Oh, man, on the heels of Danno getting the 'I'm a gonna KEEL you unless you pay me" Nigerian '419' spam scam, comes THIS gem to my inbox!

I've stripped all links.

From: mailer@un.org
Subject: Good News.
Date: July 30, 2009 11:39:58 PM GMT-04:00
Reply-To: e.akingbola00001REDACTED
United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) In Affiliation With Barack Obama Campaign to Assist Scammed Individuals In The Settlement Of Disputes Through Intercontinental Bank plc .

Attention:

How are you today? Hope all is well with you and your family?You may not understand why this mail came to you but kindly read for your perusal and follow the giving procedures for your claim.

The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) was created in 1991 as a subsidiary organ of the UN Security Council.Its mandate is to process claims and pay compensation for losses and damage suffered as a direct result of Internet Fraud.

We have been having a confederation meeting for the passed 7 months which ended 2 weeks ago with the then secretary to the UNITED NATIONS. This meeting was first held on the 8th of April 2003. You can view this page for your perusal.

(link to UN website redacted)

This email is directed to all the people that have been scammed in all parts of the world, the UNITED NATIONS in affiliation with Barack Obama Campaign have agreed to compensate them with categorical payment sum of US$ 150,000 each. In its decision 17 of 24 March 2006, the Governing Council established basic principles for the distribution of compensation payments to successful claimants.

This decision was made two months before the resolution of the first instalment of claims before the Commission.

As stated in the Secretary-General's report of 2 May 2006,it was anticipated that the value of approved awards would far exceed the resources available in the Compensation Fund at any given time.

The Governing Council therefore devised a mechanism for the allocation of available funds to successful claimants that gave priority to the three urgent categories of claims and which, within each category, would give equal treatment to similarly situated claims. Only when each successful claimant in categories "A","B"and "C" had been paid an initial amount up to US$2,500 would payments commence for claims in other categories. Accordingly,the first phase of payment involved an initial payment of US$2,500 to each successful individual claimant in categories "A" and "C".

However,for humanitarian reasons, all category"B"claims will be paid in full of a total US$150,000. A total of US$3,252,337,997.09 was made available to 1,498,119 successful individual claimants in categories "A", "B" and "C" under the first phase of payments.

This includes every foreign contractor that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc. We found your name in our list and that is why you are receiving this email notification.

You are advised to contact Dr Erastus Akingbola of Intercontinental Bank plc , as he is our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for your approved bank draft of USD$150,000.

This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose, so he will send it to you and you can cash it in any bank of your choice.Therefore, you should send him your full Name, telephone number and your correct mailing address where you want him to send the Draft to you.

Contact Dr Erastus Akingbola immediately for your Bank Draft

Person to Contact: Dr Erastus Akingbola
Email: e.akingbola@redacted, but different from the reply-to edress
Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft.

Making the world a better place.

RegardsBan Ki-Moon.

(UN Secretary-General)

(un website redacted)

Isn't that just AMAZING! And not a WORD in the news that Pres. Obama did this! WOW let me just get my account number....NOT.

Cripes. And people FALL for this stupidity!

Wow, I have been SUPER LAZY haven't I? I'm sorry. I'm trying to be better.

So, OK, TV. Everybody watches it, many deny doing so. SUCK IT Up you watch TV so just get over yourself and deal!

*ahem* So, Everyone has a show they like. A show that they get into, make it 'appointment TV' where you might decide that when this show is on you're not doing anything else. I know my people, you all do it. House. Dr. Who. Torchwood. Bones. One of the CSI shows. One of the Law & Order shows (digress: L&O:CI-JEFF GOLDBLUM?! WTF?) etc, etc. It's the actors, it's the writing, maybe it's the producer, something catches your eye and it hooks you.

