Wed 10/31/07 1:44pm #

Happy Halloween

My Black Spy, Spy Vs. Spy costume at work today.

I want to hear your

Tue 10/30/07 9:10am #

Heroes

So the network saw that they had a very popular show and then decided to reset it back to where it was in the begining of the first season, freeze it and play Star Trek Next Generation with it, ie... tell the writer, do anything you want as long as nothing is changed by the end of the episode. That was ok for Star Trek Next Gen, but it completely misses the point about Heroes, which was a show that continued from week to week building to something.

Can you hear all those splashes and kerplunks? That's the sound of fans jumping off the Heroes boat into the water in search of something else.

I want to hear your

Sun 10/28/07 5:02pm #

» Picked up the Marvel Legends Toys R Us Exclusive, Black Queen today (Thanks for the tip Jeff). Same body sculpt as the White Queen, but with a new better proportioned head, and the head really makes the difference with this figure (...not like that, but I don't blame you going there, this is pretty much an S&M figure.)

After posting pics of Mary Jane earlier in the week, I really need to get some more standard type superhero fare up here, I can only imagine how creepy this is looking to my non-superhero fan blog readers.

Anyway on with the pics.

Nice er... packaging.

If you didn't already know the the story, would you be able to figure it out from that bio? Probably not.

Marvel Legends, Black Queen.

It's the whip that really sells the outfit don't you think?

I'd be really suprized if this toy didn't generate one or two complaint letters at TRU HQ. (Not from me mind you but some 10 year old is going to end up with one of these at home and freak some Mom out somewhere.)

Black Queen and White Queen

Pair of Jeans

Have I ever told you ladies why they call me Stan "The Man" Lee?

Welcome to the Helfire Club Ladies, if you need anything, just ask for Johnny.

If you collect in Grand Rapids, consider posting your finds in my forum.

I want to hear your

Sun 10/28/07 1:53pm #

• Marvel Legend Black Queen Picked up at Alpine TRU today. More pictures later.

I want to hear your

Sat 10/27/08 3:38pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» My Cat playing with string today.

» Prizm is a Mozilla Labs Windows program that allows you to run Web Applications, like Gmail, Google Calendar, Facebook, etc. as stand alone programs outside of your browser. You can launch them with shortcuts from your desktop icon, quick launch or start menus. Looks really useful.

» Understanding Games Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4. As Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics used comics themselves to explain comics concepts. The above series, Understanding Games uses games to explain game concepts. They're neat, (except for part 3 which I found sort of tedious).

I want to hear your

Sat 10/27/08 10:05am #

• Found on the intertubes: Pop Star - Parody of Nickleback's Rockstar. Very funny... borderline NSFW... but watch it anyway... It's Weird Al level quality stuff, but with a bite to it.

I want to hear your

Fri 10/26/07 7:25pm #

Blogging about Blogging about Toy Collecting

» I have a message board forum. Very little goes on there, and there are very few registered users on it. But if you have your own domain, it's nice to set-up a forum, so I did a while back. The only active board on it is my Grand Rapids Toy Area Reports where I post my finds or lack there of. Captain Ron and a couple others in the area lurk and post there occasionally too. And (thanks primarilly to Captain Ron's posts) I've found some toys that I wouldn't have otherwise because of it.

Anyway... I like to check the forum periodically, to see if there are any new finds in the area, when I'm out and about on my cellphone web browser. To make that checking easier I wrote a slimed down cellphone friendly formated page that lists the newest toy find forum comments at the top and strips out everything else.

Today, I've added some code that shows the "Last 3 Toy Area Reports" posts from my forum in the sidebar of this blog, under the Forum Icon. (I love adding things to the sidebar, have you noticed that yet?)

I also still try to participate in national AFTimes Area Reports, when I see something that is new to the GR area, if someone else hasn't already posted the find. I lurk a little on Fwoosh especially following local collectors: JakeyJake and CaptainRon's posts. I add links to my picture posts on Toymania Toy Buzz too.

If you live in Grand Rapids, MI and collect action figures, please consider posting in my GR Toy Forum occasionally, because well, that would be awesome. (And if you live in Grand Rapids, Collect Action Figures but don't want to post, then consider registering in the forum anyway, then you can subscribe to email updates that will let you know almost instantly when someone else who posts has found something in the area.)

