Score: big minis!

So I'm at one of the local gaming stores... wasn't really planning to buy anything unless I found one of those AT-ST walker packs I'd heard about for the Star Wars Miniatures game I've been playing. Turns out there's a hand-written sign by the display: "Buy an AT-AT, get an AT-ST free!!"

Well, since I was about ready to pay the $22 sticker price for the Scenario Pack anyway, I figure that means I'm actually getting a 40% discount on the 55-dollar 'Colossal' package.

Either way I rationalize the price tags, I'm still getting cool bunch of playing pieces for my next Minis game. Well... er, not so "mini," I suppose. ^_^;
I can't wait to try these out in a game.

Waited for the TPB: House of M

***Warning, this article may contain spoilers***

If you're like me, you were skeptical about the big annual event over at Marvel Comics last year. There seemed to be very little publicity for it in advance and it was mostly overshadowed by DC's hype machine over their follow-up to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Marvel promised "it'll change the Marvel Universe forever." Well... it did... sort of, if you gave a damn about mutants anyway.

There was a time when I was into anything with an "X" on it. I followed the adventures of the X-Men religiously for several years. But at one point it just wasn't as interesting anymore. I read some of the Avengers cross-over material in the late 90s including the Bloodties story that tied together Magneto and his children (who were members of the Avengers at the time; alongside Captain America, Sersi, Crystal, Black Knight, etc). But for the most part, besides a few characters moving back and forth between the fictional nation of "Genosha" and North America, nothing really happened to change status quo... And House of M was supposed to change that ...starting with "Avengers Disassembled."

Now the Disassembled story really made headlines. After 40 or 50 years of continuous publishing, Avengers was cancelled. The story ended of a low-note with Scarlett Witch going nuts and killing off several characters and the rest of the team deciding they'd call it quits. Well, in the aftermath, Professor X of the X-Men vows to help cure Witch's condition and ultimately fails. What follows was the House of M deal. Witch unleashes her reality-bending powers again and grants everyone their fondest desires... beginning with daddy-dearest, Magneto, who wanted to rule a world where mutants were not prosecuted by humans... in fact, Magneto and his children would be royalty and humans would be slaves. Underground operatives like the X-Men would be big-time media darlings. Even Spider-Man would take his mask off and the world would adore Peter Parker instead.

BUT (and it's a big "but!") this was all temporary. "House of M" was a twist that only happened with Scarlett Witch in control. And then there was a the weird ending when the "House" reality collapsed. And only those 10 or so characters who appear in the central "House" mini series would remember the incident: Spidey, Wolverine, Cyclops, Ms.Marvel, She-Hulk, Dr.Strange, etc... But nobody else would remember it. What does this mean to real-world comics publishing?

Well, the most obvious change is in the X-Men comics and Avengers comics. the world mutant population is drastically reduced... several characters who had powers are suddenly regular humans.
But we know the "entire" Marvel U. was warped in the House of M story. There was mention of the Fantastic Four. And what about Tony Stark's Iron Man? Peter Parker was seen enjoying a day in the park with Gwen Stacy?! Marvel has seen fit to publish those stories with a series of tie-in books. However, and this is my biggest peeve, what do those book REALLY contribute to Marvel Universe? Nothing. More often than not, these are versions of characters we'll probably never see again.

I just finished reading the main House of M collected edition last week. It was nice to see Ms.Marvel in the spotlight again. And I'll be interested to read her newest adventures considering she was one of those who remembers House of M. But I also just finished reading the collected trade-paperback for the Fantastic Four and Iron-Man tie-ins. You know what this all reminded me of? Age of Apocalypse. Yah - that X-Men crossover that did me in almost 10 years ago... It promised to be the biggest thing since sliced bread and you know what? After you're done those 4 books, you'll never hear from this stuff again. It's not that it sucked or anything - just that when I was done reading about this alternate reality where Dr.Doom was in charge of the "Fearsome Four" I was left with the feeling that I had just finished reading something that was utterly inconsequential...