Then you get those shows that just vanish. It's got something good, you like it, you watch it, then suddenly POOF it's gone and you wonder why. In the old days we'd never know except maybe for a passing comment in TV Guide, or if you were REALLY into 'inside baseball' stuff you buy Daily Variety and see what 'the trades' say about things. Now with the Interwebtubes most anyone with a casual interest can scare up info, but REAL data, the real reasons are tough to dig out. Usually we're told "the ratings, the numbers just weren't there to keep it going" and we shrug and maybe mutter a curse about 'those people' and go on.

Of course it's much more complex than just ratings numbers. There's the whole issue of 'audience demographics' and the desire to 'target' a show at a particular 'demo'. If you ever have a concern about 'profiling' then let it be known that with TV, it's ALL ABOUT profiling. Does this show get enough gay males 23-35? Are we getting that black female audience? How do we appeal more to the 18-25 white male videogame playing skateboarding rap music listening audience because they are FAT with money!

Cartoon Network had a very successful programming block with 'Toonami', where they showed various anime series in that magical 3-5 PM monday-friday time block. They killed it because it skewed too old. They wanted a young audience but the anime was bringing in all ages, mostly older and by being successful, it had to die.

So it goes. There's so MUCH involved. You hear people hate on Fox for killing 'Firefly' (and any number of SF shows and others) but everyone forgets that at least Fox DID put it on the air, when none of the other networks would. So think on that.

But something has changed and I think ratings just don't matter anymore. As much as you've seen shows you liked get killed, have you sat back and wondered "why is THIS on the air? it's stupid, derivative, annoying, starring unlikeable characters doing illogical things!!" (oh, say 'Everybody loves Raymond, or the George Lopez show, or...well, pick your own) but somehow they get ratings, right? maybe not so simple...follow me on this, it's very strange.

If you watch Fox, you CANNOT escape the ads for a show called 'Glee'. They've scaled back a little recently but last month (June) I would swear they were running at least two ads for it every hour. Glee is a comedy set in a school (high school? I guess) about a well meaning teacher who wants to bring some fun and talent to the school and so forms a glee club, and blah blah fight the power blah blah nerds Vs the jocks blah blah it's about as by-the numbers as you can make it. All the ads talk about it as the BEST SHOW EVER and it's SERIES PREMIERE this fall. Why, if you really only 'skim listen' to the ads, you'd think it was a RETURNING show after a successful first season and man how DID you miss it?

Now you all who read me are above-average folks, with keen wisdom and mad google skills. Do a search, look around and you'll discover something very interesting. Glee actually premiered back around Feb., and ONE episode aired, and it VANISHED. Fox pimped it HARD all Jan., and for a week or so after spent big money on ad time saying "did you miss the premiere? watch it NOW on Fox.com!"...then starting roughly around the end of March they started with the Glee ads as a 'coming soon! coming this fall! It's the best show EVER!"

So let me get this straight. They run the show, it's SO BAD they yank it after ONE episode, they've gone so far as to try to 'soften' the ad starring the mean angry cheerleader coach somewhat, where they used a line something like "You think that's hard? try living with Herpes, THAT'S hard!" now changed to "Try drilling your own teeth, THAT'S Hard!" and changed it to something even less upsetting that I can't recall at the moment. I just wonder how well 'Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles" could have done with just 25% of that advertising promotional presence?

But this is where I say the 'fix' is in. SOMEBODY at Fox clearly has a hard-on for generating some kind of angry, hateful comedy set in high school (remember that animated piece of crap that was on for a few weeks to fill the slot of the cancelled King of the Hill? No? I can't ever recall the name of it, but gee, well meaning teacher, angry cheerleading coach, inept admin...hmmmmm) and by GOD Glee is going to be FORCED on us no matter WHAT ratings say. The only thing that will kill it is if whoever is shepherding it and protecting it and pouring TONS of money to promote it loses their job.

But it won't bring anything we LIKE back.

Because....Cool Guys don't look at explosions...they just turn and they walk away...

