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The Worst Links

The Ten Worst Cartoon Cars.I don't think I would have ranked the Flinstones car so high. Think about it, they're literally riding on dinosaurs and living in houses built of giant rock slabs. The fact that they've developed any sort of locomotion is pretty impressive. This Spongebob car/boat on the other hand is an abomination which should be killed with fire. Which shouldn't work considering they're underwater but they do have fire, this show is so confusing!

The Making And Unmaking Of Preston Zimmerman, American Soccer Player. This is a great read by Greg Howard. When it comes to talent at the youth level, the American soccer community is kind of like a mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it and danged if he knows how to use it!

What I mean is that anyone can recognize talent, but what you do with it after you find it is the tricky thing. Most hardcore soccer fans will tell you that you have to go to Europe. Go ahead and read the story of Preston Zimmerman and then tell me you HAVE to go to Europe. It doesn't always work out for everyone.

AFL: The 15 Worst Fighters In The 1988 'Bloodsport' Kumite. This reminds me, I haven't watched Bloodsport or really any JCVD movie in FOREVER. That's what kids will do to you.

Growing fantasy-game universe collides with entrenched boys’ club mentality. This is one of those typical, outsider succeeds at something and everyone freaks out. In this case it's Magic: The Gathering and the outsider is a 31 year old transgender woman. It's an interesting read. It's funny, my guess is that a majority of people playing Magic have at some point been persecuted and picked on and here they are recycling that same behavior because someone from outside their circle dared do something they like doing.

If Geek Girls Acted Like Geek Guys

As loathe as I am to post anything from Buzzfeed this video that's been making the rounds is pretty funny. I especially liked the cosplay jokes. She is right, If you dress up as sexy Khal Drago you're kind of asking for it.

This sort of dovetails off something I said last week. The amount of shit some ladies have to go through to enjoy something that's supposedly "for boys" is awful. I certainly have never understood it at comic book shops. Owning a comic book shop isn't exactly a license to print money, they should be bending over backwards for ANY customer that walks in the door.

LFL, the F stands for Fighting

If you're like me last weekend you were glued to the LFL Eastern Conference play off between the Atlanta Steam and the.. oh who am I kidding? Nobody cares, here's a bunch of female athletes wearing underwear throwing down like they were on The Challenge. I'm guessing the ladies get a bonus for every hit they get on the field and on youtube.

...made the Lake Powell run in 12 parsecs

This GoPro video of a guy jet skiing through the canyons at Lake Powell looks an awful lot like something out of Star Wars. It also looks like a hell of a lot of fun. I've always wanted to take one of those vacations where you get a bunch of people together and rent a houseboat out on a lake in CA or AZ. Then you just spend all day BBQing and wakeboarding and drunkenly floating in the lake. I imagine at some point Duff Man shows up with and hoses down a bunch of old schoolmarms with beer and they turn into bikini girls that want to party.

I'm probably too old for that now aren't I?

Who sexed up Spider-Woman and does it matter?

About a week or two ago Marvel announced a couple new titles, one of which was a new Spider-Woman book. No big deal, right? I mean there's a handful of really adamant Spider-Woman fans out there but Marvel has something like 6 different female driven comics right now and what feels like a dozen different Spider-Man books. A new Spider-Woman book should have just been a regular announcement, but it wasn't. The image above is why.

What you're looking at is the preview of an alternate cover by renowned European (ie erotic) artist Milo Manara. Now let me preface everything I say here by saying I'm a slight fan of Manara's work. I have I think all of two or three comics he's drawn and I have a couple Milo Manara pictures in my "unsorted reference picture" folder on my computer at home. I'm what you'd call a lowercase fan. Anyway, the point here is that holy cow this cover is receiving a lot of negative attention, mostly on comic/geeky blogs but in a couple buzzfeed like places too.

Obviously the cover by Manara is provocative, I can't imagine that it wasn't supposed to be. When you hire someone with the pedigree of Milo Manara you know you're going to get a sexy cover but I don't think there would be as big of an uproar if this was just a sexy cover. The reader's eye is immediately drawn to her ass or more specifically to the super-wedgie she's sporting. It pushes this from what many would consider sexy to near obscene. It doesn't feel very powerful either, the way she's on all fours with her butt in the air it comes across as pretty submissive. More sex doll than superhero.

