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Posted: 2007-06-29
I just saw Live Free or Die Hard and really enjoyed it. I laughed my head off through most of the movie. It was a great old school, over the top 90s style action movie. Do not go see this movie if you do not like Bruce Willis.

Do go see this movie if you do like Bruce Willis. Good stuff. "Did you see that?"

Posted: 2007-06-25
Alan Simpson and Bill Bradly on Public Financing VIDEO

Just discovered Fora.tv. Lots of public speeches in really bad banquet halls. It's a nice looking site with all the excitement of C-Span, but flash streamed on your computer. Good Stuff.

Tweaking the Blog look abit today. Brightening things up a bit. If it doesn't look any different, or if it looks a little odd, do a Forced-Reload (Ctrl-F5 on the PC).

Anybody want to guess from left to right what comic titles I've taken the letters from? (You don't have to guess issue numbers, actually it would scare me if you knew those.)

No-prize awarded to the first one to get it right.

Sunday June 24, 2007 9:54:20 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» And tomorrow begins another week.

Video

» Finally honesty in cable news, Chris Mathews "We're putting on Sh!t, and just reacting..." Listen close, the quote is fast.

» Interesting Time-displacement effect video.

» One-off Paperback book, printer and binder. Very cool. Now when I can I start compiling my own Graphic novels from digital files of individual issues?

Saturday June 23, 2007 5:50:10 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Minimal blogging of late, no particular reason. Below is a selection of stuff I came accross the first 2/3rds of the week. I've got some more from the last 3 or so days coming later today or Sunday.

Videos

» Real People in Real Transformers Costumes... ACTUALLY transforming from Robots to vehicals. Fantastic:

» Famicom, opening screens... bunches and bunches of them. (Supposedly all of them from 1981 to 1984).

» $600 Via Nano Notebook.

» Death of Superman was a pretty lame story in the 90s. This looks like a pretty lame animated movie too...

Let's Go Surfing

» Fast Food Pictures... Advertising pictures vs. reality, take a look at how they compare.

» There was a review of Star Wars Saga Edition RPG a little bit back on Slashdot, a technology news site for /nerds/

Anyway the below comment reply was funny:

Poster 1:
Can we actually slay George Lucas?

Poster 2:
No, you can't slay George Lucas, but you CAN roll for initiative to see who really shoots first!

» Some guy I've never heard of, on a show I've never seen has pitched a John Stewart Green Lantern Movie. I'd actually probably rather see a John Stewart Green Lantern Movie than a Hal or Kyle one. Hal is best set in the 60s and you know they are unlikely to do that. Kyle really doesn't work outside of the context of the other two preceding him. Therefore John would be the best on screen from this fanboy's perspective.

» Do you read alot of PDFs? Adobe has released a new free Digital ebook reader that looks pretty snazzy.

» Hasbro has the Indy 4 Movie toy License. Hopefully they make 6" Marvel Legends compatible scaled figures. (Probably won't though....)

Saturday June 23, 2007 2:55:13 PM #

Birthday
Posted: 2007-06-21
Yesterday was my weekly game night, filled with all things gamey, videoy, comicy, and all around geeky.

Today is friend Adam's Birthday, which basically means that yesterday should have been an Adam Birthday themed game night with balloons, streamers and all the birthday fixins... but I forgot his birthyday was coming up :(

...or so I thought, it turns out that Adam's birthday wasn't this same time last year and my forgeting it was actually due to Superboy Prime hiting the reality wall and causing it to change in last year's Infinite Crisis. Sure Adam thinks it's always been June 21st, and it was on his Earth, but on my Earth it was totally a different day. Yeah, that's got to be it!

(*sigh*)

Anyway, go over to Adam and Comfort's Sketch blog and wish Adam a happy birthday.

Video
Posted: 2007-06-20
Authors at Google Series Talk with Michael Bloomberg June 18th, 2007

Sunday June 17, 2007 11:28:23 AM #

At the Movies

Random Non-Sequiters

Things I've been thinking about lately.

» Too many stories. TV shows, Movies, Comics, alot characters and alot disasters being adverted by heroes and good guys.

» Dual monitor set-up's been so fun at home, I've started to have my head thinking about a third.

» Linux has come along way. Love the Synaptic Package Manager that came inside my Xubuntu install. Synamptic, combines installing programs with an iTunes-like Download.com vibe. Extremely slick and easy to outfit your PC with required apps. (Not quite sure what to use to play MP4's and MOV's yet though)

» Asus Eee PC $199 laptop in August should be cool. No word on where you will be able to buy one yet. This kind of low cost internet device and Apple's upcoming iPhone are really going to move the internet out the offices, dens and coffee shops.