Ooops.

anyway. Looks like I was right about Game 6, hard fought the whole time, Pens took it 2-1 and it got SO DAMN CLOSE to a tie game and OT but, give the Black and White their due, they made it happen and forced the tie breaker.

But now it's back to Hockeytown USA and the Pens get rattled pretty easy seeing the ocean of Red and White staring back. So Game 7 is likely gonna be a knife fight in a closet.

I think it's gonna be a real brutal game. I think the Wings take it 1-0. Dunno if there's gonna be any OT or not but it wouldn't surprise me.

So we'll see.

ETA:
wow, huh, boy when I call it wrong I call it REAL wrong. End of 2ed Period and it's Pens 2-0. WTH are the Wings who dominated in Game 5? Replaced by clones or something? MAN!

I have a hunch that this is going to be a 7 game playoff. The Wings spanked the Pens so damn hard in Game 5 that they felt it back at least 5 years.

I mean, seriously, 5-0? That's just embarrassing, and the Pens were clearly upset because some stupid stuff went on, they blew their cool.

So, I figure Game 6, in the Penguins home rink, is gonna be ugly.

Of course the Red Wings could be on such a streak that they spank the Pens again even harder...

I'm watching a little 'American Idol'. I'm not big into it but I like a decent performance, OK?

And I'm wondering, WTH is going on with Quentin Tarantino?! Dude looks like he's morphing into Oliver Stone or something! His face looks WEIRD!

Maybe it's his hair. He looks like he got a toupe, or maybe implants. I dunno.

OH, and the Idol singers? I think the final 2 are going to come down to Anoop and the young girl with the pink hair.

And Paula wants to hump Andy until he breaks. You can just tell.

One of the things I constantly rail and rant on is how all the problems in the Entertainment Industry can be traced to ONE SIMPLE FACT.

All the 'cheap, disposable' things are no longer cheap, and thus not disposable.

Lamp this, hepcats:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14713.html

This Buck Rogers issue zero got orders for 75,000 copies. That's HUGE in today's comic market.

Why did it get those numbers? Because it's priced to sell at .25 Cents.

It HAS to be the price, because between you and me, I don't think the kids of America care jack S**T about Buck Rogers. I don't think the roughly 3000 Comic Book Shops care either. But those comic shops DO care about selling product and it seems they figure that they can sell a .25 cent comic.

Now, mind, those orders MAY have been due to misleading ads and intentional mis-communication. Reading the ICv2 article (and the link to the previous article announcing the book) I came away thinking that maybe this was meant to be PART of Free Comic Book Day coming in May and thus retailers ordered them for that purpose (because, in case you didn't know, Free Comic Book Day comics are NOT free for the store), and I do wonder if the blurb at the bottom about how Issue #1 will have an Alex Ross variant cover got 'blurred' and retailers are under the impression that the issue zero will have that...well, either way.

Point is, cheap sells. So the next time you read something in the trade papers about bookstores crying about sales being down, recall that the average paperback book is now $7.99. When the anime companies whine about nobody wants to buy DVDs recall that they STILL sell 4 episodes for $29.99.

For the record: Cost of ticket, $4 USD. Cost of Coke and Popcorn, $11.50. This was the 'deal' offered, but I noticed that the price was exactly the same as if I bought ala carte. F-ing theater industry wonders why concession sales are dropping faster than GM stock.

Buy smaller sizes? a small Coke was $4.25, the large $4.75.(Popcorn $6.25-$6.75) The Small would have been one gulp. Large Coke and small popcorn? Would have been $11. Now you know why I don't go to that many movies anymore. Oh, and it started 30 minutes late to boot. Someone hit the wrong switch and walked away from the booth. Positive? I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE THEATER.

I think J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs is the manager of that theater.


My verdict on Watchmen is "hurm".

To clarify: Damn, dammit, so close, so very very close!

There's a lot right with this movie, I have no question that Snyder understood the material (mostly), there's clearly a LOT of love that went into the picture but holy crap, when it went 'off model' (if you will) it REALLY veered into problems.