Good Hunting!

I want to hear your

Thur 10/25/07 9:27pm #

Let's Go Surfing

» Saw this nice Soranik Natu Custom Green Lantern figure by Swass. Lot's more custom figures at his site. Good Stuff.

» Batman Lectures Robin, quotes from the 1960s TV show. Funny Stuff.

» Black Canary on Smallville, with a return appearance of Green Arrow.

» Is Circuit City becoming just "The City"?

» 40" Flatscreen TV's only 1cm thick. Samsung meets Kleenex?

» $100 USB stick that plugs into your computer, holds movies, and plays them back on your television. Sansa Take TV.

» External Hardrive Dock lets you plug in internal drives like cartridges. Neat.

» Panoramic Mecha Combat Pods. Networked Lan, Imersive Experience. Looks like alot of fun. Go to the link, scroll down and watch the video.

» Saw on Neatorama's quote of the day. I have seen it before, it always amuses me:

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny …’"

- Isaac Asimov, sci-fi author (1920-1992)

» Captain Kirk's Guide to Women. I saw this on Progressive Ruin's Monthly "End of Civilization" Diamond Comics Previews Solicitations rundown. Now that's a book you can leave on your coffee table to make a statement.

» Look Below: I'm getting Christ's recomendations on Amazon.com. Turns out the Son of God likes a lot of comic book related things. Who would have thunk it? (this sort of thing happens alot actually)

I want to hear your

Thur 10/25/07 4:56pm #

» I got the 6" scale, Marvel Legends Spider-man Trilogy Kirsten Dunst Mary Jane Action Figure a couple days ago at Target. It's a nice Kirsten Dunst sculpt, but a Romita style Mary Jane Action figure would have been better. Still not a bad figure, and bravo to Hasbro to putting out a girl in a dress in a boys action line.

I'm guessing that it's only a matter of time 'til she shows up in JustSomeRandomGuy's DC/Marvel After Hours series. At least I hope so...

Kirsten Dunst Action Figure

On the bio, under "powers": patience and charm.

If you get the Mary Jane action figure, you'll also get wood. (yeah... it's bad, and yes I feel like a middle schooler even making the joke... but you do get wood, I can't help from pointing that out.)

Mary Jane, Spider-man in the rain kiss.

Mary Jane and Spider-man

Kirsten Dunst and Sarah Michelle Geller

Seth Green and Kirsten Dunst

Lois Lane and Mary Jane

Superman, Spider-man, Lois Lane and Mary Jane.

I want to hear your

Thur 10/25/07 4:05pm #

Super Birthday!

» Here's a few Green Lantern things I got from friends for my birthday yesterday. Hooray for birthdays.

OA they're so good.... Green Lantern Cookies!

It's a Green Lantern Clock for my studio!

DC Superfriends Green Lantern!

"...be a part of the fun while learning about teamwork and friendship"

John Stewart as a Preschool Green Lantern

" 'Sup "

I want to hear your

Wed 10/24/07 12:01am #

Today is my 35th Birthday.

I want to hear your

Tue 10/23/07 4:23pm #

What I Watched

Heroes last night, another placeholder episode for the most part. Not sure about the Kristin Bell character, she sortof seems like a nighttime soap opera villainess.

Journeyman had the lead guy from The 4400 on as Rome guy's father. Anyway, good good episode. This is my new favorite show.

30 Rock (From last week, my friends and I watch it on Mondays before Heroes) - Very good, love the off the wall cookie jar story with Steve Bushemi as a Detective.

Reaper Watched the one from two weeks ago with the bugs. It was kind of lame, the pilot episode that Kevin Smith did was cool. But now the lead character has been working out, has blond highlights in his hair and they repaced the pilot girlfriend with the slightly too hot for Home Depot Illusionst from Heroes. Oh yeah and everyone drives Toyota Prius' There was a scene where they drive the Prius up to a fast food drive through and the car is in line at the speaker behind two other different color Prius'. It's right up there on the annoyance level with the first season Heroes name dropping the Versa each episode. I will probably try one more episode of Reaper, but despite the excellent work by the Devil guy, I may be dropping this one soon.

