In My Brain While Sleeping… Priorities In Regard To Sharks And iPhones

This dream, I’m not proud of.

Family is supposed to come first.  Always.

All of us (whoever the us was at least included my brother and my mother) were staying at an island beach resort, sort of like this one:

Ah, it's like a screensaver.

But then, as it often happens in dreams, sharks appeared.  It was kind of like this:

(Not So) Artistic Representation

The sharks were of every variety, and they could also crawl on land!  Like some kind of fish/mammal hybrid.  (You’d think there was a word for some kind of creature that could exist on land and in the sea…)

A great white shark cornered my brother.  It clamped down on his leg as he kicked at it and started dragging him away like an alligator would.  My mother screamed for me to help him, which I immediately did – until I stopped myself.  I hurried back inside to put this on the counter:

Yup. My brand new iPhone 4S.

I ultimately caught up to the shark before he could reach the water and saved my brother.  So win-win.

(SIDENOTE: For the record, I called to apologize to my brother the next day.)

Awesome Battle… Nathan Fillion Vs. Brendan Fraser

Wanna bet Brendan Fraser is jealous of Nathan Fillion because he’s what Fraser always wanted to be?  Let’s check out the comparisons…

Fraser: "Bring it!" Fillion: "It's brung..."

NATIONALITY

Fillion was born in Edmonton and remains Canadian; Fraser was born in Indianapolis and later would move to Ottawa and Toronto.

POINT: Fillion, for sticking to his maple leaf logo guns.

BREAKING INTO HOLLYWOOD

Fraser’s first major role was as an unfrozen caveman in Encino Man; Fillion starred as a cast regular on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live.  (He should have been on this list.)

POINT: It’s a wash.

CAREER HIGHS

Fraser was in the critically acclaimed Gods and Monsters, the Academy Award-winning(ly bad) Crash, and the monetarily successful Mummy trilogy; Fillion was in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (as the wrong Private Ryan) and Firefly/Serenity.

POINT: Fillion.

CAREER LOWS

Let’s see… for Fraser, where do you begin: Airheads, George of the Jungle, Blast from the Past, Dudley Do-Right, Monkeybone, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Furry Vengeance; for Fillion, you have just Blast from the Past?

POINT: Fillion.

CURRENT PROJECTS

Fillion is already into season four of the hit (?) ABC show Castle; Fraser is set to appear as Vanessa Hudgens’ absentee father in a flick named after a Rolling Stones song.

POINT: Another wash, as I don’t watch either.

But my POINT is this:

Although Brendan Fraser has appeared in way more movies, a fair amount of which were even successful, and Nathan Fillion has had to muddle his way through plenty of failed TV shows to get to this one… Fraser would fetch Fillion’s fervent fan base in freaking flash!  Alliteration!

The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… Ranking Nerd TV Producers

Nerds love nerds.  Even the candy.

But nerds also hate nerds, and no one more nerdy than a nerd can properly slam another nerd.  You know the old nerd adage:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

There’s one exception to that:

Nerds’ words hurt nerds worst.

What I plan to examine here is a gaggle of famous nerd TV (and film) producers (and writers), and do what every nerd dares to do to others, but fears to have done to them — rank them as TV producers… from The Shit To Just Shitty.

THE SHIT (EXPECTED)

Joss Whedon

WHAT HE’S DONE: Firefly… plus DollhouseBuffy, and Angel if you’re into those as well

WHAT HE HASN’T DONE: Screwed over his fans.  Whedon is such a fanboy nerd, he took his box office failure of a movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and created two long-running shows from that; he also took a failed TV show, Firefly, and wrapped up its story in a movie (Serenity)!  BONUS: Fans have a lot of faith in his upcoming film, The Avengers, because of his previous writing credits in comics (The Astonishing X-Men) and earlier screenplay efforts (in whole or in part) for Toy Story, Speed, and one of my favorites, Waterworld.