Biggest being the ending, of course.

I wonder if it's a generational thing. Growing up in the '60s and '70s, knowing that at any moment the Soviets just might go bats**t crazy and decide the odds were right and pull that Atomic trigger... that at any time Soviet T-76s might start rolling thru the Fulda Gap and West German troops just might have to fire off a tactical nuke to slow them down...UNDERSTANDING what that meant, you came to understand some other things.

Like in the real world, if Dr. Manhattan did indeed blow up a few major cities for giggles, the Soviets would NOT have looked at the crater that was NYC and said "oh, darn, let's unite and defeat this foe", no. The soviet response would have been "OK, so they nuked one of their own cities to try and shift blame. PPfft, we're not falling for that" and probably would have launched a strike.

No, it should have been the Space Squid. Or at the very least, something so unusual, so outside the realm of possible, it would be convincing.

I hope, and it's a slim hope, that when the money was flowing Snyder had gone ahead and filmed the Squid, because you know, if you look at some of the key events (the explosion itself, the way Manhattan and Laurie survey the damage) it was all there.

Man, I keep going over it. so MUCH was tied to that. The Comedian flies over the island and spots unusual activity, yes. Being asked to investigate Veidt, and he doesn't send up a report about it? Makes no sense, because, see, SOMEONE TOLD BLAKE TO GO LOOK, see?

(and I noted the in-your-face gag of the monitors overseeing the reactor explosions, all tagged 'squid'. Haw haw, Snyder. we get it)

I just don't understand, with as much 'right' there was going on in Watchmen, why Snyder took his finger off the number and seemed to utterly lose his way. It's almost as if he had been taken off the pic and some corporate lackey, with zero understanding of the material, had taken over and done his own re-writes.

I'll tell you how it makes me feel, what I think of most of all. More than anything else, it reminds me quite a bit of David Lynch's version of Dune. That same mix of "OMG that's exactly how it should be" and "wait, WHAT? WHY!?"

Does that mean in 20 years someone will do it mostly right, with an 8 hour, 3 nights in a row miniseries?

I won't blather on much more, save it for any comments, but I will say, with one exception, the cast was really, really good. The guy who was Night Owl II? Nailed it. Out of the park.

Hey, just one thing. I thought I was really paying close attention, but...

WHERE did Laurie get that revolver at the end?

So I'm out with mom, looking for some stuff and buying groceries, when we stop at a Michaels craft store.

Now, I love looking around in those places because it fills my head with foolish ideas, and I've found it useful in the past to be able to be the guy who can say "Oh, yeah, I know where you can get that".

So, right up front, as a new product line, I spy this:


http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayProductPage?productNum=gc1276

home silk screening machine. It's pricy, out of my league at $299.95, but looking at the other products in the display I saw something exciting.

You use your inkjet printer to make the master and burn the screens.

It's designed to easily do multi-pass, multi screen designs

The screens can be 'wiped' and re-used

holy crap, the ideas this gives me. Too many, all bursting out trying to escape at once.

Because,see, by using your inkjet printer and computer to create the screens, ANYTHING is possible. ANY THING.

I bet Danno or Dave or EK could go nuts with this.

ETA: Yes, I know, there's all manner of home silk-screening kits out there for a hella lot less than 300 bones (plus all the accessories and ink you need naturally), but this thing looks like it makes the entire process much easier and foolproof and self contained, which appeals to me greatly. I believe the unit itself does the screen burning, for example. blah blah blah.

(thanks for the prompt, DVC, I should have done this sooner)

And yes, I used the shortform B.O. instead of Box Office because man, the weekend tally stunk up the place.

A bit more than $18 Million. That's a HUGE dropoff. It's also about right in the middle of my predicted $15-20 Mil. HAW HAW. And Daryl Surat says I don't know what I'm talking about. Now if I could just get PAID for this ability...

