Sunday, October 12, 2014

Adelaide Zombie Walk 2014

The Adelaide Zombie Walk hosts thousands, if not more people dressed up in zombie gear for a fun afternoon of zimbie-ing and at the same time raising funds for a good cause. More details here.

I missed the earlier portion of the walk, I think it started earlier than the stated time and only caught the massive crowds on their way back to Rymill park. Which is sad, as I'd scoped out some places along the path that would look great in a photo but oh well.

At the very least, I got a small video above, and some shots below. Enjoy!
























Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Exploring Genetic Algorithms

The last month I've been spending a short while each day coding up an exploration into Genetic Algorithms. Being the King of Procrastination, I've decided to blog about what I've completed over the weekend, and my next steps.

So, basically my problem is the optimal selection of values for agents to traverse a short course in the shortest time. Several parameters are available, such as maximum forward speed, maximum rotation speed, length of the lookahead sensors, spread of the sensors etc.

We can probably figure out what a good setting is, but the GA will allow us to explore this big problem space on its own, and perhaps evolve a solution that is not logical, but will work very well.

I got the GA working on Monday, and, depending on the run, is able to seek out solutions to the problem. One of the lucky runs found a really fast solution, but the exploration space was not as focused as I liked.

One of the reasons is the way I generate the next generation of agents; they are simply created from roulette wheel selection of the fittest, but it seems like I need to look more carefully into the roulette function as the random function I am using _may_ be more gaussian than uniform distribution, so there is a bias to which parents are chosen. More checking is needed.

While I was pondering about this, I have decided to try a more "directed" kind of GA:

First, I will allow the GA to run, and then choose an "elite" agent, one that fits a certain set of parameters. In my case, my target is to have agents complete the course under 5 seconds (the GA I have now, evolved agents that did it in 4.6 seconds). So, I'll just evolve them as before, *until* I get an agent that can not only complete the course, but can do it under 10 seconds.

(Assuming the GA's run is not soo lucky it gets under 5 seconds on the first run. As the first generation is randomly generated, I've seen some really fast results on the first generation... but I digress.)

This "elite" agent is then kept on, and used as a starting point for future generations. It does not directly enter the pool, but will be used as the one of the two agents to be mated for the next generation. Talk about some serious polygamy here.

The current elite is only replaced by one of its descendents when the descendent has a higher fitness score i.e. faster.

This of course leads to a more localized search of the solution, since it will evolve around the elite agent. To search further, mutation is probably the only way to jump to another possibly more optimal area.

At the moment, my mutation rate varies depending on the spread of the scores of the agents; if the agents have similar scores, the mutation rate jumps to a higher one, in order to search further. If the scores are wide spread, lower mutation will occur.

The theory I have right now is to have a low mutation rate once an elite agent is found, so the GA will explore the nearby solution space for more optimum solutions. As time goes on, the mutation rate will increase if no improved solutions are found; this will, in theory, allow the GA to gradually search further afield. Perhaps, even after X number of generations, the elite idea can be dropped and the GA can go back into the original exploration of the space without being "led" by an elite agent.

Monday, October 06, 2014

Faking RBD/Smoke collisions.

I've never got the default rbd/fluid collisions to work as expected when I've got a rbd object moving through a slow moving/static density field. Think of Balamb Garden flying through a cloud bank. What usually happens is the fluid forms a thin shell around the rbd object, and you can clearly see the rbd object "eat" through the density.

What I really want to see is the smoke part around the rbd object. Usually what I do for cases like these are to use various forces (field force etc) together with keyframing to push the fluid out of the way at the correct time.

Have a shot at work where I want to improve on this, so tried some stuff and this result seems quite usable. Can't wait to test it at work!

City Birds

A very short clip recorded along the Torrens Linear Park, just behind the Adelaide Zoo. A whole bunch of birds in the trees, just as a storm was coming in. I reset the R05 when installing the new batteries, and forgot to switch over to 48/24, and recorded with 44/16. But it still sounds great.

The diy windmuff generally works quite well, and the low frequency wind rumble - it was very, very windy - appears to be well under control.

I also recorded another bit - not uploaded - of the long grasses rustling in the wind, and the wind muff did prove its worth then.

Other things I should remind myself is to test the limiter - some poor sounding peaks were captured, the limiter _should_ help but you never know.

Saturday, October 04, 2014

Long Weekend, FF8.