» On the topic of Apples' iPhone. I think having the full Safari browser on it and not allowing 3rd parties to develop stand alone apps is a good idea. Here's why: By forcing the apps to live on the web, Apple is creating an environment that makes the iPhone much more social. If your application lives on the device, you are going to be more likely to store all the functions and information on the device. The device remains an island. Putting the applications on the net encourages them to be more social. Phones are social devices and I think the pervasive netness of the device will encourage more creative applications and communication than if the apps were walled up inside the device only. The iPhone is of course too expensive, but I'm sure by next year these devices will be much more practicaly prices.

» There's been a fair amount of hubbub on the internet about how women are portrayed in comics. The discussion is interesting but strikes me as odd. Very few women read comics. There are anecdotal stories of girls and young women reading manga, but I've yet to run into any of any sizeable number in the "real world". So that leads me to believe that there is a very vocal female reading and male female-issue-focussed orientated minority out there stiring up the tubes.

I don't see why so much interest is devoted to "getting women to read comics". Maybe I don't cruise the right boards but I don't see a focus by romance novel publishers to enlist a larger male readership.

There is no barrier to creative entry with comic books. Anyone with a story, some time and a little artistic talent can put out a comic. The internet has removed the costs of distribution. When women in numbers want comics, women will be able to get comics. If women don't want the comics out there and don't want to make the kindof comics they wish were out there, then that's ok, I think their lives will still be rich with other forms of entertainment. It's a non-issue.

» I've also seen some lamentation on the internet recently that Superhero focussed comic shops are destined for extinction unless they embrace other types of comics, manga etc. This is also seen as a "terrible problem" for the industry. I see it also as a non-issue. If some guy wants to open and only run a Superhero focused comic book store and doesn't want to make it inviting to non-superhero interested customers, that seems fine to me. If that kindof store has to close due to lack of patronage then so be it.

No need to force an owner of a store to sell products he has no interest in. Privately held companies do not have the obligations of publicly financed corporations to maximize profit, that's a good thing. Not everything in society should be devoted to maximizing profit and market share. Even if all the stores close, comics will survive. They've been around since cave drawings, and predate the direct market therefore by many thousands of years. They'll be ok. Stores as a distribution process for books are not terribly efficient anyway. We've got the internet, books will find their way to those that are really interested in them.

Let's Go Surfing

» I'm a Mac/I'm a PC from the Apple World Wide Developers Conference 2007.

» If you thought the Microsoft Surface Table was neat, checkout HP doing a very similiar thing on an entire 16ft. x 8ft. wall. Cool.

The M6 SE will handle MPEG4, MPEG2, WMV9, H263/264, RM(VB) videos running at 720x480 while pushing 30 frames a second—all of which can be spewed to TV via video out. Viewing angles are improved to 80 degrees from each direction (a hike of about 20 degrees). Battery power was confirmed for 30 hours music, 5 hours QVG or 3 hours VGA.

» Here's a neat Gas App for iPhone/Safari/Firefox. Enter in your Zip Code, Get a list of the cheapest Gas Stations around you, and then look them up on Google Maps. Cool.

» Nice Computer Office Set-up

» I downloaded Apple's Safari Web Browser for Windows. Text looks very nice in it. Not sure that it's compelling to switch away permanently from Firefox though.

» So Smallville, which has been going on way too many season's now, will add Supergirl to the show next season.

» Thundercats will be a CGI movie.

» Stop Motion Transformer Toy Video Clip

» Republican/Monty Python Enhanced Interrogation Techniques mash-up.

» Extreme Engineering: 3000-foot Tokoyo Pyramid.

» Photos of Downtown Gary, Ind. Very interesting desolation.

» A case against intersteller and Solar System colonization by Charles Stross.

Sunday June 10, 2007 10:21:58 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Got one of my old computers running Xubuntu Linux today.

Had some problems with the install at first. At around 85% thru part of the install, the program tries to update itself by doing several downloads from the internet. My router wasn't set-up to let this box out yet, and the Xubuntu install kept trying and trying, without explaining what it was doing, it looked like it was hanging/locking up but in actuallity it was just being incredibly patient trying over and over again to reach the net.

Anyway, once that was figured out I got the install completed and then installed Samba to allow file sharing with my windows network. Hot dog, I was in business.

