Superhero madness

As I've said before I've only gotten into comic books/graphic novels in recent years but I've been a fan of superhero movies since the first spider-man. The fact is now we are really spoilt for choice in terms of superhero movies with some people complaining that there are too many but I don't think this is the case, if people were tired of them they would stop going to the cinema to see them. Although the Avengers was great and it definitely deserved its success it has resulted in other studios seemingly rushing to create their own shared universes.

Marvel are still showing how everyone else it is done, they had a plan and they've stuck to it, Iron Man was basically unknown outside of the comics and yet it is one of the best Marvel movies to date and jump started phase one.  The Avengers movie was something that had never been done before, having a group of superheros who had each had featured in individual movies appear in one movie together and it was a huge success. We are already two movies into Phase 2 with Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World. Captain America: The Winter soldier is up next and it looks great. Surprisingly Marvel have gone with Guardians of the Galaxy as their final movie before the Avengers 2, again they are a group that are virtually unknown outside of the comics. They are definitely a bit more out there with a tree alien and a talking racoon on the team but the first trailer has definitely gotten me excited for it. Personally I thought that some of the Phase 1 movies were missing something and Iron Man 2 was just ok but they were still great movies and they didn't exactly have much competition. I think Phase 2 has been pretty awesome so far. They've already announced that Ant-man will start Phase 3 again a character who isn't well known. In terms of TV well I haven't watched Agents of SHIELD in ages since channel 4 have decided to delay showing the second half of the season so UK viewers don't have to endure another gap later on...Its improved slightly but its still just ok. Marvel have also announced a bunch of netflix exclusive shows: Dardevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones who will then team up in a Defenders series. This could be pretty awesome but netflix exclusivity is annoying.

Cosmic Avengers aka the Guardians of the Galaxy

DC on the other hand despite being Marvel's main "rival" have only just started to build a shared universe with Man of Steel. They were short sighted in that they let Nolan make a closed Batman trilogy (albeit a very successful one) which was a bit too grounded i.e. no killer croc, mr freeze, joker just wore makeup etc. so it wasn't exactly a world which you could imagine guys like superman and green lantern fitting in. Also they released the abomination that is Green Lantern, a movie with almost no redeeming qualities and one not fit to start or even be part of a shared movie universe. I really enjoyed Man of Steel and I think a lot of the criticism against it was groundless, especially with a lot of people seemingly unable to get over the fact that it was not like the Christopher Reeve movies, conveniently forgetting that Superman 3 and 4 weren't that great and Superman Returns tried to do the same thing and was poor. The problem is now they seem to be rushing with the sequel to Man of Steel not only featuring Batman but Wonder Woman and potentially other members of the Justice League as well. Instead of building up to a Justice League movie from individual movies they seem to be doing the opposite with this next movie apparently leading into a Justice League movie and then individual movies. They also seem to be going the unconvential route in terms of casting, of course Ben Affleck was not exactly a popular choice for Batman, then Gal Gadot who looks in need of a good square meal as Wonder Woman, most recently they've cast Jessie Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. He wouldn't exactly be my first choice for Lex I just hope he is a bit more complex than Kevin Spacey's Lex in Superman Returns who was just boring. DC are doing better on the TV side of things, Arrow season 2 has definitely been a step up from season 1. They have really ramped things up, it will be interesting to see if the Flash spin-off can be just as good.

"What do you mean I have to share my next movie with Batman and Wonder Woman?"

Now I previously made my dissatisfaction with the amazing spider-man clear but after watching it for a second time I enjoyed it slightly more but I still think it has a lot of things wrong with it. Unfortunately the trailer for the sequel doesn't excite me either, for one thing it looks to have too many bad guys, the effects don't look that great and the first trailer effectively spoils the plot of the movie which is rather annoying. Sony have already announced two more sequels as well as Venom and sinister six spin-offs, at least they are being slightly original by having a movie featuring a group of villains as the main characters. Frankly I'm annoyed at Sony for rushing the first amazing spider-man reboot rather than letting the movie rights revert to Marvel, on the other hand I'm annoyed at Marvel for ever selling the rights in the first place and/or not buying them back or doing a deal with Sony so that they could have Spider-man as part of the Marvel movie universe.

