I Kill People For Money

The Future of Marvel Universe figures

2011-02-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

Looking back at the rundown of figures I'd like to see back in July (holy crap, has it really been that long?), I've seen some new upcoming figures from Hasbro, some of which fit the bill of what I was looking for. Let's see what we've got:

As noted shortly after my last post, there's a first appearance Wolverine coming out. Nice indeed.

These First Class Cyclops and Marvel Girl aren't exactly first appearance accurate, but they're close enough. I'll take 'em. Now I just hope for the remaining three members.

We're finally getting a Sue Storm figure, in a Fantastic Four team pack with Ben, Reed, and H.E.R.B.I.E. (replacing Johnny just as he did in the classic cartoon). I can live with that.

Finally, we have a Falcon figure, with, of course, Redwing. Could the other Pet Avengers be far behind?

All images courtesy of toyark.com

Marvel Universe figures I'd like to see

2010-07-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

A while back, despite not being a fan of 3.75 inch figures on the whole, I got into collecting the Marvel and DC lines of figures (Marvel Universe and DC Universe: Infinite Heroes, respectively). Although my collection started out slowly due to the figures being so bleedin' expensive for that scale ($7-10, which is the same price range that the larger versions of those figures were going for just before these lines hit), eventually I started finding some on sale and clearance, as well as a few cheap ones on Amazon and eBay, and now altogether, between the two, I probably have around thirty figures, including a much larger Skrull Giant Man. Most of these are Marvel figures, as the DC figures are rarely on sale and the local stores don't have as enticing of a selection as they do of Marvel.

Recently, whilst setting up my newest batch on a shelf, I began to ponder which figures I'd like to have in my collection that hadn't been made already. Thus, this list. Some of the figures might make more sense in other Marvel 3.75 lines (and in fact, I actually suggest a subline by itself in the list), but for simplicity sake, I've lumped them all together. By the way, if any reps from Hasbro happen to come across this and decide to crib some ideas from here, I won't raise a fuss ;)

So, without further ado, in now particular order, I present the list!

The Deadpool Corps
It's no secret that Deadpool is one of Marvel's most popular characters right now, what with his appearing in a dozen titles a month (a feat that he actually mocked Wolverine for), plus appearances in several modern Marvel video games, the Hulk vs. Wolverine animated film, and a role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine that has led to his own spin-off. Being an overly violent character who is also insane, funny, and is a frequent breaker of the fourth wall, it's easy to see why he's so well-liked.

Deadpool himself started out as a semi-parody of DC's Deathstroke the Terminator. Likewise, when he was given his own team to lead (The Deadpool Corps), its existence became a pastiche of different superhero teams, most notably DC's Green Lantern Corps. Interestingly enough, Ryan Reynolds, who portrayed Deadpool in the Wolverine movie and is set to reprise the role in his own film, is also playing as Green Lantern in a film.

The roots of The Deadpool Corps. has its roots in a mini-series called Deadpool: Merc With a Mouth. The disembodied head of the zombie Deadpool (from the Marvel Zombies universe) landed in the standard Marvel universe (henceforth to be referred to as Earth-616), and was being worshiped in the Savage Land. Deadpool was sent to retrieve the head, as it was being treated as a biological weapon (due to its zombifying bite). Through a series of crossing dimensions to attempt to return the head to its own world, Deadpool came across several alternate dimension versions of himself, including an army major (working for the "United States of Canada"), Wild West gunslinger, and a distaff counterpart.

Later, due to an intergalactic crisis, Deadpool was recruited to form a team. Crossing dimensions again, he picked up the female version of himself ("Lady Deadpool"), a child version ("Kidpool"), a canine counterpart ("Dogpool"), and the disembodied zombie head ("Headpool").

There are a couple of different ways that I can think of that would be handy in the release of The Deadpool Corps as action figures. One method would be to collect all five in one box set; alternatively, they could be released in the original line, with smaller members accompanying the larger: Deadpool could come with Dogpool, Lady Deadpool and Kidpool would be together, and then maybe Zombie Deadpool would be his own figure, but with a detachable head and a beanie accessory.

The Pet Avengers
Sort of a modern-day Marvel version of the Legion of Super-Pets, the Pet Avengers are a whimsical super hero team composed of the animal sidekicks of known heroes and other Marvel animal characters. Hasbro might actually be edging toward this release, as the last two waves have included Lockheed with Kitty Pryde, and Ms. Lion with Mary Jane. In the future, I'd like to see combo releases of Falcon/Redwing, Speedball/Hairball, Ka-Zar/Zabu, Thor/Throg, and either Black Bolt/Lockjaw or (since Lockjaw is so large), Lockjaw/Puppy.

Squirrel Girl
My second favorite Marvel character (after Deadpool), Squirrel Girl is an innocent-looking, happy-go lucky throwback to the golden age of comics. She also occasionally breaks the fourth wall, and although her perceived abilities are lame on first glance (talking to squirrels, retractable little knuckle claws, and a prehensile tail - she's been able to beat some of the mightiest villains in the Marvel universe. This makes her undeniably badass. She would obviously come with several of her squirrel sidekicks.

Hulked-Out Heroes
During the World War Hulks storyarc (or maybe it was Fall of the Hulks... I dunno), many prominent heroes became irradiated with gamma rays, transforming these already powerful lads and lasses into berserk monstrosities with severely upgraded powers. The body count included the likes of Wolverine, Cyclops, Deadpool, Spider-Man, Thor, Storm, Human Torch, and many more. Getting at least one or two of these folks into the Marvel Universe line should be no problem.

Invisible Woman
Not terribly one that I'd be excited for, but she's the only member of the core Fantastic Four to not show up in the line yet.

Kick Ass & Hit-Girl
I haven't read the book or seen the film yet, and I know they're not part of the standard Marvel universe, but I'd really like to see figures of at least Kick Ass and Hit-Girl of this scale, even if they were just released under the standard Kick Ass figure line (which I'm not even sure who produces that line... meh.)

Galacta
Having read the one-shot that came out back in May, I found the daughter of Galactus to be one of the more endearing (and adorable) characters I'd come across in comics in some time.

Venom (Mac Gargan version)
I know Eddie is the definitive Venom in most peoples' eyes, but Mac Gargan is the most recent one. Yeah, they have "Dark Spider-Man" coming out soon, but that's not the same. Strangely enough, in the current Spider-Man line, they have art for Gargan venom all over the place, but the only Venom figure of the line is Brock.

First Appearance X-Men
I'm pretty sure Toy Biz or someone made a set like this for the old line back in the day, but I'd like them in MU scale. Ol' Slim Summers, Marvel Girl, snowy-looking Iceman, human Beast, and bazooka-wielding Angel together in one set. And speaking of which...

First Appearance Wolverine
Straight out of The Incredible Hulk #180 and 181!
EDIT: Looks like this one's been confirmed!

'90's Rogue
'90's big-hair Rogue just like the one that was used in the animated series at the time. 'Nuff said.

Marvel Movie Classics
The Iron Man 2 and X-Men Origins lines seem to have done well, so how about revisiting some of the beloved movie characters of the last few years in a sub-line? I'd love to have the movie versions of Green Goblin, Beast, Hannibal King, Invisible Woman, and more in this scale.

What's My Motivation?

2010-07-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't been keeping up on my blog. I haven't been keeping up on my TMNT fangame. I haven't been keeping up on my Wiki or even my custom action figures. I've basically been slacking on all of my projects.

But why?

I just really have not had the drive to keep my nose to the metaphorical grindstone when it comes to these activities that I normally would take great joy in. However, there has to be an underlying cause. What could it be? I'm banking on several factors, actually.

First, may be my job. It's always been tough, but at least when I was still fresh and green, I used to go home and feel like I've accomplished something, like I've really made a difference in the world. Now I go home and just feel like passing out on the couch. I'm not going to say too much, not only because I signed an N.D.A., but also because I know writing about one's job in a public blog has a way of coming back to bite them in the ass... but to simplify things, I feel as if I am, personally, being treated poorer than a majority of the staff. I've been here three-and-a-half years, work myself into exhaustion every day, and yet, slackers that have been here a much shorter time get praise, attention, and promotions out the wazoo. The only employee that I am aware of currently, that is being treated worse, I am actually able to see why: he takes forever to accomplish the simplest tasks, he rarely pays attention to what's going on around him, and he lets management walk all over him. That final reason is my theory on why he's even still employed. I do none of those and yet I still feel like I'm getting kicked in the head every day.

There are dozens of other things about this job that just keep piling up day after day, that really grind my gears to the point of erosion. Of particular note is the fact that the lousiest son of a bitch I've ever met, who started this job after me, has been my direct supervisor for two years now.

The problem is, I really don't have any truly useful job skills. Sure, I took some A+ and MCSE classes back in 2003/2004, but I was never able to complete the tests, and furthermore, everything that I do remember from those courses (which is very little) is obsolete. This job doesn't pay well enough for me to go back to school, so I'm in a veritable stalemate in the working world. I really can't go back to food services or sales, because, other than those jobs not paying very well, I've already proved myself incapable of knowing what the hell I'm doing in either vocation. I find it way too hard to keep up on today's technology trends and even am feeling like a technophobic old man when I see all of these newfangled, useless pieces of shit like HDTVs and iPads.

A further extension of my work woes that kind of gets me down is the fact that I can't afford to live in anything more than my dumpy little apartment. I'm glad to be out on my own, but a small one bedroom in a dilapidated old building in the middle of the ghetto isn't exactly my dream home. I live on the third floor with no air conditioning, causing it to get well over one hundred degrees in the summer even when it's only 80-something outside. I've got work orders still in the queue since I first moved in two-and-a-half years ago, and there are some general maintenance on the building (malfunctioning call box, broken banister, shitty stairs, potholed parking lot) that work has been promised on for a long time coming, as well. And get this - they just upped my rent almost fifty bucks for "continued repair and maintenance". Bull. I'd like to move somewhere else, but everywhere around here is either out of my price range, or even worse.

Ah, but of course I could move out of town or state, right? Or, y'know, not. First off, I'd like to ensure that I'd have a job wherever I move, and for whatever reason, even though they just let a guy move out of the state and keep his job as remote, I was told a year ago - when I asked about the same deal (moving to the same state, even - Hawai'i), that nobody on the analyst team would be given the opportunity to work remotely.

Secondly, I have an excruciatingly overbearing family. As stated before, I've been out on my own for two-and-a-half years, and I just turned twenty-five. Yet, they seem to believe that they must talk to me every day. It's really irritating and inconvenient to boot. If I'm not online by a certain time (or just not on MSN messenger), they call me and ask what I'm doing. If I am online, and I just happen to be busy or away from the computer, they constantly message me over and over until I answer, or if enough time has elapsed, they call me. Every time I try to state my case about not having to jump to their beck and call they get extremely defensive and/or emo about it. I can't seem to get the fact through their heads that I have my own life and should not have to plan my activities around their every whim.

To compound matters worse, they suckered me into going to visit them every weekend. They used the enticements of free meal, laundry service, and shopping transportation (since I do not drive) to get me over there every Saturday. I've tried a few times to take matters into my own hands, letting them know I am capable of doing my own laundry as well as securing my own storebound transportation, but then my mum plays the health card. She had a heart attack two weeks to the day after I moved out and her health is steadily declining, and bless her I'm really worried about her, but she uses it to her advantage to get me to stick around. She's always saying how she's afraid that if I don't come over every week that whenever she saw me last would be the last time ever, and she even threatened to keel over with another heart attack if I moved out of the state. She was totally serious and knowing how stubborn she is, I'm pretty damn sure she'd do it, too. I mean, most of the time, I don't mind going over there, and the services they're offering me to go there are much more convenient than going it alone, but sometimes they make it feel like such a damn chore to go, especially when they start making me do things when I'm over there. I'm over there to visit and I get told what to do like I'm still living under their roof.

So I just need a vacation then. A real, nice vacation. First one I took was more of a stay-cation and I still ended up spending more than half of that time with my parents anyway. My second one was a total dream come true for a bit over a week in Ohio, but that was well over a year ago. I've got a drive to go to Japan sometime within the next year or so, but unfortunately, my sick days and vacation days are the same thing (called "P.T.O." - Personal Time Off), and due to several likely factors, I've been really fucking sick quite often. I'm guessing a majority of it is because of stress - because of the above grievances and more - but also because I work in, as a co-worker of mine puts it, a "cesspool". It is always filthy here and any management-mandated cleaning rules are ignored by the employees and nobody catches hell for it even when I complain about it. Not only that, we have a "shared workstation" environment (one of the many ways this company makes me feel if I'm still in a public school), so we share desks, computers, chairs, and phones amongst one another. And as I said before, the office is a disgusting place to work and I feel like I need a shower from just sitting down in each morning.

I guess if I were a little bit more outgoing, I could relieve a lot of this stress. But unfortunately, I am not outgoing enough to just go out and make new friends, and the ones I do have are either busy (families/work/schooling), out of town/state, or dead. And even those friends of mine that I do still have any semi-regular access to, a lot of them find getting wasted to be a good way to spend time, and not only do I not drink, but I feel very uncomfortable around (most) people who get drunk. Another unfortunate catch-22 in my life, I guess....