Long weekend! Woot! Slept in then went to the Central Markets for lunch and bought some food for the week. There's just so much there to try out, I am thinking of going there again tomorrow for breakfast.

Went out for a stroll in the evening along the river torrens, but decided I wanted to finish FF8! Been playing an hour or two daily and finally made my way to the last boss last night, but got insta-killed by Griever's final attack, Shockwave Pulsar. Blargh.

Tried again today and read some hints ^_^ and junctioned the characters properly and BOOM! Took it all the way to ultimecia, and she didn't even have time to cast apocalypse before she died. Must admit I was using the Auras that I had on Squall. Even though I don't have the Lionheart, just the Cutting Trigger gunblade, his limit breaks do massive damage. I'm guessing the ease of the win was simply proper junctioning, low levels (squall was lvl 41, Zell and Rinoa were just breaking 30) and abusing the limit breaks/aura spells.

The story is just sooo complex and confusing, and I had to read a storyline synopsys to understand exactly what was going on. Next up is FF9... slowly working my way up to the X an XII remasters :3

Friday, October 03, 2014

Roland R05 First Impressions

About two weeks ago, I was trawling ebay for either a Sony M10 or Roland R05 and this came up. Lightly used, and at a good price, and decided to go for it. My Zoom H1 has been plagued with the poor battery life issue - and this is my 2nd zoom h1 to have developed it - and I really wanted something that plays nice with rechargeable batteries AND has a metal tripod mount. The R05 ticks all these boxes. I'm rather in the mood to write, so here's my first impression of my new toy.

First, the build quality is great. It's lightweight, but has a good heft. The the casing is supposedly aluminum, and the sides are made from a more grippy material, providing a really confident grip when handling it.

There are two inputs, one for line-in, one for mic, both 3.5mm, located between the two built-in microphones. The SD card slot is also located there, and it comes with a 2GB card. The opposite side of the R05 has a slot for a lanyard if you so wish to carry it that way.

The menus are very straightforward, though I had to check the meaning of some technical terms. The file format, bit rate and sample rate are all contained inside the menu system, which I find good as I really just want to record 48/24/wav and not accidently ops set it to  96/24. Batteries, as mentioned above, can be set to NiMH, perfect for use with Enerloops.

No speaker on this little boy, so headphones are required. That said, the speaker on my H1 is near inaudible outdoors, so headphones - probably iems to block the ambience - would be needed.

Input levels are set via +/- buttons on the front face. Unlike the Zoom H1, the record button needs to be pressed twice to fully engage the recording - one to arm the device into standby mode, and another press to begin recording. I would have preferred the way the H1 does it, by having the monitoring to be going on all the time, and only requiring one button touch to begin recording.

Another recording feature I hope will be good to use is the limiter. This is engaged by a hardware switch on the reverse side of the R05, and, if you prefer, the is an option in the menus to use AGC instead of the limiter. Another switch engages the variable low pass, though I'm unlikely to use it. The final switch at the rear chooses the high or low gain for the mics.

Lots of other features are available that I don't have a use for the moment - "rehearsal mode" samples the current input levels and sets the input gain to a suitable level - there is a reverb built in - playback with variable speeds, and many, many other functions.

There is one thing that I am looking forward to test this weekend - how stereo omnis on the R05 compare to the H1's XY co-incident mics in terms of the stereo field.  I also quickly spent some time sewing together a quick wind muff for the R05.

I accidentally trimmed a little too much off the sides - the sides of the R05 are supposed to be covered too but oh well. I've got like loads of fur left over, if this doesn't do well I can build another :)

