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May 14th, 2008
03:17 pm - Secret Invasion
In Secret Invasion #3, Cyclops is revealed to be the twelfth and final cylon. As if the visor hadn't already given it away.
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May 10th, 2008
08:42 pm - What Is Trajan?
"Russel Crowe has co-starred with Trajan three time now."
"Every single horror film made in the past five years uses Trajan."
I was made aware of this in a comment at letterer Todd Klein's blog, after he'd mentioned Marvel's Civil War had used Trajan.
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May 6th, 2008
10:46 pm - Iron Man!
Awesome!
So nice to see one of those rare comic-based films where they got everything right.
And yes, I totally stayed for the end!
What's hilarious is that my always-cynical brother walked out halfway through the credits, since I couldn't tell him what we were going to see (having heard nothing myself other than "you need to stay"). "Oh, it's gonna be some little five-second thing," "lame like that X-Men thing," etc.
I call him up right after I leave the theater to tell him what he miss, while he tries to convince himself out loud that it wasn't anything special, heh.
So I think my list of personal favorite superhero movies is now:
1. X-Men 1 & 2
2. Iron Man
3. Batman Begins
4. Spider-man 1 & 2
5. Unbreakable
Speaking of M. Night Shamaylan, was anybody else completely underwhelmed by the trailer for his next film? I mean, I'm one of the apparently few people who actually liked The Village even, and the whole time I'm watching the trailer (before even knowing it was his), it was like "but I just saw I Am Legend"...
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May 4th, 2008
09:09 pm - New Apartment
Man, I'm so exhausted...just finished moving into the new apartment. Don't even have internet hooked up yet, but luckily someone else in the building seems to have a wireless modem set up without a password, woo.
I'm loving the new place, especially for the price compared to other apartments in the area...but I'll be loving it even more once I've finished unpacking boxes, and have everything in its right place.
Haven't seen Iron Man yet, due to people being too busy this weekend to go. I'm almost tempted to go alone, just to see it sooner.
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April 29th, 2008
08:26 pm - Assimilated
So guess who just became another Wii owner? Since Mario Kart is one of my favorite video game series, I finally broke down and got one.
Wii #: 4151 6202 2598 2189
Let's play. ;-)
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April 18th, 2008
11:23 pm - I Drink Your Milkshake!
I have to admit, I've been so behind on movies for awhile now, I haven't gotten around to seeing a lot of the Oscar-nominated flicks until recently.
I watched No Country For Old Men about a month ago, and I have to say...it left me confused. I mean, I'm a huge fan of the Coen Brothers (Minnesota Represent!), so I figured I'd love an Oscar-winning Coen Brothers movie. But y'know, it came off as seeming like one of their less interesting films. Fargo is nominated for Best Picture but doesn't win...Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? doesn't even get nominated for it, and Old Country For Old Men is the one that wins?
Not to mention the flawed ending. I mean, I'm down with movies ending in a way that goes against the Hollywood need to wrap things up all nice and neat, leaving things up to your imagination...but this didn't even provide that! ( Spoiler Warning )
Now tonight I watched There Will Be Blood. And I've got to say, it was so robbed (i.e. Coen Brother drank your milkshake)! Definitely should've got the Best Picture award. Very intense.
Y'know what else really surprised me about the award, though? That Before The Devil Knows You're Dead was completely snubbed, despite making numerous critics' best of 2007 lists. I thought it was pretty darn good.
In conclusion, There Will Be Milkshakes (spoilers if you haven't seen the film):
And if you want more, there's this great SNL sketch. I actually hadn't seen any of the movies referenced when I first saw this sketch, so I was completely confused but still found it mildly humorous. And then when the line came up while watching the actual movie, I burst out laughing!
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April 12th, 2008
03:18 pm - Battlestar Thoughts
The crazier Baltar gets, the more I love him. ^_^
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12:28 pm - Irony
Stolen from ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) fantasygoat. And yes, this photo is real.
