Tintin and I

There's not enough Tintin in the US. He's popular all over the world, but unfortunately, not nearly enough in this country. If you don't know who I'm talking about, then you should bow your head in shame. Blistering barnacles!

Tintin is the boy reporter who has adventures all over the world with his dog, Snowy. His adventures have been chronicled in twenty-three graphic novels (see Amazon link here). This is some of the most well-crafted comics you'll ever read - plus it's kid-friendly to boot.

So get your act together and first go check out the official Tintin website. Next, watch the PBS documentary on P.O.V. called "Tintin and I", which is all about Tintin's creator Herge, and the impact of his work. It's showing on Tuesday, 7/11 at 11 pm. Just Tivo it, you won't regret it.

Road House, Yeah!

In less than two weeks, the special edition of Road House will be released on DVD. I would argue that this is one of the modern classics of "guy" movies. Every red-blood American male who was around for its heyday in the early nineties must have some measure of respect for this film.

If you don't know the magic of Road House, then here's a quick overview: Patrick Swayze plays Dalton, a professional bouncer hired to clean up an unruly southern bar. Along the way he defends the locals from the evil crime lord who wants to take over the town. I don't remember exactly why he wanted to take over the town, but he was just plain bad, and only Patrick Swayze could stand up to him.

In my humble opinion, this 1989 movie captures Swayze in the absolute height of his Swayze-ness. Dirty Dancing put him on the map, but Road House took him straight to the top of the heap. Sure, he would star in Ghost in 1990 with Demi Moore, but he didn't kick ass in that movie like he did in Road House. Not only does he beat up drunks and bad guys in this movie, but he also was a kind, spiritual soul with a "no one ever wins a fight" philosophy. So true.

So what does this new special edition DVD have? Deleted scenes? An alternate ending? You got me. All I know is that there is a Kevin Smith audio commentary included, which is well worth the price of the disc.

If that wasn't enough for you, then check this out: Road House 2 will be released on the same day. That's right, they finally made a sequel to the classic. You have to wonder why that waited so long. I guess the public demanded it, so they had to deliver.

When I first saw the preview ad for this DVD, this was the cover art:


First of all, who is this shmuck? Jonathan Schaech? Why does he look like such a dork? Most importantly, what's up with those jeans that he's wearing? My fiance has been getting me to wear more appropriately-colored jeans for going out, and brother, what this guy is wearing ain't it. Road House or not, those are not jeans that you should wear out in the evening.

I saw another preview of the cover art today, and I think the producers saw the same things I was seeing and made some changes. Here's the second version:


Oh yeah, that's much better. Those acid-washed jeans are a huge improvement.

World Cup Fevah

For my 100th post, I will not wax nostalgically on my previous 99 posts. No, there's plenty of time for waxing later. Instead, let's talk about the World Cup. For the first time I've actually kept up with the tournament this year, and while I haven't fallen in love with the sport, it's actually proved to be pretty interesting:

• As everyone knows by now, the US had a pretty dismal showing in the World Cup group matches. I watched them get crushed by the Czech Republic, and I watched them squeak out a tie with Italy (in which the only US goal was scored by a player on the Italian team). I didn't watch their last match against Ghana, but they lost that too. Oh well, there's always 2010.


• The flop knows no language barrier. It seems like a once every few minutes a player gets tripped or bumped, and then he proceeds to roll around on the ground for a while, clutching his ankle in agony. A minute later, he's up and running again. It's nice to see that the phantom injury is part of our universal language. Sure, it really hurts if someone steps on the back of your leg with a cleat, but I think a lot of these guys just want to lie on the ground so they can catch their breath from running around all over the place.
  
  
  
• This is Goleo VI, the official mascot of the 2006 World Cup. Pille, the talking football, is Goleo's constant companion who is always by his side. Goleo kicks Pille in the face and in the head all the time, but that lovable football just doesn't seem to mind. I've got nothing against mascots, and I actually love seeing people in animals suits. However, when I look at Pille, his mouth looks like someone took a soccer ball and slashed it with a knife. It kind of makes me queasy. Take a look at this, you can see his soccer ball guts inside his mouth:
  
  


• I could be wrong about this, but it seemed like both the teams from Japan and Korea had one guy with bleached blonde hair. Only one - all the other members of the team had regular dark hair. It was if they had a contest, and only one guy got to change his hair color.
  