Doesn't look like a video game at all....

Marvel also sold the rights to X-men and Fantastic Four to Fox which I don't mind so much. I haven't seen the Wolverine or X-men origins:Wolverine (which is meant to be pretty bad) but I have seen all the other X-men films. The next film is called Days of Future Past and will combine the cast from X-men First Class and the old X-men trilogy which is pretty cool. People seem to think it is great that Bryan Singer is back to direct it but tbh I thought the first two X-men movies were just ok and he left to do Superman Returns resulting in a new director giving us the mess that was X-men 3. He also cast the actor who plays Cyclops in Superman Returns meaning that he had to be messily killed off in of X-men 3 despite being one of the main characters. Despite the fact that this next movie isn't even out yet they have already announced a sequel as well as adding the Fantastic Four into the X-men movie universe with their new reboot.

On one hand the sentinels look stupid, on the other it features Peter Dinklage of GoT fame rocking a handle bar mustache

It doesn't look like superhero movies/shows will go away anytime soon and I think its great that high profile actors are getting involved even in smaller roles though this is mainly noticeable with Marvel. Robert Redford is in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Bradley Cooper is the voice of Rocket Racoon and Vin Diesel is the voice of Groot in GoTG and Michael Douglas will be in the Ant-man movie.

Is it too much to ask?

Right this is yet another bit of a rant about technology. I can't remember if I have talked about this before but since I take my hearing aid off at night I can't really use a conventional alarm clock instead I use one with a pad that vibrates under my pillow to wake me up. This is all fine and dandy and it works pretty well, the problem is that it is seemingly designed for people with poor vision as well. This means that it has quite a large screen to show the time(it looks like a conventional alarm clock but is connected by a cable to a round pad which goes under the pillow), this wouldn't bother me if not for the fact that it is extremely bright even on the dim setting. I've had to resort to putting it face down on my bedside table otherwise my room is partially lit up in a green glow that makes it hard to sleep. Just makes you wonder why nobody thought to install an off switch for the light.

An even more illogical piece of technology I've come across is a doorbell which is for deaf or partially deaf people....which makes no sound. Now I understand why that might make sense for someone who lives alone and who is deaf but for someone who lives with other people who aren't deaf then it is pretty stupid. I first found this out when we got a new smoke alarm which works normally but also is connected wirelessly to this remote device which is connected to another round pad under my bed. This means that if the smoke alarm goes off the pad should vibrate and wake me up. This system can also be connected to baby alarms and door bells which is how we found out that we couldn't get a dual function doorbell. The problem is that I can hear the doorbell fine when i'm awake and have my hearing aid on but if we got the doorbell then I or whoever is in the house would have to make sure to carry the remote thing around with them. Also I don't know what it is with these devices and stupidly bright lights but the holder for the device/remote has a light on it as well which makes sense as it shows you that it is connected properly but I've had to put a piece of blu-tack over it as it was so distracting.

Spock agrees with my assesment

No exams

For the past 5 years Christmas  has not been great for due to having exams in January, usually I would give myself 3 days off Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing day This year having finished university I was able to enjoy my Christmas properly without thinking that as soon as the 26th (or as it is known in the UK boxing day) was over I would be back spending my days in my room revising. I really can't understand why they think exams in January is a good idea, I would have much rather started university earlier in the year, done exams before Christmas and then had a proper break before starting the next semester. Last year I think I only had a few proper days off before starting the next semester due to the way my exams were scheduled.

