Collecting Links

Abandoned White Castle from Harold & Kumar. This is a pretty cool look at what's left of the White Castle from Harold and Kumar. Boy remember how good that movie was and how bad the sequels were? It wasn't even a slow crash like the Austin Powers movies it was just thump... nothing. I'm amazed that they even made a third movie, there can't be enough weed in the world to make that one bearable.

A Moment for the G.I. Joe Rawhides, HASBRO Class of 1987. The GI Joe class of 1987 was pretty much right in my sweet spot for toy collecting. I was old enough to have a good allowance but young enough to still be playing with toys on the regular.

Hilary Duff’s Tinder Profile Is Real, I’m Not To Be Disturbed. A couple weeks ago there was a "mystery" celeb who was on reddit complaining about how hard it was to date while being famous. I'm not saying it was Hilary Duff because it was probably just some rando who was pretending to be famous for fake internet points...

or it was Hilary Duff.

Gabe Newell addresses controversy over paid Steam mods. Long story short, you can now buy mods to some of your favorite games through Steam. Gamers DO NOT like this.

Stan Lee and the Art of the Cameo

Here's a fun litle video brought to you by Audi, makers of fine German autos.. unless that is you have one from the early 2000s with the 2.0L turbo 4-cyl from VW that's pretty much just a time bomb waiting to go off.

Where was I? Oh yeah, here's Stan Lee and Kevin Smith, Michael Rooker and Lou Ferrigno hamming it up. It's funny enough. Also Kevin Smith has lost a lot of weight, good for him. I'm not one to fat shame or anything, I had cookies for breakfast just this morning, but he wasn't looking very healthy.

Just Cause 3 Gameplay Reveal Trailer

Hey there Just Cause 3, how you doing?

It doesn't get the same attention as say Far Cry or GTA but the Just Cause series has always looked like a lot of fun. On a whim I bought Just Cause 2 last summer during a Steam Sale and I haven't really played it yet. It ran right around 20 fps with medium graphics settings and that was kind of unacceptable to me. I'm probably a new HDD and a graphics card away from getting most newer games to run really well on my pc. The Lego games and most RTS run just fine but holy cow is my hard drive super old. It's not even a SATA drive.

I'm actually receiving hard disk error messages every once in a while so I'm pretty sure I'll be upgrading everything soon. I just don't want to have to go through all that trouble of upgrading until Windows 10 is released. Maybe once I do I'll look for JC3 on steam. Tell me it doesn't look like Fast & the Furious the video game.

Batman Arkham Knight: All who Follow You

Remember Batman Arkham Knight? It's ok if you don't, it's been delayed quite a bit. Well in case you did forget, here's a new trailer. Woooweee, it's going to be hard to forget this game. Batman Arkham Origins was kind of a cash grab that no one liked, but Arkham Knight looks like it's going to put the Arkham franchise back on the right track. I'm really interested in this new teamwork mode thing and how that's going to work. It can't be two player, and hopefully it's not just an AI sidekick that gets in the way all the time. If you can switch between two players on the go that might be a lot of fun.

Terry Crews is Pretty Good at this lip Sync Thing.

Ever watched Lip Sync Battle over on Spike? It's a weird show. I've caught all of two episodes and I'm not entirely sure I like it or completely hate it. However, I am sure that Terry Crews is the most amazing lip syncing guy ever. Seriously, this guy is a national treasure. How is he not a bigger star like the Rock. Someone get him in The 8ast & The 8urious.

So about Star Wars: Battlefront

So something funny happened on the way to Tatooine. You see EA sort of blew everyone's mind with their Star Wars: Battlefront trailer but as details on the game have released people are getting a little less excited. I think many gamers had dreams of Battlefield 2 but with Star Wars stuff and well... it's more like Call of Duty 2 with Star Wars stuff.

When your new game has less features than the game you published 10 years ago you're not really going in the right direction. Next generation games are supposed to have more of everything, nut just better graphics. This whole thing kind of has "rushed through production to ship before the new movie comes out" written all over it.