Warner Bros hasn't made any official statements regarding the take on Watchmen but you know they have to be very, very upset, thinking they had a $300 Million + monster moneymaker on their hands. Overseas sales will do better and likely overtake U.S. numbers over the coming weeks because movies from America generally kill out there, being seen as the pinnacle movie entertainment. And home video sales will be strong.

Oh, I *DID* see one 'now playing' ad on TV. One, over the entire week, and it was late night, not prime time. So might have been more a 'make good' from the station than anything else due to ads being pre-empted for one of President Obama's chats.

Shouldn't be much longer before it'll show in the cheap theater, then I have a shot at seeing it. Heck, a month or so back I had a private showing of Quantum of Solace for $3.50! only guy in the whole f'ing theater....

So, looks like I was right, Watchmen did about $55 Million on its opening weekend. Does that mean I have psychic powers? No, it's simple logic of the 'blockbuster' release. Over 3000 screens, just about ANY movie can get an easy $50 Mil. That's how it seems to always work.

A REAL blockbuster does $70 Mil that opening weekend. So, sad to say, Watchmen looks to have seriously underperformed for the gray men in the gray suits in their gray offices of Warner Bros.

How dare I say that? It's true, and the most obvious clue that Warner wants to just move on? I'm not seeing any 'now playing' ads on TV. We live in this odd world where advertising really does tell the unwashed masses what is good, what is popular, what is buzzworthy. If Warner kept the media buys at the same level as the pre-release hype, we'd be looking at probably a solid $40 Mill for the second weekend, but with a seeming death of advertising (and mind, they may be pimping like mad at the Big Cities of NYC, LA, Chicago, etc) I would be willing to bet that when Monday 03/16/09 comes along we'll see that Watchmen only did an additional $15 Mil in box office. If I want to be generous and loving make it $20 Mil.

There's a few significant movies coming out this weekend, nothing that's going to be huge but all of them will take Dollars away from Watchmen, the remake of 'Last House on the Left' in particular.

Watchmen will still be in the top 5 after the coming weekend, but by the third weekend, it'll be near the bottom of the top 10 if not off the list, which of course is a shame.

It'll do real well on DVD however. Fans will double and triple dip with the different releases planned.

I'm thinking of holding off on seeing it now, because by the end of the month it'll likely be at the 'second run' theater and then I'll be able to see it for $3.50 instead of $9.

Wanted to whip this out (EEEE! sorry) before the sneak shows hit, just a random thought, and because I should post SOMETHING.

So, I like the comic 'Watchmen', it was one of the few highlights when I was doing my tour of hell in Ft. Wayne, IN in 1985-86. That trip to the comic shop (and I can't recall its name) to pick up Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns' and then later 'Watchmen' was one bright spot in an endless flow of crap days.

Liked it so much that even while unemployed I found the cash for the limited HC reprint.

Not going to go into WHAT the comic is about, that's why wiki exists and all, and I figure 98% of my friends already know anyway.

So there's this big-ass movie that's been made from the comic, did you hear?

Now, me, I always thought that the best way to translate the comic from paper to screen would have been a 7 hour mini-series, spread out over 3 nights on TV. It's that deep, that thick. But, it's going to be a 2 hour and some theater release (and a 3 hour plus home video release, already planned) and...hurm.

I've tried to stay away from reading stuff, from looking at stuff, but when they whip out the 'making of' book weeks before the release I can't help but take a look and overall?

I think they got the look right, overall. It seems to be a LOT of love for the richness of detail which I approve. There's some choices I'm not too sure about but I'll reserve judgement until I see it moving. And the fandom world is all albaze over the change of the ending (which, I would think should cascade backwards and affect much of the story) but....but...

We won't know until they show it.

Here's my caution: DON'T READ ANY REVIEWS BEFORE YOU SEE THE MOVIE.

Yeah. Because I think this is going to be EXACTLY like the Speed Racer movie. It's gonna polarize. It's gonna be a love it or hate it film, there will be no middle ground. And the mainstream critics and reviewers won't 'get' it.

