Henchman Publishing

Short post, long(ish) linkdump

Sat, 17 May 2008 05:17:14 GMT

A short weekend "update" this week, mostly because I've been putting out fires since I returned from the aforementioned awesomeness that was the Emerald City Comicon (where, I forgot to mention, I met the scribe behind Orcusville, which features not only webcomics but articles about all things sequential art). Ps238 #32 is at press, and I'm working hard on hammering out some plot details for the rest of the year (evil grin). Ps238 #32 will see the publication of a handy character sheet for the role-playing game, as well as the usual kid-heroics.

With my shifting focus to ps238 as a "flagship" of sorts, I'm thinking of re-arranging things around the internet a bit. Don't worry, it won't be radical. It was suggested to me to make dogooderpress.com the "hub" for everything, (i.e. this Livejournal) with each comic-named URL having either specific posts about said comic, or featuring the comic itself. It's still being worked on, and I'll makes some kind of announcement whenever I get enough coding together to implement it. Any resulting 404 errors are just a courtesy from our department of quality control. :)

For those who saw it, this week's Battlestar Galactica had my favorite scene involving the word "jump" so far. It just goes to show that you should always make sure things are in the "off" position before plugging them in. The U.S. saw the Sontarans make their initial debut in the newest Doctor Who. I, for one, dug it. They still looked both silly and cool, combining the best of the new as well as the old. Now, where are my Rutans, BBC?

I did say it was a short one. On with the forging of links:

- Going hungry while cosplaying a swashbuckler? Not any more! Tell the King that he may try taking the townsfolk's Bratwurst at his peril!
- Since I always named my C-64 SSI D&D wizards after diseases, guessing if a name is a D&D character or a skin malady should be easy, right?
- And now some words from our sponsors, but with a sci-fi twist: First up, we have a Star Trek spoof from Kerosun heaters, followed by an old 80's ad from Levi's, back when they used to build spaceships.
- Alert Reader Bob gives us an unusual bit of Lovecraftian home decor: note the pillow, second down on the right. Stuffed with madness for the dreams of men, no doubt. :)
- The Hugo Awards are coming, and the nominees are being read on EscapePod.org. I bring you, with a language warning, A Small Room in Koboldtown, read by the podcasting god-voice of Cheyenne Wright.
- More bloody zombie carnage in The Last Stand 2. Not for the squeamish, and featuring both fast and slow zombies.
- Last post, I mentioned Seattle's sci-fi museum. It turns out (via BoingBoing.net) that they're having an exhibit of vintage robot toys. Good stimulus for some art projects, there...
- The BBC has put up a bunch of Doctor Who Season 3 concept art, including, it seems, a vista from Gallifrey.
- How about something (potentially) happy to waste our time with? Rollercoaster Rush!

Went to the Emerald City twice since last we talked...

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:45:30 GMT

Oh, Emerald City Comicon, where have you been all of my life? It was a truly great time for Cristi and me as we met fans from the Pacific North-West and beyond. This was our first trip to Seattle, and it definitely won't be our last. The area is incredible to see, which made our short visit even harder (we were only there through Sun-Mon and didn't get much time to see the sights... and Seattle has a sci-fi museum!). I went ahead and registered for next year's convention, so we'll definitely be headed back.

While in Seattle, we were hosted by Phil and Kaja Foglio, and we couldn't have asked for a better stay. As if being under the very roof where Girl Genius is made wasn't cool enough, we got to hang out in one of the most truly amazing domiciles I've ever been in. The sign in the bathroom alone was worth the trip: "Please do not flush while ship is inertialess." I've got to get one of those for our own house. Safety first, you know.

The con itself was non-stop fans and geeking out. Just about everyone in comics was represented there, even ones that were kind of on the fringe of the industry. I sketched a bunch too, with this one for "Space Monkey Comics" coming out particularly well, I think. Addendum: A scan of another sketch I did arrived via e-mail. It was done for a great Darth Vader costumer, and features the Sith Lord and Zodon! I was neighbors with both Here There be Robots, and the artist from "Spider-Man: Reign," Kaare Andrews. No, I didn't ask him about how Peter Parker's... "organic material" killing Mary Jane with cancer was dreamed up, though it was tempting. :) Also tempting was this item, but alas, it wouldn't have fit in my luggage. It's also kind of weird to think that it could probably all fit on one of those joystick-keychain things they sell for 5 bucks at Wal-Mart these days.

For those who've never run into me at a con, the Pulp Gamer Podcast interviewed me at GAMA, and and posted the results here. You can also get a feel for how my voice gets abused when I'm out at conventions; I do tend to go on and on with table visitors if the subject of TV, movies, comics, video games, RPGs, the internet, novelty music, or where the best restaurants are comes up.

But I said I'd been to Emerald City twice, and so I have: The wife and I went and saw "Wicked" for the first time this past week, and it's a darn good show. Only one tune really stuck in my head, "Popular," but the story is what grabbed me. In a nerdy-crossover moment, let me put forth the idea that "Wicked" is what the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy should have been: We knew Darth Vader, we knew a little about his past, but wouldn't it have been interesting to learn something suprising about him? I don't want to give away the play, but in "Wicked," we discover the origins of several Oz characters (according to this story, that is) as well as the early interaction between Glinda and Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West). It also was a story about how "wickedness" can be applied to someone via public opinion, which was something I expected to happen to the Jedi in Episode III. Perhaps if Lucas were to write a musical...

I've also FINALLY witnessed the spectacle of "Iron Man." If you haven't gone yet (which would be a big suprise to me), you should go. Robert Downey Jr. is the perfect Tony Stark, the story is tight and doesn't have any terribly slow moments, and it's one of those films where two hours seems to fly past. I will say that there's a sequence that looks a LOT like an homage to Robocop 2, and Iron Man's superhero career consists of, what, about a week of movie-time? The now-famous Easter Egg after the credits fills me with hope, but I want the guys in charge of adapting superheroes to take note that Thor is very easy to get terribly, terribly wrong. On a trivial note, I patted myself on the back for noticing that one of the photos of Jeff Bridges as "Obidiah Stane" came from the movie, "Tucker."

Normally, I try to keep the links here clean, but I had to post this next set. Some preface: In the UK, there's a news-quiz show that's terribly funny called "Have I Got News for You." Currently, it has a series of guest-hosts anchoring the show, and recently, the geek icon Brian Blessed manned the center chair! Now, this is "uncut," so there's quite a bit of blue language, and it gets worse the longer it goes, so be warned. Anyway, here's part one, and the other 5 parts are in the "related videos" menu to the right. Vultan fans rejoice!

The first-run UK Doctor Who had a very clever twist to an old sci-fi setup, but it also introduced a new character that I'm not sure was the greatest idea. But I've been wrong before, so let's hope she's a good addition to the Who-niverse. Meanwhile, over in Battlestar Galactica, we got a bit more advancement towards Earth, I think, and thank the Lords of Kobol that we haven't seen a single flying motorcycle.