Speaking of friends that fit into that latter category, I guess another reason that nullifies my drive to do anything is the fact that even now, after two years after she's been gone, I still can't get over losing Tasha. Even now, to this day, I find myself missing her more than ever and damn it, it's depressing, and it's even worse this week because of her birthday on Wednesday. Of course, it's not like someone like her comes along every day, and especially considering the relationship we had, it's truly heartbreaking. But not only that, she was someone I could go out and do stuff with, have a lot of fun, and truly feel alive. I had a recursion of that during my vacation last year but that's been it. I don't have a stable tether to which I can have continuous reliance on. If either of my readers are familiar with the T.V. show Lost, I guess you could say that Tasha was my Constant; without her, I'm just aimlessly floating through time....

Meh... I think I've actually made myself feel worse by airing all of this out instead of better. I think I'm gonna go eat a Hot Pocket or somethin'....

War of the Words

2010-04-29T11:07:00.000-07:00

Few things bother me more than the rapidly declining state of education. In a world where it takes some form of intelligence at least, to run things, ignorance and idiocy still seem to reign supreme. Sure, like everything, there can be a downside to being intelligent - one can appear to be elitist or condescending based on his or her perchance to throw their intellectual weight around. Furthermore, even the smartest of people have the tendency to be incorrect on occasion - and sometimes, on a regular basis - but because of said individual's intelligence level and the trappings it brings, he or she will refuse to acknowledge such.

Still, I would much rather be smart and conceited than dumb as a post any time. There are just so many rewards that come with knowledge that I can't see anybody preferring the opposite. What benefit would not knowing things bring?

Amongst the most irritating of these is language. It is said that if something is in enough commonplace, it shall become acceptable when regarding language. So many words in English today mean something completely different than they did a couple of decades ago. However, I'd like to think there is a fine line between words developing new meanings, or new words appearing, due to evolution of the language, and the words changing meaning through ignorance or stupidity - in which the words should never change. I never want to see things like "would of" becoming officially recognized English in place of "would have/would've". Negatives of the double variety and higher should never become such commonplace that it is widely accepted.

There is room for error and entertainment when it comes to this. Typographical errors are accomplished by everyone at some time in each life. Each one of those also has those "problem words" - a word that, regardless of its difficulty, is tough or nigh-impossible for a specific individual to spell. There is also purposeful misuse of language for joviality or reenactment - done purposely for entertainment value.

Also acceptable in my book is the use of more casual language for a casual crowd. My normal patterns of speech are actually overly formal, with heavy doses of "thee"s, "thou"s, "ye"s, and the like, in addition to constructing a fifteen-plus word sentence to say something that can be summed up in three or less. However, when around those I am more familiar with (or individuals in which I sense would be put off by this style), I go a bit more casual. Essentially it's almost as if "dumbing" myself down, although it only feels this way if I have to do this because someone is unable to understand me. Therefore, whereas I might normally say "The lot of ye is composed of naught but of diminished sanity", I can shorten it to the more colloquial and grammatically incorrect "Ya'lls is nuts".

I also have come around to the usage of some internet shorthand, especially when it is necessary. If one is not very skilled or swift in typing, abbreviations, acronyms, and other general shortened terms may be necessary to get one's point across in a timely manner in such things as instant messaging, chat rooms, and text messaging. Case in point, as I do not text message with my cell phone all of the time, my speed is lacking in said action. Thus, I have whittled down a majority of what I would normally type, as I was getting tired of taking 20 minutes to respond to a text that someone took less than a minute to send me. This, however, should not be acceptable when it comes to professional matters. You wouldn't believe how many times I see persons of high standing in a business use terms like "plz" and "kthx" when typing what should be a formal request to someone in another company.

The reason all of this comes up, actually has to do with my parents. I don't know if it's something more recent, or if it's just because I haven't lived with them in some time, but I'm finding that some of their grammar is so atrocious that I can't figure out what the hell they're trying to say sometimes. It's like trying to read a majority of the posts on lamebook.com: you're liable to get a headache trying to understand. Sadly, this is not exclusive to typing, but in vocal speech as well.

Examples that stick out to me include misspelled words in which the original intended word is unknown, incorrect pronouns, and just plain jumbled up parts of speech that leave one's mind boggled. And yet, if I don't understand them, apparently, I'm to blame. "You're so smart you can figure out what we say". Well, even the world's most foremost linguists can't decipher the Voynich manuscript.

Double, triple, and even quadruple negatives that pepper their dialogue also cause headaches when the intended meaning is obscured. A sentence using "don't not no never" to refer to the same subject is just insane.

The most recent brain-breaking example, and the one that inspired me to write this post, was this past weekend. I had finally convinced my parents to replace their almost nonfunctional computer from 3+ years ago with a new one. For whatever reason, my father wanted to use the old one (which mind you, is so slow that it takes 5 minutes to load Google) in their bedroom, and with the internet. However, and I could not figure out why, it would refuse to recognize their wireless router in that room, although it had done so in the living room. It was not that the signal was nonexistent, as I was able to log onto the internet with my PSP right next to the computer.

Anyway, my mother made a suggestion that completely splintered my brain into thousands of pieces, using (as I now understand it) "that modem" to refer to two different modems, and "there" to refer to three different locations, although there was no context to clue me in as to what she had meant. Upon visibly struggling with her sentence structure, she went off on me, citing how I should be "smart enough to make up for [her] lack of use of technical terms". This was in spite of the fact that she used the correct technical terms of the sentence (modem, computer), but failed to string them together in anything coherent.

As I tried explaining things to her, it just made things worse. Her rant began to extend to the fact that I don't spend any time with "normal people" any more, and how I only am pointing out her faulty grammar due to the fact that "everybody" I associate with anymore (work, internet, friends) are "nerd people". She then kept attacking just about everyone that she's ever met that has been a friend or associate of mine for the past ten years, then strangely devolving into making up names for people I didn't know. She then segued clumsily into how I needed to find a "normal girl" to be able to understand "normal people" again, somehow dragging into it that the only girls I knew were "from the internet" and either "stupid", "strange", or "porn" (this despite the fact that she knows nothing about the people I've met online, and the fact that the only porn I come across is diving through the scum of the internet whilst at work).

So anyway... yeah. Apparently, my mother, the woman that had told me for years to value my education and take the fullest advantage of it, is convinced that my social life is to blame for the fact that she makes less sense than a surrealist film. I wouldn't even have as much of a problem with her and my father's lack of grammatical structure, if it weren't for the fact that they grossly overreact to my efforts to grasp their intent.

Rantings and Ponderings

2010-03-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

Recently, a... let's say a "debate" broke out between friends of mine regarding religion. While both made good points, I really did not have my full say in the discussion, only interjecting a sentence or two here or there. This, is my full reaction to the discussion.

The debate in question was regarding the secularization of religious beliefs. The catalyst is the popular Facebook game FarmVille, which the owners (Zynga, Inc.) has chosen to pave over religious references with secular 'synonyms' such as "holiday trees" for Christmas trees, and "Spring eggs" for Easter eggs. This struck a nerve with one very close friend, who is very religious. Another friend believes that this is for the best, as it is a bit more inclusive to those outside of the Christian religion.

Before I dish out my take on the subject, let's go for a little stroll through my background. I was raised Christian, but began rejecting the religion in my teens. I had only seen the zealous, oppressive side of the religion, and I began taking interest in other ones. However, through this endeavor, I not only learned about the good in other religions, but how the Christianity I knew was twisted and perverted from what I had encountered earlier in my life. Not only that, my perspective on OTHER religions back in those times was equally distorted in a completely different way.

Then there was Tasha. Anybody who really knows me knows who she was, and who she was... IS to me. I taught Tasha just about everything I know, but one of the few things she retained from her old life was her nigh-unwavering faith. Sure, she wasn't exactly a saint, and she did poke fun at her religion from time to time, but she stuck with it more than most other people I know. Only toward the end of her time with us did she question certain aspects, but she ultimately never lost her way. It still breaks my heart when I hear the words she said to me one night echo in my head:

"Pops... am... am I going to hell?"

Tasha, sensing her time was near (although this was before her remission and the cancer's eventual return), was afraid that what those zealous members of her own faith were shouting was true. Tasha found amorous love exclusively with other women. Yet, everywhere she went, she was faced by everyone from parishioners to the clergy, telling her that she would not make it into heaven.

If there is a heaven, and I do believe there is, I do have faith that Tasha made it. Despite skirting some minor laws and being way too fond of the drink, she was generally a sweet, kind woman who prayed several times a day, made it to church when she had the ability to, and believed in Jesus Christ as her personal savior.

Throughout my entire life, I've always promoted peace and kindness, love for one another, and happiness for all. It has only grown as time has moved on, and my study of various religions and mythologies has only strengthened it, serving as the catalyst to advocate acceptance between faiths. Tasha's life gave me another perspective, and unfortunately, it took her passing to trigger it. Because of her steadfast belief, I eventually came to the decision that I would study to become a man of the cloth. I have since achieved said title, becoming an ordained minister of non-denominational Christianity.

Despite all of this, I still have trouble calling myself a true, 100% Christian, myself. I know, I'm a clergyman now, but this is the way I am. I continue to study other religions and myths and take what I can from them to my own belief. If you don't like this, well, I do have an egg that has been in my refrigerator for about a year, and I invite you to place it firmly between your cheeks and suck on it.

(Actually, to be perfectly honest, I should probably get that sickening thing out of there, but that's completely off-point).

Anyway, trying to dovetail back to the original point at hand, despite all of the connection I have with this world's faith-based belief systems, I still do not find my agnostic and atheist brothers and sisters to be abhorrent monsters, as some people do. To think that those who do not choose to side with a religion are devilish and uncaring, is just as ridiculous of a notion as saying that those who do follow a religion are stupid and weak; it's just not true. As with a majority of the people in this world, I do not judge them for their convictions.

Bringing this all back (if you know me well enough, you know how I can run on tangents longer than the running time of the entire Lord of the Rings film trilogy, so this is actually "keeping it short"), I do have to say that, yes, throwing these blanket terms over things to conceal their religious origins is absurd and offensive. It isn't staying objective or a peaceful means to satisfy multiple parties, it's a blatant catering to one side. And not even the entirety of one side - it's a small minority thereof.

It's bad enough that religious holidays are being secularized and turned into another quick buck by marketing ass-hats, but to rename them is like sucking out the last fiber of its spiritual identity. And it's not just Christian holidays; around the world, other religions are being absorbed into the ether as well. How long will it be until we're seeing commercials on TV blaring out that you need to get your kids presents for Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, AND Christmas (as well as any other December holidays I may be forgetting... it IS past my bedtime as I'm writing this and I am quite sleepy....)? Now imagine if they were given generic names, like "Winter Day" or "Decembermas". It's a damn slap in the face!

Let's put it this way: say there were and article or a book written all about you. Just you, nothing else. However, instead of your name, you are only referred to be your gender or job title. They're not making vague reference to you, or using you to set up a story or rant; this piece of literature is about your life and/or accomplishments. So, let's say that everybody is still aware of this being a written piece of work about you. Wouldn't that still feel like you've been punched in the gut? It's obscuring your identity for some dumb reason, like your name not being marketable enough or something, to leave in the writings. Now what if this were to happen to two billion people? Don't you think this would blow a few gaskets here and there?

Now, this kind of avoidance in holidays isn't exclusive to those outside Christianity. Those within the religion that hold blatant disregard for people who do not believe the same as them are often guilty of this same injustice. Hallowe'en is a Pagan or Satanist religion and any God fearing Christian wouldn't be caught dead celebrating it, right? Or, y'know, you can just let your kid put on a spooky mask, nab some candy, and be back before bedtime. Of course, everybody is free to believe what they want to - it's in the damn Constitution after all - but it's when ya start to call out others because of your personal beliefs that it starts to bug me.

Take, for instance, a message board I came across at work last year. There was a flood of people bitching and moaning about how a Best Buy advertisement was wishing their Muslim customers a happy Eid Al-Adha. I just thought to myself "Well, isn't that swell of them to do? Sure it might be a marketing ploy to attract a customer or two, but they're still wishing people well. I approve!" But no, these rednecks went on a rampage, tearing Best Buy apart for "supporting terrorists" and "refusing to acknowledge Christmas" but instead making reference to this holiday - this in spite of the fact that the damn paper was printed in November (when Eid Al-Adha actually is observed), and a Best Buy representative commented on the board stating that they already had Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas themed papers ready to produce during those appropriate times. You bet your sweet ass he or she was readily ignored. (In retrospect, research does show that Best Buy favored "holiday" in place of any specifically named celebrations, but this was back in 2006 - they went right back to acknowledging holidays by name the following year).