Just for fun, let's contrast that cover to the way she's been drawn in some of her most recent and memorable appearances:



My point here is that Spider-Woman is not exactly the most demure character ever created. That's not to excuse the Manara cover, I don't really like the cover. Marvel as of late has made a big push to attract female readership, isn't a cover like this by an artists like Manara the exact kind of thing that pushes away female readers? Well, that's why I tried to include some context.

I'm not 100% sure Marvel was targeting female readers with a Spider-Woman series. I have a feeling that Spider-Woman was aimed directly at the stereotypical fanboy, the one with Cheetos stained fingers and impure thoughts about She Hulk. Those guys still exist, and they have money too. As much as I love the current She Hulk or Ms Marvel books I'm sure there are plenty of readers that wish Ms. Marvel (now Captain Marvel) was still fighting crime in thigh-high boots and a swimsuit. Should Marvel completely ignore those guys?

That was an honest question, I don't have an answer. Does Marvel have anything to gain making books for the stereotypical fanboy? Does a near vulgar alternate cover (lets remember it's the alternate cover not the one you will see on comixology) alienate a large untapped group of readers? The cynic in me says that a Spider-Woman solo title was dead in the water anyway and probably won't last more than 12 issues. This might not be the kind of attention Marvel thought they were going to get but I doubt they're that upset about it. Attention is the exact reason you hire Milo Manara to draw alternate covers in the first place.

To sum up, I have very little opinion on the matter. I'll leave you with a picture of Spider-Man in a similar pose (spandex wedgie included) and the question. If this cover was the exact same, with Spider-Woman swapped in for Spider-Man, same pose and everything, would it look like the Spider was about to mount her?



Does that illustrate a difference in what you can get away with drawing male vs female superheroes? Is that sexism? These questions and more answered probably never...

Official Destiny Launch Trailer

So September 9th will see one of the biggest gambles in video games arrive to console and PC. I've seen reports that Bungie spent about $500 Million developing and marketing Destiny. That is a crazy amount of cheddar for a game not named Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. If it succeeds maybe the video game industry will get over it's sequelitis. I for one would love to see less reboots and sequels and more original games.

Unless we're talking Wing Commander. Oh man, what I wouldn't give for a Wing Commander reboot.

Pstew's Ice Bucket Challenge

So I think Patrick Stewart just won the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Blu Links

Report: Disney Is Releasing The Original ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy Cuts On Blu-Ray. In the LEAST surprising news ever, Disney and Lucas found a way to squeeze even more money from the stone that is their fanbase. It's nice to know that Disney is really keeping with the traditions Lucas has founded. I mentioned this on reddit the other day but do you realize how ridiculous it was that in 2000 the Phantom Menace was released on VHS well before it was released on DVD. Sure, the DVD format wasn't as ubiquitous back then as it is now but there was no reason to wait soo long on a DVD release other than fleecing stupid nerds who would buy the movie in both formats (like me).

Rumor has it that this is just a big old Rumor because Disney would need to strike an agreement with Fox to release the original movies but there's no way this doesn't happen. I think it's safe to say you can pencil it in for a release date the Christmas before Episode VII hits theaters.

The 21 Stupidest Things Ever Said by Powerful People. There is nothing more I love than when people who know nothing about tech/the internet talk about tech/the internet like they know what they're talking about. Oh man, I could read quotes like this one from well noted windbag Rush Limbaugh all day long.

Washington rules: why Washington State is better than your state. This is a pretty fantastic article however, my trip to Astoria a couple weeks ago really opened my eyes on Oregon. That place is pretty fantastic. If the Salt Water taffy industry wasn't so hard to crack into I could see relocating down there.

A Guide to All the Gratuitous Product Placement in Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” Video. Man there was so much ass shaking in this video I missed all the gratuitous product placement. Come to think of it, that's pretty poor product placement. I mean if there's ass shaking next to a pair of new Jordan's I'm pretty sure everyone's eye is going to be drawn to the ass, not the fresh kicks. Nice try Minaj, maybe next time.

