Lost cause: Crusade

This little known gem I dug up as a boxed set some time last winter. Funny, when it was on the air, I couldn't give a rat's ass about Babylon 5. And forget any spin-off material. Fact was I was simply too young to appreciate what B5 and its brethren turned out to be: smart science-fiction entertainment in a world of television where you were either Star Trek, or you just weren't gonna make it. At the time I was busy criticizing how unrealistic the primitive CGI FX were, prefering the art of the physical models and slick camera-trickery of The Next Generation.

It was only a couple of years back I started to catch the daily reruns of B5 on Space channel. Every evening after work, I'd sit down with my dinner in front of the boob tube (something my parents frowned upon; "dinnertime is for eating," they'd say, "not for watching television!"). And I'd digest the intricate mythos unravelling about the politics of a distant future Earth... it was amazingly well done.

Anyway, at one point I decided it was time to get the whole thing proper so I started collecting the DVD sets of the complete series. And when Crusade came out... well, you know me.

Crusade is a puny little 13-episode set; it took me 11 months to watch the damn thing. The weirdness is that while I had forgiven the oddball look of the B5 CGI universe. I found I had trouble making the same concessions for the spin-off show (which in actuality was more like a sequel than a spin-off, since it directly takes place in the time frame after the events of the war depicted in B5). I held the fact that it was a cancelled (read: "failed") TV series against it. I watched a couple of episodes when I first bought the box. Then I let it sit for a while. In fact, I let it sit about 10 months and 3 weeks.

I just figured out what it was missing at the front-end of the set: a tie-in element to B5. Yes yes yes, it's a spin-off. The technology is the same, the cast talks about the same fictional alien races, the characters all have ties to the same military world as the B5 cast of characters... but... I don't know. J.M.Straczynski wanted to differentiate it from B5, in his own words he wanted to avoid making Crusade "just a variation on a theme." Well, he did it a little too well.

But this last weekend, I got started on the second disc and suddenly the show changed. The crew hooks up with a character from Babylon 5. They actually visit the B5 space-station in another episode. Suddenly the show became part of the B5 family to me and I greeted the following episodes with open arms. Right up until the sad final 13th episode (which ironically guest-starred yet another B5 regular character)... *sigh* it was fun while it lasted.

On a somewhat related note: I read today that "Legend of the Rangers" will be out on DVD March of 2006... But the thing is I've read conflicting information: that it'll be a UK-only release, that it'll be a Region 1 (North American) disc, etc...

duh - you just knew I'd take THIS quiz...

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 85% Robin 77% The Flash 70% Superman 60% Green Lantern 55% Batman 45% Hulk 45% Supergirl 35% Catwoman 30% Wonder Woman 25% Iron Man 25%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

PSP: Pelican Starter Kit

After many years of not accessorizing my handheld gadgets, I went with the Pelican Starter Kit for my PSP. I suppose it was during my Thanksgiving trip to Toronto this year with a clumsy baggie full of UMDs that made me decide to get a decent carrying case.

But first a little history: the first time I ever accessorized was the original Nintendo GameBoy carry case. The thing was a velcro-lidded cushioned case. It held 4 games in specially designed pockets, and although they claimed it could also carrying headphones and other cables, this was accomplished by carefully stuffing everything into the main compartment before closing the top. The claim that there were additional compartments for your other bits and piece was entirely false.

That brings me to a review I heard on Electronic Playground a few months ago. The guys on the show gave Pelican's PSP kit a rave review, even briefly mentioning that they used the product in their private lives. Which is all well and good, except for the fact that I can't seem to find the same kit anywhere in Canada. I did however find a kit at Canada, also by Pelican, but does not appear to be the same "Starter Kit" as the ones I've seen on American web-sites... for one thing the case is the smaller "travel" edition.

I can only assume this is the Canadian package or something because after hunting around eBay I haven't been able to find the package with the big case reviewed on Electronic Playground, or seen on the Pelican web site.
The Travel Case is a padded flip-top affair. A panel in the middle holds 2 UMDs in plastic sleeves. The lid has an optional velcro'd panel that also holds two UMDs plus a couple of memory stick pro duos. The case closes with a zipper and has a clip similar to what mountain climbers use for their ropes.

