Rant: where's my 4Gb Stick?

In an effort to piss me off, mainstream retail has seen fit to delay the propogation of high-capacity flash memory yet again. I just wish this wasn't so blatantly obvious as to insult my intelligence.
We all know what happened to the 32Mb "Playstation Portable"-branded Memory Stick Pro Duo when the 1Gb hit the shelves... yes, they started to collect dust. You couldn't pay anyone to stock them these days, you know why? Because they're still overstocked from the initial batch. When the PSP first came out, mine was bundled with a 32Mb Stick. And I'll admit that for a typical digital camera, that's not too bad. But if Sony is marketting PSP to be a multimedia unit, 32Mb will barely hold more than a couple of music videos. Cue disappointment... you need more than to have a bit of fun with the PSP.
Enter Sandisk advertising a whole range of Stick sizes - the problem being that they can't keep them on the shelves. A 1Gb size was available for pre-order for months before I got mine (by which time the price-wars were on). And even then it was a stunning $120CAD at the time.
But I've seen 4Gb Sticks on shelves for a few weeks now. But mainstream retailers are slow to promote them. There's a "Canada Day" sale at www.futureshop.ca this weekend, but the 4Gb is not listed at all (which is a shame because it'd be an easy way for to tempt me into spending money this weekend). But we all know why they're not listing it... they're still pushing smaller sizes because they're still collecting dust.

Comics: WonderWoman/TheFlash

OK - so to get you up to speed, in the aftermath of DC's big "event" story, the major heroes have disappeared for exactly 1 year so the timeline jumps ahead for that much (the "missing time will be covered in the ongoing series called "52"). But where does the time-line pick up? Well, DC has decided to relaunch two of their most popular characters...

First up is Wonder Woman (who actually launched last week but I didn't get around to visiting my local comics store until now). What to say? This is EXACTLY what I expected. There're just enough unanswered questions (they don't really tell you up front where Diana's been during the missing year - but the narrative hints that although she was inactive, she did have contact with Donna Troy - the former Wonder Girl - and asked her to take up the Wonder Woman mantle... and then there's the requisite knock-down drag-out fight scene with new artistic takes on Cheetah and Giganta. And yes, Steve Trevor makes an appearance as well! I'm loving it.

Then we have the Flash who relaunched this past week... and boy are we talking about a 180 turn from Wonder Woman. I fancy myself a comics geek and even I got somewhat lost. The Flash has never been a particular favourite of mine - I read a few issues from before the Infinite Crisis event and I kept up with Teen Titans a few years ago so I know about Bart Allen switching his name from Impulse to Kid Flash, and I know he had a brief stint as The Flash... and well, not to ruin anything but Wally West (the version that seems to be best known thanks to him being in the Justice League cartoon) disappeared during Crisis (we don't know if he died or not)...
Anyway, this is most definitely the least casual-reader-friendly issue I've EVER read in my life. With what little I know about current Flash-related continuity, I barely kept up. The issue starts with Jay Garrick (the 1940's Flash from JSA) being the only Flash - Bart is a grown up now... and then there's all this soul-searching business... And then at the end they sort of hint at Bart becoming the Flash (again?)... And in the middle of all that there's a Flashback sequence that mentions Barry Allen (Wally's predecessor who died back in the 80's during the first Crisis story). I mean, geez, I pretty much had a headache... if there was a way to relaunch anything, this is NOT the way to do it. I think they tried to tackle too many facets of the Flash title all in one shot. All that served to accomplish was to bog the plot down in too many details. My rating: be forewarned.

Now on an unrelated note: if you want something fun and totally wacky - go with Marvel's She-Hulk. The first several issues of the current line are available now in a collected edition so check it out! I can't say enough about how good this series is. I've never had so much fun with a comicbook as this one.