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April 11th, 2008
08:56 pm - Lego Creator
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April 9th, 2008
10:44 am - The One That Hooked You
Blog @ Newsarama had a link to this EW.com article that asks about a dozen comic pros what comic was the one that hooked them. Sounds meme-worthy, if you ask me. So what was the one that hooked you?
For me, it was two issues that I read back to back (and can no longer remember which I actually read first):
(Images from the excellent ComicbookDB.com.)
Reading these two back-to-back gave me a sense of the history of the X-Men...the fact that, just like real people, these characters change and grow over time, and that the team line-up isn't a static thing. I remember comparing the headshots on each cover in the upper left, and trying to figure out who was who, based on what knowledge I'd gleaned so far from the cartoon series (which was only in season two at the time, I believe). So I totally thought Archangel there was just Nightcrawler with a different hair color at first, but I managed to figure it out within a few more issues. ;-)
Even their uniforms change over the years...seeing that Storm once sported a mowhawk was really shocking, but in a way that was cool. It made them seem more "real" than other characters like Superman or Batman or other "icons," who are basically stuck remaining the same age with the same outfit, and rarely if ever growing much as people.
Or for that matter, not necessarily always wearing a "costume" when not fighting. In the Classic X-Men issue, most of the X-Men don't even change into costume...Wolverine is wearing his jacket and cowboy hat, and Storm's leather get-up looked more like street-clothes than a costume anyways. And then over in the Uncanny X-Men issue, the focus is on Forge and Mystique, who likewise spend most of the issue in casual wear (though I think Mystique later morphs into her costume when the villain makes his appearance).
This issue might also be partly responsible for Mystique being one of my favorite X-Men characters, since she was one of the stars of the issue (and at the time was thought being made out to be one of the good guys). I was kind of disappointed when she went bad again, and was no longer a regular "cast member").
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April 3rd, 2008
04:24 pm - Some Beatles For You
I've been uploading some harder-to-find videos and things to YouTube. Here's some Beatles goodness, for those who might be interested.
Have you ever seen the docu-film Let It Be in its theatrical widescreen? Now you can (split over nine 10-minute clips...the last three clips are the rooftop performance):
If you're a fan of Lennon and/or The White Album, you've got to see this. "Yer Blues" performed live by John Lennon, with a supergroup backing band consisting of Eric Clapton (Cream), Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones), and Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix Experience). Mick Jagger introduces the song, with Lennon and him being generally weird in their own way:
John Lennon post-Beatles performing "Come Together" live:
The music video for the song "Help," without the darts and credits that appear on the screen during the Help! movie:
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April 2nd, 2008
09:16 pm - LolDOGS
Inspired by this, I had the brilliant idea to translate the Pink Floyd song "Dogs" in lolCat. But as I'm not too good at lolCat phrasing, this is about as far as I got before giving up. ;-P
DAWGS
u gots 2 be crazy.
u gots 2 has real ned.
im on ur street, sleepin on ur toez
stealin ur cheezburger wif eyes closd.
an den movin in silently, out ov sight,
NOM NOM NOM, I eated it.
...
u gots 2 keep wan eye lookin ovar ur shouldr.
u know iz goin 2 git hardr,
an hardr an hardr an hardr an hardr
as u git oldr.
an u up an fly down south,
hide ur head in da sand.
OMG, WHERE EVRYTING GO?
sad cat is sad.
...
hoo wuz borked by traind personnel,
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March 27th, 2008
08:45 pm - Introvert Manifesto
Maybe it's just me, but sometimes it seems like a disproportionate number of artistic folks are also introverts? Dunno. But I found this article amusing, and thought I'd post it here since I'm pretty sure I'm not the only introvert on my friends list. ;-)
Caring For Your Introvert
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March 20th, 2008
04:48 pm
I dunno how many of you have realized or not that Livejournal has now discontinued creation of new Basic accounts. There was no real announcement about it, they just kind of did it (as usual).
More Info | Get a Banner Code
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12:16 am - Get Who?