So, what if you're non-Christian and still want to celebrate the holiday without it being tied to all of that "religious hoodoo"? That's your right! Japan's been doing it with Christmas for fucking decades! But this all goes back to how it irks me so, that people attempt to push what they think is right onto others. Secularize it for yourself, not others! If you want to still call it Easter or St. Patrick's day, or whatever, have at you. If you want to call it Baba Ghanoush Day, you can do that as well! The important thing is to not tinker with others' enjoyment for the day. In order to achieve peace, we must celebrate one another's differences as well as what we have in common, not slap a new name on their stuff, retrofit it, and call it ours!

Now, unfortunately, this debacle (as well as other reasons) has caused the first friend to abandon FarmVille. To this friend, I wish all of the luck in the world. Although this unnecessary paving over faith does bother me, I still will likely continue the game and to acquire the offending items, as well, me boycotting the game will not cause any effects other than maybe freeing up 25 minutes of my day altogether. It isn't damaging Zynga in any way to quit, and I still have fun playing it. But this is a personal choice of my own, just as the absence of my friend's presence from the game is strictly a choice of this person's.

In closing, I'd just like to say that we as a people, as a society, spend way too much time squabbling over petty differences. We should all be accepting of one another, as long as you're not a smelly sloth of a supervisor. We should all be uniting as one and promoting harmony amongst one another.

I'm out.

"There are too many men, too many people, making too many problems... and not much love to go 'round. Can't you see this is the land of confusion? This is the world we live in, and these are the hands we're given. Use them and let's start trying, to make it a place worth fighting for.

Killing in the name of...

2010-03-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

Whilst bored at work, I decided to Google the phrase "i kill people for money" (sans quotes).

This blog came up on page one. Not bad.

Strangely enough, the domain I own, ikillpeopleformoney.com, is not even in the top five pages.

Weird.

Weak Week, Or How I Dropped The Bean and Learned to Love the (Legal) Leaf

2010-03-10T14:43:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been a few months since the last update, but I guess it is to be expected seeing as how I never received the feedback I requested in my last post (thanks a lot!) Never mind the fact that I honestly couldn't think of a direction to take my next post for the longest time...

Anyway, I decided to write, this time, about something directly on my mind at the moment. This is the fact that I have given up coffee. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to some of you that do not know me very well, but rest assured, it is.

I've been an insomniac since the age of fifteen. It's not a constant insomnia - it comes and goes. But the fact of the matter is, it has been an intrusion in my life for nearly a decade. And unfortunately, it was this insomnia that led to my coffee dependency. Whereas most individuals will experience insomnia due to the use of coffee, my use was but a weapon against the side effects of insomnia. For you see, due to the fact that I would be awake for days at a time, then come crashing down in the middle of class. But in an another unfortunate turn of events, after consuming an adequate amount of coffee to keep myself aloft, it would often restart the clock, and I would end up not sleeping well again for a while.

Although the insomnia was often temporary, I stayed with the coffee. Eventually, I became dependent on it. Even when I was sleeping well, I was unable to function without a big ol' steamin' cup o' java or two (or three, or four, or...). This especially became apparent when I started my first real job back in 2006. Working sometimes 10, 11 hours a day really put a strain on my ability to stay awake without replacing my blood with pure caffeine.

Eventually, some time after moving out to my own place, I made the decision to not drink coffee on Sundays - reason being, I would be up late weekend nights, typically sleep in late Sunday morning (that is, when I could sleep at all), and if I consumed coffee, I'd have a better chance of not sleeping well that night.

This lasted all of three weeks. Longer than I had actually expected of myself, to be fair, but I starting drinking the stuff one random Sunday in which I was especially tired at mid-day, and hadn't looked back since.

Over the past year or so, I have made a few attempts to quit completely, but I ended up falling off the wagon and right back into the mug each time. My longest previous attempt lasted a total of 16 hours, and that was on New Year's of 2010.

Fortunately, a combination of events transpired that has given me the opportunity to go on my largest coffee abstinence period since the first fifteen years of my life. Monday of last week is the last time the sweet bitter bean has passed into my system. I owe it to a few things, the first of which being a mention of Earl Grey tea on a recent episode of my most favored current TV show, Lost, rekindling my interest in said beverage. Another is Lent. Not being Catholic, I have never been much of an observer of the period sacrifice. However, I did so last year in an effort to better myself, even temporarily, as well as support the lass I was seeing at the time. I wanted to do it again this year as another bout at self-improvement, but I had actually forgotten when the period began and ended up only beginning last week.

I did not give up coffee last year due to the fact that I may just have ended up snapping and murdering everybody in my company. This year, however, I felt as if I would be able to more easily ween myself of coffee with the presence of tea, and also a better grasp at attempting self-control. It has not been easy. Whatever it is in coffee that keeps my motor running, it is not in full effect with tea. This is true even of super-caffeinated teas, so I'm theorizing that it may have been something else in the coffee that gave it its kick. Due to this, I need to drink approximately three times as much tea as I did coffee just to keep me awake, alive, and sane, and even then I still feel the burn of the day a bit more than with coffee. But I'm committed to sticking with this, as much as I can.

So will this, in effect, cause me to give up coffee for good, as I am hoping? Or will I end up right back on the drink after Lent (or, Lord forbid, prior to such)? Who really knows? Whatever happens, though, it shall continue to be an uphill battle.

Where To Go From Here

2010-01-06T18:26:00.000-08:00

If you're one of the two people who actively follow this blog, you've noticed a lack of updates for many moons. This is due to a lot of complication in my life over the past few months, thus leading to a lack of time or drive to write anything here.

The post I had planned on writing here months ago was to be the third part on TMNT for Dummies, about the violence in the series. However, that seems quite inadequate, seeing as how during my absence, the property has been completely bought by Viacom/Nickelodeon, and its future is completely up in the air.

So how do I proceed? Continue with business as usual? Write something about my thoughts and concerns over the TMNT sale? Or just whatever comes to mind?

Le'mme know.

TMNT For Dummies 2: Vintage '87

2009-06-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

For many, uttering the words "Ninja Turtles" will immediately conjure up memories of the 1987-1996 cartoon series produced by Murakami-Wolf Swenson (MWS) Films. And with good reason - this was the gateway to the Turtles for nearly everyone on the planet who are currently over ten years old - including myself. I have warm feelings for the old cartoon - if it weren't for that series, there's a chance I would not know who the Turtles are today.

But there lies a problem; for a majority of those who have ever called themselves fans of the TMNT, the MWS series (and likely the movies, video games, and toys released during its heyday) is/are all these folks are familiar with.

And there is a vast world outside this.

By today's standards, the old show is corny, cheesy, poorly animated (including with several dozen animation errors per season), and overall, kind of lame-ish. Now this is by today's standards. True, there is a lot of crap out there these days, but I'm pretty sure if the world were introduced to the Turtles through this series, this year, there'd be little chance of it surviving more than a season. Heck, I think we were lucky to get 7 seasons out of the 4Kids series.

But what really broils my briskets, are those people who refuse to see anything outside of this series and immediately poo-poo everything else. The most irritating of such are these kind of people:

(Person sees an Utrom) "Hey, that's Krang!"
(Person sees the Utrominator) "That's like some crappy rip-off of Krang!"
(Person sees Ch'rell, the Utrom Shredder) "Why is Krang, Shredder?"

The Utroms have been around since 1985 - two whole years prior to Krang. Krang, in fact, was partially inspired by the Utroms. However, other than a fleeting similarity in appearance, and the fact that they spend much of their time in the gut of an android, Krang and the Utroms are wholly different.

The Utroms, also known as the "TCRI Aliens", are a race of tentacled aliens that crash-landed on Earth long ago. A byproduct of their experiments resulted in the Retromutagen Ooze that mutated the Turtles and Leatherhead. On the whole, the Utroms are allies of the Turtles, as well as Leatherhead, who was adopted by the aliens. There are a few "bad eggs", however, such as a The Illuminated and the Utrom Preservi, as well as the Utrom Shredder from the 4Kids cartoon, Ch'rell.

The warlord Krang, however, lacks the extensive amount of tentacles that the Utroms have, and relies on just two of them, which are normally used to control and manipulate objects. Krang is also a disembodied brain, having been banished from his body and his home of Dimension X on the charge of war crimes. Being an actual brain, he actually looks more brain-like than the Utroms, who actually sort of resemble cephalopods in a way, as well. Krang is also a wee bit larger and heavier than his predecessors.

The most recent rash of Utrom/Krang buggery comes from the upcoming Wii (and according to some sources, PlayStation 2) game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-Up. The game includes a playable character called the Utrominator. Message boards and blogs across the internet accused this character of simply being an inferior version of Krang (although their choices of words were a bit more... colorful....), when in fact, the Utrominator is an upgraded version of Krang's predecessor. In the 2005 episode of the 4Kids series, Donatello is thrown into an alternate future where The Shredder rules supreme. Amongst his legions are brainwashed, and apparently undead, Utroms - some of which are in large mecha-like exoskeletons, which were named as Utrominators on 4Kids' website. Although it does not appear to be zombie-like in appearance as its animated counterpart is, nor is it known whether he is affiliated with Shredder or comes from the aforementioned dystopian future, Smash-Up's Utrominator is obviously drawn from this episode.

Another repetitive theme from these individuals, is the apparent need to have the MWS characters crammed into every aspect of the Turtles. As mentioned before, if these characters or themes are absent in some facet of the TMNT, they are looked down upon. The TMNT franchise has many interesting tales regardless of if they have these things or not, and should not be so easily dismissed simply because of such. I have read and heard countless times about how supposed fans of the series think 4Kids' show is "crap" because Bebop, Rocksteady, and Krang are not found in it. A co-worker of mine refused to accept the original Mirage version of Leatherhead as said character, simply because he was not the gumbo-eating stereotype he had seen in his youth. Smash-Up is being boycotted by many unless some of these characters are present. An online journalist claimed that Shredder's appearance on the title screen of Turtles in Time Re-Shelled (which I'll get to in a minute) is "how he is supposed to be". These are all accusations and meanderings of a society that is viewing a piece of their childhood through rose-tinted glasses, and now that said glasses have been taken from them, they are whining for them back.

Perhaps the most bizarre of these slanderings was the vast number of people who refused to see the fourth TMNT film because it "wouldn't be any good if Bebop/Rocksteady/Krang were not in it" - despite the fact that every single one of them had admitted to liking at least two out of the three previous films, none of which had either of these three characters in them!

Alas, there are items being released this year that are catered to the fans of the TMNT cartoon of the previous millennium. Playmates is periodically re-releasing twelve figures that were initially shipped back in the '80's and early '90's. Ubisoft is developing a 3D remake of the much-loved classic video game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time for the Xbox 360's "LIVE" service, and PlayStation 3's "Network", given the additional sub-title of "Re-Shelled". And later this year, 4Kids is to show off a new, direct-to-DVD animated film, which will feature the Turtles of the MWS series meeting their own incarnations of the Turtles, and it's been thus far confirmed that Bebop, Rocksteady, and the MWS versions of Splinter, April, and the Foot Soldiers will accompany them. The animation for these characters looks exactly like it did 20+ years ago, too, albeit a tad bit cleaner. Unfortunately, these characters seem to not have their original voice actors, which is already turning many away from what may end up being a stupendous project.

Reading through the above paragraphs, you may come to the conclusion that I in some way despise the MWS series, despite my earlier objection to such. Nothing could be further from the truth. If I hated the series even today, I would not be excited for this direct-to-DVD project or Turtles in Time Re-Shelled. I would not have purchased oodles of the merchandising even as recently as last month. I would not have pre-ordered all four individual discs of the MWS series' seventh season, which released last month. My concern is that since there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people claiming to be TMNT fans that are steadfast in their belief that the old cartoon/toys/movies/games are the only way to go when it comes to the Turtles, the newer (and in the case of the Mirage comics, older) stuff is losing out on a huge audience that could possibly push it forward into the next decade. As it is, the Tales of the TMNT comic may be dropped within the next year, and despite promises of Playmates delivering a wealth of new figures during the second half of their silver anniversary, many stores are dropping the line from their shelves.

My primary reason for these "TMNT For Dummies" posts, is to educate. I may come off a little snippy or heated about it from time-to-time, but that's because I'm so passionate about it. Stick around, and I'll touch another aspect of the Turtles that you may be unfamiliar with.

TMNT For Dummies - Part 1: Forever Red

2009-06-20T02:08:00.000-07:00

After reading countless blogs and websites outside of the normal scope of TMNT related ones, it has dawned on me that on the whole, the Murakami Wolf-Swenson (MWS) animated series and the three movies produced during its run, are the only incarnations of the Turtles most people are familiar with. Despite going through multiple incarnations in the past 25 years, and with the advent of this magical thing called the "internet", people by and large seem to be woefully unaware of some of the finer points of the Turtles' rich history.

First off, I think it's kind of despicable that people are still asking the same stupid question about why a Turtle that isn't Raphael has (or why all four Turtles have) red bandannas. This should be a moot point by now. The Turtles have had red headbands since the beginning, and it was only when the MWS series started in '87 that they were seen wearing ones of different colors. Nearly every comic published by Mirage has had them wearing red, and that totals up to at least over 500 comics, I'm sure. You would think that these individuals would have seen at least one of these comics. For cryin' out loud, they all wore red on the cover of the first TMNT home console game, which every Turtles fan born before this millennium has to have seen or played (in fact, this cover is even cribbed from a cover of the Mirage comics).