Slip and Slide Pool Party this Weekend

If you have the guts (and live in Ohio) the Slip N Fly is open to the public this weekend. Although I hear on reddit that the tickets are already sold out, so maybe you should check out stubhub.

I guess you can rent this thing for private parties for the low low price of $4,000. I'm pretty sure that's comparable to a day at Disneyland. Who has frequent flier miles they want to cash in? I hear Ohio is beautiful.

From Wonder Woman to Mockingbird

Adrianne Palicki of the hilariously bad Wonder Woman pilot has been hired to play Bobbi Morse on Marvel's Agents of Shield. Despite it's flaws I enjoyed the first season of Agents of Shield and Adrianne Palicki is not unattractive. Those facts combine with me not having time to do a links post today was enough motivation for me to write a post about the casting.

Who is Bobbi Morse? Lets' let her ex-husband Hawkeye explain:



Yes, that Hawkeye is her ex-husband. She's not a major character in the Avengers-verse, having only served briefly on the West Coast and Great Lakes teams but she's a fan favorite. I doubt Marvel/Disney/ABC will actually link the two characters. There was a bit of nerdy hand-wringing when Captain America 2's plot dovetailed off events that were happening in Agents of Shield. If I had to guess I'll bet Marvel is very careful to let the movie-verse bleed into the TV show while keeping the show out of the movie-verse. With the way all the tumblers ship Hawkeye and Black Widow they probably won't write any connection to Hawkeye in the TV character. For all we know they've simply cast Bobbi Morse and we'll never see Palicki dressed up as Mockingbird, which would be a shame...

I feel like this costume has real potential.

The Doubleclicks: Nothing to Prove

This video by the Doubleclicks is pretty great. As the newish father of a baby girl I've become much more acute to the amount of institutionalized sexism there is in almost every aspect of raising a kid. For instance my son has a boat load of Justice League branded clothes and books. None of them have Wonder Woman in them, because he's a boy and I suppose if his shoes had a girl on them they would be girls shoes? Meanwhile have fun finding anything Justice League related for a little girl that isn't all Wonder Woman and Batgirl.... also hope you like pink!

Those are just small superficial things, I would rather deal with a mountain of pink onesies than the first asshole that tells my little girl she can't do or like something mundane simply because she's a girl (with my luck that a-hole will be my son).

Anyway, back to the video. This thing already has a million hits. That's pretty good for a Portland nerdcore folk band that I've only heard of because I've fallen far too deep down the Pacific Northwest nerdcore rabbit hole. Good on ya ladies, make your voices heard, or read in this particular case.

Shake off that Anaconda

Yesterday morning Taylor Swift released her new video Shake It Off. Then a few hours later Nicki Minaj released her new video Anaconda. Please enjoy both.



Holy shit (pardon me this post is going to be full of swears). Within 12 hours of each other two monsters of pop music release videos that go "viral". In one Taylor Swift is singing about dancing your troubles away and in the other Nicki Minaj is literally rapping that she's fucking a guy because he has a big dick and sells cocaine. And she's the one of the two that has been a judge on American Idol, the most whitebread of whitebread shows.

Both videos feature everyone's favorite dance fad, twerking. But hot damn, there's twerking and then there's TWERKING. It's like if Taylor Swift had done the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Nicki Minaj would have I don't know... shot a cop and then had sex with Drake in a bathtub of ice. It's for charity!

I don't know. I'm sure someone smarter and cleverer than I am can come up with better jokes and more insightful social commentary. Of course if you're looking for that sort of thing, stay the hell away from the comments on youtube. For me the most offensive part is the awful Baby Got Back samples. First off could she have picked a more obvious song. Secondly, whoever produced that beat should be shot into the moon. You clear Baby Got Back and that's what you do with it? For shame.

Ice Bucket Challenged

Here's a supercut of people failing hilariously at the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. There's 3 big types of fail that you see repeated throughout the video and they're all hilarious.

First, the people that can't lift a bucket of ice and or water without falling down or dropping it. Do you even lift bro?

