June 2006

This page is closed,
for new content... go to my blog home page and click "Current Blogging"

Friday June 30, 2006 1:11:57 AM #

» [Words Here]

Wednesday June 28, 2006 2:20:41 AM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Superman Returns movie party earlier this evening. Watched Superman 1 and 2 (with a little fast forwarding here and there) and then went to the 10pm showing of the new film. Great movie! As good as Batman Returns, very faithful to the earlier, 1 and 2. Kevin Spacey tears up the screen as Luthor. Great Movie. Go see, it's good.

Let's Go Surfing

» Pictures from 2006 Licensing Show:
This IRS Wrestling action figure would make a good "Calculator" from Villians United.

This metal cage has some nice customizing potential.

» Sizeable interview with Scott Mcloud. Parts 1 | 2 | 3.

» Creepy giant marionette video.

Sunday June 25, 2006 4:11:18 PM #

Action Figures

Random Non-Sequiters

» Some interesting dates of note this week: The new second season of Venture Bros, airs tonight on Adult Swim (Old episode, followed by a new episode.) Some Sci-fi show, I know nothing about: Kyle XY on ABC Family on Monday. Superman Returns midnight showings on Tuesday/Wednesday. Ultraviolet on DVD Tuesday, Blade on Spike TV Wednesday.

Let's Go Surfing

» So, Slashdot asks Is the internet to blame for a lack of close friends?. I doubt it, but here are two (one | two) interesting replies. (Washington Post Article)

» On a less philosophical level, Slashdot had an interesting posting on some people using Google Earth and global postioning satelites to make an Earth sandwich by placing a piece of bread on opposite sides of the planet. Now that's a brilliant idea.

» This is one of those interesting issues that arise when your cultural icons are owned by corporations I'm sure there wouldn't have been an issue if the the image was licensed and Disney got a proper cut of money. It raises the question though, are there areas of human experience where profits should not try to be earned? (compensation for labor and materials perhaps, but profit motivated in intelectual property control? or profit for profits sake?)

» Is it hot here or is it just me? Apparently both are true.

» Jonathan Coulton has a new office song: Drinking with you. This one isn't really at all darkly comic, or even comic unfortunately.

» Do you read Toothpaste for Dinner? It's a good cartoon.

» It seems very unlikely that anyone could make a good Watchman movie which according to this article is back on. It would be cool however to finally get those DC Direct Watchman toys, which you've got to figure are a certainty if this comes to pass.

» Wicked cool ceiling art. Click and give it a look.

» Youtube video of 70s Sesame Street song by Stevie Wonder.

» Bryan Hitch Superman, no not a monthly or anything, just a poster, but still neat.

» You've got to checkout this Traveling Dancing guy. This is what the internet was made for people.

» When is the administration going to go after the Terrorists based in America, in Springfield?

» Seriously cool cloud pictures

» I'm still going to go see this opening weekend but this Clerks II trailer that shows the guys now working at a Mooby's (read: McDonalds) well that seems like a bummer plot/career turn.

» Interesting article on The End of Marriage. However, most of it hinges on the needs of the individual being paramount. Even on that superficial level, I would argue that many individuals are still probably better served by the arrangement of marriage, even if you leave out all the emotional implications of the topic, as the author seems to.

» Mickey Mouse inspired Bikini Top.

» Did you have a Calculator Watch in Junior High? You should get this Cellphone watch.

» Photos of the Marvel Select Cloak and Dagger figures.

» Mezco Attack of the Living Zombies Action figures

» Short interview with Jacob Nielsen on Blogs and RSS.

What you are saying is heresy to some bloggers, who insist it's very important to use blogs to have a "conversation" with customers.

That will work only for the people who are most fanatic, who are engaged so much that they will go and check out these blogs all the time. There are definitely some people who do that -- they are a small fraction. A much larger part of the population is not into that so much. The Internet is not that important to them. It's a support tool for them. Bloggers tend to be all one extreme edge. It's really dangerous to design for a technical elite. We have to design for a broad majority of users.

» Jack Black still wants to be Green Lantern

This sort of thing keeps me up at night.

Stop seeing Jack Black movies. Tell your friends not to see Jack Black movies. Jack Black must be made unfamous so that this can never occur.

» Using Apostrophes and Quotation Marks in design.

» Bumptop desktop video. Neat. Not practical but neat.

Saturday June 24, 2006 4:21:36 PM #

» Blog, Blog, Bloggity Blog Blog.

