Newest Iron Man trailer

Mixing a bunch of footage from the Comic-con stuff and the recent Super-Bowl commercial, There's a new trailer that hit the web this week... and it's hawsome!


And in case you missed it - there's groovey CG cartoon shorts here!

Catching up with Ms.Marvel

During House of M, the one non-mutant character besides Spider-Man that figured prominently and foreshadowed great things was Ms.Marvel. If you're unfamiliar with her, that's not surprising. While she's practically Marvel's answer to Supergirl, she's also been forever relegated to second-stringer who plays best as a member of the Avengers than anything else.

While the conclusion of House of M launched a promising solo title, it unfortunately got caught up with the Marvel Civil War event... which meant I reluctantly dropped it. I refused to read any tie-in material while waiting for the event's headliner mini-series to run to completion. Which in turn means nearly a whole year elapsed before I went back to pick up the collected editions for Ms.Marvel... Here is what I get:

"Civil War" and collects # 6-10 plus the "Ms.Marvel Special" that was published that summer. While Ms.Marvel did take sides in MCW, in reality, the issues that this collection spans only contain 3 issues that actually tied into the event directly. The first arc chronicles her adventure with fellow Avenger alumnus Simon "Wonder Man" Williams as they encounter a Arana and deal with Arachne (formerly Spider-Woman II). If anything, I found this arc to be fascinating because like the Spider-Man tie-ins to MCW, they explored the gray shades as Arachne served as a double-agent causing Ms.Marvel to question her position as head of a SHIELD team tasked with taking down unregistered heroes.

The second arc stepped away from Civil War and explored her relationship with Rogue. Personally I felt this was a rather weak attempt at infusing some humanity. While their fight has lasting implications for Rogue (she more or less had a permanent set of powers absorbed from Ms.Marvel), they didn't seem to do much to Ms. Marvel except to leave her really pissed off. Anyway, the arc involves her pissing off the X-Men in return.

The final bit of the collection is a reprint of the summer one-shot. In this story, Carol is having lunch with Simon when they get caught up in a someone's reality-warping power run amok. The tale is a simple adventure story and introduces a powerful new villain(?). And it sort of momentarily brings back Ms.Marvel's cosmic persona "Binary" (sort of, but not really; who can tell when alternate reality is involved?)

"Operation Lightning Storm" collects issues #11-17 and provides a much more linear set of stories. After the filler material with Rogue, the title went back to the events that started in Civil War. Carol deals with finding direction in her life while A.I.M. (a mad-scientist terrorist group) start brewing trouble. Ms.Marvel also gets back to Arana who is now something of a protege. This bad for everyone involved since the MCW has left some bad blood among the population... including a recently released Julia "Arachne" Carpenter ...who was last seen forcibly separated from her daughter by the authorities. Arana meanwhile learns the hard way that hero work is dangerous to one's health. The meat of the volume, however, is story of a deal Carol makes with Tony "Iron Man" Stark to assemble a paramilitary strike force of hand-picked SHIELD specialists to take down the likes of A.I.M..

Reading both these collections in rapid succession helped a lot I think. Between the Rogue filler and the sudden change in pacing of the later issues, everything flowed better that way. The Arana story in particular flows better as it has a clear beginning when she registers in the MCW issues and a clear conclusion after her injuries in the next collection. The Arachne story spans both volumes likewise. But for straight reading beginning to end, I have to rate volume 3 higher than volume 2 for it's simple cohesiveness.

The Devilfish box 1

That's what's in the box. Being budget-conscious I highly recommend this set. It comes with a squad of 8 Firewarriors and an extra pair of gun-drones. So either you've got a Devilfish to make a legal Pathfinder team or you've got a highly mobile Troops choice on the org chart.

Here are the drones built up. They're simple little guys. And in large numbers, they make for a pretty crazy sight on the game field.

Grouping the bitz together for the Firewarriors, I had to make sure the arms match up because there are several variations (4 to be precise). What irritates me is that the sprue comes with an off-count number of Pulse Carbine options. That means it takes a bit of creativity to make it look right (since the left hand will not necessarily reach the grip of the weapon held by the right hand).

But as you can see above, a bit of sneaky arranging of the pieces and things look alright. Cheats like chopping off parts of bitz hidden by other bitz help. For Tau, they have those big "shields" on their left shoulders that can hide unsightly mods. And once primed with black, it'll be even less noticeable.

Next up - the tank model. And when that's done I'll finally be able to show off the actual scale of the Baneblade I built earlier this year!