The package is very similar to other starter sets - cames with a USB cable, a car charger, a microfibre cleaning cloth, 4 UMD sleeves to protect that little exposed window, and one of those useless "scratch protector" sheets you stick on top of your PSP's main screen. I can see that most of this stuff can be useful, but my main complain will have to be that yet again, I have a case where there's nowhere to put my headphones.

Well, that's not entirely true either. I've managed to squeeze in the headphones once again. It was trickier than the plain ear-buds that Nintendo threw in with their original handheld because Sony has a proprietary plug with a special remote-control. But I got it in there. The ultimate irony is that in order to fit all that into the case, I had to put in my 4 UMD games without the sleeves the kit came with (thereby saving at least a few of millimeters). Which, I suppose is alright because the case is padded all over; my games shouldn't be getting scratched if they're in there.

Saturday morning web-surfing

A few minor notes from an hour of Saturday morning web-surfing...

This link was posted on a forum I frequent. Most people were appalled at the kind of movie this promotional teaser trailer hinted at: an action-comedy with all our favourite beloved characters taken way out of context. I smell another Jean-Claude Van Damme-style "Street Fighter" ...I think Hollywood has farted again.

DOA Teaser @ Comingsoon.net

I guess it's the kind of movie non-fans might enjoy... Personally I would've preferred a story about my personal favourite, Kasumi as the shinobi (runaway ninja) evading capture by her former masters, etc... and perhaps encountering all the other fighters along the way. Maybe a final showdown in the end against her estranged sister, Ayane. Plus throw in a cameo of Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa, who always seemed to me was a kindred spirit to Kasumi.

But looks like I'll need to settle for this Charlie's Angels drivel.

Speaking of DOA tho, I booted up my old Xbox last night. I couldn't help some gaming after this week's non-stop media coverage of the 360 launch. Anyway, I put in the old DOA3 game (released 2001!) and realized I had never completed the game. Besides the opening video featuring "Nine Lives," I always wondered by Aerosmith got top billing on the game's packaging. So after a couple of hours, I finally unlocked the last of the story cinematics (video-clips showing the plot and character backgrounds). Turns out that Aerosmith's "Home Tonight" is the song played during the closing credit roll. Heh - it only took me 4 years. :P

On the bright side of being such a loser fanboy I get to enjoy this... Remember that pic I posted a while ago of a transforming jet/robot. It was this huge deluxe affair I paid nearly $300 for during a trip to Toronto last month. Well, the final prototype of a new set of add-on parts has finally been revealed (or am I just behind the times?)...


I'm excited for no good reason. And I'm sure my folks will be thrilled to hear I'm still buying this sort of thing.

Ripped: Team America?

Clearly I must be getting frickin' old or something...
A few months ago babou gave me a VCD he created after downloading a rip of Team America: World Police. For anybody who doesn't know, this movie is a puppet-show in the style of the old Thunderbirds "Super-Marionation" technique... as written by the creators of South Park. And if you haven't heard of South Park, you may skip the rest of this blog entry entirely.

Anyway, the key verb above was that babou GAVE me his VCD. He didn't loan it to me or anything. He and mommybabou just said they were so disgusted by this film that they weren't likely to "enjoy" it again.

Now I know why.

After months of letting it sit on my shelf, I finally took it down and watched it last night. And all I can say is, "what a squandered opportunity." First of all, seems to me that puppeteering is a lost art. Besides this movie, the only film I can think of in recent memory that had anything to do with intricately constructed puppets was Being John Malcovic. And even then it served as nothing more than a plot point. There's a certain charm to seeing non-humans in a movie - much like watching a cartoon... it's an art-form.
Secondly, it's clearly a tongue-in-cheek poke at American ethnocentricity. And while I'm all for that, I'm disppointed to find that Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker don't have it in them to find anything more creative than extreme toilette humour... which in itself isn't all that humorous to begin with. Granted I was watching the "Unrated" version last night. I can only hope that the theatrical version was somewhat more streamlined and maybe funnier.