D.O.M. 6

Keeping in spirit for World Cup running this month, here's another pic that makes me feel a little bit like a dirty old man. It's fifth generation Morning Musume member Konno Asami in her Gatas Brillantes uniform. She played goalkeep for the Hello!Project indoor-soccer team.

Kon-kon's claim to fame was that she was "mediocre" but was hired because she put "a lot of effort" into her audition. She even mocked herself by playing on that theme for a 2-hour Christmas special that year. Ah but the years have passed. And sadly, Kon-kon will be graduating from MoMusu in exactly one month from today. She plans to go to university and will thus also be one of the few who will leave the H!P entirely upon leaving Momusu...

...and I think if anything, that deserves a second pic... Here she is pimping a local pro baseball team... ^_^;

"For Tomorrow" - sad truth

So here's that cover image I mentioned in the previous post. Jim Lee kicked off his year-long project by mirroring his cover to Batman #608...

A sad truth I've come to accept is that while the Batman "Hush" run was long-winded (and ultimately fairly dull from a pacing standpoint), it did deserve the Absolute treatment. It featured a story that was at once contemporary and timeless and had pretty much every single Bat-related character... plus Lee's gorgeously kinetic and sexy artwork certainly wasn't a problem either when it came to the Catwoman. I didn't ever want to admit I was so low-brow. *ahem*

But will we ever see "For Tomorrow" as an "Absolute" hardcover deluxe edition? I personally doubt it. And that is the second sad truth I accept now. Fact is, while also full of Lee's beautiful work, "For Tomorrow" suffered from being locked into a particular moment. It happened to tie into the then-current storyline about Metropolis's population mysteriously disappearing from the face of the Earth. If you weren't up-to-speed when you started reading this run, you spent more of your time wondering what was going on than actually trying to follow the plot that was being presented... Which is too bad, because in spite what everybody else says, I think Lee's efforts in this run just as good as his Batman stuff was. And that alone would look fantastic as an over-sized "Absolute" print. It's a shame both ways.

Super DVDs at Best Buy

Quick note: it wasn't obviously advertised, but Best Buy's tie-in gimmick for next week's Superman Returns movie is a free comic-book when you buy the new Superman-related DVD releases this week. I think it's the same comic but with different covers (I'm not sure if it's random or if it depends on which DVD you buy. The comic is actually packaged within the shrink-wrap so I didn't even know about mine until I got home and opened up my fresh copy of Justice League Season Two (for the record, my JL set came with a Jim Lee cover reprinted from his "For Tomorrow" run last year).

Other Superman-related titles that tie-in include sets of the Superboy tv series, the third season of Lois&Clark, and the Bryan Singer produced documentary "Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman." And pricing at Best Buy is fairly competitive when it comes to mainstream releases so with a free mini-comic, it's not a bad idea to swing by...

Sangaria Ramune?

Not sure why I thought to post this now - some 4 days after the fact. But I had my first bottle of Ramune on Saturday - I found it at an ethnic supermarket while visiting my brother in Montreal. And that should tip you off that I didn't find it particularly memorable in terms of soda pop to drink.

For those of you who've never heard of it, it's a soda that comes in a glass bottle featuring an air-tight seal using a glass marble. You use this little plastic plunger thingie and pop the marble into the bottle to unseal it. Yes, Ramune is known for it's bottle more than for the actual content... and I'll tell you why.

Ramune is more or less cream soda. Well, the "Sangaria" type was cream soda - I'm told the other ones are more like Sprite or 7Up... I accept why lots of people say that it's over-priced (it is). I mean, it was good though, but hardly worth more than a buck or two for a soda in a novelty bottle.

One Night Only: Apple vs. baby-clothes

I'm in with Apple for this one...

Apple vs iPodMyBaby

For one thing: iPod is a trademark. You can't go around stamping that name on just anything if you don't own it. I remember this one time when I was in college and there was this local sports shop selling sweatshirts and stuff with the college's name on it. Naturally, our student council took legal action. I don't remember what came of that situation tho - if we got a portion of the sales or what.