I had a dream last night where Don Adams (Maxwell Smart) was one of the Doctors. Way bizarre. (Yet kind of fun.)
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March 9th, 2008
11:24 pm - 1-900-NERD-GIRL
Found this video slightly amusing:
And this great response vid, where she says basically what I think we were all thinking:
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March 1st, 2008
06:16 pm - Geektastic: Vintage Women-Of-X-Men
LJ friend papajoemambo works at a comic store in Canada, and noticed they had this t-shirt featuring the women of the X-Men circa 1985 (the mowhawk-Storm era, which I've always had a soft-spot for).
And as it turns out, isn't some new shirt featuring the old characters, but is actually vintage 1985, and still new in its package. Knowing my affinity for that era, he decided to send it to me, feeling the shirt should end up with someone that appreciates its geeky awesomeness. ;-)
The sticker on the back, with "(C) 1985"...actually, it's kind of weird to realize that this shirt is only two years younger than I am... o_O
A better shot of the art. We can't quite tell who the artist is...there's bits that look kind of Paul Smith-like, and parts that look JRJR-esque, and elements that look like neither artist. Does anyone recall seeing this panel in an actual issue of the book?
And wait, is Lockheed there because Kitty is, or have we been assuming wrongly about Lockheed's actual gender this whole time...?
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February 29th, 2008
10:30 pm - Teddy Ruxpin: Inventor Of Grunge Music
Okay, this is just bizarre. Wikipedia states (with citation) that the term Grunge was first popularized as a term to describe the genre in 1987/1988 (a few years before Soundgarden, Nirvana, etc. were even signed to a major label).
However, two years previous to that, in 1985, a Teddy Ruxpin book & tape (one in a string of many) was released with a very interesting title: Grunge Music. A "Grunge" in this case being the name of a species of trolls in the Teddy Ruxpin world.
A mere coincidence, Teddy being ahead of his time? Or did someone in Seattle have a sense of humor? (There's a funny anecdote about a magazine talking to a couple of people involved in the "movement," asking them for some grunge slang and definitions...the people gave them a bunch of completely made up BS just to amuse themselves, and it ended up making it to print!)
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February 25th, 2008
08:30 pm - Hypothetical Situation
Something I've been randomly thinking about, that I would love some feedback/opinions on.
Say someone decides to self-publish their comic series or graphic novel online as a webcomic online. It's not a gag-a-day style comic, but rather a serial...I'm not sure of what genre, but lets say for this hypothetical situation, its a comic you'd be interested in reading. In fact, pretend it's a current comic series you're currently enjoying.
My first question is, would you stop by every other day to read it a page at a time, or would it try your patience to read an ongoing story in that manner? I have a feeling what the answer is for most people, and that it relates to why we haven't adventure comics (Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, Terry And The Pirates, etc.) in newspapers much in over half a century.
My next question is, would you then prefer a story only be published once a finished chapter/issue is complete, even if that means a month or two between updates? Would you forget the comic existed if you weren't checking the site every day? If the creator offered a mailing list to join to receive a notice when the next chapter/issue was available, would you submit your email address, or is there something that'd make you reluctant to do so?
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05:40 pm - Ghost Rider
I finally saw the Ghost Rider movie yesterday (before watching the Oscars). It kind of sucks that, after trying so hard for so many years to land the lead in a comic book movie, Nic Cage gets stuck with Mark Steven Johnson as a director.
Can someone please make sure this Johnson guy never directs another comic-related movie ever again? To be fair, I think the movie had some good ideas (I liked the nod to the original western Ghost Rider, turning him into a flame-head as well -- and normally I hate the whole "Legacy character" thing). Maybe Johnson should just stick to writing, since I guess he wrote the Grumpy Old Men movies, and I seem to remember enjoying those. Because he clearly has absolutely no concept of pacing, establishing atmosphere, etc. I mean, launching the movie with a montage? It made the movie feel immediately like a direct-to-video production, and that feeling never went away.
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