Dark Links

The Significance and Possibilities of The DC Superhero Girls Line. Here's some big news that shouldn't be. DC and it's parent company Time Warner, have finally come to the conclusion that girls also like comic book superheroes. Woohoo?

As the parent of a boy and a girl I loathe the idea that some toys are inherently for girls or for boys. If Logan wants to play with My Little Pony go for it, if Ash wants to play GI Joe, great. I'll be Bazooka. In a perfect world you wouldn't need Lego specifically marketed for girls because Lego is pretty gender neutral to begin with. The thing is we don't live in a perfect world, if you try and make products gender neutral they don't find their way to retail shelves because Target needs and aisle for boys and and aisle for girls. I don't know who to blame there, title 9?

The long and the short of it is that when it comes to superhero swag the genders have not been represented equally. A line of toys and merch exclusively marketed for girls isn't the perfect solution but it's a start.

Chris "Birdman" Andersen Has a $300 ATM Withdrawal Limit, Drives a '67 Chevy C-10. Chris Anderson sort of checks every box for me as far as professional athlete goes. Crazy athletic, check. Mohawk, check. Overcame a drug problem, check. Complete ass to the press, check and check.

The 1968 Playmate of the Year AMC AMX Comes With A Very Twisted Story. I'm not sure if they still do it but Playboy used to give every Playmate of the Year a cool pink car. Some of those cars were kinda out there. This AMC AMX kinda got involved in murder. Good times.

Dark Chocolate Is Not Good for You, and Also Sucks. I'm going to go on record as semi-pro-dark chocolate. I LOVE Hershey's special dark but I also understand that it isn't real Dark Chocolate. Ditto on the dark chocolate M&Ms but those organic 90% cacao bars they sell at starbucks for 5 dollars are HORRIBLE. It's like eating chocolate flavored drywall. Yeah it's better than eating regular drywall but it's still drywall. Also chocolate snobs are the worst. I work with like a dozen of them.

Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre

Yeah you read that correctly. Some true auteur has found a way to combine the exploitative Women's Prison genre with the now over-saturated Killer Shark genre. 3 weeks ago I would have told you that The 7ast And The 7urious was a lock for pretty much every Oscar category but now I'm not so sure.

Mmmmm... expansion pack cheese

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a more on point critique of modern video games and DLC. I certainly haven't seen one that looked so delicious.

GolfBoarding is a thing now

This is what happens when the cool kids hit middle age. I mean anyone that grew up Gleeaming the Cube is probably in their 40s now and the idea of riding an electric skateboard around a golf course is RIGHT UP THIER ALLEY. I'm 38 so trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

Road trip to Bend this weekend?

Incredibly Links

Behold The Oldsmobile Expression, The Incredibly Ugly ’90s Car With A Built-In NES. Ugly? This thing is sweet. If this was available right now, I'd be one of the first in line. It has third row rear facing seats, rear facing seats. It could have a Colecovision built in and I'd still want one.

The Secret Lives of NYC Mega-Projects, Revealed By One Photographer. Pictures of huge construction projects like these always bottle my mind grapes. A few of these double so given the fact that they're underground. I don't even understand how Manhattan stays standing, there's like an entire mountain dug out underneath it.

We Can't Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea Of Ownership. Hey there, here's something that's not particularly good for your average consumer. The basic gist is that a few larger companies are using copyright law to say that you only KIND OF own the things you've bought. Sure you bought the tractor, but all the software that runs it John Deere really owns and you don't have the right to touch it.

But I don't buy tractors, so why should I care? Well the same argument can and will be made for cars, phones, computers, baby monitors basically anything with a chip. Imagine having to take your car to an authorized GM dealer because a regular repair shop can't legally hook up a diagnostic computer. Welcome to the future!

Live From The MTV Movie Awards: Who Won? Who Lost? Who Is Ansel Elgort? This is a bit late but it's still pretty funny. Seriously, are the MTV movie awards still a thing? Kids don't care, adults don't care, who cares? One guy in LA named Donnie?

