Thanks to Geoff Gentry for the heads-up!
According to this "toy"'s description, "EVE is the lifeblood of the underwater city of Rapture, the setting for Bioshock and Bioshock 2. It is the substance that fuels the bizarre powers of the genetically-engineered splicers' plasmids, and it is the fight to control this precious resource that has nearly destroyed the underwater city. This Play.com exclusive EVE hypo prop replica is based on the in-game models, and features a light-up LED feature for that authentic eerie blue glow!"
Yuck... but still awesomely kewl!
I know that I'm in a solid minority here, but I am absolutely digging the heck out of The Prisoner! To me, it's the same theme going on as the Sixties original series. Just... different. Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner was about individuality, and this one starring Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan is about personal identity. Now, those may seem like the same thing, but they aren't. They're just aspects of the same thing. I don't have any better word for it other than "soul".
Is The Prisoner meant to be entertainment? Hmmmm... not really. It's more like something made to be endured (call it "enduretainment" perhaps?). There are no easy answers here, just more questions that one winds up asking more of self than of the show. But then, the original The Prisoner, forty years and more later, is still doing that. So on that note, AMC's revamp is already successful.
The final two hours air tonight. I'll be watching with great interest.
EDIT 12:31 p.m. EST: I like the "enduretainment" term so much that I thought it deserves an apt definition...
Enduretainment (noun): A work of performance art, usually but not limited to television and motion pictures, intended to bring about sometimes painful personal reflection and self-questioning as opposed to being intended for pure enjoyment and distraction.
Woodward was a very, very good actor. His portrayal of Howie in The Wicker Man has always haunted me for some reason. But like many people I was especially awed at Woodward's ability to convey "controlled rage". Robert McCall, his character in The Equalizer, was a man with James Bond's dirty tricks combined with Batman's thirst for justice. The last time I saw Woodward in anything, it was in the ill-fated Babylon 5 spinoff show Crusade: he played a Technomage who was the father of series regular and fellow Technomage Galen (who incidentally was played by Edward Woodward's real-life son Peter Woodward).
Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this morning.
Well, it's unarguably not The Prisoner of Patrick McGoohan's day. And I knew that it wasn't going to be that either.
But, I think that I wound up liking it quite a bit.
Need to watch it again before tomorrow night's two-hour installment. Maybe even two or three more times.
Now you gotta admit: that is what good The Prisoner should compel you to do :-)
Behold the commercial from about 45 years ago...
And if that adult looks familiar, it should: that's Hal Smith as the thief and the commercial's pitchman. Smith will forever be known as that lovable town drunk Otis Campbell on The Andy Griffith Show.
I remember about two decades ago when every Toys R Us had an aisle devoted to toy guns. Seems like we had a lot less real-life crime then than we do now. Maybe we should let children be children instead of expecting them to be miniature adults, and allow them to live out the "good guy/bad guy" fantasy. That's the kind of thing that has gone on since time immemorial and it's only been in the past number of years that the "child experts" (who never seem to have children of their own, hardly) have done their damndest to change that.
Well, anyway: it's a "swell" commercial, I think. Especially that machine gun!!
Well anyway, for some reason my fried turkey has always been a smashing success for Thanksgiving and Christmas and a few other festive occasions. It's always the first thing to go at the family table. And a bunch of folks have told me over the years that I should go public with my nigh-patentable technique. That I could offer my services to others, for a reasonable fee.
I hadn't really given it much thought. But y'all know me: I'll try anything once!
If you live anywhere within driving distance of Reidsville and your mouth is already watering for one of those gloriously seasoned and deep-fried turkeys like you see me holding in that photo, fire me an e-mail at theknightshift@gmail.com and I'll get back in contact with you. Thanksgiving is a little less than two weeks away. I've already got a few orders in and can fit in some more.
And remember: you ain't just buying a turkey. You're buying confidence! Confidence that your Thanksgiving main course will be given all due diligent care, that it'll be done by an experienced pro, and that you will be risking neither your own life or house! That's a no-lose proposition folks :-)
Along with the letter, Privateer Press also sent over some boxes of limited edition minis from the game. Between seeing how pretty those were, and observing how everyone in the store was way enjoying Monsterpocalypse, it was more than enough to entice me to give it a try. And that's how it all started...
So now five months and several booster box purchases later (in addition to scouring eBay for a few hard-to-find minis) I must confess: I am officially a Monsterpocalypse junkie.
Awright well, what exactly is Monsterpocalypse and why am I feeling obligated to sing its praises here? It's a game based around the "giant monsters" genre... and it's a heck of a lot of fun!!
Gameplay revolves greatly around how you use your dice. You've got ten "action dice", ten "power dice" and you can use any number of "boost dice" depending on what figure you're using and other factors. If you want to "spawn" a unit - which are classified as either grunts or elites - onto the board you have to spend a die (and it'll cost ya two dice for an elite). Want to move a unit? It'll cost ya one die. Attack with it? That'll cost ya a die as well. But "spending" means moving the dice from your unit pool to your monster pool... which will let you wreck even more carnage with your big monster. So there's not only a lot of strategic thinkin' that Monsterpocalypse calls for, but also a good sense of economics and wisely using your resources. If all that sounds too complex, don't worry: it's not. Games are usually very fast paced and most last under an hour. Hey, this is about ginormous monstrosities unleashing death and destruction, not... chess!
The object of the game is to destroy your opponent's monster. Which ain't as simple as it sounds. Ya see, you and the other player actually have two figures representing each of your respective monsters! The primary is the "alpha" form, which is what that monster looks like in its natural state. But accumulate enough power dice (earned by destroying units and brawling building into rubble) and you can switch your monster from its alpha to its "hyper" form: a bit more powerful and often with even cooler abilities than the alpha. Your goal in Monsterpocalypse is to inflict enough damage that both of the other player's monster forms have zero on their health trackers.