Seriously, does that image not ring a bell with everybody and their mothers? Even if by some magically bizarre event someone who likes TMNT has not seen this before, the answer is literally at one's fingertips. Typing the obvious into one's internet browser, http://www.ninjaturtles.com , and maybe making a few stray clicks here and there will undoubtedly yield red bandanna wearing Turtles and/or an explanation for said phenomenon. Or there's this website called "Google" where you can find almost anything. It's an amazing tool that I use all the time. Hell, I'll get y'all started! http://lmgtfy.com/?q=red+bandanna+tmnt

Lookit that! Second result! Or if you want to actually ASK Google:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=why+do+the+ninja+turtles+have+red+bandannas%3F

Second result there too! Amazing! In fact, this result is on WikiAnswers, which is a good place to ask this kind of stuff to begin with!

Maybe part of the reason I'm steamed is because despite this being the "digital age" where information is so easily accessible, people are still too lazy to look anything up. They spend 16 hours a day playing World of Warcraft or surfing porn, but tl;dr through a paragraph of three sentences in length. Or maybe it's because of ding-a-lings like this:

Me: Hope I did Leo justice. Oh, and if you have to ask why he's wearing red, you automatically fail.
Nitwit: You mean Raphael right? Leonarod [sic] is the one with the blue bandanna.

Maybe this dude tl;dr'd my modest length descriptor of the image of Leonardo that I was referring to (which is honestly shorter than most classified ads). While he didn't out-and-out ask why he's wearing red (thus technically has slipped through a loophole in this), he still automatically fails for A) not reading what I had written, and B) not doing the research.

Let me make this loud, and let me make this clear.

All four members of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wear red bandannas in the original Mirage Comics in which all other media is loosely based on. It has been this way since May of 1984.

Anyway, it's wayyyy later than I wanted to stay up, so I'm going to "To be Continued" this mutha 'ucka and go to bed. Peace.

EDIT: Okay, so this didn't click until the following day, since I was really flippin' tired when finishing this off, but the Turtles didn't actually appear on a cover in red until issue 5, in October of '85. I'm kind of certain they had to have appeared wearing red in some capacity prior to that, but I've not any evidence at this second. W'ever... they still have been wearing red for over two decades and ostensibly longer than most people who are unaware of the Turtles' doing of such have been alive.

The Passing of a Legend

2009-06-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the slightly more light-hearted entry I had planned for today must be temporarily shelved.

Today, we mourn the loss of a talented actor, legendary martial artist, and a man I looked up to greatly, David Carradine. Carradine was found, apparently having committed suicide, strung up in a Bangkok hotel room closet.

Carradine was in Thailand shooting a movie, Stretch. Cast and crew members became worried when he failed to attend a dinner the previous night.

It is important not to focus right now on his reported cause of death, but rather, his legacy. Carradine, most well-known for his roles in the TV series Kung Fu and in the Kill Bill movies as the title character, was also an accomplished martial artist. Carradine's Tai Chi videos were my inspiration to take up the art, myself.

I am donating money to his family's fund later today. I suggest other readers respond in kind.

http://david-carradine.com/

Freakin' Sweet

2009-05-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

To prove I'm not all doom and gloom, I've decided to start a counterpoint counterpart to the "What Really Grinds My Gears" segments. It's titled "Freakin' Sweet", and details things I like.

If you haven't realized how big of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan I am, you are obviously not paying close enough attention. Back in the late 1980's, my father worked a lot, and at bizarre hours. I vaguely remember those days, but I do recall that he'd sleep all day and I'd rarely see him. When we did spend time together, it was normally to watch martial arts films, particularly those of Bruce Lee.

So when I saw that there was this new cartoon coming on with ninja in it, that had anthropomorphic animals as the heroes, I was excited. While the fact was that the show ended up being more slapstick than hardcore grappling and bone breaks, this did not deter me from falling completely in love with this show.

As my father was rarely present during these years, I somehow found a surrogate father and male role model in this program; that of the Turtles' sensei and father, Master Splinter. A ninjutsu master transformed into a ratman by his arch-nemesis (at least in this continuity), Splinter was wise, honorable, compassionate, and overall, he kicked major gluteus maximus!

Since Splinter was ostensibly my father figure, I began to see his sons, the Turtles, as my brothers. This regard was helped by the fact that at this time, I had no siblings. Throughout my years, I began to see how viewing this madcap gang of mutants as a second family actually helped shape my personality: the wisdom of Splinter, leadership of Leonardo, technological affinity of Donatello, easygoing attitude of Michelangelo, and, although it rarely flares, the temper of Raphael. All traits that I can attribute to these Turtles and their adoptive father.

Other than introducing me to the world of martial arts that lead me to finding and growing fond of the Turtles, my father was also the catalyst of my massive TMNT action figure collection.

Sometime in 1989, my family went on vacation to visit friends. My mother had failed to pack any playthings to keep me occupied (I cannot recall just why this was), so she had my father stop at the local Fred Meyer and get a toy for me (amongst other things). My father, not quite knowing a lot about what I was into other than dinosaurs and Bruce Lee flicks, saw the word "ninja" on a toy, and thought I'd like it. When he returned to the car with this figure in hand, I swear I could see my own eyes light up.

Behold, Rock N' Roll Michaelangelo, my very first TMNT figure - the first of many (though this obviously is not a photo of my figure :p ). This figure is still in my collection to this very day, and although fairly common, old and playworn, it is still one of my most prized figures - compare it, I suppose, to Scrooge McDuck's lucky #1 dime.

The origins of the Turtles actually precede my own. As the legend goes, in 1983, to friends, Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, sat around eating pizza and watching "bad tv". Eastman had sketched a squat, anthropomorphic turtle with an eyemask and nunchaku strapped to its forearms. The two of them decided to run with this concept, creating four such beings, and using a tax refund as well as a loan from Eastman's uncle, they self-published their first book, titled "Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".

The comic was intended to be a one-shot issue, parodying popular comics of the day such as Daredevil and Frank Miller's Ronin. The comic, in contrast to the franchise's now-better known kid oriented material, was quite dark and gritty, a tale of revenge and murder with art that fit an underground comic. Eastman and Laird were surprised, however, when positive response for the comic was overwhelming - at least as much as possible for an independent book published with limited release and budget. Later that year the duo published a second issue, and from there, the series really took off. Before long, Eastman and Laird were discussing a cartoon show and action figures with Surge Licensing, and the rest is history. Well, this has all been history, but that's just a saying. Come to think of it, it's a very strange saying... bah... I'm going on a tangent.

Now here we are, 25 years from the first issue's release. As detailed in previous entries, I do have misgivings about what seems to be a misfire in a "shell-abration" (I hate that overused pun), but there are things that are looking quite gravy this year. Of especial note is that there are at least two TMNT video games coming out in 2009. The first of which is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, a four-player platforming versus fighter by the guys that made Super Smash Bros. Brawl and former Team Ninja members (responsible for Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive). As of this writing, only the four Turtles and Splinter are confirmed as playable, but publisher Ubisoft promises "many surprises" in the roster, including ones that "the older fans" would enjoy. Here's to hoping that what they choose is satisfying....

The other game slated to release this year, on Xbox 360's "LIVE Arcade" service, and possibly Wii, is a remake of the classic game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, with 3D graphics. This game has actually, as of this time, still not been announced by Ubisoft, but was seen in playable demo form during some of the 25th anniversary festivities. The game seems to be based on the arcade version, as the Shredder masthead and Tokka as a boss in Skull & Crossbones would indicate.

Man... I can't tell if it's the game footage or the chicken fried rice that's making me salivate....

Anyway, even with things looking sort of bleak for the comic (if sales don't pick up by the year's end, it may go bye-bye), I'm going to still support the Turtles through everything. Hey, there's also a new movie coming in 2011, which will be here before we know it. Epic!

What Really Grinds My Gears

2009-05-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

Y'know what really grinds my gears? Elitist nerds.

I've been struggling for a while with the fact that I might be a low-level nerd, myself. I like video games, comic books (to an extent) and Ninja Turtles, and apparently, according to some, those are all geeky pursuits. But since I've been surrounded with people who are infinitely more nerdy, I don't feel too bad about it. I mean, Hell, the proprietors of 2Girls1Larp, who started their blog to make fun of the nerdy, have by and far exceeded myself in that regard.

But by and far, what's worse than just your regular ol' nerds, are elitist nerds. The uppity kind, the ones that parade around on their high horses, looking down their noses at the rest of us. Like they have any room to do this.

The most recent offender, and might I add, the most severe, is some yokel on the IGN blog for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, Smash-Up. This individual seems to be pushing his own agenda, forcing his own vision of the Turtles on other readers, and when someone disagrees with him, he fires back with nonsense and childish insults. Correct him on something, and he'll respond with something like "thanks for your input, but no". He even claims he's "one of the five biggest fans of the Turtles in the world." Buddy, I know the five biggest fans... Hell, even the top 20, and it doesn't include you.

His most grating faux pas was that he insinuated that I wasn't a "real" TMNT fan. Ouch. If he knew anything about me, he'd know how incorrect that statement was. Just because my ideas don't mesh with his "vision" of how the new game should proceed, I'm apparently less of a fan than he is. Never mind the fact that I've read nearly every comic, played every video game, seen every episode of every TV series, my apartment is crammed with action figures, and am even working on my own TMNT fan game. Apparently to actually be a fan, you have to shun things like the 2K3 Shredder and special moves the Turtles use in multiple media. He had the scrote' to tell me that since the Nunchaku Copter move Michelangelo had starting in 1993's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue, was in a "garbage" game, it had no possible place in Smash-Up.

News flash, French shower: Michelangelo uses the Nunchaku Copter move in no less than SIX games. That makes it the closest thing to a signature move in the entire series.

Not to mention the fact that I had never said I wanted this move in the game, I was just correcting the fact that he said it wasn't a "signature move". He jumped the gun and fired off a self-delusional rant.

Needless to say, I'm restricting myself from taking this individual's bait any longer. I'm going to try and mentally block what he's written. Too much negativity can increase stress levels, and I definitely don't need that.

A less severe example of an elitist nerd, though one no less irritating, is the infamous Elman's distaste for World of Warcraft. While I, myself, have no interest in this game, he plays Dungeons & Dragons - which is equally nerdy. He goes off on tangents on how much of a waste WoW is, and how much D&D is a superior game. I once made a joking reference to how D&D - dice + internet = WoW, and he went on a fifteen minute tirade on what D&D was "obviously better". Ugh. I'm not a fan of either of these things, but I don't take time I could be using doing other things to whine about something being better.

A common theme I have seen with these elitist nerds is their obsession with having the most top-of-the-line tech. Because I have a standard definition TV and DVD player instead of Blu-Ray, apparently I am worth less than the scum on the bottom of these nerds' penny-loafers. I don't even know what the Hell this 1080i or whatever the crap it is, means. The worst thing is, there's people who will refuse to play certain games ONLY because they don't run in their preferred HD settings. Are these people mad? They should do what I do and play Pong at least once a month. That should humble them a little.

I guess the point of this whole rant, is that nobody has the right to look down on people for such silly reasons, and it boils my blood.

The Top 5 Sites That Have Impacted The Internet The Most

2009-03-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

As a fraud analyst, I spend a lot of time on the internet. Too much time, in fact. Add the 10+ a day at work to the leisure surfing I do at home, and I probably spend close to 100 hours a week online. So naturally, I see a lot of websites. I've come across some of the coolest things the web has to offer, and some of the sickest. And porn. Lots and lots of freakin' porn. So I got to thinking... what are the top five websites that have shaped the way we use the internet? What ones does the average person think of when they think of the internet? Well, in interest of keeping this PG-13 rated, and because this list would probably be comprised primarily of such, I'm keeping all of the aforementioned porno out of this (although that's what people normally think of when they think of the internet, right? There's even a song about it...) So, without further ado, here are the top five I believe have impacted the "Intarwebz" the most:

5. Amazon

The only locally run website on this list (as in it was started in the same state in which I live), Amazon.com was launched in 1995 as primarily an online bookstore. Since then, they have started selling just about everything useful - in fact, I normally use it to order action figures, video games, and martial arts supplies. Using a revolutionary and patented checkout system, Amazon quickly became one of the places to shop online. By 2008, the site would draw 615,000,000 visitors annually. The site's layout and shopping system would impact nearly every e-commerce site in the world wide web.

4. eBay

Whereas Amazon is more like a department store or mall, eBay is an international auction block. Nearly anything that one is looking for (with obvious exceptions), can be found at eBay at some time. Similarly, eBay acquired the online payment company PayPal in 2002, which has the most widespread use of online payment at over 170 million user accounts.