  

• Whenever I see the World Cup Trophy, it always reminds me of the poster from the War of the Worlds remake. Creepy.

• As of today, Germany and Portugal have been eliminated and France and Italy will meet in the final. Who will win? I have no idea. I've been to both France and Italy, but overall I've spent more time in France, so there you have it. Go France!

IDEA 06 Winners

I was looking through the winning entries from the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Awards, and here are the ones that caught my eye:

2 Seconds Quechua - This is a tent that you throw up into the air, the thing expands and unfolds, and it turns into a two person tent. Pretty neat. They say that it disassembled and folded back into it's original form in fifteen seconds. I kind of have a hard time believing this; I bet it's just like trying to fold a map back together.

The Hover Creeper - Believe or not, back in the day I used to change my own motor oil, so I know what it's like to crawl underneath a car to get to the oil pan. However, I never had the luxury of having a board with wheels to lie on. The Hover Creeper replaces the traditional rolling board with a board the floats on air. Presumably, this thing never touches the ground. It sounds pretty futuristic, I would want one just to ride around the house.

SanDisk Ultra II SD PLUS - I guess this might be old news for most digital photography enthusiasts, but it's new for me: this memory card has its own USB connector. All you do is fold the card along its hinge and plug it into your computer's USB hub, eliminating the need for any card readers. I can just hear the memory card read industry just crashing down right now.

Water Tile - Have you ever been in a shower, maybe in some strange hotel, your face and hair are all soaped and shampoo'ed up, and then you go and bonk your head on a low hanging shower head? Don't lie - I know you've done it before. I certainly have. Kohler make this handy shower tile which is flush with the other wall tiles. The only problem now is, where will you hang the shower caddy?

Nutty Buddy - The pleas of the desperate have been answered: the Nutty Buddy is a new kind of athletic protection device that "provides never-before-seen levels of comfort while being able to withstand a baseball traveling at more than 100 mph." Oh, bravo I say! Bravo! It also has an extra "tail" that goes between your legs, which is meant to provide you with an extra measure of protection for your frank 'n beans. Best of all, it's just fun to say "nutty buddy".

Nacho Libre

Jack Black is one of the funniest guys around today. Everything he does is a guaranteed laugh, or at least a giggle or guffaw. Maybe I like the guy a little too much, but look at this picture:


See? Funny. When I first heard about Nacho Libre, it sounded like a sure thing: Jack Black and Mexican wrestlers? This can't fail!

We went to see Nacho Libre, and was it funny? Yep, sure was. Was it a good movie? Well, I think it will be a good movie for the people who like Jack Black, Luchador wrestling, or enjoy Napolean Dynamite-style weirdness. If not, then this maybe you should go see The Lake House. Or Cars. You know, something that everyone will enjoy.

There isn't much of a story in this movie, and very little character development. However, the point of this movie was to let Jack Black do his thing: he gets to take his shirt off, he gets to sing and he gets to fart (this movie was produced by Nickelodean, so that's as far as it goes kids). All in all, not a great movie, but a worthy addition to the Jack Black film library.

Fly! Fly like the eagle!

Countdown to PSP

I lasted about 1 year and 3 months, but I've finally broken down and bought myself a Sony PSP. Hopefully it's on a plane somewhere on its way to me right now. Godspeed, my new little electronic friend.

In the beginning, the PSP reportedly had its share of problems: dead pixels, slow loading times, short battery life, just to name a few. Worst of all, the games they had at the launch weren't really that great. I'm hoping the hardware bugs have been fixed by now; we'll have to see about that. What pushed me into finally getting the PSP is that the games seem to be getting better. Here's a few that have caught my eye:

In September LocoRoco is coming out, a game where you have to steer a little blob of goo through successive levels by tilting the ground and changing the size of your blob by splitting him into little blobs. I've watched some video clips, and this kind of quirky game is right up my alley. What's not to love about a yellow smiling piece of goo?

Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel just came out this month - it's a virtual comic that you read on your PSP, with a lot of animation, music, and sound effects worked into the story. The artwork is by one of my favorite artists, Ashley Wood, whose style meshes perfectly with the look of Metal Gear Solid. It's a cool application for the PSP that hopefully will do justice to both the artwork and story.