Monsterpocalypse came out a year ago and it's become a huge success for Privateer Press. When the game first came out it introduced its first six factions: G.U.A.R.D. (sorta like G.I. Joe or S.H.I.E.L.D. from the Marvel comics), Martian Menace (from the red planet), Lords of Cthul (my personal favorite faction, take a guess why), Terrasaurs (think Godzilla's kinfolk hooking up with radical environmentalist terrorist wackos), Planet Eaters (also a favorite) and Shadow Sun Syndicate (sorta like the Power Rangers on steroids). Last month Series 4 of the game, Monsterpocalypse Now! was released and rolled out six new factions: Elemental Champions, Tritons (a threat from the ocean), Savage Swarm (Them!? You'll wish it was just them), Subterran Uprising (molemen... really big molemen), UberCorp International (run by a thinly-veiled parody of Howard Hughes) and a group that's fast running up players' lists of most-liked factions, the Empire of the Apes (see the gun that Kong-sized gorilla is wielding? That's really a salvaged howitzer).
So, all of this sound like oodles of fun? It most certainly is! Nothing feels quite like building up a town only to thrash it to pieces with exotic weaponry and kaiju critters. And you can find Monsterpocalypse at most of your friendly local game stores. A lot of those usually have a dedicated group of players that meet regularly. I've started playing at HyperMind in Burlington on Thursday nights, and we've a good bunch that congregates there (including one particular 11-year old who handed my butt to me with his Subterrans last night despite my use of G.U.A.R.D.'s heavy air support... but he won the Mega Mantacon figure and is happy, so it's all fine :-).
One of my favorite online resources for all things Monsterpocalyse is Team Covenant and if you're looking for any particular figures, Team Covenant's online store is well worth visiting! They not only carry the starter box sets and boosters but also special bundles and some very good custom Monsterpocalypse dice that if you start getting heavy into this game you might wanna consider getting, 'cuz the blast markings on the regular dice have a tendency to "wear off" after several games. And 'course there's also eBay, that good ol' standby (and maybe your last, best hope of scoring a Mega Yasheth figure... hey, I am big into the Lords of Cthul, y'all ;-) And it goes without saying that the official Monsterpocalypse website is a must-see if you're thinking of getting into this game. Privateer Press just overhauled the site and among other things there's a gallery featuring every mini the game has to date, including stats. There's also a lively message board for players to discuss various aspects of the game.
Monsterpocalypse gets this blog's highest recommendation for entertainment worth checking out. There's a little something for players of all ages to enjoy... and they certainly do. And if you're in this part of North Carolina, drop me a line at theknightshift@gmail.com and let's see if we can hook up and play a round some evening :-)
While we're waiting for Joss Whedon to deliver up some more Dr. Horrible goodness, here's something that will both entertain and astound ya: Horrible Turn. It's an hour-long unofficial prequel to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!
Sometime in the early Nineties, young Billy is pining for a cute Australian exchange student at his school. He's also wound up helping a fellow student named Hammerstein pass his grade. Meanwhile, a group calling itself the Evil League of Evil - led by the mysterious "Bad Horse" - has just staged its first attack on the city.
And in case you're wondering YES: Horrible Turn is a musical! The production quality is quite on par with what we saw in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog last year. Click on the link to watch Horrible Turn on YouTube or on Vimeo.
Many of us in this part of North Carolina no longer remember what it looks like. There is a rumor about that today we might finally see it again.
(Curse you Hurricane Ida!)
(Whether there will be DVD players in the year 3009 is a whole 'nother matter.)
You can send your data to Cranberry to have it burned by them. Or you can buy the DiamonDisc recorder for your own use, for the low price of $4,995. But that also gets you 150 DiamonDiscs that currently run $34.95 each when bought separately.
Personally, I think the major studios should adopt this new technology for the home market. And the first movie that gets this "recorded in stone" treatment deserves to be The Ten Commandments :-P
That's gonna land him in court for sure. Except that Basso also made all of his calls to 911. There's gonna be a bunch more charges against him for abusing the 911 system.
Why did he do it? Basso claimed that his LG cell phone was out of minutes and that he "called 911 because it was free".
This guy wasn't just stupid: he was stoopid!
In addition to being of great benefit to out-of-town tourists and business people, the Coshocton County Sheriff's Department personnel have found the Wi-Fi service to be a tremendous convenience by letting then file an accident or incident report without having to leave their vehicles. That's no more, because the MPAA somehow mustered up enough power to violate the Geneva Convention and subject everyone in town to collective punishment.
(Just one more reason why the Digital Millennium Copyright Act needs to be mutilated beyond all possible recognition.)
The assailant made of with more than $2,700 worth of cigarettes and $50 worth of condoms!
(You can insert your own clever joke here.)
I swear, more and more this town is resembling the one from Hobo with a Shotgun...
We need that guy patrolling the downtown area! :-)
But that didn't raise anything. So with the principal's blessing, Rosewood Middle embarked on a new scheme...
The school began selling grades.
For $20, a student would be able to add 20 points to a test grade: 10 points on two tests of the pupil's choosing. Enough to raise a B to an A or possibly make a failing grade a marginally passing D.
Read all about it on the website of the News & Observer, which caught wind of the plot and ratted the school out. School administrators are now stopping the "fundraiser" and refunding any and all donations that might have been made (Rosewood Middle's principal Susie Shepherd said that the plan had elicited no money yet anyway).
Just... wow. I guess if this had gone forward that a kid with rich parents could buy himself into the Beta Club even if his grades otherwise sucked.
That "dojo" scene is especially Chaplin-esque :-)
