That’s what I came away from after devouring the latest (and possible last) techno-thriller penned by Michael Crichton, Micro, which was completed by author Richard Preston (most famous for his chilling 1994 non-fiction thriller, The Hot Zone, about the Ebola outbreak in a primate quarantine building that occurred in Reston, Virginia in 1989).

Mr. Preston thinking "You thought Ebola was scary? Have I got a surprise for you!"

To anyone having doubts about Mr. Preston picking up where Mr. Crichton left off (rumor has it the manuscript was only 73% completed at the time of Crichton’s unfortunate passing due to Cancer in 2008), rest assured it is seamless – you literally cannot tell where Crichton ends and where Preston begins, nor what ideas and extrapolations belong to whom! It is most definitely feels like a Crichton
novel in it’s entirety!

The plot strays a little further away than most of Crichton’s stories in regards to the actual science utilized, in this case, micronization, but what it lacks in size of real physics in makes up for in the biology showed on display, showing a world that literally exists within our own that is a thriving ecosystem within our own!

Seven grad students in an eclectic assortment of fields (Envenomization, Biochemical Engineering, Arachnology, Entomology, Applied Science Philosophy, etc) are invited by a fellow student, Peter Jensen, on behest of his older brother Eric for recruitment into his start-up company, NaniGen Tech, a start-up company specializing in micro-robotic environmental research tools.

It’s not long before tragedy strikes in the murder of Eric and the mystery of what NaniGen actually does and with which find our protagonists shrunk-down into “micro-humans” and abandoned in a vast rainforest on Hawaii’s big island of Oahu.  From here, it becomes a “Lost World” tale of survival as the company of students must somehow trek back to NaniGen and restore themselves, while solving the mystery of Eric’s death.

Mr. Crichton moments before he touched the fossil behind him and merely "willed" it to life, cackling madly!

Fans of Crichton’s work will find this vintage-Crichton at his best with a streamlined plot and enough thorough research and explanation to make even a layman an expert in some of the fields addressed. As well, this always makes the attacks even more frightening when are heroes are confronted by waves of wasps, spiders, and even bats during their journey.

And these attacks are NOT for the feint of heart as Crichton and Preston detail the horrors of the insect world GRAPHICALLY (particularly stomach churning and harrowing is a sequence involving a grub, but I’ll let you discover that on your own).

PICTURED: Mr. Preston's pants-shittingly scary surprise.

The weakest flaw in this book is the seven grad students in the group, which are cardboard at the very best – you have the quiet thinker, the outspoken know-it-all, the tomboy, the promiscuous girl, the girl next door, the take-charge and the whiner. I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not – adding in  that they behave as academic snobs through 3/4 of the book doesn’t exactly you root them on, with Peter being the sole one you care about because of his relationship with his brother. The villain of the piece seems more at home in a Bond film than here and is extremely over-the-top in his actions and swaggering. I did, oddly, wind up growing the fond of the side-characters, particularly the Spam-sushi-eating, easy going and intelligent Honolulu homicide detective who suspects there’s something foul at work within NaniGen.

Some of the tech concepts displayed are intriguing despite the fact they almost seemed to come from an eighties  cartoon-toy line property, with the micro-humans having access to a plethora of miniature tent stations, concrete-brick research labs dotted along the rainforest, six-legged “Hexapod” walkers used to transverse the micro-terrain and even miniature micro-planes! If this gets made into a movie (it’s Crichton so chances are already 60/40 in it’s favor) you could see endless toys taken from the novel alone!

Which brings me to the opening notes from Crichton himself, in which he states some (in my mind, anyway’s) alarming statistics about school children these days, while being aware of insects and animals, couldn’t identify nearly any of the bugs they’d fin in their own backyard, blaming compressed school cirriculums with an emphasis on test scoring to the sad simple fact that kids too busy inside playing video games than playing outdoors in nature. I can’t help but wonder if maybe this was Crichton’s way of hoping kids might pick this up in the same way they read Jurassic Park – inspiring them to get outside and find fascination with the world right in their own lawns? It will certainly help move those bug catching nets and kits you see displayed every spring and summer!

MICRO, while having some small flaws, is MACRO fun!

* Words in red are danger words – Google Image them at risk to your own sanity, or to **know-your-enemy…

**…at which case I suggest a can of Lysol and a lighter; distance is your friend!

Well, it’s been nearly a year since I have done any of these stupid comics. I think I am going to abandon my usual characters for a little while.

To refresh, I had started this project to do a comic a day to get my creative juices flowing. I did it consistently for about a month or so and then stopped. Since then they have just been sporadic.

At the Golden Globes last night, these films were considered for the Best Original Score Category:

• Alexandre Desplat - The King’s Speech
• Danny Elfman - Alice in Wonderland
• A. R. Rahman - 127 Hours
• Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Social Network
• Hans Zimmer - Inception

With the winner of the award going to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the Social Network.