Monday, September 29, 2014

Morialta Conservation Park

This weekend, I headed out to Morialta Conservation Park, a short half hour ride from the city via the H30 bus. Watch for stop 26 carefully, as the bus stop was hidden behind some trees. Thankfully, there were a pair of hikers who were also visiting the park that rung the bell.
The bus drops you off mere meters away from the entrance to the park, and from there it's a short stroll to the trailhead.
The park boasts walks and hikes for all levels; one of the easy level course meanders along the base of the hills, and ends up by a platform below a waterfall. The medium and hikes take you up rather high.
Being the idiot that I am, I took one of the medium courses "because it's only 2.5hrs for a return trip". Riiiight. Heaven forbid that a real life hike is not like running around the world map in final fantasy, because I totally did not bring out enough water. I realize about a third of the way in, that uhoh, I've finished almost half my water supply.
Rationing was the word of the day, and I took sips and did not swallow. Even better, I got lost someway through - decided to "go off the beaten path" - and found myself at the top of a very very steep hill. About maybe a tenth of the way down the hill, the gradient was increasingly steep, easily 12, maybe 15 degrees. Fine for walking upwards, but very slow moving downwards. I decided to turn around then to look for a proper way back to the trailhead.
Thankfully, there was another path on the way up that I missed, which lead directly to the trailhead. Much rejoicing was had once I discovered the water fountain. Because of the lack of water though, I was severely dehydrated, and spent most of saturday in a headache filled daze. Guess I will be bringing more water next time!
I'm also re-acquainting myself with the light in South Australia - it seemed like towards the later part of the day, like 2pm, the sun was hitting at a very nice oblique angle, and I think my photos got nicer once the harsh noon sun moved off.
I also spent some time recording birdsong and the little stream that filled the waterfall, will post up a sound clip when I get a moment.
Definitely will be back again, it's nice to stretch the legs. The path I took had a rather steep gradient for the first twenty or so minutes, then it petered out to gentle up/down gradients. So, ymmv!
The H30 bus also runs at half hour intervals, so plan for that. I waited for my bus with several arachnids, one of which is displayed below:
Can't wait to check out more places in the coming months!

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Rule Britannia for Wind Ensemble

Spent a few minutes a day re-arranging this piece for wind ensemble, and told myself "yeah, i'll probably need 2 hours, maybe 3 to sequence it" RIIIIGHT. Bloody took me most of the evening.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Rule Britannia for Wind Quartet

I think the description of the video says it all :)

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Cleland Conservation Park

Another stop to visit during my stay here in Adelaide, is Cleland Wildlife Park. I used to spend an insane amount of time here, the last I was in Adelaide. Going crazy with photography and all.

This time round, I'm just taking it easy and just exploring some parts of the park.

There is no direct bus to Cleland from the city, rather, you'd need to take the 864 from Grenfel street up to the Crafer's Park N Ride. From there, you switch to a bus that takes you up to the wildlife park. On the way up, there are stops for Mount Lofty Summit, as well as the botanical gardens.

The bus that brings you up - at least on the weekends - only appears to run 3 times during the day, so you will need to plan your trip very well! I got the earliest bus which got me to Cleland about half past 10. The return buses are at 1.30pm and 4-ish. Being the oddly excited to visit Cleland yet not wanting to wear out the welcome, left with the 1.30pm bus. Actually, it was because I wanted to get to the Central Markets to get a laksa for lunch, but that's another story.

Entry is 22 for Adults, and the year pass is 55. Given that I'm likely to be up here several more times, I got the annual entry pass. My first stop was with the dingos... which appeared to be a different pack from the last time.

The feeding time appeared to be 2.30pm, which I'd forgotten, and I wasn't going to stay that long, so I headed out for the real reason I was here, to record some birdsong.

Cleland has lots of aviaries scattered around Cleland, and I visited several to record the music with the Zoom H1. I've modified the windmuff so that it stays on better, and it breaks up the wind rather well.
I'm still very new to recording nature sounds, and as far as I can tell the zoom performs great up close to the birds. I've put up one of the clips I'd recorded, in one of the outlying aviaries where people tend not to visit, or, don't stay long at all.
Just listening to the birds live whilst the recorder does its thing is great, I should figure out how to meditate and stuff like that.
Apart from that, I had a quick visit with one of the many partitioned off areas of the park with kangaroos. The roos are generally very approachable, and love to eat the pellets. Definitely something to experience once a life.

In the end, time ran out and I headed out the park. I went through the area where the Rock Wallabies were housed in, and as like 5 years ago, are always too well hidden to be seen.


Will definitely be back, but not for a few months - wanna go visit Waterfall Gully, Morialta, Hallet Cove and loads of other place to capture me some sound waves :)

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Post Adelaide | South Australia Avaiation Museum | Semaphore Beach


Quite a hectic day today; visited Port Adelaide for a pancake lunch and a quick revisit. I don't remember much having changed, and for some reason I _really_ wanted to visit the Aviation Museum, so there I went.



It was a very enjoyable experience. Lots of information was posted about these planes - and more, like rockets! After that, I left to visit Semaphore Beach.

It was about an hour's walk from Port Adelaide before I arrived at the beach.