I give the movie 1 thumb down - for its sheer stupidity. It's definitely the second dumbest movie I've ever seen (the first dumbest being South Park The Movie). At least in this film, the cast didn't break out into song...

Rip the System and not

So I watched Stealth last night. You may have not heard about it. I think it was meant to be a summer blockbuster this year and it came and went without much hooplah. In fact, I don't even remember when it hit theatres. Anyway, it came out on DVD a week or so ago.

Did I buy it? No.
Did I rent it? No.

Actually, Starfish rented it last week and made me a copy. Barebones - he stripped it down to reduce the compression of re-encoding it to a 4.7Gb disc. And bless him for choosing the DTS soundtrack over the Dolby Digital option.

And you know what's funny? I still intend to eventually pick up a legit copy of the film.

No, it's not that it was that good. Well, okay, it was quite a fan-boy movie. In a lot of ways it was Macross brought to life (minus the transforming jets and invading aliens). But I mean the CGI ariel combat sequences were dizzyingly spectacular.
No, actually I saw a UMD version available in stores... And for once the studio saw fit to tie-in the film with a cool little bonus. The UMD (a PSP format disc) also contains an exclusive "Stealth" vehicle add-on for the popular Wipe-Out Pure racing game. How cool is that?
Now that's the sort of cross-promotional marketting that'll make the UMD a viable alternative format. For almost a year I've been asking, "why would anybody pay 25 bucks for a UMD movie when they could get a full-blown feature-packed DVD for their home theatre?" Now I know.

no DOA4, no xbox360

Bet'cha thought I'd blog all about how I lined up for my Xbox 360 at midnight, eh? Well, I'm not falling for the media frenzy. Not this time anyway. And much like I did for the first Xbox, I'm probably gonna wait a year before finding a package deal with a price-tag to my taste before buying in. As it stands I'm having way too much fun with my PSP anyway.

Besides which, the one game that has me drooling like an unbathed fanboy isn't even in the line-up of launch-titles. Previews for Dead or Alive 4 promised more detailed combat arenas and even cooler fighting moves than before... and will only be delivered a month from now. Kinda puts a damper on the hype, if you ask me.

Anime: Pretty Cure

I haven't grown up. Or I've grown to a point where I'm aware that sometimes I just wanna kick back and watch mindless escapism entertainment.

This morning, one of my fellow cartoon cohorts brought me a DVD-ROM he made filled with GIJoe cartoons (mostly remake stuff that has been more recent than people our age are familiar with). UG caught me with the colourfully labelled disc under my arm and giggled. At which I could only stone-face: "Look, I'm not embarrassed to show that I do watch cartoons because I know we've reached a point where we will never be together anyway - and so I really don't care what you think of me anymore anyway."

This all reminded me that I hadn't blogged about my latest anime craze, Pretty Cure.

I was at my favourite amateur art web-site when I stumbled across a couple of portraits I was unfamiliar with. After looking it up, I discovered that it was one of those titles that'll never get licensed in America... hence the abundance of fan-sub-titled videos available for download (all legal until somebody licenses it for distribution here).
I loaded my PSP with the videos (about 10 episodes) and watched a bunch of them over the weekend. And you know what? I'll be damned if I'm going to be judged by anyone. It's good clean fun. As time has gone by and I let go of the more children-oriented titles, I realized that I missed something while watching the more adult-oriented titles like Ghost in the Shell. Sometimes I just want to sit back and see some cute kids battle evil overlords... something lighter in fare than questions about mortality and morality; something a little more innocent and naive. That's what escapism is all about.

Superman Returns: teaser is out!!

For the children who believed a man could fly...

Bryan Singer has weaved together an amazing teaser trailer incorporating John William's brilliant awe-inspiring "Planet Krypton" theme and clips of the late Marlon Brando's voice.

Just go to the Superman Returns web-site to get a quick look at the newest 2006 blockbuster now in post production.

It brought a tear to my eye...

No news is good news

I was about ready to do another one of my usual "my computer isn't working" blogs...