THE SHIT (UNEXPECTED)

Bryan Fuller

WHAT HE’S DONE: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies

WHAT HE HASN’T DONE: Stayed with Heroes.  He wrote the series best episode, Company Man, which fleshed-out Horned Rim Glasses in a fantastic way that the show could never replicate, and in many ways, would even abandon.  Having characters that make sense?  Heroes would never stoop so low.

KINDA THE SHIT

Rob Thomas

WHAT HE’S DONE: Veronica Mars and Party Down

WHAT HE HASN’T DONE: Enough.  More please!

USED TO BE THE SHIT

You know who this is...

WHAT HE’S DONE: Amazing Stories, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, ER, and later, Band of Brothers

WHAT HE HASN’T DONE: Lived up to producing anything up to the caliber those shows: Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, Toonsylvania, Falling Skies, and Terra Nova?  Smash and The River sound no better…

JUST SHITTY

J.J. Abrams

WHAT HE’S DONE: Felicity, LOST, What About Brian, Six Degrees, Undercovers, Person of Interest, and the upcoming Alcatraz

WHAT HE HASN’T DONE: Shit on me.  LOST might not have been all his fault, but the supernatural element was his suggestion.  I didn’t include Alias or Fringe because I haven’t seen them… but if you read this blog regularly (I doubt it) or know me (know one I know reads this), click here to see how I feel about LOST

Hibbidy-Wah?! This Can’t Be Real

Sharks don’t have eyes like this, even if they have two:

I looks like a giant noodle with a glass eye.

Sharks have eyes like this:

I hope this one's dead.

It doesn’t even have teeth!  I know it’s supposed to be a bull shark fetus.  Wait… what does a bull shark’s eye look like?

Oh my jaws!

(via)

Happy Find… Ideas Assemble!

The Avengers aren’t hitting the big screen until next summer, so here’s the trailer for the small screen version now:

Aside from that, there’s a newer online dating site called HowAboutWe that could be interesting… if I online dated.

But my other big to-do is about the Lytro, a functional light field camera, which means you can take a picture without worrying about focusing – you can change the focus later:

Punch Drunken Recollection… Honey Badger Don’t Care!

On my recent trip to New York to watch the Yankees get rained out before beating the Detroit Tigers the next day, we stopped in DuBois, Pennsylvania for the night.  We were so over-tired and wired from the drive, we decided we needed to get some drinks to relax us enough to get some sleep.

Anybooze, we stopped at Eastside Sports Bar

They were playing Reel Big Fish's "Beer" so it felt like a safe place to be... at least the beer was cheap.

…and purchased as many beers as we could on site, as well as plenty to go.

What does that have to do with anything?  Well, it was on this night that I saw this video for the first time:

And now the badass honey badger has gone mainstream:

Oh, and for the record…  a fight broke out within fifteen minutes of us being at that bar, and like the honey badger, I didn’t give a shit.

Unofficial Trilogy… Halloween Horror Oreo Edition

I’m especially proud of this Unofficial Trilogy… The Halloween Horror Oreo:

Horror films always mess with our heads, even in the posters.

It’s very possible that you haven’t heard of any of these films, and if you did, it’s probably more likely that you’ve never seen them.  Watch them!  And in this order.  The Oreo-ness will become apparent soon enough.

The Brood

This David Cronenberg film proves my theory that size matters in regard to what’s scary.  I would explain what this film was about, but I fear (ha!) it would give too much away.  Cronenberg is known primarily for his “body horror” films, and this one is no different.  Watch it first to set the dark mood…

The Stuff

This goofier horror film about a dessert that turns people into zombies is the cream-filling needed to clean your palette after The Brood, and prepare you for…

Frailty

This film is atmospheric as fuck.  And well-written.  And well-directed.  And well-acted, which is weird considering Matthew McConaughey is in it.  It’s about the sons of a serial killer that believes he’s carrying out God’s plans.  Man, is this dark movie good… unlike my write-ups on all these films.

So in closing, when you ask me:

Trick or treat?