Wednesday June 21, 2006 4:30:06 AM #

» Today's expected pick-ups: 52 WEEK #7 $2.50 FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #1 $2.99 JSA CLASSIFIED #13 $2.99 JUSTICE #6 (OF 12) $3.50 MAN-BAT #3 (OF 5) $2.99 MANHUNTER #23 $2.99 ROBIN #151 $2.99 SHADOWPACT #2 $2.99 ETERNALS #1 (OF 6) $3.99 NEW AVENGERS #20 $2.99 ULTIMATES 2 #11 $2.99

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #4 BIRDS OF PREY #95 SUPERGIRL #7 SUPERMAN/BATMAN #27

» Mike Sterling over at Progressive Ruin, has these hot pics of a nice rack he just picked-up. Sweet.

Tuesday June 20, 2006 6:28:07 AM #

DC Solicitations Previews for September 2006
BATMAN #657 • DETECTIVE COMICS #823 • CATWOMAN #59 • NIGHTWING #124 • ROBIN #154 • SUPERMAN #656 • ACTION COMICS #843 • SUPERMAN/BATMAN #30 • SUPERGIRL #10 • ABSOLUTE DC: THE NEW FRONTIER HC • THE ALL-NEW ATOM #3 • AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS #45 • BIRDS OF PREY #98 • BLUE BEETLE #7 • CHECKMATE #6 -Suicide Squad • THE FLASH: FASTEST MAN ALIVE #4 • FIRESTORM: THE NUCLEAR MAN #29 • 52: WEEKS 18-21 • GREEN ARROW #66 • GREEN LANTERN CORPS #4 • GREEN LANTERN #14 • HAWKGIRL #56 • ION #6 • JLA CLASSIFIED #26-27 • JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #2 • JSA CLASSIFIED #17 • MARTIAN MANHUNTER #2 • MYSTERY IN SPACE #1 • OUTSIDERS #40 • SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE PHANTOM STRANGER VOL. 1 TP • SHOWCASE PRESENTS CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN VOL. 1 TP • SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #22 • TEEN TITANS #39 • WONDER WOMAN #4

Sortof disapointed that they have a younger Captain Comet. The older character was very interesting in the recent Rannn Thanagar Mini. "The father of Catwoman's child revealed", hmm... I wonder who it could be??? ;)

DC Direct: Alex Ross Lex Luthor and Alex Ross Brainiac look cool. The McGinness Lex Luthor looks incredibly stupid.

Sunday June 18, 2006 11:53:28 AM #

Avengers Assembled!

» Picked up Marvel Legends Walmart Wave: Havok and "no beard" Sentry yesterday. Also Picked up a Kitty Pryde (not pictured). Took the Giant-man piece from Kitty (the figure itself is going to a friend as she fits in with his larger modern X-men collection better than my smaller more classic one). Still missing the right leg of Giantman (which is convienently hidden behind Thor in the above picture). Added the Heroclix Wasp figure into the above group shot to finish the scene.

» Watched the Look Up in the Sky, It's Superman documentary on A&E yesterday. It's very well done. Lots of Comic creators on the program and some great footage. Much of the Christopher Reeves stuff is taken from the Superman DVD set documentary but still a it's very engaging 2 hour program.

Sunday June 18, 2006 1:14:58 AM #

» Had some friends over tonight and watched the Cartoon Network presentation of Superman Brainiac Attacks. Overall, pretty bad. It looks like the Bruce Timm shows in design but not in story or animation. This is a cartoon squarely aimed at the 5 year old set, and definently not all ages like JLU. Although the show looks like it could fit into the Timmaverse or the DCAU or whatever you'd like to refer to the continuity established by Batman Animated, Batman Beyond, Superman Animated, and Justice League, it would really be a stretch to fit this in anywhere with those shows.

Dialog in general was extremely poor and played for simple minded laughs. The story overall was sparse and mostly the show was a strung together series of 15 minute explosion sequences. The worst offense however was the complete departure from the established Lex Luthor character, watch the below clip and you'll see what I mean.

Yeah, every second he's on screen is pretty much like that.

In an effort not to be completely negative, I did find this Lois scene sortof smart...

Overall, my review and reccomendation would be to not buy this next Tuesday when it comes out on DVD. Pick-up a Justice League "movie" or season set instead, and try to forget this was ever made.

» Hey I got lucky and found some more of the Wal-mart wave Marvel Legends figures today! probably more on that with pictures tomorrow.

Saturday June 17, 2006 12:30:11 PM #

» Life isn't something that is going to happen. It's happening right now.