Second are the people that break their bucket in some sort of hilarious fashion. Like maybe that styrofoam cooler isn't made to hold 20 pounds of ice.

Last but definitely not least are the fine folks that end up getting beaned in the head with the bucket. Or in one sorry sap's case the 50 gal garbage can. I imagine that he really thought his garbage can of cold water was going to out swag everyone.

Hopefully the next charity trend is equally hilarious. Save our girls wasn't funny at all.

First Image of Paul Rudd as Ant-Man

I don't usually try and provide UP TO THE MINUTE EXCLUSIVE BREAKING nerd news simply because often my turn around between bookmarking something and posting about it is 2 or 3 days which in BREAKING NERD NEWS WORLD is an eternity. This picture of Paul Rudd as Ant-Man (or more accurately Scott Lang the criminal who becomes the hero known as Ant-Man) that hit reddit a couple hours ago is the closest I'll ever get.

I know Marvel has had an unusually difficult time getting their ducks in a row when it comes to Ant-Man but I'm still excited about this one. Paul Rudd staring in a big Marvel movie? Hells, yeah.

Screech Fight!

Here's a trailer for the Lifetime network's sure to be awful TV movie The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell. Have you watched an episode of Saved by the Bell lately? Sweet Christmas it's worse than I remember. Every character is a total shitheel and the "jokes" feel like they were written by The Simpson's DJ 3000. Just a terrible, terrible show.

Last Friday's Links Late

The McDonalds Monopoly Fraud. Get this, for years the McDonalds Monopoly contest was rigged. For roughly 6 years an employee at a company McDonalds subcontracted out to run promotions was straight up stealing the rarest pieces and selling them or giving them away. 6 years!

It funny because I eat at McDonalds way too much and for years have dreamed about winning the Monopoly contest. I'm even one of those sad saps that will supersize my order or get nuggets just to get extra pieces. It's the only time I play something close to the lottery. I feel like Mouth felt in the Goonies when he started taking back his wishes: "Yeah, but you know what? This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back."

Motoped Survival Bike. Last week I rode my bike for the first time in about 6 years. Maybe I would ride it more if it came with a motor and a mother chunkin crossbow. Tell me I wouldn't be the coolest dad on the block riding around on this thing towing one of those bright yellow baby carriers. You better say I'm the coolest, I have a crossbow.

11 Characters Marvel Studios should consider for a female led film. Like many marvel zombies I'm a big proponent of a Captain Marvel movie but she's not the only female comic character ready to make the leap to the big screen. She Hulk would be great and a Black Widow movie could be very cool. If Marvel really wanted to stay a step ahead of DC they should go all in and make a Ms Marvel movie with Kamala Khan. You could make it on 1/10th the budget of a Guardians or Avengers and just market the shit out of it to tweens and YA readers. They wouldn't just beat DC to the punch they would practically be inventing a whole new genre of superhero movie.

Zoe Saldana on Going Green and the Importance of Teenage Boys. Yeah this is a weird read. Either Zoe Saldana is super insecure and just NEEDS younger men to think she's attractive or she's bought into the worst hollywood sterotypes that comic book/action/adventure/science fiction movies are for pimply faced teenage boys and if you don't feed them a hot chick your movie will be unsuccessful. Either way this article is kinda depressing.

Dancing Groot

Ok, so I guess this is a big ol' spoiler for anyone that hasn't seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet but who cares at this point. If you were really worried about spoilers you probably would have seen the movie already. Plus this is barely a spoiler. It's just baby Groot dancing to the Jackson 5 and of course it's awesome.

I mentioned it before but man did I like Guardians of the Galaxy. More than I liked Captain American 2 and probably more than I liked the Avengers, maybe as much as I liked the first Iron Man movie. It's good. Growing up reading comics I was never that big into the cosmic side of either the Marvel or the DC universe but I'm starting to gain more of an appreciation for those stories. Next round of quarter bin shopping I'm going to look for some old Silver Surfers or maybe even some of the old GOTG from the 90s. That's assuming I have any quarters left. My son keeps stealing all my change because he's saving up for an iPad.