Maybe that's just me.

My first tagball game

What is it? Read this: Tagzone.ca

I don't know if they're the first (whatever) but they're near the top of the Google hits when you look for tag ball. Basically you're shooting rubber balls at each other with a modified paintball gun... and it's indoors... and less messy... and somewhat less painful.

They do enforce common sense rules like a 6-foot minimum shot (because quite frankly, you could hurt somebody). And of course, keep your protective mask on whenever you're in the maze area. Overall, I had a blast - it was certainly something different for a Friday night. It also reminded me that I am woefully out of shape when it comes to anaerobics... the squat motion is not something I do on a day-to-day basis. I mean, I may be able to play DDR for an hour or so, but for the most part you never need to crouch down on the DDR control pad.

Oh and yeah - it did sting like a rubber band snapping at you (but I would hardly call it "painful"). Ever have someone throw a penny at you? Real hard? This hurts less than that.
I'm definitely gonna spread the word about the game - maybe get a few more guys from work to join us next time!

GoDannar in plastic and die-cast metal

This is the GoDannar I've been raving about for the past month or so. It's an awesome new-school series with an old-school flavour. I'm thinking Evanglion without the depressing undertones. Lots of fan-service too (but we'll get into that some other time). Right now it's all about impossible-science like giant robots doing kung-fu. What could be cooler than that?

How about this? My aunt emailed to tell me she'd picked up this little baby by Max Factory at my uncle's sister's specialty shop for me! My folks will be visiting Hong Kong in a couple of weeks so they'll bring it back for me. Sweet!

On a semi-related note, I've decided that while I'll enjoy tooling with it on weekends, I'll probably not bring it all the way to my apartment as I'm gearing up for the move to my new house this fall. Oh well...

I think I'm a dirty old man

Here's a photo of Yoshizawa Hitomi. She's a member of the variety show troupe known as "Morning Musume" and in this picture is dressed in what is a typical school girl uniform... and I think it's one of the cutest portraits ever... Does any of this make me a pervert yet? I mean, I'm almost 10 years her senior and I find that I have a guilty pleasure watching clips of the Morning Musume show where they sometimes don't even do anything except to look cute.

For example, I just spent last night watching a backlog of videos I downloaded... one was a set of clips where Yo-chan dresses up in a frilly dress (unusually feminine for the tom-boy she normally is), attempts to bake cookies, and attempts to knit (and winds up making just a friendship bracelet instead).

Another was this horribly sadistic gameshow where the kids are tricked into competing for a luxury vacation in Hawaii. Winners go out for tours and activities while the losing teams get sent on humiliating assignments like crash-courses in Polynesian dance and are forced to perform in front of actual audiences of unsuspecting tourists (I'm guilty to report that Yo-chan was on one of the winning teams).

It all almost sickens me.

Screw around with Bell Canada

In case anybody still hadn't heard about it, Bell is now offering a Long Distance plan at 10 cents per minute at ANY time within Canada and the USA. I never realized this and have been subscribed to their FirstRate plan (that's "Simplitel" to you French customers) for the last 6 or 7 years.

There once was a time when I was dreadfully lonely here in the NCR (yes, more so than I am now anyway) and I would call my folks practically every other night. It was a time when I could only afford to travel home once a month or so. And I'd have to make huge plans to do so because I had to pack light enough to make it to the bus station via public transit, etc... the story goes on and on, really.

The point is that not only do I hate having to wait until 6pm to make my calls, but I'm nowhere near busting the $20 cap in long distance charges. So why am I paying the $5 fee on FirstRate?

Funny how Bell Canada never bothered to mention any of this to me...

Why I haven't bought a UMD lately

Ars: Sony scales back UMD plans.