You’ll have to watch this Unofficial Horror Oreo Trilogy to find out!

In Defense Of… Today’s Youth (Even Including Hipsters)

Let’s face it… as a collective whole, Generation X is a collective hole.  All we did was whine and dine on every technological change that made our pitiful existences that much easier to have more time to, well, whine more.

Our gut instincts tell us to poo-poo on this next gaggle of young adults, but like the babies of the family, they’ve seen what the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers and us have wrought, and they are ready to make the best of a bad situation.

To my Gen X’ers, nostalgia was just a fashion statement or a manifestation of our unwillingness to grow up.  To this next group, I think they see value.

For example, typewriters are as pointless as pretty much any technology modern cellphones have replaced spindles these days, but lest we forget them, today’s youth will find a way to reintroduce them:

Music tastes have changed through the decades, and rising musicians like Michigan-born Mayer Hawthorne, are working hard to keep styles such as Motown still alive:

And then there’s this movement:

Kids these days...

I’m 99% sure this next generation is are all right.

InASense, Lost… Create A Character Contest Strikes Back!

In 1985, this happened:

This was from the back of the funny pages, and it was serious.

So I decided to enter the contest, and at age ten, I created these characters:

I entered all of the above except for CARRYVAN, and the one I didn't even like called PUPPY HOG.

For entering so many characters (I guess), I won this playset:

My mom offered to take it back to the store to get something else. I refused. I played with it once.

These ended up being the finalists:

What the fuck?

Fearless Photog won the vote, but no toy was ever made.  At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that there would finally be a toy:

You're still kidding me, right?

But there was one bit of satisfaction I was always able to maintain.  Mattel ripped off my Elephantom!

They gave him a robot head and dubbed him Snout Spout.

But now, there’s this:

Victory will be mine!

I will keep you posted on my final entries.  Yes, there will be many.

————————————————————————————————————-

In case you were interested, here are each of the character’s write ups as they were when I was ten:

C.A.R.’s a small, weak wimp that can be Crushed And Restored. But every time he’s crushed by Evil, he gets mad, and when he gets mad, he gets bigger and stronger and wants revenge.  Only He-Man can talk him out of this vengeance he want.  But every time he’s crushed by Good, he gets courageous.

I guess I didn’t like that idea.  Why would good guys crush him?

When Ill-Yusion sways his hands illusions appear.  Anything he thinks of at the time will become an illusion.  Also, he is always ill.  So anytime he coughs or sneezes, an illusion will appear or disappear.

He was always ill?  Who saw that coming?

Ticklon has four arms.  The two upper arms tickle a victim and the two lower arms grab the weapons.  So there is no need for a weapon of his own with arms like this.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Kangaruin (then named Kangaroo Man) has a pouch to keep things hidden.  Can jump to the length of 50 feet and can jump as high as 20 feet.  His hands and feet are very powerful.  He can punch or kick through any solid material.

Liquid materials, forget it.

Walrusaur (then named Walrus Man) has stun rays in his teeth. His teeth can also eat through 3/5 of any material except lime stone, like the walls of Castle Grayskull.  His flipper hands and feet make him a good swimmer (and slapper).

There should have been more slapping in He-Man cartoons.

Elephantom – The ghostly elephant whose trunk can stretch miles until the enemy’s caught. Weighs nothing with unbelievable strength.

Snout Spout was only shown in the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special, and some She-Ra episodes, although I never saw those.

She-Yuld – Her shields create invisible force fields that keeps gathering around.  Once finished, ricochets anything that hits them.  Her shields have magnetic forces under them, too.

I don’t get what any of that means.

Clustor (Tartor, Ropego, and Gluestick together) – Tartor alone shakes his leg and gooky tar flies; Ropego alone has a rope arm and buzzsaw spurs on his heels; Gluestick alone spits glue from his mouth.  Together as Clustor they are stronger than ever: streams of glue from the mouth, a more controllable rope arm, and buckets of tar from the legs of Clustor.

Gluestick was the best I could come up with?