I want to hear your

Mon 10/22/07 6:03am #

Random Non-Sequiters

• I saw 30 Days of Night last night. Vampires prey on an Alaskan town so far North that once a year the sun sets for 30 days. I think the movie is cut from the same type of cloth as 28 Days Later and although a Vampire film, it probably has more in common with those types of Zombie films. All around, it's a very good movie if you enjoy this genre, I recommend it.

• Google finally adjusted their embeded calendar format! It's now actually readable when squished down to the width of my sidebar. Scroll down and take a look.

I want to hear your

Sun 10/21/07 1:42am #

Local

I finally read all the remaining issues of the Brian Wood/Ryan Kelly Indy comic: Local tonight. The series is currently up to issue 11. Really good stuff. Local skips in an out of this girl Megan's life.

Like life, there's no real overarching plot or story. Each issue is a self contained short. The book varies quite abit from issue to issue, Megan isn't even the lead in every issue. The book is a little hard to describe really. I believe the next issue #12 is the last? Afterwards I would imagine that they will produce a tradepaperback collection. If you are interested in a good non-superhero, short story Black and White Indy comic about "real people" I reccomend picking it up.

The image above right is a scribble I did of Megan the lead character of the series.

Above is random sample of Series artist Ryan Kelly's Local Artwork I pulled up in a Google Image Search. The involved varied town settings really make this book stand out.

I want to hear your

Sat 10/20/07 1:34pm #

Let's Go Surfing

» Bobba Fett Hoodie Pretty Slick.

» Grumpy Old Fan a couple weeks ago wrote an article centered on Jimmy Olsen that illustrates one of the problems with DC continuity, specifically the generations and that you can't look very close at them, because 4 DCU generations doesn't make sense.

» There are nationwide remastered showings of Star Trek The Original Series: Menagerie on November 13 & 15. Saddly the closest viewing to Grand Rapids is 90 Miles away in Indianna. Bummer.

» 30 Useabillity Issues, While primarily focused on Web Design, there's also some general information useable for all design that can be gleened from this article too.

» This Heroes Flying Scene Mashup Quicktime Movie is funny. Click and watch it's only a minute or two long.

I want to hear your

Fri 10/19/07 7:18pm #

Wi-Fi McDonalds

They leveled and rebuilt the McDonalds in Jenison. It's nicer on the inside and out than the previous more traditional store, but it still has that McDonalds lack of cleanliness. The floor is a little dirty looking. Little random wrapper bits and pieces of paper are scattered around, etc. Nothing horible, just a little unkept that firmly reminds you you are in a Micky D's. They do have bar stool height booths, which is cool. The Wi-Fi isn't free. At $2.99 for two hours, however, it's not bad, and your laptop battery isn't typically going to last that much more past that anyway, especially since they don't have any electrical outlets at the booths (there are a few scattered around though).

Double Cheeseburger and Medium Fries plus a large cup of water equals $2.53. Internet is $2.99. So your looking at $5.50. Probably cheaper than eating at Pannera, but Pannera has it beat if you count the ambiance.

Still, if I'm not lovin' it, I'm at least likin' it.

I want to hear your

Fri 10/19/07 4:50pm #

Toys

» This past Sunday at Toys R Us I picked up a 6" scale Universal Monsters "Creature from the Black Lagoon". Nice looking figure.

Frankenstein and Dracula were nice too, but not really $12.99 ea. nicer than the Marvel Legends versions I already have, so I passed on those. Wolfman, meh. Mummy, I would have got if he had bandages on his face, but as he was he looked more like a guy who had been in a car accident than a mummy to me so he was a pass too.

All 5 figures come with a 14" Build A Figure Frankenstein piece. I am not sure why you would want to Build a 14" Frankenstein especially when one of the the figures is a 6" Frankenstein, but that's what they come with.

I hadn't even heard of these and was tipped off by a friend who saw them at TRU otherwise I might not even have been aware of them.

Nice coffin shaped packaging.

I wish the Mummy's head would have been wrapped, I would have got that one too if it was so.

Nice display stand, you could change out the backer card if you want.

Universal Monsters Creature from the Black Lagoon with Marvel Legends Monsters. I skipped the other Universal Monsters as they were mostly dupes of these characters and not really worth all the extra dough. (If you haven't got the Marvel versions though, the Universal ones do look nice.)