In other news, a Witchblade movie is in the works. My first exposure to the story came in the Yancy Butler TV series. The first season was the strongest, I think, with the exception of the second episode involving the guy with the flamethrower. The only other "hang on a minute" moment came with a remote-control snake that was, of all things, a fashion accessory for a photo shoot. The second season wasn't as coherent as the first, but it was still entertaining. I was rather looking forward to a third season when it was cancelled. So, I then sought out the comic. The comic wasn't the greatest thing I'd ever read; all of the female characters looked the same, and just about every story was an excuse for the Witchblade to undress its weilder. It came from the "bad girl" era of comics, so I guess that makes a kind of sense. I've not seen the Witchblade Anime, though I hear it has a reputation for being quite violent. So... there are multiple directions this movie could take, but I sure hope it doesn't follow the comic verbatim, at least not the early ones...

Links to make up for a lack of lucidity last Friday:

- A little Labyrinth behind-the-scenes: Contact juggling.
- I'd love to have this guy teach me some arts and crafts. Phenomenal!
- Time for some ninja-ing with Armed with Wings. Use your eagle and your sword to solve puzzles and vanquish foes.
- Not a very detailed trailer, but when a movie promises Moon Nazis, I think I need a ticket. "Iron Sky" looks like it'd belong next to "Sky Captain," I believe.
- Here's a game with an interesting mechanic: Planet of the Forklift Kid. Cleverly use (what else?) your forklift to reach the exit of each level.
- There's a new Galaxy Quest comic coming soon, where we can hopefully find out how Fred Kwan became Adrian Monk...
- Sadtrombone.com is a good site to keep handy the next time someone tells a joke that falls flat while you're at the computer.
- Something for the kids: Zombiez is a game you can break out at the next birthday party or other multi-kid gathering. Just be prepared to explain to the parents when the kiddos ask for brains on their mac & cheese.
- I'm always on the hunt for names when I'm writing, and this site could come in handy, especially if I ever start having martial arts characters that yell out the names of their attacks. If I do start doing that in a non-ironic way, please send help. :)
- Finally, this is the end of the internet. You know what to do...

Classic sci-fi is disappointed in us, too...

Thu, 08 May 2008 03:16:11 GMT

I'm re-reading the Arthur C. Clarke "Rama" series, in which humanity has an encounter with an advanced alien ship, whose purpose is revealed over the course of several novels. I was a voracious reader of Asimov, Bova, Ellison, ("What about Ray Bradbury?" "I'm aware of his work.") and so on, and as I grew older and technology got more advanced, it became harder to relate to the "future" portrayed in much of the golden age of sci-fi. These novels had galactic empires that ran on tape recordings, where paper was the primary means of information dissemination, and computers were still larger than cars. Some readers are turned off by that kind of thing, but what gets to me is how dumb I appear in comparison to the casts of these stories.

Let me explain: the characters in these tales, even children, are usually way smarter than me. They can do orbital mechanics in their heads, spout equations at will, and recite Shakespeare as readily as I can quote "Office Space." They can generate mathematical languages to communicate with alien races, navigate legal loopholes in offworld laws, and still find time to exchange pleasure-nodes with the Violet Queen of Mammarite D (who is a very nice person, I hear) as they explain the physics of solar radiation.

I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the authors often having a background in science; you write what you know. In the aforementioned "Rama" series, I can only think of two characters that weren't book-smart (one was a crewmember of the Newton spaceship, and the other was a child with a mental handicap). Even a reporter who came with the crew of a ship to cover events was able to quickly learn how to function as an engineer. I can barely do math without my cell phone or "calculator.exe" handy. Some might say that a page describing the geometry of a spaceship's course is boring. To me, it's a reminder I'm lucky I can still remember how to do "long divison." I love seeing smart and professional people do their jobs in my fiction, don't get me wrong. I can even imagine myself saving a spaceship from plummeting into a black hole... until the author has the hero solving the problem and "showing his work." Maybe that's why I like the answer to everything being 42. :)

In other sci-fi schtuff, last week's first-run UK episode of Doctor Who wrapped up a very satisfying two-parter. Classic who-fans got an old villain to enjoy, as well as the mention of another one (harkening back to some old continuity! Yay!). The teaser for next week is compelling, but I REALLY hope it's not mis-handled by the writers. Battlestar Galactica continues to both advance yet seemingly stay in one place at the same time. Not that it isn't enjoyable, but I'm hoping for a little forward motion towards a blue-green planet called "Earth."

Many of you lucky people have seen "Iron Man." Even if you haven't (like some poor sods that look a lot like me), this little gem from the "I'm a Marvel, I'm a DC" series should raise a grin. His promo for MvDC's season two is a great send-up for all of us that like to laugh at the "buddy cop" genre. I can't wait to see what else is in store.

Another side note about the upcoming G.I. Joe film, regarding the "international" flavor: Joe went international a while ago, it seems. I wonder if any of the Joe code-names changed when they sent the show overseas? Were any of them even more ridiculous-sounding in Europe?

Cristi and I are Seattle-bound for this weekend's Emerald City Comicon. I should have net access (at least in the evenings) unless my rusty ol' laptop is incompatable with local routers (I've had that happen more and more lately. 5 years is, like 500 in laptop years, so I figure I've gotten some good milage out of it). I plan on taking some snapshots and perhaps a little video, if time allows. We'll see you there!

The madness of linKing George:

- We've got lots of games this week, so let's hop in with Chronotron, a game that requires that you play the game with your past selves. Doctor Who "paradox" fans should dig this one.
- 8-bit dinos try to outrun "doom" from an asteroid in Dino Run. You can get points for "doom surfing" on the edge of the blast-cloud, but it's easy to trip up, too...
- The site is in Portuguese, and it's a little slow, but scroll down for a really nice flash-based hero-maker. It's very "Paul Dini"-esque.
- Back to the games, and this one is a strategy favorite: Proximity is a kind of Risk game mixed with Go. Give it a try, and watch the hours whiz past...
- An oldie from the depths of the internet (at least, it looks like it's been a while given the banner ad at the top), The Happy Poster Project has some printables that will look nice and confusing in any office, I think.
- Finally, let's all relax with some Diet Coke and Mentos... at 1200 frames per second. Ahhhh...

What missile through yonder window 'splodes?

Sat, 03 May 2008 09:19:09 GMT

I'd love to be able to report first hand on how much I liked Iron Man, but instead... I could tell you about Romeo & Juliet: The ballet. Yes, a colleague of my wife's gave her tickets, and so, instead of seeing what I'm told is one of the most awesome superhero films since the dawn of time on opening weekend... I saw narrative compete with coreography.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy watching dancers. I enjoy Shakespeare. I just think that each aspect was holding the other back in this production. It was also weird to be able to hear the dancers land; Ballet is not performed by the weightless, contrary to how they look on TV every Christmas when they do "The Nutcracker" on PBS. If only they had jet boots and repulsor blasters instead of swords...

Anyway, the past few weeks have seen "Supernatural" back on the air, with a send-up of "Ghost Hunters" that was a good format for a return from the writers' strike. "Lost" has picked up the pace as well, apparently shedding characters as it goes (I say "apparently" because I'm not counting anyone out until the final episode). I've not watched this week's BSG yet, as I was... not at "Iron Man."

The Emerald City Comicon is a week away, and I'm looking forward to my first Seattle trip! The guest roster for the con is quite impressive; I might have to gather a few autographs, myself! And we should have ps238 #31 on hand if the stars align properly. Issues 29 and 30 will go up in the store sometime tomorrow, "completing" the Las Vegas saga. It's a tale I had envisioned from day one, pretty much, but the cast of kids that found themselves in Vegas changed completely from my original concept. That's writin' for ya.

