This is really one of the weirdest groupings of commercials I’ve ever seen.
This first one doesn’t seem like a real ad on TV, but oh yes – it is:
Does this one feature Legos? Legos?! Who’s watching this?!
This one might (?) be (?) racist (?), but the scariest thing is the concept of a communal chocolate fondue…
It’s time again for that age-old question:
Could this novelty scale I dreamed about ever exist, and if it did, would it sell?
In a nutshell, the novelty scale is like a combination of these two items:
Ooh... colors.
Essentially, it would work like this:
There are plenty of weird people out there with money to burn. So… any takers?
I’ve come to Michael Bay’s defense once before. I’m not going to do it again.
But I might have to find The Silver Lining in his decision to reboot the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as aliens.
These are not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
What good might I find in the seemingly asinine idea to change the beloved oozy origin of our pizza-loving, sewer-dwelling crime fighters? Midi-chlorians, anyone?
These are not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Sometimes such changes work. In the Sam Raimi Spider-Man series, didn’t a genetically altered spider make a lot more sense than a radioactive one? (Maybe not enough. Part 3 did suck, and the new film is abandoning that concept.)
This might be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
I think the best part is that we might finally get to see this guy: Krang.
Okay, he's technically from Dimension X, but isn't that alien enough?
Four movies in, and the best baddies we’ve seen are these two?
Tokka and Rahzar. Why not Bebop and Rocksteady?
That’s at least my hope. I can’t take any more Shredder nonsense…
If I had a blog the TripleDoubleU existed back in 1986, I might have written this post. I guess it could have been an entry in the journal I had to write in the fifth grade…
Growing up, my sisters and I rarely played together with the same toys. If we did mix up our stories, my action figures paid a visit to theirs, but never vice versa. Very few of their toys mixed well with mine:
This was a Transformer?
Star Wars Cantina, anyone?
These were big fans of the M.U.S.C.L.E. wrestlers.*
*These are M.U.S.C.L.E. wrestlers.
Okay, for these, I played the animals.
Despite this, I was able to convince my sister Becky to buy one toy I needed (I co-opted it soon after she purchased it):
Vanessa Warfield and her Manta, member of V.E.N.O.M., enemies of M.A.S.K.
Too bad they didn’t collect She-Ra: Princess of Power… I could have got one of them to buy anyone in the Evil Horde:
Hordak, Leech, and Grizzlor, of course.
What’s that old saying? Time heals all wounds. Well, time might not heal all, but it sure can heal some.
Over the weekend, I went to the show to see the re-issue of Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D, and you know what? It wasn’t as bad as I remembered, and here’s why:
1) It has two of the best characters in all the prequel story lines.
Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn, which translates to "Half Slice" and "Hole in Chest"
I always maintained that Liam Neeson brought a gravity to the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn that Ewan McGregor never could to his Obi-Wan Kenobi. I still don’t know if it’s his size, voice, or demeanor, but when Qui-Gon defies the Jedi Council to stand by his belief that Anakin is The Chosen One, his conviction is convincing. Everything in the Star Wars universe we know and love hinges on his gut feelings, and we buy (and buy and buy) into it, too.
As for Darth Maul – once a bad-ass, always a bad-ass… until he falls down a pit like other fan favorite, Boba Fett.
2) Jake Lloyd is a much more tolerable Actor! than Hayden Christensen.
If he says "wizards" one more time!
Notice I didn’t say “better.” He’s a kid, for Yoda’s sake. What am I gonna do? Ridicule him like how… he… will… eventually… kill a bunch of Padawans? I also think this video existing helps his situation:
3) Jar Jar Binks wasn’t as jarring.
He's wearing Pajarjars.
I’ve come to Jar Jar Binks’ defense before (or at least George Lucas’ decision to include him), so it was no big surprise to me that this time around, he hardly annoyed me. That’s probably because he was a big surprise in the first place, much like the Midi-chlorian debacle (which was nowadays just as negligible).
4) Were there more practical effects and sets in Episode I?
Seemed like it to me. To all you non-film school students, practical effects means “it’s really there.” Episode II and III relied heavily on CGI, whereas this one went partially old-school, and the look of the film benefits greatly. Palpatine’s senate office looks real when he’s in it; Anakin’s Podracer and Naboo Starfighter look real when he’s in them.
There was an article I read (that I don’t feel like looking for) that stated mixing CGI and practical effects tricks the mind much better. That’s why Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs were so convincing for early CGI. It even explains why Ray Harryhausen’s clay figures can mess with us – they really exist.
Now I’m not knocking CGI in lieu of practical effects either, and here’s proof:
"There is no try... only do-over."