"blub blub, so blub, you unblerstand you're allb violbating Universal's cobyright?"

Group shot, with spooky lighting

The best part of buying any water based action figure is having an excuse to shoot it with Aquaman.

Bye, That's all the action figure pics for now.

If you live in Grand Rapids MI, I also post what I do (and mostly do not) find in my forum, I'd love to hear your GR finds there too.

I want to hear your

Fri 10/19/07 2:56pm #

I'm trying Audioblogging once again. Put this RSS http://www.utterz.com/~h-ckarath/rss.php into your favorite RSS Reader or iTunes podcast list or what-have-you and you can have my audioblogs sent to you.

You can also follow them from the Widget at the top of the current blogging page above.

I want to hear your

Fri 10/19/07 10:39am #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Why Money Doesn't Buy Happiness. Nothing really new. Always interesting to link too though since most people don't understand how their happiness works.

[snip] That flies in the face of intuition, not to mention economic theory. According to standard economics, the most important commodity you can buy with additional wealth is choice. If you have $20 in your pocket, you can decide between steak and peanut butter for dinner, but if you have only $1 you'd better hope you already have a jar of jelly at home.
[snip] And wants, which are nice to be able to afford, have a bad habit of becoming needs
[snip] Satisfying needs brings less emotional well-being than satisfying wants.
[snip] That's partly because in an expanding economy, in which former luxuries such as washing machines become necessities, the newly affluent don't feel the same joy in having a machine do the laundry that their grandparents, suddenly freed from washboards, did. They just take the Maytag for granted.
[snip] once your basic needs are met "differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work." Other researchers add fulfillment, a sense that life has meaning, belonging to civic and other groups, and living in a democracy that respects individual rights and the rule of law.
[snip] If more money doesn't buy more happiness, then the behavior of most Americans looks downright insane, as we work harder and longer, decade after decade, to fatten our W-2s. But what is insane for an individual is crucial for a national economy—that is, ever more growth and consumption. Gilbert again: "Economies can blossom and grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy …
[snip]

The Digg Community response to the topic was predictably depressing and it points out that it's impossible to have people believe something they choose not to believe. If people get an idea in their heads, ie: Money equals happiness, and choose not to let it go, their ain't no number of articles or examples shown to the contrary that are going to do a lick of good in changing their minds.

This lovely property of persistence of self-delusion is also the same thing that makes people belive that Iraq was behind the World Trade Center destruction, Bush was a Compassionate Conservative and don't even point in the direction of some of the more fanciful aspects of many world religions.

» Cast of the Star Trek Reboot. I actually put something similiar together a couple days ago for an email, using alot of the same pictures from IMDB. I was going to post that rundown on my blog today, but then I saw the above site which does it better than I was going to anyway. So go tot the link above, the casting looks pretty good.

I'm just not sure how they pull off Star Trek though. How do you get that sense of wonder at the future? All the gadgets and tech of Star Trek, ie: Big Screen TV's, Personal Communicators, Tri-Corder hand helds, Computers that talk to you, etc., with the exception of Warp Drive, Transporters and Phasers are available at your local Meijer or Wal-mart. How do you make that futuristic?

It seems that the technology we are developing going forward does not lend itself to cinematic drama. Most technology today is focused on creating this personal little bubble around people to remove all direct contact from other people. Rather than enhancing interaction between people todays' technology mediates it. You interact with the technology, then the technology interacts with the other person. It's a middleman of sorts that trys to mitigate possible negatives of social interaction.

So will Star Trek 2.0 put all of it's federation members in Kirk Captain Chairs, plugged into their iPods, receiving updates on their friends, family and co-workers status' via RSS, contributing their own video, audio, pictures and text to the cloud via their handhelds, munching on a microwaved hot pocket while monitoring the whole thing on a wall sized flatscreen TVs? Cause that seems to be what the future mainly holds.

Like I said, not very dramatic.

It may not need to be that involved however, a co-worker said he'd be happy just to see Kirk making out with green babes in miniskirts. So maybe that's all they need to make this movie a success.