But now I have to get back to ps238 #32, which is turning out to be a bit darker than I'd intended. I might need to work a pie-fight in or something to lighten the ambiance at Praetorian Academy...

Links I found while not watching "Iron Man":

- A fire-based puzzle game entitled Scorching Earth. Try and guide your fire to burn the landscape in each level. It's harder than it looks...
- From the "art that makes you go 'whoa'" files, here's 'Cloud.'. I could stare at that for hours.
- Fans of the old classic "Bubble Ghost" will probably dig Floaty Light, a game where you guide a soap bubble through dangerous territory.
- So if you dumped a case of pop rocks into a Coke fountain at McDonalds, would this be the result? Or were Mentos the culprit?
- Looking for a travel getaway where no one will possibly bother you? some of these super-creepy abandoned hotels might fit the bill.
- I just couldn't resist this. Apparently, Trek music can RAWK.
- And other than any possibly interesting easter egg discoveries, this will probably be the last word on GTA4 for a while. A kinder, gentler word from Conan O'Brien. :)

A veritable pop-culture extr-r-r-avaganza!!

Thu, 01 May 2008 03:58:23 GMT

A new Hulk trailer is up, and boy does it look GREAT! I think we might have a Hulk movie that will bookend nicely with the current Iron Man feature. And listen for the last few notes of music at the end of the trailer. Is that the old TV theme I hear? I think this is one of the superhero movie genre's greatest pleasures: details for the fans. Done well, it can really validate a lot of childhood memories.

So let's scar one a little. Everyone's favorite Spider-villain is getting an... I guess he wouldn't be an "evil" twin, but... well, behold Anti-Venom. I'm not even going to speculate on that one, folks.

I took the plunge and bought "Grand Theft Auto IV" last night. It's an incredible-looking game. It's got just enough characterization to keep me interested without making me want to write angry letters to whoever wrote the script. Here's a tip for game makers, especially if they like mopey spikey-haired characters: If a character has a dark past, or has something that's depressing him/her, we only really need to hear about it once. Until something rectifies or modifies the cause of their distress, we in the audience will assume it's still "in play," and we don't need to be reminded of it every time the character speaks. Anyway, I also found out that I stink at driving, and that Niko, at least my version, might need a few spare cousins if I'm the one in charge of everyone's safety. I found myself to be King of the Donuts and Lord of the Fishtails while trying to escape the loan sharks, even going so far as to lose an entire wheel after striking a fire hydrant. I hope this game isn't reporting back to my auto insurance agent; I don't think there'd be a premium big enough to cover me...

A friend of mine also got the game. After playing for a while, he called and we had the following conversation:

Friend: I sat down to play for an hour or so, and I was expecting to have lots of violence and mayhem.
Me: And?
Friend: I'm on a date. In a bowling alley.
Me: Do you have to kill someone with a bowling ball?
Friend: No.
Me: CAN you kill someone with a bowling ball?
Friend: How will I get this girl to like me if I go on a murderous rampage?
Me: Some women like that, I'm told.
Friend: Not this one. She even told me she's a neat-freak.
Me: So bring a mop and some Pine-Sol on your rampages.

That's about where my friend gave up on me and went back to his game. I didn't get a chance to ask about driving tips, so I returned to being my own worst enemy (this time, I wound up wedging my cab under a Hummer). I fully expect my opposition to, at some point, just realize they can stand and watch me try to get away, resulting in a spectacularly entertaining finish involving fire and an explosion.

This is my first foray into the GTA series, by the way, apart from a short flirtation with the very original top-down GTA I. In the spirit of fairness, a "nega-review" of the game has been compiled from comments left by players, many of which are informed by previous game experience (which I lack). I'm sure I don't need to stress that this is an adult game (probably the video game equivalent of "The Wire" as far as content goes) and that Jack Thompson is probably once again going to use it to become the Don Quixote of attorneys later this year.

I know there are many young readers of this blog out there who are probably not going to be allowed to play this game, and that's probably not a bad thing. The concepts and depictions of various acts are quite severe in GTA4, and they aren't for everyone. What I hope is that it's a next step in game-world complexity. Even after all of the violence and other R-rated goings on are set aside, the city itself is a marvel to behold as it and its denizens go about their day, with or without the player's input. The radio stations alone are realistic parodies of, say, Fox News and NPR, and somewhere in this game are 3 minutes or so of comedy with a motion-capped Ricky Gervais. Hopefully, this heralds a new step forward in game immersion that can be applied to other genres of gaming. Imagine, say, a Civilization game installment where the city-level view was as rich. I can almost smell the future holodeck version of the PS3... because the last person didn't clean it out. Ew.

But other video game news has some promising stuff for us. First up, an interview video about the upcoming Ghostbusters game. Is the 'Busters logo really the second most recognized worldwide? Also, the lead designer for City of Heroes posted a bit of celebratory stuff about CoH's history and what's to come, including user-designed scenarios! I wonder if they'll let us lay out the maps to spell things...

Doctor Who was a treat for us old Whovians this week. No spoilers for those who won't see it for a few weeks, but I will say that they revive an old villain VERY nicely, getting the right balance, I think, between the old version and an updated one. The dialogue for this particluar race of nasties was also good; I expect that more than one sig file will have some lines from the broadcast. And it's a two-parter, as well.

And now, welcome back my friends to the links that never end*:

- Voting ends tomorrow on Indestructables' cake contest, but you can still drool over and be amazed by the entries.
- Sometimes depressing, often interesting, somewhat useful, the world-o-meters give you estimated statistics about our planet in real time.
- Some further reviewing of the upcoming 4th Edition D&D engine on the PC.
- I don't know what it is, but I want one. And I'll take one of these, too.
- A little timed shooting fun can be had with Cannon Blaster.
- I always knew there had been an aborted pilot for a Justice League live-action TV show, but I'd never realized what a David Ogden Steirs 'Martian Manhunter' would be like.
- So much talk about video games and no love for pinball? If you still have fond memories of Gorgar or Pinbot, you can probably find everything you played at the Internet Pinball Database.
- Time for some zombies. I would so love the "Les Miz" version of these Evil Dead: The Musical posters on my wall. I'm sure having the "Mama Mia" one would be grounds for divorce 'round my house, though...
- And Deep Lift rounds out the links with a jumping side-scroller that combines arcade play with those "throw the spear" type games. Give it a try.

* well, "never" being a relative term...</a>

Blake's 4E!

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:00:23 GMT

What will 4E bring, license-wise? The new version of D&D seems to be under a new aegis, and according to some sources will be quite the headache if you want to stay with 3E and its Open Gaming License. ICv2 has an interview with D&D's brand manager here where this transition is discussed. All I know is that there was a lot of conjecture at GAMA about whether or not you could sell something past 2008 if you put a sticker over the "d20" logo. As for the actual rules themselves, more 4E general info and documents are available. All I want to do is roll some dice without getting sued; is that so wrong? :)

Anyway, if anyone has any pertinant info about this (or any other topics), feel free to post in the comments section.

