Today marks Pac-Man’s 30th birthday and I was just pointed to Google’s acknowledgment of this special day.

And yes, it’s playable…

I don’t know why I find this so amusing, but when I saw astrophysicist Sandra M. Faber receive an Honorary Degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Commencement for her critical work in refocusing the Hubble Space Telescope I knew for sure…

Hubble Gotchu!

Milky J pictured with hatching EGGs from the Eagle nebula (M16) courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

Another great issue in the X-Men: Second Coming crossover was released this week as we reach Chapter ø8 and officially pass the half-way mark. I’m sure I’ll spoil some things going forward.

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DC Comics‘ Brightest Day #2 hits stores today, ptb and I have taken some time over the past two weeks to share our thoughts on issue #1.

KevinMLD: So what did you think of Brightest Day #1?

I enjoyed it more than I expected to. The Aquaman stuff is a great twist. Clearly the resurrection of these characters isn’t as simple as it originally appeared. I like that he’s off fighting Somali pirates, though that risks becoming too topical down the line… But that he now controls dead sea life is a really interesting change. I wonder if it’s just freshly dead creatures or if he’ll be calling on like dinosaurs at some point.

I’m not sold on Deadman’s role yet and, as I’ve said before, his story is what I’m most interested in.

ptb: This was a major improvement over #0 for me. The appearance of Green Lantern, Star Sapphire and Sinestro at the opening really helped since I wasn’t sure the resurrected characters were going to hold my attention. Although I agree completely that the twists surrounding their returns are intriguing.

Savage undead giant squids are a good way to keep Aquaman interesting (the two page spread as it rose up to attack the pirates was amazing) and the reveal with the guy gutting fish (and people) was a real surprise.

I like that Deadman is central to the story since he’s a character I’d like to know more about.

I’m not into this new Firestorm at all, but Martian Manhunter and the Hawks’ stories have caught my interest even though I know nothing about Manhunter’s flashback or who Hath-Set is.

The connection between the White Power Battery and Excalibur could be cool or completely awful.

KevinMLD: The weird thing about the Martian Manhunter flashback is why hasn’t he tried to bring Mars back to life in the past? Is he demonstrating some new abilities tied to his resurrection like Aquaman? Also, what about the other Martians we’ve seen like the white Martians from JLA (unless they’ve all been killed at some point and I missed it) or the Teen Titans’ Miss Martian? He isn’t the only living Martian as far as I know.

I’m not sure about who Hath-Set is. I recognize the name but can’t remember if he’s tied to the Hawks or Black Adam.

I’m hoping the sword in the stone thing remains just an a metaphor. If it doesn’t they’ll probably go the obvious route and make Aquaman the White Lantern. His name is Arthur and they’ve gone with the once and future king motif for him in the past.

My prediction for who the White Lantern will be is either Aliveman or Dove of Hawk and Dove… Though I guess it’s probably more likely it will be someone entirely new.

I guess we’ll see sooner than later.

Also read our thoughts on:
Brightest Day #2

More on the series can be found at our Brightest Day hub.

Since the previous MLD post reviewing An Education was based on clips and trailers, I decided to write up something after having actually watched it.  Since I am the “token girl” here though, my attitude towards the film might not represent the entire group’s.  But then, what on this site does?

I’m still watching it, so I’ll take you through bit by bit for what stuck out to me.  I wasn’t really into the idea of this movie at first.  I typically don’t like period pieces.  But the more current the period, the easier to deal with.  I’m not even sure why this came in our Netflix.  Supposedly neither of us put it in the queue, nonetheless it’s here and it is playing.

From the start, I liked it. It presents the glamour of Sixties London exactly how I want it to be.  Carey Mulligan amazes me.  After seeing the adorable girl with the blonde pixie cut on Jimmy Fallon and Conan when this movie was being promoted, seeing her as a mousey school girl was odd.  Helen’s (Rosamund Pike) makeover of Jenny from plain jane to Audrey Hepburn look alike was a bit cliche, but as they carry it through the movie, it is less bothersome.  I also liked the appearance of Olivia Williams (Adelle from Dollhouse) as the teacher.

Next thing that came up for me while watching this was needing to understand the difference between supper and dinner.  Once I explored it a bit more, apparently I needed to know the difference between tea, supper, and dinner.  I liked that I learned a bit of something for the day and after reading up on the topic, I want to start eating supper more often.  It’s at the right time of day, and I want to be classy 😉

I don’t like including spoilers in what I write up, so I don’t want to go into too much detail.  There were things that confused me about the progression of the relationship.  Going away for the weekend and sharing a bed before a first kiss.  Odd.  Scheduling the date you would lose your virginity.  Super Odd.  Parents encouraging you to get married and forgo Oxford University.  Really?!  There is one more thing that I found super weird, but it would include a bit of a spoiler, so I can’t.

Other than those few things that stuck out to me, I really liked it.  I finally understood the title in the last 10 minutes of the movie.  There were no bad performances in the movie, and I love British accents, so that didn’t hurt anything.  It is definitely a chick-flick.  But it is an entirely different type of chick-flick.  It is not Clueless.  But the fashion and soundtrack don’t hurt it in any way whatsoever.  Just like Clueless  🙂  Oh!  And I learned that they said “snap” then the same way we say it now.  Which was fun!