Rumor of the Day: Marvel is planning a Ms. Marvel TV series with ABC. Disney/Marvel has zero plans of slowing down, right? They have about 7 movies in the works right now plus 4 shows on Netflix, an Agents of SHIELD spin off and now a Ms Marvel show? It's getting to the point where I can't keep up. I just finished Agent Carter a couple weeks ago and I'm like 3 weeks behind Agents of SHIELD. I haven't even started watching Daredevil. Where was this glut of superhero stuff when I was single and kidless?

Oh yeah, Ms Marvel is SUPER RAD. I hope this show gets made. If it's half as awesome as the comic it will be a giant hit.

Killer Mike: Rick Flair

"You’re talking to the Rolex wearin’, diamond ring wearin’, kiss stealin’, wheelin’ dealin’, limousine ridin’, jet flyin’ son of a gun. And I’m having a hard time holding these alligators down. Woo"

Batman V Superman: The Trailer

Sweet Christmas, the new Batman V Superman trailer looks like garbage. Here's a better fan edit that I saw on reddit. I'm not as vehemently anti-The Man of Steel as a few nerds I know but I definitely had some problems with it. From the looks of the trailer it's like they've doubled down on everything I have a problem with. Good grief, thanks for saving the weekend Star Wars.

The New Star Wars Droid is NOT CGI

So if there's one thing all us Star Wars fans can agree on its that the new droid, BB-8, looks awesome. Most assumed from the first trailer that he was all CGI, but it turns out we all assumed wrong. This is BB-8 making his first public apperance at the big Star Wars celebration event. He is very much a real robot.

The mechanics of this are pretty amazing. I'm guessing either a lot of magnets are involved or they put a little person on a uni-cycle inside the big ball. Either way it's cool that they're using more practical effects in this movie. Fancy computer graphics have their time and place but they simply never look as good a real practical effects. It's why the Orcs in the Hobbit movies look so much worse than they do in the Lord of the Ring films.

David Hasselhoff: True Survivor

All the cocaine. That's how much cocaine David Hasselhoff has done. All of it.

Holy Balls, if Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Robocop, Mortal Combat and a Whitesnake video had an orgy this is the poor baby that would have been born in a toilet 9 months later. I think this if for a kickstarter or something. I'm not sure I want to know. The last thing I need is more of this showing up in my browser history. I'm pretty sure you end up on watchlists for that.

Star Wars: Episode VII, trailer #2

It's official, I'm ready to get excited about Star Wars again.

People React to Celebrity Booze

Celebrities doing weird things with their money and their likeness isn't anything new. However, I feel like ever since 50 cent made like a billion dollars from his initial investment with Vitamin Water there's this big trend of celebrities and vanity-drinks. From Jay-Z cognac to Nikki Minaj moscato There's all kinds of ways for the modern music lover and brand supporter to get blasted.

I was a little bummed that they missed a couple. Maynard from Tool has a wine, so do Brand Pitt and Angelina Jolie, also Sammy Hagar has a tequila and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Oh well, it's a buzzfeed video I just I should just expect it to be half assed.

Beastie Boys: Check It out

I've got nothing today. So here's the Beastie Boys appearance on Letterman from 2004. It's pretty awesome. I'm a total sucker for performances while walking. If I had like a billion dollars I'd have rappers follow me everywhere I go rapping behind me. I'd mix it up day to day, like Tuesdays afternoons would be 3rd Bass or something. I don't want to be a total a-hole and bogart all of Pete Nice's time.

Tragic Links

Incredible Hulk, GI Joe Artist Herb Trimpe Passes Away at Age 75. Jeez, I'm not sure if this served as a kick in the ass this morning or just one more thing to keep me down. I guess we'll see how the rest of the day goes. Long story short Herb Trimpe is one of the co-creators of Wolverine (who I'm silly enough to have named my son after), he's a legend that had a long storied career in comics. He also kind of got dicked over by the big 2 when art styles changed in the 90s. He went from goto guy, to guy that couldn't get regular work. Anyway, his passing is sad and I wish his family the best.