Semaphore Beach has a long stretch of shops and restaurants leading to the jetty, and there are public toilets available at well appointed spots. The jetty is the longest of the 3 beaches I've visited so far, and it is rather wide too! Alot of the people don't appear to be native from Australia though, something tells me some of them are from Burma.




I then took off along to beach to do some recording of the waves again! This time armed with my diy windscreen XD Will update here once I have more!

Friday, September 12, 2014

Yet another DIY windscreen/deadcat/windmuff blog post on the web.

So, last week, I decided that my "Dream Job*" was to be a nature recorder like Chris Watson, and OMG! I have to a) buy a new field recorder b) buy some awesome headphones c) buy a windmuff d) buy some awesome microphones! e) buy lots of stuff!

Sadly, I have inflicted by this thing called "growing up" which appears to be a horrendous terrible affliction, which tells my brain to not randomly purchase stuff. Much.

It's quite obvious I'm not going to be a nature recordist, much less have the time to do much recording so I decided to just work with what I got, my Zoom H1. Legitimately, I have a good excuse for getting a new shiny recorder - the H1 _again_ developed the battery drain issue, which I've seen some forum posts mention something about faulty capacitors. The H1 I have is already exchanged for a good one, which was good, but it seems like the components may have failed yet again.

But... I really don't use the recorder much. A whistle recording here and there is all I've used it for, and buying a new one is really not a good use of resources, but we'll see ;-)

In any case, I've brought the H1 out twice for recording beach waves, and I thought it was really good when the wind is calm (last week), but it performs really badly on a windy day (two weeks ago at Glenelg). A windmuff is the first obvious solution, so I thought it'd be fun to diy a windmuff.

A quick hop down to the Spotlight along Rundle Malle and I picked up a 20cm strip of faux fur that's almost 2 meters wide for 12 bucks. A few needles, and an hour or so making a rough pattern and sewing it together... walah!

 The fur chosen had a backing that was really thin, there were other luxury faux furs at spotlight that looked really awesome, but were rather thick. This specimen felt slightly stretchy and I could almost glimpse the overhead lights shine through them.

In-house tests indicates that they really cut the whoosh down when blowing straight a the mics. The real test would be outside in proper windy conditions.

Oh, another reason to upgrade the H1 is that the tripod thread on the H1 is plastic >.>

Seriously, plastic?!

It doesn't even fit my tripod properly. Blargh. Anyways, if everything goes well, I'll be going to Port Adelaide tomorrow for the afternoon, then Semaphore beach to capture the beach waves at sunset.

*Last week, I decided, my dream job was to be a chiropractor. And just about oh, 5 hours ago, I was at a concert, and decided, my Dream Job was to be a violist. Waaaait a second I gave that up like half a year ago. Ah.

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

FF8 on PS Vita

Stopped playing the FF series after FF7 on the PC - could never really afford the consoles anyways. Now, several months ago, I happened to read that some old PS games could be played on the vita, and looking it up, holy wow! Lots of the old PS generation final fantasy remakes are available, including 8 and 9 which I've never played.

Got my vita a few weeks back, and the experience is kinda bitter sweet. I got a few games for it, FF1, FF8  and Wipeout 2048. I also have FF9 in my account, but my internet access here in Adelaide is quite poor, and I thought I'd finish these games before trying to put more things on the memory card.

FF1 is great, I never played the NES version, but the PS remake is delightfully polished to perfection. I think I got a few hours under my belt, got the Earth crystal, then couldn't figure out where to go next, and decided to put it aside for awhile.

FF8 otoh is an extremely slow game! It takes ages to load, I find the story really slow, combat takes forever, summoning GF's take forever (I literally could set of 3 GFs in a row, and browse the internet, only to find only 2 of them have their animations complete.)

All that said, it's fine, my main gripe is how cookie-cutter the characters feel. Unlike say, FF6 or 7 where each character feels very different in terms of abilities, I think Squall doesn't really play that much differently from any other character. Fight, Draw, GF, Magic, Item blah blah. I don't feel the individuality of each character.

Sure, each character has custom limit breaks - but I don't think I want to gamble with keeping HP low to get the. The R1 extra attack thing doesn't really help, and it gets annoying when I'm trying to juggle 3 characters, and having to time my R1 presses to the animation.

I just finished Disk 1 today, so hopefully the rest of the storyline will improve.

