deadpool's stupid jokes. ★★☆☆☆

Demon Knights #1 - Starring Etrigan the Demon and a bunch of characters I don't know. I like the Etrigan character, but I wasn't sure I liked him enough to justify reading a book starring him. Then I found out it had a bunch of other characters that sound interesting as well (Ystina, Vandal Savage, Madame Xanadu) and it's set in the Dark Ages.

Turns out there's also dragons.

This book is awesome. It's high fantasy. Sword and sorcery. Dungeons and dragons! Ok, no dungeons yet, but I bet they're coming. You get introduced to a lot of characters fast, so I am hoping they fill us in on them a bit as we go. It ends with the best line of any comic I've read so far this month. ★★★★★

Suicide Squad #1 - Bad guys coerced into running missions for some shadowy agency. There's Harley Quinn and a bunch of other b-list looking villain types. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. That goes for both the story and the art. I'm kind of curious about the hook at the end, but if I pick this book up again it's because I heard it got better. ★★½☆☆

Batwoman #1 - There's a lot of bat-hype on the interwebs about this book before the relaunch. If the old stuff was anything like this #1, then I can see why. WOW this is a gorgeous bat-book.  It's so pretty, I almost don't care about the story. Speaking of story, it's pretty good but it didn't exactly blow my socks off. It has some action, mystery and character stuff.

I'm interested in this new-to-me bat-character and am pretty amused that she demoted her apparent sidekick to plebe. All in all, I look forward to the next bat-issue. ★★★★★

Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #1 - Dark. Silly. Twisted. Weird. Silly. Fun. People are calling this "Hellboy in DC"… and that's not far off. I don't have a problem with that. The first issue was fun, and I'm certainly ready for more. ★★★★☆

RELAUNCH TITLES SKIPPED:  Batman & Robin, Legion Lost, Red Lanterns, Resurrection Man and Superboy. Meh.

For the record, I'm listing these in the order I read them, which sort of denotes my excitement about the title, or if I was convinced to buy it a little later due to word of mouth.

DC Reboot: Week Two
(comics shipped 9/7/2011)
DC Titles tried: 7/12

Green Arrow #1 - I've never read Green Arrow unless he was in a team-up or crossover. I like Hawkeye from the Marvel U, and have always though Green Arrow looked like he might be cool too. Maybe he is. His comic, on the other hand, has been hit right in the bullseye with a mediocrity arrow. I figured this would be a good jumping on point, and it is in the sense that it sets up the character’s situation and supporting cast. It failed to give me a reason not to jump right off though.

There’s action, but no risk. It seems like every problem can be solved with a MacGuffin gizmo arrow. I think that’s the challenge in writing a gadgeteer character, you have to make the person more interesting than their gadgets. Beyond that, it felt very cliched. This seemed more like a bad TV show version of a comic book. Maybe this will improve now that the foundation has been laid… There is potential. The art was ok, but wasn’t impressive. Decidedly average. Blah. ★★☆☆☆

Justice League International #1 - The 1987 JLI series mentioned in my previous post is perhaps my favorite DC title ever. So, while I didn't expect this to live up to that level I still was looking forward to it quite a bit. Especially when they revealed the cover and it showed at least six characters from the glory days of that book.  So, how is it?

Excellent. It's very much a first issue, and the team is being formed, and it has a good take on an old comic book standby where a series of candidates are being considered. After forming, there's a little strife, but it already has the group dynamic that makes a team book work. (I love the tension between the Russian, Rocket Red, and the Chinese hero, August General in Iron.)

I'm definitely happy with this book. ★★★★☆

Detective Comics #1 - It's Batman in a fairly average Batman story up until the end*. Batman on the rooftops, stalking his enemies. Saving a little girl. Evading police. Eh. Ok. It whet my appetite for Scott Snyder's Batman #1 though.

* The very end of this book: Holy Shit Fuck. I gotta buy it next month… ★★★☆☆

Stormwatch #1 - I know nothing about the old Stormwatch, except that it's from Wildstorm and Jim Lee created it. Apparently they are a secret group of super heroes that have been protecting Earth from alien threats for centuries. Sounds interesting enough. Wait, Martian Manhunter is on it? I'm in!

The first issue was very much a setup issue.  It explained a lot of what Stormwatch (now) is, and sets up a couple of different story arcs. It seems like it might be less DC-hero-ish and retain some of it's darker, hipper roots. (Yes, hipper.) I'm not riveted, but I am intrigued. The art was only OK. ★★★☆☆

Batgirl #1 - This is one of the titles that I was reading and enjoying before the reboot. At that point in the DCU, Commisioner Gordon's daughter Barbara, who used to be Batgirl, was in a wheel chair due to the events of Killing Joke.  The awesome thing was that she was still fighting crime as Oracle and guiding the crimefighting career of a perfectly wonderful Batgirl by the name of Stephanie Brown. Losing Stephanie Brown as Batgirl to the reboot is a bummer.  Losing the awesome character Oracle is a downright shame.