Xubuntu comes with Firefox ready to go and I was surfing the net right out the gate. I went to Youtube and clicked on a missing plugin square, installed Flash, and bingo, video was a go. Fun stuff.

Later I'll get MySQL, Apache and PHP running and then it should be a good deal all around.

Let's Go Surfing

» October 2006 Neil Gaiman talk at Google.

Saturday June 9, 2007 5:05:31 PM #

» Paris in Jail.

Saturday June 9, 2007 1:29:49 PM #

Let's Go Surfing

» Maison Bule Futuristic Hobbit Mansion.

» Ask Cerebra Comic Blog Search Engine. I come up in there. Yep.

» NSFW Video: The Hanslick Rebellion: "You are boring the Sh!t out of Me." music video. An ode to boring office conversation. Bonus points for several Green Lantern T-Shirt appearances.

» Ron Paul on Tucker Carlson 6/6/07. He's a little out there, but the principles are good (if a little idealistic)

» Babylon 5 Lost Tales DVD Trailer

» Steam Trek is fantastic. It takes Classic Trek and recreates it as a 1900s silent film.

» Live Action Thundercats Movie. Script has been optioned.

» Dig this Chairbot video

» This needs to fight Optimus Prime (Dragon Tank Truck).

» Illustration Where mario's go after they die.

» "Fake?" "Fan?" Made iPod, 2001 Space Odyssey mash-up.

» Build your own custom Paper Toys.

» Michael Moore on Oprah talk about his upcoming movie: Sicko. Moore reuses that same overly dramatic narration that he used in the second half of Fahrenheit 911, but beside that, the film still looks interesting.

» Have you heard of this thing called: Internet?

Friday June 8, 2007 6:38:26 AM #

Tuesday June 5, 2007 8:33:58 AM #

» I'm a Marvel, I'm a DC After Hours.

Sunday June 3, 2007 9:53:33 PM #

» Precious:

Sunday June 3, 2007 5:16:05 PM #

Let's Go Surfing

» Three highschool kids: The Wrong Trousers do a cover of Video Killed the Radio Star. it's the kindof thing that makes Youtube awesome.
via Neatoramma.

» Family Guy Star Wars 10min. I'm guessing this might drop off the internet soon. Family Guy really isn't funny, but Star Wars is cool so...

» Authors at Google Series video of a David Weinberger talk on his book Everything is Miscellaneous which covers topics of organization and how the physical world has influenced our arrangements of ideas and categorizations in a way that the digitalization of information is now changing. Interesting and humorous at times. Give it a watch.

» High End Mac Computer Porn (SFW)

» Need a replacement for that Windows XP default desktop background? Try this image from p2wy.

» Surviving a month without the internet

» "Robosapien" Movie Coming Soon "Avi Arad, producer of X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN, is bringing us a movie inspired by the best-selling intelligent robot, Robosapien." Well that just sounds awesome (ly bad).

Friday June 1, 2007 10:43:18 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Here's where I ramble on completely randomly about some things.

» Let's start with the Palm Foleo, which is a $500 10" Limited laptop, with Wi-fi and cell network via the Treo connection abillities. The device has a web brower and instant on, and looks like a nice low priced small web browsing/email option. At $400, I could definently see getting one of these at $500 it's only tempting. Weird how that pricing mindset works. At $500 it's still too close to a lowend laptop. The instant on and wi-fi definently are intriguing. Only downside appears to be poorly functioning video.

» I watched this Microsoft Surface demo today. I dismissed looking into it for a few days because the reports I had seen mostly framed it as a table-sized iPhone. It's much much more than that. Give the two videos a watch. The first one starts off a little slow, but mid-way through it, if you have any interest in technology at all, your mind will start to think of all sorts of new possibilities for this thing.

Also as far as the pricing goes, $10K is bandied about alot, but although I'm not an engineer, it seems to me that you could probably do this with a handful of special webcams and Digital projector, which makes it under $1K on the cheap if you provide your own computer.

» This coming season 4 will be the last season of Battlestar Galactica. That's a good thing. I love the show, but you can feel it needs to start winding down, the major characters have all pretty much ran through their arcs. Personally I'd love to see them end the show and then do a spin-off with a completely new cast set in a different part of the universe, or 50 years later or something like that. BTW: Slashdot looks like they are ready for it to end too

» DVR users push ratings higher and watch more commercials than you'd think. I'll vouch for that, alot of the time I watch shows on the DVR, I don't always have my full attention on the TV enough to fast forward through the commercials, which does, gasp, mean that I do still see commercials on alot of shows (especially the first and last of a break. So, to all you advertisers out there, it's not a total waste of your dollars (unless your in the middle of the break, cause those I totally miss 3 out 5 times.)