Saturday June 17, 2006 10:36:40 AM #

Let's Go Surfing

» Mike Wieringo has a slick drawing of Superman and Captain America on his blog (take a look now, I don't think there are any permalinks so once it scrolls off it's gone)

» CyberHome DVD Recorders seized by the FBI. Bummer. Hope they aren't out of business. For the money their DVD recorders are ok.

» Add an extreme wide-angle lense to your digital camera for $11. This seems like it would be a neat thing to try. Might be interesting with my Pure Digital Camcorder too.

» Big Month for DC last month, they took 7 of the top 10 -- but not number 1 :( They also took over-all market share (41% DC vs. 37% Marvel) Sales Stats

» This Humpty Dumpty Book Shelf is very creative.

» Checkout these RC Missile Launching Tanks.

» It's one of the more common Heroclix 3D maps that people build, but here's the beginings of some guy's Batcave, Looks pretty good so far.

» Interesting Rotating Cat Laser Toy Put it on the floor and it rotates around projecting a laser spot for your cat to chase.

» Animatronic Taxidermy. That's a really creepy thing to do to your pet.

» Extremely well done Custom Alan Scott Sentinel Action figure. Looks like it was made from a Superman? I saw this posted on Action Figure Insider. (Sorry lost the directing link)

» Regular way to say something: "Putting stuff away". Neat Geek way to say the same thing:"Defrag your home".

» Firefox plugin script that reminds you to attach an attachment to your gmail. If the word attach, attachment, etc. is in your message body and you forget to attach a file, a little pop-up reminds you to before you send the email. This would be neat for Outlook to add.

Friday June 16, 2006 6:51:31 PM #

» Some New Toy pictures (with some older toys). Darkseid, probably the best of the Turner figures to date (because, well it looks the least like a Turner figure). Also Captain Britain (who probably could have been a little taller but then again who expected to be able to get a Captain Britain?) and Ms. Marvel (Who for a female Legends figure is a pretty decent sculpt.)

Cap Britain and Ms. Marvel were pick-ups from eBay (no luck in the stores on those yet.)

» Last Months (August 2006) Previews/Solicitations Picks (From like 25 days ago).

CATWOMAN #58 • BATMAN #656 • DETECTIVE COMICS #822 • MAN-BAT #5 • NIGHTWING #123 • ROBIN #153 • SUPERMAN #655 • ACTION COMICS #842 • SUPERMAN/BATMAN #29 • SUPERGIRL #9 • THE ALL-NEW ATOM #2 • 52: WEEKS 9-12 • BIRDS OF PREY #97 • BLUE BEETLE #6 • THE FLASH: FASTEST MAN ALIVE #3 • FIRESTORM: THE NUCLEAR MAN #28 • GREEN ARROW #65 • GREEN LANTERN CORPS #3 • HAWKGIRL #55 • ION #5 • JLA CLASSIFIED #26 • JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1 • JSA CLASSIFIED #14 • MANHUNTER #25 • JUSTICE #7 • MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1 • OUTSIDERS #39 • SHOWCASE PRESENTS CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN VOL. 1 TP • SOLO #12 • SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #21 • TEEN TITANS #39 • WONDER WOMAN #3 • ULTIMATES ANNUAL #2 • SPIDER-MAN FAMILY: AMAZING FRIENDS • BEYOND #2 • MARVEL TEAM-UP #23 • MS. MARVEL #6

DC Direct Atom 2 pack and Mr. Teriffic.

» A&E will rerun the Superman Documentary tomorrow (Check your local listings). I missed it earlier in the week. Have the DVR set this time though :)

Monday June 12, 2006 9:08:41 PM #

» Came across this Green Lantern Ring in the Mall at Hot Topic today. It's metal, the center green circle is painted. Overall, not bad for $12. (Downside, they didn't have one large enough for my finger only small ones left, so this one is just for my Green Lantern case)

Let's Go Surfing

» Came across a neat site on Digg today: http://www.cl1p.net. It is an internet clipboard you can use to transfer text or small files (>2megs) between computers. Here's how it works: You type http://www.cl1p.net/aWordHere (Where a "aWordHere" is any unique name you want to use.) After that, copy your text into the box or upload your file. Type the same url on another computer and bingo, Internet clipboard.

I actually wrote one of these myself for use on my INTRAnet YEARS ago.... neat to have one floating out on the INTERnet. (Disclaimer, I have no idea who is running this so don't copy your medical historys or password files etc., but for links and bits of text... could be very useful to move bits between machines.)

» Five Words Never to Use In an Ad.