(For the flip side of this Silver Lining, check out this article on Time Magazine’s site.)
Sometimes I notice things in this world that I plan to share with you, but I quickly forget. These are some Coinkydinks or Coinkydonks that I almost forgot about. Lucky you it was only almost.
ITEM #1 – THE BREA GRANT CONNECTION
That smirk seems permanent.
Brea Grant may not be a well-known face (or even known at all), but the moment she appeared early in the sixth season of Showtime’s Dexter, I recognized her. I didn’t know what from, so I investigated. Turned out, she also starred in NBC’s Heroes during its third season. I tried to forget that awful show, and thus, I forgot her. Now here’s the Coinkydink (or Coinkydonk)…
She starred alongside Actor! Masi Oka on Heroes, and alongside character (Vince) Masuka on Dexter.
It’s a little weird, right? No, not really? Okay then, moving on.
ITEM #2 – STOP SHOUTING!
I’ve noticed that The General Insurance must be doing pretty good, because their graphics have been getting better and better. As for the concepts…?
Does this woman’s “hiya’s” sound familiar to you?
Because to me, I’m reminded of Link’s sidekick, Navi, form The Legend of Zelda – A Link to the Past:
You don’t hear it? All right, how about this last one.
ITEM #3 – ROBOTS AND ALCOHOL DON’T MIX
Here’s the party I was late to… I love robots, but I couldn’t stand it when Heineken had this atrocity of an ad for an atrocity of a product (the keg can):
So it amazes me that Svedka Vodka could one-up their craptacular idea:
If that’s the future of alcohol, color me sober.
The Wonder Bread Years
There are degrees to which I get happy about my Happy Finds.
For websites such as Celebrity School Pics, it makes me more sad than happy to find out they have a section devoted to porn stars… so this non-charting Happy Find would be a Meh Find.
Then there are sites like Bread People that entertain me, but not for long, like a pita roll compared to a baguette, so they merit the most generic of Happy Finds. What else could set the bar other than bread humor?
Memba this?
Pica Pic can be considered an Excited Happy Find because sites like it provide unlimited interactivity… until you get bored with its unlimited interactivity. There’s a reason Nintendo stopped making Game & Watch… and most recently it’s called the 3DS.
The last level of Happy Find is the Ultimate Happy Find. It usually ends up relating to a site full of videos, and tends to be updated somewhat regularly. It likely has misses, but there are enough hits to keep you coming back. One example might be Bad Lip Reading. Check out this sample:
It’s closing in on Gimme Gimme Day, and what better way to celebrate the joyous overconsumption and high-expectations of youth than to examine the video games I was never Given Given.
Here are A Handful Of… The Video Games That Got Away:
Ah, the good ol' days of 16-color EGA graphics...
Not what you’d expect to be first. This came out back in the days of me playing the original Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, but it was only available for Commodore 64. I had an IBM-compatible. To those not around at the time, that’s like wanting Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, when all you have is the Wii.
I had a Sega Genesis, but I didn’t get the system when it was originally released with Altered Beast. Then again, ToeJam and Earl was still released after that. I’m not sure why I didn’t get this game. All I know is that I wanted it.
Another nerdy PC game. (It was available for DOS, but it looked fantastic on the Amiga. So I wanted the Amiga.) I didn’t even really play chess, but I guess I craved digitized violence. Don’t be surprised if one day it’s revealed that this game paved the way for Mortal Kombat. Speaking of kombat…
This was one of the two arcade fighting games I was good at (the other was Virtua Fighter), so when it was announced that there would be a version for the Super Nintendo, I was ecstatic. Then I realized how people must have felt when Pac-Man was finally released for the Atari 2600… Here’s the SNES commercial:
"I get to be on top!"
This game might look familiar, although its name is not. That’ sbecause you probably saw Tom Hanks playing it in the movie Big. Sadly, TCOTEW never existed in the real world… until now. Try it by clicking here.
Think of it as my early Gimme Gimme present for you.
Rob Dyrdek doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He even seems to have plenty of unique ideas, as evidenced by his MTV show, Fantasy Factory. But lately, I’m not so sure…
First, there was…
Wild Grinders and Super Mario
I know that Mario Mario (real name) doesn’t hold the patent on red and blue ensembles, but come on. Dyrdek’s Nickelodeon cartoon based on his Wild Grinders toy line looks a lot like he who dons raccoon apparel to fly.
And then there was (or this might have been first)…
It's Ridiculousness how much Ridiculousness is like Tosh.0...
Let’s just remember, aside from skateboarding, Dyrdek got all his cash money from Rob & Big.
So is that a Coinkydink or Coinkydonk?
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.)
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