Wipeout 2048, now that is a marvel. Very polished, and the attention to detail is astounding. I regret having to play it on a small screen like the vita - this game deserves proper glory at 1080p - and higher. The pacing of 2048 is really fast, and with the small screen it's actually difficult to see what's coming up. When in combat races, I find it neigh impossible to see mines or bombs.

I think I've only played the original wipeout before this, so I'm not familiar with the series. Must say the slow-down effects are really well integrated and don't stick out. I am very curious about the loading times though, the game is stored on a vita memory card, and each race takes maybe half a minute, maybe more to load? I would imagine having a memory card would make modern games load near-instantaneously.

Sunday, September 07, 2014

Classical Guitar!

Decided to explore the classical guitar this year - supposed to be the viola still but I didn't really get along with it, and I learnt more or less enough of the articulations for my orchestration class. I'm travelling lighter nowadays, and don't have my tripod or music stand with me :-/

The view is not too flattering, and I have to look down at the score. Blargh.

Henley Beach/Nature Recording

Visited Henley Beach yesterday, it's a half-hour-ish ride on the H30 bus from Adelaide's CBD. It's a looong stretch of very nice clean, clear water that was not too busy when I visited. It's relatively quiet compared to Glenelg, which I'm guessing it's because a) public transport there is not so convenient and b) not many shops or things to do. There were only a few establishments just by the jetty, which I so conveniently did not process any photos of. The shot above is made from the jetty anyways.
I decided to wait for the sunset, but instead of hanging around the jetty - which I was rapidly getting bored of - I decided to head down southwards to see what's about (more beach, mainly).
A short walk later, I appeared to hit the sea outlet of the River Torens. Nice! That part of the beach was also very quiet, and I decided to pull out my Zoom H1 and ATR3350 to make some recordings of the surf.
The ATR3350, while quite good for recording my whistles and saxophone, is really not up to the task of recording a far more quieter surf. Even with the Zoom H1's preamps at 100, I had to boost it by crazy amounts in post to hear it. Plus the mic's mono, so there is no imaging.
I actually tried recording waves at Glenelg last weekend with only the Zoom H1. Didn't get much, as it was super windy, and I don't own any dead cats for wind shielding. Yesterday though, the winds were very mild, and I managed to snag a nice amount of surf sounds.
I'm definitely going to go back another day with proper wind protection to get a much longer track :)

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Got a hardshell, hmm....

On Sunday, I went down to Glenelg Beach, and I accidentally left my Arcteryx Solano on a park bench >.> 15 minutes or so when I returned, it was missing >.> Can you say, OUCH!

Adelaide is still in the tail end of winter - supposedly - and I am just too spoilt having a softshell that I went looking for another one. Which turned out to be a good thing, as the last two days have been cold and windy with light drizzles yesterday.

But in any case, I was on the prowl for a replacement softshell, and was actually rather tempted to hunt down a replacement Solano as it is a great piece of gear. The Solano has a great fit, ok-ish water repellency and the insides have a *very* thin layer of insulation. It doesn't look too technical, super breathable, and rolls up into a small lump.

Initially, when I was introduced to it, I was hesitant to pick it up due to this thin insulation, but I've found it to work really well in Singapore or Montreal. The Solano in combination with my 5 year old macpac fleece was perfect down to zero C in montreal, and of course is perfect for the winter weather here in Adelaide.

The new shell I picked up is a hardshell, a Mammut Juho. Several things were going for it: It has a Gore-tex waterproof outer layer, the price was good for a gore-tex kit (end of season sale - so it was cheaper than my Solano!), and the styling was not too "omg I go for long hikes in the mountains on weekend". It was also a hardshell, something I've never tried before and the waterproofing _really_ called out to me.

The weather has not been wet enough to put the water proofing to the test, but tests in the kitchen showed that the waterproofing is amazing, with water just shedding off. My previous two softshells (the solano and a mountain hardwear which name I've forgotten) initially had great water repellency, but degraded rapidly. I've tried Grangers on the Solano and it only helped a little. I hope this Gore tex fabric will hold up longer.

Now the thing about the new jacket is... I think it doesn't keep me as warm as the Solano. I'm guessing it might be the Solano having the thin insulation layer, while the Joho is straight up synthetic material on the inside, so when the jacket gets cold it conducts the coolness straight to the fleece, whilst the Solano has the thin insulating layer. I'm also wondering if the windstopper on the solano is more breathable than goretex, so less moisture is trapped - which would keep warmer.