Late last year, Sega released Virtua Tennis World Tour for the PSP, which is an updated version of their Virtua Tennis game originally made for the Dreamcast. If you've played this game before, then you will know that Virtua Tennis is simply the best tennis video game ever, on any system. The quick "pick up and play" aspect of this game should translate nicely to the PSP.

Finally, here's a part of a British student project that's been making the rounds on the internet: It's a scarf that can be converted to a hood for using the PSP:


Great if you want some privacy or its too bright to see the screen; not so good for seeing all the people laughing at you, or the guy who's stealing all your stuff.

Something For The Kitchen

This handy little knife block caught my eye today, and I asked my fiance how it would look in our kitchen. She made a face and said "nooooo" in a slow drawn out kind of way, meaning "not in my house". She also said something else about not wanting to give our future children a bad impression.

Oh, alright then. Maybe some other time. If you're interested, Overstock has it on sale. Mark my words, one of these days this fine piece of work is going to be sitting on an Antiques Roadshow table.

Judging A Book By Its Cover

Earlier this year, Penguin Books put out a series called Graphic Classics, a group of well-known works of literature packaged in a snazzy new paperback format. The cover illustrations are by leading comic book artists, including Chris Ware and Seth. I was roaming the aisles at Costco the other day, and I bought Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (with a cover by Charles Burns) and Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy (with a cover by Art Spiegelman).

Before I took this trip to Costco, I felt the need to read some my books that I never got around to reading. By sheer coincidence, I dug out a copy of The Jungle that I had purchased many years ago. I was never required to read this book in school, and its one of the books that I've always been curious about. A book about the poor working conditions and the unsanitary practices of the meat industry at the turn of the century? Sign me up!

Call me shallow, but I'm actually pretty excited to read this book now because the cover is so cool. Take a look - which book would you rather read? This one:


Or this one:


Go ahead and admit it... you would pick that delicious animal head too.

X-Men: The Last Stand

We finally saw the latest X-Men movie this past weekend, and I was really looking forward to it. So how was it? Well, it was just ok. It was a decent summer blockbuster, and holds up reasonably well with the first two movies, but it didn't top them by any stretch of the imagination.

As I watched the movie, I generated a list of questions and observations in my head. Before I dive into my list, if you haven't seen X-Men: The Last Stand, then what I'm going to say may spoil some things for you. So when you have a moment, go out and see the movie. I'll wait.

...

Oh, you're back. I hope you went to see a matinee and didn't pay full price. Anyways, here goes:

• Cyclops got the shaft in this movie. The guy barely appears in a few scenes, and that's it. He's supposed to be the leader of the X-Men, for pete's sake.
  
• Where's Nightcrawler? He would have been handy for all the jumping around that went on in this movie. I guess one blue, furry mutant is all that's allowed.
• OK, Xavier's school is in upstate New York, right? Magneto gathers his Brotherhood and goes to attack Alcatraz island in San Francisco. There's a sequence where Wolverine leaves the mansion to go find Jean Grey, who has joined the Brotherhood. When he finds them in a forest, are they on the west coast or the east coast? If they were on the west coast, how did Wolverine get there? He might have taken the X-Men's Blackbird plane, but it seems that he just ran out the front door & hopped on his silly motorcycle. If they were on the east coast, then how did Magneto transport the Brotherhood over 3000 miles to San Francisco? Did he steal a plane? A bus? Did he recruit a mutant with unlimited frequent flier miles?
  
• I must say that Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were pretty useless. We saw a guy who could grow daggers out of his wrists and throw them and a guy with super-hearing in the forest. All I remember seeing during the fight on Alcatraz was a guy who could stick to walls like a tree frog. When mutants fight, I expect a lot of flying around with laser beams shooting out of people's hands. We didn't really get that in this movie. Color me disappointed.
• I can't wait to see Nacho Libre.
  
• This movie had the most comic book-like climax ever with Wolverine desperately trying to reach Jean Grey with her energy flying all around him, shredding him to bits. I could find a panel or two out of the X-Men comic, but I'm too lazy to do that.
  
• Cyclops totally got the shaft in this movie. If you really want to stick with the comic book version, it should have been him with Jean Grey at the end, not Wolverine.
• So when Magneto takes over the Golden Gate Bridge, it's daytime right? Most of the people abandon their cars to get off the bridge. At the end of the movie, it's nighttime and there's a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge with all the cars on the bridge with their headlights on. I'm surprised that everyone driving around in the daytime turns their headlights on. Bay Area drivers are so responsible.
• It's amazing how quickly they started rebuilding the Golden Gate Bridge. Where did they get the money from? I bet they diverted all the money from the new Bay Bridge span. The East Bay gets the shaft in this movie too.
  