Sunday June 11, 2006 9:42:40 AM #

Now that Jack was working the high steel he decided that it was time to reenact his favorite tv commercial. First he, placed a liberal amount of the adhesive substance on the top of his yellow hard hat, then he lowered himself around the the edge of the construction beam. With birds flying below and the distant hum of the far away city's traffic beneath him, Jack forced his helmet into the beam, allowing the sticky goo to bond helmet to iron. He was about halfway through his downward plummet when what had went wrong pierced his consciousness, his error, came into focus beyond his own rapidly plunging screams: The guy in the commercial had used crazy glue, the Doublemint gum was in the spot with the bicycling twins.

Saturday June 10, 2006 2:14:17 PM #

» Lewis Black: Red White and Screwed, comedy special, on HBO tonight at 10pm.

» On TV tomorrow, don't forget it's the 3rd Season Premiere of 4400, and also it is a big new HBO premiere night: Lucky Louie, Entourage, Dane Cook Tourgasm comedy special. Fire-up those VCRs and Tivos!

» There's a nice upcoming TV Sci-Fi round-up on Blog@Newsaramma.

» Summer 2007 Disney Pixar Film: Ratatouille Teaser Trailer. Animated Pixar Rats, cool. Looks more fun than Cars (which I haven't seen, so what do I know).

» Jonathan Coulton has a new song up: Not about You. It's ok, not an instant classic like Code Monkey or Soft Rocked (by me) but hey... it's still a Thing a Week.

» John Favreau was the first guest on Bill Marr's Amazon Fishbowl June 8th.

» A Squirrel in a Sweater on Cuteoverload.

» Neat ear-mounted LED flashlight for $12.95 on Amazon.com. (saw this link on Mad Professor

» Possible future batteries that are built out of mini-nanotube capasitors. Super cool idea!. Charge real quick... no chemical battery to wear out.

» Hypoallergenic Cats only $4,000.

» NSA is monitoring MySpace. That's got to be a pretty low level position to be the NSA MySpace monitor agent.

Friday June 9, 2006 9:05:22 PM #

So I swing by Wal-Mart at 8am on my way to work looking for the Wal-Mart Exclusive Wave. Nothing, not a thing, zippo, nothing there. On my way home however I swing by the very same store again, and they do have some of the new Wal-mart wave figures but THE ONLY ones they have are the two above (1 each of the figures above) Both are variants, "Freddy Kruegar Head" Weapon X Age of Apocalapse and "Super Jesus" Sentry. Neither figure I'm actually keen on but each figure does come with a part of the 13" Giant Man build-a-figure.

These things go fast, you've got to figure that they got at least two cases and all the figures are gone in 8 hours in the middle of the workday.

Let's Go Surfing

» Promotional Image for Sci-Fi Channel's Stan Lee's Who Wants to Be a Superhero

» Mike Weiringo Gorilla Green Lantern Sketch. No permalinks on this site so check it out soon.

» Cool Wonder Woman "Spinning" Compilation Video. (Mike Sterling picked this off of Dorian's site who apparently took it off of something called Center of Gravitas)

Friday June 9, 2006 6:49:05 AM #

» Dog Bites Man Wednesday premiere episode kindof sucked. More The Office than Daily Show, and not as realistic (if that makes any sense) as Reno 911. Might watch an episode or two more, but just wasn't impressed with this first one.

Let's Go Surfing

» Great Home Theatre for movie watching on a Dark Knight
Newsarama Link
The full article, more and bigger pictures

» Saw some neat custom Marvel Legend Action Figures some guy made at Raving Toy Maniac: Hydro Man Custom, Flash Gordon, Iron Man

Howard Chaykin Interview/Art for an upcoming Guy Gardner Mini-series.

» First Look at NBC's Heroes Television show. Video at the link.

Wednesday June 7, 2006 11:38:46 PM #

Think about it. I crack me up.

Tuesday June 6, 2006 8:51:38 PM #

» Jason Dunn, creator of PocketPC Thoughts and Digital Media Thoughts is working on a new new Microsoft site, Two Inch View , focussed on video.

» Cool Ipod Nano T-Shirt

» Newsarama now has a blog that is focussed on comentary. It is different than the industry annoucement/interview focus of their regular site.

» Kieth Giffens' very cool pencil drawing breakdowns for DC's 52

» Unauthorized DCU timeline

» Neat several panel Eddie Campbel (Creator of It's a Bird) Illustrated Interview

» My Expected NCW list for 6/7/06, It's a short one:
• 52 WEEK #5 $2.50
• DETECTIVE COMICS #820 $2.99
• JSA #86 $2.99
• WONDER WOMAN #1 $2.99
• MARVEL TEAM-UP #21 $2.99

» Interesting Mike Sterling, Behind the Counter Article with Story Snippets on the trials of working at a comic book store.