Clannad PVC: Kyou Fujibayashi

A little while back I mentioned picking up a PVC figure from Kotobukiya of Nagisa from Clannad. Well, more recently (I went back to the same local specialty shop and grabbed the other one they had on the shelf. This is Kyou Fujibayashi. She's an aggressive but fiercely protective of friend who won't think twice to tell off somebody she feels is being disrespectful.It's actually quite an odd sculpt because earlier on in the arc, she's a ball of unrelenting fury. Between herself and her twin(?) sister, she's the outspoken one. This figure represents a quieter intimate moment. The art box that it came in depicts her sitting on a picnic blanket - and the base features a printed pattern of the blanket and is sculpted with indentations where she sits.
Upon even closer inspection, Kyou is actually smiling a bit. Which turns out to be fitting as she does warm up to the other characters in the series as they slowly earn her very strict and limited respect.

DS thoughts

Napolean asked me today when the last time I bought into Nintendo was. I thought momentarily and answered: Super-NES. But just now it occurs to me that I bought into the Gameboy Advanced SP some time ago. Anyway, all that to say I'm not a huge Nintendo buff, but I did make it a point to pick up the latest portable iteration of Nintendo's pedigree.

Today I picked up a Crimson DS Lite ...and it's exactly what I thought it would be. It's funny that I blissfully ignored the reviews and just picked up the two game I really wanted to try: Cooking Mama, and Lunar Dragon Song.

Cooking Mama is one of those oddball titles I was instantly drawn to because I enjoy those wacky off-beat designs - this one featuring a cartoon Asian mom leading you through a variety of cooking activities like tenderizing meat and peeling carrots to make dishes all of it through the use of the touch-screen. Broken down to basics, however, I found that after about 15 minutes or so I was doing the same sort of thing over and over again. And the novelty wore of quickly. Thankfully this game I paid only $15 for used.

Lunar is a console-role-playing-game in the old 16-bit sense. You walk a colourful avatar around on his adventure to collect treasure and explore the fictional Lunar world. While it scores a weak 6.5 or so on most sites, I fall under the "fanboy" category because I happen to recall enjoying the simple pleasure of the earlier Lunar games. It takes advantage of the dual screen quite well, placing action on the top screen and keeping relevant menu options on the bottom.

Anyhow, the only question remaining is, why hadn't I picked one of these babies up earlier?

Reaction: Cloverfield

What to say that others before haven't said?

Perhaps I just haven't seen many monster films lately, all I could think walking out of the theatre was: "I have never wanted to slap some sense into a group of characters so bad." One of the essential elements to engage me in a film is to present a cast of characters interesting enough that holding them on the edge of doom should create tension. This bunch pushed the limits of my ability to suspend disbelief.

Much of the film is driven by what I felt amounted to an unlikely event: our hero is the one guy in all of New York city who missed the television footage of how terrifying the attacking organism is. And he is in the middle of an electronics store when this happens! And when he foolishly goes running in search of his love, his friends actually follow along.
In fact, the only character I felt any sort of empathy for was the one who meets a most grusome end - this one really was a victim of circumstance who mutters, "I wasn't even supposed to be here." And we've all been in that situation at one time or another.

But like I said, maybe I'm just not into monster movies. Other than that, the film does what it sets out to do. It's presented as a piece of footage recovered from a disaster area. The footage is raw and unedited, interspersed with older footage not overwritten by the new recording. And somehow, the camcorder always manages to capture just what we needed to see to drive the events along. And the whole time you sort of wonder, who will bite the dust next (because we know since the "tape" was "recovered," the camera operator probably didn't survive). But it's the ride that matters (and it's a pretty good ride most of the while.

On the design and technical side of things: I loved the monster - it was certainly something new and impossible to describe. And as for the shaky-cam look, well, 74 minutes was certainly enough for me (and more than enough for some of my companions that night at the theatre). It's funny, in fact, that actually, the camera shakes even before the attack begins. Have none of these people really never used a camcorder before?

wow... I got caught

Wow, I'm now part of a statistic.

This morning when I checked my mail, my ISP had sent me an email saying my IP address had been identified in a complaint filed to them overnight. Oops. I don't really want to go into it.

It's just a weird set of circumstances. I haven't pirated a piece of software in years. And the one day I thought of something to add to my torrent client on a whim, and I got flagged for it. What were the chances? Sheesh.

Oh well, I've deleted the files in question and removed it from my torrent client. And all I can say is, "I promise I won't pirate anything again." But really, there's not much else I can do about it right now so... anyway, whatever.

Coz i don't got nothin' better to do

So I have this unwritten rule I follow when I post, I tend to avoid naming specific stores and places I get stuff because it kinda feels like I'm selling out. But I'm facing a dilemma because, well, I feel like if I don't point it out, no one will ever notice it: I broke down and I'm giving ads a try. In the right column is an Amazon.ca box with my personal picks... most of the time it'll contain stuff found in my personal collection.