Go ahead, read it - it's a pretty decent article and addresses the sudden onslaught of UMD movies you see at Best Buy and mysterious slow-down we've seen lately. I personally haven't bought a UMD movie since Kill Bill Vol.2 came out. And even then I never got around to watching it because I haven't sat still long enough since then.

But the fact is, games are really slow in coming. Users want new discs. But UMD is ultimately a pointless format other than having something to watch when you're not at home... Why the hell would I really want to pay the same price as a DVD for not only a stripped down package, but a video experience at a lower resolution? Cut the prices on UMD and then we'll talk again because as much as I love seeing Jessica Alba in a bikini, I'm not paying $25CAD for Into the Blue when I could get it for the same price on DVD... (actually, to be honest, that's such a great example because I doubt I'd pay anything for Into the Blue). ^_^;

Haul: stress relief

I needed some instant gratification - picked up some OJ and then headed right to the comics shop to waste some money. I figure after my big purchase earlier this week, a few comics wouldn't hurt to unwind with.

New Avengers #16: looks like a new arc is starting. Liked it so far, maybe it'll be even better now. I'll read it before going to bed tonight.

Noble Causes #17: Almost a year ago to the day I posted a 3-page excerpt from this book that shocked some readers since I'm not known to be a particularly romantic kinda guy... at the time I was on cloud nine. I'd rather not think about it now. But the book has been a great read over the last year or so. I will also read this straight away...

House of M TPB: I totally skipped out on the "event of the year." Scarlett Witch, former Avenger now gone cuckoo, continues to spiral into insanity and totally rewrites the Marvel Universe and decimating the X-Men while she's at it using her "improbability powers." It was $40... easily the most expensive collected edition I've bought in a while (barring the big hard cover Batman book I got last summer). It better be everything it promised to be.

Godannar volume 2: for some reason none of the local stores have these DVDs in stock. I'll probably watch an episode or two tonight but quite frankly, it was new years when I watch the first disc... I may need a refresher.

I also grabbed one of the last remaining "Clone Strike" starter sets. This line-up of Star Wars Miniatures is out of print and hard to find. I figure I may as well get the exclusive playing pieces for Obi-Wan and Jango Fett from the boxed set before they disappeared from shelves too...

*sigh* I feel so much better now. :)

to be pelted by rubber balls

I've been severely preoccupied by my quest for buying a home so I've sort of left my "fun" blog to rot for a bit lately.

But I signed up for a game of tagball for next Friday. I was invited by a guy I hardly know so that seemed a bit weird. But we do get along since we're both about the same age and we have some common interests. Plus we do work in the same Division so at worst, we can talk shop if things start going dry. (Hopefully not).

I'm told tagball is slightly less painful than paintball (and much cleaner). Each player is armed with an airgun that fires little rubber balls and I'm told it feels a bit like getting snapped with a wet towel or a rubber band. Either way, I don't plan on getting hit a lot... then again, nobody actually plans on that.

As an aside, I got around to cleaning up that last entry a bit - the formatting was all wacky because of some HTML that was given to me. I wiped out as much crap as I could.

Anyway, strictly speaking, my view of the world and "fun" in general has changed a bit in the last few days with the purchase of a house. I feel like I'm bunkering down for the sudden increase in expenses I'll need to deal with. And it was only last night that it occured to me that I'd need to get home insurance on top of those bills I was counting. I don't even read Redflagdeals.com as often anymore... as if it were a temptation I don't need.

Anyway, joining those guys for tagball is my way of hanging onto some sense of normalcy.

Well... okay then.

In your head

47% Fucked up on the inside, 21% Externally fucked up
You've got a lot of stuff in your head, and don't use those around you to help get it out. If you're not careful it could catch up to you! But as for right now, you probably come as a very sane person. Only you know you're not.
My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 76% on Inner Fucked Up
	You scored higher than 31% on Outer Fucked Up

Link: The How Fucked Up Are You Test written by veritas___ on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

PC: that damn case...

You know, every little while my opinion of AspireUSA drops a little bit more.

