INKSTAND

All My Children introduced a new-faced Scott Chandler today, previously played by Mutant X alum Forbes March. Scott now comes in the form of Adam Mayfield and I’m happy to announce he is a hottie. It’s even conceivable that he was spawned from David Canary’s Scream-mask-shaped face. He’s better looking than most soap actors, so it doesn’t really matter how good of an actor he is.

When I saw the trailer for the new Wolverine movie I thought it might not be as bad as one would fear. And it wasn’t really. As like the other X-Men movies I enjoyed trying to figure out which character the actors were portraying. I hate to admit I had to look a few of them up in this movie. It’s hard to tell how good the effects were because it was an unfinished copy of the movie and a ton of digital effects hadn’t been applied yet. Ropes were showing, the background in car shots looked worse than a soap opera and some entire shots were made unfurnished digital models. It was fun to watch.
I feel that if they wanted to use Jackman as Wolverine again, they should have kept a tighter continuity. I think I might of missed some things, like how and when Logan loses his memory, but there are things, mostly who he knows, that don’t add up. Why doesn’t Sabertooth remember Wolvie? Prof X shows up at the end and rescues a bunch of young mutants, including Cyclops and Emma Frost. Where did Emma go later on? Maybe it’s asking too much to go back in time to fix the future for these kinds of things. I think I saw Banshee and Quicksilver in there too. The whole story seemed a little muddled but it was fun overall.

A couple of years ago the Buffy television series continued on in comic book form, picking up a short while after the TV series ended as “Season Eight”. Just like the show, the comic follows a larger story arc with some stand-alone stories thrown in. This latest issue is one of the self-contained stories that borrows from the never-really-produced Buffy Animated Series. A lot of comics and cartoons in the nineties used the stylization of characters popularized by Bruce Timm’s designs of Batman in his animated series, and the Buffy cartoon followed suit in it’s character design. As far as I know, only a short promo was produced and the latest issue of the comic book uses the plot from that short story.

Buffy, tired from demon slaying, falls asleep and has a dream which is, in essence, the cartoon complete with direct quotes. Since the comic book takes place about ten years after the cartoon, Buffy fumbles around with not revealing too much about the future, like Willow’s lesbianism and Xander’s missing eye, and delights in changes that have not yet happened, like her mother’s death. She ends up fighting a dragon rather than getting to go to a party with her friends. Then she wakes up. The message is that while things seemed so simple when she was young, it’s only hindsight and her life was always complicated.

I enjoyed the use of the cartoon story. It never really had a chance but here it’s used to illustrate another aspect of life in the multifaceted Buffyverse. That cartoony art style gets tired really quickly when put on the printed page, working much better on the screen. The longer storyline in Season Eight has been rather weak so far with some of the shorter story arcs and standalone stories like this being more entertaining.
Here’s the animated promo:

I didn’t see the 2003 Ang Lee Hulk movie. Well, I did, but you know the old story. I was wasted. Or fell asleep. Or both. But it’s well know that this is not a sequel to that movie. That being said, I’m very glad that they decided to forgo the whole “origin story” with this movie. They show some of it, but just during the opening credits, catching us up, but sparing us from hearing yet another rendition of a well-known song.

I’m going to cut to the chase. What interests me most about this movie is it’s part in the build-up to the Avengers movie, planned for summer of 2011. I read that there are plans for a Iron Man sequel and a Thor movie in 2010 and a Captain America and Avengers movie in 2011.(most of this is confirmed on IMDB) The Iron Man movie that came out earlier this year seemed like a set up for something else, especially since the only real bad guy was a geezer with a similar weapon. Of course this is true since after the credits we see Sgt. Nick Fury of S.H.E.I.L.D. approach Tony Stark about the Avengers Initiative. Similarly, at the end of Incredible Hulk, Stark comes to General Ross about forming a team.
What I’m having a problem with is the continuity in which these films are taking place. We have regular continuity and “Ultimate Marvel” continuity. Nick Fury looking like Samuel L. Jackson (and thus played by SLJ) is from Ultimate, however the term “Intiative” is from regular continuty, a team that was formed after the recent Civil War. Also, Tony Stark revealing his identity to the public is from regular continuity, but Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk while trying to re-create a super soldier serum (this is foreshadowing to Captain America, BTW) is from Ultimate.
Ok, so I’ve strayed waaaay far from reviewing this movie (It was good, if you like action movies/comics, you’ll dig it). I guess what I want to know about is Thor. I LOVED the idea of Ultimate Thor. He was a beer-swilling hippie that everyone thought was crazy and delusional, and his brother Loki, god of mischief and trickery, convinced everyone he was just a loony human with a super-suit and got him locked up. Is that gonna be the Thor movie? And the Avengers…What other Avengers will be on the team? The incestuous brother/sister team of Qucksilver and Scarlet Witch from Ultimate? Vision, the robot from regular continuity? Which form will Henry Pym take? Giant Man, Ant Man, Yellow Jacket? Who’s the villain? Skrulls? Red Skull?

ok, i’ve gone on enough. All my questions will soon be answered. Now check out this awesome Hulk Theme song from the 60’s. That, along with the others, tells with frying-pan-over-the-head obviousness that Stan “The Man” Lee was still runnin the House of Ideas when those were made. Who else would ryme “gamma rays” with “unglamorous.”