Anyway, I added 3 new items today but I need to warn you: I ordered those same three items myself today too. So we'll see how long it actually takes for my shipment to arrive.

Item 1: Invincible Ultimate Edition Volume 3
This item was listed in stock. It's a hardcover collection of the third year of Robert Kirkman's upstart title paying homage to the old-school super-hero genre. Cross Peter Parker with Superman, and basically you get Invincible... sort of... not really.

Item 2: Annihilation Conquest
This item was, for the longest time, listed as "Pre-Order" - right past the release date (which should have been 2 weeks ago). In fact, it only became available, according to Amazon.ca, today. And was also listed as "Ships in 1 to 3 months" whatever the hell that's supposed to me. It collects a whole bunch of follow-up adventures to the "Annihilation" war saga that raged across the Marvel Universe. See how tiny Marvel Civil War turned out to be when you look at the big picture? bet you never even heard about Annihilation, did you? Anyway, so Nova suffered from a "Green Lantern-like" plot twist and became super-powerful, Quasar got his butt kicked (and the powers subsequently taken over by Phyla-Vell.... And Silver Surfer ran off with Galactus. Or something like that. I'm all confused... but it was so frickin' epic and I can't wait to read this sequel event.

Item 3: Voltron Omnibus
This hardcover was listed "ships in 3 to 6 weeks." Yes yes yes, it's the old "form feet and legs, form arms and torso, and I'll form the head" deal. Devil's Due Publishing took a chance and jumped on the 80's Cartoon revival licensing thing. They scored big and took off with GIJoe, but a little known fact was that they also go Voltron ...which they proceeded to take several creative liberties with incorporating several plot elements from Hundred Beasts GoLion... Anyway, the point is, it didn't sell well. And in fact, was canceled amidst rumours that the final chapter had been completed by that DDP simply killed the series before it went to printers. Well anyway, this collection contains everything from that run plus the never-before-available conclusion.

So that's that - now I wait. I'll let you know when this stuff actually arrives. But by all means, feel free to check out any of my other recommendations! :)

street fighter TLY 8

Wow - the episodes are coming out faster and faster (that's good for us!)

In this installment: The tournament finally begins. Ken gets back in the saddle. And Guile points out the obvious.


Check out the full size embed at the source! And of course - thanks go out to Napolean for finding it and notifying me!

unexplained spam practices

Here is a list of spam titles I've received on my other blog. All of them linked to the same site (different pages)... all of them pr0n! Hooray!

california primary
delegate count
maharishi mahesh yogi
miss russia 2006
new mexico primary
shaq
transcendental meditation

I'm not entirely sure why anybody would do that. Why do they want to masquerade as a link to information about transcendental meditation. I mean, that's like advertising as "hardwood flooring" while attempting to pull in potential customers for "fat-free bacon." I think pr0n pretty much sells itself.

Iron Man short in CG

While looking for the new Super-Bowl spot for the upcoming Iron Man flick (because we Canadians don't get to see American commercials), I stumbled on this 3-part short movie at the official Marvel videos archive:

Spidey has some problems with attacking giant robots... so he needs to call in a heavy-hitter.


Iron Man takes care of business:


But he also needs a hand from familiar face in the Marvel Universe...


I think what's particularly charming is that this video is clearly out of continuity (well, currently anyway, considering the state of the world post-Marvel-Civil-War). It's some good old fashion Marvel Team-Up fun.

Pulse cracking?!

At first I thought it might be because I hadn't cleaned it properly (that is, you're told to clean your mask lens, for example, since the chemical residue from paintball fill can weaken the plastic). I had been hit in the hopper a couple of times before... but this is ridiculous.

Here are some photos (the cracks are in the center of the hi-lited circles)...
In this first pic, there's a crack running kind of horizontally (away to the left from the screw). The second smaller circle is just to highlight the chip in the wedge where the battery door should go.
In this second pic, there's a diagonal crack running up and to the right from the screw.
And in this third pic, it's harder to see because the Pulse has a bezzled cut, but there's a jagged line running upwards and left from the bottom right (again where the screw hole is).

Anyway, I've written to Draxxus's Pulse support. Not sure what they'll say. I guess in the best case, they'll send me a replacement shell (because really, no matter how bad the abuse during a game, they're claim is that these shells are supposedly nearly indestructible). And worse... well, either they don't answer or they just tell me that I've been screwing in the screws too tight or something. I'll keep you posted if anything comes of this.