Now, I dig Trent Reznor and I think it’s great he got recognition for his work, but why no nomination for Daft Punk and their TRON: Legacy soundtrack? I expected at least a nod of some sort?

A quick and completely unscientific Google Search and scan for “top film score 2010″ comes up with about 5 out of 8 lists including the Daft Punk score, and overall impression from my circle of friends and acquaintances (I know, I know, also unscientific) include the TRON: Legacy OST as one of the best scores of recent memory.

Even critics that HATED the movie  give due credit to the French duo.

But nary a simple nod in the awards? I guess it’s just as well.  TRON will remain a cult favorite, with the elite clicking their tongues at anything it may spawn.

We will see soon enough, but from what I’ve seen of the movie I have to disagree. I think anyone that sees the movie is going to be enamored of it, and will most likely see it again. It really is an immersive experience with the 3D (like Avatar), and the story is easier to relate to the average person than Avatar was.

My kids are very excited to see it, as well as the neighborhood kids that they are friends with.  I see the toys are starting to sell, even with out direct movie support yet.

I guess the main factor is if this concept resonates today with the public at large. Back in 1982, only kids and nerds liked computers and/or video games. These days, you literally can’t turn around without tripping over a computer or a video game. They travel with us, and they sit in our homes in a dozen different places. Is the average person interested in finding out what could happen if you were sucked, “Alice in Wonderland” style, into a computer world? Does this story of an orphaned son finding his father in the least likely place and overcoming his personal issues/demons ring in anyone’s hearts?

It could come down to timing. On Christmas weekend, when the family wants to hit the multiplex, will they relent and take the kids to the lowest level of entertainment possible and buy tickets to Yogi Bear? Or will they step back into time with the newest Chronicals of Narnia?

Maybe they will take a step into the future and “Enter the Grid” to the world of TRON.  That’s where my family will be.

TRON Legacy releases to the US on December 17th and stars Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, and Olivia Wilde, with music by Daft Punk.

The story begins when  Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of fierce programs and gladiatorial games where his father has been living for the past 25 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant (Quorra, played by Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.

Hey, it’s Summer! Didn’t you know?

I’m not sure what I think of it. I love the original, and it was fun to see someone try and do something with it. I don’t really think it was “good”, but it was interesting.

The concept behind it is that the filmmakers took the original film and digitally pulled out the sets from the original 1920 film. They then filmed the actors on a green screen and placed them into the old sets. It gives it a similar feel to “Sky Captain”, and I kind of dug that. I sort of liked the bizarre combination of old-style look and modern acting. It took a little bit to get used to, but I ultimately enjoyed it.

Sadly, the main reason I was excited for the movie ended up disappointing me. I was eager to see legendary Doug Jones play Cesare the somnambulist, but he really didn’t have much to do, and just kind of looked silly. I think all the other actors did surprisingly well, and the guy playing Caligari himself hit all the right notes for me. I also thought the actor playing Alan had some good charisma.

Overall, it was a worthwhile oddity for a “Caligari” fan to watch, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that isn’t a fan of the original.

This is something that has hit home (literally) as we have been trying to eat healthier and avoid processed “food like substances”. We’ve been at it for about a half year now, where we have drastically limited our meat and dairy consumption and increased our intake of whole grains and vegetables. One observation I have made so far is that convenience is such a huge part of our culture, and that is one of the things is hard to change. I find it hard to just go and grab some lunch that is healthy with little to no preparation. The stuff that is cheap is bad for you, because they prepare it in a way that is cost-effective and “tasty”, not healthy. I usually end up grabbing an apple and some noodles.

The big thing that kills me (and the American People) is that this is all done for profits. Little changes here to slice off a half a cent per unit during this process, modifications to the ingredient there to save another fourth of a cent, and as each step progresses, it makes the food more and more… well… “non-food”. The fats and preservatives are pumped in, High-fructose corn syrup added to make it taste better, and then it’s flash frozen or pasteurized or sprayed with some sort of “edible bleach” to kill all the germs on it. It’s beautiful from a technological and accounting perspective. But it’s a nightmare from a health one. We were made, designed, created, adapted to eat for nutrition. Our bodies have cravings for what we are supposed to eat. This assembly line food masks this by chemically engineering it to “seem” like it’s what we are supposed to be eating, but really isn’t.

In turn, we aren’t satisfied and keep eating. We get fatter, requiring more “food” to fill our stomachs.

The food manufacturers win again.

How do we solve this problem? How do we get the food manufacturers to return to a state of “natural” without changing the whole process they have so carefully built? My pessimistic guess is that they are just going to lie to us. We are going to demand better, healthier food, and they are just going to “technically” meet the requirements without really changing anything.

And things will keep on getting worse for us.