» I played with Google Street View today. I don't see the privacy problems that some are commenting about. It's not a realtime video feed. Western civilization won't end. What I would like them to do though is combine this with driving directions so that I can see in double or three quarter time what the drive from place to place will actually look like. I think that would be very useful. Even as it is now, this is an incredible reference tool for illustrators. Really incredible.

» I thought this post by Jeff Parker that I found via Newsaramma had some interesting thoughts on Canon vs. Continuity in comics. It's worth a read.

» I watched the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs interview from D5 today. I watched it on Youtube, the All things digital site video player sucked when I tried it. Very intereting to watch their dynamic. The I am a PC, I am a Mac thing was palpable.

» First WB was doing a Green Lantern movie, then a Flash movie, then a Wonder Woman movie, then a Watchman movie, then a Justice League movie, then The Spirit movie, then a Shazam movie, and now a Teen Titans movie. I'd love to see a Teen Titans movie, but only after a Justice League movie, because the Titans in a world without a Justice League? There's not much point to that as a movie. WB has a terrible track record with getting any of these actually into production so I'm not too worried about it.

They've also announced Neil Gaiman doing Death the High Cost of Living, which is pretty cool. Will Goth translate to emo though?

» Lots of blog hits the last few months 99.9% of them are from Google Images. Basically I appear to be putting keywords around web links and images to make Google smarter. There are about 10 people I know from real life reading this blog. Another dozen and a half from real life silently stalking this blog, and then there's maybe 4 guys, Mike, De, Jakey Jake and Captain Ron who I pretty much only know from comments. So congratulations 10 RLs, 18 RL Stalkers, and 4 internet guys, you're my other 0.1% blog readers beyond Google.

Let's Go Surfing

» New York Times article on wasting time. Waste some time and read it.

» Every time the site gets a hit, a 6 ft. balloon gets a little more air, until it pops.

7min Star Wars Disco with Clips.

Friday June 1, 2007 7:22:24 AM #

Are Movies Dying?

This past weekend I saw Nic Cage: Next and The Omen and couldn't help but feel that although they were good concepts and well produced, they both felt very rushed trying to tell their stories in the movie time period of 1.5 to 2 hours. Same thing with Spider-man 3, too much story in too little time.

To work within that short time, it seems to me that movies are glossing over plot and character development and more and more are relying on their audience's knowlege of well worn story archetypes. Much is not set-up, and much is assumed that you "get it" because this is the good guy or this is the bad guy or this is the love interest, etc.

Am I just spoiled by all the current longer format quality TV dramas like Heroes, Rome, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

I think I'd rather go see a couple shows like Heroes on the big screen each week than most movies. $3 perhaps? Maybe one hour without commercials? A new serial episode every month? Obviously the special effects would need to be more restrained and the budgets much smaller than regular movies. But movies now-a-days make all their money in the first two weeks pretty much anyway, so it could work right?

Maybe now that Marvel is making their own movies, this is something that they could try. Bring back the serial. I and my friends will come in every month for $3, and the theatres can sell us popcorn. Heck, we'll even watch a few ads before the show too. Just give us something that can stretch out over more than an hour or two, where the characters and story have time to develop. Because, the big theatrical releases just aren't cutting it any more, in the theatre or on DVD.

Friday June 1, 2007 7:08:05 AM #

» Marvel Select Skrull and Brood. I got three sets yesterday. Nice figures. Scale works pretty good with Legends figures. If they would have been a half inch shorter it would have been perfect, but as it is the Skrulls are still a smidge shorter than Legends. Only downside, The gun is permanently attached to the Skrull's hand (which however is detachable so in the future it would be pretty easy to customize a new one without permanently damaging the figure.)

» As mentioned in my forum a couple days ago. I saw the new Fantastic Four movie figures at Target. I did not know they were going to be 5in. Man, was I bummed out by that, because i really wanted to get that Dodge Fantasticar. No 5 inch figures for me, if Hasbro switches to 5 in. then I'm done with the line. In anycase, here's a couple pictures from the store.

If you're seeing this link by way of Toy Buzz, click on the Previous Month Link below, I posted alot of Toy pics last month also.