Bat News

I saw on the tv news this morning that the Batwoman character is going to be resurrected in the Batman comic (see story here). The big kicker is that she's going to be a lesbian! Oh my goodness!

Now, I'm all for diversity in super-hero, but why is this news? Gay and lesbian characters in comics are nothing new. I've never really been a big Batman reader, so maybe I've missed something along the way, but Batwoman was originally a character from the super-cheesy Batman comics of the late fifties and early sixties. She wore a yellow & red outfit and was part of the wacky Batman family that included Bat-Mite, Bat-Hound, Bat-Ape and Bat-Baby. I thought the character was killed off sometime in the sixties, but I could be wrong.

New characters come and go all the time in the comic book world, so it perplexes me that this is a news-worthy story. I would wager that very few people know that a Batwoman even existed. Most people know Batgirl, but I don't think the common man on the street knows Batwoman. Sure, it's great publicity for DC Comics, but why does anyone care? Oh yeah - she's a lesbian in a slinky Batman outfit.

Alex Toth

I just read that Alex Toth passed away today. He was a legend in comics and animation, and he possessed a style which can never be duplicated. He will be greatly missed.

Slot Machines and Furry Animals

We just got back from a short vacation in Las Vegas, and although we didn't win a boatload of money, we had a good time nonetheless. It's been a year since we've been there, and the place is still booming. There's still plenty of room for more hotels, casinos and shopping centers. This town has a long way to go before it hits the saturation point for all this decadence.


Here's my one gripe: people, leave the kids at home. If you have to bring the kids to Las Vegas, at least get them to bed at a decent hour. Nothing is more appalling than seeing a mother walking around a casino at 1:00 in the morning with a drink in one hand and a small child in the other.

While we were Vegas, we saw Over the Hedge. This was a movie that I've been waiting to see, and I wasn't disappointed. The kids will be entertained, and there are plenty of jokes only the adults will understand. What's not to like? This is good, clean family fun.

It's amazing how good they can make CGI animals look nowadays. Furry animals look really furry. These computers - I bet they'll become really useful one of these days.

Caves and Caverns

I was looking through the upcoming DVD releases the other day, and there was a movie coming out called The Cavern. It's about a bunch of explorers who discover a deadly secret in an underground cave system and find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.

Hey, wait a minute - wasn't there already a movie about that? Oh yeah, it was called The Cave. It was about a bunch of explorers who discover a deadly secret in an underground cave system and find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.

Maybe it was just a coincidence that these two movies have similar stories. Maybe underground monster movies are really big right now. Maybe these movies are metaphors that you can't run and hide from the rigors and responsibilities of daily life. Who knows?

At least The Cavern could have come up with a different poster design that didn't remind me so much of The Cave. If you line them up, you can pretend the hapless explorers are descending down from one movie into another:

So what have we learned? Not much. All I know is that X-Men: The Last Stand opens in a week. Wahoo!

It's A Baby!

Our friend mochablue had a bouncing baby boy on Monday! Congratulations...you so rock!

Actual baby not pictured.

Mission: Impossible 3

I watched the original Mission: Impossible series on tv when I was a kid. My favorite part of the show was at the beginning, where the leader of the Impossible Mission Force would take his special binder labeled "IMF" and carefully select the photos of the agents he wanted for the show's mission. The funny thing was, except for the occasional guest star, he always picked the same agents for every mission.

I remember usually the shows involved trying to get some information out of a guy. They would come up with some elaborate scheme to make the guy believe he was on a tropical island or in a foreign country. Once the IMF extracted the information then needed, they would pick up and leave. Their poor victim would then find out he wasn't on a tropical island or in foreign country, rather the whole thing was a setup and he was on some backlot in L.A.

For this latest installment of Mission: Impossible, I was glad that the movie finally involved some IMF teamwork, rather than Tom Cruise working solo. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of Tom Cruise solo action; he's running around this movie as fast as his short little legs will take him.

Run Forrest! Run!

For a while I thought that I wouldn't be able to truly enjoy this movie, because all I would see is crazy 'ol Tom Cruise with that big toothy grin of his. However, the good news is that this movie makes you forget he's insane in real life, and he doesn't flash his goofy grin until the end of the movie.