While the UK waits for the next episode of Doctor Who and America digests the first one of the season, let's look at another British sci-fi franchise that's getting a revival: Blake's 7 is returning, and I hope it's at least as good as the best of the original. For what I mean by that, this show primer should help. Like with a lot of genre TV, how good your long-term story can be often hinges on whether or not you can count on getting another season, which can result in a lot of uneven production and writing. Still, the character of Avon is one of my all-time favorite anti-heroes, managing to pull off the smug-and-superior character while making us root for him as he proves that he often IS superior to those around him. I wonder if this will be more "serious" science fiction, in a Babylon-5/Battlestar Galactica vein, or if we'll get the more "fantastical" stuff as seen in Farscape and, of course, Doctor Who. I'd love it if Norman Lovett got to be the voice of the new Liberator's computer, but that's probably too much to ask...

Regarding my many worries about the upcoming G.I. Joe film, to be fair I should report that two friends of mine (who shall remain nameless for security purposes) called and said they'd visited the set and called it "way cool."

And we're getting a "Hobbit" movie directed by the guy who brought us "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Hellboy." At least you know the dragon will be awesome, right? And maybe Del Toro will reap the weight-loss benefits that Peter Jackson appeared to get from directing the LOTR series.

A side note about my Las Vegas trip this week: I saw gas was about 3.49 a gallon there during the GAMA trade show. I was distressed to see a sign in the Brookside area of KC with the same price today. I think that Vespa scooter is starting to look more attractive...

Links under a buck a gallon:

- Frequent readers will recall the "Creme Egg Suicide" ads we posted here before. Now we've got an elaborate Rube Goldberg setup to Cream That Egg!
- Cats playing with a jumping spider isn't all that link-worthy in and of itself, but I cracked up at about the :15 second mark of this video.
- Not frustrated enough from the work-week? Play the Frustration Game to properly adjust those stress levels. Try to navigate your mouse through a moving maze of obstacles.
- In the more "traditional" vein of video games, enjoy the bouncy side-scroller Cheese Dreams. Bounce the moon (made of cheese, naturally) out of the lair of the space-mice who captured it.
- For the gamer who already has the LOTR chess set and the "Treasure Chest" version of Settlers of Catan, we've got a super-deluxe version of Clue. If Professor Plum did it in the conservatory and got blood on my copy of this game, he's in for it...
- A mini ha-ha from the Dinosaur Soothsayer.
- Last Wednesday's multiple toy posts demands this follow-up of Bizarre Toys. Also, I once gifted a "crazy cat lady" figure to a friend of mine.
- Finally, since the weekends are (sometimes) for sport, let's go fishing for some ridiculously huge and cool-looking fish.

Gama Radiation!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:24:20 GMT

Oh, GAMA, how did I ever leave you? It's been quite a while since I'd been to this trade show (for those who've attended, the last time I was there it was held in The Orleans, rather than at Bally's), and while my time there was a blur, it was one of the most fun and productive blurs I've had in quite a while. Plus I got to see this great setup for Privateer Press's Monsterpocalypse game. Now THAT'S a pool toy to surprise the nephews with...

I was also pleased to be near some neighbors from back home. The Highlander card game is back and under new management (I'll be taking a look at the game soon, but as I understand it, the mechanics for simulating a swordfight via cards are supposed to be pretty well-done). Cristi (ever the educator) went and hung out at the Educational Insights booth and came back with, among other things, Playfoam. This stuff sounds so very space-age. Unlike "Floam," it doesn't have any gooey bonding agent, and you can stomp it into carpet without embedding dirt and hair in the stuff. It's non-toxic and tastes horrid, so it won't poison your kiddos when it discourages ingestion. So... inedible, indestructable, tastes bad... Are they making foam from fruitcakes? Anyway, I thought the wargaming crowd might find this stuff useful in making terrain or sculpting large forms to be covered with more permanent materials.

But the retailers were the real reason to go. Rest assured that a lot of the men and women running our local comics & games stores are often bigger fans of gaming and sequential art than we are. It was wonderful meeting, greeting, and gifting them with ps238 and Nodwick-y wares. I also got a chance to try out some new color markers while making some sketches that will soon be on comic store walls around the country. We figured offering some art would be fun, but I've seen what sun does to Sharpie (and sepia can look nice, don't get me wrong) so we tried out some new "Copic" markers. We're told that they're favored by the Manga-makers in our city, and that they can hold up to solar abuse a bit longer than other writing utensils. I was running on only a few hours of sleep and neglected to snap some photos, but I think we'll be getting links from the art recipients in the coming weeks and you, the viewer, can judge. :)

I also got to chat with some of the Dead Gentlemen who have a lot planned for their "Demon Hunters" RPG (the first chapter of which can be sampled for free), movie, line of hair care products, etc. Look for more great things coming from these guys soon...

In movie news, "The Spirit" is coming to movie houses in 2009 (the trailer can be seen here), but I fear I'm not the target audience. I've tried reading the comic by Will Eisner, but I'm not a huge crime noir fan, so a lot of the dialogue from those hard-boiled stories begins to sound like lines from "The Tick" to me. Anyway, it looks like Frank Miller is making a Sin City-esque version of the detective, believed dead, living in a graveyard, who fights crime without using guns. If he can pull it off and make it fly in this day and age, more power to him.

Doctor Who gave us the C'thulhu-esque "Ood" in their second appearance. For me, the story was a well-worn Who trope of civilization-saving, but the great stuff was the little hint at the end about what's to come. Is this a setup for a cast change, or perhaps the stakes in Who are being raised a few notches given that we're going to only get a few Who-movies in 2009 instead of a whole season?

And from our "life imitates art" department, way back in ought-six, one of the FFN guys claimed that buying both comics AND trade paperbacks helped to keep his house insulated, thanks to all the paper products he hoarded. It turns out, Shawn may have been on to something.

Linka, Las Vegas:

- Spectrum Genesis is a good little time-waster with some nifty visual FX to brighten your day. Swing your line to the star while connecting with each dot.
- Some point-n-click lunacy: Cowabanga is from the creator of the "Hapland" adventure series. So far, I can't tell if I'm winning or losing, but I know how to make the cow explode...
- A blogger recently came into posession of some old Atari 2600 carts and (language warning on one or two of these) photoshopped some amusing variants on old favorites. It kind of scares me that I played most of these, back in the day...
- So when I eventually get one of these at comicon this summer, (1) will my wife divorce me and (2) can I realistically expect to be allowed to wear it home on the plane?
- I post this for our fine cosplaying community, many members of which I suspect could get some use out of a skull-shaped motorcycle helmet. It might also come in handy if civilization goes south; you probably get your own mutant horde free if you own one.
- Cracked.com presents (possible NSFW photo of "Mystique" and some f-bombing, so surf responsibly) 8 pointless laws of comic book movies. The origin one is a gripe of mine; who DOESN'T know where Superman or Spider-Man came from?
- This week's linkdump is looking more and more like a nerdy toy catalogue, but there are some things you MUST own!
- And finally, since "impossible" seems to be the new standard in games, here's the Impossible Fan Quiz, an homage to the previous impossible game.

G.I. What the hey?