I have an idea that this film won't make the huge bank Warner Bros expects. Oh, it'll be the #1 movie for the weekend, maybe for two weekends, no worries there. The Advertising blitz has been so big, I figure it'll easily do $50 Million that opening weekend. Maybe more, maybe as much as $70 Million. But don't underestimate the power of Squee, there's a Jonas Bros. concert film out there and that's gonna just do bigger and bigger money every week.

Well, the countdown has begun, let's see how close I hit the mark.

Growing up when I did, I have fond memories of DC Comics from the late '60s into the '70s, when they slowly weaned themselves off the Batman TV series and started getting new blood, new ideas, taking some risks. Like when Jack Kirby came on board and utterly rocked my face with the whole Fourth World stuff, and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.

but other things. Mike Grell was doing art on Legion of Super-Heros and it was taking on a most Star-Trekish vibe. Neal Adams was rocking the house, as was Jim Aparo (sp?) And this dude named Walter Simonson...

The Brave and the Bold was the Batman team-up book, and also served as a tryout slot for different characters. Walt Simonson and Archie Goodwin decided to revive an older DC character named 'Manhunter' and clearly had a totally free hand to do ANYTHING, so they really pushed some boundaries, came up with some crazy ideas, and unleashed one of the most memorable storylines on unsuspecting readers, the most amazing being the rather Japanese way of being constructed with an ending planned from the start. I think that, more than anything else, cemented the story and character in the hearts of many forever.

Naturally, in the face of such success DC has, ever few years, tried to revive the character and it never quite takes, because without the dynamic Simonson art, he's just another costumed pseudo-ninja dude.

None of that matters because the original short stories live forever, and all that stuff.

So what is this post about?

I read Toyfare magazine on a regular basis, it's a guilty habit. There's not much there anymore, Twisted Toyfare Theater is pretty damn dull and gets too political, feature articles are too short and way way too much time is spent talking up the whole 'RARE! Collectible! Buy it because it's valuable!" crap, but in the Feb. 09 issue (#138) there is a preview of a line of action figures from DC Direct tagged 'History of the DC Universe'(a project meant to explain the DC Universe in the post-Crisis of Infinite Earths time, and if none of this makes a lick of sense to you it's OK, it got all wiped out a couple of times since the '80s anyway), and the sculpts are inspired by the illos from the comic of the same name. Now, the easy way to go is of course keep to the 'big boys', the main chara that everyone knows-Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash...and the first wave DOES have some 'safety' figures. Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Arrow...but then...The Creeper, Black Lightning (BLACK! LIGHTNING!...sorry, old SNL joke), Blue Devil and...Manhunter.

And damn if it doesn't look just like Simonson drew him.

So, happy making in a comic geek way. Of course I'll never FIND him when the line ships to comic stores, at least not at MSRP. He'll probably be packed one to a case, there'll probably be a 'blue'variant (his clones wore blue, see), the price will be jacked up beyond reason and...well.

And the one pity is, it looks like the figures will only have about 9 points of articulation to them and that is a shame. Given how kinetic Simonson drew him he needs to be super-posable with joints everywhere. And he probably won't come with his modded 1896 Mauser either.

But at least the figure is being made, and it's not in some goofy crappy cartoony style like the current DC animation. When the market collapses in the near future maybe I'll be able to get him for cheap.

Hey, as long as we're at it, how about a Howard Chaykin 'Ironwolf' figure?

Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out, eh?

No, really, I'm done with 2008. The few highlights (hey all you!) are indeed good and nice, but boy if ONE MORE THING crapped on me I think I would have just gone nuts.

Or more nuts than I seem to be.

I've let a number of people down over the years,I'm sorry for that. I'm really trying to do better.

I'm not at all sure what 2009 will bring (except the launching of the SDF-1 Macross), I HAVE to hope and pray that it's better, not just for me but for all my friends who are troubled, underemployed, unemployed or working but not happy.