» After seeing this Son of Satan cover at The Beat today, I really want to see him as an action figure, how cool would that be hanging in your local discount retail emporium? "Hey Kids" Son of Satan!

» You'd have to have Cojones to strap one of these on.

» I was looking up a quote "To Define is to Kill". Oddly enough I came across a compilation of emails by JMS on Writing with an interesting (and completely unrelated) anecdote:

Rod Serling wrote, in "The Velvet Alley," "Here's how they get you: they bring you to Hollywood, and they pay you vast amounts of money for what you write. Slowly, your standard of living begins to rise to where now you NEED that income every day to maintain it. And then they threaten to take it away from you...and then they own you."

Anyway back to the original statement, "To Define is to Kill". I think, Defining everything can be very tiring. Things change, definitions rarely hold solid. Once in existence, definitions can become a malevolent force that undermine the very things they were formed to represent and make clear. Define and enshrine into process what you must, but leave fuzzy as much as you can without harm. Of course, I may change my opinion on this, as it's not a fully developed thought ;)

Monday June 5, 2006 10:56:39 PM #

» A friend of mine picked up Green Goblin for me yesterday. I haven't even had Hobgoblin very long. They smile nice for the camera don't they?

» Just found out that the Free Flickr account only let's you have 3 photosets and only shows the last 200 photos in your photostream. Unlimited sets/stream costs $24.95 a year.

» Cool Thing Costume made out of real rocks.

Sunday June 4, 2006 10:25:54 AM #

» Absolutely Brilliant Video of two guys in labcoats, a catchy song and the madness of combining Mentos and Diet Coke. Give this one a looksee

» Trailer for Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo direct to DVD movie. via Marv Worfman's site

There is a 4400 marathon going on right now, all day on USA, They are calling it 4400 the Essential Episodes. (I think the New Season starts next week). It also appears that the 2nd season is now available on DVD. If you are a Comic Book or X-Files fan, I reccomend picking up both the first and second seasons of this show or add them to your Netflix Que. (Also the themesong is really cool, so at the very least tune into USA at the top of an hour and give that a listen.

Oh, yeah at 10pm tonight there is a new Season Review, Introductory Clip Show sort of thing for 4400 too, so if you've seen the episodes you'll want to set the Tivo for that.

Sunday June 4, 2006 2:04:34 AM #

» Just a couple of short video clips I took Saturday. (If the embeded video doesn't play try the link under it.)

Saturday June 3, 2006 6:31:58 PM #

Picked up the Marvel Select Spider-woman this past Wednesday. Nice toy. Very close in scale with Marvel Legends. Definently close enough for putting in a display case. Anyway, the bummer part of course is you get the 3 legless Hydra agents, which are very cool, but legless terrorists are only so threatening to your average superhero. Fortunately,I came across the perfect solution at "Dollar General" today when I spotted: Ultimate Ninja's. The Dollar General Ultimate Ninjas were $1 (imagine that!). I used a small coping saw to cut off the ninja torsos, no modification was needed to the Hydra agents and as you can see above, I now have a pair of much more menacing Hydra agents with feet! ( I would have three Hydra agents but I could only find two of the green/black ninjas, the rest were red white and blue. I'm going to look a little longer to find another green/black one, but worst case scenario I picked up a white ninja that I can repaint.)

Lots more pictures (including the Ninja toys to look for) in this Flickr Set

Friday June 2, 2006 8:53:30 PM #

» New Jonathan Coulton song: Soft Rocked by Me is one of the most delightfully creepy songs I've ever heard. Sheer brilliance. Play it, and listen closely to to lyrics. Fantastically Creepy. If you like dark humor, you'll enjoy. It's a nice MP3 for all those ladies out there too.

Thursday June 1, 2006 7:34:55 AM #

» A Couple Geek Calendar Changes of note: Superman Returns has been bumped up 2 days to a Wednesday June 28 release. Also The Superman/Brainiac DVD cartoon will air on Cartoon Network June 17th at 7:30pm (3 days before it's 6/20 DVD release)
via Comics Continuum

I don't spell check and my grammar, sentence and paragraph structure on this site leave alot to be desired. Most times I forget to go back and reread a post to see if it makes sense. Sometimes I type the word "Fnck". Flip the "n" over... I don't have a problem with the word myself, I just type it that way to slip it past overzealous work censorship programs and for the benefit of those that are sensitive to that sort of thing.