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:59:18 GMT

I think that no matter where you're coming from, the GI Joe movie isn't going to meet anyone's expectations. New photos of the characters have been leaked (and could be pulled by Paramount at any second), and while they pretty much nail Snake Eyes' cartoon and comic book persona, I'm not sure what happened with Storm Shadow. He's too... dude-like. His costume is a mash-up of Blade, Neo, and the faux-leather interior of a 70's Cadillac convertible. And everyone else is wearing the outfits I'm guessing were made for an aborted fourth X-Men film. I even read somewhere that (at least in Scarlet's case) her suit would "augment" her abilities, which kind of crosses over into Exo-Squad territory. The Baroness' Disco-Square belt buckle is nice, though.

This isn't me dumping on the movie; it still could be a good film. It's just looking more like a lot of adaptations that we've seen recently that make me wonder why they bothered licensing the name in the first place. I mean, if you're going to anger the people who loved the 80's cartoon of GI Joe by making something that's barely a tribute, I'm sure there are cheaper nostalgia properties one could have bought that would've given the producers the same opportunities. As it is, it could be like... oh, say... turning Toy Story into a horror movie. :)

Cristi and I are GAMA bound next weekend, so blame any (unusual) glitches 'round these parts on us being away from our primary 'net interfaces. I've had bad luck with hotel internet access lately, but I'm hoping Las Vegas will be more accomodating. Or at least give me a chance to go double or nothing on my bandwidth. :)

Anyway, while I'm there, I'll be bringing the trusty ol' digital camera, and I'll post whatever interesting finds I come across at the show (or whatever comes across our table as well). I hope '08 is a good year for gamey stuff! Hmm... I could've phrased that differently, I suppose...

Battlestar Galactica is still keeping me hooked, and not just because Dean Stockwell is back as a regular. Things are really coming to a head, and (take this in the spirit of all teasers and political promises) next week "all will be revealed." Since this isn't HBO, I figure they're talking about the plot, but I'm still going to watch. :) I wonder how this whole series will turn out; is Earth a "virgin" planet, with our colonists ready to become our planet's ancient civilizations, or will it be flying motorcycles and Adama with a beard like it was when the first series went awry? And if it turns out poorly, can we send the Doctor back to fix it?

Linking the world so you don't have to:

- As a "Portal" fan and former Amiga 500 owner, I have to share this Amiga-animated video for "Still Alive.
- And while we're in "classic computers" land, does anyone remember the infamous Infocom creature that would eat you whenever you went into a dark place, "the Grue?" As with everything else, there are now LOLGrues.
- Infocom is the subject of your next reading assignment. Details have come to light from ancient disused hard disks about Milliways, the sequel to the Hitchhiker's Guide text adventure. I wouldn't mind having a copy of Infocom's network drive. It'd go well with my (yep, I still have it) "Microscopic Space Fleet" and "Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses."
- Draw your own ship and save the line-ruled paper from destruction in Doodle Defender, an Asteroids-esque shoot-em-up!
- If you don't have a Guitar Hero setup in your home, here's the next best thing: Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe. Now you can hold your keyboard to shred!
- How about a home-made version of The Empire Strikes Back in 60 seconds? Their carbonite effects are particularly well-done.
- Leave 'em laughing, I always say, so here's a few funny photos in no particular order: Photo one, photo two and photo three.

Adventure tastes of fake coconut...

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:18:11 GMT

You gotta love movie tie-ins. The last one I purchased was a box of "Episode III" Cheez-Its with Darth Vader on the front of the box. This one is for the upcoming Indiana Jones film, and takes the form of a modified Snickers Bar. The package proclaims:

Satisfy your taste for adventure! Rich chocolate, crunchy nuts. And a cliffhanger kick of exotic spice and a hint of sweet coconut flavor.

Hungry for adventure, I sampled it. Chocolate, check. Nuts, check. Coconut flavor, well... yeah, it reminded me of a Mounds Bar for a few seconds, so I guess so. "Exotic spice?" I didn't find anything resembling that in the experience, unless that's code for "odd aftertaste that makes you wish you'd just bought a regular Snickers." Once again, the candy manufacturers are playing god with primary candy bar flavors (these include Snickers, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey's Chocolate, and M&Ms). There are just some candy bar flavors that can't be improved, really, and attempts at adding things to them only leads to disappointment (like a recent attempt at an Elvis-themed banana-flavored Peanut Butter Cup). This should be distinguished from the resarch results in adding these same confections to ice creams, which have proved largely successful in the areas of chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and mint varieties.

I'm trying out a new game for the Wii, and I really want to like it: Endless Ocean. However... it's the bits between the dives that are bugging me. The animation of your character on the boat is stiff at best, and the dialogue hurts my brain (though this could be for the benefit of a younger audience). The mechanism by which you learn more about animals via a "petting them" system seems odd as well. The ocean is far from endless, as you can't stray out of the zone your "mission" is in. But the dives are where the game is what I was looking for: An interactive "Discovery Channel" screen saver, basically. It's pretty entrancing to just swim around and look at stuff, and I think a diving-themed game could have a future, especially with scenes like this.

Doctor Who turned in a pretty solid episode this week, in what I'd call the "Classic Who" vein: A trip to Earth's past with a little humor tossed in (mostly in the form of a running gag about speaking Latin). We also learned a little bit about how being a Time Lord is different from just being a time traveler (i.e. seeing fixed events in time). Perhaps I'm a bad Whovian, but does anyone out there have an idea as to how much the TARDIS is supposed to weigh? I'd swear it was supposed to be really heavy, but every so often we see it only takes a few strong backs to swipe the thing. Perhaps its weight is plot-specific? :)

Battlestar Galactica had a few surprises about the Cylons (or at least, how they operate). Note to self: If the robots ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy. This info should come in handy if you want to enter SciFi's build a Cylon contest. If I have time, I've got an idea for converting my Civic to a Raider... if I can fit that oscillating fan into the back seat...

I'm told this week the IESB FFN should go up with little fuss; I'm still working out how to make it more easy to locate. In other comic news, the next ps238 trade has left the printer and should be up in the store next month, along with two new issues. Also, a mega-shipment of orders is going out this week, so if yours hasn't arrived yet, it should quite shortly.

- Patton Oswalt wanted to know why the concept of (adult themes warning) "rock that could change the physical properties of things" went away. Apparently, it just migrated to Guitar Hero.
- A small NSFW warning on this, because user-uploaded content is involved: Webcam Stop-Motion Thing let's you make, well, stop-motion GIFs with your... wait for it... webcam. Kinda nifty.
- Thanks to alert reader Adam for the heads up on the Engineer's Guide to Cats. I never knew about "cat yodeling" before. The PSAs of my youth left a gap in my education, apparently.
- Also absent from my cat-lore was what happens if you give a cat a theremin.
- A handy list of video game tropes for your reference and edification.
- My love for motivational posters led me to find this humorous blog of the things with a comic-book slant.
- Fracture 2 is what videogames would be like if Jackson Pollack had made them after playing Robotron.
- Stickmen have it in for your mouse pointer. Can you survive Mouse Under Siege?
- A little science-y stuff: You've probably seen Ecospheres for sale, before (some big enough to take up hotel lobbies, I'm told). Now you can make one yourself.
- Finally, that new Batman Anime film has a new trailer, and lo, it appears to be quite awesome.

Made possible by players like you...