It's got to get better. That's all there is to it.

So raise a glass of whatever you're drinking and yo ho mates, Happy New Year!

Snow

Snow Snow Snow Snow

SNOW!


That is all.

::John Wayne:: "That's Enough!" ::John Wayne::

Yep, crap in a HAT, man.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13949.html

I know, I know, so what, who cares if the company that put out He-Man and Ark II and Shadow Warriors and Red Baron goes belly-up? It's not anime or even important mainstream stuff.

But see, it's the niche product that MATTERS. It's stuff like this people get excited about because you just don't see it on TV. New season of House coming out? Well, it'll hit syndication soon enough. Why buy the sets of Friends episodes when the damn thing is running 6 times a day SOMEWHERE in every market?

But man, when was the last time you flipped channels and *SHUWAT* Ultraman was on?

And nobody, NOBODY is talking about the real reason why sales of DVDs are down. THERE'S FEWER PLACES THAT SELL DEEP CATALOG AND NICHE DVD's!! You want a copy of The Dark Knight? Easy-peasy. You want to buy Iron King? Good luck.

"Ahh, you SAP! NOOOOBODY buys in a store anymore! that's a sucker's game! All the COOL people buy online and constantly hunt to save the maximum amount possible, you DORK!"

If this were true, AND IT'S NOT, there would be no problem at all. But for those idiot people with their noses in the air about shopping in the real world, guess what? That's STILL the major driving force in retail.

And now YOU won't be able to buy BCI's catalog because too many stores have closed and those that remain are cutting back their stock to just New Releases, Top Evergreen titles and whatever package deals the studios put together each couple of months.

Dammit. and I was REALLY waiting for Navarre/BCI to whip out the follow-on to Red Baron, Mach Baron.

For my friends who might just read my front page when it updates but not checking the 'friends' listings, I bring you SPOOKY PICTURES fitting for the month!

Well, I don't, but Dave does at his Let's Anime blog.

http://letsanime.blogspot.com/2008/10/cosplay-that-time-forgot.html

Woooooo! Scary stuff, huh kids? Look at those costumes! Probably stuff you DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS!! It's Cosplay from PRE-2000!!!


Ah, so 'days of my youth'. I was so so stupid....but I'm still glad I got to meet Lauren and Leslie and Matt and Jeff and everyone :)

Yep, been dealing with all manner of things that pretty much messed up my head. Depression is a bad, bad thing.

It's not over, no, not yet, but I really should post SOMETHING so I'm not a subject of hushed discussion, right?

So much I wanted to comment on, but the kink was in the hose and the thought water would not flow.

"but Steve!" I hear you say "You post all over the place in other folk's blogs and stuff! What's up with that?"

It's an odd quirk I have. Responding to someone else's stuff is much, much easier than generating my own blather, and I've only replied to a small number of posts that I WANTED to say something about...

But I'm going to try to do better, for the person or two who actually reads this.

One thing that might be fun, looks like in the upcoming Otaku USA (Jan issue) I may have some blather about Macross printed, so yay me.

Now if I could just find a way to generate about 100,000 words worth of text a month, and get it all approved and published, maybe I'd have a career, ya? :)

So, I'll try and think of some good stuff to talk about later.

I have several laws in regards to my blog here. No Religion, No Politics, No linkbombing, no YouTube. I'm trying to write general, interesting content and not be all wrapped up in things that people just can't talk about in a civil manner anymore. So these are Harrison's Laws.

But as they are my laws, when something REALLY chaps my shorts, I'll probably talk about it.

When I went to college back in the stone age, I had hopes and dreams of becoming a filmmaker. As part of that process I was exposed to all manner of 'deconstructing film/TV' courses, and while that's been valuable, in some ways I feel the loss of innocence. I just can't watch anything without looking, albeit subconsciously, for the 'hidden message', the subliminal, the 'meaning in the media' if you will as the medium IS quite often the message. Blah blah blah.