I've been a little more active as FusionAce lately - particularly where family is involved but tonight is the first "free" night I've had to myself in a while.

Where was I?

Oh right - the case never arrived; still back-ordered when I last checked. It won't do me any good to call them at this point since I don't really care anymore. The initial rush of rolling around in a bunch of money from my back-pay has long since worn off. I content myself with what I have.

And speaking of my computer - the system clock's been acting all weird. No, it's not that well-known Windows bug with the funny speed-up-slow-down seconds hand. I mean the clock was really fast - at least 50% faster than it should've been. I was exponentially getting further and further ahead with every second. I came home after work today and it was like 2 hours ahead.

My final solution tonight was to reset my BIOS down to its "Optimal" Setting. That is, I'm running my supposed 200MHz RAM at 133MHz. But as babou told me over MSN tonight: "on your Athlon 1700XP, you're not likely to notice the difference anyway." That's not too reassuring.

Not much else particularly exciting around here that's not being filed under "everyday life." I'm kinda just chilling tonight and looking forward to a trip home for the weekend. It'll be a quiet affair. Gotta change my tires for winter. Maybe go shopping with my folks. Catch a movie or something. I dunno.

Google'd Pictures

Stole the idea from something else (you know who you are).

Using Google Images, selecting a picture that turns up on the first page of results:

The city and province I'm originally from:

The city I'm living in now:

My full name:

Favourite food:

Favourite drink:

Favourite smell:

Favourite song (no I don't get it either - it just turned up on page 1):

Star Wars Miniatures: initial reaction

It's for dumb people (or for kids, depending on how you look at it).

No seriously, that's what I thought at first. But after actually playing with the "Starter Set" I bought this weekend with my brother, it was pretty fun. You can get this set pretty much anywhere - hobby shops, gaming stores... I think even at Chapters, IIRC.

It's much like what we've seen before: the box that contains a sample game board, dice, assorted counters, and a predetermined set of character pieces for each player. In this case (the "Revenge of the Sith" set), you get Obi-Wan with a couple of clone troopers and Grievous with a couple of battle droids; the Republic versus the Seperatists.
More characters? You'll have to pick up some of those blind-packaged "boosters." Collect them...

The game itself is pretty simple. The quickstart booklet tells you where you should place the playing pieces first. Then goes on to show how you move around the map, attack the other player, etc... In fact, it seems much simpler than other similar collectable "miniatures" games (thus prompting my "wargaming for dummies" comment on Saturday night). Each figure is accompanied by at a stats card that tells you how to modify your dice rolls when you're shooting a blaster (or in the case of Obi-Wan's card, the fact that he doesn't carry a firearm means he doesn't shoot; but he does get to roll the die twice if he's up close to represent abilities with a lightsaber)...

My secondary reaction after killing 30 minutes with my brother?
It's actually quite fun. Simple to learn and there are infinite possibilities with the game mechanics (especially by virtue of the fact that it's backward compatible with the older sets such as "Clone Strike" etc...). Rules are fairly easy to pick up (i.e.: there don't appear to be any rules in choosing who you can shoot at).

Will I buy more booster boxes? Probably... but not many more.
I've fallen for the whole "collect them all" thing before in my younger days. Only to later realize that I was only playing and trading with the same 1 or 2 people and that it wasn't all that often anyway. My first booster was this weekend. It contained another Jedi Master (one those non-speaking background folks from the movie) and other assorted enemies. I'm sure it'll spice up my games to have more characters to choose from, but other than that ...? Well, we'll see.

yah I turned it on

Now hear this: it's not that I don't trust you (I'm talking to the 3 or 4 people who read this blog semi-regularly)...

...mm... actually, no, I probably shouldn't trust you 4 either.

But I'm getting a little tired of the spam. So here comes the word verfication for comments.

Yes there were a few that seemed moderately real. The one with a link to a site selling posters seemed real enough to be human. Except one catch... the spambot posted the same comments on my blog on two consecutive entries!

another pointless list of goodies

I had meant to blog as FusionAce this morning but considering how I slept most of yesterday away, there just isn't that much to say.