That said… This new book is pretty good. I wasn't ever drawn to the edge of my seat, but Gail Simone's characterization of Barbara Gordon is fairly charming. She gets a roommate in the fist issue and sets up a lot of potential real life vs super-hero strains. Those can be fun. It get another issue to capture my attention... ★★★☆☆

Swamp Thing #1 - For years I had been hearing Swamp Thing is an interesting character with good stories.  He's bounced around between Vertigo and DC for a while, but now he's got his own DC title in the reboot and I figure I might as well give it a shot since I'm trying so many others. I'm very glad I did. Turns out this is a horror book!  (Who knew? What? You did? Ok, whatever.) We get a pretty concise backstory for the Swamp Thing, yet not everything is explained. The evil thing that's going on, and yes, that's intentionally vague, is creepy as fuck.

The art was pretty good, but for the brief period where Superman shows up, it highlighted that his costume upgrade is NOT good.  At least not when not drawn by Jim Lee.

I'm looking forward to the next issue. ★★★★☆

Animal Man #1 - I wasn't really planning to get this. I don't know much about the character, and his powers seemed kind of lame. Well, I take that back, the powers are cool, but the manifestation is lame. Somehow, this guy can temporarily call forth the "power" of any animal.  e.g. The strength of a rhino or the flight of a bird. Kinda neat.. except there's no physical changes. He just starts flying… no wings, no explanation. Bird does it, so now he does it. Lame.

I picked up this book after reading (& hearing) iFanboy's review. It really is quite good. Animal Man is basically settled down with a wife and two kids. The wife knows about his super-hero antics and it's part of their marriage like anything else. I like the idea of a mature, somewhat grounded hero.

The art is interesting. It's not a style I normally go for, but it really works for this book.  It's very expressive. ★★★★☆

RELAUNCH TITLES SKIPPED:  Action Comics, Men of War, Batwing, Hawk & Dove and OMAC. I don't care about Superman, the Batman of Africa or Rob Liefeld. (Sorry, I'm not a bandwagon Liefeld hater. I just can't read a book he's drawing. I'm even skipping a Kirkman-written book because of it.) Men of War was on the maybe list, but then the iFanboy review made me glad I skipped it. OMAC is still on the maybe pile, I might check it out after the price drops a month later. EDIT: I also skipped Static Shock. Skipped it so hard I forgot it existed.

Seven DC books in one week. What's the world coming to? Until next time, Make mine DC… covered in Marvel sauce.

I've never really had anything against DC, except it just never felt like my comics. DC's heroes have, in general, always felt more polished and goody-two-shoes than Marvel's grittier books like X-men or Daredevil.  Their books just never called to me.

There have been notable exceptions over the years of course, Frank Miller's Batman stuff, DeMatteis, Giffen & Maguire's Justice League International… Lobo. More recently, I had been enjoying Batman, Inc. and Batgirl.  I even tried to give the Wonder Woman shakeup a chance.

There are several other DC properties that I find intriguing as well, but have never really found time to check out. This DC reboot is the perfect opportunity to check out some of their offerings.  A (roughly) clean slate and same-day digital availability are key factors. (I don't know why Marvel can't get on board with same-day digital. Buncha luddites stuck in the print world...)

So, for the month of September, I'm buying more DC books than I have in a long time. My comic book budget is taking a beating, but it's for a good cause.

I've also decided to post some of my opinions of the books I try here, since my blog has been much ignored so far this year...

DC Reboot: Week One
(comics shipped 8/31/2011)
DC Titles tried: 1/1

Justice League #1 - The premiere teambook at DC is the first up. The creative team on the book is essentially the team driving DC at this point, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. I had to get this one.  The story is set in the recent past (maybe a couple years) and none of the heroes know each other yet. It's an interesting premise. Batman is clearly the Batman we all know and love, but Green Lantern is a bit of a pompous douchebag (who Bats puts in his place in a scene that made me actually laugh out loud.) I like that it's a clean start, but it will take a little while to see how it develops. So far so good, I look forward to the next one. ★★★★☆

Until next time, Make Mine Marvel…with a side of DC.

For those that aren't familiar with the series, X-COM was a turn-based, squad-level, strategy game published in the mid nineties. Wikipedia sums up the premise nicely:

The premise for the original series is that hostile extraterrestrials have begun invading the planet Earth. A clandestine, international military organization, the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit (variably abbreviated X-COM or X-Com through the series) is set up in 1999 to counter the UFOs, capture and research the alien technology, unveil the mystery behind the attacks, and ultimately stop the threat.

Simply put, it's considered by many to be one of the best games of all time and people have been trying to resurrect it for years or at least create a viable spiritual successor.

Hunters HD from Rodeo Games does an astounding job of capturing the feel of the combat from X-COM's glory days. The premise is different, but it still leads to the same sci-fi carnage. Instead of bug-hunters tracking aliens, you lead a team of mercenaries on corporate sponsored missions to secure or destroy various assets.