No, I don't mean 'tin foil beanie' stuff. But maybe it is.

What the heck am I talking about?

General Electric is currently running an ad on TV, I'm pretty sure you've seen it, promoting their Solar Energy branch. It's about this blue 'tin toy' robot (which actually looks like plastic-FAIL, guys) that 'wakes up' as the Sun rises, and he goes about here and there as the world around him awakes..the higher the Sun rises, the more things become active, the message being the Sun is powering the world and GE is making it happen praise GE!

It's supposed to be this big 'Green' message and fill you with wonder and joy and stuff. The music is carefully crafted to make that so.

This ad fills me with horror.

Because GE is showing me a world that STOPS when the Sun goes down. A world of blackness and quiet, a world where we would be forced to huddle in our caves(houses), our lives and activities effectively ended at dark. Think of it. No TV, no Internet. No radio. No microwave. No carnivals, no movies, no shopping. No telephones.

What happens if there's a storm at night? No warning about tornadoes. No warnings about flash floods.

"Oh, shut up you freak! it's JUST a commercial!" I hear. "Of COURSE it wouldn't be like that, there'd be batteries or something!" But...GE would make money off storage solutions too, showing that would be part of the ad you would think, but no...

I don't like what this ad says and implies (note the toy robot has the traditional 'tin robot' guns sticking out of his chest. what should that imply? after all, guns are bad, right?), I don't like the future implied by that ad, I don't like how it's programming people to accept the concepts.

And that's all I've got to say.

It seems I have committed an internets fau paux.

According to the God-Emperor of AWO Daryl Surat, I was supposed to inform readers of my little blog here that I had some writing published on another blog, specifically over at Dave Merrill's Let's Anime blog.

http://letsanime.blogspot.com/2008/03/space-fanzine-yamato-untold-story.html

The reason I didn't mention this is...well...it's Dave's blog, dig? But I guess if I mention it he might get more hits and that somehow translates into life points or gold coins or something.

Plus...I'm a little embarrassed. See, I got this email from Dave asking for a couple hundred words on the making of Space Fanzine Yamato, and I had thought he was going to do a blog post about different and various fanzines during the 'Golden Age' of anime fandom, so when I whipped out about 2500 words I figured I had failed to give him what he wanted. There just wasn't any way I could take as complex an issue as this and just boil it down to "I wrote some stuff, these people wrote some stuff, I printed it and it sold"-altho I know there are those who would WISH I would have shut up and just left it like that :)

Those who know me know I'm all about context. There's so much that was going on at the time, I just couldn't tell the story without that context. And Dave told me he liked it, so he just printed the whole darn thing all by itself.

I may expand on what I wrote here at a later date, I left 'reminder points' in my original draft, but then again, I dunno.

So go read about this little fanzine that some people enjoyed, then read the other posts on the site, you'll learn a lot more interesting stuff there than anything I can come up with.

Also, listen to the AWO podcast. Daryl Surat commands this to be so!

http://animeworldorder.blogspot.com/

So I have a tiny, minor windfall.

So I buy an Apple iPod Shuffle, Silver 1 gig model.

"But Steve! The Shuffle is the most USELESS of the iPods! You can't choose the songs you want to listen to! You can't watch movies or store pictures! 1 gig is ONLY 240 or so songs*! "

*240 songs as mid-range MP3 files. full AIFF is much less.

Yeah, but it's tiny,and it's not likely to be the target of theft, and it plays music which is all I really WANT.

As I no longer have a car and have to either walk or take the bus, these are important issues.

Besides, now that I've bought a Shuffle, that's SURE to mean the Nano will drop to around $80 within a month or so....

One comment right off the bat? MAN does Apple know how to package stuff. It's almost Japanese the cool little box it comes in and the unfolding and unpacking.

Yeah, I think this is going to be fun.