This Penguin is Afraid to Jump

Look at him... he's so cute. Come on little guy, you can do it. You can do it!

Batshark

Playdough & DJ Sean P, Real Like It

Sorry, posts have been slow and few as I'm trying to get caught up post vacation at work and at home. Here's a dope new track by Playdough as an apology. Go buy his new album Gold Tips. It's really good.

Lets watch these guys make a Lightsaber Katana

I'm unfamiliar with the Man at Arms: Reforged webseries/weapons making group but this lightsaber handled katana build caught my google eyes. Not only is it shamelessly pandery to geeks like me but the entire sword making process is pretty interesting stuff. Makes me wish I knew how to do things with my hands. Some days being a wordsmith just isn't.. um, fulfilling? I don't know, lets' go with fulfilling.

The Goonies House: The Review

Last week I went on vacation with the family to the Oregon coast, more specifically the town of Warrenton which is nestled between Astoria and Seaside. Logic dictated that we visit the Goonies house.

For those of you unfamiliar, "The Goonies House" is the house that Mikey and Brand lived in, the one they were trying to keep from getting turned into a golf course. It's a real house, owned by a regular person and it's roughly half a mile off the main drag in downtown Astoria. We showed up Thursday afternoon around 3pm after having caught a matinee of Guardians of the Galaxy (two thumbs WAY up). The house is at the top of a gravel driveway and out of respect to the neighborhood, the owners ask that you park a couple blocks away at a nearby school. It was sort of amazing to not only see how many people couldn't read the clearly marked signs regarding the parking but just how many people were there to see the house on a random Thursday afternoon in August.

I don't know what more to tell you. It's just a house. I'm not sure what I was expecting, the truffle shuffle? Sloth? Mouth? Data? I don't know. On a scale of 1-10 I give the Goonies house three quarters of a Baby Ruth.

Oh yeah after leaving the house we also drove by the school they filmed Kindergarten Cop at. I took a picture of it while sitting at a stop sign. No one yelled "it's not a tumor". Two thumbs down.

Fantasy Football Fantasy - A Manning Brothers Music Video

If you told me yesterday that my new favorite song would be a rap about a new Direct TV channel sung by Peyton and Eli Manning I would have told you to gtfo.. but here we are.

Fantasy, Fantasy, Football Fantasy.. Football Fantasy

Most Common Causes of Death

Plywood Olympics > Regular Olympics

So this is what we're doing this weekend, right? I have all kinds of scrap wood laying around and a costco sized bottle of ibuprofen I haven't opened yet. What's the worst that could happen?

Video Links

R-KAID-R. Oh man... this is a pretty sweet little rig. If I lived in an apartment or condo this would be right up my alley. However, my basement is just begging for a full sized arcade cabinet. Once my son is a bit older it might just be our first big father son project. I'm handy enough with wood that I think I could either convert and old cabinet or build a new one and not have it look like total ass. After that it's just being able to find the right screen and joysticks. The actual software and computer parts would probably be the easiest part. yep that sound cool...

How Bell Labs Almost Put a Videophone in Every Home. It really is shocking how close we were to videophone technology becoming the norm. I remember when my wife and I were house hunting years ago we came across a house by a lake that was super run down and really outdated that had a videophone system in it. It was like something from the Jetsons. It didn't work of course.

The Top 200 Ways Bleacher Report Screwed Me Over. Bleacher report is awful and I will judge the shit out of you if you ever link to anything from them. They're like Buzzfeed but somehow with worse writing and more pandering. Why do people even go there when SBNation is perfectly crommulent?

This Box Can Hold an Entire Netflix. That's a shockingly small box.

12 Things you probably didn't know about Dawn of the Dead. Bah, I knew like 6 of these. 2 things here. First, I can't believe the Dawn of the Dead remake is 10 years old. Blargh, time how does it work? Second, upon further review this might be my favorite zombie movie of all time. Sure there are some classics that if really pressed I might SAY I like better, but in reality if it's Saturday afternoon and like 30 different zombie movies are on, this is the one I'm going to watch.

How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters, is a real Book. I swear.