3. MySpace

As much as it pains me to say this, MySpace is indeed one of the most influential websites of today. A relative newcomer, it was founded in 2003 and bought by News Corporation (parent company of Fox Broadcasting) in 2005. The reigning king of social networking sites, I actually fail to see its draw. Many sites had the same basic features before MySpace even came around (compare Friendster's launch in 2002 and hi5's existence a few scant months before MySpace came along) - and even those didn't interest me. Nevertheless, with well over 100 million users, it has become one of the fastest growing and most popular websites on the internet, serving as a source of social interaction, marketing, and publicity.

2. YouTube

Another newcomer to the 'net, YouTube started in 2005. The site had been around only a tad over a year before being bought by Google. Allowing users to upload their own video content, YouTube offers much to the world. The site is responsible for turning everyday people into celebrities - for better or for worse. And what other site could be responsible for turning one-hit wonder 80's singer Rick Astley into a household name (and common annoyance) in the 2000's?

1. Google

Although there are/were hundreds of search engines out there, none of them have been able to dominate Google. Google is now a synonym for utilizing a search engine, a feat that even its forerunner for Search Engine God, Yahoo!, couldn't produce back in its heyday (could you imagine Yahooing something, anyway? Sounds weird). Since then, Google has started and/or purchased such endeavors as YouTube (see #2), AdWords, GMail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Chrome, Orkut, and this very blogging service.

Honorable Mention
Wikipedia, which started the craze for user interfaced encyclopedias and information.

25 Years of TMNT... Makes Me Sad - Day 4

2009-02-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not having updated in a week... I've had other things on my mind, believe it or not :p

So, after seven freakin' awesome seasons, the current Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series is ending. This Saturday is the final episode. That's it, finished, done, soon to be yesterday's news. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't be too bothered - although I'll miss it terribly, it had an amazing run for a Saturday morning cartoon in this day and age - especially one produced in the US. However, considering that this is the 25th anniversary of the franchise, you'd think they'd go one more year at least, right? Guess not.

I don't know who the blame would go to for its cancellation; I've heard the blame being attached to different entities without absolute proof on who pulled the trigger, so until I can test for GSR, I'll just present the blame as "theories".

One theory is that 4Kids is trying to focus more on making crappy card game cartoons and importing anime. Quite plausible, since this Chaotic bullplop is one of the "big things" right now, despite having ludicrously retarded plotlines and the card game just being an amalgamated ripoff of its predecessors. In fact, whereas Back to the Sewer's animation and art style was watered down a wee bit, Chaotic's was pumped up. This is all retardedly annoying, as Back to the Sewer would still prove to pull in good ratings, and when they threw BttS against new episodes of Chaotic on opposing networks (CW4Kids and the now defunct 4KidsTV, respectively), TMNT was actually drawing higher ratings than Chaotic!

Another theory maintains that because Playmates was funding 1/3 of the show, Playmates dropped out of fronting the money, and Mirage and 4Kids couldn't support their portion of the show. This theory balances on the fact that Playmates at least partially blames the TV show for the lack of toy sales, or at least believes that the Turtles are unpopular because the figures aren't selling. However, this has less to do with any factors other than the fact that most of the figures these days are complete and utter rubbish! If Playmates would get their heads out of their asses and actually release some decent figures that people want to buy, this wouldn't be an issue! Not to mention the fact that they still have yet to release figures for Back to the Sewer... isn't it kind of counterproductive to release them after the show is over?

The final theory bouncing around is that Mirage, or at least the bigwigs over there, don't care. Again, this has merit, as you can see from my rant on Mirage themselves. This is further supported by the fact that when questioned about the show's cancellation, Peter Laird so much shrugged and said that it's not the end of the world if it goes off the air. While anyone would be a simpleton for thinking that the two events are equal, I hate how nonchalant Laird is about the issue. How can you not give a shit about the only reason anybody even knows your name?

Further confusing the matter, is that 4Kids' TMNT panel at the New York City Comic Con was called "TMNT Animation: 25 and Going Strong". All that's coming out (to our knowledge) after this final episode of Back to the Sewer, is a direct-to-DVD feature. How is it 'Going Strong' if the series had only two more episodes at that point?

The worst part is, there's so many plotlines still left unresolved. Admittedly, most of them are quite minor, but they still bug me quite a bit. Some that I can think of off of the top o' my noggin:
-What is the origin of Touch & Go's powers?
-Did Mr. Marlin actually die, or did he survive like in the comics?
-We saw that the giant, demonic, Lovecraftian monstrosity from The Darkness Within survived Leonardo's onslaught. What is it up to?
-What is Bishop's relationship to Agent Finn, and how did he become a monster?
-Is Rat King actually dead?
-How exactly does Ch'rell connect to the original Oroku Saki? Did he learn of the legend of The Shredder and simply fashion his earthbound life after him to strike fear into Japanese villagers? How did he obtain the Heart of Tengu, and thus gain control of the original Saki's Heralds?
-Are Hun and Garbageman really brothers (as indicated in an unreleased episode?)
-What happened to Cody's parents? The show has hinted that Darius did something to them, but it's never elaborated on....
-How did Darius gain control of the noble Inuwashi Gunjin?
-What happened with Darius and the Dark Turtles? Are they still after Cody and causing chaos in the 2100's?
-Who is Master Khan, and how did he gain control of the Foot Clan?
-Why is Stockman working for Hun and not with Bishop, as seen in Fast Forward?
-Why did Khan think that he had defeated the Turtles in the distant future seen in Tempus Fugit?
-Speaking of that distant future, how did Ch'rell and the original Oroku Saki return to battle with Cyber Shredder?

This is all just flippin' nuts. We've got a show that's ending when the franchise turns 25, all of these unanswered questions about it, both within the show and in real life... this isn't Sparta... it's just madness.

25 Years of TMNT... Makes Me Sad - Day 3

2009-02-17T10:43:00.000-08:00

Today, we'll talk about one of the things the TMNT are most well known for - action figures. Not including the brief period of inactivity in the late 90's-early 2000's, TMNT action figures have been a mainstay of toy isles for twenty years. Toys have flown off shelves in certain years in record amounts, and the toys have helped make both Playmates and TMNT what they are today.

1988 saw the release of the first wave of figures - ten of 'em.

Years roll by, and after a couple of reboots, we get to where we are today. So what does the 25th anniversary have in store for us?

Oh yay. Every known hip-hop stereotype crammed onto a single figure. I can almost hear Sam Riegel screaming "GET BACK MOTHERF***ER, YOU DON'T KNOW ME LIKE THAT!" TMNT figures have always had zany, stupid variants like Crazy Clownin' Mike, Punk Don, and Bodacious Biker Leo. The only difference is that these figures were completely different sculpts from the originals. Donny D here? He's just the standard 2007 Movie Don with stuff glued to him and his teeth painted gold. Ugh. Just how much lazier can you get?

Pretty damn lazy, apparently. While Playmates has long made figures that weren't quite accurate to the shows, they've never been this... vomit inducing. You'd think that for the 25th anniversary, Playmates would actually attempt to get their figures that are actually in the show, sort of close to their cartoon appearances. And again, it's just a standard figure with crap glued to him. This looks like something an amateur customizer would come up with! What's the worst part, is these are supposed to represent Back to the Sewer. Playmates is releasing Cyber versions of all four Turtles, Shredder, Foot Ninja, and a build-a-figure Splinter - none of which have correct colours (Splinter's fur is freaking BLUE for Christ's sake!)... and all of which are reportedly "coming soon", despite the fact that the show is over in two weeks!

Toy companies have an unhealthy obsession with variants of the main character, and no more so than Playmates. The worst thing is, TMNT has four main characters, so when a wave of figures is ushered out, there's always the four Turtles and a bad guy or two - if that! The Alien Hunters figures were supposed to release with four villains, but in the US, only two of them were. The other two were released only in the UK, despite all four of them being openly advertised in all markets. The Sub-Sewer came and went last year (or, rather, came and went... directly to the clearance aisle), and the two villains planned - which actually made appearances in Back to the Sewer - never showed up.

Two years ago, Playmates jumped on the chibi-ish figure bandwagon and brought out a new line of Mini-Mutants (not to be confused with the Mighty Max-esque Mini-Mutants from the 90's). They did rather well... sadly, though, the market has been soiled with lame Turtles variants and the same villains over and over. Wave 1's villains consisted of Hun, Rat King, Triceraton, and Foot Tech Ninja. Last year's Extreme Sports wave consisted of Baxter Stockman, Jammerhead, Elite Foot, and Multi-Arm Shredder. Earlier this year, the Mini-Mutant villains consisted of Hun, Foot Tech Ninja, Elite Foot, and Shredder (which was a pack-in with a Mini-Mutants playset). What does the upcoming "SWAT" Mini-Mutant Turtles come with? Rat King, Hun, Foot Tech Ninja, and Shredder. See a pattern here? Not only that, there have been no allies in Mini-Mutants. In fact...

There have been no new ally figures OR female figures for almost two years. And besides the 25th anniversary re-releases (which I will get to in a minute), the only allies being released in the foreseeable future are - I am not making this up - two Splinter figures. And NO new female figures. The series has always been mostly about the Turtles vs. baddies, but their allies - Casey Jones, April O'Neil, Leatherhead, Miyamoto Usagi - have all been very well known as well. Sometimes it takes more than just four shellbacks to beat down wave after wave of Foot Ninja, street punks, aliens, evil mutants, and monsters. It's just sickening that Playmates has ignored the Turtles' friends for so long, and seemingly continue to do so.

Now let's get to one of the sort-of cool releases for the 25th anniversary. Playmates has selected thirteen figures from the original line - including all of the original "Ten back" figures, and is steadily releasing them in waves. This is perfect for the newer fan that isn't eBay savvy, or collectors that don't care what release of a figure they get, and don't want to pay out the butt for carded versions of some of these characters. I also think it would be neat to see the likes of Bebop and Rocksteady on shelves again (they've already released, but as of this writing, I haven't personally seen any of the 2009 releases).

In theory, this is a cool idea. However, there's a few things that I do have to gripe about. One of which, is the chosen box art. I like the idea of the 25th anniversary logo in the corner, and the big ol' character information sticker on front of the bubble, but that's about it. The card art looks like it was haphazardly patched together by a tenth-grader learning PhotoShop, and it's WAY too crowded. Ideally, if they were going to use the same art as was used initially, they should have at least cut the duties in half - one card art for the good guys, and one for the bad. Better yet, they should have had the original artist, if possible, draw ALL NEW card art in the same style. I miss the days when every card was unique. I also lament the absence of the famous Accessory and Portrait sections on the card's back. These were staples of the original line back in the day.

These suckers are selling like hotcakes all over the place, though, and hopefully not just through internet scalpers (who sell them at 2-3 times their MSRP). It is my hope that this persuades Playmates into re-releasing more figures from the old line, or, better yet, NEW figures based on the old line. They're already sort of doing that with the Old Toon DVD Season 7, but they're just downscaled versions of the original four Turtles. It's something, though....

The other line that is potentially exciting, is their Mirage Comics line. While not as awesome as NECA's line, they look to break Playmates' trappings of the other full-scaled figures we've seen over the past couple of years.

The Turtles themselves appear to be based on the later comics, while Shredder and the Foot are more in line with their original appearances - or at least, they would be, if the Foot were the right colours, and Shredder's helmet didn't look so retarded. Seriously, Playmates, if you're going to Shredder and Oroku Saki styles for your figures - USE ALTERNATE HEADS! Splinter looks neat, but I couldn't tell you which comic style he takes after. He looks more like Old Toon Splinter, if anything. If Playmates keeps going, this might be a worthwhile continuation for the line for them. As a matter of fact, Playmates, why don't you just do a TMNT universe line, where you release new figures from every universe? You'll literally have people tripping over themselves to buy them; I guarantee it 100%!

Now let's move onto NECA's offerings. NECA released the original four Turtles that mirrored their appearances in the first TMNT comic, and lit the world on fire. Retailers sold out quickly and for a while, you couldn't even find them without sacrificing your genitalia. Publications - both online and in print - were heralding this line as a runner for new toy line of the year. The design was near flawless, and for once, we had Turtles with articulation that fit a ninja.

Then something happened... after showing a preview of their April O'Neil figure at New York Comic Con 2008 and ones of Shredder, Foot Ninja, and Elite Foot at San Diego Comic Con 2008... NECA unfortunately maintained a radio silence with the outside world regarding the figures... including with Mirage themselves. Fans... were... LIVID. For the longest time, it looked as if these amazing-looking figures were going to never be released. When Playmates' own Mirage-based figures were unveiled, blame was going around that since Playmates felt that Mirage went behind their backs to get the NECA figures made, Playmates responded with their own comic-based figures, and NECA, feeling bullied, refused to release any more figures.

Finally, this year, at ToyFair 2009, NECA brought the above figures again, and indicated that they almost certainly were coming out this year. Their official excuse on the delay? They needed support in the UK, since the previous wave hadn't sold well there. That's a pretty lame excuse, if you ask me. They even openly admitted that the TMNT aren't on the whole, as popular there as back here in The Colonies; in fact, I'm wholly convinced that's the reason Playmates' TMNT figures aren't heading to shelves in Europe this year. But still, that's the official word, and however crappy as it may be, we've got to unfortunately take it at face value and thank God that there's a 98% chance we'll get our hands on them. Let's hope that a third wave is released before I have grandchildren.