In any case, IMHO, anybody who actually wants to turn their baby into an advertisement for a damn corporate symbol deserves to have criminal charges pressed agains them anyway. Sickos all around, if you ask me.

Reaction: Kamen Rider The First

If there's a franchise with even less chance of making it in North America than Ultraman, it's Kamen Rider... which is where the folks at #TV-Nihon come in.

The closest Kamen Rider ever came to North America was as the "Masked Rider" adaptation back in the early 90's... and even then, required a guest-appearance in "Power Rangers" for it to launch. Ugh.

It's actually kind of a funny feeling watching this movie. For Ultraman (released 2004), the remake theatrical one-shot was a big-budget FX extravaganza (well, big for Japanese sci-fi anyway). You had action scenes showing Ultraman's super powers, the dimension where he exists only has a giant floating form of light, scenes featuring aerial combat, etc... but it seems like the makers of Kamen Rider went out of their way to make it look unusually plain - like they really wanted it to look a lot like the original television series from the mid 1970's.

So what do you get, if not an FX-laiden remake?
Well, it actually felt a lot like a stunt show you would expect to see on stage. There's tons of fight choreography and motorcycle stunt driving. And you do get some interesting story twists: this is not a retelling of the Rider mythos - it's an all-new story... even if they really did make it look "un-flashy" (heck, there weren't even any transformations - instead they opted for simple camera cuts whenever Kamen Rider changes from his civvies to his costume!)

Is there CG work? Yes - some of the fight-scenes do have some effects to show speed or feats of strength. But it's so slick it blends in fairly well with only a few exceptions. In fact, I tend to think that perhaps the makers intentionally wanted to distance themselves from Ultraman.

Do I give a thumbs-up? Well... yes, actually. I did like it a lot despite the inherent cheesiness that is in all Japanese takosatsu-series.

Lost Cause: Galaxy Rangers DVD?

No no no, not the Power Rangers Lost Galaxy... I'm talking about a syndicated cartoon circa 1986. No toy-line or anything, this was a one-shot package deal that ran for a full season and nobody but me (and a few hardcore types) seems to remember. It was one of those shows that died a painful death: you'd wake up early on Saturday morning and stay glued to the television for like 6 hours because you were NEVER sure when that week's episode would run (usually got the shaft by running insanely early like 5:30am before going to cancellation oblivion).

Let's have a moment of silence for it...

The show was a brilliant independent story-line that was a western set in an epic sci-fi universe. It was about a group of elite "space cops" and their run-ins with the alien riff-raff (including ongoing plots like the resuce of the team-leader's wife, the mysterious past associated with the Eastwood-like loner, and the war with vast but crumbling evil empire)... yes, all this in what was a supposedly a "kiddie show" - don't ask.

About a year ago an announcement was made that some deal had finally materialized to distribute the series on DVD. Seemed very realistic because quite frankly, we've been innundated with 80's nostalgia lately - boxed sets of Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, COPS, Jem, etc. have all made appearances at DVD shops everywhere... But like all indy-productions, GR made their comeback as a series of stand-alone discs - not a set.
Problem is that over in Europe, the full set has been long since released. And over here in North America, we haven't seen a new release since volume 4 came out last fall. And usually, you're bound to hear some whisperings on the grapevine that the studios were happy to report good earnings and that a full set would soon follow. But nothing - I haven't seen or heard anything... in fact, the last announcements I've seen are from when the first disc was released.

Anyway, I've grown tired of waiting and last night decided to pick up disc 3 entitled "Phoenix." Again, don't ask, but it includes the first 2 episodes (doesn't seem to be any order to these releases). It's a decent package and of all 4, I'm glad I chose this one, because it also contains a later episode that specifically ties in with the events from the 2-parter from series launch. I had a great time watching the show last night ...and I guess the whole point of this post is, "show your love... because noone else will." I think I'm going to have to hunt down those other 3 discs... doesn't look like we'll be seeing a boxed set anytime soon.