As much as it has been nice to be off for a fair while it feels good to have an idea of what I want to do next. I ended up deciding that I would apply for a PhD with the supervisor of the lab I've worked in most recently. I've started work on the application and once it has been submitted I will also have to go to an interview which I'm nervous about. If you had told me before I started this degree that I would end up applying for a PhD in plant genetics I probably wouldn't have believed you but I've found it interesting. It's similar to my honours project work except on plants instead of fish, the supervisor seems a lot more helpful than my honours project one and the other people in the lab are great. I'm hoping that my application will be successful, I know the PhD will be a lot of hard work but I'm sure I can pull it off.

Wish me luck

That time I nearly punched an audiologist

Firstly maybe I should take a step back from the title before people start thinking I'm a psychopath. As I've commented before on this blog I haven't had the best of experiences when dealing with the audiology department at the hospital.  Have had problems with them being rude, not telling us information and just generally being very unhelpful. The other week we had to go back once again in the hope they would be able to add a program or change a setting or whatever on my digital hearing aid, to allow me to listen to my mp3 player without all the normal noise picked up by the hearing aid itself. It should be noted that at the previous appointment the guy said no sorry we can't do anything (remember this point). After a while of being frustrated with not being able to listen to music on the train without having to crank my mp3 player up I decided to email the company who makes the hearing aid and the receiver and they said they weren't sure but it may be possible to have a mic only program. Ok so that's fine decided to email the female audiologist who's work email she had given me (i.e. not the one who we had the last appointment with who is a guy). We emailed back and forth eventually she said yes we could try it and scheduled an appointment for me.

Ok so that's the set up to the story. It should be noted that before the appointment with the audiologist I had an appointment with the dentist where I had to get a filling and a tooth resealed, not actually the most pleasant of things so I wasn't in the best of moods. Got up to the audiology department, turns out its the same guy as before. Sit down and he starts going on about getting my mic system repaired and me and my mum were like "no we never said anything about any repairs" to which he replied "yes you did and Lorraine (the female audiologist who I had emailed) has mentioned it in her email to me". So this was the first problem since neither me nor my mum had said anything about my microphone system needing repaired at any appointment or in any email and it was rather frustrating that he basically implied that we were lying. It got even worse as when we got to actually talking about what we did  want he had the nerve to say that he had never said we couldn't have this setting (remember what I said before about how he had said exactly that). So there was a bit of back and forth and again he basically implied that we were lying and he had never said such a thing. Finally he got around to trying to adjust it, managed to suprise surprise actually get it to do what I wanted it to and then made a big deal about how it was hard to do even though it just required him to make  new setting with the microphone system and deselect the microphone option. So in the end we finally got sorted but the point of the title is that despite the fact I'm not a violent person the experience of dealing with the department and with this idiot gave me the urge to punch him in the face and hospital appointments should really not make you violent. Contrast this with the experience of the dentist appointment before hand which despite the unpleasantness of the treatment couldn't have been better in terms of the staff. The dentist actually told us that they train the students/staff in how they deal with patients and it makes you think that this should apply to all departments major and minor.

How it might've looked....

Progression

Although I have complained previously about technology becoming too complicated in regards to my mic system and then with all the trouble I've had with my digital hearing aid (though that's mostly the fault of the incompetent audiologists I've dealt with), the fact is it is a lot easier to have conditions like TCS now than in the past.  Hearing loss being one of the main symptoms of TCS is one example, obviously the technology for hearing aids has only been about for so long. Before they were invented people had to use ear trumpets which were obviously not great as you have to hold them up all the time and they require ear canals which people with TCS may not have like me.

"Did you hear the one about...?"

Then of course as with anything, when hearing aids were first invented they were probably big and awkward and nowhere near as good as they are nowadays. In my lifetime there has been a real progression in terms of design and sound quality. This also applies to my mic system as when I first started using it, the teacher had their box with the mic and I had my box which was connected to my hearing aid by a wire and now it is like a mini computer which can be muted and with which multiple systems can be used without interfering with one another (which on a few occasions happened at school with the old system if someone else had a system as well).  and which is wireless. Of course now the big thing seems to be bone anchored hearing aids which I've spoken a bit about before. But even with them the technology is progressing all the time with new under the skin implants being released recently. At some point I will post an update showing all the equipment that I use and have some comparison pictures of any old equipment I have.