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 07:58:57 GMT

Recently, NC Soft announced that it's going to launch in-game advertising for City of Heroes/Villains. These ads (which you can choose to turn off) would appear on the various billboards around Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. In-game ads have had a mixed history. I most recently encountered them in "Burnout Paradise" which had streets with an overabundance of Gilette trucks and billboards for CompUSA (which was unfortunate, since they'd just filed for bankruptcy). M'self, I think the in-game ads for CoH could be a good thing; I've read all the joke ads before, and just so long as Doritos doesn't buy up an entire zone, it could help break up the scenery a bit. NC Soft is even asking for user-generated ads for the test server, but I hope they put a few of the better ones into rotation along with the paid-for stuff, just to add some flavor. Of course, there's still my original idea of having companies pay players if they'd design their characters as company mascots. Refreshing, eh?

Well, as of this posting, I haven't been able to overcome e-mail difficulties with IESB.net, so if you'll click the FFN button at the top of this page, you'll get to see this week's movie-related strip. And we're not kidding, they're going to make a Robosapien movie.

New Fallout 3 stuff has hit the web. They're up to 500 "endings" (or rather, 500 things you can do that have an impact on the final game outcome, probably in some form of voice over about your exploits), they have a smaller area than the "Oblivion" game, but it's packed with more things to do, and from the description, it sounds like there's plenty o' blood 'n' guts when you shoot something. My love of post-apocalyptic games probably goes back to getting my first box set of "Gamma World," followed by "Wasteland" on my Commodore 64. "Wasteland" was supposed to be for "mature" audiences, mostly because of the descriptions of combat (words like "blood sausage" and "dance of death" were used when you, for example, used a LAW rocket on a mutant dog). It was also a cheatable game, in that moving from zone to zone required disk swaps, and the computer trusted that you were putting in the correct disk so that you couldn't, say, wipe out an area and leave all the loot, then via a copied disk, come back over and over until your characters looked like walking ammo dumps that had just hit the jackpot in Las Vegas. It's probably why I liked the novel "The Stand" so much, as well as the Showtime series, "Jeremiah," and was disappointed in the direction "Jericho" took. I wanted Kansas overrun by mutants with flamethrowers or something, darnit! :)

And here's a little something that struck me when I was at an airport recently. I saw an ad for a revival of the "Mister Men" franchise on Nickelodeon, and my brain thought this would be a terrific idea for a t-shirt. And while there was an original Mr. Natural, I think the new model is a better candidate to face the challenges of D&D 4.0. I was also inspired by a (may be inappropriate for younger readers) humorous take on the franchise by a clever blogger.

Baron Von Linktoffen:

- A while back, I ran across a custom action figure sculptor who made a Victorian-era Justice League. He's moved on to a more ambitious project: Steampunk Star Wars. I think I'd trade all of my original figures for these babies...
- A bit o' Who news, as "the Proms," a concert tradition at the Royal Albert Hall will feature a Doctor Who themed performance hosted by Martha Jones.
- Ready for mental torment? Try the Impossible Quiz. If that's not enough, there's a sequel.
- To work off some of that weekend stress, here's one of the more beweaponed shooters I've seen in a while: Thing-Thing 4. Don't forget you can double-jump.
- Probably the trippiest game you'll play all month: Doeo. Mouse over the pink square "Doeos" while the Katamari-esque soundtrack plays.
- If Sumo Wrestling was really like this, I'd be a fan for life... until the planet got split in half, that is...
- In the interests of fairness, I have to report that not everyone is happy with the new D&D, especially at least one half-orc and one gnome.
- Got an old speaker lying around that you'd like to hack? Turn it into a media center.
- Maybe because it's late and I'm tired, but this just cracks me up for some reason: What if guns didn't sound like they're supposed to?

Regenesis, TV, and the usual geeking out

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:02:04 GMT

Now that we've finally got Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Terry Pratchett program(me)s on region one DvD, let me tell you about another series that needs to be available in the states: Regenesis. Holy jumpin' DNA, this is a GREAT show! I have seen (don't ask how) the first season of this Canadian production. Among the very cool things about this show are: Believable and flawed characters, the right amount of sex (not too much, enough that you don't feel you're watching sanitized TV), VERY scary biological threats, and most delightful of all, a flash-forward that you don't catch up with until the eleventh episode. There's also a very unique cinematographic style for when events happen simultaneously that harkens back to the old 70's split-screens without seeming dated.

Why hasn't it aired in the states yet? According to an entry on their website, it was supposed to start airing in the US last year. If I were guessing as to why it hasn't had an easy time of making it to the southern 48, I'd say there are three reasons: First, there is, as mentioned, sex in this show. Actually, it's more like the odd nude scene (from NYPD Blue level stuff to a naked "model" walking around an artist's studio) than the actual act, but it'd probably limit the uncut show to premium cable. Secondly, there's language of the four-letter variety that would probably drop it in the HBO realm as well (however, they do other language dubs so they may have shot f-word free footage for syndication). Lastly, I'd venture that politics are a consideration, given that the US Military and/or government doesn't come out in a great light. In the past, this hasn't been a problem for most movies and other forms of storytelling. Heck, you almost expect the heroes to be double-crossed by the CIA/NSA/FCC or whatever alphabet agency before the final credits, but they specifically cite the current Gulf conflict and some of the results thus far. They do it very matter-of-factly as opposed to being vindictive or anything, but in the current climate, I'd bet that someone somewhere would smell a flag being burned and demand edits at the very least. But it's VERY good TV, so if you can find a way to see it, I recommend it.

Doctor Who premiered quite nicely, with a stand-alone yarn that ended with what many are presuming is a sign of this season's major arc. I think my favorite "moment" was a soundless conversation between the Doctor and Donna (which has been YouTubed already, and is pretty spoiler-free as Who goes. I mean, the scene is a pretty standard hero-victim-villain setup). Torchwood was... unexpected to say the least. I was left feeling that two major plot devices/characters had been used up too quickly, but there was some pretty powerful stuff in this episode. Especially Jack's nearly 2000-year journey, which is a pretty staggering concept. I think we'd better be getting another season; I want to see how permanent some of the changes made during the finale are...

And Battlestar Galactica is back! For those that missed it, you can see it at SciFi.com. It's pretty devoid of fluff or fat, and I hear rumors that the final season was tweaked during the writers' strike to make it better. So far, I think it's going to be a great season, and even though it's ending, I'm glad to see that it will (hopefully) avoid the "stretch out the popular show for more ratings" thing that "Lost" seemed to suffer from last year.

Lastly, an apology for being AWOL from the comments over the weekend. I didn't have 'net access and when I got home, I had to grind some deadlines into a fine powder. All's well and Egyptian Campaign was a nice outing from the ol' office. I also noticed for the first time that the buidling housing EC has a bowling alley in it! Methinks I need to cook up some D&D Bowling rules for the next time I'm in Carbondale...