At the moment, it's fine as the "cold" is still above zero, and not a problem. If it's seriously cold I'll probably need a beanie but it's not that cold yet, and this is the tail end of winter here. Things should get warmer soon. It was crazy warm on Saturday, easily hitting 20C++.

I'd write more but it's bedtime. Photos from glenelg and food to post. What's not helping is my internet connection, on a good day, getting 35kb/s is a good thing. I need to look into switching to another isp.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Circle of Life | Adelaide | Burger Theory

I've been in Adelaide for the last two weeks for work, and things have been going quite smoothly. Well, apart from some drama at the airport with my ticket being cancelled, but that was sorted out rather quickly via a skype call to the travel agent's office. Thank you Changi Airport Free Wifi :)

Adelaide is very familiar, and yet very alien. Many shops are still the same, but some old haunts have closed down. Many of my colleagues are still there, and while their faces are familiar, the distance of five years means I need time to get to know them again. I know there are buses to take me to places I want to go, but I no longer remember the stops, or the bus numbers.

Ah life.

The year still weighs heavily, but the work and city here appear to be helping me lift this burden. One of the aspect that is helping - out of work - is the food. In general I find the food here difficult to complain about. Oh sure, I ate at this crappy chinese place last night but on the whole my omnomnomnom experience here at the various food courts and sandwich places (hello FUIC!) has been great.

This fine evening, I visited a lovely burger restaurant called Burger Theory. I had their number two burger, which is some kinda bacon with blue cheese thing, and it is absolutely as good as the burgers from Byrons or Honest Burger back in London. The fries are top notch, and the shake is proper.

It is actually a little too much food, as I am typing this feeling rather stuffed, and I had purposely eaten lesser over lunch, and refused to eat the cheese or cake at today's beer o'clock just to prep my stomach for this. Next time I'll probably pass on the fries.

This weekend, I hope to spend it eating more delicious goodness :) Going to find a Ramen place, and hopefully try out another chinese place that sells Wantan Mee - it is unbelievably hard to find a place selling that!  There is also a steak place I know that is killer good. But that's really pricey so I'm going to hold off till after payday.

I'll also be moving in to my new studio apartment tomorrow; I just got the keys today to a lovely place at the end of Rundle mall. It's mostly furnished (it even has a TV! What do i do with a tv lol.) but I need to get the utensils, crockery, bed covers and pillow. It's student housing, first time staying with students, I wonder what the experience will be like. The manager who gave me my induction appears to have gone through some really weird experiences, and I hope I won't cause her trouble.

Apart from that, I'm keeping my evenings easy, just reading books but once I move into my new place and get settled, I'll be returning to music et al.

Looking forward to the next 9 months; going to definitely spend some weekends out exploring out of Adelaide - places like Victor Harbour, Hahndorf etc. While I've been there before, I think I'll see if I can arrange for an overnight stay for the weekend.

Saturday, August 02, 2014

Hercules

So, I had a chance to watch Hercules this week. Honestly, I did not want to watch it due to having read that "all you see in the trailer is shown in the first 5 minutes", but given the other choice was How To Train Your Dragon 2 (which I have already watched, and is awesome), decided to catch it in the end.

I steeled myself, preparing for something like Transformers, but thankfully it was not!

As per the reviews, the stuff shown in the trailer was all done and dusted in the first few minutes, and reveals that those were stories used to impress upon people the legend of Hercules. In this show, Hercules is as mortal as you and I, and the heroics are performed not by just one person, but a small troop of mercenaries. The troop goes on to get tricked into doing dirty work, but Hercules cleans up in the end.

I won't go beyond that, but I found the show exceedingly enjoyable to watch. This is not one of those "OH MY GOD MUST BUY DVD" kind of show, but it's the kind of show you come out of the cinema feeling really pumped up, and never did I have the urge to check the clock. My friend and I were discussing the show a good hour or so after.

This deviation from the Mary Sue kind of Hercules people seem to want to watch seems to be what makes people go all rah-rah. Sure, it breaks the mold, and I love it! He bleeds, he gets tricked, he falls and he rises. He's human, and I can emphasize with him. I also can't believe that's The Rock. It does't look like him, and he's impressively more bulked up than I remember.


Looking forward for Guardians and Turtles. Those two look to be enjoyable shows too!