Comparison between under the skin implants and abutment bone anchored hearing aid sites

Whilst it may not be nice we also have to consider the other problems apart from hearing loss, it's a pretty safe assumption that in the past, due to the poorer quality of medical care that a lot more people with TCS did not survive especially as babies. Also there is the issue of people misunderstanding the condition (thinking that the child is cursed or whatever) or not being able to look after a child with TCS especially one with a more severe case. The worrying thing is that in many developing countries there still may be some misconceptions and kids with TCS might be abandoned or left to die because people don't know what it is and haven't been educated about it. Of course this is all speculation but it is something that needs to be considered.

Thanks for reading.

In other news...again

Over the summer and up to now I've been doing work experience in a lab at my university to get more experience and learn techniques which would look good on my CV. It has been good I'm now essentially finished as there is nothing for me to do but another supervisor has said that he has a 4 week project which I could work on which would be good. I'm still unsure about my future but I'm starting to lean towards doing a PhD though I have to wait and see what's available. Of course with all the freshers starting at the end of September they brought their germs and I've been sick not once but twice in the past few weeks which has been rather frustrating.

Of course being sick has its benefits one being an excuse to sit and play Grand Theft Auto 5 a lot.  Whilst I enjoyed GTA 4, GTA 5 is a huge improvement in terms of the varied setting of Los Santos and the surrounding areas and especially in terms of the driving which much more enjoyable and less clunky than in GTA 4. When I first heard about the game having three protagonists I was a bit skeptical but in terms of the story and the gameplay  it works really well. All this being said I haven't actually completed the game yet and I look forward to completing it, trying out the cheats which seem to be a bit more fun and varied from GTA 4 and of course the online mode.

Planes are a much welcome return

Of course while the media, politicians and parents (who don't know how to say no to their kids) have been getting all worked up about the violence in GTA another thing people have been getting worked up over is the casting of Ben Affleck as the new Batman. While I'm a bit skeptical as to why they are making a movie apparently called Batman vs Superman rather than a Man of Steel 2 and then maybe a world's finest movie I'm also hesitantly excited. As many have pointed out Ben Affleck will make a good Bruce Wayne and he is apparently a big fan so I'm sure he will do his best to portray Batman.

Hopefully Batman will be more like he is in the Arkam games

Marvel have now moved their marvel universe onto the small screen in the form of Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. I enjoyed the first episode but the second and third left me a bit underwhelmed. It doesn't help that the characters aren't that interesting and in some cases they are just annoying. I'm going to keep watching to see if it improves I won't get my hopes up.

"Look at how awkward and funny we are!" Cringe

Thanks for reading.

Retainers

This post is a bit late as my last orthodontic appointment was way back before my holiday. Basically I had been wearing my plastic retainers on my teeth pretty much full-time even though it was past the period that I needed to. I kept wearing them as much as possible as a) I was used to them and didn't mind wearing them and b) I thought I was doing a good thing and that my teeth would be less likely to go back to the way they were. Apparently I was wrong, my orthodontist was surprised that I had been wearing them that much, I think most of his patients probably don't wear their retainers enough and he told me to just wear them at night and then just wear them every other night after a period. One of the things he said was that wearing the retainers too much after the initial period might make you more at risk of plaque/tooth decay.

That's all fine and dandy and I would rather wear my plastic retainers a few nights a week rather than get a permanent retainer. Permanent retainers may be easier letting you have one procedure to put them in and just having to be a bit more careful to clean your teeth but my mouth is small enough as it is with my recessed lower jaw I don't think I would manage with something stuck behind my teeth especially if I knew it was staying there and not going to be removed in the future like my braces. That said wearing the retainers only every other night means that I'm not used to them and they are uncomfortable but like most things you soon forget about them after a while on the computer or reading a book and a little discomfort is worth it if it means my teeth stay straight.

These are the types of plastic retainers that I wear

Thanks for reading.