» Here's just my side of an IM session this morning on last night's Grey's Anantomy. I've edited out the other party's text.

me: I thought the Cali/Izzy talk at the end was really good. I also like the Karev stuff. Really acuarate motivations. me: Really, the fight? Not as realistic for two doctors. I like what is going on in Cali's head. She thought that George was "locked-up" in the vows of marriage, yet George and Izzy choose to ignore those. It's a world shaking event when you realize how many social conventions are made up and only work when everyone agrees to them. Cali's line about you "stole something from me" was really good, but yet, even through marriage can you truly own another person and then have them "stolen"? Good Stuff. me: George is still good too. He gets the real problem. He knew what he did would hurt Cali. And you aren't supposed to hurt people you love. It's a simpler truer rule than not cheating on a spouse. me: Yeah but Izzy wants to confide in someone. Karev is sticking to the rule that guys shouldn't let themselves be treated like a girlfriend. But the catch 22 is that is what Izzy finds best about George. My guess is that they will have George pull away again and Karev will bring more Kleenex boxes (thoughtful/caring stuff) and they'll swing the pendulum back the other way abit. me: Cali was working on the definition: you need to forgive the people you love. But there's also the definition of cheating that it's unforgiveable. So she got stuck between two opposing ideas. me: It should be interesting to see if Dreamy and Lexi hook up. That would play into Merredith's issue with her father choosing Lexi over her. I could see her having a breakdown if dreamy choose Lexi over her too. me: What I liked was it wasn't an Ultimatum. Nothing is changing, they are still going to meet in the elevators, and sleep together and do all the things that she can handle. But he's not holding out hope that she is going to change any more, and he is now going to hope that he can find someone else. Very mature reasoning. He's not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. me: And she didn't really get it.... Which is going to make him sadder, because once again he put all that out there and she can't return it. me: Yeah... the interesting thing is will they be able to make the audience ok with Dreamy and Meredith not getting together, yet still have both on the show? American audiences are hard to accept the male and female leads not working out and living happily ever after, but I think it would be interesting to find a way to have both of them find someone else that we as an audience would actually not feel "cheated" about the characters not ending up with eachother. me: Plus, happy people are not fun to watch. There is no drama. sigh me: I'd love to see one of these shows that launched and said "3 years" and had a definite arc with a begining, middle and end.

Videos

» Bacon humor (video).

I want to hear your

Thur 10/18/07 5:04pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Eee PC comes out November 1st. Cool!

» Watched the first two episodes of Legion of Superheroes Season 2 and the First Episode of the new season of The Batman. All three were very good. Not quite Justice League Unlimited quality, but definitely close. Good stuff, I'm looking forward to catching up on more of them.

Let's Go Surfing

» Cheap DIVX, Computer to TV Streamer Boxes coming soon?

» Well helloo there Ladies, Do you get alot of late night calls while alone on your cellphone? Then you might be interested in these. They're for the Ladies. (NSFW) Want to make something sound creepy? Use the word "Ladies" alot.

Video

» I don't play Dungeons and Dragons or any RPGs, (Heroclix is the closest I get to that sort of thing), but I can still appreciate the neatness of this application that allows you to move your Pencil and Paper Game Online. (video).

I want to hear your

Tues 10/16/07 12:32pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Busy at work of late. I do have some downtime coming up toward the end of the week, so...
Stay Tuned for:
• Some new action figure pictures.
• Some possible "deep thoughts" that I *may* or *may not* blog about too:

What interpersonal relationships are reinforced and supported by the American Suburban Structure.

The word: want

The irrelevance of media

» Saw Heroes and Journeyman last night. Still love Heroes, but I'm starting to look forward to Journeyman more. How about that cellphone scene last night? Good stuff.

» Asus has a new Demo/Guide to the Eee PC. It looks fantastically wonderful and it's starting to look like it may be available in a couple weeks.

All for now from me, what's on your mind?

I want to hear your

Sun 10/14/07 11:26am #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Eee PC looks to be available at Best Buy and Newegg. Possibly in the next two weeks. Announcement Tuesday Oct. 16? Hooray.

Let's Go Surfing

» No idea how it handles but this Yamaha Tesseract Hybrid is a badass looking bike.

» I just watched the trailer for Jumper. Looks like a very very good "superhero-inspired" sci-fi movie. Stars: Hayden Christiansen and Samuel L Jackson. It comes out February 15.