Moral dilemma of Ultraman

So I'm browsing YesAsia last weekend (and I placed an order for some Canto-pop DVD), when I decide to see what's up in the Japanese movie scene (since I haven't actually paid attention in several years). I know there's been a rash of sci-fi remakes of old kids series but... hmm...

Aside: last winter's remake Kamen Rider The First is now available via bit-torrent in a fairly hi-resolution DiVX format. The fan-subtitle project is #TV-Nihon (they're an IRC channel but you can google their torrent tracker if you want).

Anyway, a couple of years ago a remake of Ultraman was released. Yes yes, I'm talking about the big silver guy with the glowing egg-shaped eyes who fights rubber monsters (forget Power Rangers, this is the original!). Well, being that Ultraman Tiga in English died a miserable cancellation death on Fox, the franchise never returned to its 1970's syndication glory. And thus, this remake will never see the light of day in North America (at least outside of film festivals).

So what's a fan to do? Download it.
Yes, I downloaded it and then authored a DVD out of it. I decided that it was the lesser of two evils - the other choice is to pay a bootlegger for a pirate copy that will play in my Region 1 DVD player (an authentic copy from Japan is Region 2). It saddens me because the film had some really decent action scenes and they would've been great in full 5.1 Digital sound ...but thanks to the international consortium who decides to "protect" world-wide film distribution, I'll never be able to see it the way it was meant to be seen. *sigh*

Still no new ideas from Hollywood

So I'm watching television the other night and it seems the promo machine is running full-time now for the newest Fast and Furious installment. If you haven't heard of it, it's called "Tokyo Drift" and supposedly features a "new" (to Americans anyway) style of racing that involves tail-sliding a lot...

And what really irks me is that once again Hollywood is going to bastardize and glamourize a routine phenomenon... which in turn will suddenly inspire a bunch of punk-@$$ kids to start spending money on impractical upgrades and driving recklessly across North America.

I remember one time years ago walking around town and my friend ridiculed a suped-up sport compact (I think it was a Honda Civic, but I don't remember anymore). I kept my mouth shut. For my own opinion, I thought it was kinda cool that someone who had a love for the little import car had it in them to try to squeeze the last drop of juice out of it. Who knew that a year or two later, following the film The Fast and Furious (which wasn't such a bad film, by the way), that the import tuner scene would suddenly explode the way it has? That local tuner was ahead of his time.

Fast forward to 2004 and Inital D is the hottest anime/manga/video-game series in Japan... And a Hong Kong studio decides it's high time to make a live-action adaptation.
If you can - find it in an import DVD shop - the Hong Kong disc has English sub-titles on it and like most HK flicks, is region-free so don't worry about compatibility. This film has humour and action and a passion for life, love, and family. And if you can overlook the inherent cheesiness of HK film (and Jackie Chan notwithstanding), it's actually superior to the Fast and the Furious in many ways.

But one thing's for sure, drifting has been around Japan racing circuits for years and was nicely covered in "Intial D" (which by the way also feature realistic drift-racing scenarios on secluded mountain roads) nearly 2 years before Hollywood caught on.

MGA ...Battlecry revisited

So I'm playing Metal Gear Ac!d last night and I had a severe flashback to my troubles with Robotech Battlecry. Does anybody remember that time I recounted my story about how I got stuck on a fairly routine level because the "puzzle" was so inoccuous that I didn't think to interact with the game a certain way?

Flashback:
I'm told that I must "rescue the stranded pilots" but that first I must "put out the fires." Well I flew around the field in "Guardian" mode (or GERWALK for the Macross purists) knowing that in previous missions, the game allows me to pick up things with the "arms" in this mode... But how to "put out the fires?" I dropped the game after a couple of hours randomly zooming around and shooting up the place. It was months later when on a lark, I showed my brother the game and he accidentally shoots out a sewer pipe I had previously dismissed as background artwork. This in turn gave me a flashback...