As far as the context of where this fits in with my life, the last 24 hours have been pretty rough. My son has bronchitis and walking pneumonia, which is entirely treatable BUT he completely refuses to take his medicine. We spent about an hour and a half last night trying to get him to take it. We started by offering rewards but that didn't work. Finally after taking away everything he likes to play with he agreed to take the medicine and then immediately spit it out... That's when I totally lost it and made a BIG deal about throwing his new toys in the garbage right in front of him. That's when he completely melted down and I had to retreat to the basement with baby girl. It was just a horrible feeling as a parent. Long story slightly shorter, after another hour of nonsense this morning he finally took his medicine. Needless to say it's put me in a real poor mood. This Herb Trimpe stuff.. I don't know. It bums me out even more, but it's also a good reminder that my problems with the kiddo aren't that big in the grand scheme of things.

I Tried Tidal and It Sucked. The press conference for Tidal had glorious flop written all over it. So far so good. The funny thing about Tidal is that I believe if it really was a better streaming platform it could be successful. There's certainly a market out there willing to shell out big bucks for for high quality audio. Yes, people who wear Beats headphones aren't really getting quality audio but they think they are and that's the important thing. It's amazing how sometimes repackaging the same old crap as premium and goosing the price can actually work. HOWEVER, if your product is hot garbage, which it sounds like Tidal is, it doesn't matter how many Kanye's you have at your press conference you're doomed from the start.

Olivia Munn has been cast as Psylocke. Not bad Fox. I'm not sure how Olivia Munn will be as an action star but she's been surprisingly good on The Newsroom. They could have done a lot worse here, right?

The Tragic Love Story of Christy Mack and MMA Fighter War Machine. Jimminy Christmas this is a sad story. When this hit the news cycle a few months ago a lot of people were really dismissive of the whole thing. I mean she's a porn star, who cares right? Plus his name is freaking War Machine what did she expect?

I think that's kind of a garbage attitude to have. Domestic violence is a terrible thing that effects a ton of people and this story is brutal and real and I think very important in the context of today's celebrity obsessed culture. Anyhoo, it's a good read, check it out.

The Ingenious Design of the Aluminum Beverage Can

If you're going to watch one 11 minutes youtube video on how aluminum cans are made it should totally be this one. He covers everything to why the can is shaped the way it is to how the evolution of the pull tab. I found it surprisingly interesting.

Ant-Man: Official Trailer #2

Man, this was a big weekend for watching stuff. You had Daredevil premiering on Netflix, a new season of Game of Thrones AND AXS was replaying the rematch of AJ Styles vs Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Ok, maybe that last one was just big for me.

To cap things off Marvel debuted a new trailer for Ant-Man. I still really like it. I know there's sort of a stink of failure surrounding this movie since Edgar Wright left it but I'm a big fan of Ant-Man and Paul Rudd so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. Also that Yellowjacket costume looks totes rad.

Key & Peele Game of Thrones Recap

Just in case you need a recap of Game of Thrones before tonights season 5 premiere here's one from Key & Peele. Spilers, everybody gets kilt.

I was a little worried that this year Dish Network wouldn't have a free preview weekend for the premier but I checked the guide yesterday and boom. Free preview. I'm telling you, the free preview weekends for Dish are probably the only thing that keep me from canceling it. The amount we've saved in Disney/Pixar movies alone pays for it.

Smells Like Hard Drives and Floppy Disks

Stop Freakin' Call Beacon

Game of Hyrule

Every wondered what the intro to Game of Thrones would look like if you replaced Westeros with Hyrule? Well then, everything is coming up Milhouse for you.