I held back on criticizing them on that knob that seems to not actually do anything (there's supposed to be a fan speed controller there). But all this time I just assumed it was because I have a fairly old power supply (about 250 watts maximum output)... maybe it's just not compatible with that knob...

But what really got me is that there was no manual in the case. Instead there was a CD that included a PDF file that I'd already read prior to buying the case (it's a free download on their web site the last time I checked). But unless you're a complete layman, nothing in the PDF guide is particularly important. Then again, it's just a PC case, there's nothing terribly different between this case and a million other cases out there when it comes to installig your parts inside. Presumeably, if you were able to get the pieces out of your old case, you'd just need to do everything in the reverse order to get stuff into the new one.

My other complaint at the time was that the temperature read out on the front was in Fahrenheit. Granted, it's not such a big deal. But being Canadian, I'm pretty used to thinking in Centigrade terms. To me, "30 degrees" is sweltering summer heat. When they say it's "40 degrees with the humidity," we call it a heatwave and are told to stay indoors - preferably with air conditioning on...
Well, out of the blue I decided to check on line if there was something, anything I could do about that. Turns out there's a rather simple procedure that is completely undocumented. All you do is remove 4 screws from the inside (hell, some guy posted that there were actually 6 screws somewhere) and pop out the entire front panel from the frame. You don't even need to pop out the whole thing. Just have it popped on one side - enough to see the digital module from the inside.

The switch is pretty obvious... it's a black switch on a white module. All you need something sturdy (like say a dinner knife) to poke in there and flip the switch to the opposite position. Then you stap the panel back into place, replace the screws you took out, and that's it!

Score: Sin City Recut - cheap!

So I'm wandering around the west end and half-expecting to finally pick up that boxed set of The Matrix (can you believe it? a geek like me doesn't own any of the Matrix trilogy on DVD). Anyway, I'm at Best Buy and I'm overcome with doubt as usual.

Turn the corner and walk down the "new" releases ailse. This must be a mistake!
There on the bottom shelf, plain as day, is a stack of the Sin City special edition. Yeah, the one with the second disc called "Recut and Extended." And I'm not seeing things (if I am, I'm seeing in triple), but there's not one, but three tags that read "Sin City Recut and Extended 22.99." Yeah, me too, I was pretty sure this version retails for around 35 bucks. Naturally I called them on it.

I almost felt guilty.

This isn't the first time there's been weird pricing at this particular Best Buy. Last fall I grabbed "Batman Begins" with the second bonus features disc and comic book... for only $21.99 ...which the same sticker price as the regular edition. WTF?

I tell myself not to feel guilty about it. This is how you get ahead: by capitalizing on someone else's screw-ups. Just do it to them before they do it to you. Harsh.

reconstituted meats

I had a double-cheeseburger at lunch today. It sucked. Didn't even feel like ground beef - more like beef that had been in a blender too long and then clumped together before frying into a patty shape.

I keep telling myself I'll never have lunch in cafeteria again, and yet I always manage to find myself woefully ill-prepared for a brownbagging.

For example - I've had the same balogna-mock chicken sandwich for the last week every day. Some days with and some without a slice of swiss cheese. But still. I wind up with processed meats nonetheless. And that's sad considering the salary I make.

My deepest darkest secret

Firstly, I need to put this embarrassing secret into context by saying that I'm only a few months shy of turning 30 years old. It's a secret shame that I need to get off my chest...

When I'm in my car and I think nobody's looking, I pretend I'm a Power Ranger piloting my giant robot dinosaur... sometimes I'll even play an MP3 of the old Rangers theme music I downloaded off Kazaa one time...

And when I get passed on the high-way, I like to race the passing vehicle for a few seconds. Not to piss them off (because I will let them go after a moment). But I'm pretending that we're two of those dino-robots coming together to turn into the even bigger robot.

You will speak of this to no one, lest you wish to feel my wrath rain down upon you.