Video

» Funny FedEx Kinkos Commercial. (youtube)

» Goblin Bloggin (#2) which came out last week. (youtube)

I want to hear your

Sun 10/14/07 11:13am #

Chapman Ping Pong

Yesterday I went to an informal "Ping Pong Tournament" that a Co-Worker and a friend of his put together. There were two groups, one primarily connected to each of them. The group I was in, was composed of people that primarily knew each other through work and thought ping pong and hot dogs would make for a fun diversion on a Saturday afternoon. The second group, yelled Kobra-Kii! a little and took ping pong a little more seriously. Nice group all around but there were two distinct skill levels in play and that was reflected in the scoring a little. It was fitting that they rented a High School gym, as there was a little jock (I supose one can be a ping pong jock?) vs. 'geek' dynamic in play. There were Hot Dogs and Cookies though, so I'm not complaining.

Some involved score-keeping discussion.

Lots of Hot Dogs (These had been out for awhile.)

I want to hear your

Thurs 10/11/07 12:06pm #

Literally Commercial Music.

Ingrid Michaelson performs an Old Navy commercial on Carson Daily

Extended version of the "Fruit Guys" Fruit of the Loom Blue Commercial

We're not really far off from that scene in Demolition Man where Sandra Bullock sings all the commercial jingles off the radio are we?

I want to hear your

Sun 10/7/07 2:05pm #

Any suficiently advanced... indestinquishable magic... yadda yadda yadda

A week a go I mentioned that my wifi card in my laptop was briefly working but only it appeared with an open connection. Well that turned out to be false. The system later crashed. This weekends' scheme has been to boot my laptop from a Xbuntu linux Live CD.

The Xubuntu Live CD is pretty slick. You can run it directly from you CD Rom drive. You do not need to intall or touch windows on the harddrive in any way. While running Xubuntu from the CD you still have access to all the files on your harddrive too. The Xubuntu Live CD has Firefox as a web browser, GIMP for image editing, GAIM for instant messaging, Abiword for word processing and Gnumeric for Spreadsheets. It's a nice little set-up.

Anyway, right now this laptop is completely untethered and via the power of Xubuntu and a 30 second configuration. I am once again surfing the internet wirelessly. So um, it seems to work and everything and being that I'm currently running linux and not windows and therefore I'm using a completely different set of drivers, if the machine crashes now, most likely the problem will be hardware.

But so far, so good!

I want to hear your

Sat 10/6/07 8:02pm #

Action Figures

» Armored Green Lantern and the Marvel Zombies I've had for a couple weeks. Movie Goblin and Harry Goblin I got today. (They were out of Mary Jane's and the FF wave was gone too... but at least they are hitting stores in the area.)

Armored Green Lantern

I've yet to read more than the first few issues of Justice, so I haven't actually gotten to the aromored part yet. but I get pretty much every Green Lantern item, so now I have one more for the shelf.

Nice figure, a little tall even for Ross scale, but he is in armor, so that's ok.

Zombie Spider-man and Zombie Captain America

I find the Marvel Zombie concept and how well these books have sold to Marvel zombies ironic.

I preordered Zombie Cap, otherwise I might have skipped him. He's a bit tall for my tastes. Zombie Spidey fits in very nicely with the Legends figures though. (I know select is 7" scale but...)

I was able to pick these two Goblins up today thanks to a tip from Captain Ron in my forum

Harry was a figure I wanted. I like the costume design for the movie. Gobby has grown on me after watching the After Hours Youtube Series.

Spidey and Harry

Gobby and Lex!

I want to hear your

Sat 10/6/07 4:35pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I Just read a little about Nose Rub [: pdf executive summary | Quicktime Video], which is a decentralized Social Networking Protocol. Very interesting stuff. It's probably going to take a major player to make this sort of thing happen some day. Considering how little progress has been made with universal IM, I'm not hopeful, but it's nice to see the technology for interoperatable decentralized social networking exists.

Let's Go Surfing

» For almost a decade, Hollywood has pulled jokes and romance out of the struggle between male infantilism and female ambition. Good article on the current trend in Slacker-Striver Romantic Comedies, as well as an overview of the the Romantic Comedy in days past.

I want to hear your

Fri 10/5/07 11:48pm #

Bionic WTF!