I don't know about you but I have very little free time to read these days. What with all the High School reunions and squirt gun fights I've been getting into. Still, I might have to find some time to read How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters. I don't want to be that one guy that's completely unprepared for when the Mega Python's attack.

In the apocalyptic world we live in, Mother Nature is angry. Danger waits at every turn, and catastrophes like the Los Angeles sharknados have taught us that we need to be ready for anything. Too many lives have already been lost. But fear not. How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters is the first and only comprehensive guide to surviving the very worst that Mother Nature can throw our way.

via GeeksAreSexy

Chores

Behold, Twerk Bot

Hey Kids, remember Basement Jaxx? I think they had a hit in like 2001. Get Your Head Up, does that sound right? Doesn't matter I guess, here's their newest video in which scientists create a functional Twerk Bot. What's next a robot that can Merengue? Lambada? Cabbage Patch? Man, this is just one more step towards the robot apocalypse. At least it's a sexy step.

Transformers Attack on Giant

For whatever reason I watched about 30 minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon this weekend. Sweet Fancy Moses, what a terrible movie. There's about 15 minutes of cool alternate history moon landing stuff and then blammo, just ridiculous characters acting like a-holes and a bunch of shiny CGI smashing into itself. They say that comedy is an extraordinary person in an ordinary situation and drama is an ordinary person in an extraordinary circumstance, why are all Michael Bay movies extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances? I mean in a movie about giant transforming alien robots the most unbelievable thing about it was the motivations and actions of Sam Witwicky.

Oh yeah, here's a cool stop motion short someone made of Optimus Prime fighting the Constructacons. It includes "The Touch" so it's automatically a thousand times better than anything Michael Bay has directed.

Campy Links

The 35 Campiest TV Movies Ever Made. I'm not sure these are the campiest EVER. I have a VHS copy of a little something called Dance 'til Dawn that stared Alyssa Milano, Christina Applegate, Brian Bloom, Tracy Gold, Kelsey Grammer, and Matthew Perry that NBC aired in 1988 that says otherwise. Ah crap... now I have to watch Dance 'til Dawn tonight. Oh well at least it's on the same tape as the Goonies.

Mark Waid & Terry Dodson Talk Star Wars: Princess Leia. I am down. Color me down. Marvel wasn't fooling around when they wrestled back the Star Wars license from Dark Horse. I might be a bit biased here because Terry and Rachel Dodson are probably my favorite penicl/ink team in comics right now but Waid and Dodson are pretty big names, bigger than a Star Wars book probably needed to succeed. As they say on the internets. Take my money please!

Strides and backslides: How to tackle diversity in comics. Hey now this is a good read. "The A.V. Club has invited three comic-book professionals to discuss the strides and backslides of diversity in the industry: Janelle Asselin (comics journalist and former DC editor), Karl Bollers (writer of Watson & Holmes and former Marvel editor), and G. Willow Wilson (award-winning novelist and writer of Ms. Marvel)."

If you have any interest in comics be sure to check it out. The insights from the creators are really fantastic. I feel like all the neckbeards wringing their hands over Lady Thor and Captain Falcon should be forced to read it. Then read it again. Then shave their neckbeards.

Kazakh teen volleyball player is turned on by her own teammates because she is so attractive. This is a fake story right? I mean I heard them talking about it on the radio but it's not real. It can't be. I'm not saying the girl is ugly or anything but have you watched women's volleyball before. It full of attractive ladies. Seriously, Logan Tom is reading this and laughing her ass off right now.

Asshole Cannot Find Pen; Writes Entire NYT Trend Piece About It. This is my favorite kind of editorial (not the takedown but the one that inspired the takedown). I don't use this/like this so therefore I predict it's demise. Hipsters always get caught up in this when they talk about the demise of broadcast TV. "I only watch Mad Men on Hulu on my macbook air, so therefore network TV is dead!" Meanwhile most of middle america still gathers around their 42" flatscreen to watch Monday Night Football like it was church.

The Pen is dead... ninja please. I can see like 5 pens just from my desk. Clearly it's just the opposite, pens are taking over the world. WHY WONT SOMEONE STOP ALL THESE PENS!

The 5 Posts You Will Never See on Social Media