Now see, out of all of the TMNT merchandising, the toys are the ones I have closest kinship to. But with the advent of some really crappy figures and/or planning out there, it's hard to weed out the good stuff. I miss the simple days, when although there were dozens of dorky Turtle variants, there were also legions of mutants to collect. Hell, the old figures even had many cool variants for the Turtles' enemies and allies, which is something that has been in short supply following the 2003 revival.

If Playmates wants to keep at the TMNT game - which as I said before, is the major reason anybody even knows who they are - they've got to step up their game. Put some more articulation in those damn things. I'm no articulation Nazi, but for the love of Christ, they're NINJA! They should be able to move at least a bit more, be able to have many different posing options, and at least be able to stand easily without having to place their feet in a very specific position. Hell, there are some figures, like Agent Bishop, that make me sad with their very existence due to the fact that such nimble characters are permanently locked in one stiff position.

Second of all, model them after how they were represented in the media they come from. The consumer shouldn't be forced to take an X-Acto Knife, Dremel tool, nail file, and paints to their action figures just to make them look right. It's maddening! Customizing action figures should be a hobby, not a necessity!

If you're looking for another toy line to model how you pad the TMNT line's cast, Playmates, look no further than Hasbro's Star Wars line. Not only do they have many different interesting variants of their central characters, without resulting to something as flat-out retarded as DJ Obi-Wan or Birthday Clown Luke, but they make figures for practically every character from every form of media. Many different generic soldier variants exist, and even a guy who is in one scene of one film for 3/13ths of a second and is only visible from the shoulders up in the back of a crowd shot has a chance of becoming a figure! But important characters from the series' past such as Lord Dregg, Ultimate Drako, Jagwar, Master Khan, and scads more, have been left in the dust. And for Heaven's sakes, Hasbro's CEO was named CEO of the year for 2008 by MarketWatch, because of the following:

How much do you consider the opinions of hardcore fans of the franchise when making decisions for the films?
GOLDNER: The hardcore fans are an integral part of the thought process. ...

Was there any particular fan feedback on the first "Transformers" that you took into account for the sequel?
GOLDNER: ... So what we did is, we focused in on some of those things that the fans told us from a very early stage that they wanted to see in the next movie...

But you guys are paying attention.
GOLDNER: Constantly. And I think what's great about our creative teams, our filmmaking teams is, they get it. They absolutely understand how to strike that balance, and they want to strike that balance and understand the core fan feedback. Because at the very heart, that's the thread that will hold the franchise together forever, if you'll honor that. And then of course, they also are great filmmakers and in their own right they also have the ability to reinvent the brand in a completely unexpected way.

That's right, they LISTEN to their fans. They don't set some braindead scab on customer service e-mail duty with robotic responses that don't equate to fans' concerns. They do this thing that more businesses should do, call "giving a crap". I'm not making Hasbro to be the second coming of Jesus in toy company form, especially since I don't even buy any of their product (other than Star Wars figures for my pops as gifts), but it seems they've got their act together! Don't listen to some tired old man's opinion of how a toy will sell because it's got "play value" - which includes attaching a weapon to a musical instrument. Listen to the people that are actually buying your product!

Another point I'd like to make, and this one to both Playmates and NECA, is that you need to start making Army Builder packs. Many of us like collecting the Foot Soldiers, Utroms, Triceratons, Turtlebots, and so forth en masse to indicate armies of these generic warriors. It can be an utter pain in the ass to track down enough of these to build an army with. Throw three in a window box with one accessory a piece, charge 2.5 times what you would for a standard figure, and you're golden!

That's enough ranting for one day... I've got work to finish up. I'll be back tomorrow with... something... cartoons, maybe. Peace with a feast in the Middle East, my brothas and sistas!

Sources:
Pictures: TMNT Official Website, Big Bad Toy Store, Toy News International, myself.
Hasbro CEO Excerpt: Roseangelo/Toyfare

25 Years of TMNT... Makes Me Sad - Day 2

2009-02-16T08:27:00.000-08:00

Today, we'll take a look at the buggery brought forth by the house responsible for the TMNT, Mirage Studios. While I am eternally grateful for the minds and pens of Mirage for creating the Turtles and thus helping shape my life, I can't help but find fault with some of the ways business has been conducted there over the last few years.

A major lightning rod of hate in this matter is CEO Gary Richardson. I've read accounts - some firsthand - of shrewd business practices he's employed. While I'm far from a business expert, I have had some teaching in marketing and business structure, and some of the things he's done have stuck out like a sore thumb. His modus operandi seems to be hoarding cash to himself, and it's a fair assessment that he has never heard of the business model of "spending money to make money." There have been so many worthwhile projects that have been shipwrecked just because Mr. Richardson has chosen to line his own pockets with the dough that would have funded said projects. For example, Archie Comics wished to send Mirage the original art for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic series. All Mirage had to do was pay for the shipping. Gary nixed it, Archie destroyed the originals. A similar deal happened with Image. Mirage was going to reprint Volume 3 of the comic, which was run under Image's banner, in a trade paperback. Image just wanted a (as I hear, modest) fee for use of their characters and story. Obviously, paying for something in order to get what they want is out of the question, so that TPB was canceled.

Now, it isn't just these projects that are affected by Gary's decisions. From artist/writer Jim Lawson's weblog:

Yesterday the artists here were contacted by Gary on behalf of 4kids. 4kids is putting together a 25th anniversary animation special about the Turtles and they were wanting submissions from all the associated artists. This is the piece I did for that purpose.
I had to smile at the similarity to the recent Nobody cover. It seems when I get a composition in my head, I'll sometimes reuse it several times. Notice also, a few shared design elements.

Please allow me to rant a little here. This was done as a freebie. In this year, when Mirage is paying 7 figures to a company to advertise and promote the Turtles anniversary, I find it vaguely insulting that we, the artists of Mirage, are expected to do this stuff without pay. Why is this? I want to know, who else is working for free? What is it about artists, that the work they do, has a stigma of having no value? I'm not sure why this is- perhaps drawing is thought of as common, or they see it as being effortless. That Mirage itself has participated in this attitude, I find somewhat sad and more than a little ironic.

Now excuse me for a moment... the artists were refused pay for this? What sort of madness is it? As Mr. Lawson alludes to, Mirage is paying a cool million to the dunderheads at Peppercom to basically blunder their way through promotion, and they can't even make sure their own employees have bread on the table. It gets worse, though. As a comment on the same 'blog entry, writer Steve Murphy replied as such:

A million dollars to promote the anniversary... and last week we almost lost our life and disability insurance (thank goodness for technicalities) in order to save the company $9,500. per year.

That comment was later removed by an "administrator"... but we all know nothing is really gone, on the Internet... those haunting words live on. Really, how can you function as a company if you throw your employees to the curb. Richardson and Laird may not depend on the comics for income, but their writers and artists do. It's the same thing with insurance... how can you just out-and-out pull the rug out from underneath them?

Now, Mirage is a comics company. They also have done the licensing side of things since breaking off their partnership with Surge Licensing years back. But the primary reason for existence is for making comics. Now why would a comics company refuse to sell their books like everyone else does? By which, I mean that they use very little-to-no external advertising (thus resulting in low sales numbers), and refuse to sell outside of comic shops. Their excuse for selling only in comic shops is that they don't want to have to "deal with the returns", in other words, all of the issues that are shipped back to them because they don't sell. Again, a little bit of awareness is key to selling issues. Peppercom is doing this to an extent on the 25th anniversary site, and it's one of the few things that I think they're doing right, but it's pretty limited, seeing as how it's on one website that is hardly advertised in and of itself.

Now, Peter Laird is a man I have mixed feelings about. As he is the co-creator of the franchise, I feel incredibly indebted to him. And there are some great things he does still to this day that I like. However, I feel that his heart just isn't into the Turtles anymore, and he basically says 'whatever' to anything that comes to him regarding the license. I'm willing to bet that he lets Gary have free reign with whatever he wants just because he doesn't want to deal with it. Even on his own weblog, he seems to detail that he'd rather be riding his motorcycle or Segway than working - and that he sees working in the TMNT Empire as an obligation rather than an opportunity.

Laird's disinterest is extended in the comics themselves. He was working on the standard TMNT comic line, writing it while Lawson illustrated. In late 2006, Laird indicated he was taking some time off to catch up with other things with the franchise such as dealing with the 2007 movie, and would be returning to the comic after the movie's release. He returned in mid 2008 with a single issue. The issue was not sold in comic stores at all, but was instead available for free on the official site or a site called Wowio. If you wanted a legitimate, printed copy, Mirage had printed up a limited number of them for sale directly from them - only these copies cost $10 a piece. Lawson claimed that all of his work was done on issue 30 (the next one to come out) and he was already dealing with issue 31; it's just Laird's work that is holding the issue back.

Speaking of Lawson, Mirage seems to be fond of overworking him. Now, I personally am a fan of Lawson's earlier work, which caused the comic to carry a gritty, underground comic visage (as it should have), but some of the stuff he does today isn't half bad. Everything he does these days looks too geometric (a non-TMNT fanatic review of his recent work nicknamed him Jim "I Like To Draw Squares" Lawson), but it only looks terrible if he's being stretched too thin - for example, at different points, he was illustrating for three series (TMNT, Tales of the TMNT, and a Turtle-focused mini-series) simultaneously. This causes his work to go from "decent" to "I don't know what the Hell I'm looking at".

Tales of the TMNT is supposed to be showcasing not only stories from different points in the Turtles' lives, but also a veritable smörgåsbord of talent from up-and-coming writers and artists. However, by slapping Lawson into every other issue (or even, every so often, several issues in a row), they're bleeding him dry, as well as causing the series to get a tad bland. I've also seen instances in which, after the writer has showcased their idea on their blog, their submission for a story was rejected outright, and their story was good, very good - much better than some of the current stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love most of Tales, but there's some uninteresting drivel such as Circle of Darkness, Rocks, and Mined Games. True, this is subjective, but I've read work by Tristan Jones, Will Tupper, and Andrew Modeen that were rejected that were undeniably more whizz-bang and attention grabbing.

While we're on the subject of of rejected stories from Tristan Jones, he presented this beauty of a pitch for the TMNT Free Comic Book Day issue in May:

We open in another dimension (Caption: NOT Dimension X…), where the two massive brutes are being pursued by authorities in an intense car/other-dimensional-vehicle chase! Suddenly, a vortex starts opening in midair just ahead of them…

Cut to our world, where a Foot Mystic and a band of renegade Foot ninjas are trying to open up a portal to the Netherworld (to summon a demon to help them against the Turtles). Unfortunately, the mystic has misinterpreted one of the symbols in the spell used to open the portal correctly. A portal opens, but when the vehicle Bebop and Rocksteady had hi-jacked comes thundering out and pastes the mystic, it becomes very clear that it’s not the right one!

The rest of the Foot renegades scatter and Bebop and Rocksteady check out this strange new world they’ve stumbled into. They are massive too, at least twice the size of Leatherhead. A registered, costumed superhero flies down to try and stop the duo, but they pulverize him (in a comically brutal way, not to death, but there’s no way a normal human would be able to take it).

Cut to the Turtles’ lair, where Raph, Don and Mike are watching late night television (Leo is reading something). A sudden live news broadcast interrupts and reveals that Bebop and Rocksteady are tearing up midtown as police try and take them down.

After getting a call from April (who’s been caught in the midst of the carnage), they spring into action (they would be disguised somehow, either in gear similar to #36, or civilian clothing – long coats, etc.).

They pluck April out of the danger zone and get her to safety without being noticed, everyone seems too freaked out by the massive duo to care.
Mike notices that Karai and a band of her best warriors are on a nearby rooftop. They join her to try and find out what’s going on, and Karai reveals that a rogue mystic had recently stolen a tome from their archives containing spells/rituals that could supposedly open pathways to parallel dimensions. However, without the book they have no idea what spell/ritual was used, or how to send the two creatures back to where they came from. Don and Karai discuss their options and agree to try and come up with something together, but it means that Mike, Leo and Raph, along with the Foot warriors, will have to try and keep the dimension-hopping duo occupied.

As Mike, Leo and Raph fight Rocksteady and Bebop (taking a number of jabs at the old cartoon along the way), Karai and Don manage to put together a trans-dimensional portal using Leatherhead’s makeshift transmat device and various other bits and pieces Don has accumulated over the years. By channelling the mystic energies of a similar spell through the device, they are able to open a wormhole to another dimension (though not necessarily the one they came from).

The group lures Rocksteady and Bebop to the area above Leatherhead’s old lair (where the portal will open), but the two brutes realise they’re being herded towards a trap and start playing dirty. Don and Karai can only keep the portal open for a small amount of time, and with the brutes wise to the trap, the portal overloads the device that opened it.