Just watched the second episode of Bionic Woman. What the F--K? The first internet leaked episode was good. The revised pilot with the new little sister was less good. The second episode, which is functionally a third pilot, reaches complete and utterly unwatchable levels. I can't imagine this show appealing to anyone now. I feel sorry for some of the actors who appear to be stuck in it too. It's just bad, bad, bad. What was a show that had all the smart edginess of Battlestar Galactica or Heroes, now is some weird watered down combination of Alias, CSI Miami and Gilmore Girls.

Every studio cliche imaginable is being worked into this show. It's total crap. (Oh and changing the moody lighting of the original to the happy go-lucky lighting of a Target Commercial... sucks big time too.)

NBC... this is Must NOT See TV.

I want to hear your

Fri 10/5/07 4:49pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I installed Opera's Mini Cellphone Browser Beta Ver 4.0 last night. Very nice. Shows the whole page, portrait or landscape and has some slick navigational features including zoom and a little mouse pointer and navigation using the dialpad. Also nice, you can leave it installed along side the 3.1 browser.

Let's Go Surfing

» ABC to try again remaking Cupid. Series originally aired 15 episodes in 1998-99. Two things going against the remake: No Jeremy Piven this time and it's set in LA.

» CW is ditching KidsWB. WB of course owns DC Comics, KidsWB is home to The Batman and Legion of Superheroes. Coincidence? No it's not, that's why CW ditching KidsWB is sortof a bummer.

» Jon Stewart is involved in creating a "Chappelle Show format" TV show staring Demitri Martin. Cool.

» Seened on the internets: Sad Vader Kid.

Videos

» Eee PC Start-up video. Off to Ready in under 25 seconds. (Youtube)

I want to hear your

Tue 10/2/07 9:02pm #

I totally just McGuyver-fixed my toilet flusher with a rubberband. It's quite the elegant temporary fix until I can go to the hardware store tomorrow or Thursday.

Just thought I'd share that with the internet.

I want to hear your

Mon 10/1/07 11:45pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

• New Heroes and Journeyman tonight. Hooray for good TV! I read last week's Heroes online comic this past weekend, which was very good, but it also spoiled one of my "far fetched" theories on one of the new characters. Sort of a bummer that.

• Y'know my Hope Clock Rambling last month? I think I may be in need of reseting mine. Theory is, it shouldn't be as necessary to reset if you are aware of the reseting. Theory and Reality are two different things sometimes.

• I have a couple recent action figures that I still need to post pictures of, if you check out this blog for that, some stuff is coming.

• Speaking of Action Figures, I'm more or less out of room for those. A fact which has been causing me some self-contemplation on the topic of collectabillity recently. No change in buying for the next 6 months or so (I'm committed to somethings by preorder.) but there is contemplation going on.

• Asus has an official page up for the Eee PC 701. That's a positive happening. Latest word is a possible November 15th release. I still think this machine is a paradigm game changer. The Linux/SolidState Storage/Fast Boot Time really is something different. And the price makes this UMPC concept practical for the first time. (Despite their desire, however, to market this as general purpose machine... it's going to be a hobbiest and early adopter favorite. I sympathise with their desires for it to be otherwise, but this is going to be a geek fav.)

• Been reading some of the problems the iPhone people have been having with the recent update killing their homebrew changes. They're a real bummer, but it's too be expected. Apple has been moving away from the general purpose computer model for some time now. While I'm excited about what they've done in the space, it's the door they opened with the iPhone that is the most interesting. I think the independent small vendors that walk through that door will be the real world changers in this space.

• Elaborating on the clock comment a couple paragraphs ago. I very much like my job, my work and field. But it does trouble me of late. I look around and more and more everything is done for process. Lately I wonder if I really want to be this focussed on process and not work or people. Whether something is simply "done or not" seems to be paramount over "whether" or "how" that something should be done. That's fine I supose, (And don't get me wrong, I believe in deadlines as much as the next guy.) but if something is done to fulfill a process rather than the wants or needs of a person or a customer, then, well I don't know about that. That's assembly line work and doesn't promote a thoughtful environment.

• You think the internet provides to much knowlege about how TV, Movies and Comics work behind the scenes? Are the before-hype periods too long now? Or should I just try to avoid that news more? How many Questions can one ask in a paragraph before they're one two many? Does the voice in your head do one of those upward lilts when you see a question mark?

I'm going to go grab some lunch now.

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