I got home Saturday night after a good 30 minutes in the rain without an umbrella (go figure - the one day I left the umbrella out of my day-pack). My pack was full of other stuff though.

I had gone to cash a cheque at an ATM last week when I realized that after having finished my car payments my spending habits hadn't changed all that much. In fact, my biggest purchases were in the form of dental bills (most of which I've ended up getting back from insurance anyway).

So Saturday was a shopping day... for crap that I've previously told myself I didn't need. I decided, "It's not like I can't afford it."

1) Bome's "Blue" Devil-Girl. These sculpts are the cutest things for the cheapest price. Bome models his work after random doujinshi (amateur comics) artist covers and has an eye for picking out some very nice bits. This blue one I had decided at one point wasn't worthy of my collection because it was a strict repaint of volume 1 (which had red hair instead)...

2) Lumines. It's pronounced like "luminous" - don't ask me why it's spelt like that. It's a puzzle game - a bit like the classic Tetris. Available on PSP. I got it used for $45. And I got an Edge membership at EB-Games for 50 cents (since my first 10% discount was applied to my Lumines purchase right away). I'd previously thought it wasn't worth it since I hardly buy any games anymore... Ah well. The card's good for a year so we'll see. I just need to spend 5 bucks to break even at this point.

3) Bryan Adams Anthology. 14 bucks. Came with a bonus concert DVD. Too bad it was in stereo only (wouldn't prefered full 5.1, but it was free so...). Haven't had a chance to listen to the actual 2 CDs yet, but the songs in the concert certainly brought back a flood of high school nostalgia. *sigh*

GitS haul delayed? :p

@_@;
I hate when this sort of thing happens but what can ya do?

I scored the Ghost in the Shell "Official Log Volume 1" last night at a chain store - being that it was a couple of bucks cheaper than elsewhere (like, say, a music store). But as luck would have it, when I got home I discovered that my disc was defective - the DVD surface had a scratch on it as though the plastic was mal-formed at the factory. Ugh. I'll bring it back tonight for another one. Just annoying.

And this is the second of 2 GitS discs that I've had problems with in a row. Last month it was volume 1 of the 2nd season - the disc had come loose from its snap-down peg while still in its box. The surface of the disc was therefore scraping around the peg everytime it shifted... Luckily in that instance, the disc played fine (although the menu system was not particularly reliable). Still it wasn't worth my while to bring it back.

The instance with the log book is irritating because it's such an unusual item. Anybody get the "Matrix Revisited" disc? Kinda like a disc full of documentary features that, if anybody had been forward thinking enough, it would've been disc 2 of of a set with the first Matrix DVD. Well, "Official Log" is just like that... but done right. It's main attraction is not really the DVD (which is full of interview material and recap info) - it's actually a very nice full colour book - a few hundred glossy pages. It goes into detail tracing the history of the franchise and takes a look at the developmental evolution from the original manga comic to the present day anime series (plus all the video games and other minor tie-in material that's been published in the meantime).

On the subject of GitS, I thinking I might want to stop by the Sony Store tonight. Yeah, I know - overpriced stuff. But last week I had come across a copy of the PSP game for Ghost in the Shell "Stand-Alone Complex" and it was at a rediculous price-tag of $40 - at least 10 bucks cheaper than anywhere else. Why I didn't grab it on the spot, I'm not too sure. At the time I wasn't really thinking about impulse purchases. Hmm...

Finally - Ringtones hacked!

Long-time readers will recall the saga of a certain Nokia phone I debated buying for months and then was dismayed to find after the fact that I couldn't put custome ringtones on it as avertised by Nokia thanks to some limitations imposed by my carrier.

Well, the good news is that tonight I finally successfully activated a ringtone. Piracy? Bah - I spit in the face of legit business. ^_^;

...ok - but seriously, while the cost of CDs and whatnot have got down lately (I'm seeing more and more new albums debut on shelves in the $14-$16 range). And outifts like iTunes charging a buck a song. What gonads my carrier has to think they can charge me $2.50 for a midi-format ringtone? Ugh.