You can equip your team how you see fit. Choose from types of armor, weapons and different gear like medkits and sensors. Heavier armor will slow your men down, but offer more protection. Then select a mission type from the bridge, pick which of your troops to send in, and go.

Excellent UI.Playing this sort of strategy game on the iPad is a fantastic experience. Tap to select a squad member, tap to target, tap again to fire. Zoom and rotate the map with standard touch gestures. It's slick as hell.

The combat can be fairly challenging at times since one tactically unsound move can easily cost you a man or two. Plan ahead, set up cover-fire and don't rambo. It's tough to get through a mission unscathed, but fortunately any deaths are temporary.

Equiping your squad.As your mercs level up, they will learn new abilities and use better gear. Also, they have cool codenames like "Judge" and "Magpie". You can change those any time, as well as your mercenary unit's name and the color they wear.

I have very few complaints:

• There's an occasional bug that causes the sound effects for weapons to drop out. They already know about it and are planning a fix.
• I wish there was more documentation about what stats do and what all the numbers mean.
• It's annoying when your enemy is wearing the same color armor.
• That's about it. This game is very well polished.

I have several feature requests, though:

• Grenades! (Others have asked for this and apparently it's coming.)
• A minigun. (This game just screams for an "Ol' Painless" equivelant.)
• Some non-human enemies. (So far, all I've fought are other mercenaries and they all basically look the same. Maybe robots or aliens...)

All in all, Hunters HD is probably the best game I've played on the iPad so far.

The time and effort I would put into a longer post has been directed at other writing efforts recently. Those come and go, get shelved and dusted off, and generally never get finished. When I'm in the mood to work on one of those ideas, though, I don't think about much else when it comes to putting pen to page... or electrons to internets as it were.

I'm not abandoning the blog, though. I've decided to focus on it a bit more, in fact. I hope to have more posts, with some varied content, up here soon. In an effort to keep flexing writing muscles, I'm going to start posting reviews. The big problem with reviews, and why I haven't posted many of them in the past, is that I general consume media later than most. I play video games when they're old and discounted, watch movies on Netflix after everyone else has forgotten the plot and I'm lucky if I can get to books within a decade of publishing. I've decided I don't care if they are timely, though. I'm not getting paid for this, don't really need the traffic and I've got no deadlines. I just need to write more.

So I shall.

Sign it. Unless you believe in homeopathy. In which case, please read this, then sign it.

iMovie '11 introduced a feature called "trailers". It helps the user create short movie-trailer-esque videos.

You pick a genre for your movie (e.g. Adventure), and then it sets up the format for you. Your'e guided through selecting clips from your video library, and editing the pre-formatted text. If the trailer calls for a specific type of shot, say a close-up or group shot, it can help you find clips like that by automatically scanning your videos for that criteria.

When I first saw the demo of this feature, I thought this was Really Neat™, but that's about it. Then the more I thought about it, the more I began to think this is brilliant.

iPhones and other modern smartphones, Flip cameras, and cheap video cameras all make capturing video pretty trivial these days. The problem is making it interesting.

Even though you were, of course, riveted during little Bobby's first Little League game, maybe not everyone is going to enjoy the entire video of the momentous event as much as you. Even though he is such an impressive hitter. This feature would guide you in creating a much smaller and easier-to-digest video which will be actually fun and interesting. (Well, providing you actually caught some interesting moments on video to begin with.)

Ever since we got Freyja, our greyhound, I've been shooting a bunch of video of her on my iPhone. Mostly capturing her when she's running like a bat out of hell or sleeping in a funny position.  On it's own, it's not really compelling footage to share. In action movie trailer form, however... I think it's pretty slick.

I present Freyja - Release The Hound:

This was actually pretty fun to make.  It took about 10-15 minutes to get together the first draft.  I probably spent another 20 minutes on tweaking things. The action trailer wants lots of short clips (some as short as 0.6s) and so selecting just the right few frames was more of a challenge for my own perfectionist nature than anything else. Even now, I want to go back and tweak some things, which the app makes it fairly easy to do.  Even "republishing" to where ever you've shared it is a piece of cake.

So, while iTunes is playing, I just bring up Google Quick Search Box (son of Quicksilver) and start typing "What track" and Skynet tells me.

Ok, I guess I have to explain the Skynet thing? See, a while back I bought a third party Text To Speech voice from CereProc.  The voice is called Heather and is Scottish.  It sounds vaguely like Shirley Manson.  Shirley Manson, in addition to being awesome, is the lead singer of Garbage.  More relevant to matters at hand, though, is that Shirley Manson played a terminator in the Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Where was I? Oh, yes... the script.

tell application "iTunes"

	if player state is playing then

		set trackTitle to name of current track

		set artistName to artist of current track

		set ourString to "... " & trackTitle & ", by " & artistName & "."

	else

		set ourString to "iTunes is not currently playing anything."

	end if

	set origVolume to sound volume

	set sound volume to 33

	say ourString

	set sound volume to origVolume

end tell

Sometimes I forget how nifty AppleScript can be...