Flashback of a Flashback:
I had practically abandonned Final Fantasy 7 for one thing (which further reminds me, I never did finish that game). This was back when beautifully pre-rendered backdrops housed characters who were 3D-rendered interactive objects. But by the very nature of the pre-rendered precluded interactivity... save for pre-determined paths where your character would walk - paths that were supposed to match up with the artwork in the backgrounds (representing bridges or roads). There was one scene in a junkyard and I spent HOURS trying to get from one end to the next. By chance my keystrokes were not registering at the particular moment my character was lined up with a "plank" drawn into the background - thus not allowing him to walk "onto" the plank.

Flash Forward... Snake is told "there's a hidden sewer you must find at the north west end of the compound." I'm rather proud of my performance, actually. I was spotted only once and I managed to eliminate enemy troops all before an alarm was sounded. But I spent so much time wander around the north end and by sheer bad luck, Snake's character never happened to stop moving on the exact "tile" required to trigger the game event that would end the mission. I walked around it, over it, even stopped on "tiles" right next to it at one point. ARGH!

Thankfully, in the Internet age, I have access to freebies like Game FAQs fellow players have published on-line otherwise I would've been stuck there for who knows how many months wandering around that compound.

And ultimately, doesn't this sort of game design just ruin a playing experience?

Movie Reaction: X3

X-Men 3 came and went for me. It's odd that with the whole hype machine going, I only saw maybe 2 or 3 television adverts for it. But then I didn't need to because I aimed to see it in the theatre come hell or high water regardless - the x-geek in my blood wouldn't allow otherwise.

So what verdict does an old-school x-geek say?

Firstly one thing out of the way: this review WILL contain spoilers, so highlight the text to unhide the white-on-white after this paragraph. And secondly, yes, I liked it and had to let go of the perception that this was an adaptation of the comics. No - it's actually a movie featuring characters who also happen to inhabit the Marvel Universe but it is NOT the book material brought to life. Having laid those ground rules, let's get it on!

****spoilers below****
The first thing that really made me sit up and feel mildly irritated was the fact that once again, James Marsden's Cyclops got the shaft ...again! I do NOT accept real-world excuses like "Marsden is busy filming another movie so giving him a bit-part was all we could do. BS! They did that to him in X2 and in X2 he figured into the whole story even tho the character was on-screen for only a few minutes at a time! Killing him off was okay but so early in the film? Ugh.

Xavier getting killed off - let's ignore that little unsanctionned clip at the end that reveals Patrick Stewarts character may have survived: this is where I really get into the argument that the movies have taken on a life of their own. I mean, wow - that was a pretty cool scene (I wish the pacing was a little better tho because we didn't really get to absorb the dispair for long before the action picked up again).

Another change I approved of (but not necessarily liked): Multiple Man is a bad-guy in this film. It worked for the plot.Likewise: if they had no qualms with changing characters around like that, why did they bother creating a bunch of useless (some nameless) one-offs like that Asian "porcupine" kid? Why not just combine him with that spike-throwing thug that attacked Wolverine in the woods? They could've called him Spyke like in the cartoon version. Bottom line is that there are plenty of existing character they could've chosen from. This is the sort of thing I disapprove of - Bryan Singer wouldn't have done so.

WETA's digital FX were amazing as usual - making both Patrick Stewart and Ian MacKellan appear 20 years younger was cool... and the "evil Bilbo" effect on Jean's face when she became Phoenix was so ugly and cool...