At a loss for what to do, Mike suggests they call Renet, but none have any idea how to do that – considering she’s just appeared every time they’ve needed her. However, true to form, she does appear, having sensed a disturbingly large tremor in the space-time continuum. The guys fill her in, and Renet floats up towards Bebop and Rocksteady. She begins channeling her energies, chanting (similar to good ol’ Doctor Strange), but suddenly – WHAM! One of the monsters punches her into a building, sending the sceptre scattering off into an alley.

Don rushes to her aide while Raph, Leo, Mike and the Foot launch another assault on the pair. When it looks as though all is lost, Splinter suddenly arrives on the scene, standing quietly between the battle-weary warriors and the battle-ready monsters. The Turtles freak out, thinking Splinter has finally gone insane, and Bebop and Rocksteady find the situation hilarious. But Splinter has Renet’s sceptre!

Splinter mumbles something and suddenly the two are sucked into the sceptre itself!

With the city saved, Don returns with Renet. Karai tells them that she will help provide the funds to repair the damages caused in the chaos. (If you like the alternate ending, Mike could ask where Splinter sent them).

The turtles return home with their master, exhausted.

ALTERNATE ENDING (one final jab at the old cartoon):
We cut to find that Rocksteady and Bebop have been transported to a dusty, arid dimension, somewhat similar to the surface of Mars. They have been secured by hi-tech restraints and are being marched towards a gigantic construct by hulking soldiers who look similar to The Thing. They stop at the base of the construct, just in front of what appears to be large boarding ramp. “New prisoners for you my lord! We found them inside the forbidden zone.”
Bebop and Rocksteady look up, and we see a grotesquely obese Utrom, sitting in the torso cavity of a massive exosuit (think Obediah Stane’s “Iron Monger” suit compared to Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit). The Utrom grins: “Excellent!”

We zoom out for the final panel, revealing that the construct is disturbingly similar to a certain subterranean construct made famous by the old TMNT cartoons..

Since this is the Turtles' 25th anniversary, you'd think that this would be a great way of celebrating some of the franchise's lore, right? Unfortunately, it was passed on, to make way for... another reprint of TMNT #1. There's already something like four other ones coming out this year... sigh....

Needless to say, there's not a lot of bright spots on the horizon in the comics. Archie is re-releasing the TMNT Adventures mini-series in a trade with a boss new cover. Mirage is doling out a few trades - although, unfortunately, some of the most frequently requested (City At War, Volume 2, Volume 4) don't seem to be on the books. There are a lot more stories by the dynamic tag team of Tristan Jones and Paul Harmon - although that's not necessarily a 25th anniversary thing. And Mirage is slated to release a Mirage TMNT Universe character/canon guide in August. This is the item I'm most excited about, as it's something I've been wanting forever. It's a shame that it was delayed from December, but when it finally rolls around, it will be well worth it.

Dark days still lie ahead, my friends, as there is no confirmation that Tales of the TMNT will continue past 2009, and Christ is likely to show up for the Judgment before Laird finishes work on the next issue of Volume 4.

Keep it real, folks. Tomorrow, I'll bitch about the toys. Later.

25 Years of TMNT... Makes Me Sad - Day 1

2009-02-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

2009 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of many different franchises, but most notably, at least to me, is that of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I guess you could consider me a TMNT fanatic - along with Bruce Lee, the TMNT are the reason I have interest in the martial arts. I also learned many life lessons from the original cartoon from the 1980s and '90's. So on the silver anniversary of the franchise, you would expect to see much elation, correct?

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be entirely the case. Although there are a few cool items and events in the pipeline for the good guys who always 'wear' green, a lot of it is complete and utter rubbish. As a matter of fact, there is evidence that the franchise as a whole is spinning around in a toilet right now.

Over the next few entries, I will detail the atrocities that will befall everyone's favourite anthropomorphic superhero team, as well as touch upon the things that I actually think are neat. It's just my little way of venting that the series that I've supported for pretty close to my entire life has kicked me in the metaphorical gonads.

Today's entry will deal with the least important transgression; Peppercom.

Peppercom is a Public Relations firm located primarily in New York. As a pitch ad for a chance to assist in the promotion of the 25th anniversary of TMNT, they created this intelligence rape:

Fortunately, while you can watch it, you can't hear it. Why? Because Youtube disabled the sound.

"This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG. The audio has been disabled."

That's right - they didn't even get permission to use the music from the original cartoon show in their pitch proposal. Now granted, this is pretty much more corporate copyright Nazi behaviour that is rampant throughout Youtube, but you'd think that someone who is officially doing work for Mirage would actually get permission, y'think?

But that isn't the point. The audio snafu is just something I came across today. What the point is, how mind-numbling stupid their "silly" proposal is. For one thing, this is a professional business. When you're trying to entice other businesses to utilize your services, you don't slap together some Godawful little video. It's so blatantly goofy that even the Turtles at their wackiest would commit seppuku in shame if they saw this. Furthermore, the production values are worse than a clip from a high school film class.

It's unfortunately not even just the TMNT video that fails. I've researched quite a few of their "promotional" videos, and every one of them stinks like a sweaty buttcrack. I couldn't even finish watching their psuedo-"attack" video; I was beginning to feel as if I was going to see my dinner again... all over my keyboard.

The 25th anniversary site they designed is just as laughable. It looks like it was handled by someone with rudimentary knowledge of HTML and Flash, and isn't even comprehensive. There are a lot important events that are left out of their timeline, and some of the Mirage Studios history is blatantly incorrect, for example. However, the site is starting to build some more interesting content, such as commercials for the old TMNT toys.

Possibly the most mindboggling effect of this is how the devil Mirage was won over by these yahoos. My guess is that it has to do with something that I'm going to elaborate on at a later date.

As I said before, this is but a minor violation. Hiring Peppercom is far from the least infuriating occurance to taint the brand this year. Keep your eyes posted here for more rants.

Watch me beat myself up

2009-02-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

Technology scares me....

What I'm Listening to: Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much

2009-02-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

Shilo:
Dad be still
There is nothing here to take
It can wait

Nathan:
Shi, your mother's calling me

Shilo:
Sometimes I wanted to cry
When the people on TV were not quite the way we were
Somehow I guess I just knew
But I didn't know I'd love you so much
I didn't know I'd love you so much
I didn't know I'd love you so much
But I do

Nathan:
Sometimes I'd stay up all night
Wishing to God that I was the one who died
Sometimes it's not enough time
But I didn't know I'd love you so much
I didn't know I'd love you so much
I didn't know I'd love you so much
But I do

Shilo:
Didn't know I'd love you so much

Nathan:
Didn't know I'd love you so much

Both:
Didn't know I'd love you so much
But I do

Nathan:
Shilo, go

Shilo:
Dad, I will not leave you here
You will live

Nathan:
But you've already saved me, dear
Go and change the world for me

Both:
We will always have each other
In our time of need
(Shilo) Daddy, you're the world to me
(Nathan) Shilo, you're the world to me

Well, there goes the cell

2009-01-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

Today, inexplicably whilst sending off a text message, my first cell phone, which I have had since December of 2006, completely when kaput. I had just charged it last night, and I still have 80-some minutes on it. I had been looking to upgrade to a better model, but I wanted to wait until I had less minutes so I could just buy the upgrade and some minutes simultaneously. Oh well. So, for the time being, if anyone who has my cell number is reading this, I am not reachable via cell. Use my landline, e-mail, or whatever other methods you usually use to get a hold of me.

These Boots Were Made For Leggin'

2008-09-14T03:31:00.001-07:00

This past summer, I visited the local Swap Meet. While in years past this locale was an excellent vending ground for just about anything you'd ever need, these days it consists of mostly overpriced electronics, merchants who have thousands upon thousands of salsa CD's, and a moonbounce with Mr. Incredible on the front, positioned so that it appears that the kids are jumping around in his ass. Fortunately, an eagle-eyed shopper can find something of worth with enough determination, and this particular trip netted me a nice set of chopsticks, some inexpensive Xbox games, and a few TMNT figures. None of these items, however, could hold a candle to these:

Now, I'm not a collector of bootlegged action figures in general. By buying these shoddily made chunks of cheap plastic, you are only encouraging the criminals in continuing their seedy enterprise. However, I am also a TMNT fan, and finally finding a bootleg figure set at one of these things with a Turtle figure in it was something I had yearned for for quite some time. I had to have this set. Other than a couple of spottily painted parachuting Turtles I had found at a Goodwill, I had never owned any bootleg figures previously. I recall when the TMNT figures were still in their infancy back in the late '80's, I saw some bootleg figures at a discount store that were going for $3 or so. I do not recall much about them, other than I believe their weapons and/or names were mixed between the four Turtles, and the weapons were black. Other than that, they looked more or less like the real deal. However, my mother refused to buy them for me, as they were "not the real Turtles". Oh, woe.

Anyway, excuse my tangent, let's take a look at these figures, shall we?

First off, let's take a look at Fighting Gear Raphael and The Thing. Raph comes with a multi-pronged sai (which is almost unrecognizable in these photos, due to my crappy camerawork) and a chestplate. This is literally the complete extent of his armour. Unlike the real Fighting Gear Raph, there are no shin and forearm guards, nor a helmet. Also notice that his belt is green, and his wrist, elbow, and knee pads are red. He also does not have a tail to his headband.

The Thing is a disturbingly peculiar creature. Although his head is as craggy as one would expect from an action figure of The Thing, the rest of his body is set smooth, like a normal human's. It is my theory that his body was supposed to be that of The Hulk's, or that it was originally used in a Hulk bootleg figure. Also, instead of being orange, his skin is sort of a peach-ish, like a typical Caucasian's. The sculpting on Thing has to be the worst of the bunch, as his waist is slightly off-center, and there is about a millimeter of plastic on the inside of his left calf that protrudes down further than the rest of his leg. His left foot is also loose.

Interestingly enough, There was a flap on the figure set's package (which I will show you shortly), right over Brandon Routh's head, where a potential customer could press a button on the back of Raphael's shell. There is a little dot on his plastron, which I assume would be a light. Only it didn't work. I figured perhaps that the batteries were dead, that someone had played with it too much prior to the toy's purchase. However, after using a screwdriver to dismantle his shell, I found that there is no mechanism inside that would allow such a thing to occur. There is literally no connection between the button and the light. If someone were to add an extra action feature to a knockoff figure, you would think they would at least put some sort of device inside that would actually make it work. Nevermind the fact that if Raph's armour were on, the light would be useless anyway...

Both Raph and Thing come with these retarded little whatever-the-Hell-they-ares. They look like they are supposed to be POGs at first glance, but they're made from such thin material... I'm not an artsy kind of guy, so I don't know exactly what it is. They're not made of cardboard; the material is even thinner than a paper grocery sack. I recall finding some bootleg Dragon Ball figures at a Dollar Store that had the same kind of items. Anyway, Raph's has the four Turtles with the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logo, while Thing's is just the number four.

Now come the Spider-Men. The standard Spider-Man is literally impossible to get to stand under his own power despite being the exact same sculpt as the Symbiote one. I had to lean him up against Thing to take these photos. In any case, standard Spider-Man has these detachable rubber suction cup-like items, only they aren't suction cups. They are made of a thin yet durable rubber, and are impossible to stick to anything in any matter. He also comes with a big red web that is made of the same material. Symbiote Spider-Man comes with a triple-barreled crossbow (which I didn't realize until it was too late, that it is not possible to make it out from these photos). It doesn't do anything other than clip to his wrist. There is also another thin little paper object, this one of a blue-and-yellow spider monster with the words "Man-Spider" printed beneath it. It is not round like the other ones.

The final figure in this horror show is Superman. Superman has to be the worst of the bunch, and of course, that's saying a lot. Superman obviously has a Batman sculpted body, and worse yet, he looks like he's trying to take a squat right there in front of God and everybody. Everything about his body looks like it belongs to Batman, from the spikes on the gloves to the cuts in his cape. Only the head, colours, and that crappily painted backwards "S" on his chest would tell you that it is a Superman figure. Oddly enough, Superman also does not come with any accessories - not even a shitty little paper emblem.

The package is your standard "throw on as many characters the kids like as you can with random Engrish". I find it funny that all four of the TMNT are presented on the card's front, but all of the other franchises only have one character. I honestly would not have opened this package if it wasn't for the fact that it was already a quarter of the way off when I bought it. Actually, all of the ones they had there with Raph were like this, and some of the ones without him were in worse condition. I paid $7 for this pack, instead of $8 like the tag says. I tried to talk the merchant down to $5 because it was already open, but $7 was as low as she was going to go. I still feel like I got screwed considering the fact that the open package could have been a catalyst to deliver Avian Influenza, or Rocking Pnemonia, or The Clap, or whatever the popular biological weapon is these days for unloading on unsuspecting parents that think they're buying the kids the real thing, or dweebs like me that know they're buying a bootleg but don't care. It is late and I am quite sleepy, so I will let the photos do the talking for me.

Hey kids! Can you tell which one is the real figure, and which is the fake?

Shredder-Raph's evil was outclassed by the evil of Dangerous-Amounts-of-Lead-Based-Paint-Raph.