But soft! What links through yonder Windows crashes:

- The marvelous Sci-Fi blog io9 has a winner in its "fake Star Trek footage" contest. You can see the top vids here (heads up that a few start to play when the page loads, so if sudden noise happens, just wait for the movies to calm down).
- And speaking of 'Trek, I have decided that if I must boldly open bottles no man has opened before, I want to do it with one of these.
- Photoshop Disasters is a blog of where use of the popular image-editing tool has gone awry. I'm just glad none of MINE showed up in there. A slight warning: some of the disasters are underwear ads and such, so if that kind of thing bugs the boss...
- I need to turn in my "artist" badge in the face of Minas Tirith made out of matchsticks. I presume the heads were used to make a very brief Balrog?
- Normally, I disdain the addition of "bling" to a car, but... I think I can make one exception.
- Raft Wars is a "Worms"-ish turn-based shooter game, with familiar-sounding dialogue for those of us familiar with the ways of the Super Sheep and Concrete Donkey.
- For those familiar with Portal, here's an interesting take on the mad computer, GLaDOS, and her motivations: She wants to be free. If this is the case, I wonder what form she'll take for the sequel that Valve has in the works...
- Use your Magic Pen to get your circle to the goal.
- A fun clip about self image from the brilliant Creature Comforts (U.S. version) by Aardman Entertainment.
- Lastly, something I wish I had time to participate in: The online CustomCon, a gallery of custom action figures. Click on the "days" to get a list of characters, and from there, see what people have come up with. I wouldn't mind a set of Great Lakes Avengers.

Gas Attack, and "Amway, the TCG?"

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:41:02 GMT

I figured that since I'm about to embark on a road trip and be depressed about gas prices, I'd share the misery a bit (grin). Near a post office I freqent is the rather run-down remains of a gas station. It closed up some time before gas dropped to below a buck a gallon (somewhere around 2000, maybe?) at the dawn of the decade. Since then, it's been a junk store and the site of a small fire. Through all of this, its sign has remained unchanged, a kind of monument to a now distant era when filling up the ol' Civic cost about as much as it costs to gas up a Vespa scooter today. If you're travelling by road, be sure to check GasBuddy.com to know what you're in for.

In other interesting economic news, one person is trying to unload their house via an eBay raffle. A $100 ticket could buy you a 2,900 square foot house in New Jersey.

Regular readers will know I'm a huge Timm/Dini freak when it comes to animated DC Superheroes. I didn't get hooked on "The Batman" so much, and "Teen Titans" was too "chibi" for my tastes, but if it gets a younger audience into comics, so be it. Coming up next is "World's Finest," where, as we can see via TV Guide, Batman has been using steroids, and it's going to have "comedy" as a feature of the show. Batman is supposed to be a borderline psychopath himself, and the last time we had Bat-Comedy, Caesar Romero painted his moustache white. But perhaps more horrifying is George Lucas targeting a Star Wars show at 11-year-old girls. Given how many of my female friends felt about the character of Padme in the prequel trilogy, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around what he thinks 11-year-old girls are like. Worse, this character is apparently the padawan of Anakin Skywalker. I think I see why we never hear from this kid again in Episode III...

An unusual development in the realm of trading card games: Fight Klub. Obvious trademark jabs aside, the idea behind this appears to combine IP advertising with the structure of an Amway-style 'multi-level marketing' scheme. It's got "edgy" written all over it, since a lot of the terminology seems to come from drug/crime culture (calling booster packs "kilos," for example). You can sign up as a "Mentor," and you earn money based on how many friends you sign up for the game and how much they spend. They're also putting out the word for players to submit characters (I wonder if there will be a special "DeviantArt" section?) as well as for owners of established properties to submit their characters for use in the game. So in theory, you could someday have Sonic the Hedgehog take on Bull the Bailiff from "Night Court" with the winner facing off against "Goramaku," some player's anime-based dude he created for an obscure webcomic. It's still quite early in this game's inception, and Scrye Magazine will have an article about it in an upcoming issue, so it might just work, but... I dunno. I freely admit that this could take off and be a hit, but it could also become the next "BreaKeys." What do you, the readers, think?

Time to be jealous of those living in the UK: Doctor Who starts its new season on Saturday (or last Wednesday, if you live near the rift in Cardiff).

And to end on an up note (VERY up, if measured for distance), author, gamer guy, and creator of the masked vigilante, "The Revenant" (kindly on loan to ps238), Mike Stackpole has an asteroid named after him! Hopes are high that if it ever does crash into the Earth, there will be chunks large enough for him to sign at "Thunderdome-a-Con," to be held in a post-apocalyptic city remnant near you.

I'm East Bound and Down, Linked on up and Truckin':

- Here's a leftover from April Fool's: 10 'harmless' geek pranks. Pay special attention to #5 if you work in a Windows network environment. It's like having access to an IM your target can't ignore, and if you give them a horrid Y/N question like 'erase hard disk?' the only option they have is "OK." :)
- What do you get when you cross "Portal" with "O Brother Where Art Thou?" You get We Work for GLaDOS Now.
- And while Portal's cake may (or may not) be a lie, this cake sleeps beneath the waves and fills your celebration with madness...
- Most of you have probably seen the infamous "Lightning Bolt" LARP video as well as the "Stone Golem." Now we can add the Wayfinder Dragon to the roster of legends.
- From the makers of the famous "I Can Has Cheezburger" LOLcat site comes (slight language warning, due to jokes based on popular song lyrics) Graphjam, a collection of humorous graphs based on songs, pop culture, and loads of other references. Thankfully, they come with "cheat sheets" explaining the humor.
- A relaxing time-waster: Link-A-Ball. Collect chains and earn points while relaxing to some easy-listening music.
- Anyone else out there remember the classic game, "Raid on Bungeling Bay?" Well, there's a flash version where you play on a whiteboard. I haven't finished, so I don't know if you get a parade for winning... :)
- There's a new Hellboy 2 trailer. This is looking at least as good as the first, if not better. I did chuckle that the footage of the BPRD was run in reverse (note the flames in the sconce). An unnamed source at Dark Horse noted that fire could just "do that" at the BPRD, which I had to admit would make sense...
- And finally, a gallery of awesome Lego and Rubiks cube projects. Some contain links to even deeper galleries, so clear some time on the agenda this weekend...

Egyptian Campaign 2008 and "Bogus Journeys" in film

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:11:37 GMT

Egyptian Campaign is this weekend, so if you're in southern Illinois, you'll get to come by for shiny new autographed ps238 #30s! I was hoping to have the role-playing game on hand (it has been printed! Yay!), but unless I get a box in before Friday, that'll have to wait 'till the Emerald City Comicon. I'm also banging through issue #31, which is taking a bit longer than I thought; I seem to have all these other comic strips to do for some reason. :)

But Carbondale is where I'm bound, as the 2008 con season kicks off. I'll also be making an appearance at GAMA, so if you know a retailer (or can pretend to be one) visiting Las Vegas later this month, you can see us at Bally's. While I wasn't prepared for my first GAMA (I wasn't quite clear on the concept of a trade show), Cristi and I did like driving(!) back to Kansas City with a car loaded to the roof with free stuff, mostly for her classroom (especially a Yahtzee variant called "Dino-Dice").

In preparation for the time on the road, I'm hoping that this weekend will be the first one where I'm armed with this little gizmo. I bought an unlocked one used off of eBay for the sole purpose of having something that has Word on it that can actually be opened and used on an airplane (even if I didn't have "cartoonist's paunch," I don't see how anyone can open a laptop on most planes and still view the screen, unless they have about a foot of spine removed). Hopefully, I'll have a ton more to do this year, writing-wise, and this little QWERTY-key thing might just do the trick when out and about.