Here Lego, Just Take All My Money

Because everyone wants some of that sweet sweet Skylanders money, Lego just made an announcement that they would be getting into the collectible/interactive toy/video game business. They're new game Lego Dimensions will allow you to "teleport" your figures into the game just like Disney Infinity, Skylanders or Nintendo Amiibo. If you've never played on of those games congratulations on not having kids. That extra spending money must be nice.

This isn't Lego's first foray into this kind of thing. Last year they launched their Minifigures On-Line game which was a sort of Diablo clone that would allow you to use codes that came with individually packaged minifigures to play as those figures in the game. It was "free to play", so if you really wanted to have any fun with it you had to pay $9.99 a month. My guess is people who pick up Dimensions are going to find themselves spending a lot more than $9.99 a month.

For comparison I bought Logan Skylanders: Trap Team on black Friday for $39.99. I also got him an extra two characters for $9.99 a piece. Since the original purchase we've bought another character for $15.99 and 6 different Traps for $5.99 a piece. He's working his way towards an expansion pack that comes with a character, a trap and an extra level and that thing is freaking $30. Also he wants two the light and the dark expansion packs... Considering Lego is never on the cheap side of the toy aisle I'll bet Dimensions ends up being ridiculously expensive. Do they still pay you if you give blood? How much is a kidney, I'm sure I have at least one that still works.

Cosplay Boom: Halo

The fine folks over at Cosplay Boom put together this video of Halo cosplayers at Emerald City Comicon this year. Honestly I haven't cared about Halo since ODST but man these super nerds talking about how much the franchise means to them has got me itching to play. I'm pretty sure I still have an unopened copy of Halo 4 sitting around the house. Xbox live updates here we come!

What if Quicksilver Ran Past You

You'd die. Sorry, I mean SPOILERS! You'd die

Blogger Jake Roper along with the Muppets gives a pretty detailed breakdown of exactly why you would die. With the exception of the first minute and a half when they're just farting around, it's a very interesting video. Mini tornado, blood turning to vapor, sonic boom, fatal burns from inhaling the super heated air. It's a veritable potpourri of terrible ways to die.

Next I want him to cover how Hulk's pants always turn purple.

MC Lars: Dragon Blood

Woo Woo, new MC Lars video AND it's all about Game of Thrones! What is this my birthday? Seriously, I'm old and it's entirely possible I've forgotten my birthday.

This is pretty much every office worker's dream isn't it? Quitting/Getting Fired and just wrecking shit on your way out the door. Out of the oh what, 30 people I work with on a daily basis I think all of 3 get it. And by it I mean they aren't complete morons hell bent on ruining my day. Anyhoo, Game of Thrones season 5 premieres this weekend. That's something cool, right? RIGHT?

I've Misunderstood You..

Catalog Links

1982 JCPenny Christmas Catalog. Talk about a trip down memory lane. While the JCPenny Christmas catalog wasn't quite on the same level as the Sears Winter Season catalog it still brings back plenty of nostalgia. Look at all those Star Wars toys, or the handheld video games. What I wouldn't give to be playing that Frogger game right now.

Also of interest, am I crazy or has the price on toys barely changed. A Speak and Spell was $60 back in 1982? You could buy a car for $60. My parents must have loved me a lot more than I thought they did.

The World's Most Famous Musicians Just Hosted a Bonkers Press Conference. There's something wonderful about how money and fame can completely alter how you look at the world. I have zero problems believing that the artists behind Tidal really think they're standing up for artists rights and not at all playing puppets to what's left of the major labels. Keep fighting the good fight Madonna. You're not crazy and entitled at all.

Saudi Album Covers. Did you know they have a censorship issue in Saudi Arabia? Crazy right? Those guys always seem so chill. Anyhoo, here's a bunch of badly photoshopped album covers.

ESPN's Sports Business Reporter Doesn't Understand Sports Or Business. I'm pretty sure Darren Rovell is a sports business expert in the same way that George Costanza is a risk management expert. It's just something he put on his resume and eventually a bunch of sports networks started calling his bluff. He's like the Mel Kiper of Sports Business.

not a compliment.