Why Capcom Needs To Release Street Fighter IV on the Wii

2008-08-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, granted, I'm not the #1 fan of Capcom's latest entry to the Street Fighter series (there's quite the laundry list of things that bug me about SFIV), but seeing as how I'm a hardcore fighting game fan, I'm willing to give it a chance. However, considering I do not have a high-powered PC, nor an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, and given the dying breed that is the North American arcade, this is not going to be an easy task.

Back when Street Fighter IV was first announced, the game's producer, Yoshinori Ono, stated in countless interviews that he would like to see the game release on as many platforms as possible. Using an intricate analogy, Ono specifically stated that the Wii was a viable console for Street Fighter IV:

"Street Fighter IV, as it stands now, would be well-suited for the higher-level platforms. But the game doesn't have to have these visuals in order to be fun. We could go, potentially, to the Wii. We could make it on Game Boy, for all we know right now. As long as the rules are the same, that can be independent of the visuals. So we're not going to be limited by any hardware specs; we're going to aim as wide as possible. You could have a gold-inlaid board, knights with diamonds in their eyes. Or you could just draw a grid on a piece of paper and use cheap plastic pieces. And you're having the same amount of fun."

Although the Game Boy option was probably just to further his example, many took his mentioning of a Wii version to heart - even more so than a casually mentioned PlayStation 2 version in another interview. After all, aside from the Virtual Console, there has not been a Street Fighter game released on a Nintendo home console since Super Street Fighter II on the Super NES back in 1994. Every major home console released since then, that was not Nintendo-branded, had some sort of release of Street Fighter; Hell, there was even one in development for the Mattel Hyper Scan! Despite Capcom's fondness for porting PlayStation games to the Nintendo 64 (Resident Evil 2, MegaMan Legends), not one Capcom versus fighter was released for that console. The closest thing Nintendo console gamers have gotten since SSFII was Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO on the Gamecube, which was a crossover game, not a proper entry to the Street Fighter series.

So imagine the disappointment when Ono's words were diffused upon Capcom's announcement of the game's release only on systems that are more powerful than Jesus with a hand grenade. Why go through that entire analogy if nothing is to come of it?

Fortunately, with the advent of Capcom porting games to the Wii from all over the place (Resident Evil 4, Okami, Dead Rising), there may be hope. However, since this was the exact practice that was taking place back in the N64 days, I would not hold my breath....

Please, Capcom, just make Street Fighter IV on the Wii. There is an army of people just waiting to give you money for it.

Sorry....

2008-08-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I promised a real content update soon, as opposed to widgets. I fully had the intent to do so, but I've had other things that has otherwise occupied my time. Besides, who the heck am I apologizing to? Nobody ever reads this rubbish! I could say anything I want right now and nobody would care to say anything about it.

Meh... I'm just going to go to bed.

TO ARMS, FOLKS!

2008-07-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'll have some real content soon, I promise!

TMNT 25

2008-07-24T11:08:00.001-07:00

Everyone I know goes away, in the end

2008-06-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

Last night, a very good friend of mine, one that I considered family, passed away.

Tasha Marie Bourne, better known as "Tomb", has left this world. Her heart stopped suddenly following a tough and rigorous battle with lymphoma. An orphan at age 12, Tasha never really had anyone to turn to. She saw me as her mentor and father figure.

Tasha... your time here on Earth mattered. You've touched my life as well as the lives of many others. I just... I just wish that someone as young as you didn't have to leave us.

Gods... am I even forming complete sentences? It's hard to concentrate...

May angels lead you in, Tasha.

"And if you were with me tonight
I'd sing for you just one more time.
A song for a heart so big...
God wouldn't let it live"

Semper fi, George

2008-06-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

An e-mail from a co-worker this morning (a hardcore fan of the man) has alerted me that legendary comedian and actor, George Carlin, has died. Blew my mind completely. This was definitely not the best way to start the week.

George Denis Patrick Carlin
May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008

What I'm Listening To: Lithium

2008-05-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Lithium
Don't want to lock me up inside
Lithium
Don't want to forget how it feels without
Lithium
I want to stay in love with my sorrow
Ohhhhh woahhh
But God, I want to let it go

Come to bed, don't make me sleep alone
Couldn't hide the emptiness, you let it show
Never wanted it to be so cold
Just didn't drink enough to say you love me

I can't hold on to me
Wonder what's wrong with me

Lithium
Don't want to lock me up inside
Lithium
Don't want to forget how it feels without
Lithium
I want to stay in love with my sorrow
Ohhhhh ohhh

Don't want to let it lay me down this time
Drown my will to fly
Here in the darkness I know myself
Can't break free until I let it go
Let me go

Darling, I forgive you after all
Anything is better than to be alone
And in the end I guess I had to fall
Always find my place among the ashes

I can't hold on to me
Wonder what's wrong with me

Lithium
Don't want to lock me up inside
Lithium
Don't want to forget how it feels without
Lithium
Stay in love with me
Ohhh ohhhhh
I'm gonna let it go

I feel all a Twitter!

2008-05-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

So my friend Onnawufei introduced me to this thing called Twitter. It's over on the right side of The Sanctuary, now. It's like a mini-blog that can be updated on the fly, for times when I want to update but don't have time. Don't expect anything particularly interesting, however.

Oh, and by the way, I'm aware of how cheesy/corny/gay the title of this entry is. I haven't had enough coffee yet to get my pun mechanisms churning, all right?

Pika Pika!

2008-05-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

So I'm looking through the parcels that have been delivered to me, and I come upon a small package, only a few inches in diameter. As I do not recall ordering anything of this size, I immediately suspect it was shipped in err, or that it is some sort of method of my destruction. Wearily, I open the box, ready for anthrax, a bomb - just ready for anything.

Imagine my surprise when this was the face staring at me:

Knowing I hadn't ordered this adorable little mouse, I was still nonplussed. It was only after reading the accompanying slip that was inside the box, that I was able to understand that I had won third place in a contest sponsored by Armour brand meats that I had entered months ago and promptly forgotten about.

Needless to say, I was suprised. This was the second time within a month I had won a toy of some sort (the other one will be published in an upcoming entry), when usually my luck with winning anything is slim to none, and slim's left town. Could this herald a change in my fortune, or is it just random.

REVIEW: The Simpsons Episode #419: Mona Leaves-a

2008-05-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

I have been a huge fan of The Simpsons since its first season, although I do not recall if the first post-Tracey Ulman show episode, Simpsons Roasting On an Open Fire, was the initial episode I had viewed. Even after many fans have abandoned the series, I have continued to attentively watch every and every episode multiple times.

This past Sunday's episode was a bittersweet addition to the series' canon (or what can pass as canon); the return of Mona Simpson, mother of Homer - and her subsequent death. Yes, The Simpsons still proves it's as ballsy as every, by killing a main character's mother on Mother's Day.

The story opens at Springfield Mall, where after Marge tricks Bart and Lisa into becoming the recipients of incredibly uncomfortable sweaters. Bart, Homer, and Lisa pressure Marge into going to three separate locales within the mall before leaving, but Marge decides to do something Maggie would like: go to the "Stuff and Hug", a thinly veiled parody of the "Build-A-Bear Workshop" franchise. Following an adventure in which Bart angers Homer by recording rude taunts onto talking plush hippopotamuses, the family returns home to find their front door open.

Equipping "The Defender" (a makeshift weapon made from a chain and a cinder block), Homer attempts to get the drop on the burglar... until the smell of apple pie piques his interest, and he realizes the intruder is his own mother.

Mona attempts to reconcile with her son, but Homer declines her gesture of goodwill, hurt after the decades of her absence. When he decides to make amends, it is unfortunately too late; Mona has passed away. The scene in which Homer discovers that she has died is possibly the most sad and touching moment in Simpsons history.

Mona's funeral is attended by Seth and Munchie, the hippies from "Do'h-in in the Wind", and an elderly man of whom I did not catch but a glimpse. Abe delivers one of the better lines of the episode, in which he indicates he had always planned to dance upon his estranged wife's grave, but does not feel the urge to do so any longer.

Unfortunately, this is where the episode begins to dip in quality. Upon viewing her video will, the family is left with specific possessions: Bart gets a Swiss Army Knife, Lisa is given the intangible gift of her grandmother's rebellious spirit, and Marge is left a hemp handbag. Homer, however, is charged with the task of spreading his mother's ashes upon a specific mountain at a specific date and time. Upon doing so, her ashes clog the launch mechanism within the mountain, which is to launch a missile Mr. Burns is planning to aim at the Amazon Rainforest. To Homer's dismay, Mona had recruited him to help her pull "one last hippie mission". Homer is captured by Burns' guards, but the family uses the gifts Mona left behind to help him escape (Lisa uses the rebellious spirit, presumably, to swipe a diamond earring of Mona's that was left behind on a nightstand - which is also used in this rescue mission).

Following his escape, Homer comes to terms with Mona, and a montage of scenes involving her plays to the song "Mother and Child Reunion" by Paul Simon - a song which deals with a mother and her child, separated by death, who hope to be reunited in the afterlife.

Despite its lulls in storytelling and humor, Mona Leaves-a handled the death of a character much better than season eleven's "Alone Again, Natura-Diddly", which, although was a more humorous episode than this one, was very tepid in the manner of Maude Flanders' death. Mona Leaves-a also gives us two very genuinely touching moments - Homer's realization of his mother's passing, as well as the ending montage. Serious, sad moments are more common in Groening's other series, Futurama, so their inclusion in The Simpsons was a pleasant surprise.

Strangely enough, as of this writing, Mona Leaves-a is the Simpsons episode with the lowest viewership ratings - despite it being one of the best of the season.

Final Verdict: B-

It's kind of Bright at this House

2008-05-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

Monday, May 12th, a co-worker of mine, Issac Bright, will appear on the FOX TV series House M.D., also known as "House". I'm not certain who his character is, but I found a screenshot of him in the show, which you can see below:

Image courtesy of Spoiler TV.

Wait, who's a ninja now?

2008-05-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

As the only method of video capture that is currently in my apartment is a very shoddy webcam (it works well enough for person-to-person conversations in Windows Live Messenger, but it is not built well for photographs and footage), it may be a while before the first true episode of The Corporate Ninja appears.

What exactly is The Corporate Ninja? A nickname amongst friends and co-workers of mine is "Ninja", or some variation thereof, due to my practicing of ninjutsu and fondness of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When a co-worker, Elman, was giving out e-mail addresses to a domain he owned that was related to an inside joke here in the office, I decided to take the name "corporateninja@....."

Months later, when Elman was out of the office, some other co-workers decided to use the webcam in his iMac to film a short skit show titled "The Elman Show", as the videos were left on his desktop and they addressed him directly within the video.

At one point, I had brought my ninja hood to work and decided to film an episode as The Corporate Ninja. This video is one of the two available on Youtube, which you can see below:

The video was moderately popular on Youtube (three months or so old and over 300 hits at this point... not exactly viral, but better than I expected). One of my co-workers suggested I create a Corporate Ninja spin-off.

I later voiced The Corporate Ninja in a short cartoon my brother made, which is in the process of being posted on Youtube. I began to realize that there might be something to this character after all.

The Corporate Ninja format has yet to be truly decided; maybe a video log with a healthy dosing of humour. Although I am not directly basing any of the show on the very popular "Ask a Ninja" series, there is no doubt that it will in some way influence the show, as I am a huge fan of said series (I in fact recently purchased the Ask A Ninja DVD).

So there you have it; the history of The Corporate Ninja. Are there any comments ye have on said topic? Any suggestions for the show? Do not hesitate to let me know!

Namasté,
~The S

Yes, I am alive.

2008-05-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to formally abandon my old Livejournal account - the last post was in July of 2007 . Since a plethora of people I respect, admire, and/or communicate with have blogs here on Blogger/Blogspot, I've decided to move it here.

Now, therein lies a problem; I rarely keep up with my blogs at all. This is due to disinterest, busyness, laziness, or just the fact that there are occurrences in my life I would rather everyone on the internet to know about. Not to mention, that my previous blogs did not exactly have readers on any sort of a basis.

So who am I? For the uninitiated, I am The S. The story behind said moniker is long and complicated, and I may write a separate entry on its origins in the future. I am also known by many other names, including Corporate Ninja, Samael, Koji Suzuki, and El Lobo.

I am in my early twenties and reside in Washington state. I work as a Fraud Analyst for an anti-phishing company. I have practiced several martial arts for many years, including contemporary ninjutsu, Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryuu, and taiji quan.

I wholly admit, without shame, that I am a die-hard Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan; despite them being a fictional creation, have led me guidance on my life. In addition, the TMNT and Bruce Lee were my inspirations to follow a life of martial arts.

My other interests include horror movies, especially Japanese ones (aka "J-horror"), my favorite of such being films in "The Ring" series. I also enjoy Hellboy, Lost, Heroes, CSI, video games (both playing and design), and to a lesser extent than in previous years, anime and manga.

In closing, I would like to thank anyone who comes across here for taking the time to read this. Perhaps in the future, I might have a regular reader or two.

Namasté,
~The S