Speaking of Phoenix - ugh, mommybabou once complained about "Superman Writing" to me. X-Men is guilty of it. In the first film, Rogue and Wolverine meet for the first time and Rogue gives her name as "Rogue." What kind of runaway kid gives themselves a codename?! Same here: Professor X reveals that not only did he tamper with Jean's mind to help control the overwhelming powers, he talks about that schizophrenic personality with a code-name... and although Famke Jansen did a wonderful job playing a crazy, she never really answers to the name "Phoenix." In fact, unless you're a comics geek, you'd be hard-pressed to explain to anyone else what this whole Rogue and Phoenix naming thing was all about... at least, not from watching the films.

And last but not least: my thoughts on the Danger Room.Thumbs up: we've waited forever to see the Danger Room - and we also waited for an eternity to see Colossus and Wolverine perform the "Fastball Special."Thumbs down: We actually saw the Fastball special. First of all, what works in comics doesn't necessarily look right in live-action film. And secondly, it made me realize that although he was there the whole time, we hardly ever got any screen time on Colossus.

OK I lied: one more ...Boliver Trask, the creator of the Sentinel anti-mutant robots. Well, we got a Sentinel ...albiet a Danger Room simulated one... ok we got a look at the head. I got all excited when the President told Trask "stop them by any means necessary." But alas, we wouldn't be seeing any more Sentinels in action. Ah well.
****spoilers above****

So with all that, I must say that it didn't disappoint. In that "Batman Begins" way, it wasn't fantasy action movie and was marred by a few minor points, but I get the feeling it'll be one of those films that I'll like more with each viewing...

Weekend Roundup

Besides the "business" I took care of this weekend, I also found myself in some spending situations again (that's not too surprising, is it?). Here's what.

On Saturday evening, I grabbed the latest volume of Ghost in the Shell season 2. If you've been keeping up with me all this time, you know already that I like to get the DTS version. Not only do these "SE" packages come with an extra disc featuring uncompressed DTS soundtracks, they usually come with extra goodies in the oversized box. What's funny about volume 5 is that now more than ever they blatantly point out the fact that they haven't actually gone to any lengths to give you exclusive stuff... these freebies are actually just repackaged materials.

In this volume, they threw in a new figurine of supporting character, Togusa, and a Tachikoma robot. What's interesting to note is that this new mini-robot figure is listed as "(secret)." Obviously this was originally some sort of unlisted bonus variant figure to those who originally purchased these as blind-packaged trading-figures (otherwise known as "gashapon" to us collectors). It's just funny that they bothered to identify is as such instead of saying what it really is... the same damn Tachikoma as before... but in black.

At least the disc was pretty cool (although, it does end on a cliffhanger of sorts).

So anyway, I'm in town today visiting the comic book store... I've mentioned this before, but I don't think I ever posted a photo. This is my "whoring T-shirt." Yes, I've pimped myself out: I get a 10% discount at my local shop for wearing their logo on my chest. And it only cost me $15 investment (which I recuperated on the first day when I bought that lightsaber last summer).

Yeah so it didn't sting so much when I picked up the latest volume of the GoDannar series. It really sucks that for some odd reason, ADV-Films saw fit to make volume 5 a 3 episode affair. I mean, WTF? You mean to tell me I just spent $10 per episode? Argh. The only possible logic I see in this is that way back in the beginning, volume 1 had 5 episodes on it instead of the usual 4. But that was a long time ago... ugh. ADV just lost some of my respect.

The Pack-Rat Instinct

I'm one of those folks who must hang onto just about anything from a broken mechical pencil to a business card from a contact I haven't heard from in years... the whole time I think, "you never know, might need it some day."

A while ago I blogged about buying an accessory pack for my PSP handheld (a carrying case, a USB cable, car charger, etc)... It came with this clear sheet that sticks to the front to "protect" the screen. The only problem is that the screen isn't that bright to begin with all that the "screen protector" can do is get itself worn and dirty... Today I went outside in an attempt to play PSP for a little while during my lunch break but the sun came out. I peeled off the clear sheet and fighting every fibre in my being telling me not to... I threw it into the garbage bin.

Yes, I think I'm getting better. ^.^;;;