I'm not going to harp on the G.I. Joe film again this week (except to post this marvelously funny "blog" of a COBRA recruit). No, there is worse evil afoot: A remake of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure." I hate to sound like a friend of mine who can't stomach the idea of updating Star Trek, but this seems... really off. Bill and Ted were such a product of the 80's that updating it seems like remaking "Midway," but in the present without all that World War II stuff cluttering things up. I have to scratch my head sometimes at the seeming reluctance to do something new. Besides, love him or hate him, wasn't one Keanu Reeves enough? :)

Battlestar Galactica returns this Friday (and I shall have to PVR it, so no spoilers before Monday, and that means YOU), and I can't wait. So far, the show has been a highlight on the SciFi network, almost making up for "Flash Gordon." There's a trailer here for the new season, which is really more of a recap than anything else. There's also word of a prequel movie again, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Tuesday was April Fool's Day, and while I didn't have time to pull something over on everyone, a few humorous things crossed my web browser:

- City of Heroes introduces visual sound effects. Adam West probably wept with joy.
- World of Warcraft introduces the Bard class.
- WoW is also coming to consoles with The Molten Core. Click the trailer at the lower-right bottom of the page. This is especially funny for those of us who had Atari-level tech as kids.
- Now you can be Rick-Rolled by the Muppets.

In addition to convention time this summer, the wife and I are trying to remodel (or at least, repaint) a few areas in our humble abode. The office will be getting its first facelift since I moved in over a decade ago (I shall miss the cracks that I named after our nation's faultlines), and an upstairs bathroom will get some seeing-to since it decided to make its displeasure with us known in the same manner as an incontenant cat. The stain in the ceiling over our bed, unfortunately, doesn't resemble any religious icons, so selling the drywall on eBay for funds isn't an option. So if I start blogging about hammers, saws, contractors, and cave-ins, you know the source of my inspiration.

But now it's Happy Hour, and the links are on me:

- A game I meant to post last week: Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam! You're a jolly good British hero, out to rescue her majesty using your chain-gun to invade the Steam Fortress! Good show, and pip-pip! As a bonus, it contains the Wilhelm Scream in-game!
- Jason Reitman is currently best-known for the film "Juno," but apparently he made a nifty short film (language warning and vehicular whammo warning) called In God We Trust, which is a semi-humorous look at one man dealing with the afterlife.
- Terry Pratchett's fight with Alzheimers has touched a lot of his readers and fans, and now you can hear the man himself speak about it. Part 2 of his talk is here.
- Being told that you're not "up" enough when on the job? Just pick up a happy worker kit and show the boss you're a team player!
- This cake is not a lie.
- I would wager few have ever heard "Sweet Home Alabama" as performed by a Finnish rock band backed by the Red Army Choir.
- This falls under the category of brilliantly useless.
- A review of the MMO played all over the world, "Outside." I think I'm grinding right now, actually...
- I didn't even know I was playing, but apparently, I lost the game (see "artist's comments" for details).
- A game that's not meant to be impossible, but sure can seem that way, Crazy Graviton combines pong and breakout with some phun physics. Use mouse and keyboard to defeat all of the "bad" nanoparticles.

I just realized why Stargate "works."

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:24:37 GMT

A few weeks ago, a reader asked why I watched any Stargate series, why I found it worthwhile. At first, I thought it was that I'd enjoyed the movie, got hooked on the ongoing storylines when it came to SciFi from Showtime, the great chemistry of the actors, etc. But tonight, I had a revelation.

I saw this 'trailer' for the Marvel comic book 'event' called "The Secret Invasion." Basically, the Skrulls, a shape-shifting race, have figured out how to imitate the powers of more than just the Fantastic Four (I STILL think the second FF movie bit where Johnny got everyone's powers was a "let's have a Super-Skrull without the Skrulls" cop-out, but I digress) and have embarked on a takeover of Earth. There's a religious aspect to it, but think "Invasion of the Body-Snatchers" with superheroes. Anyway, this has got to be the umpteenth time the Earth has been confronted with an alien menace. From Galactus to the Kree, Marvel's Earth has had more brushes with extraterrestrials than the grocery store tabloids could keep up with.

So this was something I'd thought about for ps238: If the planet gets invaded even just once, something should change, especially if humans can get their hands on the technology left behind after E.T.'s tuchis was kicked past Mars. Stargate does that, which is rare in televised science fiction. Few and far between are the shows that make a staple out of seizing and using alien tech. Very often, it's conveniently destroyed, locked away, or forgotten by the protagonists.

However, SG-1 started doing things like grabbing these "Zat guns" that their enemeies were using (which also gave the writers a handy "stun gun" device, since it's hard to subdue someone with a P-90 machine gun), making them a standard weapon in their own ranks. Eventually, the Air Force built space-fighers that were a hybrid of our aircraft and the "Death Gliders" that the Goa'uld used. Then they even made big ol' starships as well. Looking back, I'm hard pressed to find a series that did this. It's the sci-fi equivalent of wondering why the heroes in a movie often won't pick up the bad guys' laser rifles after they knock out a squad of armored baddies with mere clubs.

Star Trek occasionally used newfound gizmos, but it was spotty. Voyager had some Borg tech that they'd reference sometimes, but in my opinion, that show would have been MUCH improved if the ship had evolved over time (and the same goes for the crew) as part of the "voyage home."

Stargate: Atlantis is pretty much all about adapting new tech (although it's mostly poking it with a stick and hoping it doesn't blow up the galaxy a lot of the time). While the sets may be fakey and the characters aren't as completely charming as the orignal SG-1 cast (how can you top MacGyver, really?), it's got enough of that "if we show you technology X, expect to see it again if our heroes get a hold of it" vibe that keeps me wondering what'll happen next.

Although, to be honest, the shows I'm mostly looking forward to are "Sarah Connor" and "Supernatural." Oh yes, and the new season of Doctor Who (one of the spoileriffic trailers for which can be seen here).

In other sci-fi news, "Torchwood" will have a radio broadcast this summer that apparenlty bridges a gap between a very eventful second season finale and a remodeled 3rd season. I sure hope mp3s of the broadcast become available...

And now a link-le something for the weekend:

- All right, you primitive screw-heads! This... is your Boomstick! While only the name bears any relationship with "Army of Darkness," this a fun little shooting game that puts me in the mind of the coloful "Vectrex" games of my misspent youth.
- Mainstream video gaming got you down? This nifty little site called Bytten reviews indy video games for our edification. I kind of like the sound of this one, which puts me in mind of the old game Superhero League of Hoboken.
- I'm a big fan of puzzle games (I have a continuous game of PopCap's "Bookworm" on an old laptop that I've been playing for over 4 years while on the road), so Word Freak was right up my alley. It's a good little timed word-finder game that I'm sure your future nursing home neurologist will be glad you played.
- Any "Freakazoid" fans out there? I recently saw "This Film is Not Yet Rated" again, which put me in the mind of this animated Jack Valenti send up as he explains how movies are rated.
- Harkening back to the suggestions for new energy drinks to try, "Bawls" has come out with g33k b33r, a root-beer flavored beverage with loads of caffeine and guarana.
- Zombies are always fun, and alert reader Davoid shows us how they can be decorative additions for your yard or garden. Someone needs to make solar lights that look like an undead hand is thrusting up from the soil, holding a light bulb...
- And while we all know robots will eventually take over the world, they're apparently going to start by replacing our drummers. Be sure to watch the videos of this mini-Ringo in action.