Every once in a while when I’m looking for a refreshing beverage I see root beer and think “That would be great, if only it had caffeine.” I know Barqs has caffeine, but I haven’t had it in years. I know Jeremy and Matthew have recently tried it for it’s caffeine content but were unimpressed with it’s flavor. I was looking for a boost today at work and remembered that we had just gotten this drink in and it was the natural choice to go with. Bawls energy drink is pretty good by me so I thought a highly caffinated root beer would be a winner. My attention was also drawn to the gimick of not only using the word “geek” in their name, but using the “33″ to replace the “ee”, a nod to leet speak, or 1337 speak, or whatever the hell. It is also nice to see a decline in the usage of limit-pushing, poorly-spelled adjectives like “xtreme” or “maxxed”.

It tasted all right. It was crisp and sweet, but as far as root beers go it was a little lack luster. While it had a tiny bit of that energy-drink flavor to it, it wasn’t strong enough to make you think you were drinking yet another flavor of Monster. As for it’s energy-boosting abilities, the web site says it’s about as strong as a cup of coffee, and I will agree. I drank it at about 8 pm to push through the last couple hours of work and I made it, although I felt fatigued after 10. It’s about 11:20 right now and off of work so, as usual, I’m not alert but not ready ofr bed either. I’ll probably play Warcraft, which is the kind of thing this drink was designed for.

I’ll probably buy it again at some point. Put it into my stable of energy drinks. But at over $2 per 10 oz bottle, I sure won’t be drinking it all the time.

Jake was reading this book a few weeks ago and I couldn’t get enough of that cover. That flying cat thing is ridiculously awesome. Needless to say, I want one.

Years ago a man named Billy got the high score on Donkey Kong. Recently, a man named Steve claimed to have beaten that score. Who’d have thought a documentary about this situation could be so much fun to watch.

First of all, Billy is really full of himself. He exudes a brand of confidence rarely seen in an individual, much less someone who played a lot of Donkey Kong. He spits phrases that seem right at home on a No Fear t-shirt and wears his hair in a style that I don’t think was ever popular.

Steve is a man who never fulfilled his dreams of being in a band. He got laid off at Boeing the day he bought his house and went into teaching. He has a wife and kids who seem to just barely tolerate his drive and mild-mannered passion to beat Billy’s high score.

I got some strange feelings from both these men from things that either I inferred from the movie, or the movie only eluded to. I got the feeling that Billy is a control freak. There are shots of him stocking store shelves with the hot sauce from his restaurant, as vendors tend to do. He clearly pushes other products on the shelf to the side to create more facings for his hot sauce. I also think he insisted on certain things about how the film was presented. For instance we don’t see his wife, or even know that he’s married until he’s about to encounter Steve for the first time. Then he brings her out, of course she’s “hot”, and he struts her around the arcade. An arcade, mind you, where everyone kisses Billy’s ass and sort of snub Steve, hoping he’ll lose. Oh, that’s another thing, they have to compete for the title and Billy gets all weird and mind-gamey with Steve.

As far as Steve goes, his wife doesn’t say it directly but it is clear that she is at her wits end over the whole video game thing. She tells how people came to inspect Steve’s home Donkey Kong game, bother her mother and basically breaking in. His daughter is shown once saying something to him about it destroying his life. Even on the video that he sent in originally, you can hear his son yelling and crying in the background to be “wiped” while Steve tells him to wait.

This is a pretty entertaining movie because the people in it create drama wherever they can find it.
Here’s a clip of Steve winning. Note how everyone kind of doesn’t want him to win. Also note how Billy does everything from afar, via telephone. His response to Steve winning here was to send a video tape of him beating the score. So much drama!

I work full time and go to school, but that’s not why I haven’t posted reviews for a while.

Look, my Undead Rogue is Level 39. At 40 I can get my mount, but first I need to earn like 90 more gold. So until my herbalism and alchemy yield some better results at the auction house and I get some good stuff from instances, y’all are just gonna have to sit tight.

I’m gonna look so badass on that thing.

I was just going through my clothes, picking out the ones I’m going to give away, when I came across this shirt. I got it in high school, like a lot of my clothes i should toss, and while I seem to have worn it a lot back then I don’t find myself donning it at all anymore. Is it because it’s out of date? That didn’t stop me in school when it was only 20 years out of date. Now it’s 30 years old, at least. I think the main reason I don;t wear it anymore is because it’s polyester. I used to wear a LOT of polyester. But now I’m an adult and I work and I do actual physical activities and sweat and stuff, and with it’s lack of breathing quality, polyseter just isn’t practical. Plus this, like my drawings, is another relic from my past that I DO NOT NEED! So, while it served it’s purpose when I was trying to be all non-conformy and stuff in my youth, it’s time to let some bum wear it.

If you register for the San Diego Comicon online, you get the opportunity to purchase this clear Bugs Bunny action figure for only $15.00! I’m all for premiums and stuff. Back in ‘95 when Kenner released the new Star Wars figures, I sent my Frosted Mini Wheat proofs of purchase in to get my Han Solo in Stormtrooper costume figure, just like everyone else. The great thing about that was that they didn’t offer that figure at all in the stores. They don’t offer this Bugs Bunny, either, but they do offer the same one in non-invisible form. Why is it that I finally decide to make the trek down there and they offer some crap like that. I suppose I should be glad that it’s not a really cool figure of someone I really like so I don’t feel obligated to spend even more money on this shindig than I’m going to in the first place. But next time, Comicon, when I’m all rich and shit, you’d better have a Jonah Hex figure with real melting-face action!