Mission: Impossible 3 is the first of the big summer blockbusters, and it certainly delivers on the big guns and blazing explosions, the prerequisites for any summer movie. I wouldn't say that this is the best in the franchise, although it will tide you over until the next big blockbuster comes out (X-Men: The Last Stand - 5/26! Wahoo!).

Luckily, there was a box nearby for Tom to stand on.

TV Shows I Miss

I probably watch too much TV. Unfortunately, that means I also spend way too much time thinking about TV. From time to time, I think about shows that I'd like to see on TV again. Since I know everyone would want to know, here's my current list:

Fear (2000) - This reality show was inspired by the Blair Witch Project, where MTV would send a group of teenagers into a supposedly haunted location wearing cameras on their heads. The group had to spend the night, and each person had to go to a certain area to do a task, which could possibly stir up the alleged ghosts in the area. It was kind of silly, but it was fun to watch the kids freak themselves out over nothing. There's a DVD out with a few episodes, but they should put out the entire season with all the episodes.

Actually, watching Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi Channel is a decent substitute for this show.

Bands on the Run (2001) - This was a VH1 show that followed four indie bands as they traveled around the U.S. competing against each other for a recording contract. It was a good show because all the different bands had interesting characters in them, and made for some good reality TV drama. What was cool was that the band that won, Flickerstick, won because they had the best music, despite the fact they never won any of the individual challenges on the show. I don't know if they could duplicate the success of this show with another group of bands, but at least they could show the reruns of the original show. It would certainly be a whole lot better than Celebrity Fit Club or The Flavor of Love. Plus, it would actually have something to do with music!

Bakersfield P.D. (1993) - As I recall, this Fox show didn't last a whole season, but I remember really liking it a lot. It was kind of a Northern Exposure "fish out of water" show where Giancarlo Esposito played a police detective joining the small police force of Bakersfield, California. Naturally, everyone else in the town is kind of odd & quirky in comparison to Esposito. The show was critically acclaimed, but unfortunately no one watched it, and it was cancelled before it found its audience. It doesn't seem likely that this show will ever see the light of day again, even as a DVD.

Behind the Music (1997 -Present) - I know they occasionally make new episodes of this show, but they have a ton of these shows that they never show anymore. It seems that whenever this show is on, it's either about the Notorious B.I.G. or Kid Rock. What's sad is that they have over 180 other episodes of this show that they never show. Sure, not all of them are winners, but in a lot of ways Behind the Music is an educational show about music history. Heck, without this show, I would have never known who Thin Lizzy was. What it kill VH1 to show just one different episode per day?

Kindred: The Embraced (1996) - In order to provide a fair and balanced view, I asked my fiance what show she missed, and this is the one she told me. I've never seen this show before, but it's about vampires. Neat!

Clone High (2002) - This was a short-lived cartoon on MTV, which only showed about six or seven episodes before it vanished. It's about a high school with all the clones of famous people throughout history deal with teen problems. How could this fail? The show had some hilarious moments. It's got one of my favorite cartoon lines: "If there's anything that Mahatma Ghandi stands for, it's revenge!"

...Believe me, it's funny if you've seen the cartoon. I just bought the series DVD on eBay, so I actually don't miss this one much anymore.

No! Not You! Anyone But You!

I'm going to put on my comic book geek hat on now. If you have one of your own, go ahead and put it on too.

One of the things that I like most about comic book covers is the cheesy dialogue. The little spoken word balloons that were used to describe the earth-shattering dangers or the life-chaning drama that was waiting for you inside the comic. Did the dialogue on the cover always deliver in the story? Sometimes. But it always helped sell the comic - the action on the cover told you that you would be making a big mistake if you missed this issue.

The sixties and the seventies were a great time for cover dialogue. Unfortunately, comic book characters stopped talking on comic book covers in the eighties. The trend continues today, where comic covers are mainly illustrations which usually have little to do with the stories contained inside. It's really a shame.

I really love the comic book style of speaking. If you could hear how I think, you'd probably hear me talk to myself in the typical superhero style: "I must do laundry now...or all is lost!" or "Someone will pay for these high gasoline prices...this I swear!"

Today's theme is "no, not you, it can't be you", courtesy of the Fantastic Four: